Basically nobody who was above the point of impact made it out.
The first impact was on one tower and it was nearly at the top. Reports say there were maybe 250 people up there.
If there had been 50K people in the buildings there would have been many more casualties.
There were. Oh, and, getting back to the point I was making, if things had gone a little differently the number dead would have multiplied by a great deal. It's a miracle that only ~2700 people died in those towers.
Hold up, what is Ikea going to patent that affects HP devices?
That's the point. The way it is now, they can't. If 'on a computer' wasn't patentable, then Ikea could have a patent on how they pack their boxes that HP would have to license when coming up with a new data compression algorithm.
Seriously, no software patents means once HP puts it "on a computer" Ikea's mythical patent no longer applies, i.e. it *doesn't* affect HP devices/quote.
They can't anyway, so what does the 'no software patents' buy you, now?
But once the generic model has been developed (arguably the most difficult part) specific implementations drop out of the trees like over-ripe fruit.
They seem like that in hind-sight. Look at the year we're talking about.
In spite of some well publicized failures, thousands of small and medium sized businesses moved from paper and filing cabinets to little icons of file folders on desktops without batting an eyelash...
No they didn't. They ponied up cash to hire consultants to design it and get it all running, then they invested in people to maintain it. They didn't 'buy a faster truck', they flipped their businesses inside-out.
It's just another cloud service, methinks. Good on 'em, I don't want any, thx.
I'm not trying to sell you on DropBox. I don't mean to be crude, but I do want to be clear: I don't give two shits about you using DB. The only real reason I'd like to keep this convo going is if you can help me roll my own alternative.
That said, I do think you should know about what it does and why it's enticing.
I have never understood that argument. Why do they need supporting? Shouldn't they just go out of their way to, I dunno, *interoperate*, like everything else?!?
Heh. You can interoperate until you're blue in the face, people still have to pay attention to it and make it work. I know Slashdot thinks this is true, but there is no such thing as 'write once work everywhere'.
No, they're proprietary, so want to suck you into using their proprietary formats. fsck 'em.
Principles are fine and all but they don't put a roof over your head. Services aren't, by default, a bad thing. Besides that, we're talking about file hosting, not office docs. There is no 'proprietary format' here.
On a semi-related note: extreme views are still extreme. Slashdotters in general are starting to understand that but the OSS zealots don't.
I'm pretty sure rsync can blow the doors off any proprietary *sync* thingie you can suggest. Note, it notes state, and only transmits diffs?
Okay... so does it actually do auto-syncing? Does it take a lot of setup to do? Can I tell somebody who's not computer saavy how to set it up? If I'm using Windows can I set it up, then tell my Mac user friend to set it up on his end so we can auto-sync with a server in between us?
Boring. A Samba server could do all you want. I could build you a monster backup system with five year old parts for under $200 (plus my rate) that'd fully automate all of this for you. You'd rather p*** it off into the cloud instead of remain in control of it yourself. Your call.
Actually the 'in control' bit is the inhibitor right now. Frankly, even if I had you build this machine for me, I'd still have this problem. I want the files encrypted on the machine. I don't trust you to build it. I don't trust the co-loc to keep their hands off it. I do trust (enough, anyway) to have each file encrypted. DropBox gets me 95% of the way there. I think if I rolled out an approach to encrypt the files before they were sent to DB, it'd be pretty slick. Then I would have to ask myself if it's worth the time to even think about rolling it. That $200 you mentioned (without considering your rate...) covers two years of service and doesn't account for the fact that I want to share with other people.
Btw, no offense meant, and I don't really know anything about DB, but it seems simpler my way, from what I've heard so far.
No no, there's no offense taken over here. Likewise I hope I haven't offended you. Nobody is claiming that DB is some hot new invention, in fact I recall a few similar services a few years ago. What they got right, though, is the simplicity of the app, both in terms of installation and in usage. I used to use Allway Sync + my own FTP server, and that was fine, but then I wanted to let other people in and share. Then suddenly it became too much. That make sense?
I really do hope DB gets their act together with the proper encryption, this could totally help me out work-wise. I do enough tele-commuting that it would be bad-ass.
Here's a list of niceties of DropBox, in no particular order:
- Mac and Windows support. (iPhone and iPad, too... useful in some cases. Also web-support so you can hit the files manually.)
- Auto-syncing, just put the files into the right folder and they'll automatically appear on the server. This is the bit that really makes DB attractive, especially if you are sharing files with other people.
- Easy setup, decent rates. 2 gigs are free, 50 is $10/mo. (or $100 a year). I am unaware of being able to beat that with a co-loc somewhere, insight on that would be appreciated. I was able to tell a client how to get DB running without hassle.
- You can link accounts. I share files with a friend of mine just by opening one of my folders to him. What's nice about that is that as long as his computer is on it'll arrive on his machine, he won't have to go ask for it.
- You can have two computers sync via the ethernet instead of the internet. I personally haven't tried this yet but it's something I wish to look into because I have a laptop that's part of my workflow.
And my point is that once the files and folders paradigm was developed for the general case (easy or not), extending the general case to one specific use of 'files and folders' is a trivial task. Even older, the client-server model existed long before the Internet. I worked with some apps using dial up connections.
You're talking about a generic model and not a specific implementation. Again, the actual process of hooking a computer into a particular business is not a straightforward or easy process. Computers are not magical devices that instantly make everything better. To illustrate, I'm going to fix your metaphor:
Back in the old days, farmers carried their produce to market with horse and wagon. One farmer sees a Model T and thinks "hmm... that could make this heaps easier". So he buys a Model T, then he puts a flatbed on it. Then he drives it home and realizes that his shitty dirt road can't be driven on easily, so he comes up with his own design for suspension on his newly made truck. Once he does his first delivery, it rains, ruining half his cargo. He then develops a gadget that senses rain and automatically calls his newly installed telephone (that nobody has yet) and makes it ring exactly 3 and a half times. With this innovation, he can better schedule his deliveries and keep his produce from getting ruined.
We can argue about this all day, but there are reasons these patents are so long. The oversimplification that Slashdot typically offers has *never* comprehensively described the patent. Nor has anybody ever really paid attention to the fact that the 'on a computer' bit of a patent also means that other patents cannot possibly be that broad. That farmer's innovation with the suspension, for example, wouldn't apply to a plane or a military tank. If it did, then we'd have a reaaaally bad patent system.
The point wasn't that SDK's aren't available, the point was that just attaching a computer to a problem is not simple or straight forward. Think about how the files and folders paradigm was built in the first place. It's not like you just bolt a computer on to something and it magically works, utilizing that processing power takes design, research, and development.
I would agree with you if integrating a computer into a solution was straightforward or even simple, but it's not. Try building the equivalent of a paper filing cabinet and copy machine out of assembly language, make sure to cover all of the use cases that would apply in that context. To fix your metaphor, it'd be like building a refrigerated truck while everybody else is using wheelbarrows.
What you linked to is a 2001 patent for creating a flight planning system using the client system to generate the flight plan from data served on the internet and from radio signals the device is receiving. There are a lot of specifics in this patent that'd be easy to bypass. Assuming this didn't have any real prior art, I don't see what's not patentable from it. Seriously, all you'd need to do to avoid this patent is to use a custom app instead of a web browser.
The big speed bump I always run into is "where the heck is the power for these mutations coming from?" It takes energy to lift up metal with a magnetic field and fling it around the room, where's it come from?
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected.
Is it's failure a US centric issue?
Size.
This headline reminds me of the Skype outages a couple of months ago and how people were blaming them on Microsoft...
Basically nobody who was above the point of impact made it out.
The first impact was on one tower and it was nearly at the top. Reports say there were maybe 250 people up there.
If there had been 50K people in the buildings there would have been many more casualties.
There were. Oh, and, getting back to the point I was making, if things had gone a little differently the number dead would have multiplied by a great deal. It's a miracle that only ~2700 people died in those towers.
I'm guessing you're in your early 20's.
a. Please explain how the loss of life could have been 30fold higher.
On any given day the World Trade Center had 100,000 people in it. At the time of the impact, there were over 50,000 people in both buildings.
I am shocked that you aren't aware of this. I distinctly remember them going over that statistic over and over and over again when it happened.
b. Most of the ramifications you mention are home made, due to the reactions rather than the actual cause.
So?
Hold up, what is Ikea going to patent that affects HP devices?
That's the point. The way it is now, they can't. If 'on a computer' wasn't patentable, then Ikea could have a patent on how they pack their boxes that HP would have to license when coming up with a new data compression algorithm.
Seriously, no software patents means once HP puts it "on a computer" Ikea's mythical patent no longer applies, i.e. it *doesn't* affect HP devices/quote.
They can't anyway, so what does the 'no software patents' buy you, now?
Is it me or is there something off the mark?
Well, yes, your math is wrong.
a. If 9-11 had gone a little differently, up to 100,000 people would have died.
b. The economic ramifications of what happened after were not short-lived or small in size.
It's still off the mark, but not as badly as you first assumed.
But once the generic model has been developed (arguably the most difficult part) specific implementations drop out of the trees like over-ripe fruit.
They seem like that in hind-sight. Look at the year we're talking about.
In spite of some well publicized failures, thousands of small and medium sized businesses moved from paper and filing cabinets to little icons of file folders on desktops without batting an eyelash...
No they didn't. They ponied up cash to hire consultants to design it and get it all running, then they invested in people to maintain it. They didn't 'buy a faster truck', they flipped their businesses inside-out.
It's just another cloud service, methinks. Good on 'em, I don't want any, thx.
I'm not trying to sell you on DropBox. I don't mean to be crude, but I do want to be clear: I don't give two shits about you using DB. The only real reason I'd like to keep this convo going is if you can help me roll my own alternative.
That said, I do think you should know about what it does and why it's enticing.
I have never understood that argument. Why do they need supporting? Shouldn't they just go out of their way to, I dunno, *interoperate*, like everything else?!?
Heh. You can interoperate until you're blue in the face, people still have to pay attention to it and make it work. I know Slashdot thinks this is true, but there is no such thing as 'write once work everywhere'.
No, they're proprietary, so want to suck you into using their proprietary formats. fsck 'em.
Principles are fine and all but they don't put a roof over your head. Services aren't, by default, a bad thing. Besides that, we're talking about file hosting, not office docs. There is no 'proprietary format' here.
On a semi-related note: extreme views are still extreme. Slashdotters in general are starting to understand that but the OSS zealots don't.
I'm pretty sure rsync can blow the doors off any proprietary *sync* thingie you can suggest. Note, it notes state, and only transmits diffs?
Okay... so does it actually do auto-syncing? Does it take a lot of setup to do? Can I tell somebody who's not computer saavy how to set it up? If I'm using Windows can I set it up, then tell my Mac user friend to set it up on his end so we can auto-sync with a server in between us?
Boring. A Samba server could do all you want. I could build you a monster backup system with five year old parts for under $200 (plus my rate) that'd fully automate all of this for you. You'd rather p*** it off into the cloud instead of remain in control of it yourself. Your call.
Actually the 'in control' bit is the inhibitor right now. Frankly, even if I had you build this machine for me, I'd still have this problem. I want the files encrypted on the machine. I don't trust you to build it. I don't trust the co-loc to keep their hands off it. I do trust (enough, anyway) to have each file encrypted. DropBox gets me 95% of the way there. I think if I rolled out an approach to encrypt the files before they were sent to DB, it'd be pretty slick. Then I would have to ask myself if it's worth the time to even think about rolling it. That $200 you mentioned (without considering your rate...) covers two years of service and doesn't account for the fact that I want to share with other people.
Btw, no offense meant, and I don't really know anything about DB, but it seems simpler my way, from what I've heard so far.
No no, there's no offense taken over here. Likewise I hope I haven't offended you. Nobody is claiming that DB is some hot new invention, in fact I recall a few similar services a few years ago. What they got right, though, is the simplicity of the app, both in terms of installation and in usage. I used to use Allway Sync + my own FTP server, and that was fine, but then I wanted to let other people in and share. Then suddenly it became too much. That make sense?
I really do hope DB gets their act together with the proper encryption, this could totally help me out work-wise. I do enough tele-commuting that it would be bad-ass.
Here's a list of niceties of DropBox, in no particular order:
- Mac and Windows support. (iPhone and iPad, too... useful in some cases. Also web-support so you can hit the files manually.)
- Auto-syncing, just put the files into the right folder and they'll automatically appear on the server. This is the bit that really makes DB attractive, especially if you are sharing files with other people.
- Easy setup, decent rates. 2 gigs are free, 50 is $10/mo. (or $100 a year). I am unaware of being able to beat that with a co-loc somewhere, insight on that would be appreciated. I was able to tell a client how to get DB running without hassle.
- You can link accounts. I share files with a friend of mine just by opening one of my folders to him. What's nice about that is that as long as his computer is on it'll arrive on his machine, he won't have to go ask for it.
- You can have two computers sync via the ethernet instead of the internet. I personally haven't tried this yet but it's something I wish to look into because I have a laptop that's part of my workflow.
And my point is that once the files and folders paradigm was developed for the general case (easy or not), extending the general case to one specific use of 'files and folders' is a trivial task. Even older, the client-server model existed long before the Internet. I worked with some apps using dial up connections.
You're talking about a generic model and not a specific implementation. Again, the actual process of hooking a computer into a particular business is not a straightforward or easy process. Computers are not magical devices that instantly make everything better. To illustrate, I'm going to fix your metaphor:
Back in the old days, farmers carried their produce to market with horse and wagon. One farmer sees a Model T and thinks "hmm... that could make this heaps easier". So he buys a Model T, then he puts a flatbed on it. Then he drives it home and realizes that his shitty dirt road can't be driven on easily, so he comes up with his own design for suspension on his newly made truck. Once he does his first delivery, it rains, ruining half his cargo. He then develops a gadget that senses rain and automatically calls his newly installed telephone (that nobody has yet) and makes it ring exactly 3 and a half times. With this innovation, he can better schedule his deliveries and keep his produce from getting ruined.
We can argue about this all day, but there are reasons these patents are so long. The oversimplification that Slashdot typically offers has *never* comprehensively described the patent. Nor has anybody ever really paid attention to the fact that the 'on a computer' bit of a patent also means that other patents cannot possibly be that broad. That farmer's innovation with the suspension, for example, wouldn't apply to a plane or a military tank. If it did, then we'd have a reaaaally bad patent system.
Whoosh.
The point wasn't that SDK's aren't available, the point was that just attaching a computer to a problem is not simple or straight forward. Think about how the files and folders paradigm was built in the first place. It's not like you just bolt a computer on to something and it magically works, utilizing that processing power takes design, research, and development.
Now, with that in mind, go read the patent.
How did this even get through the Firehose?
Apple + Fox News + anti-Android == lotsa ads served.
I would agree with you if integrating a computer into a solution was straightforward or even simple, but it's not. Try building the equivalent of a paper filing cabinet and copy machine out of assembly language, make sure to cover all of the use cases that would apply in that context. To fix your metaphor, it'd be like building a refrigerated truck while everybody else is using wheelbarrows.
What you linked to is a 2001 patent for creating a flight planning system using the client system to generate the flight plan from data served on the internet and from radio signals the device is receiving. There are a lot of specifics in this patent that'd be easy to bypass. Assuming this didn't have any real prior art, I don't see what's not patentable from it. Seriously, all you'd need to do to avoid this patent is to use a custom app instead of a web browser.
There's a reason patents are TLDR.
...you can patent just about anything if you put "on a computer" at the end of it.
That is by design. If that wasn't a separate patent, then Ikea could hold patents that affect HP devices.
I'm not saying software patents are good, I'm strictly saying that the 'put computer at the end of it' rationale actually has some basis in reason.
None of those were IBM Clones or compatible with them.
I actually don't allow advertising crap to influence me... Advertisements just make my life easier to find things I am interested in.
*Smirk*
I'm with you and all but, seriously, it's not like Google will stop working. So a company has a brand domain, bfd.
The big speed bump I always run into is "where the heck is the power for these mutations coming from?" It takes energy to lift up metal with a magnetic field and fling it around the room, where's it come from?
I'm talking about X-Men, not Terminator.
Geesh, these same convos happen during time travel articles, too!
We don't pay for things with gold.
...before a little girl passes through a wall at the federal reserve!
I didn't need multiple points, just the one. Did you have a rebuttal or a question?