In the US it might be a problem, but why worry about medical imaging data in particular? There are plenty of PDA medical applications handling non-imaging data, and these problems already exist. The solution to HIPAA is probably just to make sure there is adequate password protection, and that users realize they have to take care and protect their device.
Let's not forget that the wi-fi is a perk for the *customers*, and to encourage customers to visit. Not a free hand-out. Timed tickets and all that just sounds like an overly complex solution to the fact that people are abusing an honor system. I like their solution in turning it off so the public can rediscover what it is like to be limited to human interaction.
But I am with you about airports. I was at one this week which advertised wifi and I niaively thought "how enlightened of them to put this on for the public". Of course I soon discovered $19.95 for - and get this - 24 hours of access. It is only through the most unfortunate of itineraries or air carrier problems that anyone would be in an airport for 24 hours. What a blatent rip-off.
To all of you saying "but wouldnt the journey be through in a nanosecond, and your brain couldnt process it in time". THINK! There are two possible explanations:
1. It is all an experiment in rendering the type of optical distortion created by near light speed for the purposes of imagining travel at that speed, and for the sheer hell of it, and thrill of achievement. And the trip through a nice German town is just an approximate illustration in which we have to suspend our disbelief for a moment and enjoy the visual effects that we have never seen accurately portraited before.
or
2. It is a very, very large town. Since we're travelling a 99% light speed, why did you assume we were still on Earth, and not in some freaky alien German-town-mock-up of astronomic proportions? Why do you think there were no PEOPLE?!!!
Damnit, I could have made some money! Except that my funds are tied-up in a Nigerian opportunity at the moment. But boy-o-boy is that opportunity gonna make me rich! Rich! I say!
I don't understand your logic. You seem to be saying that labor is valuable, but intellectual labor is not.
The situation with Doctors is more complicated than you assume. Firstly, they are licensed. This protects their profession and themselves since it takes a lot of investment, time, enegery and study to qualify as a Doctor.
Secondly, Doctors do charge many times for the work they do only once - meaning that having mastered a technique they do it over and over, and charge a pretty penny for it. Imagine writing a subroutine, and then finding that your could write the exact same one a thousand times and get paid every time. Nice business, right? But you have to qualify to do it in the first place, and having done that your rights are protected.
It's stretching the analogiy, but the patent infringement/free software concept would play something like this: imagine if the act of an experienced Doctor delivering a procedure (like delivering a baby, or removing an appendix) could be captured and repeated ad infinitum without the Doctor ever having to be involved again. This would be great for mothers and people with appendicitis, but would immediately put Doctors out of business, and innovation in these areas would cease.
As for plumbers, here there are building codes and building inspectors who regulate what kind of work gets done - and to make sure that safety standards are met. When dealing with something more dangerous you'll find that plumbers working on gas piping and appliances have to be licensed. This protects their hard earned qualifications from cowboys, and protects the public in maintaining a standard.
I completely agree that sometimes these laws seem unfair and restrictive, and they probably are. One could hardly say that they are perfect.
I know what you mean, but the inventors aren't exempt from the free market - anyone could work hard to come-up with the idea before them. Nothing is an impediment to this competition of invention - that's a free market. But a "free market" is not a "free" market in which goods have zero price.
The thing that makes an inventor's occupation special is that their work, their output, is intellectual and can be copied and replicated with relative ease - and it's just not fair to allow that to happen without fair payment. The only way to protect or enforce that principle is with intellectual property law in its various forms: patent, copyright, trademark etc.
Now, don't get me started with the USPTO. You are dead right about that - they are allowing through such crap that it makes you wonder if the system has broken down. I heard, though, that 750,000 patents are filed each year, and that there are 7,500 patent attourneys to process them. So, I suppose they would complain about being over-worked. I also heard that their philosophy now is 'approve everything, and let the courts sort it out'. Perhaps they are trying to apply free market principles!
Patents do promote the spread of knowledge, as you say. They do it by giving an inventor the confidence to come out with their invention, letting people see what it is and how it works (although many patents try to avoid giving it all away). The patent system is based on this principle: in exchange for protection and a monopoly (for a time) your invention becomes public. To use the invention you must have a license, which usually involves license fees.
If you think that patent law just can't give you the protection you need - to let out your secret would be a disaster no matter who you could sue - then you can keep it secret, and horde it as a 'trade secret'. Like the formula for Coca Cola or KFC's spices.
Free software is different. Doesn't Open Source proceed by saying that the goods (software) have zero price, and that you can use it so long as you perpetuate the 'freeness' of the software? But this is not an economic model that serves inventors at all; it only works for service and support businesses and people. And for people who want free stuff (like me, I'm a hypocrit). The inventors and originators are rewarded only through personal satisfaction and kudos, and so surely companies with the business of creating new software and applications will never embrace Open Source - unless they can come up with a very strange business model, or can survive on support contracts and professional services alone.
You are right though, free software does seem to be for the good of humanity and I wouldn't want it to go away. But not all software can be free, or the industry will collapse. Don't most Open Source workers do it in their spare time, and otherwise have a dayjob in the regular industry?
Anyway, this is just my thought on it. I really appreciated your post and follow-up.
It is not a guaranteed financial gain, it is a guaranteed monopoly if you are prepared to flight infringement, and if you win. There is no guaranteed money, just protection.
As for the previous reply to this, I'm not quite sure what your comment means other than expressiing some sort of outrage at something. Almost nothing is guaranteed, but patent law gives an inventor a chance of being rewarded for their efforts.
Hey - why not do this with the MS Windows XP distribution ISO file?
Lets see. XP is probably about 650Mb, so that's 5.6x10^12 bits. Let's round down for GZIP and call it 10^12 bits.
So we just need a prime in the order of 2^(10^12). That can't be hard to do, can it? Just because the highest prime so far is in the order of 2^(10^7) just means that those mathematicians have been slacking it a bit! Lazy bums! And no doubt their software is lousy and totally inefficient. I'm sure Slashdotters could fix that.
But why bother with those pesky prime numbers anyway? Why not just gzip it, stick it on a CD and explain that it does not contain a gzip file of someone else's IP, but is in fact a particularly interesting finite number of about 300 million hexadecimal digits. That it just happens to evaluate, via the mathematical GZIP operator, into another large hexadecimal number resembling someone else's IP is pure coincidence! I'd go for that. Seems reasonable to me.
But why bother with GZIP? Just copy the original - we know it will fit on a CD - and the argument still holds! Brilliant! Ebay here I come!
Does anyone have a list of email addresses I could use to see if anyone is interested in buying a very special, large, very large, hexadecimal number with unusually useful evaluation properties?:-)
Hey Slashdot - don't you get it? This is all BS. "Hopes to enter production" means that there is not a hope in hell of entering production. It's marketing BS for a start-up looking to attract capital.
Just think about the great achievements announced over the past 12 months regarding prototype devices. No. Wait. There haven't been any. Don't hold your breath - it will be years and years before anything like this "enters production".
If people would just take the time to understand that they do not need 10000 things in their tray and took the 10 minutes to read exactly what each of those things
Let's see, that would be 100,000 minutes or about a man-year of work. Hmmm, no, computer aren't complicated.
Seriously though, computer systems become very complicated very quickly, and I bet most of the experts here on Slashdot would agree. The five things you mention are beyond most people.
You have a point. I started with Excession, which was akin to jumping in the deep end. I have to admit to enjoying seeing things from an AI's perspective, so I like the stories that have a lot of GSV and ROU involvement.
Like so many things, the issue here isn't black or white. No one in their right mind would regulate the Internet for political messages. On the other hand, its so easy to camouflage yourself on the net that crafty political agents can try to fool people into believing their message comes from someone more credible.
As usual, its the sneaks and cheats who may spoil things for everyone. Isn't there an analogy with email and spam here?
I have no idea what the solution might be, but I wonder about putting the onus on the politician or political party. How about regulating that they (politicians) can only use overt messages on the Internet. No sneaky business. Perhaps there could be stiff penalties if a hoax was discovered with clear evidence leading back to a politician.
There are people who abuse children; the solution is not to regulate children.
He is just brilliant - totally reinvented, or is that reinvigorated,
SF. You don't believe me? Try "Consider Phlebas", "Excession", or "Look to Windward"..
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch
must be the longest place name in the world. Oh, the link above says it is the
longest railway station name in the UK, and suggests it is the longest
domain name. Luckily we have moved on since 8.3 filenames! From what I have heard, your Auntie lives in a very nice place.
To answer your question most people in the UK know of
Llanfair although they may be like me and only know the first two syllables and
the last three. Some years ago I had to come up with a Celtic name to play DAOC and, well, I thought that Gogogoch was a good one:-)
There are two RobotWars series - the original UK version, and the US version. There is a remarkable difference between the two, and says something about the cultural differences of these robot-loving countries.
The UK one is, well, British. It's all tongue-in-cheek with occasional whacky, funny, designs as well as serious competitive ones. Often the inventor's kids get to drive. When someone's machine gets ripped to shreds and they have their "exit interview" the vanquished say things like: "We had a great time; you know, they have very nice lunches here". The audience is full of cheering school kids and their families.
On the other hand the US version is like WWF. Everything is dead serious. Testosterone levels are high, since winning is everything. The interviewers and hosts try to pump-up the thrill power of the event (whereas the UK host is a comedian).
So the UK version doesn't take itself very seriously, whereas the US show is dipped in testoserone and macho, as I said. Now, I'm biased and prefer the UK version - for me its more fun (and I can't stand WWF anyway - but what do those Slashdoters who have seen both think?
An if this has a parallel with the actual cultrues of the countries, what does this mean?
I went to buy some cables the other day and was astounded to see cables priced at $250. I was looking to spend $25.
I am a Chartered Physicist and a Chartered Electrical Engineer and couldn't agree more with the technical posts here. Except for the high frequency considerations for video, any old wire will do. I've used mains cable (lamp cable in North America), and agree with another poster that low-voltage decorative lamp cable is excellently priced and perfect for wiring speakers.
Anyway, the point of this post is that since that day in the store looking at the $250 cables I have been mesmerised by the thought of coming-up with a new gimick of my own. I'm not joking. If I could think of something new to add to a cable there would be an very interesting business. It doesnt matter that the new thing is, so long as it suggests better quality or higher acuity etc. Or sparkles or glows. Then one could sell $2 cable for $200.
Now I don't want to turn this into a troll, but I have to say this: so long as my story is good, audiophiles will hear the difference and swear that my new XYZ is better! It's just human nature. I just have to come-up with the new gizzmo.
Any suggestions? Hey, how about a Slashdot brand of audio cables?
The point is that they will be a lot cheaper to acquire once the C&D is in effect, and the business ruined. And perhaps they should be ruined. Imagine you made up a very successful game, and someone comes along and copies it electronically and signs-up 100,000 users. Wouldn't you be pissed? This is what IP law is for.
I'm sorry Jared, you just can't do that - even to a Bigco, except maybe M$.
My girlfriend came across an unusual security checking device the other day. She was in Circuit City buying some inkjet refills when the cashier asked her to use a new biometric device.
"At Circuit City your security is job #1, please provide a sample of blood, urine, or semen", said the cashier.
"Look, just take my panies", said my girlfriend, "you'll find all three on there".
So we have: + Christians who are against science + Muslims who are against the West and progress + Scientologists who believe a SF story + Mormons who believe a non-SF story
Thanks for the link to Interlingua.
I was once studied Esperanto, and Interlingua does indeed seem an improvement. However, it seems like a simplified Romance language to me - and wouldn't this be the case, given the way it was invented? If you use majority voting from English, French, Italian and Spanish/Port lexicons you will almost always chose a Romance language word.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think HIPAA applies in Switzerland.
In the US it might be a problem, but why worry about medical imaging data in particular? There are plenty of PDA medical applications handling non-imaging data, and these problems already exist. The solution to HIPAA is probably just to make sure there is adequate password protection, and that users realize they have to take care and protect their device.
Let's not forget that the wi-fi is a perk for the *customers*, and to encourage customers to visit. Not a free hand-out. Timed tickets and all that just sounds like an overly complex solution to the fact that people are abusing an honor system. I like their solution in turning it off so the public can rediscover what it is like to be limited to human interaction.
But I am with you about airports. I was at one this week which advertised wifi and I niaively thought "how enlightened of them to put this on for the public". Of course I soon discovered $19.95 for - and get this - 24 hours of access. It is only through the most unfortunate of itineraries or air carrier problems that anyone would be in an airport for 24 hours. What a blatent rip-off.
To all of you saying "but wouldnt the journey be through in a nanosecond, and your brain couldnt process it in time". THINK! There are two possible explanations:
1. It is all an experiment in rendering the type of optical distortion created by near light speed for the purposes of imagining travel at that speed, and for the sheer hell of it, and thrill of achievement. And the trip through a nice German town is just an approximate illustration in which we have to suspend our disbelief for a moment and enjoy the visual effects that we have never seen accurately portraited before.
or
2. It is a very, very large town. Since we're travelling a 99% light speed, why did you assume we were still on Earth, and not in some freaky alien German-town-mock-up of astronomic proportions? Why do you think there were no PEOPLE?!!!
Good God Slashdot. I can't stand it. Here are the correct IEC S.I. prefixes. Get used to them.
kilo = 1000
kibi = 1024
kiki = 1066
acrin = 6666
kinki = 6969
mega = 1000000
mebi = 1048551 = 1024*1024
mixi = 1474569.3 = 1.44 * 1024 *1000
mipi = 3141593
mumbo = 1111111
mjumbo = 9999999
giga = 1000000001
gibi = 1368572279 = 1024 * 1024 * 1024
garbagi = 1254768991 = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 -1
giganti = 9999999999
If people wuold just commit these to memory I believe that life would be a lot easier.
Damnit, I could have made some money! Except that my funds are tied-up in a Nigerian opportunity at the moment. But boy-o-boy is that opportunity gonna make me rich! Rich! I say!
I don't understand your logic. You seem to be saying that labor is valuable, but intellectual labor is not.
The situation with Doctors is more complicated than you assume. Firstly, they are licensed. This protects their profession and themselves since it takes a lot of investment, time, enegery and study to qualify as a Doctor.
Secondly, Doctors do charge many times for the work they do only once - meaning that having mastered a technique they do it over and over, and charge a pretty penny for it. Imagine writing a subroutine, and then finding that your could write the exact same one a thousand times and get paid every time. Nice business, right? But you have to qualify to do it in the first place, and having done that your rights are protected.
It's stretching the analogiy, but the patent infringement/free software concept would play something like this: imagine if the act of an experienced Doctor delivering a procedure (like delivering a baby, or removing an appendix) could be captured and repeated ad infinitum without the Doctor ever having to be involved again. This would be great for mothers and people with appendicitis, but would immediately put Doctors out of business, and innovation in these areas would cease.
As for plumbers, here there are building codes and building inspectors who regulate what kind of work gets done - and to make sure that safety standards are met. When dealing with something more dangerous you'll find that plumbers working on gas piping and appliances have to be licensed. This protects their hard earned qualifications from cowboys, and protects the public in maintaining a standard.
I completely agree that sometimes these laws seem unfair and restrictive, and they probably are. One could hardly say that they are perfect.
I know what you mean, but the inventors aren't exempt from the free market - anyone could work hard to come-up with the idea before them. Nothing is an impediment to this competition of invention - that's a free market. But a "free market" is not a "free" market in which goods have zero price.
The thing that makes an inventor's occupation special is that their work, their output, is intellectual and can be copied and replicated with relative ease - and it's just not fair to allow that to happen without fair payment. The only way to protect or enforce that principle is with intellectual property law in its various forms: patent, copyright, trademark etc.
Now, don't get me started with the USPTO. You are dead right about that - they are allowing through such crap that it makes you wonder if the system has broken down. I heard, though, that 750,000 patents are filed each year, and that there are 7,500 patent attourneys to process them. So, I suppose they would complain about being over-worked. I also heard that their philosophy now is 'approve everything, and let the courts sort it out'. Perhaps they are trying to apply free market principles!
Patents do promote the spread of knowledge, as you say. They do it by giving an inventor the confidence to come out with their invention, letting people see what it is and how it works (although many patents try to avoid giving it all away). The patent system is based on this principle: in exchange for protection and a monopoly (for a time) your invention becomes public. To use the invention you must have a license, which usually involves license fees.
If you think that patent law just can't give you the protection you need - to let out your secret would be a disaster no matter who you could sue - then you can keep it secret, and horde it as a 'trade secret'. Like the formula for Coca Cola or KFC's spices.
Free software is different. Doesn't Open Source proceed by saying that the goods (software) have zero price, and that you can use it so long as you perpetuate the 'freeness' of the software? But this is not an economic model that serves inventors at all; it only works for service and support businesses and people. And for people who want free stuff (like me, I'm a hypocrit). The inventors and originators are rewarded only through personal satisfaction and kudos, and so surely companies with the business of creating new software and applications will never embrace Open Source - unless they can come up with a very strange business model, or can survive on support contracts and professional services alone.
You are right though, free software does seem to be for the good of humanity and I wouldn't want it to go away. But not all software can be free, or the industry will collapse. Don't most Open Source workers do it in their spare time, and otherwise have a dayjob in the regular industry?
Anyway, this is just my thought on it. I really appreciated your post and follow-up.
It is not a guaranteed financial gain, it is a guaranteed monopoly if you are prepared to flight infringement, and if you win. There is no guaranteed money, just protection.
As for the previous reply to this, I'm not quite sure what your comment means other than expressiing some sort of outrage at something. Almost nothing is guaranteed, but patent law gives an inventor a chance of being rewarded for their efforts.
Hey - why not do this with the MS Windows XP distribution ISO file?
:-)
Lets see. XP is probably about 650Mb, so that's 5.6x10^12 bits. Let's round down for GZIP and call it 10^12 bits.
So we just need a prime in the order of 2^(10^12). That can't be hard to do, can it? Just because the highest prime so far is in the order of 2^(10^7) just means that those mathematicians have been slacking it a bit! Lazy bums! And no doubt their software is lousy and totally inefficient. I'm sure Slashdotters could fix that.
But why bother with those pesky prime numbers anyway? Why not just gzip it, stick it on a CD and explain that it does not contain a gzip file of someone else's IP, but is in fact a particularly interesting finite number of about 300 million hexadecimal digits. That it just happens to evaluate, via the mathematical GZIP operator, into another large hexadecimal number resembling someone else's IP is pure coincidence! I'd go for that. Seems reasonable to me.
But why bother with GZIP? Just copy the original - we know it will fit on a CD - and the argument still holds! Brilliant! Ebay here I come!
Does anyone have a list of email addresses I could use to see if anyone is interested in buying a very special, large, very large, hexadecimal number with unusually useful evaluation properties?
Is this an Infomercial?
Just think about the great achievements announced over the past 12 months regarding prototype devices. No. Wait. There haven't been any. Don't hold your breath - it will be years and years before anything like this "enters production".
Sorry, it's just BS.
Let's see, that would be 100,000 minutes or about a man-year of work. Hmmm, no, computer aren't complicated.
Seriously though, computer systems become very complicated very quickly, and I bet most of the experts here on Slashdot would agree. The five things you mention are beyond most people.
You have a point. I started with Excession, which was akin to jumping in the deep end. I have to admit to enjoying seeing things from an AI's perspective, so I like the stories that have a lot of GSV and ROU involvement.
Well, you are right - we will be dead then so the only thing we can do is use our imaginations. Yikes, I sound like Barney!
Like so many things, the issue here isn't black or white. No one in their right mind would regulate the Internet for political messages. On the other hand, its so easy to camouflage yourself on the net that crafty political agents can try to fool people into believing their message comes from someone more credible.
As usual, its the sneaks and cheats who may spoil things for everyone. Isn't there an analogy with email and spam here?
I have no idea what the solution might be, but I wonder about putting the onus on the politician or political party. How about regulating that they (politicians) can only use overt messages on the Internet. No sneaky business. Perhaps there could be stiff penalties if a hoax was discovered with clear evidence leading back to a politician.
There are people who abuse children; the solution is not to regulate children.
Oops, typo. I should have said Iain M Banks .
He is just brilliant - totally reinvented, or is that reinvigorated, SF. You don't believe me? Try "Consider Phlebas", "Excession", or "Look to Windward"..
Forget what MS Windows and Google will look like in 2015. What will they look like in 2215?
For an answer read anything by Ian M Banks
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch
must be the longest place name in the world. Oh, the link above says it is the
longest railway station name in the UK, and suggests it is the longest
domain name. Luckily we have moved on since 8.3 filenames! From what I have heard, your Auntie lives in a very nice place.
To answer your question most people in the UK know of Llanfair although they may be like me and only know the first two syllables and the last three. Some years ago I had to come up with a Celtic name to play DAOC and, well, I thought that Gogogoch was a good one :-)
There are two RobotWars series - the original UK version, and the US version. There is a remarkable difference between the two, and says something about the cultural differences of these robot-loving countries.
The UK one is, well, British. It's all tongue-in-cheek with occasional whacky, funny, designs as well as serious competitive ones. Often the inventor's kids get to drive. When someone's machine gets ripped to shreds and they have their "exit interview" the vanquished say things like: "We had a great time; you know, they have very nice lunches here". The audience is full of cheering school kids and their families.
On the other hand the US version is like WWF. Everything is dead serious. Testosterone levels are high, since winning is everything. The interviewers and hosts try to pump-up the thrill power of the event (whereas the UK host is a comedian).
So the UK version doesn't take itself very seriously, whereas the US show is dipped in testoserone and macho, as I said. Now, I'm biased and prefer the UK version - for me its more fun (and I can't stand WWF anyway - but what do those Slashdoters who have seen both think?
An if this has a parallel with the actual cultrues of the countries, what does this mean?
I went to buy some cables the other day and was astounded to see cables priced at $250. I was looking to spend $25.
I am a Chartered Physicist and a Chartered Electrical Engineer and couldn't agree more with the technical posts here. Except for the high frequency considerations for video, any old wire will do. I've used mains cable (lamp cable in North America), and agree with another poster that low-voltage decorative lamp cable is excellently priced and perfect for wiring speakers.
Anyway, the point of this post is that since that day in the store looking at the $250 cables I have been mesmerised by the thought of coming-up with a new gimick of my own. I'm not joking. If I could think of something new to add to a cable there would be an very interesting business. It doesnt matter that the new thing is, so long as it suggests better quality or higher acuity etc. Or sparkles or glows. Then one could sell $2 cable for $200.
Now I don't want to turn this into a troll, but I have to say this: so long as my story is good, audiophiles will hear the difference and swear that my new XYZ is better! It's just human nature. I just have to come-up with the new gizzmo.
Any suggestions? Hey, how about a Slashdot brand of audio cables?
The point is that they will be a lot cheaper to acquire once the C&D is in effect, and the business ruined. And perhaps they should be ruined. Imagine you made up a very successful game, and someone comes along and copies it electronically and signs-up 100,000 users. Wouldn't you be pissed? This is what IP law is for.
I'm sorry Jared, you just can't do that - even to a Bigco, except maybe M$.
My girlfriend came across an unusual security checking device the other day. She was in Circuit City buying some inkjet refills when the cashier asked her to use a new biometric device.
"At Circuit City your security is job #1, please provide a sample of blood, urine, or semen", said the cashier.
"Look, just take my panies", said my girlfriend, "you'll find all three on there".
So we have:
+ Christians who are against science
+ Muslims who are against the West and progress
+ Scientologists who believe a SF story
+ Mormons who believe a non-SF story
Jesus, it makes you wonder....
Imax? More like Imaxn't offend the anti-evolutionists.
Thanks for the link to Interlingua. I was once studied Esperanto, and Interlingua does indeed seem an improvement. However, it seems like a simplified Romance language to me - and wouldn't this be the case, given the way it was invented? If you use majority voting from English, French, Italian and Spanish/Port lexicons you will almost always chose a Romance language word.