Last I checked, most people using Cats (tractors, bulldozers, ect.) used the default key, and the same key worked on all machines. It makes them pretty easy to steal.
You're entitled to your opinion. Personally, I think The Lord of the Rings is the best fantasy ever written.
I have read a great deal of fantasy and science fiction. Thre isn't much more that I want to read. And at one point I did think LotR was great. I read it 10 or 20 times, but then I got tired of it. And mostly because of the fate issue. It is a minor quibble, but important.
And mind you, the silmarillion avoids this precise sort of imagery. Success and failure come about because of the nature of the person. The heroes are not (obviously) born into their fate and position.
As for the hobbits, do you remember who they were. ALL were the children of the great families of the hobbits. The only one who wasn't was sam, and he was my favorite! . And I do know that everything is part of the same story, but the tone differs. The hobbit is a classic adventure, the silmarillion is a classic group of world building tales. There is a continuity there, bt a difference in tone. I found the light/dark imagry irritating, and I know that some do not. It is classic (it perhaps defined classic) but I still don't like it. Anyway, the people that prevailed were those born to it, which is a classic fantasy twist, but one I could do without. It is still a good book, but not, in my mind, a great one. Try Patricia McKillip. The Cygnet and the Sorceress and The Cygnet and the Firebird are, to my mind, great.
Anyway, I would happily recommend many FUN books as well. I read children/young adult books all the time! I try not to read only easy books, or else I get lazy.
Does it bother anyone else that in Tolkeins world, you have to be born to greatness? And what's more, all the great people are tall and fair. The only evil humans are short and swarthy. The Hobbit is a marvelous story. I really like The Silmarillion. After trying to reread Lord of the Rings, I gave up. There is better fantasy out there. Much, much better. It is just hard to find.
Anyway, some things are not easy or enjoyable, but are good to read. It is always easy to read an agreeing viewpoint. Some novels are difficult but worthwhile. Others are not, but it is good to try. The Brothers Karamazof was not fun, but it was very interesting, and worthwhile. Not as fun as a Stainless Steel rat story, but a better way to spend time...
Because everyone read it in high school. Classics seem repeatedly nominated because too few people read enough outside of them. End the tyrrany of the classics. Some are great, and many are not. I thought 1984 was a pendantic, irritating throw away novel. That and Atlas Shrugged. The same sort of classical tyranny is evident in sci-fi. Much older stuff is dross, and grossly outdated. So much starts with a particular conceit (Social development is mathmeatically predictable, and the human race is an evolving entity, in Asimov's case), and doesn't go anywhere with it. The characters are held prisoner by the (hammered home) point. These are books built around ideas, not characters, and that is deplorably dull. The only Asimov I could stand were the Lije Bailey (sp?--been 10 years) detective novels.
I would also recommend any of the Phillip Pullman novels. They are excellent, with strong, meaningful characters. Skip Snow Crash, and read the Diamond Age, which was a more thoughtful, interesting, and ultimately uplifting book. Joan D Vinge also wrote a few excellent books, especially The Snow Queen, which may be a bit much for a 13 year old. Actually, thinking about it, that book would be too much, but you could try it.
I really enjoyed David Zindell's Neverness. This is a great, interesting book. It weirdly echoes Hyperion (weird because Zindell lives in Boulder, CO and Simmons lives in Longmont, CO--20 minutes away!) as well as Dune. I thought it was better than both. Th series is a good one, but Neverness is absolutely incredible.
As for the earlier recommendations, Vernor Vinge and "The Killer B's" really stand out as the best.
I would also recommend any and all of the books by Patricia McKillip. Her command of both language and myth is amazing, and deserves recognition. The Book of Atrix Wolfe is a great start. Read Neil Gaiman, as well. Both show a real command of myth, which is rare.
A Winters Tale, by Mark Helprin is also a good choice. It isn't quite anything--a bit of sci-fi, a bit of history, a bit of romance. It is a great introduction to reading for the joy of reading. And the imagery is excellent.
As a final vote, I just read The Innamorata by Midori Snyder (I think that was the name) and found it utterly enjoyable.
Finally, ditch the sci-fi and go read All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, because Cormac McCarthy is a national treasure. Don't let your niece become a genre reader!
Well, you didn't get much response because your idea is ridiculous utopianism (which, I suppose, is why you posted under one of Katz's articles). FInd a better legal system, please. And, by the way, define how it should work. Not just for your personal benefit, but generally, without relying on perfect judges, politics, or anything else ridiculous. Then research worl legal systems, and find which one comes closest to your design.
As for reverse engineering, it is legal and in fact encouraged, at least under current trade secret law. The problem in this case may stem from the DMCA (read up on it) which prohibits breaking (or reverse engineering) any software protection on copyrighted material.
Anyway, cming back to your data heaven. What if pirated copies of all major software show up on your super-hippie-free-love data heaven. What then. And maybe the program you wrote, or your company sells, is put on the data heaven for free download. What then. The Cryptonomicon idea was neat, but the long term implications require serious thought.
This is different tech. CD rom uses change in reflectivity because of the pits, or because of a phase change in the material. This uses flourecense, which is quite different. I suppose it is related to a local index of refraction change, but this is a different technology, with different limitations
Actually. No. Trasnmission losses in DVD become nearly unbearable after 2 layers, in DVD. Layering is very difficult, depending on the source of information. I think the real trick is making a good, fast way of mass producing these disks. The CD is great because the data pits can be machine pressed--this is fast and cheap. That isn't true for these, at least according to the web page
Diamond is a far superior material for chips, depending on how you look at it. The real problem is that it is too hard to make high quality diamond. Impossible, really. It would be nice stuff to have around, if it could be made. The Thermal conductivity is much higher, the stiffness is higher, the bandgap larger, ect. But no one can make it. The reasearch has been mostly abandoned, at this point--much like the High Tc superconductors...
3.) The American Government sees strict Patents laws as a way to ensure that dominace of American firms on the world market. There are a reported cases, when obviously stolen patents of non american firms appeared to to be patented in America just before this firms themselves applied for the international patent. As the American goverment once stated openly, it sees industrial espionage as a legimate way to ensure American dominance for key technologies. So the American legislature has a good reason (for them) not to change this laws.
This is very, very wrong. The US system is FIRST TO INVENT. So if you file here second, but invented earlier, you win. Let me repeat, the first inventor gets the patent.
In Europe, the system is FIRST TO FILE, so if I invent something in the US, but someone files before me in europe, then I am screwed, and my patent gets NO protection.
I hve to disagree. There are good reasons for a patent system--mainly disclosure and protection. Look at countries with limited patent protection (India, for one quick example) and you will see places with limited innovation (no drugs will be made there, because there aren't enough protections). If you can propose a better system, try, but I don't believe that the patent system is preferrable to a system which relies solely on trade secrets to operate. Such systems, historically, have failed.
I t would be much more useful to maintain a list of what has been done. There really needs to be a better way of searching the prior art in software patents. Unfortunately, this is a young industry, and it is difficult to document what has been done before. Old papers barely scratch the surface, as a paper can relate a general method, and not understand the generality of the proposed method. SO, I think what needs to be done, especially for free software, is to gather a good searchable index of algorithms/pieces of software, and use that database as a defense.
IBM has had a long policy of publishing everything (outside of what it patented) to screw the competition. After all, published information is not patentable. Better yet, if someone gets a patent, and doesn't do their "due dlligence" in searching for prior art (which IBM made easily available) tehn they are liable for triple damages. This sort of "openness" philosophy would be good to emulate.
BTW, before anyone gets to set against patents, remember that teh alternative is copyright protection. That lasts 50 years, and no one gets to see what is copyrighted. That was Oracle's solutions, which everyone on this list thought was a great alternative view. IT IS NOT. It would be much worse for everyone if all software was completely proprietary for 50 years, and you didn't get to see it until that period was up. If someone patents something, you can see the patent and improve on it. Some food for thought
You are wrong. Very wrong. Go read the spec benchmark. Under a small subset of hand tuned applications, Apples are faster. Same goes for P3's, and Athlons are quite a bit faster than both. Apple gets a higher price point because their users don't expect enough, and don't seem to be smart enough to read through the hype. you really need to do better than quoting a press release. As for "no one dares discredit" read up a bit, and you will find that just about no one believed those benchmark, except hopless, religious apple-heads.
Oh, and if you like to read and quote press releases, go find Microsoft's "About Linux" release, and remember that they are always right too.
Well, that sort of skips over the problem. If all the "memory spaces" are congruent, then time has an arrow, and is effectively linear. In teh terms of the article, if the shape of the multispace is such that only one path is possible, then all memories are congruent, and that explains the match between perception and quantum probability. This, however, would be wrong. Anyway, what happened to quantum causality. Doesn't that make an arrow. Anyway, I think this was interesting, and empty.
I spent my summers laying water and sewer pie as an undergrad. Good work, really. Some people even worked there rather than have an office job, even given the 30-50% pay cut involved.
As for cutting lines, the charge is well over 1 million dollars per minute of downtime per line. No maximum. So, the company that cut the lines will go out of business. The worst of it is, the phone companies do a terrible job locating their fibre wires, and then sometimes don't even cover them--so it just takes a shovel to clip the whole line. Worse, they tend to be the worst at breaking everyones water and sewer lines, and sewer is much less fun to fix than fibre.
There is a clause for triple damages in the patent law. It is rarely enforced, but in this particularly egregious case, it could be. That is why this company will not likely ask anyone for any money on this patent, as they would then be forced to pay _LOTS_
AMD will hve more problems if they rn out of money before the fab is completed. Or before they are done with it. This plan has been in the works for a few months now, and it is solely a cash consideration. Also, remember that AMD had problems because they weren't running their fab very well, and yields were very low. Once yields improved, they had an excess of chips, and had an excess inventory of around 2 million last quarter.
AMD gets motorolla experience, and enough cash to surrvive. Motorolla gets a new fab (going price, 5 billion) and extra capacity. All in all, a good deal on both sides
The new omnibus patent bill does provide the ability for the patent office to keep all its user fees. It was crippled, but hopefully, it will be passed in the next month or two
Obviousness IS a limitation. If anyone "knowledgeable in the art" would have been able to figure out the idea, then it is not patentable, and should be summarily dismissed with an office action from the examiner.
Agreed, thanks for the research. However, this is not so clearly a case against all software patents. There are good, new ideas in software, and those must be protected. This is a clear case of poor performance by the patent office--but that doesn't mean software patents are clearly unallowable.
To put it in perspective consider that for many years, chemical coorporations have had to use process patents to patent various chemicals they made. Because processes were patentable, it made little sense for the patent office to exclude software algorithms. It was irritating that every software patent became "a machine with a means of..." which invariably described a CPU. So, software patents were allowed, and I think that is a good thing, if they are held to good standards. And that is the problem--no one in teh patent office knows what to do or where to look up information. Obviously, there is little prior art in the patent database, but no one in the patent offices does a good literature search (INSPEC would be a real boon to the office). So, bad patents get through. That needs to be changed, but new and good ideas should be protected, or at least protectable. There are changes proposed, too, though all the important changes were axed by our friendly H.O.R. (house of representatives). Look up the new omnibus patent bill and write to your senator/congressman/woman. It's worth an attempt
Consider what the world woul be like if we all had infinitely reconfigurable (hardware) machines. The machines could turn into hammers, lightbulbs--you name it. If someone invented the first lightbulb, or first hammer---why wouldn't they deserve some form or patent protection?
Everything gets a bit weird in an age of Turing machines, but they there still are new ideas, and we should protect the inventor.
Would someone actually do their research. Especially Katz. Why is the company line recited here? I mean, the k6-2, k6-3, pII, and pIII all had the same export restrictionas the g4. And altivec is THE SAME THING as MMX/3DNOW and SSE. Also, if you actually look at spec-int and spec-fp benchmarks, the g4 is nothing special. a g4-500 is about as fast as a p3-600, and slower than a k7. I found the spec results at www.aceshardware.com. Go forth and do reseach. It is your job!
Also, it is really, really bothersome to see a columnist fall for marketing--too bad it happens all the time. Apple makes computers, not life changing hippy machines ruinning on pure air and doing nothing but good. Stop repeating what Jobs says, or what you want to hear.
Do you sing tide commercials? And drink bud light too? It makes you sexier, really. And tastes great and is less filling...If not maybe you should start, it would make your whole life make more sense--don't just believe apples little marketing hype, believe all of them!
Slashdot Mirror
Last I checked, most people using Cats (tractors, bulldozers, ect.) used the default key, and the same key worked on all machines. It makes them pretty easy to steal.
You're entitled to your opinion. Personally, I think The Lord of the Rings is the best fantasy ever written.
I have read a great deal of fantasy and science fiction. Thre isn't much more that I want to read. And at one point I did think LotR was great. I read it 10 or 20 times, but then I got tired of it. And mostly because of the fate issue. It is a minor quibble, but important.
And mind you, the silmarillion avoids this precise sort of imagery. Success and failure come about because of the nature of the person. The heroes are not (obviously) born into their fate and position.
As for the hobbits, do you remember who they were. ALL were the children of the great families of the hobbits. The only one who wasn't was sam, and he was my favorite! . And I do know that everything is part of the same story, but the tone differs. The hobbit is a classic adventure, the silmarillion is a classic group of world building tales.
There is a continuity there, bt a difference in tone. I found the light/dark imagry irritating, and I know that some do not. It is classic (it perhaps defined classic) but I still don't like it. Anyway, the people that prevailed were those born to it, which is a classic fantasy twist, but one I could do without. It is still a good book, but not, in my mind, a great one. Try Patricia McKillip. The Cygnet and the Sorceress and The Cygnet and the Firebird are, to my mind, great.
Anyway, I would happily recommend many FUN books as well. I read children/young adult books all the time! I try not to read only easy books, or else I get lazy.
B
Does it bother anyone else that in Tolkeins world, you have to be born to greatness? And what's more, all the great people are tall and fair. The only evil humans are short and swarthy. The Hobbit is a marvelous story. I really like The Silmarillion. After trying to reread Lord of the Rings, I gave up. There is better fantasy out there. Much, much better. It is just hard to find.
Anyway, some things are not easy or enjoyable, but are good to read. It is always easy to read an agreeing viewpoint. Some novels are difficult but worthwhile. Others are not, but it is good to try. The Brothers Karamazof was not fun, but it was very interesting, and worthwhile. Not as fun as a Stainless Steel rat story, but a better way to spend time...
Because everyone read it in high school. Classics seem repeatedly nominated because too few people read enough outside of them. End the tyrrany of the classics. Some are great, and many are not. I thought 1984 was a pendantic, irritating throw away novel. That and Atlas Shrugged. The same sort of classical tyranny is evident in sci-fi. Much older stuff is dross, and grossly outdated. So much starts with a particular conceit (Social development is mathmeatically predictable, and the human race is an evolving entity, in Asimov's case), and doesn't go anywhere with it. The characters are held prisoner by the (hammered home) point. These are books built around ideas, not characters, and that is deplorably dull. The only Asimov I could stand were the Lije Bailey (sp?--been 10 years) detective novels.
I would also recommend any of the Phillip Pullman novels. They are excellent, with strong, meaningful characters. Skip Snow Crash, and read the Diamond Age, which was a more thoughtful, interesting, and ultimately uplifting book. Joan D Vinge also wrote a few excellent books, especially The Snow Queen, which may be a bit much for a 13 year old. Actually, thinking about it, that book would be too much, but you could try it.
I really enjoyed David Zindell's Neverness. This is a great, interesting book. It weirdly echoes Hyperion (weird because Zindell lives in Boulder, CO and Simmons lives in Longmont, CO--20 minutes away!) as well as Dune. I thought it was better than both. Th series is a good one, but Neverness is absolutely incredible.
As for the earlier recommendations, Vernor Vinge and "The Killer B's" really stand out as the best.
I would also recommend any and all of the books by Patricia McKillip. Her command of both language and myth is amazing, and deserves recognition. The Book of Atrix Wolfe is a great start. Read Neil Gaiman, as well. Both show a real command of myth, which is rare.
A Winters Tale, by Mark Helprin is also a good choice. It isn't quite anything--a bit of sci-fi, a bit of history, a bit of romance. It is a great introduction to reading for the joy of reading. And the imagery is excellent.
As a final vote, I just read The Innamorata by Midori Snyder (I think that was the name) and found it utterly enjoyable.
Finally, ditch the sci-fi and go read All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, because Cormac McCarthy is a national treasure. Don't let your niece become a genre reader!
Well, you didn't get much response because your idea is ridiculous utopianism (which, I suppose, is why you posted under one of Katz's articles). FInd a better legal system, please. And, by the way, define how it should work. Not just for your personal benefit, but generally, without relying on perfect judges, politics, or anything else ridiculous. Then research worl legal systems, and find which one comes closest to your design.
As for reverse engineering, it is legal and in fact encouraged, at least under current trade secret law. The problem in this case may stem from the DMCA (read up on it) which prohibits breaking (or reverse engineering) any software protection on copyrighted material.
Anyway, cming back to your data heaven. What if pirated copies of all major software show up on your super-hippie-free-love data heaven. What then. And maybe the program you wrote, or your company sells, is put on the data heaven for free download. What then. The Cryptonomicon idea was neat, but the long term implications require serious thought.
That isn't true. All you had to do was py 30 bucks for the CD ( a while ago) All sorts of folks had the win2k betas.
This is different tech. CD rom uses change in reflectivity because of the pits, or because of a phase change in the material. This uses flourecense, which is quite different. I suppose it is related to a local index of refraction change, but this is a different technology, with different limitations
Actually. No. Trasnmission losses in DVD become nearly unbearable after 2 layers, in DVD. Layering is very difficult, depending on the source of information. I think the real trick is making a good, fast way of mass producing these disks. The CD is great because the data pits can be machine pressed--this is fast and cheap. That isn't true for these, at least according to the web page
Diamond is a far superior material for chips, depending on how you look at it. The real problem is that it is too hard to make high quality diamond. Impossible, really. It would be nice stuff to have around, if it could be made. The Thermal conductivity is much higher, the stiffness is higher, the bandgap larger, ect. But no one can make it. The reasearch has been mostly abandoned, at this point--much like the High Tc superconductors...
3.) The American Government sees strict Patents laws as a way to ensure that dominace of American firms on the world market. There are a reported cases, when obviously stolen patents of non american firms appeared to to be patented in America just before this firms themselves applied for the international patent. As the American goverment once stated openly, it sees industrial espionage as a legimate way to ensure American dominance for key technologies. So the American legislature has a good reason (for them) not to change this laws.
This is very, very wrong. The US system is FIRST TO INVENT. So if you file here second, but invented earlier, you win. Let me repeat, the first inventor gets the patent.
In Europe, the system is FIRST TO FILE, so if I invent something in the US, but someone files before me in europe, then I am screwed, and my patent gets NO protection.
Get your facts straight.
I hve to disagree. There are good reasons for a patent system--mainly disclosure and protection. Look at countries with limited patent protection (India, for one quick example) and you will see places with limited innovation (no drugs will be made there, because there aren't enough protections). If you can propose a better system, try, but I don't believe that the patent system is preferrable to a system which relies solely on trade secrets to operate. Such systems, historically, have failed.
I t would be much more useful to maintain a list of what has been done. There really needs to be a better way of searching the prior art in software patents. Unfortunately, this is a young industry, and it is difficult to document what has been done before. Old papers barely scratch the surface, as a paper can relate a general method, and not understand the generality of the proposed method. SO, I think what needs to be done, especially for free software, is to gather a good searchable index of algorithms/pieces of software, and use that database as a defense.
IBM has had a long policy of publishing everything (outside of what it patented) to screw the competition. After all, published information is not patentable. Better yet, if someone gets a patent, and doesn't do their "due dlligence" in searching for prior art (which IBM made easily available) tehn they are liable for triple damages. This sort of "openness" philosophy would be good to emulate.
BTW, before anyone gets to set against patents, remember that teh alternative is copyright protection. That lasts 50 years, and no one gets to see what is copyrighted. That was Oracle's solutions, which everyone on this list thought was a great alternative view. IT IS NOT. It would be much worse for everyone if all software was completely proprietary for 50 years, and you didn't get to see it until that period was up. If someone patents something, you can see the patent and improve on it. Some food for thought
You are wrong. Very wrong. Go read the spec benchmark. Under a small subset of hand tuned applications, Apples are faster. Same goes for P3's, and Athlons are quite a bit faster than both. Apple gets a higher price point because their users don't expect enough, and don't seem to be smart enough to read through the hype. you really need to do better than quoting a press release. As for "no one dares discredit" read up a bit, and you will find that just about no one believed those benchmark, except hopless, religious apple-heads.
Oh, and if you like to read and quote press releases, go find Microsoft's "About Linux" release, and remember that they are always right too.
Well, that sort of skips over the problem. If all the "memory spaces" are congruent, then time has an arrow, and is effectively linear. In teh terms of the article, if the shape of the multispace is such that only one path is possible, then all memories are congruent, and that explains the match between perception and quantum probability. This, however, would be wrong.
Anyway, what happened to quantum causality. Doesn't that make an arrow. Anyway, I think this was interesting, and empty.
IBM did this 5 years ago with multilayer DVD. Same principle applies here.
I spent my summers laying water and sewer pie as an undergrad. Good work, really. Some people even worked there rather than have an office job, even given the 30-50% pay cut involved.
As for cutting lines, the charge is well over 1 million dollars per minute of downtime per line. No maximum. So, the company that cut the lines will go out of business. The worst of it is, the phone companies do a terrible job locating their fibre wires, and then sometimes don't even cover them--so it just takes a shovel to clip the whole line. Worse, they tend to be the worst at breaking everyones water and sewer lines, and sewer is much less fun to fix than fibre.
There is a clause for triple damages in the patent law. It is rarely enforced, but in this particularly egregious case, it could be. That is why this company will not likely ask anyone for any money on this patent, as they would then be forced to pay _LOTS_
AMD will hve more problems if they rn out of money before the fab is completed. Or before they are done with it. This plan has been in the works for a few months now, and it is solely a cash consideration. Also, remember that AMD had problems because they weren't running their fab very well, and yields were very low. Once yields improved, they had an excess of chips, and had an excess inventory of around 2 million last quarter.
AMD gets motorolla experience, and enough cash to surrvive. Motorolla gets a new fab (going price, 5 billion) and extra capacity. All in all, a good deal on both sides
The new omnibus patent bill does provide the ability for the patent office to keep all its user fees. It was crippled, but hopefully, it will be passed in the next month or two
No. That is completely wrong.
Obviousness IS a limitation. If anyone "knowledgeable in the art" would have been able to figure out the idea, then it is not patentable, and should be summarily dismissed with an office action from the examiner.
Agreed, thanks for the research. However, this is not so clearly a case against all software patents. There are good, new ideas in software, and those must be protected. This is a clear case of poor performance by the patent office--but that doesn't mean software patents are clearly unallowable.
To put it in perspective consider that for many years, chemical coorporations have had to use process patents to patent various chemicals they made. Because processes were patentable, it made little sense for the patent office to exclude software algorithms. It was irritating that every software patent became "a machine with a means of..." which invariably described a CPU. So, software patents were allowed, and I think that is a good thing, if they are held to good standards. And that is the problem--no one in teh patent office knows what to do or where to look up information. Obviously, there is little prior art in the patent database, but no one in the patent offices does a good literature search (INSPEC would be a real boon to the office). So, bad patents get through. That needs to be changed, but new and good ideas should be protected, or at least protectable. There are changes proposed, too, though all the important changes were axed by our friendly H.O.R. (house of representatives). Look up the new omnibus patent bill and write to your senator/congressman/woman. It's worth an attempt
Consider what the world woul be like if we all had infinitely reconfigurable (hardware) machines. The machines could turn into hammers, lightbulbs--you name it. If someone invented the first lightbulb, or first hammer---why wouldn't they deserve some form or patent protection?
Everything gets a bit weird in an age of Turing machines, but they there still are new ideas, and we should protect the inventor.
Would someone actually do their research. Especially Katz. Why is the company line recited here? I mean, the k6-2, k6-3, pII, and pIII all had the same export restrictionas the g4. And altivec is THE SAME THING as MMX/3DNOW and SSE. Also, if you actually look at spec-int and spec-fp benchmarks, the g4 is nothing special. a g4-500 is about as fast as a p3-600, and slower than a k7. I found the spec results at www.aceshardware.com. Go forth and do reseach. It is your job!
Also, it is really, really bothersome to see a columnist fall for marketing--too bad it happens all the time. Apple makes computers, not life changing hippy machines ruinning on pure air and doing nothing but good. Stop repeating what Jobs says, or what you want to hear.
Do you sing tide commercials? And drink bud light too? It makes you sexier, really. And tastes great and is less filling...If not maybe you should start, it would make your whole life make more sense--don't just believe apples little marketing hype, believe all of them!