We need a couple technologies IMHO. Right around the corner we have hyperjet engine technology. With this we might be able to cut the lift wieght of a rocket literally in 1/2. This will greatly increase payload efficiency which means transporting mining equipment into space will be practical... depending on the price of course.
Next is the issue of energy. Space is just FULL of real cheap energy... which means that practically any old chunk of rock can be considered an ore.
Now... I think what is most likely is that space will be used first to collect energy. I would expect this to be underway before 2020 and it will coincide with a major energy crisis that should be well underway within a few years.
In the longer term, I expect that people will build large cylinderical habitats and live in them. In fact, this might start by 2020 as well. One way to do it is to use a mass driver to fire moon rocks to a catcher that flips them into a solar furnace. Another way is to pop over to the asteroid belt.
The habitat itself can have a metal shell - possible several feet thick with slag then rock then soil on the inside. O2 comes from the rock itself and so does the H2 in order to produce water.
After the first one is built... then we really do have a space based technology and people will really migrate to space on a more or less permanent basis. Once people can live in sapce and produce their own food and energy then earth will become the old country.
Eventually I expect there will be an exodus into space. Once the population in space reaches a threashold level and the technology is proven, then I figure a war will break out, just as there was a war between the USA and Britain. The Space inhabitants will probably become resentful of trying to support the burgeoning masses on mined out earth. Given they have a natural advantage of being able to basically drops rocks down a gravity well...
well the war will be short and one sided and planet earth will lose. At this point man will basically probably stay in space and look at the earth as we look at the moon today.
The only practical candidate actually is fission since fusion doesn't yet work. The only way fusion can work right now is to produce fuel for fission reactors in a hybred cyle. This puts say a thorium cadding around the fusion reaction. The neutrons from the fusion reaction transmute the thorium into U233.
You can check ITER if you wish from some information on fusion. This reactor is suppose to have Q=5 when it is built - about 15 to 20 years from now.
It is hard to say if this will be a practical reactor mind you. One thing to note is that it is not planned as a hybred and hense the neutron flux from the fusion reaction will end up irradiating the sheilding materials and magnets and hense it will produce a lot of radioactive waste just as fission reactors do.
A better method that we can use right now is to build a spallation recactor. In a spallation reactor we have a high energy proton source (basically an accellerator) that is directed at a fuel target. The protons crash into the nucleus of the target atoms and release a very large flux of neutrons which in turn fission more atoms. Such a reactor is inherantly safe because the moment you turn off the beam, the reaction shuts down.
Another advantage of spallaton technology is that it can burn the wastes as well. What you need to check is actinide transmutation. Not only can we get power from the wastes.. we also transmute long lived isotopes to not radioactive and very short lived isotopes.
Of course.. the whole area of nuclear energy is the subject of a great deal of disinformation and underfunding.
Within a few years I personally expect this to change because we are running into a fossil fuel shortage that will grip the world. Check the Hubbert peak website for more information. Pay close attention to North American Natural Gas Supplies as well because they peaked Q1 2001. It is possible this will turn out to be the historical peak as well because supplies are still dropping in spite of intense drilling.
The idea that MacKensie Valley gas will relieve the problem is a pipe dream. With the expected output increases of Syncrude operations in the Tar Sands of Alberta, the expected gas demand is going to exceed what a Mckensie Valley pipe line can carry.
In fact... another way of looking at this is as follows. THere are about 1.7 tillion barrels of oil in the tar sands with about 300 billion barrels recoverable through conventional technology (mining and insitu). The problem is that the molecules need to have the hydrogen to carbon ratios increase. Gasoline for instance has a ration of about 2:1 (two parts hydrogen to 1 of carbon and the exact formula for the largest consituant component of gasoline is H(2n+2)C(n)... )
So you see, really what tar sands is all about is that it is a mining operation to get the carbon so that hydrogen can be added to it. In this sense we have already entered the hydrogen technology era.
Now... if 1/2 the carbon is disposed of (possibly via CO2 emissions) then that 300 billion barrel resource drops to 150 billion barrels.
Note that the USA burns about 20 million barrels of oil per day. This means tht 150,000 million barrels will keep the US supplied for only 7500 days or about 20 years. Then it is all gone basically.
However, the total Canadian supply of natural gas is enough to only lighten about 10% of this resource and this means that natural gas could not be used for anything other than chemically lightening bitumen.
So any way we look at it we're going to be in deep shit in short order unless we start building alternative plants now.
You make a very excellent point here. Done properly it would be possible to polute the GPL codebase.
However... if it were proven that this was actually planned then we would be in a situation where a fraud had been perpetrated and this would negate the transfer of the copyright.
In my mind the only way to avoid this risk would be to demand that anyone contributing to the GPL code base actually is in a legal position to do so. This might include a written declaration of one's employment status. If the person lies on the declaration we have proof of fraud. If the person declares he or she is an employee of XYZ corporation then we need to get a release from them.
One thing to realise is that the depth in the Open Source Community is so great that any poisonous code would be removed within hours.
Also... in a way we see this attack taking place right now... Isn't this what SCO is up to?
Yes... this is a very good idea... so why aren't you the president of an ISP? Get your butt in gear my friend because the NET needs you to lead the way!
As for the "commercial" reason in belgium cited in another reply... the reason for statics not being viable is that they cost more...
Well, that is a concocted abuse of the system.
How would you like it if every time you picked up your cell phone the telco injected a new telephone number? This would allow you to make outgoing calls. If you want to receive calls? Well - get a more expensive account.
That is about the state of affairs with regard to DHCP and the net. IF you want to run a server... you get to pay more even though servers provide the content of the net and thus provide a service to the industry.
Its just one of those aberations that we get in the peering verses client arrangements in the telecommunications industry.
I bought their server special edition a while back and ended up with so many holes and broken daemons that I had to rebuild the thing before I could use it.
In fact. that server ended up as a desktop machine for me and never did see the net other than from behind an OpenBSD firewall.
So I asked myself, why did I pay RedHat so much? Because of the hype?
Next on advise from many folks I bought Mandrake and did install it in a machine. It suffered the same redhat syndrom and I never dared putting it into a DMZ either.
In fact, I never got around to installing it into any machine that was in regular use. I could never figure out how to reinstall that older RedHat boxen without losing everything I had done... years of work. Or weeks of rebuilding.
So later I decided to upgrade and this time I went out and bought a new box and left the RedHat machine as it was and still is...
Then I put Debian Woody on it and I have never looked back!
As for the Mandrake machine? Well - it got an install of MaxOS (www.maxos.ca) which is derived from debian and knoppix with lots of great stuff added... and I gave it to my daughter who is somewhat computer illiterate but probably better than average.
She wanted winders too so I gave her a copy of NT and NT2000 and either 98 or 95 (I don'tknow - I don't use them) and a spare drive for her to play with and told her it is a free country and she is free to do whatever she wants.
If she wants M$ support, she can find it on her own or pay M$. IF she wants maxOS support or to try a different distro, then if I can't help her I know ppl who can.
So far, she is telling me she likes MaxOS and I have not heard that she has gone through a reinstall of anything else.
Meanwhile my son is musing about installing debian or macos because he's tired of w2K self distructing every few months. Since he has re-installed it about 5 times he has learned about how to install an OS into a computer. It would seem that M2K is good for something. (an educational toy perhaps?)
But I doubt he'll be interested in Red Hat.
RedHat had some serious issues with broken deamons and upgradability that IMHO were not properly addressed. So the center of the world moved to a new location. They may do ok for a while in enterprise level support. But I've looked at their pricing schemes and we are simply not interested.
There are many very good systems admins in this city that can provide a better level of support at a better price.
Perhaps Red Hat should have looked to work with the consulting community more.
Well, I find that Debian is a breath of fresh air and I'm sticking with it. A lot of this has to do with the idea that Debian is not RPM based.
Another part of it is that IMHO for a server you want a lean mean serving machine and OpenBSD fills this role just beautifully. For a desktop you want a different approach.
Perhaps Red Hat saw these two requirments and aimed for the middle ground.
If so, then really it was two boats... one being the server boat and the other being the desktop boat and Red Hat pisitioned themselves right in the middle... in the drink so to speach... and found themselves having trouble keeping their heads above water as a result....just my 2 cents that is all.
Thankyou for the definative explanation of prior art.
So let me ask... rather than we folks spinning our wheels up in arms at these damn attacks on our sanity, how do we profit from this?
In an actual infringment situation we have the company that holds the patents in a position to threaten legal action against whatever victims they choose to go after.
Said victims are forced into a situation of paying lawyers or paying license fees. The issue of validity of the patent is irrelevant because that will _eventually_ be dertermined by the courts and meanwhile the lawyers expect to be paid.
If you don't pay your lawyer you lose your case whether you are right or wrong. Others might clue in and call this sort of activity by the name of extortion.
Since the system is set up to encourage this sort of abuse is there any wonder that it does exactly what it was set up to do?
Seems like a pretty efficient system for generating law suits and legal fees actually.
It won't surprise me that if the Debian community sends over the prior art claims that the company in question will simply sue us.
Or expect a license fee.
I have said before that we need to look at setting up an organisation to form our own patents... and we also need to look into ways to bloody well fight back against this attempted theift of our intellectual property.
The issue with these software patents is not only that they contain land mines for programmers to wade through... they also contain bullshit that we waste our times talking about.
Surely the USPTO is vulnerable to some form of control. Surely there is some form of accountability.
Precedent has already been set. Linux is a collection of millions of different programs each enjoying its own copyright.
The anaolgy is a movie. You will see that the movie has a consitancy and theme that is its own. Yet it may include songs and dialogue and be based on books perhaps... each song has its own copyright and the book (if it exists) has its own copyright and the movie as a whole also has a copyright.
Similarly, each program or function in linux has its own copyright and that copyright is owned by the author. In the USA these copyrights should be registered. In other countries under the Borne Copyright coneventions, like Canada, registration is not required.
The only way in Canada that copyright can be transfered from the author is via a written and signed agreement.
I do not recall SCO getting any of these agreements and hense they do not have the right to do what they are trying;. This means that winning in small claims is a no-brainer.
I am touching base with the OpenBSD folks who happen the be headquartered here in Calgary. If some of them choose to file in small claims then potentially SCO Canada will be bankrupt in about 2 months - because that is how quick small claims works here.
If so, then perhaps the OpenBSD folks have found a new source of financing to replace the DARPA funding that was withdrawn.
This probably is worth investing $100 bux and 1/2 of an afternoon.
Well - I'm a moderator today but I chose to post instead. This is a really good idea.
Small claims courts typically have a filing fee of under $100 bux. Yets see - 1 million law suits is a waste of 100 million but that should probably grind SCO into the dirt PDQ.
If people are really mad then consider that the same $100 bux could be invested in an association to patent every damn thing WE dream up and thus create a sheaf of patents that can be used to force companies like TI and IBM to cross license with the open source community.
Suppose 10,000 developers each start calling their 1 800 726-8649 number and demand to know how it is that SCO thinks it has the legal right to impose their constraints on software we wrote!
Perhaps we need to file 10,000 law suits against SCO.
OS/2 opened a hole in the video display window that another program could display into. One of the external programs OS/2 could run was windows 3.11
There is zero difference between doing this and a web browser or any other program simply assigning a range of pixels to hold an image created by an external program.
It is totally absurd that the USPTO should assign a patent for perfectly obvious technology that was in wide spread use by the patent officer himself!
There is nothing on the horizon to replace oil other than nuclear and nuclear has been the target of a FUD campaign for 40 years now.
Perhaps it is big oil that was behind the FUD campaign.
In any event, the writer correctly stated that without oil, in a few days modern economies grind to a halt. What he didn't point out is that Britain is enjoying declines in the North sea field ouput at a compound rate of greater than 7% per year, and that they will become an importer (if there is anything left to import that is) by 2005. By 2007 the middle east will be the only source for increased imports and around 2010 the middle east will be reaching peak produciton.
So there is going to be some belt tightening in the cards here... and nobody whats to even admit this is the case.
Meanwhile, we have gobs of energy that can be made available - but it probably has to come from a nuclear source and that means fission reactors. Fusion is still quite a long ways away but it is making headway... check www.iter.org
Hydrogen is an energy carrier - it is not an energy source. People need to realise this.
Also - cars running on hydrogen will produce green house gasses. The most significant green house gas is water vapour. Water vapour has a greater effect molecule for molecule over CO2 and also, water vapour is about 2 orders of magnitude more prevalent than CO2.
So this idea that cars of the future won't spew out green house gasses is also false.
The USA prides itself as being a nation governed by laws. At the same time apparently 2/3 of the world's lawyers are in the USA.
Douglas Adams wrote in "The Hitchhicker's guide to the Gallaxy" that on one world the first people they sent off into space were the beauacrates, administrators and Lawyers.
As far as I know those drives were end of life as of about 1998. And I should know because my company was a Fujitsu dealer specializing in this technology and I own the company.
I guess I'llhave to call Fujitsu up tomorrow and see if they re-introduced them.
Damn fine drives actually - very reliable. I still use them.
Also - Panasonic has similar technology in their PD drives. Fujitsu is 3 1/2" media while panason is 5 1/4".
repeat of observation in the 70's
on
Tall People Earn More
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This observation is as true today as it was in the 70's. I guess that dates me.
Now... the flip side of this is that many short intelligent men chose not to put up with this sort of bullshit. This provides an incentive for them to get out on their own and set up their own firms.
I know of at least 5 major companies in this city who are headed by short men who were driven out of the company they used to work for. In one case the president-owner of the newly formed company declared that he was going to put his former employer out of business and hire every one of their employees.
Well, this has not materialized. Nevertheless his former employer is no longer #1 in the industry and the new company is rapidly moving into that slot so perhaps it just hasn't happened yet.
Tall people can be both smug and complacent at times but the little guys can sometimes really kick ass too!
I am starting to gleen what the SCO legal strategy _might_ be.
The copyright convention includes the premise of derived works. This introduces the concept but does not define either what a derived work is or what the boundries might be.
Many years ago the legal theory was at least speculated about that when an operating system loaded a program that in effect this became at that point one large program and at that point copyrite on the whole OS would then apply to the program being loaded under the idea of it becomming a derived work.
I do not know if there was actual litigation at the time or if this was just some crackpot speculation (and I hope it was the latter).
Yet - we have the exact same issue when we look at a function added to a program. Suppose we have some working code under copyright "A". Then someone comes along and adds function B. They can claim that the function they added should fall under copyright "B". However I think it may be quite arguable in court that the derived work that inculdes functions A&B is really a derivative of program A. Of course the opposite can be argued as well. Should the tail wag the dog or should the dog wag the tail?
Suppose one were talking of a large poem. The Hash has 100 verse poems and some are rather good and we have some who take great delight in reciting them from memory - start to finish.
As a case in point, if a person decides to improve a verse or two and then add a verse or two, is the resulting poem a derived work? This is the exact problem that software developers face.
If after a period of time we have a series of small steps leading from program A through an AB phase and finally arriving at program B and eventually we find there isn't a single line of program A left... then we still have the situation that one could argue that B has been derived from A and we have the evidence of the small steps to prove it. We simultaniously have the argument that B was simply a step by step rewrite of A and hense B is not derived.
A big dilemma happens however when we have two working systems A & B who each are independantly developed and stand on their own two feet. If these are somehow merged and become one then it is an open question of whether AB derives from A or whether it derives from B. And in this case a court could be asked to rule. It would be a civil case and in civil cases the 50% rule applies. After all is heard, the side with the best argument wins. Would the measure of "best" in this case be perhaps the number of lines of code in A verses B?
Well - that is the simplistic view... that of likening code to stanza's in a poem. Reality is really much worse. A stanza is an entirely arbitrary division, just as a single line is. In fact, single words could just as easily form the standard of division which defines where we can place boundries.
I would argue that in the case of George Harrision's "He's my Lord" verses the copyright infringment claim of "He's so Fine" that the judge felt copyright infringment should be found by the division of music at the equivalent of 5 or 6 notes and this would be the equivalent of a phrase boundry in a poem. By the judge's ruling in Harrison's fight, the lyrics and rhythm and emphasis that disinguishes one's use of a few notes in a song wasn't very relevant. Clearly in my mind the judge was rather misguided or naive or had a grude. But that is JMHO for what it is worth.
In computer software we do have the problem that whether a few lines of code are in an inline block or in an internal function or an external function or even an external dynamically loaded function - that they essentually are the same lines of code.
Probably most programmers feel that such a block of code should have its _own_ copyright. Perhaps so, but I've rarely seem a copyright notice slapped onto a block of code inserted in a program, yet I will see it often in external functions but rarely if ever in internal functions even though its th
From the 5th paragraph: The virtualisation software sits between the hard drive and the OS and must calculate how much free memory is allocated to that OS.
My gawd - where do these idjots come from?
Did the idjot ever hear of dual boot or booting from the CD?
My Mother is not a co-worker but still this was the best joke I ever thought up. (April fools too!)
So...
I live in Calgary and one of my brothers lives in Ottawa. My folks live in Saskatchewan in a quaint little town that is no longer on the maps AFAIK.
Several years ago my folks planned a trip to Ottawa to visit my brother at Easter - and they didn't tell me. I forget how I found out - maybe from one of my sisters...
Anyway my mother's best friend is Lynn and I recruited her to help me. Now - Lynn is a really nice woman and she's a farmer's wife (As is my Mother) and some may have concluded that farmer's wives are sometimes idolized for the good things they cook up. Lynn was no exception and I pulled a good joke on her when I stole over 40 pies from her deep freeze and gave them to my mum - who promptly stored them in her deep freeze and then invited the Duncer's over for Sunday Dinner and fed Lynn and Albert and everyone else Lynn's great pies. haha. Lynn raved about the pie - about how good they were....and she got to take about 37 back home with her. haha. [Lynn had not noticed her pies were missing]
[BTW - off topic. If anyone is interested in making say 40 pies or so - most pizza places will part with perfect pie boxes for a couple bux. I bought few dozen a few years back - its a good investment and you can put a lot of say "pumpkin" pies in a 23 cubic foot deep freeze]
Back to the story... Lynn I guess had a score to settle with mum.
Now Mum was in Ottawa and it was April 1. I set up a 3 way call to Lynn in Saskatchewan and then called Ottawa and complained that I'd just spent over 8 hours with the kids driving out to visit her and where was she?
I'm a single dad (my wife died at 36) and the kids were small so a trip like this was an undertaking... The kids were _perfect_. LOL... I said "I'm at Lynn's. You never told me you were going to Ottawa! Here's Lynn.. Then Lynn talks for a bit and eventually says: Here's Lisa. [my daughter] haha."
Well - we did fess up. But my mum was just beside herself and she was saying things like "I can't understand how you could do this? Are you really in Calgary? Lynn - are you in Calgary? haha"
This was the best joke IMHO that I ever pulled off and Dad and Roger saw immediately what I'd done. I'm sure they all had a really good laugh and Lynn and Mum probably still talk about it!
Mod parent up. While I personally am not in favour of violence I think it is important that the pollies realise that a basic human right is the right to work and make a living.
Software patents are a direct attack on programmers.
The VAST majority of programmers do not want to be involved with the patent system in any way. Those that do are simply naive or stoopid or both.
Unfortunately sometimes wars are necessary when one group tries to steal the property of others. This is what the patent system does... it attempts to prevent programmers from using their own ideas.
If the patent system actually lived up to its promise of only patenting novel ideas then perhaps it would be acceptable. But the patent system cannot pass this test. Even if it did it we should not support it.
Richard Feynman [Nobel prize in physics (1965) - Quantum ElectroDynamics] gave a lecture where he talked about freedom to pursue ideas. His comment is that any country that restricts the freedom of its people cannot hope to compete in a free world. [ I chose to use Feynman's comments in place of say Stallman's because Feynman predates Stallman. Examples are everywhere. Intelligent people realise that freedom benefits everyone ]
Well - the US has chosen to restrict the freedom of its programmers and I say they should be left to enjoy the fruits of their decision. Instead the pollies in Europe threaten to shoot themselves in the head and criple their own economic advantage... and for what purpose? To kiss Mr. Shrub's asshole???
But perhaps this is about power - the power to control what we programmers can create. If so then it is even more important that all of us band together and condem them.
Let the USA stand alone in its attempt to enslave the creative abilities of its programmers. The rest of the world should just say no! And if Europe is so foolish to try this - then Asia and India will 20 years from now control cyberspace.
We all know that of the technologies that will drive economies IT technology is of paramount of not primary importance. The consequence of software patents is that China and India may rule the roost in a decade.
Lets look forward. We do not have widely deployed voice recognition for the simple reason it ain't good enuf. We do not have visual pattern recognition systems that are practical except in very restricted cases. We are perhaps as far away from building a practical robot as we were when Asmov wrote "I robot".
China is planing on a moon mission. If China or India builds these machines first (and they likely will) then they will gain a technological advantage that the Western World cannot match.
Software patents are a brick in that pathway. Lord - how short sighted these pollies are!
The easiest way to get a software patent in Canada is to patent it in the US. Canada has a reciprocal agreement so that patents awarded in the States are apparently valid in Canada. In Canada it would not be possible to obtain the patent.
Now... that having been said I have approached my legal counsel on this issue - directly - and I have not at this point received a direct answer.
It is possible that the reason is because a court may have to make a ruling on this issue.
Well - I think you see my point. If an association with 50,000 members has as you suggest a snowball's chance in hell to prevail, then any company with a market cap less than say $25 million also cannot prevail and hense the logical conclusion would be to forget software development.
As individuals and small startups, legislation that allows software patents and a USPTO that is basically totally out of control have the effect of putting us out of business before we can even start.
If so, then I think you can agree there is a need to come up with a solution to the problem.
You bring up the point that: How much would it cost to fight just one patent lawsuit against a major software company like SCO or, heaven forbid, IBM? More like $25 million probably judging by extant examples.
Well - if you are an open source developer how would you like to face this issue alone? And on the other hand, we might find that a company such as IBM would actually support an association and contribute software patents on a cross licensing basis. You see, AFAIK IBM has never sued anyone with regard to software patents. Perhaps they feel they are being pushed into patenting software as a defensive move (so they have their own protfolio which can be used to cross-license and hense neutalize this mess).
The _ONLY_ benificiaries of software patents are patent lawyers and the courts and attendant infrastructure who all benefit by the LEGAL MAKE WORK that these laws create.
The software development industry DOES NOT benefit in general. If there are exceptions - then I'd like to know about them. Along this line of thought... the Feeny Patent comes to mind. Certainly many have profited fromt his patent... who? The legal community. Has anyone else seen any benefit?
The short of it is that a patent generally does not protect your work. It only creates a situation where you have to pay $100,000's to millions towards lawyers for painful litigation.
The history of Philo Farnsworth should be soberly considered because he was destroyed by this system.
I am a member of the EFF BTW, and I have written them and implored them to start doing some things in the patent area. I have heard not even a peep back. But I do think the EFF does excellent work and I do support them.
I think your last paragraph is revealing. "Many users won't pay". Well - to be frank they will if they have to. It is unfortunate to have to force users to anti up for an anti-patent protection scheme but then we are not to blame here... we are just trying to solve a problem we did not create.
Then you say "The larger projects may end up being forced to do it themselves"... and to this I respond that again it is a situation I would rather not see. Instead of valuable resources being channeled into areas such as legal make work projects I would rather we become proactive and set up a structure that any project large or small and for that matter any developer can avail themselves of with little tax on their resources.
I do not see this as a situation where we depend on pro-bono patent lawyers, rather I would like to see a situation where maybe 50,000 developers initially (there are 500,000 registered in sourceforge) volunteer to join an association for under $10 bux per month because they perceive value and that this association then picks the best of the best ideas and organises patent applications on behalf of everyone.
In the latest version of OpenBSD for instance there were at least 5 excellent patentable innovations. These were real innovations... and they are in the public domain. Meanwhile we have obvious things like XOR sitting with a patent and ridiculous one-click claims.
So, if we developers are going to be faced with a patent minefield then I see no other choice but to go on strike (which is what vested interests want... strike, quit, waste our time in court, whatever... as long as we don't develop code) or we have to fight back.
As it stands the number of us who can afford to defend ourselves from an invalid patent is probably less than 0.01%. If any of us hold valid patents the number of us who could afford to defend it also probably fall under 0.01%. As the RCA vs Philo Farnsworth lawsuits illustrate, the idea of fairness in the legal system is rather far fetched.
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We need a couple technologies IMHO. Right around the corner we have hyperjet engine technology. With this we might be able to cut the lift wieght of a rocket literally in 1/2. This will greatly increase payload efficiency which means transporting mining equipment into space will be practical... depending on the price of course.
Next is the issue of energy. Space is just FULL of real cheap energy... which means that practically any old chunk of rock can be considered an ore.
Now... I think what is most likely is that space will be used first to collect energy. I would expect this to be underway before 2020 and it will coincide with a major energy crisis that should be well underway within a few years.
In the longer term, I expect that people will build large cylinderical habitats and live in them. In fact, this might start by 2020 as well. One way to do it is to use a mass driver to fire moon rocks to a catcher that flips them into a solar furnace. Another way is to pop over to the asteroid belt.
The habitat itself can have a metal shell - possible several feet thick with slag then rock then soil on the inside. O2 comes from the rock itself and so does the H2 in order to produce water.
After the first one is built... then we really do have a space based technology and people will really migrate to space on a more or less permanent basis. Once people can live in sapce and produce their own food and energy then earth will become the old country.
Eventually I expect there will be an exodus into space. Once the population in space reaches a threashold level and the technology is proven, then I figure a war will break out, just as there was a war between the USA and Britain. The Space inhabitants will probably become resentful of trying to support the burgeoning masses on mined out earth. Given they have a natural advantage of being able to basically drops rocks down a gravity well...
well the war will be short and one sided and planet earth will lose. At this point man will basically probably stay in space and look at the earth as we look at the moon today.
So much for daydreaming eh?
The only practical candidate actually is fission since fusion doesn't yet work. The only way fusion can work right now is to produce fuel for fission reactors in a hybred cyle. This puts say a thorium cadding around the fusion reaction. The neutrons from the fusion reaction transmute the thorium into U233.
You can check ITER if you wish from some information on fusion. This reactor is suppose to have Q=5 when it is built - about 15 to 20 years from now.
It is hard to say if this will be a practical reactor mind you. One thing to note is that it is not planned as a hybred and hense the neutron flux from the fusion reaction will end up irradiating the sheilding materials and magnets and hense it will produce a lot of radioactive waste just as fission reactors do.
A better method that we can use right now is to build a spallation recactor. In a spallation reactor we have a high energy proton source (basically an accellerator) that is directed at a fuel target. The protons crash into the nucleus of the target atoms and release a very large flux of neutrons which in turn fission more atoms. Such a reactor is inherantly safe because the moment you turn off the beam, the reaction shuts down.
Another advantage of spallaton technology is that it can burn the wastes as well. What you need to check is actinide transmutation. Not only can we get power from the wastes.. we also transmute long lived isotopes to not radioactive and very short lived isotopes.
Of course.. the whole area of nuclear energy is the subject of a great deal of disinformation and underfunding.
Within a few years I personally expect this to change because we are running into a fossil fuel shortage that will grip the world. Check the Hubbert peak website for more information. Pay close attention to North American Natural Gas Supplies as well because they peaked Q1 2001. It is possible this will turn out to be the historical peak as well because supplies are still dropping in spite of intense drilling.
The idea that MacKensie Valley gas will relieve the problem is a pipe dream. With the expected output increases of Syncrude operations in the Tar Sands of Alberta, the expected gas demand is going to exceed what a Mckensie Valley pipe line can carry.
In fact... another way of looking at this is as follows. THere are about 1.7 tillion barrels of oil in the tar sands with about 300 billion barrels recoverable through conventional technology (mining and insitu). The problem is that the molecules need to have the hydrogen to carbon ratios increase. Gasoline for instance has a ration of about 2:1 (two parts hydrogen to 1 of carbon and the exact formula for the largest consituant component of gasoline is H(2n+2)C(n)... )
So you see, really what tar sands is all about is that it is a mining operation to get the carbon so that hydrogen can be added to it. In this sense we have already entered the hydrogen technology era.
Now... if 1/2 the carbon is disposed of (possibly via CO2 emissions) then that 300 billion barrel resource drops to 150 billion barrels.
Note that the USA burns about 20 million barrels of oil per day. This means tht 150,000 million barrels will keep the US supplied for only 7500 days or about 20 years. Then it is all gone basically.
However, the total Canadian supply of natural gas is enough to only lighten about 10% of this resource and this means that natural gas could not be used for anything other than chemically lightening bitumen.
So any way we look at it we're going to be in deep shit in short order unless we start building alternative plants now.
You make a very excellent point here. Done properly it would be possible to polute the GPL codebase.
However... if it were proven that this was actually planned then we would be in a situation where a fraud had been perpetrated and this would negate the transfer of the copyright.
In my mind the only way to avoid this risk would be to demand that anyone contributing to the GPL code base actually is in a legal position to do so. This might include a written declaration of one's employment status. If the person lies on the declaration we have proof of fraud. If the person declares he or she is an employee of XYZ corporation then we need to get a release from them.
One thing to realise is that the depth in the Open Source Community is so great that any poisonous code would be removed within hours.
Also... in a way we see this attack taking place right now... Isn't this what SCO is up to?
I have a good suggestion. Switch to Linux and you won't have this problem.
Yes... this is a very good idea... so why aren't you the president of an ISP? Get your butt in gear my friend because the NET needs you to lead the way!
As for the "commercial" reason in belgium cited in another reply... the reason for statics not being viable is that they cost more...
Well, that is a concocted abuse of the system.
How would you like it if every time you picked up your cell phone the telco injected a new telephone number? This would allow you to make outgoing calls. If you want to receive calls? Well - get a more expensive account.
That is about the state of affairs with regard to DHCP and the net. IF you want to run a server... you get to pay more even though servers provide the content of the net and thus provide a service to the industry.
Its just one of those aberations that we get in the peering verses client arrangements in the telecommunications industry.
You can read more about these issues here: paper from Telstra on the peering vs client problem at ISCO.org
Ok... back on the topic... Kudo's for Telia!
I bought their server special edition a while back and ended up with so many holes and broken daemons that I had to rebuild the thing before I could use it.
...just my 2 cents that is all.
In fact. that server ended up as a desktop machine for me and never did see the net other than from behind an OpenBSD firewall.
So I asked myself, why did I pay RedHat so much? Because of the hype?
Next on advise from many folks I bought Mandrake and did install it in a machine. It suffered the same redhat syndrom and I never dared putting it into a DMZ either.
In fact, I never got around to installing it into any machine that was in regular use. I could never figure out how to reinstall that older RedHat boxen without losing everything I had done... years of work. Or weeks of rebuilding.
So later I decided to upgrade and this time I went out and bought a new box and left the RedHat machine as it was and still is...
Then I put Debian Woody on it and I have never looked back!
As for the Mandrake machine? Well - it got an install of MaxOS (www.maxos.ca) which is derived from debian and knoppix with lots of great stuff added... and I gave it to my daughter who is somewhat computer illiterate but probably better than average.
She wanted winders too so I gave her a copy of NT and NT2000 and either 98 or 95 (I don'tknow - I don't use them) and a spare drive for her to play with and told her it is a free country and she is free to do whatever she wants.
If she wants M$ support, she can find it on her own or pay M$. IF she wants maxOS support or to try a different distro, then if I can't help her I know ppl who can.
So far, she is telling me she likes MaxOS and I have not heard that she has gone through a reinstall of anything else.
Meanwhile my son is musing about installing debian or macos because he's tired of w2K self distructing every few months. Since he has re-installed it about 5 times he has learned about how to install an OS into a computer. It would seem that M2K is good for something. (an educational toy perhaps?)
But I doubt he'll be interested in Red Hat.
RedHat had some serious issues with broken deamons and upgradability that IMHO were not properly addressed. So the center of the world moved to a new location. They may do ok for a while in enterprise level support. But I've looked at their pricing schemes and we are simply not interested.
There are many very good systems admins in this city that can provide a better level of support at a better price.
Perhaps Red Hat should have looked to work with the consulting community more.
Well, I find that Debian is a breath of fresh air and I'm sticking with it. A lot of this has to do with the idea that Debian is not RPM based.
Another part of it is that IMHO for a server you want a lean mean serving machine and OpenBSD fills this role just beautifully. For a desktop you want a different approach.
Perhaps Red Hat saw these two requirments and aimed for the middle ground.
If so, then really it was two boats... one being the server boat and the other being the desktop boat and Red Hat pisitioned themselves right in the middle... in the drink so to speach... and found themselves having trouble keeping their heads above water as a result.
Since business methods seemingly can now be patented, why don't we patent "AA moethod of doing business by filing bogus patent claims".
Then when ever one of these bullshit patents gets granted we can send cease and disceast letters and demand licensing fees and so forth.
This way we'll be able to tax every company that loses a patent case in court, right?
This is a new business model? This is non-obvious right?
Thankyou for the definative explanation of prior art.
So let me ask... rather than we folks spinning our wheels up in arms at these damn attacks on our sanity, how do we profit from this?
In an actual infringment situation we have the company that holds the patents in a position to threaten legal action against whatever victims they choose to go after.
Said victims are forced into a situation of paying lawyers or paying license fees. The issue of validity of the patent is irrelevant because that will _eventually_ be dertermined by the courts and meanwhile the lawyers expect to be paid.
If you don't pay your lawyer you lose your case whether you are right or wrong. Others might clue in and call this sort of activity by the name of extortion.
Since the system is set up to encourage this sort of abuse is there any wonder that it does exactly what it was set up to do?
Seems like a pretty efficient system for generating law suits and legal fees actually.
It won't surprise me that if the Debian community sends over the prior art claims that the company in question will simply sue us.
Or expect a license fee.
I have said before that we need to look at setting up an organisation to form our own patents... and we also need to look into ways to bloody well fight back against this attempted theift of our intellectual property.
And for how many years has apt done this?
The issue with these software patents is not only that they contain land mines for programmers to wade through... they also contain bullshit that we waste our times talking about.
Surely the USPTO is vulnerable to some form of control. Surely there is some form of accountability.
We live in the new age of insanity I guess.
What do we call it? the age of neostupidity?
arrgghhh!
Precedent has already been set. Linux is a collection of millions of different programs each enjoying its own copyright.
The anaolgy is a movie. You will see that the movie has a consitancy and theme that is its own. Yet it may include songs and dialogue and be based on books perhaps... each song has its own copyright and the book (if it exists) has its own copyright and the movie as a whole also has a copyright.
Similarly, each program or function in linux has its own copyright and that copyright is owned by the author. In the USA these copyrights should be registered. In other countries under the Borne Copyright coneventions, like Canada, registration is not required.
The only way in Canada that copyright can be transfered from the author is via a written and signed agreement.
I do not recall SCO getting any of these agreements and hense they do not have the right to do what they are trying;. This means that winning in small claims is a no-brainer.
I am touching base with the OpenBSD folks who happen the be headquartered here in Calgary. If some of them choose to file in small claims then potentially SCO Canada will be bankrupt in about 2 months - because that is how quick small claims works here.
If so, then perhaps the OpenBSD folks have found a new source of financing to replace the DARPA funding that was withdrawn.
This probably is worth investing $100 bux and 1/2 of an afternoon.
Well - I'm a moderator today but I chose to post instead. This is a really good idea.
Small claims courts typically have a filing fee of under $100 bux. Yets see - 1 million law suits is a waste of 100 million but that should probably grind SCO into the dirt PDQ.
If people are really mad then consider that the same $100 bux could be invested in an association to patent every damn thing WE dream up and thus create a sheaf of patents that can be used to force companies like TI and IBM to cross license with the open source community.
It time to talk with your wallets folks.
We have the power so lets go do it!
Ok...
Suppose 10,000 developers each start calling their 1 800 726-8649 number and demand to know how it is that SCO thinks it has the legal right to impose their constraints on software we wrote!
Perhaps we need to file 10,000 law suits against SCO.
Do I see a class action in the works here?
OS/2 opened a hole in the video display window that another program could display into. One of the external programs OS/2 could run was windows 3.11
There is zero difference between doing this and a web browser or any other program simply assigning a range of pixels to hold an image created by an external program.
It is totally absurd that the USPTO should assign a patent for perfectly obvious technology that was in wide spread use by the patent officer himself!
So WTF is going on in the USPTO?
Bloody idjots I say.
There is nothing on the horizon to replace oil other than nuclear and nuclear has been the target of a FUD campaign for 40 years now.
Perhaps it is big oil that was behind the FUD campaign.
In any event, the writer correctly stated that without oil, in a few days modern economies grind to a halt. What he didn't point out is that Britain is enjoying declines in the North sea field ouput at a compound rate of greater than 7% per year, and that they will become an importer (if there is anything left to import that is) by 2005. By 2007 the middle east will be the only source for increased imports and around 2010 the middle east will be reaching peak produciton.
So there is going to be some belt tightening in the cards here... and nobody whats to even admit this is the case.
Meanwhile, we have gobs of energy that can be made available - but it probably has to come from a nuclear source and that means fission reactors. Fusion is still quite a long ways away but it is making headway... check www.iter.org
Hydrogen is an energy carrier - it is not an energy source. People need to realise this.
Also - cars running on hydrogen will produce green house gasses. The most significant green house gas is water vapour. Water vapour has a greater effect molecule for molecule over CO2 and also, water vapour is about 2 orders of magnitude more prevalent than CO2.
So this idea that cars of the future won't spew out green house gasses is also false.
The USA prides itself as being a nation governed by laws. At the same time apparently 2/3 of the world's lawyers are in the USA.
Douglas Adams wrote in "The Hitchhicker's guide to the Gallaxy" that on one world the first people they sent off into space were the beauacrates, administrators and Lawyers.
Perhaps there is a message here.
If you ran openBSD servers then
1) you would save your clients money
2) you would not likely have to reboot
3) you would probably not have the exploit in the first place
Windows is a big make work project.
As far as I know those drives were end of life as of about 1998. And I should know because my company was a Fujitsu dealer specializing in this technology and I own the company.
I guess I'llhave to call Fujitsu up tomorrow and see if they re-introduced them.
Damn fine drives actually - very reliable. I still use them.
Also - Panasonic has similar technology in their PD drives. Fujitsu is 3 1/2" media while panason is 5 1/4".
This observation is as true today as it was in the 70's. I guess that dates me.
Now... the flip side of this is that many short intelligent men chose not to put up with this sort of bullshit. This provides an incentive for them to get out on their own and set up their own firms.
I know of at least 5 major companies in this city who are headed by short men who were driven out of the company they used to work for. In one case the president-owner of the newly formed company declared that he was going to put his former employer out of business and hire every one of their employees.
Well, this has not materialized. Nevertheless his former employer is no longer #1 in the industry and the new company is rapidly moving into that slot so perhaps it just hasn't happened yet.
Tall people can be both smug and complacent at times but the little guys can sometimes really kick ass too!
I am starting to gleen what the SCO legal strategy _might_ be.
The copyright convention includes the premise of derived works. This introduces the concept but does not define either what a derived work is or what the boundries might be.
Many years ago the legal theory was at least speculated about that when an operating system loaded a program that in effect this became at that point one large program and at that point copyrite on the whole OS would then apply to the program being loaded under the idea of it becomming a derived work.
I do not know if there was actual litigation at the time or if this was just some crackpot speculation (and I hope it was the latter).
Yet - we have the exact same issue when we look at a function added to a program. Suppose we have some working code under copyright "A". Then someone comes along and adds function B. They can claim that the function they added should fall under copyright "B". However I think it may be quite arguable in court that the derived work that inculdes functions A&B is really a derivative of program A. Of course the opposite can be argued as well. Should the tail wag the dog or should the dog wag the tail?
Suppose one were talking of a large poem. The Hash has 100 verse poems and some are rather good and we have some who take great delight in reciting them from memory - start to finish.
As a case in point, if a person decides to improve a verse or two and then add a verse or two, is the resulting poem a derived work? This is the exact problem that software developers face.
If after a period of time we have a series of small steps leading from program A through an AB phase and finally arriving at program B and eventually we find there isn't a single line of program A left... then we still have the situation that one could argue that B has been derived from A and we have the evidence of the small steps to prove it. We simultaniously have the argument that B was simply a step by step rewrite of A and hense B is not derived.
A big dilemma happens however when we have two working systems A & B who each are independantly developed and stand on their own two feet. If these are somehow merged and become one then it is an open question of whether AB derives from A or whether it derives from B. And in this case a court could be asked to rule. It would be a civil case and in civil cases the 50% rule applies. After all is heard, the side with the best argument wins. Would the measure of "best" in this case be perhaps the number of lines of code in A verses B?
Well - that is the simplistic view... that of likening code to stanza's in a poem. Reality is really much worse. A stanza is an entirely arbitrary division, just as a single line is. In fact, single words could just as easily form the standard of division which defines where we can place boundries.
I would argue that in the case of George Harrision's "He's my Lord" verses the copyright infringment claim of "He's so Fine" that the judge felt copyright infringment should be found by the division of music at the equivalent of 5 or 6 notes and this would be the equivalent of a phrase boundry in a poem. By the judge's ruling in Harrison's fight, the lyrics and rhythm and emphasis that disinguishes one's use of a few notes in a song wasn't very relevant. Clearly in my mind the judge was rather misguided or naive or had a grude. But that is JMHO for what it is worth.
In computer software we do have the problem that whether a few lines of code are in an inline block or in an internal function or an external function or even an external dynamically loaded function - that they essentually are the same lines of code.
Probably most programmers feel that such a block of code should have its _own_ copyright. Perhaps so, but I've rarely seem a copyright notice slapped onto a block of code inserted in a program, yet I will see it often in external functions but rarely if ever in internal functions even though its th
From the 5th paragraph:
The virtualisation software sits between the hard drive and the OS and must calculate how much free memory is allocated to that OS.
My gawd - where do these idjots come from?
Did the idjot ever hear of dual boot or booting from the CD?
My Mother is not a co-worker but still this was the best joke I ever thought up. (April fools too!)
...and she got to take about 37 back home with her. haha. [Lynn had not noticed her pies were missing]
... I said "I'm at Lynn's. You never told me you were going to Ottawa! Here's Lynn.. Then Lynn talks for a bit and eventually says: Here's Lisa. [my daughter] haha."
So...
I live in Calgary and one of my brothers lives in Ottawa. My folks live in Saskatchewan in a quaint little town that is no longer on the maps AFAIK.
Several years ago my folks planned a trip to Ottawa to visit my brother at Easter - and they didn't tell me. I forget how I found out - maybe from one of my sisters...
Anyway my mother's best friend is Lynn and I recruited her to help me. Now - Lynn is a really nice woman and she's a farmer's wife (As is my Mother) and some may have concluded that farmer's wives are sometimes idolized for the good things they cook up. Lynn was no exception and I pulled a good joke on her when I stole over 40 pies from her deep freeze and gave them to my mum - who promptly stored them in her deep freeze and then invited the Duncer's over for Sunday Dinner and fed Lynn and Albert and everyone else Lynn's great pies. haha. Lynn raved about the pie - about how good they were.
[BTW - off topic. If anyone is interested in making say 40 pies or so - most pizza places will part with perfect pie boxes for a couple bux. I bought few dozen a few years back - its a good investment and you can put a lot of say "pumpkin" pies in a 23 cubic foot deep freeze]
Back to the story... Lynn I guess had a score to settle with mum.
Now Mum was in Ottawa and it was April 1. I set up a 3 way call to Lynn in Saskatchewan and then called Ottawa and complained that I'd just spent over 8 hours with the kids driving out to visit her and where was she?
I'm a single dad (my wife died at 36) and the kids were small so a trip like this was an undertaking... The kids were _perfect_. LOL
Well - we did fess up. But my mum was just beside herself and she was saying things like "I can't understand how you could do this? Are you really in Calgary? Lynn - are you in Calgary? haha"
This was the best joke IMHO that I ever pulled off and Dad and Roger saw immediately what I'd done. I'm sure they all had a really good laugh and Lynn and Mum probably still talk about it!
haha!
Mod parent up. While I personally am not in favour of violence I think it is important that the pollies realise that a basic human right is the right to work and make a living.
Software patents are a direct attack on programmers.
The VAST majority of programmers do not want to be involved with the patent system in any way. Those that do are simply naive or stoopid or both.
Unfortunately sometimes wars are necessary when one group tries to steal the property of others. This is what the patent system does... it attempts to prevent programmers from using their own ideas.
If the patent system actually lived up to its promise of only patenting novel ideas then perhaps it would be acceptable. But the patent system cannot pass this test. Even if it did it we should not support it.
Richard Feynman [Nobel prize in physics (1965) - Quantum ElectroDynamics] gave a lecture where he talked about freedom to pursue ideas. His comment is that any country that restricts the freedom of its people cannot hope to compete in a free world. [ I chose to use Feynman's comments in place of say Stallman's because Feynman predates Stallman. Examples are everywhere. Intelligent people realise that freedom benefits everyone ]
Well - the US has chosen to restrict the freedom of its programmers and I say they should be left to enjoy the fruits of their decision. Instead the pollies in Europe threaten to shoot themselves in the head and criple their own economic advantage... and for what purpose? To kiss Mr. Shrub's asshole???
But perhaps this is about power - the power to control what we programmers can create. If so then it is even more important that all of us band together and condem them.
Let the USA stand alone in its attempt to enslave the creative abilities of its programmers. The rest of the world should just say no! And if Europe is so foolish to try this - then Asia and India will 20 years from now control cyberspace.
We all know that of the technologies that will drive economies IT technology is of paramount of not primary importance. The consequence of software patents is that China and India may rule the roost in a decade.
Lets look forward. We do not have widely deployed voice recognition for the simple reason it ain't good enuf. We do not have visual pattern recognition systems that are practical except in very restricted cases. We are perhaps as far away from building a practical robot as we were when Asmov wrote "I robot".
China is planing on a moon mission. If China or India builds these machines first (and they likely will) then they will gain a technological advantage that the Western World cannot match.
Software patents are a brick in that pathway. Lord - how short sighted these pollies are!
The easiest way to get a software patent in Canada is to patent it in the US. Canada has a reciprocal agreement so that patents awarded in the States are apparently valid in Canada. In Canada it would not be possible to obtain the patent.
Now... that having been said I have approached my legal counsel on this issue - directly - and I have not at this point received a direct answer.
It is possible that the reason is because a court may have to make a ruling on this issue.
Well - I think you see my point. If an association with 50,000 members has as you suggest a snowball's chance in hell to prevail, then any company with a market cap less than say $25 million also cannot prevail and hense the logical conclusion would be to forget software development.
As individuals and small startups, legislation that allows software patents and a USPTO that is basically totally out of control have the effect of putting us out of business before we can even start.
If so, then I think you can agree there is a need to come up with a solution to the problem.
You bring up the point that: How much would it cost to fight just one patent lawsuit against a major software company like SCO or, heaven forbid, IBM? More like $25 million probably judging by extant examples.
Well - if you are an open source developer how would you like to face this issue alone? And on the other hand, we might find that a company such as IBM would actually support an association and contribute software patents on a cross licensing basis. You see, AFAIK IBM has never sued anyone with regard to software patents. Perhaps they feel they are being pushed into patenting software as a defensive move (so they have their own protfolio which can be used to cross-license and hense neutalize this mess).
The _ONLY_ benificiaries of software patents are patent lawyers and the courts and attendant infrastructure who all benefit by the LEGAL MAKE WORK that these laws create.
The software development industry DOES NOT benefit in general. If there are exceptions - then I'd like to know about them. Along this line of thought... the Feeny Patent comes to mind. Certainly many have profited fromt his patent... who? The legal community. Has anyone else seen any benefit?
The short of it is that a patent generally does not protect your work. It only creates a situation where you have to pay $100,000's to millions towards lawyers for painful litigation.
The history of Philo Farnsworth should be soberly considered because he was destroyed by this system.
You make excellent points here.
I am a member of the EFF BTW, and I have written them and implored them to start doing some things in the patent area. I have heard not even a peep back. But I do think the EFF does excellent work and I do support them.
I think your last paragraph is revealing. "Many users won't pay". Well - to be frank they will if they have to. It is unfortunate to have to force users to anti up for an anti-patent protection scheme but then we are not to blame here... we are just trying to solve a problem we did not create.
Then you say "The larger projects may end up being forced to do it themselves"... and to this I respond that again it is a situation I would rather not see. Instead of valuable resources being channeled into areas such as legal make work projects I would rather we become proactive and set up a structure that any project large or small and for that matter any developer can avail themselves of with little tax on their resources.
I do not see this as a situation where we depend on pro-bono patent lawyers, rather I would like to see a situation where maybe 50,000 developers initially (there are 500,000 registered in sourceforge) volunteer to join an association for under $10 bux per month because they perceive value and that this association then picks the best of the best ideas and organises patent applications on behalf of everyone.
In the latest version of OpenBSD for instance there were at least 5 excellent patentable innovations. These were real innovations... and they are in the public domain. Meanwhile we have obvious things like XOR sitting with a patent and ridiculous one-click claims.
So, if we developers are going to be faced with a patent minefield then I see no other choice but to go on strike (which is what vested interests want... strike, quit, waste our time in court, whatever... as long as we don't develop code) or we have to fight back.
As it stands the number of us who can afford to defend ourselves from an invalid patent is probably less than 0.01%. If any of us hold valid patents the number of us who could afford to defend it also probably fall under 0.01%. As the RCA vs Philo Farnsworth lawsuits illustrate, the idea of fairness in the legal system is rather far fetched.