A license is not a contract, That's a pretty broad statement. It's tantamount to saying "A contract(1) is not a contract(2)", where #1 is a contract, printed on paper, waiting for people to sign it, and #2 is the signed copy of same.
I agree that click-through EULAs are not contracts, though; rather, they should not be contracts. I'm afraid that most legal opinions disagree, though. I work for a law firm that (among other things) writes licenses for software packages. What it all comes down to is that if the licensee pisses off the software vendor, the vendor is going to win in court unless the licensee can show that what they did was explicitly permitted by the license.
NT and 2k are supported now, but only if you buy a special hardware attachment Two points... A. The issue isn't whether or not it will work, the issue is whether or not you can legally use the watch with the aforementioned OSi
B. Their software was created for a particular platform (or two...). You changed platforms. Timex never guaranteed that their watch would work with any platform you had.
There are no dumb questions. I usually hear it "There are no stupid questions." My standard response: "But there are stupid people."
My longer response, produced only when people argue: It was two minutes before the tenth-grade Algebra I class would end. I was talking to some of the students about orbits and gravity; I'd sketched a circle and a space ship to demonstrate. A (blond female) student asked "But how do they get back in?" "What do you mean?" She walked up to my drawing. "If this is the earth, and this," she drew a dot inside the circle, "is Cape Canaveral, how do they get in there?" "I'm sorry, I still don't understand." "How can they get in? See, they're up here," she pointed to the space ship, "and they want to get here," she drew a line from the space ship to Cape Canaveral, "how do they get in without hitting the edge?" She pointed to where her line intersected the circle. "Won't they hit the earth right here?"
Fortunately, the bell rang, because I had no answer. She didn't comprehend the difference between two dimensions and three. THAT was when I decided that the education professors who said things like "There are no stupid questions" were smoking crack. There is such a thing as an unacceptable level of ignorance, and I think it's morally wrong to misrepresent reality by suggesting otherwise. If I'm ever in a seminar where the instructor says "There are no stupid questions," I do my best to immediately prove them wrong.
Also, if you're a consultant, you generally have a greater freedom to choose your boss. Never pick a stupid boss if you can help it.
If I spill hot coffee on myself at McDonalds and burn my lap Two facts: 1. The coffee was around 200 degrees. 2. The lady was in the drive-through
Two questions: 1. Why would you serve coffee that is hot enough to cause third-degree burns? 2. Where do you put your drink when you go through the drive through?
I don't believe McDonald's was found guilty of any wrongdoing; rathre, they were found guilty of negligence - a legal term that means "They should have known better." McDonald's should have known that many (if not most) of their customers put their drinks in their laps, and that their coffee would cause third degree burns. Given those two undisputed facts, it is a statistical certainty that someone's crotch would get burned badly.
Keep in mind also that all the woman wanted initially was for McDonald's to pay part of her medical bills. If they has said "We're so sorry" and written a small (to them) check, it would have been over on done with. Instead they said "You STUPID woman! You should have known better!" and promptly launched a propaganda campaign that has clearly had its intended effect, as evidenced by that note in your post. So the woman sued for millions and won.
It's funny, as anti-corporate as the typical/.er seems to be, they sure buy the corporate propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
The first error in your proof occurs on page ____1____, in line _____2____.
Sincerely,
Dillon
When the math department where I went to school received a crank proof, this form letter would be stapled to the front, a grad student would fill it out, and the proof would be returned to its sender.+
So Q is a number theoretical conjecture of the form "All A have property B." A is a member of a countably infinite set - positive integers greater than three, for example. This is an important point, as it means that a suitable programmed computer would find a counterexample, if it existed, in a finite number of steps.
1. If Q is provably true, then there exists a series of statements that constitutes a proof of Q.
2. If Q is false, then there exists a counterexample. 2a (contrapositive of 2) If a counter example does NOT exist, then Q is NOT false. (ie no counterexample == true)
If Q undecidable, then there does not exist a series of statements that constitute a proof, and there does not exist a counterexample. But wait! If there's no counterexample, the conjecture must be true. Proving the conjecture's undecidability thus produces a contradiction - you have proved it true AND you have proved it undecidable. So the conjecture is not undecideable.
Either there's a flaw in my logic, or yours. Which, and where? Or were you merely being more general than I?
Poincaré argued, however, that he used a cyclical arguament to show the principle of induction. Which is why the principle of induction is generally introduced as a postulate in most courses that start with Peano's postulates.
I think anything else is hand-waving, which can often get you into mathematical trouble, like when you try to reorder with alternating series. I'm not a mathematician either - never finishe dup the graduate degrees. But it looks to me like his proof could easily be made rigorous in the form which he describe. Define the notation so that 0.999... and 1.000... represent the appropriate infinite series, define the procedure for subtracting and borrowing, and presto! The outline he's given becomes fairly rigorous.
So if we send x out to infinity, y will still be bigger by exactly 1. You seem to be laboring under the rather common misconception that infinity is a number (at least, not in the ordinare "real" number system). It is not. You cannot set x equal to infinity, so you cannot have y=infinity + 1.
If you're still having trouble, try this thought exercise: Let's construct our infinitely repeating number like this: write 0.01, then insert 0's just to the right of the decimal forever. "Zero followed by a decimal point followed by an infinite number of zeroes followed by a one" does not represent a real number.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, I REALLY think you ought to study calculus (and I don't just mean take the class). The sorts of mathematical and logic errors that you are making peaked in the mathematical world in the 19th century and were put to rest when calculus was finally put on a mathematically rigorous foundation. I think if you understood the foundations of calculus you'd have a better idea of why you are wrong. If you don't understand those foundations, there is no way I can really describe to you why you are wrong. It'd be like trying to explain pointers to a non-programmer who's doesn't speak your language.
I beg to differ. After that infinite number of 0's is the digit "1" at position infinity+1 (or -infinity-1 depending on how you index) - that is, perhaps a more helpful notation would be 0.00000...001, which != 0. Ummm - no, that'd be the case only if 0.999... = 0.9999...990. The sequence of nines does not terminate. The sequence of zeroes does not terminate either. Granted, the poster you are replying to is giving an intuitive demonstration rather than a rigorous proof, but you are proposing mathematical nonsense.
More true would be to say that if x=1 and as y approaches 1, x-y approaches 0 so we can select a y to get x-y arbitrarily close to 0. This is true for a finite number of nines following the decimal point. The logic does not hold up if you make the leap to an infinite number of nines. In other words, 0.9999.... != 0.999....9990.
If I remember my infinite series correctly (it's been 10 years since calc 2 for me), 0.999 represents
oo -----> (think 8 on its side) --- \ 9 \ ------- / 10^(-n) / --- n=1
I've long since forgotten how to sum the series rigorously, but I haven't forgotten the result; 0.99... = 1.
In summary, the arithmetic of infinite series is intuitively nonobvious, and slightly different from the arithmetic of
The idea of tearing apart the wealth people had built up from a little piss-ant company that started back in the seventies You've never gardened, have you? Plants will multiply faster if you divide them. Take a peoony, split it at the roots, replant both halves, wait a few years, repeat - presto, exponential growth. If you don't divide, the plant grows too thick, shading itself, competing with itself for water and nutrients.
And you've never played Civilization, either, have you? Here's a guaranteed winning strategy - colonize. Build as many little cities as you can as soon as you can. They grow faster when they're small, and you'll soon have a boatload of big, productive cities.
What's going to happen here is that Microsoft's size will stay constant, but there will now be two centers of growth. This will be good for Microsoft's investors, and probably bad for its competitors. Bill Gates et al may lose control of one or the other companies, but they will NOT lose wealth. They will instead get richer faster.
Let's look at our own beloved computer industry. Hmmm...comparing all the other businesses to MS, are we? They haven't been convicted of abusing a monopolistic market share, so your analogy is utterly flawed. I don't think you'd disagree when I suggested that convicted felons should be treated differently from the general population. So when a corporation is "convicted" of a "crime" (as MS essentiallyhas been), why would you argue that they shouldn't be treated any differently from those who have committed no crime?
make the split work in a way that's consistent with the way the rest of the computer industry works OK. "Here's my arbitrary definition of an OS. Here's my arbitrary definition of an app. No companies in the industry which abuse monopolistic market share may sell an OS and an app.""
Do Corel, Sun, or Apple abuse monopolistic market share? No, so the above decision would not apply to them. There's your consistency.
I will give copies of the.pdf file to anyone who asks, its public domain as far as I'm concerned.
I wouldn't do that. It's still copyrighted, and if you are associated with any group that "reverse engineers" the specs, whatever prodcut you create could get tied up in court for a long time. Distributing MS's copyrighted info could also get you into legal hot water.
Now, if you're up for some work, what you could do is rewrite the whole thing, while preserving the ideas - copyright doesn't cover that. Or you could tell people how to get this. But don't make yourself a target for MS's legal division; that's completely unnecessary.
Re:I almost completely agree with everything RMS s
on
Thus Spake Stallman
·
· Score: 2
if I prefer one kind of tea over someone else I don't think either of us is "wrong" in any meaningful sense - it truly is relative.
Stallman said "If I and someone else disagree, at least one of us is wrong." If you say "My tea is best" and I say "No, my tea is best," I would assert that both of us are incorrect.
And a careful reading of your statement suggests this: "I've tried Darjeeling, one kind of tea, and I've tried Al Gore, who is someone else. I prefer Darjeeling over Al Gore."
Hmmm...after rereading the original post, I couldn't find any mention of doom, or wishing anything of the sort on anyone.
but I agree. I wouldn't wish doom on anyone. The sprite graphics, the low-res textures, the 3D-no-wait-they're-2D maps...I could go on, but you get my point.
Code is copyrighted in the sense that no one can copy your code letter for letter. Anyone can look at your code and get ideas from your code, just as science fiction writers can "steal" ideas from books they read. "Copyright" in the sense that you mean - where no one else can use your ideas - is actually a patent.
I seem to remember some guy coming to my high school to talk about getting his life together after being in prison.
In at lest some cases, this kind of thing is mandatory. I've seen it done for drunk drivers - as part of their sentence, they have to perform community service, where the service is to speak to groups about how bad it is to drive drunk.
In theory, if Mitnick gave lectures about securing sites against intruders, I don't think it's any different from a convicted burglar telling people how to make their homes more burglar-proof.
I disagree somewhat. I think you are dead on in your analysis of this reason, but I don't think this is the sole reason. It's a bad idea to let people make money (or keep money) from their crimes. If I commit a property crime (ie NOT an offense against a person), serve one year in jail, and then make $300,000 as a direct result of my crime, I'd consider that a fair trade. Many others would, too, with the result that my particular type of crime would increase.
I don't see why Mitnick can't talk about computer technology or security in general, but letting him make money from crimes raises my hackles. Keep in mind, though, that judges have very broad powers; they can do almost anything they want. Ever hear of contempt of court? The judge accuses you, convicts you, and sentences you inside of about ten seconds. In Mitnick's case, if the judge says "Don't talk about technology," that sentence holds unless Mitnick appeals it. I have no idea if such a sentence would survive appeal.
This is the same as if O'Reilly had sent a demand to EBay to quit selling all those old copies of Programming Perl since they owned the copyright.
Actually, it's not, as O'Reilly could conceivably do this. They own the IP. Demanding that E-bay stop selling books which contain their IP is no different, in principle, from MS demanding that Ebay stop selling CDs which contain their IP. Have you read the O'Reilly books cover to cover, every word? Can you guarantee, right now (no fair checking) that the O'Reilly books (or other books) don't contain weasel-phrases like "This content is licensed and not sold"?
DMCA means that checking a book out of the library, or selling a book, or reading someone else's book could become illegal. DMCA grants content-creators TOTAL control over their products. Get the out-of-date concept of "fair use" out of your head. Fair use is what the author says it is.
please please PLEASE tell me you've been up for three days straight and that's why you've misplaced your sense of humor...or do you respond this way to knock-knock jokes, too?
Feel free to shoot me down, as it's been too many years since I was a hardcore physics geek. The curvature of our 4-D universe is often compared to a two-dimensional sheet, which could be flat, spherical, or saddle-shaped. What if the two-dimensional sheet is actually 2.4 dimensional - ie, it has fractal qualities? Does it make sense to measure the curvature of a fractal surface? Does the measurement depend on the scale that is being measured? What would the effect on cosmological theories be?
I realize that posting this question here probably makes as much sense as asking comp sci questions on alt.physics.geeks, but interesting answers to interesting questions are often forthcoming.
Slashdot Mirror
A license is not a contract,
That's a pretty broad statement. It's tantamount to saying "A contract(1) is not a contract(2)", where #1 is a contract, printed on paper, waiting for people to sign it, and #2 is the signed copy of same.
I agree that click-through EULAs are not contracts, though; rather, they should not be contracts. I'm afraid that most legal opinions disagree, though. I work for a law firm that (among other things) writes licenses for software packages. What it all comes down to is that if the licensee pisses off the software vendor, the vendor is going to win in court unless the licensee can show that what they did was explicitly permitted by the license.
NT and 2k are supported now, but only if you buy a special hardware attachment
Two points...
A. The issue isn't whether or not it will work, the issue is whether or not you can legally use the watch with the aforementioned OSi
B. Their software was created for a particular platform (or two...). You changed platforms. Timex never guaranteed that their watch would work with any platform you had.
There are no dumb questions.
I usually hear it "There are no stupid questions."
My standard response: "But there are stupid people."
My longer response, produced only when people argue:
It was two minutes before the tenth-grade Algebra I class would end. I was talking to some of the students about orbits and gravity; I'd sketched a circle and a space ship to demonstrate. A (blond female) student asked "But how do they get back in?"
"What do you mean?"
She walked up to my drawing. "If this is the earth, and this," she drew a dot inside the circle, "is Cape Canaveral, how do they get in there?"
"I'm sorry, I still don't understand."
"How can they get in? See, they're up here," she pointed to the space ship, "and they want to get here," she drew a line from the space ship to Cape Canaveral, "how do they get in without hitting the edge?" She pointed to where her line intersected the circle. "Won't they hit the earth right here?"
Fortunately, the bell rang, because I had no answer. She didn't comprehend the difference between two dimensions and three. THAT was when I decided that the education professors who said things like "There are no stupid questions" were smoking crack. There is such a thing as an unacceptable level of ignorance, and I think it's morally wrong to misrepresent reality by suggesting otherwise. If I'm ever in a seminar where the instructor says "There are no stupid questions," I do my best to immediately prove them wrong.
Also, if you're a consultant, you generally have a greater freedom to choose your boss. Never pick a stupid boss if you can help it.
If I spill hot coffee on myself at McDonalds and burn my lap
/.er seems to be, they sure buy the corporate propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
Two facts:
1. The coffee was around 200 degrees.
2. The lady was in the drive-through
Two questions:
1. Why would you serve coffee that is hot enough to cause third-degree burns?
2. Where do you put your drink when you go through the drive through?
I don't believe McDonald's was found guilty of any wrongdoing; rathre, they were found guilty of negligence - a legal term that means "They should have known better." McDonald's should have known that many (if not most) of their customers put their drinks in their laps, and that their coffee would cause third degree burns. Given those two undisputed facts, it is a statistical certainty that someone's crotch would get burned badly.
Keep in mind also that all the woman wanted initially was for McDonald's to pay part of her medical bills. If they has said "We're so sorry" and written a small (to them) check, it would have been over on done with. Instead they said "You STUPID woman! You should have known better!" and promptly launched a propaganda campaign that has clearly had its intended effect, as evidenced by that note in your post. So the woman sued for millions and won.
It's funny, as anti-corporate as the typical
Yeah, but if somebody tries to steal my car I can use lethal force to stop them.
Dear ___Tebriel___,
The first error in your proof occurs on page ____1____, in line _____2____.
Sincerely,
Dillon
When the math department where I went to school received a crank proof, this form letter would be stapled to the front, a grad student would fill it out, and the proof would be returned to its sender.+
So Q is a number theoretical conjecture of the form "All A have property B." A is a member of a countably infinite set - positive integers greater than three, for example. This is an important point, as it means that a suitable programmed computer would find a counterexample, if it existed, in a finite number of steps.
1. If Q is provably true, then there exists a series of statements that constitutes a proof of Q.
2. If Q is false, then there exists a counterexample.
2a (contrapositive of 2) If a counter example does NOT exist, then Q is NOT false. (ie no counterexample == true)
If Q undecidable, then there does not exist a series of statements that constitute a proof, and there does not exist a counterexample. But wait! If there's no counterexample, the conjecture must be true. Proving the conjecture's undecidability thus produces a contradiction - you have proved it true AND you have proved it undecidable. So the conjecture is not undecideable.
Either there's a flaw in my logic, or yours. Which, and where? Or were you merely being more general than I?
Poincaré argued, however, that he used a cyclical arguament to show the principle of induction.
Which is why the principle of induction is generally introduced as a postulate in most courses that start with Peano's postulates.
I think anything else is hand-waving, which can often get you into mathematical trouble, like when you try to reorder with alternating series.
I'm not a mathematician either - never finishe dup the graduate degrees. But it looks to me like his proof could easily be made rigorous in the form which he describe. Define the notation so that 0.999... and 1.000... represent the appropriate infinite series, define the procedure for subtracting and borrowing, and presto! The outline he's given becomes fairly rigorous.
So if we send x out to infinity, y will still be bigger by exactly 1.
You seem to be laboring under the rather common misconception that infinity is a number (at least, not in the ordinare "real" number system). It is not. You cannot set x equal to infinity, so you cannot have y=infinity + 1.
If you're still having trouble, try this thought exercise: Let's construct our infinitely repeating number like this: write 0.01, then insert 0's just to the right of the decimal forever.
"Zero followed by a decimal point followed by an infinite number of zeroes followed by a one" does not represent a real number.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, I REALLY think you ought to study calculus (and I don't just mean take the class). The sorts of mathematical and logic errors that you are making peaked in the mathematical world in the 19th century and were put to rest when calculus was finally put on a mathematically rigorous foundation. I think if you understood the foundations of calculus you'd have a better idea of why you are wrong. If you don't understand those foundations, there is no way I can really describe to you why you are wrong. It'd be like trying to explain pointers to a non-programmer who's doesn't speak your language.
I beg to differ. After that infinite number of 0's is the digit "1" at position infinity+1 (or -infinity-1 depending on how you index) - that is, perhaps a more helpful notation would be 0.00000...001, which != 0.
Ummm - no, that'd be the case only if 0.999... = 0.9999...990. The sequence of nines does not terminate. The sequence of zeroes does not terminate either. Granted, the poster you are replying to is giving an intuitive demonstration rather than a rigorous proof, but you are proposing mathematical nonsense.
More true would be to say that if x=1 and as y approaches 1, x-y approaches 0 so we can select a y to get x-y arbitrarily close to 0.
This is true for a finite number of nines following the decimal point. The logic does not hold up if you make the leap to an infinite number of nines. In other words, 0.9999.... != 0.999....9990.
If I remember my infinite series correctly (it's been 10 years since calc 2 for me), 0.999 represents
oo -----> (think 8 on its side)
---
\ 9
\ -------
/ 10^(-n)
/
---
n=1
I've long since forgotten how to sum the series rigorously, but I haven't forgotten the result; 0.99... = 1.
In summary, the arithmetic of infinite series is intuitively nonobvious, and slightly different from the arithmetic of
The idea of tearing apart the wealth people had built up from a little piss-ant company that started back in the seventies
You've never gardened, have you? Plants will multiply faster if you divide them. Take a peoony, split it at the roots, replant both halves, wait a few years, repeat - presto, exponential growth. If you don't divide, the plant grows too thick, shading itself, competing with itself for water and nutrients.
And you've never played Civilization, either, have you? Here's a guaranteed winning strategy - colonize. Build as many little cities as you can as soon as you can. They grow faster when they're small, and you'll soon have a boatload of big, productive cities.
What's going to happen here is that Microsoft's size will stay constant, but there will now be two centers of growth. This will be good for Microsoft's investors, and probably bad for its competitors. Bill Gates et al may lose control of one or the other companies, but they will NOT lose wealth. They will instead get richer faster.
Let's look at our own beloved computer industry.
Hmmm...comparing all the other businesses to MS, are we? They haven't been convicted of abusing a monopolistic market share, so your analogy is utterly flawed. I don't think you'd disagree when I suggested that convicted felons should be treated differently from the general population. So when a corporation is "convicted" of a "crime" (as MS essentiallyhas been), why would you argue that they shouldn't be treated any differently from those who have committed no crime?
make the split work in a way that's consistent with the way the rest of the computer industry works
OK. "Here's my arbitrary definition of an OS. Here's my arbitrary definition of an app. No companies in the industry which abuse monopolistic market share may sell an OS and an app.""
Do Corel, Sun, or Apple abuse monopolistic market share? No, so the above decision would not apply to them. There's your consistency.
Lets face it, Napster was created to trade mp3's. Trading mp3's that you don't own, under the current law, is illegal.
Let's face it, money was created to trade goods. Trading goods that you don't own, under the current law, is illegal.
Beautiful little non sequitur; that's the way to cloud the issues. Now, WTF is the point of that statement? Do you work for RIAA or something?
I will give copies of the .pdf file to anyone who asks, its public domain as far as I'm concerned.
I wouldn't do that. It's still copyrighted, and if you are associated with any group that "reverse engineers" the specs, whatever prodcut you create could get tied up in court for a long time. Distributing MS's copyrighted info could also get you into legal hot water.
Now, if you're up for some work, what you could do is rewrite the whole thing, while preserving the ideas - copyright doesn't cover that. Or you could tell people how to get this. But don't make yourself a target for MS's legal division; that's completely unnecessary.
if I prefer one kind of tea over someone else I don't think either of us is "wrong" in any meaningful sense - it truly is relative.
Stallman said "If I and someone else disagree, at least one of us is wrong. " If you say "My tea is best" and I say "No, my tea is best," I would assert that both of us are incorrect.
And a careful reading of your statement suggests this: "I've tried Darjeeling, one kind of tea, and I've tried Al Gore, who is someone else. I prefer Darjeeling over Al Gore."
Hmmm...after rereading the original post, I couldn't find any mention of doom, or wishing anything of the sort on anyone.
but I agree. I wouldn't wish doom on anyone. The sprite graphics, the low-res textures, the 3D-no-wait-they're-2D maps...I could go on, but you get my point.
Can any code be truly copyrighted?
Code is copyrighted in the sense that no one can copy your code letter for letter. Anyone can look at your code and get ideas from your code, just as science fiction writers can "steal" ideas from books they read. "Copyright" in the sense that you mean - where no one else can use your ideas - is actually a patent.
Hey! That's great! Have you submitted it to Rinkworks' book-a-minute?
I seem to remember some guy coming to my high school to talk about getting his life together after being in prison.
In at lest some cases, this kind of thing is mandatory. I've seen it done for drunk drivers - as part of their sentence, they have to perform community service, where the service is to speak to groups about how bad it is to drive drunk.
In theory, if Mitnick gave lectures about securing sites against intruders, I don't think it's any different from a convicted burglar telling people how to make their homes more burglar-proof.
The REASON a serial rapist...
I disagree somewhat. I think you are dead on in your analysis of this reason, but I don't think this is the sole reason. It's a bad idea to let people make money (or keep money) from their crimes. If I commit a property crime (ie NOT an offense against a person), serve one year in jail, and then make $300,000 as a direct result of my crime, I'd consider that a fair trade. Many others would, too, with the result that my particular type of crime would increase.
I don't see why Mitnick can't talk about computer technology or security in general, but letting him make money from crimes raises my hackles. Keep in mind, though, that judges have very broad powers; they can do almost anything they want. Ever hear of contempt of court? The judge accuses you, convicts you, and sentences you inside of about ten seconds. In Mitnick's case, if the judge says "Don't talk about technology," that sentence holds unless Mitnick appeals it. I have no idea if such a sentence would survive appeal.
This is the same as if O'Reilly had sent a demand to EBay to quit selling all those old copies of Programming Perl since they owned the copyright.
Actually, it's not, as O'Reilly could conceivably do this. They own the IP. Demanding that E-bay stop selling books which contain their IP is no different, in principle, from MS demanding that Ebay stop selling CDs which contain their IP. Have you read the O'Reilly books cover to cover, every word? Can you guarantee, right now (no fair checking) that the O'Reilly books (or other books) don't contain weasel-phrases like "This content is licensed and not sold"?
DMCA means that checking a book out of the library, or selling a book, or reading someone else's book could become illegal. DMCA grants content-creators TOTAL control over their products. Get the out-of-date concept of "fair use" out of your head. Fair use is what the author says it is.
please please PLEASE tell me you've been up for three days straight and that's why you've misplaced your sense of humor...or do you respond this way to knock-knock jokes, too?
Knock, knock
Who's there?
Duane
Duan who?
Duane the bathtub, I'm dwowning
you're names not duane, idiot, you're not in a bathtub and you're NOT drowning..
Feel free to shoot me down, as it's been too many years since I was a hardcore physics geek. The curvature of our 4-D universe is often compared to a two-dimensional sheet, which could be flat, spherical, or saddle-shaped. What if the two-dimensional sheet is actually 2.4 dimensional - ie, it has fractal qualities? Does it make sense to measure the curvature of a fractal surface? Does the measurement depend on the scale that is being measured? What would the effect on cosmological theories be?
I realize that posting this question here probably makes as much sense as asking comp sci questions on alt.physics.geeks, but interesting answers to interesting questions are often forthcoming.