Not sure what the proper term for referring to the articles that appear on Slashdot should be but I can say that this article is about the worst I've ever seen in terms of promoting a pet project.
Slashdot needs to go one step further with it's moderating functionality.
Slashdot needs a way that crappy articles like this one can be moderated into the bit bucket and I don't have to see it anymore!
The bids that the guy was getting for his ITunes song, Double Dutch something or nother, should make the RIAA seriously consider selling all of their music on EBAY.
Heck, I'm thinking about recording a tune or two for that sorta money.
You were to go through your issues of PS you would find an incredible amount of "wonderful engineering" that never ever shows up anywhere.
It's seems like there is at least a once a year issue of PS that specifically describes a stupendous advance in airships that's gonna haul all of the world's heavy objects.
Usually some big white triangular airship. Seen any of those lately. You get my drift....
She is 34 and we are trying to devise a good way to get her from Southern Virginia to NYC for some experimental treatment.
The best we can come up with is to black out the back seats of a high-performance aircraft (probably a twin-engine turboprop) and fly her up.
Probably about 3 hours flight time, a jet would be faster flying time but not by a whole lot. It's the getting her to the airport, etc. that's the killer timewise since that really cannot be changed much.
Of course we will have to mummify her in black cloth etc. and have her live in a blacked out tent or something in the hospital.
She had to have her gall-bladder removed about 10 years ago and they did it via a specially modified lasor that wouldn't burn out her insides. It was so cool! The entire operation was done in the dark.
The doctor was so jazzed since he could write a scholarly article etc. about the whole thing.
Have a friend who has the disease porphyria and too much light is a MAJOR problem for her.
She has become so sensitive to light that she has had to spend the last 22 months living in her mother's basement with nothing but little red LED lights to show her the way.
So all of you clods out there who "Want more light" chill out and conceed that there may be negative consequences.
My buddy went out in the middle of the night in Roanoke Virginia for just twenty minutes a few months back, with clothing draped all over her, even her face, and she still got burnt.
Don't believe me, look it up. She has Erythropoietic Protoporphyria. Very rare.
The RIAA can sue all it wants, and I'm sure it will get cooperation from a majority of the parents.
But, they are gonna bump into some guy whose kid is sharing songs and this guys got the money to defend himself and he will force the issue to a jury.
And guess what, the jury will be hard pressed to confict the parent. Why, because most of the people on the jury have had some sort of parental responsiblity at some point in time and they will understand that it's difficult to police your kids 100 percent of the time.
Plus, most will consider the offense trivial at best.
That's how our legal system works. The jury has the ultimate responsibility to decide whether a law is just or not and whether to convict.
It doesn't even matter if the prosecutor has shown guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's still the jury's decision to convict or not. And that descision can be based upon whether a law is just or not.
I'm not trying to justify swapping songs, but just pointing out that just because the RIAA sticks it to some unwitting parent doesn't mean everything is cut and dried over with....
A long long time ago a flight simulator called ACM was available. What ever happened to it? Was it renamed? Does anybody still have the source?
With it you could define aircraft characteristics and the like.
It had a server and multiple client machines could connect and play utilizing X11. It was quite fun battling my co-workers although I was always pathetic.
For 1994 standards the 3d graphics weren't too bad, especially since we were running it on 40mhz machines.
Several folks on/. have made proposals to "buy SCO" via a concerted effort via like-minded/.ers, etc.
I'd like to propose taking the idea a bit further. What I propose is:
1. Have a charitable organization set up a fund to collect money for the explicit purpose of buying SCO. Would EFF be interested?
2. Have paypal, etc. mechanisms set up to allow contributions to this fund.
3. Immediately start buying SCO shares as money rolls into the fund.
4. Immediately start letting SCO management know that their days are numbered.
5. Eventually, buy controlling number of shares.
6. Vote those shares towards a proposal to elect Linux Torvalds the Chairman of the Board. Other Open source dignitaries could be elected to the board as well. I'm sure RMS would be ticked that he wasn't Chairman. That's a whole other set of problems.
7. Take control of the company, put in the proper company president.
8. GPL whatever IP assets SCO believes it holds in the quickest manner possible.
9. Once the IP assets are distributed start selling the owned shares back to the public at large, i.e. get rid of it.
10. Take any proceeds from the sale of the shares and give them directly to EFF or whomever decided to take on the task of buying SCO in the first place.
11. Walk away satisfied knowing that you've made a whole lot of people happy.
Ok, what have I missed? Sounds like a decent, legal, fairly quick (this SCO thing could go on for many years) way to shut those guys up and return some normalcy back to things.
Nobody gets hurt (at least not badly), the money goes for a good cause, and IP rights are where they should be.
This material should be considered akin to shouting fire in a crowded theatre when there isn't a spark around for miles.
Anybody who works regularly with Java will understand the mechanics of how professionals work with provided libraries and that those same mechanisms fit perfectly with the requirements of Section 6, Part B of the LGPL.
It's pretty obvious that the writer doesn't understand Java programming or Java systems configuration.
To explain how Java works, basically if you want to utilize a third party library all you need to do is:
1. Distribute Sun's (or a suitable facimile) Java Runtime Environment to your target clients.
Note that the standard JRE comes with a../lib/ext directory just for the explicit purpose of dropping in your libraries and any third party libraries.
BTW, once in the../lib/ext directory the library is effectively shared for any Java program utilizing this particular JRE installation.
2. Put your own libraries in the../lib/ext directory.
3. Put the third party library in the../lib/ext directory.
4. Run your Java program. Note how long it takes to "load up".
My guess is that one of the things the JRE is doing is reading those libraries to "know what it has available" and storing that info in some sort of a hashtable.
5. During your program's execution create a object from the third party library.
Note, that the Java interpreter merely looks up the class in the hash via an internal call that anybody can duplicate. But why when all you are duplicating what is already built-in the Java interpreter.
If some client/end-user wants to substitute in a modified version of the third party library then there is nothing stopping them.
They can drop in a modified or a substitute library just so long as the class names and method names, etc.. stay the same.
Whether the program continues to work is a totally different matter.
But the key point is is that the entire process is all dynamic. And from one run of the program to another run nothing guarantees the calling program that the third party library is actually the one that was originally installed.
Agreed, the description I used is somewhat biased towards multiple users. But, nothing says that I couldn't have multiple personalities on the same machine, and I did.
But, I do regress and note that you said:
"Location Manager allows a single user to change multiple settings on a computer with a single selection:"
I think my example covered that base.
But, based upon your latest note, I'll give it another go.
Beyond the default environment that was provided, I had my GCC (c compiler) development environment which I envoked by issuing a single command.
This command simply copied a few files here and there and made it so that when I issued a make command I was already connected to the correct network (possibly none), the correct CDROM drive, the correct monitor etc.
Next I could issue a different command and a few files moved here and there and suddenly I had a Sun C-Compiler development environment. Different network, different CDROM, different monitor again.
I had all of this on a Sun Tadpole (an early Sun laptop workstation). If I was on location at a Navy base my environment accessed material local to the tadpole only.
If I was at the home office my environment accessed network resources.
Sounds to me like one machine, multiple environments was done by Sun certainly prior to 1995 since I had the Tadpole before then.
Quite frankly, I'm glad Apple and Microsoft are finally getting around to offering the capabilities that I've used on UNIX boxes for the last 17 years.
Nothing described in the Register article is new to me and I'm sure a lot of other folks. I've seen just about every conceivable single/multi user environment possible and what I'm reading about per Apple isn't new nor is it unique. And it certainly shouldn't be patentable.
But, I applaud their effort. Hey, it's their job to try to squeeze as many bucks out of their products as possible.
Unfortunately the guys down the street (I live about a mile from Apple's HQ) just don't have anything that isn't pretty old-hat.
And the minute they try to bully a Sun, an HP, or an IBM with their patent I think they will get it blown away pretty quickly.
It's quite easy to have one "master".login file or.profile file or.aliases file shared between multiple user accounts if you so desire on UNIX. You simply create the one file, and then create a symbolic link for all of the various users (not argueing this techniques merits, just that it can be done).
Then any change made to the one file such as the aliases file immediately changes all of the users, whether they are the same physical person or not.
At my former company we used a very similar technique to make sure that everyone in the company could log in from any of our networked unix boxes and have the same environment that everyone else had.
It was a great productivity enhancer since if I couldn't remember an alias' arguments for example maybe the guy I'm working with next to me remembers it since he works using the same base enviroment.
From your argument what my former company did/does sounds like the same thing to me. I'm confident we weren't the only ones using this sort of technique.
Worked in the aviation consulting field for about 15 years now and I can assure you that what is being described is a pipe dream.
If you ever have the opportunity to work with the radar data and beacon code data from the current system you'll see why I say that.
The data is crap! Dropouts in the data is all too common. Such as: many times when an aircraft banks the do-hickie that sends back the altitude just quits working properly. Thus, a bunch of radar hits come back as zero altitude, yeah right!
I've seen commercial aircraft report zero altitude for a hundred, or more, miles of flight.
Same sort of thing goes for the radar hits themselves. You often have drop-outs or often times you have zig-zaggies. Zig-zaggies look like lightening bolts if you plot the aircraft's course afterward.
Even the military, with some pretty impressive radar, much better than the FAA's, cannot see their aircraft all the time.
It's sorta scary, but true. There are a lot of planes out there flying which are only being seen intermitantly. But, they are being talked to by the controllers. Thus, redundency is built into the system.
Another issue which people not in the know totally miss is the fact the the air traffic controllers union is difficult to work with, to say the least.
Anything which attempts to automate them out of a job is nixed. And we are talking about some pretty legitimate stuff that normal people would see as being highly advantageous. I foresee the proposed system as being just that sort of a tool.
The air traffic controllers just don't see it that way. All they see is a gadget that will put one of their own out of a job. Thus, they will fight it tooth and nail.
Anybody who doesn't believe the air traffic controllers dictate what goes into at least the United States air traffic control system obviously hasn't been in a room with 20 irritated air traffic controllers threatening to strike.
Not to mention all of the leaky fuel cells that are gonna register with the bomb-sniffer machines now in place at airports.
Basically means that if you put a leaky one in your laptop and then take it out before (possibly even days before) you head off to the airport you may still get flagged as a terrorist and have a major problem on your hands real quick.
It really amazes me how some people will push an idea forward knowing full well how much possible chaos it will create for other "working" systems. And I say "working" lightly.
Of course I don't have any technical data behind the fuel cell gadgets so any and all of the above is just pure speculation.
I called Boring Orrin's office to complain and here was the reply I got:
"Senator Hatch's website was created via a third party who was responsible for the problem. The problem has now been corrected."
Those aren't the exact words but they effectively expressed his staffer's opinion.
But what really got me was the fact that the staffer refused to provide Senator Hatch's take on the matter and really seemed quite nonchalant about the whole affair.
I mentioned that I felt that Senator Hatch bears ultimate responsiblity for what is on his website and that I felt like he should own up to it.
Or to, at the very minimum, help pay the litigation costs of the person whose copyrighted material was stolen so that they could sue the crap out of the "third party web designer".
Once again I basically got a shrug type reaction from the staffer.
Those people don't have a clue!
If you want to make a difference, call Hatch's office, complain, then call your Senator's office and request that they punish him. If it's long distance for you then it will be a few bucks for each call but it will be money well spent.
Am in the unfortunate situation alluded to in the article referenced.
As a sole proprietor I've worked two years on a fairly sophisticated aviation simulation program that has usages in planning new airports and in airspace changes.
I would like to make my project GPLed.
Unfortunately, there are companies much more politically connected than I am that would absolutely love to take the code, go to the government official that they have in their hip pocket and sell it to them.
Sure, the stuff would have my name written all over it, but the government official would probably never ever see the code. All he would know is that some slick sales person sold him on the software and more importantly the big fat maintenance/upgrade contract that goes along with it.
That sort of thing is basically how it works in government contracting. Government guys have zero ethics and will screw you over in a heartbeat.
It's sort of like an ego trip for them. They know they have you (especially if you really want to sell them something) and they will jerk you around bigtime.
So yeah, if you're in a particularly giving mood then GPL is just fine. Just plan on not being able to put gas in your car for the rest of your life if you're gonna deal with government people.
Because there is always somebody who is going to make they government person more happy they you will, even though you might be the "expert".
Having said that, I have made my software's code available with fairly lax licensing terms.
The terms basically state that if you license the code and then try to sell anything based upon it then you owe me a piece of the pie.
If you want to use it for in-house purposes then you are free to use it.
If you don't like the terms then you can develop the code yourself.
Broadband is supplied via microwave from about 20 miles away and it works pretty good. I have a pizza box sized antenna on my roof and a cable extending to a cable modem like box. From there it is purely regular TCP/IP.
On the other end my understanding is that they have an array of transmitters on one big pole at the top of a mountain. Each transmitter broadcasts to a certain swath of the coverage area.
Now substitute the mountain with a balloon and you have essentially the same system.
But, as has been mentioned before, what about the weather and aviation issues (I could just see these balloons becoming prime targets for lunatic suicidal pilots).
If the signal could be transmitted from already existing cell phone towers without line-of-sight issues it seems that that would be a far preferable way to approach the problem.
My broadband setup proves that laying cable is just lame.
Has anybody ever looked at the manual for a police scanner? Did you notice how much spectrum is provided to railways, forestry service, etc. etc.? And did you try to listen in on a railway conversation? I programmed my scanner to pick up the railroads and I heard nothing from them for about a month. I want some of that spectrum!
I implied in a post a few days ago Mozilla seems to be run by a bunch of folks who only seem to be able to see about an inch ahead of themselves.
Arbitrarily changing the Mozilla browser's name to a pre-existing software project shows lack of foresight, lack of courtesy, and a serious level of denseness.
Come on Mozilla.org, wake up, look around, play nice. Stop changing the browser features (how many aesthetic revisions can one have or need?) and don't steal someone else's name, whether it is a commercial or non-commercial entity.
I have a friend who I like to refer to as a Vampire, actually technically only half of a vampire.
She has porphyria which is a disease which makes it so that when light (mainly blue and green spectrum) strikes any part of her body it kills off red blood cells in that area. She says it feels like a sunburn of sorts.
What it basically boils down to is that she has been stuck in the dark in her basement for almost a year now. The condition just keeps getting worse for her.
The condition is so bad now that she can only sit in front of her laptop for like 20 minutes or so before she starts feeling effects. And this is with two sheets of tinting on the screen and with the background of all the windows, etc. set to black and the text set to red.
Over the past few weeks I've been trying to do some research for her to help her find solutions.
This device might have possibility some for her. Of course she can see just fine, but if her condition gets much worse she's gonna have to start living life in a manner akin to how a blind person lives life. In some respects, of course, some not.
Has anybody out there seen one? Does it work? What does it do with something like a PDF? Does it require some sort of screen scraper software?
Any experiences would be appreciated. I cannot believe this post appeared today, I was just thinking last night about possibly submitting an "Ask Slashdot".
Slashdot Mirror
I'm,
Not sure what the proper term for referring to the articles that appear on Slashdot should be but I can say that this article is about the worst I've ever seen in terms of promoting a pet project.
Slashdot needs to go one step further with it's moderating functionality.
Slashdot needs a way that crappy articles like this one can be moderated into the bit bucket and I don't have to see it anymore!
For,
The bids that the guy was getting for his ITunes song, Double Dutch something or nother, should make the RIAA seriously consider selling all of their music on EBAY.
Heck, I'm thinking about recording a tune or two for that sorta money.
If,
You were to go through your issues of PS you would find an incredible amount of "wonderful engineering" that never ever shows up anywhere.
It's seems like there is at least a once a year issue of PS that specifically describes a stupendous advance in airships that's gonna haul all of the world's heavy objects.
Usually some big white triangular airship. Seen any of those lately. You get my drift....
Hey,
If it's so important to you that you don't get it stolen and you're gonna loose sleep over it I'd suggest just getting rid of your identity.
It's probably pretty lame anyway. I know mine is....
Could anybody confirm the posting on the Filthy Critics Website?
She is 34 and we are trying to devise a good way to get her from Southern Virginia to NYC for some experimental treatment.
The best we can come up with is to black out the back seats of a high-performance aircraft (probably a twin-engine turboprop) and fly her up.
Probably about 3 hours flight time, a jet would be faster flying time but not by a whole lot. It's the getting her to the airport, etc. that's the killer timewise since that really cannot be changed much.
Of course we will have to mummify her in black cloth etc. and have her live in a blacked out tent or something in the hospital.
She had to have her gall-bladder removed about 10 years ago and they did it via a specially modified lasor that wouldn't burn out her insides. It was so cool! The entire operation was done in the dark.
The doctor was so jazzed since he could write a scholarly article etc. about the whole thing.
I,
Have a friend who has the disease porphyria and too much light is a MAJOR problem for her.
She has become so sensitive to light that she has had to spend the last 22 months living in her mother's basement with nothing but little red LED lights to show her the way.
So all of you clods out there who "Want more light" chill out and conceed that there may be negative consequences.
My buddy went out in the middle of the night in Roanoke Virginia for just twenty minutes a few months back, with clothing draped all over her, even her face, and she still got burnt.
Don't believe me, look it up. She has Erythropoietic Protoporphyria. Very rare.
The RIAA can sue all it wants, and I'm sure it will get cooperation from a majority of the parents.
But, they are gonna bump into some guy whose kid is sharing songs and this guys got the money to defend himself and he will force the issue to a jury.
And guess what, the jury will be hard pressed to confict the parent. Why, because most of the people on the jury have had some sort of parental responsiblity at some point in time and they will understand that it's difficult to police your kids 100 percent of the time.
Plus, most will consider the offense trivial at best.
That's how our legal system works. The jury has the ultimate responsibility to decide whether a law is just or not and whether to convict.
It doesn't even matter if the prosecutor has shown guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's still the jury's decision to convict or not. And that descision can be based upon whether a law is just or not.
I'm not trying to justify swapping songs, but just pointing out that just because the RIAA sticks it to some unwitting parent doesn't mean everything is cut and dried over with....
Hey,
Thanks!
Actually I did the Google thing but whatever I was putting in was returning a bunch of off-topic stuff.
And given I knew I was gonna post anyway, I figured somebody out there already knew.
Yes, I'm lazy, my apologies.
Thanks again though. I'll need to check it out more thoroughly....
A long long time ago a flight simulator called ACM was available. What ever happened to it? Was it renamed? Does anybody still have the source?
With it you could define aircraft characteristics and the like.
It had a server and multiple client machines could connect and play utilizing X11. It was quite fun battling my co-workers although I was always pathetic.
For 1994 standards the 3d graphics weren't too bad, especially since we were running it on 40mhz machines.
Crap,
I forgot to spell check Linus' name. My apologies....
Ok,
/. have made proposals to "buy SCO" via a concerted effort via like-minded /.ers, etc.
Several folks on
I'd like to propose taking the idea a bit further. What I propose is:
1. Have a charitable organization set up a fund to collect money for the explicit purpose of buying SCO. Would EFF be interested?
2. Have paypal, etc. mechanisms set up to allow contributions to this fund.
3. Immediately start buying SCO shares as money rolls into the fund.
4. Immediately start letting SCO management know that their days are numbered.
5. Eventually, buy controlling number of shares.
6. Vote those shares towards a proposal to elect Linux Torvalds the Chairman of the Board. Other Open source dignitaries could be elected to the board as well. I'm sure RMS would be ticked that he wasn't Chairman. That's a whole other set of problems.
7. Take control of the company, put in the proper company president.
8. GPL whatever IP assets SCO believes it holds in the quickest manner possible.
9. Once the IP assets are distributed start selling the owned shares back to the public at large, i.e. get rid of it.
10. Take any proceeds from the sale of the shares and give them directly to EFF or whomever decided to take on the task of buying SCO in the first place.
11. Walk away satisfied knowing that you've made a whole lot of people happy.
Ok, what have I missed? Sounds like a decent, legal, fairly quick (this SCO thing could go on for many years) way to shut those guys up and return some normalcy back to things.
Nobody gets hurt (at least not badly), the money goes for a good cause, and IP rights are where they should be.
Thoughts?
This material should be considered akin to shouting fire in a crowded theatre when there isn't a spark around for miles.
../lib/ext directory just for the explicit purpose of dropping in your libraries and any third party libraries.
../lib/ext directory the library is effectively shared for any Java program utilizing this particular JRE installation.
../lib/ext directory.
../lib/ext directory.
Anybody who works regularly with Java will understand the mechanics of how professionals work with provided libraries and that those same mechanisms fit perfectly with the requirements of Section 6, Part B of the LGPL.
It's pretty obvious that the writer doesn't understand Java programming or Java systems configuration.
To explain how Java works, basically if you want to utilize a third party library all you need to do is:
1. Distribute Sun's (or a suitable facimile) Java Runtime Environment to your target clients.
Note that the standard JRE comes with a
BTW, once in the
2. Put your own libraries in the
3. Put the third party library in the
4. Run your Java program. Note how long it takes to "load up".
My guess is that one of the things the JRE is doing is reading those libraries to "know what it has available" and storing that info in some sort of a hashtable.
5. During your program's execution create a object from the third party library.
Note, that the Java interpreter merely looks up the class in the hash via an internal call that anybody can duplicate. But why when all you are duplicating what is already built-in the Java interpreter.
If some client/end-user wants to substitute in a modified version of the third party library then there is nothing stopping them.
They can drop in a modified or a substitute library just so long as the class names and method names, etc.. stay the same.
Whether the program continues to work is a totally different matter.
But the key point is is that the entire process is all dynamic. And from one run of the program to another run nothing guarantees the calling program that the third party library is actually the one that was originally installed.
Well,
Agreed, the description I used is somewhat biased towards multiple users. But, nothing says that I couldn't have multiple personalities on the same machine, and I did.
But, I do regress and note that you said:
"Location Manager allows a single user to change multiple settings on a computer with a single selection:"
I think my example covered that base.
But, based upon your latest note, I'll give it another go.
Beyond the default environment that was provided, I had my GCC (c compiler) development environment which I envoked by issuing a single command.
This command simply copied a few files here and there and made it so that when I issued a make command I was already connected to the correct network (possibly none), the correct CDROM drive, the correct monitor etc.
Next I could issue a different command and a few files moved here and there and suddenly I had a Sun C-Compiler development environment. Different network, different CDROM, different monitor again.
I had all of this on a Sun Tadpole (an early Sun laptop workstation). If I was on location at a Navy base my environment accessed material local to the tadpole only.
If I was at the home office my environment accessed network resources.
Sounds to me like one machine, multiple environments was done by Sun certainly prior to 1995 since I had the Tadpole before then.
Quite frankly, I'm glad Apple and Microsoft are finally getting around to offering the capabilities that I've used on UNIX boxes for the last 17 years.
Nothing described in the Register article is new to me and I'm sure a lot of other folks. I've seen just about every conceivable single/multi user environment possible and what I'm reading about per Apple isn't new nor is it unique. And it certainly shouldn't be patentable.
But, I applaud their effort. Hey, it's their job to try to squeeze as many bucks out of their products as possible.
Unfortunately the guys down the street (I live about a mile from Apple's HQ) just don't have anything that isn't pretty old-hat.
And the minute they try to bully a Sun, an HP, or an IBM with their patent I think they will get it blown away pretty quickly.
I,
.login file or .profile file or .aliases file shared between multiple user accounts if you so desire on UNIX. You simply create the one file, and then create a symbolic link for all of the various users (not argueing this techniques merits, just that it can be done).
Understand your point. But, how about this.
It's quite easy to have one "master"
Then any change made to the one file such as the aliases file immediately changes all of the users, whether they are the same physical person or not.
At my former company we used a very similar technique to make sure that everyone in the company could log in from any of our networked unix boxes and have the same environment that everyone else had.
It was a great productivity enhancer since if I couldn't remember an alias' arguments for example maybe the guy I'm working with next to me remembers it since he works using the same base enviroment.
From your argument what my former company did/does sounds like the same thing to me. I'm confident we weren't the only ones using this sort of technique.
I've,
Worked in the aviation consulting field for about 15 years now and I can assure you that what is being described is a pipe dream.
If you ever have the opportunity to work with the radar data and beacon code data from the current system you'll see why I say that.
The data is crap! Dropouts in the data is all too common. Such as: many times when an aircraft banks the do-hickie that sends back the altitude just quits working properly. Thus, a bunch of radar hits come back as zero altitude, yeah right!
I've seen commercial aircraft report zero altitude for a hundred, or more, miles of flight.
Same sort of thing goes for the radar hits themselves. You often have drop-outs or often times you have zig-zaggies. Zig-zaggies look like lightening bolts if you plot the aircraft's course afterward.
Even the military, with some pretty impressive radar, much better than the FAA's, cannot see their aircraft all the time.
It's sorta scary, but true. There are a lot of planes out there flying which are only being seen intermitantly. But, they are being talked to by the controllers. Thus, redundency is built into the system.
Another issue which people not in the know totally miss is the fact the the air traffic controllers union is difficult to work with, to say the least.
Anything which attempts to automate them out of a job is nixed. And we are talking about some pretty legitimate stuff that normal people would see as being highly advantageous. I foresee the proposed system as being just that sort of a tool.
The air traffic controllers just don't see it that way. All they see is a gadget that will put one of their own out of a job. Thus, they will fight it tooth and nail.
Anybody who doesn't believe the air traffic controllers dictate what goes into at least the United States air traffic control system obviously hasn't been in a room with 20 irritated air traffic controllers threatening to strike.
Not to mention all of the leaky fuel cells that are gonna register with the bomb-sniffer machines now in place at airports.
Basically means that if you put a leaky one in your laptop and then take it out before (possibly even days before) you head off to the airport you may still get flagged as a terrorist and have a major problem on your hands real quick.
It really amazes me how some people will push an idea forward knowing full well how much possible chaos it will create for other "working" systems. And I say "working" lightly.
Of course I don't have any technical data behind the fuel cell gadgets so any and all of the above is just pure speculation.
Ok,
To really tick them off, we need irritated Californian number 2 to buy the same SSNs and post the next three digits.
Then we need irritated Californian number 3 to buy the same SSNs and post the last two digits.
That way all the digits get posted but not a single person has posted the full set.
Posting the full set on the internet apparently is a crime in California.
Better yet, have persons two and three be out-of-staters, anybody in Maryland up for it?
I called Boring Orrin's office to complain and here was the reply I got:
"Senator Hatch's website was created via a third party who was responsible for the problem. The problem has now been corrected."
Those aren't the exact words but they effectively expressed his staffer's opinion.
But what really got me was the fact that the staffer refused to provide Senator Hatch's take on the matter and really seemed quite nonchalant about the whole affair.
I mentioned that I felt that Senator Hatch bears ultimate responsiblity for what is on his website and that I felt like he should own up to it.
Or to, at the very minimum, help pay the litigation costs of the person whose copyrighted material was stolen so that they could sue the crap out of the "third party web designer".
Once again I basically got a shrug type reaction from the staffer.
Those people don't have a clue!
If you want to make a difference, call Hatch's office, complain, then call your Senator's office and request that they punish him. If it's long distance for you then it will be a few bucks for each call but it will be money well spent.
I,
Am in the unfortunate situation alluded to in the article referenced.
As a sole proprietor I've worked two years on a fairly sophisticated aviation simulation program that has usages in planning new airports and in airspace changes.
I would like to make my project GPLed.
Unfortunately, there are companies much more politically connected than I am that would absolutely love to take the code, go to the government official that they have in their hip pocket and sell it to them.
Sure, the stuff would have my name written all over it, but the government official would probably never ever see the code. All he would know is that some slick sales person sold him on the software and more importantly the big fat maintenance/upgrade contract that goes along with it.
That sort of thing is basically how it works in government contracting. Government guys have zero ethics and will screw you over in a heartbeat.
It's sort of like an ego trip for them. They know they have you (especially if you really want to sell them something) and they will jerk you around bigtime.
So yeah, if you're in a particularly giving mood then GPL is just fine. Just plan on not being able to put gas in your car for the rest of your life if you're gonna deal with government people.
Because there is always somebody who is going to make they government person more happy they you will, even though you might be the "expert".
Having said that, I have made my software's code available with fairly lax licensing terms.
The terms basically state that if you license the code and then try to sell anything based upon it then you owe me a piece of the pie.
If you want to use it for in-house purposes then you are free to use it.
If you don't like the terms then you can develop the code yourself.
What,
Would be a lot better is a social contract/license sort of like the GPL for copyright (um, er, copyleft?).
Publish the work under SPL (Social Public License) and it becomes fair game after # years.
My,
Broadband is supplied via microwave from about 20 miles away and it works pretty good. I have a pizza box sized antenna on my roof and a cable extending to a cable modem like box. From there it is purely regular TCP/IP.
On the other end my understanding is that they have an array of transmitters on one big pole at the top of a mountain. Each transmitter broadcasts to a certain swath of the coverage area.
Now substitute the mountain with a balloon and you have essentially the same system.
But, as has been mentioned before, what about the weather and aviation issues (I could just see these balloons becoming prime targets for lunatic suicidal pilots).
If the signal could be transmitted from already existing cell phone towers without line-of-sight issues it seems that that would be a far preferable way to approach the problem.
My broadband setup proves that laying cable is just lame.
Has anybody ever looked at the manual for a police scanner? Did you notice how much spectrum is provided to railways, forestry service, etc. etc.? And did you try to listen in on a railway conversation? I programmed my scanner to pick up the railroads and I heard nothing from them for about a month. I want some of that spectrum!
As,
I implied in a post a few days ago Mozilla seems to be run by a bunch of folks who only seem to be able to see about an inch ahead of themselves.
Arbitrarily changing the Mozilla browser's name to a pre-existing software project shows lack of foresight, lack of courtesy, and a serious level of denseness.
Come on Mozilla.org, wake up, look around, play nice. Stop changing the browser features (how many aesthetic revisions can one have or need?) and don't steal someone else's name, whether it is a commercial or non-commercial entity.
Basically,
Having SAGs being the only ones who can sue means that nothing will happen. Your elected representatives are crafting a feel good bill.
Hi,
I have a friend who I like to refer to as a Vampire, actually technically only half of a vampire.
She has porphyria which is a disease which makes it so that when light (mainly blue and green spectrum) strikes any part of her body it kills off red blood cells in that area. She says it feels like a sunburn of sorts.
What it basically boils down to is that she has been stuck in the dark in her basement for almost a year now. The condition just keeps getting worse for her.
The condition is so bad now that she can only sit in front of her laptop for like 20 minutes or so before she starts feeling effects. And this is with two sheets of tinting on the screen and with the background of all the windows, etc. set to black and the text set to red.
Over the past few weeks I've been trying to do some research for her to help her find solutions.
This device might have possibility some for her. Of course she can see just fine, but if her condition gets much worse she's gonna have to start living life in a manner akin to how a blind person lives life. In some respects, of course, some not.
Has anybody out there seen one? Does it work? What does it do with something like a PDF? Does it require some sort of screen scraper software?
Any experiences would be appreciated. I cannot believe this post appeared today, I was just thinking last night about possibly submitting an "Ask Slashdot".
Thanks,
OYAHHH