USPTO Comedy, Episode #1,000,000 -- Microsoft patents sudo

[charlie]

The Groklaw dude is about to explode into confetti, he's so disgusted:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111094923390

The patent:

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,617,530.PN.&OS=PN/7,617,530&RS=PN/7,617,530

With irony thick enough to chew, the "Description" section details the horrors that can happen when Users are given elevated privileges by default. It's like a Duggar lecture on the consequences of fucking without rubbers.

...

And apropos of nothing, something that doesn't deserve a thread, but is too good not to share. A tweet from Greg Knauss:

"The Rock Band instruments are really the most effective dongles in copy-protection history."

http://twitter.com/gknauss/statuses/4947953461

[RoyGBiv]

1. Bilski ...

It's a loser's game to try to read SCOTUS just from the questioning during oral arguments, but if the tone and type of their questioning does mean anything, they're not too impressed by Microsoft's argument in the current Bilski case. If they go the right way and uphold the lower court's ruling, this could impact the way the USPTO does business and minimize such silliness. If there is any intellectual integrity among them at all, this is a situation where "original intent" could actually help the good guys. It was not the founder's intent in protecting copyrights and patents to create corporate monoliths whom you had to ask for permission to do anything.

Of course it might not affect this directly. Time to start putting together some prior art, of which there is an abundance for sudo.

[RoyGBiv]

2. BTW ...

Knauss's tweet might actually deserve its own thread.

There's been a subtle argument for a long time, going back to Lord British and his hacker turned security expert mentality at least, about the best method of copy protection. The software companies, specifically Microsoft, Atari, and Electronic Arts among others now defunct (think there'd be a hint in that), that the best way to discourage piracy would be actually to sell something tangible with the software.

Infocomm with The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ass well as other titles but HGTTG was famous for it, showed just how simple this could be. Even (or perhaps especially) among my hacker friends back then, none of them even considered trying to pirate HGTTG. You had to get the fluff and the Don't Panic button. It was essential, else no one would listen to you when you said you'd beaten the game.

Rock Band's method may be a bit heavy handed, but what Knauss says is true, and software companies would do well to take notice.

[Duer 157099]

3. ...and that's why I'm loving this development trend towards

input devices that use muscle sensing and other technologies.

http://procrastineering.blogspot.com/2009/10/guitar-hero-without-guitar.html

[RoyGBiv]

4. I like this comment from that blog ...

"I like systems that combine many modes of input so that you can dynamically choose the right device for the job and can gracefully scale to multiple people simultaneously. We are pretty far past having a 1:1 ratio between between people and computers. Yet, most systems today are still designed with 1 device and 1 user in mind."

Systems designed around a single input device have long been my bogeyman, and I'm surrounded by bogeymen.

The simplest way to explain the issue I personally have is to note the difference between using a keyboard and using a mouse. Most software written today is designed with a mouse-input GUI wrapper, but many still have keyboard "shortcuts." And, there's a reason they are called "shortcuts." With many tasks, it is often more efficient to use the keyboard. The focus is placed on the mouse input because it is often simpler for those who don't know the shortcuts and have no desire or ability to learn them.

But the current, popular trend is moving away from that. I recently installed a multimedia application on my Linux box, and to my shock and horror I discovered no keyboard input was possible. The entire menu system was represented graphically with icons and panels, and without a mouse, there was no way to interact with it. I discovered this initially when trying to quit the program. I couldn't find the Quit option and so did CTL-Q, which is pretty much universal but didn't work, and then CTL-X and E and finally just random keys and key combinations. Getting frustrated, invoked my drop-down terminal and killed it "manually" using the handy F12 key shortcut rather than opening my programs menu, which I couldn't access anyway because this program took over the entire display screen and, from what I could tell, could not be minimized.

I found the programs FAQ online and eventually figured out the various controls I couldn't find easily.

After the fiasco we had at Cox switching to a web-based customer account control system, I started watching people and taking note of how they did things both there at at my current job. No one does anything precisely the same way. Some use the keyboard as much as they can. Others only go to it when they have to. Most use a combination as they desire, sometimes preffering one over the other and systems designers would do well to recognize this as well.

This is what worries me about the current innovation in touch technology. Note the very first comment on that blog, that it seemed "weird" for the demonstrator to be using a keyboard while they had a touch table available. To my mind much of the implementation of this technology, rather than the technology itself, seems to be moving toward what I've feared in quasi-virtual reality systems like this for a long time, something that was dramatized badly in some Michael Douglas movie some years ago. We're recreating the environment and systems virtually that computers sought to replace due to the inefficiency of those environments and systems. I don't *want* all my documents spread out on a touch table. That's just using far, far too many resources to do the same thing I can do quite easily by randomly throwing my papers on my desk, ultimately to be lost until I find I have to spend an afternoon looking for that one problem report I need that I hadn't seen for a month. I'm exaggerating a bit, but many of these demonstrations lead directly to such exaggerations.

The last video on the blog post did show how it could be done better, integrating the input devices and allowing options for how to use them.

And sorry for the length here in reply to a simple comment. I'm wordy today.

Also sorry for the horrid typos in the earlier message. I hadn't had my coffee when I posted, I guess.

[Duer 157099]

5. Wordy is good

That blog author caught my attention via a Ted talk which, although being over a year old, was something I never heard of but now am compelled to do myself:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html

http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/

This guy is now involved in the development of the new thing for xbox, Project Natal

"No Strings (or Controllers) Attached.

"Introducing Project Natal, a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required. See a ball? Kick it, hit it, trap it or catch it. If you know how to move your hands, shake your hips or speak you and your friends can jump into the fun -- the only experience needed is life experience."

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

[pokerfan]

6. clearly prior art imo

Of course, this comes from the same merry band of bozos who maintain that they http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/10/silly_software__1.html">own the patent to the computer command line interface.