I've had great experiences from them. Great support, both official and community. Computer comes ready to go, with a system76 repo for support of very new hardware. After less than a year, my laptop now works with vanilla Linux without need of system76's software.
Ships with latest Ubuntu, but if you're not a fan of Unity, xubuntu is great.
IANAAP, but I was up late last night thinking about this one (coincidentally).
My vote: SMBh and dark matter separates GCs from galaxies nicely. However, I think that large numbers of extant stars should not be required; ie, dark matter galaxies are galaxies. In this epoch, at least.
Okay, I think you knew that my comment about the mandamus was rhetorical hyperbole. No, I don't think that would stick in a trial. But I think you'd have to agree that E.D. Tex has raised quite a few eyebrows in higher courts, that particular case aside. You've read it, I assume? I wonder about you if what the C.A.F.C. had to say doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable with the Rocket Docket.
Also, you know exactly what I mean by "fired". These things never get to the point of a Senate trial; the judge resigns with what remains of his dignity, when it's clear that the House Judiciary wants him gone.
What I meant to convey with my very helpful definition of "misleading" is this: misleading != not technically true.
The meme "district court judges are appointed for life tenures" is misleading, while technically true. Article III is not. See the difference? It's not the Constitution that's misleading, it's your statement.
The meme is too general a statement to be informative to those not familiar with the federal courts. It completely avoids the very important distinction between the supreme and inferior courts, and it suggests that there is nothing that Congress can do about abuses; this is false, as it is the very institution named to ordain and establish these courts, from time to time!
As I'm sure you're aware, being an attorney, changes to the district court system happen every couple of decades. As it should be, as it is Congress's job. As a matter of fact, the very court which issued the mandamus writ was established by Congress in 1982!
You didn't address my point about the path of cases through the system; this is an integral part of the original point of contention.
I'd like to reiterate that I think a close look at ethics in this court would be much more likely with a change in membership of a certain committee in the House. The idea that your vote does not affect the district courts is simply wrong.
I'm just a simple country computer programmer, but I can read.
No one argued about what "good behavior" means. Your Federalist Papers reference has little to do with the subject at hand.
I'm not saying you're stupid, but I am saying that you are a victim of a convenient bit of misinformation for Congress. There is nothing specific about the District court system in the Constitution; its operation is set forth by statute (which changes regularly), and judges do get fired (or resign before being impeached).
The writ of mandamus sent to Judge Ward is your evidence of bad behavior (besides what everyone who works it IT knows). But even short of firing him, Congress can easily change his subject matter jurisdiction.
Federal judges are selected, not elected, and their appointment is for life.
This is really misleading. District courts are wholly in the purview of Congress, specifically the Judiciary committees. District Court != Supreme Court.
If you want to know why E.D. Texas is able to do what it does, for example, look at who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
When it suits their political interests, Congress has no problem changing the specialization of District courts, or even firing a judge.
Don't let them pass the buck with this "appointment for life" nonsense. Your elected representatives are wholly responsible for the District system.
It is not the status quo. This fact is critical for context.
Read the discussion on boingboing, where you'll find a conversation with both Cory Doctorow and the author. This negotiation is a departure from the norm, and it is precisely due to the trouble that people like Doctorow caused the last time around, afaict.
We already have cable television. It's awful. If you think that ESPN360 is really the next stage in innovation on the internet, you seriously misunderstand what makes the internet special.
The framework contains "Reasonable Network Management" language. It's more than I would compromise, and more than these companies deserve, but it's there.
Your talking points basically amount to a threat: If backbones and ISPs are not allowed to alter or degrade traffic based on their business relationship with those hosting content (or even, perhaps, the authors of the OS or the manufacturer of the hardware), they'll quit building infrastructure, allegedly because "Wall Street" wishes it so.
Weak sauce. Was that really "too good not to repost"? Unimpressed.
Password-authenticated SFTP can be just as bad, if, say, you're remotely administering a VPS somewhere with a compromised Windows machine. The attacker doesn't need to sniff passwords over the wire in that case.
If your machine is not compromised, SFTP is only marginally better if it is configured badly. If your SSH server and firewall is not configured to prevent brute-force password attacks, then you've still got a problem.
Best bet: Security in depth. Disallow SSH root logins; disallow SSH password authentication, keypair only. Use a non-standard port for SSH. If you must use a web app administration tool, use a SSH tunnel.
Hosting companies bear most of the responsibility. "Managed" VPSs, aren't. If a customer can't take the steps outlined above, it's not a VPS. Keeping FTP around to appease the Dreamweaver types is unforgivable.
I was infected with the opposite side of a related controversy: The near bi-annual attempts of the Commercial Weather Services Association to take NOAA/NWS data away from the public (last serious attempt). I'm only passionate about such issues because I fear that the only way to incentivize basic science for the private sector is to lock it up.
Limiting the scope to launches, I would be happy if one of these new private enterprise launch outfits was able to handle everything and send NASA an invoice, and I think NASA should be, too. If what you're saying about outfits in the 80's being squashed is true, then that's awful and shouldn't have happened.
Maybe we have some crossed wires here, but in case we don't, here's my response.
Getting paid for it?
Yes, getting paid by a government contract or grant, the only entity than can spend billions on a science mission with no short-term payoff. Which is the way it's been for decades, as I said.
I used to work for NASA/JPL. Whatever.
Good on you. Maybe you'd like to talk to the other people in this discussion who also work for NASA/JPL, who seem to have a different opinion.
This "private sector" thing is magical thinking. Public/private is a false dichotomy. As I said, and to which you seem to have no logical answer.
I get the feeling that this might be a religious issue for you. If so, no response requested. Not interested in digressions into debates about free market orthodoxy, though I respect your religious beliefs.
Btw, I liked the rest of your comments in this discussion, but I don't understand why you were so dismissive. Lame. You were wrong in your response to curmudgeon99 (though I disagreed with most of his comments). He has a point. The Air Force has a huge budget, for projects that don't officially exist. And companies like Lockmart handle them. And your statement about innovation in space would seem to be an insult to your former co-workers (besides being 100% wrong). I'm sorry we didn't get you pony; you'll get over it.
I can't speak for the parent, who may actually be talking about a conspiracy theory, but it is true that a substantial portion of the tonnage lifted has been military.
The US put up several generations of total-coverage constellations, for communication, navigation, surveillance and GIS. Some of these programs have been declassified (and in the case of GPS, allowed for civilian use), some haven't (though all are plain to see from your backyard).
And on that note, it seems like you could count GIS as "innovation in space". How many awesome stories about augmented reality have you seen lately?
As many other comments point out, space hardware is already (and always has been) built by the "private sector", whatever that means. It's just that governments are the only entities with the resources and drive to push anything past LEO. Getting a manned mission to another planet, with no short-term payoff, is something that a corporation (or rather, a privately administered program) will never do. It's just too expensive. There's only a couple of countries on Earth with the resources to even attempt it. Space is hard.
In fact, private programs would suck for all of the coolest projects. What would the incentive be for a corporation to put up something like Hubble?
I know this screed is getting too long, but I have to bring up one more thing: The science being done on ISS is very important. The material science experiments, as an example, are changing your world in ways you may never notice.
Innovation in space has stopped.
Not really.
If you want more space exploration, support a larger budget for NASA and/or a reduction in military launches. This dichotomy between the "private" and "public" has no basis in reality. If SpaceX gets a contract, awesome. But that just means that we have a SpaceX vehicle instead of a Lockheed one.
Or you could write an API or two:). FCollada and Sony's thing are all that's out there. If we all shared the DOM APIs we're writing for our own apps, maybe something more intuitive (for everyday tasks) could come out of it. Most of us are using only a subset of the standard, and we don't need the expressiveness that something like Unreal needs. I wonder what Google's using for Sketchup and GE...
In fairness to the Collada docs, it is a gigantic project. The thing can describe anything, and the standard now includes animation and physics. And the Collada standard itself seems to swallow up new features pretty quickly; I think their target is to maintain "losslessness" by tracking the big content creation software closely. IMHO, the project is probably well-funded as all of the members are now totally dependent on it. Maybe they just have a shortage of web people; until Google came along, their audience was developers of game engines and DCCs.
Thanks for the info. I was surprised by your experience at first; but I just realized that I probably overestimate the raw computing power of iPhone-type devices, and I didn't think about the diversity and complexity of models on 3D Warehouse.
Visualization is so beautiful. Interesting time to be a developer.
Collada is a bit bulky. But it kind of has to be that way achieve the design goal of being a lossless intermediate format. It really can describe just about anything 3d.
However, apps like this one only use a small subset Collada. And performance isn't that much of an issue; the convenience of xml leads to interesting things like the <NetworkLink> element in kml, which can actually increase performance by loading models on demand from the server based on the view.
So yeah...you'd use a binary format in a traditional app, but Collada is totally useful for network apps.
On the other hand, omg does the documentation suck... And spitting out valid Collada dynamically is a giant PITA (full disclosure: working on a kml/dae project at the moment). Sony's C++ DOM api and FCollada seem to work okay, but don't help those of us who don't have cgi as an option.
It would be nice if Kronos has somebody else handle the Collada website and forums (which are a joke), and produce documentation just for the small subset of the standard used by GIS apps.
There is an effort to do something about "online campaigns" and so-called "guerilla marketing" (read: astroturfing): http://www.google.com/search?q=ftc+testimonials+and+endorsements. The way the FTC thing is shaping up, it would at least give individuals a place to complain about compensated blogging and commenting.
However, it's a pretty dismal situation. As long as people continue to have positive feelings for companies who give them free laptops, there will be a problem. Outing someone as a shill carries a legal hazard (check out Wikipedia's guidelines on outing "COI" editors), and it's pretty much impossible to prove without the power of discovery. And even then, the shills don't necessarily think that they're shills; they are genuinely warm and fuzzy about the company that gave them a laptop. And beyond even that, you have n waves of advocates that aren't shills but sycophants, who believe that their favorite coder/tech columnist/frat-core blogger is just so right on.
Since the FTC is really pretty unlikely to do anything that matters (advertising is famously "self-regulated", tee-hee), and abolishing software patents in the US is impossible, what's left is as much sunshine as possible. Projects like sourcewatch.org and wikileaks.org are fighting the good fight.
In the end though, on this specific issue, libre software may shrink. That we got this far at all is amazing; who woulda thunk it 15 years ago? They can't really stop us from sharing our code. If we have to cauterize Gnome, so be it. It was crufty anyway, right? Gotta love green-field projects.
Aside: To anyone who doubts that Microsoft shills are everywhere, check out some Mono blogs. You'll find several people who say that Tomboy is the only reason they use Linux. Seriously.
I would say that your freeing up of giant bags of money is probably a red herring.
Not really. The benefits would be immediate for a whole class of business. Ask GM. I know that it is heretical to look abroad, but we have decades of data from every other industrialized country. Of course, you need to get the analysis from a source unconnected with the US media (media consolidation is one area where deregulation has objectively been a disaster). National health care comes in varied forms; in Canada, for example, there is a private supplemental insurance industry. It's just that people aren't dying for corporate apathy or going bankrupt. It think that it is "rationing" that is the red herring in this debate.
How often do we hear Democrats talk about "Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Energy, Big Auto, etc"?
This has nothing to do with fundraising or party affiliation. "Big Auto", in particular, got to where it is in politics largely by the actions of John Dingell. He got them almost everything they asked for (including the CAFE loopholes that led to the public safety and environmental disaster known as the "S.U.V.", an act of unrestrained greed and disregard for the country which provided the environment for their success). Even though he was narrowly voted out by the caucus in this term, he remains "chair emeritus" of Energy and Commerce.
"Big Energy" (which for our purposes will include coal and oil) funds disinformation (not that it would be practical to fix, but isn't it interesting that we can restrict the misuse of biology and nuclear science but not of behavioral science?), is on the verge of ending civilization as we know it (energy execs are in for a shock when they discover that having a private security force won't save you from starving), and occasionally kills people. Coal kills people incidentally at least, and oil (along with lobbying on foreign policy) writes paychecks to thugs who kill people directly. What's not to like?
If Sean Penn or Chris Martin or Michael Moore want to rail on about those industries that he feels are Republican, then certainly we should remind these people that their industries can be targeted too.
None of these people have ever said that they are going after Republican industries because they are Republican (which they aren't). People of any or no party have very legitimate and specific complaints about the industries you listed. Again, not everything is about party.
And besides, as I said, the IP cartels are bigger than Hollywood and give money to both parties. Also, unless Rupert Murdoch has grown a soul, it's pretty hard to make the argument that the industry is in any way left-of-center.
I'm just going to ignore the Alinsky canard. But you should note that you have just had a conversation with an unrepentant "lefty" with no shortage of reason or honesty.
I do appreciate what you're trying to do for the Republican party, but I think that whipping up more hate to do it is just too dangerous. The end rarely justifies the means, especially when the means involve dehumanizing your ideological opponents.
I read your comment as implicitly granting that there is no meaningful partisan divide regarding IP law.
Terms like "minority" and "a lot" are not going to serve us well. The generalizations you made are also not helpful, imho. Nearly all federal legislators support laws like the DMCA. I am also of a "minority" view in the Democratic party.
Regarding your essay, I must say that I find your hostility towards "liberals" disconcerting. I am a small business owner and a "liberal", if you feel you must use that term; specifically, I believe in shared responsibility for the well-being of society, and the government fulfillment of the general welfare clause. And no, I don't have horns, a shrine to Karl Marx, or connections to Hollywood of any kind.
Just as an example: I, and many others, think that employer-based health care has been a disaster for small business; I would much rather pay individual income tax into a government trust fund (which have an excellent track record, in spite of the misinformation) and have a healthy society along with freeing up giant bags of money for other purposes. I really can't see how that would make a liberal anti-small-business. It is time for the Republican party's claim on small business to end. The Chamber doesn't speak for me.
I have never even considered going after a "conservative" industry, as I don't even know what that would be. If you agree with your fellow Republicans on lower taxation, but support new taxes when they would benefit your party, then "inconsistent" would be the polite way to describe your position. And those who "see things more [your] way" have accepted a flawed thesis from you. To think that Democrats oppose IP reform because of Hollywood fundraising is convoluted, as there is much simpler explanation: Both parties respond to lobbying from the IP cartels (a much broader coalition than merely Hollywood), and the payment is direct. Both parties would be punished equally for trying to reform IP law.
Btw, the last effort to reform the DMCA was introduced by a Democrat in the 109th, and acquired a Republican co-sponsor in the 110th: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_USE_Act
There are more important things than partisan points. I can see that this war against liberals is kind of your raison d'etre, but I really think that your rhetorical skills could better be applied somewhere else.
Not a flame, and btw, I wish you the best of luck in moderating your party's attitude towards unions.
You've got to be kidding. Was that just a gut feeling? Have you ever heard a Republican say anything of the sort?
Maybe you should email members of your delegation and ask. I did, and I can assure you that Republicans from my state are wholly dedicated to "Protecting America's Intellectual Property and Competitiveness(tm)". The ranking member and former chair of the House committee charged with overseeing IP (the Judiciary Committee), Lamar Smith, is one of the strongest allies the IP cartels have ever known. Additionally, in his position he's protected the corrupt the Eastern District of Texas.
The IP debate is still far too esoteric for members of either party to be shamed into saying "no" to the cartels.
But to put it bluntly: They're Texans, and it's part their jobs on the hill to do something about E.D. Texas's problems. Their inaction is approval of this court.
Cornyn is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is constantly emailing me to brag about sponsoring legislation that "protects America's intellectual property". He was also both an elected Texas SC judge and a federal district judge.
Smith is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and in that capacity moved to impeach a judge in S.D. Texas just last month. The committee's current jurisdiction includes "copyright, patent and trademark law, information technology", on top of oversight duties regarding the courts.
The committee's name is a bit misleading, really. Its purview includes both issues we're talking about here; patent reform and judicial oversight.
Smith was also the chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property while it existed.
Any ideas on what could be done by East Texans? Like I mentioned before this is a problem with the U.S. Federal court so we can't use our votes to fix this problem.
This isn't accurate. If Lamar Smith and John Cornyn were voted out of our delegation, and the new House member showed that they were willing to fulfill their oversight duties (up to impeachment of Ward and Davis), the local rules, which are so favorable for plaintiffs, could be changed by pressure.
And anyway, you should check out the IP legislation that our delegation supports. Scary stuff.
See my previous comment. Texans in the federal legislature would be taken very seriously if they were to move to reform E.D. Texas.
Additionally, "U.S. Federal Court" and "District Court" are not synonyms; all Cognac is brandy but not all brandy is Cognac. The district courts were established by acts of Congress, while the Supreme Court was established by the Constitution. Congress is expected to provide oversight for these courts, if anything even more so for District Court. The movement of cases through this level of the system and each court's subject-matter-jurisdiction is set forth by Congress (e.g. Evarts Act, PL 96-452, etc.). It is well with Congress's power to reform E.D. Texas, and changes to the court system occur relatively frequently.
Slashdot Mirror
You can avoid all the pain of researching hardware by purchasing a pre-configured Linux machine.
https://www.system76.com/
I've had great experiences from them. Great support, both official and community. Computer comes ready to go, with a system76 repo for support of very new hardware. After less than a year, my laptop now works with vanilla Linux without need of system76's software.
Ships with latest Ubuntu, but if you're not a fan of Unity, xubuntu is great.
IANAAP, but I was up late last night thinking about this one (coincidentally).
My vote: SMBh and dark matter separates GCs from galaxies nicely. However, I think that large numbers of extant stars should not be required; ie, dark matter galaxies are galaxies. In this epoch, at least.
Thanks, that was really interesting.
Okay, I think you knew that my comment about the mandamus was rhetorical hyperbole. No, I don't think that would stick in a trial. But I think you'd have to agree that E.D. Tex has raised quite a few eyebrows in higher courts, that particular case aside. You've read it, I assume? I wonder about you if what the C.A.F.C. had to say doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable with the Rocket Docket.
Also, you know exactly what I mean by "fired". These things never get to the point of a Senate trial; the judge resigns with what remains of his dignity, when it's clear that the House Judiciary wants him gone.
What I meant to convey with my very helpful definition of "misleading" is this: misleading != not technically true.
The meme "district court judges are appointed for life tenures" is misleading, while technically true. Article III is not. See the difference? It's not the Constitution that's misleading, it's your statement.
The meme is too general a statement to be informative to those not familiar with the federal courts. It completely avoids the very important distinction between the supreme and inferior courts, and it suggests that there is nothing that Congress can do about abuses; this is false, as it is the very institution named to ordain and establish these courts, from time to time!
As I'm sure you're aware, being an attorney, changes to the district court system happen every couple of decades. As it should be, as it is Congress's job. As a matter of fact, the very court which issued the mandamus writ was established by Congress in 1982!
You didn't address my point about the path of cases through the system; this is an integral part of the original point of contention.
I'd like to reiterate that I think a close look at ethics in this court would be much more likely with a change in membership of a certain committee in the House. The idea that your vote does not affect the district courts is simply wrong.
I'm just a simple country computer programmer, but I can read.
misleading:
adj. tending to confuse or mislead; deceptive
No one argued about what "good behavior" means. Your Federalist Papers reference has little to do with the subject at hand.
I'm not saying you're stupid, but I am saying that you are a victim of a convenient bit of misinformation for Congress. There is nothing specific about the District court system in the Constitution; its operation is set forth by statute (which changes regularly), and judges do get fired (or resign before being impeached).
The writ of mandamus sent to Judge Ward is your evidence of bad behavior (besides what everyone who works it IT knows). But even short of firing him, Congress can easily change his subject matter jurisdiction.
Sorry, man... Them's the facts.
sigh...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_district_court
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/index.html
Federal judges are selected, not elected, and their appointment is for life.
This is really misleading. District courts are wholly in the purview of Congress, specifically the Judiciary committees. District Court != Supreme Court.
If you want to know why E.D. Texas is able to do what it does, for example, look at who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
When it suits their political interests, Congress has no problem changing the specialization of District courts, or even firing a judge.
Don't let them pass the buck with this "appointment for life" nonsense. Your elected representatives are wholly responsible for the District system.
It is not the status quo. This fact is critical for context.
Read the discussion on boingboing, where you'll find a conversation with both Cory Doctorow and the author. This negotiation is a departure from the norm, and it is precisely due to the trouble that people like Doctorow caused the last time around, afaict.
We already have cable television. It's awful. If you think that ESPN360 is really the next stage in innovation on the internet, you seriously misunderstand what makes the internet special.
The framework contains "Reasonable Network Management" language. It's more than I would compromise, and more than these companies deserve, but it's there.
Your talking points basically amount to a threat: If backbones and ISPs are not allowed to alter or degrade traffic based on their business relationship with those hosting content (or even, perhaps, the authors of the OS or the manufacturer of the hardware), they'll quit building infrastructure, allegedly because "Wall Street" wishes it so.
Weak sauce. Was that really "too good not to repost"? Unimpressed.
Glenn Beck says it's part of a Nazi Marxist plot.
Password-authenticated SFTP can be just as bad, if, say, you're remotely administering a VPS somewhere with a compromised Windows machine. The attacker doesn't need to sniff passwords over the wire in that case.
If your machine is not compromised, SFTP is only marginally better if it is configured badly. If your SSH server and firewall is not configured to prevent brute-force password attacks, then you've still got a problem.
Best bet: Security in depth. Disallow SSH root logins; disallow SSH password authentication, keypair only. Use a non-standard port for SSH. If you must use a web app administration tool, use a SSH tunnel.
Hosting companies bear most of the responsibility. "Managed" VPSs, aren't. If a customer can't take the steps outlined above, it's not a VPS. Keeping FTP around to appease the Dreamweaver types is unforgivable.
Fair enough. Sorry for my vitriol.
I was infected with the opposite side of a related controversy: The near bi-annual attempts of the Commercial Weather Services Association to take NOAA/NWS data away from the public (last serious attempt). I'm only passionate about such issues because I fear that the only way to incentivize basic science for the private sector is to lock it up.
Limiting the scope to launches, I would be happy if one of these new private enterprise launch outfits was able to handle everything and send NASA an invoice, and I think NASA should be, too. If what you're saying about outfits in the 80's being squashed is true, then that's awful and shouldn't have happened.
Btw, respect for XEmacs :).
Maybe we have some crossed wires here, but in case we don't, here's my response.
Getting paid for it?
Yes, getting paid by a government contract or grant, the only entity than can spend billions on a science mission with no short-term payoff. Which is the way it's been for decades, as I said.
I used to work for NASA/JPL. Whatever.
Good on you. Maybe you'd like to talk to the other people in this discussion who also work for NASA/JPL, who seem to have a different opinion.
This "private sector" thing is magical thinking. Public/private is a false dichotomy. As I said, and to which you seem to have no logical answer.
I get the feeling that this might be a religious issue for you. If so, no response requested. Not interested in digressions into debates about free market orthodoxy, though I respect your religious beliefs.
Btw, I liked the rest of your comments in this discussion, but I don't understand why you were so dismissive. Lame. You were wrong in your response to curmudgeon99 (though I disagreed with most of his comments). He has a point. The Air Force has a huge budget, for projects that don't officially exist. And companies like Lockmart handle them. And your statement about innovation in space would seem to be an insult to your former co-workers (besides being 100% wrong). I'm sorry we didn't get you pony; you'll get over it.
I can't speak for the parent, who may actually be talking about a conspiracy theory, but it is true that a substantial portion of the tonnage lifted has been military.
The US put up several generations of total-coverage constellations, for communication, navigation, surveillance and GIS. Some of these programs have been declassified (and in the case of GPS, allowed for civilian use), some haven't (though all are plain to see from your backyard).
And on that note, it seems like you could count GIS as "innovation in space". How many awesome stories about augmented reality have you seen lately?
As many other comments point out, space hardware is already (and always has been) built by the "private sector", whatever that means. It's just that governments are the only entities with the resources and drive to push anything past LEO. Getting a manned mission to another planet, with no short-term payoff, is something that a corporation (or rather, a privately administered program) will never do. It's just too expensive. There's only a couple of countries on Earth with the resources to even attempt it. Space is hard.
In fact, private programs would suck for all of the coolest projects. What would the incentive be for a corporation to put up something like Hubble?
I know this screed is getting too long, but I have to bring up one more thing: The science being done on ISS is very important. The material science experiments, as an example, are changing your world in ways you may never notice.
Innovation in space has stopped.
Not really.
If you want more space exploration, support a larger budget for NASA and/or a reduction in military launches. This dichotomy between the "private" and "public" has no basis in reality. If SpaceX gets a contract, awesome. But that just means that we have a SpaceX vehicle instead of a Lockheed one.
Or you could write an API or two :). FCollada and Sony's thing are all that's out there. If we all shared the DOM APIs we're writing for our own apps, maybe something more intuitive (for everyday tasks) could come out of it. Most of us are using only a subset of the standard, and we don't need the expressiveness that something like Unreal needs. I wonder what Google's using for Sketchup and GE...
In fairness to the Collada docs, it is a gigantic project. The thing can describe anything, and the standard now includes animation and physics. And the Collada standard itself seems to swallow up new features pretty quickly; I think their target is to maintain "losslessness" by tracking the big content creation software closely. IMHO, the project is probably well-funded as all of the members are now totally dependent on it. Maybe they just have a shortage of web people; until Google came along, their audience was developers of game engines and DCCs.
Awesome! Congratulations.
Thanks for the info. I was surprised by your experience at first; but I just realized that I probably overestimate the raw computing power of iPhone-type devices, and I didn't think about the diversity and complexity of models on 3D Warehouse.
Visualization is so beautiful. Interesting time to be a developer.
Collada is a bit bulky. But it kind of has to be that way achieve the design goal of being a lossless intermediate format. It really can describe just about anything 3d.
However, apps like this one only use a small subset Collada. And performance isn't that much of an issue; the convenience of xml leads to interesting things like the <NetworkLink> element in kml, which can actually increase performance by loading models on demand from the server based on the view.
So yeah...you'd use a binary format in a traditional app, but Collada is totally useful for network apps.
On the other hand, omg does the documentation suck... And spitting out valid Collada dynamically is a giant PITA (full disclosure: working on a kml/dae project at the moment). Sony's C++ DOM api and FCollada seem to work okay, but don't help those of us who don't have cgi as an option.
It would be nice if Kronos has somebody else handle the Collada website and forums (which are a joke), and produce documentation just for the small subset of the standard used by GIS apps.
Finding out that phrase is there made my hair stand on end.
The phrase is an infamous trademark of Comcast and the anti-NN lobby: http://www.google.com/search?q=REASONABLE+NETWORK+MANAGEMENT.
There is an effort to do something about "online campaigns" and so-called "guerilla marketing" (read: astroturfing): http://www.google.com/search?q=ftc+testimonials+and+endorsements. The way the FTC thing is shaping up, it would at least give individuals a place to complain about compensated blogging and commenting.
However, it's a pretty dismal situation. As long as people continue to have positive feelings for companies who give them free laptops, there will be a problem. Outing someone as a shill carries a legal hazard (check out Wikipedia's guidelines on outing "COI" editors), and it's pretty much impossible to prove without the power of discovery. And even then, the shills don't necessarily think that they're shills; they are genuinely warm and fuzzy about the company that gave them a laptop. And beyond even that, you have n waves of advocates that aren't shills but sycophants, who believe that their favorite coder/tech columnist/frat-core blogger is just so right on.
Since the FTC is really pretty unlikely to do anything that matters (advertising is famously "self-regulated", tee-hee), and abolishing software patents in the US is impossible, what's left is as much sunshine as possible. Projects like sourcewatch.org and wikileaks.org are fighting the good fight.
In the end though, on this specific issue, libre software may shrink. That we got this far at all is amazing; who woulda thunk it 15 years ago? They can't really stop us from sharing our code. If we have to cauterize Gnome, so be it. It was crufty anyway, right? Gotta love green-field projects.
Aside: To anyone who doubts that Microsoft shills are everywhere, check out some Mono blogs. You'll find several people who say that Tomboy is the only reason they use Linux. Seriously.
I would say that your freeing up of giant bags of money is probably a red herring.
Not really. The benefits would be immediate for a whole class of business. Ask GM. I know that it is heretical to look abroad, but we have decades of data from every other industrialized country. Of course, you need to get the analysis from a source unconnected with the US media (media consolidation is one area where deregulation has objectively been a disaster). National health care comes in varied forms; in Canada, for example, there is a private supplemental insurance industry. It's just that people aren't dying for corporate apathy or going bankrupt. It think that it is "rationing" that is the red herring in this debate.
How often do we hear Democrats talk about "Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Energy, Big Auto, etc"?
This has nothing to do with fundraising or party affiliation. "Big Auto", in particular, got to where it is in politics largely by the actions of John Dingell. He got them almost everything they asked for (including the CAFE loopholes that led to the public safety and environmental disaster known as the "S.U.V.", an act of unrestrained greed and disregard for the country which provided the environment for their success). Even though he was narrowly voted out by the caucus in this term, he remains "chair emeritus" of Energy and Commerce.
"Big Energy" (which for our purposes will include coal and oil) funds disinformation (not that it would be practical to fix, but isn't it interesting that we can restrict the misuse of biology and nuclear science but not of behavioral science?), is on the verge of ending civilization as we know it (energy execs are in for a shock when they discover that having a private security force won't save you from starving), and occasionally kills people. Coal kills people incidentally at least, and oil (along with lobbying on foreign policy) writes paychecks to thugs who kill people directly. What's not to like?
If Sean Penn or Chris Martin or Michael Moore want to rail on about those industries that he feels are Republican, then certainly we should remind these people that their industries can be targeted too.
None of these people have ever said that they are going after Republican industries because they are Republican (which they aren't). People of any or no party have very legitimate and specific complaints about the industries you listed. Again, not everything is about party.
And besides, as I said, the IP cartels are bigger than Hollywood and give money to both parties. Also, unless Rupert Murdoch has grown a soul, it's pretty hard to make the argument that the industry is in any way left-of-center.
I'm just going to ignore the Alinsky canard. But you should note that you have just had a conversation with an unrepentant "lefty" with no shortage of reason or honesty.
I do appreciate what you're trying to do for the Republican party, but I think that whipping up more hate to do it is just too dangerous. The end rarely justifies the means, especially when the means involve dehumanizing your ideological opponents.
I read your comment as implicitly granting that there is no meaningful partisan divide regarding IP law.
Terms like "minority" and "a lot" are not going to serve us well. The generalizations you made are also not helpful, imho. Nearly all federal legislators support laws like the DMCA. I am also of a "minority" view in the Democratic party.
Regarding your essay, I must say that I find your hostility towards "liberals" disconcerting. I am a small business owner and a "liberal", if you feel you must use that term; specifically, I believe in shared responsibility for the well-being of society, and the government fulfillment of the general welfare clause. And no, I don't have horns, a shrine to Karl Marx, or connections to Hollywood of any kind.
Just as an example: I, and many others, think that employer-based health care has been a disaster for small business; I would much rather pay individual income tax into a government trust fund (which have an excellent track record, in spite of the misinformation) and have a healthy society along with freeing up giant bags of money for other purposes. I really can't see how that would make a liberal anti-small-business. It is time for the Republican party's claim on small business to end. The Chamber doesn't speak for me.
I have never even considered going after a "conservative" industry, as I don't even know what that would be. If you agree with your fellow Republicans on lower taxation, but support new taxes when they would benefit your party, then "inconsistent" would be the polite way to describe your position. And those who "see things more [your] way" have accepted a flawed thesis from you. To think that Democrats oppose IP reform because of Hollywood fundraising is convoluted, as there is much simpler explanation: Both parties respond to lobbying from the IP cartels (a much broader coalition than merely Hollywood), and the payment is direct. Both parties would be punished equally for trying to reform IP law.
Btw, the last effort to reform the DMCA was introduced by a Democrat in the 109th, and acquired a Republican co-sponsor in the 110th: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_USE_Act
There are more important things than partisan points. I can see that this war against liberals is kind of your raison d'etre, but I really think that your rhetorical skills could better be applied somewhere else.
Not a flame, and btw, I wish you the best of luck in moderating your party's attitude towards unions.
You've got to be kidding. Was that just a gut feeling? Have you ever heard a Republican say anything of the sort?
Maybe you should email members of your delegation and ask. I did, and I can assure you that Republicans from my state are wholly dedicated to "Protecting America's Intellectual Property and Competitiveness(tm)". The ranking member and former chair of the House committee charged with overseeing IP (the Judiciary Committee), Lamar Smith, is one of the strongest allies the IP cartels have ever known. Additionally, in his position he's protected the corrupt the Eastern District of Texas.
The IP debate is still far too esoteric for members of either party to be shamed into saying "no" to the cartels.
Oh, and this is interesting: do a whois for 143.231.249.141 and look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lamar_S._Smith&action=history. Self-editing from a House.gov network. Stay classy, Lamar.
But to put it bluntly: They're Texans, and it's part their jobs on the hill to do something about E.D. Texas's problems. Their inaction is approval of this court.
Yep.
Cornyn is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and is constantly emailing me to brag about sponsoring legislation that "protects America's intellectual property". He was also both an elected Texas SC judge and a federal district judge.
Smith is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and in that capacity moved to impeach a judge in S.D. Texas just last month. The committee's current jurisdiction includes "copyright, patent and trademark law, information technology", on top of oversight duties regarding the courts.
The committee's name is a bit misleading, really. Its purview includes both issues we're talking about here; patent reform and judicial oversight.
Smith was also the chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property while it existed.
Any ideas on what could be done by East Texans? Like I mentioned before this is a problem with the U.S. Federal court so we can't use our votes to fix this problem.
This isn't accurate. If Lamar Smith and John Cornyn were voted out of our delegation, and the new House member showed that they were willing to fulfill their oversight duties (up to impeachment of Ward and Davis), the local rules, which are so favorable for plaintiffs, could be changed by pressure.
And anyway, you should check out the IP legislation that our delegation supports. Scary stuff.
See my previous comment. Texans in the federal legislature would be taken very seriously if they were to move to reform E.D. Texas.
Additionally, "U.S. Federal Court" and "District Court" are not synonyms; all Cognac is brandy but not all brandy is Cognac. The district courts were established by acts of Congress, while the Supreme Court was established by the Constitution. Congress is expected to provide oversight for these courts, if anything even more so for District Court. The movement of cases through this level of the system and each court's subject-matter-jurisdiction is set forth by Congress (e.g. Evarts Act, PL 96-452, etc.). It is well with Congress's power to reform E.D. Texas, and changes to the court system occur relatively frequently.
Your vote does count.