IBM seems to have decided to use patents mainly for defensive purposes rather than actively targetting other companies. If they are threatened with a patent lawsuit, they go through their extensive catalogue of patents and pick an appropriate one to countersue with, but that's about it.
From a business perspective, such a policy can make good sense. According to a book I once read, Xerox came to the same conclusion. Back in the 60's and 70's, they chased after everybody that might be violating their patents, but in the 1980's they decided that chasing people through the courts was a distraction from their main business and more trouble than it was worth.
But that's because nearly all the stuff developed on sourceforge I want is already available in my distro. I don't think I'm exactly Robinson Crusoe there, either.
...that any legislation that might be potentially twisted for use as an attack on free speech should be very carefully thought out before its introduction.
Additionally, as a general rule legislation should be as narrowly targetted as possible. Therefore, as commercial spam is the only sort of spam causing real issues at the moment, go after it and nothing else.
The proposals in the report are actually quite reasonably well thought out - somebody in Alston's department must have half a brain after all. It acknowledges that spam is an international problem, and needs to be dealt with at an international level. It also makes the point that domestic legislation is a good idea as a starting point for international action.
Some other interesting points:
It concentrates exclusively on commercial spam. I think this is reasonable, as commercial speech raises the fewest concerns when it comes to infringing on free speech, and makes up 99.9% of the spam I receive.
Requires all commercial email to contain the physical address as well as an accurate electronic address of the sender, and makes it a criminal offence to not provide such.
Points out that a lot of spam already infringes existing Australian legislation. For instance, we have laws against advertising prescription drugs. They recommend that resources be given to prosecuting spammers under those laws.
The only thing I'd say that was wrong with this bill is that it places the onus on a government body to initiate proceedings. I think that there should be a way, indeed an incentive, for individuals to chase spammers through the courts as well.
Aside from the environmental vandalism that the Japanese propagate on a wide scale, from what I've heard their concern for animal welfare when doing biological experiments is unacceptable by Western standards.
You don't do a Mars mission that way, assuming you're stuck with current rocket technology. What you do is send the return vehicle there, unfuelled, equipped with a nuclear reactor. You use the reactor to power a system to convert hydrogen (brought with you but it's really light) and carbon dioxide (from that abundant atmosphere) into methane and oxygen (reasonably high-quality rocket fuel). Then you send the crew along in a seperate vehicle. Given that, you need two launches of a Saturn V to do a Mars mission. We know we can launch Saturn V's - we did it thirty-five years ago.
Now, there's plenty of room for argument as to whether Mars Direct (the name of the above plan) is correct in all its details. However, it seems fairly clear that producing the return fuel on Mars rather than transporting it from Earth makes the mission much more feasible.
This comment has been made every time a new processor comes out, and the usual reply is that there are plenty of applications that still require more CPU performance (which there certainly are), and sooner or later there will be one which is sufficiently compelling that Joe Sixpack will upgrade.
Alternatively, one could try a reply based on business models. Intel is an R&D-driven company. They don't want to be the next Zilog. If they don't continually introduce new products, that's what they will become, and it's really hard work competing in a low-margin commodity business.
It may be boring to you, but the simple fact is that the US (as well as Europe and Japan) are going to have real problems with funding their retirees, because there won't be enough people working to fund them. Unemployment won't be an issue for those of us still in the workforce, but the level of taxation will be.
How about let's discuss the encyclopedia entry, seeing it's on a topic that at least some of us know something about (though some of the comments make me wonder...)
One comment that I have about the entry is that it spends time criticising Turing's guesses as to when machines might be able to pass the Test. To me, that section of Turing's paper is just idle speculation that has nothing to do with the paper's central contentions.
As I understand it, the B1-B is like the Concorde in another way - it's largely outlived its usefulness. It's not stealthy, so you're not going to risk it until the air defences have been degraded with Tomahawks, F-117's and possibly B-2's. At which point the B-1's supersonic speed is of little benefit, so you may as well use a B-52 to do the job, which is much cheaper.
If I was the USAF, I'd be considering figuring out how to refit a 747 as the world's biggest bomber. It would seem to fit their current needs better than the B1-B.
The way it's going, it won't be that long before they require that much RAM to be playable...and that's just on the graphics card...
Which brings me to another point. What happens to buses and whatnot with the x86-64? Has AMD been quietly working away on a 64-bit replacement to AGP? Will we get rid of special graphics buses and go to a next-generation bus standard all round? Or will there be a collection of compatibility hacks to make it all work with existing graphics cards. Anybody care to speculate?:)
OK, here's the thing. You get *billions* of times more energy per kilogram of fuel in fusion power than you do with chemical reactions, so, in terms of "burned" fuel, you'll end up with billionths of the quantity. In other words, over a millennium we might end up with a couple of hundred tonnes of helium. Big deal.
When you get down to it, the whole point of the whole jewellery exercise is for women to show off their wealth, or that of their partners, not because of its intrinsic beauty. Therefore, it's entirely possible that they will be able to convince people to buy branded diamonds when an equivalent, unbranded product would look identical and cost a small fraction of the price. They're buying it precisely because it's expensive.
For completeness, the exact same comment applies to men who buy Rolexes...
Apparently there's a lab in Russia that's turning out gem-quality artificial diamonds. It's still possible for De Beers to tell the difference, but your average jeweller couldn't and punters certainly couldn't.
My sister used to run a hotel. The gadgetry to dispense beer is extremely expensive, particularly the refrigeration gear to serve the beer at the appropriate temperature.
In any case, if you're going to go to the effort of a beer tap at home, why not go the whole hog and have it dispense Chimay, preferably Chimay Blue? Not only is it wonderful drinking - it's about 10% alcohol...:)
Seriously, materials science, manufacturing techniques and computers have come such a long way since we first put people into space it's gotta be easier than it was the first time.
By the way, anybody know where that aphorism come from? I think I saw it first in "Blue Mars", but I don't know whether it's original.
(imagine what would happen to the dollar if all of a sudden everyone whould start trading in euro instead)
Imports would get dearer. Exports would be more competitive. The ridiculous imbalance in the US economy would start to level out. If I were you, I'd be hitting my knees every night praying for a devalued US currency.
IIRC, the article said that the company was sitting on a pile of cash and assets much greater than the value of the company's stock. If this is really true, and the owners think there's no prospect of a sustainable business going forward, it would be good sense to just cease operations and split the loot up between them.
Isn't the point of April Fool's jokes is to make it obvious, in hindsight, that it was a joke? What gives this one away, aside from the date and the April Fool message on the link?
BTW, did anyone else see the fake doco explaining how the moon landing footage was actually faked by Stanley Kubrick because NASA knew the camera on Apollo wouldn't work? With interviews of capcom David Bowman and KGB agent Dmitri Muffley, no less, as well as the very real Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Kubrick's widow, Alexander Haig, and so on? Brilliant.
I think we are also missing the point that civil engineers DESIGN roads. They don't build them. Software engineers DESIGN programs. The don't usually code them, or at least the whole thing. Or at least not for any project of sufficient size and complexity to warrent a software engineer as opposed to a caffiene intoxicated teenager.
Maybe. The trouble with this analogy is that by the time the "design" finishes, all the intellectual effort has been done. When an equivalent state is reached in building software, it gets passed to a compiler rather than grunts.
...at least some of the time, but then I disagree with the article's assertion that science is fundamentally different. In the scientific process, you have an idea, then you do a lot of grunt work (we'll equate it to actual coding) to realise that idea. You examine the results of that work (as well as other people's work), and then you come up with the next idea, lather, rinse, repeat.
If that's not a creative process I don't know what is.
In a previous life, I was a gnucash developer (that's no longer the case - I have a thesis to do:). We knew everybody wanted online banking. However, to actually get it working, you really need support from financial institutions. If I recall correctly, at the time, we couldn't find American financial institutions were interested in working with us.
Perhaps as the Linux desktop gets better established (it's coming quite close IMHO) banks will be more interested.
It seems to me obvious that the USD is overvalued, making US-produced goods and services wildly overpriced, and imports too cheap. So why isn't the US dollar devaluing?
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From a business perspective, such a policy can make good sense. According to a book I once read, Xerox came to the same conclusion. Back in the 60's and 70's, they chased after everybody that might be violating their patents, but in the 1980's they decided that chasing people through the courts was a distraction from their main business and more trouble than it was worth.
But that's because nearly all the stuff developed on sourceforge I want is already available in my distro. I don't think I'm exactly Robinson Crusoe there, either.
Additionally, as a general rule legislation should be as narrowly targetted as possible. Therefore, as commercial spam is the only sort of spam causing real issues at the moment, go after it and nothing else.
Some other interesting points:
The only thing I'd say that was wrong with this bill is that it places the onus on a government body to initiate proceedings. I think that there should be a way, indeed an incentive, for individuals to chase spammers through the courts as well.
You obviously never used a 160 kilobyte floppy drive, have you? Or the massive 5 megabyte hard drive my dad used to keep his business records on...
Aside from the environmental vandalism that the Japanese propagate on a wide scale, from what I've heard their concern for animal welfare when doing biological experiments is unacceptable by Western standards.
Now, there's plenty of room for argument as to whether Mars Direct (the name of the above plan) is correct in all its details. However, it seems fairly clear that producing the return fuel on Mars rather than transporting it from Earth makes the mission much more feasible.
Alternatively, one could try a reply based on business models. Intel is an R&D-driven company. They don't want to be the next Zilog. If they don't continually introduce new products, that's what they will become, and it's really hard work competing in a low-margin commodity business.
It may be boring to you, but the simple fact is that the US (as well as Europe and Japan) are going to have real problems with funding their retirees, because there won't be enough people working to fund them. Unemployment won't be an issue for those of us still in the workforce, but the level of taxation will be.
One comment that I have about the entry is that it spends time criticising Turing's guesses as to when machines might be able to pass the Test. To me, that section of Turing's paper is just idle speculation that has nothing to do with the paper's central contentions.
If I was the USAF, I'd be considering figuring out how to refit a 747 as the world's biggest bomber. It would seem to fit their current needs better than the B1-B.
Which brings me to another point. What happens to buses and whatnot with the x86-64? Has AMD been quietly working away on a 64-bit replacement to AGP? Will we get rid of special graphics buses and go to a next-generation bus standard all round? Or will there be a collection of compatibility hacks to make it all work with existing graphics cards. Anybody care to speculate? :)
OK, here's the thing. You get *billions* of times more energy per kilogram of fuel in fusion power than you do with chemical reactions, so, in terms of "burned" fuel, you'll end up with billionths of the quantity. In other words, over a millennium we might end up with a couple of hundred tonnes of helium. Big deal.
For completeness, the exact same comment applies to men who buy Rolexes...
Apparently there's a lab in Russia that's turning out gem-quality artificial diamonds. It's still possible for De Beers to tell the difference, but your average jeweller couldn't and punters certainly couldn't.
A quick bit of googling should be able to disabuse you of that notion. The beer tap systems you see in bars cost thousands of dollars to set up.
In any case, if you're going to go to the effort of a beer tap at home, why not go the whole hog and have it dispense Chimay, preferably Chimay Blue? Not only is it wonderful drinking - it's about 10% alcohol... :)
By the way, anybody know where that aphorism come from? I think I saw it first in "Blue Mars", but I don't know whether it's original.
Imports would get dearer. Exports would be more competitive. The ridiculous imbalance in the US economy would start to level out. If I were you, I'd be hitting my knees every night praying for a devalued US currency.
IIRC, the article said that the company was sitting on a pile of cash and assets much greater than the value of the company's stock. If this is really true, and the owners think there's no prospect of a sustainable business going forward, it would be good sense to just cease operations and split the loot up between them.
BTW, did anyone else see the fake doco explaining how the moon landing footage was actually faked by Stanley Kubrick because NASA knew the camera on Apollo wouldn't work? With interviews of capcom David Bowman and KGB agent Dmitri Muffley, no less, as well as the very real Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Kubrick's widow, Alexander Haig, and so on? Brilliant.
Maybe. The trouble with this analogy is that by the time the "design" finishes, all the intellectual effort has been done. When an equivalent state is reached in building software, it gets passed to a compiler rather than grunts.
If that's not a creative process I don't know what is.
Perhaps as the Linux desktop gets better established (it's coming quite close IMHO) banks will be more interested.
It seems to me obvious that the USD is overvalued, making US-produced goods and services wildly overpriced, and imports too cheap. So why isn't the US dollar devaluing?