And let me point out two assumptions that make it flawed:
First, that assumes that the mean is static over time. In order for the mean to be returned to, the average player's statistics will have to be unchanging from year to year. This is patently false. The only way one can tell whether Player Smith is an "average" player is to compare the statistics for a single year only. This is part of the reason it's so exceedingly hard to compare players of different eras: the average is not static, and there are no useful objective comparisons.
Second, it is suffiently, but not necessarily, true that a given player's season statistics are a combination of skill and luck. It is entirely possible that skill alone accounted for Player Smith's breakout season, and that with a little luck the next season he could have identical statistics even though his skill level is not as high as it had been the previous year.
You imply that Player Smith necessarily will regress the next year which will appear to be some kind of slump. There is nothing which can lead us to this conclusion, since it is entirely possible that Player Smith will have even better stats next year than this, which in turn brings the mean up for next year, but does not entail that his position relative to the mean is any smaller.
Your first post implied that all athletes or teams who had a stellar enough year to be listed on SI's cover or the cover of the Madden game will have a less-than-exceptional year the next year, and this is demonstrably false. Duke Basketball, for example, was listed on the '92 College Basketball Preview issue of SI because they'd had an excellent year prior, by winning the NCAA Championship, and SI thought they would do it again. They did.
I understand your point about the Rookie of the Year issue, but your logic is flawed: there are many places go to other than down. For example, Dontrell Willis is likely to win Rookie of the Year in Major League Baseball. It is entirely possible that he will have a MUCH better year next year even than the one he is having this year. He might win the Rookie of the Year award this year, then win the Cy Young next year while striking out 325 batters and winning 25 games, something he will not do this year.
Who are you to say that his rookie year was a fluke? Perhaps his rookie year is just the tip of the iceberg? No, this is not a simple case of regression to the mean.
I think that this regression would have to be over a much longer period of time than one season. Look at the Atlanta Braves, for example. Nobody has had the regular season success that they have, and they've done it for 12 years in a row.
They're probably making up for earlier years when they weren't very good, and so there may be a r/m going on, but it's certainly not valid from year-to-year.
Actually, it's hardly limited to injury.
Lots of the SI cover jinx has to do with SI picking their #1 college/pro football/baseball/basketball team, and that team falling flat on its face that season.
That assumes that Dean's opponents are 1) net-saavy enough to send spam that appears to be from the Dean campaign, and 2) that Dean's opponents are willing to send spam that directs recipients to Dean's campaign site, not just purport to be from the Dean Campaign.
That's a good point; however, parts of it are. Therefore, those parts can be copied at the customer's whim, and there's nothing that Red Hat can do about it.
Now that I think about it, though, I am coming up with a blank about what parts of AS are not GPLed. Clustering, perhaps, but I'd have to check that (I don't have it at home). Far and away the majority of AS is, however.
The GPL is very clear about this. In order to distribute Red Hat Linux under the GPL, they must accept that they cannot impose any restrictions on the use of the software, including the number of copies that can be made. The only thing that Red Hat can do is refuse to support more than the installed number of computers for which the customer bought support. They do not have the authority to require that this be purchased for every installation:
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission. (From The FSF
From the GPL section 2: You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
From the GPL section 6: You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
Red Hat cannot restrict copies by end users, period.
If it's GPL software, you must be free to redistribute copies. Red Hat cannot impose limits on how many.
Re:This age old fight really bothers me.
on
Flavor vs. Flavour
·
· Score: 1
Do you all act the same way to non-english words
Now that you mention it... yeah, the English have been butchering foreign languages since they learned how to sail. How about "Peking" ? Or the French word guillotine, pronounce Gil uh teen in Brutish English (but not in its originating language). The Angles have murdered languages far older than their own ever since they have existed. God forbid that someone else should do the same to them.
... But I don't give a rat's ass what Daryl Mac Bridal thinks about Red Hat's suit, especially since he seems to not give a rat's ass what Red Hat thinks about SCO's lawsuit.
I look forward to watching SCO's executives being hoisted with their own petard.
I have entered several bugs with Safari regarding online banking or other authentication. For example, Safari does not correctly handle logging into thinkgeek.com. I don't trust you enough to tell you what banks I have accounts with, but there are at least five with which I can do business in either IE 5.2 or Mozilla, but cannot if I use Safari.
Actually, one reason _not_ to use WebCore is that it doesn't handle quite a number of websites using authentication now, which tells me that their authent package is broken (or, simply behind). IIRC, Safari uses webcore, and has tremendous difficulty (even yet) with e-commerce and online banking sites. Mozilla/Mac OS X is able to connect to these sites, and I assume would be a better choice for secure connections (whether Gecko or Mozilla itself).
Re:Code rot probably not the best analogy
on
Cloning Mammoths
·
· Score: 1
Code doesn't rot like living cells. I said nothing about DNA not rotting (just for the record).
Code rot probably not the best analogy
on
Cloning Mammoths
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I get what you're saying, but code doesn't really "rot" in the same way that living cells do. I believe that if there are any intact cells they'd be lucky, but you don't need an intact cell to extract a DNA sample.
According to the journal Nature, Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who called the hearing, said the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would be "one of the most astounding discoveries in human history."
"Funding should match public interest," Mr. Smith said, "and I don't believe it does."
I disagree that interest levels should be a determinant of funding levels. One of the things that, IMO, the goverment must do is fund activities that are worthy endeavors regardless of the public interest in them or their potential profitability. If it were profitable to search for intelligent life, there would be an entire sector of our economy making (and spending) money to perform the search, and SETI would long ago have had all the money it needed to perform that search, and several other organizations would have cropped up to compete with them. This argument also applies to, say, prescription drugs for the elderly, indigent, and unemployed: it seems to me to be pretty clear that just because a pharmecutical company can't make a billion extra dollars a year in profit that they should be able to deny prescription drugs to people who must have them to survive (or, live a reasonably comfortable life). Since a profit-making organization is unwilling to perform that action, then either a not-for-profit, or the government, must step in and perform it. I am not seeing much in the way of the not-for-profit help, which leaves only the government.
I am not convinced that the bureaucracy that we have in America is the best tool for that job, but it sure seems like it is, presently, the only tool.
This is what makes law school, and law, so much fun.
Things that seem to have the same basis in fact are often very different in law; things that seem to have the same base in law are often very different in fact. The general rule does apply: when there is precedent, and the factual case is identical, then the ruling should be identical.
Contradictions are also what the appellate court has responsibility for sorting out. If one jurisdiction (say, the state of California) ruled that the "digital overlay" was not permissible, but then another jurisdiction (say, Federal District Court) ruled that it was, that may be fine. Maybe CA law is more stringent than Federal law, and the 9th Circuit will recognize that the CA ruling is limited in scope to CA. In that case, the principle may be the same, but because the jurisictions are different, that's okay. Then, the concise rule might be "hijacking advertising is permitted unless the litigants are wholly covered by the law of the State of California." Things get interesting when Federal District Courts in LA County issue rulings that contradict rulings from Federal District Courts in the Bay area.:)
Worse, I think, is that almost all of the RIAA's and MPAA's proposed solutions amount to bills of attainder, which is forbidden outright in the Constitution (Article I, section 10). American citizens should be sure to point this out to their Senators and Congressman, as many times as it takes to get the point across.
Actually, it's this: I can tell my p2p software what songs to download, and have it do so while I'm gone (at work, at play, sleeping, whatever), something that can be done to a single CD, but not multiple CDs. This is especially highlighted when the CD only has one or two songs that I like (which happens more freqently the newer the artist). I can also control my computer remotely, should I discover that I want other songs, and have my p2p software queue them for later, but I can't tell my CDs to jump out of their jewel cases and into the CD-ROM drive.
Downloading mp3's is illegal if and only if I don't already own the song(s) of the mp3(s) I download. What is unethical about me owning hundreds of LPs, but not wanting to spend the money it would take to convert them into a more portable format? What is unethical about me owning hundreds of CDs, but not having the time to rip them? If I already own the CD, it is my right to have copies of the works that are on it, in any format I wish, for my own personal use. It is irrelevant how those works are made to come into my possession in those formats: I already have the right to have copies.
I think that 30 years is a bit long. However, the thing I find even more outrageous is that the patent office can approve patents for trivial, obvious, and non-unique computer software in five to eight years, but something that might actually be non-trivial, non-obvious, and unique can take decades to get reviewed, forget approved.
The USPTO is broken. Write your congressional representatives, Senate and House, and demand that they fix it, immediately.
... does it imply that if decaffinated coffee beans can be grown, that all coffee will be decaffinated?
Seems like these boffins [...] to take away your buzz.
I have serious doubts that once these trees are commercially viable, that all coffee will suddenly be transformed into half-caf or de-caf just because some decaffinated coffee bean trees exist. That's just stupid, inflammatory, and irrelevant. Mark editorials as such, don't editorialize in the space reserved for useful... oh, who am I kidding. Slashdot editors don't know how not to evangelize. Never mind.
Slashdot Mirror
And let me point out two assumptions that make it flawed:
First, that assumes that the mean is static over time. In order for the mean to be returned to, the average player's statistics will have to be unchanging from year to year. This is patently false. The only way one can tell whether Player Smith is an "average" player is to compare the statistics for a single year only. This is part of the reason it's so exceedingly hard to compare players of different eras: the average is not static, and there are no useful objective comparisons.
Second, it is suffiently, but not necessarily, true that a given player's season statistics are a combination of skill and luck. It is entirely possible that skill alone accounted for Player Smith's breakout season, and that with a little luck the next season he could have identical statistics even though his skill level is not as high as it had been the previous year.
You imply that Player Smith necessarily will regress the next year which will appear to be some kind of slump. There is nothing which can lead us to this conclusion, since it is entirely possible that Player Smith will have even better stats next year than this, which in turn brings the mean up for next year, but does not entail that his position relative to the mean is any smaller.
Your first post implied that all athletes or teams who had a stellar enough year to be listed on SI's cover or the cover of the Madden game will have a less-than-exceptional year the next year, and this is demonstrably false. Duke Basketball, for example, was listed on the '92 College Basketball Preview issue of SI because they'd had an excellent year prior, by winning the NCAA Championship, and SI thought they would do it again. They did.
I understand your point about the Rookie of the Year issue, but your logic is flawed: there are many places go to other than down. For example, Dontrell Willis is likely to win Rookie of the Year in Major League Baseball. It is entirely possible that he will have a MUCH better year next year even than the one he is having this year. He might win the Rookie of the Year award this year, then win the Cy Young next year while striking out 325 batters and winning 25 games, something he will not do this year.
Who are you to say that his rookie year was a fluke? Perhaps his rookie year is just the tip of the iceberg? No, this is not a simple case of regression to the mean.
I think that this regression would have to be over a much longer period of time than one season. Look at the Atlanta Braves, for example. Nobody has had the regular season success that they have, and they've done it for 12 years in a row.
They're probably making up for earlier years when they weren't very good, and so there may be a r/m going on, but it's certainly not valid from year-to-year.
Actually, it's hardly limited to injury. Lots of the SI cover jinx has to do with SI picking their #1 college/pro football/baseball/basketball team, and that team falling flat on its face that season.
That assumes that Dean's opponents are 1) net-saavy enough to send spam that appears to be from the Dean campaign, and 2) that Dean's opponents are willing to send spam that directs recipients to Dean's campaign site, not just purport to be from the Dean Campaign.
I believe that this assumes too much.
The whole SCO lawsuit is humor. Chris Sontag, I knew he had some talent for stand-up, but Darl? Who knew?!?
That's a good point; however, parts of it are. Therefore, those parts can be copied at the customer's whim, and there's nothing that Red Hat can do about it.
Now that I think about it, though, I am coming up with a blank about what parts of AS are not GPLed. Clustering, perhaps, but I'd have to check that (I don't have it at home). Far and away the majority of AS is, however.
The GPL is very clear about this. In order to distribute Red Hat Linux under the GPL, they must accept that they cannot impose any restrictions on the use of the software, including the number of copies that can be made. The only thing that Red Hat can do is refuse to support more than the installed number of computers for which the customer bought support. They do not have the authority to require that this be purchased for every installation:
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission. (From The FSF
From the GPL section 2: You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
- a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
- b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
- c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
From the GPL section 6: You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.Red Hat cannot restrict copies by end users, period.
You're right, but that's not what the author of the comment that I replied to was saying.
Read again the part I quoted.
You posted several hours after I did. Do I look like I am omniscient?
If it's GPL software, you must be free to redistribute copies. Red Hat cannot impose limits on how many.
Do you all act the same way to non-english words
... yeah, the English have been butchering foreign languages since they learned how to sail. How about "Peking" ? Or the French word guillotine, pronounce Gil uh teen in Brutish English (but not in its originating language). The Angles have murdered languages far older than their own ever since they have existed. God forbid that someone else should do the same to them.
Now that you mention it
... But I don't give a rat's ass what Daryl Mac Bridal thinks about Red Hat's suit, especially since he seems to not give a rat's ass what Red Hat thinks about SCO's lawsuit.
I look forward to watching SCO's executives being hoisted with their own petard.
Maybe that helps aids the tectonic flows around here?
Seems to me that the techtonic flows cause, rather than are caused by gravitational differences. Less mass in one area == less gravity, and so forth.
I have entered several bugs with Safari regarding online banking or other authentication. For example, Safari does not correctly handle logging into thinkgeek.com. I don't trust you enough to tell you what banks I have accounts with, but there are at least five with which I can do business in either IE 5.2 or Mozilla, but cannot if I use Safari.
Actually, one reason _not_ to use WebCore is that it doesn't handle quite a number of websites using authentication now, which tells me that their authent package is broken (or, simply behind). IIRC, Safari uses webcore, and has tremendous difficulty (even yet) with e-commerce and online banking sites. Mozilla/Mac OS X is able to connect to these sites, and I assume would be a better choice for secure connections (whether Gecko or Mozilla itself).
Code doesn't rot like living cells. I said nothing about DNA not rotting (just for the record).
I get what you're saying, but code doesn't really "rot" in the same way that living cells do. I believe that if there are any intact cells they'd be lucky, but you don't need an intact cell to extract a DNA sample.
You must be on crack. I went to the site, and saw nothing of the sort.
I disagree that interest levels should be a determinant of funding levels. One of the things that, IMO, the goverment must do is fund activities that are worthy endeavors regardless of the public interest in them or their potential profitability. If it were profitable to search for intelligent life, there would be an entire sector of our economy making (and spending) money to perform the search, and SETI would long ago have had all the money it needed to perform that search, and several other organizations would have cropped up to compete with them. This argument also applies to, say, prescription drugs for the elderly, indigent, and unemployed: it seems to me to be pretty clear that just because a pharmecutical company can't make a billion extra dollars a year in profit that they should be able to deny prescription drugs to people who must have them to survive (or, live a reasonably comfortable life). Since a profit-making organization is unwilling to perform that action, then either a not-for-profit, or the government, must step in and perform it. I am not seeing much in the way of the not-for-profit help, which leaves only the government.
I am not convinced that the bureaucracy that we have in America is the best tool for that job, but it sure seems like it is, presently, the only tool.
This is what makes law school, and law, so much fun.
:)
Things that seem to have the same basis in fact are often very different in law; things that seem to have the same base in law are often very different in fact. The general rule does apply: when there is precedent, and the factual case is identical, then the ruling should be identical.
Contradictions are also what the appellate court has responsibility for sorting out. If one jurisdiction (say, the state of California) ruled that the "digital overlay" was not permissible, but then another jurisdiction (say, Federal District Court) ruled that it was, that may be fine. Maybe CA law is more stringent than Federal law, and the 9th Circuit will recognize that the CA ruling is limited in scope to CA. In that case, the principle may be the same, but because the jurisictions are different, that's okay. Then, the concise rule might be "hijacking advertising is permitted unless the litigants are wholly covered by the law of the State of California." Things get interesting when Federal District Courts in LA County issue rulings that contradict rulings from Federal District Courts in the Bay area.
Worse, I think, is that almost all of the RIAA's and MPAA's proposed solutions amount to bills of attainder, which is forbidden outright in the Constitution (Article I, section 10). American citizens should be sure to point this out to their Senators and Congressman, as many times as it takes to get the point across.
Actually, it's this: I can tell my p2p software what songs to download, and have it do so while I'm gone (at work, at play, sleeping, whatever), something that can be done to a single CD, but not multiple CDs. This is especially highlighted when the CD only has one or two songs that I like (which happens more freqently the newer the artist). I can also control my computer remotely, should I discover that I want other songs, and have my p2p software queue them for later, but I can't tell my CDs to jump out of their jewel cases and into the CD-ROM drive.
Downloading mp3's is illegal if and only if I don't already own the song(s) of the mp3(s) I download. What is unethical about me owning hundreds of LPs, but not wanting to spend the money it would take to convert them into a more portable format? What is unethical about me owning hundreds of CDs, but not having the time to rip them? If I already own the CD, it is my right to have copies of the works that are on it, in any format I wish, for my own personal use. It is irrelevant how those works are made to come into my possession in those formats: I already have the right to have copies.
I think that 30 years is a bit long. However, the thing I find even more outrageous is that the patent office can approve patents for trivial, obvious, and non-unique computer software in five to eight years, but something that might actually be non-trivial, non-obvious, and unique can take decades to get reviewed, forget approved.
The USPTO is broken. Write your congressional representatives, Senate and House, and demand that they fix it, immediately.
... does it imply that if decaffinated coffee beans can be grown, that all coffee will be decaffinated?
... oh, who am I kidding. Slashdot editors don't know how not to evangelize. Never mind.
Seems like these boffins [...] to take away your buzz.
I have serious doubts that once these trees are commercially viable, that all coffee will suddenly be transformed into half-caf or de-caf just because some decaffinated coffee bean trees exist. That's just stupid, inflammatory, and irrelevant. Mark editorials as such, don't editorialize in the space reserved for useful