At least the judge is giving broad hints that NYCL ought to be using the Google brief as notes for his own arguments. It sounds like the judge is open to the ideas Google laid out, but would rather hear them from Mr. Beckerman instead.
There's a long and distinguished history in the USAF of delivering massive ordnance bombs via cargo planes (see the daisy cutter and MOAB as examples). If you can open the rear hatch, roll it out, and achieve a margin of error smaller than the blast radius, then you're golden. In today's age of GPS-guided munitions that is a much lower threshold to cross than it's ever been.
You were asking the wrong organization. ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) licenses playback of music in public places, at least in the U.S.A. The RIAA is more of a marketing/lobbying/lawsuit factory designed to fight for the interests of the publishers, very different goals. I probably shouldn't be surprised that no-one there sent you over to ASCAP, but I still have a naive hope that industry insiders would at least know the other heavy hitters in their own industry...
On a circle the furthest a point can be from another point is at the other end of a diameter from it. A diameter also is the combination of two radii at 180degrees to one another. I can point you to a definition of diametric that means "completely opposed : being at opposite extremes (e.g. 'in diametric contradiction to his claims')".
When Slur used the term "diametrically-opposed" he implied one or all of these meanings, that metaphorically the suspension of habeus corpus and due process is as far from America's founding principles as possible, and/or facing the opposite direction.
Great reply, I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this. I'm adding you to my friends list so I can boost the score on your comments; I hope all of your posts have this much insight. I think we agree in principle, and that our differences on this issue are due to perspective.
At risk of invoking class warfare rhetoric, I think my concerns on the issue stem from looking for balance on a different scale: risk of unscrupulous publishers defrauding the public vs risk of unscrupulous public figures (politicians, celebrities, corporations, state agencies) using the law to silence critics.
Granting everyone protection under the shield laws would greatly favor the "speaker of truth", democratizing the ability of amateurs to engage in the public dialog and expose wrongdoings without the barrier of being vetted by a central authority. Unfortunately, there's no way for a court to distinguish a moral blogger with a confidential source of damaging truth from an unscrupulous twit broadcasting lies to his twitter followers. One provides a public service, the other damages an innocent public figure's reputation. Conversely, an innocent public figure should be able to discredit a lying publisher by demanding they provide proof or retract the lie; however, unscrupulous public figures use their wealth to silence truthful critics, defraud the public, and use the law to cover their crimes. They deserve none of the protections nor privileges they abuse.
My personal prediction is that this will get balanced out by public figures growing thicker skins, bloggers with no evidence beyond the word of a confidential informant will become warier of publishing, and coverage by shield laws will be determined by criteria like the judge used: journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest. In a just world the same criteria would be used for employees of major news outlets; if you don't have notes, independent research, or actual confidentiality agreements with your source then you get no protection under shield laws. In that same perfect world the protections journalists receive wouldn't be meted out by those who most need public scrutiny; the conflict of interest is too great.
I think it's reasonable for bloggers to push for leveling of the journalistic playing field, and I hope that those who take their roles as amateur journalists seriously get the respect they deserve.
I'm torn on this topic. You give a list that's fairly hit-and-miss on special privileges:
Think for a minute. No special privileges granted to police officers to enter premises in case of emergencies, carry weapons openly, or detain people against their will despite not witnessing a crime? No special privileges granted to fire-fighters to restrict people from entering their own homes or to enter someone's home without permission? No special privileges granted to ambulance drivers to go through red lights?
I'm in favor of open carry being legal everywhere, and in many US jurisdictions it is. I also wasn't aware that the Firefighter's authority to enter burning buildings or prevent civilians to enter them derived from anything more than moral authority - they don't want you to die. I'll have to study up on that, as it would make sense to shield them from lawsuits brought on by idiots (it only takes one)...
Then you come back with probably the best point I've read so far in the thread:
. . . the privilege to withhold information from a court, despite due process being followed via a subpoena, is powerful. That privilege should only be given to people whose refusal to disclose information about potentially criminal activities is, despite appearances, a good thing for the state and its people.
And yet, while agreeing with you, I find myself conflicted on the topic. Carrying guns and 100gal/min hoses to peoples houses is one thing, and I'm happy to regulate that. With journalism we're talking about restricting the right to have an opinion and speak the truth. We should always be protected against fraud, especially when the speaker has a position of unique knowledge or authority. On the other hand, what special position can most bloggers claim to have? And in a case where the truth of the message isn't in question, why should the government get to say who is and isn't performing a public service (and therefore deserving of protection)? I can see problems arising if the message is anti-government (or anti-public-servant, same thing effectively)...
I've actually talked to a copyright lawyer who said with a straight face that every router between me and someone I send a copyright-laden file to is guilty of violating the "mechanical copyright" of the rights owner. The settled case law on the matter revolves around radio stations making mix tapes in preparation for broadcast; the stations pay for a license to do so, and the idea of a transient mechanical copy needed for replay is held to be identical to the copying of a.mp3 file into memory as part of replay on a computer. The RIAA has decided that they're not going to try to prosecute any listener for the copy made in RAM or on the processor, although those are violations by the letter of the law as well.
If you look at the Phillips Urban Beehive page you'll see that the pull cord is simply a smoke release, not a honey extractor. Even with the smoke, I wouldn't want to be running beekeeping operations in my kitchen. In fact, I'd be willing to say that the only purpose of this design is decorative, not functional: it's for people that just want to look at bees and feel good about being "close to nature" in their homes. I'll let the beekeepers on the forum take care of the rest of the design's flaws, they've already got it covered.
As Okian Warrior already mentioned, breaking open your smoke detector for its americium is a bad idea (even if it did make Slashdot). According to the LavaRnd project the camera itself produces enough entropy data (static) to function as a cryptographically strong RNG seed. Do it the easy way and don't get arrested. Oh, it's open source, too; so if you're interested you can examine the code and use it for further instruction to your students.
As mentioned in another thread, breaking open your smoke detector for its americium is a bad idea, even if it did make Slashdot. According to the LavaRnd project the camera itself produces enough entropy data (static) to function as a cryptographically strong RNG seed. Do it the easy way and don't get arrested.
The webcam can be used as input for a cryptographically strong random number generator. From the lavarnd website:
LavaRnd is a cryptographically sound random number generator. At its heart, it uses a chaotic source to power the generation of very high quality random numbers. . . LavaRnd provides an unlimited supply of unpredictable random numbers.
Anyone can have their own LavaRnd: The LavaRnd source code is open source. Our reference implementation uses low cost consumer parts. LavaRnd related algorithms have been released into the public domain.
Unlike other suggestions made on a different thread, this requires no radiation source (the webcam generates enough static on its own), so the nukees will leave you alone. Open source so you can implement it freely and teach your students about the principles involved using the actual source code. It's also the successor to a RNG technique using captured images of LavaLite Lamps as a seed, which I think is awesome.
I feel your pain. Having been raised by conservative parents and educated in liberal schools I often find myself conflicted on issues of civil rights. When police perform a factually correct but procedurally illegal murder investigation how does declaring the murderer "innocent" benefit society? I know the answer is that it discourages corrupt police from manufacturing evidence against the truly innocent, but it feels wrong.
Meanwhile, I can still respect RMS for taking on these less-important issues. To him these issues are just as important philosophically, even if they aren't codified by our Founding Fathers. I think RMS realizes that these "software rights" aren't inherent, which is why he's working within the legal system to construct them for us. Please remember that the GPL is designed only to grant the rights outlined in the Free Software definition, not to take anything away from people who don't want or see the need for those rights. The ACLU is covering 1st amendment issues, the NRA is covering 2nd amendment issues, and the FSF has every right to spend its resources championing property issues in software. We're not living in anarchy yet, so they have the luxury and privilege of striving to give all of us these extra rights they would like us to have. As long as he's not trying to take away your guns or right to freely assemble, you might want to cut RMS a little slack.
Wow. I had no idea I was so close to touching a nerve there. Based on your response I think we may be talking past each other. There's a lot of rhetorical chaff in there, though, so let me see if I can pick out the correct thread of reasoning you're trying to express:
The problem is that software is not in the same league as human rights and freedoms. . . There is nothing stopping you form developing your own software. No government raids or corporate security officers are going to be raiding your house because you are writing you own word processor. . . And unlike software rights my 2nd amendment rights are actually defined quite clearly in the Bill of Rights with little room for misunderstanding.
I think I see where you're coming from there. I agree that the rights afforded in the U.S. Constitution are indeed important, and I'm impressed by your enthusiasm for your right to defend yourself. I'd like to remind you, however, that the philosophical basis of the U.S. revolution was the notion of "natural rights"; notably life, liberty, and property (referring to Locke, not Jefferson here).
Based on your devotion to the 2nd amendment I see you value your natural right to life. Is it too much of a stretch to say that if a software company's products cause 30,000 days worth of wasted time that they have taken a life (in a distributed fashion)? Steve Jobs reportedly thought this way. It's hard to read whether your tone was serious or mocking when you suggested that everyone dissatisfied with MS Office should re-implement it themselves; I hope you'll agree, however, that having everyone who wants to write build their own word processor first would be a waste of everyone's time and many people's talents. Even if you don't agree that it's an effective loss of life, it's clearly a loss of quality of life for everyone involved.
As far as liberty goes (software slavery in our discussion here), I see clear parallels in today's software market to the company stores of yesteryear's mining towns. They didn't send Feds/corporate goons to force the mine workers to buy from the company, they were just cheaper than driving out to the next store; they charged what the market would bear, and knowingly bled their customers dry. What they did was legal (consumer protection laws had not yet been implemented), but morally wrong. Software companies take advantage of the high barrier of entry to the market and leverage their market position to prevent competitors for emerging, Free or otherwise. Unfortunately, there are corporate goons ready to take on those who step away from the Microsoft Office. I don't know if you're old enough to remember the Word vs WordPerfect wars, but in those days it was common for Microsoft to "audit" businesses and schools, threatening to enforce extortionate fines if the auditors found even one instance of Word that the organization couldn't produce a license for. Of course, purchasing a site license for the full office suite covering every employee (at a cost conveniently lower than the fines) would stop the inquisition. Since these tactics were all legal they carried the implied threat of government enforcement (time to make fun of myself for a moment: "Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!") You may not be shackled with these chains, or perhaps you find the software yoke's burden to be light, but RMS and many others find it intolerable.
Finally, the clearest fundamental right that RMS is trying to defend here is property. He truly believes that your software should be your property, not licensed or rented from a company hostile to your interests. All of the rights detailed in the free software definition are essential property rights: (0) run it for any purpose, (1) change it to suit your needs, (2) give it away unchanged, and (3) give awa
Jobs gave the world what it wanted. RMS did not. End of story.
That may be true, but there's a parallel to be made with the aphorism about politics, that every people deserve the government they chose. Just because Apple's way is more popular doesn't make it better.
I don't agree. I know many people who don't feel they have any choice in office software - it's Microsoft Office. There is no alternative, and not buying it isn't an option for them. The business world is being held captive by Microsoft, and has developed a form of Stockholm Syndrome. The wikipedia article on vendor lock-in has a whole section dedicated to well-known players in the software industry and their efforts to prevent their customers from moving to another vendor. As another example of software slavery, have you ever seen a large company transition from SAP to CA or vice versa? The difficulty and cost of doing so are prohibitive, so many stay with what they have despite huge known problems. For ERP systems just bringing forward your customizations from one major release to another is painful enough to require months for a dedicated IT crew to complete, and as a result I've seen companies adjust their business practices to the software to avoid that problem in the future. That employee time isn't producing anything that will give the company a return on investment, it's just a sunk cost. And no, the software vendor isn't going to send out an associate to help with the transition, they'll instead sell you training on how to do it yourself. From my perspective, the time I spent on version transitions for Computer Associates software weren't spent working for my employer, I was working for CA. Captive, forced to work for others instead of yourself, and the only way out is difficult, dangerous, and painful? Sounds like slavery to me.
Of course [Stallman] already has the financial resources that enable him to totally ignore how his theories effect [sic] those actually working for a living.
Are you suggesting that the Free Software movement is putting programmers out of work? Like, right now? Or is it somehow stopping people from using Microsoft Office or SAP's ERP software? On the contrary, I'm pretty sure RMS is aware of the impact he's having and I agree with him that it's beneficial, not harmful. The LibreOffice suite is giving people options other than paying ridiculous prices for tools they need for their jobs. For those people (who work for a living) it's a benefit, not a problem. For others that doesn't work for, there's still Microsoft; no programmers have been fired in Redmond because too many people are using Free Software. And if Stallman's fantasy world ever does come about and Microsoft has to close its doors, the reason will be because the world will be full of useful, freely available tools for doing useful work. There will still be programmers being paid, but it'll be by people who need new tools or improvements to existing tools. And once the tools are built they won't need to be imitated elsewhere, the work once done will benefit everyone. Even if this world requires fewer programmers, they'll be all working on new projects or improvements rather than wasting their time imitating someone else's work. That sounds more like actually working to me.
tl;dr: Asshole or not, RMS has a point about proprietary software enslaving you, and I'd rather live in the world he's trying to build than the ones Steve Jobs and Bill Gates spent their lives building.
P.S. - There's a rant to be made here about how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's goal "to help all people lead healthy, productive lives" apparently only applies to poor Africans, not Microsoft competitors, but I'll leave that for another post.
I was going to argue with you over this, but then I re-read the wiki page I linked to earlier and got depressed. It turns out that in the US we're at something like 80-90% of cheese manufactured using artificial rennet (obtained from genetically modified bacteria). There's no way that using just chymosin expressed by bacteria gets the same result as actual rennet from real calves (which contains other important enzymes like pepsin and lipase, balanced by evolution for the mother's milk).
I'm not sure I buy the argument from the GM industry that natural rennet isn't sufficient for the national cheese demand, it's probably just cheaper. At least I have an excuse to give for my snobbish disdain for US-produced cheeses.
tl, dr: you were right, and my initial point about cheese being derived from animal cruelty is 10% moot and 90% invalid.
It gets better: rennet, the enzyme used to make cheese, is extracted from these slaughtered calves' stomachs. So if you're against the production of milk due to it causing the slaughter of newborn bovine then stop eating cheese, too.
Um, I imagine if you're against the production of milk you're probably already avoiding cheese...
You know, when you put it that way...
Seriously, though, my point (awkwardly put, as you pointed out), was that cheese was a double whammy - not only is milk production causing more calves to be born than is natural, but the production of cheese requires the slaughter of those same calves. The people who think that veal production is the only reason calves are slaughtered are often ignorant of the veal-cheese connection. But, yeah, for people who would rather go veg than drink milk over the veal thing this would be yet another reason, not reason #1.
It gets better: rennet, the enzyme used to make cheese, is extracted from these slaughtered calves' stomachs. So if you're against the production of milk due to it causing the slaughter of newborn bovine then stop eating cheese, too. I'll assume that if you're the type to do this, though, that you've already avoided veal on principle.
As for me, I drink milk, I eat cheese, and I avoid veal only because it costs too much. I'm fine with "exploiting" cows for their milk, and insemination to encourage lactation is good animal husbandry. Good tasting meat and well cultured cheese being a byproduct is a benefit in my opinion, not a fault. As long as the animals aren't treatedcruelly during life I don't have an ethical or moral objection to the practice. Feel free to join PETA if you disagree, just don't be surprised if I stand with the farmers when you come to "liberate" their livestock.
You probably heard an audio beat note between the TV sweep rate and the tinnitus.
A beat frequency is the difference between two closely tuned audio tones. Musicians listen to the beat notes to tune their string instruments.
I don't think that's the case here. Beat frequencies are the result of two actual sound waves interfering with each other; in tinnitus I don't think anyone is suggesting that the perceived sound is actually being produced (otherwise it could be measured with an in-ear microphone). Having both fired too many guns in my life and spent time studying music I have tinnitus and can recognize beat patterns; when I'm exposed to real audio frequencies close to my tinnitus frequency I've never heard beat frequencies.
I have to agree with the other posters in this thread that the GP's experience was simply hearing the flyback transformers whine.
Hey, no need to get defensive. You've made valid points, and I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings with the "faker" comment (although it was callous, sorry). I've got 10 years of DBA/sysadmin in my resume, too, that carried an "engineer" title; right now I'm in a job that requires a BS in mechanical engineering but doesn't carry the engineer title (no PE for me yet), so I've been on both sides of this particular argument. The poster I replied to was asking what the nuances and dividing lines were, and the PE license is a clear and easy one to point to.
There are other computer-related certs that aspire to similar glories, with varying success. I've learned to respect my coworkers who earn their CCNA, and I'd argue that they earned their engineer title. I've learned to understand the perspective of the PEs, though, too: until the title "software engineer" carries liability for errors it will never carry the weight that the PEs want the term "Engineer" to have.
There's an easy dividing line between real engineers and fakers in the United States: it's the Professional Engineer licensing program. Graduates from an engineering program can take the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam; if they pass they are considered "Engineers in Training" (EIT). Fourish years later, the EIT can take the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam; after passing the candidate can be licensed by their state as a Professional Engineer, and put the initials PE after their name like doctors do. Licensed PEs can take on legal liability for the designs they create and are consequently eligible for work in fields where public safety is a concern.
I get why many PE type engineers get bent out of shape over the use of titles sanitation engineer, software engineer, and domestic engineer; it dilutes the title, and makes a joke of the profession. Honestly, though, I'd be fine with programmers joining the Engineering club; all they have to do is take the test (yes, there is a computing version of the PE exam, and its requirements don't look too tough to me). As long as they don't use the PE title without earning it I'll be happy, though.
The Amazon basin is so sacrosanct because without it we're not sure the planet will produce enough oxygen to sustain current levels of animal life. That's why it's more important than the Brazilian people.
You frighten me. I'm trying to find a way to not interpret what you just said as a blatant priority of trees over Human life, but I'm failing. I hope you don't mean that you'd rather that a random Brazilian die of starvation in squalor than to have a single Amazonian tree chopped down; unfortunately, I've met too many militant environmentalists to rule that out.
What's worse is that your justification is based on a misunderstanding of the oxygen cycle. I've been led to believe that old-growth forests are both Carbon and Oxygen neutral; the decomposition of dead plant matter uses up about the same amount of oxygen as is released via photosynthesis. If that's true then your fear of suffocation is unfounded and your hostility towards the Brazilians sorely misplaced.
The regrown land is in no way biologically diverse, and thus in now way represents a healthy rainforest. And even if 20% of what is burned in any given year has grown back within 10 years, that still means 80% of what is burned in any given year either never grows back, or grows back and is burned again and again.
Again, the people want to use that land for homes or crops don't want the forest re-taking their and fields; that land has been re-purposed for Human use, and the re-growth there is an expensive problem for residents. My original complaint was that my environmentalist friends take offense at annual fires that can be seen from space, but don't seem to care that those fires are in the same locations year-to-year. I see no problem with that situation; the Brazilians are entitled to build homes to live in and grow food to eat, just like I am. They are also responsible for maintaining sufficient wildlife/Nature preserves to ensure continued biodiversity. There is a balance to be struck there, and they're working on it. It's unreasonable, however to categorically deny them the use of their own land based on your fantastic/romantic/emotional attachment to a forest you've probably never visited.
I can tell that you and I aren't going to find common ground on this topic. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that continuing the conversation will just result in an endless cycle of trolling each other.
Slashdot Mirror
At least the judge is giving broad hints that NYCL ought to be using the Google brief as notes for his own arguments. It sounds like the judge is open to the ideas Google laid out, but would rather hear them from Mr. Beckerman instead.
That made my day, thanks =)
If they started actually doing that, I'd be tempted to take a sabbatical to collect the UXO $^)
There's a long and distinguished history in the USAF of delivering massive ordnance bombs via cargo planes (see the daisy cutter and MOAB as examples). If you can open the rear hatch, roll it out, and achieve a margin of error smaller than the blast radius, then you're golden. In today's age of GPS-guided munitions that is a much lower threshold to cross than it's ever been.
Maybe, but I think he was cribbing from the bible:
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. (Proverbs 26:11)
You were asking the wrong organization. ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) licenses playback of music in public places, at least in the U.S.A. The RIAA is more of a marketing/lobbying/lawsuit factory designed to fight for the interests of the publishers, very different goals. I probably shouldn't be surprised that no-one there sent you over to ASCAP, but I still have a naive hope that industry insiders would at least know the other heavy hitters in their own industry...
On a circle the furthest a point can be from another point is at the other end of a diameter from it. A diameter also is the combination of two radii at 180degrees to one another. I can point you to a definition of diametric that means "completely opposed : being at opposite extremes (e.g. 'in diametric contradiction to his claims')".
When Slur used the term "diametrically-opposed" he implied one or all of these meanings, that metaphorically the suspension of habeus corpus and due process is as far from America's founding principles as possible, and/or facing the opposite direction.
Great reply, I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this. I'm adding you to my friends list so I can boost the score on your comments; I hope all of your posts have this much insight. I think we agree in principle, and that our differences on this issue are due to perspective.
At risk of invoking class warfare rhetoric, I think my concerns on the issue stem from looking for balance on a different scale: risk of unscrupulous publishers defrauding the public vs risk of unscrupulous public figures (politicians, celebrities, corporations, state agencies) using the law to silence critics.
Granting everyone protection under the shield laws would greatly favor the "speaker of truth", democratizing the ability of amateurs to engage in the public dialog and expose wrongdoings without the barrier of being vetted by a central authority. Unfortunately, there's no way for a court to distinguish a moral blogger with a confidential source of damaging truth from an unscrupulous twit broadcasting lies to his twitter followers. One provides a public service, the other damages an innocent public figure's reputation. Conversely, an innocent public figure should be able to discredit a lying publisher by demanding they provide proof or retract the lie; however, unscrupulous public figures use their wealth to silence truthful critics, defraud the public, and use the law to cover their crimes. They deserve none of the protections nor privileges they abuse.
My personal prediction is that this will get balanced out by public figures growing thicker skins, bloggers with no evidence beyond the word of a confidential informant will become warier of publishing, and coverage by shield laws will be determined by criteria like the judge used: journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest. In a just world the same criteria would be used for employees of major news outlets; if you don't have notes, independent research, or actual confidentiality agreements with your source then you get no protection under shield laws. In that same perfect world the protections journalists receive wouldn't be meted out by those who most need public scrutiny; the conflict of interest is too great.
I think it's reasonable for bloggers to push for leveling of the journalistic playing field, and I hope that those who take their roles as amateur journalists seriously get the respect they deserve.
I'm torn on this topic. You give a list that's fairly hit-and-miss on special privileges:
Think for a minute. No special privileges granted to police officers to enter premises in case of emergencies, carry weapons openly, or detain people against their will despite not witnessing a crime? No special privileges granted to fire-fighters to restrict people from entering their own homes or to enter someone's home without permission? No special privileges granted to ambulance drivers to go through red lights?
I'm in favor of open carry being legal everywhere, and in many US jurisdictions it is. I also wasn't aware that the Firefighter's authority to enter burning buildings or prevent civilians to enter them derived from anything more than moral authority - they don't want you to die. I'll have to study up on that, as it would make sense to shield them from lawsuits brought on by idiots (it only takes one)...
Then you come back with probably the best point I've read so far in the thread:
. . . the privilege to withhold information from a court, despite due process being followed via a subpoena, is powerful. That privilege should only be given to people whose refusal to disclose information about potentially criminal activities is, despite appearances, a good thing for the state and its people.
And yet, while agreeing with you, I find myself conflicted on the topic. Carrying guns and 100gal/min hoses to peoples houses is one thing, and I'm happy to regulate that. With journalism we're talking about restricting the right to have an opinion and speak the truth. We should always be protected against fraud, especially when the speaker has a position of unique knowledge or authority. On the other hand, what special position can most bloggers claim to have? And in a case where the truth of the message isn't in question, why should the government get to say who is and isn't performing a public service (and therefore deserving of protection)? I can see problems arising if the message is anti-government (or anti-public-servant, same thing effectively)...
I've actually talked to a copyright lawyer who said with a straight face that every router between me and someone I send a copyright-laden file to is guilty of violating the "mechanical copyright" of the rights owner. The settled case law on the matter revolves around radio stations making mix tapes in preparation for broadcast; the stations pay for a license to do so, and the idea of a transient mechanical copy needed for replay is held to be identical to the copying of a .mp3 file into memory as part of replay on a computer. The RIAA has decided that they're not going to try to prosecute any listener for the copy made in RAM or on the processor, although those are violations by the letter of the law as well.
Yes. But you have to edit xorg.conf, and we all know what that means.
That your day is ruined and the next week is going to suck?
If you look at the Phillips Urban Beehive page you'll see that the pull cord is simply a smoke release, not a honey extractor. Even with the smoke, I wouldn't want to be running beekeeping operations in my kitchen. In fact, I'd be willing to say that the only purpose of this design is decorative, not functional: it's for people that just want to look at bees and feel good about being "close to nature" in their homes. I'll let the beekeepers on the forum take care of the rest of the design's flaws, they've already got it covered.
As Okian Warrior already mentioned, breaking open your smoke detector for its americium is a bad idea (even if it did make Slashdot). According to the LavaRnd project the camera itself produces enough entropy data (static) to function as a cryptographically strong RNG seed. Do it the easy way and don't get arrested. Oh, it's open source, too; so if you're interested you can examine the code and use it for further instruction to your students.
Good luck!
As mentioned in another thread, breaking open your smoke detector for its americium is a bad idea, even if it did make Slashdot. According to the LavaRnd project the camera itself produces enough entropy data (static) to function as a cryptographically strong RNG seed. Do it the easy way and don't get arrested.
The webcam can be used as input for a cryptographically strong random number generator. From the lavarnd website:
Unlike other suggestions made on a different thread, this requires no radiation source (the webcam generates enough static on its own), so the nukees will leave you alone. Open source so you can implement it freely and teach your students about the principles involved using the actual source code. It's also the successor to a RNG technique using captured images of LavaLite Lamps as a seed, which I think is awesome.
Good luck!
I feel your pain. Having been raised by conservative parents and educated in liberal schools I often find myself conflicted on issues of civil rights. When police perform a factually correct but procedurally illegal murder investigation how does declaring the murderer "innocent" benefit society? I know the answer is that it discourages corrupt police from manufacturing evidence against the truly innocent, but it feels wrong.
Meanwhile, I can still respect RMS for taking on these less-important issues. To him these issues are just as important philosophically, even if they aren't codified by our Founding Fathers. I think RMS realizes that these "software rights" aren't inherent, which is why he's working within the legal system to construct them for us. Please remember that the GPL is designed only to grant the rights outlined in the Free Software definition, not to take anything away from people who don't want or see the need for those rights. The ACLU is covering 1st amendment issues, the NRA is covering 2nd amendment issues, and the FSF has every right to spend its resources championing property issues in software. We're not living in anarchy yet, so they have the luxury and privilege of striving to give all of us these extra rights they would like us to have. As long as he's not trying to take away your guns or right to freely assemble, you might want to cut RMS a little slack.
Wow. I had no idea I was so close to touching a nerve there. Based on your response I think we may be talking past each other. There's a lot of rhetorical chaff in there, though, so let me see if I can pick out the correct thread of reasoning you're trying to express:
The problem is that software is not in the same league as human rights and freedoms. . . There is nothing stopping you form developing your own software. No government raids or corporate security officers are going to be raiding your house because you are writing you own word processor. . . And unlike software rights my 2nd amendment rights are actually defined quite clearly in the Bill of Rights with little room for misunderstanding.
I think I see where you're coming from there. I agree that the rights afforded in the U.S. Constitution are indeed important, and I'm impressed by your enthusiasm for your right to defend yourself. I'd like to remind you, however, that the philosophical basis of the U.S. revolution was the notion of "natural rights"; notably life, liberty, and property (referring to Locke, not Jefferson here).
Based on your devotion to the 2nd amendment I see you value your natural right to life. Is it too much of a stretch to say that if a software company's products cause 30,000 days worth of wasted time that they have taken a life (in a distributed fashion)? Steve Jobs reportedly thought this way. It's hard to read whether your tone was serious or mocking when you suggested that everyone dissatisfied with MS Office should re-implement it themselves; I hope you'll agree, however, that having everyone who wants to write build their own word processor first would be a waste of everyone's time and many people's talents. Even if you don't agree that it's an effective loss of life, it's clearly a loss of quality of life for everyone involved.
As far as liberty goes (software slavery in our discussion here), I see clear parallels in today's software market to the company stores of yesteryear's mining towns. They didn't send Feds/corporate goons to force the mine workers to buy from the company, they were just cheaper than driving out to the next store; they charged what the market would bear, and knowingly bled their customers dry. What they did was legal (consumer protection laws had not yet been implemented), but morally wrong. Software companies take advantage of the high barrier of entry to the market and leverage their market position to prevent competitors for emerging, Free or otherwise.
Unfortunately, there are corporate goons ready to take on those who step away from the Microsoft Office. I don't know if you're old enough to remember the Word vs WordPerfect wars, but in those days it was common for Microsoft to "audit" businesses and schools, threatening to enforce extortionate fines if the auditors found even one instance of Word that the organization couldn't produce a license for. Of course, purchasing a site license for the full office suite covering every employee (at a cost conveniently lower than the fines) would stop the inquisition. Since these tactics were all legal they carried the implied threat of government enforcement (time to make fun of myself for a moment: "Come see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!") You may not be shackled with these chains, or perhaps you find the software yoke's burden to be light, but RMS and many others find it intolerable.
Finally, the clearest fundamental right that RMS is trying to defend here is property. He truly believes that your software should be your property, not licensed or rented from a company hostile to your interests. All of the rights detailed in the free software definition are essential property rights: (0) run it for any purpose, (1) change it to suit your needs, (2) give it away unchanged, and (3) give awa
Jobs gave the world what it wanted. RMS did not. End of story.
That may be true, but there's a parallel to be made with the aphorism about politics, that every people deserve the government they chose. Just because Apple's way is more popular doesn't make it better.
Software choices don't . . . enslave people.
I don't agree. I know many people who don't feel they have any choice in office software - it's Microsoft Office. There is no alternative, and not buying it isn't an option for them. The business world is being held captive by Microsoft, and has developed a form of Stockholm Syndrome. The wikipedia article on vendor lock-in has a whole section dedicated to well-known players in the software industry and their efforts to prevent their customers from moving to another vendor.
As another example of software slavery, have you ever seen a large company transition from SAP to CA or vice versa? The difficulty and cost of doing so are prohibitive, so many stay with what they have despite huge known problems. For ERP systems just bringing forward your customizations from one major release to another is painful enough to require months for a dedicated IT crew to complete, and as a result I've seen companies adjust their business practices to the software to avoid that problem in the future. That employee time isn't producing anything that will give the company a return on investment, it's just a sunk cost. And no, the software vendor isn't going to send out an associate to help with the transition, they'll instead sell you training on how to do it yourself. From my perspective, the time I spent on version transitions for Computer Associates software weren't spent working for my employer, I was working for CA.
Captive, forced to work for others instead of yourself, and the only way out is difficult, dangerous, and painful? Sounds like slavery to me.
Of course [Stallman] already has the financial resources that enable him to totally ignore how his theories effect [sic] those actually working for a living.
Are you suggesting that the Free Software movement is putting programmers out of work? Like, right now? Or is it somehow stopping people from using Microsoft Office or SAP's ERP software? On the contrary, I'm pretty sure RMS is aware of the impact he's having and I agree with him that it's beneficial, not harmful. The LibreOffice suite is giving people options other than paying ridiculous prices for tools they need for their jobs. For those people (who work for a living) it's a benefit, not a problem. For others that doesn't work for, there's still Microsoft; no programmers have been fired in Redmond because too many people are using Free Software.
And if Stallman's fantasy world ever does come about and Microsoft has to close its doors, the reason will be because the world will be full of useful, freely available tools for doing useful work. There will still be programmers being paid, but it'll be by people who need new tools or improvements to existing tools. And once the tools are built they won't need to be imitated elsewhere, the work once done will benefit everyone. Even if this world requires fewer programmers, they'll be all working on new projects or improvements rather than wasting their time imitating someone else's work. That sounds more like actually working to me.
tl;dr: Asshole or not, RMS has a point about proprietary software enslaving you, and I'd rather live in the world he's trying to build than the ones Steve Jobs and Bill Gates spent their lives building.
P.S. - There's a rant to be made here about how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's goal "to help all people lead healthy, productive lives" apparently only applies to poor Africans, not Microsoft competitors, but I'll leave that for another post.
I was going to argue with you over this, but then I re-read the wiki page I linked to earlier and got depressed. It turns out that in the US we're at something like 80-90% of cheese manufactured using artificial rennet (obtained from genetically modified bacteria). There's no way that using just chymosin expressed by bacteria gets the same result as actual rennet from real calves (which contains other important enzymes like pepsin and lipase, balanced by evolution for the mother's milk).
I'm not sure I buy the argument from the GM industry that natural rennet isn't sufficient for the national cheese demand, it's probably just cheaper. At least I have an excuse to give for my snobbish disdain for US-produced cheeses.
tl, dr: you were right, and my initial point about cheese being derived from animal cruelty is 10% moot and 90% invalid.
It gets better: rennet, the enzyme used to make cheese, is extracted from these slaughtered calves' stomachs. So if you're against the production of milk due to it causing the slaughter of newborn bovine then stop eating cheese, too.
Um, I imagine if you're against the production of milk you're probably already avoiding cheese...
You know, when you put it that way...
Seriously, though, my point (awkwardly put, as you pointed out), was that cheese was a double whammy - not only is milk production causing more calves to be born than is natural, but the production of cheese requires the slaughter of those same calves. The people who think that veal production is the only reason calves are slaughtered are often ignorant of the veal-cheese connection. But, yeah, for people who would rather go veg than drink milk over the veal thing this would be yet another reason, not reason #1.
It gets better: rennet, the enzyme used to make cheese, is extracted from these slaughtered calves' stomachs. So if you're against the production of milk due to it causing the slaughter of newborn bovine then stop eating cheese, too. I'll assume that if you're the type to do this, though, that you've already avoided veal on principle.
As for me, I drink milk, I eat cheese, and I avoid veal only because it costs too much. I'm fine with "exploiting" cows for their milk, and insemination to encourage lactation is good animal husbandry. Good tasting meat and well cultured cheese being a byproduct is a benefit in my opinion, not a fault. As long as the animals aren't treated cruelly during life I don't have an ethical or moral objection to the practice. Feel free to join PETA if you disagree, just don't be surprised if I stand with the farmers when you come to "liberate" their livestock.
You probably heard an audio beat note between the TV sweep rate and the tinnitus.
A beat frequency is the difference between two closely tuned audio tones. Musicians listen to the beat notes to tune their string instruments.
I don't think that's the case here. Beat frequencies are the result of two actual sound waves interfering with each other; in tinnitus I don't think anyone is suggesting that the perceived sound is actually being produced (otherwise it could be measured with an in-ear microphone). Having both fired too many guns in my life and spent time studying music I have tinnitus and can recognize beat patterns; when I'm exposed to real audio frequencies close to my tinnitus frequency I've never heard beat frequencies.
I have to agree with the other posters in this thread that the GP's experience was simply hearing the flyback transformers whine.
Hey, no need to get defensive. You've made valid points, and I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings with the "faker" comment (although it was callous, sorry). I've got 10 years of DBA/sysadmin in my resume, too, that carried an "engineer" title; right now I'm in a job that requires a BS in mechanical engineering but doesn't carry the engineer title (no PE for me yet), so I've been on both sides of this particular argument. The poster I replied to was asking what the nuances and dividing lines were, and the PE license is a clear and easy one to point to.
There are other computer-related certs that aspire to similar glories, with varying success. I've learned to respect my coworkers who earn their CCNA, and I'd argue that they earned their engineer title. I've learned to understand the perspective of the PEs, though, too: until the title "software engineer" carries liability for errors it will never carry the weight that the PEs want the term "Engineer" to have.
There's an easy dividing line between real engineers and fakers in the United States: it's the Professional Engineer licensing program. Graduates from an engineering program can take the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam; if they pass they are considered "Engineers in Training" (EIT). Fourish years later, the EIT can take the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam; after passing the candidate can be licensed by their state as a Professional Engineer, and put the initials PE after their name like doctors do. Licensed PEs can take on legal liability for the designs they create and are consequently eligible for work in fields where public safety is a concern.
I get why many PE type engineers get bent out of shape over the use of titles sanitation engineer, software engineer, and domestic engineer; it dilutes the title, and makes a joke of the profession. Honestly, though, I'd be fine with programmers joining the Engineering club; all they have to do is take the test (yes, there is a computing version of the PE exam, and its requirements don't look too tough to me). As long as they don't use the PE title without earning it I'll be happy, though.
The Amazon basin is so sacrosanct because without it we're not sure the planet will produce enough oxygen to sustain current levels of animal life. That's why it's more important than the Brazilian people.
You frighten me. I'm trying to find a way to not interpret what you just said as a blatant priority of trees over Human life, but I'm failing. I hope you don't mean that you'd rather that a random Brazilian die of starvation in squalor than to have a single Amazonian tree chopped down; unfortunately, I've met too many militant environmentalists to rule that out.
What's worse is that your justification is based on a misunderstanding of the oxygen cycle. I've been led to believe that old-growth forests are both Carbon and Oxygen neutral; the decomposition of dead plant matter uses up about the same amount of oxygen as is released via photosynthesis. If that's true then your fear of suffocation is unfounded and your hostility towards the Brazilians sorely misplaced.
The regrown land is in no way biologically diverse, and thus in now way represents a healthy rainforest. And even if 20% of what is burned in any given year has grown back within 10 years, that still means 80% of what is burned in any given year either never grows back, or grows back and is burned again and again.
Again, the people want to use that land for homes or crops don't want the forest re-taking their and fields; that land has been re-purposed for Human use, and the re-growth there is an expensive problem for residents. My original complaint was that my environmentalist friends take offense at annual fires that can be seen from space, but don't seem to care that those fires are in the same locations year-to-year. I see no problem with that situation; the Brazilians are entitled to build homes to live in and grow food to eat, just like I am. They are also responsible for maintaining sufficient wildlife/Nature preserves to ensure continued biodiversity. There is a balance to be struck there, and they're working on it. It's unreasonable, however to categorically deny them the use of their own land based on your fantastic/romantic/emotional attachment to a forest you've probably never visited.
I can tell that you and I aren't going to find common ground on this topic. In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that continuing the conversation will just result in an endless cycle of trolling each other.