Now no one can distribute it without your permission (except as allowed by fair use). You can give them permission to use it in certain ways using a new or pre-existing license, like CC (or GPL). There is no "conflict" between copyright and creative commons; quite the contrary, CC depends on (C). The GPL does too, as RMS has pointed out more than a few times.
Consider not the fraction of the market, but the size of the market. How many people have GNU/Linux on their desktop?
Compare the size of the market to the size of the market for various other systems. There were 17 million Commodore 64 machines sold. I suspect there are easily this many people with open source desktops in the world; there are around 10 million users of Ubuntu alone. Does the author mean to say that the Commodore 64 was unsuccessful, was itself dead on the desktop, for having a mere 17 million users? It seems unlikely.
Being the sole desktop option is a hazardous place to be. If you believe in capitalism, you should prefer a mix, you should prefer that users (at some level, potentially corporate) decide which system to use.
I use GNU/Linux: Ubuntu on the desktop, Debian on servers and sufficiently high-end embedded systems. That's not about to change. I'm glad others are concerned about converting people, but only so far as it causes them to make better the software I use.
It seems to occur surprisingly often that the black box cannot be found, because the tail (e.g.) cannot be found. I would leave the existing black boxes in place and add a large number of very small additional devices: just a flash chip in a styrofoam ball. With a bunch of 'em, the chance of finding at least one would be significantly improved.
It may be easier to get accepted a system that only adds redundancy, since it can't be less effective than the already-approved one.
You mean, he was a credible scientist?
Scientists generally do not say things without caveats, and even if they omit them, you should assume the caveats remain. People with certainty are usually shysters.
Fuck you, OP, and everyone who uses mod-point-martyrdom, to express their point of view.
"I have karma to burn"
"I'll probably get modded down for this but..."
"Ok, flame away"
Just make your point, and leave that crap out next time.
You'll probably get modded down for that....:D
Re:Let me be the first critic
on
Linux Needs Critics
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What do I care if Linux works for you?
I run Linux for me; it works for me. I may encourage you to run it too, but it's not my problem if it doesn't work out. Remember the bit about "no warranty"?
Now, if you're paying for a working system or support, that's a different story. If you get a Linux shop to build you a PVR, they'd better give you a working machine. But demanding that volunteers fix your problem is insane.
The only one responsible for making your computer work is you.
Mathematics generally requires TeX. For example,
the AMS. (They prefer various forms of TeX, but will also accept submissions on paper, so you could use MS-Word. But it's a world of pain for all involved.)
I couldn't dream of using anything else, even outside of math, if only to get proper kerning and small-caps.
I made the best possible computer for my son: I took a dead laptop without a screen, and put a cheap plastic mirror in its place. He loves to open it up, look at things in the mirror, hammer the keyboard. The mirror isn't flat, so it's different from the other mirrors we have.
He's enjoyed it since before he could walk, and he still likes it at two.
As others have said, kids want real things to interact with, and they want to do what they see others doing. If you use a computer, he'll probably enjoy using a "computer". But just because you're reading/. doesn't mean he should be too. His computer doesn't need to work (in the broadest sense) the same way yours does.
I would recommend the Wizard book as one option. It's not for everyone, but for people who can make use of it, it should be perfect for study without a computer. LISP can be interpreted by hand, most of the book is very algorithm oriented.
It won't do much for someone's immediate employability, I suppose, but someone who groks LISP should be able to pick up other languages easily. If I was looking for a sharp programmer, someone who knew the languages I needed, and understood this book, would look pretty good.
My copies of music from the 60s and 70s will be just fine, since they're encoded as fine lines scratched on a 12" black PVC disk. You can play them with a thumbtack, if you don't want hi-fi and only want to play them once.
They're not about to degrade in any reasonable length of time.
I just recently started hacking RockBox, and it's a lot of fun. You can quickly go from having a boring MP3 player to doing something unique. It's portable, so you can show your friends, etc.
You're limited to using C, but that way he's got half a chance of understanding what's going on in the machine, unlike with high level languages.
I'd install it on a player, maybe a spare one that isn't actively in use (though it may be an upgrade to the existing firmware, it's pretty slick). Let him see the demos, modify them, and go from there. You could start with simple things like changing the colours or something in the existing programs.
I wish I could find the manual for my old 50 in one, because I'd love to learn how these circuits work. Horowitz and Hill.
Not quite the manual, but a terrific book. My wife has been reading it for fun recently.
Quite true that not just any creation will be interacted with well.
The GP is, however, also right that people will ascribe intentionality to a fairly wide variety of creations. At one point I was working on a research mobile robot, and showing it off to some laypeople. The robot had gotten "stuck" in a corner (turning left moves closer to the wall, but so does turning right; no "back up" code yet). People said things like "it's trying to get out of the corner" and such. It's not "trying" anything, it's just following a set of equations (that I wrote) which are slightly too simple.
I think being able to see that the robot is having "difficulty" gives people some empathy with its "plight". Probably the article's robot received this empathy since kids know that one can get cold if one "naps" without a blanket; they know what it's like to be in that situation.
I like the idea of municipal wireless. But I have one concern:
Municipal wi-fi has the potential to reduce the number of broadband subscribers. This may drive up the cost of getting broadband or put the providers out of business. At the same time, there will be pressure to censor the government-run system, since some people will be upset that "those pervs" are looking at pr0n with government resources.
So we end up with the government in a monopoly position, and required to censor, so getting uncensored network access may be impossible. And this is unacceptable.
The mainboard that by AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 1009.004 MHz came connected to, which predates Vista by a certain amount, gives three "Microsoft Windows NT" lines. This isn't super new.
But cows don't need to eat protein; they're ruminants, and can live very nearly solely on grass. (Or newspapers, orange peels, or other cellulose sources.)
Feeding grain to cows is a way of dealing with grain surplus and allowing animals to be raised at higher density.
We need to set up mist net throughout the homes of spammers, and put them out of our misery. A bounty on spammers seems the only way to solve the problem.:)
We cannot claim the
reward unless we have 51% of the carcass! —Apu
Like copyright law, the GPL says nothing about users. It merely grants people the right to make copies under certain conditions. Since using it does not require any permissions you do not already have, you do not need to accept the license to use it.
The same would be the case for non-free software, except for the existance of EULAs. (And they may be on shaky legal ground.)
Seriously, folks, read it sometime. It's the clearest bit of legalese you're likely to find.
Slashdot Mirror
The calculations are done at least in Sagan's "Cosmos" series. I don't recall which episode; just watch the whole thing again. :D
Creative Commons *is* a copyright license.
This is how you copyright a work: write it. Done!
Now no one can distribute it without your permission (except as allowed by fair use). You can give them permission to use it in certain ways using a new or pre-existing license, like CC (or GPL). There is no "conflict" between copyright and creative commons; quite the contrary, CC depends on (C). The GPL does too, as RMS has pointed out more than a few times.
Compare the size of the market to the size of the market for various other systems. There were 17 million Commodore 64 machines sold. I suspect there are easily this many people with open source desktops in the world; there are around 10 million users of Ubuntu alone. Does the author mean to say that the Commodore 64 was unsuccessful, was itself dead on the desktop, for having a mere 17 million users? It seems unlikely.
Being the sole desktop option is a hazardous place to be. If you believe in capitalism, you should prefer a mix, you should prefer that users (at some level, potentially corporate) decide which system to use.
I use GNU/Linux: Ubuntu on the desktop, Debian on servers and sufficiently high-end embedded systems. That's not about to change. I'm glad others are concerned about converting people, but only so far as it causes them to make better the software I use.
It seems to occur surprisingly often that the black box cannot be found, because the tail (e.g.) cannot be found. I would leave the existing black boxes in place and add a large number of very small additional devices: just a flash chip in a styrofoam ball. With a bunch of 'em, the chance of finding at least one would be significantly improved. It may be easier to get accepted a system that only adds redundancy, since it can't be less effective than the already-approved one.
You mean, he was a credible scientist? Scientists generally do not say things without caveats, and even if they omit them, you should assume the caveats remain. People with certainty are usually shysters.
Fuck you, OP, and everyone who uses mod-point-martyrdom, to express their point of view.
"I have karma to burn" "I'll probably get modded down for this but..." "Ok, flame away"
Just make your point, and leave that crap out next time.
You'll probably get modded down for that.... :D
What do I care if Linux works for you?
I run Linux for me; it works for me. I may encourage you to run it too, but it's not my problem if it doesn't work out. Remember the bit about "no warranty"?
Now, if you're paying for a working system or support, that's a different story. If you get a Linux shop to build you a PVR, they'd better give you a working machine. But demanding that volunteers fix your problem is insane.
The only one responsible for making your computer work is you.
Mathematics generally requires TeX. For example, the AMS. (They prefer various forms of TeX, but will also accept submissions on paper, so you could use MS-Word. But it's a world of pain for all involved.)
I couldn't dream of using anything else, even outside of math, if only to get proper kerning and small-caps.
I made the best possible computer for my son: I took a dead laptop without a screen, and put a cheap plastic mirror in its place. He loves to open it up, look at things in the mirror, hammer the keyboard. The mirror isn't flat, so it's different from the other mirrors we have.
He's enjoyed it since before he could walk, and he still likes it at two.
As others have said, kids want real things to interact with, and they want to do what they see others doing. If you use a computer, he'll probably enjoy using a "computer". But just because you're reading /. doesn't mean he should be too. His computer doesn't need to work (in the broadest sense) the same way yours does.
I would recommend the Wizard book as one option. It's not for everyone, but for people who can make use of it, it should be perfect for study without a computer. LISP can be interpreted by hand, most of the book is very algorithm oriented.
It won't do much for someone's immediate employability, I suppose, but someone who groks LISP should be able to pick up other languages easily. If I was looking for a sharp programmer, someone who knew the languages I needed, and understood this book, would look pretty good.
My copies of music from the 60s and 70s will be just fine, since they're encoded as fine lines scratched on a 12" black PVC disk. You can play them with a thumbtack, if you don't want hi-fi and only want to play them once.
They're not about to degrade in any reasonable length of time.
The 95% confidence interval for 51/200 is between 19.5% and 31.5%, so he wasn't even very unlikely to do that well.
I just recently started hacking RockBox, and it's a lot of fun. You can quickly go from having a boring MP3 player to doing something unique. It's portable, so you can show your friends, etc.
You're limited to using C, but that way he's got half a chance of understanding what's going on in the machine, unlike with high level languages.
I'd install it on a player, maybe a spare one that isn't actively in use (though it may be an upgrade to the existing firmware, it's pretty slick). Let him see the demos, modify them, and go from there. You could start with simple things like changing the colours or something in the existing programs.
Uh, Creative makes lots of low-end sound cards, but if you want a good one, there are a number of companies, such as M-audio.
Quite true that not just any creation will be interacted with well.
The GP is, however, also right that people will ascribe intentionality to a fairly wide variety of creations. At one point I was working on a research mobile robot, and showing it off to some laypeople. The robot had gotten "stuck" in a corner (turning left moves closer to the wall, but so does turning right; no "back up" code yet). People said things like "it's trying to get out of the corner" and such. It's not "trying" anything, it's just following a set of equations (that I wrote) which are slightly too simple.
I think being able to see that the robot is having "difficulty" gives people some empathy with its "plight". Probably the article's robot received this empathy since kids know that one can get cold if one "naps" without a blanket; they know what it's like to be in that situation.
Wireless. More space than a Nomad. !Lame.
I like the idea of municipal wireless. But I have one concern:
Municipal wi-fi has the potential to reduce the number of broadband subscribers. This may drive up the cost of getting broadband or put the providers out of business. At the same time, there will be pressure to censor the government-run system, since some people will be upset that "those pervs" are looking at pr0n with government resources.
So we end up with the government in a monopoly position, and required to censor, so getting uncensored network access may be impossible. And this is unacceptable.
You can run Windows Vista on a "Playstation"?!?!?
The mainboard that by AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 1009.004 MHz came connected to, which predates Vista by a certain amount, gives three "Microsoft Windows NT" lines. This isn't super new.
Anything by Hal Clement I'd recommend; they're old but good, and include a good deal of accurate science. I really liked Close to Critical and Needle.
But cows don't need to eat protein; they're ruminants, and can live very nearly solely on grass. (Or newspapers, orange peels, or other cellulose sources.) Feeding grain to cows is a way of dealing with grain surplus and allowing animals to be raised at higher density.
We need to set up mist net throughout the homes of spammers, and put them out of our misery. A bounty on spammers seems the only way to solve the problem. :)
We cannot claim the reward unless we have 51% of the carcass! —Apu
Wrong.
Like copyright law, the GPL says nothing about users. It merely grants people the right to make copies under certain conditions. Since using it does not require any permissions you do not already have, you do not need to accept the license to use it.
The same would be the case for non-free software, except for the existance of EULAs. (And they may be on shaky legal ground.)
Seriously, folks, read it sometime. It's the clearest bit of legalese you're likely to find.
Blogs?