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User: SEWilco

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  1. Re:Inventors Duties Generally on What's A Reluctant Inventor To Do? · · Score: 2
    Here's the PTO explanation of the Oath.

    Also, " The specification must include a written description of the invention and of the manner and process of making and using it, and is required to be in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the technological area to which the invention pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same. " So it's up to someone skilled in the technology to make the proper specification.

    As the claims are the last part of the specification, they are required to be in "full, clear, concise, and exact terms".

    So if the Oath applies to the specification, you are required to make a truthful specification and claims. If the lawyer doesn't like your truth, let the former employer send you to the proper school at his expense to educate you to the part of the truth which you are missing. It's up to you to make truthful statements.

  2. Re:Nice backdoor, but how is that free? on IP Tunneling Through Nameservers · · Score: 1

    Maybe Microsoft can bill the DNS server for the service.

  3. Re:USB: Belkin on Front Ports for PCs? · · Score: 1

    I have a Belkin USB Ethernet adapter. Linux USB does talk to the USB side of the device, powers it up, and gets device info. There is a Linux driver for the chip (CATC USB-El1201A) under development and on the net, but it's not in the distributed kernels yet. [Incidentally, it is a 10Mbps half-duplex Ethernet 12 Mbps USB device]

  4. Re:How about Continental Drift? on Riding The Space Elevator · · Score: 1
    The long-term drift of the Earth's rotational axis works against an anchor, also.

    By the time an anchor drifts far enough to matter, it won't matter. The anchor will have been replaced -- either by other elevators or due to rebuilding the thousands-year-old-building.

    tritium production via neutron bombardment of heavy water is way expensive.

    Not a problem. There's plenty of tritium on the Moon. It's merely somewhat difficult to get now, and would be even easier with an elevator to get out of our hole.

  5. Re:Impossible not to think in these terms on How Much Do Models Influence Our Thinking? · · Score: 1

    Can you sketch it out for me?

  6. Re:Sounds like a good Idea on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1
    (psst.. I think you meant inbred not cross-bred).

    900 humans is the minimum. At least that's according to "Not Final!", a short story about a remote three-eyed surveyor who maps an antimatter cloud and then discovers Earth. As Earth is going to be destroyed in only a couple of years, there won't be time for enough ships to be built for enough humans to escape to preserve the species...but they hadn't even yet learned warp field technology, much less built ships.

    Somehow my memory remembers that (and the rest of the story) but not why I remember there was some factual basis for that number. I think there was annotation or explanation about it.

  7. Encounter 2001 on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1

    Well, for $50 you can send your dried hair "DNA" on the Millenial Voyage flight to Jupiter and beyond. Along with your words of wisdom on digital disk.

  8. Heirloom Seeds on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1

    Do a web search for Heirloom Seeds and you'll find assorted collections of various old plant seeds. Some are commercial services and some are only trying to preserve the original genes.

  9. Re:Voyage From Yesteryear on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1

    And then there's "Rendezvous With Rama", and the ever-changing inside (Why am I avoiding spoilers after all this time?)

  10. Seed Archives on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1

    There is at least one collection of old plant seeds. The term for that type of plant escapes me at the moment, but there are a few seed catalogs which carry a few such old strains.

  11. Voyage From Yesteryear on DNA Repositories? · · Score: 1

    A James P. Hogan book, I think the title is "Voyage from Yesteryear", involves a grow-colonists-at-destination ship. The first generation of children is raised by robots. The title of the book is due to the later arrival of a second ship, carrying Earth-born adults using newer technology which allowed the second ship to arrive within their lifetime. Interesting things happen between the established civilization from the first ship and the second group of adults who are used to the Earth which they grew up on.

  12. Re:Shapeless Heatsink on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink · · Score: 1
    But what would all the overclocking sites do if the ultimate heatsink was shapeless and grey?!

    • Have contests of the most efficient buzz-cuts to increase surface area of the top of the nanotube heatsink.
    • Show how to bale the heatsink into a tidier shape.
    • Evaluate which CPU/heatsink design glows the brightest or in various colors.
    • Show how to tie-dye your heatsink.

    Incidentally, when talking about nano objects try to avoid the combination shapeless and grey. That combinations of words is no goo.

  13. Re:*laugh* on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink · · Score: 1

    Like an optically-pumped laser that uses their laser beam to pump up your laser beam?

  14. Re:*laugh* on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink · · Score: 1

    No, although a nuclear reactor is recommended as a power source for electronic laser weapons, I prefer the chemical lasers with the rocket engine power source. I power all my X-ray lasers with a nuclear bomb.

  15. Re:*laugh* - it might prove very useful. on Carbon Nanotubes May Make The Ultimate Heat Sink · · Score: 1

    "Well, that finished them off. The atmospheric scattering compensator created a beam that used their steam cloud as the final focusing agent."

  16. Change the Real World on Lawsuits Suck · · Score: 1
    Change the Real World: Vote.

    This offer void where prohibited by law or by the dictator.

  17. More details, please on Shielding Your Office from Magnetic Fields? · · Score: 1
    Are those rainbows and moire patterns constant when the monitor is not being moved, or do they jiggle?

    For that matter, your testing tools are too sophisticated. Get a magnetic compass and wander around the room. If it is a fluctuating field the needle might not react well to it -- if it is a constant field the needle will point along the field lines (toward the poles when you're close). Remember to tilt the compass at various angles, as the field lines are not restricted to being horizontal nor vertical.

    Also the problem may be your office and not what you think. I've had office equipment racks which had become magnetized badly enough that monitors would show distortion from a few feet away. A compass shows the source of that problem easily. I've been able to simply rearrange equipment, but you can consider degaussing.

  18. Re:I'd go with the steel plate too... on Shielding Your Office from Magnetic Fields? · · Score: 1

    You are correct in your doubt. Conductive mesh can block RF but not magnetic fields. To block a constant magnetic field you need a solid magnetic (ie, ferromagnetic) shield to deflect the field lines -- or a plane of bars to deflect part of the field (with a weaker field leaking between the bars).

  19. Re:Further clarifications. on Shielding Your Office from Magnetic Fields? · · Score: 1
    A penetrating power cable will do a good job of carrying 300 MHz RF interference, but it won't carry any 60 Hz magnetic fields at all because it's made of copper and not ferromagnetic.

    Actually, most power cables are supposed to carry 60 Hz at about 110 Volts A.C. Of course, the power supply does a good job of filtering that for the computer.

    Not that a 60 Hz magnetic field will penetrate through that electronic route. It might induce some fluctuations in the wire, but not much -- or else your lights would be flickering.

  20. Index & Search on Organizing Large Volumes of Email? · · Score: 1
    Use an indexing and searching tool such as Harvest; look at the several tools which index files and choose what looks best.

    You first could run your archive into something like a Hypermail-style archiver if you prefer HTML (in addition to whatever indexes the archiver creates).

  21. Re:so? on Amazon Charging Different Prices for Same Items? · · Score: 1
    "...Netscape Web browser turned up a quoted price of $64.99 ... similar search performed with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser resulted in a price of $74.99 ..."

    Obviously Amazon noticed that MS customers are willing to pay more for things...

  22. Re:$798.99 for a 5c OS *before* all the apps on How Do Linux and Windows 2000 Compare? · · Score: 1
    ...university...case of beer...

    Select the university carefully or you may encounter complications...

  23. Re:$798.99 for a 5c OS *before* all the apps on How Do Linux and Windows 2000 Compare? · · Score: 2
    The way MS sees it you can hire a very very expensive six-digit income BOFH to manage your UNIX/Linux environment. Or you can hire a 24-yr old MSCE "techie" to manage your Windows network for $40k and save upwards of 60k.

    There are plenty of young Unix/Linux techies also. The six-digit income staff are managing larger facilities -- and if those larger facilities happen to be running Unix, maybe there's a reason for it. I'm also aware of large facilities using MS products, but they require much larger support staff than a Unix facility -- if nothing else, the MS staff are kept busy pointing, clicking, and reloading machines.

  24. Re:Hmm... on RSA Released Into The Public Domain · · Score: 2
    Nope, the concept of "strong encryption technique" is now the intellectual property of Digital:Convergence, as used in their Cue:Cat. The term "XOR" has been renamed "CCC"; details require a NDA.

    Their encryption is so strong that typing "Digital:Convergence" into your browser's Address/Location field will fail to search for them.

  25. Re:Still a bit vague on one thing.... on Barcode Maker Responds After Forcing Drivers Offline · · Score: 1
    I think what their gripe really boils down to is they're giving away hardware and attempting to build a software and service business model around that.

    Their business model should be focused on providing services to the barcode users. If they'll provide services which are of value to the barcode users, customers will come to them. They shouldn't have to try to use force.