1)Sell a product (DVD player) 2)Sell another product coupled to the utilization of the first product that requires "an upgrade of product 1." 3)Prepare to settle class action lawsuits most of the United States, and probably several countries.
If I were a stock market speculator, I would be looking hard at shorting Sony severely. They've not been doing so great the past few years, and they're looking to go from bad to worse.
Photochemistry uses what is called quantum efficiency (QE). The number of reactions (electron transfer) of interest divided by the total number of photons absorbed X 100.
The truly amazing feature of nature's photochemical reactions is their QE - exceedingly high (typically around 100%) compared to anything humans typically accomplish photochemically (typically single digits, if that).
It really is difficult to achieve a perspective on the mechanism that conveys how incredible photosynthesis is. Plant photochemistry occurs in chloroplasts -- organelles or "organs" in individual cells. A cell typically has a few chloroplasts. A key component within a chloroplast is a molecule from the family called porphyrins that is holding a single atom of magnesium in a "pocket". The 100% efficiency is from the fact that the energy from every photon that is absorbed by the chromophores (pigments, i.e. chlorophyll, carotenoids, etc.) goes into the photosynthesis pathway that creates the plant portion of our world. The key here is that it is really a relatively few molecules that create essentially all of the biomass in the world.
In comparison, lets say humans could devise a chemical system to absorb photons and direct the energy into a relatively simple reaction pathway, say for example, cleaving a bond between a hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom. And say we could make our system around 10-15% efficient. If we could achieve these meager results, we would worry about energy no more, since converting water into hydrogen and oxygen at even 10% efficiency using sunlight could be converted into enough electrical energy to supply the world's demand.
Incidentally (well, probably not incidentally, but I don't know the progression), take the molecule in chlorophyll as a basic skeleteon, make a few periphery changes, then replace the magnesium atom with an iron atom, and you have hemoglobin.
Since chemical bonding, energy levels, etc. are all quantum mechanical.
The news is that the system appears to exhibit coherence.
Electrons do not just go bouncing around willy-nilly - that's what QM is about. Electrons have discrete quantized energy levels and states. When electrons are bumped from one energy level to another, say by a photon, there are rules that describe the behaviors the electron exhibit - for example, spin. Various different states can be achieved through decay processes. At any given instant, there are an infinite number of discrete possibilities for the electrons "next step", but they are not necessarily the same possible paths from the last step or the next step.
The intriguing results suggest that the quantum mechanical wavefunction (iow description of how the electrons and nuclei behave - again , all probabilities)of the molecule that will effectively accept the electron transfer that causes the desired effect guides the electron through the infinite pathways of varying probablities. Essentially, the receiver of the electron is signaling, "Hey, I'm over here and this is the best way to get here." Once the receiver has the energy from the electron, it goes into the chemical reaction pathways that ultimately create carbohydrates.
There is no need to interfere with metabolic pathways to burn more calories. Increased heart rate, stimulation of smooth muscles, or even neural stimulation alone will increase the basal metabolic rate.
Not true: "A properly recorded CD can accurately reproduce the entire audible frequency range, from 20Hz to 20KHz with a completely flat response and with distortion that is far below detectability."
Digital signals are all averages. For example, the signals from 0.0001 to 0.0002 KHz will be averaged (using a variety of algorithms for signal processing, such as weighted averages, boxcars, etc.). One signal will emerge, and is assigned, lets say, a frequency of 0.00015 KHz. Sound waves from musical instruments are produced over a continuum of frequencies, i.e. there are an infinite number of frequencies between any two frequencies you pick. The digitized signals are discrete. The fineness of the divisions reflects the maximum attainable resolution for the digitized signal. Thus, digitizing sound results in the loss of an infinite amount of the original signal. Think integers versus set of real numbers.
The digititzation process has been optimized so that the losses are not detectable to the concious mind, for most people. This does not mean that they are undetectable by human ears, though. The sub-concious mind may discern differences, or it may not. The lack of clicks, pops, etc. may outweigh the loss. At some level, it obviously must become a subjective call.
One more word about signal processing - about signal to noise. Signals are 'cleaned up' when they are digitized to improve the signal to noise ratio. With music, I'm not sure I want all of the noise cleaned up, though. Sure, I don't want to hear the sound from the stylus dragging across vinyl or the tape sliding over the head. But I do want to hear harmonic dissonance and distortion, and maybe even amplifier hum when I'm listening to Hendrix.
I've lived through the conversion of sceintific instruments from analog to digital and would not go back. However, it is a mistake to think that a digital signal is just like the original, when in fact, there is a complete loss of fidelity.
The abstract of a patent is meaningless in a legal sense. It's all about the claims, and the supporting examples in the specifications.
There is only one independent claim - a method of selecting tracks that COMPRISES navigating through sequential screens, each screen a category. For example, first screen - ROCK. Next screen - Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Wall of Voodoo. Next Screen - Albums from the selected artist. Next screen - Songs on the album.
The comprises part is important. It means that if anyone does all of those things, it doesn't matter what additional steps they add, they will still be infringing.
However, if, for example, you get sequential levels of the heirarchie in any other way that on a separate screen, then you will not be infringning. For example, if a folder opens up showing subfolders on the same screen, you might not be infringing. It depends on what is meant by a "screen."
Of particular interest is the final step of the all important claim - accessing a track (to be listened to). Clearly, Apple does not select the tracks - the user does. Thus, the true infringers are the users of the devices!
Nonetheless, Apple may still be held liable for "inducing to infringe," an equal liability.
The patent appears to be easily circumventable by combining screens, instead of replacing each level with an entirely new screen.
That's my ten cents $100 worth (inflation, you know).
(Clearly I've spent too much time buried in itellectual property issues in my day job.)
I understand exactly what they are doing - it's not a matter of "preconceptions" or inability to conceptualize.
I spent a few years working in a research lab attempting to split water using sunlight - an energy source that leaves most of the obligatory yet undesired thermodynamic "baggage" in the sun or scattered in the cosmos.
The ideal process could hardly be more obvious - use electromagnetic radiation from the sun to break the bonds in water and reform bonds in such a way that the result is a mole of hydrogen and a half mole of oxygen for every mole of water. Collect the hydrogen if you need to, otherwise just route the hydrogen to an electrochemical cell (in the device that needs the energy) where it generates an electrical potential as it is recombined with oxygen to make water. Practically all of the entropy debt is paid by the sun. It still takes more energy to split the water than you get from the hydrogen, but who cares if that energy comes from thermonuclear reactions 93 million miles away?
As I said earlier, we are already capably of splitting water with sunlight, it's just not efficient enough - yet. Just because it's obvious does not make it easy.
The world is full of situations where the desired outcome is readily apparent (at least to those knowledgeable of whatever it is). The difficult part is implementation.
"Those people" may become rich, but it won't because they have developed a valuable energy resource. As has been said before, "a fool and his money are soon parted."
Hydrogen becomes economical when you have a catalyst (essentially a special type of semiconductor)that absorbs a photon (e.g. sunlight)such that it promotes an electron into an energy band where it can undergo transfer reactions that ultimately reduce water - to hydrogen and oxygen. Many have been working on it for a long time. The DOE funds research at universities for this (or at least they used to). The quantum efficiency has always been poor and the catalyst lifetimes are usually not good, either, so that it just has not worked, yet.
It's probably is just a matter of time, though. The closer we get to creating artificial photosynthesis the way plants do it, the closer we'll be to solving this one. Chlorophyll very good for electron transfer reactions.
1) The most common source of hydrogen is hydrocarbon reforming, done at oil refineries. It's the only economically viable method for bulk quantities. Thus, hydrogen energy is currently dependent on fossil fuels.
2) You cannot electrolyze pure water -it's a poor conductor. You need some salt, or other electrolyte. Even then, the amount of electrical energy that goes in is less than the energy value of the hydrogen that comes out. And guess where most of the electricity comes from . ..
3) Sodium metal causes a fire when dropped into water because of the hydrogen it releases. The activation energy for the reaction between oxygen and hydrogen is very low, and the heat released from the sodium metal - being converted into sodium hydroxide (aka lye, or Drano)- is more than sufficient to cause the reaction (fire).
4) Sodium metal is made by electrolyzing molten sodium chloride (table salt). A very expensive, energy consuming reaction, not to mention nasty (it releases chlorine gas, also).
5) The amount of energy released when an electron is stripped from a sodium atom is the same, whether it's in water or in silica.The energy is either converted to heat or to some other form of energy. Ever hear of conservation of energy (or mass/energy for nuclear reactions)? Unless they've developed something that can do what the transporters and replicators on Star Trek do, the enrgy is still going somehwere. Entropy demands it, otherwise we'd have perpetual motion machines, and ebergy would not be an issue.
6) Mediating the reactivity of alkalai metals is nothing new - that's what amalgams do.
This story does not deserve the attention it has already received.
So the dentists and staff just start bringing "their own" CDs to listen for "their own" enjoyment while they work - just as millions of people in other professions do.
They'll just have to tell the patients to not listen.
MM
Baystar has said it wants SCO's officers changed -to shut them up.
As far as hurting them publicly - just how can they be hurt? They have no cutomers. The damage can only be to their legal case, if they talk long enough that they screw themselves.
You are thinking in terms of classical physics. On the quatum level, the properties that are to be measured do not actually exist until an attempt is made to measure them. All that exists is a wave function representing the combined probablities of the various properties momentum, spin, location, etc.
Furthermore, in accord with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you cannot determine all of the properties, of, for example, an electron. Knowing (measuring) one property makes the others unknowable (NOT unmeasurable). For example, if you measure the postion of an electron, then you cannot also know the energy that electron has at that instant, and vice versa. Thus, what property you choose to measure determines what you can know.
Back to crpto - the system uses spin as the property measured, because pairs of particles with opposite spins can be created and sent to different places. No one can know the spin of each particle until the measurement is made. At that point, the other particle must have the opposing spin (you now know this because of conservation of spin).
If someone intercepts the particle, they must first know which property to measure. Once it is measured, though, they are exposed and the information is, essentially destroyed.
The universe is nothing more that probability. See Douglas Adams for further elaboration.
All we need is for some U.S. congress member to get up and read the memos into the record. There is pretty much no legal way to stop them, and once it's in the record, they cannot be removed.
I want to use one of those automated answering machines for routing calls, and proclaim it to be a digital protection scheme against telemarketers. Options provided are: 1 - for all callers who are not telemarketers, solicitors, etc and the call is then allowed to ring my phone, and 2- for all telemarketers, solicitors, etc. who are disconnected without allowing a ring to be sent to my phone.
If a telemarketer selects 1, they are then in violation of the DMCA for circumventing my protection scheme, and I can start subpoenaing their records without a judge's siganture, right!
Damn, I think I just screwed up my chances on this patent.
From Title 17 of the United States Code, section 106
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
I'd say the GPL is the authorization I need to make copies.
MM
Slashdot Mirror
1)Sell a product (DVD player)
2)Sell another product coupled to the utilization of the first product that requires "an upgrade of product 1."
3)Prepare to settle class action lawsuits most of the United States, and probably several countries.
If I were a stock market speculator, I would be looking hard at shorting Sony severely. They've not been doing so great the past few years, and they're looking to go from bad to worse.
Molecular Mechanic
And the world's biomass comes from where, just exactly?
Photochemistry uses what is called quantum efficiency (QE). The number of reactions (electron transfer) of interest divided by the total number of photons absorbed X 100.
The truly amazing feature of nature's photochemical reactions is their QE - exceedingly high (typically around 100%) compared to anything humans typically accomplish photochemically (typically single digits, if that).
It really is difficult to achieve a perspective on the mechanism that conveys how incredible photosynthesis is. Plant photochemistry occurs in chloroplasts -- organelles or "organs" in individual cells. A cell typically has a few chloroplasts. A key component within a chloroplast is a molecule from the family called porphyrins that is holding a single atom of magnesium in a "pocket". The 100% efficiency is from the fact that the energy from every photon that is absorbed by the chromophores (pigments, i.e. chlorophyll, carotenoids, etc.) goes into the photosynthesis pathway that creates the plant portion of our world. The key here is that it is really a relatively few molecules that create essentially all of the biomass in the world.
In comparison, lets say humans could devise a chemical system to absorb photons and direct the energy into a relatively simple reaction pathway, say for example, cleaving a bond between a hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom. And say we could make our system around 10-15% efficient. If we could achieve these meager results, we would worry about energy no more, since converting water into hydrogen and oxygen at even 10% efficiency using sunlight could be converted into enough electrical energy to supply the world's demand.
Incidentally (well, probably not incidentally, but I don't know the progression), take the molecule in chlorophyll as a basic skeleteon, make a few periphery changes, then replace the magnesium atom with an iron atom, and you have hemoglobin.
Man I love science.
Molecular Mechanic
Since chemical bonding, energy levels, etc. are all quantum mechanical.
The news is that the system appears to exhibit coherence.
Electrons do not just go bouncing around willy-nilly - that's what QM is about. Electrons have discrete quantized energy levels and states. When electrons are bumped from one energy level to another, say by a photon, there are rules that describe the behaviors the electron exhibit - for example, spin. Various different states can be achieved through decay processes. At any given instant, there are an infinite number of discrete possibilities for the electrons "next step", but they are not necessarily the same possible paths from the last step or the next step.
The intriguing results suggest that the quantum mechanical wavefunction (iow description of how the electrons and nuclei behave - again , all probabilities)of the molecule that will effectively accept the electron transfer that causes the desired effect guides the electron through the infinite pathways of varying probablities. Essentially, the receiver of the electron is signaling, "Hey, I'm over here and this is the best way to get here." Once the receiver has the energy from the electron, it goes into the chemical reaction pathways that ultimately create carbohydrates.
Insert Douglas Adams reference here.
MM
Why do they always say this?
I doubt it would be arbitrary code.
I'll bet it would be some specific code the bad guys want to run.
FWIW.
Molecular Mechanic
Idiocy.
There is no need to interfere with metabolic pathways to burn more calories. Increased heart rate, stimulation of smooth muscles, or even neural stimulation alone will increase the basal metabolic rate.
Not true: "A properly recorded CD can accurately reproduce the entire audible frequency range, from 20Hz to 20KHz with a completely flat response and with distortion that is far below detectability."
Digital signals are all averages. For example, the signals from 0.0001 to 0.0002 KHz will be averaged (using a variety of algorithms for signal processing, such as weighted averages, boxcars, etc.). One signal will emerge, and is assigned, lets say, a frequency of 0.00015 KHz. Sound waves from musical instruments are produced over a continuum of frequencies, i.e. there are an infinite number of frequencies between any two frequencies you pick. The digitized signals are discrete. The fineness of the divisions reflects the maximum attainable resolution for the digitized signal. Thus, digitizing sound results in the loss of an infinite amount of the original signal. Think integers versus set of real numbers.
The digititzation process has been optimized so that the losses are not detectable to the concious mind, for most people. This does not mean that they are undetectable by human ears, though. The sub-concious mind may discern differences, or it may not. The lack of clicks, pops, etc. may outweigh the loss. At some level, it obviously must become a subjective call.
One more word about signal processing - about signal to noise. Signals are 'cleaned up' when they are digitized to improve the signal to noise ratio. With music, I'm not sure I want all of the noise cleaned up, though. Sure, I don't want to hear the sound from the stylus dragging across vinyl or the tape sliding over the head. But I do want to hear harmonic dissonance and distortion, and maybe even amplifier hum when I'm listening to Hendrix.
I've lived through the conversion of sceintific instruments from analog to digital and would not go back. However, it is a mistake to think that a digital signal is just like the original, when in fact, there is a complete loss of fidelity.
MM
The abstract of a patent is meaningless in a legal sense. It's all about the claims, and the supporting examples in the specifications.
There is only one independent claim - a method of selecting tracks that COMPRISES navigating through sequential screens, each screen a category. For example, first screen - ROCK. Next screen - Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Wall of Voodoo. Next Screen - Albums from the selected artist. Next screen - Songs on the album.
The comprises part is important. It means that if anyone does all of those things, it doesn't matter what additional steps they add, they will still be infringing.
However, if, for example, you get sequential levels of the heirarchie in any other way that on a separate screen, then you will not be infringning. For example, if a folder opens up showing subfolders on the same screen, you might not be infringing. It depends on what is meant by a "screen."
Of particular interest is the final step of the all important claim - accessing a track (to be listened to). Clearly, Apple does not select the tracks - the user does. Thus, the true infringers are the users of the devices!
Nonetheless, Apple may still be held liable for "inducing to infringe," an equal liability.
The patent appears to be easily circumventable by combining screens, instead of replacing each level with an entirely new screen.
That's my ten cents $100 worth (inflation, you know).
(Clearly I've spent too much time buried in itellectual property issues in my day job.)
The word "prohecy" really bugs me, too.
I understand exactly what they are doing - it's not a matter of "preconceptions" or inability to conceptualize.
I spent a few years working in a research lab attempting to split water using sunlight - an energy source that leaves most of the obligatory yet undesired thermodynamic "baggage" in the sun or scattered in the cosmos.
The ideal process could hardly be more obvious - use electromagnetic radiation from the sun to break the bonds in water and reform bonds in such a way that the result is a mole of hydrogen and a half mole of oxygen for every mole of water. Collect the hydrogen if you need to, otherwise just route the hydrogen to an electrochemical cell (in the device that needs the energy) where it generates an electrical potential as it is recombined with oxygen to make water. Practically all of the entropy debt is paid by the sun. It still takes more energy to split the water than you get from the hydrogen, but who cares if that energy comes from thermonuclear reactions 93 million miles away?
As I said earlier, we are already capably of splitting water with sunlight, it's just not efficient enough - yet. Just because it's obvious does not make it easy.
The world is full of situations where the desired outcome is readily apparent (at least to those knowledgeable of whatever it is). The difficult part is implementation.
"Those people" may become rich, but it won't because they have developed a valuable energy resource. As has been said before, "a fool and his money are soon parted."
Molecular Mechanic
I think you meant pRoton, not pHoton.
LMAO
Hydrogen becomes economical when you have a catalyst (essentially a special type of semiconductor)that absorbs a photon (e.g. sunlight)such that it promotes an electron into an energy band where it can undergo transfer reactions that ultimately reduce water - to hydrogen and oxygen. Many have been working on it for a long time. The DOE funds research at universities for this (or at least they used to). The quantum efficiency has always been poor and the catalyst lifetimes are usually not good, either, so that it just has not worked, yet.
It's probably is just a matter of time, though. The closer we get to creating artificial photosynthesis the way plants do it, the closer we'll be to solving this one. Chlorophyll very good for electron transfer reactions.
MM
1) The most common source of hydrogen is hydrocarbon reforming, done at oil refineries. It's the only economically viable method for bulk quantities. Thus, hydrogen energy is currently dependent on fossil fuels.
.
2) You cannot electrolyze pure water -it's a poor conductor. You need some salt, or other electrolyte. Even then, the amount of electrical energy that goes in is less than the energy value of the hydrogen that comes out. And guess where most of the electricity comes from . .
3) Sodium metal causes a fire when dropped into water because of the hydrogen it releases. The activation energy for the reaction between oxygen and hydrogen is very low, and the heat released from the sodium metal - being converted into sodium hydroxide (aka lye, or Drano)- is more than sufficient to cause the reaction (fire).
4) Sodium metal is made by electrolyzing molten sodium chloride (table salt). A very expensive, energy consuming reaction, not to mention nasty (it releases chlorine gas, also).
5) The amount of energy released when an electron is stripped from a sodium atom is the same, whether it's in water or in silica.The energy is either converted to heat or to some other form of energy. Ever hear of conservation of energy (or mass/energy for nuclear reactions)? Unless they've developed something that can do what the transporters and replicators on Star Trek do, the enrgy is still going somehwere. Entropy demands it, otherwise we'd have perpetual motion machines, and ebergy would not be an issue.
6) Mediating the reactivity of alkalai metals is nothing new - that's what amalgams do.
This story does not deserve the attention it has already received.
MM
So the dentists and staff just start bringing "their own" CDs to listen for "their own" enjoyment while they work - just as millions of people in other professions do.
They'll just have to tell the patients to not listen.
MM
Baystar has said it wants SCO's officers changed -to shut them up.
As far as hurting them publicly - just how can they be hurt? They have no cutomers. The damage can only be to their legal case, if they talk long enough that they screw themselves.
MM
You are thinking in terms of classical physics. On the quatum level, the properties that are to be measured do not actually exist until an attempt is made to measure them. All that exists is a wave function representing the combined probablities of the various properties momentum, spin, location, etc.
Furthermore, in accord with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you cannot determine all of the properties, of, for example, an electron. Knowing (measuring) one property makes the others unknowable (NOT unmeasurable). For example, if you measure the postion of an electron, then you cannot also know the energy that electron has at that instant, and vice versa. Thus, what property you choose to measure determines what you can know.
Back to crpto - the system uses spin as the property measured, because pairs of particles with opposite spins can be created and sent to different places. No one can know the spin of each particle until the measurement is made. At that point, the other particle must have the opposing spin (you now know this because of conservation of spin).
If someone intercepts the particle, they must first know which property to measure. Once it is measured, though, they are exposed and the information is, essentially destroyed.
The universe is nothing more that probability. See Douglas Adams for further elaboration.
Molecular Mechanic
All we need is for some U.S. congress member to get up and read the memos into the record. There is pretty much no legal way to stop them, and once it's in the record, they cannot be removed.
MM
I want to use one of those automated answering machines for routing calls, and proclaim it to be a digital protection scheme against telemarketers.
Options provided are:
1 - for all callers who are not telemarketers, solicitors, etc and the call is then allowed to ring my phone, and
2- for all telemarketers, solicitors, etc. who are disconnected without allowing a ring to be sent to my phone.
If a telemarketer selects 1, they are then in violation of the DMCA for circumventing my protection scheme, and I can start subpoenaing their records without a judge's siganture, right! Damn, I think I just screwed up my chances on this patent.
MM
http://www.fixthatcalc.com/ MM
From Title 17 of the United States Code, section 106 Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; I'd say the GPL is the authorization I need to make copies. MM