I'm not sure you can patent a computer and keyboard arm. I have seen them used for ages for instruments, monitors, tools, in hospitals, shops, etc., and its not terribly novel. I use my computer from my recliner and I'm sure others do to.
I have thought of building my own monitor holder, but I don't have the equipment to work with light enough metal to make it a cool addition in my computer room. Imagine a 200 lb steel structure welded in the garage that has to be moved to the computer room. Patentable? This world is getting sick.
Too bad I don't have $490, so I'll have to settle for the computer on a table next to my recliner and couch. Almost as good, but not much room for adjustment. I hope to see something like this in stores soon as I would be tempted to charge it.
I used to think patents were a great way to capitalize on ideas. Well, after seeing how freedom breeds innovation and patents stiffle it, I would prefer to use a platform unencumbered by restrictions and secrecy.
It looks like the patent office is just becoming a strongarm registry, where you sugarcoat your idea with buzzwords and layers of obfuscated jargon to hide the true simple idea that has been rehashed throughout evolution.
Are patents evil? It makes me cringe that an Evil Software company can buy up all the research and patent things elementary and unrelated to its premise and steal such ideas as the door hinge for its own portfolio. When they have the bucks to apply for everything, it looks like they are going for World Domination. Then we can be written out of the Life's End User License Agreement.
I found easily mappable keys and the fast Eterms have kept me an enlightened user for many moons. I hope the good work continues as I see nice enhancements with each compile. E has come a long way since I first tried it in its snazzy version a few years ago. It was one of the reasons why I found Linux inspiring.
Don't be too quick to dismiss ethics in any form. Sure, Jeremy Rifkin may be a gadfly, but consider the alternitive. You like your food pumped full of antibiotics and steroids so that steak can be bigger and your milk can be 10 cents cheaper and stay a day longer in the fridge?
Computer ethics are lacking and this is why this topic needs to be discussed. Unless, of course, you consider today's commercial software to be high quality and provide you a secure future. Ethics just are a way to make us more aware of issues. Its education and its good.
"Don't get caught" might work for some people, but it might be much easier to specialize in an area one enjoys to learn and become very proficient. Else, your specialty could become lying and cheating. Want to follow the path of warez and you will find much company, but the path to shared code leads to much greater rewards.
I remember a flamboyant cheater in college. He was excellent in math, but couldn't grasp the concept of electronics. So he cheated like hell. Goddamn, we were working for an electrical engineering degree and he had problems comprehending logic gates. So, cheated he did. He is now one of those managers at Walmart who initials checks and petty stuff like that.
I remember a great anonymous remailer in Finland that we used in our college days when engaging in email from from the social newsgroups and getting a penpal. Sometimes being anonymous helps when finding relationships.
I remember that anonymous site getting raided because Scientologists were unhappy about a very vocal critic used that site to post very unflattering things about them. It was an army of lawyers from hell that ended what many thought was a great service. The computer was taken and the logs were no longer secret...
I found the section of "What Cannot be Patented" where it mentions perpetual motion machines. I once heard that the USPTO got a lot of those in all shapes and forms. It must be an image of status for the fringe to have the title "inventor" and attempt to claim rights on a intriguing device that seems to make energy from nothing.
I saw a thing on TV (if I remember right it was 20/20) where they were checking out these inventor kit/marketing scams where they submitted a little patent application of their own: a car cruise control fashioned of a brick to be placed on the accelerator pedal. The $700 "application fee" was accepted. Seems like the area of patents and IP are prime grounds for scam artists.
There isn't much to do when applying for a patent search, just pick a good library. I used Linda Hall Library in Kansas City (a large technical library) to help with a patent search. It was quick and the patent was approved with a few details corrected after the first submission.
Patents may be easy and may benefit you, but will they benefit the "inventor" who has a novel idea, or will the cost of entry be too high? Will the person be discouraged, tricked out of vital information by other interested parties and not be first, or get bought out or offered a throwaway employment position at a company right after the guy (or gal) signs all those rights away?
Lots of good reading and some hot spots that caught my attention. Quote: "geeks and nerds routinely brag about their software snatches..." Sounds reasonable to the average consumer computer user who think geeks have greasy hair and live in a dark room in front of a b/w monitor, but hell, Big Evil Software Companies make stealing an art. No need to brag, they just do it!
Ethical programming might include giving credit where credit is due, reliablitity, and let me add security in operating systems. (Ah yes, encryption: they don't sell cars without locks, and would you go traveling around the net without? Got anything to hide?)
Yes, this is true. *Always* check the md5sum of those popular packages against multiple mirrors. That would not protect you if the source was intercepted before it was mirrored, but that's what we get when our pants get caught down without widespread authenticication and encryption. Its a war. Corrupt organizations (I won't mention the NSA) might win and sooner than you think.
We need strong encryption implimented in the masses before its too late. There is too much plain text transfer and lack of authenticication. Imagine a few individuals trying to trojan your patch you submitted on freshmeat. Now, imagine the illusive NSA handling those packets for a brief moment in time to contaminate yours and everyone else's space forever. Paranoid? Perhaps I am, but I have been getting a noticable increase in/var/log/secure in the last few months.
If we don't protect ourselves from crackers and rougue governments, hell is going to walk on this planet soon. I predict it happening soon with the current lax security (or complete lack of!)
All laws are subject to interpretation. I say its time to get the lawyers involved and perhaps do some digging to see what kind of corruption we really have in the US government behind the "dangers" of encryption.
When I say all laws are subject to interpretation by the courts, let me relate my experience with a personal bad habit a several years back. You see, I liked to drive fast. A lot. From speeding tickets to OJ getting away with murder, I'm sure the principle behind encryption is much more honorable and should be pursued.
My experience with taking things to court suggest anything can be pursued given enough energy for much less than you think. I accumulated *five* speeding tickets in Kansas City. My lawyer told me the law only allowed one instance of getting a ticket reduced to, say, a "parking violation." I got two tickets that week, a 90 in a 55 and a 69 in a 55. I may have interested him with my comment I would like to fight these (perhaps unwisely) to the supreme court. He was intrigued and to make a long story short and a few courtroom visits later, I had no points on my license due to him getting the worst violations dismissed for technical wording. I added up the legal costs out of my pocket was $1055. After that I got rid of my radar detector and haven't gotten a ticket since.
Anyhow, I'm sure this encryption debate is not a boring issue with some powerful, yet isolated government officials. Its time to turn up the heat and see how they react. It has nothing to do with terrorism or child molestors, but may have much to do with government officials stealing secrets from industry and their sideline consulting businesses. I think denying citizens the right to privacy is treason and I'm sure there is real evidence of corruption involved.
Using old 486 laptops as xterms works *very* well with an ethernet card. Just export the displays you wish and your main box will appear to have many heads. Just ifconfig the ip, export the display, and set xhosts on the remote to allow the access. It takes a few minutes and the results are low powered heads displaying lots of additional screen realestate.
When the phone calls always go through and a bill arrives every month without fail (yuck!) I doubted it was the hyped borg software of a Big Evil Software Company behind it all. Unlike a certain naval destroyer that had a "invalid entry" that crashed the *entire network* the phone company seems to be put together with common sense, not marketing. Nothing like peer reviewed software watching all those switches.
They are doing this to protect us from terrorists and molestors. Its all to protect our children. Now the government is becoming the terrorist and they are going to rape and pillage our minds and property. We are the little children and government has a responsibility to police us, because there were a few criminals in the adult population. Something had to be done and laws were passed. Welcome to hell...
MP3 is allready popular! I'm vacationing here in Kansas City and picked up a Diamond RIO MP3 player for $150 at one of these office supply stores. This thing is perfection down to the gold plated jack and the audio is equaly perfect. With something like this on the market, why wait for something proprietary that will break current ripped collections? cdparanioa and bladenc work great with it and the AA battery lasts 12 hours. Pick one up, these things are great!
My car is not Y2K compliant. And its the government's fault! (Damn inspection stickers only lasts 12 months.) So, I can get a ticket with two zeros in it ($100 is a hefty fine) for not having my car Y2K compliant.
Its all a scam I tell ya! NT crashes now, why wait?
Bad words about NT might have something to do with the years of abuse and mind games it inflicts upon my time. Just this morning, I had to deal with an NT machine that peed all over itself and "lost" a whole directory of files. How does a computer just lose files? And I had to reboot another NT machine, not once, but twice to get it working. What's up with that? No, these are not desktop machines that people use, but ones locked in a cabinet used to control *shudder* equipment. Nothing like downtime and scrap, let me tell you.
Yes, it will get worse. When all the little companies merge into One Big Corporation (it can't sue itself) there will be no competition and it can honestly market itself as the number one service. I prefer lots of little companies, like little servers, rather than One Big Company. Its One Big FU waiting to happen...
I did a fork bomb as a user once on my box and I got tired of waiting for it to crash, but when I came home from work 12 hours later, it was dead and not pingable. It was an older development kernel, but I'm wondering how Linux withstands these attacks currently. Anyone tried? I'd hate to kill my uptime...
Expect lots of overseas accounts. Our president is now creating crime on the internet. Just like the war on drugs, now we will have a war on information and expression of extreme thoughts written into text. It will be here soon...
I would imagine the problems we have with the conflicting and silly laws we have is the low voter turnout and research on a bill's viability is based on polls. Statistics, not for love of the country.
So, my question is, if better than 95% of eligible voters had their voice punched on the ballot, would it be the end all of obscure laws, mudslinging, and corruption? Eligible voters should be based on age only (18) and nothing else. Having a disagreement with the law and getting a felony, etc, should be no excuse for silence. I feel it is everyone's duty to participate. Is this unreasonable?
Thank you for wishing me a better life as I enjoy opening documents and not having to worry about viruses. I enjoy a better life without rebooting and downtime every time I wish to install something. Thank you for understanding.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure you can patent a computer and keyboard arm. I have seen them used for ages for instruments, monitors, tools, in hospitals, shops, etc., and its not terribly novel. I use my computer from my recliner and I'm sure others do to.
I have thought of building my own monitor holder, but I don't have the equipment to work with light enough metal to make it a cool addition in my computer room. Imagine a 200 lb steel structure welded in the garage that has to be moved to the computer room. Patentable? This world is getting sick.
Too bad I don't have $490, so I'll have to settle for the computer on a table next to my recliner and couch. Almost as good, but not much room for adjustment. I hope to see something like this in stores soon as I would be tempted to charge it.
Meanwhile, it's fun hitting the news sites every few minutes to see the pecking order of how the story propagates.
As expected, msnbc denies the association with the NSA. Looks like this article was carefully prepared by the PR chefs to me.
I used to think patents were a great way to capitalize on ideas. Well, after seeing how freedom breeds innovation and patents stiffle it, I would prefer to use a platform unencumbered by restrictions and secrecy.
It looks like the patent office is just becoming a strongarm registry, where you sugarcoat your idea with buzzwords and layers of obfuscated jargon to hide the true simple idea that has been rehashed throughout evolution.
Are patents evil? It makes me cringe that an Evil Software company can buy up all the research and patent things elementary and unrelated to its premise and steal such ideas as the door hinge for its own portfolio. When they have the bucks to apply for everything, it looks like they are going for World Domination. Then we can be written out of the Life's End User License Agreement.
I found easily mappable keys and the fast Eterms have kept me an enlightened user for many moons. I hope the good work continues as I see nice enhancements with each compile. E has come a long way since I first tried it in its snazzy version a few years ago. It was one of the reasons why I found Linux inspiring.
Don't be too quick to dismiss ethics in any form. Sure, Jeremy Rifkin may be a gadfly, but consider the alternitive. You like your food pumped full of antibiotics and steroids so that steak can be bigger and your milk can be 10 cents cheaper and stay a day longer in the fridge?
Computer ethics are lacking and this is why this topic needs to be discussed. Unless, of course, you consider today's commercial software to be high quality and provide you a secure future. Ethics just are a way to make us more aware of issues. Its education and its good.
"Don't get caught" might work for some people, but it might be much easier to specialize in an area one enjoys to learn and become very proficient. Else, your specialty could become lying and cheating. Want to follow the path of warez and you will find much company, but the path to shared code leads to much greater rewards.
I remember a flamboyant cheater in college. He was excellent in math, but couldn't grasp the concept of electronics. So he cheated like hell. Goddamn, we were working for an electrical engineering degree and he had problems comprehending logic gates. So, cheated he did. He is now one of those managers at Walmart who initials checks and petty stuff like that.
I remember a great anonymous remailer in Finland that we used in our college days when engaging in email from from the social newsgroups and getting a penpal. Sometimes being anonymous helps when finding relationships.
I remember that anonymous site getting raided because Scientologists were unhappy about a very vocal critic used that site to post very unflattering things about them. It was an army of lawyers from hell that ended what many thought was a great service. The computer was taken and the logs were no longer secret...
I found the section of "What Cannot be Patented" where it mentions perpetual motion machines. I once heard that the USPTO got a lot of those in all shapes and forms. It must be an image of status for the fringe to have the title "inventor" and attempt to claim rights on a intriguing device that seems to make energy from nothing.
I saw a thing on TV (if I remember right it was 20/20) where they were checking out these inventor kit/marketing scams where they submitted a little patent application of their own: a car cruise control fashioned of a brick to be placed on the accelerator pedal. The $700 "application fee" was accepted. Seems like the area of patents and IP are prime grounds for scam artists.
There isn't much to do when applying for a patent search, just pick a good library. I used Linda Hall Library in Kansas City (a large technical library) to help with a patent search. It was quick and the patent was approved with a few details corrected after the first submission.
Patents may be easy and may benefit you, but will they benefit the "inventor" who has a novel idea, or will the cost of entry be too high? Will the person be discouraged, tricked out of vital information by other interested parties and not be first, or get bought out or offered a throwaway employment position at a company right after the guy (or gal) signs all those rights away?
Lots of good reading and some hot spots that caught my attention. Quote: "geeks and nerds routinely brag about their software snatches..." Sounds reasonable to the average consumer computer user who think geeks have greasy hair and live in a dark room in front of a b/w monitor, but hell, Big Evil Software Companies make stealing an art. No need to brag, they just do it!
Ethical programming might include giving credit where credit is due, reliablitity, and let me add security in operating systems. (Ah yes, encryption: they don't sell cars without locks, and would you go traveling around the net without? Got anything to hide?)
Yes, this is true. *Always* check the md5sum of those popular packages against multiple mirrors. That would not protect you if the source was intercepted before it was mirrored, but that's what we get when our pants get caught down without widespread authenticication and encryption. Its a war. Corrupt organizations (I won't mention the NSA) might win and sooner than you think.
We need strong encryption implimented in the masses before its too late. There is too much plain text transfer and lack of authenticication. Imagine a few individuals trying to trojan your patch you submitted on freshmeat. Now, imagine the illusive NSA handling those packets for a brief moment in time to contaminate yours and everyone else's space forever. Paranoid? Perhaps I am, but I have been getting a noticable increase in /var/log/secure in the last few months.
If we don't protect ourselves from crackers and rougue governments, hell is going to walk on this planet soon. I predict it happening soon with the current lax security (or complete lack of!)
Damn the NSA. Send it to hell.
All laws are subject to interpretation. I say its time to get the lawyers involved and perhaps do some digging to see what kind of corruption we really have in the US government behind the "dangers" of encryption.
When I say all laws are subject to interpretation by the courts, let me relate my experience with a personal bad habit a several years back. You see, I liked to drive fast. A lot. From speeding tickets to OJ getting away with murder, I'm sure the principle behind encryption is much more honorable and should be pursued.
My experience with taking things to court suggest anything can be pursued given enough energy for much less than you think. I accumulated *five* speeding tickets in Kansas City. My lawyer told me the law only allowed one instance of getting a ticket reduced to, say, a "parking violation." I got two tickets that week, a 90 in a 55 and a 69 in a 55. I may have interested him with my comment I would like to fight these (perhaps unwisely) to the supreme court. He was intrigued and to make a long story short and a few courtroom visits later, I had no points on my license due to him getting the worst violations dismissed for technical wording. I added up the legal costs out of my pocket was $1055. After that I got rid of my radar detector and haven't gotten a ticket since.
Anyhow, I'm sure this encryption debate is not a boring issue with some powerful, yet isolated government officials. Its time to turn up the heat and see how they react. It has nothing to do with terrorism or child molestors, but may have much to do with government officials stealing secrets from industry and their sideline consulting businesses. I think denying citizens the right to privacy is treason and I'm sure there is real evidence of corruption involved.
Using old 486 laptops as xterms works *very* well with an ethernet card. Just export the displays you wish and your main box will appear to have many heads. Just ifconfig the ip, export the display, and set xhosts on the remote to allow the access. It takes a few minutes and the results are low powered heads displaying lots of additional screen realestate.
When the phone calls always go through and a bill arrives every month without fail (yuck!) I doubted it was the hyped borg software of a Big Evil Software Company behind it all. Unlike a certain naval destroyer that had a "invalid entry" that crashed the *entire network* the phone company seems to be put together with common sense, not marketing. Nothing like peer reviewed software watching all those switches.
They are doing this to protect us from terrorists and molestors. Its all to protect our children. Now the government is becoming the terrorist and they are going to rape and pillage our minds and property. We are the little children and government has a responsibility to police us, because there were a few criminals in the adult population. Something had to be done and laws were passed. Welcome to hell...
MP3 is allready popular! I'm vacationing here in Kansas City and picked up a Diamond RIO MP3 player for $150 at one of these office supply stores. This thing is perfection down to the gold plated jack and the audio is equaly perfect. With something like this on the market, why wait for something proprietary that will break current ripped collections? cdparanioa and bladenc work great with it and the AA battery lasts 12 hours. Pick one up, these things are great!
My car is not Y2K compliant. And its the government's fault! (Damn inspection stickers only lasts 12 months.) So, I can get a ticket with two zeros in it ($100 is a hefty fine) for not having my car Y2K compliant.
Its all a scam I tell ya! NT crashes now, why wait?
Bad words about NT might have something to do with the years of abuse and mind games it inflicts upon my time. Just this morning, I had to deal with an NT machine that peed all over itself and "lost" a whole directory of files. How does a computer just lose files? And I had to reboot another NT machine, not once, but twice to get it working. What's up with that? No, these are not desktop machines that people use, but ones locked in a cabinet used to control *shudder* equipment. Nothing like downtime and scrap, let me tell you.
Yes, it will get worse. When all the little companies merge into One Big Corporation (it can't sue itself) there will be no competition and it can honestly market itself as the number one service. I prefer lots of little companies, like little servers, rather than One Big Company. Its One Big FU waiting to happen...
I did a fork bomb as a user once on my box and I got tired of waiting for it to crash, but when I came home from work 12 hours later, it was dead and not pingable. It was an older development kernel, but I'm wondering how Linux withstands these attacks currently. Anyone tried? I'd hate to kill my uptime...
Expect lots of overseas accounts. Our president is now creating crime on the internet. Just like the war on drugs, now we will have a war on information and expression of extreme thoughts written into text. It will be here soon...
I would imagine the problems we have with the conflicting and silly laws we have is the low voter turnout and research on a bill's viability is based on polls. Statistics, not for love of the country.
So, my question is, if better than 95% of eligible voters had their voice punched on the ballot, would it be the end all of obscure laws, mudslinging, and corruption? Eligible voters should be based on age only (18) and nothing else. Having a disagreement with the law and getting a felony, etc, should be no excuse for silence. I feel it is everyone's duty to participate. Is this unreasonable?
Here's a little animation (The Maya example shipped with A/W is in the middle of the page) of what it can do.
Thank you for wishing me a better life as I enjoy opening documents and not having to worry about viruses. I enjoy a better life without rebooting and downtime every time I wish to install something. Thank you for understanding.