This case is a win-win for CSC. Enough so that I'm wondering if there was collusion between the parties. If the MPAA gets a ban on network-based DVR services based on their members' copyrights, that blocks off a whole industry of internet-based services that would have competed with CSC. So CSC is able to lock out competition in the video market. Conversely, if CSC wins the final ruling, they have a service that can compete against internet video, especially if they throttle bandwidth as an ISP.
The point of this article is that it's a new technology that efficiently extracts usable refinery raw materials from cellulose using much less energy than previous technologies. So that old study is completely irrelevant, even without going into its merits.
The point about using cellulose rather than glucose to ethanol is that you don't need (new) arable land. You use the piles of leaves, grass clippings, bush trimmings and dead branches that are taken from our homes every year. Plus the waste materials from existing farm production (corn stalks rather than corn kernels).
The arable land and food supply problems of earlier biomass methods come up because the old processes were either sugar-to-ethanol (efficient in energy use but inefficient in land use) or high-energy methods of cellulose conversion (inefficient in energy conversion, as mentioned in your study). This new method is a big jump in the extraction efficiency and energy efficiency of cellulose conversion technology. If nothing else, it will probably put the end to all these algae-oil investment scams that are still lingering about.
Actually the plastic tree conversion could just be an add-on facility at existing refinery sites. So yes the oil companies still have an advantage in existing investment. This process is designed to fed into the existing oil-based infrastructure.
Plus we need to consider the different divisions of oil companies. This biomass operation would be a refinery operation and not an extraction operation. So the "drill..." mentality would have less power.
On the other hand, there's the RIAA as a counter-example of people so wedded to a business model they'd rather screw their customers than change, even if it means less profits for them.
If the cost of production of this method is below the price of an equivalent amount of crude oil, the oil companies will have no problem with using biomass as an alternative. They already put corn-based ethanol in the gas, and they're smart enough to know that they're on a curve of ever-increasing costs to extract additional fossil fuel reserves. Even if they don't tolerate competition, they'll open their own biomass "refineries" once it becomes economically justifiable for their mode of business. It's a pretty straightforward calculation of capital outlay for developing a new refinery vs. the cost differential between biomass and crude oil.
The research was done at a federally-funded Dept. of Energy lab. I'm not sure if there's a standard government policy for patent licensing or if the department decides "arbitrarily" on how to license it. My personal suggestion would be a dutch auction with somewhere around 10 winners that gain non-exclusive, non-transferable licenses. Non-transferable is to prevent a bunch of sock puppets from winning the auction and then transferring all the licenses to a single holding company.
Nah, they got rid of the white guy, put the Goth girl in the wheel chair and make the hispanic the mechanic. (Isn't "Hispanic Mechanic" an old ZZ Top song?)
[curmudgeon]When I was a kid we didn't have Slashdot. If we wanted news about computers and stuff we had to walk cross-country to Silicon Valley, meet with Bill Hewlett or Andy Grove and ask them what they were working on. Then we had to walk back home in the snow, type up the information on our Smith-Corona and snail mail it to everyone we knew.
I think in this case the patent is a good one. The combination of 1) implementing the projection technology in a usable fashion and 2) the application of that technology to scanning books to avoid damaging them is the first "implementing an algorithm" patent that I can agree is truly innovative. The thing is, now that Google has shown the way for books, the application to other areas (for example projecting 3-D graphics on a computer screen or dual computer screens) becomes a lot more obvious. So it cuts out a whole bunch of other patent candidates.
Shouldn't the clients have separate DNS configurations for their ISP connection and their VPN connection? Or even if they have a single configuration, make the primary DNS point to the ISP and the secondary DNS point to the corporate server. Then the IT guy can block the outside access to DNS on the public internet for VPN clients.
Uhh, if they're blocking simultaneous connection to VPN and to the internet, they're probably blocking access to the game and video sites at their firewall as well.
My workplace blocks simultaneous connections unless you can submit a justification because you are working off-site on a customer's domain.
Hmmm, exactly which country are you referring to here? I don't think there's a single G20 nation that adequately addresses the subtle corruptions of big media and government. Certainly not the US (telecom policy), Russia (endemic corruption), Japan (endemic nepotism) or Italy (Silvio Berlusconi). And now France. Each of these countries, at one time or another has taken a stand (or at least a posture) against invading and imposing outside will on another country's freedom.
Recent foreign policy notwithstanding, the problem the US has with the "right to live" is that it eliminates the death penalty, not that the government wants to reserve the right to kill, kill, kill.
A couple of practical matters to consider, besides the self-analysis: - Are there other ways to structure the deal rather than a complete buy-out? If Mega-corp is interested, maybe you'd be better off with a VC Angel type of deal, whether that's from Mega-corp or someone else. If mega-corp is just interested in your technology, maybe structure it as a partial buy-out with an unlimited license for them to use. If you want to live dangerously, give them majority ownership and you guys keep the smaller piece. - If you turn them down, is Mega-corp going to start filing patent, copyright and other lawsuits at you? If they are _really_ interested, your days of independence are over regardless. I'm not saying just take mega-corps offer, but you'll need a source of funds to defend yourself from hostile action from them. Whether that comes from selling to a competitor, a VC funding round or you and your roommates each have a half-million stashed away is your decision.
If you're going to count crime, you should count the car-jackings and auto-theft statistics too. Probably a wash vs. muggings on public transport, overall.
Yeah, where they can really zing people for the statutory damaages is for the number of people who got (parts of) their copy from the defendant. Regardless of whether your copy is legal, if you are redistributing it to others, you're a pirate.
It was a bad OS when it was released precisely because it required such a leap in hardware capability to run successfully. Plus, in order to sell copies, MS strong-armed the HW vendors to claim they were Vista-capable when in fact they were no such thing. That, combined with all the features that got pulled made the release less-than-compelling as an upgrade. Running on new hardware, I agree that it's a nice solid OS, but the only copies of Vista that I've bought are on computers where it came pre-packaged.
Windows 7 is going to have to convince me that its DRM isn't too intrusive before I buy it as an upgrade to any of my existing systems. The user experience sounds like it will be some improvement, but Vista's DRM is about as much as I can tolerate.
The key word I have trouble with here is "implement". Nowadays, with all the library routines available, if you can pseudo-code the algorithm, you have the "understanding of your craft" necessary at that level. No one is saying that a knowledge of how the algorithms work is unimportant (at least that's not how I read this thread), just that the industry has moved beyond the sorting wars to more complicated problems. An understanding of the sort algorithms is necessary to understand the more complex algorithms being developed today, but that doesn't mean you have to implement them.
Perhaps a more modern equivalent algorithm that "everyone should be required to implement" would be to write a compression/decompression algorithm (LZH or whatever), or a media codec.
Agree about Big(O) notation. That's still a requirement to select an appropriate algorithm from the library for your system requirements.
I note that the state department list conveniently excludes any mention of the activities of the Puerto Rican independence movement, including their attempt to assassinate President Truman in 1952 and shooting (non-fatal) holes in several US congressmen at the capitol building in 1954. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_independence_movement
(And yes, I'm aware of the irony of my current sig in this context...)
Slashdot Mirror
This case is a win-win for CSC. Enough so that I'm wondering if there was collusion between the parties. If the MPAA gets a ban on network-based DVR services based on their members' copyrights, that blocks off a whole industry of internet-based services that would have competed with CSC. So CSC is able to lock out competition in the video market. Conversely, if CSC wins the final ruling, they have a service that can compete against internet video, especially if they throttle bandwidth as an ISP.
Looks like a similar process but the catalyst is different, the operating temperature is lower and the claimed efficiency is higher in the new method.
Definitely knocks the "revolutionary" tag off of the new process, but the new method is still an improvement.
The point of this article is that it's a new technology that efficiently extracts usable refinery raw materials from cellulose using much less energy than previous technologies. So that old study is completely irrelevant, even without going into its merits.
The point about using cellulose rather than glucose to ethanol is that you don't need (new) arable land. You use the piles of leaves, grass clippings, bush trimmings and dead branches that are taken from our homes every year. Plus the waste materials from existing farm production (corn stalks rather than corn kernels).
The arable land and food supply problems of earlier biomass methods come up because the old processes were either sugar-to-ethanol (efficient in energy use but inefficient in land use) or high-energy methods of cellulose conversion (inefficient in energy conversion, as mentioned in your study). This new method is a big jump in the extraction efficiency and energy efficiency of cellulose conversion technology. If nothing else, it will probably put the end to all these algae-oil investment scams that are still lingering about.
Actually the plastic tree conversion could just be an add-on facility at existing refinery sites. So yes the oil companies still have an advantage in existing investment. This process is designed to fed into the existing oil-based infrastructure.
Price without gas taxes, not the taxed price.
Plus we need to consider the different divisions of oil companies. This biomass operation would be a refinery operation and not an extraction operation. So the "drill..." mentality would have less power.
On the other hand, there's the RIAA as a counter-example of people so wedded to a business model they'd rather screw their customers than change, even if it means less profits for them.
If the cost of production of this method is below the price of an equivalent amount of crude oil, the oil companies will have no problem with using biomass as an alternative. They already put corn-based ethanol in the gas, and they're smart enough to know that they're on a curve of ever-increasing costs to extract additional fossil fuel reserves. Even if they don't tolerate competition, they'll open their own biomass "refineries" once it becomes economically justifiable for their mode of business. It's a pretty straightforward calculation of capital outlay for developing a new refinery vs. the cost differential between biomass and crude oil.
The research was done at a federally-funded Dept. of Energy lab. I'm not sure if there's a standard government policy for patent licensing or if the department decides "arbitrarily" on how to license it. My personal suggestion would be a dutch auction with somewhere around 10 winners that gain non-exclusive, non-transferable licenses. Non-transferable is to prevent a bunch of sock puppets from winning the auction and then transferring all the licenses to a single holding company.
Nah, they got rid of the white guy, put the Goth girl in the wheel chair and make the hispanic the mechanic. (Isn't "Hispanic Mechanic" an old ZZ Top song?)
[curmudgeon]When I was a kid we didn't have Slashdot. If we wanted news about computers and stuff we had to walk cross-country to Silicon Valley, meet with Bill Hewlett or Andy Grove and ask them what they were working on. Then we had to walk back home in the snow, type up the information on our Smith-Corona and snail mail it to everyone we knew.
Now get off my lawn!
[/curmudgeon]
I think in this case the patent is a good one. The combination of 1) implementing the projection technology in a usable fashion and 2) the application of that technology to scanning books to avoid damaging them is the first "implementing an algorithm" patent that I can agree is truly innovative. The thing is, now that Google has shown the way for books, the application to other areas (for example projecting 3-D graphics on a computer screen or dual computer screens) becomes a lot more obvious. So it cuts out a whole bunch of other patent candidates.
I wonder what scores it gives to porn?
Shouldn't the clients have separate DNS configurations for their ISP connection and their VPN connection? Or even if they have a single configuration, make the primary DNS point to the ISP and the secondary DNS point to the corporate server. Then the IT guy can block the outside access to DNS on the public internet for VPN clients.
Uhh, if they're blocking simultaneous connection to VPN and to the internet, they're probably blocking access to the game and video sites at their firewall as well.
My workplace blocks simultaneous connections unless you can submit a justification because you are working off-site on a customer's domain.
In other words, definitely "Bush" league.
Hmmm, exactly which country are you referring to here? I don't think there's a single G20 nation that adequately addresses the subtle corruptions of big media and government. Certainly not the US (telecom policy), Russia (endemic corruption), Japan (endemic nepotism) or Italy (Silvio Berlusconi). And now France. Each of these countries, at one time or another has taken a stand (or at least a posture) against invading and imposing outside will on another country's freedom.
Recent foreign policy notwithstanding, the problem the US has with the "right to live" is that it eliminates the death penalty, not that the government wants to reserve the right to kill, kill, kill.
A couple of practical matters to consider, besides the self-analysis:
- Are there other ways to structure the deal rather than a complete buy-out? If Mega-corp is interested, maybe you'd be better off with a VC Angel type of deal, whether that's from Mega-corp or someone else. If mega-corp is just interested in your technology, maybe structure it as a partial buy-out with an unlimited license for them to use. If you want to live dangerously, give them majority ownership and you guys keep the smaller piece.
- If you turn them down, is Mega-corp going to start filing patent, copyright and other lawsuits at you? If they are _really_ interested, your days of independence are over regardless. I'm not saying just take mega-corps offer, but you'll need a source of funds to defend yourself from hostile action from them. Whether that comes from selling to a competitor, a VC funding round or you and your roommates each have a half-million stashed away is your decision.
If you're going to count crime, you should count the car-jackings and auto-theft statistics too. Probably a wash vs. muggings on public transport, overall.
Wait. Corn? Switchgrass? I thought bio-electricity was about breeding electric eels.
Too bad "Put an eel in your tank" has a completely different connotation from "Put a tiger in your tank."
Yeah, where they can really zing people for the statutory damaages is for the number of people who got (parts of) their copy from the defendant. Regardless of whether your copy is legal, if you are redistributing it to others, you're a pirate.
It was a bad OS when it was released precisely because it required such a leap in hardware capability to run successfully. Plus, in order to sell copies, MS strong-armed the HW vendors to claim they were Vista-capable when in fact they were no such thing. That, combined with all the features that got pulled made the release less-than-compelling as an upgrade. Running on new hardware, I agree that it's a nice solid OS, but the only copies of Vista that I've bought are on computers where it came pre-packaged.
Windows 7 is going to have to convince me that its DRM isn't too intrusive before I buy it as an upgrade to any of my existing systems. The user experience sounds like it will be some improvement, but Vista's DRM is about as much as I can tolerate.
The key word I have trouble with here is "implement". Nowadays, with all the library routines available, if you can pseudo-code the algorithm, you have the "understanding of your craft" necessary at that level. No one is saying that a knowledge of how the algorithms work is unimportant (at least that's not how I read this thread), just that the industry has moved beyond the sorting wars to more complicated problems. An understanding of the sort algorithms is necessary to understand the more complex algorithms being developed today, but that doesn't mean you have to implement them.
Perhaps a more modern equivalent algorithm that "everyone should be required to implement" would be to write a compression/decompression algorithm (LZH or whatever), or a media codec.
Agree about Big(O) notation. That's still a requirement to select an appropriate algorithm from the library for your system requirements.
If it's a true high-security environment, it's a tin-foil building. Good luck transmitting through that.
I note that the state department list conveniently excludes any mention of the activities of the Puerto Rican independence movement, including their attempt to assassinate President Truman in 1952 and shooting (non-fatal) holes in several US congressmen at the capitol building in 1954. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_independence_movement
(And yes, I'm aware of the irony of my current sig in this context...)
...not to mention every other Hollywood SFX house are drooling all the way down their shirts.