Err, scientists are never definately sure about the truth of anything. You're confusing them with idiots. Scientists never tell you anything other than what the evidence best supports, which naturally changes when further evidence comes along. In other words, when they find evidence they've been wrong, they admit it and correct themselves.
One of the nice features of humans is that they're capable of learning. Anyone who still believes at age 20 the same things they believed at age 2 is probably mentally retarded. Likewise, any system of belief that still teaches the same "truths" today as it did 2000 years ago is likewise probably retarded...
True until now, but it should be pointed out that this new information gives us the history of C14 in the atmosphere back another 30 kyrs beyond what we had before, which should allow us to extend the range we can (more or less) accurately carbon-date things. Not that we should give up further methods of verification, but this date will allow us to carbon-date more accurately and further back than we previously could...
Wrong direction. If C14 was more common in the past (as the evidence in this article indicates), we've been underestimating ages. Your wife may be eligible for Social Security...:)
Actually, there is in fact no way to estimate the age of the universe. We can estimate how long it's been since the Big Bang, since it was a rather large event that left a lot of clues behind, but no way to estimate the age of the universe without making the (completely unsupported) assumption that the Big Bang was the begining of the universe rather than simply the most recent large scale event in it.
Actually, according to the article, the problem is C14 was more common in the past than it is now. If that is the case, then we've been underestimating the date of certain samples, based on the fact that they contained more C14 than they would have if the level of C14 in the atmosphere is constant.
Thus, this is actually further evidence against a "Young Earth" theory. If these results are true, we've been systematically underestimating the age of things dated using the C14 method...
Generally, "extremist" is a label used by extremists for their opposition. Most people who are't themselves extremists don't usually perceive other people, even people with opposing opinions, as being "extreme", just different.
What was the difference?! Just about everything! In what way did you think they were the same? Netscape is a closed-source project that was legally distributable in binary form due to the terms of the license it is available under. KDE is an open-source project that was not legally distributable due to incompatibilities between the GPL and Qt licenses. The difference was, you could legally distribute Netscape, whereas if you distributed KDE you were *breaking the law*! This has, of course, since been fixed, but it required either KDE or Qt to change their license. KDE refused to, and Qt didn't until 2.0.
Just who is the FSF to dictate the importance of a licence by its 'GPL' compatibility?
They don't "dictate the importance of a licence". Where did you get that idea? They inform you whether a license is GPL compatible or not. It's up to you to decide whether and how important that is.
All this is true about the GPL, assuming the original authors refuse to play ball with businesses. They can stop businesses from getting in on the act if they choose. The FSF, for example, will not allow a business to buy a friendlier license from them on any software they hold the copyright to, so they're just screwed in this case.
None of this is true about the GPL if the authors choose to play ball. If a developer is willing to work with businesses, and get compensated for his or her work, he or she can release under GPL all day, and when businesses come begging to use his or her code, negotiate a commercial license and make a tidy profit.
The GPL can be used as a tool by anti-business developers to stop businesses from benefiting from their work. But it can also be used as a tool by business friendly developers to make money from their work.
The GPL is, after all, just a tool. In the hands of an anti-business zealot like RMS, it is an effective anti-business weapon. In the hands of a pro-business company like Qt, it's an effective way to ensure they get paid for their work. The GPL is, in and of itself, neither pro nor anti-business, and is not responsible for how people use or abuse it. Stop trying to anthropomorphize it and start trying to understand it. You may get somewhere...
You're not retarded. If you want to make money off the same product you also release under an open source license, it HAS to be something at least as restrictive as the GPL, if not more restrictive (such as the Apple/Netscape/Sun/etc. versions of open source licenses).
If you release under the BSD license, other people can use you code in their proprietary products without paying you anything. But if you release under the GPL or something more restrictive, they can't unless they (a) make it non-proprietary (in which case you can incorporate any features they add back into your code) or (b) they buy a new license from you that allows them to do things that the GPL doesn't. If they're in the business of producing proprietary software, obviously (b) is their only choice.
This is exactly how Qt works these days. You can use it under the GPL and abide by its terms, or you can buy a commercial license for it if you need it for a closed-source project.
The Trolls aren't idiots. GPL is a much more business friendly license than BSD. I'm sure Ransom Love isn't considering a straight-BSD license either. He's probably looking for something even more restrictive than the GPL, ala Apple/Netscape/Sun/etc...
Why does the 'Linux Lover' use MSExcel for his plots??
Why not? Just because you love Linux doesn't mean you don't use anything else. Heck, doesn't mean you don't love anything else. I'm in a polyamourous relationship with both Linux and NetBSD...:)
You don't go to the movie to compare it against Boris Karloff classics...
Of course not -- The Mummy and The Mummy Returns are not even in the same genre. I'm going to smack the next idiot who says The Mummy failed as a horror film, or as a romance film, or any other genre is clearly wasn't and wasn't meant to be...
Because it was an accurate rendition of Hollywood historical inaccuracy? One hopes she's intelligent enough to appreciate the movie's accuracy in this regard...
That's not a problem with external power supplies in general, just stupid ones. Good ones have a standard plugin, and you can plug six of them into most power strips easily. The plug in cord leads to a box, which is your power supply, another cord leads from that box to your equipment. So it's just like having a normal power cord except it's got a box in the middle, like a snake that's eaten too much...
Debian is a great distro, but it can be somewhat harsh on users sometimes, and it doesn't have commercial backing.
Hmm. Yes. When I find a bug or am having a problem with Debian, I submit a bug report or email the package maintainer and usually get a response and sometimes a fix within 24 hours.
With most companies I can't even *find* the email addresses of the appropriate people to email my reports and patches to. I did get a response from a knowledgeable programmer at Sun once, but it sure took a long time.
Yup, Debian lacks commercial support, thank the gods...
These are just a few of the reasons I abandoned Mandrake.
My main reason for dropping Mandrake Cooker in favor of Debian Unstable was that (a) Debian Unstable is a hell of a lot more stable, and (b) has a lot more useful software packaged and easily installable, not to mention (c) upgrades seem to go a LOT more cleanly and smoothly...
Okay, so that's three main reasons... I don't need to know how to count, just how to write a loop to count things for me...
It takes more than a few weeks to freeze a distribution. Anything less than a few months old in unlikely to be found on any Linux distribution unless the people putting together the distribution are reckless idiots...
The whole point of Debian is that it's not commercialized.
Don't know much about Debian, do you. Check out Debian Weekly News, Jan 30 2001 edition, where you can see them unhappy that Corel is gone and Stormix is in trouble.
In has, in fact, always been a dream and goal of the Debian project to form a solid basis for other distributions, including successful commercial distributions.
I don't think they're trying to bias users, I think they're simply incapable of pulling packages backwards through time. KDE 2.0 was the latest version available until a couple weeks ago. They had already frozen the set of packages to go into Progeny by then...
Slashdot Mirror
One of the nice features of humans is that they're capable of learning. Anyone who still believes at age 20 the same things they believed at age 2 is probably mentally retarded. Likewise, any system of belief that still teaches the same "truths" today as it did 2000 years ago is likewise probably retarded...
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Thus, this is actually further evidence against a "Young Earth" theory. If these results are true, we've been systematically underestimating the age of things dated using the C14 method...
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They don't "dictate the importance of a licence". Where did you get that idea? They inform you whether a license is GPL compatible or not. It's up to you to decide whether and how important that is.
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None of this is true about the GPL if the authors choose to play ball. If a developer is willing to work with businesses, and get compensated for his or her work, he or she can release under GPL all day, and when businesses come begging to use his or her code, negotiate a commercial license and make a tidy profit.
The GPL can be used as a tool by anti-business developers to stop businesses from benefiting from their work. But it can also be used as a tool by business friendly developers to make money from their work.
The GPL is, after all, just a tool. In the hands of an anti-business zealot like RMS, it is an effective anti-business weapon. In the hands of a pro-business company like Qt, it's an effective way to ensure they get paid for their work. The GPL is, in and of itself, neither pro nor anti-business, and is not responsible for how people use or abuse it. Stop trying to anthropomorphize it and start trying to understand it. You may get somewhere...
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If you release under the BSD license, other people can use you code in their proprietary products without paying you anything. But if you release under the GPL or something more restrictive, they can't unless they (a) make it non-proprietary (in which case you can incorporate any features they add back into your code) or (b) they buy a new license from you that allows them to do things that the GPL doesn't. If they're in the business of producing proprietary software, obviously (b) is their only choice.
This is exactly how Qt works these days. You can use it under the GPL and abide by its terms, or you can buy a commercial license for it if you need it for a closed-source project.
The Trolls aren't idiots. GPL is a much more business friendly license than BSD. I'm sure Ransom Love isn't considering a straight-BSD license either. He's probably looking for something even more restrictive than the GPL, ala Apple/Netscape/Sun/etc...
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Umm, I recently had the misfortune of having to find and fix a problem on an SCO Unix system. Believe me, sometimes, it's best not to share.
I hope they didn't pay too much for it (read, more than the cost of duplication)...
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Why not? Just because you love Linux doesn't mean you don't use anything else. Heck, doesn't mean you don't love anything else. I'm in a polyamourous relationship with both Linux and NetBSD... :)
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Of course not -- The Mummy and The Mummy Returns are not even in the same genre. I'm going to smack the next idiot who says The Mummy failed as a horror film, or as a romance film, or any other genre is clearly wasn't and wasn't meant to be...
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Hmm. Yes. When I find a bug or am having a problem with Debian, I submit a bug report or email the package maintainer and usually get a response and sometimes a fix within 24 hours.
With most companies I can't even *find* the email addresses of the appropriate people to email my reports and patches to. I did get a response from a knowledgeable programmer at Sun once, but it sure took a long time.
Yup, Debian lacks commercial support, thank the gods...
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apt-get install kernel-package /usr/share/doc/kernel-package
cd
zmore README
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These are just a few of the reasons I abandoned Mandrake.
My main reason for dropping Mandrake Cooker in favor of Debian Unstable was that (a) Debian Unstable is a hell of a lot more stable, and (b) has a lot more useful software packaged and easily installable, not to mention (c) upgrades seem to go a LOT more cleanly and smoothly...
Okay, so that's three main reasons... I don't need to know how to count, just how to write a loop to count things for me...
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Don't know much about Debian, do you. Check out Debian Weekly News, Jan 30 2001 edition, where you can see them unhappy that Corel is gone and Stormix is in trouble.
In has, in fact, always been a dream and goal of the Debian project to form a solid basis for other distributions, including successful commercial distributions.
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