Many complex systems display a surprising degree of tolerance against errors. For example, relatively simple
organisms grow, persist and reproduce despite drastic pharmaceutical or environmental interventions, an error
tolerance attributed to the robustness of the underlying metabolic network. Complex communication networks
display a surprising degree of robustness: although key components regularly malfunction, local failures rarely lead
to the loss of the global information-carrying ability of the network. The stability of these and other complex
systems is often attributed to the redundant wiring of the functional web defined by the systems' components. Here
we demonstrate that error tolerance is not shared by all redundant systems: it is displayed only by a class of
inhomogeneously wired networks, called scale-free networks, which include the World-Wide Web, the Internet,
social networks and cells. We find that such networks display an unexpected degree of robustness, the ability of
their nodes to communicate being unaffected even by unrealistically high failure rates. However, error tolerance
comes at a high price in that these networks are extremely vulnerable to attacks (that is, to the selection and
removal of a few nodes that play a vital role in maintaining the network's connectivity). Such error tolerance and
attack vulnerability are generic properties of communication networks.
The fact is that the price of diamonds is kept artificially high by the near-monopoly of deBeers. If all of the gem-quality diamonds in the world today were put on the market, they would be almost worthless.
Is this supposed to be some sort of practical joke? It's just like a bunch of kids ordering 20 pizzas for a false address and laughing with their friends. "Ha ha - some dumbass is gonna have to pay for all those pizzas", but of course they never find out what happens because they're not there! To which the response "uh, let's not and say we did" usually makes the instigator feel like the dumbass.
Or is it to be rebellious?
Geek 1 (overly-excited): "Hey, let's say were JEDI!"
Geek 2 (grinning): "Yeah, we can really stick it to The Man. All those years of invading our privacy..."
Geek 1 (ready to piss his pants): "Oh my GOD! That would be SWEET! Just imagine the look on the clerk's face she has to enter it into the database!"
Geek 2 (suddenly serious): "I'm imagining it now: anarchy! The government would collapse! The country would be ours for the taking!"
Geek 1 (bouncing off the walls): "Let's send out a mass email! Everybody always does everything an email tells them to do, especially when breaking the chain will bring seven years of bad luck!"
The rest is history.
If only someone had been there to say "uh, lets not and say we did"...
Sounds like they have so
me pretty high goals that require a lot of cooperation between various groups. I wonder how they intend to solicit that cooperation.
An unenforced patent is a Great Thing. That the company is not enforcing it now means that they won't be able to do so in the future (once the precedent is set, there's no changing it).
And since it has been patented, no other company will be able to come forward and claim rights to it. In other words, other companies are protected.
Whether this should be patentable at all is another story...
One of the biggest things holding back open source software in the desktop market is the fact that a lot of people already own the software that they want to use.
If people were suddenly required to pay for software every year, there would be a greater incentive to switch to alternative solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
The following is the abstract from an article in the journal Nature - very interesting. Give it a read!
You can read the whole thing on their website
RÉKA ALBERT, HAWOONG JEONG & ALBERT-LÁSZLÓ BARABÁSI
Many complex systems display a surprising degree of tolerance against errors. For example, relatively simple organisms grow, persist and reproduce despite drastic pharmaceutical or environmental interventions, an error tolerance attributed to the robustness of the underlying metabolic network. Complex communication networks display a surprising degree of robustness: although key components regularly malfunction, local failures rarely lead to the loss of the global information-carrying ability of the network. The stability of these and other complex systems is often attributed to the redundant wiring of the functional web defined by the systems' components. Here we demonstrate that error tolerance is not shared by all redundant systems: it is displayed only by a class of inhomogeneously wired networks, called scale-free networks, which include the World-Wide Web, the Internet, social networks and cells. We find that such networks display an unexpected degree of robustness, the ability of their nodes to communicate being unaffected even by unrealistically high failure rates. However, error tolerance comes at a high price in that these networks are extremely vulnerable to attacks (that is, to the selection and removal of a few nodes that play a vital role in maintaining the network's connectivity). Such error tolerance and attack vulnerability are generic properties of communication networks.
The fact is that the price of diamonds is kept artificially high by the near-monopoly of deBeers. If all of the gem-quality diamonds in the world today were put on the market, they would be almost worthless.
What's the point?
Is this supposed to be some sort of practical joke? It's just like a bunch of kids ordering 20 pizzas for a false address and laughing with their friends. "Ha ha - some dumbass is gonna have to pay for all those pizzas", but of course they never find out what happens because they're not there! To which the response "uh, let's not and say we did" usually makes the instigator feel like the dumbass.
Or is it to be rebellious?
Geek 1 (overly-excited): "Hey, let's say were JEDI!"
Geek 2 (grinning): "Yeah, we can really stick it to The Man. All those years of invading our privacy..."
Geek 1 (ready to piss his pants): "Oh my GOD! That would be SWEET! Just imagine the look on the clerk's face she has to enter it into the database!"
Geek 2 (suddenly serious): "I'm imagining it now: anarchy! The government would collapse! The country would be ours for the taking!"
Geek 1 (bouncing off the walls): "Let's send out a mass email! Everybody always does everything an email tells them to do, especially when breaking the chain will bring seven years of bad luck!"
The rest is history.
If only someone had been there to say "uh, lets not and say we did"...
Dare to dream... :-)
An unenforced patent is a Great Thing. That the company is not enforcing it now means that they won't be able to do so in the future (once the precedent is set, there's no changing it).
And since it has been patented, no other company will be able to come forward and claim rights to it. In other words, other companies are protected.
Whether this should be patentable at all is another story...
This is just Microsoft's way of "testing the waters". If ASP's turn out to be profitable, you can bet your ass that MS will skip the middle man.
One of the biggest things holding back open source software in the desktop market is the fact that a lot of people already own the software that they want to use.
If people were suddenly required to pay for software every year, there would be a greater incentive to switch to alternative solutions.