This is my situation exactly. I did a comprehensive study of 6 months of usage comparing what I would have paid on every plan I could find, and the contract plans failed miserably--the worst prepaid plan was still 30% cheaper and the best was 70% cheaper.
It was really very simple. I was paying $50 per month with tax for 450 minutes/month, which equals $0.11 per minute IF I USED EVERY SINGLE ONE--and I only used about 50 minutes per month. Now that I'm on PagePlusCellular, I am paying $0.06 per minute regardless of how much I use, and loving it.
I admit there are some REALLY CRAPPY prepaid plans, like the ones that charge $1 every day you use it even if you only used 1 minute. THAT could totally cost more than your contract. But if you shop smarter instead of harder you can find some good ones out there.
Flash memory is a later form of EEPROM. In the industry, there is a convention to reserve the term EEPROM to byte-wise erasable memories compared to block-wise erasable flash memories.
I concede that there in principle Flash and EEPROM are very similar, but the fact remains that the Microchip part is made on a super-robust 180nm process, while state-of-the-art high-density flash chips use 60nm, 45nm or smaller transistors. There is basically no correlation between the longevity of the two processes because they are so different on the molecular scale.
Okay, I'll bite. Let me introduce you to this thing called "functional equivalence". You do realize that even though they are all "nonvolatile storage," there is a difference between EEPROM and Flash, and that there are many different kinds of low- and high-density Flash and they all have different proprietary silicon designs with different characteristics?
Microchip EEPROMs are specifically designed for low-density, high-reliability applications, and are totally different at the transistor level from high-density MLC Flash used in solid state disks.
They do, but they can't agree on anything unless it is completely unimportant and/or to "save the children." Having real debates just isn't as fun as screwing people with an easy vote.
Under our present government, everyone IS a criminal, they just don't prosecute every single speeding driver or kid without a bicycle helmet or how many other things. Which is why you can ALWAYS find a pretext for arresting a suspicious person.
You will simply end up with straw purchasers like there are for firearms. Some will get busted, others will not, but criminals will still get what they want when they want it.
This technology is a more advanced version of that. See other posters for links, but I've seen some where the watermark is present on all frames and undetectable by the human eye. That will prevent pirates from cutting the "marked" frames and eliminating the watermark.
At some point the interface, and charging equipment will be the bottleneck to making smaller system.
Not even. Just wait til resonant inductive charging and micro high-speed RF become common, then your paper-thin ereader will have wi-fi and a constant power source.
Speaking from experience, one place this can actually happen is NASA. It may seem like a HORRENDOUS amount of paperwork to do for a flight project, but you better believe it makes a difference. For example, the space shuttle has so many retrofits and modifications and just plain screw-up-fixes it's a miracle the thing flies at all, but they have the procedures so well controlled that now every band-aid get applied every time like clockwork.
I'm really not surprised understaffed IT departments don't spend that much time on documenting what they've "already finished". Even at NASA, it's hard enough to twist people's arms (myself included) into coming up with real manuals and changelogs, but you get what you pay for.
Wait, does that mean when I use my MPEG-generating camera to record clips of my friends watching a movie, with the movie in the background, and then post it on Youtube, that the camera company will get sued for facilitating copyright infringement?
I wonder what they'll ban when women come to be in the legislative majority. NASCAR, probably.
I don't know, misogynistic theocracies tend to be very good at only electing women with Stockholm Syndrome who support the misogyny. Besides, there are plenty of women who like NASCAR, right?
Um, yeah, that is a substitution cipher because each byte is encoded by substituting a different specific byte. It's just a substitution that's really easy to do on a computer with a simple mathematical operation.
You know, I could sort of see this coming, and wanted to play devil's advocate because I had found the first sane defender of software patents in a while. Propaganda is an interesting topic, and the best way to detect it is to find two sides of an argument that disagree on the facts at hand--which is why I tried to summarize the populist fear-mongering as best I could, and you showed the holes in their assumptions. Thank you for an enjoyable conversation, and I will do as you suggest and research the truth before commenting on the subject again.
Unless I am mistaken, you are saying that the premise of the patent is that it will be implemented in hardware, but it would appear that the claims of the patent do not limit it to any particular hardware implementation. If I patent a "multi-level menu system with interactive icons and XML back-end," I can sue anyone using such a feature regardless of the actual algorithms, programming languages, or computing platforms they used to physically implement it. Obviously, not all software patents are this general, but certainly those which include nothing more than your disclaimer fall into this category. To wit, it would appear that one can patent "a device to peel vegetables" and then sue everyone who makes any kind of device that peels vegetables. I hope this analogy seems as absurd to you as it does to me, because it is the same absurdity I see in the majority of software patents.
The reason why people are so upset about the idea of software patents is really very simple. In a free society (where thought-crime is not a punishable offense), the *entire* patent system is incongruous with the freedom to think, invent and prosper. Software patents make this fact painfully obvious by the ease with which ideas can be invented and brought to fruition independently by many different people, used in (and perhaps critical to) a myriad different non-competing applications, and shared between projects and individuals more easily than any physical device. When you are afraid to even think of something and share it for fear of violating one of the many millions of software patents, you can hardly claim to be in the free society that so many of us strive to maintain.
And lastly, we wouldn't be here today if we all accepted what *is* and didn't think about what *should be*--pessimism will get you nowhere, pragmatism will only get you so far, and after that you have to change the world with your own two hands.
That, sir, is what we call a loophole in the interpretation of the law and it must be closed by changing patent law. Why is math any more patentable when you claim to execute it on a physical computing device than when you present it academically (i.e., executed on a human computing device)? The latter is legally non-patentable, so the former should be as well. This is the philosophical argument against software patents.
The only "process" involved in a software patent is the act of executing non-patentable mathematics on nonhuman computing hardware. However, the hardware itself was designed for the express purpose of executing mathematics, making the process neither novel nor nonobvious and thus non-patentable. This is what I believe to be the legal argument against software patents. IANAL, so please correct me if there is an error in my reasoning.
This legal argument has been ignored by patent offices and court systems alike. Only further clarification of patent law by legislative bodies will remedy the situation.
It's not some mythical "gift" that people either have or don't. It is a finely honed skill of combining creative thinking with pragmatic analysis and predicting what will happen in the future of the design process and product lifespan. The people who have "talent" are the ones who have nurtured their creativity and had lots of experience (often in unexpected places) that lets them anticipate what will be needed and how it will be used.
It's true that you can't "teach" it the way you teach someone arithmetic, but you can encourage the development of certain mental processes by providing the right environment, examples, and opportunities. But everyone develops differently, not everyone grows to college age with the same amount of creativity and pragmatism, and not everyone is even able to learn it until later in life. Thus, some people are better designers than others, and hopefully they will end up making more money for it. But that's not to say we can't increase the average design aptitude of the population through concerted effort. They may not all be geniuses, but they may be able to spot a genius when they see one and pay attention to him.
Re:Unfortunately this aint taught in school..
on
The Design of Design
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
In some circles, the "designing" he is talking about is called "system engineering". How do you arrange and partition the components in a system for the maximum amount of efficiency in designing, operating, and maintaining the system? How do you balance the customer's requirements with best practices, and where do you need to push back and get requirements changed? You have to think about the full life cycle of the product, not just any one phase, to come up with a truly elegant design, and this is what system engineering is all about.
That being said, while working at NASA I've seen the "system engineer" title slapped on more than a few engineers who appear to have very little intuition for how to create an elegant design (or frankly any design at all), resulting in bloated products and lots of wasted time explaining (and then implementing) things that are completely irrelevant to the project.
Whether unfortunately or no, system engineering is uncommon as an undergrad topic in most disciplines. It really does take a lot of knowledge and experience to be a true system engineer. That is why the code monkeys coming out of school haven't seen much of it and might not have fully appreciated what they were offered at the time.
Slashdot Mirror
PagePlusCellular's prepaid plans have $0.08 sms instead of $0.20. It's a start.
This is my situation exactly. I did a comprehensive study of 6 months of usage comparing what I would have paid on every plan I could find, and the contract plans failed miserably--the worst prepaid plan was still 30% cheaper and the best was 70% cheaper.
It was really very simple. I was paying $50 per month with tax for 450 minutes/month, which equals $0.11 per minute IF I USED EVERY SINGLE ONE--and I only used about 50 minutes per month. Now that I'm on PagePlusCellular, I am paying $0.06 per minute regardless of how much I use, and loving it.
I admit there are some REALLY CRAPPY prepaid plans, like the ones that charge $1 every day you use it even if you only used 1 minute. THAT could totally cost more than your contract. But if you shop smarter instead of harder you can find some good ones out there.
Technically true, but I should have quoted Wikipedia:
Flash memory is a later form of EEPROM. In the industry, there is a convention to reserve the term EEPROM to byte-wise erasable memories compared to block-wise erasable flash memories.
I concede that there in principle Flash and EEPROM are very similar, but the fact remains that the Microchip part is made on a super-robust 180nm process, while state-of-the-art high-density flash chips use 60nm, 45nm or smaller transistors. There is basically no correlation between the longevity of the two processes because they are so different on the molecular scale.
Good point, I forgot about that. It's easy to find them if you are tracking everyone anyways. Cue the indignant comments:
"What do you mean I can only buy two phones? How do you expect my other three heads to make phone calls?"
"Yes, I have a time machine and am currently living in two other cities with different phone numbers. Why do you ask?"
Okay, I'll bite. Let me introduce you to this thing called "functional equivalence". You do realize that even though they are all "nonvolatile storage," there is a difference between EEPROM and Flash, and that there are many different kinds of low- and high-density Flash and they all have different proprietary silicon designs with different characteristics?
Microchip EEPROMs are specifically designed for low-density, high-reliability applications, and are totally different at the transistor level from high-density MLC Flash used in solid state disks.
Here, take mine, I don't need it anymore, apparently. I recognized the reference too.
Just kidding. I don't have one either.
Doesn't Cogress have better things to discuss?
They do, but they can't agree on anything unless it is completely unimportant and/or to "save the children." Having real debates just isn't as fun as screwing people with an easy vote.
Under our present government, everyone IS a criminal, they just don't prosecute every single speeding driver or kid without a bicycle helmet or how many other things. Which is why you can ALWAYS find a pretext for arresting a suspicious person.
It's more insidious than that. Who buys the prepaids? poor people.
So it's all about tracking the poor.
I'm not poor, I'm frugal, you insensitive clod!
Seriously, /. needs a "+0 Ironic" mod value.
You will simply end up with straw purchasers like there are for firearms. Some will get busted, others will not, but criminals will still get what they want when they want it.
This technology is a more advanced version of that. See other posters for links, but I've seen some where the watermark is present on all frames and undetectable by the human eye. That will prevent pirates from cutting the "marked" frames and eliminating the watermark.
At some point the interface, and charging equipment will be the bottleneck to making smaller system.
Not even. Just wait til resonant inductive charging and micro high-speed RF become common, then your paper-thin ereader will have wi-fi and a constant power source.
Sounds like the solution is to be proud you made them angry, and revel in your newfound infamy. 'Nuff said.
Speaking from experience, one place this can actually happen is NASA. It may seem like a HORRENDOUS amount of paperwork to do for a flight project, but you better believe it makes a difference. For example, the space shuttle has so many retrofits and modifications and just plain screw-up-fixes it's a miracle the thing flies at all, but they have the procedures so well controlled that now every band-aid get applied every time like clockwork.
I'm really not surprised understaffed IT departments don't spend that much time on documenting what they've "already finished". Even at NASA, it's hard enough to twist people's arms (myself included) into coming up with real manuals and changelogs, but you get what you pay for.
I thought VP8 still violated MPEG-LA's patent pool...? Has anybody actually sued over that yet?
Wait, does that mean when I use my MPEG-generating camera to record clips of my friends watching a movie, with the movie in the background, and then post it on Youtube, that the camera company will get sued for facilitating copyright infringement?
I wonder what they'll ban when women come to be in the legislative majority. NASCAR, probably.
I don't know, misogynistic theocracies tend to be very good at only electing women with Stockholm Syndrome who support the misogyny. Besides, there are plenty of women who like NASCAR, right?
Um, yeah, that is a substitution cipher because each byte is encoded by substituting a different specific byte. It's just a substitution that's really easy to do on a computer with a simple mathematical operation.
You know, I could sort of see this coming, and wanted to play devil's advocate because I had found the first sane defender of software patents in a while. Propaganda is an interesting topic, and the best way to detect it is to find two sides of an argument that disagree on the facts at hand--which is why I tried to summarize the populist fear-mongering as best I could, and you showed the holes in their assumptions. Thank you for an enjoyable conversation, and I will do as you suggest and research the truth before commenting on the subject again.
Unless I am mistaken, you are saying that the premise of the patent is that it will be implemented in hardware, but it would appear that the claims of the patent do not limit it to any particular hardware implementation. If I patent a "multi-level menu system with interactive icons and XML back-end," I can sue anyone using such a feature regardless of the actual algorithms, programming languages, or computing platforms they used to physically implement it. Obviously, not all software patents are this general, but certainly those which include nothing more than your disclaimer fall into this category. To wit, it would appear that one can patent "a device to peel vegetables" and then sue everyone who makes any kind of device that peels vegetables. I hope this analogy seems as absurd to you as it does to me, because it is the same absurdity I see in the majority of software patents.
The reason why people are so upset about the idea of software patents is really very simple. In a free society (where thought-crime is not a punishable offense), the *entire* patent system is incongruous with the freedom to think, invent and prosper. Software patents make this fact painfully obvious by the ease with which ideas can be invented and brought to fruition independently by many different people, used in (and perhaps critical to) a myriad different non-competing applications, and shared between projects and individuals more easily than any physical device. When you are afraid to even think of something and share it for fear of violating one of the many millions of software patents, you can hardly claim to be in the free society that so many of us strive to maintain.
And lastly, we wouldn't be here today if we all accepted what *is* and didn't think about what *should be*--pessimism will get you nowhere, pragmatism will only get you so far, and after that you have to change the world with your own two hands.
That, sir, is what we call a loophole in the interpretation of the law and it must be closed by changing patent law. Why is math any more patentable when you claim to execute it on a physical computing device than when you present it academically (i.e., executed on a human computing device)? The latter is legally non-patentable, so the former should be as well. This is the philosophical argument against software patents.
The only "process" involved in a software patent is the act of executing non-patentable mathematics on nonhuman computing hardware. However, the hardware itself was designed for the express purpose of executing mathematics, making the process neither novel nor nonobvious and thus non-patentable. This is what I believe to be the legal argument against software patents. IANAL, so please correct me if there is an error in my reasoning.
This legal argument has been ignored by patent offices and court systems alike. Only further clarification of patent law by legislative bodies will remedy the situation.
That's why they need to look at hot porn stars. To get their minds off the ugly fat people.
It's not some mythical "gift" that people either have or don't. It is a finely honed skill of combining creative thinking with pragmatic analysis and predicting what will happen in the future of the design process and product lifespan. The people who have "talent" are the ones who have nurtured their creativity and had lots of experience (often in unexpected places) that lets them anticipate what will be needed and how it will be used.
It's true that you can't "teach" it the way you teach someone arithmetic, but you can encourage the development of certain mental processes by providing the right environment, examples, and opportunities. But everyone develops differently, not everyone grows to college age with the same amount of creativity and pragmatism, and not everyone is even able to learn it until later in life. Thus, some people are better designers than others, and hopefully they will end up making more money for it. But that's not to say we can't increase the average design aptitude of the population through concerted effort. They may not all be geniuses, but they may be able to spot a genius when they see one and pay attention to him.
In some circles, the "designing" he is talking about is called "system engineering". How do you arrange and partition the components in a system for the maximum amount of efficiency in designing, operating, and maintaining the system? How do you balance the customer's requirements with best practices, and where do you need to push back and get requirements changed? You have to think about the full life cycle of the product, not just any one phase, to come up with a truly elegant design, and this is what system engineering is all about.
That being said, while working at NASA I've seen the "system engineer" title slapped on more than a few engineers who appear to have very little intuition for how to create an elegant design (or frankly any design at all), resulting in bloated products and lots of wasted time explaining (and then implementing) things that are completely irrelevant to the project.
Whether unfortunately or no, system engineering is uncommon as an undergrad topic in most disciplines. It really does take a lot of knowledge and experience to be a true system engineer. That is why the code monkeys coming out of school haven't seen much of it and might not have fully appreciated what they were offered at the time.