> The question in my mind, though, is what effects on the ecosystems of these areas will > replacing an organism low on the food chain with a GM version?
Could be serious. The malaria parasite is a major factor in the control of the endemic species homo sapiens. Its elimination could result in a population bloom and habitat destruction.
> Between the news we saw last week and biomagnification, could this wind up substituting > one problem for another?
Frankenbugs! Frankenbugs! Giant, 100' frankenbugs rampaging through the landscape!
Might help control the homo sapiens overpopulation problem resulting from the elimination of malaria, though.
Note for Slashdot readers: this article may contain sarcasm, parody, or perhaps even irony.
The specious "however" is a standard journalistic technique for creating a false sense of contradiction. Read the news carefully and you will see this and similar techniques used to cast doubt on the statements of those the reporter dislikes without actually producing a contradicting statement or fact.
> Is that like how the Constitution provides specific grounds for revoking habeas corpus, > but it's OK if the government ignores it because you don't have the right in the first > place?
No. Aside from the fact that you do have the right to habeas corpus, this has nothing to do with the government at all.
> How can one claim that someone has the right to "publish anonymously" if a person cannot > be anonymous?
You have the right to "publish anonymously". You have the right to be anonymous. However, no one is obligated to help you be anonymous. It's up to you to keep your identity secret. If you screw up and your secret gets out, tough.
I wouldn't do business with a paper that publishes surveillance videos of its customers, though.
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locale.
.
Homepage: http://stosberg.net/odt2txt/
> Is there actually a patch from Redhat/Suse/etc for systems that are as old as > Win2k available?
You don't need a "patch". All you need is a zoneinfo file. The format is the same for all Linux distributions as well as Cygwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, Tru64, UnixWare. and OpenVMS. The files are available at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ as well as many other places.
They were called "junk TV sets". The "manual" was the ARRL Handbook.
Just buy a solderless breadboard, some parts, a power supply, a meter, and some books and start messing around. Circuit simulation software can be cool, too. Some packages:
gnucap - GNU Circuit Analysis package klogic - digital circuit editor and simulator for KDE ksimus - KDE tool for simulating electrical circuits ktechlab - circuit simulator for microcontrollers and electronics qucs - Quite Universal Circuit Simulator
There are also simulators, assemblers, and compilers for many one-chip micros.
> Does not our fair use rights allow us to post part of a broad cast?
Under some conditions, yes.
> So what if I post a small portion of a video or sound file > allowed under fair use and it happens to contain the watermark?
So what? If they sue you for infringement you will claim fair use as your defense just as you would have had they found out about your use by any other method.
It isn't just that they own patents that they are not enforcing. It's that they are attempting to use the threat of infringement litigation to harm competitors without giving enough information for the competitors to mitigate the damage and not actually filing suit. The courts don't like that and have developed the concept of a declarative judgement to deal with it.
> What are the patents that Microsoft are claiming to be infringed by Linux...
They refuse to say.
> I think this is different than "Show us the code"?
It is related. In court (whether in an infringement suit filed by them or a declarative judgement suit filed by a party injured by their threats) they would have to tell the court exactly where (version, file, and line) the infringement occurs.
> Can't just one poor shmoe consultant that lost business when their client > told them Microsoft gave them this speech sue Microsoft and ask for the > proof in discovery?
Yes, but he would not have to do much discovery. He may be able to sue for a declarative judgement that he has not infringed any patents owned by Microsoft. They would have to show up in court and produce convincing evidence of infringement of specific patents (i.e., version, file, and line...) or have the court rule that Linux does not infringe any of their patents. They would also have to pay him damages, of course. Others who had been damaged by Microsoft's threats could then cite the decision and only have to prove damage in order to collect.
> Combine this disturbing trend with product reviews that are little more than a > regurgitation of the back of the box.
This is because only those who can be trusted to publish positive reviews get pre-release samples to review.
> Along with some weird DMCA rules about what can and can't be reviewed on a > product esp. vis-a-vis security.
There are no such rules.
> Now you have a situation where you can't even get real reviews of products, > and no review is ever "not positive." It's just that some are more positive > than others. So, here you are, trying to buy a $500 video camera so you can > tape the birth of your fist child and you aren't even really sure that any > of them work.
Well, you _could_ wait until the product has been out long enough for someone (such as Consumer's Union) to have purchased a sample off the shelf, tested it, and published a report. But then you wouldn't be on the leading edge! You'd be buying "obsolete" stuff! Intolerable!
> The problem is not with the software, the problem rests partially with the > people that make and test the systems, but mostly with the people who > hire/fire developers, designers and engineers.
No. It rests entirely with customers who buy cheap, heavily advertised crap, complain bitterly about how it doesn't work right, and then go right back and buy more cheap, heavily advertised crap from the same vendors.
> Switch OSs. This makes the users and the company happy and saves the company > thousands of dollars...
Every penny and more will get spent on retraining and license fees. And then there is the reliability of this vendor. They are screwing you over right now. How long until they do it again? Where will you be if they decide to drop the product entirely?
Slashdot Mirror
There is no license. It is gratis, but not libre.
> The question in my mind, though, is what effects on the ecosystems of these areas will
> replacing an organism low on the food chain with a GM version?
Could be serious. The malaria parasite is a major factor in the control of the endemic species homo sapiens. Its elimination could result in a population bloom and habitat destruction.
> Between the news we saw last week and biomagnification, could this wind up substituting
> one problem for another?
Frankenbugs! Frankenbugs! Giant, 100' frankenbugs rampaging through the landscape!
Might help control the homo sapiens overpopulation problem resulting from the elimination of malaria, though.
Note for Slashdot readers: this article may contain sarcasm, parody, or perhaps even irony.
> That "however" doesn't just make any sense.
The specious "however" is a standard journalistic technique for creating a false sense of contradiction. Read the news carefully and you will see this and similar techniques used to cast doubt on the statements of those the reporter dislikes without actually producing a contradicting statement or fact.
> You may not be keeping up with politics...
Padilla was charged. They were not willing to take their theory before the Supreme Court.
> So the short answer is, DbC is extremely common, but it can't be called that by anyone
> but Bertrand Meyer and his licensees.
It can be called that by anyone who is not using it as a label to sell something.
> Is that like how the Constitution provides specific grounds for revoking habeas corpus,
> but it's OK if the government ignores it because you don't have the right in the first
> place?
No. Aside from the fact that you do have the right to habeas corpus, this has nothing to do with the government at all.
> How can one claim that someone has the right to "publish anonymously" if a person cannot
> be anonymous?
You have the right to "publish anonymously". You have the right to be anonymous. However, no one is obligated to help you be anonymous. It's up to you to keep your identity secret. If you screw up and your secret gets out, tough.
I wouldn't do business with a paper that publishes surveillance videos of its customers, though.
I'd like to see that.
Package: odt2txt6 .deb8 b1f1e2ab6bbf9f
Priority: optional
Section: text
Installed-Size: 100
Maintainer: Nelson A. de Oliveira
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.2+git20070106-2
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.6-6)
Filename: pool/main/o/odt2txt/odt2txt_0.2+git20070106-2_i38
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SHA256: 35343b9a5bb4ebe48c97da61a5d5631bf48f3d161464339ef
Description: simple converter from OpenDocument Text to plain text
odt2txt extracts the text out of OpenDocument Texts, as produced by
OpenOffice.org, KOffice, StarOffice and others. It is small and
fast, can output the document in many encodings and adopts to your
locale.
.
Homepage: http://stosberg.net/odt2txt/
> Is there actually a patch from Redhat/Suse/etc for systems that are as old as
> Win2k available?
You don't need a "patch". All you need is a zoneinfo file. The format is the same for all Linux distributions as well as Cygwin, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris, Tru64, UnixWare. and OpenVMS. The files are available at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ as well as many other places.
> ...the Olympics should be purer than that.
Right. Let's get back to the _real_ spirit of the Olympics. As in 1936, for example.
They were called "junk TV sets". The "manual" was the ARRL Handbook.
Just buy a solderless breadboard, some parts, a power supply, a meter, and some books and start messing around. Circuit simulation software can be cool, too. Some packages:
gnucap - GNU Circuit Analysis package
klogic - digital circuit editor and simulator for KDE
ksimus - KDE tool for simulating electrical circuits
ktechlab - circuit simulator for microcontrollers and electronics
qucs - Quite Universal Circuit Simulator
There are also simulators, assemblers, and compilers for many one-chip micros.
> Does not our fair use rights allow us to post part of a broad cast?
Under some conditions, yes.
> So what if I post a small portion of a video or sound file
> allowed under fair use and it happens to contain the watermark?
So what? If they sue you for infringement you will claim fair use as your defense just as you would have had they found out about your use by any other method.
> Can you imagine the poor schmuck who has to go review each report to see if
> it is true?
What makes you think that there are going to be any such reviews?
> It doesn't interfere with fair use at all; it only detects when copyrighted
> works are made widely available.
You assume that there will be no false-positives. There will be many.
It isn't just that they own patents that they are not enforcing. It's that they are attempting to use the threat of infringement litigation to harm competitors without giving enough information for the competitors to mitigate the damage and not actually filing suit. The courts don't like that and have developed the concept of a declarative judgement to deal with it.
> What are the patents that Microsoft are claiming to be infringed by Linux...
They refuse to say.
> I think this is different than "Show us the code"?
It is related. In court (whether in an infringement suit filed by them or a declarative judgement suit filed by a party injured by their threats) they would have to tell the court exactly where (version, file, and line) the infringement occurs.
Both questions are the right question. They must identify the patents and point out exactly where in the source code the infringement occurs.
It has nothing to do with submarine patents.
> Can't just one poor shmoe consultant that lost business when their client
> told them Microsoft gave them this speech sue Microsoft and ask for the
> proof in discovery?
Yes, but he would not have to do much discovery. He may be able to sue for a declarative judgement that he has not infringed any patents owned by Microsoft. They would have to show up in court and produce convincing evidence of infringement of specific patents (i.e., version, file, and line...) or have the court rule that Linux does not infringe any of their patents. They would also have to pay him damages, of course. Others who had been damaged by Microsoft's threats could then cite the decision and only have to prove damage in order to collect.
Google "declarative judgement".
> The old thing is virtually indestructable...
How much did it cost, in current dollars? How many of those do you think you could sell at that price? Would you buy one at that price?
> Combine this disturbing trend with product reviews that are little more than a
> regurgitation of the back of the box.
This is because only those who can be trusted to publish positive reviews get pre-release samples to review.
> Along with some weird DMCA rules about what can and can't be reviewed on a
> product esp. vis-a-vis security.
There are no such rules.
> Now you have a situation where you can't even get real reviews of products,
> and no review is ever "not positive." It's just that some are more positive
> than others. So, here you are, trying to buy a $500 video camera so you can
> tape the birth of your fist child and you aren't even really sure that any
> of them work.
Well, you _could_ wait until the product has been out long enough for someone (such as Consumer's Union) to have purchased a sample off the shelf, tested it, and published a report. But then you wouldn't be on the leading edge! You'd be buying "obsolete" stuff! Intolerable!
> The problem is not with the software, the problem rests partially with the
> people that make and test the systems, but mostly with the people who
> hire/fire developers, designers and engineers.
No. It rests entirely with customers who buy cheap, heavily advertised crap, complain bitterly about how it doesn't work right, and then go right back and buy more cheap, heavily advertised crap from the same vendors.
> Microsoft already pays for people to give that advice, so you don't really
> need to do it for free.
Perhaps he isn't.
> Switch OSs. This makes the users and the company happy and saves the company
> thousands of dollars...
Every penny and more will get spent on retraining and license fees. And then there is the reliability of this vendor. They are screwing you over right now. How long until they do it again? Where will you be if they decide to drop the product entirely?