For christ's sake can anyone get this analogy right? To take something with a grain of salt means to take something as significant as a grain of salt -- which is very tiny (read: insignificant).
Bull.
There are two theories about the etymology of the phrase "taken with a grain of salt." One theory traces it back to the Latin phrase "cum grano salis", which was found -- among other places -- in the works of Pliny in the first century as a description of an additive to make an antidote effective. A second, more believed theory traces the phrase to the kitchen table, where salt can make any dubious dish a little better.
In either case, the meaning of the phrase is not to treat something as insignificant, but rather to subject it to a healthy dose of skepticism.
Well you (and the other poster) are definately right and I'm wrong. I personally have never seen the activities that you describe (that I recall), but its obvious that others have. Thanks to you both for clarifying.
The 20 dollar bill I recieved was NOT one of the ones I had originally given to him either
How did that happen? Even if the cashier put the money in the till before taking it back out to give you your change, your three 20's would be on top and would be the ones pulled for your change -- unless the cashier was doing some truly odd acrobatics with the cash, like pulling your change before placing your payment in the drawer (a really big no-no).
Six key factors have led to children watching less Saturday morning cartoons: - more recreational sports, - the introduction of cable and satellite TV, - the Internet and video games, - a poorer quality of animation, - and a greater emphasis on family time.
That's five. What's the sixth?
I suppose you can split up "Internet" and "video games", but the punctuation seemed to lump them together as a single factor.
Some people simply don't like cartoons. And that's fine. It doesn't make their views shortsighted.
It does when you are a critic.
A critic's job (IMHO) is to judge a movie's merits within its genre. If you are a critic and don't like cartoons, to deride a movie on that basis alone is a failure to provide any useable insight on the movie's qualities to those who DO.
If a critic can't seperate their personal likes and dislikes from their reviews (and what I mean is stuff like "I don't like horror movies, therefore all horror films get a low rating, no matter how well it is produced") -- then they are a poor critic.
If you say that objects don't have a purpose, I think you have bigger issues than if I use an analogy! (It wasn't a metaphor -- you should really learn the difference.)
I'm going to quote back your highlighted bit with an added emphasis of my own:
knowing or having reason to know that the devices are intended to be used to do any of the following
The way I read this is -- Using a service, however insecure, isn't against this law. Creating or using a device whose sole purpose (that is, intent) is to hack into a service you haven't paid for, or will allow other people to use a service they haven't paid for IS against this law.
That is not the intent of wireless nodes, therefore, it is NOT against the law.
To put it another way, using a key on a lock (no matter how simple or insecure the lock is) is not illegal, but a lockpick kit IS.
Most of you are missing a key phrase in the legislation. The part most people are leaving out is: A person shall not assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise an unlawful telecommunications access device....
Now, what is an "unlawful telecommunications access device"? That is answered under 750.219a which is entitled:
750.219a Obtaining telecommunications services
with intent to avoid charge; violation; separate incidents pursuant to scheme or course of conduct; enhanced sentence based on prior convictions; definition.
Section 219 defines an unlawful device as:
(a) A telecommunications access device without the authority or consent of the subscriber or lawful holder of that telecommunications access device.
I read this to mean to hijack someone else's "telecommunication device".
(b) A counterfeit telecommunications access device.
If you read the section further, this applies to illegal cable descramblers and stuff like that.
(c) A fraudulent or deceptive scheme, pretense, method, or conspiracy, or any device or other means, including, but not limited to, any of the following: (i) Using a false, altered, or stolen identification. (ii) The use of a telecommunications access device to violate this section by a person other than the subscriber or lawful holder of the telecommunications access device pursuant to an exchange of anything of value to the subscriber or lawful holder to allow that unlawful use of the telecommunications access device.
Malachi, I have had the same experience with Eclipse as you. It may be the most powerful development editor on the planet, but the menus and dialogs are non-standard relative to the pattern established by other IDE's.
This just doesn't jive with what I've seen.
Here's my Eclipse experience:
I download the.zip file from the site and unzip it into my favorite location and launch it. It does its setup bit and is ready to go in about 5 seconds.
My screen has a standard menu bar (File, Edit,... Help) and four panels (a tabbed browser pane with a "Welcome!" message, Tasks, Outline, and Packages). So far so good. What now?
Well, just like with every new program, start with File >> New. I do that. There's a submenu on New where the first thing is Project. Projects are a very common IDE concept and that's what I want. I select it.
I'm asked if I want to make a Java project or a Plug-in project. I'm not writing a plug-in, so I choose Java. I'm asked the name of the project, and I call it "Hello World". It offers to switch to the Java Perspective and I accept.
(60 seconds have gone by since I started the program.)
The Navigator pane has been replaced with a Package Exporer containing a folder called "Hello World". Now I want to write a class. I went back under File >> New and saw there were also "Package", "Class", and "Interface". I want to write a new Class. So, I select it.
I'm given a dialog asking for the Source Folder. It prefilled with "Hello World". Good enough for me. It asks for the Package (its set to "default" since I didn't make one). I'm asked for the name of the Class. I tell it "HelloWorld". There's boxes for if I want to make the class abstract/final, or a subclass of something other than Object or if it should implement some interfaces. I ignore those.
Down at the bottom of the dialog, there is a checkbox for automatically including a main. Cool. I select it and click "Finish".
(90 seconds have gone by since I started the program.)
Half a second later, the tabbed editor pane now had a new tab with my stubbed out class. I close the "Welcome" tab by clicking on its [X].
The class now appears in the tree list in the Package Explorer pane, an outline of my class appears in Outline.
I add System.out.println("Hello World!"); to the main() and do a CTRL-S without thinking about it. It saved and compiled.
I want to run it now. I went to the Run menu and (I admit) I was disoriented for about 10 seconds. I settled on Run As >> Java Application.
Less than 1 second later, the tasks pane is replaced with a console pane that says "Hello World!".
(*click* 2 minutes flat)
The bottom line is -- everything is exactly where I expected them to be. The menus and dialogs are very normal and do what I expect. The keybindings do what I expected (without me even thinking about it, really.) I was productive within seconds of starting it up.
Since writing this missive, I noticed shortcut buttons on the menu bar for creating projects, packages, and classes as well as running the application that would have saved me the trip to the menus too.
The IDE is very responsive and cleanly organized. I can move the panes around or combine them (or close them) easily enough when I need them out of my way.
I can't, for the life of me, think of what is unstandard about this IDE.
True, however GNU/Linux needs the GNU part in order to be a free operating system.
Really? I didn't realize that in order to be free, it had to be GNU. I'm sure a LOT of people would be VERY suprised to hear that.
If some company replaces all (or most) elements of the GNU system with proprietary software and packages that with the Linux kernel, it will not be a GNU/Linux system.
Who said anything about proprietary? I just said from another source. Those sources COULD be non-FSF, non-GNU free.
The GNU system was complete, except for one key piece: The kernel.
Paraphrase: The GNU Operating System was complete, except for one key piece: The Operating System.
Lets be honest now. Linux doesn't NEED GNU/FSF to be an operating system. It can have non-GNU editors; the kernel can be compiled by a compiler that is NOT gcc. The C libraries could come from another source altogether. Linux could exist without one speck of RMS code/FSF code in it.
Just because it currently does, it doesn't give RMS and the FSF de facto "ownership" of it. A dictated name sounds like exactly that. "It couldn't exist without us, therefore its ours! and its GNU/Linux because WE say it is!"
Yes, RMS did a lot for the community. That doesn't give him the right to dictate to us what we should call the fruits of our COLLECTED efforts. That's not what freedom is, Richie.
I think a better question is, "how do they decide what is email?".
In order to be "counted" as legitimate email, does it have to travel between domains? I get literally hundreds of non-spam messages every day on my work account - sent by other people where I work. Would those be counted in the 60%? Somehow, I don't think they would -- even though I consider those emails as "real" as those coming from outside my place of employment.
I would be VERY curious as to how they defined "email" for the sampling. Is it ISP-centric, or does it take the workplace into account as well?
Remember, IBM makes it's money on hardware. It doesn't care about Linux on ideological grounds, it merely wants to cut the cost of shipping hardware.
Very incorrect.
IBM makes its money in services. Its services unit makes up over half of its workforce and more than half of its income.
I think that IBM cares deeply about Linux, because IBM believes that the business that will hire IBM Global Services also might care deeply about Linux, in the fact that it provices a lower TCO to many businesses.
The Big Dig is the common nickname for Boston's "Central Artery/Tunnel Project". Its a massive and extremely impressive feat in civil engineering intended to solve all of Boston's traffic woes.
There's plenty of pictures and videos and whatnot on the project's website
They also claimed that the information given was accurate (i.e. a copy of MS Office was being offered), but it wasn't, and it's obvious no human even looked at this. They probably are guilty of perjury, but somebody would need to sue them to prove this (could the owner of the FTP site sue, or can only the government sue for perjury?).
Re-read what they said. There are TWO statements there and perjury only applies to the SECOND of the two. The two statements are:
1) The information they provided is accurate. This is false, and so is a lot of other things they claimed in their letter. However, they didn't say this under "pentalty of perjury". They didn't apply that "oath" until --
2) They assert, under penalty of perjury, they are working under the copyright holder of Microsoft Office. This is true.
I do belive liable is the word that you are looking for. I think Openoffice can sue them for it also.
You mean libel right?
And no. Since the letter wasn't "published" to a mass audience by the BSA, they are not guilty of libel. You can not libel someone by sending them a private letter -- no matter how many untruths are in that letter.
Slashdot Mirror
For christ's sake can anyone get this analogy right? To take something with a grain of salt means to take something as significant as a grain of salt -- which is very tiny (read: insignificant).
Bull.
There are two theories about the etymology of the phrase "taken with a grain of salt." One theory traces it back to the Latin phrase "cum grano salis", which was found -- among other places -- in the works of Pliny in the first century as a description of an additive to make an antidote effective. A second, more believed theory traces the phrase to the kitchen table, where salt can make any dubious dish a little better.
In either case, the meaning of the phrase is not to treat something as insignificant, but rather to subject it to a healthy dose of skepticism.
What's the speed of a PDP11?
9.8 m/s^2.
Hrm --
Well you (and the other poster) are definately right and I'm wrong. I personally have never seen the activities that you describe (that I recall), but its obvious that others have. Thanks to you both for clarifying.
The 20 dollar bill I recieved was NOT one of the ones I had originally given to him either
How did that happen? Even if the cashier put the money in the till before taking it back out to give you your change, your three 20's would be on top and would be the ones pulled for your change -- unless the cashier was doing some truly odd acrobatics with the cash, like pulling your change before placing your payment in the drawer (a really big no-no).
Six key factors have led to children watching less Saturday morning cartoons:
- more recreational sports,
- the introduction of cable and satellite TV,
- the Internet and video games,
- a poorer quality of animation,
- and a greater emphasis on family time.
That's five. What's the sixth?
I suppose you can split up "Internet" and "video games", but the punctuation seemed to lump them together as a single factor.
Penultimate Episode About to Be Release Soon, But Not Yet!
-- or even the fact that its not the last episode (might be news)
-- or the first episode (might be news)
Its the penultimate episode -- as in the second to last episode (probably not news).
Then again (Karma burn on) -- we're getting Slashdot stories every time there is a new version of the trailer for the Matrix sequeal too.
Agreed. However, we were talking about critics deriding the film simply because its animated. See?
Some people simply don't like cartoons. And that's fine. It doesn't make their views shortsighted.
It does when you are a critic.
A critic's job (IMHO) is to judge a movie's merits within its genre. If you are a critic and don't like cartoons, to deride a movie on that basis alone is a failure to provide any useable insight on the movie's qualities to those who DO.
If a critic can't seperate their personal likes and dislikes from their reviews (and what I mean is stuff like "I don't like horror movies, therefore all horror films get a low rating, no matter how well it is produced") -- then they are a poor critic.
That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Of COURSE objects have intents.
Even Webster agrees with me on that one.
If Webster thinks that a statute (an object) can have an intent, I think that an illegal cable box can have an intent (that is, to steal cable).
They can also have:
If you say that objects don't have a purpose, I think you have bigger issues than if I use an analogy! (It wasn't a metaphor -- you should really learn the difference.)
The way I read this is -- Using a service, however insecure, isn't against this law. Creating or using a device whose sole purpose (that is, intent) is to hack into a service you haven't paid for, or will allow other people to use a service they haven't paid for IS against this law.
That is not the intent of wireless nodes, therefore, it is NOT against the law.
To put it another way, using a key on a lock (no matter how simple or insecure the lock is) is not illegal, but a lockpick kit IS.
Just as it should be.
Now, what is an "unlawful telecommunications access device"? That is answered under 750.219a which is entitled:
Section 219 defines an unlawful device as:
I read this to mean to hijack someone else's "telecommunication device".
If you read the section further, this applies to illegal cable descramblers and stuff like that.
I think we can all agree that FRAUD is bad.
Malachi, I have had the same experience with Eclipse as you. It may be the most powerful development editor on the planet, but the menus and dialogs are non-standard relative to the pattern established by other IDE's.
.zip file from the site and unzip it into my favorite location and launch it. It does its setup bit and is ready to go in about 5 seconds.
This just doesn't jive with what I've seen.
Here's my Eclipse experience:
I download the
My screen has a standard menu bar (File, Edit,... Help) and four panels (a tabbed browser pane with a "Welcome!" message, Tasks, Outline, and Packages). So far so good. What now?
Well, just like with every new program, start with File >> New. I do that. There's a submenu on New where the first thing is Project. Projects are a very common IDE concept and that's what I want. I select it.
I'm asked if I want to make a Java project or a Plug-in project. I'm not writing a plug-in, so I choose Java. I'm asked the name of the project, and I call it "Hello World". It offers to switch to the Java Perspective and I accept.
(60 seconds have gone by since I started the program.)
The Navigator pane has been replaced with a Package Exporer containing a folder called "Hello World". Now I want to write a class. I went back under File >> New and saw there were also "Package", "Class", and "Interface". I want to write a new Class. So, I select it.
I'm given a dialog asking for the Source Folder. It prefilled with "Hello World". Good enough for me. It asks for the Package (its set to "default" since I didn't make one). I'm asked for the name of the Class. I tell it "HelloWorld". There's boxes for if I want to make the class abstract/final, or a subclass of something other than Object or if it should implement some interfaces. I ignore those.
Down at the bottom of the dialog, there is a checkbox for automatically including a main. Cool. I select it and click "Finish".
(90 seconds have gone by since I started the program.)
Half a second later, the tabbed editor pane now had a new tab with my stubbed out class. I close the "Welcome" tab by clicking on its [X].
The class now appears in the tree list in the Package Explorer pane, an outline of my class appears in Outline.
I add System.out.println("Hello World!"); to the main() and do a CTRL-S without thinking about it. It saved and compiled.
I want to run it now. I went to the Run menu and (I admit) I was disoriented for about 10 seconds. I settled on Run As >> Java Application.
Less than 1 second later, the tasks pane is replaced with a console pane that says "Hello World!".
(*click* 2 minutes flat)
The bottom line is -- everything is exactly where I expected them to be. The menus and dialogs are very normal and do what I expect. The keybindings do what I expected (without me even thinking about it, really.) I was productive within seconds of starting it up.
Since writing this missive, I noticed shortcut buttons on the menu bar for creating projects, packages, and classes as well as running the application that would have saved me the trip to the menus too.
The IDE is very responsive and cleanly organized. I can move the panes around or combine them (or close them) easily enough when I need them out of my way.
I can't, for the life of me, think of what is unstandard about this IDE.
True, however GNU/Linux needs the GNU part in order to be a free operating system.
Really? I didn't realize that in order to be free, it had to be GNU. I'm sure a LOT of people would be VERY suprised to hear that.
If some company replaces all (or most) elements of the GNU system with proprietary software and packages that with the Linux kernel, it will not be a GNU/Linux system.
Who said anything about proprietary? I just said from another source. Those sources COULD be non-FSF, non-GNU free.
There is more to free software than GNU.
The GNU system was complete, except for one key piece: The kernel.
Paraphrase: The GNU Operating System was complete, except for one key piece: The Operating System.
Lets be honest now. Linux doesn't NEED GNU/FSF to be an operating system. It can have non-GNU editors; the kernel can be compiled by a compiler that is NOT gcc. The C libraries could come from another source altogether. Linux could exist without one speck of RMS code/FSF code in it.
Just because it currently does, it doesn't give RMS and the FSF de facto "ownership" of it. A dictated name sounds like exactly that. "It couldn't exist without us, therefore its ours! and its GNU/Linux because WE say it is!"
Yes, RMS did a lot for the community. That doesn't give him the right to dictate to us what we should call the fruits of our COLLECTED efforts. That's not what freedom is, Richie.
Why Ms. Huffington -- I didn't know you posted here!
I think a better question is, "how do they decide what is email?".
In order to be "counted" as legitimate email, does it have to travel between domains? I get literally hundreds of non-spam messages every day on my work account - sent by other people where I work. Would those be counted in the 60%? Somehow, I don't think they would -- even though I consider those emails as "real" as those coming from outside my place of employment.
I would be VERY curious as to how they defined "email" for the sampling. Is it ISP-centric, or does it take the workplace into account as well?
ell, he has a beard, for what it's worth...
Given the physical appearance of most of these people, I wouldn't consider a beard to be conclusive proof.
and trust me, most of us were extremely anti-MS to begin with
But obviously not anti-MS enough to not be EMPLOYED by them....
ervices acccount for 40% of IBM's revenue. The other 60% comes from hardware, financing, and 'other'.
If it makes you feel all better to split hairs over minute details (even if the thrust of my argument was correct), so be it.
I hereby, for the sake of CrayzyJ's delicate sensibilities, modify my statement of "more than half" to "about half".
All better now?
Remember, IBM makes it's money on hardware. It doesn't care about Linux on ideological grounds, it merely wants to cut the cost of shipping hardware.
Very incorrect.
IBM makes its money in services. Its services unit makes up over half of its workforce and more than half of its income.
I think that IBM cares deeply about Linux, because IBM believes that the business that will hire IBM Global Services also might care deeply about Linux, in the fact that it provices a lower TCO to many businesses.
I have no idea what Big Dig is.
The Big Dig is the common nickname for Boston's "Central Artery/Tunnel Project". Its a massive and extremely impressive feat in civil engineering intended to solve all of Boston's traffic woes.
There's plenty of pictures and videos and whatnot on the project's website
They also claimed that the information given was accurate (i.e. a copy of MS Office was being offered), but it wasn't, and it's obvious no human even looked at this. They probably are guilty of perjury, but somebody would need to sue them to prove this (could the owner of the FTP site sue, or can only the government sue for perjury?).
Re-read what they said. There are TWO statements there and perjury only applies to the SECOND of the two. The two statements are:
1) The information they provided is accurate. This is false, and so is a lot of other things they claimed in their letter. However, they didn't say this under "pentalty of perjury". They didn't apply that "oath" until --
2) They assert, under penalty of perjury, they are working under the copyright holder of Microsoft Office. This is true.
The C&D letter never lists Microsoft specifically as the copyright owner, it just lists that Microsoft Office is being pirated.
Nor do they specifically list OpenOffice.org as the copyright holder.
In fact, OpenOffice.org is not mentioned anywhere in the C&D letter at all. Microsoft, however, is.
It seems very obvious to me that the C&D letter claims, under the penalty of perjury, that they are acting on behalf of Microsoft -- which they are.
They have not committed perjury, IMHO.
Perhaps Fruad?
Fraud = intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value.
Doesn't really seem to fit, does it.
I do belive liable is the word that you are looking for. I think Openoffice can sue them for it also.
You mean libel right?
And no. Since the letter wasn't "published" to a mass audience by the BSA, they are not guilty of libel. You can not libel someone by sending them a private letter -- no matter how many untruths are in that letter.