It's nice to see well thought out and efficient science experiments like this one. The asteroids in our solar system are probably more valuable to us in the short term than any of the planets or moons, with the exception of our own moon. I remember an estimate of how much iron is in the asteroid belt once and its enough to cover the earth several times over.
As scary or foolish as it may seem, our only future is to get off this rock and learn to live in space. Mars is El Dorado, worthless except in the minds of poets and dreamers. There may be hope for purchase on some of the moons, but to get to them or Mars we'll have to have already adapted to space.
I don't think it will work with out fusion, but if they find gold or oil in one of those rocks, who knows what could happen.
I had her in my office when she was about 1 and 1/2. I had both a linux and a windows box. I figured she couldn't muck up the linux box so I put her in front of that. She starts bawling and tries to take over the mouse and keyboard on the windows box. I was slightly shocked because I didn't expect her to have a preference. I thought if I started working on the linux box she would change her mind and do the same thing, but she stayed happy with windows.
She has good instincts because there is virtually no kids software for linux. Less then half works on macs and about 99% work on windows.
I guess if ease of installation is a big OS highlight for you, then ubuntu is a good choice. I have two machines with ubuntu and four with windows, but 3 of those 4 are used by members of my family. For those of you keeping score, I have 2 work machines and 4 machines at home (one of which runs ubuntu).
I don't game a lot, but one of the 4 windows boxes is a gaming rig. If I had to choose, that would be the computer I would keep. I might consider dual booting it, but since I don't file share, burn cds or visit porn sites, there's not much point. It is pretty good on my laptop, which is pretty old.
That is an excellent analysis and I think you are right about the big question. For most slashdotters, the GPL can only be discussed in philosophical terms. Unfortunately we live in the real world, where even retarded cases like SCO vs IBM drag on for years.
For entertainment value alone, I would love to see a big OSS vs M$ legal battle over GPLv3. I just don't think the FSF has the balls or the standing to actually pursue legal action. I could see them suing Novel, but how a court decision against Novel could compel M$ to grant a blanket license to GPLv3 land is beyond my comprehension.
But then, I don't quite comprehend how 'GPLv2 or later' became 'GPLv2 unless later'. I'm sure some smart copyleftist can explain it to me.
Sounds cool, but like quantum, the roll out costs sound like they are going to be expensive.
Why not just use one time pads distributed through a third channel (like the mail)? Or why not use steganography to distribute a one time pad? I guess I'm turning into a troglodyte.
"So I haven't talked about death, there's another thing which I haven't talked at all about which is another word that you're gonna hear me use - which I'm not gonna talk about - it's another big thing."
Dell would have to lay off half of Round Rock if they stopped shipping windows boxes. Demand for windows has not slowed down unless you are willing to do some really treacherous math.
In defense of my wife, I should cop to the fact that all software engineers are at least partially insane. Tell any software engineer that there is a bug in their code and they will tell you to try it again followed by reboot and try it again.
Some 4yos can understand and apply math. I have a nephew who is about 7 and doing algebra on his own. Who knows, he may be doing calculus and dumbing it down for the adults.
I would bet that most 4yos understand the scientific method, even if they couldn't explain it. My daughter is 2 years 7 months and I can see the wheels turning in her mind. She has delaying her bed time down to a science. She has learned thru trial and error that being fussy at night results in her being put in bed. So she is extra cute and eager to play new games and show how smart she is. She has also learned thru trial and error that any loud noise from her room will bring one of her parents. The most important thing she has learned is that when Daddy puts her in bed, that's it, she's done for the night and any loud noises will not be rewarded by more time running about.
My wife, unfortunately, is insane, because, as we all know insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That's what I get for having a trophy wife.
I would like someone, anyone, to show when in the past a country has deposed two governments on the other side of the globe and had as few combat related deaths. The idea that mistakes were made and therefore those running these wars are incompetent completely ignores that mistakes have been made in every war.
Afghanistan has been particularly thorny throughtout history, going back to the Mongols. Saddam Hussein had survived countless wars and uprisings before this one.
I don't mind arguing about the senselessness of the war or the futility of trying to enact democracy in chaos, but don't try to tell me that this war has been waged badly.
Slashdot has become so one-sided that there is little need for user comments. The summary and all of the comments took one part of the article and ignored everything else.
Here is one thing everyone missed...
"A Micronics portable "lab in a box" was also shown, which can take a drop of blood and perform molecular analysis to determine whether the patient is affected by a certain type of disease. The box, a product of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation healthcare grant, will be released in the "near future," Mundie said."
Vendors are allowed to ship PCs without Vista or any MS OS. Have been for ever. The problem is, except for Apple, no one has figured out a way to make money doing it. Maybe Dell will be the exception, but I'm not holding my breath.
As much press as this non-story has gotten, it might have one lasting side effect, bringing all the OSS camps together. There's nothing like an external threat to rally a community. I expect RMS will be chiming in soon, so now we'll know that they can agree on some things.
Looks interesting, but doesn't sound Bayesian if you hard coded the filter to look for the number of capital letters in a row or the word money. Bayesian filtering doesn't work because spam producers don't follow predictive patterns i.e m0ney, m.o.n.e.y, $$$, etc. It's going to take a lot of software to be better than a semi-trained human eye at recognizing spam.
Extending the 4th amendment to phone lines is a reach. Number one, phone lines are in the public domain. Same for cell phone transmissions. Unless phone lines and cell phone transmissions are somehow "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" then I would say you are on shaky ground.
Also, how exactly do you have a warrant "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" when you're not searching a place and no persons or things are being seized. Unless telephone conversations have some sort of copyright protection and you consider making a copy as seizure, then again you are on shaky ground.
I'm not saying there can't be laws with these protections, I'm just saying basing them on the 4th amendment seems like a stretch.
It's actually illegal for the NSA or any government agency to tap any communication between US citizens whether inside our country or not. However, the idea of giving constitutional protections to everyone who makes it inside our borders, even those planning to do us harm, seems like a more serious threat than any amount of illegal wiretapping.
You can attach a copyright to anything you see fit. What I am saying, quite clearly but apparently not clearly enough, is that ultimately this is a legal matter. What I am also saying, again not clearly enough, is that I have yet to see a case argued in court that enforces a software copyright.
Finally, the big point is that you cannot copyright something which is not yours to begin with. Taking your example, if you have the NIST table encoded somewhere in your code, you have not invalidated or surplanted the original copyright that covers that table. If someone else copies your code, or maybe just that table, and you try to enforce a copyright, their lawyer is going to take you to task for your copyright infringement. This will put a considerable amount of doubt (possibly reasonable) in the minds of the jury and you're going to lose.
Taking your book example, if person A were to take Harry Potter, or a section of it, and do nothing but add spaces, braces, commas and quotes and then person B was to copy it, person A is going to have a hard time enforcing a copyright.
I could be wrong, I'll admit that, but so far there is no evidence to support it. I'm not attacking you or the GPL, I'm just keeping it real.
You can't copyright something which is not yours to begin with.
As an example, if you create a static data structure constructed from information from a published standard, you can not copyright the static data structure. The copyright holder is, ta dah, the publisher of the standard. Adding curly braces, commas and quotes does not magically transfer ownership of the data contained in the static structure.
I can think of a few open source, gpl software projects that do this or something similar. Take something that is not theirs to begin with, slap some formatting around it, put it in a.h and slap a copyright notice on the top.
Now, imagine you are in court trying to enforce your copyright on some code. The defense lawyer is going to have a field day, picking apart every instance of anything borrowed. The average jury is not going to convict somebody because, ta dah, their confusion is reasonable.
This leaves only one avenue for y'all... public humiliation. If there is an example of anything else but PH working, feel free to flame me.
From the patent: "...for use in complex computer applications."
Luckily everything I do is pretty simple. I guess complex would apply to.net as it is that. Even with the security risks, I prefer PHP and mysql over.net and whatever. The way I use PHP, it also alleviates the claim of having seperate content and data, twofer!
How does this affect the mono project? What about other projects that might use... "A system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."...Where... "The method separates content, form, and function of the computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately."
I tend to stay away from arbitrary object frameworks, but that's just me.
Hurrah for the MS-haters, I guess. MS has deep pockets and plenty of lawyers. If these other idiots win, I just wonder who's next and whether this will stifle future development across the board.
3.1 billion to pretty much lock up the on-line advertising market. I wonder what percentage of the on-line advertising market will push Google into Monopoly territory. I would guess they are getting pretty close.
I wonder how long until it becomes obligatory to hate Google...
Those are harsh words but expected from a cowardly annonymous poster.
The GPL guy never once offered to let them remove the code. In the initial email and all of the responses I saw, it was always about licensing part of the code. As others have pointed out, it was probably too far gone for that to happen. Even if he did remove the code, whatever code he put in its place would be suspect.
Not that any of this he said/he said cruft matters. This incident will not be remembered for the flame war that it produced or who's an asshat or who is lying. This incident is goint to be used as a marketing tool for MS and others who have a vested interest in selling closed source software. This is what they were really hoping for, an example of GPL code killing a non-GPL project, because a developer took some code.
This mountain out of a mole hill is just plain stupid. The GPL developer should have pointed out the infraction and allowed the BSD guy to pull the code. It doesn't sound like that was an option.
The issue here is not some public rant or who did what to whom, it's the application of copyleft on a project that doesn't want it. The corporate world is not going to like this because this is exactly what MS and others have been saying would happen with free sw. I'll make the prediction now that Ballmer will use this event to hurt both GPL and BSD.
What a world. A driver developer for some obscure hardware doesn't want another driver developer to use his software because the hardware developers might end up using it. I don't know what to think about that except maybe hubris on the original developers part. I doubt the hardware developers care much because -ding-ding-ding- they don't sell software.
No good can come of all this copyright and software patent bs. There have only been 3 original lines of code ever written. Since then, it's all been stolen.
This something from nothing crap has always bothered me. It almost as bad as the claim that 99% of the universe was created in the first day. The rate of expansion is increasing, right, so did the universe slow down at some point?
I thought one of the tent posts of the big bang theory was that you could never look beyond it.
Anywhile, I still think we will figure out that our universe is at least two universes coming together. Taking Steve's analogy, imagine what happens when two soap bubbles combine. The can be floating along very slowly and then wham, their attraction brings them together and they merge. Imagine if they were different colors, say red and yellow. Our universe is the emerging orange part. At least I hope we are in the orange area. A single point of orange that grows very rapidly and when looked at from the inside would look like a cone.
My prediction is that eventually, everything will be orange and the rate of expansion will slow.
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice to see well thought out and efficient science experiments like this one. The asteroids in our solar system are probably more valuable to us in the short term than any of the planets or moons, with the exception of our own moon. I remember an estimate of how much iron is in the asteroid belt once and its enough to cover the earth several times over.
As scary or foolish as it may seem, our only future is to get off this rock and learn to live in space. Mars is El Dorado, worthless except in the minds of poets and dreamers. There may be hope for purchase on some of the moons, but to get to them or Mars we'll have to have already adapted to space.
I don't think it will work with out fusion, but if they find gold or oil in one of those rocks, who knows what could happen.
I had her in my office when she was about 1 and 1/2. I had both a linux and a windows box. I figured she couldn't muck up the linux box so I put her in front of that. She starts bawling and tries to take over the mouse and keyboard on the windows box. I was slightly shocked because I didn't expect her to have a preference. I thought if I started working on the linux box she would change her mind and do the same thing, but she stayed happy with windows.
She has good instincts because there is virtually no kids software for linux. Less then half works on macs and about 99% work on windows.
I guess if ease of installation is a big OS highlight for you, then ubuntu is a good choice. I have two machines with ubuntu and four with windows, but 3 of those 4 are used by members of my family. For those of you keeping score, I have 2 work machines and 4 machines at home (one of which runs ubuntu).
I don't game a lot, but one of the 4 windows boxes is a gaming rig. If I had to choose, that would be the computer I would keep. I might consider dual booting it, but since I don't file share, burn cds or visit porn sites, there's not much point. It is pretty good on my laptop, which is pretty old.
That is an excellent analysis and I think you are right about the big question. For most slashdotters, the GPL can only be discussed in philosophical terms. Unfortunately we live in the real world, where even retarded cases like SCO vs IBM drag on for years.
For entertainment value alone, I would love to see a big OSS vs M$ legal battle over GPLv3. I just don't think the FSF has the balls or the standing to actually pursue legal action. I could see them suing Novel, but how a court decision against Novel could compel M$ to grant a blanket license to GPLv3 land is beyond my comprehension.
But then, I don't quite comprehend how 'GPLv2 or later' became 'GPLv2 unless later'. I'm sure some smart copyleftist can explain it to me.
Sounds cool, but like quantum, the roll out costs sound like they are going to be expensive. Why not just use one time pads distributed through a third channel (like the mail)? Or why not use steganography to distribute a one time pad? I guess I'm turning into a troglodyte.
"So I haven't talked about death, there's another thing which I haven't talked at all about which is another word that you're gonna hear me use - which I'm not gonna talk about - it's another big thing."
That about sums it up...
Dell would have to lay off half of Round Rock if they stopped shipping windows boxes. Demand for windows has not slowed down unless you are willing to do some really treacherous math.
In defense of my wife, I should cop to the fact that all software engineers are at least partially insane. Tell any software engineer that there is a bug in their code and they will tell you to try it again followed by reboot and try it again.
Some 4yos can understand and apply math. I have a nephew who is about 7 and doing algebra on his own. Who knows, he may be doing calculus and dumbing it down for the adults.
I would bet that most 4yos understand the scientific method, even if they couldn't explain it. My daughter is 2 years 7 months and I can see the wheels turning in her mind. She has delaying her bed time down to a science. She has learned thru trial and error that being fussy at night results in her being put in bed. So she is extra cute and eager to play new games and show how smart she is. She has also learned thru trial and error that any loud noise from her room will bring one of her parents. The most important thing she has learned is that when Daddy puts her in bed, that's it, she's done for the night and any loud noises will not be rewarded by more time running about.
My wife, unfortunately, is insane, because, as we all know insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That's what I get for having a trophy wife.
I would like someone, anyone, to show when in the past a country has deposed two governments on the other side of the globe and had as few combat related deaths. The idea that mistakes were made and therefore those running these wars are incompetent completely ignores that mistakes have been made in every war.
Afghanistan has been particularly thorny throughtout history, going back to the Mongols. Saddam Hussein had survived countless wars and uprisings before this one.
I don't mind arguing about the senselessness of the war or the futility of trying to enact democracy in chaos, but don't try to tell me that this war has been waged badly.
This is just what the gaming world needs, 34 games that play exactly like games from 5 years ago but with pretty graphics.
Damn, still can't find an unbundled Wii...
Any fire alarms you have should not be using rechargeables. It will usually say so on any new alarms you buy.
Slashdot has become so one-sided that there is little need for user comments. The summary and all of the comments took one part of the article and ignored everything else.
Here is one thing everyone missed...
"A Micronics portable "lab in a box" was also shown, which can take a drop of blood and perform molecular analysis to determine whether the patient is affected by a certain type of disease. The box, a product of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation healthcare grant, will be released in the "near future," Mundie said."
But it's from M$ so it must be crap.
Vendors are allowed to ship PCs without Vista or any MS OS. Have been for ever. The problem is, except for Apple, no one has figured out a way to make money doing it. Maybe Dell will be the exception, but I'm not holding my breath.
As much press as this non-story has gotten, it might have one lasting side effect, bringing all the OSS camps together. There's nothing like an external threat to rally a community. I expect RMS will be chiming in soon, so now we'll know that they can agree on some things.
Looks interesting, but doesn't sound Bayesian if you hard coded the filter to look for the number of capital letters in a row or the word money. Bayesian filtering doesn't work because spam producers don't follow predictive patterns i.e m0ney, m.o.n.e.y, $$$, etc. It's going to take a lot of software to be better than a semi-trained human eye at recognizing spam.
Extending the 4th amendment to phone lines is a reach. Number one, phone lines are in the public domain. Same for cell phone transmissions. Unless phone lines and cell phone transmissions are somehow "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" then I would say you are on shaky ground.
Also, how exactly do you have a warrant "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" when you're not searching a place and no persons or things are being seized. Unless telephone conversations have some sort of copyright protection and you consider making a copy as seizure, then again you are on shaky ground.
I'm not saying there can't be laws with these protections, I'm just saying basing them on the 4th amendment seems like a stretch.
It's actually illegal for the NSA or any government agency to tap any communication between US citizens whether inside our country or not. However, the idea of giving constitutional protections to everyone who makes it inside our borders, even those planning to do us harm, seems like a more serious threat than any amount of illegal wiretapping.
Games 1.0 Paper
Games 2.0 Paper-rock
Games 3.0 Paper-rock-scissors
Get the idea?
You can attach a copyright to anything you see fit. What I am saying, quite clearly but apparently not clearly enough, is that ultimately this is a legal matter. What I am also saying, again not clearly enough, is that I have yet to see a case argued in court that enforces a software copyright.
Finally, the big point is that you cannot copyright something which is not yours to begin with. Taking your example, if you have the NIST table encoded somewhere in your code, you have not invalidated or surplanted the original copyright that covers that table. If someone else copies your code, or maybe just that table, and you try to enforce a copyright, their lawyer is going to take you to task for your copyright infringement. This will put a considerable amount of doubt (possibly reasonable) in the minds of the jury and you're going to lose.
Taking your book example, if person A were to take Harry Potter, or a section of it, and do nothing but add spaces, braces, commas and quotes and then person B was to copy it, person A is going to have a hard time enforcing a copyright.
I could be wrong, I'll admit that, but so far there is no evidence to support it. I'm not attacking you or the GPL, I'm just keeping it real.
You can't copyright something which is not yours to begin with.
.h and slap a copyright notice on the top.
As an example, if you create a static data structure constructed from information from a published standard, you can not copyright the static data structure. The copyright holder is, ta dah, the publisher of the standard. Adding curly braces, commas and quotes does not magically transfer ownership of the data contained in the static structure.
I can think of a few open source, gpl software projects that do this or something similar. Take something that is not theirs to begin with, slap some formatting around it, put it in a
Now, imagine you are in court trying to enforce your copyright on some code. The defense lawyer is going to have a field day, picking apart every instance of anything borrowed. The average jury is not going to convict somebody because, ta dah, their confusion is reasonable.
This leaves only one avenue for y'all... public humiliation. If there is an example of anything else but PH working, feel free to flame me.
From the patent: "...for use in complex computer applications."
.net as it is that. Even with the security risks, I prefer PHP and mysql over .net and whatever. The way I use PHP, it also alleviates the claim of having seperate content and data, twofer!
Luckily everything I do is pretty simple. I guess complex would apply to
They don't even have to be that old, apparently.
...Where...
How does this affect the mono project? What about other projects that might use...
"A system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework."
"The method separates content, form, and function of the computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately."
I tend to stay away from arbitrary object frameworks, but that's just me.
Hurrah for the MS-haters, I guess. MS has deep pockets and plenty of lawyers. If these other idiots win, I just wonder who's next and whether this will stifle future development across the board.
3.1 billion to pretty much lock up the on-line advertising market. I wonder what percentage of the on-line advertising market will push Google into Monopoly territory. I would guess they are getting pretty close.
I wonder how long until it becomes obligatory to hate Google...
Those are harsh words but expected from a cowardly annonymous poster. The GPL guy never once offered to let them remove the code. In the initial email and all of the responses I saw, it was always about licensing part of the code. As others have pointed out, it was probably too far gone for that to happen. Even if he did remove the code, whatever code he put in its place would be suspect. Not that any of this he said/he said cruft matters. This incident will not be remembered for the flame war that it produced or who's an asshat or who is lying. This incident is goint to be used as a marketing tool for MS and others who have a vested interest in selling closed source software. This is what they were really hoping for, an example of GPL code killing a non-GPL project, because a developer took some code.
This mountain out of a mole hill is just plain stupid. The GPL developer should have pointed out the infraction and allowed the BSD guy to pull the code. It doesn't sound like that was an option.
The issue here is not some public rant or who did what to whom, it's the application of copyleft on a project that doesn't want it. The corporate world is not going to like this because this is exactly what MS and others have been saying would happen with free sw. I'll make the prediction now that Ballmer will use this event to hurt both GPL and BSD.
What a world. A driver developer for some obscure hardware doesn't want another driver developer to use his software because the hardware developers might end up using it. I don't know what to think about that except maybe hubris on the original developers part. I doubt the hardware developers care much because -ding-ding-ding- they don't sell software.
No good can come of all this copyright and software patent bs. There have only been 3 original lines of code ever written. Since then, it's all been stolen.
This something from nothing crap has always bothered me. It almost as bad as the claim that 99% of the universe was created in the first day. The rate of expansion is increasing, right, so did the universe slow down at some point?
I thought one of the tent posts of the big bang theory was that you could never look beyond it.
Anywhile, I still think we will figure out that our universe is at least two universes coming together. Taking Steve's analogy, imagine what happens when two soap bubbles combine. The can be floating along very slowly and then wham, their attraction brings them together and they merge. Imagine if they were different colors, say red and yellow. Our universe is the emerging orange part. At least I hope we are in the orange area. A single point of orange that grows very rapidly and when looked at from the inside would look like a cone.
My prediction is that eventually, everything will be orange and the rate of expansion will slow.