Um, this TB/sec optical deal isn't going to speed up your home or small business connection anytime soon. It's a backbone thing. I know a couple of people at Ciena, since I live about three miles away from their place and run into people who work there in bars all the time. But it sure would be nice to have an alternative to Comcast's "We're a monopoly so we can charge you $400 for a $120 cable modem and give you crappy customer service because we're the only people here who are ALLOWED to run CATV to your house, and if you don't like it, offer bigger bribes to your councilman than we gave him, ha, ha, ha" @home, also know as "the only high bandwidth game in town."
I actually read the NY Times story AND the court decision. The judge did not prohibit use of a trademarked word in a meta tag, just FRAUDULENT or MISLEADING use.
Example: If, on TechSightings (a tech-oriented site review site I edit), I use "slashdot" as a keyword, I'm fine, because I've reviewed slashdot (favorably) in the past, and have referenced comments here more than a few times. This is "fair use," under copyright law.
BUT if I put up a porn site or one selling real estate or anything else irrelevant to slashdot, or created a site competitive to slashdot called "backslashdot" and THEN used "slashdot" as a key word, Rob would have every right to sue, and would probably win, because I'd be using HIS trademark to draw traffic to MY unrelated or competitive site in a fraudulent manner.
All the court decision mentioned in the above story did was re-affirm this. Statements like, "this is going to kill search engines" are nothing but FUD, and should be ignored.
From what I read in the decision, the judge had a fine grasp of what was going on online. Far better than, say, Al Gore.:) --Robin Miller Cheap Computing columnist
Today almost all circuit diagrams are standard. We all know what a resistor, a capacitor, or a gate looks like. This wasn't always so. Standardized circuit representations and a big library of pre-designed circuit pieces are what made low-cost, mass-produced consumer electronics possible.
Now the same thing is happening in software, but it'll take a while until everyone agrees on some sort of standard. I expect most of the long-term impetus for this to come from open source developers who want to make long-distance collaboration easier, even though commercial developers have a MAJOR interest in making it easier to assemble programs from lists of objects that all fit together easily without a lot of wiggling and cramming.
I have no idea yet what that standard will be. UML is only a few years old. Conceptually, it's about where circuitry schematic design was in 1910 or so, and it didn't really get "hardened" until 1925 or later. --Robin Miller Cheap Computing columnist
Back when AOL and other online services charged by the hour, there was some advantage to being a moderator or guide or sysop or whatever. When all the services started charging flat fees, there was no more advantage. Realize that AOL *required* 4 hours per week from their "volunteers" in exchange for a free account.
I'm a/. moderator (although I never really asked to be one), and while I don't get paid, Rob has never asked me to do any specific work quota in order to keep my status, whatever it really is.
Come to think of it, I've done a little volunteer work for FSF, too, and in return I get open source software. But no one says I *must* do any of that volunteer work in order to enjoy either/. or the many good things that have come out of FSF. And last I looked, neither/. nor FSF had gone public and become darlings of Wall Street.
Major differences. --Robin Miller Cheap Computing columnist
Half the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) lodges here in Maryland have websites, and private e-mail lists or bulletin boards for members. I've helped a couple of them set up their sites, and so far none of them have been sex maniacs.
There are plenty of 'net-hip cops out there, and more of them are getting online every year, so police like the ignorant one mentioned above will gradually get rarer.
MS wants to patent CSS? Okay. I'll sue them for trademark infringement. I've been driving cabs and limousines since Bill Gates was chasing whores in New Mexico, and "Where do you want to go today?" is a question I have often asked my passengers.
But I can't claim authorship of this question. Hackers, drovers, and rickshaw pullers have been asking it since the dawn of civilization.
In the interest of fairness, limo drivers (who work primarily by reservation) will probably need to reclaim the "Where do you want to go tommorow?" question from a certain Finnish gentleman.
And then we'll go to work on the words "Hack" and "Hacker," which are also ours, and are regularly misused by nerdish Gates wannabes.
Well, maybe we'll let the Linux and OS people skate this time. But you guys better tip *real good* next time you ride with one of us REAL hackers... --Robin Miller
I use an old 386 "noname" laptop I scored for $100 about 3 years ago. I run DOS and New Deal Office on it. (With only a 40 MB HD, I don't think it'd handle Linux and a Linux WP program.) It's never been a problem. One day I might get a newer "car computer," but it'll just be another laptop. Why take up trunk space?
...so I'm happy to cut him a break. Most people find Linux hard at first, and first install it and get it running with help from friends or a local LUG. Indeed, I believe Katz's only mistake is not to have gone the LUG-help route. If he had, he'd probably be up and running now, PPP problems solved, and possibly with WindowMaker instead of KDE. --Robin Miller
Linux isn't mentioned, just open source. And a few paragraphs later, in the same article, an NT-based cockpit weather display -- that has been FAA certified -- is mentioned.
And yes, the open source code the FAA prefers is usually written in ADA. It's not an easy language to work with, but once you get ADA code to run, it is more solid than NT and Linux put together.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, well. Someday we'll have competition....
I actually read the NY Times story AND the court decision. The judge did not prohibit use of a trademarked word in a meta tag, just FRAUDULENT or MISLEADING use.
:)
Example: If, on TechSightings (a tech-oriented site review site I edit), I use "slashdot" as a keyword, I'm fine, because I've reviewed slashdot (favorably) in the past, and have referenced comments here more than a few times. This is "fair use," under copyright law.
BUT if I put up a porn site or one selling real estate or anything else irrelevant to slashdot, or created a site competitive to slashdot called "backslashdot" and THEN used "slashdot" as a key word, Rob would have every right to sue, and would probably win, because I'd be using HIS trademark to draw traffic to MY unrelated or competitive site in a fraudulent manner.
All the court decision mentioned in the above story did was re-affirm this. Statements like, "this is going to kill search engines" are nothing but FUD, and should be ignored.
From what I read in the decision, the judge had a fine grasp of what was going on online. Far better than, say, Al Gore.
--Robin Miller
Cheap Computing columnist
Today almost all circuit diagrams are standard. We all know what a resistor, a capacitor, or a gate looks like. This wasn't always so. Standardized circuit representations and a big library of pre-designed circuit pieces are what made low-cost, mass-produced consumer electronics possible.
Now the same thing is happening in software, but it'll take a while until everyone agrees on some sort of standard. I expect most of the long-term impetus for this to come from open source developers who want to make long-distance collaboration easier, even though commercial developers have a MAJOR interest in making it easier to assemble programs from lists of objects that all fit together easily without a lot of wiggling and cramming.
I have no idea yet what that standard will be. UML is only a few years old. Conceptually, it's about where circuitry schematic design was in 1910 or so, and it didn't really get "hardened" until 1925 or later.
--Robin Miller
Cheap Computing columnist
Back when AOL and other online services charged by the hour, there was some advantage to being a moderator or guide or sysop or whatever. When all the services started charging flat fees, there was no more advantage. Realize that AOL *required* 4 hours per week from their "volunteers" in exchange for a free account.
/. moderator (although I never really asked to be one), and while I don't get paid, Rob has never asked me to do any specific work quota in order to keep my status, whatever it really is.
/. or the many good things that have come out of FSF. And last I looked, neither /. nor FSF had gone public and become darlings of Wall Street.
I'm a
Come to think of it, I've done a little volunteer work for FSF, too, and in return I get open source software. But no one says I *must* do any of that volunteer work in order to enjoy either
Major differences.
--Robin Miller
Cheap Computing columnist
Half the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) lodges here in Maryland have websites, and private e-mail lists or bulletin boards for members. I've helped a couple of them set up their sites, and so far none of them have been sex maniacs.
There are plenty of 'net-hip cops out there, and more of them are getting online every year, so police like the ignorant one mentioned above will gradually get rarer.
--Robin Miller
Cheap Computing columnist
MS wants to patent CSS? Okay. I'll sue them for trademark infringement. I've been driving cabs and limousines since Bill Gates was chasing whores in New Mexico, and "Where do you want to go today?" is a question I have often asked my passengers.
But I can't claim authorship of this question. Hackers, drovers, and rickshaw pullers have been asking it since the dawn of civilization.
In the interest of fairness, limo drivers (who work primarily by reservation) will probably need to reclaim the "Where do you want to go tommorow?" question from a certain Finnish gentleman.
And then we'll go to work on the words "Hack" and "Hacker," which are also ours, and are regularly misused by nerdish Gates wannabes.
Well, maybe we'll let the Linux and OS people skate this time. But you guys better tip *real good* next time you ride with one of us REAL hackers...
--Robin Miller
I use an old 386 "noname" laptop I scored for $100 about 3 years ago. I run DOS and New Deal Office on it. (With only a 40 MB HD, I don't think it'd handle Linux and a Linux WP program.) It's never been a problem. One day I might get a newer "car computer," but it'll just be another laptop. Why take up trunk space?
--Robin Miller
...so I'm happy to cut him a break. Most people find Linux hard at first, and first install it and get it running with help from friends or a local LUG. Indeed, I believe Katz's only mistake is not to have gone the LUG-help route. If he had, he'd probably be up and running now, PPP problems solved, and possibly with WindowMaker instead of KDE.
--Robin Miller
Questions about HFA or a
license request?
Contact the Client Services
Department at
clientservice@harryfox.com
--Robin Miller
Linux isn't mentioned, just open source. And a few paragraphs later, in the same article, an NT-based cockpit weather display -- that has been FAA certified -- is mentioned.
? 78
And yes, the open source code the FAA prefers is usually written in ADA. It's not an easy language to work with, but once you get ADA code to run, it is more solid than NT and Linux put together.
See: http://www.techsightings.com/cgi-bin/ts_review.pl
--Robin Miller