To LUGNET HomepageTo LUGNET News HomepageTo LUGNET Guide Homepage
 Help on Searching
 
Post new message to lugnet.roboticsOpen lugnet.robotics in your NNTP NewsreaderTo LUGNET News Traffic PageSign In (Members)
 Robotics / 6678
    O'Reilly book news —Jonathan Knudsen
   The MIT Press bookstore will have a booth at MindFest; they will be selling my book. The release date for the book is October 15, in plenty of time for Christmas. Finally, the title will probably change, to avoid legal trouble with you-know-who. (...) (25 years ago, 3-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
     (...) Really? Lawyers are silly. What possible problem could there be? (25 years ago, 3-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Jonathan Knudsen
   (...) The whole thing is kind of silly. LEGO felt that we shouldn't be allowed to publish a book without paying them a license fee. We didn't think we needed to pay a license fee to write about their product; after all, we don't do that for anyone (...) (25 years ago, 3-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
     Jonathan Knudsen: (...) How about a "name the book" contest? - Learning NQC, pbFORTH, and legOS - Mastering Plastic Binding Brick Robots with Lots of Neat Moving Parts - RCX Programming in a Nutshell - RCX Hacking: The Definitive Guide - Essential (...) (25 years ago, 3-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Jason Spangler
      (...) I say use the situation to your advantage and make it sound rebellious: - Unauthorized Secrets of RCX Programming - The Unofficial, Unauthorized Guide to LEGO® MINDSTORMS™ - The Black Book of RCX Voodoo (okay, this one is a little over the (...) (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Russell Nelson
      Todd Lehman writes: > How about a "name the book" contest? Programming Plastic Brick Robots (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Jacob Schultz
      (...) How about 'Literature on Electronic Gadget Operation - Master Invention of Navigating, Dazzling, Supercharged, Thinking, Outstanding Robotic Miniature Systems'? Jacob (25 years ago, 5-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Mikkel Benedikt Breiler Mikkelsen
      (...) heh. I see your point :-) (25 years ago, 7-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Suzanne D. Rich
      (...) Ooo, I can't resist this.. love your last one, Todd. It would have the Energizer Bunny on the cover, right?.. oh no, then there'd be trouble with another company. ok, how 'bout - "These ARE the 'droids You're Looking For." - Programming the (...) (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Martin Erdelen
      (...) ... and we definitely need an appendix (or second tome, rather): Lawyer's EGOtiasis *) : A treatise on etiology, epidemiology, symptomology, dia- and prognosis of an infectious social disease. (...to which you shouldn't apply acronymization!!! (...) (25 years ago, 6-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Jack Perdue
     (...) - Legal Entanglements Go On (...) jack j-perdue@tamu.edu (25 years ago, 9-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
     (...) The silly part is that this book is basically free advertising and free excitement about their product. It's easily going to making them more money _without_ a license fee. (...) How about "Undocumented LEGO Mindstorms" or somesuch? (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Jonathan Knudsen
     (...) We considered this--Unauthorized, or Unofficial. It conveyed the meaning pretty well, but at the same time we felt that "Unauthorized" had a connotation that the information might not be particularly accurate, which it is. It's really out of (...) (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Larry Pieniazek
     (...) If there was any doubt in anyone's mind that TLG doesn't "get it", this should pretty firmly put it to bed. TLG should be falling all over themselves to give technical information to make sure the book is correct, and that it encourages people (...) (25 years ago, 4-Sep-99, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Suzanne D. Rich
   (...) What happened (apparently) is that LEGO now has their cake and eats it too. This makes me sick. I just discovered their page devoted to (quote) "some 'introductory' Books about LEGO MINDSTORMS." There I see two books, Jonathan's O'Reilly and (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego) ! 
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
     (...) If your browser doesn't support JavaScript (Lynx, W3M, etc.) or if you're running a browser that does, but you have it disabled, you won't be able to load the page. But if you still want to view the page, here's the page's actual URL (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —David Schilling
     (...) I don't really understand how the associates stuff works: if no one collects the referal fee, doesn't Amazon just keep it as extra profit for themselves? Certainly the authors don't collect a smaller royalty if a referal fee is given? So I (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
      (...) I just think it's incredibly ironic, if not a bizarre turn of events. It's surprising to see TLC jumping on the opportunity to take advantage of books written by people in the AFOL community that support it. Maybe they'll give a portion of the (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Dave Baum
      (...) I hope people don't get too worked up about all of this. I assume TLC decided to put links on their site, then someone had the idea that if they used an associate link, they'd get a little extra income. From their perspective, why not take (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
       (...) I agree with Suzanne -- it looks shoddy and unprofessional. I don't think it's immoral or anything, but it puts them on the same psychological level as some random person with a geocities page full of banner ads. (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics) ! 
      
           Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
        (...) Yeah! -- Well said! Here's what was going through my mind (and mouth :) when Suzanne showed me the page[1] earlier today: Suz: "Check this out...you're gonna love this..." (sarcasm) Todd: (seeing page on screen) "Ahh, [expletive deleted] cool (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
       
            Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
        (...) Y'know, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if if it turns out that the Amazon referrals aren't going to TLC at all, but rather to an employee of whatever web firm they contract out to. (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics) ! 
       
            Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
        (...) We were wondering that too. It wouldn't surpise me too much if "management" there was oblivious to the fact. I guess if the URL changes anytime soon... (smile) --Todd (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)
      
           Re: O'Reilly book news —Dave Baum
       (...) I also agree about how it looks...which is basically why I don't use an associate link on the NQC site (1). Dave (1) Acutally, I even debated about putting anything at all on the NQC site about my book. (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
       (...) That's certainly their choice. I just hope they realize it's sending a mixed message. If you don't know how to recognize an Amazon.com associate ID when you see one, it looks as though TLC is finally (yay) supporting these two wonderful books, (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics) ! 
      
           Re: O'Reilly book news —Todd Lehman
        (...) (The above is from April.) I just stumbled across this at the official LEGO Mindstorms website... (URL) worth adding a link to it just for posterity since it refers to specific articles on this thread by their URLs. Anyway, I'm not sure who (...) (24 years ago, 10-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
      
           Stereo Vision —Laurentino Martins
        Hi As you may know my current project has everything to do with image recognition. I was reading one tread in this newsgroup and suddenly it struck me that many of the problems I currently have in finding the contours of the objects can be overcome (...) (24 years ago, 10-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
       
            Re: Stereo Vision —Laurentino Martins
         This approach has several problems. One is that the left image will show you smaller objects than the right, because the light travels a greater distance. The second is that precision is very important and the mirrors must be fixed otherwise will (...) (24 years ago, 11-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
       
            Re: Stereo Vision (docs) —Marco C.
        Check this out ;) Recognizing Three-Dimensional Objects by Comparing Two-Dimensional Images. Daniel P. Huttenlocher, Liana M. Lorigo. IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. June 1996, San Francisco, CA, USA (URL) C. aka McViper (24 years ago, 11-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
      
           Re: Stereo Vision —Marco C.
        Yup :) I thought of, *after dealing with the mono vision*, going for a stereo approach, because this is one way of dealing with distance measuring, or at least, better object evaluation/recognition. At first I thought of using two USB cams, but (...) (24 years ago, 10-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
      
           Re: Stereo Vision —Marco C.
       (...) I'm planning to add a RCX to my CyberMaster, hopefully, this Xmas. I've done tests with MotorOutput->SensorInput direct connection and it works, using the Off() and Float() commands to simulate the On/Off state. Using a simple comms rotine, (...) (24 years ago, 10-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
     
          Re: O'Reilly book news —Scott Arthur
       I like the mindstorms site.If this small amount of cash help further develop/justify it power to them. I'd rather the 15% went to TLC rather than AMAZON, as I've found them to be a little shoddy in the past. It is good that TLC is willing to (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
     
          Re: Stereo Vision —Doug Weathers
       in article 4.3.2.7.0.2000081010...rktest.pt, Laurentino Martins at lego-robotics@crynwr.com wrote on 8/10/00 3:05 AM: (...) Always! You can rely on me to have thoughts. No guarantees about the usefulness of my thoughts, however. Use at your own (...) (24 years ago, 10-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
     
          Re: Stereo Vision (aka mirrors) —Marco C.
      (...) many (...) can be (...) Cool :) that might work too, and save about the other half of material to be used (+2 mirrors, +1 motor, +1 angle-sensor). er... I feel like having "my" solution simply slashed in the middle ;) eheheh This is really all (...) (24 years ago, 11-Aug-00, to lugnet.robotics)
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Sean Kelly
      (...) I suppose after paying $200 for a LEGO set that most people would be unhappy that LEGO got yet more money after buying a book from a third party that filled gaps in their original product. --Sean (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Suzanne D. Rich
      In lugnet.robotics, David Schilling writes: [...] (...) From what I understand, Amazon makes no profit when a book is 30% off list and then grants a 15% referral fee.[1] The 15% is a maximum. A visitor to their site would need to buy directly (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Mika Tuupola
     (...) This is what Internet _is_ today. Even though this might seem quite amusing, especially big companies just have to cover their back. There allways are people who are trying to sue (for reasons which are not undertandable to a netizen, but (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Blake Winton
     * Mika Tuupola <tuupola@appelsiini.net> [000408 09:44]: (...) For a differing viewpoint, check out (URL) 9:53am up 10 days, 10:27, 1 user, load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00 (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Dave Baum
     (...) I assume Jonathan (and ORA) went through the same discussions my publisher did with TLG regarding using "Mindstorms" in a book title. Lego had no problem at all with people writing books...in fact I've gotten a lot of encouraging feedback from (...) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego) ! 
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Rob Doucette
      "Dave Baum" <dbaum@spambgoneenteract.com> wrote in message news:dbaum-FAB69A.18...net.com... (...) Get both books, cheaper, from Varisty Books: (URL) (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
     (...) However, it seems extremely unreasonable in the case of books about a product. In fact, although I'm not a lawyer, this use of trademarks seems 100% within the precedent set for fair use: it's impossible to describe _without_ using the (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Matthew Miller
      (...) Not to mention, of course, the whole thing where these books are nothing but beneficial to Lego, and much more beneficial if they actually use their name in the title. (To make another analogy: a book called "How to use Linux" is nice for Red (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
    
         Re: O'Reilly book news —Dave Baum
     (...) There's tons of precedent on using trademarked names in titles of books. I don't believe my publisher was ever seriously concerned about losing a court case. But they didn't want to bother going to court, and there's a lot of value in a good (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
   
        Re: O'Reilly book news —Charles Eric McCarthy
     Suzanne D. Rich wrote: [snip] (...) Could you please explain further? What is an "associate code" and how does it work? /Eric McC/ (24 years ago, 7-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
   
        RE: O'Reilly book news —Ralph Hempel
   (...) Ummm, obviously that page isn't visited much by LugNuts. I found it by accident about a month ago after trying to log onto the forums after someone emailed me that they had rendered my compressor in MLCad. The hoops I had to go through to get (...) (24 years ago, 8-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics, lugnet.dear-lego)  
 

©2005 LUGNET. All rights reserved. - hosted by steinbruch.info GbR