It seems IBM's argument is that there are way too many patent applications being submitted to accurate evaluate them. Their solution:
IBM's antidote to the problem is to increase the scope of the investigation into 'prior art' associated with software patents. Stallings believes that sort of undertaking is something the academic community, volunteers and others are willing to help in.
Something obviously must be done to fix this problem but I'm not sure how the proposed system would work. As soon as "volunteers" have the ability to submit prior art challenges to patent applications, you'll likely see as many or more prior art challenges than patent applications. Who's going to evaluate the prior art challenges AND the patent applications then?
If this review is true, then I can't properly convey my disappointment.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing and I guess hoping that the movie could bring back some of
the feeling I had from reading the first three books and playing the Infocom game was
a little unrealistic.
40,000 subscribers = $660,000,000 in losses last year. Currently only $285M in assets (of which about $200M is their satellite). It really is amazing that their parent company allowed it to continue for as long as they did.
Too bad there wasn't a larger customer base available for HDTV.
The article poster stated that you don't pay FICA tax (another word for social security tax), medicare tax or income tax on stock appreciations. That is completely true and all of those are different than capital gains tax - which is what they would pay based on appreciation in their stock price.
I believe the article poster's premise is that they're becoming ungodly rich because of stock appreciation and that they cut their income to $1 per year to avoid contributing to society in the way that the rest of us do.
If I had to pick a reason, I'd say it's more of a PR stunt to make the Google founders appear frugal (or froogle if you like) and make it seem like the money hasn't gone to their head. Many other CEO-types have done this (including Steve Jobs).
Have you seen the ratings on MSNBC? Microsoft definitely is a monopolist on the computer desktop, but their cable news network is best described as an unmitigated disaster.
There are many third parties that will register your domain name with valid contact information that isn't related to you at all.
Other than that, it should be pointed out that ICANN has had a rule for years that you must have valid contact information in your WHOIS records. Of course, they've also ignored that same rule for years.
Yet, like most security systems, encryption has an Achilles' heel -- the user. That's because some of today's most common encryption applications protect keys using a password supplied by the user.
I can just picture the Secret Service cracking another case... "Aha! Another high profile mafia crime genius using his mother's name of 'mildred' as his password."
The one thing I learned from this article is that my passwords are safe from the relatively rudimentary techniques of the Secret Service.
Catering to a lower common denominator in minimum system specs would make running the operating system far quicker on truly modern systems, but still usable on "obsolete" systems that are only 5-6 years old that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
What I've imagined are thousands of developers worldwide working for years to cut bloat from the operating system eventually landing on a copy of Windows XP with all the relevant features that installs on a Pentium II with 64 megs of RAM on a 1 gig hard drive with plenty of room to spare.
Unfortunately there's a lot of effort and little to no profit to be had in reducing bloat; so for-profit companies rarely do it.
Could you imagine everyone in your middle or high school knowing that you're part of a robot competition? As an adult, I think these competitions are great, but it violates two primary teenage directives: Don't care about anything, and Don't be smart about anything related to science.
I guess it's only a matter of time until one of the robot-competition kids decides he's not going to take being picked on anymore and unleashes his steel-shell of doom and fire spewing robot in his school.
The site is so slashdotted that it took forever to load the first page which basically has nothing but useless history of swap files on it. Even the mirrordot doesn't appear to be working. Anyway, one sentence on that first page made me no longer interested in reading the article:
Whenever the operating system has enough memory, it doesn't usually use virtual memory.
This flies in the face of real world experience. You can have 4 gigs of RAM and nothing but Windows 2000 running and your OS will still use the swap file frequently. Don't believe me? Run Performance Monitor and monitor Memory, Pages/Sec and just click on a few things and you'll see that I'm correct.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't mind this airing on MTV so long as it does not impede or interfere in any way with the airing of MTV's coverage of Spring Break.
I've seen pornography that was less graphic than MTV in those shows.
How the heck did "Work" beat out "Anti-Gravity Porn"?
I can understand Living and Surviving are pretty important but I could list a few hundred things that would beat out "Work" on my priority list.
How long until spammers and spyware authors figure out how to have audio ads played constantly throughout the "ad-free" XM radio channels?
I'm not sure if anyone looks forward to the days that XM content is sponsored by V1@g@ra!
Wait until People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots starts throwing oil on the camels in protest!
It seems IBM's argument is that there are way too many patent applications being submitted to accurate evaluate them. Their solution:
IBM's antidote to the problem is to increase the scope of the investigation into 'prior art' associated with software patents. Stallings believes that sort of undertaking is something the academic community, volunteers and others are willing to help in.
Something obviously must be done to fix this problem but I'm not sure how the proposed system would work. As soon as "volunteers" have the ability to submit prior art challenges to patent applications, you'll likely see as many or more prior art challenges than patent applications. Who's going to evaluate the prior art challenges AND the patent applications then?
If this review is true, then I can't properly convey my disappointment.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing and I guess hoping that the movie could bring back some of the feeling I had from reading the first three books and playing the Infocom game was a little unrealistic.
40,000 subscribers = $660,000,000 in losses last year. Currently only $285M in assets (of which about $200M is their satellite). It really is amazing that their parent company allowed it to continue for as long as they did.
Too bad there wasn't a larger customer base available for HDTV.
Does anyone else get the feeling that Dell doesn't know what the heck they're doing with AMD?
I guess everytime they want to apply pricing pressure on Intel, they submit a story to Slashdot.
The article poster stated that you don't pay FICA tax (another word for social security tax), medicare tax or income tax on stock appreciations. That is completely true and all of those are different than capital gains tax - which is what they would pay based on appreciation in their stock price.
I believe the article poster's premise is that they're becoming ungodly rich because of stock appreciation and that they cut their income to $1 per year to avoid contributing to society in the way that the rest of us do.
If I had to pick a reason, I'd say it's more of a PR stunt to make the Google founders appear frugal (or froogle if you like) and make it seem like the money hasn't gone to their head. Many other CEO-types have done this (including Steve Jobs).
This has been addressed by WIPO in their FAQ. They have specific examples of when a trademark owner can take a domain over.
we have panels for everyone from the beginner to the l33t h4x0r
Based on my experience, those considering themselves "l33t h4x0rs" are beginners.
With all of these fake stories today, I would've expected to have seen one or two about SCO.
The funny thing is that we've all seen such strange things from SCO that no matter how outrageous it was, it wouldn't be immediately disbelieved.
Wouldn't life be boring if every day was the same and that there weren't days like April 1st to break up the monotony of reading timely real news?
The jokes are a bit tired, but it's good to have a little variety.
My favorite one during the past presidential election was to search for "vote". Along the side was EBay's ad with the headline "Votes for sale!"
It seems that's what they do - whatever you search for, they put "for sale" on the tail end of it and hope you click on it.
Have you seen the ratings on MSNBC? Microsoft definitely is a monopolist on the computer desktop, but their cable news network is best described as an unmitigated disaster.
I gave it a spin but the only thing I could see was some insane bald man screaming, "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!"
There are many third parties that will register your domain name with valid contact information that isn't related to you at all.
Other than that, it should be pointed out that ICANN has had a rule for years that you must have valid contact information in your WHOIS records. Of course, they've also ignored that same rule for years.
Just re-write everything in Visual Basic. That should make FOSS advocates happy.
Yet, like most security systems, encryption has an Achilles' heel -- the user. That's because some of today's most common encryption applications protect keys using a password supplied by the user.
I can just picture the Secret Service cracking another case... "Aha! Another high profile mafia crime genius using his mother's name of 'mildred' as his password."
The one thing I learned from this article is that my passwords are safe from the relatively rudimentary techniques of the Secret Service.
Catering to a lower common denominator in minimum system specs would make running the operating system far quicker on truly modern systems, but still usable on "obsolete" systems that are only 5-6 years old that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
I think this is a worthy goal.
What I've imagined are thousands of developers worldwide working for years to cut bloat from the operating system eventually landing on a copy of Windows XP with all the relevant features that installs on a Pentium II with 64 megs of RAM on a 1 gig hard drive with plenty of room to spare.
Unfortunately there's a lot of effort and little to no profit to be had in reducing bloat; so for-profit companies rarely do it.
Russia has had guidelines for their paying space tourists for a number of years:
1. You must have a pulse (optional)
2. Your check for $20,000,000 must clear before you launch whether you are a popstar or not.
How long until someone creates a line of Pez-MP3 players using unlicensed characters playing unlicensed music?
Two copyright violations for the price of one!
Could you imagine everyone in your middle or high school knowing that you're part of a robot competition? As an adult, I think these competitions are great, but it violates two primary teenage directives: Don't care about anything, and Don't be smart about anything related to science.
I guess it's only a matter of time until one of the robot-competition kids decides he's not going to take being picked on anymore and unleashes his steel-shell of doom and fire spewing robot in his school.
The site is so slashdotted that it took forever to load the first page which basically has nothing but useless history of swap files on it. Even the mirrordot doesn't appear to be working. Anyway, one sentence on that first page made me no longer interested in reading the article:
Whenever the operating system has enough memory, it doesn't usually use virtual memory.
This flies in the face of real world experience. You can have 4 gigs of RAM and nothing but Windows 2000 running and your OS will still use the swap file frequently. Don't believe me? Run Performance Monitor and monitor Memory, Pages/Sec and just click on a few things and you'll see that I'm correct.