> Could he be sued for this by someone who gets infected?
Not successfully. He has no duty to keep such information secret. He also has not duty to tell you about it, and yet he did. Why should he be liable for the consequences of your failure to act on the warning he gave you?
>...difference between shout "Hey! Everybody! You can break into the fort > here, the wall's broken!" and quietly saying the fort owner "your wall is > broken, people could get in through there".
Microsoft is not the fort owner. The fort owners are the computer owners.
A better analogy would be telling the contractor who built the fort about the hole while keeping it secret from the owner even though you have reason to believe that the bandits may already know about it.
If you know of a way in which someone's computer might be broken into there is nothing wrong with telling them about it.
> Then Intel came along and released a glorified 486 called Atom which sold > like hotcakes (for $40/unit, why wouldn't it -- netbooks are great in their > niche) and completely screwed their plans.
> The new Atoms support x86_64 and Microsoft has hinted that Windows 8 will be > x64 only.
Why do they find this so difficult? Debian has supported 32 and 64 bit architectures for more than a decade.
> If open source is such a success, why aren't there any billion-dollar > turnover open source companies?
That's not how we define success.
The existence of gigantic companies in the "closed-source" market is not a mark of success: it is a mark of failure. They only exist because government policies (insanely long copyrights, software patents, overly-broad trademark laws...) allow them to create and control choke points. And no, this is not "market failure". Quite the contrary: it is "regulation failure". The policies in question purport to encourage innovation and competition. They do the opposite.
The Free Software world is about the closest thing we have to a truly free market. The absence of huge, enormously profitable monopolies is evidence of that.
> They'd better define it as this side of the oort cloud, because getting > through that without powered guidance is a crap-shoot.
The density of material in the Oort is so low that you would have to pass through it thousands of times to have an appreciable risk of hitting anything.
Depends on what I build next. If it's the new arena drag I'll build it out in the machine shed where I do my welding. Motorizing the grinder Robin uses to powder beet pulp I'll do out in the shop. If it's an electronic gadget such as the tractor ECU I've been planning it'll be made mostly upstairs and here on my desk.
> For any device to extract energy from the wind, the wind must be passing > over or through the device.
And it is. The surface that the vehicle rolls on (whether it's the Earth or a treadmill) must be included as part of the machine in order to properly analyze it. This thing is not floating in the air.
Slashdot Mirror
> Adding lots of angular momentum means the object has substantial velocity
> relative to the observer.
No it doesn't. Angular momemtum has to do with spin, not linear motion.
Read the paper.
> How are they going to "feed it angular momentum and charge"?
Read the paper. You feed a black hole momentum and/or charge by dropping objects with momentum and/or charge into it.
> Wait, are you saying McDonalds is not evil?
Yes. They sell people stuff they want. That is not evil. YOur lack of self-control is not their fault.
> I thought it was the sole responsible for fattening up everybody.
Nope. They haven't fattened me up: I'm not fat and rarely eat their products (and not at all for several decades).
> Could he be sued for this by someone who gets infected?
Not successfully. He has no duty to keep such information secret. He also has not duty to tell you about it, and yet he did. Why should he be liable for the consequences of your failure to act on the warning he gave you?
> ...difference between shout "Hey! Everybody! You can break into the fort
> here, the wall's broken!" and quietly saying the fort owner "your wall is
> broken, people could get in through there".
Microsoft is not the fort owner. The fort owners are the computer owners.
A better analogy would be telling the contractor who built the fort about the hole while keeping it secret from the owner even though you have reason to believe that the bandits may already know about it.
If you know of a way in which someone's computer might be broken into there is nothing wrong with telling them about it.
> Then Intel came along and released a glorified 486 called Atom which sold
> like hotcakes (for $40/unit, why wouldn't it -- netbooks are great in their
> niche) and completely screwed their plans.
> The new Atoms support x86_64 and Microsoft has hinted that Windows 8 will be
> x64 only.
Why do they find this so difficult? Debian has supported 32 and 64 bit architectures for more than a decade.
> Flash 10 had been working a LOT better than previous versions for me...
That's the explanation, then. The quality got out of control and exceeded their standards. Nothing to do but kill it.
Because we don't need any.
> If open source is such a success, why aren't there any billion-dollar
> turnover open source companies?
That's not how we define success.
The existence of gigantic companies in the "closed-source" market is not a mark of success: it is a mark of failure. They only exist because government policies (insanely long copyrights, software patents, overly-broad trademark laws...) allow them to create and control choke points. And no, this is not "market failure". Quite the contrary: it is "regulation failure". The policies in question purport to encourage innovation and competition. They do the opposite.
The Free Software world is about the closest thing we have to a truly free market. The absence of huge, enormously profitable monopolies is evidence of that.
> They'd better define it as this side of the oort cloud, because getting
> through that without powered guidance is a crap-shoot.
The density of material in the Oort is so low that you would have to pass through it thousands of times to have an appreciable risk of hitting anything.
> Please explain to me why the USA, being such a puritan country...
It has to do with the fact that the USA, being a large, complex, and diverse place, cannot be so simply characterized.
> I mean, you teach stupid things like abstinence...
No I don't.
Well, it's a way, but it may not be forward...
> In addition to eating crude, they are also aerobic, and leave behind massive
> dead zones of oxygen-less water.
Thereby creating habitat for endangered anaerobic organisms.
> Methane isn't crude oil.
Right. Other bacteria eat crude oil.
> Can we transplant some of these methane-eating into the Gulf of Mexico?
They're already on the job. Just give them a few decades.
(To be pedantic, different species, better adapted to the environment.)
> because the 50 mpg car is better than all of them. that is the one you buy;
> that is the one that matters.
Even if it costs $10,000 more than the 33mpg one and you only drive 5,000 miles per year. Sure.
The BIOS is much older than the IBM pc.
...with an insanely complex load of crap (but it's "graphical" so it must be better).
Seventh and eighth, sctually.
And now we know why he's doing this.
> Those 75$ nike's cost a dollar to make...
But you'll keep on buying them while you huff indignantly about "obscene" profits, won't you?
Depends on what I build next. If it's the new arena drag I'll build it out in the machine shed where I do my welding. Motorizing the grinder Robin uses to powder beet pulp I'll do out in the shop. If it's an electronic gadget such as the tractor ECU I've been planning it'll be made mostly upstairs and here on my desk.
> For any device to extract energy from the wind, the wind must be passing
> over or through the device.
And it is. The surface that the vehicle rolls on (whether it's the Earth or a treadmill) must be included as part of the machine in order to properly analyze it. This thing is not floating in the air.
> Change to a frame of reference moving with the air.
Which is exactly what putting the device on a treadmill does.
> From the electric fan!
There is no electric fan.