This is something I hadn't thought about before, but I wonder if Ubuntu is going to work with Dell to make what ever version they ship with be a LTS (long term support) release, or if Dell is just going to ship with the newest version of Ubuntu all the time? The last LTS release was Dapper Drake (6.06) and last I've heard the next release, Gutsy Gibbon, was not going to be a LTS release.
Are there courses designed to make neurosurgery less intimidating They are called biology classes. Kids learn about how organs and cells, and even practice "surgery" by dissecting animals and seeing first-hand what the organs look like.
or elite forces soldering less dangerous or stressful? Ah, good old gym class:)
It always concerns me when I see a bunch of geeks trying to stick programming down the throats of kids rather than focus on teaching them the real skills they need at that age. The skills the need at their age? Beyond knowing how to ingest food and play nice with others I can't think of any skills that kids need. Everything that they are taught from kindergarten on up is preparation for the future.
It concerns me when people think that the entire point of education is to teach a fixed set of essential skills - especially at a young age. Yes we should be doing that, but would should also be exposing students to all sorts of different and interesting occupations and pursuits, to try and experiment with. Sure, not all of them will like all of the subjects - but for each subject there will be a handful of students for which that class will be the best fun they had in school. If you don't expose kids to anything beyond the essentials, then not only will school be dreadfully boring, they will never have the opportunity to form opinions about what they are interested in and what they enjoy doing.
Just teaching "the three Rs" in school worked fine when your occupation was handed down to you by your parents, and you learned everything else you needed to know through apprenticeship, but those days are long gone.
Yeah, Pascal was a stricter language but IMHO the rules were less confusing than those of C++ and Java. The biggest problem that I've had with using Python for teaching young students has been the opposite - what would be a simple error in a statically typed language can become a more subtle error in python, and the error messages that it produces are really quite poor compared to even a C compiler (although not nearly as bad as C++ STL errors:). Because of this the kids I've worked with have a harder time debugging python programs than with other languages. On the other hand the ability to type lines directly into the python console is very useful and encourages learning by experimentation.
I agree. It is a shame that Pascal has been largely discarded in (pre-college) classrooms for more "practical" or "modern" languages like C, Java, Python etc. I have yet to find development environments that are better to learn with than Pascal or QBasic. They don't have all the baggage that you need for high performance (like you get with C or C++) or strictness that helps keep bug count down in huge projects (like you get with C++ or Java), and have easy access to the routines that people learning want to play with (standard IO, drawing graphics, etc).
That is my biggest pet peeve with using modern IDEs to teach programming - that they are so abstracted. Not only do kids not learn as much because the tools do things for them, but often case the tools take longer to learn and use than doing it directly anyway. It's not like Logo or QBasic where you wrote a couple of lines of code and have it immediately draw something for you on the screen.
C++ is a very complex language, and whether it is represented by text or graphics you will have the same difficult concepts to learn. Most of those concepts exist either for performance reasons, or as an aid in creating very large programs (they trade-off more up-front learning and work for less problems later on). Neither of these are desirable for a graphical learning language, nor is it desirable to build off of a compiled language. If you did create a graphical representation of C++ it would be an overly complicated mess that was no easier to program in than textual C++.
You are better off creating a your own language (like this or LabView or Squeak or the newer graphical Lego Logo) than to try and retrofit C++, or worse to call on someone whose strengths are in low-level machine language generation and optimization to do it for you.
Amen, especially if it comes with search capability - If I print things on paper I spend forever going back and forth between the layout and design schematics trying to find where the heck R62 is, and if I view them on a laptop, the resolution is too low and I end up constantly zooming in and out, in addition to being bulky and draining batteries far too quickly. A decent E-ink tablet would be great for schematics.
I was not familiar with the practice of legislative holds, so I googled it and found this description by the same senator that is holding up this bill, Tom Coburn. I thought others might find it interesting as well.
I have been using TeXmacs as a front end for Maxima, which is a very nice program but a bit heavy-weight for the machine I'm running on. I'll have to checkout SAGE.
At what point can I patent the ASBands Bubble Sort (if I wanted to)? You could get a patent for "a device that sorts by repeatedly swapping elements to bring the greatest to the beginning of the list", assuming there wasn't prior art and it met the requirements of originality.
Here's another way of looking at it that is perhaps clearer. When you file a patent you genuinely are getting a patent on an idea (for a new device or process), but that patent doesn't give you complete control over the idea. In particular, you can not restrict the dissemination of the idea, but you can restrict the use of that idea (with some exemptions for educational and research purposes).
What is the difference between description and implementation? So the point at which something becomes an implementation, would be the point at which it can be (or is) used. Software (in any form) cannot be used without a computer, and therefore it is not a device until combined with a machine capable of interpreting it. Alternately, if the algorithm is not being carried out by a machine but by people - as is the case of patents on business methods or manufacturing processes - then you start infringing upon the patent at the time you use those methods.
Copy and pasted from my post in the the other patent thread that mentioned this case as an aside:
You cannot enforce patents on algorithms/idea themselves, just devices/actions that implement them - this has been true since the beginning. The Supreme Court has never ruled that software is patentable, just that a device implemented using software is just as patentable as one implemented using hardware. It has long been believed that source code would not be considered a device, but just a description of a device, and is thus no more protected by patent law than a technical spec or published paper. However, programs running on a computer have been ruled to be a device, and therefore in practice sofware is patentable, even though technically it is not.
This case focused in part on the question of whether compiled code is a device - and the answer was no, it too is just a description. In practical terms this means very little for domestic software producers - since you can't run software without a computer, either you or your customer will be breaking the law if one of you does not license the patents, and knowingly selling software that needs patents licenses, without informing your customers about it will get you in bit trouble. Furthermore, even if you do inform your customers, you could have problems depending on the circumstance.
As far as international trade, it has the effect that patent export laws do not apply to software. With a physical device if you build it here and ship it abroad you have to pay patent royalties, but if you send the plans abroad and produce and sell it there, then US patent laws don't apply. Since software is simply a description, as long as the computer (or embedded device) is produced abroad, and the software is installed abroad, you don't have to pay US patent royalties. Of course you do still have to pay patent royalties in the other country if they apply.
Another area that it could have an impact in is open source drivers, especially firmware. You could argue that anyone that uses the software has paid for any required patent licenses when they bought the hardware in question. And since the court ruled that there is no difference between machine language and source code as far as patents go, they are no longer an excuse for providing binary only drivers. (Of course all the companies that are claiming "patent issues", are really probably trying to protect trade secrets).
Now, while I support the weakening of software patents in general, by this logic, would that mean that MS's patents don't apply to those that use pirated copies of Windows? If those copies are in in the US they still apply, but in say China, they wouldn't. Note that copyright still applies.
If that's true, all I can say is... Wow. All software patents will basically have to be revisited, because on the face of it, it sounds like software cannot be patented anymore. This has always been true - you cannot patent algorithms, just devices. However, software running on a computer is a device, and this ruling does not change that. Therefore, it will only change a few corner cases, where the software is not "combined with a device" (installed or executed) in the US.
So, for example, software distributed as source code can't violate a patent until it's compiled? Actually the Supreme Court took it one step farther - patents are not enforceable on software until it is combined with (installed on) a device that can run the software.
You cannot patent algorithms, just devices - this has been true since the beginning. The Supreme Court has never ruled that software is patentable, just that a device implemented using software is just as patentable as one implemented using hardware. It has long been believed that source code would not be considered a device, but just a description of a device, and is thus no more protected by patent law than a technical spec or published paper. However, programs running on a computer have been ruled to be a device, and therefore in practice sofware is patentable, even though technically it is not.
This case focused in part on the question of whether compiled code is a device - and the answer was no, it too is just a description. In practical terms this means very little for domestic software producers - since you can't run software without a computer, either you or your customer will be breaking the law if one of you does not license the patents, and knowingly selling software that needs patents licenses, without informing your customers about it will get you in bit trouble. Furthermore, even if you do inform your customers, you could have problems depending on the circumstance.
As far as international trade, it has the effect that patent export laws do not apply to software. With a physical device if you build it here and ship it abroad you have to pay patent royalties, but if you send the plans abroad and produce and sell it there, then US patent laws don't apply. Since software is simply a description, as long as the computer (or embedded device) is produced abroad, and the software is installed abroad, you don't have to pay US patent royalties. Of course you do still have to pay patent royalties in the other country if they apply.
Another area that it could have an impact in is open source drivers, especially firmware. You could argue that anyone that uses the software has paid for any required patent licenses when they bought the hardware in question. And since the court ruled that there is no difference between machine language and source code as far as patents go, they are no longer an excuse for providing binary only drivers. (Of course all the companies that are claiming "patent issues", are really probably trying to protect trade secrets).
I posted this somewhere else, but it needs to be restated. The reason that Diebold can't get this right, is because they don't have their ATM engineers working on it. Diebold Elections Systems did not exist until 2002 when Diebold purchased Global Elections Systems. The basic software architecture (including the use of Jet) goes back to a touch screen voting system designed by iMark in 1995. In that system the database was single use - stored on a smart card, and had to be merged together later.
The purchase of GES was in response to the federal voting legislation passed after "hanging chad" issue. This legislation, while not requiring the use of electronic voting machines, including many provisions (such as requiring that people with disabilites be able to vote using the same system as everyone else) that certainly encouraged them. Diebold expected a huge increase in voting machine purchases as a result of this, and didn't have time to build their own system from scratch, so they acquired one. Thier predictions were correct and they have made a ton of money from the deal holding 80% of the market, even though their design is garbage.
Basically all these problems with voting machines are because of misguided voting reform, where after ignoring an issue for years voters turned around and demanded something be done, and the politicians happily obliged by passing knee-jerk laws and buying up whatever snake-oil was available at that minute. Which is pretty much politics in a nutshell - ignore a problem until it gets really bad and then overreact and make things worse than they were to begin with.
Diebolds electronic voting division was purchased wholesale from Global Election Systems in 2002. GES produced crap back then and it is no suprise that they continued to produce crap under new management. Their incompetence shouldn't reflect poorly on the ability of the engineering staff in the ATM division, although it does say quite a bit about the top-level management.
Then some parents complained that it was discriminatory towards non-college-track students, and the district got rid of it. The next year, the big town nearby had some ridiculous number of co-valedictorians, all but one of which were people that hadn't taken a single honors class. Damn PC cry-babies.
It doesn't matter if you own it or not - this is income tax, not property tax. If you receive a good or service in exchange for another good or service, then it is possible that it could be taxed as income. But I really don't think that is going to happen. The motivation for the complex definition of income is to prevent people from sheltering *large* increases in wealth by receiving the payment in a form that does not fit the regular definition of salary or capital gain. The IRS and congress couldn't care less about the piddling trade that is taking place with-in virtual worlds, because it isn't being used as a tax shelter. All they care about are the people that are receiving real world income providing a service to gamers (gold farmers, item crafting, etc).
I used Dvorak for about 3 years straight during college, and I loved it. I naturally had my personal computer set to use it, and all of the college computers had floating profiles, so the only thing I ever had to type in qwerty was my username and password. I had formed bad typing habits when I was young, and because of that was never successful in teaching myself to touch-type qwerty. Dvorak provided a clean slate, which made learning to touch type much easier, and after about three weeks I was typing faster than I ever did with qwerty. It was great.
Then I graduated and got a job. At first I mapped my computer to use dvorak, but quickly found that I spent as much time using shared (lab) computers as my own. The switching back and forth was driving me crazy. Typing english was fine, but the keyboard shortcuts were horrible as I remembered those by muscle memory, not by letter. I experimented with using fast-keyboard switching, but after a couple incidents where I forget to change it back to qwerty when I was done, thoroughly confusing my co-workers, I stopped with that. Finally, I just gave up and learned to touch-type qwerty, and haven't used dvorak since. Fortunately, my 3 year reprieve from using it made it easier to unlearn my old bad habits, so I am a better qwerty typer than I used to be, but still not as fast as I was with dvorak.
EVERY SINGLE squad car I ever see is always speeding.
Interesting. Almost every cop car I see (at least on the highway) is going 5 miles below the speed limit, which is just slow enough to make people nervous about passing them:) But yeah. A student at our college was killed by a police officer who ran through an intersection going well over the speed limit. He didn't have his lights on, and wasn't even responding to a call - he was just speeding. They tried to pin it on the students drinking, but the driver was completely sober. Nothing ever happened to the officer. He should have been thown in jail for manslaughter.
Tiger works well enough. There isn't all that much in Leopard that I'm really looking forward to having.
See I'm the opposite. I passed on Tiger because it all seemed fairly ho-hum to me. I didn't really care about Spotlight, Dashboard or Automator, and while the new developer API's looked cool, I realized that between school and work I wouldn't have much time to play with them.
On the otherhand Leopard has had me excited. I have been wanting virtual desktops on OS X since it came out, the the third party implementations have all be lacking, so I am very excited about Spaces. I am also quite interested in Time Machine as I have never seen a backup system easy enough for my parents to use, and have never seen any backup system that makes it as slick and easy to find the correct revision of a backed up documents.
In addition, several of the apps I use are getting outdated as the developers no longer support Panther (including some Apple ones). And to top it all off, I'd like to get a new machine and was naturally waiting for Leopard to come out so I don't have to pay another $150 dollars in 6 months. So the delay is somewhat of a big deal to me. That said I would much rather have stable software than an early release date. That goes for anyone, not just Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
This is something I hadn't thought about before, but I wonder if Ubuntu is going to work with Dell to make what ever version they ship with be a LTS (long term support) release, or if Dell is just going to ship with the newest version of Ubuntu all the time? The last LTS release was Dapper Drake (6.06) and last I've heard the next release, Gutsy Gibbon, was not going to be a LTS release.
It concerns me when people think that the entire point of education is to teach a fixed set of essential skills - especially at a young age. Yes we should be doing that, but would should also be exposing students to all sorts of different and interesting occupations and pursuits, to try and experiment with. Sure, not all of them will like all of the subjects - but for each subject there will be a handful of students for which that class will be the best fun they had in school. If you don't expose kids to anything beyond the essentials, then not only will school be dreadfully boring, they will never have the opportunity to form opinions about what they are interested in and what they enjoy doing.
Just teaching "the three Rs" in school worked fine when your occupation was handed down to you by your parents, and you learned everything else you needed to know through apprenticeship, but those days are long gone.
Yeah, Pascal was a stricter language but IMHO the rules were less confusing than those of C++ and Java. The biggest problem that I've had with using Python for teaching young students has been the opposite - what would be a simple error in a statically typed language can become a more subtle error in python, and the error messages that it produces are really quite poor compared to even a C compiler (although not nearly as bad as C++ STL errors :). Because of this the kids I've worked with have a harder time debugging python programs than with other languages. On the other hand the ability to type lines directly into the python console is very useful and encourages learning by experimentation.
I agree. It is a shame that Pascal has been largely discarded in (pre-college) classrooms for more "practical" or "modern" languages like C, Java, Python etc. I have yet to find development environments that are better to learn with than Pascal or QBasic. They don't have all the baggage that you need for high performance (like you get with C or C++) or strictness that helps keep bug count down in huge projects (like you get with C++ or Java), and have easy access to the routines that people learning want to play with (standard IO, drawing graphics, etc).
That is my biggest pet peeve with using modern IDEs to teach programming - that they are so abstracted. Not only do kids not learn as much because the tools do things for them, but often case the tools take longer to learn and use than doing it directly anyway. It's not like Logo or QBasic where you wrote a couple of lines of code and have it immediately draw something for you on the screen.
C++ is a very complex language, and whether it is represented by text or graphics you will have the same difficult concepts to learn. Most of those concepts exist either for performance reasons, or as an aid in creating very large programs (they trade-off more up-front learning and work for less problems later on). Neither of these are desirable for a graphical learning language, nor is it desirable to build off of a compiled language. If you did create a graphical representation of C++ it would be an overly complicated mess that was no easier to program in than textual C++.
You are better off creating a your own language (like this or LabView or Squeak or the newer graphical Lego Logo) than to try and retrofit C++, or worse to call on someone whose strengths are in low-level machine language generation and optimization to do it for you.
Amen, especially if it comes with search capability - If I print things on paper I spend forever going back and forth between the layout and design schematics trying to find where the heck R62 is, and if I view them on a laptop, the resolution is too low and I end up constantly zooming in and out, in addition to being bulky and draining batteries far too quickly. A decent E-ink tablet would be great for schematics.
I was not familiar with the practice of legislative holds, so I googled it and found this description by the same senator that is holding up this bill, Tom Coburn. I thought others might find it interesting as well.
I have been using TeXmacs as a front end for Maxima, which is a very nice program but a bit heavy-weight for the machine I'm running on. I'll have to checkout SAGE.
Here's another way of looking at it that is perhaps clearer. When you file a patent you genuinely are getting a patent on an idea (for a new device or process), but that patent doesn't give you complete control over the idea. In particular, you can not restrict the dissemination of the idea, but you can restrict the use of that idea (with some exemptions for educational and research purposes). What is the difference between description and implementation? So the point at which something becomes an implementation, would be the point at which it can be (or is) used. Software (in any form) cannot be used without a computer, and therefore it is not a device until combined with a machine capable of interpreting it. Alternately, if the algorithm is not being carried out by a machine but by people - as is the case of patents on business methods or manufacturing processes - then you start infringing upon the patent at the time you use those methods.
Don't chat them up over a webcam. :)
Especially if you are running linux
You cannot enforce patents on algorithms/idea themselves, just devices/actions that implement them - this has been true since the beginning. The Supreme Court has never ruled that software is patentable, just that a device implemented using software is just as patentable as one implemented using hardware. It has long been believed that source code would not be considered a device, but just a description of a device, and is thus no more protected by patent law than a technical spec or published paper. However, programs running on a computer have been ruled to be a device, and therefore in practice sofware is patentable, even though technically it is not.
This case focused in part on the question of whether compiled code is a device - and the answer was no, it too is just a description. In practical terms this means very little for domestic software producers - since you can't run software without a computer, either you or your customer will be breaking the law if one of you does not license the patents, and knowingly selling software that needs patents licenses, without informing your customers about it will get you in bit trouble. Furthermore, even if you do inform your customers, you could have problems depending on the circumstance.
As far as international trade, it has the effect that patent export laws do not apply to software. With a physical device if you build it here and ship it abroad you have to pay patent royalties, but if you send the plans abroad and produce and sell it there, then US patent laws don't apply. Since software is simply a description, as long as the computer (or embedded device) is produced abroad, and the software is installed abroad, you don't have to pay US patent royalties. Of course you do still have to pay patent royalties in the other country if they apply.
Another area that it could have an impact in is open source drivers, especially firmware. You could argue that anyone that uses the software has paid for any required patent licenses when they bought the hardware in question. And since the court ruled that there is no difference between machine language and source code as far as patents go, they are no longer an excuse for providing binary only drivers. (Of course all the companies that are claiming "patent issues", are really probably trying to protect trade secrets). Now, while I support the weakening of software patents in general, by this logic, would that mean that MS's patents don't apply to those that use pirated copies of Windows? If those copies are in in the US they still apply, but in say China, they wouldn't. Note that copyright still applies.
You cannot patent algorithms, just devices - this has been true since the beginning. The Supreme Court has never ruled that software is patentable, just that a device implemented using software is just as patentable as one implemented using hardware. It has long been believed that source code would not be considered a device, but just a description of a device, and is thus no more protected by patent law than a technical spec or published paper. However, programs running on a computer have been ruled to be a device, and therefore in practice sofware is patentable, even though technically it is not.
This case focused in part on the question of whether compiled code is a device - and the answer was no, it too is just a description. In practical terms this means very little for domestic software producers - since you can't run software without a computer, either you or your customer will be breaking the law if one of you does not license the patents, and knowingly selling software that needs patents licenses, without informing your customers about it will get you in bit trouble. Furthermore, even if you do inform your customers, you could have problems depending on the circumstance.
As far as international trade, it has the effect that patent export laws do not apply to software. With a physical device if you build it here and ship it abroad you have to pay patent royalties, but if you send the plans abroad and produce and sell it there, then US patent laws don't apply. Since software is simply a description, as long as the computer (or embedded device) is produced abroad, and the software is installed abroad, you don't have to pay US patent royalties. Of course you do still have to pay patent royalties in the other country if they apply.
Another area that it could have an impact in is open source drivers, especially firmware. You could argue that anyone that uses the software has paid for any required patent licenses when they bought the hardware in question. And since the court ruled that there is no difference between machine language and source code as far as patents go, they are no longer an excuse for providing binary only drivers. (Of course all the companies that are claiming "patent issues", are really probably trying to protect trade secrets).
I posted this somewhere else, but it needs to be restated. The reason that Diebold can't get this right, is because they don't have their ATM engineers working on it. Diebold Elections Systems did not exist until 2002 when Diebold purchased Global Elections Systems. The basic software architecture (including the use of Jet) goes back to a touch screen voting system designed by iMark in 1995. In that system the database was single use - stored on a smart card, and had to be merged together later.
The purchase of GES was in response to the federal voting legislation passed after "hanging chad" issue. This legislation, while not requiring the use of electronic voting machines, including many provisions (such as requiring that people with disabilites be able to vote using the same system as everyone else) that certainly encouraged them. Diebold expected a huge increase in voting machine purchases as a result of this, and didn't have time to build their own system from scratch, so they acquired one. Thier predictions were correct and they have made a ton of money from the deal holding 80% of the market, even though their design is garbage.
Basically all these problems with voting machines are because of misguided voting reform, where after ignoring an issue for years voters turned around and demanded something be done, and the politicians happily obliged by passing knee-jerk laws and buying up whatever snake-oil was available at that minute. Which is pretty much politics in a nutshell - ignore a problem until it gets really bad and then overreact and make things worse than they were to begin with.
Diebolds electronic voting division was purchased wholesale from Global Election Systems in 2002. GES produced crap back then and it is no suprise that they continued to produce crap under new management. Their incompetence shouldn't reflect poorly on the ability of the engineering staff in the ATM division, although it does say quite a bit about the top-level management.
Then some parents complained that it was discriminatory towards non-college-track students, and the district got rid of it. The next year, the big town nearby had some ridiculous number of co-valedictorians, all but one of which were people that hadn't taken a single honors class. Damn PC cry-babies.
we need to be increasing our manned space program, and start some colonies of our own.
The soap was made out of hemp-oil so that will help him get back on their good (or is it bad) side.
:) nt
As long as they can redirect primary power from the sheild to the deflector dish, I will be happy. They will have a deflector dish right? ... Right?
It doesn't matter if you own it or not - this is income tax, not property tax. If you receive a good or service in exchange for another good or service, then it is possible that it could be taxed as income. But I really don't think that is going to happen. The motivation for the complex definition of income is to prevent people from sheltering *large* increases in wealth by receiving the payment in a form that does not fit the regular definition of salary or capital gain. The IRS and congress couldn't care less about the piddling trade that is taking place with-in virtual worlds, because it isn't being used as a tax shelter. All they care about are the people that are receiving real world income providing a service to gamers (gold farmers, item crafting, etc).
I didn't know the FBI had that many agents.
I used Dvorak for about 3 years straight during college, and I loved it. I naturally had my personal computer set to use it, and all of the college computers had floating profiles, so the only thing I ever had to type in qwerty was my username and password. I had formed bad typing habits when I was young, and because of that was never successful in teaching myself to touch-type qwerty. Dvorak provided a clean slate, which made learning to touch type much easier, and after about three weeks I was typing faster than I ever did with qwerty. It was great.
Then I graduated and got a job. At first I mapped my computer to use dvorak, but quickly found that I spent as much time using shared (lab) computers as my own. The switching back and forth was driving me crazy. Typing english was fine, but the keyboard shortcuts were horrible as I remembered those by muscle memory, not by letter. I experimented with using fast-keyboard switching, but after a couple incidents where I forget to change it back to qwerty when I was done, thoroughly confusing my co-workers, I stopped with that. Finally, I just gave up and learned to touch-type qwerty, and haven't used dvorak since. Fortunately, my 3 year reprieve from using it made it easier to unlearn my old bad habits, so I am a better qwerty typer than I used to be, but still not as fast as I was with dvorak.
On the otherhand Leopard has had me excited. I have been wanting virtual desktops on OS X since it came out, the the third party implementations have all be lacking, so I am very excited about Spaces. I am also quite interested in Time Machine as I have never seen a backup system easy enough for my parents to use, and have never seen any backup system that makes it as slick and easy to find the correct revision of a backed up documents.
In addition, several of the apps I use are getting outdated as the developers no longer support Panther (including some Apple ones). And to top it all off, I'd like to get a new machine and was naturally waiting for Leopard to come out so I don't have to pay another $150 dollars in 6 months. So the delay is somewhat of a big deal to me. That said I would much rather have stable software than an early release date. That goes for anyone, not just Apple.