This "light pollution" is completely negligible. First of all it is entirely negligible compared with the sunlight reflected from Earth. Secondly, the sun is orders of magnitude brighter. Seeing a small planet that close to the sun is nearly impossible. Adding 0.001% [number made up by me] to the planet's luminosity won't make a difference.
This issue was already known to Drake when he formulated his famous equation -- a key parameter is the time window during which a civilisation is broadcasting radio signals.
It's important to remember that bailing out banks, bailing out people with mortgages, spreading "stimulus" money around, subsidizing healthcare, increasing the education budget and fighting two wars are all expensive endeavours. With the deficit soaring, I'm not surprised NASA isn't getting the money to develop new launch vehicles.
At some point Scudder and his followers will be out and humanity will go to the stars again.
The GPL doesn't force you to distribute the code, or prohibit you from selecting recipients according to any criterion you wish. It only prohibits you from placing restrictions on what the recipients can do with the code after they get it from you. In other words, the GPL doesn't require SF-hosted projects to directly distribute their code in Syria. It only prohibits the projects from forbidding downstream recipients from distributing to Syrians, or from forbidding Syrians to run the code.
Having been a unix sysadmin for 15 years, I'm quite aware of package managers. Unfortunately not all OEM drivers come nicely packaged, so you have to install them by hand. Yes, I know I could make an RPM file around the driver, but it's far simpler to write a shellscript that automates the tasks the OP wanted (shut down X, shut down the display, replace kernel modules and X drivers, restart display, restart X). And yes, I call such a script an "installer". It doesn't display fancy graphics, but it sure does install the driver.
I have such a chipset and I've been cursing NVIDIA on a regular basis.
You must be new to this "Linux" thing. That your Hardware OEM is providing Linux drivers at all is highly unusual. That the drivers are effective is astounding -- that the installer provided the drivers is rudimentary is not worth complaining over. In any case if you really mind I'm sure you can write a replacement installer.
I'm well aware of the artificial life that is a Gulf city. As I said, building up Dubai is mostly an extravaganza. Yes, building skyscrapers in Dubai is a bad idea -- but that's because building anything there is inefficient -- not because of a particular problem with skyscrapers.
The principle still holds: building up is a good approach to urban planning. Yes, you need appropriate infrastructure: a skyscraper needs a lot of public transport around it (potentially a deep parking facility), as well as massive supplies of water, gas, electricity, steam and so on. My point is that a suburban sprawling neighbourhood of 100 houses also needs these utilities, and it needs 100 versions of each.
This particular building is an extreme example; it's more of a publicity stunt than an approach to urban planning. The principle of building up is right, however. Higher population density makes for better public transportation, more services available within walking distance, and nicer, more pristine outdoors spaces. It also makes more efficient use of land, hence reducing its price.
Existing copies of Word were expressly grandfathered in by the ruling -- only the sale of new copies was prohibited. Is the patch intended to be applied against shrink-wrapped copies bought after Jan. 11th?
Yes, but the maximum speed is largely irrelevant. What matters to the travelling public is the average speed -- and this train is faster than the TGV in that regard.
GAO wins the "d'oh" prize for the most useless self-evidence statement of the year. Instead, they should have tried to figure out if the extra expense has led to better results. My guess is that the bang-for-bucks ratio for the sundry experiments in the ISS is very low -- except for the PR value. However, all this PR is important to keep the big experiment -- the ISS itself -- going, and that one is worth all the expense.
I assume you know that OOXML is a proprietary MS format couched in the clothing of an international standard? That it was only approved by ISO after MS manipulated the procedures, bribed partners to stack committees, and completely destroyed the technical committee? Where MS is now abusing the "correction of drafting errors" mechanism to make material changes to the standard so that it continuously conforms to the behaviour of MS's proprietary software (including reversing changes specifically made by the ISO committee!) -- instead of having their software conform to the so-called "standard".
This is not to say I support software patents, especially on trivial ideas like a specific format for embedding proprietary data in an XML file (what i4i has "invented"). However, you should not fall for the MS "openness" scam. Just because it's XML doesn't mean it's not Microsoft.
Unless they are in the search-engine business, I'm not sure they have a trademark claim even if they were first. There is little likelihood of confusion after all.
Like all other kinds of insurance, the only question is whether you have the capital to pay for the risk. Insurance is a simple transaction, in which you pay someone else to provide the capital necessary to cover you in case of some bad event taking place. It's worth it to you since you don't need to have this available capital.
The expected direct monetary cost of insurance (premium minus expected payout) has to be negative, or the insurance company won't be making money. In other words, you must pay them more than the product of the probability of the outcome times the damage. Insurance nevertheless has positive value since this comparison (permium vs payout) only makes sense to someone who has the resources to make the payout.
Thus it's a good idea to insure your house -- if it burned down you probably don't have the money to buy yourself a new one, so instead you pay the insurance company to have money to buy you a new house. However, buying warranty for most electronics is a waste -- why not act as your own insurer, cutting the middleman and saving on the premium? People who buying electronics so expensive they cannot cannot afford to pay to fix or replace should consider insurance -- but precisely because insurance only makes sense for big-ticket items, the effect of an economic downturn and concern about future finances should be to reduce purchases, not to make the purchases and then add insurance.
You seem to be confusing subject matter with obviousness. You say that business methods should not be patentable, but then complain about the obviousness of a patent on a software method.
Actually, I wasn't confused -- read my post more carefully. I did mention obviousness (I do think this patent is obvious) but my main argument is that this is unpatentable subject matter regardless of obviousness. If a mail-based subscription service is unpatentable subject matter, then an internet-based subscription service shouldn't be either. Just because there's a computer it in somewhere doesn't make it a technological invention.
The patent should be invalidated because business methods should not be patentable. There's plenty of prior art for the individual pieces (making files available for download to subscribers is as old as the BBS, and email notifications when new files are available are not newer), but the patentee will claim "we are the first to put all these ideas together". Of course what they did would have been obvious to anyone trying to solve the problem, but even that's not the point. The real issue is with what they are trying to patent. Would the PTO (or the CFFC) accept a patent on the same business method, except that users send requests on postcards, the audio will be burned to CDs and mailed by post, and the subscription lists will be maintained in paper folders? If not, then the PTO should explain why sending files by post is not patentable, but sending them by internet is.
Denyhosts... "filter[s] out requests... by... blocking the originating IP addresses."
Unfortunately, these phones do not have fixed IP addresses. IP-based authorization won't work when half the time your IP address is assigned by the local WiFi LAN as is the address of the other phone -- after all, you might be using SSH at home where IP addresses are assigned from the same range as at the hostspot where you get attacked. You need host-based or user-based authentication that does not depend on IP addresses. For example, SSH supports user-based cryptographic keys.
I also think that blocking hosts is the wrong way to go. Most people do not run open-to-the-public login servers, either on their home computers or on their phones. If you must do host-based blocking then the correct approach is that of hosts.allow — deny all requests by default except for those that you trust.
So the "best practice" for MS-Windows was to randomly generate UIDs to avoid user accounts on different machines from having the same UID? This would have made sense had NFS been common, where indeed duplicate UIDs are an issue. But windows does not support NFS mounts -- and SMB mounting is based on a local account on the remote machine. There must be some subtlety here, or else why has this taken years to figure out?
TFA claims that the term "derivative work" as used in GPLv2 requires further definition in the GPL itself because courts haven't clarified it, but this is wrong. The authors of the GPLv2 (i.e. RMS) clearly intended it to cover as much as possible: any and all works following under the statutory definition. It's true that software copyright cases are rare so the lgegal system hasn't developed the idea completely -- but that's not the GPL's duty.
Many wild and ingenious scientific discoveries have been produced with less pretty and less well-documented publications. Perhaps it would be best to review the data instead?
Except that this guy is not publishing his data. As GP said, if he was right he would corner the front page of Nature. Some jotting on a website do not amount to a something others can verify and use.
It it wasn't obvious before, this "no patents" sentence should have made it obvious to you that the guy is a crackpot. This guy is making materials with Tc 100K higher than the rest of the world and he publishes on his own website instead of Nature and Science? Come on -- if any of his previously claimed discoveries had any grain of truth in them he'd have won an immediate Nobel prize; this would be far more important than the CCD.
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This "light pollution" is completely negligible. First of all it is entirely negligible compared with the sunlight reflected from Earth. Secondly, the sun is orders of magnitude brighter. Seeing a small planet that close to the sun is nearly impossible. Adding 0.001% [number made up by me] to the planet's luminosity won't make a difference.
This issue was already known to Drake when he formulated his famous equation -- a key parameter is the time window during which a civilisation is broadcasting radio signals.
It's important to remember that bailing out banks, bailing out people with mortgages, spreading "stimulus" money around, subsidizing healthcare, increasing the education budget and fighting two wars are all expensive endeavours. With the deficit soaring, I'm not surprised NASA isn't getting the money to develop new launch vehicles. At some point Scudder and his followers will be out and humanity will go to the stars again.
The GPL doesn't force you to distribute the code, or prohibit you from selecting recipients according to any criterion you wish. It only prohibits you from placing restrictions on what the recipients can do with the code after they get it from you. In other words, the GPL doesn't require SF-hosted projects to directly distribute their code in Syria. It only prohibits the projects from forbidding downstream recipients from distributing to Syrians, or from forbidding Syrians to run the code.
Free BIOSe projects exist but I don't think they are ready for production use.
Having been a unix sysadmin for 15 years, I'm quite aware of package managers. Unfortunately not all OEM drivers come nicely packaged, so you have to install them by hand. Yes, I know I could make an RPM file around the driver, but it's far simpler to write a shellscript that automates the tasks the OP wanted (shut down X, shut down the display, replace kernel modules and X drivers, restart display, restart X). And yes, I call such a script an "installer". It doesn't display fancy graphics, but it sure does install the driver.
You must be new to this "Linux" thing. That your Hardware OEM is providing Linux drivers at all is highly unusual. That the drivers are effective is astounding -- that the installer provided the drivers is rudimentary is not worth complaining over. In any case if you really mind I'm sure you can write a replacement installer.
For the moment Google's own gadget for for iGoogle doesn't support HTTPS access to gmail.
I'm well aware of the artificial life that is a Gulf city. As I said, building up Dubai is mostly an extravaganza. Yes, building skyscrapers in Dubai is a bad idea -- but that's because building anything there is inefficient -- not because of a particular problem with skyscrapers.
The principle still holds: building up is a good approach to urban planning. Yes, you need appropriate infrastructure: a skyscraper needs a lot of public transport around it (potentially a deep parking facility), as well as massive supplies of water, gas, electricity, steam and so on. My point is that a suburban sprawling neighbourhood of 100 houses also needs these utilities, and it needs 100 versions of each.
This particular building is an extreme example; it's more of a publicity stunt than an approach to urban planning. The principle of building up is right, however. Higher population density makes for better public transportation, more services available within walking distance, and nicer, more pristine outdoors spaces. It also makes more efficient use of land, hence reducing its price.
Existing copies of Word were expressly grandfathered in by the ruling -- only the sale of new copies was prohibited. Is the patch intended to be applied against shrink-wrapped copies bought after Jan. 11th?
Yes, but the maximum speed is largely irrelevant. What matters to the travelling public is the average speed -- and this train is faster than the TGV in that regard.
Delhi is in India.
GAO wins the "d'oh" prize for the most useless self-evidence statement of the year. Instead, they should have tried to figure out if the extra expense has led to better results. My guess is that the bang-for-bucks ratio for the sundry experiments in the ISS is very low -- except for the PR value. However, all this PR is important to keep the big experiment -- the ISS itself -- going, and that one is worth all the expense.
I assume you know that OOXML is a proprietary MS format couched in the clothing of an international standard? That it was only approved by ISO after MS manipulated the procedures, bribed partners to stack committees, and completely destroyed the technical committee? Where MS is now abusing the "correction of drafting errors" mechanism to make material changes to the standard so that it continuously conforms to the behaviour of MS's proprietary software (including reversing changes specifically made by the ISO committee!) -- instead of having their software conform to the so-called "standard". This is not to say I support software patents, especially on trivial ideas like a specific format for embedding proprietary data in an XML file (what i4i has "invented"). However, you should not fall for the MS "openness" scam. Just because it's XML doesn't mean it's not Microsoft.
Unless they are in the search-engine business, I'm not sure they have a trademark claim even if they were first. There is little likelihood of confusion after all.
Like all other kinds of insurance, the only question is whether you have the capital to pay for the risk. Insurance is a simple transaction, in which you pay someone else to provide the capital necessary to cover you in case of some bad event taking place. It's worth it to you since you don't need to have this available capital.
The expected direct monetary cost of insurance (premium minus expected payout) has to be negative, or the insurance company won't be making money. In other words, you must pay them more than the product of the probability of the outcome times the damage. Insurance nevertheless has positive value since this comparison (permium vs payout) only makes sense to someone who has the resources to make the payout.
Thus it's a good idea to insure your house -- if it burned down you probably don't have the money to buy yourself a new one, so instead you pay the insurance company to have money to buy you a new house. However, buying warranty for most electronics is a waste -- why not act as your own insurer, cutting the middleman and saving on the premium? People who buying electronics so expensive they cannot cannot afford to pay to fix or replace should consider insurance -- but precisely because insurance only makes sense for big-ticket items, the effect of an economic downturn and concern about future finances should be to reduce purchases, not to make the purchases and then add insurance.
Actually, I wasn't confused -- read my post more carefully. I did mention obviousness (I do think this patent is obvious) but my main argument is that this is unpatentable subject matter regardless of obviousness. If a mail-based subscription service is unpatentable subject matter, then an internet-based subscription service shouldn't be either. Just because there's a computer it in somewhere doesn't make it a technological invention.
The patent should be invalidated because business methods should not be patentable. There's plenty of prior art for the individual pieces (making files available for download to subscribers is as old as the BBS, and email notifications when new files are available are not newer), but the patentee will claim "we are the first to put all these ideas together". Of course what they did would have been obvious to anyone trying to solve the problem, but even that's not the point. The real issue is with what they are trying to patent. Would the PTO (or the CFFC) accept a patent on the same business method, except that users send requests on postcards, the audio will be burned to CDs and mailed by post, and the subscription lists will be maintained in paper folders? If not, then the PTO should explain why sending files by post is not patentable, but sending them by internet is.
Unfortunately, these phones do not have fixed IP addresses. IP-based authorization won't work when half the time your IP address is assigned by the local WiFi LAN as is the address of the other phone -- after all, you might be using SSH at home where IP addresses are assigned from the same range as at the hostspot where you get attacked. You need host-based or user-based authentication that does not depend on IP addresses. For example, SSH supports user-based cryptographic keys.
I also think that blocking hosts is the wrong way to go. Most people do not run open-to-the-public login servers, either on their home computers or on their phones. If you must do host-based blocking then the correct approach is that of hosts.allow — deny all requests by default except for those that you trust.
So the "best practice" for MS-Windows was to randomly generate UIDs to avoid user accounts on different machines from having the same UID? This would have made sense had NFS been common, where indeed duplicate UIDs are an issue. But windows does not support NFS mounts -- and SMB mounting is based on a local account on the remote machine. There must be some subtlety here, or else why has this taken years to figure out?
My point exactly: the drafters intended the word to have its common legal meaning, so they did not provide a definition.
TFA claims that the term "derivative work" as used in GPLv2 requires further definition in the GPL itself because courts haven't clarified it, but this is wrong. The authors of the GPLv2 (i.e. RMS) clearly intended it to cover as much as possible: any and all works following under the statutory definition. It's true that software copyright cases are rare so the lgegal system hasn't developed the idea completely -- but that's not the GPL's duty.
Except that this guy is not publishing his data. As GP said, if he was right he would corner the front page of Nature. Some jotting on a website do not amount to a something others can verify and use.
It it wasn't obvious before, this "no patents" sentence should have made it obvious to you that the guy is a crackpot. This guy is making materials with Tc 100K higher than the rest of the world and he publishes on his own website instead of Nature and Science? Come on -- if any of his previously claimed discoveries had any grain of truth in them he'd have won an immediate Nobel prize; this would be far more important than the CCD.