I would have been, but working in scientific research I've discovered a couple of things that are surprising:
1. People actually do calculus on the whiteboard for reasons other than taking a math class.
2. Lots of people actually use FORTRAN. Even people whose Java, C, C++, Perl, Ruby, etc. skills are such that I look up to them -- and they have solid arguments for using FORTRAN, at least for certain kinds of numerical computing.
But here's the thing: There are separate worlds. In one world, the idea of using calculus on a daily basis is simply never a consideration. You learn enough to finish college, and that's the end of it. Likewise, there's a world where numerical computing and arbitrary precision and optimized complex arithmetic are actually primary considerations and not just hypothetical things.
I never understood this until I found myself in that world. And I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that people who know other languages, choose FORTRAN even when given a choice.
But what I take from it, is that there are requirements that are met by FORTRAN which are not met by languages that offer more comfortable grammars.
People (myself included) will argue that, for instance, C can do anything that FORTRAN can do, in a much happier grammar (opinion, mine, widely shared), but the thing is... while that's strictly true, a lot of the things that seem tangential or irrelevant, turn out to be *crucial*, where seriously optimized math support is the core of the application. FORTRAN makes guarantees on the kinds of things that are implementation dependent in C.
Anyway, there's no shortage of FORTRAN programmers. It's quite easy for a skilled programmer to learn FORTRAN, once you get past the 'WTF' factor and can accept that it's relevant in todays world, at least when your problem space is a good fit for the language.
COBOL or PL/1 and the like, make another story entirely. My experience has been that the role of COBOL has been replaced by the combination of transitions to modern RDBMS, decentralized business processes as a side-effect of the whole ubiquitous "PC" adoption, and the adoption of, for example, Enterprise Java. That covers one end of the spectrum, and the other end (the big corporate end) is covered by the evolution of vertical systems providers (e.g., Peoplesoft, SAP, SAIC).
Back on topic: If there's a university CS program that gives degrees without courses in Operating System and Compiler design taught in C, I'd love to hear about it. No way are C programmers in decreasing supply. If nothing else, the million or so open source projects have created a whole generation of self-taught folks who know C.
>The point being there is no good reason for any single entity to have thousands of domains.
There is no compelling state interest to deny them, and the fact that some enterprising individual was able to acquire them, means you could have acquired them also, if you'd been in an equivalent negotiating position. So the economic system favors the wealthy person who gets to the resource first. That sucks, but, it would suck even more to make some kind of law to constrain such a thing.
Basically, if something was for sale, and someone bought it, you could have too. The fact that you didn't have the money or other negotiable interest is not relevant to the fact that it was available on an open market. I realize this sucks, and I also realize there's an argument for a public interest in manipulating this market, but as of right now, it isn't treated as such, and I think it won't be.
"Mainstream acceptance" might be useful as an ego boost, and it might help grow certain commercial markets, but it's not necessary. I think that's the whole point.
I'm waiting for the RIAA to accidentally spawn an entire alternative market. I don't mean "alternative" like a trendy genre, but "alternative" as in, that breakthrough where some artists gets market penetration beyond what the RIAA can do, expressly without their support.
A whole new culture of radio could make that happen, I think. Sooner or later, RIAA will basically price themselves out of the market and stop attracting new talent. The only remaining step of course, is for new talent to realize that the means of production are no longer controlled by a few people. I would have thought everyone in the current generation realized this by now. But no, they apparently think it's "mainstream mass media" or nothing. It doesn't occur to them that they make more with 100,000 copies of their CD sold at their shows on the ski resort circuit, than with a million copies sold at mall stores (unless they get lucky and get to play stadiums.) I'm oversimplifying of course.
Pretty much *everybody* likes Democrats. Especially nowadays. Suggesting that Democrats represent one particular thing or another based on the support of numbers is fairly silly.
>It's not *all* Democrats, just like not *all* Republicans are pro-gun.
My point is, that in my political and private experience, I have found Democrats to be less concerned with gun control than Republicans. Most of the people who reflect that they actually understand the purpose of the 2nd Amendment (to serve as a continual check against government becoming tyranny), have been "liberals".
Naming a few names and citing a few laws doesn't change the fact that permissive gun laws are "liberal."
"This is an important issue to me, and it irritates the living hell out of me that my choices are between an idiot who wants to take all guns and an idiot who wants to take all non-hunting guns."
Neither of your hypothetical idiots actually has the power anyway. Congratulations on being misdirected. "Watch my left hand... "
>I didn't realize liberals believed in the right to bear arms.
Odd belief, not as well supported by facts as certain pundits would have you to believe. For example, the liberal Democratic Governor of my state is responsible for Open Carry, Open Transfer, and "Shall Issue" CCW permits. All of the Democratic Sheriffs of the state concur.
In my experience, "Liberal" gun laws are those where you are allowed to have them, and the government does not make it its own business until a crime is committed. Gun control is not a universal, or even a core value, of the Democratic Party, or of liberalism in general.
>(1996-2007) is definitely the year of Linux on the desktop. (Apparently if you recite this one enough times it will become true)
The only people I know who are not using Linux "on the desktop", use Macs. I switched to Mac too, for the laptop, but I still use Linux on the desktop. I don't even understand what the argument was supposed to be, something to the effect that Linux isn't already on the desktop? Of course, I work in science, not in business, so when I look around, I don't expect what I see to be representative of any other domain.
>Human transcriptionists, on the other hand, will insert a blank if they're not sure, to alert the dictating physician. This fscking system has no >clue when it's wrong, which makes it very dangerous in my opinion!
Indeed. I'm also not convinced that "speech to text" is the right thing to do anyway. I think we'd be better off re-thinking the whole interface, and using "speech-to-audio" idioms.
Working with visually impaired people for the first time, I was surprised to see how efficient the screen readers actually were. I was picturing something that read at a rate on the order of what I read. The surprising thing was to realize the users were reading *many* times faster than a visual reader would do. The most proficient people using readers can absorb information that sounds to the untrained ear, like a tape on fast forward. It really is amazing.
Anybody who is picturing the screen readers as being like "Mail.... From.... user... at... ess... dee... ess... see... e...dee.... you... Subject..." might be in for a shock. I know I was.
Some fairly thorough studies of literacy rates were done by the Postal Service before and after the war. I am sure that you could find real data if you were interested. What I remember about it is that literacy rates for whites declined during the reconstruction period while literacy rates for blacks soared.
With as many people who would be in on the conspiracy, we should be getting deathbed confessions already.
I'm interested in the Kennedy Assassination because I was there. Too young to be aware of anything, but there, I'm told, with my mom and the other AT&T operators she worked with, at the AT&T building across Houston Street. They didn't realize what was happening, didn't hear any gunshots, but saw the crowd panicking. As far as they were concerned, the parade ended when the car turned on Elm.
Also, my dad was at work at the Ford Furniture company across the street from the Texas theatre when they arrested Oswald.
I myself have lived in a house that Marina lived in later with her daughters. And I've worked at the Texas theatre, routinely parked my car at the North Tower, and had many a lunch break at the Grassy Knoll.
Should I be worried?
My "conspiracy theory" is a little different. I'd accept the premise that the opportunity to assassinate Kennedy presented itself as so completely obvious, that several people *independently* executed a plan, without knowing about Oswald. Maybe the guy at the fence and the guy on the railroad bridge knew about each other, but totally freaked when they realized somebody *else* was shooting.
>I received a letter from my bank a week ago, which I shredded...
Right after someone closely connected to you is directly linked, literally to the crime of the century?
When you routinely shred documents, that is one thing. When you shred documents that are possibly evidence in such a serious crime, that's another.
I'm still wondering about that FAA manager who took tapes made on 9/11, and deliberately cut them up and deposited them in separate wastebaskets. Does that exercise get done EVERY day, or only after the biggest incident ever?
Do you not see your bank statement as being at all different from a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald that's in your hand *AFTER* he kills the President?
"Even if that photograph is authentic it doesn't necessarily mean its Oswald. There is a simlliarity but the photograph is of such poor quality that it could be just about anyone."
I'd like to see the result of applying contemporary face-recognition tech to it. I'd also like to know who, if that's not Oswald, the FBI says it is. That person may not be Oswald, but he is an eyewitness. Who is he and what story did he tell?
"Wow.. I can"t believe I could read that within a few seconds of seeing it for the first time. It says: I Am Not A Lawyer But I Have Studied Law And Work In The Field."
I was never worried for a moment that it would be unclear:-)
Until the *one* discovery request that receives *only* the closed file from the boxes at the off-site facility, 25 years from now. Then it makes sense. Most of the litigation I was involved in (IANALBIHSLAWITF), had documentation spanning a period of about 1912 to about 1985.
"Fair enough. It's possible you are right. If, however, you want to be able to enforce those patents later, you'll need to com e forward right away."
There's nothing to support that notion for patents. For trademarks, yes. For patents, no. It's quite allowed to enforce a restriction of a patent for one party, and ignore another.
Estoppel enters into the mix if a party changes its claims in the course of litigation.
The doctrine you are looking for is Laches. Laches has been used as a defense against patent infringement, and appellate courts have delivered opposing findings. Compare Wanlass v. Fedders Corporation, 145 F.3rd 1461 (Fed. Cir., 1998) with Wanlass v. General Electric Company, 148 F.3rd 1334 (Federal Circuit, 1998).
In the latter case, the same court assigned blame on the plaintiff because not only had their delay caused undue evidentiary burdens on the defendant, but also because the defendant had long since ceased production of any infringing product.
The Fedders case establishes a duty on the part of the patent holder to police the market where suspected infringement occurs, but did not impose any penalty for failing to do so under the facts present in that particular case.
These separate findings were by the same court, a week apart, for the same plaintiff in very similar cases with substantially similar claims. They suggest that the application of laches to patent infringement claims remains subject to evaluation of all other facts of a given case.
As it stands, the best you can hope for in applying laches to a patent infringement suit, is that it may help a motion for summary judgment to be granted, and may be a bargaining chip to reduce a settlement amount.
But there is no basis to claim that delay in prosecuting a patent infringement has any assurance of diminishing the patent holder's right to seek damage in future litigation.
No, it isn't. Here's a scenario that could have happened. A bystander could have witnessed the incident and decided as a resonable person to use deadly force in order to prevent a murder. It would have ended in tragedy *AND* the well-meaning bystander would probably get lethal injection.
Another potential scenario is if one or more of the kids, instead of going into a panic, did something bold and heroic, but in the process killed or injured a teacher, a student, himself, wrecked a school bus, etc.
A tornado drill is one thing, but this is something entirely different and completely unacceptable.
Imagine if a police officer or armed citizen, upon seeing a grown man pointing a firearm at a small child, decided the only proper action was to end that situation with deadly force.
I have a co-worker who just completed a Theremin, built from scratch, using an original RCA design (that is, Leo). I was playing with it a few minutes ago.
Slashdot Mirror
>I'm surprised that Fortran didn't make the list.
I would have been, but working in scientific research I've discovered a couple of things that are surprising:
1. People actually do calculus on the whiteboard for reasons other than taking a math class.
2. Lots of people actually use FORTRAN. Even people whose Java, C, C++, Perl, Ruby, etc. skills are such that I look up to them -- and they have solid arguments for using FORTRAN, at least for certain kinds of numerical computing.
But here's the thing: There are separate worlds. In one world, the idea of using calculus on a daily basis is simply never a consideration. You learn enough to finish college, and that's the end of it. Likewise, there's a world where numerical computing and arbitrary precision and optimized complex arithmetic are actually primary considerations and not just hypothetical things.
I never understood this until I found myself in that world. And I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that people who know other languages, choose FORTRAN even when given a choice.
But what I take from it, is that there are requirements that are met by FORTRAN which are not met by languages that offer more comfortable grammars.
People (myself included) will argue that, for instance, C can do anything that FORTRAN can do, in a much happier grammar (opinion, mine, widely shared), but the thing is... while that's strictly true, a lot of the things that seem tangential or irrelevant, turn out to be *crucial*, where seriously optimized math support is the core of the application. FORTRAN makes guarantees on the kinds of things that are implementation dependent in C.
Anyway, there's no shortage of FORTRAN programmers. It's quite easy for a skilled programmer to learn FORTRAN, once you get past the 'WTF' factor and can accept that it's relevant in todays world, at least when your problem space is a good fit for the language.
COBOL or PL/1 and the like, make another story entirely. My experience has been that the role of COBOL has been replaced by the combination of transitions to modern RDBMS, decentralized business processes as a side-effect of the whole ubiquitous "PC" adoption, and the adoption of, for example, Enterprise Java. That covers one end of the spectrum, and the other end (the big corporate end) is covered by the evolution of vertical systems providers (e.g., Peoplesoft, SAP, SAIC).
Back on topic: If there's a university CS program that gives degrees without courses in Operating System and Compiler design taught in C, I'd love to hear about it. No way are C programmers in decreasing supply. If nothing else, the million or so open source projects have created a whole generation of self-taught folks who know C.
>The point being there is no good reason for any single entity to have thousands of domains.
There is no compelling state interest to deny them, and the fact that some enterprising individual was able to acquire them, means you could have acquired them also, if you'd been in an equivalent negotiating position. So the economic system favors the wealthy person who gets to the resource first. That sucks, but, it would suck even more to make some kind of law to constrain such a thing.
Basically, if something was for sale, and someone bought it, you could have too. The fact that you didn't have the money or other negotiable interest is not relevant to the fact that it was available on an open market. I realize this sucks, and I also realize there's an argument for a public interest in manipulating this market, but as of right now, it isn't treated as such, and I think it won't be.
>Think hard about this. How can we have privacy in the digital age?
By and large, "we" don't even use *mild* crypto, even in places where we really should be using *hard* crypto.
Do we actually *want* privacy? Seems not.
"Mainstream acceptance" might be useful as an ego boost, and it might help grow certain commercial markets, but it's not necessary. I think that's the whole point.
>leave the independents to fend for themselves.
I'm waiting for the RIAA to accidentally spawn an entire alternative market. I don't mean "alternative" like a trendy genre, but "alternative" as in, that breakthrough where some artists gets market penetration beyond what the RIAA can do, expressly without their support.
A whole new culture of radio could make that happen, I think. Sooner or later, RIAA will basically price themselves out of the market and stop attracting new talent. The only remaining step of course, is for new talent to realize that the means of production are no longer controlled by a few people. I would have thought everyone in the current generation realized this by now. But no, they apparently think it's "mainstream mass media" or nothing. It doesn't occur to them that they make more with 100,000 copies of their CD sold at their shows on the ski resort circuit, than with a million copies sold at mall stores (unless they get lucky and get to play stadiums.) I'm oversimplifying of course.
>So, the gun control lobby likes Democrats.
Pretty much *everybody* likes Democrats. Especially nowadays. Suggesting that Democrats represent one particular thing or another based on the support of numbers is fairly silly.
>It's not *all* Democrats, just like not *all* Republicans are pro-gun.
My point is, that in my political and private experience, I have found Democrats to be less concerned with gun control than Republicans. Most of the people who reflect that they actually understand the purpose of the 2nd Amendment (to serve as a continual check against government becoming tyranny), have been "liberals".
Naming a few names and citing a few laws doesn't change the fact that permissive gun laws are "liberal."
"This is an important issue to me, and it irritates the living hell out of me that my choices are between an idiot who wants to take all guns and an idiot who wants to take all non-hunting guns."
Neither of your hypothetical idiots actually has the power anyway. Congratulations on being misdirected. "Watch my left hand... "
>I didn't realize liberals believed in the right to bear arms.
Odd belief, not as well supported by facts as certain pundits would have you to believe.
For example, the liberal Democratic Governor of my state is responsible for Open Carry, Open Transfer, and "Shall Issue" CCW permits. All of the Democratic Sheriffs of the state concur.
In my experience, "Liberal" gun laws are those where you are allowed to have them, and the government does not make it its own business until a crime is committed. Gun control is not a universal, or even a core value, of the Democratic Party, or of liberalism in general.
>Open Source software will only work as long as someone maintains it.
Are you suggesting that it rots?
>(1996-2007) is definitely the year of Linux on the desktop. (Apparently if you recite this one enough times it will become true)
The only people I know who are not using Linux "on the desktop", use Macs. I switched to Mac too, for the laptop, but I still use Linux on the desktop. I don't even understand what the argument was supposed to be, something to the effect that Linux isn't already on the desktop? Of course, I work in science, not in business, so when I look around, I don't expect what I see to be representative of any other domain.
>Human transcriptionists, on the other hand, will insert a blank if they're not sure, to alert the dictating physician. This fscking system has no
>clue when it's wrong, which makes it very dangerous in my opinion!
Indeed. I'm also not convinced that "speech to text" is the right thing to do anyway. I think we'd be better off re-thinking the whole interface, and using "speech-to-audio" idioms.
Working with visually impaired people for the first time, I was surprised to see how efficient the screen readers actually were. I was picturing something that read at a rate on the order of what I read. The surprising thing was to realize the users were reading *many* times faster than a visual reader would do. The most proficient people using readers can absorb information that sounds to the untrained ear, like a tape on fast forward. It really is amazing.
Anybody who is picturing the screen readers as being like "Mail.... From.... user... at... ess... dee... ess... see... e...dee.... you... Subject..." might be in for a shock. I know I was.
>How many of them could read and write?
Some fairly thorough studies of literacy rates were done by the Postal Service before and after the war. I am sure that you could find real data if you were interested. What I remember about it is that literacy rates for whites declined during the reconstruction period while literacy rates for blacks soared.
Thanks for that info. I never knew about Lovelady before today!
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/evidence/ nyt_destape.html
Apparently, the traffic controllers' union required an agreement that recordings of their testimony would be destroyed. Something like that.
>I think what he was asking was, "Why do people still make booze in such a way that it is illegal?", not, "Why is there any booze that is
> illegal?"
NO!
"Why is there a legal premise by which a person can be prevented from making liquor?"
>And now, the legal prices of booze are so low that there is no reason to make illegal booze.
Why is there still such a thing as "illegal booze?"
>It's called history
With as many people who would be in on the conspiracy, we should be getting deathbed confessions already.
I'm interested in the Kennedy Assassination because I was there. Too young to be aware of anything, but there, I'm told, with my mom and the other AT&T operators she worked with, at the AT&T building across Houston Street. They didn't realize what was happening, didn't hear any gunshots, but saw the crowd panicking. As far as they were concerned, the parade ended when the car turned on Elm.
Also, my dad was at work at the Ford Furniture company across the street from the Texas theatre when they arrested Oswald.
I myself have lived in a house that Marina lived in later with her daughters. And I've worked at the Texas theatre, routinely parked my car at the North Tower, and had many a lunch break at the Grassy Knoll.
Should I be worried?
My "conspiracy theory" is a little different. I'd accept the premise that the opportunity to assassinate Kennedy presented itself as so completely obvious, that several people *independently* executed a plan, without knowing about Oswald. Maybe the guy at the fence and the guy on the railroad bridge knew about each other, but totally freaked when they realized somebody *else* was shooting.
>I received a letter from my bank a week ago, which I shredded...
Right after someone closely connected to you is directly linked, literally to the crime of the century?
When you routinely shred documents, that is one thing. When you shred documents that are possibly evidence in such a serious crime, that's another.
I'm still wondering about that FAA manager who took tapes made on 9/11, and deliberately cut them up and deposited them in separate wastebaskets. Does that exercise get done EVERY day, or only after the biggest incident ever?
Do you not see your bank statement as being at all different from a letter from Lee Harvey Oswald that's in your hand *AFTER* he kills the President?
"Even if that photograph is authentic it doesn't necessarily mean its Oswald. There is a simlliarity but the photograph is of such poor quality that it could be just about anyone."
I'd like to see the result of applying contemporary face-recognition tech to it. I'd also like to know who, if that's not Oswald, the FBI says it is. That person may not be Oswald, but he is an eyewitness. Who is he and what story did he tell?
"Wow.. I can"t believe I could read that within a few seconds of seeing it for the first time. It says: I Am Not A Lawyer But I Have Studied Law And Work In The Field."
I was never worried for a moment that it would be unclear
>Unbelievable...
Until the *one* discovery request that receives *only* the closed file from the boxes at the off-site facility, 25 years from now.
Then it makes sense. Most of the litigation I was involved in (IANALBIHSLAWITF), had documentation spanning a period of about 1912 to about 1985.
>I agree with you, but wasn't it Jerry Falwell that picketed Matthew Shepherd's funeral?
Fred Phelps. Extremely loony, no comparison to Falwell.
"Fair enough. It's possible you are right. If, however, you want to be able to enforce those patents later, you'll need to com e forward right away."
There's nothing to support that notion for patents. For trademarks, yes. For patents, no. It's quite allowed to enforce a restriction of a patent for one party, and ignore another.
Estoppel enters into the mix if a party changes its claims in the course of litigation.
The doctrine you are looking for is Laches. Laches has been used as a defense against patent infringement, and appellate courts have delivered opposing findings. Compare Wanlass v. Fedders Corporation, 145 F.3rd 1461 (Fed. Cir., 1998) with Wanlass v. General Electric Company, 148 F.3rd 1334 (Federal Circuit, 1998).
In the latter case, the same court assigned blame on the plaintiff because not only had their delay caused undue evidentiary burdens on the defendant, but also because the defendant had long since ceased production of any infringing product.
The Fedders case establishes a duty on the part of the patent holder to police the market where suspected infringement occurs, but did not impose any penalty for failing to do so under the facts present in that particular case.
These separate findings were by the same court, a week apart, for the same plaintiff in very similar cases with substantially similar claims. They suggest that the application of laches to patent infringement claims remains subject to evaluation of all other facts of a given case.
As it stands, the best you can hope for in applying laches to a patent infringement suit, is that it may help a motion for summary judgment to be granted, and may be a bargaining chip to reduce a settlement amount.
But there is no basis to claim that delay in prosecuting a patent infringement has any assurance of diminishing the patent holder's right to seek damage in future litigation.
>this is being WAY overblown and misreported.
No, it isn't. Here's a scenario that could have happened. A bystander could have witnessed the incident and decided as a resonable person to use deadly force in order to prevent a murder. It would have ended in tragedy *AND* the well-meaning bystander would probably get lethal injection.
Another potential scenario is if one or more of the kids, instead of going into a panic, did something bold and heroic, but in the process killed or injured a teacher, a student, himself, wrecked a school bus, etc.
A tornado drill is one thing, but this is something entirely different and completely unacceptable.
Imagine if a police officer or armed citizen, upon seeing a grown man pointing a firearm at a small child, decided the only proper action was to end that situation with deadly force.
I have a co-worker who just completed a Theremin, built from scratch, using an original RCA design (that is, Leo).
I was playing with it a few minutes ago.
http://bedsidestory.livejournal.com/37706.html