Go live under sharia law you moron and when you headless corpse or corpseless head is returned to your country of origin, we'll all know differently. I'll even nominate you for a Darwin award, along with the "Peace" activists who were kidnapped in Iraq...
Amazing commentary and I have to say I agree with him whole heartedly. The Freedom crowd is so full of hate and unrighteous indignity that talking to them is counter productive. It never occurs to the Freedom crowd that the reason Microsoft was so successful in the first place was that their OS and software gave their customers the freedom to assemble and use their own hardware. More than anything, this is the reason MS became a monopoly.
Back when I bought my first computer, Apple was the evil, proprietary, expensive, black and white alternative to the freedom loving, open, affordable, colorful DOS box. Even then, I didn't spend my days hating Apple, I just didn't buy their cr@p. I was too busy playing Starflight and XOR football.
Look in the mirror once in a while...
Most of the hot spots on the globe were once ruled by the British. The borders of just about every country in the Middle East were determined by the Brits. India-Pakistan ring a bell?
What you pikers did to the Irish for a thousand years is the definition of terrorism. What they did to you was a slap on the wrist.
Having to share resources with other programs, threads, drivers... Having to deal with sudden power loss, bad hw, actual bugs... Having to deal with multiple cpus, connectivity, scalability... Having to deal with malformed input, lax standards, bad guys... Having to deal with legacy code, buggy libraries, the STL...
The only person I can ever explain anything to is my Dad. We learned C++ and Java together although he has about 40 years of experience in computers.
I work in security, have worked for Network Associates, Symantec and two other security related companies. When I try to explain something, I usually start at the problem end. Explaining why it is such a problem. About two minutes into that, they don't want to know the rest. Saves me the trouble.
I hate slashdot. I didn't always hate slashdot. I used to love slashdot. But now it is just a forum of repetitious and boring commentary.
The most egregious is the blame Microsoft crowd. They forgot that MS was once the one and only open solution. If you wanted to build your own computer, you couldn't choose Apple, Commodore, Atari or Amiga. They would only sell you their OS if you also bought their hardware. In fact that was the only way to get their OS.
When Microsoft started selling Windows, thousands of companies sprang up to sell customized, commodity based computers. There still are thousands of companies that do just that, even in the face of competing with Dell, Gateway and HP/Compaq. But, and this is amazing, you don't even have to buy from them. You can buy your own hardware, put it together yourself and run Windows.
Apple became marginalized because they didn't allow any one else to sell or buy their OS to run on custom, commodity hardware (except for a brief foray into allowing a few select, and ultimately burned, companies to do that). They also burned a lot of their customers. I remember a friend who bought an Apple II GS. Guess what happened to him. Apple scrapped the entire line and he was left with a door stop.
Microsoft has the most market share because no one was willing to compete in their market, selling an OS that runs on commodity hardware, until after they already had the most market share. I was an early adopter of OS/2. But their registration center burned down and they lost my registration information. They then burned me by not providing an upgrade to Warp that they had promised early adopters. Guess who I adopted next.
The whole Microsoft is a monopoly argument is such a joke. There are hundreds of operating systems available, but nobody uses them so it must be a conspiracy by Microsoft. Companies can't make money selling competing operating systems pre-installed on a computer so it must be Microsoft's fault. Dell, Gateway and HP/Compaq make a business decision to sell Windows pre-installed but that too is Microsoft's fault. Amazing.
That's science fiction books, not comic or fantasy books which both have some decent attempts. Where do you think HG2TG will stack up? I can think of lots and lots of bad SFB2Ms:
Starship Troopers, I-Robot, The Postman, etc, not bad translations so much as bad movies with the wrong title, that changes the entire story and adds new, boring ones. Starship Troopers took out the armor and added sex and unrequited love. I-Robot I will confess I never eyed. The Postman took a sympathetic do-gooder who put his own life in danger and turned him into a post-apocalyptic con man who gets a bunch of innocent people killed.
The original Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Running Man are all decent films but again, the source material was pretty much just a starting point, it just went in a better direction.
I look forward to seeing this movie, however I also looked forward to some of the movies I mentioned previously. Good luck, for all our sakes.
What most Americans forget is that there are two sides to the border. Not everything bad that happens because of that border happens to the Americans.
There is crime committed in Mexico by Americans every year. Americans fuel the illegal drug trade, prostitution and human trafficking. Not everyone who crosses the border is Mexican. Many are from South and Central America and Mexico has similiar problems from illegal immigration that the US has in that not everyone ends up crossing the border. Americans cross the border to drink and party which fuels vandelism, drunk driving and petty crimes.
The border also splits families. My wife has 4 younger brothers and two are U.S. citizens by birth and the other two are SOL. Their father crossed the border, got naturallized and they haven't heard from him since. The mother-in-law is left with the children and no way to find the dead beat dad. The two brothers who are U.S. citizens live with us and go to school here, but only get to see their mother rarely and it's expensive/impossible to get a visa for the other two.
There are two sides to the border and it doesn't take a genius to figure out which side has benefited the most. We like to look down on Mexico and blame them for problems that essentially we created and continue to perpetuate.
He also invented replaceable parts. His factory was destroyed in a fire and since he had been screwed out of his profits for the cotton gin he was a bit paranoid about sharing ideas.
True genius, he was. Ford was more of a capatalist.
Someone should make a sequel to that!
DV: Oomfh magh desroy Basketball planet!
PL: I can't understand what you're saying?
'Closet cases of the nerd kind' stands alone, however.
Because it's there... Our planet is an insignificant dot when compared to the rest of the solar system. We should at least try to explore our own solar system. Robots have been used to explore the moon, other planets, asteroids and even comets. This should continue.
Because we're here... What else should we be doing? Consume more of our non-renewable sources, watch the latest blockbuster, play video games and amuse ourselves? There are things that can be done here to improve our collective lot in life but that shouldn't stop some of us from having dreams and goals of someday having our progeny live in space (or Mars or wherever).
Because there's stuff up there... If we just captured 1% of the materials in the asteroid belt there would be enough gold, silver, iron, water, etc that we would never have to launch raw materials in space again. The first one to grab an asteroid and return it to Earth will be remembered longer than Magellen.
Because it can make $$$... It might throw some of the commodity markets into short term panic but eventually those markets would correct and everyone would eventually benefit.
Because we are mortal... Setting up shop off this island Earth is our only long term guaranty of survival.
Because God said so... Told me in a dream that this was our future, if we are to have a future.
Because God said not to... According to some, God only gave us this planet. Well, let's just see about that.
Because James van Allen said not to... Screw him, who the hell does he think he is? Just because he got his name attached to a radiation belt he thinks he knows what's what? When someone says something isn't possible or that something shouldn't be done, it just makes it more possible that it will be done.
Besides, if we don't get into space, we'll never meet the Vulcans and there will never be a federation. The thought of that is too horrible to imagine.
What happened to the constitutional right that punishment should suit the crime? The problem with RIAA et al is that their remedies are heavy handed. Suing high school kid's parents to pay fines in excess of what they would have spent is rediculous and just plain wrong.
America has more prisoners per capita then any other nation. It is a sad state of affairs. The lawyers that run this country are ruining it by passing more and more laws that only serve to make work for more and more lawyers.
2. In particular, effective legal remedies shall be provided against those who:
...
(iii) participate in the manufacture, importation, sale, or any other act that makes available a device or system capable of decrypting or helping to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal.
This is great lawmaking. The encrypted program-carrying signal can never be unencrypted because it is now illegal to do so. They might as well have made encrypted program-carrying signals illegal and saved everyone the bother.
Microsoft was the first to do a majority of things cheaply on a configurable platform that 3rd party customers could assemble, sell and ship.
I remember meeting Michael Dell in 1985 when he was running his company (not called Dell yet) out of the back of a strip mall in Austin. He was next door to an R/C hobby shop and his mother worked the cash register (I wonder what she is doing now). At that time he was 1 of literally 1000s of small, independent PC makers. Proprietary computer makers could not compete then and still can't.
Linux isn't proprietary, but something like this needs to happen for Linux. For me and for most people, I think applications are still the main reason for using windows. At work, I am agnostic and have used mostly non-MS systems. At home, I want to play Total War, print digital photos and surf the web. Linux can do two of those. If it could do all three, I'd switch with out a second thought.
Without actually looking at the patent, I would think that a competitor would have to use all of the mentioned techniques. If the patent application has a description of the process, which it should, then I would think that a competitor would have to use the mentioned techniques in the described manner. IANAPL, obviously, but I thought that patents had to be clear and succinct and describe one thing.
It is below sea level. Potentially we could drop a straw into the Pacific and draw as much sea water as we would like. Maybe this would also slow down the rise of the oceans from global warming.
I think it has become more than apparent that the Universe is stranger than we can think. In space, the farther out we look, the more we find there is to see. It is similar with the sub-atomic world. Well, I'm a pretty strange person and I have decided to post my own strange theory after having read so many other theories that sound like they came from a crack pipe.
Here is my theory, which I present as an open source scientific theory:
Our Universe is the creation of two (or more even) multi-dimensional Universes that have impacted. The impact MDUs contained both shared dimensions and distinct dimensions. Upon impact, the shared dimensions released enormous amounts of energy and compacted. The distinct dimensions remained more or less intact. The center of our Universe is the point of impact. Our galaxy and all others are expanding out from the impact point as the MDUs continue to integrate. We are, to put it simply, inside the MDUs which created this Universe and which continue to feed it's growth.
This theory has some advantages over classical physics. The first advantage deals with the rapid rate of expansion observed in the Universe. The distinct dimensions of the MDUs were not affected by the initial impact. These dimensions continued unabatted and as they are the dimensions we can observe (the ones that survived impact) appear to have come from nowhere (or in this case, from the point of impact).
The second advantage over classical physics is the explanation for why the Universe continues to expand. Quite simply, the Universe continues to expand because the MDUs are still feeding the process. We don't observe this because we are inside the bubble, so to speak. As the bubble grows, we continue to move away from the center of the Universe.
The final advantage is that this does not rule out most of classical theory. Obviously it flies in the face of the big bang theory, but only in principle. The fact that our Universe started at a single point (more or less) is a part of both theories. This is true for other theories as well.
That's it. You can use this theory for any use, including commercial. Just remember where you read it first and cite you source. Thanks for looking.
Whoo-Hoo! Linux can now be used as a locked-in word processing station. Why not just buy a used type writer?
Last night I bought a bargain basement PC with XP. It was under $300, 2.6 GHz, CD-RW, DVD, 80 Gig HD, 256 MB Ram, etc. The first thing installed, besides the printer, was 3 different photo editing software suites. 2 installed without a hitch, the 3rd had problems reading the CD. I then installed a CD to HD emulator free from download.com and scanned the 3rd photo editor CD. It then installed without a hitch. While I was doing all this I was watching previews for movies and watching them in the most clear and amazing playback I've ever seen.
The point is three fold. First, most people don't think about the cost of the OS when buying a computer. They have a budget and that more than anything colors their choice. Apple would be MS if they didn't sell their machines for so much money. Second, most people don't care what OS they are using, it's the applications that they own or that are available. Switching to Linux for most people will mean throwing away not only the MS license they might have paid when they bought their computer, but also any software they currently own. For a casual user this could be hundreds of dollars. For a power user (gamer) this could be thousands. Third, people want shiny string and will expect the shiny string to be pre-configured. I use Linux, so I know that it can be configured to do all these things. However, I also know the pain of trying to change something like screen resolution or the name of the computer.
Finally, I am glad to see that corporations are using Linux in meaningful ways, such as in an embedded devices. If a company sells 1000 devices and doesn't have to pay microsoft (or WindRiver or whoever) $50 dollars than that is an extra $50,000 dollars of profit. That's fantastic. However, for a home user, $50 dollars is a small price to keep their existing software and hardware not to mention the shiny string.
the Patent Office. If this machine can come up with a patented design, then the patent should be revoked. After all, I don't think patent law applies to machines. It looks like patent law does not apply very well to the 21st century either which I'm sure will be discussed ad naseum.
So I might as well get my.02 in now...
Patent law is pretty much a relic at this moment in history. Doesn't mean that it is going away but getting around it is pretty simple. After all, in what other day and age have people had so many resources available to build and create. I doubt that someone who makes their own DVR is going to be sued by TIVO or who ever has the stick these days. The same goes for most other things. No patent is stopping you from building your own MP3 player or VHS/CD/DVD burner. It may stop you from mass producing a device and selling it, but only if you live in a country that enforces patents.
Speaking of China, they have started to circumvent patents legally by creating their own standards. I don't know all the details, but if China can do something like this then why can't other countries, like India or France. Eventually, some technical country like Japan or the US will follow suit. If there is an economic advantage to having patent-less designs then I'm sure that eventually they will become the norm around the globe. Even the lawyers will know when the time is up for patents. OK, that might be stretching it a bit.
The peer review starts now and ends when someone either proves black holes or disproves this theory. Right now the 'official' story is also in process. Belief is a wonderful and transient thing. The things that people believed 50 years ago are not exactly the same as the things that most people believe in today. This is true in both our daily lives and the sciences. Go back 100 years and you'll see that our predecesors were mostly wrong about a lot of things.
As far as this theory is concerned, I have some doubts but I am willing to hear them through. As for Black Holes, I have some long standing concerns which have never been sufficiently answered. The inner workings of a Black Hole, like time before the Big Bang, is currently unknowable. They are still only theories and should be labeled 'under consideration'.
But don't take my word for it. Believe anything you want to believe. Doesn't make it so or you smart or this new theory stupid.
Both of these games are "sequels" based on "licencses" however they are both very innovative and very fun to play. THU and SH&R are both very similar to GTA in that they allow the player to interact with the environment and perform missions. However both are less violent and more entertaining. SH&R is probably the better of the two.
It's the anthropomorphic something or other theory. The emphasis is on the here because most people seem to be unaware of where they are. Here is the planet Earth. Planet Earth is a rock spinning in orbit around a yellow star called Sol. Sol is in the same spiral arm as Orion. The Orion arm rotates around the center of the Galaxy, trailing Perseus and followed by Carina. If the galaxy was a clock and Orion was the seconds hand, no time would have elasped since humans first appeared on this rock.
I like this rock, it's a good rock, but if some of us don't get off this rock, our future will depend entirely on this rock. Doomsday scenarios are a dime a dozen. Just look at the plot lines for a typical season of Star Trek. Some people on this rock believe it is inevitable. However, if we spread to other planets or moons, make it to the asteroid belt and all it's resources and learn to live in space, then we will be masters of our own fate.
I would love to think that some day when the light goes out on Sol that some humans will be popping some champagne and singing 'Auld lang syne'.
Microsoft became the dominant desktop OS because they provided choice to the consumer. First, the conusmer could choose what hardware to buy (motherboard, memory, chasis, soundcard, video, etc). Second, the consumer could choose where to buy their hardware (HP, Compaq, Dell, Joe's PC shack, etc). Third, the consumer could choose from a wide range of applications provided by third parties (games, development tools, office suites, etc). Finally, the consumer could choose to upgrade their OS when MS came out with a new one.
Contrast this with Apple, MS's original competition. Apple made the consumer buy a fixed set of hard from only them. Apple also used to be the #1 provider of software for their users (now it's MS). Apple has a long history of making thier OS upgrades incompatable with the systems they sold in the past. Finally, Apple marks their systems up by an astonishing amount (the original Mac was marked up 100%, 50% pure profit).
All of these things are still true today. Sure, if you want to buy a PC from Dell (HP, Gateway, Joe's PC Shack) they may charge you for an MS OS, but isn't that more Dell's (HP's, Gateway's, Joe's PC Shack's) fault? Is it not also your fault for not just buying the parts and putting together your own machine? People talking about how superior they are technically and then bitching about some preconfigured machine they bought is pretty funny when you think about it. Almost as funny as some Mac ho talking smack about the MS Tax.
P.S. OS2 failed because IBM did not support it. I owned a copy of OS2 and was supposed to get a free upgrade. An IBM support center burnt down and then they burnt all of the consumers who had shelled out for their beta release. I went from hardcore OS2 zealot to hardcore OS2 and IBM hater.
P.P.S. Want free software? There is just as much free software written for MS OSes as there is for Linux. Probably more, considering how long Windows and DOS have been around.
SCO is releasing portions of the source code they say is in violation along side the original source. It was reported on CNet news and some other sources./. says nothing but continues posting ad-hominem attacks from a group of geeks for their geek audience to reply with the same old rants.
I was hoping someone from/. would have seen the code. Maybe comment on it, provide some actual insight. Kind of sad actually./. used to be a pretty good tech news skim (about 3 years ago). Now it's just a tech circle jerk or is that a circle of tech jerks./. motto "Who do we hate today and tomorrow and the next"
Slashdot Mirror
Sad but true...
Go live under sharia law you moron and when you headless corpse or corpseless head is returned to your country of origin, we'll all know differently. I'll even nominate you for a Darwin award, along with the "Peace" activists who were kidnapped in Iraq...
Amazing commentary and I have to say I agree with him whole heartedly. The Freedom crowd is so full of hate and unrighteous indignity that talking to them is counter productive. It never occurs to the Freedom crowd that the reason Microsoft was so successful in the first place was that their OS and software gave their customers the freedom to assemble and use their own hardware. More than anything, this is the reason MS became a monopoly. Back when I bought my first computer, Apple was the evil, proprietary, expensive, black and white alternative to the freedom loving, open, affordable, colorful DOS box. Even then, I didn't spend my days hating Apple, I just didn't buy their cr@p. I was too busy playing Starflight and XOR football.
Look in the mirror once in a while... Most of the hot spots on the globe were once ruled by the British. The borders of just about every country in the Middle East were determined by the Brits. India-Pakistan ring a bell? What you pikers did to the Irish for a thousand years is the definition of terrorism. What they did to you was a slap on the wrist.
Whatever analogy you've just given, PLUS,
Having to share resources with other programs, threads, drivers...
Having to deal with sudden power loss, bad hw, actual bugs...
Having to deal with multiple cpus, connectivity, scalability...
Having to deal with malformed input, lax standards, bad guys...
Having to deal with legacy code, buggy libraries, the STL...
The only person I can ever explain anything to is my Dad. We learned C++ and Java together although he has about 40 years of experience in computers.
I work in security, have worked for Network Associates, Symantec and two other security related companies. When I try to explain something, I usually start at the problem end. Explaining why it is such a problem. About two minutes into that, they don't want to know the rest. Saves me the trouble.
I hate slashdot. I didn't always hate slashdot. I used to love slashdot. But now it is just a forum of repetitious and boring commentary. The most egregious is the blame Microsoft crowd. They forgot that MS was once the one and only open solution. If you wanted to build your own computer, you couldn't choose Apple, Commodore, Atari or Amiga. They would only sell you their OS if you also bought their hardware. In fact that was the only way to get their OS. When Microsoft started selling Windows, thousands of companies sprang up to sell customized, commodity based computers. There still are thousands of companies that do just that, even in the face of competing with Dell, Gateway and HP/Compaq. But, and this is amazing, you don't even have to buy from them. You can buy your own hardware, put it together yourself and run Windows. Apple became marginalized because they didn't allow any one else to sell or buy their OS to run on custom, commodity hardware (except for a brief foray into allowing a few select, and ultimately burned, companies to do that). They also burned a lot of their customers. I remember a friend who bought an Apple II GS. Guess what happened to him. Apple scrapped the entire line and he was left with a door stop. Microsoft has the most market share because no one was willing to compete in their market, selling an OS that runs on commodity hardware, until after they already had the most market share. I was an early adopter of OS/2. But their registration center burned down and they lost my registration information. They then burned me by not providing an upgrade to Warp that they had promised early adopters. Guess who I adopted next. The whole Microsoft is a monopoly argument is such a joke. There are hundreds of operating systems available, but nobody uses them so it must be a conspiracy by Microsoft. Companies can't make money selling competing operating systems pre-installed on a computer so it must be Microsoft's fault. Dell, Gateway and HP/Compaq make a business decision to sell Windows pre-installed but that too is Microsoft's fault. Amazing.
That's science fiction books, not comic or fantasy books which both have some decent attempts. Where do you think HG2TG will stack up? I can think of lots and lots of bad SFB2Ms:
Starship Troopers, I-Robot, The Postman, etc, not bad translations so much as bad movies with the wrong title, that changes the entire story and adds new, boring ones. Starship Troopers took out the armor and added sex and unrequited love. I-Robot I will confess I never eyed. The Postman took a sympathetic do-gooder who put his own life in danger and turned him into a post-apocalyptic con man who gets a bunch of innocent people killed.
The original Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Running Man are all decent films but again, the source material was pretty much just a starting point, it just went in a better direction.
I look forward to seeing this movie, however I also looked forward to some of the movies I mentioned previously. Good luck, for all our sakes.
What most Americans forget is that there are two sides to the border. Not everything bad that happens because of that border happens to the Americans.
There is crime committed in Mexico by Americans every year. Americans fuel the illegal drug trade, prostitution and human trafficking. Not everyone who crosses the border is Mexican. Many are from South and Central America and Mexico has similiar problems from illegal immigration that the US has in that not everyone ends up crossing the border. Americans cross the border to drink and party which fuels vandelism, drunk driving and petty crimes.
The border also splits families. My wife has 4 younger brothers and two are U.S. citizens by birth and the other two are SOL. Their father crossed the border, got naturallized and they haven't heard from him since. The mother-in-law is left with the children and no way to find the dead beat dad. The two brothers who are U.S. citizens live with us and go to school here, but only get to see their mother rarely and it's expensive/impossible to get a visa for the other two.
There are two sides to the border and it doesn't take a genius to figure out which side has benefited the most. We like to look down on Mexico and blame them for problems that essentially we created and continue to perpetuate.
He also invented replaceable parts. His factory was destroyed in a fire and since he had been screwed out of his profits for the cotton gin he was a bit paranoid about sharing ideas.
True genius, he was. Ford was more of a capatalist.
Someone should make a sequel to that! DV: Oomfh magh desroy Basketball planet! PL: I can't understand what you're saying? 'Closet cases of the nerd kind' stands alone, however.
Because it's there...
Our planet is an insignificant dot when compared to the rest of the solar system. We should at least try to explore our own solar system. Robots have been used to explore the moon, other planets, asteroids and even comets. This should continue.
Because we're here...
What else should we be doing? Consume more of our non-renewable sources, watch the latest blockbuster, play video games and amuse ourselves? There are things that can be done here to improve our collective lot in life but that shouldn't stop some of us from having dreams and goals of someday having our progeny live in space (or Mars or wherever).
Because there's stuff up there...
If we just captured 1% of the materials in the asteroid belt there would be enough gold, silver, iron, water, etc that we would never have to launch raw materials in space again. The first one to grab an asteroid and return it to Earth will be remembered longer than Magellen.
Because it can make $$$...
It might throw some of the commodity markets into short term panic but eventually those markets would correct and everyone would eventually benefit.
Because we are mortal...
Setting up shop off this island Earth is our only long term guaranty of survival.
Because God said so...
Told me in a dream that this was our future, if we are to have a future.
Because God said not to...
According to some, God only gave us this planet. Well, let's just see about that.
Because James van Allen said not to...
Screw him, who the hell does he think he is? Just because he got his name attached to a radiation belt he thinks he knows what's what? When someone says something isn't possible or that something shouldn't be done, it just makes it more possible that it will be done.
Besides, if we don't get into space, we'll never meet the Vulcans and there will never be a federation. The thought of that is too horrible to imagine.
What happened to the constitutional right that punishment should suit the crime? The problem with RIAA et al is that their remedies are heavy handed. Suing high school kid's parents to pay fines in excess of what they would have spent is rediculous and just plain wrong.
America has more prisoners per capita then any other nation. It is a sad state of affairs. The lawyers that run this country are ruining it by passing more and more laws that only serve to make work for more and more lawyers.
My only question is, did he come up with the title before or after he started his testing?
This is great lawmaking. The encrypted program-carrying signal can never be unencrypted because it is now illegal to do so. They might as well have made encrypted program-carrying signals illegal and saved everyone the bother.
Microsoft was the first to do a majority of things cheaply on a configurable platform that 3rd party customers could assemble, sell and ship.
I remember meeting Michael Dell in 1985 when he was running his company (not called Dell yet) out of the back of a strip mall in Austin. He was next door to an R/C hobby shop and his mother worked the cash register (I wonder what she is doing now). At that time he was 1 of literally 1000s of small, independent PC makers. Proprietary computer makers could not compete then and still can't.
Linux isn't proprietary, but something like this needs to happen for Linux. For me and for most people, I think applications are still the main reason for using windows. At work, I am agnostic and have used mostly non-MS systems. At home, I want to play Total War, print digital photos and surf the web. Linux can do two of those. If it could do all three, I'd switch with out a second thought.
Without actually looking at the patent, I would think that a competitor would have to use all of the mentioned techniques. If the patent application has a description of the process, which it should, then I would think that a competitor would have to use the mentioned techniques in the described manner. IANAPL, obviously, but I thought that patents had to be clear and succinct and describe one thing.
Any patent lawyers trolling slashdot?
Now's your chance to speak up.
It is below sea level. Potentially we could drop a straw into the Pacific and draw as much sea water as we would like. Maybe this would also slow down the rise of the oceans from global warming.
I think it has become more than apparent that the Universe is stranger than we can think. In space, the farther out we look, the more we find there is to see. It is similar with the sub-atomic world. Well, I'm a pretty strange person and I have decided to post my own strange theory after having read so many other theories that sound like they came from a crack pipe.
Here is my theory, which I present as an open source scientific theory:
Our Universe is the creation of two (or more even) multi-dimensional Universes that have impacted. The impact MDUs contained both shared dimensions and distinct dimensions. Upon impact, the shared dimensions released enormous amounts of energy and compacted. The distinct dimensions remained more or less intact. The center of our Universe is the point of impact. Our galaxy and all others are expanding out from the impact point as the MDUs continue to integrate. We are, to put it simply, inside the MDUs which created this Universe and which continue to feed it's growth.
This theory has some advantages over classical physics. The first advantage deals with the rapid rate of expansion observed in the Universe. The distinct dimensions of the MDUs were not affected by the initial impact. These dimensions continued unabatted and as they are the dimensions we can observe (the ones that survived impact) appear to have come from nowhere (or in this case, from the point of impact).
The second advantage over classical physics is the explanation for why the Universe continues to expand. Quite simply, the Universe continues to expand because the MDUs are still feeding the process. We don't observe this because we are inside the bubble, so to speak. As the bubble grows, we continue to move away from the center of the Universe.
The final advantage is that this does not rule out most of classical theory. Obviously it flies in the face of the big bang theory, but only in principle. The fact that our Universe started at a single point (more or less) is a part of both theories. This is true for other theories as well.
That's it. You can use this theory for any use, including commercial. Just remember where you read it first and cite you source. Thanks for looking.
Whoo-Hoo! Linux can now be used as a locked-in word processing station. Why not just buy a used type writer? Last night I bought a bargain basement PC with XP. It was under $300, 2.6 GHz, CD-RW, DVD, 80 Gig HD, 256 MB Ram, etc. The first thing installed, besides the printer, was 3 different photo editing software suites. 2 installed without a hitch, the 3rd had problems reading the CD. I then installed a CD to HD emulator free from download.com and scanned the 3rd photo editor CD. It then installed without a hitch. While I was doing all this I was watching previews for movies and watching them in the most clear and amazing playback I've ever seen. The point is three fold. First, most people don't think about the cost of the OS when buying a computer. They have a budget and that more than anything colors their choice. Apple would be MS if they didn't sell their machines for so much money. Second, most people don't care what OS they are using, it's the applications that they own or that are available. Switching to Linux for most people will mean throwing away not only the MS license they might have paid when they bought their computer, but also any software they currently own. For a casual user this could be hundreds of dollars. For a power user (gamer) this could be thousands. Third, people want shiny string and will expect the shiny string to be pre-configured. I use Linux, so I know that it can be configured to do all these things. However, I also know the pain of trying to change something like screen resolution or the name of the computer. Finally, I am glad to see that corporations are using Linux in meaningful ways, such as in an embedded devices. If a company sells 1000 devices and doesn't have to pay microsoft (or WindRiver or whoever) $50 dollars than that is an extra $50,000 dollars of profit. That's fantastic. However, for a home user, $50 dollars is a small price to keep their existing software and hardware not to mention the shiny string.
the Patent Office. If this machine can come up with a patented design, then the patent should be revoked. After all, I don't think patent law applies to machines. It looks like patent law does not apply very well to the 21st century either which I'm sure will be discussed ad naseum.
.02 in now...
So I might as well get my
Patent law is pretty much a relic at this moment in history. Doesn't mean that it is going away but getting around it is pretty simple. After all, in what other day and age have people had so many resources available to build and create. I doubt that someone who makes their own DVR is going to be sued by TIVO or who ever has the stick these days. The same goes for most other things. No patent is stopping you from building your own MP3 player or VHS/CD/DVD burner. It may stop you from mass producing a device and selling it, but only if you live in a country that enforces patents.
Speaking of China, they have started to circumvent patents legally by creating their own standards. I don't know all the details, but if China can do something like this then why can't other countries, like India or France. Eventually, some technical country like Japan or the US will follow suit. If there is an economic advantage to having patent-less designs then I'm sure that eventually they will become the norm around the globe. Even the lawyers will know when the time is up for patents. OK, that might be stretching it a bit.
The peer review starts now and ends when someone either proves black holes or disproves this theory. Right now the 'official' story is also in process. Belief is a wonderful and transient thing. The things that people believed 50 years ago are not exactly the same as the things that most people believe in today. This is true in both our daily lives and the sciences. Go back 100 years and you'll see that our predecesors were mostly wrong about a lot of things.
As far as this theory is concerned, I have some doubts but I am willing to hear them through. As for Black Holes, I have some long standing concerns which have never been sufficiently answered. The inner workings of a Black Hole, like time before the Big Bang, is currently unknowable. They are still only theories and should be labeled 'under consideration'.
But don't take my word for it. Believe anything you want to believe. Doesn't make it so or you smart or this new theory stupid.
Both of these games are "sequels" based on "licencses" however they are both very innovative and very fun to play. THU and SH&R are both very similar to GTA in that they allow the player to interact with the environment and perform missions. However both are less violent and more entertaining. SH&R is probably the better of the two.
It's the anthropomorphic something or other theory. The emphasis is on the here because most people seem to be unaware of where they are. Here is the planet Earth. Planet Earth is a rock spinning in orbit around a yellow star called Sol. Sol is in the same spiral arm as Orion. The Orion arm rotates around the center of the Galaxy, trailing Perseus and followed by Carina. If the galaxy was a clock and Orion was the seconds hand, no time would have elasped since humans first appeared on this rock.
I like this rock, it's a good rock, but if some of us don't get off this rock, our future will depend entirely on this rock. Doomsday scenarios are a dime a dozen. Just look at the plot lines for a typical season of Star Trek. Some people on this rock believe it is inevitable. However, if we spread to other planets or moons, make it to the asteroid belt and all it's resources and learn to live in space, then we will be masters of our own fate.
I would love to think that some day when the light goes out on Sol that some humans will be popping some champagne and singing 'Auld lang syne'.
Let's set the record straight.
Microsoft became the dominant desktop OS because they provided choice to the consumer. First, the conusmer could choose what hardware to buy (motherboard, memory, chasis, soundcard, video, etc). Second, the consumer could choose where to buy their hardware (HP, Compaq, Dell, Joe's PC shack, etc). Third, the consumer could choose from a wide range of applications provided by third parties (games, development tools, office suites, etc). Finally, the consumer could choose to upgrade their OS when MS came out with a new one.
Contrast this with Apple, MS's original competition. Apple made the consumer buy a fixed set of hard from only them. Apple also used to be the #1 provider of software for their users (now it's MS). Apple has a long history of making thier OS upgrades incompatable with the systems they sold in the past. Finally, Apple marks their systems up by an astonishing amount (the original Mac was marked up 100%, 50% pure profit).
All of these things are still true today. Sure, if you want to buy a PC from Dell (HP, Gateway, Joe's PC Shack) they may charge you for an MS OS, but isn't that more Dell's (HP's, Gateway's, Joe's PC Shack's) fault? Is it not also your fault for not just buying the parts and putting together your own machine? People talking about how superior they are technically and then bitching about some preconfigured machine they bought is pretty funny when you think about it. Almost as funny as some Mac ho talking smack about the MS Tax.
P.S. OS2 failed because IBM did not support it. I owned a copy of OS2 and was supposed to get a free upgrade. An IBM support center burnt down and then they burnt all of the consumers who had shelled out for their beta release. I went from hardcore OS2 zealot to hardcore OS2 and IBM hater.
P.P.S. Want free software? There is just as much free software written for MS OSes as there is for Linux. Probably more, considering how long Windows and DOS have been around.
SCO is releasing portions of the source code they say is in violation along side the original source. It was reported on CNet news and some other sources. /. says nothing but continues posting ad-hominem attacks from a group of geeks for their geek audience to reply with the same old rants.
/. would have seen the code. Maybe comment on it, provide some actual insight. Kind of sad actually. /. used to be a pretty good tech news skim (about 3 years ago). Now it's just a tech circle jerk or is that a circle of tech jerks. /. motto "Who do we hate today and tomorrow and the next"
I was hoping someone from