Smart cruise control - radar mounted to your front bumper "locks on" to the car in front and tries to maintain a set distance from the car in front. This is a near-term technology; expect to see it implemented in vehicles in the next 5-10 years.
It's called a limited access roadway. Some old cars are illegal to take on the highway now; I can easily see some time, maybe 20 years from now, where major coast-to-coast highways are built that are only available to computer-controlled vehicles.
Good point. Remember, I worked there (KSC) in '02, when (although it was still fucking ISS and NASA) there was at least a general belief we would complete ISS and nothing would go wrong.
A properly designed yellow light (which most of them in real cities are, or at least areas with proper engineers working the roads) turns yellow and stays yellow long enough that cars traveling at the speed limit will have enough warning to safely stop before the light, or to safely make it through the light.
3 second yellows implies that the road is a very low-speed road. Road safety engineers assume a 1 second reaction time, leaving us 2 seconds deceleration time; assuming this is a two lane road (a likely assumption, since 4 lane roads almost never have such a short yellow) and using standard lane widths (12 ft for an urban travel lane, we'll even throw a center turn lane in at 14 ft for ya) giving a total of a 38 ft wide road, the speed limit on the road in question is (at minimum, from intersection clearance time) 10 mph minimum and (at maximum, from stopping time assuming the typical rule of thumb of 15 feet per second per second deceleration and 1 second reaction time) 20 mph maximum. Thus, I would guess your 3 second yellow is on a 15MPH speed limit road, and the problem is really that you're being an asshole and speeding.
Localizers and cheap radar can solve your location reference problem; electronic throttle control and fun things like camless engines can solve for precise acceleration. ETC and camless is a next 10 years sort of technology, cheap radar also. Localizers are probably a little further out, but custom versions just for roadways could be made now if the desire was there.
Not anytime soon, but it isn't so far off... *if* there's a will for it.
Node 2 will go up, afaik (my knowledge is based on working with the ISS team at NASA, in the summer of 2002, so changes in the last two years might have affected it... or not). It's certainly been delayed, and with this latest round of cuts might be in jeopardy, but it was confirmed to go up prior to Columbia.
One of my old pairs of glasses has a track burnt right down the center of one lense where a glob of solder flicked off an iron I was working next to and landed directly on my lense. I have never, NEVER, been so glad I was wearing glasses, because nothing says sucks like molten lead in your eyes.
Yep. I ride my bike. A lot. And guess what? I wear my glasses! I suppose if I was doing trail riding instead of road I might put them on a strap, but I've never had them even shake down my nose, much less fall off.
Swim?
No.
Yard work?
Nah, but I used to. What exactly about yard work prevents one from wearing glasses?
Sex?
I, personally, find that if you have sex in the dark, it doesn't matter if you can see or not, because... YOU CAN'T SEE. If there's light, well, generally they're close enough that you can make out what you need to. (And never underestimate your senses of touch and taste.)
Peripheral vision? I went from contacts back to glasses. I lost a little peripheral vision. You know what I do? It's this fascinating thing called TURNING MY HEAD.
Fog? I wipe it off.
Rain? I wipe it off.
Snow? I wipe it off.
Were I to wear glasses during certain steamier exertions during sex, I would... wipe them off.
I like glasses. I can take them off. They provide less stress on my eyes when I spend a lot of time staring at a screen than my lenses did. I look better with glasses than without, though this is mostly an artifact of my facial structure and is not necessarily true for all people.
You know that it usually takes massive doses of anti-rejection drugs to get a body to accept transplants like hearts or lungs or kidneys, right? And that those anti-rejection drugs cause their own complications?
As to blood, if you don't screen carefully for blood types and factors, a blood transfusion can be deadly.
How could anyone possibly worry about rejection of something *implanted* into one of the most sensitive areas of their body? Think about how much pain a fucking grain of sand can cause you...
Many, many installs of Windows (3.11 through XP) on various hardware between running a small business doing computer repair, working as a lab/computer tech at a large university, and generally being a big nerd.
I don't feel my Linux experience is representative at all; it remains, however, my experience.
A lot of people think that the GPL is, in fact, an implied unilateral contract. The terms of the contract are that a license is granted to certain aspects of the rightsholders' rights (copy, modify, distribute) if the grantee obeys certain restrictions. This is pretty much a textbook definition of a unilateral contract. Further, the fact that the GPL spells out the penalties for a broken contract (revocation of all rights licensed under the contract) makes it even more contract-like.
Further, my point was that supplemental agreements couldn't be abusive due to contract law; since supplemental agreements are almost universally contracts, my point stands.
By the way; you know what a rental lease is? It's a contract that, in exchange for my promise to abide by certain behavioral restrictions (payment of rent, don't fuck up the apartment, no pets, etc.), I am granted a right I would not normally have - to live in someone else's property.
For the last time, the FSF has approved Sveasoft's scheme. They don't seem to have any problems with it, and as such I doubt there will be any lawyers involved, or any changes to the GPL relating to this case.
Of course, if you do a slipstreamed install of XP, the number of patches and reboots is pretty minimal anyway. Really, if you installed a 2 year old Linux distro, how long would it take you/how many reboots to bring it up to a secure level?
Solaris HP-UX BSDs BeOS (hey, don't laugh, I think there's still like 2 users left) OS/2? (God, I hope there aren't too many of these) Robots and spiders and the like. Maybe even an Amiga here and there.
Whereas my copy of XP installed no problems, while SuSe, Mandrake, and Gentoo have all failed to install at all.
Your experience is not representative; Linux is better, but has a LONG way to go still.
Oh, and on Windows? I have all those same apps. OO.o, PuTTY, Firefox, and I'm set. I'm sure there's a decent free email client out there, but I still like pine.
He has to find a CD-R, find the source for the particular binary you're requesting, burn the Cd, and mail it to you. $50 is perfectly reasonable. The cost of mailing and materials alone is going to eat up $5-10, and it takes a fair amount of time to do a one-off CD for someone. I know what my hourly is; $50 would be a reasonable charge for the time I would incur to burn a CDR.
Now, if he was asking $50 to provide access to a FTP site with all the versions on it, it'd be harder to justify the $50, but for a single custom CD, $50 is within accountant range of justifiable.
You know, for all the bitching on slashdot about Free as in Beer vs. Free as in Speech, I'm really enjoying watching/dotters trying to wrap their heads around a scheme that is Free as in Speech, but *not* as in Beer.
If you redistribute the code, you lost your subscription which means you get no future code. However, your rights in the code you already have are unchanged; this is 'free' in my book, and apparently in the FSF's book as well.
Your subscription, unless it specifically said "paid for access to the next 3 versions of the software", did not buy you access to B, C, and D. It bought you a time period of access to Sveasoft's distributed binaries. You do not GET GPL rights until you actually receive a binary/source; you can't have GPL rights in a version that doesn't even exist yet. If you redistribute A, your subscription terminates and you no longer have a right to access. This means you will be unable to receive new binaries, and as such unable to receive new GPL licenses in those binaries from Sveasoft.
Given that Sveasoft appears to be refunding the money for the unavailable subscription time, they're completely safe on this - you didn't pay for versions, you paid for access. Since at no time during your period of access would you have had access to a future version, there's no legitimate argument to be made stating that you have any rights in those future versions.
Not if they ever want to get support from your company, any future versions, etc, etc...
The GPL in cases where there's actual trust between a supplier and customer reduces to an agreement that says "If we fail to provide adequately for your future needs, you can take our software and provide for yourself." If the customer trusts the supplier to appropriately upgrade the software, they are unlikely to try to screw the supplier by, for example, redistributing the software and undercutting the supplier's price.
There's a difference between imposing a restriction and contracting a restriction. Impose implies a lack of choice in the recipients case; Sveasoft is NOT, for the last time, imposing any restrictions on a customer's GPL rights. They are imposing restrictions on the license they provide subscription services under, a completely reasonable thing.
The courts are unlikely to rule widely in the GPLs favor; I suspect it to be a lot more likely they would take a narrow view as I do, wherein mere discincentive isn't enough to be considered a restriction on the right of redistribution. I suspect the eventual test will be similar to the tests for illegal contracts; if a condition is similar to one which would make a contract illegal, it would also make it violate the GPL. All that said, since the FSF has stated that Sveasoft doesn't violate the GPL, legal action seems extremely unlikely.
Is it breaking the spirit of the GPL? Maybe. But I find the GPL to be interesting only in fact and letter; the spirit is far too much about removing freedom for me to be comfortable with it.
Yep. IBM can, in fact do that, so long as buying that contract is not a condition on receiving your GPLed rights. So long as IBM doesn't try to seize the GPLed *software*, then that situation is legit. After they've seized your hardware and terminated your support, you still have your GPLed rights to the software, unchanged. As such, it doesn't constitute a restriction of your rights. You can still distribute the GPLed software as much as you want, and other people can receive it and legally run it. Now, if they were to have a contract stating "You will not run GPLed software" then they've violated that contract, but they still have their GPL rights, they just have no rights under the other contract.
The GPL says you may not restrict the rights granted herein; it says nothing about rights not granted by the GPL.
I like holes in the GPL big enough to drive a truck through, but mostly because I dislike Stallman.
Slashdot Mirror
Smart cruise control - radar mounted to your front bumper "locks on" to the car in front and tries to maintain a set distance from the car in front. This is a near-term technology; expect to see it implemented in vehicles in the next 5-10 years.
It's called a limited access roadway. Some old cars are illegal to take on the highway now; I can easily see some time, maybe 20 years from now, where major coast-to-coast highways are built that are only available to computer-controlled vehicles.
Good point. Remember, I worked there (KSC) in '02, when (although it was still fucking ISS and NASA) there was at least a general belief we would complete ISS and nothing would go wrong.
Columbia changed a lot of things.
A properly designed yellow light (which most of them in real cities are, or at least areas with proper engineers working the roads) turns yellow and stays yellow long enough that cars traveling at the speed limit will have enough warning to safely stop before the light, or to safely make it through the light.
3 second yellows implies that the road is a very low-speed road. Road safety engineers assume a 1 second reaction time, leaving us 2 seconds deceleration time; assuming this is a two lane road (a likely assumption, since 4 lane roads almost never have such a short yellow) and using standard lane widths (12 ft for an urban travel lane, we'll even throw a center turn lane in at 14 ft for ya) giving a total of a 38 ft wide road, the speed limit on the road in question is (at minimum, from intersection clearance time) 10 mph minimum and (at maximum, from stopping time assuming the typical rule of thumb of 15 feet per second per second deceleration and 1 second reaction time) 20 mph maximum. Thus, I would guess your 3 second yellow is on a 15MPH speed limit road, and the problem is really that you're being an asshole and speeding.
It's called a yellow light.
Localizers and cheap radar can solve your location reference problem; electronic throttle control and fun things like camless engines can solve for precise acceleration. ETC and camless is a next 10 years sort of technology, cheap radar also. Localizers are probably a little further out, but custom versions just for roadways could be made now if the desire was there.
Not anytime soon, but it isn't so far off... *if* there's a will for it.
Node 2 will go up, afaik (my knowledge is based on working with the ISS team at NASA, in the summer of 2002, so changes in the last two years might have affected it... or not). It's certainly been delayed, and with this latest round of cuts might be in jeopardy, but it was confirmed to go up prior to Columbia.
One of my old pairs of glasses has a track burnt right down the center of one lense where a glob of solder flicked off an iron I was working next to and landed directly on my lense. I have never, NEVER, been so glad I was wearing glasses, because nothing says sucks like molten lead in your eyes.
Work out?
Yep. I ride my bike. A lot. And guess what? I wear my glasses! I suppose if I was doing trail riding instead of road I might put them on a strap, but I've never had them even shake down my nose, much less fall off.
Swim?
No.
Yard work?
Nah, but I used to. What exactly about yard work prevents one from wearing glasses?
Sex?
I, personally, find that if you have sex in the dark, it doesn't matter if you can see or not, because... YOU CAN'T SEE. If there's light, well, generally they're close enough that you can make out what you need to. (And never underestimate your senses of touch and taste.)
Peripheral vision? I went from contacts back to glasses. I lost a little peripheral vision. You know what I do? It's this fascinating thing called TURNING MY HEAD.
Fog? I wipe it off.
Rain? I wipe it off.
Snow? I wipe it off.
Were I to wear glasses during certain steamier exertions during sex, I would... wipe them off.
I like glasses. I can take them off. They provide less stress on my eyes when I spend a lot of time staring at a screen than my lenses did. I look better with glasses than without, though this is mostly an artifact of my facial structure and is not necessarily true for all people.
You know that it usually takes massive doses of anti-rejection drugs to get a body to accept transplants like hearts or lungs or kidneys, right? And that those anti-rejection drugs cause their own complications?
As to blood, if you don't screen carefully for blood types and factors, a blood transfusion can be deadly.
How could anyone possibly worry about rejection of something *implanted* into one of the most sensitive areas of their body? Think about how much pain a fucking grain of sand can cause you...
Many, many installs of Windows (3.11 through XP) on various hardware between running a small business doing computer repair, working as a lab/computer tech at a large university, and generally being a big nerd.
I don't feel my Linux experience is representative at all; it remains, however, my experience.
A lot of people think that the GPL is, in fact, an implied unilateral contract. The terms of the contract are that a license is granted to certain aspects of the rightsholders' rights (copy, modify, distribute) if the grantee obeys certain restrictions. This is pretty much a textbook definition of a unilateral contract. Further, the fact that the GPL spells out the penalties for a broken contract (revocation of all rights licensed under the contract) makes it even more contract-like.
Further, my point was that supplemental agreements couldn't be abusive due to contract law; since supplemental agreements are almost universally contracts, my point stands.
By the way; you know what a rental lease is? It's a contract that, in exchange for my promise to abide by certain behavioral restrictions (payment of rent, don't fuck up the apartment, no pets, etc.), I am granted a right I would not normally have - to live in someone else's property.
Wrong. The court can rule a provision to be illegal/unenforceable, which does *not* invalidate the rest of the clauses, solely the illegal clause.
Just like if I have a lease with my landlord containing an unenforceable clause, I can get that clause invalidated without voiding my lease.
For the last time, the FSF has approved Sveasoft's scheme. They don't seem to have any problems with it, and as such I doubt there will be any lawyers involved, or any changes to the GPL relating to this case.
Of course, if you do a slipstreamed install of XP, the number of patches and reboots is pretty minimal anyway. Really, if you installed a 2 year old Linux distro, how long would it take you/how many reboots to bring it up to a secure level?
I know there was a 'major' UNIX OS I forget.
Also VMS and Tru systems, and there are probably still some SunOS machines out there not running Solaris.
Others:
Solaris
HP-UX
BSDs
BeOS (hey, don't laugh, I think there's still like 2 users left)
OS/2? (God, I hope there aren't too many of these)
Robots and spiders and the like.
Maybe even an Amiga here and there.
Whereas my copy of XP installed no problems, while SuSe, Mandrake, and Gentoo have all failed to install at all.
Your experience is not representative; Linux is better, but has a LONG way to go still.
Oh, and on Windows? I have all those same apps. OO.o, PuTTY, Firefox, and I'm set. I'm sure there's a decent free email client out there, but I still like pine.
He has to find a CD-R, find the source for the particular binary you're requesting, burn the Cd, and mail it to you. $50 is perfectly reasonable. The cost of mailing and materials alone is going to eat up $5-10, and it takes a fair amount of time to do a one-off CD for someone. I know what my hourly is; $50 would be a reasonable charge for the time I would incur to burn a CDR.
Now, if he was asking $50 to provide access to a FTP site with all the versions on it, it'd be harder to justify the $50, but for a single custom CD, $50 is within accountant range of justifiable.
You know, for all the bitching on slashdot about Free as in Beer vs. Free as in Speech, I'm really enjoying watching /dotters trying to wrap their heads around a scheme that is Free as in Speech, but *not* as in Beer.
If you redistribute the code, you lost your subscription which means you get no future code. However, your rights in the code you already have are unchanged; this is 'free' in my book, and apparently in the FSF's book as well.
Your subscription, unless it specifically said "paid for access to the next 3 versions of the software", did not buy you access to B, C, and D. It bought you a time period of access to Sveasoft's distributed binaries. You do not GET GPL rights until you actually receive a binary/source; you can't have GPL rights in a version that doesn't even exist yet. If you redistribute A, your subscription terminates and you no longer have a right to access. This means you will be unable to receive new binaries, and as such unable to receive new GPL licenses in those binaries from Sveasoft.
Given that Sveasoft appears to be refunding the money for the unavailable subscription time, they're completely safe on this - you didn't pay for versions, you paid for access. Since at no time during your period of access would you have had access to a future version, there's no legitimate argument to be made stating that you have any rights in those future versions.
Not if they ever want to get support from your company, any future versions, etc, etc...
The GPL in cases where there's actual trust between a supplier and customer reduces to an agreement that says "If we fail to provide adequately for your future needs, you can take our software and provide for yourself." If the customer trusts the supplier to appropriately upgrade the software, they are unlikely to try to screw the supplier by, for example, redistributing the software and undercutting the supplier's price.
There's a difference between imposing a restriction and contracting a restriction. Impose implies a lack of choice in the recipients case; Sveasoft is NOT, for the last time, imposing any restrictions on a customer's GPL rights. They are imposing restrictions on the license they provide subscription services under, a completely reasonable thing.
The courts are unlikely to rule widely in the GPLs favor; I suspect it to be a lot more likely they would take a narrow view as I do, wherein mere discincentive isn't enough to be considered a restriction on the right of redistribution. I suspect the eventual test will be similar to the tests for illegal contracts; if a condition is similar to one which would make a contract illegal, it would also make it violate the GPL. All that said, since the FSF has stated that Sveasoft doesn't violate the GPL, legal action seems extremely unlikely.
Is it breaking the spirit of the GPL? Maybe. But I find the GPL to be interesting only in fact and letter; the spirit is far too much about removing freedom for me to be comfortable with it.
In Soviet Russia, Jackitov tactiles you1
Yep. IBM can, in fact do that, so long as buying that contract is not a condition on receiving your GPLed rights. So long as IBM doesn't try to seize the GPLed *software*, then that situation is legit. After they've seized your hardware and terminated your support, you still have your GPLed rights to the software, unchanged. As such, it doesn't constitute a restriction of your rights. You can still distribute the GPLed software as much as you want, and other people can receive it and legally run it. Now, if they were to have a contract stating "You will not run GPLed software" then they've violated that contract, but they still have their GPL rights, they just have no rights under the other contract.
The GPL says you may not restrict the rights granted herein; it says nothing about rights not granted by the GPL.
I like holes in the GPL big enough to drive a truck through, but mostly because I dislike Stallman.