If this went to court (not that an individual is going to go to court over this, as per other posts), it theoretically comes down to whether the application has legitimate uses, as per the Betamax case. I'd say yes, since it seems likely that the user legitimately owns at least some of the music in his iTunes - including the lyrics to those songs.
I think it DOES matter if it affects Indian citizens. There are an awful lot of problems that DO affect them every day - and these are better problems to spend resources on (from the Indian gov'ts POV. From other gov't POV, fine this is good as a mis-issued patent could cost their citizens $$).
As far as the ancient Indians... somehow, I don't think they really mind.
Indian scientists say the country has been a victim of what they describe as "bio-piracy" for a long time.
I would think that the citizens of India are the least likely to be victimized by such a patent. It would seem that it won't hold in their country, so noone there can be barred from using these therapies. And the average non-Indian citizen of, say, the U.S. is unlikely to start using these therapies - and hasn't heard of them in any case. The only victim I see (other than a lot of peoples' sense of fair play) would be those of Indian descent living abroad in the U.S. or another nation whose patent system doesn't recognize these therapies as prior art.
Of course, I'm referring to what I assume the vast majority of these therapies are - esoteric. The more mainstream ones (e.g. turmeric, rice) - those could be a problem.
I tried Google maps disconnected, seemed to work just fine (no reason it shouldn't) until I scrolled outside of the pre-loaded map images.
Anyone tried using Ajax techniques to build a disconnected store-and-forward capability into a form? Intercept the form submit, store the variables into a cookie, send cookie data when the connection is back... Any gotchas here that I'm not thinking of?
Would be valuable for embedding "standalone" capabilities into browsers that have spotty network links (yeah, Verizon!). Too bad that a lot of mobile device browsers wouldn't have an XMLHttpRequest object built in (or even JS...).
This stinks. I never thought I'd see the day in America when a STUDENT couldn't write or say what they wanted. While I think places like Berkley are where nutcases go to school, at least they have and exercise their freedom of speech.
Here's where another American ideal comes into play: consumer choice. Future students with a bent for expressing controversial opinions are going to be more likely to go to some school other than Marquette (Berkeley, perhaps). Those schools that "censor" this way will find themselves struggling to recruit those outspoken students that can bring new and revolutionary ideas.
And blogs are no different from print media - putting them online IS publishing them for the public to view. Don't think anyone will ever find it? Security by obscurity...
Actually, 11-14 are not bad rules to build a successful company. Reworded a bit, you get this:
11/13. Only hire the best. (Obviously this doesn't directly translate to best == Ivy League grads, although they probably are better than average) 12. Use your credentializers (i.e. Stanford) - this is marketing 101. 14. Whether you're selling a product or a company, go for the glitz & glam. Pretty pixels sell software. Fancy hotels sell companies. Yes, the world shouldn't be this way, but it is.
I do live in the US. And I co-run a small & growing company. R&D = long-term bucks (for example). In my case, and I think this is a common issue faced by software startups, it's much easier to start customizing software and going for the short-term consulting $. But that's a trap - because a consulting business just does not scale as well as a pure product company (and your eventual exit valuation will reflect this).
While I agree with you that many of the large corporations move primarily towards whatever will cause immediate growth in their stock prices, the way many of them got to be large corporations was by doing something longer term when they were younger.
But the question is: to make a short-term buck, or to make more long-term bucks? Long-term often require sacrificing the short-term by investing more into items like security.
The article doesn't actually back up that it's caffeine that prevents liver disease. It simply shows that *coffee or tea* prevent it. I wonder what other common substances (besides water) they have in them that could alternatively be providing the benefits.
I think a good follow-on study might be to try caffeine pills vs placebos - although since we're talking about preventing disease rather than curing it, that study could take a generation or more.
>It's disingenuous to say linux or OSX is immune but it's equally disingenuous to say it's simply because there are less systems used. There are more linux/apache/mysql websites on the web but they fall victim to attacks less than windows/IIS/mssql.
I didn't mean to imply that OSX/Linux are safer ONLY because there are fewer systems. Clearly, they are better-constructed both from an engineering standpoint, and from a social standpoint (open source, trusted sources, etc.). But, I also believe there is no such thing as a 100% "immune" system (other than the zero-sum case of a system that does nothing). Given the same # of man hours trying to hack or infect a Windows machine vs, say, OSX you'll find more exploits for the Windows system. And then given that there are many more Windows systems, and probably many more people trying to compromise then, you are naturally going to see a lot more exploits on Windows. This is basic probability.
So, point is: the fact that there are fewer OSX/Linux systems contributes to the fact that there are fewer exploits. So does the superior engineering, support structure, etc. And even in the case of OSX, which according to a couple other posts in this thread has never had a virus exploit, just because there hasn't been an exploit *yet* does not guarantee that none is possible.
I would say spyware (and malware in general) is arguably a worse threat on OSX/Linux - precisely because nobody expects it. I was disturbed reading an OSX newsgroup the other day in which a good dozen people agreed that OSX was "immune" from viruses. What they mean is, fewer viruses have been written for OSX because there's a lower number of users, and therefore lower "return" from a mass infection.
If I were trying to write something insidious, I would target one of these platforms because no-one expects it, and the detection and removal tools are not as advanced because they are a lower-profile target.
I don't know about New Zealand intellectual property law, but if it's anything like the U.S., then how can a culture & spoken language be construed as intellectual property? Do the native speakers have a patent filed on it? If so, when will that patent expire?
The purpose of intellectual property law is to provide an incentive to innovate, not to stifle others from using the innovation. That's why there's an expiration for the patent. Furthermore, the patent must be filed within a certain amount of time after the innovation has been announced or put to public use. This amount of time in the U.S. is one year. I suspect that this language/culture has been around longer than that...
I think that a real breakthrough for this sort of device would be a haptic output. When you touch a virtual object, you should be able to feel it.
With some cleverly placed muscle wires (these wires lengthen and contract according to the voltage applied), the glove could provide resistance when you touch a virtual object.
Acutally, if there were different muscle wires in each finger of the glove, and a 3-d tracking system were employed, then the user could feel a large "object" as their hand moves through the air. (i.e. a bump in the surface is felt by whichever finger happens to be at it's cooridnates).
I think the point of spending the money is the same as all research - sacrifice some of what we could have today to make tomorrow better. It's the same as investing in a 401k plan - you give up a small part of your paycheck today, but when you retire it's worth a great deal more than the money you put in.
The specific payoff to this is that it's the beginning of teraforming. Eventually we are going to outgrow the Earth. In order to support life easily, plant growth is essential; that's what made Earth habitable. The purpose of sending these plants up is to help us learn how to grow plants in that environment. Now, a full teraforming job like the Earth is obviously far too long-term to be useful now, but it could be much faster in a controlled environment, such as the confines of a colony.
As far as ethics go, I think we are choosing to make an unihabitable place habitable. It is probably not different than doing it on the moon, or in a desert on Earth, etc. From another point of view, it is not ethical to force our decendants to live on an overcrowded earth when we have available unused space on Mars.
Actually, I think you could increase the range on the HP48 just by removing an attenuating resistor across the IR terminals (and your warantee;-). Unfortunately, I don't have a link to a schematic handy. I bet you could do the same to a Palm...
Yes, I agree. I think the underlying concepts aren't applicable to just interplanetary communication, or to uucp; they describe a method of communication in a system where the time delay in receiving an acknowledgement is potentially greater than the time until another message needs to be sent. I believe old modem/BBS networks such as FidoNet worked this way.
I think the common mistake is to think of wireless devices (PDA, web phone...) as all-purpose internet tools. In fact, I think that the differentiating factor isn't the fact that they are wireless, but that the physical UI is different. This makes different devices suitable for different applications:
PC: Good for heavy-input tasks, high graphics, etc. This one is obvious.
PDA: Portable, and still has a reasonable screen - this is good as a newspaper, and can be used as a quick address book/memo pad (try whipping out a laptop to type in an email address when you meet someone on the subway)
Web Phone: get quick, current tidbits of information. What was the score? What's the stock price? What movies are playing at theater X right now?
Slashdot Mirror
If this went to court (not that an individual is going to go to court over this, as per other posts), it theoretically comes down to whether the application has legitimate uses, as per the Betamax case. I'd say yes, since it seems likely that the user legitimately owns at least some of the music in his iTunes - including the lyrics to those songs.
I think it DOES matter if it affects Indian citizens. There are an awful lot of problems that DO affect them every day - and these are better problems to spend resources on (from the Indian gov'ts POV. From other gov't POV, fine this is good as a mis-issued patent could cost their citizens $$).
As far as the ancient Indians... somehow, I don't think they really mind.
Indian scientists say the country has been a victim of what they describe as "bio-piracy" for a long time.
I would think that the citizens of India are the least likely to be victimized by such a patent. It would seem that it won't hold in their country, so noone there can be barred from using these therapies. And the average non-Indian citizen of, say, the U.S. is unlikely to start using these therapies - and hasn't heard of them in any case. The only victim I see (other than a lot of peoples' sense of fair play) would be those of Indian descent living abroad in the U.S. or another nation whose patent system doesn't recognize these therapies as prior art.
Of course, I'm referring to what I assume the vast majority of these therapies are - esoteric. The more mainstream ones (e.g. turmeric, rice) - those could be a problem.
I tried Google maps disconnected, seemed to work just fine (no reason it shouldn't) until I scrolled outside of the pre-loaded map images.
Anyone tried using Ajax techniques to build a disconnected store-and-forward capability into a form? Intercept the form submit, store the variables into a cookie, send cookie data when the connection is back... Any gotchas here that I'm not thinking of?
Would be valuable for embedding "standalone" capabilities into browsers that have spotty network links (yeah, Verizon!). Too bad that a lot of mobile device browsers wouldn't have an XMLHttpRequest object built in (or even JS...).
This stinks. I never thought I'd see the day in America when a STUDENT couldn't write or say what they wanted. While I think places like Berkley are where nutcases go to school, at least they have and exercise their freedom of speech.
Here's where another American ideal comes into play: consumer choice. Future students with a bent for expressing controversial opinions are going to be more likely to go to some school other than Marquette (Berkeley, perhaps). Those schools that "censor" this way will find themselves struggling to recruit those outspoken students that can bring new and revolutionary ideas.
And blogs are no different from print media - putting them online IS publishing them for the public to view. Don't think anyone will ever find it? Security by obscurity...
Actually, 11-14 are not bad rules to build a successful company. Reworded a bit, you get this:
11/13. Only hire the best. (Obviously this doesn't directly translate to best == Ivy League grads, although they probably are better than average)
12. Use your credentializers (i.e. Stanford) - this is marketing 101.
14. Whether you're selling a product or a company, go for the glitz & glam. Pretty pixels sell software. Fancy hotels sell companies. Yes, the world shouldn't be this way, but it is.
I do live in the US. And I co-run a small & growing company. R&D = long-term bucks (for example). In my case, and I think this is a common issue faced by software startups, it's much easier to start customizing software and going for the short-term consulting $. But that's a trap - because a consulting business just does not scale as well as a pure product company (and your eventual exit valuation will reflect this).
While I agree with you that many of the large corporations move primarily towards whatever will cause immediate growth in their stock prices, the way many of them got to be large corporations was by doing something longer term when they were younger.
This isn't new - LoJack has probably been selling information to the feds for years.
But the question is: to make a short-term buck, or to make more long-term bucks? Long-term often require sacrificing the short-term by investing more into items like security.
The article doesn't actually back up that it's caffeine that prevents liver disease. It simply shows that *coffee or tea* prevent it. I wonder what other common substances (besides water) they have in them that could alternatively be providing the benefits.
I think a good follow-on study might be to try caffeine pills vs placebos - although since we're talking about preventing disease rather than curing it, that study could take a generation or more.
>It's disingenuous to say linux or OSX is immune but it's equally disingenuous to say it's simply because there are less systems used. There are more linux/apache/mysql websites on the web but they fall victim to attacks less than windows/IIS/mssql.
I didn't mean to imply that OSX/Linux are safer ONLY because there are fewer systems. Clearly, they are better-constructed both from an engineering standpoint, and from a social standpoint (open source, trusted sources, etc.). But, I also believe there is no such thing as a 100% "immune" system (other than the zero-sum case of a system that does nothing). Given the same # of man hours trying to hack or infect a Windows machine vs, say, OSX you'll find more exploits for the Windows system. And then given that there are many more Windows systems, and probably many more people trying to compromise then, you are naturally going to see a lot more exploits on Windows. This is basic probability.
So, point is: the fact that there are fewer OSX/Linux systems contributes to the fact that there are fewer exploits. So does the superior engineering, support structure, etc. And even in the case of OSX, which according to a couple other posts in this thread has never had a virus exploit, just because there hasn't been an exploit *yet* does not guarantee that none is possible.
I would say spyware (and malware in general) is arguably a worse threat on OSX/Linux - precisely because nobody expects it. I was disturbed reading an OSX newsgroup the other day in which a good dozen people agreed that OSX was "immune" from viruses. What they mean is, fewer viruses have been written for OSX because there's a lower number of users, and therefore lower "return" from a mass infection.
If I were trying to write something insidious, I would target one of these platforms because no-one expects it, and the detection and removal tools are not as advanced because they are a lower-profile target.
I don't know about New Zealand intellectual property law, but if it's anything like the U.S., then how can a culture & spoken language be construed as intellectual property? Do the native speakers have a patent filed on it? If so, when will that patent expire?
The purpose of intellectual property law is to provide an incentive to innovate, not to stifle others from using the innovation. That's why there's an expiration for the patent. Furthermore, the patent must be filed within a certain amount of time after the innovation has been announced or put to public use. This amount of time in the U.S. is one year. I suspect that this language/culture has been around longer than that...
I think that a real breakthrough for this sort of device would be a haptic output. When you touch a virtual object, you should be able to feel it.
With some cleverly placed muscle wires (these wires lengthen and contract according to the voltage applied), the glove could provide resistance when you touch a virtual object.
Acutally, if there were different muscle wires in each finger of the glove, and a 3-d tracking system were employed, then the user could feel a large "object" as their hand moves through the air. (i.e. a bump in the surface is felt by whichever finger happens to be at it's cooridnates).
Lack of gun control: Nope, NASA's money isn't going to make the legislative process any smarter
I think that the share of the total budget NASA gets is so small that it wouldn't make any difference anyway.
I think the point of spending the money is the same as all research - sacrifice some of what we could have today to make tomorrow better. It's the same as investing in a 401k plan - you give up a small part of your paycheck today, but when you retire it's worth a great deal more than the money you put in.
The specific payoff to this is that it's the beginning of teraforming. Eventually we are going to outgrow the Earth. In order to support life easily, plant growth is essential; that's what made Earth habitable. The purpose of sending these plants up is to help us learn how to grow plants in that environment. Now, a full teraforming job like the Earth is obviously far too long-term to be useful now, but it could be much faster in a controlled environment, such as the confines of a colony.
As far as ethics go, I think we are choosing to make an unihabitable place habitable. It is probably not different than doing it on the moon, or in a desert on Earth, etc. From another point of view, it is not ethical to force our decendants to live on an overcrowded earth when we have available unused space on Mars.
Actually, I think you could increase the range on the HP48 just by removing an attenuating resistor across the IR terminals (and your warantee ;-). Unfortunately, I don't have a link to a schematic handy. I bet you could do the same to a Palm...
Yes, I agree. I think the underlying concepts aren't applicable to just interplanetary communication, or to uucp; they describe a method of communication in a system where the time delay in receiving an acknowledgement is potentially greater than the time until another message needs to be sent. I believe old modem/BBS networks such as FidoNet worked this way.
I think the common mistake is to think of wireless devices (PDA, web phone...) as all-purpose internet tools. In fact, I think that the differentiating factor isn't the fact that they are wireless, but that the physical UI is different. This makes different devices suitable for different applications: PC: Good for heavy-input tasks, high graphics, etc. This one is obvious. PDA: Portable, and still has a reasonable screen - this is good as a newspaper, and can be used as a quick address book/memo pad (try whipping out a laptop to type in an email address when you meet someone on the subway) Web Phone: get quick, current tidbits of information. What was the score? What's the stock price? What movies are playing at theater X right now?