I'm glad you've done your homework; since you're doing so, I'll do mine as well and go try to find references for what you're saying.
Charlie Rangel had called some of Obama's comments about the history behind Civil Rights Act "absolutely stupid"
That quote was defending Clinton after her comment implying that MLK was all talk; if you look at its context, it's surrounded by a mischaracterization of Obama's position as well.
My own impression of Obama is of someone who's not in touch with the facts, has no concern with getting them right, and thinks that the country owes him the presidency.
If the sources you've given so far are representative of the factual basis of your impressions, I think you should be a little more careful about where and how you do your research.
Lack of universal, affordable health care [...] Is Obama going to toss out the HMOs?
No, but he's going to give them competition. Private healthcare plans will remain available, but a publicly funded healthcare plan will be available in addition, providing competition. Individuals will be able to get rebates based on their income level to help pay for whichever healthcare system (be it a private company or the public one) they choose. This may not be "tossing out" the HMOs, but it's surely not going to make them happy.
Foreign policy in a shambles
Yup, it's a mess. However, Obama has a great deal of credibility in the foreign press, and being a relative newcomer to national politics (having most of his experience state-level and below) helps him disassociate himself (and his administration) from the US's disastrous policies of late. Indeed, his stated intention to avoid some of the US's more longstanding and counterproductive policies (like refusing to even talk to folks we disagree with) is likely to do some good.
As for economic issues -- yes, the US economy is a mess. Obama has a plan, of course -- every serious candidate claims they do, after all -- but I haven't looked at the details well enough to support it here.
a question of which shallow personality cult is best
The media doesn't represent him that way, but Obama has plenty of substance; it just takes a little research to find it, rather than listing to the sound bites on the evening news. Go do your homework -- you'll be very pleasantly surprised.
I don't have a semi-automatic, which is what he's mostly opposed to -- and he's certainly much less extreme on the issue than Clinton. Consider the alternatives.
he IS a lawyer.
A civil rights lawyer. Don't you think that makes a difference?
An genuinely idealist with a clear line of action that never ever bends facts or his/her opinions is sure to never get elected.
Yes, I agree that Ron Paul has no chance.
However, there's a different between being unbending in one's ideals and being unbending in one's understanding of the world; the latter leads to an inability or unwillingness to understand or empathize with the motivations of one's opponents, and that leads to the political environment we have today. Much of what makes Obama appealing is his willingness to think things over from perspectives other than his own and strike considered compromises that still accomplish his intended goals while making people who disagreed feel like they weren't completely steamrolled. Hillary strikes me as the win-at-any-cost type -- but winning at any cost means making the other side lose, and that leads to still more division and partisan hatred.
Any candidate that has received money (directly or indirectly) from a RIAA/MPAA affiliate or a telco (for example) is out of the question when it comes to internet matters.
If that's your concern, wouldn't the candidate getting his funding from a much larger number of small-money individual donations make more sense than the candidate getting most of her money from a smaller number of bigger donors? (Damn English, not having grammatically correct genderless singular pronouns).
It's not like receiving any money at all is akin to taking an oath of fealty -- but you're certainly right that there's at least some level of correspondence between supporters and actions, so watching where the money comes from is a worthwhile effort. I don't expect Obama to support every item on my agenda even though I've donated repeatedly; why would you expect fealty to the telcos if any funding amount from them (if it exists) is far, far less than what's given by small, individual donors?
...but which is clearly intended as a direct replacement for Python, developed by the same team, with the same general design goals and programming paradigms. C++ was (AFAIK) produced by a third party and layered a completely new and radical (to C programmers) programming paradigm on top of C. Not the same thing at all.
Yes, but... what's your point? Are you saying that C never should have gone from K&R to ANSI?
...and that has to be set up, using exactly the same conventions, on every machine which will be running your code
And just like every Linux machine versions its libc libraries the same way, every Linux machine versions its Python interpreter the same way. The conventions on this are global -- so this really is every bit as moot as complaining about a libc upgrade with an incompatible ABI.
C++ ain't C version 2. is a new language that happened to have some backwards compatibility with C.
And Python 3 is what used to be known as "Python 3000" -- a different, mostly-backwards-compatible language that fixes any of Python's design decisions that couldn't be resolved while keeping compatibility.
C/C++ is (...er, reads point one..) ^H^H are compiled language! Practical upshot: if you install a C++ compiler it won't instantly stop all C-derived binaries on your system from working; and you don't have to persuade your users to install C++ in order to run your latest code.
Python allows multiple interpreters to be installed at the same time and for programs to specify the interpreter version they want to use. Linux distributions have been packaging it that way for years.
#!/usr/bin/env python2.2 is the preferred way to call a script which depends on Python 2.2, just as #!/usr/bin/env python2.4 does the same thing but specifying a 2.4 interpreter. If you call "#!/usr/bin/env python", then you get whatever the system default is, and that's your own fault... but point is, having multiple names for the interpreter so you can specify an individual version if you want to is already SOP.
Also, this isn't news. It isn't even sorta-news. This has been planned and publicly announced for years.
I think that's because you're reading in "smart browser component" where the patent only specifies a browser component. The innate ability of the browser to handle even regular 404 error pages isn't excluded by definition from Claim 1.
Not necessarily for the more specific claims -- they cover looking at the user's history with the site, at the URL being attempted (ie. the section it's trying to reach) and so forth. I don't think IE's built-in functionality is applicable.
The "client-side component" in question is (or can be) simply a part of the browser's built-in functionality. And don't tell me that using a redirect to a different server dedicated to dynamic 404s is bloody "innovative".
(And having a 404 handler that tries to figure out what the user is looking for [which is the other major component]? That has very, very much been done before).
The problem, of course, is that not everyone has the same stated purpose in mind.
The European perspective that intellectual property law exists to reward the creators as an end in and of itself has a worrying amount of traction these days. If both parties are in agreement that the promoting the sciences and the arts is in fact the purpose and goal of patent law, the debate starts out three quarters won.
Everything I have ever heard in the past and everything I could find from looking around just now indicated that they have no bizarre "save your receipts" requirement.
I agree that the implementation is obvious given the algorithm -- but would argue that the algorithm is the very thing that the patent "protects", and that there are very certainly non-obvious algorithms.
That said -- patent protection for software comes with too high an economic cost and fails to accomplish its stated purpose (to "promote the sciences and useful arts") -- so while we may disagree on underlying reasoning, I'm pretty sure we remain well-aligned on intended policy.
One note -- I'm operating on very little sleep right now; please accept my apologies if this is less than coherent.
Whatever some guy can invent late nights working out of his own bungalow can easily be replicated by any larger corporation once it's hit the market, if not for software patents.
Hmm -- that's a somewhat different scenario. See, I've spent the last five years at a startup (also in Austin) making highly specialized software that does some really darned nifty things within our vertical -- and among our company's assets are some patents. They certainly make it easier for us to get investment money -- so why do I think they're a bad idea?
Because that promise is a double-edged sword. Our software is hugely complex, developed over the better part of a decade by (cumulatively) a quite large development team -- and it has so many bits and pieces developed over the years that we can't hope to patent them all.
The thing is, someone else needs to patent only one component of our software (and it's huge, remember!) to enjoin us from being able to distribute it -- period, stop in. And because independent invention is no defense to patent infringement, it's entirely possible that one of the techniques I came up with myself is in fact something I have no legal right to use. That idea -- that the product of my brain may be something that I have no right to -- is in a nutshell why I think software patents are a danger.
You provide an (excellent) example of a case where the "little guy" comes up with an extremely inventive technique and wants to assert ownership over it -- and it is indeed a very good example. The thing is, though, that while the little guy might have one patent, the big guys have thousands -- and lawyers to enforce them. Thus, the only way the little guy can get ahead safely is by turning into a troll -- producing nothing themselves (so as not to risk lawsuits from the companies with tens of thousands of patents) but extracting monopoly rents (magnified by the practice of completely enjoining production or distribution of a complete product even if only a tiny, unimportant fragment of that product infringes) from their one big idea.
I think a system in which the small inventor can only safely profit off their invention by not actively practicing that invention is broken -- very, very broken. The person who invented a process is the person most fit to have the best ideas of how to improve that process in the future -- but if you're not actually practicing your invention (or doing R&D for someone who is, with goals driven by issues and ideas encountered when that invention is put into practice), there's not the necessity of practical improvements which is so often the mother of invention. More importantly, though, I don't want to work in fear that someone else will own the output of my brain, just because they had the same idea first (and more money to spend on patent lawyers) -- whether or not they developed that idea enough to make it actually usable in real life.
And why am I not worried about a megacorp reproducing our product? Because it's hard! To be sure, there are parts that an army of code monkeys could put out in a month or two -- but (without going into more detail than I necessarily can in public) there are also parts which require arcane knowledge to develop, or (non-software) domain knowledge in an area where the practitioner of the field in question could make more in a month than most developers earn in a year. It'd be cheaper to buy us out -- that way one gets not only the code but also the minds that made it, which are every bit as important if one is to have a living, breathing product. Granted, not all products (or all big ideas) are that way -- but I can't believe that development wouldn't get done if it weren't for the extra economic incentive software patents provide. (Indeed, there's quite a bit of economic analysis indicating that the net effect of software patents may be inhibitive with respect to progress in the sciences and arts).
Those folks ended up using PCs once they went on to college and real jobs.
Ehh? I haven't seen a decent university-level computer science program yet that isn't mostly using UNIX, and there're plenty of "real jobs" for folks who know something other than win32.
Even for those that do go on to work with Windows, though, having used more than one UI is a Good Thing for a reason: The more of them you learn, the better able you are to notice and generalize the common concepts, and the less limited you are to only being able to use the individual UI you learned on.
Companies invest a lot developing not-fun-to-code stuff that ends up being lucrative. To get rid of software patents would mean large companies would have little R & D incentive in software.
Software is still protected by copyright, so the difficulty of writing code ("not-fun-to-code") is still there for anyone doing a reimplementation; what's made easier is coming up with the ideas.
Thing is, though, that ideas in software aren't all that they're made out to be -- getting the implementation right, and having the team that actually built and knows how to build $PRODUCT (and the source code to $PRODUCT, and the developers' documentation for $PRODUCT, and the domain experts who know how to build a $PRODUCT that {complies with regulations,interoperates with other tools in the field,etc}) is much harder than coming up with the idea, so even without software patents there's still plenty of barrier to entry.
Remember, too, how much software was built before software was patentable at all -- heck, UNIX is in that category -- and how much software comes out of countries (like the UK) where software still isn't patentable (well, except for maybe as of earlier this week).
Any real site is going to need more than five days just to get content developed, scripts written, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, everyone may "start off new" -- but that's not to say that they're ready to earn revenue from day one.
Sure, Microsoft tries hard to be backwards-compatible -- but that's not to say they get it right. I'm not saying it's a matter of competence -- it's a hard problem at times -- but just because they try hard doesn't mean they succeed.
If you can't get accurate counter data (on some completely unrelated thing... say, disk accesses, or page faults, or cache hits) because any interrupts that happen whenever a protected process is on top of the run list are silently eaten, that's pretty darned broken.
Look, I understand that Apple cares about their DRM. Fine and dandy, good for them -- but it'd be nice if they could protect it in a way that didn't break DTrace scripts that have nothing to do with trying to hack the DRM in iTunes.
Slashdot Mirror
As for economic issues -- yes, the US economy is a mess. Obama has a plan, of course -- every serious candidate claims they do, after all -- but I haven't looked at the details well enough to support it here.
Support IRV and there really will be no such thing as a wasted vote. Right now, however, the spoiler effect is very very real.
However, there's a different between being unbending in one's ideals and being unbending in one's understanding of the world; the latter leads to an inability or unwillingness to understand or empathize with the motivations of one's opponents, and that leads to the political environment we have today. Much of what makes Obama appealing is his willingness to think things over from perspectives other than his own and strike considered compromises that still accomplish his intended goals while making people who disagreed feel like they weren't completely steamrolled. Hillary strikes me as the win-at-any-cost type -- but winning at any cost means making the other side lose, and that leads to still more division and partisan hatred.
It's not like receiving any money at all is akin to taking an oath of fealty -- but you're certainly right that there's at least some level of correspondence between supporters and actions, so watching where the money comes from is a worthwhile effort. I don't expect Obama to support every item on my agenda even though I've donated repeatedly; why would you expect fealty to the telcos if any funding amount from them (if it exists) is far, far less than what's given by small, individual donors?
Bluetooth keyboards for use with phones are old hat.
#!/usr/bin/env python2.2 is the preferred way to call a script which depends on Python 2.2, just as #!/usr/bin/env python2.4 does the same thing but specifying a 2.4 interpreter. If you call "#!/usr/bin/env python", then you get whatever the system default is, and that's your own fault... but point is, having multiple names for the interpreter so you can specify an individual version if you want to is already SOP.
Also, this isn't news. It isn't even sorta-news. This has been planned and publicly announced for years.
I think that's because you're reading in "smart browser component" where the patent only specifies a browser component. The innate ability of the browser to handle even regular 404 error pages isn't excluded by definition from Claim 1.
Not necessarily for the more specific claims -- they cover looking at the user's history with the site, at the URL being attempted (ie. the section it's trying to reach) and so forth. I don't think IE's built-in functionality is applicable.
The "client-side component" in question is (or can be) simply a part of the browser's built-in functionality. And don't tell me that using a redirect to a different server dedicated to dynamic 404s is bloody "innovative".
(And having a 404 handler that tries to figure out what the user is looking for [which is the other major component]? That has very, very much been done before).
The problem, of course, is that not everyone has the same stated purpose in mind.
The European perspective that intellectual property law exists to reward the creators as an end in and of itself has a worrying amount of traction these days. If both parties are in agreement that the promoting the sciences and the arts is in fact the purpose and goal of patent law, the debate starts out three quarters won.
I agree that the implementation is obvious given the algorithm -- but would argue that the algorithm is the very thing that the patent "protects", and that there are very certainly non-obvious algorithms.
That said -- patent protection for software comes with too high an economic cost and fails to accomplish its stated purpose (to "promote the sciences and useful arts") -- so while we may disagree on underlying reasoning, I'm pretty sure we remain well-aligned on intended policy.
Because that promise is a double-edged sword. Our software is hugely complex, developed over the better part of a decade by (cumulatively) a quite large development team -- and it has so many bits and pieces developed over the years that we can't hope to patent them all.
The thing is, someone else needs to patent only one component of our software (and it's huge, remember!) to enjoin us from being able to distribute it -- period, stop in. And because independent invention is no defense to patent infringement, it's entirely possible that one of the techniques I came up with myself is in fact something I have no legal right to use. That idea -- that the product of my brain may be something that I have no right to -- is in a nutshell why I think software patents are a danger.
You provide an (excellent) example of a case where the "little guy" comes up with an extremely inventive technique and wants to assert ownership over it -- and it is indeed a very good example. The thing is, though, that while the little guy might have one patent, the big guys have thousands -- and lawyers to enforce them. Thus, the only way the little guy can get ahead safely is by turning into a troll -- producing nothing themselves (so as not to risk lawsuits from the companies with tens of thousands of patents) but extracting monopoly rents (magnified by the practice of completely enjoining production or distribution of a complete product even if only a tiny, unimportant fragment of that product infringes) from their one big idea.
I think a system in which the small inventor can only safely profit off their invention by not actively practicing that invention is broken -- very, very broken. The person who invented a process is the person most fit to have the best ideas of how to improve that process in the future -- but if you're not actually practicing your invention (or doing R&D for someone who is, with goals driven by issues and ideas encountered when that invention is put into practice), there's not the necessity of practical improvements which is so often the mother of invention. More importantly, though, I don't want to work in fear that someone else will own the output of my brain, just because they had the same idea first (and more money to spend on patent lawyers) -- whether or not they developed that idea enough to make it actually usable in real life.
And why am I not worried about a megacorp reproducing our product? Because it's hard! To be sure, there are parts that an army of code monkeys could put out in a month or two -- but (without going into more detail than I necessarily can in public) there are also parts which require arcane knowledge to develop, or (non-software) domain knowledge in an area where the practitioner of the field in question could make more in a month than most developers earn in a year. It'd be cheaper to buy us out -- that way one gets not only the code but also the minds that made it, which are every bit as important if one is to have a living, breathing product. Granted, not all products (or all big ideas) are that way -- but I can't believe that development wouldn't get done if it weren't for the extra economic incentive software patents provide. (Indeed, there's quite a bit of economic analysis indicating that the net effect of software patents may be inhibitive with respect to progress in the sciences and arts).
Even for those that do go on to work with Windows, though, having used more than one UI is a Good Thing for a reason: The more of them you learn, the better able you are to notice and generalize the common concepts, and the less limited you are to only being able to use the individual UI you learned on.
Thing is, though, that ideas in software aren't all that they're made out to be -- getting the implementation right, and having the team that actually built and knows how to build $PRODUCT (and the source code to $PRODUCT, and the developers' documentation for $PRODUCT, and the domain experts who know how to build a $PRODUCT that {complies with regulations,interoperates with other tools in the field,etc}) is much harder than coming up with the idea, so even without software patents there's still plenty of barrier to entry.
Remember, too, how much software was built before software was patentable at all -- heck, UNIX is in that category -- and how much software comes out of countries (like the UK) where software still isn't patentable (well, except for maybe as of earlier this week).
Any real site is going to need more than five days just to get content developed, scripts written, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, everyone may "start off new" -- but that's not to say that they're ready to earn revenue from day one.
Sure, Microsoft tries hard to be backwards-compatible -- but that's not to say they get it right. I'm not saying it's a matter of competence -- it's a hard problem at times -- but just because they try hard doesn't mean they succeed.
If you can't get accurate counter data (on some completely unrelated thing... say, disk accesses, or page faults, or cache hits) because any interrupts that happen whenever a protected process is on top of the run list are silently eaten, that's pretty darned broken.
Look, I understand that Apple cares about their DRM. Fine and dandy, good for them -- but it'd be nice if they could protect it in a way that didn't break DTrace scripts that have nothing to do with trying to hack the DRM in iTunes.