My Belgian company (which spent a couple of years developing a very sophisticated SMS product) got a phone call and then an email from some guy who has a US patent on a very broad and shallow aspect of our work. His claim: you are totally infringing, stop selling your product and sell mine. My answer: since when does a US patent apply in Belgium? Him: Ah, in about... (checks watch) 18 months.
My point being: I've asked the EPO several times in the past whether I could patent aspects of our company's software R&D, they have always rejected this out of hand. I know that they have allowed software patents anyhow, if described sufficiently bizarrely.
But if a flood of US software patents hits the European market it will have the effect of killing the European technology business almost overnight.
We have, so to speak, no immunity.
Apart from the slashvertising...
on
Apple Updates iPod
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· Score: 5, Interesting
My main question is: how long before Apple eitehr (a) reintroduce a PDA or (b) morph the iPod into one?
It would, I believe, take the market from PalmSpringSourceOne but also a large chunk of the consumer Windows PDA market (the business market being firmly Outlocked into place).
If this was software piracy there'd be a clear case for damages. If I spent a huge amount on developing a new product aimed at commercial resale and some dude released it onto the net, I'd sue him too.
But Apple do not really sell software at all. They sell hardware, and they sell fashion. What are the real damages from such an act? Not very significant. Apple users tend to pay for their software because otherwise it's not worth having.
The publicity alone - Apple software being so valuable that someone is prepared to go to jail in order to leak it - is worth a lot.
They should probably do a deal with the guy: hire him for a pittance where he can put his notoriety to use helping Apple.
Obviously. But the differences explain the trends.
Robots don't have any user interface candy. They are essential servers that control complex equipment. Open source, reliability, portability to random microprocessors... all these are top requirements. Windows never controlled any robots. Linux has taken market share from other proprietary operating systems.
PDAs are 100% user interface, and even those who dislike Microsoft's approach to software must admit that they produce nice user interfaces. Not as nice as Apples... but that's another story. PalmOS is simple but the benefit of a zero learning curve only applies when most users are newbies. People want more now. Windows delivers, PalmOS does not.
Mobile phones are more like robots. If you've used a new Symbian phone you'll realise just how far this goes from the walk-up-and-use interface of a classic GSM. Frankly I think 90% of phone sales will remain driven by simplicity, not functionality. Windows does not have a path here.
Lastly, I think the next big competitor in PDAs is not PalmOS nor Linux, but Apple. It's a natural progression from iPods and Apple are the only people who make nicer toys than Microsoft.
All crypto algorithms age, and even if the news of SHA-1's death is somewhat dramaticised by people who make their living from security work, it's important to see _all_ crypto algorithms as temporary shims.
That is why anyone developing new protocols and products that rely on security should use SASL, which abstracts the crypto layers in such a way that it's easy to change them over time.
SASL is an IETF standard and there are open source implementations like Cyrus.
Does no-one here remember a company called IBM? The largest computer company ever, it was in total control of the IT industry until a bunch of long-haired anarchists decided that "personal computers" were a lot more fun, a lot cheaper, and a lot more useful than mainframes or minis.
IBM _almost_ went to the wall, despite their "damned innovative stuff" and huge amounts of R&D. IBM are in good shape today precisely because they've moved up from software and hardware to services.
Microsoft are large but that won't save them from the inevitability of technological change, which is what my original post was about.
Microsoft is just hastening their ultimate demise. It's been clear for several years that the commoditisation of their core product sectors - office suites and operating systems - was going to drive them out of business. Now, where are the great brave new strategies that will breath life into their products? Patches. Delayed releases. New anti-spyware and anti-virus aquisitions. Blocking Wine users from MSIE downloads.
MS are dead and their cash pile will disappear faster than a fridgeful of champagne in a brothel on Monday morning.
It's a shame. If only MS had released a suite for Linux about 2 years ago, they'd be sailing pretty by now.
The air surrounding the chip does not conduct heat efficiently. Therefore only the area in direct contact with the heatsink and/or cooling mechanism will drain heat from the chip.
My invention is this: encase the chip in a liquid or (better) a solid that does not conduct electricity but is an excellent heat conductor. Alternatively, wrap the chip in a thin layer of insulating material and then encase the rest in a metal brick. The idea is to provide a large solid primary heat sink.
The primary heat sink should have a highly convoluted surface as to maximise its area.
A secondary heatsink (coolant, fan, etc.) will move heat still further away.
Ideally the heat produced in this way would be used to drive useful processes, such as espresso production.
This post is art. A computer created it, every pixel lovingly placed at exactly the right point on your screen.
Presumably someone programmed the computer that "made" the art.
Computers are just tools. When you programme a tool you're not doing anything fundamentally different from lifting your arm. "But does your arm have blinking lights?" Sigh.
I'm struggling for an answer here. The death of Iraqi civilians in this war roughly equals the deaths brought by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Any serious analysis of the "real reasons" for this war inevitably comes back to oil and money.
And people who find this war looking remarkably like a war of conquest and colonialisation, who find that loss of life and limb is better prevented at source rather than with gee-whiz technologies... we're told to shut up and let the soldiers get on with their "jobs"?
I'm full of respect for professional soldiers who risk their lives to protect civilian populations from the tyranny of oppression.
But you, sir, you are part of the oppression, and job or not, you are responsible for your acts.
Truths based on science work because they are tools that help us crack the nuts of the physical world, and insofar as we count our success by the piles of nutshells around us, such tools are a better fit.
Of course, one can argue convincingly that science in the form of fire was what got us down from the trees in the first place, and that was a big mistake.
Speaking personally, I don't have any opinion: I'm just the imaginary collective consciousness of a bundle of genes on am endless mission of reproduction. That's a useful truth too, because it explains a lot more about life and death than, for instance, a kick in the gonads.
... is just a tool for navigating a complex world.
In some cultures, sacrificing a goat to the spirits is a truth that may help you survive the famine, if only by making your neighbours afraid enough of you so you can steal their food.
In other cultures, knowing why the ride to work drives you crazy is a truth that helps you stay sane.
Truth is any tool that works better. Scientific truth - that is, truth derived by the scientific method - works best of all, because it fits the physical world so well.
Different truths can be in direct conflict (quantum vs. classical mechanics) and yet both be suitable tools.
Even religion is a truth that helps navigate certain kinds of reality... it's a kind of fuse box for the mind, so to speak. When logic and science can't explain why the wave hit you, perhaps religion can.
The only similarity is that law enforcement agencies enjoy spending large amounts of tax payers money on campaigns that never end. It's fun!
But the drugs business is number 3 in the world after oil and arms, and the "war" on drugs is mainly about protecting what has become a very lucrative taxation system.
Whereas drugs destroy entire cultures, the worst that movie piracy will do is close down the video stores. Cinemas will continue to flourish.
Still, the guys in the USJD love a fight and a new budget. Roll it on!/me wonders where the "war on spyware" is... now that'd actually be a useful way to spend $$$.
Selection is one thing. Selective breeding of domestic animals, selective development of candy recipes.
This is not Darwinian. Darwin's great insight, a key point, is that replicators compete for resources and for the best mates and this competition drives evolution, not some outside arbitrer of taste or "success".
I never suggested this is a biological process. Indeed, many non-biological systems demonstrate Darwinian properties. The Internet is a good example. Parasitical software another.
Abuse of the term "Darwinism"
on
Subatomic Darwinism
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· Score: 5, Insightful
What's next... "market darwinism" when the products people buy survive?
No. "Darwinism" is about replicators, i.e. organisms that reproduce and that compete for resources.
When used for "Social Darwinism", the word implies that societies reproduce and compete for resources. In many ways this is accurate. You could use "darwinism" to describe many kinds of replicating, competing natural systems.
But quantums...? WTF?
Until we have evidence that quantums are actually lifeforms, the word "Darwinism" is simply not valid.
Anyhow, and on a different note, quantum mechanics is easy. Here's Ites' Dummies Guide to Quantum Physics: matter and energy are made of wavelets, a string of energy. Wavelets look like particles when they're compressed by time or distance. Measuring a wavelet changes it. Wavelets do not breed and they do not compete for resources.
The table is not solid because it's an agreed reality. The table is solid because your hand cannot pass through it./me needs more eggnog
There is actually a technique to accurately estimate the number of total bugs in a closed-source product. This uses the "theory of unknown numbers".
It requires accurate tracking of two things: bugs reported by the users, and bugs found and fixed by the development
Scenario 1: for every 10 bugs found and fixed during testing, there are 2 more new bugs reported by the outside world.
Now, after testing a release extensively, we find 1000 bugs. We now now that the total number is approx. 1200.
Scenario 1: for every 2 bugs found and fixed, there are 10 more new bugs reported.
After testing we have 1000 bugs. We now know that the true number is closer to 5000 bugs.
This is an accurate tool and we've used it in several projects to predict future support costs. Your mileage may vary, of course. And you definitely want to be in scenario 1, not 2.
The USA has suffered from a strong tendency to teach maths by encouraging students to explore and find their own way.
The Koreans drum theorems into kids' heads until they become second nature.
Anyone who thinks kids can learn maths by thinking about it is so wrong it's a shame. Maths is all about learning a set of tools, built up layer upon layer upon layer, where constant repetition and use are key elements to learning.
Anyone who has actually learned and used maths - and IT is very similar - will appreciate that solid practice over decades from a young age are needed before we are able to solve complex problems.
Ban so-called "learning psychologists" from school boards and allow professionals in each domain to define the curriculum.
The photograph shows a flash of illumination, not an explosion. The lamp was inspected, the bulb did not work but there was no physical damage.
A meteor that hit and caused a flash would have left some external marks. Not a meteor thus.
Perhaps a photoshop? A simple answer, but somehow less than pleasing.
No, what we see is the trace of a death ray, shot by a military satellite, able to take out lamp bulbs without any collateral damage. Dear god... these things could be circling above our heads as we speak... focussing their deadly beams on us...
Luckily there is an obvious and well-tested solution, which consists of a triple layer of aluminum foil wrapped securely around the head.
Microsoft still play the same game though. Standards for C++? Well, after how many years? And then whole new proprietary languages like C# at the same time...
The marketing goal is to capture developers, yes? The more bells and whistles the better. The technical focus often gets lost in the process.
Borland's main quality - before OSS made this a common philosophy - was to place technical quality first. It was, and still is, probably the wrong strategy for a commercial company.
Re:Languages die for a reason
on
Delphi Renaissance
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· Score: 4, Insightful
The reason is only rarely technological. Borland's languages, from their Turbo- series onwards, were always significantly better than Microsoft's, but the market chooses tools based mainly on intertia and marketing. Microsoft advertised their way to dominance. Remember that so-called "Visual C/C++" was simply a wrapper around a few poor tools, with Visual Basic being the only component-based system, producing slow interpreted code, while for yearsBorland were producing fast compiled OO apps with Delphi.
There's a reason why some people dislike using MS tools and adore Borland's tools. Often, though, the developer does not have the say in such choices.
When officials refuse to adopt secure voting machines, there are two explanations. Incompetence, or bad will.
In either case, these process by which such officials get themselves into positions of power over the voting system should be examined very closely. No democratic government can rule when it stands of being accused of stealing an election.
Slashdot Mirror
My Belgian company (which spent a couple of years developing a very sophisticated SMS product) got a phone call and then an email from some guy who has a US patent on a very broad and shallow aspect of our work. His claim: you are totally infringing, stop selling your product and sell mine. My answer: since when does a US patent apply in Belgium? Him: Ah, in about... (checks watch) 18 months.
My point being: I've asked the EPO several times in the past whether I could patent aspects of our company's software R&D, they have always rejected this out of hand. I know that they have allowed software patents anyhow, if described sufficiently bizarrely.
But if a flood of US software patents hits the European market it will have the effect of killing the European technology business almost overnight.
We have, so to speak, no immunity.
My main question is: how long before Apple eitehr (a) reintroduce a PDA or (b) morph the iPod into one?
It would, I believe, take the market from PalmSpringSourceOne but also a large chunk of the consumer Windows PDA market (the business market being firmly Outlocked into place).
OK, OK, so Apple definitely sell software. I must have been asleep when I wrote the opposite.
There's no debate. I like Apple as much as the rest of you (and my AAPL shares justify my faith in the company).
String the farker up by the nuts.
If this was software piracy there'd be a clear case for damages. If I spent a huge amount on developing a new product aimed at commercial resale and some dude released it onto the net, I'd sue him too.
But Apple do not really sell software at all. They sell hardware, and they sell fashion. What are the real damages from such an act? Not very significant. Apple users tend to pay for their software because otherwise it's not worth having.
The publicity alone - Apple software being so valuable that someone is prepared to go to jail in order to leak it - is worth a lot.
They should probably do a deal with the guy: hire him for a pittance where he can put his notoriety to use helping Apple.
Obviously. But the differences explain the trends.
Robots don't have any user interface candy. They are essential servers that control complex equipment. Open source, reliability, portability to random microprocessors... all these are top requirements. Windows never controlled any robots. Linux has taken market share from other proprietary operating systems.
PDAs are 100% user interface, and even those who dislike Microsoft's approach to software must admit that they produce nice user interfaces. Not as nice as Apples... but that's another story. PalmOS is simple but the benefit of a zero learning curve only applies when most users are newbies. People want more now. Windows delivers, PalmOS does not.
Mobile phones are more like robots. If you've used a new Symbian phone you'll realise just how far this goes from the walk-up-and-use interface of a classic GSM. Frankly I think 90% of phone sales will remain driven by simplicity, not functionality. Windows does not have a path here.
Lastly, I think the next big competitor in PDAs is not PalmOS nor Linux, but Apple. It's a natural progression from iPods and Apple are the only people who make nicer toys than Microsoft.
All crypto algorithms age, and even if the news of SHA-1's death is somewhat dramaticised by people who make their living from security work, it's important to see _all_ crypto algorithms as temporary shims.
That is why anyone developing new protocols and products that rely on security should use SASL, which abstracts the crypto layers in such a way that it's easy to change them over time.
SASL is an IETF standard and there are open source implementations like Cyrus.
Does no-one here remember a company called IBM? The largest computer company ever, it was in total control of the IT industry until a bunch of long-haired anarchists decided that "personal computers" were a lot more fun, a lot cheaper, and a lot more useful than mainframes or minis.
IBM _almost_ went to the wall, despite their "damned innovative stuff" and huge amounts of R&D. IBM are in good shape today precisely because they've moved up from software and hardware to services.
Microsoft are large but that won't save them from the inevitability of technological change, which is what my original post was about.
Commoditisation. You can't fight it.
Microsoft is just hastening their ultimate demise. It's been clear for several years that the commoditisation of their core product sectors - office suites and operating systems - was going to drive them out of business. Now, where are the great brave new strategies that will breath life into their products? Patches. Delayed releases. New anti-spyware and anti-virus aquisitions. Blocking Wine users from MSIE downloads.
MS are dead and their cash pile will disappear faster than a fridgeful of champagne in a brothel on Monday morning.
It's a shame. If only MS had released a suite for Linux about 2 years ago, they'd be sailing pretty by now.
a) it's "Ubuntu", not "unbunto".
b) buying a distro is often a good choice.
My company is a member of the FFII already but I just convinced the boss (not hard, it's me) to donate a thousand Euro to the FFII.
The air surrounding the chip does not conduct heat efficiently. Therefore only the area in direct contact with the heatsink and/or cooling mechanism will drain heat from the chip.
My invention is this: encase the chip in a liquid or (better) a solid that does not conduct electricity but is an excellent heat conductor. Alternatively, wrap the chip in a thin layer of insulating material and then encase the rest in a metal brick. The idea is to provide a large solid primary heat sink.
The primary heat sink should have a highly convoluted surface as to maximise its area.
A secondary heatsink (coolant, fan, etc.) will move heat still further away.
Ideally the heat produced in this way would be used to drive useful processes, such as espresso production.
Stupid non-question.
This post is art. A computer created it, every pixel lovingly placed at exactly the right point on your screen.
Presumably someone programmed the computer that "made" the art.
Computers are just tools. When you programme a tool you're not doing anything fundamentally different from lifting your arm. "But does your arm have blinking lights?" Sigh.
"Consultant" used to mean an expert professional who could solve problems and provide advice based on years, even decades of experience.
With the Y2K and dot-com booms, "consultant" became used to mean someone with more than three months of IT experience...
Thankfully (for us real consultants), most of the amateurs have returned to horse farming, or whatever they used to do.
It'll still be a while, however, before "IT Consultant" on a business card impresses anyone.
So... war is a job?
I'm struggling for an answer here. The death of Iraqi civilians in this war roughly equals the deaths brought by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Any serious analysis of the "real reasons" for this war inevitably comes back to oil and money.
And people who find this war looking remarkably like a war of conquest and colonialisation, who find that loss of life and limb is better prevented at source rather than with gee-whiz technologies... we're told to shut up and let the soldiers get on with their "jobs"?
I'm full of respect for professional soldiers who risk their lives to protect civilian populations from the tyranny of oppression.
But you, sir, you are part of the oppression, and job or not, you are responsible for your acts.
Truths based on science work because they are tools that help us crack the nuts of the physical world, and insofar as we count our success by the piles of nutshells around us, such tools are a better fit.
Of course, one can argue convincingly that science in the form of fire was what got us down from the trees in the first place, and that was a big mistake.
Speaking personally, I don't have any opinion: I'm just the imaginary collective consciousness of a bundle of genes on am endless mission of reproduction. That's a useful truth too, because it explains a lot more about life and death than, for instance, a kick in the gonads.
... is just a tool for navigating a complex world.
In some cultures, sacrificing a goat to the spirits is a truth that may help you survive the famine, if only by making your neighbours afraid enough of you so you can steal their food.
In other cultures, knowing why the ride to work drives you crazy is a truth that helps you stay sane.
Truth is any tool that works better. Scientific truth - that is, truth derived by the scientific method - works best of all, because it fits the physical world so well.
Different truths can be in direct conflict (quantum vs. classical mechanics) and yet both be suitable tools.
Even religion is a truth that helps navigate certain kinds of reality... it's a kind of fuse box for the mind, so to speak. When logic and science can't explain why the wave hit you, perhaps religion can.
The only similarity is that law enforcement agencies enjoy spending large amounts of tax payers money on campaigns that never end. It's fun!
/me wonders where the "war on spyware" is... now that'd actually be a useful way to spend $$$.
But the drugs business is number 3 in the world after oil and arms, and the "war" on drugs is mainly about protecting what has become a very lucrative taxation system.
Whereas drugs destroy entire cultures, the worst that movie piracy will do is close down the video stores. Cinemas will continue to flourish.
Still, the guys in the USJD love a fight and a new budget. Roll it on!
Selection is one thing. Selective breeding of domestic animals, selective development of candy recipes.
This is not Darwinian. Darwin's great insight, a key point, is that replicators compete for resources and for the best mates and this competition drives evolution, not some outside arbitrer of taste or "success".
I never suggested this is a biological process. Indeed, many non-biological systems demonstrate Darwinian properties. The Internet is a good example. Parasitical software another.
What's next... "market darwinism" when the products people buy survive?
/me needs more eggnog
No. "Darwinism" is about replicators, i.e. organisms that reproduce and that compete for resources.
When used for "Social Darwinism", the word implies that societies reproduce and compete for resources. In many ways this is accurate. You could use "darwinism" to describe many kinds of replicating, competing natural systems.
But quantums...? WTF?
Until we have evidence that quantums are actually lifeforms, the word "Darwinism" is simply not valid.
Anyhow, and on a different note, quantum mechanics is easy. Here's Ites' Dummies Guide to Quantum Physics: matter and energy are made of wavelets, a string of energy. Wavelets look like particles when they're compressed by time or distance. Measuring a wavelet changes it. Wavelets do not breed and they do not compete for resources.
The table is not solid because it's an agreed reality. The table is solid because your hand cannot pass through it.
There is actually a technique to accurately estimate the number of total bugs in a closed-source product. This uses the "theory of unknown numbers".
It requires accurate tracking of two things: bugs reported by the users, and bugs found and fixed by the development
Scenario 1: for every 10 bugs found and fixed during testing, there are 2 more new bugs reported by the outside world.
Now, after testing a release extensively, we find 1000 bugs. We now now that the total number is approx. 1200.
Scenario 1: for every 2 bugs found and fixed, there are 10 more new bugs reported.
After testing we have 1000 bugs. We now know that the true number is closer to 5000 bugs.
This is an accurate tool and we've used it in several projects to predict future support costs. Your mileage may vary, of course. And you definitely want to be in scenario 1, not 2.
The USA has suffered from a strong tendency to teach maths by encouraging students to explore and find their own way.
The Koreans drum theorems into kids' heads until they become second nature.
Anyone who thinks kids can learn maths by thinking about it is so wrong it's a shame. Maths is all about learning a set of tools, built up layer upon layer upon layer, where constant repetition and use are key elements to learning.
Anyone who has actually learned and used maths - and IT is very similar - will appreciate that solid practice over decades from a young age are needed before we are able to solve complex problems.
Ban so-called "learning psychologists" from school boards and allow professionals in each domain to define the curriculum.
The photograph shows a flash of illumination, not an explosion. The lamp was inspected, the bulb did not work but there was no physical damage.
A meteor that hit and caused a flash would have left some external marks. Not a meteor thus.
Perhaps a photoshop? A simple answer, but somehow less than pleasing.
No, what we see is the trace of a death ray, shot by a military satellite, able to take out lamp bulbs without any collateral damage. Dear god... these things could be circling above our heads as we speak... focussing their deadly beams on us...
Luckily there is an obvious and well-tested solution, which consists of a triple layer of aluminum foil wrapped securely around the head.
Past tense, yes.
Microsoft still play the same game though. Standards for C++? Well, after how many years? And then whole new proprietary languages like C# at the same time...
The marketing goal is to capture developers, yes? The more bells and whistles the better. The technical focus often gets lost in the process.
Borland's main quality - before OSS made this a common philosophy - was to place technical quality first. It was, and still is, probably the wrong strategy for a commercial company.
The reason is only rarely technological. Borland's languages, from their Turbo- series onwards, were always significantly better than Microsoft's, but the market chooses tools based mainly on intertia and marketing. Microsoft advertised their way to dominance. Remember that so-called "Visual C/C++" was simply a wrapper around a few poor tools, with Visual Basic being the only component-based system, producing slow interpreted code, while for yearsBorland were producing fast compiled OO apps with Delphi.
There's a reason why some people dislike using MS tools and adore Borland's tools. Often, though, the developer does not have the say in such choices.
When officials refuse to adopt secure voting machines, there are two explanations. Incompetence, or bad will.
In either case, these process by which such officials get themselves into positions of power over the voting system should be examined very closely. No democratic government can rule when it stands of being accused of stealing an election.
Unless of course that is what it has done.