True, but the design has several nice features:
o The brake is compressing a vertical fin, so there should be a minimum amount of debris sitting on it.
o because the car straddles the rail, it would have to break in half to fall off the trail.
o you get a fair amount of lateral stability, so as long as the rail is installed correctly, the car won't wiggle from side to side like a railroad car does.
o The position information of the car is encoded into the vertical fin as holes, so as the car drives along, it knows exactly where it is.
o If you need to go farther away from the monorail than your batteries can provide, you'll be able to rent a gas/diesel/whatever engine that you drive over. It locks itself under your car and runs at its most efficient speed to charge your batteries.
The whole thing is a very sweet design. The only serious problem that I can see with it is debris (dirt, rocks, ice, loose parts) falling off the cars. That risk can be minimized by putting a deliberate bump into the track above an area in which it's safe to drop stuff. It's also possible to put a skin underneath the car so it doesn't accumulate/shed cruft. -russ
I think the future of the car is dual-mode vehicles. That is, a car which operates as today's cars do, but which can also drive up onto a monorail. One design is the RUF. On ordinary roads, it runs off batteries. Not a trunkfull of lead-acid batteries, but a modest battery, sufficient to get from home to the nearest monorail. Maybe a 50 mile trip max. Once on the monorail, electrical pickups power the vehicle. On the monorail, the vehicle is mechnically inherently safe. Braking works by gripping the monorail, not relying on the weight of the vehicle and a constant coefficient of friction with the road. So with reliable braking, vehicles can form a phalanx, to increase traffic density and reduce wind resistance.
Vehicles on a monorail will drive a 90 MPH, and do so with great safety. Even grandma, because the cars are computer-controlled on the monorail. You designate your exit, and the computer takes care of routing you. Each car does its own routing based on global traffic announcements. Just like BGP4 on the Internet.
Damn but I'd like to say "Take me to Boston and exit onto Boylston St." and then read a book, or fall asleep, or use the Internet access provided by the monorail connection. -russ
Technically, you are incorrect. A computer-driven car need only be a little bit safer than a person-driven car. We're talking low-hanging fruit here, given that 50K people die on America's roads every year.
Politically, you are completely correct. People will tolerate humans killing each other much more than machines killing people. -russ
I'm just relating what Keith told me he was doing. Keith is proud of what he does, but is contemptuous of people who take credit for what others have done. It's possible that I misunderstood him, or it's possible that you don't know that keithp helped the freetype guys. I doubt that Keith is taking credit for something somebody else did. -russ
On the face of it, you're right. You can sue anybody for anything, however if you're going to waste your filing fee in that manner, why not do something useful with your money instead, like burn it? At least that way you'd be kept warm for a few moments.
Without a patent you have no right to sue someone for patent infringement. Yes, you can sue anybody for anything (and if you disagree with me, I'll sue you!!!). -russ
No, I mean that something should be unpatentable if you can read the input, think for a while, maybe write something down, and then produce the output. If no machine is necessary to implement it, it shouldn't be patentable.
Actually, it *is* PHP's fault that people create programs that just blindly accept variables for include. The problem with php's include is that it does something very unexpected; something that no sane programmer would guard against; something that no sane programming language would implement: it will fetch somebody else's code and run it on your machine with your web server's privileges. Are you going to try to tell me that that is not insane?? Does Perl do that? Does C do that? Does C++ do that? Does Python do that? Does ANY other language's 'include' fetch remote code?
Truthfully named, php's 'include' would be called 'include_remote_hostile_code_and_execute_it_with_l ocal_privileges', but of course nobody would use PHP if it had such an intrinsic.
Google for: php security flaw. Google shows you pages that a lot of people think are authoritative. If a lot of people think something is true, it'll show up as the first page. If I was a lone madman insisting that php had a security flaw in 'include', that Google search would come up empty. Instead there are nearly 3/4 of a million pages that talk about php security flaws. "Hello?? Anybody home at php headquarters?? You have a problem that can't be explained or documented away." -russ
A patent only gives you the legal right to sue somebody. It doesn't give you the resources to succeed in your suit. Nor does bringing suit prevent the plaintiff from implementing a work-around for the patent. Look at what Keith Packard did with his font renderer. It avoids Apple's TrueType patent by rendering the font in a non-infringing manner.
Patent infringement isn't a serious problem for open source projects. It might be a problem for open source companies, but that's their problem. -russ
These people need to "get a life." Open source is a good idea, but it isn't the Answer To Everything, nor are those who disagree necessarily evil.
I think you're confusing the Open Source movement with the Free Software movement. Free Software is about morality. Open Source is about better software. We both want more freedom, but for different reasons.
Claims are hard for non-lawyers to read. They're written in such a way that they cover all possible uses of a patent, and the most general possible use. As you say, only one claim needs to be infringed, so there's no harm in making claims which aren't supportable by the facts. -russ
Obviousness doesn't apply anymore. How do you tell if something is obvious? Only if somebody has already invented it, and preferably patented it. That devolves into 'prior art', and we know how badly the patent orifice handles that. -russ
Nothing is considered obvious anymore. After all, if it was THAT obvious, somebody would have patented it already. Yes, the US patent system is broken. The only disagreement possible is in exactly HOW it's broken. If you listen to patent lawyers, it's broken because the USPTO's fees go into the general budget. If you listen to patent victims, it's broken because mere thoughts are being patented. If you give me a problem, and I can solve it in my head using nothing more than pencil and paper as a scratchpad, that solution should not be patentable. -russ
The SEC filings are very much a CYA activity. If anything bad happens to a company, and you didn't list it and you knew about it, that's considered a fraudulent cover-up. You can still get sued if you warned people about a problem, but you can get used worse if you didn't.
So don't make much of this disclosure. Any non-zero risk will be listed. -russ
Except that OSI has hackers, who you can meet at trade shows, whose code you use, who respond to their email. When was the last time you were able to send email to a government regulatory agency and actually get a reply?
I don't care if my license isn't OSI approved,
I'm sorry you feel that way. We're only trying to protect the term 'open source' from abuse by you-know-who. Do you have a better plan? -russ
And PHP does a few things that are UNlike other environments that encourage insecure code.
For example, PHP's 'include' will, when passed in a variable (e.g. index.php?page=history.php and then include $page) will happily, joyfully, and with full honours execute remote hostile code with local privileges. Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted to run psybnc on my webserver.
No other language's 'include' accepts a URL. Programmers are led down the primrose path by this feature, and the authors of PHP don't understand why this is a problem. Indeed, they blame the victim. -russ
Q: How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot? A: He disputes the existance of Global Warming.
No, really, the political climate is such that any scientist who questions any portion of the litany of global warming is treated as a pariah, ideologue, and crackpot. So no wonder you see a 100% consensus on global warming: every scientist who has doubts keeps them to himself. That only leaves the politicians to dispute global warming, and of course they're not going to use science, they're going to use politics. Disagree? Look at what happened to Lomborg. His credentials going back to his elementary school diploma have been questioned. -russ
Wow! You must be a real scientist! I always thought that findings became accepted by replication. I didn't understand that mere opposition could be sufficient to make some scientific result certain.
Dang, I wish you moderators had the choice of "Too Sarcastic", because my posting certainly deserves it. -russ
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. We need a quuxcamp.org, too.
-russ
True, but the design has several nice features:
o The brake is compressing a vertical fin, so there should be a minimum amount of debris sitting on it.
o because the car straddles the rail, it would have to break in half to fall off the trail.
o you get a fair amount of lateral stability, so as long as the rail is installed correctly, the car won't wiggle from side to side like a railroad car does.
o The position information of the car is encoded into the vertical fin as holes, so as the car drives along, it knows exactly where it is.
o If you need to go farther away from the monorail than your batteries can provide, you'll be able to rent a gas/diesel/whatever engine that you drive over. It locks itself under your car and runs at its most efficient speed to charge your batteries.
The whole thing is a very sweet design. The only serious problem that I can see with it is debris (dirt, rocks, ice, loose parts) falling off the cars. That risk can be minimized by putting a deliberate bump into the track above an area in which it's safe to drop stuff. It's also possible to put a skin underneath the car so it doesn't accumulate/shed cruft.
-russ
I think the future of the car is dual-mode vehicles. That is, a car which operates as today's cars do, but which can also drive up onto a monorail. One design is the RUF. On ordinary roads, it runs off batteries. Not a trunkfull of lead-acid batteries, but a modest battery, sufficient to get from home to the nearest monorail. Maybe a 50 mile trip max. Once on the monorail, electrical pickups power the vehicle. On the monorail, the vehicle is mechnically inherently safe. Braking works by gripping the monorail, not relying on the weight of the vehicle and a constant coefficient of friction with the road. So with reliable braking, vehicles can form a phalanx, to increase traffic density and reduce wind resistance.
Vehicles on a monorail will drive a 90 MPH, and do so with great safety. Even grandma, because the cars are computer-controlled on the monorail. You designate your exit, and the computer takes care of routing you. Each car does its own routing based on global traffic announcements. Just like BGP4 on the Internet.
Damn but I'd like to say "Take me to Boston and exit onto Boylston St." and then read a book, or fall asleep, or use the Internet access provided by the monorail connection.
-russ
Technically, you are incorrect. A computer-driven car need only be a little bit safer than a person-driven car. We're talking low-hanging fruit here, given that 50K people die on America's roads every year.
Politically, you are completely correct. People will tolerate humans killing each other much more than machines killing people.
-russ
Like the RUF?
-russ
I'm just relating what Keith told me he was doing. Keith is proud of what he does, but is contemptuous of people who take credit for what others have done. It's possible that I misunderstood him, or it's possible that you don't know that keithp helped the freetype guys. I doubt that Keith is taking credit for something somebody else did.
-russ
On the face of it, you're right. You can sue anybody for anything, however if you're going to waste your filing fee in that manner, why not do something useful with your money instead, like burn it? At least that way you'd be kept warm for a few moments.
Without a patent you have no right to sue someone for patent infringement. Yes, you can sue anybody for anything (and if you disagree with me, I'll sue you!!!).
-russ
No, I mean that something should be unpatentable if you can read the input, think for a while, maybe write something down, and then produce the output. If no machine is necessary to implement it, it shouldn't be patentable.
Actually, it *is* PHP's fault that people create programs that just blindly accept variables for include. The problem with php's include is that it does something very unexpected; something that no sane programmer would guard against; something that no sane programming language would implement: it will fetch somebody else's code and run it on your machine with your web server's privileges. Are you going to try to tell me that that is not insane?? Does Perl do that? Does C do that? Does C++ do that? Does Python do that? Does ANY other language's 'include' fetch remote code?
l ocal_privileges',
Truthfully named, php's 'include' would be called 'include_remote_hostile_code_and_execute_it_with_
but of course nobody would use PHP if it had such an intrinsic.
Google for: php security flaw. Google shows you pages that a lot of people think are authoritative. If a lot of people think something is true, it'll show up as the first page. If I was a lone madman insisting that php had a security flaw in 'include', that Google search would come up empty. Instead there are nearly 3/4 of a million pages that talk about php security flaws. "Hello?? Anybody home at php headquarters?? You have a problem that can't be explained or documented away."
-russ
A patent only gives you the legal right to sue somebody. It doesn't give you the resources to succeed in your suit. Nor does bringing suit prevent the plaintiff from implementing a work-around for the patent. Look at what Keith Packard did with his font renderer. It avoids Apple's TrueType patent by rendering the font in a non-infringing manner.
Patent infringement isn't a serious problem for open source projects. It might be a problem for open source companies, but that's their problem.
-russ
These people need to "get a life." Open source is a good idea, but it isn't the Answer To Everything, nor are those who disagree necessarily evil.
I think you're confusing the Open Source movement with the Free Software movement. Free Software is about morality. Open Source is about better software. We both want more freedom, but for different reasons.
Did Perens ever have principles?
Claims are hard for non-lawyers to read. They're written in such a way that they cover all possible uses of a patent, and the most general possible use. As you say, only one claim needs to be infringed, so there's no harm in making claims which aren't supportable by the facts.
-russ
Obviousness doesn't apply anymore. How do you tell if something is obvious? Only if somebody has already invented it, and preferably patented it. That devolves into 'prior art', and we know how badly the patent orifice handles that.
-russ
Nothing is considered obvious anymore. After all, if it was THAT obvious, somebody would have patented it already. Yes, the US patent system is broken. The only disagreement possible is in exactly HOW it's broken. If you listen to patent lawyers, it's broken because the USPTO's fees go into the general budget. If you listen to patent victims, it's broken because mere thoughts are being patented. If you give me a problem, and I can solve it in my head using nothing more than pencil and paper as a scratchpad, that solution should not be patentable.
-russ
The SEC filings are very much a CYA activity. If anything bad happens to a company, and you didn't list it and you knew about it, that's considered a fraudulent cover-up. You can still get sued if you warned people about a problem, but you can get used worse if you didn't.
So don't make much of this disclosure. Any non-zero risk will be listed.
-russ
They act like a government regulatory agency.
Except that OSI has hackers, who you can meet at trade shows, whose code you use, who respond to their email. When was the last time you were able to send email to a government regulatory agency and actually get a reply?
I don't care if my license isn't OSI approved,
I'm sorry you feel that way. We're only trying to protect the term 'open source' from abuse by you-know-who. Do you have a better plan?
-russ
If the CDDL is a mess, then so is the MPL, because they're 95% identical. Firefox uses the MPL, so it's a fairly important license.
-russ
That's exactly what the license-proliferation committee will be doing.
-russ
And PHP does a few things that are UNlike other environments that encourage insecure code.
For example, PHP's 'include' will, when passed in a variable (e.g. index.php?page=history.php and then include $page) will happily, joyfully, and with full honours execute remote hostile code with local privileges. Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted to run psybnc on my webserver.
No other language's 'include' accepts a URL. Programmers are led down the primrose path by this feature, and the authors of PHP don't understand why this is a problem. Indeed, they blame the victim.
-russ
or a Democrat
What makes you think the Democrats don't want to be able to track Republicans. The Democrats aren't exactly saints either.
-russ
No, tattooed on your forehead for easier scanning as you walk down the street.
Q: How do you tell if a scientist is a crackpot?
A: He disputes the existance of Global Warming.
No, really, the political climate is such that any scientist who questions any portion of the litany of global warming is treated as a pariah, ideologue, and crackpot. So no wonder you see a 100% consensus on global warming: every scientist who has doubts keeps them to himself. That only leaves the politicians to dispute global warming, and of course they're not going to use science, they're going to use politics. Disagree? Look at what happened to Lomborg. His credentials going back to his elementary school diploma have been questioned.
-russ
Wow! You must be a real scientist! I always thought that findings became accepted by replication. I didn't understand that mere opposition could be sufficient to make some scientific result certain.
Dang, I wish you moderators had the choice of "Too Sarcastic", because my posting certainly deserves it.
-russ