Microsoft might not like the GPL, but its business relies on copyright protection. The last thing that Microsoft wants is weaker copyright protection for software.
You are right about the kettlebell, mine's a 24Kg kettlebell. I'm not sure where I came up with 56 lbs.
As for Crossfit, I've never been to a crossfit gym, but positive peer pressure always helps. I don't think that you can *always* do a Crossfit workout in 20 minutes though. For example, today's workout is a 10K. I can't quite finish a 10K in 20 minutes.
Google Tabata intervals for more information on the subject. From my own experiments I can honestly say that high intensity interval training works very well. The downside is that these sorts of training regimens are especially brutal. Sure, your workout might only last for 4-6 minutes, but you'll need to schedule at least another 20 minutes of lying on your back wishing you could just die, especially at first.
Some crossfit workouts fit this template. Others, not so much. For example, the Workout of the day for today is "run 10K."
Crossfit certainly has the right idea. Workouts don't have to be long to be effective. For example, I have a 56 pound kettlebell in my office. Taking a short (1-2 minute) break every hour or so makes a noticeable difference in the long run.
It's not that I disagree with you. Personally, I think that being fat is the culprit. In fact, there was a study done that showed that poor exercise capacity (as measured by a bruce protocol treadmill stress test) was a better mortality indicator than high BMI or waist measurements.
However, I do think that it is easy to read too much into the research that has been done. It's easy to assume that BMI is worthless as a measurement because we perceive that there is a huge difference between the 260 lbs. body builder and the 260 couch potato. However, when it comes to mortality research BMI is essentially the only game in town. We haven't really studied why it is that being bigger leads to higher mortality. There are plenty of theories (as you clearly know), but up to this point the research that people like you and I would *truly* like to see simply hasn't been done.
Professional body builders almost certainly have higher than average mortality rates. As such they probably aren't a very good example population if you are trying to prove that body fat is better at predicting mortality rates than body fat percentage.
People assume that it is being overfat that increases the mortality rate, but I don't know of a single study that actually tests that hypothesis (and I've looked). I personally wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that being overweight increased the mortality rate even if the body fat percentage was low. There are health disadvantages in other species to being larger than average. It could very well be that smaller people live longer as well.
I've been lifting weights religiously for seven years now, and I am in the "overweight" BMI category, and so I would love to find out that its the fat that is dangerous. So far, however, that research simply hasn't been done.
Actually, if you look at Microsoft's financials the Client division generated about $700 million more income, in Microsoft's last fiscal year, than the Business division (which includes Office). The Client division also has far and away the highest profit margin (the Business division drives more revenue, but it also has greater expenses).
If I was in your shoes I wouldn't be pushing Linux either, but whenever I see the MSI FUD I feel I have to comment.
I am not one bit surprised that MSI got much higher returns on the Linux version of the netbook as they sourced hardware that wasn't 100% Linux compatible and then shoehorned a SuSE install where several of the devices that were compatible weren't configured correctly. In short, they actually tried to sell a completely broken Linux install, and then had the audacity to blame the returns on Linux.
I'm sure their goal was to meet a certain price point and they simply assumed that people would install their own copy of Windows. If that was the case they should have shipped the box with FreeDOS and left Linux out of it.
Other than the fact that relying on ActiveX ties to you to Internet Explorer. In many cases it even ties you to an obsolete and insecure version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft has essentially pulled the plug on ActiveX. It wants you to move to new technologies (and when you do migrate it will pull the plug on those technologies and force you to migrate again).
I would be that, in most enterprises, if you added up the costs of continuing to support IE6 it would become clear that relying on ActiveX was a very poor bargain. The advantages of using ActiveX over other competing technologies was relatively small, and the cost of choosing ActiveX has been quite high.
You are assuming that the demand for your works doesn't diminish with time. I started reading your book "Free For All" and stopped, because it became clear to me that the book was 10 years old and quite outdated. Dozens of books, and countless articles, have been written on the subject, several of them by people far more closely related to the subject matter. Many of these works (probably most) are available on the Internet for free.
The fact that you are still seeing even a few sales of that particular book 10 years after it is relevant is actually pretty amazing. Nothing personal, but you'd have to *pay* me to read it, and as someone who has purchased similar histories I am definitely part of your target market.
In short, I think that the two works that you cite are excellent examples of books whose demand would have decreased no matter what happened. "Free For All" appears to be just another bit of pontification on the birth and growth of the Free Software movement, and your Data Compression book appears to be a detailed algorithm book in a world where zlib and friends cover all of the basics of data compression for you. You'd have to really be interested in compression (and you'd have to think quite highly of your programming chops) to think that you can do better than the various Free Software libraries available today. Ten years ago both of these topics were far more interesting to the average computer programmer than they are today.
If it makes you feel any better almost no one gets paid for stuff that they did 10 years ago. Sure, there are examples of copyright owners that "hit the jackpot," but for the most part writers (and hackers) have to keep writing if they want to keep getting paid.
I still have grill marks on my arm from playing Oregon Trail on my George Foreman grill. I think one of the members of my party got bit by a snake, but I am not sure.
There probably aren't less hardcore gamers than before, but the companies that previously catered to hardcore gamers are getting their asses handed to them by Nintendo. Microsoft and Sony have spent billions of dollars creating hardware and marketing games designed specifically at hardcore gamers and Nintendo has crushed them both like a bug with a console and hand held that cost far less to make, and is far less capable.
Microsoft and Sony will both be lucky to turn a profit this generation. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of these companies dropped out of the video game business completely.
It should be fairly clear why this should matter to the hard core gamers. Both Microsoft and Sony went to ridiculous lengths to court hardcore gamers. They gave away hardware at a discount, and they designed their systems for high performance and stunning graphics. That strategy has been a complete and utter failure, and it is not going to happen again.
On the software side the big money is no longer chasing titles like Bioshock or Elder Scrolls. In fact, if your game isn't designed for the Wii then it is clearly at a disadvantage in the market. It's possible that these games will still get made, but now that it is clear that they are aimed at niche markets the folks in marketing are likely to charge niche prices. Creating a hardcore game is expensive, and the costs have to be recouped somehow.
Yes, "hardcore" games are not likely to disappear completely. However, they are likely to get even more expensive. Creating a game is expensive. If you are creating a game that you already know is only going to appeal to a niche market then the only chance you have of making a profit is to price the game higher.
Sure, casual games are going to face a lot more competition. However, casual games also tend to be less expensive to make and they have far larger potential audiences. In an industry that relies on hits to make a living it is going to be hard to ignore the casual gamer.
I've read pretty much everything eff.org has to say about this. Sure, the most damning evidence comes from the roommate, but most of the evidence was corroborated by at least one other person.
Quite frankly, even if his only crime was harassing his roommate with the email bombardment and the false profile at the gay website I personally think that he should be pulled up short. The fact of the matter is that, in the real world, actual criminals are often pulled up short because they upset someone they know and have trusted with their secrets. If we threw out all of the evidence obtained from search warrants based on "disgruntled" associates then we'd never catch any criminals.
And I wouldn't just take the statement of a disgruntled roommate that he'd cracked the grading system as probable cause without any further inquiry.
I am not saying the kid is guilty, but I do think that the accusation warrants "further inquiry." Once again, in the real world, that is going to involve seizing your computers and examining them. The question isn't whether the kid is guilty or not. The question is whether a search warrant is called for or not.
Disgruntled or not the roommate's accusation is credible enough that the charge should be investigated. Which, incidentally enough, is why the judge granted the warrant.
I think that the EFF does good work, on many fronts, but in this case I honestly believe that they are abusing my trust in their judgment. I am against warrantless wiretapping, for instance, but I am not against issuing search warrants for computer equipment that was clearly involved in a crime (criminal harassment).
Richard Stallman announced in a press conference today that Emacs is the safest operating system on the planet. According to Stallman Emacs is safer than Linux, Windows Vista, or Apple's Mac OS X.
I have actually read the request for the search warrant since I wrote this, and I now believe that the warrant was justified. What's more, I believe that this particular individual would be in trouble in any University in the nation. Besides evidence of harassment the warrant also showed credible evidence that this individual modified people's grades and dealt in stolen computer hardware (not to mention that he distributed copyrighted material illegally).
I don't know that there is enough evidence to convict the guy, but there's enough evidence to seize his computer equipment. The fact that he is a student at BC has essentially nothing to do with it.
Slashdot Mirror
+1 Informative.
Microsoft might not like the GPL, but its business relies on copyright protection. The last thing that Microsoft wants is weaker copyright protection for software.
The folks responding to the "enlarge your member" ads didn't want to fess up.
You are right about the kettlebell, mine's a 24Kg kettlebell. I'm not sure where I came up with 56 lbs.
As for Crossfit, I've never been to a crossfit gym, but positive peer pressure always helps. I don't think that you can *always* do a Crossfit workout in 20 minutes though. For example, today's workout is a 10K. I can't quite finish a 10K in 20 minutes.
Google Tabata intervals for more information on the subject. From my own experiments I can honestly say that high intensity interval training works very well. The downside is that these sorts of training regimens are especially brutal. Sure, your workout might only last for 4-6 minutes, but you'll need to schedule at least another 20 minutes of lying on your back wishing you could just die, especially at first.
Some crossfit workouts fit this template. Others, not so much. For example, the Workout of the day for today is "run 10K."
Crossfit certainly has the right idea. Workouts don't have to be long to be effective. For example, I have a 56 pound kettlebell in my office. Taking a short (1-2 minute) break every hour or so makes a noticeable difference in the long run.
It's not that I disagree with you. Personally, I think that being fat is the culprit. In fact, there was a study done that showed that poor exercise capacity (as measured by a bruce protocol treadmill stress test) was a better mortality indicator than high BMI or waist measurements.
However, I do think that it is easy to read too much into the research that has been done. It's easy to assume that BMI is worthless as a measurement because we perceive that there is a huge difference between the 260 lbs. body builder and the 260 couch potato. However, when it comes to mortality research BMI is essentially the only game in town. We haven't really studied why it is that being bigger leads to higher mortality. There are plenty of theories (as you clearly know), but up to this point the research that people like you and I would *truly* like to see simply hasn't been done.
Professional body builders almost certainly have higher than average mortality rates. As such they probably aren't a very good example population if you are trying to prove that body fat is better at predicting mortality rates than body fat percentage.
People assume that it is being overfat that increases the mortality rate, but I don't know of a single study that actually tests that hypothesis (and I've looked). I personally wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that being overweight increased the mortality rate even if the body fat percentage was low. There are health disadvantages in other species to being larger than average. It could very well be that smaller people live longer as well.
I've been lifting weights religiously for seven years now, and I am in the "overweight" BMI category, and so I would love to find out that its the fat that is dangerous. So far, however, that research simply hasn't been done.
tomsrtbt used to do that too. In fact, after checking it appears that it still does.
I used to love that distribution. These days I don't need my tools to fit into 1.7MB, but that used to be very handy.
Actually, if you look at Microsoft's financials the Client division generated about $700 million more income, in Microsoft's last fiscal year, than the Business division (which includes Office). The Client division also has far and away the highest profit margin (the Business division drives more revenue, but it also has greater expenses).
If I was in your shoes I wouldn't be pushing Linux either, but whenever I see the MSI FUD I feel I have to comment.
I am not one bit surprised that MSI got much higher returns on the Linux version of the netbook as they sourced hardware that wasn't 100% Linux compatible and then shoehorned a SuSE install where several of the devices that were compatible weren't configured correctly. In short, they actually tried to sell a completely broken Linux install, and then had the audacity to blame the returns on Linux.
I'm sure their goal was to meet a certain price point and they simply assumed that people would install their own copy of Windows. If that was the case they should have shipped the box with FreeDOS and left Linux out of it.
Dell, who has done a much better job bundling Linux on its netbooks, has a very different story to tell about returns.
Pure awesome.
Other than the fact that relying on ActiveX ties to you to Internet Explorer. In many cases it even ties you to an obsolete and insecure version of Internet Explorer. Microsoft has essentially pulled the plug on ActiveX. It wants you to move to new technologies (and when you do migrate it will pull the plug on those technologies and force you to migrate again).
I would be that, in most enterprises, if you added up the costs of continuing to support IE6 it would become clear that relying on ActiveX was a very poor bargain. The advantages of using ActiveX over other competing technologies was relatively small, and the cost of choosing ActiveX has been quite high.
Precisely. If I really wanted to study compression algorithms I would download the source to zlib, bzip2, or lzma and start from there.
What's more likely, however, is that I would just link to the proper library and get to work doing something useful.
You are assuming that the demand for your works doesn't diminish with time. I started reading your book "Free For All" and stopped, because it became clear to me that the book was 10 years old and quite outdated. Dozens of books, and countless articles, have been written on the subject, several of them by people far more closely related to the subject matter. Many of these works (probably most) are available on the Internet for free.
The fact that you are still seeing even a few sales of that particular book 10 years after it is relevant is actually pretty amazing. Nothing personal, but you'd have to *pay* me to read it, and as someone who has purchased similar histories I am definitely part of your target market.
In short, I think that the two works that you cite are excellent examples of books whose demand would have decreased no matter what happened. "Free For All" appears to be just another bit of pontification on the birth and growth of the Free Software movement, and your Data Compression book appears to be a detailed algorithm book in a world where zlib and friends cover all of the basics of data compression for you. You'd have to really be interested in compression (and you'd have to think quite highly of your programming chops) to think that you can do better than the various Free Software libraries available today. Ten years ago both of these topics were far more interesting to the average computer programmer than they are today.
If it makes you feel any better almost no one gets paid for stuff that they did 10 years ago. Sure, there are examples of copyright owners that "hit the jackpot," but for the most part writers (and hackers) have to keep writing if they want to keep getting paid.
I still have grill marks on my arm from playing Oregon Trail on my George Foreman grill. I think one of the members of my party got bit by a snake, but I am not sure.
There probably aren't less hardcore gamers than before, but the companies that previously catered to hardcore gamers are getting their asses handed to them by Nintendo. Microsoft and Sony have spent billions of dollars creating hardware and marketing games designed specifically at hardcore gamers and Nintendo has crushed them both like a bug with a console and hand held that cost far less to make, and is far less capable.
Microsoft and Sony will both be lucky to turn a profit this generation. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of these companies dropped out of the video game business completely.
It should be fairly clear why this should matter to the hard core gamers. Both Microsoft and Sony went to ridiculous lengths to court hardcore gamers. They gave away hardware at a discount, and they designed their systems for high performance and stunning graphics. That strategy has been a complete and utter failure, and it is not going to happen again.
On the software side the big money is no longer chasing titles like Bioshock or Elder Scrolls. In fact, if your game isn't designed for the Wii then it is clearly at a disadvantage in the market. It's possible that these games will still get made, but now that it is clear that they are aimed at niche markets the folks in marketing are likely to charge niche prices. Creating a hardcore game is expensive, and the costs have to be recouped somehow.
Yes, "hardcore" games are not likely to disappear completely. However, they are likely to get even more expensive. Creating a game is expensive. If you are creating a game that you already know is only going to appeal to a niche market then the only chance you have of making a profit is to price the game higher.
Sure, casual games are going to face a lot more competition. However, casual games also tend to be less expensive to make and they have far larger potential audiences. In an industry that relies on hits to make a living it is going to be hard to ignore the casual gamer.
I wish I had mod points. That clip was pure awesome.
I think you are looking for the kill command.
I've read pretty much everything eff.org has to say about this. Sure, the most damning evidence comes from the roommate, but most of the evidence was corroborated by at least one other person.
Quite frankly, even if his only crime was harassing his roommate with the email bombardment and the false profile at the gay website I personally think that he should be pulled up short. The fact of the matter is that, in the real world, actual criminals are often pulled up short because they upset someone they know and have trusted with their secrets. If we threw out all of the evidence obtained from search warrants based on "disgruntled" associates then we'd never catch any criminals.
I am not saying the kid is guilty, but I do think that the accusation warrants "further inquiry." Once again, in the real world, that is going to involve seizing your computers and examining them. The question isn't whether the kid is guilty or not. The question is whether a search warrant is called for or not.
Disgruntled or not the roommate's accusation is credible enough that the charge should be investigated. Which, incidentally enough, is why the judge granted the warrant.
I think that the EFF does good work, on many fronts, but in this case I honestly believe that they are abusing my trust in their judgment. I am against warrantless wiretapping, for instance, but I am not against issuing search warrants for computer equipment that was clearly involved in a crime (criminal harassment).
Flight Simulator is now grounded.
Richard Stallman announced in a press conference today that Emacs is the safest operating system on the planet. According to Stallman Emacs is safer than Linux, Windows Vista, or Apple's Mac OS X.
I have actually read the request for the search warrant since I wrote this, and I now believe that the warrant was justified. What's more, I believe that this particular individual would be in trouble in any University in the nation. Besides evidence of harassment the warrant also showed credible evidence that this individual modified people's grades and dealt in stolen computer hardware (not to mention that he distributed copyrighted material illegally).
I don't know that there is enough evidence to convict the guy, but there's enough evidence to seize his computer equipment. The fact that he is a student at BC has essentially nothing to do with it.