Actually, if you read the article you'lle notice that those are Bill's doodles. The press, in their rush to roast Blair, mistook the notes for his and published some not-too-flattering articles about their prime minister. Now it's Blair's turn to sit back and laugh while the press tries to take back their "analysis" of the doodles.
Well, that's the idea behind OS - people willingly giving away the product of their mind for others to benefit from. The idea is to expand the common pool of ideas and tools and to do something you enjoy, with the bonus of giving something back to the community.
Compare programmers to artists. You've got your traditional artist (software company) selling his paintings (products) retaining all rights. On the other side you've got the graffiti artists (OS programmers) painting murals on the city walls - everyone is free to enjoy their work. Of course, anyone can sell photos of the work, so it's more along the lines of BSD than Linux, but nobody is obliged to pay to view the original work...
As someone stated in an earlier comment, the biggest problem is bandwidth. Your CPU may be able to handle the traffic, but when you've got a botnet spanning thousands of computers, sending you traffic in the Gb/sec range, even a serious backbone connection will begin to stutter.
Jw
Re:OT: EMERGENCY. TAKE THESE SCAMMING FUCKERS DOWN
on
New Yorker on Miyazaki
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Indeed. We could however inform yahoo of the fact that the site is not only a scam, but also illegally using copyrighted images, no? Tell them we're a fan of yahoo's site, and discovered this suspicious one while browsing their directory.
Jw
Re:OT: EMERGENCY. TAKE THESE SCAMMING FUCKERS DOWN
on
New Yorker on Miyazaki
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
How 'bout firing off a DMCA takedown notice to yahoo, considering they're using Red Cross images?
Indeed he wanted it as much as she did. It's just that, when I was considering this question, it struck me as a case where he was giving away an idea without a second thought.
Indeed TT was strapped for cash, but not so much that they couldn't pay for a simple design. In addition to that, I believe that the new bridge was cheaper to build...
After thinking about it some more, it's clear she would not have been against IP - the whole piece about Reardon having to sign away his rights to his composite metal was a quite clear statement that a person with a good idea should not have it taken from them. On the other hand, their attitude towards IP just feels different - they didn't seem nearly as copyright/patent-happy as people do today.
Can you think of any more instances where IP comes into play? It's been a while since I read the book...
30% is very good, but only an additional 6% above what an experimental silicon cell can get.
Some figures: Highest experimental eficiency: 24.7% monocrystalline Si, 19.8% multicrystalline Si Typical industrial products: 17-18% mono, 13-15% multi Other experimental crystalline materials vary between 10% and 20%
The maximum theoretical efficiency of a Si cell is in the 29-33% range.
Ayn Rand was a big fan of material property. Intellectual property was a far smaller concern at the time she wrote her books, due to the difficulty of copying.
Actually, I believe she would have been against the idea of IP. For example, take the bridge of Reardon metal that Taggart Transcontinental built (I'm assuming you've read the book). It was concieved of by Reardon, roughly designed by his chief engineer, and then given for free to Dagny. Is this being a fan of IP?
The objectivist party line is that the product of your work is yours, and that you receive payment for it through a fair exchange for the work of other like-minded people.
MY NAME IS 1337_/.3r AND I RECEIVED YOUR HIGHLY PRAIZED NAME FROM A BUSINESS ASSOCIATE. I AM IN GREAT NEED OF YOUR ASSISTANSE.
I HAVE SET ASIDE THE SIZEABLE SUM OF $1,000,000 (ONE MILLION US DOLLARS) FOR THE USE OF TRACKING DOWN THE NIGERIAN TSUNAMI SCAMMERS AND BREAKING THEIR KNEECAPS. UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IN SUCH MATERS AND HAVE NEED FOR A WISE AND INTELLIGENT ASSOCIATE TO STIKE A DEAL WITH THE LOCAL MAFIA.
I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 10% OF THE $1.000.000 (ONE MILLION US DOLLARS) IN EXCHANG FOR YOUR HELP IN THIS TRANSACTION.
The nigerian scam artists have have updated their mailings - I just received one from a person claiming to need help distributing $32m to relief organizations in return for a 10% cut.
I'm not sure how you would define existentialism, but as an existentialist myself I can assure you that I do not doubt the existence of the world - in fact, I simply do not consider the question.
The only absolute of existentialism is that you yourself exist. Around this is a code of values with this existence as its most valuable posesison - treasure life but don't cling to it, respect freedom, and be true to yourself. As for the rest of the world, I cannot prove it exists but I do live in it, and be it real, imaginary, or virtual, I will continue to live in it and enjoy every moment.
I believe in my own existence, which is something I can only prove to myself.
Personally, when I'm hunting for this comet, I always start at Orion, it being one of the easiest constellations to recognize (just look for a straight line of 3 bright stars). - Above and to your right of Orion (when he's standing straight up) is Taurus, of which bright orange Aldebaran is most visible. - Keep following that line a few more degrees (I'd say about 3 fingers, your arm stretched out) and you'lle see a fuzzy 7-star cluster - that's the Peliades. Ninth of this month, the comet should be right next to it.
None of the Unix or Linux viruses became widespread
I'd believe the statistics in this article if it weren't for this last statement. Remember a famous worm, spread through unix sendmail, some time around 1988?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm - It exploited a number of unix vulnerabilities, along with guessing common passwords. Luckily for us, he supposedly made a mistake in the reproduction rate and the worm ended up spreading to every connected computer in a matter of days. His intent was to make a slow worm, and had he succeeded it would have gone undetected far longer.
Worms and viruses that spread like wildfire are actually a boon - a burning car draws attention, a rusting one far less.
One of the main trends in tech is a move to ubiquitous computing, where computers are intergrated into the surroundings and continually provide us access to the net. The price is, of course, that the computer continually knows where you are, and thus by extention anybody with sufficient access.
The question is how far we want to go for convenience. It might be nice that the sandwich machine automatically spits out your paid-for order as you walk up to it, but are you willing to pay the cost of part of your privacy for this convenience?
There is one flaw with wind power, which has been quite effectively demonstrated in Germany, at the expense of the Belgian power grid.
Here's the deal. Germany, big on green energy, built a massive wind farm in the last decade or so. It generates cheap, clean energy as long as the wind is blowing.
The thing about wind energy is that, for every farm you build, you need an equally large plant as backup for when the wind dies. There is no way to get around this - if your customers are drawing 10GW from your wind turbines and the wind suddenly dies down, you have to get that 10GW from elsewhere or suffer a blackout.
Now, a calm day in Germany is also Belgium's problem, seeing as Germany then draws part of the backup power from the Netherlands, who purchase most of their power from the French via the Belgian net (BTW, gotta love the irony of the dutch anti-nuclear stance, and then buying power from the predominantly nuclear French). When the Germans begin to draw more from the Dutch (can't do anything about that, path of least impedance and all), the Dutch begin to draw more from the French via our nets, meaning that our cables on the French border start to glow (and I'm not exaggerating).
This surprises me, considering the focus on writing in US High Schools. My last few years of HS were dedicated to literature and critical writing, with a paper every week or two. Writing smoothly became a habit, and when I went abroad for College I was shocked at how weak some of my friends' writing was! One of them told me, "I've got plenty of ideas, but I just can't get them onto paper."
To add some more "anecdotal evidence," I'm quite happy with my 2 year old Satellite. Had some trouble with the DVD/CD drive and with a failed hard drive, but the screen is to die for.
Nothing like Wolfenstein ET at 1600x1200 to help your aim:)
And what about your own family then? I wasn't only referring to the extended, but to the nuclear too. Before I started college, I ate at home almost every evening, chatted with my parents, ignored the phone... The only one of my friends who did likewise were 1st generation Americans. For the rest, it was eat when you're hungry, maybe with the family but probably without.
It doesn't take much effort, but I met very few people who were willing to do even that. It may seem insignificant, but when is the family otherwise ever together?
I would have to say that Americans have a stronger sense of family than other countries
Sorry, but unless you can back this up I'm gonna have to disagree, having lived in America and Europe. Thanksgiving is actually proof of a weak sense of family - it says they need a national holiday as excuse before they can do something together. For the rest of year, people pretty live individually, most noticable in the fact that many American families don't even eat dinner together.
I have quite the involved family here in Belgium. If I'm at home, I'll eat with my family (which is every weekend). I'll stop by at one uncle's for breakfast, then spend the evening at another's place. We have two family reunions every year, and my grandparents regularly have big dinner parties, especially if it's their birthday.
If I don't see a family member for two weeks, that's already a long time...
I got nothing against the Americans - hell, I'm moving back there next year - but they do not have a strong sense of family at all, due to the individualistic culture.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, if you read the article you'lle notice that those are Bill's doodles. The press, in their rush to roast Blair, mistook the notes for his and published some not-too-flattering articles about their prime minister. Now it's Blair's turn to sit back and laugh while the press tries to take back their "analysis" of the doodles.
Jw
Well, that's the idea behind OS - people willingly giving away the product of their mind for others to benefit from. The idea is to expand the common pool of ideas and tools and to do something you enjoy, with the bonus of giving something back to the community.
Compare programmers to artists. You've got your traditional artist (software company) selling his paintings (products) retaining all rights. On the other side you've got the graffiti artists (OS programmers) painting murals on the city walls - everyone is free to enjoy their work. Of course, anyone can sell photos of the work, so it's more along the lines of BSD than Linux, but nobody is obliged to pay to view the original work...
Jw
As someone stated in an earlier comment, the biggest problem is bandwidth. Your CPU may be able to handle the traffic, but when you've got a botnet spanning thousands of computers, sending you traffic in the Gb/sec range, even a serious backbone connection will begin to stutter.
Jw
Indeed. We could however inform yahoo of the fact that the site is not only a scam, but also illegally using copyrighted images, no?
Tell them we're a fan of yahoo's site, and discovered this suspicious one while browsing their directory.
Jw
How 'bout firing off a DMCA takedown notice to yahoo, considering they're using Red Cross images?
Jw
I guess the mods haven't seen Ace Ventura in a while...
Mr. Ventura? Is that you?
Indeed he wanted it as much as she did. It's just that, when I was considering this question, it struck me as a case where he was giving away an idea without a second thought.
Indeed TT was strapped for cash, but not so much that they couldn't pay for a simple design. In addition to that, I believe that the new bridge was cheaper to build...
After thinking about it some more, it's clear she would not have been against IP - the whole piece about Reardon having to sign away his rights to his composite metal was a quite clear statement that a person with a good idea should not have it taken from them. On the other hand, their attitude towards IP just feels different - they didn't seem nearly as copyright/patent-happy as people do today.
Can you think of any more instances where IP comes into play? It's been a while since I read the book...
Jw
30% is very good, but only an additional 6% above what an experimental silicon cell can get.
Some figures:
Highest experimental eficiency: 24.7% monocrystalline Si, 19.8% multicrystalline Si
Typical industrial products: 17-18% mono, 13-15% multi
Other experimental crystalline materials vary between 10% and 20%
The maximum theoretical efficiency of a Si cell is in the 29-33% range.
BTW, these are numbers from 3 or 4 years ago.
Jw
No.
Ayn Rand was a big fan of material property. Intellectual property was a far smaller concern at the time she wrote her books, due to the difficulty of copying.
Actually, I believe she would have been against the idea of IP. For example, take the bridge of Reardon metal that Taggart Transcontinental built (I'm assuming you've read the book). It was concieved of by Reardon, roughly designed by his chief engineer, and then given for free to Dagny. Is this being a fan of IP?
The objectivist party line is that the product of your work is yours, and that you receive payment for it through a fair exchange for the work of other like-minded people.
Jw
DEAR RESEPECTED MR. JCR
MY NAME IS 1337_/.3r AND I RECEIVED YOUR HIGHLY
PRAIZED NAME FROM A BUSINESS ASSOCIATE. I AM IN
GREAT NEED OF YOUR ASSISTANSE.
I HAVE SET ASIDE THE SIZEABLE SUM OF $1,000,000 (ONE
MILLION US DOLLARS) FOR THE USE OF TRACKING DOWN THE
NIGERIAN TSUNAMI SCAMMERS AND BREAKING THEIR
KNEECAPS. UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IN
SUCH MATERS AND HAVE NEED FOR A WISE AND INTELLIGENT
ASSOCIATE TO STIKE A DEAL WITH THE LOCAL MAFIA.
I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 10% OF THE $1.000.000
(ONE MILLION US DOLLARS) IN EXCHANG FOR YOUR HELP
IN THIS TRANSACTION.
I ANXIOUSLY AWAIT YOUR REPLY,
1337_/.er
The nigerian scam artists have have updated their mailings - I just received one from a person claiming to need help distributing $32m to relief organizations in return for a 10% cut.
Are they ever gonna give up?
Jw
I'm not sure how you would define existentialism, but as an existentialist myself I can assure you that I do not doubt the existence of the world - in fact, I simply do not consider the question.
The only absolute of existentialism is that you yourself exist. Around this is a code of values with this existence as its most valuable posesison - treasure life but don't cling to it, respect freedom, and be true to yourself.
As for the rest of the world, I cannot prove it exists but I do live in it, and be it real, imaginary, or virtual, I will continue to live in it and enjoy every moment.
I believe in my own existence, which is something I can only prove to myself.
Jw
If I may, I'd suggest these maps - a bit more detail:
http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/charts.html
Jw
Personally, when I'm hunting for this comet, I always start at Orion, it being one of the easiest constellations to recognize (just look for a straight line of 3 bright stars).
- Above and to your right of Orion (when he's standing straight up) is Taurus, of which bright orange Aldebaran is most visible.
- Keep following that line a few more degrees (I'd say about 3 fingers, your arm stretched out) and you'lle see a fuzzy 7-star cluster - that's the Peliades. Ninth of this month, the comet should be right next to it.
Here's a handy map:
http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/charts.html
Jw
None of the Unix or Linux viruses became widespread
I'd believe the statistics in this article if it weren't for this last statement. Remember a famous worm, spread through unix sendmail, some time around 1988?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm - It exploited a number of unix vulnerabilities, along with guessing common passwords. Luckily for us, he supposedly made a mistake in the reproduction rate and the worm ended up spreading to every connected computer in a matter of days.
His intent was to make a slow worm, and had he succeeded it would have gone undetected far longer.
Worms and viruses that spread like wildfire are actually a boon - a burning car draws attention, a rusting one far less.
Jw
It's a DMCA gag order...
Jw
One of the main trends in tech is a move to ubiquitous computing, where computers are intergrated into the surroundings and continually provide us access to the net. The price is, of course, that the computer continually knows where you are, and thus by extention anybody with sufficient access.
The question is how far we want to go for convenience. It might be nice that the sandwich machine automatically spits out your paid-for order as you walk up to it, but are you willing to pay the cost of part of your privacy for this convenience?
Jw
Good question - It's a story my professor told me, who also happens to be chairman of the distribution net (means he isn't in class half the time :) )
I'll ask him next time I have class.
Jw
There is one flaw with wind power, which has been quite effectively demonstrated in Germany, at the expense of the Belgian power grid.
Here's the deal. Germany, big on green energy, built a massive wind farm in the last decade or so. It generates cheap, clean energy as long as the wind is blowing.
The thing about wind energy is that, for every farm you build, you need an equally large plant as backup for when the wind dies. There is no way to get around this - if your customers are drawing 10GW from your wind turbines and the wind suddenly dies down, you have to get that 10GW from elsewhere or suffer a blackout.
Now, a calm day in Germany is also Belgium's problem, seeing as Germany then draws part of the backup power from the Netherlands, who purchase most of their power from the French via the Belgian net (BTW, gotta love the irony of the dutch anti-nuclear stance, and then buying power from the predominantly nuclear French). When the Germans begin to draw more from the Dutch (can't do anything about that, path of least impedance and all), the Dutch begin to draw more from the French via our nets, meaning that our cables on the French border start to glow (and I'm not exaggerating).
Lotsa fun, the power grid is...
Jw
This surprises me, considering the focus on writing in US High Schools.
My last few years of HS were dedicated to literature and critical writing, with a paper every week or two. Writing smoothly became a habit, and when I went abroad for College I was shocked at how weak some of my friends' writing was! One of them told me, "I've got plenty of ideas, but I just can't get them onto paper."
Was my HS just an exception here?
To add some more "anecdotal evidence," I'm quite happy with my 2 year old Satellite. Had some trouble with the DVD/CD drive and with a failed hard drive, but the screen is to die for.
:)
Nothing like Wolfenstein ET at 1600x1200 to help your aim
Jw
And what about your own family then? I wasn't only referring to the extended, but to the nuclear too. Before I started college, I ate at home almost every evening, chatted with my parents, ignored the phone... The only one of my friends who did likewise were 1st generation Americans. For the rest, it was eat when you're hungry, maybe with the family but probably without.
It doesn't take much effort, but I met very few people who were willing to do even that. It may seem insignificant, but when is the family otherwise ever together?
Jw
I would have to say that Americans have a stronger sense of family than other countries
Sorry, but unless you can back this up I'm gonna have to disagree, having lived in America and Europe. Thanksgiving is actually proof of a weak sense of family - it says they need a national holiday as excuse before they can do something together. For the rest of year, people pretty live individually, most noticable in the fact that many American families don't even eat dinner together.
I have quite the involved family here in Belgium. If I'm at home, I'll eat with my family (which is every weekend). I'll stop by at one uncle's for breakfast, then spend the evening at another's place. We have two family reunions every year, and my grandparents regularly have big dinner parties, especially if it's their birthday.
If I don't see a family member for two weeks, that's already a long time...
I got nothing against the Americans - hell, I'm moving back there next year - but they do not have a strong sense of family at all, due to the individualistic culture.
Jw
there is no way that the PTO will let something this bad be granted a patent.
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,368,227.WKU.&OS=PN/6,368,227&RS =PN/6,368,227
I beg to differ.
United States Patent: 6,368,227 - http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
Is the USPTO simply rubber stamping everything???
Jw