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Slashback Patents United States

Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex 225

Posted by timothy from the more-pho-please dept.
Slashback brings you updates tonight on Diebold's attempts to bring undisclosed-source, unauditable black-box voting to a ballot box near you, John Carmack's search for (rocket-fuel, not hair) peroxide, AT&T's (withdrawn) request for its customers' mail server addresses, open source goings on at Comdex, and more -- read on for the details.

Diebold Election Systems Round 2 in MD zznate writes "Looks like Diebold is not going to get off the hook so easily in Maryland after all. For anyone local, feel free to contact delegates Hixson or Hollinger to express your support. Perhaps they could even receive a copy or two (or fifty ;-) of the documents listed here."

Diebold is having an easier time at Swarthmore. yoshi_mon writes "Previously reported on /. was the Swarthmore Students Effort to keep the Diebold leaked memo's online. However that effort has been quashed by one Dean Bob Gross. To quote the dean, "We can?t get out in front in this fight against Diebold." BlackBoxVoting.com reports that '[Swarthmore College] is not willing to take a strong stand against Diebold, and is systematically disabling the network access of any student who hosts the files.'"

AT&T says Ha, just kidding! An anonymous reader writes "In an update to an earlier Slashdot article, Telco giant AT&T rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a 'human error' gaffe."

All this and cheap shrimp cocktail. blackbearnh writes "While the topic has been raised, I thought I'd mention a few other things going on at COMDEX Open-Source wise.

First off, the Open Source and Linux track has been expanded from a half-dozen sessions last year to nearly twenty this year. These will cover everything from the basics of Open Source (taught by folks like Ken Coar of Apache) to an intro to PHP led by Rasmus Lerdorf.

On the show floor, a massive 2500 sq foot Open Source Innovation Center will serve as the site for hourly talks by Open Source evangelists on business-related topics such as case studios proving the benefits of Open Source. There will also be a staffed "clinic" area where attendees can get advice on what Open Source technologies would work well in their business. There will also be install parties held at noon each day, where attendees can bring their laptops to get help installing MySQL or Debian. And lastly, a .ORG village inside the center will host representitives from more than a dozen prominent Open Source organizations, including OpenOffice and Mozilla.

Also, the COMDEX/ApacheCon exchange program continues this year. COMDEX members can get access to the ApacheCon expo floor and BOF sessions, while ApacheCon member can visit the COMDEX show floor and the Open Source keynotes. Shuttle service will link the two conventions.

James Turner
Co-Chair, Open Source, Fall 2003 COMDEX"

It's a crapshoot, eh. Dick Faze writes " Royal Bank of Canada is part of a $50 Million investment in SCO: Has our communist neighbor to the north finally flipped completely?" (We know Mr. Faze is being facetious, here ... don't we?) This is the same $50,000,000 investment deal in which some people suspected Microsoft's involvment.

Patent Office Cancels Swing Patent An anonymous reader writes "Remember the swing patent issued last year covering the method of swinging a swing? Well, the Patent Office must've taken offense at the amount of criticism it received over this patent. It initiated a reexam proceeding and after a year's worth of reexamination, they cancelled the patent on July 1, 2003."

But all the other patents are up to snuff, don't worry.

Carmack's Peroxide Troubles Over? Rob Jellinghaus writes "John Carmack's aerospace company has had problems getting enough concentrated 90% peroxide for their engines. So they have been working on mixed monoprop engines that would need only 50% peroxide, which would pretty much end their fuel troubles for good. They have had many failures, but they may have just succeeded. In his words: 'This is Very Good.'"

Remember, most of the world is still dial-up, at best. Anothermouse Cowered writes "It's a router, it's a firewall, it's a home gateway it's a... In another giant leap for the Open Source community, you can now hack on your own embedded Linux system for under $70. The source code for the ActionTEC Dual modem previously mentioned on Slashdot ('Hacking the Actiontec 56k Modem/Gateway') in September has now been released under the GPL. Downloads available here."
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Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex More

Slashback: Diebold, Peroxide, Comdex

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  • 50% peroxide (Score:3, Interesting)

    by homer_ca ( 144738 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:07PM (#7296316)
    It's good that they have a supplier now, but wouldn't that mean that the other 50% is dead weight in water?
    • Don't think of it as dead weight. Think of it as added reaction mass.

    • Re:50% peroxide (Score:4, Funny)

      by gladbach ( 527602 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:23PM (#7296759)
      so this explains why carmack and most of his team all have platinum colored hair now....

    • Peroxide rocket propellants (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:59AM (#7297889)
      High concentration hydrogen peroxide all by itself makes a low performance, but very convenient, rocket propellant. All hydrogen peroxide is in solution with some amount of water, because even if you had 100% peroxide, some of it would start decomposing to water (and oxygen) as you stored it.

      Drugstore peroxide is 3% concentration. If you pour it on a catalyst, like silver or platinum, you will see bubbles forming in the solution (released oxygen), and the liquid will get somewhat warmer due to the released energy. Above roughly 70% concentration, the heat released is enough to vaporize all the water content, so if you pass it through a good catalyst, you will get all gas coming out the other side, and gas can be accelerated through a rocket nozzle to produce thrust. At 70%, the gas is only just above the boiling point of water, but as the concentration goes up, the temperature goes up fast. 90% peroxide, the most common grade used for propulsion, produces gas at about 1400 F temperature. Going all the way to 98% peroxide, the highest concentration produced, gives a few hundred degrees more temperature, but at a significant price increase. Higher temperature lets you use less propellant for a given amount of thrust-time, because it maintains a given chamber pressure with a less dense, but hotter, mixture (a simplification).

      "Real" rocket propellants have temperature several thousand degrees higher, which does indeed increase performance, but the engines have to be cooled, and you need to manage both a fuel and an oxidizer in some form. One of our fundamental system trades is that it is better for an X-Prize class vehicle to use a propellant that simplifies vehicle engineering, even if you have to use more of it.

      We use 90% peroxide from a small specialty supplier for all of our flight vehicles, but they closed shop a while ago, and we haven't been able to come to terms with the only domestic supplier of 90% peroxide, FMC chemical corp. Because of this, we have been working on alternate propellant schemes for a good part of this year, in parallel with building the full size X-Prize vehicle. If we had been able to just buy 90% peroxide like we buy all of our other industrial chemicals, we never would have bothered with the research.

      Just about every week, someone asks why we don't concentrate it ourselves. True, dozens of people have made a few gallons of high concentration peroxide at various times, but there have only been two large scale concentrators operated in the US outside of the official manufacturers - Rotary Rocket had a concentrator, but it only went to 85% concentration, and it didn't do purification, and Beal Aerospace had a large scale concentrator operational after the blew up their first one. Sure, we could figure out how to do it, but then we would be in the chemical plant business instead of the rocket business, and that's not what we want to do. I am funding an operator in Houston to produce a few thousand pounds of 90% for us, but he is six months behind schedule on delivery, which proves my point about it not being as simple as people think.

      The direction we have been pursuing is using a combination of 50% peroxide, which is readily available through distributors from multiple manufacturers, and a small amount of miscible fuel (methanol in our current work). 50% peroxide by itself doesn't work as a rocket propellant, because you can't boil all the water, which makes even decomposing most of the peroxide difficult. Adding a fuel and (the tricky part!) getting it to burn with the released oxygen gives you the energy necessary to vaporize the water and get everything up to a high temperature. Mixing fuels with high concentration oxidizers usually makes a touchy and deadly explosive (we have intentionally detonated a mix of 90% peroxide and alcohol - Very Scary), but buffered with 50% water, and running off of stoichemetric mixture ratio, the risk is not very high. We have a study report from the Department of Mines in the late 50's investigating th

      • We use 90% peroxide from a small specialty supplier for all of our flight vehicles, but they closed shop a while ago, and we haven't been able to come to terms with the only domestic supplier of 90% peroxide, FMC chemical corp.

        That's kind of messed up because FMC just closed its peroxide plant near me citing a lack of demand for the product.

  • Don't do this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by setzman ( 541053 ) <stzman@nOSpAM.st ... sandremoveit.org> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:08PM (#7296325) Journal
    Perhaps they could even receive a copy or two (or fifty ;-) of the documents listed here."

    Please do not spam these people with 50 11MB files. If each member of the slashdot crowd even sends one copy, their mail servers will be overwhelmed and our efforts will be ignored. Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?

    • Good Idea... (Score:4, Funny)

      by qtp ( 461286 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:28PM (#7297084) Journal
      Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?

      DDOS thier mail room!

      I can imagine the news coverage:

      Postal service slows to a halt in an onslaught of documents critical of Deibold Electronic voting machines. One postal carier was quoted as saying "We haven't had manditory overtime like this since the eighties! But thats O.K. by me. I'll just stop by the Walmart on my way home and buy me a GUN!"

      Federal Investigators reportedly do not know who is responsibe for this bizarre attack, but are seeking the identity of an online poster who uses the Alias "setzman" as a possible instigator.

      Tune in later for more coverage of...

    • A printed copy would be like 50000 pages right?
  • It's a crapshoot, eh. Dick Faze writes " Royal Bank of Canada is part of a $50 Million investment in SCO: Has our communist neighbor to the north finally flipped completely?" (We know Mr. Faze is being facetious, here ... don't we?) This is the same $50,000,000 investment deal in which some people suspected Microsoft's involvment.

    Is there some web site that documents all the companies that are investing in SCO?

    I have been watching this SCO watch site [threenorth.com] for while... but it's not all that frequently updated
    • From what I've seen the Royal Bank uses a UNIX-based system for everything, maybe it is an SCO operating system. *shrug* I definitely don't feel like I should put my money there.

  • Diebold memos mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:13PM (#7296357)
    The memos are available for download here [namu.free.fr]. French server, decent bandwidth, out of the reach of any DMCA-wielding company.

  • SCO will learn! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Valar ( 167606 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:16PM (#7296371)
    Money can't buy justice!

    Err... um, money didn't always buy justice!
    • Money can't buy justice!

      Err... um, money didn't always buy justice!/I.

      If money does buy justice you really shouldn't go around picking on people with more of it than you.

      $50 million is pocket change for IBM.

      Of course "don't get involved in an intellectual property lawsuit with IBM" is right up there with "don't get involved in a land war in Asia" for things not to do.
      • Of course "don't get involved in an intellectual property lawsuit with IBM" is right up there with "don't get involved in a land war in Asia" for things not to do.

        For those playing along at home, "Remember to close your <i> tag." was number three.

        YLFI
      • And never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!

        Bwa ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha...

        *Thump*

  • Are there any motives that I'm missing, other than the fact that they are trying to capitalize on SCO's FUD?
    Maybe they have money invested in Micro$oft?
    Or they have something to lose from SCO (or M$ for that matter) going under?
    Anyone?
  • The link to Indymedia's hosting of the Diebold documents is dead. Can someone provide a new link?

    Even better, can someone print out the docs and mail/Fed Ex them to the Maryland Representatives mentioned? I'll kick in to help with postage.

  • Ease up on Bob Gross (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jad LaFields ( 607990 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:29PM (#7296456)
    Just want to note that the write up about Swarthmore Dean Bob Gross above is a bit harsh. As I understand (I was unable to go to the large meeting that where this was discussed), he decided that while what the students were doing was a bold and important step, the college just did not have the financial resources to fight what could be a protracted legal battle with a large company like Diebold, especially when organiziations like the EFF are already involved in the issue. And I can understand this.

    But while the college is not formally supporting the students on this cause, they are not cutting off student's access or anything like that. Why-War? is hosted off-campus and is continuing to spread the memos around. Several people are getting in contact with other schools in an effort to spread them in a more underground, but still visible, way.

    Check out more on it on Swarthmore's Daily Gazette [swarthmore.edu]. The Phoenix [swarthmore.edu] should have something up on this soon, too.

  • Lies! All Lies! (Score:5, Funny)

    by humanerror ( 56316 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:30PM (#7296461)
    Telco giant AT&T rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP servers because of a 'human error' gaffe.

    I swear, I was nowhere near that gaffe.

  • rgross1@swarthmore.edu Let's let ol' Gross Bob know how we feel about his decision! Maybe submitting swarthmore's mail server to the Slashdot effect will help him get the message!
    • Dear Dean Gross: I was most disappointed to discover that you had quashed your students' effort to expose Diebold's voting machine irregularities. I would have hoped that a place of higher learning with the rich tradition that Swarthmore has could do better. Putting dollars over rights is hardly a good lesson to teach your students. I do hope you 'see the light' and reverse this bad decision you have made. In closing, my daughter was accepted to your college last year and after much soul searching decide
      • Putting dollars over rights is hardly a good lesson to teach your students

        Perhaps. But picking your fights is a lesson that everyone should learn.

        I questioned her decision but after this can understand why

        This makes no sense at all. Are you saying it was on the basis of what she thought the two Deans would do if faced with a decision such as this. And if so how did she decide this would have been their reaction. Past experience?

    • Give it up... we can't always win, you know. Do you think it was easy to make that sort of a descision? Or what would happen if he didn't? Which is worse? Running from this battle and keep educating students, or fighting Diebold to the death and having to shut down? I hate Diebold, too, but we must know when to fight and when not to fight and whent to take the fight elsewhere. We cannot fight a corporation from any one point. We must be a storm, a pandemonium, an omnipresent torrent of small voices. We cann
    • That's a pretty lame way to get your point across. The university just doesn't want to get stuck in the middle of a legal battle over this. Which makes perfect sense to me......their main focus (by main focus, I mean, where their finances should go) should be educating people, not fighting legal battles.
    • Let's let ol' Gross Bob know how we feel about his decision! Maybe submitting swarthmore's mail server to the Slashdot effect will help him get the message!

      Calmly please. Presumably the guy sees himself as defending the college against reckless endangerment.
      If you're an alum, you might want to mention that, an email from Horatio Schmedly ('85) will probably carry more weight than from Slashmaster (/. lunatic).

  • Royal Bank of Canada (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:35PM (#7296484)
    Although the name may lead you to think otherwise, Royal is just another private bank. It's not affiliated with the Canadian gov't or anything. So, no, we haven't flipped completely.

    • Royal Bank of Canada is one of the large multinational banks that has an offshore presence. That is, they own a subsidiary bank in the caribbean, where bank secrecy laws apply. For the paranoid minded one could think up a plot by the Evil Empire of Redmond where money would be funneled via the offshore version of the Royal Bank of Canada into an investment fund which would then be used to invest in SCO.

      There is a less paranoid explaination. That being that when it comes to investment the Royal Bank of

    • That's right, our national bank is called the Bank of Canada (without the Royal).

  • Sad about the Diebold purge. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cgranade ( 702534 ) <cgranade@gma i l . c om> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:37PM (#7296502) Homepage Journal
    Sad about the Diebold purge. I know how the shit crumbles, tho... after all, my university did the same thing with the Half-Life 2 leak. Not that I blame either college... it costs a lot of money to get a good legal team to defend against lawsuits from corporations. I mean, Diebold's very existance is on the line with this. If the memos go around too much, they might get destroyed Enron-style. So of course they are going to try and supress colleges, since historically they don't have very good legal defense teams.
    • Swarthmore may not have one, but many universities have law schools, with the associated faculty that is already on the university payroll. I'd like to see them try that with Harvard.

    • Re:Sad about the Diebold purge. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23, 2003 @11:50PM (#7297445)
      I feel bad for you. How upsetting it must have been to take down the source code for a game which was blatantly stolen property just because some university bigwig said so. The parallels between preserving incriminating evidence against a company attempting to take and gain the power to arbitrarily decide all elections in the most powerful country in the world and hosting stolen source code for a video game are so strong I can taste them.

      Or maybe you're just doing your part to make sure there's no HL3.

      Asshole.

    • Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by autopr0n ( 534291 )
      If it wasn't for the fact that the content of the Diebold memo's is something every American should know about, there would be no legal reason for allowing it to stay up.

      Hosting the source to HL2 is totally illegal. Any responsible organization would take it down if they were liable.

  • Hello? "Chilling effect?" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:43PM (#7296535)
    Here we have a university, supposedly one of the best places to be able to exercise your First Amendment rights, not only unwilling to back their students rights to free speech but actively helping to quash it? If this isn't an examble of the DMCA having a "chilling effect" on speech, I don't know what is.
    • Your country is now a fascist dictatorship, its just
      that most of your population hasn't realised it yet.
      • Indeed.. funny what some schmuck general said the other day, the US needs to fight harder in the war on terror, the prize for it is 200 more years of freedom. Fascinating because of 2 things; one he only talked about the freedom of Americans, and that the US now is less free than before.

        The world (especially the US) lives in fear of the next attack. That's exactly what they (terrorists) wanted, the terrorists have indeed won.

        Also last week, some General said the US is fighting against Satan itself. Yeah w
    • Yeah, but the difference now is that most American universities are run by beancounters who flee in panic from any mention of legal trouble.

    • Re:Hello? "Chilling effect?" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jad LaFields ( 607990 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:14PM (#7296711)
      First of all, Swarthmore is not a university. It is a small school with not a lot of resources to devote towards legal battles. It is unfortunate that in this case, defending the right to Free Speech (which the school is generally a very strong supporter of) is likely to be highly expensive for the school and not just the students. But I don't blame the school for that, I blame the DMCA. Swarthmore has raised the publicity for this issue, but rest of the fight, I'm sad to say, is going to have to fought elsewhere.

      Put your money where your mouth is (and don't rely on the money of the students at Swarthmore some of whom have no opinion on this matter) and donate to the EFF.

      And download the memos and host them.
    • Somebody mod this up!

      If colleges and universities are being intimidated into suppressing free speech, then just who is it that won't be? Things are starting to look pre-1960s out there...

  • From Armadillo News: This was a big success for us, completely eliminating the need for our propane / air preheat system, and giving us the ability to do in-flight restarts without any trouble.

    Not sure about the details, but I would figure that, well, the conditions in which inflight restarts take place would be a LOT different from what they are testing on the ground:

    1) (BIG) pressure difference
    2) (HUGE) temperature difference
    3) possible airflow difference (say if the rocket was in descent / ascent /

    • First keep in mind that Armadillo had not anticipated being able to restart in flight. This is an extra, not a requirement.

      1) (BIG) pressure difference
      2) (HUGE) temperature difference
      3) possible airflow difference

      From what I've read the ignition mechanism is buried in the engine between two catalyst blocks so none of what you the conditions you've mentioned would apply.

      I'd say he should do a lot more tests before being certain than inflight restarts is a guaranteed thing.

      I imagine his understan

      • where do I start... (Score:2, Informative)

        by lingqi ( 577227 )
        the ignition mechanism being buried far up in the engine does not exempt it from being affected by temperature or pressure changes in the outside environment. catalyst blocks are not magical air barriers that will keep the pressure at the ingintion point at 1ATM.

        Worse yet, the catalyst blocks ARE part of the ignition system - if they are too cold the fuel does not ignite, which is the source of their problems in the first place. when the air temperature drops to -50C at 30k ft, how do you know the catalyst

        • So, I am glad they have blind (erm, faithful) followers like you, but hey, I am just concerned about their safty.

          I'm sure Carmack et al are thrilled to know you are so deeply concerned for their well-being. No doubt your insightful criticism will also be much appreciated. After all they're mearly running the project and clearly have no idea what they're talking about. As for me, I'll limit myself to responding to your ad hominem attack since you'll obviously be unwilling to accept any argument made by s

          • ha ha

            ad hominem eh? That's a joke at the end of the logical part of the arguments, thanks for not getting it.

            But honestly, though - point out one place where you have been able to find some reasons to believe that my analysis regarding temperature / pressure concerns are faluty - besides that "Carmack is running the project so he must know what's going on."

            I concur that he runs the project, and I most adamantly concur that he knows many times more about his project than me - but concerns remains concerns
        • I imagine that they'll want to test fly the actual complete rocket under automated guidance repeatedly, before consigning a human being (or multiple beings) as cargo for the X-prize.

          Besides, if believe that they should look at certain details, tell em! Carmack appreciates input from the outside world - if you have a better method, or suggestions for things that need to be monitored or tested, e-mail em.

  • College internet access and politics (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Aram Fingal ( 576822 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:53PM (#7296594)
    It's too bad that colleges don't believe that they can have "common carrier" status as they provide internet access for students. It means that students actually have fewer rights than people who pay a regular ISP for service.

    I work for a major university and I have thought about threatening to bring in an outside ISP for my department for technical reasons. I believe that the university ITS provides poor service and charges too much for it. Yes, they charge us per machine for network access. Now I have another reason to go outside for internet access - a political reason.
    • Go for it - competition is good.
    • ISPs don't actually have common carrier status, though they've got some protections under the ECPA and maybe other regulations, and there are special annoyances under the DMCA that may undo some of the earlier protections, or at least give an web service provider a strong incentive to cover their ass. On the other hand, serving web pages and hauling IP packets are much different activities, and a university could reasonably take a position that its job is hauling IP packets to dorm rooms and DNS packets to
    • You may find that the funds that you are currently paying for your internal ISP aren't necessarily convertable. In business, I have come across some really strange charges that are applied by the IS department to my clients and look for ways to minimize them by outsourcing.

      Regretablly, as the outsoucing company isn't contributing to the bottom line, the real cash available is much smaller. However, having an outsourcing proposal on the table when discussing service-level agreements and costs works wonders

  • Patents and Open Source (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Agar ( 105254 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:58PM (#7296616)
    Everyone bemoans bad patents and the effect they can have on Open Source, but is there an effort to actually *do* anything about it?

    One of the most obvious issues with software patents is cross-licensing. If IBM infringes on Intel's patents, Intel sues. IBM does a search, and counter-sues because Intel is infringing on umpteen IBM patents. Voila, a cross-licensing agreement is signed, no one gets sued, everyone's happy.

    Needless to say, if an open source application unwittingly infringes on a patent (which is more likely over time), there is little recourse.

    Shouldn't the EFF or the FSF be encouraging coders (particularly those doing cutting edge work) to submit "patentable" code much like they recommend assigning copyrights to them?

    They should offer to do the patent search and submission in return for all licensing rights. This would give a central (hopefully benevolent) organization a "war chest" of patents for future lawsuit avoidance and cross-licensing.

    Is this already being done?

    With the amount of work going into Open Source, there must be tons of patentable code out there. Even if it's not patentable, it apparently doesn't really matter.
    • The problem is that patents are just too slow and expensive. Contrast that with copyrights, which are free just for opening your mouth. I think a huge Wiki full of prior art is a better idea - though you still need someone like the EFF to foot the bill of defending OSS people in court by using that database.
      • The solution is for people to actually be charged for barratry for threatening a lawsuit that has no technical merit. I mean, you should be able to take even just a cease and desist letter to court and get if the judge rules that they had could not have reasonably expected their case to prevail (because of lack of merit, not lack of funds), get a judgement against them.

        Ideally you'd get either criminal penalties (jailtime for them and their lawyer who represented them for this spurious legal attack) or a h
        • I think lawyers are a contributing factor - increasing penalties is fine, but the only way to stop frivolous lawsuits is if lawyers stop filing them. Unfortunately, if you tell your client that you won't persue some frivolous or abusive case, they'll just find somebody else with fewer scruples. So the legal system is brought down to the lowest common denominator. I'm not sure how to fix this, though. In reality, what you suggest may be the only out. Maybe there should be some new failure mode wherby th
      • No, the problem is that people are too focused on complaining about the patent system, or trial lawyers, or conflicts of interest, or the legal system. Patents may be slow and expensive, but we're talking about protecting the future. Think about it.

        Changing the system will not work, at least in the short term. The patent office won't change. Lawsuits won't be made illegal. Barratry will not be enforced. Lobbyists won't go away. Fighting every patent claim by trying to prove prior art is a losing bat

  • rasmus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:58PM (#7296617) Homepage
    i saw rasmus lerdorf's intro to php at the mysql conference... he takes a whole different view to web development that makes java's claims of speed, stability, scalability ect almost moot.

    java will say, php is bad because it can't do x as good as we can, and he will summarily explain why you would never want to do x and how php can solve whatever x's method was trying to solve just as fast.

    very good speech.
    • i saw rasmus lerdorf's intro to php at the mysql conference... he takes a whole different view to web development that makes java's claims of speed, stability, scalability ect almost moot.

      I'd love to hear these arguments.

      I don't see how one can counter that PHP forces developers to rely very heavily on database for persistants since it does not have in process persistance like JSP and ASP.NET.

      I don't see how one can counter that using 'include()' and 'include_once()' functions as the only way to write

  • If it requires half the concentration, doesn't that mean that are going to have to take up way over 2x as much fuel? (2x to make up the concentration, then more to cover the weight of the extra fuel)

  • Patently obvious (Score:4, Insightful)

    by imadork ( 226897 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @11:04PM (#7297246) Homepage
    I'm not sure what's more embarassing: the fact that the Patent Office approved it in the first place, or the fact that it took them a whole year to re-examine it!
  • Too bad this box doesn't generate ringing current (90VAC), otherwise you could use it as an inexpensive VOIP gateway.
    -russ

  • Swarthmore/Bob Gross/Diebold (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hrodgare ( 583263 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @12:20AM (#7297559) Homepage
    I'm a student at Swarthmore, and, in fact, the one who disabled access to the Diebold documents SCDC was hosting at scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu [swarthmore.edu] . It was very unfortunate that we had to; I wish the college hadn't forced us to. That said--

    What's not clear from all of the news coverage, is that while the college is indeed having to shut down hosts on campus for the documents, ITS here and the college itself is supportive of the students involved who are talking with EFF. The Deans are being helpful in suggesting legal routes for SCDC, but the College itself does *not* have the resources to get involved in a legal battle. Swarthmore is a very small school(1400) students, and just doesn't have the resources that larger institutions would to put towards legal expenses.

    PLEASE go easy on Bob Gross's email; the administration at Swarthmore is very responsive to student needs, but there are limits as to what can be done. They're not bad people; they're doing what's best for the school.

    Is Diebold getting off easy from Swarthmore? That has yet to be seen.
  • Might I suggest just pre-heating the peroxide by pumping it through a thermite core. I looked into this one time, the stuff is very simple to produce and very safe. It is hard to get started but once going it cannot be put out and is extremely damn hot. You would have to pass the peroxide through the middle of a core that is buring from the inside out otherwise a case burn through would happen extremly quick.
    • Don't teach your grandma to chew gum.

      Yes, thermite is easy to make. It also burns way, way hotter than you need to preheat something (so hot as to make containment a major engineering challenge for an application like this). Your suggestion makes as much sense as using thermite to cook spaghetti.
  • A friend of mine goes to Swarthmore and has mentioned to me about how the administration is shutting down all students mirroring them. However, her boyfriend is also mirroring them.

    http://www.plastic-idolatry.com/diebold [plastic-idolatry.com] [user: diebold, password: die]

  • Dual PC not sold in the UK (Score:3, Informative)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:25AM (#7298461)
    Darn it. Actiontec only sell broadband and adsl modems in the UK.

    Curses!
  • oreillynet [oreillynet.com] as a voting booth (no no no, not Diebold) to let you express yourself for your favorite floss:

    "O'Reilly is working with COMDEX to organize an Open Source Innovation Area on the COMDEX Exhibit Floor. We've nominated 21 projects and we'd like you to help us select the six projects we'll send to COMDEX. The winning projects will be recognized by COMDEX and we'll invite a leader from the project to come to COMDEX and run demos on the show floor. This will give Open Source projects an opportunity to

  • Well that's the first sensible thing I've heard them do in years.

    But if they don't repeal Amazon's "one click shopping" patent, I'm going to demand a patent on "one eye blinking", or "Winking" as I call it.

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