If you haven't already done so, please check to see if the Computer History Museum or other public collection would be interested in a copy of some of this old software. Or maybe bitsavers.

Sorry, bad link; should have been mad as a hatter

You'll become as mad as a hatter

Apologies for ignoring your "sealed glass container".

Their claims are apparently that they can achieve better efficiency than had been thought possible.

Anyone who wants us to believe differently should have independently verified proof. If you suspect parlor tricks, it's helpful to have a magician involved in addition to the scientist or engineer. "Extraordinary claims" and all that...

Or maybe a bad summary? Almost 50% loss over a relatively short distance might match the claims of "majority of the power".

Instead of non-union miners, how about prisoners (and their descendants) in a conspiracy with the worlds first AI? http://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress

They don't need to count the axles every time you pass though every toll booth. Where I'm at, you're not allowed to move your toll tag from one vehicle to another. And of course, when you apply for a tag, you have to specify the license plate and number of axles for each vehicle you want a tag for.

The author of TFA and author of the patent didn't say the same thing at all.

Patent Author

[ emphasis mine ]

Article Author

No, an API isn't like a phone number. Save phone numbers for the IP address analogies...

Queue car analogy.

An API is like the power socket or lighter socket on a car. They're all the same diameter, all provide 12 volts DC, etc no matter whose car you buy. This means anyone can create or sell a device that "hooks" into the car's power.

The "I" in API is "interface" of course -- An API is a standard for how two separate things talk to each other.

Oracle seems to want to say feel free to build something that plugs into our power socket, but don't you dare build something with a power socket like ours. Hopefully, copyright can't be twisted to allow that.

Most OSes tend to use a very small fraction of the total CPU cycles. Re memory; sure a custom OS might be more efficient than a general purpose OS. But, this device has 128 MB of memory. The first desktop I used to run Dell UNIX SysVR4 and later Linux had only 8 MB. In other words, the Linux OS is only needs a small percentage of this device's memory. And the advantages of using a well known and "good enough" and flexible OS cannot be underestimated -- it's similar to how the availability of UNIX helped multiple different hardware companies come out with their own mini-computers in the 1980s.

Huh? Not allowing a "null" pointer or otherwise illegal pointer value makes no sense. Either the pointer represented by all zeros is a valid pointer or it's an illegal value. If it's not treated as somehow special or illegal, it's by definition valid. Which would not be nearly as useful as having it be illegal. At best, it would be treated like any other random bit pattern in a pointer -- maybe pointing to legal memory and maybe not. In most languages close to assembly, a valid all zeros pointer would probably point to the beginning of memory; in virtual memory systems, it would probably point to the beginning of the process's space. IIRC, Algol had "references" that were not pointers. Actually Algol is the language with pass-by-name and thunking where it's infamously impossible to write a swap(a,b) function that could handle something like swap(A[i], i).

The word reference doesn't always mean exactly the same thing as pointer (See C++). I imagine Hoare did not mean "null pointer" when he said "null reference".

Trivia: Multics had multiple illegal pointers. I think they were 0 for null, -1 for new-process, and -2 for disconnect process. (Terminal login sessions had a single process). The "new_process" command that threw away your (single) munged process and gave you a fresh clean one was implemented in maybe two lines of code looking vaguely like: declare pointer shiva = addr(-1); *shiva = 666;

So... A tivo is "open core" and a MS SMTP gateway is "open surface". I don't think we needed phrases or sound bites to describe the different ways that platforms could use a combination of closed and open source.

Also from TFA:

You question was rhetorical, but yeah, of course we can blame them. Representation != echoing. The Representatives and Senators need to represent their constituents. That includes both their needs and their wants, both the present and the future. So, if you believe a member of congress has a position that is irresponsible and will cause damage to the country and their constituents, yes, blame them for it. (Admittedly obvious -- we rarely call someone irresponsible w/o blaming them).

Of course, I imagine those Tea-Party Republicans don't think they're irresponsible and do think their current stances will allow them to accomplish more of their goals and improve the country. If you agree, cheer them on. If you disagree, blame 'em.