I personally have no problem with software patents, as long as they are novel and unobvious. The following proposal is designed to eliminate this kinds of patents, and as a side effect, provides employment for students.
1. Employ a shitload(*) of technical oriented students as interns/coops.
2. For any given new patent, select a random pool of interns, provide them with a description of the problem that the patent solves. Give them one day to develop a solution (individually).
3. If 50% of them come up with something that is similiar to the patent application, throw it out.
Example: develop a method to minimize the amount of mouse clicking needed to process an on-line order by a customer who has previously ordered from the retailer.
Worse, I can barely do anything without some tangerine dream or similiar going. I think I've pavlov'd myself by doing this for 10 years or so. Luckily it just jerks me into the Zone rather than making me salivate:)
But since I wear earphones, I could still use voice recognition. Using it for coding is highly dubious though. Maybe navigation and window manager stuff. But alas I fear that the environments we use aren't architectrually simple enough, integrated enough, and semantically described enough to make this work well.
Agreed, and to be more precise, I meant big companies have trouble innovating for various reasons all having to do with their immensity. They get to the point where people are confortable making and following plans and then some risk taker pokes them from outside. The new mobile chips were not a result of someone's bright idea, but a crisis management reaction to the upstart Transmeta's success in winning designs. Someone said, omigod, and threw some engineers in a room to figure it out. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already figured out how to reduce power and some upper level manager decided against it because it didn't fit into the plan.
Large companies have difficulty innovating. This is just the nature of the beast. This is one reason why we shouldn't fear big companies becoming a 100% monopoly in a free market. It won't happen unless there's no way to improve what the company is doing. The little guys with wacky ideas will find a way to carve out some market if their ideas have any merit at all. If the big guy catches on in time, and they compete honestly then the consumer wins with better features or lower cost. If they don't, the little guy provides something better (in some way -- cost, features, etc), and the consumer wins again.
The only drawback of course, is when the big company doesn't compete on merit but uses behind the scenes coercion. Intel AFAIK has gained marketshare by luck (IBM PC) and going for good, but not risky solutions, and executing well enough.
I'm not sure you would want an Intel that was innovative, took huge risks, and never failed to execute. I'm sure AMD and Transmeta stockholders don't want that.
Yes, you are right. If it weren't for the government imposed caps on the retail power rates, there would be no "crisis", just higher bills. And then there's the years of regulation and red tape that kept new plants from being economically viable in ca, so that ca utilities now have to pay spot market prices to get enough power--causing the high cost. To continually pay these rates and then being forced sell the power at a lower rate is forcing power cos into bankruptcy. All due to government control and intervention.
The fundamental error in thinking was that the existing power infrastructure must be healthy since it reliably provided power for years. Well, the US system is overall fairly healthy, but the system in CA is not. Years of regulation and nimbyism caused a severe lack of generating capacity and led to reliance on the general health of the overall system.
Exactly. However since/. is now a money making enterprise, the point is now not "News for nerds. Stuff that matters", but "stuff that inflames nerds so we get higher traffic and can charge more for ads so we can have larger salaries". But that doesn't fit under the SlashDot logo....
I looked at it just now, and sue me if I got something wrong in my superficial scan of it, but it gets points off for the following:
- method dispatch is *only* untyped dynamic - binds at runtime (surely I'm missing something, they must have a static bind option)
- odd syntax for object oriented features (maybe just me)
- separate interface and implementation files (ugh)
- Apparently a superset of C, so it inherits its drawbacks, rather than taking a scalpel to them.
- uses the crufty old linking technology - some optimizations can't be done as a result.
- no parameterized types (templates)
- no exception support that I can detect.
- gc is not even optional.
- lack of design by contract features.
In short, it's a product of its time. Surely with 10 years of experience it is possible to do better?
Eiffel comes closer, imho, but it also has a pascally syntax and some other features that slow it down.
Processes are important, but it would not hurt at all if there was an OO language that was fast, powerful, elegant, didn't require a virtual machine, and had something of a C-ish flavor to it. Dream on...
Don't forget some of his other last deeds, like pardoning 167 of his cohorts. But I digress.
Back on topic, there's an incredible amount of political spinning on global warming. There isn't much real science going on, and there's an incredible number of political wankers wanting to look like they are doing something about it, so naturally they promote the idea that industry is the problem, not some unchangable global cycle. Add in to this "scientists" who give the politicians what they want so that they can get the government funded science dollars.
"You can blame this on the open source software development model"
You could, but that would blindly ignore the fact that you would have neither Linux nor any drivers at all if it were not for the OSS development model.
Hey, why don't you brits overthrow that creaky system you've got over there, and we'll add another couple stars on the 'ol stars and stripes for ya.
Think about it -- no more sliding Euro, a full set of individual rights that our courts occasionally hold up, and all the guns you care to own. Our dentists are first rate, and you'll have a navy that kicks ass again!
Re:The notebook market must be pretty saturated...
on
Digital Doodling
·
· Score: 1
Well Handwriting OPTICAL character recognition is hard, you just lose too much information in the optical scan. But that's not what you mean. You mean handwriting recognition where you have the full stroke information. That makes it a little bit easier.
Mainly I think it is a lack of hardware where it would be convenient to have such a thing. No one is itching yet. But this might change with the porting of linux to reasonably powerful handhelds - compaq ipaq for one.
You don't enter mathematical expressions on calculators (yeah, now there are graphing calcs but back then..). You enter numbers and operations. Even on an "algebraic" calculator, you have the notion of an accumulator. So you can enter 5*5=*5= for example, which Miss Brown never wrote on the board in my first grade classroom. It's really just a difference in user interface. There are pros and cons to both methods.
a motorized seat on wheels thing that can handle sidewalk curbs and stairs without disturbing the rider and go 25 mph on straightaways. Also folds up into a briefcase size package that is airplane carry-on sized.
In your dreams my brave little toaster! At best they can hope for is to generate willing buyers for their next novel, which of course will be delayed a bit before it gets on-line.
"I noticed it again that same 'geek gene' that makes us all love Tolkein and 'Star Trek' and Anime, is making us love comic books too."
Maybe I'm not the typical geek, but I think Tolkein was OK when I read it, Star Trek was cool, but has become 95% soap opera + gadgetry, and Anime I just don't get. I also don't play computer games (chess is an exception) or read comics, these things just seems like a waste of time to me.
What I'm trying to say is I don't think it's valid to assume *all* Geeks/nerds have *all* of the same interests as you. Probably the only common thread I can think of is the propensity to find stuff on Slashdot interesting.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I personally have no problem with software patents, as long as they are novel and unobvious. The following proposal is designed to eliminate this kinds of patents, and as a side effect, provides employment for students.
1. Employ a shitload(*) of technical oriented students as interns/coops.
2. For any given new patent, select a random pool of interns, provide them with a description of the problem that the patent solves. Give them one day to develop a solution (individually).
3. If 50% of them come up with something that is similiar to the patent application, throw it out.
Example: develop a method to minimize the amount of mouse clicking needed to process an on-line order by a customer who has previously ordered from the retailer.
This one would be thrown out, guaranteed.
(*) - technical term for "lots"
Worse, I can barely do anything without some tangerine dream or similiar going. I think I've pavlov'd myself by doing this for 10 years or so. Luckily it just jerks me into the Zone rather than making me salivate :)
But since I wear earphones, I could still use voice recognition. Using it for coding is highly dubious though. Maybe navigation and window manager stuff. But alas I fear that the environments we use aren't architectrually simple enough, integrated enough, and semantically described enough to make this work well.
Agreed, and to be more precise, I meant big companies have trouble innovating for various reasons all having to do with their immensity. They get to the point where people are confortable making and following plans and then some risk taker pokes them from outside. The new mobile chips were not a result of someone's bright idea, but a crisis management reaction to the upstart Transmeta's success in winning designs. Someone said, omigod, and threw some engineers in a room to figure it out. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already figured out how to reduce power and some upper level manager decided against it because it didn't fit into the plan.
Large companies have difficulty innovating. This is just the nature of the beast. This is one reason why we shouldn't fear big companies becoming a 100% monopoly in a free market. It won't happen unless there's no way to improve what the company is doing. The little guys with wacky ideas will find a way to carve out some market if their ideas have any merit at all. If the big guy catches on in time, and they compete honestly then the consumer wins with better features or lower cost. If they don't, the little guy provides something better (in some way -- cost, features, etc), and the consumer wins again.
The only drawback of course, is when the big company doesn't compete on merit but uses behind the scenes coercion. Intel AFAIK has gained marketshare by luck (IBM PC) and going for good, but not risky solutions, and executing well enough.
I'm not sure you would want an Intel that was innovative, took huge risks, and never failed to execute. I'm sure AMD and Transmeta stockholders don't want that.
Yes, you are right. If it weren't for the government imposed caps on the retail power rates, there would be no "crisis", just higher bills. And then there's the years of regulation and red tape that kept new plants from being economically viable in ca, so that ca utilities now have to pay spot market prices to get enough power--causing the high cost. To continually pay these rates and then being forced sell the power at a lower rate is forcing power cos into bankruptcy. All due to government control and intervention.
The fundamental error in thinking was that the existing power infrastructure must be healthy since it reliably provided power for years. Well, the US system is overall fairly healthy, but the system in CA is not. Years of regulation and nimbyism caused a severe lack of generating capacity and led to reliance on the general health of the overall system.
"Typical knee-jerk reaction from Intel. They seem to do this more and more. "
What, compete?
Exactly. However since /. is now a money making enterprise, the point is now not "News for nerds. Stuff that matters", but "stuff that inflames nerds so we get higher traffic and can charge more for ads so we can have larger salaries". But that doesn't fit under the SlashDot logo....
Ruby compares well with other "scripting" languages like Python, TCL and Perl, and may well be the best of that class.
But I want a somewhat lower level non-sucking OO language for developing fast running, complex applications, games and components.
I looked at it just now, and sue me if I got something wrong in my superficial scan of it, but it gets points off for the following:
- method dispatch is *only* untyped dynamic - binds at runtime (surely I'm missing something, they must have a static bind option)
- odd syntax for object oriented features (maybe just me)
- separate interface and implementation files (ugh)
- Apparently a superset of C, so it inherits its drawbacks, rather than taking a scalpel to them.
- uses the crufty old linking technology - some optimizations can't be done as a result.
- no parameterized types (templates)
- no exception support that I can detect.
- gc is not even optional.
- lack of design by contract features.
In short, it's a product of its time. Surely with 10 years of experience it is possible to do better?
Eiffel comes closer, imho, but it also has a pascally syntax and some other features that slow it down.
Processes are important, but it would not hurt at all if there was an OO language that was fast, powerful, elegant, didn't require a virtual machine, and had something of a C-ish flavor to it. Dream on...
"No real children were screwed during the making of this film"
Don't forget some of his other last deeds, like pardoning 167 of his cohorts. But I digress.
Back on topic, there's an incredible amount of political spinning on global warming. There isn't much real science going on, and there's an incredible number of political wankers wanting to look like they are doing something about it, so naturally they promote the idea that industry is the problem, not some unchangable global cycle. Add in to this "scientists" who give the politicians what they want so that they can get the government funded science dollars.
It's an incredible, disgusting cycle.
"You can blame this on the open source software development model"
You could, but that would blindly ignore the fact that you would have neither Linux nor any drivers at all if it were not for the OSS development model.
Hey, why don't you brits overthrow that creaky system you've got over there, and we'll add another couple stars on the 'ol stars and stripes for ya.
Think about it -- no more sliding Euro, a full set of individual rights that our courts occasionally hold up, and all the guns you care to own. Our dentists are first rate, and you'll have a navy that kicks ass again!
Well Handwriting OPTICAL character recognition is hard, you just lose too much information in the optical scan. But that's not what you mean. You mean handwriting recognition where you have the full stroke information. That makes it a little bit easier.
Mainly I think it is a lack of hardware where it would be convenient to have such a thing. No one is itching yet. But this might change with the porting of linux to reasonably powerful handhelds - compaq ipaq for one.
You don't enter mathematical expressions on calculators (yeah, now there are graphing calcs but back then..). You enter numbers and operations. Even on an "algebraic" calculator, you have the notion of an accumulator. So you can enter 5*5=*5= for example, which Miss Brown never wrote on the board in my first grade classroom. It's really just a difference in user interface. There are pros and cons to both methods.
Most of us have been using these things called "Bookmarks" for oh some time now.
Maybe the "Twinkies Insure Prompt Service" sign wasn't the win-win you thought it was.
a motorized seat on wheels thing that can handle sidewalk curbs and stairs without disturbing the rider and go 25 mph on straightaways. Also folds up into a briefcase size package that is airplane carry-on sized.
Isn't it obvious?
In your dreams my brave little toaster! At best they can hope for is to generate willing buyers for their next novel, which of course will be delayed a bit before it gets on-line.
"I noticed it again that same 'geek gene' that makes us all love Tolkein and 'Star Trek' and Anime, is making us love comic books too."
;-)
Maybe I'm not the typical geek, but I think Tolkein was OK when I read it, Star Trek was cool, but has become 95% soap opera + gadgetry, and Anime I just don't get. I also don't play computer games (chess is an exception) or read comics, these things just seems like a waste of time to me.
What I'm trying to say is I don't think it's valid to assume *all* Geeks/nerds have *all* of the same interests as you. Probably the only common thread I can think of is the propensity to find stuff on Slashdot interesting.
it's time for some new UnderWear!
Sorry. Back to coding.
Too bad the site doesn't really say how much this costs, even in round numbers. Anyone know?
I dunno about Linus, but a Stephen Hawkings action figure would kick some serious ass.
Not any more. Security breach protocol SB809 is hereby enacted due to violation of security protocol section S8887.19.
Report to S503 for debriefing.
Report to GS52 for termination paycheck.
Return your badge at the front desk.
That is all.
You're getting robbed either way.
This is a funny kind of "sharing". If you don't "share", you go to jail. I thought sharing was voluntary.