In a sense, modern CPUs already do something like this, although not to such an extreme. They have specialized components like the fpu, sse, sse2, 3dnow, etc, each with its own specialized purpose.
I was typing one day, at work. Just typing, tapping the hours merrily away, and suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my computer rebooted.
Ellen Fleiss, is it you?
Nonsense! If it was Ellen Feiss, it would look more like:
I was, like, typing one day, like, at work. Just typing, tapping the hours, like, merrily away, and like suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my computer, like, rebooted.
The hard part is coming up with a name for the 13th month, and deciding where to put it. That would be a big political mess.
Naming the extra month should be easy. The last 4 months of the year are named after Latin words. Consider the following:
September (sept = 7)
October (oct = 8)
November (nov = 9)
December (dec = 10)
Following this pattern, the next month should be called Undecember (undec = 11). But I agree that dealing with the fallout of adding a 13th month would be tough.
Reforming the patent system should be something that requires less work from everyone involved. My solution is to limit the number of patents a company or individual may own. Set it to something low -- say 5 patents -- and anyone who has more than that must pick the 5 they want to keep and give up the rest. When a patent is given up, it becomes public domain and cannot be patented again. If a company wants to patent something new, but is already maxed out on their patents, they must choose one of their existing patents to give up before patenting the new idea. This would force companies to only patent their best ideas, and would prevent them from hoarding patents.
Well, that depends. If the program is written in BASIC, then I would have a hard time finding anything wrong with it. However, if it's C, I can find at least 10 holes in the code. Hell, it wouldn't even compile.
This is why a sucessful anti-pirating campaign by Microsoft in Asia would be a great boon for FOSS.
Excpet that Microsoft's idea of a successful anti-piracy campaign would be to force computer manufacturers to install Windows on every machine sold. Then it wouldn't matter if people wanted Windows or not -- they would be forced to buy it either way (unless they wanted to build the computer from components). That's pretty much how MS came to dominate the US market.
I would expect that advances in technology and manufacturing will lower the cost of "green" hydrogen in the future. On the other hand, I see no sign of gasoline ever coming down in price. It's only a matter of time before hydrogen becomes the less expensive choice. The only question is when that will happen.
It was only the Slashdot paraphrasing that made mention of single molecule computers. The article referred to single molecule transistors. Quite a difference.
and nothing, not anything, can ever be made hacker-proof
Oh yeah? My computer is completely hacker-proof. There's nothing you can do to break it. In fact, I insist you try. My IP address is 127.0.0.1. Go ahead and launch your worst exploits, DoS attacks, worms, or viruses against it -- I won't even notice the attack.
I remember back in the 80's when copy restriction schemes were rampant among computer software. What was interesting is that software companies discovered that software containing these restriction roadblocks actually sold fewer copies than unrestricted software. The wisdom of the day suggested that potential buyers simply became fed up with the hassle and expressed their displeasure by not buying the software. I'm not sure I agree with this wisdom, since neither myself nor anyone else I knew based their buying decisions in any degree on the copy restriction of the software in question. Nevertheless, software companies finally got the message and stopped crippling their products. It's been said that people who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
BTW, yes, I call it copy restriction. Calling it "copy protection" doesn't make much sense. It neither protects my copy nor my ability to copy. Perhaps if they called it "copyright protection" I might understand.
Darl didn't say anything about non-customers. I can see it now -- their next marketing campaign: We won't sue any of our customers, so take the safe route and become a SCO customer today!
Their web server is probably running the executable and returning its output. If there's no output, you would get back a 0 byte file. If the file in question is a virus, this could be interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
In a sense, modern CPUs already do something like this, although not to such an extreme. They have specialized components like the fpu, sse, sse2, 3dnow, etc, each with its own specialized purpose.
Hi. My name is Goerge Katims-Torino-Axelrod-Cattani-Simonds-Lavoie-Tartt er-Ammons-Donovan-Morrissey-Urso-Ruben-Everitt-Gra y-Wishnie-Kennelly-Taylor-Paul-Ferenc-Reinert-Brue gge-Ruggiero-Crowley-Kainen-Beske-Green-Warren-Oui mette-Mayer-Vincent-Holman-Bove-Seits-Kalfus-Eastm an-Nowlan-Arms-Cleary-Ostler-Edson-Simpson-Meub-Bo wles-Cassidy-Barra-Bjornlund-Mullett-Whitten-Sedon -Aid-Pifer-Woolmington-Sand-Zonay-Jamele-Sutton-Go ldstein-Griffith-McGee-Andrea-Fitzpatrick-Blais-Bu ckholz-Ciambra-Lopez-Hertz-Steckel-Marsh-McClellan -McCarty-Straub-Kiel-Duprey-Angell-Murnane-Fitzger ald-Boyd-Gartenstein-Edwards-Wheeler-Gillan-Bennet t-Wagner-Cooper-Benelli-Halpert-Bredice-Hyndman-Ro bare-Popowski-Joslin-Cameron-Sheftman-Marthage-For d-Hobart-Banks-DeWolfe-Barber-Morwood-Simon-Welfor d-Clapp-Capriola-Woodruff-Sherrer-Kilgore-Blucher- Devine-Rath-Benjamin-May-Shea-Zwicker-Sargent-Tobi n-Groff-Wieland-Gannon-Crawford-Olson-Saltonstall- Gibson-Malgeri-Huntington-O'Connor-Aten-Kelley-Wil liams-Bisson-Casier-Schoenberg-Bailey-Freihofner-A dler-Amis-Dardeck-Kirkpatrick-Brannen-Kampmann-Fal ler-Cheney-Bothfeld-Chandra-Churchill-Wadas-Blight -Lynch-Stetler-Jewett-Pyatak-McLaughlin-Ellwood-Cl ayton-Dingledine-Palmer-Stafford-Dworkin-Dempsey-S heil-Gary-Harnett-Nicholson-Haesler-Pearson-Novotn y-Haught-Wright-Cullenberg-Langrock-Kagle-Lancaste r-Newman-Loignon-Neal-Shingler-Klamm-Powers-Hughes -Harlow-Davis-Dillon-Benning-Kupferer-Harwood-Elli s-Drew-Finnerty-Lynn-Klein-Clough-Valerio-Stewart- Sr-Finnigan-Mongeon-Maxson-Palmisano-Miller-Schwar z-Drescher-Boylan-Gavoni-Wolfe-Mosenthal-Berger-Se aman-Clark-Selig-Enzor-Marshall-Birnbaum-Lawrence- Molde-Martino-Welch-Weihs-Silver-Dugan-Knosher-Gil lies-Joroff-Hurt-Dunham-Gallagher-Piper-Waitz-Wool -Kittell-Manuel-Rhodes-Porter-Novins-Cicchetti-Pas tor-Grant-Dombro-Manzo-Maguire-Bowen-Spink-Carroll -Collins-Hill-Seager-Reeves-Graham-Rachlin-Munger- Monahan-Fechter-Benson-Broadfoot-Pikulski-Fox-Kilm artin-Lebowitz-Earle-Kelly-Banse-Spradlin-Farnham- Rome-Martin-Kline-Maley-Adrian-Prodan-Cawley-Manle y-Stone-Black-Purdy-Boemig-Kozlik-McGinn-Trunzo-Va lsangiacomo-Hexter-Marks-Malady-Pelkey-Morale-Orr- Kolter-Anderson-Crippen-Beu-Fairbanks-Oski-Brown-C ook-Barrera-Wolinsky-Riley-Lipschultz-Levine-Rodge rs-Francis-Parker-Halpin-Deppman-Sharp-Congleton-F rench-Gaston-Semprebon-Dow-Effel-Dube-Sophrin-Trea dwell-Barone-Liccardi-McNaughton-Manby-Lurvey-Smit h-Moritz-Triggs-Mauriello-Reis-Bowerman-Moore-Powe r-Weimer-Csala-Flynn-Peairs-Mann-Boepple-Carboneau -Singer-Wing-Goldsborough-Coutant-FitzPatrick-Daly -Kidney-Meekins-Kirk-Hadden-Lashman-London-Yarnell -Carlson-Cady-Lee-Bilinski-Sheffield-Johnson-Nunli st-Murphy-Marchica-Girdwood-Illuzzi-Kolitch-Miccic he-Rowley-Edersheim-DeVeaux-Waxman-Kaplan-Bragdon- Trono-Viall-Fuller-Cowles-Buehler-Thayer-Unger-Ney lon-Farrar-Ilberg-Dorsch-Evers-Murray-Joseph-Sleig h-Powell-Foley-Furlan-Kehoe-Ashcroft-Zander-Steven s-Kenney-Kinker-Leckerling-Fisher-Seidel-Reiss-Don aldson-Franco-Woodward-Canney-Dingley-Foote-Jarvis -H
"Now that's what I call customer lock-in!"
Yeah, but Jobs wants millions of customers locked in. It's going to get awfully crowded in that elevator.
Larry Ellison, has maintained that open source projects are only successful when major technology corporations get involved
That's funny. It seems to me that major technology corporations usually get involved in open source projects only after they become successful.
I was typing one day, at work. Just typing, tapping the hours merrily away, and suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my computer rebooted.
Ellen Fleiss, is it you?
Nonsense! If it was Ellen Feiss, it would look more like:
I was, like, typing one day, like, at work. Just typing, tapping the hours, like, merrily away, and like suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my computer, like, rebooted.
Hmmm... not too bad, 20302 words, but I found an even longer list using the dictionary file on my Linux box:
/usr/share/dict/words | tr "[a-z]" "[A-Z]" | sort -u
grep "^..........$"
I get 30814 words doing it that way.
The End of the Bar Code
Yep, the bar code is dead. Right after BSD dies. Should be any day now.
OK, this must mean that about 95% of politicians are psychopaths
So who are the 5% that aren't?
The hard part is coming up with a name for the 13th month, and deciding where to put it. That would be a big political mess.
Naming the extra month should be easy. The last 4 months of the year are named after Latin words. Consider the following:
September (sept = 7)
October (oct = 8)
November (nov = 9)
December (dec = 10)
Following this pattern, the next month should be called Undecember (undec = 11). But I agree that dealing with the fallout of adding a 13th month would be tough.
Yeah, but imagine the packet loss if the thing were to crash.
You can download the trailer with the URL:
t y/ serenity_m480.mov
http://movies.apple.com/movies/universal/sereni
then just use mplayer to watch it.
Reforming the patent system should be something that requires less work from everyone involved. My solution is to limit the number of patents a company or individual may own. Set it to something low -- say 5 patents -- and anyone who has more than that must pick the 5 they want to keep and give up the rest. When a patent is given up, it becomes public domain and cannot be patented again. If a company wants to patent something new, but is already maxed out on their patents, they must choose one of their existing patents to give up before patenting the new idea. This would force companies to only patent their best ideas, and would prevent them from hoarding patents.
Well, that depends. If the program is written in BASIC, then I would have a hard time finding anything wrong with it. However, if it's C, I can find at least 10 holes in the code. Hell, it wouldn't even compile.
This is why a sucessful anti-pirating campaign by Microsoft in Asia would be a great boon for FOSS.
Excpet that Microsoft's idea of a successful anti-piracy campaign would be to force computer manufacturers to install Windows on every machine sold. Then it wouldn't matter if people wanted Windows or not -- they would be forced to buy it either way (unless they wanted to build the computer from components). That's pretty much how MS came to dominate the US market.
Oh come on, now. It wouldn't be one of the 3 'R's (readin', rightin', 'rithmetic) if it was spelled 'write'. Every edjukated American knows that.
I would expect that advances in technology and manufacturing will lower the cost of "green" hydrogen in the future. On the other hand, I see no sign of gasoline ever coming down in price. It's only a matter of time before hydrogen becomes the less expensive choice. The only question is when that will happen.
It was only the Slashdot paraphrasing that made mention of single molecule computers. The article referred to single molecule transistors. Quite a difference.
If that's the case, I don't want to be a real man.
and nothing, not anything, can ever be made hacker-proof
Oh yeah? My computer is completely hacker-proof. There's nothing you can do to break it. In fact, I insist you try. My IP address is 127.0.0.1. Go ahead and launch your worst exploits, DoS attacks, worms, or viruses against it -- I won't even notice the attack.
I remember back in the 80's when copy restriction schemes were rampant among computer software. What was interesting is that software companies discovered that software containing these restriction roadblocks actually sold fewer copies than unrestricted software. The wisdom of the day suggested that potential buyers simply became fed up with the hassle and expressed their displeasure by not buying the software. I'm not sure I agree with this wisdom, since neither myself nor anyone else I knew based their buying decisions in any degree on the copy restriction of the software in question. Nevertheless, software companies finally got the message and stopped crippling their products. It's been said that people who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
BTW, yes, I call it copy restriction. Calling it "copy protection" doesn't make much sense. It neither protects my copy nor my ability to copy. Perhaps if they called it "copyright protection" I might understand.
Darl didn't say anything about non-customers. I can see it now -- their next marketing campaign: We won't sue any of our customers, so take the safe route and become a SCO customer today!
but 1500 mpg is a bit out of reach
640 MPG should be enough for anybody. (sorry, couldn't resist)
Their web server is probably running the executable and returning its output. If there's no output, you would get back a 0 byte file. If the file in question is a virus, this could be interesting.