Well... we both agree Apple is evil, then? Just because Steve Jobs has the genius to understand how to build a future monopoly in the cell phone space, while the rest of the industry sat with their thumbs up their butts.... that doesn't make him any less of an a-hole.
My customers tape-out complex chips. One customer use to use Yahoo Messenger to help engineers communicate at crunch time. The experience sucked. Every time you closed your window, you had to be invited back to the group chat, which rarely happened. I had them all switch to Skype (yeah, I know... they're evil). Our next tape-out had a Skype based chat session you couldn't leave without shaming yourself, even if you turned off your computer at night, and everyone knew what everyone else was doing. It was much better.
Whoa! Nice link! I guess Motorola is going through the same thing as Sony. I doubt Vista would have been such a wet blanket if Gates had been seriously involved like he use to be. Apple may fade rapidly after that great ass Jobs dies (I'll throw a party).
In that case, I will continue to wait in anticipation! I am a big fan of the Android platform. I've just been very disappointed waiting since Nov of 2007 (the original big announcement) until now, still waiting for a leading edge hardware platform. With 75,000 apps on Apple's App Store, Android has fallen very far behind. Also, none of this is Google's fault, IMO. Google delivered the best competitor in phone OSes, and the handset manufacturers ignored it. So far, we only have Taiwan hand sets, and only then because Qualcom is a major investor in HTC, and even then, HTC reserved it's best work for Windows Mobile handsets (which frankly are more impressive than the G1). Also, while T-Mobile is an OK cell phone service provider, the major providers have completely ignored Android, and instead pursued obsolete proprietary offerings. They simply don't seem capable of understanding that the world has changed.
The hardware, while not stellar, is very nice. There is nothing wrong with the hardware. It absolutely does not "suck big-time".
It's all relative. If we hadn't seen such great phones from Moto in the past, and Apple currently, the G1 would rate pretty good (except for the stupid lack of a headphone jack). I'm just disappointed, because I don't want another medium-end phone like the G1, I want a polished thing of beauty and function like the original Razr and the current iPhone.
So, yes, form is important to me. My G1 mostly functions OK as a phone, except for poor volume (the original iPhone had this problem, too). It's the extras that don't compare: the camera, size, battery capacity, storage for music and photos, etc. Note that I haven't got any complaints about the OS, except that Google should grow a pair and duplicate the cool multi-touch and animation features of the iPhone, like the Palm Pre does.
The phone itself looks like it was designed in Taiwan, not by Motorola. Where is the great design team that gave us the Razr? The problem with Android phones isn't the software (which rocks), it's the hardware (which so far sucks big-time). Why would Moto put out another crappy plastic phone with a honking huge slide-out keyboard and tiny battery, when HTC already has that market covered with the T-Mobile G1? Also, T-Mobile isn't exactly the premier partner... why doesn't Verison wake up and get a good phone? They have the best network, happiest customers, and crap for phones. Why they can't get a clue is one of the great mysteries of the universe.
Anyway, I'll probably be forced to buy another iPhone after my crappy T-Mobile G1 gives up the ghost. I hate to go back to evil Apple and the AT&T dork squad. But, that's where we developers have access to the most customers. I'll just hold my nose and enjoy the beautiful hardware Apple designs.
Anyway, hurray for Moto for a headphone jack! That is the biggest reason T-Mobile customers will prefer the Moto device over both of HTCs.
I've not found it on the web, but I know one other person who also can "smell" pheromones, so there must be very many of us. Smell may be the wrong word, since it feels more like pressure somewhere in my sinuses. I'm surprised other slashdoters didn't chime in and describe similar experience. I also can't stand most perfume, and much of it makes me want to leave the room. Something like 10% of us have that condition, but I'm having trouble finding the name for that as well.
Anyway, my friend and I who can detect human pheromones think it's pretty funny when guys like you doubt it. I can even tell the difference between pheromones. I'm a white guy, but I've dated girls of every race. Girls are all different, but there was a Black girl and an Arabic girl I dated for a short time that didn't have very compatible pheromones. The "chemistry" wasn't right. Then there was a girl who's "chemistry" was a perfect match, but we didn't actually like each other very much. We'd have sex whenever we saw each other, but nothing else in the relationship worked.
There's also some funny stories. You know that "baby smell" babies have? Well, it turns out pregnant women have a pregnant smell. Once, when out to lunch with about 10 co-workers, I asked a girl from our office how her pregnancy was going. She angrily said, "I'm not pregnant!" That was super embarrassing. However, she was, but didn't know it yet!
Anyway, you're welcome to keep believing conditions you never had don't exist, like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I also have a rare (and unnamed) form of color-blindness, and it's pretty funny when I run across people who don't believe it. You'd be surprised how many people don't believe color-blindness is real. I guess that's just human nature. Both of my children have tried to "cure" me by teaching me the difference between blue and purple.
Well, yes, the blood moves. It's also often about a massive chemical reaction in your brain. I have a semi-rare condition where pheromones are very obvious to me. Some girls actually can make my head hurt, though I haven't had such reactions since I turned about 40.
Being able to sense the drug incoming, I was able to examine my reaction over the years. My heart raced, my chest tightened, and I longed for whichever girl I saw next. Often, I'd get hit with it from behind, before I saw any girl. I would be incapable of thinking of anything else but the girl who brought this to me. It takes a while for that to wash out of your system. A few hours later, I'd often think, "What the hell was I so enraptured about? She's nothing special."
Not entirely true... First, IBM and several other companies have contributed their patents to a "patent commons", which can be used to defend open-source projects, in much the same way companies cross-sue each other over patents. This gives little FOSS guys a big portfolio for defending himself. Second, IBM and many other FOSS friendly companies have pledged not to sue FOSS developers or projects. Finally, patent violation lawsuits generally are filed against two kinds of entities: companies with money, like Microsoft, or small companies that are taking sales away from a big company (which few FOSS projects do).
Also, IBM has been a good friend to the open source community now for many years, just like Sun. They may have valid corporate-profit driven motives, but heck, who cares? They've been great for a lot of projects. They contribute their patents to the pool to defend open-source, rather than trying to kill Linux, like Microsoft.
Anyway, IBM is right. Software patents have been huge for open source. Open source projects only come about when the authors can't make any money selling the things. Software patents have made it far harder to actually sell a viable software product, resulting a huge boom on open source.
Whoa! That's an impressive guess as to how I spent my entire life based on one very small comment! It's pretty close! I drifted between jobs, rather than going out there and finding the hardest one, but did very well in most of them. I tried to start several companies, and eventually succeeded, though I had some good experience at startups first.
I'm guessing that to have that kind of insight, you're probably been around for a while... you're probably over 40.
I filed a huge patent in 2000 that the patent office felt was six different inventions, not just one. It was a lot cheaper for me to file it all at once, which is why I did it that way. By US patent law, each individual part can be filed one at a time, after the previous one has been reviewed and dealt with by the patent office. I still have two parts pending review.
I'm not sure I needed a submarine patent, but I sure got one!
Actually, this has changed, but you're right that that's how it use to be. Now days, it's first-to-file, so there's really no need for those notebooks any more. However, if you can show you had prior-art, it invalidates their patent, as you described.
Like a lot of big geeks on Slashdot, I take pride in always receiving a job offer after an interview... accept once. Once I interviewed with the EDIF reader group at Cadence, and the manager had exactly one technical question for me: "Do you understand recursion?" "Well... yes I do." "Well, then, you have all the skills that matter. What really counts is that you know how to fit in, and you don't impress me there."
I've talked to a guy who has to deal with motorcycle deaths on Skyline. Apparently, they happen all the time. Sometimes they helicopter the guy out if he's still alive. The guy told me they call that an "E-ticket ride". The people who live up there hate the morons who risk death on their road.
So, I agree, that would be dangerous to others, and impolite to the guys who have to clean up the mess.
Here's another dumb idea for how to off oneself: Try walking portions of the John Muir Trail. There are many sections where you have to try pretty hard not to fall over huge cliffs into a valley where your body would never be found. Just don't tell any authorities where you're going, so no one has to come looking, and leave an explanation for your family.
Another dumb idea if you're a hunter: bear hunting with a knife, out in a state park where your body wont be found. Of course, that's really mean to the bear, since you probably would only wound it. But, after all the packs of food they've stolen from me over the years while hiking, I could see trying to get some pay-back.
I guess I've thought a bit more about how to die than most people. My ex-wife use to try and kill herself now and then, slashing wrists, hanging herself, popping a whole bottle of sleeping pills, and that sort of thing. She was semi-mental, and had some valid reasons to want to die. Now why I married a semi-mental girl in the first place... you'd think people here on slashdot would have more brains...
Sorry to hear about your loss. I had a step-brother who passed away a couple years ago, and my step-mother is still terribly broken up about it. I can't think of anything harder in life than losing a child.
I'll take that advice, though I hope I never need it. I'm not only non-suicidal, I've got kids and a wife depending on me, not to mention the dog. But, cancer is a bitch, and it runs strong in my family. If I ever feel like I need to end life, I'll definitely try and find this very entertaining thread! And, I'll try and be polite about it to my family and anyone who would have to clean me up, without creating any danger for anyone else.
Bummer, though. I've always wanted to try hang-gliding. Jumping off that huge cliff in Golden Colorado without any hang-gliding training sounds fun. Then there's the trick of tying balloons to a lounge chair and flying away with nothing but a BB-gun. Everyone else gets all the fun.
Actually, this is my favourite of my various half-assed suggestions. At one particularly hard point in my past (after a divorce) I was doing many foolish things, not particularly caring if I died. Now, 50 feet of depth isn't much for an experienced free-diver, but I'm only comfortable down to about 20'. The one time I dived down to 50', I looked up and thought "Well, this is it." But, it wasn't. However, if it had been, I was prepared for it - not upset or scared... actually more like thrilled. I was in Hawaii, and right at the bottom, a huge eel swam past me, which I thought was way cool. If I'd tried 60', I doubt I'd have made it back. Anyway, with free-diving, hopefully the current takes away your body, and sea creatures get you, and no one is left cleaning up a bloody mess.
A similar experience was swimming out into seriously rough surf. I haven't died yet, so I can't say what it would be like, but battling surf is a bit like being in a fight. Adrenaline pumps you up, and you swim until you've got nothing left. I don't think death in a fight is all that bad of a way to go... you keep you're mind on the fight, instead of focusing on life slipping away. Once, a guy got me in a head lock and cut off circulation to my head. I didn't feel bad, I just kept struggling until I passed out. That would be an ok way to go.
Actually, I wouldn't choose a bullet. I think jumping off Half Dome sounds a lot more fun. Or seeing exactly just how fast I can take those turns in a motorcycle on Skyline, and then push just a bit more. Go sky diving and simply don't pull the cord. How about taking an overdose of some very fun drug while enjoying the company of a well-paid lady friend? Free-climb some way-too-hard slope without a rope? Rent a Corvette, and crash it at 170Mph. See just how far you can swim into the ocean, or just how far you can free-dive, and then push a bit further. I think I'd prefer any of those to a slow painful death stretched over months or years. You only get to die once. Might as well die doing something you'd normally be to scared to try.
Whoops! I'm a moron today. Those are F-22s you linked to, waaay different than F-35s. Anyway, I challenge anyone to figure out what military aircraft is shown in the upper left corner on this page. Click on it for a bigger image. I seriously can't figure it out.
The photo shown in TFA is a Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Russia's current air superiority fighter. It's a cool plane, but in no way stealthy, as you noticed. The pictures you linked to are just America's F-35's, a nice photo-shop job. Assuming this plane is real, it still doesn't show up in the first page on Google with photos.
There's some truth to this. The company AMI Semiconductor stole a bunch of my patent-pending ideas back in 2000 and produced the Express Arrays with them. Basically, they paid us enough money to barely stay in business while we helped with the first array, and when it worked, they killed the deal, and took the technology. They crippled my little company, but we struggled and stayed alive. Had I gone after AMI, they would have killed us with court costs. One alternate plan I had if AMI succeeded in killing my company was to find a patent troll and go after AMI. However, we didn't die, and any sort of lawsuit would have been very distracting and stressful, and not in any way good for business.
Microsoft's usual mode of operation is "Give me your technology for free, or I'll rewrite it and then bundle it for free in Windows." It's almost the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... we both agree Apple is evil, then? Just because Steve Jobs has the genius to understand how to build a future monopoly in the cell phone space, while the rest of the industry sat with their thumbs up their butts.... that doesn't make him any less of an a-hole.
My customers tape-out complex chips. One customer use to use Yahoo Messenger to help engineers communicate at crunch time. The experience sucked. Every time you closed your window, you had to be invited back to the group chat, which rarely happened. I had them all switch to Skype (yeah, I know... they're evil). Our next tape-out had a Skype based chat session you couldn't leave without shaming yourself, even if you turned off your computer at night, and everyone knew what everyone else was doing. It was much better.
Whoa! Nice link! I guess Motorola is going through the same thing as Sony. I doubt Vista would have been such a wet blanket if Gates had been seriously involved like he use to be. Apple may fade rapidly after that great ass Jobs dies (I'll throw a party).
In that case, I will continue to wait in anticipation! I am a big fan of the Android platform. I've just been very disappointed waiting since Nov of 2007 (the original big announcement) until now, still waiting for a leading edge hardware platform. With 75,000 apps on Apple's App Store, Android has fallen very far behind. Also, none of this is Google's fault, IMO. Google delivered the best competitor in phone OSes, and the handset manufacturers ignored it. So far, we only have Taiwan hand sets, and only then because Qualcom is a major investor in HTC, and even then, HTC reserved it's best work for Windows Mobile handsets (which frankly are more impressive than the G1). Also, while T-Mobile is an OK cell phone service provider, the major providers have completely ignored Android, and instead pursued obsolete proprietary offerings. They simply don't seem capable of understanding that the world has changed.
It's all relative. If we hadn't seen such great phones from Moto in the past, and Apple currently, the G1 would rate pretty good (except for the stupid lack of a headphone jack). I'm just disappointed, because I don't want another medium-end phone like the G1, I want a polished thing of beauty and function like the original Razr and the current iPhone.
So, yes, form is important to me. My G1 mostly functions OK as a phone, except for poor volume (the original iPhone had this problem, too). It's the extras that don't compare: the camera, size, battery capacity, storage for music and photos, etc. Note that I haven't got any complaints about the OS, except that Google should grow a pair and duplicate the cool multi-touch and animation features of the iPhone, like the Palm Pre does.
The phone itself looks like it was designed in Taiwan, not by Motorola. Where is the great design team that gave us the Razr? The problem with Android phones isn't the software (which rocks), it's the hardware (which so far sucks big-time). Why would Moto put out another crappy plastic phone with a honking huge slide-out keyboard and tiny battery, when HTC already has that market covered with the T-Mobile G1? Also, T-Mobile isn't exactly the premier partner... why doesn't Verison wake up and get a good phone? They have the best network, happiest customers, and crap for phones. Why they can't get a clue is one of the great mysteries of the universe.
Anyway, I'll probably be forced to buy another iPhone after my crappy T-Mobile G1 gives up the ghost. I hate to go back to evil Apple and the AT&T dork squad. But, that's where we developers have access to the most customers. I'll just hold my nose and enjoy the beautiful hardware Apple designs.
Anyway, hurray for Moto for a headphone jack! That is the biggest reason T-Mobile customers will prefer the Moto device over both of HTCs.
I've not found it on the web, but I know one other person who also can "smell" pheromones, so there must be very many of us. Smell may be the wrong word, since it feels more like pressure somewhere in my sinuses. I'm surprised other slashdoters didn't chime in and describe similar experience. I also can't stand most perfume, and much of it makes me want to leave the room. Something like 10% of us have that condition, but I'm having trouble finding the name for that as well.
Anyway, my friend and I who can detect human pheromones think it's pretty funny when guys like you doubt it. I can even tell the difference between pheromones. I'm a white guy, but I've dated girls of every race. Girls are all different, but there was a Black girl and an Arabic girl I dated for a short time that didn't have very compatible pheromones. The "chemistry" wasn't right. Then there was a girl who's "chemistry" was a perfect match, but we didn't actually like each other very much. We'd have sex whenever we saw each other, but nothing else in the relationship worked.
There's also some funny stories. You know that "baby smell" babies have? Well, it turns out pregnant women have a pregnant smell. Once, when out to lunch with about 10 co-workers, I asked a girl from our office how her pregnancy was going. She angrily said, "I'm not pregnant!" That was super embarrassing. However, she was, but didn't know it yet!
Anyway, you're welcome to keep believing conditions you never had don't exist, like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. I also have a rare (and unnamed) form of color-blindness, and it's pretty funny when I run across people who don't believe it. You'd be surprised how many people don't believe color-blindness is real. I guess that's just human nature. Both of my children have tried to "cure" me by teaching me the difference between blue and purple.
Well, yes, the blood moves. It's also often about a massive chemical reaction in your brain. I have a semi-rare condition where pheromones are very obvious to me. Some girls actually can make my head hurt, though I haven't had such reactions since I turned about 40.
Being able to sense the drug incoming, I was able to examine my reaction over the years. My heart raced, my chest tightened, and I longed for whichever girl I saw next. Often, I'd get hit with it from behind, before I saw any girl. I would be incapable of thinking of anything else but the girl who brought this to me. It takes a while for that to wash out of your system. A few hours later, I'd often think, "What the hell was I so enraptured about? She's nothing special."
Not entirely true... First, IBM and several other companies have contributed their patents to a "patent commons", which can be used to defend open-source projects, in much the same way companies cross-sue each other over patents. This gives little FOSS guys a big portfolio for defending himself. Second, IBM and many other FOSS friendly companies have pledged not to sue FOSS developers or projects. Finally, patent violation lawsuits generally are filed against two kinds of entities: companies with money, like Microsoft, or small companies that are taking sales away from a big company (which few FOSS projects do).
Also, IBM has been a good friend to the open source community now for many years, just like Sun. They may have valid corporate-profit driven motives, but heck, who cares? They've been great for a lot of projects. They contribute their patents to the pool to defend open-source, rather than trying to kill Linux, like Microsoft.
Anyway, IBM is right. Software patents have been huge for open source. Open source projects only come about when the authors can't make any money selling the things. Software patents have made it far harder to actually sell a viable software product, resulting a huge boom on open source.
Whoa! That's an impressive guess as to how I spent my entire life based on one very small comment! It's pretty close! I drifted between jobs, rather than going out there and finding the hardest one, but did very well in most of them. I tried to start several companies, and eventually succeeded, though I had some good experience at startups first.
I'm guessing that to have that kind of insight, you're probably been around for a while... you're probably over 40.
I filed a huge patent in 2000 that the patent office felt was six different inventions, not just one. It was a lot cheaper for me to file it all at once, which is why I did it that way. By US patent law, each individual part can be filed one at a time, after the previous one has been reviewed and dealt with by the patent office. I still have two parts pending review.
I'm not sure I needed a submarine patent, but I sure got one!
Actually, this has changed, but you're right that that's how it use to be. Now days, it's first-to-file, so there's really no need for those notebooks any more. However, if you can show you had prior-art, it invalidates their patent, as you described.
Letting the E.U. in on software patents would simply result in more patent violation suits against Microsoft. You'd think Microsoft would have learned by now.
Like a lot of big geeks on Slashdot, I take pride in always receiving a job offer after an interview... accept once. Once I interviewed with the EDIF reader group at Cadence, and the manager had exactly one technical question for me: "Do you understand recursion?" "Well... yes I do." "Well, then, you have all the skills that matter. What really counts is that you know how to fit in, and you don't impress me there."
I'm still shaken up over that interview.
I've talked to a guy who has to deal with motorcycle deaths on Skyline. Apparently, they happen all the time. Sometimes they helicopter the guy out if he's still alive. The guy told me they call that an "E-ticket ride". The people who live up there hate the morons who risk death on their road.
So, I agree, that would be dangerous to others, and impolite to the guys who have to clean up the mess.
Here's another dumb idea for how to off oneself: Try walking portions of the John Muir Trail. There are many sections where you have to try pretty hard not to fall over huge cliffs into a valley where your body would never be found. Just don't tell any authorities where you're going, so no one has to come looking, and leave an explanation for your family.
Another dumb idea if you're a hunter: bear hunting with a knife, out in a state park where your body wont be found. Of course, that's really mean to the bear, since you probably would only wound it. But, after all the packs of food they've stolen from me over the years while hiking, I could see trying to get some pay-back.
I guess I've thought a bit more about how to die than most people. My ex-wife use to try and kill herself now and then, slashing wrists, hanging herself, popping a whole bottle of sleeping pills, and that sort of thing. She was semi-mental, and had some valid reasons to want to die. Now why I married a semi-mental girl in the first place... you'd think people here on slashdot would have more brains...
Sorry to hear about your loss. I had a step-brother who passed away a couple years ago, and my step-mother is still terribly broken up about it. I can't think of anything harder in life than losing a child.
I'll take that advice, though I hope I never need it. I'm not only non-suicidal, I've got kids and a wife depending on me, not to mention the dog. But, cancer is a bitch, and it runs strong in my family. If I ever feel like I need to end life, I'll definitely try and find this very entertaining thread! And, I'll try and be polite about it to my family and anyone who would have to clean me up, without creating any danger for anyone else.
Bummer, though. I've always wanted to try hang-gliding. Jumping off that huge cliff in Golden Colorado without any hang-gliding training sounds fun. Then there's the trick of tying balloons to a lounge chair and flying away with nothing but a BB-gun. Everyone else gets all the fun.
Sounds like a great idea for a new startup company!
Actually, this is my favourite of my various half-assed suggestions. At one particularly hard point in my past (after a divorce) I was doing many foolish things, not particularly caring if I died. Now, 50 feet of depth isn't much for an experienced free-diver, but I'm only comfortable down to about 20'. The one time I dived down to 50', I looked up and thought "Well, this is it." But, it wasn't. However, if it had been, I was prepared for it - not upset or scared... actually more like thrilled. I was in Hawaii, and right at the bottom, a huge eel swam past me, which I thought was way cool. If I'd tried 60', I doubt I'd have made it back. Anyway, with free-diving, hopefully the current takes away your body, and sea creatures get you, and no one is left cleaning up a bloody mess.
A similar experience was swimming out into seriously rough surf. I haven't died yet, so I can't say what it would be like, but battling surf is a bit like being in a fight. Adrenaline pumps you up, and you swim until you've got nothing left. I don't think death in a fight is all that bad of a way to go... you keep you're mind on the fight, instead of focusing on life slipping away. Once, a guy got me in a head lock and cut off circulation to my head. I didn't feel bad, I just kept struggling until I passed out. That would be an ok way to go.
Actually, I wouldn't choose a bullet. I think jumping off Half Dome sounds a lot more fun. Or seeing exactly just how fast I can take those turns in a motorcycle on Skyline, and then push just a bit more. Go sky diving and simply don't pull the cord. How about taking an overdose of some very fun drug while enjoying the company of a well-paid lady friend? Free-climb some way-too-hard slope without a rope? Rent a Corvette, and crash it at 170Mph. See just how far you can swim into the ocean, or just how far you can free-dive, and then push a bit further. I think I'd prefer any of those to a slow painful death stretched over months or years. You only get to die once. Might as well die doing something you'd normally be to scared to try.
Whoops! I'm a moron today. Those are F-22s you linked to, waaay different than F-35s. Anyway, I challenge anyone to figure out what military aircraft is shown in the upper left corner on this page. Click on it for a bigger image. I seriously can't figure it out.
The photo shown in TFA is a Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Russia's current air superiority fighter. It's a cool plane, but in no way stealthy, as you noticed. The pictures you linked to are just America's F-35's, a nice photo-shop job. Assuming this plane is real, it still doesn't show up in the first page on Google with photos.
There's some truth to this. The company AMI Semiconductor stole a bunch of my patent-pending ideas back in 2000 and produced the Express Arrays with them. Basically, they paid us enough money to barely stay in business while we helped with the first array, and when it worked, they killed the deal, and took the technology. They crippled my little company, but we struggled and stayed alive. Had I gone after AMI, they would have killed us with court costs. One alternate plan I had if AMI succeeded in killing my company was to find a patent troll and go after AMI. However, we didn't die, and any sort of lawsuit would have been very distracting and stressful, and not in any way good for business.
Microsoft's usual mode of operation is "Give me your technology for free, or I'll rewrite it and then bundle it for free in Windows." It's almost the same thing.