There have been, over the past view years, allegations and rumors along the line of JPL trying to protect its funding and protect its turf.
These typically come from the fringe groups, and so most folks tend to dismiss them out of hand. Examples of this include the Mars Photos, where many have seen examples of people playing fast and loose loose with the results. The primary allegation is that JPL is heavy into the robot missions, and so is heavily biased against actually finding life someplace else, because that would pull funding from JPL into other NON-JPL projects.
Certainly, there are probably different political power centers inside NASA and JPL, etc. I can also see that some folks would have a vigorous reaction against releasing anything that could give the fringe groups more ammunition.
I am personally dismayed by fringe group presentations on TV where the first half almost seems like reasonable possibility, and the second half is someone doing a biblical interprataion of the material. Talk about a taking a large grain salt! And yet, I suppose that somebody sees these shows and takes them seriously. I am reminded that a large chunk of the population is "below average" intelligence, although alot of this depends on educations as well.
All in All, I suspect that with all of the changes at JPL, there has been infighting over the agenda, pig headedness, and simple sillyness that merely gives ammunition to their critics.
Actually you are completely wrong. You are the idiot in this case.
Since I didn't have the exact details right at the fingertips, I quoted the details from the paragraphs from those two weblinks in my article. I guess even the internet can be wrong! [smile]
and the European Patent Office for accepting data in a patent that erroneously describes the operation you are so angry about. (My original link here was http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/txt/ep/0241/081/ desc.html)
Gee, I would have thought them reliable sources of information, but....
I am really starting to get ticked of at microsoft.
I am really tired of them trying to finnagle their way out of legal judgements and traps in a way that is based on only legal loopholes.
This is just something that convicts them more and each day in my eyes.
It is like happened with Clinton, who got nailed for parsing every last syllable in his statements.
Bill Clinton's old arkansas nickname was "Slick Willy". Looks like Bill Gates is a "Slick Willy" too.
With this much bad karma accumulating this quickly, the MS management and legal staff could bypass re-incarnating as Bugs, and go straight back to being mud and pond scum.
It would be an act of mercy to nuke them from orbit. It would stop their every more rapid decline.
Blah. For the ordinary cd-ripping geezer who just wants a bunch of MP3 files, the difference is not noticeable. Convering raw cd-audio into a 128 kbps (good enough for Joe Shmoe) MP3 reduces the sound quality alot more than a short DA-AD brigde.
Agreed.
The technology takes advantadge of the error correcting technology built into every audio CD. This technology is what allows the CD to play well even with hundreds of minor scratches. I think that the error correction will try to compensate for loss of data up to a tenth of a second or something like that. What they do is they put hundreds of minor glitches that are able to be corrected for by the technology. The error correction technology works really well, and is no way even close to being similar to a wave file.
If I recall correctly, compact discs use a version called cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon code, or CIRC. The basic level of error correction provided for Audio CD is one uncorrectable bit out of every 10^9. CD-ROM provides additional protection for data (ECC/EDC ) reducing the error rate to one bit in 10^13 For those interested, there is this detailed description, along with this basic introduction.
The coding system is based on groups of bits--such as bytes--rather than individual 0s and 1s. That feature makes Reed-Solomon codes particularly good at dealing with "bursts" of errors: Six consecutive bit errors, for example, can affect at most two bytes. Thus, even a double-error-correction version of a Reed-Solomon code can provide a comfortable safety factor. Current implementations of Reed-Solomon codes in CD technology are able to cope with error bursts as long as 4000 consecutive bits.
Thus it is possible to put in a couple hundred bytes of junk data every second or that would be the basis of the copy protection, all without compromising audio quality.
That said, I can record any sound playing through my computer with the software I have. The Audio Quality will be very good, then I can burn direct to CD, or convert to MP3, or whatever. Of course, all that I use this for are the music tapes I have from when I used to record certain local bands in clubs professionally.
29 percent of developers plan to develop OS X apps in the next 3 months, 55 percent of developers said they plan to deliver an OS X app within 6 months. [...] Jobs said OS X was introduced 116 days ago, and now has more than 1,000 native apps.
Although I wonder how many of thos apps are main strem items vs noname smalltime utilities.
Sounds promising. Which reminds me, how is the BSD Ports conversion going? that would be very nice to have done, but an awful lot of those items are not exactly high priority consumer items.
Then there is this item that gives me mixed feelings:
Kevin Browne from Microsoft [...] took the stage to talk about Microsoft Office for Mac OS X. He said the OS X version of Excel is the best version of the software Microsoft has shipped for any platform.
Given the fact that we read about people even trying to steal full sized ATM machines out of banks, grocery stores, etc. pulling them away with pickup trucks, etc. - what is to stop someone from just trying to drag the bench away?
When I sign up to a new site, call this the dependent site, I wish there were a You Know Me button I could click that would link membership in this site to some other site I am already a member of.
Well, this is something that could be done via cookies, or something, although doing this via your generic web based profile in your local cyber cafe would be more problematic.
Maybe they can take a cue from those famous "adult check" web sites or other similar technologies.
You gotta love these guys who dig up obscure patents, and then try to hold some part of the internet ransom. I'd like to see them try to enforce the patent in obscure coutries overseas.
Sometimes I honestly think that there should be a use it or loose it provision in the patent law, then I think about your typically small time inventor.
Besides, whatever happened to those guys who claim they invented the Hyperlink?
In a course of transition of KI-MACS application software core from version 6.5 to 7.0 and intensive testing of the modified KI-MACS, at the end of July, 2000 one more flaw has been
detected in the SQL Server 7.0. This flaw has been recognized by the Microsoft and filed as flaw No. SRX000727603512. Principal modifications introduced by the Microsoft in SQL Server 7.0 which are relating to the data security and data protection in a Database, and presence of the said flaw, are considered as creating a direct threat to data security and data protection in the SQL Server 7.0 Databases.
"Hello? I just bought my first computer yesterday, I got one of your softwares at the store with the computer. Can you tell me what to do?"
Some how I think that a Virtual Help Desk will have problems with this sort of thing.
With the likely hood being that mostly the smartest people have already purchased their computers, what this means is that what is left is for the less smart people to get their computers.
These are better links because you will be able access the data a year from now, while the Yahoo story will fall off the net in a few weeks.
It looks like alot of folks are commenting without reading the story. If they had, they would have noted this bit:
It was not immediately known how many people or offices use the Internet in a country in which infrastructure is in ruins because of more than two decades of war. There are not many computers and most of areas do not have electricity.
Those who can afford to, including foreign aid agencies, log onto the Internet through the few telephone lines provided by neighboring Pakistan.
[...]
AIP did not say when the ban was imposed and how the Taliban planned to ensure that telephone lines were not being used to access the Internet. But most Taliban decisions and edicts on conduct are ruthlessly enforced by their powerful religious police working under the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
A special note is that, as the taliban says, "We want to establish a system in Afghanistan through which we can control all those things that are wrong, obscene, immoral and against Islam"
This will be rather difficult to do, given their particular view of technology, etc. Maybe they'll mandate proprietary Taliban systems. But who would make them? I am sure someone would, but they could be a bit pricey.
Given the Bush administration, and the perception that the administratioon is pro business, this is an interesting development, bound to put the MS drawers into a twist.
I do recall that they replaced the old hand lawyers with a bunch of "beginners". (I need info to verify this)
The analogy I see is a possible similiarity to coding projects. You could replace the old guard with a bunch of hotshot code jockeys all rather young and very talented, etc. I can only hope that we have the legal equivalent of this in the legal geeks now on the job.
It would be very wonderful if the new crew were to give the MS bunch a rude surprise.
"Heroin Economics" - Common practice of drug dealers looking to establish a customer base by providing free samples to "hook" users, at
which time the dealer raises his prices for his product. Since people are now dependent, they will naturally pay whatever is necessary to obtain the
substance. In the software world, for years Microsoft tolerated software piracy (both casual and organized) as its user base expanded and the
company became a monopoly on the desktop with millions of "hooked" users and organizations...at which time it raised its prices and plans to
force users to pay annual tributes to feed their dependence on Microsoft products and services. (See "Product Activation Technology")
I know one guy, now that he has a gigahertz machine and 100 gig of hard drive and a 1.5 gig of ram, chokes it all with 200 to 300 meg graphics files. And complains that he never had this problem with slower machines.
So in a way, this will be good becauase it will make people program without the potential of infinite expansion.
I recall that a while back there was a discovery of cosmic clouds of what was basically alchohol in space, spanning satires based on star trek with spock as the designated driver.
there was this Slash Story on how the compounds for life are all over space.
I've been trying to figure out for years how to include a database as a field in another database. How'd they do it?
Multidimensional databases have been getting close to this sort of thing for ages (I have a friend who is profoundly expert in these things, I am not) Considering that they were originally systems designed to be multiuser multitasking, etc with true real time queries; and there are versions of this that run on an XT with decent performance [shrug] So you tounge in cheek question has a semi serious answer.
There are two possible fates of the Sun which depend closely on the details of where it is in its galactic orbit at the time of the collision. In the first case the Sun may take a ride on a tidal tail and be ejected into the darkness of
intergalactic space. In this case, our star would be all alone with few stellar neighbours so the night sky would be very dark with few stars to see -- maybe like the view of the nightsky from downtown Toronto. In the second case, the Sun is thrown right into the centre of the merging pair where a great starburst will be underway. The huge number of stars forming will result in supernovae going off at a rate of a few per year in the new merged galaxy. While these will not present a direct hazard to the Earth, they will truly light up the sky letting you read at night but probably frustrating the endeavours of backyard
astronomers!
I'm going to have to start taking bets on the outcome
The shattering news hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, and his adrenal glands prepared for a massive secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine in the classic "fight or flight" response as he realized the truth-the mind-deadening months of toil, the endless Little Debbie Snack Cake-fueled late nights, the ingratiating compliments to the CEO's pubescent fourth wife, the obsequious pandering to the snide staff in Human Resources, the feigned interest in the Director of Purchasing's numbingly repetititive wingnut collection, the humiliating
groveling to win the miniscule Withers-Grimes account, it had all been for nothing; Spivens, it seemed, would be getting the much-coveted translucent blue pencil sharpener.
The register had a story commenting on this when it first went down, noting that an un-named IT industry rag had speculated that the cause was the heavy implementation of the PassPort service.
Shear speculation, but it has a ring of truth somehow.
Yes. If you confuse the consumer into buying an inferior product by pretending to be a different company, you should be charged with fraud, not trademark infringement.
Which is what MS is doing by using.NET as a trademark, even tho it was a generic term before (as in the "Net"). Also, in the case of Microsoft, you might get into trouble by buying a superior non_MS product, using words similar in describing it, such as XWindows, Wordstar, or whatever.
We now get to the point of where this is sort of
link looking at the source of the Linux kernel, if it all was written entirely in Finnish in the first place, and we knew almost nothing about Finnish (which is not an IndoEuropean Language) and almost nothing about any kind of programming.
But it is a place to start.
Side note:
while looking up the Finnish Language pages for this comment, I came across this tidbit: That Finnish has "no equivalent of the verb to have". This has interesting philosophic implications in the history of open source, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
These typically come from the fringe groups, and so most folks tend to dismiss them out of hand. Examples of this include the Mars Photos, where many have seen examples of people playing fast and loose loose with the results. The primary allegation is that JPL is heavy into the robot missions, and so is heavily biased against actually finding life someplace else, because that would pull funding from JPL into other NON-JPL projects.
Certainly, there are probably different political power centers inside NASA and JPL, etc. I can also see that some folks would have a vigorous reaction against releasing anything that could give the fringe groups more ammunition.
I am personally dismayed by fringe group presentations on TV where the first half almost seems like reasonable possibility, and the second half is someone doing a biblical interprataion of the material. Talk about a taking a large grain salt! And yet, I suppose that somebody sees these shows and takes them seriously. I am reminded that a large chunk of the population is "below average" intelligence, although alot of this depends on educations as well.
All in All, I suspect that with all of the changes at JPL, there has been infighting over the agenda, pig headedness, and simple sillyness that merely gives ammunition to their critics.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Since I didn't have the exact details right at the fingertips, I quoted the details from the paragraphs from those two weblinks in my article. I guess even the internet can be wrong! [smile]
Now you get to write a nastygram to the
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics for errors in a 1993 article,
(my story link was http://www.siam.org/siamnews/mtc/mtc193.htm)
and the European Patent Office for accepting data in a patent that erroneously describes the operation you are so angry about. (My original link here was http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/txt/ep/0241/081/ desc.html)
Gee, I would have thought them reliable sources of information, but....
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
I am really tired of them trying to finnagle their way out of legal judgements and traps in a way that is based on only legal loopholes.
This is just something that convicts them more and each day in my eyes.
It is like happened with Clinton, who got nailed for parsing every last syllable in his statements.
Bill Clinton's old arkansas nickname was "Slick Willy". Looks like Bill Gates is a "Slick Willy" too.
With this much bad karma accumulating this quickly, the MS management and legal staff could bypass re-incarnating as Bugs, and go straight back to being mud and pond scum.
It would be an act of mercy to nuke them from orbit. It would stop their every more rapid decline.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Agreed.
The technology takes advantadge of the error correcting technology built into every audio CD. This technology is what allows the CD to play well even with hundreds of minor scratches. I think that the error correction will try to compensate for loss of data up to a tenth of a second or something like that. What they do is they put hundreds of minor glitches that are able to be corrected for by the technology. The error correction technology works really well, and is no way even close to being similar to a wave file.
If I recall correctly, compact discs use a version called cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon code, or CIRC. The basic level of error correction provided for Audio CD is one uncorrectable bit out of every 10^9. CD-ROM provides additional protection for data (ECC/EDC ) reducing the error rate to one bit in 10^13 For those interested, there is this detailed description, along with this basic introduction.
The coding system is based on groups of bits--such as bytes--rather than individual 0s and 1s. That feature makes Reed-Solomon codes particularly good at dealing with "bursts" of errors: Six consecutive bit errors, for example, can affect at most two bytes. Thus, even a double-error-correction version of a Reed-Solomon code can provide a comfortable safety factor. Current implementations of Reed-Solomon codes in CD technology are able to cope with error bursts as long as 4000 consecutive bits.
Thus it is possible to put in a couple hundred bytes of junk data every second or that would be the basis of the copy protection, all without compromising audio quality.
That said, I can record any sound playing through my computer with the software I have. The Audio Quality will be very good, then I can burn direct to CD, or convert to MP3, or whatever. Of course, all that I use this for are the music tapes I have from when I used to record certain local bands in clubs professionally.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Although I wonder how many of thos apps are main strem items vs noname smalltime utilities.
Sounds promising. Which reminds me, how is the BSD Ports conversion going? that would be very nice to have done, but an awful lot of those items are not exactly high priority consumer items.
Then there is this item that gives me mixed feelings:
Kevin Browne from Microsoft [...] took the stage to talk about Microsoft Office for Mac OS X. He said the OS X version of Excel is the best version of the software Microsoft has shipped for any platform.
But then, it is not a perfect world.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Well, this is something that could be done via cookies, or something, although doing this via your generic web based profile in your local cyber cafe would be more problematic.
Maybe they can take a cue from those famous "adult check" web sites or other similar technologies.
feh.
It's a dog's breakfast.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Sometimes I honestly think that there should be a use it or loose it provision in the patent law, then I think about your typically small time inventor.
Besides, whatever happened to those guys who claim they invented the Hyperlink?
Patent law is a mess
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
[sigh]
and MS wants us to trust them with the .NET
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"Hello? I just bought my first computer yesterday, I got one of your softwares at the store with the computer. Can you tell me what to do?"
Some how I think that a Virtual Help Desk will have problems with this sort of thing.
With the likely hood being that mostly the smartest people have already purchased their computers, what this means is that what is left is for the less smart people to get their computers.
This provides for new adventures in tech support.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
It makes a good marketing point.
"People who spend the Big Bucks choose Linux"
Now if we could only get MS bashing into the movies ... realistic computer scenes with blue screens and the rest.
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/07/1 3/taliban.internet/index.html n .internet.reut/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/07/13/afgha
These are better links because you will be able access the data a year from now, while the Yahoo story will fall off the net in a few weeks.
It looks like alot of folks are commenting without reading the story. If they had, they would have noted this bit:
It was not immediately known how many people or offices use the Internet in a country in which infrastructure is in ruins because of more than two decades of war. There are not many computers and most of areas do not have electricity. Those who can afford to, including foreign aid agencies, log onto the Internet through the few telephone lines provided by neighboring Pakistan.
[...]
AIP did not say when the ban was imposed and how the Taliban planned to ensure that telephone lines were not being used to access the Internet. But most Taliban decisions and edicts on conduct are ruthlessly enforced by their powerful religious police working under the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
A special note is that, as the taliban says, "We want to establish a system in Afghanistan through which we can control all those things that are wrong, obscene, immoral and against Islam"
This will be rather difficult to do, given their particular view of technology, etc. Maybe they'll mandate proprietary Taliban systems. But who would make them? I am sure someone would, but they could be a bit pricey.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
I do recall that they replaced the old hand lawyers with a bunch of "beginners". (I need info to verify this)
The analogy I see is a possible similiarity to coding projects. You could replace the old guard with a bunch of hotshot code jockeys all rather young and very talented, etc. I can only hope that we have the legal equivalent of this in the legal geeks now on the job.
It would be very wonderful if the new crew were to give the MS bunch a rude surprise.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
One interesting tidbit:
"Heroin Economics" - Common practice of drug dealers looking to establish a customer base by providing free samples to "hook" users, at which time the dealer raises his prices for his product. Since people are now dependent, they will naturally pay whatever is necessary to obtain the substance. In the software world, for years Microsoft tolerated software piracy (both casual and organized) as its user base expanded and the company became a monopoly on the desktop with millions of "hooked" users and organizations...at which time it raised its prices and plans to force users to pay annual tributes to feed their dependence on Microsoft products and services. (See "Product Activation Technology")
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
So in a way, this will be good becauase it will make people program without the potential of infinite expansion.
Yes the guy is clueless.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
there was this Slash Story on how the compounds for life are all over space.
Farscape is starting to look reasonable.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
True enuf, although I suppose the article cannot get everything right.
Time to get out the 5000 rated sunblock
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Multidimensional databases have been getting close to this sort of thing for ages (I have a friend who is profoundly expert in these things, I am not) Considering that they were originally systems designed to be multiuser multitasking, etc with true real time queries; and there are versions of this that run on an XT with decent performance [shrug] So you tounge in cheek question has a semi serious answer.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
I'm going to have to start taking bets on the outcome
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Sounds familiar, no?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Shear speculation, but it has a ring of truth somehow.
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Heck, it is even a business opportunity, selling things and services to the city.
someone should get cracking.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
Which is what MS is doing by using .NET as a trademark, even tho it was a generic term before (as in the "Net"). Also, in the case of Microsoft, you might get into trouble by buying a superior non_MS product, using words similar in describing it, such as XWindows, Wordstar, or whatever.
;-)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
The end result is that alot of alternatives to payload launchers, etc have been scrapped over the years.
Thus the primary mission of Nasa is to cover their butts and protect their jobs. Then to get something done.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
But it is a place to start.
Side note:
while looking up the Finnish Language pages for this comment, I came across this tidbit: That Finnish has "no equivalent of the verb to have". This has interesting philosophic implications in the history of open source, etc.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip