I think as soon as anyone fights this, the patent(s) will be nullified. This is like patenting the idea to hand out a receipt. I could see patenting your register technology, but the receipt (or invoice in this case) long predates the internet. Surely, the idea of international computerized commerce existed long (long being relative to the age of the internet) before they applied for the patent. This is an unreasonable form of leeching.
if this works, then there needs to be serious reconsideration of current patent laws.
Yes, but then people trying to download real files will start finding more and more of these text files. If that happens, the Terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H RIAA will win. In fact, they are more than likely already planting false files in P2P network as a counter-measure.
IIRC, the thing they are actually looking for is people sharing lots of music. You can argue that the MP3 on your computer is a legal backup, fair-use if you will. However, when you offer 1000 mp3's on KaZaa, that is a different story.
It seems if they had unusual software, it would only be a problem if it included kernel code not found in the primary kernel line. On the other hand, I can see how much easier it would be if they built the distribution with only the software they need (e.g. grades software and other specific applications) so they could rapidly deploy it across the district.
I'm curious as to what the long term effects of this would be. Indeed, there is a whole hell of a lot of water, but if this were our primary power source and there were hundreds or even thousands around the globe, what might be the outcome? If, for example, we were capable of decreasing the average wave height by 1" (which is completely arbitrary because I know too little about wave patterns:-p), that would probably lead to a change in wind patterns. This would, in turn, affect general weather patterns.
Although, I suppose this is more of a wind power thing. I'm not confident that this could be catastrophic. More of a hypothetical.::shrug::
I think what people are overlooking is probably delivery services. Sure you could walk to a UPS store to pick up a package under this new design, but how does the supermarket get it's supplies. Local markets I know of need to get at least one truck full every night to maintain their stock. This seems much less feasible. Super markets are not the only ones of course, there are numerous businesses that need large shipments to come in. Unfortunately, CarFree.com has been/.'d so I can't see if they have plans in place for this traffic. It would seem that they would need to develop a transit system dedicated to deliveries, though, and that would be no small expense.
Further, suppose I wanted to travel outside of my perfect city (I dunno, going to see in-laws in Michigan). Will flying be the only option, or will there be a huge parking garage on the edge of the city so I can drive there. I know many people who prefer driving to flying.
In conclusion, we need transporters like in Star Trek for a car free world to work:-) Just some thoughts...
I have to disagree. I found the book to be just 'ok'. It had some interesting ideas, but the main character was completely unintriguing (although, some of the other characters were more interesting). His name was 'Shadow', for Darwin's sake. The battle at the end was short and left much to be desired. I gave it to a friend to read as he found the topic interesting the way I had. He was also less than impressed. Doom's Day Book was awesome Sci-Fi and it won the Hugo and Nebula awards. I wouldn't put Gods in the same class as Doom's Day, not really close.
I thought this article was interesting, if for no other reason than because it reminded me of how difficult it was to teach myself DHCP configuration with very little outside help. It seems like it would be a good article for someone starting out, however the title for this news post is somewhat ambiguous. Old hats can smile and remember the good old days. Newbies can learn to build a better server or client.
It was my understanding that the largest living organism may be an Aspen forest. Aspens reproduce through runners, so it is possible that an entire aspen forest can actually be one organism. I'm sure you can find aspen forests larger than 10 square kilometers, but of course there could be many different plants there. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if it were the oldest.
It was mentioned here on/. before it was released. But, as some of you may know, it had a very limited release. It was very awesome:-) Also, Boondock Saints and Office Space have cult followings in my area:-p
I wonder if this theory could be used to produce code that could be useful for encryption based on prime numbers, such as RSA's work. Would it make it easier to produce reliable prime numbers much larger than 1024 or even 2048 bit? Further, I wonder if this could be used to drastically reduce the time required to brute force an RSA encrypted message. Could the encryption of files that were encrypted with 128 bit technology be rendered all but useless?
I would have to assume you're joking. RNA virili and bacteria are far more prone to mutations in the genes. Why hasn't AIDS been cured? It's an RNA virus; it mutates too often for a standard vaccine to work. The same goes for this virus. A vaccine may be possible (at least one AIDS vaccine is in some phase of clinical trials), but it is not likely in the immediate future.
This will be much better than those silly posters at the post office. If he's not in line at the post office, they are pretty much out of luck... until now! "Hey, that hot 30y/or from tampa that emailed me his pic looks a lot like that pop-up that mozilla blocked before I could look at it."
Joking asside, do any distro's come with XFS by default? From what I've seen the answer is, "no." I'd like to work with it, again, but presently I don't have the will to go through all the work of moving my data around (I neglected to make an extra partition for the XFS migration during my last install). I think when FreeBSD 5.0 comes out I'm just going to blank my hard drive and start over (I have FBSD, RH and, W2K on there, and it's time I upgrade all that junk).
The problem I see is that the reviewer accidently used the hyphenated word 'sci-fi'. It never once occured to me to consider any of Crichton's works as 'sci-fi'. In fact, go to a book store. I worked at Borders for a period of time, and they had a couple of Crichton's books in sci-fi, which surprised me because Barnes and Noble had always carried all of Crichton's books in the regular fiction section. Indeed, Crichton's books were never intended to be in the same genre as Orson Scott Card or Connie Willis (If you haven't read 'Dooms Day Book' by Willis, I highly recommend it. It won a couple awards; it is very excellent).
Books like Prey are a post-modern perspective on how the world is developing. Jurassic Park came out around the time that the high level gene studies first started to come around. Human Genome Project website, "Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome Project is a 13-year effort...". Coinciding, Jurassic Park was published in 1991. Prey is a similar concept, we know nanotech is under developement as we speak. An interesting page with nanotech resources: zyvex.com.
Certainly, Crichton's books aren't perfect, but I think they succeed in what they intend to do. They are very readable (I read Jurassic Park in 6th grade [am I that young?]), and usually suspense filled. They also try to maintain a level of realism even while stretching the bounds of technology. I thought it was fairly clever to incorporate modern distributed computing design into the nanotechnology in his book. His books are always well researched, go to the last few page of prey and you will find a list of sources that he used for information. I think prey is one of his better books I've read in a while. Timeline was good, and Airframe disappointed me.
I say, if you are looking for a sci-fi read, Crichton isn't really the go to guy. But, his books are generally good, no less; and Prey is a good one.
Slashdot Mirror
I think as soon as anyone fights this, the patent(s) will be nullified. This is like patenting the idea to hand out a receipt. I could see patenting your register technology, but the receipt (or invoice in this case) long predates the internet. Surely, the idea of international computerized commerce existed long (long being relative to the age of the internet) before they applied for the patent. This is an unreasonable form of leeching.
if this works, then there needs to be serious reconsideration of current patent laws.
http://www.utias-sfl.net/code/cubesats/images/
there's several pictures there, including a better quality 'borg' picture or two.
Yes, but then people trying to download real files will start finding more and more of these text files. If that happens, the Terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H RIAA will win. In fact, they are more than likely already planting false files in P2P network as a counter-measure.
IIRC, the thing they are actually looking for is people sharing lots of music. You can argue that the MP3 on your computer is a legal backup, fair-use if you will. However, when you offer 1000 mp3's on KaZaa, that is a different story.
I think it's far more likely that these are the result of random population surveys.
However, RH, Mandrake, Lindows and probably others have respective subscription services that would make it possible to provide accurate numbers.
Plus, these are 'predictions' from an MSN sight, so I would suspect some FUD.
It seems if they had unusual software, it would only be a problem if it included kernel code not found in the primary kernel line. On the other hand, I can see how much easier it would be if they built the distribution with only the software they need (e.g. grades software and other specific applications) so they could rapidly deploy it across the district.
You missed a couple steps:
1. Get cream
2. Add liquid nitrogen, which freezes the cream then evaporates
3. You've got ice cream.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!
6. ???
7. PROFIT!
8. ???
9. PROFIT!
10. ???
11. PROFIT!
12. ???
13. PROFIT!
14. ???
15. PROFIT!
16. ???
17. PROFIT!
18. ???
19. PROFIT!
Sorry, I had to...
I'm curious as to what the long term effects of this would be. Indeed, there is a whole hell of a lot of water, but if this were our primary power source and there were hundreds or even thousands around the globe, what might be the outcome? If, for example, we were capable of decreasing the average wave height by 1" (which is completely arbitrary because I know too little about wave patterns :-p), that would probably lead to a change in wind patterns. This would, in turn, affect general weather patterns.
::shrug::
Although, I suppose this is more of a wind power thing. I'm not confident that this could be catastrophic. More of a hypothetical.
erm.. there was a sarcasm tag in there... whoops
:-)
i swear, i love *bsd
Insert obligatory 'bsd is dying' comment here
now, if they could just make free dvd media, we'd be set.
I think what people are overlooking is probably delivery services. Sure you could walk to a UPS store to pick up a package under this new design, but how does the supermarket get it's supplies. Local markets I know of need to get at least one truck full every night to maintain their stock. This seems much less feasible. Super markets are not the only ones of course, there are numerous businesses that need large shipments to come in. Unfortunately, CarFree.com has been /.'d so I can't see if they have plans in place for this traffic. It would seem that they would need to develop a transit system dedicated to deliveries, though, and that would be no small expense.
:-)
Further, suppose I wanted to travel outside of my perfect city (I dunno, going to see in-laws in Michigan). Will flying be the only option, or will there be a huge parking garage on the edge of the city so I can drive there. I know many people who prefer driving to flying.
In conclusion, we need transporters like in Star Trek for a car free world to work
Just some thoughts...
There's not enough space left on earth to destroy, let's be first to destroy the moon! (before the Chinese have a change to land, no less!)
I cannot enumerate the advantages that Windows Me had over 98. I'm sure 2003 will show the same level of advancement over 2000.
I have to disagree. I found the book to be just 'ok'. It had some interesting ideas, but the main character was completely unintriguing (although, some of the other characters were more interesting). His name was 'Shadow', for Darwin's sake. The battle at the end was short and left much to be desired. I gave it to a friend to read as he found the topic interesting the way I had. He was also less than impressed. Doom's Day Book was awesome Sci-Fi and it won the Hugo and Nebula awards. I wouldn't put Gods in the same class as Doom's Day, not really close.
I thought this article was interesting, if for no other reason than because it reminded me of how difficult it was to teach myself DHCP configuration with very little outside help. It seems like it would be a good article for someone starting out, however the title for this news post is somewhat ambiguous. Old hats can smile and remember the good old days. Newbies can learn to build a better server or client.
...to be called a nerd!
Who's with me? Nerds, unite!
It was my understanding that the largest living organism may be an Aspen forest. Aspens reproduce through runners, so it is possible that an entire aspen forest can actually be one organism. I'm sure you can find aspen forests larger than 10 square kilometers, but of course there could be many different plants there. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if it were the oldest.
It was mentioned here on /. before it was released. But, as some of you may know, it had a very limited release. It was very awesome :-) Also, Boondock Saints and Office Space have cult followings in my area :-p
Will they need to include the security holes to make it fully Microsoft compliant?
I wonder if this theory could be used to produce code that could be useful for encryption based on prime numbers, such as RSA's work. Would it make it easier to produce reliable prime numbers much larger than 1024 or even 2048 bit? Further, I wonder if this could be used to drastically reduce the time required to brute force an RSA encrypted message. Could the encryption of files that were encrypted with 128 bit technology be rendered all but useless?
I would have to assume you're joking. RNA virili and bacteria are far more prone to mutations in the genes. Why hasn't AIDS been cured? It's an RNA virus; it mutates too often for a standard vaccine to work. The same goes for this virus. A vaccine may be possible (at least one AIDS vaccine is in some phase of clinical trials), but it is not likely in the immediate future.
I can assure you it was not the New Zealander nor the silly Americans. It is well known that man was able to fly thousands of years ago.
This will be much better than those silly posters at the post office. If he's not in line at the post office, they are pretty much out of luck... until now! "Hey, that hot 30y/or from tampa that emailed me his pic looks a lot like that pop-up that mozilla blocked before I could look at it."
:-)
Worth a try, anyway.
I wish they'd ass XFS support
I get my ass support from BVD.
Joking asside, do any distro's come with XFS by default? From what I've seen the answer is, "no." I'd like to work with it, again, but presently I don't have the will to go through all the work of moving my data around (I neglected to make an extra partition for the XFS migration during my last install). I think when FreeBSD 5.0 comes out I'm just going to blank my hard drive and start over (I have FBSD, RH and, W2K on there, and it's time I upgrade all that junk).
The problem I see is that the reviewer accidently used the hyphenated word 'sci-fi'. It never once occured to me to consider any of Crichton's works as 'sci-fi'. In fact, go to a book store. I worked at Borders for a period of time, and they had a couple of Crichton's books in sci-fi, which surprised me because Barnes and Noble had always carried all of Crichton's books in the regular fiction section. Indeed, Crichton's books were never intended to be in the same genre as Orson Scott Card or Connie Willis (If you haven't read 'Dooms Day Book' by Willis, I highly recommend it. It won a couple awards; it is very excellent).
Books like Prey are a post-modern perspective on how the world is developing. Jurassic Park came out around the time that the high level gene studies first started to come around. Human Genome Project website, "Begun in 1990, the U.S. Human Genome Project is a 13-year effort...". Coinciding, Jurassic Park was published in 1991. Prey is a similar concept, we know nanotech is under developement as we speak. An interesting page with nanotech resources: zyvex.com.
Certainly, Crichton's books aren't perfect, but I think they succeed in what they intend to do. They are very readable (I read Jurassic Park in 6th grade [am I that young?]), and usually suspense filled. They also try to maintain a level of realism even while stretching the bounds of technology. I thought it was fairly clever to incorporate modern distributed computing design into the nanotechnology in his book. His books are always well researched, go to the last few page of prey and you will find a list of sources that he used for information. I think prey is one of his better books I've read in a while. Timeline was good, and Airframe disappointed me.
I say, if you are looking for a sci-fi read, Crichton isn't really the go to guy. But, his books are generally good, no less; and Prey is a good one.