I had a problem with the electric company not doing their job a few years ago. They were supposed to do something called a "heavy up" on my lines. I was told that it might take a year to get this done by my electrician, so I was prepared to be patient. After three years of just getting the brushoff from the contact at the electric company, I wrote a letter to the Public Service Commission with my complaint. The electric company then completed the job within a week. Lesson: Monopolies bad-regulators good.
Bell Atlantic is well known for blocking competition in ways very similar to what you are describing, that is, not cooperating in a timely manner with third parties. Bell Atlantic is trying to expand into other areas. The regulators are using that as a wedge to open up competition by Bell Atlantic (according to newspaper articles about the issue).
If you have cable TV and your provider offers internet access then you could switch. But cable companies traditionally have a lot of complaints about their service as well. I am not sure you would be better off.
It would seem that one reason that there are so many patents granted now is that the US is seeking to create intellectual property. For a long time now, the country has ceased to concentrate on manufacturing and to focus more on the creation of ideas.
Another reason for so many patents is that there are so many new patent examiners. Similar to the way that more lawyers lead to more lawsuits, more patent examiners lead to more patents. Over 1,000 new patent examiners have been hired in the last year alone. Expect more such things in the future. It's government policy.
**Never argue with a crazy person, people might not know the difference**
This is very vague, but I think helping the internet to intelligently detect viral infections and stop their spread would be a very useful project. Perhaps some way of monitoring when a message/attachment is sent to a site, it gets sent out again in multiple copies. As a side benefit, it might kill chain letters.
Thanks for mentioning chord typing. I am prone toward carpal tunnel syndrome - my wrists start to ache after about 20 minutes of continuous typing. As everyone probably recalls, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to keep the keys of mechanical typewriters from jamming, not to optimize typing speed or user comfort. These are 100 year old standards.
The question is, how are we going to get rid of this standard? It would seem to me that the ideal would be to teach new users on the latest standard. I learned to type in high school typing class (where you also learned how to write a business letter). Ideally, these students would be learning more ergonomic equipment, such as a chord-typing keyboard. And when they go out into the work place, they would bring their new keyboards with them and just plug them in at the new site.
Which brings us to a second out of date standard, the keyboard interface. One thing that would hold back the idea of people bringing in a better keyboard is the difficulty of plugging it in. Here we come up on twenty year old standards. Computers are not designed to let people have this type of flexibility. I would say the keyboard connectior needs to be on the monitor, or even that there shouldn't be any wire at all but an IR detector (though I don't know how well that would work in an office environment.
Cost is the a major factor in why we don't make these changes in standards. I imagine with the economies of scale that computer manufacturers pay no more than $10 for a keyboard. Anything other than a QWERTY keyboard would cost a lot more, and there would be little market for it. Schools are rather notoriously cheap, IMHO. They are perfectly willing to cripple their students if it costs a bit less for the equipment. Plus job readiness would require students to know how to use the current standard. The idea that you can type much faster and safer on a different keyboard would little appeal to the employer.
And cost may be what contributes to the change. IANAL, but I do recognize the power that lawyers have. A few class action lawsuits can get a lot of attention. Just like lawsuits can lead to safer cars (but not necessarily less expensive), they can lead to safer computers.
But I wouldn't bet on it. If Star Trek weren't a total fantasy, they would be showing people sitting a typewriters and talking about how the key layout was established by mechanical typewriters 300 years before. Except they mostly use voice recognition, don't they.
Perhaps these same techniques can be applied to biological evolution. For instance, I was reading about a month ago about people working on artificial DNA. That is, rather than the just the two base pairs of DNA, their would be three or four. This would allow for the creation of life that could synthesize entirely new types of proteins. Think of it as DNA V2.0 or Life 2.0.
So, perhaps someone will model cell functions in a computer, let them evolve, and decide what new kinds of life we should create.
I think THAT was what Bill Joy was trying to warn people about.
*****Never argue with a crazy person, people might not know the difference*****
I have a friend who puts a copyright notice on the bottom of all his e-mail messages, presumably to prevent people from doing things with his messages that he disapproves of. So perhaps Microsofts lawyers will start copyrighting their letters to bully people into submitting them to the DMCA. Then you wouldn't be able to post them.
On a related note, perhaps people will copyright their submission to/. if they don't want to be compiled into a book.
I don't consider myself a dummy, and therefor never buy books that have that name in the title. I was once sorely tempted to buy 'ISDN for Dummies', because I wanted to know more about the topic and the level of the writing was right for my knowledge of the subject, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so.
But from what I see of their books in store, they now cover almost everything, such as 'Dating for Dummies' and 'Flower Arranging for Dummies'. It would seem that the world is certainly dumbing down.
I could certainly see a book coming out from IDG called 'Screenprinting for Dummies'. Too bad Octapod didn't put their energy into writing it, instead of having a struggle with IDG. It seems to me they have a desire to prove to the world how victimized they have been.
The thing that strikes me, is 'What kind of company WOULDN'T protect their identity?' I wouldn't want to invest in a company that didn't protect it's interests.
I just finished Dune: House Atriedes, by Frank Herberts son and another collaborator. The original Dune books were excellent, and should be on anyones Sci Fi 101 list (IMHO). Dune: House Atriedes is a prequel to the series, and is worth reading (again IMHO). It is obviously set to be a series, and is less crytic than the Frank Herbert books. This is probablu both good and bad. For example, the prequel makes it very plain that this is taking place in Earth's distant future. My recollection of the original is that this was never made explicit. My other critique of the book is that it make the good guys too good, and the bad guys unremittingly bad. I prefer my heroes to be a bit more balanced. (Plus the most evil character of all was gay. I'm not opposed to having gay characters be evil, but if you are going to introduce a character that is so evil that they have blood splashed over the walls after they have sex, there should be someone who balances this out. Especially in a universe with over a million inhabited planets. Pardon my consciousness raising comments.)
Another classic of scifi is "A Canticle for Leibowitz". It has been a long time since I read it, and I wonder how it would hold up, now that the cold war is over. I wonder if youth is still being scarred by the potential for potential nuclear anihilation at any moment. I imagine that post-nuclear holocaust fiction is loosing its appeal.
Slashdot Mirror
Bell Atlantic is well known for blocking competition in ways very similar to what you are describing, that is, not cooperating in a timely manner with third parties. Bell Atlantic is trying to expand into other areas. The regulators are using that as a wedge to open up competition by Bell Atlantic (according to newspaper articles about the issue).
If you have cable TV and your provider offers internet access then you could switch. But cable companies traditionally have a lot of complaints about their service as well. I am not sure you would be better off.
Another reason for so many patents is that there are so many new patent examiners. Similar to the way that more lawyers lead to more lawsuits, more patent examiners lead to more patents. Over 1,000 new patent examiners have been hired in the last year alone. Expect more such things in the future. It's government policy.
**Never argue with a crazy person, people might not know the difference**
This is very vague, but I think helping the internet to intelligently detect viral infections and stop their spread would be a very useful project. Perhaps some way of monitoring when a message/attachment is sent to a site, it gets sent out again in multiple copies. As a side benefit, it might kill chain letters.
The question is, how are we going to get rid of this standard? It would seem to me that the ideal would be to teach new users on the latest standard. I learned to type in high school typing class (where you also learned how to write a business letter). Ideally, these students would be learning more ergonomic equipment, such as a chord-typing keyboard. And when they go out into the work place, they would bring their new keyboards with them and just plug them in at the new site.
Which brings us to a second out of date standard, the keyboard interface. One thing that would hold back the idea of people bringing in a better keyboard is the difficulty of plugging it in. Here we come up on twenty year old standards. Computers are not designed to let people have this type of flexibility. I would say the keyboard connectior needs to be on the monitor, or even that there shouldn't be any wire at all but an IR detector (though I don't know how well that would work in an office environment.
Cost is the a major factor in why we don't make these changes in standards. I imagine with the economies of scale that computer manufacturers pay no more than $10 for a keyboard. Anything other than a QWERTY keyboard would cost a lot more, and there would be little market for it. Schools are rather notoriously cheap, IMHO. They are perfectly willing to cripple their students if it costs a bit less for the equipment. Plus job readiness would require students to know how to use the current standard. The idea that you can type much faster and safer on a different keyboard would little appeal to the employer.
And cost may be what contributes to the change. IANAL, but I do recognize the power that lawyers have. A few class action lawsuits can get a lot of attention. Just like lawsuits can lead to safer cars (but not necessarily less expensive), they can lead to safer computers.
But I wouldn't bet on it. If Star Trek weren't a total fantasy, they would be showing people sitting a typewriters and talking about how the key layout was established by mechanical typewriters 300 years before. Except they mostly use voice recognition, don't they.
So, perhaps someone will model cell functions in a computer, let them evolve, and decide what new kinds of life we should create.
I think THAT was what Bill Joy was trying to warn people about.
*****Never argue with a crazy person, people might not know the difference*****
On a related note, perhaps people will copyright their submission to /. if they don't want to be compiled into a book.
But from what I see of their books in store, they now cover almost everything, such as 'Dating for Dummies' and 'Flower Arranging for Dummies'. It would seem that the world is certainly dumbing down.
I could certainly see a book coming out from IDG called 'Screenprinting for Dummies'. Too bad Octapod didn't put their energy into writing it, instead of having a struggle with IDG. It seems to me they have a desire to prove to the world how victimized they have been.
The thing that strikes me, is 'What kind of company WOULDN'T protect their identity?' I wouldn't want to invest in a company that didn't protect it's interests.
Another classic of scifi is "A Canticle for Leibowitz". It has been a long time since I read it, and I wonder how it would hold up, now that the cold war is over. I wonder if youth is still being scarred by the potential for potential nuclear anihilation at any moment. I imagine that post-nuclear holocaust fiction is loosing its appeal.