According to the table he charged about $2500 for the SQL conversion, documentation, and network setup. This is included in the approx. $5k quote for Linux. He also needed to charge nearly $2k for the four machines that kept Win2k and Office2k. This compared to $15k for the complete Win2k solution.
He doesn't really say how much he charged for the research, but it sounds like he might have eaten it as a "learning experience."
They are on display in the display department. In the basement of the courthouse. The lights are out. So are the stairs. In a locked filing cabinet with a sign that says "Beware of the Leopard".
Just because something is a public record doesn't mean that you necessarily are going to find it...
First I'll admit that I'm pretty conflicted about this story and I'm not sure what to believe (that's why I'm reading other people's posts, I guess). But you have one comment, I'd like to respond to...
Anyone who wants to make their own version will have to do their own research and come up with their own manufacturing process, and do separate studies on the impact of _their_ version of the drug [replace "drug" with software/business method/anything else that has rocked/. in the last year or more].
Isn't this exactly the kind of world many of us in software development would like to see? Our code is copyrighted (and licensed through GPL, maybe) but the idea's are open to the public. Sure, I might need to write my own.gif reader/writer, but the idea would be free.
If patents were applied to the drug world the same way they are applied to software, we'd have companies like Roche with patents on "the ability to cure or slow the spread of HIV" as apposed to patents on specific medicines. That REALLY would kill research into AIDS...
It seems, IMHO, the people who dislike M$ really dislike them, and make their opinions known to their political reps. On the other hand the people who like M$ don't like it enough to put forth such an effort.
The flip side of this is that the people who like Microsoft (i.e. Microsoft Corp itself) have two-hundred-thousand-million-billion dollars to buy congressional LOVE. On the other hand, people who don't like Microsoft are unlikely to spend any money on their crusade. In other words, dollars are the only opinions that matter to "political reps".
Earthlink has been advertising that you get X number of hours of dial-up included in your monthly DSL bill. Unfortunately, I'm too far from the magical DSL box to be able to get it so I'm stuck with dial-up anyway.
Which is approximately similar to saying that the 98 pound guy has a relationship with his prison cell roommate; the 400 pound sex offender named Rock. Quest customers have about equal choice in their relationship. That is what monopolies mean. If nothing else, little lawsuits against gargantuan monopolies, is the little guy's only chance for revenge.
I personally don't like lawsuits, in general, but it's the only avenue to express one's opinion in these situations.
A lot of what we call intelligence is very self serving. If we changed the definition of intelligence to include gorrillas or whales or dolphins or golden retrievers it would be very difficult to continue some of the businesses that depend upon the exploitation of those creatures.
Do you think the Japanese could get away with the "scientific" slaughter of whales if whales were generally considered to be intelligent with souls and self-awareness and desires? Buddism, for example, doesn't make the arbitray distinction between a human soul and an animal's soul the way Christianity does.
I truly hope we don't have to cope with the quandaries of extra-terrestrial "intelligence" until we've dealt the same issues much closer to home. But, on the other hand, perhaps the discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence will force us to face these questions. Food for thought.
There is a big difference between "noted researcher X who is known to have been involved in technology Y" claiming to have broken an encyrption scheme and "noted slashdot poster SnapShot who is known to have wasted time at work reading slashdot" claiming to have broken the same scheme...
I have to agree, though your entire email could be rewritten by replacing "'liberals' don't want to liberate us from anything except personal responsibility" with "'conservatives' don't want to conserve anything except their narrow religious outlook and their bank accounts". By the larger point remains, only simplistic morons continue to try and describe politics in a black vs. white, left vs. right, linear graph.
Let's pick some examples and give a Bizzaro World rating on each isue:
Abortion: This is one of the weirdest issues to be shoe-horned into the conservative versus liberal scale. Abortion is entirly a religious issue. A powerful subset of religions in this country has decided that this is their litmus test. The supposedly constitutional conservative polititions should be pointing to the "separation of church and state" clause of the Constitution and telling these groups to fuck off. The supposedly careing liberal politions should be fighting for money to build huge government "embryo orphanages" to bring up and help the helpless little zygotes. Bizzaro world rating: 9.7
Welfare (see military): Tax credits to corporations, payments to farmers, discount grazing rates on public lands, mineral rights to public lands sold for a fraction of the private-sector value; all are defended by the supposedly conservative right wing and opposed by the supposedly liberal left. Bizzaro world rating: 9.4
Military (see welfare): The biggest government-funded job program in history is the darling of the conservatives. On the other hand, the biggest government-funded job program in history (that also provides education and training for some of the poorest citizens) is the target of the librerals. Bizzaro world rating: 9.1
Drug War: Similar to the arguments on abortion. The liberals are saying, "Stay out of my life, let me do what I want." The conservatives are pushing for military raids on individiual's homes, "taking" of private property, and system that amounts to little more than a government job's program for lawyers and prison guards. Since the drug war does proportionatly affect minorities and the poor these issue does play into the stereotypes of convervatives versus liberals which limits the bizzaro world rating: 5
Environment: You would think that an Adam Smith solution to this issue would make everyone happy. Make corporations pay the full cost required to clean up after themselves. Charge full market value for logging, grazing, and mineral rights on government land. To do anything less is welfare. The conservatives sure don't seem to pushing very hard on this. On the other hand, liberals seem to have a knee jerk reaction against anything that "commodifies" nature and they also have a tendanency to want to spend infinite amounts of money on perfect solutions instead of available money on those solutions that will do the most good. See the flap over the "arsenic in the drinking water" as a good example of politics over results. Bizzaro world rating: 8.7
My last point: next time someone tries and describe someone as "conservative" or "liberal" when they really mean "right" or "left"... slap them.
I guess I see it as a learning tool. If you type on any configuration for 8 hours a day you are going to take your cues from the screen not the keyboard. But if I set up my custom C++ optimized keyboard layout and Joe comes over to use my computer he can spend hours learning my layout or, if the keyboard were interactive, simply look at the keys.
Also, if a five year old were using a keyboard he/she gets instant feedback. "Ohhh, holding the [shift] gets me capital letters and the punctuation over the numbers, but [caps lock] only gives me capital letters and the numbers aren't affected."
I'm not sure I understand your point. If the capslocks was pressed then all the keys would show capitol letters.
Currently your indicator that the caps lock key is pressed is 1. the little light on the keyborad, 2. the fact that THE LETTERS YOU ARE TYPING are capitalized.
This would simply add a third indication; the fact that all the keys now show CAPITAL letters. Caps Locks key gets turned off, all the keys revert to lowercase.
Not knowing much about electronics, how expensive would it be to have a standard keyboard with little (7mm x 7mm) LCD or LED displays on each key? I did a quick search through Radio Shack's web site but they seemed to be limited to those little numeric LED displays that only have 7 lights.
I could see a lot of uses; allow someone to switch back and forth between Dvorak/Qwerty or between some bastard combination (e.g. I just chopped off my left hand, oops, let's put all of the most common keys in the RH home row.) Or, how about a custom C++ keyboad with ';', '{' and '}' in the homerow? Imagine how much stress you'd save with the braces placed where the 'g' and 'h' keys are.
Anyway, enough musing. The only way it would be useful is if keyboard had a way to show the current keyboard settings. So back to my origional question. Is this technically feasible?
P.S. I was going to patent the idea;), but I'd really be just as happy if someone else would develop it and let me buy one.
P.P.S. I realize the cheap option is to buy a cheap keyboard and paint over the letters...
I may be wrong, but I think "Rot13" is a bit of a misnomer.
Rot(13): Encrypt: Add 13 to each ascii value. If new value is > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt: If <= 13 add 127. Subtract 13. It could be any number. I think historically 13 was used since it wrapped around the (26 character) alphabet.
Rot(string): Add the ascii value to itself. If the new value is > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt: If even number, divide by 2. If odd, add 127 and divide by 2.
Rot(encrypted key): Encrypt by adding the ascii value to the ascii value of a key string. If > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt by subtracting the ascii value of the key string. If the new value is less than 0 then add 127. If I understand the.ppt file correctly this is similar to what Adobe was doing. The trick, of course, is figuring out what the key is or how it is generated. If I understand correctly, a perfectly random key the length of the message being encrypted and that is only known to sender and reciepient is, actually, unbreakable. However, for any real world application you can't generate a truely random key that is only available to you and your customers which is why companies try and generate their keys using hash algorithms and network card ids and stuff like that.
Please feel free to correct any misinformation... I'm not a encryption expert (IANAEE???)
This could be a response to just about any message on this subject.
You want to stop global warming? You really, really want to stop global warming? Fine... put birth control pills in Coke and Big Macs and all foriegn food aid and wait twenty years.
* Attempted censorship. A thousand people immediately buy the book and/or see the movie.
* DCMA. A thousand people that knew nothing about CSS immediatly download DeCSS and buy a T-Shirt with the code.
* DCMA (again). A thousand people immediatly attempt to download the slashdotted powerpoint show.
Am I missing something regarding the effeciveness of these sorts of laws? (Other than, of course, ruining the lives a few individuals who are made the scapegoats.)
Slashdot Mirror
According to the table he charged about $2500 for the SQL conversion, documentation, and network setup. This is included in the approx. $5k quote for Linux. He also needed to charge nearly $2k for the four machines that kept Win2k and Office2k. This compared to $15k for the complete Win2k solution.
He doesn't really say how much he charged for the research, but it sounds like he might have eaten it as a "learning experience."
To paraphase a wise man...
They are on display in the display department. In the basement of the courthouse. The lights are out. So are the stairs. In a locked filing cabinet with a sign that says "Beware of the Leopard".
Just because something is a public record doesn't mean that you necessarily are going to find it...
No, isn't that the trilateral commision? They had their lackeys in the Illuminati create the program directly from the minds of Cthultu.
than some other options if you want to crash them into the Iraqi desert.
First I'll admit that I'm pretty conflicted about this story and I'm not sure what to believe (that's why I'm reading other people's posts, I guess). But you have one comment, I'd like to respond to...
Anyone who wants to make their own version will have to do their own research and come up with their own manufacturing process, and do separate studies on the impact of _their_ version of the drug [replace "drug" with software/business method/anything else that has rocked /. in the last year or more].
Isn't this exactly the kind of world many of us in software development would like to see? Our code is copyrighted (and licensed through GPL, maybe) but the idea's are open to the public. Sure, I might need to write my own .gif reader/writer, but the idea would be free.
If patents were applied to the drug world the same way they are applied to software, we'd have companies like Roche with patents on "the ability to cure or slow the spread of HIV" as apposed to patents on specific medicines. That REALLY would kill research into AIDS...
The flip side of this is that the people who like Microsoft (i.e. Microsoft Corp itself) have two-hundred-thousand-million-billion dollars to buy congressional LOVE. On the other hand, people who don't like Microsoft are unlikely to spend any money on their crusade. In other words, dollars are the only opinions that matter to "political reps".
Earthlink has been advertising that you get X number of hours of dial-up included in your monthly DSL bill. Unfortunately, I'm too far from the magical DSL box to be able to get it so I'm stuck with dial-up anyway.
Which is approximately similar to saying that the 98 pound guy has a relationship with his prison cell roommate; the 400 pound sex offender named Rock. Quest customers have about equal choice in their relationship. That is what monopolies mean. If nothing else, little lawsuits against gargantuan monopolies, is the little guy's only chance for revenge.
I personally don't like lawsuits, in general, but it's the only avenue to express one's opinion in these situations.
A lot of what we call intelligence is very self serving. If we changed the definition of intelligence to include gorrillas or whales or dolphins or golden retrievers it would be very difficult to continue some of the businesses that depend upon the exploitation of those creatures.
Do you think the Japanese could get away with the "scientific" slaughter of whales if whales were generally considered to be intelligent with souls and self-awareness and desires? Buddism, for example, doesn't make the arbitray distinction between a human soul and an animal's soul the way Christianity does.
I truly hope we don't have to cope with the quandaries of extra-terrestrial "intelligence" until we've dealt the same issues much closer to home. But, on the other hand, perhaps the discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence will force us to face these questions. Food for thought.
There is a big difference between "noted researcher X who is known to have been involved in technology Y" claiming to have broken an encyrption scheme and "noted slashdot poster SnapShot who is known to have wasted time at work reading slashdot" claiming to have broken the same scheme...
How does that old joke go? "I believe in abortion up until the 75th trimester."
I have to agree, though your entire email could be rewritten by replacing "'liberals' don't want to liberate us from anything except personal responsibility" with "'conservatives' don't want to conserve anything except their narrow religious outlook and their bank accounts". By the larger point remains, only simplistic morons continue to try and describe politics in a black vs. white, left vs. right, linear graph.
Let's pick some examples and give a Bizzaro World rating on each isue:
Abortion: This is one of the weirdest issues to be shoe-horned into the conservative versus liberal scale. Abortion is entirly a religious issue. A powerful subset of religions in this country has decided that this is their litmus test. The supposedly constitutional conservative polititions should be pointing to the "separation of church and state" clause of the Constitution and telling these groups to fuck off. The supposedly careing liberal politions should be fighting for money to build huge government "embryo orphanages" to bring up and help the helpless little zygotes. Bizzaro world rating: 9.7
Welfare (see military): Tax credits to corporations, payments to farmers, discount grazing rates on public lands, mineral rights to public lands sold for a fraction of the private-sector value; all are defended by the supposedly conservative right wing and opposed by the supposedly liberal left. Bizzaro world rating: 9.4
Military (see welfare): The biggest government-funded job program in history is the darling of the conservatives. On the other hand, the biggest government-funded job program in history (that also provides education and training for some of the poorest citizens) is the target of the librerals. Bizzaro world rating: 9.1
Drug War: Similar to the arguments on abortion. The liberals are saying, "Stay out of my life, let me do what I want." The conservatives are pushing for military raids on individiual's homes, "taking" of private property, and system that amounts to little more than a government job's program for lawyers and prison guards. Since the drug war does proportionatly affect minorities and the poor these issue does play into the stereotypes of convervatives versus liberals which limits the bizzaro world rating: 5
Environment: You would think that an Adam Smith solution to this issue would make everyone happy. Make corporations pay the full cost required to clean up after themselves. Charge full market value for logging, grazing, and mineral rights on government land. To do anything less is welfare. The conservatives sure don't seem to pushing very hard on this. On the other hand, liberals seem to have a knee jerk reaction against anything that "commodifies" nature and they also have a tendanency to want to spend infinite amounts of money on perfect solutions instead of available money on those solutions that will do the most good. See the flap over the "arsenic in the drinking water" as a good example of politics over results. Bizzaro world rating: 8.7
My last point: next time someone tries and describe someone as "conservative" or "liberal" when they really mean "right" or "left"... slap them.
Microsoft says "to benefit the user" about as often as a politician says "to protect the children" and with about as much sincerity.
That's exactly it. Any names, links, other info?
I guess I see it as a learning tool. If you type on any configuration for 8 hours a day you are going to take your cues from the screen not the keyboard. But if I set up my custom C++ optimized keyboard layout and Joe comes over to use my computer he can spend hours learning my layout or, if the keyboard were interactive, simply look at the keys.
Also, if a five year old were using a keyboard he/she gets instant feedback. "Ohhh, holding the [shift] gets me capital letters and the punctuation over the numbers, but [caps lock] only gives me capital letters and the numbers aren't affected."
I'm not sure I understand your point. If the capslocks was pressed then all the keys would show capitol letters.
Currently your indicator that the caps lock key is pressed is 1. the little light on the keyborad, 2. the fact that THE LETTERS YOU ARE TYPING are capitalized.
This would simply add a third indication; the fact that all the keys now show CAPITAL letters. Caps Locks key gets turned off, all the keys revert to lowercase.
One other point. Wouldn't it be cool to be typing on a keyboard with glowing LED letters on each key?
Not knowing much about electronics, how expensive would it be to have a standard keyboard with little (7mm x 7mm) LCD or LED displays on each key? I did a quick search through Radio Shack's web site but they seemed to be limited to those little numeric LED displays that only have 7 lights.
I could see a lot of uses; allow someone to switch back and forth between Dvorak/Qwerty or between some bastard combination (e.g. I just chopped off my left hand, oops, let's put all of the most common keys in the RH home row.) Or, how about a custom C++ keyboad with ';', '{' and '}' in the homerow? Imagine how much stress you'd save with the braces placed where the 'g' and 'h' keys are.
Anyway, enough musing. The only way it would be useful is if keyboard had a way to show the current keyboard settings. So back to my origional question. Is this technically feasible?
P.S. I was going to patent the idea ;), but I'd really be just as happy if someone else would develop it and let me buy one.
P.P.S. I realize the cheap option is to buy a cheap keyboard and paint over the letters...
I may be wrong, but I think "Rot13" is a bit of a misnomer.
Rot(13): Encrypt: Add 13 to each ascii value. If new value is > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt: If <= 13 add 127. Subtract 13. It could be any number. I think historically 13 was used since it wrapped around the (26 character) alphabet.
Rot(string): Add the ascii value to itself. If the new value is > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt: If even number, divide by 2. If odd, add 127 and divide by 2.
Rot(encrypted key): Encrypt by adding the ascii value to the ascii value of a key string. If > 127, subtract 127. Decrypt by subtracting the ascii value of the key string. If the new value is less than 0 then add 127. If I understand the .ppt file correctly this is similar to what Adobe was doing. The trick, of course, is figuring out what the key is or how it is generated. If I understand correctly, a perfectly random key the length of the message being encrypted and that is only known to sender and reciepient is, actually, unbreakable. However, for any real world application you can't generate a truely random key that is only available to you and your customers which is why companies try and generate their keys using hash algorithms and network card ids and stuff like that.
Please feel free to correct any misinformation... I'm not a encryption expert (IANAEE???)
Actually, this was very interesting, even though it took a couple of reads through.
This could be a response to just about any message on this subject.
You want to stop global warming? You really, really want to stop global warming? Fine... put birth control pills in Coke and Big Macs and all foriegn food aid and wait twenty years.
Do these actions always backfire?
* Attempted censorship. A thousand people immediately buy the book and/or see the movie.
* DCMA. A thousand people that knew nothing about CSS immediatly download DeCSS and buy a T-Shirt with the code.
* DCMA (again). A thousand people immediatly attempt to download the slashdotted powerpoint show.
Am I missing something regarding the effeciveness of these sorts of laws? (Other than, of course, ruining the lives a few individuals who are made the scapegoats.)
I thought it was a seven year limit on patents. 1985 + 7 = 1992. Why doesn't the court tell the company to fsck off?
Right next to the:
My child is a honor student at Disney/RIAA Elementry School
bumpersticker.
Shit, now there's going to be all the new bumper stickers:
CARE to keep kids off Napster.