If there wouldn't have been extreme heat going into the wing, would the crew still be alive?
Undoubtedly they would -- as I understand it, it was the sudden increase in temperature (kinetic energy after all) that caused the shuttle to break apart.
but isn't it possible, at the point of entry into the atmosphere, when temperatures start to rise, that the shuttle release some liquid nitrogen or some other super-coolant in some manner as to keep homeostasis of the vehicle?
Possible? Yes, sure. Theoretically, at least. The problem of course is that liquid nitrogen is not a solid -- it doesn't stay with the shuttle as the shuttle moves and the nitrogen evaporates. Which means that it would either only work for a very short time, or you would need a seriously large amount of the stuff -- which means extra weight and space on a verhicle where both those things are at a premium. Of course you wouldn't have to release the nitrogen: it will cool whatever it comes into contact with, whether it is on the outside or the inside. But you'd still have to store it aboard, under pressure, during the flight. This at the price of space and an extra drain on power to maintain the pressure.
All in all, it's possible. But I don't think it's a great improvement on the heat shield (the darker layer on the bottom of the shuttle) which is a solid as it is, stays with the shuttle and separates the shuttle from the heat as long as it doesn't crack.
Personally, I don't think there's any need to pity Sun or anybody else. The best way to run client-side Java loaded from a remote server through a browser in my opinion involves the Java PlugIn. All the benefits of an Applet (or more, if the user will allow it) and you're not stuck back in the stone age of Java 1.1.* implementations.
The sooner applets drop dead in favor of the PlugIn the better, I say.
Re:Why are we so surprized?
on
Incas Used Binary?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Absolutely. After all, the ancient Egyptians had an algorithm for multiplying large numbers based on addition and the fact that every number can be written as a power of two (although they never literally wrapped their minds around that last part). What they did was this:
The justification (and by consequence also the contents) of the first amendment to recital 7, which is not correct but rather based on wishful thinking. And of course also the justification for the amendment to recital 10; EPC 52(2) may mention non-inventions, but that still doesn't mean that every invention is patentable. Not to mention that the word "idea" is completely wrong, since an idea is never patentable. Only inventions based on ideas, but not ideas as such.
But it isn't just the EPC either; the justification for the amendement to recital 8 is also dubious at best, given that patents exist to allow the publication of inventions without risking your ability to make money from it.
Ah yeah, the good old "as such" that's being thrown around.
Again, that you don't like it doesn't mean it's not there.
Please explain to me exactly when you think software IS software "as such" and when it is not.
Software as such is software that is not being considered within the domain of a specific problem. Whereas software that is being considered within such a domain is part of a solution to the problem. Consider the following analogy: a metallic filament of a certain composition and bent to a certain specification is not a patentable invention. But a special spring for a certain, specific purpose is.
My definition would be that software used as wallpaper, used as poety, used as a word game, would not be "software as such". Absolutely ANY use of software in a "computer implemented invention" IS using software as software. It is software as such.
Ehrm, yes. But keep in mind that that is your definition, not the definition of the legislators (neither the current or the ones back in 1972). And I fear that theirs is the one that counts.
But have you looked at which amendments JURI have voted up and which they have voted down? They have systematicly rejected every one that might place any effective limit on the software patents.
No, I have just read the final report by the rapporteur. And I don't agree with your assertion -- the new recitals 13a-c and Article 4a are nothing if not limiting.
They rejected an amendment saying pure human intellectual activity is not industrial application / industrial character. It's reminicent of my "thinking" argument. They refused to exclude thought from being patentable.
As I would have. First of all, it would have been repetitious in the context of the EPC, which is where the proposed Directive must exist. Second, within that context, such a statement either says that nothing is patentable at all (since all invention is based on human thought), or it says nothing at all (since the pure thought part of an invention is never covered as such by the patent).
Then why would JURI consider and reject 2 amendments to prohibit double coverage and approve an amendment requesting future evaluation of difficulties caused by double coverage.
The first because there's no point (it's repetitious in the context of the EPC, TRIPS, the Berne Convention and the Paris Convention) and the second because mistakes are made where human beings enter the picture (and there's no point in legislating against double coverage for this reason either -- mistakes are by their nature not things that extra legislation will stop).
Juri approved of [...] computer programs"
I'll grant you (and the FFII) that the definition is overly broad at first glance. But then, it is supposed to be taken with the whole of the Directive, not just as a separate piece. Note, by the way, that your emphasis does not correspond to the actual amendment by JURI.
Voted UP 18 to 8. They EXPLICITLY make WHOLLY SOFTWARE patentents valid. This is NOT about actual inventions that happen to have some software inside them. This is about patents on PURE PROGRAMMING.
JURI also approved an amendment introducing a new Article 4a, which forbids patents on software that "do[es] not produce a
The directive was secretly written by the BSA (well, it was supposed to be secret LOL).
Well, they were certainly consulted, I cannot deny that. However, that in and of itself is a bit of a "so what"-issue; the Commission is supposed to come up with a proposal, but it is up to Parliament and Council to agree, modify or reject.
I hope that's enough for you to believe that there's intentionally missleading information coming out about this directive.
Not really; I prefer to read the text itself in such cases, rather than to judge simply by "BSA = bad". After all, Frits Bolkestein had something to do with it as well; he has a reputation for not being a pushover. If he approved what became the proposal, it is unlikely to be a complete diktat.
If that's not good enough, the only way to cut through the contradictory claims is to actually look at the text of the directive itself. It's tough reading unless you get an analysis with it. It's a huge reading project,
Well, lucky for me then that I am capable of reading such things without too much difficulty. I spent a nice little evening reviewing the proposal (COM(2002)92), the JURI amendments to it, the EPC and the TRIPS treaties for good measure and your link fo the FFII site as well.
but you can see for yourself right here. It goes into great detail explaining how the directive actually mandates almost the broadest possible patentability of even trivial "inventions" purely contained in software. It's long, but very informative. The directive is far worse than even I thought.
Hmmphh. Don't be too impressed with their objections or their counterproposal. A good number of things the FFII says in that document are simply not true, or based on a misinterpretation of the EPC (they may not like it, but Art 52(3) EPC does still exist and it is as valid as 52(2)). They do have a number of points, but I have to say the JURI amendments rectify most of them -- the FFII document maligns Arlene McCarthy, methinks).
The entire physical part is the computer sitting in front of you right now. According to the directive your PC is a required part of the invention. The actual "invention" is purely in the software.
Ehrrrr, no. That's not what the draft directive is shooting for, at least -- although the wording is bad enough to make it seem that way. Again, the JURI amendments lock that down to within reasonable boundaries.
Exactly! This directive DEMANDS that they be evaluated as a unified whole:
Which I think is perfectly reasonable....
You now have a patentable claim in the software and you have patentable subject matter in the ordinary hardware. The two portions CANNOT be rejected seperately. How's that for evil and underhanded? The patent must therefore be granted.
There's nothing evil or underhanded about that. The two parts cannot be rejected separately because the two parts separately aren't anything -- they are an invention together and the concept of "the two apart" is meaningless in that context. It's like trying to separate the motor from the chassis in a conversation about a motor vehicle: you can pull the two apart, but then it doesn't make any sense anymore.
I was saying you can't patent the software of how to add or take square roots on it, and that you can't rely on that software to fulfill any of the tests of whether the abacus is patentable.
And the proposed Directive does not intend to change that. Mathematical methods or generic algorithms are not covered by the proposal -- especially with the JURI amendments.
Any patentability of software means it's double-covered with both copyright AND patent.
And there's your first hint that the draft Directive doesn't do what you think it does.
It's ok to patent it because it doesn't fall under one of the limitations, but the reason it doesn't fall under one of the limitations is because they are changing the limitations!
The current US system and the proposed EU patent systems amount to patenting math or a patenting sequence of thoughts. Every program can in fact be translated into mathematical statement. And any program can be "run" purely mentally by thinking through each step.
I agree when it comes to software as such. However, I disagree with you where it pertains to software that is a unified whole with a piece of hardware in a patented object -- I think it is not unreasonable to allow a patent on the whole including the software that is a necessary part of that whole.
Also, I think that you're making more of the "patenting thoughts" argument than is reasonable. Under that kind of a rule, you would not be able to patent an abacus or Napier's Bones (just ignoring the fact here that they aren't new anymore), because you can do anything that you can do with those objects in your mind without them. For that matter, you might as well forbid patenting an engine because the same effect can be attained through physical labor.
All of that aside, I don't think you're right in saying that that is what the new EU proposal amounts to. The current proposal does, AFAICS, not allow patenting software as such, but only computer-based devices (which would be devices where the software is an integrated and inseparable whole with the device).
Patents are supposed to protect physical objects. They aren't supposed to protect pure information / pure idea.
No. Patents are supposed to protect inventions. Nothing anywhere states that an invention must be a physical object per se. It's just that if there is no physical part to your invention, that it will probably fall under the limitations on what is patentable under most national laws (mathematical methods, for instance). However, there is no reason why a non-physical part of an invention should not be covered by patent if it is really part of that invention.
Here's an interesting analogy that you might want to consider in this light: electricity. Electricity is not a physical object in the classical sense of property (even though, physically, electricity is usually a large collection of small physical objects). Nevertheless, you are not allowed (I assume at least) to steal electricity.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here (or go crazy with doom scenario's). Even with such a law in place, there has to be a complaint before anything can happen to you on the basis of that law -- and who exactly is going to complain about Bob cracking his own password?
Besides, believe it or not, most European courts are not unreasonable institutions -- you'll note Europe hasn't gone in for ridiculously massive damage payments yet. I don't believe there is a court on the continent that would actually come to a conviction in Bob's case, again, because it is his own account.
They are playing all sorts of word games, but the fact is that the software itself comes under patent protection.
In the United States perhaps, but not here -- unless it is by mistake and then you can ask a judge to expunge the patent.
but the device MUST meet its patentability requirements based on the novelty and usefulness of the device itself. My better mousetrap my require software to control the parts, but I have to show how the physical parts are new and better given generic "black box" control.
Ah. Well, that's the difference then: under the European Patent Treaty, there is no such requirement on the separate device. Instead, the novelty must be in the total of the device including the software, but the software must be an integral and inseparable part of the whole. Basically, you can have a patent on hardware-and-integrated-software under the condition that the whole minus the software is not a machine but rather useless junk and as a counterpart to that that the software isn't so general that it can function on a device other than that piece of hardware (so, for instance, a phone plus a nice Java-based game is NOT patentable, but the phone plus software that turns that phone into a remote for your garage door opener might be).
The portion within software must not be a basis for granting the patent, and that portion must be exempt from patent protection.
Over here, the software alone may not be the basis for the patent, only the software in combination with the hardware. In that scheme, the software portion cannot be exempt from patent protection -- it is an inseparable part of the patented whole, in the sense that if you rip out the software the whole is no more.
There's no reason for you not to have that opinion or express it. If this proposal becomes a treaty however, and you express that opinion online in countries that have signed and ratified said treaty, then you have to give XYZ Corp the opportunity to explain why you are mistaken. This does not detract from your opinion in the slightest, nor does it in any way prevent you from expressing that opinion.
I shouldn't have to pay the bandwidth costs for someone else's opinion any more than they should have to pay them for mine. It violates my right to free speech if I have to spread their ideas and their right if they have to spread mine.
Not only does it not violate your right to free speech (the right of reply exists because you have the right of free speech), but the whole thing is pointless if the person replying does not have access to the same audience that you do. Which that person should have, if he is offering a correction to your audience of (possibly) incorrect data that you have previously presented.
The basic idea here is that you cannot malign a person online and expect to have a one-sided debate on the issue.
Unless, of course, they are algorithms. Sure, they're discovered, but so is everything else.
Errr, no. No, patent law makes a clear distinction between the "discovered" (i.e. it was always there but we didn't know about it before -- like the stars that we can only see now that we have the vastly improved telescope power of the combination scopes that have been built over the last three years) and the "invented" (didn't exist before it was built in any way -- like the motor car or the steam engine). The latter is patentable, the former is not.
Of course, that leaves the problem of functions in mathematics (which aren't discovered, but defined/invented). However, patent law takes a shortcut there and tosses the whole bit out.
Currently the European Patent Convention article 52 subsecion (2) (c) frobids patents on software. This is a good rule. These peopel want to CHANGE the rule and institute a US STYLE PATENT SYSTEM.
Not quite. The current practice in Europe is such that computer programs per se are not patentable, but they are patentable together with a device to which they are linked in a fashion that does not allow the link to be broken. So, for instance, the internal software of an i-Mode telephone itself is not patentable but the telephone and software TOGETHER AS A PACKAGE are (since the telephone is, in a real sense, not the same kind of device if you put different software on it). It's a backdoor that takes the form of effect-patenting (patenting the effect of combining hardware and software). This proposal hopes to replace the backdoor with something more manageable, not to introduce a US-style "patent whatever isn't nailed down" practice.
So where are the boundaries exactly? Unknown. We'll have to wait a bit until the court has created some jurisprudence on what is what. As always, with patents.
I don't think algorithms are invented any more than mathematical truths are invented, rather they are discovered. IMO, there is a difference and a patent shouldn't be granted on that. Although, I will admit there is room to disagree with that position.
From what I can tell just at a glance, it isn't exactly the idea in this proposal to allow patenting of anything as wide as a general algorithm or program. It seems to me that the basic notion is to allow patenting of the-program-in-its-environment-of-application; e.g. the software filter as it is used to filter static from a telephone conversation rather than the software filter per se. Pretty much what the EPO and national laws allow now, but more clearly defined (and not even unreasonable, if you think about it). The idea is not to allow the patenting of the mathematical method in general.
If you will, the distinction is that the patent has to allow room to a competitor to arrive at the same result in a different way -- you cannot lock out arriving at the result entirely (unless you happen to have separate patents on all the ways towards a result, but that's a different story).
Now, the question is how do we get the U.S. government to adopt this standard?
You don't; not with a Republican in the White House, at least.
Will it be like the Metric system, where we are too entrenched to switch to a better system?
As for Turkey, you're repeating the arguments of France, Germany, and Belgium.
Of course I am -- they were right. NATO is first and foremost a defense alliance; it was never a united attack force. Going on the offensive (not as a response to attack, but as in starting a war) is something completely different than helping to defend an ally against attack and NATO membership includes no obligation in that area -- for good reason. Just because we are all NATO allies, that doesn't mean we have to help the US start a war (especially on the weak and ever-crumbling basis that the US provided in the case of Iraq). Nor is NATO alliance a backdoor for procuring support for a war from people who don't want to give it -- and you're not supposed to ask for Article 4 or 5 support if you don't really need it either.
All the remaining NATO powers disagreed.
They disagreed insofar that withholding support from an ally is always dangerous to an alliance that is based around mutual defense. That is not the same as saying that they disagreed with the underlying position.
The situation with Turkey is a sign that the alliance might be getting a bit frayed.
"A bit frayed?" Where have you been for the past ten years? NATO is dying the death of uselessness, of being a military alliance whose enemy has croaked. That's not enough to support an alliance in which one partner acts like king and dictator the way the US does. NATO is pretty much a thing of the past; only time remains.
The rupture between Constantinople and Rome took centuries.
No it didn't. The separation was administrative and done in a day. After that, Rome fell.
Europe seems particularly ill suited to project power these days.
Not as ill-suited as the US likes to think. The US is very impressed with its Seals and Rangers and other special forces and their ability to insert them stealthily. Here's news for you: we can all do that. Europe's forces (particularly France and Britain) can take out terrorists. Europe is not equipped to invade entire nations and occupy them. But then, we don't want to do that -- we already know what the US is learning right now, you see: nothing good ever comes of that. Either you lose in which case you look stupid, or you win and then you have to occupy and administer a country where you are not wanted -- which is a hell of a lot worse.
I don't see anybody else stepping up and providing adult supervision.
It is the idea that the US has the right to bully everybody and push everybody around (providing "adult supervision", in your words) that makes the US so many enemies. And alienates so many of its friends.
Why? It was the first such incident within the duration of my memory, possibly the first in Union history. It wasn't a serious summons, but something born from frustration and being a little overworked. And everybody else made it very clear afterwards that that is not the way the Union treats people (or countries). Methinks you are trying to make more out of it than it is.
The idea that the EU is all love, peace, and equality so soon after that just rubbed me the wrong way.
Of course it isn't -- the Union never is. The Union is hardcore, intensive politics. The Union is lots of very, very long meetings to find compromises between opposing points of view of member states. The Union is laws and courts and lawyers, trade and economic policy, disagreement and working it out. Remarkably like a real country, in fact. The Union is not "peace, love, dope" and sitting around to smell the flowers, nor was it ever.
The Union is not all roses and pretty colors. But it's not a battlefield either. No sense in pretending it is, either way.
The EU, AFAIK does not have a military existance outside of NATO.
In fact, it does. The EU has subsumed the old WEU and as such it comprises a mutual defense pact of its members. And of course there is ongoing effort wrt the RRF, whose status is somewhere between "being founded" and "usable". However, the old WEU component of the EU is the relevant thing here.
Without the US pretty much means without NATO.
Quite frankly, I'm tempted to say "So what?". With NATO doesn't mean very much anymore either, thanks to Georgie-boy and his cowboy diplomacy.
After the shabby treatment NATO member Turkey received when it invoked it's NATO obligations, is everybody 100% sure that all the other EU nations would respond?
Let's not get things mixed up here. In the case of Turkey, we weren't talking about a real territorial threat as under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty (it was, however, an unlikely threat brought about by the actions of another NATO member state) and honoring Turkey's request at that time could indeed have been interpreted as giving tacit consent to military action against Iraq. What you are talking about now is something completely different: you're talking about a direct assault on the territory of the Union by outside forces. No provocation, no question of illicit support of any other military intervention, but direct attack of a Union member by outside forces. Oh yeah, everybody would show up, no question.
That aside, you'll note that Turkey still got its Patriots, both from us and from Germany.
And that aside, an interesting thought occurs to me -- in the absence of permission from the UN Security Council, NATO support for an invasion of Iraq of any kind may very well have been illegal. There is a real possibility, you see, that such an action would be incompatible with Article 1 of the Treaty.
its likely to face a choice of mending fences with the US or finance its own defense.
We do finance our own defense; we just don't maintain the totally unnecessary overcapacity that the US does. We all have standing armies and usually quite modern equiptment as well, you know; for the life of me I don't understand why Americans persist in believing we don't. Just because we couldn't defeat the United States or Russia, doesn't mean that we are suddenly easy pickings for everybody else.
And if we did have to go it alone, what would be so bad about that? We can do that. God only knows, we've proven ourselves good enough at killing other human beings indiscriminately over the past centuries. We might even be better at it than the US; consider, for instance, that almost without exception there has been no weapon of great destructive capability in the world that was not invented at least by Europeans and usually in Europe. The Chinese came up with gunpowder and cannon, plus a primitive rocket, but the steel cannon, mortar, rifle, repeating rifle, flame thrower, the tank, the fighter jet, the bomb, the ballistic missile, the atom bomb, the gas bomb, the biological weapon -- all of them essentially European in origin. Even the United States with its massive arsenal has never been very inventive; the new EM-pulse bomb is moderately original, but everything else has just been heavier and heavier variations of stuff we came up with (even the Daisy Cutter is, really, just a very heavy bomb). That may even be part of why Europeans so loathe to go to war -- fear of what godawful horror we might come up with next.
The nature of wolves never change. They always like hunting undefended sheep.
Perhaps. But I fear for their sakes that the wolves would find Europe slim pickings.
Jacques Chirac didn't threaten the Vilnius 10 group?
No -- Chirac got frustrated and shot his mouth off. Everybody told him he was being an ass and that was the end of it. Now, it's old news.
He didn't scare the pants off all the new entrants and some of the more reluctant incumbant EU members?
Not unless they are completely backwards when it comes to European diplomacy. Sure, most of the Union was unhappy about that letter calling for support for Bush -- the Union is supposed to seek consensus, not have everybody fly off in a million directions. But all the members also know that no member can ride roughshod over another, or even over the candidates; the other nations won't stand for it. So all the PM's quietly asked Chirac whether he was going to pry his foot from his mouth before he pulled his head out of his ass or after and that was the end of it. Stupidities happen in the Union from time to time, much like they happen in the United States (you'll recall that recent mess surrounding Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott) -- we acknowledge them, deal with them and move on. We don't flog the horse anymore once it is dead, however.
Wake up, man, that post was serious.
I'm sure it was -- but you're also making more of it than the incident is worth.
I don't care about the atmospheric makeup of Pluto, collecting samples from Mars, etc. That's exactly the problem with NASA. The rest of us are paying billions of dollars satisfying the idle curiosity of a few hundred beaurocratic nerds who hijacked to space agency for their own dull whims.
And for anybody else wondering why space is the area of science and not commercialism, the above is the answer. This is the kind of attitude that would have human beings still scowering in caves, huddling together for warmth, because there's no easy money in making fire. It is the product of the kind of mind that sits, sacked out on the couch, in his baseball-cap and underpants, with a remote in one hand, a corndog in the other and potato chips in easy foot-reach, watching football on television and then complains when somebody asks him to contribute money to the very education that brought him all these things.
The simple minds who are in charge of "exploring" space nowadays (and for a long time since) would be just as happy categorizing pseudopod shaping on amoeba or counting sand on the beach if only there were a couple good sci-fi novels, and maybe a nerd soap opera about it.
No, they wouldn't. And only a truly spectacular idiot could believe that they would.
Give space back to the rest of us. Or give us our money back. Or show some progress (or failure) for your "research".
I'm sure they would be happy to, if anybody on the whole world thought you capable of understanding what it is they would be able to tell you.
except of course the American consumer market would be gone, what percentage of your trillion dollar economy is dependent on exports to the US?
Not as much as you'd think. For the entire EU, something on the order of seven percent, last I heard. Some countries like the Netherlands would be harder hit (we're an exporting nation), but the Union as a whole should be able to weather it quite well. Would hurt a bit for a while, but it would stabilize soon enough.
The G-8 leadership is pissing its collective pants at the thought of a weak dollar.
It's inconvenient, I'll grant you that much. Not disastrous, though -- it doesn't affect the internal market that much. Although, the time is growing nearer that the ECB will have to start supporting the dollar.
If we pull all of our troops out of Europe, who will keep the Germans out of France?
Get over yourself, troll. And grow up as well. Europe has left that sort of thing behind -- no matter how much you would like this not to be so. Keep Germans out of France? The whole point of the very modern Europe is that the Germans can be in France as much as they want and vice versa (let Rummy stick that one where the sun don't shine).
You owe us Europe.. you owe us big.
Europe doesn't owe you a single goddamned thing. We appreciate the role America played in WWII, but that doesn't make us your serfs for the rest of eternity. Not to mention that we spent the first four-and-a-half decades after WWII doing every damned thing you wanted; I'd say that if we ever owed you anything, you've been payed in full since then -- and then some.
I wonder how long that 2% subsidy is going to last if they continue to pretend full independence like a spoiled brat teenager who wants to stay at home with his parents but without any of their rules?
Who cares? With or without the United States, the European Union has no military enemies capable of taking on the combined EU nations. The United States concentrates ont he fact that the US is so far ahead of Europe in military terms, but everybody very casually forgets that Europe is still equally far ahead of everybody but Russia and the US.
first of all, you're in England. You aren't a part of the EU.
Yes, he is.
Secondly, hospitals are more and better in America, as is the treatment, the staff, the equipment, and the techniques
Some are, some are not. And the other way around. The idea that America has better medical care across the board is nonsense, as is the idea that all European hospitals are by definition better (and some of those techniques were invented in Europe, by the way).
To top it all off, not only those who can afford to pay, but those who can't, all get treated here.
Oh, I think we all know that isn't true (we haven't allowed HMO's and other insurers to dictate public health policy over here, you see). It is true over here, however. And we don't overload people with debt afterward either.
Anyways...I thought the EU was all about international cooperation and getting along.
It is. That is, the EU is all about international cooperation and getting along BETWEEN EU MEMBERS. There's no reason we cannot lart everybody else.;-)
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I just ran through some of the demoes -- I like! Much faster on loading.
Undoubtedly they would -- as I understand it, it was the sudden increase in temperature (kinetic energy after all) that caused the shuttle to break apart.
but isn't it possible, at the point of entry into the atmosphere, when temperatures start to rise, that the shuttle release some liquid nitrogen or some other super-coolant in some manner as to keep homeostasis of the vehicle?Possible? Yes, sure. Theoretically, at least. The problem of course is that liquid nitrogen is not a solid -- it doesn't stay with the shuttle as the shuttle moves and the nitrogen evaporates. Which means that it would either only work for a very short time, or you would need a seriously large amount of the stuff -- which means extra weight and space on a verhicle where both those things are at a premium. Of course you wouldn't have to release the nitrogen: it will cool whatever it comes into contact with, whether it is on the outside or the inside. But you'd still have to store it aboard, under pressure, during the flight. This at the price of space and an extra drain on power to maintain the pressure.
All in all, it's possible. But I don't think it's a great improvement on the heat shield (the darker layer on the bottom of the shuttle) which is a solid as it is, stays with the shuttle and separates the shuttle from the heat as long as it doesn't crack.
Personally, I don't think there's any need to pity Sun or anybody else. The best way to run client-side Java loaded from a remote server through a browser in my opinion involves the Java PlugIn. All the benefits of an Applet (or more, if the user will allow it) and you're not stuck back in the stone age of Java 1.1.* implementations.
The sooner applets drop dead in favor of the PlugIn the better, I say.
Absolutely. After all, the ancient Egyptians had an algorithm for multiplying large numbers based on addition and the fact that every number can be written as a power of two (although they never literally wrapped their minds around that last part).
What they did was this:
Say you want to multiply 17 and 31.
1 * 31 = 31
2 * 31 = 31 + 31 = 62
4 * 31 = 62 + 62 = 124
8 * 31 = 124 + 124 = 248
16 * 31 = 248 + 248 = 496
17 = 16 + 1, so 17 * 31 = 496 + 31 = 527
For that matter, the Babylonians counted in base 60 and used floating point numbers.
The justification (and by consequence also the contents) of the first amendment to recital 7, which is not correct but rather based on wishful thinking. And of course also the justification for the amendment to recital 10; EPC 52(2) may mention non-inventions, but that still doesn't mean that every invention is patentable. Not to mention that the word "idea" is completely wrong, since an idea is never patentable. Only inventions based on ideas, but not ideas as such.
But it isn't just the EPC either; the justification for the amendement to recital 8 is also dubious at best, given that patents exist to allow the publication of inventions without risking your ability to make money from it.
Ah yeah, the good old "as such" that's being thrown around.
Again, that you don't like it doesn't mean it's not there.
Please explain to me exactly when you think software IS software "as such" and when it is not.
Software as such is software that is not being considered within the domain of a specific problem. Whereas software that is being considered within such a domain is part of a solution to the problem. Consider the following analogy: a metallic filament of a certain composition and bent to a certain specification is not a patentable invention. But a special spring for a certain, specific purpose is.
My definition would be that software used as wallpaper, used as poety, used as a word game, would not be "software as such". Absolutely ANY use of software in a "computer implemented invention" IS using software as software. It is software as such.
Ehrm, yes. But keep in mind that that is your definition, not the definition of the legislators (neither the current or the ones back in 1972). And I fear that theirs is the one that counts.
But have you looked at which amendments JURI have voted up and which they have voted down? They have systematicly rejected every one that might place any effective limit on the software patents.
No, I have just read the final report by the rapporteur. And I don't agree with your assertion -- the new recitals 13a-c and Article 4a are nothing if not limiting.
They rejected an amendment saying pure human intellectual activity is not industrial application / industrial character. It's reminicent of my "thinking" argument. They refused to exclude thought from being patentable.
As I would have. First of all, it would have been repetitious in the context of the EPC, which is where the proposed Directive must exist. Second, within that context, such a statement either says that nothing is patentable at all (since all invention is based on human thought), or it says nothing at all (since the pure thought part of an invention is never covered as such by the patent).
Then why would JURI consider and reject 2 amendments to prohibit double coverage and approve an amendment requesting future evaluation of difficulties caused by double coverage.
The first because there's no point (it's repetitious in the context of the EPC, TRIPS, the Berne Convention and the Paris Convention) and the second because mistakes are made where human beings enter the picture (and there's no point in legislating against double coverage for this reason either -- mistakes are by their nature not things that extra legislation will stop).
Juri approved of [...] computer programs"
I'll grant you (and the FFII) that the definition is overly broad at first glance. But then, it is supposed to be taken with the whole of the Directive, not just as a separate piece. Note, by the way, that your emphasis does not correspond to the actual amendment by JURI.
Voted UP 18 to 8. They EXPLICITLY make WHOLLY SOFTWARE patentents valid. This is NOT about actual inventions that happen to have some software inside them. This is about patents on PURE PROGRAMMING.
JURI also approved an amendment introducing a new Article 4a, which forbids patents on software that "do[es] not produce a
Well, they were certainly consulted, I cannot deny that. However, that in and of itself is a bit of a "so what"-issue; the Commission is supposed to come up with a proposal, but it is up to Parliament and Council to agree, modify or reject.
I hope that's enough for you to believe that there's intentionally missleading information coming out about this directive.
Not really; I prefer to read the text itself in such cases, rather than to judge simply by "BSA = bad". After all, Frits Bolkestein had something to do with it as well; he has a reputation for not being a pushover. If he approved what became the proposal, it is unlikely to be a complete diktat.
If that's not good enough, the only way to cut through the contradictory claims is to actually look at the text of the directive itself. It's tough reading unless you get an analysis with it. It's a huge reading project,
Well, lucky for me then that I am capable of reading such things without too much difficulty. I spent a nice little evening reviewing the proposal (COM(2002)92), the JURI amendments to it, the EPC and the TRIPS treaties for good measure and your link fo the FFII site as well.
but you can see for yourself right here. It goes into great detail explaining how the directive actually mandates almost the broadest possible patentability of even trivial "inventions" purely contained in software. It's long, but very informative. The directive is far worse than even I thought.
Hmmphh. Don't be too impressed with their objections or their counterproposal. A good number of things the FFII says in that document are simply not true, or based on a misinterpretation of the EPC (they may not like it, but Art 52(3) EPC does still exist and it is as valid as 52(2)). They do have a number of points, but I have to say the JURI amendments rectify most of them -- the FFII document maligns Arlene McCarthy, methinks).
The entire physical part is the computer sitting in front of you right now. According to the directive your PC is a required part of the invention. The actual "invention" is purely in the software.
Ehrrrr, no. That's not what the draft directive is shooting for, at least -- although the wording is bad enough to make it seem that way. Again, the JURI amendments lock that down to within reasonable boundaries.
Exactly! This directive DEMANDS that they be evaluated as a unified whole:
Which I think is perfectly reasonable....
You now have a patentable claim in the software and you have patentable subject matter in the ordinary hardware. The two portions CANNOT be rejected seperately. How's that for evil and underhanded? The patent must therefore be granted.
There's nothing evil or underhanded about that. The two parts cannot be rejected separately because the two parts separately aren't anything -- they are an invention together and the concept of "the two apart" is meaningless in that context. It's like trying to separate the motor from the chassis in a conversation about a motor vehicle: you can pull the two apart, but then it doesn't make any sense anymore.
I was saying you can't patent the software of how to add or take square roots on it, and that you can't rely on that software to fulfill any of the tests of whether the abacus is patentable.
And the proposed Directive does not intend to change that. Mathematical methods or generic algorithms are not covered by the proposal -- especially with the JURI amendments.
Any patentability of software means it's double-covered with both copyright AND patent.
And there's your first hint that the draft Directive doesn't do what you think it does.
It's ok to patent it because it doesn't fall under one of the limitations, but the reason it doesn't fall under one of the limitations is because they are changing the limitations!
No, they aren't. Explicitly not, in fact. The
The current US system and the proposed EU patent systems amount to patenting math or a patenting sequence of thoughts. Every program can in fact be translated into mathematical statement. And any program can be "run" purely mentally by thinking through each step.
I agree when it comes to software as such. However, I disagree with you where it pertains to software that is a unified whole with a piece of hardware in a patented object -- I think it is not unreasonable to allow a patent on the whole including the software that is a necessary part of that whole.
Also, I think that you're making more of the "patenting thoughts" argument than is reasonable. Under that kind of a rule, you would not be able to patent an abacus or Napier's Bones (just ignoring the fact here that they aren't new anymore), because you can do anything that you can do with those objects in your mind without them. For that matter, you might as well forbid patenting an engine because the same effect can be attained through physical labor.
All of that aside, I don't think you're right in saying that that is what the new EU proposal amounts to. The current proposal does, AFAICS, not allow patenting software as such, but only computer-based devices (which would be devices where the software is an integrated and inseparable whole with the device).
Patents are supposed to protect physical objects. They aren't supposed to protect pure information / pure idea.
No. Patents are supposed to protect inventions. Nothing anywhere states that an invention must be a physical object per se. It's just that if there is no physical part to your invention, that it will probably fall under the limitations on what is patentable under most national laws (mathematical methods, for instance). However, there is no reason why a non-physical part of an invention should not be covered by patent if it is really part of that invention.
Here's an interesting analogy that you might want to consider in this light: electricity. Electricity is not a physical object in the classical sense of property (even though, physically, electricity is usually a large collection of small physical objects). Nevertheless, you are not allowed (I assume at least) to steal electricity.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves here (or go crazy with doom scenario's). Even with such a law in place, there has to be a complaint before anything can happen to you on the basis of that law -- and who exactly is going to complain about Bob cracking his own password?
Besides, believe it or not, most European courts are not unreasonable institutions -- you'll note Europe hasn't gone in for ridiculously massive damage payments yet. I don't believe there is a court on the continent that would actually come to a conviction in Bob's case, again, because it is his own account.
They are playing all sorts of word games, but the fact is that the software itself comes under patent protection.
In the United States perhaps, but not here -- unless it is by mistake and then you can ask a judge to expunge the patent. but the device MUST meet its patentability requirements based on the novelty and usefulness of the device itself. My better mousetrap my require software to control the parts, but I have to show how the physical parts are new and better given generic "black box" control.
Ah. Well, that's the difference then: under the European Patent Treaty, there is no such requirement on the separate device. Instead, the novelty must be in the total of the device including the software, but the software must be an integral and inseparable part of the whole. Basically, you can have a patent on hardware-and-integrated-software under the condition that the whole minus the software is not a machine but rather useless junk and as a counterpart to that that the software isn't so general that it can function on a device other than that piece of hardware (so, for instance, a phone plus a nice Java-based game is NOT patentable, but the phone plus software that turns that phone into a remote for your garage door opener might be). The portion within software must not be a basis for granting the patent, and that portion must be exempt from patent protection.
Over here, the software alone may not be the basis for the patent, only the software in combination with the hardware. In that scheme, the software portion cannot be exempt from patent protection -- it is an inseparable part of the patented whole, in the sense that if you rip out the software the whole is no more.
There's no reason for you not to have that opinion or express it. If this proposal becomes a treaty however, and you express that opinion online in countries that have signed and ratified said treaty, then you have to give XYZ Corp the opportunity to explain why you are mistaken. This does not detract from your opinion in the slightest, nor does it in any way prevent you from expressing that opinion.
I shouldn't have to pay the bandwidth costs for someone else's opinion any more than they should have to pay them for mine. It violates my right to free speech if I have to spread their ideas and their right if they have to spread mine.
Not only does it not violate your right to free speech (the right of reply exists because you have the right of free speech), but the whole thing is pointless if the person replying does not have access to the same audience that you do. Which that person should have, if he is offering a correction to your audience of (possibly) incorrect data that you have previously presented.
The basic idea here is that you cannot malign a person online and expect to have a one-sided debate on the issue.
Unless, of course, they are algorithms. Sure, they're discovered, but so is everything else.
Errr, no. No, patent law makes a clear distinction between the "discovered" (i.e. it was always there but we didn't know about it before -- like the stars that we can only see now that we have the vastly improved telescope power of the combination scopes that have been built over the last three years) and the "invented" (didn't exist before it was built in any way -- like the motor car or the steam engine). The latter is patentable, the former is not.
Of course, that leaves the problem of functions in mathematics (which aren't discovered, but defined/invented). However, patent law takes a shortcut there and tosses the whole bit out.
Currently the European Patent Convention article 52 subsecion (2) (c) frobids patents on software. This is a good rule. These peopel want to CHANGE the rule and institute a US STYLE PATENT SYSTEM.
Not quite. The current practice in Europe is such that computer programs per se are not patentable, but they are patentable together with a device to which they are linked in a fashion that does not allow the link to be broken. So, for instance, the internal software of an i-Mode telephone itself is not patentable but the telephone and software TOGETHER AS A PACKAGE are (since the telephone is, in a real sense, not the same kind of device if you put different software on it). It's a backdoor that takes the form of effect-patenting (patenting the effect of combining hardware and software). This proposal hopes to replace the backdoor with something more manageable, not to introduce a US-style "patent whatever isn't nailed down" practice.
So where are the boundaries exactly? Unknown. We'll have to wait a bit until the court has created some jurisprudence on what is what. As always, with patents.
I don't think algorithms are invented any more than mathematical truths are invented, rather they are discovered. IMO, there is a difference and a patent shouldn't be granted on that. Although, I will admit there is room to disagree with that position.
From what I can tell just at a glance, it isn't exactly the idea in this proposal to allow patenting of anything as wide as a general algorithm or program. It seems to me that the basic notion is to allow patenting of the-program-in-its-environment-of-application; e.g. the software filter as it is used to filter static from a telephone conversation rather than the software filter per se. Pretty much what the EPO and national laws allow now, but more clearly defined (and not even unreasonable, if you think about it). The idea is not to allow the patenting of the mathematical method in general.
If you will, the distinction is that the patent has to allow room to a competitor to arrive at the same result in a different way -- you cannot lock out arriving at the result entirely (unless you happen to have separate patents on all the ways towards a result, but that's a different story).
Now, the question is how do we get the U.S. government to adopt this standard?
You don't; not with a Republican in the White House, at least.
Will it be like the Metric system, where we are
too entrenched to switch to a better system?
Probably.
Of course I am -- they were right. NATO is first and foremost a defense alliance; it was never a united attack force. Going on the offensive (not as a response to attack, but as in starting a war) is something completely different than helping to defend an ally against attack and NATO membership includes no obligation in that area -- for good reason. Just because we are all NATO allies, that doesn't mean we have to help the US start a war (especially on the weak and ever-crumbling basis that the US provided in the case of Iraq). Nor is NATO alliance a backdoor for procuring support for a war from people who don't want to give it -- and you're not supposed to ask for Article 4 or 5 support if you don't really need it either.
All the remaining NATO powers disagreed.They disagreed insofar that withholding support from an ally is always dangerous to an alliance that is based around mutual defense. That is not the same as saying that they disagreed with the underlying position.
The situation with Turkey is a sign that the alliance might be getting a bit frayed."A bit frayed?" Where have you been for the past ten years? NATO is dying the death of uselessness, of being a military alliance whose enemy has croaked. That's not enough to support an alliance in which one partner acts like king and dictator the way the US does. NATO is pretty much a thing of the past; only time remains.
The rupture between Constantinople and Rome took centuries.No it didn't. The separation was administrative and done in a day. After that, Rome fell.
Europe seems particularly ill suited to project power these days.Not as ill-suited as the US likes to think. The US is very impressed with its Seals and Rangers and other special forces and their ability to insert them stealthily. Here's news for you: we can all do that. Europe's forces (particularly France and Britain) can take out terrorists. Europe is not equipped to invade entire nations and occupy them. But then, we don't want to do that -- we already know what the US is learning right now, you see: nothing good ever comes of that. Either you lose in which case you look stupid, or you win and then you have to occupy and administer a country where you are not wanted -- which is a hell of a lot worse.
I don't see anybody else stepping up and providing adult supervision.It is the idea that the US has the right to bully everybody and push everybody around (providing "adult supervision", in your words) that makes the US so many enemies. And alienates so many of its friends.
Why? It was the first such incident within the duration of my memory, possibly the first in Union history. It wasn't a serious summons, but something born from frustration and being a little overworked. And everybody else made it very clear afterwards that that is not the way the Union treats people (or countries). Methinks you are trying to make more out of it than it is.
The idea that the EU is all love, peace, and equality so soon after that just rubbed me the wrong way.Of course it isn't -- the Union never is. The Union is hardcore, intensive politics. The Union is lots of very, very long meetings to find compromises between opposing points of view of member states. The Union is laws and courts and lawyers, trade and economic policy, disagreement and working it out. Remarkably like a real country, in fact. The Union is not "peace, love, dope" and sitting around to smell the flowers, nor was it ever.
The Union is not all roses and pretty colors. But it's not a battlefield either. No sense in pretending it is, either way.
In fact, it does. The EU has subsumed the old WEU and as such it comprises a mutual defense pact of its members. And of course there is ongoing effort wrt the RRF, whose status is somewhere between "being founded" and "usable". However, the old WEU component of the EU is the relevant thing here.
Without the US pretty much means without NATO.Quite frankly, I'm tempted to say "So what?". With NATO doesn't mean very much anymore either, thanks to Georgie-boy and his cowboy diplomacy.
After the shabby treatment NATO member Turkey received when it invoked it's NATO obligations, is everybody 100% sure that all the other EU nations would respond?Let's not get things mixed up here. In the case of Turkey, we weren't talking about a real territorial threat as under Article 4 of the NATO Treaty (it was, however, an unlikely threat brought about by the actions of another NATO member state) and honoring Turkey's request at that time could indeed have been interpreted as giving tacit consent to military action against Iraq. What you are talking about now is something completely different: you're talking about a direct assault on the territory of the Union by outside forces. No provocation, no question of illicit support of any other military intervention, but direct attack of a Union member by outside forces. Oh yeah, everybody would show up, no question.
That aside, you'll note that Turkey still got its Patriots, both from us and from Germany.
And that aside, an interesting thought occurs to me -- in the absence of permission from the UN Security Council, NATO support for an invasion of Iraq of any kind may very well have been illegal. There is a real possibility, you see, that such an action would be incompatible with Article 1 of the Treaty.
its likely to face a choice of mending fences with the US or finance its own defense.We do finance our own defense; we just don't maintain the totally unnecessary overcapacity that the US does. We all have standing armies and usually quite modern equiptment as well, you know; for the life of me I don't understand why Americans persist in believing we don't. Just because we couldn't defeat the United States or Russia, doesn't mean that we are suddenly easy pickings for everybody else.
And if we did have to go it alone, what would be so bad about that? We can do that. God only knows, we've proven ourselves good enough at killing other human beings indiscriminately over the past centuries. We might even be better at it than the US; consider, for instance, that almost without exception there has been no weapon of great destructive capability in the world that was not invented at least by Europeans and usually in Europe. The Chinese came up with gunpowder and cannon, plus a primitive rocket, but the steel cannon, mortar, rifle, repeating rifle, flame thrower, the tank, the fighter jet, the bomb, the ballistic missile, the atom bomb, the gas bomb, the biological weapon -- all of them essentially European in origin. Even the United States with its massive arsenal has never been very inventive; the new EM-pulse bomb is moderately original, but everything else has just been heavier and heavier variations of stuff we came up with (even the Daisy Cutter is, really, just a very heavy bomb). That may even be part of why Europeans so loathe to go to war -- fear of what godawful horror we might come up with next.
The nature of wolves never change. They always like hunting undefended sheep.Perhaps. But I fear for their sakes that the wolves would find Europe slim pickings.
No -- Chirac got frustrated and shot his mouth off. Everybody told him he was being an ass and that was the end of it. Now, it's old news.
He didn't scare the pants off all the new entrants and some of the more reluctant incumbant EU members?Not unless they are completely backwards when it comes to European diplomacy. Sure, most of the Union was unhappy about that letter calling for support for Bush -- the Union is supposed to seek consensus, not have everybody fly off in a million directions. But all the members also know that no member can ride roughshod over another, or even over the candidates; the other nations won't stand for it. So all the PM's quietly asked Chirac whether he was going to pry his foot from his mouth before he pulled his head out of his ass or after and that was the end of it. Stupidities happen in the Union from time to time, much like they happen in the United States (you'll recall that recent mess surrounding Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott) -- we acknowledge them, deal with them and move on. We don't flog the horse anymore once it is dead, however.
Wake up, man, that post was serious.I'm sure it was -- but you're also making more of it than the incident is worth.
And for anybody else wondering why space is the area of science and not commercialism, the above is the answer. This is the kind of attitude that would have human beings still scowering in caves, huddling together for warmth, because there's no easy money in making fire. It is the product of the kind of mind that sits, sacked out on the couch, in his baseball-cap and underpants, with a remote in one hand, a corndog in the other and potato chips in easy foot-reach, watching football on television and then complains when somebody asks him to contribute money to the very education that brought him all these things.
The simple minds who are in charge of "exploring" space nowadays (and for a long time since) would be just as happy categorizing pseudopod shaping on amoeba or counting sand on the beach if only there were a couple good sci-fi novels, and maybe a nerd soap opera about it.No, they wouldn't. And only a truly spectacular idiot could believe that they would.
Give space back to the rest of us. Or give us our money back. Or show some progress (or failure) for your "research".I'm sure they would be happy to, if anybody on the whole world thought you capable of understanding what it is they would be able to tell you.
Not as much as you'd think. For the entire EU, something on the order of seven percent, last I heard. Some countries like the Netherlands would be harder hit (we're an exporting nation), but the Union as a whole should be able to weather it quite well. Would hurt a bit for a while, but it would stabilize soon enough.
The G-8 leadership is pissing its collective pants at the thought of a weak dollar.It's inconvenient, I'll grant you that much. Not disastrous, though -- it doesn't affect the internal market that much. Although, the time is growing nearer that the ECB will have to start supporting the dollar.
Get over yourself, troll. And grow up as well. Europe has left that sort of thing behind -- no matter how much you would like this not to be so. Keep Germans out of France? The whole point of the very modern Europe is that the Germans can be in France as much as they want and vice versa (let Rummy stick that one where the sun don't shine).
You owe us Europe.. you owe us big.Europe doesn't owe you a single goddamned thing. We appreciate the role America played in WWII, but that doesn't make us your serfs for the rest of eternity. Not to mention that we spent the first four-and-a-half decades after WWII doing every damned thing you wanted; I'd say that if we ever owed you anything, you've been payed in full since then -- and then some.
Who cares? With or without the United States, the European Union has no military enemies capable of taking on the combined EU nations. The United States concentrates ont he fact that the US is so far ahead of Europe in military terms, but everybody very casually forgets that Europe is still equally far ahead of everybody but Russia and the US.
Yes, he is.
Secondly, hospitals are more and better in America, as is the treatment, the staff, the equipment, and the techniquesSome are, some are not. And the other way around. The idea that America has better medical care across the board is nonsense, as is the idea that all European hospitals are by definition better (and some of those techniques were invented in Europe, by the way).
To top it all off, not only those who can afford to pay, but those who can't, all get treated here.Oh, I think we all know that isn't true (we haven't allowed HMO's and other insurers to dictate public health policy over here, you see). It is true over here, however. And we don't overload people with debt afterward either.
Yet another troll breaks through the surface to seek a place in the sun.....
It is. That is, the EU is all about international cooperation and getting along BETWEEN EU MEMBERS. There's no reason we cannot lart everybody else. ;-)
That aside, the ESA is not an EU-based thing.