Here's why. In the first claim the patent mentions the changing of either appearance(skinning) or behavior(?) of an application when a theme is selected.
Theming, in this example, has *not* been done for years and years. Give me an example of an application that changed behaviors when a theme was selected? My example would be an xterm changing from csh to bash, or from a CLI interface to a Finder interface, or an Explorer interface, or even a 3d Doom style interface ^^
It specifically mentions that when a theme engine is used that the appearance *or* the behavior of the application in question changes.
I don't think I've seen very much prior art of a theme engine in which changing themes changed the behavior of a program!
An example I used in a higher level post was of a xterm window that changed shells based on themes, or changing to a finder style browser, a netscape style browser, or to an explorer style browser.
1. In a graphical user interface, a method for rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects comprising the steps of:
providing a plurality of themes, each theme controlling an appearance and behavior of objects rendered on said graphical user interface, wherein at least one of said appearance and said behavior is controlled differently for an object when said graphical user interface is operated in accordance with one theme than when said graphical user interface is operated in accordance with another theme;
providing a plurality of theme engines, each theme engine associated with a different theme type, wherein at least one of said theme engines is hard-coded and at least one of said theme engines is a data-driven, parametric engine;
selecting a theme from among said plurality of themes;
identifying one of said plurality of theme engines associated with said selected theme; and
loading, by said identified theme engine, theme data for operating said graphical user interface in accordance with said selected theme.
If I were to dissect it a bit, it's more than just *skinning*, which is to redefine the appearance of the buttons and widgets. The first claim mentions the method of rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects, as related to the appearance and behavior of bojects rendered by the theme. It specifically mentions that either appearance *or* behavior is controlled differently for an object when the theme is changed.
So skinning falls under appearance changing when theme is changed. This would be like WinAMP skins, in which the appearance and buttons can change by selecting skins.
But then there's behavioral changes. By changing themes, the behavior of the application changes as well. So let's speculate an example: An xterm window. Change from Theme A to Theme B. To simplify, let's say the appearance doesn't change, but the behavior does. This could be as simple as shell shifting from ksh to tcsh, or DOS. Or it could mean changing from bash to a graphical terminal window, in which icons appear when you type ls, and selecting an icon is the same as copying, and double clicking a folder works the same as typing 'cd "new folder"'.
It could also be that changing from theme A to theme B changes the terminal window into a Windows styled explorer, or a Mac styled finder, or a Netscape styled web browser.
For other applications, like a CD player, that could mean a change from cli to floating button box to hybrid of the two.
This is all just speculation, but it's more than just skinning!
Put Apple into the mix of hardware vendors climbing all over each other to get the GeForce3 done first; of Creative Labs, Guillemot, and Apple, Apple just had the most persuasive negotiation, cash, or development team. I don't know which.
Apple, unlike Creative or Guillemot, sells systems, so maybe they have a better bargaining chip than standalone card manufacturers!
NVIDIA needs to work with a hardware manufacturer to make money, or at least license it to someone. Unless I'm mistaken, NVIDIA is fabless and without any capability to make cards.
So if Apple got the card first, it's because they either made it themselves (possible) or they're buying from someone else. Regardless, they did the footwork because it's important to them to make inroads into the enthusiast and game community. Don't ask me why they think so, but it's unquestionable that the GeForce 3 is a gamer's card.
Dell could have done it. Compaq could have done it. IBM could have done it. Apple just did their job and got themselves a scoop on the rest of the industry.
NVIDIA can't sell to the PC world unless someone comes up and makes a card for them to sell.
It might even be possible for PC people to order and buy the GeForce3 card from the Apple store, plop it into a PC, grab the NVIDIA drivers, and see it do amazing things
Well, yeah, that enters in the art and science of color spaces, color volumes, etc.
If I'm not mistaken there is software and support for color matching volumes as closely as possible. IE, the publishing house or the print directors know when artwork is going to be 'out of gamut'.
I don't myself work with these processes, so I only have hearsay and speculation to fall back on.
To generalize your question, what software is used that sound cards could accelerate?
How about digital USB speaker output? Right now that sucks up CPU resources that a good sound card should be able to handle.
How about MP3 encoding/decoding? Right now it's a trivial 2% of my system, but if I up the bitrate, the number of channels, and the 'effects', I can start soaking up CPU. Why not have a soundcard accelerate it the same way video cards accelerate 3d graphics?
How about voice recognition software? Hardware accelerate that!
3d sound: Anything that uses a 3d library should be able to use 3d sound. Imagine Quake3. If the soundcard could access the level data, the walls, the enemy placement, the weapon type, etc, it could actually do occlusions, echoes, reverbs, damping, amplification, cancelation, etc.
Yes indeedy, it is very much about Thinking Different.
The techy PC market is saturated. People have sated themselves on cheap ram, cheap CPUs, cheap storage, and cheap video cards. There's no reason for PC growth to grow.
So now Apple is probably targetting the *non* techy market. Coincindentally that also happens to be the female market. Girls. The ones who don't know or care about the iMac's increased graphics memory or CPU speed, or video chipset speed.
The ones who buy new pairs of shoes to match their new dresses to match their new handbags etc.
If they can hook these girls even once, Apple can almost guarantee multiple resells as a fashion industry. Basic black with chrome highlights. Iridescent green with transparent blue panels. Etc.
You know, there's another term for that; color calibration, monitor calibration, gamma correction.
All Apple machines automatically do that, it's built into the software. The monitors are also shipped calibrated. The video cards all support it as well.
On the PC world it wasn't really a feature until a few years ago, and a lot of people have no idea that it exists.
There are reasons why Apple still sells big in the publishing industry, because they want this feature; what they see in a brochure is identical to what they scan is identical to what they print is identical to what they email to their partners in the UK is identical to what is printed at the bookshop in Singapore is identical to what they see in their heads.
Star Wars had a cop out answer for your allegation. It was a time of greater glory and civilization, before the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the Empire. It was, as it were, the Golden Age of Rome, the Pax Romana, before the middle ages, before the crusades, before the Vandals and the Visigoths.
If I it really is about the birth of the Federation, they could do some really cool stuff. And I don't think they should be limited to making our future match with the past of ST:TOS technology. Make it a series as groundbreaking as the first Star Trek, about teamwork and survival and exploration. Make it about first contact, and learning how to be polite in a rude and uncaring world.
Those are my thoughts. If they pulled that off, I think I'd watch.
I don't think cloning of humans was the point at all of the original post; just that cloning technology would be an enabler of future technology and advances independent of whether clones are made and whether clones are a problem.
If clone technology is developed but not used for reproductiver purposes, because sex is just plain easier and more fun, already your points 1, 4, and 6 are negated. If we had a population problem, it would be because of cloning. Clones still need wombs, be it artificial or borrowed, to gestate in, so it is really the threat of artificial wombs that might pose a population threat.
So to address your point 2, what's the use of a clone:
Research.
Take an adult mouse. Extract several cells from it. Use clone technology to make that several hundred identical embryoes. Now you can fiddle with the genes such that every single one has *one* difference. Activate a gene, or silence it. Change a gene. Transpose a gene. Replace a gene. Remove a gene entirely. Change the gender!
Then allow them all to come to term.
Lather, rinse, repeat, until we can better understand how genes work, what they do, etc.
This research is independant of 3; it will allow for genetic improvement of a person who has genetic defects, genetic targeting of diseases at each specific phase without affecting the entire organism, specific targeting within an organism due to genetic expression, say only bone marrow or liver cells or subdermal epithelials.
As per number 5: Tinkering of any sort leads to problems. Look at the pollution and environmental destruction we're responsible for. Look at the misery and suffering we've created through misunderstanding of our role in the enivronment and the ecosystem. Does this balance out the gains and benefits of industry, production, civilization, and growth?
I guess the nihlist or some oter ism may say human race be damned, we're just a blight on the face of the earth anyway. But all this tinkering, exploring, building, is supposed to make us happier, better, and stronger. Grow, adapt the environment to suit us, etc.
And I disagree to some extent with your last paragraph. You argue that genetic engineering is useful if used responsibly: How about correcting near or farsightedness? Osteoperosis? PMS? Hair loss? Suntanning? I would almost think that *anything* we do today with chemicals or physical treatments to our bodies are fair game when we have better genetic understanding. Even plastic surgery, for the reason that Genetic Engineering will just be another tool, like the scalpel, the drug, the laser, etc.
AIDs has no connection with that. AIDs is not a reaction to Earth being 'overcrowded'. AIDs is an opportunistic disease taking advantage of an unfortunate environment created by poor human behavior and choice.
Specifically:
Earth is overcrowded as it is.
That's subjective. Large portions of the Earth are sparsely populated, and large portions of the earth are densely populated. It is knowable that with proper infrastructure that being densely populated is not a problem, and that with excellent infrastructure we can redistribute our population density for better survival. Overpopulation.com mentions that the average density of Africa is ~ 25/square km. North America is 15/square km. Europ had density 30/square km. Asia had density ~ 152/square km!
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_europe.htm l
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_north_amer ic a.html
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_africa.htm l
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_asia.html
Look at AIDS... where is AIDS most prevalent?
AIDS is not prevalent in the most crowded places on earth, Europe or Asia.
It's a whole different argument concerning AIDS in Africa, revolving around lifestyles, reproductive practices, quality of life, and levels of education and knowledge.
They may not be liable as individuals for what Rambus the corporation does, per se.
But what about the charge of performing crimiinal/illegal activites, lying and fraud, using Rambus as the tool from which they profit?
Framed differently, aren't they guilty of using and taking advantage of Rambus and it's employees and shareholders to perform acts of fraud and break of contract to their gain?
Probably just dormant until they can reengineer the next big thing. It's not they don't have talent or technology, I think. They did sell their product to Sony for the PS2, Nintendo, for the N64, and Intel, for the P4.
Come to think of it, all three are having problems. I wonder if it really is because of Rambus?
Well, at least they have a good marketing department.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of competition, of winners and losers.
But most of life is not a zero sum game. Driving in traffic is not zero sum. Me getting to my destination does not mean you don't get to yours. Me taking an open spot may deny you the chance to take said open spot, but the rules of the game is not to take all the open spots. It's to reach a destination.
Finding a mate is not a zero sum game. Three guys chasing after one girl may be zero sum, in that one winner denies the others the chance at the girl, but the act of finding a mate does not deny others their chance at finding mates. The rules are to find mates, and deny others the chance has almost no bearing, except where multiple people may have the same person in mind.
Competition is only useful in it gives you a benefit. I mean, that's a very basic definition for anything. If competition gives you bad results, than it's less than useful. Competitive driving, during traffic, just makes traffic worse.
A lot of other people have already made responses on how mating is not a zero sum game. Hopefully it's a net positive game increasing the value of all humanity.
It doesn't seem to me a new language, as perhaps a new flavor of an older idea, like Lisp?
Use some predicate calculus notation to start describing and defining functionality, as well as for allowing one to show correctness and validation.
Map it closer to today's object paradigms without the constraints of matching 'objects' as defined as nouns with verb-methods, instead using a more abstract concept of packages, super-elements, and sub-elements, and algorithms. Given that they haven't finished documenting algorithms, I'm out on a limb here.
The goal would seem to have something closer to predicate calculus, and thus something easier to hold provably correct and functionally correct.
Instead of the many to one mapping of source to algorithm, it should be closer to one to one, I guess.
Of course, I was never very good at predicate calculus, and maybe everything I've said is obvious, and I'm being stupid.
Sure, all the mp3s I get from friends are, well, mp3s. But everything I encode is vorbis because, well, the differences are small enough that it costs me *nothing* to use them. It's open source, it's free, it's better quality, etc. So all the music from all my CDs are Vorbis.
So to answer your question, this does have some benefits.
This is *not* a fundamentally new type of language. I think if you've seen predicate calculus, cellular automata, and lexical parsing in the same class, you'll find a lot of this familiar.
What this is doing is mapping predicate logic/calculus (I think, I sucked at predicate calculus) with structured programming. It's also very different too.
But it starts to think of programs in a level even higher than text, if that makes sense. I could almost think it's trying to treat the source code as annotation and description of a program, and not the actual implementation.
Hmm, analogy...
It's different than 'visual' thinking, in which you have functional blocks with busses, data directions, transformations, blocks and checks, etc.
Eidolon almost certainly forces a different way of thinking, but I don't think it's terribly foreign. In this case, the 'language' cannot exist outside of it's runtime, or context. In this way, it's similar to lisp, or scheme(I think). Conceivable one could write a Eidolon program in a regular text file and 'open'/'run'/'compile' it with the kernal, and be able to validate it in some sense.
Argh, I feel tongue tied. It should allow for very high level structured programming in terms of thinking at an abstract object level. Things are defined in a very predicate calculus way, with the textual representation almost becoming documentation for the structure defined by the calculus. This may have more functional similarites to Lisp than I thought, but it's been awhile since I've played with Lisp.
It's probably a good start towards mission critical code style, in which there needs to be correctness, validation and verification built into the language in the first place.
What, isn't *every* person who buys an Apple a consumer?
Regardless of whether Apple cares about or caters to developers, it's nothing to laugh at in terms of making development easy or easier. Anything that makes developing on an Apple easier is a win for Apple, because it gets them more developers.
If it means greating their own CC based on GCC with functional improvements, or an IDE, developer libs, or kits... I dunno.
But development user interface is as valid a concern as graphical user interface, or any other user interface.
Because computers are getting more powerful and more capable, they can start acting more intelligently.
I can't speak for his vision. I can only talk about my interpretation of his vision.
If I get the gist correct, it's something along the lines that if the OS UI isn't helping you do your task, it's hurting you, and is unnecessary.
At the extreme, it can be taken that the common Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer interface is not necessarily best suited for a task. Why do we need icons? Why do we need widgets? Menu bars? Windows?
That doesn't mean they aren't useful, it just means in certain situations, they aren't necessary. Like in a game of Quake, where the interface is mouse and keyboard, screen, and speakers. Or a game of Dance Dance Revolution, where the interface is scrolling arrows, flashing screen, and a large touchpad.
It's difficult, I think, to make a mockup as you suggest, but here's a good example of using the OS UI as an advantage. Burning CDs under MacOS.
Why should you open a program to burn CDs? Why should burning a CD be any different than writing to your floppy, to your network drive, to your hard disk? As demonstrated by Steve Jobs, you drag the files you want on your CD to the CD icon or CD folder, and the system burns it for you! I would expect making music CDs and mp3 CDs is only *margainally* more difficult, in which you would modify the filesystem of the CD in the same way you might change the filesystem on a floppy (PC or Mac), or properties of a network drive (private or open, who has write access, etc)
Drag an mp3 to a music CD, and maybe, hopefully, it gets converted to CDA! Grab a music track from a CD, and with the help of CDDB, it should be compressed to an mp3, a wav, or some other format on the hard disk!
Another example that is less WIMP in nature. Say you wanted to visit http://www.apple.com
The GUI the Mac espouses is verb and noun in nature. Say there's a floating CLI; or even a hidden one. If it has focus, just typing
go www.apple.com
Should bring up netscape with the Apple website
Typing
find google powerbook titanium reviews
Should bring up in google all the relevant search hits concerning the powerbook+titanium+reviews
There's no icons, no mouse, no windows, no pointer. Just type away at the 'bare' OS. It's similar in action to you going up to a Mac and speaking into a mic:
And it automagically loads Google, from IE, with those search constraints? Why not?
Or for your doc; just start typing:
New Doc
And a blank doc starts up
Open Game Design Draft 2
And the Game Design Draft 2 document opens.
Those are relatively easy because both require text input in the first place.
But by analogy, Apple already has their CD-R interface, their CDDB interface, etc. Why should it be constrained to icons and widgets? That's a holdover from 20 years ago. It doesn't have to be that way, anymore, if a better way can be found, right?
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The claim in the patent is that the theme engine can change not only the appearance(skinning) but the behavior(?) of an application.
I don't know if that is 'obvious' but I can't think of prior art, either ^^
My example is a CLI going from bash to zsh, or Explorer styled browsers, or Finder styled windows, when a theme is selected.
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Perhaps my posts have been in error ^^;
The first claim describes a theme engine in which an application can change appearance(skinning) or behavior(?) when a theme is selected.
Is behavioral changes covered by the Copland whitepapers?
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Here's why. In the first claim the patent mentions the changing of either appearance(skinning) or behavior(?) of an application when a theme is selected.
Theming, in this example, has *not* been done for years and years. Give me an example of an application that changed behaviors when a theme was selected? My example would be an xterm changing from csh to bash, or from a CLI interface to a Finder interface, or an Explorer interface, or even a 3d Doom style interface ^^
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It specifically mentions that when a theme engine is used that the appearance *or* the behavior of the application in question changes.
I don't think I've seen very much prior art of a theme engine in which changing themes changed the behavior of a program!
An example I used in a higher level post was of a xterm window that changed shells based on themes, or changing to a finder style browser, a netscape style browser, or to an explorer style browser.
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1. In a graphical user interface, a method for rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects comprising the steps of:
If I were to dissect it a bit, it's more than just *skinning*, which is to redefine the appearance of the buttons and widgets. The first claim mentions the method of rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects, as related to the appearance and behavior of bojects rendered by the theme. It specifically mentions that either appearance *or* behavior is controlled differently for an object when the theme is changed.
So skinning falls under appearance changing when theme is changed. This would be like WinAMP skins, in which the appearance and buttons can change by selecting skins.
But then there's behavioral changes. By changing themes, the behavior of the application changes as well. So let's speculate an example: An xterm window. Change from Theme A to Theme B. To simplify, let's say the appearance doesn't change, but the behavior does. This could be as simple as shell shifting from ksh to tcsh, or DOS. Or it could mean changing from bash to a graphical terminal window, in which icons appear when you type ls, and selecting an icon is the same as copying, and double clicking a folder works the same as typing 'cd "new folder"'.
It could also be that changing from theme A to theme B changes the terminal window into a Windows styled explorer, or a Mac styled finder, or a Netscape styled web browser.
For other applications, like a CD player, that could mean a change from cli to floating button box to hybrid of the two.
This is all just speculation, but it's more than just skinning!
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Why wouldn't I be serious?
Put Apple into the mix of hardware vendors climbing all over each other to get the GeForce3 done first; of Creative Labs, Guillemot, and Apple, Apple just had the most persuasive negotiation, cash, or development team. I don't know which.
Apple, unlike Creative or Guillemot, sells systems, so maybe they have a better bargaining chip than standalone card manufacturers!
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"Artificially" has nothing to do with it.
NVIDIA needs to work with a hardware manufacturer to make money, or at least license it to someone. Unless I'm mistaken, NVIDIA is fabless and without any capability to make cards.
So if Apple got the card first, it's because they either made it themselves (possible) or they're buying from someone else. Regardless, they did the footwork because it's important to them to make inroads into the enthusiast and game community. Don't ask me why they think so, but it's unquestionable that the GeForce 3 is a gamer's card.
Dell could have done it. Compaq could have done it. IBM could have done it. Apple just did their job and got themselves a scoop on the rest of the industry.
NVIDIA can't sell to the PC world unless someone comes up and makes a card for them to sell.
It might even be possible for PC people to order and buy the GeForce3 card from the Apple store, plop it into a PC, grab the NVIDIA drivers, and see it do amazing things
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Well, yeah, that enters in the art and science of color spaces, color volumes, etc.
If I'm not mistaken there is software and support for color matching volumes as closely as possible. IE, the publishing house or the print directors know when artwork is going to be 'out of gamut'.
I don't myself work with these processes, so I only have hearsay and speculation to fall back on.
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To generalize your question, what software is used that sound cards could accelerate?
How about digital USB speaker output? Right now that sucks up CPU resources that a good sound card should be able to handle.
How about MP3 encoding/decoding? Right now it's a trivial 2% of my system, but if I up the bitrate, the number of channels, and the 'effects', I can start soaking up CPU. Why not have a soundcard accelerate it the same way video cards accelerate 3d graphics?
How about voice recognition software? Hardware accelerate that!
3d sound: Anything that uses a 3d library should be able to use 3d sound. Imagine Quake3. If the soundcard could access the level data, the walls, the enemy placement, the weapon type, etc, it could actually do occlusions, echoes, reverbs, damping, amplification, cancelation, etc.
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I thought I listed a whole bunch of improvements for you already...
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Yes indeedy, it is very much about Thinking Different.
The techy PC market is saturated. People have sated themselves on cheap ram, cheap CPUs, cheap storage, and cheap video cards. There's no reason for PC growth to grow.
So now Apple is probably targetting the *non* techy market. Coincindentally that also happens to be the female market. Girls. The ones who don't know or care about the iMac's increased graphics memory or CPU speed, or video chipset speed.
The ones who buy new pairs of shoes to match their new dresses to match their new handbags etc.
If they can hook these girls even once, Apple can almost guarantee multiple resells as a fashion industry. Basic black with chrome highlights. Iridescent green with transparent blue panels. Etc.
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You know, there's another term for that; color calibration, monitor calibration, gamma correction. All Apple machines automatically do that, it's built into the software. The monitors are also shipped calibrated. The video cards all support it as well. On the PC world it wasn't really a feature until a few years ago, and a lot of people have no idea that it exists. There are reasons why Apple still sells big in the publishing industry, because they want this feature; what they see in a brochure is identical to what they scan is identical to what they print is identical to what they email to their partners in the UK is identical to what is printed at the bookshop in Singapore is identical to what they see in their heads.
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Star Wars had a cop out answer for your allegation. It was a time of greater glory and civilization, before the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the Empire. It was, as it were, the Golden Age of Rome, the Pax Romana, before the middle ages, before the crusades, before the Vandals and the Visigoths.
If I it really is about the birth of the Federation, they could do some really cool stuff. And I don't think they should be limited to making our future match with the past of ST:TOS technology. Make it a series as groundbreaking as the first Star Trek, about teamwork and survival and exploration. Make it about first contact, and learning how to be polite in a rude and uncaring world.
Those are my thoughts. If they pulled that off, I think I'd watch.
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I don't think cloning of humans was the point at all of the original post; just that cloning technology would be an enabler of future technology and advances independent of whether clones are made and whether clones are a problem.
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If clone technology is developed but not used for reproductiver purposes, because sex is just plain easier and more fun, already your points 1, 4, and 6 are negated. If we had a population problem, it would be because of cloning. Clones still need wombs, be it artificial or borrowed, to gestate in, so it is really the threat of artificial wombs that might pose a population threat.
So to address your point 2, what's the use of a clone:
Research.
Take an adult mouse. Extract several cells from it. Use clone technology to make that several hundred identical embryoes. Now you can fiddle with the genes such that every single one has *one* difference. Activate a gene, or silence it. Change a gene. Transpose a gene. Replace a gene. Remove a gene entirely. Change the gender!
Then allow them all to come to term.
Lather, rinse, repeat, until we can better understand how genes work, what they do, etc.
This research is independant of 3; it will allow for genetic improvement of a person who has genetic defects, genetic targeting of diseases at each specific phase without affecting the entire organism, specific targeting within an organism due to genetic expression, say only bone marrow or liver cells or subdermal epithelials.
As per number 5: Tinkering of any sort leads to problems. Look at the pollution and environmental destruction we're responsible for. Look at the misery and suffering we've created through misunderstanding of our role in the enivronment and the ecosystem. Does this balance out the gains and benefits of industry, production, civilization, and growth?
I guess the nihlist or some oter ism may say human race be damned, we're just a blight on the face of the earth anyway. But all this tinkering, exploring, building, is supposed to make us happier, better, and stronger. Grow, adapt the environment to suit us, etc.
And I disagree to some extent with your last paragraph. You argue that genetic engineering is useful if used responsibly: How about correcting near or farsightedness? Osteoperosis? PMS? Hair loss? Suntanning? I would almost think that *anything* we do today with chemicals or physical treatments to our bodies are fair game when we have better genetic understanding. Even plastic surgery, for the reason that Genetic Engineering will just be another tool, like the scalpel, the drug, the laser, etc.
AIDs has no connection with that. AIDs is not a reaction to Earth being 'overcrowded'. AIDs is an opportunistic disease taking advantage of an unfortunate environment created by poor human behavior and choice.
Specifically:
Earth is overcrowded as it is.
That's subjective. Large portions of the Earth are sparsely populated, and large portions of the earth are densely populated. It is knowable that with proper infrastructure that being densely populated is not a problem, and that with excellent infrastructure we can redistribute our population density for better survival. Overpopulation.com mentions that the average density of Africa is ~ 25/square km. North America is 15/square km. Europ had density 30/square km. Asia had density ~ 152/square km!
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_europe.ht
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_north_ame
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_africa.ht
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_asia.html
Look at AIDS... where is AIDS most prevalent?
AIDS is not prevalent in the most crowded places on earth, Europe or Asia.
It's a whole different argument concerning AIDS in Africa, revolving around lifestyles, reproductive practices, quality of life, and levels of education and knowledge.
But you're seriously misinformed.
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What was that movie? Earth Girls are Easy?
I imagine girls with tongues like that would be real popular too.
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They may not be liable as individuals for what Rambus the corporation does, per se.
But what about the charge of performing crimiinal/illegal activites, lying and fraud, using Rambus as the tool from which they profit?
Framed differently, aren't they guilty of using and taking advantage of Rambus and it's employees and shareholders to perform acts of fraud and break of contract to their gain?
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Probably just dormant until they can reengineer the next big thing. It's not they don't have talent or technology, I think. They did sell their product to Sony for the PS2, Nintendo, for the N64, and Intel, for the P4.
Come to think of it, all three are having problems. I wonder if it really is because of Rambus?
Well, at least they have a good marketing department.
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There is nothing wrong with the idea of competition, of winners and losers.
But most of life is not a zero sum game. Driving in traffic is not zero sum. Me getting to my destination does not mean you don't get to yours. Me taking an open spot may deny you the chance to take said open spot, but the rules of the game is not to take all the open spots. It's to reach a destination.
Finding a mate is not a zero sum game. Three guys chasing after one girl may be zero sum, in that one winner denies the others the chance at the girl, but the act of finding a mate does not deny others their chance at finding mates. The rules are to find mates, and deny others the chance has almost no bearing, except where multiple people may have the same person in mind.
Competition is only useful in it gives you a benefit. I mean, that's a very basic definition for anything. If competition gives you bad results, than it's less than useful. Competitive driving, during traffic, just makes traffic worse.
A lot of other people have already made responses on how mating is not a zero sum game. Hopefully it's a net positive game increasing the value of all humanity.
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I didn't know that existed!
I sorta wish Netscape were smarter too. That the default action when I start typing when it has focus is to redirect the text into the location-bar...
Thanks!
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Graph oriented? I dunno.
It doesn't seem to me a new language, as perhaps a new flavor of an older idea, like Lisp?
Use some predicate calculus notation to start describing and defining functionality, as well as for allowing one to show correctness and validation.
Map it closer to today's object paradigms without the constraints of matching 'objects' as defined as nouns with verb-methods, instead using a more abstract concept of packages, super-elements, and sub-elements, and algorithms. Given that they haven't finished documenting algorithms, I'm out on a limb here.
The goal would seem to have something closer to predicate calculus, and thus something easier to hold provably correct and functionally correct.
Instead of the many to one mapping of source to algorithm, it should be closer to one to one, I guess.
Of course, I was never very good at predicate calculus, and maybe everything I've said is obvious, and I'm being stupid.
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As per vorbis, I've switched.
Sure, all the mp3s I get from friends are, well, mp3s. But everything I encode is vorbis because, well, the differences are small enough that it costs me *nothing* to use them. It's open source, it's free, it's better quality, etc. So all the music from all my CDs are Vorbis.
So to answer your question, this does have some benefits.
This is *not* a fundamentally new type of language. I think if you've seen predicate calculus, cellular automata, and lexical parsing in the same class, you'll find a lot of this familiar.
What this is doing is mapping predicate logic/calculus (I think, I sucked at predicate calculus) with structured programming. It's also very different too.
But it starts to think of programs in a level even higher than text, if that makes sense. I could almost think it's trying to treat the source code as annotation and description of a program, and not the actual implementation.
Hmm, analogy...
It's different than 'visual' thinking, in which you have functional blocks with busses, data directions, transformations, blocks and checks, etc.
Eidolon almost certainly forces a different way of thinking, but I don't think it's terribly foreign. In this case, the 'language' cannot exist outside of it's runtime, or context. In this way, it's similar to lisp, or scheme(I think). Conceivable one could write a Eidolon program in a regular text file and 'open'/'run'/'compile' it with the kernal, and be able to validate it in some sense.
Argh, I feel tongue tied. It should allow for very high level structured programming in terms of thinking at an abstract object level. Things are defined in a very predicate calculus way, with the textual representation almost becoming documentation for the structure defined by the calculus. This may have more functional similarites to Lisp than I thought, but it's been awhile since I've played with Lisp.
It's probably a good start towards mission critical code style, in which there needs to be correctness, validation and verification built into the language in the first place.
Anyone want to help me out here?
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What, isn't *every* person who buys an Apple a consumer?
Regardless of whether Apple cares about or caters to developers, it's nothing to laugh at in terms of making development easy or easier. Anything that makes developing on an Apple easier is a win for Apple, because it gets them more developers.
If it means greating their own CC based on GCC with functional improvements, or an IDE, developer libs, or kits... I dunno.
But development user interface is as valid a concern as graphical user interface, or any other user interface.
Because computers are getting more powerful and more capable, they can start acting more intelligently.
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I can't speak for his vision. I can only talk about my interpretation of his vision.
If I get the gist correct, it's something along the lines that if the OS UI isn't helping you do your task, it's hurting you, and is unnecessary.
At the extreme, it can be taken that the common Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer interface is not necessarily best suited for a task. Why do we need icons? Why do we need widgets? Menu bars? Windows?
That doesn't mean they aren't useful, it just means in certain situations, they aren't necessary. Like in a game of Quake, where the interface is mouse and keyboard, screen, and speakers. Or a game of Dance Dance Revolution, where the interface is scrolling arrows, flashing screen, and a large touchpad.
It's difficult, I think, to make a mockup as you suggest, but here's a good example of using the OS UI as an advantage. Burning CDs under MacOS.
Why should you open a program to burn CDs? Why should burning a CD be any different than writing to your floppy, to your network drive, to your hard disk? As demonstrated by Steve Jobs, you drag the files you want on your CD to the CD icon or CD folder, and the system burns it for you! I would expect making music CDs and mp3 CDs is only *margainally* more difficult, in which you would modify the filesystem of the CD in the same way you might change the filesystem on a floppy (PC or Mac), or properties of a network drive (private or open, who has write access, etc)
Drag an mp3 to a music CD, and maybe, hopefully, it gets converted to CDA! Grab a music track from a CD, and with the help of CDDB, it should be compressed to an mp3, a wav, or some other format on the hard disk!
Another example that is less WIMP in nature. Say you wanted to visit http://www.apple.com
The GUI the Mac espouses is verb and noun in nature. Say there's a floating CLI; or even a hidden one. If it has focus, just typing
go www.apple.com
Should bring up netscape with the Apple website
Typing
find google powerbook titanium reviews
Should bring up in google all the relevant search hits concerning the powerbook+titanium+reviews
There's no icons, no mouse, no windows, no pointer. Just type away at the 'bare' OS. It's similar in action to you going up to a Mac and speaking into a mic:
Computer, find, google, powerbook, titanium, reviews, execute.
And a smart voice powered system should bring up Netscape, at the google site, with the proper search results.
But that's my interpretation.
Other interpretations exist, I'm sure.
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I read disdain where there probably wasn't any. Oops!
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Why should the UI be constrained to envelope icons, pencil and paper icons, or a blue crystal E?
If Apple were to tap into the Terminal app, and create a CLI.app of magnificent proportions...
Imagine typing into CLI.app the web address you want to visit:
Goto http://slashdot.org
Visit http://www.apple.com
URL http://www.yahoo.com
Or better yet
search net Apples OS X beta rebate
And it automagically loads Google, from IE, with those search constraints? Why not?
Or for your doc; just start typing:
New Doc
And a blank doc starts up
Open Game Design Draft 2
And the Game Design Draft 2 document opens.
Those are relatively easy because both require text input in the first place.
But by analogy, Apple already has their CD-R interface, their CDDB interface, etc. Why should it be constrained to icons and widgets? That's a holdover from 20 years ago. It doesn't have to be that way, anymore, if a better way can be found, right?
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