Whereas it's relatively easy to crack the DRM on, for example, MobiPocket or Microsoft Reader books (and probably ePub by now). So the DRM'd formats are easier to pirate than the previous "analog"-analog format.
Yes, they are. Yet most of the pirated books out there are scans or dead trees.
Fullerenes have been around for nearly 25 years now. It they had anything more than hype, they'd be commercialized by now.
You could say the same about aluminum before development of the Bayer process, or titanium prior to the Kroll process. This could be the equivalent for nanotubes.
Unless whoever gets it put a big fat expensive patent around it.
Of course they will. Which will make it more expensive for 20 years, but if the benefits are that great, it'll still be used. Worst case scenario is multiple companies get patents on different parts of the process and can't come to terms; then you have patent deadlock where no one can produce the product.
The Simpsons is a cartoon. It's fiction. It's a satire.
Yes. And the satire part is where the references come in. Why come up with original ways to poke fun at an expensive rail boondoggle when the Simpsons have already done it oh so well?
So when someone develops a way of doing something electronically that is novel, it should be just as worthy of receiving a patent as another idea that needs physical implementation. The milieu shouldn't matter.
The problem with that is that solving the various problems involved in doing things on a computer often result in "doing something electronically that is novel", in the broad definition of novelty the patent office allows. It also involves doing a lot of things which have been done before, but which were once novel. If each of these patentable items were to be patented, and each of those patents were to be enforced, all programming would come to a screeching, grinding, halt.
When a patent is posted on slashdot, there's usually people -- plural -- who say "I've done that before". If the patent stands and is enforced, at best ONE of those people will be permitted to use whatever technique the patent covers; everyone else is out of luck. Multiply that by the number of software patents, and you have your stasis-by-patent.
do you ahve any idea how many "software engineers" and Software programmers have no idea how to do any of that? I continual run in to programmers and "engineers" that don't even understand how a computer subtracts binary numbers.
Are you referring to the details of implementation of an adder, or the two's complement representation? Because the former is definitely not something a programmer ever needs to know.
Then how come the EU and U.S. are banning incandescent bulbs?
Hair shirt environmentalism.
The latest prototypes using laser-carved filaments operate at just 20 watts, and make the same light as a 15 watt compact fluorescent light.
Such a lamp will remain legal in the US. A 20 watt incandescent light bulb will be legal in the US whatever the output, given current legislation; a light bulb emitting 900 lumens will be legal at 43W or less.
So that's what? 75% efficiency?
No; it's 33% less efficient than the fluorescent, but the efficiency rating of a light bulb isn't a dimensionless number.
I don't think anyone is implementing solutions willy-nilly, again these are based off of studies. There is consideration of the problem. It sounds like there was with the homework solution too: other school systems which are doing better have more homework. That to me constitutes a pretty large-scale pilot study.
And here is where that old "correlationisnotcausation" tag comes in handy. Taking several complex multivariate system and focusing in on one variable without controlling for the others isn't a "large-scale pilot study". It's a mess with no power to verify or disprove the hypothesis whatsoever.
Apprenticeships in lieu of formal education go back a bit further than I'm referring to. As recently as the 1960s, a high school education meant (at least) that you had some level of reading and writing competency, that you were able to complete tasks, that you were able to work with others, and that you had been exposed to some level of socialization. During the early 20th century, 8th grade was as far as most students would go, and it included all of those things; that's "primary education".
Now, one cannot count on a person with only a high school education from having any competency whatsoever. Many of them do, of course, but enough don't that it isn't reliable.
And that right there is probably one of the bigger reasons so much is wrong with our education system: so many differing opinions as to what exactly is wrong with education and the best way to fix it prevents ANY solution from going forward.
Pushing the wrong solution forward helps nothing. When I was in school, a few decades ago, the big thing was homework -- we didn't get enough, the Japanese and Europeans and whoever else got a whole lot, and that's why they were doing better. Now, apparently, students get crushing loads of homework.... and the Japanese and Europeans and Chinese and whoever else are still doing better.
Implementing solutions willy-nilly without considering what the problems are won't help, and will probably hurt.
I could be wrong, and when trying to guess what other people are thinking, I often am, but I think the real problem here is that when kids are out of school for the summer, they tend to get in trouble. Especially in areas with lots of gangs, like Chicago. Obama, having grown up in Chicago, seems to think that by having the kids in school longer, they will have less chances to get in trouble. Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me.
Then we need to stop calling them "schools" and start calling them "juvenile detention facilities", because at that point that's all you're doing.
A degree generally means that you have some level of reading/writing competency, that you are able to complete tasks, that you are able to work with others, that you have been exposed to some level of socialization, and that you are not poor.
Or, in other words, save for the last one, what a high school education used to mean. And before that, what an eighth grade education used to mean.
It's not a matter of there being not enough time in the school year to get learning done. It's a case of the pace of learning being too low (essentially zero in some cases).
Why should we want a individualist programmer doing arcane tweaks? That sort of thing often seems to end up being an unmanageable mess somewhere down the road.
Because it works today. It'll even work tomorrow.
I'd much rather that things be done in a standard and easy-to-manage way,
Your "standard easy-to-manage way" will quickly grow into a bloated behemoth. It will barely work even today. By tomorrow, it will have collapsed under its own bloatedness, the "standard" will have been replaced with the new "standard" and no one will want to work on the unmanageable mess built on the old standard.
especially given how overpowered modern machines are for what most of us use them for.
Famous last words. Parkinson's law applies to computer time as well -- workload expands to fill all available memory, disk, and CPU time.
Accuracy isn't especially important in this situation. If Iran can detonate a nuke anywhere over US soil, it doesn't really matter what they hit. Hell, it's not even important how big the yield is. A direct strike on NYC, or a field somewhere in Kansas, or a swamp in Louisiana. No matter which one they hit, it would guarantee all-out war.
All-out war from Iran's perspective. An expensive military operation called "Glass Desert" from the US perspective. Assuming the nuke is positively identified as being from Iran, anyway.
Here I thought New Zealand was the last of the English-speaking non-nanny states. In fact, in Queenstown I'd expect them to offer some sort of activity where you have to navigate a course blindfolded, on the open roads, aided only by sat nav directions, while having a phone conversation with one of the other customers.
Whether a person deserves what they get is never so clear-cut. You picked an extreme example, and many people would agree that we shouldnt have to pay for an obese two-pack-a-day smoker's health bills from a common pool... but who is going to decide whether he lives or dies?
I would sidestep that issue by making it his responsibility -- whether he's an obese smoking alcoholic or an athletic vegetarian health nut -- to pay for his own health care. Thus, no death panels required; in fact, this is only one of two systems which can avoid having death panels or their equivalent (the other being a socialized system where costs are unbounded).
The freedom to engage in any activity which might incur a health care cost, and the freedom to refrain from engaging in activities which might reduce health care costs. Once you've socialized health care, the claim of "I'm not hurting anyone but myself" goes away; each individual's well-being becomes the business of everyone in general.
We're already hearing calls to restrict (whether directly or through taxation) certain foods and certain intoxicants. But that is the tip of the iceberg. Once it's been established that an individual's health care costs are the governments business, there's no logical stopping point. Government restrictions on total calories consumed? Quotas on "good" foods and limits on "bad foods"? Government exercise requirements? All can be justified based on the idea that health care costs are socialized and therefore each individual's health is everyone's business.
For poor people in particular, there is a cost to society from their consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and high-calorie, low-quality food. That cost comes about when they expect society to pay for medical treatments to remedy the consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle. That expectation will only grow if plans for universal heathcare come to fruition.
Or we could, you know, deny those expectations and preserve freedom. Sure, that means an obese two-pack-a-day smoker in need of medical treatment for liver failure and emphysema isn't going to get it, but we can't have personal freedom and socialized responsibility at the same time.
Slashdot Mirror
Heinlein had a stroke in 1978, and a lot of the work after that shows it. That still leaves a LOT of good stuff.
Heinlein, _Friday_. Because the parents are going to complain anyway, so you might as well give them a reason. Bonus points for the 1983 cover.
Yes, they are. Yet most of the pirated books out there are scans or dead trees.
You could say the same about aluminum before development of the Bayer process, or titanium prior to the Kroll process. This could be the equivalent for nanotubes.
But, probably not...
Of course they will. Which will make it more expensive for 20 years, but if the benefits are that great, it'll still be used. Worst case scenario is multiple companies get patents on different parts of the process and can't come to terms; then you have patent deadlock where no one can produce the product.
And of course despite your Insightful rating, Amtrak loses money, over a billion dollars a year.
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/08financial.pdf
Yes. And the satire part is where the references come in. Why come up with original ways to poke fun at an expensive rail boondoggle when the Simpsons have already done it oh so well?
Cue the Simpson's Monorail song!
The problem with that is that solving the various problems involved in doing things on a computer often result in "doing something electronically that is novel", in the broad definition of novelty the patent office allows. It also involves doing a lot of things which have been done before, but which were once novel. If each of these patentable items were to be patented, and each of those patents were to be enforced, all programming would come to a screeching, grinding, halt.
When a patent is posted on slashdot, there's usually people -- plural -- who say "I've done that before". If the patent stands and is enforced, at best ONE of those people will be permitted to use whatever technique the patent covers; everyone else is out of luck. Multiply that by the number of software patents, and you have your stasis-by-patent.
Are you referring to the details of implementation of an adder, or the two's complement representation? Because the former is definitely not something a programmer ever needs to know.
Hair shirt environmentalism.
Such a lamp will remain legal in the US. A 20 watt incandescent light bulb will be legal in the US whatever the output, given current legislation; a light bulb emitting 900 lumens will be legal at 43W or less.
No; it's 33% less efficient than the fluorescent, but the efficiency rating of a light bulb isn't a dimensionless number.
You're just an anti-Mac bigot.
Is "ON A CELLPHONE" the new "ON THE INTERNET"? A quick glance over the claims reveals nothing that hasn't been done with DRM before in other settings.
And here is where that old "correlationisnotcausation" tag comes in handy. Taking several complex multivariate system and focusing in on one variable without controlling for the others isn't a "large-scale pilot study". It's a mess with no power to verify or disprove the hypothesis whatsoever.
Apprenticeships in lieu of formal education go back a bit further than I'm referring to. As recently as the 1960s, a high school education meant (at least) that you had some level of reading and writing competency, that you were able to complete tasks, that you were able to work with others, and that you had been exposed to some level of socialization. During the early 20th century, 8th grade was as far as most students would go, and it included all of those things; that's "primary education".
Now, one cannot count on a person with only a high school education from having any competency whatsoever. Many of them do, of course, but enough don't that it isn't reliable.
Pushing the wrong solution forward helps nothing. When I was in school, a few decades ago, the big thing was homework -- we didn't get enough, the Japanese and Europeans and whoever else got a whole lot, and that's why they were doing better. Now, apparently, students get crushing loads of homework.... and the Japanese and Europeans and Chinese and whoever else are still doing better.
Implementing solutions willy-nilly without considering what the problems are won't help, and will probably hurt.
Then we need to stop calling them "schools" and start calling them "juvenile detention facilities", because at that point that's all you're doing.
Or, in other words, save for the last one, what a high school education used to mean. And before that, what an eighth grade education used to mean.
...it's quality.
It's not a matter of there being not enough time in the school year to get learning done. It's a case of the pace of learning being too low (essentially zero in some cases).
Because it works today. It'll even work tomorrow.
Your "standard easy-to-manage way" will quickly grow into a bloated behemoth. It will barely work even today. By tomorrow, it will have collapsed under its own bloatedness, the "standard" will have been replaced with the new "standard" and no one will want to work on the unmanageable mess built on the old standard.
Famous last words. Parkinson's law applies to computer time as well -- workload expands to fill all available memory, disk, and CPU time.
All-out war from Iran's perspective. An expensive military operation called "Glass Desert" from the US perspective. Assuming the nuke is positively identified as being from Iran, anyway.
Here I thought New Zealand was the last of the English-speaking non-nanny states. In fact, in Queenstown I'd expect them to offer some sort of activity where you have to navigate a course blindfolded, on the open roads, aided only by sat nav directions, while having a phone conversation with one of the other customers.
I would sidestep that issue by making it his responsibility -- whether he's an obese smoking alcoholic or an athletic vegetarian health nut -- to pay for his own health care. Thus, no death panels required; in fact, this is only one of two systems which can avoid having death panels or their equivalent (the other being a socialized system where costs are unbounded).
The freedom to engage in any activity which might incur a health care cost, and the freedom to refrain from engaging in activities which might reduce health care costs. Once you've socialized health care, the claim of "I'm not hurting anyone but myself" goes away; each individual's well-being becomes the business of everyone in general.
We're already hearing calls to restrict (whether directly or through taxation) certain foods and certain intoxicants. But that is the tip of the iceberg. Once it's been established that an individual's health care costs are the governments business, there's no logical stopping point. Government restrictions on total calories consumed? Quotas on "good" foods and limits on "bad foods"? Government exercise requirements? All can be justified based on the idea that health care costs are socialized and therefore each individual's health is everyone's business.
Or we could, you know, deny those expectations and preserve freedom. Sure, that means an obese two-pack-a-day smoker in need of medical treatment for liver failure and emphysema isn't going to get it, but we can't have personal freedom and socialized responsibility at the same time.