and with the change in dollar amount, the time estimate goes from 120,000 years to 120 years: maybe they think they'll just sit back and keep the money coming in for 120 years, and by then people will -want- to buy music from them again? just waiting out a sucky economy?
win32? pdp11? unix? linux? doesn't matter -- firebird does it all. postgresql and firebird are quite similar, feature-wise, but their histories are quite different. check it out! (and yes, firebird/interbase -are- supported by php.) i just don't get the obsession with mysql, as if it were the -only- usable open-source database out there. btw, i might love postgres more if it didn't take more work to install than firebird. i mean... firebird just -goes-. and that's on linux (production machine) or windows (test machine.)
let's not leave out the greats, thanks to dbdebunk.
fact of the matter is, relational theory is mathematically sound, complete, etc. sql is not. it is... a badly designed interface into a much neater world. having a language that let us do with relational data everything we -should- be able to do would be wonderful. the current obsession with sql (and variants) is actually hurting us.
[snip: rant about wrapping tuple data in objects because it's "cool"]
i would like a good set of OO principles for databases: the link above has a few articles mentioning that domains (datatypes in a database) could be OO, without hurting anything (orthogonality.) i haven't come across anything from Date/Codd/etc. about relations themselves supporting inheritance (derive from 'people' to get 'people-who-can-have-x') and even multiple-inheritance (derive from 'graphs' and 'calendar objects' to build 'interrelated calendar objects')... it can all be done with FK's, but then, anything can be done manually with pointers, too. the point is to have a structured approach to the whole thing. from what i've seen, C.J. Date and Stroustroup don't quite agree on OO (because of specialization / generalization by constraint: is a circle an ellipse, the other way around, or neither?) it'd be nice to have that from the guys who brought us relational theory in the first place, while not throwing away what we got from smalltalk, c++, etc. (and who thought it was a good idea to remove multiple-inheritance from java?)
A better question would be why do people sell insurance?
because, in slashdot fashion...
1) promote FUD about what can happen to you, or 2) manage to get a monopoly (racket) * 2) sell insurance 3)... (wait) 4) profit!
like anything else that gets sold, it's just the profit.
* car insurance, yes, is required. but look also at prescription drugs -- i have to go see a doc to get the stuff i need, even if i know full well what it is i need. you're not obligated to see a mechanic to get your car fixed, or ask a programmer to help you out with installing every piece of software you buy. but if you want drugs, well, you'll be seeing a doctor... and you'll have to pay. knowing this, you have health insurance covering doctor visits and drugs -- but you won't find insurance with a copay to alleviate the cost of buying parts for your car, or dealing with an email virus... because there's no bottleneck. insurance companies are like lions atop a cliff, waiting for the gazelles to move through the ravine: they only bother insuring points they can control.
and what's this with insurance companies cancelling policies if the costs get out of hand? s_ f_ cancelling insurance in blue springs, MO, because of excessive vandalism in the area... others cancelling existing war insurance policies on cargo ships because of war... it's like my car insurance cancelling their policy with me because i actually need it... grrr!
i'm completely willing to consider other design possibilities. i do it all the time. but in this case, i'd say the end-to-end argument doesn't go very far. i wouldn't, in the case of transactions, want an outside system doing the following: - deciding whether or not my commit succeeded (safe-write to disk) - deciding which tuples i can see (and in what state) - deciding who gets to write to a tuple (when the database, and its decision as to which serial request to consider next, has the last word on that one)...
i can do simple locking elsewhere -- for example, we have functionality that doesn't -obviously- get protected by database transaction isolation: when it's mostly inserts, and none of the relation-constraints have anything to say about it... you -can- resort to, for example, having a 'lock' table containing tuples for each operation you want to maintain locks on, and then lock the rows (for update) as you start your operation. you could -also- do it in an outside system. so long as your local logic respects the results, you're fine. or you could guarantee you won't have trouble, and actually put all the operations on one transaction, handled by one agent (the database server app.)
on a similar note: i agree individual applications -might- be able to manage (virtual) memory better than the OS. but would i recommend it? no. there's a limited resource, with many agents vying for it. it makes sense for a central agent to manage the resource. an OS usually manages files, memory, ports, and other resources to avoid conflicts; i expect a database management system to do the same for my data. i like modular designs. i really do. but that's just one chunk i'd rather not out-source.
firebird is open-source, does transactional isolation, etc. like the big guys. it's fast, small, and free. i've heard from people using postgresql that the two are quite similar, feature-wise. firebird (as interbase) has been around for a -long- time, and has pretty much always had transactional isolation (it's not an add-on after-thought like, say, with mysql, or less so, with postgresql.) and did i mention that the original designers and coders now work on firebird, not interbase?
and it -is- necessary to have that isolation. i dunno where our application would be without it. it's not a web-app though, and that makes a difference -- we have transactions open for minutes, maybe hours at a time, with individual client machines doing whatever they need to do.
what it doesn't have -- stuff like xml (what for?) or tables as domains, or full-text indexing (note: even in oracle, the full-text indexing wasn't an oracle-built package, as i recall.) i think its support for unicode is improving, but it wasn't built with that in mind. (unicode on a pdp-11?) they're switching the code base to c++, taking -out- support for platforms nobody cares about. (helps reduce the size.)
i agree you can get more speed out of something without transactional isolation -- but i hope you never need it. when it rains, it pours... and i've run into the need for transactions even in web-apps. every millisecond counts, not speed-wise, but logic-wise.
encryption of certain types got filed as munitions, yes? that was part of the reason we couldn't export encryption outside the US, even if it was already available outside the US (or had even originated outside the US!)
so, it's more like they said "X is like a bullet, things are worse if you use a bullet, therefore things are worse if you use X"... note how easy it will be for them to add to the list of X items. black clothing? sign language? books?
if the claim is that encryption -hides- criminal activity, then the fact is that plenty of things do that. like black clothing. it's only natural that a criminal should do anything possible -not- to be detected. to say -some- of those methods are not "fair play" is ridiculous.
a crime is a crime is a crime. (unless it's not.) a tool is a tool is a tool. (unless it's encryption.)
whether or not it falls within the yearly monetary limit set for politicians? people may only bribe you for -x- amount during the year, in chunks of up to -y- dollars at a time.
and bribes imply that they come with a note saying "please do -z-" whereas constituents usually just say "do your job, we elected you to do what you said you'd do." not that they didn't decide what to say based on what would get them elected...
what's with kilometers? god measures in kilometers? aliens do? supra-intelligent blocks of very dark, mysterious material do?... -dimensions- 1, 4, 9...
but then... what, you think aliens -know- about integers? oh, wait. nevermind.
i know this'll sound a bit too obvious, but a back door is anything that isn't a... front door? (ignoring, for the smart-asses, side doors, windows, basements, and other points of entry. like worms. ?!?)
i'd say that if an app doesn't display the option to use feature X anywhere obvious (no screens, menus, etc.) then it's a back door. if you log in as yourself and it gives you a check box (that only your, and similar, users can see) that says "[x] enable remote logging"... i'd say that counts as a hidden feature, not a back door.
i'd count as back doors: passwords that always work, no matter what you do... ports being left open that aren't documented and allow increased access... setting a value in a.ini /.conf file that enables otherwise hidden features... special key combinations (login prompt) that let you in, give you access, etc.... spying?... trojans? [our app, for example, has simple remote-exec features built-in... don't ask me why. they -are- however, documented in the remote-access screen.]
all this brings me back to my 'evil' brother and the fake password programs he wrote when we were kids... i hadn't learned to program yet, and there he was nagging me with programs asking me to identify myself. typing my name resulted in insults. his name, oddly, resulted in compliments.
in cases like that, though, there's always the use of the 'strings' command under *nix... and you can change a computer's name to match. not that i care -- but pointing out possible attacks. but then, i can't complain -- our client-side app (for internal use only, mind you) uses a built-in password to the database for initial access. (the user-login isn't a db-login, just rows in the same database as the rest of the data. the default login isn't the admin password, just the data-access password.) if the bytecode weren't available, it wouldn't be so bad. but as it is, we're vulnerable to the same sort of attack. (strings.) oh, and the data-stream to the db server isn't encrypted. so you could still drag passwords out at runtime by sniffing packets, even if we didn't use a built-in password... again, it's all on the lan. but...
so, what did the backdoor give you access to that you didn't have otherwise? (most 'extra' stuff is available to us simply as extra permissions given to our user account in the app...)
this case is more like crippleware shareware: disables itself specifically because you -haven't- bought it. letting his customer use the software before it's paid for is a means of verifying the job is done correctly. once payment is made, a final version, without crippleware, is released. that's just like shareware, where you buy the product and receive either an activation key, or a different installer.
obviously it should be illegal to leave the crippleware in and use it to demand payments at random. unless, yes, it's a lease.
but this is more like a car dealer installing a gas-line clamp. take the car for a test drive. go right ahead. after twenty miles, you'll magically be out of fuel, and a gas station won't help.
i noticed when disabling that service on my g/f's dad's computer that, uhm, windows suddenly forgets how to make square buttons for min/max/close! it's fine if, like me, you're used to reading small fonts. but it big fonts/big bars... it just made really tall, skinny buttons. turned the service back on -just- so that would stop.
or i could just be a dork. and not know how to use windows. wait... isn't their argument that it's easier? i don't remember having that king of problem with my slackware 8 installation...
(admittedly, i get confused fixing my dad's mandrake 9 installation... nothing is where i want it to be, too many automated features that don't fully work... and *drake need to die.)
1.0 is not bad... 1.5 fixes a LOT of stuff. we used it because it was free -and- had the features we wanted. since then we've learned of its quirks (things like column aliases not being used in other parts of the sql statement, say, in the 'group by' clause!) but learned to get around that. 1.5 fixes most of that, to my knowledge. i just wish we'd left ourselves notes in the code saying "this is a hack!"... best thing about it is that the versioning model is stable, and has been for years. and the original developers are working on firebird for free, not interbase for borland. nothing beats having jim or ann around...
(note -- we're using firebird 1.0 on a slackware 8 machine for production, but firebird 1.0 under XP for our test system, with borland-builder-based win32 apps as clients... ever-growing clients... hey lookie. i've got a few more wizards to code today. gotta go!)
i believe it's been said elsewhere that at the time, there -was- no registrar for them to comform with. nobody had.uk exclusively. so they just took what they wanted and left the rest alone. when a registrar was declared, well, it was already taken. so they took the rest. simple.
it's a bit like the people over at lunarembassy.com (i'm not bothering to check the link) -- they and others like them have declared ownership of most every celestial body in our solar system, sun included. why? because nobody else had. but in return, you won't see them telling earthlings to 'get off of their property' just because they control lots of stuff, and earth, well... is what it is. there wouldn't either be a situation where earth would be asked to register with these other people (and by earth 'back' from them) to prove ownership -- the claim used by everyone else (for the moon, mars, etc.) is the same: we believe we own it. prove us wrong.
i don't like the fact that people are out there claiming planets and stars as their own, without setting foot on them. (ouch!) but i'd rather not have to justify my ownership of an item every time someone assumes control of a large stock of it, or the trade of it, or a monopoly on the sale of the item, etc....
keyword filters are, indeed, a problem -- my girlfriend constantly informs me of what filters she has in place, just so i'll know which body parts of mine -not- to talk about in my (rare) emails to her. i also can't suggest too many interesting romps... those would get filtered. it even seems like a bad idea to suggest she go look at a certain product, quoting a price... all gets filtered.
whitelist? nah. it's not her style. anyone may at some time or other deserve to be severely ignored. no whitelist.
i think he specified "from Lego" (Lego corporate) -- might mention that Lego does have some sort of construction software as well... i've seen it advertised in the Lego-Dacta catalog i get... seems to be intended for classroom use along with specified sets of parts ($100 to $200 of assorted technic pieces.) haven't used it, so... anybody know more? does it have accurate physics, so you'll know what your virtual machinery will do when turned on?
Lego corporate has also released video games featuring the ability to build -- castles, etc. not necessarily infinite parts, nor a parts bin representative of their entire product line, but still a good start.
i think that argument has failed before: "it's okay because it's for a good cause"... i'd prefer someone just stand up and say "no, it's a stupid idea in the first place, just ignore all such things."
as stated by many, patenting a method for detecting a gene is one thing -- keeping other researchers from using home-grown methods to find that same gene is another. and claiming the gene for themselves is just right out.
patents were designed to give those who invested in research a return on those same investments, by giving them a temporary edge on the market. i believe it's important to reward such research, especially in the medical field. it's sad to see anyone, rich or poor, suffering from disease.
in the end, though, we must remember that both patents and copyrights were designed to override the default rule: we all own information of this sort. they are not permissions for us to have this knowledge after a time -- they are permission to keep it private for personal gain for a limited time. they are incentives, not inalienable rights.
do you support what could become (or is) extortion? inexcusably high fees for access to patented methods? life on the life, too bad, pay up? do you support, from the medical field, the practice of not revealing life-saving information for personal gain?
questions like this are -not- to be answered with the robin hood argument. whether 'tis for the rich or the poor, the same question must be answered -- what is the value of life?
perhaps we should keep foreigners from buying other american services? not only should they not buy our educational services... but they shouldn't be allowed to use our hospitals, our grocery stores, our gasoline pumps... you never know, they might live longer, take food back home, and feed a family. or worse!
starting to get the picture? you're probably one of those gung-ho capitalist types, and that's fine. but one of the doctrines coming with that is that you can't discrimate as to who you're selling your services and products to. we make exceptions for things like weapons (no, i'm sorry, you can't have a nuke today) but generally, we don't.
as to research, wouldn't you rather they screen everyone? it seems they were only requiring that -foreign- students be screened, assuming americans aren't a liability. but your comment about "have no loyalty (or even Americans) to America" would tend to make us think you don't trust americans any more than foreigners... shouldn't we be fair?
"first sale doctrine" says that once they've sold you a product, you can do whatever you like with it, including selling it off to others. exception: software is sold as a license that is non-transferable (a bit like a diploma can't be sold to another person.) this gets around the first-sale doctrine by forcing you to keep your copy once you've bought it -- you, and only you, have the right to use the product. the value of the license was immediately used up, and that's it (a bit like not being able to sell your experience on a roller coaster -- only your personal enjoyment is left, unless people just want to pay to listen to you talk about it.)
in the case of physical items like books, cd's, etc. the first sale doctrine still applies, until the *aa changes the way we purchase media to always mean we purchase licenses to view the media (possibly for a period of time only.) it'll be a bit hard to expire paper-books, but... they'll try somday.
as to supporting the original authors, you might just send them a check. buy the used copy, and send the author money. original authors get very little through their distributors unless they're lucky, famous, etc. [see google] and this way they'd get a letter from you. make their day.
only foreign nationals being screened for security reasons -- like americans aren't ever a threat to themselves. if MIT wanted to say that they treat all their students alike, they couldn't accept this offer. either the foreigners wouldn't be screened, or they'd all be screened...
and considering how the foreign-national registration thing went in california (we promise we'll just take your info, but, oh wait, we'll arrest you instead without telling you why)... i'd say MIT would be better off not risking putting their students through the screening just for a grant. MIT students are usually there because MIT wants them, not because they have to accept them.
Slashdot Mirror
and with the change in dollar amount, the time estimate goes from 120,000 years to 120 years: maybe they think they'll just sit back and keep the money coming in for 120 years, and by then people will -want- to buy music from them again? just waiting out a sucky economy?
win32? pdp11? unix? linux? doesn't matter -- firebird does it all. postgresql and firebird are quite similar, feature-wise, but their histories are quite different. check it out! (and yes, firebird/interbase -are- supported by php.) i just don't get the obsession with mysql, as if it were the -only- usable open-source database out there. btw, i might love postgres more if it didn't take more work to install than firebird. i mean ... firebird just -goes-. and that's on linux (production machine) or windows (test machine.)
let's not leave out the greats, thanks to dbdebunk.
... a badly designed interface into a much neater world. having a language that let us do with relational data everything we -should- be able to do would be wonderful. the current obsession with sql (and variants) is actually hurting us.
... it can all be done with FK's, but then, anything can be done manually with pointers, too. the point is to have a structured approach to the whole thing. from what i've seen, C.J. Date and Stroustroup don't quite agree on OO (because of specialization / generalization by constraint: is a circle an ellipse, the other way around, or neither?) it'd be nice to have that from the guys who brought us relational theory in the first place, while not throwing away what we got from smalltalk, c++, etc. (and who thought it was a good idea to remove multiple-inheritance from java?)
fact of the matter is, relational theory is mathematically sound, complete, etc. sql is not. it is
[snip: rant about wrapping tuple data in objects because it's "cool"]
i would like a good set of OO principles for databases: the link above has a few articles mentioning that domains (datatypes in a database) could be OO, without hurting anything (orthogonality.) i haven't come across anything from Date/Codd/etc. about relations themselves supporting inheritance (derive from 'people' to get 'people-who-can-have-x') and even multiple-inheritance (derive from 'graphs' and 'calendar objects' to build 'interrelated calendar objects')
A better question would be why do people sell insurance?
...
... (wait)
... and you'll have to pay. knowing this, you have health insurance covering doctor visits and drugs -- but you won't find insurance with a copay to alleviate the cost of buying parts for your car, or dealing with an email virus ... because there's no bottleneck. insurance companies are like lions atop a cliff, waiting for the gazelles to move through the ravine: they only bother insuring points they can control.
... others cancelling existing war insurance policies on cargo ships because of war ... it's like my car insurance cancelling their policy with me because i actually need it ... grrr!
because, in slashdot fashion
1) promote FUD about what can happen to you, or
2) manage to get a monopoly (racket) *
2) sell insurance
3)
4) profit!
like anything else that gets sold, it's just the profit.
* car insurance, yes, is required. but look also at prescription drugs -- i have to go see a doc to get the stuff i need, even if i know full well what it is i need. you're not obligated to see a mechanic to get your car fixed, or ask a programmer to help you out with installing every piece of software you buy. but if you want drugs, well, you'll be seeing a doctor
and what's this with insurance companies cancelling policies if the costs get out of hand? s_ f_ cancelling insurance in blue springs, MO, because of excessive vandalism in the area
i'm completely willing to consider other design possibilities. i do it all the time. but in this case, i'd say the end-to-end argument doesn't go very far. i wouldn't, in the case of transactions, want an outside system doing the following: ...
... you -can- resort to, for example, having a 'lock' table containing tuples for each operation you want to maintain locks on, and then lock the rows (for update) as you start your operation. you could -also- do it in an outside system. so long as your local logic respects the results, you're fine. or you could guarantee you won't have trouble, and actually put all the operations on one transaction, handled by one agent (the database server app.)
- deciding whether or not my commit succeeded (safe-write to disk)
- deciding which tuples i can see (and in what state)
- deciding who gets to write to a tuple (when the database, and its decision as to which serial request to consider next, has the last word on that one)
i can do simple locking elsewhere -- for example, we have functionality that doesn't -obviously- get protected by database transaction isolation: when it's mostly inserts, and none of the relation-constraints have anything to say about it
on a similar note: i agree individual applications -might- be able to manage (virtual) memory better than the OS. but would i recommend it? no. there's a limited resource, with many agents vying for it. it makes sense for a central agent to manage the resource. an OS usually manages files, memory, ports, and other resources to avoid conflicts; i expect a database management system to do the same for my data. i like modular designs. i really do. but that's just one chunk i'd rather not out-source.
firebird is open-source, does transactional isolation, etc. like the big guys. it's fast, small, and free. i've heard from people using postgresql that the two are quite similar, feature-wise. firebird (as interbase) has been around for a -long- time, and has pretty much always had transactional isolation (it's not an add-on after-thought like, say, with mysql, or less so, with postgresql.) and did i mention that the original designers and coders now work on firebird, not interbase?
... and i've run into the need for transactions even in web-apps. every millisecond counts, not speed-wise, but logic-wise.
and it -is- necessary to have that isolation. i dunno where our application would be without it. it's not a web-app though, and that makes a difference -- we have transactions open for minutes, maybe hours at a time, with individual client machines doing whatever they need to do.
what it doesn't have -- stuff like xml (what for?) or tables as domains, or full-text indexing (note: even in oracle, the full-text indexing wasn't an oracle-built package, as i recall.) i think its support for unicode is improving, but it wasn't built with that in mind. (unicode on a pdp-11?) they're switching the code base to c++, taking -out- support for platforms nobody cares about. (helps reduce the size.)
i agree you can get more speed out of something without transactional isolation -- but i hope you never need it. when it rains, it pours
encryption of certain types got filed as munitions, yes? that was part of the reason we couldn't export encryption outside the US, even if it was already available outside the US (or had even originated outside the US!)
... note how easy it will be for them to add to the list of X items. black clothing? sign language? books?
so, it's more like they said "X is like a bullet, things are worse if you use a bullet, therefore things are worse if you use X"
if the claim is that encryption -hides- criminal activity, then the fact is that plenty of things do that. like black clothing. it's only natural that a criminal should do anything possible -not- to be detected. to say -some- of those methods are not "fair play" is ridiculous.
a crime is a crime is a crime. (unless it's not.)
a tool is a tool is a tool. (unless it's encryption.)
whether or not it falls within the yearly monetary limit set for politicians? people may only bribe you for -x- amount during the year, in chunks of up to -y- dollars at a time.
...
and bribes imply that they come with a note saying "please do -z-" whereas constituents usually just say "do your job, we elected you to do what you said you'd do." not that they didn't decide what to say based on what would get them elected
i'm not fat or ugly!
... was that not the point?
oh wait
Voluntary Human Extinction MovemenT
what's with kilometers? god measures in kilometers? aliens do? supra-intelligent blocks of very dark, mysterious material do? ... -dimensions- 1, 4, 9 ...
... what, you think aliens -know- about integers? oh, wait. nevermind.
but then
i know this'll sound a bit too obvious, but a back door is anything that isn't a ... front door? (ignoring, for the smart-asses, side doors, windows, basements, and other points of entry. like worms. ?!?)
... i'd say that counts as a hidden feature, not a back door.
... ports being left open that aren't documented and allow increased access ... setting a value in a .ini / .conf file that enables otherwise hidden features ... special key combinations (login prompt) that let you in, give you access, etc. ... spying? ... trojans? [our app, for example, has simple remote-exec features built-in ... don't ask me why. they -are- however, documented in the remote-access screen.]
... i hadn't learned to program yet, and there he was nagging me with programs asking me to identify myself. typing my name resulted in insults. his name, oddly, resulted in compliments.
i'd say that if an app doesn't display the option to use feature X anywhere obvious (no screens, menus, etc.) then it's a back door. if you log in as yourself and it gives you a check box (that only your, and similar, users can see) that says "[x] enable remote logging"
i'd count as back doors: passwords that always work, no matter what you do
all this brings me back to my 'evil' brother and the fake password programs he wrote when we were kids
is that a back door?
in cases like that, though, there's always the use of the 'strings' command under *nix ... and you can change a computer's name to match. not that i care -- but pointing out possible attacks. but then, i can't complain -- our client-side app (for internal use only, mind you) uses a built-in password to the database for initial access. (the user-login isn't a db-login, just rows in the same database as the rest of the data. the default login isn't the admin password, just the data-access password.) if the bytecode weren't available, it wouldn't be so bad. but as it is, we're vulnerable to the same sort of attack. (strings.) oh, and the data-stream to the db server isn't encrypted. so you could still drag passwords out at runtime by sniffing packets, even if we didn't use a built-in password ... again, it's all on the lan. but ...
so, what did the backdoor give you access to that you didn't have otherwise? (most 'extra' stuff is available to us simply as extra permissions given to our user account in the app...)
this case is more like crippleware shareware: disables itself specifically because you -haven't- bought it. letting his customer use the software before it's paid for is a means of verifying the job is done correctly. once payment is made, a final version, without crippleware, is released. that's just like shareware, where you buy the product and receive either an activation key, or a different installer.
obviously it should be illegal to leave the crippleware in and use it to demand payments at random. unless, yes, it's a lease.
but this is more like a car dealer installing a gas-line clamp. take the car for a test drive. go right ahead. after twenty miles, you'll magically be out of fuel, and a gas station won't help.
i thought i did ... but oh well. =) it's fixed. i don't have to see it again for a while.
thanks anyway =)
i'll see if order matters next time i see that on someone's machine. and they let me remove it. icky. icky theme-ing.
i noticed when disabling that service on my g/f's dad's computer that, uhm, windows suddenly forgets how to make square buttons for min/max/close! it's fine if, like me, you're used to reading small fonts. but it big fonts/big bars ... it just made really tall, skinny buttons. turned the service back on -just- so that would stop.
... isn't their argument that it's easier? i don't remember having that king of problem with my slackware 8 installation ...
... nothing is where i want it to be, too many automated features that don't fully work ... and *drake need to die.)
or i could just be a dork. and not know how to use windows. wait
(admittedly, i get confused fixing my dad's mandrake 9 installation
hmmm. some of those piercings could be in -good- places ... what's wrong with that again?
http://www.ibphoenix.com/
... 1.5 fixes a LOT of stuff. we used it because it was free -and- had the features we wanted. since then we've learned of its quirks (things like column aliases not being used in other parts of the sql statement, say, in the 'group by' clause!) but learned to get around that. 1.5 fixes most of that, to my knowledge. i just wish we'd left ourselves notes in the code saying "this is a hack!" ... best thing about it is that the versioning model is stable, and has been for years. and the original developers are working on firebird for free, not interbase for borland. nothing beats having jim or ann around ...
... ever-growing clients ... hey lookie. i've got a few more wizards to code today. gotta go!)
1.0 is not bad
(note -- we're using firebird 1.0 on a slackware 8 machine for production, but firebird 1.0 under XP for our test system, with borland-builder-based win32 apps as clients
i believe it's been said elsewhere that at the time, there -was- no registrar for them to comform with. nobody had .uk exclusively. so they just took what they wanted and left the rest alone. when a registrar was declared, well, it was already taken. so they took the rest. simple.
... is what it is. there wouldn't either be a situation where earth would be asked to register with these other people (and by earth 'back' from them) to prove ownership -- the claim used by everyone else (for the moon, mars, etc.) is the same: we believe we own it. prove us wrong.
...
it's a bit like the people over at lunarembassy.com (i'm not bothering to check the link) -- they and others like them have declared ownership of most every celestial body in our solar system, sun included. why? because nobody else had. but in return, you won't see them telling earthlings to 'get off of their property' just because they control lots of stuff, and earth, well
i don't like the fact that people are out there claiming planets and stars as their own, without setting foot on them. (ouch!) but i'd rather not have to justify my ownership of an item every time someone assumes control of a large stock of it, or the trade of it, or a monopoly on the sale of the item, etc.
keyword filters are, indeed, a problem -- my girlfriend constantly informs me of what filters she has in place, just so i'll know which body parts of mine -not- to talk about in my (rare) emails to her. i also can't suggest too many interesting romps ... those would get filtered. it even seems like a bad idea to suggest she go look at a certain product, quoting a price ... all gets filtered.
whitelist? nah. it's not her style. anyone may at some time or other deserve to be severely ignored. no whitelist.
i think he specified "from Lego" (Lego corporate) -- might mention that Lego does have some sort of construction software as well ... i've seen it advertised in the Lego-Dacta catalog i get ... seems to be intended for classroom use along with specified sets of parts ($100 to $200 of assorted technic pieces.) haven't used it, so ... anybody know more? does it have accurate physics, so you'll know what your virtual machinery will do when turned on?
Lego corporate has also released video games featuring the ability to build -- castles, etc. not necessarily infinite parts, nor a parts bin representative of their entire product line, but still a good start.
and finally, there's always this:
atriarch exposed
i think that argument has failed before: "it's okay because it's for a good cause" ... i'd prefer someone just stand up and say "no, it's a stupid idea in the first place, just ignore all such things."
as stated by many, patenting a method for detecting a gene is one thing -- keeping other researchers from using home-grown methods to find that same gene is another. and claiming the gene for themselves is just right out.
patents were designed to give those who invested in research a return on those same investments, by giving them a temporary edge on the market. i believe it's important to reward such research, especially in the medical field. it's sad to see anyone, rich or poor, suffering from disease.
in the end, though, we must remember that both patents and copyrights were designed to override the default rule: we all own information of this sort. they are not permissions for us to have this knowledge after a time -- they are permission to keep it private for personal gain for a limited time. they are incentives, not inalienable rights.
do you support what could become (or is) extortion? inexcusably high fees for access to patented methods? life on the life, too bad, pay up? do you support, from the medical field, the practice of not revealing life-saving information for personal gain?
questions like this are -not- to be answered with the robin hood argument. whether 'tis for the rich or the poor, the same question must be answered -- what is the value of life?
perhaps we should keep foreigners from buying other american services? not only should they not buy our educational services ... but they shouldn't be allowed to use our hospitals, our grocery stores, our gasoline pumps ... you never know, they might live longer, take food back home, and feed a family. or worse!
... shouldn't we be fair?
starting to get the picture? you're probably one of those gung-ho capitalist types, and that's fine. but one of the doctrines coming with that is that you can't discrimate as to who you're selling your services and products to. we make exceptions for things like weapons (no, i'm sorry, you can't have a nuke today) but generally, we don't.
as to research, wouldn't you rather they screen everyone? it seems they were only requiring that -foreign- students be screened, assuming americans aren't a liability. but your comment about "have no loyalty (or even Americans) to America" would tend to make us think you don't trust americans any more than foreigners
"first sale doctrine" says that once they've sold you a product, you can do whatever you like with it, including selling it off to others. exception: software is sold as a license that is non-transferable (a bit like a diploma can't be sold to another person.) this gets around the first-sale doctrine by forcing you to keep your copy once you've bought it -- you, and only you, have the right to use the product. the value of the license was immediately used up, and that's it (a bit like not being able to sell your experience on a roller coaster -- only your personal enjoyment is left, unless people just want to pay to listen to you talk about it.)
... they'll try somday.
in the case of physical items like books, cd's, etc. the first sale doctrine still applies, until the *aa changes the way we purchase media to always mean we purchase licenses to view the media (possibly for a period of time only.) it'll be a bit hard to expire paper-books, but
as to supporting the original authors, you might just send them a check. buy the used copy, and send the author money. original authors get very little through their distributors unless they're lucky, famous, etc. [see google] and this way they'd get a letter from you. make their day.
only foreign nationals being screened for security reasons -- like americans aren't ever a threat to themselves. if MIT wanted to say that they treat all their students alike, they couldn't accept this offer. either the foreigners wouldn't be screened, or they'd all be screened ...
... i'd say MIT would be better off not risking putting their students through the screening just for a grant. MIT students are usually there because MIT wants them, not because they have to accept them.
and considering how the foreign-national registration thing went in california (we promise we'll just take your info, but, oh wait, we'll arrest you instead without telling you why)