Most of the problems are the result of pandering and the weakening of the integrity and/or will to do things right by those in power, and that includes the voters. Look at the last election we had -- far left against far right. There were several candidates on the Democrat side that could have walked away with the election -- Edwards was probably the lead on that, too. Back in 2000, there were several Republican candidates who would have had a far easier time against Gore than did Bush. But both sides use scare tactics, that if you don't select the party darling, then whoever you do select might do one thing that you don't like, and we can't have that.
There are certain reasons why I have voted for specific people, even though I disagreed with some part of their perspective. I tend to endorse those that favor tighter border control or allowing school vouchers, for example, though these tend to be the same people against abortion or for tighter control of internet content. But I look at what is more likely to happen, and the courts continue to uphold the laws protecting the free speech and abortion rights that I value, and don't look like they're changing their path anytime soon.
I like the idea that I can go to the library and check out Mein Kampf. I'm not a Nazi, but the idea that I can read an unpopular book rather appeals to me. There are significant portions of Europe in which I can't even possess a copy of the book. There are people there -- neo-Nazis, among others -- persecuted for their beliefs, no matter how wrong they are, and I disagree with this practice. The Ku Klux Klan is still active in the US, and while I deplore their core beliefs, I wouldn't even think of stopping them from holding a parade down the local streets, so long as they do it by the same law that limits everyone else regarding time, size, and permits. I may go to the parade and chastise them loudly for their beliefs, but they still have a right to hold them.
I think the main difference (this is changing, though with some resistance) between the US and Europe is that Europeans have always looked to their governments as protectors of the public. I suppose this has some historical basis from before the time of elected governments, but the sentiment never left. The US, on the other hand, decided that it could do things better without a monarch to handle things (and has been more or less correct), and we've tended to rely on ourselves ever since, blocking from the government many of the perceived rights, duties, and responsibilities that European governments take for granted. I'm sure it looks chaotic from the other side of the Atlantic, and it sometimes is, but I doubt we'd easily give it up.
Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church... Everyone. I don't care how powerful the RIAA or MPAA is, they're not more powerful than the rest of the nation's trade industry, and the weight of a few hundred thousand businesses would drown out the record and movie attorneys easily. In order to get rid of encryption, you'd have to return to roughly the technology in use about forty years ago, and no one is going to put up with dealing with the lines required then for things like unemployment, DMV, and taxes. Far too many government agencies are required to make available information to the public, and that information has to be encrypted. You'd end up with around 5000 pages of changes to law, tying up Congress for years, if not decades, just on that.
Believe it or not, the government isn't afraid of you using encryption. The NSA moved off of SHA (yes, I know it's a hash -- it's an example) to SHA-1 several years before the public realized there were issues with it, and they're constantly updating the nation's existing protocols. If necessary, they can get a court order to do a black-bag op to get the password -- the younger Gotti used PGP to encrypt files, but a simple keyboard sniffer grabbed the password (his father's prison ID number, IIRC), and in the operation that planted that, the FBI had snagged the key files.
If they need it from you, they'll get it. Encryption is often the strongest link in a weak chain.
Cold fusion, hot fusion, or the various fission-reactor technologies, I don't care. They're all possibilities, and things we should be moving towards. Even swapping out the entire electrical grid for new reactors would lessen the overall pollution levels, and we could ship all of the waste to one location and pile it up (figuratively speaking), and even after a few centuries, it wouldn't be all that much compared to what we do now.
Or we could allow more breeder reactors and minimize the amount of waste.
And it's been fifty years off for fifty years, kind of like the end of the oil has been fifty years off for at least the last fifty years. However, I know that eventually the oil is going to become economically unviable to recover (even if it is a hundred years from now), while pitchblende is probably only going to get less expensive to mine, especially if the reactor industry gets going again.
I'd like to see fusion reactors, but they may prove too costly for common use for a long time even after the systems work properly. I try to hedge my bets and look for long-term alternatives in case of a lack of breakthrough in that particular branch of research.
Look more closely at what I wrote: U3O8 -- three uranium atoms and eight oxygen atoms, or uranium oxide. That's the most commonly-cited form I've found in terms of ores (though there are various other molecules, I'm sure.
Proven reserves of uranium ore (consisting of U3O8 in combination with varying other elements) are in the millions, possibly billions, of metric tons worldwide. Even at relatively low grades (~2% seems to be a common level), a billion tons of ore would result in some 20 million tons of U3O8, which could be separated and enriched enough to provide power for centuries, especially when combined with breeder reactors that allow existing low-grade material to be enriched which could extend the fuel's useful life to thousands of years. Uranium mining operations are at work at least in the US, China, Australia, and Canada, and I imagine in a number of other nations around the world.
Because I occasionally dabble in this when playing around with code, what is the appropriate method? From some guesswork, it would be to open the original file and put the contents into a copy while leaving the original file locked open and work from the copy, then when done either discard the copy and release the lock, or else save the work to the copy, then when done rename the original slightly different, rename the copy to the original name, and then delete the original.
This sounds like my dad. He thinks that embedded reporters are a bad idea. He also thinks that releasing any information about where our troops are, what they're using, and how they're using it is a bad idea, because the information might get to the enemy.
Kind of odd that he was also very anti-Vietnam and at one time talked about how he deplored how information was being kept from the American people...
Aren't both the Global Hawk and Predator models technically still in testing? My understanding was that they were pushed out into use in a "field evaluation" phase of operations, and that the final production contract has yet to be awarded, though I haven't checked on that in a few months.
Yes, but how much information actually needs to be stored in a passport? And does it need to be encrypted? The point is that RFID can be read from a distance. Even if that distance is under a foot, how many IDs could you grab going through an airport with a low-powered transmitter? Barcodes require the passport be removed from luggage or jacket and the barcode passed under a scanner to be read. No significant risk of ID theft from this method.
I'm a supporter of your position, but it would be nice to get updated annual statistics. The time span over which that graph is presented can really skew things. Some of the information is more than ten years old, and in the last ten years, the homicide rates in the US have dropped preciptously.
Since the UK seems to be the common point of reference here, I went and found the numbers. In the 2002/03 reporting period in the UK, there were 835 crimes classified as homicides (a rate of about 1.58 per 100,000). This number excludes the victims of Dr. Harold Shipman, who was credited in this reporting period with 172 murders previously classified as other causes of death in addition to the 15 of which he was convicted in 2000, as well as 38 other homicides no longer classified as such.
Going back a little ways, in 1995, the homicide count was 663, or 1.30 per 100,000. The next year it dropped tremendously to 585 -- a rate of 1.14, including the Dunblane Massacre. That's a 12.3% drop in the course of a year, something anyone should be proud of, and something that should be researched to find out why the drop happened.
In the wake of the Dunblane Massacre (which happened in March 1996), the UK government reviewed its options, and in 1997 passed a law virtually banning handguns from the UK. Interestingly, that same year, the homicide count moved back up to 610 (1.19 rate), and since then has climbed by 33% in terms of rate and 37% in terms of count. In the meantime, the murder rate (technically "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter") in the US went from 21,606 in 1995 (8.2 per 100,000) to 16,503 in 2003 (5.7 per 100,000), drops of 31% in rate and 24% in count (though there were increases from 2000 in each subsequent year).
There is still a significant disparity, but the directions are also still very different, and much of it can be tracked to certain locations, particularly those where firearms are illegal -- like Washington, DC, the nation's capital, which has a homicide rate of 44. (It's not the worst, by the way. In terms of similar city size, New Orleans has it beat with a rate of 58. I'm not sure what its gun laws are, though.)
RFID makes it inherently insecure. Unencrypted, it allows anyone to read the data. Encrypted, it means you will never know precisely what is encoded in your passport. Unencrypted and containing only information to link to a central database, it means that you will nevr know precisely what is encoded in your passport, and international travel operations come to a complete halt if that database becomes unavailable (crash, telecommunications link outage, whatever).
Barcodes are a far better solution. They can store sometimes amazing amounts of data. Doing a little research, PDF417 stacked linear codes, printable at 100dpi and so fairly robust, can reliably store ~850 bytes of alphanumeric characters and symbols and can include error correction (the specs allow for more, but several sites claim that above this, reading the codes gets problematic). At full size (30 columns by 90 rows with dots of 10 mils wide by 30 mils tall and including some excess size called for in the specs), this results in a code about 2.3cm by 1.1cm -- fairly large, but small enough to fit onto a dedicated page in a passport -- maybe even printed on the back or on the inside front cover for quick access by the customs agent.
This would allow name, country of origin, address, notes on military or government affiliation, immunization, and maybe even a space for optional information desired by the holder, such as allergies and blood type, that could be scanned by a hospital in the destination country should something happen (I don't have a passport myself, so some of this information may already be on it, but you should get the idea). This should be plenty for the basic information, and if tracking information becomes required for each visit, then a printer can be added to each station to allow (much smaller) barcodes to be added, possibly indicating entry and exit dates and information about whatever visas were used and possibly information on if the person is to be let back in (perhaps due to trouble with the law, overstaying a visa, etc).
The advantage here is that the barcode could be read by someone other than customs officials, and one would know exactly what was put in because it would be readable by anyone with a scanner that can read the barcode standard. No worries about someone walking through an airport with a low-powered radio, collecting information about hundreds of people in one pass. Simplicity, practicality, elegance.
Security, actually, presuming they're moving to XP SP2. It's been interesting to watch the last few months of patches from Microsoft, and to see where they go in terms of operating systems. In brief:
Windows 2000 SP4: 5
Windows XP SP1: 7
Windows XP SP2: 1
The one affecting XP SP2 was a cumulative IE update. Generally speaking, XP SP2 is a bit better than the older versions in terms of security. I found the report a couple of days ago that Microsoft will not be making Win2000 SP5 to be rather disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. I was looking forward to seeing all of the major supported projects updated with the new anti-buffer-overflow code.
Now, I will add that I know about the flaws that Secunia, et al, have reported in all versions of Windows, and I'm not saying Microsoft is better on security, and their patch management frankly sucks. However, there has to be something else going on here if more than a handful of PCs -- even as a fraction -- were damaged by this. My guess is that some driver or other universal customized aspect of the system doesn't play nicely with XP and caused the problem. If you had 60,000 Linux machines and sent out an update that caused a critical driver to crash and that caused a kernel panic, you'd have a similar situation. (Of course, you could also have a generic kernel in place to choose instead of the default just in case, but that's not in Microsoft's nature to provide.)
Wanna swap media? Ours would be all over this kind of thing there, and we need some media who are willing to point out the illegal immigration problem here.
This brings up my one major complaint about Firefox, and that's the dumbing-down of the options. It's fine that the options are simplified for those that don't like to tinker, but how about an Advanced button for those of us who do like to tweak things?
Whether you consider EULAs to be contracts is irrelevant. The law may say otherwise, and the courts are the deciding arbiter. If they are found to be binding, then you've accepted all of the limitations, rights, and responsibilities that have been legally assigned to you when you accepted those contracts.
Contracts are subject to the law. If a contract provision contravenes the law, then that portion (and if poorly written, perhaps the entire contract) is invalid. If the license states that you cannot reverse-engineer it, then you are legally prohibited from doing so, unless the law allows for it (which I believe it does for certain purposes, but not for all).
The EULA is the contract. Software companies are largely nervous about testing the validity of click-through licenses, because there's no signature on the bottom line. Existing software license violation prosecutions are almost entirely based on large-scale purchases where there is a signature on the contract because these are far easier to win. I'm not sure there are any states where EULAs are specifically stated to be invalid; I can't imagine any company selling their software in those states.
The GPL grants permission for you to _redistribute_ the software, as long as you adhere to the requirements. You can use & modify the software all you want without agreeing to the GPL, but if you don't agree to the GPL's terms, then under normal copyright law, you are not allowed to redistribute the product.
That's what I said. 'You can modify the software, provided you adhere to certain requirements.' Spelling out for you what I thought was clearly implied, those requirements include providing information on which files have changed, naming the original author(s), and making available the source code if you intend to redistribute it. Those requirements do not apply if you do not intend to redistribute it.
You're buying the media, but not the words. The ownership of the words contained therein remain with someone else. You cannot sell them as your own, though you can sell the media. There is an implied agreement between purchaser (you) and seller (ultimately the copyright holder) that you will not break copyright law and use it inappropriately.
When you buy software, you are buying licenses to use the software. This is most easily seen at the corporate level, where one copy of the media is bought and then 5 or 10 or 10,000 licenses to use it are bought. Even the GPL (GNU General Public License) refers to granting permission (via the license) for you to modify the software, provided you adhere to certain requirements.
The only way you are can truly "buy software" is to purchase the ownership rights of the software. Short of that, you do buy licenses, as stipulated by the license agreements to which you agree when you install the software.
The engine has to conserve that heat to keep itself running before it can let you feel any of it, which is why your heater never seems to kick in until you're already half-way to work.
Maybe yours does, but not mine. Mine heats up inside of two minutes to toasty temperatures. Gotta love small-block V8s.:)
I doubt it. At that time, the NASA environment was one where they were more than willing to take the blame for things (unlike now, where they try to point in all directions to spread the blame out thinner than a nanotube blanket). Apollo 13 could have been blamed on Russian sabotage, but the blame was squarely placed inside the United States.
So where do you park your 747 when at home and when at work? And did your employer pay to have the 6000-foot runway installed, or did you have to come up with that one on your own?
Being both pedantic and out-of-context at the same time really limits your validity.
It could potential interfere with the US military's superiority in this field, and what the Pentagon wants, it gets.
It has nothing to do with the Pentagon.
Sen Inofe from Oklahoma held it up because the definition of a suborbital rocket ("`suborbital rocket' means a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of its flight") could be read to mean that Rocketplane, a venture in his state, would fall under the FAA's regulatory power and probably kill it because the FAA would treat it as a commercial craft which would be too expensive. Rocketplane's design uses jet engines for most of the flight, with rockets only for the suborbital portion. A minor wording change could fix it, something like, "`suborbital rocket' means a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory for at least a portion of its flight whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of the suborbital phase of its flight" (my alterations in italics). Even something this small takes time to make the rounds, though.
There are also concerns about requiring passengers, for now, to sign away all liability. The ventures want this -- they don't want to see their early multi-million dollar investments in what is clearly a young, risky, and dangerous venture crushed by one bad flight that results in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. Opponents are concerned that this will allow them to take too many risks and cavalierly treat their customers as cash sources who don't have to be paid back later on, skimping on their safety. Both sides have valid points, and both sides want to reach a middle ground, which will almost certainly happen, but with all of the other things happening in the presidential election year, it just never got moved forward fast enough.
It's still on the schedule, and will probably pass next year, if only to keep Virgin Galactic from including Virgin Atlantic flights out of the country with its ticket packages.
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Most of the problems are the result of pandering and the weakening of the integrity and/or will to do things right by those in power, and that includes the voters. Look at the last election we had -- far left against far right. There were several candidates on the Democrat side that could have walked away with the election -- Edwards was probably the lead on that, too. Back in 2000, there were several Republican candidates who would have had a far easier time against Gore than did Bush. But both sides use scare tactics, that if you don't select the party darling, then whoever you do select might do one thing that you don't like, and we can't have that.
There are certain reasons why I have voted for specific people, even though I disagreed with some part of their perspective. I tend to endorse those that favor tighter border control or allowing school vouchers, for example, though these tend to be the same people against abortion or for tighter control of internet content. But I look at what is more likely to happen, and the courts continue to uphold the laws protecting the free speech and abortion rights that I value, and don't look like they're changing their path anytime soon.
I like the idea that I can go to the library and check out Mein Kampf. I'm not a Nazi, but the idea that I can read an unpopular book rather appeals to me. There are significant portions of Europe in which I can't even possess a copy of the book. There are people there -- neo-Nazis, among others -- persecuted for their beliefs, no matter how wrong they are, and I disagree with this practice. The Ku Klux Klan is still active in the US, and while I deplore their core beliefs, I wouldn't even think of stopping them from holding a parade down the local streets, so long as they do it by the same law that limits everyone else regarding time, size, and permits. I may go to the parade and chastise them loudly for their beliefs, but they still have a right to hold them.
I think the main difference (this is changing, though with some resistance) between the US and Europe is that Europeans have always looked to their governments as protectors of the public. I suppose this has some historical basis from before the time of elected governments, but the sentiment never left. The US, on the other hand, decided that it could do things better without a monarch to handle things (and has been more or less correct), and we've tended to rely on ourselves ever since, blocking from the government many of the perceived rights, duties, and responsibilities that European governments take for granted. I'm sure it looks chaotic from the other side of the Atlantic, and it sometimes is, but I doubt we'd easily give it up.
Never going to happen.
Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church... Everyone. I don't care how powerful the RIAA or MPAA is, they're not more powerful than the rest of the nation's trade industry, and the weight of a few hundred thousand businesses would drown out the record and movie attorneys easily. In order to get rid of encryption, you'd have to return to roughly the technology in use about forty years ago, and no one is going to put up with dealing with the lines required then for things like unemployment, DMV, and taxes. Far too many government agencies are required to make available information to the public, and that information has to be encrypted. You'd end up with around 5000 pages of changes to law, tying up Congress for years, if not decades, just on that.
Believe it or not, the government isn't afraid of you using encryption. The NSA moved off of SHA (yes, I know it's a hash -- it's an example) to SHA-1 several years before the public realized there were issues with it, and they're constantly updating the nation's existing protocols. If necessary, they can get a court order to do a black-bag op to get the password -- the younger Gotti used PGP to encrypt files, but a simple keyboard sniffer grabbed the password (his father's prison ID number, IIRC), and in the operation that planted that, the FBI had snagged the key files.
If they need it from you, they'll get it. Encryption is often the strongest link in a weak chain.
Cold fusion, hot fusion, or the various fission-reactor technologies, I don't care. They're all possibilities, and things we should be moving towards. Even swapping out the entire electrical grid for new reactors would lessen the overall pollution levels, and we could ship all of the waste to one location and pile it up (figuratively speaking), and even after a few centuries, it wouldn't be all that much compared to what we do now.
Or we could allow more breeder reactors and minimize the amount of waste.
And it's been fifty years off for fifty years, kind of like the end of the oil has been fifty years off for at least the last fifty years. However, I know that eventually the oil is going to become economically unviable to recover (even if it is a hundred years from now), while pitchblende is probably only going to get less expensive to mine, especially if the reactor industry gets going again.
I'd like to see fusion reactors, but they may prove too costly for common use for a long time even after the systems work properly. I try to hedge my bets and look for long-term alternatives in case of a lack of breakthrough in that particular branch of research.
Look more closely at what I wrote: U3O8 -- three uranium atoms and eight oxygen atoms, or uranium oxide. That's the most commonly-cited form I've found in terms of ores (though there are various other molecules, I'm sure.
Proven reserves of uranium ore (consisting of U3O8 in combination with varying other elements) are in the millions, possibly billions, of metric tons worldwide. Even at relatively low grades (~2% seems to be a common level), a billion tons of ore would result in some 20 million tons of U3O8, which could be separated and enriched enough to provide power for centuries, especially when combined with breeder reactors that allow existing low-grade material to be enriched which could extend the fuel's useful life to thousands of years. Uranium mining operations are at work at least in the US, China, Australia, and Canada, and I imagine in a number of other nations around the world.
Because I occasionally dabble in this when playing around with code, what is the appropriate method? From some guesswork, it would be to open the original file and put the contents into a copy while leaving the original file locked open and work from the copy, then when done either discard the copy and release the lock, or else save the work to the copy, then when done rename the original slightly different, rename the copy to the original name, and then delete the original.
Is that right, or did I miss or add something?
This sounds like my dad. He thinks that embedded reporters are a bad idea. He also thinks that releasing any information about where our troops are, what they're using, and how they're using it is a bad idea, because the information might get to the enemy.
Kind of odd that he was also very anti-Vietnam and at one time talked about how he deplored how information was being kept from the American people...
Aren't both the Global Hawk and Predator models technically still in testing? My understanding was that they were pushed out into use in a "field evaluation" phase of operations, and that the final production contract has yet to be awarded, though I haven't checked on that in a few months.
They did to many, because many of them are the same models (or very nearly so) as those issued to the soldiers.
Yes, but how much information actually needs to be stored in a passport? And does it need to be encrypted? The point is that RFID can be read from a distance. Even if that distance is under a foot, how many IDs could you grab going through an airport with a low-powered transmitter? Barcodes require the passport be removed from luggage or jacket and the barcode passed under a scanner to be read. No significant risk of ID theft from this method.
Those first two look surprisingly similar... Is this some kind of new information stealthing technology?
I'm a supporter of your position, but it would be nice to get updated annual statistics. The time span over which that graph is presented can really skew things. Some of the information is more than ten years old, and in the last ten years, the homicide rates in the US have dropped preciptously.
Since the UK seems to be the common point of reference here, I went and found the numbers. In the 2002/03 reporting period in the UK, there were 835 crimes classified as homicides (a rate of about 1.58 per 100,000). This number excludes the victims of Dr. Harold Shipman, who was credited in this reporting period with 172 murders previously classified as other causes of death in addition to the 15 of which he was convicted in 2000, as well as 38 other homicides no longer classified as such.
Going back a little ways, in 1995, the homicide count was 663, or 1.30 per 100,000. The next year it dropped tremendously to 585 -- a rate of 1.14, including the Dunblane Massacre. That's a 12.3% drop in the course of a year, something anyone should be proud of, and something that should be researched to find out why the drop happened.
In the wake of the Dunblane Massacre (which happened in March 1996), the UK government reviewed its options, and in 1997 passed a law virtually banning handguns from the UK. Interestingly, that same year, the homicide count moved back up to 610 (1.19 rate), and since then has climbed by 33% in terms of rate and 37% in terms of count. In the meantime, the murder rate (technically "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter") in the US went from 21,606 in 1995 (8.2 per 100,000) to 16,503 in 2003 (5.7 per 100,000), drops of 31% in rate and 24% in count (though there were increases from 2000 in each subsequent year).
There is still a significant disparity, but the directions are also still very different, and much of it can be tracked to certain locations, particularly those where firearms are illegal -- like Washington, DC, the nation's capital, which has a homicide rate of 44. (It's not the worst, by the way. In terms of similar city size, New Orleans has it beat with a rate of 58. I'm not sure what its gun laws are, though.)
RFID makes it inherently insecure. Unencrypted, it allows anyone to read the data. Encrypted, it means you will never know precisely what is encoded in your passport. Unencrypted and containing only information to link to a central database, it means that you will nevr know precisely what is encoded in your passport, and international travel operations come to a complete halt if that database becomes unavailable (crash, telecommunications link outage, whatever).
Barcodes are a far better solution. They can store sometimes amazing amounts of data. Doing a little research, PDF417 stacked linear codes, printable at 100dpi and so fairly robust, can reliably store ~850 bytes of alphanumeric characters and symbols and can include error correction (the specs allow for more, but several sites claim that above this, reading the codes gets problematic). At full size (30 columns by 90 rows with dots of 10 mils wide by 30 mils tall and including some excess size called for in the specs), this results in a code about 2.3cm by 1.1cm -- fairly large, but small enough to fit onto a dedicated page in a passport -- maybe even printed on the back or on the inside front cover for quick access by the customs agent.
This would allow name, country of origin, address, notes on military or government affiliation, immunization, and maybe even a space for optional information desired by the holder, such as allergies and blood type, that could be scanned by a hospital in the destination country should something happen (I don't have a passport myself, so some of this information may already be on it, but you should get the idea). This should be plenty for the basic information, and if tracking information becomes required for each visit, then a printer can be added to each station to allow (much smaller) barcodes to be added, possibly indicating entry and exit dates and information about whatever visas were used and possibly information on if the person is to be let back in (perhaps due to trouble with the law, overstaying a visa, etc).
The advantage here is that the barcode could be read by someone other than customs officials, and one would know exactly what was put in because it would be readable by anyone with a scanner that can read the barcode standard. No worries about someone walking through an airport with a low-powered radio, collecting information about hundreds of people in one pass. Simplicity, practicality, elegance.
The one affecting XP SP2 was a cumulative IE update. Generally speaking, XP SP2 is a bit better than the older versions in terms of security. I found the report a couple of days ago that Microsoft will not be making Win2000 SP5 to be rather disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. I was looking forward to seeing all of the major supported projects updated with the new anti-buffer-overflow code.
Now, I will add that I know about the flaws that Secunia, et al, have reported in all versions of Windows, and I'm not saying Microsoft is better on security, and their patch management frankly sucks. However, there has to be something else going on here if more than a handful of PCs -- even as a fraction -- were damaged by this. My guess is that some driver or other universal customized aspect of the system doesn't play nicely with XP and caused the problem. If you had 60,000 Linux machines and sent out an update that caused a critical driver to crash and that caused a kernel panic, you'd have a similar situation. (Of course, you could also have a generic kernel in place to choose instead of the default just in case, but that's not in Microsoft's nature to provide.)
Wanna swap media? Ours would be all over this kind of thing there, and we need some media who are willing to point out the illegal immigration problem here.
This brings up my one major complaint about Firefox, and that's the dumbing-down of the options. It's fine that the options are simplified for those that don't like to tinker, but how about an Advanced button for those of us who do like to tweak things?
Whether you consider EULAs to be contracts is irrelevant. The law may say otherwise, and the courts are the deciding arbiter. If they are found to be binding, then you've accepted all of the limitations, rights, and responsibilities that have been legally assigned to you when you accepted those contracts.
Contracts are subject to the law. If a contract provision contravenes the law, then that portion (and if poorly written, perhaps the entire contract) is invalid. If the license states that you cannot reverse-engineer it, then you are legally prohibited from doing so, unless the law allows for it (which I believe it does for certain purposes, but not for all).
The EULA is the contract. Software companies are largely nervous about testing the validity of click-through licenses, because there's no signature on the bottom line. Existing software license violation prosecutions are almost entirely based on large-scale purchases where there is a signature on the contract because these are far easier to win. I'm not sure there are any states where EULAs are specifically stated to be invalid; I can't imagine any company selling their software in those states.
The GPL grants permission for you to _redistribute_ the software, as long as you adhere to the requirements. You can use & modify the software all you want without agreeing to the GPL, but if you don't agree to the GPL's terms, then under normal copyright law, you are not allowed to redistribute the product.
That's what I said. 'You can modify the software, provided you adhere to certain requirements.' Spelling out for you what I thought was clearly implied, those requirements include providing information on which files have changed, naming the original author(s), and making available the source code if you intend to redistribute it. Those requirements do not apply if you do not intend to redistribute it.
You're buying the media, but not the words. The ownership of the words contained therein remain with someone else. You cannot sell them as your own, though you can sell the media. There is an implied agreement between purchaser (you) and seller (ultimately the copyright holder) that you will not break copyright law and use it inappropriately.
When you buy software, you are buying licenses to use the software. This is most easily seen at the corporate level, where one copy of the media is bought and then 5 or 10 or 10,000 licenses to use it are bought. Even the GPL (GNU General Public License) refers to granting permission (via the license) for you to modify the software, provided you adhere to certain requirements.
The only way you are can truly "buy software" is to purchase the ownership rights of the software. Short of that, you do buy licenses, as stipulated by the license agreements to which you agree when you install the software.
The engine has to conserve that heat to keep itself running before it can let you feel any of it, which is why your heater never seems to kick in until you're already half-way to work.
:)
Maybe yours does, but not mine. Mine heats up inside of two minutes to toasty temperatures. Gotta love small-block V8s.
Especially since the car weighs 2400 kilograms -- a bit heavy for a coupe.
I doubt it. At that time, the NASA environment was one where they were more than willing to take the blame for things (unlike now, where they try to point in all directions to spread the blame out thinner than a nanotube blanket). Apollo 13 could have been blamed on Russian sabotage, but the blame was squarely placed inside the United States.
So where do you park your 747 when at home and when at work? And did your employer pay to have the 6000-foot runway installed, or did you have to come up with that one on your own?
Being both pedantic and out-of-context at the same time really limits your validity.
It could potential interfere with the US military's superiority in this field, and what the Pentagon wants, it gets.
It has nothing to do with the Pentagon.
Sen Inofe from Oklahoma held it up because the definition of a suborbital rocket ("`suborbital rocket' means a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of its flight") could be read to mean that Rocketplane, a venture in his state, would fall under the FAA's regulatory power and probably kill it because the FAA would treat it as a commercial craft which would be too expensive. Rocketplane's design uses jet engines for most of the flight, with rockets only for the suborbital portion. A minor wording change could fix it, something like, "`suborbital rocket' means a rocket-propelled vehicle intended for flight on a suborbital trajectory for at least a portion of its flight whose thrust is greater than its lift for the majority of the powered portion of the suborbital phase of its flight" (my alterations in italics). Even something this small takes time to make the rounds, though.
There are also concerns about requiring passengers, for now, to sign away all liability. The ventures want this -- they don't want to see their early multi-million dollar investments in what is clearly a young, risky, and dangerous venture crushed by one bad flight that results in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits. Opponents are concerned that this will allow them to take too many risks and cavalierly treat their customers as cash sources who don't have to be paid back later on, skimping on their safety. Both sides have valid points, and both sides want to reach a middle ground, which will almost certainly happen, but with all of the other things happening in the presidential election year, it just never got moved forward fast enough.
It's still on the schedule, and will probably pass next year, if only to keep Virgin Galactic from including Virgin Atlantic flights out of the country with its ticket packages.