Aboriginal simply means 'from the beginning'. It is a word usually incorrectly used to denote the original inhabitants of Australia.
For the current Andaman Islanders, it seems they are aboriginal. And yes, I saw a Beeb report where they said they had seen something different about the waves coming onto the beach and consequently moved to higher ground. They also never build their huts close to the beach. Folklore working at its best.
The BBC does not raise the license fee. It has no powers (or any pseudo governmental powers) to do so. The government sets and collects the license fee.
If it wished to do so, the govt. could force the BBC to fund itself through advertising. You would then get all the mindless corporate propaganda for tampons, hair care products, headache pills, supermarket burgers and pet food on all the 50 odd channels of radio and TV (that figure includes local area broadcast, BTW) the BBC provides and banner ads on their Internet pages whilst watching a further degradation in programme quality (more than we have already suffered).
On the other hand, you can pay the license fee (at half the cost of any cable or satellite company) and get some fair and balanced non-Murdoch inspired truth, plus all the programming for the Open University (amongst other things). You know, useful stuff to a lot of people.
What is this tripe in the 'overview': "Open Enterprise Server is a secure, highly available suite of services that provides proven networking, communication, collaboration and application services in an open, easy-to-deploy environment.... for delivering business-level applications... you get common management tools, identity-based services and an entire ecosystem of support...."
Let's see that again: "...[a] suite of services... for delivering business-level applications... and an entire eco-system of support"
Wow! Still dunno what it is, but I must have one...
They are very probably way behind Bulgaria. Bulgarian education is excellent. For example, for a small country of less than 8 million, they usually appear in the top 5 at International Mathematics Olympiads (in amongst China, USA, Russia) and they produce superb developers.
...isn't answerable to anyone...
Presumably, Ofcom, the board of governors, the House of Commons public media committee, individual MPs, self-appointed media watch organizations, etc.etc.etc. are doing nothing?
...yet has pseudogovernmental powers....
And what would those be?
Microsoft patented a process for a 'limited resource computing device'. Presumably because they are aware of an unlimited resource computing device somewhere. Why don't you contact them?
Finally, the office noted it is illegal to import products that are made abroad using processes patented in the United States.
Is this true? If I write a s/w product that includes, say, stuff patented by IBM (arithmetic coding) and M$ ('ISNOT'), is importing said s/w illegal? Arithmetic coding is a process to (amongst other things) compress data.
I would understand it would be illegal if I had not licensed the patents. If it legal to import products made using licensed patents then, surely, you can import Monkey Man.
These people have set up the experiments so that their claims will either be supported by facts or not.
A quick search on the Net shows that the experiments themselves may not have been set up correctly, that the experimenters choose their data to fit the facts, seem to skew results, have a patent that presupposes their results and that plenty of bona fide quacks treat this as "truth" which always gets skeptics (like me, who do not take such publicity at face value) jumping all over gullible posters.
And there's plenty of stuff that people believed in, or still believe in, that are still wrong. Ether, the heart being the centre of emotion, the world being flat.
I haven't seen any convincing data, the people running this project pick and choose 'world' events as they decide it.
For example: "Radin gave several examples of how GCP had detected 'global consciousness'. One was the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double-murder. We were shown a graph where - no doubt about that - the data formed a nice ascending curve in the minutes after the pre-show started, with cameras basically waiting for the verdict to be read. And yes, there was a nice, ascending curve in the minutes after the verdict was read.
However, about half an hour before the verdict, there was a similar curve ascending for no apparent reason. Radin's quick explanation before moving on to the next slide?
'I don't know what happened there.'
It was not to be the last time we heard that answer."
And if upward curves start before the 'world' event taking place? It's collective pre-cognition folks! And how much before the event counts as pre-cognition? As much (or as little) as these 'experimeters' require.
Look, even the director of the project himself says: "...this idea is really an aesthetic speculation. I don't think we have real grounds to claim that the statistics and graphs representing the data prove the existence of a global consciousness. On the other hand, we do have strong evidence of anomalous structure in what should be random data..."
That's the real telling point: "...should be random data...". I bet some in-depth tests might show the 'eggs' are simply not entirely random.
Perhaps the article should be read before people spend a whole 5 minutes trying to prove it to be a fraud
Or read their own blurb: "...we have created a world-spanning network of detectors sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain. Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness...".
So they started with the assumption that their machines are "...detectors sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain." This is just voodoo 'science'. Anybody can come to a sympathetic conclusion if the premise is based on that conclusion.
...Like them or not, software patents encourage incredible innovation in the field...
Please, please, post one credible link stuffed with quality facts that proves this assertion.
I have asked for this information many times and have received not one single reply. In fact, all the info I've seen on patents and especially software patents, always show the opposite.
Ah well, if I was dictator of Europe, s/w patents wouldn't be allowed at all... However, I was making the more extreme point about all patents. If they are shown to be anti-innovation and distort the market, I couldn't see how (in any logical world), s/w patents could ever get a look in.
You are right about the EPC - and the EPO manoevering like billy-o to get round its own articles (Art. 52):
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions [...]:
(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
(b) aesthetic creations;
(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
(d) presentations of information.
If you argue that by mathematical method, the Article means algorithm, then it denies software patents twice! The "as such" argument is really the same as counting angels dancing on the head of a pin. But the EPO is really only interested in increasing its own income and does not have the wider interest of the public or countries' economies at heart.
they successfully (a) figured out that they did not infringe, or (b) figured out how to design around the patent. Each design-around was of course a good candidate for getting their own patent.
How much did it cost them? I recently worked for a small Dutch company of eight people working in the DRM licensing field. We had a whole bunch of ideas that, in the US patent system (and possibly with the EPO) could have generated 30 or 40 patents. There was absolutely no way they could afford the cost of searches, applications and lawyer's fees for them. We were estimated 1/2 million US$/Euro at the time.
Is there some special or magic reason why a software company should be exempt from having to think about patents, when similarly sized companies making mousetraps or socket wrenches do have to think about patents?
Yes: 1. a protection mechanism already exists for s/w; 2. the creation time for a piece of s/w can amount to a matter of minutes. Why should a 20 year protection exist for such trivia ('IS NOT' etc.)?
The EU is not a state or a federation. What we need to do is strengthen the parliament considerably so that the democratic voice is heard more clearly.
S/w patenting is not suffering bureaucracy, it's politics. The politicians have been bought by M$, Alcatel, SAP, Nokia etc.etc.
As for directives, they are usually short and simple when they come out of the EU, it's national bureaucracies implementing them that inflate the verbiage beyond recognition. I remember one on meat refrigeration or some such. Seven pages from the EU, 77 pages when the UK had implemented the directive.
Most people seem to agree that granting an inventor a patent for novel idea or implementation fosters innovation.
Can you give us a link which backs up this assertion? (Preferably with good quality facts).
All I have ever seen is this mantra repeated ad nauseam whilst I have read many articles which, with economic data, show that patents stifle innovation and distort the market.
Why not, if it's broken? Replace it with something else perhaps? An Australian govt. research project came to the conclusion that not having patents would be useful to innovation and the only reason they kept it was because of international treaty.
Or how about the Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, vol. 9, issue 1, pages 81-123:
"Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive."
I think the debate should be started to see whether patents are a useful mechanism or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Aboriginal simply means 'from the beginning'. It is a word usually incorrectly used to denote the original inhabitants of Australia.
For the current Andaman Islanders, it seems they are aboriginal. And yes, I saw a Beeb report where they said they had seen something different about the waves coming onto the beach and consequently moved to higher ground. They also never build their huts close to the beach. Folklore working at its best.
The BBC does not raise the license fee. It has no powers (or any pseudo governmental powers) to do so. The government sets and collects the license fee.
If it wished to do so, the govt. could force the BBC to fund itself through advertising. You would then get all the mindless corporate propaganda for tampons, hair care products, headache pills, supermarket burgers and pet food on all the 50 odd channels of radio and TV (that figure includes local area broadcast, BTW) the BBC provides and banner ads on their Internet pages whilst watching a further degradation in programme quality (more than we have already suffered).
On the other hand, you can pay the license fee (at half the cost of any cable or satellite company) and get some fair and balanced non-Murdoch inspired truth, plus all the programming for the Open University (amongst other things). You know, useful stuff to a lot of people.
What is this tripe in the 'overview': ... for delivering business-level applications... you get common management tools, identity-based services and an entire ecosystem of support...."
"Open Enterprise Server is a secure, highly available suite of services that provides proven networking, communication, collaboration and application services in an open, easy-to-deploy environment.
Let's see that again: "...[a] suite of services... for delivering business-level applications... and an entire eco-system of support"
Wow! Still dunno what it is, but I must have one...
They are very probably way behind Bulgaria. Bulgarian education is excellent. For example, for a small country of less than 8 million, they usually appear in the top 5 at International Mathematics Olympiads (in amongst China, USA, Russia) and they produce superb developers.
...isn't answerable to anyone...
...yet has pseudogovernmental powers....
Presumably, Ofcom, the board of governors, the House of Commons public media committee, individual MPs, self-appointed media watch organizations, etc.etc.etc. are doing nothing?
And what would those be?
Eh? So Denmark makes US$200-odd billion per year. M$ is a one-off US$200-odd billion value, Why does that make M$ bigger?
The parent asked what it all meant but was then modded out of sight...
Microsoft patented a process for a 'limited resource computing device'. Presumably because they are aware of an unlimited resource computing device somewhere. Why don't you contact them?
Turing machines. FSM
Finally, the office noted it is illegal to import products that are made abroad using processes patented in the United States.
Is this true? If I write a s/w product that includes, say, stuff patented by IBM (arithmetic coding) and M$ ('ISNOT'), is importing said s/w illegal? Arithmetic coding is a process to (amongst other things) compress data.
I would understand it would be illegal if I had not licensed the patents. If it legal to import products made using licensed patents then, surely, you can import Monkey Man.
But poor random numbers? Probably not.
But then again, probably yes: Random? numbers
These people have set up the experiments so that their claims will either be supported by facts or not.
A quick search on the Net shows that the experiments themselves may not have been set up correctly, that the experimenters choose their data to fit the facts, seem to skew results, have a patent that presupposes their results and that plenty of bona fide quacks treat this as "truth" which always gets skeptics (like me, who do not take such publicity at face value) jumping all over gullible posters.
Non random, random number generators
Or add: ' David Icke believes...'. Much more like the real thing.
And there's plenty of stuff that people believed in, or still believe in, that are still wrong. Ether, the heart being the centre of emotion, the world being flat.
I haven't seen any convincing data, the people running this project pick and choose 'world' events as they decide it.
For example:
"Radin gave several examples of how GCP had detected 'global consciousness'. One was the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double-murder. We were shown a graph where - no doubt about that - the data formed a nice ascending curve in the minutes after the pre-show started, with cameras basically waiting for the verdict to be read.
And yes, there was a nice, ascending curve in the minutes after the verdict was read.
However, about half an hour before the verdict, there was a similar curve ascending for no apparent reason. Radin's quick explanation before moving on to the next slide?
'I don't know what happened there.'
It was not to be the last time we heard that answer."
And if upward curves start before the 'world' event taking place? It's collective pre-cognition folks! And how much before the event counts as pre-cognition? As much (or as little) as these 'experimeters' require.
Look, even the director of the project himself says: "...this idea is really an aesthetic speculation. I don't think we have real grounds to claim that the statistics and graphs representing the data prove the existence of a global consciousness. On the other hand, we do have strong evidence of anomalous structure in what should be random data..."
That's the real telling point: "...should be random data...". I bet some in-depth tests might show the 'eggs' are simply not entirely random.
Perhaps the article should be read before people spend a whole 5 minutes trying to prove it to be a fraud
Or read their own blurb: "...we have created a world-spanning network of detectors sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain. Continuous streams of data are sent over the internet to be archived and correlated with events that may evoke a world-wide consciousness...".
So they started with the assumption that their machines are "...detectors sensitive to coherence and resonance in the mental domain." This is just voodoo 'science'. Anybody can come to a sympathetic conclusion if the premise is based on that conclusion.
(Their funding seems dubious too.)
...Like them or not, software patents encourage incredible innovation in the field...
Please, please, post one credible link stuffed with quality facts that proves this assertion.
I have asked for this information many times and have received not one single reply. In fact, all the info I've seen on patents and especially software patents, always show the opposite.
Ah well, if I was dictator of Europe, s/w patents wouldn't be allowed at all... However, I was making the more extreme point about all patents. If they are shown to be anti-innovation and distort the market, I couldn't see how (in any logical world), s/w patents could ever get a look in.
...they do protest too much.
You are right about the EPC - and the EPO manoevering like billy-o to get round its own articles (Art. 52):
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions [...]:
(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
(b) aesthetic creations;
(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
(d) presentations of information.
If you argue that by mathematical method, the Article means algorithm, then it denies software patents twice! The "as such" argument is really the same as counting angels dancing on the head of a pin. But the EPO is really only interested in increasing its own income and does not have the wider interest of the public or countries' economies at heart.
they successfully (a) figured out that they did not infringe, or (b) figured out how to design around the patent. Each design-around was of course a good candidate for getting their own patent.
How much did it cost them? I recently worked for a small Dutch company of eight people working in the DRM licensing field. We had a whole bunch of ideas that, in the US patent system (and possibly with the EPO) could have generated 30 or 40 patents. There was absolutely no way they could afford the cost of searches, applications and lawyer's fees for them. We were estimated 1/2 million US$/Euro at the time.
Is there some special or magic reason why a software company should be exempt from having to think about patents, when similarly sized companies making mousetraps or socket wrenches do have to think about patents?
Yes: 1. a protection mechanism already exists for s/w; 2. the creation time for a piece of s/w can amount to a matter of minutes. Why should a 20 year protection exist for such trivia ('IS NOT' etc.)?
The EU is not a state or a federation. What we need to do is strengthen the parliament considerably so that the democratic voice is heard more clearly.
S/w patenting is not suffering bureaucracy, it's politics. The politicians have been bought by M$, Alcatel, SAP, Nokia etc.etc.
As for directives, they are usually short and simple when they come out of the EU, it's national bureaucracies implementing them that inflate the verbiage beyond recognition. I remember one on meat refrigeration or some such. Seven pages from the EU, 77 pages when the UK had implemented the directive.
Most people seem to agree that granting an inventor a patent for novel idea or implementation fosters innovation.
Can you give us a link which backs up this assertion? (Preferably with good quality facts).
All I have ever seen is this mantra repeated ad nauseam whilst I have read many articles which, with economic data, show that patents stifle innovation and distort the market.
But to remove the patent system entirely?
Why not, if it's broken? Replace it with something else perhaps? An Australian govt. research project came to the conclusion that not having patents would be useful to innovation and the only reason they kept it was because of international treaty.
Or how about the Journal of Economic Growth, 2004, vol. 9, issue 1, pages 81-123:
"Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive."
I think the debate should be started to see whether patents are a useful mechanism or not.