To put out a replacement for the Windows8 flop in just another month (jan 2013). The sooner they put that behind them with a OS that people can/will use the better.
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If I were in a joking mood I would say that the code name 'BLUE' is because the Windows 8 users are 'blue' they need a quick patch, Windows 2013 fast! btw - code BLUE also has a special meaning in the ICU.
More likely Microsoft is just wanting to get a better 'cash infusion' plan since the current arm twisting method via Windows 7 starvation doesn't seem to be working very well. Having yearly 'cash infusions' must be sounding pretty good right about now. The problem is how to get everybody to upgrade, every single year? Maybe they will try expiring the OS license each year. Yup, that aught to do it.
I have seen this behaviour many times before. When a bad manager is over-stressed to perform they often resort to firing those that didn't/couldn't implement their 'bad management plan'. When that doesn't fix things fast enough they will just fire another token manager to shift the blame yet again. For now I think we can sit back and watch the slow downward spiral in both Apple and Microsoft as they both jettison all the lesser management bots until they (the management) get replaced themselves, by the voice of the shareholders. From there its a very slow crawl back uphill to reclaim lots of lost ground, as the markets have shifted away from them and on to their other competitors.
With Steve Jobs no longer in the picture its only natural for Apple to have minor shifts in direction and to be making a few bad decisions along the way. Steve was a visionary for the most part, but honestly I'll never understand his sudden switch from a 'product oriented distinction' market to a 'throw Apple under the bus' with the 'Thermonuclear Campaign against Android' market. I used to love Apple products, but now I just can't. I just wish Apple's current management would go back to the old style of creating good quality products, and let the people simply choose the better product. But today what we have is what we have, a company continually making mistakes and placing the blame on those who were not truly in control. Control is at the top, and the top is failing miserably at the moment.
Apple, please, please, please, prove me wrong. If not its just a matter of time before the shareholders speak up. [Un]fortunately I have already spoken, as my broker knows very well that he will get fired if he invests anything of mine in Apple.
Well, unlike you I am completly agnostic as far as Gnome is concerned. To me gnomes don't even exist, and neither does this desktop environment.
When my opinion about how to get my own work done doesn`t matter to someone then they no longer exist for me, just like the fictious story book tales they named themselves after.
Maybe they will watch you to see if you are skipping out on the wonderful commercials and instantly rewind the show for you, just in case you missed something important. Or maybe they will charge you more money for their service if you don't watch at least a minimum of their intellectually challenged TV shows each day? There are lots of ways they could increase the popularity if this system, only I bet they misuse all of its capabilities to the max. After all the stupid decisions Microsoft has made in the recent past, this one is likely going to be a real dud as well.
Yes they can and will. That is all a part of the 'forced upgrade' plan to wealth. Microsoft will do most anything to make running an old OS more painful so you will be forced to buy from them again and again. I listen to the trials and tribulations of my coworkers trying to keep their ageing xp machines running on a daily basis. One is forced by M$ to keep the machine off the net because M$ decided that his license (part of a larger sitewide license) is now counterfit. Its used for malware testing so it does not belong on the net in the first place, but restoring and re-patching it every time it is used is a royal pain.
Interesting choice of words to assert that English is the supreme language for international communication. Not that I completely disagree with you major point as stated, but interesting in its own right that merely one language was not enough to express the same idea.
If you want to stop the 'cheating by copying' then have each student start from a watermarked background image with their personal signature embedded in it. Each student could start with a background image with some personal identification applied with a common stenography tool and re-sampled from specific regions of the image for later bit level testing. To validate the completed assignment you could sample any area which was untouched by the assignment to see if the proper bit patterns (e.g. encoded lowest bit in the image) with the proper bit alignment still exists. With this method, if it was copied you would also know who it was copied from.
As long as the assignment is not for teaching softening by blurring effects, some regions should be untouched and still be available for verification. All this creation and verification processing could be automated fairly easily by any capable software engineer.
The next big step is for them to 'prove' that what they found has more than just the mass they were expecting for the Higgs Boson. Just because something has the proper mass +/- some orders of magnitude, that was in a *very* wide ball park of their proposed Higgs, doesn't mean that it does what the Higgs is supposed to do. How they are going to actually prove that it gives all the other particles their mass, given they only know of its existence due to its decay mode (as in its already gone), is going to be one rather tough problem. We better get started...
Agreed, and you just unknowingly highlighted a major part of the problem. Only while the USPTO is permitted to continue to police itself will it have this corrupt kind of behaviour. History has shown that any organization which has the responsibility to police itself will ultimately become corrupt. Only by having an external branch to govern the "invalidation" process will we ever have relief from this plague. The courts are simply not adequate for this job, because too much damage has been done by the time they are even involved with a patent. So each patent should go through a pre-validation process with a non-biased technical entity, having absolute patent veto power, before it even becomes an actual patent. There must be no control held over this entity by either Congress or the USPTO, similar to the way the judicial system is appointed for life, otherwise it just won't work.
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Why a separate life-long entity? Doing a good job has never been in the self interest of the USPTO, even from day one. Congress loves the USPTO because it derives revenue for all their pet (pork) projects when funding is otherwise scarce. Congress wants the USPTO to patent just as many things as they can to derive even more revenue, and do nothing to curtail that flow of those funds. Should the USPTO actually 'do what is right' then Congress will be very unhappy with them. Why on earth would Congress ever pass a law to make things right? That's not going to happen until Congress is actually forced by voters to face the facts of what the USPTO is actually doing to the general economy, which makes Congressional pork funding problems small by comparison.
Yes, since the quake happened now, it would not be more powerful later. We should thank the person who triggered this one so the pressure did not keep building up for and even more catastrophic event. Maybe we should develop such equipment over here so that we can trigger smaller scheduled quakes in the California area. Triggering them on a timed schedule so that people could be prepared and take necessary precautions is one way to keep the fatalities low. If you can't prevent them, then perhaps we can trigger them on a regular basis and reduce their magnitudes.
There is certainly a survival advantage to the 'one in charge' that can use religion for their own personal gain. They can thus surround themselves with supporters that are told to do XYZ, at any cost, because it is required, just don't you dare question why. You are not SUPPOSED to understand anything except what they tell you. Historically this has worked very well, but now we have the 'Scientific Method' which has made that kind of dogma much harder to dish out.
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There is also a survival advantage for the religion itself, if the religion requires procreation in the name of that belief. Most do at some level. Having more people putting resources into the pot to fund the work of the institution make the religion more powerful, and thus it can more easily survive changing situations. Religions in general are like Genetic Algorithms, in that they preach what is needed for their own survival, or they perish in the process. The dogma changes over the years, to be reinterpreted as needed for the religion to continue. Those that don't preach strongly enough simply die by the hands of the next generation of dogma, the history books get burned and rewritten, and the cycle starts anew.
The survivors always win. The religion only wins if they are not conquered by a stronger opposing religion. But when that does happen, many many many people die. Historically speaking, the survivors were never spared, so there are none. No survivors, no opposition. Just a clean slate. In general, its the strong forceful religions that survive, but there are always some exceptions, like Buddhism, that don't (to my knowledge) rely on trinity or atrocities to survive. I'm just glad there are statistical exceptions to everything.
Next Steve Ballmer needs to apologize to Linux Tovalds for calling his works a "virus"
Don't hold your breath. And actually, come to think of it, Linux is sort of like a virus. Once it worked its way onto my first Windows machine I just could not seem to get rid of it. At this point its infected almost every machine in my household. Isn't that sort of the definition of a virus?
In fact, there is only one machine in the household that has withstood the onslaught to date, Thats because it apparently has this really great anti-virus (anti-Linux) security product called Office. Apparently, by the above definition, its both a virus in itself and a security product. Because it is the only software that will incorrectly render certain Government documents that need to be misrendered 'exactly so', otherwise the documents are not accepted. It's already spread through the Government, and there is no killing it. So somehow we just can't seem to get rid of it either. We keep it locked away, just in case my wife decides to look for another Government job, but we don't even dare let it out of the closet otherwise.
Well, you could always substitute with that image and see who notices.
After all, I'm sure Apple Legal will find a real prominent place for it on their site. Like perhaps two levels down in the legal section of their store's website where of course everybody goes daily for the latest boring Apple legal news, such as any recent boring changes to your EULA , right? Thus putting it on slashdot, for say 10 minutes, will likely get 10,000% more web hits.
Everything here on earth fell from up there at one time or another. If 'everything' here on earth is now off limits then there could be no mining of anything, anywhere. Problem solved, or created, all depending on your position in the debate.
Look out Sprint, for Darl Mcbride's lawyers, whom are likely filing court papers this very minute. He will probably try to sue your pants off for Billieans, for using the two letters "Me" as found in his "Me Inc.".
Suddenly I'm feeling Nostalgic. Did we work together?;)
I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "motivation". If you are not having fun doing what you are doing, then you are doing the wrong thing. In the Tech or Computer industry, if you don't look forward to what you are doing then its probably time for a change. The submitter should take a serious moment for introspection and figure out what they enjoy in life, and do _that_ instead. For those of us who love technology and computer science, we just can't get enough, because there is way too many fun things to learn. Taking courses, hacking code on your own time, getting your hands dirty deep in the bowels of some pet project is just part of the fun. If you don't feel that excitement then you might want to look elsewhere to find what really motivates you. If you love what you do, you will be the best there is and everyone will look up to you. Its as simple as that. Do what you love and happiness will follow naturally.
Of course if your first love was a VAX or a PDP (like us), then you may eventually have to move on to the next in line. We all do, but then for those of us who might be considered 'professional students' of the art of programming, there are just so many toys, and so little time, that you simply can't do everything. Its a shame when you have to choose.
What if a user had the choice of being on Facebook or Google+ and could simply migrate their content seamlessly to the provider of their choice? Would this not mostly satisfy the core desire to be distributed? If any media provider could implement a core set of web utilities/API to make it possible to connect between Social Media sites then the users would have more choices and the media providers would be merely services trying to get you to reside inside their user base. No content could be held hostage, or censored. If you didn't like any service provider you could simply boot your own service providing that same API and serve your own profile and send your own events to the other providers users to whom you are linked. Everyone could connect to anyone, on any system, and no provider would have the upper hand to force users to do anything undesired or even censor their content beyond what they were willing to do. Don't like Facebook any more? Push a button and migrate to another provider in less than 10 minutes!
I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to produce hand grenades in most any state in the union. Given your own stated reluctance on the reliability factor of the firing chamber in this proposed gun, exactly what is the difference? Oh, my mistake, you don't throw this one.
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Yes there is a high probability that the person being pointed at will feel your anger, but then those whom would otherwise be innocent bystanders, standing perpendicular to the firing chamber, are also subject to "an accident". There in lye the problem with not being licensed to manufacture firearms.
I don't disbelieve in the right for an educated person (e.g. trained and licensed to prove they were certified) to have a firearm for a particular purpose, or even manufacture firearms, but we have to draw lines in the sand when it comes to "safety", as the main method of calibration. Someone that unintentionally puts others lives in danger through 'sheer stupidity' should not have their constitutional rights prevail over those who are not risk takers. One persons right to "live" trumps another persons right to blow themselves up. Sure, if you want to blow yourself up in the privacy of your own home, have to it. Just don't do it around others who don't get into that sort of thing.
The key here is safety. These guns are not safe, and someone building their first one off their brand new 3D printer won't have a clue what they are doing. Training should be mandatory.
You will be suprised what a few young engineers can come up with a few toys at their disposal. You can connect a TI calculator to just about anything to control or monitor it.
in the light of that saga, shouldn't all straightjackets come with a monogramed MS logo on it? Or should they give out a free straightjacket to all members of the Exclusive Club they are now forming?
Hopefully MS was never trained how to correctly secure a real straightjacket, the true excape artists just hate when that happens. Note to self, never volunteer to help in a magic act again.
Yes, but how long will it be before I can run it through my reprap? You see, I need all my projects to be completly 'bullet proof concepts' before commiting them to physical models.
Ok, a little more searious question, how well does it hold up to long term water exposure? Will it rot from sustained moisture or degrade out in the environment, and more or less than kevlar? A super fiber material is only super if it lasts a long time out in the environment.
The article seems to have typo-ed in the editing phase. The technology is "Cache Express" not Flash Express. Flash memory is SLOOOOOwwww memory. Do a Google for "IBM L2 Cache Express" if you are interested.
With flash memory you read a block, flip some bits, and write it back to modify that block. Not only that, but Flash memory will wear out after so many reads and writes. That would be devistating to a CPU.
Agreed, only the Technology required to compete these days has already made this kind of "compitition" almost impossible. The average garage dweller/hacker doesn't have the capability for making 32nm System-On-A-Chip without overflowing the production line into the kitchen and out onto the third story roof. Kinda hard to make a clean room up there, particularly when the wind is blowing.
Seriously, the days of the basement technology startup taking the market by storm are nearly over. If you can do it with FPGA's you might have a chance for the prototype, necessary to get the funding for making the real device, but the prototype device will likely be larger and more power hungry than what the "corporate behemoths" are able to come up with with their existing equipment right from the start. Just from a production timeline position, once the idea is out there, the small guy is going to lose the race. That is where patents were supposed to help the small guy, but in fact its going to take time away from the design/production work to fight with the USPTO whom will publish the submission while the "corporate behemoths" beat you to market.
Consciousness occurs when a being begins introspection of ones own thoughts and allows that thought process modify ones own behaviour. Most life forms that navigate through their environment have learned this trait on some level. where to draw the dividing line is more of an issue.
As to why the universe exists has nothing to do with consiencness. Clearly it existed before humans came into existance to observe anything.
How bizarre! So what exactly is it that makes it impossible to implement?
Well, for one, the OOXML specification allows binary blobs to be imbeded in the XML document, and many of the Microsoft specific blobs they embed are NOT documented anywhere. In fact, when Microsoft paid Novel to implement the OOXML specification for OpenOffice (so that MS could say theirs is not the only implimentation) the Contract dictated that Novell was NOT allowed to touch/render/interpret any binary blobs that Microsoft was currently using in their own implimentation. If you can't interpret or render everything then you can not possibly implement "the standard" in any working product. Complying 100%, with "the standard", without cheating, gives you an unworkable product right out of the gate.
Slashdot Mirror
If I were in a joking mood I would say that the code name 'BLUE' is because the Windows 8 users are 'blue' they need a quick patch, Windows 2013 fast! btw - code BLUE also has a special meaning in the ICU.
More likely Microsoft is just wanting to get a better 'cash infusion' plan since the current arm twisting method via Windows 7 starvation doesn't seem to be working very well. Having yearly 'cash infusions' must be sounding pretty good right about now. The problem is how to get everybody to upgrade, every single year? Maybe they will try expiring the OS license each year. Yup, that aught to do it.
With Steve Jobs no longer in the picture its only natural for Apple to have minor shifts in direction and to be making a few bad decisions along the way. Steve was a visionary for the most part, but honestly I'll never understand his sudden switch from a 'product oriented distinction' market to a 'throw Apple under the bus' with the 'Thermonuclear Campaign against Android' market. I used to love Apple products, but now I just can't. I just wish Apple's current management would go back to the old style of creating good quality products, and let the people simply choose the better product. But today what we have is what we have, a company continually making mistakes and placing the blame on those who were not truly in control. Control is at the top, and the top is failing miserably at the moment.
Apple, please, please, please, prove me wrong. If not its just a matter of time before the shareholders speak up. [Un]fortunately I have already spoken, as my broker knows very well that he will get fired if he invests anything of mine in Apple.
When my opinion about how to get my own work done doesn`t matter to someone then they no longer exist for me, just like the fictious story book tales they named themselves after.
.
Xbox team’s ‘consumer detector’ would dis-Kinect freeloading TV viewers
http://www.geekwire.com/2012/microsoft-diskinect-freeloading-tv-viewers/
Maybe they will watch you to see if you are skipping out on the wonderful commercials and instantly rewind the show for you, just in case you missed something important. Or maybe they will charge you more money for their service if you don't watch at least a minimum of their intellectually challenged TV shows each day? There are lots of ways they could increase the popularity if this system, only I bet they misuse all of its capabilities to the max. After all the stupid decisions Microsoft has made in the recent past, this one is likely going to be a real dud as well.
Yes they can and will. That is all a part of the 'forced upgrade' plan to wealth. Microsoft will do most anything to make running an old OS more painful so you will be forced to buy from them again and again. I listen to the trials and tribulations of my coworkers trying to keep their ageing xp machines running on a daily basis. One is forced by M$ to keep the machine off the net because M$ decided that his license (part of a larger sitewide license) is now counterfit. Its used for malware testing so it does not belong on the net in the first place, but restoring and re-patching it every time it is used is a royal pain.
"de-facto lingua franca"
Interesting choice of words to assert that English is the supreme language for international communication. Not that I completely disagree with you major point as stated, but interesting in its own right that merely one language was not enough to express the same idea.
As long as the assignment is not for teaching softening by blurring effects, some regions should be untouched and still be available for verification. All this creation and verification processing could be automated fairly easily by any capable software engineer.
The next big step is for them to 'prove' that what they found has more than just the mass they were expecting for the Higgs Boson. Just because something has the proper mass +/- some orders of magnitude, that was in a *very* wide ball park of their proposed Higgs, doesn't mean that it does what the Higgs is supposed to do. How they are going to actually prove that it gives all the other particles their mass, given they only know of its existence due to its decay mode (as in its already gone), is going to be one rather tough problem. We better get started...
Why a separate life-long entity? Doing a good job has never been in the self interest of the USPTO, even from day one. Congress loves the USPTO because it derives revenue for all their pet (pork) projects when funding is otherwise scarce. Congress wants the USPTO to patent just as many things as they can to derive even more revenue, and do nothing to curtail that flow of those funds. Should the USPTO actually 'do what is right' then Congress will be very unhappy with them. Why on earth would Congress ever pass a law to make things right? That's not going to happen until Congress is actually forced by voters to face the facts of what the USPTO is actually doing to the general economy, which makes Congressional pork funding problems small by comparison.
a [stronger] quake would likely have occurred...
Yes, since the quake happened now, it would not be more powerful later. We should thank the person who triggered this one so the pressure did not keep building up for and even more catastrophic event. Maybe we should develop such equipment over here so that we can trigger smaller scheduled quakes in the California area. Triggering them on a timed schedule so that people could be prepared and take necessary precautions is one way to keep the fatalities low. If you can't prevent them, then perhaps we can trigger them on a regular basis and reduce their magnitudes.
.
There is also a survival advantage for the religion itself, if the religion requires procreation in the name of that belief. Most do at some level. Having more people putting resources into the pot to fund the work of the institution make the religion more powerful, and thus it can more easily survive changing situations. Religions in general are like Genetic Algorithms, in that they preach what is needed for their own survival, or they perish in the process. The dogma changes over the years, to be reinterpreted as needed for the religion to continue. Those that don't preach strongly enough simply die by the hands of the next generation of dogma, the history books get burned and rewritten, and the cycle starts anew.
The survivors always win. The religion only wins if they are not conquered by a stronger opposing religion. But when that does happen, many many many people die. Historically speaking, the survivors were never spared, so there are none. No survivors, no opposition. Just a clean slate. In general, its the strong forceful religions that survive, but there are always some exceptions, like Buddhism, that don't (to my knowledge) rely on trinity or atrocities to survive. I'm just glad there are statistical exceptions to everything.
Next Steve Ballmer needs to apologize to Linux Tovalds for calling his works a "virus"
Don't hold your breath. And actually, come to think of it, Linux is sort of like a virus. Once it worked its way onto my first Windows machine I just could not seem to get rid of it. At this point its infected almost every machine in my household. Isn't that sort of the definition of a virus?
In fact, there is only one machine in the household that has withstood the onslaught to date, Thats because it apparently has this really great anti-virus (anti-Linux) security product called Office. Apparently, by the above definition, its both a virus in itself and a security product. Because it is the only software that will incorrectly render certain Government documents that need to be misrendered 'exactly so', otherwise the documents are not accepted. It's already spread through the Government, and there is no killing it. So somehow we just can't seem to get rid of it either. We keep it locked away, just in case my wife decides to look for another Government job, but we don't even dare let it out of the closet otherwise.
After all, I'm sure Apple Legal will find a real prominent place for it on their site. Like perhaps two levels down in the legal section of their store's website where of course everybody goes daily for the latest boring Apple legal news, such as any recent boring changes to your EULA , right? Thus putting it on slashdot, for say 10 minutes, will likely get 10,000% more web hits.
Everything here on earth fell from up there at one time or another. If 'everything' here on earth is now off limits then there could be no mining of anything, anywhere. Problem solved, or created, all depending on your position in the debate.
Me Inc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darl_McBride
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010090209355689
I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "motivation". If you are not having fun doing what you are doing, then you are doing the wrong thing. In the Tech or Computer industry, if you don't look forward to what you are doing then its probably time for a change. The submitter should take a serious moment for introspection and figure out what they enjoy in life, and do _that_ instead. For those of us who love technology and computer science, we just can't get enough, because there is way too many fun things to learn. Taking courses, hacking code on your own time, getting your hands dirty deep in the bowels of some pet project is just part of the fun. If you don't feel that excitement then you might want to look elsewhere to find what really motivates you. If you love what you do, you will be the best there is and everyone will look up to you. Its as simple as that. Do what you love and happiness will follow naturally.
Of course if your first love was a VAX or a PDP (like us), then you may eventually have to move on to the next in line. We all do, but then for those of us who might be considered 'professional students' of the art of programming, there are just so many toys, and so little time, that you simply can't do everything. Its a shame when you have to choose.
What if a user had the choice of being on Facebook or Google+ and could simply migrate their content seamlessly to the provider of their choice? Would this not mostly satisfy the core desire to be distributed? If any media provider could implement a core set of web utilities/API to make it possible to connect between Social Media sites then the users would have more choices and the media providers would be merely services trying to get you to reside inside their user base. No content could be held hostage, or censored. If you didn't like any service provider you could simply boot your own service providing that same API and serve your own profile and send your own events to the other providers users to whom you are linked. Everyone could connect to anyone, on any system, and no provider would have the upper hand to force users to do anything undesired or even censor their content beyond what they were willing to do. Don't like Facebook any more? Push a button and migrate to another provider in less than 10 minutes!
.
Yes there is a high probability that the person being pointed at will feel your anger, but then those whom would otherwise be innocent bystanders, standing perpendicular to the firing chamber, are also subject to "an accident". There in lye the problem with not being licensed to manufacture firearms.
I don't disbelieve in the right for an educated person (e.g. trained and licensed to prove they were certified) to have a firearm for a particular purpose, or even manufacture firearms, but we have to draw lines in the sand when it comes to "safety", as the main method of calibration. Someone that unintentionally puts others lives in danger through 'sheer stupidity' should not have their constitutional rights prevail over those who are not risk takers. One persons right to "live" trumps another persons right to blow themselves up. Sure, if you want to blow yourself up in the privacy of your own home, have to it. Just don't do it around others who don't get into that sort of thing.
The key here is safety. These guns are not safe, and someone building their first one off their brand new 3D printer won't have a clue what they are doing. Training should be mandatory.
http://hackaday.com/tag/ti-83/
http://www.ticalc.org/basics/calculators/index.html
http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/cables/serial.html
http://education.ti.com/guidebooks/sdk/83p/sdk83pguide.pdf
http://sami.ticalc.org/irlink/e_hard.htm
http://smallrobot.bizland.com/Instructions.pdf
http://www.mathinscience.info/public/mathbots_challenge/mathbot_chall_lesson.htm
http://www.razorrobotics.com/knowledge/?title=TI_Connect
http://www.free-scientific-calculator.com/texas-instruments-graph-link-connectivity-kit/
http://blog.makezine.com/2006/02/19/how-to-connect-a-ti83-to/
Hopefully MS was never trained how to correctly secure a real straightjacket, the true excape artists just hate when that happens. Note to self, never volunteer to help in a magic act again.
Ok, a little more searious question, how well does it hold up to long term water exposure? Will it rot from sustained moisture or degrade out in the environment, and more or less than kevlar? A super fiber material is only super if it lasts a long time out in the environment.
With flash memory you read a block, flip some bits, and write it back to modify that block. Not only that, but Flash memory will wear out after so many reads and writes. That would be devistating to a CPU.
Seriously, the days of the basement technology startup taking the market by storm are nearly over. If you can do it with FPGA's you might have a chance for the prototype, necessary to get the funding for making the real device, but the prototype device will likely be larger and more power hungry than what the "corporate behemoths" are able to come up with with their existing equipment right from the start. Just from a production timeline position, once the idea is out there, the small guy is going to lose the race. That is where patents were supposed to help the small guy, but in fact its going to take time away from the design/production work to fight with the USPTO whom will publish the submission while the "corporate behemoths" beat you to market.
As to why the universe exists has nothing to do with consiencness. Clearly it existed before humans came into existance to observe anything.
How bizarre! So what exactly is it that makes it impossible to implement?
Well, for one, the OOXML specification allows binary blobs to be imbeded in the XML document, and many of the Microsoft specific blobs they embed are NOT documented anywhere. In fact, when Microsoft paid Novel to implement the OOXML specification for OpenOffice (so that MS could say theirs is not the only implimentation) the Contract dictated that Novell was NOT allowed to touch/render/interpret any binary blobs that Microsoft was currently using in their own implimentation. If you can't interpret or render everything then you can not possibly implement "the standard" in any working product. Complying 100%, with "the standard", without cheating, gives you an unworkable product right out of the gate.
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504