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User: einhverfr

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  1. Re:The real questions should be different on Is Agriculture Sucking Fresh Water Dry? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of the things that goes on in permaculture is the idea of being careful about water use when growing even traditionally water-intensive crops. The idea is that you can actually do a LOT without a lot of water, and also that many mature ecosystems (including rain forests) tend to recycle a lot of their water in the form of transpiration turning into rainfall.

    So while we need a lot of water to be used in agriculture, it can be done efficiently, and with a surprisingly low level of water input even in arid environments.

  2. It is about lawsuits on EU and US Approve Google-Motorola Deal · · Score: 2

    Namely Apple suing Motorola over patent infringements regarding Android. Apple has been careful not to sue Google, so Google took the hint and bought one of the defendants, namely Motorola.

    This is a good thing. It means that Apple can no longer go around intimidating Android vendors regarding patents without confronting the software vendor. The short-term verdict will probably be a mixed loss on both sides, but the long-term victory will be to Google and Android.

  3. Re:Hyperbole on LHC Powers Up To 4 TeV · · Score: 1

    While I don't disagree with Gould regarding the issue of physics in classrooms, I really think it would be better to keep the epistemology clear and well-taught and stop talking about scientific facts outside of the fact that "so-and-so observed such-and-such and this is the data that was recorded."

    The fact is that we consistently observe apples falling. We model this using various gravitational models (relativistic, Newtonian, etc). Only an idiot might say that if he drops an apple it won't fall as the default position. But this does not necessarily validate existing gravitational models.

    Heisenberg repeatedly argued that data does not imply theory (see his book "Physics and Philosophy"). There is always room for competing models in science. No model can remotely be labeled as "fact."

  4. Re:He didn't say that on LHC Powers Up To 4 TeV · · Score: 1

    Well, I would strike the word "true" from the Socrates statement.

    The problem with this is that all knowledge should be seen as tentative because we cannot separate the model we build from our understanding of what we are modelling. Every scientific theory is a model, and every scientific theory will probably be superceded by a different one at some point. So what we mean by truth in science is about predictive value, not about ontological value.

    So for example, Newtonian gravity is true. It has predictive value. A very different understanding of gravity found in relativity theory is slightly more true, in the sense that it has slightly better predictive value. Sometime we will probably have an even more true, and yet similarly ontologically incompatible understanding of gravity.

    As Heisenberg put it, E=mc^2 is nothing more than a quantified version of Heraclitus's statement that fire is the prima materia.....

  5. Re:Hmm on LHC Powers Up To 4 TeV · · Score: 1

    I am still pretty sure that large hadrons are the stuff of science fiction.

  6. Go Apple! Now fuel cells will be viable in 20yrs on Apple Files Patent For Fuel Cell Laptops · · Score: 1

    Well, not sure I like fuel cells or the market that Apple is going for here. There may be a silver lining here in that this may delay the entrance of these for the main stream for another 20 years!

  7. Re:"NO way would these be allowed on a plane." on Apple Files Patent For Fuel Cell Laptops · · Score: 1

    Well there's a difference between something like coal which is very energy dense and burns and something like natural bas which is not very energy dense comparatively but poses a much greater explosion hazard.

    Please call me when the TSA stops allowing jet (coal) jewelry for airline passengers.

  8. Re:BSD license was always more permissive, so grea on GPL, Copyleft Use Declining Fast · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, you *can* release your own GPL'd fork and use the GPL to tightly control what you have, and therefore force your customers into dependency on you. This is why single-vendor projects are (almost always) GPL'd....

  9. Re:BSD license was always more permissive, so grea on GPL, Copyleft Use Declining Fast · · Score: 1

    The article is interesting because it suggests that the big reason for the trend is the movement away from single-vendor open source projects. Vendors who want to control their own projects (MySQL AB, for example, now Oracle) LOVE the GPL because it gives them *control.* That control is lost with community developed projects, and so the calculus there is different.

    I actually think that for community-developed projects, the BSD license is the way to go but for single-vendor projects the GPL is much better. In the end though the GPL also protects projects from proprietary forks when the pace of development is very slow. For projects where the pace of development is high, then the GPL offers really very little if any additional protection (as in Apache or PostgreSQL).

  10. Re:As a software engineer and a parent on How Much Tech Can Kids Take? · · Score: 1

    I know it is very different for different people. If I don't have caffeine for a couple weeks, I lose my ability to function. For example, I can't show up anywhere on time.

    I should have probably clarified I am functioning better than I would be if I was on prescription medication. The caffeine and the choices above really help. However during periods of heavy stress it isn't enough by itself. I have also had to learn to be comfortable with a lot more uncertainty than most people because I literally can't cope with the stress.

    But again, I was medicated with a number of different medications for years I can no longer tolerate reasonably. So it is perhaps for the better.

    As for your question
    I avoid alarm clocks because I find that waking up suddenly seems to make my ADD worse. I use them occasionally but maybe a few times a year....

  11. Re:As a software engineer and a parent on How Much Tech Can Kids Take? · · Score: 1

    The other tips I have that work for me:

    1) Get plenty of sleep
    2) Avoid alarm clocks when you can
    3) Avoid too much time in front of the TV
    4) Regular exercise and breaks from work help
    5) ++caffeine......
    6) I avoid too much sugar, particularly on an empty stomach

    I have been able to manage better w/o medication on this regime than I could with medication before/

  12. Re:Will be interesting to see how the 4th Am. issu on Plate Readers Abound in DC Area, With Little Regard For Privacy · · Score: 1

    No doubt that such counts as a search if the GPS device records such a location as per Karo v. United States.

    However, the question that Knotts explicitly left unanswered was something different, namely whether surveillance of public spaces can ever be sufficiently pervasive to raise 4th Amendment concerns independent of the general lack of protection of public space. This sort of dragnet surveillance was explicitly not decided in that case or indeed any case since. And while such dragnet surveillance doesn't really fit into 4th Amendment search jurisprudence, part of the issue is that it is sufficiently recent that courts haven't had to confront the issues involved.

  13. Re:Strange. I was always taught it was the content on How Much Tech Can Kids Take? · · Score: 1

    No, I think it just makes the ADD worse, just like it can interfere (in many people) with sleeping well.

    Anyway, redshift has done wonders for my ADD and my sleep schedule.....

  14. Re:I use an optical drive for.... on Whither the Portable Optical Drive? · · Score: 1

    but where can you possibly draw the line? I mean if my friend copies it, the friend is the one creating the unauthorized copies, right?

  15. Re:I use an optical drive for.... on Whither the Portable Optical Drive? · · Score: 1

    If I can loan my computer, can I loan an external solid state drive?

  16. Re:the subject is not on Plate Readers Abound in DC Area, With Little Regard For Privacy · · Score: 1

    Give me a few more characters in the subject line and I won't!

  17. Re:Will be interesting to see how the 4th Am. issu on Plate Readers Abound in DC Area, With Little Regard For Privacy · · Score: 2

    The issue that was raised in Knotts was the specter of exactly this sort of surveillance. The court ruled in Knotts that one did not have a reasonable expectation to privacy when in public *but* distinguished this from some sort of hypothetical dragnet surveillance of public places, saying explicitly that this was not at issue here and that the court could decide it later.

    In other words, while occasional surveillance of suspects may be permissible, the court has said explicitly that full tracking of everyone in public is not settled law.

  18. Re:As a software engineer and a parent on How Much Tech Can Kids Take? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As a techie and a parent with ADD I am a little more concerned. There are strong reasons to think that TV time is linked to ADD, and I don't see why computers would be different.

    Indeed I have been using redshift on my Linux laptop now for a bit over a week and have found my own ADD greatly helped by the software's color shifting, suggesting to me that the color balance (too much blue in particular) may be partly to blame. We already know this affects other parts of the human brain and can affect sleep. However my experience is that at least for those of us with genetic predispositions for ADD (my dad and my grandfather both have or had it), the color balance may in fact be a factor.

    The fact is, the pace of change is very high and it takes years or decades to notice the effect. I think we are generally better holding off and exposing kids later, and also drastically reducing the amount of screen time (whether computer or tv) that kids get.

  19. Re:Tannenbaum is right about licensing on Andrew Tanenbaum On Minix, Linux, BSD, and Licensing · · Score: 1

    So are you saying Apache is less successful because it uses a more permissive license?

  20. Will be interesting to see how the 4th Am. issues on Plate Readers Abound in DC Area, With Little Regard For Privacy · · Score: 5, Informative

    shake out.

    Right now the Supreme Court is considering a case as to whether GPS monitoring of a car constitutes a search in the 4th Amendment sense, i.e. requiring probable cause or a warrant. This is important because one of the key car surveillance cases of the 20th century (Knotts v. United States) upheld beeper surveillance of cars but included dicta stating that "dragnet surveillance" could be debated by the court as a separate matter.

    I am currently hopeful that pervasive and intrusive surveillance methods like this will be struck down by the courts, as the third circuit has already expressed doubts regarding historic cell site location data (case name: "In the matter of the application of the United States for an Order directing the provider of a communications service to disclose records to the government," third circuit, 2010). The Third Circuit more or left let magistrate judges make that determinations for themselves.

  21. Re:Tannenbaum is right about licensing on Andrew Tanenbaum On Minix, Linux, BSD, and Licensing · · Score: 1

    The license is really less important than community in making a project successful.

    The license helps determine what kind of community you will attract; is it people who want to help everyone, or people who want to help themselves first and anyone else only as an unintended consequence? As it turns out, the kind of people who want to help everyone have produced a more popular system, in spite of the supposedly increased improved commercial appeal of the other one.

    I am sure that is why a project like Apache can't be successful without the GPL.

    The other important point is that the differences in commercial appeal are *different* between the GPL and BSD licenses. Companies like MySQL AB like the GPL because it can given them control downstream distribution, and they can control what is MySQL. One can contrast that with the big five PostgreSQL companies (Red Hat, Enterprise DB, Command Prompt, PG Experts, and Green Plum) where there is at best a clean break between what is released to the community and what is controlled by a single company.

    So getting back to my point which is that the GPL vs BSD flame war is largely pointless and that the choice of license is not really a make-or-break thing for most projects. Instead the ability to keep pace of development up is what matters, because this is what attracts a larger peripheral community, etc.

    Aslo I work with a lot of developers who are comfortable working under both licenses, so I am not alone in my assessment here.

  22. Re:I use an optical drive for.... on Whither the Portable Optical Drive? · · Score: 1

    I don't know. Can I loan my computer to a friend to listen to MP3's?

  23. Re:Tannenbaum is right about licensing on Andrew Tanenbaum On Minix, Linux, BSD, and Licensing · · Score: 1

    Of course telling which license is the "mine" dynamic and which is the "ours" dynamic is the question.

    The point is that a vital project with a good pace of development will find that contributions get made out of necessity, and that the choice of BSD vs GPL is at most a difference in the method by which those contributions are required.

  24. Re:But it did... on Andrew Tanenbaum On Minix, Linux, BSD, and Licensing · · Score: 2

    Not only does IBM contribute to FreeBSD, but you also have projects like PostgreSQL where some of the main contributing forms are also selling proprietary versions of the software. Why do they both contribute and deliver proprietary versions? Because they want to use other companies' contributions too, and they don't want ALL the maintenance to fall on their shoulders.

    In general the result is that companies like EnterpriseDB, Green Plum, etc, end upcontributing most of what the community would even want back to the community. With EnterpriseDB what they do sell is Oracle-like behavior that the Pg community doesn't want. I know less about the internals of Green Plum's Bizgres, though I suspect that most of their proprietary stuff may actually be in a separate piece of software.

  25. Tannenbaum is right about licensing on Andrew Tanenbaum On Minix, Linux, BSD, and Licensing · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The license is really less important than community in making a project successful. What is important is a high pace of development and a large developer community, not whether a project uses the BSD or GPL licenses. In these cases, economically most commercial players will contribute most of their changes back.