The steel body of the DeLorean automobile had to be coated with a transparent shellac in order to eliminate what would otherwise be dangerous reflectivity when driving the car in bright sunlight. Coating the outside antenna surface with a similar shellac would prevent skin contact with the antenna, and make the phone look even more spectacular.
For the sake of 100% backward compatibility, Microsoft refuses to throw anything out. So Windows Vista and Windows 7 harbor nearly every API call that came with xp, including the deprecated ones. They want to make sure that all old software still works.
The problem that results is that you can't get rid of awful legacy software by moving on to the new OS and forcing departments to upgrade. Right now the codger departments that refuse to budge control the IT infrastructure in major companies. Microsoft has allied itself with the curmudgeons of the IT industry.
It also makes for a very difficult case to sell the idea that the new OS is actually much more reliable. Windows 7 networking works a lot better than xp, for example. But there's a lot of terrible code that runs on xp that will nevertheless have no chance of working properly on Windows 7 because they were never thoroughly tested during development on Windows 7. There is no chance of any of that software working properly on the new OS without further maintenance work. Remember the curmudgeons? They're not going to fund any of that maintenance work for Windows 7 operability because Windows 7 doesn't automatically make their awful code behave better.
iPhone owners should get the app Mark the Spot for reporting dropped calls, failed calls, coverage failures, data failures, and lousy voice quality when and where it happens. (That is, when you are able to next connect.)
We now know that Kaspersky never speaks out against authority, and would never say anything in public that anyone would ever disagree with years from now. If he did, he would have respect for anonymity. Can you imagine doing something simple, like trying to get an interview for a job while you're on public record on the internet saying bad things about that company? So Kaspersky is above all that now, he has all the money he needs.
So who is Kaspersky speaking on behalf of? Is he just speaking for himself? Or does he have a sponsor that wants him to represent them in public appearances and before government committees?
Is that sponsor...anonymous? Who might it be? A Communist government, under which free speech is regulated? A dictatorship, under which freedom is a dream? A corporate partner, whose executives really have no idea whose playing field they're on, or perhaps they're a proxy for a government with no respect for unpopular speech?
What have terrorists hit so far? Would they be positively affected by blurring the images on Google Maps?
A marine base in Lebanon: the web didn't exist at the time. The WTC in NYC, the Pentagon in DC: doubtful. Subway trains in Japan: does Google Maps show subway routes? Trains in France: just use the handy commuter maps displayed near each station.
Sometimes the point of terror is to not target anything in particular.
To me, if there's something that's intentionally blurred on the map, that just indicates there's something of interest right there. But you don't need the blur at all. If you know what you're looking for, Google Maps will be glad to put a helpful little pin tag showing you where something is. Just type in a city and state of choice, and when Google Maps settles down after drawing that area, type in "High School" and see what happens.
The claims describe managing an avatar display list on the client, such that avatars which are too far from the client's avatar, or too far past the sides of the field of view, fall off the list, and that the client only displays up to a certain number of nearby avatars.
A whole lot of MMO shops use display list clipping because they're a stock way to keep the frame rate up. It is the kind of stuff that has been done in viewing parts of 3D virtual space since the 70s.
I guess the novelty justifying the patent is combining the display list with the client being responsible for deciding what to clip, and with 3D avatars. Looking at the huge number of MMOs out there that do this exact sort of thing, I have to wonder just how novel the basis for the patent really is.
Prior art might be found by studying the code for XTrek, based on Empire for PLATO. If spaceship doesn't fall within the viewport for the universe, don't draw it, and I believe XTrek was client-server, but not 3D.
Teachers do get homework assignments handed in by email. As the files can contain malware for PCs and MS Office, you'd like to protect against handing all the annotated assignments back completely infected.
I had to remove an AV package TWICE because it went hog wild on an instructor's Mac by spawning 30 copies and taking up nearly 100% of the CPU. Mac AV packages need some work.
Your unpaid work on the code base helped establish the desirability of the code, and the desirability of your services.
Consultants with an edge are loathe to grant a non-compete except in situations that raises possible conflicts of interest. If you need to start from scratch on another project, how much will it cost you in time and materials to become an expert on another project and be in a position to attract a similar offer?
They are paying for work done, and also paying to make sure nobody else benefits from your expertise on the whole code base, not just their enhancements. Those are two separate price factors. Separate the expertise from the exclusivity. Figuring out what an expert is worth commercially shouldn't be difficult. Figuring out how much the exclusivity will cost may be.
Depending on the contract you sign, you might not be able to work on the code even if they kill the project before you start work, so your exit clauses need to take that into consideration. And you have to consider what you have to do if they don't pay you.
I don't see anything wrong with this kind of arrangement, tho it can be impossibly hard to enforce the contract if either side isn't sincere. I presume it to be the start of a long-term arrangement, otherwise it isn't worth considering.
I would try to get 'em to agree that you would grant the client exclusive use of their design and implementation, since they would own that code, but I would avoid agreeing to a blanket non-compete.
Apple's ads are successful in large part because Vista is mediocre, but in lieu of fixing the software MS is attempting to shore up the brand by beefing up its image. In this ad, Microsoft decided to do what they've done in the past so well: They embraced the "I'm a PC" Meme, and they're extending it. They are reframing Apple's message. They are repurposing "I'm a PC" to tell their story. They are even using Apple's own ad wording to base a claim on the brand "PC". I think they overthought this "I'm a PC" countermeme, there may be something underneath what we see holding the idea together, but I don't think the presentation carries it off. The message is simple and...fuzzy.
A new exploit appears during an annual contest with prize money. No problem accepting that, it is a legitimate problem. That it is the result of two minutes of work? I think this is very unlikely.
I am curious: how long the exploit discoverer keep his discovery a secret in order to enter it in the contest? Several weeks? A few months?
I'm also curious whether Safari for Windows suffers from the same exploit. Would Vista also fall inside of the same two minutes?
At one time Microsoft, made a big deal of having its browser seamlessly integrated with the rest of Windows. Now after they've suffered from years of countless exploits, they have gone to great lengths to constrain unexpected access to the OS from the browser.
I think Apple will continue to improve its development techniques to preempt exploits, and to fix 'em when they appear on Apple's radar. There are corporate interests out there that are extremely cautious about bringing Macs officially into their business environment because they think Mac OS X doesn't appear to have enough active defenses.
I remember not just smilies but full character animations on the PLATO system circa 1976. Admittedly, PLATO wasn't limited to regular ASCII characters.
Energy Conversion Devices created the thin-film amorphous photovoltaics used in their flexible solar panels, and created United Solar Ovonics to commercialize it. ECD Ovonics (the current name, I guess) is at www.ovonic.com. A quote from one of the documents on their site says, "ECD Ovonics and United Solar Ovonic hold the basic patents covering the continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing of thin-film amorphous silicon alloy multi-junction solar cells and related products. More information is available at www.uni-solar.com."
You get the degree at the end of several years of work, not the beginning. It isn't the degree itself from the highly placed school that gives you an edge, its what you do at the school. The end result of some exploration and study is the degree, but that isn't the sum total of the experience. A degree, all by itself, is worth zero without the stuff you did to get it. Higher-ranked schools simply provide a much greater variety of opportunity to explore, network and do research. Schools are rated by employers, academics (and alumni), so find out why they like the school, maybe its in your best interest.
You go to school to figure out what you want to do; to start your professional network with students, who very likely are going to go places and do things, and may want to eventually involve you; to network with faculty, staff and alumni. If you are any good, you're going to become an enabler, and they're going to want you to work with them to make things happen.
The most important thing is to figure out what you want to do, because you don't want to expend your considerable energies over decades on something you're not interested in doing. Steer through school until you hopefully settle on some aspect of CS (or not!), and as you go you can start to use the academic experience at the school, plus the internships you may land, to put it all together. Usually, if you're able to narrow your interests down in a particular field like CS, you'll be able to identify the schools you want to attend because some prof whose work you admire is teaching or doing research there.
I think that the edge a CS degree offers depends upon what it is you want to do by the time you get it. If you have a clue, by the time you get that degree, you'll already have committed to something major and you won't have to worry about the employment thing after graduation. You'll already have attended conferences and mingled with the pros or started a business or developed your kickass open source package.
That degree is just a marker. In fact, you may already be moving so fast by the time graduation shows up that it'll be an effort to remember to stick your arm out the window to grab the darn thing on the way out. Don't forget that degree, however.
Does it matter where it comes from? Sure it does, some people think it is critical, that it is a quality control thing, and for that reason it has importance.
If you want to go to a highly-rated school for your targeted profession, you're not necessarily going to find people who are similarly highly rated, but you do have to put your toe in first to actually try.
To figure out if you belong at a school, you may have to experience the school for a little bit, like a summer session, or hang out at the beginning or end of a session, and you need to do some research. It helps to do some correspondence with folks who are going there.
These days you can find some people by internet if you work at it, and find out where they're going to school, but people on the net aren't necessarily the same in person, so you may not wind up hanging out with them.
Try not to do too much for free, as you do have to pay the bills, and there will be a line that someone will ask you to cross and you should not go. That comes with the territory of the CS degree. You need to figure out what you are worth during the time you're at school too.
Slashdot Mirror
The steel body of the DeLorean automobile had to be coated with a transparent shellac in order to eliminate what would otherwise be dangerous reflectivity when driving the car in bright sunlight. Coating the outside antenna surface with a similar shellac would prevent skin contact with the antenna, and make the phone look even more spectacular.
For the sake of 100% backward compatibility, Microsoft refuses to throw anything out. So Windows Vista and Windows 7 harbor nearly every API call that came with xp, including the deprecated ones. They want to make sure that all old software still works.
The problem that results is that you can't get rid of awful legacy software by moving on to the new OS and forcing departments to upgrade. Right now the codger departments that refuse to budge control the IT infrastructure in major companies. Microsoft has allied itself with the curmudgeons of the IT industry.
It also makes for a very difficult case to sell the idea that the new OS is actually much more reliable. Windows 7 networking works a lot better than xp, for example. But there's a lot of terrible code that runs on xp that will nevertheless have no chance of working properly on Windows 7 because they were never thoroughly tested during development on Windows 7. There is no chance of any of that software working properly on the new OS without further maintenance work. Remember the curmudgeons? They're not going to fund any of that maintenance work for Windows 7 operability because Windows 7 doesn't automatically make their awful code behave better.
iPhone owners should get the app Mark the Spot for reporting dropped calls, failed calls, coverage failures, data failures, and lousy voice quality when and where it happens. (That is, when you are able to next connect.)
We now know that Kaspersky never speaks out against authority, and would never say anything in public that anyone would ever disagree with years from now. If he did, he would have respect for anonymity. Can you imagine doing something simple, like trying to get an interview for a job while you're on public record on the internet saying bad things about that company? So Kaspersky is above all that now, he has all the money he needs.
So who is Kaspersky speaking on behalf of? Is he just speaking for himself? Or does he have a sponsor that wants him to represent them in public appearances and before government committees?
Is that sponsor...anonymous? Who might it be? A Communist government, under which free speech is regulated? A dictatorship, under which freedom is a dream? A corporate partner, whose executives really have no idea whose playing field they're on, or perhaps they're a proxy for a government with no respect for unpopular speech?
Syfy wouldn't be pronounced sigh-fie, it would be sigh-fee, like Dolly, or murky. If they spelled it "SyFi", it would work.
What have terrorists hit so far? Would they be positively affected by blurring the images on Google Maps?
A marine base in Lebanon: the web didn't exist at the time.
The WTC in NYC, the Pentagon in DC: doubtful.
Subway trains in Japan: does Google Maps show subway routes?
Trains in France: just use the handy commuter maps displayed near each station.
Sometimes the point of terror is to not target anything in particular.
To me, if there's something that's intentionally blurred on the map, that just indicates there's something of interest right there. But you don't need the blur at all. If you know what you're looking for, Google Maps will be glad to put a helpful little pin tag showing you where something is. Just type in a city and state of choice, and when Google Maps settles down after drawing that area, type in "High School" and see what happens.
The claims describe managing an avatar display list on the client, such that avatars which are too far from the client's avatar, or too far past the sides of the field of view, fall off the list, and that the client only displays up to a certain number of nearby avatars.
A whole lot of MMO shops use display list clipping because they're a stock way to keep the frame rate up. It is the kind of stuff that has been done in viewing parts of 3D virtual space since the 70s.
I guess the novelty justifying the patent is combining the display list with the client being responsible for deciding what to clip, and with 3D avatars. Looking at the huge number of MMOs out there that do this exact sort of thing, I have to wonder just how novel the basis for the patent really is.
Prior art might be found by studying the code for XTrek, based on Empire for PLATO. If spaceship doesn't fall within the viewport for the universe, don't draw it, and I believe XTrek was client-server, but not 3D.
Teachers do get homework assignments handed in by email. As the files can contain malware for PCs and MS Office, you'd like to protect against handing all the annotated assignments back completely infected.
I had to remove an AV package TWICE because it went hog wild on an instructor's Mac by spawning 30 copies and taking up nearly 100% of the CPU. Mac AV packages need some work.
Your unpaid work on the code base helped establish the desirability of the code, and the desirability of your services.
Consultants with an edge are loathe to grant a non-compete except in situations that raises possible conflicts of interest. If you need to start from scratch on another project, how much will it cost you in time and materials to become an expert on another project and be in a position to attract a similar offer?
They are paying for work done, and also paying to make sure nobody else benefits from your expertise on the whole code base, not just their enhancements. Those are two separate price factors. Separate the expertise from the exclusivity. Figuring out what an expert is worth commercially shouldn't be difficult. Figuring out how much the exclusivity will cost may be.
Depending on the contract you sign, you might not be able to work on the code even if they kill the project before you start work, so your exit clauses need to take that into consideration. And you have to consider what you have to do if they don't pay you.
I don't see anything wrong with this kind of arrangement, tho it can be impossibly hard to enforce the contract if either side isn't sincere. I presume it to be the start of a long-term arrangement, otherwise it isn't worth considering.
I would try to get 'em to agree that you would grant the client exclusive use of their design and implementation, since they would own that code, but I would avoid agreeing to a blanket non-compete.
- Not a lawyer
Apple's ads are successful in large part because Vista is mediocre, but in lieu of fixing the software MS is attempting to shore up the brand by beefing up its image. In this ad, Microsoft decided to do what they've done in the past so well: They embraced the "I'm a PC" Meme, and they're extending it. They are reframing Apple's message. They are repurposing "I'm a PC" to tell their story. They are even using Apple's own ad wording to base a claim on the brand "PC". I think they overthought this "I'm a PC" countermeme, there may be something underneath what we see holding the idea together, but I don't think the presentation carries it off. The message is simple and...fuzzy.
A new exploit appears during an annual contest with prize money. No problem accepting that, it is a legitimate problem. That it is the result of two minutes of work? I think this is very unlikely.
I am curious: how long the exploit discoverer keep his discovery a secret in order to enter it in the contest? Several weeks? A few months?
I'm also curious whether Safari for Windows suffers from the same exploit. Would Vista also fall inside of the same two minutes?
At one time Microsoft, made a big deal of having its browser seamlessly integrated with the rest of Windows. Now after they've suffered from years of countless exploits, they have gone to great lengths to constrain unexpected access to the OS from the browser.
I think Apple will continue to improve its development techniques to preempt exploits, and to fix 'em when they appear on Apple's radar. There are corporate interests out there that are extremely cautious about bringing Macs officially into their business environment because they think Mac OS X doesn't appear to have enough active defenses.
I remember not just smilies but full character animations on the PLATO system circa 1976. Admittedly, PLATO wasn't limited to regular ASCII characters.
As is pointed out in a clearly written comment by Sandford Morganstein of Populex Corporation, which appears below the original article:
"On the very first page of the bill, at the very top, above the list of maybe close to 100 co-sponsors are the words:
"'To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified
permanent paper ballot under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.'
"The point is the bill calls for a permanent paper ballot not a paper audit trail.
"In fact the term "audit trail" never appears in the bill while the term "paper ballot" appears forty-nine times.
"This is no subtle difference. I believe that Congressman Holt, the author of the bill (and a Ph. D. physicist) knew exactly what he was doing."
Energy Conversion Devices created the thin-film amorphous photovoltaics used in their flexible solar panels, and created United Solar Ovonics to commercialize it. ECD Ovonics (the current name, I guess) is at www.ovonic.com. A quote from one of the documents on their site says, "ECD Ovonics and United Solar Ovonic hold the basic patents covering the continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing of thin-film amorphous silicon alloy multi-junction solar cells and related products. More information is available at www.uni-solar.com."
You get the degree at the end of several years of work, not the beginning. It isn't the degree itself from the highly placed school that gives you an edge, its what you do at the school. The end result of some exploration and study is the degree, but that isn't the sum total of the experience. A degree, all by itself, is worth zero without the stuff you did to get it. Higher-ranked schools simply provide a much greater variety of opportunity to explore, network and do research. Schools are rated by employers, academics (and alumni), so find out why they like the school, maybe its in your best interest.
You go to school to figure out what you want to do; to start your professional network with students, who very likely are going to go places and do things, and may want to eventually involve you; to network with faculty, staff and alumni. If you are any good, you're going to become an enabler, and they're going to want you to work with them to make things happen.
The most important thing is to figure out what you want to do, because you don't want to expend your considerable energies over decades on something you're not interested in doing. Steer through school until you hopefully settle on some aspect of CS (or not!), and as you go you can start to use the academic experience at the school, plus the internships you may land, to put it all together. Usually, if you're able to narrow your interests down in a particular field like CS, you'll be able to identify the schools you want to attend because some prof whose work you admire is teaching or doing research there.
I think that the edge a CS degree offers depends upon what it is you want to do by the time you get it. If you have a clue, by the time you get that degree, you'll already have committed to something major and you won't have to worry about the employment thing after graduation. You'll already have attended conferences and mingled with the pros or started a business or developed your kickass open source package.
That degree is just a marker. In fact, you may already be moving so fast by the time graduation shows up that it'll be an effort to remember to stick your arm out the window to grab the darn thing on the way out. Don't forget that degree, however.
Does it matter where it comes from? Sure it does, some people think it is critical, that it is a quality control thing, and for that reason it has importance.
If you want to go to a highly-rated school for your targeted profession, you're not necessarily going to find people who are similarly highly rated, but you do have to put your toe in first to actually try.
To figure out if you belong at a school, you may have to experience the school for a little bit, like a summer session, or hang out at the beginning or end of a session, and you need to do some research. It helps to do some correspondence with folks who are going there.
These days you can find some people by internet if you work at it, and find out where they're going to school, but people on the net aren't necessarily the same in person, so you may not wind up hanging out with them.
Try not to do too much for free, as you do have to pay the bills, and there will be a line that someone will ask you to cross and you should not go. That comes with the territory of the CS degree. You need to figure out what you are worth during the time you're at school too.