Why? Because there is NO work-alike in the Windows world. What do I mean by that? Well, occasionally, you'll end up with a new-to-UNIX user who remembers DOS, or has used a terminal-based app before at work. What have they probably never seen before? ncurses. You are throwing them right into the fire, and giving them nothing that looks familiar to work with.
Have you bothered looking at your BIOS configuration screen lately? That's pretty similar, and I think many people have seen that screen on their windows based pc.
I don't mean that people who have never configured their BIOS should also not install a new OS, but I'm just giving a counter-example that proves your statement was wrong. Make whatever logical conclusion you want from it.
Re:A fertile mule does not mean a fertile mind.
on
Mule Gives Birth
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Yeah! And what's the deal with this mule having a thumb? Where'd she get that from?
So basically the poster is cutting off his nose to spite his face?
--
This post is released under the GPL. Is yours?
Well, when you put it that way, it makes me wonder why you'd use a GPL'ed web browser when you can just use Internet Explorer. You limit the sites that you can visit by picking anything else.
Yeah... let's just hit stuff with lighting... THAT works well.
I guess you've never seen "Back to the Future"!;-)
And when we play Quake 3, I'll hang on to the lightning gun, and you can just have the gauntlet.
Tesla coils (haha, funny joke) were groundbreaking because they managed to place electricity in a usable form that didn't require a wire. Blowing wind across a room doesn't count either - you'd need a generator to convert it then.
I think you're pissed that your version of wireless power has wires, while mine doesn't. You seem to believe that electrical power is the only kind of power, but I still bet you'd run to the storm cellar during a tornado!
BTW Joe... exactly what is it that you accelerated into? It appears to have had an impact on your logic. (yeah, a pun, no kidding)
I guess you could say that I accelerated into slashdot with my Mega-Cool low User ID, and yes, hanging around here that long might have a lasting impact on my brain functionality. Duh! Oh well, at least you got in within the first 200000 users!
I'm sorry to respond, but it is just a pet peeve of mine when people correct me and I am not wrong. (You said "Sorry to spell it out for you") Perhaps you meant to respond to another post, but I don't think so. Anybody who has made one of those old style transistor radios knows about turning RF engergy into electrical energy.
But, if that's the case, then every transformer on the planet is using "wireless power". You see, you're making the definition broader than most EEs would agree with, but my whole point was that it is shortsighted to say that the only power is that which we have already gotten into our wires. Everybody already knows about what you're saying, and you add nothing to the discussion.
I should have just left it at that, but you corrected me, and your comment was based on a poor reading of my comment. It's just annoying when people do that. Have a nice day.
you could always invent wireless power... just a thought
Tesla so beat him to that...
Really? No wires at all? I hope you're not talking about a Tesla coil! Otherwise, what is it a coil of?
At any rate, wireless power exists everywhere, even before Tesla. It's in T-storms with their lightning. It's in the water. It's in the wind. It's in the earth, the sun, and all atoms. And that's just the stuff we can get at right now! Wait until someone makes a Dyson sphere!
My question is, why can't XVID enforce the GPL by taking the code they've decompiled, diff it, and keep what they want?
From the GPL:
Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
Unless you assert that the preferred way of making modifications to the codec is to alter the machine language of the program, then decompile it, etc., then XVID cannot "enforce" the GPL in that way.
You see, in order to "enforce" the GPL, you have to make sure that those who use your work also comply with your copyright notice. Any amount of extra work will not fix whether or not the jackasses at Sigma are complying with the GPL.
But really, what are the chances you have an earth shattering discovery to reveal if you can't even use Google?
Edison and Da Vinci never used Google. But seriously, if an invention is basic and profound enough, you might invent it in some sort of absense of modern technology. Don't just say it can't be done.
Funny... some people might say the same of your overexaggeration. It is perfectly acceptable for me to say, "That Anonymous Coward is a real dumb-ass." Oh, are you saying that context matters? Well, I didn't see that exception in your post, so you've called me an idiot. In that case, since my new label is unfounded, I'll just tell you to "Go to Hell!"
You didn't even mention that he used "it's" instead of "its". That one always makes my hair stand on end! What about using "understand's" instead of "understands"? Or wait... Could the AC have been... No! He can't be joking! Never! Aaah!
Just going to class is OK, but the absolute best advice I can give is to go in, and sit front row, slightly off center. People might get the wrong impression out of you, but you have time out of class to change their minds. If you sit front row, slightly off center, it is nearly impossible to get into a conversation during class, or to sleep. You're forcing yourself to pay close attention. Plus, by sitting off center, you won't be blocked by any projectors or other props. Plus, if you go to your professor later (about grades or a test or something), he will recognize you, and you'll be in a much better situation.
I agree with your opinion on Franklin, however. I just chose him as an example.
Great. Then, I think we're in total agreement. Actually, I have a selfish desire in myself that someday I should invent something that makes life better for the human race somehow (vague, but still a desire). I believe that if I did this, and came back in a million years, and everybody claimed someone else made my invention, I would certainly be dismayed to some degree. It would probably still feel good just to know I made a difference, though I probably would have preferred it if people didn't remember who the inventor was, rather than attributing it to someone else.
What can I say? I'm just simply not as good as the unnamed inventor (that I theorize to exist) who didn't care to be credited at all. (C'mon, I just imagine that there's got to be someone somewhere like that, for some kind of invention, no matter how small!)
You can't prove your point, and I can't disprove your point because there are no well-known inventors who aren't famous. I think it is implicit in your argument that if they've ever received credit for their invention, then they have profited from it in that way. Otherwise, what does Benjamin Franklin's fame have to do with it, since he's been dead for hundreds of years, and cannot possibly actively use it. Of course, he also had much fame during his life, so why would he possibly need to invent an instrument like this one, just for the fame of it? Or if you believe it was a particularly famous invention, then why the next invention of his, or the next?
I think Benjamin Franklin just had an inventive mind, and the excitement was in the creation, rather than the profit, or even the credit, although these are both possibly bonuses. And of course, now we're just talking about my opinions, which almost has to be the case, barring any psychological studies that I would have to look up and cite just to make any conclusive points.
Re:Communism? No, this is the 'meaning of life'
on
Franklin's Glass Armonica
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
wackybrit said:
someone wants to steal from you.
Good luck stealing from Benjamin Franklin. You can't steal an idea if the originator is giving it away for free. The fact that you cannot even see it from Franklin's point of view is related to the short-sightedness of your point. Sure, there are bad apples, but what happens when the idea generator happens to be one of the best apples ever?
There are many intelligent people out there who are not motivated purely by greed. You might want to look "Richard Stallman" up on the internet. Do you think the greed of others has kept his inventions from having a profound effect on the world? Sure, he may not be rich, but I think he is getting just about everything he wants from life.
I'm usually not opposed to mass-marketing scientific information by filtering it so that more people can reasonably understand it, but evolution is a clear exception for me.
My wife used to teach a high school science class, and many of the students (many of whom were admittedly biased against learning evolution because of their religious parents) had such a mass media education in this field that they couldn't separate the "obvious" truth from the mass-marketed "truth". So, in this case, the misinformation that is spread is possibly misleading generations of people. And just think about the impact on those who have never taken a science class, but regularly vote, for instance.
I think it would be in everybody's best interest if they would drop this metaphor in favor of the truth.
Why do I hate telephone company extortion? If you start with the B.S. of having to pay extra *not* to be listed in the phone book, and you end here, where you have to pay (probably a lot) extra for a service that only blocks telemarketers for as long as very few people use the system. We need to really fight back instead of using the passive system.
Otherwise, imagine the distant future... Picard standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, which is engaged with several Romulan warships. Suddenly, his communicator chimes in, "Smith to Picard" (notice how he has to use his name).
Picard: What is it? Make it fast!
Smith: I'd like to tell you about something very exciting! Is your love life becoming stale? Do you no longer satisfy all of your partner's needs? You can save big on our new "Transporter Assisted" penis enlargement procedure!
Picard: (thinking) If only we'd gotten rid of Communi-marketers in the 21st century!
It simply bothers me when people "correct" others when no correction was necessary. It's like when Homer Simpson insists to the admiral that it's pronounced "Nucular". Call it a pet peave of mine.
Anyways, the real point of my post was to show the unusual thought process you used. The quesiton was whether a system could generate enough power. You corrected the second poster's "Yes" to a qualified "No". Then, you said the real answer is yes, but only in the future, just like the second poster said. That makes two times that you corrected something to a less correct state.
My rant at the end is just an explanation as to why one of your corrections was not perfectly correct. Umm... well, my first paragraph reflects how I was feeling at the time, but I didn't really mean it to be so personally offensive. Sorry about that.
Would the system be able to generate enough energy to control itself, and have excess power to give away?
The easy answer is "Yes". Fusion reactions create an amazing amount of energy
The origional poster was correct, a huge amount of energy is used to initiate/control this reaction. Fusion reactions do release (not create) an amazing amount of energy Wow! You caught him saying that fusion reactions create energy instead of releasing energy! Good one! Then you go on to say that the real answer is "no", and the theoretical and fact based answer is "yes", and you "don't doubt" it. You really didn't have anything to add other than the create/release quote which any first year physics student would understand.
The funny thing is that, in my estimation, although you're specifically right, so is the second poster, as we all know the famous equation relating matter and energy. Even though we understand that matter and energy are related on such a level that a fusion reaction doesn't exactly create energy, and it does release energy (just as anything which hypothetically created energy under the same circumstances would, were it possible), but the closest word of the two to the actual happenings is actually "create" and not "release". Nobody human has ever "created" something where there was nothing, so create does not have the semantic meaning you think it does. Be careful when correcting someone with a lesser word.
"Release" is so general as to almost be meaningless in the case of energy from fission reactions. "Create", while at the very lowest level being inappropriate, in the sense of the laws of conservation, is much more specifically correct than "release", and people generally understand it to be so.
Yeah, and if you'd read the rest of the comment, you'd see that Sarge admits the address refers to his machine. Congrats on exposing the seamy underbelly of the first half of the comment.
Re:Where are the programs?
on
Is RPM Doomed?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
update-menus is in the "menu" package. Once, I forgot to install it, and I had a terrible time trying to figure out why my menus were all horrible!
It usually gets installed in the installation process, unless you're trying to do something weird, like doing the initial install with apt-get instead of dselect.
Re:Where are the programs?
on
Is RPM Doomed?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
You wrote:
Where was the program?
It was not in the K menu.
It was not on the desktop.
It was lost.
Modern poetry?
Anyways, I'd just love to point out that debian has a system in place for this. There is a beautiful program called update-menus. Almost every debian package supports it, and it allows menus to be consistent through every desktop environment.
There's a utility called alien
on
Is RPM Doomed?
·
· Score: 2
You wrote:
I've never had a problem locating a.rpm though.
Then you should look into a program called alien. I've used it to install some things that didn't even have public source (like ViaVoice from IBM). It was totally painless. Too bad you gave up on Debian so soon.:-(
You might want to start taking that medication again, Buddy. A spell checker wouldn't hurt, either.
I take it as a compliment that you can't verbalize an opinion without name calling. However, at that point, you've already lost. You didn't even argue on topic. Thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you bothered looking at your BIOS configuration screen lately? That's pretty similar, and I think many people have seen that screen on their windows based pc.
I don't mean that people who have never configured their BIOS should also not install a new OS, but I'm just giving a counter-example that proves your statement was wrong. Make whatever logical conclusion you want from it.
Yeah! And what's the deal with this mule having a thumb? Where'd she get that from?
I hope you now see the flaw in your logic.
And when we play Quake 3, I'll hang on to the lightning gun, and you can just have the gauntlet.
I think you're pissed that your version of wireless power has wires, while mine doesn't. You seem to believe that electrical power is the only kind of power, but I still bet you'd run to the storm cellar during a tornado! I guess you could say that I accelerated into slashdot with my Mega-Cool low User ID, and yes, hanging around here that long might have a lasting impact on my brain functionality. Duh! Oh well, at least you got in within the first 200000 users!But, if that's the case, then every transformer on the planet is using "wireless power". You see, you're making the definition broader than most EEs would agree with, but my whole point was that it is shortsighted to say that the only power is that which we have already gotten into our wires. Everybody already knows about what you're saying, and you add nothing to the discussion.
I should have just left it at that, but you corrected me, and your comment was based on a poor reading of my comment. It's just annoying when people do that. Have a nice day.
At any rate, wireless power exists everywhere, even before Tesla. It's in T-storms with their lightning. It's in the water. It's in the wind. It's in the earth, the sun, and all atoms. And that's just the stuff we can get at right now! Wait until someone makes a Dyson sphere!
Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
Unless you assert that the preferred way of making modifications to the codec is to alter the machine language of the program, then decompile it, etc., then XVID cannot "enforce" the GPL in that way.
You see, in order to "enforce" the GPL, you have to make sure that those who use your work also comply with your copyright notice. Any amount of extra work will not fix whether or not the jackasses at Sigma are complying with the GPL.
You didn't even mention that he used "it's" instead of "its". That one always makes my hair stand on end! What about using "understand's" instead of "understands"? Or wait... Could the AC have been... No! He can't be joking! Never! Aaah!
What can I say? I'm just simply not as good as the unnamed inventor (that I theorize to exist) who didn't care to be credited at all. (C'mon, I just imagine that there's got to be someone somewhere like that, for some kind of invention, no matter how small!)
I think Benjamin Franklin just had an inventive mind, and the excitement was in the creation, rather than the profit, or even the credit, although these are both possibly bonuses. And of course, now we're just talking about my opinions, which almost has to be the case, barring any psychological studies that I would have to look up and cite just to make any conclusive points.
There are many intelligent people out there who are not motivated purely by greed. You might want to look "Richard Stallman" up on the internet. Do you think the greed of others has kept his inventions from having a profound effect on the world? Sure, he may not be rich, but I think he is getting just about everything he wants from life.
My wife used to teach a high school science class, and many of the students (many of whom were admittedly biased against learning evolution because of their religious parents) had such a mass media education in this field that they couldn't separate the "obvious" truth from the mass-marketed "truth". So, in this case, the misinformation that is spread is possibly misleading generations of people. And just think about the impact on those who have never taken a science class, but regularly vote, for instance.
I think it would be in everybody's best interest if they would drop this metaphor in favor of the truth.
Otherwise, imagine the distant future... Picard standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, which is engaged with several Romulan warships. Suddenly, his communicator chimes in, "Smith to Picard" (notice how he has to use his name).
Picard: What is it? Make it fast!
Smith: I'd like to tell you about something very exciting! Is your love life becoming stale? Do you no longer satisfy all of your partner's needs? You can save big on our new "Transporter Assisted" penis enlargement procedure!
Picard: (thinking) If only we'd gotten rid of Communi-marketers in the 21st century!
Enterprise: *BOOM*
Anyways, the real point of my post was to show the unusual thought process you used. The quesiton was whether a system could generate enough power. You corrected the second poster's "Yes" to a qualified "No". Then, you said the real answer is yes, but only in the future, just like the second poster said. That makes two times that you corrected something to a less correct state.
My rant at the end is just an explanation as to why one of your corrections was not perfectly correct. Umm... well, my first paragraph reflects how I was feeling at the time, but I didn't really mean it to be so personally offensive. Sorry about that.
The origional poster was correct, a huge amount of energy is used to initiate/control this reaction. Fusion reactions do release (not create) an amazing amount of energy Wow! You caught him saying that fusion reactions create energy instead of releasing energy! Good one! Then you go on to say that the real answer is "no", and the theoretical and fact based answer is "yes", and you "don't doubt" it. You really didn't have anything to add other than the create/release quote which any first year physics student would understand.
The funny thing is that, in my estimation, although you're specifically right, so is the second poster, as we all know the famous equation relating matter and energy. Even though we understand that matter and energy are related on such a level that a fusion reaction doesn't exactly create energy, and it does release energy (just as anything which hypothetically created energy under the same circumstances would, were it possible), but the closest word of the two to the actual happenings is actually "create" and not "release". Nobody human has ever "created" something where there was nothing, so create does not have the semantic meaning you think it does. Be careful when correcting someone with a lesser word.
"Release" is so general as to almost be meaningless in the case of energy from fission reactions. "Create", while at the very lowest level being inappropriate, in the sense of the laws of conservation, is much more specifically correct than "release", and people generally understand it to be so.
Yeah, and if you'd read the rest of the comment, you'd see that Sarge admits the address refers to his machine. Congrats on exposing the seamy underbelly of the first half of the comment.
I guess we'll all have to start using trackballs.
update-menus is in the "menu" package. Once, I forgot to install it, and I had a terrible time trying to figure out why my menus were all horrible!
It usually gets installed in the installation process, unless you're trying to do something weird, like doing the initial install with apt-get instead of dselect.
Anyways, I'd just love to point out that debian has a system in place for this. There is a beautiful program called update-menus. Almost every debian package supports it, and it allows menus to be consistent through every desktop environment.
You might want to start taking that medication again, Buddy. A spell checker wouldn't hurt, either.
I take it as a compliment that you can't verbalize an opinion without name calling. However, at that point, you've already lost. You didn't even argue on topic. Thanks.
Adaptability does not equal creativity.