They are not patenting an specific rendition of an idea, they are patenting the idea itself.
All almost any software is is a collection of ideas. While some software patents are stupid (very broad general ones, such as say "putting data on a long term storage media") other ideas ARE revolutionary and, well, hell, inventive.
Heck, anything in the world comes down to being an idea, just patenting a specific implementation of an idea is quite useless, any fool can make "changes" to a physical device and resell it on their own, patents are designed to stop that.
Now if some company wants to improve on Google's technology they will have to discover a new idea. They can use Google's idea as a spring board to think up of new ideas, (heck that is all any sort of scientific progress is, no matter what the field), but they will have to come up with their own idea.
Thus tweaking the algorithm is a no go, that is more a matter of "opinion" anyways. (my constants give better results than your constants sort of a thing)
Ideas like the reverse page ranking that work, judging the worth of a page by not only who links to it but who it links to and that sort of thing, I'd be a bit teed if those DID end up being declaired as infringing on Google's patents, as they are obvious signifigent improvements of a base idea.
What G**gle is doing is basically quantifying word of mouth.
Which is a pretty impressive proccess. Making a set of mathmatical formulas out of an otherwise very much fluid and etheral concept. Not half bad.
Everyone knows the best restaurant in town is the one that everyone talks about.
Oh? I think it is the one that everybody with a good sense of taste talks about? What is a good sense of taste? Welllll, now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. What defines a "trustable" website?
We "link" to the restaurant of our choice. Someone new to the office, and town, is looking to go to the best restaurant there is. They ask around. 5 people say it is the Puerto Vallarta Mexican restaurant 2 say it is White River Landing [muncienews.com], and 8 others say it is Vince's [muncienews.com]. Vince's it is.
You must define the weight, if person a and b say Vinces but they both say that person C has "better taste" in Mexican Food, and person C says Puerto Vallarta, and enough of that goes on, than the decision base upon the results can be changes signifigently.
Simple word-of-mouth ranking right there.
Yes, sounds like a good alpha-level project.:)
If the new person throws in variables like, "I don't eat Mexican." That skews the results. Nothing fancy about this.
True, but what if resturant X has a style of Mexican that is mixed with, say, Soul Food, and the person REALLY loves Soul Food. Then what? Life gets confusing.:)
In fact, I bet a few hours of research into Sociology, Psychology, and Linuquistics papers will turn up generic proofs and observations of the very same things that page rank takes care of in a different context. A context shift shouldn't be patentable.
Oh? If it is so obvious, why did search engines for so long, well, heh, suck. I remember using insanly complicated regexps with those "other" search engines to do what are now trivial searches on Google.
While the intentions may not be all that honest, it's not a horrible idea. I've noticed numerous times when running Windows Update that it's offered to upgrade my Cisco Wireless LAN software as well as my Epson print drivers. Kind of nifty and not all that bad, if you ask me.
Driver updates? No problem.
SOFTWARE updates? Uh. Problem.
Windows Update is responsible for updating my SYSTEM, thus the term Windows update, not "universal software updator" or some other such silly name.
Besides, last time I let Windows Update update my drivers it replaced my Matrox G400 driver with a French G400 driver that refused to be uninstalled. . . .
the numbers that are stolen by those food servers end up at the same place. The practice of waiters and waitresses using a mini-scanner to read off cards is called "skimming". I've seen a few news articles and a waiter would not have the technical skill in order to:
Oh hell, a pen and paper work just fine. At many restruants waiters carry them around all the time anyways to take down orders, just use the back sheet for jotting down a few numbers really quick like. . . . I am sure that some sort of short hand could not be all that hard to device to write down numbers super quick.
I believe it would be better off to just go and steal stuff old school than to do it via hacking.
Hint Hint Your are more likely to get your Credit Card number stolen by giving your card to the waiter/waitress in a restaurant to have the bill paid than by having it stolen over the net!
That is fraud though. . . . maybe identity theft? A better defining line needs to be made up, not all that happens over a computer is "hacking", intent should be judged as well as actions. If a person goes into a bank pointing a gun it is not automaticaly a bank robbery, it could very well be a hostage situation. Intent, ya know?
You are a troll right? PLEEEAASE tell me you are a troll.
also i don't really use F keys unless something calls for it like bios stuff.
depending on your OS (windows specific here);
f5 refreshes pages, alt-f4 closes windows, f1 brings up help screen, and various other applications will freak out if you do not use your function keys, or are at very least a pain in the arse to use.
keays i have never understood, like "alt"
It is a meta-key that is meant to be used in combination with other keys, kind of like shift but rather then sending a signal to the computer to making characters uppercase while being pressed with other keys, it instead sends a signal to the computer that is used to do various other program related tasks.
In Photoshop it is used to quickly "pick up" a color so as you can start painting with it. When resizing an object hold down the alt key to resize the object with the center of the selection being the origin of all resizing operations rather then the opposite side or corner of the selection being the origin point.
Hold down cntrl and alt at once to "shear" the selection.
Various other graphics programs use the alt key in a variety of different ways.
Oh yes, one more for the function keys, F7 to spell check, works in Word and various programs that try to copy the look and feel of word.
Think of it as watching a movie at a theatre or watching on VHS on your 19" TV at home.
DVD rocks.:)
Buy a bigger screen, heh.
One of those 36" Destination screens (some other company released a newer model a few years back actualy), high enough rez for those type of games, bigger screen, fun.
If you run a site that purports to have/be a public forum,
*sigh* That means open to the public, not an exclusive membership thing.
It is still private property, and they are still free to admit or deny entrance or speech to who ever they choose.
The GOVERNMENT cannot abridge your right to free speech, but the second you enter private property and agree to follow a set of rules, the owner can demand you do or say whatever he or she wants you to.
You have the right to get your ass out and bitch in public though.
There not being any sidewalks on the internet, you would have to setup your own private i-estate (har har) and all that, but even that does not effect your right to go outside your house, down to the street, and start bitching.
Which is pretty much all the "right to free speech" guarantees you in the end.:-P
You have the right to free speech, others do not have to give you access to their mediums. (unless they are government sponsored mediums, in which case you DO then have a right of access to them. Thus those Public Access TV channels.)
Since it is possible to copy paper books borrowed from the library, that it is possible to copy ebooks from the library should not be a major obstacle.
Well yah, but for like 99.99% of the books out there, it would be faster (not to mention cheaper!!!) to go out and panhandle change until enough was earned to BUY the darned book legaly.
No, but it may be breaking of a licence agreement. That same GPL which/.'ers love so much is useless unless ALL licencing agreements (within reason of course, and exluding legal exceptions) are maintained. You cannot just pick and choose which licencing agreements to uphold.
Ok first off, yah to Cleavland for at least trying this idea.
But major "why are you pulling this con?" to Overdrive for trying to convince ANYBODY that client side, err, well, heh, anything, is safe at all.
Listen, it has already been proven that without trusted hardware (which is not going to come along until consumers start trusting the companies) that NO DRM solution is secure. No matter what. Worst case, things have to be brute forced, but since the unencrypted data passed through the clients computer somewheres along the line, heck, there is your weak point right there.
Now if somebody figured a way to encase the decryption key in some sort of VGA dongle so the actual decrypted data was only ever sent over the VGA wire, but even then, doing it cheap and such, heh. No go.
Therefore, when it come to getting a job, any sort of degree from Sounthern Methodist could be as much of a hinderance as it is an asset. Anyone else share my oppinion out there?
Umm, yah. How about just because some church a hundred years ago gave a ton of money to an institution, why are you judging students graduating from that institution in the twenty first century?
Geez.
would not risk hireing a person who whould bring their religion to work with them.
Don't hire any atheists, they might refuse to make a game that had any Deity Figures in it.
Watch out for those satanists, might have gone to a state college, but they will eat your children alive!
I mean come on, check the reputation of the school first and foremost. Many religious schools pride themselves on the religious diversity of their student body. It does not make for good theological discourse if everybody agrees.
The fact is that any employee who lets their personal life interfere with their work is going to get fired. Well up to a point, I mean we can all only hope that more accountants let SOME sort of morality influence them in the future, but fat chances on that one happening.:-P
Those of us who cannot afford LCDs and who do not like eye strain, yes.
That and you know how freakin hard it is to find even a splash resistant wireless color LCD with high DPI a small convent lightweight form factor and excellent battery life (exceeding 12 hours, preferably with some sort of rechargeable battery of course)?
Well until those DO come along and are DIRT cheap, I will stick with books.:)
Slashdot Mirror
All almost any software is is a collection of ideas. While some software patents are stupid (very broad general ones, such as say "putting data on a long term storage media") other ideas ARE revolutionary and, well, hell, inventive.
Heck, anything in the world comes down to being an idea, just patenting a specific implementation of an idea is quite useless, any fool can make "changes" to a physical device and resell it on their own, patents are designed to stop that.
Now if some company wants to improve on Google's technology they will have to discover a new idea. They can use Google's idea as a spring board to think up of new ideas, (heck that is all any sort of scientific progress is, no matter what the field), but they will have to come up with their own idea.
Thus tweaking the algorithm is a no go, that is more a matter of "opinion" anyways. (my constants give better results than your constants sort of a thing)
Ideas like the reverse page ranking that work, judging the worth of a page by not only who links to it but who it links to and that sort of thing, I'd be a bit teed if those DID end up being declaired as infringing on Google's patents, as they are obvious signifigent improvements of a base idea.
Which is a pretty impressive proccess. Making a set of mathmatical formulas out of an otherwise very much fluid and etheral concept. Not half bad.
Oh? I think it is the one that everybody with a good sense of taste talks about? What is a good sense of taste? Welllll, now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. What defines a "trustable" website?
You must define the weight, if person a and b say Vinces but they both say that person C has "better taste" in Mexican Food, and person C says Puerto Vallarta, and enough of that goes on, than the decision base upon the results can be changes signifigently.
Yes, sounds like a good alpha-level project.
True, but what if resturant X has a style of Mexican that is mixed with, say, Soul Food, and the person REALLY loves Soul Food. Then what? Life gets confusing.
In fact, I bet a few hours of research into Sociology, Psychology, and Linuquistics papers will turn up generic proofs and observations of the very same things that page rank takes care of in a different context. A context shift shouldn't be patentable.
Oh? If it is so obvious, why did search engines for so long, well, heh, suck. I remember using insanly complicated regexps with those "other" search engines to do what are now trivial searches on Google.
Driver updates? No problem.
SOFTWARE updates? Uh. Problem.
Windows Update is responsible for updating my SYSTEM, thus the term Windows update, not "universal software updator" or some other such silly name.
Besides, last time I let Windows Update update my drivers it replaced my Matrox G400 driver with a French G400 driver that refused to be uninstalled. . . .
The correct link is:
http://home.byu.net/~btc25/windowsupdate.pdf
Aren't caps great? Heh.
I hope you did not use cheap CDRs, or else your data might still end up gone. Many cheap CDRs just corrode away to nothing after awhile.
Oh hell, a pen and paper work just fine. At many restruants waiters carry them around all the time anyways to take down orders, just use the back sheet for jotting down a few numbers really quick like. . . . I am sure that some sort of short hand could not be all that hard to device to write down numbers super quick.
I believe it would be better off to just go and steal stuff old school than to do it via hacking.
Hint Hint Your are more likely to get your Credit Card number stolen by giving your card to the waiter/waitress in a restaurant to have the bill paid than by having it stolen over the net!
That is fraud though. . . . maybe identity theft? A better defining line needs to be made up, not all that happens over a computer is "hacking", intent should be judged as well as actions. If a person goes into a bank pointing a gun it is not automaticaly a bank robbery, it could very well be a hostage situation. Intent, ya know?
Well that all depends, a good deal of Windows can be changed by using various registery tweaks, Xteq X-Setup is the prefered program for this.
Or you can just drop in a compleatly new one.
Ahh, but they don't randomly move, that is the key.
The menu adapts itself to the user. After a bit of an adjustment period, only those options which the user WANTS are there.
In truly configurable programs you can also just add or remove those menu options by hand, but it can be nice having them 'hidden' for you as well.
Heh, that one is easy. :)
From the Law Firm filing suit (or whatever it is called, obviously IANAL)
and yes, they were found guilty;
link
another link
Self serving is a good American value, up to a point.
And that point is when it begins to conflicts with other people's abilities to live their lives in the way that they choose to.
Once self serving turns into self serving at the cost of others, that IS indeed evil.
Whta's evil about Wal*Mart beside their nasty habit of destroying local businesses?
Denying employees basic rights, locking employees in stores and forcing them to work overtime and then not paying them, things like that.
2.2 million
~280 million people in the country;
2.2
--- = one serious bunch of financial problems.
280
depending on your OS (windows specific here);
f5 refreshes pages, alt-f4 closes windows, f1 brings up help screen, and various other applications will freak out if you do not use your function keys, or are at very least a pain in the arse to use.
It is a meta-key that is meant to be used in combination with other keys, kind of like shift but rather then sending a signal to the computer to making characters uppercase while being pressed with other keys, it instead sends a signal to the computer that is used to do various other program related tasks.
In Photoshop it is used to quickly "pick up" a color so as you can start painting with it. When resizing an object hold down the alt key to resize the object with the center of the selection being the origin of all resizing operations rather then the opposite side or corner of the selection being the origin point.
Hold down cntrl and alt at once to "shear" the selection.
Various other graphics programs use the alt key in a variety of different ways.
Oh yes, one more for the function keys, F7 to spell check, works in Word and various programs that try to copy the look and feel of word.
DVD rocks.
Buy a bigger screen, heh.
One of those 36" Destination screens (some other company released a newer model a few years back actualy), high enough rez for those type of games, bigger screen, fun.
*sigh* That means open to the public, not an exclusive membership thing.
It is still private property, and they are still free to admit or deny entrance or speech to who ever they choose.
The GOVERNMENT cannot abridge your right to free speech, but the second you enter private property and agree to follow a set of rules, the owner can demand you do or say whatever he or she wants you to.
You have the right to get your ass out and bitch in public though.
There not being any sidewalks on the internet, you would have to setup your own private i-estate (har har) and all that, but even that does not effect your right to go outside your house, down to the street, and start bitching.
Which is pretty much all the "right to free speech" guarantees you in the end.
You have the right to free speech, others do not have to give you access to their mediums. (unless they are government sponsored mediums, in which case you DO then have a right of access to them. Thus those Public Access TV channels.)
Well yah, but for like 99.99% of the books out there, it would be faster (not to mention cheaper!!!) to go out and panhandle change until enough was earned to BUY the darned book legaly.
No, but it may be breaking of a licence agreement. That same GPL which
I disagree. An artist should (and under law, does, unless they sign it away) have complete control over their artistic creations.
If the artist says the work can only be distributed on papyrus scrolls soaked in blood and written on in spread out pig entrails, then so be it.
YOU do not have the right to determine how the artist's creation is distributed. For better or for worse, it is their choice. Deal.
Uh, no.
They have the right to TRY AND PROFIT from their work.
NOBODY has the RIGHT to PROFITS.
Companies just THINK they do.
PURSUIT of happiness folks, PURSUIT, not all packaged up and left on your front doorstep for you by Uncle Sam.
Now the companies do the have RIGHT to sue my ass in court for theft if I steal it though.
Ok first off, yah to Cleavland for at least trying this idea.
But major "why are you pulling this con?" to Overdrive for trying to convince ANYBODY that client side, err, well, heh, anything, is safe at all.
Listen, it has already been proven that without trusted hardware (which is not going to come along until consumers start trusting the companies) that NO DRM solution is secure. No matter what. Worst case, things have to be brute forced, but since the unencrypted data passed through the clients computer somewheres along the line, heck, there is your weak point right there.
Now if somebody figured a way to encase the decryption key in some sort of VGA dongle so the actual decrypted data was only ever sent over the VGA wire, but even then, doing it cheap and such, heh. No go.
Umm, yah. How about just because some church a hundred years ago gave a ton of money to an institution, why are you judging students graduating from that institution in the twenty first century?
Geez.
Don't hire any atheists, they might refuse to make a game that had any Deity Figures in it.
Watch out for those satanists, might have gone to a state college, but they will eat your children alive!
I mean come on, check the reputation of the school first and foremost. Many religious schools pride themselves on the religious diversity of their student body. It does not make for good theological discourse if everybody agrees.
The fact is that any employee who lets their personal life interfere with their work is going to get fired. Well up to a point, I mean we can all only hope that more accountants let SOME sort of morality influence them in the future, but fat chances on that one happening.
Hey, so do stories about cannibalism.
Mind if I come over, tear you to shreds, and eat you?
Oh, wait, WRONG DEFINITION OF CULTURE
Oh sheez, I hope you just didn't start something worse then "imagine a beowulf cluster of these" jokes.
Nah, no catch name, no worries.
Those of us who cannot afford LCDs and who do not like eye strain, yes.
:)
That and you know how freakin hard it is to find even a splash resistant wireless color LCD with high DPI a small convent lightweight form factor and excellent battery life (exceeding 12 hours, preferably with some sort of rechargeable battery of course)?
Well until those DO come along and are DIRT cheap, I will stick with books.