> I'm sure all the complaints said essentially the same thing: "It was so horrifying and shocking that I just couldn't turn it off!"
Most of these complaints come from groups who literally sit around watching television all day with pen in hand to keep score of the scenes that offend them. IIRC, 95% of the FCC's complaints come from one small organization.
I suppose if those people want to waste their lives that way it's their business, but what's sad is that the FCC feels beholden to them.
> Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind.
I see that you follow the philosophy of Obi Wank Enobi.
> the British have hinted that they could very well start developing a naval version of the Eurofighter Typhoon, or even consider the already operationnal naval version of the French Rafale.
When they start talking about buying from the French, they're probably just trying to get out panties in a bunch.
Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Novell, said at the SLED 10 launch Thursday he is fairly confident that no one will buy his product, but he hopes a few people will.
> How many programs were developed for UNIX (or Linux, or...)? For example, Apache? Now runs on Windows. Postgresql? Now runs on Windows. There is a LARGE amount of formerly UNIX-only software, much of which is open source, that can now run on Windows. [...] Open Source is a double edged sword -- it gives you a fantastic advantage, but at the same time, your competitors are free to use your software, your IP, your efforts. One hopes that the benefits outweigh the advantages to your competition.
If not for Apache, Microsoft would probably pwn the internet by now.
I think we got a pretty good benefit out of that one!
> Well, it does help to post a question about it to "ask slashdot". I did the same thing 3 years ago with my num-utils programs. After that, I definately saw increased usage and it was added to a few Linux distributions. If you're lucky, the same will happen to you.
Well that's strange. I posted my "for a hot night" advertisement^w question to Ask Slashdot three years ago, and I haven't gotten a single phone call!
> If you take five unconnected sick days in a 12 month period, you are subject to disciplinary action. More than that and they can do anything, including firing you. No excuses.
Well, if you get the flu be sure to show up long enough to infect your bosses and everybody at HR before you go home to bed where you belong.
> Please understand: People who go into the armed services of any nation are giving up rights that civilians enjoy. This is one of the things that makes conscription so reprehensible.
OTOH, conscription ensures (well, supposedly) that your armed forces represent a cross section of society, and thus reduces the danger of praetorianism. (In principle it should also make the leaders of democracies be more careful about what wars they get involved in, though in practice it seems to just motivate them to stage "incidents" and do a better job of lying about the wars.)
But back to the subject at hand:
> Military commanders are worried about troop morale, and will intervene to keep whatever they consider disruptive away.
Even if the story is correct, and there's a marked political bias in what the troops are given access to, are the right-wing demagogues still expressing a pro-war position? I thought even the True Believers were abandoning ship on this one.
> This is lucas we are talking about. The same man who made Revenge of the Sith. He has no business making movies any more, and less making predictions.
But he's a recognized expert on the topic of killing movies.
> Regardless of whether you want to admit that humans caused the warming, the fact is that our actions could slow or halt it before it destroys us.
But we're probably screwed anyway. Even if we stopped all the world's emissions today it would take a long time for our planet to digest all the greenhouse gases, and warming will continue until the level is brought down to pre-industrial levels. And even when warming is slowed way down, it's going to take a while for the glaciers and ice caps to build up again.
Meanwhile, we probably won't get the rich and powerful to part with a few of their dollars in order to remedy things until after the problem starts costing them more money than fixing it would. Twenty years? Fifty?
I suspect most of the world's ice is already doomed to melt.
> While the use of open source software has many benefits, it brings with it a number of legal risks not posed by proprietary or commercial software.
[F]OSS operates under the same laws as commercial software, and with the possible rare exception gives you more usage rights than commercial software. There shouldn't be any legal problem per se.
However, there is the social problem of people thinking that free(beer) means they can do whatever they want with it, which often isn't the case.
Teach your employees to use [F]OSS just like they would commercial software that they had a license to view, and you won't get in trouble. If your employees want to make use of the additional options made possible by a [F]OSS license, make them get a permit from someone in the company who understands the issues.
(In principle that would be the lawyers, but lawyers have a habit of saying 'no' as a knee-jerk response.)
Slashdot Mirror
> I'm sure all the complaints said essentially the same thing: "It was so horrifying and shocking that I just couldn't turn it off!"
Most of these complaints come from groups who literally sit around watching television all day with pen in hand to keep score of the scenes that offend them. IIRC, 95% of the FCC's complaints come from one small organization.
I suppose if those people want to waste their lives that way it's their business, but what's sad is that the FCC feels beholden to them.
> Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind.
I see that you follow the philosophy of Obi Wank Enobi.
> the British have hinted that they could very well start developing a naval version of the Eurofighter Typhoon, or even consider the already operationnal naval version of the French Rafale.
When they start talking about buying from the French, they're probably just trying to get out panties in a bunch.
Nice to see how much confidence we inspire in our closest allies.
Small wonder our enemies don't trust us.
What's the political theory that supports the idea that the feds can just demand anything they want and expect to get it?
Would any judge be supporting them if it wasn't about pornography? Did they get whatever they wanted from Enron without a warrant?
> How many programs were developed for UNIX (or Linux, or ...)? For example, Apache? Now runs on Windows. Postgresql? Now runs on Windows. There is a LARGE amount of formerly UNIX-only software, much of which is open source, that can now run on Windows. [...] Open Source is a double edged sword -- it gives you a fantastic advantage, but at the same time, your competitors are free to use your software, your IP, your efforts. One hopes that the benefits outweigh the advantages to your competition.
If not for Apache, Microsoft would probably pwn the internet by now.
I think we got a pretty good benefit out of that one!
> A tu vieja le cabe, lo sabemos todos.
Something about CAB files and dying on Saturday, I think.
> If you can't beat them, join them!
Yep, it looks like Microsoft is about to invent UNIX.
> I'm a known gold bug and I've been very interested in the industrial applications of gold
I'm interested in economic applications, but unfortunately I don't have as much as I need for some of the experiments I'd like to try.
> Well, it does help to post a question about it to "ask slashdot". I did the same thing 3 years ago with my num-utils programs. After that, I definately saw increased usage and it was added to a few Linux distributions. If you're lucky, the same will happen to you.
Well that's strange. I posted my "for a hot night" advertisement^w question to Ask Slashdot three years ago, and I haven't gotten a single phone call!
> Sure, a few blackboards for a few mathematicians and physicists might seem like a cheap way for NASA to look like it is doing something
Administrator #1: "If we start a Department of Mathematics, all we'll need to buy is pencils, papers, and erasers."
Administrator #2: "If we start a Department of Philosophy, we wouldn't need to buy the erasers."
> So why do think this is called a hyperlink ?
Because it lets you move directly from one page to another in a single jump, no matter how far apart they are.
> If you take five unconnected sick days in a 12 month period, you are subject to disciplinary action. More than that and they can do anything, including firing you. No excuses.
Well, if you get the flu be sure to show up long enough to infect your bosses and everybody at HR before you go home to bed where you belong.
> [insert Intelligent Design joke here]
ID itself is the joke.
> When software makers urge upgrades, it isn't always in users' best interest, the Wall Street Journal reports.
They've got a bunch of geniuses over at the WSJ, haven't they.
> Please understand: People who go into the armed services of any nation are giving up rights that civilians enjoy. This is one of the things that makes conscription so reprehensible.
OTOH, conscription ensures (well, supposedly) that your armed forces represent a cross section of society, and thus reduces the danger of praetorianism. (In principle it should also make the leaders of democracies be more careful about what wars they get involved in, though in practice it seems to just motivate them to stage "incidents" and do a better job of lying about the wars.)
But back to the subject at hand:
> Military commanders are worried about troop morale, and will intervene to keep whatever they consider disruptive away.
Even if the story is correct, and there's a marked political bias in what the troops are given access to, are the right-wing demagogues still expressing a pro-war position? I thought even the True Believers were abandoning ship on this one.
> Signed by a Proud American with friends severing overseas defending your right to be a moron!!!
And where would that be?
> Sadly he's had a script and actors ready to make Indiana Jones 4 for some time but won't do it.
FWIW, Harrison Ford was on Jay Leno a couple of weeks back, and said the movie was "on the front burner".
> With the computers of 2025, maybe you only need $15M to make King Kong?
You're projecting Moore's Law, but ignoring Wirth's.
> This is lucas we are talking about. The same man who made Revenge of the Sith. He has no business making movies any more, and less making predictions.
But he's a recognized expert on the topic of killing movies.
> The USAF DynaSoar concept was considered and canned by 1963. So what else is new?
Lots of stuff is new, when the basis for comparison is 1963!
> Probably just means it went operational.
More likely the money was reallocated to a "need" that would give Halliburton the biggest cut.
> Regardless of whether you want to admit that humans caused the warming, the fact is that our actions could slow or halt it before it destroys us.
But we're probably screwed anyway. Even if we stopped all the world's emissions today it would take a long time for our planet to digest all the greenhouse gases, and warming will continue until the level is brought down to pre-industrial levels. And even when warming is slowed way down, it's going to take a while for the glaciers and ice caps to build up again.
Meanwhile, we probably won't get the rich and powerful to part with a few of their dollars in order to remedy things until after the problem starts costing them more money than fixing it would. Twenty years? Fifty?
I suspect most of the world's ice is already doomed to melt.
> While the use of open source software has many benefits, it brings with it a number of legal risks not posed by proprietary or commercial software.
[F]OSS operates under the same laws as commercial software, and with the possible rare exception gives you more usage rights than commercial software. There shouldn't be any legal problem per se.
However, there is the social problem of people thinking that free(beer) means they can do whatever they want with it, which often isn't the case.
Teach your employees to use [F]OSS just like they would commercial software that they had a license to view, and you won't get in trouble. If your employees want to make use of the additional options made possible by a [F]OSS license, make them get a permit from someone in the company who understands the issues.
(In principle that would be the lawyers, but lawyers have a habit of saying 'no' as a knee-jerk response.)