People have been saying this a lot in the thread so far. "First to file" doe NOT eliminate prior art. What first to file means is that if two otherwise valid patent applicaitons come in to the patent office, the office gives precedence to the first one filed at the office (instead of the one that claims to have invented it first). Note that these are otherwise valid applications. If there is prior art before you file your patent application, then it isn't valid. Not only that, but the postgrant opposition part of the bill should be good for making sure that prior art doesn't get ignored (as it often does now).
Not only that, but this bill should help with the other frequent problem associated with this: what if the patent office happens to grant a patent even though there's perfectly good prior art? The postgrant opposition part of the bill would be great for that.
Back in the days before the Super Nintendo came out, I was in middle school and received the Nintendo Power magazine. I, honest to God, remember a holographic storage system being mentioned in connection with the upcoming Super Nintendo system. If my math is correct, that's something over 15 years worth of vaporware for this concept.
Not that it's a bad concept. Somebody just needs to put forth the effort to transform it from a lab curiosity to a practical reality.
I have a better idea... lets all stop bickering and elect people with IQs above 70 (all officals in both parties not just the president) and that repreent our real concerns (not ones made up every two to four years as needed)
...by detecting tiny amounts of explosives or chemicals in air and water.
Oh no! Not chemicals! Protect the children!
I'm just kind of reactionary when people talk about "chemicals" as if they were always a bad thing. I know in this case they're probably referring to particularly nasty chemicals like nerve gas etc. but it still bugs me. And, of course, I can't be bothered to rtfa.
Why change the law? That's not necessary. All he has to do is pardon himself for "anything illegal he may have done or may yet do", and explain to the american people that it's just so he can fight "terrists" better. They'll fall for that; they always seem to.
The reason they don't want to change the law to allow more presidential power is that a republican might not win the next election. After all, you can't have the _other_ party exercising the kind of unrestricted power they have been.
I'm a musician, and I need all the processing power I can get, the more the better. It also needs to be quiet, as in no noise at all. So yes, some people need low heat and fast performance in their desktops.
Wouldn't yours be a good case for a fanless thin client with some beefy servers in another room?
Haven't you been reading the news? File sharing made all the musicians poor.
What!?!? You mean that a CPU that hasn't even been released yet doesn't have a thousand different mobos just waiting to run it? I can't believe it.
Joking aside, this whole issue is one of comparing the newest Intel chips with somewhat older AMD chips. The only story here is that we've gone back to the days of "every time AMD or Intel release a new chip, they become the company with the best chip". I'm sure AMD has something interesting coming up, but I'm far too lazy to look up what that is.
Wearout is a myth with modern flash filesystem software.
True. Now do me a favor: name an operating system that actually uses a flash-optimized filesystem. Windows doesn't. Linux (most distros) don't use it by default. I dunno if OSX does, but I'd doubt it. (They'd get compatibility issues if they did.) Most of the time flash drives just use FAT32.
I'm not contradicting you about the flash wearout, however. I've never seen a flash drive wear out, or even heard of it happening with ordinary use (ie not somebody using a flash stick as the working drive or something silly like that). Just don't claim it's the filesystem.
I had a Canadian physics prof with terrible handwriting. Fortunately the math was readable, but any words he wrote just looked like wierd scribbles. I could only take notes by listening to what he said when he wrote the words.
Then one day, a classmate pointed out that most of the words he writes looks like the phrase "wet fart". I haven't been able to keep a straight face for a whole class since.
I shop at Wal-Mart, so MOST of the goods I buy are made in sweatshops by underpaid Chinese people. My only question is: If they're so cheap to make, how come IPods cost so blamed much?
The question is, just what does the modified tcpip.sys file actually do?
It'd be a lot of work to tell for certain, but the obvious guess is that it undermines all other p2p software, either by making it fail to work or by reporting you to EMI (or both).
Now the issue is that with the USA designed high pressure reactors, they only use about 2/10 of 1% of the uranium that is mined. What this means is that with a better design we can get about 475 times the milage from our uranium.
So you like breeder reactors? I thought you were for safety. Make up your mind! (For those who don't know, most breeder reactor designs are far less inherently safe than non-breeder designs.)
huh... I always thought the biggest obstacle to overcome would be... you know... getting a positive energy return from the damn thing!
As I posted above, this (if it actually works, which is unlikely) is a major step toward getting a positive energy flow out of a fusion reactor. In tokomaks, the main energy loss is from plasma escaping the magnetic field and taking heat with it, thus cooling the remaining plasma. Not only does the lost plasma have to be replaced, but all of the plasma has to be heated back to fusion temperature. This system is claimed to reduce plasma loss and reduce the heat loss that goes with it. If it does work (again, I'm not saying it will work, only that the probability is between zero and one), it would indeed overcome the biggest obstacle.
It doesn't matter how much energy was your start-up cost because you have a self sustaining system with some output--eventually you recoup your losses. Although I've heard much talk of this, has it ever been proven that it can be done?
Yes, it has been proven. This is how the sun works. While you're at it, that's also how a hydrogen bomb works (the startup energy is a fission bomb). What hasn't been proven, however, is that it can be done in a controled and sustainable way without using gravity to bind the system together.
To answer your question in short, I think there have been some very clever ways of continually inputting a little more of a hydrogen isotope into the system and then clearing out the resulting product while feeding a little energy back into the system to maintain its temperatures.
To answer that, you've no further to look than the article:
Evans says uncontrolled ELMs could be expected to damage a part of the ITER reactor called the diverter, which collects and removes helium (a by-product of the fusion reaction). This would have to be replaced every six months to a year, he says, at a potential cost of hundreds of millions of Euros.
Apparently they've already worked out a device to do that.
Hemos, Where did you get this "Biggest Obstacle" from? The researcher didn't claim it in the article, and it isn't true. IANANP, but from what I've heard, the biggest obstacle to nuclear fusion is maintaining the reaction for long periods of time, and doing so with relativly low energy input.
Well, IAAP (not nuclear, though) and the biggest obstacle to sustained fusion is indeed maintaining the reaction for long periods of time (minutes would be nice). The trouble is that the reaction quits when too much of the energy gets lost by - get this - hot particles escaping the magnetic field, taking heat with them (thus cooling the reaction and stopping it) and incidentally damaging the machinery. If you read the article, they're claiming (we'll see if they're correct about it...) that the new method removes a few particles from the field (but without cooling the remaining gas much), and manages to stabilize the rest of the material (in some mystical, poorly explained way).
If this pans out, it could make tokomak-style fusion a much more promising option. If they manage to figure out the physics behind why it works, then they might be able to refine the technique, which could eventually make fusion practical. But only if this works as advertised. It's been my experience that approximately 107% of all nuclear fusion press releases are either badly exaggerated or pure fiction.
The value of one currency compared to another doesn't really tell you how well that currency competes globally. The British pound has long been worth more than a dollar, but few (at least few non-Brits) would claim that the pound is a more powerful currency in global markets.
Slashdot Mirror
In future, please read the parent post I was replying to before commenting.
People have been saying this a lot in the thread so far. "First to file" doe NOT eliminate prior art. What first to file means is that if two otherwise valid patent applicaitons come in to the patent office, the office gives precedence to the first one filed at the office (instead of the one that claims to have invented it first). Note that these are otherwise valid applications. If there is prior art before you file your patent application, then it isn't valid. Not only that, but the postgrant opposition part of the bill should be good for making sure that prior art doesn't get ignored (as it often does now).
Not only that, but this bill should help with the other frequent problem associated with this: what if the patent office happens to grant a patent even though there's perfectly good prior art? The postgrant opposition part of the bill would be great for that.
The people with the best lawyers and most money will win all the patents.
I thought this bill was supposed to change the patent system.
Back in the days before the Super Nintendo came out, I was in middle school and received the Nintendo Power magazine. I, honest to God, remember a holographic storage system being mentioned in connection with the upcoming Super Nintendo system. If my math is correct, that's something over 15 years worth of vaporware for this concept.
Not that it's a bad concept. Somebody just needs to put forth the effort to transform it from a lab curiosity to a practical reality.
I have a better idea... lets all stop bickering and elect people with IQs above 70 (all officals in both parties not just the president) and that repreent our real concerns (not ones made up every two to four years as needed)
Ooh, and I want a copy of Duke Nukem Forever.
...by detecting tiny amounts of explosives or chemicals in air and water.
Oh no! Not chemicals! Protect the children!
I'm just kind of reactionary when people talk about "chemicals" as if they were always a bad thing. I know in this case they're probably referring to particularly nasty chemicals like nerve gas etc. but it still bugs me. And, of course, I can't be bothered to rtfa.
You make it sounds like the Democrats would do things differently.
Of course democrats would do things differently. They're owned by an entirely separate group of corporations.
Why change the law? That's not necessary. All he has to do is pardon himself for "anything illegal he may have done or may yet do", and explain to the american people that it's just so he can fight "terrists" better. They'll fall for that; they always seem to.
The reason they don't want to change the law to allow more presidential power is that a republican might not win the next election. After all, you can't have the _other_ party exercising the kind of unrestricted power they have been.
I'm a musician, and I need all the processing power I can get, the more the better. It also needs to be quiet, as in no noise at all. So yes, some people need low heat and fast performance in their desktops.
Wouldn't yours be a good case for a fanless thin client with some beefy servers in another room?
Haven't you been reading the news? File sharing made all the musicians poor.
What!?!? You mean that a CPU that hasn't even been released yet doesn't have a thousand different mobos just waiting to run it? I can't believe it.
Joking aside, this whole issue is one of comparing the newest Intel chips with somewhat older AMD chips. The only story here is that we've gone back to the days of "every time AMD or Intel release a new chip, they become the company with the best chip". I'm sure AMD has something interesting coming up, but I'm far too lazy to look up what that is.
If somebody can verify that, then my original post oughta' be modded to oblivion.
Wearout is a myth with modern flash filesystem software.
True. Now do me a favor: name an operating system that actually uses a flash-optimized filesystem. Windows doesn't. Linux (most distros) don't use it by default. I dunno if OSX does, but I'd doubt it. (They'd get compatibility issues if they did.) Most of the time flash drives just use FAT32.
I'm not contradicting you about the flash wearout, however. I've never seen a flash drive wear out, or even heard of it happening with ordinary use (ie not somebody using a flash stick as the working drive or something silly like that). Just don't claim it's the filesystem.
I had a Canadian physics prof with terrible handwriting. Fortunately the math was readable, but any words he wrote just looked like wierd scribbles. I could only take notes by listening to what he said when he wrote the words.
Then one day, a classmate pointed out that most of the words he writes looks like the phrase "wet fart". I haven't been able to keep a straight face for a whole class since.
I shop at Wal-Mart, so MOST of the goods I buy are made in sweatshops by underpaid Chinese people. My only question is: If they're so cheap to make, how come IPods cost so blamed much?
The question is, just what does the modified tcpip.sys file actually do?
It'd be a lot of work to tell for certain, but the obvious guess is that it undermines all other p2p software, either by making it fail to work or by reporting you to EMI (or both).
Just to completely ruin the joke: 1 dimension is a line; zero dimensions is a point.
PNG may not have been made for photos, but it certainly works well for them. On that basis alone it competes with JPEG.
I think that this is the groklaw page you're talking about.
That's exactly the point. Various forms of the strawman argument are exactly what most anti-nuclear types use.
Now the issue is that with the USA designed high pressure reactors, they only use about 2/10 of 1% of the uranium that is mined. What this means is that with a better design we can get about 475 times the milage from our uranium.
So you like breeder reactors? I thought you were for safety. Make up your mind! (For those who don't know, most breeder reactor designs are far less inherently safe than non-breeder designs.)
huh... I always thought the biggest obstacle to overcome would be... you know... getting a positive energy return from the damn thing!
As I posted above, this (if it actually works, which is unlikely) is a major step toward getting a positive energy flow out of a fusion reactor. In tokomaks, the main energy loss is from plasma escaping the magnetic field and taking heat with it, thus cooling the remaining plasma. Not only does the lost plasma have to be replaced, but all of the plasma has to be heated back to fusion temperature. This system is claimed to reduce plasma loss and reduce the heat loss that goes with it. If it does work (again, I'm not saying it will work, only that the probability is between zero and one), it would indeed overcome the biggest obstacle.
Yes, it has been proven. This is how the sun works. While you're at it, that's also how a hydrogen bomb works (the startup energy is a fission bomb). What hasn't been proven, however, is that it can be done in a controled and sustainable way without using gravity to bind the system together.
To answer your question in short, I think there have been some very clever ways of continually inputting a little more of a hydrogen isotope into the system and then clearing out the resulting product while feeding a little energy back into the system to maintain its temperatures.
To answer that, you've no further to look than the article: Apparently they've already worked out a device to do that.
Hemos, Where did you get this "Biggest Obstacle" from? The researcher didn't claim it in the article, and it isn't true. IANANP, but from what I've heard, the biggest obstacle to nuclear fusion is maintaining the reaction for long periods of time, and doing so with relativly low energy input.
Well, IAAP (not nuclear, though) and the biggest obstacle to sustained fusion is indeed maintaining the reaction for long periods of time (minutes would be nice). The trouble is that the reaction quits when too much of the energy gets lost by - get this - hot particles escaping the magnetic field, taking heat with them (thus cooling the reaction and stopping it) and incidentally damaging the machinery. If you read the article, they're claiming (we'll see if they're correct about it...) that the new method removes a few particles from the field (but without cooling the remaining gas much), and manages to stabilize the rest of the material (in some mystical, poorly explained way).
If this pans out, it could make tokomak-style fusion a much more promising option. If they manage to figure out the physics behind why it works, then they might be able to refine the technique, which could eventually make fusion practical. But only if this works as advertised. It's been my experience that approximately 107% of all nuclear fusion press releases are either badly exaggerated or pure fiction.
The value of one currency compared to another doesn't really tell you how well that currency competes globally. The British pound has long been worth more than a dollar, but few (at least few non-Brits) would claim that the pound is a more powerful currency in global markets.