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User: rioki

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  1. Re:Science creates understanding of a real world. on How Scientific Consensus Has Gotten a Bad Reputation · · Score: 1

    If you want a more nuanced vision and a fun one you can read http://wattsupwiththat.com/. It sits square in the middle of "we are all going to die" and "what global warming?" and looks critically at both sides. Real charts to debunk political campaigns and often fun to read.

    On the subject at hand: Monday mirthiness – 97 hours, 97 opinions, 97% consensus, 100% cartooned climate science

  2. Re: What the heck? on DMCA Claim Over GPL Non-Compliance Shuts Off Minecraft Plug-Ins · · Score: 1

    After reading some more about it, the case actually is cut and clear. There are not really thee bits of software, but only two. There is bukkit that is distributed under GPL and there is CraftBukkit that is distributed under GPL. So far everything is simple and clean, the GPL is not violated. There is one minor problem, CraftBukkit contains the decompiled source code of the Minrecraft server. Since CraftBukkit is released under the GPL, that part of code is released under the GPL too;as asserted by the CraftBukkit developers. (Any claim otherwise disregards the GPL.) The only valid infringement of copyright / licensing terms are against the developers who decompiled the mincreaft server and added it to CraftBukkit, in favor of Mojang. The put's Wesley's assertion the GPL was violated as completely erroneous. Mojang's copyright was violated, but they seem to be ok with it.

  3. Re: What the heck? on DMCA Claim Over GPL Non-Compliance Shuts Off Minecraft Plug-Ins · · Score: 1

    You can change the license of a work when you get all copyright holder to agree, that includes GPL'ed code. If you get all but Wolfe's agreement, all you need to do is (cvs|svn|git) blame and remove each line that is attributed to Wolfe. After that you can make is "all rights reserved" if the copyright holders agree.

  4. Re:Shortest version on Stallman Does Slides -- and Brevity -- For TEDx · · Score: 1

    I think I get the distinction he is trying to formulate. Red Hat focuses their products around their GNU/Linux distribution, that is without GNU/Linux they would not have a product. Rackspace on the other hand have a product that would exists even without OpenStack. Their primary gains in reduction of development costs, since other individuals and companies are contributing to the effort.

    Basically these are the two vectors commercial companies have with free software. Either they provide ancillary services to existing software, that is they are basically consultants; or they copyleft some piece of software that is not their in business model and as a result reduce costs.

  5. Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? on After Celebrity Photo Leaks, 4chan Introduces DMCA Policy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funny thing with this is that, since the half life of most posts is something around one or two hours, the system will remove any offending post before the DMCA can be processed. I expect that 99% of all DMCA requests can be forwarded to /dev/null. So yea...

    s/4chan/ebaumsworld/

  6. Re:Competition is good. on Battle of the Heavy Lift Rockets · · Score: 1

    Fast forward to 21st century and progress made by SpaceX and others is result of wealth inequality. Few billionaires have some billions they can put into to what they want rather than meeting political objectives (war, votes, whatever).

    But that is really Elon Musk's genius, he has the cash to spare and the vision to pull it through. This something that bugged the hell out of me, why do the Donald Trumps of this world not establish lunar or asteroid mining missions. They have the cash and the return will be huge, the only downside is the return will trickle down at best in a decade.

    In addition the real marvel of SpaceX is not their technology; it is not really advanced, but their operational costs. Boing and Lockheed Martin are just milking government contracts; they don't really care about innovation. SpaceX is beating them hands down, because they wand and need to be on the leading edge and in the end this may be their ticket to market domination. Maybe Boing and Lockheed Martin will step up their game, but it will definitely not be easy shifting gears.

  7. Re:Obviously... on Where are the Flying Cars? (Video; Part One of Two) · · Score: 1

    What?! There are "flying cars", it is a solved problem. The normal term is Helicopter, but if you wish can call it a Flying Car. Just because you can't afford one or the maintenance of one, does not mean it doesn't exist. The myth actually is that everybody will be able to afford a "flying car", which misses the point of how much energy is required to maintain flight.

  8. Re:So, such rules are bad for keeping people worki on California May Waive Environmental Rules For Tesla · · Score: 1

    The Protestant "Arbeit macht frei" work ethic

    DAFUQ did I just read?! The "Arbeit macht frei" was a sick joke that was put over the Auschwitz internment camp main entrance. The Calvinists/Huguenot is nowhere near that term. To refresh your memory the "protestant work ethic" is has it's roots in Calvinist Protestantism and that has it's roots in France. It later also had a strong movement in the Netherlands. Germany was marked by Lutheran Protestantism with had no work ethic attached to it at all. Trowing these two terms together is just a sick perversion of history!

  9. Re:Why did they pick such a bad buzzword? on Gartner: Internet of Things Has Reached Hype Peak · · Score: 1

    Actually the "Internet of Things" is a term coined in the 90s, by engineers. You know in the 90s the Internet was Kool! What begs the question, why is such an old term suddenly a buzzword.

  10. Re:Oh now Apple joins the team on Murder Suspect Asked Siri Where To Hide a Dead Body · · Score: 2

    Also, let this be a record that I was asking this to verify if it still worked or not!.

    All the murder suspects say that. Now, where did you hide the bodies?

  11. Re:Expert:Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People A on "Secret Serum" Used To Treat Americans With Ebola · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually what you see here is very well understood. You are seeing an inelastic market; that is if a drug or procedure will save you life, it does not matter of it costs $5 or $5000, you will find the money to pay for it. The reason why socialized healthcare drives costs down is because the government / the insurance company will bargain on your behalf. Since they are not the one who is going to die, they can not be extorted and can pit different drug makers against each other. Health care is one of the few areas where "the free market" does not work as naively expected.

  12. Re:S-class driver with a soda can? Please... on Fooling a Mercedes Into Autonomous Driving With a Soda Can · · Score: 1

    I know where this joke is going. Then again the car costs a "mere" 100000 EUR, something that a high education / good credit rating person can do in Germany. In addition there are many who buy the car new and resell it after a year, is apparently cheaper than leasing. With some tax trickery even quite feasible. If you "need" the car for representational purposes, like you are a sales person, it is quite plausible that a "soda drinking" person may drive a S-Class.

  13. Re: Soda can... on Fooling a Mercedes Into Autonomous Driving With a Soda Can · · Score: 1

    Add to the fact that the guy was not tailgating by German law. If I recall correctly tailgating starts at a 0.7s separation. The guy was following at something like 1s - 1.5s separation. This separation distance is normal in Germany. I learned 2s separation Texas and my friends in Germany think I am crazy by leaving such a large separation... Then again German drivers are way more disciplined than Texan drivers...

  14. Re:Soda can... on Fooling a Mercedes Into Autonomous Driving With a Soda Can · · Score: 1

    This was obviously filmed in Germany, as the radio (Bayern 3) tells us. He is driving in the right lane, behind a truck, which puts him around 110 km/h (~70 mph). (This is rather odd for a Mercedes driver, but OK...) The 1s - 1.5s distance, although more on the low end, is rather normal in Germany, everything higher will be treated as a merging slot.

    In the US traffic tends be something +/-10% of the speed limit. Which results to people not giving a fuck about only passing on the left hand side, at least in Texas. As a result, in dense traffic the left hand lanes will only move marginally faster than right lane.

    On the other hand Germany the speed difference can be anywhere withing 200 km/h (125mph) and 90km/h (55 mph). In optimal conditions traffic is evenly sorted along the three lanes. Since the driver going 160 km/h (being a nice person), will let the driver doing 180 km/h pass, he will merge to the middle lane and back to the left lane. The result is that you see way more lane changes on an Autobahn than a highway. So unless you have really dense traffic the flow of traffic is very irregular or you are tailgating someone, there will probably always be sufficient space to merge in front of you; if you keep 2s or more separation.

  15. Re:Who didn't see this coming? on How Google Handles 'Right To Be Forgotten' Requests · · Score: 1

    To a certain degree you are wrong. Even under traditional European standards the law is odd.

    Traditionally companies can use as much data as is required for the normal operation of business and if they want to do more, they need your consent; that can be retreated. For example I can not demand the deletion of my data at credit rating agency, since that belongs to the normal business operations. In addition I agreed to each data point be inserted in the database with the interaction with my bank, telephone company, etc. (Not that I was told explicitly, the terms state, "third party required for operation".) On the other hand, nonessential data, like everything Facebook stores on you, is not considered "essential data" required for "business operations". This can be requested to deleted and also falls in traditional privacy laws.

    The odd thing is, the data is not really about you, but about an article about you. The article itself falls under freedom of speech / freedom of the press and thus is untouchable. Under traditional privacy laws are not invoked, because google is just indexing articles which are fully legitimate. The basic analysis is that if original source material is legitimate so is the index (if it was created unbiased). The law / court case built it's argument more on human rights that the privacy laws are based on, than rather the privacy laws themselves.

    But don't worry, many Europeans think this law is stupid. The traditional privacy laws are quite strong and normally offer sufficient protection. Trying to retroactively hush up public knowledge is flawed idea anyway.

  16. Re:No big deal (except the encryption part) on Dropbox Head Responds To Snowden Claims About Privacy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know there is a web interface to Dropbox too? People expect to read their documents, like word or PDF right there online. To do this the service must index the files and read them. Obviously if you encrypt the files, this can not be done.

    I use Dropbox as my offsite backup of sensitive information and I trust the information to be safe. Simple, I encrypt the tar-ball with symmetric GPG. But then again I can only download the file vie the web interface if I wish and not view the contents online... buhuhu

  17. Re:let me correct that for you. on Experiment Shows People Exposed To East German Socialism Cheat More · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is not fully true. At least in East Germany you owned things. You could own a car and the furniture in your house. You may have hat to wait long to get them, but you bought them from the money you own. In cretin circumstances you could also own a house, but that was rather rare.

    Nevertheless the the notion you point out is sort of correct. If you all get the same pay and there is an allocation system based on "need", it is clear that you try to game the system, like work less or "needing" more.

  18. Re:Why only 12 rockets per year? on SpaceX Wins FAA Permission To Build a Spaceport In Texas · · Score: 1

    They are building a spaceport in the middle of a national park! Either it is a nature preserve or it is not one. Although I don't count myself to the environmentalist camp, but I see the ideas behind national parks. But in many cases the environmental impact studies are educated guess at best. The 12 rockets limit seems fairly arbitrary and more along the lines of projected SpaceX use of the facility and less on the environmental impact tolerances.

  19. Re:Freedom of Expression... on French Blogger Fined For Negative Restaurant Review · · Score: 2

    s/Voltaire/Evelyn Beatrice Hall/

    She wrote that exact quote in a biography about Voltaire, but Voltaire never said that.

  20. Re:Why on After NSA Spying Flap, Germany Asks CIA Station Chief to Depart · · Score: 1

    In addition Jürgen Klinsmann was the head coach of the German national team. He brought a good part of the current top players together. The current coach (Joachim Löw) worked under Kliensmann. Löw basically learned his chops under Klinsmann and as such there was little the NSA could have found out that Kleinsmann did not yet know. A testament to the knowledge and talent of Kliensmann is the fact that the US team got so far. (2:1 against Germany is not bad either.)

  21. Re:Why only 12 rockets per year? on SpaceX Wins FAA Permission To Build a Spaceport In Texas · · Score: 1

    Probably some haphazard environmental impact study. But once SpaceX has the foot in the door and a need to launch more, it probably can be arranged to higher limits. If they can lay pipelines through a Alaskan wildlife preserve, they can launch more rockets from a national park in Texas.

  22. Re:I can see the movie now... on SpaceX Wins FAA Permission To Build a Spaceport In Texas · · Score: 1

    Now THAT sounds like an awesome movie.

  23. Re:"Rare talents"?! on Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software · · Score: 1

    The novice developer writes code he does not understand.

    The mediocre developer writes code that only he understands.

    The great developer writes code that everybody understands.

    I would say yes, it takes some skill and experience to create simple to understand program. This does not mean that your average programmer can not hack together a functional program. But even your requirements of 2 years worth of training and experience is way more than the TFA would like, it falls more along the lines of "learn programming in 8 hours" type of requirement.

  24. Re:Who's at fault for this? on Avast Buys 20 Used Phones, Recovers 40,000 Deleted Photos · · Score: 2

    I would wager that the real impact is the opposite. It is like used games, on the surface it looks like a "lost sale" but in reality it provides liquidity. The used phone market then fuels the new pone market, since those that sell the phone do not have / don't want to spend the money on their yearly upgrade cycle. On the other hand those that buy the used phones don't have the money to spend on a new phone. Even though they may have spent the money on a lower end device, it is not a lost sale, since as mentioned before they supported the sale of a high end device, which again has a higher profit margin.

    But if MBAs would also get that, that would be great.

  25. Re:Treatment sort of worked on Site of 1976 "Atomic Man" Accident To Be Cleaned · · Score: 1

    And I though you should not drop the F-Bomb near kids...