Remember, MUCH more money is made on USING software than on SELLING licenses to it. Even if all the gov't and corporations care about is money, the above is a STRONG point in favor of open source.
If you were to make copies of Sony's product could they sue you and win? Even though their EULA is illegal, since it violates the license on the original (GPL) product, and a derivative work is still covered by the original copyright?
I am not a lawyer, please tell me if the above makes sense...
I have a CK Sauce light stick. Nobody seems impressed when I show it to them. The typical response is "What use is that?" My answer: "They've got patents to use."
What? The point of getting a patent is not so you go out and develop the technology! Everyone know the point is to get the patent, preferably on something invented before so you know people are using it, wait for infringers, sue and threaten, and collect the licensing fees and damages.
Actually developing a product involves unnecessary time and expense.
Because when they are cast they get put into temporaries, and the reference now acts like a call by value (the temporary is changed, but NOT copied back - the changes are lost)
I tested it and confirmed the counter-intuitive bad behavior.
Okay, so let's use a template for it to avoid the "deadly" casting, and instantiate int, int and unsigned int, unsigned int versions.
I tested this two. 2 different copies of IDENTICAL machine code.
Not much waste, but for big functions, the waste becomes substantial.
Templates are a hack.
Making the user worry about temporaries is a hack.
(The value should get copied BACK if it is call by reference. And it needs to handle the aliased reference case, e.g. a function that takes 2 references that is called as foo(a, a) and declared as foo(int& x, int& y) should have changes in x reflected immediately in y and vice versa).
And they need to ditch "implementation defined" behavior. Pick a behavior, and MANDATE it. Evaluate function arguments left to right, one at a time, and THEN call the function. Make a[i++]=i++ have a defined meaning. Make ints of less than 32 bits illegal. Heck, force standard bit sizes of the legacy types, and use int32, int64 for future code.
Those are just some ideas.
This is not meant to be a troll, you have to admit ambigity in the language is bad, and 16 bit ints are an abomination...
The patent office issued a patent (US 5,533,051) on a lossless compression algorithm that reduces the size of ANY file fed to it by at least one bit. It also explicitly claims to work on a 2 bit file.
Obviously impossible to us, but it still got issued a patent.
Details are in comp.compression FAQ.
As of just now, there are 7 issued patents which reference the bogus patent mentioned above. Scary.
Remember how CNN, TIme Managzine and others always had live chats via their websites with various folks? Notice how those chats are now exclusively on AOL?
Likely has something to do with AOL and Time Warner having merged. Time Warner owned (among other things) CNN and Time. Now AOL-Time Warner owns AOL, CNN, and Time, and a whole lot more.
Way to fight back and bogus "alternative" schools
on
Sean In The Middle
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· Score: 2
Simple solution:
If you get bullied, go to the principal, and say that the bully said that he was going to shoot him. Now the bully gets suspended or sent to an "alternative school".
(That might be illegal if false - but many bullies do say "I am going to kill you" - and reporting that truthfully would be legal)
Speaking of "alternative schools", I know of at least one which is more like a prison - students are given no time between classes, are prohibited from extracurricular activities, etc.
I wonder if the one he was going to be sent to would be like that. Either way, it sucks to be sent to a school for "learning and other problems". Very likely that the education would be at a lower level, and with the onerous restrictions I mentioned above. And/or full of crime (real crime, such as severe beatings, stabbings and shootings). Very unlikely that he would escape from all of that...
We should ONLY allow a COURT OF LAW to expel or sentence a kid to "alternative" "education".
That is way too much of a restriction on the child and his right to an education for a school administrator to make. They need due process of law.
How would you feel if something you'd spent 6-months of your life creating was being given away free?
Umm people voluntarily allow that when they publish open source software. Look at Linux...
A legally enforced monopoly is not the only way creativity can be rewarded...
Legally enforced monopolies (i.e. making it ILLEGAL to COMPETE) are anti-capitalist (they are a himderance to the free market) and have socially harmful consequences. We appear to be reaching or even past the point where the bad outweights the good.
One final point, it is better to get the law changed than to break it.
In related news, President Bush's latest gaffs were explained by stating that his Pentium 4 powered aritificial brain went into thermal throttling mode.
The Secret Service is now charged with the responsibility of making sure his Peltier cooler is always firmly attached to his forehead.
Deuterium IS toxic, but not by much. 1/6000 of seawater is D2O.
Drinking 100% D2O will be bad for you.
Once you hit 50% D2O in your cells they can't divide, and you get symptoms a lot like radiation poisoning or chemo.
This page talks about the toxicity of heavy water
A few drops of it probably won't do much, but I am not a toxicologist...
Eventually it will happen. With all these treaties and international agreements and strong arm tactics by MPAA, RIAA, BSA, etc, eventually, a US organization will cause someone to be executed for intellectual property violation.
When it happens, those orgs will say "We just ask them to be punished, we had nothing to do with what the punishment was, as long as it was at least the minimum specified by our treaties. Anything beyond that is up to them. The fact the person was beheaded is an internal matter to that country that we have no business being involved with."
Even more scary scenario:
Person A violates IP "rights" of company B by distributing intellectual property C over the Internet. A and B are both based in the USA, IP "C" orginated in the USA.
Person D downloads IP "C" over the Internet. Person D resides in an extremist country "E".
Now company B goes to country E and tells them to stop this violation of their rights. Person D is beheaded by country E. Under the international cybercrime treaty, country E has US authorities arrest "A" for violation of E's laws, and extradited to E. Country E then beheads "A", which would be illegal under (current) US copyright law, but totally legal under E's. The US doesn't mind, since E gets to do the dirty work and get the blame, and the US is glad to see the "pirate"/"economic terrorist" punished, but can claim to have nothing to do with it.
Any LEGAL reason the above cannot happen?
Re:Ahem yourself.... speaking of overheating
on
Pentium IV study
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· Score: 2
As someone else mentioned (I don't know if is true) some cips will melt in 8 seconds without cooling. That gives VERY little time for a fan monitor (like the lmsensors for Linux or LanDesk for Windows) to detect the condition and initiate a shutdown. That is bad. If you poll every 30 seconds (common) you fry. If you poll every 1.5 seconds (fastest the system monitoring chips can be polled) you have 6.5 seconds left to initiate a power off. Forget about controlled shutdown. And if the machine is running a lot of processes or thrashing, the poweroff signal might not get sent it time.
A melted blob of silicon would be all the remained of your chip.
Ideally you'd have enough time to have the OS detect a failure, send a page or an email and do a controlled shutdown before burn up. Or allow it to survive at full speed with no fan long enough for the OS to detect it and cut the speed - at which point all the above (paging/email/shutdown) could be done at reduced speed.
Cooling failures happen. Fans stop. Cars have overheat protection modes on the engine controller, so should CPUs.
That said, a CPU should NOT go into its "overheat protection mode" or thermal throlling as part of normal operation. I.e. room under 100 F and even at 100% CPU load, if the fan is turning at least minimum spec'd speed, it should NOT overheat.
Doesn't a treaty have to be executed within the authority of the United States? Which would imply it would have to be constitutional? Can anyone clear this up for me?
Re:If there is a will, there is a way (to prison)
on
CPRM Voted Down
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· Score: 1
Well, look at the DeCSS arrest in Norway and the anon remailer being shut down in Finland due to the Scientology incident. The US has something to do with both...
Re:So you can't save it.. [OT]
on
CPRM Lecture
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· Score: 2
Oh well in the future we can just release utilities like that anonymously, until the software enforcement bureau comes and raids our
homes because we were suspected of sending a controversial file over the internet.
One of the best things about GRUB is you can just put a new kernel on the filesystem. No more needing to run a program when installing a new kernel. No more unbootable systems because you forgot, and LILO is looking in the wrong sectors of the disk.
How about a virus that uses encryption to hide itself. Copyright the code before you encrypt it. Now the only way they can detect and remove it is by "circumventing" an "access-control" device.
Instant DMCA violation. That would even work with Canada. They don't have the DMCA, but neither does Norway, and the DeCSS guy over there got arrested anyway, because the USA/MPAA wanted them to arrest him.
Here's an idea. Find a Jabber client, call it an AOL "upgrade" and mail it to your friends. Heck, people willing run VIRUSES that way, and here you will be doing some good. Now you all can talk to everyone;)
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly, politicians cannot be bought, only leased.
Remember, MUCH more money is made on USING software than on SELLING licenses to it. Even if all the gov't and corporations care about is money, the above is a STRONG point in favor of open source.
KDE part of the Linux kernel? Well, that is on the list of features to be added into 2.5... Heck, we already have a web server in there, so why not?
I know once they put Netscape in there my web browsing will be much faster, I won't have to upgrade my 300 baud PPP connection after all... ;)
If you were to make copies of Sony's product could they sue you and win? Even though their EULA is illegal, since it violates the license on the original (GPL) product, and a derivative work is still covered by the original copyright?
I am not a lawyer, please tell me if the above makes sense...
What? The point of getting a patent is not so you go out and develop the technology! Everyone know the point is to get the patent, preferably on something invented before so you know people are using it, wait for infringers, sue and threaten, and collect the licensing fees and damages.
Actually developing a product involves unnecessary time and expense.
I'd say templates and temporaries should go.
Let's take the following function
void swap(int& x, int& y) {
int a;
a=x;
x=y;
y=a;
}
Now do this:
unsigned int a=1, b=2;
swap(a, b)
a and b remain with 1 and 2, which is wrong!
Why?
Because when they are cast they get put into temporaries, and the reference now acts like a call by value (the temporary is changed, but NOT copied back - the changes are lost)
I tested it and confirmed the counter-intuitive bad behavior.
Okay, so let's use a template for it to avoid the "deadly" casting, and instantiate int, int and unsigned int, unsigned int versions.
I tested this two. 2 different copies of IDENTICAL machine code.
Not much waste, but for big functions, the waste becomes substantial.
Templates are a hack.
Making the user worry about temporaries is a hack.
(The value should get copied BACK if it is call by reference. And it needs to handle the aliased reference case, e.g. a function that takes 2 references that is called as foo(a, a) and declared as foo(int& x, int& y) should have changes in x reflected immediately in y and vice versa).
And they need to ditch "implementation defined" behavior. Pick a behavior, and MANDATE it. Evaluate function arguments left to right, one at a time, and THEN call the function. Make a[i++]=i++ have a defined meaning. Make ints of less than 32 bits illegal. Heck, force standard bit sizes of the legacy types, and use int32, int64 for future code.
Those are just some ideas.
This is not meant to be a troll, you have to admit ambigity in the language is bad, and 16 bit ints are an abomination...
Yeah, Windows CE on hand-helds and Windows XP on PCs will be the 2 platforms.
The patent office issued a patent (US 5,533,051) on a lossless compression algorithm that reduces the size of ANY file fed to it by at least one bit.
It also explicitly claims to work on a 2 bit file.
Obviously impossible to us, but it still got issued a patent.
Details are in comp.compression FAQ.
As of just now, there are 7 issued patents which reference the bogus patent mentioned above. Scary.
Likely has something to do with AOL and Time Warner having merged. Time Warner owned (among other things) CNN and Time. Now AOL-Time Warner owns AOL, CNN, and Time, and a whole lot more.
Simple solution:
If you get bullied, go to the principal, and say that the bully said that he was going to shoot him. Now the bully gets suspended or sent to an "alternative school".
(That might be illegal if false - but many bullies do say "I am going to kill you" - and reporting that truthfully would be legal)
Speaking of "alternative schools", I know of at least one which is more like a prison - students are given no time between classes, are prohibited from extracurricular activities, etc.
I wonder if the one he was going to be sent to would be like that. Either way, it sucks to be sent to a school for "learning and other problems". Very likely that the education would be at a lower level, and with the onerous restrictions I mentioned above. And/or full of crime (real crime, such as severe beatings, stabbings and shootings). Very unlikely that he would escape from all of that...
We should ONLY allow a COURT OF LAW to expel or sentence a kid to "alternative" "education".
That is way too much of a restriction on the child and his right to an education for a school administrator to make. They need due process of law.
Umm people voluntarily allow that when they publish open source software. Look at Linux...
A legally enforced monopoly is not the only way creativity can be rewarded...
Legally enforced monopolies (i.e. making it ILLEGAL to COMPETE) are anti-capitalist (they are a himderance to the free market) and have socially harmful consequences. We appear to be reaching or even past the point where the bad outweights the good.
One final point, it is better to get the law changed than to break it.
In related news, President Bush's latest gaffs were explained by stating that his Pentium 4 powered aritificial brain went into thermal throttling mode.
The Secret Service is now charged with the responsibility of making sure his Peltier cooler is always firmly attached to his forehead.
Deuterium IS toxic, but not by much. 1/6000 of seawater is D2O.
Drinking 100% D2O will be bad for you.
Once you hit 50% D2O in your cells they can't divide, and you get symptoms a lot like radiation poisoning or chemo.
This page talks about the toxicity of heavy water
A few drops of it probably won't do much, but I am not a toxicologist...
2-3 doesn't sound so bad right?
But imagine if everyone making military equipment thought that?
2 dozen items 3 pounds each is 72 pounds of extra weight for our soldiers to carry, and that is a lot.
Of course, having a battery that weights 2-3 pounds is a lot better than 30...
Eventually it will happen. With all these treaties and international agreements and strong arm tactics by MPAA, RIAA, BSA, etc, eventually, a US organization will cause someone to be executed for intellectual property violation. When it happens, those orgs will say "We just ask them to be punished, we had nothing to do with what the punishment was, as long as it was at least the minimum specified by our treaties. Anything beyond that is up to them. The fact the person was beheaded is an internal matter to that country that we have no business being involved with." Even more scary scenario: Person A violates IP "rights" of company B by distributing intellectual property C over the Internet. A and B are both based in the USA, IP "C" orginated in the USA. Person D downloads IP "C" over the Internet. Person D resides in an extremist country "E". Now company B goes to country E and tells them to stop this violation of their rights. Person D is beheaded by country E. Under the international cybercrime treaty, country E has US authorities arrest "A" for violation of E's laws, and extradited to E. Country E then beheads "A", which would be illegal under (current) US copyright law, but totally legal under E's. The US doesn't mind, since E gets to do the dirty work and get the blame, and the US is glad to see the "pirate"/"economic terrorist" punished, but can claim to have nothing to do with it. Any LEGAL reason the above cannot happen?
Amtrak is gov't owned.
As someone else mentioned (I don't know if is true) some cips will melt in 8 seconds without cooling. That gives VERY little time for a fan monitor (like the lmsensors for Linux or LanDesk for Windows) to detect the condition and initiate a shutdown. That is bad. If you poll every 30 seconds (common) you fry. If you poll every 1.5 seconds (fastest the system monitoring chips can be polled) you have 6.5 seconds left to initiate a power off. Forget about controlled shutdown. And if the machine is running a lot of processes or thrashing, the poweroff signal might not get sent it time.
A melted blob of silicon would be all the remained of your chip.
Ideally you'd have enough time to have the OS detect a failure, send a page or an email and do a controlled shutdown before burn up. Or allow it to survive at full speed with no fan long enough for the OS to detect it and cut the speed - at which point all the above (paging/email/shutdown) could be done at reduced speed.
Cooling failures happen. Fans stop. Cars have overheat protection modes on the engine controller, so should CPUs.
That said, a CPU should NOT go into its "overheat protection mode" or thermal throlling as part of normal operation. I.e. room under 100 F and even at 100% CPU load, if the fan is turning at least minimum spec'd speed, it should NOT overheat.
Simple as that.
Doesn't a treaty have to be executed within the authority of the United States? Which would imply it would have to be constitutional? Can anyone clear this up for me?
Well, look at the DeCSS arrest in Norway and the anon remailer being shut down in Finland due to the Scientology incident. The US has something to do with both...
Sounds like a perfect use for Freenet.
Umm, how about five years in federal prison?
printf()s are for wimps. I just read the machine language and find the bugs that way. ;)
One of the best things about GRUB is you can just put a new kernel on the filesystem. No more needing to run a program when installing a new kernel. No more unbootable systems because you forgot, and LILO is looking in the wrong sectors of the disk.
Instant DMCA violation. That would even work with Canada. They don't have the DMCA, but neither does Norway, and the DeCSS guy over there got arrested anyway, because the USA/MPAA wanted them to arrest him.
Here's an idea. Find a Jabber client, call it an AOL "upgrade" and mail it to your friends. Heck, people willing run VIRUSES that way, and here you will be doing some good. Now you all can talk to everyone ;)