Besides, did you have a say in all these trade agreements? No.. thus, you are entitled to bitch about it.
Actually, Canadians had something to say about the free trade agreement. We voted on it during the 1988 federal election, when we elected the Mulroney gov't. The election's main focus was the free trade agreement.
The free trade agreement changed into NAFTA when Mexico entered the picture.
Before free trade agreement, pretty much everything sold between Canada and the US had tariffs and there was no standard way to mediate the conflicts.
It's always easy to say that things are worst then they would be if something had been different but since there's no way to compare it's hard to actually demonstrate it.
Personnally, I think that the fewer barriers there are to trade, the better. The FTA and NAFTA both serve that purpose. I don't see how not having these agreements would stop the US from imposing tariffs. There were plenty of those before the agreement.
I don't know about "the law" here in Quebec but in general retailers show the original price (A), then the rebate (B), then there's a "your price" (actually "votre prix") line where they do A-B.
So for example, you might see something like this.
Cost: 100$ Rebate: 99$ Your price: 1$
The problem with this - and I believe there's a case for a class action suit here - is that the retailers conveniently forget about taxes. (x1,07 Federal x 1,075 Provincial)
So I actually pay 100$ x 1,07 x 1,075 = 115,03$, I mail in the coupon and get 99$ back for a total cost of 16,03$ + stamp
I don't know if the same problem exists elsewhere. Which amount do you pay taxes on in the US and elsewhere?
Another problem that I see is that retailers will advertise a price and a rebate. Since the rebate comes from an American company, they convert the US$ amount to CAN$ and add a note about this. That's all good.
The problem is that when you get your 20 US$ mail in rebate, it'll cost you around 7 CAN$ to cash it. Retailers conveniently forget to mention that as well.
As I said in my post, I don't believe that programmers at any level should use "clever tricks."
I also think that people should not confuse good programmers with programmers that can write fast code using bit-wise operations, and asm() instructions.
Anybody can write code that's hard to read. The good programmer's code will generally look like it was easy.
This is why I objected to your argument that 10 morons can do better (or equivalent) to a good programmer.
My experience has shown that a job that can be done by 5 good programmers in 5 months will usually take 10 poor programmers 10 months. As a side benefit, the good programmers will generate reusable components as well as maintainable and testable code.
By the way, the reason I am going through the trouble of making these clarifications is that too many people actually believe that you can replace good programmers with poor programmers if you have coding standards and a good process.
Finally, I can't speak for the ggp but I believe that s/he was making the argument that when one is well versed in English literature, one will not need a bunch of comments in the margins to explain the most basic meanings. Similarly, if a programmer creates a structure with two floats called r and i and names the structure 'complex', then comments explainling that r stands for real and i for imaginary are simply wasted. On the other hand, if the ggp's intention was to excuse obfuscated code then I believe that s/he is wrong.
The real problem is that genius just isn't very scalable. Ten moron coders[1] who catch mistakes only half of the time will still collectively produce better results than a lone genius who is 99% accurate. (If we assume the morons find bugs independantly, the odds of not finding a bug are (1-(0.5 ** 10 ) ) = 99.9% accuracy. The genius is "only" getting 99% accuracy working alone himself).
Morons will find the obvious bugs sure. They will even tend to find different bugs - which makes the average go up.
On the other hand, they won't know how to fix the bugs; They will add several lines of code to kludge the problem when all that was required was to remove a line; They will create side effects which they won't know how to test and therefore create even more bugs. Moron programmers will also cut-and-paste the same lines of codes instead of writing a new function; They will make every method and every attribute public to make sure you can never figure out what the API is; They'll comment out old code instead of removing it so that you can have a history of every line that was ever written into a file;...
Senior programmers shouldn't have to write "down." I agree that they shouldn't use "clever tricks" either but they shouldn't have to unfold for-loops and stop using callbacks and design patterns just because some moron doesn't understand them.
Also, junior programmers are not moron programmers. Moron programmers remain moron programmers until they leave or until they get promoted.
Be careful! If you keep enough moron programmers around, your junior programmers will tend to program like the morons.
What is needed with UML is a way to execcute the design it creates. We need a tool that will parse the UML to generate the relationships between modules, show the data flow and transformations, allow one to make a mockup of forms and trace the consequences of the ranges of values allowed.
UML can do some of that but UML is not just class diagrams. It's also sequences, use cases, packaging, and more.
Even if the tool you mention existed, if you wanted to keep these other auxiliary design documents current, you would still need to do some additional work and pay the price (maintain the documentation as well as the code).
If you find a resistance needs to be changed in some hardware design, you don't just change the reel in the production plant. You change the BOM, the design documents and anything that might be affected.
In software, programmers don't feel that this is needed because they're too lazy to do so - they feel that it should be done automatically or that it's somebody else's problem. Managers don't want to force this upon the programmers because they know that they won't be able to justify 2 days of work for changing a single line of code. You get what you pay for.
The problem with UML is that it's a good tool but it's just a tool and should be treated as such. It's not a programming language. Maybe one day, it will be but until then it should be treated the same way as other tools such as engineering notes, power point presentations, requirements books, test tools (at all levels), prototypes, user documentation,...
All these tools have their usefulness. If they can be used to generate some of the code... great. But they are just tools. Even if one day UML can be used as a programming language, it would still need to be used when appropriate just like other programming language. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need wrench
Nevertheless, some of these tools' artefacts need to be kept current and some less; Some are throw-aways. The trick is to figure out which is which
Hint: don't throw away the code.
Everybody learns C++ or Java etc. as first languages and from then on feel that they have to program at the level of these languages, only slightly higher than machine code.
We have to program at these levels sometimes and other times we don't. Everytime you use a library, you don't. When testing the return code from a member of that library, you do.
They force a programmer to break a high level view of the problems into tiny discrete chunks quite unrelated to the actual problem language.
I don't think that's ever going to change. Personnally, I think that the chunks are getting bigger and better all the time.
What I have never really understood is why the company has to pay a fine. Sure if the company is privately owned, that makes sense but why do all the stockholders have to pay for the executives' unlawful acts.
If an executive robs a bank, then he goes to jail and the company doesn't have to pay. Why is this different? Put the executives in jail and have them pay the entire cost.
At the very least, I hope that the shareholders can sue these thieves in a class action suit or through that the company can sue the executives for loss the cost of the fine and the cost of litigation.
The reason you elect representatives is so that they can represent you. If you need to have a vote on another issue, it should be something important and in that case, the cost should be justifiable.
The issues work both ways. If you support gay marriage, a ban issue will get you out, just to oppose it, along with the fundies who want the ban.
I don't think that your statement is true. Assuming that someone doesn't normally vote then:
If he opposes gay marriage, there is a good chance that he will go vote;
If he is gay, there is a good chance that he will go vote as well;
If he is not gay and doesn't really care either way, he probably won't go vote.
So, now, I got some special groups to go vote and if the proportion of people that are likely to vote for my party is in my favor, I will put that question on the ballot, otherwise, I'll have a separate referendum or simply won't ask the question.
In my opinion, if democracy is more important than money then these questions should be asked in a separate referendum or, at the very least, there should be a global consensus on which questions will be asked.
Isn't the "other issues on a single ballot" a problem?
I don't know about you but this seems like a dangerous thing for democracy. First, as with the gay marriage issue, it gets people to vote - which is a good thing - but it does so in a biased way.
For example, you can get more democrats/republicans to vote if you hold a referendum on health care/tax cuts. It's a good thing to get more prople to vote but the only issues that should be decided during an election is who should represent you in the government. You can always hold a referendum on other questions at a later time.
By the way, it also has the side effect of hiding the value that people attach to the questions being asked during the referendums. For example if you ask a question on wether smoking should be made illegal in bars and the answer is 70% yes, then how do you know that the people who voted have some kind of stake. If you have a separate referendum, the people that don't care (they might not go to bars) will not bother going to vote so the turnout is going to be more realistic and the result will reflect the will of the people a lot better.
This sounds like a HGTTG problem where the answers are all really fine but nobody has figured out what the question is.
Q: What is security A: 42 (or maybe 54)
Is computer security inversely proportional to usability?
Choose any answer you want, the fact remains that we generally need security and it may or may not be proportional (inversely) to usability but it is making the design of a "user friendly" system more complicated and sometimes even impossible.
So what's the real question?
I think that the real question(s) should be:
1) How secure does this system need to be? 2) Is it easier to build a usable system over a secure architecture or to add security to a usable system? 3) What is going to be the time to market a secure system vs. a mostly secure system vs....?
These answers will depend on the type of application/OS you build. If I need an OS for an emmbedded application, I'm not going to waste time making it secure.
let Dubya get the idea in his brain that Canada holds vast oil reserves and before you know it, you're harboring terrorists and on the wrong end of a Tomahawk cruise missle.
Come on, that sounds quite benign. Looks to me like they're just trying to protect their interests.
Yes, but the thing is, by protecting their interests, they are protecting the interests of other users of free software as well.
If the free software that they are protecting is GPL'd, then it is protected by the following clause:
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
Therefore, to protect themselves, they have to protect everyone else.
That was also true before their statement but now they are making it "official."
Yes, I'm sure that Sun (or MS or any other software development cie.) has a whole bunch of software designers looking at software patents to see what they could use to develop the next best foobar algorithm.
Remember, patents are not granted immediately so by the time they make it to the patent office, they have probably already been breached.
I developed the software for an electronic lock way back when and the cie I worked for had to argue against 5 or 6 patents infringement claims (I don't think they made it to court though). I don't remember anyone in the team reading a patent to get ideas on how to build the thing and I'm sure it wouldn't have helped.
So let's assume for a second that Sun did breach the 3 patents in question and let's assume that they are not trivial. Are you suggesting that Sun developers looked at the patent. Thought "Hey! this is a great idea... we could use that." Then decided to knowingly infringe on the patent to develop software that they would then distribute gratis.
So tell me again what the benefit of patents in the software industry is? Do you honestly think that had Wang not patented this technology, that Java would not have happened?
Personally, I think that it's easier to reverse engineer binary code than it is to read a patent claim. So, if the basis for which patents are granted is to encourage public disclosure they are of no use.
I'll probably get modded down for not agreeing with the Slashdot status quo, but I have to say it anyway, even if just for the few freethinking individuals who may read my post.
Yes, you will. Yes, you did.
If they want to "hide" behind the EULA then so be it. The customer should read it. If you don't agree to the EULA, then don't buy the product, simple as that.
In the case of Diebold (a state buying hardware and software) I agree, the EULA is the contract and they (the state) have enough resources to ensure that the contract is correct.
I believe that most "lefties" complaining about EULA complain when the end-user has no bargaining power or when the average end-user is not a lawyer but the EULA is unreadable otherwise.
I've experience deja vu. That feeling is associated with the Matrix. Therefore, the Matrix is real.
Wrong.
No, I'm not being cute, I'm making a point. Many religious leaders claim there belief comes from an internal feeling.
They can claim all they want.
Research has been done, and those feelings are, indeed, real, and Cat Scans and MRIs show certain activity. The origin of those feelings is a matter of some debate, but people really do feel uplifted, enlightened, happy, etc. The studies have advanced far enough that researches can use stimulus to induce the religious feeling in people on a fairly repeatable basis. Looks to be some chemical release triggered by situational settings.
That sounds reasonable and that seems to explain this otherwise incomprehensible need to believe in God, gods and god like beings. OTOH, IANA brain surgeon.
Anyway, facsinating stuff. Imagine learning that Deja Vu isn't proof of the Matrix, but just some chemical reaction in the brain. Then what would happen to organized religion?
First, Déjà vu is NOT proof of the Matrix.
Second, unfortunatly, reason doesn't seem to play a role with their beliefs so I am certain that it wouldn't change a thing.
..., except that I call undecidedness about gods agnosticism while you call it atheism.
undecidedness about gods IS agnosticism.
Atheists don't believe in gods just like you don't believe that you are a part of the Matrix (TM) even though you can't prove that the Matrix doesn't exist.
Agreed on most of your post. I would add also that the scientific view doesn't care much about simplicity.
On the other hand, it is not required to prove something for it to exist but that won't make me change my belief that god (or God) and flying pigs don't exist.
It was a bit tongue-in-cheek; I'm sorry it wasn't conveyed properly.
Apologies accepted.
By the way, are you so quick to call other people racists when they refer to other cultures, such as Americans, in a demeaning and offensive manner? If so, we really need more people like you; nowadays, in Canada, it's common to hear things that would be considered racist if said about any culture other than the Americans, yet no one says anything to those people.
I feel that to a certain extent, we are all a bit racist. When I find that I have a racist attitude, I try to correct it. Although I generally try to avoid the term; Yes, if someone has a racist attitute I point it out.
W.r.t. Americans, I work for an American company and I have daily contacts with Americans. The people I work with are very nice and very bright.
Also, most comments I hear about Americans are not directed at the people but at the government they elected. Thinking that Bush is an idiot is not being racist.
Thinking that the Americans are idiots for placing such a mad man in office is only racist if you think that other races/countries are more intelligent.:-)
There are also Hungarian Canadians in all parts of Canada; however, that doesn't make those parts Hungarian Canada.
Where did I claim any such thing?
Yes, and the majority of those people also have a decent grasp of English; certainly more than have a decent grasp of French.
Agreed. Your original comment was that in English-Canada,... almost all the people speak nothing but English.. I still disagree on that point unless almost all has taken on a new meaning.
Whether they care or not doesn't change the fact that if it wasn't for their adherence to the French language I would not have had to learn French.
Again, unless you come to "live" in Quebec, Quebecers don't really care if you learn French so I don't see how you would have been forced to learn French. In any case, I would rather prefer not to be called a "bloody Quebecer."
> First, I'd like to mention that your argumentum ad hominem really displays your level of tolerance.
Interesting that you should refer to people who live in Quebec as 'those bloody Quebecers' but then don't expect any reply. Should I understand that in addition to being a racist, you are also incapable of being coherent.
>> Interesting that you had to learn French in a French community. > No, I learned French in an English community. I live in English-Canada (the vast majority of Canada) > where almost all the people speak nothing but English.
There are French Canadians in all parts of Canada. New Brunswick is officially bilingual, Ottawa has a large French community, there are a lot of people all accross the country who come from non English speaking countries and speak their native tongue very well.
But I guess that just as with 'culture', you have your own 'selective' definition of "almost all" that everyone should guess.
> > > I also had to learn French as my fourth in order to appease those bloody Quebecers
In case you can't follow your own threads let me assure you that these 'bloody Quebecers' don't really care if you don't speak French if you don't live in Quebec. Are you trying to imply that Quebecers would like everyone in Canada to speak French? If you are, you are sadly mistaken.
A "sane" school will have good education in multiple languages; not just English.
Currently, English is highly rated for international communication but this could change.
My point is that if this does change, for example if Spanish becomes a requisite for some specialized Web sites, the most popular second language could shift rather quickly whereas the primary language would not.
My mother tongue is French and I have English as my second language. My children, currently, only speak French. Eventually, they will probably learn English or some other second language but the language they choose will be influenced by the then current World situation.
Thanks, I was aware that once a trade secret is published, it no longer is a trade secret and cannot be patented. However, for someone to claim that, one must have access to the publication. I won't tell if you don't:-)
> Then again, with the way the patent office and others have been operating over the past few years, who knows.
That's mostly what I was refering to. The one-click, two-click, hypertext, etc.
The funny thing about second and third languages is that they have a rather lower chance of being passed on to the next generation unless there is a real need for it.
Therefore, if Spanish becomes more widely used than English on the Internet, more people may choose to learn Spanish rather than English as a second language.
> Besides, the idea that language is tied to culture is nothing more than moronic.
You are a moron if you don't see how language can be tied to culture. Please look up culture in a dictionary.
> [blah blah blah] > I also had to learn French as my fourth in order to appease those bloody Quebecers
Interesting that you had to learn French in a French community. I guess that if I go to the US, I should expect the entire country to start speeking French just so I should not be bothered to use the native language.
Slashdot Mirror
The free trade agreement changed into NAFTA when Mexico entered the picture.
Before free trade agreement, pretty much everything sold between Canada and the US had tariffs and there was no standard way to mediate the conflicts.
It's always easy to say that things are worst then they would be if something had been different but since there's no way to compare it's hard to actually demonstrate it.
Personnally, I think that the fewer barriers there are to trade, the better. The FTA and NAFTA both serve that purpose. I don't see how not having these agreements would stop the US from imposing tariffs. There were plenty of those before the agreement.
So for example, you might see something like this.
The problem with this - and I believe there's a case for a class action suit here - is that the retailers conveniently forget about taxes. (x1,07 Federal x 1,075 Provincial)
So I actually pay 100$ x 1,07 x 1,075 = 115,03$, I mail in the coupon and get 99$ back for a total cost of 16,03$ + stamp
I don't know if the same problem exists elsewhere. Which amount do you pay taxes on in the US and elsewhere?
Another problem that I see is that retailers will advertise a price and a rebate. Since the rebate comes from an American company, they convert the US$ amount to CAN$ and add a note about this. That's all good.
The problem is that when you get your 20 US$ mail in rebate, it'll cost you around 7 CAN$ to cash it. Retailers conveniently forget to mention that as well.
As I said in my post, I don't believe that programmers at any level should use "clever tricks."
I also think that people should not confuse good programmers with programmers that can write fast code using bit-wise operations, and asm() instructions.
Anybody can write code that's hard to read. The good programmer's code will generally look like it was easy.
This is why I objected to your argument that 10 morons can do better (or equivalent) to a good programmer.
My experience has shown that a job that can be done by 5 good programmers in 5 months will usually take 10 poor programmers 10 months. As a side benefit, the good programmers will generate reusable components as well as maintainable and testable code.
By the way, the reason I am going through the trouble of making these clarifications is that too many people actually believe that you can replace good programmers with poor programmers if you have coding standards and a good process.
Finally, I can't speak for the ggp but I believe that s/he was making the argument that when one is well versed in English literature, one will not need a bunch of comments in the margins to explain the most basic meanings. Similarly, if a programmer creates a structure with two floats called r and i and names the structure 'complex', then comments explainling that r stands for real and i for imaginary are simply wasted. On the other hand, if the ggp's intention was to excuse obfuscated code then I believe that s/he is wrong.
On the other hand, they won't know how to fix the bugs; They will add several lines of code to kludge the problem when all that was required was to remove a line; They will create side effects which they won't know how to test and therefore create even more bugs. Moron programmers will also cut-and-paste the same lines of codes instead of writing a new function; They will make every method and every attribute public to make sure you can never figure out what the API is; They'll comment out old code instead of removing it so that you can have a history of every line that was ever written into a file; ...
Senior programmers shouldn't have to write "down." I agree that they shouldn't use "clever tricks" either but they shouldn't have to unfold for-loops and stop using callbacks and design patterns just because some moron doesn't understand them.
Also, junior programmers are not moron programmers. Moron programmers remain moron programmers until they leave or until they get promoted.
Be careful! If you keep enough moron programmers around, your junior programmers will tend to program like the morons.
Even if the tool you mention existed, if you wanted to keep these other auxiliary design documents current, you would still need to do some additional work and pay the price (maintain the documentation as well as the code).
If you find a resistance needs to be changed in some hardware design, you don't just change the reel in the production plant. You change the BOM, the design documents and anything that might be affected.
In software, programmers don't feel that this is needed because they're too lazy to do so - they feel that it should be done automatically or that it's somebody else's problem. Managers don't want to force this upon the programmers because they know that they won't be able to justify 2 days of work for changing a single line of code. You get what you pay for.
The problem with UML is that it's a good tool but it's just a tool and should be treated as such. It's not a programming language. Maybe one day, it will be but until then it should be treated the same way as other tools such as engineering notes, power point presentations, requirements books, test tools (at all levels), prototypes, user documentation, ...
All these tools have their usefulness. If they can be used to generate some of the code... great. But they are just tools. Even if one day UML can be used as a programming language, it would still need to be used when appropriate just like other programming language. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need wrench
Nevertheless, some of these tools' artefacts need to be kept current and some less; Some are throw-aways. The trick is to figure out which is which
Hint: don't throw away the code.
We have to program at these levels sometimes and other times we don't. Everytime you use a library, you don't. When testing the return code from a member of that library, you do. I don't think that's ever going to change. Personnally, I think that the chunks are getting bigger and better all the time.What I have never really understood is why the company has to pay a fine. Sure if the company is privately owned, that makes sense but why do all the stockholders have to pay for the executives' unlawful acts.
If an executive robs a bank, then he goes to jail and the company doesn't have to pay. Why is this different? Put the executives in jail and have them pay the entire cost.
At the very least, I hope that the shareholders can sue these thieves in a class action suit or through that the company can sue the executives for loss the cost of the fine and the cost of litigation.
If he opposes gay marriage, there is a good chance that he will go vote;
If he is gay, there is a good chance that he will go vote as well;
If he is not gay and doesn't really care either way, he probably won't go vote.
So, now, I got some special groups to go vote and if the proportion of people that are likely to vote for my party is in my favor, I will put that question on the ballot, otherwise, I'll have a separate referendum or simply won't ask the question.
In my opinion, if democracy is more important than money then these questions should be asked in a separate referendum or, at the very least, there should be a global consensus on which questions will be asked.
Isn't the "other issues on a single ballot" a problem?
I don't know about you but this seems like a dangerous thing for democracy. First, as with the gay marriage issue, it gets people to vote - which is a good thing - but it does so in a biased way.
For example, you can get more democrats/republicans to vote if you hold a referendum on health care/tax cuts. It's a good thing to get more prople to vote but the only issues that should be decided during an election is who should represent you in the government. You can always hold a referendum on other questions at a later time.
By the way, it also has the side effect of hiding the value that people attach to the questions being asked during the referendums. For example if you ask a question on wether smoking should be made illegal in bars and the answer is 70% yes, then how do you know that the people who voted have some kind of stake. If you have a separate referendum, the people that don't care (they might not go to bars) will not bother going to vote so the turnout is going to be more realistic and the result will reflect the will of the people a lot better.
This sounds like a HGTTG problem where the answers are all really fine but nobody has figured out what the question is.
...?
Q: What is security
A: 42 (or maybe 54)
Is computer security inversely proportional to usability?
Choose any answer you want, the fact remains that we generally need security and it may or may not be proportional (inversely) to usability but it is making the design of a "user friendly" system more complicated and sometimes even impossible.
So what's the real question?
I think that the real question(s) should be:
1) How secure does this system need to be?
2) Is it easier to build a usable system over a secure architecture or to add security to a usable system?
3) What is going to be the time to market a secure system vs. a mostly secure system vs.
These answers will depend on the type of application/OS you build. If I need an OS for an emmbedded application, I'm not going to waste time making it secure.
Save Canada... vote Kerry
Yes, but the thing is, by protecting their interests, they are protecting the interests of other users of free software as well.
If the free software that they are protecting is GPL'd, then it is protected by the following clause:
Therefore, to protect themselves, they have to protect everyone else.
That was also true before their statement but now they are making it "official."
So basically,
F stands for Free as in Gratis and;
L stands for Libre as in Free Speech.
All the while, people are trying to get everybody to understand that the "Free" in Free Software refers to Free as in "Free Speech."
Now, excuse me while I become more confused.
Can we please go back to Free Software and Gratis Software? Please!
And if Free Software is too confusing, call it "Freed software" which cannot be confused with Gratis.
One more confusion... does the "/" in Free/Libre stand for "Free and Libre" or "Free or Libre?"
Yes, I'm sure that Sun (or MS or any other software development cie.) has a whole bunch of software designers looking at software patents to see what they could use to develop the next best foobar algorithm.
Remember, patents are not granted immediately so by the time they make it to the patent office, they have probably already been breached.
I developed the software for an electronic lock way back when and the cie I worked for had to argue against 5 or 6 patents infringement claims (I don't think they made it to court though). I don't remember anyone in the team reading a patent to get ideas on how to build the thing and I'm sure it wouldn't have helped.
So let's assume for a second that Sun did breach the 3 patents in question and let's assume that they are not trivial. Are you suggesting that Sun developers looked at the patent. Thought "Hey! this is a great idea... we could use that." Then decided to knowingly infringe on the patent to develop software that they would then distribute gratis.
So tell me again what the benefit of patents in the software industry is? Do you honestly think that had Wang not patented this technology, that Java would not have happened?
Personally, I think that it's easier to reverse engineer binary code than it is to read a patent claim. So, if the basis for which patents are granted is to encourage public disclosure they are of no use.
Yes, you will. Yes, you did.
In the case of Diebold (a state buying hardware and software) I agree, the EULA is the contract and they (the state) have enough resources to ensure that the contract is correct.
I believe that most "lefties" complaining about EULA complain when the end-user has no bargaining power or when the average end-user is not a lawyer but the EULA is unreadable otherwise.
trolling deleted
Wrong.
They can claim all they want.
That sounds reasonable and that seems to explain this otherwise incomprehensible need to believe in God, gods and god like beings. OTOH, IANA brain surgeon.
First, Déjà vu is NOT proof of the Matrix.
Second, unfortunatly, reason doesn't seem to play a role with their beliefs so I am certain that it wouldn't change a thing.
undecidedness about gods IS agnosticism.
Atheists don't believe in gods just like you don't believe that you are a part of the Matrix (TM) even though you can't prove that the Matrix doesn't exist.
Agreed on most of your post.
I would add also that the scientific view doesn't care much about simplicity.
On the other hand, it is not required to prove something for it to exist but that won't make me change my belief that god (or God) and flying pigs don't exist.
Apologies accepted.
By the way, are you so quick to call other people racists when they refer to other cultures, such as Americans, in a demeaning and offensive manner? If so, we really need more people like you; nowadays, in Canada, it's common to hear things that would be considered racist if said about any culture other than the Americans, yet no one says anything to those people.
I feel that to a certain extent, we are all a bit racist. When I find that I have a racist attitude, I try to correct it. Although I generally try to avoid the term; Yes, if someone has a racist attitute I point it out.
W.r.t. Americans, I work for an American company and I have daily contacts with Americans. The people I work with are very nice and very bright.
Also, most comments I hear about Americans are not directed at the people but at the government they elected. Thinking that Bush is an idiot is not being racist.
Thinking that the Americans are idiots for placing such a mad man in office is only racist if you think that other races/countries are more intelligent. :-)
There are also Hungarian Canadians in all parts of Canada; however, that doesn't make those parts Hungarian Canada.
Where did I claim any such thing?
Yes, and the majority of those people also have a decent grasp of English; certainly more than have a decent grasp of French.
Agreed. Your original comment was that in English-Canada,... almost all the people speak nothing but English.. I still disagree on that point unless almost all has taken on a new meaning.
Whether they care or not doesn't change the fact that if it wasn't for their adherence to the French language I would not have had to learn French.
Again, unless you come to "live" in Quebec, Quebecers don't really care if you learn French so I don't see how you would have been forced to learn French. In any case, I would rather prefer not to be called a "bloody Quebecer."
> First, I'd like to mention that your argumentum ad hominem really displays your level of tolerance.
Interesting that you should refer to people who live in Quebec as 'those bloody Quebecers' but then don't expect any reply. Should I understand that in addition to being a racist, you are also incapable of being coherent.
>> Interesting that you had to learn French in a French community.
> No, I learned French in an English community. I live in English-Canada (the vast majority of Canada)
> where almost all the people speak nothing but English.
There are French Canadians in all parts of Canada. New Brunswick is officially bilingual, Ottawa has a large French community, there are a lot of people all accross the country who come from non English speaking countries and speak their native tongue very well.
But I guess that just as with 'culture', you have your own 'selective' definition of "almost all" that everyone should guess.
> > > I also had to learn French as my fourth in order to appease those bloody Quebecers
In case you can't follow your own threads let me assure you that these 'bloody Quebecers' don't really care if you don't speak French if you don't live in Quebec. Are you trying to imply that Quebecers would like everyone in Canada to speak French? If you are, you are sadly mistaken.
A "sane" school will have good education in multiple languages; not just English.
Currently, English is highly rated for international communication but this could change.
My point is that if this does change, for example if Spanish becomes a requisite for some specialized Web sites, the most popular second language could shift rather quickly whereas the primary language would not.
My mother tongue is French and I have English as my second language. My children, currently, only speak French. Eventually, they will probably learn English or some other second language but the language they choose will be influenced by the then current World situation.
Thanks, I was aware that once a trade secret is published, it no longer is a trade secret and cannot be patented. However, for someone to claim that, one must have access to the publication. I won't tell if you don't :-)
> Then again, with the way the patent office and others have been operating over the past few years, who knows.
That's mostly what I was refering to. The one-click, two-click, hypertext, etc.
Quick, patent this idea now before we need to do a search for prior art when SomeCie patents it in a month or two.
The funny thing about second and third languages is that they have a rather lower chance of being passed on to the next generation unless there is a real need for it.
Therefore, if Spanish becomes more widely used than English on the Internet, more people may choose to learn Spanish rather than English as a second language.
> Besides, the idea that language is tied to culture is nothing more than moronic.
You are a moron if you don't see how language can be tied to culture. Please look up culture in a dictionary.
> [blah blah blah]
> I also had to learn French as my fourth in order to appease those bloody Quebecers
Interesting that you had to learn French in a French community. I guess that if I go to the US, I should expect the entire country to start speeking French just so I should not be bothered to use the native language.