It raises interesting questions about freedom of speech.
No. I raises interesting questions about why people would say and do things that would embarrass their employer, publish it on the Internet, then expect their employer not to find out about it.
The article mentions a woman who was fired for publishing nude photos of herself. Is that substantially different than posing for a nudie magazine? Would many bosses be comfortable with the latter (especially given the hyper-paranoia about sexual harassment where said employer could be sued bankrupt by the woman should one of her male coworkers happen to mention that he saw the photos that she put on public display)?
This has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of speech. It is still perfectly legal to publish just about anything you want (short of the obviously illegal stuff), but no country's law says that you won't face the consequences for doing so.
We make fun of people adding "over a computer network" to an old patent and being granted a new one, but we'll happily add "over a computer network" to an old activity and act surprised when the new activity is subject to the same laws and penalties as before. Put another way, if you think your boss would fire you for writing something in a letter to the editor of a newspaper, then why would you think he'd condone your writing of it in a blog somewhere?
My understanding from a friend who pretty much had the bible memorized, is that according to it, there is no life on any other planet.
I don't recall that verse.
If SETI or by any other means, intelligent (or even not) life is discovered, that pretty much erases the Bible and Jesus.
By what stretch of imagination? The owner's manual to my car says nothing about my Playstation 2, but that doesn't mean that the latter doesn't exist. The Bible is a collection of books chronicling our interaction with God, not necessarily that of other civilizations.
but would a Christian Holy War break out against the scientists,
No holy war. Such thing as evolution are infinitely debatable, since although huge mountains of evidence exist to support one train of though, there are no absolutely hard, fast facts saying "this is exactly what happened". An ET message saying "Hello, people of Earth! This is how you build a warp drive!" would be pretty impossible to deny.
or would facts in evidence cause a suppression of some religions?
Yes, but only those religions founded on the belief in a lack of ET intelligence. Although some Christians (and Muslims and Hindus and people from pretty much any religion other than Scientologists - they're into this stuff hook, line, and sinker) will freak out, the mainstreams will move onward as normal.
Re:They aren't going to be sending signals...
on
New and Improved SETI
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
We don't talk to worms (refering to C. elegans) and they don't talk to us (refering to aliens).
True, but we sure as hell talk to dogs, monkeys, and dolphins - all of which we assume to be less intelligent than us - because they're obviously able to respond appropriately.
Objectively speaking, we're not stupid. We certainly don't have first-hand knowledge about the universe outside our little pocket, but we've learned the language of sub-atomic particle and relativity. Even if that doesn't qualify us for "Rookie Of The Galactic Year", it definitely puts us somewhat higher on the IQ spectrum than dust.
[...] or a delusional fantasy (similar to that our president is subjected to) that they would be sending us messages.
You resorted to an ad hominem in the opening salvo. Poor form from a purported "expert".
But the approaches the SETI Institute and the groups as Harvard and Berkeley tend to be misfounded on the basis that they are going to try and communicate with us. Any ass would see that the probability of detecting those civilizations out there who ARE NOT trying to communicate with us is higher than than any few who are trying to communicate with us.
Out of the thousands of ET civilizations we've found so far, how many of them were through intentional versus inadvertent means? What? You don't have a single data point to guide you? Guess that means that Harvard and the SETI Institute aren't the only asses.
I'm a confirmed Samsung fan. I bought a nice 19" monitor from them in 2001 or so. With about two months of the end of its warranty, the transform died and it became completely unusable. I'd lost the receipt much earlier, but I decided to take a chance with their warranty support anyway. The conversation went along the lines of:
Rep: So, when did you buy the monitor?
Me: In December 2001.
Rep: Do you have the receipt?
Me: No, but it had a 24-month warranty, the manufacture date on the back label was "October 2001", and it's only August 2003 now, so I can't have had it longer than 2 years, right?
Rep: [thinking] You know, I guess you're right. By the way, we don't make that model any more. Is it OK if we substitude our newer flatscreen model instead? If so, we can cross-ship the new one today.
I have nothing but good to say about Samsung and their support department. I now go out of my way to buy their stuff whenever it's an option.
I'd like to see distributed applications on a much wider scale. Right now my office is fully of extremely-underutilized 2.4GHz P4s. If it were possible to share the office's processing and storage conveniently, we could get by with an office of P-II 333s that were running at 50% capacity instead.
Most of the machines are doing word processing, email, and other light-load activities. Very slow individual machines aren't useful because sometimes users want to run applications that require large amounts of CPU for a very brief period of time. However, if Jane Secretary could borrow the collective CPUs of 30 slow integrated machines for a couple of seconds, her application would run as fast (or faster) than if she had a high-end system next to her desk. As an added bonus, you could upgrade the performance of every machine in the office by adding a couple of fast machines into the cluster.
I realized that I just described the benefits of client-server computing, but maybe it's time for a new common paradigm (OMG, I can't believe I just used that without intentional irony): client-to-client computing.
4. Google for a website that has content similar to the one that you just got IP-blocked from for slamming the connection with a zillion parallel requests.
You seem to think that "synonym" means "exact replacement"; it does not. If it did, then the property would have to be transitive, and I don't think anyone would agree from your own example that "crystalize" is identical to "straighten out".
I believe the word your looking for is eureka.
No. I was looking for "ah-ha" and found it. Eureka has a connotation of discovery, while I wanted to imply a sudden understanding.
If your looking for a word to make you look superior to others you might want to look for more words, elucidate exactly means to explain.
If you're looking for a way to make yourself look inferior to others, then pick a fine point of the English language and argue it loudly and wrongly. "Elucidate" does not have the exact same meaning as "explain", and if you truly think it does then there's not much point in continuing the conversation.
The problem, though, is that it doesn't just mean "to explain". Have you ever had an "ah-ha!" moment? If that came as a result of someone or something pointing out a fine point that you'd missed that was preventing you from seeing the big picture, then they elucidated the subject. That is, they helped you "see the light".
I can explain calculus to my 4-year-old son. I do not expect him to be elucidated until he's quite a bit older.
Frankly, if a word like "elucidate" vexes you, then you need to read longer books. Despite what they teach kids in elementary school, most of the interesting words in our language have no true synonyms.
Short answer: According to one source, Apple sold about 5.5 million Apple ][ units (of all types) throughout their 16-year production run, while Commodore sold about 30 million units in 11 years.
In other words, you seem to have found yourself in one of the few places in the world where Apples were more popular than Commodores. They were outnumbered everywhere else by a 5:1 margin.
There's already a cross-platform single-sign-on system widely deployed on Unix, Mac, and Windows machines: Kerberos. Is there any reason why having a central trusted KDC couldn't solved that problem?
Note that I'm not asking if having a central trusted KDC is a good idea, just whether it could be used in the same way that Passport's sign-on services used to be. In other words, a user could log in to the KDC.GOODCOMPANYWEALLTRUST.COM domain and automatically have open access to all of their services that trust that realm. Throw in some Kerberized LDAP goodness to allow those services to retrieve a specified subject of that user's data, and you're done.
Since it apparently isn't as easy as I've outlined, what am I missing that complicates matters so much?
Yeah the hardware was better in a lot of respects, but what interesting apps did you have for that Amiga?
For me, it was Deluxe Paint, Microsoft's (!!!) AmigaBasic, and games, games, games. Those were all available pretty much from the beginning.
Also Apple already had all the Apple ][ developers and customers behind them, so it's not like they and Amiga both launched from the same starting point.
By the same token, Commodore had all the C-64 developers and customers behind them, so it's not like they and Mac both launched from the same starting point. The C-64 was far, far more popular than the Apple ][. The early problem with Amigas might in fact have been that the C-64 was good enough for most people. Apple users who wanted to upgrade past their old ][es jumped to the Mac in droves, but many Commodore owners (who would presumably want to upgrade to Commodore's newest offerings) were content with their little computers and the ocean of applications available to them.
Assuming that you forgot to mention that the bill collectors are calling you in error, I'd write up a short summary and send it to the local newspaper, your local TV station that has an "Eye For The Little Guy" segment, and the equivalent media in Mechanicsburg. The outlets love these public interest stories and you could probably embarrass the book club into calling off their attack dogs in no time flat.
On the other hand, if you do owe the money then suck it up and write a check.:-)
Are YOU necessarily qualified to judge legal things which affect YOU?
No, I'm not. I'm not a lawyer or an avid layperson.
The implied answer is YES... else, you're just a slave -- not even a citizen, fer crissakes!
Put down the crack. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Of course the general population is unqualified to make valid legal decisions, in pretty much exactly the same way they're not able to make informed decisions about the airfoil cross-section of the airplanes they fly in, or whether COX-2 inhibitors are an appropriate treatment for their aches and pains, or which deductions they can claim on their taxes.
In all of those cases, we have professionals that can pay to make those judgements on our behalf. Linus is a programmer, not a lawyer, and has repeatedly stated that he's not interested in legal issues. Those are his words, not mine, so if you have a problem with his disinterest then take it up with him and not me.
I'm starting to understand the "Cult of Linus" references. Is there any way to constructively point out his lack of abilities or interest in a particular area without people crawling out of the woodwork to protest? If I say that he's not a physician, how many people will scream that he's a genius because he wrote Linux and that I'm a hypocrite for not being a doctor myself?
Re:To quote Linus Torvalds...
on
Revising the GPL
·
· Score: 2, Informative
From/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 on a Debian box:
The header and preamble are 58 lines long.
The "terms and conditions" section is 222 lines long.
The "how to apply these terms to your new programs" section is 59 lines long, and is relatively legalese-dense.
Therefore, the heart of the license is over 65% of the length of the standard GPL license file and consists mainly of such propagandistic paragraphs as:
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
IANAL, but I can't imagine a much terser way to say that without leaving out the important parts. OTOH, that extra 58 lines of preamble (which are physically separate from the "terms and conditions") seem to establish the intent of the rest of the license. I think it'd be hard to tell a judge that you thought it meant that you could keep your modifications private while distributing binaries when he explains in detail what the license intends to do.
Even if that doesn't help at all legally, it certainly explains the rationale to interested parties in a reasonably concise way. Given that RMS wrote the license partly to influence his peers at a time when few people saw the need or benefits of such a license, I don't think it was unreasonable for him to send a little speech along with his new creation.
Re:To quote Linus Torvalds...
on
Revising the GPL
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Linus, in a recent interview, says: [...] I'm not a lawyer
And that's why Linus isn't the guy who's writing the new GPL.
He may be an excellent programmer, a visionary, or whatever else, but by his own words he is not a lawyer and not necessarily qualified to critique the GPL. I don't have anything whatsoever against Linus, and actually think he's a pretty spiffy guy, but this has nothing to do with him or his opinions.
Would you look to him for nutritional advice, or suggestions on buying a car? If not, then why would you put a lot of weight behind his legal opinion, considering that he's said time and again that he has basically zero interest in such things?
For example, some would like to see clarifications that could help reduce the threat that using GPL software could entangle users in patent litigation. And the GPL could be better adapted to recent industry initiatives such as building sophisticated Web services on the Internet and boosting security through trusted computing methods.
OK, patent clauses are probably a good thing. A number of Open Source licenses are adding them. I also understand the need to define linking a bit better; is coupling applications via SOAP inherently different than coupling them with a linker?
But what the heck is the third all about? What have I missed that makes "trusted computing" and the GPL non-orthogonal? How on earth do the two of those relate?
With all respect to the guy, if he's the type that actually would write a whole OS by himself, then I suspect he does, in fact, "hug" himself quite a bit.
Ain't no time for socializin' when you're debugging kernel spinlocks.
Finally, the other half of the radiant energy will strike the ground, heating up soil and water, increasing the total amount of mass that absorbes the energy.
Actually, wouldn't the vast majority of the objects mass be embedded deeply underground? It seems like most of the kinetic energy would be transferred directly into the earth and not absorbed by the atmosphere. Not that we want random huge packets of energy impacting our planet, but soil and rock are much better heat sinks than our little atmosphere.
I don't study such things so I don't know if that even makes sense, but it seems reasonable to my untrained brain.
Out of curiosity, why would they cover it up? Is the idea of a panicked population really that much worse than the fact that civilization ends next Tuesday at 9:23am? What possible damage could come from a few days of drunken rioting, church-going, and wanton sex?
Slashdot Mirror
No. I raises interesting questions about why people would say and do things that would embarrass their employer, publish it on the Internet, then expect their employer not to find out about it.
The article mentions a woman who was fired for publishing nude photos of herself. Is that substantially different than posing for a nudie magazine? Would many bosses be comfortable with the latter (especially given the hyper-paranoia about sexual harassment where said employer could be sued bankrupt by the woman should one of her male coworkers happen to mention that he saw the photos that she put on public display)?
This has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of speech. It is still perfectly legal to publish just about anything you want (short of the obviously illegal stuff), but no country's law says that you won't face the consequences for doing so.
We make fun of people adding "over a computer network" to an old patent and being granted a new one, but we'll happily add "over a computer network" to an old activity and act surprised when the new activity is subject to the same laws and penalties as before. Put another way, if you think your boss would fire you for writing something in a letter to the editor of a newspaper, then why would you think he'd condone your writing of it in a blog somewhere?
I don't recall that verse.
If SETI or by any other means, intelligent (or even not) life is discovered, that pretty much erases the Bible and Jesus.
By what stretch of imagination? The owner's manual to my car says nothing about my Playstation 2, but that doesn't mean that the latter doesn't exist. The Bible is a collection of books chronicling our interaction with God, not necessarily that of other civilizations.
but would a Christian Holy War break out against the scientists,
No holy war. Such thing as evolution are infinitely debatable, since although huge mountains of evidence exist to support one train of though, there are no absolutely hard, fast facts saying "this is exactly what happened". An ET message saying "Hello, people of Earth! This is how you build a warp drive!" would be pretty impossible to deny.
or would facts in evidence cause a suppression of some religions?
Yes, but only those religions founded on the belief in a lack of ET intelligence. Although some Christians (and Muslims and Hindus and people from pretty much any religion other than Scientologists - they're into this stuff hook, line, and sinker) will freak out, the mainstreams will move onward as normal.
True, but we sure as hell talk to dogs, monkeys, and dolphins - all of which we assume to be less intelligent than us - because they're obviously able to respond appropriately.
Objectively speaking, we're not stupid. We certainly don't have first-hand knowledge about the universe outside our little pocket, but we've learned the language of sub-atomic particle and relativity. Even if that doesn't qualify us for "Rookie Of The Galactic Year", it definitely puts us somewhat higher on the IQ spectrum than dust.
[...] or a delusional fantasy (similar to that our president is subjected to) that they would be sending us messages.
You resorted to an ad hominem in the opening salvo. Poor form from a purported "expert".
But the approaches the SETI Institute and the groups as Harvard and Berkeley tend to be misfounded on the basis that they are going to try and communicate with us. Any ass would see that the probability of detecting those civilizations out there who ARE NOT trying to communicate with us is higher than than any few who are trying to communicate with us.
Out of the thousands of ET civilizations we've found so far, how many of them were through intentional versus inadvertent means? What? You don't have a single data point to guide you? Guess that means that Harvard and the SETI Institute aren't the only asses.
Rep: So, when did you buy the monitor?
Me: In December 2001.
Rep: Do you have the receipt?
Me: No, but it had a 24-month warranty, the manufacture date on the back label was "October 2001", and it's only August 2003 now, so I can't have had it longer than 2 years, right?
Rep: [thinking] You know, I guess you're right. By the way, we don't make that model any more. Is it OK if we substitude our newer flatscreen model instead? If so, we can cross-ship the new one today.
I have nothing but good to say about Samsung and their support department. I now go out of my way to buy their stuff whenever it's an option.
Before anyone asks, no, I'm not a stockholder. :)
Most of the machines are doing word processing, email, and other light-load activities. Very slow individual machines aren't useful because sometimes users want to run applications that require large amounts of CPU for a very brief period of time. However, if Jane Secretary could borrow the collective CPUs of 30 slow integrated machines for a couple of seconds, her application would run as fast (or faster) than if she had a high-end system next to her desk. As an added bonus, you could upgrade the performance of every machine in the office by adding a couple of fast machines into the cluster.
I realized that I just described the benefits of client-server computing, but maybe it's time for a new common paradigm (OMG, I can't believe I just used that without intentional irony): client-to-client computing.
4. Google for a website that has content similar to the one that you just got IP-blocked from for slamming the connection with a zillion parallel requests.
You seem to think that "synonym" means "exact replacement"; it does not. If it did, then the property would have to be transitive, and I don't think anyone would agree from your own example that "crystalize" is identical to "straighten out".
I believe the word your looking for is eureka.
No. I was looking for "ah-ha" and found it. Eureka has a connotation of discovery, while I wanted to imply a sudden understanding.
If your looking for a word to make you look superior to others you might want to look for more words, elucidate exactly means to explain.
If you're looking for a way to make yourself look inferior to others, then pick a fine point of the English language and argue it loudly and wrongly. "Elucidate" does not have the exact same meaning as "explain", and if you truly think it does then there's not much point in continuing the conversation.
I can explain calculus to my 4-year-old son. I do not expect him to be elucidated until he's quite a bit older.
Frankly, if a word like "elucidate" vexes you, then you need to read longer books. Despite what they teach kids in elementary school, most of the interesting words in our language have no true synonyms.
In other words, you seem to have found yourself in one of the few places in the world where Apples were more popular than Commodores. They were outnumbered everywhere else by a 5:1 margin.
275 73.5 EV45 21064A
Note that I'm not asking if having a central trusted KDC is a good idea, just whether it could be used in the same way that Passport's sign-on services used to be. In other words, a user could log in to the KDC.GOODCOMPANYWEALLTRUST.COM domain and automatically have open access to all of their services that trust that realm. Throw in some Kerberized LDAP goodness to allow those services to retrieve a specified subject of that user's data, and you're done.
Since it apparently isn't as easy as I've outlined, what am I missing that complicates matters so much?
For me, it was Deluxe Paint, Microsoft's (!!!) AmigaBasic, and games, games, games. Those were all available pretty much from the beginning.
Also Apple already had all the Apple ][ developers and customers behind them, so it's not like they and Amiga both launched from the same starting point.
By the same token, Commodore had all the C-64 developers and customers behind them, so it's not like they and Mac both launched from the same starting point. The C-64 was far, far more popular than the Apple ][. The early problem with Amigas might in fact have been that the C-64 was good enough for most people. Apple users who wanted to upgrade past their old ][es jumped to the Mac in droves, but many Commodore owners (who would presumably want to upgrade to Commodore's newest offerings) were content with their little computers and the ocean of applications available to them.
On the other hand, if you do owe the money then suck it up and write a check. :-)
She's a surgeon. That tends to be rather difficult to hide. :-)
No, I'm not. I'm not a lawyer or an avid layperson.
The implied answer is YES ... else, you're just a slave -- not even a citizen, fer crissakes!
Put down the crack. What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Of course the general population is unqualified to make valid legal decisions, in pretty much exactly the same way they're not able to make informed decisions about the airfoil cross-section of the airplanes they fly in, or whether COX-2 inhibitors are an appropriate treatment for their aches and pains, or which deductions they can claim on their taxes.
In all of those cases, we have professionals that can pay to make those judgements on our behalf. Linus is a programmer, not a lawyer, and has repeatedly stated that he's not interested in legal issues. Those are his words, not mine, so if you have a problem with his disinterest then take it up with him and not me.
I'm starting to understand the "Cult of Linus" references. Is there any way to constructively point out his lack of abilities or interest in a particular area without people crawling out of the woodwork to protest? If I say that he's not a physician, how many people will scream that he's a genius because he wrote Linux and that I'm a hypocrite for not being a doctor myself?
The header and preamble are 58 lines long.
The "terms and conditions" section is 222 lines long.
The "how to apply these terms to your new programs" section is 59 lines long, and is relatively legalese-dense.
Therefore, the heart of the license is over 65% of the length of the standard GPL license file and consists mainly of such propagandistic paragraphs as:
IANAL, but I can't imagine a much terser way to say that without leaving out the important parts. OTOH, that extra 58 lines of preamble (which are physically separate from the "terms and conditions") seem to establish the intent of the rest of the license. I think it'd be hard to tell a judge that you thought it meant that you could keep your modifications private while distributing binaries when he explains in detail what the license intends to do.
Even if that doesn't help at all legally, it certainly explains the rationale to interested parties in a reasonably concise way. Given that RMS wrote the license partly to influence his peers at a time when few people saw the need or benefits of such a license, I don't think it was unreasonable for him to send a little speech along with his new creation.
And that's why Linus isn't the guy who's writing the new GPL.
He may be an excellent programmer, a visionary, or whatever else, but by his own words he is not a lawyer and not necessarily qualified to critique the GPL. I don't have anything whatsoever against Linus, and actually think he's a pretty spiffy guy, but this has nothing to do with him or his opinions.
Would you look to him for nutritional advice, or suggestions on buying a car? If not, then why would you put a lot of weight behind his legal opinion, considering that he's said time and again that he has basically zero interest in such things?
OK, patent clauses are probably a good thing. A number of Open Source licenses are adding them. I also understand the need to define linking a bit better; is coupling applications via SOAP inherently different than coupling them with a linker?
But what the heck is the third all about? What have I missed that makes "trusted computing" and the GPL non-orthogonal? How on earth do the two of those relate?
Ain't no time for socializin' when you're debugging kernel spinlocks.
Actually, wouldn't the vast majority of the objects mass be embedded deeply underground? It seems like most of the kinetic energy would be transferred directly into the earth and not absorbed by the atmosphere. Not that we want random huge packets of energy impacting our planet, but soil and rock are much better heat sinks than our little atmosphere.
I don't study such things so I don't know if that even makes sense, but it seems reasonable to my untrained brain.
Out of curiosity, why would they cover it up? Is the idea of a panicked population really that much worse than the fact that civilization ends next Tuesday at 9:23am? What possible damage could come from a few days of drunken rioting, church-going, and wanton sex?
Americans spell it with a "t", too.
Maybe. I don't recall hearing the "h" in the first "HAW!", though, and I don't have a sample handy to get it right. Please forgive. :-)
Yes: that those Linux licenses weren't quite what they cracked up to be.