Basic review of why patenting software is a bad idea. It is not the code necessarily that gets protected but some hair brain marketing person's idea-essay of what the software does. It is as if the idea of, say, a Web browser were to be patented. All you capitalists say you want competition? If you patent an idea for a software application you exclude a firm from developing a better mousetrap, or browser.
They wont make any money that way anyway. If patenting becomes the main way to protect software anybody with a relatively small innovation could claim a new patent, standing on the shoulders of whoever came before.
Furthermore, if the government is going to do this let's make it an opportunity for consumers to form action groups and put pressure on the government to organize it right. Citizen monitoring groups for quality of service, etc.
We dont really know much about them yet. Paraplegics and quadruplegics often are able to regain some sensitivity in nerves with repeated stimulation and practice. I hope that this operation gives some insight into the development of nerves. How do nerves grow in children?/How does a nerve integrate into an already existing system when transplanted?
``When we initially conceived the idea of using monkey brain signals to control a distant robot across the Internet, we were not sure how variable delays in signal transmission would affect the outcome...it worked out beautifully,'' said Srinivasan."
Exactly what is the response time? Is it quick enough for the brain-controlled battle mechs we see in so much science fiction? Also, is there any long-term damage to the brain from tbe implants, the electricity, abnormal patterns, etc?
and i definitely do NOT disregard them, a server in space will allow us to continually update data and programming of exploration vehicles after they are launched. i was really miffed when the mars probe screwed up because of a metric-english conversion mistake. an Internet server in the thing would allow low-cost redundant fact checking.
Also, I could see exploration vehicles equipped with monitoring equipment (cameras, bioassay equipment, etc.) with open-ended use. Right now, when we design an exploration vehicle for Mars each piece of equipment on it must be designed with a fixed use, associated with fixed programming and a narrow spectrum of response. With a server-equipped exploration vehicle, any new program that can make use of the equipment could be uploaded after launch.
Internet connections to such an exploration vehicle would allow hackers to take it hostage. Inasmuch as it's possible I would advocate the Internet publication of up to date data from exploration vehicles, to allow "open source" verification and analysis, but would keep control of the exploration vehicle separate. Or, scientific instuments on the vehicle could be exposed to the Internet, but propulsion would be controlled by conventional radio.
there are things that cost money. How about compatibility problems and other things that will require some sort of tech support. How will you pay for that? or will your company be able to absorb the cost in the hopes that everyone begins to use your DTD?
Who died and made ICANN nanny? Anybody with the word International in their name has absolutely no legal justification for this kind of morals enforcement. There is no coherent body of international law that supports the exclusion of.xxx,.kids, etc. In fact, the arbitrary actions of ICANN amount to monopoly style behavior, as they control the commodity of Internet names.
ICANN, as well as all the other stakeholders like the CONSUMERS, should lobby int'l standards setting bodies to create some kind of rules for morals as applied to the internet. Until that point it is absolutely wrong for a bunch of Western digerati to screw up the economic opportunities of everyone else in order to promote a moral agenda. Who says a poor country wouldn't want to make money hosting these questionable sites? Debate must happen before action is taken.
Nobody can predict the future and what opportunities it holds, especially ICANN. These people are supposed to be facilitating a prosperous global Internet. What gives them the right to impose any morals on us?
Why is the IMC not on Slashdot more? something must be done about this.
The IMC's next task is to cover the protest against the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue in Cincinatti. They will be in town from November 16-18.
The TABD is a group of 200 ceos from the US and Europe who are hugely influential in trade organizations, like the World Trade Organization, that set trade, safety, environmental, intellectual property and labor standards. Most pertinent to Slashdot readers, they influence standards on things like piracy, encryption export, and copyrights. For info on the TABD: tabd.org
For info on the protests: che-2000.org and n16.org
We need your crappy old (FUNCTIONING, CLEAN) PCs, 486 and above, for word processing and photo layout. Macs PowerMac and above are also welcome. If you have an old Classic or something, we will take that too! We also need people who would like to webcast, satellite broadcast, or do video, audio, or print journalism. WE ARE GOING UP IN A FEW DAYS! If anyone has computers, please contact me:
revlucion@disinfo.net
and I will give you an address to send them. We'll try to compensate people for shipping.
Especially the people who've built the network and use it on a daily basis. You work in a heirarchy designed to control and supervise what you are doing, and then that heirarchy orders you to create a network, and you develop relationships with the other people working on the network that are more horizontal relationships. Like a group of truckers on the road chatting on CBs, these employees chat, swapping useful info and fart jokes.
No non-computer-related firm can fully control those computer employees upon whom the firm is dependent. Like the mitochondrion in a cell, these employees form a semi-autonomous group which is rather impenetrable to the outside world. Most non-technical managers prefer it that way, so they can just give the orders and get results without having to learn a lot of technical information. The only way to fully control these employees is to learn the exact nature of all of their work, and to supervise every action performed by each employee. Even in an organization such as the CIA, this is impossible.
Forums like/. prove that there is less company loyalty among all geeks, and much common interest among them.
Spooks and spies. Right now, there is no real reason (or technological application) for the average soldier to have a small, wearable battle computer for his preservation of that of his mates. The only use is spying on other computer users, most of which will be civilians. To whom else will a soldier come so close in modern warfare? Yes, other armies have computers or satellites but we dont need a mobile, wearable computer to spy on that. Why should this be encouraged? A technology that frees us in our own hands enslaves us in other hands.
The faithfully rendered sets made out of Legos notwithstanding, why this is so good is the PHOTOGRAPHS. The guy manages to get the lighting and the perspective right for most of the shots, which is why they evoke this uncanny similarity to the screen shots and make the sight gag so effective.
Without that skill the Death Star would be just one more project by my little brother
M$ wins when people take an absolutist stance and say that everything they do is bad. They have every right to market whatever they choose. What they don't have a right to do is interere with opposing innovations.
I for one would be very happy if M$ threw its resources into making gaming accessories instead of forcing people to comply with their inefficient demands for licensing
Well, this would prevent the character in Gattaca from having to vacuum bits of his DNA out from the crevices of the keyboard. I will never use this because I crave the dramatic clickety-clack typewriter noise..
What probably led the VC to open up its wallets to Hotlinks was the common notion that web users themselves, in a free market of information, will seek out and bookmark the most useful sites. Problems with this notion were pointed out clearly by MoNickels; the popular market of information is not well exposed to a broad spectrum of new information, only selected pieces. It is interesting to consider, however, what insights *can* come from an examination of people's bookmarks and how they use them. If one puts aside the Big Brother-esque quality of a firm that tracks one's surfing habits (which I emphatically DON'T) there are a few insights that might follow from a look at the *people* who surf the Net, rather than attempting to "know the shape of the matrix," i.e. to chart a map of the whole web by size or utility.
For example, what do people prioritize when they make a bookmark? In various genres (news, fansites, porn, etc.) what features should a site have to make it likely to be bookmarked? In various genres, which sites stay active for long periods of time? Does content or form play a more important role? When choosing which updated content sites to bookmark, do surfers prefer broad content, narrow in-depth content or both?
I would oppose research on which kinds of surfers bookmark what kinds of sites. The point is a better web for a community of web users, and not creativity-damping corporate categorization.
Much of the consumer research related to the web has been self-reported, for instance in the lengthy multiple choice surveys that appear all over the Net when registering for something. Let's not trust this research to firms like Hotlinks, though. Why don't some folks put some money together and offer free Internet, or even free computers, to those who agree to be tracked?
-perdida
Vote Ralph Nader, crack the money code in politics: www.votenader.org
Slashdot Mirror
Basic review of why patenting software is a bad idea. It is not the code necessarily that gets protected but some hair brain marketing person's idea-essay of what the software does. It is as if the idea of, say, a Web browser were to be patented. All you capitalists say you want competition? If you patent an idea for a software application you exclude a firm from developing a better mousetrap, or browser.
They wont make any money that way anyway. If patenting becomes the main way to protect software anybody with a relatively small innovation could claim a new patent, standing on the shoulders of whoever came before.
:)
Furthermore, if the government is going to do this let's make it an opportunity for consumers to form action groups and put pressure on the government to organize it right. Citizen monitoring groups for quality of service, etc.
We dont really know much about them yet. Paraplegics and quadruplegics often are able to regain some sensitivity in nerves with repeated stimulation and practice. I hope that this operation gives some insight into the development of nerves. How do nerves grow in children?/How does a nerve integrate into an already existing system when transplanted?
``When we initially conceived the idea of using monkey brain signals to control a distant robot across the Internet, we were not sure how variable delays in signal transmission would affect the outcome...it worked out beautifully,'' said Srinivasan."
Exactly what is the response time? Is it quick enough for the brain-controlled battle mechs we see in so much science fiction? Also, is there any long-term damage to the brain from tbe implants, the electricity, abnormal patterns, etc?
and i definitely do NOT disregard them, a server in space will allow us to continually update data and programming of exploration vehicles after they are launched. i was really miffed when the mars probe screwed up because of a metric-english conversion mistake. an Internet server in the thing would allow low-cost redundant fact checking.
Also, I could see exploration vehicles equipped with monitoring equipment (cameras, bioassay equipment, etc.) with open-ended use. Right now, when we design an exploration vehicle for Mars each piece of equipment on it must be designed with a fixed use, associated with fixed programming and a narrow spectrum of response. With a server-equipped exploration vehicle, any new program that can make use of the equipment could be uploaded after launch.
Internet connections to such an exploration vehicle would allow hackers to take it hostage. Inasmuch as it's possible I would advocate the Internet publication of up to date data from exploration vehicles, to allow "open source" verification and analysis, but would keep control of the exploration vehicle separate. Or, scientific instuments on the vehicle could be exposed to the Internet, but propulsion would be controlled by conventional radio.
there are things that cost money. How about compatibility problems and other things that will require some sort of tech support. How will you pay for that? or will your company be able to absorb the cost in the hopes that everyone begins to use your DTD?
Who died and made ICANN nanny? Anybody with the word International in their name has absolutely no legal justification for this kind of morals enforcement. There is no coherent body of international law that supports the exclusion of .xxx, .kids, etc. In fact, the arbitrary actions of ICANN amount to monopoly style behavior, as they control the commodity of Internet names.
ICANN, as well as all the other stakeholders like the CONSUMERS, should lobby int'l standards setting bodies to create some kind of rules for morals as applied to the internet. Until that point it is absolutely wrong for a bunch of Western digerati to screw up the economic opportunities of everyone else in order to promote a moral agenda. Who says a poor country wouldn't want to make money hosting these questionable sites? Debate must happen before action is taken.
Nobody can predict the future and what opportunities it holds, especially ICANN. These people are supposed to be facilitating a prosperous global Internet. What gives them the right to impose any morals on us?
Hoooraaaaayyy!
Why is the IMC not on Slashdot more? something must be done about this.
The IMC's next task is to cover the protest against the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue in Cincinatti. They will be in town from November 16-18.
The TABD is a group of 200 ceos from the US and Europe who are hugely influential in trade organizations, like the World Trade Organization, that set trade, safety, environmental, intellectual property and labor standards. Most pertinent to Slashdot readers, they influence standards on things like piracy, encryption export, and copyrights. For info on the TABD: tabd.org
For info on the protests: che-2000.org and n16.org
We need your crappy old (FUNCTIONING, CLEAN) PCs, 486 and above, for word processing and photo layout. Macs PowerMac and above are also welcome. If you have an old Classic or something, we will take that too! We also need people who would like to webcast, satellite broadcast, or do video, audio, or print journalism. WE ARE GOING UP IN A FEW DAYS! If anyone has computers, please contact me:
revlucion@disinfo.net
and I will give you an address to send them. We'll try to compensate people for shipping.
...they become slightly different people.
/. prove that there is less company loyalty among all geeks, and much common interest among them.
Especially the people who've built the network and use it on a daily basis. You work in a heirarchy designed to control and supervise what you are doing, and then that heirarchy orders you to create a network, and you develop relationships with the other people working on the network that are more horizontal relationships. Like a group of truckers on the road chatting on CBs, these employees chat, swapping useful info and fart jokes.
No non-computer-related firm can fully control those computer employees upon whom the firm is dependent. Like the mitochondrion in a cell, these employees form a semi-autonomous group which is rather impenetrable to the outside world. Most non-technical managers prefer it that way, so they can just give the orders and get results without having to learn a lot of technical information. The only way to fully control these employees is to learn the exact nature of all of their work, and to supervise every action performed by each employee. Even in an organization such as the CIA, this is impossible.
Forums like
Spooks and spies. Right now, there is no real reason (or technological application) for the average soldier to have a small, wearable battle computer for his preservation of that of his mates. The only use is spying on other computer users, most of which will be civilians. To whom else will a soldier come so close in modern warfare? Yes, other armies have computers or satellites but we dont need a mobile, wearable computer to spy on that. Why should this be encouraged? A technology that frees us in our own hands enslaves us in other hands.
The faithfully rendered sets made out of Legos notwithstanding, why this is so good is the PHOTOGRAPHS. The guy manages to get the lighting and the perspective right for most of the shots, which is why they evoke this uncanny similarity to the screen shots and make the sight gag so effective.
Without that skill the Death Star would be just one more project by my little brother
M$ wins when people take an absolutist stance and say that everything they do is bad. They have every right to market whatever they choose. What they don't have a right to do is interere with opposing innovations. I for one would be very happy if M$ threw its resources into making gaming accessories instead of forcing people to comply with their inefficient demands for licensing
Well, this would prevent the character in Gattaca from having to vacuum bits of his DNA out from the crevices of the keyboard. I will never use this because I crave the dramatic clickety-clack typewriter noise..
What probably led the VC to open up its wallets to Hotlinks was the common notion that web users themselves, in a free market of information, will seek out and bookmark the most useful sites. Problems with this notion were pointed out clearly by MoNickels; the popular market of information is not well exposed to a broad spectrum of new information, only selected pieces. It is interesting to consider, however, what insights *can* come from an examination of people's bookmarks and how they use them. If one puts aside the Big Brother-esque quality of a firm that tracks one's surfing habits (which I emphatically DON'T) there are a few insights that might follow from a look at the *people* who surf the Net, rather than attempting to "know the shape of the matrix," i.e. to chart a map of the whole web by size or utility. For example, what do people prioritize when they make a bookmark? In various genres (news, fansites, porn, etc.) what features should a site have to make it likely to be bookmarked? In various genres, which sites stay active for long periods of time? Does content or form play a more important role? When choosing which updated content sites to bookmark, do surfers prefer broad content, narrow in-depth content or both? I would oppose research on which kinds of surfers bookmark what kinds of sites. The point is a better web for a community of web users, and not creativity-damping corporate categorization. Much of the consumer research related to the web has been self-reported, for instance in the lengthy multiple choice surveys that appear all over the Net when registering for something. Let's not trust this research to firms like Hotlinks, though. Why don't some folks put some money together and offer free Internet, or even free computers, to those who agree to be tracked? -perdida Vote Ralph Nader, crack the money code in politics: www.votenader.org