...the problematic term "intellectual property" (which is a loaded term, of course).
Sadly, this term is sometimes used incorrectly. The stuff it applies to is supposed to be as intellectual as it is property, which is "not really". Some companies try to buck this trend by actually having an intellectual element, which muddies the issue.
I think an analogy may be of use here. Let's talk about blindness.
There are two kinds of blindness, those who are generally called blind, and have absolutely no vision, and those who are generally classified as "legally blind", yet still have some vision.
Well, you say, if they have some vision, certainly they aren't blind. But what if this person has perfect vision for a whole arc degree. So they can read, albeit slowly and with much effort, but would you want them to drive? Or is he just not putting enough effort in to accomplish this task that just about any other normal person can do?
Now, I don't know of any diseases that cause blindness in quite that way, but there are many different types of blindness, and their effects are different, as well.
This is similar for what we call Asperger's and autism. Autism is very much like outright blindness, while Asperger's is much like being legally blind. Once a certain threshold is reached, you are said to have the condition. If not, you may still have some of the symptoms but you don't have the condition. There may be some threshold cases that are mis-diagnosed on either side of the fence, but there will also be some clear cases, as well.
Yep, one day big media executives will see the totality of what global community means, and how to use it to promote their products. And then Jesus will come again.
This reminds me of a book I read, The Regiment, I believe (certainly by Dalmas). When describing the intercom system, he notes that there is the slightest distortion in the sound, not because they can't make it more realistic, but to give people a cue that the voice they're hearing is not from a person in the room. It's a related idea. If there is no benefit from having robots look human, and it makes it easy for people to diffirentiate between people and robots, we may be better off using lesser technology in that area. Which is not to say that we wouldn't want at least locomotion to be comparable with humans.
Okay, how about R2D2. If you buy into the uncanny valley thing, then there is a point where most of the fundamental points can be covered adequately without having people be revolted with the robot. The questions are where is that point, and can we give robots the functional capabilities while compensating for their overall creep factor in other areas.
That is one of the biggest reasons I stopped programming for Mac. I'm sure it's gotten better since then, not that I've checked, but nothing was more frustrating than a dialog box whose sole purpose was to show you a hex error code that you had no resource to look up from.
Another big problem I had was with an assignment I had. Read 2 numbers from a file, do a simple math calc, write the result to the end of the file. I ran it 3 times, always starting with the same base file, and got 3 different results. Fortunately, one of them was the correct result, so I handed it in. I figured if the prof could identify the error, it was worth the grade points and the stress reduction to let him tell me what was wrong. Sadly, my grade was good for that assignment.
If you only run a single app, and that app has only a single thread, then you will not gain much at all.
Well, yeah, but I haven't used DOS for years!
But seriously. I'm currently running one Office app, one CAD program, one development environment, 3 web browser instances, an IM client, and a text editor, not to mention all the various other things Windows and I need to have running in the background.
I think you'll find that the vast majority of people are unconcerned about killing any number of bacteria in order to have more living room. People will already destroy acres of rain forest, known to be vital, for a few years' survival. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant minority of them would prefer that all the Martian bacteria (if any still exist) be killed before we send people there.
And if your response to that is "Yes, but these are scientists! They wouldn't condone the liberal use of unknown technologies just to preserve a few lives!" even if that were true, it didn't seem to make much difference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did it? There are plenty other examples if you choose to look.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was...
Do you think you could have used the tools literally at your fingertips and at least tried to appear to be informed (the Wikipedia link was particularly useful)?
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
Please clarify for me what a "clandestine act of...animals" is. Is that stuffing a sheep in someone's car in the middle of the night, or just stuffing a sheep?
Your beliefs show through your bias. You want software to be open source, so you add cost to commercial software vendors, yet say open source producers may not have to do this. Be consistent! I can think of any number of circumstances where code escrow would be as important for open source software as for closed source. Consider innumerable forks by a number of vendors (linux kernel) or rarely-downloaded open source software (the 5 guys who downloaded 3D graphics libraries for QBasic don't have equally protected rights?). And why should closed source vendors have to suffer and additional, government-mandated, fee if open-source vendors don't? Now, if you wanted to exempt charities, that might be acceptable, but that's not what you said.
Also, regarding freedom. Freedom doesn't mean there aren't restrictions, it means I have a reasonable choice on the restrictions I endure. Imagine, for instance, a nation where slavery is a choice (of the slave), and the slave is protected by a number of laws. Would that be worse than being free and homeless? Likewise, if I have a reasonable choice on being less free in exchange for something that is more valuable to me than freedom, why should you have a right to say no? Note the reasonable choice part. I personally think MS's document formats fail that test (something about being convicted for abusing their monopoly). As for slavery, I think the high risk of abuse, no matter the conditions and restrictions, also rules it out. Now let's say I want to use Acrobat Writer instead of the alternatives. Hmm, published document format, third-party software which can read/write it, commonly accessible by other computer users, industry leader, but closed-source software. Good enough for me, but maybe not for you. So I use Acrobat Writer, and you use something else. But why should you have a say in my choice?
And, yes, I'm aware of the FSF's opinion of what freedom means with respect to software. I just happen to feel that freedom as a developer means I can choose what license I release my software under, and that freedom as a user means I can use the license software is released under as a selection criteria. Freedom also means I can believe something different than you. I don't think any studies have been done which conclusively show that closed-source software is bad, and even if there was, I can still choose to believe differently.
Ah, I love the smell of freedom nowadays, where people get to make choices for me.
How is it freedom to force people into a democracy? It is no more free than forcing people to be part of a communist government or tyranny.
How is it freedom to force people to provide their services for cash only? How about for food, fuel, or other services?
How is it freedom to force people to write code in a certain way? "Oops, the code police checked and your comments are too vague. You'll have to change it if you want to release your product. What? Oh, yes, if you decide to not charge for it, it can be as poorly written as you like." Not only is that a blatant double-standard, it still wouldn't solve the problem with IE, among others. They don't charge for it. Or would you require Red Hat to put all versions of Linux they provide through the same tests? After all, they charge for some of their Linux products, too.
For now, why don't you exercise your freedom and acquire software (free as in beer or otherwise) that meets your criteria, and let me acquire software that meets mine.
This is not to say that I'm against the government, or anyone else for that matter, demanding open document formats. I think this is especially true for the government, who has to provide documents to the public that should be viewable by anyone, with no software tax attached.
1. Come up with a software/hardware solution. 2. Make it unintuitive, buggy, insecure, inconsistent, and require carrots stuffed up your nose (optional). 3. Profit!!!
As a Christian, I have to agree with you. If it could be verified that it was used on Christ, it would have some historical/religious significance, but nothing to the degree it's gotten. I'm more interested in seeing Jerusalem and Calvary than this - at least we have third-party verification that he was there. And nothing has more value for showing the danger of senseless destruction and inhuman cruelty as a site where crucifixion regularly ocurred.
While all of your points may be correct, and I'm not certain they are (the second one, I make the first one all the time), it's something of a moot point since (and see, the heuristic model helps, too;-) I didn't use a grammar checker on that post, and you wouldn't be able to tell the errors I've stopped making because of it. And for the record, I don't think those count as basic grammatical errors.
There is a difference between "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" and "guilty without a doubt" (or absolute certainty, as you put it). Now, that said, I think the biggest problems we have with juries fall in the extremes - jurors giving "not guilties" because they think the person just made a mistake, and jurors giving "guilties" even though the evidence still leaves reasonable doubt. Both weaken the system.
In this instance, him having the same fire starter is interesting, and opens the possibility of him doing it (and being quite stupid), but nothing else. It's probably carried in every Safeway in the area, and may even be one of the more popular brands. They also note that 16 bottles of fire starter were bought between June and August, but I think barbeque season starts a little earlier there. I wonder how many were bought between April and May? None of which says where he had his bottle stored, and whether whoever did it could have just walked into his garage and taken it, for instance.
The grammar checker, like any other tool, has its uses. I find my grammar more than sufficient, yet I still make mistakes occasionally. I have Word do the underline thing if it thinks I make a mistake, and I review them. There are some I ignore outright, since I've been over them before and don't agree with the checker's assessment. But it does catch some mistakes, and teaches me something new in the process. But, like any tool, if you use it as crutch you will be weaker for it.
The problem for most people who have a problem lies in one area (at least from an experimental point of view), although they may come at it from different directions. Our society doesn't experiment on people. The religious due to the sanctity of human life, the liberals due to the freedom that is peoples' right, etc. And the problem is, at what point does the creation of this scientist become a person? At what point is this any different from doing experiments on people without their permission?
Then again, I suffer from the Not Invented Here -syndrome. Guess I'd make a bad leader: "You'll use my DNS hack or you're fired!":-)
There's a nice executive position opening up in less than 4 years. You seem to share a couple ideas with the current executive, maybe you should apply.
P.S. If you're anti-Bush, please take no offense, I'm just joking. If you're pro-Bush, well, let's not go there.
I've calculated that the energy of Outside waxes and wanes in approximately twelve hour cycles and travel would be possible during the low portion of the cycle/
Better go check your claculations. I hear the cycle is 24 hours. This is confusing, given the state of most watches, but should be investigated further.
Slashdot Mirror
...the problematic term "intellectual property" (which is a loaded term, of course).
Sadly, this term is sometimes used incorrectly. The stuff it applies to is supposed to be as intellectual as it is property, which is "not really". Some companies try to buck this trend by actually having an intellectual element, which muddies the issue.
I recommend you try more blows to the head.
I think an analogy may be of use here. Let's talk about blindness.
There are two kinds of blindness, those who are generally called blind, and have absolutely no vision, and those who are generally classified as "legally blind", yet still have some vision.
Well, you say, if they have some vision, certainly they aren't blind. But what if this person has perfect vision for a whole arc degree. So they can read, albeit slowly and with much effort, but would you want them to drive? Or is he just not putting enough effort in to accomplish this task that just about any other normal person can do?
Now, I don't know of any diseases that cause blindness in quite that way, but there are many different types of blindness, and their effects are different, as well.
This is similar for what we call Asperger's and autism. Autism is very much like outright blindness, while Asperger's is much like being legally blind. Once a certain threshold is reached, you are said to have the condition. If not, you may still have some of the symptoms but you don't have the condition. There may be some threshold cases that are mis-diagnosed on either side of the fence, but there will also be some clear cases, as well.
Yep, one day big media executives will see the totality of what global community means, and how to use it to promote their products. And then Jesus will come again.
You'll have to do better than quoting a politician to get me to believe the Birmingham is beautiful. Hell, that inclines me to believe the opposite.
The 80's called...and they don't want you back.
This reminds me of a book I read, The Regiment, I believe (certainly by Dalmas). When describing the intercom system, he notes that there is the slightest distortion in the sound, not because they can't make it more realistic, but to give people a cue that the voice they're hearing is not from a person in the room. It's a related idea. If there is no benefit from having robots look human, and it makes it easy for people to diffirentiate between people and robots, we may be better off using lesser technology in that area. Which is not to say that we wouldn't want at least locomotion to be comparable with humans.
Okay, how about R2D2. If you buy into the uncanny valley thing, then there is a point where most of the fundamental points can be covered adequately without having people be revolted with the robot. The questions are where is that point, and can we give robots the functional capabilities while compensating for their overall creep factor in other areas.
That is one of the biggest reasons I stopped programming for Mac. I'm sure it's gotten better since then, not that I've checked, but nothing was more frustrating than a dialog box whose sole purpose was to show you a hex error code that you had no resource to look up from.
Another big problem I had was with an assignment I had. Read 2 numbers from a file, do a simple math calc, write the result to the end of the file. I ran it 3 times, always starting with the same base file, and got 3 different results. Fortunately, one of them was the correct result, so I handed it in. I figured if the prof could identify the error, it was worth the grade points and the stress reduction to let him tell me what was wrong. Sadly, my grade was good for that assignment.
If you only run a single app, and that app has only a single thread, then you will not gain much at all.
Well, yeah, but I haven't used DOS for years!
But seriously. I'm currently running one Office app, one CAD program, one development environment, 3 web browser instances, an IM client, and a text editor, not to mention all the various other things Windows and I need to have running in the background.
I think you'll find that the vast majority of people are unconcerned about killing any number of bacteria in order to have more living room. People will already destroy acres of rain forest, known to be vital, for a few years' survival. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant minority of them would prefer that all the Martian bacteria (if any still exist) be killed before we send people there.
And if your response to that is "Yes, but these are scientists! They wouldn't condone the liberal use of unknown technologies just to preserve a few lives!" even if that were true, it didn't seem to make much difference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did it? There are plenty other examples if you choose to look.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was...
Do you think you could have used the tools literally at your fingertips and at least tried to appear to be informed (the Wikipedia link was particularly useful)?
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
Please clarify for me what a "clandestine act of...animals" is. Is that stuffing a sheep in someone's car in the middle of the night, or just stuffing a sheep?
And if you're going to use a severed finger to buy food at Thriftway, always make sure to buy hamburger. Plausible deniability. ;)
Your beliefs show through your bias. You want software to be open source, so you add cost to commercial software vendors, yet say open source producers may not have to do this. Be consistent! I can think of any number of circumstances where code escrow would be as important for open source software as for closed source. Consider innumerable forks by a number of vendors (linux kernel) or rarely-downloaded open source software (the 5 guys who downloaded 3D graphics libraries for QBasic don't have equally protected rights?). And why should closed source vendors have to suffer and additional, government-mandated, fee if open-source vendors don't? Now, if you wanted to exempt charities, that might be acceptable, but that's not what you said.
Also, regarding freedom. Freedom doesn't mean there aren't restrictions, it means I have a reasonable choice on the restrictions I endure. Imagine, for instance, a nation where slavery is a choice (of the slave), and the slave is protected by a number of laws. Would that be worse than being free and homeless? Likewise, if I have a reasonable choice on being less free in exchange for something that is more valuable to me than freedom, why should you have a right to say no? Note the reasonable choice part. I personally think MS's document formats fail that test (something about being convicted for abusing their monopoly). As for slavery, I think the high risk of abuse, no matter the conditions and restrictions, also rules it out. Now let's say I want to use Acrobat Writer instead of the alternatives. Hmm, published document format, third-party software which can read/write it, commonly accessible by other computer users, industry leader, but closed-source software. Good enough for me, but maybe not for you. So I use Acrobat Writer, and you use something else. But why should you have a say in my choice?
And, yes, I'm aware of the FSF's opinion of what freedom means with respect to software. I just happen to feel that freedom as a developer means I can choose what license I release my software under, and that freedom as a user means I can use the license software is released under as a selection criteria. Freedom also means I can believe something different than you. I don't think any studies have been done which conclusively show that closed-source software is bad, and even if there was, I can still choose to believe differently.
Ah, I love the smell of freedom nowadays, where people get to make choices for me.
How is it freedom to force people into a democracy? It is no more free than forcing people to be part of a communist government or tyranny.
How is it freedom to force people to provide their services for cash only? How about for food, fuel, or other services?
How is it freedom to force people to write code in a certain way? "Oops, the code police checked and your comments are too vague. You'll have to change it if you want to release your product. What? Oh, yes, if you decide to not charge for it, it can be as poorly written as you like." Not only is that a blatant double-standard, it still wouldn't solve the problem with IE, among others. They don't charge for it. Or would you require Red Hat to put all versions of Linux they provide through the same tests? After all, they charge for some of their Linux products, too.
For now, why don't you exercise your freedom and acquire software (free as in beer or otherwise) that meets your criteria, and let me acquire software that meets mine.
This is not to say that I'm against the government, or anyone else for that matter, demanding open document formats. I think this is especially true for the government, who has to provide documents to the public that should be viewable by anyone, with no software tax attached.
1. Come up with a software/hardware solution.
2. Make it unintuitive, buggy, insecure, inconsistent, and require carrots stuffed up your nose (optional).
3. Profit!!!
As a Christian, I have to agree with you. If it could be verified that it was used on Christ, it would have some historical/religious significance, but nothing to the degree it's gotten. I'm more interested in seeing Jerusalem and Calvary than this - at least we have third-party verification that he was there. And nothing has more value for showing the danger of senseless destruction and inhuman cruelty as a site where crucifixion regularly ocurred.
While all of your points may be correct, and I'm not certain they are (the second one, I make the first one all the time), it's something of a moot point since (and see, the heuristic model helps, too ;-) I didn't use a grammar checker on that post, and you wouldn't be able to tell the errors I've stopped making because of it. And for the record, I don't think those count as basic grammatical errors.
BTW, no offense taken, or intended.
There is a difference between "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" and "guilty without a doubt" (or absolute certainty, as you put it). Now, that said, I think the biggest problems we have with juries fall in the extremes - jurors giving "not guilties" because they think the person just made a mistake, and jurors giving "guilties" even though the evidence still leaves reasonable doubt. Both weaken the system.
In this instance, him having the same fire starter is interesting, and opens the possibility of him doing it (and being quite stupid), but nothing else. It's probably carried in every Safeway in the area, and may even be one of the more popular brands. They also note that 16 bottles of fire starter were bought between June and August, but I think barbeque season starts a little earlier there. I wonder how many were bought between April and May? None of which says where he had his bottle stored, and whether whoever did it could have just walked into his garage and taken it, for instance.
The grammar checker, like any other tool, has its uses. I find my grammar more than sufficient, yet I still make mistakes occasionally. I have Word do the underline thing if it thinks I make a mistake, and I review them. There are some I ignore outright, since I've been over them before and don't agree with the checker's assessment. But it does catch some mistakes, and teaches me something new in the process. But, like any tool, if you use it as crutch you will be weaker for it.
The problem for most people who have a problem lies in one area (at least from an experimental point of view), although they may come at it from different directions. Our society doesn't experiment on people. The religious due to the sanctity of human life, the liberals due to the freedom that is peoples' right, etc. And the problem is, at what point does the creation of this scientist become a person? At what point is this any different from doing experiments on people without their permission?
Well, the Webster dictionary disagrees. Note definition 3.
I'm pretty sure that the data on every CD I own appears somewhere in pi.
Oh great, just what I need. Now every time I see a circle, I'll be reminded that pi contains Britney Spears' Greatest Hits. Bastard.
On the plus side, it also contains every snide remark made about her. Including this one.
Then again, I suffer from the Not Invented Here -syndrome. Guess I'd make a bad leader: "You'll use my DNS hack or you're fired!" :-)
There's a nice executive position opening up in less than 4 years. You seem to share a couple ideas with the current executive, maybe you should apply.
P.S. If you're anti-Bush, please take no offense, I'm just joking. If you're pro-Bush, well, let's not go there.
I've calculated that the energy of Outside waxes and wanes in approximately twelve hour cycles and travel would be possible during the low portion of the cycle/
Better go check your claculations. I hear the cycle is 24 hours. This is confusing, given the state of most watches, but should be investigated further.