He's addressing it, just in a roundabout way. There's a difference between a boy breaking the window and the boy finding a way to make better glass, or put windows where there weren't windows before. The space program uses the money to innovate and produce where there was none before.
The article goes on to mention a lot of different benefits from the space program. The patents and innovation have more than paid for what was put into getting to the moon the first time, there's not reason to believe it won't happen again. Beyond that, it's a way to convince children to go into more specialized professions like science and engineering, because they have the opportunity to do something that strikes the imagination. In addition, it feeds the human need for exploration, which is very hard to do on earth right now. There are parts of the ocean and maybe some remote jungles or mountainous regions where a human truly hasn't stepped foot in centuries, but that's all. Everywhere else you feel as if you're visiting somewhere someone else has been. Only space offers us the opportunity to truly explore new territory.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it establishes the US (or whatever nation does it) as the superior nation, at least in this regard. With Europe, Russia, China and India all accelerating their efforts in space, the US is in a position to either beat them to the goals or be left behind. The national psyche would do well to reinforce itself with a victory that's not military, but industrial/scientific in nature. Even if you don't feel like you need that reinforcement, I'm sure you think that a segment of America does.
Now, is there something else that a group of people working together voluntarily could do that would equal those benefits?
No he's not. The whole argument about efficiency in the first place is about the power it takes to convert the plant into ethanol, in this case it takes much less energy to convert switchgrass into the same amount of ethanol. However, if it takes one acre of switchgrass to get one quart of ethanol, it might not be worth the investment if there's another plant with a lower efficiency but 5x the yield per acre. The article even mentions that they still need to do some work on increasing the yield of switchgrass. The sun neither causes nor solves the problem.
According to this study, activity levels for children stay the same no matter what they're forced to do, ie if they're not active at home they'll be active at school and vice versa. A child will be active no matter what they do for play. My little brother and his friends start to get overly energetic when they play video games for too long, and then they quit and run around for a while. It should also be mentioned that this same brother plays video games more than anyone I know, and he's also skinnier than average.
By the time he reached that part of his life, my grandfather's life was built on his memories, be it his large family who he loved very much, his many accomplishments in life, or the friends he had. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimers, he lost recognition of people in his life, lost all his dignity, and was put into a home. If he regained all his function but didn't remember anything, I'm 100% sure that his life would have felt empty and hollow. Memories give anyone's life meaning, the elderly more than anyone.
The problem is that when people on the internet (most people lump us all together) have their copyrighted material taken without permission, they threaten legal action, yet these same people are the people that take copyrighted material without permission. Most people are going to miss minute details, like the fact that the people posting these pictures aren't necessarily the same pirating things on the internet, or the fact that pirating a copy for personal use is very different than pirating something for a commercial.
I wondered about that too, but I find it doubtful because of the simple fact that Linden Labs almost surely keeps track of all transactions. The point of laundering money, as I understand it, is to make it so that trying to trace the money gets lost in a few weak links. Since Second Life's money transfers would all be considered strong links, the only value it would have would be something of a money wiring service.
"Now it's time for the killing floor. But don't let the name fool you, it's more of a grating so that the blood can be collected and sold to European countries!"
How is that different from you having your writings as a bundle of paper in your suitcase? Everything else you said also applies to searching suitcases. I'm just saying, if you going to complain about searches, complain about all searches, not just the laptop.
As mentioned elsewhere in the discussion, these are customs agents, so they're not looking just for dangerous things, but for anything that you're not allowed to bring into the country for one reason or another, including child pornography (which is the case under dispute).
You can search a hard drive. Claiming that a hard drive is an extension of your memory is bullshit. If the government can search your suitcase, I see no problem with them searching your hard drive. If you have something you don't want them to find, encrypt it. Hide it. Do something other than leaving it in plain sight of a simple search.
That's true, but we're not discussing that difference. The difference that we're mostly discussing here is that if you produce hardware that uses open source code, you have to let the user run modified code on that device. Tivo uses linux on all their boxes but they have a checksum to make sure that if the software is modified, it won't run it. They do this because they are required to make sure that you can't use their device for widespread copyright infringement, to shield themselves from the MPAA.
Stallman, in the meantime, sees Tivo using their software but not allowing people to modify it and run it on their device, gets his panties in a bunch and decides that they need to modify the license to keep device manufacturers from doing that.
Linus, on the other hand, takes his evil corporate leanings and decides that hardware is different from software and that hardware manufacturers are, therefore, different from software developers and proclaims that hardware manufacturers should be able to do whatever they want.
Slashdot, in the meanwhile, get's a huge boner off of the conflict, especially Zonk, who's tickled pink that he doesn't even have to give misleading headlines and summaries to inflame people.
Bullshit. That's like saying that because you pay taxes, you support torture! Or like saying since you support slashdot, which is part of a corporation, you're promoting the exploitation of poor chinese children! Linus believes that there's a difference between hardware and software, and that software shouldn't dictate hardware. That makes sense to me.
As I remember, Linus is of the opinion that hardware vendors shouldn't have to leave their hardware open because there's more of an investment and because it's a physical object, and frankly I agree with him. Tivo has to open up their source code, so why not grab that source code and run it on a device that will allow you to change it? The code is still free, but the physical device that you're being sold isn't. Hardware costs more to produce and develop than software does, and it makes sense that someone might be of the opinion that hardware makers should have more control over a device that costs them more.
Agreed. I find that Wikipedia's search basically only works for finding an article on that exact subject, where you might as well just type it into the url anyway. When I have to use google to get meaningful results searching wikipedia, why should I believe they can give me a better search engine than Google? More importantly, why not fix their internal search first, and then give us an internet search when their search is better?
well said. Many people forget that the rules are in place for a reason. You don't want the game to turn into one rules-lawyering session after another, but at the same time, the game should work in a way where you can predict the mechanics of your actions every time.
This seems unlikely to me. As far as I can tell, every single type of dinosaur died out except for those that went on to become birds. This is like future, intelligent insects blaming the plague for the demise of every type of mammal on the planet.
In the past year, we've had McCartney jump to a new label, Radiohead release their own album, NIN doing their thing, and Prince bucking the trends, signing a deal that is unheard of from a record label, and distributing his cd in a way that pissed all the industry folks off. I agree that leaving in droves might be an overstatement, but it was the first year where labels started losing out in a high profile way because artists weren't playing along.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you posted this comment on the wrong thread.
You don't have it correctly. .NET can be used to code desktop apps, and the code only runs under windows (Mono's pretty good, but not perfect).
The checks and balances are already there, they just need to be enforced.
He's addressing it, just in a roundabout way. There's a difference between a boy breaking the window and the boy finding a way to make better glass, or put windows where there weren't windows before. The space program uses the money to innovate and produce where there was none before.
The article goes on to mention a lot of different benefits from the space program. The patents and innovation have more than paid for what was put into getting to the moon the first time, there's not reason to believe it won't happen again. Beyond that, it's a way to convince children to go into more specialized professions like science and engineering, because they have the opportunity to do something that strikes the imagination. In addition, it feeds the human need for exploration, which is very hard to do on earth right now. There are parts of the ocean and maybe some remote jungles or mountainous regions where a human truly hasn't stepped foot in centuries, but that's all. Everywhere else you feel as if you're visiting somewhere someone else has been. Only space offers us the opportunity to truly explore new territory.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it establishes the US (or whatever nation does it) as the superior nation, at least in this regard. With Europe, Russia, China and India all accelerating their efforts in space, the US is in a position to either beat them to the goals or be left behind. The national psyche would do well to reinforce itself with a victory that's not military, but industrial/scientific in nature. Even if you don't feel like you need that reinforcement, I'm sure you think that a segment of America does.
Now, is there something else that a group of people working together voluntarily could do that would equal those benefits?
*applause*
No he's not. The whole argument about efficiency in the first place is about the power it takes to convert the plant into ethanol, in this case it takes much less energy to convert switchgrass into the same amount of ethanol. However, if it takes one acre of switchgrass to get one quart of ethanol, it might not be worth the investment if there's another plant with a lower efficiency but 5x the yield per acre. The article even mentions that they still need to do some work on increasing the yield of switchgrass. The sun neither causes nor solves the problem.
How much are you willing to bet that I can find more people who play video games at least 3 hours a day than eat at mcdonald's once a day?
According to this study, activity levels for children stay the same no matter what they're forced to do, ie if they're not active at home they'll be active at school and vice versa. A child will be active no matter what they do for play. My little brother and his friends start to get overly energetic when they play video games for too long, and then they quit and run around for a while. It should also be mentioned that this same brother plays video games more than anyone I know, and he's also skinnier than average.
The event horizon is often considered the size of a black hole since nothing could ever leave that space.
By the time he reached that part of his life, my grandfather's life was built on his memories, be it his large family who he loved very much, his many accomplishments in life, or the friends he had. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimers, he lost recognition of people in his life, lost all his dignity, and was put into a home. If he regained all his function but didn't remember anything, I'm 100% sure that his life would have felt empty and hollow. Memories give anyone's life meaning, the elderly more than anyone.
The problem is that when people on the internet (most people lump us all together) have their copyrighted material taken without permission, they threaten legal action, yet these same people are the people that take copyrighted material without permission. Most people are going to miss minute details, like the fact that the people posting these pictures aren't necessarily the same pirating things on the internet, or the fact that pirating a copy for personal use is very different than pirating something for a commercial.
I can guarantee that the water wasted from super soakers is nowhere near the amount wasted by poorly aimed sprinklers watering cement.
I wondered about that too, but I find it doubtful because of the simple fact that Linden Labs almost surely keeps track of all transactions. The point of laundering money, as I understand it, is to make it so that trying to trace the money gets lost in a few weak links. Since Second Life's money transfers would all be considered strong links, the only value it would have would be something of a money wiring service.
"Now it's time for the killing floor. But don't let the name fool you, it's more of a grating so that the blood can be collected and sold to European countries!"
How is that different from you having your writings as a bundle of paper in your suitcase? Everything else you said also applies to searching suitcases. I'm just saying, if you going to complain about searches, complain about all searches, not just the laptop.
As mentioned elsewhere in the discussion, these are customs agents, so they're not looking just for dangerous things, but for anything that you're not allowed to bring into the country for one reason or another, including child pornography (which is the case under dispute).
You can search a hard drive. Claiming that a hard drive is an extension of your memory is bullshit. If the government can search your suitcase, I see no problem with them searching your hard drive. If you have something you don't want them to find, encrypt it. Hide it. Do something other than leaving it in plain sight of a simple search.
That's true, but we're not discussing that difference. The difference that we're mostly discussing here is that if you produce hardware that uses open source code, you have to let the user run modified code on that device. Tivo uses linux on all their boxes but they have a checksum to make sure that if the software is modified, it won't run it. They do this because they are required to make sure that you can't use their device for widespread copyright infringement, to shield themselves from the MPAA.
Stallman, in the meantime, sees Tivo using their software but not allowing people to modify it and run it on their device, gets his panties in a bunch and decides that they need to modify the license to keep device manufacturers from doing that.
Linus, on the other hand, takes his evil corporate leanings and decides that hardware is different from software and that hardware manufacturers are, therefore, different from software developers and proclaims that hardware manufacturers should be able to do whatever they want.
Slashdot, in the meanwhile, get's a huge boner off of the conflict, especially Zonk, who's tickled pink that he doesn't even have to give misleading headlines and summaries to inflame people.
Bullshit. That's like saying that because you pay taxes, you support torture! Or like saying since you support slashdot, which is part of a corporation, you're promoting the exploitation of poor chinese children! Linus believes that there's a difference between hardware and software, and that software shouldn't dictate hardware. That makes sense to me.
As I remember, Linus is of the opinion that hardware vendors shouldn't have to leave their hardware open because there's more of an investment and because it's a physical object, and frankly I agree with him. Tivo has to open up their source code, so why not grab that source code and run it on a device that will allow you to change it? The code is still free, but the physical device that you're being sold isn't. Hardware costs more to produce and develop than software does, and it makes sense that someone might be of the opinion that hardware makers should have more control over a device that costs them more.
Agreed. I find that Wikipedia's search basically only works for finding an article on that exact subject, where you might as well just type it into the url anyway. When I have to use google to get meaningful results searching wikipedia, why should I believe they can give me a better search engine than Google? More importantly, why not fix their internal search first, and then give us an internet search when their search is better?
well said. Many people forget that the rules are in place for a reason. You don't want the game to turn into one rules-lawyering session after another, but at the same time, the game should work in a way where you can predict the mechanics of your actions every time.
This seems unlikely to me. As far as I can tell, every single type of dinosaur died out except for those that went on to become birds. This is like future, intelligent insects blaming the plague for the demise of every type of mammal on the planet.
In the past year, we've had McCartney jump to a new label, Radiohead release their own album, NIN doing their thing, and Prince bucking the trends, signing a deal that is unheard of from a record label, and distributing his cd in a way that pissed all the industry folks off. I agree that leaving in droves might be an overstatement, but it was the first year where labels started losing out in a high profile way because artists weren't playing along.