I think articles like this give us all a little bit of closure. Loosing something is always more difficult if there are questions left unanswered. The mind tends to construct scenario after scenario, never knowing what's true and what's not. Sometimes, it is comforting to know that a given scenario didn't actually happen.
I, for one, find myself wondering what happened in the final seconds, both from a personal perspective (how long did they know, how long did they survive, etc.) and a scientific one (what, exactly, happens to a shuttle wing when there's a hole in it during re-entry, etc.).
Every time I get more information, I can put some of those thoughts away. Eventually, maybe we can all put enough of our thoughts away so that we can move on.
Oh god, PLEASE FORGIVE US for cranking our collective asses through college, grad school, certification programs, and N years of on-the job experience - and then hoping to make more than minimum wage. If we wanted minimum wage, we could get a McJob and not have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt for it.
With more and more pressure for every kid to go to college, our baseline competency level is rising. Nobody can see paying a college graduate will accept a minimum wage, so they outsource. At the same time, we are required to get paid less, accept loss of benefits, etc., just to have a job... and we're the lucky ones.
Logically, an overall raise in the level of education should be considered a good thing. But we are being run by an asinine, corrupt administration that is willing to go to extreme measures to satiate its greed (e.g., initiating a war just to siphon money to its sister companies). As a result, big businesses are getting away with murder. The Bush administration has repeatedly reduced limitations on big businesses, cut taxes for the ultra-rich (while placating us with a $300 check... yay!), and is now letting illegal immigrants take the jobs that "Americans don't want." All while trying to slip the media conglomeration bill into every proposal, including the war spending bill, so that they can also control what news we are allowed to hear.
All the laws are being geared to make big companies bigger, without regard to the worker. Why? I think that is obvious. It puts money in their pockets. We need to stop whining about the companies outsourcing jobs, and start enacting change against the administration that encourages it for its own profit.
The only "economic slump" we have experienced is a slight correction in the overshoot of the economy in the last few years. In that period, large companies (and especially their CEOs) have been posting record gains in the last five years. Even with the recent economic downturn, they are better off than they were five years ago - by a margin that is considered aggressive growth by any measure. Yet, it is not enough. They are worried that their $22 million bonus will be cut in half this year. Thus, they post stories about huge losses, hard times, and a bad economy. This makes us desperate enough to accept a pay half of what we're worth, with no benefits. Moreover, it makes us happy that we can even find a job.
And this gets easier and easier for them to do. Currently, America is owned by two oil companies, two and a half automobile companies, and a half a dozen defense contractors. Huge mergers (e.g., Compaq/HP, Time Warner/AOL, etc.) are putting the fate of our collective lives in the hands of a few greedy, ultra-rich, power-hungry bastards who will starve you to make another buck. At the same time, they are crushing the competition under their sheer inertia, and controlling national and international markets. They can make the economy whatever they want it to be. It just benefits them for it to be bad.
Jesus, this thing ended up being a manifesto. Sorry about the flame, this topic just rubs me the wrong way. What do you guys think? Am I just a reactionist conspiracy nut, or do we need to do something here?
We have forgotten that there is more to copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation than evidence of direct copying. If this thing gets to a jury trial, we have to remember what it looks like to the 12 grandmas that will be sitting in the jury box:
o Linux is named after Unix (or at least it sounds like it was). The lawyers will have a field day with this one. It may not matter legally, but it goes a long way towards planting the seed in the jurors minds that Linux is a stolen trade secret.
o Both Unix and Linux have a similar structure. While it is slowly diverging, it is clear that Linux was modeled after Unix. The kernel structure, header files, shells, directory structure, and basic application level all appear very similar.
o On top of this, there will inevitably be code presented that is either identical or very similar. It doesn't matter if Linus can explain away all of the similarities - the fact is that they still exist. It is clear that the Unix header files were used as a template for Linux - I don't think anybody can dispute this.
To those of us that have been with Linux from the beginning, or have contributed source to the Linux project, this case is obviously unfounded. We have forgotten what it must look like to people who don't know the history of Linux, and who don't understand the open source mindset.
Does anybody remember doing this with model rockets? There was one model that came with a Plexiglas payload and a specially fitted camera. The camera took 110 film (I think), and snapped a single shot at the moment when the engine's ejection charge blew off the nose cone.
I used to smoke two packs a day - and have "quit" smoking several times. The first time, I quit cold turkey. It was hard, but do-able. The largest contributing factor to my cravings was that my last memory of smoking was good. I loved smoking. After I quit, I constantly craved the feeling that I had when I smoked.
After several years, I started again. In the meantime, I started taking Wellbutrin (Zyban). Even though I didn't take it to quit smoking (I took it for ADD/depression), the Wellbutrin made the cigarettes taste awful. Without trying, I couln't smoke more than three or four a day - and I usually put them out half way through because they were nasty. Then I just stopped. I literally have not had a single craving since. I attribute this to the fact that my last memory of smoking was awful, and I don't want to do it again. And I was a hardcore smoker. At one point, I even considered quitting Wellbutrin just so I could keep smoking (even though it worked wonders for my real problems).
My point is that, if the vaccine makes the cigarettes taste awful, it will break the psychological addiction first, because you simply don't want to smoke. As a result, you smoke less, thus breaking the physical addiction as well.
I read stories all the time about drives getting blitzed from movement. Does anybody know how the hard drives in these devices protect themselves from the impact of things like jogging?
I am iterested to see what kind of user interface Apple comes up with for such a small device. As a G3 iPod owner, I think the control pad is about perfect. Any smaller, and it wouldn't be as usable. Not to mention the hassle of scrolling through 5 gigs of songs on a smaller display.
But, I am usually impressed with Apple's industrial design, so I'll probably be impressed again (except for the color choices - I mean *stripes*? Ugh).
A day after CNN issued the announcement that the end of the world was coming in 2014, it posted this headline (which, in my opinion, isn't too comforting either).
As if that weren't enough, the article suggests that the blame should be placed on the Near Earth Objects Information Center for releasing the report in the first place!
So let me get CNN's plan straight here:
1) Ignore the facts and post inflamatory headlines that are meant to instil fear.
2) If you are proven wrong, blame the source from which you ignored the facts.
3) Profit ? (sorry)
It seems that this should be something we are rooting for, not against. Regardless of how far-fetched it seems, I am glad someone is making a run of it. What if something comes of it? After all, it's not our money, right?
It would be interesting to hear the differences in "statistically optimal" music produced as a result of correlating different genres of music.
E.g., would people who only listened to Rock be more inclined to like the output of this program if its input was limited to Rock music? Could it create an "optimal" song?
1) The browser must "identify and locate" the external application.
2) The browser must display a portion of the application in the browser window
3) The browser must enable interactive processing of the displayed object.
The preferred embodiment of the patent specification lays out a specific application which shows a 3-D renedred medical image (similar to an MRI) which the user can rotate, scale, etc. and the external application displays the rendered image in an embedded window in the browser.
The patent claims specify that the object displayed in an embedded window must be specified within an "embed text format" (e.g., EMBED tag) and be lauched automatically when the page is parsed (i.e., without a mouse click). That means that helper applications do not consitute prior art.
While MIME plays a part in this, it is certainly not enough by itself.
I was in Chicago during the trial, and had the opportunity to sit in the courtroom and observe parts of the case. Microsoft contended (quite rightly - check the WWWTalk archives for 1993) that there were multiple instances of good prior art that invalidated the patent. An example of such prior art was ViolaWWW, which was embedding interactive content in web pages over a year before the patent application was filed. Certain legal issues (that I don't fully understand) made this evidence inadmissable, and it was stricken from the record. I imagine this will be a primary focus of Microsft's appeal (if there is one).
Also, they laid out a good noninfringement case by contending that the "identify and locate" step in the patent was carried out by COM, part of Microsoft's OS that existed well before the claimed invention, and not the browser as required by the claims.
I don't think the issue here was whether or not Microsoft was careful about shiping infringing products, but it goes to show that a jury trial over a software patent is a complete crap shoot. The way I see it, either the jury didn't understand the patent laws at hand, or they didn't understand the technology (or just didn't like Microsoft).
While AV clearly doesn't replace education of users and adaptation to the changing technological world, to call it an evolutionary "Dead End" is a little overreaching. Bad software that relys too heavily on such software (read: MS) will still be exposed to more attacks, and will eventually need to either evolve or be replaced.
After all, how many Sobig.Xs or SQL Slammers will the marketplace tolerate withought inciting change?
One situation to watch: Apple Computer recently filed a patent application for a computer whose exterior would change colors, apparently after Color Kinetics had demonstrated their technology to Apple. "It covers a lot of our technology and a lot of patents we hold," Mueller says.
...which includes computer networks as "substitute communications systems" -- subject to a 9.17 percent state tax, plus local option taxes...
How does a LAN qualify as a "substitute communication system?" And don't WANs already use existing communication systems - that are already subject to taxation?
What's next, taxing inter-office mail to cover increasing gas prices? How about two cans and a string? Smoke signals??
Dave Barry - Forget president, run for govenor, or I will kill this defenseless toilet.
This snippet of code, by itself, proves nothing. As many here have pointed out, the code itself came (or could have come) from a third party, and could have been misapropriated by both players here.
However, if they do have thousands of examples of this, it will be hard to say that the code was not lifted from SCO. To a jury, lifted comments are more valuable than the content of the source itself. A jury of twelve grandmas doesn't care/understand to what extent code is exactly the same, or implemented similarly. They only care that it has the exact same text between here and here, 10,000 times. And if the text is something they can understand, all the better.
With that said, SCO probably isn't showing its hand because it would be foolish to do so. Why would they give opposing council the opportunity to prepare their arguemnt? Furthermore, for each example leaked, the open source community as a whole will do the research, and trace the origins of as much code as possible. SCO needs time to 1) prepare their best argument, without giving the other side an advantage, and 2) carefully examine every snippet of their code that they release to ensure that it did not come from incriminating sources. Otherwise, they expose themselves to a number of legal issues outside the scope of this case.
They may claim a million lines of code. In actuality, the number of lines that they assert in this case will probably be much, much smaller. Let's just hope that the examples they can show us aren't too convincing. The snippet above hints that they may not be.
Slashdot Mirror
I, for one, find myself wondering what happened in the final seconds, both from a personal perspective (how long did they know, how long did they survive, etc.) and a scientific one (what, exactly, happens to a shuttle wing when there's a hole in it during re-entry, etc.).
Every time I get more information, I can put some of those thoughts away. Eventually, maybe we can all put enough of our thoughts away so that we can move on.
Oh god, PLEASE FORGIVE US for cranking our collective asses through college, grad school, certification programs, and N years of on-the job experience - and then hoping to make more than minimum wage. If we wanted minimum wage, we could get a McJob and not have to go tens of thousands of dollars into debt for it.
With more and more pressure for every kid to go to college, our baseline competency level is rising. Nobody can see paying a college graduate will accept a minimum wage, so they outsource. At the same time, we are required to get paid less, accept loss of benefits, etc., just to have a job... and we're the lucky ones.
Logically, an overall raise in the level of education should be considered a good thing. But we are being run by an asinine, corrupt administration that is willing to go to extreme measures to satiate its greed (e.g., initiating a war just to siphon money to its sister companies). As a result, big businesses are getting away with murder. The Bush administration has repeatedly reduced limitations on big businesses, cut taxes for the ultra-rich (while placating us with a $300 check... yay!), and is now letting illegal immigrants take the jobs that "Americans don't want." All while trying to slip the media conglomeration bill into every proposal, including the war spending bill, so that they can also control what news we are allowed to hear.
All the laws are being geared to make big companies bigger, without regard to the worker. Why? I think that is obvious. It puts money in their pockets. We need to stop whining about the companies outsourcing jobs, and start enacting change against the administration that encourages it for its own profit.
The only "economic slump" we have experienced is a slight correction in the overshoot of the economy in the last few years. In that period, large companies (and especially their CEOs) have been posting record gains in the last five years. Even with the recent economic downturn, they are better off than they were five years ago - by a margin that is considered aggressive growth by any measure. Yet, it is not enough. They are worried that their $22 million bonus will be cut in half this year. Thus, they post stories about huge losses, hard times, and a bad economy. This makes us desperate enough to accept a pay half of what we're worth, with no benefits. Moreover, it makes us happy that we can even find a job.
And this gets easier and easier for them to do. Currently, America is owned by two oil companies, two and a half automobile companies, and a half a dozen defense contractors. Huge mergers (e.g., Compaq/HP, Time Warner/AOL, etc.) are putting the fate of our collective lives in the hands of a few greedy, ultra-rich, power-hungry bastards who will starve you to make another buck. At the same time, they are crushing the competition under their sheer inertia, and controlling national and international markets. They can make the economy whatever they want it to be. It just benefits them for it to be bad.
Jesus, this thing ended up being a manifesto. Sorry about the flame, this topic just rubs me the wrong way. What do you guys think? Am I just a reactionist conspiracy nut, or do we need to do something here?
Sivaram: "We are the dead."
Sivaram's Wife: "We are the dead."
Sivarm's Wall: "You are the dead."
(Sound of boots stomping up stairs...)
We have forgotten that there is more to copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation than evidence of direct copying. If this thing gets to a jury trial, we have to remember what it looks like to the 12 grandmas that will be sitting in the jury box:
o Linux is named after Unix (or at least it sounds like it was). The lawyers will have a field day with this one. It may not matter legally, but it goes a long way towards planting the seed in the jurors minds that Linux is a stolen trade secret.
o Both Unix and Linux have a similar structure. While it is slowly diverging, it is clear that Linux was modeled after Unix. The kernel structure, header files, shells, directory structure, and basic application level all appear very similar.
o On top of this, there will inevitably be code presented that is either identical or very similar. It doesn't matter if Linus can explain away all of the similarities - the fact is that they still exist. It is clear that the Unix header files were used as a template for Linux - I don't think anybody can dispute this.
To those of us that have been with Linux from the beginning, or have contributed source to the Linux project, this case is obviously unfounded. We have forgotten what it must look like to people who don't know the history of Linux, and who don't understand the open source mindset.
Yeah, I was looking for that. For some reason I can't resolve the address for http://www.estesrockets.com, so I didn't post it. Thanks.
Does anybody remember doing this with model rockets? There was one model that came with a Plexiglas payload and a specially fitted camera. The camera took 110 film (I think), and snapped a single shot at the moment when the engine's ejection charge blew off the nose cone.
See, e.g., here.
Inevitably, everyone I knew would pull out the camera and launch lizards (frogs, bugs, etc.) instead.
I used to smoke two packs a day - and have "quit" smoking several times. The first time, I quit cold turkey. It was hard, but do-able. The largest contributing factor to my cravings was that my last memory of smoking was good. I loved smoking. After I quit, I constantly craved the feeling that I had when I smoked.
After several years, I started again. In the meantime, I started taking Wellbutrin (Zyban). Even though I didn't take it to quit smoking (I took it for ADD/depression), the Wellbutrin made the cigarettes taste awful. Without trying, I couln't smoke more than three or four a day - and I usually put them out half way through because they were nasty. Then I just stopped. I literally have not had a single craving since. I attribute this to the fact that my last memory of smoking was awful, and I don't want to do it again. And I was a hardcore smoker. At one point, I even considered quitting Wellbutrin just so I could keep smoking (even though it worked wonders for my real problems).
My point is that, if the vaccine makes the cigarettes taste awful, it will break the psychological addiction first, because you simply don't want to smoke. As a result, you smoke less, thus breaking the physical addiction as well.
Er. Yse -- I.. I.. mean YES, 3G.
Thank you for pointing out my fat fingers. Although "Generation: 3" sounds kind of like a Sci-Fi spinoff.
I read stories all the time about drives getting blitzed from movement. Does anybody know how the hard drives in these devices protect themselves from the impact of things like jogging?
I am iterested to see what kind of user interface Apple comes up with for such a small device. As a G3 iPod owner, I think the control pad is about perfect. Any smaller, and it wouldn't be as usable. Not to mention the hassle of scrolling through 5 gigs of songs on a smaller display.
But, I am usually impressed with Apple's industrial design, so I'll probably be impressed again (except for the color choices - I mean *stripes*? Ugh).
"Don't blame me, it's a software problem." Hope I didn't just put too many people out of work...
A day after CNN issued the announcement that the end of the world was coming in 2014, it posted this headline (which, in my opinion, isn't too comforting either).
As if that weren't enough, the article suggests that the blame should be placed on the Near Earth Objects Information Center for releasing the report in the first place!
So let me get CNN's plan straight here:
1) Ignore the facts and post inflamatory headlines that are meant to instil fear.
2) If you are proven wrong, blame the source from which you ignored the facts.
3) Profit ? (sorry)
It seems that this should be something we are rooting for, not against. Regardless of how far-fetched it seems, I am glad someone is making a run of it. What if something comes of it? After all, it's not our money, right?
Wait, it's funded by DARPA?
Oh well, anything that keeps them from putting energy into causing panic and classifying me as a terrorist can't be all bad, I guess.
It would be interesting to hear the differences in "statistically optimal" music produced as a result of correlating different genres of music.
E.g., would people who only listened to Rock be more inclined to like the output of this program if its input was limited to Rock music? Could it create an "optimal" song?
$ 6k 850 gallon fiberglass tank
...
:)
$ 2k High pressure carbon fiber pressurant tank and regulator $ 1k Honeycomb composite panels
$ 4k Laser altimeter
$ 4k Wire rope isolator landing gear
A team of intelligent, creative, developers who think outside the box... Priceless.
(and a mastercard with no limit helps, too
The '906 patent specifies that:
1) The browser must "identify and locate" the external application.
2) The browser must display a portion of the application in the browser window
3) The browser must enable interactive processing of the displayed object.
The preferred embodiment of the patent specification lays out a specific application which shows a 3-D renedred medical image (similar to an MRI) which the user can rotate, scale, etc. and the external application displays the rendered image in an embedded window in the browser.
The patent claims specify that the object displayed in an embedded window must be specified within an "embed text format" (e.g., EMBED tag) and be lauched automatically when the page is parsed (i.e., without a mouse click). That means that helper applications do not consitute prior art.
While MIME plays a part in this, it is certainly not enough by itself.
I was in Chicago during the trial, and had the opportunity to sit in the courtroom and observe parts of the case. Microsoft contended (quite rightly - check the WWWTalk archives for 1993) that there were multiple instances of good prior art that invalidated the patent. An example of such prior art was ViolaWWW, which was embedding interactive content in web pages over a year before the patent application was filed. Certain legal issues (that I don't fully understand) made this evidence inadmissable, and it was stricken from the record. I imagine this will be a primary focus of Microsft's appeal (if there is one).
Also, they laid out a good noninfringement case by contending that the "identify and locate" step in the patent was carried out by COM, part of Microsoft's OS that existed well before the claimed invention, and not the browser as required by the claims.
I don't think the issue here was whether or not Microsoft was careful about shiping infringing products, but it goes to show that a jury trial over a software patent is a complete crap shoot. The way I see it, either the jury didn't understand the patent laws at hand, or they didn't understand the technology (or just didn't like Microsoft).
While AV clearly doesn't replace education of users and adaptation to the changing technological world, to call it an evolutionary "Dead End" is a little overreaching. Bad software that relys too heavily on such software (read: MS) will still be exposed to more attacks, and will eventually need to either evolve or be replaced.
After all, how many Sobig.Xs or SQL Slammers will the marketplace tolerate withought inciting change?
One situation to watch: Apple Computer recently filed a patent application for a computer whose exterior would change colors, apparently after Color Kinetics had demonstrated their technology to Apple. "It covers a lot of our technology and a lot of patents we hold," Mueller says.
Check out thinkgeek's Ambient Orb.
...which includes computer networks as "substitute communications systems" -- subject to a 9.17 percent state tax, plus local option taxes...
How does a LAN qualify as a "substitute communication system?" And don't WANs already use existing communication systems - that are already subject to taxation?
What's next, taxing inter-office mail to cover increasing gas prices? How about two cans and a string? Smoke signals??
Dave Barry - Forget president, run for govenor, or I will kill this defenseless toilet.
This snippet of code, by itself, proves nothing. As many here have pointed out, the code itself came (or could have come) from a third party, and could have been misapropriated by both players here.
However, if they do have thousands of examples of this, it will be hard to say that the code was not lifted from SCO. To a jury, lifted comments are more valuable than the content of the source itself. A jury of twelve grandmas doesn't care/understand to what extent code is exactly the same, or implemented similarly. They only care that it has the exact same text between here and here, 10,000 times. And if the text is something they can understand, all the better.
With that said, SCO probably isn't showing its hand because it would be foolish to do so. Why would they give opposing council the opportunity to prepare their arguemnt? Furthermore, for each example leaked, the open source community as a whole will do the research, and trace the origins of as much code as possible. SCO needs time to 1) prepare their best argument, without giving the other side an advantage, and 2) carefully examine every snippet of their code that they release to ensure that it did not come from incriminating sources. Otherwise, they expose themselves to a number of legal issues outside the scope of this case.
They may claim a million lines of code. In actuality, the number of lines that they assert in this case will probably be much, much smaller. Let's just hope that the examples they can show us aren't too convincing. The snippet above hints that they may not be.