In South-West Utah, whenever some road work was going to be done, they would find a dead tortoise on the road, and the environmentalists would cry foul. After they did an autopsy on one, they found frozen lettuce in its stomach. The environmentalists had caught them live, fed them for a while, then froze them until "needed".
The problem isn't that Bill is giving money to charity: It's that he's giving my money to charity. Money that I invested in AOL. Novell. Palm. Digital Research. Sega. Apple. (Steve Jobs is making a good return for Apple investors these days, but he's the exception to the rule.) That Gates is now magnanimously giving away the money he stole -- via predatory and illegal business practices -- doesn't make me feel any more charitable about the man who robbed me.
And then there's the fact that Windows is a bloated bag of security holes masquerading as an operating system, but that's really more of an aesthetic complaint.
Re:Why emacs? Because it's greast
on
The Future of Emacs
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I think it was Eric Raymond who said that all the time that went into snazzy interfaces and GUI support in other programs was spent on editing text in emacs.
I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor. It was created by Richard Stallman; enough said. It is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful. It is colossal, and yet it only edits straight ASCII text files, which is to say, no fonts, no boldface, no underlining. In other words, the engineer-hours that, in the case of Microsoft Word, were devoted to features like mail merge, and the ability to embed feature-length motion pictures in corporate memoranda, were, in the case of emacs, focused with maniacal intensity on the deceptively simple-seeming problem of editing text. If you are a professional writer--i.e., if someone else is getting paid to worry about how your words are formatted and printed--emacs outshines all other editing software in approximately the same way that the noonday sun does the stars. It is not just bigger and brighter; it simply makes everything else vanish.
This isn't a VHS vs. Betamax situation -- it's Digital Audio Tape vs. Digital Compact Cassette. Two formats overburdened with user-hostile copy protection schemes, and the would-be early adopters are (a) wary of both and (b) not urgently in need of the features they provide.
Joe Public isn't demanding better picture quality from his next-gen DVD player -- Joe Public isn't even that enthusiastic about HDTV, for that matter: Unless Hollywood stops focusing on DRM and starts producing content that sucks less, high-def DVD will be dead on arrival. The average buyer isn't going to shell out money to watch Herbie: Fully Loaded in high-def, and the videophiles aren't motivated to throw out their DVD collections and buy the same content again in newer packaging.
And don't even get me started on data: This is the industry that couldn't even come together on a standard for this generation's DVD data disc. I can't wait for HD-RW, Blu-Ray+RW and HBlue*RW to hit the market.
I hate to interrupt your rant, but... the Wired article doesn't say that the term "bug" originated in 1947. It merely notes that the first widely known "buggy computer" was the Harvard Mark I:
With that recall, the Pruis joined the ranks of the buggy computer -- a club that began in 1947 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark 1 system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found."
Unless you demand that anyone retelling the 1947 anecdote immediately prove their street cred -- "Of course the term 'bug' did not originate with this incident, blah blah blah, I mention this to prove that I'm smarter than you are" -- then the Harvard Mark I's moth is the earliest example of a computer glitch that the public might have heard about. Since the rest of the article is about other bugs the public might have heard about, and since the article repeated Hopper's exact words about finding an "actual bug" (which, as you note, implies that they'd been calling them "bugs" long before they found a genuine moth), how about you easing up a little and giving writer Simson Garfinkel some slack?
In almost all cases, nothing happens: Cellular networks are designed to send and receive signals at ground level, or at most a few stories above it. The antennas that listen for your cell phone's signal are usually directional, and they're aimed a few degrees downward to maximize the coverage "footprint" -- unless you're in one of those bowl-shaped cities that give RF engineers recurring nightmares (e.g., Denver), the antennas aren't pointed in the right direction to receive any signals from five miles above ground level.
Cellular networks are also optimized for ground speeds: The software algorithms make certain assumptions about how quickly your signal will fade over time, all of which are invalidated if you're moving at 500mph. Plans to support cell phones on airplanes will work by putting a specially-designed "cell" on the plane, not by re-engineering all the ground networks to support flying users.
The correction does matter. Understanding the difference between a crime and a tort is a critical step in defeating the copyright barons -- they want you to believe that copyright violation is a crime, which it isn't.
Copyright violation is a tort. A tort is a private, civil matter -- if the injured party wants compensation, he/she has to file a lawsuit. The taxpayer supplies a courtroom and pays a judge to help resolve torts, but in all other respects the injured party is responsible for doing the legwork.
Stealing, as in stealing a tangible object, is a crime. It's a public matter, and the government does the arresting and prosecuting (as in "the people vs. X"). The taxpayer supplies everything you see on Law and Order to help resolve crimes: Police officers, detectives, forensics labs, prosecuting attorneys, the whole works.
Copyright barons would be delighted if you agreed that copyright infringement is (or should be) a "crime" -- it means you're agreeing to pick up the tab for what should be the RIAA's business expenses. You're agreeing to subsidize the copyright barons and get nothing of value in return, unless paying tribute to the long-dead authors of "Happy Birthday" is your idea of Promoting the Useful Arts.
So, yes, the distinction is important. If you want to argue that a crime and a tort are both morally wrong, more power to you -- but arguing that they're both the same thing is a mistake. It's a free gift to industries that would like to continue pocketing your money, indefinitely, for cranking out copies of the same old things.
Obi-Wan is the only character in Sith who had the opportunity to kill a defenseless opponent in cold blood... and walked away from it. He's also the only character who both (a) survives and (b) resists the Dark Side. Coincidence?
The reason why Apple does all iPod syncing through iTunes, instead of making iPhoto do the photos (or making iSync do what its name implies), is because iTunes is the only app that Apple has ported to Windows. If the iPod Photo relied on iPhoto, then either (1) iPhoto has to be ported, or (2) the iPod Photo doesn't do Windows.
You can make an aesthetic argument that "music player", "music store" and "iPod sync utility" shouldn't be bundled into one monolithic app, but Apple's reasons get clearer when you look at their overall strategy -- which, lately, is looking sharper with each new product they introduce.
According to the technical specs, the Mac Mini accepts 110V to 240V -- and from the looks of this QuickTime VR view, the cable coming out of the power brick is a regular Mickey Mouse-style connector. You should be able to get by with a simple USA-to-Europe plug adapter, or you can invest 5 Euros and replace the cable entirely.
Please. The Rehnquist Court has three extreme-right conservatives (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist), five moderates (Souter, Breyer, O'Connor, Kennedy, Stevens), and one semi-liberal (Ginsburg); it's about as balanced as Fox News.
That whirring noise you hear in the background is Thurgood Marshall spinning in his grave.
In 1955 the John Wayne film The Conqueror was shot on location in and around Snow Canyon, Utah... downwind of Yucca Flats, Nevada, where the military had conducted several above-ground atomic tests.
Of the 220 people who worked on location, 91 contracted cancer by the early 1980s and 46 died of it -- including Wayne, co-stars Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Statistically, only 30 people out of a group that size should have gotten cancer in their lifetimes.
There are probably other slashdotters who can answer this better than I can, since my wireless career involved crunching the numbers from the cell rather than actually deploying them -- but typically a COW or COLT will use a microwave antenna to connect to the central switching office. The microwave dish needs to stay in alignment with its counterpart on the other end, and if the dish is hanging from the side of a blimp... well, you're probably going to spend all your time re-aligning the dish over and over, and not be able to maintain a connection.
In any case a telescoping antenna mast is probably cheaper than a blimp, and for most COW/COLT applications you don't need to be any higher than that anyway.
Also keep in mind that, even if Verizon's cell phone network had survived 9/11 intact, it still would have been on its knees. Natural disasters are to cell phone networks what slashdotting is to web servers... except that slashdotting doesn't usually begin with the physical destruction of the hardware.
CDMA in Australia is (AFIAK) a Telstra-only service (Australia Telecom).
Australia's Orange network is also CDMA, and the "3" network is using W-CDMA (UMTS), but these networks only cover the Sydney and Melbourne areas. The other nationwide networks in Australia (Vodafone and Optus) are both using GSM.
The solution to the Catch-22 problem is don't play the game. Don't obey any laws passed by these people, disobey any order or any ruling of authority as a matter of principle. As Americans, you're supposed to be free. Prove it by revolting against unjust laws.
Yossarian tried that solution in the book, and it didn't work: Done properly, civil disobedience is a powerful way to protest unjust laws -- and by done properly I mean that you announce your intent to break the law, break it, and then publicly and willingly suffer the consequences -- but the solution to Catch-22 laws is to repeal or strike them down and replace the legislators who wrote them.
Laws like the "PATRIOT ACT" are attacks on America from within. They seek to turn America from a nation ruled by laws -- by checks and balances and limited government -- into a nation ruled by fear. They grant more power to the powerful, and seek to prevent a well-informed populace by denying us information.
If we respond by abandoning the playing field, and we fail to defend the rule of law from these aggressors, then we've given up one of our most powerful weapons without a fight. The law is, and should be, on our side -- the PATRIOT ACT didn't overturn the First Amendment, and the ACLU (as always) is out in front aggressively defending our freedoms.
Want to help? Donate to the ACLU. Get involved with Democracy For America. Find a candidate who shares your views, and vote in November. That's the solution to the Catch-22 problem, Yossarian. You have to jump.
But since when do we power our power plants with oil?
See for yourself. Coal has been the primary source of electricity in the U.S. for at least fifty years, but oil-fired power plants still exist.
So the Arabs will find a way to still charge $100.00 a barrel.
Coal can be converted to synthetic oil at a cost of $40something/barrel, and America has enough coal reserves to meet our energy demands for about 200 years; if the price of a barrel of Mideast crude goes above $50 and stays there, the big oil companies will switch to a cheaper alternative.
Coal creates even more greenhouse gases than oil, though, so we'll still have that problem -- and, long term, we're still burning through fossil fuel reserves much more quickly than the Earth produces them. Solving the fusion problem will help, and luckily we still have a few centuries before the well runs dry.
Only if you ignore the 35-year gap between the invention of cellular phones (1947) and the first FCC-licensed commercial network (1983). Some of that delay was because the idea was impractical until computers became widely available, but a lot of it was petitioning the FCC for a license. A start-up company with shallow pockets would not have had the resources (or the investor patience) to take this idea to market.
For those trying to understand the differences between "AT&T" and "Bell Labs," a brief history:
1875
Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent on the telephone, and forms a company called Bell Telephone. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, this company eventually becomes known as AT&T.
1894
Bell's patents expire and telephony enters the public domain. Six thousand incompatible telephone companies go into business between 1894 and 1904; AT&T begins buying them and knitting a nationwide network.
1908
AT&T acquires controlling interest in Western Union, the telegraph company.
1913
First anti-trust action against AT&T; Western Union divested. Monopoly regulation of AT&T gradually tightens over the years.
1925
Bell Labs founded. Over the next 50 years, Bell Labs invents UNIX, C, the long-playing record, the speech synthesizer, transistor, cell phone, laser, electret microphone, light-emitting diode, stereogram, videophone, charge-coupled devices, and discovers information theory, finite-state automation, and (accidentally) radio astronomy.
1956
AT&T signs a consent decree restricting the company's activities, and agrees not to expand its business beyond the national telephone system and government work. This means that it can't make money off C, UNIX, laser beams or anything else it invented after 1956, except for sales within the telephony industry itself.
1982
AT&T agrees to exit the local phone business in order to escape antitrust regulation and lawsuits, spining off seven Baby Bells: NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Ameritech, US West, Pacific Telesys, and Southwestern Bell. The Baby Bells go through several mating dances, with various wireline and wireless parts merging into Verizon, SBC, Cingular, Qwest and other companies.
1991
AT&T, having no luck in the computer business it's now free to enter, acquires NCR in a hostile takeover. NCR was right to be hostile: The combined company still misses the boat, having missed its window of opportunity.
1994
AT&T acquires McCaw Cellular ("Cellular One") and rebrands it as AT&T Wireless. This drives a wedge between AT&T and many customers who purchase wireless equipment from AT&T, since the company is now both supplier and competitor.
1995-7
AT&T splits into three separate entities: AT&T, the long distance company; Lucent Technologies, the manufacturing arm; and NCR, the burned-out shell of a once-great company. Lucent gets Bell Labs and most of the blue-sky physics research; AT&T keeps a subset that does speech and software research, and calls it AT&T Labs.
2000
The entire telecommunications industry goes over a cliff. Lucent and AT&T both frantically cut costs, spining off businesses and slashing R&D budgets to raise capital and stay alive. This leads to the spinoff of Avaya (Lucent's consumer and business products) and Agere (microelectronics), and the sale of AT&T's broadband assets to Comcast and its wireless assets to Cingular.
Anyhow, the point of all this is that (a) Lucent got the lion's share of Bell Labs in the '96 spinoff, including the name; and (b) the "real" Bell Labs has been downsized just as badly as its former sibling at AT&T, although Lucent is slightly ahead of the business curve and is hopefully through the worst of the cost-cutting. (Lucent was also first in line when it was time to go over the cliff, of course, so being ahead of the curve doesn't always work to your advantage.)
(The obligatory disclaimer: I work for Lucent, but I'm not even vaguely attempting to speak on their behalf. I'm sure AT&T veterans would tell the tale differently, emphasizing the heroic role of AT&T Labs in the liberation of Stalingrad or some such, but this is what passes for corporate history in my weak and enfeebled mind.)
Someone above mentioned that this will enable soldiers to carry very heavy armour that can protect them from most small firearms.
Actually most of the progress to date has been made in the other direction: The body armor required to protect soldiers from small-arms fire has been getting progressively lighter. The latest design uses Kevlar vests with ceramic plate inserts, fully protecting the soldier's torso while weighing in at a svelte 16.4 pounds. (A Vietnam-era flak jacket weighed 25 pounds, and didn't offer as much protection.)
What body armor doesn't do (currently) is to protect the arms and legs. It's one thing to wear 16 pounds around your torso; it's another to strap ten extra pounds on each limb. The trade-off between protection and mobility doesn't work in your favor here, especially when you introduce RPGs and explosives into the mix.
Medieval knights overcame the mobility problem by using a horse, but the modern equivalent (an armored Segway? a powered exosuit?) has yet to arrive. If and when it does, though, look for the suit of armor -- after only a 400-year absence -- to make its triumphant return to the battlefield.
Nmap isn't revoking SCO's license for "political reasons." Nmap is revoking SCO's license because SCO has violated the terms of the license.
This is not the same thing as saying "we don't like you or what you're doing, so we've changed our license to exclude you." Nmap hasn't changed its license terms one iota -- they're merely doing what anyone who has copyright over SCO-distributed code should have done a long, long time ago.
Most states have statues that require you to identify yourself to law enforcement.
Now I have this mental image of that great big abstract Picasso sculpture in downtown Chicago, breaking free and roaming the city in search of people who refuse to identify themselves.
I think that maybe you meant "statute," but I have to admit that your world sounds more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
And then there's the fact that Windows is a bloated bag of security holes masquerading as an operating system, but that's really more of an aesthetic complaint.
Joe Public isn't demanding better picture quality from his next-gen DVD player -- Joe Public isn't even that enthusiastic about HDTV, for that matter: Unless Hollywood stops focusing on DRM and starts producing content that sucks less, high-def DVD will be dead on arrival. The average buyer isn't going to shell out money to watch Herbie: Fully Loaded in high-def, and the videophiles aren't motivated to throw out their DVD collections and buy the same content again in newer packaging.
And don't even get me started on data: This is the industry that couldn't even come together on a standard for this generation's DVD data disc. I can't wait for HD-RW, Blu-Ray+RW and HBlue*RW to hit the market.
Cellular networks are also optimized for ground speeds: The software algorithms make certain assumptions about how quickly your signal will fade over time, all of which are invalidated if you're moving at 500mph. Plans to support cell phones on airplanes will work by putting a specially-designed "cell" on the plane, not by re-engineering all the ground networks to support flying users.
Copyright violation is a tort. A tort is a private, civil matter -- if the injured party wants compensation, he/she has to file a lawsuit. The taxpayer supplies a courtroom and pays a judge to help resolve torts, but in all other respects the injured party is responsible for doing the legwork.
Stealing, as in stealing a tangible object, is a crime. It's a public matter, and the government does the arresting and prosecuting (as in "the people vs. X"). The taxpayer supplies everything you see on Law and Order to help resolve crimes: Police officers, detectives, forensics labs, prosecuting attorneys, the whole works.
Copyright barons would be delighted if you agreed that copyright infringement is (or should be) a "crime" -- it means you're agreeing to pick up the tab for what should be the RIAA's business expenses. You're agreeing to subsidize the copyright barons and get nothing of value in return, unless paying tribute to the long-dead authors of "Happy Birthday" is your idea of Promoting the Useful Arts.
So, yes, the distinction is important. If you want to argue that a crime and a tort are both morally wrong, more power to you -- but arguing that they're both the same thing is a mistake. It's a free gift to industries that would like to continue pocketing your money, indefinitely, for cranking out copies of the same old things.
Obi-Wan is the only character in Sith who had the opportunity to kill a defenseless opponent in cold blood... and walked away from it. He's also the only character who both (a) survives and (b) resists the Dark Side. Coincidence?
You can make an aesthetic argument that "music player", "music store" and "iPod sync utility" shouldn't be bundled into one monolithic app, but Apple's reasons get clearer when you look at their overall strategy -- which, lately, is looking sharper with each new product they introduce.
According to the technical specs, the Mac Mini accepts 110V to 240V -- and from the looks of this QuickTime VR view, the cable coming out of the power brick is a regular Mickey Mouse-style connector. You should be able to get by with a simple USA-to-Europe plug adapter, or you can invest 5 Euros and replace the cable entirely.
I thought it was Spaceballs III: The Search for Spaceballs II.
Please. The Rehnquist Court has three extreme-right conservatives (Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist), five moderates (Souter, Breyer, O'Connor, Kennedy, Stevens), and one semi-liberal (Ginsburg); it's about as balanced as Fox News.
That whirring noise you hear in the background is Thurgood Marshall spinning in his grave.
Of the 220 people who worked on location, 91 contracted cancer by the early 1980s and 46 died of it -- including Wayne, co-stars Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Statistically, only 30 people out of a group that size should have gotten cancer in their lifetimes.
Source: Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope.
In any case a telescoping antenna mast is probably cheaper than a blimp, and for most COW/COLT applications you don't need to be any higher than that anyway.
Also keep in mind that, even if Verizon's cell phone network had survived 9/11 intact, it still would have been on its knees. Natural disasters are to cell phone networks what slashdotting is to web servers... except that slashdotting doesn't usually begin with the physical destruction of the hardware.
Yossarian tried that solution in the book, and it didn't work: Done properly, civil disobedience is a powerful way to protest unjust laws -- and by done properly I mean that you announce your intent to break the law, break it, and then publicly and willingly suffer the consequences -- but the solution to Catch-22 laws is to repeal or strike them down and replace the legislators who wrote them.
Laws like the "PATRIOT ACT" are attacks on America from within. They seek to turn America from a nation ruled by laws -- by checks and balances and limited government -- into a nation ruled by fear. They grant more power to the powerful, and seek to prevent a well-informed populace by denying us information.
If we respond by abandoning the playing field, and we fail to defend the rule of law from these aggressors, then we've given up one of our most powerful weapons without a fight. The law is, and should be, on our side -- the PATRIOT ACT didn't overturn the First Amendment, and the ACLU (as always) is out in front aggressively defending our freedoms.
Want to help? Donate to the ACLU. Get involved with Democracy For America. Find a candidate who shares your views, and vote in November. That's the solution to the Catch-22 problem, Yossarian. You have to jump.
See for yourself. Coal has been the primary source of electricity in the U.S. for at least fifty years, but oil-fired power plants still exist.
Coal can be converted to synthetic oil at a cost of $40something/barrel, and America has enough coal reserves to meet our energy demands for about 200 years; if the price of a barrel of Mideast crude goes above $50 and stays there, the big oil companies will switch to a cheaper alternative.
Coal creates even more greenhouse gases than oil, though, so we'll still have that problem -- and, long term, we're still burning through fossil fuel reserves much more quickly than the Earth produces them. Solving the fusion problem will help, and luckily we still have a few centuries before the well runs dry.
Only if you ignore the 35-year gap between the invention of cellular phones (1947) and the first FCC-licensed commercial network (1983). Some of that delay was because the idea was impractical until computers became widely available, but a lot of it was petitioning the FCC for a license. A start-up company with shallow pockets would not have had the resources (or the investor patience) to take this idea to market.
Anyhow, the point of all this is that (a) Lucent got the lion's share of Bell Labs in the '96 spinoff, including the name; and (b) the "real" Bell Labs has been downsized just as badly as its former sibling at AT&T, although Lucent is slightly ahead of the business curve and is hopefully through the worst of the cost-cutting. (Lucent was also first in line when it was time to go over the cliff, of course, so being ahead of the curve doesn't always work to your advantage.)
(The obligatory disclaimer: I work for Lucent, but I'm not even vaguely attempting to speak on their behalf. I'm sure AT&T veterans would tell the tale differently, emphasizing the heroic role of AT&T Labs in the liberation of Stalingrad or some such, but this is what passes for corporate history in my weak and enfeebled mind.)
"Onward, my brave Hawkmen! Let this be known forever as Flash Gordon's Day!"
Actually most of the progress to date has been made in the other direction: The body armor required to protect soldiers from small-arms fire has been getting progressively lighter. The latest design uses Kevlar vests with ceramic plate inserts, fully protecting the soldier's torso while weighing in at a svelte 16.4 pounds. (A Vietnam-era flak jacket weighed 25 pounds, and didn't offer as much protection.)
What body armor doesn't do (currently) is to protect the arms and legs. It's one thing to wear 16 pounds around your torso; it's another to strap ten extra pounds on each limb. The trade-off between protection and mobility doesn't work in your favor here, especially when you introduce RPGs and explosives into the mix.
Medieval knights overcame the mobility problem by using a horse, but the modern equivalent (an armored Segway? a powered exosuit?) has yet to arrive. If and when it does, though, look for the suit of armor -- after only a 400-year absence -- to make its triumphant return to the battlefield.
Nmap isn't revoking SCO's license for "political reasons." Nmap is revoking SCO's license because SCO has violated the terms of the license. This is not the same thing as saying "we don't like you or what you're doing, so we've changed our license to exclude you." Nmap hasn't changed its license terms one iota -- they're merely doing what anyone who has copyright over SCO-distributed code should have done a long, long time ago.
Now I have this mental image of that great big abstract Picasso sculpture in downtown Chicago, breaking free and roaming the city in search of people who refuse to identify themselves.
I think that maybe you meant "statute," but I have to admit that your world sounds more interesting.
Can someone explain to me why software written by NASA, a government agency funded by the public, would not by definition belong in the public domain?