While I agree there is a logical middle ground, there is still a dilemna on how to reach that middle ground.
The current situation is that private-interest lobby groups will get laws passed in their favor, and then only after significant public outrage will enough people have courage to legally challenge the laws and/or get people elected to correct the laws.
This system actually favors the private-interest groups because they get to make the first moves.
I definitely agree that patents should only be enforceable if the holder is actively trying to commercialize a product. That is what patenting is really about anyway -- arbitrating competing investments in commercial interests.
The dumbest thing is people who hold patents, then wait for someone to actually make a real product, then sue them.
You are supposed to demonstrate feasibility to be awarded a patent, so you should have to continue to demonstrate development to maintain a patent.
Yes, that is why Apple always restricts sale of older models to ensure all new money goes toward the newest product. It seems counterintuitive but it works for them (mainly because of their customer loyalty).
This is or should be of high interest to all high tech employees, especially engineers and designers. If you learn something while working for one employer, and then leave for a potentially competitive company, how much of your knowledge are you allowed to apply at your new job? Legally there may be many restrictions -- even if you did not sign a non-compete agreement. Companies actually have some right to own things you've learned while working for them!
Actually, there have been several cases where someone will run some new indexing search engine across a corporate network and find all types of confidential and/or embarassing data. Salaries, performance appraisals, etc. often have remnants in some normally overlooked folder in the filesystem...
Video on demand will definitely be the way television distribution will end up. However, the difficulty is in implementing the billing systems. With cable bundles, the cable company just needs to enable/disable whole channels and bill you monthly. With video on demand, the content distributors need to be able to track everyone's individual accesses. Of course this is possible, but does require some infrastructure and technology implemented.
Getting really into the details, there are issues like what happens when a show is partially watched. Ideally, you shouldn't have an all-or-nothing system like Pay-Per-View. Micropayments would be the ultimate -- paying a cent per minute or something would allow channel surfing and such.
You're giving the "intelligence community" too much credit. The search for WMDs in Iraq, and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, have shown that it is not just a matter of collecting the data but of interpreting it properly.
They might very well have satellites that can read a newspaper on the ground, but do they really have the ability to collect all that information, process it, and make meaningful conclusions? I bet not.
Definitely any growing influence needs to be watched but there are "natural" forces that check anyone from rising too far.
Look how scary the Japanese economy was in the 1980s -- remember movies like 'Gung Ho' that played on our fears?
Here's some reasons why China will plateau before ruling the world:
1. Their main global economic value currently is cheap labor. But their standard of living is rising quickly and salaries are growing. Many, in the cities, have cars and big screen televisions. They won't be cheap for much longer -- in fact they're starting to outsource to Vietnam!
2. Their banking system is flawed, and their corporations are rife with corruption. They will experience a major economic crisis similar to the "economic flu" that hit the other Asian tiger countries. Major scandals will be unveiled, big corporations will default on loans, and the whole house of cards will fall down.
3. Political turmoil. As the social disparity increases, they will get inundated with protests and strikes like any other modern industrial country.
4. Infrastructure problems.
5. Energy and water supply problems.
6. Pollution problems.
Don't mistake their transient success of five years with a prolonged dominance.
Not $B mistakes, but did once make a mistake in currency conversion with online trading. Only when the brokerage called up to say I can't cover do I figure it out. The immediacy of online transactions allows for immediate mistakes!
"Wiki is fraught with personal opinion, general consensus and rumor-mill myth that Wiki nerds generally accept as fact."
The problem is that conventional encyclopedias and academic sources are also fraught with personal opinion, general consensus and political agendas. There are some pretty shocking examples of editing in Encyclopedia Brittanica and such. Plus, for many subjects, they are out of date as soon as they are printed.
The confusion stemmed from networking and radio base-10 measurements conflicting with computing base-2 measurements.
I do agree that harddrives should conform to computing history (i.e. 1 GB memory should fit in 1 GB drive space), but the IETF did have to come up with some compromise for two **equally legitimate** engineering histories. The networking terms won because they were congruent with general science standards.
Yes, at some point improvements should be captured in a production release and the next improvements can be Beta again. The point is to have something to rely on (i.e. no scripting vulnerabilitites and such) due to testing/hardening of a certain release.
Endless improvement != endless Beta
Well, there is nothing wrong with Betas, except if their is no real intention of a production/stable release in a reasonable timeframe. Something in Beta for three years should raise questions.
The implication is tha by tagging something as Beta, software/service suppliers can absolve themselves of responsibility for defects. This is sort of like an even further erosion of the standard EULA weaknesses regarding bugs and defects.
Software that is in Beta indefinitely should be called "abandoned".
The chances of an extraterrestial civilization being within 20 years of technology development is very slim -- it is likely there will be a huge technical disparity, probably in favor of the ETs. Look at the difference in technology between us and our own societies 50 years ago. Especially considering the fact the ETs would have figured out how to traverse large distances in space, you can assume they'd trounce us technologically. Our best hope is that they will consider us unintelligent, unattractive and inedible, and leave us alone!
Mainstream science is good for improving on previous bodies of work, "wierd science" is good for finding entirely new ways of understanding. Mainstream science only finds revolutionary things by accident.
The best thing is let all hypotheses come forward, then use science to test them -- don't discount them before that!
IT depends on the component type, but on average an electronics systems' cost will go down by about 18% for each tenfold increase in volume of the order. So if the Xbox would cost $470 to put together with retail pricing (i.e. volume of one) the 100k unit pricing will be about $250.
The reason this happens is that the vendors just need to make a certain amount of total profit, so shipping ten times the items at half (remember the margin on the retail item is about 50%) the total profit still increases.
There are a lot of comments that say the same things, but I'm going to summarize because there are still lots of people posting repeat questions...
Most electronics equipment sells initially at a loss, but with the hope that over a couple years the volumes and cost reductions will make up for it. So it is true that the previous generation boxes are not likely sold at a loss today. However, these game console makers can not actually sell for any profit because the competition keeps squeezing it out.
Microsoft probably does get some better component pricing than what is estimated, but the conclusion sounds about right. And that is just based on component costs, the holistic cost to Microsoft includes shipping, inventory warehouseing, support, trade shows and events, advertising, prize giveaways, etc.
Some of you might wonder why the console makers let them sell out of the stores (why don't they make more for Christmas?). It is not, as some suggest, a promotional ploy to generate excitement, but rather because they need to limit their losses this quarter. They would actually like to sell less!
The reason why Xbox news is important to all/. readers (not just gamers) is that it affects the semiconductor industry (for example, the reason why Apple had to switch to Intel is because PowerPC makers wanted to focus on gaming), computer graphics, memory pricing, etc. and ultimately is another step toward the mainstream convergence of computing with the home theatre.
Microsoft probably doesn't care about making a profit on XBox franchise, even with game licensing because their real goal is to dominate all computing OSs in the home.
People have this bad tendency to extrapolate everything linearly. While it is always good to have healthy paranoia, there are a lot of things that will come up to quell China's economic rise.
First of all, their currency is artifically low. Bush is at least on the right track about that -- once it trades freely, Chinese labor might not seem quite so attractive. I've visited China several times, and the business folk I've met have nice cars, big screen tvs, etc. They can't keep living like that and be considered inexpensive. Plus, just look at the average annual salary increases for Chinese tech...
Secondly, remember the "economic Asian flu" that hit Japan, Taiwan and Korea last decade. Well, China is due for the same thing. Their lending practices are weak, their corruption level is high. Just wait until some major embezzlement scandals cause lenders to ask for their money, then a dominino of load defaults ripples across the nation.
Lastly, infrastructure problems, resource limitations, and growing social inequity will start to gnaw at their society and slow them down.
I remember being really scared of Japan's economy, etc. and look at them now. Do you remember the sentiment in the 80's that created movies like "Gung Ho"?
Be paranoid, but don't be scared. The laws of feedback always kick in to foil growth!
Your job security and promotion opportunities will be greatest (but never 100%) if management recognizes that you deliver your commitments on time. You will also be guaranteed to keep getting interesting work that expands your expertise and makes you more employable in general. Hunkering down to maintain some piece of code indefinitely is weak and deserves to be replaced! No guts, no glory kid!
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree there is a logical middle ground, there is still a dilemna on how to reach that middle ground. The current situation is that private-interest lobby groups will get laws passed in their favor, and then only after significant public outrage will enough people have courage to legally challenge the laws and/or get people elected to correct the laws. This system actually favors the private-interest groups because they get to make the first moves.
I guess it might be useful in a survival kit ... it would be better than packing batteries in the sense it could presumably have a longer life.
I think they're talking about user-writtable CDs. Industrial ones last longer.
I definitely agree that patents should only be enforceable if the holder is actively trying to commercialize a product. That is what patenting is really about anyway -- arbitrating competing investments in commercial interests. The dumbest thing is people who hold patents, then wait for someone to actually make a real product, then sue them. You are supposed to demonstrate feasibility to be awarded a patent, so you should have to continue to demonstrate development to maintain a patent.
Yes, that is why Apple always restricts sale of older models to ensure all new money goes toward the newest product. It seems counterintuitive but it works for them (mainly because of their customer loyalty).
Great, now my car and my computer can smell like french fries!
This is or should be of high interest to all high tech employees, especially engineers and designers. If you learn something while working for one employer, and then leave for a potentially competitive company, how much of your knowledge are you allowed to apply at your new job? Legally there may be many restrictions -- even if you did not sign a non-compete agreement. Companies actually have some right to own things you've learned while working for them!
Actually, there have been several cases where someone will run some new indexing search engine across a corporate network and find all types of confidential and/or embarassing data. Salaries, performance appraisals, etc. often have remnants in some normally overlooked folder in the filesystem ...
Video on demand will definitely be the way television distribution will end up. However, the difficulty is in implementing the billing systems. With cable bundles, the cable company just needs to enable/disable whole channels and bill you monthly. With video on demand, the content distributors need to be able to track everyone's individual accesses. Of course this is possible, but does require some infrastructure and technology implemented. Getting really into the details, there are issues like what happens when a show is partially watched. Ideally, you shouldn't have an all-or-nothing system like Pay-Per-View. Micropayments would be the ultimate -- paying a cent per minute or something would allow channel surfing and such.
You're giving the "intelligence community" too much credit. The search for WMDs in Iraq, and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, have shown that it is not just a matter of collecting the data but of interpreting it properly. They might very well have satellites that can read a newspaper on the ground, but do they really have the ability to collect all that information, process it, and make meaningful conclusions? I bet not.
Definitely any growing influence needs to be watched but there are "natural" forces that check anyone from rising too far. Look how scary the Japanese economy was in the 1980s -- remember movies like 'Gung Ho' that played on our fears? Here's some reasons why China will plateau before ruling the world: 1. Their main global economic value currently is cheap labor. But their standard of living is rising quickly and salaries are growing. Many, in the cities, have cars and big screen televisions. They won't be cheap for much longer -- in fact they're starting to outsource to Vietnam! 2. Their banking system is flawed, and their corporations are rife with corruption. They will experience a major economic crisis similar to the "economic flu" that hit the other Asian tiger countries. Major scandals will be unveiled, big corporations will default on loans, and the whole house of cards will fall down. 3. Political turmoil. As the social disparity increases, they will get inundated with protests and strikes like any other modern industrial country. 4. Infrastructure problems. 5. Energy and water supply problems. 6. Pollution problems. Don't mistake their transient success of five years with a prolonged dominance.
Not $B mistakes, but did once make a mistake in currency conversion with online trading. Only when the brokerage called up to say I can't cover do I figure it out. The immediacy of online transactions allows for immediate mistakes!
"Wiki is fraught with personal opinion, general consensus and rumor-mill myth that Wiki nerds generally accept as fact." The problem is that conventional encyclopedias and academic sources are also fraught with personal opinion, general consensus and political agendas. There are some pretty shocking examples of editing in Encyclopedia Brittanica and such. Plus, for many subjects, they are out of date as soon as they are printed.
The confusion stemmed from networking and radio base-10 measurements conflicting with computing base-2 measurements. I do agree that harddrives should conform to computing history (i.e. 1 GB memory should fit in 1 GB drive space), but the IETF did have to come up with some compromise for two **equally legitimate** engineering histories. The networking terms won because they were congruent with general science standards.
Yes, at some point improvements should be captured in a production release and the next improvements can be Beta again. The point is to have something to rely on (i.e. no scripting vulnerabilitites and such) due to testing/hardening of a certain release. Endless improvement != endless Beta
Well, there is nothing wrong with Betas, except if their is no real intention of a production/stable release in a reasonable timeframe. Something in Beta for three years should raise questions. The implication is tha by tagging something as Beta, software/service suppliers can absolve themselves of responsibility for defects. This is sort of like an even further erosion of the standard EULA weaknesses regarding bugs and defects. Software that is in Beta indefinitely should be called "abandoned".
The chances of an extraterrestial civilization being within 20 years of technology development is very slim -- it is likely there will be a huge technical disparity, probably in favor of the ETs. Look at the difference in technology between us and our own societies 50 years ago. Especially considering the fact the ETs would have figured out how to traverse large distances in space, you can assume they'd trounce us technologically. Our best hope is that they will consider us unintelligent, unattractive and inedible, and leave us alone!
Yep several studies show that a human-like scent is known to cause cancer in humans.
Mainstream science is good for improving on previous bodies of work, "wierd science" is good for finding entirely new ways of understanding. Mainstream science only finds revolutionary things by accident. The best thing is let all hypotheses come forward, then use science to test them -- don't discount them before that!
IT depends on the component type, but on average an electronics systems' cost will go down by about 18% for each tenfold increase in volume of the order. So if the Xbox would cost $470 to put together with retail pricing (i.e. volume of one) the 100k unit pricing will be about $250. The reason this happens is that the vendors just need to make a certain amount of total profit, so shipping ten times the items at half (remember the margin on the retail item is about 50%) the total profit still increases.
There are a lot of comments that say the same things, but I'm going to summarize because there are still lots of people posting repeat questions... Most electronics equipment sells initially at a loss, but with the hope that over a couple years the volumes and cost reductions will make up for it. So it is true that the previous generation boxes are not likely sold at a loss today. However, these game console makers can not actually sell for any profit because the competition keeps squeezing it out. Microsoft probably does get some better component pricing than what is estimated, but the conclusion sounds about right. And that is just based on component costs, the holistic cost to Microsoft includes shipping, inventory warehouseing, support, trade shows and events, advertising, prize giveaways, etc. Some of you might wonder why the console makers let them sell out of the stores (why don't they make more for Christmas?). It is not, as some suggest, a promotional ploy to generate excitement, but rather because they need to limit their losses this quarter. They would actually like to sell less! The reason why Xbox news is important to all /. readers (not just gamers) is that it affects the semiconductor industry (for example, the reason why Apple had to switch to Intel is because PowerPC makers wanted to focus on gaming), computer graphics, memory pricing, etc. and ultimately is another step toward the mainstream convergence of computing with the home theatre.
Microsoft probably doesn't care about making a profit on XBox franchise, even with game licensing because their real goal is to dominate all computing OSs in the home.
"the niggardly attitude of people in this world disgusts me." Wow, racist and doesn't even realize it!
People have this bad tendency to extrapolate everything linearly. While it is always good to have healthy paranoia, there are a lot of things that will come up to quell China's economic rise. First of all, their currency is artifically low. Bush is at least on the right track about that -- once it trades freely, Chinese labor might not seem quite so attractive. I've visited China several times, and the business folk I've met have nice cars, big screen tvs, etc. They can't keep living like that and be considered inexpensive. Plus, just look at the average annual salary increases for Chinese tech ...
Secondly, remember the "economic Asian flu" that hit Japan, Taiwan and Korea last decade. Well, China is due for the same thing. Their lending practices are weak, their corruption level is high. Just wait until some major embezzlement scandals cause lenders to ask for their money, then a dominino of load defaults ripples across the nation.
Lastly, infrastructure problems, resource limitations, and growing social inequity will start to gnaw at their society and slow them down.
I remember being really scared of Japan's economy, etc. and look at them now. Do you remember the sentiment in the 80's that created movies like "Gung Ho"?
Be paranoid, but don't be scared. The laws of feedback always kick in to foil growth!
Your job security and promotion opportunities will be greatest (but never 100%) if management recognizes that you deliver your commitments on time. You will also be guaranteed to keep getting interesting work that expands your expertise and makes you more employable in general. Hunkering down to maintain some piece of code indefinitely is weak and deserves to be replaced! No guts, no glory kid!
Handwriting recognition may still be keylogged, depending on how the recognition software interacts with the computer's input buffers.