Hypocrites.
I make this countercharge: It's somewhat incongruous for a patent system to be opining on a[n internet] bookseller. When the patent office was started, the reviewers understood what they were granting patents on. That is clearly no longer the case; witness the granting of a patent for a device to communicate faster then the speed of light. Mr. Ellis demands knowlege of the subject matter if we are to criticize him and the patent system, yet at the same time implies that he has every right to enforce a patent system on us (as I count myself an internet developer, though not a great one) that is absolutely incapable of meeting the same criterion with regard to the Internet.
if hostOf(Cookie) == hostOf(currentPage){
return CookieIsFromMainPage; }
else {
return CookieIsExternalToPage; }
Patent Watch: Slashdot yesterday ran a story about IDcide, a cookie-watching program that prevents cookies from off-site being returned to the server. Consider this line from their FAQ: "IDcide's patent-pending technology automatically distinguishes between persistent cookies sent to the site you are visiting and persistent cookies that are sent to external sites."
Yesterday was actually a busy newsday, so let's catch up. I made notes :-) ...
News from Yesterday:
More Mattel CyberPatrol madness. Here are some links to understand what's going on:
- cphack Mirror and Analysis: "At a bare minimum, public institutions
should be prohibited from using any filtering software which does not make its complete block lists available for public inspection!" - from privacy_forum_notes.txt - What You Aren't Supposed To Know, like rec.games.chess is banned by this program.
- A list of other resources
News from Today:
It would seem Userland picked a really good time to upgrade ETP.com, when the network was going down anyhow! I should be so lucky!
Final proof that there will be a webcast. Now... perhaps some details... ?