Uh, CPM (Critical Path Method) is not CP/M (Control Program/Microcomputers), nor is it CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
I've no idea what the original poster meant, but the reference to Sinclair at least makes CP/M plausible. (Well, as plausible as still using an 8-bit product could be.)
And yes, SAP (Statistical Analysis Package) has branched out into other areas, including CRM.
The MS license says that you may need to license patents to be able to read or write the schema, without giving specifics. Perhaps they're bluffing.
In any case, I don't think the schema per se is patentable even by today's PTO, it's just a description, it'd be like patenting a blueprint. Could there be anything patentable in how the schema is used by software to render a document? Only the PTO knows for sure...
Nowhere in it does it state exactly what patents or methods are being licensed, or even if there are any that need to be licensed.
It just says, in effect "you might need to license MSFT IP to read or write docs with these schemas. If so, here's the license". On the other hand, you might not need to do so. Until somebody points out some relevant patent numbers, I'd say you're better off ignoring this license, otherwise you're agreeing to give up rights you don't have to (hmm, sounds like all of Microsofts other licenses too).
(And ordinarily I'd be extremely sceptical that any patent could cover reading/writing anything in XML, but given the current state of the patent office, anything's possible.)
(You may need to license certain patents or patents pending owned by AJWM to read this message. A non-exclusive, royalty-free license to any such patents is hereby granted subject to the following condition: in any replies to this message, you agree to include the notice "Contains Intellectual Property of AJWM").
A 3D render of Mickey Mouse just won't work unless he has spherical ears -- they always look more-or-less circular from any angle in 2D. (And even at that, the ears would have to rotate around his head so that they're also always beside each other from the viewer's POV). Works in 2D without looking wierd, though.
Well, in 3D it's also true that if you can draw it, you can do it. The thing is that creating 3D models is a bigger PITA than simply sketching something, so you really want to leverage that by animating the model rather than creating a new, slightly different model for each frame. (Or rather, you want to let the computer create that new model rather than creating it manually.)
OTOH, once you've developed the algorithms (and maybe, acquired a fast enough computer) to generate a certain kind of model effect, you can re-use it again and again. (E.g., modelling how clothing reacts to motion.)
Of course, that depends on how close the computer simulation matches the real world vs taking shortcuts that render okay but are situation-specific.
You're assuming limitations of software that aren't inherent. Oh, they may be inherent to specific packages, but this is why the big studios have hordes of programmers to develop or customize software as needed.
Want to pull a sight gag like the classic Wile E. Coyote drawing a picture of a tunnel on a rock and having the RoadRunner go through it? Simple, first model the rock with a pixmap of the tunnel picture rendered on the surface (ditto when the coyote tries to run through it). For the roadrunner scene, substitute a model of the rock with an actual tunnel cut into it. No big deal. (Alternatively, model the real tunnel all along but put an invisible wall across it for the coyote to smack into.) Just keep the camera POV fixed.
Fox in "Ice Age" did a number of classic Looney Tunes-like character morphs, particularly of Scrat (the saber-tooth squirrel-rat), e.g. eyeballs bulging when it gets squeezed in the glacier, arms stretching ridiculously when it tries to pull the acorn from the ice, etc.
In a series of short clips Pixar did for the Disney Channel (IIRC), there are a couple with Woody and Buzz casting optically impossible (but funny!) shadows (in the light from, of course, a Luxo lamp).
Don't forget that you can not only change the camera parameters from frame to frame, but also the models (indeed, you have to do that to get motion) and your rules of model motion don't have to match the laws of physics. Even where they do, you can cheat. The scene in "Toy Story" where the toy soldiers parachute from the upper floor is faked -- there's a brief period where the soldiers are out of view as they go over the side and the "camera" follows; the animators set this up to have the original toys "hide" under the floor while two others with opening parachutes appear in their place (I forget why they had to do this, but it simplified something else).
Sure, there's probably a class of 2D sight gags that just aren't as funny in 3D. But there are also things you can pull off in 3D (or even CG 2D) because of the computerization that would just be way too labor-intensive in conventional 2D.
(For great examples of some other effects, see what happens when the modelling/rendering software glitches as in the "errors" reel from "Shrek" on the DVD.)
If it is that important, a fire-proof safe is an ideal storage container.
NOOO!!! Not unless it is specifically a "media safe" designed for storing magnetic or optical media (and costs several times the price of a normal fireproof safe of the same size).
Regular fireproof safes are designed to protect paper, which ignites at approximately 451F, assuming a dry atmosphere. The safes can get up to 400F or so (which will melt/destroy most tapes and CDs -- although often with CDs, the case melts first), and the insulating material is designed to "outgas" water vapor into the safe to help fire suppression. Fine for paper, not good at all for media (think of it as a mini sauna on steroids).
For real protection, a small media safe inside a large gun safe (good gun safes are also designed to keep the contents dry) should do it.
Better yet, store another copy offsite in, say, a safety deposit box.
I'm not sure what your definition of Astronomical is,
Heh, or as somebody's sig puts it, "the Moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds".
(Oh, and your numbers -- "thousands and thousands" and "millions of years" -- are both too small by several orders of magnitude, meaning that your point is even stronger than you make it.)
And while those skinny, calorie-burning types may look fashionable now, we that tend to retain the weight can take comfort in the fact that, comes a famine, they'll be the first to go.
Besides, as my old SCUBA instructor used to say, chubby divers are warm divers. (Rather important when for several months of the year, if you wanted to go diving locally you had to chop a hole in the ice first...)
Ah yes, the ever popular statistical sample of one.
Well, in this instance, that sample is 100% of the population that I'm particularly concerned about.;-)
The environment (including the food we eat) is, always has been, and always will be full of nasty things that might kill us quickly or slowly or not at all depending on the dosage. Most of the worst are naturally occuring, including both slow and fast. (Read up, for example, on the mechanisms by which oxalic acid (in rhubarb leaves) or the amanita mushroom toxin kill. Nasty. Or about aflatoxin, which unlike the previous two is in everyday food.) Every food we eat contains biochemicals that, were they produced in a lab rather than naturally in a plant or animal, would never be approved for consumption by the FDA, and many would probably cause the food to be classified as "hazardous waste".
You seem to be confusing copyright law and patent law.
You can't copyright an idea, only an expression of that idea. The opposite, however, is true of patents and prior art.
You need to show a working implementation of something in order for it to be considered prior art.
You most certainly do not. The most celebrated counterexample is the rejection of Halcyon's (IIRC) attempts to patent the water bed, because of prior description of something very similar in a Robert A. Heinlein novel.
You merely need to show a description of it sufficient that someone "skilled in the art" could produce it. So to the extent a generic description wouldn't suffice, you're right. But a detailed description, even short of actual implementation, would be enough.
Personally I prefer the taste of diet soda (at least, Diet Coke) over the corn syrupy stuff. As for aspartame, I'm not too worried about a molecule that's mainly two harmless (except to phenlyketoneuretics) amino acids, and thirty years of consuming the stuff hasn't hurt me so far.
I can't figure out which of the antecedant posts you're agreeing or disagreeing with.
As for taking responsibility for oneself, I agree entirely. Which means, for example, if I'm overweight, I won't blame anyone else for that. It doesn't, though, necessarily mean that I'll starve myself to conform to your idea of what my ideal weight should be.
And of course, there's a significant difference between what one chooses to do to (or permit of) one's self (overweight, etc) and what one chooses to do to others (raping and pillaging). The former is defensible, the latter not.
Re:Atkins NO effect on your kidneys
on
Hackers On Atkins
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· Score: 1
We need a (-1, bullshit) moderation. The above certainly calls for it.
Oh, the last half isn't bad, but the guy has no clue about the Atkins diet.
She's nearly 50 and she only requires about 5-6 hours of sleep,
That's probably the reason right there, nothing to do with being a vegan. Everybody tends to need less sleep as they get older.
Me, I figure I didn't spend three billion years climbing to the top of the food chain to just eat vegetables. How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf anyway?
Re:"Low Carb" is the new "Low Fat"
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Hackers On Atkins
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· Score: 1
You were doing fine up until the last sentence of your first paragraph.
In actual fact, recent medical studies have shown that on the Atkins diet, you can lose weight even with a higher caloric intake than on a lower-calorie but high carb diet.
Part of the reason for this is the metabolic pathway change, and part is probably an artifact of the bogus way that the caloric value of food is determined. (Burning it in a calorimetry bomb, which is nothing like how our body consumes it and thus ignores the energy costs of conversion.)
Re:Good engineers read up before tinkering
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Hackers On Atkins
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· Score: 1
I note that McDougall pushes a "starch-based diet", his own line of vegetarian meal products, and runs a luxury-resort based diet program. A tad biased in outlook, perhaps?
He's also trained as a nutritionist -- thus thoroughly indoctrinated by traditional nutrionist thinking -- rather than as, say, a cardiologist like Atkins was.
Fine. I want to see you eat a 1/4 cup of ground beef, and see how you feel two or three days later.
Well, I can virtually guarantee that he'll have lost weight;-)
Seriously, though, ground beef is also a fairly recent invention (to say nothing of modern slaughterhouses). A slice of muscle cut from the animal without nicking the intestines shouldn't cause much problem.
It's funny how humans have lived on a staple of grains, rice, potatoes for thousands of years,
Well, outside of South America, potatoes have only been part of the diet for the last 500 years (less than that, really). Grains and rice have only been a significant part of the diet since the invention of agriculture somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 years ago.
That's a tiny fraction of the several million years since the hominid line split off from our primate bretheren, and throughout that -- and for millions of years prior -- we've lived on meats (including grubs and insects as well as small animals), fruits and vegetables. Not grains.
Whip up the sugar-free jello with some whipping cream. Tastes great, and the fat in the cream will satiate your appetite faster than the jello alone, so you'll eat less.
And I think (I'd have to check) that sugar-free jello these days is now a mix of aspartame and acesulfame potassium, rather than just the aspartame.
That said, just drinking a lot of water can help with the cravings. As for most of that so-called diet food, it's low-fat -- which means it hardly triggers that fat-related "I've eaten enough" sensor -- but not necessarily low-carb, so from the Atkins point of view, it's just about the worst stuff you could be eating.
Most big grocery stores should carry Diet 'Dew. I've got a couple cases in the garage. Including that wierd new red stuff.
(Sugar aside, I prefer diet sodas because spilling such on the desk or keyboard doesn't cause anywhere near the sticky mess that something loaded with corn syrup would.)
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, CPM (Critical Path Method) is not CP/M (Control Program/Microcomputers), nor is it CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
I've no idea what the original poster meant, but the reference to Sinclair at least makes CP/M plausible. (Well, as plausible as still using an 8-bit product could be.)
And yes, SAP (Statistical Analysis Package) has branched out into other areas, including CRM.
This schema is patented.
Is it? What's the patent number?
The MS license says that you may need to license patents to be able to read or write the schema, without giving specifics. Perhaps they're bluffing.
In any case, I don't think the schema per se is patentable even by today's PTO, it's just a description, it'd be like patenting a blueprint. Could there be anything patentable in how the schema is used by software to render a document? Only the PTO knows for sure...
Actually the patent license is ridiculous.
Nowhere in it does it state exactly what patents or methods are being licensed, or even if there are any that need to be licensed.
It just says, in effect "you might need to license MSFT IP to read or write docs with these schemas. If so, here's the license". On the other hand, you might not need to do so. Until somebody points out some relevant patent numbers, I'd say you're better off ignoring this license, otherwise you're agreeing to give up rights you don't have to (hmm, sounds like all of Microsofts other licenses too).
(And ordinarily I'd be extremely sceptical that any patent could cover reading/writing anything in XML, but given the current state of the patent office, anything's possible.)
(You may need to license certain patents or patents pending owned by AJWM to read this message. A non-exclusive, royalty-free license to any such patents is hereby granted subject to the following condition: in any replies to this message, you agree to include the notice "Contains Intellectual Property of AJWM").
What does the Windows source code look like?
Hungarian notation. Need anything more be said?
The problem with putting together a new geek news site is that, by definition, it'll be slashdotted every day.
Okay, I think I see your point.
A 3D render of Mickey Mouse just won't work unless he has spherical ears -- they always look more-or-less circular from any angle in 2D. (And even at that, the ears would have to rotate around his head so that they're also always beside each other from the viewer's POV). Works in 2D without looking wierd, though.
Well, in 3D it's also true that if you can draw it, you can do it. The thing is that creating 3D models is a bigger PITA than simply sketching something, so you really want to leverage that by animating the model rather than creating a new, slightly different model for each frame. (Or rather, you want to let the computer create that new model rather than creating it manually.)
OTOH, once you've developed the algorithms (and maybe, acquired a fast enough computer) to generate a certain kind of model effect, you can re-use it again and again. (E.g., modelling how clothing reacts to motion.)
Of course, that depends on how close the computer simulation matches the real world vs taking shortcuts that render okay but are situation-specific.
You're assuming limitations of software that aren't inherent. Oh, they may be inherent to specific packages, but this is why the big studios have hordes of programmers to develop or customize software as needed.
Want to pull a sight gag like the classic Wile E. Coyote drawing a picture of a tunnel on a rock and having the RoadRunner go through it? Simple, first model the rock with a pixmap of the tunnel picture rendered on the surface (ditto when the coyote tries to run through it). For the roadrunner scene, substitute a model of the rock with an actual tunnel cut into it. No big deal. (Alternatively, model the real tunnel all along but put an invisible wall across it for the coyote to smack into.) Just keep the camera POV fixed.
Fox in "Ice Age" did a number of classic Looney Tunes-like character morphs, particularly of Scrat (the saber-tooth squirrel-rat), e.g. eyeballs bulging when it gets squeezed in the glacier, arms stretching ridiculously when it tries to pull the acorn from the ice, etc.
In a series of short clips Pixar did for the Disney Channel (IIRC), there are a couple with Woody and Buzz casting optically impossible (but funny!) shadows (in the light from, of course, a Luxo lamp).
Don't forget that you can not only change the camera parameters from frame to frame, but also the models (indeed, you have to do that to get motion) and your rules of model motion don't have to match the laws of physics. Even where they do, you can cheat. The scene in "Toy Story" where the toy soldiers parachute from the upper floor is faked -- there's a brief period where the soldiers are out of view as they go over the side and the "camera" follows; the animators set this up to have the original toys "hide" under the floor while two others with opening parachutes appear in their place (I forget why they had to do this, but it simplified something else).
Sure, there's probably a class of 2D sight gags that just aren't as funny in 3D. But there are also things you can pull off in 3D (or even CG 2D) because of the computerization that would just be way too labor-intensive in conventional 2D.
(For great examples of some other effects, see what happens when the modelling/rendering software glitches as in the "errors" reel from "Shrek" on the DVD.)
If it is that important, a fire-proof safe is an ideal storage container.
NOOO!!! Not unless it is specifically a "media safe" designed for storing magnetic or optical media (and costs several times the price of a normal fireproof safe of the same size).
Regular fireproof safes are designed to protect paper, which ignites at approximately 451F, assuming a dry atmosphere. The safes can get up to 400F or so (which will melt/destroy most tapes and CDs -- although often with CDs, the case melts first), and the insulating material is designed to "outgas" water vapor into the safe to help fire suppression. Fine for paper, not good at all for media (think of it as a mini sauna on steroids).
For real protection, a small media safe inside a large gun safe (good gun safes are also designed to keep the contents dry) should do it.
Better yet, store another copy offsite in, say, a safety deposit box.
I'm not sure what your definition of Astronomical is,
Heh, or as somebody's sig puts it, "the Moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds".
(Oh, and your numbers -- "thousands and thousands" and "millions of years" -- are both too small by several orders of magnitude, meaning that your point is even stronger than you make it.)
And while those skinny, calorie-burning types may look fashionable now, we that tend to retain the weight can take comfort in the fact that, comes a famine, they'll be the first to go.
Besides, as my old SCUBA instructor used to say, chubby divers are warm divers. (Rather important when for several months of the year, if you wanted to go diving locally you had to chop a hole in the ice first...)
Ah yes, the ever popular statistical sample of one.
;-)
Well, in this instance, that sample is 100% of the population that I'm particularly concerned about.
The environment (including the food we eat) is, always has been, and always will be full of nasty things that might kill us quickly or slowly or not at all depending on the dosage. Most of the worst are naturally occuring, including both slow and fast. (Read up, for example, on the mechanisms by which oxalic acid (in rhubarb leaves) or the amanita mushroom toxin kill. Nasty. Or about aflatoxin, which unlike the previous two is in everyday food.) Every food we eat contains biochemicals that, were they produced in a lab rather than naturally in a plant or animal, would never be approved for consumption by the FDA, and many would probably cause the food to be classified as "hazardous waste".
You seem to be confusing copyright law and patent law.
You can't copyright an idea, only an expression of that idea. The opposite, however, is true of patents and prior art.
You need to show a working implementation of something in order for it to be considered prior art.
You most certainly do not. The most celebrated counterexample is the rejection of Halcyon's (IIRC) attempts to patent the water bed, because of prior description of something very similar in a Robert A. Heinlein novel.
You merely need to show a description of it sufficient that someone "skilled in the art" could produce it. So to the extent a generic description wouldn't suffice, you're right. But a detailed description, even short of actual implementation, would be enough.
Personally I prefer the taste of diet soda (at least, Diet Coke) over the corn syrupy stuff. As for aspartame, I'm not too worried about a molecule that's mainly two harmless (except to phenlyketoneuretics) amino acids, and thirty years of consuming the stuff hasn't hurt me so far.
I can't figure out which of the antecedant posts you're agreeing or disagreeing with.
As for taking responsibility for oneself, I agree entirely. Which means, for example, if I'm overweight, I won't blame anyone else for that. It doesn't, though, necessarily mean that I'll starve myself to conform to your idea of what my ideal weight should be.
And of course, there's a significant difference between what one chooses to do to (or permit of) one's self (overweight, etc) and what one chooses to do to others (raping and pillaging). The former is defensible, the latter not.
We need a (-1, bullshit) moderation. The above certainly calls for it.
Oh, the last half isn't bad, but the guy has no clue about the Atkins diet.
What the hell is an "atkins style drink" at Starbucks?
Atkins discourages caffeine intake. I can't think of anything Starbucks serves, beyond plain water (if you can even get that), that Atkins promotes.
She's nearly 50 and she only requires about 5-6 hours of sleep,
That's probably the reason right there, nothing to do with being a vegan. Everybody tends to need less sleep as they get older.
Me, I figure I didn't spend three billion years climbing to the top of the food chain to just eat vegetables. How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf anyway?
You were doing fine up until the last sentence of your first paragraph.
In actual fact, recent medical studies have shown that on the Atkins diet, you can lose weight even with a higher caloric intake than on a lower-calorie but high carb diet.
Part of the reason for this is the metabolic pathway change, and part is probably an artifact of the bogus way that the caloric value of food is determined. (Burning it in a calorimetry bomb, which is nothing like how our body consumes it and thus ignores the energy costs of conversion.)
I note that McDougall pushes a "starch-based diet", his own line of vegetarian meal products, and runs a luxury-resort based diet program. A tad biased in outlook, perhaps?
He's also trained as a nutritionist -- thus thoroughly indoctrinated by traditional nutrionist thinking -- rather than as, say, a cardiologist like Atkins was.
Fine. I want to see you eat a 1/4 cup of ground beef, and see how you feel two or three days later.
;-)
Well, I can virtually guarantee that he'll have lost weight
Seriously, though, ground beef is also a fairly recent invention (to say nothing of modern slaughterhouses). A slice of muscle cut from the animal without nicking the intestines shouldn't cause much problem.
It's funny how humans have lived on a staple of grains, rice, potatoes for thousands of years,
Well, outside of South America, potatoes have only been part of the diet for the last 500 years (less than that, really). Grains and rice have only been a significant part of the diet since the invention of agriculture somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 years ago.
That's a tiny fraction of the several million years since the hominid line split off from our primate bretheren, and throughout that -- and for millions of years prior -- we've lived on meats (including grubs and insects as well as small animals), fruits and vegetables. Not grains.
Whip up the sugar-free jello with some whipping cream. Tastes great, and the fat in the cream will satiate your appetite faster than the jello alone, so you'll eat less.
And I think (I'd have to check) that sugar-free jello these days is now a mix of aspartame and acesulfame potassium, rather than just the aspartame.
Exactly. Mod this guy up.
That said, just drinking a lot of water can help with the cravings. As for most of that so-called diet food, it's low-fat -- which means it hardly triggers that fat-related "I've eaten enough" sensor -- but not necessarily low-carb, so from the Atkins point of view, it's just about the worst stuff you could be eating.
Most big grocery stores should carry Diet 'Dew. I've got a couple cases in the garage. Including that wierd new red stuff.
(Sugar aside, I prefer diet sodas because spilling such on the desk or keyboard doesn't cause anywhere near the sticky mess that something loaded with corn syrup would.)