The problem isn't solely that inventors themselves aren't the ones receiving the patents;
The problem is also that the number of "inventors" in the realm of computer programming is very very big.
On the left hand: How many people are there that can tinker at home, and make special types of macrophages, or whatever it is that biologists do in research time?
On the right hand: How many people are there who can apply XOR to draw cursors on their home computers? I was doing that when I was 12, and I don't consider myself particularly bright.
The definition of "obvious" or "non-obvious" is not clear. I can easily imagine the baffled patent examiner, considering the XOR drawing algorithm. "Wow! This guy knows about bits, and logic gates, and,... other complicated stuff. Hot damn, that can't be obvious. We gotta do something about this... We gotta... Make sure nobody else does this for 20 years!"
20 years!
Even if the programmers are the ones receiving the checks for their "invention," we still have the same problem:
Specifically, the patent system is prohibiting innovation rather than encouraging it.
When iCalendar support is built into everything, it'll be very easy for public groups to see each other's meetings, and for individuals to participate.
I easily lose track of when the Seattle XP programmers, Seattle Perl programmers, Seattle Python programmers, Seattle Robotics Society, Seattle Cosmic, Seattle Wireless, Seattle Java, Seattle C++, Seattle Wikipedia, Seattle FreeBSD Users group, Greater Seattle Linux Users Group, Seattle Bloggers, East side Bloggers, Seattle Futurists, etc., etc., etc.,...I easily lose track of what's going on when. With automatic calendaring, when we can subscribe to calendars as simply as we subscribe to RSS feeds- we're going to see a surge in awareness of what groups are meeting when, and how to meet up with them.
Right now, I can only track 1 group at a time. "Is Seattle Python meeting this weekend?" "No?" "Guess there's nobody to see this weekend."
But, as you can see from my short list above (compared to how much activity is actually going on,) there's actually a whole lot going on that I might be interested in visiting.
As Automatic Calendaring picks up, the public will recognize the power of its ability to communicate and organize.
Previously, this is something that only people who could afford secretaries could experience.
I'm not sure, but my guess is that they're intending to use the parallel capabilities of the system to provide what is basically super-cheap physics.
Physics is mostly "local interaction." You drop a pen, it falls on the ground underneat it. Wind moves around. Hair is connected to a nearby head.
With the exception of missiles flying across the world at super-high speed, which can gum things up, it's local interaction.
Since it's local interaction, it's highly parallelizable. Just like graphics rendering.
The trend is for GPUs to be more programmable. It's sort of like being able to programmatically build a factory assembly line. Perhaps the PS3 will feature these things? If the rumors about the Cell (based on actual patents,...) and apply to the PS3, then I think this is exactly what we'd see.
It seems to me like you could parallelize most desktop apps.
An MP3 player: I would think you should be able to decode one second with one processor, and the next second with the other processor.
Word processor: I would think that parts of the boot process that do not require the other parts would be able to run independently. Two processors could check alternating lines until the whole document was checked.
Spreadsheets: I would think that the first half of a giant list could be handled by one processor, the second half of the giant list handled by the second processor.
3D graphics, non-accelerated: I would think that the screen could be cut in four, and one processor rendering each part.
Games: I would think the simulation could be divided into parts, and the different parts simulated by different processors.
Compiling, Parsing: If you have 40 files to parse, each processor can handle 10 files, so you would go roughly 4x as fast. Parsers aren't just for C++, parsers are found in just about every program that reads data from a disk or the Internet.
So it seems to me that we could make major performance gains, using multiple processors.
I know that they are evil, because I've seen what they do.
Just watch Laputa. Near the end of the movie,- you see that Laputa is composed of these very same intelligent brick computers.
In answer to the question: "How do you replace the broken bricks in the middle?"...the answer is: It's all automatic. The bricks rearrange themselves in mid-air, and the broken bricks fall out.
Heh heh. Yeah, and you're "fundamentally more creative" than the Japanese too. It's okay; You're "special." I know. We all know that. Americans are "special."
But really, seriously, all joking aside:
You're just furthering my point.
The American tech imagination is all wrapped up in "outer space." We're still watching Star Trek reruns.
Very unimportant.
What's important is computers and robots and cyborgs.
Is the American imagination ready for it? Are we prepared- mentally?
Space can help us build space lasers and missiles and and what not. We can try to control things by threatening to lob rocks. Space-faring is cowboy mentality. That's our romance.
But I think it's economy, computers, and automation that's actually going to be critical in this next half-century. (Wouldn't dare speculate into the second half.)
The United States had the 20th century. We've had our glory days. We won WW2! Man on the moon! Yaaay! Wasn't that sad when the Challenger exploded? Oh wow! Computers! Dot-coms! X-prize!
But where are the robots, in our mind? Where are the cyborgs? Why aren't we talking about computers as anything other than word processors and MP3 players? Why are we resisting broadband? Why do we get so nervous talking about these things?
Asia clearly owns the 21st century. They own it, because they faced up to it, and integrated it, way before anyone else.
Consider: Shinto + Technology. Two tastes that taste great together.
America: "Stem cells are ew! God hates technology! Stop talking on your cell phone! Step away- from the computer!"
It's the imagination. The American imagination is totally unprepared for the new world. We are still busy playing "cowboys and indians."
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Cybernetics is just a matter of course in Japan. I doubt they'd call it that, but the fundamental assumptions and understandings, I think are commonplace there. Pretty much everyone's psyched up about technology. Some people like it, some people don't, but nobody denies that it's going to happen.
Here in the states, you talk about this stuff, and they look at you like you've just grown a third arm. "Nah, that'll never happen..." "...well, maybe, in a hundred years, but-..."
I'm amazed at how little Americans know about the state of technology. And of what Americans do know, how little it's penetrated their consciousness.
Americans don't want this stuff in their mind. They don't want to think about it. It's not even that- it's just not even in the imagination.
(That's changing; witness The Matrix, and stuff like that. But contemporary-wise: We're way backwards.)
I've heard that the most expensive part of making chips is the factory. I understand that the factories are custom made for only that one chip that they make.
If that's true, why destroy the old factory? Why not build a new factory for the new chips?
Several people are worried that this technology would be horrible. Many people are citing Forbidden Planet. But, those worries are mis-placed. Forbidden Planet isn't going to happen. It goes like this: We're going to develop suppressors technology.
Think about a gun for the moment: A gun has a safety. You have to undo the safety, before the gun will fire.
We all have many systems in our lives that prevent us from messing up. Credit card limits, speech and action suppressors in our brains, yadda yadda yadda.
As we develop machines that respond to thought, we will also develop machines that suppress our newfound "actions." We will limit actions that are particularly dangerous. We will limit actions that come from careless thoughts. There may be things where: You have to solve a small puzzle, before the action will carry out. We may have things where: If you aren't being attentive, then the action won't execute.
Yes; if you have the code automatically convert names to pointers to the thing named, then our problem is solved.
But our entire infrastructure is based on the text-file user interface.
One thing I've been thinking about, is a "compiler with it's head cracked open." That is, a compiler that spills out everything it understands about your software, after it's loaded it all into memory, and is preparing to write out the compiled output.
I would think the compiler should be able to say, "On line 354 of foo.c, the text "bar()" is a function call to the bar function."
Parsing over and over, whenever you wanted to rename something, would be a bitch. But you could get around that, if you had a continous compiler- something like a compiler that is a server. Whenever you change a file, it re-parses just that one file, and knows everything else from it's first parse. So then it can give you all the details.
Refactoring Browsers - let you change the name of a class, method, whatever- and have perfect replacement across the project. This is important, because it means that our API's can feature consistent naming schemes, without a whole lot of upfront planning. These exist today, but not in common use.
Spatial Code Browsering - The ability to organize our textual code in a shared diagram, so that we can arrange it the way that we think of it. Most of our code is text, for various reasons. But we tend to think of spatial relationships between blocks of code. There's no reason why we can't lay out the files spatially, share those spatial layouts, and browse those spatial layouts.
Replay Debugging - You can make programs run in a virtual machine that tracks deltas over time, or keeps time slices. You can "rewind" or "fast forward" a test execution, introspecting into the state of variables at different points of time. If your debugger is smart enough, it can answer the question: "now how did THAT come to happen?" "Why did you do X? Why didn't you do Y?"
Publish-Subscribe - Is it just me, or is publish-subscribing becoming more important? That's because we're going to component systems.
Tuple Space(s). By my limited understanding, this is a model of programming where you have: A gigantic data store, and little micro-programs that pull and push data to the store. For example: Let's say you have a web-app. The web server receives a request, and pushes it into the store, in the form of a graph. So, for instance, you get the "request" node, and it links up to a node representing the time it was received, and it links up to the URL, and it links up to the response to be filled out, etc., etc.,. Then if a program knows how to fill out the response, it starts filling out the response as much as it can. For things that aren't at it's level of abstraction, it leaves for other programs. When things are fleshed out enough for those programs, they automatically jump into play, and fill out the rest. When it's all fleshed out, the web server recognizes that the "done" flag's set, takes the whole thing, ships it out, and then clears everything. What's new here is that what triggers programs/procedures is the state of the tuple store, the shared graph- programs register states that they can metabolize, and then when conditions are right, the programs are invoked. Your programs are collections of traps. Mixes declarative programming with imperative programming, in step with development of the semantic web.
Non-boxy interface, Deep visualization - Our GUI tools are all "boxy," and there haven't been any real UI advances since MFC, and I do blame the API. It's easy to imagine API's that allow you to specify call-outs, how icons that contain icons are specified, the ability to compose and connect icons, etc., etc.,. But we're still in the images, rectangles, buttons, and tree views days, as far as easy-to-use API's are concerned. As SVG matures, I believe that our API's will get less rectangular, and give us visual and interactive power on the cheap.
Social Help Documentation - I think we'll see integrated help documentation linking up with things like wiki and programmer's forums. So you'll be able to read a function's documentation, and see 17 examples of real use of the function and commentary. It won't be a seperate open-a-web-browser and search thing, it'll be easily available and connected with the deployed documentatio
That makes sense if we're talking about something like gun laws or taxation or what not.
But establishing the Oak Tree as the national tree?
Is there such a thing as the "Oak Tree" special interest?
I was thinking maybe they were trying to sex up the bill by throwing in the Oak tree. I heard about a guy who was making a big business deal, and said: "Tell you what; I'll throw in my pet frog as well."
Check out the full text of H.R. 4077, the one that says: "To enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, to educate the public about the application of copyright law to the Internet, and for other purposes."...in the abstract.
Okay, now: skip all the text, and jump right to the bottom- "TITLE II--MISCELLANEOUS." Section 201, the designation of national tree.
"The tree genus Quercus, commonly known as the oak tree, is the national tree."
Can someone more informed in the ways of law tell me what this is all about?
Then why is everyone here depressed? Why are studies showing that depression is far worse in the US than elsewhere? And why is everyone here working non-stop? Why do Europeans get 3 weeks of vacation out of the year?
Obesity doesn't correlate to prosperity. Obesity correlates to eating too much fat. People in other countries have easy access to food, they just exercise self-control and have healthy eating habits.
Slashdot Mirror
not at all :)
We have 1TB disks coming up soon.
I don't know how many terrabytes of released music exist in the world, but I imagine it's a finite number.
We'll probably have 100TB disks, and then 10,000 TB cubes at some point in the future.
Perhaps all the worlds music will fit in the space of a cubic centimeter.
You visit your friend's house, put your cube-disk next to his cube-disk, hit "copy", and then walk home with your copy of the entire world's music.
Really, there's not a whole friggin' lot you can do about that.
Perhaps the possesion of world-music cube-disks will be the next marijuana possesion.
The problem isn't solely that inventors themselves aren't the ones receiving the patents;
The problem is also that the number of "inventors" in the realm of computer programming is very very big.
On the left hand: How many people are there that can tinker at home, and make special types of macrophages, or whatever it is that biologists do in research time?
On the right hand: How many people are there who can apply XOR to draw cursors on their home computers? I was doing that when I was 12, and I don't consider myself particularly bright.
The definition of "obvious" or "non-obvious" is not clear. I can easily imagine the baffled patent examiner, considering the XOR drawing algorithm. "Wow! This guy knows about bits, and logic gates, and,... other complicated stuff. Hot damn, that can't be obvious. We gotta do something about this... We gotta... Make sure nobody else does this for 20 years!"
20 years!
Even if the programmers are the ones receiving the checks for their "invention," we still have the same problem:
Specifically, the patent system is prohibiting innovation rather than encouraging it.
There's an even larger picture being missed here;
...I easily lose track of what's going on when. With automatic calendaring, when we can subscribe to calendars as simply as we subscribe to RSS feeds- we're going to see a surge in awareness of what groups are meeting when, and how to meet up with them.
When iCalendar support is built into everything, it'll be very easy for public groups to see each other's meetings, and for individuals to participate.
I easily lose track of when the Seattle XP programmers, Seattle Perl programmers, Seattle Python programmers, Seattle Robotics Society, Seattle Cosmic, Seattle Wireless, Seattle Java, Seattle C++, Seattle Wikipedia, Seattle FreeBSD Users group, Greater Seattle Linux Users Group, Seattle Bloggers, East side Bloggers, Seattle Futurists, etc., etc., etc.,
Right now, I can only track 1 group at a time. "Is Seattle Python meeting this weekend?" "No?" "Guess there's nobody to see this weekend."
But, as you can see from my short list above (compared to how much activity is actually going on,) there's actually a whole lot going on that I might be interested in visiting.
As Automatic Calendaring picks up, the public will recognize the power of its ability to communicate and organize.
Previously, this is something that only people who could afford secretaries could experience.
I'm not sure, but my guess is that they're intending to use the parallel capabilities of the system to provide what is basically super-cheap physics.
Physics is mostly "local interaction." You drop a pen, it falls on the ground underneat it. Wind moves around. Hair is connected to a nearby head.
With the exception of missiles flying across the world at super-high speed, which can gum things up, it's local interaction.
Since it's local interaction, it's highly parallelizable. Just like graphics rendering.
The trend is for GPUs to be more programmable. It's sort of like being able to programmatically build a factory assembly line. Perhaps the PS3 will feature these things? If the rumors about the Cell (based on actual patents,...) and apply to the PS3, then I think this is exactly what we'd see.
Why do you immediately assume it will be expensive?
The Clint Curtis story is tracked by the Brad Blog.
It seems to me like you could parallelize most desktop apps.
An MP3 player: I would think you should be able to decode one second with one processor, and the next second with the other processor.
Word processor: I would think that parts of the boot process that do not require the other parts would be able to run independently. Two processors could check alternating lines until the whole document was checked.
Spreadsheets: I would think that the first half of a giant list could be handled by one processor, the second half of the giant list handled by the second processor.
3D graphics, non-accelerated: I would think that the screen could be cut in four, and one processor rendering each part.
Games: I would think the simulation could be divided into parts, and the different parts simulated by different processors.
Compiling, Parsing: If you have 40 files to parse, each processor can handle 10 files, so you would go roughly 4x as fast. Parsers aren't just for C++, parsers are found in just about every program that reads data from a disk or the Internet.
So it seems to me that we could make major performance gains, using multiple processors.
I know that they are evil, because I've seen what they do.
...the answer is: It's all automatic. The bricks rearrange themselves in mid-air, and the broken bricks fall out.
Just watch Laputa. Near the end of the movie,- you see that Laputa is composed of these very same intelligent brick computers.
In answer to the question: "How do you replace the broken bricks in the middle?"
It's true.
Just watch the movie; It explains everything.
Heh heh. Yeah, and you're "fundamentally more creative" than the Japanese too. It's okay; You're "special." I know. We all know that. Americans are "special."
But really, seriously, all joking aside:
You're just furthering my point.
The American tech imagination is all wrapped up in "outer space." We're still watching Star Trek reruns.
Very unimportant.
What's important is computers and robots and cyborgs.
Is the American imagination ready for it? Are we prepared- mentally?
Space can help us build space lasers and missiles and and what not. We can try to control things by threatening to lob rocks. Space-faring is cowboy mentality. That's our romance.
But I think it's economy, computers, and automation that's actually going to be critical in this next half-century. (Wouldn't dare speculate into the second half.)
The United States had the 20th century. We've had our glory days. We won WW2! Man on the moon! Yaaay! Wasn't that sad when the Challenger exploded? Oh wow! Computers! Dot-coms! X-prize!
But where are the robots, in our mind? Where are the cyborgs? Why aren't we talking about computers as anything other than word processors and MP3 players? Why are we resisting broadband? Why do we get so nervous talking about these things?
Asia clearly owns the 21st century. They own it, because they faced up to it, and integrated it, way before anyone else.
Consider: Shinto + Technology. Two tastes that taste great together.
Consider: Christianity + Technology. Hello? Hello, anybody?
"Bueller? Bueller?"
There is zero integration between Christianity and Technology. The Christians are scared to death of it. It just doesn't register in their worldview.
But the Japanese have totally integrated Shinto and technology. They are well prepared.
Japan: Ghost in the Shell 2
America: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Japan: "Robots. Cyborgs."
America: "Stem cells are ew! God hates technology! Stop talking on your cell phone! Step away- from the computer!"
It's the imagination. The American imagination is totally unprepared for the new world. We are still busy playing "cowboys and indians."
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that Cybernetics is just a matter of course in Japan. I doubt they'd call it that, but the fundamental assumptions and understandings, I think are commonplace there. Pretty much everyone's psyched up about technology. Some people like it, some people don't, but nobody denies that it's going to happen.
Here in the states, you talk about this stuff, and they look at you like you've just grown a third arm. "Nah, that'll never happen..." "...well, maybe, in a hundred years, but-..."
I'm amazed at how little Americans know about the state of technology. And of what Americans do know, how little it's penetrated their consciousness.
Americans don't want this stuff in their mind. They don't want to think about it. It's not even that- it's just not even in the imagination.
(That's changing; witness The Matrix, and stuff like that. But contemporary-wise: We're way backwards.)
I've heard that the most expensive part of making chips is the factory. I understand that the factories are custom made for only that one chip that they make.
If that's true, why destroy the old factory? Why not build a new factory for the new chips?
I'm working on a thing called "Local Names."
It points names to URL's, but you can use that for identifying purposes. Especially if you mix & match with FOAF.
There are no central registries.
Names are based on the community namespace, rather than some central server.
(That means you don't have to pay me $25, and can address your friends by their first name.)
Several people are worried that this technology would be horrible. Many people are citing Forbidden Planet.
But, those worries are mis-placed. Forbidden Planet isn't going to happen.
It goes like this: We're going to develop suppressors technology.
Think about a gun for the moment: A gun has a safety. You have to undo the safety, before the gun will fire.
We all have many systems in our lives that prevent us from messing up. Credit card limits, speech and action suppressors in our brains, yadda yadda yadda.
As we develop machines that respond to thought, we will also develop machines that suppress our newfound "actions." We will limit actions that are particularly dangerous. We will limit actions that come from careless thoughts.
There may be things where: You have to solve a small puzzle, before the action will carry out. We may have things where: If you aren't being attentive, then the action won't execute.
Yes; if you have the code automatically convert names to pointers to the thing named, then our problem is solved.
But our entire infrastructure is based on the text-file user interface.
One thing I've been thinking about, is a "compiler with it's head cracked open." That is, a compiler that spills out everything it understands about your software, after it's loaded it all into memory, and is preparing to write out the compiled output.
I would think the compiler should be able to say, "On line 354 of foo.c, the text "bar()" is a function call to the bar function."
Parsing over and over, whenever you wanted to rename something, would be a bitch. But you could get around that, if you had a continous compiler- something like a compiler that is a server. Whenever you change a file, it re-parses just that one file, and knows everything else from it's first parse. So then it can give you all the details.
By "commonly used," I mean: "just about everywhere."
If the Java people are using it right now, then that's a good sign.
The Internet was huge and big in 1993. In 1997, my mom used e-mail regularly.
E-mail is now in common use.
I'm eager for refactoring browsers to be in common use.
Here's my set of software predictions. Some more detail to fill in for that other guy's blog entry.
Here we go:
That makes sense if we're talking about something like gun laws or taxation or what not.
But establishing the Oak Tree as the national tree?
Is there such a thing as the "Oak Tree" special interest?
I was thinking maybe they were trying to sex up the bill by throwing in the Oak tree. I heard about a guy who was making a big business deal, and said: "Tell you what; I'll throw in my pet frog as well."
Check out the full text of H.R. 4077, the one that says: "To enhance criminal enforcement of the copyright laws, to educate the public about the application of copyright law to the Internet, and for other purposes." ...in the abstract.
Okay, now: skip all the text, and jump right to the bottom- "TITLE II--MISCELLANEOUS." Section 201, the designation of national tree.
"The tree genus Quercus, commonly known as the oak tree, is the national tree."
Can someone more informed in the ways of law tell me what this is all about?
The frog story is super-common; People haven't had enough time yet for word of it's urband-legend-ness to get out. ;)
There's probably another story that is analogous to the sort of effect you want to describe.
For instance, acclimatizing: That's sort of like what you are describing.
What you're searching for is a story about acclimatizing that is dangerous.
Think:
Audioblogging's limitations can perhaps be alieviated by Audioblog mixing, with something like UserRadio, or playing the audioblogs at high speed.
You might be able to extend video with that, but I'd probably rather just cut the visual, so I could do other things at the same time.
It's an urban legend.
Then why is everyone here depressed? Why are studies showing that depression is far worse in the US than elsewhere? And why is everyone here working non-stop? Why do Europeans get 3 weeks of vacation out of the year?
Obesity doesn't correlate to prosperity. Obesity correlates to eating too much fat. People in other countries have easy access to food, they just exercise self-control and have healthy eating habits.