Private: Sarge! We're pinned down by Jerry's on all sides. We're almost out of ammo. We have no medical kits and Private Wilkins is bleeding to death. What do we do!?!
Sarge: We're pulling out. Private Booths, send an instant message to HQ asking for a chopper liftout.
Private: Uhhh, I can't do that Sarge. The PDA is jammed up with these messages for enlarging your penis.
Sarge: Enlarged penis, you say? Must be a new battle technique. Right, men! Everybody flop out your penis and enlarge them. That'll get the Jerry's running scared.
I don't know how you got moderated up to Informative: 5 because you're spouting nonsense.
The run-length always matters.
The dark fiber is probably single-mode, not MMF, but there's no information to tell us either way.
I can't even imagine the confusion in your mind to lead you to think microwave might be involved! This is dark fiber, not a data service!
ATM with LANE might be cheaper if he can also share voice costs over the fiber. You can find some amazingly cheap second-hand ATM switches these days. Thank-you Dot-Com-Bust!
If he already has Cisco gear then he probably has a GBIC hole ready and waiting for a tranceiver. But without knowing how much bandwidth he needs how could you tell whether he even needs the capacity of GigE?
The question never even mentioned Ethernet, so I don't know where you got the idea that he wanted to know how to convert "blinky light into Ethernet" and back again. He said "TCP/IP network". TCP/IP is not dependent on Ethernet.
I stand by my first post and my defence of the person who got moderated to "flamebait" for saying the truth. This isn't a straightforward operation. If the person who submitted the Ask Slashdot doesn't think things through - or hire somebody to do the thinking for him - then he's going to waste money on hardware before finding out it doesn't do what he wants. Then he will have to waste money again, and again, and again, until he gets something that works to his satisfaction. This kind of irresponsible spending might have been par for the course during the Dot-Com-Boom but it's getting a little hard to bear these days.
"I don't know how to design a network, can someone do it for me?"
This should not have been moderated down as flamebait. The question was so open-ended as to defy imagination. This "flamebait" was simply the truth and sometimes the truth hurts.
Just to explain how damn useless the question is, there is no information about existing equipment, servers, desktops or applications. No explanation of the requirements for inter-site traffic (queuing only? interactive sessions? thin clients?). Does he want to use the fibre for data and voice? Does he want a single LAN or routing between sites? How many people per site? Is this a distributed or centralised server model? What's his budget?
He hasn't even explained what sort of fibre it is! Single mode? Multi mode? Frequency division? Can he afford a fibre ring? What sort of redundancy does he need? How long are the fibre runs?
There are plenty of solutions here - ATM between sites with LANE, GigE into some 3550s, 10baseF into tranceivers - but there's no way you can give him an answer without more information.
This guy obviously doesn't even know the extent to which he's in over his head. He should hire somebody with experience to do this job for him.
I thought one of the biggest arguments for using Linux was that it "runs on legacy hardware"
Several points to be made:
1. The biggest argument for using Linux is that it is free. While "runs on legacy hardware" may be one of the big arguments (as you say) it's so far behind the #1 argument that it hardly matters.
2. Linux does run well on legacy hardware. It's KDE and GNOME that do not. Now you might argue that Linux without a desktop environment is pretty useless to you, but this is just reaffirmation that Linux isn't yet ready for the desktop. Give it time. It soon will be.
3. Your hardware is "2 years old". I'm running Linux on a 1994 laptop and a 1995 desktop. I can't afford any better. I just know enough to forego the niceties of a modern KDE or GNOME desktop and use something simpler. I use mutt instead of Evolution. Lynx instead of Mozilla. VIM instead of OpenOffice. So for me, Linux does work on legacy hardware. You just have to realise the limitations of your hardware and prune your Linux appropriately.
I may be trolling in this, but I've always wondered why this is an issue at all? Why hasn't someone taken the time to make the UI more User-Friendly?
They are, but it's a difficult problem and it's taking a lot of time. The situation is significantly better than it was 2 years ago, and hardly recognisable to the mess we had 5 years ago.
Right. But what most people at Slashdot fail to understand is that the people are happy.
First up, I get really annoyed when people claim "most people at Slashdot fail to understand BLAH" when you don't have any idea whether "most people at Slashdot" understand BLAH or not.
Tucked away within these little enclaves of delusional superiority, the Internet "elite" (K5, Slashdot, etc.) refuse to grasp that American citizens are more happy with current TV programming than they've ever been. As Slashdotters we like to posture and pose, and fantasize that we're on the brink of some magnificient collapse of the media industries. Guess what - we're not. Americans are watching (and listening to) shit and we like it. Why do you think that, as a country, we watch more TV now then ever. All the money that TV execs throw at focus groups and ratings research pays off. They keep fine tuning exactly what the average American wants to see and unfortunately it's dreck like "Fear Factor" and "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?".
You can dream about the TV industry's demise all you want, but as long as they're spoon feeding that digital sludge down our fat, Cheeto-stained lips, we're going to be happy. And if we're happy, they're happy.
I don't have any opinion on whether the American public is happy with the current TV lineup, nor do I care. I was only addressing the idiot claim that "these companies are providing you entertainment at no cost to you". The American public is lending the TV stations a valuable public asset - the radio spectrum - so the TV shows are NOT for free.
Very lame? I know the/. mantra is "I wan't it free!", but you've got to be realistic. These companies are providing you entertainment at no cost to you. They do this because they're paid by advertisers.
And their block of the radiowave spectrum is LEASED to them by the PEOPLE. That's right, the TV stations do not own the airwaves. They are given use of them by the people for the benefit of the people. The TV stations have no damn right to then turn around and pretend that they own the airwaves. If they can't find a business model that works then it's time for them to go the way of the dinosaur. I honestly don't think the world will be any worse off when (not if, WHEN) this happens.
In MS's defense, there is no (nor should there be any) law against getting into really sweetheart deals at the expense of the other party. If I see an antique on eBay selling for $5 that I know to be incredibly valuable, I should buy it -- I'm under no imaginable obligation to contact the seller and let him know he's an idiot.
There ARE laws against this, and there most definitely SHOULD be.
The RSA signature used to sign/for comparison purposes used with Xbox execuatables is 2048 bits long.
Common secure internet traffic, carrying thousands of credit card numbers as we speak, uses 128 bit keys (almost always).
To beat the dead cliche, you are comparing apples and oranges. The 2048 bit keys used in the X-Box are asymmetric. The 128 bit keys used by SSL are symmetric. SSL negotiates the symmetric key by using the RSA algorithm: a method of using asymmetric keys to securely determine and exchange a random symmetric key.
The 2048 bit key is not necessarily out of reach. 512 bit keys were breakable for less than $1,000,000 investment in 1997. It's likely that 1024 bit keys can be broken today with a similar investment. See what the experts have said about the feasibility of attacking these keys.
In case some of your forget: it gets exponetionally harder as the length of the key increases. It's not like you just have to search a 128 bit key space 16 times. There are fancy methods where by you can get away with knowing some of the key like differential analysis, but when you increase the size of the key the performance of those tend to fall off also where you have no increase over brute force and man in the middle attacks.
Asymmetric keys DO NOT get exponentially harder as the bit size increases. I'm not very knowledgeable about cryptography but even I can spot complete ignorance.
I only partially agree with your analysis. You haven't decided to license program B under the GPL because the GPL made this decision for you.
No, I disagree. You are not forced to use the library therefore you are not forced to license your program under the GPL.
That's exactly why it is viral. - To show this I'll use your STD example:
If you're so desperate to use the GPL library then you have waived your right to complain when you have to license your program B under the GPL.
Did you get my argument?
Apparently I don't. I don't see anything in that statement that is viral. You willingly used the library and so you willingly chose to license program B under the GPL. There is nothing viral there. It is understood in advance what will happen.
Fact is that the GPL forces its license onto other programs that just link with the GPLed library. - If you consider this to be "forced" or the "choice" because you had the choice to use another library really depends.
It's not just a matter of linking. The program has to be written to use the library. This is why it's clearly a CHOICE being made by the author. It's not as if you finish the program and then discover that you're using the library. You had to intentionally choose to use the library before you can even begin coding! It's not as if calls to the GPL'd library magically insert themselves into the code without the author's permission!
But whatever way you see it, based on your analogy it is viral.
I disagree. In fact, what you say here is obviously ludicrous because there's no way I would provide an analogy that reinforced your argument instead of my own. Clearly there is confusion here: at least one of us is not understanding the other's argument.
The closest I can come to understanding your argument is that you are claiming that because the GPL replicates it is therefore a virus. This is clearly nonsense because many things replicate and not all of them are "viral". To say otherwise would be to imply that genes are "viral" because they spread from parents to children, or that rumors are "viral" because they spread from person to person. This is a nonsensical meaning for the word "viral".
You use library A that is licensed under the GPL. - You write a program B.
Now you link program B to library A. - What just happened with program B during linking to GPL'd library A?
Viral anyone?
No. You made a conscious decision to license your program "B" under the GPL. You knew that library "A" was GPLd and you knew that linking library "A" against program "B" would make program "B" a GPLd product also. There was no surprise here. The facts were all laid out in advance and you chose to use the GPLd library, fully aware of the licensing implications. This is nothing like a virus.
If you are still keen on these negative analogies then I think the closest would be to liken the GPL to a sexually transmitted disease BUT with the provision that the disease carrier tells everybody about it before having sex. If you are so desperate for sex that you choose to ignore the warning then you have waived the right to complain when you get the STD.
That's why Government financed development should be available WITHOUT contamination - via something like the BSD license, with fair attribution for the source of a derivative or integrating use.
I disagree. Why should corporations be given the right to profit from the code developed by the government without any obligation to return the favour? The GPL forces the corporations to make their changes public so that EVERYBODY can benefit.
Remember, the government is supposed to be representatives of the PEOPLE. If the government wants the people to benefit then they should ensure that all government funded code is released under the GPL. Failure to do so means the politicians are not interested in representing the people, but only interested in lining the pockets of their rich buddies.
... the perfectly valid observation that the GPL is viral?
Because it's genetic, not viral.
The GPL only affects derivative works. That's genetic, not viral.
The GPL requires "consensual derivation" before it replicates. That's genetic, not viral.
The GPL transfers a single "genome" (aka the license) from the parent to the child. That's genetic, not viral.
A virus is something that infects a host, harms or kills the host, and spreads between hosts without asking either host permission to do so. The GPL does none of these things. The GPL is most definitely not viral.
As per my posting. I mentioned that so long as you did not make noise, then why does the professeur care?
I was specifically referring to where you said:
When I was in university I used to doodle, talk,...
Talking is the same as making noise.
Though honestly, I find silent people can still be distracting if they're tapping away at keyboards, fiddling with pens, swinging their arms around, or whatever people seem to like doing instead of paying attention. I did 5 years of university and - while I was not always innocent - I did my best to shut up, not move, and pay attention. The selfish people who didn't offer the same basic courtesy in return were distracting to me and to the lecturer, whether they were talking or not.
If you want to talk, leave the lecture theatre. Do not ruin the experience for others. One of the most enlightening experiences for me during university was giving my own lecture. It's incredible how the lecture theatre amplified every whisper, every pen scratch, every shuffling of feet, and every muffled cough. No matter how quiet the whisperers thought they were being there was nothing quiet about the booming chatter that interrupts your chain of thought. I took an extra effort from that day on to BE QUIET.
By your logic, virtually every peice of software written for windows belongs to microsoft, as it uses their libraries.
Microsoft has done something similar. They've formally stated that you can't link against their Visual C++ libraries if your application is GPLd.
Similarly there have been many floating point libraries that place restrictions on what you can or cannot do with the resulting binary.
This is where the GPL turns to shit.
The GPL is not unique here. There is a long (and ugly) history of restrictive licensing on libraries that directly affect the licensing of applications that use them.
I highly recommend Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus" for a 3rd approach. He states that with both theism and atheism there is a point at which you make a leap and state something. "There is a god" or "There is no god" and from that assumption there falls a series of logical conclusions. His approach is not to make that leap.
I must have read a different Myth of Sisyphus than you because I certainly didn't get that out of it.
I don't agree with your argument either. The mistake it makes is to assume that the atheist (or the theist) is stating an assertion, as opposed to stating a belief. Your belief isn't an on/off switch. I can't control my beliefs anymore than I can control feelings of guilt, doubt, love, envy, joy, etc. An atheist is something I am, not something I chose to be.
When I was in university I used to doodle, talk, sleep while the professeur was talking. When the professeur was interesting then I listened.
I'm guessing you didn't major in English. The correct spelling is "professor".
The problem with your attitude is that it is selfish. What you think is uninteresting might be of vital interest to the person sitting next to you. They don't necessarily want to hear you talk because they are trying to learn.
Re:can someone explain to me
on
E ~ mc^2
·
· Score: 2
What c is relative to? When we say that a car is moving at 60mph we meann relative to the ground, but what is c relative to?
Relative to the observer.
If there are two observers then both of them see light travelling at c, even if the two observers are moving relative to one another.
The further we go in AP Physics the more I realise that my school is imprepared...
The word is "unprepared". Don't neglect your English studies.
I am sick and tired of every Tom, Jack and New York Times reporter "advising" auto-manufacturers how to develop cars. Just shut the fuck up. Perhaps these retards don't realize, but modern automoblies are incredible feats of engineering. Thousands of components work together to ensure that some epsilon minus moron can reach his/her NYTimes office and conjure idiotic articles.
I am sick and tired of every Tom, Jack and Slashdot reader "advising" journalists how to write stories. Just shut the fuck up. Perhaps these retards don't realize, but modern stories are incredible feats of journalism. Thousands of writers work together to ensure that some epsilon minus moron can reach his/her Slashdot Submit button and conjure idiotic posts.
I was so tempted to reply to you guyz somewhere in between the thread, but resisted. But your last sentence here was too much of a tempt to not reply to.
Happy to be of service:-)
"Windows is dead" Ohh comeon man! I'm a linux fan too and a MS-hater(not for them being so rich, i actully lookup to them for being so rich. But i hate them cuz of the quality of their stupid products!). Anwyas, i'm a MS hater too, but windows aint anywhere in the remotest vicinity of being dead.:) that requires a bigtime reality check!
I'm not a Microsoft hater (well, maybe I am, but I don't admit it in public) but I'm fairly convinced Windows as we know it is dead. There are two reasons.
The first reason is cost. Linux is replacing servers and corporate desktops all over the world. It has nothing to do with Linux being better (because that is debatable) but everything to do with Linux being free. Companies are not run by CEOs or CTOs. They are run by bean-counters in search of the almighty dollar. The bean-counters are eventually going to say "why are we paying for this Windows product when we can get Linux for free". This isn't a fantasy or a theory: you can already see this happening. There's this mistaken belief that people pick the best tool for the job. Bullshit. People buy the cheapest tool that does the job. Linux does the job. It is the cheapest. Bean counters don't look at TCO - that's next year's budget and somebody elses problem - so the TCO arguments are misguided. Linux will eventually dominate both server and desktop.
The second reason is that Windows is primarily a PC desktop and the PC isn't long for this world. Microsoft is branching quickly into other platforms because they have also realised that the PC won't be king for long. People don't want their data tied to a desktop computer sitting on a desk. They want their data in their pocket, on the plane, at their meetings, on their couches, in their televisions, etc. The PC can't provide that sort of service and so the PC is dead. I strongly believe that different form factors (PDA, tablet, embedded, household, mobile phone) are going to dominate the landscape soon. It's already happening. The writing is on the wall. It might take a few decades but it's inevitable.
Bear in mind that I certainly don't think Microsoft is dead! We're going to be stuck with them for at least a few more decades.
Slashdot Mirror
I can just imagine how that will turn out...
Private: Sarge! We're pinned down by Jerry's on all sides. We're almost out of ammo. We have no medical kits and Private Wilkins is bleeding to death. What do we do!?!
Sarge: We're pulling out. Private Booths, send an instant message to HQ asking for a chopper liftout.
Private: Uhhh, I can't do that Sarge. The PDA is jammed up with these messages for enlarging your penis.
Sarge: Enlarged penis, you say? Must be a new battle technique. Right, men! Everybody flop out your penis and enlarge them. That'll get the Jerry's running scared.
I don't know how you got moderated up to Informative: 5 because you're spouting nonsense.
The run-length always matters.
The dark fiber is probably single-mode, not MMF, but there's no information to tell us either way.
I can't even imagine the confusion in your mind to lead you to think microwave might be involved! This is dark fiber, not a data service!
ATM with LANE might be cheaper if he can also share voice costs over the fiber. You can find some amazingly cheap second-hand ATM switches these days. Thank-you Dot-Com-Bust!
If he already has Cisco gear then he probably has a GBIC hole ready and waiting for a tranceiver. But without knowing how much bandwidth he needs how could you tell whether he even needs the capacity of GigE?
The question never even mentioned Ethernet, so I don't know where you got the idea that he wanted to know how to convert "blinky light into Ethernet" and back again. He said "TCP/IP network". TCP/IP is not dependent on Ethernet.
I stand by my first post and my defence of the person who got moderated to "flamebait" for saying the truth. This isn't a straightforward operation. If the person who submitted the Ask Slashdot doesn't think things through - or hire somebody to do the thinking for him - then he's going to waste money on hardware before finding out it doesn't do what he wants. Then he will have to waste money again, and again, and again, until he gets something that works to his satisfaction. This kind of irresponsible spending might have been par for the course during the Dot-Com-Boom but it's getting a little hard to bear these days.
This should not have been moderated down as flamebait. The question was so open-ended as to defy imagination. This "flamebait" was simply the truth and sometimes the truth hurts.
Just to explain how damn useless the question is, there is no information about existing equipment, servers, desktops or applications. No explanation of the requirements for inter-site traffic (queuing only? interactive sessions? thin clients?). Does he want to use the fibre for data and voice? Does he want a single LAN or routing between sites? How many people per site? Is this a distributed or centralised server model? What's his budget?
He hasn't even explained what sort of fibre it is! Single mode? Multi mode? Frequency division? Can he afford a fibre ring? What sort of redundancy does he need? How long are the fibre runs?
There are plenty of solutions here - ATM between sites with LANE, GigE into some 3550s, 10baseF into tranceivers - but there's no way you can give him an answer without more information.
This guy obviously doesn't even know the extent to which he's in over his head. He should hire somebody with experience to do this job for him.
Several points to be made:
1. The biggest argument for using Linux is that it is free. While "runs on legacy hardware" may be one of the big arguments (as you say) it's so far behind the #1 argument that it hardly matters.
2. Linux does run well on legacy hardware. It's KDE and GNOME that do not. Now you might argue that Linux without a desktop environment is pretty useless to you, but this is just reaffirmation that Linux isn't yet ready for the desktop. Give it time. It soon will be.
3. Your hardware is "2 years old". I'm running Linux on a 1994 laptop and a 1995 desktop. I can't afford any better. I just know enough to forego the niceties of a modern KDE or GNOME desktop and use something simpler. I use mutt instead of Evolution. Lynx instead of Mozilla. VIM instead of OpenOffice. So for me, Linux does work on legacy hardware. You just have to realise the limitations of your hardware and prune your Linux appropriately.
The spectrum is not sold off: it is leased for a fixed period of time. There is a bidding process but it is NOT an auction.
If you weren't so arrogant you might have listened to your own economics lecturers when they explained Opportunity Cost.
Free Software is what the entire Free Software movement is about. Choice is an irrelevant (though nice to have) side issue.
They are, but it's a difficult problem and it's taking a lot of time. The situation is significantly better than it was 2 years ago, and hardly recognisable to the mess we had 5 years ago.
First up, I get really annoyed when people claim "most people at Slashdot fail to understand BLAH" when you don't have any idea whether "most people at Slashdot" understand BLAH or not.
I don't have any opinion on whether the American public is happy with the current TV lineup, nor do I care. I was only addressing the idiot claim that "these companies are providing you entertainment at no cost to you". The American public is lending the TV stations a valuable public asset - the radio spectrum - so the TV shows are NOT for free.
You're missing the first rule of "journalism".
If the story is true, you can only milk it once.
If the story is false, you can milk it twice: once to hype it up, and the second time to tear it down.
And their block of the radiowave spectrum is LEASED to them by the PEOPLE. That's right, the TV stations do not own the airwaves. They are given use of them by the people for the benefit of the people. The TV stations have no damn right to then turn around and pretend that they own the airwaves. If they can't find a business model that works then it's time for them to go the way of the dinosaur. I honestly don't think the world will be any worse off when (not if, WHEN) this happens.
There ARE laws against this, and there most definitely SHOULD be.
In the UK it's called the Unfair Contract Terms ACT of 1977.
In Europe it's called Unfair Contractual Terms.
In the USA it's called Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices.
Capitalism and laissez-faire markets don't mean you are legally allowed to screw the little guy!
To beat the dead cliche, you are comparing apples and oranges. The 2048 bit keys used in the X-Box are asymmetric. The 128 bit keys used by SSL are symmetric. SSL negotiates the symmetric key by using the RSA algorithm: a method of using asymmetric keys to securely determine and exchange a random symmetric key.
The 2048 bit key is not necessarily out of reach. 512 bit keys were breakable for less than $1,000,000 investment in 1997. It's likely that 1024 bit keys can be broken today with a similar investment. See what the experts have said about the feasibility of attacking these keys.
Asymmetric keys DO NOT get exponentially harder as the bit size increases. I'm not very knowledgeable about cryptography but even I can spot complete ignorance.
No, I disagree. You are not forced to use the library therefore you are not forced to license your program under the GPL.
Apparently I don't. I don't see anything in that statement that is viral. You willingly used the library and so you willingly chose to license program B under the GPL. There is nothing viral there. It is understood in advance what will happen.
It's not just a matter of linking. The program has to be written to use the library. This is why it's clearly a CHOICE being made by the author. It's not as if you finish the program and then discover that you're using the library. You had to intentionally choose to use the library before you can even begin coding! It's not as if calls to the GPL'd library magically insert themselves into the code without the author's permission!
I disagree. In fact, what you say here is obviously ludicrous because there's no way I would provide an analogy that reinforced your argument instead of my own. Clearly there is confusion here: at least one of us is not understanding the other's argument.
The closest I can come to understanding your argument is that you are claiming that because the GPL replicates it is therefore a virus. This is clearly nonsense because many things replicate and not all of them are "viral". To say otherwise would be to imply that genes are "viral" because they spread from parents to children, or that rumors are "viral" because they spread from person to person. This is a nonsensical meaning for the word "viral".
No. You made a conscious decision to license your program "B" under the GPL. You knew that library "A" was GPLd and you knew that linking library "A" against program "B" would make program "B" a GPLd product also. There was no surprise here. The facts were all laid out in advance and you chose to use the GPLd library, fully aware of the licensing implications. This is nothing like a virus.
If you are still keen on these negative analogies then I think the closest would be to liken the GPL to a sexually transmitted disease BUT with the provision that the disease carrier tells everybody about it before having sex. If you are so desperate for sex that you choose to ignore the warning then you have waived the right to complain when you get the STD.
I disagree. Why should corporations be given the right to profit from the code developed by the government without any obligation to return the favour? The GPL forces the corporations to make their changes public so that EVERYBODY can benefit.
Remember, the government is supposed to be representatives of the PEOPLE. If the government wants the people to benefit then they should ensure that all government funded code is released under the GPL. Failure to do so means the politicians are not interested in representing the people, but only interested in lining the pockets of their rich buddies.
Because it's genetic, not viral.
The GPL only affects derivative works. That's genetic, not viral.
The GPL requires "consensual derivation" before it replicates. That's genetic, not viral.
The GPL transfers a single "genome" (aka the license) from the parent to the child. That's genetic, not viral.
A virus is something that infects a host, harms or kills the host, and spreads between hosts without asking either host permission to do so. The GPL does none of these things. The GPL is most definitely not viral.
And people are whinging about the idea this time too. Get off your "Slashdot is anti-Microsoft" soapbox because it doesn't apply (this time).
I was specifically referring to where you said:
Talking is the same as making noise.
Though honestly, I find silent people can still be distracting if they're tapping away at keyboards, fiddling with pens, swinging their arms around, or whatever people seem to like doing instead of paying attention. I did 5 years of university and - while I was not always innocent - I did my best to shut up, not move, and pay attention. The selfish people who didn't offer the same basic courtesy in return were distracting to me and to the lecturer, whether they were talking or not.
If you want to talk, leave the lecture theatre. Do not ruin the experience for others. One of the most enlightening experiences for me during university was giving my own lecture. It's incredible how the lecture theatre amplified every whisper, every pen scratch, every shuffling of feet, and every muffled cough. No matter how quiet the whisperers thought they were being there was nothing quiet about the booming chatter that interrupts your chain of thought. I took an extra effort from that day on to BE QUIET.
Microsoft has done something similar. They've formally stated that you can't link against their Visual C++ libraries if your application is GPLd.
Similarly there have been many floating point libraries that place restrictions on what you can or cannot do with the resulting binary.
The GPL is not unique here. There is a long (and ugly) history of restrictive licensing on libraries that directly affect the licensing of applications that use them.
I must have read a different Myth of Sisyphus than you because I certainly didn't get that out of it.
I don't agree with your argument either. The mistake it makes is to assume that the atheist (or the theist) is stating an assertion, as opposed to stating a belief. Your belief isn't an on/off switch. I can't control my beliefs anymore than I can control feelings of guilt, doubt, love, envy, joy, etc. An atheist is something I am, not something I chose to be.
I'm guessing you didn't major in English. The correct spelling is "professor".
The problem with your attitude is that it is selfish. What you think is uninteresting might be of vital interest to the person sitting next to you. They don't necessarily want to hear you talk because they are trying to learn.
Relative to the observer.
If there are two observers then both of them see light travelling at c, even if the two observers are moving relative to one another.
The word is "unprepared". Don't neglect your English studies.
Hypocracy? WTF is that? A ruling class of syringes?
I am sick and tired of every Tom, Jack and Slashdot reader "advising" journalists how to write stories. Just shut the fuck up. Perhaps these retards don't realize, but modern stories are incredible feats of journalism. Thousands of writers work together to ensure that some epsilon minus moron can reach his/her Slashdot Submit button and conjure idiotic posts.
Happy to be of service :-)
I'm not a Microsoft hater (well, maybe I am, but I don't admit it in public) but I'm fairly convinced Windows as we know it is dead. There are two reasons.
The first reason is cost. Linux is replacing servers and corporate desktops all over the world. It has nothing to do with Linux being better (because that is debatable) but everything to do with Linux being free. Companies are not run by CEOs or CTOs. They are run by bean-counters in search of the almighty dollar. The bean-counters are eventually going to say "why are we paying for this Windows product when we can get Linux for free". This isn't a fantasy or a theory: you can already see this happening. There's this mistaken belief that people pick the best tool for the job. Bullshit. People buy the cheapest tool that does the job. Linux does the job. It is the cheapest. Bean counters don't look at TCO - that's next year's budget and somebody elses problem - so the TCO arguments are misguided. Linux will eventually dominate both server and desktop.
The second reason is that Windows is primarily a PC desktop and the PC isn't long for this world. Microsoft is branching quickly into other platforms because they have also realised that the PC won't be king for long. People don't want their data tied to a desktop computer sitting on a desk. They want their data in their pocket, on the plane, at their meetings, on their couches, in their televisions, etc. The PC can't provide that sort of service and so the PC is dead. I strongly believe that different form factors (PDA, tablet, embedded, household, mobile phone) are going to dominate the landscape soon. It's already happening. The writing is on the wall. It might take a few decades but it's inevitable.
Bear in mind that I certainly don't think Microsoft is dead! We're going to be stuck with them for at least a few more decades.