You (and the web site) are both applying finite concepts to infinity.
It doesn't work like that, though. By definition.
Sure, the term infinite has been adopted and redifined and treated as an infinitly-large-yet-finite number, but that's just laziness. Infinity itself is infinite, and there is only one of it.
As far as the user is concerned, you have 1 Black Box system containing everything.
The physical implementation could be a single supercomputer, or a whole host of different systems spread all over teh place. But the the end user, it's just a single computer that handles all their stuff for them.
That's a grid. Check out http://wwws.sun.com/software/n1gridsystem/ for a good overview of how this can be implemented.
Remember, a true grid system is more than just raw CPUs, it's all about services, processor, disk resource, the whole thing.
"A decent projector + a TV-tuner can be bought for far less than $2000"
True, but compared to a good TFT/LCD/Plamsa TV, the projector image sucks.
It is less clear, harder to view in anything other than total darkness, and is more intrusive on the room to use.
I've seen side-by-side comparisons, and the projectr looses out every time (except if you can guarantee that the viewing room will be in total darkness - e.g. in a cinema - or you want a display far larger than a plasma et al can produce.
you realise you have now given me the perfect defense for breaking the GPL, committing murder, stealing from my neighbours, etc, by using your own arguments.
"I spent 1-2 years without a TV and would repeatedly receive letters informing me that a licence was required if I owned a TV and letters from the BBC demanding I pay £100+."
No you didn't. The BBC sent you no letters at all.
The TVLA may have done (and they do act like a bunch of power-crazed dictators at times, that is true), but the BBC? No.
The BBC does not administer the license. The TVLA does on the Government's behalf. The Government then passes some of the license fee over to the BBC.
No. What would happen is that advertisers would "flock" to spend their finite budget advertising during programmes with the largest audiences, yes. Which then means that all programme makers will be governed by the need to make programmes which appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the highest viewing figures in order to attract advertisers. Which means they will only stick to tried-and-tested formats which "work". Which means they will have no incentive to try anything new and original - indeed, they will have every incentive to AVOID new and original, because new and original == taking a risk which means they may lose advertising revenue. Which means we end up with more and more bland copy-cat "reality" programmes, makeover programmes, cookery shows, etc. And an end to any chance of new, innovative, original programming.
But I do want to have a PC, and a car, and a DVD player, and all sorts of other devices"
And given that NONE of those require you to have a TV license, what's your point?
You do NOT need a TV license for a PC. You do NOT need a TV license for a car. You do NOT need a TV license for a DVD player. You do NOT need a TV license for a radio.
You ONLY need a TV license if you have TV-reception equipment.
Again, where's your problem? Nobody is FORCING you to have a TV so nobody is FORCING you to have a TV license. You do NOT need a TV license for a car, DVD player, or a PC.
"Well, the system used in the US seems to work well enough"
That's a whole new debate there!
"where ads are used to pay for the production and transmission of television shows"
Problem with that is that there is too little advertising revenue around for the UK's existing 3 terrestrial independant channels as it is - that's why we end up with endless cheap-to-make "reality" shows, live pig-wanking on TV, programmes letting us literally watch paint dry, etc. That's what the independant TV channels come up with for us these days.
And now you want another 6 channels to fight for a share of that same pot, meaning everyone gets less, TV programmes become even more crap? Thanks but no thanks. I reckon 33p (less than 60 US cents_ per day is not too much to pay to be able to maintain TV channels with no advert breaks every 10 minutes...
"What's the justification for being required to have a TV license? "
Nobody is REQUIRED to have a TV license. I know several people who (quite legally) do not have TV licenses.
So to compare it to a protection racket is, at best, misleading.
The only time you are REQUIRED to buy a TV license is if you have TV reception equipment. Don't want to pay the license? Don't have TV reception equipment. Simple!
Want to have a TV? Then expect to contribute a small amount toward the running of 8 TV and 9 national (plus dozens of local) radio stations from the BBC.
Geez, next you will be complaining that your cable subs pay for channels you don't watch even though they are part of the bundle!
"You know what, I'm sick of this crap everytime somebody brings up this subject. Take a look at the whole question. He's talking about monitoring while a babysitter is there, not about ignoring the child while both parents are home."
The clue is in your own words.
He has a babysitter babysitting.
He does NOT need to be watching the baby while the babysitter is there - that's WHY he has a babysitter.
What an excellent way to show the babysitter just how much they are appreciated - "Watch my baby, but I'll be watching you...". Besides, if he and his wife are out for the evening to get a break, then watching the babty over the cellphone is not exactly having a break, is it?
"I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making."
Which philosophy is that?
The one where the director makes large changes to the story and characters, creating plot holes and needlesly destorying the way in which key characters work? The one where the director fucks up the editing and pacing so much that they have to delete an important encounter from the film for timing reasons? The one where the editor re-writes the story in a major way because he feels like it?
PJ's approach was already long-established within Hollywood. I'm just hoping his "philosophy" is not allowed to continue to spread and that instead we can have directors who can edit properly and who don't fuck about with characters for no reason and who do not drastically rewrite the story for their own purposes.
" I like to explain it this way... copyright covers the implementation while patents cover the idea itself."
Not true.
You specifically can NOT patent an idea. You can on;y patent methods of imnplementing an idea. Your patent must describe in detail everything necesasry to recreate your specific implementation (although you can cover many different implementations of the same idea within the one patent).
That is why patents describe "A method for blah blah blah" - it's the methods which are patented, not the concept of blah blah blah itself.
If missing one email is not acceptible to your business, then your business should not be using email ever anyway - email is not, nor has it ever been, a guaranteed delivery mechanism.
At our company, current just over 50% of all inbound email is detected as spam. Thus more than 50% of all our inbound email is spam, and the true figure (allowing for the false negatives which slip through) is probably in excess of 60% (and rising)
With a failure rate of 1 in 25,000, AND assuming that means a false positive rather than a false negative, then for our company taking into acount the volume of spam we receive it means 1 email in > 55,000 is wrongly identified.
I can assure you that our business is capable of coping with 1 missed email in > 55,000.
We certainly do not to business-threatening-essential transactions via insecure, non-guaranteeded publicly-transported email, and nor shoudl your business!
"considering light takes 25 years to reach the Earth from the nearest star"
Erm, are you SURE about that?
Ignoring the real nearest star, Sol, the next nearest star is Proxima Centauri which is 4.22 light-years away... i.e. its light only takes 4.22 years to get here, not the 25 you claim.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but EACH set is infinitely large.
One set is not larger than the other set.
You are still thinking in terms of finite sets...
Nope, it is definitly erroneous.
;-)
You (and the web site) are both applying finite concepts to infinity.
It doesn't work like that, though. By definition.
Sure, the term infinite has been adopted and redifined and treated as an infinitly-large-yet-finite number, but that's just laziness. Infinity itself is infinite, and there is only one of it.
No matter what they teach you back in 2nd year
I guess we'll not agree though...
Nope, it's not a "wierd concept", it'#s simply erroneous thinking, erroneously applying finite concepts to infinite ones.
Simplistic mistake to make, but doesn't alter things. There is only one infinity.
There are not a series of larger and smaller infinities - by definition they are NOT infinite!
" I'm sorry, do you mean aleph 0, aleph 1, or some other (higher) value of infinity? "
I'm sorry, but there is only one infinity.
It does not have a value (by definition).
You can not have multiple infinities, again by definition, no matter how much you want to pretend that the alep series are all kinds of infinity.
Sounds like the emulation is pretty accurate then! ;-)
(Oh c'mon, lighten up, it's a joke...)
Grid Computing - simple.
As far as the user is concerned, you have 1 Black Box system containing everything.
The physical implementation could be a single supercomputer, or a whole host of different systems spread all over teh place. But the the end user, it's just a single computer that handles all their stuff for them.
That's a grid. Check out http://wwws.sun.com/software/n1gridsystem/ for a good overview of how this can be implemented.
Remember, a true grid system is more than just raw CPUs, it's all about services, processor, disk resource, the whole thing.
"A decent projector + a TV-tuner can be bought for far less than $2000"
True, but compared to a good TFT/LCD/Plamsa TV, the projector image sucks.
It is less clear, harder to view in anything other than total darkness, and is more intrusive on the room to use.
I've seen side-by-side comparisons, and the projectr looses out every time (except if you can guarantee that the viewing room will be in total darkness - e.g. in a cinema - or you want a display far larger than a plasma et al can produce.
You had machines with 16GB of RAM and TBs of hard drive decades ago?
Really?!
Nah. I don't believe you.
Cool.
you realise you have now given me the perfect defense for breaking the GPL, committing murder, stealing from my neighbours, etc, by using your own arguments.
Thanks!
Uh-oh, now you've done it!
The Librarian is an Orang-utan. NEVER call him an ape - he doesn't like that...
"I spent 1-2 years without a TV and would repeatedly receive letters informing me that a licence was required if I owned a TV and letters from the BBC demanding I pay £100+."
No you didn't. The BBC sent you no letters at all.
The TVLA may have done (and they do act like a bunch of power-crazed dictators at times, that is true), but the BBC? No.
The BBC does not administer the license. The TVLA does on the Government's behalf. The Government then passes some of the license fee over to the BBC.
No. What would happen is that advertisers would "flock" to spend their finite budget advertising during programmes with the largest audiences, yes.
Which then means that all programme makers will be governed by the need to make programmes which appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the highest viewing figures in order to attract advertisers.
Which means they will only stick to tried-and-tested formats which "work".
Which means they will have no incentive to try anything new and original - indeed, they will have every incentive to AVOID new and original, because new and original == taking a risk which means they may lose advertising revenue.
Which means we end up with more and more bland copy-cat "reality" programmes, makeover programmes, cookery shows, etc. And an end to any chance of new, innovative, original programming.
"RTFA! That's exactly what Germany is adding"
And given this sub-thread was talking about the UK TV license, that is relevant how?
Does TFA mean you suddenly need a TV license for those things?
No.
"I don't want to have a TV. Really, I don't.
But I do want to have a PC, and a car, and a DVD player, and all sorts of other devices"
And given that NONE of those require you to have a TV license, what's your point?
You do NOT need a TV license for a PC.
You do NOT need a TV license for a car.
You do NOT need a TV license for a DVD player.
You do NOT need a TV license for a radio.
You ONLY need a TV license if you have TV-reception equipment.
Again, where's your problem? Nobody is FORCING you to have a TV so nobody is FORCING you to have a TV license. You do NOT need a TV license for a car, DVD player, or a PC.
"Well, the system used in the US seems to work well enough"
That's a whole new debate there!
"where ads are used to pay for the production and transmission of television shows"
Problem with that is that there is too little advertising revenue around for the UK's existing 3 terrestrial independant channels as it is - that's why we end up with endless cheap-to-make "reality" shows, live pig-wanking on TV, programmes letting us literally watch paint dry, etc. That's what the independant TV channels come up with for us these days.
And now you want another 6 channels to fight for a share of that same pot, meaning everyone gets less, TV programmes become even more crap? Thanks but no thanks. I reckon 33p (less than 60 US cents_ per day is not too much to pay to be able to maintain TV channels with no advert breaks every 10 minutes...
"What's the justification for being required to have a TV license?
"
Nobody is REQUIRED to have a TV license. I know several people who (quite legally) do not have TV licenses.
So to compare it to a protection racket is, at best, misleading.
The only time you are REQUIRED to buy a TV license is if you have TV reception equipment. Don't want to pay the license? Don't have TV reception equipment. Simple!
Want to have a TV? Then expect to contribute a small amount toward the running of 8 TV and 9 national (plus dozens of local) radio stations from the BBC.
Geez, next you will be complaining that your cable subs pay for channels you don't watch even though they are part of the bundle!
"You know what, I'm sick of this crap everytime somebody brings up this subject. Take a look at the whole question. He's talking about monitoring while a babysitter is there, not about ignoring the child while both parents are home."
The clue is in your own words.
He has a babysitter babysitting.
He does NOT need to be watching the baby while the babysitter is there - that's WHY he has a babysitter.
What an excellent way to show the babysitter just how much they are appreciated - "Watch my baby, but I'll be watching you...".
Besides, if he and his wife are out for the evening to get a break, then watching the babty over the cellphone is not exactly having a break, is it?
" Assent isn't a word."
Are you sure about that?
Assent means To agree, as to a proposal; concur. - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=assent
"I've always wondered why they can't manufacture DRAM chips with spare memory cells, the same way that hard drives get spare sectors"
They already do!
This technique is used to ensure a higher yield by allowing faulty cells to be replaced by working cells.
It's been around for a lot longer than you'd think.
"I hope the Peter Jackson philosophy continues to trickle through movie making."
Which philosophy is that?
The one where the director makes large changes to the story and characters, creating plot holes and needlesly destorying the way in which key characters work? The one where the director fucks up the editing and pacing so much that they have to delete an important encounter from the film for timing reasons? The one where the editor re-writes the story in a major way because he feels like it?
PJ's approach was already long-established within Hollywood. I'm just hoping his "philosophy" is not allowed to continue to spread and that instead we can have directors who can edit properly and who don't fuck about with characters for no reason and who do not drastically rewrite the story for their own purposes.
" I like to explain it this way... copyright covers the implementation while patents cover the idea itself."
Not true.
You specifically can NOT patent an idea. You can on;y patent methods of imnplementing an idea. Your patent must describe in detail everything necesasry to recreate your specific implementation (although you can cover many different implementations of the same idea within the one patent).
That is why patents describe "A method for blah blah blah" - it's the methods which are patented, not the concept of blah blah blah itself.
A subtle but VERY important difference.
No, that is incorrect.
The $ DO accumulate over the months. Check the FAQ. It was linked from the original article.
If missing one email is not acceptible to your business, then your business should not be using email ever anyway - email is not, nor has it ever been, a guaranteed delivery mechanism.
At our company, current just over 50% of all inbound email is detected as spam. Thus more than 50% of all our inbound email is spam, and the true figure (allowing for the false negatives which slip through) is probably in excess of 60% (and rising)
With a failure rate of 1 in 25,000, AND assuming that means a false positive rather than a false negative, then for our company taking into acount the volume of spam we receive it means 1 email in > 55,000 is wrongly identified.
I can assure you that our business is capable of coping with 1 missed email in > 55,000.
We certainly do not to business-threatening-essential transactions via insecure, non-guaranteeded publicly-transported email, and nor shoudl your business!
Uh, OK. Since you insist, the nearest real star is a few light-minutes away. So light from IT doesn't take 25 years either.
Well, you did ask!
If you are going to ignore Proxima Centauri, then there's Alpha Centauri which is also around 4 light-years away. STILL not 25 years away.
Erm, are you SURE about that?
Ignoring the real nearest star, Sol, the next nearest star is Proxima Centauri which is 4.22 light-years away... i.e. its light only takes 4.22 years to get here, not the 25 you claim.
There are 25 known stars within 13 lightyears. Their light won't take 25 years to get to us either.
Seriously. You wanna check your random information before presenting it as a fact!