It seems that the entire WIPO approach is that the biggest claimant, either in bank balance or other example of power, has the prime right to any and all domain names associated with themselves.
Face it, WIPO is an agency of big government and vested interest. They are never going to vote for the little guy.
If you want some version of true justice, then you need to get the WIPO out of the loop, and replace them with a truly democratic body.
How about setting up such a Internet only body, allowing the net denizens to vote and then demanding that the nondemocratic agencies yield to true democratic will.
After all, its democracy that they hold dear, isn't it?
However...US jet technology was initially jointly developed with the British. The US did get some Me 262s late in the war and after the war from the Germans, and those engines were higher powered but had extremely short lives.
Not quite, jet technology was GIVEN to the US (and the to Russians) by the UK. Take a look at http://www.midlandairmuseum.org.uk/thejet.html for more info.
Most academics seem enamoured with 'peer review'. "The article only has value if it has been peer reviewed", "Get it published in the best journal". But stop a minute and ask yourself why.
Peer review is a mechanism for conservative progress. Providing your 'peers' agree with what you say, you can publish. Otherwise your screwed. In the past this was acceptable, it kept the cranks out of everyone's hair. However, the speed of developments is too fast now for such a conservative approach. And anyway, who says that your 'peers' are correct. Look around at your collegues and say if you really trust their judgement...
No, we need a different approach.
Characteristics are as follows:
Everyone and anyone should be able to publish, quickly, easily and with the minimum of created difficulties.
Questions are as important as solutions, we need to capture those as well.
Everyone should do their piece in providing feedback (which is a positive help), as an element of being part of the community.
What a paper 'says' should be open to understanding and exploration by automated means. That means less stilted, long verbose language; and more simple quick statements. An obvious place for XML?
There should be a distributed storage and search functionality - but focusing on a common user interface and extensibility.
University administrators, publishers and other vested interests should have no part in it.
What the above should point out is that there is no reason to continue with the old system, it doesn't work in diseminating knowledge and pushing forward the boundaries of our ideas. It is relatively easy to see a better way, based on the ideas that have been evolved on the web.
They say you have to be computer-literate. They're wrong. Computer literacy is an excuse for techies to say, 'I don't want to actually have to think this stuff through.'
Really???
Do we really want to end up like the car manufacturers, who's idea of development is the cup holder?
Sure computers are difficult to use, because they are some of the most complex machines we have ever built. Why should we expect them to be easy to use? Try picking up a musical instrument and getting a tune out of it without training. Instead you pick up your CD Player.
I predict that high tech stuff will split into two development paths. One focusing on minimum functionality, maximum useability. The other maximum functionality, and the useability can go hang. Both are workable, and profitable, business models.
Actually, isn't that one of the differences between Windows and Linux - except that Microsoft haven't really ever understood useability?
Has anyone noticed how society has progressively cut back on the big "why am I here" type science.
Today you have to be able to show a profit (human genome) if you want to do big science, or indeed much science at all. Peer reviews cut out any of the really 'wayout' ideas, making conservative judgements that restrict the opportunity for scientific advance.
Maybe in 50 years time we will still be fixed to the earth, with technology that is only evolution of today's tech. All because we forgot that money isn't everything - nurturing the soul counts (and pays) too.
It looks like many here don't know the history of the ARM processor, or those that created it.
It was created by a few geniuses from Acorn; based on the 6502; as the processor they needed for their concept of a future PC. It was created within a budget that wouldn't even pay the coffee bill of Intel. Since they couldn't afford a 'proper' fab, they designed it for contruction on an ASIC. That is how it was implemented, and shipped to thousands.
The rest is history (and development).
Having met and chatted with those involved (Steve Furber, Mike Muller, etc.), you get the sense that the reason it was such a success was it was a small group, with one focus, lots of brains, and no bullshit. I believe they would have understood these student's work.
Although they would have expected them to do something new, not just reinvent the past.
"They hired Schroeder, a well-respected former congresswoman with a reputation for nitty-grittiness."
One more for the lynching tree.
All proponents of copyright, patents and other control of knowledge dissemination are going the way of the dodo.
It just doesn't add up. "Give me money for the knowledge I've created". It sounds good to those of us that sweat over creating knowledge, but the world doesn't agree.
The world doesn't agree
Results is what counts, not ideas. Physical results delivered into waiting hands.
First, Junkyard (nee Scrapheap) Wars is made for Channel 4 (a commercial channel) by an independent producer. "Who wants to be a Millionaire" is also a UK programme, made for a commercial station by an independent company.
The real difference between the US and UK systems?
Well, Junkyard Wars is losely based on "The Great Egg Race" which WAS a BBC programme, but the real difference is that there is a tradition of 'different' programmes which pop up from time to time as a result of producers being able to point to an identifiable demographic of 'nutty eccentric' as a means to justify pilots for new shows.
Yes, we get the "Millionaire" shows, but we also get the gems that would never be accepted in the rote reproduction environment of the US system, where the committee is king.
'Too much' TV programming is as problematic as 'too little'. Unless it tries to appeal to a mass demographic, no programme has a chance under the US system of drawing a large enough audience to sustain its existance until a large enough audience will be attracted.
In the UK BECAUSE we have had limited programming, the same people have attempted to produce 'something different' than their usual favorites, if only to attempt to stem the irate letters. They weren't aiming for "Monty Python" - they probably didn't like it - but the complex environment was right for its (and others) emergence.
If you want a different TV industry, you have to change the basic, underlying rules - change the complex attractors. Then, and only then, will the quality of the programming change.
As a start, value and promote those who produce the different; you may not like them, but they change the basic rules for the rest. Give them guarantees of at least one season, let them have the room to change your preconceptions.
Reading the article, I find myself sometimes agreeing with the sentiment; and sometimes wondering if the author has seen the whole thing.
Yes we tend to make incremental developments nowadays. Too many accountants drive the decisions of what will be made, and what not. The revolutionary doesn't seem to hold the chance of obvious profit - just refine the existing technological paradim. The biggest example has to be the existing GUI, transfer your wooden desk (with all its clutter) into a virtual desk.
The example of the Concorde is another example, no replacement is made because "it can't make money" - ignoring the opportunity to redefine air transport into something else.
A triumph of the lack of imagination.
However, saying the inventions of today are small is only a matter of perspective. I'm sure someone said the lightbulb "isn't much different from the gas lamp". At the time the full impact could not be felt - it takes time for society to shape itself around the new possibilities.
Fast forward global, pervasive, cheap, digital communications and it will shake society far more than the author seems to give it credit for. It won't happen overnight (society can only change at the rate of the individual), but change it will.
In short, yes innovation could work faster without the corporate parasites that infest most large enterprises, but significant change IS happening, and isn't likely to slow down any time soon.
Many posts here are saying how ridiculous the French are, how unworkable are the judge's ideas and 'what about freedom of speech'.
Your missing the point
The french have always tried to impose their view of the world onto everyone else. In this they are very like the US, double standards and an inability to empathise with the thoughts of others.
They believe that by censoring things they can censor ideas. You and I know this has almost exactly the opposite effect, but its less troubling to the french national mindset than admitting to their own citizens thoughts and crimes during the war. The Nazi's and their friends weren't 'the other' they were those still alive today. Much of Europe can't stand up and face what they themselves did, censoring trinkets is more acceptable.
Yahoo are a business, they will do what is required to continue to trade in France - however abhorant that is to notions of free speech.
The parallels shouldn't be surprising. Those who attempt to forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
You've never dealt with the military before, have you?
They get selected based on 'leadership potential' and 'team working ability' rather than technical nouse. That's why they destroy and misuse so much equipment they are given, and are incapable 'feeling' what will work. Sometimes it helps, they use it in way's the designers never thought of. Often they just break it.
Not really surprising they made such a hash of it, or that they thought to try to cheat and use grapeshot for the last shot. Its the type of people they are.
Wellllll,
The series you in the US haven't seen yet has the teams building medeval siege engines. One was throwing far sized objects, so a midget wouldn't be that difficult.
Wait to you see the one with them tearing down walls....
I realise your a trolling twat but at least get your facts straight.
AOL is an also ran with no claim to anything except second place in European internet access. The fact that you are dumb enough to use them is your problem.
European society has consistantly moved further and faster than the staid US conservative society could ever manage. Governments have nothing to do or say in the equation.
BTW you have worse trade union problems, more unfair government support and greater class bound structures than most European countries. And as for peasantry; take a look around you.
America hasn't solved ANY European problems, more late and little as always. Don't forget, you owe your existance and most of your society to European developments, including the web you are now reading.
Get out of your xenophonic haze and smell the real world roses.
Point is, the new applications driven Microsoft will have to prove they are not too far in bed with the now separate Windows company. Mac already has an Office port, Linux is the easy option.
Yeez, it must really hurt to find that the rest of the world doesn't share your rose tinted view of the Mac.
Get real, all the breakup of Microsoft will mean is:
- Office on Linux - Better and more stable Windows, after all when all you do is OS, you take it more seriously - Development of Mac Office dependent on market conditions, not Court posing. If a port is easy, it will happen, otherwise not.
The Mac's day in the sun was 20 years ago, no amount of pretty casing is likely to change that in the short term. Mac is niche, and so is Linux. To supplant Windows is going to take a hell of an effort - why should a business man replace the existing approach with another, unless THEY can see a real benefit.
The breakup of Microsoft, even if it happens, is not the end of Windows, its going to take much more than that. Linux has the best chance, but needs more refinement before it has the killer edge.
Sorry if this rains on anyone's parade, but wishful thinking doesn't make a sound business model.
Could someone set me straight on this. It seems to make no sense. Why don't microsoft just up sticks and move the company overseas, to a country with better tax laws and less government interference. The US site then just becomes an international office. After all, the company is global, the US government is local - why should they care what a US court says? Will some lawyer please explain how they could be stopped, and the US still abide by international treaty?
Slashdot Mirror
Even I was doing this over a decade ago; so what if another wannabee comes out of the woodwork.
I agree with the poster, UWB is fairly obvious stuff, where are the practical, everyday, applications?
(oh, and none of them deserve a patent, as I say - OBVIOUS (despite what some idiot in the story says)
You've never got the hang of this democracy stuff, have you?
Face it, WIPO is an agency of big government and vested interest. They are never going to vote for the little guy.
If you want some version of true justice, then you need to get the WIPO out of the loop, and replace them with a truly democratic body.
How about setting up such a Internet only body, allowing the net denizens to vote and then demanding that the nondemocratic agencies yield to true democratic will.
After all, its democracy that they hold dear, isn't it?
Not quite, jet technology was GIVEN to the US (and the to Russians) by the UK. Take a look at http://www.midlandairmuseum.org.uk/thejet.html for more info.
Then the US turned round and locked the UK out.
Its nice to know who your friends are.
Peer review is a mechanism for conservative progress. Providing your 'peers' agree with what you say, you can publish. Otherwise your screwed. In the past this was acceptable, it kept the cranks out of everyone's hair. However, the speed of developments is too fast now for such a conservative approach. And anyway, who says that your 'peers' are correct. Look around at your collegues and say if you really trust their judgement...
No, we need a different approach.
Characteristics are as follows:
- Everyone and anyone should be able to publish, quickly, easily and with the minimum of created difficulties.
- Questions are as important as solutions, we need to capture those as well.
- Everyone should do their piece in providing feedback (which is a positive help), as an element of being part of the community.
- What a paper 'says' should be open to understanding and exploration by automated means. That means less stilted, long verbose language; and more simple quick statements. An obvious place for XML?
- There should be a distributed storage and search functionality - but focusing on a common user interface and extensibility.
- University administrators, publishers and other vested interests should have no part in it.
What the above should point out is that there is no reason to continue with the old system, it doesn't work in diseminating knowledge and pushing forward the boundaries of our ideas. It is relatively easy to see a better way, based on the ideas that have been evolved on the web.It just takes some effort.
Do we really want to end up like the car manufacturers, who's idea of development is the cup holder?
Sure computers are difficult to use, because they are some of the most complex machines we have ever built. Why should we expect them to be easy to use? Try picking up a musical instrument and getting a tune out of it without training. Instead you pick up your CD Player.
I predict that high tech stuff will split into two development paths. One focusing on minimum functionality, maximum useability. The other maximum functionality, and the useability can go hang. Both are workable, and profitable, business models.
Actually, isn't that one of the differences between Windows and Linux - except that Microsoft haven't really ever understood useability?
Today you have to be able to show a profit (human genome) if you want to do big science, or indeed much science at all. Peer reviews cut out any of the really 'wayout' ideas, making conservative judgements that restrict the opportunity for scientific advance.
Maybe in 50 years time we will still be fixed to the earth, with technology that is only evolution of today's tech. All because we forgot that money isn't everything - nurturing the soul counts (and pays) too.
It was created by a few geniuses from Acorn; based on the 6502; as the processor they needed for their concept of a future PC. It was created within a budget that wouldn't even pay the coffee bill of Intel. Since they couldn't afford a 'proper' fab, they designed it for contruction on an ASIC. That is how it was implemented, and shipped to thousands.
The rest is history (and development).
Having met and chatted with those involved (Steve Furber, Mike Muller, etc.), you get the sense that the reason it was such a success was it was a small group, with one focus, lots of brains, and no bullshit. I believe they would have understood these student's work.
Although they would have expected them to do something new, not just reinvent the past.
Its related to capability; if you really understand what you are doing you will ALWAYS be ignored, no matter your age.
Get a career that enables you to benefit from your own native talent, not dependent on someone else's view of you.
Otherwise, prepare to fight the rest of your life for what you know is right.
[sound of English wooshing over 90% of /. readership]
One more for the lynching tree.
All proponents of copyright, patents and other control of knowledge dissemination are going the way of the dodo.
It just doesn't add up. "Give me money for the knowledge I've created". It sounds good to those of us that sweat over creating knowledge, but the world doesn't agree.
The world doesn't agree
Results is what counts, not ideas. Physical results delivered into waiting hands.
That includes books;
wake up.
First, Junkyard (nee Scrapheap) Wars is made for Channel 4 (a commercial channel) by an independent producer. "Who wants to be a Millionaire" is also a UK programme, made for a commercial station by an independent company.
The real difference between the US and UK systems?
Well, Junkyard Wars is losely based on "The Great Egg Race" which WAS a BBC programme, but the real difference is that there is a tradition of 'different' programmes which pop up from time to time as a result of producers being able to point to an identifiable demographic of 'nutty eccentric' as a means to justify pilots for new shows.
Yes, we get the "Millionaire" shows, but we also get the gems that would never be accepted in the rote reproduction environment of the US system, where the committee is king.
'Too much' TV programming is as problematic as 'too little'. Unless it tries to appeal to a mass demographic, no programme has a chance under the US system of drawing a large enough audience to sustain its existance until a large enough audience will be attracted.
In the UK BECAUSE we have had limited programming, the same people have attempted to produce 'something different' than their usual favorites, if only to attempt to stem the irate letters. They weren't aiming for "Monty Python" - they probably didn't like it - but the complex environment was right for its (and others) emergence.
If you want a different TV industry, you have to change the basic, underlying rules - change the complex attractors. Then, and only then, will the quality of the programming change.
As a start, value and promote those who produce the different; you may not like them, but they change the basic rules for the rest. Give them guarantees of at least one season, let them have the room to change your preconceptions.
In short, you get the programming you deserve...
Yes we tend to make incremental developments nowadays. Too many accountants drive the decisions of what will be made, and what not. The revolutionary doesn't seem to hold the chance of obvious profit - just refine the existing technological paradim. The biggest example has to be the existing GUI, transfer your wooden desk (with all its clutter) into a virtual desk.
The example of the Concorde is another example, no replacement is made because "it can't make money" - ignoring the opportunity to redefine air transport into something else.
A triumph of the lack of imagination.
However, saying the inventions of today are small is only a matter of perspective. I'm sure someone said the lightbulb "isn't much different from the gas lamp". At the time the full impact could not be felt - it takes time for society to shape itself around the new possibilities.
Fast forward global, pervasive, cheap, digital communications and it will shake society far more than the author seems to give it credit for. It won't happen overnight (society can only change at the rate of the individual), but change it will.
In short, yes innovation could work faster without the corporate parasites that infest most large enterprises, but significant change IS happening, and isn't likely to slow down any time soon.
Your missing the point
The french have always tried to impose their view of the world onto everyone else. In this they are very like the US, double standards and an inability to empathise with the thoughts of others.
They believe that by censoring things they can censor ideas. You and I know this has almost exactly the opposite effect, but its less troubling to the french national mindset than admitting to their own citizens thoughts and crimes during the war. The Nazi's and their friends weren't 'the other' they were those still alive today. Much of Europe can't stand up and face what they themselves did, censoring trinkets is more acceptable.
Yahoo are a business, they will do what is required to continue to trade in France - however abhorant that is to notions of free speech.
The parallels shouldn't be surprising. Those who attempt to forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
They get selected based on 'leadership potential' and 'team working ability' rather than technical nouse. That's why they destroy and misuse so much equipment they are given, and are incapable 'feeling' what will work. Sometimes it helps, they use it in way's the designers never thought of. Often they just break it.
Not really surprising they made such a hash of it, or that they thought to try to cheat and use grapeshot for the last shot. Its the type of people they are.
Wellllll, The series you in the US haven't seen yet has the teams building medeval siege engines. One was throwing far sized objects, so a midget wouldn't be that difficult. Wait to you see the one with them tearing down walls....
I realise your a trolling twat but at least get your facts straight. AOL is an also ran with no claim to anything except second place in European internet access. The fact that you are dumb enough to use them is your problem. European society has consistantly moved further and faster than the staid US conservative society could ever manage. Governments have nothing to do or say in the equation. BTW you have worse trade union problems, more unfair government support and greater class bound structures than most European countries. And as for peasantry; take a look around you. America hasn't solved ANY European problems, more late and little as always. Don't forget, you owe your existance and most of your society to European developments, including the web you are now reading. Get out of your xenophonic haze and smell the real world roses.
Point is, the new applications driven Microsoft will have to prove they are not too far in bed with the now separate Windows company. Mac already has an Office port, Linux is the easy option.
Yeez, it must really hurt to find that the rest of the world doesn't share your rose tinted view of the Mac.
Get real, all the breakup of Microsoft will mean is:
- Office on Linux
- Better and more stable Windows, after all when all you do is OS, you take it more seriously
- Development of Mac Office dependent on market conditions, not Court posing. If a port is easy, it will happen, otherwise not.
The Mac's day in the sun was 20 years ago, no amount of pretty casing is likely to change that in the short term. Mac is niche, and so is Linux. To supplant Windows is going to take a hell of an effort - why should a business man replace the existing approach with another, unless THEY can see a real benefit.
The breakup of Microsoft, even if it happens, is not the end of Windows, its going to take much more than that. Linux has the best chance, but needs more refinement before it has the killer edge.
Sorry if this rains on anyone's parade, but wishful thinking doesn't make a sound business model.
Could someone set me straight on this. It seems to make no sense. Why don't microsoft just up sticks and move the company overseas, to a country with better tax laws and less government interference. The US site then just becomes an international office. After all, the company is global, the US government is local - why should they care what a US court says? Will some lawyer please explain how they could be stopped, and the US still abide by international treaty?