usps.gov has a marketing deal with Microsoft apparently. Their Web-Based Solutions page, accessable from the main usps.gov page, is "Powered by Microsoft bCentral", and promotes subscriptions to Microsoft services.
Maybe we need to add "separation of corporation and state" to our "separation of church and state" in the constitution?
Now AOL's purchase of Netscape makes more business sense now... they could get billions in damage payments now that Microsoft's anti-competitive illegal business practices have been established by anit-trust court.
From these it appears they are fabricating wafers with lots of semi-independent processing nodes, which are tolerant of failures of some of the nodes (and can therefore take into account chip production glitches on part of the wafer).
This could give them a potentially large performance advantage, if they can do it right.
Too much configurability is already a problem for some.
My parents, for instance. I didn't believe it at first when the inevitable tech support came:
"There's something wrong with my word."
"Your Microsoft Word?"
"Yeah, that one."
"What's wrong?"
"There's nothing on the screen and I can't control it."
"Ok, well click on the file open icon... looks like a file folder with a curved arrow on top."
"There isn't any."
"Hm.. ok well click on where it says 'File'."
"It doesn't say that..."
It was true. They'd managed to get rid of every icon and command on the screen, and it was completely blank.
How did they do it? I don't know, but you can do it pretty easily by right clicking and then checking or unchecking things.
So as we add configurability to Linux and its applications, we should hide it and protect it behind selections which say "are you sure you want to..." -- similar warnings can be placed as comments in the top of all the important config files.
I know this will rub many the wrong way, but this sort of protection can be turned off or on as an installation option (just make it on by default).
Linux can work for the mainstream the way cars work for the mainstream: in both cases, the ugly guts (or beautiful guts, depending on your attitude) can be hidden, locked away under the trunk.
mosaic required a direct TCP/IP connection (SLIP, if you were on dialup). Gopher would work as text mode on a terminal.
lynx would do www on text mode terminals too, but was harder to use in text mode than gopher was.
Even on SLIP, mosaic was slow because it would load the entire page, including all images, before you could see anything. On a slow dialup line (14.4) that could take a while.
of course then Netscape came out and the rest is history... the main feature of Netscape that made everyone use it was that partial pages were displayed while the images downloaded.
You miss the point completely. We're not talking about playing DVDs which have a region code that doesn't match your DVD player.
This discussion is about audio CDs which have been munged so they don't play on CD-ROM drives and DVDs in computers, so you can't RIP the audio files from them.
Apple and others had objected on the grounds that by letting Microsoft give software and cheap hardware to schools, they were actually not out much money (since they just have to replicate their own software) and were reaping giant marketing benefits by pushing out Apple or other vendors.
Back when Apple bought NeXT, I wrote a letter to Jobs suggesting that he release NeXTstep for every platform, make it open source, and become one of the standard APIs that developers use.
My point was that if he did this, and developers did adopt the platform, he'd end up with lots of apps that would run on the Mac, and would thereby neutralize the Windows API proprietary boondoggle.
He ignored my advice at the time, and this is nice, but too little too late to solve the problem of creating a true platform-independent API that developers would want to write to.
This patent is so general that it could 'protect' any mark-up language or indeed any hash or indexed data structure.
IMHO it's clearly invalid.
If you look at what they say below, they are describing a hash or indexed data structure in memory in their first claim. There is clearly prior art which invalidates this claim. This patent is bunk:
---------
1. A method for dynamically organizing and processing data in a computer having a memory and a data storage device coupled thereto, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) generating an information structure and relationship in the memory of the computer as one or more Endo-Dynamic Sets (EDS), the EDS comprising a list of one or more Endo-Dynamic Information Nodes (EDINs), the EDINs each representing an atomic component of data, and the EDINs each comprising a subject identifier, an attribute identifier, and a bond identifier, wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers;
(b) associating each bond identifier of an EDIN with an organizational structure of data stored in the memory of the computer; and
(c) traversing the organizational structure of data in the memory of the computer through the EDINs.
This law specifically ALLOWS spam to be sent. It just requires that spammers include a valid return email address and that they remove people from their list who want to be removed.
This is great?
It also only covers spammers who have their equipment located in California. All this means is that spammers will use mailservers in some other state or country.
The only good thing I see about this is that it requires the subject to have "ADV:" in it.
I expect absolutely no change in the amount of spam I get as a result of this law.
How about ddials? Those were pretty cool... multi-user chat systems that interconnected with each other to form networks of chatters... I dunno if it counts as a BBS, but I think it should really. You could leave messages for people.
Here's the page of info: http://www.ddial.com/highlight.html
Also... in the timeline, why all those milestones with RemoteAccess BBS? I don't think that was that used.
What about PCBoard which was probably the most popular for a while.
Or Searchlight, or the Dorsai Embassy (http://www.dorsai.org/), or Panix (http://www.panix.com/)... for a year of research, I think you're missing lots of really basic stuff!
According to this article the audigy series has quite a number of serious problems.
I don't have one myself, so I can't comment from experience, but some of these look pretty serious, depending on what use you plan to make of the card.
So far, we're pointing at things on a screen, moving them around, and typing messages. Datagloves and other visual manipulations will be important for all sorts of specialized tasks, but the way we tend to communicate is through speech and body language.
Speech recognition is only useful for very limited functionality, mainly because computers haven't been fast enough or with large enough databases to really make use of syntax and context. Continuous speech recognition today typically uses waveform profiles with no contextual or grammatical analysis.
But with faster processors and larger memories, I expect speech recognition to go to the next quantum level within 5-10 years. Once we add contextual and grammatical constructs to speech recognition, computers will start to be able to really understand what we're saying. To go from that to understanding what we *mean* is another step, but that's coming too.
I also expect computers to have video cameras and to be responsive to our body language and facial expressions. They will be able to judge whether what they're doing is interesting or useful, and will ask for guidance or attempt to correct based on that feedback.
In other words, I expect interaction with computers to become more like interaction with people!
I'm really impressed with Matt Weaver who built his own cycle, the Kyle Edge, and hence didn't have the same time for physical training that winner Sam Whittinghham had.
His time of 5.73 in the 200M is only.18 second slower than the winning time, and his time of 46.78 in the mile is only 1 second slower than the winning time of 45.78. No one else came close.
NASA has looked at hydrogen as an aircraft fuel as far back as 1955. For those who want the comprehensive details, here's all of NASA's hydrogen fuel research from 1945-1959
Because hydrogen has 1/4 the energy density of the kerosene fuel currently used, we'll need lots of it. This means either flying our current planes with very few passengers (most of the cabin would be taken up by fuel tanks!).
Airbus has a project called Cryoplane which will assess the technical feasibility, safety, environmental compatibility and economic viability of using liquid hydrogen as an aviation fuel.
No one seems to be seriously pursuing the metal hydride storage route, although some research has been conducted on so-called "slush" hydrogen, which is a combination of liquid and solid hydrogen. Slush hydrogen has a lower temperature and a higher density than liquid hydrogen.
This article in the New York Times discusses the possibility that the black plage was caused by an ebola-like virus:
"In "Biology of Plagues: Evidence from Historic Populations," published in March, the authors argue that a hemorrhagic virus, like Ebola, probably caused the Black Death and most of the smaller epidemics that struck Europe for the next three centuries, not bubonic plague.
The authors, Dr. Susan Scott, a demographer, and Dr. Christopher J. Duncan, a zoologist, say their theory answers many lingering questions about the rapid spread and virulence of the Black Death."
The Yersinia pestis work is of course still very interesting and important, but I think the virus theory makes more sense... check it out!
Slashdot Mirror
some scientists have said that they think there would be an ice age starting now if not for global warming...
who knows?
But remember: we don't want to end up like venus (600 degrees) which apparently is the way it is because of greenhouse effects...
usps.gov has a marketing deal with Microsoft apparently. Their Web-Based Solutions page, accessable from the main usps.gov page, is "Powered by Microsoft bCentral", and promotes subscriptions to Microsoft services.
Maybe we need to add "separation of corporation and state" to our "separation of church and state" in the constitution?
Now AOL's purchase of Netscape makes more business sense now... they could get billions in damage payments now that Microsoft's anti-competitive illegal business practices have been established by anit-trust court.
The cryotography turns out to have been very trivial. Here are the details.
they claim to have 41 patents issued... I found 3:
I/O and memory bus system for DFPS and units with two or multi-dimensional programmable cell architectures
Efficient direct replacement cell fault tolerant architecture
Fault tolerant data processing system fabricated on a monolithic substrate
From these it appears they are fabricating wafers with lots of semi-independent processing nodes, which are tolerant of failures of some of the nodes (and can therefore take into account chip production glitches on part of the wafer).
This could give them a potentially large performance advantage, if they can do it right.
Too much configurability is already a problem for some.
My parents, for instance. I didn't believe it at first when the inevitable tech support came:
"There's something wrong with my word."
"Your Microsoft Word?"
"Yeah, that one."
"What's wrong?"
"There's nothing on the screen and I can't control it."
"Ok, well click on the file open icon... looks like a file folder with a curved arrow on top."
"There isn't any."
"Hm.. ok well click on where it says 'File'."
"It doesn't say that..."
It was true. They'd managed to get rid of every icon and command on the screen, and it was completely blank.
How did they do it? I don't know, but you can do it pretty easily by right clicking and then checking or unchecking things.
So as we add configurability to Linux and its applications, we should hide it and protect it behind selections which say "are you sure you want to..." -- similar warnings can be placed as comments in the top of all the important config files.
I know this will rub many the wrong way, but this sort of protection can be turned off or on as an installation option (just make it on by default).
Linux can work for the mainstream the way cars work for the mainstream: in both cases, the ugly guts (or beautiful guts, depending on your attitude) can be hidden, locked away under the trunk.
Yahoo shopping, was mainly written in Lisp too, as this article by one of the original authors of Viaweb (which is now Yahoo Shopping) details.
mosaic required a direct TCP/IP connection (SLIP, if you were on dialup). Gopher would work as text mode on a terminal.
lynx would do www on text mode terminals too, but was harder to use in text mode than gopher was.
Even on SLIP, mosaic was slow because it would load the entire page, including all images, before you could see anything. On a slow dialup line (14.4) that could take a while.
of course then Netscape came out and the rest is history... the main feature of Netscape that made everyone use it was that partial pages were displayed while the images downloaded.
back before I had SLIP (or PPP), the choice was Gopher or WWW via Lynx. Of the two, I found Gopher much easier to use.
If asked, I would have said that WWW was going to be a flash in the pan, and that Gopher was the future.
Oh well...
Great!
This means I'll be able to download the shows real soon now on Morpheus, Gnutella or EDonky2000!
You miss the point completely. We're not talking about playing DVDs which have a region code that doesn't match your DVD player.
This discussion is about audio CDs which have been munged so they don't play on CD-ROM drives and DVDs in computers, so you can't RIP the audio files from them.
Apple and others had objected on the grounds that by letting Microsoft give software and cheap hardware to schools, they were actually not out much money (since they just have to replicate their own software) and were reaping giant marketing benefits by pushing out Apple or other vendors.
It's at least a small victory.
Mach-based systems are as Unix as Linux is -- in other words either neither of them is, or both of them are.
Neither one has a line of Unix code in it, and both can run Unix apps and are Unix-like.
And Mach was first...
Back when Apple bought NeXT, I wrote a letter to Jobs suggesting that he release NeXTstep for every platform, make it open source, and become one of the standard APIs that developers use.
My point was that if he did this, and developers did adopt the platform, he'd end up with lots of apps that would run on the Mac, and would thereby neutralize the Windows API proprietary boondoggle.
He ignored my advice at the time, and this is nice, but too little too late to solve the problem of creating a true platform-independent API that developers would want to write to.
This patent is so general that it could 'protect' any mark-up language or indeed any hash or indexed data structure.
IMHO it's clearly invalid.
If you look at what they say below, they are describing a hash or indexed data structure in memory in their first claim. There is clearly prior art which invalidates this claim. This patent is bunk:
---------
1. A method for dynamically organizing and processing data in a computer having a memory and a data storage device coupled thereto, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) generating an information structure and relationship in the memory of the computer as one or more Endo-Dynamic Sets (EDS), the EDS comprising a list of one or more Endo-Dynamic Information Nodes (EDINs), the EDINs each representing an atomic component of data, and the EDINs each comprising a subject identifier, an attribute identifier, and a bond identifier, wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers;
(b) associating each bond identifier of an EDIN with an organizational structure of data stored in the memory of the computer; and
(c) traversing the organizational structure of data in the memory of the computer through the EDINs.
The US wants every replicating machine to put a tracking number on CDs showing what machine made it.
I don't see why a bootlegger couldn't just put a fake number anyway.
Will requiring some number to be added to CDs (not even a serialized number, just a number) really do anything? I don't see why it would.
This law specifically ALLOWS spam to be sent. It just requires that spammers include a valid return email address and that they remove people from their list who want to be removed.
This is great?
It also only covers spammers who have their equipment located in California. All this means is that spammers will use mailservers in some other state or country.
The only good thing I see about this is that it requires the subject to have "ADV:" in it.
I expect absolutely no change in the amount of spam I get as a result of this law.
How about ddials? Those were pretty cool... multi-user chat systems that interconnected with each other to form networks of chatters... I dunno if it counts as a BBS, but I think it should really. You could leave messages for people.
Here's the page of info: http://www.ddial.com/highlight.html
Also... in the timeline, why all those milestones with RemoteAccess BBS? I don't think that was that used.
What about PCBoard which was probably the most popular for a while.
Or Searchlight, or the Dorsai Embassy (http://www.dorsai.org/), or Panix (http://www.panix.com/)... for a year of research, I think you're missing lots of really basic stuff!
I don't have one myself, so I can't comment from experience, but some of these look pretty serious, depending on what use you plan to make of the card.
So far, we're pointing at things on a screen, moving them around, and typing messages. Datagloves and other visual manipulations will be important for all sorts of specialized tasks, but the way we tend to communicate is through speech and body language.
Speech recognition is only useful for very limited functionality, mainly because computers haven't been fast enough or with large enough databases to really make use of syntax and context. Continuous speech recognition today typically uses waveform profiles with no contextual or grammatical analysis.
But with faster processors and larger memories, I expect speech recognition to go to the next quantum level within 5-10 years. Once we add contextual and grammatical constructs to speech recognition, computers will start to be able to really understand what we're saying. To go from that to understanding what we *mean* is another step, but that's coming too.
I also expect computers to have video cameras and to be responsive to our body language and facial expressions. They will be able to judge whether what they're doing is interesting or useful, and will ask for guidance or attempt to correct based on that feedback.
In other words, I expect interaction with computers to become more like interaction with people!
I'm really impressed with Matt Weaver who built his own cycle, the Kyle Edge, and hence didn't have the same time for physical training that winner Sam Whittinghham had.
.18 second slower than the winning time, and his time of 46.78 in the mile is only 1 second slower than the winning time of 45.78. No one else came close.
His time of 5.73 in the 200M is only
Next year, my money's on Weaver to win!
Sorry... the actual link to the NY Times article "New Theories Link Black Death to Ebola-Like Virus" is here
And the link to the actual Cryoplane site (with lots of artists renditions of H2 fueled aircraft is here
Because hydrogen has 1/4 the energy density of the kerosene fuel currently used, we'll need lots of it. This means either flying our current planes with very few passengers (most of the cabin would be taken up by fuel tanks!).
Airbus has a project called Cryoplane which will assess the technical feasibility, safety, environmental compatibility and economic viability of using liquid hydrogen as an aviation fuel.
No one seems to be seriously pursuing the metal hydride storage route, although some research has been conducted on so-called "slush" hydrogen, which is a combination of liquid and solid hydrogen. Slush hydrogen has a lower temperature and a higher density than liquid hydrogen.
The Yersinia pestis work is of course still very interesting and important, but I think the virus theory makes more sense... check it out!