?how many people outside the United States have heard of Giuliani, or knew anything that he did on 9/11? Not many.
Sorry, but not true. His was the face people saw all over the world. You can google it in any country and see the sheer volume of articles about him. I deal with Europeans on a daily basis, they know him, believe me.
He sure did. He got his Holy War in the middle east; there's no way bin Laden could have coaxed that into existence without 9/11
This assumes that Bin Laden wanted a holy war over in the middle east. I am pretty sure this is *not* what he wanted. What he wanted was for the US to get OUT of the middle east, not more involved. He didn't want the US to mow over Afghanistan and give it back to the people. He didn't want the Saudis to work with us (who are his sworn enemies).
I have no idea why people think Bin Laden wanted a war. He didn't. He wanted a blow so hard that we would be afraid of war. He wanted capitulation and the American people to rise up and tell the government to get us out of Saudi Arabia and the middle east, and in particular, to quit helping Israel. He has stated as much, many times, so this isn't exactly guesswork.
Now what he has is a war in his own backyard, with more democracies than before (Afghanistan and Iraq), women voting and participating, and going to school. Even Egypt and Saudi Arabia have begun some limited but meaningful democratic reforms. Many people in Jordan are protesting against Al Qaeda. Siria is under pressure to pull out of Lebanon. I'm pretty damn sure this isn't what Bin Laden had as a goal.
It has been painful, ugly, deadly and far from over, but anyone who thinks Bin Laden is winning is simply kidding themselves, or willing to spin the facts to their own fantasy life view.
Like Saddam, he simply misunderestimated the US and our few but true allies.
Wish I had mod points. It is easier for a millionaire to give money, since he has plenty to spare. Linux gives everyone his time and talents, which are more precious.
Kudos to Bill for all the charity work he has done, but the impact of creating a very good operating system that the people in the poorest of countries can use for free, on old "thrown away" hardware is tremendous. I'm not a Christian, but there is good sense in the phrase: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Linus's gift will keep giving years after he is gone because it helps raise the education and living standards in the poorest nations. And he doesn't exactly get a tax credit for it. Of course, let us not forget everyone who contributes to FOSS, be it Samba, Apache, Bind or Squirrelmail, and of course our own Jesus look-alike, RMS;)
It's hard to measure the impact in dollars, but GNU/BSD/FOSS are great equalizers that embiggen the smallest men.
Actually, many would argue that Giuliani made more of a difference than Bin Laden did on Sept 11th. I would agree with them, and would many (if not most) others.
It is always easier to destroy rather than build. It is easier to tear down than rebuild. Most mayors would not have shown the leadership that Giuliani did. See New Orleans, use the mayor or governer as examples. Not bad people, but simply not up to the task and not having the leadership skills needed to cope. You and I would probably not done much better.
So Giuliani *did* make a difference, in making what Bin Laden attempted to do less meaningful. Distructive, yes. Painful, yes. Did it make the US back down and do what he wanted? No.
"Giuliani was just a mayor" is the *whole point* of why he got Person of the Year. He wasn't supposed to be capable of displaying this kind of leadership, yet he did. He is "just a mayor" that did more to comfort Americans all over the US, and deal with the real issues, make the hard decisions, and kept a cool head he entire time. Perfect? No, but I can't think of anyone else that could have done better, nor anyone else more deserving in 2001.
You are thinking the US legal system is as messed up as everyone says it is on Slashdot. It isn't that bad.
Ever see Joe Schmoe 1 & 2? My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance? Plus at least one "Idol/Pop Star" knockoff where they only picked the worst singers (I forget the name). All were reality shows, where the "guests" are the butt of the joke. And there have been others. The US didn't invent the "reality show" but we pioneered and have already done half a dozen shows where the joke is on the "star".
Don't expect any lawsuits in the UK or US. Anyone who thinks we have invented "gravity plating" deserves to be the butt of the joke. These guys have no clue as to what is going on re: space in the real world. Definately not nerds.
The 400k and 1mb live feeds for free (reg required and occasional RAF commercials) are pretty damn cool. Can't wait for find some bittorrents of the actual show. Links anyone?
With 1MB of shared cache for 3 cores, these chips would actually be very poor at parallel computing.
Um, wouldn't that depend on what they are doing in parallel? To make a blanket statement that a tri-core cpu is bad at parallel computing simply because the L2 cache is 1mb totally ignores the fact that not all parallel computing requires several megs of code to do the actual computing.
Just as some tasks work faster with two cpus, and some work better with dual cores on one cpu and shared cache (see Tom's review on the AMD chips from about a week ago for examples)
I personally bet it would be great for seti@home, which is small chucks of data, but as parallel as you can get.
I'm not like you. I didn't read much news at all I started on the net in 95. (I'm 40) Now I still don't buy the paper (wife gets Sundays for ads) but I see a lot of ads with the online news that I use Google to find, then I go to the individual sites. They get to show me ads, get a few cents each time.
As for books, I have lots of ebooks, and I seldom read them. They are great for greping to find specific stuff, mainly tech manuals but little else for my purposes. But I am just like most serious readers, I prefer dead trees for real reading. My hardbook purchasing has increase, many fold, since the internet came out. So I don't buy the old "we can't make a living!" cry. Either a person loves to read or they don't, and the net introduces reading.
Here is what the internet *REALLY* does for book authors: If you are a big famous author, nothing much. If you are new, or write obscure works, it gives you higher exposure cheap, and more people will buy your book simply because more people have heard about it. Now, this MIGHT result in lower sales for famous writers, because they have some competition.
Similar (but admittedly different) to the RIAA. Its about CONTROL, not protection. Publishers want to protect their old way of doing things, and keeping the independents out is a great way. Regardless, I will still go shop at Borders, shop online with Amazon and BN. I will still shop Goodwill, Salvation Army and used book stores.
Google might get me to buy more books, but they damn sure won't get me to buy less.
You never heard of ? The glycerol is also very valuable in other cosmetics, enough so that they usually remove it from the soap to begin with. Glycerol is much more valuable than soap, and any soap that still has the glycerol is more expensive, as well as better for your skin.
Biodiesel production creates MORE of this valueable commodity.
One other thing... right now in the meat industry, more money is made from the parts of the cow that you can't eat than from the parts you can. The fats are used to make soaps, glycerine based products, etc.
Quick note on making your own biodiesel: Take fat (french fry oil, lard, etc). Clean and remove all water if it is not virgin (heaing is fine). Add methyl alcohol and lye in exact measurements. You get glycerine and diesel. Its a brown liquid with what looks like a huge, ugly bar of soap in the bottom. You can put this directly in your tank, no other modification needed.
Its called transesterification. It seperates the glycerine out of the fat, which is what makes it thinner and able to burn. Is that cool or what? So biodiesel actually creates MORE glycerine that not making biodiesel, which will result in cheaper soap, not more expensive.
This is part of what will make biodiesel a reality, as a blend anyway. While everyone is focusing on the economics (which is important) the potential environmental impact is greater when you are using recycled materials that would go to the dump, and virgin products grown just for the diesel. If done properly, the Greenpeace crowd should love it.
Me, I'm just a conservative trying to figure out where to invest in the technology. It WILL be a growth industry over the next years. If the price of oil goes up, biodiesel is relatively affordable. If the price goes down, there will still be environmental pressure to reduce pollution, and biodiesel blended fuels do this with no change in infrastructure, particularly with fleets.
Biodiesel isn't a final solution, but for powering SUVs, fleets and heavy equipment, it's a great compromise that promises the same power, with less pollution, and potential gains for those who invest early.
This sounds like a bad implimentation of Steam, which has proven itself to be a pretty darn good system. Flaws, yes, but I can play lots of games without finding the CD, download new games, play locally or online, pay a very reasonable price, and have an overall GOOD experience with gaming. I even play Half Life 1 on the same account, which I bought in 1998, and they still support it without putting the CD in.
I don't mind paying for stuff that works and represents a good value. Its the Sony "steal GPL and infect your computer" crap that tempts me to abuse bittorrent. Valve Software (the makers of Steam), however, will continue to get my hard earned dollars.
I am pretty sure that the feds have exactly ZERO authority over the way state's run elections, as long as they do not violate the constitution. (poll tax, etc.) In some states, felons can never vote. Others, let them after $x years, for instance.
For the Presidency, states can give all electoral votes to the candidate with the most votes, or they can split them up by the number of votes. The constitution doesn't cover HOW the states vote or use their electoral votes, and anything not in the constitution is automatically left to the states, via the 10th Amendment.
Any attempt to mandate any federal control over states voting would be met with picket signs and pissed off citizens, myself included. The feds have already stolen entirely too much power from the individual states as it is. The last thing we need is for them to setup a federal standard that would insure unfair access to the system.
You see, I was thinking something different. I was thinking that if Jimmy Carter was an introvert, then it might be a good thing we don't elect introverts.
He really is a nice guy and all but as a president, he was *the* definition of ineffective. The malaise comment, his belief that Americans should wear sweaters to conserve power (right or wrong, we won't and didn't), staying in the white house during the Iran hostage crisis, and plenty more should put the whole "most brainpower" issue to rest.
I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.
I have, but not from GW, who isn't a scientist anyway. Although Steven Hawking would disagree about going to Mars (or the moon), there is some logic to going back to the moon, if we ever expect to do hard core space exploration. We will need a place to launch from, and the moon fits the ticket. It is close enough that we can supply it and rescue from it (remember, we will have many more space crafts at that time). It is also close enough that we can more afford to have crews there. Also, it is easier to capture people's imaginations (and tax dollars) about a station on the moon, especially if it can be seen with a telescope.
It has 1/6th of the earth's gravity, so it will be easier to launch from, and there may be enough raw materials on the moon to use for fuel to begin with, reducing the amount of fuel we have to send to start with. It is the closest and safest place to test theories about space travel, which is not a safe business to begin with. There *IS* commercial potential as well. If commercial space travel seems far fetched, ask Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, or Sir Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Galactic, who is investing heavily in the concept of commercial space travel.
I'm not saying this is the best way (because I don't know...), but there is a fair amount of logic *IF* we ever expect to have regular space travel, more than once or twice a year beyond our own planet. Personally, I can't think of a better way for the science communities of all countries to get together, and every country could participate, even if in some small way.
Many people thought JFK was out of his mind for thinking we could go to the moon before 1970, but you don't hear about them any more since we actually did it.
What's so great about the current copyright law (in the U.S.) is that Fair Use is (just) a defense. Essentially, that means when it comes to copyright infringement you are guilty until proven innocent.:-D
Well, kinda, but that missed the whole point. Fair Use only applies to cases where the person ADMITS they used the copyrighted material to begin with, so yes, you have to admit that you did use someone elses copyrighted material.
Fair Use is an affirmative defense, and like ANY affirmative defense, you first have to admit you did something that would otherwise be illegal, except for the circumstances you are claiming. Just like you can't claim to be innocent of a murder and claim "temporary insanity" at the same time. You have to admit you held the gun before you claim the insanity was the cause. This is what an affirmative defense is by definition: Affirm the act, then defend it.
Now, if you created content that was incidently similar, but you claim it was not copied from the other copyrighted work, then you CANT use Fair Use as a defense. You can't "Fairly Use" something you didn't use to begin with. The case would be about origination, not Fair Use. So the arguement you are presenting is moot.
(exception: Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice, where you claim the work is not a copy of the other work, and even if it was, it would be covered under Fair Use, so there is no Cause of Action regardless. These motions are used often but seldom work.)
I had looked up the Sony case, but others have already covered that just fine. You can read a fairly comprehensive definition of Fair Use in the USA on Wikipedia.
This is even part of the DeCSS case, where you have a right to archive your own DVDs, the copyright holder isn't obligated to give you a legal method to do so.
Another "fine line" regarding Fair Use: Borrowing copyright material for parody is considered Fair Use, but satire is not. Look that one up for fun and profit.
I saw the same thing, and they are wrong. it is legal to copy to your own IPod. Granted, Sony and others are trying to fix that, but in the US, you still have a right to archive any digital media you want, even if you archive the original and listen to the copy.
Well, we don't actively register our copyrights, primarily because of cost and we generate tons of content. Technically, it is copyrighted once it is created. I watermark a lot of content, but usually policing it isn't a problem, just a matter or writing a letter and they know they stole it.
If I had to actively register every copyrighted image and authorized dirivitive, it would cost us hundreds of dollars per day. (registering a copyright is cheap, but they add up.). Actually, it would cost more in employee time to deal with the paperwork than the fees.
There are many instances where a copyright needs to be registered, and you used to have to register to get protection, but I would say the current system isn't broke and actually has led to more creative content being created for ads, music as well as giving newspapers and other content generators better protection than forcing them to register everything. The problem isn't copyright, it is how judges interprete the rights of the copyright owners to be more important than the public. No law can force a judge to not be a shill or activist.
Now patents are another issue. There are few areas I can see a legitimate patent for software. I see patents all day that should not be legal, some that are patenting ideas that were originally patented over 100 years ago. The government isnt very worried about it, because they can legally ignore any patent and use it without permission anyway. Ironic.
As for Trademarks, you already have to actively police it, and that system pretty much works, except its a bit expensive, several thousand for each mark you want to register, be it a name or logo.
My understanding is that you must protect Trademarks, or lose them, but Copyrights and Patents are not held to the same standard. An infringement is an infringement, regardless of whether it was actively policed or not.
Im not a laywer either, but I have to deal with all 3 at least weekly. Mainly writing nasty letters to people who steal our images and website content for their own businesses. ("I found it at Google, it must be free...")
It seems every version from every vendor (or retail) has something in there, whether it is put on the desktop or not.
Personally, I don't get the whole "Online Services" software thing. I haven't used any special software to get online in many years. Just plug the computer into the hub, give it my linux server's IP as gateway, and a permanant IP address and go. Even just a home box can pretty much just plug into the cable modem.
The real scam is the "value added" software, which is just targeted crap for the ISP, like hijacking the default settings for search, etc. Dell is the worst. Ironically, MS's spyware software makes changing all the defaults super easy.
You just better make sure not to forget to plug it in or power it back up and save your work within about 10-15 hours or you'll loose it when the battery finally dies from the little power suspend still uses.
You were correct until that statement. All laptops I have owned in the last several years will autohibernate once the battery level reaches $x%, with $x being user defined in the bios (might be software as well, I just always set it up in bios). Usually 5-10% is fine. You don't lose anything. All the data is stored on the hard drive when you hibernate, so nothing is lost by shutting down. At least one laptop I had would automatically shut down at a given percent after hibernating, I set to 3%, which is just enough to power down safely.
If it runs out of juice, when you recharge and start up, it will restore as normal, since it was just in hibernation mode. I am wanting to say it will prompt you to restore or reboot at that point as well. (i dont let them run down that often, cant remember that one point, or if it was just one or two of my laptops that did this). Either way, a properly configured bios will keep you from losing data on your laptop, regardless of how long it is run, suspended or hibernates.
BUT: I did it more than 30 years ago. So at least I can claim prior art. (There can't be anyone older than me on slashdot.)
Lots of slashdotters are 40+, myself included. The most vocal, perhaps not. But it's not all kiddies here, it just seems like it lately. If you troll around the yro sections (Your Rights Online) you tend to find more mature/.ers. Well, older anyway. Same with the more science topics.
You can fix that at Preferences/Hompage, and deselect some of the "younger" topic areas, and give YRO and Science higher priority. Politics, Games, Hardware and Linux areas seem to attract the young and the fanboys.
"Windows" and "scale" are not used that often in the same sentence, although they are working on it. It can't even come close to Linux in scalability. Actually, only Unixes can come close.
I will give MS the due they deserve, which is that they have a better desktop (once you untheme the crap out of it back to Windows 2000 mode) but in no way can they compare with serious computing yet. Workgroups and such, maybe, not my bag. But to scale is another story where Windows simply doesn't have hardly any experience yet. Maybe in 5 years or so, just like it took Linux several years to scale that large in a stable enough manner for enterprise.
Also, whereas IBM, HP and RedHat and other companies and individuals have contributed considerable talent and time to get Linux to scale like it does, Microsoft is a single company, with a single focus. Lots of money to throw at it, but it is all coming from the same direction.
One of the huge advantages of Linux is that it is developed by so many with different experiences. No one person or company can always know the best way to do something every time, so the fact that MS has the bucks doesn't guarantee they will get the best results, only that it will be the most expensive to develop.
I agree with you that it was an "acceptable" movie. Still better than the new Hitchhiker (although I love the old version). This is the rub, I guess. They produce 50% crap, but what I call crap, someone else calls Gold, and vice versa. I think people get a bit narrow focuses here on/. and forget that it's ok to have different tastes.
They wouldn't make so much "crap" if it wasn't enough of a value to enough people to recover their costs and generate a profit at least most of the time. I think they call this Capitalism.
Slashdot Mirror
?how many people outside the United States have heard of Giuliani, or knew anything that he did on 9/11? Not many.
Sorry, but not true. His was the face people saw all over the world. You can google it in any country and see the sheer volume of articles about him. I deal with Europeans on a daily basis, they know him, believe me.
He sure did. He got his Holy War in the middle east; there's no way bin Laden could have coaxed that into existence without 9/11
This assumes that Bin Laden wanted a holy war over in the middle east. I am pretty sure this is *not* what he wanted. What he wanted was for the US to get OUT of the middle east, not more involved. He didn't want the US to mow over Afghanistan and give it back to the people. He didn't want the Saudis to work with us (who are his sworn enemies).
I have no idea why people think Bin Laden wanted a war. He didn't. He wanted a blow so hard that we would be afraid of war. He wanted capitulation and the American people to rise up and tell the government to get us out of Saudi Arabia and the middle east, and in particular, to quit helping Israel. He has stated as much, many times, so this isn't exactly guesswork.
Now what he has is a war in his own backyard, with more democracies than before (Afghanistan and Iraq), women voting and participating, and going to school. Even Egypt and Saudi Arabia have begun some limited but meaningful democratic reforms. Many people in Jordan are protesting against Al Qaeda. Siria is under pressure to pull out of Lebanon. I'm pretty damn sure this isn't what Bin Laden had as a goal.
It has been painful, ugly, deadly and far from over, but anyone who thinks Bin Laden is winning is simply kidding themselves, or willing to spin the facts to their own fantasy life view.
Like Saddam, he simply misunderestimated the US and our few but true allies.
Wish I had mod points. It is easier for a millionaire to give money, since he has plenty to spare. Linux gives everyone his time and talents, which are more precious.
;)
Kudos to Bill for all the charity work he has done, but the impact of creating a very good operating system that the people in the poorest of countries can use for free, on old "thrown away" hardware is tremendous. I'm not a Christian, but there is good sense in the phrase: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Linus's gift will keep giving years after he is gone because it helps raise the education and living standards in the poorest nations. And he doesn't exactly get a tax credit for it. Of course, let us not forget everyone who contributes to FOSS, be it Samba, Apache, Bind or Squirrelmail, and of course our own Jesus look-alike, RMS
It's hard to measure the impact in dollars, but GNU/BSD/FOSS are great equalizers that embiggen the smallest men.
Actually, many would argue that Giuliani made more of a difference than Bin Laden did on Sept 11th. I would agree with them, and would many (if not most) others.
It is always easier to destroy rather than build. It is easier to tear down than rebuild. Most mayors would not have shown the leadership that Giuliani did. See New Orleans, use the mayor or governer as examples. Not bad people, but simply not up to the task and not having the leadership skills needed to cope. You and I would probably not done much better.
So Giuliani *did* make a difference, in making what Bin Laden attempted to do less meaningful. Distructive, yes. Painful, yes. Did it make the US back down and do what he wanted? No.
"Giuliani was just a mayor" is the *whole point* of why he got Person of the Year. He wasn't supposed to be capable of displaying this kind of leadership, yet he did. He is "just a mayor" that did more to comfort Americans all over the US, and deal with the real issues, make the hard decisions, and kept a cool head he entire time. Perfect? No, but I can't think of anyone else that could have done better, nor anyone else more deserving in 2001.
You are thinking the US legal system is as messed up as everyone says it is on Slashdot. It isn't that bad.
Ever see Joe Schmoe 1 & 2? My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance? Plus at least one "Idol/Pop Star" knockoff where they only picked the worst singers (I forget the name). All were reality shows, where the "guests" are the butt of the joke. And there have been others. The US didn't invent the "reality show" but we pioneered and have already done half a dozen shows where the joke is on the "star".
Don't expect any lawsuits in the UK or US. Anyone who thinks we have invented "gravity plating" deserves to be the butt of the joke. These guys have no clue as to what is going on re: space in the real world. Definately not nerds.
The 400k and 1mb live feeds for free (reg required and occasional RAF commercials) are pretty damn cool. Can't wait for find some bittorrents of the actual show. Links anyone?
With 1MB of shared cache for 3 cores, these chips would actually be very poor at parallel computing.
Um, wouldn't that depend on what they are doing in parallel? To make a blanket statement that a tri-core cpu is bad at parallel computing simply because the L2 cache is 1mb totally ignores the fact that not all parallel computing requires several megs of code to do the actual computing.
Just as some tasks work faster with two cpus, and some work better with dual cores on one cpu and shared cache (see Tom's review on the AMD chips from about a week ago for examples)
I personally bet it would be great for seti@home, which is small chucks of data, but as parallel as you can get.
I'm not like you. I didn't read much news at all I started on the net in 95. (I'm 40) Now I still don't buy the paper (wife gets Sundays for ads) but I see a lot of ads with the online news that I use Google to find, then I go to the individual sites. They get to show me ads, get a few cents each time.
As for books, I have lots of ebooks, and I seldom read them. They are great for greping to find specific stuff, mainly tech manuals but little else for my purposes. But I am just like most serious readers, I prefer dead trees for real reading. My hardbook purchasing has increase, many fold, since the internet came out. So I don't buy the old "we can't make a living!" cry. Either a person loves to read or they don't, and the net introduces reading.
Here is what the internet *REALLY* does for book authors: If you are a big famous author, nothing much. If you are new, or write obscure works, it gives you higher exposure cheap, and more people will buy your book simply because more people have heard about it. Now, this MIGHT result in lower sales for famous writers, because they have some competition.
Similar (but admittedly different) to the RIAA. Its about CONTROL, not protection. Publishers want to protect their old way of doing things, and keeping the independents out is a great way. Regardless, I will still go shop at Borders, shop online with Amazon and BN. I will still shop Goodwill, Salvation Army and used book stores.
Google might get me to buy more books, but they damn sure won't get me to buy less.
If you don't know what a dumbledor is I will let you look it up in an dictionary, preferably the Oxford English Dictionary.
According to dictionary.com (wikipedia offered no help, just the Harry Potter reference)
Dumbledor: A bumblebee; also, a cockchafer.
Which of course led me to look up "cockshafer". (After I looked at it again to make sure it didn't say what I thought it said.)
Cockchafer: Any of various European beetles of the family Scarabaeidae, especially Melolontha melolontha, which is destructive to plants.
And since I was tired of looking up words, I just came to the conclusion that it is a bug of some kind.
You never heard of ? The glycerol is also very valuable in other cosmetics, enough so that they usually remove it from the soap to begin with. Glycerol is much more valuable than soap, and any soap that still has the glycerol is more expensive, as well as better for your skin.
Biodiesel production creates MORE of this valueable commodity.
One other thing... right now in the meat industry, more money is made from the parts of the cow that you can't eat than from the parts you can. The fats are used to make soaps, glycerine based products, etc.
Quick note on making your own biodiesel: Take fat (french fry oil, lard, etc). Clean and remove all water if it is not virgin (heaing is fine). Add methyl alcohol and lye in exact measurements. You get glycerine and diesel. Its a brown liquid with what looks like a huge, ugly bar of soap in the bottom. You can put this directly in your tank, no other modification needed.
Its called transesterification. It seperates the glycerine out of the fat, which is what makes it thinner and able to burn. Is that cool or what? So biodiesel actually creates MORE glycerine that not making biodiesel, which will result in cheaper soap, not more expensive.
This is part of what will make biodiesel a reality, as a blend anyway. While everyone is focusing on the economics (which is important) the potential environmental impact is greater when you are using recycled materials that would go to the dump, and virgin products grown just for the diesel. If done properly, the Greenpeace crowd should love it.
Me, I'm just a conservative trying to figure out where to invest in the technology. It WILL be a growth industry over the next years. If the price of oil goes up, biodiesel is relatively affordable. If the price goes down, there will still be environmental pressure to reduce pollution, and biodiesel blended fuels do this with no change in infrastructure, particularly with fleets.
Biodiesel isn't a final solution, but for powering SUVs, fleets and heavy equipment, it's a great compromise that promises the same power, with less pollution, and potential gains for those who invest early.
This sounds like a bad implimentation of Steam, which has proven itself to be a pretty darn good system. Flaws, yes, but I can play lots of games without finding the CD, download new games, play locally or online, pay a very reasonable price, and have an overall GOOD experience with gaming. I even play Half Life 1 on the same account, which I bought in 1998, and they still support it without putting the CD in.
I don't mind paying for stuff that works and represents a good value. Its the Sony "steal GPL and infect your computer" crap that tempts me to abuse bittorrent. Valve Software (the makers of Steam), however, will continue to get my hard earned dollars.
I am pretty sure that the feds have exactly ZERO authority over the way state's run elections, as long as they do not violate the constitution. (poll tax, etc.) In some states, felons can never vote. Others, let them after $x years, for instance.
For the Presidency, states can give all electoral votes to the candidate with the most votes, or they can split them up by the number of votes. The constitution doesn't cover HOW the states vote or use their electoral votes, and anything not in the constitution is automatically left to the states, via the 10th Amendment.
Any attempt to mandate any federal control over states voting would be met with picket signs and pissed off citizens, myself included. The feds have already stolen entirely too much power from the individual states as it is. The last thing we need is for them to setup a federal standard that would insure unfair access to the system.
You see, I was thinking something different. I was thinking that if Jimmy Carter was an introvert, then it might be a good thing we don't elect introverts.
He really is a nice guy and all but as a president, he was *the* definition of ineffective. The malaise comment, his belief that Americans should wear sweaters to conserve power (right or wrong, we won't and didn't), staying in the white house during the Iran hostage crisis, and plenty more should put the whole "most brainpower" issue to rest.
I haven't heard anything about science in his statement on the topic; merely flag-waving.
I have, but not from GW, who isn't a scientist anyway. Although Steven Hawking would disagree about going to Mars (or the moon), there is some logic to going back to the moon, if we ever expect to do hard core space exploration. We will need a place to launch from, and the moon fits the ticket. It is close enough that we can supply it and rescue from it (remember, we will have many more space crafts at that time). It is also close enough that we can more afford to have crews there. Also, it is easier to capture people's imaginations (and tax dollars) about a station on the moon, especially if it can be seen with a telescope.
It has 1/6th of the earth's gravity, so it will be easier to launch from, and there may be enough raw materials on the moon to use for fuel to begin with, reducing the amount of fuel we have to send to start with. It is the closest and safest place to test theories about space travel, which is not a safe business to begin with. There *IS* commercial potential as well. If commercial space travel seems far fetched, ask Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, or Sir Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Galactic, who is investing heavily in the concept of commercial space travel.
I'm not saying this is the best way (because I don't know...), but there is a fair amount of logic *IF* we ever expect to have regular space travel, more than once or twice a year beyond our own planet. Personally, I can't think of a better way for the science communities of all countries to get together, and every country could participate, even if in some small way.
Many people thought JFK was out of his mind for thinking we could go to the moon before 1970, but you don't hear about them any more since we actually did it.
What's so great about the current copyright law (in the U.S.) is that Fair Use is (just) a defense. Essentially, that means when it comes to copyright infringement you are guilty until proven innocent. :-D
Well, kinda, but that missed the whole point. Fair Use only applies to cases where the person ADMITS they used the copyrighted material to begin with, so yes, you have to admit that you did use someone elses copyrighted material.
Fair Use is an affirmative defense, and like ANY affirmative defense, you first have to admit you did something that would otherwise be illegal, except for the circumstances you are claiming. Just like you can't claim to be innocent of a murder and claim "temporary insanity" at the same time. You have to admit you held the gun before you claim the insanity was the cause. This is what an affirmative defense is by definition: Affirm the act, then defend it.
Now, if you created content that was incidently similar, but you claim it was not copied from the other copyrighted work, then you CANT use Fair Use as a defense. You can't "Fairly Use" something you didn't use to begin with. The case would be about origination, not Fair Use. So the arguement you are presenting is moot.
(exception: Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice, where you claim the work is not a copy of the other work, and even if it was, it would be covered under Fair Use, so there is no Cause of Action regardless. These motions are used often but seldom work.)
I had looked up the Sony case, but others have already covered that just fine. You can read a fairly comprehensive definition of Fair Use in the USA on Wikipedia.
This is even part of the DeCSS case, where you have a right to archive your own DVDs, the copyright holder isn't obligated to give you a legal method to do so.
Another "fine line" regarding Fair Use: Borrowing copyright material for parody is considered Fair Use, but satire is not. Look that one up for fun and profit.
I saw the same thing, and they are wrong. it is legal to copy to your own IPod. Granted, Sony and others are trying to fix that, but in the US, you still have a right to archive any digital media you want, even if you archive the original and listen to the copy.
He is simply wrong on that point.
Well, we don't actively register our copyrights, primarily because of cost and we generate tons of content. Technically, it is copyrighted once it is created. I watermark a lot of content, but usually policing it isn't a problem, just a matter or writing a letter and they know they stole it.
If I had to actively register every copyrighted image and authorized dirivitive, it would cost us hundreds of dollars per day. (registering a copyright is cheap, but they add up.). Actually, it would cost more in employee time to deal with the paperwork than the fees.
There are many instances where a copyright needs to be registered, and you used to have to register to get protection, but I would say the current system isn't broke and actually has led to more creative content being created for ads, music as well as giving newspapers and other content generators better protection than forcing them to register everything. The problem isn't copyright, it is how judges interprete the rights of the copyright owners to be more important than the public. No law can force a judge to not be a shill or activist.
Now patents are another issue. There are few areas I can see a legitimate patent for software. I see patents all day that should not be legal, some that are patenting ideas that were originally patented over 100 years ago. The government isnt very worried about it, because they can legally ignore any patent and use it without permission anyway. Ironic.
As for Trademarks, you already have to actively police it, and that system pretty much works, except its a bit expensive, several thousand for each mark you want to register, be it a name or logo.
My understanding is that you must protect Trademarks, or lose them, but Copyrights and Patents are not held to the same standard. An infringement is an infringement, regardless of whether it was actively policed or not.
Im not a laywer either, but I have to deal with all 3 at least weekly. Mainly writing nasty letters to people who steal our images and website content for their own businesses. ("I found it at Google, it must be free...")
Try looking in C:\Program Files\Online Services
It seems every version from every vendor (or retail) has something in there, whether it is put on the desktop or not.
Personally, I don't get the whole "Online Services" software thing. I haven't used any special software to get online in many years. Just plug the computer into the hub, give it my linux server's IP as gateway, and a permanant IP address and go. Even just a home box can pretty much just plug into the cable modem.
The real scam is the "value added" software, which is just targeted crap for the ISP, like hijacking the default settings for search, etc. Dell is the worst. Ironically, MS's spyware software makes changing all the defaults super easy.
You just better make sure not to forget to plug it in or power it back up and save your work within about 10-15 hours or you'll loose it when the battery finally dies from the little power suspend still uses.
You were correct until that statement. All laptops I have owned in the last several years will autohibernate once the battery level reaches $x%, with $x being user defined in the bios (might be software as well, I just always set it up in bios). Usually 5-10% is fine. You don't lose anything. All the data is stored on the hard drive when you hibernate, so nothing is lost by shutting down. At least one laptop I had would automatically shut down at a given percent after hibernating, I set to 3%, which is just enough to power down safely.
If it runs out of juice, when you recharge and start up, it will restore as normal, since it was just in hibernation mode. I am wanting to say it will prompt you to restore or reboot at that point as well. (i dont let them run down that often, cant remember that one point, or if it was just one or two of my laptops that did this). Either way, a properly configured bios will keep you from losing data on your laptop, regardless of how long it is run, suspended or hibernates.
BUT: I did it more than 30 years ago. So at least I can claim prior art. (There can't be anyone older than me on slashdot.)
/.ers. Well, older anyway. Same with the more science topics.
Lots of slashdotters are 40+, myself included. The most vocal, perhaps not. But it's not all kiddies here, it just seems like it lately. If you troll around the yro sections (Your Rights Online) you tend to find more mature
You can fix that at Preferences/Hompage, and deselect some of the "younger" topic areas, and give YRO and Science higher priority. Politics, Games, Hardware and Linux areas seem to attract the young and the fanboys.
Please god tell me you are joking.
"Windows" and "scale" are not used that often in the same sentence, although they are working on it. It can't even come close to Linux in scalability. Actually, only Unixes can come close.
I will give MS the due they deserve, which is that they have a better desktop (once you untheme the crap out of it back to Windows 2000 mode) but in no way can they compare with serious computing yet. Workgroups and such, maybe, not my bag. But to scale is another story where Windows simply doesn't have hardly any experience yet. Maybe in 5 years or so, just like it took Linux several years to scale that large in a stable enough manner for enterprise.
Also, whereas IBM, HP and RedHat and other companies and individuals have contributed considerable talent and time to get Linux to scale like it does, Microsoft is a single company, with a single focus. Lots of money to throw at it, but it is all coming from the same direction.
One of the huge advantages of Linux is that it is developed by so many with different experiences. No one person or company can always know the best way to do something every time, so the fact that MS has the bucks doesn't guarantee they will get the best results, only that it will be the most expensive to develop.
Dammit, and I had JUST used my last mod point. Good show.
I agree with you that it was an "acceptable" movie. Still better than the new Hitchhiker (although I love the old version). This is the rub, I guess. They produce 50% crap, but what I call crap, someone else calls Gold, and vice versa. I think people get a bit narrow focuses here on /. and forget that it's ok to have different tastes.
They wouldn't make so much "crap" if it wasn't enough of a value to enough people to recover their costs and generate a profit at least most of the time. I think they call this Capitalism.
And oddly enough, it's the only thing there actually should be a law against.
Except it would be unconstitutional, since being a jerk could easily be constued as a form of Free Speech, be it verbal or otherwise.