Microsoft is completely capable of essentially bribing a country to run it's OS on the OLPC. (or it's ministers) Then MS has a platform to introduce their DRM. Once a country has paid for DRM encumbered books, they won't be able to switch back without loosing their sizable investment.
I use a product called Surround (tm) that is finely ground kaolin to keep bugs off plants like apple trees and roses. Word is that some apple farmers used regular kaolin that wasn't properly processed and they killed their trees. So, size does matter.
Ask most successful business men about if they would rather own something completely or have a market where there is healthy competition, and most will tell you that they will do anything to block competitors. Absolutely right, most business people in the US are not capitalists, but monopolists. Capitalism is good, too bad nobody follows it. When people point out the problems of capitalism, they are usually talking about when it degrades into monopolies.
But what BillG can do, is find a closed source tool he likes, *buy the company*, add a few lines and sell it as his own.
Technically, he could do the same thing with GPLed software, but for many GPLed projects chasing down all the contributers and getting them to sell their stake in it can be a challenge. (But really, would it be that much of a challenge for Microsoft, given their resources?)
If you've never used the new Gorilla Glue Duct Tape, go out to Lowes or Home Depot right now and get yourself a roll.
It's more expensive, about $10 a roll, but it really is the best tape out there. I've used it seal stuff outdoors and a year later, it's still holding. If NASA doesn't take a few rolls of this stuff to the moon, they're not paying attention.
Oh of course not! And why should they when they consider it their money in the first place.
It *is* their money, unless you've been printing your own. Check out any bill in your wallet, it says "United States of America" on it, not "Joe's Dollar".
Lest you think this is a new idea, it's not. Matthew 22:21 "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's..."
Anyway, you're just renting the space you occupy, unless you're homeless, living on public land, you're either paying a landlord or several government entities taxes for what you call home. There's probably not a country left in the world where it's possible to own anything, unless you're the dictator on top, and then there's aways the chance of a coup, and you loose your head and all your possessions. Makes one want to give up and go live as a hermit in the woods, but then a bear or wolf would probably steal your food and you'd starve.
Go with the flow and learn to live with it. You can't own anything, you either borrow it or rent it.
Someone should explain to this guy about the relatively new inventions of the newspaper and TV news. Both have "crowded out credible sources of information". The most trusted guy in American used to be Walter Cronkite. Although I had no reason to distrust Walt, he wasn't a primary source of information.
All the parents in a given neighborhood could report the speed trap, causing people to slow down. The police could also have multiple officers coordinate, thus poisoning the system.
Here in northern Virginia, the police set up small billboards that show your speed as you are passing. Since the signs use police radar, they also set off radar detectors, slowing people down. I'd like to get a permanent one installed in our neighborhood. These don't have speed cameras, but they could.
The books we read in school were very dry and didn't emphasis the interconnectedness of all inventions. Even your summary of what Edison did, left out the fact that he had a lab employing hundreds of people. Edison didn't try tens of thousands of materials, he had assistants doing most of the work, while he supervised. Even though Edison disdained "book learning", he employed many PhDs to help with the process.
You're right about the many people who may have made wires glow, but didn't capitalize on it. Hero had invented a steam engine in ancient Greece, but didn't put it to any practical use.
Also check out the writing of Don Lancaster. http://tinaja.com/ He says that ideas used to be dime a dozen, but now they are penny a pound in hundred pound lots. His point is that people think that their ideas are worth something when it's the implementation that makes a great product. Myths about the invention process are what fuels patent trolls. They seem to think that because they have a great idea on paper, they should be able to sue the people who actually put the work into turning an idea into a product. The invention myths need to be dispelled so that judges and juries will send the trolls packing.
What's wrong with saying "Scott devised a way to record but not play back while Edison devised both" in the history books?
Because the history books would get too large if you included everybody? Julius Braunsdorf had invented an electric light long before Edison, but he is mostly forgotten, and people are taught that the electric light was thought impossible before Edison invented it.
Seriously, history has it's fashions just like everything else humans do. It's been fashionable to tell schoolchildren that everyone thought that the earth was flat before Columbus, even though the size of the earth had been measured, and kings carried septer and orbs symbolizing their control of the earth.
What can be done about it? Wikis can help, because the size doesn't matter. We can include everybody who had any role in an invention. Mostly we need to abolish the myth of the lone inventor creating new stuff without any help from the outside world.
Of course we can, but wouldn't it be more efficient to have a computer entertain itself, on our behalf? Your recreation could be taken care of, for you by proxy, freeing you to pursue other more fulfilling endeavors, such as laboring.
Been there, done that.
Back in the day, when Windows 3.1 was new, and everyone was using it to play Solitaire, I wrote a Solitaire simulator, so I didn't have to waste my time playing. I could let the simulator play the game, and thus have more time for reading Usenet. It wasn't very good, only winning about 3% of the games, but it was fast. (:-)
I never did write a Windows driver for it so that it could play the actual game on a Windows machine, it was just C code that drew crude ascii graphics. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Mein Gott!! There's got to be a GPL'ed VAX simulator out there that will run on a high-end Linux box that would run the old software faster than an actual VAX. If it's running VMS, there even an OpenVMS project.
I still miss my VAX 11/725. It had the CPU power of a PC/XT, but with the memory management and 3MB of RAM it could run BSD 4.1, something PC's couldn't do well until the 386.
But they *do* have something to hide, and they admit it. It's their secret, proprietary vote counting algorithms. (Since these are wrong, obviously they are using a different form of math than the rest of us.)
They're saying that their SPVCA's are their IP, and no-one else can have them. (Why anyone would want to steal buggy software, I wouldn't know)
And in this case, not only did they have to pay, but they wound up having to publish the source anyway. If they don't publish it soon, all the other authors that contributed to busybox will come looking for their settlement.
It [Actiontec] must also appoint an internal officer to ensure that it's in compliance with licenses governing the open source software it uses....
The settlement calls for Actiontec to post the source code on its Web site.
The German Enigma machine from WWII was fairly uncrackable, even for the decoders at Betchley Park, but the German operators got lazy, and weren't following proper procedures, which allowed Turning et. al. to get a toehold into the crack.
The One Time Pad is provably unbreakable, but the British were able to decypher Soviet OTPs, because they had reused the pads after a year, thinking no-one would go back that far. One of our Admirals did the same thing, but there's no evidence he got caught.
The obvious back door to a quantum crypto machine would be the operator, or some part of the process before the plaintext is encrypted. Just because physics says that the process is unbreakable, doesn't mean the machine can't malfunction, and the malfunction may not be detectable by the operator. i.e. perhaps the machine can detect any malfunction, but the indicator light that tells the operator is broken.
Even though OTP is provably secure, the military proceeds and ends each message with gibberish, to throw off attempts at decoding.
I know what you mean, but this is a General we're talking about. When was the last time an American General was killed in battle? A quick search of Google doesn't find any after General Custer and the battle of Little Bighorn, but there had to be a few in WWII.
If you've put your laptop in standby, and the laptop is stolen, there's now a non-zero probability that the bad guys can access your encrypted data. The disk encryption people need to make sure that the standby routines erase any and all keys, and reprompt for access when the system comes out of standby.
Many business types will log in to access their laptop, then put it in standby to take home. If the standby routines don't erase the keys, then the bad guys can access them after they steal the laptop.
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Microsoft is completely capable of essentially bribing a country to run it's OS on the OLPC. (or it's ministers) Then MS has a platform to introduce their DRM. Once a country has paid for DRM encumbered books, they won't be able to switch back without loosing their sizable investment.
Maybe.
I use a product called Surround (tm) that is finely ground kaolin to keep bugs off plants like apple trees and roses. Word is that some apple farmers used regular kaolin that wasn't properly processed and they killed their trees. So, size does matter.
But what BillG can do, is find a closed source tool he likes, *buy the company*, add a few lines and sell it as his own.
Technically, he could do the same thing with GPLed software, but for many GPLed projects chasing down all the contributers and getting them to sell their stake in it can be a challenge. (But really, would it be that much of a challenge for Microsoft, given their resources?)
If you've never used the new Gorilla Glue Duct Tape, go out to Lowes or Home Depot right now and get yourself a roll.
It's more expensive, about $10 a roll, but it really is the best tape out there. I've used it seal stuff outdoors and a year later, it's still holding. If NASA doesn't take a few rolls of this stuff to the moon, they're not paying attention.
Lest you think this is a new idea, it's not. Matthew 22:21 "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's..."
Anyway, you're just renting the space you occupy, unless you're homeless, living on public land, you're either paying a landlord or several government entities taxes for what you call home. There's probably not a country left in the world where it's possible to own anything, unless you're the dictator on top, and then there's aways the chance of a coup, and you loose your head and all your possessions. Makes one want to give up and go live as a hermit in the woods, but then a bear or wolf would probably steal your food and you'd starve.
Go with the flow and learn to live with it. You can't own anything, you either borrow it or rent it.
Someone should explain to this guy about the relatively new inventions of the newspaper and TV news. Both have "crowded out credible sources of information". The most trusted guy in American used to be Walter Cronkite. Although I had no reason to distrust Walt, he wasn't a primary source of information.
All the parents in a given neighborhood could report the speed trap, causing people to slow down. The police could also have multiple officers coordinate, thus poisoning the system.
Here in northern Virginia, the police set up small billboards that show your speed as you are passing. Since the signs use police radar, they also set off radar detectors, slowing people down. I'd like to get a permanent one installed in our neighborhood. These don't have speed cameras, but they could.
You're correct, but the history books I had in school didn't spend too much time on invention, mostly they were about politics.
For an excellent history lesson about inventions, check out James Burke's connections http://www.amazon.com/Connections-James-Burke/dp/0743299558/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206710516&sr=8-1 either the book, or the DVD set.
The books we read in school were very dry and didn't emphasis the interconnectedness of all inventions. Even your summary of what Edison did, left out the fact that he had a lab employing hundreds of people. Edison didn't try tens of thousands of materials, he had assistants doing most of the work, while he supervised. Even though Edison disdained "book learning", he employed many PhDs to help with the process.
You're right about the many people who may have made wires glow, but didn't capitalize on it. Hero had invented a steam engine in ancient Greece, but didn't put it to any practical use.
Also check out the writing of Don Lancaster. http://tinaja.com/ He says that ideas used to be dime a dozen, but now they are penny a pound in hundred pound lots. His point is that people think that their ideas are worth something when it's the implementation that makes a great product. Myths about the invention process are what fuels patent trolls. They seem to think that because they have a great idea on paper, they should be able to sue the people who actually put the work into turning an idea into a product. The invention myths need to be dispelled so that judges and juries will send the trolls packing.
Seriously, history has it's fashions just like everything else humans do. It's been fashionable to tell schoolchildren that everyone thought that the earth was flat before Columbus, even though the size of the earth had been measured, and kings carried septer and orbs symbolizing their control of the earth.
What can be done about it? Wikis can help, because the size doesn't matter. We can include everybody who had any role in an invention. Mostly we need to abolish the myth of the lone inventor creating new stuff without any help from the outside world.
Back in the day, when Windows 3.1 was new, and everyone was using it to play Solitaire, I wrote a Solitaire simulator, so I didn't have to waste my time playing. I could let the simulator play the game, and thus have more time for reading Usenet. It wasn't very good, only winning about 3% of the games, but it was fast. (:-)
I never did write a Windows driver for it so that it could play the actual game on a Windows machine, it was just C code that drew crude ascii graphics. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Mein Gott!! There's got to be a GPL'ed VAX simulator out there that will run on a high-end Linux box that would run the old software faster than an actual VAX. If it's running VMS, there even an OpenVMS project.
I still miss my VAX 11/725. It had the CPU power of a PC/XT, but with the memory management and 3MB of RAM it could run BSD 4.1, something PC's couldn't do well until the 386.
A simple laser shining on the photosensor on top of the streetlight will take care of that.
But they *do* have something to hide, and they admit it. It's their secret, proprietary vote counting algorithms. (Since these are wrong, obviously they are using a different form of math than the rest of us.)
They're saying that their SPVCA's are their IP, and no-one else can have them. (Why anyone would want to steal buggy software, I wouldn't know)
The German Enigma machine from WWII was fairly uncrackable, even for the decoders at Betchley Park, but the German operators got lazy, and weren't following proper procedures, which allowed Turning et. al. to get a toehold into the crack.
The One Time Pad is provably unbreakable, but the British were able to decypher Soviet OTPs, because they had reused the pads after a year, thinking no-one would go back that far. One of our Admirals did the same thing, but there's no evidence he got caught.
The obvious back door to a quantum crypto machine would be the operator, or some part of the process before the plaintext is encrypted. Just because physics says that the process is unbreakable, doesn't mean the machine can't malfunction, and the malfunction may not be detectable by the operator. i.e. perhaps the machine can detect any malfunction, but the indicator light that tells the operator is broken.
Even though OTP is provably secure, the military proceeds and ends each message with gibberish, to throw off attempts at decoding.
My telepathic voiceless overlords can beat up your non-telepathic ventriloquist duck overlords.
I know what you mean, but this is a General we're talking about. When was the last time an American General was killed in battle? A quick search of Google doesn't find any after General Custer and the battle of Little Bighorn, but there had to be a few in WWII.
You should be able to investigate for yourself all you want, but if you want to be able to sell services, you'd need a license.
Proponents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will now be able to teach their viewpoint and will flock to Florida. Yeah!
Cyber warfare has already caused the largest non-nuclear explosion ever. So to say that the damage will be to information systems is just plain wrong.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002
That's easy, you just skim the atmosphere just enough to slow it down, but not so much that it crashes to earth.
If you've put your laptop in standby, and the laptop is stolen, there's now a non-zero probability that the bad guys can access your encrypted data. The disk encryption people need to make sure that the standby routines erase any and all keys, and reprompt for access when the system comes out of standby.
Many business types will log in to access their laptop, then put it in standby to take home. If the standby routines don't erase the keys, then the bad guys can access them after they steal the laptop.