Today I did a W2K3 server install, and tried to go to Windows update to patch the thing. No go. It was slashdotted over a period of at least an hour.
I turned the bleeding thing off.
I wonder how many people have tried to update on news of the worm, and given up because they couldn't get through. I can't imagine what is going to happen Saturday.
When Yoda said 'always two there are' in Episode 1, I thought of Gates and Balmer immediately. The problem with your analogy is that there is no 'army' of dark jedi - only an army of clones of bounty hunters. So you need to amend your story a little bit.....
One of the downsides to having just one type of OS is that it makes you very vulnerable to this sort of thing.
As far as blaming people who haven't patched their computer, I can't see it. This thing is hitting home dialup users fer crying out loud - my friend had to drive over to his dad's house to disinfect a machine. You can't expect everybody's grandmother to behave as a professional sysadmin.
Is it just me or does this patent seem vague and cover a lot of broad topics?
It is just you. Patents have a very specific legal structure which includes space for a fair amount of hand-waving. The key thing to remember when reading a patent is that the meat of the patent is the claims section, and the key claim is Claim 1. You can put anything you want in the abstract, specification, etc. - but what you get coverage on is what is described in the claims, and nothing else. The claims in this case look pretty specific to me.
Then you don't have the right to use the software, and must return it.
Licenses aren't governed by copyright law, they are governed by contract law. Under such you can be tied to terms far more restrictive than copyrights.
I think that you would be hard pressed to find a situation where you paid the same tax twice for the same thing.
Actually there are a lot of cases where there is double taxation. Corporations (owned by their stockholders) pay a tax on their profits, and then when they distribute those profits in the form of dividends to shareholders, the profits are taxed again.
The same thing happens with inheritance taxes - the money that makes up the inheritance is taxed when it is first earned, and then is taxed again when it is passed on to heirs.
There are lots of other cases - income and sales tax is a form of double taxation - you get hosed when your earn your money, and get hosed again when you spend it.
Do you want engineers who don't know neither who his customers are, nor how customers use the product, to define what features go into the design?
That is a very narrow view of engineering. Certainly people like Douglas Englebart had a very strong interest in who the customers are and how they would use their technology. The fusion of this interest in human factors and sound software engineering led to a far greater leap in software than anything ever dreamed up by marketing.
The fundamental flaw in marketing methodology is that it very rarely leads to creativity in product development. All it does is identify current market needs and trends. Marketing is fundamentally incapable of producing a new product category, be it the Post-It note or the Mother of All Demos. All it is able to do is identify popular user desires based on technologies and products that the users already are familiar with.
If marketers made all product decisions, where would Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston be?
The engineer, not the marketer, can envison the breakthrough.
I sure do remember the Wang's - I had a chance to use one my senior year in High School. I remember that if you used them too hard they would overheat and shut down.
About 3 years later in college I had a chance to use a Friden desktop calculator - this thing had RPN and a 4 deep stack shown on a small CRT. I loved it, and longed for many years for an RPN machine that showed that 4 deep stack on screen. Finally, when the 48's came out my long-held wish came true.
To this day I have problems using a calc with algebraic data entry.
I've tried the emulators. They suck compared to having the real keyboard of the HP48, not to mention the fact that the screen is crammed into a much smaller space, etc.
As far as the various other graphing calculator programs you can download, they have no more than 2-3% of the features of the HP-48 series machines.
The fact is that nothing is as good as a piece of hardware that is dedicated to the purpose of being a first rate calculator.
For many people the HP 48/49 machines are overkill and the programs that provide low-end calculators are fine. But if you really need the real capability of an HP-48 series machine a Pocket PC isn't going to do it.
Dynamicity? No. Java is a aggressively static language.
Static types perhaps, but very dynamic when it comes to linking. Java has a lot of support for things like dynamic class loaders that lead to a very nice plug-in architecture, and extreme flexibility when it comes to deployment of code updates to a running application. Not to mention fun with diddling bytecodes on the fly.
Mass market beer in the US is garbage and should be treated as such.
However you don't need to go to England to get good beer, there are a number of fine US breweries with names like Victory, Stone, Rougue Ales, Great Lakes and Kalamazoo that hold their own with the best from anywhere. The aforementioned web site "Beer Advocate" has reviews of beer from all over the world, including some top American brands.
The Cambridge Guide to the Material Universe is a wonderful book describing what is the Physics and Chemistry of matter.
Unfortunately what is covered in far too many popularizations of phyics is the high energy stuff that either very abstract or does not really pertain to common experience. Not so the material covered in this book.
An insulated tank with water ice (don't use dry ice because of the CO2) and pumping the cold water through a couple of car radiators with fans blowing air through the radiators is probably the best you are going to do. Ice is very useful because it has the heat of fusion and a melting point of 32. The heat of fusion will keep the tank at 0 C and give you a good temperature difference between the radiator and room for a good heat flow; the heat of fusion gives you a good heat capacity. You can probably estimate how much ice you will need per day based on the capacity of your air conditioning equipment and it's duty cycle. 1 ton/day of ice is roughly equivalent to 12,000 BTU/hr.
In terms of patent law, you are pretty much correct - US patents don't mean anything once you cross the border.
As far as copyrights go, that is another story, and depends greatly on whether the country you are crossing into is a member of the WIPO, and signatory to the Berne Treaty.
Urban myth. The Neem tree is not patented, nor are 'parts of the human genome'.
The famous 'Neem tree patent' is actually a patent on a fungicidal formulation based on purified extracts from Neem seeds. The patent on that formulation has been ruled invalid by the EU but may still be in force in the US. There are NO patents on the tree itself, or on use of Neem seeds in traditional roles.
As far as patents on the human genome, what is patentable are isolated, purified genetic sequences where the claimant can demonstrate a creditable use for the purified genetic material.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.c gi ?dbname=2001_register&docid=01-322-filed
The fact is that neither the fungicidal formulation of Neem tree seed extract, nor the purified genetic material have been around for many thousands of years. Both are the result of modern scientific invention.
The fact is that patents on living organisms or parts thereof have been granted for over 100 years. It is NOT a new practice and has been proven valid over a long period of time. Louis Pasteur received U.S. a patent in 1873, claiming a purified form of yeast.
The concept that patents do not cover discoveries is also baloney - the language in the Constitution itself clearly uses the word discoveries.
There are a lot of stocks out there that are never going to go back to where they were in 2001. You need to have a downside strategy to cut your losses too.
Slashdot Mirror
Combine this with Yesterday's global warming story and all I can say is WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
Today I did a W2K3 server install, and tried to go to Windows update to patch the thing. No go. It was slashdotted over a period of at least an hour.
I turned the bleeding thing off.
I wonder how many people have tried to update on news of the worm, and given up because they couldn't get through. I can't imagine what is going to happen Saturday.
When Yoda said 'always two there are' in Episode 1, I thought of Gates and Balmer immediately. The problem with your analogy is that there is no 'army' of dark jedi - only an army of clones of bounty hunters. So you need to amend your story a little bit.....
I would like to be there when IBM's legal department gets notification of the double secret termination. There should be wondrous laghter.
One of the downsides to having just one type of OS is that it makes you very vulnerable to this sort of thing.
As far as blaming people who haven't patched their computer, I can't see it. This thing is hitting home dialup users fer crying out loud - my friend had to drive over to his dad's house to disinfect a machine. You can't expect everybody's grandmother to behave as a professional sysadmin.
Is it just me or does this patent seem vague and cover a lot of broad topics?
It is just you. Patents have a very specific legal structure which includes space for a fair amount of hand-waving. The key thing to remember when reading a patent is that the meat of the patent is the claims section, and the key claim is Claim 1. You can put anything you want in the abstract, specification, etc. - but what you get coverage on is what is described in the claims, and nothing else. The claims in this case look pretty specific to me.
What if I didn't agree to the 'license'?
Then you don't have the right to use the software, and must return it.
Licenses aren't governed by copyright law, they are governed by contract law. Under such you can be tied to terms far more restrictive than copyrights.
I think that you would be hard pressed to find a situation where you paid the same tax twice for the same thing.
Actually there are a lot of cases where there is double taxation. Corporations (owned by their stockholders) pay a tax on their profits, and then when they distribute those profits in the form of dividends to shareholders, the profits are taxed again.
The same thing happens with inheritance taxes - the money that makes up the inheritance is taxed when it is first earned, and then is taxed again when it is passed on to heirs.
There are lots of other cases - income and sales tax is a form of double taxation - you get hosed when your earn your money, and get hosed again when you spend it.
does this mean I can sell the hardware to someone, and the software to someone else?
It means you can't sell the software at all. You don't own it, and the license is not transferable.
Do you want engineers who don't know neither who his customers are, nor how customers use the product, to define what features go into the design?
That is a very narrow view of engineering. Certainly people like Douglas Englebart had a very strong interest in who the customers are and how they would use their technology. The fusion of this interest in human factors and sound software engineering led to a far greater leap in software than anything ever dreamed up by marketing.
The fundamental flaw in marketing methodology is that it very rarely leads to creativity in product development. All it does is identify current market needs and trends. Marketing is fundamentally incapable of producing a new product category, be it the Post-It note or the Mother of All Demos. All it is able to do is identify popular user desires based on technologies and products that the users already are familiar with.
If marketers made all product decisions, where would Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston be?
The engineer, not the marketer, can envison the breakthrough.
I sure do remember the Wang's - I had a chance to use one my senior year in High School. I remember that if you used them too hard they would overheat and shut down.
About 3 years later in college I had a chance to use a Friden desktop calculator - this thing had RPN and a 4 deep stack shown on a small CRT. I loved it, and longed for many years for an RPN machine that showed that 4 deep stack on screen. Finally, when the 48's came out my long-held wish came true.
To this day I have problems using a calc with algebraic data entry.
why does a calculator need a 75MHz processor.
Probably because it is going to run an emulation of another processor.
What about a 16CII. It's high time for an update to this classic.
I've tried the emulators. They suck compared to having the real keyboard of the HP48, not to mention the fact that the screen is crammed into a much smaller space, etc.
As far as the various other graphing calculator programs you can download, they have no more than 2-3% of the features of the HP-48 series machines.
The fact is that nothing is as good as a piece of hardware that is dedicated to the purpose of being a first rate calculator.
For many people the HP 48/49 machines are overkill and the programs that provide low-end calculators are fine. But if you really need the real capability of an HP-48 series machine a Pocket PC isn't going to do it.
Dynamicity? No. Java is a aggressively static language.
Static types perhaps, but very dynamic when it comes to linking. Java has a lot of support for things like dynamic class loaders that lead to a very nice plug-in architecture, and extreme flexibility when it comes to deployment of code updates to a running application. Not to mention fun with diddling bytecodes on the fly.
Beer as food was well known through the ages. It's only in modern times that we forget the wisdom of out elders.
The Pilgrums landed at Plymouth because they were running low on beer and needed to land to replenish their supplies. The rest is history.
Mass market beer in the US is garbage and should be treated as such.
However you don't need to go to England to get good beer, there are a number of fine US breweries with names like Victory, Stone, Rougue Ales, Great Lakes and Kalamazoo that hold their own with the best from anywhere. The aforementioned web site "Beer Advocate" has reviews of beer from all over the world, including some top American brands.
The Cambridge Guide to the Material Universe is a wonderful book describing what is the Physics and Chemistry of matter.
Unfortunately what is covered in far too many popularizations of phyics is the high energy stuff that either very abstract or does not really pertain to common experience. Not so the material covered in this book.
An insulated tank with water ice (don't use dry ice because of the CO2) and pumping the cold water through a couple of car radiators with fans blowing air through the radiators is probably the best you are going to do. Ice is very useful because it has the heat of fusion and a melting point of 32. The heat of fusion will keep the tank at 0 C and give you a good temperature difference between the radiator and room for a good heat flow; the heat of fusion gives you a good heat capacity. You can probably estimate how much ice you will need per day based on the capacity of your air conditioning equipment and it's duty cycle. 1 ton/day of ice is roughly equivalent to 12,000 BTU/hr.
In terms of patent law, you are pretty much correct - US patents don't mean anything once you cross the border.
As far as copyrights go, that is another story, and depends greatly on whether the country you are crossing into is a member of the WIPO, and signatory to the Berne Treaty.
Like the Neem tree or parts of the human genome.
c gi ?dbname=2001_register&docid=01-322-filed
Urban myth. The Neem tree is not patented, nor are 'parts of the human genome'.
The famous 'Neem tree patent' is actually a patent on a fungicidal formulation based on purified extracts from Neem seeds. The patent on that formulation has been ruled invalid by the EU but may still be in force in the US. There are NO patents on the tree itself, or on use of Neem seeds in traditional roles.
As far as patents on the human genome, what is patentable are isolated, purified genetic sequences where the claimant can demonstrate a creditable use for the purified genetic material.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.
The fact is that neither the fungicidal formulation of Neem tree seed extract, nor the purified genetic material have been around for many thousands of years. Both are the result of modern scientific invention.
The fact is that patents on living organisms or parts thereof have been granted for over 100 years. It is NOT a new practice and has been proven valid over a long period of time. Louis Pasteur received U.S. a patent in 1873, claiming a purified form of yeast.
The concept that patents do not cover discoveries is also baloney - the language in the Constitution itself clearly uses the word discoveries.
Regardless, only a select few have access to commit to the respository
AFAIK that select few includes Linus, period.
There are maintainers for the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels as well, I imagine that they have commit access on their repositories.
As soon as it hits $6 I sell
There are a lot of stocks out there that are never going to go back to where they were in 2001. You need to have a downside strategy to cut your losses too.
See Cheapbytes.com
I never did understand how Linux can require the use of a proprietary application
It doesn't require any such thing. Some of the Linux developers user BitKeeper, but there are gateways to applications like CVS and SVN.