The thing is that, like many innovations, much of the work for powered heavier than air flight had been done. What was needed was, most importantly, someone to be systematic in their application of the knowledge, as well as a practical engine to be developed. The wright brothers did both.
I find it sad that there are so many myths and misconceptions in regards to the Wrights. First and foremost is the idea that they were just a couple of simple bicycle builders who worked hard and got lucky. In reality they were world class engineers. Next up is the idea that they had some sort of divine inspiration and built their flyer in a vacuum without learning from their predecessors and contemporaries. And this is in part the point you seem to be making. Unfortunately, this point can be overstated as well. While they certainly used the experiences of others, they did much more than methodically compile others' data into a working version. So many of the things that made their flyer successful were nothing like what everyone else was trying. They worked it like a problem to solve, or as you excellently stated, they learned to fly--where most others were just trying to find something that would work. The magintude of their innovations is staggering:
The wing shape to not only provide ample lift, but actually designing and solving the calculations ahead of time to determine how much lift was needed.
They knew they needed about 12 hp but couldn't be more than 200 pounds. They wanted to buy an engine but other engines of the day were 1 hp per 20 pounds so they built their own using aluminum instead of cast iron yielding about 1 hp per 12 pounds.
The efficiency of their propellors were around 80% while everyone else at the time was at half that.
The control of the plane was what most set them apart from everyone else, and their concept of wing warping truly revolutionary. Many people who first saw them bank a turn thought something was wrong and that they were going to crash--most people expected a flying machine to turn like a boat.
You're giving them too much credit--while it's true about the wider audience playback with Flash, if that were really their reason, then they would have actually emhedded the video into a swf. The flash player can play back video encoded with the Sorenson Spark (or Spark Pro) codec which is pretty decent (though obviously not as good as MPEG 2/4).
Instead, it actually connects to a stream which can neither be saved nor cached so playback is mostly dreadful.
When I'm in charge, I'm going to send out CDs with the files to the largest P-to-P sharers. Seriously it's not like there is some value to a trailer and that people are somehow taking money away from them by downloading/copying them. It is a f*cking advertisement to get people to spend $8 on a movie ticket, and later $19 on the DVD. The more people who see the trailer, the more will purchase the money. Friggin' idiots.
Taking the "RBC spokesman" at his/her word, this is pretty interesting. By saying that the SCO holding is a hedge, they're saying that they are invested/investing pretty heavily in the other side and just trying to protect themselves in the event that something crazy happens and SCO wins. It doesn't mean they believe in SCO just that they're invested deep enough into presumably companies with a large portion of Linux business that they've taken out an insurance policy just in case. Which is good news because you don't buy insurance because you think something bad is going to happen, you buy it to protect yourself in case it does, but hope it doesn't. At least that's my interpretation of "hedge."
Unfortunately as a result, they're helping prop up the stock price of an really awful company.
Re:How can IBM provide what SCO is requesting?
on
SCOrched Earth
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· Score: 1
But I'm curious about the interim versions, since I would think that it would not be a copyright violation unless the code was in the distributed version... would it?
Based on the Berne convention, copyright is granted upon creation, not distribution. At least for anything after April 1, 1989. Prior to that, I'm not entirely sure. INAL.
INAL but it seems to me that at least in the US, employers are responsible for providing a safe (both physically and mental/emotionally) workplace. If there's a boss who's abusive and the company knows about it and doesn't do anything, they're liable. Seems to me the same thing here, if the company knows it's employees are getting spam that is upsetting/disturbing and does nothing about it, they're not providing a save work environment and should be liable. Obviously not all spam can be stopped, but they should be required to at least do some filtering to cut down on spam if it a problem at their company.
Do you really think it's possible for more than a very small percentage of the population to actually get this? Let's face it, most people sit back and don't even notice the major liberties taken away, to believe that a critical mass will not only notice the subtle pervasiveness, but also act on it is unfortunately, not very realistic.
I agree completely--of course that doesn't make it any less sad that so few people care. However this is exactly the reason the electoral college & winner take all state by state is a good thing--it increases the power of each individual vote by increasing the probability that you or I might cast the deciding vote.
And I think the straight party line box should be removed from all ballots. If after you look at each contest and consider the possible candidates, you happen to choose the same party in all of them, that's fine. But you should at the very least, be required to look at each name and actually physically select it rather than just one box at the top.
if a judge conclude after hearing the testimony of a person, that said person is a lying bastard then that is a conclusion based on fact, as opposed to a judge 'concluding' before any testimony that a person is lying bastard
I agree completely with the caveat that weight is given to the appearance of impropriety even if it is in fact not true. More than anything, I'm just p*ssed off at Jackson for making the statements at all. By creating a separate findings of fact, he made his rulings very difficult to overturn--and his big mouth made a lot of hard work come crumbling down.
We just have to agree to disagree there--having seen the level of play at playgrounds in NYC, I truly believe that there are a number of those guys could play in the NBA but didn't make it for reasons other than the quality of their game. But that's not my point, and not the way I took the explanation in the article. They explicitly said "Pro athletes at the top of their game deserve what they earn for being the best in their business. It's those who sign whopping, long-term contracts after a few strong years, and then find their talents vanish, who reap unconscionable sums of money." This is a fact of system with players associations/unions that have a monopoly on the market of pro level talent. Were pay tied more directly to performance, I don't think there'd be an argument. But with the current system, young players, especially low draft picks or undrafted free-agents who perform at the highest level, are vastly underpaid while some veterans who signed long-term contracts at their peak, are grossly overpaid for their performance. It's not the tired "pro athletes are a bunch of overpaid blah blah blah" argument.
I think that's why they mention "washed up athletes in long-term contracts" rather than just pro athletes. They point they make about the Tiger Woods & Venus Williams is a good one if perhaps too subtle. Ignoring endorsements, they get paid based on their performace--win a tournament, get a million bucks, take 50th place, you don't get enough to cover your travel. Pros in football, basketball and worst of all, baseball get multimillion dollar contracts for a good season or two, then no longer have to perform to earn their money. And that is where supply and demand breaks down because like the case of Shawn Kemp, there are plenty of guys who could score 6 points and 3 rebounds a game. There's nothing wrong with the superstars making tons, but the pro sports unions break down the whole supply & demand argument.
Who says their definition of evil is the same as your definition, or mine? I'm not saying Google is evil, but you know what they say about absolute power...
A fair enough point--I would never say never. But so far Google has a very solid record of fitting my definition of not being evil (and I'd guess most would agree) and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...until/unless they give me reason to believe otherwise.
Certainly more people have learned to cheat google but those guys aren't standing still either--they're very intelligent people who have remained committed to providing the best search results for their users. While there's no question the problem is a difficult one, they constantly try to foil those who cheat. The fact that they're committed to providing the best results, in addition to their Rule #1: "Don't be evil," has me convinced that if they can't continue to provide great results and thwart most of the cheaters, then no one can.
Re:I can tell you never took an economics course.
on
The End of the Oil Age
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· Score: 1
I'm willing to more or less believe that simple wealth redistribution is economically neutral--hell robbing from the rich to give to the poor is probably a good thing for the economy because it would probably just sit in a rich guy's bank while the poor guy would spend it on food, clothes & whatnot. But...
The government most especially the federal government, has consistently proven to be a very bad redistributer of wealth. There is so much waste from what goes it to what actually comes out to help people that it's a destructive process. The rich & middle class see a good chunk of their hard-earned money taken from them. Those unfortunate and in need get a tiny fraction of the help they could really use once the politicians, contractors, lobbyists, researchers & the rest all get their sizable chunk taken out. The system is just so murky and distant, no transparency. Instead let me opt to give my federal tax money to local charities who put almost all of the money to use helping people. They have reports that show me that 96% of their revenues went to various programs while 4% when to administrative costs. I've never seen anything like that by the federal government but if they did I would guess it might be 50-50 at best.
Interesting story, an my congratulations. Certainly the fact that the person who was right won over high-priced lawyers is encouraging. However, I believe you are missing a very important point: In most of these types of cases, the problem is the little guy has so much more to lose than the megacorp. If I get sued by a big company, even if I'm 100% in the right, at some point if they are able to raise the stakes enough, I will settle rather than proceed if there's even a slim chance I could lose. Said another way, it isn't enough to know that the vast majority of time the person who's right prevails--because if it comes down to losing everything one has or even going to jail, just the possibility of losing is enough to very heavily tip the scales in favor of the big guys.
Not that I have some terrific idea to fix it--loser pays has it's own set of problems. Though I don think in civil cases, all legal fees should be paid by the petitioner for any appeals after an original ruling.
Unfortunately, the school district will now have to expend a significant amount of money to defend themselves against these bogus charges. Money that could otherwise be spent for some better cause such as, lets see, educating our children?
Hopefully they could get the WiFi alliance or some other WiFi trade group to foot the bill and lend their scientists & research. For them it would be a chance to prove in court and by extension public opinion that WiFi is safe, so they should do it for free. Of course you're right it is unfortunate the school would have to waste their resources on this rather than books & teachers but I guess on the other hand, the school district is roughly guided by the intentions of the parents so if a group of parents wants to them to spend money this way--may they get what they're asking for. Now if it were my district, I'd be pretty pissed and would have a conversation or two with the them.
I live in Wisconsin & have experienced the same--I don't think we've gotten a single call since the Wisconsin DNC list went into effect. This has actually suprised me quite a bit--I figured that there would be a lot of shady telemarkers that would just disregard the list or not even know about it--I mean this is Wisconsin not New York or California. But apparently pretty much all the telemarketing calls I received in the past were from "reputable" firms that actually comply with our state DNC list. That's rather shocking to me.
While there certainly could be more and many of them aren't quite fully mature, there are dozens of other sofware tools that let you create or export swf files. Just to name a few:
Macromedia has gotten better about releasing the specs of the swf more closlely following the release of the next version of their authoring envrionment, and while it's certainly not nearly as open as SVG it's about the most open proprietary format (I suppose that's like jumbo shrimp) out there. There is some real competition and most importantly, a ton of innovation going on. In terms of real-world, what kind of cool/useful/productive things can I create, Flash/SWF have given developers a lot more to work with than SVG.
And the Flash sucks comments will fall on deaf ears. Yeah a lot of people are making junk with Flash but don't you remember all the crap personal websites people made in html?
Agreed completely on the weird and downright stupidity of the US patent system...BUT the part about losing your patent if you don't defend it is not true. This is true however with Trademarks (which last forever). If you get a Trademark and let other companies use it, your claim in any suits is weakened. With Patents, (which last 17 years if filed prior to 1995, 20 years after) a patent holder can do whatever they want--license it out (for a fortune or for a penny) or sit on it and do nothing. They can selectively choose to let company X infringe on their patent but not company Y if they feel like it.
The principles of Intellecutal Property are good ones, but the US implementation certainly sucks. Both in the legislated terms (ie. 99 years continuously extended for Copy right) as well as the actual granting of obvious, unoriginal, software or buisness play patents by the patent.
Good tips, I've recently been researching this issue and one huge thing I'd like to add that many people might not have though about is to NEVER EVER use sticky labels. The glue will break down over time and lose it's stick--which on something line photos might be a nuissance but on CDs it can be critical.
Wow, I applaud your guts--any positive mention of that movie here risks being flamed bigtime regardless of your good boyfriend disclaimers. Certainly a good point about the effects to support the story not overpower it but if I had mod points today, I'd bump you up just for the courage.
Does anyone know how this whole opt out thing works with class actions suits? It really seems like it would not nearly be right/legal/just that by failing to opt out of a class action settlement, you forfeit any individual claims you have on the issue. I can understand completely that if you accept the settlement--take the money, sign the agreement that this means you forfeit any claims--that's why they settle. But if you don't opt out, or say you never even find out about the settlement, how can that disqualify you from any individual legal action?
Disclaimer: Obviously I know not to solicit Slashdot for real legal advice so don't give me that ask a lawyer copp out, I'm asking out of curiosity not because I want free legal advice.
[Vancouver area] A problem that occurs on a computer that will not reappear while anyone else is watching. From the classic Warner Brothers cartoon One Froggy Evening, featuring a dancing and singing Michigan J. Frog that just croaks when anyone else is around (now the WB network mascot).
From the jargon file
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/D/dancing-fro g.html
True--maybe he meant something else by infrastructure (protocols & whatnot) or something but certainly the phone & cable companies built the lines and that's what most of us would consider the "infrastructure."
However they got paid for that architecture cost through the taxes on phone service. For data, in the beginning of the internet as now, users pay an ISP for the usage. The lines have been built (not to mention all of the "dark fiber" out there). There's no reason for goverment sanctioned taxes (which I'm sure have plenty of spillage into other places). If they want to lay more lines, great. But they can pay for it themselves, and if they're aren't charging enough to be able to put up the capital to do so then that's their lousy business model and don't deserve help from the government.
It really can't be that difficult, they know how much data any given customer is sending/receiving, so charge the cost based on what they need to run the network plus expansion costs and whatnot. If they charge too much, customers will leave and hopefully they'll go out of business.
While scientists and engineers typically push the world forward by scientific achievement, often they're not the best at either applying or marketing their work. And often the type of abilities that make one good at scientific type thinking are contrary to the creative outside the box thinking that science fiction and ultimately even tomorrow's reality. The big things most often come from some one asking "Why not?" rather than "Why?" Scientists and engineers are bound by (current) science. Writers have no boundaries and are free to come whatever they can imagine.
Ultimately I guess it's a matter of being a 'dreamer.' Certainly scientists can be dreamers but basically it's a major part of the job description for ficiton writers.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it sad that there are so many myths and misconceptions in regards to the Wrights. First and foremost is the idea that they were just a couple of simple bicycle builders who worked hard and got lucky. In reality they were world class engineers. Next up is the idea that they had some sort of divine inspiration and built their flyer in a vacuum without learning from their predecessors and contemporaries. And this is in part the point you seem to be making. Unfortunately, this point can be overstated as well. While they certainly used the experiences of others, they did much more than methodically compile others' data into a working version. So many of the things that made their flyer successful were nothing like what everyone else was trying. They worked it like a problem to solve, or as you excellently stated, they learned to fly--where most others were just trying to find something that would work. The magintude of their innovations is staggering:
You're giving them too much credit--while it's true about the wider audience playback with Flash, if that were really their reason, then they would have actually emhedded the video into a swf. The flash player can play back video encoded with the Sorenson Spark (or Spark Pro) codec which is pretty decent (though obviously not as good as MPEG 2/4). Instead, it actually connects to a stream which can neither be saved nor cached so playback is mostly dreadful. When I'm in charge, I'm going to send out CDs with the files to the largest P-to-P sharers. Seriously it's not like there is some value to a trailer and that people are somehow taking money away from them by downloading/copying them. It is a f*cking advertisement to get people to spend $8 on a movie ticket, and later $19 on the DVD. The more people who see the trailer, the more will purchase the money. Friggin' idiots.
Unfortunately as a result, they're helping prop up the stock price of an really awful company.
Based on the Berne convention, copyright is granted upon creation, not distribution. At least for anything after April 1, 1989. Prior to that, I'm not entirely sure. INAL.
INAL but it seems to me that at least in the US, employers are responsible for providing a safe (both physically and mental/emotionally) workplace. If there's a boss who's abusive and the company knows about it and doesn't do anything, they're liable. Seems to me the same thing here, if the company knows it's employees are getting spam that is upsetting/disturbing and does nothing about it, they're not providing a save work environment and should be liable. Obviously not all spam can be stopped, but they should be required to at least do some filtering to cut down on spam if it a problem at their company.
I read the Constitution just the other night. Quite a tear-jerker I might add, I don't know the last time I read something that made me so sad.
Do you really think it's possible for more than a very small percentage of the population to actually get this? Let's face it, most people sit back and don't even notice the major liberties taken away, to believe that a critical mass will not only notice the subtle pervasiveness, but also act on it is unfortunately, not very realistic.
And I think the straight party line box should be removed from all ballots. If after you look at each contest and consider the possible candidates, you happen to choose the same party in all of them, that's fine. But you should at the very least, be required to look at each name and actually physically select it rather than just one box at the top.
I agree completely with the caveat that weight is given to the appearance of impropriety even if it is in fact not true. More than anything, I'm just p*ssed off at Jackson for making the statements at all. By creating a separate findings of fact, he made his rulings very difficult to overturn--and his big mouth made a lot of hard work come crumbling down.
We just have to agree to disagree there--having seen the level of play at playgrounds in NYC, I truly believe that there are a number of those guys could play in the NBA but didn't make it for reasons other than the quality of their game. But that's not my point, and not the way I took the explanation in the article. They explicitly said "Pro athletes at the top of their game deserve what they earn for being the best in their business. It's those who sign whopping, long-term contracts after a few strong years, and then find their talents vanish, who reap unconscionable sums of money." This is a fact of system with players associations/unions that have a monopoly on the market of pro level talent. Were pay tied more directly to performance, I don't think there'd be an argument. But with the current system, young players, especially low draft picks or undrafted free-agents who perform at the highest level, are vastly underpaid while some veterans who signed long-term contracts at their peak, are grossly overpaid for their performance. It's not the tired "pro athletes are a bunch of overpaid blah blah blah" argument.
I think that's why they mention "washed up athletes in long-term contracts" rather than just pro athletes. They point they make about the Tiger Woods & Venus Williams is a good one if perhaps too subtle. Ignoring endorsements, they get paid based on their performace--win a tournament, get a million bucks, take 50th place, you don't get enough to cover your travel. Pros in football, basketball and worst of all, baseball get multimillion dollar contracts for a good season or two, then no longer have to perform to earn their money. And that is where supply and demand breaks down because like the case of Shawn Kemp, there are plenty of guys who could score 6 points and 3 rebounds a game. There's nothing wrong with the superstars making tons, but the pro sports unions break down the whole supply & demand argument.
A fair enough point--I would never say never. But so far Google has a very solid record of fitting my definition of not being evil (and I'd guess most would agree) and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...until/unless they give me reason to believe otherwise.
Certainly more people have learned to cheat google but those guys aren't standing still either--they're very intelligent people who have remained committed to providing the best search results for their users. While there's no question the problem is a difficult one, they constantly try to foil those who cheat. The fact that they're committed to providing the best results, in addition to their Rule #1: "Don't be evil," has me convinced that if they can't continue to provide great results and thwart most of the cheaters, then no one can.
The government most especially the federal government, has consistently proven to be a very bad redistributer of wealth. There is so much waste from what goes it to what actually comes out to help people that it's a destructive process. The rich & middle class see a good chunk of their hard-earned money taken from them. Those unfortunate and in need get a tiny fraction of the help they could really use once the politicians, contractors, lobbyists, researchers & the rest all get their sizable chunk taken out. The system is just so murky and distant, no transparency. Instead let me opt to give my federal tax money to local charities who put almost all of the money to use helping people. They have reports that show me that 96% of their revenues went to various programs while 4% when to administrative costs. I've never seen anything like that by the federal government but if they did I would guess it might be 50-50 at best.
Not that I have some terrific idea to fix it--loser pays has it's own set of problems. Though I don think in civil cases, all legal fees should be paid by the petitioner for any appeals after an original ruling.
Hopefully they could get the WiFi alliance or some other WiFi trade group to foot the bill and lend their scientists & research. For them it would be a chance to prove in court and by extension public opinion that WiFi is safe, so they should do it for free. Of course you're right it is unfortunate the school would have to waste their resources on this rather than books & teachers but I guess on the other hand, the school district is roughly guided by the intentions of the parents so if a group of parents wants to them to spend money this way--may they get what they're asking for. Now if it were my district, I'd be pretty pissed and would have a conversation or two with the them.
I live in Wisconsin & have experienced the same--I don't think we've gotten a single call since the Wisconsin DNC list went into effect. This has actually suprised me quite a bit--I figured that there would be a lot of shady telemarkers that would just disregard the list or not even know about it--I mean this is Wisconsin not New York or California. But apparently pretty much all the telemarketing calls I received in the past were from "reputable" firms that actually comply with our state DNC list. That's rather shocking to me.
SwishZone
Swift3D
RoboFlash Toolkit
SWFkit
FlashBuilder
Macromedia has gotten better about releasing the specs of the swf more closlely following the release of the next version of their authoring envrionment, and while it's certainly not nearly as open as SVG it's about the most open proprietary format (I suppose that's like jumbo shrimp) out there. There is some real competition and most importantly, a ton of innovation going on. In terms of real-world, what kind of cool/useful/productive things can I create, Flash/SWF have given developers a lot more to work with than SVG.
And the Flash sucks comments will fall on deaf ears. Yeah a lot of people are making junk with Flash but don't you remember all the crap personal websites people made in html?
The principles of Intellecutal Property are good ones, but the US implementation certainly sucks. Both in the legislated terms (ie. 99 years continuously extended for Copy right) as well as the actual granting of obvious, unoriginal, software or buisness play patents by the patent.
Good tips, I've recently been researching this issue and one huge thing I'd like to add that many people might not have though about is to NEVER EVER use sticky labels. The glue will break down over time and lose it's stick--which on something line photos might be a nuissance but on CDs it can be critical.
Wow, I applaud your guts--any positive mention of that movie here risks being flamed bigtime regardless of your good boyfriend disclaimers. Certainly a good point about the effects to support the story not overpower it but if I had mod points today, I'd bump you up just for the courage.
Disclaimer: Obviously I know not to solicit Slashdot for real legal advice so don't give me that ask a lawyer copp out, I'm asking out of curiosity not because I want free legal advice.
dancing frog: n.
[Vancouver area] A problem that occurs on a computer that will not reappear while anyone else is watching. From the classic Warner Brothers cartoon One Froggy Evening, featuring a dancing and singing Michigan J. Frog that just croaks when anyone else is around (now the WB network mascot).
From the jargon fileo g.html
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/D/dancing-fr
However they got paid for that architecture cost through the taxes on phone service. For data, in the beginning of the internet as now, users pay an ISP for the usage. The lines have been built (not to mention all of the "dark fiber" out there). There's no reason for goverment sanctioned taxes (which I'm sure have plenty of spillage into other places). If they want to lay more lines, great. But they can pay for it themselves, and if they're aren't charging enough to be able to put up the capital to do so then that's their lousy business model and don't deserve help from the government.
It really can't be that difficult, they know how much data any given customer is sending/receiving, so charge the cost based on what they need to run the network plus expansion costs and whatnot. If they charge too much, customers will leave and hopefully they'll go out of business.
While scientists and engineers typically push the world forward by scientific achievement, often they're not the best at either applying or marketing their work. And often the type of abilities that make one good at scientific type thinking are contrary to the creative outside the box thinking that science fiction and ultimately even tomorrow's reality. The big things most often come from some one asking "Why not?" rather than "Why?" Scientists and engineers are bound by (current) science. Writers have no boundaries and are free to come whatever they can imagine.
Ultimately I guess it's a matter of being a 'dreamer.' Certainly scientists can be dreamers but basically it's a major part of the job description for ficiton writers.