Backups don't help if you don't know when you were cracked, and they don't help replace files which only exist after the crack if you can't verify that they weren't cracked. A comprehensive backup is not a magical wand that you can just wave to get back everything that could've been damaged by a crack or other catastrophic event. Backups are there to minimize losses. The FSF is doing what is right in this situation; they're not blindly trusting their backups. It's sad to see the ignorance in this thread where people assume that because they're asking for help that they don't even have any backups.
The FSF's admin is just savvy enough to realize what the limits of backups are. They are hoping that other people who may have downloaded these packages before the crack will have what the valid MD5s for them are. On the other hand, this isn't going to be a reliable answer for them either. People who have cracked binaries will report back the cracked sum. They have to look for files for which they get contradictory responses on. This isn't foolproof either thanks to malicious trolls who post false info and potentially cracked files for which no one responds with the correct MD5 to. I wish them good luck, but they are going to be carrying suspect data for a long time.
Read the link off of the Alpha site for more information on what they're doing and why. (Yes, Virginia, they did have backups.)
Just how long has the server been cracked? Backup media and its proper storage can be expensive, and it's perfectly likely that they don't have backups that are older than the crack. Even if they did, they can't necessarily be sure that they know for a fact when the the crack happened.
Note that they are asking for valid MD5 sums. You do know what MD5s are used for, right? They're used to verify that you haven't downloaded a compromised copy of the application. So, it's very likely that they have archives of the applications. The problem is that they don't know if their applications are compromised, and they can't use their backed-up MD5s because they could be compromised too! That's why their requesting valid MD5s -- so that they can verify that their archives are good. They also can't just recompile everything because they don't know if the source code has been compromised too, and reading it all or even doing diffs against other official archives is unfeasable due to the man-hours it would involve.
They also can't just grab files and MD5s from their mirrors because their mirrors could have compromised files too. Without MD5s for quick verification, they're screwed.
This letter specifically gave back to IBM the rights of any code they created to enhance or extend the AIX/SYS5R4 OS.
Yes, it did. However, if they don't have such an agreement over Dynix/ptx, then IBM may very well be screwed. If what SCO says is true (even though what they said about their right to terminate AIX wasn't), then IBM may be in a world of hurt. If Dynix/ptx code must be treated as a derivative of System V, then there may be actual trouble here. Remember, AIX and Dynix/ptx are completely separate products with completely separate licensing schemes. SCO may have actually found a legal leg to stand on. Unless IBM can produce similar documentation about Sequent's code, it may belong to SCO.
(By the way, how does SCO have Dynix/ptx source code to compare against the Linux kernel?)
Unless you want your motherboard to have 5000 different slots for every single PCI card made, and then have a bootup program run through each one, detecting which are empty and which are used, and then installing the software for the used ones (a process which would take up yards of physical space and loads of processing time), you're going to have to deal with installing drivers and kernel modules.
Auto-recognition of new hardware is not an impossible task at all. There are two major ways to go about it. First, you can install a comprehensive list of common drivers when you install the OS and then load the correct one on boot after querying the card over a standard protocol for an ID that tells what kind of card it is. This is the standard method used by both Windows and MacOS 9/X. If a peripheral does not have a driver, in most cases it will adhere to or emulate a lowest common denomenator protocol (VGA, ATAPI, SB32, NE2000, etc.) that will give you enough basic functionality to use the device until an optimal driver can be found. This is the method is common, cheap, and easily done under Linux, though Linux does not bother to do things this way. Autodetection is not an impossible task as shown by Windows.
The second alternative, which would make more sense in a more platform diverse world would be for peripherals to describe their interface in a platform-neutral language such as Java or Forth and then have the host system automatically compile itself a temporary (or permanent) native driver. Optimized drivers could be installed later. This would require a massive standards effort, but is not technically unfeasable. Unfortunately, there is not enough of an economic demand for this sort of cross-platform functionality. I may be wrong, and there may actually be hardware that does this, but I'm unaware of it at the consumer level.
This setup isn't for anyone who's serious about watching TV at a range beyond 5 feet or less. LCD monitors within a $1000 dollar (minus other listed equipment) price range are just far too tiny for use as your main television. That price range will only net you a 17" LCD, but can instead put you in the range for a 30"-36" direct CRT HDTV or can put you in the range for a refurbished or discount 43" rear projection CRT HDTV.
The setup you propose is a hugely wasteful one for what you get. I'd only advise it if you're living in a college dorm or a really tiny apartment. The poster of the article was thinking about projectors (though with a $1000 price cap, he wasn't thinking very far). I'd say that it's safe to say that he has the room for a far better system.
(The comment about being aware of where you buy from is a good one, though it's really just impossible to buy name-brand electronics that do not contain large amounts of components that are made in China & Taiwan even if the main assembly isn't done there.)
Woah, woah, woah. TCP/IP is NOT a derivative of X.25. They are almost completely different protocols that serve very different purposes. For one thing, in the classic OSI model, X.25 covers the physical, the datalink, and the network layers whereas TCP is the transport layer and IP is just the network layer. You run TCP/IP over X.25 or AX.25 much in the same way run it over Ethernet, ATM, FDDI, etc.
I've read large parts of the CCITT X.25 standard. While it is packet-switched, it's VERY different from IP.
Welcome to the Principal-Agent Problem. This problem is the conflict of interest between the owner of a an organization, the Principal, and the executor of the organization's goals, the Agent. In business, the Principals are the stockholders, and the Agents are management. In democracy, the Principals are the voters and the Agents are management. The Principal-Agent problem occurs because of each group trying act in its own rational self-interest, which often results in differing goals.
Maximizing the shareholders' value is the the nominal goal of any publicly traded company. For the larger body of shareholders, this means producing reliably increasing returns as this provides them with safely growing assets. Ignoring the dot-com IPO craze, most shareholders are into a company for a long time, hoping that it will provide them with sensible return at at least the market average for the life of their time invested. This is the "will of the voters" for a company.
The problem comes in companies like Enron or SCO when the management has investments in the company, is thoroughly unethical (*cough* rationally-self-interested *cough*), and has made a series of mistakes that they and their stock holdings will eventually be held accountable for. Their goal becomes to deceive the market and the other stockholders to try to maximize the price of the stock in the short term and give themselves a window of opportunity to cash out before that shareholders' value come crash down on them. The executives of Enron, the Principals, damn well were charged with keeping their company running by the shareholders, the Agents, who invested their money in the company in hopes of it staying afloat. This little thing of keeping the company alive that you brush off as just "job security" was their job. Instead of properly owning up to what was wrong with their company, they participated in a "pump and dump" scam that made them filthy rich right before dropping the bomb that ruined the asset value of millions of shareholders, including other employees in the company and many retirement funds around the nation. Shareholders lost big. If they had known over the long term what kind of problems Enron had had for years, they could've shored up for the loss or pulled out safely. Instead, their shareholder value was destroyed through deceptive business practices that made Enron falsely seem far more valuable than it actually was.
SCO is essentially doing the same thing. Their business model has been an utter failure. Even as Caldera, they were outcompeted by better and cheaper Linux distros, so Caldera management bought SCO and decided to bet the company on a outside shot. I seriously disbelieve thanks to their own public comments that SCO's management think that they can win. They're bluffing, and the stock trading actions of SCO's executives seems to indicate that they're participating in a very loud and aggressive "pump and dump" scam. They're cashing out while the stock value is currently about 15 times what it was last year. Here's the best part. It doesn't matter if they cash out if they win. Considering that the company has very low overhead beyond its legal department, I'm sure that if they do win, SCO management will grant themselves quite a huge salary bonus from that windfall (with stock options to boot) with the blessing of all the new stockholders which have started flooding in since the change in company strategy. It's a win-win situation for management!
However, it's an extremely risky gamble for shareholders -- one which the entire company's future is leveraged on. If they lose the IBM case, or if they win against IBM but lose the battle to actually enforce fees on the Linux community, their business model is utterly empty of any future revenue sources on the level that the current stock price reflects. You see, SCOX has a dangerously high price to earnings ratio right now. Any stock analyst will tell you that companies with a high P/E are risky. Usually, a
It makes downloading m... surfing the web much, much faster. Seriously, though, it's not the 8Mb/s download rate that's important to me so much as the 640Kb/s upload rate. If you're doing P2... I mean, running a personal FTP server (with no copyright violating content, no sirree!), you NEED that upload rate.
So although aluminum is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust...
Bzzzt! Oxygen is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust, followed by silicon, then followed by aluminum. Aluminum is the most abundant metal, but is dwarfed in abundance by the various silicate rocks. However, everything else you said was correct.
They are ultra-pricey but well-shielded cables that nearly any electronics seller is going to try to get you to buy because it'll cost you a mint, and they'll make a nice commission. Some audiophiles / videophiles absolutely love them and insist that they are God's Given Weapon to fight against the Unholy Specter of Interference, while others think they're a complete rip-off. Testimonials like the above post are common for fans of Monster products.
Actually, that's somewhat up for debate. There are two major viewpoints on what constitutes a Western country. The standard definition would be a nation whose population and culture primarily descends from Western European stock. Another common definition essentially includes any modern industrialized nation that stands at the forefront of economic and cultural power in the world, like the modern G8 states (which include Japan) or the former modern imperial powers of the turn of the century (like Japan). In other words, a member of the First World instead of the Second World or the Third World.
Some scholars have considered Japan a Western nation ever since their defeat of Russia, a European power, in the Russo-Japanese War. They had used Western tactics and weapons, and they had created the beginnings of a colonial empire. It demonstrated that being a Western power was not a matter of culture or race but one of social and technological progress. Even in the wake of the defeat of WW2, Japan has sought further modernization and has embraced Western culture and mores increasily from decade to decade. While still uniquely its own culture, Japan is the most Westernized Asian country.
However, this isn't really relevant to the point. The poster's intent was to say that Japanese, American, and other modern industrialized nations goods are probably (1) higher quality and (2) not made with sweatshop labor. This is an import thing to consider. While the quality of goods from China and other rising industrial powers of Asia is growing, the treatment of workers is not improving at the same rate. This is hurting the economies of the West (and Japan) by offering substantially cheaper goods at almost the same quality. This hurts local workers because the very protections which keep them from being abused are leading to the transfer of the money that would keep them employed to other nations. By being conscious of where goods are made and purchasing accordingly, you are supporting fair and just labor laws. By buying cheaper goods made by third-world labor, you are hurting your own economy and the crusade for better rights for those workers by fattening the pockets of those who exploit them and work the political machine to keep denying them rights. You do, in fact, indirectly support the value system of the country of origin by rewarding them financially.
The plural of "code" is "codes." However, the plural form of "code" is never used when referring to "source code." Much like the word "water" when used to refer to a drink, pluralizing it is awkward sounding and incorrect.
We don't say... "I'm sure that the code produced are of real high quality." "I'm sure that the codes produced are of real high quality." Anymore than we say... "I'm sure that the waters were very refreshing."
We DO say... "I'm sure that the code produced is of real high quality." "I'm sure that the water was very refreshing."
Who modded this troll Insightful? Why on Earth would you want to include a command-line script for a GUI operating system that 99.44% of users won't use? While I guess it wouldn't hurt anything to include one, the idea that providing a user-friendly interface that follows the convetions of the target OS is insulting the user's intelligence is just sad.
Speaking of bizarre linguistic imports into pre-colonial America, I've recently come across the works of a man named James Adair who ardently believed that the Cherokees and other tribes of Northwest Georgia were a lost tribe of Israel. He makes arguements based on their monotheism to Yo He Wah (similar to YHWH), their religious rites, their creation and flood stories, and the many linguistic and idomatic similarities between local Indian languages and Hebrew that he apparently saw as a scholar. James Adair settled down with the Cherokee and married into their tribe. His other works were very instrumental to colonists attempting to understand the ways and culture of the Indian nations of the Southeast.
Well.... While I agree with the sentiment behind that statement, it would never fly as an arguement in a court or before a legislature trying to pass a law to that effect. Can you imagine what would happen if a law was passed like that when disposable DVDs hit the market? (Personally, a law that discourages disposable DVDs is a good one, but I'm getting off-topic here.)
[C]onsidering that HP invented the inkjet, would Lexmark have any credible claim to patenting an inkjet cart?
I'm not sure that HP invented the inkjet, but it's not really relevant to the answer to your question. Yes, if you assume that HP had a patent on the inkjet and the inkjet cartridge, Lexmark could patent the interface that their "chipped" cartridges use to communicate their ink levels to the printer (unless HP got there first too). Then, while any inkjet printer and cartridge maker would have to pay royalties to HP, if they made cartridges that somehow communicated over a Lexmark-style interface, they'd have to negotiate for royalties with Lexmark, who could just decide to deny them permission to use their patent. Even HP, the holders of the inkjet patents would have to license from Lexmark the patent on chipped cartridges if they wanted to go that route. More than likely, as is the case with big business patents, they would be forced to cross-license each others patents to both stay in business. (Read up on the classic Sun vs. IBM stories for more info on how patents are essentially an anti-competitive tool for big businesses to wield against smaller upstarts).
While it's highly unlikely that a patent for an inkjet cartridge was granted in light of the current marketplace for 3rd party cartridges, it's easily believable that the recent use of chips in cartridges is patented by someone. It's a relatively novel if evil idea. It's likely that all the major manufacturers cross-license this patent by leveraging patents of their own against the patent holder. You just don't see 3rd party carts with chips in them currently, and I believe that may be part of the reason why.
Anyway, yes. Company B can patent an improvement to Company A's patented product.
Ah, but the name's catchy. "Dragonfly BSD" just sounds so cool. However, the real legacy of this fork will come when the highly demanding porn industry gets a hold of its advanced SMP features and adds a few tweaks of its own to get "Spanish Fly BSD."
Actually, he also missed the VirtualBoy, WonderSwan (and WS Color), Lynx, Intellevision, Vectrex, Mega CD, Nomad, and of course the NeoGeo, NeoGeo Pocket, and later NeoGeoCD games (earlier games, like those of the 3D0, work just fine from CD-R).
(Besides, the TurboGraphix 16 versions of the Ys series of adventure RPGs was flat out the best.)
Okay, I'll agree that GURPS is not anywhere close to being as simple as the d20 system, but claiming that d20 is "as simple as it can be" is a little too much. I can list off the top of my head 8 systems which are easier to play than d20, without even mentioning any diceless systems.
1. "Feng Shui" by Atlas Games 2. "Star Wars" by West End Games 3. "Sorcerer" by Adept Press 4. "Cartoon Action Hour" by Z-man Games 6. "Over the Edge" by Atlas Games 5. "Savage Worlds" by Pinnacle Entertainment 7. "Teenagers from Outer Space" by R.Talsorian Games 8. "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" and other Tri-Stat games by Guardians of Order
Now these aren't all necessarily better games than d20 games since better is a subjective term, but these all have much simpler mechanics for combat and task resolution. They may or may not fit your style of play. However, of the above listed games, I recommend solidly buying "Sorcerer" and its two supplements "Sword and Sorcery" and "Sorcerer and Soul" just to read. They solidly peg the literary genres of Faustian Horror, Barbarian Fantasy, and Noir Mystery, respectively.
Don't worry. You'll be(TM) just fine(TM) so long as you re(TM)me(TM)mbe(TM)r to de(TM)note(TM) the(TM) fact that it's trade(TM)marke(TM)d. Se(TM)e(TM)? Isn't that e(TM)asy? The(TM)re(TM)'s no ne(TM)e(TM)d to re(TM)nde(TM)r me(TM)ssage(TM)s ille(TM)gible(TM) by de(TM)le(TM)ting le(TM)tte(TM)rs.
This is a good thing for Orbital Sciences. On September 21st, 2001, Orbital Sciences lost a major satellite called Orbview-4 during the launch. I remember this because the project I was working on at the time was under a huge amount of pressure to try and release as soon as possible after Orbview-4 went up. One of the sensors on Orbview-4, Warfighter-1, was a hyperspectral sensor that was going to give the US military a lot of new, valuable data, and we were at risk of losing out a bid against a competitor to provide them with the software to work with this data. Fortunately (for us) when the satellite failed to achieve orbit, we got a several month reprieve to hammer out bugs in the software. On the down side, there was no huge customer base biting at the bit for the software by the time it came out.
Orbital Imaging, the subsidy of Orbital Sciences that launched the probe, was pretty cash-strapped at the time. If I recall correctly, they had to file Chapter 11 after the loss. Fortunately, they insured Orbview-4, so they didn't take a total loss on it. NASA also lost the QuickTOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) satellite in the same launch. At the time, they expected the much delayed Orbview-3 to launch sometime last year. Anyway, it's a good thing to see them get this one up in the sky finally. Hopefully, it'll bring them enough revenue to offset their losses from the past few years.
Slashdot Mirror
Backups don't help if you don't know when you were cracked, and they don't help replace files which only exist after the crack if you can't verify that they weren't cracked. A comprehensive backup is not a magical wand that you can just wave to get back everything that could've been damaged by a crack or other catastrophic event. Backups are there to minimize losses. The FSF is doing what is right in this situation; they're not blindly trusting their backups. It's sad to see the ignorance in this thread where people assume that because they're asking for help that they don't even have any backups.
The FSF's admin is just savvy enough to realize what the limits of backups are. They are hoping that other people who may have downloaded these packages before the crack will have what the valid MD5s for them are. On the other hand, this isn't going to be a reliable answer for them either. People who have cracked binaries will report back the cracked sum. They have to look for files for which they get contradictory responses on. This isn't foolproof either thanks to malicious trolls who post false info and potentially cracked files for which no one responds with the correct MD5 to. I wish them good luck, but they are going to be carrying suspect data for a long time.
Read the link off of the Alpha site for more information on what they're doing and why. (Yes, Virginia, they did have backups.)
Just how long has the server been cracked? Backup media and its proper storage can be expensive, and it's perfectly likely that they don't have backups that are older than the crack. Even if they did, they can't necessarily be sure that they know for a fact when the the crack happened.
Note that they are asking for valid MD5 sums. You do know what MD5s are used for, right? They're used to verify that you haven't downloaded a compromised copy of the application. So, it's very likely that they have archives of the applications. The problem is that they don't know if their applications are compromised, and they can't use their backed-up MD5s because they could be compromised too! That's why their requesting valid MD5s -- so that they can verify that their archives are good. They also can't just recompile everything because they don't know if the source code has been compromised too, and reading it all or even doing diffs against other official archives is unfeasable due to the man-hours it would involve.
They also can't just grab files and MD5s from their mirrors because their mirrors could have compromised files too. Without MD5s for quick verification, they're screwed.
This letter specifically gave back to IBM the rights of any code they created to enhance or extend the AIX/SYS5R4 OS.
Yes, it did. However, if they don't have such an agreement over Dynix/ptx, then IBM may very well be screwed. If what SCO says is true (even though what they said about their right to terminate AIX wasn't), then IBM may be in a world of hurt. If Dynix/ptx code must be treated as a derivative of System V, then there may be actual trouble here. Remember, AIX and Dynix/ptx are completely separate products with completely separate licensing schemes. SCO may have actually found a legal leg to stand on. Unless IBM can produce similar documentation about Sequent's code, it may belong to SCO.
(By the way, how does SCO have Dynix/ptx source code to compare against the Linux kernel?)
Unless you want your motherboard to have 5000 different slots for every single PCI card made, and then have a bootup program run through each one, detecting which are empty and which are used, and then installing the software for the used ones (a process which would take up yards of physical space and loads of processing time), you're going to have to deal with installing drivers and kernel modules.
Auto-recognition of new hardware is not an impossible task at all. There are two major ways to go about it. First, you can install a comprehensive list of common drivers when you install the OS and then load the correct one on boot after querying the card over a standard protocol for an ID that tells what kind of card it is. This is the standard method used by both Windows and MacOS 9/X. If a peripheral does not have a driver, in most cases it will adhere to or emulate a lowest common denomenator protocol (VGA, ATAPI, SB32, NE2000, etc.) that will give you enough basic functionality to use the device until an optimal driver can be found. This is the method is common, cheap, and easily done under Linux, though Linux does not bother to do things this way. Autodetection is not an impossible task as shown by Windows.
The second alternative, which would make more sense in a more platform diverse world would be for peripherals to describe their interface in a platform-neutral language such as Java or Forth and then have the host system automatically compile itself a temporary (or permanent) native driver. Optimized drivers could be installed later. This would require a massive standards effort, but is not technically unfeasable. Unfortunately, there is not enough of an economic demand for this sort of cross-platform functionality. I may be wrong, and there may actually be hardware that does this, but I'm unaware of it at the consumer level.
This setup isn't for anyone who's serious about watching TV at a range beyond 5 feet or less. LCD monitors within a $1000 dollar (minus other listed equipment) price range are just far too tiny for use as your main television. That price range will only net you a 17" LCD, but can instead put you in the range for a 30"-36" direct CRT HDTV or can put you in the range for a refurbished or discount 43" rear projection CRT HDTV.
The setup you propose is a hugely wasteful one for what you get. I'd only advise it if you're living in a college dorm or a really tiny apartment. The poster of the article was thinking about projectors (though with a $1000 price cap, he wasn't thinking very far). I'd say that it's safe to say that he has the room for a far better system.
(The comment about being aware of where you buy from is a good one, though it's really just impossible to buy name-brand electronics that do not contain large amounts of components that are made in China & Taiwan even if the main assembly isn't done there.)
Woah, woah, woah. TCP/IP is NOT a derivative of X.25. They are almost completely different protocols that serve very different purposes. For one thing, in the classic OSI model, X.25 covers the physical, the datalink, and the network layers whereas TCP is the transport layer and IP is just the network layer. You run TCP/IP over X.25 or AX.25 much in the same way run it over Ethernet, ATM, FDDI, etc.
I've read large parts of the CCITT X.25 standard. While it is packet-switched, it's VERY different from IP.
In democracy, the Principals are the voters and the Agents are management.
That last word should be "politicians."
The executives of Enron, the Principals, [...] were charged [...] by the shareholders, the Agents [...]
That's backwards. The execs are Agents; the shareholders are Principals.
Welcome to the Principal-Agent Problem. This problem is the conflict of interest between the owner of a an organization, the Principal, and the executor of the organization's goals, the Agent. In business, the Principals are the stockholders, and the Agents are management. In democracy, the Principals are the voters and the Agents are management. The Principal-Agent problem occurs because of each group trying act in its own rational self-interest, which often results in differing goals.
Maximizing the shareholders' value is the the nominal goal of any publicly traded company. For the larger body of shareholders, this means producing reliably increasing returns as this provides them with safely growing assets. Ignoring the dot-com IPO craze, most shareholders are into a company for a long time, hoping that it will provide them with sensible return at at least the market average for the life of their time invested. This is the "will of the voters" for a company.
The problem comes in companies like Enron or SCO when the management has investments in the company, is thoroughly unethical (*cough* rationally-self-interested *cough*), and has made a series of mistakes that they and their stock holdings will eventually be held accountable for. Their goal becomes to deceive the market and the other stockholders to try to maximize the price of the stock in the short term and give themselves a window of opportunity to cash out before that shareholders' value come crash down on them. The executives of Enron, the Principals, damn well were charged with keeping their company running by the shareholders, the Agents, who invested their money in the company in hopes of it staying afloat. This little thing of keeping the company alive that you brush off as just "job security" was their job. Instead of properly owning up to what was wrong with their company, they participated in a "pump and dump" scam that made them filthy rich right before dropping the bomb that ruined the asset value of millions of shareholders, including other employees in the company and many retirement funds around the nation. Shareholders lost big. If they had known over the long term what kind of problems Enron had had for years, they could've shored up for the loss or pulled out safely. Instead, their shareholder value was destroyed through deceptive business practices that made Enron falsely seem far more valuable than it actually was.
SCO is essentially doing the same thing. Their business model has been an utter failure. Even as Caldera, they were outcompeted by better and cheaper Linux distros, so Caldera management bought SCO and decided to bet the company on a outside shot. I seriously disbelieve thanks to their own public comments that SCO's management think that they can win. They're bluffing, and the stock trading actions of SCO's executives seems to indicate that they're participating in a very loud and aggressive "pump and dump" scam. They're cashing out while the stock value is currently about 15 times what it was last year. Here's the best part. It doesn't matter if they cash out if they win. Considering that the company has very low overhead beyond its legal department, I'm sure that if they do win, SCO management will grant themselves quite a huge salary bonus from that windfall (with stock options to boot) with the blessing of all the new stockholders which have started flooding in since the change in company strategy. It's a win-win situation for management!
However, it's an extremely risky gamble for shareholders -- one which the entire company's future is leveraged on. If they lose the IBM case, or if they win against IBM but lose the battle to actually enforce fees on the Linux community, their business model is utterly empty of any future revenue sources on the level that the current stock price reflects. You see, SCOX has a dangerously high price to earnings ratio right now. Any stock analyst will tell you that companies with a high P/E are risky. Usually, a
Why does anyone NOT need eight megabits?
It makes downloading m... surfing the web much, much faster. Seriously, though, it's not the 8Mb/s download rate that's important to me so much as the 640Kb/s upload rate. If you're doing P2... I mean, running a personal FTP server (with no copyright violating content, no sirree!), you NEED that upload rate.
So although aluminum is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust...
Bzzzt! Oxygen is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust, followed by silicon, then followed by aluminum. Aluminum is the most abundant metal, but is dwarfed in abundance by the various silicate rocks. However, everything else you said was correct.
Can someone explain the reference?
Three words: Monster-brand cables.
They are ultra-pricey but well-shielded cables that nearly any electronics seller is going to try to get you to buy because it'll cost you a mint, and they'll make a nice commission. Some audiophiles / videophiles absolutely love them and insist that they are God's Given Weapon to fight against the Unholy Specter of Interference, while others think they're a complete rip-off. Testimonials like the above post are common for fans of Monster products.
Ironically, Monster does in fact sell rechargeable batteries. Go figure.
To start with, Japan is not a Western country.
Actually, that's somewhat up for debate. There are two major viewpoints on what constitutes a Western country. The standard definition would be a nation whose population and culture primarily descends from Western European stock. Another common definition essentially includes any modern industrialized nation that stands at the forefront of economic and cultural power in the world, like the modern G8 states (which include Japan) or the former modern imperial powers of the turn of the century (like Japan). In other words, a member of the First World instead of the Second World or the Third World.
Some scholars have considered Japan a Western nation ever since their defeat of Russia, a European power, in the Russo-Japanese War. They had used Western tactics and weapons, and they had created the beginnings of a colonial empire. It demonstrated that being a Western power was not a matter of culture or race but one of social and technological progress. Even in the wake of the defeat of WW2, Japan has sought further modernization and has embraced Western culture and mores increasily from decade to decade. While still uniquely its own culture, Japan is the most Westernized Asian country.
However, this isn't really relevant to the point. The poster's intent was to say that Japanese, American, and other modern industrialized nations goods are probably (1) higher quality and (2) not made with sweatshop labor. This is an import thing to consider. While the quality of goods from China and other rising industrial powers of Asia is growing, the treatment of workers is not improving at the same rate. This is hurting the economies of the West (and Japan) by offering substantially cheaper goods at almost the same quality. This hurts local workers because the very protections which keep them from being abused are leading to the transfer of the money that would keep them employed to other nations. By being conscious of where goods are made and purchasing accordingly, you are supporting fair and just labor laws. By buying cheaper goods made by third-world labor, you are hurting your own economy and the crusade for better rights for those workers by fattening the pockets of those who exploit them and work the political machine to keep denying them rights. You do, in fact, indirectly support the value system of the country of origin by rewarding them financially.
'Code' can be a plural.
The plural of "code" is "codes." However, the plural form of "code" is never used when referring to "source code." Much like the word "water" when used to refer to a drink, pluralizing it is awkward sounding and incorrect.
We don't say...
"I'm sure that the code produced are of real high quality."
"I'm sure that the codes produced are of real high quality."
Anymore than we say...
"I'm sure that the waters were very refreshing."
We DO say...
"I'm sure that the code produced is of real high quality."
"I'm sure that the water was very refreshing."
If you did, you'd already know that the dark side of the force is fueled by "every living thing made of anti-matter."
I'm sorry... don't you mean "anti-midichlorians?"
Who modded this troll Insightful? Why on Earth would you want to include a command-line script for a GUI operating system that 99.44% of users won't use? While I guess it wouldn't hurt anything to include one, the idea that providing a user-friendly interface that follows the convetions of the target OS is insulting the user's intelligence is just sad.
Speaking of bizarre linguistic imports into pre-colonial America, I've recently come across the works of a man named James Adair who ardently believed that the Cherokees and other tribes of Northwest Georgia were a lost tribe of Israel. He makes arguements based on their monotheism to Yo He Wah (similar to YHWH), their religious rites, their creation and flood stories, and the many linguistic and idomatic similarities between local Indian languages and Hebrew that he apparently saw as a scholar. James Adair settled down with the Cherokee and married into their tribe. His other works were very instrumental to colonists attempting to understand the ways and culture of the Indian nations of the Southeast.
Look him up in Google for more info.
Out of curiosity, how do you calculate "bits of entropy?"
I think... Yes, I see... A Slashdotting!
CONSUMABLE items should be exempt from copyright.
Well.... While I agree with the sentiment behind that statement, it would never fly as an arguement in a court or before a legislature trying to pass a law to that effect. Can you imagine what would happen if a law was passed like that when disposable DVDs hit the market? (Personally, a law that discourages disposable DVDs is a good one, but I'm getting off-topic here.)
[C]onsidering that HP invented the inkjet, would Lexmark have any credible claim to patenting an inkjet cart?
I'm not sure that HP invented the inkjet, but it's not really relevant to the answer to your question. Yes, if you assume that HP had a patent on the inkjet and the inkjet cartridge, Lexmark could patent the interface that their "chipped" cartridges use to communicate their ink levels to the printer (unless HP got there first too). Then, while any inkjet printer and cartridge maker would have to pay royalties to HP, if they made cartridges that somehow communicated over a Lexmark-style interface, they'd have to negotiate for royalties with Lexmark, who could just decide to deny them permission to use their patent. Even HP, the holders of the inkjet patents would have to license from Lexmark the patent on chipped cartridges if they wanted to go that route. More than likely, as is the case with big business patents, they would be forced to cross-license each others patents to both stay in business. (Read up on the classic Sun vs. IBM stories for more info on how patents are essentially an anti-competitive tool for big businesses to wield against smaller upstarts).
While it's highly unlikely that a patent for an inkjet cartridge was granted in light of the current marketplace for 3rd party cartridges, it's easily believable that the recent use of chips in cartridges is patented by someone. It's a relatively novel if evil idea. It's likely that all the major manufacturers cross-license this patent by leveraging patents of their own against the patent holder. You just don't see 3rd party carts with chips in them currently, and I believe that may be part of the reason why.
Anyway, yes. Company B can patent an improvement to Company A's patented product.
Ah, but the name's catchy. "Dragonfly BSD" just sounds so cool. However, the real legacy of this fork will come when the highly demanding porn industry gets a hold of its advanced SMP features and adds a few tweaks of its own to get "Spanish Fly BSD."
Personally, I'd buy bugs that would repel cellphone users first -- especially if they could be released into traffic!
Actually, he also missed the VirtualBoy, WonderSwan (and WS Color), Lynx, Intellevision, Vectrex, Mega CD, Nomad, and of course the NeoGeo, NeoGeo Pocket, and later NeoGeoCD games (earlier games, like those of the 3D0, work just fine from CD-R).
(Besides, the TurboGraphix 16 versions of the Ys series of adventure RPGs was flat out the best.)
Okay, I'll agree that GURPS is not anywhere close to being as simple as the d20 system, but claiming that d20 is "as simple as it can be" is a little too much. I can list off the top of my head 8 systems which are easier to play than d20, without even mentioning any diceless systems.
1. "Feng Shui" by Atlas Games
2. "Star Wars" by West End Games
3. "Sorcerer" by Adept Press
4. "Cartoon Action Hour" by Z-man Games
6. "Over the Edge" by Atlas Games
5. "Savage Worlds" by Pinnacle Entertainment
7. "Teenagers from Outer Space" by R.Talsorian Games
8. "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" and other Tri-Stat games by Guardians of Order
Now these aren't all necessarily better games than d20 games since better is a subjective term, but these all have much simpler mechanics for combat and task resolution. They may or may not fit your style of play. However, of the above listed games, I recommend solidly buying "Sorcerer" and its two supplements "Sword and Sorcery" and "Sorcerer and Soul" just to read. They solidly peg the literary genres of Faustian Horror, Barbarian Fantasy, and Noir Mystery, respectively.
Don't worry. You'll be(TM) just fine(TM) so long as you re(TM)me(TM)mbe(TM)r to de(TM)note(TM) the(TM) fact that it's trade(TM)marke(TM)d. Se(TM)e(TM)? Isn't that e(TM)asy? The(TM)re(TM)'s no ne(TM)e(TM)d to re(TM)nde(TM)r me(TM)ssage(TM)s ille(TM)gible(TM) by de(TM)le(TM)ting le(TM)tte(TM)rs.
This is a good thing for Orbital Sciences. On September 21st, 2001, Orbital Sciences lost a major satellite called Orbview-4 during the launch. I remember this because the project I was working on at the time was under a huge amount of pressure to try and release as soon as possible after Orbview-4 went up. One of the sensors on Orbview-4, Warfighter-1, was a hyperspectral sensor that was going to give the US military a lot of new, valuable data, and we were at risk of losing out a bid against a competitor to provide them with the software to work with this data. Fortunately (for us) when the satellite failed to achieve orbit, we got a several month reprieve to hammer out bugs in the software. On the down side, there was no huge customer base biting at the bit for the software by the time it came out.
Orbital Imaging, the subsidy of Orbital Sciences that launched the probe, was pretty cash-strapped at the time. If I recall correctly, they had to file Chapter 11 after the loss. Fortunately, they insured Orbview-4, so they didn't take a total loss on it. NASA also lost the QuickTOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) satellite in the same launch. At the time, they expected the much delayed Orbview-3 to launch sometime last year. Anyway, it's a good thing to see them get this one up in the sky finally. Hopefully, it'll bring them enough revenue to offset their losses from the past few years.