You're missing the key feature of patents here. The one "proven" to invent first by virtue of a patent gets the privilege of setting arbitrary license terms for any use of the covered invention. Thus, a patent has everything to do with licensing, and it may be "closed" at the whim of the patent holder at any time.
This isn't actually very correct in practice. There are plenty of companies who have extensive patent portfolios that they created simply for self protection. So, in theory, while the patent portfolios might one day be used as draconian licensing instruments, they (under the current system) also provide a valuable instrument for self protection. I myself have two patents acquired for just that purpose.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
This is exactly what I said.
And I said out-of-printedness is a fudgeable metric. Laws or segments of laws that are effectively non-judiciable probably shouldn't go on to the books at all.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
What's the 28 years in reference to? Copyrights are currently for life, and then some.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
It's rather ageist to assume that an 80 year old is less capable of being creative than a 20 year old too...
Now you're just being silly. Age-related mental decline is a well-understood phenomenon. Whether or not a specific _individual_ suffers from that decline is a matter of prejudice, but the generalization is inarguably true.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
If it goes out of print, its copyright should expire within 5 years.
Again, enforcement of this would be problematic. It would be the utmost in trivialities for an author to keep up a webpage that offers for sale through his own shell publishing company his book, keeping some small token number of copies around, indefinitely extending the print period. This is why some finite number of years is better. It's an absolute. "X years from file date". End of story.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
It's a fair thought (revision-termed copyrights), but not really tractable. What do you want, the Congressional Committe to Determine Proper Version Numbers? No, way, Jose.:) Seriously, however, there are intellectual properties which only have short term utility to society. With a blanket alteration to law, one can simply set software to 15 year terms and patents to 7. One might distinguish between _individuals_ making intellectual property claims and corporations, giving individuals the advantage.
I'm dead set against screwing over an author, (of books, etc) however. These guys aren't so creative when they get older, and really need to be able to generate the income. Whether or not such income really needs to pass to _heirs_ (as it does now) is certainly an open question.
C//
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
Well, you have some fine ideas, but I think they require further thought. A book, a music score, a song -- these are all things that will have value after their protection is gone. By the time the copyright expires on software, it is, quite literally _worthless_. We need to reexamine the period of various kinds of works and inventions from this context. Since, auspiciously, the intellectual property system is built on the notion of offering incentives to benefit the common good, we should ask ourselves how likely it is that the common good will be served to the general public after the protection is gone.
It would seem to me that for software, the protection window should be substantially shortened. The exact numbers, I'm not sure of.
Rather than just throwing more processing power at something, why not try to make that something more efficient?
I'm not quite sure what you mean. While some algorithms could no doubt be improved, it's not as if there hasn't been a lot of incentive to improve them already. These algorithms are _intractible_ on modern computers. The solution for some of them for some moderate values of N has been to do things like throw Crays at them, or large Beowulf clusters and the like. It's a fair bet that a good number of these algorithms can be no further optimized. There are plenty of scientists who will _gladly_ consume the CPU cycles of a computer which is 1,000,000,000 times faster than what we have today.
Yes. A good estimate, more or less. Now, let's jump past the pragmatic (and obviously useful) requirement of "real time Jurassic Park" and switch over to basic A.I. Are you aware that the science of A.I. is simply _filled_ with algorithms that scale exponentially (and worse than exponentially) with increasing complexity? What kind of processor would ever be "enough" (ahem!) for those? Whether every day folks find this relevant or not is, of course, its own issue.
Yes, but I really don't think you're getting it. The author of the article at EET was saying that CMOS is done for. Something _like_ spintronics or some other technology must take its place. You came off being critical to the article, but cited directions which actually seem to support his case.
Your examples don't do anything to disprove the article (which I predict you either didn't read or simply did not understand). Fiber interconnects or spin transistors are not CMOS. The author of the article was saying that the industry needs to begin thinking about retooling to something else. A process for constructing photonic transitors would be that something else. Get it?
Having CPU speeds come to a brief halt while process technology retools might not be a bad thing, you know? This would force the various hardware vendors to concentrate on other system components. If I could have any one "fantasy" system component right now, it would be a solid state drive. This would make more difference to performance than any new cpu around.
When we can interactively render a game with the visual quality of _Jurassic Park_ in real time? That would likely require a computer many thousands of times faster than what we have available today.
In a striking reversal of previous software companies, the NWN crew has agreed that the editor for the game is important and actually released it _first_. Unlike other games, the NWN editor is not an afterthought shipped two months after the game's release. In NWN's case, the editor is largely finished and ready for limited distribution. This will allow mod makers, which are expected to be many, to get familiarized with the tools.
They are the most successful GPU company because they make the best, highest-quality, fastest GPU's, and...
But this begs the question, doesn't it? What is it about Nvidia, their engineers, their corporate culture, and their corporate machine, that allows them to repeatedly execute so well?
Personally, I think its rather idiotic of them not to
Yeah, but you've never paid a programmer's salary before, either.
Using bits of GPL in a work owned by your company (or a company with whom you have a contract) without first asking for permission to do so will expose you to more civil liability than you can shake a house at.
Dude, that's what I'm telling you. Money can be created by deposits, and routinely is. It's created through what I'll call "virtual currency," by fiat, and inserted into the accounts of borrowers.
...you could create a feedback loop
That's correct. This is what happens and why it is that a "run" on a bank is bad: they don't actually have the real capital to handle the withdrawals.
Fiscal/banking policy decides to what degree that a bank can do this and how much they have to hold in reserve. The Federal Reserve uses two primary instruments to control the money supply: interest rates, and the reserve ratio. Look up "reserve ratio" at google for more information.
C//
Re:I was just reading this at the bookstore...
on
Agile Modeling
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Test-First Programming: write some unit tests before your write the code they test. Then write the actual code and work on it until the tests pass; go back and write more tests.
For me, what works so well about Test First Programming is that it strongly drives me. I have concrete goals, objective measurement, and even a built in reward system of sorts. When all else fails and I'm feeling particularly unmotivated, I write more test code, giving me more things to test.
When they "use" their money, they are spending it, and when they spend it, the recipients will probably put it in the bank, right? But in any case, the US overall money supply is fucking titanic. You wouldn't believe it's size.
I assume you're talking about the velocity of money...
Monetary velocity is an enabling factor, but it has more to do with fiscal policy and reserve ratios. It has to do with what happens when you deposit money in the bank, but only have an electronic record to show for it, and then the bank turns around and makes loans into checking (and other) accounts, again only making electronic records to show for it. Real greenbacks never change hands. The banks can create a certain amount of money by fiat to a certain ratio of actual real assets held.
MS has to have their 40b deposited in banks. Those banks don't just pay interest for fun; they take that 40b and loan it to others...
You're more correct than you say. They actually loan out the money many times. The very act of MS depositing $40B in the bank probably actually creates (and I do mean creates, yes) an additional $160B over the original $40B.
Slashdot Mirror
You're missing the key feature of patents here. The one "proven" to invent first by virtue of a patent gets the privilege of setting arbitrary license terms for any use of the covered invention. Thus, a patent has everything to do with licensing, and it may be "closed" at the whim of the patent holder at any time.
This isn't actually very correct in practice. There are plenty of companies who have extensive patent portfolios that they created simply for self protection. So, in theory, while the patent portfolios might one day be used as draconian licensing instruments, they (under the current system) also provide a valuable instrument for self protection. I myself have two patents acquired for just that purpose.
C//
This is exactly what I said.
And I said out-of-printedness is a fudgeable metric. Laws or segments of laws that are effectively non-judiciable probably shouldn't go on to the books at all.
C//
What's the 28 years in reference to? Copyrights are currently for life, and then some.
C//
It's rather ageist to assume that an 80 year old is less capable of being creative than a 20 year old too...
Now you're just being silly. Age-related mental decline is a well-understood phenomenon. Whether or not a specific _individual_ suffers from that decline is a matter of prejudice, but the generalization is inarguably true.
C//
If it goes out of print, its copyright should expire within 5 years.
Again, enforcement of this would be problematic. It would be the utmost in trivialities for an author to keep up a webpage that offers for sale through his own shell publishing company his book, keeping some small token number of copies around, indefinitely extending the print period. This is why some finite number of years is better. It's an absolute. "X years from file date". End of story.
C//
It's a fair thought (revision-termed copyrights), but not really tractable. What do you want, the Congressional Committe to Determine Proper Version Numbers? No, way, Jose. :) Seriously, however, there are intellectual properties which only have short term utility to society. With a blanket alteration to law, one can simply set software to 15 year terms and patents to 7. One might distinguish between _individuals_ making intellectual property claims and corporations, giving individuals the advantage.
I'm dead set against screwing over an author, (of books, etc) however. These guys aren't so creative when they get older, and really need to be able to generate the income. Whether or not such income really needs to pass to _heirs_ (as it does now) is certainly an open question.
C//
Well, you have some fine ideas, but I think they require further thought. A book, a music score, a song -- these are all things that will have value after their protection is gone. By the time the copyright expires on software, it is, quite literally _worthless_. We need to reexamine the period of various kinds of works and inventions from this context. Since, auspiciously, the intellectual property system is built on the notion of offering incentives to benefit the common good, we should ask ourselves how likely it is that the common good will be served to the general public after the protection is gone.
It would seem to me that for software, the protection window should be substantially shortened. The exact numbers, I'm not sure of.
C//
Rather than just throwing more processing power at something, why not try to make that something more efficient?
I'm not quite sure what you mean. While some algorithms could no doubt be improved, it's not as if there hasn't been a lot of incentive to improve them already. These algorithms are _intractible_ on modern computers. The solution for some of them for some moderate values of N has been to do things like throw Crays at them, or large Beowulf clusters and the like. It's a fair bet that a good number of these algorithms can be no further optimized. There are plenty of scientists who will _gladly_ consume the CPU cycles of a computer which is 1,000,000,000 times faster than what we have today.
C//
Yes. A good estimate, more or less. Now, let's jump past the pragmatic (and obviously useful) requirement of "real time Jurassic Park" and switch over to basic A.I. Are you aware that the science of A.I. is simply _filled_ with algorithms that scale exponentially (and worse than exponentially) with increasing complexity? What kind of processor would ever be "enough" (ahem!) for those? Whether every day folks find this relevant or not is, of course, its own issue.
C//
Yes, but I really don't think you're getting it. The author of the article at EET was saying that CMOS is done for. Something _like_ spintronics or some other technology must take its place. You came off being critical to the article, but cited directions which actually seem to support his case.
C//
Your examples don't do anything to disprove the article (which I predict you either didn't read or simply did not understand). Fiber interconnects or spin transistors are not CMOS. The author of the article was saying that the industry needs to begin thinking about retooling to something else. A process for constructing photonic transitors would be that something else. Get it?
C//
The point is, that for our chips there is NO incentive to go to 0.13u or below.
.13u imply more chips per wafer, and therefore a lower cost basis?
Huh? Doesn't
C//
Having CPU speeds come to a brief halt while process technology retools might not be a bad thing, you know? This would force the various hardware vendors to concentrate on other system components. If I could have any one "fantasy" system component right now, it would be a solid state drive. This would make more difference to performance than any new cpu around.
C//
When we can interactively render a game with the visual quality of _Jurassic Park_ in real time? That would likely require a computer many thousands of times faster than what we have available today.
C//
In a striking reversal of previous software companies, the NWN crew has agreed that the editor for the game is important and actually released it _first_. Unlike other games, the NWN editor is not an afterthought shipped two months after the game's release. In NWN's case, the editor is largely finished and ready for limited distribution. This will allow mod makers, which are expected to be many, to get familiarized with the tools.
C//
They are the most successful GPU company because they make the best, highest-quality, fastest GPU's, and...
But this begs the question, doesn't it? What is it about Nvidia, their engineers, their corporate culture, and their corporate machine, that allows them to repeatedly execute so well?
Personally, I think its rather idiotic of them not to
Yeah, but you've never paid a programmer's salary before, either.
C//
Using bits of GPL in a work owned by your company (or a company with whom you have a contract) without first asking for permission to do so will expose you to more civil liability than you can shake a house at.
C//
If money could actually be created by deposits
...you could create a feedback loop
Dude, that's what I'm telling you. Money can be created by deposits, and routinely is. It's created through what I'll call "virtual currency," by fiat, and inserted into the accounts of borrowers.
That's correct. This is what happens and why it is that a "run" on a bank is bad: they don't actually have the real capital to handle the withdrawals.
Fiscal/banking policy decides to what degree that a bank can do this and how much they have to hold in reserve. The Federal Reserve uses two primary instruments to control the money supply: interest rates, and the reserve ratio. Look up "reserve ratio" at google for more information.
C//
Test-First Programming: write some unit tests before your write the code they test. Then write the actual code and work on it until the tests pass; go back and write more tests.
For me, what works so well about Test First Programming is that it strongly drives me. I have concrete goals, objective measurement, and even a built in reward system of sorts. When all else fails and I'm feeling particularly unmotivated, I write more test code, giving me more things to test.
C//
When they "use" their money, they are spending it, and when they spend it, the recipients will probably put it in the bank, right? But in any case, the US overall money supply is fucking titanic. You wouldn't believe it's size.
C//
Measuring the performance of a CPU using megahertz is like comparing the speed of 2 vehicles based on horsepower alone.
:)
I think RPM is a better analogy.
C//
I assume you're talking about the velocity of money...
Monetary velocity is an enabling factor, but it has more to do with fiscal policy and reserve ratios. It has to do with what happens when you deposit money in the bank, but only have an electronic record to show for it, and then the bank turns around and makes loans into checking (and other) accounts, again only making electronic records to show for it. Real greenbacks never change hands. The banks can create a certain amount of money by fiat to a certain ratio of actual real assets held.
C//
MS has to have their 40b deposited in banks. Those banks don't just pay interest for fun; they take that 40b and loan it to others...
You're more correct than you say. They actually loan out the money many times. The very act of MS depositing $40B in the bank probably actually creates (and I do mean creates, yes) an additional $160B over the original $40B.
C//
Obviously not, otherwise you would have just invalidated any variety of thermal/steam engines with a stroke of your "can't decrease entropy" pen.
C//
The only way a technology such as this would be accepted by big manufactures is if they have a short life span.
You conspiracy freaks are so delusional sometimes. There are multi year bulbs you can buy right in the store, you know?
C//