I still can't calculate any shielding plates which will be light enough for the rocket fuel mass of Apollo 13 (28,945 kg) and yet still protect 3 astronauts from the radiation belts around the earth.
I can't calculate shielding plates light enough for people to carry that would protect them from the spewed contents of an exploded nuclear reactor. And yet, there are quite a few people still alive who were on site when the Chernobyl plant allegedly blew up.
My inevitable conclusion: the Chernobyl disaster never occurred. They probably had technical difficulties bringing the plant online, so they faked the disaster to create an excuse for the lack of electricity.
That's like the viewpoint of a compulsive gambler in a casino, focusing on the seemingly random pattern of his individual experience. However, the only rational way to look at it is by the overall odds.
Over the long term, for example, the casino gambler is virtually certain to lose large amounts of money. However, when you ask him about it, he'll undoubtedly focus on stories about how he occasionally won a big payout.
If you multiply the odds by the potential cost, you get the "expected value" of natural disasters at any given location. There is no escaping the fact that the expected yearly loss along the southeast coast is considerably higher than most other areas of the country, and New Orleans in particular really stands out. Why would any sane person build in a location that will on average expected to be inundated by floods multiple times in one lifetime?
Even more importantly, they let Galveston become a cute little tourist town, and they moved all the important stuff like the seaport inland to Houston. (Before the storm, Galveston had been one of the most important cities in Texas.) That makes things go much more smoothly when they have to completely empty Galveston Island every few years due to a Hurricane warning.
IMO, they ought to do the same here. Build ultra-stout levees around (or raise by 25 feet) the French Quarter and a few other attractions, and rebuild the rest of the city farther inland.
I'll take a share of any items that they patent as a result of SETI.
I'm betting that any goodies we get out of the deal, like warp drives and matter replicators, have already been patented by the aliens. They'll probably be expecting royalties.
Sure, decades more of the same 1930s economy would have been wonderful.
It's about your disregard for your fellow man, your disapproval of the way your neighbors choose to spend their time and energy and wealth. You would prefer to see people working harder and receiving less, focusing on simple survival, rather than to see them wealthy and able to pursue their own values - because you don't trust them to pursue the values you think they should.
It's not what I prefer. I'm saying that if it turns out to be necessary to change our energy technology, it wouldn't have the draconian effects that microeconomic handwringers fret about.
Look, the whole idea is to avert the risk a genuine global climate disaster of unimaginable proportions, one that actually would overwhelm our capacity to work through it. Maybe you don't believe that will happen, but if so you should work on arguing the science behind the climate issues, not stirring up FUD about supposed economic impacts that are comparable to ones we've already dealt with in recent history.
The Kyoto protocol implementation has cost, to date, over 79 TRILLION Dollars.
Meanwhile, the latest issue of Scientific American has an article where the author argues that reducing fossil fuel usage to near zero even with today's technology would lead to a huge reduction in energy related spending, and would actually free up more money for leisure persuits. Why should I believe your outlandish claim over that one?
Long-winded arguments notwithstanding, history proves me correct. Actual disasters happen, and they have actually increased economic output. Do you deny that WWII occurred?
You focus on little linear microeconomic models, but that doesn't relate to the economy as a whole, which is nonlinear over large timescales and large physical scales.
Once peoples' basic needs have been met, those "other persuits" tend to be rather pointless anyway, like watching movies taking vacations. They don't really contribute that much to the economy, and people won't work all that hard to get them.
I'm not saying that disasters allow people to do what they want to do; I'm saying that they force people to work harder, and that increases overall economic activity. In particular, the original poster's assertion that hundreds of millions would die in an economic depression caused by taking actions to reduce fossil fuel consumption is patently absurd.
Here in America though, most people are productive.
They are nowhere near as productive as their potential. Compare with the labor efforts during WWII, where we added millions of new people to the workforce and then blew up most of their output. It seems counterintuitive, but this helped turned America into the world's premier economic powerhouse.
Your little linear microeconomic models don't match experience in the real world. "Buying widgets" is not the definitive measure of economic activity.
No, instead of sitting on your back deck sipping drinks, you get back to work to pay for your new house. (Or, if you're insured, the people who ultimately underwrote your insurance do.)
The widget maker doesn't get money, but the house builder does; that comes out as a wash. The widget maker's job just moves to the house builders. Additionally, the additional work you do instead of sitting around adds to the economy on top of that. That makes the overall net outcome positive.
So people have less leisure time. That doesn't mean that total economic output decreases, nor does it mean that "100s of millions will die" in a depression.
I didn't say that the goal was a make-work program. I was saying that handwringers who assume that anything which impacts the economic system will destroy it have been proved wrong by history time and again.
Finally, the economic change - read as depression - that would come from doing "drastic" things stands a good chance of killing as many people as climate change might.
That's total bunk. For example, what would happen if by some magical means an enforceable decree came down that said we're eliminating all carbon-based fossil fuels by August 28, 2015?
What would happen is that you'd see one of the largest economic booms in human history. Anything that forces people to get off of their butts and work ends up having a positive effect on the world's economy, whether it's all-out global war in the 1940s or having to kludge the dates on most business software in the 1990s. This would be no different.
Yeah, but the legal theory in question here does not depend on any contracts. Even if he had not signed a non-compete, Microsoft could still use this tactic to prevent him from working for Google or any other company that Microsoft doesn't approve of. That's what people are concerned about.
Judging from the package sizes, it looks like the majority of the lines of code that I actually use day to day were written by the KDE developers. So I guess I'll just call my system KDE.
They should have built the airport in downtown Denver.
Have you ever used Midway airport in Chicago? Coming in it's like: Oh, he's going to set us down in that little square gap between all the buildings. Taking off it's like: man, I hope he gets up enough speed to get airborne before we slam into those buildings at the end of the block.
So the registry, which is generally considered to be one of the worst ideas in the history of personal computing, never bothered you. Fine.
You still haven't explained what's wrong with putting the settings in the program as I described. Being a power user, I prefer not to have to manipulate the app using an inconvenient separate program where everything is forced into one tree control, whether or not that's the best way to present the settings.
Do you want to actually wade through useless options to find what you really need? Most of them AFAIK are still available through gconf as well.
Yeah, I'd rather launch separate program and wade through a myriad of Registry-like settings find what I really need. Nothing beats action-at-a-distance for useability.
>Followed by M-16s under every seat in case of emergency.
Nope, the government doesn't trust civilians with those kind of weapons.
That's right; simulation exercises have shown that the average citizen doesn't have enough shooting experience to reliably score one clean headshot, much less seven or eight. This task is best left to professionals.
No you don't, at least once you've installed it. To do that, you need to agree to the EULA, which is an additional contract which stipulates that the software is "licensed, not sold". Not sold == you don't own your copy. You agree to give it back to them.
This is a side-effect of copyright as a concept, and has nothing to do with software licenses, EULAs, proprietry software, Microsoft, or similar.
Not it's not. Copyright does not prevent you from buying and owning a book. All it does is prevent you from making copies of the information in the book under most circumstances. Other than that stipulation, you own the book free and clear. Likewise, you own any copy of Linux that you in your possession because the GPL does not force you to agree to a contract where you relinquish that ownership.
If you really could "own" software, you'd be able to do whatever-the-hell you wanted with it. Whether "whatever" is "modify and resell" or "connect more than 5 machines", it makes no difference - the principal is the same.
You can do any of those things, without any license from the author, even modifying and reselling the software, as long as you don't make a new copy (although probably only possible if you got it on rewriteable media). This is just the same as the fact that you can scribble all over a book and then resell it. That's because even under copyright law, you are allowed to own the copies of works that you possess.
Nothing in copyright law prevents you from making more than 5 connections in Windows; you agree to that restriction via the EULA "contract". That's a private agreement between you and Microsoft, and so is your agreement to give ownership of your copy back to Microsoft. The principal behind Linux's license (which simply gives you additional rights beyond standard copyright law) and the principal begind Microsoft's contractual restrictions are not the same at all.
The per capita consumption of power in the US is 11.4 kW.
Don't forget that the 11.4kW is thermal fuel power. Unless you're lucky enough to be supplied by some shiny new high-tech power plant, any given amount of electrical power at your outlet consumes ~3.5x as much thermal power to generate and transmit it. Therefore, running this power supply at peak capacity really uses somewhere around 4.9 kW of your per capita power.
In colder climates, such a power supply could supplant what heating there is
However, you're using about 4.9kW of fuel energy to get 1.4kW of heat, whereas an efficient gas furnace would probably use less than 1.6kW of fuel to obtain the same amount of heat. And if it happens to be warm outside instead, you'll use even more electrical power to pump the excess heat out of your house.
I said that you own your copy of Linux. That's true, just as you own a copy of a book if you buy it. The author of a book does not own a book that you buy. You own it.
The author owns the copyright to the information in the book. All that means is that unless you get the author's permission, you are not allowed to duplicate the information in the book in most cases. No more, no less. That still doesn't give the author magical ownership over your book.
The key difference between Microsoft's EULA and the GPL is that the EULA is a "contract" that attempts to restrict your rights and expand Microsoft's rights beyond what is specified by standard copyright law. The 5-connection limit is one example: it has *nothing* to do with creating new copies of Windows, and therefore nothing to do with copyright. It is Microsoft coming in after the fact and placing additional restrictions on what you can and can't do with the copy that you paid for. There is nothing in copyright law that gives them this power; you must give them that power by allegedly entering into a contractual agreement when you install the software.
The GPL comes with no such contract. It explicitly states that it is not a contract. It does not attempt to remove any rights that you would otherwise have under standard copyright law to use your copy of the software.
If you actually owned Linux, you'd be able to make as many modifications as you chose and then resell it completely on your own terms.
You could do that if you owned the copyright to linux. As I explained clearly in my original post, there is a difference between the copyright and a copy. The issues in this thread relate to ownership of a copy of the OS.
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I can't calculate shielding plates light enough for people to carry that would protect them from the spewed contents of an exploded nuclear reactor. And yet, there are quite a few people still alive who were on site when the Chernobyl plant allegedly blew up.
My inevitable conclusion: the Chernobyl disaster never occurred. They probably had technical difficulties bringing the plant online, so they faked the disaster to create an excuse for the lack of electricity.
Well, the Strand seemed cute enough to me. I'll admit that I was usually pretty buzzed when I was there, so maybe my judgment was a little impaired.
Over the long term, for example, the casino gambler is virtually certain to lose large amounts of money. However, when you ask him about it, he'll undoubtedly focus on stories about how he occasionally won a big payout.
If you multiply the odds by the potential cost, you get the "expected value" of natural disasters at any given location. There is no escaping the fact that the expected yearly loss along the southeast coast is considerably higher than most other areas of the country, and New Orleans in particular really stands out. Why would any sane person build in a location that will on average expected to be inundated by floods multiple times in one lifetime?
Are you at all familiar with the statistical concept called "odds"?
IMO, they ought to do the same here. Build ultra-stout levees around (or raise by 25 feet) the French Quarter and a few other attractions, and rebuild the rest of the city farther inland.
I'm betting that any goodies we get out of the deal, like warp drives and matter replicators, have already been patented by the aliens. They'll probably be expecting royalties.
Sure, decades more of the same 1930s economy would have been wonderful.
It's about your disregard for your fellow man, your disapproval of the way your neighbors choose to spend their time and energy and wealth. You would prefer to see people working harder and receiving less, focusing on simple survival, rather than to see them wealthy and able to pursue their own values - because you don't trust them to pursue the values you think they should.
It's not what I prefer. I'm saying that if it turns out to be necessary to change our energy technology, it wouldn't have the draconian effects that microeconomic handwringers fret about.
Look, the whole idea is to avert the risk a genuine global climate disaster of unimaginable proportions, one that actually would overwhelm our capacity to work through it. Maybe you don't believe that will happen, but if so you should work on arguing the science behind the climate issues, not stirring up FUD about supposed economic impacts that are comparable to ones we've already dealt with in recent history.
The Kyoto protocol implementation has cost, to date, over 79 TRILLION Dollars.
Meanwhile, the latest issue of Scientific American has an article where the author argues that reducing fossil fuel usage to near zero even with today's technology would lead to a huge reduction in energy related spending, and would actually free up more money for leisure persuits. Why should I believe your outlandish claim over that one?
You focus on little linear microeconomic models, but that doesn't relate to the economy as a whole, which is nonlinear over large timescales and large physical scales.
Once peoples' basic needs have been met, those "other persuits" tend to be rather pointless anyway, like watching movies taking vacations. They don't really contribute that much to the economy, and people won't work all that hard to get them.
I'm not saying that disasters allow people to do what they want to do; I'm saying that they force people to work harder, and that increases overall economic activity. In particular, the original poster's assertion that hundreds of millions would die in an economic depression caused by taking actions to reduce fossil fuel consumption is patently absurd.
They are nowhere near as productive as their potential. Compare with the labor efforts during WWII, where we added millions of new people to the workforce and then blew up most of their output. It seems counterintuitive, but this helped turned America into the world's premier economic powerhouse.
Your little linear microeconomic models don't match experience in the real world. "Buying widgets" is not the definitive measure of economic activity.
Look at the world's history in the wake of disasters. Rebuilding efforts are frequently a large economic stimulus.
It's no fun to be forced to work to replace something you lost, but it's not necessarily a net negative for the overall economy.
The widget maker doesn't get money, but the house builder does; that comes out as a wash. The widget maker's job just moves to the house builders. Additionally, the additional work you do instead of sitting around adds to the economy on top of that. That makes the overall net outcome positive.
They do.
What would people be producing if external factors didn't make them? Nothing. They'd be sitting on the couch drinking beer and watching reality TV.
I didn't say that the goal was a make-work program. I was saying that handwringers who assume that anything which impacts the economic system will destroy it have been proved wrong by history time and again.
That's total bunk. For example, what would happen if by some magical means an enforceable decree came down that said we're eliminating all carbon-based fossil fuels by August 28, 2015?
What would happen is that you'd see one of the largest economic booms in human history. Anything that forces people to get off of their butts and work ends up having a positive effect on the world's economy, whether it's all-out global war in the 1940s or having to kludge the dates on most business software in the 1990s. This would be no different.
Yeah, but the legal theory in question here does not depend on any contracts. Even if he had not signed a non-compete, Microsoft could still use this tactic to prevent him from working for Google or any other company that Microsoft doesn't approve of. That's what people are concerned about.
Judging from the package sizes, it looks like the majority of the lines of code that I actually use day to day were written by the KDE developers. So I guess I'll just call my system KDE.
Have you ever used Midway airport in Chicago? Coming in it's like: Oh, he's going to set us down in that little square gap between all the buildings. Taking off it's like: man, I hope he gets up enough speed to get airborne before we slam into those buildings at the end of the block.
You still haven't explained what's wrong with putting the settings in the program as I described. Being a power user, I prefer not to have to manipulate the app using an inconvenient separate program where everything is forced into one tree control, whether or not that's the best way to present the settings.
So put that stuff you can't seem to handle under an "Advanced Options" button. It would still be far better than trying to clone REGEDIT.EXE.
Yeah, I'd rather launch separate program and wade through a myriad of Registry-like settings find what I really need. Nothing beats action-at-a-distance for useability.
Nope, the government doesn't trust civilians with those kind of weapons.
That's right; simulation exercises have shown that the average citizen doesn't have enough shooting experience to reliably score one clean headshot, much less seven or eight. This task is best left to professionals.
No you don't, at least once you've installed it. To do that, you need to agree to the EULA, which is an additional contract which stipulates that the software is "licensed, not sold". Not sold == you don't own your copy. You agree to give it back to them.
This is a side-effect of copyright as a concept, and has nothing to do with software licenses, EULAs, proprietry software, Microsoft, or similar.
Not it's not. Copyright does not prevent you from buying and owning a book. All it does is prevent you from making copies of the information in the book under most circumstances. Other than that stipulation, you own the book free and clear. Likewise, you own any copy of Linux that you in your possession because the GPL does not force you to agree to a contract where you relinquish that ownership.
If you really could "own" software, you'd be able to do whatever-the-hell you wanted with it. Whether "whatever" is "modify and resell" or "connect more than 5 machines", it makes no difference - the principal is the same.
You can do any of those things, without any license from the author, even modifying and reselling the software, as long as you don't make a new copy (although probably only possible if you got it on rewriteable media). This is just the same as the fact that you can scribble all over a book and then resell it. That's because even under copyright law, you are allowed to own the copies of works that you possess.
Nothing in copyright law prevents you from making more than 5 connections in Windows; you agree to that restriction via the EULA "contract". That's a private agreement between you and Microsoft, and so is your agreement to give ownership of your copy back to Microsoft. The principal behind Linux's license (which simply gives you additional rights beyond standard copyright law) and the principal begind Microsoft's contractual restrictions are not the same at all.
Don't forget that the 11.4kW is thermal fuel power. Unless you're lucky enough to be supplied by some shiny new high-tech power plant, any given amount of electrical power at your outlet consumes ~3.5x as much thermal power to generate and transmit it. Therefore, running this power supply at peak capacity really uses somewhere around 4.9 kW of your per capita power.
In colder climates, such a power supply could supplant what heating there is
However, you're using about 4.9kW of fuel energy to get 1.4kW of heat, whereas an efficient gas furnace would probably use less than 1.6kW of fuel to obtain the same amount of heat. And if it happens to be warm outside instead, you'll use even more electrical power to pump the excess heat out of your house.
The author owns the copyright to the information in the book. All that means is that unless you get the author's permission, you are not allowed to duplicate the information in the book in most cases. No more, no less. That still doesn't give the author magical ownership over your book.
The key difference between Microsoft's EULA and the GPL is that the EULA is a "contract" that attempts to restrict your rights and expand Microsoft's rights beyond what is specified by standard copyright law. The 5-connection limit is one example: it has *nothing* to do with creating new copies of Windows, and therefore nothing to do with copyright. It is Microsoft coming in after the fact and placing additional restrictions on what you can and can't do with the copy that you paid for. There is nothing in copyright law that gives them this power; you must give them that power by allegedly entering into a contractual agreement when you install the software.
The GPL comes with no such contract. It explicitly states that it is not a contract. It does not attempt to remove any rights that you would otherwise have under standard copyright law to use your copy of the software.
The situation is nowhere near identical.
You could do that if you owned the copyright to linux. As I explained clearly in my original post, there is a difference between the copyright and a copy. The issues in this thread relate to ownership of a copy of the OS.