True, but they wouldn't have to be used as a complete replacement of existing engines. Sails could be used as part of a hybrid system, similar to the way electric propulsion complements gasoline engines in hybrid cars. The combination could provide significant savings.
Keep politics out from computers and leave such decisions as DRM and Patents to users
That's an excellent idea. It is also the whole point of the GPL, in all its versions.
You see, the decisions related to DRM and Patents are not currently being left to the the users at all. They are entirely at the discretion of copyright owners and their lawyers.
You seem to believe that if you just "keep politics out", it will just go away. It doesn't. You may not like politics, but politics likes you.
Actually, no. He claims the authors distorted the facts, and he provides his own account of said facts as he sees them. How does this prove anything? What you're saying is no different from "I think this guy really raped that girl, because he acted too outraged when we accused him."
I actually read the original article in the New Yorker at the time, and found it to be a fascinating look into the inner workings of science at the highest level. Having no direct knowledge of any of the people involved, my impresion of their roles in the story (and ultimately of their character), was shaped entirely by what the article authors have said. In particular, Dr. Yau did come across as a deeply flawed, manipulative individual obsessed by his place in history, which I thought was very sad indeed, given his apparently uncontested mathematical genius and his achievements formaly acknowledged by having been awarded his very own Fields Medal.
However, after reading the letter, I am not so sure anymore. Don't forget that he who frames the discussion controls the outcome. Once this article has been out there, people already formed their perceptions. The deck is stacked against the defendant. Remember how Al Gore took credit for inventing the Internet? Oh, wait, he didn't.
What if the thrust of the story is in fact false? The letter states rather convincingly that the interviews were conducted under false pretenses, that certain critical quotes were distorted or outright fabricated, and that important pieces of information that would have painted a different picture were simply left out.
Yeah, he "looks" guilty in the original article, but why should we consider that version of the facts true, and discard the letter as "proving the point"? That's not how we arrive at the truth.
I don't work for MS but as a professional computer-programmer, I would never say anything about anyone else's program/work (like scheduling) that I haven't seen first-hand.
Right. But most of the damning judgements on that blog come from developers who actually work on the product.
Actaully, by your explanation they are Lawful Neutral.
Neutral with respect to the Law, yes. However, I think the grandparent distinguishes two different codes, Legal (Lawful vs. Unlawful) and Moral (Good vs. Evil).
Lawful Evil makes sense, and is the right way to put it in this case.
Insightful as they may be, your observations are false. Unfortunately they are often-repeated myths.
Einstein was not "very religious", he was agnostic. From Autobiographical Notes (bolding mine)*:
Thus I came -- though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents -- to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.
As for your assertion about the lack of correlation between intelligence and religion, most studies point to a negativecorrelation:
All but four of the forty-three polls listed support the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with degree of religious faith; i.e., that, other factors being equal, the more intelligent a person is, the less religious he is.
I am strongly opposed to DMCA-style laws, and I am very concerned about the seemingly unstoppable stream of lost citizen rights which these laws bring along. But your argument is bogus. And what's scary is that so many people here keep repeating it.
You say:
It makes no sense to speak of stealing something that isn't scarce.
But you see, it IS scarce.
I write software for a living. The time it takes to put out a software product is scarce. The money I am payed or which I must invest for creating that intangible and "0-cost reproducible" stream of bits is scarce. Reproduction costs are irrelevant; there must be something to be reproduced to begin with, and that something is scarce. This is equally true of music, books, or movies, all of which require (sometimes very) significant resources to create.
But you must know this already. Otherwise, I must presume you have nothing against taking GPL code and selling it as closed binaries. After all, everyone else still has the source, right?
When you distribute works (books, music, movies, software, whatever) without the copyright owner's permission you are stealing something: the compensation to which the author is entitled for creating it. How big that compensation is must be decided by the free market (which currently is anything but, but I digress.) Unless the author decided he wants no compensation, you have no right to his work until you pay the going price.
Of course, this doesn't justify idiotic and dangerous laws taking away any possibility of fair use, and, much worse, limiting free speech (currently outlawed decryption software is an example.) But the UNfair use that so many are trying to justify with the above "argument", and which is practiced on a massive scale, makes elected representatives easier to convince that these laws are necessary. Please don't help them sleep well at night while they are taking away our rights.
Re:Remember that other DeCSS?
on
The DeCSS Haiku
·
· Score: 1
This suggest an effective way to jam MPAA's monitoring capability: flood the Net with DeCSS decoys. Everybody can display on their website the source code for a program called DeCSS, right? The source code should even resemble the original, but the resemblance should be only superficial. How will MPAA know which ones are the real deal? They would have to analyze each and every one of them before making threatening statements "under penalty of perjury."
I think an online university is an excellent idea. I prayed so many times such a thing existed, I can't even count. Most of the posts here assume that the only possible beneficiaries would be people who belong to the age group comprising most of the current university population. But this is not necessarily the case.
I have a five year university degree, and I've been doing software consulting for the last seven years. I've come to specialize, by the nature of my day-to-day work, into a specific area of computer science (language theory). Now I came to the point where I really need to acquire new knowledge, at the graduate and post-graduate level. Going back to school is not an option for me. But, being an independent contractor, I've decided to take a break from paid work for a while, and dedicate several months to studying my target subject. An online university is exactly what I needed. Since it doesn't exist, I had to make do with the lecture notes which some university teachers post on their home pages. The info I got this way is of excellent quality, but it was hell to gather it. I spent over two months just trying to figure out what I should read in the first place, and what is the optimum order. Then, finding these courses online is no small job. I would rather spend this time reading the papers, than looking for them.
I am very comfortable with learning on my own, just from lecture notes and research papers. But at times I could save huge amounts of very precious time (I'm paying for it dearly by giving up top hourly rates available to me in Toronto), by asking three question in an email, and send it to the author of the course. I would only ask the three questions which I couldn't answer despite all my efforts, only after I answered all the others. Unfortunately, there is nobody out there who will help me. I can't bother Carnegie Mellon professors with my stupid questions; they are way too busy with their own research, and they need all the time they can get to cater to paying students. I am very grateful as it is, just for making the lecture notes available on the Net.
We should not go after Amazon, or any other company that uses the patent system to fight the competition. A company is supposed to use any legal means in order to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition. It's the logical thing to do, and we should expect them to do it. It's why they exist on this world: to do anything legally allowed to perpetuate themselves, and make money.
We should not ask commercial entities to refrain from using legal means to protect themselves. What we should do is ask the lawmakers to level the playing field. We should pressure them to make software patents and business model patents unavailable to companies, on the basis that allowing them hurts the ecosystem, as Tim brilliantly puts it.
Doing that will force companies to rely on the other means left, which were the only ones available to them when software patents weren't being granted: better customer service, better prices, superior selection, branding.
Don't ask hockey players not to hit each other as long as the rules allow it. If you want them not to do that, change the rules. Yes, they will continue to do it, but they will lose points in the game. And the ecosystem is protected.
Wanna know "Why Refractive Surgeons Wear Glasses?" There's a wealth of information at http://members.aol.com/eyeknowwhy/ Quote from the site: "Everybody has an opinion, this is just one."
Slashdot Mirror
No. Communism didn't work because regardless of whether you delivered the results or not, you still got paid.
In the meantime, you can get great technical insight about large scale IT management here
You see, the decisions related to DRM and Patents are not currently being left to the the users at all. They are entirely at the discretion of copyright owners and their lawyers.
You seem to believe that if you just "keep politics out", it will just go away. It doesn't. You may not like politics, but politics likes you.
I actually read the original article in the New Yorker at the time, and found it to be a fascinating look into the inner workings of science at the highest level. Having no direct knowledge of any of the people involved, my impresion of their roles in the story (and ultimately of their character), was shaped entirely by what the article authors have said. In particular, Dr. Yau did come across as a deeply flawed, manipulative individual obsessed by his place in history, which I thought was very sad indeed, given his apparently uncontested mathematical genius and his achievements formaly acknowledged by having been awarded his very own Fields Medal.
However, after reading the letter, I am not so sure anymore. Don't forget that he who frames the discussion controls the outcome. Once this article has been out there, people already formed their perceptions. The deck is stacked against the defendant. Remember how Al Gore took credit for inventing the Internet? Oh, wait, he didn't.
What if the thrust of the story is in fact false? The letter states rather convincingly that the interviews were conducted under false pretenses, that certain critical quotes were distorted or outright fabricated, and that important pieces of information that would have painted a different picture were simply left out. Yeah, he "looks" guilty in the original article, but why should we consider that version of the facts true, and discard the letter as "proving the point"? That's not how we arrive at the truth.
It is because the insurance companies spend less to cover them.
A link would be useful. This is what the parent is talking about.
Right. But most of the damning judgements on that blog come from developers who actually work on the product.
Lawful Evil makes sense, and is the right way to put it in this case.
GPL is meant to give every freedom, save for the one to use Free Software to build prisons. Fine with me.
This is a myth.
Einstein was not "very religious", he was agnostic. From Autobiographical Notes (bolding mine)*:
You can find the above quote, along with many others pointing firmly in the same direction, at http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einsteAs for your assertion about the lack of correlation between intelligence and religion, most studies point to a negative correlation:
You say:
But you see, it IS scarce.
I write software for a living. The time it takes to put out a software product is scarce. The money I am payed or which I must invest for creating that intangible and "0-cost reproducible" stream of bits is scarce. Reproduction costs are irrelevant; there must be something to be reproduced to begin with, and that something is scarce. This is equally true of music, books, or movies, all of which require (sometimes very) significant resources to create.
But you must know this already. Otherwise, I must presume you have nothing against taking GPL code and selling it as closed binaries. After all, everyone else still has the source, right?
When you distribute works (books, music, movies, software, whatever) without the copyright owner's permission you are stealing something: the compensation to which the author is entitled for creating it. How big that compensation is must be decided by the free market (which currently is anything but, but I digress.) Unless the author decided he wants no compensation, you have no right to his work until you pay the going price.
Of course, this doesn't justify idiotic and dangerous laws taking away any possibility of fair use, and, much worse, limiting free speech (currently outlawed decryption software is an example.) But the UNfair use that so many are trying to justify with the above "argument", and which is practiced on a massive scale, makes elected representatives easier to convince that these laws are necessary. Please don't help them sleep well at night while they are taking away our rights.
Actually someone may have clued them in on this one.
> YES, I'm a BAD American.... >:-)
Yeah, and a plagiator.
This suggest an effective way to jam MPAA's monitoring capability: flood the Net with DeCSS decoys. Everybody can display on their website the source code for a program called DeCSS, right? The source code should even resemble the original, but the resemblance should be only superficial. How will MPAA know which ones are the real deal? They would have to analyze each and every one of them before making threatening statements "under penalty of perjury."
I have a five year university degree, and I've been doing software consulting for the last seven years. I've come to specialize, by the nature of my day-to-day work, into a specific area of computer science (language theory). Now I came to the point where I really need to acquire new knowledge, at the graduate and post-graduate level. Going back to school is not an option for me. But, being an independent contractor, I've decided to take a break from paid work for a while, and dedicate several months to studying my target subject. An online university is exactly what I needed. Since it doesn't exist, I had to make do with the lecture notes which some university teachers post on their home pages. The info I got this way is of excellent quality, but it was hell to gather it. I spent over two months just trying to figure out what I should read in the first place, and what is the optimum order. Then, finding these courses online is no small job. I would rather spend this time reading the papers, than looking for them.
I am very comfortable with learning on my own, just from lecture notes and research papers. But at times I could save huge amounts of very precious time (I'm paying for it dearly by giving up top hourly rates available to me in Toronto), by asking three question in an email, and send it to the author of the course. I would only ask the three questions which I couldn't answer despite all my efforts, only after I answered all the others. Unfortunately, there is nobody out there who will help me. I can't bother Carnegie Mellon professors with my stupid questions; they are way too busy with their own research, and they need all the time they can get to cater to paying students. I am very grateful as it is, just for making the lecture notes available on the Net.
Florin
We should not go after Amazon, or any other company that uses the patent system to fight the competition. A company is supposed to use any legal means in order to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition. It's the logical thing to do, and we should expect them to do it. It's why they exist on this world: to do anything legally allowed to perpetuate themselves, and make money.
We should not ask commercial entities to refrain from using legal means to protect themselves. What we should do is ask the lawmakers to level the playing field. We should pressure them to make software patents and business model patents unavailable to companies, on the basis that allowing them hurts the ecosystem, as Tim brilliantly puts it.
Doing that will force companies to rely on the other means left, which were the only ones available to them when software patents weren't being granted: better customer service, better prices, superior selection, branding.
Don't ask hockey players not to hit each other as long as the rules allow it. If you want them not to do that, change the rules. Yes, they will continue to do it, but they will lose points in the game. And the ecosystem is protected.
Wanna know "Why Refractive Surgeons Wear Glasses?" There's a wealth of information at http://members.aol.com/eyeknowwhy/ Quote from the site: "Everybody has an opinion, this is just one."