But there are still sites that want to provide a richer GUI than you can get from CSS, JavaScript/Ajax, for example for interactive vector graphic simulations.
Thanks for the explanation. Any examples of such sites, if they are popular?
I'm totally confused every time this comes up... do browsers have Javascript (more accurately ECMA Script) or Java itself? I understand it is the former; whiereas Java is a plugin that needs to be explicitly installed. And I also believe Javascript has almost nothing to do with Java.
should be the first recipe on the free book that comes with the oven.
"Apples think too much of themselves. When beaten to pulp however, they are delicious to consume. Apple pulp ideally needs to be roasted slowly to a crisp, using our special Android program. Although this app is free, and we have not applied for any patents, it is unlikely you will get this on an Apple iPhone anytiime soon. So enjoy your daily dose of "Apple pulp cookies" to keep the doctors and lawyers away."
I believe that Stallman comes across as more balanced and sensible
I have the exact opposite belief.
Fair enough, but you are basing your judgment, not on what Stallman said about Jobs, which is the subject of my post; but rather on what Stallman felt about software development as an industry. In short, you have deviated from the topic being discussed, and imposed your own skewed views instead.
I feel (like many here) that Stallman's views about Jobs are more nuanced compared to the latter's barbaric proclivities towards competition. Respond to this specific point, instead of ranting about other topics.
Jobs spent his life in the tech industry. He was one of the world's most successful decision makers in it.
The same could be said of Stallman, whose views are being discussed in this article. My feeling is that Jobs' philosophy about tech was not only an obsessive passion in creating products of art, beauty and elegance; he also had a keen fetish to exercise draconian levels of control and power over the entire ecosystem involved in the production, distribution, usage and consumption of the objects which he created.
Stallman does not say that Jobs does not have a right to exist, nor does he deny Jobs the freedom to indulge in his fetishes. He merely cautions customers to beware of the inside machinations camouflaged by the beauty and elegance of said products.
On the other hand, Jobs feels a unique entitlement to creating products of beauty and utility, often compromising on the latter and emphasising on the former attribute. Even worse, Jobs has emphatically opined that nobody else has the right to create competing products that might superficially resemble Apple's products in form or functionality. He had taken emphatic legal actions to right this perceived wrong.
I believe that Stallman comes across as more balanced and sensible, whereas Jobs seems exposed for the nihilist streak which has guided his actions and outlook.
MS, and probably Windows RT licensees won't be happy with losing control over what can be run on that OS.
As I understand, this crack allows legacy x86 code to be recompiled and run on ARM devices. Such as un-crippled Office, other legacy apps by 3rd parties.
Given that this results in sales of additional h/w and s/w by MS, I cannot imagine why they would be unhappy.
Customers ( a short term for Windows RT licensees) would also feel happy about being able to run 'normal' desktop x86 apps on RT.
Intel might cringe, but why would MS and buyers do so?
Jobs was an egomaniac ass who made more harm to the industry than anyone else and contributed to basically nothing. Hopefully when Apple finally sinks, as it certainly will, we won't even remember of him anymore.
Indeed. This is what the asshole Jobs was quoted to have declared: "'I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want.'
Unlike RMS, Jobs was too egoistic and wrongly thought that ideas could be patented, and that it was wrong or illegal for any one else to copy or use ideas which were used in iPhones. Jobs was wrong. Under him, Apple had applied for over thousands of patents related to smartphones, and hundreds of patents on multi-touch alone. This was part of Apple's attempts to completely shut down any competition. Apple chose to assert just 3 patents against Samsung; which it felt were iconic and stood a good chance of getting injunctions awarded.
In reality, ALL THE CLAIMS asserted in 2 of the re-examined 3 patents have been invalidated by the USPTO. So Jobs was not only wrong to think that ideas could be patented (only implementations of ideas can be patented); he was wrong in his assessment of the most valuable patents; and his attitude to freedom, capitalism and competition can best be described as childish.
So this is the content you wished for. Now debate rationally unlike Jobs, and give us your response.
A nuclear lab is, as I would imagine, a place where radioactive materials are researched in order to produce destructive levels of energy. Information generated, processed and researched in this lab should be ideally completely cut off from the rest of the World. It makes zero sense to connect this network of computing devices to the outside world and the internet, so that researchers can post to Facebook or play networked Solitaire. Security should be achieved by completely isolating this network from the rest of the World.
I do not know of any 'networking' devices from any country or vendor that does not have any vulnerabilities, or is completely immune to hacking. To imagine that non-Chinese networking devices are more 'secure' is to totally miss the point.
In other words, the most commonly employed method by 'pirates' to get software for free to run on Windows systems?
I have personally not used Windows8 at all; but I hear from a local PC vendor that with Win8, you cannot get 'cracked' copies of Win8, but only 'cracked keys' to activate the damn thing; for kids who must have the latest OS at any cost on their PCs.
I expect MS will probably just find a way to patch it up in the near future.
No. I have seen MS for about decades now; they seen to think "If you're gonna pirate s/w; then pirate our s/w, or code that runs on Windows; don't take the trouble to learn other OSes or products".
My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.
Dude... did you install the latest Service Pack which came out yesterday?
And did you reboot your phone after taking off the battery, removing your clothes and loudly proclaiming "I Love Microsoft Products"? Follow the above steps and if your phone still behaves oddly, chances are, the 128-bit registration key has already been registered by the only other user of Windows phones, so call support to get a different key.
Internet Explorer asks its users "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" and wrongly conclude that the maps data is fetched from Microsoft servers. If IE changed their title bar to read "We use Google Maps data to guide you accurately", I'm sure Google wouldn't object.
iPhone users recently got lost using non-Google maps, and learnt their lessons the hard way, so Google just want due credit for their maps data, that's all.
" I'm interested in a usable 2,000 chemical sensor package for under $100."
It would come bundled with a $1,000 iPhone, with proprietary software interfaces and apps as well. Totally unusable as a sensor package for a hobbyist.
So, to counter your post, there are 2 ribbons for your six commonly used features, with the option to easily add the 6th feature into the first ribbon.
Thanks, but I found it easier to switch over to OpenOffice instead, about 4 years back, unable to stand the ribbon. I had to upgrade to read docx and pptx stuff which others send me; but it was a free upgrade as well, which didn't break the user interface to which I was accustomed, and more productive on.
I actually like the ribbon. Basically all it is, is a pictorial, long text menu.
For the length and the real estate it occupies on the screen, the ribbon is very inefficient. The common things I use in an Office package are:
Bold Italics Justify Bullets Table Sort
In earlier versions of Office, all these were right there on the top of the editor. Very convenient. I could add, delete or re-rrange the locations of these things as well. Very efficient and programmable.
Now with the Ribbon thingy, there are 3 or 4 separate Ribbons for the 6 commonly used features (and I'm not a Power user, besides). The logical thing would've been to make the Ribbon an option. But MS is an abuse company, dealing with software. They are not reasonable or placative. They are nutcases and nihilists.
Which is why they are FORCING this Metro crap on unwilling users. Unlike Office, Windows is more widely used. So this will cause much more heartburn, and the resulting karma will drive the company towards its eventual demise.
While windows 8 is a mistake from user interface, it is only because it takes away choice. a simple service pack could easily fix those issues.
The correct approach would've been to make the Metro as an option; not a compulsory interface. A simple Service Pack will not fix the issues which MS has created.
MS created Bob, was it cured / rectified with a Service Pack?
MS imposed the 'ribbon' interface on Office users; many cringed and complained; but had to bite the bullet and be less productive.
If users are FORCED to use the Metro shit, and Developers build apps that are ONLY Metro enabled, then how can a Service Pack cure that ailment? In many situations, such as typing a post on Slashdot, the on-screen touch keyboard is no substitute for the real $1 thing that is attached to the PC. So the problem is too big and profound to be cured by a Service Pack. And seeing as Ballmer is stubborn in imposing this silliness and cutting off traditional interfaces; this will be the end of Windows totally in many situations.
Nobody is interested in making the hardware for Linux devices, but Google's Chrome-books are already making a big impact. The iPad and Android tablets have taken over the higher and lower ends of the touch based tablets market. MS has been driven out of the touch paradigm, and making it compulsory on the desktop will kill the desktop rather than create motivation for developers to build for the new interface that nobody wants on a desktop.
Is it like the sweaty Ballmer's Arms? Or would that be Monkey-Arm?
Why would Ballmer be taking such a big risk to destroy Windows completely? Is he insane, or just way too much over-confident that whatever shit he imposes on his billion-strong user base, they will just lap it up for ever? Why not make 'touch' an option for those who like it, and continue with the Classic keyboard-mouse interface for the rest of the sane computing world?
You cannot patent the idea of "sorting" but you can patent a sorting algorithm.
A sorting algorithm is still a computational idea. It does not result in any physical transformation.
A sorting algorithm could be used at a post office to sort letters. So let's say a patentee gets one on a sorting algorithm, which is very efficient.
Now say, this same algorithm is used to sort out rotten apples from a basket. Now, the patentee could sue the rotten-apples-sorter for violating his sorting algorithm patent.
The fact is that the patentee saw only one limited use for his algorithm, Implementation of the algorithm for totally unrelated tasks now becomes violative. This is not desirable. --------------- One of the recently invalidated Apple patents referred to dragging a finger at less than 18 deg over a touch surface; being interpreted as a horizontal gesture. Such a gesture could be used and interpreted for hundreds of resulting actions, completely different to the use cases for which Apple thought of. Should the very act of a horizontal swipe on a touchscreen be restricted to Apple?
I feel it will not work with the nutcases in the USPTO; so absent summary rejection of ALL software patent applications, and voiding of past software patents granted, nothing will happen. Instead of focusing on the USPTO which is a gone-case, I suggest a different approach when patents are used in litigation, to solve the problem. This is what I posted in Groklaw, on a related discussion: -------------------- The PTO has a limited amount of time to inspect each patent (I believe it's around a day per patent).
This is the exact problem, and in the rest of your post, you have detailed how to DEAL with the problem. What I am advocating is, how to solve the problem? The fact that the PTO has just 1 day to inspect a patent, implies that innovation is happening at a rapid pace these days. So a roughly 2-decade monopoly on a patent in these modern days; is totally not justified, since entire businesses and ecosystems are impacted by such long term monopolies.
Consider that there are about 2 billion Windows devices worldwide, in about 2 decades. In just 2 more years, it is projected that there could be more than 2.5 billion Android devices, surpassing Windows devices.
So a patent that cripples Android for 2 decades means ENORMOUS incalculable harm to the progress of science and arts, which is the raisson d'etre of patents.
So the cure to the PTO having just 1 day to inspect a patent application, is to drastically reduce the number of applications, rather than hastily issuing dubious patents, re-examining and rejecting them, and further re-examining and validating a limited number of claims.
To reduce the number of patents filed, a severe penalty has to be levied on a patent found to be invalid on re-examination; when such a patent is asserted in a case. If a company faces the prospect of a $10bn penalty, compared to a $1 bn damages compensation; it will think a 100 times before using the patent in a court. Additionally, it will also reduce the need and motivation to apply for a patent in the first place, thus allowing the PTO a lot of time for review and examination of a vastly reduced number of applications, which are bound to be genuine, rather than frivolous.
All inventions can be defined by a processing using math
Eh? Salicylaldehyde is prepared from phenol and chloroform by heating with sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Can this process be defined using ONLY math?
Slashdot Mirror
you can install NoScript. I find that it works well.
Does NoScript protect from sites that use Javascript? Or sites that use Java?
If a tool protects from java applets, ideally it should be named Java-Block or NoJava. The tools that blocks Flash is called FlashBlock.
So please clarify: Does NoScript help against java applets at all? Or only Javascript?
But there are still sites that want to provide a richer GUI than you can get from CSS, JavaScript/Ajax, for example for interactive vector graphic simulations.
Thanks for the explanation. Any examples of such sites, if they are popular?
Java is a plug-in published by Oracle that plays applets written in Java,
Yes, I understood that bit, which is why I asked the final question: Is the Java plugin downloaded so often, to run on browsers? (alternately)
Is Java plug-in bundled with browsers without the need for separate downloading?
I'm totally confused every time this comes up... do browsers have Javascript (more accurately ECMA Script) or Java itself? I understand it is the former; whiereas Java is a plugin that needs to be explicitly installed. And I also believe Javascript has almost nothing to do with Java.
Is Java on browsers so widespread?
should be the first recipe on the free book that comes with the oven.
"Apples think too much of themselves. When beaten to pulp however, they are delicious to consume. Apple pulp ideally needs to be roasted slowly to a crisp, using our special Android program. Although this app is free, and we have not applied for any patents, it is unlikely you will get this on an Apple iPhone anytiime soon. So enjoy your daily dose of "Apple pulp cookies" to keep the doctors and lawyers away."
I believe that Stallman comes across as more balanced and sensible
I have the exact opposite belief.
Fair enough, but you are basing your judgment, not on what Stallman said about Jobs, which is the subject of my post; but rather on what Stallman felt about software development as an industry. In short, you have deviated from the topic being discussed, and imposed your own skewed views instead.
I feel (like many here) that Stallman's views about Jobs are more nuanced compared to the latter's barbaric proclivities towards competition. Respond to this specific point, instead of ranting about other topics.
for navigation; instead of Apple's hastily clobbered contraption; and crash, and cause the exact bushfires they aim to prevent.
BTW, title mentions Brushfires, summary says Bushfires; which is correct?
Jobs spent his life in the tech industry. He was one of the world's most successful decision makers in it.
The same could be said of Stallman, whose views are being discussed in this article. My feeling is that Jobs' philosophy about tech was not only an obsessive passion in creating products of art, beauty and elegance; he also had a keen fetish to exercise draconian levels of control and power over the entire ecosystem involved in the production, distribution, usage and consumption of the objects which he created.
Stallman does not say that Jobs does not have a right to exist, nor does he deny Jobs the freedom to indulge in his fetishes. He merely cautions customers to beware of the inside machinations camouflaged by the beauty and elegance of said products.
On the other hand, Jobs feels a unique entitlement to creating products of beauty and utility, often compromising on the latter and emphasising on the former attribute. Even worse, Jobs has emphatically opined that nobody else has the right to create competing products that might superficially resemble Apple's products in form or functionality. He had taken emphatic legal actions to right this perceived wrong.
I believe that Stallman comes across as more balanced and sensible, whereas Jobs seems exposed for the nihilist streak which has guided his actions and outlook.
MS, and probably Windows RT licensees won't be happy with losing control over what can be run on that OS.
As I understand, this crack allows legacy x86 code to be recompiled and run on ARM devices. Such as un-crippled Office, other legacy apps by 3rd parties.
Given that this results in sales of additional h/w and s/w by MS, I cannot imagine why they would be unhappy.
Customers ( a short term for Windows RT licensees) would also feel happy about being able to run 'normal' desktop x86 apps on RT.
Intel might cringe, but why would MS and buyers do so?
Jobs was an egomaniac ass who made more harm to the industry than anyone else and contributed to basically nothing. Hopefully when Apple finally sinks, as it certainly will, we won't even remember of him anymore.
Indeed. This is what the asshole Jobs was quoted to have declared: " 'I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want.'
Unlike RMS, Jobs was too egoistic and wrongly thought that ideas could be patented, and that it was wrong or illegal for any one else to copy or use ideas which were used in iPhones. Jobs was wrong. Under him, Apple had applied for over thousands of patents related to smartphones, and hundreds of patents on multi-touch alone. This was part of Apple's attempts to completely shut down any competition. Apple chose to assert just 3 patents against Samsung; which it felt were iconic and stood a good chance of getting injunctions awarded.
In reality, ALL THE CLAIMS asserted in 2 of the re-examined 3 patents have been invalidated by the USPTO. So Jobs was not only wrong to think that ideas could be patented (only implementations of ideas can be patented); he was wrong in his assessment of the most valuable patents; and his attitude to freedom, capitalism and competition can best be described as childish.
So this is the content you wished for. Now debate rationally unlike Jobs, and give us your response.
A nuclear lab is, as I would imagine, a place where radioactive materials are researched in order to produce destructive levels of energy. Information generated, processed and researched in this lab should be ideally completely cut off from the rest of the World. It makes zero sense to connect this network of computing devices to the outside world and the internet, so that researchers can post to Facebook or play networked Solitaire. Security should be achieved by completely isolating this network from the rest of the World.
I do not know of any 'networking' devices from any country or vendor that does not have any vulnerabilities, or is completely immune to hacking. To imagine that non-Chinese networking devices are more 'secure' is to totally miss the point.
I'd call this a crack instead of a jailbreak
In other words, the most commonly employed method by 'pirates' to get software for free to run on Windows systems?
I have personally not used Windows8 at all; but I hear from a local PC vendor that with Win8, you cannot get 'cracked' copies of Win8, but only 'cracked keys' to activate the damn thing; for kids who must have the latest OS at any cost on their PCs.
I expect MS will probably just find a way to patch it up in the near future.
No. I have seen MS for about decades now; they seen to think "If you're gonna pirate s/w; then pirate our s/w, or code that runs on Windows; don't take the trouble to learn other OSes or products".
My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.
Dude... did you install the latest Service Pack which came out yesterday?
And did you reboot your phone after taking off the battery, removing your clothes and loudly proclaiming "I Love Microsoft Products"? Follow the above steps and if your phone still behaves oddly, chances are, the 128-bit registration key has already been registered by the only other user of Windows phones, so call support to get a different key.
Internet Explorer asks its users "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" and wrongly conclude that the maps data is fetched from Microsoft servers. If IE changed their title bar to read "We use Google Maps data to guide you accurately", I'm sure Google wouldn't object.
iPhone users recently got lost using non-Google maps, and learnt their lessons the hard way, so Google just want due credit for their maps data, that's all.
" I'm interested in a usable 2,000 chemical sensor package for under $100."
It would come bundled with a $1,000 iPhone, with proprietary software interfaces and apps as well. Totally unusable as a sensor package for a hobbyist.
So, to counter your post, there are 2 ribbons for your six commonly used features, with the option to easily add the 6th feature into the first ribbon.
Thanks, but I found it easier to switch over to OpenOffice instead, about 4 years back, unable to stand the ribbon. I had to upgrade to read docx and pptx stuff which others send me; but it was a free upgrade as well, which didn't break the user interface to which I was accustomed, and more productive on.
You could've simply said it does not run Windows instead...
I actually like the ribbon. Basically all it is, is a pictorial, long text menu.
For the length and the real estate it occupies on the screen, the ribbon is very inefficient. The common things I use in an Office package are:
Bold
Italics
Justify
Bullets
Table
Sort
In earlier versions of Office, all these were right there on the top of the editor. Very convenient. I could add, delete or re-rrange the locations of these things as well. Very efficient and programmable.
Now with the Ribbon thingy, there are 3 or 4 separate Ribbons for the 6 commonly used features (and I'm not a Power user, besides). The logical thing would've been to make the Ribbon an option. But MS is an abuse company, dealing with software. They are not reasonable or placative. They are nutcases and nihilists.
Which is why they are FORCING this Metro crap on unwilling users. Unlike Office, Windows is more widely used. So this will cause much more heartburn, and the resulting karma will drive the company towards its eventual demise.
While windows 8 is a mistake from user interface, it is only because it takes away choice. a simple service pack could easily fix those issues.
The correct approach would've been to make the Metro as an option; not a compulsory interface. A simple Service Pack will not fix the issues which MS has created.
MS created Bob, was it cured / rectified with a Service Pack?
MS imposed the 'ribbon' interface on Office users; many cringed and complained; but had to bite the bullet and be less productive.
If users are FORCED to use the Metro shit, and Developers build apps that are ONLY Metro enabled, then how can a Service Pack cure that ailment? In many situations, such as typing a post on Slashdot, the on-screen touch keyboard is no substitute for the real $1 thing that is attached to the PC. So the problem is too big and profound to be cured by a Service Pack. And seeing as Ballmer is stubborn in imposing this silliness and cutting off traditional interfaces; this will be the end of Windows totally in many situations.
Nobody is interested in making the hardware for Linux devices, but Google's Chrome-books are already making a big impact. The iPad and Android tablets have taken over the higher and lower ends of the touch based tablets market. MS has been driven out of the touch paradigm, and making it compulsory on the desktop will kill the desktop rather than create motivation for developers to build for the new interface that nobody wants on a desktop.
Is it like the sweaty Ballmer's Arms? Or would that be Monkey-Arm?
Why would Ballmer be taking such a big risk to destroy Windows completely? Is he insane, or just way too much over-confident that whatever shit he imposes on his billion-strong user base, they will just lap it up for ever? Why not make 'touch' an option for those who like it, and continue with the Classic keyboard-mouse interface for the rest of the sane computing world?
You cannot patent the idea of "sorting" but you can patent a sorting algorithm.
A sorting algorithm is still a computational idea. It does not result in any physical transformation.
A sorting algorithm could be used at a post office to sort letters. So let's say a patentee gets one on a sorting algorithm, which is very efficient.
Now say, this same algorithm is used to sort out rotten apples from a basket. Now, the patentee could sue the rotten-apples-sorter for violating his sorting algorithm patent.
The fact is that the patentee saw only one limited use for his algorithm, Implementation of the algorithm for totally unrelated tasks now becomes violative. This is not desirable.
---------------
One of the recently invalidated Apple patents referred to dragging a finger at less than 18 deg over a touch surface; being interpreted as a horizontal gesture. Such a gesture could be used and interpreted for hundreds of resulting actions, completely different to the use cases for which Apple thought of. Should the very act of a horizontal swipe on a touchscreen be restricted to Apple?
Try rephrasing that, is what I'm saying.
I feel it will not work with the nutcases in the USPTO; so absent summary rejection of ALL software patent applications, and voiding of past software patents granted, nothing will happen. Instead of focusing on the USPTO which is a gone-case, I suggest a different approach when patents are used in litigation, to solve the problem. This is what I posted in Groklaw, on a related discussion:
--------------------
The PTO has a limited amount of time to inspect each patent (I believe it's around a day per patent).
This is the exact problem, and in the rest of your post, you have detailed how to DEAL with the problem. What I am advocating is, how to solve the problem? The fact that the PTO has just 1 day to inspect a patent, implies that innovation is happening at a rapid pace these days. So a roughly 2-decade monopoly on a patent in these modern days; is totally not justified, since entire businesses and ecosystems are impacted by such long term monopolies.
Consider that there are about 2 billion Windows devices worldwide, in about 2 decades. In just 2 more years, it is projected that there could be more than 2.5 billion Android devices, surpassing Windows devices.
So a patent that cripples Android for 2 decades means ENORMOUS incalculable harm to the progress of science and arts, which is the raisson d'etre of patents.
So the cure to the PTO having just 1 day to inspect a patent application, is to drastically reduce the number of applications, rather than hastily issuing dubious patents, re-examining and rejecting them, and further re-examining and validating a limited number of claims.
To reduce the number of patents filed, a severe penalty has to be levied on a patent found to be invalid on re-examination; when such a patent is asserted in a case. If a company faces the prospect of a $10bn penalty, compared to a $1 bn damages compensation; it will think a 100 times before using the patent in a court. Additionally, it will also reduce the need and motivation to apply for a patent in the first place, thus allowing the PTO a lot of time for review and examination of a vastly reduced number of applications, which are bound to be genuine, rather than frivolous.
All inventions can be defined by a processing using math
Eh? Salicylaldehyde is prepared from phenol and chloroform by heating with sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. Can this process be defined using ONLY math?
Input -----> Process -------> Output
100000 applications for software patents -----------> USPTO ------------> All rejected.
All software is, by definition, math. And all math, by definition, is not patentable.
From: rvstrejklisauke@nokia.com
Subject: RE:Meeting with Larry Page - not so good
A bit cryptic. I thought a better one from nokia:
From: stephenelop@nokia.com
Subject: Mission accomplished, awaiting further orders...