Well, it does make a jump from a fundamental force we can't seem to detect into a latent, emergent phenomenon which we, er, also can't detect the source of.
*EVERYTHING* in the universe is based on some fundamental thing which we "cannot detect the source of". Even something as simple as math, or logic, is based on a set of axioms, or givens, which can never, themselves, be explained in terms of where they come from.
In physics, things like quarks (or if there's something that makes those, then that thing), or the fundamental forces, are all currently unexplained regarding why or how they exist.
What this work does (or at least, claims to do) is connect gravity with the rest of physics.
But your opening line is actually quite wrong:
Well, it does make a jump from a fundamental force we can't seem to detect into a latent, emergent phenomenon which we, er, also can't detect the source of.
Not at all. Presently, gravity is an axiom. It is a thing that exists, and upon which much is built, but below which nothing can be known. With this theory, gravity is just like things built upon gravity (such as orbits, gravitational singularities, etc.), which can all be explained by something below them. At some point, everything ends up as an axiom. This theory removes one of science's present axiom, and any time you can do that, you've done nothing less than fundamentally enhanced our understanding of the universe.
That's one funny thing about math, "close doesn't count", until you get to a certain advanced point.
I didn't realize irrational numbers, a huge portion of the rational numbers, and trigonometry, were considered advanced.
But this really isn't about the *math* being close, but not exact, it's about the math being close to *reality*, but not exact. Again, however, this is not advanced. Even grade school science is close but not exact. What's the temperature outside? How many inches of water did it rain last night? What's the circumference of the Earth? And Newtonian physics (which is also not advanced) is close, but not exact. Even at the slow speeds and low gravities of our mundane lives. Special and General Relativity have the honor *not* of being exact, but merely of being closer to exact than anything else so far.
The only common types of math where "close doesn't count" are basic arithmetic (excepting fractions) and pure algebraic manipulation.
In your high school physics class, do you *really* think you were exact when you used 186,000 mi/s or 300,000 km/s for the speed of light? Or in grade school, that the Earth rotates in exactly 24 hours (as measured from solar zenith to solar zenith)?
Or even before that, when you bought one candy bar at 3 for a dollar, and you got 66 cents in change?
Precision and accuracy are two terms you should have been made aware of by high school science, and rounding errors by middle school math.
Noah's already experienced it but God gave us a new colorful interface element and promised it'll never happen again.
So that explains the Apple "Beachball of Death":-)
The beachball (pinwheel, etc.) is the equivalent of the Windows hourglass, *not* the equivalent of the BSoD. Apple's BSoD is the kernel panic, just like any other self-respecting Unix.
Those three things you just listed aren't epistemologies. They beg the question, really. They've already assumed what the epistemology is and leapt to a conclusions.
Yes, they are. They deal with the source and nature of knowledge. As for begging the question, epistemology, by definition, begs the question. You can *never* *ever* prove any actual epistemology, because what it means to *prove* something is an inextricable part of the epistemology itself.
For instance, Plantinga would say that belief in God is knowledge, because this is the proper function of your mind, to believe in God. You would disagree, and say that belief in God isn't knowledge because the belief isn't justified in any way.
Not quite. Both are knowledge (knowledge doesn't have to be true). Epistemology deals primarily with where that knowledge comes from. If it comes from revelation, you could say you know god exists because it made itself known to you. Science says knowledge comes from experiment and extrapolation.
It's not ivory-tower intellectualism that we beer-swilling plebs can safely ignore. The character of civilisation and even empires is determined partly based on these ideas.
Quite the contrary. Billions of people do just fine without giving epistemology a second thought.
If it seems we're much more rigorously scientific and rational in our approach to life than the Roman Church in the middle ages, or the Greeks of antiquity, that would be why.
No. The why is that people can see that something works, so they go with it. The *vast* and *overwhelming* majority of people on this planet don't give epistemology (by that name, or any other) a second thought.
Depends how you define knowledge, doesn't it? If your epistemology revolves around justified true belief, sure.
Well, I should think it would be taken as granted that schools should stick to an epistemology based on the notion of actual, verifiable, and sufficiently verified, facts.
Remember that there are other competing definitions of knowledge that seek to embrace certain sticky situations JTB can't handle (the infamous clock right twice a day example, for instance) and that there are epistemological issues regarding faith and the limits of knowledge still being hashed out.
Not really. I mean, it's true that *philosophers* debate the shit out of this stuff (and as such, would be a reasonable topic for a philosophy class), but for the rest of the classes, things tend to be easily categorized into one of three epistemological camps.
1. A fact-based, scientific epistemology. 2. An emotion-based, subjective epistemology (mostly in social studies and literature classes, and very much possible without applying religion) 3. A faith-based, "revelatory" epistemology. This is squarely in the land of religion, and there is nothing in standard school curricula which would benefit from it.
You can teach astronomy, which inherited the names of the constellations, without teaching astrology.
It's astronomy if you say that sagittarius is to the east right now, which is where the port is and therefore that's where you should head. It's astrology if you say sagittarius is to the east right now, which means that if your captain has a water sign, there will be a storm in that direction, so you better head west.
Why do you suppose the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are so named?
And you can teach about them without giving them astrological significance.
Do you really think "the year of the rat" or the "age of Aquarius" are arbitrary terms that have nothing at all to do with orbital precession?
Do you really think that orbital precession isn't astronomy?
If we hold the right to criticize Google and Yahoo, we also hold the right to criticize any and every corporate doing the same shit. Where were you when we discussed this earlier??? Fanboism is one thing, defending them no matter what is... wait - it's the same thing.
You're calling Tharsman out for being a hypocrite. Do you have any comments of his where he complains about Google and Yahoo caving into the Chinese government? If not, then what's the basis for your post?
Not really. In America (and other places, I'm sure) we're still allowed, by the government[*], to Think Different. But in China, the government (not Apple) outlaws thinking different.
Thanks for the warning. Most people aren't as upfront about their misleading comments. I wish more Windows defenders had your integrity.
[Windows 3.1 crashed a lot, Windows 95 crashed less]... By the time XP rolled around, there were only a very few things that caused the machine to blue screen, and in cases I can remember, it was almost a hardware issue, or a driver issue (which generally is not microsoft's fault).
And here, we get to the part you warned about. You're using two misdirection devices.
The first is to compare XP with 9x, and even Win 3.1 (most people don't go that far back, so you get Redmond brownie points for trying). Even if you completely ignore Windows prior to XP, even if you were to completely remove every experience with pre-XP Windows from every person alive, and from every story, anecdote and so on recorded online, in print, on film and in audio. Just taking XP alone, the BSOD is something that everyone will have ensconced into their minds.
It's really telling that people defend XP by bringing up 9x.
The second bit of dishonesty is by blaming BSODs on drivers. First off, like before, even if you completely ignore driver-induced BSODs, people will *still* have a strong memory of BSODs. But regardless, the point isn't that it's MS's code, or Creative Labs' code, or Nvidia's code, or whatever, the fact remains that the BSODs still *happened*.
what apparently needed to be expressed instead of implied is that BSODs were much more commonplace in Win9x
I already stated this.
and people were familiar with the term by XP's launch
I didn't directly state this, but people were familiar with the idea of automobile deaths by the time of airbags and mandatory seat belts.
In other words, you're just trying to hide the BSODs of XP behind the BSODs that came before. More to the point, had no version of Windows prior to XP ever existed, and instead, XP arrived exactly as it did when it did, with the same number of apps and PCs and hardware, with the same market share, and people knew exactly how to use them to the same extent (except having no prior notion of a BSOD), the BSOD would *still* be a well-known concept (although perhaps with a different name).
I don't know where you live, but the vast majority of my friends and family had a computer by the release of Windows 98.
I doubt it, unless you have very few friends and family.
Now, the majority of your main friend *circle*, I can believe.
*multiple* PCs in a household were much less common (i.e. a communal family PC was the norm), but having a household computer in 1999 was indeed commonplace.
It was commonplace, but it was not > 50% until the year 2000. That puts the number of people who ever used Windows 9x (excepting random encounters like kiosks and such) at less than 50%.
The fact that the BSOD is known by just about everybody has more to do with Windows 95/98/ME than with XP.
Nice try. That's like saying, "the fact that automobile deaths are known by just about everybody has more to do with poor safety standards of the past than with modern cars." While technically it's true that deaths were more likely before things like airbags and mandatory seatbelts, that doesn't mean modern cars are exactly safe. Just safer than before.
Pre-SP2 XP had other issues (i.e. boatloads of security vulnerabilities), but the BSOD wasn't nearly as prevalent in XP as it was in the 9x years.
When people talk about the BSOD on XP, they aren't talking about it in comparison with 9x, they are just talking about XP itself.
Remember, the vast majority of Americans never even *ran* Windows 9x (excluding the random kiosk and the like).
Can anyone really deny this was the decade of Microsoft?
That's adorable. MS released two consumer OSs and two server OSs, oh, but don't count Vista, is what it takes for you do make this declaration?
How many OSs has Apple launched in that time, to even greater reviews? In what market, other than those where MS started the decade at zero, have they seen a net growth? How about the rise of Firefox and Webkit? iPod and iPhone? Google? Or the value of MSFT.
No, the '90s were the "decade of Microsoft". That's the decade MS vanquished all enemies. Microsoft has peaked, and are now in a decline. They may remain dominant for the next 100 years, or more. I don't know. But what is clear is that they've peaked.
I suppose the point is -- if there would be no need for GPL without copyright, why wouldn't you use a license which is closer to "no copyright"?
Because copyright *does* exist. And stating that the BSD license is somehow closer to "no copyright" is absurd, as both the GPL and the BSD License (and every other license) exists within the exact same copyright framework.
There's always at least one in the bunch that fails to understand the GPL.
GPL is about forcing you to give back, through copyright
No, it's not. It's about not allowing you to redistribute a copylefted program (or derivative) without also providing access to the source.
or it's about restricting people who refuse to give back from using it.
Again, not true. In fact, I'd wager that well over 99% of people who have used GPL'd software have never, and will never, "give back."
It was created to counter the perceived (and very likely real) threat of people building a giant proprietary product out of what was once free, and everyone inevitably upgrading to the shiny new proprietary version, leaving everyone without the ability to change their own code.
Correct, but incomplete. That's sort of the straw the broke the camel's back, in a sense, but the GPL was designed to protect the four freedoms.
But free software, as a concept, doesn't require the GPL. Nor does free software, as a movement, rely on the GPL at this stage.
I think you mean open source. Free software is an established term that very much relies on the GPL, and is in fact, founded on the GPL.
This [anti-copyright sentiment] is probably why such licenses are referred to as "copyleft".
Actually, it's more to do without pointing out that while copyright is generally about restrictions, "copyleft" is about freedoms.
Whenever anyone attributes "communist" aspects to the GPL (i.e., your repeated assertion that the GPL forces one to share/contribute/give back), it speaks more to the mindset of the poster than it does any insight into the GPL. The GPL is about one thing and one thing *only*, and that is software freedom.
The thing that's really awful about such sensationalism in science (especially *space* science) is that the thing they are showing you is *FREAKING OUTER SPACE*. It's already more amazing than pretty much anything a person can say about it. Give us facts, your hyperbole will just pale in comparison. I don't mean it has to be boring, Sagan did a great job of conveying the wonder of science without resorting to idiocracy-level commentary.
The same goes for NASA TV. I don't need some entertainer-posing-as-commentator talking about what's going on every second of a launch or whatever. I'm *WATCHING A SPACESHIP FLY INTO SPACE*. The current level of commentary is about right. There's the audio from mission control ("secondary boosters nominal<chirp>"), and countdowns, then commentary for specific portions of the event, "the rocket has reached escape velocity, and the second stage of the rocket will detach in about 90 seconds. We are 127 seconds into the flight, and the rocket is 192 miles above the Earth." Then silence for ~75 seconds until, "second stage detach in 10 seconds. 10... 9..." you get the idea.
People simply aren't interested in seeing every step of a recovery process with nothing else.
Then I guess I'm not a person? I'm not going to tune in to every second of every mission or anything, but it's interesting to watch what's going on. What's *really* going on, and not just the TL;DW version.
There already exists outlets for "less boring" NASA TV.
At the very least, do what CNN does when they're waiting for stuff to happen on camera, like someone to come out of a courthouse...have a bunch of random 'experts' sitting around a table in the studio, and cut to them for a few minutes at a time, and back when things actually happen.
OH HELL NO! There's nothing I can stand *LESS* on TV than when commentators talk all over something that's going on. The opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics is a prime example. I want to watch the event as an audience member would, as the director (or whatever) designed it. I don't need to know that the digital rice paper screen is made up of ten trillion LEDs, or (even worse) that Athens is named after the "Patron Saint" (serious) Athena.
Now, for the many minutes leading up to some big event (Mars rovers, Moon impact, etc), they *DO* have a panel of "experts" (they're called scientists. "expert" is a cable news euphemism for "someone with a strong opinion that we paid to argue with someone with an *almost* equally strong, but opposite opinion than the opinion we wish to instill") who discuss the science of the current mission.
NASA TV is like C-SPAN, or PBS. It's not meant to bring in money or appeal to the lowest common denominator (which is what "the broadest audience" really means). There's already CNN et al for people who'd find C-SPAN boring, and broadcast TV for those who aren't interested by PBS. NASA TV has Discovery, The Science Channel, CNN etc. for news events, and so on.
And the whole "PCs and Macs can get viruses" thing is really quite funny.
You write that as though Macs can't get viruses.
You write that as though you didn't read the next sentence he wrote, which started with, "Sure it's technically true".
Even so, there are *ZERO* viruses for Mac OS X. There are a handful of trojans, all of which require someone running an installer and entering in their administrator password, and which are primarily acquired by either trying to install a porn codec or a pirated version of Photoshop or iWork.
I have personal experience dealing with viruses on the Macs at work
You don't, but we'll just pretend you mean trojans instead of viruses to keep the ball rolling here...
while my boss was refusing to get antivirus because Macs don't need it.
As things stand right now, it's true. Macs absolutely *DO NOT* need antivirus software. Even if you expand the topic to trojans, worms and spyware. There actually are and handful of trojans, and while it sounds like it would have helped in your case, it's *extremely* unlikely to run across one. All you have to do, presently, is not download pirated software, or fall for the porn codec trick. The situation is currently very different from Windows, where freaking *ADS* can trick you into installing trojans.
Things may change, but antivirus software *IS* completely unnecessary on Macs right now.
We have antivirus now, and now we don't need to reinstall OSX every month because FCP crashes 24/7.
I call shenanigans. Either you're making shit up, or you are simply ignorant/incompetent with Macs and treating them like Windows. If you're being honest, the most likely scenario is that there was something hosed with the OS X or FCP install, you found something that you didn't understand and figured it was a virus, wiped the Mac and reinstalled OS X and FCP and added an antivirus program, and now that things are problem-free, you are attributing it to the antivirus software, same as you would with a PC.
Though, like I said, that's assuming you're being honest, which I doubt is entirely the case. There's no fucking way you were having to wipe your Macs every month (or any sort of regularity *whatsoever*) due to viruses unless you are just *astronomically* unlucky.
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Well, it does make a jump from a fundamental force we can't seem to detect into a latent, emergent phenomenon which we, er, also can't detect the source of.
*EVERYTHING* in the universe is based on some fundamental thing which we "cannot detect the source of". Even something as simple as math, or logic, is based on a set of axioms, or givens, which can never, themselves, be explained in terms of where they come from.
In physics, things like quarks (or if there's something that makes those, then that thing), or the fundamental forces, are all currently unexplained regarding why or how they exist.
What this work does (or at least, claims to do) is connect gravity with the rest of physics.
But your opening line is actually quite wrong:
Well, it does make a jump from a fundamental force we can't seem to detect into a latent, emergent phenomenon which we, er, also can't detect the source of.
Not at all. Presently, gravity is an axiom. It is a thing that exists, and upon which much is built, but below which nothing can be known. With this theory, gravity is just like things built upon gravity (such as orbits, gravitational singularities, etc.), which can all be explained by something below them. At some point, everything ends up as an axiom. This theory removes one of science's present axiom, and any time you can do that, you've done nothing less than fundamentally enhanced our understanding of the universe.
That's one funny thing about math, "close doesn't count", until you get to a certain advanced point.
I didn't realize irrational numbers, a huge portion of the rational numbers, and trigonometry, were considered advanced.
But this really isn't about the *math* being close, but not exact, it's about the math being close to *reality*, but not exact. Again, however, this is not advanced. Even grade school science is close but not exact. What's the temperature outside? How many inches of water did it rain last night? What's the circumference of the Earth? And Newtonian physics (which is also not advanced) is close, but not exact. Even at the slow speeds and low gravities of our mundane lives. Special and General Relativity have the honor *not* of being exact, but merely of being closer to exact than anything else so far.
The only common types of math where "close doesn't count" are basic arithmetic (excepting fractions) and pure algebraic manipulation.
In your high school physics class, do you *really* think you were exact when you used 186,000 mi/s or 300,000 km/s for the speed of light? Or in grade school, that the Earth rotates in exactly 24 hours (as measured from solar zenith to solar zenith)?
Or even before that, when you bought one candy bar at 3 for a dollar, and you got 66 cents in change?
Precision and accuracy are two terms you should have been made aware of by high school science, and rounding errors by middle school math.
Noah's already experienced it but God gave us a new colorful interface element and promised it'll never happen again.
So that explains the Apple "Beachball of Death" :-)
The beachball (pinwheel, etc.) is the equivalent of the Windows hourglass, *not* the equivalent of the BSoD. Apple's BSoD is the kernel panic, just like any other self-respecting Unix.
Those three things you just listed aren't epistemologies. They beg the question, really. They've already assumed what the epistemology is and leapt to a conclusions.
Yes, they are. They deal with the source and nature of knowledge. As for begging the question, epistemology, by definition, begs the question. You can *never* *ever* prove any actual epistemology, because what it means to *prove* something is an inextricable part of the epistemology itself.
For instance, Plantinga would say that belief in God is knowledge, because this is the proper function of your mind, to believe in God. You would disagree, and say that belief in God isn't knowledge because the belief isn't justified in any way.
Not quite. Both are knowledge (knowledge doesn't have to be true). Epistemology deals primarily with where that knowledge comes from. If it comes from revelation, you could say you know god exists because it made itself known to you. Science says knowledge comes from experiment and extrapolation.
It's not ivory-tower intellectualism that we beer-swilling plebs can safely ignore. The character of civilisation and even empires is determined partly based on these ideas.
Quite the contrary. Billions of people do just fine without giving epistemology a second thought.
If it seems we're much more rigorously scientific and rational in our approach to life than the Roman Church in the middle ages, or the Greeks of antiquity, that would be why.
No. The why is that people can see that something works, so they go with it. The *vast* and *overwhelming* majority of people on this planet don't give epistemology (by that name, or any other) a second thought.
I am an agnostic myself but I fail to see how you could teach the history of Europe while ignoring religion.
Who said you must ignore religion?
Depends how you define knowledge, doesn't it? If your epistemology revolves around justified true belief, sure.
Well, I should think it would be taken as granted that schools should stick to an epistemology based on the notion of actual, verifiable, and sufficiently verified, facts.
Remember that there are other competing definitions of knowledge that seek to embrace certain sticky situations JTB can't handle (the infamous clock right twice a day example, for instance) and that there are epistemological issues regarding faith and the limits of knowledge still being hashed out.
Not really. I mean, it's true that *philosophers* debate the shit out of this stuff (and as such, would be a reasonable topic for a philosophy class), but for the rest of the classes, things tend to be easily categorized into one of three epistemological camps.
1. A fact-based, scientific epistemology.
2. An emotion-based, subjective epistemology (mostly in social studies and literature classes, and very much possible without applying religion)
3. A faith-based, "revelatory" epistemology. This is squarely in the land of religion, and there is nothing in standard school curricula which would benefit from it.
The difference is teaching *about* religions and teaching religions themselves.
For example:
1. The Jewish people believe Israel was promised to them by their god.
Is OK (presumably in the context of world affairs, history, social studies, etc.).
2. God promised Israel to the Jews. (stated as an, *it actually happened*, fact)
Is very much *not* OK.
By making laws which say you can not practice religion at a school is directly against this. But maybe I am 'interpreting' it wrong...
I think you are if you are interpreting it as applying to the French.
As for us Americans, the individual *students* can practice religion, but it cannot be a formal aspect of the school.
You can teach astronomy, which inherited the names of the constellations, without teaching astrology.
It's astronomy if you say that sagittarius is to the east right now, which is where the port is and therefore that's where you should head. It's astrology if you say sagittarius is to the east right now, which means that if your captain has a water sign, there will be a storm in that direction, so you better head west.
Why do you suppose the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are so named?
And you can teach about them without giving them astrological significance.
Do you really think "the year of the rat" or the "age of Aquarius" are arbitrary terms that have nothing at all to do with orbital precession?
Do you really think that orbital precession isn't astronomy?
But why should you not teach religion in schools?
For the same reason you don't teach astrology.
Belief systems are knowledge are they not?
Almost by definition, they are not.
If we hold the right to criticize Google and Yahoo, we also hold the right to criticize any and every corporate doing the same shit. Where were you when we discussed this earlier??? Fanboism is one thing, defending them no matter what is... wait - it's the same thing.
You're calling Tharsman out for being a hypocrite. Do you have any comments of his where he complains about Google and Yahoo caving into the Chinese government? If not, then what's the basis for your post?
Guess that ruins that campaign then.
Not really. In America (and other places, I'm sure) we're still allowed, by the government[*], to Think Different. But in China, the government (not Apple) outlaws thinking different.
[*] Well, for the most part.
This is not even close to being accurate.
Thanks for the warning. Most people aren't as upfront about their misleading comments. I wish more Windows defenders had your integrity.
[Windows 3.1 crashed a lot, Windows 95 crashed less] ... By the time XP rolled around, there were only a very few things that caused the machine to blue screen, and in cases I can remember, it was almost a hardware issue, or a driver issue (which generally is not microsoft's fault).
And here, we get to the part you warned about. You're using two misdirection devices.
The first is to compare XP with 9x, and even Win 3.1 (most people don't go that far back, so you get Redmond brownie points for trying). Even if you completely ignore Windows prior to XP, even if you were to completely remove every experience with pre-XP Windows from every person alive, and from every story, anecdote and so on recorded online, in print, on film and in audio. Just taking XP alone, the BSOD is something that everyone will have ensconced into their minds.
It's really telling that people defend XP by bringing up 9x.
The second bit of dishonesty is by blaming BSODs on drivers. First off, like before, even if you completely ignore driver-induced BSODs, people will *still* have a strong memory of BSODs. But regardless, the point isn't that it's MS's code, or Creative Labs' code, or Nvidia's code, or whatever, the fact remains that the BSODs still *happened*.
what apparently needed to be expressed instead of implied is that BSODs were much more commonplace in Win9x
I already stated this.
and people were familiar with the term by XP's launch
I didn't directly state this, but people were familiar with the idea of automobile deaths by the time of airbags and mandatory seat belts.
In other words, you're just trying to hide the BSODs of XP behind the BSODs that came before. More to the point, had no version of Windows prior to XP ever existed, and instead, XP arrived exactly as it did when it did, with the same number of apps and PCs and hardware, with the same market share, and people knew exactly how to use them to the same extent (except having no prior notion of a BSOD), the BSOD would *still* be a well-known concept (although perhaps with a different name).
I don't know where you live, but the vast majority of my friends and family had a computer by the release of Windows 98.
I doubt it, unless you have very few friends and family.
Now, the majority of your main friend *circle*, I can believe.
*multiple* PCs in a household were much less common (i.e. a communal family PC was the norm), but having a household computer in 1999 was indeed commonplace.
It was commonplace, but it was not > 50% until the year 2000. That puts the number of people who ever used Windows 9x (excepting random encounters like kiosks and such) at less than 50%.
The fact that the BSOD is known by just about everybody has more to do with Windows 95/98/ME than with XP.
Nice try. That's like saying, "the fact that automobile deaths are known by just about everybody has more to do with poor safety standards of the past than with modern cars." While technically it's true that deaths were more likely before things like airbags and mandatory seatbelts, that doesn't mean modern cars are exactly safe. Just safer than before.
Pre-SP2 XP had other issues (i.e. boatloads of security vulnerabilities), but the BSOD wasn't nearly as prevalent in XP as it was in the 9x years.
When people talk about the BSOD on XP, they aren't talking about it in comparison with 9x, they are just talking about XP itself.
Remember, the vast majority of Americans never even *ran* Windows 9x (excluding the random kiosk and the like).
Can anyone really deny this was the decade of Microsoft?
That's adorable. MS released two consumer OSs and two server OSs, oh, but don't count Vista, is what it takes for you do make this declaration?
How many OSs has Apple launched in that time, to even greater reviews? In what market, other than those where MS started the decade at zero, have they seen a net growth? How about the rise of Firefox and Webkit? iPod and iPhone? Google? Or the value of MSFT.
No, the '90s were the "decade of Microsoft". That's the decade MS vanquished all enemies. Microsoft has peaked, and are now in a decline. They may remain dominant for the next 100 years, or more. I don't know. But what is clear is that they've peaked.
In case you missed it, XP is a great OS. There is really no way around that. I understand many people have a hard time admitting that but it is true.
Um, no. It is *by no means* a great OS. The only compelling reasons to run XP are:
1. It's what you already know.
2. It runs MS Office.
3. It runs virtually every computer game.
4. It is available on the cheapest computers.
All other reasons to run XP minor compared with these. *None* of the reasons to run XP have to do with its actual quality as an OS.
I suppose the point is -- if there would be no need for GPL without copyright, why wouldn't you use a license which is closer to "no copyright"?
Because copyright *does* exist. And stating that the BSD license is somehow closer to "no copyright" is absurd, as both the GPL and the BSD License (and every other license) exists within the exact same copyright framework.
There's always at least one in the bunch that fails to understand the GPL.
GPL is about forcing you to give back, through copyright
No, it's not. It's about not allowing you to redistribute a copylefted program (or derivative) without also providing access to the source.
or it's about restricting people who refuse to give back from using it.
Again, not true. In fact, I'd wager that well over 99% of people who have used GPL'd software have never, and will never, "give back."
It was created to counter the perceived (and very likely real) threat of people building a giant proprietary product out of what was once free, and everyone inevitably upgrading to the shiny new proprietary version, leaving everyone without the ability to change their own code.
Correct, but incomplete. That's sort of the straw the broke the camel's back, in a sense, but the GPL was designed to protect the four freedoms.
But free software, as a concept, doesn't require the GPL. Nor does free software, as a movement, rely on the GPL at this stage.
I think you mean open source. Free software is an established term that very much relies on the GPL, and is in fact, founded on the GPL.
This [anti-copyright sentiment] is probably why such licenses are referred to as "copyleft".
Actually, it's more to do without pointing out that while copyright is generally about restrictions, "copyleft" is about freedoms.
Whenever anyone attributes "communist" aspects to the GPL (i.e., your repeated assertion that the GPL forces one to share/contribute/give back), it speaks more to the mindset of the poster than it does any insight into the GPL. The GPL is about one thing and one thing *only*, and that is software freedom.
its not complete without BSOD copy too.
The article didn't say anything about Win9x.
Neither did the AC you replied to.
Just add a cron script that has a 5% chance to reboot the system every half hour, and you're there! :P
For those of you who first started using PCs less than ten years ago, he's referring to the lack of stability Windows suffered from back then.
Are you from the future?
The thing that's really awful about such sensationalism in science (especially *space* science) is that the thing they are showing you is *FREAKING OUTER SPACE*. It's already more amazing than pretty much anything a person can say about it. Give us facts, your hyperbole will just pale in comparison. I don't mean it has to be boring, Sagan did a great job of conveying the wonder of science without resorting to idiocracy-level commentary.
The same goes for NASA TV. I don't need some entertainer-posing-as-commentator talking about what's going on every second of a launch or whatever. I'm *WATCHING A SPACESHIP FLY INTO SPACE*. The current level of commentary is about right. There's the audio from mission control ("secondary boosters nominal<chirp>"), and countdowns, then commentary for specific portions of the event, "the rocket has reached escape velocity, and the second stage of the rocket will detach in about 90 seconds. We are 127 seconds into the flight, and the rocket is 192 miles above the Earth." Then silence for ~75 seconds until, "second stage detach in 10 seconds. 10... 9..." you get the idea.
People simply aren't interested in seeing every step of a recovery process with nothing else.
Then I guess I'm not a person? I'm not going to tune in to every second of every mission or anything, but it's interesting to watch what's going on. What's *really* going on, and not just the TL;DW version.
There already exists outlets for "less boring" NASA TV.
At the very least, do what CNN does when they're waiting for stuff to happen on camera, like someone to come out of a courthouse...have a bunch of random 'experts' sitting around a table in the studio, and cut to them for a few minutes at a time, and back when things actually happen.
OH HELL NO! There's nothing I can stand *LESS* on TV than when commentators talk all over something that's going on. The opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics is a prime example. I want to watch the event as an audience member would, as the director (or whatever) designed it. I don't need to know that the digital rice paper screen is made up of ten trillion LEDs, or (even worse) that Athens is named after the "Patron Saint" (serious) Athena.
Now, for the many minutes leading up to some big event (Mars rovers, Moon impact, etc), they *DO* have a panel of "experts" (they're called scientists. "expert" is a cable news euphemism for "someone with a strong opinion that we paid to argue with someone with an *almost* equally strong, but opposite opinion than the opinion we wish to instill") who discuss the science of the current mission.
NASA TV is like C-SPAN, or PBS. It's not meant to bring in money or appeal to the lowest common denominator (which is what "the broadest audience" really means). There's already CNN et al for people who'd find C-SPAN boring, and broadcast TV for those who aren't interested by PBS. NASA TV has Discovery, The Science Channel, CNN etc. for news events, and so on.
And the whole "PCs and Macs can get viruses" thing is really quite funny.
You write that as though Macs can't get viruses.
You write that as though you didn't read the next sentence he wrote, which started with, "Sure it's technically true".
Even so, there are *ZERO* viruses for Mac OS X. There are a handful of trojans, all of which require someone running an installer and entering in their administrator password, and which are primarily acquired by either trying to install a porn codec or a pirated version of Photoshop or iWork.
I have personal experience dealing with viruses on the Macs at work
You don't, but we'll just pretend you mean trojans instead of viruses to keep the ball rolling here...
while my boss was refusing to get antivirus because Macs don't need it.
As things stand right now, it's true. Macs absolutely *DO NOT* need antivirus software. Even if you expand the topic to trojans, worms and spyware. There actually are and handful of trojans, and while it sounds like it would have helped in your case, it's *extremely* unlikely to run across one. All you have to do, presently, is not download pirated software, or fall for the porn codec trick. The situation is currently very different from Windows, where freaking *ADS* can trick you into installing trojans.
Things may change, but antivirus software *IS* completely unnecessary on Macs right now.
We have antivirus now, and now we don't need to reinstall OSX every month because FCP crashes 24/7.
I call shenanigans. Either you're making shit up, or you are simply ignorant/incompetent with Macs and treating them like Windows. If you're being honest, the most likely scenario is that there was something hosed with the OS X or FCP install, you found something that you didn't understand and figured it was a virus, wiped the Mac and reinstalled OS X and FCP and added an antivirus program, and now that things are problem-free, you are attributing it to the antivirus software, same as you would with a PC.
Though, like I said, that's assuming you're being honest, which I doubt is entirely the case. There's no fucking way you were having to wipe your Macs every month (or any sort of regularity *whatsoever*) due to viruses unless you are just *astronomically* unlucky.
I guess gone are the days when iTunes would downconvert all your music to low sample rate AAC before you even had a time to see what was going on.
That depends. Do days that never actually existed count as being "gone"?