"Now, I would hope that Congress wouldn't be so irresponsible to pass such huge legislation in a way that didn't leave us with any record of who voted for and against it, but if they were responsible, we wouldn't have this damn thing in the first place."
Simple solution: Because the DMCA is now law, we know that the majority of congresscritters voted for it. Therefore, if they were in office at the time, odds are they voted for it and it's safe to vote against them next election.
Sure, maybe you'll vote out somebody that actually voted against the law, but it's their own fault for not speaking up more loudly against the law and generally help the law come about through their inaction.
Ever notice how clothes with a corporate logo tend to be more expensive than non-logo-wear clothing? I mean, compare a plain ol' gray Hanes t-shirt to one that has "Tommy" plastered on the chest.
Now, imagine the price difference if, instead of just one logo, the shirt could display one of ten at any given moment. That sounds like justification for the clothing makers to charge ten times the price to me.
Of course, these clothes could be CHEAPER instead of more expensive (free advertising and all), but the average consumer is just so gullible...
"(who Bush recognizes as actually meaning something... I sure don't)
I'm pretty sure Bush ain't Catholic. On top of that, though, the Pope is a political leader as well as a religious one. Consider how many Catholics out there listen to what he says.
Why bother with speakers and a microphone? Connect your sound card's (stereo system's, whatever) sound output jack directly to the microphone or input jack. No fuss, no mess.
"What you described above is "active gravitational mass". There is also "passive gravitational mass", which describes how strongly a body reacts to another body's active gravitational mass."
So how strongly a body causes others to react is a different/independent quantity than how strongly it reacts to others... This doesn't sound like it sits very well with Newton's third law. How does that work? URLs?
Why people use Netscape instead of IE or Mozilla
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
First off, let me just say that while "Netscape loyalists" may not be all that much of a misnomer, "computer geeks" aren't the only bunch of people still using Netscape. A big group of people who still use it are those who aren't all that computer literate and wish to continue using Netscape because it's what they started with and what they know. The same reasons why my mother still uses Eudora Lite (or whatever they're calling themselves now) since WFW 3.11 instead of Outlook Express. There are also a lot of corporations that use this kind of mentality when deciding on software. "Netscape still works for us, why bother changing software?"
As for the "Why Netscape instead of Mozilla?" group, there are advantages to using a mildly invasive, "shrink-wrapped" piece of software. The fact that it's official Netscape means that customers have a single and (usually) definative source of help and information in the form of Netscape themselves. While Mozilla has Bugzilla and on-line forums, that's not all that appealing to those who view themselves more as "casual computer users" than "participants in the community." And again, this is something the corporate types prefer.
So before you jump down Netscape's throat for releasing this, remember that not everybody is a Free software junkie. Personally, I wish they released this update sooner, and I think it will be interesting to see how Mozilla vs. Netscape works out. This could be the definative closed-source vs. open-source competition, with about as even a playing field between the two as you're going to get.
IMO, you're throwing around the word "mass" a little too loosely. Technically speaking, there are two kinds of mass: inertial mass (that which resists a change in motion) and gravitational mass (that which attracts other mass, a gravitational "charge" so to speak). Under current physics, they just happen to be the same (that is, 1 kg(inertial) = 1 kg(gravitational). They tend to call it the equivalence principle.
On the other hand, this equivalency principle is a side-effect of general relativity (which states that it is impossible to tell the difference between force due to linear acceleration and force due to gravity, so therefore you can't tell the difference between the two types of mass). If this experiment holds true, what we have on our hands is an object with low mass (inertial) and a high mass (gravitational), which negates the principle and possibly does some ugly things to general relativity.
"It would be nice to take a different stand here in Europe but with so much US influence we find it difficult to fight the US owned corporations."
China and other parts of Asia seem to be doing well enough.
"The French find it difficult enough to keep their language."
Then they should blame themselves for shooting themselves in the foot in 1066. It's OK for them to butcher our language until we're stuck with one of the most complex languages on the planet, but turnabout isn't fair play?
"The European Superstate will no doubt crumble and nearly all pretence to be in the interest of European citizens will continue to crumble."
Perhaps, but I see no reason to believe that this will be for economic reasons. In fact, I'm not sure where you're getting this argment from...
"With standard of life being assumed to correlate with GNP we are in an awful spiral of more work less life as our leaders persue the self-destructive path of increased productivity."
What exactly are you advocating? You're against increased productivity, so are you for artificial shortages and state-run monopolies? When last I checked, even the PRC is getting out of the pure command economy idea.
"Short term politics ensures that short term gains in GNP are the policies enacted upon and not the long sighted welfare of the nation."
Welcome to democracy. Long-term planning don't get you short-term votes. I realize that a number of economists and historians have tied together economies and the "greatness" of nations, but economy and the government are still separate entities (one much more intangible than the other). This isn't special relativity we're talking about here.
"And we can blame this on capitalistic thinking and being at the mercy of the futures, currency and stock markets."
Maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but that last one makes you sound like a devout communist.
"I believe this is actually the case, and that causality is a perceptual phenomenon imposed on our mind by our senses."
I think you're missing something. Nothing can be imposed on anything because that denotes cause ("Senses cause phenomenon"). You cannot believe in anything becuse a belief is based on ("caused by") life experiences and learned knowledge. You cannot learn anything because that pre-supposes that something can change ("cause a difference in") your way of thinking. Any verb that isn't "is/to be" has no meaning without cause/effect. Including "think."
"Actually, our mind will try to come with scores of different explanations for a seemingly paradoxical event stemming from the confounding of coincidence with simultaneity that we call causality."
First off, part of this passage essentially says "Strange events cause the mind to try to cope."
Secondly, as long as special relativity continues to stand, simultaneity is meaningless, with or without FTL. You show me two events that happen at exactly the same time, and I'll move you at a different velocity (with respect to the events) and show you they didn't. And both views (simultaneous, non-simultaneous) are equally valid and equally true. It's this nature of space-time that brings about FTL paradoxes (like this one) to begin with.
"It cannot be understood in the framework of general relativity."
If this isn't bogus, it means that there's a great big hole in Einstein's view of gravity in particular and possibly the universe in general. The question is how big the hole is.
When you're talking about faster-than-light travel in the realm of special relativity, you have three choices:
1.) Causality - event A causes event B, such as "I push key on keyboard, then letter appears on screen.
2.) FTL - moving faster than 3E8 m/s.
3.) Relativity - No matter how fast you go, light is always measured to be going 3E8 m/s in relation to you. Space-time itself is altered to make this so.
Of those three, you can only have two. If you move faster than light under relativity, you begin to move backwards in time. Even worse, causality goes out the window. Using the example of my keyboard again, all observers moving slower than the speed of light see that I press the key BEFORE it appears on the screen (but they disagree on how long before), so I essentially cause it to happen. Photons see everything as simultaneous (literally. A photon considers my typing to be simultaneous to the big bang). A person moving faster than light, though, will instead see that the letters appearing on my screen before I type, meaning that the words are causing me to press the keys. Under relativity, it looks this way because it IS that way, because all observations (in an inertial frame of reference, blah blah blah) are by definition right under relativity. This means nothing really causes anything, since it can be proved that both A caused B and B caused A. The universe runs entirely on coincidence if this is the case.
This also leaves the door open for headache-inducing paradoxes (give two duelers tachyon pistols and they will both shoot each other before the other fires), but that's another long story.
If we can find holes in relativity, though, it may be the one of those three options we throw out. This will let us get to the next star system in a reasonable amount of time while still being able to prove that we invented warp drive, not the other way around.:)
After the whole Code Red headline contest non-event, I think we need another similar contest here. This time, however, instead of guessing headlines on newspapers, you'd have to guess:
1.) Whether the ruling is upheld, overturned, or not even heard by the court. (OK, so this one is probably a gimme)
2.) If it's heard, who comments on the decision, and do they support or dissent?
3.) If it's not heard, will there be any comments, and what might they say? Will the justices kick it back down with a chuckle, or will they too say something about (for example) Microsoft's disrespect of the legal system?
I'm typing this over a 56k connection. If I want faster in this area, I can either pay for a leased line, an ISDN line, or a satellite connection. If these options are cheap, could you buy me one please?
"Russia commented this afternoon, stating that they didnt' give a flying fuck."
The advantages of still having a viable nuclear arsenal.:)
"Canada dropped all pretense and joined the US."
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You guys make a better puppet state. With you, we have two votes instead of one in the UN, G8, so on and so forth...
Sure will be interesting to see them try...
on
MS getting rid of SAMBA?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Shutting out SaMBa is easy. The trick is not to shut out older MS SMB clients like, say, LanMan, Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME, NT 3.51, 4.0 and Win2k in the process. If they pursue this too rigorously, they risk alienating customers because the new software isn't backwards compatible. Why do you think they're still putting DOS compatability in their new OSes even though the last MS-DOS release was almost a decade ago?
According to this article on CNN, the California Supreme Court ruled 5-1 that gun manufacturers cannot be held responsible for the illegal acts of its customers.
At least in California, it is legal to make a product that is explicitly designed to maim and/or kill someone, but it is not legal to make a product that will defeat copy protection.
And, for all you conspiracy theorists, notice that it's illegal to own the kind of firepower that can hurt a large corporation (say, a tank or a nuclear bomb).
I bet you're not half as tired as I am of the winmodem repeatedly cutting out on my parents new WinME Dell... New drivers, new modem, still the same old problem. And this kind of crap ONLY happens in Windows.
Speaking of AIM and MSN Messenger...
on
Breaking Windows
·
· Score: 1
"He believes that Microsoft asking AOL to open its Instant Messaging protocol is a harbinger of this golden future, and that Microsoft's Shared Source program shows it is moving towards open source."
The fact that I'm having trouble logging into my MSN Messenger account through Everybuddy but doing fine with my AIM account makes this seem awfully sinister...
"5 hours to figure out how to install a new modem"
Personally, I think the trouble to get the hardware working initially under Linux beats the heck out of the lifetime of fustration that Windows drivers tend to give me.
I've seen several posts jumping on Slashdot about how this story is biased against Microsoft, how it's normal with such a big change for the OS, that the hardware and software in question will have new versions, and so on and so forth...
However...
One thing no post has touched on (at least not to my satisfaction) is why popular hardware and software manufacturers need to bend over backwards to keep up with changes to the operating system instead of the other whay around.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple solution: Because the DMCA is now law, we know that the majority of congresscritters voted for it. Therefore, if they were in office at the time, odds are they voted for it and it's safe to vote against them next election.
Sure, maybe you'll vote out somebody that actually voted against the law, but it's their own fault for not speaking up more loudly against the law and generally help the law come about through their inaction.
I don't even have a DVD player, but that hasn't change the current state of affairs any.
Now, imagine the price difference if, instead of just one logo, the shirt could display one of ten at any given moment. That sounds like justification for the clothing makers to charge ten times the price to me.
Of course, these clothes could be CHEAPER instead of more expensive (free advertising and all), but the average consumer is just so gullible...
I'd install a PSX emulator on it so I could play the games that the PS2's built-in emulator has problems with (like, say, Final Fantasy Anthology).
In case you haven't noticed, the code was re-compiled for the Itanium...
How the heck do you close-source public television?
I'm pretty sure Bush ain't Catholic. On top of that, though, the Pope is a political leader as well as a religious one. Consider how many Catholics out there listen to what he says.
It wouldn't be worth mentioning, since you can't cluster more than four nodes with W2k Datacenter. When you compare that to this cluster of 70+...
Why bother with speakers and a microphone? Connect your sound card's (stereo system's, whatever) sound output jack directly to the microphone or input jack. No fuss, no mess.
So how strongly a body causes others to react is a different/independent quantity than how strongly it reacts to others... This doesn't sound like it sits very well with Newton's third law. How does that work? URLs?
As for the "Why Netscape instead of Mozilla?" group, there are advantages to using a mildly invasive, "shrink-wrapped" piece of software. The fact that it's official Netscape means that customers have a single and (usually) definative source of help and information in the form of Netscape themselves. While Mozilla has Bugzilla and on-line forums, that's not all that appealing to those who view themselves more as "casual computer users" than "participants in the community." And again, this is something the corporate types prefer.
So before you jump down Netscape's throat for releasing this, remember that not everybody is a Free software junkie. Personally, I wish they released this update sooner, and I think it will be interesting to see how Mozilla vs. Netscape works out. This could be the definative closed-source vs. open-source competition, with about as even a playing field between the two as you're going to get.
Must... not... nit-pick... willpower... weaking... ARGH!
IMO, you're throwing around the word "mass" a little too loosely. Technically speaking, there are two kinds of mass: inertial mass (that which resists a change in motion) and gravitational mass (that which attracts other mass, a gravitational "charge" so to speak). Under current physics, they just happen to be the same (that is, 1 kg(inertial) = 1 kg(gravitational). They tend to call it the equivalence principle.
On the other hand, this equivalency principle is a side-effect of general relativity (which states that it is impossible to tell the difference between force due to linear acceleration and force due to gravity, so therefore you can't tell the difference between the two types of mass). If this experiment holds true, what we have on our hands is an object with low mass (inertial) and a high mass (gravitational), which negates the principle and possibly does some ugly things to general relativity.
China and other parts of Asia seem to be doing well enough.
"The French find it difficult enough to keep their language."
Then they should blame themselves for shooting themselves in the foot in 1066. It's OK for them to butcher our language until we're stuck with one of the most complex languages on the planet, but turnabout isn't fair play?
"The European Superstate will no doubt crumble and nearly all pretence to be in the interest of European citizens will continue to crumble."
Perhaps, but I see no reason to believe that this will be for economic reasons. In fact, I'm not sure where you're getting this argment from...
"With standard of life being assumed to correlate with GNP we are in an awful spiral of more work less life as our leaders persue the self-destructive path of increased productivity."
What exactly are you advocating? You're against increased productivity, so are you for artificial shortages and state-run monopolies? When last I checked, even the PRC is getting out of the pure command economy idea.
"Short term politics ensures that short term gains in GNP are the policies enacted upon and not the long sighted welfare of the nation."
Welcome to democracy. Long-term planning don't get you short-term votes. I realize that a number of economists and historians have tied together economies and the "greatness" of nations, but economy and the government are still separate entities (one much more intangible than the other). This isn't special relativity we're talking about here.
"And we can blame this on capitalistic thinking and being at the mercy of the futures, currency and stock markets."
Maybe I'm misinterpreting things, but that last one makes you sound like a devout communist.
I think you're missing something. Nothing can be imposed on anything because that denotes cause ("Senses cause phenomenon"). You cannot believe in anything becuse a belief is based on ("caused by") life experiences and learned knowledge. You cannot learn anything because that pre-supposes that something can change ("cause a difference in") your way of thinking. Any verb that isn't "is/to be" has no meaning without cause/effect. Including "think."
"Actually, our mind will try to come with scores of different explanations for a seemingly paradoxical event stemming from the confounding of coincidence with simultaneity that we call causality."
First off, part of this passage essentially says "Strange events cause the mind to try to cope."
Secondly, as long as special relativity continues to stand, simultaneity is meaningless, with or without FTL. You show me two events that happen at exactly the same time, and I'll move you at a different velocity (with respect to the events) and show you they didn't. And both views (simultaneous, non-simultaneous) are equally valid and equally true. It's this nature of space-time that brings about FTL paradoxes (like this one) to begin with.
"It cannot be understood in the framework of general relativity."
If this isn't bogus, it means that there's a great big hole in Einstein's view of gravity in particular and possibly the universe in general. The question is how big the hole is.
When you're talking about faster-than-light travel in the realm of special relativity, you have three choices:
1.) Causality - event A causes event B, such as "I push key on keyboard, then letter appears on screen.
2.) FTL - moving faster than 3E8 m/s.
3.) Relativity - No matter how fast you go, light is always measured to be going 3E8 m/s in relation to you. Space-time itself is altered to make this so.
Of those three, you can only have two. If you move faster than light under relativity, you begin to move backwards in time. Even worse, causality goes out the window. Using the example of my keyboard again, all observers moving slower than the speed of light see that I press the key BEFORE it appears on the screen (but they disagree on how long before), so I essentially cause it to happen. Photons see everything as simultaneous (literally. A photon considers my typing to be simultaneous to the big bang). A person moving faster than light, though, will instead see that the letters appearing on my screen before I type, meaning that the words are causing me to press the keys. Under relativity, it looks this way because it IS that way, because all observations (in an inertial frame of reference, blah blah blah) are by definition right under relativity. This means nothing really causes anything, since it can be proved that both A caused B and B caused A. The universe runs entirely on coincidence if this is the case.
This also leaves the door open for headache-inducing paradoxes (give two duelers tachyon pistols and they will both shoot each other before the other fires), but that's another long story.
If we can find holes in relativity, though, it may be the one of those three options we throw out. This will let us get to the next star system in a reasonable amount of time while still being able to prove that we invented warp drive, not the other way around. :)
Gotta ask: Why doesn't the anti-Christ use radians?
1.) Whether the ruling is upheld, overturned, or not even heard by the court. (OK, so this one is probably a gimme)
2.) If it's heard, who comments on the decision, and do they support or dissent?
3.) If it's not heard, will there be any comments, and what might they say? Will the justices kick it back down with a chuckle, or will they too say something about (for example) Microsoft's disrespect of the legal system?
I'm typing this over a 56k connection. If I want faster in this area, I can either pay for a leased line, an ISDN line, or a satellite connection. If these options are cheap, could you buy me one please?
The advantages of still having a viable nuclear arsenal. :)
"Canada dropped all pretense and joined the US."
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You guys make a better puppet state. With you, we have two votes instead of one in the UN, G8, so on and so forth...
Shutting out SaMBa is easy. The trick is not to shut out older MS SMB clients like, say, LanMan, Windows 3.11, 95, 98, ME, NT 3.51, 4.0 and Win2k in the process. If they pursue this too rigorously, they risk alienating customers because the new software isn't backwards compatible. Why do you think they're still putting DOS compatability in their new OSes even though the last MS-DOS release was almost a decade ago?
At least in California, it is legal to make a product that is explicitly designed to maim and/or kill someone, but it is not legal to make a product that will defeat copy protection.
And, for all you conspiracy theorists, notice that it's illegal to own the kind of firepower that can hurt a large corporation (say, a tank or a nuclear bomb).
I bet you're not half as tired as I am of the winmodem repeatedly cutting out on my parents new WinME Dell... New drivers, new modem, still the same old problem. And this kind of crap ONLY happens in Windows.
The fact that I'm having trouble logging into my MSN Messenger account through Everybuddy but doing fine with my AIM account makes this seem awfully sinister...
Personally, I think the trouble to get the hardware working initially under Linux beats the heck out of the lifetime of fustration that Windows drivers tend to give me.
However...
One thing no post has touched on (at least not to my satisfaction) is why popular hardware and software manufacturers need to bend over backwards to keep up with changes to the operating system instead of the other whay around.