Yeah, I was building a theoretical scenario for the response above.
My other example, about transmitting gravity or a stab to the face was explicitly about if they were -not- converted to data and somehow transmitted. It's not possible, but if it were, it would be a new and novel use for the internet (transmitting something other than data), and patentable.
The latter part was trying to logically stretch his already-strained metaphor about alphabet as a transmission carrier for data.
I think your example is flawed. I'm not sure if it's flamebait as modded above, but let me take a stab at it.
I believe that a better way of putting the parent's arguments would be - moving data over TCP is public domain. I believe we can reason from something being in public domain that it is no longer obvious. Because moving data is no longer "not-obvious", moving a specific type of data is no longer "not-obvious". Things that are obvious are not patentable. Thus, moving a specific type of data is not patentable.
This does not prevent any of the other parts of the process from being patentable. For example: under his suggestion, transmitting VOIP data across the internet is not patentable. But encoding the voice into data still is. And presenting the data on the other side of the connection (as voice, or text, braille, etc) is still patentable.
To extend this: if you created a method by which to encode and transmit a person across TCP/IP as data, it's not patentable. But the process of encoding the person -into- data is. And the process of decoding the person back into a person (or saving to your desktop or whatever) is still patentable. Furthermore, if you invented a way to transmit something other than data across the internet (say, a stab in the face, or gravity), that would still be patentable. So long as it's not data.
It's difficult to put this into your example, but to really stretch your analogy I believe the best way of putting it would be that since using an alphabet to communicate is public domain, languages (different systems that use alphabets to communicate) are not patentable. Books, however, are a display medium, and would still be patentable.
You should also check out Shifter (if you haven't already). The latest versions fix a number of the AI bugs previously present in the unreal scripts, adding better detection of stealth, better aiming, enemies actually using items, etc. There's also another project that fixes even more of the AI bugs, making them much more aggressive, as well as smarter about finding you. It's based on shifter. Wish I could remember the name of it, but if you're interested, I suggest looking around on the internet for a bit.
HDTP fixes a lot of the models to look considerably better.
Also, check out Deus Ex: New Vision. It's a complement to the HDTP project.
We have them, but they're mostly just ignored. I think the reason we're no longer using the cameras is that the expenses for mailing all the tickets outweighed how much money would actually be paid.
Re:Of course we'll be alive after collisions
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
There are two protons colliding in inelastic collisions. The velocity of the resultant particles should be very high, but, in very rare cases, could be less than escape velocity. That said, there's no reason to believe that any MBHs would not evaporate.
I have a link to the calculated velocity distribution somewhere, I'll post it if I can find it.
Re:Can we please talk about physics now?
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
The problem is that with that public eye, also comes people trying to sue to shut down the project. Some people just want the science to get done.
Re:Of course we're still alive...
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
CERN says full power is next year. There's supposed to be a 10TeV (which is over 3/4 of the full power) test October 21st, at the "grand-opening" event.
Re:More than scientific learning
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
October 21st is the first 10TeV collision. The time for the first 14TeV ones will be sometime next year; the exact time isn't known even to the scientists involved yet (for various reasons), though I presume they have a tentative timeline.
Re:you can't stop the doomsayers
on
LHC Success!
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· Score: 1
Physicists also won't tell you that you shaving tomorrow won't cause a collapse of the false vacuum, for much the same reason: there's no way to completely rule it out, but both experimental evidence (that millions of people shave every day) and theoretical (there's no theoretical way for it to happen within modern physics).
Electromagnetic -effects- can't. Virtual particles can. Or, if you prefer, the electromagnetic field itself extends throughout spacetime, but the excitation of that field is limited by the speed of light. The field can propogate (but not carry information according to relativity).
Vaguely similar to the explanation of why inflation theory doesn't violate relativity.
The maybe is because science isn't sure, actually.
Probably very little, for a very long time.
Gravity is overwhelmed by the other forces at that level, and atoms are mostly empty space. It would spend a very long time going from "smaller than the constituent quarks of a proton" to "The size of a nucleus of an atom".
Actually, it would have a charge, and probably a magnetic field.
Re:Not supposed to be dooms day yet.
on
LHC Flips On Tomorrow
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It would take an absurdly long time for it to get to a macroscopic scale. Just because it's a black hole doesn't mean it's going to just suck everything up. In fact, if it were a charged, stable, non-massive black hole, it can go for quite some time without absorbing matter, simply because of how weak gravity is compared to the other forces. The gravity of a single proton is still going very weak compared to that of its charge.
A single proton in the LHC, yes. The LHC will be colliding two protons with approximately the same momentum. It's an inelastic collision. The... coefficient of restitution, I think it's called, varies depending on several factors, but there can be rare cases where the resultant particles are low-velocity.
The first high energy collisions are on October 21st. They're just running the first full tests, the first circulation of a beam tomorrow.
Re:Not supposed to be dooms day yet.
on
LHC Flips On Tomorrow
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· Score: 5, Interesting
The fear is that the LHC is doing one thing differently - any black holes created in the upper atmosphere would have a velocity approaching that of light, and pass harmlessly through the earth, grabbing a proton or two on the way. At the LHC, it's possible that some of the holes created would have a much lower velocity - less than escape velocity. Those holes wouldn't just leave earth, they'd stick around.
First, we actually have to be in the right range to create the black holes. This is very, very unlikely - it requires large extra dimensions, something allowed for but not expected in theory.
Then there's Hawking radiation. While there's no reason to believe it doesn't exist (and several to believe it does), it hasn't been experimentally verified. If it doesn't exist, or if a black hole radiates much slower than expected, any created holes could survive long enough to actually absorb more matter.
This PDF has the interesting math behind all of this.
Note: No, I'm not even saying they're right. I'm simply stating what their argument is for it. There's a lot of problems with those arguments, and I'm on the "destroy the world? Yeah, right?" side. I'm actually having an LHC get-together tomorrow night, and plan to have an Mad Scientist "End of the World" party on October 21, when they're having the first high-energy collisions.
I'll explain this one, but the real answer is that you're not telling perl what you think you're telling perl. And I wouldn't say you're wrong about it. Basically, print is a function. The function operator "()" has a higher precedence than the concat operator ".". You're calling the print function with parens, as print(2). The remainder of the line is appended to the return value of the print.
Test this to see that in action:
my $i = print (2) . (3) . (5); print "\n", $i;
BTW,
use warnings
would have caught that. Why it's not default by now, I can't say.
As to your second point - it is doing the implicit type conversion based on the operator, not the operands' types or values. "+" does a numeric add, "." does a string concatenate. Using either will do an implicit conversion if needed. The type does come into play to see if it's possible to convert from one to another because, for example, "foo" is somewhat hard to make into a number. If the value is in a variable... it's treated exactly the same. If you're adding numbers, use "+". If you're concatenating strings, use ".". Perl will only make implicit conversions if they're possible.
On the third, I agree 100%. NaN shouldn't be treated as zero. It's sloppy. Fortunately,
Your quotes are in the wrong place - your code had "2."3"", which is a parse error (it becomes ["2.", 3, ""] with no operators between them) - I think you tried to quote the entire operation, which isn't needed.
Try print 2 . "3", no quotes. That's the equivalent of python's print 2 + "3".
Slashdot Mirror
Excitement is a bug - not a feature - in a filesystem.
These are marketing qubits.
Yeah, I was building a theoretical scenario for the response above.
My other example, about transmitting gravity or a stab to the face was explicitly about if they were -not- converted to data and somehow transmitted. It's not possible, but if it were, it would be a new and novel use for the internet (transmitting something other than data), and patentable.
The latter part was trying to logically stretch his already-strained metaphor about alphabet as a transmission carrier for data.
I think your example is flawed. I'm not sure if it's flamebait as modded above, but let me take a stab at it.
I believe that a better way of putting the parent's arguments would be - moving data over TCP is public domain. I believe we can reason from something being in public domain that it is no longer obvious. Because moving data is no longer "not-obvious", moving a specific type of data is no longer "not-obvious". Things that are obvious are not patentable. Thus, moving a specific type of data is not patentable.
This does not prevent any of the other parts of the process from being patentable. For example: under his suggestion, transmitting VOIP data across the internet is not patentable. But encoding the voice into data still is. And presenting the data on the other side of the connection (as voice, or text, braille, etc) is still patentable.
To extend this: if you created a method by which to encode and transmit a person across TCP/IP as data, it's not patentable. But the process of encoding the person -into- data is. And the process of decoding the person back into a person (or saving to your desktop or whatever) is still patentable. Furthermore, if you invented a way to transmit something other than data across the internet (say, a stab in the face, or gravity), that would still be patentable. So long as it's not data.
It's difficult to put this into your example, but to really stretch your analogy I believe the best way of putting it would be that since using an alphabet to communicate is public domain, languages (different systems that use alphabets to communicate) are not patentable. Books, however, are a display medium, and would still be patentable.
You should also check out Shifter (if you haven't already). The latest versions fix a number of the AI bugs previously present in the unreal scripts, adding better detection of stealth, better aiming, enemies actually using items, etc. There's also another project that fixes even more of the AI bugs, making them much more aggressive, as well as smarter about finding you. It's based on shifter. Wish I could remember the name of it, but if you're interested, I suggest looking around on the internet for a bit.
HDTP fixes a lot of the models to look considerably better.
Also, check out Deus Ex: New Vision. It's a complement to the HDTP project.
Some of us did exactly that. Others started playing WoW.
I was thinking it was a gateway bug
We have them, but they're mostly just ignored. I think the reason we're no longer using the cameras is that the expenses for mailing all the tickets outweighed how much money would actually be paid.
Getting them or trying to protect us from them?
It's only possible because these "Linux" guys took a lot of the code they're using from an existing company named SCO.
Mr. Titor, is that you?
There are two protons colliding in inelastic collisions. The velocity of the resultant particles should be very high, but, in very rare cases, could be less than escape velocity. That said, there's no reason to believe that any MBHs would not evaporate. I have a link to the calculated velocity distribution somewhere, I'll post it if I can find it.
The problem is that with that public eye, also comes people trying to sue to shut down the project. Some people just want the science to get done.
CERN says full power is next year. There's supposed to be a 10TeV (which is over 3/4 of the full power) test October 21st, at the "grand-opening" event.
October 21st is the first 10TeV collision. The time for the first 14TeV ones will be sometime next year; the exact time isn't known even to the scientists involved yet (for various reasons), though I presume they have a tentative timeline.
Physicists also won't tell you that you shaving tomorrow won't cause a collapse of the false vacuum, for much the same reason: there's no way to completely rule it out, but both experimental evidence (that millions of people shave every day) and theoretical (there's no theoretical way for it to happen within modern physics).
Electromagnetic -effects- can't. Virtual particles can. Or, if you prefer, the electromagnetic field itself extends throughout spacetime, but the excitation of that field is limited by the speed of light. The field can propogate (but not carry information according to relativity). Vaguely similar to the explanation of why inflation theory doesn't violate relativity. The maybe is because science isn't sure, actually.
Probably very little, for a very long time. Gravity is overwhelmed by the other forces at that level, and atoms are mostly empty space. It would spend a very long time going from "smaller than the constituent quarks of a proton" to "The size of a nucleus of an atom".
Actually, it would have a charge, and probably a magnetic field.
It would take an absurdly long time for it to get to a macroscopic scale. Just because it's a black hole doesn't mean it's going to just suck everything up. In fact, if it were a charged, stable, non-massive black hole, it can go for quite some time without absorbing matter, simply because of how weak gravity is compared to the other forces. The gravity of a single proton is still going very weak compared to that of its charge.
A single proton in the LHC, yes. The LHC will be colliding two protons with approximately the same momentum. It's an inelastic collision. The... coefficient of restitution, I think it's called, varies depending on several factors, but there can be rare cases where the resultant particles are low-velocity.
The first high energy collisions are on October 21st. They're just running the first full tests, the first circulation of a beam tomorrow.
The fear is that the LHC is doing one thing differently - any black holes created in the upper atmosphere would have a velocity approaching that of light, and pass harmlessly through the earth, grabbing a proton or two on the way. At the LHC, it's possible that some of the holes created would have a much lower velocity - less than escape velocity. Those holes wouldn't just leave earth, they'd stick around.
First, we actually have to be in the right range to create the black holes. This is very, very unlikely - it requires large extra dimensions, something allowed for but not expected in theory.
Then there's Hawking radiation. While there's no reason to believe it doesn't exist (and several to believe it does), it hasn't been experimentally verified. If it doesn't exist, or if a black hole radiates much slower than expected, any created holes could survive long enough to actually absorb more matter.
This PDF has the interesting math behind all of this.
Note: No, I'm not even saying they're right. I'm simply stating what their argument is for it. There's a lot of problems with those arguments, and I'm on the "destroy the world? Yeah, right?" side. I'm actually having an LHC get-together tomorrow night, and plan to have an Mad Scientist "End of the World" party on October 21, when they're having the first high-energy collisions.
BTW, would have caught that. Why it's not default by now, I can't say.
As to your second point - it is doing the implicit type conversion based on the operator, not the operands' types or values. "+" does a numeric add, "." does a string concatenate. Using either will do an implicit conversion if needed. The type does come into play to see if it's possible to convert from one to another because, for example, "foo" is somewhat hard to make into a number. If the value is in a variable
On the third, I agree 100%. NaN shouldn't be treated as zero. It's sloppy. Fortunately, will catch that for us.
Your quotes are in the wrong place - your code had "2."3"", which is a parse error (it becomes ["2.", 3, ""] with no operators between them) - I think you tried to quote the entire operation, which isn't needed. Try print 2 . "3", no quotes. That's the equivalent of python's print 2 + "3".