That deviates from the original question a bit, but if the photon never "touches" a particle, what about black body radiation? Or are you only referring to reflection/diffraction/etc when you say that photons almost never touch a particle of mass?
I'd interpret the fact that we see the laser through the atmosphere as "seeing" the particles in the air, even though I can't make out their form since they're so small. I think it's safe to suppose that those particles are much smaller than the wavelength of the laser itself.
I think you're mixing up the length of a wave period with the amplitude (size) of the wave vs. size of objects.
Remember that light is made of photons, which are much much smaller than 1 nm. It's a quantum particle.
So even if something is somewhat smaller than the visible wave length, it will still reflect these waves, although it probably will cause diffraction...
I may be wrong, I don't grasp the wave functions very well...
Unless you have better exams to suggest, I wouldn't try to discard those in place so quickly. Between these and nothing at all, I'd rather keep the former.
You're right. I'll reformulate. Is it that obvious to you that medical staff should be aware, without any particular clarification from IT, that a seemly unrelated service such as a calendar server could cause such a breach in network security that could expose other sensitive medical information unless IT has permanent shell access to that server?
Mr. jddorian probably would find "funny" if the IT head plugged an extension cord to the electrical source of "his" PET machine because he needed it for the computer he produced for the new internal issue tracking service.
And that's exactly how he felt about the request for an account. To him, it's "his" server, not IT's.
It may be obvious to you that since it's the IT's network, IT has the right to ask whatever they want to allow his server to run on it. It certainly doesn't seem obvious to the OP, and I don't think that alone makes him a moron.
At worst, it makes him ignorant on this particular point, something that requires clarification, not scorn. Especially considering that he's trying to validate his point.
At best, he has every right to know why he should comply to a request that looks like a security threat to him, and get a fair answer.
It seems you believe that when medical staff (whoever that is) fail to be aware of legal constraints which are the responsibility of IT or the juridic department, it's the medical staff's fault, not IT's or juridic department's. How so?
How about this likely non-hypothetical background:
When Mr. jddorian needs a service from IT that is not currently provided, the usual answer is "we don't have anything that matches your needs". The answer is not "we will research the market for an appropriate option" or "we'll study a way to provide this service, even if currently unavailable in the market". If he insists, his requests fall on/dev/null.
Mr. jddorian ignores (in the sense that he doesn't know about it) HIPAA and IT had not mentioned it at any time. Since IT didn't help and didn't explain why, he goes on to solve his problem. When he finally does it, he requests something that on his perspective seems trivial: access to his solution.
To that, IT agrees with the sole condition of having undefined access to his server. No further explanation given.
Mr. jddorian finds that unusual. Why would IT need that kind of access to a server they don't manage? Why would he increase the odds of having a security breach by adding an unneeded user?
Given common unresponsiveness regarding his requests, Mr. jddorian finds it more likely to get an explanation from/. than from IT, so here he is.
By your pedantic attempt at being funny, I'm guessing you're an engineer that dreamed about being a researcher. And probably an engineer doing the work of a programmer. Am I right?
Indeed. I can think of many reasons for killing each other: - Basic needs (I.e. eating) - Competition for resources - Lack of punishment - Lack of gratification for cooperating - Jealousy - Desire - Ego trip...
My own universal knowledge of things tells me that what really set us apart is an over developed imagination. Not conscience of self, language or opposed thumbs.
If it wasn't for your article, I'd have wasted the rest of my life trying to figure out how to get around things that today are believed to be impossible.
If only it was available earlier in human history, it would have given this extremely valuable service to our sad ancestors that wasted so much time coming out with impossible things like medicine, electricity, machinery, airplanes, genetics, quantum mechanics...
Of course, if you say so. Thank you so much for helping Linux be a better OS by correcting me with such an important contribution.
Formally you are right, because you never installed Ubuntu on any laptop at all.
Formally I should sue you for spying on me, but since your crazy statement is wrong, I'd lose.
Also lol at TV out on a laptop.
Because...? In your bubble, laptops don't have TV out? Oh, I know. Linux users would never, ever want to use their laptop's TV out port. How silly of me for trying...
Alex Belits (437)
You must be one of those guys who feed the theory that dissatisfied Linux comments will be bashed to oblivion in/.
Try reading the post till the end (I hope you do in my case):
In my own experience of getting ordinary people to use computers, Linux computers needed a lot more fiddling then Windows machines.
He's right, you know? I have never, ever been able to install Ubuntu on any laptop without having to spend days, sometimes weeks to solve basic functionality problems such as wireless, TV out...
For the huge majority, Windows works. For people like me which likes a little more flexibility, it's not enough. But although Linux provides this flexibility, it still fails miserably on the "just works" category of Windows and MacOS. And time is money.
For the end user, it's irrelevant that it doesn't "just work" because hardware and big software companies don't invest in Linux. It's the final result that matters.
"An interesting op-ed at NeoSmart discusses in emails the demise of BBC at the hands of Facebook and the like. It discusses how certain technologies (like public funded broadcasting) that are slowly being supplanted by 'cooler' yet less effective alternatives have actually been spoiled for all, since they rely on a basic community-wide awareness regarding these technologies for them to work."
And what an awful article... So because some people are "lazy" to check if they're in the To: or CC: fields, we can't use BCC: to share secrets? If you plan for human error, you'll certainly choose any kind of Forward rather than BCC: for gossiping. The best use case for BCC: is for sending the same message to a lot of people without letting them have access to each other's addresses (read SPAM).
Sorry amigo, but you're just under the heavy sedation of familiarity and/or you're really, really lucky.
As a former Rio inhabitant who used to say "bah, those gringos and their irrational fear", had a US$50 Swatch stolen and a friend killed in a car robbery, I can tell you: violence in Rio has been every bit as reported and more.
I had to live in Montreal to detox from that sedation. I remember when I was taking the bus (public transportation, not private company) to work and realized how exhilarating it was to not need to scan every person that entered the bus to consider if I should leave and avoid a robbery.
Sorry to break this to you, but when you can get killed because a stray bullet from the favela 2km away hits you on your living room, or because a thief tried to shoot the driver in the car next to you but missed and hit you instead, no amount of malandragem can save you. Especially when there are so few places not in bullet distance to a favela, but it doesn't matter because there will always be a red traffic light to cover an ambush.
30 years ago, there used to be "just" pockets of violence. 2 years ago they had all merged into one happy and dangerous city. But that's the funny thing: as long as the cariocas are all sedated like you, happiness prevails. You know the addaggio: ignorance is bliss.
By the way, I don't know where in Rio you live. But for educational purposes I suggest you take the metro linha 2 up to Pavuna and watch the landscape.
I don't think the FSF is OK with people using any proprietary software, simply because it goes against its goal. But I don't see where the problem is.
The difference between our opinions seems to lay in the fact that you seem to think that, because the FSF defends its goal, it's bad. While I admire the notion of free software as explained by the FSF, I understand the need of an entity like the FSF defending its purism, and at the same time I admit to myself that I am not ready to live today without some proprietary software.
I don't judge the FSF for trying to be pure because I accept its role in the defense of free software, any free software, even if it's not the copyleft-free-software they prefer.
If they complain that Firefox is not free software because it runs proprietary plugins (if, because you didn't add any citation), I reserve the right to disagree on the basis that FF itself is free, even if it can be run with proprietary software. Much like we can compile and use GNU tools in HP-UX or Windows without the GNU tools themselves stopping being free software.
In fact, this kind of right is clear on the first link I mention.
(...)my point is that they're [the FSF] asking me to trade one set of restrictions for another set of restrictions while claiming their freedom is the only valid definition of freedom.
They're [Google] pushing for the use of open codecs, at the cost of hurting user choice. So Google is clearly in the wrong, but when the FSF does the same thing they aren't?
In the case of the FSF, it's not a matter of free software being the only valid freedom, but rather being the freedom with most priority regarding software. Their goal is that all software should be free. The reality will probably never get near that goal, but if you set your goal too low and reach it, you stop fighting, right? So to reach the maximum percentage of free software that reality will allow it, they probably need the unrealistic, utopic goal.
The FSF can never hurt your freedom of choice as an end user: you're still free to use proprietary and/or free software. Even the developer's freedom of choice is barely hurt: you can develop proprietary software using free software, as long as the free part gets its source code shipped with it and the proprietary part is not derived from the free.
In the case of Google, we can't really know their real reasons. But the argument for free codecs is most likely as I explained before. If they really think so or not is beyond the point. The goal is to have the free codecs as well supported as the non-free.
This choice hurts your freedom of choice as a media creator in the short term: if you keep using H.264 you may have trouble with people using Chrome. If you don't use H.264 you'll have trouble with hardware/software that don't support the free codec you chose. But at any time you'll be able to ship both versions of your media. It's not like you're forced not to use H.264.
As the end user, you still have the choice of: using another browser, asking for a compatible media, implementing H.264 as a plug-in and paying the license...
So, firstly (no difference between FSF and Google), to me there's a clear difference between both cases:
- The FSF has a valid goal where the freedom of choice is barely hurt: the only two forbidden things are derive from free software to create proprietary software, and not ship the free software's source code. - Google's real motives are unknown, but if we stick to their argument: they want to stop supporting royalty dependent codecs. Media creators and users will suffer with this decision in the short term. But if the free codecs get widely adopted, the importance of the paid codecs to media creators is null and to users very small.
Secondly (free codec vs. freedom of choice), if the free codec's goal is reached, you'd have no reason to use the proprietary codec: why pay if you can have similar results for free?
As I mentioned above, there are different freedoms at stake.
FSF defends the freedom of modifying any software at will. It obviously goes against proprietary software, which only allows you to run it but not modify it.
When advocating this freedom, it clashes against the "freedom of choice". But note that the GPL doesn't forbid you to run proprietary software, it just forbids you to turn free software into unfree. As a (intentional?) side effect, when you merge GPL software with proprietary, the later must become free.
First of all, there are different "freedoms" at stake. The "freedom" supported is the one of creating or seeing any media without having to pay royalties because of the codec you used, while being able to create your own implementation of the codec because it's also open.
Supporting this "freedom" will invariably clash against the "freedom of choice", where more choices give you more freedom. Why? Because you can't push for free codecs if the unfree are already widely supported. As long as the unfree remain everywhere, few manufacturers/companies will have any reason to switch and the end user loses.
Finally, my impression is that the first point is the "freedom" and not the technical aspect, which comes second to illustrate that the free codecs do not come short of the unfree ones.
Slashdot Mirror
That deviates from the original question a bit, but if the photon never "touches" a particle, what about black body radiation? Or are you only referring to reflection/diffraction/etc when you say that photons almost never touch a particle of mass?
What about this?
I'd interpret the fact that we see the laser through the atmosphere as "seeing" the particles in the air, even though I can't make out their form since they're so small. I think it's safe to suppose that those particles are much smaller than the wavelength of the laser itself.
I think you're mixing up the length of a wave period with the amplitude (size) of the wave vs. size of objects.
Remember that light is made of photons, which are much much smaller than 1 nm. It's a quantum particle.
So even if something is somewhat smaller than the visible wave length, it will still reflect these waves, although it probably will cause diffraction...
I may be wrong, I don't grasp the wave functions very well...
Unless you have better exams to suggest, I wouldn't try to discard those in place so quickly. Between these and nothing at all, I'd rather keep the former.
And I was left hoping that commodore64_love had finally just found a job...
You're right. I'll reformulate. Is it that obvious to you that medical staff should be aware, without any particular clarification from IT, that a seemly unrelated service such as a calendar server could cause such a breach in network security that could expose other sensitive medical information unless IT has permanent shell access to that server?
Mr. jddorian probably would find "funny" if the IT head plugged an extension cord to the electrical source of "his" PET machine because he needed it for the computer he produced for the new internal issue tracking service.
And that's exactly how he felt about the request for an account. To him, it's "his" server, not IT's.
It may be obvious to you that since it's the IT's network, IT has the right to ask whatever they want to allow his server to run on it. It certainly doesn't seem obvious to the OP, and I don't think that alone makes him a moron.
At worst, it makes him ignorant on this particular point, something that requires clarification, not scorn. Especially considering that he's trying to validate his point.
At best, he has every right to know why he should comply to a request that looks like a security threat to him, and get a fair answer.
It seems you believe that when medical staff (whoever that is) fail to be aware of legal constraints which are the responsibility of IT or the juridic department, it's the medical staff's fault, not IT's or juridic department's. How so?
I'll bite.
How about this likely non-hypothetical background:
When Mr. jddorian needs a service from IT that is not currently provided, the usual answer is "we don't have anything that matches your needs". The answer is not "we will research the market for an appropriate option" or "we'll study a way to provide this service, even if currently unavailable in the market". If he insists, his requests fall on /dev/null.
Mr. jddorian ignores (in the sense that he doesn't know about it) HIPAA and IT had not mentioned it at any time. Since IT didn't help and didn't explain why, he goes on to solve his problem. When he finally does it, he requests something that on his perspective seems trivial: access to his solution.
To that, IT agrees with the sole condition of having undefined access to his server. No further explanation given.
Mr. jddorian finds that unusual. Why would IT need that kind of access to a server they don't manage? Why would he increase the odds of having a security breach by adding an unneeded user?
Given common unresponsiveness regarding his requests, Mr. jddorian finds it more likely to get an explanation from /. than from IT, so here he is.
Thank you for addressing Mr. jddorian needs.
By your pedantic attempt at being funny, I'm guessing you're an engineer that dreamed about being a researcher. And probably an engineer doing the work of a programmer. Am I right?
Apparently they're basing it on the median and throwing the variance out the window...
I wonder what the decrease in sampling as it moves away from Africa does to the credibility of the analysis.
Indeed. I can think of many reasons for killing each other: ...
- Basic needs (I.e. eating)
- Competition for resources
- Lack of punishment
- Lack of gratification for cooperating
- Jealousy
- Desire
- Ego trip
My own universal knowledge of things tells me that what really set us apart is an over developed imagination. Not conscience of self, language or opposed thumbs.
If it wasn't for your article, I'd have wasted the rest of my life trying to figure out how to get around things that today are believed to be impossible.
If only it was available earlier in human history, it would have given this extremely valuable service to our sad ancestors that wasted so much time coming out with impossible things like medicine, electricity, machinery, airplanes, genetics, quantum mechanics...
No, he is not.
Of course, if you say so. Thank you so much for helping Linux be a better OS by correcting me with such an important contribution.
Formally you are right, because you never installed Ubuntu on any laptop at all.
Formally I should sue you for spying on me, but since your crazy statement is wrong, I'd lose.
Also lol at TV out on a laptop.
Because...? In your bubble, laptops don't have TV out? Oh, I know. Linux users would never, ever want to use their laptop's TV out port. How silly of me for trying...
Alex Belits (437)
You must be one of those guys who feed the theory that dissatisfied Linux comments will be bashed to oblivion in /.
Try reading the post till the end (I hope you do in my case):
In my own experience of getting ordinary people to use computers, Linux computers needed a lot more fiddling then Windows machines.
He's right, you know? I have never, ever been able to install Ubuntu on any laptop without having to spend days, sometimes weeks to solve basic functionality problems such as wireless, TV out...
For the huge majority, Windows works. For people like me which likes a little more flexibility, it's not enough. But although Linux provides this flexibility, it still fails miserably on the "just works" category of Windows and MacOS. And time is money.
For the end user, it's irrelevant that it doesn't "just work" because hardware and big software companies don't invest in Linux. It's the final result that matters.
Thank you! I also thought I was alone in this.
My broken brain version of the summary:
"An interesting op-ed at NeoSmart discusses in emails the demise of BBC at the hands of Facebook and the like. It discusses how certain technologies (like public funded broadcasting) that are slowly being supplanted by 'cooler' yet less effective alternatives have actually been spoiled for all, since they rely on a basic community-wide awareness regarding these technologies for them to work."
And what an awful article... So because some people are "lazy" to check if they're in the To: or CC: fields, we can't use BCC: to share secrets? If you plan for human error, you'll certainly choose any kind of Forward rather than BCC: for gossiping. The best use case for BCC: is for sending the same message to a lot of people without letting them have access to each other's addresses (read SPAM).
Not in my life time, I hope.
Unless you're a "victim" yourself, please stop preaching against my right of having a cleaner penis for me and my descendants.
Sorry amigo, but you're just under the heavy sedation of familiarity and/or you're really, really lucky.
As a former Rio inhabitant who used to say "bah, those gringos and their irrational fear", had a US$50 Swatch stolen and a friend killed in a car robbery, I can tell you: violence in Rio has been every bit as reported and more.
I had to live in Montreal to detox from that sedation. I remember when I was taking the bus (public transportation, not private company) to work and realized how exhilarating it was to not need to scan every person that entered the bus to consider if I should leave and avoid a robbery.
Sorry to break this to you, but when you can get killed because a stray bullet from the favela 2km away hits you on your living room, or because a thief tried to shoot the driver in the car next to you but missed and hit you instead, no amount of malandragem can save you. Especially when there are so few places not in bullet distance to a favela, but it doesn't matter because there will always be a red traffic light to cover an ambush.
30 years ago, there used to be "just" pockets of violence. 2 years ago they had all merged into one happy and dangerous city. But that's the funny thing: as long as the cariocas are all sedated like you, happiness prevails. You know the addaggio: ignorance is bliss.
By the way, I don't know where in Rio you live. But for educational purposes I suggest you take the metro linha 2 up to Pavuna and watch the landscape.
I hope the UPPs will really help.
Who knows, with the new USPTO directive of clearing their backlogs, you may even win a patent on thinking or watching TV :)
Well, they can try to sue the brains out of people trying to commercialize such a tool, if they managed to get a patent on its format...
Time will tell.
I don't think the FSF is OK with people using any proprietary software, simply because it goes against its goal. But I don't see where the problem is.
The difference between our opinions seems to lay in the fact that you seem to think that, because the FSF defends its goal, it's bad. While I admire the notion of free software as explained by the FSF, I understand the need of an entity like the FSF defending its purism, and at the same time I admit to myself that I am not ready to live today without some proprietary software.
I don't judge the FSF for trying to be pure because I accept its role in the defense of free software, any free software , even if it's not the copyleft-free-software they prefer.
If they complain that Firefox is not free software because it runs proprietary plugins (if, because you didn't add any citation), I reserve the right to disagree on the basis that FF itself is free, even if it can be run with proprietary software. Much like we can compile and use GNU tools in HP-UX or Windows without the GNU tools themselves stopping being free software.
In fact, this kind of right is clear on the first link I mention.
(...)my point is that they're [the FSF] asking me to trade one set of restrictions for another set of restrictions while claiming their freedom is the only valid definition of freedom.
They're [Google] pushing for the use of open codecs, at the cost of hurting user choice. So Google is clearly in the wrong, but when the FSF does the same thing they aren't?
In the case of the FSF, it's not a matter of free software being the only valid freedom, but rather being the freedom with most priority regarding software. Their goal is that all software should be free. The reality will probably never get near that goal, but if you set your goal too low and reach it, you stop fighting, right? So to reach the maximum percentage of free software that reality will allow it, they probably need the unrealistic, utopic goal.
The FSF can never hurt your freedom of choice as an end user: you're still free to use proprietary and/or free software. Even the developer's freedom of choice is barely hurt: you can develop proprietary software using free software, as long as the free part gets its source code shipped with it and the proprietary part is not derived from the free.
In the case of Google, we can't really know their real reasons. But the argument for free codecs is most likely as I explained before. If they really think so or not is beyond the point. The goal is to have the free codecs as well supported as the non-free.
This choice hurts your freedom of choice as a media creator in the short term: if you keep using H.264 you may have trouble with people using Chrome. If you don't use H.264 you'll have trouble with hardware/software that don't support the free codec you chose. But at any time you'll be able to ship both versions of your media. It's not like you're forced not to use H.264.
As the end user, you still have the choice of: using another browser, asking for a compatible media, implementing H.264 as a plug-in and paying the license...
So, firstly (no difference between FSF and Google), to me there's a clear difference between both cases:
- The FSF has a valid goal where the freedom of choice is barely hurt: the only two forbidden things are derive from free software to create proprietary software, and not ship the free software's source code.
- Google's real motives are unknown, but if we stick to their argument: they want to stop supporting royalty dependent codecs. Media creators and users will suffer with this decision in the short term. But if the free codecs get widely adopted, the importance of the paid codecs to media creators is null and to users very small.
Secondly (free codec vs. freedom of choice), if the free codec's goal is reached, you'd have no reason to use the proprietary codec: why pay if you can have similar results for free?
As I mentioned above, there are different freedoms at stake.
FSF defends the freedom of modifying any software at will. It obviously goes against proprietary software, which only allows you to run it but not modify it.
When advocating this freedom, it clashes against the "freedom of choice". But note that the GPL doesn't forbid you to run proprietary software, it just forbids you to turn free software into unfree. As a (intentional?) side effect, when you merge GPL software with proprietary, the later must become free.
Funny, I didn't get the same impression as you.
First of all, there are different "freedoms" at stake. The "freedom" supported is the one of creating or seeing any media without having to pay royalties because of the codec you used, while being able to create your own implementation of the codec because it's also open.
Supporting this "freedom" will invariably clash against the "freedom of choice", where more choices give you more freedom. Why? Because you can't push for free codecs if the unfree are already widely supported. As long as the unfree remain everywhere, few manufacturers/companies will have any reason to switch and the end user loses.
Finally, my impression is that the first point is the "freedom" and not the technical aspect, which comes second to illustrate that the free codecs do not come short of the unfree ones.