GGP was talking about the terminology. Windows with be "secure" and Linux will be "non-secure". Do you think the pointy-heads will know the difference? It's a MS marketingdroid's dream.
I think technically I'm a scientist also, because I have a Ph.D. (optional) and conduct and publish research.
Judging by this and some of the other comments in this post... For example:
You can't be a scientist just part-time. You either are a scientist or not, it's not about how much you "do" it, it's about formal education
...there seems to be a 180 degree reversal in how Americans think about scientists vs engineers and the rest of the world.
In the US, a "scientist" is someone who is suitably degreed and formally published. While an "engineer" can be anything from a professional to a backyard tinkerer. Whereas in most/all other countries, an "engineer" is a highly regulated profession with minimum tertiary qualifications, while a "scientist" is just anyone who "does science", from professionals to the least-qualified hobbyist.
So in Germany, "Part-time scientists" would be like an American group called "After-hours engineers".
More concerning is the task of keeping it from melting after fifteen days of intense solar radiation and no atmospheric cooling.
The lunar surface only reaches 130 C even though it has an albedo of just 5%. Even the solar panel on the rover will be more reflective that that (about 30% in practice). And the panel would act as a partial solar shield for the rest of the rover, with a high-albedo coating protecting the rest (white in the pics). So nothing is going to actually melt. Thermal contraction during the lunar night is the killer.
"Then will be revealed what was stronger: the merciless lunar night or the valiant Asimov. It will either remain in eternal sleep or embark on another new and exciting day on the moon."
In the mean time, I'd suggest dropping a few beacons and using tried and true triangulation and dead reckoning techniques.
Off-the-shelf star-tracker of the type used on everything from deep-space probes to the Dragon capsule, plus an atomic-clock-on-a-chip, plus a big bumper book of star tables.
(Dropped beacons would quickly fall below the close horizon on the moon. Plus you'd still have to determine the location of the beacons, using a method small and cheap enough to throw away. So why not put that method on the rover?)
And we're all supposed to think that you know more than he does, why?
So just to be clear, in just 2 hours, and all without a trace of self-awareness, you have gone from:
- criticising me for attributing the claim that "America is not a democracy" to the broad conservative movement
to
- assuring me that "all (or most)" mainstream conservatives would "laugh at anybody who made that claim", including and especially your conservative friend, Dr. Pournelle
to
- criticising me for daring to challenge Pournelle's claim.
You brought up Pournelle as an example of someone who would never accept the claim, would laugh at it. When I quoted Pournelle matter-of-factly repeating the claim, you switch to challenging me to show my credentials.
I'll point out only that both of his docotrates (Political Science and Psychology) were earned, [...] Just to be fair, I'd like to ask you what courses in this subject you've taken?
Rest assured that Dr. Pournelle's penis remains larger than any mere mortal.
Speaking of assurances, are you still assuring me that Pournelle would "laugh at anybody who made the claim" that "the USofA isn't a democracy", or are you no longer laughing but defending the claim one the grounds that Pournelle "knows what he's writing about"?
Also, the fact that you can find lots of sites on the Internet saying what you're objecting to proves nothing except that every wacko out there is able to put up a website to push their agenda.
And are you including or excepting Pournelle from the list of wackos who are saying exactly the same thing as Pournelle?
And, I can assure you that not all (or even most) conservatives think that the USofA isn't a democracy. I have a friend [jerrypournelle.com] who's (among other things) a conservative and a political commentator, and I'm sure that he'd laugh at anybody who made that claim.
So because of your assumptions about your conservative friend, who you haven't actually asked, you are rejecting my decades of observation of this issue, and the hundreds or thousands of conservative and libertarian websites talking about this (as noted in a google search for the phrase "us is a republic not a democracy"), and the recent and increasing use of the slogan by conservative demonstrators?
But since you brought him up:
"It was not all that long ago that everyone in America understood that this nation wasn't founded as a democracy, and that democracy, having been considered by the Framers, was rejected for a constitutional republic of limited and precisely defined powers. As to democracy, most of the founding figures of the American Republic rejected it flatly. John Adams was particularly vigorous in his rejection: 'Democracy while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.' - John Adams " -- Pournelle, 30/5/2012, taken from the blog you linked to.
[Emphasis mine.]
(This is also exactly the sort of "appeal to Founders" than prompted me to write: "Weird because Jefferson's party were called the "Democratic Republicans", suggesting that they weren't quite as dark on democracy as the proponents of the meme would like to suggest.")
I've been watching as this meme has been created and spread over the past few decades by the US Right. This idea that the US isn't a democracy. Initially it was seen only in the far right extremists, popularised by the founder of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch. But over the years it has been moving further and further into the mainstream ideology (and increasingly the cultural "Shibboleths") of the conservative movement. You can now see it on posters at most right-wing rallies or protests.
It seems to be based on a bizarre notion that "democracy" can only mean mob-rule, and that "republic" can only mean a system where the individual is protected from mob-rule. (Poster 1. Poster 2.) And the even more bizarre idea that democracy is some kind trick being played by the left-wing to destroy America, and anyone who says the US is a democracy is part of (or victim of) the liberal/socialist/fascist conspiracy. States have even passed laws banning schools from teaching that the US is a democracy. Likewise, they play on the idea that Democrats want a "democracy" (which is bad), and Republicans want a "republic" (which is good.)
Google "US is a republic" and instant-results suggests "...not a democracy" without any further prompting. It's a major conservative meme. And it certainly isn't irrelevant, since it would be where the AC got the notion in the first place.
The US is a republic. It is a democracy. It is a federation. It is a commonwealth. It is a nation. It is a sovereign state. It is a regional union of independent states. These words describe different aspects of your nation, not different nations.
[Weirdest is the tendency of proponents to appeal to authority of the founding fathers. Weird because Jefferson's party were called the "Democratic Republicans", suggesting that they weren't quite as dark on democracy as the proponents of the meme would like to suggest.]
Don't be obtuse. I didn't say the US wasn't a republic. I was dismissing the bizarre rightwing meme that the US isn't a democracy because "Democracy is majority rule where as Republic is majority rule with protections for minority."
The terms "Democracy" and "Republic" are completely independent from each other. A nation can have democratic government and not be a republic. (Such as the UK or Canada.) It can be a republic and have democratic government (such as the US or France.) It can be non-democratic and non-republic (such as Saudi Arabia and a handful of other absolute monarchies.) Or it can be a republic but not a democracy (like every dictatorship, oligarchy or similar country out there.)
The two terms are describing different things. All "republic" means is the highest power is not vested in a monarchy, it has nothing to do with how the government is chosen. It sure as hell doesn't mean that a republic "is majority rule with protections for minority."
This is a stupid Republican-created meme that needs to die. "Republic" and "Democracy" have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The two terms are completely independent.
A country can be a republic and a dictatorship (indeed all dictatorships are republics). And it can be a democracy (representational, direct or otherwise) in anything from a republic to a constitutional monarchy.
"I have looked all over for other watches that have this feature, and failed to find one. Does anybody know of other watches with 1-AL mode?"
In many watches it's called a count-down timer, or something similar, part of the stop-watch function rather than the alarm function. Still uses the alarm when it hits zero.
You don't get told why, just a generic "You have violated Google's terms of service" for one service, then you discover you've lost access to everything. Gmail, blogger, every Google property that you have an account with. You complain (via a different email address), and maybe you get it back, but you never find out why, or if it will happen again.
Presumably for some people it happened just after they linked to a G+ account, and with the RealName controversy, they assumed that was why.
I don't use G+, have never set it up, but it still happened to me. I still don't know why. Or if it will happen again.
Once an artist's work passes into the public domain, the publishing company has no hold on the artist. There is no reason why the publisher would magically have more hold over the starving artist at book 5 than they had at book 1. The artist, OTOH, has 4 previous books under their belt, with a track record of growing sales figures to show rival publishers.
Again, I fail to see how shortening the term of copyright makes this situation worse. All you've shown is that the current copyright industry, in every form it takes, is completely fucking evil. That's not an argument for protecting that industry.
Copyright or patents or other legal control over the dongle's function would expire at the same time as the copyright on the code. And with the code in the public domain, there'd be no restrictions on reverse engineering fixes for those intentional restrictions like registration/dongles. Just as happens now with pirated software, except completely legal.
The only limit would be to have the core functionality running on that central server (a la Google), but there'd be no patents (after 5yrs) to limit anyone from copying that functionality if you charged for access.
And yet there are entire industries that cope perfectly well without any IP laws beyond brand-names. Like fashion. You can copy any design, and you're perfectly legal (as long as you don't copy the actual brand-name and try to pass it off as an original.)
I think what people are struggling to understand is: What the hell this has to do with the 5yr copyright idea? You wrote your comment as if the situation would only exist under the new (short) copyright regime. The situation you are describing, having rights suborned by an exclusive contract that goes beyond copyright, exists now. It has nothing to do with the topic.
I see your point, but when you look at the number of features added to modern software (such as Office), that are intended for a tiny number of users, I would think this would be an easy sell. You close the document, the save/discard dialogue appears, and the document highlights the last change.
You open a document for reference, notice and fix a typo/error while grabbing whatever you wanted out of it, then spent six hours working on the main document. Then you finish up, save and close the main document, then close the reference doc and get the save/discard dialogue... wait, did I change something intentionally, or did I just cut instead of copy by mistake, or just leant on the keyboard? Inevitably, for me, I remember about 1/2 a second after I click "discard" (or save). It would be nice to have that instant visual memory jogger of seeing the highlighted change. It doesn't require you to study the document, it's just an instant visual cue.
(Auto-correct: What browser? I see this complaint more and more lately.)
Slashdot Mirror
GGP was talking about the terminology. Windows with be "secure" and Linux will be "non-secure". Do you think the pointy-heads will know the difference? It's a MS marketingdroid's dream.
[addendum]
I think technically I'm a scientist also, because I have a Ph.D. (optional) and conduct and publish research.
Judging by this and some of the other comments in this post... For example:
You can't be a scientist just part-time. You either are a scientist or not, it's not about how much you "do" it, it's about formal education
...there seems to be a 180 degree reversal in how Americans think about scientists vs engineers and the rest of the world.
In the US, a "scientist" is someone who is suitably degreed and formally published. While an "engineer" can be anything from a professional to a backyard tinkerer. Whereas in most/all other countries, an "engineer" is a highly regulated profession with minimum tertiary qualifications, while a "scientist" is just anyone who "does science", from professionals to the least-qualified hobbyist.
So in Germany, "Part-time scientists" would be like an American group called "After-hours engineers".
Further to the AC's comment, you'd also be hitting the moon at several km/s. Your bouncy shell would merely add a thin layer to the moon's surface.
Germany may have laws about who can call themselves an engineer, but not about who can call themselves a scientist. Ie, a profession vs a vocation.
More concerning is the task of keeping it from melting after fifteen days of intense solar radiation and no atmospheric cooling.
The lunar surface only reaches 130 C even though it has an albedo of just 5%. Even the solar panel on the rover will be more reflective that that (about 30% in practice). And the panel would act as a partial solar shield for the rest of the rover, with a high-albedo coating protecting the rest (white in the pics). So nothing is going to actually melt. Thermal contraction during the lunar night is the killer.
"Then will be revealed what was stronger: the merciless lunar night or the valiant Asimov. It will either remain in eternal sleep or embark on another new and exciting day on the moon."
Hopefully they are aware enough of Asimov's work to print the robot ID number "ASM-05" on the rover.
(No, actually, I'm just glad they didn't create yet another fucking backronym... "Autonomous Science and Investigation MOon Vehicle".)
In the mean time, I'd suggest dropping a few beacons and using tried and true triangulation and dead reckoning techniques.
Off-the-shelf star-tracker of the type used on everything from deep-space probes to the Dragon capsule, plus an atomic-clock-on-a-chip, plus a big bumper book of star tables.
(Dropped beacons would quickly fall below the close horizon on the moon. Plus you'd still have to determine the location of the beacons, using a method small and cheap enough to throw away. So why not put that method on the rover?)
And we're all supposed to think that you know more than he does, why?
So just to be clear, in just 2 hours, and all without a trace of self-awareness, you have gone from:
- criticising me for attributing the claim that "America is not a democracy" to the broad conservative movement
to
- assuring me that "all (or most)" mainstream conservatives would "laugh at anybody who made that claim", including and especially your conservative friend, Dr. Pournelle
to
- criticising me for daring to challenge Pournelle's claim.
You brought up Pournelle as an example of someone who would never accept the claim, would laugh at it. When I quoted Pournelle matter-of-factly repeating the claim, you switch to challenging me to show my credentials.
So I'm done. You have a nice life now.
I'll point out only that both of his docotrates (Political Science and Psychology) were earned, [...] Just to be fair, I'd like to ask you what courses in this subject you've taken?
Rest assured that Dr. Pournelle's penis remains larger than any mere mortal.
Speaking of assurances, are you still assuring me that Pournelle would "laugh at anybody who made the claim" that "the USofA isn't a democracy", or are you no longer laughing but defending the claim one the grounds that Pournelle "knows what he's writing about"?
Also, the fact that you can find lots of sites on the Internet saying what you're objecting to proves nothing except that every wacko out there is able to put up a website to push their agenda.
And are you including or excepting Pournelle from the list of wackos who are saying exactly the same thing as Pournelle?
And, I can assure you that not all (or even most) conservatives think that the USofA isn't a democracy. I have a friend [jerrypournelle.com] who's (among other things) a conservative and a political commentator, and I'm sure that he'd laugh at anybody who made that claim.
So because of your assumptions about your conservative friend, who you haven't actually asked, you are rejecting my decades of observation of this issue, and the hundreds or thousands of conservative and libertarian websites talking about this (as noted in a google search for the phrase "us is a republic not a democracy"), and the recent and increasing use of the slogan by conservative demonstrators?
But since you brought him up:
"It was not all that long ago that everyone in America understood that this nation wasn't founded as a democracy, and that democracy, having been considered by the Framers, was rejected for a constitutional republic of limited and precisely defined powers. As to democracy, most of the founding figures of the American Republic rejected it flatly. John Adams was particularly vigorous in his rejection: 'Democracy while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.' - John Adams " -- Pournelle, 30/5/2012, taken from the blog you linked to.
[Emphasis mine.]
(This is also exactly the sort of "appeal to Founders" than prompted me to write: "Weird because Jefferson's party were called the "Democratic Republicans", suggesting that they weren't quite as dark on democracy as the proponents of the meme would like to suggest.")
I've been watching as this meme has been created and spread over the past few decades by the US Right. This idea that the US isn't a democracy. Initially it was seen only in the far right extremists, popularised by the founder of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch. But over the years it has been moving further and further into the mainstream ideology (and increasingly the cultural "Shibboleths") of the conservative movement. You can now see it on posters at most right-wing rallies or protests.
It seems to be based on a bizarre notion that "democracy" can only mean mob-rule, and that "republic" can only mean a system where the individual is protected from mob-rule. (Poster 1. Poster 2.) And the even more bizarre idea that democracy is some kind trick being played by the left-wing to destroy America, and anyone who says the US is a democracy is part of (or victim of) the liberal/socialist/fascist conspiracy. States have even passed laws banning schools from teaching that the US is a democracy. Likewise, they play on the idea that Democrats want a "democracy" (which is bad), and Republicans want a "republic" (which is good.)
Google "US is a republic" and instant-results suggests "...not a democracy" without any further prompting. It's a major conservative meme. And it certainly isn't irrelevant, since it would be where the AC got the notion in the first place.
The US is a republic. It is a democracy. It is a federation. It is a commonwealth. It is a nation. It is a sovereign state. It is a regional union of independent states. These words describe different aspects of your nation, not different nations.
[Weirdest is the tendency of proponents to appeal to authority of the founding fathers. Weird because Jefferson's party were called the "Democratic Republicans", suggesting that they weren't quite as dark on democracy as the proponents of the meme would like to suggest.]
Don't be obtuse. I didn't say the US wasn't a republic. I was dismissing the bizarre rightwing meme that the US isn't a democracy because "Democracy is majority rule where as Republic is majority rule with protections for minority."
The terms "Democracy" and "Republic" are completely independent from each other. A nation can have democratic government and not be a republic. (Such as the UK or Canada.) It can be a republic and have democratic government (such as the US or France.) It can be non-democratic and non-republic (such as Saudi Arabia and a handful of other absolute monarchies.) Or it can be a republic but not a democracy (like every dictatorship, oligarchy or similar country out there.)
The two terms are describing different things. All "republic" means is the highest power is not vested in a monarchy, it has nothing to do with how the government is chosen. It sure as hell doesn't mean that a republic "is majority rule with protections for minority."
This is a stupid Republican-created meme that needs to die. "Republic" and "Democracy" have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The two terms are completely independent.
A country can be a republic and a dictatorship (indeed all dictatorships are republics). And it can be a democracy (representational, direct or otherwise) in anything from a republic to a constitutional monarchy.
Cmon, we can do better than 57%
Now now, they surveyed 15,000 people and worked out that 170 million of them are using pirated software. So that's pretty typical anti-piracy maths.
I assume by now you've followed the links to Pebble? Sounds like the closest to what you want. (You didn't say e-paper, but it seems logical.)
As endorsed by Seal Team 6.
"I have looked all over for other watches that have this feature, and failed to find one. Does anybody know of other watches with 1-AL mode?"
In many watches it's called a count-down timer, or something similar, part of the stop-watch function rather than the alarm function. Still uses the alarm when it hits zero.
You don't get told why, just a generic "You have violated Google's terms of service" for one service, then you discover you've lost access to everything. Gmail, blogger, every Google property that you have an account with. You complain (via a different email address), and maybe you get it back, but you never find out why, or if it will happen again.
Presumably for some people it happened just after they linked to a G+ account, and with the RealName controversy, they assumed that was why.
I don't use G+, have never set it up, but it still happened to me. I still don't know why. Or if it will happen again.
Oops, damn. I did not - NOT - see that at all until you mentioned it. Yes, I meant it "wouldn't necessarily be the only company". Thanks.
Once an artist's work passes into the public domain, the publishing company has no hold on the artist. There is no reason why the publisher would magically have more hold over the starving artist at book 5 than they had at book 1. The artist, OTOH, has 4 previous books under their belt, with a track record of growing sales figures to show rival publishers.
Again, I fail to see how shortening the term of copyright makes this situation worse. All you've shown is that the current copyright industry, in every form it takes, is completely fucking evil. That's not an argument for protecting that industry.
Copyright or patents or other legal control over the dongle's function would expire at the same time as the copyright on the code. And with the code in the public domain, there'd be no restrictions on reverse engineering fixes for those intentional restrictions like registration/dongles. Just as happens now with pirated software, except completely legal.
The only limit would be to have the core functionality running on that central server (a la Google), but there'd be no patents (after 5yrs) to limit anyone from copying that functionality if you charged for access.
And yet there are entire industries that cope perfectly well without any IP laws beyond brand-names. Like fashion. You can copy any design, and you're perfectly legal (as long as you don't copy the actual brand-name and try to pass it off as an original.)
The source would also be out of copyright. So Microsoft would necessarily be the only company doing service packs.
I think what people are struggling to understand is: What the hell this has to do with the 5yr copyright idea? You wrote your comment as if the situation would only exist under the new (short) copyright regime. The situation you are describing, having rights suborned by an exclusive contract that goes beyond copyright, exists now. It has nothing to do with the topic.
I see your point, but when you look at the number of features added to modern software (such as Office), that are intended for a tiny number of users, I would think this would be an easy sell. You close the document, the save/discard dialogue appears, and the document highlights the last change.
You open a document for reference, notice and fix a typo/error while grabbing whatever you wanted out of it, then spent six hours working on the main document. Then you finish up, save and close the main document, then close the reference doc and get the save/discard dialogue... wait, did I change something intentionally, or did I just cut instead of copy by mistake, or just leant on the keyboard? Inevitably, for me, I remember about 1/2 a second after I click "discard" (or save). It would be nice to have that instant visual memory jogger of seeing the highlighted change. It doesn't require you to study the document, it's just an instant visual cue.
(Auto-correct: What browser? I see this complaint more and more lately.)