In all my years of programming, I have yet to see a completely clear, unambiguous standard. They don't exist, since English does a poor job at concise specification of behavior. That is why smart people participate in interoperability tests for new protocols to reconcile the different interpretations of different developers. Example: many years ago, ACC LAN center developed an XNS implementation that worked perfectly talking to other copies of itself, but failed miserably with other vendors' implementations. Why? Because the C standard at the time didn't specify the order of allocation of bitfields, and the developer had assumed LSB first allocation when instead it was doing MSB first.
If a science fiction writer predicted it 45 years ago, it sort of speaks to the validity of the "non-obvious" requirement for the patent, doesn't it? Apple can patent their methods for doing this, but not the concept itself, as they are currently trying to do with multitouch.
It's not Linux, but rather portable devices that may or may not be running Linux (e.g. iPhone and Android) that will drive the adoption of HTML5. Personally I despise Flash even more than Silverlight. The main reason I despise both of them is that most videos on the web simply won't play on my Android Phone.
Why would a thief bother to break the security on this device, when they can get into my house much more easily by breaking the full-length window that frames my front door, then simply reaching in and unlocking the door?
How do we know that you didn't die in childbirth in several of the multiverses, and thus the people in those universes were spared the discomfort of having to read that silly post?
That quote might be apocryphal, but his quote "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." on page 265 of the first edition of The Road Ahead is well established fact. (I have the book.)
Which explains why there are no stupid people in those parts of Alaska, Russia, and Finland which also have very low populations. (Obviously there are no wild bears in downtown Wasilla.) Unfortunately, the only check on unlimited fecundity in most of the world now is inability to feed the little rugrats, and we are working hard to eliminate that limitation as well.
And yes, I'm also in favor of eliminating caution signs and lane markers on highways to encourage people to hang up the cell phone and pay attention to what they are doing.
P.S. Hardware locks are also insecure. Security only increases the time and effort needed to break in, not make it impossible.
"The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker. " From The Age of the Pussyfoot, published in 1966 by Frederic Pohl. (I read this as a scholastic bookclub selection if fifth grade, It's been obvious for a few years now that the iPhone is well on it's way to becoming a "joymaker", this patent brings it even closer.
So under the right circumstances, I would have no problems in snuffing out the life of a baby human either. Doing harm is only justified when it is done to prevent a greater harm. I have no problem with killing humans in order to prevent them from killing other humans, but I really can't conceive of any circumstance wherein killing healthy baby prevents a greater harm (encephalitic infants are a different matter). Killing mosquitoes is only justified because you assign a greater value the harm caused by them biting people to the harm you cause them by crushing them. This is a valid, though by no means universal, value judgment.
Likewise, I have no problem with harming animals to provide food for my family, or even to modify their behavior. Doing harm to animals that doesn't promote a greater good is evil. This isn't just idle talk; my sister is a veterinarian. She loves horses, but is not allowed to work on equines because she refused to do unnecessary harm to a donkey as part of her schooling. In other words, she placed a greater value on animals not suffering unnecessarily than on the advancement of her own career. This also causes problems at work, since vets that are in it for the money have a difficult time relating to her.
No handwriting recognition system is going to have the speed or accuracy of a keyboard; at least not in the near future. By the time you've got the spare CPU cycles and context-sensitive parsing to do 100% accurate handwriting recognition, you'll be better off using voice recognition, which not only supports the people that can't type, but also functional illiterates... like your average facebook member.
Not sure why you're on Slashdot cutting down things other people want when the product you want has existed forever. Umm... 'cause I'm still pissed off that I can't afford it? I didn't say nobody would want this, I just said it sounded to me like a larger version of a DSi... (Nintendo themselves are coming out with a larger DSi, the DSi XL March 28) There are not a lot of "innovative" ideas in this thing. Can I quick-charge this device on my induction cooktop?
Sadly, her work required her to use a website that only works through Internet Explorer 6. Unless she works for Microsoft, that sounds like more her work's fault than Microsoft's fault. Is it Microsoft's fault that businesses a) Were stupid enough several years ago to implement systems that relied on the crufty behavior of a specific browser, rather than open standards, and b) now are too cheap and/or risk averse to redesign their systems, and therefore continue to use tools that by their very design can't possibly work in a secure browser environment? Remember, this crap was built with.ASP code that just naturally assumed it could do whatever the hell it wanted to your computer. Fixing the browser security model means breaking these crufty app's fundamental design.
While I agree with you, not everybody can type 50 WPM. Microsoft doesn't make products for you and me, they make products for stupid people -- no, really, I think that's their target audience. Why use a stylus? People said the same thing about the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing) interface, i.e. "Why use a GUI when command line is faster and offers more options". The answer is obvious: because clicking Start, then Shutdown is much easier to remember (and harder to screw up) than typing "shutdown -h -t now".
Inductive charging is way cool, but the rest of it sounds like just a larger version of the Nintendo DS! Not real innovative, if you know what I mean. Can't somebody simply make a tablet PC with USB ports, so I can plug in external memory, keyboard, mouse, etc.?
Slashdot Mirror
In all my years of programming, I have yet to see a completely clear, unambiguous standard. They don't exist, since English does a poor job at concise specification of behavior. That is why smart people participate in interoperability tests for new protocols to reconcile the different interpretations of different developers. Example: many years ago, ACC LAN center developed an XNS implementation that worked perfectly talking to other copies of itself, but failed miserably with other vendors' implementations. Why? Because the C standard at the time didn't specify the order of allocation of bitfields, and the developer had assumed LSB first allocation when instead it was doing MSB first.
If a science fiction writer predicted it 45 years ago, it sort of speaks to the validity of the "non-obvious" requirement for the patent, doesn't it? Apple can patent their methods for doing this, but not the concept itself, as they are currently trying to do with multitouch.
It's not Linux, but rather portable devices that may or may not be running Linux (e.g. iPhone and Android) that will drive the adoption of HTML5. Personally I despise Flash even more than Silverlight. The main reason I despise both of them is that most videos on the web simply won't play on my Android Phone.
Why would a thief bother to break the security on this device, when they can get into my house much more easily by breaking the full-length window that frames my front door, then simply reaching in and unlocking the door?
I'd never use "0000" as a pin; I always use "123" as a PIN. It's much easier to remember, since it's the same as the combination on my luggage!
This article just broke my old irony meter!
How do we know that you didn't die in childbirth in several of the multiverses, and thus the people in those universes were spared the discomfort of having to read that silly post?
That quote might be apocryphal, but his quote "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." on page 265 of the first edition of The Road Ahead is well established fact. (I have the book.)
Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. That might be true, but googling that phrase will produce exactly the results you would expect.
Which explains why there are no stupid people in those parts of Alaska, Russia, and Finland which also have very low populations. (Obviously there are no wild bears in downtown Wasilla.) Unfortunately, the only check on unlimited fecundity in most of the world now is inability to feed the little rugrats, and we are working hard to eliminate that limitation as well.
And yes, I'm also in favor of eliminating caution signs and lane markers on highways to encourage people to hang up the cell phone and pay attention to what they are doing.
P.S. Hardware locks are also insecure. Security only increases the time and effort needed to break in, not make it impossible.
I'd rather have people stealing my iPhone than stealing my eyeballs and fingertips to gain access. The phone is a lot easier to replace.
"The remote-access computer transponder called the "joymaker" is your most valuable single possession in your new life. If you can imagine a combination of telephone, credit card, alarm clock, pocket bar, reference library, and full-time secretary, you will have sketched some of the functions provided by your joymaker. " From The Age of the Pussyfoot, published in 1966 by Frederic Pohl. (I read this as a scholastic bookclub selection if fifth grade, It's been obvious for a few years now that the iPhone is well on it's way to becoming a "joymaker", this patent brings it even closer.
So under the right circumstances, I would have no problems in snuffing out the life of a baby human either. Doing harm is only justified when it is done to prevent a greater harm. I have no problem with killing humans in order to prevent them from killing other humans, but I really can't conceive of any circumstance wherein killing healthy baby prevents a greater harm (encephalitic infants are a different matter). Killing mosquitoes is only justified because you assign a greater value the harm caused by them biting people to the harm you cause them by crushing them. This is a valid, though by no means universal, value judgment.
Likewise, I have no problem with harming animals to provide food for my family, or even to modify their behavior. Doing harm to animals that doesn't promote a greater good is evil. This isn't just idle talk; my sister is a veterinarian. She loves horses, but is not allowed to work on equines because she refused to do unnecessary harm to a donkey as part of her schooling. In other words, she placed a greater value on animals not suffering unnecessarily than on the advancement of her own career. This also causes problems at work, since vets that are in it for the money have a difficult time relating to her.
No handwriting recognition system is going to have the speed or accuracy of a keyboard; at least not in the near future. By the time you've got the spare CPU cycles and context-sensitive parsing to do 100% accurate handwriting recognition, you'll be better off using voice recognition, which not only supports the people that can't type, but also functional illiterates... like your average facebook member.
Not sure why you're on Slashdot cutting down things other people want when the product you want has existed forever. Umm... 'cause I'm still pissed off that I can't afford it? I didn't say nobody would want this, I just said it sounded to me like a larger version of a DSi... (Nintendo themselves are coming out with a larger DSi, the DSi XL March 28) There are not a lot of "innovative" ideas in this thing. Can I quick-charge this device on my induction cooktop?
Set it up to electrocute the user when they are NOT concentrating, and sell it as a cure for ADHD!
Why is it blue? Because the only "spirit" in these bottles is Blue Curacao!
Spirits have been known to escape from their bottles during shipping.
Oh, and I have some elephant repellent for sale, cheap! Ever since I started using it, there have been zero elephant sightings in my neighborhood!
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
Same thing. Lawyers screw one person at a time. Politicians have learned to use the power of leverage to screw entire populations simultaneously.
Every little poof of methane helps!
Sadly, her work required her to use a website that only works through Internet Explorer 6. Unless she works for Microsoft, that sounds like more her work's fault than Microsoft's fault. Is it Microsoft's fault that businesses a) Were stupid enough several years ago to implement systems that relied on the crufty behavior of a specific browser, rather than open standards, and b) now are too cheap and/or risk averse to redesign their systems, and therefore continue to use tools that by their very design can't possibly work in a secure browser environment? Remember, this crap was built with .ASP code that just naturally assumed it could do whatever the hell it wanted to your computer. Fixing the browser security model means breaking these crufty app's fundamental design.
While I agree with you, not everybody can type 50 WPM. Microsoft doesn't make products for you and me, they make products for stupid people -- no, really, I think that's their target audience. Why use a stylus? People said the same thing about the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing) interface, i.e. "Why use a GUI when command line is faster and offers more options". The answer is obvious: because clicking Start, then Shutdown is much easier to remember (and harder to screw up) than typing "shutdown -h -t now".
Inductive charging is way cool, but the rest of it sounds like just a larger version of the Nintendo DS! Not real innovative, if you know what I mean. Can't somebody simply make a tablet PC with USB ports, so I can plug in external memory, keyboard, mouse, etc.?
Sounds like just the technology I need to speed up assembly of the new MRI machine I'm building... D'oh!