There allready exists a naming scheme for classification based on subject. We use it in Usenet.
.comp for computer related
.soc for societal
.rec for recreation
ect...
The system could be modified, to make it more relavant, but why not start with something everyone knows? --
If you check the context, and bring it back to the original text, you see that they quoted it in english.
The title of Hawkings new book will be "The Universe in a Nutshell". I kid you not.
or... My attempts to make a readable version of the babelfish translation. Everything (even quotes) was up for editing, so don't count on this.
The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking fears that mankind will not survive a "further millenium". In a lecture in Edinburgh, Hawking explained that either an "accident or Global Warming" would extinguish the life on earth. Mankind can only continue to survive and prosper if it settles on another planet.
Hawking told reporters that he would be discussing the idea in his new book "The Universe in a Nutshell".
The scientist suffers from the paralysis illness Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (ALS) and can communicate with the world only by use of a computer, using text-to-speech software.
" I fear that the atmosphere becomes ever hotter than it is presently. If this occurs, it may reach a Venus-like state of bubbling sulfuric acid" wrote Hawking. "I focus many of my concerns around the greenhouse effect." Mankind can survive through out the next millenium only if it spreads onto other planets, and leaves behind it's earthly home. Without the saftey and refuge that these planets might provide, humanity will cease to exist.
One of the chief tasks of the theoretical physicist in the 21st Century is it to offer to mankind a continuous theory about the happening in the universe. "we believe, that we may have found both ends of this theory," said Hawking, "But remaining in the center is still much to be discovered."
( dpa ) ( jk / c't)
Microsoft is still going through the appeals process with the US government about their monopoly status.
Corel, arguably one of Microsoft's largest competitors in both the Office Suite and PC Operating System markets, has been having Financial Troubles of late, resulting in the resignation of the CFO It is in Microsoft's best interest to have Corel around, to be able to point fingers at "See? We aren't a bad monopoly.. Look at Corel (who we own stock in), or Apple (who we own stock in)... There's no problem here" --
as rjh said in responce to previous article a refusal to hear does not mean they agree with the ruling. There is a multitude of possible reasons to decline a request.
What follows is his original positing, reprinted without permission:
This is something which arises so frequently that it's become a major annoyance to the Court. The Court will deny cert ("deny cert" == "refuse to hear arguments") on a case, and presto, the popular press and most of America thinks that means anything.
It means nothing.
Denying cert only means the Court won't hear arguments. It doesn't mean the Court thinks the legal reasoning is correct; it doesn't mean the Court is approving the lower court's decision; it doesn't mean anything.
Many cases are denied cert because their legal issues are not as clear as the Court would like ("bad cases make for bad law", as the axiom goes), or the Court wants to give it a few years to let legal scholarship tackle the issues, or the Court thinks this is an issue which Congress will soon issue "direction" (read: legislation) on, or... any of dozens of reasons.
It is tremendously unwise to think that the Court's denial of cert means anything, no matter what the Court says in their response.
Don't get happy; the Court hasn't done anything for us.
I cannot personally use it, due to it's license.
I wholly support it for others, however. I have recommended it to several of my friends, who do not have the same views as myself.
I have nothing against Apple, and would applaud their efforts. MacOS X is a good system. I like NextStep.
It is much better than Win9x, and more free. I respect and support this.
I appreciete what apple has done for the community, and I acknowledge the positive effect they have had.
But I choose not to run their software, as I would rather be free. This is my choice, as running Non-free software is yours. --
I am not saying that. I am saying that to me that matters. I want to have the freedom to tweak the dock if I so choose. *sighs*
I am not trolling, but to me, it means something.
What Apple has done so far is great, but there is just more that must be dont to convert me.
If it is good for you, however, I am happy for you. I would recommend it highly to many of my friends who do not care about such things.
But I cannot use such as system --
I still cannot, in good conscience, use MacOs X.
Basing it on BSD is great. Releasing the Tools, is great, releasing the source to Darwin in to be applauded...
But it is still non-free software. I cannot edit Quartz. I cannot decide that the doc would be better if I tweaked one or two things...
Apple is not a company I can morally approve of. They have a poor track record of attacking anything that is similiar to their own. Don't even get me started ont he QuickTime thing... (Yes, this involves Sorenson as well, but Appple will not let them release code)
What it comes down to is, as great of an OS as MacOS X is, (and I am not trolling, I really like it!), I cannot use without feeling dirty.
sighs, and goes back to his Debian GNU/Linux machine, without non-free enabled) --
If so then did a Damn nice job. There is reflection on the glass, and the lighting holds true. for the piece, even where it falls on the screen.
If these are fakes, I want to hire the guy who made them! --
RMS, and the FSF grant the KDE/Qt team "forgiveness" for any past using of GPL code from the FSF programs. Is this necessary?
Isn't it just promising not to yell and scream about something that doesn't matter anymore?
If I link with Qt, but then move to the GPL, why would I have a problem? Isn't everything resolved at that point?
What uses do people have for a realtime OS on desktop systems? Sure, in an embedded enviorment, I could understand needing exact, to the nano second, responces, but on a desktop OS?
Soft realtime should be good enough for most things, I would think. Ask the average user what realtime is good for, and they'll tell you "playing music and video".
With patches, Linux can get down to 2 ms or so, but the time is not assured. I'm interested in hearing what uses people have for this on a desktop?
Some form of data collection?
...
You may be right. The views that people have are quite varied.....
Perhaps some sort of web of trust model, where you specify people who can vote on sites, giving that site a +1. These would be people that you are fairly sure you agree with. They can then delegate, and authorize other people to vote on your sites, but these people only get a +.5, ect...
If you did this, and still divided into semi-vague "Bad thing 1" "Bad Thing 2" "Bad Thing 3" catagories, you might have a shot
You don't have to. Define standard catagories, such as Hate, Sex, Violence, Just-plain-being-different, whatever.
Then, if you want to vote something up, you do so in one catagory... People can choose to ignore that catagory, or have their prefs set lower in different catagories. That wouldn't solve the problem, but it would get us a damn lot closer than closed list software is getting us.
I know this will sound bad, but I am honestly thinking about this, not trolling.
As I see it, the main problem with the censorware programs that exist now, is that they have lists of sites that they block, which may or may not be just, or right. They often block sites to further their own agenda, ect. What if we had a user contributed list?
Something like the OpenDirectory that there was a while ago, or somesuch. People could submit sights that they thought were "bad", where tehy would be added to a pending list. From there, they could be voted on.
So the submitter would say:
"I went to playboy and it had pr0n. Block it?"
People would then see the site, and vote for it.
You could set userlevels in the client program, "require [5] votes to be blocked".
I think that having the list out in the open, and community might be a halfway decent way to do a not so great thing. The lessor of evils, you might say. What do you guys think of this idea?
Decentralized platforms, such as SourceForge or Gnutella are superior in this sense. Ian Clarke, the creator of Freenet has been quoted saying that even if he wanted to, he couldn't bring down Freenet. There is no central server to unplug.
As bad as this sounds, perhaps this is what is needed to push along technically superior solutions. Unisys is pushing PNGs with their licensing, Fraunhofer is pushing Ogg Vorbis with theirs, and now, the RIAA is pushing Freenet and Gnutella. In all three cases, the Free Software world has overcome litigation be creating open, free, superior alternatives.
By forcing music to be free (beer), you are not weeding out the ones who are in it for the money, you are removing and chance people have of living from making music. The fact is, People need money to live. "You had to expect hard times to begin with", you say, but what about the Jazz singer who has a wife and kids? He would have to drop out, simply because he needs to money. So yes, many make music because they love it, but if you want to produce professional quality music, it costs money. Money to live, money to rent a studio, money for distribution. If only those who have money to burn can release music, it will be a great loss to the world.
In the article, they talk about open source engines, versus open art games. Open source games have all of the advantages that ESR preaches. People submit patches, it is improved with many eyes, ect. Open Art, and by Art I mean levels, textures, ect., offers little to offer ESR and his crowd. There is no fundamental incentive to give this away. RMS would disagree. I would predict that RMS would say that the games are not truly free, and should not be used. You can't own that game, even if the engine is GPL'd. You don't have the choice to do what you want. It is more a moral decision.
It all comes down to your reasons for wanting to play an open-source game. Caramack has discussed this in his.plan file, a couple of months ago. He, IIRC, supports being open where ever possible, but thinks that it would help competitors more than ID software. Maybe he's right. As much as I hate to say it, maybe we need a more strict option than the GPL/BSD licenses. Use this code here, change whatever you want, but don't bring it into another program.
I think the best think we (non-industry execs) can do right now is to show our support for open source supporting companys (Loki is obvious, ID soft releases it's older titles, such as Quake, The Unreal team has opened some of it's back-end), and, in rational and informed language, explain why we think OSS games (in whichever flavor, Open engine/open art) are superior.
MS doesn't want to pull people from either. They want to pull prople away from Java. Java Scares microsoft. It is Cross-Platform. Their attempts to extend and embrace failed. It is growing. Microsoft needs to get people away from Java, and quickly. This is their latest evil plan.
Maybe you should... Music is a very mathmatical expression. Look back Do DNA's interview yesterday for starters, but thinging about music, and thing about programming, are similiar....
Is this their responce to the lawsuit by Sun? IIRC, the judge told Microsoft that they had to cease creating Javas Programs, such as J++, until they fixed compatibility problems. Is this their responce? Move to a new language? "No, sir. We won't fix our mistakes. We'd rather invent a new programming language, sir." Sometimes I wonder about them....
This article is one example of why journalists should be more responsible.
Personally, this sort of thing makes me very sad indeed. I checked out the site, and although it didn't look like the article (not that that means anything!) If it is true, enough people will ignore it, thinking it some April Fools day prank...
This happened with the other stories posted today. Read the comments. No one cares what they are about. Everyone is talking about the way they are posted. sigh
Good Idea: If I ever need to do something evil [spy on users, etc.], announce it on Apr. 1st. No-one will believe me and I can get away free!
Slashdot Mirror
There allready exists a naming scheme for classification based on subject. We use it in Usenet.
.comp for computer related
.soc for societal
.rec for recreation
ect...
The system could be modified, to make it more relavant, but why not start with something everyone knows?
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
If you check the context, and bring it back to the original text, you see that they quoted it in english.
The title of Hawkings new book will be "The Universe in a Nutshell". I kid you not.
O'Reilly expands to the cosmos, anyone?
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
or... My attempts to make a readable version of the babelfish translation. Everything (even quotes) was up for editing, so don't count on this.
The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking fears that mankind will not survive a "further millenium". In a lecture in Edinburgh, Hawking explained that either an "accident or Global Warming" would extinguish the life on earth. Mankind can only continue to survive and prosper if it settles on another planet.
Hawking told reporters that he would be discussing the idea in his new book "The Universe in a Nutshell".
The scientist suffers from the paralysis illness Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (ALS) and can communicate with the world only by use of a computer, using text-to-speech software.
" I fear that the atmosphere becomes ever hotter than it is presently. If this occurs, it may reach a Venus-like state of bubbling sulfuric acid" wrote Hawking. "I focus many of my concerns around the greenhouse effect." Mankind can survive through out the next millenium only if it spreads onto other planets, and leaves behind it's earthly home. Without the saftey and refuge that these planets might provide, humanity will cease to exist.
One of the chief tasks of the theoretical physicist in the 21st Century is it to offer to mankind a continuous theory about the happening in the universe. "we believe, that we may have found both ends of this theory," said Hawking, "But remaining in the center is still much to be discovered."
( dpa ) ( jk / c't)
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
Microsoft is still going through the appeals process with the US government about their monopoly status. Corel, arguably one of Microsoft's largest competitors in both the Office Suite and PC Operating System markets, has been having Financial Troubles of late, resulting in the resignation of the CFO
It is in Microsoft's best interest to have Corel around, to be able to point fingers at
"See? We aren't a bad monopoly.. Look at Corel (who we own stock in), or Apple (who we own stock in)... There's no problem here"
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
There is a multitude of possible reasons to decline a request. What follows is his original positing, reprinted without permission:
This is something which arises so frequently that it's become a major annoyance to the Court. The Court will deny cert ("deny cert" == "refuse to hear arguments") on a case, and presto, the popular press and most of America thinks that means anything.
It means nothing.
Denying cert only means the Court won't hear arguments. It doesn't mean the Court thinks the legal reasoning is correct; it doesn't mean the Court is approving the lower court's decision; it doesn't mean anything .
Many cases are denied cert because their legal issues are not as clear as the Court would like ("bad cases make for bad law", as the axiom goes), or the Court wants to give it a few years to let legal scholarship tackle the issues, or the Court thinks this is an issue which Congress will soon issue "direction" (read: legislation) on, or... any of dozens of reasons.
It is tremendously unwise to think that the Court's denial of cert means anything, no matter what the Court says in their response.
Don't get happy; the Court hasn't done anything for us.
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
I submitted this Weeks Ago!
;-)
Way to go guys. Can't wait to hear the details. *grins*
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
I see, I was unaware that the smaller tanks were retrieved.
Could you provide a link with more information please?
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
the shuttels were good for teh time, but they are not fully re-useable. (the tanks fall)
I could be wrong, But I think the X-33 was planned to use internal fuel, and be much more efficent.
What we must remember is that these are tests, and test fail. It is better to have something happen now, then when we are counting on it..
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
You put words in my mouth, sir.
I cannot personally use it, due to it's license.
I wholly support it for others, however. I have recommended it to several of my friends, who do not have the same views as myself.
I have nothing against Apple, and would applaud their efforts. MacOS X is a good system. I like NextStep.
It is much better than Win9x, and more free. I respect and support this.
I appreciete what apple has done for the community, and I acknowledge the positive effect they have had.
But I choose not to run their software, as I would rather be free. This is my choice, as running Non-free software is yours.
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
I am not saying that. I am saying that to me that matters. I want to have the freedom to tweak the dock if I so choose. *sighs*
I am not trolling, but to me, it means something.
What Apple has done so far is great, but there is just more that must be dont to convert me.
If it is good for you, however, I am happy for you. I would recommend it highly to many of my friends who do not care about such things.
But I cannot use such as system
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
I still cannot, in good conscience, use MacOs X.
Basing it on BSD is great. Releasing the Tools, is great, releasing the source to Darwin in to be applauded...
But it is still non-free software. I cannot edit Quartz. I cannot decide that the doc would be better if I tweaked one or two things...
Apple is not a company I can morally approve of. They have a poor track record of attacking anything that is similiar to their own. Don't even get me started ont he QuickTime thing... (Yes, this involves Sorenson as well, but Appple will not let them release code)
What it comes down to is, as great of an OS as MacOS X is, (and I am not trolling, I really like it!), I cannot use without feeling dirty.
sighs, and goes back to his Debian GNU/Linux machine, without non-free enabled)
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
If so then did a Damn nice job. There is reflection on the glass, and the lighting holds true. for the piece, even where it falls on the screen.
If these are fakes, I want to hire the guy who made them!
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
RMS, and the FSF grant the KDE/Qt team "forgiveness" for any past using of GPL code from the FSF programs. Is this necessary?
Isn't it just promising not to yell and scream about something that doesn't matter anymore?
If I link with Qt, but then move to the GPL, why would I have a problem? Isn't everything resolved at that point?
What uses do people have for a realtime OS on desktop systems? Sure, in an embedded enviorment, I could understand needing exact, to the nano second, responces, but on a desktop OS?
Soft realtime should be good enough for most things, I would think. Ask the average user what realtime is good for, and they'll tell you "playing music and video".
With patches, Linux can get down to 2 ms or so, but the time is not assured. I'm interested in hearing what uses people have for this on a desktop?
Some form of data collection?
...
You may be right. The views that people have are quite varied.....
Perhaps some sort of web of trust model, where you specify people who can vote on sites, giving that site a +1. These would be people that you are fairly sure you agree with. They can then delegate, and authorize other people to vote on your sites, but these people only get a +.5, ect...
If you did this, and still divided into semi-vague "Bad thing 1" "Bad Thing 2" "Bad Thing 3" catagories, you might have a shot
You don't have to. Define standard catagories, such as Hate, Sex, Violence, Just-plain-being-different, whatever.
Then, if you want to vote something up, you do so in one catagory... People can choose to ignore that catagory, or have their prefs set lower in different catagories. That wouldn't solve the problem, but it would get us a damn lot closer than closed list software is getting us.
As I see it, the main problem with the censorware programs that exist now, is that they have lists of sites that they block, which may or may not be just, or right. They often block sites to further their own agenda, ect. What if we had a user contributed list?
Something like the OpenDirectory that there was a while ago, or somesuch. People could submit sights that they thought were "bad", where tehy would be added to a pending list. From there, they could be voted on.
So the submitter would say:
"I went to playboy and it had pr0n. Block it?"
People would then see the site, and vote for it.
You could set userlevels in the client program, "require [5] votes to be blocked".
I think that having the list out in the open, and community might be a halfway decent way to do a not so great thing. The lessor of evils, you might say. What do you guys think of this idea?
Obviously I meant Freenet or Gnutella
in the first sentence.
Ian Clarke, the creator of Freenet has been quoted saying that even if he wanted to, he couldn't bring down Freenet. There is no central server to unplug.
As bad as this sounds, perhaps this is what is needed to push along technically superior solutions.
Unisys is pushing PNGs with their licensing, Fraunhofer is pushing Ogg Vorbis with theirs, and now, the RIAA is pushing Freenet and Gnutella.
In all three cases, the Free Software world has overcome litigation be creating open, free, superior alternatives.
By forcing music to be free (beer), you are not weeding out the ones who are in it for the money, you are removing and chance people have of living from making music.
The fact is, People need money to live.
"You had to expect hard times to begin with", you say, but what about the Jazz singer who has a wife and kids? He would have to drop out, simply because he needs to money.
So yes, many make music because they love it, but if you want to produce professional quality music, it costs money. Money to live, money to rent a studio, money for distribution.
If only those who have money to burn can release music, it will be a great loss to the world.
In the article, they talk about open source engines, versus open art games.
.plan file, a couple of months ago. He, IIRC, supports being open where ever possible, but thinks that it would help competitors more than ID software. Maybe he's right.
Open source games have all of the advantages that ESR preaches. People submit patches, it is improved with many eyes, ect.
Open Art, and by Art I mean levels, textures, ect., offers little to offer ESR and his crowd. There is no fundamental incentive to give this away. RMS would disagree. I would predict that RMS would say that the games are not truly free, and should not be used. You can't own that game, even if the engine is GPL'd. You don't have the choice to do what you want. It is more a moral decision.
It all comes down to your reasons for wanting to play an open-source game. Caramack has discussed this in his
As much as I hate to say it, maybe we need a more strict option than the GPL/BSD licenses. Use this code here, change whatever you want, but don't bring it into another program.
I think the best think we (non-industry execs) can do right now is to show our support for open source supporting companys (Loki is obvious, ID soft releases it's older titles, such as Quake, The Unreal team has opened some of it's back-end), and, in rational and informed language, explain why we think OSS games (in whichever flavor, Open engine/open art) are superior.
MS doesn't want to pull people from either. They want to pull prople away from Java.
Java Scares microsoft. It is Cross-Platform. Their attempts to extend and embrace failed. It is growing.
Microsoft needs to get people away from Java, and quickly. This is their latest evil plan.
Maybe you should...
Music is a very mathmatical expression. Look back Do DNA's interview yesterday for starters, but thinging about music, and thing about programming, are similiar....
Is this their responce? Move to a new language?
"No, sir. We won't fix our mistakes. We'd rather invent a new programming language, sir."
Sometimes I wonder about them....
Personally, this sort of thing makes me very sad indeed. I checked out the site, and although it didn't look like the article (not that that means anything!)
If it is true, enough people will ignore it, thinking it some April Fools day prank...
This happened with the other stories posted today. Read the comments. No one cares what they are about. Everyone is talking about the way they are posted. sigh
Good Idea: If I ever need to do something evil [spy on users, etc.], announce it on Apr. 1st. No-one will believe me and I can get away free!