It's time to start a union how long before more stuff comes up that cut's you pay.
What the hell, how is this trolling? Just because there is a big chunk of libertarians rolling around in Slashdot doesn't make this an invalid observation.
To those who agree, consider organizing shop-by-shop initially via the 'Wobbly Method' (checkout http://iww.org/ for a union that shares your independence and belief in autonomy)
It's encouraging to see that the author chose to educate themselves on GPL style licenses and not fall into mindlessly spouting the same corporate FUD about them.
I hate how this interviewer softballs his questions: "GTA IV asks the players to make a few key decisions during its story, and weâ(TM)ve seen another Take 2 game, BioShock, experiment with similar ideas. How further can that model be pushed? Is it something youâ(TM)d like to take further in future games?"
As if we haven't seen games providing two plot choices that affect game outcome in the past. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic jumps out as a very recent mediocre game that fits the bill there. The only thing exciting about Bioshock's decisions were that there were manifest benefits to selecting the immoral choice.
Railroads with junctions are not some new-fangled 'model' who's limits are waiting to be 'pushed.' It's old and stale.
I read this article, was really pumped, then searched 'urban wind turbine' on google. This was the first trustworthy looking result: Mostly Hype. And the site appears to be pretty pro-wind power, so they're probably as disappointed as I am.
You totally missed the joke. This is regarding the fact that you are supposed to be able to receive a full refund for unused OEM copies of Windows on your computers but this has traditionally (and I believe continues to be) impossible to actually obtain. Which is probably a EULA thing or something equivalent to a TOS.
The key point isn't whether they would have succeeded, but whether they bothered to care. I fail to see how the administrations post-9/11 attitude is reflected in the material that is being brought to public attention. This is a disjunct you should consider, there was no political will to determine the nature of the threat and prevent it. To rally behind this administration as a 'defender of the people' is to stand behind the straw-man they built after the attack.
This matters globally. The fact is that the current US administration is viewed with disgust in many corners of the world. And if the world didn't have to worry about US policy then you would have a point. But it is obvious that poorly thought out policy in the States gets exported to the world, either directly (war in Iraq) or indirectly.
I consider it disgraceful that the American public allows this administration to defend itself with double-talk and astounding denials of documented and recorded fact. It is a travesty of representative democracy where the public should be calling their elected representative to account.
I was on the fence as to whether to hold the parent's opinion (which is that some projects have NIH issues that come out like this), or the general opinion that Joerg Schilling is seriously messed up. So I did some research. Read through these threads and I believe you will come to a point of view that is balanced and based on primary sources of evidence. You can also read my commentary, however it would be considered a secondary source of evidence.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg00 113.html There is a LOT of material here, I'll break down my impressions: - Some instances of misunderstood word usage (ie CDDL is no longer acceptable to the Debian project in what appears to be a new bylaw or whatever they use)
- as a result Joerg Schilling accuses the project of being 'untrustworthy' and 'suspect.' IMO Far too strong terms to use for what could at worst be described as inconsistency. And I'm stretching that definition. - REFUSED a request to move legal discussion to more appropriate mailing lists and claimed that personal accusations/attacks were made upon him on debian-devel and pointed out his own feelings that he should defend himself on debian-devel (This seems like such a breach of decorum after a civil if difficult debate/raging argument) - Interpreting the GPL Preamble as word of law (after failing several other dubious GPL interpretations and basically accusing the FSF GPL FAQ maintainers of not knowing how to do their job) - Having finally been pegged to a request for a name change in the event of a fork, tries to lay claim to the name 'dvdrecord' despite having dubious ability to claim ownership of a generic trademark like 'cdrecord' in the first place.
On the whole debian-devel participants displayed an AMAZING sense of decorum and civility in the face of nonsensical diatribes and difficult debate. Props to them.
There is a more technical debate dated around February on LKML regarding libsgc and cdrecord. (no link simply because I'm having trouble finding the head of the discussion, search LKML Jorg to find.) Here it appears that Joerg Schilling simply appears to be unwilling to compromise functionality and code in order to make his software work properly (or sanely) under Linux. This is closely tied into a unique view on how to make his code cross-platform and the fact that libsgc is meant to integrate with a far greater generalization of SCSI components than just CD drivers.
I don't understand the technical intricacies but it appears that over time the SCSI and IDE interface has changed dramatically. As a result he believes the kernel should change to accomodate his software. That wasn't received very well at which point it might have been appropriate to chalk it up to simple disagreement and walk away, however it degenerated into a variety of other semi-related discussions that were far too personal. (Keep an eye open for 'smake' and the 'Schily Makefile System,' I kid you not.)
I've seen two different comments from the founders of this business where they say game developers are "enthuthiastic" (and other exciting, developers-are-pumped-up-words). Who actually cares? It's not like their games are going to be vastly improved with this POS.
Don't worry, this video is kind of useless for everyone. Most people already understand how harnessing a vast user community is a "Good Thing"(TM). Video is only interesting as a primer, and even as a review it is sometimes painful to watch the presenter (good start, but needs to be a bit more comfortable with public speaking)
If you're smart, you already have backups. You need them to protect yourself so nobody can make you take the blame for something that "happened" after you left. Same with your email. Same with personal effects. Remove everything the day before you hand in your resignation. You're an idiot if you don't.
If you're insane you have backups of your email. If you take anything of the sort and there is a good chance you are in violation of multiple sections of company policy, not to mention information in your emails that likely shouldn't leave the company either for personal privacy, or competitive reasons. PLEASE. Before you follow this advice confirm your company policy, the company is likely protecting ITSELF first from incriminating email data and by keeping your own copy of it for retaliatory reasons could invite way more hurt on yourself than you think.
Despite the subject dear to most of us, we shouldnt ignore the fact that he is essentially claiming that developed software is free. He is totaly ignoring the costs incured in developping the software, and only accounting for the costs incured in copying it.
The article is generally careful to say that it it is the marginal cost (see Wikipediea). While assuming that the actual cost per unit will be $0 in all cases, it is a safe assumption in particularily large cases.
From any economic source the function is MC = dTC / dQ where MC is our marginal cost, dTC is the derivative of the total cost, and dQ is the quantity.
Math lovers unite. For a single software project, TC is a constant value so dTC is 0. You've already done the upfront cost of developing the software, distribution is the cost of providing a torrent and a seed. Marginal cost must be $0 in all cases.
That doesn't mean the actual per unit cost is $0, but at the scales some projects operate at, it nearly is. With Firefox achieving 100 million downloads in one year ($2 per copy, less as 2006 progresses), Apache running on 22 million servers ($9 per copy, even less when you consider how many are running in internal intranets, downloaded but not used in production, or servers that are non-extant that used it). And the government can choose to eat those costs because it will reap greater reward in doing so than it spends on a protectionist industry that creates artificial scarcity to force software into being a commodity.
The final page contains a notice that 'no protons or electrons were harmed in the making of this comic'. Which is UTTER BLATANT LIES!
We must join with our Electron brethren and free them from the slavery they have been under since Edison figured out that light bulb thing! I will now free all the electrons in my hous-- (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
I concur. This entire liability lies elsewhere arguement is totally bunk. You will never recoup losses from downtime from your provider. If you want ultimate accountability you should be in-housing your maintenace/support. Those peoples jobs will be directly dependant on their performance in your organization which is a better motivation than merely getting some money back from another corporation.
There is a lot of finance talk going on in this article, but the conclusion he comes to is one that many of us already know: commercial Open Source creates a market for support and maintenance. Article might be good for corporate types wondering why licenses cost nothing over here.
The article makes a good point that it is more cost-effective to a) modify humans to live on mars, b) build smaller distributed habitats
However, I think presenting terraforming as simply the idea of people who think it our 'biological imperative' to do so is rather short-sighted.
Building habitats is an important first step. In fact it is likely the cheapest way to get a large population to kickstart a Martian colony (strap some boosters onto a habitat and send er out). Over time they could constitute some of the cheapest and most efficient sources of raw materials (solar energy, efficient hydroponics, and harvesting minerals from celestial bodies).
Here's the problem that isn't mentioned: There is a cost in the initial creation of every habitat. And if we continue having an economy similar to ours, what is the motivation for a habitat to build another habitat? Yes it will happen anyways, but it won't be a situation of exponential growth. What then do we do with excess population?
Terraforming a planet is a long and expensive endeavour. However, the costs are spread out over a long period of time and once done gives us a huge landmass for people to live and grow on. Further, while a planet is more sensitive to large scale disasters (comets and other attacks are suggested), the disasters are small compared to the overall large and distributed population on the planet.
Habitats have their place, as do terraformed planets. If there is still life where ever we choose to go, we as a species do need to be sensitive to the fact that we have already damaged one ecology. Should we not find continued life on Mars or Venus or Alpha Centauri, then what harm does the project do?
I obviously vote for the FSF or the EFF since they are established organizations. But how about this for an idea:
Keep LinuxFund. Someone broke down the estimate for how much the lead was paid ($14 an hour).
Guess what, I make that much at a dead end call center. I'm also a computing science student and between all that I fit some volunteer work running two groups. One is all about Open Source advocacy.
Do you know how much I make at my dead end call center? Roughly $14 CDN. However, I would gladly take on an increased workload and stress for something more interesting and in the field I want. So have the FSF or the EFF choose students to run it, we rarely find jobs paying this well anyways.
I think this is more a function of the fact that people who can't listen and just like to talk about themselves are generally geeks. I worked at a game store for two years and I could swear that there are markedly more people who don't know how to listen and just want to talk about themselves....
Re:Beavis..this is the coolest thing i have ever s
on
Your Own Mecha
·
· Score: 0
I've spoken to a few tank drivers while playing BattleTech and while the game concept amused them they had one simple reason for why mecha on the Evangelion/Macross/BattleTech size is unfeasible: Silhouette. To mount heavy weapons, decent armor, and other fancy things they have to be big. And thus tall. And thus nice big freaking targets for just about anyone. I think until mecha reach the maneuverability envisioned in japanese anime (so likely not in our lifetime) military mecha aren't likely to be feasible.
Being a huge Gibson fanboy for awhile now, I fail to see his mark in the Matrix beyond the grungy cyberpunk style, and the underlying theme of "machines/technology = bad" (which is definitely not exclusive to Gibson).
Perhaps the credit should have read: "Thanks to William Gibson for making us realize our internet-enabled toaster oven is evil and will lead to the downfall of mankind"
I'd like to point out that while debian itself may prove this true, one cannot say it is so for the *packages*. STILL trying to get the new version of pyDDR to work.
Re:I can see a lawsuit waiting to happen.
on
Underworld Trailer
·
· Score: 0
I was always kind of interested in why this happened anyways. Its made pretty clear that wolves/werewolves are very closely attached to vampires in Dracula so for White Wolf to shake things up by splitting them apart seemed odd. The preface for each White Wolf book contains a myth vs. fact section and they never go over this either.
Anyways: The idea of werewolves being the mortal enemies of vampires was new to me when I read the White Wolf RPGs, so unless the Ghostbuster cartoon reference predates them they might have grounds.
Slashdot Mirror
It's time to start a union how long before more stuff comes up that cut's you pay.
What the hell, how is this trolling? Just because there is a big chunk of libertarians rolling around in Slashdot doesn't make this an invalid observation.
To those who agree, consider organizing shop-by-shop initially via the 'Wobbly Method' (checkout http://iww.org/ for a union that shares your independence and belief in autonomy)
It's encouraging to see that the author chose to educate themselves on GPL style licenses and not fall into mindlessly spouting the same corporate FUD about them.
Oh wait. I'm expecting academics to be be smart enough to double check their sources. My bad. Might I recommend http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031214210634851 ?
I hate how this interviewer softballs his questions:
"GTA IV asks the players to make a few key decisions during its story, and weâ(TM)ve seen another Take 2 game, BioShock, experiment with similar ideas. How further can that model be pushed? Is it something youâ(TM)d like to take further in future games?"
As if we haven't seen games providing two plot choices that affect game outcome in the past. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic jumps out as a very recent mediocre game that fits the bill there. The only thing exciting about Bioshock's decisions were that there were manifest benefits to selecting the immoral choice.
Railroads with junctions are not some new-fangled 'model' who's limits are waiting to be 'pushed.' It's old and stale.
I read this article, was really pumped, then searched 'urban wind turbine' on google. This was the first trustworthy looking result: Mostly Hype. And the site appears to be pretty pro-wind power, so they're probably as disappointed as I am.
You totally missed the joke. This is regarding the fact that you are supposed to be able to receive a full refund for unused OEM copies of Windows on your computers but this has traditionally (and I believe continues to be) impossible to actually obtain. Which is probably a EULA thing or something equivalent to a TOS.
The key point isn't whether they would have succeeded, but whether they bothered to care. I fail to see how the administrations post-9/11 attitude is reflected in the material that is being brought to public attention. This is a disjunct you should consider, there was no political will to determine the nature of the threat and prevent it. To rally behind this administration as a 'defender of the people' is to stand behind the straw-man they built after the attack.
This matters globally. The fact is that the current US administration is viewed with disgust in many corners of the world. And if the world didn't have to worry about US policy then you would have a point. But it is obvious that poorly thought out policy in the States gets exported to the world, either directly (war in Iraq) or indirectly.
I consider it disgraceful that the American public allows this administration to defend itself with double-talk and astounding denials of documented and recorded fact. It is a travesty of representative democracy where the public should be calling their elected representative to account.
I was on the fence as to whether to hold the parent's opinion (which is that some projects have NIH issues that come out like this), or the general opinion that Joerg Schilling is seriously messed up. So I did some research. Read through these threads and I believe you will come to a point of view that is balanced and based on primary sources of evidence. You can also read my commentary, however it would be considered a secondary source of evidence.
0 113.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/08/msg0
There is a LOT of material here, I'll break down my impressions:
- Some instances of misunderstood word usage (ie CDDL is no longer acceptable to the Debian project in what appears to be a new bylaw or whatever they use)
- as a result Joerg Schilling accuses the project of being 'untrustworthy' and 'suspect.' IMO Far too strong terms to use for what could at worst be described as inconsistency. And I'm stretching that definition.
- REFUSED a request to move legal discussion to more appropriate mailing lists and claimed that personal accusations/attacks were made upon him on debian-devel and pointed out his own feelings that he should defend himself on debian-devel (This seems like such a breach of decorum after a civil if difficult debate/raging argument)
- Interpreting the GPL Preamble as word of law (after failing several other dubious GPL interpretations and basically accusing the FSF GPL FAQ maintainers of not knowing how to do their job)
- Having finally been pegged to a request for a name change in the event of a fork, tries to lay claim to the name 'dvdrecord' despite having dubious ability to claim ownership of a generic trademark like 'cdrecord' in the first place.
On the whole debian-devel participants displayed an AMAZING sense of decorum and civility in the face of nonsensical diatribes and difficult debate. Props to them.
There is a more technical debate dated around February on LKML regarding libsgc and cdrecord. (no link simply because I'm having trouble finding the head of the discussion, search LKML Jorg to find.) Here it appears that Joerg Schilling simply appears to be unwilling to compromise functionality and code in order to make his software work properly (or sanely) under Linux. This is closely tied into a unique view on how to make his code cross-platform and the fact that libsgc is meant to integrate with a far greater generalization of SCSI components than just CD drivers.
I don't understand the technical intricacies but it appears that over time the SCSI and IDE interface has changed dramatically. As a result he believes the kernel should change to accomodate his software. That wasn't received very well at which point it might have been appropriate to chalk it up to simple disagreement and walk away, however it degenerated into a variety of other semi-related discussions that were far too personal. (Keep an eye open for 'smake' and the 'Schily Makefile System,' I kid you not.)
I've seen two different comments from the founders of this business where they say game developers are "enthuthiastic" (and other exciting, developers-are-pumped-up-words). Who actually cares? It's not like their games are going to be vastly improved with this POS.
Don't worry, this video is kind of useless for everyone. Most people already understand how harnessing a vast user community is a "Good Thing"(TM). Video is only interesting as a primer, and even as a review it is sometimes painful to watch the presenter (good start, but needs to be a bit more comfortable with public speaking)
If you're smart, you already have backups. You need them to protect yourself so nobody can make you take the blame for something that "happened" after you left. Same with your email. Same with personal effects. Remove everything the day before you hand in your resignation. You're an idiot if you don't.
If you're insane you have backups of your email. If you take anything of the sort and there is a good chance you are in violation of multiple sections of company policy, not to mention information in your emails that likely shouldn't leave the company either for personal privacy, or competitive reasons. PLEASE. Before you follow this advice confirm your company policy, the company is likely protecting ITSELF first from incriminating email data and by keeping your own copy of it for retaliatory reasons could invite way more hurt on yourself than you think.
Wikipedia article on Marginal Cost
Despite the subject dear to most of us, we shouldnt ignore the fact that he is essentially claiming that developed software is free. He is totaly ignoring the costs incured in developping the software, and only accounting for the costs incured in copying it.
The article is generally careful to say that it it is the marginal cost (see Wikipediea). While assuming that the actual cost per unit will be $0 in all cases, it is a safe assumption in particularily large cases.
From any economic source the function is MC = dTC / dQ where MC is our marginal cost, dTC is the derivative of the total cost, and dQ is the quantity.
Math lovers unite. For a single software project, TC is a constant value so dTC is 0. You've already done the upfront cost of developing the software, distribution is the cost of providing a torrent and a seed. Marginal cost must be $0 in all cases.
That doesn't mean the actual per unit cost is $0, but at the scales some projects operate at, it nearly is. With Firefox achieving 100 million downloads in one year ($2 per copy, less as 2006 progresses), Apache running on 22 million servers ($9 per copy, even less when you consider how many are running in internal intranets, downloaded but not used in production, or servers that are non-extant that used it). And the government can choose to eat those costs because it will reap greater reward in doing so than it spends on a protectionist industry that creates artificial scarcity to force software into being a commodity.
The final page contains a notice that 'no protons or electrons were harmed in the making of this comic'. Which is UTTER BLATANT LIES!
We must join with our Electron brethren and free them from the slavery they have been under since Edison figured out that light bulb thing! I will now free all the electrons in my hous-- (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
I concur. This entire liability lies elsewhere arguement is totally bunk. You will never recoup losses from downtime from your provider. If you want ultimate accountability you should be in-housing your maintenace/support. Those peoples jobs will be directly dependant on their performance in your organization which is a better motivation than merely getting some money back from another corporation.
There is a lot of finance talk going on in this article, but the conclusion he comes to is one that many of us already know: commercial Open Source creates a market for support and maintenance. Article might be good for corporate types wondering why licenses cost nothing over here.
Hey, if you ever decide to flee to Canada to escape oppressive corporations and need a couch to crash on give me a ring.
The article makes a good point that it is more cost-effective to a) modify humans to live on mars, b) build smaller distributed habitats However, I think presenting terraforming as simply the idea of people who think it our 'biological imperative' to do so is rather short-sighted. Building habitats is an important first step. In fact it is likely the cheapest way to get a large population to kickstart a Martian colony (strap some boosters onto a habitat and send er out). Over time they could constitute some of the cheapest and most efficient sources of raw materials (solar energy, efficient hydroponics, and harvesting minerals from celestial bodies). Here's the problem that isn't mentioned: There is a cost in the initial creation of every habitat. And if we continue having an economy similar to ours, what is the motivation for a habitat to build another habitat? Yes it will happen anyways, but it won't be a situation of exponential growth. What then do we do with excess population? Terraforming a planet is a long and expensive endeavour. However, the costs are spread out over a long period of time and once done gives us a huge landmass for people to live and grow on. Further, while a planet is more sensitive to large scale disasters (comets and other attacks are suggested), the disasters are small compared to the overall large and distributed population on the planet. Habitats have their place, as do terraformed planets. If there is still life where ever we choose to go, we as a species do need to be sensitive to the fact that we have already damaged one ecology. Should we not find continued life on Mars or Venus or Alpha Centauri, then what harm does the project do?
OK, so it's pretty clear that the script is creating derivative works by stitching together the sat-maps. But how is Chicagocrime violating the terms?
I obviously vote for the FSF or the EFF since they are established organizations. But how about this for an idea: Keep LinuxFund. Someone broke down the estimate for how much the lead was paid ($14 an hour). Guess what, I make that much at a dead end call center. I'm also a computing science student and between all that I fit some volunteer work running two groups. One is all about Open Source advocacy. Do you know how much I make at my dead end call center? Roughly $14 CDN. However, I would gladly take on an increased workload and stress for something more interesting and in the field I want. So have the FSF or the EFF choose students to run it, we rarely find jobs paying this well anyways.
I think this is more a function of the fact that people who can't listen and just like to talk about themselves are generally geeks. I worked at a game store for two years and I could swear that there are markedly more people who don't know how to listen and just want to talk about themselves....
I've spoken to a few tank drivers while playing BattleTech and while the game concept amused them they had one simple reason for why mecha on the Evangelion/Macross/BattleTech size is unfeasible: Silhouette. To mount heavy weapons, decent armor, and other fancy things they have to be big. And thus tall. And thus nice big freaking targets for just about anyone. I think until mecha reach the maneuverability envisioned in japanese anime (so likely not in our lifetime) military mecha aren't likely to be feasible.
Being a huge Gibson fanboy for awhile now, I fail to see his mark in the Matrix beyond the grungy cyberpunk style, and the underlying theme of "machines/technology = bad" (which is definitely not exclusive to Gibson).
Perhaps the credit should have read: "Thanks to William Gibson for making us realize our internet-enabled toaster oven is evil and will lead to the downfall of mankind"
(and yes, the space rastas were very funny.)
I'd like to point out that while debian itself may prove this true, one cannot say it is so for the *packages*. STILL trying to get the new version of pyDDR to work.
I was always kind of interested in why this happened anyways. Its made pretty clear that wolves/werewolves are very closely attached to vampires in Dracula so for White Wolf to shake things up by splitting them apart seemed odd. The preface for each White Wolf book contains a myth vs. fact section and they never go over this either.
Anyways: The idea of werewolves being the mortal enemies of vampires was new to me when I read the White Wolf RPGs, so unless the Ghostbuster cartoon reference predates them they might have grounds.