Man! I'm getting so sick of seeing companies put cool technology out there, and then go apeshit when people like it enough to really dig in and play with it. In that sense, this reminds me of the DeCSS case; no one was trying to copy DVDs, they just thought the DVD player was cool and wanted to see how it worked. More complexity to that case, I know, but that seems to be all there is to the CueCat. What possible financial damage could flyingbuttmonkeys (an awesome name, btw) be doing to radio shack?
A one pound heatsink? I don't think we'll be seeing the P4-powered laptop anytime soon. Then again, what are you doing with your laptop that you need more than 800MHz or so?
[ Disclaimer: This post contains non-defamatory references to decaffienated coffee. Please do not assume that the author is a caffiene heretic, he's just making a point. All praise be to caffiene. ]
Alright, that said, I think this could really improve the state of decaf coffee. Currently, the way they make it is to (essentially) brew the beans once with an icky batch of chemicals that supposedly sucks out the caffiene, but leaves the flavor it. Yeah, right.
But, if they could just disable the caf-gene so the caffeine was never produced at all, then no intermediate step, and therefore better decaf! This would be useful for those times when you're trying to "cut down" because you're drinking 15 cups a day... switch a few to genetically engineered decaf, and you get all the yummy fun without all the speed.
Okay, maybe this is a good point. I guess I wouldn't want to pay... say, the caterer for my wedding, with paypal. Because of that "non-performance" thing with credit cards. But, is that really the point of paypal? I mean, it's not exactly phasing credit cards out, last I checked. I would still, for instance, feel utterly comfortable using paypal to buy a $5 set of salt and pepper shakers on eBay, and if they didn't indeed shake salt, well, they're mostly for looks anyway.
That's what paypal's for. Not the huge stuff where you NEED a non-performance garauntee. There are other safeguards in place to make sure your eBay product works (eg, the eBay feedback system). For the big stuff, I'll still use plastic, ThankYouVeryMuch.
And about paypal stealing your money once you give it to them: if too many people complained about this (in other words, if they did it often enough to make it worth their while), there would be an uproar and they wouldn't stay the "de facto standard" for very long. There are still alternatives...
It's amazing to see the internet usage ramp down for a few weeks!
Man! I can't imagine being so addicted to pr0n that you just have to get into it at work when the company policies so specifically forbid it (and it's NOT hard for your employer to check). Just seems dumb. I mean, I feel bad enough reading slashdot for an hour at a time, but at least that's not (specifically:) against company policy.
How does one tell the difference between a virus infection and a normal Windows installation?
Tons of ways. Think about how easy it is to install a virus on your system. Many times, you don't even know it's happening. It usually proceeds normally after simply clicking (or double clicking) on the installer program. It rarely gives you error messages, or makes you want to beat your head against a wall wishing it would just finish, dammit. You don't spend hours on the phone with tech support to get a virus installed, and the installation process doesn't give you an ulcer and drive you to drink.
Microsoft only wishes it could say those things about windows!
Well, I can understand if the professor has been asked not to reveal the name of the offending patent, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't know.
Just in case I pick the right one: I hereby swear that I have never met or been in any sort of contact with Professor Winslett, and I'm just doing this to be a pest, and not out of any sort of collusion:)
Anyway, some guesses:
US6069627: Extender user interface Describes an environment "that supports the development of
Internet and Intranet applications." Likely not "the one," since this application was in 1997. Filed by big blue.
Bleagh... To find others possibilities, check here. I've made myself sick looking through all these patents; I'm more convinced than ever that our USPTO is in bad need of an overhaul.
Ha! I'm sure micheal had the best of intentions in posting this story, but it's the biggest troll post I've seen in a long time... "Hey, let's post something to piss everyone off, and see if they reply with pissed off posts!"
Well, since ADD (or ADHD, depending on which version you subscribe to) is basically a fictional beast used to justify giving kids stimulants, it's really not much of a surprise that this "cures" it. Give a kid something he cares about, and he concentrates on it. Hot damn.
And before you label this "troll," consider the CLINICAL (viz, medical) criteria for diagnosing ADHD: the patient must display 6 symptoms from a list of 12, 6 of which relate to hyperactivity, and 6 of which relate to attention deficit. Now, disregarding questions about whether hyperactivity has anything to do with attention deficit, consider. A child must simply display symptoms. Any ONE of which, it should be noted, is normal in any child. There is no biological basis, it's purely a behavior thing. And clearly a matter of degree.
Yet, we "treat" this condition pharmacologically. Hmm. And, conveniently, the most widely known "treatment" is Ritalin, a stimulant very similar to cocaine in a lot of ways. So, basically, if you're diagnosed as "not able to cope with the world," they dope you up until you can.... hello, "Brave New World" here we come.
BTW, this is not a conspiracy theory, just a statement about how f*cked up the pharmacutical industry is. Not to mention the western worldview. Egh.. someone get me a cup of coffee, or a coupla noDoze.
The newspaper is pre-interactive? Huh? Let's pick up a copy of any local or national newspaper. Hmm, let's see, here's this column over to the left that has a news blurb, and underneath says "continued on page B1." Whoa! Sounds like a link to me! If I'm interested in that story, I'll follow the link to page B1 and pick up where it left off, disregarding the intervening Monicagate coverage in section A.
In a very real sense, the internet has just returned to us the interactivity that news always had when people read it. Radio and TV are both push media, but that doesn't mean that all pre-internet technologies are "pre-interactive." News has wanted to be interactive for a long, long time.
A few years ago, more than 90% of all American households halted work and play
every evening to catch the evening news...
Ha, things haven't changed that much, now people stop work and play every Wednesday evening to watch "Survivor"! Yeah, it's kind of a sad turn of events; people haven't turned away from TV, just gotten more pathetic about it.
Okay, don't buy any CDs from any other companies either, then, or even blank CDRs, because Sony has a patent (or at least a trademark) and they get royalties for every one that is produced.
We will firewall Napster at source --
we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone
company, we will block it at your ISP. We will
firewall it at your PC."
Ha! Which means, "we will firewall, block, and otherwise haX Napster to ensure total domination of our own internet-based, distributed, for-profit music system."
Hey, everyone who wants to write this "transcendent" software for Sony, raise your hand. That's what I thought. Neither do I. Of course, I already have a much better job. The sad part is, they'll probably find someone willing to do this sort of thing. Hell, lots of someones, and then they'll go sign the contracts (with ISPs, etc) to make it practical. Damn, damn, damn.
On the plus side, though. If my.mp3.com pays Sony for rights to redistribute music, then does that mean they can
transmit music even if the receiver doesn't have it?
I think that'd be the only acceptable outcome. But think about how that would work. You'd sign up for the album as you used to, and listen to it "because hey, sony got their money!" But you could snag the streaming files and save an excellent-quality copy of the album for free (to you).
Or, maybe MP3.com will start to charge for the priviledge.
Okay, let me get this straight. If I buy a Bruce Springsteen CD, and then want to listen to it on MP3.com, they have to pay Sony again to allow me that priviledge? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean "buy" a CD, I meant "obtain a licence to listen to the music on that CD in whatever way Sony deems appropriate." Give me a break.
So much for MP3.com being free... how much do you think they'll charge now? Of course, there's already plenty of reasons to boycott Sony anyway...
Um, is it just me, or did that benchmark have nothing to do with Linux? You'll notice that little "test conditions" section at the bottom, which says the test platform was Win2000 running on a souped-up intel box.
Basically, there was a little blurb under "Conclusions" that said "Oh yeah, it's fast on Linux too, and sometimes faster." Whee! But this benchmark was not meant to compare java across platforms, and didn't even run anything on Linux.
He's one of America's premiere First Amendment lawyers, that's who. He defended Salman Rushdie, and tons of political dissidents. He's argued before the Supreme Court more than once and is cited as a legal expert all the time. The fact that he's on this case kind of lends some weight to it, in a larger context than just geek circles.
Here's some links to read before you post your questions:
As an amateur Swahili speaker, I can tell you that, if C were written in "Swahili, for instance," some parts would be way different and others not so much.
For one thing, most of the refined numerical concepts are either not present in swahili or are borrow words. So, abbreviations for "integer" and "floating point" and stuff would probably still be abbreviated from English. Or perhaps arabic, which would give it an interesting flavor.
However, swahili morphology (the way verbs change when conjugated) is totally different. The verb stem gets a bunch of prefixes and infixes for subject, direct object, and tense. So instead of stringing words together in function names, like
doProcessWithThings(thing1, thing2);
it would be more like
uvyofanye(kitu1, kitu2);
That's probably what C would look like in Swahili (and yes, I know no one really cares what it would look like, swahili is always used as arbitrary language of choice, but I just thought I'd satisfy anyone's bizarre curiosities. And no I'm not kidding; this is what it's really like).
Also, consider the idea of a... ah, sandbox or playground or something within the internet; don't try to give them the whole thing. Take the search engine links off of your Links page. Also remove yahoo. Put links to news and "family friendly" sites, and remove the toolbar where people can type in URLs.
Although... I don't know. There's a point where you have to stop. I mean, these things will definitely cripple the users' experience (caveat below), and they are fairly easily circumventable by a smart user.
Now, the caveat: like the parent post said, look at your audience. An e-Laundromat? Probably mostly newbies, people in with their kids... the middle schoolers from across the road probably have better ways to get their pr0n. How "sacrificed" are your customers going to feel if it's difficult to access arbitrary sites on the internet? If their choices are restricted to your menu options? If most of them are going to be using your links anyway, then problem solved. That way, No one's 9-year-old son is going to accidentally wander into playboy.com while mom is doing laundry.
But the pesky 13-year-old who's seen his 31337 friends "hack" their way into porn sites... they'll be able to get around it. But if you make him sign an agreement that he won't, then you can kick him off when he does.
ask slashdot? Nah. How about a poll? Then we could b*tch to our hearts' content about our favorite product not being an option. Plus, no mailbombs; no one takes polls seriously.
I think the main problem with this is that it's a pain in the butt.
Yup, I think it is. So let's say you download 25 songs by 15 different artists on napster one night. And you actually like, say, 5 of them enough to tip. So you're going to jump over to fairtunes.com and individually search through the database 5 times to find your artists and go throught the rigamarole of tipping them?
Sure, if you're really committed. But it's a pain! What there needs to be is some kind of tie-in with, yes, napster or [insert p2p sharing system here] that collects info on what you've downloaded in a session, and provides an easy-to-click dialog saying "You've heard these 10 artists tonight. Check a box next to the ones you'd like to tip."
Then, if you were subscribed to the service (or had a cookie set or something, whatever) it could even fill in a default amount for each and your credit card number. Click! You just used 1-click (tm) tipping online. Okay, better make it 2 clicks to avoid patent infringement:)
Slashdot Mirror
Man! I'm getting so sick of seeing companies put cool technology out there, and then go apeshit when people like it enough to really dig in and play with it. In that sense, this reminds me of the DeCSS case; no one was trying to copy DVDs, they just thought the DVD player was cool and wanted to see how it worked. More complexity to that case, I know, but that seems to be all there is to the CueCat. What possible financial damage could flyingbuttmonkeys (an awesome name, btw) be doing to radio shack?
How about making a cell phone that doesn't need to be labelled with radiation warning? That would be a good next step.
A one pound heatsink? I don't think we'll be seeing the P4-powered laptop anytime soon. Then again, what are you doing with your laptop that you need more than 800MHz or so?
Alright, that said, I think this could really improve the state of decaf coffee. Currently, the way they make it is to (essentially) brew the beans once with an icky batch of chemicals that supposedly sucks out the caffiene, but leaves the flavor it. Yeah, right.
But, if they could just disable the caf-gene so the caffeine was never produced at all, then no intermediate step, and therefore better decaf! This would be useful for those times when you're trying to "cut down" because you're drinking 15 cups a day... switch a few to genetically engineered decaf, and you get all the yummy fun without all the speed.
That's what paypal's for. Not the huge stuff where you NEED a non-performance garauntee. There are other safeguards in place to make sure your eBay product works (eg, the eBay feedback system). For the big stuff, I'll still use plastic, ThankYouVeryMuch.
And about paypal stealing your money once you give it to them: if too many people complained about this (in other words, if they did it often enough to make it worth their while), there would be an uproar and they wouldn't stay the "de facto standard" for very long. There are still alternatives...
Man! I can't imagine being so addicted to pr0n that you just have to get into it at work when the company policies so specifically forbid it (and it's NOT hard for your employer to check). Just seems dumb. I mean, I feel bad enough reading slashdot for an hour at a time, but at least that's not (specifically:) against company policy.
Tons of ways. Think about how easy it is to install a virus on your system. Many times, you don't even know it's happening. It usually proceeds normally after simply clicking (or double clicking) on the installer program. It rarely gives you error messages, or makes you want to beat your head against a wall wishing it would just finish, dammit. You don't spend hours on the phone with tech support to get a virus installed, and the installation process doesn't give you an ulcer and drive you to drink.
Microsoft only wishes it could say those things about windows!
Just in case I pick the right one: I hereby swear that I have never met or been in any sort of contact with Professor Winslett, and I'm just doing this to be a pest, and not out of any sort of collusion :)
Anyway, some guesses:
- US6069627: Extender user interface Describes an environment "that supports the development of
Internet and Intranet applications." Likely not "the one," since this application was in 1997. Filed by big blue.
- US5335346: Access control policies for an object oriented
database, including... That's right, a copyright on access policies. Filed in late 1991, but doesn't deal directly with any interfacing, let alone x-windows. Again, an IBM possession.
- US5428737: Comprehensive bilateral translation between SQL
and graphically depicted queries Yet another IBM patent. Doesn't deal directly with *relational* databases, though that's kind of implied by using SQL. And it's all about graphical representation of queries.
- US5212787: Method and apparatus for accessing a relational
database without exiting an object-oriented environment Once again, filed by IBM (yes, I found some patents that weren't IBM - this is not a conspiracy theory). In 1991. Looks like there's some multi-tier stuff in here, with what the client has to do and what the server has to do... almost looks like they have a patent on WebObjects here.
Bleagh... To find others possibilities, check here. I've made myself sick looking through all these patents; I'm more convinced than ever that our USPTO is in bad need of an overhaul.Yeah, that's really "flamebait" to call into question chemical treatment of a symptom with no established biological basis. Good point.
"Sorry, sir; I couldn't do the discussion questions. I ran out of time on my textbook."
Well, let's see....
And before you label this "troll," consider the CLINICAL (viz, medical) criteria for diagnosing ADHD: the patient must display 6 symptoms from a list of 12, 6 of which relate to hyperactivity, and 6 of which relate to attention deficit. Now, disregarding questions about whether hyperactivity has anything to do with attention deficit, consider. A child must simply display symptoms. Any ONE of which, it should be noted, is normal in any child. There is no biological basis, it's purely a behavior thing. And clearly a matter of degree.
Yet, we "treat" this condition pharmacologically. Hmm. And, conveniently, the most widely known "treatment" is Ritalin, a stimulant very similar to cocaine in a lot of ways. So, basically, if you're diagnosed as "not able to cope with the world," they dope you up until you can.... hello, "Brave New World" here we come.
BTW, this is not a conspiracy theory, just a statement about how f*cked up the pharmacutical industry is. Not to mention the western worldview. Egh.. someone get me a cup of coffee, or a coupla noDoze.
In a very real sense, the internet has just returned to us the interactivity that news always had when people read it. Radio and TV are both push media, but that doesn't mean that all pre-internet technologies are "pre-interactive." News has wanted to be interactive for a long, long time.
Ha, things haven't changed that much, now people stop work and play every Wednesday evening to watch "Survivor"! Yeah, it's kind of a sad turn of events; people haven't turned away from TV, just gotten more pathetic about it.
Okay, don't buy any CDs from any other companies either, then, or even blank CDRs, because Sony has a patent (or at least a trademark) and they get royalties for every one that is produced.
Ha! Which means, "we will firewall, block, and otherwise haX Napster to ensure total domination of our own internet-based, distributed, for-profit music system."
Hey, everyone who wants to write this "transcendent" software for Sony, raise your hand. That's what I thought. Neither do I. Of course, I already have a much better job. The sad part is, they'll probably find someone willing to do this sort of thing. Hell, lots of someones, and then they'll go sign the contracts (with ISPs, etc) to make it practical. Damn, damn, damn.
I think that'd be the only acceptable outcome. But think about how that would work. You'd sign up for the album as you used to, and listen to it "because hey, sony got their money!" But you could snag the streaming files and save an excellent-quality copy of the album for free (to you).
Or, maybe MP3.com will start to charge for the priviledge.
So much for MP3.com being free... how much do you think they'll charge now? Of course, there's already plenty of reasons to boycott Sony anyway...
Basically, there was a little blurb under "Conclusions" that said "Oh yeah, it's fast on Linux too, and sometimes faster." Whee! But this benchmark was not meant to compare java across platforms, and didn't even run anything on Linux.
Here's some links to read before you post your questions:
For one thing, most of the refined numerical concepts are either not present in swahili or are borrow words. So, abbreviations for "integer" and "floating point" and stuff would probably still be abbreviated from English. Or perhaps arabic, which would give it an interesting flavor.
However, swahili morphology (the way verbs change when conjugated) is totally different. The verb stem gets a bunch of prefixes and infixes for subject, direct object, and tense. So instead of stringing words together in function names, like
doProcessWithThings(thing1, thing2);
it would be more like
uvyofanye(kitu1, kitu2);
That's probably what C would look like in Swahili (and yes, I know no one really cares what it would look like, swahili is always used as arbitrary language of choice, but I just thought I'd satisfy anyone's bizarre curiosities. And no I'm not kidding; this is what it's really like).
Also, consider the idea of a... ah, sandbox or playground or something within the internet; don't try to give them the whole thing. Take the search engine links off of your Links page. Also remove yahoo. Put links to news and "family friendly" sites, and remove the toolbar where people can type in URLs.
Although... I don't know. There's a point where you have to stop. I mean, these things will definitely cripple the users' experience (caveat below), and they are fairly easily circumventable by a smart user.
Now, the caveat: like the parent post said, look at your audience. An e-Laundromat? Probably mostly newbies, people in with their kids... the middle schoolers from across the road probably have better ways to get their pr0n. How "sacrificed" are your customers going to feel if it's difficult to access arbitrary sites on the internet? If their choices are restricted to your menu options? If most of them are going to be using your links anyway, then problem solved. That way, No one's 9-year-old son is going to accidentally wander into playboy.com while mom is doing laundry.
But the pesky 13-year-old who's seen his 31337 friends "hack" their way into porn sites... they'll be able to get around it. But if you make him sign an agreement that he won't, then you can kick him off when he does.
ask slashdot? Nah. How about a poll? Then we could b*tch to our hearts' content about our favorite product not being an option. Plus, no mailbombs; no one takes polls seriously.
Yup, I think it is. So let's say you download 25 songs by 15 different artists on napster one night. And you actually like, say, 5 of them enough to tip. So you're going to jump over to fairtunes.com and individually search through the database 5 times to find your artists and go throught the rigamarole of tipping them?
Sure, if you're really committed. But it's a pain! What there needs to be is some kind of tie-in with, yes, napster or [insert p2p sharing system here] that collects info on what you've downloaded in a session, and provides an easy-to-click dialog saying "You've heard these 10 artists tonight. Check a box next to the ones you'd like to tip."
Then, if you were subscribed to the service (or had a cookie set or something, whatever) it could even fill in a default amount for each and your credit card number. Click! You just used 1-click (tm) tipping online. Okay, better make it 2 clicks to avoid patent infringement :)