Slashdot Mirror

The trick is to be able to prove this is exactly what they are doing and then the gov't could maybe finally break them apart.

http://www.answers.com/monopoly&r=67 Monopoly defnition:

3.
a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
b. A commodity or service so controlled.

But as an afterthought, I suppose mcaffee and norton could just do the same thing?

Umm, while your post does contain some insight, let me direct you to the DEFINITION of competition:

http://www.answers.com/topic/competition

The very first definition invalidates your entire point. To quote (and I double-checked this with my personal dictionary, it states the exact same thing) "1. The act of competing, as for profit or a prize; rivalry."

Funny, maybe you are unaware of this definition.

Not necessarily. Perhaps you mean the very-latest, Quake4 engine? In which case, you're right.

However, the Quake engine source code was released under the GPL by Carmack back in 1999.

source: http://www.answers.com/topic/quake-engine

From the above link:

On December 21 1999, John Carmack of id Software released the Quake engine source code on the Internet under the terms of the GPL license, allowing programmers to edit the engine and add new features. Soon programmers were releasing new versions of the engine on the net. A few of the most known engines are:

        * DarkPlaces - An engine modification that adds realtime lighting and shadowing, Quake III BSP support, a completely new renderer, and many other features.
        * Tenebrae - A derivative that was the first to introduce realtime lighting and shadowing to the Quake engine.
        * Telejano - A modification that adds many more features and particle effects.
        * Tomaz Quake - One of the first Quake engine modifications on the net.
        * Twilight Engine - Fastest of the known Quake engines, this modification is based on performance rather than extra features.

    I don't want to get into the "GPL isn't completely free" argument, but that's a pretty nice thing to have released, if you're a small-time developer/hobbyist.

Filesharing != Collaboration

By Deliberatley did you mean Deliberately? http://www.answers.com/deliberately&r=67 I'm not sure you should be making an argument against their spelling when you yourself can't spell.

The common criminal that stabs a dude for a laptop wouldnt know how to pick a lock. If anything he would try to cut the laptop free with his knife. Or if he was somewhat prepared he would have a pair of dikes.

http://www.answers.com/topic/lock-picking#wp-Tubul ar_locks

what's a sidewalk?

For many the term science refers to the organized body of knowledge concerning the physical world, both animate and inanimate, but a proper definition would also have to include the attitudes and methods through which this body of knowledge is formed; thus, a science is both a particular kind of activity and also the results of that activity.

Anybody remember the Lotus Notes "language helper" and the EFF investigation on it? I am not totally surprised that the NSA would have total access to the backbone here, or maybe even in a few countries that would go to war if they found themselves digitally raped by the USA. But, the rules of spying mean once your ass is caught, you GET what you DESERVE, even if you simply disappear. As for fiction fans, that could apply to sneaky submarine operations, too, in my book.

But, back to the "REAL" ("Matriczed") world...

EFF: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/?f=decrypt ing_puzzle_palace.article.txt

Lotus Notes ships in two versions. DonUt count on much protection from the ...
  head of NSA, would rebuff FBI attempts to get a little help from his agency. ...
www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/ ?f=decrypting_puzzle_palace.article.txt - 42k - Cached - Similar pages

Lotus Notes: Information From Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/lotus-notes
Lotus Notes Messaging and groupware software from Lotus that was introduced ...
  At one point, Lotus negotiated an agreement with the NSA that allowed export ...
www.answers.com/topic/lotus-notes - 51k - Cached - Similar pages

=======

Disclaimer:

I LIKE Lotus and some of their products, especially SmartSuite, and of them particularly Lotus Approach and Lotus Word Pro. I REALLY wish these two things would go dual-licensing/dual source. OF course S/S lacks a ton of stuff that OO.o & SO have, but they've got stuff that OO.o and SO simply lack: Lotus Approach, and Lotus Word Pro's ease of use. They probably won't have it for another 10 years.

Considering that Sisyphusean isn't a real word, but Sisyphean is, I think he may have got the spelling right.

(links go to answers.com, but the OED agrees)

Considering that Sisyphusean isn't a real word, but Sisyphean is, I think he may have got the spelling right.

(links go to answers.com, but the OED agrees)

The Koreans are probably very premature in initiating a domestic robotics project at this time since AI is a necessary substrate and it isn't there yet.

Does it come in Linux?

Does it run Pink?

Private information can be subpeonaed for good and just reasons for a criminal investigation under guidelines of the constitution. The war on terror didn't change that.

Read the definition of a subpeona please. Stop the war on terror FUD. Also, this isn't a criminal matter. No one ever said it was. You might want to stop the FUD on that subject too.

Private information can be subpoena'd if a crime has been committed.

Or for civil cases. Or in a number of other situations. Subpeona.

Grow a brain ... stop bending over everytime someone wants something from you

Perhaps someone with a brain might want to know what a subpeona is before he says stupid things on a message board.

And I didn't say anything about whether they ought to get the information. I actually think they shouldn't unless the court safeguards the ISP's users.

no, no, no.
These are Eastern RPGs

who told you they were books?

Mac OS X was released on March 24, 2001. Just because Apple gives it a new "big cat" nickname and charges you for it doesn't make it revolutionary. I've "seen what's changed in 4 years" on a Mac and I have to say it's not that much.


OMG. Are you playing that same damn stupid game the previous guy is playing. First of all HE named OS X Tiger .. not me .. so if you want to compare with the first OS X, then HERE are the sys. reqs:

        * Supported Computers - Power Macintosh G3, G4, G4 Cube, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, iBook
        * RAM required - 128 megabytes of RAM recommended

        - 64MB minimum (barely usable)

        * Hard Drive Space - 1.5 gigabytes

        - 800MB for the minimal install

Awfully close to the "minimum specs" required to run XP wouldn't you say?

I'm getting too old for this site or something, cuz no one's *thinking* any more. :\ Anyone want my 4 digit /. id?

Average = (arithmetic) mean only by custom, not by definition.

Eventually, what is the custom will become the definition, and in this case I'd say it's most of the way there already. People tend to use the word average to refer to mean/median/mode, but in most of the cases where this is done, it's generally assumed that the three are the same.

But yes, I do agree with you ... words mean what people want them to mean. But if you give somebody a bunch of numbers and ask them to find the average, will most people 1) add them up and divide by the number of numbers, or 2) sort the numbers and find the number in the middle, or 3) find the number that is the most common in the group? People may not understand the difference between mean, median and mode ... but they generally do know how to calculate averages, and they will generally use the formula for calculating the mean.

It is perfectly possible for the majority of people to be above the mean [average] or modal [average] but impossible for the majority to be above the median [average].

In any event, my favorite example for when talking about this sort of thing is this --

Most people have more than the average number of legs.

In case an explanation is required (it shouldn't be, but some need one), most people have two legs. A few people have one or zero legs, but nobody that I'm aware of has three legs (we'll leave that joke alone) so the average (mean) number of legs that people have is 1.98 or so, and most people have more legs than that. The median and the mode are both 2, but the average is 1.98 or so.

Ultimately, not everything has a nice Gaussian distribution.

And as for `incompetent, and unaware of it', I'd consider those results to be pretty much common sense, or at least they mirror my experiences. One thing I've learned over the years is that it's not always about what you know -- it's also about what you do when you don't know (know how to look it up!) and most importantly, to know when you don't know. It's true that most of the really smart people I know know lots of things, but they also know what they don't know.

As for Jerry Taylor, I can understand him not understanding the message he found on the web page. Yes, it's there in relatively plain English, but people do make mistakes. But really, if somebody responds to you politely and points out that they're not to blame and that somebody else is, perhaps you should at least consider that they might be telling the truth and check into that before continuing the tirade. And his `apology' (I use the term lightly here) at the end (the site is down, but I read it earlier ... it was `it's unfortunate that it took all these accusations to get to the truth' or something like that) ... if there was ever any doubt before, it tells us a lot about how Jerry responds to people who point out his mistakes. Jerry may have welcomed the publicity then, but I doubt he does now. I wonder if he even has a job anymore.

Irony: Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

QTVR just has to render (essentially) a 6-polygon skycube, whereas the actual game has to render many times that. One would expect the QTVR render to be much faster than the game.

...are there really that many idiots who can't read a fucking dictionary?

I dunno. Do you count yourself as one of them?

Democracy consists of you and your neighbors deciding most of what government does to you. An elected senate dictating tiny details of everyday life to people hundreds of miles away is not democratic. Every matter being a national winner-takes-all battle is not democratic.

You are using a very narrow/archaic definition of democracy. See here.

democracy: 1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

Not that there is a bat's chance read these, but I invite you to research the enrolled bill rule, with reference to the scotus case Field v. Clark.

I'll even give you a start: http://www.answers.com/topic/enrolled-bill

You couldn't be more wrong.

LCD
LCD
LCD
LCD
LCD

"Newton's Laws of Motion? Kepler's Laws? Mendelian genetics? I don't think you can get much more basic than that."

You must be joking!

What possible profit did Newton expect from doing his work? He did his work while being supported by what can only be described as public funding.

"" I refuse to use non-standard English to placate you. "Private" means "non-government", irrespective of profit motive. ""

Semantics apart, your "example" hasn't supported your previous claims.

Not all of that so-called "basic research" has been government funded though. And even to the extent that it is, so what? Private companies anticipate, and then respond to the actions of others, like government, in researching other areas.

I emphasise "Private companies". None of the examples you gave can certainly fit into that category.
Most came from universities and thus public/common funding and Mendel was a part of a religious order.

[Private Company
  A company whose ownership is private and, thus, do not need to meet the strict SEC filing requirements of public companies.] in http://www.answers.com/private+company&r=67

It's as simple as this:

* To do applied research you usually (not allways but almost) need a solid background of basic "pure" science
* That "pure" science by itself is anything but profitable but is essential for other things to generate profit

It's the classic scenario, it's a dirty job, but someone has got to do it.
I can assure you, private companies will have nothing to do with that because it's simply not profitable.

I don't care whether it's the government or some other entity. What I'm saying is that assuming greed and profit *alone* is the best way to keep science evolving is just not realistic.

I attest the word he was thinking of was contend.

I was going to joke about DNA... But then I realized it wasn't a double-helix.

yes it is. You are either unintelligent or incomprehensible which makes you rather unintelligent too..

Grammar tip: "Effect" is a verb. "Affect" is a noun.

I know this is entirely off-topic, but I feel I must comment. Frankly, you're wrong. "Affect" and "effect" are both nouns and both verbs.

You can read the verb and noun definitions of affect here. You can read about those of effect here, if you want to learn more.

Anyway, please change your sig. It's bad to spread misinformation.

Grammar tip: "Effect" is a verb. "Affect" is a noun.

I know this is entirely off-topic, but I feel I must comment. Frankly, you're wrong. "Affect" and "effect" are both nouns and both verbs.

You can read the verb and noun definitions of affect here. You can read about those of effect here, if you want to learn more.

Anyway, please change your sig. It's bad to spread misinformation.

Finally the government operating a natural role as the infrastructure monopoly investing in the startup of private American industry. NASA overall has produced probably the best ROI on any US government investment in the 20th Century. And the US space industry is at the crossroads for going live, both positioned to deliver services and facing foreign competition.

Let's spend hundreds of billions of the dollars that we currently mostly waste on Pentagon corporate welfare that makes the US feared around the world instead spent on NASA investment in infrastructure to support private corporations. Let's get the US aerospace industry to compete by raising private investment to fund competitions for achieving goals like Lunar power stations and manned Martian research bases. Let's get NASA to become solely a policy, design, testing and certification agency, and subsidize American corporations to pass our highest criteria ahead of foreign ones.

Let's take it to the stars!

We're getting a little off topic here, but I suspect you're getting analogies confused with metaphors. Metaphors and similes are not the same thing. Metaphors and similes can both be used to express an analogy: http://www.answers.com/analogy&r=67#Grammar. An analogy has nothing to do with grammar, nor is it a figure of speech; it's just a similarity or comparison drawn between two things, which is often used for logical inference.

What a wonderful word ... Fabulous choice, since it's really IP laws that are sophistry ...

As long as they don't shut down the plastic flower pot manufacturer's sites... But who knew that the 7th most popular non adult web search in China is Plastic flowerpot manufacturer... http://www.accoona.com/about/press/press_release_2 [accoona.com] 005_03_29_001.jsp Yes, it ranks above emmigration!!!!

"Not surprising as "emmigration" isn't a word. How does it rank compared to immigration?

POSICKS ?
POSIX# ?
POSIX.NET ?
MoSftIX ?
ME-NIX / YOU-NIX (from Win-ME)
which leads of course to the British slang ... WE-NICK...which is of course Billy's real talent.

See what you get when you click the Tell me about: Tiananmen link at the top of that search. I'll bet that's the kind of thing a Chinese IP gets when they search for it.

You're not the only one who was given pause by that.

Why do I suspect that a search engine backed by the Chinese government might not give you the helpful "Links have been removed by order of some guy with a gun" messages at the bottom of censored results?

Actually I've been surprised for a while that the PRC didn't just start it's own search engine and blocking everything else. (Although I guess why bother, when you can get U.S. companies to bid against each other to do your censorship.)

However, they do seem to return Wikipedia links without problems (in fact, the Wikipedia article on "Tiananmen Square" is the #1 result when you search for that term, or several common misspellings) and the Wikipedia article is included in the "Acoona Answers" result on the term.

See:
http://accoona.answers.com/Tiananmen%20Square

Which is one reason that the trademark is not longer nearly as strong once it becomes synonymous. If "photoshop" becomes demonstrably equivalent to "edit an image", it becomes a generic trademark. At that point, it's not nearly as protected, and you can look forward to "Microsoft Photoshop".

http://www.answers.com/topic/genericized-trademark

I have read a lot of history about the Islamic empire that stretched from India to Iberia. This is largely an extension of my desire to understand Spanish history.

To say that Islam created these wonders is to ignore what was actually happening in the society that was the Islamic empire. The empire was tolerant of all religions and beliefs, including people "not of the book," which would include persons that were not Jews and Christians. This empire preached tolerance and benefitted from having non-believers because the government taxed non-believers more (which may have influenced the less-firm in their beliefs to convert).

The end result was a polycultural society that valued innovation, high art and wonderful architecture. And I would argue that it's not the dominant religion that was responsible but the society.

If you look at the last century, you'll see lots of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences coming from America (that would be The Great Satan to many Islamic societies -- especially Iran). Could it be that a polycultural society with vast natural resources is what helps in the creation of these innovations?

I look at these monocultural and intolerant societies as non-creators of advancements. For examples, one merely needs to look at Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran and China under the Cultural Revolution.

I agree that it is important to look to history and appreciate those innovations and inventions that came before but to suggest that a religion created these is to ignore what really happened.

I should note that, when Iberia turned monocultural and intolerent under the Kings of Castile and Aragon, they created and innovated such wonderous examples as the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion and forced conversion (and further persecution) of Jews and the encomienda system of tributory labor that was used to enslave and destroy Native American nations and civilizations. [sarcasm]It's a shame these innovations happened so long ago; they surely would have been awarded Nobel prizes for them.[/sarcasm]

I do not wish to detract from the religion that is Islam. I know a great number of practicing muslims and they are good people with whom I have very good friendships. I believe that people should get along with their neighbors and appreciate them more by striving to understand them. But the article seems to gloss over the fact that the culture probably begat the advancements rather than the religion.

They knew iraq wanted to invade, they told them, they asked them

" can we invade ? its really ours, kuwait is stealing our oil "

and usa lady APril said, "sure we have no interests, we dont care"

http://members.aol.com/bblum6/iraq2.htm

25 July: Saddam Hussein was personally told by the US
ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, in a now-famous remark, that
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border
disagreement with Kuwait." But she then went on to tell the
Iraqi leader that she was concerned about his massive troop
deployment on the Kuwaiti border in the context of his
government's having branded Kuwait's actions as "parallel to
military aggression".{11}

Transcript here - http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.h tml

Photo here - http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/8/8a /Saddam_anf_April_.jpg

Shes recently retired, but will not speak against her department or the govt. Basicly a suck-up.

So the real people behind the so called bad CIA decisions are the people in power, James Baker, Bush, and
good old Rumfseld and the rest of the NEOCONS.

Mental Disorder: a disorder of the brain that results in a disruption in a person's thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others and to work

Normal people are sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. It's evolutionarily important for it to be this way. Homosexuality clearly falls into the category of "mental disorder" and should be treated like one.

In fact, it was classified a mental disorder for much of the 20th century. It's only relatively recently that the gay agenda managed to declassify it as a mental disorder for scientifically dubious reasons.

Enormity, huh? If it was so nasty, why spend so much time playing it?

"Shaw's QofS Service has the potential........"

I am not really a grammar Nazi, nor am i Trolling. Really. But "QofS Service" would be expandeed to become "Quality of Service Service", and I cant really completely RTFA while laughing remembering about the RAS Syndrome

tool that translated English "internet" into German "beerdigen Netz"

For those playing at home: clue #1 | clue #2

Definition supplied here. Note that my usage corresponds to adj. 1 and 3, yours to 2 and 4. I'm hardly using a specialized, technical definition.

I'm surprised that in your studies you never ran across phrases like "the general expression", meaning "an expression true for every value of the variables involved."

Re: logic and induction

My major point was simply to distinguish induction from deduction. However, I should also point out that your quote from the Wiki,

Originally, logic consisted only of deductive reasoning which concerns what follows universally from given premises. However, it is important to note that inductive reasoning--the study of deriving a reliable generalization from observations--has sometimes been included in the study of logic

doesn't really support your claim that I'm using a specialized, abstruse meaning for the terms "inductive" and "logical"; rather, it would seem to suggest that the mainstream of philosophy agrees with me, and that your more flexible definition of logic which includes induction is only used by some.

But no matter; that's just an issue of wordplay.

The last word is yours.

You might want to look up the word "sequel" at some point. A sequel is a "follow-up" to a previous work. Given that all the Final Fantasy games use the same magic, items, and contain common elements with each other - they're all sequels.

Now just because something is a sequel doesn't mean it can't be innovative (see the Zelda series) - it's just in Final Fantasy's case, they weren't innovative and just more of the same. But they were all sequels.

A Democracy is a system of government where the citizens vote directly on the laws that govern them.

That may have been true once, but language changes over time. In common use, the word "democracy" includes democratic republics such as the USA. Don't take my word for it, of course:

Democracy:

Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. [Emphasis mine.]

PS: While we're being pedantic, apostrophes are not used for personal pronouns. "...has been from it's inception..." should be "...has been from its inception...".

from:

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=30m edt6bi6a6n?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Behind+the+Lau ghter&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc04b&linktext=Behi nd%20the%20Laughter

"northern Kentucky" was changed to "southern Missouri" for some regions' airings of the episode, and completely different locations for other regions, so the mystery (or joke) continues.

Speaking of years, a near equivalent of Backus-Naur Form had been used sometime in 5th century BCE (yes, 2500 years ago) by Panini to describe the grammar of Sanskrit language.

5% of all security advisories cause ophthalmitis.

I would guess it's Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service http://www.answers.com/topic/multichannel-multipoi nt-distribution-service