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Comment Re:Double-edged sword... (Score 1) 520

All software contains bugs. The defense will find some, and even if they only affect accuracy at the 7th decimal point, the case will get thrown out by a jury based on reasonable doubt.

Then the prosecutors are incompetent. If you need to be over 0.08 and the machine says 0.100000, but really that should have been 0.099999 it doesn't matter. You are still over 0.08. You don't need 7 digit accuracy. This is a simple concept that any competent lawyer should be able to teach a jury.

Patents

The Post-Bilski Era Gets Underway 94

bfwebster writes "A set of pharmaceutical process patents for 'evaluating and improving the safety of immunization schedules' (Classen v. Biogen et al.; see US Patents 6,420,139; 6,638,379; 5,728,385; 5,723,283) were held to be invalid due to unpatentability. The decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but was upheld with a terse citation to In re Bilski (which decision we discussed here). Here's the entire text of the appeals decision: 'In light of our decision in In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment that these claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. 101. Dr. Classen's claims are neither "tied to a particular machine or apparatus" nor do they "transform a particular article into a different state or thing." Bilski, 545 F.3d at 954. Therefore we affirm.' It will be interesting to see what happens when these same standards start getting applied to software-related patents."
The Courts

Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict 457

Bootsy Collins writes "Last Wednesday, the Lori Drew 'cyberbullying' case ended in three misdemeanor convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 US Federal law intended to address illegally accessing computer systems. The interpretation of the act by the Court to cover violations of website terms of service, a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage, may have profound effects on the intersection of the Internet and US law. Referring to an amicus curiae brief filed by online rights organizations and law professors, PJ at Groklaw breaks down the implications of the decision to support her assertion that 'unless this case is overturned, it is time to get off the Internet completely, because it will have become too risky to use a computer.'"

Comment Re:Some recommendations from another Math Ph.D (Score 1) 418

with the goal of ramping up to Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu, and Laloe's "Quantum Mechanics".

Ugh, I HATED that book. It has too be one of the most frustrating, maze-like pieces of work ever created. You can't just read what you need, it is always referring back (or even ahead) to other sections/equations. Trying to learn one thing out of it takes hours of flipping pages and writing out stuff, just so you can see everything in one place. Some may say this is due to the fundamental complexity of the subject, but I suspect it is actually due to disorganization on the part of the authors. (Perhaps too many cooks in the kitchen?)

That said, I use it regularly now, having ponied up the ducats for it and struggled through it I can't justify dropping that investment on another book. It does have pretty much everything thing you need to get started in QM...

Space

More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies 339

ZonkerWilliam recommends a bulletin from the American Institute of Physics, which discusses a study noting that recent spacecraft, such as NEAR, appear to display velocity anomalies much like those seen in Pioneer 10 (which were observed beginning ten years ago). The anomalies amount to up to 13 mm/sec., with a measurement accuracy of 0.1 mm/sec. Quoting: "A new look at the trajectories for various spacecraft as they fly past the Earth finds in each case a tiny amount of surplus velocity. For craft that pursue a path mostly symmetrical with respect to the equator, the effect is minimal. For craft that pursue a more unsymmetrical path, the effect is larger."
Software

Python 3.0 To Be Backwards Incompatible 438

Stony Stevenson writes "Organizations using Python will be affected in a major way by changes in store for the language over the course of the next twelve months, Linux.conf.au attendees were told this morning. The Python development community is working towards a new, backwards-incompatible version of the language, version 3.0, which is slated for release in early 2009. Anthony Baxter, the release manager for Python and a senior software engineer at Google Australia, said "We are going to break pretty much all the code. Pretty much every program will need changes." Baxter also added another tidbit for attendees, saying that Python accounts for around 15 percent of Google's code base."
Government

Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia 598

James Hardine writes "Wikileaks reports that US armed forces personnel at Guantanamo have conducted propaganda attacks over the Internet. (The story has been picked up by the NYTimes, The Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the AP.) The activities documented by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual'). Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'"
PC Games (Games)

EVE-Online Patch Makes XP Unbootable 572

Nobo writes "CCP's latest major patch to the EVE-Online client, Trinity, comes with an optional DX9-enhanced graphics patch that dramatically improves the visual quality of the in-game graphics through remade models, textures, and HDR. It also has an unfortunate bug: the incredibly stupid choice of boot.ini as a game configuration file, coupled with an errant extra backslash in the installer configuration. The result is that anyone who installs the enhanced graphics patch overwrites the windows XP c:\boot.ini file with the EVE client configuration file, bricking the machine on the next boot. Discussion in a couple of forums threads is becoming understandably heated."
Security

Submission + - Will The Mozilla Fuzzer Break The Web?

darthcamaro writes: Will Mozilla's Fuzzer Break The Web? Or will it make it better? It all depends on who you ask. The new fuzzing tool is set to be released on Wednesday at Black Hat and internetnews.com asked a few people what they think about it. At least one other browser vendor thinks it will be a real risk to the security of the internet.
From the article:
"Any tool given to the public to find ways of exploiting a piece of software is at risk of being misued," Christen Krogh, vice president of engineering at Opera Software said. "When an organization publishes such tools, it must consider whether that tool can be a disservice to millions of innocent bystanders."
Television

Submission + - Is HD DVD Trying to Lose? (audioholics.com)

mrnomas writes: "Clint over at Audioholics is on the HD DVD bashing bandwagon again. This time he's charging that HD DVD is trying to lose. With hybrid HD DVD/DVD discs costing more than their Blu-ray counterparts, maybe he's got a point.

"Why won't consumers want these hybrid discs? Because no one likes to spend 3x the cost of a regular DVD just to have a disc available in the eventuality they decide to buy a high definition DVD player whose format may or may not exceed niche status let alone "win" the current format war.""

Databases

Submission + - The Technology behind the search for Jim Gray (wired.com)

krow writes: "Wired has published an article on the technology behind the search for Jim Gray. It is a good set of highlights of his career and the people he worked with during it, and how they applied technology to solve the problem of trying to find him. Greasemonkey scripts, private jets, Ocean going robots, etc were used. Its an amazing read on what can be done with "human" search technology."
The Media

Submission + - The Commons Revisited

fermion writes: As a few of you might know, Dr, John H. Lienhard has a radio show called the Engines of our Ingenuity. Todays show, The Commons Revisted, is a wonderful essay on the Internet, Wikipedia, and copyleft. In it he moves from the tragedy of the commons, and one's inability to build a house in, or indeed ride a ATV through, Yellowstone National park, to the need for copyleft to protect to protect our inventions from being absorbed by the greedy. The highlight was a concise explanation of why so many are so afraid of Wikipedia.

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