You know, I wasn't going to say this, but I can't help it...
As we all know, Linus has more resources at his disposal than Bill Gates. Why can't he just have some of his minions design, from scratch, a distributed source configuration management package that can do everything he needs, and have it ready within six months? Then, he and his crew could suffer along with Subversion and the distribution problems it will pose for them, for six months, before Linux can be hosted on Linus' own DSCM software.
It shouldn't be quite that hard to do, with all the resources he has... When Theo had a problem with (I believe it was) the license for the SSH program included prior to OpenBSD 2.6, he thought about it for a while and then busted out his own implementation. If he could do that, then Linus with all his resources can bust out a DSCM.
Yes, this post is totally sarcastic. But seriously, who said you can't take Subversion, rip out its guts, and make it distribution-aware.
I have just received patent number 2874983274, Method And Apparatus For Taking A Dump. This patent describes a process for depositing a turd into a toilet which is painted chartreuse with periwinkle polkadots and olive green stripes. This valuable intellectual property creates tremendous value for my ass.
Of course, I am now going to file a lawsuit against everyone in the country, because they all take dumps (though not necessarily in a toilet exactly like the one I described), and therefore, they must pay me royalties each time they do so.
DO trust the following tax line: You should declare on your taxes that you earned 0 this year; wait a few months; call the taxing authority; tell them that you lied. This is good for your health.
Thing is, the TLDs should have been broken up a bit further from the beginning. Trouble is, nobody knew how big the Internet was going to be.
The real problem is that now, there are lots of.coms that should have been other things. Everybody thinks that a web address needs to end in.com. In my opinion, there should be TLDs for each category of thing, and it should take into consideration the fact that the Internet spans the globe.
Country domain names should be used for the purposes of the governments and official entities of those countries. There should be TLDs for individuals, businesses, various types of devices that need a domain name for themselves, that aren't an individual or a business, and then specialized TLDs for various categories of businesses.
Does anyone know which supercomputer they used? I am interested to know because I thought that one that was composed of I don't know how many dual G5s was supposed to be used for astronomy research and the like...
Quote: "Linux is free, but the support for it is not.
Solution: A charity-run Linux and free/open source software (F/OSS) support program that takes donations and provides free support for any business that wants it. If there aren't enough donations to make the support free, then support could be provided for a very low price, undercutting proprietary solutions.
Who would contribute to such a charity? Money-making organizations that make or use F/OSS and want to see it spread could provide the bulk of such funding, as it would enhance the use of that software, and benefit them. If support for all F/OSS came from one centralized organization that had it all dialed in, issues that crop up in many places could be fixed once and forgotten. There will be almost no further reason to use proprietary crap.
I really think the right thing to do at this point is to set up BIND 9 to completely ignore anything coming from a Windows DNS implementation. That will leave only Windows users stuck with the problem.
Heh... Microsoft has been copying features from rival software for years, and then claiming that they are being "innovative."
A scene from 1960:
Bob: I have an idea... Let's make it so that each file will have drwxrwxrwx bits to make it so that each user can control who has access to his files.
The above is carried out and UNIX users benefit for 45 years.
And then a scene from 2005:
Bill: Oh, I know... Let's copy what UNIX has had for years and then tell the world how innovative we are by inventing this great feature that others have already had for generations before us. And let's see if we can patent it while we're at it: Method and apparatus for protecting the identity and data of users in a file system stored in a computer system.
Yeah... That's Microsoft. Where did you want to go yesterday?
What Wikipedia really needs is a formal way to add academic-style citations to articles. Added value could be gained by making these citations into links. Citations to real printed works would be preferred, and these links could go directly to an online bookstore (such as Amazon), which would pay Wikipedia a small fee each time someone buys a book through Wikipedia.
Also, Amazon-style "people who read this article also read..." links should guide people through the Wikipedia.
Google-style text links could be placed on the side of some articles.
The revenue from all of these activities could finance a staff of full-time researchers, photographers, developers, and so on, who could improve the quality and detail level of the reference as a whole. I know people here hate commercials, but they're small, text-only, and will help this free resource to grow into something that can rival the likes of the old-style Encyclopedia Britannica. I can see room for so much here; it will just take boatloads of money to make it work really well.
A moderation system, including a way to submit changes to articles. Basically, there would be a way for readers to "vote" for various metrics on articles, including accuracy, readability, etc. Also, the system would keep track of articles that are accessed more often. The moderation system would work like this: The more often an article is accessed, the more important it is assumed to be, and therefore, changes would need to get higher moderation points before becoming an officially accepted part of the article. Up to that point, there would be a list of pending changes at the bottom of articles, which readers could see. This is akin to the development/stable process used in software development, and it would perhaps increase the quality of articles.
Further, Wikipedia should figure out all kinds of business ventures to bring in money for further quality improvement. A Wikipedia magazine, containing random articles picked by a small staff; a dead-tree Wikipedia set, CDs and DVDs, and other junk that could be sold might bring in money to pay a staff of researchers to go through the entire encyclopedia and increase the detail level and quality of its contents.
Also, a method for adding pictures, videos, and other content to articles should be provided, so people can contribute original art, photographs, music, etc., or like items that are free/public domain. This would add value to the encyclopedia as a whole.
I'm seeing this stuff about USB supplying power all too often, and it's gotten me to thinking...
There are problems with USB 2 when it comes to power. What do you get, 5v, 500ma? Not enough to do much with. True, there are devices as large as flatbed scanners that can run entirely off this power, but it's not much.
If you try to come up with USB 3, however, and specify that it should supply more power, the problem will be that maybe the computer can't supply that much due to its power supply and requirements, etc. Which brings me to the next point: USB 3 should have some sort of specification that says a computer can decide how much power to supply through USB, based on factors like its own power usage. Then, when you plug in a device, it would automatically figure out if it has enough power or not, and perhaps a message could pop up on the computer, telling you that you're trying to overload the USB power supply.
Of course, then you'd have to take into consideration the gauge and insulation of the USB wire itself, and you'll end up with the need to put a tiny chip into compatible wires which would tell the computer what the max current carrying capacity of that cable is rated at. This all sounds quite complicated, but there's no reason why a computer can't push more power out of a USB port if all these things are taken into consideration, and all the proper power handshaking takes place from the USB port down the chain (if there are hubs, etc. in the way) all the way to individual devices. Also, you're probably not using all devices in max-power-usage mode at the same time, so the devices might talk to each other and enter power-save mode when necessary to allow other devices to be used.
This seems, again, like a very complicated solution looking for a problem, but it shouldn't be too difficult to do for next-generation USB devices, and the advantages are pretty big: Right here on my desk, I have a 6-outlet strip that isn't enough. Currently plugged in are my laptop, Mac Mini, 17" display, ethernet hub, and printer; These are just the computer peripherals. I also have, in the same area, a phone charger, small television, desk lamp, and DVD player. I need a USB hub for the Mac Mini because there simply aren't enough ports on it for all the crap I'd like to have plugged in at one time; therefore, I have so far refrained from buying a USB hub. There are not enough outlets on this wall to handle all of this. If I add another strip, I'll probably blow a fuse if all of this is on at the same time. A new USB protocol which takes into consideration a whole range of power options, negotiated in real-time by the devices themselves as they are plugged in, used, and removed, and taking into consideration the power-supplying capability of the computer, the capacity of the wires themselves, and the usage of the devices, really offers an opportunity to remove many plugs from many devices that would otherwise need them, and to greatly reduce the number of wires running across and under many desks; This would require more careful engineering by already-overworked electronics engineers who are concerned about power consumption, but I believe that with added innovation, increased customer demand for this kind of service, and the advances made each day in semiconductors, this will provide so much value for the consumer that it's worth it.
Mandriva? This name doesn't really strike a chord. Couldn't they come up with something a bit more... innovative?
At least make it sound high-tech, easy to use, shiny... What the heck is this Mandriva? Man? Drive? What is this, a German car company? This is not a flame, flamebait, troll, or other crap. I really think this name sounds dumb.
promise of environmental benefits such as cheap solar power
Heh... You want cheap solar power? I don't know why nobody thought of this one yet... Power made from water boiled by the sun. That's right... Build a big reservoir that contains clean water. The reservoir would be covered by a sort of greenhouse. That would make it quite hot inside when the sun is shining on it. But it gets better: The glass would be made to focus the light of the sun into this greenhouse, and into the water, thereby heating the water to boiling just by virtue of the sun shining on it. The water would boil, the steam would turn turbines, and electricity would be generated.
Here's an idea I just dreamed up... It shouldn't be too hard or costly to do, but it might make the Wikipedia folks quite a lot of money, if it works:
On each Wikipedia article, there should be a button where users can vote an article as being "worthy" for academic research and the like. Articles that receive high votes would actually get published in a monthly (or even by-weekly) magazine... So, for example, each month, subscribers would receive the magazine in the mail, and it would contain, in addition to paid advertising like any other magazine, something like ten or fifteen articles randomly chosen from Wikipedia. These would cover a broad range of topics. One month, you might receive a magazine with articles about Argentina, transaxles, grep, electromagnetism, George Washington, the Berlin wall, Apollo 9, goldfish, ballpoint pens, and cow manure. Some subscribers will already be familiar with some of the topics; others might not be interested in some of the topics; but chances are that if you pick up this magazine and read it, even for a few minutes a month, you'll learn some interesting new facts here and there, usually about topics that you'd never consider reading about in any serious manner, but which you're reading because the Wikipedia Magazine happens to be there.
Links at the bottom of articles would direct the reader to the article online. This would serve an additional purpose: People who find something missing or something that could be improved in an article would perhaps be more likely to find out about it and then go online and fix it, thereby improving the quality of the entire Wikipedia.
Money from subscriptions; money from advertisers in all fields (not just technical, and perhaps based on the content of that month's magazine) would finance the magazine and help finance Wikipedia. I see this as an opportunity to make quite a profit on something that is free, while mainly benefiting the community by doing so.
With Wikipedia taking up so much space on DVD, I certainly hope they compress the text. It should actually compress quite nicely, I think.
I wonder... does this 2-DVD set include all articles from Wikipedia? (As opposed to some just selected somehow...) Also, I wonder if the DVD version will include all the version changes to the articles. If not, then perhaps the best version was picked out somehow?
Hmmm... This is what I think needs to happen: Wait a few more years for Wikipedia to gain even more information, and then put some kind of button on pages that allows users to "vote" for that page to be included in a dead-tree encyclopedia version of Wikipedia. The idea is to put only those articles that have the highest votes into a traditional-style encyclopedia that can rival the likes of commercially made ones. Of course, there would need to be ways to cite sources, to make the encyclopedia worthy of academic research and the like, and preferably there should also be a way for people who want to do other stuff than write articles to submit photographs or whatever kind of artwork, of their own creation and released under the free license of Wikipedia, for inclusion in the articles. For the print version, people might be able to vote for the "best" photographs and artwork for inclusion. At that point, it should be a matter of running some perl script or something to typeset the whole darn thing. This might find its way into libraries and into peoples' homes. Imagine that!
Extend daylight savings time, eh? I recall reading a book review in The Wall Street Journal several days ago. I don't recall the name of the book, but it described the history of daylight savings time, some myths about it, etc.
There have actually been quite a few changes to daylight savings time over the years. Therefore, I think the best code changes to make in software are to make daylight savings time into a preference that the user can set, where the user determines when daylight savings time goes into effect and when it comes out of effect. Then, you don't have to worry too much about all this junk.
Oh, and I really think that only the operating system needs to be modified. Practically everything else gets its time from the OS.
I really think that the USPTO needs to get better ways to analyze patents before approving them. First of all, patents fall under all sorts of categories of scientific inventions. Say, mechanical, chemical, software, electrical, etc., etc., etc.
So this is what the patent office does: For every category under which your invention falls, the patent office has a number of "experts" to whom it might refer. These experts can really be anybody who can demonstrate in-depth knowledge of a field, perhaps by meeting certain criteria set by the patent office, through tests of sorts. These experts would be paid by the patent office and given access to resources needed to analyze and research a patent application, in addition to the current patent researching procedures. The experts would then have the opportunity to swing the outcome of the patent application into one of several directions, such as "no", "yes", "need to be more specific", etc.
There wouldn't be just one expert assigned to a particular patent application. There would actually be a number of them, all of whom would cast some sort of vote to determine the outcome of a patent application. How many experts will have access to a patent application will depend on how many experts are signed up to review applications for the affected fields, how many applications are being reviewed, etc. When you file an application, you never know who or how many will review it. None of the experts will know who any of the other experts working on an application are.
Many safety precautions will be put into effect to make sure that the system works. If you think that all experts will vote "no" on all patent applications because it's something they might want to do themselves, the patent office will require an explanation of why the patent application is being rejected. This will be reviewed by the office's normal staff, who currently do all the work of reviewing patent applications. If you worry that companies will file zillions of patents for the same thing in an effort to make one of them get through the process, this can be fixed by keeping track of applications filed by particular organizations, with the office's normal crew rejecting duplicates that are too similar. If you are worried that experts will not put enough effort into reviewing applications, you can throw applications at them that have already been rejected as if these are new applications, to see if you get the same outcome. In fact, patents would, in this way, undergo a certain moderation, kind of like comments posted here on/., and there would be a sort of meta-moderation system in effect.
Hopefully, this would allow lots of people to spend, say, a few hours a week--PAID hours, mind you, paid for by the applicant--researching new patent applications in addition to current office research efforts. This will act as a filter to prevent a lot of crud from getting through.
This means several bad things will happen: Patent application fees will go up for the "lone inventor" working in his garage, while big corporations don't give a flying darn, but this can be fixed by implementing several changes:
First, if an individual filing as a person, there would be a certain "lone inventor" rate. The patent office might not cover the complete research process, but there really aren't THAT many lone inventors who actually file, in comparison with corporations.
Second, if a corporation files, the fees would be computed in part by taking a base fee and adding a small percentage of the company's net income averaged over the past several years, allowing certain credits for companies that have innovative policies, such as paying employees to perform any research they wish for, say, 10% or more of work-paid time.
Third, once a patent is issued, the patent holder will be required to pay a certain "patent-tax" of sorts to the patent office, to cover research for other patent applications and the research required for them. This patent tax would NOT be levied on
This is an amazing search technology. I certainly hope that Google keeps an eye on the most-searched-for terms and puts information like that at the beginning of the search results list to save users from having to search all over the place for information. This could have tremendous advantages. I'm glad that Google keeps innovating.
What Congress should do is make DRM illegal. If you sell movies, there cannot be region coding, encryption, or other measures put into place which prevent users from using the movie. If you sell music, the same should apply. Doubly so for software, which has a way of getting itself entrenched in organizations, where DRM causes enormous problems years down the road, especially if the software maker goes out of business, drops support for the software, or simply has a bone to pick with you.
DRM is a bad idea. It's bad for suppliers. It's bad for customers. It's bad for partners. It's bad for the government. It's bad for the individual. It's bad, it's bad, it's bad. DRM sucks. Information wants to be free.
As many/. readers know, Perforce is quite an expensive proprietary SCM system. However, several things are quite true about it:
You can download any SCM software that Perforce makes for free.
If you download the Perforce server itself, you are limited to two users and two client workspaces, but you get to use the software for free nonetheless.
There are plenty of fine applications related to SCM that you can get from Perforce, such as graphical interfaces, interactive diff tools, etc. These are free to download and use.
Here's the best part: Perforce offers free licenses to open source free software projects that it deems worthy. There are a few hoops you have to jump through, and your project actually needs to be open source, but I think Linux qualifies, and I think Perforce would be thrilled to have the whole world know that Linux is developed with Perforce.
Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Perforce, but I do use their product at work, and I can tell you that it is a million times better than CVS, and a hundred thousand times better than any other commercial SCM I've used. I haven't compared it to Subversion yet, because Subversion offers several cool things that Perforce doesn't. But Perforce is a great choice. Screw this Bitkeeper nonsense.
Some of the particles are only microns across which means once they get into your lungs, they stay there. This could cause a lung disease similar to silicosis.
As soon as they pass legislation to make all the asbestos lawsuits go away, there will be wave after wave of moon dust lawsuits. Betcha they'll claim the stuff just falls out of the sky, and the lawsuits will allege that God is liable.
The tougher new rules still allow Canadians to cross without being fingerprinted, but every person from any other country will be required to submit to fingerprinting.
In other news, a new law will require strip searches, fingerprinting, and a passport for anyone entering or leaving the United States or its possessions. Persons who carry a badge identifying them as members of a terrorist organization, however, will be allowed through on a "no questions asked' policy.
SCO is getting involved, too.
on
CherryOS On Hold
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Hmmm... This was in yesterday's newspaper:
For immediate release:
SCO (NASDAQ: SCOX) today announced the aquisition of the rights to CherryOS, a proprietary software program that allows Wintel computers to execute Apple codes. This software permits users of Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to run applications made for Apple Mac OS X.
And then this was in the paper today:
For immediate release:
SCO (NASDAQ: SCOX) today announced that it is filing a lawsuit against computer hackers involved in a project known as PearPC. The lawsuit names specific individuals whom SCO alleges stole proprietary SCO codes from SCO's CherryOS and illegally placed them into PearPC. SCO is seeking special remedies for what it calls "unrecoverable damages" caused by PearPC's theft of SCO's valuable proprietary intellectual property.
I wonder what will happen next... I guess this means no more running OSX on my Dell... Oh well. Lost another one to Darl.
In other words, O. J. Simpson today was convicted of murdering Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman. People familiar with the case stated that O. J. agreed to the terms of the verdict, except the one that says he must go to prison. The court is therefore waiving his prison sentence, and letting O. J. go free. Anyway, he said he was sorry, and he promised not to do anything like that again.
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As we all know, Linus has more resources at his disposal than Bill Gates. Why can't he just have some of his minions design, from scratch, a distributed source configuration management package that can do everything he needs, and have it ready within six months? Then, he and his crew could suffer along with Subversion and the distribution problems it will pose for them, for six months, before Linux can be hosted on Linus' own DSCM software.
It shouldn't be quite that hard to do, with all the resources he has... When Theo had a problem with (I believe it was) the license for the SSH program included prior to OpenBSD 2.6, he thought about it for a while and then busted out his own implementation. If he could do that, then Linus with all his resources can bust out a DSCM.
Yes, this post is totally sarcastic. But seriously, who said you can't take Subversion, rip out its guts, and make it distribution-aware.
Of course, I am now going to file a lawsuit against everyone in the country, because they all take dumps (though not necessarily in a toilet exactly like the one I described), and therefore, they must pay me royalties each time they do so.
DO trust the following tax line: You should declare on your taxes that you earned 0 this year; wait a few months; call the taxing authority; tell them that you lied. This is good for your health.
The real problem is that now, there are lots of .coms that should have been other things. Everybody thinks that a web address needs to end in .com. In my opinion, there should be TLDs for each category of thing, and it should take into consideration the fact that the Internet spans the globe.
Country domain names should be used for the purposes of the governments and official entities of those countries. There should be TLDs for individuals, businesses, various types of devices that need a domain name for themselves, that aren't an individual or a business, and then specialized TLDs for various categories of businesses.
Does anyone know which supercomputer they used? I am interested to know because I thought that one that was composed of I don't know how many dual G5s was supposed to be used for astronomy research and the like...
Solution: A charity-run Linux and free/open source software (F/OSS) support program that takes donations and provides free support for any business that wants it. If there aren't enough donations to make the support free, then support could be provided for a very low price, undercutting proprietary solutions.
Who would contribute to such a charity? Money-making organizations that make or use F/OSS and want to see it spread could provide the bulk of such funding, as it would enhance the use of that software, and benefit them. If support for all F/OSS came from one centralized organization that had it all dialed in, issues that crop up in many places could be fixed once and forgotten. There will be almost no further reason to use proprietary crap.
Newsflash!! Anytime you touch anything, you're touching molecules with your bare hands! In fact, your hands are made of molecules, too!
I really think the right thing to do at this point is to set up BIND 9 to completely ignore anything coming from a Windows DNS implementation. That will leave only Windows users stuck with the problem.
A scene from 1960:
Bob: I have an idea... Let's make it so that each file will have drwxrwxrwx bits to make it so that each user can control who has access to his files.
The above is carried out and UNIX users benefit for 45 years.
And then a scene from 2005:
Bill: Oh, I know... Let's copy what UNIX has had for years and then tell the world how innovative we are by inventing this great feature that others have already had for generations before us. And let's see if we can patent it while we're at it: Method and apparatus for protecting the identity and data of users in a file system stored in a computer system.
Yeah... That's Microsoft. Where did you want to go yesterday?
Also, Amazon-style "people who read this article also read..." links should guide people through the Wikipedia.
Google-style text links could be placed on the side of some articles.
The revenue from all of these activities could finance a staff of full-time researchers, photographers, developers, and so on, who could improve the quality and detail level of the reference as a whole. I know people here hate commercials, but they're small, text-only, and will help this free resource to grow into something that can rival the likes of the old-style Encyclopedia Britannica. I can see room for so much here; it will just take boatloads of money to make it work really well.
A moderation system, including a way to submit changes to articles. Basically, there would be a way for readers to "vote" for various metrics on articles, including accuracy, readability, etc. Also, the system would keep track of articles that are accessed more often. The moderation system would work like this: The more often an article is accessed, the more important it is assumed to be, and therefore, changes would need to get higher moderation points before becoming an officially accepted part of the article. Up to that point, there would be a list of pending changes at the bottom of articles, which readers could see. This is akin to the development/stable process used in software development, and it would perhaps increase the quality of articles.
Further, Wikipedia should figure out all kinds of business ventures to bring in money for further quality improvement. A Wikipedia magazine, containing random articles picked by a small staff; a dead-tree Wikipedia set, CDs and DVDs, and other junk that could be sold might bring in money to pay a staff of researchers to go through the entire encyclopedia and increase the detail level and quality of its contents.
Also, a method for adding pictures, videos, and other content to articles should be provided, so people can contribute original art, photographs, music, etc., or like items that are free/public domain. This would add value to the encyclopedia as a whole.
There are problems with USB 2 when it comes to power. What do you get, 5v, 500ma? Not enough to do much with. True, there are devices as large as flatbed scanners that can run entirely off this power, but it's not much.
If you try to come up with USB 3, however, and specify that it should supply more power, the problem will be that maybe the computer can't supply that much due to its power supply and requirements, etc. Which brings me to the next point: USB 3 should have some sort of specification that says a computer can decide how much power to supply through USB, based on factors like its own power usage. Then, when you plug in a device, it would automatically figure out if it has enough power or not, and perhaps a message could pop up on the computer, telling you that you're trying to overload the USB power supply.
Of course, then you'd have to take into consideration the gauge and insulation of the USB wire itself, and you'll end up with the need to put a tiny chip into compatible wires which would tell the computer what the max current carrying capacity of that cable is rated at. This all sounds quite complicated, but there's no reason why a computer can't push more power out of a USB port if all these things are taken into consideration, and all the proper power handshaking takes place from the USB port down the chain (if there are hubs, etc. in the way) all the way to individual devices. Also, you're probably not using all devices in max-power-usage mode at the same time, so the devices might talk to each other and enter power-save mode when necessary to allow other devices to be used.
This seems, again, like a very complicated solution looking for a problem, but it shouldn't be too difficult to do for next-generation USB devices, and the advantages are pretty big: Right here on my desk, I have a 6-outlet strip that isn't enough. Currently plugged in are my laptop, Mac Mini, 17" display, ethernet hub, and printer; These are just the computer peripherals. I also have, in the same area, a phone charger, small television, desk lamp, and DVD player. I need a USB hub for the Mac Mini because there simply aren't enough ports on it for all the crap I'd like to have plugged in at one time; therefore, I have so far refrained from buying a USB hub. There are not enough outlets on this wall to handle all of this. If I add another strip, I'll probably blow a fuse if all of this is on at the same time. A new USB protocol which takes into consideration a whole range of power options, negotiated in real-time by the devices themselves as they are plugged in, used, and removed, and taking into consideration the power-supplying capability of the computer, the capacity of the wires themselves, and the usage of the devices, really offers an opportunity to remove many plugs from many devices that would otherwise need them, and to greatly reduce the number of wires running across and under many desks; This would require more careful engineering by already-overworked electronics engineers who are concerned about power consumption, but I believe that with added innovation, increased customer demand for this kind of service, and the advances made each day in semiconductors, this will provide so much value for the consumer that it's worth it.
At least make it sound high-tech, easy to use, shiny... What the heck is this Mandriva? Man? Drive? What is this, a German car company? This is not a flame, flamebait, troll, or other crap. I really think this name sounds dumb.
Heh... You want cheap solar power? I don't know why nobody thought of this one yet... Power made from water boiled by the sun. That's right... Build a big reservoir that contains clean water. The reservoir would be covered by a sort of greenhouse. That would make it quite hot inside when the sun is shining on it. But it gets better: The glass would be made to focus the light of the sun into this greenhouse, and into the water, thereby heating the water to boiling just by virtue of the sun shining on it. The water would boil, the steam would turn turbines, and electricity would be generated.
On each Wikipedia article, there should be a button where users can vote an article as being "worthy" for academic research and the like. Articles that receive high votes would actually get published in a monthly (or even by-weekly) magazine... So, for example, each month, subscribers would receive the magazine in the mail, and it would contain, in addition to paid advertising like any other magazine, something like ten or fifteen articles randomly chosen from Wikipedia. These would cover a broad range of topics. One month, you might receive a magazine with articles about Argentina, transaxles, grep, electromagnetism, George Washington, the Berlin wall, Apollo 9, goldfish, ballpoint pens, and cow manure. Some subscribers will already be familiar with some of the topics; others might not be interested in some of the topics; but chances are that if you pick up this magazine and read it, even for a few minutes a month, you'll learn some interesting new facts here and there, usually about topics that you'd never consider reading about in any serious manner, but which you're reading because the Wikipedia Magazine happens to be there.
Links at the bottom of articles would direct the reader to the article online. This would serve an additional purpose: People who find something missing or something that could be improved in an article would perhaps be more likely to find out about it and then go online and fix it, thereby improving the quality of the entire Wikipedia.
Money from subscriptions; money from advertisers in all fields (not just technical, and perhaps based on the content of that month's magazine) would finance the magazine and help finance Wikipedia. I see this as an opportunity to make quite a profit on something that is free, while mainly benefiting the community by doing so.
I wonder... does this 2-DVD set include all articles from Wikipedia? (As opposed to some just selected somehow...) Also, I wonder if the DVD version will include all the version changes to the articles. If not, then perhaps the best version was picked out somehow?
Hmmm... This is what I think needs to happen: Wait a few more years for Wikipedia to gain even more information, and then put some kind of button on pages that allows users to "vote" for that page to be included in a dead-tree encyclopedia version of Wikipedia. The idea is to put only those articles that have the highest votes into a traditional-style encyclopedia that can rival the likes of commercially made ones. Of course, there would need to be ways to cite sources, to make the encyclopedia worthy of academic research and the like, and preferably there should also be a way for people who want to do other stuff than write articles to submit photographs or whatever kind of artwork, of their own creation and released under the free license of Wikipedia, for inclusion in the articles. For the print version, people might be able to vote for the "best" photographs and artwork for inclusion. At that point, it should be a matter of running some perl script or something to typeset the whole darn thing. This might find its way into libraries and into peoples' homes. Imagine that!
There have actually been quite a few changes to daylight savings time over the years. Therefore, I think the best code changes to make in software are to make daylight savings time into a preference that the user can set, where the user determines when daylight savings time goes into effect and when it comes out of effect. Then, you don't have to worry too much about all this junk.
Oh, and I really think that only the operating system needs to be modified. Practically everything else gets its time from the OS.
So this is what the patent office does: For every category under which your invention falls, the patent office has a number of "experts" to whom it might refer. These experts can really be anybody who can demonstrate in-depth knowledge of a field, perhaps by meeting certain criteria set by the patent office, through tests of sorts. These experts would be paid by the patent office and given access to resources needed to analyze and research a patent application, in addition to the current patent researching procedures. The experts would then have the opportunity to swing the outcome of the patent application into one of several directions, such as "no", "yes", "need to be more specific", etc.
There wouldn't be just one expert assigned to a particular patent application. There would actually be a number of them, all of whom would cast some sort of vote to determine the outcome of a patent application. How many experts will have access to a patent application will depend on how many experts are signed up to review applications for the affected fields, how many applications are being reviewed, etc. When you file an application, you never know who or how many will review it. None of the experts will know who any of the other experts working on an application are.
Many safety precautions will be put into effect to make sure that the system works. If you think that all experts will vote "no" on all patent applications because it's something they might want to do themselves, the patent office will require an explanation of why the patent application is being rejected. This will be reviewed by the office's normal staff, who currently do all the work of reviewing patent applications. If you worry that companies will file zillions of patents for the same thing in an effort to make one of them get through the process, this can be fixed by keeping track of applications filed by particular organizations, with the office's normal crew rejecting duplicates that are too similar. If you are worried that experts will not put enough effort into reviewing applications, you can throw applications at them that have already been rejected as if these are new applications, to see if you get the same outcome. In fact, patents would, in this way, undergo a certain moderation, kind of like comments posted here on /., and there would be a sort of meta-moderation system in effect.
Hopefully, this would allow lots of people to spend, say, a few hours a week--PAID hours, mind you, paid for by the applicant--researching new patent applications in addition to current office research efforts. This will act as a filter to prevent a lot of crud from getting through.
This means several bad things will happen: Patent application fees will go up for the "lone inventor" working in his garage, while big corporations don't give a flying darn, but this can be fixed by implementing several changes:
This is an amazing search technology. I certainly hope that Google keeps an eye on the most-searched-for terms and puts information like that at the beginning of the search results list to save users from having to search all over the place for information. This could have tremendous advantages. I'm glad that Google keeps innovating.
DRM is a bad idea. It's bad for suppliers. It's bad for customers. It's bad for partners. It's bad for the government. It's bad for the individual. It's bad, it's bad, it's bad. DRM sucks. Information wants to be free.
As many /. readers know, Perforce is quite an expensive proprietary SCM system. However, several things are quite true about it:
- You can download any SCM software that Perforce makes for free.
- If you download the Perforce server itself, you are limited to two users and two client workspaces, but you get to use the software for free nonetheless.
- There are plenty of fine applications related to SCM that you can get from Perforce, such as graphical interfaces, interactive diff tools, etc. These are free to download and use.
- Here's the best part: Perforce offers free licenses to open source free software projects that it deems worthy. There are a few hoops you have to jump through, and your project actually needs to be open source, but I think Linux qualifies, and I think Perforce would be thrilled to have the whole world know that Linux is developed with Perforce.
Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Perforce, but I do use their product at work, and I can tell you that it is a million times better than CVS, and a hundred thousand times better than any other commercial SCM I've used. I haven't compared it to Subversion yet, because Subversion offers several cool things that Perforce doesn't. But Perforce is a great choice. Screw this Bitkeeper nonsense.As soon as they pass legislation to make all the asbestos lawsuits go away, there will be wave after wave of moon dust lawsuits. Betcha they'll claim the stuff just falls out of the sky, and the lawsuits will allege that God is liable.
In other news, a new law will require strip searches, fingerprinting, and a passport for anyone entering or leaving the United States or its possessions. Persons who carry a badge identifying them as members of a terrorist organization, however, will be allowed through on a "no questions asked' policy.