Good points. I have to ask, however, that if the base idea of the patent can be shown to have prior art, shouldn't that invalidate the rest of the patent, regardless of embellishments? Shouldn't the patent applicants at least show that they have something new to contribute, and be required to patent just that aspect or aspects that can be shown to be original?
Lately it's becoming fairly widely recognized that many if not most patents already reflect ideas that if not already thought of in detail, have prior art in substance. In the field of copyrights this is viewed as "derivative works". Perhaps the same thing should apply to patents.
All due respect, but my experience is exactly the opposite of yours.
I've custom built and sold over 800 systems in the last five years, and the AMD based systems, in terms of hardware reliability, are far, far better than the intel based systems - especially in the mini case formats, where heat is a factor, but including the gaming rigs.
Just looking at my invoices for this year, hardware replacement for the intel systems is over three times as common as it is for the amd based systems - and that includes the work I've done on systems I didn't build.
I'm not even going to go into mobo driver issues, except to say fuck ATI. Any cognitive diss wrt that you can pipe to devnull.
I agree with the GP. AMD kicks ass. I have seven custom built systems at home, all AMD/nvidia combos now as of early this year, because Intel's kit has not treated me very well since at least '05. They are rock solid. Downtime? What's that?
Bake a cantaloupe in the oven at low temp until it's hard enough.
(Yes, actually know someone who tried that back in the early 80s. Thankfully, it wasn't me who had to deal with the parents coming home to a very evil smelling house. You know who you are, sis.)
I like that idea - when I was a kid in the 70s I once mounted a battery powered megaphone on my bicycle, just for kicks - but it'd only distract the morons behind the wheel that much more;-(
Ditto. Not twice, tho. Not yet. Didn't have to pay their hospital bills, either. I might have to visit that particular bit of karma on a neighbor, soon, however. I'll survive it. He won't.
Even here, where one would expect a certain level of humor, it often falls flat.
I agree, but I think if my karma was in trouble I would refrain from cracking wise.
I will not refrain from being honest, nor cracking jokes; "karma" on slashdot is an artificial thing that has nothing to do with real life.
I find it pretty sad that anyone really cares about that. Honestly, who cares? It's just a website.
Speaking as somebody who has over a half million miles of professional on the road driving experience and a completely clean driving record during that time, I would expand your criteria to include anyone who cannot demonstrate an ability to pass the same tests that law enforcement officials, truck drivers, and other professionals have to pass.
You might as well push your logic to the conclusion it demands - get the people without the proper reflexes, the incompetent who just can't learn how to operate a motor vehicle, or learn the rules, and the ones without the proper attitude behind the wheel, off the road. Get the "old" and "young" people off the road. For that matter, get everyone off the damned road, rip up the concrete and put railways there;-)
Do that, we might see a real drop in fatalities. The statistics regarding drunk driving have been massively overinflated for decades, often because it's a nice political election football. Incompetent or inattentive drivers still account for the most massive percentage of accidents. Perhaps we should concentrate on the most common causes, rather than on the not so common causes. But that wouldn't satisfy the teetotalers.
I'd rather be sharing the road with someone who is drunk and weaving, than with someone who just plain doesn't know how to operate their damned vehicle. I have a better chance of predicting what the drunk will do than I have with the other.
Indeed. Anyone who thinks that a complete and total police state would eliminate or completely control human "misbehavior" is not only ignorant but fundamentally stupid and certainly should not be holding any position in which they have power over others. I seem to recall that personal freedom is something that is often lauded as what our military vets have died for - here in the US - opposing such thorough and socially devastating state control as that imposed by Stalin, Hitler, etc, in the name of protecting the citizens.
Good little citizen. Pat, pat, pat. ID, please. Are you a official citizen? Do you have any Sins to declare?
I didn't get to see it... and as an old Star Wars fan, who first saw it in the Paramount Theater in Mason City, IA, during it's first run, PAID FOR 26 CONSECUTIVE SHOWINGS during it's run there, bought the FIRST VHS tapes out and wore them out, spent thousands of hours building the plastic models you charged so much for, went and saw all of the first trilogy in the theaters many times, vhs, and even, even!!! despite my misgivings, went and paid to see the "prequels" at least twice each in the theater just so nobody could say I didn't know what was going on.... etc, etc, after this and the last article here about Lucas, all I have to say is
FUCK YOU AND YOUR GREEDY BULLSHIT, GEORGE. OH, AND FUCK YOU FOR YOUR "SPECIAL EDITION" TOO. Han shoots first, because he's HAN SOLO, the smuggler, all around scoundrel, and independent human being. I LIKED HIM THE WAY HE WAS. TAKE YOUR POLITICALLY CORRECT BANTHA POODOO AND YOURSELF AND CRUSH THEM IN A WASTE DISPOSAL UNIT ALONG WITH YOUR SITH LAWYERS THEN FEED THE RESULTING GOO TO THE SARLACC.
I think we can certainly dispel any doubts about whether or not Lucas's Sith Army of lawyers monitors the web.
It's kind of funny, you know - Star Wars was all about fighting oppression in the form of an evil empire. Then Lucas joins one.... or creates one, that line is pretty blurry...
Also - and this is rather ironic, really - Google stands up to China's EvIL EmPiRE (TM), but can't stand up to the Lucas/Hollywood Empire.
In any case, it doesn't matter. It was up long enough that many people would have ripped the video from Youtube, converted it, and it'll be all over the web in many forms in hours, if it isn't already (haven't checked yet, had to comment on it first *g*)
Let's see Lucas's Empire put a C&D on THAT.
The more web servers you attempt to influence, Lucas, the more copies will slip thru your fingers...
There is only one scientific method: observe, measure, repeat.
Eh. Observe, measure, model, repeat - as you point out in your second paragraph:-)
Theories are simply models of reality. Whether they are done laboriously on paper or somewhat easier on computers (for certain types of problems) really doesn't make much of a difference, as long as the intent is the same. I know I'm being pedantic, but there seems to be a certain disconnect in many people's minds between "theory" and "model".
Attempting humor in any part of society is always risky. There is no such thing as a joke that isn't potentially offensive to someone.
Unfortunately, it seems like more and more people whose statements have the potential of becoming public have to tread a line so fine that they often end up saying nothing at all.
I don't remember for sure, anymore, but I think it was George Burns who said that the least risky part of public comedy was having your joke fall flat. The most risky part was jail time.
The moral? Shy away from humor unless you don't care about karma or you're sure you joke will make somebody spew coffee out of their nose.
If you have a tried and true formula for making someone spew coffee out of their nose, you should probably be on the comedy circuit. Perhaps you should copyright it;-)
Come on, now. Karma on slashdot, from a realistic standpoint, is meaningless. Making people laugh, that's priceless.
If you're a distractible person you can be even more distracted if you want to. If you're a productive person you can be even more productive if you want to.
Or, if you're subject to both tendencies, you can suffer from Extreme Informational Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome and eventually end up playing Tetris all day.
Yes, one can suffer from both at once. As an example, it's like spending four intense hours searching forums trying to find that one variable setting you need to make xorg work properly, then you promptly get distracted by an youtube video someone sent you in your email, and forget to finish the build for two days.
This is of course just a hypothetical situation, nothing of the sort has ever happened to anyone...
Dude, they redirected the laser beams using advanced gravitics technology. Didn't you get the memo? Lucas is going to use it to shoot his next film on location.
You said it very well. It's not really science, but the pseudo-science that is part and parcel of the phenomenon of consumerism; which has deeper sociological roots.
I do object to the use of terminology as jargon, however. Terminology for the most part describes the use of words that reflect specialization in science, and should not be misused as propaganda. We don't live in a perfect world, however; and the misuse, and, more frequently lately, abuse of the terminology of science by the media is beyond disgusting.
I think that social networking sites are a good thing; but as with nearly all communication technologies in human history, they are being badly abused by those who find a profit potential in them.
In that respect I agree with the FOSS community.
Meanwhile, I stay away from them, and I advise all the people who will listen to me - which is a very short list relative to the internet as a whole - to do the same. The more mature social networking parts of the internet - usenet, etc - are beyond the reach of the average user, unfortunately.
Human discourse should be free - and not just free of monetary considerations, but free of censorship, free of moderation (regardless of content); free from oversight of any sort. Yes, it is likely that it'll be taken over, for at least a short time, by those who see the short term profit motive as imperative.
However, if it becomes moderated by large numbers of people who have their own ideological objectives, then no study of the phenomenon, no matter how pure it's motives, is worth anything. This is why a lot of the hard science theorists consider the social sciences to be ephemeral; lack of objectively hard data. Up is Up, Down is down.
Algorithms - code - are written by humans, don't exist in a vacuum.
Given what I've seen of Slashdot's moderation system, it looks like, as Larry Niven once put it very well, "evolution in action";)
"Scissors", hah. Back in the 80s, for a brief but very fun time, I ran with a carny gal who didn't object to me using my sheath knife to remove any obstacles between us. This was back in the times when actually carrying the afore-mentioned terrorism weapon was not frowned upon, of course.
I am certainly much more civilized now. I would not use just any old knife, I would use a suitably un-sharpened, socially fashionable, Branded(TM), DHS and Iron Chef approved, dull steak knife.
One of the worst misconceptions one can live with is to assume that everyone that one deals with are just as rational as one is; and regarding your particular project, that they would be willing to be categorized as cleanly, and that the algorithmic results would make sense when applied to the real world.
Slashdot Mirror
They can't be honest about what they are selling, they'd look like a bunch of hypocrites. Bog forbid!
Nonsense, from now on, cigarettes will have pictures of balloons on the brightly colored packages and they'll be known as DeathStix_TM_LucasFilms
Good points. I have to ask, however, that if the base idea of the patent can be shown to have prior art, shouldn't that invalidate the rest of the patent, regardless of embellishments? Shouldn't the patent applicants at least show that they have something new to contribute, and be required to patent just that aspect or aspects that can be shown to be original?
Lately it's becoming fairly widely recognized that many if not most patents already reflect ideas that if not already thought of in detail, have prior art in substance. In the field of copyrights this is viewed as "derivative works". Perhaps the same thing should apply to patents.
GSVEMR
Small wonder that so many people out there consider government's doings to be little more than "legalized" theft.
Perhaps not in the abstract, but as is frequently said, there's a difference between theory and practice...
It gets the point across ;-)
All due respect, but my experience is exactly the opposite of yours.
I've custom built and sold over 800 systems in the last five years, and the AMD based systems, in terms of hardware reliability, are far, far better than the intel based systems - especially in the mini case formats, where heat is a factor, but including the gaming rigs.
Just looking at my invoices for this year, hardware replacement for the intel systems is over three times as common as it is for the amd based systems - and that includes the work I've done on systems I didn't build.
I'm not even going to go into mobo driver issues, except to say fuck ATI. Any cognitive diss wrt that you can pipe to devnull.
I agree with the GP. AMD kicks ass. I have seven custom built systems at home, all AMD/nvidia combos now as of early this year, because Intel's kit has not treated me very well since at least '05. They are rock solid. Downtime? What's that?
YMMV, Flame on.
GSVEMR
Hah! Needs a Not Safe While Drinking Beer mod.
I like your sig. Reminds me of a t-shirt I have:
"You laugh because I'm different. I laugh because you are all the same."
GSVEMR
Bake a cantaloupe in the oven at low temp until it's hard enough.
(Yes, actually know someone who tried that back in the early 80s. Thankfully, it wasn't me who had to deal with the parents coming home to a very evil smelling house. You know who you are, sis.)
"My grand-dad died peacefully at 102 years of age, unlike the screaming passengers in his car." - ? :-D
I like that idea - when I was a kid in the 70s I once mounted a battery powered megaphone on my bicycle, just for kicks - but it'd only distract the morons behind the wheel that much more ;-(
I've been physically assaulted for jokes.
Ditto. Not twice, tho. Not yet. Didn't have to pay their hospital bills, either. I might have to visit that particular bit of karma on a neighbor, soon, however. I'll survive it. He won't.
Even here, where one would expect a certain level of humor, it often falls flat.
I agree, but I think if my karma was in trouble I would refrain from cracking wise.
I will not refrain from being honest, nor cracking jokes; "karma" on slashdot is an artificial thing that has nothing to do with real life.
I find it pretty sad that anyone really cares about that. Honestly, who cares? It's just a website.
Whatever.
GSVEMR
Speaking as somebody who has over a half million miles of professional on the road driving experience and a completely clean driving record during that time, I would expand your criteria to include anyone who cannot demonstrate an ability to pass the same tests that law enforcement officials, truck drivers, and other professionals have to pass.
You might as well push your logic to the conclusion it demands - get the people without the proper reflexes, the incompetent who just can't learn how to operate a motor vehicle, or learn the rules, and the ones without the proper attitude behind the wheel, off the road. Get the "old" and "young" people off the road. For that matter, get everyone off the damned road, rip up the concrete and put railways there ;-)
Do that, we might see a real drop in fatalities. The statistics regarding drunk driving have been massively overinflated for decades, often because it's a nice political election football. Incompetent or inattentive drivers still account for the most massive percentage of accidents. Perhaps we should concentrate on the most common causes, rather than on the not so common causes. But that wouldn't satisfy the teetotalers.
I'd rather be sharing the road with someone who is drunk and weaving, than with someone who just plain doesn't know how to operate their damned vehicle. I have a better chance of predicting what the drunk will do than I have with the other.
YMMV.
People with the right connections and good enough lawyers won't even have to worry about paying the fines.
Indeed. Anyone who thinks that a complete and total police state would eliminate or completely control human "misbehavior" is not only ignorant but fundamentally stupid and certainly should not be holding any position in which they have power over others. I seem to recall that personal freedom is something that is often lauded as what our military vets have died for - here in the US - opposing such thorough and socially devastating state control as that imposed by Stalin, Hitler, etc, in the name of protecting the citizens.
Good little citizen. Pat, pat, pat. ID, please. Are you a official citizen? Do you have any Sins to declare?
GSVEMR
check out Return of the Ewok
Oh, thank you, sir, for that. Hadn't seen it. I won't go as far as to say I spewed beer out my nostrils, but it was a close, close thing.
GSVEMR
I didn't get to see it... and as an old Star Wars fan, who first saw it in the Paramount Theater in Mason City, IA, during it's first run, PAID FOR 26 CONSECUTIVE SHOWINGS during it's run there, bought the FIRST VHS tapes out and wore them out, spent thousands of hours building the plastic models you charged so much for, went and saw all of the first trilogy in the theaters many times, vhs, and even, even!!! despite my misgivings, went and paid to see the "prequels" at least twice each in the theater just so nobody could say I didn't know what was going on.... etc, etc, after this and the last article here about Lucas, all I have to say is
FUCK YOU AND YOUR GREEDY BULLSHIT, GEORGE. OH, AND FUCK YOU FOR YOUR "SPECIAL EDITION" TOO. Han shoots first, because he's HAN SOLO, the smuggler, all around scoundrel, and independent human being. I LIKED HIM THE WAY HE WAS. TAKE YOUR POLITICALLY CORRECT BANTHA POODOO AND YOURSELF AND CRUSH THEM IN A WASTE DISPOSAL UNIT ALONG WITH YOUR SITH LAWYERS THEN FEED THE RESULTING GOO TO THE SARLACC.
I think we can certainly dispel any doubts about whether or not Lucas's Sith Army of lawyers monitors the web.
It's kind of funny, you know - Star Wars was all about fighting oppression in the form of an evil empire. Then Lucas joins one.... or creates one, that line is pretty blurry...
Also - and this is rather ironic, really - Google stands up to China's EvIL EmPiRE (TM), but can't stand up to the Lucas/Hollywood Empire.
In any case, it doesn't matter. It was up long enough that many people would have ripped the video from Youtube, converted it, and it'll be all over the web in many forms in hours, if it isn't already (haven't checked yet, had to comment on it first *g*)
Let's see Lucas's Empire put a C&D on THAT.
The more web servers you attempt to influence, Lucas, the more copies will slip thru your fingers...
Long live the Rebellion!
GSVEMR
There is only one scientific method: observe, measure, repeat.
Eh. Observe, measure, model, repeat - as you point out in your second paragraph :-)
Theories are simply models of reality. Whether they are done laboriously on paper or somewhat easier on computers (for certain types of problems) really doesn't make much of a difference, as long as the intent is the same. I know I'm being pedantic, but there seems to be a certain disconnect in many people's minds between "theory" and "model".
Well said, otherwise.
GSVEMR
Indeed. Gives an entirely new meaning to the old phrase "my ass is on fire".
Modern equivalent: "My ass is experiencing a solar plasma event."
Hmm. Just doesn't cut it.
Attempting humor in any part of society is always risky. There is no such thing as a joke that isn't potentially offensive to someone.
Unfortunately, it seems like more and more people whose statements have the potential of becoming public have to tread a line so fine that they often end up saying nothing at all.
I don't remember for sure, anymore, but I think it was George Burns who said that the least risky part of public comedy was having your joke fall flat. The most risky part was jail time.
The moral? Shy away from humor unless you don't care about karma or you're sure you joke will make somebody spew coffee out of their nose.
If you have a tried and true formula for making someone spew coffee out of their nose, you should probably be on the comedy circuit. Perhaps you should copyright it ;-)
Come on, now. Karma on slashdot, from a realistic standpoint, is meaningless. Making people laugh, that's priceless.
GSVEMR
If you're a distractible person you can be even more distracted if you want to. If you're a productive person you can be even more productive if you want to.
Or, if you're subject to both tendencies, you can suffer from Extreme Informational Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome and eventually end up playing Tetris all day.
Yes, one can suffer from both at once. As an example, it's like spending four intense hours searching forums trying to find that one variable setting you need to make xorg work properly, then you promptly get distracted by an youtube video someone sent you in your email, and forget to finish the build for two days.
This is of course just a hypothetical situation, nothing of the sort has ever happened to anyone...
Dude, they redirected the laser beams using advanced gravitics technology. Didn't you get the memo? Lucas is going to use it to shoot his next film on location.
Didn't assume you were.
You said it very well. It's not really science, but the pseudo-science that is part and parcel of the phenomenon of consumerism; which has deeper sociological roots.
I do object to the use of terminology as jargon, however. Terminology for the most part describes the use of words that reflect specialization in science, and should not be misused as propaganda. We don't live in a perfect world, however; and the misuse, and, more frequently lately, abuse of the terminology of science by the media is beyond disgusting.
I think that social networking sites are a good thing; but as with nearly all communication technologies in human history, they are being badly abused by those who find a profit potential in them.
In that respect I agree with the FOSS community.
Meanwhile, I stay away from them, and I advise all the people who will listen to me - which is a very short list relative to the internet as a whole - to do the same. The more mature social networking parts of the internet - usenet, etc - are beyond the reach of the average user, unfortunately.
Human discourse should be free - and not just free of monetary considerations, but free of censorship, free of moderation (regardless of content); free from oversight of any sort. Yes, it is likely that it'll be taken over, for at least a short time, by those who see the short term profit motive as imperative.
However, if it becomes moderated by large numbers of people who have their own ideological objectives, then no study of the phenomenon, no matter how pure it's motives, is worth anything. This is why a lot of the hard science theorists consider the social sciences to be ephemeral; lack of objectively hard data. Up is Up, Down is down.
Algorithms - code - are written by humans, don't exist in a vacuum.
Given what I've seen of Slashdot's moderation system, it looks like, as Larry Niven once put it very well, "evolution in action" ;)
GSVEMR
I must, at the insistence of my SO, retract the part about "Iron Chef approved" dull steak knives.
I do not watch TV, and therefore I was not aware that the people on the Iron Chef shows actually use sharp knives.
Consider that part of my statement duly redacted.
GSVEMR
Indeed! Might be too complex for many of them...
"Scissors", hah. Back in the 80s, for a brief but very fun time, I ran with a carny gal who didn't object to me using my sheath knife to remove any obstacles between us. This was back in the times when actually carrying the afore-mentioned terrorism weapon was not frowned upon, of course.
I am certainly much more civilized now. I would not use just any old knife, I would use a suitably un-sharpened, socially fashionable, Branded(TM), DHS and Iron Chef approved, dull steak knife.
One must keep up with the times, after all.
GSVEMR
One of the worst misconceptions one can live with is to assume that everyone that one deals with are just as rational as one is; and regarding your particular project, that they would be willing to be categorized as cleanly, and that the algorithmic results would make sense when applied to the real world.
Don't count on it.
GSVEMR