Well, the problem with that (and the scissors wxperiment too) is thatyou can't just 'move' the rod, as a whole - any movement of the rod involves moving one end, and thus creating a compression wave which 'flows' done the rod to the other end. The only way to move the rod as a whole is to have someone on the other end and have him move his end at the same time your moving yours.
To synchronize that movement, you have to call him somehow (radio, whatever), and get ready to move both ends at once. Which resolves the paradox your trying to create.
Neither of which explains to me why *this* phenomona can't (In Theory) be used to communicate (information backward in time||at translight speed). This 'Backwards wave' seems to originate at the receiver, and propagate backwards to the sender at FTL speed, arriving when the lightwave originates. While this is not a physical phenomena, it still means I can build (In Priniciple) a waveguide freom here to pluto, pulse a laser down it in morse code, and have someone on pluto with a pad in pencil put down dots'n'dashes when they see the 'backwards' wave start a mere (8lightmin/AU * 40AUs = 320lm/300=) ~1 minute from when I send the message, rather than 5hrs and 20mins, at c.
This seems like translight communication to me. Of course, getting that much cesium to stay in a tube from here to epsilon eridani may be a trick, but in principlae it would work, and therefore break causaulity under relativity.
Pug. Very confused.
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I seem to recall from Stephen Hawkings Biography that a classmate (Penrose? I think) was discussing how good Hawking actually was at mathematics.
For an assignment, the students were gvien 10 incredibly difficult proofs to do. Penrose and three other students worked together over the week, and managed three of them, with most of the rest of the class being in the same general boat.
After Hawking got back from sports over the week and partying over the weekend, he hit the problems Sunday night. Needless to say, monday his classmate ragged him for not getting the problems done, and Hawking blushed and admitted he hadn't gotten the last one done.
Penrose - 'Suddenly, I realized . . . he wasn't joking. That was when I realized, not only were we not in the same league Stephen was in, we weren't on the same planet Stephen was on'
This is heavily paraphrased of course - Pug
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It's easier than that - Infinity +1 = 0, after you account for the infinite number of ones that roll over into the bit bucket.
Unless your dealing in 2's complement notation, where where 0111... 111 +1 would roll over to 10000... 0000, or negative infinity. so yeah, that should work . . . as long as you remember that the two's complement inifinity is only half the size of the standard inifnity.
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Will Hunting don't exist. The occasional Ramnujen does though. The solutions of these kinds of problems seem (to me) to either rise from somebody that extrapolates from the most esoteric realms (My word for the day - esoteric. But in Mathematics, it fits) or somebody who takes relatively basic mathematics and goes into an entirely new direction with it. That second category is still possible out here in the real world.
Or so I believe - [g]
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As to the theorem itself - There are no positive integers such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n>2. I've found a remarkable proof of this fact, but there is not enough space in the margin [of the book] to write it
To summarize the Urban Legends site, Andrew Wiles has tried two different approaches, both of which have significant shortcomings, and both of which are into very esoteric realms of mathematics. The summary starts Both manuscripts have been published. Thousands of people have a read them. About a hundred understand it very well.
For further information, apply to the Annals of Mathematics or Urbanlegends.com
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Actually, according to the 'Urban Legends' site (whose URL I don't recall at the moment. Probably somnething simple like urbanlegends.org), Fermat's last theorem still stands.
The claimant had a theory that fell into some really nasty holes in realms of high mathematics that I'm not qualified to think about, never mind explain. Hey, I aced Calculus I, I survived Calc II. Past that I wimp out.
So, if anybody has a good proof of Fermats' last theorem, go for it and get yourself a Fields medal. I've got my own that I haven't managed to prove in twenty years. Of course, I have a prime number generator that I can't prove works too - life sucks - [G].
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Cheapness and Apathy. er no speaking as someone who runs a UK university network we are placed in an impossible position. We have to follow the JANET acceptable use rules. If he was on my machines he would have been booted off under
JANET acceptable use policy 9.7. deliberate activities with any of the following characteristics: wasting staff effort or networked resources, including time on end systems accessible via JANET and the effort of staff involved in the support of those systems;
To my way of thinking anything that gets me involved with Lawyers and the college bureacracy more than necessary falls under that category
So, by 'your way of thinking', not only is it feasible for an organization to suppress any commentary it finds inconvenient, it is acceptable for it to do so?!? I have to admit - I would be insulted at being ordered to be that spineless, nevermind to publically attempt to rationalize it.
I am sorry, but that's the way that comes across to me. as an attempt to rationalize spineless behavior. I can't get my mind around it any other way.
Pug
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Was this student's protest part of a course related project? No. Oxford has neither explicit rules nor enforced a policy saying that it was required to be.
Did the student seek permission from officials before using university resources on his own personal, non-school related project? No. Same deal.
Did any of what the student violate the terms of service (TOS) that all universities now require their students to read and sign and adhere to? Nope. As, I must point out, mentioned in the article. They looked for a violation of the TOS, and couldn't find it.
Or did he simply take advantage of and abuse free, high bandwidch connections and file server space and waste the resources of the school and work time of its staff, who found themselves with a great mess to clean up after a student executed his 'rights'? Yep. Just took advantage of the connection to discuss his opinion of the DeCSS case, and publish a parody. Oh - He had a link too. Must'nt forget that tragic abuse of bandwidth.
I would say the resources of the school and work time of the staff were wasted by the MPAA's sending a letter trying to claim that his page, with no infringing material on it at all, somehow infringed upon their copyright, under the definition of a U.S. law. The respect the school has blown in simply knuckling under without the most cursory inspection of the issues has been wasted entirley by the staff of Oxford itself.
None of which was the fault of the student.
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Yes, they don't have a right to free speech with which to overide a law as 'unconstitutional'
Unfortunately, I haven't seen that it ever went to that point - Oxford removed a page that was not in violation of it's rules, and was not in violation of the law. His page was removed merely because a letter was received, not because an investigation uncovered any illegal action.
Not having any familiarity with how such implied contracts (These are what we will remove pages for, implying pages will not be removed without cause) are enforced under UK law, I don't know if Oxford is in any way liable for it's actions.
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I saw this, I know it's foolish, yet I find myself responding anyway, despite my better judgement. I'm such a goat - [sigh] "Rudeness without cause is, by definition, hypocritical." I don't think the word means what you think it means.
hypocrisy (h-pkr-s) n., pl. hypocrisies.
1.The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. 2.An act or instance of such falseness.
Your quite right - By that defintion, so long as you hold no beliefs regarding being polite to peole you don't know, such gratuitous rudeness is not being hypocritical. It is only a sign of being born in a barn. I will confess, most people *I* know would consider it Hypopcritical if you apply different standards to yourself than others - this appears to be a more common use definition. However even then your only being hypocritical if you don't mind when people are rude to you without reason. So, if you can honestly say none of the following terms or items bother you, than you are, without a doubt, without hypocrisy in being rude.
Filthy black, spic, jew, wetback, n....r, and bitch. Damn Hackers. People that cut you off in traffic for no good reason. Any other set of daily rude actions that, personally, annoy the *hell* out of me. So I leave that to you.
The context of the term 'whores' seems pretty self-damning to me. You appear to mean either a - lawyers, just on principle, irregardless of who their working for, what they're supporting, etcetera, (You know, being Gratuitously Insulting), or B- Anybody that would take money for their talents from whoever would pay them. Your explanation implies B, but I somehow doubt that you really intend to imply that all programmers are whores in this forum, despite the fact that they (And anyone else that has the misfortune to not be wealthy enough to either work for themselves or pick who they work for) would seem to qualify by that definition. Yay . ..whatever.
Professionals - I still don't know whatinthehell your trying to say there. I merely stated that the man was a professional doing his job, you came back with a statement about my being 'a gas station attendent' implying I didn't know what 'real' professionalism was, and are now trying to say that being a professional doesn't gain any respect in your book. Fine. As being a human being doesn't gain people any respect in your book, this is no surprise. Personally, I was taught that, if in doubt, give the uniform or the degree the benefit of the doubt. Again . . . Whatever.
Last but not least, Bully. I find it interesting that on this one, I'm not going to have to eat any crow - you obviously got both of your definitions from the same website I did, but managed to bypass the other four definitions that pretty well agreed with my context. bully 1 (bl) To intimidate with threats and by an overbearing, swaggering demeanor; to act the part of a bully toward. v. bullied, bullying, bullies. To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner. See Synonyms at intimidate. To make (one's way) aggressively. To behave like a bully. To force one's way aggressively or by intimidation:
Which makes, my opinion on that fairly clear. How odd that you missed the other nine definitions from http://www.dictionary.com save for the two that were in completely different contexts. I'm sure that with a little effort, you can find a set of dictionary definitions that allow you to say rudeness is not overbearing and intimidation is not rude. Right. And the president technically never had sex with an intern, by the right defintions. Don't bother, so stipulated. Oh Well, whatever.
The odd part is, looking at your background rather than the single set of posts we're arguing about, none of these terms really apply to you. I confess, I got irritated at what was *one* dumb post being insulting for no particular reason. You seem determined to defend the right to be insulting for no particular reason to the death, and hey, that's fine. You have that right. I in turn have the right to call you on it, and everyone else has the right to moderate both of our posts down to the -34's or so where they belong. How any of this mess got pulled up to 2's and 3's is beyond me, except that people like to rubberneck as I make a moron of myself.
That's it, I'm done with being a goat. Well, till next time.
Pug
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First of all - Unless Andover works differently than most companies I've seen, this lawyer is not paid for giving the opinion slashdot wants to hear. Most lawyers at the corporate level are paid (or more to the point, their firms are paid) on retainer. So yes, he did go the extra mile. As I said "Fight the battles you can win" is reasonable legal advice.
Whore? Doing something immoral for money? I take it that you define studying the law to be in some fashion immoral, in and of iotself, because nothing else this particular person has done (to our knowledge) can be defined as immoral.
Professional? I don't even see your point - the man has a degree, passed the bar, and now gives his expert advice in exchange for valuable considerations. Seems slightly above the scale of pumping gas to me, so attacking either him or me based on our job skills strikes me as a losing argument.
I am not (as it happens) a professional. I am however capable of making my opinion on the basis of logic, not personal attacks, a capacity you seem to lack.
Which bring to mind the question of the hypocrisy you spoke of. Rudeness without cause is, by definition, hypocritical. You strike me as more of a bully, strikinjg outmerely because you think you can get away with it, rather than because you have reason. This strikes me as very similar to another subject close at hand. So yes, I think you are a hypocrite, on three levels. Once for the rudeness, once for the attempt to rationalize it, and once for doing so to a person that is, professionally or not, attempting to protect you from a corp whose mindset seems to so resemble your own.
I've said my piece now - Pug
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I believe this is true in the US as well - I recall that Judges used to be allowed to advise the jury of that fact, a practice that was discontinued.
To be fair, I believe it was discontinued because of a tendency in the South to find people 'not guilty' for civil rights violations during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. A practice I somewhat happier about being discontinued.
Pug
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Oh, I know all that. I just got peeved at the 'dirty lawyer' remark. It struck me as offensive.
That said, you must remember that, although I agree with you that it's in Andovers best interest to fight this and make it clear that they don't play well with bullies, there have been a lot of lawyers that have recommended just the opposite over the years.
"Pick the fights you can win", with the implication that your never sure whether you can win a fight when the laws are new, precedents haven't been set, and the other side has a lot of lawyers and money, is common advice. Even reasonable advice.
Mind you, it's advice that would have kept the US from revolting against England. The King of Denmark would never have issued the statement 'I am my countries first Jew', had he taken that advice. Nor would Ghandi have had the chutzpah to walk down the streets of Delhi after curfew, had he taken it.
But it's reasonable advice. After, reasonable people don't change things.
ever
Pug
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No Problem - You bring up valid points. Points I disagree with, but valid points nonetheless.
As to the 'Right to a return on creative work', I don't think I can distinguish (From a legal pov) the difference between the work of creating something, and the product that flows from that work, and I think it would create more loopholes for the dishonest to steal those products if you were to try. Nor do I think that right to a return implies any responsibility on the part of society to supply a return. Have you ever looked at some of the truly useless items that have been patented by the patent office? I'm not referring to stuff that shouldn't be patented - I'm talking about genuinely new ways to use things, that are nonetheless . . . silly. Or useless. Or Both.
However, no matter how useless it may seem to me, if I find out there's a market for it, and it's still under patent, the person that created it and patented it has a right to say I have to deal with him, rather than just selling them outright.
And that is the 'Right' I am referring to - whatever return there may be on an item, song, whatever - patent and copyright give the creator first rights to that return, and I agree with that. He can sell those rights, license them to a distributor, assign them to the public domain, or license it under the GPL, but for any of those things to have meaning, he must have the rights protected by law first.
I think we both fundamentally agree that the most recent set of IP problems come, not from those rights, which were intended to be strictly limited monopolies, but from the attempts to remove the limitations on those monopolies and extend them in every direction. These extensions do not promote creativity, because all creativity is built on the work that has gone before. Rather they protect traditional channels of distribution at the expense of choking future creativity.
And, to my mind at least, that is the essential problem inherent in the DMCA and the associated laws created by congress.
BTW - Thank you for your responses. I enjoy honing my opinion against the well thought out opinions of others, and I think you qualify - [G]
Pug
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[soapbox] To sit there and use the term 'albeit a filthy lawyer', when the man is bailing out your (and mine, and every other/.'r) ass is just plain rude.
The man is a professional. He also went the extra mile when he could have advised Andover.Net to simply avoid the hassle and overule the Slasdot Editors, and gotten paid the same amount.
Next time insert your brain into the loop between spinal reflex and larnyx. [/soapbox]
Pug - the Rude crude and socially unacceptable
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With all due respect, I must disagree. So long as we live in an essentially capitalist society, the right to a return on the time and energy required to be creative should be honored. If you inherently disagree with capitalism (quite possible), then we have no ground for discussion I'm afraid.
To protect this right, you have to have some form of IP law, and the original forms of copyright law fill that need quite sensibly. Even the fact that the corps can make use of it doesn't invalidate that simple fact - If a person has a right to their IP, then they must by extension have a right to sell those rights to corporations in exchange for whatever they can get.
That said, this most recent set of laws, to make those rights absolute (in violation of long-standing public policy) and extend those rights to perpetuity (In deliberate contravention of the applicable paragraphs of the Constitution), is an abomination and a disgrace upoin out representatives.
Thus my original commentary - Tell your representative that this is going to cost them a vote come next election. Let them know that it's an issue, not just as 'Geeks' (Who they don't care about), but as 'Voters'. It doesn't matter how big the warchest is - if they don't get the votes, they're out a job.
Pug
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1 - Prohibition? Sure it got overturned. After we, as a nation, ignored it and ended up creating organized crime syndicates that kill extort, and corrupt our cities. Sure - That was a great outcome. So glad people didn't stand up for their rights at the time instead of just ignoring the law and creating organized crime. Great example.
2 - Rosa Parks? Sure - that was a good example. If your not counting the lobbying by Dr. King and the creation of organizations like the ACLU and NAACP. Rosa Parks was an effective way of changing the law, because people were already trying to change the law.
3 - 55 mph?. Ummm - ruled unconstitutional. Perhaps your unaware perchance of what the term 'unconstitutional' implies? Someone fighting the law, and forcing it to the Supreme Court? Maybe you've heard of them? Or possibly not . . .
Yes, you made a point, but I don't think it's the point you intended. The point *I* see from your examples is that burying your head in the sand doesn't work. I don't see IP law falling - I support IP law as a rule. Creative people have a right to get a return on the fruits of their labor, and anyone, slashdot or otherwise that cheats people of that return deserves to get burned. Tes, this means you.
But the balance is out of whack, and will go further out of whack until people as group start pushing it back to center. And idiotic calls to stick our heads in the sand (Or possibly elswhere, in your case), will only allow the corps to keep pushing for more restrictive laws and more draconian enforcement. If this country becomes the United Corps of America, I'm willing to fight it. I'd rather simply protect my rights now thankyouverymuch.
Putz
Pug - feeling much better now thank you for asking.
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Oh Yes - All this Communist claptrap, like owning the property you buy. What kinda pinko agenda is that. Next thing you know, people will think they have a right for something in exchange for money and services. Mark my words, if this trend keeps up of people wanting to have rights all the time, the country will go right to hell.
Soon people will think they can criticize corps, will think they can quote from books they own, even (gasp) have the right to play their cd's and dvd's whenever they want to.
And then there goes the neighborhood. Pinko city, every time. Just because their parents could do these things at whim, doesn't mean they can.
A fact we should remember, quite carefully.
Pug
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Oh golly gee willicker's, now I'm not an SF fan but a Sci Fi fan? Or is it the other way around?
So what are the qualifications for upgrading from being a mere lowly Sci Fi fan to being a great and powerful (and arrogant and superficial) SF fan? Inquiring mind want to know.
In the immortal words of Bug Bunny - "Whatta Maroon . .."
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Well, just to get completely off the subject . . .
I cannot entirely agree with your definition, because you are using undefined and undefinable terms. I would not say that god is 'Supernatural' save in the terms of our limited understanding of Nature. Nor can God be both all-powerful and (foe want of a better term) omni-ethical, i.e. incapable of doing evil, another capacity generally ascribed to the divine, If God is perfectly ethical, then God is not all-powerful, because there are things God cannot do.
The point of which is not to argue defintions, but to say that, even with our limited perspective, God can have certain aspects described and conclusions drawn, just as aspects of infinte sets can be derived using the fimite and limited descriptions of mathematics.
Which means of course that God (or aspects of God) is/are not outside the limitations of science. I consider science to be in many ways the study of God through the clues left behind in the art God has allowed us to see. From the limited perspective I have, God is artistic, and prefers the elegant solution to the solution that merely 'works'. God prefers to minimize waste, insuring that energy and matter are never destroyed, merely changed into different forms. God seems to like games of chance, to Einsteins consternation - G.
God may be outside our limited perspective. However the study of God is a detective novel written in mathematics and physics and certain attributes pf the creator can be logically derived by the study of 'the scene of the crime'
Pug
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At least compared to people that take on Einstein. But I don't see how changing this results in no black holes.
I can see how the reduction to a gauge style theory clears up a lot of problems, since it allows a Feynman style cancelation of infinities, which in turn makes it *much* more QM compatible in and of itself. But since the final collapse would still be halted by the strong force (or not), I don't see how this would cause the mass threshold to increase to infinity?
Mind you, if it *does* do so, it explains the 'flat space' findings quite nicely - Space as a whole would be flat because space as a whole has no other options than to be flat.
All right - someone with a degree in this explain it - grin
Pug
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Well, simply put, they're being commonly used to threaten people into giving up their rights. I'm sure the vast majority of C&D orders published in the US are reasonable orders given about reasonable things, but the ones you hear about, and that upset people, are the new 'Cease and Desist unless you can afford a Lawyer for five years to fight US' orders that have become SOP for corporations to get what they want by acting like schoolyard bullies.
roadkillRus.com - Parody site.
verizonreallysucks.com - Criticism site
slashdot.org - you may have heard of them
etc etc etc
Oddly enough, hackers and internet savvy people have generally reached a point by the time we're adults that, hey, we're sick of bullies. Don't know why -:-)
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One of the issues with the Cybersquatting bills is that you can't take a domain name with the intent of holding it from a legitimate user - i.e. I can't buy the domain 'MickeyDees' to get money from McDonalds.
Can this law be used to force companies to give up Domain Names 'Obviously not suited to selling their products' of some sort? I can't possibly accidently type 'Verizonsucks' as a typo - It should be held out for someone willing to use it to criticize Verizon.
The scary thing is, this might actually be a valis interpretation of the law -
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Slashdot Mirror
To synchronize that movement, you have to call him somehow (radio, whatever), and get ready to move both ends at once. Which resolves the paradox your trying to create.
Neither of which explains to me why *this* phenomona can't (In Theory) be used to communicate (information backward in time||at translight speed). This 'Backwards wave' seems to originate at the receiver, and propagate backwards to the sender at FTL speed, arriving when the lightwave originates. While this is not a physical phenomena, it still means I can build (In Priniciple) a waveguide freom here to pluto, pulse a laser down it in morse code, and have someone on pluto with a pad in pencil put down dots'n'dashes when they see the 'backwards' wave start a mere (8lightmin/AU * 40AUs = 320lm/300=) ~1 minute from when I send the message, rather than 5hrs and 20mins, at c.
This seems like translight communication to me. Of course, getting that much cesium to stay in a tube from here to epsilon eridani may be a trick, but in principlae it would work, and therefore break causaulity under relativity.
Pug. Very confused.
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For an assignment, the students were gvien 10 incredibly difficult proofs to do. Penrose and three other students worked together over the week, and managed three of them, with most of the rest of the class being in the same general boat.
After Hawking got back from sports over the week and partying over the weekend, he hit the problems Sunday night. Needless to say, monday his classmate ragged him for not getting the problems done, and Hawking blushed and admitted he hadn't gotten the last one done.
Penrose - 'Suddenly, I realized . . . he wasn't joking. That was when I realized, not only were we not in the same league Stephen was in, we weren't on the same planet Stephen was on'
This is heavily paraphrased of course - Pug
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1) 0.99999999... * 10 = 9.99999999...
2) 9.99999999... - .99999999 = 9.00000000... .999999...
2b) Therefore 9.00000... = 9 *
3a) 9.00000.../9 = .999999 ....
- and
3b) 9.00000.../9 = 1
4) Therefore .999999.... = 1
QED
It's an old trick for converting repeating decimals to fractions - Frankly I'm surprised I remembered it after this many years.
I believe I'll be insufferable with no good cause now - [g]
Pug
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It's easier than that - Infinity +1 = 0, after you account for the infinite number of ones that roll over into the bit bucket.
Unless your dealing in 2's complement notation, where where 0111 ... 111 +1 would roll over to 10000 ... 0000, or negative infinity. so yeah, that should work . . . as long as you remember that the two's complement inifinity is only half the size of the standard inifnity.
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Or so I believe - [g]
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The URL is http://www.urbanlegends.com/
and Fermats last theorem info
As to the theorem itself -
There are no positive integers such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n>2.
I've found a remarkable proof of this fact, but there is not enough space in the margin [of the book] to write it
To summarize the Urban Legends site, Andrew Wiles has tried two different approaches, both of which have significant shortcomings, and both of which are into very esoteric realms of mathematics. The summary starts Both manuscripts have been published. Thousands of people have a read them. About a hundred understand it very well.
For further information, apply to the Annals of Mathematics or Urbanlegends.com
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The claimant had a theory that fell into some really nasty holes in realms of high mathematics that I'm not qualified to think about, never mind explain. Hey, I aced Calculus I, I survived Calc II. Past that I wimp out.
So, if anybody has a good proof of Fermats' last theorem, go for it and get yourself a Fields medal. I've got my own that I haven't managed to prove in twenty years. Of course, I have a prime number generator that I can't prove works too - life sucks - [G].
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JANET acceptable use policy 9.7. deliberate activities with any of the following characteristics: wasting staff effort or networked resources, including time on end systems accessible via JANET and the effort of staff involved in the support of those systems;
To my way of thinking anything that gets me involved with Lawyers and the college bureacracy more than necessary falls under that category
So, by 'your way of thinking', not only is it feasible for an organization to suppress any commentary it finds inconvenient, it is acceptable for it to do so?!? I have to admit - I would be insulted at being ordered to be that spineless, nevermind to publically attempt to rationalize it.
I am sorry, but that's the way that comes across to me. as an attempt to rationalize spineless behavior. I can't get my mind around it any other way.
Pug
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Was this student's protest part of a course related project?
No. Oxford has neither explicit rules nor enforced a policy saying that it was required to be.
Did the student seek permission from officials before using university resources on his own personal, non-school related project?
No. Same deal.
Did any of what the student violate the terms of service (TOS) that all universities now require their students to read and sign and adhere to?
Nope. As, I must point out, mentioned in the article. They looked for a violation of the TOS, and couldn't find it.
Or did he simply take advantage of and abuse free, high bandwidch connections and file server space and waste the resources of the school and work time of its staff, who found themselves with a great mess to clean up after a student executed his 'rights'?
Yep. Just took advantage of the connection to discuss his opinion of the DeCSS case, and publish a parody. Oh - He had a link too. Must'nt forget that tragic abuse of bandwidth.
I would say the resources of the school and work time of the staff were wasted by the MPAA's sending a letter trying to claim that his page, with no infringing material on it at all, somehow infringed upon their copyright, under the definition of a U.S. law. The respect the school has blown in simply knuckling under without the most cursory inspection of the issues has been wasted entirley by the staff of Oxford itself.
None of which was the fault of the student.
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Unfortunately, I haven't seen that it ever went to that point - Oxford removed a page that was not in violation of it's rules, and was not in violation of the law. His page was removed merely because a letter was received, not because an investigation uncovered any illegal action.
Not having any familiarity with how such implied contracts (These are what we will remove pages for, implying pages will not be removed without cause) are enforced under UK law, I don't know if Oxford is in any way liable for it's actions.
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"Rudeness without cause is, by definition, hypocritical." I don't think the word means what you think it means.
hypocrisy (h-pkr-s)
n., pl. hypocrisies.
1.The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2.An act or instance of such falseness.
Your quite right - By that defintion, so long as you hold no beliefs regarding being polite to peole you don't know, such gratuitous rudeness is not being hypocritical. It is only a sign of being born in a barn. I will confess, most people *I* know would consider it Hypopcritical if you apply different standards to yourself than others - this appears to be a more common use definition. However even then your only being hypocritical if you don't mind when people are rude to you without reason. So, if you can honestly say none of the following terms or items bother you, than you are, without a doubt, without hypocrisy in being rude.
Filthy black, spic, jew, wetback, n....r, and bitch. Damn Hackers. People that cut you off in traffic for no good reason. Any other set of daily rude actions that, personally, annoy the *hell* out of me. So I leave that to you.
The context of the term 'whores' seems pretty self-damning to me. You appear to mean either a - lawyers, just on principle, irregardless of who their working for, what they're supporting, etcetera, (You know, being Gratuitously Insulting), or B- Anybody that would take money for their talents from whoever would pay them. Your explanation implies B, but I somehow doubt that you really intend to imply that all programmers are whores in this forum, despite the fact that they (And anyone else that has the misfortune to not be wealthy enough to either work for themselves or pick who they work for) would seem to qualify by that definition. Yay . . .whatever.
Professionals - I still don't know whatinthehell your trying to say there. I merely stated that the man was a professional doing his job, you came back with a statement about my being 'a gas station attendent' implying I didn't know what 'real' professionalism was, and are now trying to say that being a professional doesn't gain any respect in your book. Fine. As being a human being doesn't gain people any respect in your book, this is no surprise. Personally, I was taught that, if in doubt, give the uniform or the degree the benefit of the doubt. Again . . . Whatever.
Last but not least, Bully. I find it interesting that on this one, I'm not going to have to eat any crow - you obviously got both of your definitions from the same website I did, but managed to bypass the other four definitions that pretty well agreed with my context.
bully 1 (bl)
To intimidate with threats and by an overbearing, swaggering demeanor; to act the part of a bully toward.
v. bullied, bullying, bullies.
To treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner. See Synonyms at intimidate.
To make (one's way) aggressively.
To behave like a bully.
To force one's way aggressively or by intimidation:
Which makes, my opinion on that fairly clear. How odd that you missed the other nine definitions from http://www.dictionary.com save for the two that were in completely different contexts. I'm sure that with a little effort, you can find a set of dictionary definitions that allow you to say rudeness is not overbearing and intimidation is not rude. Right. And the president technically never had sex with an intern, by the right defintions. Don't bother, so stipulated. Oh Well, whatever.
The odd part is, looking at your background rather than the single set of posts we're arguing about, none of these terms really apply to you. I confess, I got irritated at what was *one* dumb post being insulting for no particular reason. You seem determined to defend the right to be insulting for no particular reason to the death, and hey, that's fine. You have that right. I in turn have the right to call you on it, and everyone else has the right to moderate both of our posts down to the -34's or so where they belong. How any of this mess got pulled up to 2's and 3's is beyond me, except that people like to rubberneck as I make a moron of myself.
That's it, I'm done with being a goat. Well, till next time.
Pug
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Whore? Doing something immoral for money? I take it that you define studying the law to be in some fashion immoral, in and of iotself, because nothing else this particular person has done (to our knowledge) can be defined as immoral.
Professional? I don't even see your point - the man has a degree, passed the bar, and now gives his expert advice in exchange for valuable considerations. Seems slightly above the scale of pumping gas to me, so attacking either him or me based on our job skills strikes me as a losing argument.
I am not (as it happens) a professional. I am however capable of making my opinion on the basis of logic, not personal attacks, a capacity you seem to lack.
Which bring to mind the question of the hypocrisy you spoke of. Rudeness without cause is, by definition, hypocritical. You strike me as more of a bully, strikinjg outmerely because you think you can get away with it, rather than because you have reason. This strikes me as very similar to another subject close at hand. So yes, I think you are a hypocrite, on three levels. Once for the rudeness, once for the attempt to rationalize it, and once for doing so to a person that is, professionally or not, attempting to protect you from a corp whose mindset seems to so resemble your own.
I've said my piece now - Pug
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To be fair, I believe it was discontinued because of a tendency in the South to find people 'not guilty' for civil rights violations during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. A practice I somewhat happier about being discontinued.
Pug
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That said, you must remember that, although I agree with you that it's in Andovers best interest to fight this and make it clear that they don't play well with bullies, there have been a lot of lawyers that have recommended just the opposite over the years.
"Pick the fights you can win", with the implication that your never sure whether you can win a fight when the laws are new, precedents haven't been set, and the other side has a lot of lawyers and money, is common advice. Even reasonable advice.
Mind you, it's advice that would have kept the US from revolting against England. The King of Denmark would never have issued the statement 'I am my countries first Jew', had he taken that advice. Nor would Ghandi have had the chutzpah to walk down the streets of Delhi after curfew, had he taken it.
But it's reasonable advice. After, reasonable people don't change things.
ever
Pug
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As to the 'Right to a return on creative work', I don't think I can distinguish (From a legal pov) the difference between the work of creating something, and the product that flows from that work, and I think it would create more loopholes for the dishonest to steal those products if you were to try. Nor do I think that right to a return implies any responsibility on the part of society to supply a return. Have you ever looked at some of the truly useless items that have been patented by the patent office? I'm not referring to stuff that shouldn't be patented - I'm talking about genuinely new ways to use things, that are nonetheless . . . silly. Or useless. Or Both.
However, no matter how useless it may seem to me, if I find out there's a market for it, and it's still under patent, the person that created it and patented it has a right to say I have to deal with him, rather than just selling them outright.
And that is the 'Right' I am referring to - whatever return there may be on an item, song, whatever - patent and copyright give the creator first rights to that return, and I agree with that. He can sell those rights, license them to a distributor, assign them to the public domain, or license it under the GPL, but for any of those things to have meaning, he must have the rights protected by law first.
I think we both fundamentally agree that the most recent set of IP problems come, not from those rights, which were intended to be strictly limited monopolies, but from the attempts to remove the limitations on those monopolies and extend them in every direction. These extensions do not promote creativity, because all creativity is built on the work that has gone before. Rather they protect traditional channels of distribution at the expense of choking future creativity.
And, to my mind at least, that is the essential problem inherent in the DMCA and the associated laws created by congress.
BTW - Thank you for your responses. I enjoy honing my opinion against the well thought out opinions of others, and I think you qualify - [G]
Pug
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To sit there and use the term 'albeit a filthy lawyer', when the man is bailing out your (and mine, and every other
The man is a professional. He also went the extra mile when he could have advised Andover.Net to simply avoid the hassle and overule the Slasdot Editors, and gotten paid the same amount.
Next time insert your brain into the loop between spinal reflex and larnyx.
[/soapbox]
Pug - the Rude crude and socially unacceptable
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To protect this right, you have to have some form of IP law, and the original forms of copyright law fill that need quite sensibly. Even the fact that the corps can make use of it doesn't invalidate that simple fact - If a person has a right to their IP, then they must by extension have a right to sell those rights to corporations in exchange for whatever they can get.
That said, this most recent set of laws, to make those rights absolute (in violation of long-standing public policy) and extend those rights to perpetuity (In deliberate contravention of the applicable paragraphs of the Constitution), is an abomination and a disgrace upoin out representatives.
Thus my original commentary - Tell your representative that this is going to cost them a vote come next election. Let them know that it's an issue, not just as 'Geeks' (Who they don't care about), but as 'Voters'. It doesn't matter how big the warchest is - if they don't get the votes, they're out a job.
Pug
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1 - Prohibition? Sure it got overturned. After we, as a nation, ignored it and ended up creating organized crime syndicates that kill extort, and corrupt our cities. Sure - That was a great outcome. So glad people didn't stand up for their rights at the time instead of just ignoring the law and creating organized crime. Great example.
2 - Rosa Parks? Sure - that was a good example. If your not counting the lobbying by Dr. King and the creation of organizations like the ACLU and NAACP. Rosa Parks was an effective way of changing the law, because people were already trying to change the law.
3 - 55 mph?. Ummm - ruled unconstitutional. Perhaps your unaware perchance of what the term 'unconstitutional' implies? Someone fighting the law, and forcing it to the Supreme Court? Maybe you've heard of them? Or possibly not . . .
Yes, you made a point, but I don't think it's the point you intended. The point *I* see from your examples is that burying your head in the sand doesn't work. I don't see IP law falling - I support IP law as a rule. Creative people have a right to get a return on the fruits of their labor, and anyone, slashdot or otherwise that cheats people of that return deserves to get burned. Tes, this means you.
But the balance is out of whack, and will go further out of whack until people as group start pushing it back to center. And idiotic calls to stick our heads in the sand (Or possibly elswhere, in your case), will only allow the corps to keep pushing for more restrictive laws and more draconian enforcement. If this country becomes the United Corps of America, I'm willing to fight it. I'd rather simply protect my rights now thankyouverymuch.
Putz
Pug - feeling much better now thank you for asking.
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Soon people will think they can criticize corps, will think they can quote from books they own, even (gasp) have the right to play their cd's and dvd's whenever they want to.
And then there goes the neighborhood. Pinko city, every time. Just because their parents could do these things at whim, doesn't mean they can.
A fact we should remember, quite carefully.
Pug
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So what are the qualifications for upgrading from being a mere lowly Sci Fi fan to being a great and powerful (and arrogant and superficial) SF fan? Inquiring mind want to know.
In the immortal words of Bug Bunny - "Whatta Maroon . . ."
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I cannot entirely agree with your definition, because you are using undefined and undefinable terms. I would not say that god is 'Supernatural' save in the terms of our limited understanding of Nature. Nor can God be both all-powerful and (foe want of a better term) omni-ethical, i.e. incapable of doing evil, another capacity generally ascribed to the divine, If God is perfectly ethical, then God is not all-powerful, because there are things God cannot do.
The point of which is not to argue defintions, but to say that, even with our limited perspective, God can have certain aspects described and conclusions drawn, just as aspects of infinte sets can be derived using the fimite and limited descriptions of mathematics.
Which means of course that God (or aspects of God) is/are not outside the limitations of science. I consider science to be in many ways the study of God through the clues left behind in the art God has allowed us to see. From the limited perspective I have, God is artistic, and prefers the elegant solution to the solution that merely 'works'. God prefers to minimize waste, insuring that energy and matter are never destroyed, merely changed into different forms. God seems to like games of chance, to Einsteins consternation - G.
God may be outside our limited perspective. However the study of God is a detective novel written in mathematics and physics and certain attributes pf the creator can be logically derived by the study of 'the scene of the crime'
Pug
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I can see how the reduction to a gauge style theory clears up a lot of problems, since it allows a Feynman style cancelation of infinities, which in turn makes it *much* more QM compatible in and of itself. But since the final collapse would still be halted by the strong force (or not), I don't see how this would cause the mass threshold to increase to infinity?
Mind you, if it *does* do so, it explains the 'flat space' findings quite nicely - Space as a whole would be flat because space as a whole has no other options than to be flat.
All right - someone with a degree in this explain it - grin
Pug
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I suppose this should be marked down as redundant, but the way you phrased that irked me . . . I'll just mosey along now.
Pug
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roadkillRus.com - Parody site.
verizonreallysucks.com - Criticism site
slashdot.org - you may have heard of them
etc etc etc
Oddly enough, hackers and internet savvy people have generally reached a point by the time we're adults that, hey, we're sick of bullies. Don't know why - :-)
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Can this law be used to force companies to give up Domain Names 'Obviously not suited to selling their products' of some sort? I can't possibly accidently type 'Verizonsucks' as a typo - It should be held out for someone willing to use it to criticize Verizon.
The scary thing is, this might actually be a valis interpretation of the law -
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