A Salon.com writer decided to try Provigil for five days to see how it affected him. It's hardly scientific, but it makes for an interesting read nonetheless.
Delphi (and C++Builder too, I believe) has supported BRIEF emulation for many years. I don't believe it's complete emulation, but you can see some of what it offers here.
Yes, and as a person who was named James (no, my middle name is not Tiberius) Kirk by his parents, I can testify that as a nerd/geek, having a thick skin comes in quite handy.
Also, being named after an "icon of Nerd-dom" does have its benefits... I'm a programmer, so it is very helpful during job interviews. Making an impression on the interviewer(s) is very important, and nobody ever forgets my name.:)
I don't believe that the patent you're referencing would cause any problems with file format interoperability. What is described in the patent is a method of tagging source code to specify that a certain property of an object should be serialized in a specific way to correspond to a desired XML schema. Microsoft, in their examples, show C# source code in which they use attributes (the term C# uses for metadata) applied to the properties of a given class to specify the name of the XML tags to which the value of the property will be written when an object of that type is serialized.
In a nutshell, Microsoft's method gives an easy way for programmers to declaratively specify how an object should be serialized to/deserialized from an XML document in a given schema. While I do think that the method they're describing would make things a lot easier for the most common usage, I think it's a bit limited, as I don't see any way to specify multiple possible formats to use. I suppose an adapter class could be used to encapsulate a given object and specify how it could be [de]serialized, or the serialized object could be transformed via XSL to the other desired format(s), but at that point, it seems like it would be only marginally easier than doing it by hand, unless they provided an automated manner of generating such code for you.
Yes, it's clever. Would I use it? Absolutely. Do I think it's patent-worthy. No way. The only difference I see between this and other methods of doing similar things is that they are using runtime-accessible metadata to specify mappings, and I can't think of a reason that would make a significant difference. A preprocessor that simply looked at comment tags in the source code for each property and generated a class to serialize the object accordingly would be just as functional, in my admittedly-quick estimation. It might not be quite as nicely integrated, as Microsoft's XmlSerializer class is designed to operate based on the metadata present, but I hardly think that small difference makes this invention worthy of a patent. It may be clever, but I don't consider it non-obvious.
In any event, I suspect that it would not be difficult to find prior art to at least partially deflect the use of this patent. There are plenty of systems that generate output based on special tags in source code. JavaDoc is a notable and widely-used example. Object serialization has been widely used for decades, so that's not new either. Serializing objects to XML isn't new, as Microsoft cites the SOAP protocol in this very patent. In the very narrow case of tagging source code with instructions on how to serialize the object, specifically as XML, and the ability to specify somewhat complex mappings declaratively, this patent might be applicable, but I don't think it would apply in any other case.
I know this generally isn't an issue for humans, but if you have any pet birds, the fumes from Teflon, even in very small amounts, can easily kill them. You can have the same problem if you have a "self-cleaning oven." Some appliance manufacturers are even starting to include warnings in their product manuals about this problem. Whirlpool is one that I've seen before.
Here is a link to some information about it. They also discuss what they call "polymer fume fever" which occurs in humans. The particulate matter that is given off is supposed to be some pretty nasty stuff.
Also, if you're suspicious about the information contained there because it's from an environmental group, try searching for "Teflon toxicosis" for any number of other sources.
I was hoping someone would point this out. Commercial speech is much different than free speech, and is much more restricted. There is no constitutionally-protected right to advertise. Cities regulate signage all the time, and as long as they do it consistently and without bias to content (excluding that which is considered obscene), they are perfectly within their rights to do so. I fail to see how this is any different than deciding that flashing electronic billboards aren't allowed within a city's boundaries, except that it's state-wide.
Besides, if WhenU wants to pretend that they are so adamant about consumer freedom, how about eliminating the ability for the software to be silently installed? Make it always pop up a dialog box and ask if the user wants the software to be installed. What, they don't like that idea? Oh, because no one would ever do it? Oh, because then all the money they make off their idiocy would evaporate? Perish the thought!
If that isn't consumer freedom, I don't know what is.
Sure you can. If someone comes to you and says, "I want you to write an irritatingly saccharine techno-pop song for my new boy band," and it turns out that it's word-for-word, note-for-note identical to some other boy band's new song, as long as you can prove that you had never heard their song before you wrote yours, you're in the clear, at least theoretically.
It didn't help George Harrison when he wrote "My Sweet Lord" and was accused of ripping off the melody from "He's So Fine".
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A Salon.com writer decided to try Provigil for five days to see how it affected him. It's hardly scientific, but it makes for an interesting read nonetheless.
Better waking through chemistry
Delphi (and C++Builder too, I believe) has supported BRIEF emulation for many years. I don't believe it's complete emulation, but you can see some of what it offers here.
Yes, and as a person who was named James (no, my middle name is not Tiberius) Kirk by his parents, I can testify that as a nerd/geek, having a thick skin comes in quite handy.
:)
Also, being named after an "icon of Nerd-dom" does have its benefits... I'm a programmer, so it is very helpful during job interviews. Making an impression on the interviewer(s) is very important, and nobody ever forgets my name.
I don't believe that the patent you're referencing would cause any problems with file format interoperability. What is described in the patent is a method of tagging source code to specify that a certain property of an object should be serialized in a specific way to correspond to a desired XML schema. Microsoft, in their examples, show C# source code in which they use attributes (the term C# uses for metadata) applied to the properties of a given class to specify the name of the XML tags to which the value of the property will be written when an object of that type is serialized.
In a nutshell, Microsoft's method gives an easy way for programmers to declaratively specify how an object should be serialized to/deserialized from an XML document in a given schema. While I do think that the method they're describing would make things a lot easier for the most common usage, I think it's a bit limited, as I don't see any way to specify multiple possible formats to use. I suppose an adapter class could be used to encapsulate a given object and specify how it could be [de]serialized, or the serialized object could be transformed via XSL to the other desired format(s), but at that point, it seems like it would be only marginally easier than doing it by hand, unless they provided an automated manner of generating such code for you.
Yes, it's clever. Would I use it? Absolutely. Do I think it's patent-worthy. No way. The only difference I see between this and other methods of doing similar things is that they are using runtime-accessible metadata to specify mappings, and I can't think of a reason that would make a significant difference. A preprocessor that simply looked at comment tags in the source code for each property and generated a class to serialize the object accordingly would be just as functional, in my admittedly-quick estimation. It might not be quite as nicely integrated, as Microsoft's XmlSerializer class is designed to operate based on the metadata present, but I hardly think that small difference makes this invention worthy of a patent. It may be clever, but I don't consider it non-obvious.
In any event, I suspect that it would not be difficult to find prior art to at least partially deflect the use of this patent. There are plenty of systems that generate output based on special tags in source code. JavaDoc is a notable and widely-used example. Object serialization has been widely used for decades, so that's not new either. Serializing objects to XML isn't new, as Microsoft cites the SOAP protocol in this very patent. In the very narrow case of tagging source code with instructions on how to serialize the object, specifically as XML, and the ability to specify somewhat complex mappings declaratively, this patent might be applicable, but I don't think it would apply in any other case.
Then again, IANAL. IAAP(rogrammer).
I know this generally isn't an issue for humans, but if you have any pet birds, the fumes from Teflon, even in very small amounts, can easily kill them. You can have the same problem if you have a "self-cleaning oven." Some appliance manufacturers are even starting to include warnings in their product manuals about this problem. Whirlpool is one that I've seen before.
Here is a link to some information about it. They also discuss what they call "polymer fume fever" which occurs in humans. The particulate matter that is given off is supposed to be some pretty nasty stuff.
Also, if you're suspicious about the information contained there because it's from an environmental group, try searching for "Teflon toxicosis" for any number of other sources.
I was hoping someone would point this out. Commercial speech is much different than free speech, and is much more restricted. There is no constitutionally-protected right to advertise. Cities regulate signage all the time, and as long as they do it consistently and without bias to content (excluding that which is considered obscene), they are perfectly within their rights to do so. I fail to see how this is any different than deciding that flashing electronic billboards aren't allowed within a city's boundaries, except that it's state-wide. Besides, if WhenU wants to pretend that they are so adamant about consumer freedom, how about eliminating the ability for the software to be silently installed? Make it always pop up a dialog box and ask if the user wants the software to be installed. What, they don't like that idea? Oh, because no one would ever do it? Oh, because then all the money they make off their idiocy would evaporate? Perish the thought! If that isn't consumer freedom, I don't know what is.
Sure you can. If someone comes to you and says, "I want you to write an irritatingly saccharine techno-pop song for my new boy band," and it turns out that it's word-for-word, note-for-note identical to some other boy band's new song, as long as you can prove that you had never heard their song before you wrote yours, you're in the clear, at least theoretically.
It didn't help George Harrison when he wrote "My Sweet Lord" and was accused of ripping off the melody from "He's So Fine".