The organization offers the codes to municipal governments for adoption into law.
The private organization wants to keep the copyright over the material itself. They don't want to lose control of these specifications; if that happened then another individual or private organization could freely use the specifications in their own work (such as in building handbook).
What if you found that someone was breaking law XYZ but the law was copyrighted? Or if you are required to do something according to law XYZ?
Then how do you explain in writing what is happening if you can't even say XYZ?
How many employers look at the paperwork? If you answer the right questions in the interview and you produce something the employer knows you're better than an arbitrarily chosen person with a degree.
The problem with books - they don't give you enough how-to-do-something. Books have a lot of information, but we really need better books.
Look how much free information and multimedia tidbits are free over the Internet.
It's time a well structured open source movement got under way in entertainment. After all, we're talking about publicly disseminated bits duplicated on a mass scale, that would sooner or later be made widely available (surely there is a word for such things).
Open source entertainment would mean professional quality with copyleft.
Besides, in so many years, computers will produce the entire entertainment experience like a mini Matrix. They're already so good at special effects, it's just a matter of time.
I'm not aware of any case where Microsoft or any other big company is trying to shutdown an Open Source project using patent laws.
I have a feeling that big software companies may have willingly contributed to open source.
However, if patent law for software blows wide open, big software companies might have no choice but to get as many patents as possible if only for protection.
I like the part about inventors being protected. Any poor schmuck can invent an algorithm and sell it to earn a living rather than allowing some rich jerk reverse engineer it and use it in a business.
Software is typically not locked into a jurisdiction. It's production is not confined to a factory. There is no bricks and mortar as long as the software is not used to run a business with a bricks and mortar element.
If the Internet is fast enough, software can be running on a server far away where no patent restriction exists.
The new patent law will cause a spike in inflation. Initially software developers will pay a lot to get as many patents as possible on many little routines. No one wants to leave any crumbs around. If many patents come into existence, there may be a large number of lawsuits going around with people trying to grab as much money as possible. This will cause all kinds of businesses thinking of new software to raise prices.
The inflationary surge should start soon, even before the vote. Programmers that anticipate a patent deadlock, the situation where patent holders sue each other for every little software tidbit, have to raise capital now to patent as much as possible. Research has to be done to prepare for patent applications. No one wants to miss the boat.
What has to be prepared? I'm not an expert in patent law, but the software developer has to show that the software does something not done before in existing patents, at the very least. This will mean searching the patents as well as explaining what the software does so nicely. Time consuming and expensive but the loser pays the winner so it's worth it.
One can bet that all the large companies that get in the race will try to patent everything and the kitchen sink so a lot of software may be unpatentable due to competing claims received at the same time for the same thing.
All the same, no one wants to find out that quicksort has been patented by IJKIJK Inc. all because no one else competed for it.
A ton of money was spent on Y2K. Now a frenzy of spending will occur for patents.
Let's compile lists of software, patented and yet-to-be-patented.
Re:Barking up the wrong tree
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
Sometimes I wish I was employed at a regular job. I consult and have tons of work to do but it's always scary what will happen.
There's too much risk in taking time to read slashdot.
It's amazing how much I sit in my cubicle teaching the three guys from Bangalore how to do my job
It's mathematically futile to work yourself out of a job. The situation would look better if the company is leveraging a better position in the market for all the work you're doing.
Anyways your job can't be that big a deal if you can train uneducated people to do what you do.
Oh yeah, those student loans... all $60k worth of them
I don't know where you went to school, but I earned my degrees with tuition averaging $2000 per year. Now it may cost $3000 per year and up to $8000 a year including the cost of living if you rent on your own.
Still, education should be open source. The technology is here!
Welcome to the 21st Century
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
I don't understand the new overworked and underpaid turn of events.
Technology is supposed to give you more money or save you more time. Instead we have a lot of companies all competing for the same markets.
We don't have to consider the people who are on the cutting edge where they must work hard. These people are taking risks and therefore must put up or shut up. They have a huge reward if they succeed.
However, look at the ordinary work with known paths of training and execution. In this world there is less risk and more automation. Computers and machines have slowly taken over many well understood tasks. Now a huge number of people come out of schools thinking that they just get a bunch of machines, get them working and life is all good.
This mindset must be identified as a lazy ass attitude.
Look at all the people graduating from schools. How many of them will invent something? How many of them will risk their life savings?
Companies don't have to pay extra for people who work hard but fail, but they should pay big time for real success. Employees have no loyalty because there is no opportunity and because they have a lazy ass attitude. They think there is no need to push. Life is comfortable enough if everyone moves in lockstep. In fact, trying too hard may force one out of this comfort zone.
Well we have a wake up call don't we? Employers want more hours and no overtime. Global competition is here, which is not a bad thing - after all, everyone is stuck on a spherical planet and what if there was no such thing as an international boundary? Additionally, automation will squeeze people into more responsible positions where they have to make tough decisions under constant scrutiny. Nanotechnology will force people to work at a higher quantum level.
Eventually, machines will make life and work comfortable. People might not even have to work for the minimal requirements of life. However, the people with the greatest power will be those who have taken the most risk.
Global competition is forcing us to work harder, counter to our expectations of more for less. This is an illusion. The real problem is not enough desire to create. The truly creative community will be the strongest.
This kind of creativity is not just a matter of new ways for old objectives. I'm talking about new objectives, problems that keep resisting solution. Millions of people are graduating from school at this time of the year, but most of these minds won't even take one step at what they think is impossible. Their goals are so simple - get a job, earn enough for a mansion.
There's no room for failure in a life like that. It makes no sense. This is the 21st century, a time when it is safe to fail. There is always a way to earn a living sufficient to try something. Jobs that involve creativity should involve long hours, but mcjobs that don't really rely on any creativity should be short. The only thing is, people doing a mcjob typically do nothing enlightening when they finish work. It only makes sense to keep them at work longer because their lives are so meaningless outside of work. They don't mean anything to employers - after a few years they can be replaced with bots.
It's kind of subtle. Successful companies grow and hire more people, but they merge and drop so-called redundant people. The market base is served adequately by increased automation. People, you want technology to do more and you want people to create technology, but you have to create too.
Re:The problem is people take jobs just for the mo
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job very much and is very good at it (he's a grocery manager). He has pretty good hours too, he's up at 3am and back home by noon ot have the rest of the day to do the things he enjoyes in life (golf, woodworking etc.). He makes about $60-75K a year
Someone making $60-75K a year can sure relate to low-wage earners. How much does his managees earn? $8/hour?
As soon as Netflix is hit by competitors doing something similar but not protected the patent won't mean anything.
How about this: instead of giving customers a Max Out number of movies, give them 1000 discs every month and swap the 1000 with a different 1000 every month no ifs ands or buts. The customer gets a hefty selection but can't choose specific movies. Therefore there is no need for an Internet connection. The customer just picks a disk from a box. So much for all those interesting computer block diagrams on the patent and phooey on all the verbiage on "... based upon the one or more item selection criteria, an item rental queue...".
Every month the box is traded for a new one with unknown contents. Missing/damaged disks will be charged for.
Still good enough for a business. It's not the Netflix way but who can really feel the difference? Customer has option to buy too. Is that cool or what?
Then you get a rental business that is a cut above a TV movie channel - no advertising and with full DVD control. Well just when is the next generation of TV coming anyways???
Netflix can't have a monopoly. It'll have to escalate competition out of the patent. Also, competitors will patent their escalation! Netflix, by playing hardball, might have established a precedent leading to its own destruction.
We have exorcised the demons. This house is clear. - Ace Ventura Pet Detective
This phenomenon appears all over the universe. Scientists call it dark energy. No one really knows how it can interact with us, but such a wide spread manifestation of odd data can only be caused by a dark energy operating on a universal scale.
Dark energy is actually waste from an alien intelligence. Remember, for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. The aliens are trying to accumulate as much mass energy as they can but they are cause a lot of mass energy to be pushed away because they need something to push against.
Alternate explanation: gravity will collapse the universe but an intelligence may be periodically separating the mass energy to keep the universe in a dynamic equilibrium.
There is a good reason for having cheap access to information.
I like to have all my information on computers. This allows me to be more efficient.
However, producers of information need to be rewarded. Technology reduces the value of publicized information. Any information released to the public (not necessarily to the public domain) that is really worth acquiring will be in some form available for copying. Besides, no one wants to pay more than necessary. They question the arbitrary pricing of the recording industry.
I believe that information should be available for reduced costs. The newest information should have a premium price for those who have the greatest need to have it right away. However, information just joins a sea of data that loses its value.
Information and art are meant to impel us to a better world. A lot of people need to wake up to any inspiration they are getting. Where is the ambition? Where is the initiative?
Art is not just to keep people entertained all the time. There's certainly enough available to maintain a level of good feeling, but people need to motivate themselves rather than just letting a select few people in the world take all the risks.
There is a lot of very inspiring art happening nowadays. Reward the artists. Become inspired. Do something.
All computer information is a stream of 0s and 1s. It all looks like code. It could even be all garbage.
If people store their data as binary files with no obvious way of telling what the bits mean, no one is going to be able to point the finger at anyone.
What I would like to see is an Internet so fast that no one will have to copy anything to their own machine. Everything sits on mirror servers. People can download, but the speed of the Internet should make downloading a nuisance.
Content producers can be paid by the government just like road builders and sewer builders, etc. Private contributions can be used to encourage people who are exceptionally good.
Technology is supposed to make it easier for people to get information. If it makes it so easy to copy information, let's help out the good content producers with tax money. It's a good deal since everyone benefits. People can choose which producers some of their tax dollars go to and a general pool of money can be used to support all producers.
Some people can choose to make content production their primary source of income but the Internet should provide such a rich body of information that most people would choose more lucrative endeavors.
If I like something, sooner or later I will own a copy of it. Consider movies: I bought a few copies of movies that I like and I rent a lot more that I don't really like to buy. I noticed that VHS movie prices have plunged and many DVDs are available at reduced rates too so information becomes more and more affordable.
The last time I checked, music prices weren't dropping that much, but that just made me ignore music and spend money on DVDs.
What I really don't like is changing discs. A few CDs are at least 80% likable, but a lot of CDs are only likable for one or two tracks. As a result, I listen to the radio for music even though I bought a lot of CDs over the past years.
However, I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount to any music publisher that can compile discs or downloads that contain only the works that I want. They can throw in a bunch of freebies collected at random to see if I get interested.
I don't have the time or inclination to scour the Internet for scraps that people may happen to make available. It just ends up costing me as much as it would if I were to get it all at once from publishers.
Publishers, if you save people the time it takes to get the good stuff, they will pay for it. Most likely, this kind of service will be readily available at a low enough cost that makes fileshare searches unappealing.
The recording industry shouldn't bother people about whether they are circumventing some kind of copyright technology. Instead, make music interesting. Look at the DVD approach, where consumers are informed with commentary. Music and all kinds of information should be accompanied by extra information. It wouldn't be difficult to add information about the artist's motivation for a song, how the song was played, lyrics, instruments, etc. so that someone can reproduce the music outside the player. Artists can gain support beyond mere sales if they offer a richer experience to consumers.
Re:$44 trillion is PV of debt in perpetuity
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 1
The entire United States of America can be converted to wind powered electricity using only 14,000 acres of turbine footprint area on existing farmland, pasture, and prarie. That's about twice the area of the Stanford University campus, or about as much oak forest lost in California each year.
Please tell Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Based on his Energy Committee testimony last week, nobody has explained this to him yet. Please phone +1.202.452.3204 and ask for Michelle Smith or Andrew Williams.
Agreed. But hold a propeller near your mouth as you speak. Obviously if the entire electrical requirements of the US can be obtained from 14000 acres if everyone phones and farts at the same time near propeller generators they will generate enough power to shut off all the legacy generators.
Slashdot Mirror
The organization offers the codes to municipal governments for adoption into law.
The private organization wants to keep the copyright over the material itself. They don't want to lose control of these specifications; if that happened then another individual or private organization could freely use the specifications in their own work (such as in building handbook).
What if you found that someone was breaking law XYZ but the law was copyrighted? Or if you are required to do something according to law XYZ?
Then how do you explain in writing what is happening if you can't even say XYZ?
Why isn't NASA coming out with a new orbiter. Shouldn't there be one by now?
However, those pieces of paper are not
How many employers look at the paperwork? If you answer the right questions in the interview and you produce something the employer knows you're better than an arbitrarily chosen person with a degree.
The problem with books - they don't give you enough how-to-do-something. Books have a lot of information, but we really need better books.
Then Linux is outlawed for not having the US government metering package?
The whole problem is electricity. To wit, electric charge. Charges should not repel or attract. They should not cause or respond to magnetic fields.
Look how much free information and multimedia tidbits are free over the Internet.
It's time a well structured open source movement got under way in entertainment. After all, we're talking about publicly disseminated bits duplicated on a mass scale, that would sooner or later be made widely available (surely there is a word for such things).
Open source entertainment would mean professional quality with copyleft.
Besides, in so many years, computers will produce the entire entertainment experience like a mini Matrix. They're already so good at special effects, it's just a matter of time.
bought all the lottery tickets he could afford
For me that would be 2 tickets
Just what is spam?
I pulled the doors off and seperated the double panes of glass and removed the "COKE" logos
...
A nonzero probability that Coke owns the cooler
Throttle the traffic. Only allow normal information in and out.
Monitor the traffic
The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers
If the number is large how do you know it is prime?
LZW per se is not patentable. LZW using a computer to compress images is.
Then use LZW on a Turing machine.
I'm not aware of any case where Microsoft or any other big company is trying to shutdown an Open Source project using patent laws.
I have a feeling that big software companies may have willingly contributed to open source.
However, if patent law for software blows wide open, big software companies might have no choice but to get as many patents as possible if only for protection.
I like the part about inventors being protected. Any poor schmuck can invent an algorithm and sell it to earn a living rather than allowing some rich jerk reverse engineer it and use it in a business.
Software is typically not locked into a jurisdiction. It's production is not confined to a factory. There is no bricks and mortar as long as the software is not used to run a business with a bricks and mortar element.
If the Internet is fast enough, software can be running on a server far away where no patent restriction exists.
The new patent law will cause a spike in inflation. Initially software developers will pay a lot to get as many patents as possible on many little routines. No one wants to leave any crumbs around. If many patents come into existence, there may be a large number of lawsuits going around with people trying to grab as much money as possible. This will cause all kinds of businesses thinking of new software to raise prices.
The inflationary surge should start soon, even before the vote. Programmers that anticipate a patent deadlock, the situation where patent holders sue each other for every little software tidbit, have to raise capital now to patent as much as possible. Research has to be done to prepare for patent applications. No one wants to miss the boat.
What has to be prepared? I'm not an expert in patent law, but the software developer has to show that the software does something not done before in existing patents, at the very least. This will mean searching the patents as well as explaining what the software does so nicely. Time consuming and expensive but the loser pays the winner so it's worth it.
One can bet that all the large companies that get in the race will try to patent everything and the kitchen sink so a lot of software may be unpatentable due to competing claims received at the same time for the same thing.
All the same, no one wants to find out that quicksort has been patented by IJKIJK Inc. all because no one else competed for it.
A ton of money was spent on Y2K. Now a frenzy of spending will occur for patents.
Let's compile lists of software, patented and yet-to-be-patented.
Sometimes I wish I was employed at a regular job. I consult and have tons of work to do but it's always scary what will happen.
There's too much risk in taking time to read slashdot.
There's too much risk not to.
make the world better ok?
It's amazing how much I sit in my cubicle teaching the three guys from Bangalore how to do my job
It's mathematically futile to work yourself out of a job. The situation would look better if the company is leveraging a better position in the market for all the work you're doing.
Anyways your job can't be that big a deal if you can train uneducated people to do what you do.
Oh yeah, those student loans... all $60k worth of them
I don't know where you went to school, but I earned my degrees with tuition averaging $2000 per year. Now it may cost $3000 per year and up to $8000 a year including the cost of living if you rent on your own.
Still, education should be open source. The technology is here!
I don't understand the new overworked and underpaid turn of events.
Technology is supposed to give you more money or save you more time. Instead we have a lot of companies all competing for the same markets.
We don't have to consider the people who are on the cutting edge where they must work hard. These people are taking risks and therefore must put up or shut up. They have a huge reward if they succeed.
However, look at the ordinary work with known paths of training and execution. In this world there is less risk and more automation. Computers and machines have slowly taken over many well understood tasks. Now a huge number of people come out of schools thinking that they just get a bunch of machines, get them working and life is all good.
This mindset must be identified as a lazy ass attitude.
Look at all the people graduating from schools. How many of them will invent something? How many of them will risk their life savings?
Companies don't have to pay extra for people who work hard but fail, but they should pay big time for real success. Employees have no loyalty because there is no opportunity and because they have a lazy ass attitude. They think there is no need to push. Life is comfortable enough if everyone moves in lockstep. In fact, trying too hard may force one out of this comfort zone.
Well we have a wake up call don't we? Employers want more hours and no overtime. Global competition is here, which is not a bad thing - after all, everyone is stuck on a spherical planet and what if there was no such thing as an international boundary? Additionally, automation will squeeze people into more responsible positions where they have to make tough decisions under constant scrutiny. Nanotechnology will force people to work at a higher quantum level.
Eventually, machines will make life and work comfortable. People might not even have to work for the minimal requirements of life. However, the people with the greatest power will be those who have taken the most risk.
Global competition is forcing us to work harder, counter to our expectations of more for less. This is an illusion. The real problem is not enough desire to create. The truly creative community will be the strongest.
This kind of creativity is not just a matter of new ways for old objectives. I'm talking about new objectives, problems that keep resisting solution. Millions of people are graduating from school at this time of the year, but most of these minds won't even take one step at what they think is impossible. Their goals are so simple - get a job, earn enough for a mansion.
There's no room for failure in a life like that. It makes no sense. This is the 21st century, a time when it is safe to fail. There is always a way to earn a living sufficient to try something. Jobs that involve creativity should involve long hours, but mcjobs that don't really rely on any creativity should be short. The only thing is, people doing a mcjob typically do nothing enlightening when they finish work. It only makes sense to keep them at work longer because their lives are so meaningless outside of work. They don't mean anything to employers - after a few years they can be replaced with bots.
It's kind of subtle. Successful companies grow and hire more people, but they merge and drop so-called redundant people. The market base is served adequately by increased automation. People, you want technology to do more and you want people to create technology, but you have to create too.
Your assuming that people in lower wage jobs don't like thier job. Actually, my brother-in-law likes his job very much and is very good at it (he's a grocery manager). He has pretty good hours too, he's up at 3am and back home by noon ot have the rest of the day to do the things he enjoyes in life (golf, woodworking etc.). He makes about $60-75K a year
Someone making $60-75K a year can sure relate to low-wage earners. How much does his managees earn? $8/hour?
As soon as Netflix is hit by competitors doing something similar but not protected the patent won't mean anything.
...".
How about this: instead of giving customers a Max Out number of movies, give them 1000 discs every month and swap the 1000 with a different 1000 every month no ifs ands or buts. The customer gets a hefty selection but can't choose specific movies. Therefore there is no need for an Internet connection. The customer just picks a disk from a box. So much for all those interesting computer block diagrams on the patent and phooey on all the verbiage on "... based upon the one or more item selection criteria, an item rental queue
Every month the box is traded for a new one with unknown contents. Missing/damaged disks will be charged for.
Still good enough for a business. It's not the Netflix way but who can really feel the difference? Customer has option to buy too. Is that cool or what?
Then you get a rental business that is a cut above a TV movie channel - no advertising and with full DVD control. Well just when is the next generation of TV coming anyways???
Netflix can't have a monopoly. It'll have to escalate competition out of the patent. Also, competitors will patent their escalation! Netflix, by playing hardball, might have established a precedent leading to its own destruction.
We have exorcised the demons. This house is clear. - Ace Ventura Pet Detective
This phenomenon appears all over the universe. Scientists call it dark energy. No one really knows how it can interact with us, but such a wide spread manifestation of odd data can only be caused by a dark energy operating on a universal scale.
Dark energy is actually waste from an alien intelligence. Remember, for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. The aliens are trying to accumulate as much mass energy as they can but they are cause a lot of mass energy to be pushed away because they need something to push against.
Alternate explanation: gravity will collapse the universe but an intelligence may be periodically separating the mass energy to keep the universe in a dynamic equilibrium.
There is a good reason for having cheap access to information.
I like to have all my information on computers. This allows me to be more efficient.
However, producers of information need to be rewarded. Technology reduces the value of publicized information. Any information released to the public (not necessarily to the public domain) that is really worth acquiring will be in some form available for copying. Besides, no one wants to pay more than necessary. They question the arbitrary pricing of the recording industry.
I believe that information should be available for reduced costs. The newest information should have a premium price for those who have the greatest need to have it right away. However, information just joins a sea of data that loses its value.
Information and art are meant to impel us to a better world. A lot of people need to wake up to any inspiration they are getting. Where is the ambition? Where is the initiative?
Art is not just to keep people entertained all the time. There's certainly enough available to maintain a level of good feeling, but people need to motivate themselves rather than just letting a select few people in the world take all the risks.
There is a lot of very inspiring art happening nowadays. Reward the artists. Become inspired. Do something.
All computer information is a stream of 0s and 1s. It all looks like code. It could even be all garbage.
If people store their data as binary files with no obvious way of telling what the bits mean, no one is going to be able to point the finger at anyone.
What I would like to see is an Internet so fast that no one will have to copy anything to their own machine. Everything sits on mirror servers. People can download, but the speed of the Internet should make downloading a nuisance.
Content producers can be paid by the government just like road builders and sewer builders, etc. Private contributions can be used to encourage people who are exceptionally good.
Technology is supposed to make it easier for people to get information. If it makes it so easy to copy information, let's help out the good content producers with tax money. It's a good deal since everyone benefits. People can choose which producers some of their tax dollars go to and a general pool of money can be used to support all producers.
Some people can choose to make content production their primary source of income but the Internet should provide such a rich body of information that most people would choose more lucrative endeavors.
Sweden is a small country - very useful for a guineau pig.
If I like something, sooner or later I will own a copy of it. Consider movies: I bought a few copies of movies that I like and I rent a lot more that I don't really like to buy. I noticed that VHS movie prices have plunged and many DVDs are available at reduced rates too so information becomes more and more affordable.
The last time I checked, music prices weren't dropping that much, but that just made me ignore music and spend money on DVDs.
What I really don't like is changing discs. A few CDs are at least 80% likable, but a lot of CDs are only likable for one or two tracks. As a result, I listen to the radio for music even though I bought a lot of CDs over the past years.
However, I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount to any music publisher that can compile discs or downloads that contain only the works that I want. They can throw in a bunch of freebies collected at random to see if I get interested.
I don't have the time or inclination to scour the Internet for scraps that people may happen to make available. It just ends up costing me as much as it would if I were to get it all at once from publishers.
Publishers, if you save people the time it takes to get the good stuff, they will pay for it. Most likely, this kind of service will be readily available at a low enough cost that makes fileshare searches unappealing.
The recording industry shouldn't bother people about whether they are circumventing some kind of copyright technology. Instead, make music interesting. Look at the DVD approach, where consumers are informed with commentary. Music and all kinds of information should be accompanied by extra information. It wouldn't be difficult to add information about the artist's motivation for a song, how the song was played, lyrics, instruments, etc. so that someone can reproduce the music outside the player. Artists can gain support beyond mere sales if they offer a richer experience to consumers.
The entire United States of America can be converted to wind powered electricity using only 14,000 acres of turbine footprint area on existing farmland, pasture, and prarie. That's about twice the area of the Stanford University campus, or about as much oak forest lost in California each year.
Please tell Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Based on his Energy Committee testimony last week, nobody has explained this to him yet. Please phone +1.202.452.3204 and ask for Michelle Smith or Andrew Williams.
Agreed. But hold a propeller near your mouth as you speak. Obviously if the entire electrical requirements of the US can be obtained from 14000 acres if everyone phones and farts at the same time near propeller generators they will generate enough power to shut off all the legacy generators.
You're missing the point. The pilings are driven by the windmills whose whole purpose is to move pilings like a giant sail.
So they will run right into the whales.