Maybe someone could write a utility that took the movements and turned them into letters. After all Palm Pilot users are already putting up with what seems to be a somewhat twitchy hand-writing interface.
Then people could shake their Palm Pilots to see what interesting prose they product (a bit like the old infinite monkeys).
The Dread Tomato Addiction
on
Hoax-a-go-go!
·
· Score: 1
There was also an article by Mark Clifton in the February 1958 issue of Astounding Science Fiction (Don't you love The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase). It is about this frightening condition and is well worth a look if you can find it.
It pointed out how people who have eaten tomatoes start to show symptoms such as deteriorating eyesight, arthritis, general weakening, etc. as they grow older. Any cases of people who have eaten tomato soup and survived beyond 100 years showed they are severely debilitated.
If tomato soup is withheld then the addict's craving drives them to use substitutes such as water. If all substitutes are withheld then the addict dies of withdrawl.
Slashdotter Hemos today slipped up and revealed his previously unsuspected abilities when he went back in time and posted an article on Sunday 26 March 200 at 23:02 reporting on a BBC News article not published on their website until Monday 27 March 2000 at 09:59GMT.
Hemos was unavailable for comment. A Slashdot spokesperson described as scurrilous the rumour that he was going back in time to patent one-click shopping on line.
Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer for Loki Entertainment Software has created a toolkit called the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL). This is open source (available under GNU LGPL) and provides an increasing amount of the functionality for DirectX style work.
As well as Linux it is currently on BeOS and Win32, with the potential for MacOS, IRIX, Solarix and FreeBSD (unofficial or in progress).
I am still afraid that I come into a Makefile someday that holds the line: install: rm -rf / Is this not a virus?
This is not a virus because it would not propagate - you might pass it on to your worst enemy but not many other people (a file for you Bill). It is a trojan - a program that claims to do one thing but actually does another. Hey maybe Windows is actually a Trojan (I claim to be an operating system but actually fill up your hard drive and slow your machine down)
Astronaut Dr. Daniel T. Barry has been involved with the First Lego League, and carried a working MidnStorms model of the shuttle arm into space on Discovery during STS-96 (May last year).
The MindStorm kits can be used to learn important engineering lessons and can help to encourage budding engineers.
In the US there is a school level competition where groups of students build a robot to try and achieve various tasks. They get a pack that includes the instructions and the extra pieces. They can only use the basic Robotics Invention System (RIS) and the supplied extra pieces. The current challenges revolves around rescuing trapped astronauts.
There are instructions for building standard arenas so that teams can get together and hold tournaments. Although there are some people doing this outside the US, none are in the UK (and I'm too old anyway). This just shows that yet again us old wrinklies were born too early (and in my case in the wrong country).
Details can be found under the 'First Lego League' button on the MindStorms website.
In order to write a game there is a need for a lot more than a 3D rendering lanuage (and most of it is more important). Direct3D is a very small part of DirectX and with your own 3D engine you could do without it and use DirectDraw instead.
Other important functionality includes 2D drawing (DirectDraw), Sound (DirectSound and DirectMusic), User Input (DirectInput), and Networking (DirectPlay). It is the ability to do all these in a consistant manner that makes it easier now to develop games on Windows.
So while it is nice to have OpenGL and it does make things easier a lot more is required to provide a full game API. However as I said before SDL (the API that Loki uses) is available open source.
There is an open source API called the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) that has been developed by Sam Lantinga (lead programmer at Loki). Currently available under GNU LGPL license.
According to the site it is currently running on Linux, Win32, and BeOS. Unofficial ports are reported to be in progress for Solaris, IRIX, FreeBSD, and MacOS.
So if people use it then this could greatly increase the number of games on the Linux and related platforms.
I'm sorry, I though it was obvious that this was a joke. It probably is to people who have read the topic ripping the quoted article to pieces but I should have tried to make it more obvious in the post.
If you believe the article on Silicon.com then obviously IBM are insane because according to Phil Roberts "Anyone running vital systems on Linux must be crazy,"
I did ask in the original thread whether they could be sued for libel if they listed a site that was patently not pornographic as containing pornographic material. In this case I feel that in listing sites in categories for contents that they know are not there they are abusing the power and authority they have been given by the purchasers of their software. They are using this power to pursue a private agenda at the expense of their customers.
They may argue that in so listing these sites they are preventing the download of items that would then allow access to sites that they have banned. However this is not true as far as I know of Eddy Jansson's program which simply gives access to the list of banned sites.
I feel that there is the opening for law suits (possibly class action I don't know enough to be sure) both for the sites that have been blocked by this abusive action, and for the users of the software who are being used as pawns by CyberPatrol in their private little war. I don't see how actions like this can help CyberPatrol's standing.
Hey I've just had a thought. If we can get the files far enough distributed could we get CyberPatrol to block the entire Internet.
I agree, though I still feel there should be some form of automatic fine or increased fees for future patents for those who are discovered to have deliberately withheld prior art or otherwise attempted to pervert the process.
If the patent agent/attorney is found to have been knowingly involved then censure or even expulsion from the association should be actively considered.
My reading of the article is that Sun and Kingston already have a licencing deal in place for the original Sun Patents. The issue is that Sun have since been granted further subsiduary patents and are saying that Kingston must licence these as well in order to continue to produce the modules.
I can't be certain but my understanding is that many of these are simply for applying standard practices in 32- and 64-bit memory modules to Sun's proprietory 128-bit modules. Kingston argue that the patents are not therefore non-obvious to a practitioner in the field of memory module design (and Sun did not disclose relevant prior art) so the patents are invalid.
At the current time it is actually the owner of the patent who enforces their own patent. They take any transgressors to court to claim damages for infringement (though most cases are settled before this).
The previous poster was however making a point regarding the patent holder knowing of infringement and doing nothing for some time.
Consider that a second party uses the same ideas and the patent holder realises this but does not notify them. Then at a later date once the second party has the technology thoroughly integrated turn up and demand licences. In this case had licences been demanded at the start the second company could well have used a different technology.
Obviously the second company should have asked for a licence for the technology from the start. That is if they were they aware of the patent and believed that it applied to them (often a confused point). There is however the question of whether the second company was even aware of the patent. Did people realise the published LZW algorithm had been patented by UniSys before developing the GIF format?
We seem to be living in a culture that rewards switching jobs more highly than staying with the same company. It seems to be much easier to find a higher salary by moving than it is to persuade your employer to pay you close to what you are worth according to the market.
Employers are reducing or dispensing with a lot of the intangiable rewards in jobs (pensions, insurance, etc.) that encouraged people to stay. This starts a vicious circle where the employee leaves and the cost to the employer of replacing them is at least partially recouped by cutting benefits etc. Some are even moving to using contractors (who have less benefits) for a number of permanent internal positions.
There is also the issue that employers will not train their staff because they claim they just change jobs. This leads to employers who rather than training internal staff up to required levels simply hire in the required expertise. This penalises employers who do train their people and also further alienates the existing staff.
This all happens further up the employment tree as well as companies headhunt their required skills. There was however an article somewhere recently that mentioned using headhunters can be a two-edged sword. Once an employee has worked the period necessary to earn the headhunter their fee then the headhunters have been known to start trying to place them all over again.
The fact that there is a new generation who have never experienced an employment environment where loyalty is adequately rewarded will simply exacerpate the situation.
In ten years or so there will probably be a very new employement model that is based more upon some kind of short-term contracts and tele-working (probably controlled/arbitrated by internet mechanisms) that will mean a lot of the knowledge style workers are not employees but resources that a company use when they need them (Website anyone?). I expect someone out there can tell me it already exists.
IIRC the recent digital TV standards specify that the display is widescreen. This is normally a ratio of about 9 by 16. This is close I believe to the golden ratio of art and is supposed to be more aesthetically pleasing. Widescreen is closer to the ratios used in the cinema though the 1.78 of widescreen still requires letterboxing of a lot of the 2.1+ ratio feature films (though significantly less than on a standard 1.33 TV).
A number of TV programs etc. are already being made in widescreen format in preparation for the switch. A small black band at the top and bottom of the screen can indicate this though not all shows have this. Most BBC and ITV drama (UK reference) have had this for years.
Another example is Babylon 5. Seasons 2-5 were available in both standard and widescreen versions for transmission. Apparently season 1 was filmed in widescreen but the episodes were only edited together in the standard size.
I have had a widescreen television for over four years now and much prefer it (particuarly for watching LD and DVD Video movies where the player can actually adjust the image for it).
There is an issue that occurs to me with all this examination of the blocking lists of products like this and the discovery that there are sites being listed a pornographic which are patently not. Is listing a site as pornographic like this libellous?
If I put up a web site with some latin on it (the word cum is apparently a common pornography trigger) and it gets added to this list can I claim that I have been libelled and can I claim compensation?
I feel there must be a reason this cannot happen otherwise you could sue credit agencies for incorrect data as well.
While Iridium does use Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites about 800 kilometres up, ICO are using Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites about 10,000 kilometres up. That's why they can get away with using less of them (12 as opposed to Iridium's 66) but each needs to be larger.
ICO are insured against the loss of up to two satellites and are using Proton, Delta III, and Atlas IIAS as well as Sea Launch. So they should still be able to get a functional network up in a reasonable time (no, I don't work for them).
All the information came off the websites: ICO, Iridium
The 2 'extra' satellites were not to allow for loses during launch, but rather to allow for fast replacement of satellites due to failure once the system was live. It is done this way because of the very long lead time in windowing a launch (even if the satellite is prepped on the ground).
This is the equivalent of having spare lightbulbs and batteries at home so you don't have to go all the way to the shops when they fail. If it was going to take several month or even years before you could get them then you'd make sure you had enough spares.
They will probably now have to prepare another satellite and launch it at the end of the sequence. Also they will now be later getting the necessary ten satellites into orbit for their initial network.
I haven't had a chance to examine what's on the website (many documents). If this is to try and make it easier to apply for patents throughout the world then there is a lot of work to do in terms of standardising what can and cannot be patented (The US seems to have much broader rules than say Europe/UK).
If it is however concerned with just generally streamlining the process then considering the problem with all the apparently spurious software patents do we really need the process simplified.
What we need is the system bolstered with examiners who have resources to identify obvious and non-original concepts in fields such as the internet and computer programming.
Particularly as the examiners do not have sufficient experience or knowledge in these areas we need some way of making peer review available to them. Potentially there should be a probationary period or provisional publication where a patent can be challenged/questioned not in court but by reference back to the patent office.
Also the requirement for prior art searches/disclosures should be tightened up potentially with fines and summary dismissals of patents for deliberate non-disclosure. Otherwise the system can encourage and reward such behaviour.
Patents were developed to allow inventors and those spending money on research to have a chance to recoup those costs and realise a resonable return by granting a limited monopoly on their ideas. While ensuring that those ideas were published and available to others and not hidden/lost as trade secrets etc.
These days however a lot of the software/internet patents are not on ideas that have taken any great investment to develop. Rather they are for taking standard programming practices, methods, and techniques and applying them to new environments such as the internet. This to my mind makes them obvious to a practitioner in the field. If not does this mean that the first person to write a bubblesort on the latest compiler/hardware can patent it?
Patents seem to have become in certain areas more a cynical commercial weapon than a way of encouraging and rewarding research and its publication.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe someone could write a utility that took the movements and turned them into letters. After all Palm Pilot users are already putting up with what seems to be a somewhat twitchy hand-writing interface.
Then people could shake their Palm Pilots to see what interesting prose they product (a bit like the old infinite monkeys).
There was also an article by Mark Clifton in the February 1958 issue of Astounding Science Fiction (Don't you love The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase). It is about this frightening condition and is well worth a look if you can find it.
It pointed out how people who have eaten tomatoes start to show symptoms such as deteriorating eyesight, arthritis, general weakening, etc. as they grow older. Any cases of people who have eaten tomato soup and survived beyond 100 years showed they are severely debilitated.
If tomato soup is withheld then the addict's craving drives them to use substitutes such as water. If all substitutes are withheld then the addict dies of withdrawl.
Unless he had a chisel to carve it into a wall I think I meant that he posted it in March 2000 (At least I didn't claim he posted it in 20000).
Slashdotter Hemos today slipped up and revealed his previously unsuspected abilities when he went back in time and posted an article on Sunday 26 March 200 at 23:02 reporting on a BBC News article not published on their website until Monday 27 March 2000 at 09:59GMT.
Hemos was unavailable for comment. A Slashdot spokesperson described as scurrilous the rumour that he was going back in time to patent one-click shopping on line.
Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer for Loki Entertainment Software has created a toolkit called the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL). This is open source (available under GNU LGPL) and provides an increasing amount of the functionality for DirectX style work.
As well as Linux it is currently on BeOS and Win32, with the potential for MacOS, IRIX, Solarix and FreeBSD (unofficial or in progress).
I am still afraid that I come into a Makefile someday that holds the line:
install: rm -rf /
Is this not a virus?
This is not a virus because it would not propagate - you might pass it on to your worst enemy but not many other people (a file for you Bill). It is a trojan - a program that claims to do one thing but actually does another. Hey maybe Windows is actually a Trojan (I claim to be an operating system but actually fill up your hard drive and slow your machine down)
Astronaut Dr. Daniel T. Barry has been involved with the First Lego League, and carried a working MidnStorms model of the shuttle arm into space on Discovery during STS-96 (May last year).
The MindStorm kits can be used to learn important engineering lessons and can help to encourage budding engineers.
In the US there is a school level competition where groups of students build a robot to try and achieve various tasks. They get a pack that includes the instructions and the extra pieces. They can only use the basic Robotics Invention System (RIS) and the supplied extra pieces. The current challenges revolves around rescuing trapped astronauts.
There are instructions for building standard arenas so that teams can get together and hold tournaments. Although there are some people doing this outside the US, none are in the UK (and I'm too old anyway). This just shows that yet again us old wrinklies were born too early (and in my case in the wrong country).
Details can be found under the 'First Lego League' button on the MindStorms website.
SDL is the open source API developed by Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer for Loki Entertainment Software. There is information about it Here.
In order to write a game there is a need for a lot more than a 3D rendering lanuage (and most of it is more important). Direct3D is a very small part of DirectX and with your own 3D engine you could do without it and use DirectDraw instead.
Other important functionality includes 2D drawing (DirectDraw), Sound (DirectSound and DirectMusic), User Input (DirectInput), and Networking (DirectPlay). It is the ability to do all these in a consistant manner that makes it easier now to develop games on Windows.
So while it is nice to have OpenGL and it does make things easier a lot more is required to provide a full game API. However as I said before SDL (the API that Loki uses) is available open source.
There is an open source API called the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) that has been developed by Sam Lantinga (lead programmer at Loki). Currently available under GNU LGPL license.
According to the site it is currently running on Linux, Win32, and BeOS. Unofficial ports are reported to be in progress for Solaris, IRIX, FreeBSD, and MacOS.
So if people use it then this could greatly increase the number of games on the Linux and related platforms.
I'm sorry, I though it was obvious that this was a joke. It probably is to people who have read the topic ripping the quoted article to pieces but I should have tried to make it more obvious in the post.
Take a look at this fairly representative sample of that thread if you don't believe me -> I want a piece of this action.
The original Silicon article (for those who need to see an ill-informed and hysterical mess) is Here.
I guess I should leave being funny to the professionals
If you believe the article on Silicon.com then obviously IBM are insane because according to Phil Roberts "Anyone running vital systems on Linux must be crazy,"
I did ask in the original thread whether they could be sued for libel if they listed a site that was patently not pornographic as containing pornographic material. In this case I feel that in listing sites in categories for contents that they know are not there they are abusing the power and authority they have been given by the purchasers of their software. They are using this power to pursue a private agenda at the expense of their customers.
They may argue that in so listing these sites they are preventing the download of items that would then allow access to sites that they have banned. However this is not true as far as I know of Eddy Jansson's program which simply gives access to the list of banned sites.
I feel that there is the opening for law suits (possibly class action I don't know enough to be sure) both for the sites that have been blocked by this abusive action, and for the users of the software who are being used as pawns by CyberPatrol in their private little war. I don't see how actions like this can help CyberPatrol's standing.
Hey I've just had a thought. If we can get the files far enough distributed could we get CyberPatrol to block the entire Internet.
I agree, though I still feel there should be some form of automatic fine or increased fees for future patents for those who are discovered to have deliberately withheld prior art or otherwise attempted to pervert the process.
If the patent agent/attorney is found to have been knowingly involved then censure or even expulsion from the association should be actively considered.
My reading of the article is that Sun and Kingston already have a licencing deal in place for the original Sun Patents. The issue is that Sun have since been granted further subsiduary patents and are saying that Kingston must licence these as well in order to continue to produce the modules.
I can't be certain but my understanding is that many of these are simply for applying standard practices in 32- and 64-bit memory modules to Sun's proprietory 128-bit modules. Kingston argue that the patents are not therefore non-obvious to a practitioner in the field of memory module design (and Sun did not disclose relevant prior art) so the patents are invalid.
At the current time it is actually the owner of the patent who enforces their own patent. They take any transgressors to court to claim damages for infringement (though most cases are settled before this).
The previous poster was however making a point regarding the patent holder knowing of infringement and doing nothing for some time.
Consider that a second party uses the same ideas and the patent holder realises this but does not notify them. Then at a later date once the second party has the technology thoroughly integrated turn up and demand licences. In this case had licences been demanded at the start the second company could well have used a different technology.
Obviously the second company should have asked for a licence for the technology from the start. That is if they were they aware of the patent and believed that it applied to them (often a confused point). There is however the question of whether the second company was even aware of the patent. Did people realise the published LZW algorithm had been patented by UniSys before developing the GIF format?
We seem to be living in a culture that rewards switching jobs more highly than staying with the same company. It seems to be much easier to find a higher salary by moving than it is to persuade your employer to pay you close to what you are worth according to the market.
Employers are reducing or dispensing with a lot of the intangiable rewards in jobs (pensions, insurance, etc.) that encouraged people to stay. This starts a vicious circle where the employee leaves and the cost to the employer of replacing them is at least partially recouped by cutting benefits etc. Some are even moving to using contractors (who have less benefits) for a number of permanent internal positions.
There is also the issue that employers will not train their staff because they claim they just change jobs. This leads to employers who rather than training internal staff up to required levels simply hire in the required expertise. This penalises employers who do train their people and also further alienates the existing staff.
This all happens further up the employment tree as well as companies headhunt their required skills. There was however an article somewhere recently that mentioned using headhunters can be a two-edged sword. Once an employee has worked the period necessary to earn the headhunter their fee then the headhunters have been known to start trying to place them all over again.
The fact that there is a new generation who have never experienced an employment environment where loyalty is adequately rewarded will simply exacerpate the situation.
In ten years or so there will probably be a very new employement model that is based more upon some kind of short-term contracts and tele-working (probably controlled/arbitrated by internet mechanisms) that will mean a lot of the knowledge style workers are not employees but resources that a company use when they need them (Website anyone?). I expect someone out there can tell me it already exists.
IIRC the recent digital TV standards specify that the display is widescreen. This is normally a ratio of about 9 by 16. This is close I believe to the golden ratio of art and is supposed to be more aesthetically pleasing. Widescreen is closer to the ratios used in the cinema though the 1.78 of widescreen still requires letterboxing of a lot of the 2.1+ ratio feature films (though significantly less than on a standard 1.33 TV).
A number of TV programs etc. are already being made in widescreen format in preparation for the switch. A small black band at the top and bottom of the screen can indicate this though not all shows have this. Most BBC and ITV drama (UK reference) have had this for years.
Another example is Babylon 5. Seasons 2-5 were available in both standard and widescreen versions for transmission. Apparently season 1 was filmed in widescreen but the episodes were only edited together in the standard size.
I have had a widescreen television for over four years now and much prefer it (particuarly for watching LD and DVD Video movies where the player can actually adjust the image for it).
There is an issue that occurs to me with all this examination of the blocking lists of products like this and the discovery that there are sites being listed a pornographic which are patently not. Is listing a site as pornographic like this libellous?
If I put up a web site with some latin on it (the word cum is apparently a common pornography trigger) and it gets added to this list can I claim that I have been libelled and can I claim compensation?
I feel there must be a reason this cannot happen otherwise you could sue credit agencies for incorrect data as well.
While Iridium does use Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites about 800 kilometres up, ICO are using Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites about 10,000 kilometres up. That's why they can get away with using less of them (12 as opposed to Iridium's 66) but each needs to be larger.
ICO are insured against the loss of up to two satellites and are using Proton, Delta III, and Atlas IIAS as well as Sea Launch. So they should still be able to get a functional network up in a reasonable time (no, I don't work for them).
All the information came off the websites: ICO, Iridium
The 2 'extra' satellites were not to allow for loses during launch, but rather to allow for fast replacement of satellites due to failure once the system was live. It is done this way because of the very long lead time in windowing a launch (even if the satellite is prepped on the ground).
This is the equivalent of having spare lightbulbs and batteries at home so you don't have to go all the way to the shops when they fail. If it was going to take several month or even years before you could get them then you'd make sure you had enough spares.
They will probably now have to prepare another satellite and launch it at the end of the sequence. Also they will now be later getting the necessary ten satellites into orbit for their initial network.
Maybe the navigation system got programmed with the data Boeing used to lose the space station parts in the local rubbish dump a week or two back.
Could be a new company policy.
I don't believe he is talking about a Computer system with an Athlon 1GHz processor in it but only the processor package itself.
That price is not even close to that for a complete system that includes an Athlon 1GHz. Otherwise I want to know where he gets these deals.
I haven't had a chance to examine what's on the website (many documents). If this is to try and make it easier to apply for patents throughout the world then there is a lot of work to do in terms of standardising what can and cannot be patented (The US seems to have much broader rules than say Europe/UK).
If it is however concerned with just generally streamlining the process then considering the problem with all the apparently spurious software patents do we really need the process simplified.
What we need is the system bolstered with examiners who have resources to identify obvious and non-original concepts in fields such as the internet and computer programming.
Particularly as the examiners do not have sufficient experience or knowledge in these areas we need some way of making peer review available to them. Potentially there should be a probationary period or provisional publication where a patent can be challenged/questioned not in court but by reference back to the patent office.
Also the requirement for prior art searches/disclosures should be tightened up potentially with fines and summary dismissals of patents for deliberate non-disclosure. Otherwise the system can encourage and reward such behaviour.
Patents were developed to allow inventors and those spending money on research to have a chance to recoup those costs and realise a resonable return by granting a limited monopoly on their ideas. While ensuring that those ideas were published and available to others and not hidden/lost as trade secrets etc.
These days however a lot of the software/internet patents are not on ideas that have taken any great investment to develop. Rather they are for taking standard programming practices, methods, and techniques and applying them to new environments such as the internet. This to my mind makes them obvious to a practitioner in the field. If not does this mean that the first person to write a bubblesort on the latest compiler/hardware can patent it?
Patents seem to have become in certain areas more a cynical commercial weapon than a way of encouraging and rewarding research and its publication.