You may be reading too much into this. The basic point is valid : scientists are human and have an inherent bias. Revealing the bias is always necessary to come to a reasonable conclusion.
Secondly, scientists always resort to the "i am only using the facts" argument, without a single thought as to how they affect society. A scientist must understand his place in the greater scheme of things. Read up on some Jacob Bronowski for some insight. My poor rendition would fail to do it justice
Bob
This is exactly my point. How is a business process different from a machine?
Formally, a business process is (and can be modeled as) a finite automata. Just because what is modeled is not a physical entity should not cause you to discriminate when it comes to the granting of a patent.
Again, I am not saying that the patent office doesn't have issue. I am saying that there needs to be rational give and take, and that getting rid of *all* patents is simply not the answer.
Yes, "common-sense" business models are patentable. Why? Because "common-sense" is not as common as you would think.
As for the "patents are bad for innovation" argument : if you come up with a way to manufacture widgets that no one else has before, and that innovation has cost you a certain amount in development costs, should you not have the right to protect that investment? If your competition can just steal your methods, then you would have no incentive to innovate.
I am not saying that there isn't a line here, or that the the line hasn't been jumped over by the US. patent office, but by and large patents do in fact encourge business investment into research that would otherwise not happen.
I am listening right now and my understanding is that they are implementing a DigitialyImported (or DigitalImports, whatever it is called) style service whereby the higher quality streams will be fee based and the lower quality are free.
The effective range of this is anywhere from 500-1500 miles. The real problem isn't the range, it is the targeting system. It is fairly difficult to accuratly target a laser through the atmosphere at that range. I happen to know some of the people who worked on the logic for this, and the gist of their research was that this was a really really bad way to do things. There are cheaper alternatives to this technology.
So, yeah....
Interesting idea, but isn't this really the exact same thing as automatic threat/target detection using SAR (synthetic aperture radar) that is already in use? Basically the image is converted to the Z domain and compared with a library of similarly converted images. This makes the comparisons much easier than trying to do stuff like pixel detection in the time domain.
Bob
... This will improve the quality of the applications. Or make applications more complex with constant quality.
ACK!
For your first point : that is a canard. Consistent quality for more complexity will not happen with any of these platforms, and in fact the quality has gotten consistently worse (like on an nlog(n) basis). Hiding complexity is only useful if you really appreciate the complexity that is being hidden.
As for portable binaries...again, a canard. I highly doubt that most binaries will be truly portable, particularly to limited hardware type devices (just like the whole J2ME fiasco).
That isn't to say that platforms like this aren't on the right track, but lets be serious about the real use of this. We are in the birthing stages of this, and we have a lot of kicking, screaming, and diaper changes before we get to a point where it starts being productive.
Actually, It should be more like: I want a portion of windows sales because Windows will be used to priate my software
And while we are at it, why isn't M$ on this bandwagon as well? Blacnk CDs and all *are* used to piarte software as well as music....
Is it because of cost effectiveness that all computers are general purpose?
Seriously, all my parents really need is a (fairly) dumb terminal to do three things : E-Mail, Web, Word processing. Everything else is extraneous. As they have gotten more comfortable, more input devices have been handy (scanner, camera), but only to support one of the three main apps (Email and word processing). They never had a use for a command line. What they have a need for is three large buttons : Email, web, Word Processing.
And maybe a big shiny red "dont push" button just for fun.
Most employers end up using some other criteria to pick new hires anyway. Seriously, how often have you been on an interview and really hit it off with the technical people (if the company even bothers with a rigorous technical interview), demonstrated your broad background and wonderful achievements, only to be told that they are really looking for someone with more domain knowledge?
My point is that for the most part, large employers in particular are using other criteria to determine hiring practices, with actual technical skills rated down on the list next to "good grooming".
Any one who bothers to read this article is already several steps above this point and probably has their own decent methodologies to weed out the bad ones.
...while having an AI walk our bodies to and from our cars and work...
i was kind og hoping to have some AI do my work for me. I would maintain patent rights of course.
I think most people want to stream movies. It is called pay per view and works wonderfully for the cable market. It is a mistake to confuse the methodology and use model with the underlying technology. If consumers want the ability to see a movie, rewind it, etc, but not actually own it, then soemone will provide a way for them to do that. I would love to be able to download a (any) movie for limited time use and avoid Blockbuster entirely. Again, I think that it is the same idea, just a different medium.
You don't see much use for a compilers class?
You better learn VB quick!
Seriously though, a good compilers class should touch on lexing/parsing, which makes use of finite automata (state machines are really a subclass of general FA, particulary the Moore/Mealy distinction), and that whole area should give insight into efficient protocol design.
In a lot of ways this mimics what happend with the medical field. There were a lot of people entering the field and getting supicious credentials (in this from schools in banana republics instead of online universities), which resulted in a glut. Similarly, the glut realy only affects the mode value of the services being offered : the best are still the best, the worst have gotten even worse, and the average are, well...
There can be a pretty big difference between the two, but it is mostly related to the general difference between Science/Engineering. A Computer Engineering program will tend to focus more on process and overall system issues like practical programming, whereas Computer Science will tend to focus on more theoretical dicsreet math issues (finite automata, NP-completeness) and classical applciations of those theories such as compiler design.
In terms of job descriptions, I have seen far too many people label themselves as "Engineers". The term has really lost any practical meaning for most (non-tech) people, as every web-monkey has his resume posted as a "Software Engineer" instead of "I learned VB/ASP in two weeks at Learning Tree". (Insert anything you like for VB/ASP: JSP, Java, Python:))
Depends on what you mean by confirmation.
I have personally tested RMI/RFI on airplane electronics, and have seen noticeable interference from a running cd player in a computer. I have also seen deliberatly introduced less than random noise in a system and seen a rudder go hard over.
The issue is really where the acceptable risk is. If a control surface fails due to interference at 30,000 feet, the pilot will in all likelyhood be able to compensate. If it happens while you are at 500 feet, you may end up with a controlled flight into terrain.
You missed my point. The article does not cite any particular administration official as being the source, nor does it state what the particular objection is. "citing its opposition to the Iraq invasion" is particularly vague, and does not help me understand the why of the matter.
It seems to me that the bbc article is simple using a hot topic to garner interest in an otherwise uninteresting, uninformative article.
The AP story doesn't prominently mention the us objection to France because of their object to the war in Iraq. Conversly, the BBC story makes ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of what the "us objections" actually are. I have not been able to find any credible mention of who and what the actual objections are. Is this just a quote from someone with an axe to grind?
The technical aspects of this are much more interesting than the political ones.
Technology will always devolve to the least common denominator. Polictics will always devolve to the marginalized just bitching.
And make all mail resident on the sender's server, instead of the current store and forward. You would be inundated with the same number of messages, but they would be small references to the location of the actual data, which would obvously need to be a 'real' location, thus making it traceable. Any server that received a messaeg that could not be reversed would be refused.
This way, the ISPs can stop bitching about the amount of mail they have to store, and you can start writing filters to filter out the reverse lookups.
all flames are automatically redirected to/dev/null
WTF? The article was based on one security flaw found in the OS? And one that requires a pretty sophisticated attack pattern (geting ontot the smae network, as opposed to say, oh EMAIL or TELNET). Seems to me this is a case of someone trying to draw a line with a single point as a reference.
As i see it, the the traditional telco model is based on the very real expense of owing/operating all those miles of wire, and a societal desire to give everyone access to a telephone (I mean, come on, have you ever been stuck in the middle of Ohio in some podunk town with out a telephone? not for many years!).
Switching to VOIP still doesn't remove the need for telco's to own/operate miles of wire. The consumer will still pay for it at some point, so I think that you are right, your telephone bill may go away, and your telephone service as you know it may go away, but your broadband connection (read : wire coming into your house fee) will start to include those fees so your service provider can then pay the owner of the wire.
It will be very interesting to see if they actually roll out a VOIP solution that works for the masses. Vonage has a pretty successful model, but IMHO it has a pretty limited audience : those who have high bandwith connections and are willing to risk losing calls. I mean, how much would it suck if your router went down and you dropped all incoming calls? And since your computer is now your integrated communications terminal, you lose all voice mail capability as well.
I think the age of converged communications is here, and am happy that large telcos are going to start moving that direction, but maybe we ought to think about another model, other than the large telco ("Hey we own the wires!") pardigm.
Microsoft this month said it will liberalize its intellectual property licensing policy, letting other companies more easily use its patented technologies.
*More* easily? What the heck does that mean?!?! Does this mean that they are going to remove some of their EULAs?
And what are "other companies"? Any compny who pays the fee?
Happy Day! Now I can get some insight into the crap that I write.
true that. However, the only real issue is "does it work or not"? Until it has been truly scrutinized by a (large) group of (independent) analysts, we don't know if it really works. But don't you think it slightly disturbing that the Chinese government is engaging in market manipulation? If this is successful, what is to stop them from doing it again?
Slashdot Mirror
You may be reading too much into this. The basic point is valid : scientists are human and have an inherent bias. Revealing the bias is always necessary to come to a reasonable conclusion.
Secondly, scientists always resort to the "i am only using the facts" argument, without a single thought as to how they affect society. A scientist must understand his place in the greater scheme of things. Read up on some Jacob Bronowski for some insight. My poor rendition would fail to do it justice
Bob
Seriously. A pro-MS article? whats next, mr spock with a goatee? Doc
This is exactly my point. How is a business process different from a machine?
Formally, a business process is (and can be modeled as) a finite automata. Just because what is modeled is not a physical entity should not cause you to discriminate when it comes to the granting of a patent.
Again, I am not saying that the patent office doesn't have issue. I am saying that there needs to be rational give and take, and that getting rid of *all* patents is simply not the answer.
Yes, "common-sense" business models are patentable. Why? Because "common-sense" is not as common as you would think.
As for the "patents are bad for innovation" argument : if you come up with a way to manufacture widgets that no one else has before, and that innovation has cost you a certain amount in development costs, should you not have the right to protect that investment? If your competition can just steal your methods, then you would have no incentive to innovate.
I am not saying that there isn't a line here, or that the the line hasn't been jumped over by the US. patent office, but by and large patents do in fact encourge business investment into research that would otherwise not happen.
I am listening right now and my understanding is that they are implementing a DigitialyImported (or DigitalImports, whatever it is called) style service whereby the higher quality streams will be fee based and the lower quality are free.
Cheers.
D
The effective range of this is anywhere from 500-1500 miles. The real problem isn't the range, it is the targeting system. It is fairly difficult to accuratly target a laser through the atmosphere at that range. I happen to know some of the people who worked on the logic for this, and the gist of their research was that this was a really really bad way to do things. There are cheaper alternatives to this technology.
So, yeah....
Interesting idea, but isn't this really the exact same thing as automatic threat/target detection using SAR (synthetic aperture radar) that is already in use? Basically the image is converted to the Z domain and compared with a library of similarly converted images. This makes the comparisons much easier than trying to do stuff like pixel detection in the time domain. Bob
... This will improve the quality of the applications. Or make applications more complex with constant quality.
ACK! For your first point : that is a canard. Consistent quality for more complexity will not happen with any of these platforms, and in fact the quality has gotten consistently worse (like on an nlog(n) basis). Hiding complexity is only useful if you really appreciate the complexity that is being hidden.
As for portable binaries...again, a canard. I highly doubt that most binaries will be truly portable, particularly to limited hardware type devices (just like the whole J2ME fiasco). That isn't to say that platforms like this aren't on the right track, but lets be serious about the real use of this. We are in the birthing stages of this, and we have a lot of kicking, screaming, and diaper changes before we get to a point where it starts being productive.
Actually, It should be more like :
I want a portion of windows sales because Windows will be used to priate my software
And while we are at it, why isn't M$ on this bandwagon as well? Blacnk CDs and all *are* used to piarte software as well as music....
Is it because of cost effectiveness that all computers are general purpose?
Seriously, all my parents really need is a (fairly) dumb terminal to do three things : E-Mail, Web, Word processing. Everything else is extraneous. As they have gotten more comfortable, more input devices have been handy (scanner, camera), but only to support one of the three main apps (Email and word processing). They never had a use for a command line. What they have a need for is three large buttons : Email, web, Word Processing.
And maybe a big shiny red "dont push" button just for fun.
Most employers end up using some other criteria to pick new hires anyway. Seriously, how often have you been on an interview and really hit it off with the technical people (if the company even bothers with a rigorous technical interview), demonstrated your broad background and wonderful achievements, only to be told that they are really looking for someone with more domain knowledge?
My point is that for the most part, large employers in particular are using other criteria to determine hiring practices, with actual technical skills rated down on the list next to "good grooming".
Any one who bothers to read this article is already several steps above this point and probably has their own decent methodologies to weed out the bad ones.
...while having an AI walk our bodies to and from our cars and work...
i was kind og hoping to have some AI do my work for me. I would maintain patent rights of course.
I think most people want to stream movies. It is called pay per view and works wonderfully for the cable market. It is a mistake to confuse the methodology and use model with the underlying technology. If consumers want the ability to see a movie, rewind it, etc, but not actually own it, then soemone will provide a way for them to do that. I would love to be able to download a (any) movie for limited time use and avoid Blockbuster entirely. Again, I think that it is the same idea, just a different medium.
You don't see much use for a compilers class? You better learn VB quick! Seriously though, a good compilers class should touch on lexing/parsing, which makes use of finite automata (state machines are really a subclass of general FA, particulary the Moore/Mealy distinction), and that whole area should give insight into efficient protocol design.
In a lot of ways this mimics what happend with the medical field. There were a lot of people entering the field and getting supicious credentials (in this from schools in banana republics instead of online universities), which resulted in a glut. Similarly, the glut realy only affects the mode value of the services being offered : the best are still the best, the worst have gotten even worse, and the average are, well...
There can be a pretty big difference between the two, but it is mostly related to the general difference between Science/Engineering. A Computer Engineering program will tend to focus more on process and overall system issues like practical programming, whereas Computer Science will tend to focus on more theoretical dicsreet math issues (finite automata, NP-completeness) and classical applciations of those theories such as compiler design. In terms of job descriptions, I have seen far too many people label themselves as "Engineers". The term has really lost any practical meaning for most (non-tech) people, as every web-monkey has his resume posted as a "Software Engineer" instead of "I learned VB/ASP in two weeks at Learning Tree". (Insert anything you like for VB/ASP: JSP, Java, Python:))
Depends on what you mean by confirmation. I have personally tested RMI/RFI on airplane electronics, and have seen noticeable interference from a running cd player in a computer. I have also seen deliberatly introduced less than random noise in a system and seen a rudder go hard over. The issue is really where the acceptable risk is. If a control surface fails due to interference at 30,000 feet, the pilot will in all likelyhood be able to compensate. If it happens while you are at 500 feet, you may end up with a controlled flight into terrain.
You missed my point. The article does not cite any particular administration official as being the source, nor does it state what the particular objection is. "citing its opposition to the Iraq invasion" is particularly vague, and does not help me understand the why of the matter. It seems to me that the bbc article is simple using a hot topic to garner interest in an otherwise uninteresting, uninformative article.
The AP story doesn't prominently mention the us objection to France because of their object to the war in Iraq. Conversly, the BBC story makes ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of what the "us objections" actually are. I have not been able to find any credible mention of who and what the actual objections are. Is this just a quote from someone with an axe to grind?
The technical aspects of this are much more interesting than the political ones.
Technology will always devolve to the least common denominator. Polictics will always devolve to the marginalized just bitching.
And make all mail resident on the sender's server, instead of the current store and forward. You would be inundated with the same number of messages, but they would be small references to the location of the actual data, which would obvously need to be a 'real' location, thus making it traceable. Any server that received a messaeg that could not be reversed would be refused. This way, the ISPs can stop bitching about the amount of mail they have to store, and you can start writing filters to filter out the reverse lookups. all flames are automatically redirected to /dev/null
WTF? The article was based on one security flaw found in the OS? And one that requires a pretty sophisticated attack pattern (geting ontot the smae network, as opposed to say, oh EMAIL or TELNET). Seems to me this is a case of someone trying to draw a line with a single point as a reference.
As i see it, the the traditional telco model is based on the very real expense of owing/operating all those miles of wire, and a societal desire to give everyone access to a telephone (I mean, come on, have you ever been stuck in the middle of Ohio in some podunk town with out a telephone? not for many years!).
Switching to VOIP still doesn't remove the need for telco's to own/operate miles of wire. The consumer will still pay for it at some point, so I think that you are right, your telephone bill may go away, and your telephone service as you know it may go away, but your broadband connection (read : wire coming into your house fee) will start to include those fees so your service provider can then pay the owner of the wire.
I think the age of converged communications is here, and am happy that large telcos are going to start moving that direction, but maybe we ought to think about another model, other than the large telco ("Hey we own the wires!") pardigm.
Microsoft this month said it will liberalize its intellectual property licensing policy, letting other companies more easily use its patented technologies.
*More* easily? What the heck does that mean?!?! Does this mean that they are going to remove some of their EULAs?
And what are "other companies"? Any compny who pays the fee? Happy Day! Now I can get some insight into the crap that I write.
true that.
However, the only real issue is "does it work or not"? Until it has been truly scrutinized by a (large) group of (independent) analysts, we don't know if it really works.
But don't you think it slightly disturbing that the Chinese government is engaging in market manipulation? If this is successful, what is to stop them from doing it again?