Actually, I think you have this backwards. By distributing Samba (and for that matter, Linux) under a GPL license they have implicitly agreed to the terms of the GPL. They can argue until they're blue in the face that the GPL is invalid, but their words hold no merit if their actions say otherwise. It would be like standing on a street corner and yelling "There is no right to free speech!" - it makes no sense (the Chewbacca defense?). IDHTBAL (I don't have to be a lawyer) to show that their actions undermine their arguments.
Of course, technically they're only agreeing to the GPL if they distribute the software. So let's all go to SCO's ftp site and download some GPL'd code - preferably a nice big package, like kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-152.nosrc.rpm,for example.
Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same
More important, you don't have to try to get her to come up to your place afterward!
Darl "The Man Who Couldn't Spell Daryl" McBride was quoted as saying "The very DNA of Linux is coming from Unix". Later that day Tler McBride, the father of Darl, moved for an injunction in federal court to prevent Darl from living. "His DNA is unfairly derived from mine," Tler said, "and unless he's willing to pony up $699 per cell for a license I just can't allow him to continue stealing from me like this."
Darl replied with a lawsuit of his own. "Copyright law specifies that you're allowed to make one, and only one, copy of your DNA, for archival purposes only. We've convinced people who have signed our NDA, and we will prove in court that Tler McBride created billions of copies of his DNA over the course of several years, and distributed those copies to the public using the GPL (Governmental Public Lavatories) as a cover." McBride added, "Free as in beer may have brought him and my mother together, and may have brought Bill and I together, but if you pinko commies think you can stop us from exploiting the marketplace for personal gain, you've got another thing cumming! Except for the DNA, of course, which is constitutionally protected."
And then he tells you that there's no actual part on the car that is his - but he bought a rickety old Model T from somebody and claims that windshield wipers were originally designed as an add-on part for that car, so if you want to drive a car that has windshield wipers you'd better pay him a LOT of cash.
"yup, business class passengers can still use WiFi and their mobiles... on our new jets..."
Great, so you can pay extra to spend six hours next to someone yelling into their phone:
Yeah, Jack? Listen. About those latest sales figures - can you CC them to me ASAP? Oh, and FYI, the head honcho up in corporate really wants to grow this business, so I'd like you to get up to speed on the ISO9002 requirements for the Peterson accou - dammit, Frank, how many times do I have to tell you, we don't sell PRODUCTS, we sell SOLUTIONS! What? Yeah, I know you're Jack. Hey, we're golf buddies, right? No, I didn't just call you Frank! Listen, Alan, I can tell you're upset - why don't you take five minutes to think about your situation while I touch base with some clients. Can you do that for me? Greaaat."
I think I'll stick to economy class, where people are less likely to use their laptops as speakerphones.
I don't think that preventing people from rewriting the code in dispute is the issue. After all, as other posters have mentioned, SCO can't recoup losses that they could've prevented, so regardless of the actual amount of time between the "You Copied Our Code!" allegation and the "Here's The Code You Copied" disclosure, that time is effectively zero.
So why hold back? Why not tell everyone exactly what code has been copied? Simply, surprise. In a criminal lawsuit in the US, the prosecution has to present their evidence to the defense before bringing it up at trial. But how long before? And are those rules different for civil cases? IANAL, but I'm sure SCO's going to delay as long as possible before they have to say "lines XXX-YYY of foo.c in kernel 2.q.r contain our code!"
But why? Here's what will happen when they finally do make such a disclosure (by "kernel maintainers" below I mean either people who actually maintain the kernel code or people who are acting based on the knowledge that these maintainers freely provide): (1) The kernel maintainers will check to see if the offending code has ever existed in kernel code outside of SCO's distribution; (2) The kernel maintainers will compare the dates of CVS archives of SCO's code and the Linux kernel to determine whether SCO's code was copied into Linux or vice-versa; (3) The maintainers will check to see who introduced the code to the kernel, and what earlier versions of their code looked like - i.e., was the final code the result of a logical progression from a simpler starting point, or was the code truly introduced as a single chunk? If so, was it introduced by someone who had access to SCO's code?
Each of these steps is going to take time. If SCO presents the "offending" code now, then IBM will be able to answer these questions long before the trial begins, and prepare a better defense. Otherwise, they'll have to scramble for information at the last minute. In other words, even though SCO may be limiting the amount of damages they can collect by withholding information, they may be maximizing their chances of winning the suit. I don't find their actions surprising at all.
That being said, one of the best things IBM could do right now is build a relational database of kernel code, versions, maintainers, and contributors, so that when SCO says "lines XXX-YYY of file foo.c in kernel 2.q.r contain SCO code," the IBM lawyers can immediately respond with information about how many people wrote those lines of code, who they were, whether they had any association with SCO, when the code was introduced to the kernel, how it evolved from previous versions, etc.
Of course, it shouldn't require mentioning that this database should be open-sourced.;-)
When my graduate advisor was working on his PhD thesis, he was doing a lot of numerical simulations, and the best way to display the output was as a plot. Coincidentally, the fastest floating-point processor he had available at the time was in Apple's new LaserWriter (this was in the late '80s). So he did most of his simulations directly on the printer, often tying it up for days at a time processing his page. He was really pissed when one of the profs power-cycled it because his print job wasn't coming out fast enough!
MIT once gave an honorary professorship to Salman Rushdie - back when he was still in hiding. I think that wins the "least-accessible professor" award.
Whoa there! In literary circles there's an idea called "context", in which discussions of bikes vs. Segways don't degenerate into discussions of bikes vs. cars or pedestrians. But thank you for supporting debate rather than just using mod points - I'd much rather have to defend my beliefs than be told unilaterally "you're wrong". As for your argument:
(a) Yes, pure trolldom. But since my point was to discuss bicycles vs. Segways (which are roughly equivalent with regard to speed but nothing else), I feel justified in trolling. The implied solution I offered was to ride a bike rather than a Segway. That way you not only get some exercise, but you get some legal protection as well (read below). And for the amount of money you'd spend on a Segway, you can get a REALLY nice bike.
(b) First of all, you're wrong - it's the RELATIVE velocity of the two bodies that's important. I won't argue here about the relative speeds of bikes vs. Segways, because I don't expect everyone to be riding their bikes (or driving their Segways) at top speed. Regardless, I agree that getting hit by a car when you're on a bike totally sucks. But getting hit when you're on a Segway, for which most state codes don't have laws about wearing helmets or obeying the rules of the road, isn't any better. And as you point out, "Riding on the sidewalk doesn't necessarily make you safer", which argues against one of the justifications for a Segway, "You don't have to share the road with cars that might hit you". As for my "great luck", it comes from being careful and following the rules of the road - read below.
c) What did you expect to happen when you were riding on the sidewalk? Your typical driver doesn't expect high-speed traffic on the sidewalk. This is my biggest argument for bikes vs. Segways. If you're going to go fast, you should be on the street - most states' vehicle laws regarding bicycles (read mine here) specify that you can only ride on the sidewalk "outside business districts when necessary in the interest of safety...." If you're riding fast, you should be in the street so cars pay attention to you. This, and the fact that I expect cars not to notice me unless I force them to, is why I haven't been hit, not my "great luck", as you imply. If you weren't riding fast (i.e., if you were going at the speed of typical pedestrians on the sidwalk), then your argument has nothing to do with bicycles, because you would've had the same problem as a pedestrian. In any case, since there are no laws preventing people from riding Segways fast on the sidewalk, your experience only supports arguments against using Segways.
I don't care if you walk, drive your car, ride a bike, or steer a Segway - my point is that a Segway is equivalent to a bicycle (a) without the legal restrictions, (b) without the safety regulations, and (c) without the exercise. So why should I want to ride one?
Buy a bicycle and go car free, more like. What are the advantages of a Segway over a bicycle?
(a) You don't actually have to pedal to push your fat ass up a hill;
(b) You don't have to share the road with cars that might hit you;
(c) You can ride on the sidewalk, being relatively safe without actually breaking the law.
Let's tackle these arguments point by point: (a) If you're so fat that you can't push yourself up a hill on a bicycle, then you're too fat. See a doctor, seek professional help. Bitch all you want about choice, I dont want to pay 10 cents extra for fries because you sued McDonald's over your self-induced aneurism. To misquote Barry White, "Your Fatness is your Weakness." (b) Yes, riding a bike on the streets is dangerous. I know, I commute to/from work 20 miles/day on a bike, in traffic, in what has been described as the worst, most aggressive rush-hour traffic in the US. But I've been doing it for 10 years, and by being careful, I have yet to get hit by a car. I don't expect everyone to be as careful as I am, but I don't expect that in a car either. Sure, you're more vulnerable on a bike, but OTOH you're not going nearly as fast (well, okay, I've topped 40 mph under normal road conditions and 60 mph when the road was blocked to cars, but your average cyclist wouldn't do that). Seems to me that it balances out. (c) Riding on the sidewalk rather than the streets makes you safer, sure. It makes pedestrians significantly less safe, since they become suddenly at risk of being hit by heavy objects moving at high speeds. So what's good for you *on* the Segway is bad for you *off* the Segway. In addition, you still have to either stop at red lights, or run the lights and risk getting hit by cars - in addition, in most cities you have to go at the speed of pedestrians when you're on the sidewalk. This defeats the purpose of riding on the sidewalk to begin with.
Basically, if you ride on the streets you become a bicyclist who doesn't pedal. If you ride on the sidewalk you become a pedestrian who doesn't move his/her feet. Either way, the only advantage you gain is that you don't have to actually exercise your fat ass, so you can burn even more fuel dragging yourself from point A to point B without helping yourself in any other way. Now, who wants a Segway?
What if, at the end of Brad's list, we add:
h) trading child pornography
i) plotting terrorist attacks
j) promoting cannibalism
On his list, items a, f, and possibly g are potentially illegal - the others are clearly legal in the U.S., although they may violate service agreements with some ISPs. Nonetheless, even the possibly illegal actions are perceived as minor crimes, like speeding - if you found out your neighbor was doing these things, you wouldn't start looking for a new place to live. The three items I listed above are different - if any reasonable person even suspected that their neighbor was planning or committing one of those acts, they'd be calling 911 (or your local government's equivalent, unless you live in a country that supports terrorism / kiddie-porn / cannibalism) in a jiffy.
Spam is different from both of these. It's legal in most places, which distinguishes it from the three items I've mentioned, but it's looked upon with nearly equal horror as a violation of trust. If spam were made illegal (particularly porn spam), it could easily be lumped in with these other categories (okay, spam doesn't directly involve killing/torturing other people, but when you get spam that lists your full name and discusses rape, that's bordering on assault).
I think most people would consider it ethically responsible for their ISPs to report kiddie-porn traders, terrorists, and cannibals - at the very least, it would be irresponsible of the ISPs to not report such activities if they were aware of them. The difference, which Brad's post ignores, is that some activities (kiddie-porn, terrorism, spam) cause or can potentially cause DIRECT phsyical or emotional harm to other individuals (and before you argue this point with regard to spam, think carefully about how you would distinguish between soliciting children for sex and sending porn emails to children), while other activities (copyright infringement, NAT) don't.
To (hopefully) temper the debate, I'll add that I would oppose a "one strike and you're out" rule. It's easy to imagine someone being tricked into downloading unpleasant images, and it's easy to imagine someone sending out spam without knowing any better. But after being warned, the punishment the second time should be more severe.
Okay, if you insist. But I can't decide whether to say that Transistor was their last good album, or whether to start rapping "3.11 is a joke in your town!"
--
You don't have any inalienable rights either. All rights are provided as a matter of law.
Actually the opposite is true. In a society without laws, everyone has the right to do anything, including "tak[ing] your food and beat[ing] you to death with a stick." The purpose of laws is to restrict rights. Take the American Bill of Rights for example. The purpose of these Constitutional amendments is to define a set of rights that Congress cannot take away through laws. That is, the Bill of Rights restricts the right of Congress to pass certain kinds of laws.
Although certain laws may reduce the restrictions that have been imposed by other laws, tere is no complete set of laws that gives you rights that you woult not have had the laws not been passed. The role of the legal system is to protect certain rights that you already had by restricting others. Every legal debate is ultimately about striking a balance between protecting certain rights (e.g. copyright) by restricting others (e.g. fair use).
LEDs hold up fine - in my lab, we regularly PWM LEDs at frequencies up to 1 MHz, with currents running to 30 mA (the LEDs can only take about 20 mA DC, but as your duty cycle drops, the max current increases). For this project you'll probably be using lower currents (unless this orb is going to be the only light source in the room), so the LEDs should be fine. You'll probably want buffers between the parallel port and the LEDs, though, because the port probably can't source enough current to drive the LEDs.
The cantilever arms, which are what differ between the V-shaped and the straight-beam cantilever arms, have characteristic dimensions on the scale of micrometers. That's six orders of magnitude larger than the atomic scale, so classical mechanical principles work just fine.
I don't have access to the paper yet, but I think the difference is fairly intuitive. To twist the tip of a V-shaped cantilever, you mostly just have to bend the center of one arm upward and the center of the other arm downward. To twist the tip of a straight-beam cantilever, though, you have to twist the whole beam. Most thin beams will bend much more easily than they'll twist (try it with a twig), so the V-shaped cantilever will twist more easily. Pretty intuitive, really, once you know the answer.
I wonder how much of a difference this really makes in the measurements, though, and whether the V-shaped cantilevers have other advantages that counteract this torsion problem. Newer AFMs use quadrature photodiodes, so it should be possible to measure the torsion of the tip and find out.
There's a long-standing tradition for computer geeks near MIT to congregate at Mary Chung's, a Chinese restaurant in the area that re-opened a couple of years ago after being closed for health code violations. Fortunately (for Mary, probably), they chose to have their meeting on a Friday, since the place is closed on Mondays (or is it Tuesdays? I don't remember, since my gastrointestinal tract took out a restraining order).
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Actually, I think you have this backwards. By distributing Samba (and for that matter, Linux) under a GPL license they have implicitly agreed to the terms of the GPL. They can argue until they're blue in the face that the GPL is invalid, but their words hold no merit if their actions say otherwise. It would be like standing on a street corner and yelling "There is no right to free speech!" - it makes no sense (the Chewbacca defense?). IDHTBAL (I don't have to be a lawyer) to show that their actions undermine their arguments.
,for example.
Of course, technically they're only agreeing to the GPL if they distribute the software. So let's all go to SCO's ftp site and download some GPL'd code - preferably a nice big package, like kernel-source-2.4.19.SuSE-152.nosrc.rpm
Basically, what I am trying to say is that the viewing experience is BETTER at my house, and if I take a date to a movie, I am paying just about the same
More important, you don't have to try to get her to come up to your place afterward!
Darl "The Man Who Couldn't Spell Daryl" McBride was quoted as saying "The very DNA of Linux is coming from Unix". Later that day Tler McBride, the father of Darl, moved for an injunction in federal court to prevent Darl from living. "His DNA is unfairly derived from mine," Tler said, "and unless he's willing to pony up $699 per cell for a license I just can't allow him to continue stealing from me like this."
Darl replied with a lawsuit of his own. "Copyright law specifies that you're allowed to make one, and only one, copy of your DNA, for archival purposes only. We've convinced people who have signed our NDA, and we will prove in court that Tler McBride created billions of copies of his DNA over the course of several years, and distributed those copies to the public using the GPL (Governmental Public Lavatories) as a cover." McBride added, "Free as in beer may have brought him and my mother together, and may have brought Bill and I together, but if you pinko commies think you can stop us from exploiting the marketplace for personal gain, you've got another thing cumming! Except for the DNA, of course, which is constitutionally protected."
So you're telling me that saying it's its is correct because its it's is properly punctuated?
And then he tells you that there's no actual part on the car that is his - but he bought a rickety old Model T from somebody and claims that windshield wipers were originally designed as an add-on part for that car, so if you want to drive a car that has windshield wipers you'd better pay him a LOT of cash.
"yup, business class passengers can still use WiFi and their mobiles... on our new jets..."
Great, so you can pay extra to spend six hours next to someone yelling into their phone:
Yeah, Jack? Listen. About those latest sales figures - can you CC them to me ASAP? Oh, and FYI, the head honcho up in corporate really wants to grow this business, so I'd like you to get up to speed on the ISO9002 requirements for the Peterson accou - dammit, Frank, how many times do I have to tell you, we don't sell PRODUCTS, we sell SOLUTIONS! What? Yeah, I know you're Jack. Hey, we're golf buddies, right? No, I didn't just call you Frank! Listen, Alan, I can tell you're upset - why don't you take five minutes to think about your situation while I touch base with some clients. Can you do that for me? Greaaat."
I think I'll stick to economy class, where people are less likely to use their laptops as speakerphones.
I don't think that preventing people from rewriting the code in dispute is the issue. After all, as other posters have mentioned, SCO can't recoup losses that they could've prevented, so regardless of the actual amount of time between the "You Copied Our Code!" allegation and the "Here's The Code You Copied" disclosure, that time is effectively zero.
;-)
So why hold back? Why not tell everyone exactly what code has been copied? Simply, surprise. In a criminal lawsuit in the US, the prosecution has to present their evidence to the defense before bringing it up at trial. But how long before? And are those rules different for civil cases? IANAL, but I'm sure SCO's going to delay as long as possible before they have to say "lines XXX-YYY of foo.c in kernel 2.q.r contain our code!"
But why? Here's what will happen when they finally do make such a disclosure (by "kernel maintainers" below I mean either people who actually maintain the kernel code or people who are acting based on the knowledge that these maintainers freely provide):
(1) The kernel maintainers will check to see if the offending code has ever existed in kernel code outside of SCO's distribution;
(2) The kernel maintainers will compare the dates of CVS archives of SCO's code and the Linux kernel to determine whether SCO's code was copied into Linux or vice-versa;
(3) The maintainers will check to see who introduced the code to the kernel, and what earlier versions of their code looked like - i.e., was the final code the result of a logical progression from a simpler starting point, or was the code truly introduced as a single chunk? If so, was it introduced by someone who had access to SCO's code?
Each of these steps is going to take time. If SCO presents the "offending" code now, then IBM will be able to answer these questions long before the trial begins, and prepare a better defense. Otherwise, they'll have to scramble for information at the last minute. In other words, even though SCO may be limiting the amount of damages they can collect by withholding information, they may be maximizing their chances of winning the suit. I don't find their actions surprising at all.
That being said, one of the best things IBM could do right now is build a relational database of kernel code, versions, maintainers, and contributors, so that when SCO says "lines XXX-YYY of file foo.c in kernel 2.q.r contain SCO code," the IBM lawyers can immediately respond with information about how many people wrote those lines of code, who they were, whether they had any association with SCO, when the code was introduced to the kernel, how it evolved from previous versions, etc.
Of course, it shouldn't require mentioning that this database should be open-sourced.
When my graduate advisor was working on his PhD thesis, he was doing a lot of numerical simulations, and the best way to display the output was as a plot. Coincidentally, the fastest floating-point processor he had available at the time was in Apple's new LaserWriter (this was in the late '80s). So he did most of his simulations directly on the printer, often tying it up for days at a time processing his page. He was really pissed when one of the profs power-cycled it because his print job wasn't coming out fast enough!
MIT once gave an honorary professorship to Salman Rushdie - back when he was still in hiding. I think that wins the "least-accessible professor" award.
Reminds me of the CS prof from India I had who told us that all our homework assignments were due on Wed Nez Day.
Yeah, personally it's the Salvador Dali attacks that scare me.
You bet! Each of my legs weighs 80 lbs, the rest of me weighs 40.
Whoa there! In literary circles there's an idea called "context", in which discussions of bikes vs. Segways don't degenerate into discussions of bikes vs. cars or pedestrians. But thank you for supporting debate rather than just using mod points - I'd much rather have to defend my beliefs than be told unilaterally "you're wrong". As for your argument:
(a) Yes, pure trolldom. But since my point was to discuss bicycles vs. Segways (which are roughly equivalent with regard to speed but nothing else), I feel justified in trolling. The implied solution I offered was to ride a bike rather than a Segway. That way you not only get some exercise, but you get some legal protection as well (read below). And for the amount of money you'd spend on a Segway, you can get a REALLY nice bike.
(b) First of all, you're wrong - it's the RELATIVE velocity of the two bodies that's important. I won't argue here about the relative speeds of bikes vs. Segways, because I don't expect everyone to be riding their bikes (or driving their Segways) at top speed. Regardless, I agree that getting hit by a car when you're on a bike totally sucks. But getting hit when you're on a Segway, for which most state codes don't have laws about wearing helmets or obeying the rules of the road, isn't any better. And as you point out, "Riding on the sidewalk doesn't necessarily make you safer", which argues against one of the justifications for a Segway, "You don't have to share the road with cars that might hit you". As for my "great luck", it comes from being careful and following the rules of the road - read below.
c) What did you expect to happen when you were riding on the sidewalk? Your typical driver doesn't expect high-speed traffic on the sidewalk. This is my biggest argument for bikes vs. Segways. If you're going to go fast, you should be on the street - most states' vehicle laws regarding bicycles (read mine here) specify that you can only ride on the sidewalk "outside business districts when necessary in the interest of safety...." If you're riding fast, you should be in the street so cars pay attention to you. This, and the fact that I expect cars not to notice me unless I force them to, is why I haven't been hit, not my "great luck", as you imply. If you weren't riding fast (i.e., if you were going at the speed of typical pedestrians on the sidwalk), then your argument has nothing to do with bicycles, because you would've had the same problem as a pedestrian. In any case, since there are no laws preventing people from riding Segways fast on the sidewalk, your experience only supports arguments against using Segways.
I don't care if you walk, drive your car, ride a bike, or steer a Segway - my point is that a Segway is equivalent to a bicycle (a) without the legal restrictions, (b) without the safety regulations, and (c) without the exercise. So why should I want to ride one?
Buy a bicycle and go car free, more like. What are the advantages of a Segway over a bicycle?
(a) You don't actually have to pedal to push your fat ass up a hill;
(b) You don't have to share the road with cars that might hit you;
(c) You can ride on the sidewalk, being relatively safe without actually breaking the law.
Let's tackle these arguments point by point:
(a) If you're so fat that you can't push yourself up a hill on a bicycle, then you're too fat. See a doctor, seek professional help. Bitch all you want about choice, I dont want to pay 10 cents extra for fries because you sued McDonald's over your self-induced aneurism. To misquote Barry White, "Your Fatness is your Weakness."
(b) Yes, riding a bike on the streets is dangerous. I know, I commute to/from work 20 miles/day on a bike, in traffic, in what has been described as the worst, most aggressive rush-hour traffic in the US. But I've been doing it for 10 years, and by being careful, I have yet to get hit by a car. I don't expect everyone to be as careful as I am, but I don't expect that in a car either. Sure, you're more vulnerable on a bike, but OTOH you're not going nearly as fast (well, okay, I've topped 40 mph under normal road conditions and 60 mph when the road was blocked to cars, but your average cyclist wouldn't do that). Seems to me that it balances out.
(c) Riding on the sidewalk rather than the streets makes you safer, sure. It makes pedestrians significantly less safe, since they become suddenly at risk of being hit by heavy objects moving at high speeds. So what's good for you *on* the Segway is bad for you *off* the Segway. In addition, you still have to either stop at red lights, or run the lights and risk getting hit by cars - in addition, in most cities you have to go at the speed of pedestrians when you're on the sidewalk. This defeats the purpose of riding on the sidewalk to begin with.
Basically, if you ride on the streets you become a bicyclist who doesn't pedal. If you ride on the sidewalk you become a pedestrian who doesn't move his/her feet. Either way, the only advantage you gain is that you don't have to actually exercise your fat ass, so you can burn even more fuel dragging yourself from point A to point B without helping yourself in any other way. Now, who wants a Segway?
Here's my response to Brad Templeton's post:
What if, at the end of Brad's list, we add:
h) trading child pornography
i) plotting terrorist attacks
j) promoting cannibalism
On his list, items a, f, and possibly g are potentially illegal - the others are clearly legal in the U.S., although they may violate service agreements with some ISPs. Nonetheless, even the possibly illegal actions are perceived as minor crimes, like speeding - if you found out your neighbor was doing these things, you wouldn't start looking for a new place to live. The three items I listed above are different - if any reasonable person even suspected that their neighbor was planning or committing one of those acts, they'd be calling 911 (or your local government's equivalent, unless you live in a country that supports terrorism / kiddie-porn / cannibalism) in a jiffy.
Spam is different from both of these. It's legal in most places, which distinguishes it from the three items I've mentioned, but it's looked upon with nearly equal horror as a violation of trust. If spam were made illegal (particularly porn spam), it could easily be lumped in with these other categories (okay, spam doesn't directly involve killing/torturing other people, but when you get spam that lists your full name and discusses rape, that's bordering on assault).
I think most people would consider it ethically responsible for their ISPs to report kiddie-porn traders, terrorists, and cannibals - at the very least, it would be irresponsible of the ISPs to not report such activities if they were aware of them. The difference, which Brad's post ignores, is that some activities (kiddie-porn, terrorism, spam) cause or can potentially cause DIRECT phsyical or emotional harm to other individuals (and before you argue this point with regard to spam, think carefully about how you would distinguish between soliciting children for sex and sending porn emails to children), while other activities (copyright infringement, NAT) don't.
To (hopefully) temper the debate, I'll add that I would oppose a "one strike and you're out" rule. It's easy to imagine someone being tricked into downloading unpleasant images, and it's easy to imagine someone sending out spam without knowing any better. But after being warned, the punishment the second time should be more severe.
I don't know about you, but if I saw a stripper with a bulge under her panties, I'd leave the room pretty quickly.
Let's make another 3.11 joke, shall we?
Okay, if you insist. But I can't decide whether to say that Transistor was their last good album, or whether to start rapping "3.11 is a joke in your town!"
--
You don't have any inalienable rights either. All rights are provided as a matter of law.
Actually the opposite is true. In a society without laws, everyone has the right to do anything, including "tak[ing] your food and beat[ing] you to death with a stick." The purpose of laws is to restrict rights. Take the American Bill of Rights for example. The purpose of these Constitutional amendments is to define a set of rights that Congress cannot take away through laws. That is, the Bill of Rights restricts the right of Congress to pass certain kinds of laws.
Although certain laws may reduce the restrictions that have been imposed by other laws, tere is no complete set of laws that gives you rights that you woult not have had the laws not been passed. The role of the legal system is to protect certain rights that you already had by restricting others. Every legal debate is ultimately about striking a balance between protecting certain rights (e.g. copyright) by restricting others (e.g. fair use).
And my all-time favorite message: Press finish to continue starting Windows 98.
LEDs hold up fine - in my lab, we regularly PWM LEDs at frequencies up to 1 MHz, with currents running to 30 mA (the LEDs can only take about 20 mA DC, but as your duty cycle drops, the max current increases). For this project you'll probably be using lower currents (unless this orb is going to be the only light source in the room), so the LEDs should be fine. You'll probably want buffers between the parallel port and the LEDs, though, because the port probably can't source enough current to drive the LEDs.
The cantilever arms, which are what differ between the V-shaped and the straight-beam cantilever arms, have characteristic dimensions on the scale of micrometers. That's six orders of magnitude larger than the atomic scale, so classical mechanical principles work just fine.
I don't have access to the paper yet, but I think the difference is fairly intuitive. To twist the tip of a V-shaped cantilever, you mostly just have to bend the center of one arm upward and the center of the other arm downward. To twist the tip of a straight-beam cantilever, though, you have to twist the whole beam. Most thin beams will bend much more easily than they'll twist (try it with a twig), so the V-shaped cantilever will twist more easily. Pretty intuitive, really, once you know the answer.
I wonder how much of a difference this really makes in the measurements, though, and whether the V-shaped cantilevers have other advantages that counteract this torsion problem. Newer AFMs use quadrature photodiodes, so it should be possible to measure the torsion of the tip and find out.
> WWJD (Windows is What's on Jesus' Desktop)
Aww, hasn't the guy suffered enough for our sins?
They also have two buttons and white gloves and won't fall into the public domain for another 800 years.
There's a long-standing tradition for computer geeks near MIT to congregate at Mary Chung's, a Chinese restaurant in the area that re-opened a couple of years ago after being closed for health code violations. Fortunately (for Mary, probably), they chose to have their meeting on a Friday, since the place is closed on Mondays (or is it Tuesdays? I don't remember, since my gastrointestinal tract took out a restraining order).
Guess it's time to burn my orienteering merit badge.