It has been made impossible!
on
The Euro
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· Score: 1
Actually, all EURO countries adopted the Euro some years ago as their official currency, with a fixed ratio between the currencies. For example, 1€ = 1.95583 DEM=1936.27 ITL.
However, the coins and notes of the old currency were kept in circulation until enough EURO notes and coins had been manufactured (as of today, that is); so - since then - giving someone a 1 DEM note has just been the only possible way of giving someone a ~0.50 EUR coin. Most people never thoght of that in that way, though.
Several years before that, all countries coordinated their economic policies so that the inflation and exchange rations for each country had to be kept within limits that had been agreed upon in advanced.
One of the reasons (there were many others as well) for creating a single currency, was to strengthen the smaller countries during periods of high inflations and protect them from speculations done by George Soros and other powerful individuals on the currency-exchanges, in order to avoid what currently happends in Argentina.
/Fredrik (designs software for machines that handles EURO coins, BTW)
I am not a perl programmer (just C and Java), but these are the steps I try to take whenever I need to rearrange my code:
First of all; make an analyzis of the code; Is it modular? What dependencies are there within the code? Was it thought to be modular from the start, and in that case, has the modules started to deteriate? Are there functions/variables that are just positioned at the wrong places? Functions/variables only used by one or two other functions? Functions/variables used by way too many functions?
Based on those questions; start moveing functions and variables between modules. Consider that a module may be more than a single file, but probably not more than 10 files. Try to keep the number of functions per file to about 10 or less. Also, try to keep the number of files per module to 10 or less. Since you have more than 100 files, try grouping them in at least two blocks. Why not try to use the model-view-control or (interface-control-entity if you're into UML) model?
All this can be done without endangering the code, since you do not rename anything; and thus, you do not risk to suddenly start using some other variable/function than you intended. But, remember not to change more than one thing at at time without testing!
Also, if the language can't help you protecting (file-, module- or block-) private functions/variables, use comments to mark them as non-accesible from functions not in that file, module or block.
Now that the code is logically arranged, it is easy to see if there are functions that perfom a similar thing, since they (probably) would have ended up in the same module - or even the same file.
At this stage, you might want to actually start re-writing one or several functions in order to get rid of those functions that does almost the same thing. Also, you might want to re-name some functions to better represent their actual use.
However, if you do that, first think if you want to enforce any coding-standard starting with new functions? If so, create a coding-standard that most closely matches the code written so far, thus only a smaller portion of the code will fail to comply with the standard.
I'm confident both ESA (The European version of NASA) and Russia have the technology and know-how, even though I doubt the latter have the money to pull such a stunt.
I just don't see the obvious in US alone saving the world...
A better metric might be the ratio of intrusions/attempts
For the rest of the text, one have to assume that intrusion attemts are common enough to measure. If there are less than one script kiddie attempt/month or something like that, chances are very small that someone would direct anything but a random attack at the site.
But, I would also suggest adding an Average Intrusion Age, i.e., the number of days/weeks/years the methods used for the intrusion attempts was known to the general public. In my opinion, that way a metric on how interesting a specific site is to hack can be obtained;
The theory is that only people that are interesting in hacking the specific site will bother using the newest methods. Script kiddies will be forced to use older methods, waiting for the availability of public tools, and should the hack attempt fail, they are likely to focus on other sites instead.
By combining that metric with the average time taken by you to patch a sequrity hole from the moment it the hole was known to the public, one would get an indication of the probability that an intrusion attempt will succeed.
That knowledge, toghether with the number of attempts/month can be an indicator of if the systems sequrity is good enough.
Second comment:
Hardware can be meaningfully rated with a MTBF value because the errors are random, physical (often mechanical) defects. It is a measure of how likely a given operation is to fail.
With software, usually the same operation always fails. Software errors are design errors, not random failure.
I would like to add some nuiances to your statement; Yes, hardware failures due to malfunctioning or breaking components are random - providing the design itself is flawless, but there may also exist design flaws.
The same does exist in software as well. Some failures are caused by design flaws, others are introduced due to human error (typos that makes it through the compiler etc). The latter are per definition random, and can happend anywhere in the code.
When a software fault occurs, it does the same error every time that piece of code is executed with the same data. But the same applies to a mechanical component as well; if it can break in one way, that's the way it breaks when it breaks.
However, mechanical objects can break in an unpredictable number of ways since mecahnical (and electrical items) are affected by a hughe number of unknown and apparently random outside parameters, but that is true for software as well: Software very seldom execute in the same way - due to circumstances not controlled by the actual application (such as other applications, actual sequence of user or I/O input, swapping, availability of resources, timing and interrupts etc).
Thus, the failure might appear to be random to an outside viewer in the exact same way mecanical failures can appear as random.
Since most of us aren't equal to each others when it comes to preferences, I see no reason for me to pay as much for an item that I think I could live without as someone for whom its the "must have" item. I don't want to pay for someone elses desires.
This in mind, I also acknowledge the fact that I will have to pay more than someone else for items I really want. But that's not a problem, because since I really want the item, I value the item more - up to a certain limit. At some price, it simply won't be worth it anymore!
All this in consideration, I might end up paying more than my friends for some item, but they wouldn't buy it if it cost more than they paid anyway, and the seller obviously was unable to sell it to anyone willing to pay more (since in that case my friend wouldn't be offered it at such a low price). After a while I might have ended up paying a lot for the few items I really desired, but I probably have gained a lot of stuff that I liked but could have been without (if I would have had to make a choice) at a bargain price, so everything would have been evened out. I wouldn't have lost anything, but the seller have gained.
Thus, summing it all up, there is a total gain, which is good for everybody.
It seems very strange for me - a non-US citizen - that the US has been able to use IP laws that are more or less the opposite of all other countries in the world for so long;
For example, while the rest of the world has been using the first-to-file approach to patents, the US uses a first-to-invent approach. That is - even if you patent an invention in the US, someone else may sue you after you've made millions of dollars and claim that "i've already done that before you did that", and demand that you pay him _lots_ of royalties.
Thus, in the US, these are the steps to take in order to make big bucks on patents:
Make sure you're a patent attourney
Locate a company that have a patent on something fairly trivial (Do I hear "one-click shopping", or "XOR Cursor"?)
Make sure the company has made big bucks using the methods patented
Now locate an unsuspecting citizen or a small firm that did something that can be applied on the patent prior to it being filed
Make sure you offer them your service - with a hughe percentage
Sue the company, claiming that your client made the invention
As they say, US is the land of opportuneties...
Anyway, for the 4.5 billion non US-citizens of the world, it's time for the US to accept the international view on IP.
(of Sweden in the early 90's), mr Carl Bildt, (later on appointed High Representative of the European Union in during the first time after the Balkan war, currently the chief advisor of UN President Kofi Anan in Balkan matters or something like that)...
... had some problems being allowed to use a portable computer in the parliament chamber back in the '80s at the time he was an MP. Not surprisingly, considering the size and weight of "portables" at that time.
During his time as Swedish Prime Minister, the Swedish Government opened their first version of their website (I can't remember what year, but it was when Lynx and Mosaic were the only browsers available), and his party were very early using BBSes to distribute information throughout the organization.
He was the first swedish politician to start an on-line diary (an e-mail list), which he has (personally, actually - fairly unusual for such a high-ranking politician) updated once a week ever since '95. It was then written mostly on European airports inbetween flights and uploaded to the net using a GSM cellular phone.
I remember an interview he attended (with Stina Dabrowski if any Swede out there wonders), where he was asked about his interest for technology, and he claimed that he wasn't a tech nerd, but liked using new technology if it was better than old technology, and he had a positive attidute towards what new technology would be able to do in the future.
It is claimed in Sweden that he was the first prime minister of the world to communicate using e-mail with the US President - even if I guess it's mostly been used as a PR stunt.
It's fairly easy to sigh when comparing him with our current minister of communication and infrastructure who just a few years ago stated that "The Internet is just something that will pass by unnoticed and then being forgotten" (swedish: min tolkning av 'internet är bara en fluga').
"they hung in the air exactly the way bricks don't", and other things is what I like most..
Since it (obviously) is just a matter of failing to hit the ground and that I wouldn't be able to hit the wall of a barn - from the inside - its really strange I don't fly high every day!
Will never forget all the wonderful moments of joy the jokes have given me!/Flu
One of the main differences between US patent system and (virtually) the rest of the world is that in the US, the patent is granted to the first to invent a product, while in the rest of the world, the patent is granted to the first person to file the patent application.
While the US system seems more fair at the first glance, it also requires everybody to keep records that can be proven to be non-forged of all steps leading up to the actual invention, in case someone else sues because they claim they came up with the idea first.
Because of that, more people try to sue their way to patents, rather than actually spend time on actual inventing.
The drawback of the "first to file"-system is (basically) that if you're just a single day later than your competitor (even if he actually stole your drawings on the same day he filed the application), you won't be granted the patent.
People that do a good job don't need to work cheap.
And doing a good job isn't just about doing it. It should be done within the time-limit. With a minimum of bugs (not bug-free, because no single individual can create a bug-free program). It should also be understandable. And maintainable. Even after you've left the company.
Any company that don't agree with that probably can't afford to pay any wage at all after a while, because they will go broke!
Many products are like this. Retailers aren't allowed to split up their family-size packages of.. say, shampoo(ie 2 bottles shrink wrapped together, and sold as a unit), and sell them individually, why should this be different for software?
Maybe because retailers don't get instruction from the shampoo manufacturer that they aren't allowed to sell the shampoo unless the customer buys a pair of jeans as well.
I have a couple of standard passwords that I use (passoword, john_doe, xzyqyz-type of passwords, mainly), depending on how much I trust the service that protects my information, and the information stored there.
Generally, when the service asks me to alter the password, I change one or several position of the password (most often enough to fool the password change check-if-not-too-similar algorithm) in a way that is obvious to me, but not to anyone else, since there is no natural pattern involved.
Even if some passwords more or less by accident may look like a correct word in one or several well-known languages, most dont - not in english, french, german or my naitive (swedish) language. The reason is that I try to mis-spell or alter spelling of words into something completely unrecognizeable.
Coming from the Amiga, as I do, probably biases my opinion on what an OS is and is not.
Quick summary of this article
To quickly summarize this article in a way we all know something about:
IE 4.0 is not part of the OS's Windows 95 or Windows 98
IE 5.0 should be thought of as two separate items; the IE 5.0 application and the IE 5.0 API
The IE 5.0 application is not part of the Windows 98 OS
The IE 5.0 API's are a set of API's recommended by the vendor of the Windows 98 OS to the developers of applications to that OS.
The IE 5.0 API's are not required for the Windows 98 OS to work.
The "OS" can be thought of as several things
To me, the OS can be separated into several items:
The kernel and device drivers
Vendor-recommended API's.
Third party API's.
One may also remember that the OS vendor may or may not include variour applications, which provides the OS user which something that can actually USE the hardware located underneath the OS.
What does this really mean?
Comparing this to the current Microsoft trial, it is pretty obvious that IE 4.0 is only a vendor-supplied application to the Windows 95/98 OS.
But when it comes to the Windows 98 product, I must admit that I know too little about that product to be really sure. However, since it has been shown in the Microsoft trial that the code behing the IE 5.0 APIs can be replaced by third-party "dummy" code without changeing the functionality of the OS, the IE 5.0 API's clearly belong to the vendor-recommended API's.
The IE 5.0 application (which allows the user to surf the net etc and uses some (most?) of the IE 5.0 API's), is only a vendor-supplied application.
The kernel and device drivers
I do not think anyone will argue that this is part of the operating system, if we only include low-level API's (read one sector of first unit on SCSI device 0, memory allocation, task management etc etc) that hide the hardware from the application.
On any Intel platform, I think that the BIOS fits perfectly into this category.
For Linux users, I believe that the/dev files fall under this category. Since the POSIX APIs are used on most UNIX systems, I think they should be classified into this as well for that kind of operating systems.
Most Amiga users also find that all.libraries present in the Kickstart ROM (the task scheduler and the utility functions of exec.library, the graphics I/O routines of graphics.library, GUI interface of intuition.library, file-systems and file-management functions of dos.library etc) are part of this category. But the Amigans probably don't think that the fopen() functions are part of the OS. They are just another level above the AmigaOS's real Open() functions.
Vendor-recommended API's
These API's and the code executed are any API's that really don't depend on the underlying hardware. The executed code just use the official API's of the Kernel and device drivers instead.
In this category of API's are the API's that the supplier of the kernel and device-driver API's also ship as a service to the application developers in order to shorten the application development time for the OS.
Since these are not actually required for the OS to work, most users might think that these can be thrown out. That is really possible! However; since the API's are supplied by the vendors of the OS at no extra cost to the application developers, it is very likely that third-party application developers will depend on them for their applications.
On the other hand - the user may replace the code with third party code which performs the same task in a different way, allowing more customization or additional features through new - third party supplied - API's.
The latter rather common amongs Amiga users thanks to the very open architecture of the AmigaOS. For Linux users, one may think of the swapping of window managers in this way.
To this group, one may also add the kind of external vendor-supplied applications (cat, sort, head etc) that performs a specific task based on input and returns a parseable result similar to an ordinary API, to be used by third-party applications.
Third party API's
These are normally not really a part of the OS, but sometimes these takes on similar responsibilities as the recommended API's, and in some cases even adds to the kernel or device driver API's.
Depending on their popularity amongs other third-party developers, they will be more or less required by third-party applications.
In the Amiga environment the ARP.library or MUI.library are perfect examples of these. For most Unix-users, metamail or PGP is a decent example. The Windows environment almost completely lacks this type of API's, or they are camouflaged into application-specific DLL's.
How about a dark castle of Gates compared to the free meadows of Linux as the main theme?
Above the castle, dark skies, thunderbolts etc, promoting the evil, are visible. (For ideas, see the Iron Maiden album "Killers").
The almost only thing visible thing of the castle are the Large, Fierce Walls surrounding it, with the silhouette of Our Great Enemy (Bill) in a window of the highest tower, maybe counting lots of money. In the middle are a pair of Iron Gates, through which line after line of cloned (or at least identically looking) windowz user can be sighted. On the tower, a very torn, dark and dirty flag wawes in the wind. The flag is - of course - the Windows flag...:-)
Behind the lines, in the celler of the castle is a small window visible, through which a torture chamber is visible. In the chamber, the silhouette of Duke (the Java symbol) hangs side by side with a penguine and a human.
Outside of the castle, the sun is shining, a rainbow is visible in the distance, the meadows are green, butterflies are flying and everyone are happy. "Everyone" are of course some Penguins, each being an individual, most occupied with their own hobby (painting, playing an instrument (with someone selling tickets for the show), writing on a scroll, examining a chart on a computer screen, talking on a cellular phone), but some are helping each other or are involved in a discussion, or listening to a lecture.
This is my main idea of a theme, promoting the freedom, individualism and friendship amongst Linux users, comparing it to the "slavery" and strictly business-without-afterthought-on-the-impact-of-the -individual-users-or-professionals idea of the extremely commercialized windows business.
Of cource it will require some afterthougth on which details to ommit to be able to display the main "theme", even though more background details will make it more fun for us non-Windows fans to watch.:-)
Well, not really, but almost; This patent is similar to what is done in all databases all the time; However, what TM is doing is much cooler than that (more on that below).
In an ordinary database, the operator (an "emulated" CPU instruction) is doing a series of changes to the database (memory), which all requires that the database (memory) is in a completely known state during the complete transaction and that the each individual change must be successful (instruction must not cause an excepion or error) for the complete set of changes to be valid.
See at the bottom of this article for an example.
From another operators viewpoint (an I/O unit), the database (memory) must never be left in an half-updated state. Therefor, all individual database updates takes place in a temporary storage area, which is only made permanent when it has been determinated that no errors have occurred during the sequence.
This patent is merely a hardware-implementation of the temporary storage area and the commit/rollback behaviour in SQL database.
So what are TM using this patent for? Well, read on!:-)
It is actually only a piece in their real invention; a programmable processor. Note; I do NOT thinks this is a processor with hardware-emulation, although it can probably be used as such.
Their invention, though, is acually not even that new, but it probably haven't been used in full-scale. I know for sure that it was possible to write new CPU-instructions for an old mini-computer called the NORD 100, simply by altering the microcode that was to be executed when certain OP-codes were fetched.
As far as I can understand from their previous patents, that is what they seem to be developing: A small, generic, multi-purpose processor that can be programmed to understand an arbitary set of CPU-instructions. Because of that, the actual numbers of transistors required can be kept to a minimum.
The good thing about this are several:
A lower amount of processors will fail the burn-in test during production, since the failure-rate increases exponentially with the number of transistors. Thus, lower costs for "same" speed.
Less transistors also means lower complexity and this can aid in higher speeds at the same clock frequency.
Less transistors also means less heat, allowing for even higher clock frequecies.
Probably this means that the actual number of CPU-instructions that can be understood will be limited, but as mentioned in the patent, 2MB internal RAM is enough to execute x86 programs.
If smaller internal RAM is used, more specialized CPU-instruction sets can be allowed, for example the instruction set of a JVM, postscript, extremely high-speed numbercruncher (code-cracker, image-manipulating DSP, modem) or whatever. I personally believe this processor will be a modular processor that will find its use in embedded applications such as printers, routers, web-servers, cameras, fingerprint controllers, copiers, palm-tops etc., where many features of the standard x86 CPUs (MMX, 3D NOW!, virtual 8086 emulation, page fault detection etc) can be left out for the benefit of some highly specialized features such as a JVM, postscript interpreter, DSP or something similiar.
However, they do write the following in the patent, which is pretty cool:
As a comparison, one embodiment of the present invention designed to run all available X86 applications is implemented by a morph host including
approximately one-quarter of the number of gates of the Pentium Pro microprocessor yet runs X86 applications substantially faster than does the Pentium Pro microprocessor or any other known microprocessor capable of processing these applications.
(enhancements are mine)
/Flutte
Example from above
An example would be a database where the ages of persons were stored as years since the person was born, rather than date of birth. Every January 1st, the complete database must be updated. We cannot allow the update to fail after a couple of persons, since if that happends, we do not know who were updated, and who weren't.
You automatically own the copyright of the article, since you wrote it. You didn't even have have had an copyright notice on it. Because of that, noone - in the whole world, not only the US - may publish that article (in whole or parts larger than a qoutation required for an article written by them) without your permission.
Even though you want people to spread opinions or thoughts in the article, you can still sue THEM for copyright intrusion (unless you by now have given them permission to re-publish the article).
And, event if you state that you really want people to re-distribute the article, my personal opinion is that you ought to sue them. Just to maintain the point that you want to know who and where the article is re-printed.
Disclaimer: I'm NOT a lawyer. Even thought I've taken a university course in patent and other immaterial rights in Sweden, I might be wrong.
For example, the Swiss company Digital-Logic manufacturs various fan-less PC/104 or single-chip modules in the range from 386 to Pentium which can be equipped with 2 to 144 MB FlashROM disk-on-a-chip modules, or even 1" harddrives.
Slashdot Mirror
However, the coins and notes of the old currency were kept in circulation until enough EURO notes and coins had been manufactured (as of today, that is); so - since then - giving someone a 1 DEM note has just been the only possible way of giving someone a ~0.50 EUR coin. Most people never thoght of that in that way, though.
Several years before that, all countries coordinated their economic policies so that the inflation and exchange rations for each country had to be kept within limits that had been agreed upon in advanced.
One of the reasons (there were many others as well) for creating a single currency, was to strengthen the smaller countries during periods of high inflations and protect them from speculations done by George Soros and other powerful individuals on the currency-exchanges, in order to avoid what currently happends in Argentina.
First of all; make an analyzis of the code; Is it modular? What dependencies are there within the code? Was it thought to be modular from the start, and in that case, has the modules started to deteriate? Are there functions/variables that are just positioned at the wrong places? Functions/variables only used by one or two other functions? Functions/variables used by way too many functions?
Based on those questions; start moveing functions and variables between modules. Consider that a module may be more than a single file, but probably not more than 10 files. Try to keep the number of functions per file to about 10 or less. Also, try to keep the number of files per module to 10 or less. Since you have more than 100 files, try grouping them in at least two blocks. Why not try to use the model-view-control or (interface-control-entity if you're into UML) model?
All this can be done without endangering the code, since you do not rename anything; and thus, you do not risk to suddenly start using some other variable/function than you intended. But, remember not to change more than one thing at at time without testing!
Also, if the language can't help you protecting (file-, module- or block-) private functions/variables, use comments to mark them as non-accesible from functions not in that file, module or block.
Now that the code is logically arranged, it is easy to see if there are functions that perfom a similar thing, since they (probably) would have ended up in the same module - or even the same file.
At this stage, you might want to actually start re-writing one or several functions in order to get rid of those functions that does almost the same thing. Also, you might want to re-name some functions to better represent their actual use.
However, if you do that, first think if you want to enforce any coding-standard starting with new functions? If so, create a coding-standard that most closely matches the code written so far, thus only a smaller portion of the code will fail to comply with the standard.
Whitehouse.gov service killed for several hours
I just don't see the obvious in US alone saving the world...
But first, the paniced masses must be given hope by the Hero in a 2.5 minute monologue, followed by cheers all over the world... :-)
(I don't dislike american action movies, but they certainly are predictable - just as the american view of the world and the american position in it)
A better metric might be the ratio of intrusions/attempts
For the rest of the text, one have to assume that intrusion attemts are common enough to measure. If there are less than one script kiddie attempt/month or something like that, chances are very small that someone would direct anything but a random attack at the site.
But, I would also suggest adding an Average Intrusion Age, i.e., the number of days/weeks/years the methods used for the intrusion attempts was known to the general public. In my opinion, that way a metric on how interesting a specific site is to hack can be obtained;
The theory is that only people that are interesting in hacking the specific site will bother using the newest methods. Script kiddies will be forced to use older methods, waiting for the availability of public tools, and should the hack attempt fail, they are likely to focus on other sites instead.
By combining that metric with the average time taken by you to patch a sequrity hole from the moment it the hole was known to the public, one would get an indication of the probability that an intrusion attempt will succeed.
That knowledge, toghether with the number of attempts/month can be an indicator of if the systems sequrity is good enough.
Second comment:
Hardware can be meaningfully rated with a MTBF value because the errors are random, physical (often mechanical) defects. It is a measure of how likely a given operation is to fail.
With software, usually the same operation always fails. Software errors are design errors, not random failure.
I would like to add some nuiances to your statement; Yes, hardware failures due to malfunctioning or breaking components are random - providing the design itself is flawless, but there may also exist design flaws.
The same does exist in software as well. Some failures are caused by design flaws, others are introduced due to human error (typos that makes it through the compiler etc). The latter are per definition random, and can happend anywhere in the code.
When a software fault occurs, it does the same error every time that piece of code is executed with the same data. But the same applies to a mechanical component as well; if it can break in one way, that's the way it breaks when it breaks.
However, mechanical objects can break in an unpredictable number of ways since mecahnical (and electrical items) are affected by a hughe number of unknown and apparently random outside parameters, but that is true for software as well: Software very seldom execute in the same way - due to circumstances not controlled by the actual application (such as other applications, actual sequence of user or I/O input, swapping, availability of resources, timing and interrupts etc).
Thus, the failure might appear to be random to an outside viewer in the exact same way mecanical failures can appear as random.
Since most of us aren't equal to each others when it comes to preferences, I see no reason for me to pay as much for an item that I think I could live without as someone for whom its the "must have" item. I don't want to pay for someone elses desires .
This in mind, I also acknowledge the fact that I will have to pay more than someone else for items I really want. But that's not a problem, because since I really want the item, I value the item more - up to a certain limit. At some price, it simply won't be worth it anymore!
All this in consideration, I might end up paying more than my friends for some item, but they wouldn't buy it if it cost more than they paid anyway, and the seller obviously was unable to sell it to anyone willing to pay more (since in that case my friend wouldn't be offered it at such a low price). After a while I might have ended up paying a lot for the few items I really desired, but I probably have gained a lot of stuff that I liked but could have been without (if I would have had to make a choice) at a bargain price, so everything would have been evened out. I wouldn't have lost anything, but the seller have gained.
Thus, summing it all up, there is a total gain, which is good for everybody.
For example, while the rest of the world has been using the first-to-file approach to patents, the US uses a first-to-invent approach. That is - even if you patent an invention in the US, someone else may sue you after you've made millions of dollars and claim that "i've already done that before you did that", and demand that you pay him _lots_ of royalties.
Thus, in the US, these are the steps to take in order to make big bucks on patents:
- Make sure you're a patent attourney
- Locate a company that have a patent on something fairly trivial (Do I hear "one-click shopping", or "XOR Cursor"?)
- Make sure the company has made big bucks using the methods patented
- Now locate an unsuspecting citizen or a small firm that did something that can be applied on the patent prior to it being filed
- Make sure you offer them your service - with a hughe percentage
- Sue the company, claiming that your client made the invention
As they say, US is the land of opportuneties...Anyway, for the 4.5 billion non US-citizens of the world, it's time for the US to accept the international view on IP.
During his time as Swedish Prime Minister, the Swedish Government opened their first version of their website (I can't remember what year, but it was when Lynx and Mosaic were the only browsers available), and his party were very early using BBSes to distribute information throughout the organization.
He was the first swedish politician to start an on-line diary (an e-mail list), which he has (personally, actually - fairly unusual for such a high-ranking politician) updated once a week ever since '95. It was then written mostly on European airports inbetween flights and uploaded to the net using a GSM cellular phone.
I remember an interview he attended (with Stina Dabrowski if any Swede out there wonders), where he was asked about his interest for technology, and he claimed that he wasn't a tech nerd, but liked using new technology if it was better than old technology, and he had a positive attidute towards what new technology would be able to do in the future.
It is claimed in Sweden that he was the first prime minister of the world to communicate using e-mail with the US President - even if I guess it's mostly been used as a PR stunt.
It's fairly easy to sigh when comparing him with our current minister of communication and infrastructure who just a few years ago stated that "The Internet is just something that will pass by unnoticed and then being forgotten" (swedish: min tolkning av 'internet är bara en fluga').
Since it (obviously) is just a matter of failing to hit the ground and that I wouldn't be able to hit the wall of a barn - from the inside - its really strange I don't fly high every day!
Will never forget all the wonderful moments of joy the jokes have given me! /Flu
While the US system seems more fair at the first glance, it also requires everybody to keep records that can be proven to be non-forged of all steps leading up to the actual invention, in case someone else sues because they claim they came up with the idea first.
Because of that, more people try to sue their way to patents, rather than actually spend time on actual inventing.
The drawback of the "first to file"-system is (basically) that if you're just a single day later than your competitor (even if he actually stole your drawings on the same day he filed the application), you won't be granted the patent.
People that do a good job don't need to work cheap.
And doing a good job isn't just about doing it. It should be done within the time-limit. With a minimum of bugs (not bug-free, because no single individual can create a bug-free program). It should also be understandable. And maintainable. Even after you've left the company.
Any company that don't agree with that probably can't afford to pay any wage at all after a while, because they will go broke!
Maybe because retailers don't get instruction from the shampoo manufacturer that they aren't allowed to sell the shampoo unless the customer buys a pair of jeans as well.
Generally, when the service asks me to alter the password, I change one or several position of the password (most often enough to fool the password change check-if-not-too-similar algorithm) in a way that is obvious to me, but not to anyone else, since there is no natural pattern involved.
Even if some passwords more or less by accident may look like a correct word in one or several well-known languages, most dont - not in english, french, german or my naitive (swedish) language. The reason is that I try to mis-spell or alter spelling of words into something completely unrecognizeable.
Quick summary of this article
To quickly summarize this article in a way we all know something about:
The "OS" can be thought of as several things
To me, the OS can be separated into several items:
One may also remember that the OS vendor may or may not include variour applications, which provides the OS user which something that can actually USE the hardware located underneath the OS.
What does this really mean?
Comparing this to the current Microsoft trial, it is pretty obvious that IE 4.0 is only a vendor-supplied application to the Windows 95/98 OS.
But when it comes to the Windows 98 product, I must admit that I know too little about that product to be really sure. However, since it has been shown in the Microsoft trial that the code behing the IE 5.0 APIs can be replaced by third-party "dummy" code without changeing the functionality of the OS, the IE 5.0 API's clearly belong to the vendor-recommended API's.
The IE 5.0 application (which allows the user to surf the net etc and uses some (most?) of the IE 5.0 API's), is only a vendor-supplied application.
The kernel and device drivers
I do not think anyone will argue that this is part of the operating system, if we only include low-level API's (read one sector of first unit on SCSI device 0, memory allocation, task management etc etc) that hide the hardware from the application.
On any Intel platform, I think that the BIOS fits perfectly into this category.
For Linux users, I believe that the /dev files fall under this category. Since the POSIX APIs are used on most UNIX systems, I think they should be classified into this as well for that kind of operating systems.
Most Amiga users also find that all .libraries present in the Kickstart ROM (the task scheduler and the utility functions of exec.library, the graphics I/O routines of graphics.library, GUI interface of intuition.library, file-systems and file-management functions of dos.library etc) are part of this category. But the Amigans probably don't think that the fopen() functions are part of the OS. They are just another level above the AmigaOS's real Open() functions.
Vendor-recommended API's
These API's and the code executed are any API's that really don't depend on the underlying hardware. The executed code just use the official API's of the Kernel and device drivers instead.
In this category of API's are the API's that the supplier of the kernel and device-driver API's also ship as a service to the application developers in order to shorten the application development time for the OS.
Since these are not actually required for the OS to work , most users might think that these can be thrown out. That is really possible! However; since the API's are supplied by the vendors of the OS at no extra cost to the application developers, it is very likely that third-party application developers will depend on them for their applications.
On the other hand - the user may replace the code with third party code which performs the same task in a different way, allowing more customization or additional features through new - third party supplied - API's.
The latter rather common amongs Amiga users thanks to the very open architecture of the AmigaOS. For Linux users, one may think of the swapping of window managers in this way.
To this group, one may also add the kind of external vendor-supplied applications (cat, sort, head etc) that performs a specific task based on input and returns a parseable result similar to an ordinary API, to be used by third-party applications.
Third party API's
These are normally not really a part of the OS, but sometimes these takes on similar responsibilities as the recommended API's, and in some cases even adds to the kernel or device driver API's.
Depending on their popularity amongs other third-party developers, they will be more or less required by third-party applications.
In the Amiga environment the ARP.library or MUI.library are perfect examples of these. For most Unix-users, metamail or PGP is a decent example. The Windows environment almost completely lacks this type of API's, or they are camouflaged into application-specific DLL's.
Software designer
Above the castle, dark skies, thunderbolts etc, promoting the evil, are visible. (For ideas, see the Iron Maiden album "Killers").
The almost only thing visible thing of the castle are the Large, Fierce Walls surrounding it, with the silhouette of Our Great Enemy (Bill) in a window of the highest tower, maybe counting lots of money. In the middle are a pair of Iron Gates, through which line after line of cloned (or at least identically looking) windowz user can be sighted. On the tower, a very torn, dark and dirty flag wawes in the wind. The flag is - of course - the Windows flag... :-)
Behind the lines, in the celler of the castle is a small window visible, through which a torture chamber is visible. In the chamber, the silhouette of Duke (the Java symbol) hangs side by side with a penguine and a human.
Outside of the castle, the sun is shining, a rainbow is visible in the distance, the meadows are green, butterflies are flying and everyone are happy. "Everyone" are of course some Penguins, each being an individual, most occupied with their own hobby (painting, playing an instrument (with someone selling tickets for the show), writing on a scroll, examining a chart on a computer screen, talking on a cellular phone), but some are helping each other or are involved in a discussion, or listening to a lecture.
This is my main idea of a theme, promoting the freedom, individualism and friendship amongst Linux users, comparing it to the "slavery" and strictly business-without-afterthought-on-the-impact-of-the -individual-users-or-professionals idea of the extremely commercialized windows business.
Of cource it will require some afterthougth on which details to ommit to be able to display the main "theme", even though more background details will make it more fun for us non-Windows fans to watch. :-)
In an ordinary database, the operator (an "emulated" CPU instruction) is doing a series of changes to the database (memory), which all requires that the database (memory) is in a completely known state during the complete transaction and that the each individual change must be successful (instruction must not cause an excepion or error) for the complete set of changes to be valid.
See at the bottom of this article for an example.
From another operators viewpoint (an I/O unit), the database (memory) must never be left in an half-updated state. Therefor, all individual database updates takes place in a temporary storage area, which is only made permanent when it has been determinated that no errors have occurred during the sequence.
This patent is merely a hardware-implementation of the temporary storage area and the commit/rollback behaviour in SQL database.
So what are TM using this patent for? Well, read on! :-)
It is actually only a piece in their real invention; a programmable processor. Note; I do NOT thinks this is a processor with hardware-emulation, although it can probably be used as such.
Their invention, though, is acually not even that new, but it probably haven't been used in full-scale. I know for sure that it was possible to write new CPU-instructions for an old mini-computer called the NORD 100, simply by altering the microcode that was to be executed when certain OP-codes were fetched.
As far as I can understand from their previous patents, that is what they seem to be developing: A small, generic, multi-purpose processor that can be programmed to understand an arbitary set of CPU-instructions. Because of that, the actual numbers of transistors required can be kept to a minimum.
The good thing about this are several:
- A lower amount of processors will fail the burn-in test during production, since the failure-rate increases exponentially with the number of transistors. Thus, lower costs for "same" speed.
- Less transistors also means lower complexity and this can aid in higher speeds at the same clock frequency.
- Less transistors also means less heat, allowing for even higher clock frequecies.
Probably this means that the actual number of CPU-instructions that can be understood will be limited, but as mentioned in the patent, 2MB internal RAM is enough to execute x86 programs.If smaller internal RAM is used, more specialized CPU-instruction sets can be allowed, for example the instruction set of a JVM, postscript, extremely high-speed numbercruncher (code-cracker, image-manipulating DSP, modem) or whatever. I personally believe this processor will be a modular processor that will find its use in embedded applications such as printers, routers, web-servers, cameras, fingerprint controllers, copiers, palm-tops etc., where many features of the standard x86 CPUs (MMX, 3D NOW!, virtual 8086 emulation, page fault detection etc) can be left out for the benefit of some highly specialized features such as a JVM, postscript interpreter, DSP or something similiar.
However, they do write the following in the patent, which is pretty cool:
(enhancements are mine)
Example from above
An example would be a database where the ages of persons were stored as years since the person was born, rather than date of birth. Every January 1st, the complete database must be updated. We cannot allow the update to fail after a couple of persons, since if that happends, we do not know who were updated, and who weren't.
Even though you want people to spread opinions or thoughts in the article, you can still sue THEM for copyright intrusion (unless you by now have given them permission to re-publish the article).
And, event if you state that you really want people to re-distribute the article, my personal opinion is that you ought to sue them. Just to maintain the point that you want to know who and where the article is re-printed.
Disclaimer: I'm NOT a lawyer. Even thought I've taken a university course in patent and other immaterial rights in Sweden, I might be wrong.
The first thing to pop out of its sockets are always the SIMM or DIMMs, since those kind of sockets are not very resistant to shock or vibrations.
:-(
If you put a anyting on a SIMM or a DIMM into a car, it will have popped out by the time you shift into the first gear.
For example, the Swiss company Digital-Logic manufacturs various fan-less PC/104 or single-chip modules in the range from 386 to Pentium which can be equipped with 2 to 144 MB FlashROM disk-on-a-chip modules, or even 1" harddrives.