However, you can still show your support for Linux by purchasing RTCW from TuxGames (or presumably other Linux game retailers). There was a rather lengthy discussion of supporting the Linux gaming community like this on Linux Games a few days ago.
The only similar product I know about are made by iButton. I like the iButton products because they have a nifty form factor, little stainless steel buttons, that can be attached to anything, including rings & keychains. They even have door locks (which I can't seem to find at the moment), among other things. I even picked up a developer's kit for cheap.
However, I think the IBM solution is more practical and widely usable... For instance, it has higher memory densities, and USB is all over the place.
Again, though, the ibutton has a bunch of built-in security features and is pretty cheap.
I guess, like so many things, it depends on the application.
Please note that I never made any statement about what level I believe Evolution and Creation lie on. All that I stated is that facts should be presented and people should make their own decisions.
I agree, you did not state explicitly what level Evolution and Creation lie on. However, by asking them both to be presented you are implying that a certain standard is met. That is, schools don't teach the "Flat Earth theory", nor the "Holocost denial theory", nor teach the "Moon landing hoax theory". Why? Because lots of someones have made a decision that there is not sufficient evidence that support those theories. Your claim that both should be presented suggests that you believe there IS sufficient reason to believe the Creationism warrants being taught in schools.
...This was also a little sarcasm and frustration on my part because it is a reference that has been overused so much in the last two months.
Any indication of sarcasm and frustration was completely lost on me... sorry.
I do not know the prior poster, but I personally would not accept a controversial new theory as 'correct' until a lot of other scientists started to accept it. (As an aside, it shouldn't be the place of highschools to teach about revolutionary new theories.... they should be teaching stuff that is currently widely acceptable by the scientific community. Let the scientists sort it out... and let the college students know where controversy lies.)
Can you fault someone for pushing for something they believe in deep in their hearts? Would you have the same scorn for EFF or FSF for pushing their political agenda?
I'd not fault them for being true to their beliefs. Although, in Evolution vs. Creation, I might fault them for other things...;/
I accept the plausibility of evolution and do think that creationism is only a myth, but I also believe that people have the right to believe as they would and attempt to have their children taught in schools that do not preach evolution as absolute.
Personally, I believe that Evolution should be taught exclusively, in public schools. Private schools are altogether different. I believe evolution should be taught in just as absolute terms as anything else in science. Just like the theory of gravity, the electromagnetic theory, the superstring theory or any number of biological theories (which I can't name...).
The biggest difference between Evolution and Creation is that scientists believe that the evidence points to Evolution, and that insufficient evidence exists that discredits evolution, but they do not deny that they could find such evidence.... i.e. Most scientists realize that evolution COULD, at least in principle, be wrong.
Are there ANY Creationists that believe creationism is even POSSIBLY wrong? I certainly don't know, but I'd expect they are very very few.
There is the difference between science and religion. And why I believe Evolution should be taught and Creationism should not.
While I disagree with your specific position, I think we agree with our general position on encouraging people to make their own choices... and I hope that I'm not coming across as antagonistic as my prior post, (although I may still come across as strongly opinionated!;) ).
You may try to claim that Evolutionary theory and the Creation myth are on the same level, that they are properly taught along side each other. They aren't. One is a scientific theory, one is a myth, a religious dogma, a fairytale, that a bunch of people happen to believe and sometimes try to treat like a scientific theory.
The poster you responded to said NOTHING about state mandates backing the teaching of evolution, but did talk about the fact that the 'religious right... has had great success at the local level.' certainly meaning in a political context. Since it should be entirely clear that in the scientific realm the Creation myth is held to be just that, a myth.
It seems to me that the Creationist are the ones that are not succeeding in convinicing the scientific community and therefore the education community, so they are attempting to use force via politics.
Who, then, is the one that is behaving most like a fascist?
I will never tell someone that they should not have certain thoughts. I will occassionally tell someone that I believe their thoughts or beliefs on a topic are incorrect. I will also occassionally tell someone that their thoughts are likely to bring them into conflict with the world around them (e.g. they believe that the world is a safe place, and so never lock doors, always walk alone in dangerous parts of town... etc.). It is a frequently a choice, then, what the individuals do about the information, and I cannot and will not force them to a certain decision.
The interesting part of this experiment isn't the part that you see so easily... the part that the applet and other pages show is the wave properties of photons, just normal interference patterns.
The really interesting part is that the interference pattern persists even down to the point you are shooting single photons through the slits, as long as you can't tell which slit the photon is going through, but once you can tell, the pattern breaks down and you get just a single blur.
That is, it is an interference pattern as long as the photons are 'allowed' to act as waves, as soon as you try to treat them as particles, they behave as particles.
I'm no physicist, so my description may be a little off, and I don't know how they experimentally verified single photons going through the slit... but this is used for an example of the dual-nature of light.
Another interesting thing is that QM states that when an object passes through an opening nearly the size of the object, the object will be deflected through some range of angles, thus with the proper sized opening, even bowling balls are deflected and would create some sort of interference pattern (sorta:) ), given the correct slits and enough runs.
I had two classes in college where I worked in teams. One was a software engineering class, the other was a OS class where we wrote an OS.
In the SE class, we broke ourselves into teams of 4, and managed the best we could. I don't remember how exactly this was done, but I do remember that we were told that if we didn't get a finished product produced, we should have a test harness to show that our part works. I think this is a good step useful for begining classes.
In the OS class, we had to work as a team to produce a real OS. Typically the only people who took this class really CARED about OSen and so would put in heroic effort to get the thing working. The grading was done in several parts, one being a final presentation, and another being a form used to grade yourself and your peers.
If you thought you did a lot of work, but the others weren't pull their weight, you could say so, and presumably once the prof looked at all the reviews, he could figure out sorta what was what and who was doing good work or not...
Incidently, I did something a little, perhaps, controversial (although I didn't really think too much about it at the time). One of the tasks I had taken on was to create an ethernet driver for our OS, based on some code we got from Sun (these were 3/20s I think). Myself and another guy within a different group got access to this code, and we were the first to attempt to get it working. I never did, but he did. I therefor attempted briefly to take a copy of his working code and use it within our OS.... in this I was also unsuccessful.
Well, during the presentation, I was going through the list of things I had worked on, including the enet and the fact that I had taken his code and attempted to use it... I'm suprised I didn't get talked to or repremanded about that, but I had two things going in my favor. 1. I didn't attempt to deceive anyone about the origin of the code, 2. I didn't actually get anything to work.... I hope the honesty was the real key. It shouldn't be a big deal that I took some of someone elses code, but that I give proper attribution. In lower level classes, the doing is the important part, whereas in the higher level ones, the understanding is presumably more important...
So, to summarize, I think it would be good to have team projects like this, where you can do several things:
Provide a mechanism to give feedback on all teammates and yourself.
Provide a forum to evaluate each individuals understanding of what they provided.
Provide a mechanism for individuals to demonstrate their own piece, when/if there is a conflict about "who's fault" something is.
Provide constrained environments where sharing of code is encouraged.
These two questions seem to be recurring. "How can college mimic real life better?" "What are college courses really trying to teach?"
These are certainly difficult questions, ones which need continual reevaluation, as society/industry changes and evolves...
Hope some of this helps, even though it is real late in the discussion...
The question isn't much different from "Why do people write programs in their free time?".
One line: I love to program. I have a programming job right now, but haven't been doing as much programming, so I voluntarily took on a second "job" and spent an
extra 60 hours over a week and a half doing real programming, because I love it.
I'm a programmer, and writing software is what I do. If I need a tool for something, I'll go and find it, if it doesn't exist, I'll write it, if it is moderately useful, I'd release it to the world, and using an existing license (like the
GPL) is an easy way to do that.
As others have said, programming is like many other skills: Cooking, gardening,
woodworking, carpentry, knitting... Why do we do any of these in our spare time?
And why do people share ideas, techniques, plans, tools with others? Because
they enjoy the task, and enjoy the interaction with others, enjoy the rewards of
being 'known' for the skill.
Software is somewhat different from other practices, since all you need is a computer and tools (nearly all of which you can find for free) and you can do anything. It is different from some things like gardening where you are dependent on
the weather, season, money for plants, and lots of time, or things like woodworking, where you may share tools with neighbors, but you certainly won't lend a circular saw to a friend in CA if you are in NY!
It isn't that writing software is so different, but it IS based on different economics, which enhances certain aspects and minimizes others...
So why should I have to go learn a new program because Linux isn't supported by these programs?
The point you've seemed to have lost is that YOU aren't the target for this initiative, nor for any similar initiative. You already have a computer, already have software you are familiar with, and already own that software.
For the people specifically referred to, who don't have internet access, who don't already own their software tools, who don't even own a computer, then the prior poster is correct, these equivalents on Linux are MORE than sufficient for all their needs.
A lot of people here are talking about how this is an okay move because the Mhz rating isn't a valid comparison... I disagree, because when I look for processor, I look at benchmarks and I look at Mhz, not between Intel & AMD but within a given line.
For instance, I've decided I want a new AMD, because they are a much more cost effective solution... but which one? I want one with X FSB speed and Y Mhz! I don't want to have to search all over to find comparisons between model Z21000 and RR8000, to find out that RR8000 is really the better chip...
I understand why AMD would do this, but do they believe that THAT is what is holding back further acceptance of AMD chips? Are they not growing fast enough? I don't know... it seems like a bad move to me.
Related, I've been confused by all the memory designations. It was pretty easy when they were just PC100, PC133 whatever... but now with the PC2100 or whatever... I'd hope there is a pattern, but I haven't spent the time to look. Next upgrade, I guess I'll have to. The problem is that from the code name it isn't obvious what the real characteristics are, and to me, that's a problem.
/me get's irritated with himself for not looking into the memory naming scheme and runs off to Google...
I disagree. If a company develops it's cure, it should release it as soon as possible, so that it doesn't give time to other companies to develop their OWN cure, which would cut into their market.
"Cures" in this case are probably treatments which can cure the disease, which isn't to say that it cannot recur. Just look at something treatable like chlymidia or syphilis. Both curable, but still present in world. More than likely, a company will be able to sell a cure very well for the duration of the patent.
Lesser evil, yes, but what you are saying is that the ends justify the means. It doesn't matter what attrocities you or your government performs, if the results are worth it...
In this case, it is theft. But if stealing from tens of thousands of people is okay to help prolong some people's lives, what isn't okay? What is the rule you use to decide? What is TOO wrong to do?
For instance, let's say Brazil is effectively stealing from 100k people (not unreasonable, "the company" isn't the only one affected by this, all the employees, stockholders (which very well could include you and I, participate in a 401k plan?) and others will potentially feel this) to help prolong/improve the lives of 500K people (I'm just making this up, I don't know actual numbers for any of this, but I'm making a point), you claim this is okay and laudable. Is it okay to steal $10 from each of those people? $100? $5000? What if Brazil had to physically injure each one to help the supposed 500k? Would it be okay to kill 10 people to help prolong/improve the lives of those 500K people?
Let me also state that while the use of IP that someone else owns is stealing, there is a distinction between potential harm and actual harm, although there certainly is actual harm involved. (The distinction between actual/potential is most clear with software piracy...)
If multiple companies are creating these drugs, the first one to create a successful cure will crush their competition and their pitful "treatments", and be able to charge more for the cure than the other forms of treatment.
As long as there is competition, developing a cure is a likely.
There's a reason preorders sell out so fast - there is a huge demand. If that's not market saturation, what is?
Actually, that ISN'T market saturation. Market saturation would be if the product sits on the shelves and doesn't sell... then the market is saturated, but as long as they are still selling out with unsatisfied demand, it certainly isn't saturated (at a given price, with a given product, etc, etc).
While I don't necessarily agree with MySQL AB's methods of enforcement, I don't see any hypocracy at all.
Open Source isn't about being against copyright, or about being against other forms of IP, such as trademarks and patents. Open Source is about access to source code and acquiring certain rights along with it.
If an organization provides source to a product they have created, they have an interest in maintaining "consumer brand awareness". i.e. They want people to know that it was THEM who created the product. That is one of a few things that can help distinguish themselves from everyone else.
That is what trademarks are about, and no doubt why MySQL AB is concerned.
I kinda think that MySQL AB was stupid for not registering MySQL.org... but hey, that's a different issue.
Re:Books about Graphic Software...
on
The Blender Book
·
· Score: 1
I'm sceptical that this book will help and I
*really* wish the effort that has evidently gone
into creating it had been spent on improving the
interface such that the book would have been
unnecessary.
No doubt NaN has put a LOT of effort into their design of the UI, i.e. it's deliberate.
It isn't that difficult to understand, once people understand the 3 or 4 big conventions that are used. It's those that are the stumbling block.
I too picked up Blender perhaps a year ago, played with it, and couldn't figure out how to do anything. But a couple hours and a couple of chapters into this book, I was rather productive, and could then experiment and figure out lots of the rest.
Although this is probably a troll... of course I have to reply.
"Child pornography" laws should (IMO) be about the harm it does the child, and nothing else. Is that all they really are? No. But from a strict harm standpoint, there can be no "free speech" argument to justify it. It's one thing to say something, take pictures of something, paint something, it's another to cause harm to another.
IMO, there should be no limits on "free speech" when there is no harm to other humans.
(Note: My use of harm is open to interpretation, but the idea is that it must be "direct", which I could describe in more detail, but won't.)
One last point. I agree with the idea that only people who have lost the battle of ideas or fear they will lose have a need to censor.
Oh, you mean the secrets anyone is able to acquire from the US patent office?
"Millions" developing? This isn't IBM researching how to improve harddrive data density, this isn't DuPont researching how to create a better weed killer. This is a small company that had an idea (original or not) and patented it. In this case, it took a very small amount of time and effort to create the idea. It could easily have been some guy in the shower thinking about spherical image fields and realizing, "Hey, I bet we can use fisheye images too!".
Maybe people don't understand, or perhaps you haven't really thought enough about it.
This is slashdot, if anywhere, people here will defend the little guy, not the "big evil, money sucking corporations"...
But in this case, the problem isn't about big vs. small. It's about stupid patents and the companies that file them, regardless of size, and it's about a government that allows it to happen.
The essence of the patent is a wireless web browser, which could include a laptop with wireless net access, a PDA with wireless net access, or a cellphone with an HTML renderer.
I agree that a functioning patent system should help protect small businesses and inventors, as well as large businesses and inventors. But this is not the product of a system correctly functioning.
Perhaps I have been trolled, but I'd rather assume not, and that you are just less informed.
No, what this means is that you could see a good photograph, and try to mimic that photo by setting up the scene in the same way, the lighting in the same way, using similar filters, and taking your own photograph.
Or similarly, painting a forgery of some great work, and selling it as a replica, not as the real thing.
It is an attempt to make something that looks very similar (or even identical), but is itself it's own unique creation.
I don't know if this is legal or not, but I sure as hell hope it is.
"Free trade" is about choice of the buyer and seller. If the buyer doesn't want to deal with the seller, that's a choice. If the seller doesn't want to deal with the buyer, that's a choice. Neither case eliminates free trade.
If the US were to say "If you trade with Cuba, we will come in with guns and force you not to." that is different, and that is coersion and not free trade. But if the US says "If you trade with Cuba, we will not trade with you." that is still free trade, since it is "the US's" choice to trade or not with any other country.
Aside from the definitions... I disagree with the embargo of Cuba. And I agree with the idea that trade between countries increases the flow of ideas, and, in the case of US and Cuba, would tend to bring Cuba more in line with US beliefs (and influence), which I think is generally a good idea.
I also disagree with the US government telling US citizens who they can and cannot trade with. That is coersion, and not free trade.
Not to mention trampling over the rights of any other nation to trade freely with whom they wish.
Bah. It isn't trampling on anyone's rights other than US citizens. It is impacting MY ability to trade with whomever I choose; but if I were to say that you may trade with me or my sworn enemy, that is MY choice, not yours. (Of course you may or may not wish to trade with me in the first place, but that's a different issue.)
The US government saying that the US will not trade with groups that trade with Cuba may be a bad policy descision (which I agree with), but it is only affecting the RIGHTS of US citizens.
It appears that Sony didn't actually purchase the rights to the PALC technology, but merely licensed it from Tektronics. Further, it was part of a joint venture between Sony, Sharp and Philips.
More information about PALC, at least a nice picture
and some details, can be found here:
Slashdot Mirror
However, I think the IBM solution is more practical and widely usable... For instance, it has higher memory densities, and USB is all over the place.
Again, though, the ibutton has a bunch of built-in security features and is pretty cheap.
I guess, like so many things, it depends on the application.
I agree, you did not state explicitly what level Evolution and Creation lie on. However, by asking them both to be presented you are implying that a certain standard is met. That is, schools don't teach the "Flat Earth theory", nor the "Holocost denial theory", nor teach the "Moon landing hoax theory". Why? Because lots of someones have made a decision that there is not sufficient evidence that support those theories. Your claim that both should be presented suggests that you believe there IS sufficient reason to believe the Creationism warrants being taught in schools.
Any indication of sarcasm and frustration was completely lost on me... sorry.
I do not know the prior poster, but I personally would not accept a controversial new theory as 'correct' until a lot of other scientists started to accept it. (As an aside, it shouldn't be the place of highschools to teach about revolutionary new theories.... they should be teaching stuff that is currently widely acceptable by the scientific community. Let the scientists sort it out... and let the college students know where controversy lies.)
Can you fault someone for pushing for something they believe in deep in their hearts? Would you have the same scorn for EFF or FSF for pushing their political agenda?
I'd not fault them for being true to their beliefs. Although, in Evolution vs. Creation, I might fault them for other things... ;/
I accept the plausibility of evolution and do think that creationism is only a myth, but I also believe that people have the right to believe as they would and attempt to have their children taught in schools that do not preach evolution as absolute.
Personally, I believe that Evolution should be taught exclusively, in public schools. Private schools are altogether different. I believe evolution should be taught in just as absolute terms as anything else in science. Just like the theory of gravity, the electromagnetic theory, the superstring theory or any number of biological theories (which I can't name...).
The biggest difference between Evolution and Creation is that scientists believe that the evidence points to Evolution, and that insufficient evidence exists that discredits evolution, but they do not deny that they could find such evidence.... i.e. Most scientists realize that evolution COULD, at least in principle, be wrong.
Are there ANY Creationists that believe creationism is even POSSIBLY wrong? I certainly don't know, but I'd expect they are very very few.
There is the difference between science and religion. And why I believe Evolution should be taught and Creationism should not.
While I disagree with your specific position, I think we agree with our general position on encouraging people to make their own choices... and I hope that I'm not coming across as antagonistic as my prior post, (although I may still come across as strongly opinionated! ;) ).
You may try to claim that Evolutionary theory and the Creation myth are on the same level, that they are properly taught along side each other. They aren't. One is a scientific theory, one is a myth, a religious dogma, a fairytale, that a bunch of people happen to believe and sometimes try to treat like a scientific theory.
The poster you responded to said NOTHING about state mandates backing the teaching of evolution, but did talk about the fact that the 'religious right... has had great success at the local level.' certainly meaning in a political context. Since it should be entirely clear that in the scientific realm the Creation myth is held to be just that, a myth.
It seems to me that the Creationist are the ones that are not succeeding in convinicing the scientific community and therefore the education community, so they are attempting to use force via politics.
Who, then, is the one that is behaving most like a fascist?
I will never tell someone that they should not have certain thoughts. I will occassionally tell someone that I believe their thoughts or beliefs on a topic are incorrect. I will also occassionally tell someone that their thoughts are likely to bring them into conflict with the world around them (e.g. they believe that the world is a safe place, and so never lock doors, always walk alone in dangerous parts of town... etc.). It is a frequently a choice, then, what the individuals do about the information, and I cannot and will not force them to a certain decision.
The really interesting part is that the interference pattern persists even down to the point you are shooting single photons through the slits, as long as you can't tell which slit the photon is going through, but once you can tell, the pattern breaks down and you get just a single blur.
That is, it is an interference pattern as long as the photons are 'allowed' to act as waves, as soon as you try to treat them as particles, they behave as particles.
I'm no physicist, so my description may be a little off, and I don't know how they experimentally verified single photons going through the slit... but this is used for an example of the dual-nature of light.
Another interesting thing is that QM states that when an object passes through an opening nearly the size of the object, the object will be deflected through some range of angles, thus with the proper sized opening, even bowling balls are deflected and would create some sort of interference pattern (sorta :) ), given the correct slits and enough runs.
In the SE class, we broke ourselves into teams of 4, and managed the best we could. I don't remember how exactly this was done, but I do remember that we were told that if we didn't get a finished product produced, we should have a test harness to show that our part works. I think this is a good step useful for begining classes.
In the OS class, we had to work as a team to produce a real OS. Typically the only people who took this class really CARED about OSen and so would put in heroic effort to get the thing working. The grading was done in several parts, one being a final presentation, and another being a form used to grade yourself and your peers.
If you thought you did a lot of work, but the others weren't pull their weight, you could say so, and presumably once the prof looked at all the reviews, he could figure out sorta what was what and who was doing good work or not...
Incidently, I did something a little, perhaps, controversial (although I didn't really think too much about it at the time). One of the tasks I had taken on was to create an ethernet driver for our OS, based on some code we got from Sun (these were 3/20s I think). Myself and another guy within a different group got access to this code, and we were the first to attempt to get it working. I never did, but he did. I therefor attempted briefly to take a copy of his working code and use it within our OS.... in this I was also unsuccessful.
Well, during the presentation, I was going through the list of things I had worked on, including the enet and the fact that I had taken his code and attempted to use it... I'm suprised I didn't get talked to or repremanded about that, but I had two things going in my favor. 1. I didn't attempt to deceive anyone about the origin of the code, 2. I didn't actually get anything to work.... I hope the honesty was the real key. It shouldn't be a big deal that I took some of someone elses code, but that I give proper attribution. In lower level classes, the doing is the important part, whereas in the higher level ones, the understanding is presumably more important...
So, to summarize, I think it would be good to have team projects like this, where you can do several things:
These two questions seem to be recurring. "How can college mimic real life better?" "What are college courses really trying to teach?"
These are certainly difficult questions, ones which need continual reevaluation, as society/industry changes and evolves...
Hope some of this helps, even though it is real late in the discussion...
One line: I love to program. I have a programming job right now, but haven't been doing as much programming, so I voluntarily took on a second "job" and spent an extra 60 hours over a week and a half doing real programming, because I love it.
I'm a programmer, and writing software is what I do. If I need a tool for something, I'll go and find it, if it doesn't exist, I'll write it, if it is moderately useful, I'd release it to the world, and using an existing license (like the GPL) is an easy way to do that.
As others have said, programming is like many other skills: Cooking, gardening, woodworking, carpentry, knitting... Why do we do any of these in our spare time? And why do people share ideas, techniques, plans, tools with others? Because they enjoy the task, and enjoy the interaction with others, enjoy the rewards of being 'known' for the skill.
Software is somewhat different from other practices, since all you need is a computer and tools (nearly all of which you can find for free) and you can do anything. It is different from some things like gardening where you are dependent on the weather, season, money for plants, and lots of time, or things like woodworking, where you may share tools with neighbors, but you certainly won't lend a circular saw to a friend in CA if you are in NY!
It isn't that writing software is so different, but it IS based on different economics, which enhances certain aspects and minimizes others...
The point you've seemed to have lost is that YOU aren't the target for this initiative, nor for any similar initiative. You already have a computer, already have software you are familiar with, and already own that software.
For the people specifically referred to, who don't have internet access, who don't already own their software tools, who don't even own a computer, then the prior poster is correct, these equivalents on Linux are MORE than sufficient for all their needs.
For instance, I've decided I want a new AMD, because they are a much more cost effective solution... but which one? I want one with X FSB speed and Y Mhz! I don't want to have to search all over to find comparisons between model Z21000 and RR8000, to find out that RR8000 is really the better chip...
I understand why AMD would do this, but do they believe that THAT is what is holding back further acceptance of AMD chips? Are they not growing fast enough? I don't know... it seems like a bad move to me.
Related, I've been confused by all the memory designations. It was pretty easy when they were just PC100, PC133 whatever... but now with the PC2100 or whatever... I'd hope there is a pattern, but I haven't spent the time to look. Next upgrade, I guess I'll have to. The problem is that from the code name it isn't obvious what the real characteristics are, and to me, that's a problem.
BTW, what the heck is the "postercomment compression filter" and what is it I could have violated? ...
"Cures" in this case are probably treatments which can cure the disease, which isn't to say that it cannot recur. Just look at something treatable like chlymidia or syphilis. Both curable, but still present in world. More than likely, a company will be able to sell a cure very well for the duration of the patent.
In this case, it is theft. But if stealing from tens of thousands of people is okay to help prolong some people's lives, what isn't okay? What is the rule you use to decide? What is TOO wrong to do?
For instance, let's say Brazil is effectively stealing from 100k people (not unreasonable, "the company" isn't the only one affected by this, all the employees, stockholders (which very well could include you and I, participate in a 401k plan?) and others will potentially feel this) to help prolong/improve the lives of 500K people (I'm just making this up, I don't know actual numbers for any of this, but I'm making a point), you claim this is okay and laudable. Is it okay to steal $10 from each of those people? $100? $5000? What if Brazil had to physically injure each one to help the supposed 500k? Would it be okay to kill 10 people to help prolong/improve the lives of those 500K people?
Let me also state that while the use of IP that someone else owns is stealing, there is a distinction between potential harm and actual harm, although there certainly is actual harm involved. (The distinction between actual/potential is most clear with software piracy...)
If multiple companies are creating these drugs, the first one to create a successful cure will crush their competition and their pitful "treatments", and be able to charge more for the cure than the other forms of treatment.
As long as there is competition, developing a cure is a likely.
Actually, that ISN'T market saturation. Market saturation would be if the product sits on the shelves and doesn't sell... then the market is saturated, but as long as they are still selling out with unsatisfied demand, it certainly isn't saturated (at a given price, with a given product, etc, etc).
Open Source isn't about being against copyright, or about being against other forms of IP, such as trademarks and patents. Open Source is about access to source code and acquiring certain rights along with it.
If an organization provides source to a product they have created, they have an interest in maintaining "consumer brand awareness". i.e. They want people to know that it was THEM who created the product. That is one of a few things that can help distinguish themselves from everyone else.
That is what trademarks are about, and no doubt why MySQL AB is concerned.
I kinda think that MySQL AB was stupid for not registering MySQL.org... but hey, that's a different issue.
No doubt NaN has put a LOT of effort into their design of the UI, i.e. it's deliberate.
It isn't that difficult to understand, once people understand the 3 or 4 big conventions that are used. It's those that are the stumbling block.
I too picked up Blender perhaps a year ago, played with it, and couldn't figure out how to do anything. But a couple hours and a couple of chapters into this book, I was rather productive, and could then experiment and figure out lots of the rest.
"Child pornography" laws should (IMO) be about the harm it does the child, and nothing else. Is that all they really are? No. But from a strict harm standpoint, there can be no "free speech" argument to justify it. It's one thing to say something, take pictures of something, paint something, it's another to cause harm to another.
IMO, there should be no limits on "free speech" when there is no harm to other humans.
(Note: My use of harm is open to interpretation, but the idea is that it must be "direct", which I could describe in more detail, but won't.)
One last point. I agree with the idea that only people who have lost the battle of ideas or fear they will lose have a need to censor.
I was specifically responding to the argument put forth by someone else which I believe isn't a very good one.
I don't believe in software patents as they stand today, but I wasn't arguing for or against this particular one.
Oh, you mean the secrets anyone is able to acquire from the US patent office?
"Millions" developing? This isn't IBM researching how to improve harddrive data density, this isn't DuPont researching how to create a better weed killer. This is a small company that had an idea (original or not) and patented it. In this case, it took a very small amount of time and effort to create the idea. It could easily have been some guy in the shower thinking about spherical image fields and realizing, "Hey, I bet we can use fisheye images too!".
Maybe people don't understand, or perhaps you haven't really thought enough about it.
But in this case, the problem isn't about big vs. small. It's about stupid patents and the companies that file them, regardless of size, and it's about a government that allows it to happen.
The essence of the patent is a wireless web browser, which could include a laptop with wireless net access, a PDA with wireless net access, or a cellphone with an HTML renderer.
I agree that a functioning patent system should help protect small businesses and inventors, as well as large businesses and inventors. But this is not the product of a system correctly functioning.
Perhaps I have been trolled, but I'd rather assume not, and that you are just less informed.
Or similarly, painting a forgery of some great work, and selling it as a replica, not as the real thing.
It is an attempt to make something that looks very similar (or even identical), but is itself it's own unique creation.
I don't know if this is legal or not, but I sure as hell hope it is.
If the US were to say "If you trade with Cuba, we will come in with guns and force you not to." that is different, and that is coersion and not free trade. But if the US says "If you trade with Cuba, we will not trade with you." that is still free trade, since it is "the US's" choice to trade or not with any other country.
Aside from the definitions... I disagree with the embargo of Cuba. And I agree with the idea that trade between countries increases the flow of ideas, and, in the case of US and Cuba, would tend to bring Cuba more in line with US beliefs (and influence), which I think is generally a good idea.
I also disagree with the US government telling US citizens who they can and cannot trade with. That is coersion, and not free trade.
Bah. It isn't trampling on anyone's rights other than US citizens. It is impacting MY ability to trade with whomever I choose; but if I were to say that you may trade with me or my sworn enemy, that is MY choice, not yours. (Of course you may or may not wish to trade with me in the first place, but that's a different issue.)
The US government saying that the US will not trade with groups that trade with Cuba may be a bad policy descision (which I agree with), but it is only affecting the RIGHTS of US citizens.
More information about PALC, at least a nice picture and some details, can be found here:
www.meko.com/palc.html
As of last December, the three companies appeared to still be developing the technology.