If you find a fish that glows in the dark, a bacteria that produces less harmful byproducts, and another bacteria that can eat crude oil - and you combine the three traits into a bacteria that glows in the dark, eats crude oil, and has less toxic byproducts...you've created something new.
And there is a reasonable case to be made that you should have some kind of IP rights in that bacterium.
But it's a big leap from there to say that you should be able to patent those genes, and prevent other people from making other new things using them. That's like patenting the iron instead of the wrench, to borrow your analogy.
Move to NYC or SF - you can smoke in your house and your car. Most everything else is public property and off-limits.
Sounds very reasonable to me. It's not about limiting your rights; it's about protecting other people's.
Just as your right to swing your fist stops before it hits my face, so your right to breathe foul-smelling carcinogenic smoke stops before it gets in my eyes or enters my nostrils.
C# has absolutely nothing windows oriented to it. It's a completely platform agnostic language.
Don't be disingenuous. You know as well as I do that when anyone other than Miguel de Icaza says "C#" they are talking about.NET running on Microsoft Windows, and that is never going to change.
Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Mono is an excellent platform for Linux-native development, it is still ridiculous to suggest that it might replace Java. Where is Java used? In big enterprises. Do you really think that a company that is afraid to use Java for fear of Oracle is going to be happy using a third-party implementation of a Microsoft technology?! They would be crazy to do so. Anyone who is still running Java on Windows, and has no interest whatsoever in retaining cross-platform compatibility, might consider switching to.NET at this point. Indeed it would probably make good business sense for them to do so. But C# is not a serious option for any enterprise scenario that involves non-Microsoft platforms.
Something doesn't have to be old to be good. There are plenty of good, well-written modern books that are vastly more relevant to a modern American child than Jane Austen's novels about people living a different kind of life in a different country in a different century.
However, "The Da Vinci Code" is not a good book. It is extremely poorly written. Things like that have no place in schools.
OS X could remain a certified UNIX(r) and still meet most people's definition of "locked down".
The bits of OS X that most people care about are Apple's proprietary, totally-non-UNIX GUI and APIs, and all the totally-non-UNIX-related applications that are built on those. There is no technical reason why the next version of OS X could not restrict the use of proprietary APIs to apps from the App Store.
Indeed, if my memory serves correctly the Single Unix Specification does not require any GUI facilities at all, in which case your precious "UNIX" could -- in theory -- end up unable to run any unapproved programs outside a terminal window!
All this is very unlikely to happen; I'm just pointing out that the mere fact that Apple have paid for UNIX certification does not mean they are somehow forced to let you use it however you like. If you want a BSD derivative that guarantees freedom, pick anything but OS X.
Who remembers the docking computers in the C64 version of Elite?
Not those of us who played the original BBC version.:P
Waste of money anyway. Aim halfway between the planet and the station, then look out of the side window till you're lined up right, and then it's just a case of matching your rotation as you fly right in. Simple.
Here in the Enterprise(tm) world, we generally tend to, y'know, test shit thoroughly before launching/updating it.
Indeed. Most of the Enterprise(tm) world is probably completely safe from these attacks. At least till 2027 when they upgrade to the vulnerable versions.
I say this as someone who uses KDE. But I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. The desktop is nicely designed, and I like Plasma, but most of the utilities have absolutely terrible interfaces, with nightmarish menus and inscrutable toolbars scattered all over the place. I can only put up with it because frankly I spend most of my time in emacs, xterm, and Firefox.
Consoles are perfect as long as you're a fan of console gaming. But they aren't a drop-in replacement. The games GP mentioned are Civ5, which is a PC exclusive like many strategy titles, and Fallout 3, which is greatly inferior on consoles due to the PC-exclusive modding capability. If that's the kind of game you want to play, consoles are unlikely to be a satisfying alternative.
However, graphics editing and music-creation software can generally be run perfectly well in a VM (though I guess YMMV if you use fancy peripherals). Games are the exceptional case that really do often force people to dual-boot, and can therefore ultimately make Linux seem more trouble than it's worth.
It is frustrating that currently, every major Linux-based project seems to be working hard to dumb itself down and remove more features and configurability with every new version, in the name of "being easy for Grandma". Then Grandma carries on using Windows, and the developers say "oh dear, it must still be too complicated", and the cycle continues. Linux developers are making the product worse and worse for the people who actually use it, in the name of making it easier for people who do not even want to use it.
Because, really, what would Grandma gain from switching? She knows Windows. It does everything she needs. It's not particularly insecure these days, particularly since her grandson installed that cute Firefox icon for her. And she couldn't care less about the power of the CLI, or the ability to run a different window manager, or multiple X sessions, or any of the other cool things that are easy to do in Linux and difficult or impossible in Windows. Why should Grandma use Linux?
The two things Linux should be concentrating on are being a great Unix-like desktop for power users, and interoperating well with Windows infrastructure such as Microsoft Exchange. (The latter is important in order to allow its use on enterprise desktops -- there are plenty of developers who could make a very good case for using the same platform on their desktop that their code is going to be deployed to, but need to be able to demonstrate that doing so is not going to hinder their ability to use corporate email and collaboration services.)
Apple is doing something extremely correct and keeping their GUI intuative and (I do not know how, but) compatible with older OSs they released
What are you talking about? Pretty much the only thing the OS X GUI has in common with earlier versions of MacOS is the location of the menu bar. Even the Finder operates on totally different principles.
Your Radians and Degrees are no longer simply floats.
Why on earth would you want them to be? They aren't the same type of data. If you add 45 degrees to pi radians, the answer should not be approximately 48.142.
ObjectiveC is what C++ and Java were trying to achieve but failed.
They were trying to be a niche language, confined to a single platform, which is so unpopular with developers that every time the owner of said platform has tried to make something Objective-C-exclusive they have faced such overwhelming resistance that they've been forced to back down?
I guess Objective-C is like the platform that uses it: its handful of users feel obliged to get up on a soap box and preach to the world about how it's totally awesome and perfect in every way, and everyone else looks at them in a funny way, shrugs, and carries right on using a mainstream product.
We already know that Dalvik VM itself isn't like JVM. It can be mapped one-to-one (at least going from JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode)
No, it can't be mapped one-to-one in either direction. There are several Java opcodes, such as local subroutine jumps, that simply have no equivalent in Dalvik.
This is why the Java-to-Dalvik convertor in the Android SDK does not claim to handle arbitrary Java bytecode, only that produced specifically by Sun's javac.
There are many X11 window managers that do a fine job of arranging multiple windows; OS X doesn't even have a maximise button as such; and Microsoft Windows has a feature specifically designed to place a window on one side of the screen while leaving the other side available for other stuff.
Perhaps you're thinking of something obsolete, like Windows XP, which everyone should really be abandoning in favour of something designed less than 10 years ago.
throwing you in jail for not showing the files is equivalent to throwing your ass in jail for not providing whereabouts of a body of a person, when you have no idea about the body
This is nonsense. In one case, you do not possess the information that is being demanded. In the other case, you do possess it and are making the deliberate decision not to share it. The two situations are not remotely comparable.
So you are faced with the rather novel situation where any motivated individual can successfully resist the state and your instinct is to label it rabid anti-establishmentism?
If you believe that it is good that individuals are able to prevent the establishment from carrying out its role in society, is it not reasonable to call you anti-establishment?
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And there is a reasonable case to be made that you should have some kind of IP rights in that bacterium.
But it's a big leap from there to say that you should be able to patent those genes, and prevent other people from making other new things using them. That's like patenting the iron instead of the wrench, to borrow your analogy.
Sounds very reasonable to me. It's not about limiting your rights; it's about protecting other people's.
Just as your right to swing your fist stops before it hits my face, so your right to breathe foul-smelling carcinogenic smoke stops before it gets in my eyes or enters my nostrils.
Don't be disingenuous. You know as well as I do that when anyone other than Miguel de Icaza says "C#" they are talking about .NET running on Microsoft Windows, and that is never going to change.
Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Mono is an excellent platform for Linux-native development, it is still ridiculous to suggest that it might replace Java. Where is Java used? In big enterprises. Do you really think that a company that is afraid to use Java for fear of Oracle is going to be happy using a third-party implementation of a Microsoft technology?! They would be crazy to do so. Anyone who is still running Java on Windows, and has no interest whatsoever in retaining cross-platform compatibility, might consider switching to .NET at this point. Indeed it would probably make good business sense for them to do so. But C# is not a serious option for any enterprise scenario that involves non-Microsoft platforms.
Something doesn't have to be old to be good. There are plenty of good, well-written modern books that are vastly more relevant to a modern American child than Jane Austen's novels about people living a different kind of life in a different country in a different century.
However, "The Da Vinci Code" is not a good book. It is extremely poorly written. Things like that have no place in schools.
OS X could remain a certified UNIX(r) and still meet most people's definition of "locked down".
The bits of OS X that most people care about are Apple's proprietary, totally-non-UNIX GUI and APIs, and all the totally-non-UNIX-related applications that are built on those. There is no technical reason why the next version of OS X could not restrict the use of proprietary APIs to apps from the App Store.
Indeed, if my memory serves correctly the Single Unix Specification does not require any GUI facilities at all, in which case your precious "UNIX" could -- in theory -- end up unable to run any unapproved programs outside a terminal window!
All this is very unlikely to happen; I'm just pointing out that the mere fact that Apple have paid for UNIX certification does not mean they are somehow forced to let you use it however you like. If you want a BSD derivative that guarantees freedom, pick anything but OS X.
Not those of us who played the original BBC version. :P
Waste of money anyway. Aim halfway between the planet and the station, then look out of the side window till you're lined up right, and then it's just a case of matching your rotation as you fly right in. Simple.
Indeed. Most of the Enterprise(tm) world is probably completely safe from these attacks. At least till 2027 when they upgrade to the vulnerable versions.
[citation needed]
I say this as someone who uses KDE. But I wouldn't wish it on anyone else. The desktop is nicely designed, and I like Plasma, but most of the utilities have absolutely terrible interfaces, with nightmarish menus and inscrutable toolbars scattered all over the place. I can only put up with it because frankly I spend most of my time in emacs, xterm, and Firefox.
Consoles are perfect as long as you're a fan of console gaming. But they aren't a drop-in replacement. The games GP mentioned are Civ5, which is a PC exclusive like many strategy titles, and Fallout 3, which is greatly inferior on consoles due to the PC-exclusive modding capability. If that's the kind of game you want to play, consoles are unlikely to be a satisfying alternative.
However, graphics editing and music-creation software can generally be run perfectly well in a VM (though I guess YMMV if you use fancy peripherals). Games are the exceptional case that really do often force people to dual-boot, and can therefore ultimately make Linux seem more trouble than it's worth.
However, the success of the iPhone indicates that you need only eliminate the "smelly" in order to win.
YES! This is spot on.
It is frustrating that currently, every major Linux-based project seems to be working hard to dumb itself down and remove more features and configurability with every new version, in the name of "being easy for Grandma". Then Grandma carries on using Windows, and the developers say "oh dear, it must still be too complicated", and the cycle continues. Linux developers are making the product worse and worse for the people who actually use it, in the name of making it easier for people who do not even want to use it.
Because, really, what would Grandma gain from switching? She knows Windows. It does everything she needs. It's not particularly insecure these days, particularly since her grandson installed that cute Firefox icon for her. And she couldn't care less about the power of the CLI, or the ability to run a different window manager, or multiple X sessions, or any of the other cool things that are easy to do in Linux and difficult or impossible in Windows. Why should Grandma use Linux?
The two things Linux should be concentrating on are being a great Unix-like desktop for power users, and interoperating well with Windows infrastructure such as Microsoft Exchange. (The latter is important in order to allow its use on enterprise desktops -- there are plenty of developers who could make a very good case for using the same platform on their desktop that their code is going to be deployed to, but need to be able to demonstrate that doing so is not going to hinder their ability to use corporate email and collaboration services.)
What are you talking about? Pretty much the only thing the OS X GUI has in common with earlier versions of MacOS is the location of the menu bar. Even the Finder operates on totally different principles.
Why on earth would you want them to be? They aren't the same type of data. If you add 45 degrees to pi radians, the answer should not be approximately 48.142.
Right. Because, by the divine power of Saint Jobs, Objective-C is magically able to do late binding and introspection for free.
Back in the real world, the speed difference between Objective-C and Java is pretty negligible.
They were trying to be a niche language, confined to a single platform, which is so unpopular with developers that every time the owner of said platform has tried to make something Objective-C-exclusive they have faced such overwhelming resistance that they've been forced to back down?
I guess Objective-C is like the platform that uses it: its handful of users feel obliged to get up on a soap box and preach to the world about how it's totally awesome and perfect in every way, and everyone else looks at them in a funny way, shrugs, and carries right on using a mainstream product.
No, it can't be mapped one-to-one in either direction. There are several Java opcodes, such as local subroutine jumps, that simply have no equivalent in Dalvik.
This is why the Java-to-Dalvik convertor in the Android SDK does not claim to handle arbitrary Java bytecode, only that produced specifically by Sun's javac.
Does anyone else smell premature optimization?
Even 15" seems extremely high. I have a 1366x768 screen which seems about right -- but that's only because it's 10".
If you replace an X" 4:3 screen with a X" 16:9 screen, you do not get a larger work space.
In the office?
Is the home market really so much bigger than the corporate market that monitor manufacturers no longer care about meeting the needs of business?
Which OS do you have in mind?
There are many X11 window managers that do a fine job of arranging multiple windows; OS X doesn't even have a maximise button as such; and Microsoft Windows has a feature specifically designed to place a window on one side of the screen while leaving the other side available for other stuff.
Perhaps you're thinking of something obsolete, like Windows XP, which everyone should really be abandoning in favour of something designed less than 10 years ago.
This is nonsense. In one case, you do not possess the information that is being demanded. In the other case, you do possess it and are making the deliberate decision not to share it. The two situations are not remotely comparable.
Or when there's a power outage that lasts longer than the UPS battery. Or when there's a hardware failure.
Good luck convincing the jury that you are the kind of total idiot who has an encrypted server and yet keeps no record of the password.
If you believe that it is good that individuals are able to prevent the establishment from carrying out its role in society, is it not reasonable to call you anti-establishment?