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"Then I observed to my delight that i could visualize with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is radially opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient. The moment one constructs a device to carry into practice a crude idea, he finds himself unavoidably engrossed with the details of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle. Results may be obtained, but always at the sacrifice of quality. My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever; the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results. There is scarcely a subject that cannot be examined beforehand, from the available theoretical and practical data. The carrying out into practice of a crude idea as is being generally done, is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money, and time."

Well, you opened this can of worms; so I'll close it. And by the way, I do not "hate America". On the contrary, I very much like and admire America, and almost all Americans. Which is why it depresses me so much when they write things like your last article.

"I hate everything french for all the basic reasons most people hate the french which are all more or less deeply rooted in their insurmountable arrogance".

Yeah, right. Those arrogant French, thinking they are God's chosen people! Don't they know that *Americans* are God's chosen people?

And they're a real bunch of chicken-livered, gutless surrender monkeys, too - right from Charles Martel who defeated the Arabs at the battle of Tours in 732 (preventing Europe from becoming a Muslim continent), to the heroes of the Resistance who fought on against one of the most viciously efficient repressions the world has ever known. By way of Joan of Arc, Napoleon and his soldiers who conquered Europe in about ten years (on foot), the Foreign Legion and many, many others. Not to mention Lafayette -

"In 1777, Lafayette purchased a ship, and with a crew of adventurers set sail for America to fight in the revolution against the British. Lafayette joined the ranks as a major general and was assigned to the staff of George Washington. He served with distinction, leading American forces to several victories. On a return visit to France in 1779 Lafayette persuaded the French government to send aid to the Americans. After the British surrender at Yorktown, Lafayette returned home to Paris. He had become a hero to the new nation. At home he cooperated closely with Ambassadors Benjamin Franklin, and then Thomas Jefferson in behalf of American interests". http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95sep/lafayette.h tml

As for the "surrender" part, in September 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany because it had invaded Poland. The USA did nothing. In 1940 Germany invaded France, launching one of the most inspired, unexpected, and vigorous surprise attacks in history. This defeated the large British and French armies, and compelled France to surrender. The USA still did nothing. At that time the US army (and other armed forces) were pathetic remnants. It took a full two years to get them up to a level at which the administration dared to enter the war. Had the USA been where France was in 1940 - right next to Germany, with a long land border - the Wehrmacht would have walked in, pulverised the US armed forces, and taken over the country with contemptuous ease. (Ask any competent American officer if you doubt this). With the Atlantic Ocean in the way, nearly two and a half extra years to get ready, about three times the population of either France or Germany, and far greater natural and industrial resources than both put together, the USA finally entered the war - but only when it was forced to because Hitler declared war on it.

As for "rescuing" France, don't be ridiculous. The USA was at war with Germany; to win, it had to invade Germany; and the only reasonable path lay through France. Taking credit for having liberated Europe, when the only reason the USA was even in the war was because the dictatorships attacked it, is the sheerest hypocrisy.

At least the French had the guts to take on Nazi Germany. The USA, which didn't dare take on Hitler, was happy to attack Saddam Hussein - a third-rate copy of Stalin, with a large army of disaffected, poorly-trained troops equipped with obsolete Soviet weapons. About as brave as a farmer going out with a combine harvester to cut a field of wheat.

Wiki says Marie died of leukemia, age 67 - not as old as I'd remembered.
It was probably caused by radiation:
http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q535.html
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/label_france/ENGLISH /SCIENCES/CURIE/marie.html
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95nov/curie.html

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/oconnor.htm l

You are correct. You are also anonymous and, therefore, a coward....

psst -- to all you blasting me -- do note I said, "correct me if I'm wrong." [sheesh]

How powerful may an engine be before it becomes 'obscene'? Where would you draw the line? Would you be as supportive of a hypothetical law limiting your encryption keys to 64-bits, or your CPU to 1.5MHz.

The freedom to drive a heavy or powerful vehicle on a public road infringes with your fellow trafficant's safety.

No citizen of any European country has the right/freedom to drive anything at all on a public road. Driving is a privilege, which we earn by proving that we are capable of safely operating a vehicle, ie passing the relevant driving test. Should we subsequently drive in such a manner as to cast doubt upon our safety, the privilege can be withdrawn. In general, the larger and more hazardous vehicles have more difficult and demanding tests associated with them; obtaining a licence to drive a private passenger/light goods vehicle (car) is far easier than for a heavy goods vehicle. Motorcycles have similar restrictions with regard to capacity, power and power-to-weight ratio, with, in the UK at least, three different licencing levels

In Europe we have little love for Hummers and their like. They bring on an inflation in vehicle size and weight, because they are perceived as a threat, and rightly so!

I'm not sure when you gained the authority to speak for the whole of Europe, but assuming you are also speaking for yourself, I agree with you. I would also add that higher fuel prices make such vehicles even more vulgar here than in their own country, and that they are simply too big for most European cities.

You are comparing apples with oranges. On one hand we have the liberty to infringe fellow citizens' physical or perceived safety.

OK, time to explode this myth before we go any further. You seem to agree with ex-Commissioner Bangemann that powerful motorcycles are a threat to the safety of road users. Not so. The 'study' used to back up Marvin's Directive took data from one small (>40 square miles) area of Germany, very popular with bikers for its open, winding roads, over a period of less than three months one summer. Later and wider studies showed the exact opposite - younger and less experienced riders, usually on lower-powered bikes, were more at risk of being involved in an accident.
Note that I say 'being involved in an accident' - not 'injuring another'. Most motorcycle accidents that cause an injury, cause that injury to the rider alone. This further detracts from your argument about 'infringement upon safety'.

On the other hand we have the liberty to infringe on other people's (read: companies') ideas. One is in the physical realm, the other is in the realm of ideas. I, for one, would like to keep those apart.

This reaches to the heart of the software patent argument. As patent law stands, you cannot patent an idea. All you can do is to patent an implementation of said idea. Ergo, an idea cannot currently be infringed upon.
For example, imagine that, in 1854, somebody had patented the idea of reducing the carbon content of cast iron so as to produce steel. However inefficient their method, Henry Bessemer's conversion process would have infringed upon it, and cheap, reliable steel production would have been delayed for twenty years.
So yes, let's keep the physical and the imaginary apart.

What is troubling with the attitude of freedom-loving bikers is the strong sense of entitlement. I hope that it is not the dominant attitude among motorcyclists, because it reflects badly on them all!

Entitlement didn't come into it, the reason for uproar was discriminatory treatment. No power restrictions were mooted for any other vehicle, even for learners and 'new drivers'.

basic scientific research

law enforcement... military defense

development of open protocols like TCP/IP

providing health insurance that doesn't leave you filing for bankruptcy if you get sick

Not sure about COPELAND but I remember Copland

Remember it so well I even commented on it. Lame moderators only gave me a 3 though. Bastards.

Did you know Wagner was an Anarchist?
http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/anarc.html/
http://www.lucidcafe.com/lucidcafe/library/96may/w agner.html/
http://consumerinfo.tultur.com/-/B0000AZW7O/The-Tr istan-Chord/

I don't know where you were looking but there's actually quite a bit of information on him and his inventions. I was really into Tesla when I was younger (and still am for that matter) and as a result have done a few biographies/reports on him. One of the most interesting reads is his autobiography, which is available online at this place as well as a few others. Amazon also lists quite a few books and videos. There's a lot of wierd things surrounding his life and inventions, such as the FBI confiscating his papers after he died, reports of an electric car he mad that ran off a mysterious black box at up to 70mph, and numerous claims purporting him to have come from Atlantis and/or outer space.

Your third point would seem to be directly in conflict with an article on the US Zepplin the Macon from 1933.

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/macon.html

Actually, it isn't a blimp, it's a proper Zeppelin. The difference? A Zeppelin has a rigid frame, a blimp does not.

Did you know that the US Navy built a few Zeppelin Aircraft Carriers in the 1930s? That's right - Zeppelins that could carry, launch and recover fighter aircraft. Fighteres were carried in a compartment in the body of the airship and were launched and recovered from a "trapeze". Link with pictures.

Zeppelins are cool. I wish they'd become more widely adopted. Stoopid Hindenburg painted with Stoopid rocket fuel...

pridie Idibus martibus ==> X. X. Xxxx became First Xxxxxxxx "President" for life!

While I expected "Mutant X" to be science fiction, watching it proved that clearly erroneous. The "evil" villian was clearly Andy Warhol, while the so-called heroes were Gap-clad Abercrombie models. I took the show to be about the struggle between Waholian pop culture and the modern mass market commodification of beauty that may be traced, in part, back to that artistic movement.

- All your nuclear weapons and X-Ray machines (since radioactivity was discovered by the French Marie Curie in the 19th century)

ahem - the Polish Marie Curie!

"My roast tastes best at 203 degrees F."

They don't give out Nobel prizes for "Most Novel New Method to Kill People"

You do know how Alfred Nobel made his fortune, right?

'Monads' are part of Leibnitz's philosophy, which Voltaire famously satirised in Candide with the figure of Dr. Pangloss, who resolutely maintained that we live in 'this, the best of all possible worlds' despite a succession of disasters that would convince any sane man that he was wrong.

How very suitable for a Microsoft product.

I think you are mistaken; history suggests that rationality is not always present in battle, and that there are always more people ready to kill without thought for consequences. It is certainly a Nobel thought, though.

Probably because Alexander Graham Bell was a Canadian (via Scotland). He died in Nova Scotia. Of course you can attribute the development of the US/Canadian phone system to his business.

This school seems both refreshing and long overdue. However, even this school which boasts of a well rounded curricula, falls short of a well rounded education. Namely: physical fitness. Ralph Waldo Emerson comments on what he believes to be a well rounded education in his essay "The American Schholar", and I find his views very similar to many of the comments by /.'ers, who are for the most part, geeks. Does that make Emmerson a geek? Or does that mean that most geeks are more well rounded than they are given credit for.

Full text of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" on Bibliomania.

Short distillation of his life on Licidcafe, along with some linkage.

biz/ed has topics on both Economic Systems and Game Theory which include lots of relevant material.

but i agree with your synopsis. Mr C is screwed.

I'm quite impressed that your karma hasn't evaporated so far, and I assume that since you're worried about it then you must have some, which implies that you've been around on Slashdot for at least a little while without blowing your top..... impressive.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that my post wasn't smacked down to -1 in short order. I attribute this to the fact that it was long. Most people read the first paragraph or two and gave up.

But I didn't mean to imply that I was worried about my karma. It's nice to know that I've got some, and all that, but it's not like I can redeem it for valuable prizes or a lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni.

And finally, I blow my top plenty. I guess I just do it way down near the bottom of long threads, where moderators rarely go. Up near the surface, where there are more eyeballs, one should be more civil.

I can't say I totally understand your complete opposition to GPL - I think you could benefit from separating the message and the speaker.

Oh, you may have a point there. But RMS's rhetoric makes me slightly suspicious of everything he says and does-- not tin-foil-hat suspicious, but it definitely bothers me. So based on that, the GPL and all of RMS's other intellectual output is tainted. I'm even starting to wonder if Emacs is part of some hidden agenda.... ;-)

But in all seriousness, it's not hard to read the GPL and find yourself muttering the word "insidious." Buried deep in the document are restrictions and requirements that have serious implications for people who use GPL'd software. The case of GNU Readline is one example.

But as I said in my manifesto-- I mean post-- the thing that really gets my ire up is his misleading and deceptive use of the word "free" to apply to something which embodies the opposite of freedom.

When I've expressed that opinion before, people have responded that the GPL guarantees freedoms by imposing some slight restrictions. I think that's doublespeak. The GPL doesn't really guarantee freedom of any kind; it guarantees availability of source code. Once something has been licensed and released with the GPL, it can never be proprietary again. (There may be exceptions that I'm not aware of. I don't think they're that important to my point.)

Now, whether or not this is a good thing is not my bone of contention. Like all things, I'm sure there's a case for it and a case against it. My problem is that the true message of the GPL-- which is that you're putting severe limits on how people may use the software, and putting a heavy burden on them if they do-- is hidden behind that misused word: free.

I believe when most laymen hear the term "free software," the first thing they think is "zero cost." If they consider it a bit further, they think "unrestricted." I think it's reasonable to believe this, because even RMS writes at length on how that's not what "free software" means in one of his writings; I think it's "What is Free Software?" but I'm not in the mood to go look just now.

"Free" means "zero cost" and "unrestricted." That's where the average person will stop. That's where I stopped, back when I first ran into the stuff. In my case, my company acted without understanding all the meanings of the term "free software," and got in trouble for it. We were deceived, deliberately or inadvertently, into thinking that "free software" meant "unrestricted software," when in fact it means the opposite of that.

This is dangerously close to being a bait-and-switch tactic.

All the virtues of "free software" are right out there in public view. But once you start using it, you quickly find yourself obligated in ways you were not anticipating. I consider that to be the opposite of "free."

If they would drop the "free" label and go with some other name-- like Permanently Open Source Software, or Public Source Software maybe-- and clean up their rhetoric so it sounds a little more like Rousseau and less like Riefenstahl then I'd be happier. I still wouldn't agree, but I wouldn't be so vehemently opposed, either.

Prior to that it was just a land-grubbing, republican nation-state.

Tesla's experiments into wireless energy transmission would have spelled the end of the energy industry as we know it, as well as the end of conventional radio and television transmission as a limited resource doled out by the FCC, as we have seen all of this become. His Autobiography is very interesting albiet very quirky. It is also interesting to note that over half of his patents and papers remain classified by the U.S. government to this day. Try getting them through the FOIA act, I dare you. It would actually be an interesting experiment. You can read about alleged uses and abuses of Tesla's wireless technology in the book about Project HAARP, entitled Angels Don't Play This haarp: Advances in Tesla Technology which puts forth evidence that Project HAARP's goals aren't as benign as they would like you to think, and that the weather modification aspect of the techology has been tried extensively for less than good purposes. Food for thought and grounds for further research. (http://www.haarp.net/ HAARP book home page.)

Technically she is actually the Queen of England like Elizabeth I was, but she is actually the sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Commonwealth, 'of English' is a lesser title of the former.

Glad I switched to espresso!

Actually, espresso is healthier! You can see at David Schomer's Caffeine Study that espresso has less caffeine than regular coffee.

Many good espresso machines have high pressure pumps that can sustain 15+ bars, but the extra pressure is for headroom: The machines are engineered to deliver 8 to 9 bars of pressure to the compressed coffee puck, assuming proper packing. Higher pressure can leach undesirable flavor compounds from the coffee and is to be avoided.

For more, see David Schomer's "Factors in a Perfect Cup (of espresso)" or for deep coverage read Illy and Viani's Espresso Coffee : The Chemistry of Quality.

It amazes me that you could write so innocently on this topic. You unknowingly gave a revelatory insight into the way MS programmers think, and how they are able to justify the work they do.

Before you can understand anything I will write in this short essay, you must realize that MS programmers think fundamentally differently than most free software/open source programmers. And that way of thinking is clipped by a desire for money which does not exist in the Open Source environment.

In essence, as you so eloquently made clear, we open sourcers do not work for money. We work primarily for passion, with money as a secondary issue. MS employees are the opposite, they tend to work for money first, and passion second. Thus 'they were continually amazed at the amount of work that is poured into free software,' as you said. To Open Sourcers, this is not a source of amazement. This is simply a moment of recognizing the fact that others enjoy programming as much as I do. Lots of others.

Work For Money vs. Work For No Money? It's not quite that simple, but you can understand a lot if you use that as a reference point in building principles to understand what is happening. Here is why I prefer this as a reference point:

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

If you stand back from the whole MS/Open Source debate from any distance, this kind of generalization becomes possible, and necessary if you want to comprehend it in a meaningful way. There are many complicated issues stemming from this single duality, none of which I want to address here.

My point is that MS employees work within the "old" American Dream, where all you need to do is get a decent job making money, work at it for a number of years, and voila! You're retired, driving your RV around the country, untrammeled by the daily woes of the great masses.

This doesn't work for the artist. The artist doesn't want to live a life dreaming of the future. The artist LIVES in the future, and makes his own life beautiful each day. Thus, you'll never find an artist in an RV. He can't afford one, and thus has no desire for one. Instead, he creates something beautiful each day, and sleeps well that night.

Sleeping that well at night is a mystery to the man who seeks money. Artists have all kinds of problems we don't need to get into, so I'm not glorifying the art of being an artist, I'm only presenting it side-by-side with the typical MS programmer, who works for money, not for passion. I work for passion. I create an entirely different kind of product than my co-worker, also a programmer, who works for money. Sure, he has passion, but it is sublimated beneath his desire to fulfill his portion of the "American Dream." I chuckle wrily at his earnest efforts to get something THAT ALWAYS MOVES AWAY FROM HIM.

I say, Major Burrito, latch on to the American Dream which is not an illusion. Let Nikola Tesla be your role model, not Thomas Edison. Both were phenomenal inventors. But a close study of their two lives reveals that one worked for money and the other worked for passion. (Both were money hungry, but one more than the other). Same with Salieri and Mozart, Plato and Aristotle, Freud and Jung, and so many other great dualities.

The point I want to make is that the MS perspective is only half the spectrum. The other half is populated by people who wonder what MS would be like if it were programmed by people with REAL passion, not one sublimated by other desires.

This is an easy thing to see for most Open Source programmers. As for whether Open Source programmers have talent or not... we do it the hard way. -Water Paradox

Wasn't Wagner's (sp?) "Ring Cycle" (I think I have that right) written (and performed) during the Nazi regime?

Now, it's been happening already. The insurance industry WILL discriminate on any measurable factors that will influence your future. If you're older they'll charge you more, if you're a male between 18 and 25 they'll charge you more. If you smoke they'll charge you more.

The problem with all of this, however, is that it's just a market driven Eugenics program. A certain person got into a little trouble for this back when he wanted lots of blonde haired blue eyed boys and girls. It was decided soon afterwards that eugenics is a bad idea because people can cause all sorts of Bad Things (tm) to happen when they start meddling.

*ponders this for a moment* Right, well, that would be true if it also held true that those with the most money were breeding the most (or at least ensuring that their genes were propogating the most). But it's not. We have a situation where, in general, those with the most amount of money tend to have the fewest children. yay.

So, we have a reverse Eugenics program, hahahahahaha... the Insurers make sure that all the healthy people get lots of money, they then start having fewer children, all the genetically defective people have no money, have tons of kids and everyone is doomed.

Most of this logic is flawed...

...but what is interesting here from a eugenics point of view is the market factor. Most capitalists, especially Mr Smith, believe that most things work out when the market decides. Should the invisible hand be making genetic decisions?

I don't really know. Perhaps, as the proponents of eugenics say: if we find a successful way to direct the evolution of man, humanity will advance and evolve. If the market can do it, so be it. As an individual who currently doesn't know whether he's got some bugs in his genes, I don't like it one bit. If I turned out to be clean, well, I guess the smoking is going to kill me anyway :)

This trademark stuff will go on and on as long
LINUX isnt protected internationally.
So it would IMHO a strong move into the new
millenium (coming next year :) to protect the
LINUX trade mark world wide.

OT side note:
One nice thing about Linux and friends: if a
company tries to get the monopoly for a Linux
distribution by covering the rights to import a
dedicated commercial Linux distribution (say
SuSE for Uruguay) and tries to sell at high price
levels without offering some reward (support...),
other distributions with better performance/price
ratios can take over.

So Charles Darwin is our friend :)

And we should therefore take care of our beloved
Debianistas. It's always nice to have a backup ace
sitting in your sleeve.

BTW: Who takes care to protect the DEBIAN
trade mark world wide?

--gfish666