Personally I'd be just as happy if Hollywood died completely. I sure don't support ANY company, person, or organization that likes the current copyright laws, and especially not those ***** who bribed legislators to get the DMCA et seq. passed. This o but definitely included the RIAA & the MPAA, and ALL of their sponsors.
I *am* in favor of reasonable copyrights. Say 5-10 years. Even 20 would be acceptable. The current abuse is not defensible by any sane and fair person.
I do not think that piracy is a good. I should be a crime. But it's so much less an evil than the bribery of legislators that if I believed that it hurt the studios I'd be in favor of it. Those perpetrators (the studios, their decision making personnel, and their lobbyists, AND their co-conspirators) deserve to die a painful death. Well, so do those who took the bribes. I know, isn't going to happen except for a very few for totally unrelated reasons. But if the world were just it would.
The "pirates"? I don't think that those who do it non-commercially should even be considered criminals at all. I'm willing to be convinced, but not by someone who defends the current system. I can't trust them to have any morals at all, other than greed.
Except that they appear to believe that they have some patents on this "standard" which they aren't making available to non-conforming use. They're probably obvious and trivial patents, and thus invalid if you have enough money and care to fight them through the courts for seven years, but this doesn't entice me to have anything to do with their proposal.
I haven't been following what's invented where, but it seems to me we could do with a few definitions:
Manufacturing Economics: The costs & profits involved in the manipulation of materials to turn an existing design into a physical object.
IP economics: When contrasted to Manufacturing Economics this means the costs & profits involved in the manipulation of ideas to turn into designs from products that do not already exist even as designs.
So having the designs doesn't enable you to improve your IP economics, but it certainly helps the Manufacturing Economics. What helps the IP economics are good schools of engineering, design, etc. (and, of course, having jobs for those students who graduate).
The US, at least, is very busy destroying it's foundation of IP economics without improving it's Manufacturing Economics. Asia is doing great at Manufacturing Economics, but I haven't heard much to indicate that they are doing particularly well at IP economics. (Asian universities have the reputation for turning out excellent production engineers, but few good designers, and those have trouble getting hired.)
Now I need to backtrack a bit. Design means too many different things. A polished elegance isn't what I mean by design so much as something that can do something that hasn't been done before. The design of theories one might say, as opposed to the design of efficiency or elegance, both of which the Asian cultures tend to excel in (in various differing ways). As for Japan, it's from Japan that the slogan "The nail that protrudes will be struck down." comes from.
But *is* there anywhere that's improving their "IP economics" as defined above? I don't know of anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Generally early signs of "IP economics" will be either ignored or dismissed as silly. In this way it's rather like basic science.
What does Communism have to do with China? China is a dictatorial oligarchy, and hasn't had anything to do with Communism for over a decade. (Even then the "Communist" thing was mainly propaganda. It may still have been "sort of" real in the 1980's, but even then it was fading into propaganda.)
And no, dictatorship and Communist are not synonyms. Neither is even a subset of the other, proper or otherwise. And, of course Communist is neither communist nor Marxist....and is only confused with either of them for the sake of propaganda. (I don't know that Marxism would work on any scale, and communism only works on a very small scale...village size or less. Which is, of course, why Communism doesn't ever look or act much like either of them. But at it's proper scale, that of a medium to large family, it's a superior system. [Given, of course, the right participants. It only works even then if the participants are well meaning. Otherwise it must morph into a more controlling form.])
Sorry, but there *IS* a problem. KDE3, e.g., is no longer maintained. If I want to use the configuration that used to be my favorite, then I'd got to maintain it myself, and frankly not only would it take too much time, but I don't have the skill set.
So now Gnome 2 is being replaced by Gnome 3. Which looks to be aimed at palmtops. Not at all what I want. (And if you think that the developers support classic mode, I invite you to try it in KDE4.)
So now it looks like I'm going to be driven to something that would be my 3rd or 4th choice if everything were available. No, I'm not pleased at all. I don't know just where I'm going to end up when Gnome2 disappears, only that I will be quite unhappy about it.
But historically there's also been a correlation between a booming economy and a rise in crime. Don't know if it still holds, and our current social environment is a lot different from the historic norm, so perhaps it doesn't. (E.g., for most of history all people were employed in some manner or other...including crime as one of the manners. In fact it was at one recent point a crime to have "no visible means of support", though I suppose that would include welfare, where it exists.)
Additionally the statistics on crime are quite suspect. What constitutes a crime is variable. (Violent crime is, in this way, a bit different, as it's more constant and easier to obtain objective evidence on. But you've got to watch the definitions used carefully. Different people with different agendas tend to use different definitions.)
It would be very interesting if the existence of welfare has reversed the correlation between a good economy and a rise in cirme. But we can't know because too many variables have changed. E.g., many things that used to be legal are now illegal. Before around 1900, e.g., there was no market for illegal drugs, because there weren't any. (Don't recall the year that started, but this particular Prohibition Era has lasted over a century, and lead to a thriving increase in illegal trade. As well as other things...like babies no longer becoming addicted to opium.)
Speaking personally,... Yuck! Why on earth would I want *that*?
I don't *want* my desktop to be "a modern compositing desktop", It's generally covered anyway. I just want it to be unobtrusive, efficient, and useful. I can see wanting applications that can handle graphics adroitly, but that's a separate matter. Currently, with just the browser visible, I only have two thin bars, one at the top of the screen where I invoke applications, and one at the bottom where I switch between active applications. And the rest of the desktop is hidden. I don't have a large enough monitor that I WANT to see more desktop than that.
Gnome2 & KDE3 do what I want. I preferred KDE3 to Gnome2. But Gnome2 is a lot better than KDE4 was the last time I tried it. KDE4 is very sloppy about how it uses the screen space, or it was the last time I tried it. Gnome3 & Unity, however, look to be much worse. (Mind you, I haven't tried a live version of either of them.)
An additional factor is that my computer won't run 3D acceleration. So Gnome3 can't really be installed. And I *prefer* it that way.
That depends on the license. After the Oracle suit against Google, I'd be very careful about any code I accepted from them. It would need to come with a clear grant of all needed rights. Like patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. (Yeah, I *know* that trade secrets aren't supposed to be enforceable once the code has been made visible. But there have been suits about that.)
GPL3 or AGPL3 would be acceptable licenses. There are probably others, but in the case of Oracle I'd need to consider them very carefully. LGPL wouldn't suffice (unless it contained the provision allowing the code to be upgraded to a later version of GPL). Neither would may other OSI approved licenses.
I think you didn't finish reading my post. It concluded with: "I'm sure that there are other reasons. That they aren't necessary is an interesting claim."
I.e., I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying that isn't the answer I would have expected. (I'm not really convinced either way. And models aren't proof. But they can be very good arguments. And all we have suggesting that a large moon is necessary is also only good arguments.)
By "we" I meant the species, not any particular country.
Yes, I'll agree that governments (i.e., the people running them) are sufficiently untrustworthy and aggressive that doing this would be problematical. But that's a comment on the species, not on technological requirements.
Given our species this would probably be impossible until either a world government appeared or governments started being run by AIs...which *would* require a major technological & possibly scientific breakthrough. But existing species with vastly differing amounts of intraspecies exist, so there's no reason to believe that we are the least aggressive possible.
Actually there are several reasons to believe that a large moon is either necessary for the evolution of life, or greatly speeds it. Two occur off the top of my head: 1) The existence of lunar tides yields tide-pools, where aquatic life is given an opportunity to evolve into life that can temporarily live in air. This is as true for bacteria as it is for multicellular life. Beaches also provide this opportunity, but waves strand a much smaller number of entities in a much less consistent manner. 2) A moon stabilizes the orbital inclination of the planet. A planet without a moon is much more likely to do a gyroscopic tumble.
I'm sure that there are other reasons. That they aren't necessary is an interesting claim.
That's too strong a statement. Light speed may be a true barrier. And in any case exponential doesn't imply fast. I could be a growth rate of 2^1.00001/Millenia and still be exponential. Eventually that would be overwhelmingly fast, but not for a long time.
But what we can measure is, itself, highly technology dependent. And not only on possible technology, but also on chosen technology. E.g.:
If we chose, instead of all these wars and military spending, we could put a pair of observatories in Neptunes orbit. (Not circling Neptune, but at the distance of Neptune from the sun.) Put them antipodal in their orbits, and make the orbits as nearly circular as feasible. And give each observatory a mirror 5 miles in diameter. (At that size you can use flat panes of mirror without problems.) This gives us enough light collecting area to see most major planets in the galaxy (say Mars size or better) only provided that they are within some approximation of the habitable area around a sun. (So that enough light is getting reflected.) Now you need a bunch of computers to analyze the data.
Note that what I proposed here isn't anything that we couldn't do with the current "defense" budget. The new technology required is at most minimal. It would need to be robotized, as we don't have the technology for a closed cycle ecology, and occasional repair missions would be needed. And it would be expensive. But if we chose we could do it without any technology that we don't either have or know clearly how to develop. Better technology would, of course, make it cheaper, but it isn't required. You just need to be willing to throw away expensive gadgetry that could easily be fixed if you could reach it. And, of course, engage in highly modular design.
And that is where al gebra comes from, so it must be valueless...or is that invaluable?
What comes out of a discussion depends on what you put into it. Al chemy, however comes from Egypt, once called Khem. It was originally used for beauty potions and poisons. So it's hard to judge the eventual value of something from where it starts.
I presume we're talking about the Drake formula. I don't trust it either, but this doesn't make it worthless. If you have a better formula to offer, you should publish it and argue for it's worth. Merely being snide is, indeed, worthless. It's even a waste of your time, unless your thing is having other people despise you. (Your kind, rather, as you choose to be anonymous. I congratulate you on your wisdom in that choice.)
It's also true in the US that most lawyers are very underemployed. I *do* understand, however, that if you are also skilled in technical areas (nearly ANY technical area) you have an immense advantage.
That said, I'm not sure that it's possible for a good programmer to be a good lawyer. The rules of logic are too different. It's like studying English history and Shakespeare historicals at the same time.
FWIW, dissident groups often adopt terms used by the opposition as derogatory labels. Puritans is one. Quakers is another. Beatnik is another. Hippie wasn't originally used as a derogatory label, but being used as one didn't make those into that culture change their name. Punk has always been a derogatory term. (Originally, I believe, is was derogatory slang for a homosexual meaning gunsel.)
Now I'd need proof before I'd consider this group to be hackers. I actually think that "script kiddies" is probably closer to accurate. (Proof would be that their avocation involved hacking things together in a manner analogous to the crafting crude furniture out of logs using only an axe as a tool. I don't require that they be those who hack code together using only a simple text editor.) But given the distortion that the news media has given to the term I can accept that others might think of them as hackers. I am, however, surprised to find that usage on/. (The "l33t-speak" version "hack3rz" might pass, though.)
Sorry, that was a little too abbreviated. Edited version follows, with edits in bold.
Irrelevant. Was the PBS story being objected to lies? If so, then the posting of the LULZ story is reasonable. (I'm not claiming lawful.) Depending, it could even be argued that the posting of the LULZ story was a minimalistic moral response. (I'm not claiming to know much about the facts of the case, which I why I'm hedging my statements.)
I'm not sure I'd agree that the posting of the LULZ story was moral, but I can see arguments that could reasonably be made. *IF* the PBS story was lies. (I neither know the facts of the case nor watched the show.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the story being objected to was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. PBS is news media. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was largely true. I give PBS slightly more credibility than most of the news sources.
N.B.: the actions of ANYONE other than PBS are not in question with regard to my statements. And I'm only addressing the posting of a blatantly false and silly story. Not any other actions.
Irrelevant. Was the story being objected to lies? If so, then the posting of the story is reasonable. (I'm not claiming lawful.) Depending, it could even be argued that it was a minimalistic moral response. (I'm not claiming to know much about the facts of the case, which I why I'm hedging my statements.)
I'm not sure I'd agree that it was moral, but I can see arguments that could reasonably be made. *IF* the story was lies. (I neither know the facts of the case nor watched the show.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the story being objected to was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. PBS is news media. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was largely true. I give PBS slightly more credibility than most of the news sources.
N.B.: the actions of ANYONE other than PBS are not in question with regard to my statements. And I'm only addressing the posting of a blatantly false and silly story. Not any other actions.
No, for the same reason that monopolies need to be more tightly controlled than small companies. (Actually the direct use of force is another reason, but that's the essential monopoly claimed by governments.)
An earlier example compared the "attack" with throwing a glass of red wine on one, and that's closer. I think still closer would be sneaking a whoopee cushion onto your chair at a formal dinner. Not nice, but shouldn't be illegal. (I understand that they did more that post a fake story, but that's what I'm responding to.)
They DIDN'T shut down, or attempt to shut down, the site. They posted a fake story, and not only a fake story, but a very silly one.
If there are ANY reliable news sources, I don't know of them. They don't check the stories reported to them, whether by local stringers or federal authorities or anonymous "inside informants". And they also intentionally distort the news they do cover. (I've been "on-site" for events covered by they camera trucks. The distortion is often sufficient that it's impossible to "back-distort" and recover what the real story was.)
And if that's the case where they have hard evidence available, why should I expect them to be any more accurate when they're working off something that doesn't require intentional "editing"? (And this was for a story with no political axe involved. The political stories got a much more complete spin. The non-political story was just spun for "entertainment value".)
AFAIKT, blogs are every bit as accurate as the newspapers or broadcast media. Better when they allow posting by readers without heavy censorship. (I'm not disagreeing that they are biased, it's just that the bias is easier to handle.)
Well, there are spoof stories and spoof stories. That one (as reported) was just silly and harmless. It merely makes PBS look silly and untrustworthy. They probably deserve it. (I don't listen to it, so I don't know. Based on, essentially, rumor I'm assuming that they are more reliable than most sources...but that's damning with very faint praise.)
I don't trust any government funded and approved news source, whether PBS, or Fox or whoever. Up until a few decades ago I thought I could figure out what were lies and what was true. Then I was at another story that they reported, and I realized that their distortion was far better than I'd supposed, and that there was really no way to tell what was real from what got reported. (If they show a picture of a fire, a fire probably happened, but if they show a city in flames, only two or three houses necessarily burned...and that's without any actual fakery. That's just choosing selected video shots and angles. They usually restrict themselves that much, unless there's political pressure, but even then you can't figure out what's real.)
N.B.: I've only been able to check on local news stories, but a couple of them got reported nationally, so I know that the news doesn't get more accurate as it travels further.
P.S.: ALL news sources appear to be untrustworthy. PBS is generally less so, but that's probably because it has a lower budget and doesn't usually cover politically significant stories, by which I mean most of their stories are politically nearly neutral in effect. (I'm remembering several years back, now, because I haven't watched it in a decade or so. And these days I don't even have a TV in the house.)
I consider internet news sources (that allow feedback) slightly more reliable, even though they also appear highly biased, because: 1) most of them don't have the financial backing to invisibly twist the truth. (They twist it, but it isn't invisible.), and 2) the ones I trust allow feedback, and external sources don't indicate that they engage in excessive censorship. (Clearly some censorship is necessary, so the key is "excessive", always a matter of judgment.) 3) the ones I trust have a clear bias, and aren't (apparently) financially beholden to anyone except their advertisers. 4) even so, my trust is limited. I trust, e.g., Charlie Stross when he reports on Fukishima. The fact that he changes his mind when new evidence appears makes him appear more trustworthy. I don't trust him on the quality of his books. (No author can properly judge his own work.) But I do trust him on the topic and style in which he writes. Etc. 5) one must always beware of astroturfers. Since I am, that limits the amount of trust I give. (And websites as well as posters on them can be astroturfers.)
What do you consider to be a reliable source for reporting on corporate crimes for profit? I don't know of any. I suspect that the large majority are unreported, uninvestigated, and unpaid for...not even as bribes. But it's just a suspicion. It is, however, based on a consideration of how difficult it is to collect evidence...and the reactions when an isolated instance comes to light. The reaction seems to be, approximately, "Why ore you jumping on me? This is just normal business practice."
As I said, this isn't proof. But it's a pretty clear indication. And I've watched as SCOX dragged the good name of SCO through the mud for seven years without any individual being punished for blatant theft of large sums of money. (That's what "converted" means in this legal context.) And the company was allowed to escape into bankruptcy the day before a decision was due. Even though it didn't technically meet the financial requirements. And it was allowed to stay in chapter 11 rather then chapter 7, which meant the executives in charge before hand could remain in charge. It still hasn't finished (now in it's eighth year), but it's almost done. It appears certain to have legally gotten away with theft. The company will be dismantled, but the records will be sold to someone who will either destroy them or keep them secret. The money that was funneled to the corporate executives will stay with the executives (though a lot of it ended up with their lawyers). And no punishment for any of the guilty individuals. This case was partially funded by Microsoft.
This, again, isn't proof. But it's clear evidence of a large number of laws specifically designed to allow corporate executives to commit crimes without being punished. That wouldn't exist if it weren't used.
Some people in this thread are talking about software windows and screen, others are talking about hardware. So they assert different truths that are each correct in their respective domains. It gets confusing when they use the same terminology. (Intentionally confusing in some of the posts.)
Slashdot Mirror
Personally I'd be just as happy if Hollywood died completely. I sure don't support ANY company, person, or organization that likes the current copyright laws, and especially not those ***** who bribed legislators to get the DMCA et seq. passed. This o but definitely included the RIAA & the MPAA, and ALL of their sponsors.
I *am* in favor of reasonable copyrights. Say 5-10 years. Even 20 would be acceptable. The current abuse is not defensible by any sane and fair person.
I do not think that piracy is a good. I should be a crime. But it's so much less an evil than the bribery of legislators that if I believed that it hurt the studios I'd be in favor of it. Those perpetrators (the studios, their decision making personnel, and their lobbyists, AND their co-conspirators) deserve to die a painful death. Well, so do those who took the bribes. I know, isn't going to happen except for a very few for totally unrelated reasons. But if the world were just it would.
The "pirates"? I don't think that those who do it non-commercially should even be considered criminals at all. I'm willing to be convinced, but not by someone who defends the current system. I can't trust them to have any morals at all, other than greed.
Except that they appear to believe that they have some patents on this "standard" which they aren't making available to non-conforming use. They're probably obvious and trivial patents, and thus invalid if you have enough money and care to fight them through the courts for seven years, but this doesn't entice me to have anything to do with their proposal.
I haven't been following what's invented where, but it seems to me we could do with a few definitions:
Manufacturing Economics: The costs & profits involved in the manipulation of materials to turn an existing design into a physical object.
IP economics: When contrasted to Manufacturing Economics this means the costs & profits involved in the manipulation of ideas to turn into designs from products that do not already exist even as designs.
So having the designs doesn't enable you to improve your IP economics, but it certainly helps the Manufacturing Economics. What helps the IP economics are good schools of engineering, design, etc. (and, of course, having jobs for those students who graduate).
The US, at least, is very busy destroying it's foundation of IP economics without improving it's Manufacturing Economics. Asia is doing great at Manufacturing Economics, but I haven't heard much to indicate that they are doing particularly well at IP economics. (Asian universities have the reputation for turning out excellent production engineers, but few good designers, and those have trouble getting hired.)
Now I need to backtrack a bit. Design means too many different things. A polished elegance isn't what I mean by design so much as something that can do something that hasn't been done before. The design of theories one might say, as opposed to the design of efficiency or elegance, both of which the Asian cultures tend to excel in (in various differing ways). As for Japan, it's from Japan that the slogan "The nail that protrudes will be struck down." comes from.
But *is* there anywhere that's improving their "IP economics" as defined above? I don't know of anywhere, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Generally early signs of "IP economics" will be either ignored or dismissed as silly. In this way it's rather like basic science.
What does Communism have to do with China? China is a dictatorial oligarchy, and hasn't had anything to do with Communism for over a decade. (Even then the "Communist" thing was mainly propaganda. It may still have been "sort of" real in the 1980's, but even then it was fading into propaganda.)
And no, dictatorship and Communist are not synonyms. Neither is even a subset of the other, proper or otherwise. And, of course Communist is neither communist nor Marxist....and is only confused with either of them for the sake of propaganda. (I don't know that Marxism would work on any scale, and communism only works on a very small scale...village size or less. Which is, of course, why Communism doesn't ever look or act much like either of them. But at it's proper scale, that of a medium to large family, it's a superior system. [Given, of course, the right participants. It only works even then if the participants are well meaning. Otherwise it must morph into a more controlling form.])
Sorry, but there *IS* a problem. KDE3, e.g., is no longer maintained. If I want to use the configuration that used to be my favorite, then I'd got to maintain it myself, and frankly not only would it take too much time, but I don't have the skill set.
So now Gnome 2 is being replaced by Gnome 3. Which looks to be aimed at palmtops. Not at all what I want. (And if you think that the developers support classic mode, I invite you to try it in KDE4.)
So now it looks like I'm going to be driven to something that would be my 3rd or 4th choice if everything were available. No, I'm not pleased at all. I don't know just where I'm going to end up when Gnome2 disappears, only that I will be quite unhappy about it.
But historically there's also been a correlation between a booming economy and a rise in crime. Don't know if it still holds, and our current social environment is a lot different from the historic norm, so perhaps it doesn't. (E.g., for most of history all people were employed in some manner or other...including crime as one of the manners. In fact it was at one recent point a crime to have "no visible means of support", though I suppose that would include welfare, where it exists.)
Additionally the statistics on crime are quite suspect. What constitutes a crime is variable. (Violent crime is, in this way, a bit different, as it's more constant and easier to obtain objective evidence on. But you've got to watch the definitions used carefully. Different people with different agendas tend to use different definitions.)
It would be very interesting if the existence of welfare has reversed the correlation between a good economy and a rise in cirme. But we can't know because too many variables have changed. E.g., many things that used to be legal are now illegal. Before around 1900, e.g., there was no market for illegal drugs, because there weren't any. (Don't recall the year that started, but this particular Prohibition Era has lasted over a century, and lead to a thriving increase in illegal trade. As well as other things...like babies no longer becoming addicted to opium.)
Speaking personally, ...
Yuck! Why on earth would I want *that*?
I don't *want* my desktop to be "a modern compositing desktop", It's generally covered anyway. I just want it to be unobtrusive, efficient, and useful. I can see wanting applications that can handle graphics adroitly, but that's a separate matter. Currently, with just the browser visible, I only have two thin bars, one at the top of the screen where I invoke applications, and one at the bottom where I switch between active applications. And the rest of the desktop is hidden. I don't have a large enough monitor that I WANT to see more desktop than that.
Gnome2 & KDE3 do what I want. I preferred KDE3 to Gnome2. But Gnome2 is a lot better than KDE4 was the last time I tried it. KDE4 is very sloppy about how it uses the screen space, or it was the last time I tried it. Gnome3 & Unity, however, look to be much worse. (Mind you, I haven't tried a live version of either of them.)
An additional factor is that my computer won't run 3D acceleration. So Gnome3 can't really be installed. And I *prefer* it that way.
That depends on the license. After the Oracle suit against Google, I'd be very careful about any code I accepted from them. It would need to come with a clear grant of all needed rights. Like patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. (Yeah, I *know* that trade secrets aren't supposed to be enforceable once the code has been made visible. But there have been suits about that.)
GPL3 or AGPL3 would be acceptable licenses. There are probably others, but in the case of Oracle I'd need to consider them very carefully. LGPL wouldn't suffice (unless it contained the provision allowing the code to be upgraded to a later version of GPL). Neither would may other OSI approved licenses.
I think you didn't finish reading my post. It concluded with:
"I'm sure that there are other reasons. That they aren't necessary is an interesting claim."
I.e., I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying that isn't the answer I would have expected. (I'm not really convinced either way. And models aren't proof. But they can be very good arguments. And all we have suggesting that a large moon is necessary is also only good arguments.)
By "we" I meant the species, not any particular country.
Yes, I'll agree that governments (i.e., the people running them) are sufficiently untrustworthy and aggressive that doing this would be problematical. But that's a comment on the species, not on technological requirements.
Given our species this would probably be impossible until either a world government appeared or governments started being run by AIs...which *would* require a major technological & possibly scientific breakthrough. But existing species with vastly differing amounts of intraspecies exist, so there's no reason to believe that we are the least aggressive possible.
If you're going to count Pluto, I think there are some asteroids that could even be considered binary planet(esimal)s.
But, yeah, for whatever mass category you consider, orbital pairs with near equal mass are unusual. Up until you start talking about stars.
Actually there are several reasons to believe that a large moon is either necessary for the evolution of life, or greatly speeds it. Two occur off the top of my head:
1) The existence of lunar tides yields tide-pools, where aquatic life is given an opportunity to evolve into life that can temporarily live in air. This is as true for bacteria as it is for multicellular life. Beaches also provide this opportunity, but waves strand a much smaller number of entities in a much less consistent manner.
2) A moon stabilizes the orbital inclination of the planet. A planet without a moon is much more likely to do a gyroscopic tumble.
I'm sure that there are other reasons. That they aren't necessary is an interesting claim.
That's too strong a statement. Light speed may be a true barrier. And in any case exponential doesn't imply fast. I could be a growth rate of 2^1.00001/Millenia and still be exponential. Eventually that would be overwhelmingly fast, but not for a long time.
Sorry about the bolding. Don't know what happened as I *wasn't* using html.
But what we can measure is, itself, highly technology dependent. And not only on possible technology, but also on chosen technology. E.g.:
If we chose, instead of all these wars and military spending, we could put a pair of observatories in Neptunes orbit. (Not circling Neptune, but at the distance of Neptune from the sun.) Put them antipodal in their orbits, and make the orbits as nearly circular as feasible. And give each observatory a mirror 5 miles in diameter. (At that size you can use flat panes of mirror without problems.) This gives us enough light collecting area to see most major planets in the galaxy (say Mars size or better) only provided that they are within some approximation of the habitable area around a sun. (So that enough light is getting reflected.) Now you need a bunch of computers to analyze the data.
Note that what I proposed here isn't anything that we couldn't do with the current "defense" budget. The new technology required is at most minimal. It would need to be robotized, as we don't have the technology for a closed cycle ecology, and occasional repair missions would be needed. And it would be expensive. But if we chose we could do it without any technology that we don't either have or know clearly how to develop. Better technology would, of course, make it cheaper, but it isn't required. You just need to be willing to throw away expensive gadgetry that could easily be fixed if you could reach it. And, of course, engage in highly modular design.
And that is where al gebra comes from, so it must be valueless...or is that invaluable?
What comes out of a discussion depends on what you put into it. Al chemy, however comes from Egypt, once called Khem. It was originally used for beauty potions and poisons. So it's hard to judge the eventual value of something from where it starts.
I presume we're talking about the Drake formula. I don't trust it either, but this doesn't make it worthless. If you have a better formula to offer, you should publish it and argue for it's worth. Merely being snide is, indeed, worthless. It's even a waste of your time, unless your thing is having other people despise you. (Your kind, rather, as you choose to be anonymous. I congratulate you on your wisdom in that choice.)
It's also true in the US that most lawyers are very underemployed. I *do* understand, however, that if you are also skilled in technical areas (nearly ANY technical area) you have an immense advantage.
That said, I'm not sure that it's possible for a good programmer to be a good lawyer. The rules of logic are too different. It's like studying English history and Shakespeare historicals at the same time.
FWIW, dissident groups often adopt terms used by the opposition as derogatory labels. Puritans is one. Quakers is another. Beatnik is another. Hippie wasn't originally used as a derogatory label, but being used as one didn't make those into that culture change their name. Punk has always been a derogatory term. (Originally, I believe, is was derogatory slang for a homosexual meaning gunsel.)
Now I'd need proof before I'd consider this group to be hackers. I actually think that "script kiddies" is probably closer to accurate. (Proof would be that their avocation involved hacking things together in a manner analogous to the crafting crude furniture out of logs using only an axe as a tool. I don't require that they be those who hack code together using only a simple text editor.) But given the distortion that the news media has given to the term I can accept that others might think of them as hackers. I am, however, surprised to find that usage on /. (The "l33t-speak" version "hack3rz" might pass, though.)
Sorry, that was a little too abbreviated. Edited version follows, with edits in bold.
Irrelevant. Was the PBS story being objected to lies? If so, then the posting of the LULZ story is reasonable. (I'm not claiming lawful.) Depending, it could even be argued that the posting of the LULZ story was a minimalistic moral response. (I'm not claiming to know much about the facts of the case, which I why I'm hedging my statements.)
I'm not sure I'd agree that the posting of the LULZ story was moral, but I can see arguments that could reasonably be made. *IF* the PBS story was lies. (I neither know the facts of the case nor watched the show.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the story being objected to was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. PBS is news media. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was largely true. I give PBS slightly more credibility than most of the news sources.
N.B.: the actions of ANYONE other than PBS are not in question with regard to my statements. And I'm only addressing the posting of a blatantly false and silly story. Not any other actions.
Irrelevant. Was the story being objected to lies? If so, then the posting of the story is reasonable. (I'm not claiming lawful.) Depending, it could even be argued that it was a minimalistic moral response. (I'm not claiming to know much about the facts of the case, which I why I'm hedging my statements.)
I'm not sure I'd agree that it was moral, but I can see arguments that could reasonably be made. *IF* the story was lies. (I neither know the facts of the case nor watched the show.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the story being objected to was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. PBS is news media. I also wouldn't be surprised if it was largely true. I give PBS slightly more credibility than most of the news sources.
N.B.: the actions of ANYONE other than PBS are not in question with regard to my statements. And I'm only addressing the posting of a blatantly false and silly story. Not any other actions.
No, for the same reason that monopolies need to be more tightly controlled than small companies. (Actually the direct use of force is another reason, but that's the essential monopoly claimed by governments.)
An earlier example compared the "attack" with throwing a glass of red wine on one, and that's closer. I think still closer would be sneaking a whoopee cushion onto your chair at a formal dinner. Not nice, but shouldn't be illegal. (I understand that they did more that post a fake story, but that's what I'm responding to.)
They DIDN'T shut down, or attempt to shut down, the site. They posted a fake story, and not only a fake story, but a very silly one.
If there are ANY reliable news sources, I don't know of them. They don't check the stories reported to them, whether by local stringers or federal authorities or anonymous "inside informants". And they also intentionally distort the news they do cover. (I've been "on-site" for events covered by they camera trucks. The distortion is often sufficient that it's impossible to "back-distort" and recover what the real story was.)
And if that's the case where they have hard evidence available, why should I expect them to be any more accurate when they're working off something that doesn't require intentional "editing"? (And this was for a story with no political axe involved. The political stories got a much more complete spin. The non-political story was just spun for "entertainment value".)
AFAIKT, blogs are every bit as accurate as the newspapers or broadcast media. Better when they allow posting by readers without heavy censorship. (I'm not disagreeing that they are biased, it's just that the bias is easier to handle.)
Well, there are spoof stories and spoof stories. That one (as reported) was just silly and harmless. It merely makes PBS look silly and untrustworthy. They probably deserve it. (I don't listen to it, so I don't know. Based on, essentially, rumor I'm assuming that they are more reliable than most sources...but that's damning with very faint praise.)
I don't trust any government funded and approved news source, whether PBS, or Fox or whoever. Up until a few decades ago I thought I could figure out what were lies and what was true. Then I was at another story that they reported, and I realized that their distortion was far better than I'd supposed, and that there was really no way to tell what was real from what got reported. (If they show a picture of a fire, a fire probably happened, but if they show a city in flames, only two or three houses necessarily burned...and that's without any actual fakery. That's just choosing selected video shots and angles. They usually restrict themselves that much, unless there's political pressure, but even then you can't figure out what's real.)
N.B.: I've only been able to check on local news stories, but a couple of them got reported nationally, so I know that the news doesn't get more accurate as it travels further.
P.S.: ALL news sources appear to be untrustworthy. PBS is generally less so, but that's probably because it has a lower budget and doesn't usually cover politically significant stories, by which I mean most of their stories are politically nearly neutral in effect. (I'm remembering several years back, now, because I haven't watched it in a decade or so. And these days I don't even have a TV in the house.)
I consider internet news sources (that allow feedback) slightly more reliable, even though they also appear highly biased, because:
1) most of them don't have the financial backing to invisibly twist the truth. (They twist it, but it isn't invisible.), and
2) the ones I trust allow feedback, and external sources don't indicate that they engage in excessive censorship. (Clearly some censorship is necessary, so the key is "excessive", always a matter of judgment.)
3) the ones I trust have a clear bias, and aren't (apparently) financially beholden to anyone except their advertisers.
4) even so, my trust is limited. I trust, e.g., Charlie Stross when he reports on Fukishima. The fact that he changes his mind when new evidence appears makes him appear more trustworthy. I don't trust him on the quality of his books. (No author can properly judge his own work.) But I do trust him on the topic and style in which he writes. Etc.
5) one must always beware of astroturfers. Since I am, that limits the amount of trust I give. (And websites as well as posters on them can be astroturfers.)
What do you consider to be a reliable source for reporting on corporate crimes for profit? I don't know of any. I suspect that the large majority are unreported, uninvestigated, and unpaid for...not even as bribes. But it's just a suspicion. It is, however, based on a consideration of how difficult it is to collect evidence...and the reactions when an isolated instance comes to light. The reaction seems to be, approximately, "Why ore you jumping on me? This is just normal business practice."
As I said, this isn't proof. But it's a pretty clear indication. And I've watched as SCOX dragged the good name of SCO through the mud for seven years without any individual being punished for blatant theft of large sums of money. (That's what "converted" means in this legal context.) And the company was allowed to escape into bankruptcy the day before a decision was due. Even though it didn't technically meet the financial requirements. And it was allowed to stay in chapter 11 rather then chapter 7, which meant the executives in charge before hand could remain in charge. It still hasn't finished (now in it's eighth year), but it's almost done. It appears certain to have legally gotten away with theft. The company will be dismantled, but the records will be sold to someone who will either destroy them or keep them secret. The money that was funneled to the corporate executives will stay with the executives (though a lot of it ended up with their lawyers). And no punishment for any of the guilty individuals. This case was partially funded by Microsoft.
This, again, isn't proof. But it's clear evidence of a large number of laws specifically designed to allow corporate executives to commit crimes without being punished. That wouldn't exist if it weren't used.
Some people in this thread are talking about software windows and screen, others are talking about hardware. So they assert different truths that are each correct in their respective domains. It gets confusing when they use the same terminology. (Intentionally confusing in some of the posts.)