Given the importance that Amazon places upon this particular patent, how many times can Amazon keep going back to the USPTO to get their patent reviewed? At some point, is the patent just ruled invalid, or can they keep this in limbo forever?
It's not hard to hammer a home server, if you're like me and have a ton of recorded video files say. Besides, in this day and age 200 megs is nothing, even for Joe Average.
they don't really want to offer it, and are only doing it because they're under pressure to do so and want to appear progressive, but they will neuter any deployed service so that no-one will be able to use it anyway.
Besides, a bunch of people quietly clicking away on their laptops, working, checking mail, viewing porn, or whatever else it is that people do with their computers is infinitely preferable to a gaggle of assholes yammering on their cell phones.
Some years ago I had an expensive pair of prescription sunglasses. Went on a car trip out west with my girlfriend, and about halfway through the Badlands I couldn't find them, so I was blind for a couple hundred miles. Stopped for gas... and found that she'd been sitting on them the whole time. Crushed them into uselessness.
So when we got back, I bought a couple pairs of glasses (one regular, one polarized) with titanium frames, or maybe it was some titanium alloy, I don't know. Unbelievably cool though. They were really too expensive, but considering that nobody (including me) was ever able to damage them they were worth every penny. I remember her accusing reply when I showed them to her: "You just bought those because I broke your other ones, didn't you!" Yep.
There is a human element to strategy that we just can't reciprocate with AI.
Honestly, how do you know that? You've been reading too much science fiction. At least, the kind of sci-fi where the otherwise beleaguered and thoroughly-outclassed humans have some inherent capacity that a machine somehow can't duplicate or exceed. The thing is, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that that is true.
We don't currently have an operational artificial intelligence of any kind, and we may never get one to work. The truth is nobody really knows what it will be like when we do. But dollars to doughnuts, we'll find that even a mediocre AI will be able to plan and prosecute a military campaign one hell of a lot better than any of us. Worse yet, when both sides in a conflict are managed by advanced artificially intelligent planners and AI-driven war machines, humans may very well find themselves completely sidelined by the conflict. But when a robot bomber decides to drop a twenty-megaton nuke on a city, it'll still be our asses on the line.
Getting past the unjustified racial glorification that exists with any presumption of intrinsic human superiority, it's also true that we have a lot of inescapable limitations to which a machine would not be subject. True AI, if and when it is finally achieved, will either be the greatest advance in human history, greater than taming of fire, the invention of the wheel, the Internet, possibly even greater than air conditioning... or it will be the end for us, one way or another. Even if an AI has no particular desire to destroy the human race ala Skynet, but is, in fact, a helpful, friendly beast, well, think about the consequences of that. Remember, humans are limited by what will fit in our skulls: machines are not. What if such a hyperintelligent machine were able to answer all of our questions, able to figure out for us everything that we want to know. That, in itself, would be damaging. Why bother to learn anything, do anything? Let the machine do the work (that theme has also been done to death.)
In any event, the odds of our maintaining any form of superiority over our synthetic progeny are minimal at best.
Ha ha. Actually, I travel to Canada on occasion for work, so maybe next time I'll just grab a few bulbs and pack 'em underneath my shorts. Of course, with my luck some eager-beaver security type will look at the X-ray image and think I'm running hand grenades.
All you're saying (and I agree with you) is that Craigslist found something that worked, and has been conservative in making gratuitous changes. Now that's smart, because it serves to keep giving people what they want, rather than forcing them to continually adapt to a changing product. When you do that, you give them a reason to find an alternative that they might like more.
Some people like the fact that every time they go to their favorite site it's something new and different... and some people don't.
I don't know too much about Germany, other than what some of my friends over there tell me. But yes, I do think it is qualitatively different. American bureaucracy has one imperative, and one only: expand at all costs. That makes it far more dangerous than you might think. Cripes, War on Drugs, War on Terror... there's plenty of evidence that many government organs exist only to feed themselves and grow, serving little purpose beyond that. From what I understand, Germany's is nothing like that, and is remarkably efficient and respectful in comparison. Apples to oranges.
Besides, it seems to me that the very last thing Germany would want is another police state. And I disagree with you that Americans don't question these I.D. cards. Quite a few people question both the necessity and the value of such a system, as well as the stated reasons for implementing it. Like so much else in post-9/11 America, there's a lot of naked power-grabbing going on, a lot of bald-faced lying on the part of government officials in order to make their acquisitions more palatable to us, with little or no real benefit being granted to the citizenry.
If we were smart (and, as a culture, we're proving that we're not) we'd be resisting such moves at every step. Our Federal Government already has way more power than it needs to perform its legitimate functions... waaaay more. There's no need to roll over and give it even more. That's just stupid, and is the reason it's grown as overarching as it already has, because we made no real effort to stop it. Had we kept the lid on this past hundred years, hell, even just the decades since World War II, had we kept the Federal Government under control, we wouldn't be in the situation we are today and there probably would have been no 9/11. Instead, we allowed successive groups of traitorous individuals (both elected and unelected) to break the rather sophisticated negative feedback loops imposed on the government by the Founders and the Constitution. Without that restraint, we haven't a prayer.
This is not the situation the Founders had in mind: not at all. And why would you question history? America's history, traditions and legal system go very much against what our current government is trying to do to us. Look, I mean no offense, but I simply don't understand your perspective here: why you would support such an offensive and unnecessary expansion of government power?
Having an ID card is one thing, but it's not the same thing as a Federally-mandated and tracked National ID card. If you can't understand why, as an American citizen at this point in history, I think that a National ID card is a bad idea, well, I guess I don't know what else to say.
(Dim bulbs. Oh, the temptation to make a political joke is strong...)
Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to!
Seriously, this business of just mandating massive changes like this is becoming all too common. We're not in the Army: I'm tired of the Feds just saying "You will NOT use this product!" without much consideration of the consequences. And you're right: I have a couple of outdoor lamps that my association requires I keep on at night during the winter (there isn't much lighting on my street, and it's a reasonable policy from a safety standpoint.)
Are there any CF bulbs that work well in cold weather? I live near Chicago, so it does get pretty cold (it's about 18F out there right now.)
Well, if by "rich weirdo" you mean a certain transplanted Texas cowboy, you could be right. Fortunately he'll be gone soon. I hope.
Somewhat more seriously, the output of a power system like this would have to be fairly diffuse, to maintain a low enough energy density not to be dangerous to living tissue. Granted, what might not be dangerous to humans or larger animals might have deleterious effects on smaller organisms. From that perspective, a mid-ocean setting makes a good choice for a trial. Not that I read TFA or anything.
Also, there would have to be some incidental heating of the atmosphere as the beam passes through it, although the transmission frequency would be chosen with that in mind. It would be interesting to know what the possible effects on the weather would be if this technology becomes more widespread.
I've been fascinated by the idea of solar power satellites for decades, after reading about it in a sci-fi novel when I was a kid. It does make a lot of sense in many ways because in space, solar power is something. This may very well be the future of electric power generation, and might be what gives us ready access to near-space. Using beamed microwave or laser delivery of energy to vaporize reaction mass in a rocket has been theorized for some time (I think MIT did some small prototypes of a laser system.) In such a vehicle, your "fuel" can just be water, with the power provided by satellites or a ground-based array.
one should install pristine officials right from the original CD, and then periodically CRC them to make sure they haven't been corrupted. It's especially important not to download your officials from any old site on the Web, because they might have been deliberately corrupted.
Salespeople don't work in a vacuum. Successful sales requires a functioning organization behind it, and the executives in question obviously weren't providing it. This has all the earmarks of a situation that just got completely out of control, and the execs had to do something that looked good. If you hire good salespeople and properly support them, you won't need to worry about firing and rehiring them to save money, because they'll be bringing in boatloads of cash.
I guess we'll just have to wait a couple of hundred years and see if we can still read those glass masters. Glass is a funny substance (well, substances... there are many kinds) and most of what I've read on the subject doesn't preclude the possibility of glass flowing over long periods of time.
Slashdot Mirror
Given the importance that Amazon places upon this particular patent, how many times can Amazon keep going back to the USPTO to get their patent reviewed? At some point, is the patent just ruled invalid, or can they keep this in limbo forever?
I am more interested in where this might leave Extraterrestrials.
Yeah, right. Are you going to tell a Goa'uld mothership that it can't land because it would be violating your copyright?
It's not hard to hammer a home server, if you're like me and have a ton of recorded video files say. Besides, in this day and age 200 megs is nothing, even for Joe Average.
Makes you wonder why freighters aren't robotic.
Man, and I thought everybody had seen Hackers.
One word: myminicity.
Click the Parent link on my previous post. He's been popping up all over Slashdot lately.
You do realize that, sooner or later, one of us is going to find you and kill you, don't you?
Companies act a lot less monolithically than most people imagine.
Yes, but a lot more moronically.
Somebody please just shoot this myminicity asshole.
This just smacks of leadership that is a cut below the calibre of its employees.
If by "cut below" you mean "sub-basement" I'd say you're right on the mark.
they don't really want to offer it, and are only doing it because they're under pressure to do so and want to appear progressive, but they will neuter any deployed service so that no-one will be able to use it anyway.
Besides, a bunch of people quietly clicking away on their laptops, working, checking mail, viewing porn, or whatever else it is that people do with their computers is infinitely preferable to a gaggle of assholes yammering on their cell phones.
Some years ago I had an expensive pair of prescription sunglasses. Went on a car trip out west with my girlfriend, and about halfway through the Badlands I couldn't find them, so I was blind for a couple hundred miles. Stopped for gas ... and found that she'd been sitting on them the whole time. Crushed them into uselessness.
So when we got back, I bought a couple pairs of glasses (one regular, one polarized) with titanium frames, or maybe it was some titanium alloy, I don't know. Unbelievably cool though. They were really too expensive, but considering that nobody (including me) was ever able to damage them they were worth every penny. I remember her accusing reply when I showed them to her: "You just bought those because I broke your other ones, didn't you!" Yep.
If you were testing Adamantium, those sparks were probably from your grinding wheel being worn down to a nub.
There is a human element to strategy that we just can't reciprocate with AI.
... or it will be the end for us, one way or another. Even if an AI has no particular desire to destroy the human race ala Skynet, but is, in fact, a helpful, friendly beast, well, think about the consequences of that. Remember, humans are limited by what will fit in our skulls: machines are not. What if such a hyperintelligent machine were able to answer all of our questions, able to figure out for us everything that we want to know. That, in itself, would be damaging. Why bother to learn anything, do anything? Let the machine do the work (that theme has also been done to death.)
Honestly, how do you know that? You've been reading too much science fiction. At least, the kind of sci-fi where the otherwise beleaguered and thoroughly-outclassed humans have some inherent capacity that a machine somehow can't duplicate or exceed. The thing is, there's no reason whatsoever to believe that that is true.
We don't currently have an operational artificial intelligence of any kind, and we may never get one to work. The truth is nobody really knows what it will be like when we do. But dollars to doughnuts, we'll find that even a mediocre AI will be able to plan and prosecute a military campaign one hell of a lot better than any of us. Worse yet, when both sides in a conflict are managed by advanced artificially intelligent planners and AI-driven war machines, humans may very well find themselves completely sidelined by the conflict. But when a robot bomber decides to drop a twenty-megaton nuke on a city, it'll still be our asses on the line.
Getting past the unjustified racial glorification that exists with any presumption of intrinsic human superiority, it's also true that we have a lot of inescapable limitations to which a machine would not be subject. True AI, if and when it is finally achieved, will either be the greatest advance in human history, greater than taming of fire, the invention of the wheel, the Internet, possibly even greater than air conditioning
In any event, the odds of our maintaining any form of superiority over our synthetic progeny are minimal at best.
Ha ha. Actually, I travel to Canada on occasion for work, so maybe next time I'll just grab a few bulbs and pack 'em underneath my shorts. Of course, with my luck some eager-beaver security type will look at the X-ray image and think I'm running hand grenades.
All you're saying (and I agree with you) is that Craigslist found something that worked, and has been conservative in making gratuitous changes. Now that's smart, because it serves to keep giving people what they want, rather than forcing them to continually adapt to a changing product. When you do that, you give them a reason to find an alternative that they might like more.
... and some people don't.
Some people like the fact that every time they go to their favorite site it's something new and different
I don't know too much about Germany, other than what some of my friends over there tell me. But yes, I do think it is qualitatively different. American bureaucracy has one imperative, and one only: expand at all costs. That makes it far more dangerous than you might think. Cripes, War on Drugs, War on Terror ... there's plenty of evidence that many government organs exist only to feed themselves and grow, serving little purpose beyond that. From what I understand, Germany's is nothing like that, and is remarkably efficient and respectful in comparison. Apples to oranges.
... waaaay more. There's no need to roll over and give it even more. That's just stupid, and is the reason it's grown as overarching as it already has, because we made no real effort to stop it. Had we kept the lid on this past hundred years, hell, even just the decades since World War II, had we kept the Federal Government under control, we wouldn't be in the situation we are today and there probably would have been no 9/11. Instead, we allowed successive groups of traitorous individuals (both elected and unelected) to break the rather sophisticated negative feedback loops imposed on the government by the Founders and the Constitution. Without that restraint, we haven't a prayer.
Besides, it seems to me that the very last thing Germany would want is another police state. And I disagree with you that Americans don't question these I.D. cards. Quite a few people question both the necessity and the value of such a system, as well as the stated reasons for implementing it. Like so much else in post-9/11 America, there's a lot of naked power-grabbing going on, a lot of bald-faced lying on the part of government officials in order to make their acquisitions more palatable to us, with little or no real benefit being granted to the citizenry.
If we were smart (and, as a culture, we're proving that we're not) we'd be resisting such moves at every step. Our Federal Government already has way more power than it needs to perform its legitimate functions
This is not the situation the Founders had in mind: not at all. And why would you question history? America's history, traditions and legal system go very much against what our current government is trying to do to us. Look, I mean no offense, but I simply don't understand your perspective here: why you would support such an offensive and unnecessary expansion of government power?
Having an ID card is one thing, but it's not the same thing as a Federally-mandated and tracked National ID card. If you can't understand why, as an American citizen at this point in history, I think that a National ID card is a bad idea, well, I guess I don't know what else to say.
Well, that's good to know. Where I live sub-zero weather is pretty common in wintertime too.
(Dim bulbs. Oh, the temptation to make a political joke is strong...)
Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to!
Seriously, this business of just mandating massive changes like this is becoming all too common. We're not in the Army: I'm tired of the Feds just saying "You will NOT use this product!" without much consideration of the consequences. And you're right: I have a couple of outdoor lamps that my association requires I keep on at night during the winter (there isn't much lighting on my street, and it's a reasonable policy from a safety standpoint.)
Are there any CF bulbs that work well in cold weather? I live near Chicago, so it does get pretty cold (it's about 18F out there right now.)
Well, if by "rich weirdo" you mean a certain transplanted Texas cowboy, you could be right. Fortunately he'll be gone soon. I hope.
Somewhat more seriously, the output of a power system like this would have to be fairly diffuse, to maintain a low enough energy density not to be dangerous to living tissue. Granted, what might not be dangerous to humans or larger animals might have deleterious effects on smaller organisms. From that perspective, a mid-ocean setting makes a good choice for a trial. Not that I read TFA or anything.
Also, there would have to be some incidental heating of the atmosphere as the beam passes through it, although the transmission frequency would be chosen with that in mind. It would be interesting to know what the possible effects on the weather would be if this technology becomes more widespread.
I've been fascinated by the idea of solar power satellites for decades, after reading about it in a sci-fi novel when I was a kid. It does make a lot of sense in many ways because in space, solar power is something. This may very well be the future of electric power generation, and might be what gives us ready access to near-space. Using beamed microwave or laser delivery of energy to vaporize reaction mass in a rocket has been theorized for some time (I think MIT did some small prototypes of a laser system.) In such a vehicle, your "fuel" can just be water, with the power provided by satellites or a ground-based array.
It's so ridiculous I'd just go with +1 Funny and leave it at that.
That is one of the most intelligent comments I've read on Slashdot. Most people confuse the two.
one should install pristine officials right from the original CD, and then periodically CRC them to make sure they haven't been corrupted. It's especially important not to download your officials from any old site on the Web, because they might have been deliberately corrupted.
Salespeople don't work in a vacuum. Successful sales requires a functioning organization behind it, and the executives in question obviously weren't providing it. This has all the earmarks of a situation that just got completely out of control, and the execs had to do something that looked good. If you hire good salespeople and properly support them, you won't need to worry about firing and rehiring them to save money, because they'll be bringing in boatloads of cash.
I guess we'll just have to wait a couple of hundred years and see if we can still read those glass masters. Glass is a funny substance (well, substances ... there are many kinds) and most of what I've read on the subject doesn't preclude the possibility of glass flowing over long periods of time.