It sounds like you're arguing for eliminating copyright laws. Perhaps you don't realize that most (probably all) Open Source and Creative Commons licenses depend on copyright laws to work. You also seem to be ignoring that unlike Creative Commons non-commercial licenses, Open Source licenses do no prohibit commercial reuse or modification.
I would be disappointed if trademark were used to bring legal action over any use of the two English words Office and Open. I think MS did use the name OOXML deliberately to cause people to confuse it with ODF, but to sue over it would be an abuse of the legal system IMHO. Microsoft's predatory, monopolistic business practices can and will be defeated by honest competition in the marketplace, rather than the courts.
So, you're saying that because electricity is paid for in advance, there's absolutely no motivation to save any? Is that because the amount paid isn't affected at all by actual usage? If so, is there no upper limit on usage? I'm annoyed that I pay a flat monthly fee for my sewer at my house, but I've never heard of a flat rate for energy that was in no way determined by usage.
Yes, those are different functions. The AOL xmpp server is still experimental, and there's no reason to think they won't federate eventually. If they didn't the whole exercise would be pretty pointless anyway.
Terminate and Stay Resident programs were ones that implemented device drivers, daemons, and other task-switching in the bad old days of 16-bit DOS. I don't think they've been either possible or useful on any 32-bit memory-protected OS. However, from a user interface standpoint, many modern programs that hide themselves until needed (usually leaving just an icon in the system tray) are quite similar to the TSRs that would pop up when one hit the right key combination.
Since these alleged attacks happened outside the US, and may have involved people on the inside of the plants, it would seem to be within the CIA's realm, which has traditionally put a high priority on human assets. At least, neither the FBI nor the NSA should be snooping around outside the US. If this is intended as FUD to help the US government watch all Internet traffic, I think it's a waste of resources, since those who want to communicate covertly will just use strong encryption. I know I will if I suspect the CIA, NSA, or FBI is watching, regardless of the legal status of my communication.
Radio and TV broadcast have been regulated by the FCC since 1940, when it created the NTSC to establish standards. Then, they updated the standard to include backward compatible color signals. Broadcasters have been required to comply with those standards, so there hasn't been a free market technologically at all. Continuing that tradition, the ATSC created the new standard about ten years ago and it was supposed to have replaced the NTSC standards already.
A more *nix-ish, *sh-ish approach would be to write standalone commands that allowed one to make OpenGL calls using command lines. Then, you could use whatever shell you wanted. But, since OpenGL manipulates large data sets like vertices and textures, I shudder to think what those command lines would look like.
Maybe it could work, but Microsoft is a marketing-driven company and has failed to use good ideas their employees have had before. Similar ideas have been used in experimental operating systems before, such as L4 and Mungi. We do need innovation in operating systems, but unfortunately, Free and proprietary development seem equally slow to produce practical systems.
I am aware of the Nuremberg trials, but the principle applied there was that following orders is not an excuse for committing war crimes. It was not decided that members of militaries are always responsible for harm resulting from orders they followed. Obviously, that would put soldiers in a precarious legal position since they're often ordered to kill people and blow stuff up.
Since I'm a US citizen and taxpayer, the military is supposed to be working for me. So, I do care if they do their job correctly and efficiently much more than some random corporation.
Really? Exactly how long ago did the excuse stop working? Besides, I doubt most decisions about what software to use in the military have anything to do with policy. A soldier might refuse an order to kill civilians because he thinks it's immoral. A general might even refuse to order an invasion because he believes it's illegal or immoral. But under what circumstances would someone in the military choose a proprietary application instead of a Free one on moral grounds? If he simply wants to sabotage the effectiveness of the military, there are probably much easier ways.
Even if that were a good idea, it wouldn't be directly related to this discussion, since New Jersey defines sex offenders much more broadly. Notice that people can even be registered sex offenders for offenses similar to the specific ones listed, though it's not clear how it's decided whether an offense is similar. Also, minors can be sex offenders. By the way, what's so special about child rapists that they should get their own type of execution?
I do agree that this new law seems silly and maybe harmful. However, it's not as extreme as some in this discussion think it is. I suspect it'll end up being more of a waste of time and money than either being very helpful or very harmful. There are far too many laws already and far too many things are crimes, so this is just one more on the heap.
I don't think the kind of dynamic range compression the professionals use can be easily implemented in real time on consumer equipment. However, putting metadata about compression in the audio stream, which can be selectively enabled by the player can work. In fact, Dolby Digital already has such a feature. I can select from no compression, light compression, or heavy compression in my receiver.
No, you're making the mistake of not reading the article. The author explains the difference between different bitrates of MP3. The author also explains the overuse of dynamic range compression (the loudness war) as a separate issue, but points out that some producers think the CD should be mastered with a lot of DRC because people will encode the CD as MP3s. IMHO, those producers are mistaken, but the article doesn't support one side or the other.
If you'd read TFA (and not just its misleading headline), you'd realize that since your friend probably didn't use the Internet to help him flash his neighbor, this law wouldn't apply to him even in NJ.
I agree very much about the inadequacy of the "Talk:" pages. It probably makes more sense to have a specifically discussion oriented structure and interface, such as Slashdot's. That would mean the discussion wouldn't be part of the wiki proper, but part of the meta-wiki, directly attached to it with a seamless interface. I don't think anyone expects the "Talk:" pages to be treated like normal wiki pages anyway, so it was a poor design in MediaWiki to make them work like normal wiki pages.
A rating system like you describe is very interesting and might be a good addition. I assume that you mean every visitor should have the option to rate a page. Have you discussed these suggestions at Wikipedia? I haven't gotten involved much there yet, but I imagine others have noticed and discussed these problems already.
I don't think there is any distinction between building an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit it and managing it. Wikipedians have necessarily been doing both tasks simultaneously from the beginning, though as it gets bigger and more popular, the management becomes more difficult. It's still being built just as much as it is being managed. If it's more difficult to manage and build now than it was a soon after it started, I think that's partly because tools have not scaled to match the complexity of the project.
I reiterate that there isn't always a clear distinction between correctness and vandalism. You could probably use automated tools to find likely blatant vandalism and either disallow it for anonymous users or immediately alert someone. Is that kind of blatant vandalism ("jason sux") a big problem on Wikipedia? If so, tools may need to be improved to prevent it. I was under the impression that subtle vandalism and disagreement on correctness and scope were bigger problems. Also, you must accept that the "everything on the entire site is just a web page that anyone can edit" mentality is what a wiki is. To change that would be to make a non-wiki, so it wouldn't make sense for Wikipedia. There are plenty of non-wiki sites that have user-generated content, such as eHow and YouTube. Maybe an encyclopedia that accepted user-written articles that were screened or edited by the site operator would be a good idea.
Portal is an excellent game that is very funny, original and memorable. The only complaint about it I had was that it was too short. However, I must point out that it is not a First Person Shooter (FPS) because, as you mention, you do no shooting or killing. It's primarily a puzzle game, though it immerses the player in the world like an FPS. So, if you hate FPSes, I don't really see how Portal would change your mind.
Yeah, killing defenseless enemies is a stupid "feature." It really annoyed me when it first appeared in DOD:S quite a while ago. However, it doesn't take up too much time in TF2, so I don't think it's enough to ruin the game. Also, the nemesis thing is silly, but I barely pay attention to it and of course it has no real importance to the game.
Well, you can customize your view quite a bit with your own CSS, either in a user stylesheet in the browser or in your Wikipedia account. For example, I was able to get rid of a citation box with this CSS: ".ambox { display:none; }". I'm not sure what an ambox is, so that may hide more than you want, but MediaWiki has a lot of classification of elements, so you can probably get it to do what you want.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like you're arguing for eliminating copyright laws. Perhaps you don't realize that most (probably all) Open Source and Creative Commons licenses depend on copyright laws to work. You also seem to be ignoring that unlike Creative Commons non-commercial licenses, Open Source licenses do no prohibit commercial reuse or modification.
I would be disappointed if trademark were used to bring legal action over any use of the two English words Office and Open. I think MS did use the name OOXML deliberately to cause people to confuse it with ODF, but to sue over it would be an abuse of the legal system IMHO. Microsoft's predatory, monopolistic business practices can and will be defeated by honest competition in the marketplace, rather than the courts.
OK, let me restate it: If AOL wants to serve their customers and remain relevant in the long term, they'll federate.
So, you're saying that because electricity is paid for in advance, there's absolutely no motivation to save any? Is that because the amount paid isn't affected at all by actual usage? If so, is there no upper limit on usage? I'm annoyed that I pay a flat monthly fee for my sewer at my house, but I've never heard of a flat rate for energy that was in no way determined by usage.
Yes, those are different functions. The AOL xmpp server is still experimental, and there's no reason to think they won't federate eventually. If they didn't the whole exercise would be pretty pointless anyway.
Terminate and Stay Resident programs were ones that implemented device drivers, daemons, and other task-switching in the bad old days of 16-bit DOS. I don't think they've been either possible or useful on any 32-bit memory-protected OS. However, from a user interface standpoint, many modern programs that hide themselves until needed (usually leaving just an icon in the system tray) are quite similar to the TSRs that would pop up when one hit the right key combination.
Since these alleged attacks happened outside the US, and may have involved people on the inside of the plants, it would seem to be within the CIA's realm, which has traditionally put a high priority on human assets. At least, neither the FBI nor the NSA should be snooping around outside the US. If this is intended as FUD to help the US government watch all Internet traffic, I think it's a waste of resources, since those who want to communicate covertly will just use strong encryption. I know I will if I suspect the CIA, NSA, or FBI is watching, regardless of the legal status of my communication.
Radio and TV broadcast have been regulated by the FCC since 1940, when it created the NTSC to establish standards. Then, they updated the standard to include backward compatible color signals. Broadcasters have been required to comply with those standards, so there hasn't been a free market technologically at all. Continuing that tradition, the ATSC created the new standard about ten years ago and it was supposed to have replaced the NTSC standards already.
A more *nix-ish, *sh-ish approach would be to write standalone commands that allowed one to make OpenGL calls using command lines. Then, you could use whatever shell you wanted. But, since OpenGL manipulates large data sets like vertices and textures, I shudder to think what those command lines would look like.
Maybe it could work, but Microsoft is a marketing-driven company and has failed to use good ideas their employees have had before. Similar ideas have been used in experimental operating systems before, such as L4 and Mungi. We do need innovation in operating systems, but unfortunately, Free and proprietary development seem equally slow to produce practical systems.
I am aware of the Nuremberg trials, but the principle applied there was that following orders is not an excuse for committing war crimes. It was not decided that members of militaries are always responsible for harm resulting from orders they followed. Obviously, that would put soldiers in a precarious legal position since they're often ordered to kill people and blow stuff up.
Since I'm a US citizen and taxpayer, the military is supposed to be working for me. So, I do care if they do their job correctly and efficiently much more than some random corporation.
Really? Exactly how long ago did the excuse stop working? Besides, I doubt most decisions about what software to use in the military have anything to do with policy. A soldier might refuse an order to kill civilians because he thinks it's immoral. A general might even refuse to order an invasion because he believes it's illegal or immoral. But under what circumstances would someone in the military choose a proprietary application instead of a Free one on moral grounds? If he simply wants to sabotage the effectiveness of the military, there are probably much easier ways.
Even if that were a good idea, it wouldn't be directly related to this discussion, since New Jersey defines sex offenders much more broadly. Notice that people can even be registered sex offenders for offenses similar to the specific ones listed, though it's not clear how it's decided whether an offense is similar. Also, minors can be sex offenders. By the way, what's so special about child rapists that they should get their own type of execution?
I do agree that this new law seems silly and maybe harmful. However, it's not as extreme as some in this discussion think it is. I suspect it'll end up being more of a waste of time and money than either being very helpful or very harmful. There are far too many laws already and far too many things are crimes, so this is just one more on the heap.
I don't think the kind of dynamic range compression the professionals use can be easily implemented in real time on consumer equipment. However, putting metadata about compression in the audio stream, which can be selectively enabled by the player can work. In fact, Dolby Digital already has such a feature. I can select from no compression, light compression, or heavy compression in my receiver.
No, you're making the mistake of not reading the article. The author explains the difference between different bitrates of MP3. The author also explains the overuse of dynamic range compression (the loudness war) as a separate issue, but points out that some producers think the CD should be mastered with a lot of DRC because people will encode the CD as MP3s. IMHO, those producers are mistaken, but the article doesn't support one side or the other.
If you'd read TFA (and not just its misleading headline), you'd realize that since your friend probably didn't use the Internet to help him flash his neighbor, this law wouldn't apply to him even in NJ.
Cool! Where can I get one of those? Maybe that have cats in boxes too; mine is getting boring.
I agree very much about the inadequacy of the "Talk:" pages. It probably makes more sense to have a specifically discussion oriented structure and interface, such as Slashdot's. That would mean the discussion wouldn't be part of the wiki proper, but part of the meta-wiki, directly attached to it with a seamless interface. I don't think anyone expects the "Talk:" pages to be treated like normal wiki pages anyway, so it was a poor design in MediaWiki to make them work like normal wiki pages.
A rating system like you describe is very interesting and might be a good addition. I assume that you mean every visitor should have the option to rate a page. Have you discussed these suggestions at Wikipedia? I haven't gotten involved much there yet, but I imagine others have noticed and discussed these problems already.
I don't think there is any distinction between building an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit it and managing it. Wikipedians have necessarily been doing both tasks simultaneously from the beginning, though as it gets bigger and more popular, the management becomes more difficult. It's still being built just as much as it is being managed. If it's more difficult to manage and build now than it was a soon after it started, I think that's partly because tools have not scaled to match the complexity of the project.
I reiterate that there isn't always a clear distinction between correctness and vandalism. You could probably use automated tools to find likely blatant vandalism and either disallow it for anonymous users or immediately alert someone. Is that kind of blatant vandalism ("jason sux") a big problem on Wikipedia? If so, tools may need to be improved to prevent it. I was under the impression that subtle vandalism and disagreement on correctness and scope were bigger problems. Also, you must accept that the "everything on the entire site is just a web page that anyone can edit" mentality is what a wiki is. To change that would be to make a non-wiki, so it wouldn't make sense for Wikipedia. There are plenty of non-wiki sites that have user-generated content, such as eHow and YouTube. Maybe an encyclopedia that accepted user-written articles that were screened or edited by the site operator would be a good idea.
Portal is an excellent game that is very funny, original and memorable. The only complaint about it I had was that it was too short. However, I must point out that it is not a First Person Shooter (FPS) because, as you mention, you do no shooting or killing. It's primarily a puzzle game, though it immerses the player in the world like an FPS. So, if you hate FPSes, I don't really see how Portal would change your mind.
Wow, you're going to dress as the friend you murdered? That's pretty messed up.
Yeah, killing defenseless enemies is a stupid "feature." It really annoyed me when it first appeared in DOD:S quite a while ago. However, it doesn't take up too much time in TF2, so I don't think it's enough to ruin the game. Also, the nemesis thing is silly, but I barely pay attention to it and of course it has no real importance to the game.
Well, you can customize your view quite a bit with your own CSS, either in a user stylesheet in the browser or in your Wikipedia account. For example, I was able to get rid of a citation box with this CSS: ".ambox { display:none; }". I'm not sure what an ambox is, so that may hide more than you want, but MediaWiki has a lot of classification of elements, so you can probably get it to do what you want.