There certainly are a number of OSS projects that get stalled for whatever reason (developer has no more time, loses interest, etc.), but the same thing happens in the corporate world too. The main difference is that if you have an inclination to, you can still pick up the ball and run with it on a dead OSS project that you find interesting or that may be useful to you without having to start from scratch. The dead closed-source projects OTOH never see the light of day and thus are doing no one any good at all.
Sure, it can be frustrating when you come across a cool project that isn't in a useful state, but no one owes anyone anything, and those who are motivated to do so can take over those abandoned projects at any time instead of just whining about them. After replying to this post, I'm a bit ashamed I haven't been contributing myself - there is an awful lot of really cool stuff runnning on my boxes that I didn't have to pay a penny for, and for all those responsible for its creation, I thank you greatly.
I've been using multiple monitors since that meant an 80x25 monochrome display on an ISA MDA card, and in general I think they're great.
Ah, I remember the old CodeView days fondly myself. Back then, it was about the only way to get any real debugging done under Windows using a single machine.:-)
The text in the ToS notwithstanding, isn't it generally a point of contract law that a party can't unilaterally change the terms of the contract without consideration? If TiVo chooses to rescind part of their service without giving a corresponding break on the price (the aforementioned consideration), it seems to me that they could be at the losing end of a lawsuit, and that the applicable parts of the ToS could be held as unenforceable.
Anyone that knows anything about law want to chime in here?
Audio recording really doesn't need to respond to interrupts, it just needs to do one thing with as little delay as possible
Of course it has to respond to interrupts - the system too busy doing other things to spend ridiculous amounts of time polling the hardware to see if the sample buffers are full/empty, or to see if a MIDI message has arrived, etc.
And amateur astronomers have dealt with this problem for years as well. Condensation on optics is a regular problem even when ambient is well above dew point.
Remember, every time someone uses a gun to kill a bunch of people, the media picks it up and makes millions with it. Think of the school shootings, and that sniper guy in DC. Very few people were killed, and it isn't a wide-spread problem, but it's immediately a nation-wide crisis.
And in general, the incidents in which firearms are used to prevent a crime don't show up on the evening news, because it doesn't fit the mantra of, "if it bleeds, it leads".
And suspended habeas corpus too, out of "necessity" of war with the French.
I'm reminded of something my uncle told me, which was "don't trust anyone in government, particularly the police". What made his words much more compelling was the fact that he spent many, many years of his life serving as a U.S. Marshal.
You are perfectly free to perform any patented method or build any patented machine. You are not free, however, to use them to engage in business.
Actually, patents do prohibit merely making or using the patented item/process regardless of whether it's for profit or not.
From 35 USC 271(a): "Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent." (emphasis mine)
It's rather like the laws that apply to justifiable use of deadly force - there's what the law strictly says, and then there's what you'll deal with in reality, and at best they bear only a passing resemblance to each other.
Gapless transitions would make the iPod actually useful for listening to a lot of classical music that has no real dead space between movements, along with lots of orchestral movie soundtracks and such. As it is, there's a jarring silence when listening to such music, and crossfading just doesn't cut it for me in that situation.
On trucks or an SUV... no contest, always been an improvement in terms of efficency.
Absolutely, but it takes a long to reach a break-even point when the diesel is a $5000 option, and only available on a 3/4 ton chassis that by itself may add another several thousand dollars to the price. I would love to have gotten a diesel in my truck, but it just wasn't worth the premium.
I'll agree with that - for three years I had a Regal GS, and got about 23 mpg city/28 mpg highway with it. Not bad for a four-door sedan that had enough torque to yank the steering wheel out of your hands if you didn't have a real firm grip on it when you romped on the throttle.
By comparison, the brand-new (400 km on the odometer) diesel Opel Vectra that I rented while in France this year got about 30 mpg on the highway, and had *nowhere* near the power the Regal did. It wasn't slow, but merging into highway traffic was more of a chore. It was a substantially smaller car, but the fuel economy wasn't substantially higher.
I just happened to read your little.50 BMG article on your site - you might want to research that a little bit more and not just accept what the media says, as a high-end Barrett.50 BMG rifle (the U.S. military mostly uses Barrett M82A1s for their.50 cal needs) has nowhere near an effective range of four miles, and won't shoot through "inches of armor plate" or "concrete bunkers". Typically, a *really* good shot with a really good rifle, really good ammunition, a really good bench rest, and absolutely still air can get a spread of about 5" or so at 1000 yards. Some people can actually hit a 10" target at 2000 yards, but they're very far and few between, and most of it is luck. Four miles is more than 7000 yards, which corresponds to about 12 seconds or so for the bullet's flight time and a bullet drop of several hundred feet, meaning there's not a scope out there that's adjustable enough to deal with that range, even if the shooter could. Ain't gonna happen, especially if the target is moving.
An M82A1 is $7775 retail (without accessories or ammo, which usually runs about $4-5 per round), weighs more than 30 pounds, and is almost five feet long. In addition, Ronnie Barrett himself requires a background check be performed on all civilian purchasers of his rifles. It's simply not a very practical weapon for the average terrorist, despite what the "anti-scary gun" crowd may say.
The problem with making it legal for everyone to carry and use guns, is that you make it harder for police to gather enough evidence to get criminals off the streets.
Oh, please. There are plenty of opportunities to get criminals off the streets that are simply not taken advantage of by law enforcement. Let's take the simple act of attempting to purchase a gun from a gun store. Anyone wanting to buy a firearm from a federally-licensed dealer has to fill out a BATF Form 4473, which asks, among other things, whether the prospective buyer has a criminal history that would preclude him from buying a gun under 18 USC 922. If the applicant indicates that he has such a history, the dealer refuses the sale right then and there. If not, the dealer then requests a NICS ( National Instant Criminal Background Check System) check, and if the NICS system indicates a denial, the federal government at that point knows not only that someone has committed a federal felony by attempting to purchase the firearm, but they also have the verified contact information needed to go pick the individual up and take him to jail.
In 2002, approximately 60,000 purchases were denied under NICS on the basis of a qualifying criminal record. More than half of those were on the basis of either a previous felony indictment/conviction or domestic violence. Those denials, after an initial review by the FBI, are sent on to the BATF to be dispatched out to agents in the field. The BATF has seven people designated to handle that workload. As a result, less than 15% of the denials are actually sent out to the field agents, and of those, precious few actually see the inside of a courtroom. In 2002, of 59,778 NICS denials on the basis of previous criminal history, 91 were prosecuted, with 90 convictions.
When presented with solid evidence of 60,000 federal felonies involving firearms every year, our government sees fit to bring less than 0.2% of them to trial, even though they have a 99% conviction rate on those people they do prosecute. Based on that, I'd guess our major problem is not with the police being unable to gather evidence, but rather with the lack of governmental (at all levels) motivation to do anything when that evidence is practically handed to them.
The problem with making it illegal for people to carry and use guns is that it leaves only the criminals armed, since by definition they don't follow the laws anyway and have a lot less respect for life and property than the majority of society.
Not quite - comparing the firearms laws of D.C. and Vermont or Alaska probably would have been though. Florida is actually fairly middle-ground as far as gun laws are concerned.
Regardless, the crime statistics still show the same trends.
I've seen tire shops take the same kinds of shortcuts on installation, and charge twice as much for the privilege. If it wasn't for the need to spin-balance the damn things after they were mounted, I'd probably just buy them and install them myself - I had to do most of the work again anyway when I replaced all of the stems, but at least I know it was done properly that time.
As far as getting a car worked on, I think it's a case of "if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself".
When the ambulance comes everyone should slow down, pull to the right, and stop.
Ideally, I'd agree with you, but that's not always how it works. Last week I totally ruined a tire that went flat because I was on a two-lane highway with guardrails less than four feet off the roadway and it was half a mile before I reached an area large enough to safely pull off the road. An ambulance or fire truck would have been totally at my mercy in that situation.
Lesson learned - if you happen to buy tires at Sam's Club, it's probably a good idea to watch the installer to make sure he actually uses the proper tool to install the stems instead of just yanking them through the rims with a pair of pliers. I had two flats in two weeks because of those bozos.
Well, duh. It's Florida, you're supposed to enforce justice yourself by shooting back.
No, that's not quite how self-defense law works down here, and the sheriff's office most definitely could prosecute the assailant for firing into an occupied vehicle, discharging a firearm within city limits, and a host of other offenses. They did have an eyewitness to the shooting, plus there is going to be evidence inside the vehicle that a firearm was discharged.
I also like the comment "so long as America keeps passing dumb laws like that" - as if Washington D.C.'s Draconian gun laws have made the first bit of difference there.
What about a child? Where would YOU draw the line?
That's a ridiculous question - dogs, cats, etc. are legally property. People are not. Of course I'd feel badly running over a cat or other cuddly animal, but if it's between that and losing control of the vehicle, causing perhaps thousands of dollars in damage or worse, injuring someone, the cat doesn't get a second thought at the moment. Certainly I avoid animals on the road where possible. However, the most important part of driving is judgement, and that means knowing when you just have to suck it up and barrel over someone's pet in the road for the greater good.
On the other hand, it was my experience in France that the highway speed limits were a little more reasonable than in the U.S., and it was refreshing being on the road with people that actually appeared to be aware of the laws regarding right-of-way and such.
That was on the highway - driving in downtown Paris is taking your life into your hands. They appear to subscribe to the "you made eye contact with me, therefore I have the right-of-way" methodology.
When this happens you must report it to the police immediately. In the best case scenario, you provide enough information for the drunk-driver to be charged.
That's not how it works in the U.S. - in general, traffic cases won't be pursued unless the ticketing/arresting officer actually witnesses the infraction. You can call and report drunk drivers, but unless he actually gets pulled over while under the influence, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of nothing happening.
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There certainly are a number of OSS projects that get stalled for whatever reason (developer has no more time, loses interest, etc.), but the same thing happens in the corporate world too. The main difference is that if you have an inclination to, you can still pick up the ball and run with it on a dead OSS project that you find interesting or that may be useful to you without having to start from scratch. The dead closed-source projects OTOH never see the light of day and thus are doing no one any good at all.
Sure, it can be frustrating when you come across a cool project that isn't in a useful state, but no one owes anyone anything, and those who are motivated to do so can take over those abandoned projects at any time instead of just whining about them. After replying to this post, I'm a bit ashamed I haven't been contributing myself - there is an awful lot of really cool stuff runnning on my boxes that I didn't have to pay a penny for, and for all those responsible for its creation, I thank you greatly.
I've been using multiple monitors since that meant an 80x25 monochrome display on an ISA MDA card, and in general I think they're great.
:-)
Ah, I remember the old CodeView days fondly myself. Back then, it was about the only way to get any real debugging done under Windows using a single machine.
The text in the ToS notwithstanding, isn't it generally a point of contract law that a party can't unilaterally change the terms of the contract without consideration? If TiVo chooses to rescind part of their service without giving a corresponding break on the price (the aforementioned consideration), it seems to me that they could be at the losing end of a lawsuit, and that the applicable parts of the ToS could be held as unenforceable.
Anyone that knows anything about law want to chime in here?
Audio recording really doesn't need to respond to interrupts, it just needs to do one thing with as little delay as possible
Of course it has to respond to interrupts - the system too busy doing other things to spend ridiculous amounts of time polling the hardware to see if the sample buffers are full/empty, or to see if a MIDI message has arrived, etc.
And amateur astronomers have dealt with this problem for years as well. Condensation on optics is a regular problem even when ambient is well above dew point.
Easy - Home comes in a green box and has a green splash screen, and Pro is themed in blue. :-)
Remember, every time someone uses a gun to kill a bunch of people, the media picks it up and makes millions with it. Think of the school shootings, and that sniper guy in DC. Very few people were killed, and it isn't a wide-spread problem, but it's immediately a nation-wide crisis.
And in general, the incidents in which firearms are used to prevent a crime don't show up on the evening news, because it doesn't fit the mantra of, "if it bleeds, it leads".
And suspended habeas corpus too, out of "necessity" of war with the French.
I'm reminded of something my uncle told me, which was "don't trust anyone in government, particularly the police". What made his words much more compelling was the fact that he spent many, many years of his life serving as a U.S. Marshal.
You are perfectly free to perform any patented method or build any patented machine. You are not free, however, to use them to engage in business.
Actually, patents do prohibit merely making or using the patented item/process regardless of whether it's for profit or not.
From 35 USC 271(a): "Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent." (emphasis mine)
It's rather like the laws that apply to justifiable use of deadly force - there's what the law strictly says, and then there's what you'll deal with in reality, and at best they bear only a passing resemblance to each other.
Gapless transitions would make the iPod actually useful for listening to a lot of classical music that has no real dead space between movements, along with lots of orchestral movie soundtracks and such. As it is, there's a jarring silence when listening to such music, and crossfading just doesn't cut it for me in that situation.
9th Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Just because it's not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
On trucks or an SUV... no contest, always been an improvement in terms of efficency.
Absolutely, but it takes a long to reach a break-even point when the diesel is a $5000 option, and only available on a 3/4 ton chassis that by itself may add another several thousand dollars to the price. I would love to have gotten a diesel in my truck, but it just wasn't worth the premium.
Fast cars can be efficient too.
I'll agree with that - for three years I had a Regal GS, and got about 23 mpg city/28 mpg highway with it. Not bad for a four-door sedan that had enough torque to yank the steering wheel out of your hands if you didn't have a real firm grip on it when you romped on the throttle.
By comparison, the brand-new (400 km on the odometer) diesel Opel Vectra that I rented while in France this year got about 30 mpg on the highway, and had *nowhere* near the power the Regal did. It wasn't slow, but merging into highway traffic was more of a chore. It was a substantially smaller car, but the fuel economy wasn't substantially higher.
And now for my off-topic post.
.50 BMG article on your site - you might want to research that a little bit more and not just accept what the media says, as a high-end Barrett .50 BMG rifle (the U.S. military mostly uses Barrett M82A1s for their .50 cal needs) has nowhere near an effective range of four miles, and won't shoot through "inches of armor plate" or "concrete bunkers". Typically, a *really* good shot with a really good rifle, really good ammunition, a really good bench rest, and absolutely still air can get a spread of about 5" or so at 1000 yards. Some people can actually hit a 10" target at 2000 yards, but they're very far and few between, and most of it is luck. Four miles is more than 7000 yards, which corresponds to about 12 seconds or so for the bullet's flight time and a bullet drop of several hundred feet, meaning there's not a scope out there that's adjustable enough to deal with that range, even if the shooter could. Ain't gonna happen, especially if the target is moving.
I just happened to read your little
An M82A1 is $7775 retail (without accessories or ammo, which usually runs about $4-5 per round), weighs more than 30 pounds, and is almost five feet long. In addition, Ronnie Barrett himself requires a background check be performed on all civilian purchasers of his rifles. It's simply not a very practical weapon for the average terrorist, despite what the "anti-scary gun" crowd may say.
The problem with making it legal for everyone to carry and use guns, is that you make it harder for police to gather enough evidence to get criminals off the streets.
Oh, please. There are plenty of opportunities to get criminals off the streets that are simply not taken advantage of by law enforcement. Let's take the simple act of attempting to purchase a gun from a gun store. Anyone wanting to buy a firearm from a federally-licensed dealer has to fill out a BATF Form 4473, which asks, among other things, whether the prospective buyer has a criminal history that would preclude him from buying a gun under 18 USC 922. If the applicant indicates that he has such a history, the dealer refuses the sale right then and there. If not, the dealer then requests a NICS ( National Instant Criminal Background Check System) check, and if the NICS system indicates a denial, the federal government at that point knows not only that someone has committed a federal felony by attempting to purchase the firearm, but they also have the verified contact information needed to go pick the individual up and take him to jail.
In 2002, approximately 60,000 purchases were denied under NICS on the basis of a qualifying criminal record. More than half of those were on the basis of either a previous felony indictment/conviction or domestic violence. Those denials, after an initial review by the FBI, are sent on to the BATF to be dispatched out to agents in the field. The BATF has seven people designated to handle that workload. As a result, less than 15% of the denials are actually sent out to the field agents, and of those, precious few actually see the inside of a courtroom. In 2002, of 59,778 NICS denials on the basis of previous criminal history, 91 were prosecuted, with 90 convictions.
When presented with solid evidence of 60,000 federal felonies involving firearms every year, our government sees fit to bring less than 0.2% of them to trial, even though they have a 99% conviction rate on those people they do prosecute. Based on that, I'd guess our major problem is not with the police being unable to gather evidence, but rather with the lack of governmental (at all levels) motivation to do anything when that evidence is practically handed to them.
The problem with making it illegal for people to carry and use guns is that it leaves only the criminals armed, since by definition they don't follow the laws anyway and have a lot less respect for life and property than the majority of society.
False dichotomy alert!
Not quite - comparing the firearms laws of D.C. and Vermont or Alaska probably would have been though. Florida is actually fairly middle-ground as far as gun laws are concerned.
Regardless, the crime statistics still show the same trends.
I've seen tire shops take the same kinds of shortcuts on installation, and charge twice as much for the privilege. If it wasn't for the need to spin-balance the damn things after they were mounted, I'd probably just buy them and install them myself - I had to do most of the work again anyway when I replaced all of the stems, but at least I know it was done properly that time.
As far as getting a car worked on, I think it's a case of "if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself".
My point simply was that you can't compare hitting an animal to hitting a person.
Thanks for the sentiments.
When the ambulance comes everyone should slow down, pull to the right, and stop.
Ideally, I'd agree with you, but that's not always how it works. Last week I totally ruined a tire that went flat because I was on a two-lane highway with guardrails less than four feet off the roadway and it was half a mile before I reached an area large enough to safely pull off the road. An ambulance or fire truck would have been totally at my mercy in that situation.
Lesson learned - if you happen to buy tires at Sam's Club, it's probably a good idea to watch the installer to make sure he actually uses the proper tool to install the stems instead of just yanking them through the rims with a pair of pliers. I had two flats in two weeks because of those bozos.
Well, duh. It's Florida, you're supposed to enforce justice yourself by shooting back.
No, that's not quite how self-defense law works down here, and the sheriff's office most definitely could prosecute the assailant for firing into an occupied vehicle, discharging a firearm within city limits, and a host of other offenses. They did have an eyewitness to the shooting, plus there is going to be evidence inside the vehicle that a firearm was discharged.
I also like the comment "so long as America keeps passing dumb laws like that" - as if Washington D.C.'s Draconian gun laws have made the first bit of difference there.
What about a child? Where would YOU draw the line?
That's a ridiculous question - dogs, cats, etc. are legally property. People are not. Of course I'd feel badly running over a cat or other cuddly animal, but if it's between that and losing control of the vehicle, causing perhaps thousands of dollars in damage or worse, injuring someone, the cat doesn't get a second thought at the moment. Certainly I avoid animals on the road where possible. However, the most important part of driving is judgement, and that means knowing when you just have to suck it up and barrel over someone's pet in the road for the greater good.
On the other hand, it was my experience in France that the highway speed limits were a little more reasonable than in the U.S., and it was refreshing being on the road with people that actually appeared to be aware of the laws regarding right-of-way and such.
That was on the highway - driving in downtown Paris is taking your life into your hands. They appear to subscribe to the "you made eye contact with me, therefore I have the right-of-way" methodology.
When this happens you must report it to the police immediately. In the best case scenario, you provide enough information for the drunk-driver to be charged.
That's not how it works in the U.S. - in general, traffic cases won't be pursued unless the ticketing/arresting officer actually witnesses the infraction. You can call and report drunk drivers, but unless he actually gets pulled over while under the influence, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of nothing happening.