I actually wrote some simple FORTRAN programs as an intern in the mid 1980s. It wouldn't surprise me if it was still in widespread use in certain math circles. IIRC, a FORTRAN compiler was released concurrently with MSVC 4.x.
Do they ban only Nazi related items, or anything with a swastika on it? As you may know, the swastika was an ancient symbol with positive connotations before the 3rd reich.
Here we are over 50 years after the war, and the swastika is still taboo. With France's action to stifle commerce in the US, will this help rehabilitate the swastika? Will a symbol of oppression be turned into a symbol of freedom?
Maybe, maybe not. People still have a hard time separating the symbol from nazism. Case in point: A neighborhood "family" restaurant near where I live has old WWII and WWI posters on the walls (mostly WWI). One of the US WWI posters actually had a small swastika on it (about half an inch accross, so you almost had to look for it). I would occasionaly point this out when eating there and tell people that the swastika was not always bad. Some people are still surprised to hear that.
Well, after a few years, somebody magic-markered over it, which was OK because they only magic-markered the plastic cover over the poster, not the actual poster. Later, the poster was removed. It was a World War I poster. Obviously there was no connection to the nazis, but try explaining that to people who get upset.
I don't condone what the nazis did, and you are a troll if you suggest so. The whole point of this post is to raise awareness that Swastika!=nazi. However, I also believe that people have a right (subject to IP constraints) to post what they want on the net. Remember, if they yank Aryan Nations stuff off the web, they can yank your stuff too. That's the price we pay for free speech, and it's a pretty small price since I can easily ignore that crap.
Re:If democratic and elected, not so sad after all
on
Harm From The Hague
·
· Score: 3
Countries trying to solve their disagreements by forming one government? That's like a man and a woman who hate eachother trying to solve their problems by getting married.
What would make me not use IE? Well there is one feature that I am longing for. Whenever a pop-up window would appear, you instead get a dialog like this:
The website you are browsing has requested a pop-up window. What would you like to do?
( ) Accept.
(*) Deny...
[x]...this pop-up.
[ ]...this pop-up and all subsequent pop-ups until the next session.
[ ]...all pop-ups from this domain.
It's annoying to those of us who realize that the "megapixel" number rises faster than the dimensions of the display. The dimensions are linear, and increase linearly. The megapixel number is a product, and thus increases at a rate proportional to the square. It's pure marketspeak and psychological manipulation. They figured that idiots would go "ooooohhh look at all those megapixels". Meanwhile, those of us who know better have to guess the aspect ratio, and back it out to find out what we really want to know.
The display in question, were it square, would be roughly 3033 pixels on a side because that's the square root of 9.2 million.
Now... what's the aspect ratio... umm... the article doesn't say. So... Let's say the horizontal resolution is 4096, then the vertical could be 2246. 4096*2249=9199616. Close enough for government work.... But... We just don't know. That, my fellow Slashdotter, is why "megapixel" is annoying.
...as seeing Leftists trot out the Laffer curve to argue for reduced CD prices. So, let's get this straight: When Ronald Reagan and the Republicans argue that reducing taxes will increase revenue, it's voodoo economics. When the anti-IP crowd and Napster pirates argue that reducing CD prices will increase sales it's common sense. Yeah, right.
Re:Why Not Build Your Own Atomic Bomb!!
on
Duct Tape
·
· Score: 2
kid: Mom!!! Billy has the bomb. I need to have the bomb too.
mother: What kind of a delivery system does he have?
kid: I don't know. But I know he has the bomb because he tested it last week and Smithtown mall is a crater now.
mother: Well, when he has a verified intrasuburban ballistic missile capability I'll consider it.
kid: But Mommmm!!!
mother: No buts! Now get to bed.
Re:This can't be for real
on
Duct Tape
·
· Score: 1
His approach sounded very cookbookish. All he probably had to do was plug-n-chug the equations.
Well, while your at it... an old 486 costs $20. It probably consumes a lot more power, but hey I live in Virginia where electricity isn't a problem. So, if I wanted a cheap server, I'd be scrounging through the parts store. Actually, I wouldn't even have to do that. I've got a P-75 just sitting on the floor in the next room doing nothing. Hmmmm... I wonder if I'm contributing to the tech slowdown. Yes, umm... the little cube thingies are great. Buy them by the truckload, then hire me.
I'm thinking that Mandrake could (for example) offer a GPL-version copy of their software and five shares of MandrakeSoft for (say) $80, via their website.
Hmmmm.... a lot of people would sell, except for the trading cost. As long as the trading cost is a significant fraction of the stock value, they won't sell.
If you get a cert, can you sell it without going through a broker? If you can, there goes the trading cost.
At any rate, this would force Mandrake to purchase shares (possibly on the open market) to close the deal. If the stock ever did go up, they'd be squeezed into a really bad deal for each purchase.
It's a much better deal to simply offer the shares directly to customers because... 1. They know the customers are interested in holding the stock, at least for a little while. 2. They can accumulate shares before they offer them. 3. They can choose not to offer shares directly and/or they can choose when to purchase their own shares (e.g., during an October panic).
Of course, IANAFinancial analyst so I might be missing the mark somewhere.
NewsForge is a subsidiary of VA Linux (NASDAQ, LNUX) as is Slashdot. So, they are not competitors in the traditional sense. For some reason, LNUX wants more people to take an interest in NewsForge. Why I don't know, since Slashdot is a valuable franchise... or it would be if they offered Slash-based site setup and customization services. Hint, hint, concerned stockholders... recurring revenue streams please.
I think the GPL might actually work in your situation. Just charge each user something like $50,000 for the code. Now, even though they can share it, they are extremely unlikely to do so.
The only way you can get screwed is if your customers engage in collusion and agree to form a purchasing pool. If your customers are not aware of eachother, this rather risky business model might succeed.
The only business model for GPL that is gauranteed to work is a one-time sale. For example, I spend $5 million to develop an AI interface to Gnome that does what I want it to do, not what I tell it to do. It's very valuable. I sell it *once* to RedHat for $10 million.
Brian Alger, an analyst at Pacific Growth Equities, said the licensing deals will attract attention, but may not amount to much.
"People are going to see Transmeta and AMD working together against Intel (INTC: news, msgs, alerts)," he said. "That's a nice perception, but it's not real. They're not going in side-by-side with their sales force saying 'Don't buy Intel, buy one of our two."'
This makes it sound like Slashdot "took the bait". The market opens in 10 minutes. Let's see how many traders react the same way.
There is no end to what people will pirate(and I personally don't mind that one bit).
Just give me a few days now to setup pirateslashdot.org, which does nothing but pass-thru/. and replace your ads with mine.
While I'm at it, I think I'll go get me a screwdriver and make me some "VA Lenux" boxes.
Re:What can we do to stop this from happening agai
on
Mandrake Shakeup
·
· Score: 2
OK, let's flesh out your metaphor a little more. The US Constitution established rights for citizens, true, but it also established a government and made provisions designed to ensure that the government would be likely go continue.
If the Constitution had been written like the GPL, it would have had the Bill of Rights, but no provision for raising taxes. We may not think of paying taxes as a privelege, but if all our soldiers had been sent home for lack of funds and the Soviets had invaded we would have quickly realized what a privelege it was.
In short, a balance between business and consumer is required. By attempting to shift that balance too far towards the consumer, the GPL limits itself. "Thou
shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" (Deuteronomy 25:4) but that is exactly what copyleft does.
Re:What can we do to stop this from happening agai
on
Mandrake Shakeup
·
· Score: 1
the notion that it hurts the programmers is just moronic.
you just don't get it.
No, but if he joined the GPL collective then he would get it. I'm to polite to say exactly *where* he would get it.
GPL has to be the worst deal in IP *ever*. At least musicians signed by labels get *something*, and if they can manage to put out a decent 2nd album they usually get quite wealthy. Book authors--same deal. Write one best seller and maybe your royalties may not be so hot, but after that the advances are sweeeeet. The best deal any GPL programmer gets is a job with some company that might lay him off in 6 months.
Sure, you say, the GPL programmer can sell his work proprietary if he wants; but the instant he does that he loses the entire community of support and respect that gave him what little marketability he had in the first place.
To date, authors under non-copyleft licenses (of which the BSD is just one example) don't do much better but if they like they can fork and/or merge with proprietaries and still remain respected members of the community. Also, they don't have to worship at the altar of the FSF and its "ideals".
The GPL ensures that bright ideas don't die in some company's software vault.
No, they die in the middle of the street. Death is death no matter how you slice it.
The real problem here isn't the GPL specificly. It's copyleft. The only way I see to end this jihad is to go with what I like to call copyforward. That's where the source can be used by both Open Source and closed source programs, everybody knows that, and nobody is allowed to tell you otherwise. No more stuff like readline and getopt being kidnapped by copylefters so that they can trick people into thinking that the GPL is unavoidable when writing *NIX software. <RANT>Got MSVC? Just go to your help and search for getopt. Well, whaddya know! There's a getopt that's as free as BSD, but you'd never know it when some newbie asks how to parse the command-line and the GNU people point him to GNU stuff and nobody else says anything. There's a lot of stuff like this.</RANT>
Slashdot Mirror
...should FORTRAN be used to teach beginners. :)
I actually wrote some simple FORTRAN programs as an intern in the mid 1980s. It wouldn't surprise me if it was still in widespread use in certain math circles. IIRC, a FORTRAN compiler was released concurrently with MSVC 4.x.
I'm thinking +1 Unconventional. The parent of this post certainly shouldn't have been moderated Funny.
Do they ban only Nazi related items, or anything with a swastika on it? As you may know, the swastika was an ancient symbol with positive connotations before the 3rd reich.
There are people trying to rehabilitate the swastika as a symbol.
Here we are over 50 years after the war, and the swastika is still taboo. With France's action to stifle commerce in the US, will this help rehabilitate the swastika? Will a symbol of oppression be turned into a symbol of freedom?
Maybe, maybe not. People still have a hard time separating the symbol from nazism. Case in point: A neighborhood "family" restaurant near where I live has old WWII and WWI posters on the walls (mostly WWI). One of the US WWI posters actually had a small swastika on it (about half an inch accross, so you almost had to look for it). I would occasionaly point this out when eating there and tell people that the swastika was not always bad. Some people are still surprised to hear that.
Well, after a few years, somebody magic-markered over it, which was OK because they only magic-markered the plastic cover over the poster, not the actual poster. Later, the poster was removed. It was a World War I poster. Obviously there was no connection to the nazis, but try explaining that to people who get upset.
I don't condone what the nazis did, and you are a troll if you suggest so. The whole point of this post is to raise awareness that Swastika!=nazi. However, I also believe that people have a right (subject to IP constraints) to post what they want on the net. Remember, if they yank Aryan Nations stuff off the web, they can yank your stuff too. That's the price we pay for free speech, and it's a pretty small price since I can easily ignore that crap.
Countries trying to solve their disagreements by forming one government? That's like a man and a woman who hate eachother trying to solve their problems by getting married.
What would make me not use IE? Well there is one feature that I am longing for. Whenever a pop-up window would appear, you instead get a dialog like this:
The website you are browsing has requested a pop-up window. What would you like to do?
( ) Accept. ...this pop-up. ...this pop-up and all subsequent pop-ups until the next session. ...all pop-ups from this domain.
(*) Deny...
[x]
[ ]
[ ]
"Hoarders... cannot help their neighbors" --RMS
It's annoying to those of us who realize that the "megapixel" number rises faster than the dimensions of the display. The dimensions are linear, and increase linearly. The megapixel number is a product, and thus increases at a rate proportional to the square. It's pure marketspeak and psychological manipulation. They figured that idiots would go "ooooohhh look at all those megapixels". Meanwhile, those of us who know better have to guess the aspect ratio, and back it out to find out what we really want to know.
The display in question, were it square, would be roughly 3033 pixels on a side because that's the square root of 9.2 million.
Now... what's the aspect ratio... umm... the article doesn't say. So... Let's say the horizontal resolution is 4096, then the vertical could be 2246. 4096*2249=9199616. Close enough for government work.... But... We just don't know. That, my fellow Slashdotter, is why "megapixel" is annoying.
"Hoarders... cannot help their neighbors" --RMS
...as seeing Leftists trot out the Laffer curve to argue for reduced CD prices. So, let's get this straight: When Ronald Reagan and the Republicans argue that reducing taxes will increase revenue, it's voodoo economics. When the anti-IP crowd and Napster pirates argue that reducing CD prices will increase sales it's common sense. Yeah, right.
kid: Mom!!! Billy has the bomb. I need to have the bomb too.
mother: What kind of a delivery system does he have?
kid: I don't know. But I know he has the bomb because he tested it last week and Smithtown mall is a crater now.
mother: Well, when he has a verified intrasuburban ballistic missile capability I'll consider it.
kid: But Mommmm!!!
mother: No buts! Now get to bed.
His approach sounded very cookbookish. All he probably had to do was plug-n-chug the equations.
Guess I'll have to go and find one from somewhere - maybe some museum will have one :)
In fact, a museum does have one, but they are saying totally wrong things about them.
It makes me wonder who payed for that exhibit cough! Intel cough!.
Well, while your at it... an old 486 costs $20. It probably consumes a lot more power, but hey I live in Virginia where electricity isn't a problem. So, if I wanted a cheap server, I'd be scrounging through the parts store. Actually, I wouldn't even have to do that. I've got a P-75 just sitting on the floor in the next room doing nothing. Hmmmm... I wonder if I'm contributing to the tech slowdown. Yes, umm... the little cube thingies are great. Buy them by the truckload, then hire me.
...how come your website can't survive the /. effect for 15 minutes?
...is no indication of future results. I think that applies to pundits just as well as it does to mutual fund managers.
You forgot to say:
This post was sponsored by TiVo, Rolex, and Armitron.
I'm thinking that Mandrake could (for example) offer a GPL-version copy of their software and five shares of MandrakeSoft for (say) $80, via their website.
Hmmmm.... a lot of people would sell, except for the trading cost. As long as the trading cost is a significant fraction of the stock value, they won't sell.
If you get a cert, can you sell it without going through a broker? If you can, there goes the trading cost.
At any rate, this would force Mandrake to purchase shares (possibly on the open market) to close the deal. If the stock ever did go up, they'd be squeezed into a really bad deal for each purchase.
It's a much better deal to simply offer the shares directly to customers because... 1. They know the customers are interested in holding the stock, at least for a little while. 2. They can accumulate shares before they offer them. 3. They can choose not to offer shares directly and/or they can choose when to purchase their own shares (e.g., during an October panic).
Of course, IANAFinancial analyst so I might be missing the mark somewhere.
NewsForge is a subsidiary of VA Linux (NASDAQ, LNUX) as is Slashdot. So, they are not competitors in the traditional sense. For some reason, LNUX wants more people to take an interest in NewsForge. Why I don't know, since Slashdot is a valuable franchise... or it would be if they offered Slash-based site setup and customization services. Hint, hint, concerned stockholders... recurring revenue streams please.
integration into baby mulching machines
LOL! Big, real, outloud deep belly laughs, like I haven't had for a while. Thank-you.
I think the GPL might actually work in your situation. Just charge each user something like $50,000 for the code. Now, even though they can share it, they are extremely unlikely to do so.
The only way you can get screwed is if your customers engage in collusion and agree to form a purchasing pool. If your customers are not aware of eachother, this rather risky business model might succeed.
The only business model for GPL that is gauranteed to work is a one-time sale. For example, I spend $5 million to develop an AI interface to Gnome that does what I want it to do, not what I tell it to do. It's very valuable. I sell it *once* to RedHat for $10 million.
I asked the secretary if she wanted to do something for her word processor. She looked at me like I was nuts.
The "(and I personal don't mind that onebit)" part is not Slashdot staff commentary
I stand corrected.
From an analyst by way of CBS Market Watch
Brian Alger, an analyst at Pacific Growth Equities, said the licensing deals will attract attention, but may not amount to much. "People are going to see Transmeta and AMD working together against Intel (INTC: news, msgs, alerts) ," he said. "That's a nice perception, but it's not real. They're not going in side-by-side with their sales force saying 'Don't buy Intel, buy one of our two."'
This makes it sound like Slashdot "took the bait". The market opens in 10 minutes. Let's see how many traders react the same way.
There is no end to what people will pirate(and I personally don't mind that one bit).
Just give me a few days now to setup pirateslashdot.org, which does nothing but pass-thru /. and replace your ads with mine.
While I'm at it, I think I'll go get me a screwdriver and make me some "VA Lenux" boxes.
OK, let's flesh out your metaphor a little more. The US Constitution established rights for citizens, true, but it also established a government and made provisions designed to ensure that the government would be likely go continue.
If the Constitution had been written like the GPL, it would have had the Bill of Rights, but no provision for raising taxes. We may not think of paying taxes as a privelege, but if all our soldiers had been sent home for lack of funds and the Soviets had invaded we would have quickly realized what a privelege it was.
In short, a balance between business and consumer is required. By attempting to shift that balance too far towards the consumer, the GPL limits itself. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" (Deuteronomy 25:4) but that is exactly what copyleft does.
the notion that it hurts the programmers is just moronic.
you just don't get it.
No, but if he joined the GPL collective then he would get it. I'm to polite to say exactly *where* he would get it.
GPL has to be the worst deal in IP *ever*. At least musicians signed by labels get *something*, and if they can manage to put out a decent 2nd album they usually get quite wealthy. Book authors--same deal. Write one best seller and maybe your royalties may not be so hot, but after that the advances are sweeeeet. The best deal any GPL programmer gets is a job with some company that might lay him off in 6 months.
Sure, you say, the GPL programmer can sell his work proprietary if he wants; but the instant he does that he loses the entire community of support and respect that gave him what little marketability he had in the first place.
To date, authors under non-copyleft licenses (of which the BSD is just one example) don't do much better but if they like they can fork and/or merge with proprietaries and still remain respected members of the community. Also, they don't have to worship at the altar of the FSF and its "ideals".
The GPL ensures that bright ideas don't die in some company's software vault.
No, they die in the middle of the street. Death is death no matter how you slice it.
The real problem here isn't the GPL specificly. It's copyleft. The only way I see to end this jihad is to go with what I like to call copyforward. That's where the source can be used by both Open Source and closed source programs, everybody knows that, and nobody is allowed to tell you otherwise. No more stuff like readline and getopt being kidnapped by copylefters so that they can trick people into thinking that the GPL is unavoidable when writing *NIX software. <RANT>Got MSVC? Just go to your help and search for getopt. Well, whaddya know! There's a getopt that's as free as BSD, but you'd never know it when some newbie asks how to parse the command-line and the GNU people point him to GNU stuff and nobody else says anything. There's a lot of stuff like this.</RANT>
I'm simply saying that every organization lies, which makes everyone I know a liar.
I have a hard time believing you.