The PTO is considering a 15% increase in filing fees.
Yeah that's the solution... let's make it even harder for the average joe to submit a patent... that's the problem. Those damn garage hobbyists doing nothing but submitting applications. The nerve. It couldn't be the corporations who don't care how much you charge and submit hundreds of applications a month...
As a former resident of Seattle, all I have to say is please dear god, Seattle doesn't need another Experience Music Project (One of Mr. Allen's other attempts at a "shrine" in Seattle). That thing is the ugliest eyesore there ever was.
Hey maybe they should put all of the music stuff in a better looking building, and turn the EMP into the Sci-Fi shrine? At least then he could justify the hideous, cat-just-coughed-up-this-technicolor-hairball-of-a -building-its-not-ugly-its-art look of the thing.
I didn't say it would be easy to achieve, I'm just saying that they said "better brakes on cars" would be one example of an "incremental" improvement. Now better brakes on cars isn't exactly a piece of cake either, but the fact remains that such an invention would be incremental, an obvious eventual improvement upon an existing and known technology.
Okay I think this is a cool idea and I applaud their effort and all...
but their "examples" don't seem like they're all that revolutionary... it says that they do -not- want something that's just an incremental improvement (the example of something like that they give is better brakes on cars). But then 1 of their 3 examples is "Build the first space hotel". WTF, how is that not an incremental improvement? It's a hotel, in space.
I just think it's dissapointing that a think tank, whose job it is to THINK, gives a weak example like that when presented with the opportunity to toss pretty much anything out there... hope the submissions are better than the examples. If hotels in space is valid, how about cars in space. Geeks in space. Space motels. Space RVs (been done)... just because you tack "in space" onto an idea doesn't make it good.
How on earth do you get money to just talk about the cool ways someone could build a space elevator? This is not intended to be a troll or anything, I'm actually curious how this works.
I would understand if they were just some guys using their spare time to develop specs and a plan, but this guy formed a company to develop this idea and had it funded somehow. I don't see how they plan to make money, or how they were able to pass this off as a legitimate business. They're not building the elevator, so there's no chance of future revenue from that, they're not selling anything, they're just "investigating". How do you get money to spin your wheels and not produce anything? (Hold the dot com jokes)
I tried this when it was announced on nooface.com a few months ago... at that time when I tried to run it the Squeak window came up but the app itself bombed. I tried and tried and couldn't even get the shell to run. I think this project has a long ways to go before it's even at the "experimental" stage. I think 3dwm is farther along at least in try-ability, but good luck to them.
Or 3.)... MS is always complaining that sysadmins and corporations don't immediately go and lap up WindowsXP++ whatever, and the corporations push back, tell MS they've standardized on NT4, and won't budge for years. Well if there's no actionable damage (or tracability) caused by the virus, what have they got to lose?
I'm not saying MS releases every virus on earth, but would you really be surprised if they slip one or two in the mix every couple years? Sure make it look like they don't have anything to gain, since the "upgrade" that fixes the issue the virus targets is free, except for in the case where it's a rolled up Service Pack with features X and Y along with bugfix.
It'd be a great way to make sure your proprietary extensions work their ways into the cores of every business. Then when that businesses developers are all sitting around looking for a solution, they remember "hey, all our systems run XP++SP3 and now they support X. Sure, it's an MS proprietary extension, but it's on -all- our servers and it'll work for us." And that's how the noose tightens...
I grew up in Oregon and only moved just recently to the East coast for work. I can tell you, just because fiber runs down the Interstate, it's no wonder it's still hard/rare to get broadband in most of Oregon.
Phone company conspiracy theories aside, Oregon is anything but flat. Houses are not close together (generally). One of the things that makes Oregon nice is the country side, open space (I know, hard to imagine sometimes if you haven't seen it), and the ability to live more than 5 feet from your neighbor. Other than the larger cities like Portland, there's really no housing developments or sub-divisions to run fiber to or at least not enough to entice phone companies to bother with running the lines over/under whatever terrain.
I think that's one of the main reasons the Personal Telco Project in Portland is really taking off and will continue to do well. Cheap or free blanketted wireless (able to cover several miles, not just a few hundred feet like current 802.11) is the only way I see a lot of homes in Oregon ever getting anymore than a dialup connection. It's just not practical to lay fiber down one person's mile long driveway. We didn't even have local dial up internet access where I used to live (45 minutes west of Portland) until '97 and even then it was 14.4!
I'll tell you where E=mc^2 comes into it... we had to put that in the business plan to get our funding. Everyone in government knows that no serious science is done without quoting E=MC^2 in your business plan! Look where those SETI guys got, do you see mention of E=MC^2 in their business plan? Didn't think so, and how are they doing for money today?
What's with the squiggley mark thing on the top? Is that a logo or did CNet just grab a screw driver and scrape it in a squiggley line on the top of the thing? Ick.
Well with the processors in the macs running "faster than light" this was just bound to happen. If you can't repect the physical laws of the universe you don't deserve to have a DVD burner, you can't have your cake and eat it to you know. This is just the universe's way of correcting the imbalance
I have traveled back from the future to enlighten you, my ancestors, and bring about the new era of technological utopia so that you can save the earth, our home, from it's terrible destruction in the year 4572. It is my hope that by bringing about the new dawn centuries earlier that future generations will be able to avert the great cataclysm
Included below is all of the information you'll need
The information super highway today ground to a halt as drivers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Surfers, normally accustomed to breezing overpasses suddenly ran into one giant European roundabout traffic circle. We got the chance to speak with one of these poor confused souls earlier today but all he would say is, "wheeeeeeeeeee"
The one question I don't see anyone asking is didn't Apple see it coming? You can't tell me that they've been developing this for several years and just before they sent the shrink wrapped boxes to the store shelves someone said "gee, should we read the license for this technology just in case?" They MUST have known about it all along. Why didn't someone at Apple pursue this years ago so it would be resolved in time for the release? Now we have to wait, product in hand, because someone dropped the ball or was just sitting on their thumbs. And now we're supposed to feel sorry for them? Am I missing something?
Give me a break, the "wars" Katz gives as examples (Gulf war and Afghanistan) can hardly be held up as models of modern warfare. One of those wasn't/isn't even a war. We are aiding the Northern Aliance in Afghanistan as others here have pointed out. There is no declaration of war, and the only reason they're calling it a "war" is so Bush can make himself feel important and draw attention from bigger problems here in the US. We have lucked out in the past few decades. Sure, we use a lot of technology to fight our mini-wars in the middle east, why not? I'd hardly say we're at the point of drone warfare. A few remote controlled planes and some satellites will mean absolutely nothing if we ever got into a serious war with a major power (Russia, China, etc.). Where would our modern technology and advanced drones get us then? The loss of human life would be staggering on both sides. The US simply hasn't gone up against someone it's own size in a lot of people's here lifetimes. Katz, you're in for a rude awakening if you think we're all going to be sitting in our recliners watching on TV as color coded drones with color coded laser weapons fight in an imaginary place far from home.
I think this story hints at a bigger underlying issue though that is significant. The view that wars happen in far away places and never really affect us in a negative way seems to be everywhere these days. It's easy to say things like we'll just watch the machhines fight it out on TV because we haven't had our bell rung lately. Even after Sept. 11th we have this false sense of security and invincibility. Kind of the it'll never happen to me syndrome. I worry about our nation being able to defend itself when a real enemy comes knocking. We'll all be so surprised and dumbfounded that they'll roll right over us. Not until we're all looking down the very real barrel of a very real gun will we realize how much all our progress and fantasy "drones" really mean. Maybe then people like Katz will get it.
I agree with some of the other posts. The IBM Thinkpads are undoubtably -THE- ugliest things on the planet. I'm sitting at work looking at a ThinkPad T23 (best they make right now AFAIK) and a much much older P200 ThinkPad. On the inside there's a world of different, on the outside they're/exactly/ the same case minus a shiny black strip above the keyboard on the T23. Both of them are horrendously ugly things. The screen is in a thick casing, sticks when you open it so you have to really pull on it, has no wrist rests or pads, and is just bulky. Now, the new Dell laptop I have here is a beautiful, sleek machine with nearly identical hardware, approximately equal in cost, and doesn't embarass me when I take it into meetings. It's sleek, trim, fast, and visually appealing. I would pick a visually appealing compaq or dell over a bulky, ugly, cumbersome Thinkpad any day.
-DISCLAIMER-
These remarks are my own opinion and do not represent or reflect the views of my employer in any way
Slashdot Mirror
The PTO is considering a 15% increase in filing fees.
Yeah that's the solution... let's make it even harder for the average joe to submit a patent... that's the problem. Those damn garage hobbyists doing nothing but submitting applications. The nerve. It couldn't be the corporations who don't care how much you charge and submit hundreds of applications a month...
As a former resident of Seattle, all I have to say is please dear god, Seattle doesn't need another Experience Music Project (One of Mr. Allen's other attempts at a "shrine" in Seattle). That thing is the ugliest eyesore there ever was.
a -building-its-not-ugly-its-art look of the thing.
Hey maybe they should put all of the music stuff in a better looking building, and turn the EMP into the Sci-Fi shrine? At least then he could justify the hideous, cat-just-coughed-up-this-technicolor-hairball-of-
I didn't say it would be easy to achieve, I'm just saying that they said "better brakes on cars" would be one example of an "incremental" improvement. Now better brakes on cars isn't exactly a piece of cake either, but the fact remains that such an invention would be incremental, an obvious eventual improvement upon an existing and known technology.
Okay I think this is a cool idea and I applaud their effort and all...
but their "examples" don't seem like they're all that revolutionary... it says that they do -not- want something that's just an incremental improvement (the example of something like that they give is better brakes on cars). But then 1 of their 3 examples is "Build the first space hotel". WTF, how is that not an incremental improvement? It's a hotel, in space.
I just think it's dissapointing that a think tank, whose job it is to THINK, gives a weak example like that when presented with the opportunity to toss pretty much anything out there... hope the submissions are better than the examples. If hotels in space is valid, how about cars in space. Geeks in space. Space motels. Space RVs (been done)... just because you tack "in space" onto an idea doesn't make it good.
How on earth do you get money to just talk about the cool ways someone could build a space elevator? This is not intended to be a troll or anything, I'm actually curious how this works.
I would understand if they were just some guys using their spare time to develop specs and a plan, but this guy formed a company to develop this idea and had it funded somehow. I don't see how they plan to make money, or how they were able to pass this off as a legitimate business. They're not building the elevator, so there's no chance of future revenue from that, they're not selling anything, they're just "investigating". How do you get money to spin your wheels and not produce anything? (Hold the dot com jokes)
A quick note to clear up any confusion about the amount of video you can compress onto that 80GB hard drive with this unit...
It's about 4 LOC (Library of Congress) although if you need to be more exact, you could say that it's 4 LOC, and then round to the nearest Volkswagon
*DUCKS*
I tried this when it was announced on nooface.com a few months ago... at that time when I tried to run it the Squeak window came up but the app itself bombed. I tried and tried and couldn't even get the shell to run. I think this project has a long ways to go before it's even at the "experimental" stage. I think 3dwm is farther along at least in try-ability, but good luck to them.
Cyberbees Score MIT Prize
:)
I don't see what all the buzz is about...
*bah* *dum* *cha!*
thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week
Ok... let's say I'm a reporter.
a lone CmdrTaco ponders at the terminal late one evening....
Or 3.)...
MS is always complaining that sysadmins and corporations don't immediately go and lap up WindowsXP++ whatever, and the corporations push back, tell MS they've standardized on NT4, and won't budge for years. Well if there's no actionable damage (or tracability) caused by the virus, what have they got to lose?
I'm not saying MS releases every virus on earth, but would you really be surprised if they slip one or two in the mix every couple years? Sure make it look like they don't have anything to gain, since the "upgrade" that fixes the issue the virus targets is free, except for in the case where it's a rolled up Service Pack with features X and Y along with bugfix.
It'd be a great way to make sure your proprietary extensions work their ways into the cores of every business. Then when that businesses developers are all sitting around looking for a solution, they remember "hey, all our systems run XP++SP3 and now they support X. Sure, it's an MS proprietary extension, but it's on -all- our servers and it'll work for us." And that's how the noose tightens...
You just have to wonder sometimes...
post anything else you can find below
I found some lint in my pocket but every time I click the "attach" button there's no option for "my pants"
Actually you hit right on it, Vernonia ;)
I grew up in Oregon and only moved just recently to the East coast for work. I can tell you, just because fiber runs down the Interstate, it's no wonder it's still hard/rare to get broadband in most of Oregon.
Phone company conspiracy theories aside, Oregon is anything but flat. Houses are not close together (generally). One of the things that makes Oregon nice is the country side, open space (I know, hard to imagine sometimes if you haven't seen it), and the ability to live more than 5 feet from your neighbor. Other than the larger cities like Portland, there's really no housing developments or sub-divisions to run fiber to or at least not enough to entice phone companies to bother with running the lines over/under whatever terrain.
I think that's one of the main reasons the Personal Telco Project in Portland is really taking off and will continue to do well. Cheap or free blanketted wireless (able to cover several miles, not just a few hundred feet like current 802.11) is the only way I see a lot of homes in Oregon ever getting anymore than a dialup connection. It's just not practical to lay fiber down one person's mile long driveway. We didn't even have local dial up internet access where I used to live (45 minutes west of Portland) until '97 and even then it was 14.4!
Win2k costs an average of 11%-22% total cost of enterprise
Let me guess, they added up the numbers for the study on an original Pentium right?
Yes Gates has captured hearts but he hasnt captured my heart yet...
It's not my heart that I'm worried about... it's my brain. He already got half of it last time I fell asleep. must... not... sleep...
I'll tell you where E=mc^2 comes into it... we had to put that in the business plan to get our funding. Everyone in government knows that no serious science is done without quoting E=MC^2 in your business plan! Look where those SETI guys got, do you see mention of E=MC^2 in their business plan? Didn't think so, and how are they doing for money today?
Tell me you can strap one of these on to a frickin' sharks head and I may have a buyer for you...
Glad to see Slashdot finally mirroring a site they link to for once...
What's with the squiggley mark thing on the top? Is that a logo or did CNet just grab a screw driver and scrape it in a squiggley line on the top of the thing? Ick.
Well with the processors in the macs running "faster than light" this was just bound to happen. If you can't repect the physical laws of the universe you don't deserve to have a DVD burner, you can't have your cake and eat it to you know. This is just the universe's way of correcting the imbalance
I have traveled back from the future to enlighten you, my ancestors, and bring about the new era of technological utopia so that you can save the earth, our home, from it's terrible destruction in the year 4572. It is my hope that by bringing about the new dawn centuries earlier that future generations will be able to avert the great cataclysm
.
Included below is all of the information you'll need
I can see it now...
The information super highway today ground to a halt as drivers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Surfers, normally accustomed to breezing overpasses suddenly ran into one giant European roundabout traffic circle. We got the chance to speak with one of these poor confused souls earlier today but all he would say is, "wheeeeeeeeeee"
news at 11
The one question I don't see anyone asking is didn't Apple see it coming? You can't tell me that they've been developing this for several years and just before they sent the shrink wrapped boxes to the store shelves someone said "gee, should we read the license for this technology just in case?" They MUST have known about it all along. Why didn't someone at Apple pursue this years ago so it would be resolved in time for the release? Now we have to wait, product in hand, because someone dropped the ball or was just sitting on their thumbs. And now we're supposed to feel sorry for them? Am I missing something?
Give me a break, the "wars" Katz gives as examples (Gulf war and Afghanistan) can hardly be held up as models of modern warfare. One of those wasn't/isn't even a war. We are aiding the Northern Aliance in Afghanistan as others here have pointed out. There is no declaration of war, and the only reason they're calling it a "war" is so Bush can make himself feel important and draw attention from bigger problems here in the US. We have lucked out in the past few decades. Sure, we use a lot of technology to fight our mini-wars in the middle east, why not? I'd hardly say we're at the point of drone warfare. A few remote controlled planes and some satellites will mean absolutely nothing if we ever got into a serious war with a major power (Russia, China, etc.). Where would our modern technology and advanced drones get us then? The loss of human life would be staggering on both sides. The US simply hasn't gone up against someone it's own size in a lot of people's here lifetimes. Katz, you're in for a rude awakening if you think we're all going to be sitting in our recliners watching on TV as color coded drones with color coded laser weapons fight in an imaginary place far from home.
I think this story hints at a bigger underlying issue though that is significant. The view that wars happen in far away places and never really affect us in a negative way seems to be everywhere these days. It's easy to say things like we'll just watch the machhines fight it out on TV because we haven't had our bell rung lately. Even after Sept. 11th we have this false sense of security and invincibility. Kind of the it'll never happen to me syndrome. I worry about our nation being able to defend itself when a real enemy comes knocking. We'll all be so surprised and dumbfounded that they'll roll right over us. Not until we're all looking down the very real barrel of a very real gun will we realize how much all our progress and fantasy "drones" really mean. Maybe then people like Katz will get it.
I agree with some of the other posts. The IBM Thinkpads are undoubtably -THE- ugliest things on the planet. I'm sitting at work looking at a ThinkPad T23 (best they make right now AFAIK) and a much much older P200 ThinkPad. On the inside there's a world of different, on the outside they're /exactly/ the same case minus a shiny black strip above the keyboard on the T23. Both of them are horrendously ugly things. The screen is in a thick casing, sticks when you open it so you have to really pull on it, has no wrist rests or pads, and is just bulky. Now, the new Dell laptop I have here is a beautiful, sleek machine with nearly identical hardware, approximately equal in cost, and doesn't embarass me when I take it into meetings. It's sleek, trim, fast, and visually appealing. I would pick a visually appealing compaq or dell over a bulky, ugly, cumbersome Thinkpad any day.
-DISCLAIMER-
These remarks are my own opinion and do not represent or reflect the views of my employer in any way