"This is craziness," said Glenn Singer, a lung specialist at the Broward General Medical Center. "It's crazy to give people nicotine-laced cocktails so they don't have withdrawal."
Like the medically-approved patch, gum or inhaler? Oh, that's right, the patch ads assure us they're giving us "medicine". Much better when you call the nicotine that.
As of now, the parent is modded +4, Troll. The wonders of creationism debate.
Much comes down to exactly how "big" these transitions in fact are, in terms of complexity. Michael Behe, professor of biochem, says they're really, really complex, beyond what is statistically reasonable to assume via random mutation (check out the book, an analysis of the chemical processes involved in sight makes it appear to be as complex as, say, Mozilla).
He's a professor of biochemistry. Asking one to arbitrarily toss out his analysis is as closeminded as the "creationists" are accused of being.
And... how exactly do you know what meaning "creationism" has for any given person? One can be of the view that the entire universe runs via scientific law, but that "God" caused the initial "Big Bang" event. Your argument strikes me much like those of other academics I've seen, so stridently insisting on the absolutism of their viewpoint, they're willing to just engage in straw man arguments in a strained effort to impress.
(And please don't tell me this applies "originally" to the World Wide Web... if that matters I'm applying for a patent to do the exact same thing "for IP block 90.x.x.x".)
For most companies, a research department wouldn't be writing the equivalent of this. Research implies the most cutting-edge stuff a company has. It also implies some degree of originality.
This just seems like a relatively trivial application-level chunk of code. But then I suppose any technologies existing anywhere which Microsoft wishes to integrate into the operating system are best-marketed as coming from "research". Observing as R&D... enviable position.
You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems.
And, of course, you don't. You can just unplug it from the network.
More to the point, though, is what's required in terms of code quality for the context it's running in. Windows' evolution has been one of a desktop operating system becoming a network-centric operating system, whereas *nix's history has been the reverse. This, naturally, is the area where Microsoft has the most catching up to do.
Like... SCO's original "Download our GPL'ed product, and you're free to use it as you see fit" followed by "Pay us $699 per install or face legal action?", for example...?
My concern there would be that then there'd be no way to enforce the GPL's derivative works provisions, and we'd see a bunch of companies throwing a wrapper around GPL code and selling it, and the general public would say "Wow, look how great Linciscsys' products are! Nice that these responsible companies are finally putting those hacker anarchists in their place..."
*cough* Current Cisco ad *cough*
Besides, after all the work put into it, the original authors deserve at least recognition.
Yes, I'd agree with both your points, in principle. The process might require some tweaking (e.g. there may be an automatic incentive for those randomly-selected peers to underplay the difficulty of the proposed patent since the applicant would presumably be a competitor; this might be taken care of by making it "blind" as to whether the application was from one's own company, or having the reviewers be government employees or academics and presumably unbiased)... but I think this could be made to work much better than what exists now.
Yes, I understand your view that the process I'm suggesting would be somewhat subjective or arbitrary. I suggest, though, that the current fixed duration is wholly arbitrary. It could indeed often be difficult to estimate how long it might take for that "eureka" insight, but the software patents we've seen lately have required no insight at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was often the case in other fields as well. A peer review would at least clear out the more egregious examples, and the "generosity factor" could provide a reasonable overestimation to compensate for the fact things often look easy in hindsight.
Glad to hear Tim Berners-Lee is weighing in on this. Certainly, his views should have some impact. I would be seriously annoyed if I were in his position; it's absurd to allow companies just to wait for thousands of inventors and developers to go through the quasi-Darwinian process of technological innovation (often without compensation), see which techniques evolve as best-practices, and then hijack them.
Supposedly, the underlying justification for patents is to encourage investment in research by protecting inventions from direct competition for a limited time. In that context, there should be a requirement for a strong correlation between the time required to create an "invention", and the time frame of the protection. If something takes 5 years of R&D to create, 7 years of patent protection seems reasonable. If it takes 5 minutes, that time frame certainly is not.
Why not, as part of the patent process, have a peer review of the application, with a best-guess among the reviewers as to how long it would take to create the invention or (more approximately) generate the underlying insight, given a person working in that field? Multiply that time by a generosity factor of X, and limit the patent's applicability to that duration, assuming it passes all other prior art tests. It would seem that this would much more closely represent the intent of patent law, as well as eliminating irrational impediments to technological progress.
Sure... "warez" is a term frequently used to refer to pirated software. Since this circuit-on-paper could theoretically create (in this or a future form) a means to pirate hardware, we might consider it a first step toward "hardwarez", with all the IP issues surrounding that now in the software domain.
Thanks... I was actually originally planning a more long-winded statement about possible implications of this, but realized this one pseudo-word captured it concisely.
AFAIK, recent research would indicate that to use these for "subliminal" suggestion, a better approach than to quickly flash a message in one lens, would be to quickly flash a different (useful) one in each lens.
An auditory form technique is commonly used with audible suggestions, especially in hypnosis. The notion is that if something is said with equivalent volume and tonality in each ear, you will focus on one or the other, but still "register" the other, without evaluating it--your conscious/critical faculty being tied up processing the other audio channel.
Unfortunately, hard proof of the effectiveness of either seems to be lacking.
<obligatory>Libertarianism: Individual rights trumps free-market, where they conflict. A hitman putting his services up for bid on eBay would still be unacceptable, because he's violating someone else's rights.</obligatory>
Back in the day, I worked for a software company working on a project called "iVision" with Eli Lilly. This was in the pre-widespread-web days, and so the idea was to make the status of medical devices viewable via a LAN, presenting to the medical staff at the "nursing station" a consolidated graphical view of all the devices on a given hospital floor.
One thing that I would expect developers to still have to contend with when using embedded web servers, is the very extensive approval process for medical devices. At some point of integration, functionality added to a medical device via software becomes considered part of the medical device, and as such subject to a very long regulatory approval process. This required us to make fairly counter-intuitive limitations to our prototype system, including the notion that though we could show information about the device (alarms, infusion time remaining, etc.), we could not change what the device was doing via our software (e.g. turn off an alarm on an infusion pump in another room once it was acknowledged).
It's been several years, so I'm not sure how the regulations may have changed, but I'd suggest if you're using embedded HTTP on medical devices don't assume you can just upgrade/tweak/patch on the fly like it was a public web server--you probably can't.
Slashdotting a pdf on Allen Consulting's meager web server. Good move. Oh... good move!
(For those soon to be unable to reach it, it's basically the template rent-a-stance enumeration of weak arguments against extension, followed by a refutation, followed by an enumeration of arguments for, and supporting arguments for each. Selective focus with input from Allen associate Mr. Straw Man.)
One thing to consider, though, is that new people are coming to Slashdot every day. I showed up as a regular reader a few months back, though I've been working in the software field since '85. They may be similar arguments for the same issue, but they're not necessarity the same arguments, and not everyone is aware of them. Realtime counter-FUD to answer the latest FUD, generated by lots of knowledgable people, is quite useful, especially to newcomers.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting link.
"This is craziness," said Glenn Singer, a lung specialist at the Broward General Medical Center. "It's crazy to give people nicotine-laced cocktails so they don't have withdrawal."
Like the medically-approved patch, gum or inhaler? Oh, that's right, the patch ads assure us they're giving us "medicine". Much better when you call the nicotine that.
As of now, the parent is modded +4, Troll. The wonders of creationism debate.
Much comes down to exactly how "big" these transitions in fact are, in terms of complexity. Michael Behe, professor of biochem, says they're really, really complex, beyond what is statistically reasonable to assume via random mutation (check out the book, an analysis of the chemical processes involved in sight makes it appear to be as complex as, say, Mozilla).
He's a professor of biochemistry. Asking one to arbitrarily toss out his analysis is as closeminded as the "creationists" are accused of being.
And... how exactly do you know what meaning "creationism" has for any given person? One can be of the view that the entire universe runs via scientific law, but that "God" caused the initial "Big Bang" event. Your argument strikes me much like those of other academics I've seen, so stridently insisting on the absolutism of their viewpoint, they're willing to just engage in straw man arguments in a strained effort to impress.
Mainframes.
(And please don't tell me this applies "originally" to the World Wide Web... if that matters I'm applying for a patent to do the exact same thing "for IP block 90.x.x.x".)
For most companies, a research department wouldn't be writing the equivalent of this. Research implies the most cutting-edge stuff a company has. It also implies some degree of originality.
Blogs are Microsoft Research?
This just seems like a relatively trivial application-level chunk of code. But then I suppose any technologies existing anywhere which Microsoft wishes to integrate into the operating system are best-marketed as coming from "research". Observing as R&D... enviable position.
You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems.
And, of course, you don't. You can just unplug it from the network.
More to the point, though, is what's required in terms of code quality for the context it's running in. Windows' evolution has been one of a desktop operating system becoming a network-centric operating system, whereas *nix's history has been the reverse. This, naturally, is the area where Microsoft has the most catching up to do.
That's one hell of a business strategy.
Seems to work as a political strategy, though. Minnesota has already in effect done this, with tobacco litigation.
No link, try that thing they call a "TV"... :)
TechTV channel for one, I think. Heavy rotation.
Like... SCO's original "Download our GPL'ed product, and you're free to use it as you see fit" followed by "Pay us $699 per install or face legal action?", for example...?
My concern there would be that then there'd be no way to enforce the GPL's derivative works provisions, and we'd see a bunch of companies throwing a wrapper around GPL code and selling it, and the general public would say "Wow, look how great Linciscsys' products are! Nice that these responsible companies are finally putting those hacker anarchists in their place..."
*cough* Current Cisco ad *cough*
Besides, after all the work put into it, the original authors deserve at least recognition.
By now, hasn't SCO contradicted themselves so many times on so many issues they're estoppeled from any course of action whatsoever?
Maybe just a non-lawyer's wishful thinking...
Yes, I'd agree with both your points, in principle. The process might require some tweaking (e.g. there may be an automatic incentive for those randomly-selected peers to underplay the difficulty of the proposed patent since the applicant would presumably be a competitor; this might be taken care of by making it "blind" as to whether the application was from one's own company, or having the reviewers be government employees or academics and presumably unbiased)... but I think this could be made to work much better than what exists now.
Yes, I understand your view that the process I'm suggesting would be somewhat subjective or arbitrary. I suggest, though, that the current fixed duration is wholly arbitrary. It could indeed often be difficult to estimate how long it might take for that "eureka" insight, but the software patents we've seen lately have required no insight at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was often the case in other fields as well. A peer review would at least clear out the more egregious examples, and the "generosity factor" could provide a reasonable overestimation to compensate for the fact things often look easy in hindsight.
Glad to hear Tim Berners-Lee is weighing in on this. Certainly, his views should have some impact. I would be seriously annoyed if I were in his position; it's absurd to allow companies just to wait for thousands of inventors and developers to go through the quasi-Darwinian process of technological innovation (often without compensation), see which techniques evolve as best-practices, and then hijack them.
Supposedly, the underlying justification for patents is to encourage investment in research by protecting inventions from direct competition for a limited time. In that context, there should be a requirement for a strong correlation between the time required to create an "invention", and the time frame of the protection. If something takes 5 years of R&D to create, 7 years of patent protection seems reasonable. If it takes 5 minutes, that time frame certainly is not.
Why not, as part of the patent process, have a peer review of the application, with a best-guess among the reviewers as to how long it would take to create the invention or (more approximately) generate the underlying insight, given a person working in that field? Multiply that time by a generosity factor of X, and limit the patent's applicability to that duration, assuming it passes all other prior art tests. It would seem that this would much more closely represent the intent of patent law, as well as eliminating irrational impediments to technological progress.
Here in Minnesota, it's not even that. The two words here are, "At Will".
Yes! Google, I have you now...
Sure... "warez" is a term frequently used to refer to pirated software. Since this circuit-on-paper could theoretically create (in this or a future form) a means to pirate hardware, we might consider it a first step toward "hardwarez", with all the IP issues surrounding that now in the software domain.
Thanks... I was actually originally planning a more long-winded statement about possible implications of this, but realized this one pseudo-word captured it concisely.
AFAIK, recent research would indicate that to use these for "subliminal" suggestion, a better approach than to quickly flash a message in one lens, would be to quickly flash a different (useful) one in each lens.
An auditory form technique is commonly used with audible suggestions, especially in hypnosis. The notion is that if something is said with equivalent volume and tonality in each ear, you will focus on one or the other, but still "register" the other, without evaluating it--your conscious/critical faculty being tied up processing the other audio channel.
Unfortunately, hard proof of the effectiveness of either seems to be lacking.
You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?
<obligatory>Libertarianism: Individual rights trumps free-market, where they conflict. A hitman putting his services up for bid on eBay would still be unacceptable, because he's violating someone else's rights.</obligatory>
Hardwarez?
Back in the day, I worked for a software company working on a project called "iVision" with Eli Lilly. This was in the pre-widespread-web days, and so the idea was to make the status of medical devices viewable via a LAN, presenting to the medical staff at the "nursing station" a consolidated graphical view of all the devices on a given hospital floor.
One thing that I would expect developers to still have to contend with when using embedded web servers, is the very extensive approval process for medical devices. At some point of integration, functionality added to a medical device via software becomes considered part of the medical device, and as such subject to a very long regulatory approval process. This required us to make fairly counter-intuitive limitations to our prototype system, including the notion that though we could show information about the device (alarms, infusion time remaining, etc.), we could not change what the device was doing via our software (e.g. turn off an alarm on an infusion pump in another room once it was acknowledged).
It's been several years, so I'm not sure how the regulations may have changed, but I'd suggest if you're using embedded HTTP on medical devices don't assume you can just upgrade/tweak/patch on the fly like it was a public web server--you probably can't.
Slashdotting a pdf on Allen Consulting's meager web server. Good move. Oh... good move!
(For those soon to be unable to reach it, it's basically the template rent-a-stance enumeration of weak arguments against extension, followed by a refutation, followed by an enumeration of arguments for, and supporting arguments for each. Selective focus with input from Allen associate Mr. Straw Man.)
So, someone caught X10 with their pants down, so to speak?
One thing to consider, though, is that new people are coming to Slashdot every day. I showed up as a regular reader a few months back, though I've been working in the software field since '85. They may be similar arguments for the same issue, but they're not necessarity the same arguments, and not everyone is aware of them. Realtime counter-FUD to answer the latest FUD, generated by lots of knowledgable people, is quite useful, especially to newcomers.