So when my start-up software company is taken to court by Megacorp Inc. for infringement of some silly software patent, can I produce this as evidence that the patent system is broke?
I've never actually studied speed reading, but I can "read" large amounts of text quickly by selectively cutting out large chunks - normally complete paragraphs.
I'm not totally sure how I do it, but it's along the lines of making a realisation that this paragraph is going nowhere, is too verbose, or is just something I know already. I find myself scanning ahead to look for keywords that indicate that I probably already know what this paragraph is trying to put across.
For example, if i'm reading a magazine article on some new whiz bang technology, and a paragraph starts of talking about XML and XSLT, i'll very quickly scan the rest of the paragraph to see if it looks like it will add anything to my existing knowledge of XML and XSLT. If the last paragraph said "so therefore you can use XSLT to translate an XML document into HTML.", i'd realise that I don't need to read the whole paragraph.
Firstly, users ability to deal with an increasing volume of business email varies enormously.
Some people are super efficient - their inbox is virtually always empty, anything they need to keep is moved more or less straight away to a permanent folder related to the subject, and anything they don't want to keep is deleted.
If I look over my shoulder at some of my more senior (chronologically speaking) colleagues, their inboxes are a mess. They can't recall email on a particular topic, they don't process incoming email into sensible subjects, they just let it pile up. Then I hear them complaining that they get too much email.
Secondly (and perhaps more ontopic) is the matter of physical document retention.
Many companies simply retain everything, and the cost of storing these documents mounts up and mounts up. People have the attitude that "we might need it some day". Yes, you might.
But you might not.
Cost of storage of every document ad infinitum = $x.
Cost of impact of not having a document at some arbitrary time in the future = $y.
If $y is less than $x then why are you keeping every document by default?
When the world didn't cease to exist at midnight on Jan 1, 2000, many of those in the media declared the huge coding effort and Y2K campaigns that cost billions of dollars a complete waste of money.
We all know that it wasn't a waste of money. It had the desired effect and major tragedy was averted.
Now draw parallels to this article. To quote the poster: "Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?"
No. Piracy is NOT putting them out of business. But it might if they didn't take action.
Robot Wars got boring when it became apparaent that a small wedge shaped robot with self righting capabilities and loads of torque would beat anything.
I've not really thought this through, but sometimes it's occurred to me that with *nix (in particular Linux) being "harder" to setup is actually a Good Thing, since it means it cannot be done by a moron.
It is alleged that a 5 week old chimpanzee could get an MCSE, which they do, and the next minute they're trapsing round server rooms earning nearly as much as someone who really does know what they're doing.
Make it known how easy it is to get colossal amounts of pr0n.
That would sell it for millions of males all over the world, and end the problems of cable companies and telcos sinking under the weight of their debts.
I reckon the vast majority of existing and potential net users think the only way to get pr0n is from a web site using their credit card, and most people aren't really up for that. They've never heard of usenet, and many of those who have won't be aware of the amount of pr0n at their fingertips.
Trouble is, the cable co's and telcos can't really push this since a) it might damage their reputation - particularly if they want to be seen as providers of entertainment for all the family, and b) most pr0n in the multimedia newsgroups are rip offs of copyrighted material.
All it needs is an cable co or telco with sufficiently low moral fibre, a good legal department, an advertising campaign and some help screens.
My [even pointier haired] boss crept up on me once whilst surfing (work related, honest;) and I did my usual now-instinctive click on the close button to kill Internet Explorer.
Of course, there was an X10 pop under showing said scantily clad lady.
I've never paid to receive an SMS, and I don't wish to start now.
Paying to receive something would be very difficult for the operators to setup commercially, as they would require "Do you want to receive this and be charged for it" feedback loops etc.
Ok, faced with a stream, some wood and maybe some rope, most of us could build a bridge to take us across the stream.
Maybe face a larger stream, or perhaps a river. Again, most of us could probably design a bridge that at least we alone would feel confident in crossing.
But how many of us could build a bridge that not only we are confident to cross, but the general public are confident to cross, the local government is happy to certify as structurally sound and compliant with all bridge building regulations.
To design and build such a bridge requires a professional engineer, not a Microsoft Bridge 2000 monkey.
As I look around this open plan office I see endless filing cabinets, spiral bound notepads hanging off them entitled "Document Control and Issue Log".
In the foyer there are boxes marked "for archive".
In the corner the IT support guys are complaining about the lack of storage space on our Exchange Server because our average users mail box is over 100 meg.
Why do our employees cause our company all these storage headaches? Because they can.
I say give people 5 meg mailboxes and force them to delete stuff, but they argue that they might need to refer to in the future. Might. But they probably won't..
The same goes for all those filing cabinets and archive boxes that we're paying some storage company to keep hold of, just because we might need the odd document again.
If there's a need to recover a document that you no longer have then there's a cost associated with the additional work involved because you couldn't retrieve it. But that cost is way smaller than the cost of storage for what 99.8% of the time will never need to be referred to again.
Slashdot Mirror
So when my start-up software company is taken to court by Megacorp Inc. for infringement of some silly software patent, can I produce this as evidence that the patent system is broke?
waste of bandwidth.
I've never actually studied speed reading, but I can "read" large amounts of text quickly by selectively cutting out large chunks - normally complete paragraphs.
I'm not totally sure how I do it, but it's along the lines of making a realisation that this paragraph is going nowhere, is too verbose, or is just something I know already. I find myself scanning ahead to look for keywords that indicate that I probably already know what this paragraph is trying to put across.
For example, if i'm reading a magazine article on some new whiz bang technology, and a paragraph starts of talking about XML and XSLT, i'll very quickly scan the rest of the paragraph to see if it looks like it will add anything to my existing knowledge of XML and XSLT. If the last paragraph said "so therefore you can use XSLT to translate an XML document into HTML.", i'd realise that I don't need to read the whole paragraph.
I think.
Firstly, users ability to deal with an increasing volume of business email varies enormously.
Some people are super efficient - their inbox is virtually always empty, anything they need to keep is moved more or less straight away to a permanent folder related to the subject, and anything they don't want to keep is deleted.
If I look over my shoulder at some of my more senior (chronologically speaking) colleagues, their inboxes are a mess. They can't recall email on a particular topic, they don't process incoming email into sensible subjects, they just let it pile up. Then I hear them complaining that they get too much email.
Secondly (and perhaps more ontopic) is the matter of physical document retention.
Many companies simply retain everything, and the cost of storing these documents mounts up and mounts up. People have the attitude that "we might need it some day". Yes, you might.
But you might not.
Cost of storage of every document ad infinitum = $x.
Cost of impact of not having a document at some arbitrary time in the future = $y.
If $y is less than $x then why are you keeping every document by default?
Or don't you know what x and y are?
I think.
When the world didn't cease to exist at midnight on Jan 1, 2000, many of those in the media declared the huge coding effort and Y2K campaigns that cost billions of dollars a complete waste of money.
We all know that it wasn't a waste of money. It had the desired effect and major tragedy was averted.
Now draw parallels to this article. To quote the poster: "Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?"
No. Piracy is NOT putting them out of business. But it might if they didn't take action.
I think.
Robot Wars got boring when it became apparaent that a small wedge shaped robot with self righting capabilities and loads of torque would beat anything.
I've not really thought this through, but sometimes it's occurred to me that with *nix (in particular Linux) being "harder" to setup is actually a Good Thing, since it means it cannot be done by a moron.
It is alleged that a 5 week old chimpanzee could get an MCSE, which they do, and the next minute they're trapsing round server rooms earning nearly as much as someone who really does know what they're doing.
I think.
If you added some oxygen to a hyrdrogen bomb (say one part oxygen for every two parts hydrogen), would you end up with a water bomb?
Make it known how easy it is to get colossal amounts of pr0n.
That would sell it for millions of males all over the world, and end the problems of cable companies and telcos sinking under the weight of their debts.
I reckon the vast majority of existing and potential net users think the only way to get pr0n is from a web site using their credit card, and most people aren't really up for that. They've never heard of usenet, and many of those who have won't be aware of the amount of pr0n at their fingertips.
Trouble is, the cable co's and telcos can't really push this since a) it might damage their reputation - particularly if they want to be seen as providers of entertainment for all the family, and b) most pr0n in the multimedia newsgroups are rip offs of copyrighted material.
All it needs is an cable co or telco with sufficiently low moral fibre, a good legal department, an advertising campaign and some help screens.
Problem solved.
I think.
Here Here!
;) and I did my usual now-instinctive click on the close button to kill Internet Explorer.
My [even pointier haired] boss crept up on me once whilst surfing (work related, honest
Of course, there was an X10 pop under showing said scantily clad lady.
Arse.
Interactive Television Services are only as good as the people who put them together. Not the technology platform.
When computers learn to be creative then it could get interesting....!
I think.
It never occured to you that perhaps other coders will rise in the place of those who leave?
I don't think there will be. Kids leaving school today grew up with Super NES, MegaDrive's etc. They're not learning how to code.
We grew up around BBC Micro's, Spectrums, ZX80's etc. That's where todays Linux hackers learned their craft.
We are going to run out of coders.
I think.
I've never paid to receive an SMS, and I don't wish to start now.
Paying to receive something would be very difficult for the operators to setup commercially, as they would require "Do you want to receive this and be charged for it" feedback loops etc.
I doubt we'll see that happen.
Ok, faced with a stream, some wood and maybe some rope, most of us could build a bridge to take us across the stream.
Maybe face a larger stream, or perhaps a river. Again, most of us could probably design a bridge that at least we alone would feel confident in crossing.
But how many of us could build a bridge that not only we are confident to cross, but the general public are confident to cross, the local government is happy to certify as structurally sound and compliant with all bridge building regulations.
To design and build such a bridge requires a professional engineer, not a Microsoft Bridge 2000 monkey.
I think.
As I look around this open plan office I see endless filing cabinets, spiral bound notepads hanging off them entitled "Document Control and Issue Log".
In the foyer there are boxes marked "for archive".
In the corner the IT support guys are complaining about the lack of storage space on our Exchange Server because our average users mail box is over 100 meg.
Why do our employees cause our company all these storage headaches? Because they can.
I say give people 5 meg mailboxes and force them to delete stuff, but they argue that they might need to refer to in the future. Might. But they probably won't..
The same goes for all those filing cabinets and archive boxes that we're paying some storage company to keep hold of, just because we might need the odd document again.
If there's a need to recover a document that you no longer have then there's a cost associated with the additional work involved because you couldn't retrieve it. But that cost is way smaller than the cost of storage for what 99.8% of the time will never need to be referred to again.
I think.
accessing a web service is no different to a remote human accessing a dynamic web page.
Sure, you need to consider the security aspects of your borders, but you must concentrate your security efforts on what goes on inside.
I think.