>>"Why does everyone think that something being on a computer, or online, suddenly means that all similar past situations and experiences are irrelevent?"
Good question. When I've dealt with lawyers about Internet issues, they've made it very clear that the mode of transmission or broadcast, or the mode pof publication, have no bearing on issues like this, or on copyright cases. E.g., a known lie remains a known lie whether it is published on the front page of your local newspaper or posted on your blog.
So long as the person bringing suit can show that the email at issue was actually written and sent by the person whose name is on it, the possibility of bogus addresses is not relevant. In other words, I only need to prove one email is authentic. I don't need to prove that it is impossible to send a forged email message. If I can't prove who wrote that one email, no one will be punished. (Actually, a suit is not a criminal action. It is a civil case in which people who lose pay damages to the person who brought the suit. It is retribution, not punishment.)
Similarly, a prosecutor has no need to prove that anyone of the billions of people on the planet did not shoot and kill the murder victim. A prosecutor only needs to prove that the plaintiff did the shooting.
This thing took a year to get to the Moon. Yes, it's a testbed for ion propulsion, but if it takes a year to get to the Moon, ion engines aren't going to help us much.
We need propulsion technology that moves bigger things faster, not smaller things slower.
You must mean the Cold War that began because Europeans were about to be overrun by Stalin, following 6 years of the bloodiest war in history that Europeans started.
You must mean the Cold War that cost the U.S. 50 years and trillions of dollars while Europeans spend an equal amount of time learning not to kill each other, while Europeans tried to learn the same lessons we Americans learned more than 200 years ago.
Understand this:
1. Every nation had the right to defend itself and its interests. The world is comprised of sovereign nations. If you don't like that, campaign to make the UN sovereign. But, you'd better allow me a chance to vote for my UN representatives, because I owe no allegiance to any leaders I had no opportunity to elect.
2. Stop with the holier-than-thou attitude, ok? It looks bad on Europeans, especially Europeans with no knowledge or memory of their own history.
No, I mean what I said. Who do you think is going to stop undemocratic states from launching these weapons? The UN? The EU? Heh. The EU lacks the will and the UN doesn't support democracies.
Well, if the USAF conducts preemptive strikes against enemy satellites, wouldn't that strongly suggest someone else has already violated the space treaty?
If The Guardian, et al, are so bent on seeing this treaty upheld, why don't they suggest a way that it can be enforced? Preferably, something other than "pretty, please?".
Or, is it that they might find space weaponry under the control of, say, China, or a coalition of radical states to be just fine? Where I come from, that's a clue about whose side you're on.
It's my contention that people buy less entertainment of all kinds as they grow older. Hence, as a country's population ages, music sales will decrease.
Are you paranoid enough to ask that question every time your local paper or TV statins makes editorial choices?
In any case, it would be wrong for the government to pressure Google. But, does it makes sense when the images are obviously available, anyway? If the government wanted to pressure someone, why not pressure the sites that display the images, not the company that indexed them?
But, still, even if they were pressured, the decision remains Google's. It is not a public institution.
Google is not a public institution. As such, it can decline to index, or block access to, or "censor", any bloody thing it wishes. If you don't like it, use their competition.
As a content provider, Google has every right and every reason to make editorial decisions about what it publishes.
(And, here, you thought all along that Google was a search engine, eh? Wrong. Google is a publishing house that uses a search engine to create content. It's cheaper than paying wiriters.)
No impact, discounting longer lines at airports. No big deal there. I've been to shopping malls in other countries where everyone who entered was patted down and checked with a metal detector. I had airlines remove 3-inch rounded scissors from my carryon years before it started happening here. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. But, I dislike it a lot less than getting on a plane with some loon with a bomb.
And, no, it didn't change the way I voted. I won't consider voting for Republicans until they stop pretending to channel God.
No, I did not argue that compilations take too long or that optimizations don't really do much. I argued that there is nothing going on in Gentoo's scripted build process that can't be duplicated by simply compiling from source. I argued that there are no unique Gentoo optimizations. If that is not correct, please advise.
I also argued, correctly, that Slackware does not "force" me to install software I don't want to use. If I choose, I can make an install decision about each individual package. The same can be said for SUSE, Fedora, etc. I suppose products like Knoppix don't allow this, but they are targetting a different kind of user.
Does Gentoo install from source? Yes, and I can install from source with any distribution. Does Gentoo use optimizations? Tes, and I can use the same optimizations when I build from source. Does Gentoo avoid installing software that I have not selected? Yes, and so do many other distributions.
I've installed and used Gentoo, more than once. It offers nothing that can compensate for the hours and hours alloted to build time.
The base install of Gentoo is essentially useless, and is intended only to populate your drive with the minimum of software needed to do a real install.
If I wish, I can select or deselect each individual package available in a Slackware install. I.e., the only apps installed are the ones I ask for. That's the same choice Gentoo offers.
To repeat: Nothing happens during a Gentoo install that can't be duplicated by simply installing the same software from source. Gentoo's problem is that it makes you wait hours while it compiles and optimizes programs that you either won't use or won't notice are faster unless you run a benchmark program.
Why should I spend hours waiting for an "optimization" I'll never notice?
There's nothing Gentoo offers regarding configuration and optimization that I can't do in Slackware.
Except, that is, lose 36 hours waiting for my machine to be usable again.
What's the value of waiting hours for the Gentoo build to optimize some app I will never use? I can do a complete Slackware install, download, config and compile kernel source in just about an hour. That makes a difference. Waiting for Gentoo to "optimize", say. 14 different text editors is a waste of my time.
The thing about Slackware is that it is essentially WYSIWYG. Wanna change your configuration? OK, edit something. Sure, it's got a rudimentary config tool in "pkgtool', but that's just a simple front end to tasks that can be done just as easily by hand. E.g., don't want to start some service at boot? Just flip the executable flag on the init script in/etc/rc.d.
The thing about Debian, or Fedora, or whatever, is that you need to spend time learning how to do things the Debian way, or the Fedora way, or the Whatever way. They are not WYSIWYG.
To each his own, but I like the simplicity and straightforward style of Slackware.
>> "It's a nonsense to say that the only things PG should publish should be public domain in *all* countries..."
That's a scarerow. I didn't make such a statement. It is, however, rather naive for anyone to place material that is copyrighted in Place A on a server in Place B, where it is not copyrighted, only to take offense when the copyright holder sees that his work can be accessed and copies from Place A and chooses to defend his legal rights.
A few good lawyers on staff and a willingness to work in the courts and in the legislature will do a lot more than all the indigant moral fervor in the world.
Every time something like this happens, Slashdot posts a piece using words like "threat".
This isn't a threat. Porject Gutenberg can remove the file and proceed as usual.
What this is, actually, is a failure of national laws to cope with the un-national nature of the Internet. The Gutenberg folks should not be surprised by the GWTW letter. A number of well known precedents exist. It is Gutenberg's responsibility to understand the law in all the different nations they serve and to deal with them appropriately. Or, they can decide to ignore reality and strike a pose as guerillas in the imaginary war on copyright. It's their choice. Personally, I find martydom to be pointless.
If an 800,000-mile ball of nuclear fusion sitting just a few light-minutes away isn't enough to scare the bejeebers out of anyone, I don't know what is!
1. The Washington Times didn't report anything, It carried a UPI report.
2. Launching near the equator does not mean "much more" payload for a given amount of fuel.
3. The private U.S. space industry is more than 40 years behind NASA. SpaceShip One is an aircraft that accelerates to a few times the speed of sound and then coasts as far as it can. Except for its unusual reentry technique -- not applicable to reentry from orbit --it is no more of a legitimate spaceship than any military aircraft that can fly at similar speeds.
4. Whether or not China, India, Brazil, even Russia, have the resources needed to sustain individual manned spaceflight programs, an extensive planetary exploration program, a space station, and fund the development of launch vehicles capable of putting 100-ton payloads in LEO is debatable. The U.S. obviously has the resources, as it has already done all that. The question for the U.S. is not capacity, but desire and will. Does anyone doubt that, had the U.S. continued to fund manned space exploration at Apollo-era levels, that there would now be functioning human presences on the Moon and Mars?
I stand corrected. It's been some time since I drove across borders in Europe.
My point still applies: Paranoia that RFID's will be used to track people is based on an unfounded belief that some great conspiracy exists to secretly make RFID's that can be tracked over global distances. Worse, these paranoid types are willing to trade protection from imaginary government abuse for protection from very real criminal abuse.
There're still border checks. Every time I use a credit or bank card, my identity and current locatin are recorded. Lots of cameras record my presence as I ride that motorcycle.
Everything can be abused. It is medieval to ban research and technology to prevent abuse. Seems to me the value of securely identifying passports, effectively preventing the use of counterfeit passports -- a real security threat -- outweighs any imagined scenario that involves governments routinely tracking the locations of hundreds of millions of people (not that I'm at all convinced that RFID's provide that capability. Perhaps if I polished my tinfoil hat...)
I'll add that Matrox cards beginning with the G550 series will very likely not work with your LCD flat panel in DVI mode and Xfree86/Xorg. That's been the case for a few years.
I suspect Matrox dropped the Linux market because it was returning a profit, not because they wanted to "trick" people. (That's juvenile.)
OTOH, not all of us care about 3D and games. Before anything else, I want speed and beautiful text and images.
Slashdot Mirror
>>"Why does everyone think that something being on a computer, or online, suddenly means that all similar past situations and experiences are irrelevent?"
Good question. When I've dealt with lawyers about Internet issues, they've made it very clear that the mode of transmission or broadcast, or the mode pof publication, have no bearing on issues like this, or on copyright cases. E.g., a known lie remains a known lie whether it is published on the front page of your local newspaper or posted on your blog.
So long as the person bringing suit can show that the email at issue was actually written and sent by the person whose name is on it, the possibility of bogus addresses is not relevant. In other words, I only need to prove one email is authentic. I don't need to prove that it is impossible to send a forged email message. If I can't prove who wrote that one email, no one will be punished. (Actually, a suit is not a criminal action. It is a civil case in which people who lose pay damages to the person who brought the suit. It is retribution, not punishment.)
Similarly, a prosecutor has no need to prove that anyone of the billions of people on the planet did not shoot and kill the murder victim. A prosecutor only needs to prove that the plaintiff did the shooting.
This thing took a year to get to the Moon. Yes, it's a testbed for ion propulsion, but if it takes a year to get to the Moon, ion engines aren't going to help us much.
We need propulsion technology that moves bigger things faster, not smaller things slower.
You must mean the Cold War that began because Europeans were about to be overrun by Stalin, following 6 years of the bloodiest war in history that Europeans started.
You must mean the Cold War that cost the U.S. 50 years and trillions of dollars while Europeans spend an equal amount of time learning not to kill each other, while Europeans tried to learn the same lessons we Americans learned more than 200 years ago.
Understand this:
1. Every nation had the right to defend itself and its interests. The world is comprised of sovereign nations. If you don't like that, campaign to make the UN sovereign. But, you'd better allow me a chance to vote for my UN representatives, because I owe no allegiance to any leaders I had no opportunity to elect.
2. Stop with the holier-than-thou attitude, ok? It looks bad on Europeans, especially Europeans with no knowledge or memory of their own history.
It's the cry that instills panic into hearts everywhere: "The UN is coming!"
No, I mean what I said. Who do you think is going to stop undemocratic states from launching these weapons? The UN? The EU? Heh. The EU lacks the will and the UN doesn't support democracies.
>> ...I don't think we need to start knocking other countries stuff out of the sky..."
How would you feel about that if the "other countries stuff" included satellites carrying nuclear weapons or biowarfare payloads?
Without that capability, what would you do if a hostile nation launched placed such weapons in orbit?
Well, if the USAF conducts preemptive strikes against enemy satellites, wouldn't that strongly suggest someone else has already violated the space treaty?
If The Guardian, et al, are so bent on seeing this treaty upheld, why don't they suggest a way that it can be enforced? Preferably, something other than "pretty, please?".
Or, is it that they might find space weaponry under the control of, say, China, or a coalition of radical states to be just fine? Where I come from, that's a clue about whose side you're on.
It's my contention that people buy less entertainment of all kinds as they grow older. Hence, as a country's population ages, music sales will decrease.
Are there studies that bear on this?
Are you paranoid enough to ask that question every time your local paper or TV statins makes editorial choices?
In any case, it would be wrong for the government to pressure Google. But, does it makes sense when the images are obviously available, anyway? If the government wanted to pressure someone, why not pressure the sites that display the images, not the company that indexed them?
But, still, even if they were pressured, the decision remains Google's. It is not a public institution.
Google is not a public institution. As such, it can decline to index, or block access to, or "censor", any bloody thing it wishes. If you don't like it, use their competition.
As a content provider, Google has every right and every reason to make editorial decisions about what it publishes.
(And, here, you thought all along that Google was a search engine, eh? Wrong. Google is a publishing house that uses a search engine to create content. It's cheaper than paying wiriters.)
The point seems to be increased visibility and availablity of open source products, with the benefits of earning some cash for the developers.
Why do so mnay people keep using language like "support these projects" when they ought to just say "buy". "Buy" is not a dirty word.
No impact, discounting longer lines at airports. No big deal there. I've been to shopping malls in other countries where everyone who entered was patted down and checked with a metal detector. I had airlines remove 3-inch rounded scissors from my carryon years before it started happening here. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. But, I dislike it a lot less than getting on a plane with some loon with a bomb.
And, no, it didn't change the way I voted. I won't consider voting for Republicans until they stop pretending to channel God.
Does anyone on Slashdot actually read anything?
No, I did not argue that compilations take too long or that optimizations don't really do much. I argued that there is nothing going on in Gentoo's scripted build process that can't be duplicated by simply compiling from source. I argued that there are no unique Gentoo optimizations. If that is not correct, please advise.
I also argued, correctly, that Slackware does not "force" me to install software I don't want to use. If I choose, I can make an install decision about each individual package. The same can be said for SUSE, Fedora, etc. I suppose products like Knoppix don't allow this, but they are targetting a different kind of user.
Does Gentoo install from source? Yes, and I can install from source with any distribution. Does Gentoo use optimizations? Tes, and I can use the same optimizations when I build from source. Does Gentoo avoid installing software that I have not selected? Yes, and so do many other distributions.
Like I said, nothing unique there.
You can't use what's not there, beginning with the kernel.
I've installed and used Gentoo, more than once. It offers nothing that can compensate for the hours and hours alloted to build time.
The base install of Gentoo is essentially useless, and is intended only to populate your drive with the minimum of software needed to do a real install.
If I wish, I can select or deselect each individual package available in a Slackware install. I.e., the only apps installed are the ones I ask for. That's the same choice Gentoo offers.
To repeat: Nothing happens during a Gentoo install that can't be duplicated by simply installing the same software from source. Gentoo's problem is that it makes you wait hours while it compiles and optimizes programs that you either won't use or won't notice are faster unless you run a benchmark program.
Why should I spend hours waiting for an "optimization" I'll never notice?
There's nothing Gentoo offers regarding configuration and optimization that I can't do in Slackware.
Except, that is, lose 36 hours waiting for my machine to be usable again.
What's the value of waiting hours for the Gentoo build to optimize some app I will never use? I can do a complete Slackware install, download, config and compile kernel source in just about an hour. That makes a difference. Waiting for Gentoo to "optimize", say. 14 different text editors is a waste of my time.
The thing about Slackware is that it is essentially WYSIWYG. Wanna change your configuration? OK, edit something. Sure, it's got a rudimentary config tool in "pkgtool', but that's just a simple front end to tasks that can be done just as easily by hand. E.g., don't want to start some service at boot? Just flip the executable flag on the init script in /etc/rc.d.
The thing about Debian, or Fedora, or whatever, is that you need to spend time learning how to do things the Debian way, or the Fedora way, or the Whatever way. They are not WYSIWYG.
To each his own, but I like the simplicity and straightforward style of Slackware.
>> "It's a nonsense to say that the only things PG should publish should be public domain in *all* countries..."
That's a scarerow. I didn't make such a statement. It is, however, rather naive for anyone to place material that is copyrighted in Place A on a server in Place B, where it is not copyrighted, only to take offense when the copyright holder sees that his work can be accessed and copies from Place A and chooses to defend his legal rights.
A few good lawyers on staff and a willingness to work in the courts and in the legislature will do a lot more than all the indigant moral fervor in the world.
Every time something like this happens, Slashdot posts a piece using words like "threat".
This isn't a threat. Porject Gutenberg can remove the file and proceed as usual.
What this is, actually, is a failure of national laws to cope with the un-national nature of the Internet. The Gutenberg folks should not be surprised by the GWTW letter. A number of well known precedents exist. It is Gutenberg's responsibility to understand the law in all the different nations they serve and to deal with them appropriately. Or, they can decide to ignore reality and strike a pose as guerillas in the imaginary war on copyright. It's their choice. Personally, I find martydom to be pointless.
...or they might really freak.
If an 800,000-mile ball of nuclear fusion sitting just a few light-minutes away isn't enough to scare the bejeebers out of anyone, I don't know what is!
1. The Washington Times didn't report anything, It carried a UPI report.
2. Launching near the equator does not mean "much more" payload for a given amount of fuel.
3. The private U.S. space industry is more than 40 years behind NASA. SpaceShip One is an aircraft that accelerates to a few times the speed of sound and then coasts as far as it can. Except for its unusual reentry technique -- not applicable to reentry from orbit --it is no more of a legitimate spaceship than any military aircraft that can fly at similar speeds.
4. Whether or not China, India, Brazil, even Russia, have the resources needed to sustain individual manned spaceflight programs, an extensive planetary exploration program, a space station, and fund the development of launch vehicles capable of putting 100-ton payloads in LEO is debatable. The U.S. obviously has the resources, as it has already done all that. The question for the U.S. is not capacity, but desire and will. Does anyone doubt that, had the U.S. continued to fund manned space exploration at Apollo-era levels, that there would now be functioning human presences on the Moon and Mars?
I stand corrected. It's been some time since I drove across borders in Europe.
My point still applies: Paranoia that RFID's will be used to track people is based on an unfounded belief that some great conspiracy exists to secretly make RFID's that can be tracked over global distances. Worse, these paranoid types are willing to trade protection from imaginary government abuse for protection from very real criminal abuse.
There're still border checks. Every time I use a credit or bank card, my identity and current locatin are recorded. Lots of cameras record my presence as I ride that motorcycle.
Everything can be abused. It is medieval to ban research and technology to prevent abuse. Seems to me the value of securely identifying passports, effectively preventing the use of counterfeit passports -- a real security threat -- outweighs any imagined scenario that involves governments routinely tracking the locations of hundreds of millions of people (not that I'm at all convinced that RFID's provide that capability. Perhaps if I polished my tinfoil hat...)
I'll add that Matrox cards beginning with the G550 series will very likely not work with your LCD flat panel in DVI mode and Xfree86/Xorg. That's been the case for a few years.
I suspect Matrox dropped the Linux market because it was returning a profit, not because they wanted to "trick" people. (That's juvenile.)
OTOH, not all of us care about 3D and games. Before anything else, I want speed and beautiful text and images.