Kids these days. Go back 15 years or so, and I had an Amiga 500. It had an external PSU the size of a house brick. Now that thing got *warm* - in fact, I used to warm my feet on it.
The water might be heated using solar or wind power i guess.
That really depends. If the input energy required is lower than that which can be obtained from the liberated hydrogen then - after bootstrapping the process with some other source - it can maintain itself with no further energey input. All that happens is that the output is lower than it could have been otherwise.
Of course, I have no idea whether or not this is the case; just raising it as a possibility.
And when you have some cashiers doing over 100 items a minute(yes, it is possible)
Do they have separate cashiers to scan and to deal with payment? Because unless someone's buying more than 100 items, I really don't see how you can possibly scan everything, shove it into bags, charge the customer and give change then move onto the next and repeat for more than 100 items in less than a minute.
Not only that, but just grabbing the iPod and walking out could well just be a spur of the moment thing. Forgery requires preparation, planning, etc. In general, the law is more forgiving of spontaneity - even for murder, if you (say) catch your partner in bed with someone and kill one/both of them, you'll generally get a lesser sentence than if you leave it, then hire a contract killer or lure them away somewhere secluded, etc.
This seems slightly pointless, as I could take a standard Ubuntu system and install educational apps I want myself.
So could I. I could write my own text editor too, and mail client, web server, etc. I choose not to, and to use what others have created instead, because it saves time and lets me get on with the things I actually want to be doing. Same deal here - even a lot of us that *can* do it, simply don't want to waste time doing it ourselves.
I recently saw someone at work trying to install the 7 CDs of Visual Studio.NET
Three CDs are the IDE and associated tools, three CDs are the MSDN Library, one CD is the prerequisites. Depending on what you choose to install and what you already have installed, you may only need one or two of those CDs.
As for it being an awful install, while it takes literally hours, it's about as straightforward as you could wish for.
So, when you go to sue, you can't sue Mozilla Firefox
You sue the Mozilla Foundation. From the about page:
"the Mozilla Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open-source software project. The Foundation has been incorporated as a California not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Mozilla project continues to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source software projects."
The Mozilla Foundation is incorporated, and exists in part to handle this exact eventuality. If you want to go after Firefox, that's who you sue.
2) Where is the company based? Boston Area? Silicon Valley?
Utterly irrelevant. You do realise that clever, capable people exist, live and work in other geographical areas, right? For example, a lot of very good security-related stuff comes out of Israel.
4) Using Open Source for their webserver?
Now I know you're taking the piss. The guys working on the AI are not the same ones admining the webserver, and don't necessarily care about it either.
Now I agree that this is most likely a load of bullshit, but most certainly not for the reasons that you cite, which personally I think are irrelevant. No, I disbelieve it because it's an extraordinary claim, but I have yet to see the requisite extraordinary proof.
They are based in Henderson, Nevada - -quite far from any tech/AI center.
In this day and age, and especially in a tech industry, what does that really matter? I agree that people tend to gravitate to centres of their chosen field, but those centres have to start somehow. Maybe Henderson is destined to be the next centre of AI research.
On the contrary, the signal to noise ratio here has been pretty bad for as long as I can remember. I started browsing at +5 a good couple of years ago, and even that sometimes feels like it's not high enough.
abusing a broken security check in the document.stylesheets javascript method.
Technically, that's an element of the DOM, and is nothing to do with javascript, and is certainly not a javascript function. (In fact it's not a method at all, it's a property of the document object).
Doesn't it impose conditions on the use of software as a condition of use?
No, no, a thousand times no. It specifically and explicitly disclaims and disavows any such restrictions; you are free to use the software in any way you see fit, including modifying it.
It is only distribution of the software which is covered. The GPL only comes into force when you give someone else a copy of the software. Until that time, it has no power over you whatsoever.
Don't forget that modifying source code is a form of "use"
Yes it is, and it's one that's specifically not covered by the GPL. No restrictions are imposed on you for modifying the code - you don't have to give the modifications to anyone.
as is distribution
Conceptually yes, legally no. Legally, distribution and use are two very distinct things; of the two, copyright law only covers distribution.
At a guess, a bunch of users with mod points who are as pissed off about all the dupes, obvious advertisements, misleading, wrong or downright deceitful articles and poor grammar and spelling that the "editors" allow to persist despite numerous vocal complaints from the readership.
I've not once even seen a response from any of the editors. Most people don't like feeling that they're being ignored.
both my windows 2000 machine and XP machine crash pretty regularly
I would suggest that you've either screwed them over, or you're having hardware or possibly power problems. None of the three XP machines I use regularly crash any more often than my Linux box; that is, hardly ever.
I suspect you are not really doing anything serious with your machine if your windows hasn't crashed in four years.
I can't speak for the GP, but I do development (Java and a little C#), gaming, web, email, listen to music, encode/edit/burn movies, etc. What I don't do is install random crap I download from dubious sources on the internet, piss about with my hardware, use IE or OE, etc. I keep my systems updated and free from malware, and I have zero stability problems.
your statements counter our real life experiences
Of course they do, we're trading anecdotes. You'll no more believe my claims of XP's stablity than I'll believe yours that it crashes a couple of times a week. Who cares? You can have your reality and I'll have mine; I know which I prefer, given your description of yours.
When a library is replaced the original is deleted, but the content still hangs around until all programs that rely on that library close, at which point the file system deletes the content.
Not quite - it's more general than that. When a file that an application has open is deleted, the link to it is removed (so you can't see it any more, nothing else can access it, etc) but the data is left in place and any file handles remain valid. Once the last handle to it is closed, then the inodes are marked as being free.
That's the case for *any* file, be it a library, an mp3, a text file, etc.
For what it's worth, I can see situations in which replacing a library that's in use could be problematic. If you start another instance of the app that's using it, for example, and the library that's changed defines a communications protocol, then you may well have problems if the two instances try to communicate. That may be relatively ok if it's an instant message system, but not so good if it's something more critical like an RDBMS. Not likely, perhaps, but not impossible.
The main issue is that in windows, two files can not exist under the same name (no concept of linking).
The same is true of Linux. In the case of deleting a file that's in use and replacing it with a new copy, there are not two files with the same name. There is one file with the name, and an area of data that is no longer linked to. That area of data *used* to have that name, but doesn't any longer.
When deleting a file that's in use, an OS has three options:
1. Delete it anyway and damn the consequences 2. Delete it but keep the data available for the application(s) using it (the Linux way) 3. Prevent deletion of the file (the Windows way)
Note that 3 isn't the only way it works under Windows, it depends how the file was opened. For example, WMP is perfectly happy to allow you to delete media files while you're playing them, notepad is fine with text files disappearing out from under it, etc.
the display system is supposedly able to die and restart without the computer crashing.
I've seen that happen under Win2k - the screen blanked out with just a flashing underline cursor in the top left, then the desktop reappeared. Iirc, I was updating the graphics driver at the time.
sorry, I know, they're godly people who only want to do good *ahem, crusades, ahem*
You know, you can no more hold the crusades against modern day Christians than I can hold the near erradication of the indigenous peoples of the US against you. (Assuming you're USian - insert other horrible thing your country has done if not. For example, I refuse to bear any responsibility for the various shitty things the British did in the name of the Empire - generations before my time.)
Also, a anti-virus isn't technically a "bug fixer", it's more of an "after-the-fact bug-exploiter defender".
Bug exloiter? How so? Is it a bug that I can run arbitrary executable code on my own machine, and modify my files? That's all a virus needs to be able to do to propagate - or have you forgetten the days before every "virus" was just a jumped up VBA macro that mailed itself to everyone in a user's Outlook address book?
My boss was amazed that, for the first time ever, someone accepted the 'invitations' that get sent out when he schedules meetings in Outlook.
Your boss is an idiot. He's paid money for Outlook and Exchange licences and isn't even using the single feature that makes Outlook a half-way worthwhile piece of software (because dog knows, it sucks arse compared to every single email client I've ever used; that's not really its fault though, it's not email client, it's a groupware/calendaring app with email thrown in)
Your coworkers are also idiots. They're (presumably) forced to use Outlook, they might as well actually use the calendar, not to mention have the common decency to actually accept the invitations they're sent.
The person undergoing the face transplant has already suffered the psychological impact of loosing their original face and the impact of being treated like some kind of monster.
That really depends on the circumstances. I imagine that a lot of these operations would be performed immediately or very soon after the injuries were sustained (eg burns victims, etc). They may well still be adjusting to the idea of being disfigured, and - if the operation was performed soon enough - may not have had any contact with anyone other than medical staff, friends and family.
I spend an hour sat on a train every morning and evening on my commute. I don't have a laptop or PDA, so if I want to spend the time reading my choices are either a book or a newspaper.
That said, I can't remember the last time I actually bought a newspaper; here in London there's a free one called the Metro that's just left at Tube stations, handed out outside major stations, etc. If I read a paper, that's it. (It's not particularly good, but it beats paying for one)
No, it means that you need to provide the source code to the possesor of the weapon. I don't get the source to Linux just because the website I visit is running on a machine runing a Linux distro...
While I don't doubt what you say, and don't suppose for a moment that the FSF would ever go rogue, here's a little thought experiment - would it be possible to slightly alter section 9, perhaps over a number of revisions of the GPL, such that eventually the wording allowed for wholesale changes to the licence? As long as each revision is itself similar in spirit, they should be okay, and of course with each passing revision the amount of similarity required would drop.
Not saying they'd ever do this, just wondering if it would be possible.
Of course, nevermind that the channels that are "less-popular" are probably useless beef anyway.
Or they simply cater to a much less mainstream taste, such as literary or arts programs. Just because something isn't to your taste (or mine) doesn't make it "useless beef".
Slashdot Mirror
Kids these days. Go back 15 years or so, and I had an Amiga 500. It had an external PSU the size of a house brick. Now that thing got *warm* - in fact, I used to warm my feet on it.
I think there are too many lawyers in the world.
I think there are too many lawyers in the US, and too many greedy people too eager to contract their services at the first sniff of a possible payout.
The water might be heated using solar or wind power i guess.
That really depends. If the input energy required is lower than that which can be obtained from the liberated hydrogen then - after bootstrapping the process with some other source - it can maintain itself with no further energey input. All that happens is that the output is lower than it could have been otherwise.
Of course, I have no idea whether or not this is the case; just raising it as a possibility.
And when you have some cashiers doing over 100 items a minute(yes, it is possible)
Do they have separate cashiers to scan and to deal with payment? Because unless someone's buying more than 100 items, I really don't see how you can possibly scan everything, shove it into bags, charge the customer and give change then move onto the next and repeat for more than 100 items in less than a minute.
Not only that, but just grabbing the iPod and walking out could well just be a spur of the moment thing. Forgery requires preparation, planning, etc. In general, the law is more forgiving of spontaneity - even for murder, if you (say) catch your partner in bed with someone and kill one/both of them, you'll generally get a lesser sentence than if you leave it, then hire a contract killer or lure them away somewhere secluded, etc.
This seems slightly pointless, as I could take a standard Ubuntu system and install educational apps I want myself.
So could I. I could write my own text editor too, and mail client, web server, etc. I choose not to, and to use what others have created instead, because it saves time and lets me get on with the things I actually want to be doing. Same deal here - even a lot of us that *can* do it, simply don't want to waste time doing it ourselves.
I recently saw someone at work trying to install the 7 CDs of Visual Studio .NET
Three CDs are the IDE and associated tools, three CDs are the MSDN Library, one CD is the prerequisites. Depending on what you choose to install and what you already have installed, you may only need one or two of those CDs.
As for it being an awful install, while it takes literally hours, it's about as straightforward as you could wish for.
So, when you go to sue, you can't sue Mozilla Firefox
You sue the Mozilla Foundation. From the about page:
"the Mozilla Foundation exists to provide organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open-source software project. The Foundation has been incorporated as a California not-for-profit corporation to ensure that the Mozilla project continues to exist beyond the participation of individual volunteers, to enable contributions of intellectual property and funds and to provide a vehicle for limiting legal exposure while participating in open-source software projects."
The Mozilla Foundation is incorporated, and exists in part to handle this exact eventuality. If you want to go after Firefox, that's who you sue.
2) Where is the company based? Boston Area? Silicon Valley?
Utterly irrelevant. You do realise that clever, capable people exist, live and work in other geographical areas, right? For example, a lot of very good security-related stuff comes out of Israel.
4) Using Open Source for their webserver?
Now I know you're taking the piss. The guys working on the AI are not the same ones admining the webserver, and don't necessarily care about it either.
Now I agree that this is most likely a load of bullshit, but most certainly not for the reasons that you cite, which personally I think are irrelevant. No, I disbelieve it because it's an extraordinary claim, but I have yet to see the requisite extraordinary proof.
They are based in Henderson, Nevada - -quite far from any tech/AI center.
In this day and age, and especially in a tech industry, what does that really matter? I agree that people tend to gravitate to centres of their chosen field, but those centres have to start somehow. Maybe Henderson is destined to be the next centre of AI research.
They are human scum of the worst possible kind.
Worse than murdering baby rapists? Are you sure?
Signal to noise was never this bad.
On the contrary, the signal to noise ratio here has been pretty bad for as long as I can remember. I started browsing at +5 a good couple of years ago, and even that sometimes feels like it's not high enough.
abusing a broken security check in the document.stylesheets javascript method.
Technically, that's an element of the DOM, and is nothing to do with javascript, and is certainly not a javascript function. (In fact it's not a method at all, it's a property of the document object).
Doesn't it impose conditions on the use of software as a condition of use?
No, no, a thousand times no. It specifically and explicitly disclaims and disavows any such restrictions; you are free to use the software in any way you see fit, including modifying it.
It is only distribution of the software which is covered. The GPL only comes into force when you give someone else a copy of the software. Until that time, it has no power over you whatsoever.
Don't forget that modifying source code is a form of "use"
Yes it is, and it's one that's specifically not covered by the GPL. No restrictions are imposed on you for modifying the code - you don't have to give the modifications to anyone.
as is distribution
Conceptually yes, legally no. Legally, distribution and use are two very distinct things; of the two, copyright law only covers distribution.
Who modded this guy up?
At a guess, a bunch of users with mod points who are as pissed off about all the dupes, obvious advertisements, misleading, wrong or downright deceitful articles and poor grammar and spelling that the "editors" allow to persist despite numerous vocal complaints from the readership.
I've not once even seen a response from any of the editors. Most people don't like feeling that they're being ignored.
both my windows 2000 machine and XP machine crash pretty regularly
I would suggest that you've either screwed them over, or you're having hardware or possibly power problems. None of the three XP machines I use regularly crash any more often than my Linux box; that is, hardly ever.
I suspect you are not really doing anything serious with your machine if your windows hasn't crashed in four years.
I can't speak for the GP, but I do development (Java and a little C#), gaming, web, email, listen to music, encode/edit/burn movies, etc. What I don't do is install random crap I download from dubious sources on the internet, piss about with my hardware, use IE or OE, etc. I keep my systems updated and free from malware, and I have zero stability problems.
your statements counter our real life experiences
Of course they do, we're trading anecdotes. You'll no more believe my claims of XP's stablity than I'll believe yours that it crashes a couple of times a week. Who cares? You can have your reality and I'll have mine; I know which I prefer, given your description of yours.
When a library is replaced the original is deleted, but the content still hangs around until all programs that rely on that library close, at which point the file system deletes the content.
Not quite - it's more general than that. When a file that an application has open is deleted, the link to it is removed (so you can't see it any more, nothing else can access it, etc) but the data is left in place and any file handles remain valid. Once the last handle to it is closed, then the inodes are marked as being free.
That's the case for *any* file, be it a library, an mp3, a text file, etc.
For what it's worth, I can see situations in which replacing a library that's in use could be problematic. If you start another instance of the app that's using it, for example, and the library that's changed defines a communications protocol, then you may well have problems if the two instances try to communicate. That may be relatively ok if it's an instant message system, but not so good if it's something more critical like an RDBMS. Not likely, perhaps, but not impossible.
The main issue is that in windows, two files can not exist under the same name (no concept of linking).
The same is true of Linux. In the case of deleting a file that's in use and replacing it with a new copy, there are not two files with the same name. There is one file with the name, and an area of data that is no longer linked to. That area of data *used* to have that name, but doesn't any longer.
When deleting a file that's in use, an OS has three options:
1. Delete it anyway and damn the consequences
2. Delete it but keep the data available for the application(s) using it (the Linux way)
3. Prevent deletion of the file (the Windows way)
Note that 3 isn't the only way it works under Windows, it depends how the file was opened. For example, WMP is perfectly happy to allow you to delete media files while you're playing them, notepad is fine with text files disappearing out from under it, etc.
the display system is supposedly able to die and restart without the computer crashing.
I've seen that happen under Win2k - the screen blanked out with just a flashing underline cursor in the top left, then the desktop reappeared. Iirc, I was updating the graphics driver at the time.
sorry, I know, they're godly people who only want to do good *ahem, crusades, ahem*
You know, you can no more hold the crusades against modern day Christians than I can hold the near erradication of the indigenous peoples of the US against you. (Assuming you're USian - insert other horrible thing your country has done if not. For example, I refuse to bear any responsibility for the various shitty things the British did in the name of the Empire - generations before my time.)
Also, a anti-virus isn't technically a "bug fixer", it's more of an "after-the-fact bug-exploiter defender".
Bug exloiter? How so? Is it a bug that I can run arbitrary executable code on my own machine, and modify my files? That's all a virus needs to be able to do to propagate - or have you forgetten the days before every "virus" was just a jumped up VBA macro that mailed itself to everyone in a user's Outlook address book?
My boss was amazed that, for the first time ever, someone accepted the 'invitations' that get sent out when he schedules meetings in Outlook.
Your boss is an idiot. He's paid money for Outlook and Exchange licences and isn't even using the single feature that makes Outlook a half-way worthwhile piece of software (because dog knows, it sucks arse compared to every single email client I've ever used; that's not really its fault though, it's not email client, it's a groupware/calendaring app with email thrown in)
Your coworkers are also idiots. They're (presumably) forced to use Outlook, they might as well actually use the calendar, not to mention have the common decency to actually accept the invitations they're sent.
The person undergoing the face transplant has already suffered the psychological impact of loosing their original face and the impact of being treated like some kind of monster.
That really depends on the circumstances. I imagine that a lot of these operations would be performed immediately or very soon after the injuries were sustained (eg burns victims, etc). They may well still be adjusting to the idea of being disfigured, and - if the operation was performed soon enough - may not have had any contact with anyone other than medical staff, friends and family.
I spend an hour sat on a train every morning and evening on my commute. I don't have a laptop or PDA, so if I want to spend the time reading my choices are either a book or a newspaper.
That said, I can't remember the last time I actually bought a newspaper; here in London there's a free one called the Metro that's just left at Tube stations, handed out outside major stations, etc. If I read a paper, that's it. (It's not particularly good, but it beats paying for one)
No, it means that you need to provide the source code to the possesor of the weapon. I don't get the source to Linux just because the website I visit is running on a machine runing a Linux distro...
While I don't doubt what you say, and don't suppose for a moment that the FSF would ever go rogue, here's a little thought experiment - would it be possible to slightly alter section 9, perhaps over a number of revisions of the GPL, such that eventually the wording allowed for wholesale changes to the licence? As long as each revision is itself similar in spirit, they should be okay, and of course with each passing revision the amount of similarity required would drop.
Not saying they'd ever do this, just wondering if it would be possible.
Of course, nevermind that the channels that are "less-popular" are probably useless beef anyway.
Or they simply cater to a much less mainstream taste, such as literary or arts programs. Just because something isn't to your taste (or mine) doesn't make it "useless beef".