Erdös was certainly prolific but he doesn't seem to have made any great leaps in mathematics. I don't think anyone is arguing that an older mathematician can't advance the state of the art, but rather that the brilliant insights that revolutionise fields of mathematics seem to occur to young mathematicians.
It's worth noting that Larry McVoy is talking about the concepts in Linux when he said "Linux is a copy of Unix. There is very little new stuff in Linux". SCO make it sound like he was claiming they copied source code.
Reading the summary of the case it looks like the court ruled that Zefer (the developers of the scraper software) could not use the scraper on EF Cultural Travel's website because their client Explorica was legally enjoined from using a scraper. Zefer are not permitted to assist Explorica in violating the injunction against them. The injunction against Explorica was issued because Explorica used confidential information to assist in gathering the pricing information when, as former EF employees, they had signed confidentiality agreements in favor of EF.
So to me (IANAL) it does not look like any precedent against data mining for pricing information has been set. The closest this case comes to doing that is the First Circuit's opinion on what constitutes authorised use of the site under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. They say that the terms of use of the site can restrict the use of scrapers. This would be a weakening of the district court's opinion which was that the authorisation question should be looked at in light of the parties "reasonable expectations" (i.e. the website owners could "reasonably expect" the users of the site to be human and not scraper software).
Incidentally,
according to Jonathan Walther (the Debian Developer who is championing the cause of the database people and who has been widely credited with some degree of mediation success) Google modify their search results to return the database project's link first. I find this a bit disturbing if it is true (Walther provides no evidence so who knows?).
I have to say that Walther's rant in that thread has significantly diminished my sympathy for the database project. I don't think it warrants comparison to a life and death situation and the suggestion that Mozilla pay restitution to the database project is ridiculous. IMHO the longer this goes on the worse the database people are going to come out of it. To date they've had a good amount of support from most media, but threats of lawsuits, email bombing campaigns, and ad hominem attacks on Mozilla project members will turn people against them.
I was just thinking the same thing as I read the parent comment. Everyone uses complex numbers as an example. But, when programming in Java, it's not being able to overload == and != (and even sometimes [] if we're talking about collections) that drives me up a wall!
I would have liked to see Java define at least some operators as shorthand for specific functions. That way you could overload operators by defining the particular function. E.g. if a + b is shorthand for a.add(b) then any class that wants to overload '+' could do so be defining void add(Object b). Doing operator overloading that way should reduce the instances of inappropriate overloading while still permitting clear syntax in appropriate cases.
Bond is replaceable because Bond is not the man. Bond is the style. We see the face all the time, and yet all we remember are the well-tailored grey suits, sporty cars and Walther PPK. All you need is a suave man to wear that suit, drive that car and fire that weapon.
Only Connery and Brosnan have really stood out in the role though. Lazenby and Dalton were complete failures and Moore is not widely regarded as a great Bond. It's not that easy to find the right "suave man to wear that suit, drive that car and fire that weapon".
Number of time "herniated disk" appears in the post you replied to: 0.
The original poster said: 'Construction workers... and have way worse than minor back pain from playing "Spiderman"'. The reply simply pointed out that a herniated disk is hardly "minor back pain", and that in fact construction workers do not work with that sort of condition.
I found that 1.3 was significantly faster than earlier versions. And now that I've got tabbed browsing I will not go back to a browser without it.
As for the 1.4 features I do find the "open new window/tab as copy of current window/tab" to be useful. The image blocking improvements might be good too.
Sather's a great language, once you get use to all the SHOUTING. Pity it never caught on. I was hoping Java would pick up the implied get/set methods (i.e. x = 5 calls x.set(5)) as C# did, but I guess it's too late now.
Personally I prefer no space after the "if". My reasoning is the having the space makes it look as though the parentheses should be optional, but of course they're not.
He also makes reference to the fact that this is really uncommon html code. i.e. we should go easy on Mozilla for this. But IE received no such grace from slashdot readers.
These bugs are not of equivalent "obviousness" despite the similar lengths of the code that triggers them. The IE bug is in a tag that is among the most commonly used, and can be triggered with a simple typo in the input type designation (leaving out the '='). The Mozilla bug, OTOH, requires the use of a particular style element (position:fixed) against a particular tag (fieldset) that is quite obscure. The bug is difficult to accidentally trigger which is why it was first reported on the 2nd of April (it is bug 200347 in Bugzilla).
If TV broadcasts switch to 2.35:1 to catch up, movies will start coming out with 4:1 and 5:1 aspect ratios. They'll film their stuff on a thin horizontal strip if that's what it takes to screw you over.
No, no they won't. They have realised that they can make far more money off of home viewers than they can in theatres anyway. According to this, DVD and video sales account for 46% of revenue compared to only 26% from box office receipts. Notice how they haven't come out with a new sound standard despite home theatre eroding the surround sound advantage that theatres have traditionally enjoyed. There will always be good reasons to see a movie in a theatre: larger screen, earlier access, and sometimes even the crowd atmosphere. The studios are aware that it is not necessary to try to kill home viewing to drive people into the theatres.
Widescreen is a definite advantage for sport. Also some TV programs are filmed in widescreen, even if they are not generally broadcast that way. Recent series of Buffy and Angel, for example, are available on DVD in widescreen. It definitely makes a difference.
In true George Lucas maximum money-extraction fashion, you will not be able to buy the films separately, only as a box set.
By all accounts Lucas had nothing to do with the decision to sell only as a box set. Spielberg wanted individual movies released a year a part, possibly followed by a box set but the studio wanted only the box set. The studio got their way.
Personally I think that it is better for the consumer this way. Box sets are generally cheaper than buying the individual movies and I think most people who would buy Indiana Jones movies would buy all three. It is also extremely anoying to buy one movie in a series and then have the studio release a box set 6 months later. OTOH, in the case of Back to the Future the decision to sell only a box set seemed to be motivated by the likelyhood that the second and third movies would not sell well, so it amounted to an artifically high price on the first movie. That I don't agree with.
VOD requires too many infrastructure improvements to be a viable media delivery system for years to come.
Infrastructure is not the only factor. People like to own things, too. VOD, if it where good enough, would kill the rental business and maybe replace a lot of cable/satellite channels but it won't replace video/DVD sales. Just look at music - no music-on-demand service has made any inroads into CD sales.
Sure, it'll be confusing if you switch the mouse buttons over, but why do it? There is no reason to switch them over just because the user is left handed. There is nothing intrinsic about the button on the left that requires it to be under the index finger. So the whole right/left-handed "issue" is a smokescreen.
Mac mice have never had an issue with left/right-handedness. (Also note that many creative types are right-brained, thus left-handed. This is important to some.)
Explain to me exactly why left/right-handedness has ever been an issue. I've never understood mouse button swapping preferences. The left button is still on the left, no matter which side of the keyboard the mouse is on or which hand you use it with. It's the left button, not index finger button. Some mice are asymetrical and uncomfortable to use in the wrong hand but which button does what should be invariant.
You might also want to check out this analysis of some of the images of Rutan's vehicles from his website. The images have been manipulated and it appears that Rutan is deceiving the public about how advanced the program is. That's dodgy and if he where soliciting for investments or donations it would border on fraud. That sort of deliberate dishonesty throws the whole thing into doubt IMHO.
I can see why people are getting upset right now, but it all seems a bit silly, especially if the Mozilla project does drop the integrated Mozilla suite in favour of separate components. When that happens the browser component is going to be called "Mozilla" by most people regardless of what it's supposed to be called. I think the "Mozilla Firebird" suggestion is a reasonable compromise and probably better for the Mozilla project as it maintains the Mozilla brand better than "Firebird" alone.
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Erdös was certainly prolific but he doesn't seem to have made any great leaps in mathematics. I don't think anyone is arguing that an older mathematician can't advance the state of the art, but rather that the brilliant insights that revolutionise fields of mathematics seem to occur to young mathematicians.
It's worth noting that Larry McVoy is talking about the concepts in Linux when he said "Linux is a copy of Unix. There is very little new stuff in Linux". SCO make it sound like he was claiming they copied source code.
I wrote 68000 assembly code for the Amiga and I don't remember any need to write in 64KB chunks. Can you elaborate?
So to me (IANAL) it does not look like any precedent against data mining for pricing information has been set. The closest this case comes to doing that is the First Circuit's opinion on what constitutes authorised use of the site under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. They say that the terms of use of the site can restrict the use of scrapers. This would be a weakening of the district court's opinion which was that the authorisation question should be looked at in light of the parties "reasonable expectations" (i.e. the website owners could "reasonably expect" the users of the site to be human and not scraper software).
I have to say that Walther's rant in that thread has significantly diminished my sympathy for the database project. I don't think it warrants comparison to a life and death situation and the suggestion that Mozilla pay restitution to the database project is ridiculous. IMHO the longer this goes on the worse the database people are going to come out of it. To date they've had a good amount of support from most media, but threats of lawsuits, email bombing campaigns, and ad hominem attacks on Mozilla project members will turn people against them.
As for the 1.4 features I do find the "open new window/tab as copy of current window/tab" to be useful. The image blocking improvements might be good too.
Sather's a great language, once you get use to all the SHOUTING. Pity it never caught on. I was hoping Java would pick up the implied get/set methods (i.e. x = 5 calls x.set(5)) as C# did, but I guess it's too late now.
Personally I prefer no space after the "if". My reasoning is the having the space makes it look as though the parentheses should be optional, but of course they're not.
www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/220089
Widescreen is a definite advantage for sport. Also some TV programs are filmed in widescreen, even if they are not generally broadcast that way. Recent series of Buffy and Angel, for example, are available on DVD in widescreen. It definitely makes a difference.
It's a private company. They can put whatever rules they like on the ownership and transfer of stock.
Personally I think that it is better for the consumer this way. Box sets are generally cheaper than buying the individual movies and I think most people who would buy Indiana Jones movies would buy all three. It is also extremely anoying to buy one movie in a series and then have the studio release a box set 6 months later. OTOH, in the case of Back to the Future the decision to sell only a box set seemed to be motivated by the likelyhood that the second and third movies would not sell well, so it amounted to an artifically high price on the first movie. That I don't agree with.
Sure, it'll be confusing if you switch the mouse buttons over, but why do it? There is no reason to switch them over just because the user is left handed. There is nothing intrinsic about the button on the left that requires it to be under the index finger. So the whole right/left-handed "issue" is a smokescreen.
I can see why people are getting upset right now, but it all seems a bit silly, especially if the Mozilla project does drop the integrated Mozilla suite in favour of separate components. When that happens the browser component is going to be called "Mozilla" by most people regardless of what it's supposed to be called. I think the "Mozilla Firebird" suggestion is a reasonable compromise and probably better for the Mozilla project as it maintains the Mozilla brand better than "Firebird" alone.
Yep.
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" predates The Matrix by a number of years. In fact the movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" predates The Matrix.