Software patents are not an inherently bad idea. What makes them bad in practice, and in the way they've been used in our legal system is two things:
1 - Software should NOT be simultaneously closed source and patented. They are two different protection schemes that are incompatable. Patents requires that you make your design and plans public and openly copyable so others can search on the patent archive and see what you're doing (and so that when you right to exclusivity ends, your idea is now in a public registry). In the case of software, that would be the source code, although pseudocode that doesn't actually compile, but merely teaches somoene how to write the software would probably fit the legal requirement (more akin to a blueprint than a cad/cam file)). The practice of allowing people to patent things based on vague fuzzy descriptions of algorithms should never have started.
2 - Patents in general (not just software) should not be allowed for ideas that are already known within the community of inventors (or programmers in this case). The Patent office doesn't bother checking this requirement anymore (or at least if they are attempting to do so they are obviously failing at it). When this isn't done, the owner of an idea ends up being the one with no scruples who decided to usurp ownership of the public idea first, rather than the one that thought of the idea first.
...cause undue stress on the body? Hypothermia shuts down the body's processes yes, but I would think trauma victims need all the energy they can get to survive. Inducing hypothermia should only hurt the process. Maybe if someone was clearly going to die you could induce hypothermia in an ambulance to give them time to get to the hospital but I can't see this being useful to inpatients and the like.
New communication mediums (namely the internet) decreases contraints on small towns as far as their ability to collaborate with other like minded tech people and their ability to get information. A large percentage of tech discourse takes place on the internet, and with a computer and an internet connection any small town nobody can get all the information they need to begin a project of their own or join up to help another team. We're not talking just small town USA here, but small town anywhere. India, Africa, China, wherever. As long as you can log on to the internet, you're good to go. Welcome to the global economy.
Indeed, I think the parent really points out the absurdity of this article. Of course humans are good with some forms of geometry, seeing as we deal with geometry on a day to day basis in the world we live in. Some previous poster pointed out that dogs can't do geometry problems. Well, dogs can't really do any "problems" of the form we humans can. We are used to thinking abstractly and solving problems.
I think the real issue is how the RIAA is not representative of the musicians thoughts and concerns.
Most musicians, especially struggling musicians, enjoy using the Internet and File Sharing programs to share their music (See pdf) . However, most feel that their work should be protected and they should get some sort of compensation from it (a perfectly justifable argument. Can't make much music if you're starving) (See pdf).
How are the above to concerns and attitudes towards file sharing in line with the RIAA's past, recent and future actions.
Also, this was an anonymous survey so it'd be interesting to really see who fell where (pop stars vs local bands).
Oh WOW you got your processor speed up? You're pushing it to its limits? Now tell me what exactly do you do that requires that speed? You might reply saying to encode videos or whatever else CPU intensive task you can think up and though it might be true in your case for the majority of 12 year old overclocking junkies it is not. They do nothing but game with their dual core super overclocked 500Ghz processors playing CS 1.6 or some game like that. In reality the reason they overclock IS to be able to say they overclocked it. That is what I am talking about. KTHX
You have to take all overclocking claims with a bit of salt, because for some people it's like the size of their penis depends on it. They'll be... very creative and selective in what they tell you, and that's putting it very mildly.
I've briefly been into the overclocker willy-waving scene myself, so you can take that as an admission. Guilty as charged, guv'nor.
Anyway, I've played with it long enough to know that there very rarely is a hard point where the card works 100% flawlessly, and 1 MHz higher it just locks up. There's more of a gradient grey zone where the card sorta works enough to finish one particular benchmark, but glitches, is unstable, or eventually overheats. And where it might work at that frequency in one game or benchmark, but lock up hard in 20 others.
The big overclocking brag-fests you read are usually from this grey area, not from the 100% stable zone.
Yes, you see some screenshots of a mondo 3DMark number there or of some utility showing the card running at 4 gazillion megaherz, but what you don't see is that it runs stable only for the 10 minutes needed to finish the benchmark. After that it overheats and starts artefacting, or outright locking up.
Be even more suspicious of brag-fests where they only ran half of 3DMark, and hand-waved the other tests as "bah, they didn't make much of a difference on the score anyway." (Ever notice how the biggest overclocking claims fall in that category?) Usually it means it crashed or locked up in those tests.
So I wouldn't take those as a baseline or as "_all_ 6800 cards make it that high with no problems, and it's just the mean MBAs at Nvidia marking them down." Fully expect that any card you buy might not be quite stable that high.
Which brings me to another point. To paraphrase another saying "overclocking gives you something for 'free', if your time is worth nothing." Because in the end the price you'll pay is a lot of time tweaking and testing that overclock... for each new game you buy, time replaying 30 minutes worth of something _again_ because the card locked up just before the save point, etc. It can end up a passtime in and by itself.
There often is a difference between what's legal and what's right in a moral sense - in other words, the "right" in "a right" is not the same as in "morally right".
China may have the legal right to do whatever it wants with its citizens, no matter what that is, but it doesn't mean that it's morally OK for them to do it. Furthermore, China *did* sign and ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - in fact, there even was a Chinese professor (Zhang Pengjun) on the commission that drafted the declaration.
That being said - as has been reported, there *is* not even a law in China that would require censorship of words such as "democracy". Microsoft is simply sucking up here, in one of the worst ways imaginable.
1) Doubles as reading lamp 2) Automatically emails fan letter to Steve Jobs during start up 3) If you cup your palms over the domed base, your hair will rise in air 4) Sprouts set of cybernetic insectoid legs and scutters away when threatened 5) Perfectly matches the iBlouse 6) Screen is flat, which is good for some reason 7) Special drool tray catches saliva from enthralled technogeeks 8) Communications directly with human pineal gland by firing information-rich beam of pink light 9) Wuvs you
Stolen from The Onion of about 4 years ago but still true today.
Better yet, you could take in an old box and drop it on the front desk and go "Excuse me, you've installed a virus on my PC via a Sony CD. Will you be removing it or should I charge by the hour at £X00(add as many 0s as you likee, but 2 sounds about right) for having to remove it via a repair guy (don't say you, it seems supicious).
Demand compensation (for petrol to get there), the money to fix it and if they refuse tell them you'll take them to court for the damages (claim the box was used for something important like hosting websites and the rootkit has not passed some safety tests that all servers must pass at your company).
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for pointing this out.
However, I sparked great discussion minus the trolls that call me out.
This is THE problem with Slashdot..
I just use the old posts that are still relative.
I spark great conversation, but then I get -1.
I could just post, Windows? Nah, I havent used that since 1999. and get +5, Insightful.
Karmarape me some more, please.
Software patents are not an inherently bad idea. What makes them bad in practice, and in the way they've been used in our legal system is two things: 1 - Software should NOT be simultaneously closed source and patented. They are two different protection schemes that are incompatable. Patents requires that you make your design and plans public and openly copyable so others can search on the patent archive and see what you're doing (and so that when you right to exclusivity ends, your idea is now in a public registry). In the case of software, that would be the source code, although pseudocode that doesn't actually compile, but merely teaches somoene how to write the software would probably fit the legal requirement (more akin to a blueprint than a cad/cam file)). The practice of allowing people to patent things based on vague fuzzy descriptions of algorithms should never have started. 2 - Patents in general (not just software) should not be allowed for ideas that are already known within the community of inventors (or programmers in this case). The Patent office doesn't bother checking this requirement anymore (or at least if they are attempting to do so they are obviously failing at it). When this isn't done, the owner of an idea ends up being the one with no scruples who decided to usurp ownership of the public idea first, rather than the one that thought of the idea first.
...cause undue stress on the body? Hypothermia shuts down the body's processes yes, but I would think trauma victims need all the energy they can get to survive. Inducing hypothermia should only hurt the process. Maybe if someone was clearly going to die you could induce hypothermia in an ambulance to give them time to get to the hospital but I can't see this being useful to inpatients and the like.
New communication mediums (namely the internet) decreases contraints on small towns as far as their ability to collaborate with other like minded tech people and their ability to get information. A large percentage of tech discourse takes place on the internet, and with a computer and an internet connection any small town nobody can get all the information they need to begin a project of their own or join up to help another team. We're not talking just small town USA here, but small town anywhere. India, Africa, China, wherever. As long as you can log on to the internet, you're good to go. Welcome to the global economy.
Indeed, I think the parent really points out the absurdity of this article. Of course humans are good with some forms of geometry, seeing as we deal with geometry on a day to day basis in the world we live in. Some previous poster pointed out that dogs can't do geometry problems. Well, dogs can't really do any "problems" of the form we humans can. We are used to thinking abstractly and solving problems.
I think the real issue is how the RIAA is not representative of the musicians thoughts and concerns.
Most musicians, especially struggling musicians, enjoy using the Internet and File Sharing programs to share their music (See pdf) . However, most feel that their work should be protected and they should get some sort of compensation from it (a perfectly justifable argument. Can't make much music if you're starving) (See pdf).
How are the above to concerns and attitudes towards file sharing in line with the RIAA's past, recent and future actions.
Also, this was an anonymous survey so it'd be interesting to really see who fell where (pop stars vs local bands).
I can't believe I didn't get on either of the name list microchips on this probe. Poot!
Oh WOW you got your processor speed up? You're pushing it to its limits? Now tell me what exactly do you do that requires that speed? You might reply saying to encode videos or whatever else CPU intensive task you can think up and though it might be true in your case for the majority of 12 year old overclocking junkies it is not. They do nothing but game with their dual core super overclocked 500Ghz processors playing CS 1.6 or some game like that. In reality the reason they overclock IS to be able to say they overclocked it. That is what I am talking about. KTHX
The 3DMark05 benchmark is generally a good indicator of 3DMark05 performance. Any similarity to real gaming is coincidental.
You have to take all overclocking claims with a bit of salt, because for some people it's like the size of their penis depends on it. They'll be... very creative and selective in what they tell you, and that's putting it very mildly.
I've briefly been into the overclocker willy-waving scene myself, so you can take that as an admission. Guilty as charged, guv'nor.
Anyway, I've played with it long enough to know that there very rarely is a hard point where the card works 100% flawlessly, and 1 MHz higher it just locks up. There's more of a gradient grey zone where the card sorta works enough to finish one particular benchmark, but glitches, is unstable, or eventually overheats. And where it might work at that frequency in one game or benchmark, but lock up hard in 20 others.
The big overclocking brag-fests you read are usually from this grey area, not from the 100% stable zone.
Yes, you see some screenshots of a mondo 3DMark number there or of some utility showing the card running at 4 gazillion megaherz, but what you don't see is that it runs stable only for the 10 minutes needed to finish the benchmark. After that it overheats and starts artefacting, or outright locking up.
Be even more suspicious of brag-fests where they only ran half of 3DMark, and hand-waved the other tests as "bah, they didn't make much of a difference on the score anyway." (Ever notice how the biggest overclocking claims fall in that category?) Usually it means it crashed or locked up in those tests.
So I wouldn't take those as a baseline or as "_all_ 6800 cards make it that high with no problems, and it's just the mean MBAs at Nvidia marking them down." Fully expect that any card you buy might not be quite stable that high.
Which brings me to another point. To paraphrase another saying "overclocking gives you something for 'free', if your time is worth nothing." Because in the end the price you'll pay is a lot of time tweaking and testing that overclock... for each new game you buy, time replaying 30 minutes worth of something _again_ because the card locked up just before the save point, etc. It can end up a passtime in and by itself.
There often is a difference between what's legal and what's right in a moral sense - in other words, the "right" in "a right" is not the same as in "morally right".
China may have the legal right to do whatever it wants with its citizens, no matter what that is, but it doesn't mean that it's morally OK for them to do it. Furthermore, China *did* sign and ratify the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - in fact, there even was a Chinese professor (Zhang Pengjun) on the commission that drafted the declaration.
That being said - as has been reported, there *is* not even a law in China that would require censorship of words such as "democracy". Microsoft is simply sucking up here, in one of the worst ways imaginable.
1) Doubles as reading lamp
2) Automatically emails fan letter to Steve Jobs during start up
3) If you cup your palms over the domed base, your hair will rise in air
4) Sprouts set of cybernetic insectoid legs and scutters away when threatened
5) Perfectly matches the iBlouse
6) Screen is flat, which is good for some reason
7) Special drool tray catches saliva from enthralled technogeeks
8) Communications directly with human pineal gland by firing information-rich beam of pink light
9) Wuvs you
Stolen from The Onion of about 4 years ago but still true today.
Better yet, you could take in an old box and drop it on the front desk and go "Excuse me, you've installed a virus on my PC via a Sony CD. Will you be removing it or should I charge by the hour at £X00(add as many 0s as you likee, but 2 sounds about right) for having to remove it via a repair guy (don't say you, it seems supicious).
:D
Demand compensation (for petrol to get there), the money to fix it and if they refuse tell them you'll take them to court for the damages (claim the box was used for something important like hosting websites and the rootkit has not passed some safety tests that all servers must pass at your company).
Aww the fun of being a sick little geek