Computer graphics are becoming cost-competitive and taking away a lot of the need for big sets, complicated stunts, exotic locales and even extras for big battle/crowd scenes. And (not by 2015 but maybe by 2050) there may not be much need for real actors! If you don't believe me look at the computer graphics in the first clip on Animatrix movie.
Yeah, discs are rapidly becoming old-fashioned. Hard-drive based movie storage and delivery, with it's own format and DRM wars, is really the thing to watch.
For example, I was in charge of implementing a sales channel management program called "Relationship" from Pivotal, so we created a e-mail distribution list called "relationship users". Anyway, one of our VPs had created a personal distribution list to manage his personal relationships. He was married but sent out a (mistakenly broadcast) e-mail talking about how much "he enjoyed seeing Guys & Dolls last night and wanted to go out again". He later sent an e-mail saying that that e-mail was sent by a virus, but how did a virus know that Guys & Dolls was in town (it was showing the night before).
Assuming this is a security measure, wouldn't we want the screen names to be obvious? In general this is a stupid idea though, as I'm sure there are many legitimate reasons to have "allah" in a user id, including the callahan example.
Why anchor it in the sea if you can gain 10,000ft for free on a mountain top? I guess compared to 62,000 miles that won't be significant, but still couldn't hurt.
You have to be creative to understand the kinds of misuse that can occur. For example, in Canada there has been allegations that gun registry information is being used by thieves to specifically target houses known to have guns (yes, kind of ironic). It is not irrational to be scared of computerized personal information because computers make the scale of theft much larger and allow for efficient analysis and merging of personal information. Lastly, while we know we expect employers to respect employees private lives, would employers really treat someone as fairly if they had all the information about views, relationships, hobbies, recreational activities, etc.? It is safer to simply not have the information available.
This is not to prevent copying, just to help track down where copies come from. This may not be too useful in current environment, but as cinema turns to digital distribution and terrestial broadcasts of television and radio go digital, it would help piece together a case against suspected infringers. I'm not at all for this, but just explaining how it would be useful (and likely will be used) by content providers. By the way did you know that many laser printers already have such watermarking, to allow police to prove that a printout was made by a specific printer?
If this law is really just about "vital" servers, then I would assume that as long as Google and others had backup and infrastructure within US to keep US online during emergencies that should be sufficient to stay in line with the law. I think this is just saying that US internet companies cannot have their services rely on infrastructure located in China. That's probably reasonable and not overly onerous for Google to satisfy.
The problem with requiring enforcement is that you have to prove when the patent holder knew there was something infringing. Just because I suspect RIM has violated my patent does not mean I have enough grounds to enforce it.
Depends on who your cronies are. If you're surrounded with truly capable people and have contacts with successful people, then cronyism is one of the better ways to select people to work with (i.e. they are proven and personally trustworthy).
All senses are just detecting the effects on the body. We do therefore detect electricity -- and it IS a unique sensation that can be distiguished from being burned, hit, cut.
As per some other posts, trademarks need to be defended universally to be valid. So for "legitimate" trademark infringement they will need to set up some licensing, even if it is nominal. Same effect, but they need to show consistent vigor in defending against all infringement.
How about this then? -- a Survivor like reality show where armed robots hunt the humans and are controlled over the internet as part of a first-person shooter multiplayer online game. Then people would realize that the most dangerous animal is really teenagers with computers...
I seen demonstrations before (and I think it still holds) that it is easier to build stable locomotion with a robot that has one leg than two. In fact two legs is the most difficult case. So from one perspective robots would be better without being humanoid, on the other hand it is the more difficult problem and could end up with much better engineering knowledge if tackled.
First to market won't quite work, because people could put up silly "products" that incorporate an idea just to meet this requirement.
I think though that a better way to achieve the same thing is to go ahead and use the standard method to grant a patent, but if it hasn't been commercialized within a certain time frame then the patent is deemed invalid. This would prevent patent squatting and would ensure that good ideas get to public domain in cases where the inventor is not able to commercialize the product.
I totally agree. The whole point of patents is to give the inventor a head start in commercializing an idea. If he/she doesn't actively try to commercialize it, then the patent rights should expire.
I've got a 100-inch front projection home theatre, with hi-def capability, and I assure you that porn (which I generally like) is NOT something you want to watch in large-format, hi-definition!
I think the primary problem with the patent system is that the patent holder is not required to be actively commercializing the patent to keep it. That is what patents are for -- to give innovators some time to make money before the copycats get in the game.
Patents for companies like NTP or SCO should be void simply for the reason that they did not seriously try to make their own products based on their patents. Waiting for someone else to do the work and then suing is just stupid.
Besides all the valid points about hands expected to be bacteria-ridden, stock keyboard designs seem almost designed to accumulate filth. The separate keys, with plenty of space between and underneath seems a little undesirable from a cleanliness point of view.
Obviously the solution, if you're worried about the bacteria, especially for shared/public computers is to use the "flat" pad-type keyboards and disinfect regularly.
I work in semiconductor design, and a boss of mine 15 years ago used to simulate state machines in Excel. Each row was a clock cycle, each column was a state variable, and each cell was the contained the logic. There are of course many state machine design tools, but for quick discussions he could prove a lot of points in meetings just with Excel.
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Computer graphics are becoming cost-competitive and taking away a lot of the need for big sets, complicated stunts, exotic locales and even extras for big battle/crowd scenes. And (not by 2015 but maybe by 2050) there may not be much need for real actors! If you don't believe me look at the computer graphics in the first clip on Animatrix movie.
Porn in hi-def on large format screens is NOT something you want to watch ... trust me!
Yeah, discs are rapidly becoming old-fashioned. Hard-drive based movie storage and delivery, with it's own format and DRM wars, is really the thing to watch.
For example, I was in charge of implementing a sales channel management program called "Relationship" from Pivotal, so we created a e-mail distribution list called "relationship users". Anyway, one of our VPs had created a personal distribution list to manage his personal relationships. He was married but sent out a (mistakenly broadcast) e-mail talking about how much "he enjoyed seeing Guys & Dolls last night and wanted to go out again". He later sent an e-mail saying that that e-mail was sent by a virus, but how did a virus know that Guys & Dolls was in town (it was showing the night before).
Assuming this is a security measure, wouldn't we want the screen names to be obvious? In general this is a stupid idea though, as I'm sure there are many legitimate reasons to have "allah" in a user id, including the callahan example.
Why anchor it in the sea if you can gain 10,000ft for free on a mountain top? I guess compared to 62,000 miles that won't be significant, but still couldn't hurt.
You have to be creative to understand the kinds of misuse that can occur. For example, in Canada there has been allegations that gun registry information is being used by thieves to specifically target houses known to have guns (yes, kind of ironic). It is not irrational to be scared of computerized personal information because computers make the scale of theft much larger and allow for efficient analysis and merging of personal information. Lastly, while we know we expect employers to respect employees private lives, would employers really treat someone as fairly if they had all the information about views, relationships, hobbies, recreational activities, etc.? It is safer to simply not have the information available.
This is not to prevent copying, just to help track down where copies come from. This may not be too useful in current environment, but as cinema turns to digital distribution and terrestial broadcasts of television and radio go digital, it would help piece together a case against suspected infringers. I'm not at all for this, but just explaining how it would be useful (and likely will be used) by content providers. By the way did you know that many laser printers already have such watermarking, to allow police to prove that a printout was made by a specific printer?
If this law is really just about "vital" servers, then I would assume that as long as Google and others had backup and infrastructure within US to keep US online during emergencies that should be sufficient to stay in line with the law. I think this is just saying that US internet companies cannot have their services rely on infrastructure located in China. That's probably reasonable and not overly onerous for Google to satisfy.
The problem with requiring enforcement is that you have to prove when the patent holder knew there was something infringing. Just because I suspect RIM has violated my patent does not mean I have enough grounds to enforce it.
Depends on who your cronies are. If you're surrounded with truly capable people and have contacts with successful people, then cronyism is one of the better ways to select people to work with (i.e. they are proven and personally trustworthy).
Maybe he had a brother no one knew about ...
So at what age/experience can we call someone an "old geezer"?
All senses are just detecting the effects on the body. We do therefore detect electricity -- and it IS a unique sensation that can be distiguished from being burned, hit, cut.
As per some other posts, trademarks need to be defended universally to be valid. So for "legitimate" trademark infringement they will need to set up some licensing, even if it is nominal. Same effect, but they need to show consistent vigor in defending against all infringement.
How about this then? -- a Survivor like reality show where armed robots hunt the humans and are controlled over the internet as part of a first-person shooter multiplayer online game. Then people would realize that the most dangerous animal is really teenagers with computers ...
More fear, uncertainty and doubt ... story at 6.
I seen demonstrations before (and I think it still holds) that it is easier to build stable locomotion with a robot that has one leg than two. In fact two legs is the most difficult case. So from one perspective robots would be better without being humanoid, on the other hand it is the more difficult problem and could end up with much better engineering knowledge if tackled.
First to market won't quite work, because people could put up silly "products" that incorporate an idea just to meet this requirement. I think though that a better way to achieve the same thing is to go ahead and use the standard method to grant a patent, but if it hasn't been commercialized within a certain time frame then the patent is deemed invalid. This would prevent patent squatting and would ensure that good ideas get to public domain in cases where the inventor is not able to commercialize the product.
Maybe he should put a distributed computing component in Vista so each of us can share our spare processing cycles to calculate his taxes.
I totally agree. The whole point of patents is to give the inventor a head start in commercializing an idea. If he/she doesn't actively try to commercialize it, then the patent rights should expire.
I've got a 100-inch front projection home theatre, with hi-def capability, and I assure you that porn (which I generally like) is NOT something you want to watch in large-format, hi-definition!
I think the primary problem with the patent system is that the patent holder is not required to be actively commercializing the patent to keep it. That is what patents are for -- to give innovators some time to make money before the copycats get in the game. Patents for companies like NTP or SCO should be void simply for the reason that they did not seriously try to make their own products based on their patents. Waiting for someone else to do the work and then suing is just stupid.
Besides all the valid points about hands expected to be bacteria-ridden, stock keyboard designs seem almost designed to accumulate filth. The separate keys, with plenty of space between and underneath seems a little undesirable from a cleanliness point of view. Obviously the solution, if you're worried about the bacteria, especially for shared/public computers is to use the "flat" pad-type keyboards and disinfect regularly.
I work in semiconductor design, and a boss of mine 15 years ago used to simulate state machines in Excel. Each row was a clock cycle, each column was a state variable, and each cell was the contained the logic. There are of course many state machine design tools, but for quick discussions he could prove a lot of points in meetings just with Excel.