It's not X - X is very fast. Firefox is definitely slow. Many people don't even notice slow-responding applications, which is one reason the problem never gets fixed.
I think GTK is the culprit in most cases. In most GTK apps, you can see a dialog box being painted, even on 1Ghz machine. That's just inexcusable.
A good credit score means the customer is unlikely to default on bills. It does not mean he will be profitable; in fact, he might be less profitable than a customer with a bad score, provided the latter does not default.
You could use vmware, and run Unbox in its own virtual machine. As computers become more powerful and software becomes more evil, you may have to put each program in a separate VM so it can't see any files or hardware that aren't its business.
You create an apparent paradox by the ambiguity of "should". Do we think it's morally right to punish someone for selling lipstick into Iran? I don't.
Do we think Iran might prosecute a person who sold lipstick into the country? I think so.
Given a chance, I think any government will punish businesses that import contraband. Whether the contraband "should" be illegal is a different question.
No the submitter is not jumping to conclusions - look at the bloody claims...
I agree. Until you read the claims, you know nothing about a patent. But the material you cite is not claims. It looks like something written by a journalist.
I think this article is a PR hit. Anyway, Google is far from the only company to develop a lot of their code in-house. My current employer is one, and it greatly increases the quality of life. I used to strongly advocate this approach, but now I understand that it's right for some companies and not others.
It all depends whether the company is a tech producer or consumer. Tech consumers buy or outsource everything but their core competency. This eliminates the risk of in-house development. Tech producers usually roll their own, accepting the occasional late and over-budget project in exchange for many cheap and quick projects.
So if you work for a Tech Consumer, and you hate the crappy Enterprise Software they inflict on you, don't evangelize them - go work for a Tech Producer.
Wow, this move is positively Orwellian. It reminds me of the part in 1984 where Big Brother shut down MiniTru (Ministry of Truth). MiniTru had this great collection of records on the citizens, but Big Brother destroyed them all, after running on a platform of "Big Brother is Watching You". What a hypocrite.
Actually, there's nothing Orwellian about it. A government cuts some funding, and an employee organization issues a press release criticizing the cut.
I hope it's obvious that just reading a press release tells us nothing about the merits of the case. Any government spending can be attacked as wasteful, or defended as essential.
Read The Millionaire Next Door. The first step to getting rich is plugging the holes in the bucket. That's usually easier than directing new flows into the bucket.
Unfortunately, I find the level of parsimony advocated in that book a bit repellent.
It's time for all competent workers (you know who you are) to find the competent worker management, and essentially tattle on the ineffective managers.
That is not a wise move. If you think your manager is incompetent, either leave or adapt. By "adapt" I mean, learn to compensate for his weaknesses.
It's quite likely that the manager who looks incompetent to you is simply responding to issues and priorities beyond your knowledge.
In any event, spreading negativity will most likely backfire on you. Upper management will almost always side with the manager versus the employee.
Maybe their goal was to communicate the fact that HP customers are installing Solaris. A fact I found initially impossible ("Solaris runs on SPARC, not PA-RISC") and then unlikely. It's definitely something to be proud of, and this is a good way to publicize it. It's news to me that anyone voluntarily installs Solaris these days.
Patents are to slashdot what computers are to ordinary people. A zone of absolute ignorance and mythology. "There be dragons here." Slashdotters cheerfully shout the most ignorant, baseless nonsense without even realizing they're doing it - like an ordinary person who "logged on the web" and then "downloaded the internet".
Slashdotters can always find prior art for any patent. But oddly enough, attorneys representing infringers never introduce these slashdot prior art defences, despite the millions of dollars at stake.
(Anyone wanting to acquire clue 1 about patents should read Pressman's Patent it Yourself, Nolo Press.)
You can get around it with two display screens, but not with four.
The claim only reads on a product if the product has all the elements of the claim. But adding additional elements to the product does not escape the claim.
Lack of protection for the smaller players is a recipe for turning a first world nation into a third world nation...
Sure, but this story is not an example of lack of protection for the smaller players. Getting an extra $25 million in damages because BIG_CO tried a dirty trick in court sounds more than reasonable. On the other hand, if Steve Ballmer were publicly flogged, I don't think it would send as positive a message to small business as you seem to think. The small businessman is not going to think, "Isn't this great how the government is protecting me by tearing bleeding chunks off Ballmer's back." He's going to think, "If this can happen to Ballmer, it can happen to me. Time to move somewhere sane."
If you object to the inventor claiming multiple embodiments of the invention, do you object to this only in software patents or in hardware patents as well? You seem to want the inventor to draft a "picture claim" - a claim that recites exactly the elements in the invention. Such a claim is easily worked around, and therefore valueless.
These actions by MS are indicative of the collapse of the rule of law in the US.
One datapoint does not make a trend. This is not the first time the courts found against a big company, nor is it the first time legal process has been abused. So where's the collapse? Isn't it rather a chronic problem?
As for your draconian punishments, while I see the emotional appeal, they would be foolish. We expect corporations to zealously pursue profit, and lawyers to zealously represent their clients. When they go over the line they are punished like athletes who commit a foul, not like criminals who kill someone. The goal is not to instill horror, but to keep the balance of incentives on the right side of the line.
Remember, brains and capital are mobile. A company like Microsoft won't set up shop in a country with severe punishments for erring executives. Passing such laws is a recipe for turning a first world nation into a third world nation.
Classic binary geek thinking. Business does not work that way. If a restaurant has too many flies in its kitchen, it can hang up flypaper, cover garbage cans, and patch insect screens. If a geek were present, he'd point out that this is useless, since a single fly can fly in when the back door is opened.
If a court convicts Bob of infringing Alice's yodeling patent, this does not mean Alice invented yodeling. It means Alice invented a specific technique of yodeling and Bob used the technique.
"Senior Design Apologist" is actually an interesting title. We've tons of "Evangelists", which connotes carrying the gospel to pagans (those who don't believe in any One Language/Platform).
By contrast, a Design Apologist would argue vehemently with heretics (users of the other language/platform).
I haven't tried RoR. I have had to write a bit of PHP. I don't like it. Compared to Perl, it is tasteless, chaotic and disorganized. I do like the online manual, with user-contributed comments.
I do recognize the value of PHP in providing a very smooth on-ramp to beginning or occasional programmers.
Were your apprehensions directed towards Perl or CGI? They are quite orthogonal. Almost anyone writing a public-facing website these days will choose persistent process model rather than CGI. That is equally viable in Perl, PHP or C++
What makes you think that writing web apps in Perl is miserable? Especially compared to PHP?
Slashdot Mirror
That may not be where you want to edit. You could be responding to a compiler's error message.
What kind of key does the Open Voting Consortium use?
It's not X - X is very fast. Firefox is definitely slow. Many people don't even notice slow-responding applications, which is one reason the problem never gets fixed.
I think GTK is the culprit in most cases. In most GTK apps, you can see a dialog box being painted, even on 1Ghz machine. That's just inexcusable.
That was beautiful.
A good credit score means the customer is unlikely to default on bills. It does not mean he will be profitable; in fact, he might be less profitable than a customer with a bad score, provided the latter does not default.
You could use vmware, and run Unbox in its own virtual machine. As computers become more powerful and software becomes more evil, you may have to put each program in a separate VM so it can't see any files or hardware that aren't its business.
Note that the ACLU sided with the spammer. I guess it's official: spammers can now be classed with Nazis, pedophiles and terrorists.
You create an apparent paradox by the ambiguity of "should". Do we think it's morally right to punish someone for selling lipstick into Iran? I don't.
Do we think Iran might prosecute a person who sold lipstick into the country? I think so.
Given a chance, I think any government will punish businesses that import contraband. Whether the contraband "should" be illegal is a different question.
I agree. Until you read the claims, you know nothing about a patent. But the material you cite is not claims. It looks like something written by a journalist.
I think this article is a PR hit. Anyway, Google is far from the only company to develop a lot of their code in-house. My current employer is one, and it greatly increases the quality of life. I used to strongly advocate this approach, but now I understand that it's right for some companies and not others.
It all depends whether the company is a tech producer or consumer. Tech consumers buy or outsource everything but their core competency. This eliminates the risk of in-house development. Tech producers usually roll their own, accepting the occasional late and over-budget project in exchange for many cheap and quick projects.
So if you work for a Tech Consumer, and you hate the crappy Enterprise Software they inflict on you, don't evangelize them - go work for a Tech Producer.
Wow, this move is positively Orwellian. It reminds me of the part in 1984 where Big Brother shut down MiniTru (Ministry of Truth). MiniTru had this great collection of records on the citizens, but Big Brother destroyed them all, after running on a platform of "Big Brother is Watching You". What a hypocrite.
Actually, there's nothing Orwellian about it. A government cuts some funding, and an employee organization issues a press release criticizing the cut.
I hope it's obvious that just reading a press release tells us nothing about the merits of the case. Any government spending can be attacked as wasteful, or defended as essential.
Right, and I knew that, but it wasn't foremost in my mind. I also thought of x86 Solaris as a bit of a joke, run only by absolute Sun fans.
And I also knew that Sun and HP had transitioned from custom chips to x86, but since I haven't touched their stuff since then, I'd nearly forgotten.
So the stunt was effective in making me aware of a market reality.
Read The Millionaire Next Door. The first step to getting rich is plugging the holes in the bucket. That's usually easier than directing new flows into the bucket.
Unfortunately, I find the level of parsimony advocated in that book a bit repellent.
That is not a wise move. If you think your manager is incompetent, either leave or adapt. By "adapt" I mean, learn to compensate for his weaknesses.
It's quite likely that the manager who looks incompetent to you is simply responding to issues and priorities beyond your knowledge.
In any event, spreading negativity will most likely backfire on you. Upper management will almost always side with the manager versus the employee.
Maybe their goal was to communicate the fact that HP customers are installing Solaris. A fact I found initially impossible ("Solaris runs on SPARC, not PA-RISC") and then unlikely. It's definitely something to be proud of, and this is a good way to publicize it. It's news to me that anyone voluntarily installs Solaris these days.
Interviews are largely there to weed out people who are overflowing with negativity.
Patents are to slashdot what computers are to ordinary people. A zone of absolute ignorance and mythology. "There be dragons here." Slashdotters cheerfully shout the most ignorant, baseless nonsense without even realizing they're doing it - like an ordinary person who "logged on the web" and then "downloaded the internet".
Slashdotters can always find prior art for any patent. But oddly enough, attorneys representing infringers never introduce these slashdot prior art defences, despite the millions of dollars at stake.
(Anyone wanting to acquire clue 1 about patents should read Pressman's Patent it Yourself, Nolo Press.)
You can get around it with two display screens, but not with four.
The claim only reads on a product if the product has all the elements of the claim. But adding additional elements to the product does not escape the claim.
Sure, but this story is not an example of lack of protection for the smaller players. Getting an extra $25 million in damages because BIG_CO tried a dirty trick in court sounds more than reasonable. On the other hand, if Steve Ballmer were publicly flogged, I don't think it would send as positive a message to small business as you seem to think. The small businessman is not going to think, "Isn't this great how the government is protecting me by tearing bleeding chunks off Ballmer's back." He's going to think, "If this can happen to Ballmer, it can happen to me. Time to move somewhere sane."
If you object to the inventor claiming multiple embodiments of the invention, do you object to this only in software patents or in hardware patents as well? You seem to want the inventor to draft a "picture claim" - a claim that recites exactly the elements in the invention. Such a claim is easily worked around, and therefore valueless.
One datapoint does not make a trend. This is not the first time the courts found against a big company, nor is it the first time legal process has been abused. So where's the collapse? Isn't it rather a chronic problem?
As for your draconian punishments, while I see the emotional appeal, they would be foolish. We expect corporations to zealously pursue profit, and lawyers to zealously represent their clients. When they go over the line they are punished like athletes who commit a foul, not like criminals who kill someone. The goal is not to instill horror, but to keep the balance of incentives on the right side of the line.
Remember, brains and capital are mobile. A company like Microsoft won't set up shop in a country with severe punishments for erring executives. Passing such laws is a recipe for turning a first world nation into a third world nation.
Classic binary geek thinking. Business does not work that way. If a restaurant has too many flies in its kitchen, it can hang up flypaper, cover garbage cans, and patch insect screens. If a geek were present, he'd point out that this is useless, since a single fly can fly in when the back door is opened.
If a court convicts Bob of infringing Alice's yodeling patent, this does not mean Alice invented yodeling. It means Alice invented a specific technique of yodeling and Bob used the technique.
"Senior Design Apologist" is actually an interesting title. We've tons of "Evangelists", which connotes carrying the gospel to pagans (those who don't believe in any One Language/Platform).
By contrast, a Design Apologist would argue vehemently with heretics (users of the other language/platform).
I haven't tried RoR. I have had to write a bit of PHP. I don't like it. Compared to Perl, it is tasteless, chaotic and disorganized. I do like the online manual, with user-contributed comments.
I do recognize the value of PHP in providing a very smooth on-ramp to beginning or occasional programmers.
Were your apprehensions directed towards Perl or CGI? They are quite orthogonal. Almost anyone writing a public-facing website these days will choose persistent process model rather than CGI. That is equally viable in Perl, PHP or C++
What makes you think that writing web apps in Perl is miserable? Especially compared to PHP?