Okay, I have an idea: an O(log n) sorting algorithm. How brilliant I am! I should patent it and make a bunch of money immediately! Oh, okay, there's the matter of implementation, but that's for the little people to worry about.
You see where I'm going with this? Ideas are easy. Implementation is 99 44/100 % of the work -- always has been, and probably always will be. And yet now, we're at the point where not only are companies patenting specific implementations, which I would have a problem with in and of itself (copyright vs. patent) but ideas before an implementation even exists. It's not like they've done the work and want to protect the fruits of their labor; they're saying, in effect, "If anyone ever does this work, we own their ass."
Are you saying, for example, that a company could go out and patent a polynomial solution to an NP-complete problem without actually having an algorithm that implements the solution? Could you provide some specific examples of companies patenting an idea before a solution exists? I'm not saying that they don't exist, I'm genuinely curious to know if this is happening.
Also I'm curious as to why you think a specific implementation shouldn't be patentable. If I did write an algorithm to solve an NP-complete problem in polynomial time then is that algorithm copyrighted by me? If so, is your argument that there's no needs for patents because copyright provides sufficient protection? If that's true then what were the actual arguments for software patents in the first place?
The Sydney Morning Herald does not require registration to read articles. When you got to the page that says "Soon you will need to register to read this article" did you notice the paragraph underneath that says "We will be asking all readers to register for full access to The Sydney Morning Herald website in the near future (emphasis mine)." So, while your complaint may be merited soon, at the moment you can simply click the link down the bottom of the page that says "Register later and continue to your Article". It takes you straight to the article!
Also I think you'd have a hard time finding an alternative site carrying the same story because Ross Gittins, the author, is an opinion writer for Fairfax, and this article is not news but an opinion piece. I doubt this article would show up anywhere but in Fairfax owned newspapers (i.e. Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, etc.) all of which have the "soon you will need to be registered to read this article."
I can't get the stream to work so I just tried playing the first file in the archive and it worked.
I can get the theora files to play under the latest version of VideoLAN client.
There are instructions for setting up Real Player to view Theora files. Although some people are saying that the latest version of Real Player is not so bad I still don't want to install it. I must have a grudge:-) and Real Alternative using Media Player Classic (MPC) works fine.
Is there anyway to get Theora files to play with MPC? I thought that if I installed the Directshow Filters it may work but no such luck. This would be really handy because I use MPC for just about everything else.
Second, juice may not get him. but cocaine will. I saw a study that showed a monkey will give up everything, including food and sex, for cocaine.
True, I've read about a similar experiment with a monkey. The experiment with the monkey is a crude measurement of how addictive a substance is. Basically the monkey has to press a button a certain number of times to get a hit of some substance. Each time the monkey gets a hit it must make more presses than the previous time. By the end of the experiment the monkey was pressing the button more than 13,000 times for a single hit of cocaine. This is far above any other drug.
I just realised that you "sugar talk" probably meant the same thing as "sugar coating" it, i.e. making it sound sweet. Is that a metaphor? Probably.
Anyway if that is what you meant then disregard my comment above. In the Australian media we do get a lot of talk about literal sugar when the FTA is mentioned. Or we did. That's what confused me.
Anyway, mainstream media is nothing but sugar talk for the FTA...
Uncanny! This is exactly the same with our media. Whenever there is talk about the FTA the sugar cane farmers are plastered all over the media. Seriously, what the fuck is up with the mainstream media and sugar?
For research purposes in Software Engineering we have 2 of the top 15 universities in one city (Melbourne).
What two universities are they and could you please tell me where you saw this list of top 15? I'm just curious because I'm currently studying SE at Curtin, in lil' old Perth:-). We have a very talented lecturer here who recently announced that this would be his last year because he's moving to Melbourne. I wonder if it's because he's been hired at one of the two universities that you mentioned. I hope so because they must be excellent institutions for SE and he is quite the clever fellow:).
A: Tarkin is essentially a proof-of-concept wavelet-based codec. Its experimental nature means it will not be ready for general use for some time. VP3 is a high-quality codec that can meet today's video needs now, so Xiph.org will be focusing its efforts on Theora for the near future.
This is modded as funny but it's not really a joke - it has been done before. As far back as 1599 it was noted that warrior tribes of the Magdalena Valley could fight for 3 days with no sleep or food after chewing coca leaves (the plant that cocaine is made from). In the early 1800's a British soldier who was fighting with the Peruvian army at the time was astonished by the amount of ground they could cover in a day while chewing coca. In 1883 a doctor named Theodore Aschenbrandt performed a group of experiments on his troops in the Bavarian army, giving them cocaine (superior to the coca leaf) and noting the results. In one case a troop collapsed from exhaustion during a march and Aschenbrandt gave him a spoon full of water with some cocaine. Within a few minutes the troop stood up and travelled several kilometres to the end of the march carrying a pack, all with a smile on his face.
During world war one British, French, Australian and Canadian troops all used cocaine during (and not during) battle. Although it wasn't really sanctioned by the armies and they attempted to stamp it out, at least the British army did anyway, I'm not sure about the others.
Although not cocaine, methamphetamine in the form of Pervitin was administered by Germany and its allies to their soldiers during world war two. Interestingly it's reported that Hitler was given methamphetamine by his personal physician in the mornings and then sedatives to counter the effects at night, resulting in a hard to wake Hitler in the morning. Apparently Germany's reponse on D-Day was delayed because Hitler couldn't be woken, I don't know how much truth there is in that story though.
The US Air Force issues amphetamines to its pilots as what they call "go pills". To quote the article:
As for the "go pills" -- the speed -- the Air Force says there's no reason for any change in policy, that they are essential for combat pilots now being sent to war over Afghanistan and Iraq.
"These men are patriots, these men were sent to fight a war and they're put in a situation where it's either take these pills or you don't fly," Skobel said.
So it would seem there is a use for these drugs after all, to create more efficient soldiers.
I wonder what information they took
on
Kazaa Offices Raided
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Michael Malone from iinet has posted on the whirlpool forums saying that iinet was one of the four ISPs raided and that no subscriber information was asked for. What were they after then? A rumour I read is that some RIAA infringement notices were returned with a kind 'go to hell' and the raids are in response to this.
I know we give the Americans here on/. a hard time about their draconian laws and the RIAA acting like thugs. I have to say that I'm sad to see this sort of thing going on in my own country.
I can't get to the story at the moment but this was already reported here on the 29th with regards to F-Secure's work. In the linked story it says that the message is "Andy; I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry". This looks to me like the author is addressing the message to Andy, not signing the message as Andy.
Try Psi for a jabber client that runs on both windows and linux. I've been using it on my Debian Woody and Win 2k boxes for a few months now without a hitch. Very mature, convenient and usable. I use to use Miranda-IM on my Win 2k box but since switching to Psi I haven't looked back.
This quote in the article from Leon Brooks, director of CyberKnights, jumped out at me:
"Basically, we're asking SCO to put up or shut up..."
Sounds to me like someone who reads Slashdot/Groklaw/some other community site. Also the following quote:
"As a director of CyberKnights, I personally know and trust several contributors to the Linux kernel, including the original author, Linus Torvalds. As of three days ago, Linus told me that he knows of no substantial code in his Linux kernel source code tree which could possibly be subject to ownership claims by The SCO Group."
These give me an image of someone that is heavily involved in the community and has simply had enough of this crap. Cheers to someone in my home city that is taking some action, I hope that you get the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) sunk right into SCO.
I'd like to say a big thank you to Sam Varghese of the Sydney Morning Herald who wrote this story. He's covered a lot (if not all) of the SCO story and he's given voice to the anti-SCO FUD side, such as Brooks and Groklaw. Sam is Definitely one of the good guys, thanks for all of your help mate.
2. Isn't Australia a kingdom already? After all, why would it else have a queen.
Australia is a Constitutional Monarchy and our queen is the English Queen Elizabeth II. However she is nothing more than a figurehead and exercises no political power at all. In fact most Australians don't recognise her as our queen, I feel dirty just saying "our queen". I'm not really sure how the referendum for us to become a republic didn't pass.
The Sydney Morning Herald is also reporting the same story. What I found most interesting though was this comment by a person attached to the story at the Groklaw site:
"Now, about 2 hours ago they were just copy stories of the others, mentioning that sco was hit by a denial of service attack - no link to
SCO, and no hint that SCO may not be entirely above board. I emailed the reporter at the link, and very soon after the story had the extra info
added."
I think this is significant because The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald are probably the two biggest news sites in Australia. It also just goes to show that if you provide these news sources with extra information it can get through and make a difference.
only allows linux to be used and doesnt allow any pirated games to be played (i.e. it would be pre-flashed with a linux bios image that had no (C) microsoft code in it)
Hibana over at Aussie Chip claim that they have. From their website:
"The AussieChip DualMod modchip cannot in fact be used to play unauthorised copies of XBox games. The legal Cromwell BIOS that we ship pre-programmed onto the chip can only be used to run Linux."
However they have suspended
the sale of their modchips while legal advice is sought.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I have an idea: an O(log n) sorting algorithm. How brilliant I am! I should patent it and make a bunch of money immediately! Oh, okay, there's the matter of implementation, but that's for the little people to worry about.
You see where I'm going with this? Ideas are easy. Implementation is 99 44/100 % of the work -- always has been, and probably always will be. And yet now, we're at the point where not only are companies patenting specific implementations, which I would have a problem with in and of itself (copyright vs. patent) but ideas before an implementation even exists. It's not like they've done the work and want to protect the fruits of their labor; they're saying, in effect, "If anyone ever does this work, we own their ass."
Are you saying, for example, that a company could go out and patent a polynomial solution to an NP-complete problem without actually having an algorithm that implements the solution? Could you provide some specific examples of companies patenting an idea before a solution exists? I'm not saying that they don't exist, I'm genuinely curious to know if this is happening.
Also I'm curious as to why you think a specific implementation shouldn't be patentable. If I did write an algorithm to solve an NP-complete problem in polynomial time then is that algorithm copyrighted by me? If so, is your argument that there's no needs for patents because copyright provides sufficient protection? If that's true then what were the actual arguments for software patents in the first place?
The Sydney Morning Herald does not require registration to read articles. When you got to the page that says "Soon you will need to register to read this article" did you notice the paragraph underneath that says "We will be asking all readers to register for full access to The Sydney Morning Herald website in the near future (emphasis mine)." So, while your complaint may be merited soon, at the moment you can simply click the link down the bottom of the page that says "Register later and continue to your Article". It takes you straight to the article!
Also I think you'd have a hard time finding an alternative site carrying the same story because Ross Gittins, the author, is an opinion writer for Fairfax, and this article is not news but an opinion piece. I doubt this article would show up anywhere but in Fairfax owned newspapers (i.e. Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, etc.) all of which have the "soon you will need to be registered to read this article."
I can get the theora files to play under the latest version of VideoLAN client.
There are instructions for setting up Real Player to view Theora files. Although some people are saying that the latest version of Real Player is not so bad I still don't want to install it. I must have a grudge :-) and Real Alternative using Media Player Classic (MPC) works fine.
Is there anyway to get Theora files to play with MPC? I thought that if I installed the Directshow Filters it may work but no such luck. This would be really handy because I use MPC for just about everything else.
Second, juice may not get him. but cocaine will. I saw a study that showed a monkey will give up everything, including food and sex, for cocaine.
True, I've read about a similar experiment with a monkey. The experiment with the monkey is a crude measurement of how addictive a substance is. Basically the monkey has to press a button a certain number of times to get a hit of some substance. Each time the monkey gets a hit it must make more presses than the previous time. By the end of the experiment the monkey was pressing the button more than 13,000 times for a single hit of cocaine. This is far above any other drug.
I just realised that you "sugar talk" probably meant the same thing as "sugar coating" it, i.e. making it sound sweet. Is that a metaphor? Probably.
Anyway if that is what you meant then disregard my comment above. In the Australian media we do get a lot of talk about literal sugar when the FTA is mentioned. Or we did. That's what confused me.
Just forget that I said anything.
Uncanny! This is exactly the same with our media. Whenever there is talk about the FTA the sugar cane farmers are plastered all over the media. Seriously, what the fuck is up with the mainstream media and sugar?
What two universities are they and could you please tell me where you saw this list of top 15? I'm just curious because I'm currently studying SE at Curtin, in lil' old Perth :-). We have a very talented lecturer here who recently announced that this would be his last year because he's moving to Melbourne. I wonder if it's because he's been hired at one of the two universities that you mentioned. I hope so because they must be excellent institutions for SE and he is quite the clever fellow :).
During world war one British, French, Australian and Canadian troops all used cocaine during (and not during) battle. Although it wasn't really sanctioned by the armies and they attempted to stamp it out, at least the British army did anyway, I'm not sure about the others.
Although not cocaine, methamphetamine in the form of Pervitin was administered by Germany and its allies to their soldiers during world war two. Interestingly it's reported that Hitler was given methamphetamine by his personal physician in the mornings and then sedatives to counter the effects at night, resulting in a hard to wake Hitler in the morning. Apparently Germany's reponse on D-Day was delayed because Hitler couldn't be woken, I don't know how much truth there is in that story though.
The US Air Force issues amphetamines to its pilots as what they call "go pills". To quote the article:
So it would seem there is a use for these drugs after all, to create more efficient soldiers.
Michael Malone from iinet has posted on the whirlpool forums saying that iinet was one of the four ISPs raided and that no subscriber information was asked for. What were they after then? A rumour I read is that some RIAA infringement notices were returned with a kind 'go to hell' and the raids are in response to this.
/. a hard time about their draconian laws and the RIAA acting like thugs. I have to say that I'm sad to see this sort of thing going on in my own country.
I know we give the Americans here on
I can't get to the story at the moment but this was already reported here on the 29th with regards to F-Secure's work. In the linked story it says that the message is "Andy; I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry". This looks to me like the author is addressing the message to Andy, not signing the message as Andy.
Try Psi for a jabber client that runs on both windows and linux. I've been using it on my Debian Woody and Win 2k boxes for a few months now without a hitch. Very mature, convenient and usable. I use to use Miranda-IM on my Win 2k box but since switching to Psi I haven't looked back.
This quote in the article from Leon Brooks, director of CyberKnights, jumped out at me:
"Basically, we're asking SCO to put up or shut up..."
Sounds to me like someone who reads Slashdot/Groklaw/some other community site. Also the following quote:
"As a director of CyberKnights, I personally know and trust several contributors to the Linux kernel, including the original author, Linus Torvalds. As of three days ago, Linus told me that he knows of no substantial code in his Linux kernel source code tree which could possibly be subject to ownership claims by The SCO Group."
These give me an image of someone that is heavily involved in the community and has simply had enough of this crap. Cheers to someone in my home city that is taking some action, I hope that you get the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) sunk right into SCO.
I'd like to say a big thank you to Sam Varghese of the Sydney Morning Herald who wrote this story. He's covered a lot (if not all) of the SCO story and he's given voice to the anti-SCO FUD side, such as Brooks and Groklaw. Sam is Definitely one of the good guys, thanks for all of your help mate.
2. Isn't Australia a kingdom already? After all, why would it else have a queen.
Australia is a Constitutional Monarchy and our queen is the English Queen Elizabeth II. However she is nothing more than a figurehead and exercises no political power at all. In fact most Australians don't recognise her as our queen, I feel dirty just saying "our queen". I'm not really sure how the referendum for us to become a republic didn't pass.
That's an old joke? I can't believe I haven't heard that one before because it's a bloody good one! Gonna pass this one on for sure.
Why don't you ask the OOo dev team? Apologies if you already have but to me they seem like the most informed people to give you an answer.
The Age has an article titled Doubts cast on SCO claims of denial of service attack. It's good to see a mainstream news service not just reporting the FUD but actually digging a little deeper.
Here here!
The older the berry, the sweeter the juice. It's the truth.
Hibana over at Aussie Chip claim that they have. From their website:
However they have suspended the sale of their modchips while legal advice is sought.