No. When I buy something on my Kindle, I am buying a "non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times". That is what they gave me. The device is my property, and while the copy does not belong to me under certain definitions of ownership, I have a licence to use it in perpetuity. As far as I can tell from a cursory glance, what they did here is not permitted by their own licence.
Actually, it's only $99 if you sign a two year contract and you aren't already an AT&T customer. Otherwise, not only do you have to pay significantly more ("discounted" prices of $300 for a 3G, $400 or $500 for a 3GS), you also have to pay an "upgrade fee" of $18, and sign a new two-year contract. Every other phone AT&T offers only requires a set price for current customers, making the iPhone essentially unavailable to us.
If I wanted an iPhone, it would actually be significantly cheaper for me to cancel my account and open a new one. Luckily, I'm quite happy with the e51 I bought myself.
In order for an episode of The Simpsons to be worth more in advertising per viewer on Hulu than on regular television, prices for the same spot would need to be between $300 to $600.
Apparently the advertisers haven't heard about window managers and multitasking operating systems... especially since Hulu goes so far as to tell the viewer how long the commercial will be.
Then again, since Hulu commercial breaks are so short compared to those on television, there is far less of an incentive to do something else.
I'm reasonably certain this isn't the case: I've seen the behaviour through several connections, and most of those connections are not the sort that would have transparent proxies.
It isn't, but vimperator does seem to be unique in having full keyboard-only navigation that is actually efficient and usable, and that can actually be faster than using a mouse. Most "full keyboard-only navigation" designs seem to be very poorly thought out, and meant for people who *can't* use the mouse, rather than people who want something faster.
Strunk and White is the apocryphal text of degenerate grammatical crackpots, unable to truly understand the divine beauty of the English language!
I can only assume that you are but a casual follower of this particular heretical sect, as your commentary on verbosity, while quite correct in truth, is not typical of a Strunk and White believer. Also, you make use of adjectives, those glorious things that are so unjustly denounced as vices by the false prophets while they yet use them. Thus, I must implore you to reject their insidious words before you are utterly brainwashed into following them and endangering your immortal soul!
I have to respond to this, because while you make some valid points, you're also misrepresenting a number of things.
The censorship on Wikipedia of sites like WR surrounds Wikipedia's consideration for its users' privacy. Sites like WR frequently have users who will delve into the personal lives of editors they happen to dislike, and try to publish as much information as possible, in ways verging on harassment. In addition, having their identities revealed can cause a number of problems for the editors: I know Wikipedia editors who keep science articles free of crackpot theories, and they tend to keep their true identities hidden because otherwise crackpots would go after them with frivolous lawsuits and real world harassment of employers and family. The censorship is based around this, not around what people happen to dislike.
Also, while many threads on WR are useful, many others are not, having been created mainly by people who dislike Wikipedia for not pandering to their particular viewpoints, and thus go about trying to claim that everything about Wikipedia is bad. And while there are occasionally problems with RFCs, RfArb, ANI, RfD, and so on, I've generally found that, unless one is searching for problems, things typically work well. Reading only Wikipedia Review is like reading only news about criminals: it can easily give a very distorted view of reality.
... did you read the main argument of that post? It doesn't sound like your normal PC has been turned off for six years if it's been running CoD4 matches...
While I can't reveal my sources, I do have on very good authority that the "expected lifetimes" given for Spirit and Opportunity were arbitrary, and most people involved knew that they were quite able to last for far longer. Those sorts of numbers are given to keep missions from seeming like failures.
52 kWh in 5 minutes is 624 kW, and in 3 minutes is around 1 MW. This is completely beyond the capacity of any household that I've ever seen; even most major power plants would only have the capacity to charge a few thousand of these simultaneously.
The Griffiths books are not "advanced" by any interpretation, and are exactly the sort of book that maths students would find objectionable, along with Carroll's book and Hartle's book.
For Classical mechanics, I would recommend looking at a variety of books, since most people have very strong and differing opinions on them, much like vi and emacs. I personally like Landau, but Jose and Salatan uses a more mathematically interesting perspective; I can't stand Goldstein, for some reason.
For Quantum Mechanics, I'd recommend Sakurai or Shankar, though I know much more about Sakurai.
For General Relativity, MTW is immense but not too bad, though I'm sure there's a more mathematical perspective in another book. I actually think Nakamura's Geometry and Topology in Physics has GR in a very mathematically rigorous form, so that may be worth considering.
The project seems interesting, and there does appear to be at least some consideration for keeping the data secure.
However, I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful, and considering that it will only run on the small percentage of phones that have GPS to begin with, and there isn't much incentive in the beginning for users to install the software, I'm not sure that such an idea will be viable for at least a few more years.
While it is true that many users are using the services for free, Yahoo also has a significant number of paying users, if I recall correctly; I see nothing to suggest that these changes didn't affect them as well.
Unfortunately, many companies with online services that have free and paid versions tend to forget about the paying customers when planning these sorts of things.
The point, I assume, lies in the claim that driving over 80 mph on a freeway is probably far safer than driving 40 mph on a 25 mph limit residential road, to the extent that the restriction would be almost useless, but would instil a false sense of safety in parents. While that would seem possible, I'm not sure whether it is actually true.
The first website you list, apart from being terribly unprofessional, gives statistics suggesting that, in ages between 1 and 29, automotive accidents are the leading cause of death. While the percentage of deaths is certainly higher for teens from 15-19, this is also the period when most people in the US learn to drive, and would certainly seem understandable given that.
The second seems absurdly inaccurate and almost blatantly misleading if not entirely incorrect. Apart from considering a huge time period (1995 to 2004), and listing meaningless raw numbers as something that should matter, the numbers themselves, and especially the percentages, can't possibly be right if interpreted in the most obvious way. Looking at the data from the NHTSA, for example, there were around 37,000 auto accident deaths every year during the period, and teen drivers accounted for nowhere near the "36.2 percent" that the article implied. Taking a single year, 2006 (the most recent), fatal accidents of those from 16-20 were significantly outnumbered by accidents in other age groups, and accounted for only 13% of fatal accident deaths; while these numbers are relatively meaningless for the purpose of making conclusions, they still contradict those in the article.
A better consideration, instead of looking at deaths per age group by raw numbers, which is useless, or deaths per age group per number of drivers in the group, which is somewhat useful, would be to look at deaths indexed by the number of years the driver had had a licence, per number of drivers in each group. It is not obvious that lack of responsibility is the major factor in traffic-related deaths rather than lack of experience, even if many sources seem to jump to conclusion with insufficient evidence.
Just because you don't know why a 16 year old would need to drive doesn't mean that there aren't reasons. When I was 16, I had a 20 to 30 minute drive to get to the university where I was a junior, and a slightly longer commute to get to the company where I worked as a researcher. There was no viable public transportation in the area, and arranging for others to drive those sorts of distances twice a day was a major problem for me before I was able to drive. I know several people who had similar problems. There are also situations where I've known teenagers in particular fields who need to drive to be able to work in them.
Besides, aren't you just arbitrarily assuming that a 16 year old won't be "old enough to handle the responsibilities of driving", and arbitrarily assuming that two years later that same person will suddenly become responsible? In addition to assuming that all 16 year olds are in high school, live at home, and have parents that can drive them places?
There's a fair bit of a difference between optics and sensor pixel count... 2 Megapixel tells me almost nothing about actual image quality. Other details are more important here, especially because barcode scanning requires very different features, like the ability to focus on nearby objects, that many phone cameras lack, regardless of the sensor.
Also, while you are speaking of 2D barcodes, 1D barcodes are a very different matter. 2D barcodes work well with camera-based sensors, and are often designed to work well with phones. 1D barcodes are far harder to read with camera phones, and I expect that the iPhone, like every other phone I've tried, is unable to do so well. 1D barcodes require far higher resolution of thin parallel lines, and weren't designed to be scanned by camera; they also tend to need to be in focus. Unfortunately, these are far more prevalent than the 2D barcodes that are easy to read.
That said, I'm doubtful that the G1 will be able to read 1D barcodes well either, unless the optics have been designed to facilitate it. Better optics doesn't imply that the optics are better for such a special case.
What you are writing is not actually part of the AGPL v3; it's actually part of the AGPL v1 (there is no v2). The wording has changed in v3, but the meaning is essentially the same.
It's unfortunate that many people here seem to be misinterpreting what you are saying. The GPL places no restrictions on software beyond normal copyright law; it only gives more freedom, by allowing distribution as well. I had always thought of this as a fundamental part of the GPL and the RMS idea of copyleft in general. There's no need to accept the GPL to use the software.
The AGPL, however, doesn't follow the same principle, and does restrict users more than normal copyright law, which in the minds of many makes it a EULA, or a licence for use, instead of just distribution. Users of AGPL software can't use the software on a network without agreeing to the licence, even if they could do so without violating copyright law*; there are also restrictions relating to source availability that restrict the modifications that can be made to the code.
I can understand the point of the AGPL, but believe it goes too far in trying to enforce Free Software ideals, sacrificing the original principles behind the licences' designs in order to close the loopholes exploited by a few unscrupulous companies.
It's also the sort of licence that could easily end up causing all sorts of problems when used in situations where the details suddenly become impractical, much like the disaster of the GFDL with Wikipedia, where people realized after choosing the licence that using a picture from Wikipedia on a single-page printout would require several pages of licence text to be stapled to it. The AGPL v1 had major problems with that (imagine using AGPL code for a server in an embedded device, and then having to stuff all the source code onto it and add an HTTP server to transfer it); luckily, it does appear that the AGPL v3 is somewhat better in this regard, simply requiring that the source code be available somewhere on a network.
* I understand that in many cases, this might be a bit more complex than just use being allowed under copyright law. It's quite possible that the software might need to distribute copyrightable material to network users. However, this is by no means necessary, and such visible portions could be replaced if required.
GPL-based software and normal proprietary software are distributed in completely different ways. When you buy or are given GPL-based software, you are being given or sold the software, not a licence to use it, much like obtaining a book. Normal copyright laws apply to it, much like almost anything other than software; you can use it in any way you want, but can't copy or distribute it. If you do want to do those things, then you need a licence, and the GPL gives you that. You only need to agree to the GPL in order to copy the software, however, because the GPL is a licence for copying and distribution, not use.
Most software licences, however, are licences for use, not distribution. In those cases, you are being given a licence to use the software, not the software itself, and you need to agree to the licence in order to use the software at all. It isn't easy to find a parallel to other things here, because software is about the only product where this sort of thing is done. These are EULAs; the GPL isn't really a EULA, and isn't comparable.
It does, however, seem to me that if you can run software without accepting the EULA, and can do so without knowingly circumventing the wishes of the author, then lawful possession is probably enough.
I've seen this story pop up in several places, and it seemed too absurd to be true, so I skimmed through the actual decision.
Unsurprisingly, it is too absurd to be true, and does appear to be very misrepresented. The USDA actually has a reasonable argument against allowing testing for marketing purposes, though the argument also seems to call into question their own testing program.
Essentially, the USDA claims that the rapid testing method the packer wants to use is only able to detect the disease after its incubation period, right before symptoms start to appear in living cows. Since the incubation period is several years, and most cows are slaughtered before they are two years old, the USDA claims that testing 100% of young cows without symptoms wouldn't be useful, and would give inaccurate results. If such results, with possible false negatives, were to be used for marketing, they could end up making all testing in the US look bad, as it could be found that "tested" beef was actually contaminated.
What I don't understand, however, is why the incubation time vs. slaughtering age argument doesn't call into question the USDA's entire testing regime. What is the point of testing 1% of cows with a test that isn't going to work in most cases anyway?
Because it's the same certificate that was there last year?
Self-signed certs do not necessarily constitute poor security. That said, they generally do. In my case, I sign my certs with a single CA, and then add that cert to all of my computers.
Yes; almost everyone in the US is charged for incoming texts, and most plans also charge for incoming calls. Additionally, in most cases, there appears to be no way to restrict incoming messages: someone who wants to cause your phone bill to be higher can do so rather easily. The situation really doesn't make much sense, but, like SIM locking, essentially all providers in the country do it, and there isn't really any recourse for customers.
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No. When I buy something on my Kindle, I am buying a "non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times". That is what they gave me. The device is my property, and while the copy does not belong to me under certain definitions of ownership, I have a licence to use it in perpetuity. As far as I can tell from a cursory glance, what they did here is not permitted by their own licence.
Actually, it's only $99 if you sign a two year contract and you aren't already an AT&T customer. Otherwise, not only do you have to pay significantly more ("discounted" prices of $300 for a 3G, $400 or $500 for a 3GS), you also have to pay an "upgrade fee" of $18, and sign a new two-year contract. Every other phone AT&T offers only requires a set price for current customers, making the iPhone essentially unavailable to us.
If I wanted an iPhone, it would actually be significantly cheaper for me to cancel my account and open a new one. Luckily, I'm quite happy with the e51 I bought myself.
The article doesn't mention this either.
In order for an episode of The Simpsons to be worth more in advertising per viewer on Hulu than on regular television, prices for the same spot would need to be between $300 to $600.
Apparently the advertisers haven't heard about window managers and multitasking operating systems... especially since Hulu goes so far as to tell the viewer how long the commercial will be.
Then again, since Hulu commercial breaks are so short compared to those on television, there is far less of an incentive to do something else.
I'm reasonably certain this isn't the case: I've seen the behaviour through several connections, and most of those connections are not the sort that would have transparent proxies.
It isn't, but vimperator does seem to be unique in having full keyboard-only navigation that is actually efficient and usable, and that can actually be faster than using a mouse. Most "full keyboard-only navigation" designs seem to be very poorly thought out, and meant for people who *can't* use the mouse, rather than people who want something faster.
Strunk and White is the apocryphal text of degenerate grammatical crackpots, unable to truly understand the divine beauty of the English language!
I can only assume that you are but a casual follower of this particular heretical sect, as your commentary on verbosity, while quite correct in truth, is not typical of a Strunk and White believer. Also, you make use of adjectives, those glorious things that are so unjustly denounced as vices by the false prophets while they yet use them. Thus, I must implore you to reject their insidious words before you are utterly brainwashed into following them and endangering your immortal soul!
I have to respond to this, because while you make some valid points, you're also misrepresenting a number of things.
The censorship on Wikipedia of sites like WR surrounds Wikipedia's consideration for its users' privacy. Sites like WR frequently have users who will delve into the personal lives of editors they happen to dislike, and try to publish as much information as possible, in ways verging on harassment. In addition, having their identities revealed can cause a number of problems for the editors: I know Wikipedia editors who keep science articles free of crackpot theories, and they tend to keep their true identities hidden because otherwise crackpots would go after them with frivolous lawsuits and real world harassment of employers and family. The censorship is based around this, not around what people happen to dislike.
Also, while many threads on WR are useful, many others are not, having been created mainly by people who dislike Wikipedia for not pandering to their particular viewpoints, and thus go about trying to claim that everything about Wikipedia is bad. And while there are occasionally problems with RFCs, RfArb, ANI, RfD, and so on, I've generally found that, unless one is searching for problems, things typically work well. Reading only Wikipedia Review is like reading only news about criminals: it can easily give a very distorted view of reality.
... did you read the main argument of that post? It doesn't sound like your normal PC has been turned off for six years if it's been running CoD4 matches...
While I can't reveal my sources, I do have on very good authority that the "expected lifetimes" given for Spirit and Opportunity were arbitrary, and most people involved knew that they were quite able to last for far longer. Those sorts of numbers are given to keep missions from seeming like failures.
52 kWh in 5 minutes is 624 kW, and in 3 minutes is around 1 MW. This is completely beyond the capacity of any household that I've ever seen; even most major power plants would only have the capacity to charge a few thousand of these simultaneously.
The Griffiths books are not "advanced" by any interpretation, and are exactly the sort of book that maths students would find objectionable, along with Carroll's book and Hartle's book.
For Classical mechanics, I would recommend looking at a variety of books, since most people have very strong and differing opinions on them, much like vi and emacs. I personally like Landau, but Jose and Salatan uses a more mathematically interesting perspective; I can't stand Goldstein, for some reason.
For Quantum Mechanics, I'd recommend Sakurai or Shankar, though I know much more about Sakurai.
For General Relativity, MTW is immense but not too bad, though I'm sure there's a more mathematical perspective in another book. I actually think Nakamura's Geometry and Topology in Physics has GR in a very mathematically rigorous form, so that may be worth considering.
The project seems interesting, and there does appear to be at least some consideration for keeping the data secure.
However, I would think that the system would require widespread adoption in a particular area before it would even start to be useful, and considering that it will only run on the small percentage of phones that have GPS to begin with, and there isn't much incentive in the beginning for users to install the software, I'm not sure that such an idea will be viable for at least a few more years.
While it is true that many users are using the services for free, Yahoo also has a significant number of paying users, if I recall correctly; I see nothing to suggest that these changes didn't affect them as well.
Unfortunately, many companies with online services that have free and paid versions tend to forget about the paying customers when planning these sorts of things.
The point, I assume, lies in the claim that driving over 80 mph on a freeway is probably far safer than driving 40 mph on a 25 mph limit residential road, to the extent that the restriction would be almost useless, but would instil a false sense of safety in parents. While that would seem possible, I'm not sure whether it is actually true.
The first website you list, apart from being terribly unprofessional, gives statistics suggesting that, in ages between 1 and 29, automotive accidents are the leading cause of death. While the percentage of deaths is certainly higher for teens from 15-19, this is also the period when most people in the US learn to drive, and would certainly seem understandable given that.
The second seems absurdly inaccurate and almost blatantly misleading if not entirely incorrect. Apart from considering a huge time period (1995 to 2004), and listing meaningless raw numbers as something that should matter, the numbers themselves, and especially the percentages, can't possibly be right if interpreted in the most obvious way. Looking at the data from the NHTSA, for example, there were around 37,000 auto accident deaths every year during the period, and teen drivers accounted for nowhere near the "36.2 percent" that the article implied. Taking a single year, 2006 (the most recent), fatal accidents of those from 16-20 were significantly outnumbered by accidents in other age groups, and accounted for only 13% of fatal accident deaths; while these numbers are relatively meaningless for the purpose of making conclusions, they still contradict those in the article.
A better consideration, instead of looking at deaths per age group by raw numbers, which is useless, or deaths per age group per number of drivers in the group, which is somewhat useful, would be to look at deaths indexed by the number of years the driver had had a licence, per number of drivers in each group. It is not obvious that lack of responsibility is the major factor in traffic-related deaths rather than lack of experience, even if many sources seem to jump to conclusion with insufficient evidence.
Just because you don't know why a 16 year old would need to drive doesn't mean that there aren't reasons. When I was 16, I had a 20 to 30 minute drive to get to the university where I was a junior, and a slightly longer commute to get to the company where I worked as a researcher. There was no viable public transportation in the area, and arranging for others to drive those sorts of distances twice a day was a major problem for me before I was able to drive. I know several people who had similar problems. There are also situations where I've known teenagers in particular fields who need to drive to be able to work in them.
Besides, aren't you just arbitrarily assuming that a 16 year old won't be "old enough to handle the responsibilities of driving", and arbitrarily assuming that two years later that same person will suddenly become responsible? In addition to assuming that all 16 year olds are in high school, live at home, and have parents that can drive them places?
There's a fair bit of a difference between optics and sensor pixel count... 2 Megapixel tells me almost nothing about actual image quality. Other details are more important here, especially because barcode scanning requires very different features, like the ability to focus on nearby objects, that many phone cameras lack, regardless of the sensor.
Also, while you are speaking of 2D barcodes, 1D barcodes are a very different matter. 2D barcodes work well with camera-based sensors, and are often designed to work well with phones. 1D barcodes are far harder to read with camera phones, and I expect that the iPhone, like every other phone I've tried, is unable to do so well. 1D barcodes require far higher resolution of thin parallel lines, and weren't designed to be scanned by camera; they also tend to need to be in focus. Unfortunately, these are far more prevalent than the 2D barcodes that are easy to read.
That said, I'm doubtful that the G1 will be able to read 1D barcodes well either, unless the optics have been designed to facilitate it. Better optics doesn't imply that the optics are better for such a special case.
What you are writing is not actually part of the AGPL v3; it's actually part of the AGPL v1 (there is no v2). The wording has changed in v3, but the meaning is essentially the same.
It's unfortunate that many people here seem to be misinterpreting what you are saying. The GPL places no restrictions on software beyond normal copyright law; it only gives more freedom, by allowing distribution as well. I had always thought of this as a fundamental part of the GPL and the RMS idea of copyleft in general. There's no need to accept the GPL to use the software.
The AGPL, however, doesn't follow the same principle, and does restrict users more than normal copyright law, which in the minds of many makes it a EULA, or a licence for use, instead of just distribution. Users of AGPL software can't use the software on a network without agreeing to the licence, even if they could do so without violating copyright law*; there are also restrictions relating to source availability that restrict the modifications that can be made to the code.
I can understand the point of the AGPL, but believe it goes too far in trying to enforce Free Software ideals, sacrificing the original principles behind the licences' designs in order to close the loopholes exploited by a few unscrupulous companies.
It's also the sort of licence that could easily end up causing all sorts of problems when used in situations where the details suddenly become impractical, much like the disaster of the GFDL with Wikipedia, where people realized after choosing the licence that using a picture from Wikipedia on a single-page printout would require several pages of licence text to be stapled to it. The AGPL v1 had major problems with that (imagine using AGPL code for a server in an embedded device, and then having to stuff all the source code onto it and add an HTTP server to transfer it); luckily, it does appear that the AGPL v3 is somewhat better in this regard, simply requiring that the source code be available somewhere on a network.
* I understand that in many cases, this might be a bit more complex than just use being allowed under copyright law. It's quite possible that the software might need to distribute copyrightable material to network users. However, this is by no means necessary, and such visible portions could be replaced if required.
GPL-based software and normal proprietary software are distributed in completely different ways. When you buy or are given GPL-based software, you are being given or sold the software, not a licence to use it, much like obtaining a book. Normal copyright laws apply to it, much like almost anything other than software; you can use it in any way you want, but can't copy or distribute it. If you do want to do those things, then you need a licence, and the GPL gives you that. You only need to agree to the GPL in order to copy the software, however, because the GPL is a licence for copying and distribution, not use.
Most software licences, however, are licences for use, not distribution. In those cases, you are being given a licence to use the software, not the software itself, and you need to agree to the licence in order to use the software at all. It isn't easy to find a parallel to other things here, because software is about the only product where this sort of thing is done. These are EULAs; the GPL isn't really a EULA, and isn't comparable.
It does, however, seem to me that if you can run software without accepting the EULA, and can do so without knowingly circumventing the wishes of the author, then lawful possession is probably enough.
What qualifications or sources do you have to claim this?
If you're going to make absurd claims, you need absurdly strong evidence.
I've seen this story pop up in several places, and it seemed too absurd to be true, so I skimmed through the actual decision.
Unsurprisingly, it is too absurd to be true, and does appear to be very misrepresented. The USDA actually has a reasonable argument against allowing testing for marketing purposes, though the argument also seems to call into question their own testing program.
Essentially, the USDA claims that the rapid testing method the packer wants to use is only able to detect the disease after its incubation period, right before symptoms start to appear in living cows. Since the incubation period is several years, and most cows are slaughtered before they are two years old, the USDA claims that testing 100% of young cows without symptoms wouldn't be useful, and would give inaccurate results. If such results, with possible false negatives, were to be used for marketing, they could end up making all testing in the US look bad, as it could be found that "tested" beef was actually contaminated.
What I don't understand, however, is why the incubation time vs. slaughtering age argument doesn't call into question the USDA's entire testing regime. What is the point of testing 1% of cows with a test that isn't going to work in most cases anyway?
Considering the positions he has when he does remember them, isn't his bad memory a good thing?
Because it's the same certificate that was there last year?
Self-signed certs do not necessarily constitute poor security. That said, they generally do. In my case, I sign my certs with a single CA, and then add that cert to all of my computers.
Yes; almost everyone in the US is charged for incoming texts, and most plans also charge for incoming calls. Additionally, in most cases, there appears to be no way to restrict incoming messages: someone who wants to cause your phone bill to be higher can do so rather easily. The situation really doesn't make much sense, but, like SIM locking, essentially all providers in the country do it, and there isn't really any recourse for customers.