I'll reply on some general topics here, because it's useful to understand what the regulations say and mean, as well as how they are interpretted.
The regulations always say words to the effect of "a specific installation of a specific version of a specific software product (on a specific hardware configuration)". The parenthetical there is for some other security ratings.
A good example of this is the C2 security rating. Microsoft spent some money getting Windows NT C2 rated. Specifically, they got a specific patch level of a specific service pack of Windows NT v3.51 approved as C2 certified, on a specific set of hardware (with no floppy, I think) in a non-networked configuration.
No one paid any attention to those little details. They just saw "Windows NT is C2 rated" and used that for purchase decision approval for every Windows NT/2000 system the DoD has bought since then. Because the "bureaucratic process" doesn't know enough about computers to know what the ratings mean, or what they apply to, or where they don't apply.
The same will be done with this. "The NSA certified Linux for secure operation" will be enough, with supporting documentation to state that. Doesn't matter that it is for a different version of linux than your current procurement, it will still get it through the acceptance process.
Government regulations are only meant to be an overwhelming burden for those people silly enough to think you are actually supposed to comply with them fully. No one that has worked with government procurements for more than 3 months still believes that.
However, if you view the value of things as how many man-hours go into it, then yes, there is some kind of value, and right associated with these characters, and products. However, just because there is time involved, does not inherently imply value, or even many rights.
Do you remember the Sui Generis database protections idiocy that went through congress several years back? Sweat of the Brow protections, basically, giving copyright protection for a collection of facts, simply because you put work into collecting those facts. Lexis-Nexis heavily supported it, in an effort to get a law passed saying they owned basically every Federal court opinion done in the past 100 years or so, because they put then into books with a recognizable citing system. Yes, they wanted to own legal rulings about the law. Hey, they put work into it, they should get some rights to it, right?
Be careful what you ask for... "I put man-hours into this, I should get some rights for it" is not that different applied to a virtual avatar than it is to a database product.
I recognize this isn't what you are advocating. (That's why I included your second sentence, as well as your first.) But it seemed a good thing to point out to people with short memories here.
We have 3 people in the last hundred years that have killed more than 1 million people. Or at least, 3 that come immediately to mind.
Hitler killed 4 million Jews in WWII.
Stalin killed 20 million Russians.
Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people in Cambodia in the 1970s.
Yale has a genocide site devoted to this, though it's interesting that they include Hitler and Pol Pot, but not Stalin. Hmm. I guess ethnic purges count, but political purges don't.
If they told us what lines were in question, we could all write memiors about how those lines came to be, with CVS snapshots and mailinglist discussions to back it up.
But they already told us how the lines came to be, and who submitted them. What lines doesn't matter that much, really.
IBM (rather, someone working for IBM) submitted them, and they were (probably) taken from cooperative work between IBM and SCO under Project Monterrey. SCO believes IBM did not have the right to distribute the code in such a way, and furthur that SCO *did* have the right to incorporate this code into their OpenServer product.
As to the linux community pulling the code out and replacing it with non-infringing equivalent, that's a non-issue. It has no bearing on the alleged fact that IBM breached the contract with SCO. It only has an affect on FUD and sales of SCO licences/products to people that would otherwise have bought linux products. Assuming IBM did breach the contract, removing the code still means they breached the contract, there will still be a guilty ruling, and there will still be damages paid. (Okay, large assumption.)
This is, frankly, not an issue that coders will decide. This will be an issue decided by lawyers reading the contract between IBM and SCO for development work on Project Monterrey, and a conclusion of who had what rights to what code that came out of there. This is probably why IBM hasn't responded to this. (That and responsible publicly-traded companies don't respond to lawsuits in press releases, aside from acknowledging that they exist.) They don't care about the code, specifically... they are checking the contracts to see who had rights to what.
Assuming, of course, that this isn't BSD-licensed code that SCO took from Free/Open/NetBSD the same as linux did. And, frankly, I expect there is some of that in the mix, but probably not everything they think they've found can be traced to BSD roots.
The other side of the Appalacians. Nothing like a small mountain range to block a big wall of water.
Or have you seen the Rockies, and now consider the Appalacians to just be kinda tall foothills? Still tall enough. But you might not want to be standing in the Cumberland Gap.
Medicare and medicaid are effectively government-sponsored pyramid schemes. Most people understand this, and also understand that pyramid schemes only work when more people are paying in than are taking out. Hint: This is part of why people are concerned with social security going bust in 15-40 years. (Okay, I switched topics from medicare/medicaid to social security.)
I was going to comment on the gas taxes, but you beat me to it. That effectively qualifies as a use tax, and should cover even public transport such as buses that use the roads, as they have to cover fuel costs also.
But your last paragraph makes me interject a cynical comment. I find it interesting that "the greatest capitalist nation in the world" has one of the best socialist systems around, if you happen to think socialist systems should benefit a mega-corp instead of people. It's kind of sad.
We also have a well-intentioned but very poorly implemented actual socialist system. Gotta love the things FDR did for us.
Yes, you bring up that most wonderful of all quotes, which I am going to butcher for your amusement...
American universities provide the best education terrorists can get anywhere in the world.
Which is both true and false, of course. It really is amazing how many of the top-level terrorist leaders seem to be educated at Harvard, Yale, Oxford (okay, I admit, that's in England) or other Western schools of similar credentials.
But at the same time, most of the suicide bombers are from financially-depressed areas and can't really think seriously about travelling out of their home country, much less going abroad for an education.
It occurs to me that mentioning this in what is already nothing like a rational discussion could be... unwise.
The bigger issue here for/.ers is that because of its digital readout too much importance was probably given to the dive computer's implied precision.
This, I admit, is one personal bitch of mine.
At work, we deal with a few safety numbers, standoff ranges and things like that. One of our magic standoff ranges is 91.44 meters. It's a really interesting number, and you have a lot of confidence in it... until you look at it again. And realize that 91.44meters just happens to be 100yards. And that this magic safety numebr was probably just someone saying "well, 100yards sounds about right" and someone else blindly converted it to that exact distance in meters.
And suddenly you have a lot less confidence in that safety number.
Incidentally, I still maintain that diving your computer to its limits is safe. (You notice a bit of a contradiction there???) However, I also do seriously slow ascents when diving close to limits on a computer, and instead of a 3 minutes at 15ft safety stop, I'll do 3 minutes at 30ft, and 5 minutes at 15ft, and a slower ascent rate than officially recommended (60ft/minute at greater than 60ft, and 30ft/minute at less than 60ft, is the official guidance).
I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. Or at least I won't admit to it.:)
Yeah.. it's not like divers are taught that you use a computer to augment your diving, and that you should still fill out your dive tables or anything.
I routinely do dive profiles that my dive tables say I should get bent on. My computer knows better, because it knows the actual depth profile I dive, and not just the max depth and total dive time.
Almost any dive profile on a wall will do this. You start deep, and drift slowly more shallow as you go, and you can do a nice hour-long dive with a max depth of about 80ft, and an average noticably shallower than that.
Yes, you can do this with a multi-level dive table, with a wheel or similar. I've done that. You know how much trouble that is? And how difficult it is to know, for a sloping wall dive, exactly how long you'll spend at any particular depth looking at coral? Yes, plan your dive, and dive your plan. But realize that you aren't a robot, and don't dive like one.
Multilevel dive planning is for deco diving where your computer can't handle it, and, incidentally, you *have* to know deco times ahead of time so you can hang stage bottles at the right depth.
But that dive profile above, for a normal set of dive tables, diving with a computer, will almost always end with your tables telling you that you went into deco. Because all it uses is max depth and total bottom time.
It's not like every diver knows that the dive computers and dive tables are approximations, and that they can vary drastically for a number of reasons.
Yeah, and the tables are approximations, too. Actually, they are statistical representations, and state that 98% of divers that stay within these guidelines will not get DCS, with some confidence bound. Yes, diving tables, you can still be that unlucky 2% that does everything right and gets bent anyway. Sometimes it's just not your day.
Pushing the absolute limits of what your computer says you are allowed is dumb.
No. You do research, you find out what algorithm your computer uses, how conservative or liberal it is, how it was modified from standard industry-published algorithms, and you pick a computer that works the way you want it to. And then you dive within the bounds the computer sets, so long as those bounds pass your internal bullshit detector. (You *do* have an internal bullshit detector, right?) But diving close to those bounds is not "dumb" it is simply using your equipment to the limits you are comfortable with.
There is a large element of recklessness involved in this situation.
Can't disagree with that at all. Finishing a dive at 10pm and flying at 6:30am the next morning is not safe.
Speaking as a certified diver that does dive nitrox (and I love diving happy gas!) I'll point you to DAN for guidelines for flying after diving. You mention them, but perhaps didn't get a full information exposure there.
And if you don't know DAN (Divers Alert Network) you really should look them up. They are a non-profit research organization for scuba divers, and they offer diving insurance. It's worth getting. 1 Dive Table #3 deco in a hyperbaric chamber will run you an absolutely awful amount of money (about $25,000) and is not covered by any "normal" insurance.
Anyway, DAN's current guidance for flying after diving is not terribly clear. But you are right, for a single dive, they currently suggest a minimum of 12 hours before flying. Or, as another person notes, before any change to a higher elevation (defined as "more than 3000ft elevation change" just like the definition for high-altitude diving). For repetitive diving, the current guidance is "not less than 18 hours" and the longer the better.
And that "minimum is 4 hours" you mention depends on the source. The US Navy says 2 hours, after a single no-deco dive. Though, I'll agree, that's a little crazy for my tastes.
And diving nitrox doesn't seem to have any influence on time to safe flying after diving, beyond the obvious that you might have absorbed less nitrogen. This guidance assumes you are diving close to the limits of either tables or computers, and therefore you end the dive at the same nitrogen-loading whatever gas you are breathing.
If you are going to shoot an intruder make sure they end up dead.
What's the quote from Robocop II? "They always have relatives." Wrongful death lawsuits are expensive. And they are civil court, where the burden of proof is much lower.
Really, just put a "Protected by $Security_Firm" sign in your front yard. The sign does more good than the actual alarm service does, anyway. The burglar will go to your next door neighbor that doesn't have the sign.
Like script kiddies, burglars are looking for soft targets. Pretend you're a hard target, and they'll go to the next soft target down the street.
Which is interesting advice from me... after all, I like living in a Castle Doctrine state.
The tipping point for us was at Linux World this year, when an IBM executive stood up in front of a large crowd and essentially said, "We're moving our AIX expertise into Linux, and we're going to destroy the value of Unix."
Those comments alone would have been a direct violation of our AIX contract with IBM, under which they license our Unix intellectual property.
Pretty provocative "rephrasing here," which I can't take seriously. Maybe I'm ignorant (IANAL and all) but how does a business decision to change focus violate their contract? I really do wonder if I've missed something here.
Contracts can say some really funny things. Remember when Intel first introduced RDRAM memory, back with the PentiumIII processor? They pushed RDRAM as the best (and almost only) choice, even when benchmarks and other tests showed that DDR was the performance as well as price/performance winner in many cases.
They did this because someone at Intel signed a contract that they shouldn't have, that said Intel would push RDRAM as the memory of choice for a period of... 4 years? Sorry, don't remember the time period. This put Intel in a bad position, but they signed a contract saying they'd do that, and they were stuck with it.
I don't expect IBM would sign a contract saying they would, umm... "promote the value of UNIX" or something like that. It goes against the IBM Global Services mantra of "we support anything." But at the same time, they could easily have something in the licensing agreement for AIX that does... something weird.
As to the IBM team that was working with SCO on UNIX code, and moved to a linux project... I assume (dangerous word, assume) that was in reference to Project Monterey, and the licensing agreement there was probably checked by lawyers on both sides with a fine-toothed comb. There is likely contractual language covering who owns what code, and how it can be used and re-licensed. Which probably gets really grey for code that was jointly developed, rather than separately developed and then contributed to the project. And it is possible that the employees have a different interpretation of who owns what than the lawyers do, and improperly re-used code they shouldn't have.
NASA has been doing cool pictures from far away for a while. Two that are worth looking at:
Solar System Family Portrait This one is nice, but earth is really only about 4 pixels, so you can't see all that much detail.:) This is a Voyager 1 picture taken in 1980, I think.
Saturn in shadow This is a nice shot of Saturn by the Galileo probe, taken with about half the planet in shadown. Read the write-up there, it's kind of cool.
I almost have to claim it is a fake Escher drawing. Really, look at it... there are three sets of stairs in that drawing, and they all go in reasonable logical directions and orientations.
And, really, an incorrect edit should be familiar around here.
The quote that is getting so much attention: IBM says the new Apple chip will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.
What it should have said: IBM says the new chip, which rumors say Apple will use, will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.
Makes a lot more sense this way, doesn't it? Well, aside from having too many commas in one sentence...
Yeah, the ASP loophole that was noticed a few years ago. Last I heard, RMS was working on the next version of the GPL (v3) that would close this loophole.
Think about this for a minute. This is actually a good thing.
One of the main selling points with mainframes is stability. You want to have experienced reliable people maintaining, administering, and programming your mainframe. Specifically, you do *not* want a fresh-out-of-college kid who still hasn't learned about bounds checking and other safe programming practices. Okay, not such a problem with COBOL, but you still want people that have matured in the industry, not someone that thinks "large, long project" is a 1,000-LOC project that he had to work with for an entire 15-week semester.
Yes, there's a problem if your entire staff is going to be retiring in the next 5 years. You'll have some definite training troubles for system-specific issues.
But if you want to keep your mainframe stable and reliable, you need to have staff that are properly experienced. And that usually means a minimum age limit.
Of course, "experienced stable people" can easily be in their 30s, so there's more than just that going on here. But there is a strong correlation between age, experience, and reliability.
Throwing a segway? The thing weighs more than 70lbs.
I'd hate to just throw that from a stationary position. Wouldn't be able to get much distance at all...
Now, if you grabbed it by the handlebar, and twirled like a discus throw. Or, more properly, a hammer throw... you might get some nice distance there.
Hmm... anyone want to voluteer a segway to test this way?
Re:GPL the best bet
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OSI vs SCO
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· Score: 5, Insightful
1: Hackers can now put words in the mouth of corporations. (See? MSDN got hacked and folk downloaded GPL'd Windows, so now it's all free!)
Of course not. Only when a corporation purposely distributes code does this become an issue. They may not knowingly distribute it, but they purposely distribute. There's a lawyer term that relates here, due diligence, that basically means that a corpoartion has a duty to their stockholders to make sure they aren't doing something stupid by a purposeful action, such as releasing trade secrets under an open license. If SCO really did purposely publicly license trade secrets under an open license, even unknowingly, there may actually be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit against SCO for not being properly cautious about such a public licensing. Note that this would be a bad thing for Open Source in general, as most companies don't have the resources to properly examine, what, 5 million lines of source code for the software in a normal linux distribution. And therefore the proper "safe" response may be to not use linux, even internally.
2: Every piece of "FUD" about the GPL will be proven--it IS a viral license, that can irrevocably infect your code without your express wishes.
Yes, the GPL is viral. It is meant to be viral. Stallman did that on purpose. No, it cannot infect your code without your wishes. But it can without your informed intent, if you are not properly careful of what you are doing. Again, due dilegence.
Actually, assuming SCO has a valid case in this lawsuit, I don't really see a problem with both viewpoints on this...
If IBM really did release SCO IP in kernel patches, then IBM is liable for violating a NDA, and there should be consequences for that.
However, at the point that SCO (or Caldera after they bought SCO) released that IP in their own linux distribution, liability for other users/distributors stops.
That (assumed) window between IBM releasing SCO IP, and Caldera (as SCO owner) releasing that same IP under an open license, makes for some interesting possibilities for legal rulings for other distributors.
Oh, and I like your sigline, but really... Cadbury creme eggs *are* heavenly.
Florida has the same reporting requirements, however, what you actually have to pay is slightly different from what you say is the case for Michigan. (Check your state law, Michigan may actually do things the same as Florida.)
In Florida, if you purchase a product through mailorder, you must report that purchase at tax time (yes, even though Florida has no state income tax, report it just like intangible tax). If you paid less than the Florida state sales tax rate, you must pay to Florida the difference between the tax rate you were charged and the Florida tax rate. (If you paid more, no, you don't get reimbursed, dangit.)
This is one of the least-complied tax laws in the state of Florida, probably.
I don't know if this applies to internet purchases also.
Buying cars out of state works the same way. If you buy a car out of state, and then move to Florida (or are a resident and bring the car to Florida) less than 6 or 12 months after purchase (don't remember which) you have to pay Florida the difference between Florida sales tax and the tax rate where you bought the car, if the tax rate where you bought the car is lower than the Florida tax rate. And this they *will* check when you register the vehicle.
Most people who write software are not doing software engineering. What they are doing is more properly described as hobby tinkering.
You get serious training, and serious liability, for real civil engineers that design and build bridges, dams, and skyscrapers.
You get very little training, other than trial and error, for Father Joe helping his kid build a tree house in the backyard.
There is a difference in standards, safety, and liability for the two actions.
Most open source software is, really, much closer to hobby tinkering than it is to real software engineering. But once you start selling open source software, just like once you start selling backyard treehouses, your standards and liability have to go up. Open source software uploaded to sourceforge is more like Father Joe talking with his neighbor across the the fence about how he built his kid's treehouse, and suggesting some things the neighbor might do. There is, and should be, very limited liability in both of these actions.
But once you start selling treehouse kits at Home Depot, Home Depot and you both have liability for the product. You should both have a rigorous process for producing safe treehouses. Now, the difference here with open source software is that your don't really have a say in your project on sourceforge getting included in some linux distribution, and you don't profit from it either. So your liability as the software author may be limited here, but the distribution packager/seller should be liable for what they include for sale.
Yes, this means that if you want your project included in a distribution, guess what, you have to develop it right, as an engineering effort and not a hobby. Otherwise, the distribution packager would be insane to touch it.
And I'm not going to say "sorry" for actually wanting a quality product for my money.
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I'll reply on some general topics here, because it's useful to understand what the regulations say and mean, as well as how they are interpretted.
The regulations always say words to the effect of "a specific installation of a specific version of a specific software product (on a specific hardware configuration)". The parenthetical there is for some other security ratings.
A good example of this is the C2 security rating. Microsoft spent some money getting Windows NT C2 rated. Specifically, they got a specific patch level of a specific service pack of Windows NT v3.51 approved as C2 certified, on a specific set of hardware (with no floppy, I think) in a non-networked configuration.
No one paid any attention to those little details. They just saw "Windows NT is C2 rated" and used that for purchase decision approval for every Windows NT/2000 system the DoD has bought since then. Because the "bureaucratic process" doesn't know enough about computers to know what the ratings mean, or what they apply to, or where they don't apply.
The same will be done with this. "The NSA certified Linux for secure operation" will be enough, with supporting documentation to state that. Doesn't matter that it is for a different version of linux than your current procurement, it will still get it through the acceptance process.
Government regulations are only meant to be an overwhelming burden for those people silly enough to think you are actually supposed to comply with them fully. No one that has worked with government procurements for more than 3 months still believes that.
Do you remember the Sui Generis database protections idiocy that went through congress several years back? Sweat of the Brow protections, basically, giving copyright protection for a collection of facts, simply because you put work into collecting those facts. Lexis-Nexis heavily supported it, in an effort to get a law passed saying they owned basically every Federal court opinion done in the past 100 years or so, because they put then into books with a recognizable citing system. Yes, they wanted to own legal rulings about the law. Hey, they put work into it, they should get some rights to it, right?
Be careful what you ask for... "I put man-hours into this, I should get some rights for it" is not that different applied to a virtual avatar than it is to a database product.
I recognize this isn't what you are advocating. (That's why I included your second sentence, as well as your first.) But it seemed a good thing to point out to people with short memories here.
We have 3 people in the last hundred years that have killed more than 1 million people. Or at least, 3 that come immediately to mind.
Hitler killed 4 million Jews in WWII.
Stalin killed 20 million Russians.
Pol Pot killed 1.7 million people in Cambodia in the 1970s.
Yale has a genocide site devoted to this, though it's interesting that they include Hitler and Pol Pot, but not Stalin. Hmm. I guess ethnic purges count, but political purges don't.
But they already told us how the lines came to be, and who submitted them. What lines doesn't matter that much, really.
IBM (rather, someone working for IBM) submitted them, and they were (probably) taken from cooperative work between IBM and SCO under Project Monterrey. SCO believes IBM did not have the right to distribute the code in such a way, and furthur that SCO *did* have the right to incorporate this code into their OpenServer product.
As to the linux community pulling the code out and replacing it with non-infringing equivalent, that's a non-issue. It has no bearing on the alleged fact that IBM breached the contract with SCO. It only has an affect on FUD and sales of SCO licences/products to people that would otherwise have bought linux products. Assuming IBM did breach the contract, removing the code still means they breached the contract, there will still be a guilty ruling, and there will still be damages paid. (Okay, large assumption.)
This is, frankly, not an issue that coders will decide. This will be an issue decided by lawyers reading the contract between IBM and SCO for development work on Project Monterrey, and a conclusion of who had what rights to what code that came out of there. This is probably why IBM hasn't responded to this. (That and responsible publicly-traded companies don't respond to lawsuits in press releases, aside from acknowledging that they exist.) They don't care about the code, specifically... they are checking the contracts to see who had rights to what.
Assuming, of course, that this isn't BSD-licensed code that SCO took from Free/Open/NetBSD the same as linux did. And, frankly, I expect there is some of that in the mix, but probably not everything they think they've found can be traced to BSD roots.
The easy answer there?
The other side of the Appalacians. Nothing like a small mountain range to block a big wall of water.
Or have you seen the Rockies, and now consider the Appalacians to just be kinda tall foothills? Still tall enough. But you might not want to be standing in the Cumberland Gap.
After all... would *you* want to submit a "lightweight process" that will be measured by the compuTON?
Okay, bad joke. I only hope this gets modded down as repetitive. Someone else must have come up with this by now.
Medicare and medicaid are effectively government-sponsored pyramid schemes. Most people understand this, and also understand that pyramid schemes only work when more people are paying in than are taking out. Hint: This is part of why people are concerned with social security going bust in 15-40 years. (Okay, I switched topics from medicare/medicaid to social security.)
I was going to comment on the gas taxes, but you beat me to it. That effectively qualifies as a use tax, and should cover even public transport such as buses that use the roads, as they have to cover fuel costs also.
But your last paragraph makes me interject a cynical comment. I find it interesting that "the greatest capitalist nation in the world" has one of the best socialist systems around, if you happen to think socialist systems should benefit a mega-corp instead of people. It's kind of sad.
We also have a well-intentioned but very poorly implemented actual socialist system. Gotta love the things FDR did for us.
Yes, you bring up that most wonderful of all quotes, which I am going to butcher for your amusement...
American universities provide the best education terrorists can get anywhere in the world.
Which is both true and false, of course. It really is amazing how many of the top-level terrorist leaders seem to be educated at Harvard, Yale, Oxford (okay, I admit, that's in England) or other Western schools of similar credentials.
But at the same time, most of the suicide bombers are from financially-depressed areas and can't really think seriously about travelling out of their home country, much less going abroad for an education.
It occurs to me that mentioning this in what is already nothing like a rational discussion could be... unwise.
This, I admit, is one personal bitch of mine.
At work, we deal with a few safety numbers, standoff ranges and things like that. One of our magic standoff ranges is 91.44 meters. It's a really interesting number, and you have a lot of confidence in it... until you look at it again. And realize that 91.44meters just happens to be 100yards. And that this magic safety numebr was probably just someone saying "well, 100yards sounds about right" and someone else blindly converted it to that exact distance in meters.
And suddenly you have a lot less confidence in that safety number.
Incidentally, I still maintain that diving your computer to its limits is safe. (You notice a bit of a contradiction there???) However, I also do seriously slow ascents when diving close to limits on a computer, and instead of a 3 minutes at 15ft safety stop, I'll do 3 minutes at 30ft, and 5 minutes at 15ft, and a slower ascent rate than officially recommended (60ft/minute at greater than 60ft, and 30ft/minute at less than 60ft, is the official guidance).
I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid. Or at least I won't admit to it.
I routinely do dive profiles that my dive tables say I should get bent on. My computer knows better, because it knows the actual depth profile I dive, and not just the max depth and total dive time.
Almost any dive profile on a wall will do this. You start deep, and drift slowly more shallow as you go, and you can do a nice hour-long dive with a max depth of about 80ft, and an average noticably shallower than that.
Yes, you can do this with a multi-level dive table, with a wheel or similar. I've done that. You know how much trouble that is? And how difficult it is to know, for a sloping wall dive, exactly how long you'll spend at any particular depth looking at coral? Yes, plan your dive, and dive your plan. But realize that you aren't a robot, and don't dive like one.
Multilevel dive planning is for deco diving where your computer can't handle it, and, incidentally, you *have* to know deco times ahead of time so you can hang stage bottles at the right depth.
But that dive profile above, for a normal set of dive tables, diving with a computer, will almost always end with your tables telling you that you went into deco. Because all it uses is max depth and total bottom time.
Yeah, and the tables are approximations, too. Actually, they are statistical representations, and state that 98% of divers that stay within these guidelines will not get DCS, with some confidence bound. Yes, diving tables, you can still be that unlucky 2% that does everything right and gets bent anyway. Sometimes it's just not your day.
No. You do research, you find out what algorithm your computer uses, how conservative or liberal it is, how it was modified from standard industry-published algorithms, and you pick a computer that works the way you want it to. And then you dive within the bounds the computer sets, so long as those bounds pass your internal bullshit detector. (You *do* have an internal bullshit detector, right?) But diving close to those bounds is not "dumb" it is simply using your equipment to the limits you are comfortable with.
Can't disagree with that at all. Finishing a dive at 10pm and flying at 6:30am the next morning is not safe.
Simply as a point of information...
Speaking as a certified diver that does dive nitrox (and I love diving happy gas!) I'll point you to DAN for guidelines for flying after diving. You mention them, but perhaps didn't get a full information exposure there.
And if you don't know DAN (Divers Alert Network) you really should look them up. They are a non-profit research organization for scuba divers, and they offer diving insurance. It's worth getting. 1 Dive Table #3 deco in a hyperbaric chamber will run you an absolutely awful amount of money (about $25,000) and is not covered by any "normal" insurance.
Anyway, DAN's current guidance for flying after diving is not terribly clear. But you are right, for a single dive, they currently suggest a minimum of 12 hours before flying. Or, as another person notes, before any change to a higher elevation (defined as "more than 3000ft elevation change" just like the definition for high-altitude diving). For repetitive diving, the current guidance is "not less than 18 hours" and the longer the better.
And that "minimum is 4 hours" you mention depends on the source. The US Navy says 2 hours, after a single no-deco dive. Though, I'll agree, that's a little crazy for my tastes.
And diving nitrox doesn't seem to have any influence on time to safe flying after diving, beyond the obvious that you might have absorbed less nitrogen. This guidance assumes you are diving close to the limits of either tables or computers, and therefore you end the dive at the same nitrogen-loading whatever gas you are breathing.
What's the quote from Robocop II? "They always have relatives." Wrongful death lawsuits are expensive. And they are civil court, where the burden of proof is much lower.
Really, just put a "Protected by $Security_Firm" sign in your front yard. The sign does more good than the actual alarm service does, anyway. The burglar will go to your next door neighbor that doesn't have the sign.
Like script kiddies, burglars are looking for soft targets. Pretend you're a hard target, and they'll go to the next soft target down the street.
Which is interesting advice from me... after all, I like living in a Castle Doctrine state.
If I'm forced to attack one or the other, I'd rather attack the large strong woman, personally...
The large strong woman has options.
The petite weak woman has no options. She *will* kick me in the balls.
No thank you.
Though, really, my preference is to attack neither.
Contracts can say some really funny things. Remember when Intel first introduced RDRAM memory, back with the PentiumIII processor? They pushed RDRAM as the best (and almost only) choice, even when benchmarks and other tests showed that DDR was the performance as well as price/performance winner in many cases.
They did this because someone at Intel signed a contract that they shouldn't have, that said Intel would push RDRAM as the memory of choice for a period of... 4 years? Sorry, don't remember the time period. This put Intel in a bad position, but they signed a contract saying they'd do that, and they were stuck with it.
I don't expect IBM would sign a contract saying they would, umm... "promote the value of UNIX" or something like that. It goes against the IBM Global Services mantra of "we support anything." But at the same time, they could easily have something in the licensing agreement for AIX that does... something weird.
As to the IBM team that was working with SCO on UNIX code, and moved to a linux project... I assume (dangerous word, assume) that was in reference to Project Monterey, and the licensing agreement there was probably checked by lawyers on both sides with a fine-toothed comb. There is likely contractual language covering who owns what code, and how it can be used and re-licensed. Which probably gets really grey for code that was jointly developed, rather than separately developed and then contributed to the project. And it is possible that the employees have a different interpretation of who owns what than the lawyers do, and improperly re-used code they shouldn't have.
NASA has been doing cool pictures from far away for a while. Two that are worth looking at:
:) This is a Voyager 1 picture taken in 1980, I think.
Solar System Family Portrait
This one is nice, but earth is really only about 4 pixels, so you can't see all that much detail.
Saturn in shadow
This is a nice shot of Saturn by the Galileo probe, taken with about half the planet in shadown. Read the write-up there, it's kind of cool.
The thing about Escher's waterfall drawing...
:)
I almost have to claim it is a fake Escher drawing. Really, look at it... there are three sets of stairs in that drawing, and they all go in reasonable logical directions and orientations.
Obviously a fake.
And, really, an incorrect edit should be familiar around here.
The quote that is getting so much attention:
IBM says the new Apple chip will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.
What it should have said:
IBM says the new chip, which rumors say Apple will use, will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.
Makes a lot more sense this way, doesn't it? Well, aside from having too many commas in one sentence...
Yeah, the ASP loophole that was noticed a few years ago. Last I heard, RMS was working on the next version of the GPL (v3) that would close this loophole.
:)
Sometime. Eventually.
GPLv3 may take even longer than Hurd.
Think about this for a minute. This is actually a good thing.
One of the main selling points with mainframes is stability. You want to have experienced reliable people maintaining, administering, and programming your mainframe. Specifically, you do *not* want a fresh-out-of-college kid who still hasn't learned about bounds checking and other safe programming practices. Okay, not such a problem with COBOL, but you still want people that have matured in the industry, not someone that thinks "large, long project" is a 1,000-LOC project that he had to work with for an entire 15-week semester.
Yes, there's a problem if your entire staff is going to be retiring in the next 5 years. You'll have some definite training troubles for system-specific issues.
But if you want to keep your mainframe stable and reliable, you need to have staff that are properly experienced. And that usually means a minimum age limit.
Of course, "experienced stable people" can easily be in their 30s, so there's more than just that going on here. But there is a strong correlation between age, experience, and reliability.
Throwing a segway? The thing weighs more than 70lbs.
I'd hate to just throw that from a stationary position. Wouldn't be able to get much distance at all...
Now, if you grabbed it by the handlebar, and twirled like a discus throw. Or, more properly, a hammer throw... you might get some nice distance there.
Hmm... anyone want to voluteer a segway to test this way?
Of course not. Only when a corporation purposely distributes code does this become an issue. They may not knowingly distribute it, but they purposely distribute. There's a lawyer term that relates here, due diligence, that basically means that a corpoartion has a duty to their stockholders to make sure they aren't doing something stupid by a purposeful action, such as releasing trade secrets under an open license. If SCO really did purposely publicly license trade secrets under an open license, even unknowingly, there may actually be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit against SCO for not being properly cautious about such a public licensing. Note that this would be a bad thing for Open Source in general, as most companies don't have the resources to properly examine, what, 5 million lines of source code for the software in a normal linux distribution. And therefore the proper "safe" response may be to not use linux, even internally.
Yes, the GPL is viral. It is meant to be viral. Stallman did that on purpose. No, it cannot infect your code without your wishes. But it can without your informed intent, if you are not properly careful of what you are doing. Again, due dilegence.
Actually, assuming SCO has a valid case in this lawsuit, I don't really see a problem with both viewpoints on this...
If IBM really did release SCO IP in kernel patches, then IBM is liable for violating a NDA, and there should be consequences for that.
However, at the point that SCO (or Caldera after they bought SCO) released that IP in their own linux distribution, liability for other users/distributors stops.
That (assumed) window between IBM releasing SCO IP, and Caldera (as SCO owner) releasing that same IP under an open license, makes for some interesting possibilities for legal rulings for other distributors.
Oh, and I like your sigline, but really... Cadbury creme eggs *are* heavenly.
Florida has the same reporting requirements, however, what you actually have to pay is slightly different from what you say is the case for Michigan. (Check your state law, Michigan may actually do things the same as Florida.)
In Florida, if you purchase a product through mailorder, you must report that purchase at tax time (yes, even though Florida has no state income tax, report it just like intangible tax). If you paid less than the Florida state sales tax rate, you must pay to Florida the difference between the tax rate you were charged and the Florida tax rate. (If you paid more, no, you don't get reimbursed, dangit.)
This is one of the least-complied tax laws in the state of Florida, probably.
I don't know if this applies to internet purchases also.
Buying cars out of state works the same way. If you buy a car out of state, and then move to Florida (or are a resident and bring the car to Florida) less than 6 or 12 months after purchase (don't remember which) you have to pay Florida the difference between Florida sales tax and the tax rate where you bought the car, if the tax rate where you bought the car is lower than the Florida tax rate. And this they *will* check when you register the vehicle.
Really... Windows 2005 will have things that have been in MacOSX since 2001, huh?
Windows 95 copied things that had been in MacOS since... 1986 or so?
The way I count things, MS is getting better, right? They went from 9 years behind to 4 years behind, in only 10 years.
Most people who write software are not doing software engineering. What they are doing is more properly described as hobby tinkering.
You get serious training, and serious liability, for real civil engineers that design and build bridges, dams, and skyscrapers.
You get very little training, other than trial and error, for Father Joe helping his kid build a tree house in the backyard.
There is a difference in standards, safety, and liability for the two actions.
Most open source software is, really, much closer to hobby tinkering than it is to real software engineering. But once you start selling open source software, just like once you start selling backyard treehouses, your standards and liability have to go up. Open source software uploaded to sourceforge is more like Father Joe talking with his neighbor across the the fence about how he built his kid's treehouse, and suggesting some things the neighbor might do. There is, and should be, very limited liability in both of these actions.
But once you start selling treehouse kits at Home Depot, Home Depot and you both have liability for the product. You should both have a rigorous process for producing safe treehouses. Now, the difference here with open source software is that your don't really have a say in your project on sourceforge getting included in some linux distribution, and you don't profit from it either. So your liability as the software author may be limited here, but the distribution packager/seller should be liable for what they include for sale.
Yes, this means that if you want your project included in a distribution, guess what, you have to develop it right, as an engineering effort and not a hobby. Otherwise, the distribution packager would be insane to touch it.
And I'm not going to say "sorry" for actually wanting a quality product for my money.
Hey, I like the "ban nuclear power" people... It's fun asking them if they'd like to turn off the sun.
:)
I'm waiting for a response of "Okay, nuclear power is fine, if it's 150 million kilometers away!"
Eventually, I'll run into a eco-freak with a sense of humor like mine. Then I'll be really worried.
And yes, the sun is *so* 20th Century.