You know what I'd love more than further improvement in any of those areas? Comprehensive, well-written documentation.
I agree. Both for newbies and for experienced users / programmers.
How to achieve this? Perjhaps there could be a Wiki covering all versions of Linux (and other free software Unix-like operating systems). Anyone would be able to add content to it (as with Wikipedia). And there would be automatic updates from the package repositories of various distros, so the wiki would correctly report that version 7.04 of Ubuntu uses version 12.34.56 of some package Foo (and this would be automatically updated). People would be encouraged to post problems that they have on a special area (maybe like a bulletin board) and post fixes when they find them. The fix reports would be specific, and would givew full details of what distro and package versions they used, and (for example) the exact command line commands that were used to fix the problem.
Yes, you're right. What I was really getting at is the arrongance and selfishness of those who think it is OK for them to vandalise other people's stuff for their silly and pathetic TV programmes.
I think someone should write graffiti on big letters on the walls of these TV stations... purely as an experiment, you understand, to see how long it takes to remove it.
Perhaps the correct response would be for no-one to listen to Internet radio, and no-one to set up an Internet radio station broadcasting MAFIAA-licensed content. That way the MAFIAA get to keep their obnoxious rules, but at the same time they make no money from them, and hasten their path to irrelevence and bankrupcy.
If and when you can show me a company where GPL is a significant asset over BSD/MIT, great, please fill me in.
That's easy: Trolltech and Qt. Trolltech release Qt under both the GPL and a proprietary license so they can make money from people wishing to write proprietary software linking to Qt.
Let's not forget that Open Source is just a way of writing software.
No it's not. Text editors, IDEs, unit tests, and compilers are ways of writing software. Open Source is a way of licensing software. As is Free Software (which is largely the same thing).
Actually, I don't think the Open Source Movement has much contribute to the fight against DRM. [...] The Free Software Movement however really fought against DRM
I write software and release it under the GPL. Does this make me part of the Open Source Movement, or part of the Free Software Movement, or both?
Ah, then the solution is to sack the idiot whose idea it was to lock the company in to one vendor, particularly a vendor with a reputation for treating its customers like shit. Unfortunately, said idiot is probably the IT manager and is effectively unsackable.
Have you considered upgrading to Ubuntu? No activation server, no required log back, no auditing, just software that does the job and doesn't get in the way.
Britain's new warships run -- you've guessed it -- Microsoft Windows 2000. So in the event of a war between Britain and China, this could bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".
If, according to the USPTO, phoning up a customer to get more information is innovative and non-obvious, then going to the toilet to piss and shit is equally innovative and non-obvious. And all USPTO patent examiners are in breach of my patent for this, unless instead they choose to piss and shit themselves at their desk.
You may ask, what about your right to hack your Tivo? I'd respond, what about their right to attempt to prevent their product from being hacked?
If I buy a Tivo, it belongs to me and I should be able to do whatever I like with it (as long as I don't harm anyone else of course, e.g. by bashing them over the head with the Tivo).
If Tivo don't like that, they shouldn't sell their boxes to people. After all, once I sell you something, my rights over it cease.
I personally am opposed to both the effect and the intent of the GPL. [...]
Well, software licensing is all about what effect you intend to get out of the license. I can see instances where FGPL licensing is appropriate, where BSD licensing is appropriate, and where proprietary licensing is appropriate.
Good. I hope leeches like Tivo either (a) learn the error of their ways and repend, by either not using GPL'd software, or by removing the DRM, or (b) go bankrupt.
The relevant part is article 6, sections (1) to (3), which reads as follows:
1. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the circumvention of any effective technological measures, which the person concerned carries out in the knowledge, or with reasonable grounds to know, that he or she is pursuing that objective.
2. Member States shall provide adequate legal protection against the manufacture, import, distribution, sale, rental, advertisement for sale or rental, or possession for commercial purposes of devices, products or components or the provision of services which:
(a) are promoted, advertised or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of, or
(b) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent, or
(c) are primarily designed, produced, adapted or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of,
any effective technological measures.
3. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "technological measures" means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, is designed to prevent or restrict acts, in respect of works or other subject-matter, which are not authorised by the rightholder of any copyright or any right related to copyright as provided for by law or the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. Technological measures shall be deemed "effective" where the use of a protected work or other subject-matter is controlled by the rightholders through application of an access control or protection process, such as encryption, scrambling or other transformation of the work or other subject-matter or a copy control mechanism, which achieves the protection objective.
Other technologies used in schools also harmful?
on
How Bad Can Wi-fi Be?
·
· Score: 1
Wifi uses frequencies of 2.5 GHz to 5 GHz, and power levels of
transmissions are typically around 0.1 W.
However there is another technology also used in schools that emits
electromagnetic radiation and is potentially more dangerous, because:
this other technology emits radiation in the range of 450-750 THz,
i.e. 100,000 times the frequency of Wifi; which means that each
electromagnetic particle (or "photon") will carry about 100,000 times more
energy (because energy is proportional to frequency) and is therefore 100,000 times as potentially damaging.
Furthermore there are structures near thr human brain which nave been
scientifically demonstrated to be especially sensitive to radiation of
these frequencies.
this other technology uses more powerful transmitters that
typically emit 60-100 W. Furthermore, these transmitters are typically
kept on all the time (unlike wifi which transmits in bursts), which
increases the total amount of energy radiated over a given time.
These facts suggest to me that this other technology is potentially a
lot more harmful to health than wifi might be (although having said
that it is entirely possible that neither technology poses a
significant harm to health), and that consequently if wifi is to be
investigated as a risk to health, this other technology should be
investigated much more rigourously.
Yeah, ocs the Internet would be soooooooooooooooo much better if it was controlled by luddite politicos who don't even know what a popup blocker is. Arsehole.
Computers are cheap, particularly as a proportion of income in the USA where CMU is. It's reasonable to expect that people wanting to do CS would be interested in computers, and it does not take much effotrt to download some software from the net and learn to program.
Having said that, if someone is turned off programming by doing a Java course, that does not indicate to me that they don't have the minsdset to be a good programmer. In fact, it's almost the reverse -- if they think Java is a good way of programming a computer, they aren't a good programmer!
Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs
This is a good idea and I think it could equally be applied to boosting the numbers of under-represented groups in other areas. For example, proficiency at flying should no longer be a requirement for airline pilots. And surgeons shouldn't have to be good at doing operations. To say otherwise is elitist and divisive.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what I'd love more than further improvement in any of those areas? Comprehensive, well-written documentation.
I agree. Both for newbies and for experienced users / programmers.
How to achieve this? Perjhaps there could be a Wiki covering all versions of Linux (and other free software Unix-like operating systems). Anyone would be able to add content to it (as with Wikipedia). And there would be automatic updates from the package repositories of various distros, so the wiki would correctly report that version 7.04 of Ubuntu uses version 12.34.56 of some package Foo (and this would be automatically updated). People would be encouraged to post problems that they have on a special area (maybe like a bulletin board) and post fixes when they find them. The fix reports would be specific, and would givew full details of what distro and package versions they used, and (for example) the exact command line commands that were used to fix the problem.
Over time, this would grow to a useful resource.
Yes, you're right. What I was really getting at is the arrongance and selfishness of those who think it is OK for them to vandalise other people's stuff for their silly and pathetic TV programmes.
I think someone should write graffiti on big letters on the walls of these TV stations... purely as an experiment, you understand, to see how long it takes to remove it.
ITYM like the Porche version of the Tiger I, later known as the Elefant
Perhaps the correct response would be for no-one to listen to Internet radio, and no-one to set up an Internet radio station broadcasting MAFIAA-licensed content. That way the MAFIAA get to keep their obnoxious rules, but at the same time they make no money from them, and hasten their path to irrelevence and bankrupcy.
If and when you can show me a company where GPL is a significant asset over BSD/MIT, great, please fill me in.
That's easy: Trolltech and Qt. Trolltech release Qt under both the GPL and a proprietary license so they can make money from people wishing to write proprietary software linking to Qt.
Let's not forget that Open Source is just a way of writing software.
No it's not. Text editors, IDEs, unit tests, and compilers are ways of writing software. Open Source is a way of licensing software. As is Free Software (which is largely the same thing).
Actually, I don't think the Open Source Movement has much contribute to the fight against DRM. [...] The Free Software Movement however really fought against DRM
I write software and release it under the GPL. Does this make me part of the Open Source Movement, or part of the Free Software Movement, or both?
Ah, then the solution is to sack the idiot whose idea it was to lock the company in to one vendor, particularly a vendor with a reputation for treating its customers like shit. Unfortunately, said idiot is probably the IT manager and is effectively unsackable.
Have you considered upgrading to Ubuntu? No activation server, no required log back, no auditing, just software that does the job and doesn't get in the way.
Britain's new warships run -- you've guessed it -- Microsoft Windows 2000. So in the event of a war between Britain and China, this could bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".
If, according to the USPTO, phoning up a customer to get more information is innovative and non-obvious, then going to the toilet to piss and shit is equally innovative and non-obvious. And all USPTO patent examiners are in breach of my patent for this, unless instead they choose to piss and shit themselves at their desk.
I got my numbers of 24436 and 3449 from another page on freshmeat.
So it seems Freshmeat is being ambiguous.
Reports of the GPL's demise therefore seem exaggerated.
You may ask, what about your right to hack your Tivo? I'd respond, what about their right to attempt to prevent their product from being hacked? If I buy a Tivo, it belongs to me and I should be able to do whatever I like with it (as long as I don't harm anyone else of course, e.g. by bashing them over the head with the Tivo). If Tivo don't like that, they shouldn't sell their boxes to people. After all, once I sell you something, my rights over it cease. I personally am opposed to both the effect and the intent of the GPL. [...] Well, software licensing is all about what effect you intend to get out of the license. I can see instances where FGPL licensing is appropriate, where BSD licensing is appropriate, and where proprietary licensing is appropriate.
Good. I hope leeches like Tivo either (a) learn the error of their ways and repend, by either not using GPL'd software, or by removing the DRM, or (b) go bankrupt.
Doresn't Microsoft have a "Freedom to innovate network"? Perhaps they couls change the name to "freedom to prevent others innovating".
I wasn't aware that the Swedish law didn't cover TPMs that provide for region coding, but this is an obviously sensible thing to do.
quantaman: I don't know the precise wording of the law
The text of the EUCD (AKA directive 2001/29/EC) is at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do? uri=CELEX:32001L0029:EN:HTML
The relevant part is article 6, sections (1) to (3), which reads as follows:
Wifi uses frequencies of 2.5 GHz to 5 GHz, and power levels of transmissions are typically around 0.1 W.
However there is another technology also used in schools that emits electromagnetic radiation and is potentially more dangerous, because:
These facts suggest to me that this other technology is potentially a lot more harmful to health than wifi might be (although having said that it is entirely possible that neither technology poses a significant harm to health), and that consequently if wifi is to be investigated as a risk to health, this other technology should be investigated much more rigourously.
The name of this other technology? light bulbs.
I guess the finns are more advanced than us (I'm in the UK too)
No, you still need a landline for ADSL. What, also use it to make phone calls with? Only if you count VOIP :-)
Yeah, ocs the Internet would be soooooooooooooooo much better if it was controlled by luddite politicos who don't even know what a popup blocker is. Arsehole.
Computers are cheap, particularly as a proportion of income in the USA where CMU is. It's reasonable to expect that people wanting to do CS would be interested in computers, and it does not take much effotrt to download some software from the net and learn to program. Having said that, if someone is turned off programming by doing a Java course, that does not indicate to me that they don't have the minsdset to be a good programmer. In fact, it's almost the reverse -- if they think Java is a good way of programming a computer, they aren't a good programmer!
This is a good idea and I think it could equally be applied to boosting the numbers of under-represented groups in other areas. For example, proficiency at flying should no longer be a requirement for airline pilots. And surgeons shouldn't have to be good at doing operations. To say otherwise is elitist and divisive.