With a tongue-in-cheek updating of the common cold to a computer virus, it was called INDEPENDENCE DAY. Like the "original", its visual effects were great at the time...and nearly enough to carry you safely above the cornball sludge of both movies.
I expect the same this time around...and, like most, will likely fork over my sawbuck for it, rather than for some more deserving film that'll migrate better to the small screen.
What if we could "burn" memory space of a program...
Sounds like the Maginot line.
Is there some (Godel-like) theorem to the effect that any reasonably complex OS, with reasonably useful i/o, must be prey to a sufficiently informed virus?
If not, then aren't all these virus skirmishes part of an evolutionary march toward an ultimate impregnable uber-system? At the very least, viruses will become increasingly harder to write (...it says here).
I hate to defend politicians and bureaucrats, and I don't know that it's called for here, but...
In essence, this is just a practical joke that went way up the ladder. Concern for safety should have been the first reaction, and maybe even the second.
E.g., when told that her baby shows signs of 'ingestive salivary discharge', how many new mothers will complacently reach for a napkin?
...the system really needs some kind of oversight by grayer heads who have sufficient familiarity with the field and are less easily impressed...
A patent-review system that requires abundant hybrids of Thomas Edison and Old Deuteronomy is not a robust blueprint.
If you believe (as I do) that patents are Good, then the aim should be towards properly tutoring new examiners. My experience with them suggests that they're typically more than capable, but too often "mal-focused"...probably by mentors who should know better. (As a parallel, think what "first principles" were taught you by your best vs. your worst driving-instructor.)
Actually, GUIs and CLIs lie on a continuum (and one's choice of camp seems often merely to favor one's birthplace).
To see the continuum, start with a "pure" command-line interface: the simple 'prompt' character. Now, by prepending to it (say) the name of your current working directory, you're starting to build a GUI (by adding a bit of always-present unsolicited information). Next you might, e.g., add a short list of available commands... then maybe make them each clickable, etc.
And, it should come as no surprise that any interface should be chosen to match its application. You wouldn't try to drive a car via a CLI. (No, you wouldn't. Think about it.) Nor will a fancy GUI help you write (good) poetry.
Not (only) to be contrarian, I'd like to sound a lament for those of us who prefer to see a movie (read a book, etc.) and then feel we've actually done so...and not merely peeked in on a work-in-progress.
Sure, I'm aware, for example, that Flaubert revised MADAME BOVARY throughout his life, and that there was even a widescreen version of GONE WITH THE WIND (don't ask).
But I suspect that some kinds of entertainment are better received as finished works, rather than as performance art.
Unless I overlooked something, the web site conspicuously omitted any discussion of resolution. And resolution is what matters for any display that's more than a glorified blinking light.
As far as agglomerating lots of these devices into a big-screen TV, borders would presumably be as much of a problem as with current technologies...
...unless there are, say, 1000x1600 devices in the matrix, but that already works using (non-glorified) blinking lights.
Programming's a skill, not unlike speaking or writing. While you're new enough to it, there's enjoyment in the mere exercise of your mastery. But that wears out, out course, and does so even faster if you're doing it eight hours a day.
But when programming (or speaking or writing) matures into becoming a tool, its spectrum of possibilities for rewarding engagement widens dramatically.
But wait a moment... our own (movie-recommending) web site, has rules, ongoing cooperation among anonymous users, and its (only) significant rewards are decidedly real-world. And wait another moment... the same can largely be said of Slashdot.
As far as I can see, the key ingredient supplied by the competitive and "explicit" MMOGs seems to be their two-way escape door between fantasy and the real world. I'd like to put a favorable spin on playing them (as for puppies whose play-fighting intends to prepare them for eventual survival), but its easy to imagine more harm than good coming from long stretches spent in any such abscond-at-will social environments.
Nothing wrong with fantasy as entertainment...as long as it doesn't displace, well, anything else whatsoever.
Maybe predictable the article would name TERMINATOR rather than Cameron's other magnum opus TITANIC. A vastly overbudget project about a sinking ship might be bad juju for NASA.
Most slashdot readers likely hope that Pixar's new independence will free it from whatever shackles Disney's un-Imagineers have heretofore imposed on its creativity.
I hope so, too. But an unfortunate plausibility is that Pixar, now deprived of Disney's guaranteed distribution aerosol, will for the time being focus on even "safer" projects. (Think FINDING NEMO without the shark...or Ellen DeGeneres.)
Books give you details; movies give you ambience (i.e., being there).
I'm no history buff, but a two-hour tour of nearly any centuries-old culture is easily worth my movie ticket and time. Rather than TIMELINE (Michael Crichton's sci-fi adventure), MASTER & COMMANDER was the time-travel movie of last year, raising the bar for movies' intelligent, credible reconstruction of historical milieu.
Its shipboard ambience was M&C's essence. Its plot, though engaging and often exciting, was merely a towrope.
Patents are (or at any rate ought to be) intended to incentivize useful innovation. And in that respect, software is as desirable a field as any other technology.
That said, I admittedly couldn't spy in the IBM patent's abstract any leap of innovation. It reads more like a "best practices" memo, and even then one surprisingly devoid of surprises.
When did patent holders forget that one cannot patent an "obvious or pre-existing" idea?
They didn`t. But they know the Patent Office forgets it all too often.
When such a miscarriage occurs (as it occasionally must), the patent can be overturned by simply brandishing the prior art. Not even the most mercenary and abuse-prone patentor is likely to pursue a cause whose outcome is certain failure.
If, on the other hand, the outcome is uncertain, then the patent's worth(lessness) probably is too.
The patent system's value isn't primarily about fairness. Rather, it's about using greed (capitalism's crowbar) to tap society's creativity. The goal is simply to motivate inventors within every social stratum they frequent. Without the patent system, only a well-heeled few would pursue new ideas...and innovation would correspondingly decelerate. (I suspect the typical corporate confiscation of employees' ideas merely assures that there won't be many.)
With that goal in mind, patent-duration ought to reflect both the relevant technology's current speed of turnover as well as the minimum protection time needed for a patent to be amply rewarding. Make the duration too long, and the flow of ideas tangles and clogs. Make it too short, and the flow dries up. (Indeed, for far too long, 17 years duration has been far too long.)
But wholesale gutting of the patent system would squeeze off innovation...which BTW is perhaps this society's best, cleanest, and most renewable natural resource.
Slashdot Mirror
With a tongue-in-cheek updating of the common cold to a computer virus, it was called INDEPENDENCE DAY. Like the "original", its visual effects were great at the time ...and nearly enough to carry you safely above the cornball sludge of both movies.
I expect the same this time around ...and, like most, will likely fork over my sawbuck for it, rather than for some more deserving film that'll migrate better to the small screen.
Shame on us.
Sounds like the Maginot line.
Is there some (Godel-like) theorem to the effect that any reasonably complex OS, with reasonably useful i/o, must be prey to a sufficiently informed virus?
If not, then aren't all these virus skirmishes part of an evolutionary march toward an ultimate impregnable uber-system? At the very least, viruses will become increasingly harder to write (...it says here).
In essence, this is just a practical joke that went way up the ladder. Concern for safety should have been the first reaction, and maybe even the second.
E.g., when told that her baby shows signs of 'ingestive salivary discharge', how many new mothers will complacently reach for a napkin?
A patent-review system that requires abundant hybrids of Thomas Edison and Old Deuteronomy is not a robust blueprint.
If you believe (as I do) that patents are Good, then the aim should be towards properly tutoring new examiners. My experience with them suggests that they're typically more than capable, but too often "mal-focused" ...probably by mentors who should know better. (As a parallel, think what "first principles" were taught you by your best vs. your worst driving-instructor.)
. . . the theme park
. . . the self-help seminar
. . . the fragrance and cosmetic line
. . . The Passion of Frodo
. . . the Time-Life series
"Sewage power!"
"Wind turbines!"
"Sewage power!!!"
"Wind turbines!!!"
. . . - The Day the Shit Hit the Fan...
Can software KILL?
Absolutely. And, reportedly, so can many other common household items:
And the point is...?
To see the continuum, start with a "pure" command-line interface: the simple 'prompt' character. Now, by prepending to it (say) the name of your current working directory, you're starting to build a GUI (by adding a bit of always-present unsolicited information). Next you might, e.g., add a short list of available commands... then maybe make them each clickable, etc.
And, it should come as no surprise that any interface should be chosen to match its application. You wouldn't try to drive a car via a CLI. (No, you wouldn't. Think about it.) Nor will a fancy GUI help you write (good) poetry.
Sure, I'm aware, for example, that Flaubert revised MADAME BOVARY throughout his life, and that there was even a widescreen version of GONE WITH THE WIND (don't ask).
But I suspect that some kinds of entertainment are better received as finished works, rather than as performance art.
As far as agglomerating lots of these devices into a big-screen TV, borders would presumably be as much of a problem as with current technologies...
But when programming (or speaking or writing) matures into becoming a tool, its spectrum of possibilities for rewarding engagement widens dramatically.
Choose your next job by its projects. (And soon.)
But wait a moment... our own (movie-recommending) web site, has rules, ongoing cooperation among anonymous users, and its (only) significant rewards are decidedly real-world. And wait another moment... the same can largely be said of Slashdot.
As far as I can see, the key ingredient supplied by the competitive and "explicit" MMOGs seems to be their two-way escape door between fantasy and the real world. I'd like to put a favorable spin on playing them (as for puppies whose play-fighting intends to prepare them for eventual survival), but its easy to imagine more harm than good coming from long stretches spent in any such abscond-at-will social environments.
Nothing wrong with fantasy as entertainment ...as long as it doesn't displace, well, anything else whatsoever.
Maybe predictable the article would name TERMINATOR rather than Cameron's other magnum opus TITANIC. A vastly overbudget project about a sinking ship might be bad juju for NASA.
I hope so, too. But an unfortunate plausibility is that Pixar, now deprived of Disney's guaranteed distribution aerosol, will for the time being focus on even "safer" projects. (Think FINDING NEMO without the shark ...or Ellen DeGeneres.)
I'm no history buff, but a two-hour tour of nearly any centuries-old culture is easily worth my movie ticket and time. Rather than TIMELINE (Michael Crichton's sci-fi adventure), MASTER & COMMANDER was the time-travel movie of last year, raising the bar for movies' intelligent, credible reconstruction of historical milieu.
Its shipboard ambience was M&C's essence. Its plot, though engaging and often exciting, was merely a towrope.
That said, I admittedly couldn't spy in the IBM patent's abstract any leap of innovation. It reads more like a "best practices" memo, and even then one surprisingly devoid of surprises.
They didn`t. But they know the Patent Office forgets it all too often.
When such a miscarriage occurs (as it occasionally must), the patent can be overturned by simply brandishing the prior art. Not even the most mercenary and abuse-prone patentor is likely to pursue a cause whose outcome is certain failure.
If, on the other hand, the outcome is uncertain, then the patent's worth(lessness) probably is too.
(Maybe the moral is: get James Cameron. ...TITANIC: THE REVENGE?)
The patent system's value isn't primarily about fairness. Rather, it's about using greed (capitalism's crowbar) to tap society's creativity. The goal is simply to motivate inventors within every social stratum they frequent. Without the patent system, only a well-heeled few would pursue new ideas ...and innovation would correspondingly decelerate. (I suspect the typical corporate confiscation of employees' ideas merely assures that there won't be many.)
With that goal in mind, patent-duration ought to reflect both the relevant technology's current speed of turnover as well as the minimum protection time needed for a patent to be amply rewarding. Make the duration too long, and the flow of ideas tangles and clogs. Make it too short, and the flow dries up. (Indeed, for far too long, 17 years duration has been far too long.)
But wholesale gutting of the patent system would squeeze off innovation ...which BTW is perhaps this society's best, cleanest, and most renewable natural resource.