I can go to the local flea market, and get a nice bootleg video with excelent cover quality that is reasonably water proof, silk screened discs, and something that actually looks like the genuine artical for $5.00. And as a bonus... something that's printed on a real dvd-rom and not one of those funky DVD-Rs that while are useful don't always play well in all players.
Not only that, if I buy my kids a fleamarket DVD it won't have any unskippable bits, like the copyright warning or 8 minutes of trailers or adverts for Disneyworld. From my point of view the fleamarket DVDs area a superior product at a cheaper price.
Maybe this is what Hollywood should be addressing instead of chasing BitTorrent users.
You seem to be well-informed about how different writers have thought about things over different time periods, so I just thought I'd flag this one up:
We live in an especially difficult time of transition.
Just about everybody who has ever written about it thought they lived in a time of difficult transition. Even eras we think of as being very, very stable -- say, the middle centuries of the Roman Empire -- the writers of that time didn't see it. They all thought they lived in a time of change.
Personally, I think you're probably right, but history may judge us both differently.
First of all migration is raised as an issue: "When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data."
The irony is Linux is much better than Windows at this. When you buy a new Windows PC it's next to impossible to migrate all that stuff over from your old one. The files are all in different places, who knows where each app puts all your user data. You have to keep the old hard disk laying around just in case you've missed one out.
On the four or so occassions I've traded up my Linux PC, all I've had to do is copy over my home directory, and it's ready to go. All my email, Gaim, WWW bookmarks and Firefox settings, KDE and Gnome preferences, Usenet groups, even ssh keys. My home dir contains 214 files and directories that start with a '.' nearly every one of them the result of an application that saved my user data in a sane and easily managed location.
So...thin clients are back in vogue yet again...let's see if they stick this time.
Thin clients will never stick because they are a cyclical technology. They exist on a constatly turning Wheel of Life that means they are either just on their way in, or just on their way out.
but one does wish [Europe] were better friends in times of need. Instead, we got sour Chirac and soulless Schroeder. You will, I'm sure, excuse the bitterness.
If so, this would seem meaningless as most of the EU is part of the WTO. (Anyone know for sure?)
The EU is a member of the WTO in it's own right. Since trade policy is an EU-delegated matter, the EU speaks for it's 25 members on almost all WTO matters.
As most copyright holders (or enforcers) would have an office in the US, would it not make sense for them to just offically copyright it in the US and then seek WTO enforcement?
The European Parliament has just killed a bill to introduce software patents. Copyrights are an entirely different legal concept and not in anyway affected by today's result.
What most people DON'T know is that the crusades were fought to retake constantinople from the Muslims
I think you are confusing the first and fourth crusades. The First Crusade was an attempt to recapture *Jerusalem* from the Muslims. The Fourth Crusade ended up attacking Constantinople, but not because of the Muslims this was just run of the mill Christian-on-Christian violence.
As far as I know, Jews have never started a war
How about removing the inhabitants of Canaan when the Jews moved there from Mesopotamia? More recent examples? Israel fired the first shots in the 1956 Suez War, the 1967 Six Day War, *and* the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
In sum, people would be very wise to buy every dam bit of gold or silver they can get their hands on
Moderation Guidance: -1 Worst Financial Advice Ever Seen on Slashdot
I've got bad news for you: the price of gold is in long term decline, and will stay there. Mining is becoming more efficient, it's getting cheaper and cheaper to get it out of the ground and get it to market. When it get's to market, the biggest purchasers used to be central banks, but they aren't buying any more. On top of that, it doesn't get used up, it doesn't get consumed, or even corrode away.
So we have a commodity metal, where the demand has vanished, the global supply is constantly expanding with ever cheaper installments. Which direction is the price going? Only down.
Is it so fast that the centripetal "force" (illusion) of its orbit is significant, compared to its (greater than Earth) gravity?
The *centrifugal* force is an illusion, a manefestation of Newton's first law under circular motion. The *centripetal* force is the real force that causes the circular motion in the first place. In this case, the Sun's gravity.
Shouldn't Earth gravity be balanced by detectable acceleration along the tangents to those circular motions?
No. Gravity applies to you and all the other bodies on the surface as well the planet itself. There's nothing to notice, because all the forces are affecting everything equally.
If the planetary orbit was caused by a big elastic band attaching the planet to the Sun, then you've got different forces affecting the planet and the bodies on the surface. Then there would be something to notice (potentially).
As a general principle, for motion under gravity (like being in orbit) there are no detectable acceleration effects.
Seeing as direct democracy has never been implemented... ...in modern times. Some of the Ancient Greek city-states had direct democracy at various times.
A world where everyone voted directly on every issue of government would be a world where we never stop voting.
Not only that, but history suggests that unrestrained democracies usually end up voting away all their power to a charismatic tyrant. The Greeks even had a word for it: the Kyklos.
The EU is not a country, it is a conglomeration of countries.
The EU is not like the UN, all talk and no action. It has real powers and has repeated demonstrated it is not afraid to use them.
What is their actual power to enforce these laws? Especially seeing as how banning Microsoft on a continent-wide level would be an infringement of each country's right to self-determination.
To join the EU, a member state has to pass "enabling legislation", which amongst other things implements the authority of the EU bodies into local law. Provided they are properly and legally made (and there is no suggestion here that they aren't), European Commission decisions will be enforced by every court in the EU without any further permission needed from the member states' governments. A member state could theoretically override European law by cancelling that enabling legislation. That would effectly mean withdrawing from the EU.
So national self-determination is not a factor here. The EC can make these decisions because member states have already given it permission to.
The one that can't even get member states to vote for the body's Constitution?
Actually, the member states have already agreed the constitution some time ago. It's in the news right now because some of those member states are obliged to get their own voters to approve constitutional changes of this type. The French might vote it down.
In any case, surely you can appreciate the difference between a major change to the founding treaties and business-as-usual under powers that already exist, like dealing with Microsoft?
It doesn't matter. Some other rare thing will replace the diamond and nobody will want diamonds anymore (except for industrial purposes)
Or, perhaps diamonds will be household items and practically everywhere? The Queen of England's jewelry collection contains aluminium pieces that were fantastically valuable when they were originally given to Queen Victoria. Today, mass-produced aluminium jewelry is so cheap it is normally described as 'imitation'.
If there are so many of these countries out there, why don't you pick one for a real example.
Don't forget Poland.:-)
A member of the EU and NATO, it has a stable system of government, legally enforced human rights and European levels of worker protection (i.e higher than the US). It is a candidate to join the Euro -- the Zloty is pegged to it -- so there isn't "unfair" currency distortion going on.
BUT: it's average salary is about half the EU average, so EU companies are setting up programming centres in Poland nearly as fast as they are in India.
Slashdot Mirror
I can go to the local flea market, and get a nice bootleg video with excelent cover quality that is reasonably water proof, silk screened discs, and something that actually looks like the genuine artical for $5.00. And as a bonus... something that's printed on a real dvd-rom and not one of those funky DVD-Rs that while are useful don't always play well in all players.
Not only that, if I buy my kids a fleamarket DVD it won't have any unskippable bits, like the copyright warning or 8 minutes of trailers or adverts for Disneyworld. From my point of view the fleamarket DVDs area a superior product at a cheaper price.
Maybe this is what Hollywood should be addressing instead of chasing BitTorrent users.
You seem to be well-informed about how different writers have thought about things over different time periods, so I just thought I'd flag this one up:
We live in an especially difficult time of transition.
Just about everybody who has ever written about it thought they lived in a time of difficult transition. Even eras we think of as being very, very stable -- say, the middle centuries of the Roman Empire -- the writers of that time didn't see it. They all thought they lived in a time of change.
Personally, I think you're probably right, but history may judge us both differently.
I'd sure love to hear ESR's input as to what goes into GPL3
ESR's belief is that We don't need the GPL anymore
Symbian is not really and independent business so much as an outsourced R & D facility
From Nokia's point of view, so is the Linux kernel development team. Except the Linux team has greater economies of scale than Symbian.
It doesn't claim to be a law, it says it's a self-evident truth.
First of all migration is raised as an issue: "When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data."
The irony is Linux is much better than Windows at this. When you buy a new Windows PC it's next to impossible to migrate all that stuff over from your old one. The files are all in different places, who knows where each app puts all your user data. You have to keep the old hard disk laying around just in case you've missed one out.
On the four or so occassions I've traded up my Linux PC, all I've had to do is copy over my home directory, and it's ready to go. All my email, Gaim, WWW bookmarks and Firefox settings, KDE and Gnome preferences, Usenet groups, even ssh keys. My home dir contains 214 files and directories that start with a '.' nearly every one of them the result of an application that saved my user data in a sane and easily managed location.
So the next time it BSODs, I can't pull the power myself, I have to raise it with Server Ops?
So...thin clients are back in vogue yet again...let's see if they stick this time.
Thin clients will never stick because they are a cyclical technology. They exist on a constatly turning Wheel of Life that means they are either just on their way in, or just on their way out.
but one does wish [Europe] were better friends in times of need. Instead, we got sour Chirac and soulless Schroeder. You will, I'm sure, excuse the bitterness.
Blair is a European, too, you know.
i dont remember being at war at that time?
So Pearl Harbor was a terrorist attack?
If so, this would seem meaningless as most of the EU is part of the WTO. (Anyone know for sure?)
The EU is a member of the WTO in it's own right. Since trade policy is an EU-delegated matter, the EU speaks for it's 25 members on almost all WTO matters.
As most copyright holders (or enforcers) would have an office in the US, would it not make sense for them to just offically copyright it in the US and then seek WTO enforcement?
The European Parliament has just killed a bill to introduce software patents. Copyrights are an entirely different legal concept and not in anyway affected by today's result.
What most people DON'T know is that the crusades were fought to retake constantinople from the Muslims
I think you are confusing the first and fourth crusades. The First Crusade was an attempt to recapture *Jerusalem* from the Muslims. The Fourth Crusade ended up attacking Constantinople, but not because of the Muslims this was just run of the mill Christian-on-Christian violence.
As far as I know, Jews have never started a war
How about removing the inhabitants of Canaan when the Jews moved there from Mesopotamia? More recent examples? Israel fired the first shots in the 1956 Suez War, the 1967 Six Day War, *and* the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
In sum, people would be very wise to buy every dam bit of gold or silver they can get their hands on
Moderation Guidance: -1 Worst Financial Advice Ever Seen on Slashdot
I've got bad news for you: the price of gold is in long term decline, and will stay there. Mining is becoming more efficient, it's getting cheaper and cheaper to get it out of the ground and get it to market. When it get's to market, the biggest purchasers used to be central banks, but they aren't buying any more. On top of that, it doesn't get used up, it doesn't get consumed, or even corrode away.
So we have a commodity metal, where the demand has vanished, the global supply is constantly expanding with ever cheaper installments. Which direction is the price going? Only down.
Stay away from gold. Don't touch it.
Is it so fast that the centripetal "force" (illusion) of its orbit is significant, compared to its (greater than Earth) gravity?
The *centrifugal* force is an illusion, a manefestation of Newton's first law under circular motion. The *centripetal* force is the real force that causes the circular motion in the first place. In this case, the Sun's gravity.
Shouldn't Earth gravity be balanced by detectable acceleration along the tangents to those circular motions?
No. Gravity applies to you and all the other bodies on the surface as well the planet itself. There's nothing to notice, because all the forces are affecting everything equally.
If the planetary orbit was caused by a big elastic band attaching the planet to the Sun, then you've got different forces affecting the planet and the bodies on the surface. Then there would be something to notice (potentially).
As a general principle, for motion under gravity (like being in orbit) there are no detectable acceleration effects.
So what happens if this thing develops a consciousness?
How would you tell? Seriously. It's not like you can just stick a ruler in and measure the length of the consciousness gland.
Kinda makes you wonder the benefits of democracy, now doesn't it?
It's well-known that democracy is the worst form of government (apart from all the other kinds)
Seeing as direct democracy has never been implemented ... ...in modern times. Some of the Ancient Greek city-states had direct democracy at various times.
A world where everyone voted directly on every issue of government would be a world where we never stop voting.
Not only that, but history suggests that unrestrained democracies usually end up voting away all their power to a charismatic tyrant. The Greeks even had a word for it: the Kyklos.
The EU is not a country, it is a conglomeration of countries.
The EU is not like the UN, all talk and no action. It has real powers and has repeated demonstrated it is not afraid to use them.
What is their actual power to enforce these laws? Especially seeing as how banning Microsoft on a continent-wide level would be an infringement of each country's right to self-determination.
To join the EU, a member state has to pass "enabling legislation", which amongst other things implements the authority of the EU bodies into local law. Provided they are properly and legally made (and there is no suggestion here that they aren't), European Commission decisions will be enforced by every court in the EU without any further permission needed from the member states' governments. A member state could theoretically override European law by cancelling that enabling legislation. That would effectly mean withdrawing from the EU.
So national self-determination is not a factor here. The EC can make these decisions because member states have already given it permission to.
The one that can't even get member states to vote for the body's Constitution?
Actually, the member states have already agreed the constitution some time ago. It's in the news right now because some of those member states are obliged to get their own voters to approve constitutional changes of this type. The French might vote it down.
In any case, surely you can appreciate the difference between a major change to the founding treaties and business-as-usual under powers that already exist, like dealing with Microsoft?
It's just like getting the maximum fine for graffiti on trains - you never get it.
Not even rich and powerful graffiti artists with a history of giving the judge the finger?
Perhaps Slashdotters all think buying Chinese is the best solution whoever you are.
It doesn't matter. Some other rare thing will replace the diamond and nobody will want diamonds anymore (except for industrial purposes)
Or, perhaps diamonds will be household items and practically everywhere? The Queen of England's jewelry collection contains aluminium pieces that were fantastically valuable when they were originally given to Queen Victoria. Today, mass-produced aluminium jewelry is so cheap it is normally described as 'imitation'.
For once, I'd like to actually see some empirical evidence.
Like what? Serious question. Do you want to visit people's houses and actually audit what they are using? Who's got the resources to do that?
In Korea, saving money by using opensource software is for old people.
Is this the start of a new Slashdot meme?
In Korea, is for old people.
Remember, you read about it here first.
If there are so many of these countries out there, why don't you pick one for a real example.
:-)
Don't forget Poland.
A member of the EU and NATO, it has a stable system of government, legally enforced human rights and European levels of worker protection (i.e higher than the US). It is a candidate to join the Euro -- the Zloty is pegged to it -- so there isn't "unfair" currency distortion going on.
BUT: it's average salary is about half the EU average, so EU companies are setting up programming centres in Poland nearly as fast as they are in India.
Fi, hefyd!
:-)
(Moderation guidance: this is a very funny joke in Welsh