Unless there's a mathematical notation to explain what a secret is,
No problem.
Be S a sigma algebra, and P a set of parties. Then we can define a "knowledge function" K:P->(S->[0,1]), which assigns to each party a probability function over S. We define an element of s of S to be be knowledge of a party p in P if K(p)(s)=1.
In addition we define another sigma algebra M of messages, on which for each element for S we have a conditional probability function, p(m|s). After receiving a message M, each client updates his knowledge function according to Bayes' rule to K(p)(s|m). A message m is said to reveal s to p if K(p)(s) Em\in M:Es\in S:(K(p)(s)1 && K(p)(s|m)=1 && K(q)(s)1 && K(q)(s|m)=1 && Er\in P: K(r)(s|m)1)
But according to that argument, if I write a program that does this and distribute that program, I should not be violating the patent, because I'm not distributing "an information and storage retrieval system", right?
What should be patentable then? Nintendo's Wii controller? All the hardware used to make it already existed, the actual wiring should be fairly obvious once the purpose was described. I'm sure the technology for identifying a bright spot in an image is already well known.
The innovation was in putting this all together and combining it into a means of controlling video games.
Something shouldn't be patentable just because it's an innovation. If it's obvious how to do it as soon as you have the idea to do it at all, it's clearly not patent worthy. Patents should be for inventions, things that are not obvious how to do it, even when you know that you want to do it.
Likewise, books are language. Can books be copyrighted? No one owns language.
There's a difference. Copyright covers only the specific expression. Patents cover the whole idea. For example, the copyright on Harry Potter covers the story on Harry Potter, and derived works. A patent on Harry Potter OTOH could look like this:
Claims: 1. A story about a normal, underprivileged boy who turns out to be special. 2. As 1, where the specialty is that he actually is the son of a magician. 3. As 1, where the boy lives in England. 4. As 2, where the boy himself gets educated in magic....
You see, it would cover a lot of possible books, most of which would have very little relation to Harry Potter. Even worse, it would even apply to books of authors who never heard of Harry Potter (unlikely in case of Harry Potter, but the same would be true for quite obscure books as well). Or imagine that someone else had filed such a patent before, without actually writing such a book, then Harry Potter would not have been a success story, but a nightmare for J. K. Rowling.
Patents have to be much stricter in what they can be applied to because they are much broader in scope.
It's also opt-in if the user decided to install a browser which opts to both store and send back cookies. It's also opt-in if such a browser is already installed and the user decides to run it.
You have a very unusal interpretation of "opt-in". See below why it is utterly wrong.
The reason this proposal (and others like it in the news lately) is so bad, is that it's based on a fundamental confusion. Someone seems to think cookies have something to do with web sites when really they're a web browser thing.
I don't know a web browser which sets cookies without the web site requesting it. With your argument, I could as well say the web site isn't responsible for the site's content, because after all, it's the web browser which renders that content. The web server just sends a series of bits.
because once you accept the idea that people really do opt (with fully informed consent) to run potentially hostile software, combined with the idea that government must use force to prevent it
Here's your error: I bet that 90% of all people don't even know what cookies are (if they actually know that they exist). That's the point of opt-in: An opt-in solution makes sure that you have to explicitly(!) agree that it happens, which means you have to get informed about it if it happens (because if you are not informed, you cannot agree). For an informed user, opt-in and opt-out are equivalent. But for an uninformed user opt-in means that it won't happen without them at least knowing it (so they have at least the chance to inform themselves; if they don't use the chance and blindly click "yes", it's entirely their own fault, of course), while with opt-out they may not even be aware that it happens. That is why it is not opt-in if the default browser defaults to silently accept cookies. And it's also not opt-in if a non-default browser the user installs silently accepts cookies, unless that's a heavily advertised feature, so it can be assumed the user knows about it from the start.
Well, to start with, Hitler didn't get enough votes to get into power that way (indeed, the party was already in decline). Hitler got into power through an intrigue where some people who thought they could control him put him into power as way to later get into power themselves. Well, that obviously didn't work out well.
Second, I've once seen an interesting pair of maps of Bavaria of that time. One showed how many people voted for Hitler. The other showed which areas were predominantly catholic, and which were predominantly protestant. The areas where Hitler got many votes were those with high numbers of protestants. While it doesn't proof anything, it's a remarkable correlation which doesn't exactly support the notion that the catholics got Hitler elected.
Well, probably it would be a single sentence "this site needs cookies to work properly [link: site's cookie policy]. enable cookies for this site? [Yes] [No]" Of course the cookie policy page should be readable without cookies enabled.
I don't know about mobile phones, but I know from experience that disabling cookies by default works quite well on desktop browsers. I of course enable cookies for services where I log in (it would be pointless to deny cookies when I give them even more identifying data anyway). There are very few web sites which require cookies that I consider worthwhile enough to allow them cookies (and then, I mostly allow them only as session cookies).
AFAIU "tracking cookie" means a cookie set from a third-party site in order to track you across several sites. The cookies Slashdot uses to keep track of you when logged in are not tracking cookies, because they are only set or read if you are going to Slashdot (at least I hope so). The cookies advertisers set are tracking cookies, because you get them and send them back whenever you go to a page where the advertiser advertises. You can get a cookie at Slashdot, and send it back when visiting the New York Times, or vice versa.
A simple (but not completely accurate) rule of thumb is: If the cookie comes from a server other than that found in the URL of the site and contains identifying information, then it's a tracking cookie.
"Unfortunately, folkloric heritage is not regulated by international norms or by intellectual property rights," Marina Primenko, the creator of the Ukrainian map, said.
Yes, very unfortunate. Because we need more historical culture to be tied up in intellectual property rights so rich people can sue other people who reference it.
Well, given that many of the fairy tales Disney re-tells come from Europe, I guess Disney wouldn't look very well in that case.;-)
Question: Knowing the diameter of the observable universe, how many digits of Pi are needed to calculate the circumference of the observable universe, accurate to within 1 plank length? Answer: 62 digits. Here they are: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459
I wrote a program to find the nth digit of i^2. It is blazing fast too.
That's nothing. I've written an incredibly fast program to compute any digit of e^(i pi)+1. This contains all three of e, i and pi! And I can even do it in any base!
Is there the equivalent to pi in three dimensions? I mean, the ratio of a sphere's surface area to the area of the circular plane bisecting it? Maybe it has no significance.
Slashdot Mirror
No problem.
Be S a sigma algebra, and P a set of parties. Then we can define a "knowledge function" K:P->(S->[0,1]), which assigns to each party a probability function over S. We define an element of s of S to be be knowledge of a party p in P if K(p)(s)=1.
In addition we define another sigma algebra M of messages, on which for each element for S we have a conditional probability function, p(m|s). After receiving a message M, each client updates his knowledge function according to Bayes' rule to K(p)(s|m). A message m is said to reveal s to p if K(p)(s) Em\in M:Es\in S:(K(p)(s)1 && K(p)(s|m)=1 && K(q)(s)1 && K(q)(s|m)=1 && Er\in P: K(r)(s|m)1)
But according to that argument, if I write a program that does this and distribute that program, I should not be violating the patent, because I'm not distributing "an information and storage retrieval system", right?
What should be patentable then? Nintendo's Wii controller? All the hardware used to make it already existed, the actual wiring should be fairly obvious once the purpose was described. I'm sure the technology for identifying a bright spot in an image is already well known.
The innovation was in putting this all together and combining it into a means of controlling video games.
Something shouldn't be patentable just because it's an innovation. If it's obvious how to do it as soon as you have the idea to do it at all, it's clearly not patent worthy. Patents should be for inventions, things that are not obvious how to do it, even when you know that you want to do it.
I think I should get a patent on links to goatse pictures. I'm sure I could make billions from it. ;-)
There's a difference. Copyright covers only the specific expression. Patents cover the whole idea.
For example, the copyright on Harry Potter covers the story on Harry Potter, and derived works. A patent on Harry Potter OTOH could look like this:
Claims: ...
1. A story about a normal, underprivileged boy who turns out to be special.
2. As 1, where the specialty is that he actually is the son of a magician.
3. As 1, where the boy lives in England.
4. As 2, where the boy himself gets educated in magic.
You see, it would cover a lot of possible books, most of which would have very little relation to Harry Potter. Even worse, it would even apply to books of authors who never heard of Harry Potter (unlikely in case of Harry Potter, but the same would be true for quite obscure books as well). Or imagine that someone else had filed such a patent before, without actually writing such a book, then Harry Potter would not have been a success story, but a nightmare for J. K. Rowling.
Patents have to be much stricter in what they can be applied to because they are much broader in scope.
The floor. Because there the incentive to do something about it is larger.
You have a very unusal interpretation of "opt-in". See below why it is utterly wrong.
I don't know a web browser which sets cookies without the web site requesting it. With your argument, I could as well say the web site isn't responsible for the site's content, because after all, it's the web browser which renders that content. The web server just sends a series of bits.
Here's your error: I bet that 90% of all people don't even know what cookies are (if they actually know that they exist). That's the point of opt-in: An opt-in solution makes sure that you have to explicitly(!) agree that it happens, which means you have to get informed about it if it happens (because if you are not informed, you cannot agree). For an informed user, opt-in and opt-out are equivalent. But for an uninformed user opt-in means that it won't happen without them at least knowing it (so they have at least the chance to inform themselves; if they don't use the chance and blindly click "yes", it's entirely their own fault, of course), while with opt-out they may not even be aware that it happens. That is why it is not opt-in if the default browser defaults to silently accept cookies. And it's also not opt-in if a non-default browser the user installs silently accepts cookies, unless that's a heavily advertised feature, so it can be assumed the user knows about it from the start.
Not if you looked into the sun as child, and had headaches ever since.
So I get you are still an ape? Fortunately I evolved away from that. :-)
Well, to start with, Hitler didn't get enough votes to get into power that way (indeed, the party was already in decline). Hitler got into power through an intrigue where some people who thought they could control him put him into power as way to later get into power themselves. Well, that obviously didn't work out well.
Second, I've once seen an interesting pair of maps of Bavaria of that time. One showed how many people voted for Hitler. The other showed which areas were predominantly catholic, and which were predominantly protestant. The areas where Hitler got many votes were those with high numbers of protestants. While it doesn't proof anything, it's a remarkable correlation which doesn't exactly support the notion that the catholics got Hitler elected.
Well, probably it would be a single sentence "this site needs cookies to work properly [link: site's cookie policy]. enable cookies for this site? [Yes] [No]"
Of course the cookie policy page should be readable without cookies enabled.
I don't know about mobile phones, but I know from experience that disabling cookies by default works quite well on desktop browsers. I of course enable cookies for services where I log in (it would be pointless to deny cookies when I give them even more identifying data anyway). There are very few web sites which require cookies that I consider worthwhile enough to allow them cookies (and then, I mostly allow them only as session cookies).
Of course it's only an opt-in if the browser is default-configured to not accept cookies without asking.
AFAIU "tracking cookie" means a cookie set from a third-party site in order to track you across several sites. The cookies Slashdot uses to keep track of you when logged in are not tracking cookies, because they are only set or read if you are going to Slashdot (at least I hope so). The cookies advertisers set are tracking cookies, because you get them and send them back whenever you go to a page where the advertiser advertises. You can get a cookie at Slashdot, and send it back when visiting the New York Times, or vice versa.
A simple (but not completely accurate) rule of thumb is: If the cookie comes from a server other than that found in the URL of the site and contains identifying information, then it's a tracking cookie.
Yes, very unfortunate. Because we need more historical culture to be tied up in intellectual property rights so rich people can sue other people who reference it.
Well, given that many of the fairy tales Disney re-tells come from Europe, I guess Disney wouldn't look very well in that case. ;-)
Question: Knowing the diameter of the observable universe, how many digits of Pi are needed to calculate the circumference of the observable universe, accurate to within 1 plank length?
Answer: 62 digits. Here they are: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459
Calculated this one myself.
Which global curvature did you assume?
Well, I guess I hampered my science carrier already as child by memorizing more than 100 digits ... :-)
Well, pi just has an infinitely long period. :-)
Or they try to find a way to predict Wall Street.
But they calculated the sixty-trillionth binary digit of pi squared. And no, that's not the square of the sixty-trillionth binary digit of pi.
Wasn't that value set in the bible long before?
But pi bar is just one half!
I wrote a program to find the nth digit of i^2. It is blazing fast too.
That's nothing. I've written an incredibly fast program to compute any digit of e^(i pi)+1. This contains all three of e, i and pi! And I can even do it in any base!
Is there the equivalent to pi in three dimensions? I mean, the ratio of a sphere's surface area to the area of the circular plane bisecting it? Maybe it has no significance.
That number is 4
Well, three dimensions are just more rational. :-)
So they just calculated that one binary digit?
Was it a 0 or an 1?