Re:Except Animals are more likely to be right.
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 1
[QUOTE]If you can detect a pattern, then *it exists* and that is all there is to it.[/QUOTE]
Not so. It could be an artefact of my detection technique.
The analogy is weak in another way, though; it implies an earlier state of events. At this point, you don't need any special ability to see the storm coming. The gust front has already arrived, the black clouds aren't on the horizon but covering most of the sky, and you can smell the ozone from the nearby lightning strikes (bnetd, Sklyarov, deCSS to name three).
Re:Old school hackers vs. new school hackers.
on
Good Bad Attitude
·
· Score: 1
Grey-beards may not favor the idea now that they're higher up in the establishment, but back when they were your age, they were probably bypassing security and getting into things people didn't want them to, and sharing them too.
And if they weren't, the grey-beards you're talking to probably aren't the hackers of yesterday, despite what they claim.
What we need is software which changes the text of the "I agree" button to "What the Hell? No, I don't agree, just install it". In very fine print, of course.
Re:Directional Diffusers: BAD from my point of vie
on
Bright LCD Patent Dispute
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The directional diffuser has nothing to do with polarization; LCDs depend on polarization effects anyway.
The first claim of the Honeywell patent covers a backlight diffuser consisting of two sheets of cylindrical lenses between the backlight and the screen, with the front sheet having a larger number of lenses per unit height than the back, and both having more lenses per unit height than the number of lines per unit height of the display.
The second claim covers the same device as the first claim specifically when the number of lenses per unit height of the front sheet is not an integral multiple of either the number of lenses per unit height of the back sheet or of the number of lines per inch of the display. IMO, given the device of the first claim, this one's pretty obvious.
The third claim is independent and claims the innovation of having the lenses slightly rotated with respect to each other.
The prior art covers, among other things, a display with two sheets of cylindrical lenses where one is in front of the display and the other between the display and the light.
The patent is certainly useful and seems novel, but I'm not versed in the field; maybe it is anticipated by the prior art. The bit about waiting 10 years before bringing suit is the problem, IMO.
Because it doesn't seem to be timely. These LCDs aren't new; nor have they recently been modified to include the patented feature. And there's certainly no reason Honeywell wouldn't have known about the alleged infringement before now. So why did Honeywell delay in bringing the lawsuit? The most likely answer seems to be to increase possible damages and to let the companies become dependent on the technology.
Compact fluorescents are a placebo, at least at my latitude (40N). My energy use due to lighting is small. #1 (by far) energy use is HVAC, #2 is the fridge. And I don't care to shiver in the dark or swelter in the heat, nor give up refrigerated foods.
A programmable thermostat helps, but in the summer, not as much as you might think due to some nonlinear effects (that is, allowing the temperature to rise 20 degrees and then cooling it by 20 degrees may use as much energy than holding it at the lower temperature all along, particularly if your AC unit is only marginally adequate for your space).
Cutting energy consumption by 2/3rds "easily"? Not going to happen if you've ALREADY got a modern heater, fridge, and insulation. A programmable thermostat won't do it. The easy gains from conservation have already been reached in those cases; after that, it's diminishing returns.
Any car's brakes can prevent that car from going, even at full throttle.
That's not the same as saying the car's brakes can stop it from 120mph with the engine at full throttle. Brake fade could render the brakes ineffective before reaching a stop.
You will not lose power steering or power brakes by turning off the ignition. Power brakes are driven off manifold vacuum which will be present as long as the engine is turning(regardless of whether there's ignition or not). Power steering is driven off a belt which again, will be turning provided the engine is turning.
You shouldn't turn the ignition to 'lock', though, because THEN you'll be unable to steer. Not because you lost power steering, but because the anti-theft lock device cut in.
Most coders don't want to interact with the end-user, and aren't good at it either. Those who can understand their customer's business and do like interacting with the customer either become architects or sales engineers, thereby both making more money and outsource-proofing themselves. Or they become self-employed.
From the article: "Developers are least qualified to validate a business requirement. They're either nerds and don't get it, or they're people in another culture altogether,"
I used to think this. Then I realized that at least the developers knew one end of it -- they knew what the software can do. The other end, what the customer wants out of the system, is usually not known by anyone. Not management, certainly not sales, and not the customer either.
A customer with an existing system will often try to write requirements which amount to "do exactly what the existing system does in exactly the way it does it", which is not what they want or they wouldn't be replacing the system. Or, whoever is providing the business requirements will be so out of touch with their own business that the requirements will be incomplete or wrong. Or on the flip side they'll be so familiar with the system that they'll leave out things which are obvious to them -- but so obscure outside their field that no one on the software side will even notice the omission.
Of course, these problems will be discovered very late in the development cycle, resulting in a scramble to redesign and redevelop, a bunch of fingerpointing, mandatory overtime, and a host of other ills all of which lead to bad and buggy software.
I haven't found RMS's remarks on the RIPEM/gmp issue, just other people's summaries of it. It looks like he was going after a "contributory infringement" theory. That is, RIPEM distributed without the gmp library was ONLY useful for linking with the GPLed gmp library, and therefore distributing it even without the library put it in violation unless it complied with the GPL.
Unfortunately for him (in my non-lawyerish opinion) contributory infringement requires a direct infringement. Since any user could link the non-GNU RIPEM code with the GNU gmp without violating the GPL (though the user could not distribute that work -- see section 2 of the GPL), there'd be no direct infringement and therefore no contributory infringement.
I don't agree that there's no difference between the GPL and the LGPL if dynamic linking is "mere aggregation"; the LGPL certainly makes things more convenient, if nothing else. But it seems inescapable to me that if you can set up a "firewall" API between your code and the GPL-covered code, then you can create code which uses the GPL-covered code without itself being covered by the GPL. It doesn't even matter if APIs are copyrightable -- if they are, you simply build a separate API of your own, GPL that, then use that in your proprietary code. Since your object code will include none of the GPLed work except for references to your API, it isn't a derivative of the GPLed work and therefore is not subject to the GPL.
ASCAP isn't called the OTHER Music Mafia (aside from the RIAA) for no reason; they are the ones who sued the Girl Scouts over public performance rights. They like to sue businesses who play the radio (or allow it to be played) in the workplace. They're also notorious for a byzantine payment method which short changes small songwriters. BMI and SESAC are birds of a feather. Why would anyone want to create another monster like them?
If there's a solution to the problem of P2P v. the music industry, it involves the destruction of organizations like those, not the creation of more of them.
If von Lohmann wants the rule of law enforced, he ought to be coming up with some mechanism wherein lawsuit-abusers like DirecTV and the RIAA get bitch-slapped, not one which rewards them.
Yes, patents eventually expire -- but by the time they do, someone else has patented the same process using different wording, and you're back at square zero.
And new, enormous, carbon sinks and sources are periodically discovered. Since climate models don't (obviously) take undiscovered sources and sinks into consideration, they can't help but be defective.
Trying to predict the behavior of a chaotic system when you've got only the most general idea of the initial conditions is just not going to work.
Actually, the GPL is silent on the API. Some commentators on the GPL (including some within the FSF) have asserted that merely dynamically linking to a GPL-covered library creates a derivative work which woud then be covered by the GPL. Others have gone even further and claimed that using a defined plug-in style interface creates a derivative work; I don't think the FSF has ever asserted that.
The LGPL explicitly allows unrestricted use of an API (numerical parameters, data structure layouts and accessors, and small macros and small inline functions) even if the law considers the work using the API to be a derivative work. It also allows statically linked executables to be distributed without distributing the source of the work using the library (with some additional conditions)
Actually, this court ruled that bnetd does NOT have a substantial non-infringing use. The court declared, following Universal v. Corley, that providing access to a feature (battle.net mode) of software which is protected by a technological protection measure is a violaton of the DMCA even if the user owns the software in question.
The court also asserted that the fact that bnetd defeated a TPM to provide access to battle.net mode was undisputed, which I think is not the case; should be one of many grounds for appeal.
I wonder how holding a single (relevant) job for 4+ years with no college education compares to having a college education but no significant amount of experience at any one place.
Poorly, in the experience of those I've known without degrees. Many jobs require a BS degree to start with and many of those that don't pay much lower (regardless of experience) because they can.
Sorry, it's not just the flavonoids or tannins or any of the other likely suspects the US establishment likes pointing to whenever one of these studies is done. Whether or not it offends your and their puritanical senses, enough studies have been done to show that _it's the alcohol_ (at least partially).
Re:Off to the pop machine...
on
Steel Bolt Hacking
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Nope. This model of lock must have either really crappy manufacturing or a design flaw or both. What they're doing is the equivalent to "raking" in a conventional lock -- that's when you put some tension on the cylinder and just run a pick along the pins without any attempt to feel the individual pins. It generally won't work in a lock with security features and tight tolerances (though sometimes you get lucky).
In addition, tubular locks are usually designed so you have to turn it at least 1/4 turn to open it, which would involve picking the lock several times. The Kryptonite they show releases the shackle in an intermediate position -- bad design there.
A real tubular lock pick should open those locks; a simple plastic cylinder of the right diameter should not.
Well, you must be advertising in the local throw-away papers because I routinely respond to ads, both in newspapers and on-line where my skill-set exceeds the requirements of what they are asking for, and I get nothing. Maybe I'll get a form-letter back.
Yeah, you're not kidding. There seem to be just a few basic types of job ads out there
Very, very detailed job ad that probably only matches one person in the world. OK, I know that game, it's posted to meet some visa or other requirement.
Vague-sounding job ad posted by a recruiter. They're just trolling for resumes
Ad that requests 10 years of experience with every skill in the book, including some which haven't been around that long. Not sure what's going on here, but answering them results in nothing
Ad which lists a reasonable set of requirements and is posted by the company supposedly hiring (not a recruiter). But again, answering them results in nothing -- yet the job is posted again, and again, and again. It's like the companies placed auto-renewals on the job ads then laid off the people responsible for them.
I've sent out a number of resumes recently and only one has so much as been acknowledged. And these were responses to ads, not sent out cold. What's going on?
Slashdot Mirror
[QUOTE]If you can detect a pattern, then *it exists* and that is all there is to it.[/QUOTE] Not so. It could be an artefact of my detection technique.
The analogy is weak in another way, though; it implies an earlier state of events. At this point, you don't need any special ability to see the storm coming. The gust front has already arrived, the black clouds aren't on the horizon but covering most of the sky, and you can smell the ozone from the nearby lightning strikes (bnetd, Sklyarov, deCSS to name three).
Grey-beards may not favor the idea now that they're higher up in the establishment, but back when they were your age, they were probably bypassing security and getting into things people didn't want them to, and sharing them too.
And if they weren't, the grey-beards you're talking to probably aren't the hackers of yesterday, despite what they claim.
The antenna IS the right frequency.
What we need is software which changes the text of the "I agree" button to "What the Hell? No, I don't agree, just install it". In very fine print, of course.
The directional diffuser has nothing to do with polarization; LCDs depend on polarization effects anyway.
The first claim of the Honeywell patent covers a backlight diffuser consisting of two sheets of cylindrical lenses between the backlight and the screen, with the front sheet having a larger number of lenses per unit height than the back, and both having more lenses per unit height than the number of lines per unit height of the display.
The second claim covers the same device as the first claim specifically when the number of lenses per unit height of the front sheet is not an integral multiple of either the number of lenses per unit height of the back sheet or of the number of lines per inch of the display. IMO, given the device of the first claim, this one's pretty obvious.
The third claim is independent and claims the innovation of having the lenses slightly rotated with respect to each other.
The prior art covers, among other things, a display with two sheets of cylindrical lenses where one is in front of the display and the other between the display and the light.
The patent is certainly useful and seems novel, but I'm not versed in the field; maybe it is anticipated by the prior art. The bit about waiting 10 years before bringing suit is the problem, IMO.
Because it doesn't seem to be timely. These LCDs aren't new; nor have they recently been modified to include the patented feature. And there's certainly no reason Honeywell wouldn't have known about the alleged infringement before now. So why did Honeywell delay in bringing the lawsuit? The most likely answer seems to be to increase possible damages and to let the companies become dependent on the technology.
Compact fluorescents are a placebo, at least at my latitude (40N). My energy use due to lighting is small. #1 (by far) energy use is HVAC, #2 is the fridge. And I don't care to shiver in the dark or swelter in the heat, nor give up refrigerated foods.
A programmable thermostat helps, but in the summer, not as much as you might think due to some nonlinear effects (that is, allowing the temperature to rise 20 degrees and then cooling it by 20 degrees may use as much energy than holding it at the lower temperature all along, particularly if your AC unit is only marginally adequate for your space).
Cutting energy consumption by 2/3rds "easily"? Not going to happen if you've ALREADY got a modern heater, fridge, and insulation. A programmable thermostat won't do it. The easy gains from conservation have already been reached in those cases; after that, it's diminishing returns.
Any car's brakes can prevent that car from going, even at full throttle.
That's not the same as saying the car's brakes can stop it from 120mph with the engine at full throttle. Brake fade could render the brakes ineffective before reaching a stop.
Too bad there's no moderation(-1, wrong)
You will not lose power steering or power brakes by turning off the ignition. Power brakes are driven off manifold vacuum which will be present as long as the engine is turning(regardless of whether there's ignition or not). Power steering is driven off a belt which again, will be turning provided the engine is turning.
You shouldn't turn the ignition to 'lock', though, because THEN you'll be unable to steer. Not because you lost power steering, but because the anti-theft lock device cut in.
It's an Associated Press story. The various versions of it are the same story cut to fit different ad-holes.
Most coders don't want to interact with the end-user, and aren't good at it either. Those who can understand their customer's business and do like interacting with the customer either become architects or sales engineers, thereby both making more money and outsource-proofing themselves. Or they become self-employed.
From the article: "Developers are least qualified to validate a business requirement. They're either nerds and don't get it, or they're people in another culture altogether,"
I used to think this. Then I realized that at least the developers knew one end of it -- they knew what the software can do. The other end, what the customer wants out of the system, is usually not known by anyone. Not management, certainly not sales, and not the customer either.
A customer with an existing system will often try to write requirements which amount to "do exactly what the existing system does in exactly the way it does it", which is not what they want or they wouldn't be replacing the system. Or, whoever is providing the business requirements will be so out of touch with their own business that the requirements will be incomplete or wrong. Or on the flip side they'll be so familiar with the system that they'll leave out things which are obvious to them -- but so obscure outside their field that no one on the software side will even notice the omission.
Of course, these problems will be discovered very late in the development cycle, resulting in a scramble to redesign and redevelop, a bunch of fingerpointing, mandatory overtime, and a host of other ills all of which lead to bad and buggy software.
Compression provides numerous examples: http://www.ross.net/compression/patents_notes_from _ccfaq.html
I haven't found RMS's remarks on the RIPEM/gmp issue, just other people's summaries of it. It looks like he was going after a "contributory infringement" theory. That is, RIPEM distributed without the gmp library was ONLY useful for linking with the GPLed gmp library, and therefore distributing it even without the library put it in violation unless it complied with the GPL.
Unfortunately for him (in my non-lawyerish opinion) contributory infringement requires a direct infringement. Since any user could link the non-GNU RIPEM code with the GNU gmp without violating the GPL (though the user could not distribute that work -- see section 2 of the GPL), there'd be no direct infringement and therefore no contributory infringement.
I don't agree that there's no difference between the GPL and the LGPL if dynamic linking is "mere aggregation"; the LGPL certainly makes things more convenient, if nothing else. But it seems inescapable to me that if you can set up a "firewall" API between your code and the GPL-covered code, then you can create code which uses the GPL-covered code without itself being covered by the GPL. It doesn't even matter if APIs are copyrightable -- if they are, you simply build a separate API of your own, GPL that, then use that in your proprietary code. Since your object code will include none of the GPLed work except for references to your API, it isn't a derivative of the GPLed work and therefore is not subject to the GPL.
ASCAP isn't called the OTHER Music Mafia (aside from the RIAA) for no reason; they are the ones who sued the Girl Scouts over public performance rights. They like to sue businesses who play the radio (or allow it to be played) in the workplace. They're also notorious for a byzantine payment method which short changes small songwriters. BMI and SESAC are birds of a feather. Why would anyone want to create another monster like them?
If there's a solution to the problem of P2P v. the music industry, it involves the destruction of organizations like those, not the creation of more of them.
If von Lohmann wants the rule of law enforced, he ought to be coming up with some mechanism wherein lawsuit-abusers like DirecTV and the RIAA get bitch-slapped, not one which rewards them.
Yes, patents eventually expire -- but by the time they do, someone else has patented the same process using different wording, and you're back at square zero.
And new, enormous, carbon sinks and sources are periodically discovered. Since climate models don't (obviously) take undiscovered sources and sinks into consideration, they can't help but be defective.
Trying to predict the behavior of a chaotic system when you've got only the most general idea of the initial conditions is just not going to work.
Actually, the GPL is silent on the API. Some commentators on the GPL (including some within the FSF) have asserted that merely dynamically linking to a GPL-covered library creates a derivative work which woud then be covered by the GPL. Others have gone even further and claimed that using a defined plug-in style interface creates a derivative work; I don't think the FSF has ever asserted that.
The LGPL explicitly allows unrestricted use of an API (numerical parameters, data structure layouts and accessors, and small macros and small inline functions) even if the law considers the work using the API to be a derivative work. It also allows statically linked executables to be distributed without distributing the source of the work using the library (with some additional conditions)
Actually, this court ruled that bnetd does NOT have a substantial non-infringing use. The court declared, following Universal v. Corley, that providing access to a feature (battle.net mode) of software which is protected by a technological protection measure is a violaton of the DMCA even if the user owns the software in question.
The court also asserted that the fact that bnetd defeated a TPM to provide access to battle.net mode was undisputed, which I think is not the case; should be one of many grounds for appeal.
Lucasfilm doesn't own "android". They do own "droid" for toys and for software, though not apparently for record labels.
Poorly, in the experience of those I've known without degrees. Many jobs require a BS degree to start with and many of those that don't pay much lower (regardless of experience) because they can.
Sorry, it's not just the flavonoids or tannins or any of the other likely suspects the US establishment likes pointing to whenever one of these studies is done. Whether or not it offends your and their puritanical senses, enough studies have been done to show that _it's the alcohol_ (at least partially).
Nope. This model of lock must have either really crappy manufacturing or a design flaw or both. What they're doing is the equivalent to "raking" in a conventional lock -- that's when you put some tension on the cylinder and just run a pick along the pins without any attempt to feel the individual pins. It generally won't work in a lock with security features and tight tolerances (though sometimes you get lucky). In addition, tubular locks are usually designed so you have to turn it at least 1/4 turn to open it, which would involve picking the lock several times. The Kryptonite they show releases the shackle in an intermediate position -- bad design there. A real tubular lock pick should open those locks; a simple plastic cylinder of the right diameter should not.
Yeah, you're not kidding. There seem to be just a few basic types of job ads out there
I've sent out a number of resumes recently and only one has so much as been acknowledged. And these were responses to ads, not sent out cold. What's going on?