That's what cellular respiration is all about. It was an interesting discussion and, in the end, a lot of it depends on points of view. That of course is the problem. You don't think fire is alive because you know that fire isn't alive and if someone comes along and tells you that fire is now included in the scientific definition of things that are alive, you'll disagree, just like lots of people are still pretty upset that Pluto isn't a planet anymore. If you examine what is and isn't alive in enough detail, the boundary gets fuzzy enough that it becomes harder to know where to draw the line rather than easier.
Yes, and that's where I think the summary gets it wrong. It talks about the definition of life, as if there's only one (probably the one that the author learned in grade school -- "respiration, reproduction etc.". As James Lovelock points out, "If we ask a group of scientists 'What is life?' they will answer from the restricted viewpoint of their own scientific disciplines. A physicist will say that life is a peculiar state of matter that reduces its internal entropy in a flux of free energy, and is characterised by an intricate capacity for self-organisation.... A neo-Darwinist biologist will define a living organism as one able to reproduce and to correct the errors of reproduction by natural selection among its progeny To a biochemist, a living organism is one that takes in free energy as sunlight, or chemical potential energy, such as food and oxygen, and uses the energy to grow according to the instructions coded in its genes." (Quoted in Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry) Prions were probably already classified as life by the physicists, but the biologists hadn't bothered to ask them.
Bridges that fail, fail predictably. It is usually just a question of collecting some data.
Good luck demonstaring that an aircraft instrument landing system is fit for purpose, then. Semiconductors might fail predictably when they're being observed under an electron microscope, but it's a bit harder in a hut by the side of an airfield.
Unless they're actually programming statistical applications, most programmers probably don't need to know statistics. As long as somebody on the testing team does, all the programmer needs to understand is that function X sometimes fails to meet its timing spec (perhaps "often fails..." or "occasionally fails..." might add some value) or whatever. Then they know they need to do some optimisation. There's a natural human tendency to think that everybody should be doing what we're doing. In reality, they don't have to, because we're doing that; they need to be doing something else.
"I'm not sure that's relevant. Part of the reason I work is to try to make sure my kids are reasonably well set-up in life."
You're not sure that's relevent? WTF!?! I think it's pretty clear what the purpose of copyright was.
If you are concerned about the finances of your dependents there is this thing call insurance. It is part of a larger field of financial planning.
Which is why I'm not sure that it's relevant that Dick's estate makes no contribution to what they earn. Maybe they should earn it, maybe they shouldn't, but whether they contributed to it seems irrelevant to me.
Are you stating that unless you produce the types of creative works I list above, your estate cannot benefit after your death? (Say, from financial investments you made during your lifetime.
No, I'm saying that my estate can, which is why it's a red herring that Dick's estate hasn't made a contribution to what they're earning.
Not really. A "White" society would quite easily survive the bush by getting rid of it and replacing it with a more friendly environment.
Do we have the technology to do that? We can make isolated friendly "bubbles", but I'm not sure we could convert the whole Bush into a California clone.
Ultimately, when talking about survival, the single measure that you need to look at are population numbers, and growth rates.
So Afghanistan (4.5%) is more advanced than the USA (0.6%)? China is less advanced now than it was in the 1960s? If you're looking at survival then you need to look at whether the population numbers and growth are sustainable, and it's at least possible that the Aboriginal lifestyle may cope better with climate change, for example, than the Western model.
... and the extra publicity is likely to far outweigh any boycott.
This really emphasizes that the "estate" has no creative role, and that copyright no longer promotes "the progress of science and useful arts."
I'm not sure that's relevant. Part of the reason I work is to try to make sure my kids are reasonably well set-up in life. They make no contribution to my earnings (when they were younger they had a rather negative effect) but it's still part of my motivation in my work. If they couldn't inherit those benefits then I'd do something easier for less pay.
That's irrelevant. It's true that, if advances aren't really needed, they won't be made (or will be made and then quickly discarded). However, regardless of the reasons, the civilization with more advances is, well, more advanced, pretty much by definition.
Too simplistic. I bet the aboriginal society is more "advanced" than White or Asian Australian in terms of surviving in the bush. "Advances" aren't simple, counatble things.
Or the person above you in the foodchain might just know more than you about what the company is actually tring to achieve, and/or may be correctly reflecting shared experience which you haven't yet encountered. If you can't deal with that, set up on your own.
My question is, why the f*** so many systems have issues with their clocks. In just about any language (C, Java,.NET, Perl, PHP, SQL...) there are (built-in) libraries available that do time correctly. If you're unsure on how to store time, Unix epoch is just about the simplest way to store it (it's a freakin' integer), it's universally recognizable and accepted and very easy to calculate with and if you need more precision just make it a floating point number and add numbers after the comma.
Partly because of ignorance of the libraries, but partly because the built-in libraries simply don't do time correctly. Unix epoch? Rolls over in 2038, so it's no use for dealing with 49 or 99 year land-leases (or the 999 year lease I held on one property). I know somebody who worked on software dealing with mineral exploration rights who had just this problem: Unix epoch simply got it wrong for the timescales involved (and he wasn't allowed to use 3rd party libraries because management perceived that as a support issue). What was he to do but roll his own?
And it's very much because people think it's simple, without looking at the actual issues.
I spent a bit of time during some touristy native american stuff while i was in canada and alaska last year, those tribes are (were) WAY more advanced than the Australian native peoples that the comparision just doesn't apply.
Native americans built full blown cabins where aborigionals largely still lived in caves and temporary shelter. They had a far better chance at integration.
So you define "advanced" as "more like you"? Has it occurred to you that permanent shelter is just not the issue in a generally warm place like Australia than in a generally cold place like Alaska? That they might not have made those "advances" because they have no need of them? That "integration", whatever benefits it might have, might not be the best way to preserve the culture, and that the later is a valid choice?
pouring money into aborigional art and expression (hip-hop, dance and so on).
Hip-hop is an aboriginal Australian form of expression?
I'm not sure the estate has shot itself in the foot. If people didn't already know the book they wouldn't have known the reference, so it wouldn't have renewed interest in the book. Now they are much more likely to become aware of the book, and the extra publicity is likely to far outweigh any boycott. If (as seems likely to me, but IANAL) the estate has no legal ground, who cares? This wasn't necessarily about winning the case.
Doesn't this violate the Chicago Convention? Of course, the USA never liked the Chicago Convention -- they wanted each pair of countries to negotiate overflight rules individually, so lots of countries making tit-for-tat retalliations leading to the collapse of the Chicago Convention might be just what the USA is playing for.
Now, granted, it doesn't say that people will be prevented from leaving, but I suggest you think about it for a moment. What is the purpose of identifying people who leave, other than to control who leaves?
Checking up on visitors who overstay their visas, as the article says? Just the sort of thing the UK Home Office got into trouble a few years ago for not knowing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what cellular respiration is all about. It was an interesting discussion and, in the end, a lot of it depends on points of view. That of course is the problem. You don't think fire is alive because you know that fire isn't alive and if someone comes along and tells you that fire is now included in the scientific definition of things that are alive, you'll disagree, just like lots of people are still pretty upset that Pluto isn't a planet anymore. If you examine what is and isn't alive in enough detail, the boundary gets fuzzy enough that it becomes harder to know where to draw the line rather than easier.
Yes, and that's where I think the summary gets it wrong. It talks about the definition of life, as if there's only one (probably the one that the author learned in grade school -- "respiration, reproduction etc.". As James Lovelock points out, "If we ask a group of scientists 'What is life?' they will answer from the restricted viewpoint of their own scientific disciplines. A physicist will say that life is a peculiar state of matter that reduces its internal entropy in a flux of free energy, and is characterised by an intricate capacity for self-organisation. ... A neo-Darwinist biologist will define a living organism as one able to reproduce and to correct the errors of reproduction by natural selection among its progeny To a biochemist, a living organism is one that takes in free energy as sunlight, or chemical potential energy, such as food and oxygen, and uses the energy to grow according to the instructions coded in its genes." (Quoted in Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry) Prions were probably already classified as life by the physicists, but the biologists hadn't bothered to ask them.
Bridges that fail, fail predictably. It is usually just a question of collecting some data.
Good luck demonstaring that an aircraft instrument landing system is fit for purpose, then. Semiconductors might fail predictably when they're being observed under an electron microscope, but it's a bit harder in a hut by the side of an airfield.
Unless they're actually programming statistical applications, most programmers probably don't need to know statistics. As long as somebody on the testing team does, all the programmer needs to understand is that function X sometimes fails to meet its timing spec (perhaps "often fails..." or "occasionally fails..." might add some value) or whatever. Then they know they need to do some optimisation. There's a natural human tendency to think that everybody should be doing what we're doing. In reality, they don't have to, because we're doing that; they need to be doing something else.
All predicted (or observe?) in Ben Elton's "Blind Faith", of course. "Only perverts do things in private."
The Google revolution will not be televised! (Although it will be on Google Videos).
So if I encrypt a file, create a torrent out of it, and put it up for distribution, I'm violating MS's patent?
Only if you use there method for doing it, AFAICS. But IANAL.
Probably not already done. The patent doesn't seem to be for applying DRM to a torrent, but for a particular method of doing it.
Note that I wasn't talking about "advanced", but rather about "survival". It was your premise that those two are linked.
Ah! That was based on the assumption that your posting was supposed to be relevant to the discussion. My mistake. Sorry!
"I'm not sure that's relevant. Part of the reason I work is to try to make sure my kids are reasonably well set-up in life."
You're not sure that's relevent? WTF!?! I think it's pretty clear what the purpose of copyright was.
If you are concerned about the finances of your dependents there is this thing call insurance. It is part of a larger field of financial planning.
Which is why I'm not sure that it's relevant that Dick's estate makes no contribution to what they earn. Maybe they should earn it, maybe they shouldn't, but whether they contributed to it seems irrelevant to me.
Are you stating that unless you produce the types of creative works I list above, your estate cannot benefit after your death? (Say, from financial investments you made during your lifetime.
No, I'm saying that my estate can, which is why it's a red herring that Dick's estate hasn't made a contribution to what they're earning.
Not really. A "White" society would quite easily survive the bush by getting rid of it and replacing it with a more friendly environment.
Do we have the technology to do that? We can make isolated friendly "bubbles", but I'm not sure we could convert the whole Bush into a California clone.
Ultimately, when talking about survival, the single measure that you need to look at are population numbers, and growth rates.
So Afghanistan (4.5%) is more advanced than the USA (0.6%)? China is less advanced now than it was in the 1960s? If you're looking at survival then you need to look at whether the population numbers and growth are sustainable, and it's at least possible that the Aboriginal lifestyle may cope better with climate change, for example, than the Western model.
... and the extra publicity is likely to far outweigh any boycott.
This really emphasizes that the "estate" has no creative role, and that copyright no longer promotes "the progress of science and useful arts."
I'm not sure that's relevant. Part of the reason I work is to try to make sure my kids are reasonably well set-up in life. They make no contribution to my earnings (when they were younger they had a rather negative effect) but it's still part of my motivation in my work. If they couldn't inherit those benefits then I'd do something easier for less pay.
That's irrelevant. It's true that, if advances aren't really needed, they won't be made (or will be made and then quickly discarded). However, regardless of the reasons, the civilization with more advances is, well, more advanced, pretty much by definition.
Too simplistic. I bet the aboriginal society is more "advanced" than White or Asian Australian in terms of surviving in the bush. "Advances" aren't simple, counatble things.
Or the person above you in the foodchain might just know more than you about what the company is actually tring to achieve, and/or may be correctly reflecting shared experience which you haven't yet encountered. If you can't deal with that, set up on your own.
Just what we need -- an epoch that changes as science progresses (and estimates of the time of the Big Bang improve).
continue to clone every release. Or just use updates of the library, to carefully apply applicable patches to your fork of that part.
Sounds like exactly the sort of maintenance issue management wanted to avoid in the case I mentioned.
My question is, why the f*** so many systems have issues with their clocks. In just about any language (C, Java, .NET, Perl, PHP, SQL...) there are (built-in) libraries available that do time correctly. If you're unsure on how to store time, Unix epoch is just about the simplest way to store it (it's a freakin' integer), it's universally recognizable and accepted and very easy to calculate with and if you need more precision just make it a floating point number and add numbers after the comma.
Partly because of ignorance of the libraries, but partly because the built-in libraries simply don't do time correctly. Unix epoch? Rolls over in 2038, so it's no use for dealing with 49 or 99 year land-leases (or the 999 year lease I held on one property). I know somebody who worked on software dealing with mineral exploration rights who had just this problem: Unix epoch simply got it wrong for the timescales involved (and he wasn't allowed to use 3rd party libraries because management perceived that as a support issue). What was he to do but roll his own? And it's very much because people think it's simple, without looking at the actual issues.
I spent a bit of time during some touristy native american stuff while i was in canada and alaska last year, those tribes are (were) WAY more advanced than the Australian native peoples that the comparision just doesn't apply.
Native americans built full blown cabins where aborigionals largely still lived in caves and temporary shelter. They had a far better chance at integration.
So you define "advanced" as "more like you"? Has it occurred to you that permanent shelter is just not the issue in a generally warm place like Australia than in a generally cold place like Alaska? That they might not have made those "advances" because they have no need of them? That "integration", whatever benefits it might have, might not be the best way to preserve the culture, and that the later is a valid choice?
pouring money into aborigional art and expression (hip-hop, dance and so on).
Hip-hop is an aboriginal Australian form of expression?
I'm not sure the estate has shot itself in the foot. If people didn't already know the book they wouldn't have known the reference, so it wouldn't have renewed interest in the book. Now they are much more likely to become aware of the book, and the extra publicity is likely to far outweigh any boycott. If (as seems likely to me, but IANAL) the estate has no legal ground, who cares? This wasn't necessarily about winning the case.
Simple. Y2k is being delivered ten years late. People never learn about late IT deliveries!
If you need it to function, you have a problem and should cut back or quit.
I need oxygen to function, but I'm worried about cutting back or quitting. I'm told the withdrawal symptoms are pretty bad.
Don't be silly. It would only be "abuse" if it were a bad thing!
Neither of the books I mentioned, though.
Doesn't this violate the Chicago Convention? Of course, the USA never liked the Chicago Convention -- they wanted each pair of countries to negotiate overflight rules individually, so lots of countries making tit-for-tat retalliations leading to the collapse of the Chicago Convention might be just what the USA is playing for.
Now, granted, it doesn't say that people will be prevented from leaving, but I suggest you think about it for a moment. What is the purpose of identifying people who leave, other than to control who leaves?
Checking up on visitors who overstay their visas, as the article says? Just the sort of thing the UK Home Office got into trouble a few years ago for not knowing.