AltME groups: search

We wanted ti patent our CCD camera ethernet interface, but we were 
adiced to not to do so, because even if there would be some patent 
violation, you have to start court case in the given country, and 
we would have to be really rich, to affort that ...

Paul, forget patents. Not worth. I hold 13, costs a lot, takes endless 
time and if a big player is infringing it you won't have enough $$$ 
to get your rights.

paul, what robert mean is that a patent is worthless until you have 

enough power to defend it. Unfortunatly I have the same experience,

to expensive and if a real big player like to take it, they will 
get 

it even if it takes years, your money and nerves. there are enough

simple and dirty tricks to dry you out. only speed helps here in 
my
opinion.

Simple: They just use it and don't pay you. It's your turn to claim 
your rights. It's your effort, money etc. you have to spend They 
just continue to use your idea.

A great example is the RIM patent infringement - they got away with 
it until theyw ere big enough and then simply paid.

The idea of having a patent seems great, and can be very exciting. 
I'm co-inventor on one--just granted--and the company got together 
to discuss whether it was worth it to go international, add a continuation, 
etc. It's a long process, and has taken many years and a lot of money 
to get to this point. 


As we talked, we looked at who might pay for it. To make it worthwhile, 
we would need to go after big companies who would fight tooth and 
nail, and cost everybody more money and time. The best hope is to 
get *one* big company to acquire it for a reasonable sum, and let 
them add it to their arsenal for bartering and battle with other 
big companies. Other than that, it may keep our small competitors 
at bay in that area.


For us, it's clear that we would rather be doing real work than fighting 
legal battles. 


So, the product will now have a patent # associated with it, rather 
than "patent pending", and maybe we'll make something on it, but 
nobdoy is planning to get rich on licensing it.

Yeah, I'm thinking you guys are right which is why if I get my stuff 
to a point of production that I'm not going to go with a patent and 
sell it to Microsoft.

Hmmmm.  Ok,  let me go confirm a couple of things, and then I will 
honour your request, figure 24 hours...

And what groups am I supposed to have deleted ??

Hang on ... you're accusing me of deleting "groups" and you can't 
name them now??

I have no need to Graham. I spoke the TRUTH and your a LIAR!

I know they won't do anything about it and have requested to have 
my account removed here.

But I'm going to take this persecution to the bank with me and leave 
the REBOL3 world.  I want to see if my account gets deleted first 
which I would appreciate.

It looks like everyone was just opted out of !Compression, Politics, 
and a couple others.  I just tested by opting myself out of !Cheyenne, 
and it also disappeared from my list after I logged back in twice. 
 (First time, it was greyed out, then second time it vanished)

Or someone sensible can just look at the list of people in the group, 
and realize that it was made private by mistake. Fixed.

Just re-create the groups .. and make them private, and opt in.

The only two not in "Math" is Paul and Dockimbel. Paul choosed himself 
not to be in "Math". I know this, because I asked him privately. 
Later Doc was excluded from "Math". It can't have been Paul, who 
excluded Doc, as Paul wasn't in "Math". So either Doc choosed himself 
to not be in "Math" or someone kicked him. I've asked Doc privately 
to figure this out.

(Or it could be a mistake by someone or an error in AltME.)

There is a Compression group still existing, and it is set as public 
- all users should see it.

Some time ago there was a debate (dunno what group it was in) about 
making online tutorials. Could you please suggest me some tool? On 
of my folks used Wink tool, but I am not satisfied with the result, 
but maybe he just applied wrong settings - the letters could not 
be read, unless I enlarged it to 150%, but then it did not fit the 
screen .... I don't need voice, I would be OK with titles, and ability 
to let user read the comment, and then press some button to proceed 
...

I'll do me very best to tread here lightly...


- First, I have no direct control over this world, but will indeed 
try to help.


- Paul, it is a little bit like an "after school special TV show" 
when you accuse someone without knowing for sure.  It might all fit 
for you, but perhaps siding with best in your fellow man would serve 
you better than siding with the worse?


- If I were to make a guess here, someone, not understanding the 
interface to remove themselves from a bunch of groups, might have 
in fact gone out and deleted them instead, and may not even realize 
they did this.

If you are good with linux (command line) this one is the cheapest 
and offers the most, but you have to know your way around linux a 
little better than Linode or Slicehost  
http://prgmr.com/xen/

you can install anything on VPS so I think if you can install them 
and have enough ram on VPS it should work, but I have no concrete 
idea

cool , I used Linode and they are highly recommended by users , this 
prgmr sounds interesting approach too so I might try it when I need 
VPS

Installing cheyenne or rebol is easy and I don't need much else :)

I think I'll be getting an linode account cheap, and very well designed 
vps controls   :-)

automatic fall back on crashes, instant server re-installs, this 
rocks.  and its so well designed from the management stand-point 
 :-)

setting up and booting a vps on linode takes exactly 4 mouse clicks! 
 and you can log into it using ssh right there and then !  :-)  this 
is going to be really nice.

So maybe I will not build my new server, but rent some virtualised 
one, create tunnel to it (to allow sendmail on our local network), 
install Ubuntu server, and be done ...

Pekr, I decided against buying a new HD for my old server. The Linode 
is much cheaper and there is of course much more bandwidth. I think 
there is a big advantage to it.

But - I never tried Xen based virtualisation and Mikrotik will not 
allow me to use my favourite vmware ESXi.

technology is surprising sometimes...   my DNS provider just sent 
me a mail to confirm my phone number.... 
- I click on the link in the mail, 

- a web page opens up with a form to verify my number (it was wrong!)
- I click a little link that says... call now!

- not 1 second after hitting the link, *my phone actually rings* 
and it spells out a magic number

- the next web page that arrives after "call now!", has a field to 
enter the number!
- press submit.
- done!

the most advanced captcha I've seen so far.


this mixing of web and physical space is always a bit strange... 
is it not?

Chicago :-) I think of gansters 80 or so years ago and ... Al Bundy. 
I know, probably a cranky view. How is Chicago?

I like Chicago, and have lived here more than everywhere else. It 
would be hard to leave :)

I've been thinking more and more that I'd rather live in the city 
than in the suburbs, too.  But this is the only city I've even been 
to, so I can't really compare to other parts of the US  ;)

More diversity in the city, and more to do. None of my friends who 
have moved from the suburbs have regretted it.

How far is it from the suburbs to the center of the city? I live 
in the suburbs of Copenhagen, and it takes about half an hour with 
train or car to get to the center. I guess, the distances are greater 
where you live?

I'm in Bartlett, it's about 45 minutes to an hour on average by car. 
 A couple times it's taken about an hour and a half, though.  Also, 
I don't have my own car - there's 3 vehicles to share among 5 people 
in my family.

Yeah. I live on the north edge of the city, my parents live in a 
west suburb (Naperville, not the furthest west), and it's an hour 
drive each way. Between gas and tolls it costs me $12-16 to visit 
my parents. I have friends who live 260 blocks from me.

Is it common to use triain, metro and bus, or do eveybody travel 
by car? Anyone going by bicycle?

Owning a car is very expensive in Chicago because the traffic and 
parking rules are defined by the Department of Revenue - lots of 
bogus charges and tickets.

Kind of the same is going on here. Parking is getting more and more 
expensive to get the cars out of the city. It's free to use the roads 
though. You only pay, if you cross the large bridge to go to Fyn 
and Jutland. I use a motorbike, train/bus or bike. It's free to park 
a motorbike, so less exensive.

People tend to either use cars or public trans, but less often both. 
Neighborhoods with easy access to public trans (particularly trains) 
tend to not have parking, and vice versa. I live in a rare neighborhood 
with both.

Well, my roommate and a friend did bike from IIT to O'Hare and back 
once - from Midnight to about 8 AM

The scale on Google Maps looks like most are around 400 feet, but 
there's the river that messes it up, and some locations have a slightly 
different layout...  Unfortunately, that's the best I can do

Our cities are not lined up like yours. Ours are just a mess of roads 
going in all directions. :-) It's because our cities are maybe 1000 
years old, and the roads were never straighten. I've heard, some 
danes find the US way more practical and makes it easier to travel 
around. Others find our way more charming.

What the oldes parts of US cities? The city or suburbs? If it's the 
city, why wasn't the grid just continued? Or maybe the suburbs are 
old villages and the city came later?

Ok, I've found Naperville at Google maps, and you live north in what 
area?

Looks like an interesting place..  And I can definitely believe that 
about GPS from the maps

Birmingham (Alabama) is even by US standards, a new city.  Designed 
around the placement of a railroad junction where in the hills there 
was a confluence of iron ore, coal and limestone.  It's a grid system 
as much as the hills flanking it permit.  The hills - long ridges 
at the tippy-tail of the Appalachians - form a stark barrier between 
the town and the spidery suburbs.

It's definitely not cycle friendly (though I do every day) - the 
few cycle lanes that exist are like sick jokes with sudden dead ends 
and lines that  traffic generally treat as optional, or parking lanes.

And of course, half the traffic are huge trucks or SUVs.  And noone 
thinks twice about opening a car door on you as you pass a parked 
car...


I expect every city you have to be agressive to cycle consistently. 
 I do envy those that live in cities that encourage cycling - evident 
in the Copenhagen pics above...

montreal claims to have the most bicycle paths in any north american 
city.  we even are closing streets and completely removing parking 
downtown for bicycle lanes.


note montreal is a 365 day/year bicycle city... that include when 
there are blizzards, litterally  :-)  they have winter tires with 
studs for sale during the winter  :-)  people are just nuts.

montreal and quebec city really are nice cities, in that they share 
many typical north american traits and other more european qualities 
(especially quebec city)

and quebec, the province (state), still has one of the lowest cost 
of life in the developped countries.   taxes are balanced, between 
socialism oriented services and capitalism oriented "let people spend 
money into the economy to let it go round and round.

and we really have quite a selection of pretty women ;-) ... people 
from the states coming in for training sessions, always marvel at 
how women here are at ease, varied in style, and usually pretty charming.

and some paths actually go for like 80km from top to bottom... 


in the state, we even have regional paths crossing entire regions... 
everywhere... you can litterally pedal several hundred kilometers 
in a pretty straight line many directions  :-)

and where I use my race-bike is on the Formula 1 race track...   
on circuit Gilles-Villeneuve which is reserved for walking, cycling, 
and skating.   its one of the few places on the island where you 
are allowed to go well over 40km/h on your bike without getting speeding 
fines  :-)

and grow legs :-D

(and I have an abundance of legs...)

2 of my 3 children born in Montreal but both declined to go to U. 
there ... I don't get back often ... I always found spring too short: 
a long winter and suddenly its summer and hot and muggy (not like 
St Louis or Memphis, but still ...)  Fall was usually great - and 
biking and skiing in the Laurentides - I started out in Levis, but 
only spent one summer at U. Laval ... in German - and one summer 
in college up in Lac St Jean (no English spoken up there ! )

and yes... seasons are a constant race  ;-)

BTW: I', living in the city where the Bycicle was invented.


Overall, it seems that mobility is an important topic here. Karl 
Benz was born in Karlsruhe as well. And the world's first "car" drive 
was just around the corner...

And what is Pekr going to use for the next Devcon?? :)

[I'm sure I posted this a few days ago....Perhaps the resync bug 
ate it]

On the R3 Alpha page, Carl name checks a couple of Windows sandboxes: 
Sandboxie and DropMyRights. Anyone have experience of using these?
http://www.rebol.net/wiki/R3_Alpha

Scheduler library released (see Announce channel). A few words about 
that :


- it allows you to program deferred tasks (like night batchs or short-term 
tasks like sending a mail in 10 minute from now).

- it's feature-close to CRON or QUARTZ java library (not covering 
100% yet).

- it needs a lot of additional testing before using it in production 
for critical tasks.

- some issues are not yet addressed like tasks execution overlapping 
over other tasks events, daylight saving gaps or system time changes.
- minimum delay between 2 events is 1 second.

- maximum delay between 2 events is 9999 hours (a little more than 
a year)

- event loop is currently a custom one, next version will add 'do-events 
patching for a easier and more transparent integration with View 
or network apps.

Perhaps someone else  could have a go at answering some of the outstanding 
and/or poorly answered questions regarding REBOL:
   http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=rebol&tab=newest

So, this is just an advocacy problem. Be nice to them there, and 
they'll be more likely to come here eventually.

and many don't learn by reading references.... rebol is after all 
more inclined to the technically savy and those on the other spectrum.

IMO coming here and asking  newbie questions is the same s asking 
them elsewhere.

Greg Higley has asked a few REBOL questions on Stackoverflow.
http://stackoverflow.com/users/27779/gregory-higley

It looks like just him and Reboltutorial are trialing Stackoverflow 
as a place for REBOL questions.


I am not convinced the competitive points scoring paradigm of Stackoverflow 
currently fits the more "amicable experts"  character of the REBOL-specific 
forums that exist.


I will attempt to answer questions on Stackoverflow as I am also 
critical of the somewhat unoutreaching character of most REBOL-specific 
forums [darknet / gated communities are terms that have been used]. 
But I am not greatly hopeful that Stackoverflow will become the premier 
destination site for REBOL questions....


....Thus leading to the obvious question: what should be that site? 
Maybe it is time to build it!

I think it is not all that good activity of Reboltutorial. He missuses 
SO for marketing purposes, and it got noticed. It is like I would 
ask questions there and send you over there to answer them for me 
...

[continuing a discussion from Core].....The occasional code golf 
type quiz can be fun, but only if the enough of the expert REBOLers 
have time to drop by and try their hand. Generally, I think they 
are more likely to respond to real problems rather than quizzes, 
but I am happy to be proved wrong.


BC – if you have an idea or two for a good round of Golf, we could 
start with a couple of new [web-public] groups here....It would not 
quite be as nice a website as (say) http://golf.shinh.org/but it 
would help gather the requirements and gauge the interest in a REBOL 
golf website.

Why not use easy puzzles then, then you don't need experts. Codegolf.com 
has a lot of really easy puzzles that everyone can solve, the focus 
lies more on how you solve them, not if you solve them and personally 
I like that approach better than bashing my head against the table 
for hours until I can finally start writing code. I really liked 
the 99 bottles of beer puzzle for example. You don't have to think 
about how you can solve it at all. You could just use a single print 
statement that outputs the lyrics in one go. The thinking comes when 
you try to make the code smaller.

I've even seen a karaoke version using tones and bouncing ball DOS 
graphics in the wee days of turbo C  :-D

In Hackety Hack (an app that teaches Ruby programming to kids) one 
of the first examples was how to use Ruby to mash up YouTube with 
the iTunes Top 10 music titles. You ended up getting a list of music 
videos for those top ten songs. It was just 5 lines or so and was 
pretty cool. I wrote an article a year ago teaching Shoes (a Ruby 
GUI toolkit) that mashed up YouTube with Twitter to show you videos 
of the current buzz on the net. Something like that is pretty easy, 
takes just a few lines, but the results are actually usable and fun.

re reboltutorial.....it looks like a CSS typo rather than a (bad!) 
design decision.

(The site has just changed hosts, and had a complete makeover....there 
are some tweaks and bug fixesstill needed).

I've send him what I think is the fix, but  it looks like reboltutorial 
is having a short post-move break.

Congratualtions to Maxim -- most prolific poster of 2009 in the [web-public] 
groups of this world. And to BrianH as a close runner up:
  http://www.rebol.org/aga-display-stats.r?world=r3wp&year=2009


Over 36,000 posts from just over 100 people.....It's an indication 
of the size of the active REBOL developers' community.

And of just how active we are - that's a lot of posts.

He's been posting a lot lately, especially in the R3 groups and his 
project groups.

A better measure might be words [or bytes] posted rather than total 
posts.....Some people post every new line (understandable given AltME's 
post-losing abilities) and that boosts their post count over those 
of us who....


....use multi-paragraph posts. [That's a hint for you and your 2010 
aspirations, Graham ;)]

Still, however it is measured, we have worthy champions.

They use one fat Oracle server, that has some bugs and is not patched 
correctly so that everyone can grab some data, burn it and sell it.

Excuse the lack of "and Russian" above, mistake.

you didn't hear about the president and top military brass dying 
in the plane crash?

a plane crashed, carrying the president and many top level govt. 
staff:


The fiery crash killed off a wide cross-section of Poland’s most 
important political, military and financial figures, many of them 
heroes of the anti-communist struggle.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/a-dramatic-end-to-a-divided-era-in-modern-polands-history/article1530957/

and reports are that its the president's direct fault, since he ordered 
the pilot to ignore requests by the control tower which told them 
to stop landing and go to another airport, because of heavy fog.

I see it as a security risk, to allow such many important ppl to 
have on one plane. Sad event, I live 5 km from Poland border, we 
have many ppl with polish nationality here, we bear with them. And 
also strange symbol - they travelled to Russia because of past Katyn 
event, where Stalin killed 20 thousands of polish nationality - top 
politicians, military ppl, teachers, etc. - simply they killed polish 
elite of that time ...

(I heard, recently, that as far as Katyn goes, there were about 22 
thousands polish elites, and about 500 czechs too)

Yes, they simply eradicated all polish elite. This was an ultra-crime, 
and Poland will not forget it anytime soon. They were also first 
post-communistic country, who sacked russian army from their country 
IIRC.

Sad news indeed. And there are a number of movies about the Rwandan 
genocide. I've watched at least three.

History shows, that culture is only a very thin layer. And a lot 
of people on this planet seem to have a problem with human rights 
and freedom.

So, Cyphre, yes, I agree. And the worst is, that children are the 
victims without a lobby, without a chance. They were not asked to 
be born and fully depend on the responsibility of others.

wrt Rwanda, imagine being a UN "observer" (military) and not having 
the right to intervene, when people & kids are being hacked to death 
all around you.   A while ago,  I was in the company of such a guy 
who came back from a 3 month mission there.


The only way I can describe him was that he was barely alive.  I 
am only aware of him sleeping 30-60 minutes in the 3 days he was 
with our gang.

(easy to say now) but in such a situation I wouldn't care about "the 
right to intervene" and just do it. In Serbia this could have saved 
8000 people as well.

Robert, I agree... and I am sure many military did what they could... 
a few probably went AWOL, but I am sure the UN peacekeepers (what 
a stupid name) where as affraid of being killed, if they intervened, 
as any.


thing is, if any of the UN military got actively involved, it would 
have made Every other UN unit a target for the mob.  remember, we 
are talking about thousands of armed people running like madmen, 
screaming everywhere and you are right in the swarm...


I don't think four guys in a APC with 200 bullets each are eager 
to intervene in such circumstances.  They could shoot to kill only 
if directly attacked.

Is anyone here living in San Francisco? I will be there a couple 
of days starting Wednesday 29th. If, and you are interested to meet, 
drop me a PM. Thans.

That's nice :-) I do remember names like Jeff Kreis, Andrew Martin, 
Frank Sievertsen, Romano Paolo Tenca, and I also most probably forgot 
some other nice rebollers :-)

Shadwolf - and what you suggest to do, to change the situation? You 
can surely help with RED in the meantime, as it is open sourced, 
and that's wha you have wished for all the long time ...

I will not apport to anything related from far or close to rebol 
in anyway I made myself clear... On the paper red is interesting 
but so was freebel and R-Sharp and Ghost etc... all of them lacked 
your implication and comitement Pekr to be something else than wanabe 
tries :)

I'm retired from rebol community this means no more me doing things 
and wasting my free time. I just come time to time to see if my prediction 
were accurate.. And so far so good please do me a favor keep doing 
nothing for rebol :)

r3 GUI ? sleeping R3 sleeping RebCode ? who cares RebPlugin Webrowser? 
dead etc etc etc etc more the time pass and less form as Rebol ... 
And pekr this is your fault not only yours  but  you have a big responsability 
in it...