It seems Steam is really proving useful in preventing illegal use of Half Life 2
WTF are you talking about? If anything else, Steam has pissed people off and increased piracy. Pirated versions of HL2 don't need steam for the single-player game.
Steam may be somewhat effective in preventing multi-player use of pirated games, but Blizzard's battle.net system works just as well, has been around forever, and isn't nearly as evil.
If they use an unmodified kernel and put some proprietary software on top, there is no need to distribute any sources.
IANAL, but that may not be right. The GPL:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
As I read that, a commercial distributor must offer to provide source to the binaries they're distributing, even if they're unmodified. Just passing on someone else's offer of source code is only acceptable if the distributor is noncommercial.
Drivers for the Live should be fairly stable. So either your distro is putting weird stuff in their kernel, or it's a hardware problem. But in any case, it's not a userspace app bringing down the system.
I didn't say that. But, ethically speaking, free-as-in-beer is better than giving-money-to-child-abusers.
Put yourself in the place of the child, her guardians, her counselors, and ask if you would want still photos and videos of her rape to be broadcast over the net
Of course not. But this is Freenet. 99-to-1 odds the child is never going to know. As such, he/she isn't harmed by their presence.
You haven't considered the possibility that the child might be identifiable and still at risk. You view her anonymously but do nothing to help
What exactly would you suggest one do if they saw a child porn pic? Go running to the nearest police station? "Hi, officer, I was browsing child porn and I found this one kid. Can you locate her/him?" Not only is it quite unlikely that the kid (probably in a different country) could be identified, you'd probably wind up in jail in the process.
I'm not claiming that distributing child porn on Freenet is ethically squeaky-clean. But I can think of a million things that would concern me more about running a Freenet node, such as the potential for illegal activities (such as terrorist plotting) that actually do tangible harm to people.
I don't know what IE you're using, but I've had IE crashes on XP and Win2k3 Server take out the taskbar and desktop icons; I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del to Task Manager to get them back.
their scales balance a little differently than mine.
I don't have a problem with Freenet because
a) Freenet doesn't actually cache child porn on your drive. It may cache fragments of binary data which, if pieced together with other fragments from other sources and decoded a certain way, could be interpreted as something illegal. But that's a far cry from actually putting pictures or video on your disk.
b) If someone looks at child porn from Freenet, no child is harmed. Since it's on Freenet, not only has the producer not been paid, he has no way to know that anyone has even seen it. Obviously the act of producing porn can harm children, but I can't think of any reason that anonymously viewing it with Freenet would lead to any further harm. So it's pretty much a victimless crime.
Still, I don't currently run a node because Freenet's slow as fuck and has almost no content (legal or illegal). But I think the concept behind it is incredibly important, and I'll probably start running a node once it gets faster and/or I get a static IP.
No. ASUS only has to make the code available to those to whom it distributes the binary. It has no obligation to post it for general consumption (although anyone who gets it could do so themselves).
I'm ambivilant about lessons for a beginning guitarist. On the one hand, guitar seems to be a relatively easy instrument to self-teach, and lessons are expensive. On the other hand, you'll learn much faster and easier with a good teacher.
I never stated that clarinet lessons weren't useful
When you said "I don't understand what the point of lessons is", that's how I interpreted it. If that's not what you meant, I apologize. It seemed to me that you were saying that you saw little value in taking lessons. That's something I'm very much non-ambivilant about.
However, to illustrate, one CS professor recently asked freshman CS students "How many of you took HTML classes?" Anyone who answered yes was told they should consider changing majors. Anyone who learned it on there own was told they were in the right place.
Obviously, some things can be self-taught better than others. HTML is the computer equivilant of picking out simple tunes or chords; anyone can figure it out. But, even though it's possible to learn a lot more about computers independently, most people (including you, apparently) choose to learn from an experienced teacher who can give them a better grasp of the basic material.
Did it stifle your creativity when your professor taught you about various standard data structures and algorithms? Probably not, because they're just tools that you can use to further your creative ends. Having them taught to you saved you all the time of figuring them out. Likewise, a good teacher can help a musician master standard technical skills that can be used to further their creative ends.
The two styles of play are simply different. On one hand, you have a part of a larger whole (violin/clarinet) and on the other a solo or 2-4 person ensemble instrument.
You're implying that clarinet/violin is always "part of a larger whole", which is not true at all. Probably the majority of violin literature out there is for solo violin or string quartet. While generally not improvised, there's a whole lot of expression in violin solo playing, and a teacher can greatly help in bringing it out. A good teacher doesn't tell you that whatever you're expressing is wrong, they just help you improve how you express it.
I played clarinet for 10 years (including 4 in university ensembles) before I started guitar and I don't understand what the point of lessons is.
I've played violin for 13 years, and I think you're either a dumbass, a crappy clarinetist, or you had a crappy teacher. Extensive practice alone is next to useless if you're not focusing on the right aspects of your playing, or if you're just playing the same thing over and over and reinforcing mistakes. A good teacher will draw your attention to things that you'd never have noticed, and they'll show you techniques for practicing effectively.
For whatever reason, teachers don't seem to be as common or necessary in guitar playing as in most symphonic instruments; many guitar masters were/are self-taught. However, it's almost impossible to become skilled with most wind/brass/string instruments without a good teachers. As evidence, go to your local symphony and ask everyone who has gotten there without a teacher to raise their hand. I guarentee you no one will. I don't know if a professional teacher is the best approach for a beginning guitar player, but lessons definitely do have a lot of value.
How many of you people would argue that you need professional classes to use a computer?
Last time I checked, many computer professionals spend at least four years learning pretty much full-time how to "use" a computer.
Virtual PC is owned by MS now; it runs on Windows as well. And 7-Zip doesn't compete with XP's built-in zip any more than Office competes with Notepad.
Dude. It's a fucking request. You don't need to pay someone money to be able to ask that they label their advertisements. If Taco only wants to listen to subscribers (and possibly not even to them, since I'm sure many subscribers share the parent's feelings), that's his business, but anyone who wants to has a perfect right to make suggestions.
That's what most people here are trying to do. LAN parties aren't easy to plan, generally unprofitable, and it's unlikely that the school would allow one that doesn't suck. Telling the guy that is the best help he could get.
Every thinkpad I've seen recently has a touchpad as well. I personally like the nipple, but I know plenty of Thinkpad owners who don't and just use the touchpad.
Maybe not the streets, but pretty much all public buildings have water fountains and restrooms. Most restaurants will give you free water if you ask as well.
Am I the only one that thinks paying $999 for a computer that Dell does with a flatpanel and twice the RAM for $699 is absolutely stupid?!
I agree with you completely. It'd be stupid to pay $999 for something that Dell does for $699. Now, show me where Dell sells a comparible machine (first hurdle: must run OSX) for $699.
Slashdot Mirror
Many rocks have many times the surface area of a single rock, so much more of them would be burned up in the atmosphere.
WTF are you talking about? If anything else, Steam has pissed people off and increased piracy. Pirated versions of HL2 don't need steam for the single-player game.
Steam may be somewhat effective in preventing multi-player use of pirated games, but Blizzard's battle.net system works just as well, has been around forever, and isn't nearly as evil.
IANAL, but that may not be right. The GPL:
As I read that, a commercial distributor must offer to provide source to the binaries they're distributing, even if they're unmodified. Just passing on someone else's offer of source code is only acceptable if the distributor is noncommercial.
Drivers for the Live should be fairly stable. So either your distro is putting weird stuff in their kernel, or it's a hardware problem. But in any case, it's not a userspace app bringing down the system.
Playing a sound file causes a kernel panic? You're using a buggy driver.
I didn't say that. But, ethically speaking, free-as-in-beer is better than giving-money-to-child-abusers.
Put yourself in the place of the child, her guardians, her counselors, and ask if you would want still photos and videos of her rape to be broadcast over the net
Of course not. But this is Freenet. 99-to-1 odds the child is never going to know. As such, he/she isn't harmed by their presence.
You haven't considered the possibility that the child might be identifiable and still at risk. You view her anonymously but do nothing to help
What exactly would you suggest one do if they saw a child porn pic? Go running to the nearest police station? "Hi, officer, I was browsing child porn and I found this one kid. Can you locate her/him?" Not only is it quite unlikely that the kid (probably in a different country) could be identified, you'd probably wind up in jail in the process.
I'm not claiming that distributing child porn on Freenet is ethically squeaky-clean. But I can think of a million things that would concern me more about running a Freenet node, such as the potential for illegal activities (such as terrorist plotting) that actually do tangible harm to people.
gotta love people who don't get jokes...
I don't know what IE you're using, but I've had IE crashes on XP and Win2k3 Server take out the taskbar and desktop icons; I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del to Task Manager to get them back.
Whether or not a Tor node is legally a common carrier, it certainly behaves like one. For ethical purposes, that's enough for me.
IANAL, but they wouldn't know that the content wasn't yours until after they already decrypted it. So I think you probably could sue them.
I don't have a problem with Freenet because
a) Freenet doesn't actually cache child porn on your drive. It may cache fragments of binary data which, if pieced together with other fragments from other sources and decoded a certain way, could be interpreted as something illegal. But that's a far cry from actually putting pictures or video on your disk.
b) If someone looks at child porn from Freenet, no child is harmed. Since it's on Freenet, not only has the producer not been paid, he has no way to know that anyone has even seen it. Obviously the act of producing porn can harm children, but I can't think of any reason that anonymously viewing it with Freenet would lead to any further harm. So it's pretty much a victimless crime.
Still, I don't currently run a node because Freenet's slow as fuck and has almost no content (legal or illegal). But I think the concept behind it is incredibly important, and I'll probably start running a node once it gets faster and/or I get a static IP.
Right here.
No. ASUS only has to make the code available to those to whom it distributes the binary. It has no obligation to post it for general consumption (although anyone who gets it could do so themselves).
I'm ambivilant about lessons for a beginning guitarist. On the one hand, guitar seems to be a relatively easy instrument to self-teach, and lessons are expensive. On the other hand, you'll learn much faster and easier with a good teacher.
I never stated that clarinet lessons weren't useful
When you said "I don't understand what the point of lessons is", that's how I interpreted it. If that's not what you meant, I apologize. It seemed to me that you were saying that you saw little value in taking lessons. That's something I'm very much non-ambivilant about.
However, to illustrate, one CS professor recently asked freshman CS students "How many of you took HTML classes?" Anyone who answered yes was told they should consider changing majors. Anyone who learned it on there own was told they were in the right place.
Obviously, some things can be self-taught better than others. HTML is the computer equivilant of picking out simple tunes or chords; anyone can figure it out. But, even though it's possible to learn a lot more about computers independently, most people (including you, apparently) choose to learn from an experienced teacher who can give them a better grasp of the basic material.
Did it stifle your creativity when your professor taught you about various standard data structures and algorithms? Probably not, because they're just tools that you can use to further your creative ends. Having them taught to you saved you all the time of figuring them out. Likewise, a good teacher can help a musician master standard technical skills that can be used to further their creative ends.
The two styles of play are simply different. On one hand, you have a part of a larger whole (violin/clarinet) and on the other a solo or 2-4 person ensemble instrument.
You're implying that clarinet/violin is always "part of a larger whole", which is not true at all. Probably the majority of violin literature out there is for solo violin or string quartet. While generally not improvised, there's a whole lot of expression in violin solo playing, and a teacher can greatly help in bringing it out. A good teacher doesn't tell you that whatever you're expressing is wrong, they just help you improve how you express it.
I've played violin for 13 years, and I think you're either a dumbass, a crappy clarinetist, or you had a crappy teacher. Extensive practice alone is next to useless if you're not focusing on the right aspects of your playing, or if you're just playing the same thing over and over and reinforcing mistakes. A good teacher will draw your attention to things that you'd never have noticed, and they'll show you techniques for practicing effectively.
For whatever reason, teachers don't seem to be as common or necessary in guitar playing as in most symphonic instruments; many guitar masters were/are self-taught. However, it's almost impossible to become skilled with most wind/brass/string instruments without a good teachers. As evidence, go to your local symphony and ask everyone who has gotten there without a teacher to raise their hand. I guarentee you no one will. I don't know if a professional teacher is the best approach for a beginning guitar player, but lessons definitely do have a lot of value.
How many of you people would argue that you need professional classes to use a computer?
Last time I checked, many computer professionals spend at least four years learning pretty much full-time how to "use" a computer.
Virtual PC is owned by MS now; it runs on Windows as well. And 7-Zip doesn't compete with XP's built-in zip any more than Office competes with Notepad.
Bad analogy. Anyone can directly edit a Wikipedia page. Few people have write access to the official Firefox code.
So where do you find a Dell that can run OSX (under PearPC) comparably to an eMac? Such a machine doesn't exist, let alone for $699.
Dude. It's a fucking request. You don't need to pay someone money to be able to ask that they label their advertisements. If Taco only wants to listen to subscribers (and possibly not even to them, since I'm sure many subscribers share the parent's feelings), that's his business, but anyone who wants to has a perfect right to make suggestions.
That's what most people here are trying to do. LAN parties aren't easy to plan, generally unprofitable, and it's unlikely that the school would allow one that doesn't suck. Telling the guy that is the best help he could get.
Every thinkpad I've seen recently has a touchpad as well. I personally like the nipple, but I know plenty of Thinkpad owners who don't and just use the touchpad.
My iBook got about 4 hours, generally. Can't speak for x86s, but 1.5 hours is pretty crappy.
Maybe not the streets, but pretty much all public buildings have water fountains and restrooms. Most restaurants will give you free water if you ask as well.
Umm, they designed it for use with GBA carts. GBA flash carts are a subset of GBA carts, so yes, Nintendo did design it to work with GBA flash carts.
I agree with you completely. It'd be stupid to pay $999 for something that Dell does for $699. Now, show me where Dell sells a comparible machine (first hurdle: must run OSX) for $699.