RMS has done some amazing things. But apparently he still is on this damn GNU/Linux rut. He'll probably take it to his grave, such is the fixation from this otherwise wonderful coder/philosopher.
Look people, it comes down to this: the GPL doesn't have any requirements concerning the naming of your applications, if you include GNU works.
Apparently, Stallman doesn't like the idea that I am free to take his freely-given-away software and freely fucking call it whatever I want. This reminds me of my mother-in-law, who, as a flaming liberal, kept pressuring me to get more involved with politics. "Its your duty to vote!" and other naggings, all the time.
Fine, I finally started checking around to the different parties, their platforms, what they say, what they actually do, and what are the real effects of their policies at the federal, state, and local levels.
Guess what: I decided to register as a Republican, and maintain my Libertarian viewpoint on most issues. Well, that didn't please her at all! We cannot now have a political discussion, even though I did my homework and made my conscientious choice, because I simply don't agree with her Leftist leanings. Hypocrit!
Same with RMS: software should be free, but people should not be free to speak of it as they wish.
The process here is converting mechanical energy (wave action) to electrical (via a turbine) to create bottled hydrogen so that the Islay islanders can power dryers and televisions and such via their own fuel cells.
Most hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen by an electrochemical process, and distilled water is the 'byproduct'. This is a more efficient way of generating electricity than burning hydrogen (like we burn gas) to create mechanical energy. In the case of burning hydrogen, yes, the byproduct is water vapor and a small amount of heat.
I doubt that the islanders would notice an increase in humidity in their immediate environment anyway... I'm sure their humidty level is 100% most of the time!
Less so than they get killed by being dashed upon jagged shoreline rocks. The illustration on one of the links shows a smooth inner chamber that is partially filled with water. The water level rises and falls with the 'motion of the ocean', thus creating changes in air pressure inside the chamber, and driving a Wells turbine to generate electricity.
In fact, it just occurs to me that one maintenance concern of this generator is that operators must occasionally scrape the insides of it to clear it of mineral deposits and sea growth. Otherwise, the amount of water in the inner tank slowly diminishes, making the conversion of wave energy to electrical less efficient.
Take a 7200 rpm SCSI drive. Take a 7200 rpm IDE drive. Rip off the electronics.
You now have two identical drives.
Not.
An engineer friend of mine who works at Seagate's Colorado headquarters for IDE drives said that the internal mechanisms for SCSI and IDE at Seagate are different.
The IDE market is FAR more competitive than the SCSI market, so manufacturers have to cut corners wherever they can. Some drive makers put in plastic parts, some put stamped aluminum where steel is usually required, and that is typically why warranties on IDE drives are shorter than their SCSI bretheren.
When you strip the hood off a SCSI drive, you do NOT get an IDE drive with SCSI electronics.
Many of you young'ns don't remember, but there was a time when we looked to Microsoft to save us from big bad IBM. Yes, really!
Now of course, MS is the avatar of Eevil, and I like every other/.'er hate 'em. However, I still like to play Age of Empires, which is their unoriginal baby.
You don't like Blizzard now because they shut down an open source project that threatens the balance of their game? Fine. I still like Blizzard, and I'll still buy their products when it suits me.
Can you make a better open source blockbuster than Blizzard? Go ahead, punk. I dare ya.
i have a basic scientific training also, so your assertions that I'm not qualified to understand the topic and make a judgement, based on the information presented, is insulting.
If we really want to get hard-core scientific here, we've got to say that climate prediction is not a 'science' until we can accurately predict weather in any part of the globe, at least three days in advance. We can't do that yet, let alone in a hundred or a hundred thousand years.
"Who are you going to believe - fat cats with strong financial interest in doing nothing to halt CO2 production, or imkpartial scientists whose career and reputation rests on the validity of their findings, models, and predictions?"
It isn't just impartial scientists who are lobbying for climate control. The Greenies definately have an agenda, and I do not trust their 'science' any more than I do the nitwits who implanted lynx fur.
If you don't want a civilization to continue to rely on carbon-based fuels, then stop using related products, or better yet, invent a cheap, renewable energy source yourself and release it into the public domain. I'll buy you as many beers as you want if you do that.
Well, I gotta say this DirectFB has nice eyecandy screen shots. But the 'more GTK' pic makes me feel like I've been drinking too much. I sure wouldn't want every window to be transparent.
I can see transparency being a nice feature for menus and certain types of popups or CPU meters, that kind of stuff. But I generally don't want, say, my Mozilla browser to be transparent.
One reason I really like X and this is about the only reason, is that it is network transparent. Can DirectFB make that claim?
I started buying USB motherboards when it looked like USB was going to be the Next Great Thing, but it fizzled. I STILL don't have a USB mouse, keyboard, CDROM, or whatever.
But, I do have FireWire devices, and their apparent bandwidth doesn't seem to bog down the I/O subsystem of my motherboard.
Your argument about students being precluded from benefiting from the information imparted by teachers doesn't apply: school is not an economic stage, although it certainly prepares the actors for same.
If I take 20 years of my life researching a new way to smelt metal that results in extraordinary materials advances, why should you, who have done nothing but sit on your ass and play Nintendo, get a cut of that invention?
I won't argue that intellectual property is much more difficult to judiciously manage when we are talking computer programs and processes, thus we probably can't realistically protect those types of IP. But I have laugh at the thieving weenies who think it is their right to steal music or video (usually the product of a team of talented artists) just because they don't wanna pay the price demanded for it.
Its a lovely thought that you poor students could just wander to the city park and hook up to a wireless grid, so you can IRC or whatever, but somebody, somewhere, has to pay for one or more connection points to the Internet.
What is intensely interesting about a city-wide wireless grid is that all those repeating monthly telecom expenses are localized to the access points. This slays two avians with one projectile weapon: reduces overall internet access costs, and cuts profits of the Baby Bells, who have a deathgrip on our communications infrastructure, and who have done everything they could to stifle competition in the marketplace.
Why do people run so quickly into the arms of government interference every time some perceived injustice gets press?
What the hell is wrong with everybody? So let me see if I understand the Canadian media tax: consumers pay a small extra fee, which is collected by vendors, and eventually handed over to the government, which offsets theoretical lost sales of said media due to piracy. These monies are supposed to end up eventually back in the hands of media vendors.
Hello? Is it my imagination, or are the people who crafted this legislation several D batteries short of a flashlight?
Theoretical sales of CDs are just that: theoretical. The cheapskates who pirate music are not more likely to buy loads more CDs should the technology to copy suddenly evaporate.
Maybe grocers should lobby for a tax on candy bars, due to the egregious lost revenues from occassional theft.
Oh wait; that's considered the cost of doing business, isn't it? Hmmm...
Why should this news surprise anyone? Excite@home is a soulless corporate vampire. They'd be selling popsickles if Bomb Pops were all the rage instead of the Internet.
I wonder when the consumers of Excite@home are going to tumble to the fact that Excite is chewing away at their individual bandwidth, byte by byte?
Yes, you get blazing fast speeds, but don't watch streaming videos for more than 10 minutes in an hour, or they'll throttle back your connection. Yes, its 'always on', but that means your neighbors are SHARING your bandwidth, especially at peak times.
Pornography? Watch out; Excite@home has no qualms about sharing information about what you download with local (or federal) authorities.
You can surf the net at high speed, unless you go to a site which isn't on their favored list, in which case bandwidth to it is throttled back.
How long does it take to get Excite@home to support their product? Some credible horror stories say that they take as long as six months to repair problems.
You get what you deserve, when you buy from outfits like these.
Why is that? You equate a software patent to a government monopoly. I don't get the connection. Patents are typically owned by non-governmental parties, and ENFORCED by governments. Get over it.
"Ideas are not property, nor are inventions inherently something to be possessed..." The Patent office, and myself, disagree with you. This type of rhetoric about how an idea cannot be owned is typical Communist pap. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Bah! Weath redistribution (whether material or intellectual) is robbery, pure and simple.
Subject says it all. Why does the government (meaning us) have to fund stem cell research, or other kinds of medical research? What will the next 'sliced bread' proejct be?
Just because it COULD be of enormous benefit to mankind (but mostly to special medical interests), let private industry handle it. Federal money means federal strings.
Another one bites the dust. I've been in the Aerospace business, and I've been in the ISP business for almost ten years now, and I gotta say: rocket science is a lot easier than the Internet biz.
I run a dinky little ISP in Colorado, since 1992. We were the first to provide commercial ISDN-speed internet access (even ahead of the local phone company!). When DSL hit the scene, and the telcos created all the insane and unrealistic expectations about the service, I stood up in front of the 200 or so members of the Rocky Mountain Internet User's Group, and I told them that DSL, as priced, was not a long-term winning strategy for businesses. Bandwidth has an actual market value, which is entirely being discounted in the business plans of these startups, amid the sheer lemming optimism of foolish shareholders.
Simply put, you can't supply T1 (or 0.5 T1) speeds for $40/month. To say nothing of the capital investment requirements to build out the infrastructure, which are enormous. Or the tech support staff expenses. Or the marketing. Or the fact that the telcos STILL have a stranglehold on America's communications infrastructure, and internally sell their services to their own internet spin-offs at far lower cost than to their competitors.
But now, the media and the general public are shocked, shocked I tell you, that these companies are falling away like so many body parts off a leper.
Well, DUH.
Result: the Baby Bells win again. The consumers will have to continue to put up with poor tech support, idiotic customer care, and diminishing bandwidth. Oh, and the price will go up.
You got what you deserved, by not supporting your local ISP enough.
A big assumption (stemming from the birth of television) is that the audience can't escape what the networks choose to broadcast, so PVRs are ripping that model to shreds.
And enough consumers are resisting attempts by content providers to track their viewing habits, that the only way to survive in a traditional network sense will be to sell all-or-nothing access to your content. Subscriber channels will be the only way to get your message across effectively, and even then, adverts on those channels will be emasculated greatly by easy fast-forwarding.
My personal viewing habits are as follows: if I am watching network or Dish Network TV (I'll NEVER pay for cable!) then when a commercial comes on, the mute button is my first reaction. I LOOK AWAY from the boob tube, or stretch, or read a book, or something else.
There's very little to watch even on Dish; Comedy Channel, History Channel, A&E, and some of the Showtime/HBO channels when I want to see a movie uncut.
I despise sports and home shopping networks. And stations like USA Network, which tend to play the kind of bad B movies I love, has become so unwatchable due to excessive commercial time, that I don't even watch the station any more. Are you reading this, network execs? You have polluted your content with so much bullshit that I don't watch any more, thus completely removing your advertisers from any chance at my attention!
I despise network logos in the corner, I hate when the bastards shrink the screen so they can tell me what's coming up, and I hate being told all the time which channel I'm watching. I REALLY DON'T CARE.
I have a VCR at home, but I don't even use it to record programs anymore, because I can hardly stand to look at VHS-quality video, thanks to DVD.
I haven't spent a dime on Tivo because of their sniffing practices, and monthly charges for listings (which I don't need). My Dish Network box is NOT and NEVER WILL BE plugged in to my home phone. I don't care about the shlock they promote for Pay-Per-View, nor am I willing to pay the prices they want for it. It seems to me all the PPV content is Sports and Wrestling (which are two different things!)... now if there were real gladitorial bloodsports or, or, oh, I don't know. It is hard for me to think up what I'd actually be willing to pay for to see on a one-time basis.
No thanks, I will stick to opportunity viewing, or wait until there is a freebie Linux package that works with a cheap firewire capture widget to easily record and replay my programming.
It seems to me that I saw a/. article about a year ago which was talking about LED flashlites, and one of the links I followed was to a website which touted an LED array that had something like 256 LEDs, each of which could be computer-controlled to set a specific RGB frequency.
Essentially, this LED spotlight had the ability to cast millions of colors, and was an interesting substitute for a PAR can and gels.
Anyone know any kinds of products out there that might fit this description? I find myself out in remote locations often, having to film subjects in the dark, and dragging old-fashioned spotlights out there is getting annoying.
"I think on both sides of the ocean we face the same problems, we just deal with them differently."
Therein lies the crux of the whole issue. I agree with your statement, but not that it lessens my argument.
Generally, Europe's political evolution went from authoritarian systems to industrial cleptocracies (Socialism). Some implementations are more benevolent than others.
Rather than list the ways government is empowered over its populous, our Constitution is a document whose purpose was to enumerate and limit the powers of government. The people who created that government were very leery of centralized control, and wisely instituted many safety valves against the bloat of what they thought of as a necessary evil: unified federal government.
The European Union is collectivist in its nature, and in its soul. This is directly opposed to the core American political philosophy, regardless of whether the EU is more or less benevolent now.
The United Nations, as you may recall, was instituted to bring together numerous disparate political interests in opposition of totalitarian (or what we might rightly call malevolent collectivist) regimes. The UN has bloated way beyond its charter, and America, unforunately bears a great deal of responsibility for that.
In any case, our Constitution (being the Law of the land) clearly states that the populous has a right to bear arms. Countries whose political systems cannot tolerate an armed citizenry are working through the UN to establish a world-wide lockdown on firearms. Again, this is in direct conflict with the core of American philosophical thought!
This issue is far more serious and has far greater long-term consequences for Americans than what is implied in your statement about how we are all just trying to solve problems, and do so differently.
BTW, I agree with your statement about the FBI. That outfit needs a colonic suppository, stat! They certainly do not always act in the interests of the American population at large.
But that's not all! If we follow this decision to its logical conclusion, the local phone company is guilty of carrying that offensive traffic over 'their' wires. Why aren't they just as freakin' guilty?
This tactic of Attorneys General whipping companies with lawsuits because the AGs have essentially unlimited funds, is damaging the credibility of our legal system, at least as much as, say, Clinton lying to a Grand Jury and spending no time in jail for it.
C'mon, judges, get off your corn cobs and enforce the laws of the land!
Slashdot Mirror
Look people, it comes down to this: the GPL doesn't have any requirements concerning the naming of your applications, if you include GNU works.
Apparently, Stallman doesn't like the idea that I am free to take his freely-given-away software and freely fucking call it whatever I want. This reminds me of my mother-in-law, who, as a flaming liberal, kept pressuring me to get more involved with politics. "Its your duty to vote!" and other naggings, all the time. Fine, I finally started checking around to the different parties, their platforms, what they say, what they actually do, and what are the real effects of their policies at the federal, state, and local levels. Guess what: I decided to register as a Republican, and maintain my Libertarian viewpoint on most issues. Well, that didn't please her at all! We cannot now have a political discussion, even though I did my homework and made my conscientious choice, because I simply don't agree with her Leftist leanings. Hypocrit!
Same with RMS: software should be free, but people should not be free to speak of it as they wish.
This is a legitimate question.
The process here is converting mechanical energy (wave action) to electrical (via a turbine) to create bottled hydrogen so that the Islay islanders can power dryers and televisions and such via their own fuel cells.
Most hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen by an electrochemical process, and distilled water is the 'byproduct'. This is a more efficient way of generating electricity than burning hydrogen (like we burn gas) to create mechanical energy. In the case of burning hydrogen, yes, the byproduct is water vapor and a small amount of heat.
I doubt that the islanders would notice an increase in humidity in their immediate environment anyway... I'm sure their humidty level is 100% most of the time!
Less so than they get killed by being dashed upon jagged shoreline rocks. The illustration on one of the links shows a smooth inner chamber that is partially filled with water. The water level rises and falls with the 'motion of the ocean', thus creating changes in air pressure inside the chamber, and driving a Wells turbine to generate electricity.
In fact, it just occurs to me that one maintenance concern of this generator is that operators must occasionally scrape the insides of it to clear it of mineral deposits and sea growth. Otherwise, the amount of water in the inner tank slowly diminishes, making the conversion of wave energy to electrical less efficient.
Oh well, there's no such thing a s a free lunch.
You now have two identical drives.
Not.
An engineer friend of mine who works at Seagate's Colorado headquarters for IDE drives said that the internal mechanisms for SCSI and IDE at Seagate are different.
The IDE market is FAR more competitive than the SCSI market, so manufacturers have to cut corners wherever they can. Some drive makers put in plastic parts, some put stamped aluminum where steel is usually required, and that is typically why warranties on IDE drives are shorter than their SCSI bretheren.
When you strip the hood off a SCSI drive, you do NOT get an IDE drive with SCSI electronics.
What I'd love to see with an applicatoin like this is clustered processing of video files, like DV or MPEG2 or MPEG4 files.
Or, render farms needed for those thousands of figures in battles in Lord of The Rings
Now of course, MS is the avatar of Eevil, and I like every other /.'er hate 'em. However, I still like to play Age of Empires, which is their unoriginal baby.
You don't like Blizzard now because they shut down an open source project that threatens the balance of their game? Fine. I still like Blizzard, and I'll still buy their products when it suits me.
Can you make a better open source blockbuster than Blizzard? Go ahead, punk. I dare ya.
If we really want to get hard-core scientific here, we've got to say that climate prediction is not a 'science' until we can accurately predict weather in any part of the globe, at least three days in advance. We can't do that yet, let alone in a hundred or a hundred thousand years.
"Who are you going to believe - fat cats with strong financial interest in doing nothing to halt CO2 production, or imkpartial scientists whose career and reputation rests on the validity of their findings, models, and predictions?"
It isn't just impartial scientists who are lobbying for climate control. The Greenies definately have an agenda, and I do not trust their 'science' any more than I do the nitwits who implanted lynx fur.
If you don't want a civilization to continue to rely on carbon-based fuels, then stop using related products, or better yet, invent a cheap, renewable energy source yourself and release it into the public domain. I'll buy you as many beers as you want if you do that.
It is precisely drinkers, liars, and cheaters who roll back the frontiers for the rest of us God-fearin' folk.
Well, I gotta say this DirectFB has nice eyecandy screen shots. But the 'more GTK' pic makes me feel like I've been drinking too much. I sure wouldn't want every window to be transparent.
I can see transparency being a nice feature for menus and certain types of popups or CPU meters, that kind of stuff. But I generally don't want, say, my Mozilla browser to be transparent.
One reason I really like X and this is about the only reason, is that it is network transparent. Can DirectFB make that claim?
Where do the layed off developers go?
BurgerKing
The president was elected, dickweed.
I started buying USB motherboards when it looked like USB was going to be the Next Great Thing, but it fizzled. I STILL don't have a USB mouse, keyboard, CDROM, or whatever.
But, I do have FireWire devices, and their apparent bandwidth doesn't seem to bog down the I/O subsystem of my motherboard.
USB 2.0? No thanks, I will stick with 1394.
Bah, you are an 'intellectual communist'.
Your argument about students being precluded from benefiting from the information imparted by teachers doesn't apply: school is not an economic stage, although it certainly prepares the actors for same.
If I take 20 years of my life researching a new way to smelt metal that results in extraordinary materials advances, why should you, who have done nothing but sit on your ass and play Nintendo, get a cut of that invention?
I won't argue that intellectual property is much more difficult to judiciously manage when we are talking computer programs and processes, thus we probably can't realistically protect those types of IP. But I have laugh at the thieving weenies who think it is their right to steal music or video (usually the product of a team of talented artists) just because they don't wanna pay the price demanded for it.
Its a lovely thought that you poor students could just wander to the city park and hook up to a wireless grid, so you can IRC or whatever, but somebody, somewhere, has to pay for one or more connection points to the Internet.
What is intensely interesting about a city-wide wireless grid is that all those repeating monthly telecom expenses are localized to the access points. This slays two avians with one projectile weapon: reduces overall internet access costs, and cuts profits of the Baby Bells, who have a deathgrip on our communications infrastructure, and who have done everything they could to stifle competition in the marketplace.
What the hell is wrong with everybody? So let me see if I understand the Canadian media tax: consumers pay a small extra fee, which is collected by vendors, and eventually handed over to the government, which offsets theoretical lost sales of said media due to piracy. These monies are supposed to end up eventually back in the hands of media vendors.
Hello? Is it my imagination, or are the people who crafted this legislation several D batteries short of a flashlight?
Theoretical sales of CDs are just that: theoretical. The cheapskates who pirate music are not more likely to buy loads more CDs should the technology to copy suddenly evaporate.
Maybe grocers should lobby for a tax on candy bars, due to the egregious lost revenues from occassional theft.
Oh wait; that's considered the cost of doing business, isn't it? Hmmm...
Why should this news surprise anyone? Excite@home is a soulless corporate vampire. They'd be selling popsickles if Bomb Pops were all the rage instead of the Internet.
I wonder when the consumers of Excite@home are going to tumble to the fact that Excite is chewing away at their individual bandwidth, byte by byte?
Yes, you get blazing fast speeds, but don't watch streaming videos for more than 10 minutes in an hour, or they'll throttle back your connection. Yes, its 'always on', but that means your neighbors are SHARING your bandwidth, especially at peak times.
Pornography? Watch out; Excite@home has no qualms about sharing information about what you download with local (or federal) authorities.
You can surf the net at high speed, unless you go to a site which isn't on their favored list, in which case bandwidth to it is throttled back.
How long does it take to get Excite@home to support their product? Some credible horror stories say that they take as long as six months to repair problems.
You get what you deserve, when you buy from outfits like these.
"Software patents are bad."
Why is that? You equate a software patent to a government monopoly. I don't get the connection. Patents are typically owned by non-governmental parties, and ENFORCED by governments. Get over it.
"Ideas are not property, nor are inventions inherently something to be possessed..." The Patent office, and myself, disagree with you. This type of rhetoric about how an idea cannot be owned is typical Communist pap. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Bah! Weath redistribution (whether material or intellectual) is robbery, pure and simple.
Subject says it all. Why does the government (meaning us) have to fund stem cell research, or other kinds of medical research? What will the next 'sliced bread' proejct be?
Just because it COULD be of enormous benefit to mankind (but mostly to special medical interests), let private industry handle it. Federal money means federal strings.
MAybe, if it costs too much, WE CAN'T HAVE IT.
I run a dinky little ISP in Colorado, since 1992. We were the first to provide commercial ISDN-speed internet access (even ahead of the local phone company!). When DSL hit the scene, and the telcos created all the insane and unrealistic expectations about the service, I stood up in front of the 200 or so members of the Rocky Mountain Internet User's Group, and I told them that DSL, as priced, was not a long-term winning strategy for businesses. Bandwidth has an actual market value, which is entirely being discounted in the business plans of these startups, amid the sheer lemming optimism of foolish shareholders.
Simply put, you can't supply T1 (or 0.5 T1) speeds for $40/month. To say nothing of the capital investment requirements to build out the infrastructure, which are enormous. Or the tech support staff expenses. Or the marketing. Or the fact that the telcos STILL have a stranglehold on America's communications infrastructure, and internally sell their services to their own internet spin-offs at far lower cost than to their competitors.
But now, the media and the general public are shocked, shocked I tell you, that these companies are falling away like so many body parts off a leper.
Well, DUH.
Result: the Baby Bells win again. The consumers will have to continue to put up with poor tech support, idiotic customer care, and diminishing bandwidth. Oh, and the price will go up.
You got what you deserved, by not supporting your local ISP enough.
A big assumption (stemming from the birth of television) is that the audience can't escape what the networks choose to broadcast, so PVRs are ripping that model to shreds.
And enough consumers are resisting attempts by content providers to track their viewing habits, that the only way to survive in a traditional network sense will be to sell all-or-nothing access to your content. Subscriber channels will be the only way to get your message across effectively, and even then, adverts on those channels will be emasculated greatly by easy fast-forwarding.
My personal viewing habits are as follows: if I am watching network or Dish Network TV (I'll NEVER pay for cable!) then when a commercial comes on, the mute button is my first reaction. I LOOK AWAY from the boob tube, or stretch, or read a book, or something else.
There's very little to watch even on Dish; Comedy Channel, History Channel, A&E, and some of the Showtime/HBO channels when I want to see a movie uncut.
I despise sports and home shopping networks. And stations like USA Network, which tend to play the kind of bad B movies I love, has become so unwatchable due to excessive commercial time, that I don't even watch the station any more. Are you reading this, network execs? You have polluted your content with so much bullshit that I don't watch any more, thus completely removing your advertisers from any chance at my attention!
I despise network logos in the corner, I hate when the bastards shrink the screen so they can tell me what's coming up, and I hate being told all the time which channel I'm watching. I REALLY DON'T CARE.
I have a VCR at home, but I don't even use it to record programs anymore, because I can hardly stand to look at VHS-quality video, thanks to DVD.
I haven't spent a dime on Tivo because of their sniffing practices, and monthly charges for listings (which I don't need). My Dish Network box is NOT and NEVER WILL BE plugged in to my home phone. I don't care about the shlock they promote for Pay-Per-View, nor am I willing to pay the prices they want for it. It seems to me all the PPV content is Sports and Wrestling (which are two different things!)... now if there were real gladitorial bloodsports or, or, oh, I don't know. It is hard for me to think up what I'd actually be willing to pay for to see on a one-time basis.
No thanks, I will stick to opportunity viewing, or wait until there is a freebie Linux package that works with a cheap firewire capture widget to easily record and replay my programming.
colorkinetics.com: Bingo! Thanks 1meg!
It seems to me that I saw a /. article about a year ago which was talking about LED flashlites, and one of the links I followed was to a website which touted an LED array that had something like 256 LEDs, each of which could be computer-controlled to set a specific RGB frequency.
Essentially, this LED spotlight had the ability to cast millions of colors, and was an interesting substitute for a PAR can and gels.
Anyone know any kinds of products out there that might fit this description? I find myself out in remote locations often, having to film subjects in the dark, and dragging old-fashioned spotlights out there is getting annoying.
Therein lies the crux of the whole issue. I agree with your statement, but not that it lessens my argument.
Generally, Europe's political evolution went from authoritarian systems to industrial cleptocracies (Socialism). Some implementations are more benevolent than others.
Rather than list the ways government is empowered over its populous, our Constitution is a document whose purpose was to enumerate and limit the powers of government. The people who created that government were very leery of centralized control, and wisely instituted many safety valves against the bloat of what they thought of as a necessary evil: unified federal government.
The European Union is collectivist in its nature, and in its soul. This is directly opposed to the core American political philosophy, regardless of whether the EU is more or less benevolent now.
The United Nations, as you may recall, was instituted to bring together numerous disparate political interests in opposition of totalitarian (or what we might rightly call malevolent collectivist) regimes. The UN has bloated way beyond its charter, and America, unforunately bears a great deal of responsibility for that.
In any case, our Constitution (being the Law of the land) clearly states that the populous has a right to bear arms. Countries whose political systems cannot tolerate an armed citizenry are working through the UN to establish a world-wide lockdown on firearms. Again, this is in direct conflict with the core of American philosophical thought!
This issue is far more serious and has far greater long-term consequences for Americans than what is implied in your statement about how we are all just trying to solve problems, and do so differently.
BTW, I agree with your statement about the FBI. That outfit needs a colonic suppository, stat! They certainly do not always act in the interests of the American population at large.
It is time we started realizing that these organizations are not our friends any more.
This tactic of Attorneys General whipping companies with lawsuits because the AGs have essentially unlimited funds, is damaging the credibility of our legal system, at least as much as, say, Clinton lying to a Grand Jury and spending no time in jail for it.
C'mon, judges, get off your corn cobs and enforce the laws of the land!