Just don't assume that people need to come to the conclusion you might like, or any conclusion at all. Don't even think about trying to use legal force to get game developers to change based on your discussion.
When the hell was legal force used on movies or television?
ECONOMIC force, sure. But I didn't ever hear of a law or court order requiring diversity in privately funded media. (Publicly funded media, or "media broadcast over public airwaves", is economic pressure.)
Into index numbers, which provides a non-negligible increase in performance.
You've GOT to be kidding me.
the iPod either as a memory hash / database that stores a key to each track as an integer, in which case they don't need to re-name squat, or they wrote a custom filesystem for the iPod, that mysteriously stores a song's name as an integer and not a string... and they sure as hell didn't do the latter, since you can just copy a.AAC file into a (jailbroken) iPod and it plays just fine.
The performance difference between "string that just happens to begin with an integer" and "string that isn't an integer" is negligible. Especially when you never sort by filename, but the string value of an ID3 tag. Especially when your software has to have a set of both in memory at once ANYWAY.
Apple re-names files they copy onto iPods as a means of "speedbump" DRM, like the grandparent said. Since I'm not dumb enough to buy an iPod, I can't check to see if they mungle the ID3 tags -- but unless you've copied a mungled file from an iPod to a new PC, an examined the file yourself, you can't say if they mungle the ID3 or not.
First off: I own a Pre. I own a TX. I own some Palm stock. I don't want my company wasting their time doing anything but making what I bought from them better -- that's time better spent on implementing standards.
Again, that's the point. If you want to stick with iTunes, buy an iPhone. If you want a Palm, you're going to have to use Palm's software (which currently consists of the Pre using Apple's USB vendor ID in violation of the USB standard).
Sheesh. My wife has a Sansa music player. Do you mean I have to suddenly go and download software from Sansa, and not just use whatever the f-- I want to move the stuff over?
Apple sells Macs. and iTunes. And iPods. This is all about Apple trying to make you an "Apple person", regardless of what you want to do. Oh, you can make a better MP3 organizer than iTunes? Apple doesn't want you syncing to iPhone. You can make a better media phone than the iPhone? Apple doesn't want you syncing with iTunes. If Apple could arbitrarily shut down any music player on Mac OS than iTunes, I bet they would.
This goes WAY beyond just "we don't support that". This is Apple going out of their way to break it.
Oh, and btw?
But to violate DRM for financial interests is generally looked down upon
Bull crap. This isn't DRM, this has nothing to do with DRM. This is simple interop; any iTunes file with DRM works perfectly, because the Pre just won't play it, this connection or no connection. Apple's not stupid enough to just let a transfer request automatically decrypt encrypted files... I mean, aside from their iPhone team.
It's also a bit pathetic when a once mighty corporation like Palm has to resort to such tactics.
Odd, I was about to say the same thing, but replacing "Palm" with "Apple" and "mighty" with "great."
Palm was never mighty -- they were popular. Big difference.
Joking and such aside... would this stand? Legally?
Technically? That doesn't change the relationship Copyright gives ANYWAY.
Go look at the bottom of/. IIRC, it still has something about "all comments copyright whomever posts them." Which means that, say, if you posted his exact comment somewhere else to either gain money or avoid paying money, then he could sue you to recover or stop you from doing that.
But, really, if you find a way to post a comment for more than $250 (filling fee to sue someone), let me know.
(Oh, and no. You can't post text on the web and then say "you can't cache this." Copyright law (fair use?) expressly allows for such copying as may be required to use an object. Which is why even in places where EULAs are tossed out on their ears as invalid, you still can only install one copy of that game.)
(IANAL, if you are seriously considering something like this in a real venture, GO HIRE ONE AND DON'T GET YOUR LEGAL ADVICE FROM STANGERS ON THE INTERNET!.)
so therefore the copyright extension is not retroactive to them
Go read the law linked to by the copyright office. The relevant section is below. Short form: 1984 got a second extension of 67 years, instead of 28. So instead of expiring back in 2005, it's expiring circa 2039
(a) Copyrights in Their First Term on January 1, 1978. â" (1) (A) Any copyright, in the first term of which is subsisting on January 1, 1978, shall endure for 28 years from the date it was originally secured.
(B) In the case of â" (i) any posthumous work or of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof, or (ii) any work copyrighted by a corporate body (otherwise than as assignee or licensee of the individual author) or by an employer for whom such work is made for hire, the proprietor of such copyright shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for the further term of 67 years.
(C) In the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work â" (i) the author of such work, if the author is still living, (ii) the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author is not living, (iii) the author's executors, if such author, widow, widower, or children are not living, or (iv) the author's next of kin, in the absence of a will of the author, shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of 67 years.
but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired
Hmm....
George Orwell died in 1950. (link), and 1984 was published in 1949.
The copyright law in effect in the US in 1949 allowed for a 28 "first" term, with a possible 28 year extension. (link).
The law was changed in 1976, allowing any published work still in its first-term to be extended another 67 years. Since 1949 + 28 = 1977, Orwell's work was still in its first term, and would not have expired under the original law until 2005 -- or 2053 under the 1976 extension.
AND, the 1998 Sony Bono copyrgiht extension slapped a flat "life + 75 years" deal, which is kinda a moot point but would still push copyright unil at least 2024.
ANNND, any signficiant edits work of 1984 would have created a new derivitive work, with a whole new copyright.
Or in other words--1984 is probably still well covered by copyright, and not technically in the public domain in the United States.
(Yes, you can find a copy on the internet. This is the internet, where you can also find anything and everything for free if you look hard enough.)
(And, yes, I know Orwell was from the UK. I don't know the UK laws, I don't have a good guide for the UK laws, and as far as I know copyright law on the other side of the pond is still a grant given by the king to a publisher so that a particular work gets published.... so 1984 might never get into the public domain at all.)
(Not to mention that if it's not in there now, the "Mickey Mouse" effect might keep it from ever getting there.)
I see the motivation for Apple - they are basically the only game in town when it comes to mp3, unless you're a geek
Or bother walking down to the next shelf at Best Buy, and seeing all the players that are the same capacity as the iPod, but at lower cost or greater feature-set.
I would LOVE to buy those cars here in the US. Thing is, they're not available here. My plan is to wait until they are, so if Toyota wants to sell me a car, they better offer a diesel one.
If you want everyone to build hybrids or other efficeint cars, you simply CAN NOT allow one company to have a stranglehold on the technology!
Quite right. As soon as Toyota uses their "mammoth" patent portfolio to keep GM or Ford from making hybrid cars, the government should step in... and institute mandatory licensing of Toyota's patents.
Toyota paid money to develop techology, and then TOLD US HOW THEY DID IT on the condition that they'd get control of who makes it for 15 years. Good for them. GM and Ford have done much the same thing, for a boondoggle more patents. If the private companies cannot find a way to get a profitable margin between their portfolios and Ford -- well, we don't need to disucss that, because it's in the vein of "if Microsoft can't find a way to convince people to upgrade to the next version of Windows."
And series hybrids are better than parallel hybrids because...?
In random order:
1: More efficient. 2: Easier to swap out the fuel source (just bolt-in a new generator) 3: You can run the darn things on pure-grid if your trips are short enough 4: Less parts to break.
A parallel hybrid is a full internal combustion-kinetic drivetrain, along with a full electric drivetrain. (Both share parts somewhere between reaction and asphalt.)
A serial hybrid is an internal-combustion GENERATOR that runs a full electric drivetrain. This is how diesel locomotives work.
Marketing speak of some Japanese manufacturers aside, there are NO serial hyrbid automobiles on the market today. There are some parallell hybrids where the junciton between the drivetrains is right at the single "gearbox", but it's still kinetic energy from the internal combustion rotating the ties, not kinetic energy spinning an alternator to create electricity to spin electric motors.
Nothing the US or Europe does will cancel out this effect (in the next 20-50 years) unless they cause a massive starvation or die off of their populations.
US & Europe to China: "Get at least as clean as us or we stop trading with you."
What really boggled my mind was that co-workers of mine were perplexed at my distaste for RealID even after pointing out the dangers of one's SSN getting into the wrong hands. If you think Social Security Numbers are scary you need to look at how RealID can really mess with your life.
Let me rebut every single one of your points with one phrase.
-> If we don't do the system right, we're going to live with a system done wrong -
Protesting RealID doesn't do anything but extend the period where your SSN is identification -- and it's a TERRIBLE form of identificaion. I want a 128-bit number, AT LEAST, not this 30-bit nonsense.
For example, when they say they want to use GPS only to track your miles, get it in writing.
Screw that. Get SOMETHING BETTER.
I'm all for automatic tracking of speeding -- IF we get 100% enforcement, no exceptions. If you're not an emergency vehicle WITH LIGHTS ON, you (personally) get a fine.
I'm all for the Feds having a national ID -- so long as I can query a list of everyone who looks up my info. Forever.
First, the earth has not gotten warming in the last 11 years, since 2001, it has actually been cooling despite a rise in Co2 and other GHGs.
Show me a graph with the last 20 years. Or the last 50. Or the last 5. Quoting an unusual number like that is a tactic of political hacks known as "selecting data", and it's a fairly well-known slander.
IIRC, 2001 was the hottest year EVER. It was an outlier, a data point some ten to fifteen years ahead of us. It does not, by itself, disprove the the larger trend.
Second, melting glaciers when the outside air is below freezing is not caused by global warming...
I had not heard this before. Got a link?
There is 700 or more world wide speaking out against the doom and gloom
Only 700? Are any of them climatologists, with a proven record of predicting climate change on any level? Among this 700, is there a consensus borne about by study, or are they what politics would suggest they are -- shills paid for by those who profit from the status quo.
There are over 6 billion people in the world. (I can provide a link for that if you doubt it.) Even if we assume that only one in a million is a publishing climatologist qualified to speak on the topic, that gives us a body of over 6,000. If the score is 5300 v 700, then the 88.3% have consensus.
If you have better numbers to back up your claims, I'd like to hear them.
Conceptually the call goes to the regular area code and then has to be transmitted by radio to your phone and the latter bit is why you are charged for incoming and outgoing calls. Of course it doesn't work like that under the hood any more but it used to in the begining.
Wait, you mean that my cell phone ISN'T communicating with a cell phone tower that has its own interface to the telephony cloud?
Someone changed the laws of physics, and it no longer costs more energy to send a signal miles through the air to my cell than to route it directly to my home phone? Wow. Science really does change everything.
For the record: 1500 minutes + free nights & weekends + free mobile to mobile == I don't expect per-minute charges at all.
On target, gandhi. Global warming is nothing more than the religion of the 21st century
So you're saying, what, that gods actually DID walk around in ancient Rome?
The world is getting hotter, and has been for, literally, as long as we've been recording the world's temperature. So we're stuck with three possible answers, to explain the FACT that global temperature measuresments are going up.
1: We messed up the temperature measurements, and glaciers really aren't melting.
2: The warming is completely normal, and not a cause for alarm.
3: This IS is a cause for alarm, and we should do at least SOMETHING to change this trend.
#3 is the consensus, or "ordinary", opinion. You can believe either #1 or #2, but, as the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Prove either that our historical records and personal views are incorrect, or that temperature swings like this are just fine. Or accept the consensus.
This isn't religion, this is science. In religion you can have as extraorindary a claim as you like. Science is ALL ABOUT the ordinary view, though -- challenging it, testing it, and above all accepting it when it passes whatever test you can throw at it.
but recent gcc can't be removed with future patent or other legal claims restricting use or rights that exist now. GPL 3 license forbids it
A license is the least effective instrument of law. If, for example, the state government of California decided to release a Linux distribution that violated it, right now there's NO recourse -- because state governments currently cannot be sued for copyright infringement.
And that ignores what would happen if Congress amended the copyright law to treat software differently from fiction. "Open Source" could become "Public Domain" very easily.
(And this is just talking about the United States; let's not even get into what India or China could do.)
MS' treatment of open-source, calling it a virus, massively downplaying it, then stealing it and slapping their own licence on top of it, well, thats rape in my book.
Open source is crying in the corner, bleeding from its private parts, doomed to a life of mental illness, and going to bear someone else's child?
Ok, aside from that last part, I can see your point. What MS did to open source is EXACTLY like rape.
I've had extended conversations with people about why the requirements for air travel are such a bad thing and had them tell me they have no problem bearing their entire lives when they go through the airport -- they even have no problem with people monitoring them by video 24 hours a day if it means that they will be "safe".
Please, explain exactly why the police watching you & everyone else all the time in public is bad. What, exactly, is the problem there?
Are you afraid of corruption? Of a change in the law? Do you somehow think that either one would be hastened or slowed by mere video surveillance of public places?
I'm with the general population -- liberterians who think anything government is bad, or that anything even vaugey orwellian will inevitably lead to Big Brother re-writing the past and instituting a 2-minute-hate, are the unimaginiative ones, reacting like ludditeis smashing machines without ever thinking and actually applying real principles.
Civil War is brewing. Should be a whole lot of fun with nukes, Raptors and Abrams on the battlefield.
Bullocks. Civil War requires geopolitical division -- and we don't have that. If Obama fails, the Republican Party gets a new rallying cry. If not, then they'll just reform or go the way of the Whigs.
There have been panderings of a coming "race war" or "civil war" or "red invasion" for longer than my father's been alive. And they're all crap, with an amazing ability to underestimate the religious feeling that "America" inspires in its citizens.
Don't listen to the crap you might see from the libertarians on/. The USA is a great place to come if your own country is becoming more repressive than you like. Here's my best argument ("best" at 12:30 saturday morning.)
#1: We have rights of expression, assembly, thought, speech, and, yes, privacy enshrined in the Constitution. All the UK really has is the continued good will of the crown (or, if you rather, the respect for history in Parliament.) We do, in fact, have the 2nd amendment (right to bear arms) specifically so we can unseat any tyrant who tries to take our rights away.
#2: As a culture, we prize freedom the way Israel prizes "never again" or Iran prizes "Islam". "I just want to be left alone" is the only argument you'll need to get any American on your side. Our two major political parties argue about how we collaborate on things, and where we should extend legal privileges -- NOT on how free we should be. (At least, not the serious ones.)
#3: America is currently in the beginings of its post-Bush era. We do reactions VERY well in this country -- and that means the principle sin of the Bush, era, "sacraficing liberty for security", is likely not to be repeated in the next 10-20 years. If ever.
#4: you'd be in the same country as/.!
#5: From a feudalistic standpoint, you would go from being a subject of a crown to a citizen of a country -- theoretically speaking, from a king's slave to a king's peer.
Slashdot Mirror
Just don't assume that people need to come to the conclusion you might like, or any conclusion at all. Don't even think about trying to use legal force to get game developers to change based on your discussion.
When the hell was legal force used on movies or television?
ECONOMIC force, sure. But I didn't ever hear of a law or court order requiring diversity in privately funded media. (Publicly funded media, or "media broadcast over public airwaves", is economic pressure.)
Into index numbers, which provides a non-negligible increase in performance.
You've GOT to be kidding me.
the iPod either as a memory hash / database that stores a key to each track as an integer, in which case they don't need to re-name squat, or they wrote a custom filesystem for the iPod, that mysteriously stores a song's name as an integer and not a string... and they sure as hell didn't do the latter, since you can just copy a .AAC file into a (jailbroken) iPod and it plays just fine.
The performance difference between "string that just happens to begin with an integer" and "string that isn't an integer" is negligible. Especially when you never sort by filename, but the string value of an ID3 tag. Especially when your software has to have a set of both in memory at once ANYWAY.
Apple re-names files they copy onto iPods as a means of "speedbump" DRM, like the grandparent said. Since I'm not dumb enough to buy an iPod, I can't check to see if they mungle the ID3 tags -- but unless you've copied a mungled file from an iPod to a new PC, an examined the file yourself, you can't say if they mungle the ID3 or not.
First off: I own a Pre. I own a TX. I own some Palm stock. I don't want my company wasting their time doing anything but making what I bought from them better -- that's time better spent on implementing standards.
Again, that's the point. If you want to stick with iTunes, buy an iPhone. If you want a Palm, you're going to have to use Palm's software (which currently consists of the Pre using Apple's USB vendor ID in violation of the USB standard).
Sheesh. My wife has a Sansa music player. Do you mean I have to suddenly go and download software from Sansa, and not just use whatever the f-- I want to move the stuff over?
Apple sells Macs. and iTunes. And iPods. This is all about Apple trying to make you an "Apple person", regardless of what you want to do. Oh, you can make a better MP3 organizer than iTunes? Apple doesn't want you syncing to iPhone. You can make a better media phone than the iPhone? Apple doesn't want you syncing with iTunes. If Apple could arbitrarily shut down any music player on Mac OS than iTunes, I bet they would.
This goes WAY beyond just "we don't support that". This is Apple going out of their way to break it.
Oh, and btw?
But to violate DRM for financial interests is generally looked down upon
Bull crap. This isn't DRM, this has nothing to do with DRM. This is simple interop; any iTunes file with DRM works perfectly, because the Pre just won't play it, this connection or no connection. Apple's not stupid enough to just let a transfer request automatically decrypt encrypted files... I mean, aside from their iPhone team.
It's also a bit pathetic when a once mighty corporation like Palm has to resort to such tactics.
Odd, I was about to say the same thing, but replacing "Palm" with "Apple" and "mighty" with "great."
Palm was never mighty -- they were popular. Big difference.
Perhaps your ideas are dime a dozen. Not his.
His ideas ARE a dime a dozen. So were Einstein's, Hawking's, and Newton's.
Joking and such aside... would this stand? Legally?
Technically? That doesn't change the relationship Copyright gives ANYWAY.
Go look at the bottom of /. IIRC, it still has something about "all comments copyright whomever posts them." Which means that, say, if you posted his exact comment somewhere else to either gain money or avoid paying money, then he could sue you to recover or stop you from doing that.
But, really, if you find a way to post a comment for more than $250 (filling fee to sue someone), let me know.
(Oh, and no. You can't post text on the web and then say "you can't cache this." Copyright law (fair use?) expressly allows for such copying as may be required to use an object. Which is why even in places where EULAs are tossed out on their ears as invalid, you still can only install one copy of that game.)
(IANAL, if you are seriously considering something like this in a real venture, GO HIRE ONE AND DON'T GET YOUR LEGAL ADVICE FROM STANGERS ON THE INTERNET!.)
so therefore the copyright extension is not retroactive to them
Go read the law linked to by the copyright office. The relevant section is below. Short form: 1984 got a second extension of 67 years, instead of 28. So instead of expiring back in 2005, it's expiring circa 2039
(a) Copyrights in Their First Term on January 1, 1978. â"
(1)
(A) Any copyright, in the first term of which is subsisting on January 1, 1978, shall endure for 28 years from the date it was originally secured.
(B) In the case of â"
(i) any posthumous work or of any periodical, cyclopedic, or other composite work upon which the copyright was originally secured by the proprietor thereof, or
(ii) any work copyrighted by a corporate body (otherwise than as assignee or licensee of the individual author) or by an employer for whom such work is made for hire,
the proprietor of such copyright shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for the further term of 67 years.
(C) In the case of any other copyrighted work, including a contribution by an individual author to a periodical or to a cyclopedic or other composite work â"
(i) the author of such work, if the author is still living,
(ii) the widow, widower, or children of the author, if the author is not living,
(iii) the author's executors, if such author, widow, widower, or children are not living, or
(iv) the author's next of kin, in the absence of a will of the author, shall be entitled to a renewal and extension of the copyright in such work for a further term of 67 years.
And then it would be legal for me to import that book, right?
Not unless you have the written permission of the US copyright holder on 1984. Which they usually don't give without receiving money.
Electrons mean crap here. It's copyright.
but these novels are impiratable since their copyright has expired
Hmm....
George Orwell died in 1950. (link), and 1984 was published in 1949.
The copyright law in effect in the US in 1949 allowed for a 28 "first" term, with a possible 28 year extension. (link).
The law was changed in 1976, allowing any published work still in its first-term to be extended another 67 years. Since 1949 + 28 = 1977, Orwell's work was still in its first term, and would not have expired under the original law until 2005 -- or 2053 under the 1976 extension.
AND, the 1998 Sony Bono copyrgiht extension slapped a flat "life + 75 years" deal, which is kinda a moot point but would still push copyright unil at least 2024.
ANNND, any signficiant edits work of 1984 would have created a new derivitive work, with a whole new copyright.
Or in other words--1984 is probably still well covered by copyright, and not technically in the public domain in the United States.
(Yes, you can find a copy on the internet. This is the internet, where you can also find anything and everything for free if you look hard enough.)
(And, yes, I know Orwell was from the UK. I don't know the UK laws, I don't have a good guide for the UK laws, and as far as I know copyright law on the other side of the pond is still a grant given by the king to a publisher so that a particular work gets published.... so 1984 might never get into the public domain at all.)
(Not to mention that if it's not in there now, the "Mickey Mouse" effect might keep it from ever getting there.)
I see the motivation for Apple - they are basically the only game in town when it comes to mp3, unless you're a geek
Or bother walking down to the next shelf at Best Buy, and seeing all the players that are the same capacity as the iPod, but at lower cost or greater feature-set.
I would LOVE to buy those cars here in the US. Thing is, they're not available here. My plan is to wait until they are, so if Toyota wants to sell me a car, they better offer a diesel one.
Go here:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
or here:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
Write up a letter, and send it to your:
*-> President
*-> 2 Senators
*-> 1 Representative in Congress ("House")
*-> Governor
*-> 1-3 State Legislators
Tell them that you want a diesel car, and that they should be legal to sell in all 50 states.
Toyota is NOT ignoring the market. The market is just too expensive, confusing, and arbitrary for them to bother with just yet.
If you want everyone to build hybrids or other efficeint cars, you simply CAN NOT allow one company to have a stranglehold on the technology!
Quite right. As soon as Toyota uses their "mammoth" patent portfolio to keep GM or Ford from making hybrid cars, the government should step in... and institute mandatory licensing of Toyota's patents.
Toyota paid money to develop techology, and then TOLD US HOW THEY DID IT on the condition that they'd get control of who makes it for 15 years. Good for them. GM and Ford have done much the same thing, for a boondoggle more patents. If the private companies cannot find a way to get a profitable margin between their portfolios and Ford -- well, we don't need to disucss that, because it's in the vein of "if Microsoft can't find a way to convince people to upgrade to the next version of Windows."
And series hybrids are better than parallel hybrids because...?
In random order:
1: More efficient.
2: Easier to swap out the fuel source (just bolt-in a new generator)
3: You can run the darn things on pure-grid if your trips are short enough
4: Less parts to break.
A parallel hybrid is a full internal combustion-kinetic drivetrain, along with a full electric drivetrain. (Both share parts somewhere between reaction and asphalt.)
A serial hybrid is an internal-combustion GENERATOR that runs a full electric drivetrain. This is how diesel locomotives work.
Marketing speak of some Japanese manufacturers aside, there are NO serial hyrbid automobiles on the market today. There are some parallell hybrids where the junciton between the drivetrains is right at the single "gearbox", but it's still kinetic energy from the internal combustion rotating the ties, not kinetic energy spinning an alternator to create electricity to spin electric motors.
Nothing the US or Europe does will cancel out this effect (in the next 20-50 years) unless they cause a massive starvation or die off of their populations.
US & Europe to China: "Get at least as clean as us or we stop trading with you."
What really boggled my mind was that co-workers of mine were perplexed at my distaste for RealID even after pointing out the dangers of one's SSN getting into the wrong hands. If you think Social Security Numbers are scary you need to look at how RealID can really mess with your life.
Let me rebut every single one of your points with one phrase.
-> If we don't do the system right, we're going to live with a system done wrong -
Protesting RealID doesn't do anything but extend the period where your SSN is identification -- and it's a TERRIBLE form of identificaion. I want a 128-bit number, AT LEAST, not this 30-bit nonsense.
For example, when they say they want to use GPS only to track your miles, get it in writing.
Screw that. Get SOMETHING BETTER.
I'm all for automatic tracking of speeding -- IF we get 100% enforcement, no exceptions. If you're not an emergency vehicle WITH LIGHTS ON, you (personally) get a fine.
I'm all for the Feds having a national ID -- so long as I can query a list of everyone who looks up my info. Forever.
First, the earth has not gotten warming in the last 11 years, since 2001, it has actually been cooling despite a rise in Co2 and other GHGs.
Show me a graph with the last 20 years. Or the last 50. Or the last 5. Quoting an unusual number like that is a tactic of political hacks known as "selecting data", and it's a fairly well-known slander.
IIRC, 2001 was the hottest year EVER. It was an outlier, a data point some ten to fifteen years ahead of us. It does not, by itself, disprove the the larger trend.
Second, melting glaciers when the outside air is below freezing is not caused by global warming...
I had not heard this before. Got a link?
There is 700 or more world wide speaking out against the doom and gloom
Only 700? Are any of them climatologists, with a proven record of predicting climate change on any level? Among this 700, is there a consensus borne about by study, or are they what politics would suggest they are -- shills paid for by those who profit from the status quo.
There are over 6 billion people in the world. (I can provide a link for that if you doubt it.) Even if we assume that only one in a million is a publishing climatologist qualified to speak on the topic, that gives us a body of over 6,000. If the score is 5300 v 700, then the 88.3% have consensus.
If you have better numbers to back up your claims, I'd like to hear them.
WTF ... over fucking whelming...
The wonderful thing about vulgarity is its ability to clearly identify those conversations best ignored. I supposed I should thank you for using it.
Conceptually the call goes to the regular area code and then has to be transmitted by radio to your phone and the latter bit is why you are charged for incoming and outgoing calls. Of course it doesn't work like that under the hood any more but it used to in the begining.
Wait, you mean that my cell phone ISN'T communicating with a cell phone tower that has its own interface to the telephony cloud?
Someone changed the laws of physics, and it no longer costs more energy to send a signal miles through the air to my cell than to route it directly to my home phone? Wow. Science really does change everything.
For the record: 1500 minutes + free nights & weekends + free mobile to mobile == I don't expect per-minute charges at all.
The thing with lincoln on it is a one cent piece. There is no US coin called a penny.
There is no US coin "officially" called a penny. But, for that matter, I don't believe we officially have "dimes" or "nickles", either.
We also have no "grand", or "jefferson", or "benjamin." What's your point?
On target, gandhi. Global warming is nothing more than the religion of the 21st century
So you're saying, what, that gods actually DID walk around in ancient Rome?
The world is getting hotter, and has been for, literally, as long as we've been recording the world's temperature. So we're stuck with three possible answers, to explain the FACT that global temperature measuresments are going up.
1: We messed up the temperature measurements, and glaciers really aren't melting.
2: The warming is completely normal, and not a cause for alarm.
3: This IS is a cause for alarm, and we should do at least SOMETHING to change this trend.
#3 is the consensus, or "ordinary", opinion. You can believe either #1 or #2, but, as the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Prove either that our historical records and personal views are incorrect, or that temperature swings like this are just fine. Or accept the consensus.
This isn't religion, this is science. In religion you can have as extraorindary a claim as you like. Science is ALL ABOUT the ordinary view, though -- challenging it, testing it, and above all accepting it when it passes whatever test you can throw at it.
but recent gcc can't be removed with future patent or other legal claims restricting use or rights that exist now. GPL 3 license forbids it
A license is the least effective instrument of law. If, for example, the state government of California decided to release a Linux distribution that violated it, right now there's NO recourse -- because state governments currently cannot be sued for copyright infringement.
And that ignores what would happen if Congress amended the copyright law to treat software differently from fiction. "Open Source" could become "Public Domain" very easily.
(And this is just talking about the United States; let's not even get into what India or China could do.)
MS' treatment of open-source, calling it a virus, massively downplaying it, then stealing it and slapping their own licence on top of it, well, thats rape in my book.
Open source is crying in the corner, bleeding from its private parts, doomed to a life of mental illness, and going to bear someone else's child?
Ok, aside from that last part, I can see your point. What MS did to open source is EXACTLY like rape.
I've had extended conversations with people about why the requirements for air travel are such a bad thing and had them tell me they have no problem bearing their entire lives when they go through the airport -- they even have no problem with people monitoring them by video 24 hours a day if it means that they will be "safe".
Please, explain exactly why the police watching you & everyone else all the time in public is bad. What, exactly, is the problem there?
Are you afraid of corruption? Of a change in the law? Do you somehow think that either one would be hastened or slowed by mere video surveillance of public places?
I'm with the general population -- liberterians who think anything government is bad, or that anything even vaugey orwellian will inevitably lead to Big Brother re-writing the past and instituting a 2-minute-hate, are the unimaginiative ones, reacting like ludditeis smashing machines without ever thinking and actually applying real principles.
Civil War is brewing. Should be a whole lot of fun with nukes, Raptors and Abrams on the battlefield.
Bullocks. Civil War requires geopolitical division -- and we don't have that. If Obama fails, the Republican Party gets a new rallying cry. If not, then they'll just reform or go the way of the Whigs.
There have been panderings of a coming "race war" or "civil war" or "red invasion" for longer than my father's been alive. And they're all crap, with an amazing ability to underestimate the religious feeling that "America" inspires in its citizens.
Don't listen to the crap you might see from the libertarians on /. The USA is a great place to come if your own country is becoming more repressive than you like. Here's my best argument ("best" at 12:30 saturday morning.)
#1: We have rights of expression, assembly, thought, speech, and, yes, privacy enshrined in the Constitution. All the UK really has is the continued good will of the crown (or, if you rather, the respect for history in Parliament.) We do, in fact, have the 2nd amendment (right to bear arms) specifically so we can unseat any tyrant who tries to take our rights away.
#2: As a culture, we prize freedom the way Israel prizes "never again" or Iran prizes "Islam". "I just want to be left alone" is the only argument you'll need to get any American on your side. Our two major political parties argue about how we collaborate on things, and where we should extend legal privileges -- NOT on how free we should be. (At least, not the serious ones.)
#3: America is currently in the beginings of its post-Bush era. We do reactions VERY well in this country -- and that means the principle sin of the Bush, era, "sacraficing liberty for security", is likely not to be repeated in the next 10-20 years. If ever.
#4: you'd be in the same country as /.!
#5: From a feudalistic standpoint, you would go from being a subject of a crown to a citizen of a country -- theoretically speaking, from a king's slave to a king's peer.