The idea would be that time sensitive e-mail, perhaps a contract that has to be approved by the boss, would not have to sit around waiting to get into the corprate mail system while a couple of interns are downloading the latest full length movies.
It very well may be the contract that allows the interns to continue being an intern through the summer.
For home users, this may not be as important, unless you are doing a SoHo business, and would like the same kind of feature while your kids are getting their movie fix.
To each their own. I do agree somewhat with you in that well over 90% of my e-mail these days is spam, which has significantly less importance to me than my web browsing. At the same time I would like the web browser to have priority over any downloads I am doing.
It is a prototype however, a test bed for the technology that went into the "production" shuttles, and as far as I know not capable of being re-fitted for space. So you are correct in that sense.
Then again, I could be wrong. Perhaps the Smithsonian will donate it back to NASA to be used. I just doubt that will happen.
It would depend upon what specifically was pattented. I doubt that they are concerned with the original AT&T Bell Labs release of Unix. Several times through various news reports, and comments here, it appears that they are concerned about code from the System 5 Release 7 edition, which is significantly more reacent than what may have been patented in 1969.
The other side of this is that what SCO is claiming is not pattent infringement, but trade secret and licence/contract violations.
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not seen anyone recomend either The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Ring yet. If you haven't read the entire set, doing so before the last installment hits the silver screen would be a worthy challenge.
Ok, I understand that skipping about the first quarter of "The Fellowship of The Ring" may make the book more palatable. I don't know this, because I have not read the series yet. Though I do have it.
While at some level it is possible that Microsoft will be donating "value" to the organizations involved, the value has nothing to do with the actual cost of the software.
As far as the packaged software is concerned, a copy of Windows (any version) Office (any version) or any other piece of software Microsoft donates to charity, the cost is the raw material involved in the package, and the cost of duplication for the content. Also by donating copies of software packages to charity, they bring down the total cost of production per unit.
The 1 Billion dollar value, per year, is far more likely to be related to the MSRP price Microsoft puts on the product, than on the material cost.
While I am sure that a part of this has to do with Microsoft doing just about anything in it's power to undercut it's competition, (which does include Open Source Software these days) it is also potentially valuable to them in that so far the company has been able to escape taxes in a number of ways. This provides another way for them to write off proffits that they would otherwise have to claim when it came time to file State and Federal taxes.
Perhaps of more concern is the fact that by using these applications, charities are going to be locking themselves into a proprietary set of file formats that they may not later be able to extract information from without Microsoft's blessings.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I have been wrong before, it will probably happen again.
By building his own high frequency oscilator, he has a better understanding of just what it is capable of. It's one thing to have a table of possible outputs for your high frequency oscilator. It's something different to know why those outputs are what they are.
Buying a 33.3, 100, 133 mhz oscilator should not be particularly difficult. I am reasonably sure that you could pick up some on e-bay and have them delivered next week. At the same time you will probably not get the experience you may some day need to replace the component should it fail on you. You will probably have to go out and pick up another one. By building your own, out of cast away parts, you will know what to look for to repair or upgrade the one you build. With 400mhz FSB systems out there today, (and higher) when one of these motherboards fails, you may find that it is exceedingly simple to determine what component failed, and possibly upgrade your variable frequency oscilator.
In a high proportion of the motherboards that I have seen fail, the primary culprit is the hig curremt transistors that support the CPU. When these go, it is very often visable as they leave a smoke patern on the heat sink they are mounted to. you may even see the resin housing for the transistor shattered or cracked.
If this is what has failed, then the CPU will not get power, and the board is functionally dead. It is very unusual for a failure of this type to have harmed the clock chip on the motherboard. I will grant that this is not always the case. It is possible to blow the clock chip, at which point the MB won't be able to start the CPU, or any of a dozen other chips and asics that will cause different failurs.
If you have a PCI modem, that takes a lightning strike, the most likely candidate for failure is the PCI bus controller. This does have a lead that goes to the clock chip, so you may loose the clock as well, but as he pointed out in the article, you can apply power to the clock chip and see if it generates a square wave on the outputs you are expecting, and if not, you haven't invested more than a little bit of time and thought to the project.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I don't claim to speak for the author of the article.
If all you want is the clock chip itself, then yes, using a heat gun to remove it would work.
From reading the article, it appears that he wanted to use the clock chip while doing a minimum of circuit design to support the chip itself. To do this, it helps to have the terminating resistors remain attached so you do not have to try to match them back up manually.
From looking at the pictures in the article, it also appeared that the chip was a surface mount package, meaning that he would have had to either come up with a generic surface mount breadboard with the correct pad layout, and solder it down (carefully so he didn't cross any traces), or etch his own breadboard for the project. From what I could read he was probably capable of either, however he (correctly in my opinion, perhaps not yours) chose to make use of the components that were already around the chip he wanted to use.
I find no fault in what he did, or potentially in your case if you just want to harvest the parts, in what you do.
That may be. As I say, I learn by my mistakes and being corrected. I do recall seeing Winbond chips on a lot of boards however. It is probably just my mind catagorizing them as clock chips when I read of someone using one that just happens to be a clock chip.
Something tells me that if you open the case of your computer, you will find that you have a Winbond clock chip on your motherboard. They are pretty much the standard clock chip for motherboards these days.
I can't personally recall the last motherboard I touched, living or dead, (or even dead because I have no use for that old of a processor anymroe) that did not have a Winbond clock chip on it.
Then again, I might be wrong. It's happened before, I expect it to happen again, and when it does, I hope to learn from that experience.
While we are at it, let's cancel all basic research, after all, everything that gets discovered as a new principle or new technology gets used for bad.
We should all recognize the power that crystals have.
Lets also ban that horendiously dangerous dihydrogen oxide. It contributes to more deaths each year than you want to know about.
While we are at it, let's require all vehicles on the road to have an energy efficiency of 95% or higher.
While it seems least likely for most computers, PDAs are a differnt matter. It is not at all unusual for a PDA to be being used in situations the developers and designers do not expect. This may include dusty, hot, or cold environments, or operating at less than optimal battery power levels.
Unforseen uses does not simply mean use in the harsher situations noted above, it also applies to software libraries. Array manipulation works fine as long as the array being manipulated is what the library was designed and tested for. If the address book was tested with a couple of hundred addresses, it may not perform as expected with a couple of thousand entries.
This also applies to interaction between applications. It would be great if my GPS would work with my address book, telling me either how far the address of interest is away from me, etc. The word processor or notepad app should allow me to pull down a list of addresses from the address book and insert those fields that I want (e-mail, url, street address, phone number, etc.) likewise for to-do lists, spreadsheets, etc. However if the feature isn't tested, it will all too often perform in an unexpected manner, including crashing.
Also there are some features of the OS that get used more often in palmtops than in desktops. PDAs are much more likely to be in and out of "sleep" mode several times a day. Most desktops are turned on and stay that way all day, and are less likely to be put into sleep mode interactively.
A re-implementation of a pattented process, is infringement of the pattented process. If you implement a new process that creates MP3 files from raw audio files, and you use the same steps as the pattented process, then the new implementation infringes on the pattented process. This is slightly different from copyright in that it does not require that any of the original code be included to be considered infringement.
In order for the re-implementation to become popular, it will have to become available. In the open source world that means that it will have to be put up on a public server of some sort. At the moment, I beleive most (if not all of the most popular) development CVS tree servers require that there be a project maintainer who can be contacted for that project.
If a lawyer for a pattent holder discovers that there is a project using pattented technology on a CVS tree, the maintainer of the CVS tree will most likely be contacted with a cease and desist letter, as will the project leader. If the CVS tree continues to be available, then under the DMCA, as well as a couple of other acts, either, or both would become liable for damages and fines with respect to the pattented process.
Then again, I am not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to be one. I didn't read the article, and it doesn't appear that you have either.
If you want to get a protocol appproved by the W3C, as a standard for use on the internet, your protocol may not use a pattented (or pattent pending) operation which would require that people using this standard pay you, or another company (the holder of the pattent) ongoing fees.
This includes, but is not limited to, RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discrimanatory) royalties. The reason that RAND pattents are included is that what is Reasonable or non-discriminatory to one company or developer may not be reasonable or non-discrimanatory to someone else. Just because I am not bothered by a $1500 one time fee, and $0.000025 per copy royalty rate, does not mean that Apue in India may consider either to be reasonable.
This does not prevent someone from requiring that the credits screen for any application using that person's pattented techcnology display at least as prominently as the other developers for the application, credit towards the pattent holder.
Then again, perhaps I should have read the article.
-Rusty
names for the reject or screen first lists
on
Databases and Privacy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
George Bush - the pres flies AF1, all others suspicious George Washington - rumor has it this is a revolutionary leader. Abraham Lincoln - leader of a fight for freedom group. Thomas Jefferson - Drafted revolutionary decrees. Ben Franklin - supports freedom of information, writes subversive literature. David Nelson - no reason, just want to harass a friend of the pres. Mahatma Ghandi - leader of a revolutionary group.
Surely you can add more to this list. We might even come up with all 300 of the no-fly, or screen first list.
Not quite as nice as Vonage's 39.99 unlimited local and long distace plan though. Granted you have to have a broadband connection, but you don't get that free with MCI's plan either.
Depending on your broadband carrier, the $10 or $20 difference may go a long way towards paying for that broadband connection.
Fault redundant? Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't adding fault redundancy increase the likelyhood that any flaw or stress will result in the entire structure falling appart?
I would suspect that fault tollerance and redundant support structures would be prefered to fault redundancy.
...Actors. Big name actors, big name actresses, pop stars, pop starlets, etc. are all going to have a harder time getting those lucrative contracts to be in a new movie now. Their influence on the movie being "perfect" doesen't even show up.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea would be that time sensitive e-mail, perhaps a contract that has to be approved by the boss, would not have to sit around waiting to get into the corprate mail system while a couple of interns are downloading the latest full length movies.
It very well may be the contract that allows the interns to continue being an intern through the summer.
For home users, this may not be as important, unless you are doing a SoHo business, and would like the same kind of feature while your kids are getting their movie fix.
To each their own. I do agree somewhat with you in that well over 90% of my e-mail these days is spam, which has significantly less importance to me than my web browsing. At the same time I would like the web browser to have priority over any downloads I am doing.
-Rusty
Enterprise is sitting at the Smithsonian.
It is a prototype however, a test bed for the technology that went into the "production" shuttles, and as far as I know not capable of being re-fitted for space. So you are correct in that sense.
Then again, I could be wrong. Perhaps the Smithsonian will donate it back to NASA to be used. I just doubt that will happen.
-Rusty
When the courts decided that Bush should be president.
It would depend upon what specifically was pattented. I doubt that they are concerned with the original AT&T Bell Labs release of Unix. Several times through various news reports, and comments here, it appears that they are concerned about code from the System 5 Release 7 edition, which is significantly more reacent than what may have been patented in 1969.
The other side of this is that what SCO is claiming is not pattent infringement, but trade secret and licence/contract violations.
For these, pattent law has no applicability.
-Rusty
And when sprayed through a atomizer, into a confined area, it can become an explosive requiring a small spark to go off.
-Rusty
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not seen anyone recomend either The Hobbit, or The Lord of the Ring yet. If you haven't read the entire set, doing so before the last installment hits the silver screen would be a worthy challenge.
Ok, I understand that skipping about the first quarter of "The Fellowship of The Ring" may make the book more palatable. I don't know this, because I have not read the series yet. Though I do have it.
-Rusty
While at some level it is possible that Microsoft will be donating "value" to the organizations involved, the value has nothing to do with the actual cost of the software.
As far as the packaged software is concerned, a copy of Windows (any version) Office (any version) or any other piece of software Microsoft donates to charity, the cost is the raw material involved in the package, and the cost of duplication for the content. Also by donating copies of software packages to charity, they bring down the total cost of production per unit.
The 1 Billion dollar value, per year, is far more likely to be related to the MSRP price Microsoft puts on the product, than on the material cost.
While I am sure that a part of this has to do with Microsoft doing just about anything in it's power to undercut it's competition, (which does include Open Source Software these days) it is also potentially valuable to them in that so far the company has been able to escape taxes in a number of ways. This provides another way for them to write off proffits that they would otherwise have to claim when it came time to file State and Federal taxes.
Perhaps of more concern is the fact that by using these applications, charities are going to be locking themselves into a proprietary set of file formats that they may not later be able to extract information from without Microsoft's blessings.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I have been wrong before, it will probably happen again.
-Rusty
Just a couple of points.
By building his own high frequency oscilator, he has a better understanding of just what it is capable of. It's one thing to have a table of possible outputs for your high frequency oscilator. It's something different to know why those outputs are what they are.
Buying a 33.3, 100, 133 mhz oscilator should not be particularly difficult. I am reasonably sure that you could pick up some on e-bay and have them delivered next week. At the same time you will probably not get the experience you may some day need to replace the component should it fail on you. You will probably have to go out and pick up another one. By building your own, out of cast away parts, you will know what to look for to repair or upgrade the one you build. With 400mhz FSB systems out there today, (and higher) when one of these motherboards fails, you may find that it is exceedingly simple to determine what component failed, and possibly upgrade your variable frequency oscilator.
In a high proportion of the motherboards that I have seen fail, the primary culprit is the hig curremt transistors that support the CPU. When these go, it is very often visable as they leave a smoke patern on the heat sink they are mounted to. you may even see the resin housing for the transistor shattered or cracked.
If this is what has failed, then the CPU will not get power, and the board is functionally dead. It is very unusual for a failure of this type to have harmed the clock chip on the motherboard. I will grant that this is not always the case. It is possible to blow the clock chip, at which point the MB won't be able to start the CPU, or any of a dozen other chips and asics that will cause different failurs.
If you have a PCI modem, that takes a lightning strike, the most likely candidate for failure is the PCI bus controller. This does have a lead that goes to the clock chip, so you may loose the clock as well, but as he pointed out in the article, you can apply power to the clock chip and see if it generates a square wave on the outputs you are expecting, and if not, you haven't invested more than a little bit of time and thought to the project.
Then again, that's just my opinion. I don't claim to speak for the author of the article.
-Rusty
If all you want is the clock chip itself, then yes, using a heat gun to remove it would work.
From reading the article, it appears that he wanted to use the clock chip while doing a minimum of circuit design to support the chip itself. To do this, it helps to have the terminating resistors remain attached so you do not have to try to match them back up manually.
From looking at the pictures in the article, it also appeared that the chip was a surface mount package, meaning that he would have had to either come up with a generic surface mount breadboard with the correct pad layout, and solder it down (carefully so he didn't cross any traces), or etch his own breadboard for the project. From what I could read he was probably capable of either, however he (correctly in my opinion, perhaps not yours) chose to make use of the components that were already around the chip he wanted to use.
I find no fault in what he did, or potentially in your case if you just want to harvest the parts, in what you do.
-Rusty
That may be. As I say, I learn by my mistakes and being corrected. I do recall seeing Winbond chips on a lot of boards however. It is probably just my mind catagorizing them as clock chips when I read of someone using one that just happens to be a clock chip.
-Rusty
Something tells me that if you open the case of your computer, you will find that you have a Winbond clock chip on your motherboard. They are pretty much the standard clock chip for motherboards these days.
I can't personally recall the last motherboard I touched, living or dead, (or even dead because I have no use for that old of a processor anymroe) that did not have a Winbond clock chip on it.
Then again, I might be wrong. It's happened before, I expect it to happen again, and when it does, I hope to learn from that experience.
-Rusty
While we are at it, let's cancel all basic research, after all, everything that gets discovered as a new principle or new technology gets used for bad.
We should all recognize the power that crystals have.
Lets also ban that horendiously dangerous dihydrogen oxide. It contributes to more deaths each year than you want to know about.
While we are at it, let's require all vehicles on the road to have an energy efficiency of 95% or higher.
-Rusty
unforseen uses. hardware problems.
While it seems least likely for most computers, PDAs are a differnt matter. It is not at all unusual for a PDA to be being used in situations the developers and designers do not expect. This may include dusty, hot, or cold environments, or operating at less than optimal battery power levels.
Unforseen uses does not simply mean use in the harsher situations noted above, it also applies to software libraries. Array manipulation works fine as long as the array being manipulated is what the library was designed and tested for. If the address book was tested with a couple of hundred addresses, it may not perform as expected with a couple of thousand entries.
This also applies to interaction between applications. It would be great if my GPS would work with my address book, telling me either how far the address of interest is away from me, etc. The word processor or notepad app should allow me to pull down a list of addresses from the address book and insert those fields that I want (e-mail, url, street address, phone number, etc.) likewise for to-do lists, spreadsheets, etc. However if the feature isn't tested, it will all too often perform in an unexpected manner, including crashing.
Also there are some features of the OS that get used more often in palmtops than in desktops. PDAs are much more likely to be in and out of "sleep" mode several times a day. Most desktops are turned on and stay that way all day, and are less likely to be put into sleep mode interactively.
Those are just my observations.
-Rusty
A re-implementation of a pattented process, is infringement of the pattented process. If you implement a new process that creates MP3 files from raw audio files, and you use the same steps as the pattented process, then the new implementation infringes on the pattented process. This is slightly different from copyright in that it does not require that any of the original code be included to be considered infringement.
In order for the re-implementation to become popular, it will have to become available. In the open source world that means that it will have to be put up on a public server of some sort. At the moment, I beleive most (if not all of the most popular) development CVS tree servers require that there be a project maintainer who can be contacted for that project.
If a lawyer for a pattent holder discovers that there is a project using pattented technology on a CVS tree, the maintainer of the CVS tree will most likely be contacted with a cease and desist letter, as will the project leader. If the CVS tree continues to be available, then under the DMCA, as well as a couple of other acts, either, or both would become liable for damages and fines with respect to the pattented process.
Then again, I am not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to be one. I didn't read the article, and it doesn't appear that you have either.
-Rusty
If you want to get a protocol appproved by the W3C, as a standard for use on the internet, your protocol may not use a pattented (or pattent pending) operation which would require that people using this standard pay you, or another company (the holder of the pattent) ongoing fees.
This includes, but is not limited to, RAND (Reasonable And Non-Discrimanatory) royalties. The reason that RAND pattents are included is that what is Reasonable or non-discriminatory to one company or developer may not be reasonable or non-discrimanatory to someone else. Just because I am not bothered by a $1500 one time fee, and $0.000025 per copy royalty rate, does not mean that Apue in India may consider either to be reasonable.
This does not prevent someone from requiring that the credits screen for any application using that person's pattented techcnology display at least as prominently as the other developers for the application, credit towards the pattent holder.
Then again, perhaps I should have read the article.
-Rusty
George Bush - the pres flies AF1, all others suspicious
George Washington - rumor has it this is a revolutionary leader.
Abraham Lincoln - leader of a fight for freedom group.
Thomas Jefferson - Drafted revolutionary decrees.
Ben Franklin - supports freedom of information, writes subversive literature.
David Nelson - no reason, just want to harass a friend of the pres.
Mahatma Ghandi - leader of a revolutionary group.
Surely you can add more to this list. We might even come up with all 300 of the no-fly, or screen first list.
-Rusty
Not quite as nice as Vonage's 39.99 unlimited local and long distace plan though. Granted you have to have a broadband connection, but you don't get that free with MCI's plan either.
Depending on your broadband carrier, the $10 or $20 difference may go a long way towards paying for that broadband connection.
-Rusty
Fault redundant? Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't adding fault redundancy increase the likelyhood that any flaw or stress will result in the entire structure falling appart?
I would suspect that fault tollerance and redundant support structures would be prefered to fault redundancy.
-Rusty
would the extraction of GNASA be GNASAs Not A Space Agency by any chance?
What do a new rocket, and ditching the shuttle have to do with a windowing system? I'm confused. :-)
-Rusty
Nope, just a really strange sucking sound...
I Think it has to do with it sucking the cash out of your account.
-Rusty
Just remember, someone who is smart would have asked about the "Red Button" on the side.
-Rusty
You could also use this to see if there are any bluetooth enabled phones on the mass transit system you take to and from work or school.
Though I think it would be completely unethical to actually use a co-rider's cell time to surf the internet.
-Rusty
Ah, but the only sex that comes to mind is MS screwing some other business it has tied down. And the B&D would push it overy any MPAA guidelines.
-Rusty
...Actors. Big name actors, big name actresses, pop stars, pop starlets, etc. are all going to have a harder time getting those lucrative contracts to be in a new movie now. Their influence on the movie being "perfect" doesen't even show up.
Imagine that.
-Rusty