I must agree that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a good film. It looks like the hongkong martial arts movies are getting better and better, and are reaching a whole new level of technique and artistry that will have a broader appeal. This is very good stuff.
Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:
Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir
Well, at least they have something in case they ever get a real budget. There are so many toys here.
Topics include
Advanced Power - Advanced Propulsion - Aeronautics Platforms - Asteroid Detection - Astronomy - Biology - Communication - Earth Science Platforms - In-Situ Utilization - Planetary Colonization - Robotics -
Satellite Teams - Software
I like this specific abstract in the software section:
"Architectures and Algorithms for Self-Healing Autonomous Spacecraft"
Imagine spacecraft whose missions last three times the human lifespan. Imagine spacecraft with the ability to decide where to explore, how to plan a trajectory, and which data to record.
These autonomous spacecraft will require computational systems whose fault tolerance and performance are orders of magnitude better than presently possible.
This challenge has been recognized by NASA's Dan Goldin as calling for revolutionary computational systems that depart radically from contemporary designs.
We propose to develop a family of such systems, with emphasis on algorithms whereby the architecture heals itself. Highly autonomous spacecraft will require computational systems that tolerate a number of faults in proportion to the total number of components, hardware and software.
This is orders of magnitude better than presently possible. To enable the combination of fault tolerance and performance, we envision a self-healing architecture. Self-healing architectures would naturally support fault tolerance, and are therefore amenable to scalable constructions. Self-healing architectures could be realized using a variety of technologies.
The benefits of self-healing architectures extend to military and commercial applications. However, a self-healing architecture such as we propose has never been built, nor is it on the evolutionary horizon of the immediate decade. Our effort will identify properties for self-healing architectures that deliver at least 1015 operations per second per kilogram, and that tolerate a number of faults proportional to the number of components.
For Phase I we propose to deliver a graphical, executable model of a highly fault tolerant, self-healing architecture prototype. The fidelity of this Phase I model will be sufficiently rich to demonstrate tolerance to a number of faults in proportion to the number of components. For Phase I we foresee two major technical challenges:
i) generalization and merging of results from configuration for performance with results for configuration for fault tolerance, and ii) specification of a baseline programming model for a self-healing architecture.
The next step would be to design and construct a self-healing architecture and attendant software. Looking to Phase II and beyond, realizing such an architecture will of necessity be multi-disciplinary, and will draw on the expertise of specialists in algorithms, testing, software engineering, circuits, power, packaging, radiation hardening, thermal and mechanical design, control, sensors, and mission planning.
This is kinda weird. I can see that they do not want people having a bogus auction online, only to cancel out of it and negotiate privately after.
They do not want to be cut out of the deal. They do not want to provide free advertising.
although this part might be closer to the truth:
eBay is not able to collect a fee on sales between eBay members that occur
offline. Some eBay members and industry experts suggested that new rules are part of an effort to boost the company's revenues.
"Someone out there has lost their grip," wrote one member. "Obviously eBay needs to rustle up more money. Sales are down. They ain't looking so good on paper. Did it ever occur to them to be more conciliatory toward their sellers? No. Instead there is going to be a long list of 'thou shalt nots.'"
The rules against offline trading have been in place for some time. But the company initially chose not to enforce the rules against offline deals at the request of members.
Under the rules, sellers are banned from offering to sell items offline to people other than the high bidder in their auctions. This means sellers would violate the rules if they contacted not only people bidding on
competitors' auctions, but those bidding on their own items.
Sellers also are not allowed to send unsolicited email to people about products
similar to what they have bid on in the past. It wasn't spelled out whether sellers can contact bidders about such products if they are offered on eBay.
The rules also target bidders, banning them from contacting sellers about purchasing a listed item away from eBay.
These sorts of scenarios are not uncommon on eBay. Many small businesses use eBay like they would banner ads or newspaper classifieds: as a way to draw in new customers.
It's not unusual, for instance, for sellers to contact losing bidders offering
similar goods to the ones they just sold. And buyers often contact sellers to find out whether they can purchase items such as tickets in advance of the date the auction closes.
However, fraud that occurs in those offline transactions and spam have become the two biggest complaints eBay receives from members, prompting the changes, Pursglove said.
The company also announced that it would start cracking down on spam, or unsolicited email, sent to its members.
I don't know. It looks like a bloody mess to me. There is alot more in the original article.
So how do we know that this is truely a *typical* slashdot user?
What are the Slashdot Demographics?
Who conducted the surveys?
Was anyone here contacted by Price Waterhouse?
Or was it something like doing a survey of all of the lifeforms on Planet Earth to find the most typical lifeform, so that this could be used as a representative to the Intergalactic Council?
"Now representing Planet Earth - SlimeMold!"
Hmmmmmmm . . .
considering most politicians, this might be a step up.
"It makes you wonder if the entire Linux movement wasn't just some clever strategy cooked up by the geniuses at IBM to get back at Microsoft for the screwing they took on OS/2 way back at the beginning of the decade."
But you got to admit, it is such a wonderful opportunity.
If nothing else it takes advantadge of all the ill-will the MS has developed for itself over the years. It is like seeing people sitting on the sidewalk with signs that say "will work for free if it screws Microsoft"
The bad blood between the two companies is lengendary. IBM was developing OS/2 in cahoots with MS, and then MS wanted out, keeping many of their "better" technologies to themselves, and jumping into the market earlier.
[I am really fuzzy on the critical details, but I'm sure these are documented well enough around the web, etc.]
If it is a driver for a card, certainly a copy of the nic, or what ever.
If it is a printer, or something similar a bit more expensive, a discount or rebate coupon at their favorite geekstore or supplier. This would have to be known in advance.
In a game, a copy of the Game at least, along with maybe putting a developers face on one of the NPCs, or whatever as appropriate.
gee, I wonder if anyone has put BGs face on an NPC in some shooter?
you could also seat it inside a "birdhouse" outside someplace, and watch things that are somewhat removed from the main base. Of course, there is always your back door, or other remote locations.
Although I note the the xcam2 costs about the same, and has twice the range. It would be interesting to actually compare the performance. I noticed that one of the other comments says that the reception is garbage with the kiddie video toy. While this is partly due to the receiver(?), this is not promising.
but the server still answers up nicely to my ping tool.
See?
# - IP address - Host name --- Round trip time
1 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 152 ms
2 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 137 ms
3 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 127 ms
Maybe their http port crashed. Could somebody check this out?
;-)
But we could always bring it to the attention of their service provider:
IP block lookup for 209.123.201.131
whois -h whois.arin.net 209.123.201.131
Net Access Corporation (NETBLK-NAC-NETBLK02)
110 South Jefferson Road
Newton, NJ 07860
Coordinator:
Pavely, Ryan (RP2938-ARIN) abuse@nac.net
800-net-me36 (FAX) 973-590-5080 (FAX) 201-983-0453 ....
Record last updated on 10-Sep-1999.
Database last updated on 27-Dec-2000 18:20:42 EDT.
I mean, pop ups have been around next to forever, right? And these guys patented it just last year?
This is just as silly as that british company suing Prodigy for the use of hyperlinks, claiming that they invented it, even though prior art is demonstrated on video going back into the 60s (I think)
Someone needs to beat this guys with a clue by four. There are to many lawyers with to much time on their hands.
Bright Idea:
Everyone who wants to be a corporate lawyer has to be sterilized first.
Actually, when Mark Ursino coined the phrase it meant products that existed only in their press releases. At the time a lot of companies would do the press release and possibly a mock up and show that to the press and at trade shows to get orders. They'd then take the money from those orders to pay for tha actual development while putting out announcements about the final version being delayed. So any product that is even in development isn't truly vaporware.
I seem to remeber a story from long ago and far away that the infamous BG actually did a demo once at a trade show that was completely vaporware. It purported to be a demo of the newest soon to be released version on an OS. (maybe it was on film?)
Except that it was not a working demo. It was a cleverly written presentation consisting mostly of animated graphics, etc. so that it looked exactly like a real PC OS running. But it wasn't. It was an animation. And BG played the part completely, making believe he was actually running a program, etc. all according to his script.
This froze the market of course, because every one was waiting for the stuff that was going to come out "Real Soon Now"(tm).
Of course, this may be one of those Urban Legends that go around the net every so often. But I wonder about it sometimes.
I remember reading about US companies complaning about not being able to break into the Japanese market. You can see these in things like the auto market, as well as other areas such as food or technology.
The lack of success sometimes has to do with a product that is in appropriate to the japanes market. Imagine oversized american luxury cars in the japanese market. These do not fit well in a crowded Tokyo traffic jam.
Sometimes it is the Japanese distribution system, which favors home grown products. Japanese rice vs American rice, for example.
And sometimes the products are simply better. The mobile phone market is an obvious example.
In any case, I wonder about the other side of the coin. Why do we not see more Japanese technology here?
Well to some degree, they do dominate the entertainment electronics market. TVs, Stereos, game systems, and the like. All to often the American name is the only thing on the product.
There is a long saga to be told about the decimation of the american market by overseas imports. The result today is that many kids growing up have never known anything else. This is a fascinating story to tell in it's own right.
So now we have a market where there really are no home grown players in the market, and it is controlled by oversea players. The motivation is sort of a reverse economic colonialism.
Keep all of the good stuff at home, and send the profitable stuff to the foreign markets.
This was practiced by many big powers for a long time. Common examples include the British empire vs India, for example. The US vs Europe. etc. It is the usual practice when you have a ready easy market for your goods.
It is a little different with the US as market, but the impulse is the same.
Of course, in the US people have gotten so used to the idea of always having the best or newest technology toy that they feel weird when they find out it isn't always so.
Part of the reason these things have not taken place is that technology has not developed in the way previously envisioned. Take computers for example.
Although 2001 does define and crystalize for many the first coherent thoughts of what an intelligent compututer would be like.
Another element is the perverse truth that there has been no real advance in social sciences. This is important because a more peaceful and rational world would have more resources for "non-essentials" like space exploration.
(The only real advances in the social sciences have been in the fields of advertising, public relations, and political spin. That is where the money is.)
In the aftermath of the american revolution, the founders of the american republic argued long and hard on how it was to be set up, and how to get it right. It was a vital national debate on how to do it right. Political ideology aside, it can be that the result was "designed by geniuses to be run by idiots".
I can agree with this. Despite the quality of the politicians we do have, it has done fairly well, more or less
The Internet has not had any such saving grace. While the underpinings have been designed by geniuses, it has all to often presumed a certain amount of maturity and education and responsibility.
This has not worked well. There has not been the same level of responsibility in the broad population of the net, in the social engineering of the net, and now we have what we have. It has not been designed to be "run by idiots". And it winds up with all kinds of idiocies.
As a famous sig line has said, "Oh my God! It's Full of Spam!"
The Internet Community did alright up until the infamous "September that never ended" - then it was overwhelmed.
I have heard of several options, but I am not sure of any of them. The struggle toward a virtual community survives in well enough small town sized populations, where it is possible for poeple to get to know each other after a while, and where there are common concerns or values that folks can relate to.
But when you get larger, it turns to chaos. Between the people with their own political agendas to those who treat the whole thing as their personal playground (and how dare you try to steal their toy), it is chaos.
A pleasant chaos perhaps, but chaos none the less.
I guess the best you can say is: "Welcome to life on Planet Earth!"
I saw this link on that page labeled "Second CONRO prototype - SOFTWARE based on Hormones".
This got my attention, so I checked it out. There are some movies on that page ranging from 6 megs up to over 60 megs. Definitely high bandwidth material. Not too much actual information though.
Of course, there are many obvious jokes and speculations you could go with here. For example, the last thing we need is an army of robots that need their medications
I did find some info elsewhere on the site.
Here is the abstract from one of the PDFs you can download on the Project Information page:
Abstract.
Self-reconfigurable, or metamorphic, robots can change their individual and collective shape and size to meet operational demands.
Since these robots are constructed from a set of autonomous and connectable modules (or agents), control of the robots and coordination among the modules are highly complex and challenging tasks.
The difficulties stem from the fact that all locomotion, perception, and decision making must be distributed among a network of modules.
This network has a dynamic topology, and each individual module has only limited resources in terms of computational power and local information about the topology in its neighborhood.
To meet these challenges, this paper presents a distributed control mechanism inspired by the concept of hormones in biological systems.
We view hormones as broadcast messages that trigger different actions in different modules, and exploit such to coordinate motions and perform reconfiguration in the context of limited communications and dynamic network topologies.
The paper develops a primitive theory of hormone-based control, and reports the experimental results of applying such a control mechanism to our CONRO metamorphic robots, along with the results of simulations.
This almost deserves a front page story by itself!
There is a reasonable summary of current Japanese Law here.
To Clarify a change in the Japanese design law. Previously you could only patent a design for a complete item. Patents on the separate parts were not permitted, so it seems
but I seen to recall that in Japan the patent laws are more liberal in some regards than in the USA.
(Of course, if you are expert in Japanese Patent law, please feel free to correct any errors, and make me look like a complete fool);-)
Japaness law has changed recently, but this is the way it has been for many years. Here is a link to a specific case that is easy enough to follow, and illustrates the point well enough. It also reveals recent shifts in Japanese law:
The Epoch case is truly an "epoch" making decision in Japanese case law.
First, the court's analysis in the case shows a stark contrast with Japanese courts' analyses in early decisions on claim interpretation.
These decisions relied on the inventor's recognition theory and limited the protection scope to cover only embodiments expressly disclosed in the specification.
This rule applied to both functionally defined claims and structurally defined claims.
However, the Tokyo District Court clearly rejected this view by refusing to use embodiments to limit the claim scope.
Further, the addition of functions or steps did not prevent the court from finding infringement in Epoch case. This contrasts highly with some early cases.
It goes something like this. Minor variations qualified the unit as a separate patent.
The upshot probably is not as serious as needing to have patents on green cars vs blue cars (for example), but patents had to be on specific implementations of things. I am not enough of a lawyer to know how much of this is still the case.
But Reverse engineering so that there are some marginal performance differances was common, and there are a lot of copycats that did exactly that. (Sometime old habits die hard.) You build something, say a car engine. They reverse engineer it, find out all of the really important stuff like your design tricks, and them implement them in their own designs.
This situation is really similar to learning code by reading code. The problem is in the setup costs to get production ramped up.
In the USA it is a little more liberal, in that patent can cover more general principles. Things, for example, like the integrated circuit. They did not have to patent all possible circuit implementations of that technology. And their Patent ran out after the usual length of time.
But this is where we get into trouble, because this is where patents get applied to software. A possible incorrect analogy is made between something that involves a manufacturing process (an engine, for example) compared to something that does not.
Quick research reveals that Japans' Patent law was revised in 1998 to correct some of the problems inherent in this. Here is a link to a quick summaryThe important section in this has to do with Design law.
This is all interesting in that it provides a practical example to the problems in different implementations of Patent Law. It has interesting parallels to the the discussions regarding software design, etc.
Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir
There is another one I heard over the weekend which really goes into detail analyzing the film. I have not found that link. I wish I had found that one, because it is a discussion of the film by people expert in the genre, and the asian film industry.
The only way that DOC files could be made a standard would be the public release of the internal file specifications so that everyone can use them.
. . . . right.
I can see M$ going for this one right now. (HA HA HA!)
This means that the file format would have to be made a part of the public domain.
IANAL, but I think this would take a prodigious amount of legal wrangling.
I personally prefer a format like xml or html where you can see the tags, etc. and figure out what is going on, if someone made a mistake. Mind you, this is just me, just a personal preferance.
I also wonder about designing a file format for the future, given the various changes in technology. As an example, there is a new technology that has been demonstrated providing 3d displays in shocking detail, no special glasses needed. Not a Moving Picture yet, but you get the idea. How to incorporate this? The file format has to be scalable and adaptable.
MS word does really horrible at things like books, where it is better to use a page layout program like Pagemaker.
so it looks like we have to re-invent the wheel here, and include all of those features that make the best sense. Yet another Open Source project for the masses.
but I wonder what the odds of a class action or other suit would be?
After all, they would not be forcing us to buy *their* hard drives etc. We could always buy someone else's, Right? Except that someone else's also has the same junk. And everyone has conveniently stopped carrying the older technology at the same time. Complete with re-designed controller cards, motherboards, etc. Everything else would be "obsolete"
Further on down the road, can you imagine:
"Sorry, you cannot access the internet at this time. This ISP has detected that you are running hardware that does not meet security standards. These standards are enforced for your protection.
Your name has been forwarded to the Police for your convenience.
They will help you in obtaining a compliant system.
Have a nice Day."
We obviously need to get a law passed ensuring Our property rights, and ensuring our ability to do the things we need to do.
Strangely enough, according to the Register article, even Microsoft is upset with this. Maybe we need to make an alliance with them on this? [shudder]
Agreed, it sounds paranoid now, but who knows about later?
Slashdot Mirror
Here are some links to some reviews and interviews on NPR (in RealAudio format) that might be interesting to follow up on:
Topics include
Advanced Power - Advanced Propulsion - Aeronautics Platforms - Asteroid Detection - Astronomy - Biology - Communication - Earth Science Platforms - In-Situ Utilization - Planetary Colonization - Robotics - Satellite Teams - Software
I like this specific abstract in the software section:
Wow, what a project!They do not want to be cut out of the deal. They do not want to provide free advertising.
although this part might be closer to the truth:
I don't know. It looks like a bloody mess to me. There is alot more in the original article.So how do we know that this is truely a *typical* slashdot user?
What are the Slashdot Demographics?
Who conducted the surveys?
Was anyone here contacted by Price Waterhouse?
Or was it something like doing a survey of all of the lifeforms on Planet Earth to find the most typical lifeform, so that this could be used as a representative to the Intergalactic Council?
Hmmmmmmm . . .considering most politicians, this might be a step up.
If nothing else it takes advantadge of all the ill-will the MS has developed for itself over the years. It is like seeing people sitting on the sidewalk with signs that say "will work for free if it screws Microsoft"
The bad blood between the two companies is lengendary. IBM was developing OS/2 in cahoots with MS, and then MS wanted out, keeping many of their "better" technologies to themselves, and jumping into the market earlier.
[I am really fuzzy on the critical details, but I'm sure these are documented well enough around the web, etc.]
If it is a printer, or something similar a bit more expensive, a discount or rebate coupon at their favorite geekstore or supplier. This would have to be known in advance.
In a game, a copy of the Game at least, along with maybe putting a developers face on one of the NPCs, or whatever as appropriate.
gee, I wonder if anyone has put BGs face on an NPC in some shooter?
Although I note the the xcam2 costs about the same, and has twice the range. It would be interesting to actually compare the performance. I noticed that one of the other comments says that the reception is garbage with the kiddie video toy. While this is partly due to the receiver(?), this is not promising.
It has got me thinking though.
but the server still answers up nicely to my ping tool.
See?
# - IP address - Host name --- Round trip time
1 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 152 ms
2 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 137 ms
3 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 127 ms
Maybe their http port crashed. Could somebody check this out?
;-)
But we could always bring it to the attention of their service provider:
IP block lookup for 209.123.201.131
whois -h whois.arin.net 209.123.201.131
Net Access Corporation (NETBLK-NAC-NETBLK02)
110 South Jefferson Road
Newton, NJ 07860
Netname: NAC-NETBLK02
Netblock: 209.123.0.0 - 209.123.255.255
Maintainer: NAC
Coordinator:
....
Pavely, Ryan (RP2938-ARIN)
abuse@nac.net
800-net-me36 (FAX) 973-590-5080 (FAX) 201-983-0453
Record last updated on 10-Sep-1999.
Database last updated on 27-Dec-2000
18:20:42 EDT.
This is just as silly as that british company suing Prodigy for the use of hyperlinks, claiming that they invented it, even though prior art is demonstrated on video going back into the 60s (I think)
Someone needs to beat this guys with a clue by four. There are to many lawyers with to much time on their hands.
Bright Idea:
Everyone who wants to be a corporate lawyer has to be sterilized first.
In this regard, these make interesting reads:
- Calderas' legal brief against MS PreAnnouncement claims
- The early history of vaporware, as discussed in a computer history mailing list archive from 1996
Someone ought to do a full list of all of the dirty deeds of Bill G, just so that it doesn't get forgotten. y'know, things like IE3.O for Unix.Except that it was not a working demo. It was a cleverly written presentation consisting mostly of animated graphics, etc. so that it looked exactly like a real PC OS running. But it wasn't. It was an animation. And BG played the part completely, making believe he was actually running a program, etc. all according to his script.
This froze the market of course, because every one was waiting for the stuff that was going to come out "Real Soon Now"(tm).
Of course, this may be one of those Urban Legends that go around the net every so often. But I wonder about it sometimes.
The lack of success sometimes has to do with a product that is in appropriate to the japanes market. Imagine oversized american luxury cars in the japanese market. These do not fit well in a crowded Tokyo traffic jam.
Sometimes it is the Japanese distribution system, which favors home grown products. Japanese rice vs American rice, for example.
And sometimes the products are simply better. The mobile phone market is an obvious example.
In any case, I wonder about the other side of the coin. Why do we not see more Japanese technology here?
Well to some degree, they do dominate the entertainment electronics market. TVs, Stereos, game systems, and the like. All to often the American name is the only thing on the product.
There is a long saga to be told about the decimation of the american market by overseas imports. The result today is that many kids growing up have never known anything else. This is a fascinating story to tell in it's own right.
So now we have a market where there really are no home grown players in the market, and it is controlled by oversea players. The motivation is sort of a reverse economic colonialism.
Keep all of the good stuff at home, and send the profitable stuff to the foreign markets.
This was practiced by many big powers for a long time. Common examples include the British empire vs India, for example. The US vs Europe. etc. It is the usual practice when you have a ready easy market for your goods.
It is a little different with the US as market, but the impulse is the same.
Of course, in the US people have gotten so used to the idea of always having the best or newest technology toy that they feel weird when they find out it isn't always so.
Although 2001 does define and crystalize for many the first coherent thoughts of what an intelligent compututer would be like.
Another element is the perverse truth that there has been no real advance in social sciences. This is important because a more peaceful and rational world would have more resources for "non-essentials" like space exploration.
(The only real advances in the social sciences have been in the fields of advertising, public relations, and political spin. That is where the money is.)
I can agree with this. Despite the quality of the politicians we do have, it has done fairly well, more or less
The Internet has not had any such saving grace. While the underpinings have been designed by geniuses, it has all to often presumed a certain amount of maturity and education and responsibility.
This has not worked well. There has not been the same level of responsibility in the broad population of the net, in the social engineering of the net, and now we have what we have. It has not been designed to be "run by idiots". And it winds up with all kinds of idiocies.
As a famous sig line has said, "Oh my God! It's Full of Spam!"
The Internet Community did alright up until the infamous "September that never ended" - then it was overwhelmed.
I have heard of several options, but I am not sure of any of them. The struggle toward a virtual community survives in well enough small town sized populations, where it is possible for poeple to get to know each other after a while, and where there are common concerns or values that folks can relate to.
But when you get larger, it turns to chaos. Between the people with their own political agendas to those who treat the whole thing as their personal playground (and how dare you try to steal their toy), it is chaos.
A pleasant chaos perhaps, but chaos none the less.
I guess the best you can say is: "Welcome to life on Planet Earth!"
This got my attention, so I checked it out. There are some movies on that page ranging from 6 megs up to over 60 megs. Definitely high bandwidth material. Not too much actual information though.
Of course, there are many obvious jokes and speculations you could go with here. For example, the last thing we need is an army of robots that need their medications
I did find some info elsewhere on the site.
Here is the abstract from one of the PDFs you can download on the Project Information page:
This almost deserves a front page story by itself!You can see it here.
This explains the reason what there is now no Santa. It is a very good reason.
;-)
To Clarify a change in the Japanese design law. Previously you could only patent a design for a complete item. Patents on the separate parts were not permitted, so it seems
but I seen to recall that in Japan the patent laws are more liberal in some regards than in the USA.
(Of course, if you are expert in Japanese Patent law, please feel free to correct any errors, and make me look like a complete fool) ;-)
Japaness law has changed recently, but this is the way it has been for many years. Here is a link to a specific case that is easy enough to follow, and illustrates the point well enough. It also reveals recent shifts in Japanese law:
It goes something like this. Minor variations qualified the unit as a separate patent.
The upshot probably is not as serious as needing to have patents on green cars vs blue cars (for example), but patents had to be on specific implementations of things. I am not enough of a lawyer to know how much of this is still the case.
But Reverse engineering so that there are some marginal performance differances was common, and there are a lot of copycats that did exactly that. (Sometime old habits die hard.) You build something, say a car engine. They reverse engineer it, find out all of the really important stuff like your design tricks, and them implement them in their own designs.
This situation is really similar to learning code by reading code. The problem is in the setup costs to get production ramped up.
In the USA it is a little more liberal, in that patent can cover more general principles. Things, for example, like the integrated circuit. They did not have to patent all possible circuit implementations of that technology. And their Patent ran out after the usual length of time.
But this is where we get into trouble, because this is where patents get applied to software. A possible incorrect analogy is made between something that involves a manufacturing process (an engine, for example) compared to something that does not.
Quick research reveals that Japans' Patent law was revised in 1998 to correct some of the problems inherent in this. Here is a link to a quick summaryThe important section in this has to do with Design law.
This is all interesting in that it provides a practical example to the problems in different implementations of Patent Law. It has interesting parallels to the the discussions regarding software design, etc.
wonderful stuff, simply wonderful.
I have had a few too many for most of this to stick right now, but this is definitely a good asset to have.
Again, Thank You
- Here and here are two 7 minute RealAudio reviews on NPR, with extensive detail, and some conversation with director Ann Lee.
- Here is about 45 minutes split between the director Ann Lee and the Actress, Michelle Yeoh, a star in the film on the NPR program FreshAir
There is another one I heard over the weekend which really goes into detail analyzing the film. I have not found that link. I wish I had found that one, because it is a discussion of the film by people expert in the genre, and the asian film industry.But the ones above are at least educational.
. . . . right.
I can see M$ going for this one right now. (HA HA HA!)
This means that the file format would have to be made a part of the public domain.
IANAL, but I think this would take a prodigious amount of legal wrangling.
I personally prefer a format like xml or html where you can see the tags, etc. and figure out what is going on, if someone made a mistake. Mind you, this is just me, just a personal preferance.
I also wonder about designing a file format for the future, given the various changes in technology. As an example, there is a new technology that has been demonstrated providing 3d displays in shocking detail, no special glasses needed. Not a Moving Picture yet, but you get the idea. How to incorporate this? The file format has to be scalable and adaptable.
MS word does really horrible at things like books, where it is better to use a page layout program like Pagemaker.
so it looks like we have to re-invent the wheel here, and include all of those features that make the best sense. Yet another Open Source project for the masses.
Don't look so enthuthiastic now!
;-)
Why?
And what would I spend 100 dollars on in Radio Shack?
[shudder]
- I never shopped online there
- When I shopped at their old brick and mortar stores, the credit card I used then has long since expired, and I cancelled that credit card account.
-
Any kiddie can find a script to generate fake numbers that pass the crc tests that they use.
That being said, since I do shop online from time to time, you would expert that they could do better. That is a rather large amount of plastic.Maybe that is how Saddam Hussein is paying for all of those Sony PS2s
but I wonder what the odds of a class action or other suit would be?
After all, they would not be forcing us to buy *their* hard drives etc. We could always buy someone else's, Right? Except that someone else's also has the same junk. And everyone has conveniently stopped carrying the older technology at the same time. Complete with re-designed controller cards, motherboards, etc. Everything else would be "obsolete"
Further on down the road, can you imagine:
We obviously need to get a law passed ensuring Our property rights, and ensuring our ability to do the things we need to do.Strangely enough, according to the Register article, even Microsoft is upset with this. Maybe we need to make an alliance with them on this? [shudder]
Agreed, it sounds paranoid now, but who knows about later?