Are you saying that electrons do move faster than light, but not through tunnelling?
I never said that electrons move faster than light. Are you saying that they do, and that this is due to quantum tunneling?
Speaking of the speed of a current is meaningful, speaking of the speed of the electrons is not.
Apparently not.
You can measure the current speed and divide that by the charge transferred and arrive at a number for the 'speed of an electron', but it's not a very meaningful number.
It really depends on your purpose. But you're right in this case it's probably best to not mention the speed of "the electrons themselves" in the first place.
Electromagnetic radiation consists of alternating electric and magnetic fields.
and electricity doesn't?
That is not what "electricity" is.
Rather than give a complete 45 minute lecture I pointed out the flaw in the parent post using simplified language.
Current is a quantity of charge moving through an area per second, though I wouldn't call it a transfer of charge.
You can give a scientific definition, but that isn't going to help someone who doesn't understand the basis of that definition. Again, I'm not presenting a lecture, just a quick explanation.
Consider a circuit powered by a solar collector.
That's not what we were talking about in the current discussion. Again, if you want to give out a long lecture on what electricity is, feel free. I just wanted to point out a fundamental flaw in the reasoning of the post to which I was replying.
Current does not flow at light speed. Very fast, but not that fast.
Of course it does. Electricity is electromagnetic radiation, i.e. light. It doesn't move at the speed of light in a vacuum, but that's because it doesn't travel through a vacuum!
Individiual electrons can move 'faster than light' though, through quantum tunnelling.
Quantum tunneling has nothing to do with electrons moving faster than the speed of light. And even if it did, current is not the transfer of electrons, it's the transfer of electric charge. The electrons themselves move very very slowly compared to the speed of light. Think of a flowing hose which is suddenly shut off. The pressure at the other end drops off much faster than it takes for a single drop of water to travel along the hose.
I was really suprised to look at the poster and see it was Bruce.
I agree, but at the same time, we're talking about dumb laws here. As long as Bruce wasn't stepping on anyone elses toes, why should it matter? That the federal government has jurisdiction over what I transfer within a one block radius is just ridiculous. I live 150 miles from the nearest state. This isn't commerce, and it isn't interstate. The FCC should get the hell out.
what happens if lots of people in the same block start using this?
Maybe they could get together and work things out. Pick three different genres and broadcast three stations for everyone on the block. While they're at it, set up a nice little wifi network (with or without routing to the general internet). Start an amateur radio club and get everyone licensed. Having lots of people on my block interested in this stuff would be a good thing.
If things get even more crowded, maybe the FCC will start opening up some additional frequencies exclusively for things like this. Worst case scenario it gets regulated so you've gotta pay $20 or so as a filing fee.
I seriously doubt this is going to take hold by more than a very small percentage of the population. Personally I'd be thrilled to find out there's another hard core geek in radio distance of me.
I think there will be a fork, of much of Wikipedia, for essentially the reasons Sanger has outlined. However, I think Wikipedia will still survive, because the fork is going to need to hire experts, and as such can't possibly be free (as in beer, but as I'll explain it likely won't be free as in freedom either).
I should probably take a sidestep and explain how it's possible to create a non-free fork of Wikipedia. It's pretty simple, really, since Wikipedia is released under the GFDL. Like the GPL, the GFDL doesn't restrict you from selling the content for money, but that's only the beginning. The GFDL also allows you to aggregate non-free content within a larger work containing GFDLed works. So a non-free fork can include non-free images, and even non-free articles and other non-free text. Add to this the GFDL's permission to add invariant sections, and it's pretty clear that reintroducing content from the forked version back into Wikipedia will be a very arduous task. One need only include a few statements which reflect points of view that a few Wikipedians don't like and the content will be forever non-free. This is one of the problems with the GFDL - yes, Wikipedia is free, as Wikipedia doesn't use invariant sections, but that doesn't mean forks can't use them.
Will this spell the end of Wikipedia? I don't think so. Wikipedia is useful because it can be edited by anyone. Within minutes in many cases articles are updated to reflect new information. A fork, especially a fork which had to hire people to fact check, couldn't possibly keep up. As long as Wikipedia can afford to maintain up its servers (as has been a problem in the past), I don't see it dying. There's far too much momentum on its side.
But I see a fork as inevitable. The only thing to be decided is whether or not the Wikimedia Foundation itself will manage the fork, or whether it'll be done by a commercial entity. There is promise that the fork may be done by the foundation itself. After all, a print version is one of the goals of the foundation, and a print version is necessarily a fork (you can't print a new version every 2 seconds). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pushing_to_ 1.0 for more information. The problem is, Jimbo Wales has expressed his opinion that "1.0" not be a separate project. He may have changed his mind though, this was based on reading his early thoughts on 1.0.
I assume works created by the UK government will still be subject to crown copyright, though. So you'll have access to the information, but you can't republish it.
You need to be able to control what rights a piece of software has -- and that has always been one of *nix's strong suits.
*nix is getting there, but it hasn't always been there. Unix permissions are traditionally based on a per-user basis. What is really needed is a way to have per program permissions. Yes, I suppose you could setuid everything, but that's kind of kludgy. Most of the rest is available, you can set up a firewall to only give certain users access to certain ports, but even this isn't really standardized (I suppose you could just call each distro a different OS, though). In any case, firewall permissions on even a per-user basis haven't always been around.
To be honest, I think Microsoft (or maybe Apple) will provide a truly good solution before a Linux distro does. To do it right, even in Linux, I think you'd need to throw out most of the current security system. Users/groups/ACLs just isn't the right paradigm for a typical desktop machine.
what does have effect: better user control of their computer. Let the user decide what gets installed and what doesn't.
There might be a place for laws, but only after a technical solution is in place. If a program wants to make outgoing connections, when you install it a dialog can come up asking for permission and explaining what those permissions are going to be used for. Then, if someone lies about what they're going to use those permissions for, you could sue them for fraud.
If you want the government to babysit you while you use your computer it's the right direction, maybe. Personally I'd rather get the government out of regulating software.
As has been explained by the posts above, any bill outlawing spyware suffers from at least one of two fundamental flaws:
It outlaws things that shouldn't be outlawed: operating systems, remote management software, P2P, F2F, distributed computing software.
It doesn't outlaw anything, as long as the user is presented with a really long click-through agreement authorizing the software to perform the tasks (which no one is going to read, and is going to be in such cryptic language that anyone who does bother to read it isn't going to understand it).
I think we'd be much better off leaving the government out of this one. I should have the right to install anything I want on my computer, and software companies should have the right to produce anything they want to meet that demand. Caveat emptor, the most you should be entitled to is a refund if you're not happy with the product. And if the price was free, well, then you can get nothing back.
I never called you a liar. You are an exaggerator, though, in fact you claim to have been called a liar when no such thing was done.
Why do you think I'm making it up?
I never said I thought you were making it up.
Haven't you seen the wild assertions on both sides of the copyright issue?
Sure, for instance I've seen your posts today.
No, I'm supposed to post whatever I want. If you don't like it, then don't reply.
Maybe I'll do that, or maybe I'll reply telling you you're a moron.
The fact is that corporations are paying off government officials (they like to call it "lobying") to get laws passed with no purpose other than harming consumers.
Well, they do have another purpose, to help the corporations.
They use inflamitory words like "stealing" and such to get laws passed to protect their profits.
Sometimes. Sometimes they use the terms when someone actually is stealing. But that word wasn't used in the article or the writeup, so you're completely offtopic.
"Costing them money" isn't a fact.
Sure it is. Their revenues went down. In part that was due to craiglist. Therefore craiglist cost them in revenues.
They don't have any proof (or even the slightest evidence) that the $65 million would have landed in their lap if it weren't for competition.
Did you even read the study, or you're just asserting that it's wrong without reading it?
Perhaps you should learn what a "fact" is before you start talking about them.
It's certainly not an "opinion".
First were the claims of lost revenue. Then were the laws passed to protect the industries.
That's not at all how copyright was invented.
Yeah, I need a tinfoil hat because the government tells me that they are reducing my rights in order to improve the bottom line of corporations.
You need a tinfoil hat because you're tying the reduction in rights to this article.
Next, you'll be telling me that it isn't in the Congressional Record that marijuana causes white women to become loose and have sex with negros.
Yeah, you're right, I was just about to say that. Dude, either go seek mental help, or start taking your meds again. Your paranoia has gotten out of control.
Very interesting. I feel like my fundamental rights have been violated, yet I can't point to anything specific. Maybe the good old "right to privacy", that the government shouldn't get involved in what commercials I skip in the privacy of my own home.
And I've been called a thief on/. for not buying something and getting the same value elsewhere.
Really? Care to show me the URL?
TV executives have declared that skipping commercials is "stealing" TV.
Perhaps (though I don't think many executives used the term stealing), but that's a completely different case. You're supposed to wait until we have a slashdot story about skipping commercials to whinge about that.
The point isn't that it is right or wrong, good or bad, but that the same reasoning used to complain about illegal pirates is the same reasoning used against competition.
Used against competition? No one is using anything against competition. They're just stating facts.
The next step is to outlaw competition because it hurts the bottom line of big, old corporations.
Please. Put on your tinfoil hat, go into your corner, and commence shaking.
That's what's being done with copyright extensions, DMCA, and other laws.
Copyright has been around for a (relatively) long time. This has nothing to do with copyright.
It may be a general experession, but its not a legal or accounting fact.
Was this an accountant or lawyer who used the term? It's a friggen expression, being used by a writer. When you expect to gain something, and you don't gain it due to a specific event, that event is said to "cost you" that gain. For example, "the injury to Terrell Owens cost the Eagles the Superbowl." Does this mean that the Eagles had the Superbowl and then they lost it? No, not at all. It means they were likely to win the Superbowl, and then T.O. got injured, and then they didn't win.
In that case, the govt costs me 5-8% yearly in inflation, yet I cannot claim that in my tax can I?
Who said anything about claiming something on their taxes. It's just a fucking expression.
You're getting a little hysterical about a simple expression. When a company has a steady revenue stream, and something happens to reduce that revenue, it's said to "cost" the company in revenue.
C'mon, it's just an expression. The question is whether or not the group really examined the details to try to determine what percentage of people advertising on craigslist would have advertised in the newspaper but didn't, or if they just took the number of people advertising in craigslist and multiplied by the cost of the newpaper ad. If it's the former, then I see it as a perfectly legitimate statement. Craiglist cost the newspapers $X. It doesn't mean they did anything illegal, or they stole anything, or even that what they did is a bad thing. It just means that as a direct result of craiglist the newspapers revenue decreased by $X.
This is a great idea to give yourself better job security. You are planning on staying with this company, right? Cause if not, just leave everything Windows, they'll likely spend much more money hiring someone to sort out what you did.
What, in your obviously-informed opinion, is going to stop a similar consortium of HDTV broadcasters from buying legislation to outlaw unprotected high-bandwidth conversion hardware?
Why in the world would they do that? HDTV broadcasters want you to watch their television stations, that's how they make money (by showing you ads).
Slashdot Mirror
Are you saying that electrons do move faster than light, but not through tunnelling?
I never said that electrons move faster than light. Are you saying that they do, and that this is due to quantum tunneling?
Speaking of the speed of a current is meaningful, speaking of the speed of the electrons is not.
Apparently not.
You can measure the current speed and divide that by the charge transferred and arrive at a number for the 'speed of an electron', but it's not a very meaningful number.
It really depends on your purpose. But you're right in this case it's probably best to not mention the speed of "the electrons themselves" in the first place.
Electromagnetic radiation consists of alternating electric and magnetic fields.
and electricity doesn't?
That is not what "electricity" is.
Rather than give a complete 45 minute lecture I pointed out the flaw in the parent post using simplified language.
Current is a quantity of charge moving through an area per second, though I wouldn't call it a transfer of charge.
You can give a scientific definition, but that isn't going to help someone who doesn't understand the basis of that definition. Again, I'm not presenting a lecture, just a quick explanation.
Consider a circuit powered by a solar collector.
That's not what we were talking about in the current discussion. Again, if you want to give out a long lecture on what electricity is, feel free. I just wanted to point out a fundamental flaw in the reasoning of the post to which I was replying.
Current does not flow at light speed. Very fast, but not that fast.
Of course it does. Electricity is electromagnetic radiation, i.e. light. It doesn't move at the speed of light in a vacuum, but that's because it doesn't travel through a vacuum!
Individiual electrons can move 'faster than light' though, through quantum tunnelling.
Quantum tunneling has nothing to do with electrons moving faster than the speed of light. And even if it did, current is not the transfer of electrons, it's the transfer of electric charge. The electrons themselves move very very slowly compared to the speed of light. Think of a flowing hose which is suddenly shut off. The pressure at the other end drops off much faster than it takes for a single drop of water to travel along the hose.
Of course, you'd have to completely rewrite an operating system to use one of these babies.
http://www.beowulf.org/overview/index.html
I was really suprised to look at the poster and see it was Bruce.
I agree, but at the same time, we're talking about dumb laws here. As long as Bruce wasn't stepping on anyone elses toes, why should it matter? That the federal government has jurisdiction over what I transfer within a one block radius is just ridiculous. I live 150 miles from the nearest state. This isn't commerce, and it isn't interstate. The FCC should get the hell out.
what happens if lots of people in the same block start using this?
Maybe they could get together and work things out. Pick three different genres and broadcast three stations for everyone on the block. While they're at it, set up a nice little wifi network (with or without routing to the general internet). Start an amateur radio club and get everyone licensed. Having lots of people on my block interested in this stuff would be a good thing.
If things get even more crowded, maybe the FCC will start opening up some additional frequencies exclusively for things like this. Worst case scenario it gets regulated so you've gotta pay $20 or so as a filing fee.
I seriously doubt this is going to take hold by more than a very small percentage of the population. Personally I'd be thrilled to find out there's another hard core geek in radio distance of me.
I think there will be a fork, of much of Wikipedia, for essentially the reasons Sanger has outlined. However, I think Wikipedia will still survive, because the fork is going to need to hire experts, and as such can't possibly be free (as in beer, but as I'll explain it likely won't be free as in freedom either).
I should probably take a sidestep and explain how it's possible to create a non-free fork of Wikipedia. It's pretty simple, really, since Wikipedia is released under the GFDL. Like the GPL, the GFDL doesn't restrict you from selling the content for money, but that's only the beginning. The GFDL also allows you to aggregate non-free content within a larger work containing GFDLed works. So a non-free fork can include non-free images, and even non-free articles and other non-free text. Add to this the GFDL's permission to add invariant sections, and it's pretty clear that reintroducing content from the forked version back into Wikipedia will be a very arduous task. One need only include a few statements which reflect points of view that a few Wikipedians don't like and the content will be forever non-free. This is one of the problems with the GFDL - yes, Wikipedia is free, as Wikipedia doesn't use invariant sections, but that doesn't mean forks can't use them.
Will this spell the end of Wikipedia? I don't think so. Wikipedia is useful because it can be edited by anyone. Within minutes in many cases articles are updated to reflect new information. A fork, especially a fork which had to hire people to fact check, couldn't possibly keep up. As long as Wikipedia can afford to maintain up its servers (as has been a problem in the past), I don't see it dying. There's far too much momentum on its side.
But I see a fork as inevitable. The only thing to be decided is whether or not the Wikimedia Foundation itself will manage the fork, or whether it'll be done by a commercial entity. There is promise that the fork may be done by the foundation itself. After all, a print version is one of the goals of the foundation, and a print version is necessarily a fork (you can't print a new version every 2 seconds). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pushing_to_ 1.0 for more information. The problem is, Jimbo Wales has expressed his opinion that "1.0" not be a separate project. He may have changed his mind though, this was based on reading his early thoughts on 1.0.
Compare Work of the United States Government with Crown copyright. US government works are generally public domain. UK government works are generally copyrighted.
I assume works created by the UK government will still be subject to crown copyright, though. So you'll have access to the information, but you can't republish it.
You need to be able to control what rights a piece of software has -- and that has always been one of *nix's strong suits.
*nix is getting there, but it hasn't always been there. Unix permissions are traditionally based on a per-user basis. What is really needed is a way to have per program permissions. Yes, I suppose you could setuid everything, but that's kind of kludgy. Most of the rest is available, you can set up a firewall to only give certain users access to certain ports, but even this isn't really standardized (I suppose you could just call each distro a different OS, though). In any case, firewall permissions on even a per-user basis haven't always been around.
To be honest, I think Microsoft (or maybe Apple) will provide a truly good solution before a Linux distro does. To do it right, even in Linux, I think you'd need to throw out most of the current security system. Users/groups/ACLs just isn't the right paradigm for a typical desktop machine.
what does have effect: better user control of their computer. Let the user decide what gets installed and what doesn't.
There might be a place for laws, but only after a technical solution is in place. If a program wants to make outgoing connections, when you install it a dialog can come up asking for permission and explaining what those permissions are going to be used for. Then, if someone lies about what they're going to use those permissions for, you could sue them for fraud.
If you want the government to babysit you while you use your computer it's the right direction, maybe. Personally I'd rather get the government out of regulating software.
As has been explained by the posts above, any bill outlawing spyware suffers from at least one of two fundamental flaws:
I think we'd be much better off leaving the government out of this one. I should have the right to install anything I want on my computer, and software companies should have the right to produce anything they want to meet that demand. Caveat emptor, the most you should be entitled to is a refund if you're not happy with the product. And if the price was free, well, then you can get nothing back.
So, you are claiming that I made a statement that I knew to be false.
I just said no I didn't.
Exactly $65 million, no more and no less?
No, it was 65.023 million, but they rounded off. Moron.
Oh, I have just been called a liar.
I never called you a liar. You are an exaggerator, though, in fact you claim to have been called a liar when no such thing was done.
Why do you think I'm making it up?
I never said I thought you were making it up.
Haven't you seen the wild assertions on both sides of the copyright issue?
Sure, for instance I've seen your posts today.
No, I'm supposed to post whatever I want. If you don't like it, then don't reply.
Maybe I'll do that, or maybe I'll reply telling you you're a moron.
The fact is that corporations are paying off government officials (they like to call it "lobying") to get laws passed with no purpose other than harming consumers.
Well, they do have another purpose, to help the corporations.
They use inflamitory words like "stealing" and such to get laws passed to protect their profits.
Sometimes. Sometimes they use the terms when someone actually is stealing. But that word wasn't used in the article or the writeup, so you're completely offtopic.
"Costing them money" isn't a fact.
Sure it is. Their revenues went down. In part that was due to craiglist. Therefore craiglist cost them in revenues.
They don't have any proof (or even the slightest evidence) that the $65 million would have landed in their lap if it weren't for competition.
Did you even read the study, or you're just asserting that it's wrong without reading it?
Perhaps you should learn what a "fact" is before you start talking about them.
It's certainly not an "opinion".
First were the claims of lost revenue. Then were the laws passed to protect the industries.
That's not at all how copyright was invented.
Yeah, I need a tinfoil hat because the government tells me that they are reducing my rights in order to improve the bottom line of corporations.
You need a tinfoil hat because you're tying the reduction in rights to this article.
Next, you'll be telling me that it isn't in the Congressional Record that marijuana causes white women to become loose and have sex with negros.
Yeah, you're right, I was just about to say that. Dude, either go seek mental help, or start taking your meds again. Your paranoia has gotten out of control.
Very interesting. I feel like my fundamental rights have been violated, yet I can't point to anything specific. Maybe the good old "right to privacy", that the government shouldn't get involved in what commercials I skip in the privacy of my own home.
And I've been called a thief on /. for not buying something and getting the same value elsewhere.
Really? Care to show me the URL?
TV executives have declared that skipping commercials is "stealing" TV.
Perhaps (though I don't think many executives used the term stealing), but that's a completely different case. You're supposed to wait until we have a slashdot story about skipping commercials to whinge about that.
The point isn't that it is right or wrong, good or bad, but that the same reasoning used to complain about illegal pirates is the same reasoning used against competition.
Used against competition? No one is using anything against competition. They're just stating facts.
The next step is to outlaw competition because it hurts the bottom line of big, old corporations.
Please. Put on your tinfoil hat, go into your corner, and commence shaking.
That's what's being done with copyright extensions, DMCA, and other laws.
Copyright has been around for a (relatively) long time. This has nothing to do with copyright.
It may be a general experession, but its not a legal or accounting fact.
Was this an accountant or lawyer who used the term? It's a friggen expression, being used by a writer. When you expect to gain something, and you don't gain it due to a specific event, that event is said to "cost you" that gain. For example, "the injury to Terrell Owens cost the Eagles the Superbowl." Does this mean that the Eagles had the Superbowl and then they lost it? No, not at all. It means they were likely to win the Superbowl, and then T.O. got injured, and then they didn't win.
In that case, the govt costs me 5-8% yearly in inflation, yet I cannot claim that in my tax can I?
Who said anything about claiming something on their taxes. It's just a fucking expression.
You're getting a little hysterical about a simple expression. When a company has a steady revenue stream, and something happens to reduce that revenue, it's said to "cost" the company in revenue.
C'mon, it's just an expression. The question is whether or not the group really examined the details to try to determine what percentage of people advertising on craigslist would have advertised in the newspaper but didn't, or if they just took the number of people advertising in craigslist and multiplied by the cost of the newpaper ad. If it's the former, then I see it as a perfectly legitimate statement. Craiglist cost the newspapers $X. It doesn't mean they did anything illegal, or they stole anything, or even that what they did is a bad thing. It just means that as a direct result of craiglist the newspapers revenue decreased by $X.
I was just thinking the same thing. The headline should read "Craigslist saves San Franciscans $65 million a year".
Then we can run another article "E-mail costs the US post office $230,000,000 in revenue per year. Bill 602P proposed."
Bring lots and lots of batteries. They've got electricity in some of the lodges, though. And you can use solar powered battery rechargers, I suppose.
Next thing you know they're going to tell us pro-wrestling is fake too.
Seriously though, I didn't see the point of this anyway. Does it really make a difference if it was real or not?
This is a great idea to give yourself better job security. You are planning on staying with this company, right? Cause if not, just leave everything Windows, they'll likely spend much more money hiring someone to sort out what you did.
What, in your obviously-informed opinion, is going to stop a similar consortium of HDTV broadcasters from buying legislation to outlaw unprotected high-bandwidth conversion hardware?
Why in the world would they do that? HDTV broadcasters want you to watch their television stations, that's how they make money (by showing you ads).