They bought it, it's theirs. Sure they were pirating games and that's illegal, but there is nothing wrong with modding the hardware. I'll bet they learned a bit about electronics in the process. I'm sure they were aware that they voided their warranty.
There is nothing wrong with modifying hardware you own!
If BBC is commercial free, then why does my web browser tell me Double Click, Google Adsense, Quantcast, and Revenue Science are all watching me when I navigate to news.bbc.co.uk?
Oh, and there are commercials when I watch any video content on news.bbc.co.uk....
I don't disagree with BBC making some money off advertising to pay the bills, but they should at least be honest about it.
You're comparing apples to oranges. The out-of-the-box-XP machine is being compared to a linux-put-on-a-windows-box machine.
If the original poster wanted a linux computer that has great optimizations out of the box, then maybe the original poster should have bought a laptop from system76.com or linuxcertified.com or something.
From parent: The IPCC still refuses to provide either the data from which they created their apocalyptic graphs from, or the models they used to do the predictions. This goes massively against the scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification.
Yes, the IPCC definitely hides their data... IN CITATIONS. The IPCC mushes together thousands of research articles from peer reviewed journals. The IPCC cites this work.
So if you're a climate researcher and you come up with a graph, model, or data, you write a journal paper. It might get published if a committee of your peers find your work to be accurate and meaningful. Then the IPCC MIGHT mention your journal paper in a paragraph in their assessment report.
The scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification is not up to the IPCC, its up to the journals and peer review committees. If you think any of these results are wrong, feel free to write your own journal paper countering said work and try to get a committee of experts to publish it. That's how the research world works.
from interview: Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision?
Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
I hate this type of thinking! I usually like to play as wizard/sorcerer/necromancer/etc. I like using lots of different spells and I want them all to be powerful. I am really frustrated in Diablo 2 that you can only learn/upgrade a spell when your character levels up, that makes it impossible to have more than a few spells at high enough level to do damage. Diablo 1 at leastt allowed you to learn spells via book so I had a chance of leveling up all my spells.
Maybe I just want Diablo to be more like traditional RPG (I want to use fire against ice enemies, etc), but I always found the Diablo spellbook to be limited....
One of the research projects I work on is to develop software that determines how to successfully land a damaged autonomous plane that can't fly straight (ie with a jammed rudder...). I am sure that emergency landing scenarios will be required for autonomous flight control programs.
Most spacecraft have at least three processors that each perform every calculation, then the result from each processor is compared against the others'. Of course, this is done because of the possibility of interference by cosmic radiation. I don't know if this type of thinking can be applied to the higher-level role of a co-pilot checking the work of the main pilot.
I am a PhD student in a robotics lab and can say that we have robots that use Mac OSX, Windows, and five different types of Linux. We have some robots that use open source libraries, some that use commercial (off the shelf) libraries, and some that exclusively use homemade libraries. We have some robots that are subsumption based ("intelligence" is so simple/reactive that it can easily be hardwired with a few analog components).
From my personal experience, no single library or OS we use could work for ALL of our robots.
NASA also used to be a key source of funding for university research in the fields of Aeronautics and Astronautics (and many others). Since this whole Ares push, NASA's university research funding has been almost completely eliminated and there isn't many other funding agencies to take their place (Air Force/DOD has stringent secrecy requirements that most universities can't fulfill).
Revolutions usually have substantial external influences.
American Revolution: the American founding fathers were partially armed, equipped, and funded by the French who at the time were all about meddling with England.
American Civil War: the United States worked very hard to prevent the British from supplying the Confederate States. A lack of supplies, weapons, and trade partners on the Confederate front and the industrial prowess of the North are thought to be some of the deciding factors in the war.
Try designing a complicated mechanism. I have yet to find a good CAD program like ProE or Solidworks that runs on Linux.
Also try dealing with a proprietary sensor. I often am forced at work to deal with sensors that have proprietary interfaces, requiring use of proprietary drivers written by the manufacturer.
That's a good idea. My hometown has a store called McVan's. The store allows you to try any video game in the store for free before buying it. This has had an effect (intenionally, I'm sure) of becoming a "gamer hangout" and advice from the store staff and other gamers hanging out is often available. Their product isn't just video games, but geek culture. I wish they had a store where I live now...
i disagree. i use old textbooks often. when you're leaning something, its nice to be able to flip back and forth, put tabs on important pages, write in the margins, fix errata, etc. i would argue that textbooks are the last thing i'd want to go ebook.
wait, you had them cancel a Kindle order because of DRM, and you're instead happy that you're getting an iPod Touch? let me tell you about Apple and DRM....
I'm looking for a well written and researched piece that can tell me why TPB and other such sites are good for society, not some crap "I just want stuff for free" argument.
Will, IMHO the arguments are pretty straightforward:
TPB is just linking to material. They don't host it. Yes, they 'make it easier to infringe', but the line between what TPB is doing and what e.g. the roads are doing (helping bank robbers get away, the horror!) is one of degree, and more importantly, it isn't clear where the line is - or if one can be drawn. Yet the court drew the line, and the consequences will be felt in many other areas, to society's detriment.
Many support TPB because they are against 'intellectual property'. You say you make money from that, so obviously you are going to believe it is a worthwhile concept. Yet, it is a very troubling and damaging one. This is particularly evident with patents, but is also present with copyright law.
Perhaps the simplest way to make this clear is to consider that existing copyright law is hopelessly outdated and irrelevant to the digital age. Notice that we don't 'copyright' jokes. Why not? Well, people retell jokes, have been doing so for millenia, and nobody has even thought to 'tax' each retelling of a joke - it would be futile and silly. And yet the exact same thing has happened to digital media - people can share files very easily and are naturally motivated to do so. Preventing this - through DRM or the law - is tantamount to trying to change the natural order of things, like a comedian trying to charge people whenever they tell his joke. It's laughable. And yet we have just seen people sentenced to jail in a parallel situation.
Another reason Slashdot is in favor of TPB is that they are basically the onle group proudly standing up - in a showy way, even - against the madness of the RIAA et al., by which I mean suing their customers, attempting to maintain a hopeless business model, etc. In that sense, TPB is certainly 'good for society', regardless of whether you consider their actions detrimental in other respects.
Yes, TPB are also childish in how they do this, but at least they do it. So even older Slashdotters like myself have some fondness for TPB, even while at the same time we are somewhat embarrassed by their antics.
I think the Pirate Bay could have argued that they are innocent for those reasons. It seems like from what I've read their main argument was "we didn't host the content, we only used advertising revenues for hosting the links, so its not our fault."
I'd but the arguments from kripkenstein (parent), but I don't buy what the Pirate Bay's argument used in court.
Its simple. Earth gets heat from the sun by radiant energy (sunlight). Block the sunlight and you reduce the amount of heat the Earth gets from the sun. You basically make a big spacecraft that creates a partial solar eclipse, but since the spacecraft is at the L1 point the spacecraft doesn't have to be ENORMOUS to block a significant portion of the sun.
I'm a big fan of the "paint it white" approach - increase the urban albedo by using concrete instead of asphalt, using light-colored roofs and paints... Not only does it reflect sunlight (cooling the earth) it also reduces the "heat island" effect so you don't need as much air conditioning in the summer.
but if you want to put solar cells on your roof, then your roof will be *extremely* not reflective.
Slashdot Mirror
They bought it, it's theirs. Sure they were pirating games and that's illegal, but there is nothing wrong with modding the hardware. I'll bet they learned a bit about electronics in the process. I'm sure they were aware that they voided their warranty.
There is nothing wrong with modifying hardware you own!
If BBC is commercial free, then why does my web browser tell me Double Click, Google Adsense, Quantcast, and Revenue Science are all watching me when I navigate to news.bbc.co.uk?
Oh, and there are commercials when I watch any video content on news.bbc.co.uk....
I don't disagree with BBC making some money off advertising to pay the bills, but they should at least be honest about it.
The BBC also makes money off ads. They make money when lots of users view their website.
I wish you could be modded by +infty
You're comparing apples to oranges. The out-of-the-box-XP machine is being compared to a linux-put-on-a-windows-box machine.
If the original poster wanted a linux computer that has great optimizations out of the box, then maybe the original poster should have bought a laptop from system76.com or linuxcertified.com or something.
From parent: The IPCC still refuses to provide either the data from which they created their apocalyptic graphs from, or the models they used to do the predictions. This goes massively against the scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification.
Yes, the IPCC definitely hides their data... IN CITATIONS. The IPCC mushes together thousands of research articles from peer reviewed journals. The IPCC cites this work.
So if you're a climate researcher and you come up with a graph, model, or data, you write a journal paper. It might get published if a committee of your peers find your work to be accurate and meaningful. Then the IPCC MIGHT mention your journal paper in a paragraph in their assessment report.
The scientific standpoint of providing an open view into research to allow valid verification or falsification is not up to the IPCC, its up to the journals and peer review committees. If you think any of these results are wrong, feel free to write your own journal paper countering said work and try to get a committee of experts to publish it. That's how the research world works.
from interview: Slashdot: I noticed that you have moved away from the strict left mouse/right mouse ability limitation and have created more opportunities for players to map keys and use abilities beyond the two major "equipped" abilities. What was the driving reason behind this decision? Leonard Boyarsky: Well, we had that to some degree in Diablo II, it was just really inaccessible and not fun. Our main goal is to have the player focus on two skills and maybe that alternate ability that you can tab in, while moving some of the more passive or non-targeted abilities to the hotbar. Of course, minor refinements are going to continue to go on as we develop, but we wanted a way for you to augment your main skills. In a game like Diablo, your character is really defined by what your main attack is. Unless you are a real hardcore user, you probably aren't going to be switching up attacks constantly.
I hate this type of thinking! I usually like to play as wizard/sorcerer/necromancer/etc. I like using lots of different spells and I want them all to be powerful. I am really frustrated in Diablo 2 that you can only learn/upgrade a spell when your character levels up, that makes it impossible to have more than a few spells at high enough level to do damage. Diablo 1 at leastt allowed you to learn spells via book so I had a chance of leveling up all my spells.
Maybe I just want Diablo to be more like traditional RPG (I want to use fire against ice enemies, etc), but I always found the Diablo spellbook to be limited....
http://threepanelsoul.com/view.php?date=2007-09-03
One of the research projects I work on is to develop software that determines how to successfully land a damaged autonomous plane that can't fly straight (ie with a jammed rudder...). I am sure that emergency landing scenarios will be required for autonomous flight control programs.
Most spacecraft have at least three processors that each perform every calculation, then the result from each processor is compared against the others'. Of course, this is done because of the possibility of interference by cosmic radiation. I don't know if this type of thinking can be applied to the higher-level role of a co-pilot checking the work of the main pilot.
I am a PhD student in a robotics lab and can say that we have robots that use Mac OSX, Windows, and five different types of Linux. We have some robots that use open source libraries, some that use commercial (off the shelf) libraries, and some that exclusively use homemade libraries. We have some robots that are subsumption based ("intelligence" is so simple/reactive that it can easily be hardwired with a few analog components).
From my personal experience, no single library or OS we use could work for ALL of our robots.
Most of the robots that require an OS can be thought of as a computer with fancy peripherals. Trying to come up with a common OS or library for robots is like trying to come up with a common OS for all computer users. Besides, a lot of people have already tried to come up with a good standard robot OS: http://www.automation.com/resources-tools/articles-white-papers/robotics/robotics-software-platforms-review
NASA also used to be a key source of funding for university research in the fields of Aeronautics and Astronautics (and many others). Since this whole Ares push, NASA's university research funding has been almost completely eliminated and there isn't many other funding agencies to take their place (Air Force/DOD has stringent secrecy requirements that most universities can't fulfill).
I would mod this up if I had points...
Revolutions usually have substantial external influences.
American Revolution: the American founding fathers were partially armed, equipped, and funded by the French who at the time were all about meddling with England.
American Civil War: the United States worked very hard to prevent the British from supplying the Confederate States. A lack of supplies, weapons, and trade partners on the Confederate front and the industrial prowess of the North are thought to be some of the deciding factors in the war.
Do you think it was any different with the Christian ideologues in the Bush Administration in the US?
It's hard to charter a big heavy 747 full of jet fuel. Celebrities typically charter little leer jets.
Try designing a complicated mechanism. I have yet to find a good CAD program like ProE or Solidworks that runs on Linux.
Also try dealing with a proprietary sensor. I often am forced at work to deal with sensors that have proprietary interfaces, requiring use of proprietary drivers written by the manufacturer.
Tell that to the insurgents in Afghanistan who have nothing more than some small arms and homemade explosives...
indeed! i don't think "virtual labs" work well for electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, ...
That's a good idea. My hometown has a store called McVan's. The store allows you to try any video game in the store for free before buying it. This has had an effect (intenionally, I'm sure) of becoming a "gamer hangout" and advice from the store staff and other gamers hanging out is often available. Their product isn't just video games, but geek culture. I wish they had a store where I live now...
i disagree. i use old textbooks often. when you're leaning something, its nice to be able to flip back and forth, put tabs on important pages, write in the margins, fix errata, etc. i would argue that textbooks are the last thing i'd want to go ebook.
wait, you had them cancel a Kindle order because of DRM, and you're instead happy that you're getting an iPod Touch? let me tell you about Apple and DRM....
I'm looking for a well written and researched piece that can tell me why TPB and other such sites are good for society, not some crap "I just want stuff for free" argument.
Will, IMHO the arguments are pretty straightforward:
I think the Pirate Bay could have argued that they are innocent for those reasons. It seems like from what I've read their main argument was "we didn't host the content, we only used advertising revenues for hosting the links, so its not our fault."
I'd but the arguments from kripkenstein (parent), but I don't buy what the Pirate Bay's argument used in court.
Its simple. Earth gets heat from the sun by radiant energy (sunlight). Block the sunlight and you reduce the amount of heat the Earth gets from the sun. You basically make a big spacecraft that creates a partial solar eclipse, but since the spacecraft is at the L1 point the spacecraft doesn't have to be ENORMOUS to block a significant portion of the sun.
I'm a big fan of the "paint it white" approach - increase the urban albedo by using concrete instead of asphalt, using light-colored roofs and paints... Not only does it reflect sunlight (cooling the earth) it also reduces the "heat island" effect so you don't need as much air conditioning in the summer.
but if you want to put solar cells on your roof, then your roof will be *extremely* not reflective.