Perhaps they could replace it with three monkeys. Instead of "see no evil" "hear no evil" and "speak no evil", they could have one monkey for "read the file" one for "write the file" and another for "execute the file".
I can see part of this. For the "read" monkey, there's a monkey sitting at a desk with reading glasses staring at a piece of paper. For the "write" monkey, you have a monkey with a pencil in his hand. But just what exactly are we supposed to use for the "execute" monkey!?
"Mommy, why is George W. Bush killing that monkey?"
The merchant site also implements an electronic shopping cart that allows the customer to select products from multiple different Web sites, and then perform a single "check out" from the merchant's site.
Have they also patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website, even w/o a referral program? IANAL, nor do I have the skills to pretend to be one, so could somebody explain this one?
I am not a patent attorney, blah blah blah.
The part referring to the shopping cart on the merchant site is not patented in and of itself. It is a non-patented piece of the patented system. It's much like patenting a design for an automobile and including "Rotational force is transmitted from the engine to the wheels via a driveshaft". If the statement is not a claim in itself, you're not patenting the driveshaft, but the automobile as a whole, which happens to use a driveshaft. In this case, Amazon's affiliate system happens to use
So no, they haven't patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website. But what they have patented is purchasing from one website through multiple websites, and where the multiple referring websites get a cut of the pie. So long as the associate doesn't get any compensation, it would appear that Amazon's patent is not being violated.
Is it just me, or has this obsession over Superbowl ads gotten to the point of insanity?
Shouldn't the focus be on actual content, not ads
Advertising time for the Superbowl is expensive. Companies buying expensive ad time will usually spend a lot making good commercials. Therefore, to someone who has little interest in football, the advertising may in fact be better than the content.
That said, I didn't watch the game at all. And unlike some of the other posters, it wasn't "on principle". I just wasn't interested.
Human nature is perverse in that if you make a task look easy (think of an experienced TV repairman coming in, taking one look and replacing the exact part that failed), you tend to underappreciate it. You can see the "effortless" basket scoring or the clever hack but how many people realise the years or decades of training that led to it?
This reminds me of the story about the retired engineer:
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines.
They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.
The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is."
The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.
The engineer responded briefly:
One chalk mark $1
Knowing where to put it $49,999
It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.
By comparison Seti@Home is already processing data faster than it can be created. Optimizing the client won't make the analysis go any faster - maybe they would be able to check each work unit three times instead of two. But, where's the incentive to optimize?
You're looking at it from the wrong angle. From the viewpoint of the overall project, yes, "we" are processing data faster than it can be created, and so, there is no reason to try to make the clients any faster. But from the _user's_ viewpoint, it's taking him hours to do one data block, it should be faster! Who cares if he has to wait a few days to get the next one so long as the one he's got finishes quickly? Once it's done, he can go do other things with his processor.
And making the client faster could benefit the project overall. Say by some miracle, the algorithm is tuned to be twice as fast. Horror of horrors, now we have to send out twice as much data, but we don't have it! So, send out the data you've already checked (and I don't mean like that bug early in the project). The more times a single block of data is checked, the more likely it hasn't been affected by a modified client or random errors.
Now to start the analysis:
Crusoe = castaway = Throw away your old processors?
Since they're pushing the mobility aspects of the chip, I'd say they're trying to imply that it'd still be useful if you were stranded on a desert island. This fits in with their site's graphics, with a single set of footprints wandering around in the middle of nowhere.
Sure, a lot of great minds have been laughed at, but out of all thepeople that have been laughed at, greatness must be.000000001%.
"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown" - Carl Sagan
no its due to Florida's closeness to equator...
take off from higher latitude and you have to factor in many more variables into your launch window
If it were merely a matter of being close to the equator, they could have put the launch site near Miami or Brownsville, Texas, both of which are further south than Canaveral. But they didn't.
From a Kennedy Space Center page about the Space Shuttle:
Kennedy Space Center launches have an allowable path no less than 35 degrees northeast and no greater than 120 degrees southeast. These are azimuth degree readings based on due east from KSC as 90 degrees.
These two azimuths - 35 and 120 degrees - represent the launch limits from the KSC. Any azimuth angles further north or south would launch a spacecraft over a habitable land mass, adversely affect safety provisions for abort or vehicle separation conditions, or present the undesirable possibility that the SRB or external tank could land on foreign land or sea space.
If the launch site was in Miami, the available launch angles would be greatly reduced, as any launches angled to the south would risk dropping a SRB onto the Bahamas. Likewise, basing the launches in Brownsville would risk dropping shuttle bits along the entire US Gulf Coast, Florida, the Yucatan, and Cuba.
A cellphone web browser. Now I can have the web on the subway, on the job, at a restaurant. Just click in and I'm there.
(That slurping sound is productivity going down the drain)
And in the car. (That crunching sound is your car being hit by someone trying to drive and browse at the same time)
Speaking of marketting flacks, I once heard both music and sound effects from the game Apeiron on a commercial for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I only saw it once, and no one believed me. I couldn't have been the only one, will someone confirm this? It may have been made by the local station, channel 46 in Atlanta.
Ambrosia doesn't produce their music in house. They buy it from some outfit that I can't remember the name of, which produces music for that sort of thing. I've heard the music used as opening themes to Ambrosia games appear in commercials, and I seem to recall one of them popping up in an episode of Mad About You (I was flipping past, honest)
In fact, if you watched CNN during the last launch, we designed the program that showed the roll, pitch, yaw, attitude, velocity, and attitude (It was a Java applet if you were interested).
If that was the same program as they used on landing, I wouldn't be bragging. It said they were going 800 miles per hour pointed straight up at an altitude of a few thousand feet (can't remember exactly) as the wheels hit the ground.
Try using your local computers if the power company screws up with billing and deactivates your 'account'.
And try using any kind of electronic device at all, whether the data/processing is local or not if the power is off.
And try using your remotely served software if the ASP (Application Service Provider, which appears to be the defacto term for this) "screws up with billing and deactivates your 'account'." Really, this is far more likely than the power company screwing up. The electrical utilities have been billing people for decades, is some startup in a completely new field really going to be more reliable? And how are you going to argue that they screwed up? With the power company, if they overbill you for something, you can go outside and look at the numbers on the meter. With remote programs (assuming we're paying by the minute for usage), it's basically your word vs. theirs. Their logs show you used 90 minutes of time, while yours say only 30. So who's right?
I am not talking about today, I am talking about the future. Things will presumedly by much more reliable in the technological realm.
And presumably, we'd be living on Mars by now. Making presumptions about the future is one of those funny things, just because somebody thinks it will happen, doesn't necessarily mean it will.
Percieved reliability is a big problem. If there's a failure at your end, there was always something you could do about it. Whether it's doing daily backups or buying a UPS, the safety of your data is in your hands. If something goes wrong at your service provider, you're screwed. This is especially a problem for the "stick the AOL disk in and get online" crowd, as they lack the experience or the intelligence to figure out who's a good SP, and who isn't. And don't assume the public at large is going to become magically knowledgeable about how the system works, and what factors affect their data's safety.
Now, just to be fair, I don't think the idea of remote storage and processing is necessarily a bad one. It's just that I don't think it's ready for primetime, nor is it a be-all and end-all solutions to the problem of computing. To paraphrase jwz, you can't take a complex project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'in the future it'll work' and have everything magically work out. The issues aren't that simple. Somebody has to get whatever follows ADSL and cable modems into Joe User's house. Somebody has to manufacture these "smart TVs." (the issue of whether or not a tv is the best hardware to use a web browser on is another issue entirely) Somebody has to build the application servers, and establish some sort of standard for the equipment. Somebody has to convince software companies that it's a good idea to let service providers rent their software out to end users. And most importantly, somebody has to convince the users that it's a good idea. If it doesn't make sense to the people who are supposed to pay money for the service, it ain't gonna happen.
The Skycar's estimated maximum ceiling is 30,000 feet. It's definitely an aircraft =) They're limited to low altitude for the tests because their insurance won't cover much more until the vehicle is proven.
Now whether or not it will actually work well enough to even get off the ground, I don't know.
Top speed is also an estimated 390 mph, not the 600 mph in the Reuters article, and the estimated milage is 15 mpg on standard unleaded gasoline, with a maximum range of 900 miles.
The definition of exactly what the vehicle is has been set by the FAA. It is classified as a "powered-lift aircraft." This contrasts with fixed wing for standard airplanes, and rotary wing for helicopters.
As for takeoff and landing, that will have to occur at airports, although Moller says that the FAA is planning to build several hundred "vertiports" to handle vehicles like his own and a civilian model V-22 Osprey.
I hate to reply to myself, but after finding a link to the original New Scientist article, the source of the error became obvious. From the New Scientist article:
...road-going vehicle, it has the shape of a Batmobile and a top speed of over
600 kilometres per hour. There is one other unusual thing about the "Skycar": it takes off...
From the Reuters article on CNN.com:
...people, do about 5 miles per liter of gas, have
a top speed of over 600 mph and will take off and land vertically.
Moller's web site states that the cruising speed is 350 mph, and top speed is 390, not the 600 mph Reuters (or possibly New Scientist magazine, Reuters' source) claimed. According to statistics provided by Moller (so the veracity of the numbers isn't guaranteed), it should have a comparable passenger miles/gallon to a 737.
The site also states that the rotary engines that power the Skycar run on ordinary gasoline.
People are in such a hurry to state their views on a subject that they just don't read anything all the way through before replying. Case in point:
I fully expect to send my future children to a school where they aren't required to spell correctly until the 6th grade.
Why would you do that? Why not home-school or send them to a private school which will teach them properly, only takes people who want to learn, and has armed security just in case any idiot decides they want to shoot the place up? Home-schoolers don't have to worry about other students killing their kids, and their kids normally do much better academically.
Now, if the AC had actually read the full post in question, he would have seen that pspeed hopes that he can bein a position where he can keep his son or daughter out of public schools.
One of the better jokes from the show. Cops pull out sticks turn em on, get the cool buzzing/powering up sound...then proceed to beat Fry with the glowing batons. Very nice.
Followed by the inevitable "No need to use Force."
Clause 2.1 states the terms of use for internal development, which state that you do not have to redistribute the source code as long as it is being used for development only.
Once you decide to actually use the code, section 2.2 takes over, which is basically the same as most other open source licenses, with the exception of 2.2c, which requires notification of how to obtain source code modifications.
And as far as Open Source definition clause 6, let's look at the rationale for it:
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor.
The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see part of this. For the "read" monkey, there's a monkey sitting at a desk with reading glasses staring at a piece of paper. For the "write" monkey, you have a monkey with a pencil in his hand. But just what exactly are we supposed to use for the "execute" monkey!?
"Mommy, why is George W. Bush killing that monkey?"
Scientific American, February 2000, The Galileo Mission to Jupiter and Its Moons page 43, 44, 46-47.
The text of the article is available is available online, including a diagram of the Io flux tube and plasma torus.
So, you're saying an automated vehicle wouldn't suffer from "code rage"?
AAAHHH!! A pun! Get it off! Get it off!
I am not a patent attorney, blah blah blah.
The part referring to the shopping cart on the merchant site is not patented in and of itself. It is a non-patented piece of the patented system. It's much like patenting a design for an automobile and including "Rotational force is transmitted from the engine to the wheels via a driveshaft". If the statement is not a claim in itself, you're not patenting the driveshaft, but the automobile as a whole, which happens to use a driveshaft. In this case, Amazon's affiliate system happens to use
So no, they haven't patented the concept of purchasing from multiple websites through a single website. But what they have patented is purchasing from one website through multiple websites, and where the multiple referring websites get a cut of the pie. So long as the associate doesn't get any compensation, it would appear that Amazon's patent is not being violated.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the monkeys in washington are entirely organic. Except for Strom Thurmond, he's being held together with duct tape.
Advertising time for the Superbowl is expensive. Companies buying expensive ad time will usually spend a lot making good commercials. Therefore, to someone who has little interest in football, the advertising may in fact be better than the content.
That said, I didn't watch the game at all. And unlike some of the other posters, it wasn't "on principle". I just wasn't interested.
This reminds me of the story about the retired engineer:
Hemos did not make that statement. notsosilentbob is the one who made the comment, Hemos just let the comment through unedited.
In a Slashdot news post, text in italics is written by the submitter. Plain text is written by the Slashdot crew.
I believe the actual innovation is that it's edible. Can't say the same for grape nuts.
You're looking at it from the wrong angle. From the viewpoint of the overall project, yes, "we" are processing data faster than it can be created, and so, there is no reason to try to make the clients any faster. But from the _user's_ viewpoint, it's taking him hours to do one data block, it should be faster! Who cares if he has to wait a few days to get the next one so long as the one he's got finishes quickly? Once it's done, he can go do other things with his processor.
And making the client faster could benefit the project overall. Say by some miracle, the algorithm is tuned to be twice as fast. Horror of horrors, now we have to send out twice as much data, but we don't have it! So, send out the data you've already checked (and I don't mean like that bug early in the project). The more times a single block of data is checked, the more likely it hasn't been affected by a modified client or random errors.
"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown" - Carl Sagan
Claris Emailer 2.0 supports PGP quite nicely, if you can manage to track down a copy.
Eudora also supports PGP.
If it were merely a matter of being close to the equator, they could have put the launch site near Miami or Brownsville, Texas, both of which are further south than Canaveral. But they didn't.
From a Kennedy Space Center page about the Space Shuttle:
If the launch site was in Miami, the available launch angles would be greatly reduced, as any launches angled to the south would risk dropping a SRB onto the Bahamas. Likewise, basing the launches in Brownsville would risk dropping shuttle bits along the entire US Gulf Coast, Florida, the Yucatan, and Cuba.
(That crunching sound is your car being hit by someone trying to drive and browse at the same time)
If that was the same program as they used on landing, I wouldn't be bragging. It said they were going 800 miles per hour pointed straight up at an altitude of a few thousand feet (can't remember exactly) as the wheels hit the ground.
And try using any kind of electronic device at all, whether the data/processing is local or not if the power is off.
And try using your remotely served software if the ASP (Application Service Provider, which appears to be the defacto term for this) "screws up with billing and deactivates your 'account'." Really, this is far more likely than the power company screwing up. The electrical utilities have been billing people for decades, is some startup in a completely new field really going to be more reliable? And how are you going to argue that they screwed up? With the power company, if they overbill you for something, you can go outside and look at the numbers on the meter. With remote programs (assuming we're paying by the minute for usage), it's basically your word vs. theirs. Their logs show you used 90 minutes of time, while yours say only 30. So who's right?
And presumably, we'd be living on Mars by now. Making presumptions about the future is one of those funny things, just because somebody thinks it will happen, doesn't necessarily mean it will.
Percieved reliability is a big problem. If there's a failure at your end, there was always something you could do about it. Whether it's doing daily backups or buying a UPS, the safety of your data is in your hands. If something goes wrong at your service provider, you're screwed. This is especially a problem for the "stick the AOL disk in and get online" crowd, as they lack the experience or the intelligence to figure out who's a good SP, and who isn't. And don't assume the public at large is going to become magically knowledgeable about how the system works, and what factors affect their data's safety.
Now, just to be fair, I don't think the idea of remote storage and processing is necessarily a bad one. It's just that I don't think it's ready for primetime, nor is it a be-all and end-all solutions to the problem of computing. To paraphrase jwz, you can't take a complex project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'in the future it'll work' and have everything magically work out. The issues aren't that simple. Somebody has to get whatever follows ADSL and cable modems into Joe User's house. Somebody has to manufacture these "smart TVs." (the issue of whether or not a tv is the best hardware to use a web browser on is another issue entirely) Somebody has to build the application servers, and establish some sort of standard for the equipment. Somebody has to convince software companies that it's a good idea to let service providers rent their software out to end users. And most importantly, somebody has to convince the users that it's a good idea. If it doesn't make sense to the people who are supposed to pay money for the service, it ain't gonna happen.
The Skycar's estimated maximum ceiling is 30,000 feet. It's definitely an aircraft =) They're limited to low altitude for the tests because their insurance won't cover much more until the vehicle is proven.
Now whether or not it will actually work well enough to even get off the ground, I don't know.
Top speed is also an estimated 390 mph, not the 600 mph in the Reuters article, and the estimated milage is 15 mpg on standard unleaded gasoline, with a maximum range of 900 miles.
The definition of exactly what the vehicle is has been set by the FAA. It is classified as a "powered-lift aircraft." This contrasts with fixed wing for standard airplanes, and rotary wing for helicopters.
As for takeoff and landing, that will have to occur at airports, although Moller says that the FAA is planning to build several hundred "vertiports" to handle vehicles like his own and a civilian model V-22 Osprey.
From the Reuters article on CNN.com:
The site also states that the rotary engines that power the Skycar run on ordinary gasoline.
Now, if the AC had actually read the full post in question, he would have seen that pspeed hopes that he can bein a position where he can keep his son or daughter out of public schools.
Followed by the inevitable "No need to use Force."
Try reading some more.
Clause 2.1 states the terms of use for internal development, which state that you do not have to redistribute the source code as long as it is being used for development only.
Once you decide to actually use the code, section 2.2 takes over, which is basically the same as most other open source licenses, with the exception of 2.2c, which requires notification of how to obtain source code modifications.
And as far as Open Source definition clause 6, let's look at the rationale for it:
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor.
The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.
Some less polite (read "wimpy excuses for band nerds") people know it as "pompous circumcision". But not I, because I have lips of steel.