Posts by dan1980

Re: Wind Power tech secrets, really?

@Don Jefe

It's interesting to watch the attitude towards China (and, to a lesser extent, India) from 'The West'. A lot of the practices we are condemning in them are ones that up until relatively recently, our countries and ancestors were engaged in.

In a way, China is still going through a kind of industrial revolution. One (off-topic) side-effect of this is increased pollution, for which we vilify them. Likewise we wail about them stealing Western IP but they are only doing what has been done by other countries during their own development.

Re: Why?

@Vociferous

Really?

I asked the question so I'm not having a go at you but that just doesn't seem so likely to me. Perhaps I am mistaken but I was under the impression that this type of spying has been going on for ever and is all very common and so, at least in for those in the know, pretty banal.

I mean, the US has been spying in just this way (and every other) on China (and every other country) for a very long time.

The 'public shaming' theory, while certainly possible, would imply that identifying these breaches is somehow special and so needs to be taken advantage of. To me, that seems somewhat unlikely, given the massive breadth of scope of the spying conducted by these countries and the length of time they have been doing it.

In short, the longer and broader a spying program, the more frequently people will be 'caught' spying and therefore the less exceptional this will be.

Re: Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike DOS and Wordstar

I imagine one of the benefit's of his setup, however, is a machine 100% dedicated to writing - no flicking between windows or sessions, just a (digital) page and pen.

That you can replicate the WP in a full-function machine is perhaps missing at least part of the point.

Re: If he's into self-flagellation

LaTex?

Surely that kind of stuff is what editors and type setters are for?

I think the WordStar thing is perfect - he puts down the text in as minimal a way possible and those people paid to convert that into a published work, well, convert it into a published work. That seems and efficient and sensible division of labour to me.

Re: Tipping Point

@Don Jefe

That is some righteous anger there, mate.

As an external observer, and an interested follower of US politics, the thing I find most amazing is that the Rebuplican Party and Tea Party have somehow managed to convince large swathes of the American population to demand they be made worse-off.

It's like forcing people to build their own gallows and tie their own nooses; it's perverse.

Those famous placards about Medicare* just about say it all. They say that those people really don't understand what they are demanding and are just parroting the slogans of the dishonest, manipulative 'leaders' they have decided speak for them.

That is easily seen when you have scores of people repeating nonsensical flights of imagination like 'death panels'. What the fuck?** Every half-way intelligent person the world over heard that and wondered if it wasn't some kind of spoof. I mean, in what reality is an un-researched, un-substantiated tweet from Miss (I can see Russia from) Alaska a compelling political argument? But there you had it; thousands of people, repeating a completely fabricated accusation as if it were fact.

The power these 'leaders' wield to control the thoughts of so many is just obscene. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is nothing compared to the trick being pulled by the wealth and vested interests sitting behind this 'grass roots'/'middle America' illusion.

In many ways it reminds me of those repulsive evangelist preachers, with their blasphemously lavish life-styles, somehow convincing their poor, struggling congregation to give, not to the needy, but to the 'church'. Perhaps they skipped over Mark 12:38-40 . . .

----------------------------------------------------

* - My favourite being: "Don't steal from Medicare to support socialized medicine".

** - I usually try to avoid swearing in my posts but Don's liberal and expert use of such colourful language has convinced me to try my hand, however timidly.

Re: We could be in a simulation

@Annihilator

"It doesn't really matter."

Absolutely. Well, not to me at least - I couldn't care a fig if I am 'real' or a simulation. Given that we can only perceive the world through the filter of ourselves, the question is largely nonsensical.

Which is what I take out of that most famous of assertions.

The poster I was responding to seemed (to me) to be taking it to mean "I think therefore I am real", whereas I read it: "I think therefore I am an entity capable of thinking."

In other words, all we can say is that we are aware of our own thought process, but beyond that, we cannot be sure. We cannot even say where these thoughts originate from, only that we are aware of having them.

At the moment, I am acutely aware of having finished my beer.

Re: Wonderful

Regarding the maths, in practice, of course, you formulate it in whatever way works best for the situation at hand.

In reality, due to the conservation of angular momentum, everything is rotating. Planets around stars, stars around galactic centers, galaxies rotating around each other inside their clusters and, those clusters rotating inside their super-clusters.

However, as gravity has limitless range*, everything is pulling on everything else and so rotation is probably not what's happening on the truly large scale. I mean, galaxies in our local cluster are rotating but we will, at some point, collide with Andromeda to form some kick-ass super-galaxy.

This is exactly the process that formed those two galaxies in the first place and is responsible for the filament-like structure seen at the kind of scale where individual galaxies are just single points of light.

In a non-expanding, finite universe, eventually all the matter in the universe would coalesce into one giant, spinning mass.

In an expanding, infinite universe, however, every point in space is, in a very real sense, the centre of its own universe, with the perimeter bounded by the distance light has been able to travel since the big bang. In that sense (and not taking it to the extemes of anything so insignificant as individual people) the Earth is the centre of the universe.

The problem there, however, is that the other objects we are observing are the centres of their own universes and thus subject to gravitational forces from objects outside of our universe.

The short version is that, well, I have no idea what the universe is doing. To be honest, right now I only acknowledge anything outside this room because I have to go there occasionally to get beer.

* - Excluding, for the sake of simplicity, the expansion of the universe.

Re: Wonderful

"The observer, of course."

Well, that's the thing, RELATIVE to an observer, the universe is rotating!

You can see it every night as the stars track across the sky. Of course, it's the earth's rotation that is giving this effect but there's not really a difference between the one and the other; the maths works fine either way, just as it does with, say, red-shift - it's not important whether you are moving away from the star, the star is moving away from you or you are both moving away from each other.

Or maybe I am wrong but it was my understanding that that's the very point of one thing being measured realtive to another.

Re: We could be in a simulation

@BIll

If consciousness is an emergent property, arising once a particular threshold of complexity has been passed then how do you know that your consciousness is not an emergent property of a suitably advanced simulation?

One might argue that simulating a universe in enough detail to give birth to such a phenomenon would be impossible but that would be discounting the possibility that the simulation is in fact a crude representation of a significantly more complex 'real' universe.

I would think it would be impossible to prove that 'real' universe wasn't an infinitely older and more complex beast in which a civilisation had advanced far enough to have harnessed computing power on the order of magnitude sufficient to run a simulation of a universe to the detail we observe.

Remember, too, that there are still bits of this universe that elude our grasp, such as singularities. Who's to say that our inability to predict behaviour at a singularity isn't the product of some 'fudge factor' employed in a simulation? Or the uncertainty principle.

Or dark matter - perhaps our inability to account for some observations is due to a shortcut taken?

All very wishy-washy but the point is that the only way to maintain your position that your experience of consciousness is proof that you don't live in a simulation is to hold that consciousness is something outside of any natural law - something that can't be created except through a supernatural agency, whatever that may be.

Which is, of course, fine if that's the position you take!

Re: You are here.

Either way, it's good work - Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters all 'round.

Re: I thought

@AC

Well, they did reverse the Federal Circuit's decision in Microsoft vs AT&T.

In that case there were a number of important issues, but the biggest one is really around how far US patent law extends and the Supreme Court said - 'not that far'.

The 'problem' is that humans are complex and so human interactions are also complex. That means that the laws that govern those interaction must also be somewhat complex.

One might wish for a clear-cut, black-and-white legal code, removing any possibility of judicial bias and thereby promoting perfect consistency.

Unfortunately, there are two problems: first, it is impossible to cover all the possibilities and any code that tried would be mind-bendingly (not to mention unworkably) complex. Second, laws cannot, however well-written, determine intentions and states of mind. They might be able to direct a judge/jury as to what actions to take in certain circumstances but we still need humans to access human behaviour.

Ultimately, you can't write a law ahead of time to rule unambiguously if a certain patent is 'obvious' or not. That's why this whole process is important, with precedent essentially forming a supplement to legislation, improving the legal system by tempering it with first-hand knowledge of the law in practice.

That process is not always faultless as bad precedents can arise and this is what has happened, with the CAFC setting its own precedents which the Supreme Court now appears to be attempting to correct.

Re: Patent Trolls....

@Ian Emery

". . . so chopping the remains up and them stomping on them will also be required."

Until you get blisters or can think of something even more unpleasant to do?

@Khaptain

Not necessarily.

The story of the creation of the Federal Circuit shows some clues as to how we have gotten where we are now. It was specifically created for the purpose of patent cases. Prior to its inception, patent cases were initially heard by district courts, just as they are now. HOWEVER, appeals were heard by the various federal appellate courts.

There was another body called the CCPA which had specific jurisdiction limited to hearing appeals from the US Patent Office and thus was not involved in the appeals process of normal patent cases.

In 1982, the CCPA was merged with the Federal Court of Claims to become the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and given jurisdiction over all patent appeals, not just those involving the Patent Office.

In concert with a hands-off approach to patent cases by the Supreme Court (and its limited ability to hear cases), the result was that a single body became largely responsible for deciding patent cases.

Now, it is well known that certain district courts are more friendly to either patent holders or to patent defendants and this is reflected by where the cases are filed, with E.Texas and Delaware being the perennial favourites. It's even got to the point where some 'patent trolls' have their offices registered in these districts so as to make the case for being heard in those districts all the stronger.

The CAFC has, just like Delaware and East Texas, proven itself to be noticeably pro-patent.

The CAFC was created to bring consistency to patent rulings and it has done so. But this is also a problem because it has, to an extent, concealed the problems. Rulings by the other federal appellate courts can be at odds with each other, which highlights that the Supreme Court might need to take a look into the issue to see why statutes and precedents are being interpreted differently and make some clearer rulings.

With a single court, there is less discrepancy. This was by design but that design then reveals the flaw that while the CAFC is more-or-less consistent, it is consistently bias!

One explanation I have read suggests that that is simply a side-effect of them always dealing with patent cases. Also of note is that almost half (8/18) of the current justices come from a patent law background.

Are they corrupt? No, I don't think so - they just, as a court, have a particular bias and that appears to be quite strongly pro-patent. This is evident in the way they have all-but reversed - or at least watered-down - precedents set by the Supreme Court.

It has been cynically (though truthfully for all I know!) suggested that the importance of the CAFC is directly proportional to the number of patent cases that are brought and this in turn is directly proportional to the likelihood of a patent case being decided in favour of the patent holder. Thus, the more patent-friendly the CAFC is, the more cases they have and the more prominent they will be.

Unfortunately for them, this prominence has fairly forced the Supreme Court to take a stronger interest in patent cases and re-assert their findings where they feel the CAFC has been in error.

Like I said, that's a cynical view but may be true for all I know!

Re: Patent Trolls....

It's the only way to be sure, eh?

The point I am getting at is that the Federal Circuit seems to be on a pro-patent mission that is at odds with both the lower and higher courts.

As the Supreme court only heard a fraction (about 0.1) of the cases filed with it each year, it is with important decisions like those above that the Supreme Court is able to reign in and, in some cases rebuke the Federal Circuit and attempt to stem this chaos.

Re: re. mirror

@Trevor Pott

"Napkin maths say that you're probably looking at a ship so large that Kirk's Enterprise* would be considered a shuttlecraft beside it."

"*Not the Jar Jar Trek version"

Well obviously not - that version could just be protected by lens flares.

Re: An open question to the anti-net-neutrality crowd:

". . . you simply declare the monopoly provider(s) a publicly regulated utility . . ."

Could you possibly have a chat with my mates* Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and, well, all the Liberal (read: Republican) leadership over here?

"I disagree that my proposal is a burden on existing corporations."

Again, can you tell that to my mates*, as well as those lovely neutral chaps of the World Economic Forum? That splendid and fair assemblage, representing as it does a very accurate cross-section of world views, not at all biased towards profits, has a specific measure of the 'Burden of Government Regulation'.

* - Disclaimer: not actually my mates.

Re: An open question to the anti-net-neutrality crowd:

Ahhh - my post lacked clarity - apologies.

I did not mean that the transition would be impossible for the companies involved, I meant it would be impossible to get such legislation to actually happen.

Re: An open question to the anti-net-neutrality crowd:

@Trevor Pott

"Problem solved."

Well, that entirely depends on what 'problem' you are referring to. It most certainly does not solve the problem of everybody in the equation being greedy for as much money as possible.

The model is a good, greenfields one. The problem - not for the consumer I hasten to add - is that in applying this plan to an existing setup, you would force companies to sell assets they already have and handover existing revenue streams to companies currently seen as competitors.

The result, once the dust has cleared, will certainly be better for the consumers - the public - but the transition is next to impossible. The fight then is to try and keep and, where possible, strengthen, the existing protections/regulations.

On another note, I realise you are talking about North America here but what about other places, like my own country, the glorious republic of Her Majesty's loyal colony of Australia?

The first problem we face is that we are too sparse a population for such 'massive competition' to exist, even in wishful thinking. The second problem we have here is that our current government is enamoured of right-wing policies such as deregulation, while being apparently oblivious to the first problem.

Hence what has happened to our 'NBN' plan, which was once something of a source of both tech and social-democratic pride for me.

I got side-tracked, sorry.