Quoth InfinityWpi:
we don't take the time to learn what our country has done over there... If people knew -why- we were hated.. maybe we could find a way out of this
Why is this modded up to 5 ? This whining recititaton of a trite falacy: If we are held in contempt then we must have done something to deserve that contempt.
You suppose reason where none exists. Recognize irrationality as the root cause; The Taliban are religious fanatics. With them reason and motive share no interelation. They kill us because they hate use, and they hate us becasue we have televisions, because we permit women to bare their faces in public, because we are Catholic and Jewish and Buhdist and atheist; For all the ways we violate their view of Islamic practice, we are despised.
You claim that our failure to recognize acts of terrorism as payback for our misdeeds owes to ignorance of our own misdeeds. You haughtily imply that your contrary position owes to your superior knowledge, yet you fail to name a single one of those misdeeds, a logical failure reavealing sorry weakness of mind.
Your argument is this: "Terrorists are murdering thousands of Americans because we provoked them by doing terrible things to them. But I really don't know what those terrible things are and I can't name any and nobody else can either. But I'm certain that they exist, we just have to look harder for them." Certainly anyone (except for the moderators) would recognize your reasoning as daft.
The Downside of Open Source and Free Software
on
Opposing Open Source?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Here is an upside to proprietary, for-license-at-fee software and a downside to free (as in beer) software. Those are not the categories mentioned in the question, but they do relate to the categories of Open Source and closed software in obvious ways.
Proprietary, for-license-with-fee software has one efficiency going for it that freely available (including Free) software does not: Resources (programmer hours) are more efficiently directed to its development. The amount available to fund development of a product relates positively to the demand for that product. To put it simply, if there is somthing that lots of people really need, then there is funding to pay for its developement. This is because there will be a lot of people willing to pay a for it.
(That is assuming that developers can both both estimate the demand for a future product and predict accurately the outcome of their labor, at better than chance levels.)
In the development of freely available software, there is not that mechanism for pointing resources to purposes. A company such as Red Hat could invest in developing a much-wanted utility, but the portion of gains returned to Red Hat as a consequence of their sponsorship is zero. What gains they do realize are not a result of their sponsorship, but of the improvement. Lots of people gain from the improvement, but those gains are not concentrated back at the source of the improvement to sustain development, or reimburse past effort. The gains are diffused throughout the community.
Of course, if you are a hardware vendor porting free sofware to your platform or supporting your product with a free driver, then that would be a different story. In those cases gains are realized by the sponsor, when the sponsor and the vendor are the same. (Assuming that your port or driver works only with your own product.)
In conclusion, the financing efficiency is the ONLY thing that proprietary and closed software has going for it. That is THE reason its on top. There are efficencies of Open Source: Small changes in function can be achieved with small effort. Just modify a few lines of source and recompile. That's not an option with closed source. Also, in the case of the GNU license, improvements aggragrate accross the community, because the license mandates that if you release an execetuable you must release the source. Seems those two advantages do not trump the proprietary financing model.
Large-Scale erector sets work well for this. They are strong, go together quickly, and are easily modified, when you get more equipment or when you want to try out a new design. And if you ever move, just unbolt the thing and carry it off in convenient parts.
All of the good ideas mentioned previously here for surface tops you can use with the erector set: plywood, doors, etc. People throw out oak desks from time to time, you can take the tops off an refinish them.
If you use the large-scale erector set, then I think that it is worth getting the cutter for the angle. I have a cutter, and it makes building with this stuff stuff really fun. It aligns with the holes in the angle and quickly snips it making a neat straight cut in the right place with little effort.
McMaster-Carr sells the cutter, the erector rail, and packs of bolts and angles.
See "Erecto Slotted Steel Flats and Angles" here: http://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/107/html/1387.html The only other think you'll want is a ratcheting socket wrench, which you can pick up at Odd Lots/Big Lots for a few $. I also put a socket on my 12volt cordless electric drill and blast through the job.
If you're going with plywood tops, you'll probably want a saw to cut that, and washers and wood screws (put them up from the bottom) to hold the plywood down to the angle frame.
Slashdot Mirror
Quoth InfinityWpi:
we don't take the time to learn what our country has done over there... If people knew -why- we were hated.. maybe we could find a way out of this
Why is this modded up to 5 ? This whining recititaton of a trite falacy: If we are held in contempt then we must have done something to deserve that contempt.
You suppose reason where none exists. Recognize irrationality as the root cause; The Taliban are religious fanatics. With them reason and motive share no interelation. They kill us because they hate use, and they hate us becasue we have televisions, because we permit women to bare their faces in public, because we are Catholic and Jewish and Buhdist and atheist; For all the ways we violate their view of Islamic practice, we are despised.
You claim that our failure to recognize acts of terrorism as payback for our misdeeds owes to ignorance of our own misdeeds. You haughtily imply that your contrary position owes to your superior knowledge, yet you fail to name a single one of those misdeeds, a logical failure reavealing sorry weakness of mind.
Your argument is this: "Terrorists are murdering thousands of Americans because we provoked them by doing terrible things to them. But I really don't know what those terrible things are and I can't name any and nobody else can either. But I'm certain that they exist, we just have to look harder for them." Certainly anyone (except for the moderators) would recognize your reasoning as daft.
Here is an upside to proprietary, for-license-at-fee software and a downside to free (as in beer) software. Those are not the categories mentioned in the question, but they do relate to the categories of Open Source and closed software in obvious ways.
Proprietary, for-license-with-fee software has one efficiency going for it that freely available (including Free) software does not: Resources (programmer hours) are more efficiently directed to its development. The amount available to fund development of a product relates positively to the demand for that product. To put it simply, if there is somthing that lots of people really need, then there is funding to pay for its developement. This is because there will be a lot of people willing to pay a for it.
(That is assuming that developers can both both estimate the demand for a future product and predict accurately the outcome of their labor, at better than chance levels.)
In the development of freely available software, there is not that mechanism for pointing resources to purposes. A company such as Red Hat could invest in developing a much-wanted utility, but the portion of gains returned to Red Hat as a consequence of their sponsorship is zero. What gains they do realize are not a result of their sponsorship, but of the improvement. Lots of people gain from the improvement, but those gains are not concentrated back at the source of the improvement to sustain development, or reimburse past effort. The gains are diffused throughout the community.
Of course, if you are a hardware vendor porting free sofware to your platform or supporting your product with a free driver, then that would be a different story. In those cases gains are realized by the sponsor, when the sponsor and the vendor are the same. (Assuming that your port or driver works only with your own product.)
In conclusion, the financing efficiency is the ONLY thing that proprietary and closed software has going for it. That is THE reason its on top. There are efficencies of Open Source: Small changes in function can be achieved with small effort. Just modify a few lines of source and recompile. That's not an option with closed source. Also, in the case of the GNU license, improvements aggragrate accross the community, because the license mandates that if you release an execetuable you must release the source. Seems those two advantages do not trump the proprietary financing model.
I am in New York. Tell me where I go to gived blood.
Large-Scale erector sets work well for this. They are strong, go together quickly, and are easily modified, when you get more equipment or when you want to try out a new design. And if you ever move, just unbolt the thing and carry it off in convenient parts.
l
All of the good ideas mentioned previously here for surface tops you can use with the erector set: plywood, doors, etc. People throw out oak desks from time to time, you can take the tops off an refinish them.
If you use the large-scale erector set, then I think that it is worth getting the cutter for the angle. I have a cutter, and it makes building with this stuff stuff really fun. It aligns with the holes in the angle and quickly snips it making a neat straight cut in the right place with little effort.
McMaster-Carr sells the cutter, the erector rail, and packs of bolts and angles.
See "Erecto Slotted Steel Flats and Angles" here: http://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/107/html/1387.htm
The only other think you'll want is a ratcheting socket wrench, which you can pick up at Odd Lots/Big Lots for a few $. I also put a socket on my 12volt cordless electric drill and blast through the job.
If you're going with plywood tops, you'll probably want a saw to cut that, and washers and wood screws (put them up from the bottom) to hold the plywood down to the angle frame.
Happy Constructing !