IIRC, you can make a mix of about 3 parts Home Heating Oil to 2 parts kerosene, and burn it in a diesel engine. Probably not one of those little high-efficency, low-emissions VW diesels, but a big truck diesel, or one of those old late-80s Mercedes or Volvos...no problem.
I disagree. There is no reason to have one organization in charge of patents, as long as they're all playing from the same book in terms of researching prior art, compliance with laws, etc.
To find a parallel, would you really prefer just to have one domain name registrar on the internet, instead of the distributed-and-competitive system of registrars we have now? There was a time when if you wanted a domain name, your only option was to go to a central entity. Now, you can go to any number of registrars, and pay a lot less than what you used to.
I'm not sure why you think that "15 companies competing on price, ease of use and general mucking about" would make things worse. If anything, it would make things a lot better. I'd LOVE to see fifteen companies competing on price and ease of use.
And if Microsoft wanted to create a spin-off and specialize in commercial patents, more power to them. Maybe IBM would want to, too. There'd be no reason to stop them. Assuming the ground rules were set up correctly so as to create a level playing field, there's no reason why they wouldn't be allowed.
The other thing to consider is how quickly Apple orders those 3.3M units. They're not evenly distributed throughout the year. If they were, then you could easily find some small shop with a 5M unit per year capacity and have lots of room to grow.
That's now how it works though. Apple tends to have pretty spectacular product launches, which are followed with almost zombie-like mass product orders by their userbase. It's totally conceivable that 30% of their yearly orders could come in a very small timespan. (Imagine if they made a big product announcement right before the Christmas buying season.)
AMD may have 36M processor/year capacity, but that might not be enough to tolerate the "rat through the python" effect that a big product launch might generate. And Apple obviously doesn't want to be burned again by partnering with a chip company that can't deliver when Jobs gets up in front of the masses and makes a promise of a product by a date.
Looking at year-total production numbers is fine, but keep in mind that anything to do with retail sales means demand fluctuates, sometimes hugely. You need a lot of production capacity (or a lot of inventory to create safety stocks, which with computers isn't an option due to cost and obsolescence rate) to respond quickly to changes like that.
Re:Dupe me baby one more time....
on
Cyan Worlds Closes
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I remember that the original Myst was actually written in Hypercard, which was a pretty common program and had been covered in my junior-high 'computer science' class. Seeing a game like Myst, and realizing that the whole gameplay was actually implemented using Hypercard, just blew me away. Somehow it makes a thing like that seem more brilliant, when you know the frontend was done using (for the time) a pretty ubiquitous and common tool.
Actually, there used to be a "cheat" in Myst, where you could press Command-backslash (maybe it was Command-shift-backslash), which was the menu shortcut for 'Hypercard Help,' and it would bring up a prompt asking you to locate the Help stack. If you then pointed it to one of the other Myst island / worlds stacks, you'd be transported there. Pretty amusing.
I think that the breakup of Cyan, while of course too bad for the people who were working there, is not necessarily bad for the industry as a whole. I mean it's been a while since we've seen anything really innovative out of Cyan. Maybe it's better that it go away now, and let the talent disburse and move on to other new startups with interesting ideas.
Cyan always struck me as basically being "Myst, Inc." -- most of their later products, at least those I've ever heard of -- were basically derivatives or sequels to this one original, groundbreaking idea they had. Sure, they were brilliant, but at the end of the day they were sort of a one-trick-pony.
I think this wins the award for most intelligent comment (so far) in this entire article.
Listen up, people. There are a lot of people talking crap on the internet in general, and on Slashdot in particular (what's new?), and especially when it comes to DRM. The above post sums it up quite nicely.
It's a stupid, stupid idea, and the sooner that companies understand that and stop prosecuting the wrong people, then the sooner we'll actually have something approaching 'secure computing,' and not just some corporate farse.
Wouldn't work. Then companies would just spawn off wholly-owned subsidiary companies for the purposes of maintaining patents. Let's say IBM or GE comes up with some great new idea, but under your scheme would have to pay a billion dollars to patent it. So instead they just create some no-name shell corporation, and have it apply for the patent instead. This sort of stuff goes on all the time with large corporations (actually any large "corporation" as we think of it is actually a conglomeration of many smaller legal entities).
Without attempting to trace the formation and history of every company that applies for a patent, it would be almost impossible to say which were legitimate small businesses and which companies were actually fronts for much larger enterprises.
This might have been true in 1850, or even 1950, when "centralized referencing" implied a centralized database filled with file drawers of patent application hardcopies, but this is no longer true.
You could very easily maintain an externally-accessible central database, or even a distributed database which linked the different systems belonging to the patent granting firms.
The ability to reference the patents centrally does not imply that a single monolithic patent-granting body is needed.
I think what his post meant was that although or in spite of the fact that the higher fees would be a disincentive for small firms to submit patents, the things that the USPTO could do with the revenue generated by those fees -- turning it around and hiring more clerks, who would then more carefully review the patents -- would make the marketplace as a whole a better place to work and do business in. So the damage caused by the higher fees would be more than offset by the positive effect the reforms would have, by keeping large corporations for using the Patent structure as a bludgeon against innovation.
This would be a really good idea, if someone could throw something useful together and then if as a community we could publicize it.
I blew all my mod points earlier this evening, so I can't do too much to ensure this gets the exposure it deserves. But for what it's worth I think it's the best idea I've heard all evening (and I've been watching the talking heads on TV for hours).
Uhh...not true. While you're right that gasoline doesn't gel like diesel fuel does, at least at temperatures you and I are likely to encounter in our lives (some components of gasoline start to gel at -97 F), that assumes that the gasoline is pure and uncontaminated. If the gasoline has any water in it at all, then the freezing point can rise up to the point where it's possible to have problems.
I've heard a lot of different explanations on how you get water contamination in gasoline, but the common thread is that it usually only happens if you have a very high ratio of air to gasoline in the tank, either the big one at the station or the one in your car. If you get some moist air inside the tank, it can then condense on the cold interior walls of the tank and put the moisture directly into the gas. By keeping the tank full, you have less air to condense and more gasoline in which to distribute the trace water.
But it's quite easy especially if you have a crack in the top of the gas tank, or a cap that doesn't fit tightly, to get water contamination in your gasoline. Then it definitely can freeze up in the lines, or the small ice crystals can clog the fuel filter.
The "Wintergas" which another poster mentioned above, although I'm not intimately familiar, is probably just gasoline with some additional methanol added. Since the methanol is hydroscopic, it absorbs the water and lowers the freezing point back to an acceptable value. You can buy this at most gas stations in northern states, usually under the name "Dry Gas."
I've always wondered whether this was redundant now that most gasoline you buy is actually 10% or more ethanol. I know that dry gas definitely predates gasohol (and unleaded gas, for that matter) and seems to be used religiously by older drivers, so perhaps it doesn't serve any purpose anymore.
Today the RIAA announced the rollout of it's new implantable Digital Rights Management device, code-named 'Stinger.' Featuring half a gram of plastic explosive, the device is fitted into the user's brain-stem and allows watching of all the newest movies and hottest games. In the event that a viewer accesses unauthorized content via the visual or aural "content channels," the device quickly revokes the user's license to all visual and aural content. For a limited time the device comes with free installation, and can be purchased for $29.95 at any Blockbuster Video or Sony Music location.
I think a lot of people are a little reluctant to teach their kids about the intricacies of the legal system, even if they know them, not because they want their kids to be ignorant, but because they don't want them to become cynical too soon.
Once you learn that 'legal' and 'illegal' aren't necessarily synonymous with 'right' and 'wrong,' well, it's all downhill from there.
Since you admitted yourself you're unfamiliar with the ACLU, and therefore I assume its reputation for finding some of the most despicable and unsympathetic people in society to use as model defendants, then perhaps you shouldn't respond at all?
Almost certainly, yes. Unless you had delegated the responsibility of supervising your child to some other appropriate person (day care, school, etc.) then you're responsible for whatever they do as a result of your obvious neglect to properly supervise them. Not to mention that by allowing a child to get in a car who doesn't know how to drive, you're probably also guilty of risk of injury to a minor, probably some child-neglect type charges also.
The point is, the car manufacturer wouldn't be responsible, unless there was some obvious and ignored defect which allowed the child to get into the car and drive it away. So if the parking pin sheared off and the car rolled down a hill with your kid in it, while you were getting the mail from the box at the end of the driveway or something, then you might have a case against the manufacturer. But if you left your kid in the car with the key for a few hours while you went in a store, and the kid decided it would be fun to run over some pedestrians in the meantime, then you probably would be responsible.
At least that's how my limited understanding of our legal system tells me it would be. Luckily the more dim-witted members of Congress haven't managed to push strict liability through yet, although they do try from time to time on industries they're trying to eliminate (file sharing, firearms, etc.).
Unless they were using it colloquially, or put it in quotes, I've never seen a respected physicist (or any other scientist, but physics is my field) call something a Law. It's just too strong a word.
Our entire understanding of the way the Universe works is comprised of theories. Period. That doesn't mean that our understanding of some areas of the universe with which we are intimately familiar are on soft ground, as it were, just that the word Law is one which has no place in scientific inquiry, period.
Nonetheless, to many people who were last exposed to state-of-the-art science in 1960s General Electric educational film reels, Laws are laws and Theories are 'just theories,' and never the twain shall meet.
Gravity is a theory. Evolution is a theory. Intelligent design, however, is not a theory.
Where they backed themselves into a hole was by using the term "PC" in a contract.
What is a PC? The computer I'm typing this at, which is sitting in my bedroom, is my Personal Computer. However, it is a Macintosh. If I told some people this was "a PC," they'd probably say "no it isn't! That's a Mac!" So we have one definition, probably different than the one they mean.
Someone being particularly pedantic about the definition might think to themselves... "well, this is my home-office computer. It's not really my personal computer," and believe themselves to be excluded by the EULA.
Hopefully they resolved this point earlier in the contract (in the aptly named 'Definitions' section) by defining what "PC" means within the EULA. However if they didn't, then they're terribly stupid, because as often as it gets used, the term PC has multiple meanings depending on usage and context which can be very different in fact.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, you can make a mix of about 3 parts Home Heating Oil to 2 parts kerosene, and burn it in a diesel engine. Probably not one of those little high-efficency, low-emissions VW diesels, but a big truck diesel, or one of those old late-80s Mercedes or Volvos...no problem.
I disagree. There is no reason to have one organization in charge of patents, as long as they're all playing from the same book in terms of researching prior art, compliance with laws, etc.
To find a parallel, would you really prefer just to have one domain name registrar on the internet, instead of the distributed-and-competitive system of registrars we have now? There was a time when if you wanted a domain name, your only option was to go to a central entity. Now, you can go to any number of registrars, and pay a lot less than what you used to.
I'm not sure why you think that "15 companies competing on price, ease of use and general mucking about" would make things worse. If anything, it would make things a lot better. I'd LOVE to see fifteen companies competing on price and ease of use.
And if Microsoft wanted to create a spin-off and specialize in commercial patents, more power to them. Maybe IBM would want to, too. There'd be no reason to stop them. Assuming the ground rules were set up correctly so as to create a level playing field, there's no reason why they wouldn't be allowed.
The other thing to consider is how quickly Apple orders those 3.3M units. They're not evenly distributed throughout the year. If they were, then you could easily find some small shop with a 5M unit per year capacity and have lots of room to grow.
That's now how it works though. Apple tends to have pretty spectacular product launches, which are followed with almost zombie-like mass product orders by their userbase. It's totally conceivable that 30% of their yearly orders could come in a very small timespan. (Imagine if they made a big product announcement right before the Christmas buying season.)
AMD may have 36M processor/year capacity, but that might not be enough to tolerate the "rat through the python" effect that a big product launch might generate. And Apple obviously doesn't want to be burned again by partnering with a chip company that can't deliver when Jobs gets up in front of the masses and makes a promise of a product by a date.
Looking at year-total production numbers is fine, but keep in mind that anything to do with retail sales means demand fluctuates, sometimes hugely. You need a lot of production capacity (or a lot of inventory to create safety stocks, which with computers isn't an option due to cost and obsolescence rate) to respond quickly to changes like that.
I remember that the original Myst was actually written in Hypercard, which was a pretty common program and had been covered in my junior-high 'computer science' class. Seeing a game like Myst, and realizing that the whole gameplay was actually implemented using Hypercard, just blew me away. Somehow it makes a thing like that seem more brilliant, when you know the frontend was done using (for the time) a pretty ubiquitous and common tool.
Actually, there used to be a "cheat" in Myst, where you could press Command-backslash (maybe it was Command-shift-backslash), which was the menu shortcut for 'Hypercard Help,' and it would bring up a prompt asking you to locate the Help stack. If you then pointed it to one of the other Myst island / worlds stacks, you'd be transported there. Pretty amusing.
I think that the breakup of Cyan, while of course too bad for the people who were working there, is not necessarily bad for the industry as a whole. I mean it's been a while since we've seen anything really innovative out of Cyan. Maybe it's better that it go away now, and let the talent disburse and move on to other new startups with interesting ideas.
Cyan always struck me as basically being "Myst, Inc." -- most of their later products, at least those I've ever heard of -- were basically derivatives or sequels to this one original, groundbreaking idea they had. Sure, they were brilliant, but at the end of the day they were sort of a one-trick-pony.
You do realize that thing that goes up inside a 1911 is a magazine, not a clip, right?
I think this wins the award for most intelligent comment (so far) in this entire article.
Listen up, people. There are a lot of people talking crap on the internet in general, and on Slashdot in particular (what's new?), and especially when it comes to DRM. The above post sums it up quite nicely.
It's a stupid, stupid idea, and the sooner that companies understand that and stop prosecuting the wrong people, then the sooner we'll actually have something approaching 'secure computing,' and not just some corporate farse.
Wouldn't work. Then companies would just spawn off wholly-owned subsidiary companies for the purposes of maintaining patents. Let's say IBM or GE comes up with some great new idea, but under your scheme would have to pay a billion dollars to patent it. So instead they just create some no-name shell corporation, and have it apply for the patent instead. This sort of stuff goes on all the time with large corporations (actually any large "corporation" as we think of it is actually a conglomeration of many smaller legal entities).
Without attempting to trace the formation and history of every company that applies for a patent, it would be almost impossible to say which were legitimate small businesses and which companies were actually fronts for much larger enterprises.
This might have been true in 1850, or even 1950, when "centralized referencing" implied a centralized database filled with file drawers of patent application hardcopies, but this is no longer true.
You could very easily maintain an externally-accessible central database, or even a distributed database which linked the different systems belonging to the patent granting firms.
The ability to reference the patents centrally does not imply that a single monolithic patent-granting body is needed.
I think what his post meant was that although or in spite of the fact that the higher fees would be a disincentive for small firms to submit patents, the things that the USPTO could do with the revenue generated by those fees -- turning it around and hiring more clerks, who would then more carefully review the patents -- would make the marketplace as a whole a better place to work and do business in. So the damage caused by the higher fees would be more than offset by the positive effect the reforms would have, by keeping large corporations for using the Patent structure as a bludgeon against innovation.
The "+tor" is probably because he didn't want to be known as the "INTERDIC."
Yeah, it'd be German.
This would be a really good idea, if someone could throw something useful together and then if as a community we could publicize it.
I blew all my mod points earlier this evening, so I can't do too much to ensure this gets the exposure it deserves. But for what it's worth I think it's the best idea I've heard all evening (and I've been watching the talking heads on TV for hours).
At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself: was getting rid of that old ASCII porn collection really that important?
Uhh...not true. While you're right that gasoline doesn't gel like diesel fuel does, at least at temperatures you and I are likely to encounter in our lives (some components of gasoline start to gel at -97 F), that assumes that the gasoline is pure and uncontaminated. If the gasoline has any water in it at all, then the freezing point can rise up to the point where it's possible to have problems.
I've heard a lot of different explanations on how you get water contamination in gasoline, but the common thread is that it usually only happens if you have a very high ratio of air to gasoline in the tank, either the big one at the station or the one in your car. If you get some moist air inside the tank, it can then condense on the cold interior walls of the tank and put the moisture directly into the gas. By keeping the tank full, you have less air to condense and more gasoline in which to distribute the trace water.
But it's quite easy especially if you have a crack in the top of the gas tank, or a cap that doesn't fit tightly, to get water contamination in your gasoline. Then it definitely can freeze up in the lines, or the small ice crystals can clog the fuel filter.
The "Wintergas" which another poster mentioned above, although I'm not intimately familiar, is probably just gasoline with some additional methanol added. Since the methanol is hydroscopic, it absorbs the water and lowers the freezing point back to an acceptable value. You can buy this at most gas stations in northern states, usually under the name "Dry Gas."
I've always wondered whether this was redundant now that most gasoline you buy is actually 10% or more ethanol. I know that dry gas definitely predates gasohol (and unleaded gas, for that matter) and seems to be used religiously by older drivers, so perhaps it doesn't serve any purpose anymore.
And this is why the rest of the country laughs at you. Constantly.
RIAA Announces New Implantable DRM
Today the RIAA announced the rollout of it's new implantable Digital Rights Management device, code-named 'Stinger.' Featuring half a gram of plastic explosive, the device is fitted into the user's brain-stem and allows watching of all the newest movies and hottest games. In the event that a viewer accesses unauthorized content via the visual or aural "content channels," the device quickly revokes the user's license to all visual and aural content. For a limited time the device comes with free installation, and can be purchased for $29.95 at any Blockbuster Video or Sony Music location.
Well, as of right now, he's got "Score:3, Informative" and you've got "Score:1, Shafted."
I think a lot of people are a little reluctant to teach their kids about the intricacies of the legal system, even if they know them, not because they want their kids to be ignorant, but because they don't want them to become cynical too soon.
Once you learn that 'legal' and 'illegal' aren't necessarily synonymous with 'right' and 'wrong,' well, it's all downhill from there.
I'm kind of sorry I responded to this thread at all, just because if I hadn't, I could mod this up.
Thanks for saying what needed to be said.
Since you admitted yourself you're unfamiliar with the ACLU, and therefore I assume its reputation for finding some of the most despicable and unsympathetic people in society to use as model defendants, then perhaps you shouldn't respond at all?
Just a thought.
Almost certainly, yes. Unless you had delegated the responsibility of supervising your child to some other appropriate person (day care, school, etc.) then you're responsible for whatever they do as a result of your obvious neglect to properly supervise them. Not to mention that by allowing a child to get in a car who doesn't know how to drive, you're probably also guilty of risk of injury to a minor, probably some child-neglect type charges also.
The point is, the car manufacturer wouldn't be responsible, unless there was some obvious and ignored defect which allowed the child to get into the car and drive it away. So if the parking pin sheared off and the car rolled down a hill with your kid in it, while you were getting the mail from the box at the end of the driveway or something, then you might have a case against the manufacturer. But if you left your kid in the car with the key for a few hours while you went in a store, and the kid decided it would be fun to run over some pedestrians in the meantime, then you probably would be responsible.
At least that's how my limited understanding of our legal system tells me it would be. Luckily the more dim-witted members of Congress haven't managed to push strict liability through yet, although they do try from time to time on industries they're trying to eliminate (file sharing, firearms, etc.).
Neither the Coral Cache or MirrorDot seem to be working for the first link (Godwinslaw) at the moment.
a ngelo/transcript050506.txt
The second link (transcript) is available however:
http://riaalawsuits.us.nyud.net:8090/elektra_sant
This should be modded up.
Unless they were using it colloquially, or put it in quotes, I've never seen a respected physicist (or any other scientist, but physics is my field) call something a Law. It's just too strong a word.
Our entire understanding of the way the Universe works is comprised of theories. Period. That doesn't mean that our understanding of some areas of the universe with which we are intimately familiar are on soft ground, as it were, just that the word Law is one which has no place in scientific inquiry, period.
Nonetheless, to many people who were last exposed to state-of-the-art science in 1960s General Electric educational film reels, Laws are laws and Theories are 'just theories,' and never the twain shall meet.
Gravity is a theory. Evolution is a theory. Intelligent design, however, is not a theory.
Actually I think dangerous drivers should be forced by law to drive around with an open cup of hot coffee near their genitals.
It would really cut down on some of the aggressive driving I see every morning.
Where they backed themselves into a hole was by using the term "PC" in a contract.
... "well, this is my home-office computer. It's not really my personal computer," and believe themselves to be excluded by the EULA.
What is a PC? The computer I'm typing this at, which is sitting in my bedroom, is my Personal Computer. However, it is a Macintosh. If I told some people this was "a PC," they'd probably say "no it isn't! That's a Mac!" So we have one definition, probably different than the one they mean.
Someone being particularly pedantic about the definition might think to themselves
Hopefully they resolved this point earlier in the contract (in the aptly named 'Definitions' section) by defining what "PC" means within the EULA. However if they didn't, then they're terribly stupid, because as often as it gets used, the term PC has multiple meanings depending on usage and context which can be very different in fact.