Buddy, I've been around since the BBS days in the 80s.
I download media for previewing/prelistening all the time, as allowed to by Canadian law.
I've spent time cracking system security, and working with the security implementors to close the holes I've found.
I've studied, argued, and read about just about every tack and take on copyright and intellectual property there is in those years.
But NO ONE has ever convinced me that anyone has the RIGHT to make a copy of media to keep, share, or sell.
Maybe that's because I'm a programmer. Code is data. I get paid for code. So when you advocate that it's "just a copy", you take away my employers' revenue streams, you put them out of business, and you thereby take away MY food. I have NEVER advocated the "it's just data" viewpoint.
A gun is "just steel and plastic." But I dare you to come up against me with a crowbar if I've crafted a 9mm and tell me they're the same thing.
The idea of direct neural interfaces has intrigued me all through my years of reading about cyborgs and brain-in-a-bottle science fiction.
But when it comes to practical application, one thing has always puzzled me: How do you disconnect the device once it's "grown" into being part of your nervous system? How do you replace failed parts or repair the electronic/mechanical component of such devices?
The "Six Million Dollar Man" made for entertaining TV, but in practicality, was he supposed to lie on a guerney for days while they repaired a leg?
Re:I like both forms, but printed is still best
on
The eBook Backlash
·
· Score: 2
One last point on the censorship: The printed page is also not subject to "Lucas Edits" of the story.
Re:I like both forms, but printed is still best
on
The eBook Backlash
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
There are many reasons I prefer a printed book to eReader or tablet forms.
The first and most obvious is durability. If it gets wet, you just dry it out. It doesn't mind being tossed on a shelf or a desk (even violently). It's ok with being caught out in the rain if an unexpected downpour comes up.
The second is portability. Books don't mind being crushed in a backpack. They can be used in almost ANY lighting conditions equally well. They can be safely mailed or lent to friends without worrying about whether they're going to "break" it.
The third is loanability. It's easy to borrow or loan a book. You just hand it to the person, and hope they bring it back. DRM one-reader systems? Not so much.
My remaining reasons are intangibles, like the pleasure of perusing shelves fully of books to see what someone likes to read, to find something you want to borrow, to have that visceral knowledge that "this is a person who likes to read and educate themselves" when you walk into a room and see boxes or shelves full of books.
Reference materials are much better suited to online or eBook distribution because they need to be updated to correct any errors or omissions, and to add new information as it comes up. But for recreational reading, a paperback or hardcover that tells a tale doesn't need to be maintained.
I can understand that if you already have a tablet or reader that you're carting around, they have the advantage of being able to contain your entire library of books, and that's a HUGE benefit to students and researchers. But when it comes to entertainment reading, I don't have multiple volumes on the go at one time -- I'm reading A book, from start to finish, and enjoying every minute of it.
Perhaps the most important feature of a printed book is the fact that I OWN it. There is no chance of the publisher or author coming knocking at my door and saying "we changed our mind -- we want your book back" as has ALREADY happened with the eReader market. Even if I bought my book from an "illegal vendor" of some kind, it's still MY BOOK. There can be no "takedown notice" for it.
And that last point is the most important of all, because it means that in the future when some asshole demands that the book be taken off the market and censored, I'll still have my copy.
They KNEW about this vulnerability?
on
GitHub Hacked
·
· Score: 1
When did Microsoft and Oracle start doing Open Source maintenance? Or did the GitHub team download their development principles and follow those instead of doing security reviews?
Both Microsoft and Oracle are notorious for leaving reported bugs open for years unless someone demonstrates an effective exploit using the bug. But historically, Open Source projects have taken such risks seriously and closed the holes long before an exploit showed up.
To me, that "constant maintenance" aspect of open source is it's biggest selling point compared to closed-source products. Not only can people review code and find weaknesses, they can either fix them or submit them as bugs for a project, secure in the knowledge that it will be dealt with.
Apparently that's not the case with all OSS projects. And that's a shame -- because aside from vendor lock-in, this has always been one of the most important "features" that the OSS cognoscenti have preached.
I consider the application of timely repairs and updates so important to security that I built a system whose primary purpose is not to develop initial core application code, but to apply such fixes to all projects under maintenance!
Is it all right with you if I get you to install a trojan or something and make a copy of your PERSONAL data, then?
According to you, no harm is done because it's only a copy, so you should be ok with that.
Also based on your theory, it's ok for me or an advertising company to collect whatever data they want, because they're actually just creating a COPY of your surfing requests. So there's no harm, no foul, right?
Show me one "fact" I was taught in elementary, high school, or university which is useful to my life today. The history has been rewritten to emphasize Canadian contributions and the involvement of the First Nations. The very techniques used to teach math have changed.
I learned to read long before I started school, so you can't credit the schools with teaching me that.
Only a handful of the core, essential algorithms I was taught in University and the touch typing skills I was taught in Grade 10 have ANY relevance to my life at 47.
Everything else I was "taught" is outdated and obsolete, except for the most basic fundamentals of chemistry, physics, and biology. Even the way one is supposed to "interpret" Shakespeare in English class has changed.
But because I learned to learn, I've been able to keep up to date with technology and industry.
No one ever makes a life decision because they know a "fact." It is their education that gives them the understanding to prioritize and analyze the "facts" in their life and make a decision. Memorizing "facts" and data won't even prepare you for a job at McTesticles -- because they'll expect you to LEARN their procedures for working there.
I know people will go to great lengths to complain about their "right" to abuse company resources for their own benefit, but this takes the cake.
You want to WIPE the company hard drive and all the software that is provided for you to do your job, and you don't see a fundamental flaw in this reasoning?
You, sir, are a selfish, greedy, ignorant, and probably USELESS fuck who shouldn't be hired by ANYONE.
There is a huge difference between when FORTRAN and other languages were invented, and when they achieved wide-spread popularity and use. Using your interpretation, we've all had GUIs ever since Xerox-PARC built a research machine to demonstrate one. So what if it wasn't until much, much later that the public had access to machines like the Amiga and the Mac? The existence of something is a far cry from it being a generally accepted standard.
Even in 1982-83, assembly programming courses were de rigeur for a degree in computer science. Hell, I even worked on one machine that didn't even implement a stack and therefore wasn't a Von Neuman architecture! (The Sperry AN-UYK502 -- it used some real interesting techniques for handling function calls because it had no stack. Weird machine. But you could drop the running hard drive 20 feet and it would keep on going -- kind of necessary seeing as the Canadian Patrol Frigates would be regularly nose-diving off the top of waves and crashing that far or farther to the trough between waves.)
This issue is found with all textbooks, and has always been a problem. Even in the 70s and 80s, pretty much every textbook I used in high school and university had mistakes, omissions, and unsolvable chapter-problems.
The difficulty with learning maths and sciences stems from the fact that they tend to deal with abstract concepts, procedures, and algorithms for performing mathematical calculations. In the age of calculators and instant-gratification web searches, not only aren't students willing to put in the time to learn "how" to do something, they aren't even interested in learning "why" they should do something.
Instead, they point to their computers and the web as being able to do the work for them, and question the sanity of learning "the old way" of doing things. If the only purpose of an education was to prepare people for the workforce, I'd agree with them -- but the point of an education is to learn how to learn, how to interpret, and how to understand material. An education isn't about the facts taught, but about the learning process that prepares you for a lifetime of learning as you deal with new technologies, products, and ideas during your time on this planet.
My understanding is that you are required to cite any relevant patents or products, and explain how your patent is different.
Including an entire copy of the related prior art is not required for a patent submission; only the specifically-related fragments which would be covered by "fair use" are required. i.e. Specific quotes and citations, not entire texts.
The whole concept of the 3D browser keeps popping up every year or two like bad RIAA-lobbied legislation, and with about as much success.
The simple fact of the matter is that while there are some vertical market needs for 3D technologies like being able to show a "virtual house" on a realtor's website, the expense of creating that 3D content DWARFS the expected benefits.
So what if I could take a 3D model of a camera and put virtual lenses on it in a virtual store using 3D web interfaces? How is that going to tell me anything about how heavy the camera is, how it feels to carry, or just how easy it is to attach and remove lenses?
What really amazes me is how many hundreds of millions have been spent by different companies and backers for a technology that hardly anyone needs or even wants. It's worse than a 3D TV with virtually no content available that isn't animated. Unless you really like animation, a 3D TV is about the worst waste of money you could spend a dime on, and the 3D browser is even worse.
More to the point, there is a much older invention called a "travois", which is basically a pair of long sticks with a basket or netting between to carry the cargo. The travois was used for centuries before the invention of the wheel, if not thousands of years.
Contrary to popular modern understanding, the friction of dragging a travois was little or no worse than early wheels which were poorly fitted and poorly lubricated. It wasn't until axles could be turned on lathes and the joints properly greased that the wheel actually had any significant advantage over the travois for the average person.
Far earlier than the wheel was the simple and basic concept of placing logs under heavy loads and letting them roll under the load. Log rollers didn't require special machining tools, they could handle incredibly heavy loads, and as a result, there was no real NEED for the wheel until technology made it more efficient than what people had been using in the past.
It's like compilers. Sure we can't imagine computing without them nowadays, but for 10-20 years in the early days of computing, there WERE NO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES. It wasn't until computers were powerful and "cheap" enough to make the concept of an abstract language cheaper to code than raw machine code that the compiler and programming languages really took hold.
Interfaces are a method contract, not "fancy...documentation."
If you think interfaces are "just" documentation, you don't know SHIT about OO programming. Sorry dude, but your perspective is like saying that C/C++/C#/Java are "just" big macro assemblers because everything eventually runs on a CPU.
The self-proclaimed "elite hackers" don't even know enough about system security to protect THEMSELVES. I absolutely LOVE it when the arrogant get taken down a notch through their own ineptitude.
Mind you, these are the same people that are surprised when police and three-letter agencies come a-knockin' at their doors with charges in South America and elsewhere. I find it so amusing that "security experts" don't understand how easy it is for three-letter agencies with access to ISP resources to track an attacker down.
The only thing that protects Anonymous from massive prosecutions is their sheer numbers -- there are too many of them for them all to be prosecuted, the same as for bit-torrent downloaders. So the three-letter agencies go after the few who seem to be coordinating and coding things, rather than the thousands of "members" who turn their machines over to participate in DDOS attacks under the control of someone else.
Apparently you don't close browser windows and tabs when you're surfing. Under XP, Vista, and Ubuntu, I have NEVER seen my Firefox session exceed 1GB. Right now it's under 800MB.
That leaves another GB before I'd even APPROACH the 32-bit process size limit.
How about you worry about some real-world issues instead of spreading FUD?
Re:advantages of multiple inheritance
on
PHP 5.4 Released
·
· Score: 2
Multiple interface inheritance is necessary in order to specify a proper object model, but C++ is the only language I've ever used that supports multiple inheritance of methods and attributes as well as interface signatures.
Certainly I find it far, far easier to code a system with C++ than with Java or C#. Both Java and C# require that you copy-paste-edit code between implementations of the interfaces, which results in a lot of code duplication and is more prone to error than the C++ approach. (Not to mention being in direct contradiction with the whole concept of code re-use.)
Still, I do understand why it's difficult to work with C++. It's a true chainsaw of a language in the hands of an expert, with the resulting risk of slicing your own limbs off if you're not careful or don't know what you're doing.
But unlike some, I don't blame a flexible language for letting programmers hang themselves. I come from the era of bits bytes and machine code, so while I understand and take advantage of the newer languages, I have no fear of dropping down to the nuts and bolts for performance, and I have an intimate knowledge of how CPUs are implemented and work (I even took VLSI and CPU design courses in university, though things have moved along quite nicely since those days!)
Personally I prefer the flexibility of multiple-inheritance, but I am thoroughly addicted to the cross-platform nature of Java. My favourite is actually the C# syntax, but realistically the Mono implementation is so slow and outdated that it may as well exist -- C# is effectively Windows-only.
Maybe one of these days I'll play with PHP, but I'm really not a "web guy". Most of my experience is with back-end data services, relational-object modeling, and making batch jobs and huge complex reports run like a bat out of hell. PHP feels too much like Visual Basic or other "integrated" GUI/IDE/Code environments for my tastes. I'd rather work on and provide glue layers for scalable JEE systems than tie myself to a language whose libraries aren't inherently designed for cluster-scaling.
Unless you're being forced to run obsolete software by some perverse corporate mandate, you have no excuse nor valid reason for running such outdated software. You are the smoking clunker on the highway of the internet. You are the grey haired granny in the fast lane of the web. The road hazard. The surfing security hole.
I'm not saying Apple is a nice kid playing by the rules, but they are far from being a patent troll.
The whole point of the patent system is to encourage cross licensing, sharing, and development of ideas while ensuring that real inventors can be paid for their creations.
Apple uses the patent system to suppress and eliminate competition.
You don't need to have a profit motive to be a patent troll -- you just need to abuse the patent system to ensure it costs other people money to defend against the bogus patents. Being a patent troll doesn't mean you win or that the patent is valid.
The only difference between a "traditional" patent troll and Apple is you can PAY OFF a "traditional" patent troll.
You misunderstand how much the tooling changes ever 2-3 years on an automotive line nowadays if you think a 10-15 year ROI is feasible.
Very few car names are on the market more than 5-10 years at the outside any more, and the cycle seems to be getting faster and shorter all the time. Even when the name doesn't change, the drive train often sees substantial upgrades and replacements during the life of a brand nowadays.
Nobody in the auto industry can afford to budget based on 10-year-plus ROIs any more. It's a guaranteed road to bankruptcy.
True, but they aren't virally copy-left like the GPL, which prevents you from creating a derivative work/customized implementation without contributing the source back.
As far as I know, you can use Mozilla and Apache licensed code the same as LGPL code.
Mind you, there are some who feel anything but the BSD license is "non free", too. But that's another argument for another day.
You're neglecting to include the costs of electricity for the Volt and the fact that it actually uses gasoline on long trips and to run the heater (a big issue in Saskatchewan winters.)
The Volt does NOT have a run-rate cost of $0, so the total bill at the end of the 4-5 years I've been running on gas paid for by buying a cheaper car means you paid EVEN MORE to own and operate a Volt than the initial $40K.
If this is the best GM can do, the money bailing them out was a complete and utter waste, because their incompetence is going to lead them right back to bankruptcy in a few short years anyhow. We can NOT afford to support North American industries which can't support themselves without government subsidies and "tax incentives."
It's not fair to the competition. It's not fair to the taxpayer. And CLEARLY it's of no benefit to the consumer.
Anyone working for GM or supplying GM with parts better start looking for work NOW. Because when the bankruptcy comes (again), the job market is going to be flooded with people desperate for work. Better to beat the rush.
While non-copyleft licenses like the Mozilla, Apache, and LGPLv3 are quite popular for core services and libraries, most applications I've used over the years were copyleft/GPL type licenses.
If you're building a core service, you want it used by as many people and projects as possible. But if you're developing a tool, utility, or application, often your concern is more to prevent any one company or individual from seizing that work and selling it as their own product.
Personally I use both LGPLv3 and GPLv3 licenses as a result, because the goals of the different software components are not the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Buddy, I've been around since the BBS days in the 80s.
I download media for previewing/prelistening all the time, as allowed to by Canadian law.
I've spent time cracking system security, and working with the security implementors to close the holes I've found.
I've studied, argued, and read about just about every tack and take on copyright and intellectual property there is in those years.
But NO ONE has ever convinced me that anyone has the RIGHT to make a copy of media to keep, share, or sell.
Maybe that's because I'm a programmer. Code is data. I get paid for code. So when you advocate that it's "just a copy", you take away my employers' revenue streams, you put them out of business, and you thereby take away MY food. I have NEVER advocated the "it's just data" viewpoint.
A gun is "just steel and plastic." But I dare you to come up against me with a crowbar if I've crafted a 9mm and tell me they're the same thing.
The idea of direct neural interfaces has intrigued me all through my years of reading about cyborgs and brain-in-a-bottle science fiction.
But when it comes to practical application, one thing has always puzzled me: How do you disconnect the device once it's "grown" into being part of your nervous system? How do you replace failed parts or repair the electronic/mechanical component of such devices?
The "Six Million Dollar Man" made for entertaining TV, but in practicality, was he supposed to lie on a guerney for days while they repaired a leg?
One last point on the censorship: The printed page is also not subject to "Lucas Edits" of the story.
There are many reasons I prefer a printed book to eReader or tablet forms.
The first and most obvious is durability. If it gets wet, you just dry it out. It doesn't mind being tossed on a shelf or a desk (even violently). It's ok with being caught out in the rain if an unexpected downpour comes up.
The second is portability. Books don't mind being crushed in a backpack. They can be used in almost ANY lighting conditions equally well. They can be safely mailed or lent to friends without worrying about whether they're going to "break" it.
The third is loanability. It's easy to borrow or loan a book. You just hand it to the person, and hope they bring it back. DRM one-reader systems? Not so much.
My remaining reasons are intangibles, like the pleasure of perusing shelves fully of books to see what someone likes to read, to find something you want to borrow, to have that visceral knowledge that "this is a person who likes to read and educate themselves" when you walk into a room and see boxes or shelves full of books.
Reference materials are much better suited to online or eBook distribution because they need to be updated to correct any errors or omissions, and to add new information as it comes up. But for recreational reading, a paperback or hardcover that tells a tale doesn't need to be maintained.
I can understand that if you already have a tablet or reader that you're carting around, they have the advantage of being able to contain your entire library of books, and that's a HUGE benefit to students and researchers. But when it comes to entertainment reading, I don't have multiple volumes on the go at one time -- I'm reading A book, from start to finish, and enjoying every minute of it.
Perhaps the most important feature of a printed book is the fact that I OWN it. There is no chance of the publisher or author coming knocking at my door and saying "we changed our mind -- we want your book back" as has ALREADY happened with the eReader market. Even if I bought my book from an "illegal vendor" of some kind, it's still MY BOOK. There can be no "takedown notice" for it.
And that last point is the most important of all, because it means that in the future when some asshole demands that the book be taken off the market and censored, I'll still have my copy.
When did Microsoft and Oracle start doing Open Source maintenance? Or did the GitHub team download their development principles and follow those instead of doing security reviews?
Both Microsoft and Oracle are notorious for leaving reported bugs open for years unless someone demonstrates an effective exploit using the bug. But historically, Open Source projects have taken such risks seriously and closed the holes long before an exploit showed up.
To me, that "constant maintenance" aspect of open source is it's biggest selling point compared to closed-source products. Not only can people review code and find weaknesses, they can either fix them or submit them as bugs for a project, secure in the knowledge that it will be dealt with.
Apparently that's not the case with all OSS projects. And that's a shame -- because aside from vendor lock-in, this has always been one of the most important "features" that the OSS cognoscenti have preached.
I consider the application of timely repairs and updates so important to security that I built a system whose primary purpose is not to develop initial core application code, but to apply such fixes to all projects under maintenance!
Is it all right with you if I get you to install a trojan or something and make a copy of your PERSONAL data, then?
According to you, no harm is done because it's only a copy, so you should be ok with that.
Also based on your theory, it's ok for me or an advertising company to collect whatever data they want, because they're actually just creating a COPY of your surfing requests. So there's no harm, no foul, right?
I will never understand freetards.
Schools and standardized tests are about facts.
Show me one "fact" I was taught in elementary, high school, or university which is useful to my life today. The history has been rewritten to emphasize Canadian contributions and the involvement of the First Nations. The very techniques used to teach math have changed.
I learned to read long before I started school, so you can't credit the schools with teaching me that.
Only a handful of the core, essential algorithms I was taught in University and the touch typing skills I was taught in Grade 10 have ANY relevance to my life at 47.
Everything else I was "taught" is outdated and obsolete, except for the most basic fundamentals of chemistry, physics, and biology. Even the way one is supposed to "interpret" Shakespeare in English class has changed.
But because I learned to learn, I've been able to keep up to date with technology and industry.
No one ever makes a life decision because they know a "fact." It is their education that gives them the understanding to prioritize and analyze the "facts" in their life and make a decision. Memorizing "facts" and data won't even prepare you for a job at McTesticles -- because they'll expect you to LEARN their procedures for working there.
I mean, seriously. A new job, and your first concern seems to be "how can I steal my company laptop and use it for myself."
I know people will go to great lengths to complain about their "right" to abuse company resources for their own benefit, but this takes the cake.
You want to WIPE the company hard drive and all the software that is provided for you to do your job, and you don't see a fundamental flaw in this reasoning?
You, sir, are a selfish, greedy, ignorant, and probably USELESS fuck who shouldn't be hired by ANYONE.
There is a huge difference between when FORTRAN and other languages were invented, and when they achieved wide-spread popularity and use. Using your interpretation, we've all had GUIs ever since Xerox-PARC built a research machine to demonstrate one. So what if it wasn't until much, much later that the public had access to machines like the Amiga and the Mac? The existence of something is a far cry from it being a generally accepted standard.
Even in 1982-83, assembly programming courses were de rigeur for a degree in computer science. Hell, I even worked on one machine that didn't even implement a stack and therefore wasn't a Von Neuman architecture! (The Sperry AN-UYK502 -- it used some real interesting techniques for handling function calls because it had no stack. Weird machine. But you could drop the running hard drive 20 feet and it would keep on going -- kind of necessary seeing as the Canadian Patrol Frigates would be regularly nose-diving off the top of waves and crashing that far or farther to the trough between waves.)
This issue is found with all textbooks, and has always been a problem. Even in the 70s and 80s, pretty much every textbook I used in high school and university had mistakes, omissions, and unsolvable chapter-problems.
The difficulty with learning maths and sciences stems from the fact that they tend to deal with abstract concepts, procedures, and algorithms for performing mathematical calculations. In the age of calculators and instant-gratification web searches, not only aren't students willing to put in the time to learn "how" to do something, they aren't even interested in learning "why" they should do something.
Instead, they point to their computers and the web as being able to do the work for them, and question the sanity of learning "the old way" of doing things. If the only purpose of an education was to prepare people for the workforce, I'd agree with them -- but the point of an education is to learn how to learn, how to interpret, and how to understand material. An education isn't about the facts taught, but about the learning process that prepares you for a lifetime of learning as you deal with new technologies, products, and ideas during your time on this planet.
My understanding is that you are required to cite any relevant patents or products, and explain how your patent is different.
Including an entire copy of the related prior art is not required for a patent submission; only the specifically-related fragments which would be covered by "fair use" are required. i.e. Specific quotes and citations, not entire texts.
The whole concept of the 3D browser keeps popping up every year or two like bad RIAA-lobbied legislation, and with about as much success.
The simple fact of the matter is that while there are some vertical market needs for 3D technologies like being able to show a "virtual house" on a realtor's website, the expense of creating that 3D content DWARFS the expected benefits.
So what if I could take a 3D model of a camera and put virtual lenses on it in a virtual store using 3D web interfaces? How is that going to tell me anything about how heavy the camera is, how it feels to carry, or just how easy it is to attach and remove lenses?
What really amazes me is how many hundreds of millions have been spent by different companies and backers for a technology that hardly anyone needs or even wants. It's worse than a 3D TV with virtually no content available that isn't animated. Unless you really like animation, a 3D TV is about the worst waste of money you could spend a dime on, and the 3D browser is even worse.
More to the point, there is a much older invention called a "travois", which is basically a pair of long sticks with a basket or netting between to carry the cargo. The travois was used for centuries before the invention of the wheel, if not thousands of years.
Contrary to popular modern understanding, the friction of dragging a travois was little or no worse than early wheels which were poorly fitted and poorly lubricated. It wasn't until axles could be turned on lathes and the joints properly greased that the wheel actually had any significant advantage over the travois for the average person.
Far earlier than the wheel was the simple and basic concept of placing logs under heavy loads and letting them roll under the load. Log rollers didn't require special machining tools, they could handle incredibly heavy loads, and as a result, there was no real NEED for the wheel until technology made it more efficient than what people had been using in the past.
It's like compilers. Sure we can't imagine computing without them nowadays, but for 10-20 years in the early days of computing, there WERE NO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES. It wasn't until computers were powerful and "cheap" enough to make the concept of an abstract language cheaper to code than raw machine code that the compiler and programming languages really took hold.
Interfaces are a method contract, not "fancy...documentation."
If you think interfaces are "just" documentation, you don't know SHIT about OO programming. Sorry dude, but your perspective is like saying that C/C++/C#/Java are "just" big macro assemblers because everything eventually runs on a CPU.
The self-proclaimed "elite hackers" don't even know enough about system security to protect THEMSELVES. I absolutely LOVE it when the arrogant get taken down a notch through their own ineptitude.
Mind you, these are the same people that are surprised when police and three-letter agencies come a-knockin' at their doors with charges in South America and elsewhere. I find it so amusing that "security experts" don't understand how easy it is for three-letter agencies with access to ISP resources to track an attacker down.
The only thing that protects Anonymous from massive prosecutions is their sheer numbers -- there are too many of them for them all to be prosecuted, the same as for bit-torrent downloaders. So the three-letter agencies go after the few who seem to be coordinating and coding things, rather than the thousands of "members" who turn their machines over to participate in DDOS attacks under the control of someone else.
Nelson of "The Simpsons" said it best:
Ha-Ha!
Apparently you don't close browser windows and tabs when you're surfing. Under XP, Vista, and Ubuntu, I have NEVER seen my Firefox session exceed 1GB. Right now it's under 800MB.
That leaves another GB before I'd even APPROACH the 32-bit process size limit.
How about you worry about some real-world issues instead of spreading FUD?
Multiple interface inheritance is necessary in order to specify a proper object model, but C++ is the only language I've ever used that supports multiple inheritance of methods and attributes as well as interface signatures.
Certainly I find it far, far easier to code a system with C++ than with Java or C#. Both Java and C# require that you copy-paste-edit code between implementations of the interfaces, which results in a lot of code duplication and is more prone to error than the C++ approach. (Not to mention being in direct contradiction with the whole concept of code re-use.)
Still, I do understand why it's difficult to work with C++. It's a true chainsaw of a language in the hands of an expert, with the resulting risk of slicing your own limbs off if you're not careful or don't know what you're doing.
But unlike some, I don't blame a flexible language for letting programmers hang themselves. I come from the era of bits bytes and machine code, so while I understand and take advantage of the newer languages, I have no fear of dropping down to the nuts and bolts for performance, and I have an intimate knowledge of how CPUs are implemented and work (I even took VLSI and CPU design courses in university, though things have moved along quite nicely since those days!)
Personally I prefer the flexibility of multiple-inheritance, but I am thoroughly addicted to the cross-platform nature of Java. My favourite is actually the C# syntax, but realistically the Mono implementation is so slow and outdated that it may as well exist -- C# is effectively Windows-only.
Maybe one of these days I'll play with PHP, but I'm really not a "web guy". Most of my experience is with back-end data services, relational-object modeling, and making batch jobs and huge complex reports run like a bat out of hell. PHP feels too much like Visual Basic or other "integrated" GUI/IDE/Code environments for my tastes. I'd rather work on and provide glue layers for scalable JEE systems than tie myself to a language whose libraries aren't inherently designed for cluster-scaling.
Unless you're being forced to run obsolete software by some perverse corporate mandate, you have no excuse nor valid reason for running such outdated software. You are the smoking clunker on the highway of the internet. You are the grey haired granny in the fast lane of the web. The road hazard. The surfing security hole.
Are you getting it?
You are the security risk.
The whole point of the patent system is to encourage cross licensing, sharing, and development of ideas while ensuring that real inventors can be paid for their creations.
Apple uses the patent system to suppress and eliminate competition.
You don't need to have a profit motive to be a patent troll -- you just need to abuse the patent system to ensure it costs other people money to defend against the bogus patents. Being a patent troll doesn't mean you win or that the patent is valid.
The only difference between a "traditional" patent troll and Apple is you can PAY OFF a "traditional" patent troll.
Apple just wants the competition dead.
You misunderstand how much the tooling changes ever 2-3 years on an automotive line nowadays if you think a 10-15 year ROI is feasible.
Very few car names are on the market more than 5-10 years at the outside any more, and the cycle seems to be getting faster and shorter all the time. Even when the name doesn't change, the drive train often sees substantial upgrades and replacements during the life of a brand nowadays.
Nobody in the auto industry can afford to budget based on 10-year-plus ROIs any more. It's a guaranteed road to bankruptcy.
True, but they aren't virally copy-left like the GPL, which prevents you from creating a derivative work/customized implementation without contributing the source back.
As far as I know, you can use Mozilla and Apache licensed code the same as LGPL code.
Mind you, there are some who feel anything but the BSD license is "non free", too. But that's another argument for another day.
You're neglecting to include the costs of electricity for the Volt and the fact that it actually uses gasoline on long trips and to run the heater (a big issue in Saskatchewan winters.)
The Volt does NOT have a run-rate cost of $0, so the total bill at the end of the 4-5 years I've been running on gas paid for by buying a cheaper car means you paid EVEN MORE to own and operate a Volt than the initial $40K.
If this is the best GM can do, the money bailing them out was a complete and utter waste, because their incompetence is going to lead them right back to bankruptcy in a few short years anyhow. We can NOT afford to support North American industries which can't support themselves without government subsidies and "tax incentives."
It's not fair to the competition. It's not fair to the taxpayer. And CLEARLY it's of no benefit to the consumer.
Anyone working for GM or supplying GM with parts better start looking for work NOW. Because when the bankruptcy comes (again), the job market is going to be flooded with people desperate for work. Better to beat the rush.
While non-copyleft licenses like the Mozilla, Apache, and LGPLv3 are quite popular for core services and libraries, most applications I've used over the years were copyleft/GPL type licenses.
If you're building a core service, you want it used by as many people and projects as possible. But if you're developing a tool, utility, or application, often your concern is more to prevent any one company or individual from seizing that work and selling it as their own product.
Personally I use both LGPLv3 and GPLv3 licenses as a result, because the goals of the different software components are not the same.
I can buy TWO Ford Focus 40mpg cars for the same price as a Volt.
Unlike other districts, there are no subsidies for the Volt in Saskatchewan.
$20,000 buys a HELL of a lot of gasoline.