Conservation of energy isn't that much of a big deal, it's conservation of momentup that causality kinda hinges on, and I like causality. I think "reactionless" should be read as "not carrying reaction mass", not "there is no reaction to the action". If it's using the sun's magnetic field, then the sun will get pushed back as the ship mnoves forward. Not by much though.
What's bad about it: First of all, the sound guns really ARE a big deal. As it stands, you may as well just use missiles, since there were only two shields in the entire movie.
That bit is actually faithful to the first edition of the novel, but the "weirding modules" were cut for space. Apparently. I haven't read it, but I have it on good authority.
Re:Programmers Make Computers Slower Year by Year
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Netscape 6 Vs. 4.7x
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· Score: 2
I don't think Michael was suggesting that all apps should be coded in assembler, but a programmer who has coded in assembler is a better programmer than he would be had he not. Knowing what's going on under that curly-bracketed veneer is very useful.
Yes, copyright protection. Not the one-sided "We'll guarantee our rights by stripping you of yours" approach of the DVD-CCA and SDMI organisations. Copyright is a bargain between creator and user, it's effectively a list of things that the public are not allowed to do, and things that they are allowed to do. What CSS does is to forbid everything, including the things that users are specifically allowed to do under both American law and international copyright treaties. In my opinion, if a company wants to deny me my rights under copyright law regarding a work, then they are effectively saying that copyright law does not apply to their product. Fine by me, where's that DeCSS code gone? Unfortunately, the DMCA makes it illegal to play the same game as the corporations in the US.
I disagree, this kind of process has to rely on obscurity. The problem is that you'll have a box on your shelf that generate authentic signatures, and can authenticate signatures in the music. You can pull that box apart, and see how it works. With encryption, you don't have a box that can decrypt my email, 'cos only I have the decrypt key. When both keys are in the boxyou can't make it secure unless you put a man with a gun next to every box.
Re:So you rate money higher than altruism?
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Geek Charities?
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· Score: 1
Sorry, but when I give to charity it is because it will help someone else, and the fact that I feel good is incidental.
I am sure that you are mistaken in this belief.
Re:EFF is a political lobbying group, not a charit
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Geek Charities?
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· Score: 2
They don't just represent rich sysadmins. They represent anyone who wants to be able to walk into a library and read potentially contravercial information on the net, with their privacy intact. This includes the homeless, students, minimum wagers, political activists, and revolutionaries. And if you don't like revolutionaries, remember that your country was founded by them. (I'm taking a statistical chance that you're American, appologies if you're not.) Yes, they lobby the legislators, but so do many other charitable organisations.
My friends want to watch "Condor Man". It's only available on NTSC videotape and Region 1 DVD. The VHS is out of the question, as no-one I know locally has an NTSC player. They bought the DVD, knowing that I have a region-cracked DVD player. I put it in the DVD player, routed through a macrovision scrubber ("Video Copy Enhancer"), then through my VCR, into my telly. It looked fine. I recorded it, and the recording was flickering up and down. So, I took my DVD player, macrovision box, and VCR to my friends' house. I plugged it all in, and it didn't work. The VCR was plugged in to the TV through the aerial port, as their telly has only got a co-ax input, and my DVD player has no co-ax output. Evidently sending the signal through the co-ax was screwing it up, whereas through SCART it was fine.
So, while this is a UK based situation, international treaties guarantee my right to buy copyrighted material from anywhere in the world and make use of it elsewhere, the region coding and/or macrovision technology prevent me from doing so.
Re:Who'se to blame for starvation?
on
Golden Rice
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· Score: 2
I'm standing by while thousands of Africans die of starvation. I'm doing nothing about it. I don't consider myself to be depravedly indifferent. The companies that are involved exist to make money for their customers. They hold patents under the laws of whatever countries they hold them. They are therefore due the royalties that those patents are worth, and it is their duty to collect those royalties. Having your property confiscated under such circumstances is not, IMO, acceptable behaviour.
The problem with a written constitution is that loopholes are eaasier to exploit. For instance, as I understand it, the American constitution does not protect anyone's right to be an Atheist. You can be Muslim, Shinto, Seventh Day Advent Hoppist, or Discordian - those are religions, and you are free to follow them. CMIIW.
Who'se to blame for starvation?
on
Golden Rice
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· Score: 2
Not the GM patent holders!
...getting a deal with the patent holders has delayed them one year (1,000,000 dead as a result!?).
Don't be rediculous, this kind of sensational misreporting is rather tabloid for Slashdot, don't you think? A million lives not saved isn't a million lives to be blamed for. I also believe that if a hospital fails to save someone's life, they should not be sued for it, because they didn't make them die, they just failed to stop them from dying. Big diff.
...but photographs of murders are not illegal to own. Why?
Because there's less of a market for snuff than for kiddie porn, so less reason to legislate against it. There's probably less evidence that enjoying snuff is linked to a tendency to commit murder than with child porn to child abuse. All the above is, of course, speculation.
Funnily enough, "Cutie" was the name of one of the original PDAs, Sam Slade in the 2000AD comic strip "Robohunter" had a little spherical yellow belt-mounted computer called Cutie.
I'm am so tired of corporations/government scanning everything and everyone.
Is scanning your publicly-available files an invasion of privacy? If I run an ad in the newspaper offering pirate CDs, should I be able to put small print that says "Under the Privacy Act, no RIAA member or law enforcement agent or anyone acting on their behalf may reply to this advert"?
is so much cheaper, AIUI, in the US that it is much more of an issue over there. IMO. And the DMCA and such general corporacrat tendencies probably make it easier for the corps to pressure universities, Napstoids, etc.
The GPL doesn't NEED copyright law. It protects software authors *from* copyright law abuses..
The GPL grants specific additional rights on top of those that copyright law grants, but places a condition on the exercise of those additional rights, being that you have to redistribute your modified source code. I believe the GPL does require copyright law in order to be effective. Public domain code can't be restricted by the GPL.
Slashdot Mirror
Conservation of energy isn't that much of a big deal, it's conservation of momentup that causality kinda hinges on, and I like causality. I think "reactionless" should be read as "not carrying reaction mass", not "there is no reaction to the action". If it's using the sun's magnetic field, then the sun will get pushed back as the ship mnoves forward. Not by much though.
I don't think Michael was suggesting that all apps should be coded in assembler, but a programmer who has coded in assembler is a better programmer than he would be had he not. Knowing what's going on under that curly-bracketed veneer is very useful.
Yes, copyright protection. Not the one-sided "We'll guarantee our rights by stripping you of yours" approach of the DVD-CCA and SDMI organisations. Copyright is a bargain between creator and user, it's effectively a list of things that the public are not allowed to do, and things that they are allowed to do. What CSS does is to forbid everything, including the things that users are specifically allowed to do under both American law and international copyright treaties. In my opinion, if a company wants to deny me my rights under copyright law regarding a work, then they are effectively saying that copyright law does not apply to their product. Fine by me, where's that DeCSS code gone? Unfortunately, the DMCA makes it illegal to play the same game as the corporations in the US.
I disagree, this kind of process has to rely on obscurity. The problem is that you'll have a box on your shelf that generate authentic signatures, and can authenticate signatures in the music. You can pull that box apart, and see how it works. With encryption, you don't have a box that can decrypt my email, 'cos only I have the decrypt key. When both keys are in the boxyou can't make it secure unless you put a man with a gun next to every box.
What's a "brown bag" session?
They don't just represent rich sysadmins. They represent anyone who wants to be able to walk into a library and read potentially contravercial information on the net, with their privacy intact. This includes the homeless, students, minimum wagers, political activists, and revolutionaries. And if you don't like revolutionaries, remember that your country was founded by them. (I'm taking a statistical chance that you're American, appologies if you're not.) Yes, they lobby the legislators, but so do many other charitable organisations.
It should be fixed now.
So, while this is a UK based situation, international treaties guarantee my right to buy copyrighted material from anywhere in the world and make use of it elsewhere, the region coding and/or macrovision technology prevent me from doing so.
I'm standing by while thousands of Africans die of starvation. I'm doing nothing about it. I don't consider myself to be depravedly indifferent. The companies that are involved exist to make money for their customers. They hold patents under the laws of whatever countries they hold them. They are therefore due the royalties that those patents are worth, and it is their duty to collect those royalties. Having your property confiscated under such circumstances is not, IMO, acceptable behaviour.
The problem with a written constitution is that loopholes are eaasier to exploit. For instance, as I understand it, the American constitution does not protect anyone's right to be an Atheist. You can be Muslim, Shinto, Seventh Day Advent Hoppist, or Discordian - those are religions, and you are free to follow them. CMIIW.
I submitted this story 4,400 years ago!
Funnily enough, "Cutie" was the name of one of the original PDAs, Sam Slade in the 2000AD comic strip "Robohunter" had a little spherical yellow belt-mounted computer called Cutie.
is so much cheaper, AIUI, in the US that it is much more of an issue over there. IMO. And the DMCA and such general corporacrat tendencies probably make it easier for the corps to pressure universities, Napstoids, etc.