I used to use a similar methodology. Then one day I said "F@&K this, I'm tired of writing stuff down." and I've never looked back. The only effects I notice are that I use less paper and I never have to bother writing stuff down. Has it affected my memory? Can't tell.
To my thinking the key is that we have such a narrow definition of life, since we are only aware of one kind - life on Earth. Perhaps there exist intelligent entities out there that are undetectable to us. Perhaps, they are so different that they are also looking for life but with an entirely different definition. So it's like ships passing in the night.
Not sure why people refuse to understand that freedom requires restrictions. Lack of restrictions is called Anarchy. To maximize everyone's freedoms requires restrictions. It's the difference between being free to punch someone in the face and being free to not get punched in the face.
Since gnash can play youtube video, this isn't a restriction in practice. Much ado about very little.
You may be correct that Gnash can currently play youtube videos. But you're missing the point of this article.
FTA:
Citizens should be able to download transition-related content in a way that makes it simple to share, excerpt, remix, or redistribute.
The issue is not only being able to view the content using free/open software but more generally being able to do something useful with the video without having to jump through hoops. Especially hoops that have difficult to decipher legal encumbrance.
There are 2 definitions that I can think of for Free Will.
A) Free Will is the assertion that our are actions are not
deterministic and not random but something else.
B) Free Will is the experience of knowing that some other agent (like another person) has goals and will make choices and actions to meet those goals that may or may not be predictable to us.
Regarding A, I've never heard of this "some other thing" described in any meaningful way. I've also heard arguments that make anything other than determinism sound impossible.
As for B, (which is probably better termed the concept of Self Agency) I think it's a critically important part of getting what you want from the world.
Re:Re-usable libraries
on
Bash Cookbook
·
· Score: 1
I've developed a set of bash libraries that we call the BPE. These libraries implement a hashmap, stack, linked list, MySQL API, SQLite API and all sorts of other useful things that one doesn't want to re-invent for every script.
Speaking of useful things that one doesn't want to re-invent... But seriously, when you're implementing stuff like hashmap you're either creating a new programming language or it's time to select a better tool.
There are simply too many people and there isn't enough wealth in the world [to provide basic sustenance for those who need it]
Why?
The easiest proof of this comes from the well-known study that showed if everyone one Earth consumed the same resources as the average American, we would need 3 Earths to generate the basic inputs of materials and energy - clearly an impossibility
The problem there, as you mention, is the amount of resources Americans consume. The post you are replying to said, "make life's basics free for anyone who asks". An Xbox, Brittany Spears and a Big Mac are not life's basics.
Also, if it would take 3 Earths of resources to give everyone the lifestyle you talk about, then all we need to do is consume one third less resources and we have a solution.
Anyway, it's much more complicated than that. Even if the basic necessities were provided, that wouldn't prevent other problems like intolerance and violence. Does it matter that your are warm, clothed and fed when dudes with assault rifles are murdering your family?
I don't think we can say what the effect of the Foundation will be for a long time. I am, however, skeptical. BillG was a robber baron for 3 decades, proving that power and money were his greatest ideals.
Now he wants to give some money back. It seems like everyone assumes that giving away large sums of money means you're a great philanthropist. I disagree. Lots of his pay outs seem to be band aid solutions that sound good but are not really concerned with affecting the deep and painful social change necessary to make lasting improvements in impoverished parts of the world. He seems to be giving people fish so they will be dependent on gifts rather than teaching them to fish.
His gifts seem like investments in the same apathetic economic machinery that does little or nothing to help these impoverished places. Investing in drug research? Why, so these companies can make a profit selling the drugs to these needy and poor people? Thanks Bill!
I really dislike the article attacking the Apache licence. The Apache and BSD licenses are the purest form of what OSS stands for. It is freedom in the true sense
Freedom can mean different things to different people. If we compare two islands, first, an island where there are no laws and I am free to stab you in your face and take your money. Or second, an island where laws restrict some freedoms to guarantee others?
I can see why both options are attractive, but you know what? I don't want to get stabbed in the face no matter which is more free.
Isn't the entire point of the GPL to restrict others' freedom? Am I taking crazy pills?
Freedom is relative, your idea of freedom is not the same as my idea of freedom. There is no such thing as absolute freedom.
GPL and BSDL both attempt to maximize different kinds freedoms. Which you prefer has to do with what's important to you, not some discovery of what "absolute" freedom means to all of humanity.
If we were to define the type of freedom we are interested in then we could argue which license supports those freedoms better. For example, BSDL is the great at giving me access to an existing codebase I can own and totally control. Or, GPL is great for being a good neighbor and creating a legacy of code that is committed to it's users freedom to share and use it.
One of the 4 freedoms of free software and the GPL is; "the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors". To me this sounds very much like a belief in community expressed by the license.
In your example both Bob and Alice are giving and taking from the software community created by free software and the GPL. Alice likely used preexisting GPL software as the tools or basis of the software she built. Bob benefits as such and also has the source code for the modifications that he paid for thanks to the GPL. Both people are members of and have benefited from the free software community.
Sounds to me like this isn't about one place being better or worse than the other. Rather, that the blog author just likes Microsoft's old school, process heavy approach rather than Google's freestyle, open and engineer focus style.
Here's the thing, if I buy a PC to play DVD's, browse the Internet, etc, I can get something for $400-600 that does the job adequately. However, that system will not play games. If I want to play games I'm looking at a $1000-1500 box at a minimum. That premium is entirely about playing games and that extra horsepower goes almost entirely unused when playing a movie, etc.
I'm not a big PC game player, but $1000-$1500 to play games at a minimum? You must be talking about bleeding edge games. A Geforce 8600GT 256MB DDR3 costs about CDN$120. Add that on to a $400 dollar computer (2GB DDR2, AMD X2 5000+) and you're playing games. Maybe not the newest games or games at 8x antialiasing. But you're playing games and having fun for much less than $1500.
Heck my brother and his girlfriend get some good mileage out of their 3 year old computer for playing older games like Elder Scrolls and Wolfenstien ET. A modern $600 computer that includes a decent graphics card and a non Semperon/Celeron proccess seems like it will go a long way. But then again, I'm somewhat out of the loop where modern gaming is concerned.
This is a really interesting topic. I think the key quotes from the article are
But a politically correct dogma holds that open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation, and that claim is not borne out by the facts.
and
An honest empiricist must conclude that while the open approach has been able to create lovely, polished copies, it hasn't been so good at creating notable originals.
I'm not sure what facts Jaron is refering to. But from these two quotes we see that Jaron believes that perhaps OSS is not "the best path to creativity and innovation" and that OSS "hasn't been so good at creating notable originals".
This rests heavily on how one defines "notable originals". I think Linux and GNU qualify as notable and original in that they are the first piece of software of their kind to be so powerful, flexible and open and free. Those characteristics make it hugely notable, original and innovative. Obviously Linux has been greatly influenced by past works, but it's originality lies in it's sum, not it's parts.
The open-source software community is simply too turbulent to focus its tests and maintain its criteria over an extended duration, and that is a prerequisite to evolving highly original things.
I don't buy this. The development of GNU for 24+ years or Linux for 17+ years is not focus? And even so, I don't see a correlation between duration (of development) and highly original things.
Many comments are debating whether this or that is innovative, but I think they're missing the point of what it means to innovate. To innovate is to alter something or create something new. That's it. Better or worse, it's still innovation. Even so, I don't think his argument is about innovation. It's more about how best to create what he calls "notable originals" and whether science can benefit from a more open source, community process type approach. Can it? I don't know. But I do feel he's shafting OSS with some narrow definition of what notable and original mean.
I think two more interesting questions are as follows. First, to date, which has generated the most notability, originality and innovation, OSS or closed software? Secondly, which model has the most potential for notability, originality and innovation, OSS or closed source software?
the equilibrium music production reached when the only incentive to produce is one's own joy is less than the amount that produces a social optimum I guess it depends on how you define "social optimum".
we need to create an incentive structure that is best for society Why do we? What is the dark alternative that we face?
I think music is the incentive of music. I suspect that listeners and musicians would continue to enjoy music just fine even if every last artificial incentive for the production of music disappeared.
I don't like the state of the music industry, but what you describe sounds like more of the same type of problem.
I've been using a hosts file that I downloaded from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and it works like a charm. Anytime I see an ad (which is exceedingly rare), I add it to my hosts file and I never see ads from that ad server again.
One time, I was trying to do something with google ads and I realized it wasn't working, so I removed the google entries from hosts and everything worked fine.
I hear you. I recently got back in to D&D with some friends who play the 3.5 edition. And I found it surprising that the game was so damn complicated. I think perhaps D&D players want the complicated game mechanics so they can comb over dozens of books looking for loopholes and the right combination of rules to make silly "powerful" characters. I guess they would be roll-players rather than role-players.
I've always liked the White Wolf World of Darkness games. Fairly simple, fun, creative. Good stuff.
The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.
Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.
The confusing part is that the GPL (and many other licenses) is both a Free Software license and a Open Source license. Some people choose it to further Open Source and other use it to further Free Software.
I guess choosing which ideology to support depends on what one is ultimately willing to sacrifice; freedom or quality.
Re:This is my single biggest push to free software
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Sure. But Open Source software is not going to uphold your freedoms, only Free Software will. Any freedoms that Open Source software gives you is just incidental to the development methodology used. They will be the first to go when sacrificed for some technical merit.
Here's an amusing quote by RMS about Free Softare and Open Source from here,
The GNU GPL is used by developers with various views, but it was written to serve the ethical goals of the free software movement. Says Stallman, "The GNU GPL makes sense in terms of its purpose: freedom and social solidarity. Trying to understand it in terms of the goals and values of open source is like trying understand a CD drive's retractable drawer as a cupholder. You can use it for that, but that is not what it was designed for."
I'm not obese...I'm not even mildly overweight, and I exercise regularly. Why should I have to pay extra for health care because other people live unhealthy lifestyles?
I totally agree. Also, why do I have to pay for the education system? I don't have any kids. Why do I have to pay for the fire department? I have smoke alarms. Why do I pay for a police department? I have locks on my doors. Why do I pay tax to build roads and such? I don't drive a car. Why do I have to pay tax for health care, I'll never get sick or ever run out of money for medical expenses.
Oh wait, it's because of the huge benefits these services provide to society at large.
The GNU GPL is used by developers with various views, but it was written
to serve the ethical goals of the free software movement. Says Stallman,
"The GNU GPL makes sense in terms of its purpose: freedom and social
solidarity. Trying to understand it in terms of the goals and values of
open source is like trying understand a CD drive's retractable drawer as
a cupholder. You can use it for that, but that is not what it was
designed for."
I've used both GNOME and KDE, but I decided to use GNOME. Been using it with Fedora Core 3 for over a year now and it works just fine. What's this big problem with GNOME anyway? My 2 biggest complaints are lack of a "show in groups" in the nautilus file view and closing multiple instances of the same program from the taskbar (there's no close all, you have to click close on each one).
Have you seen Macromedia LiveDocs? I remember they sent out a survey about what users wanted for an online help system - and LiveDocs is somehow what they came up with. Why are docs javascript driven? Why do they take 45 seconds to load? Why do all the pages have stupid urls like http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/mx2004/main_7 _2/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm?href=Part_ASL R.html?
Where is the single list of all classes? Also, the amount of typos and error in the Flash documentation has been astounding.
Slashdot Mirror
You can get Android running on a bunch of the HTC phones . Not sure if it works well enough to use full time...
I used to use a similar methodology. Then one day I said "F@&K this, I'm tired of writing stuff down." and I've never looked back. The only effects I notice are that I use less paper and I never have to bother writing stuff down. Has it affected my memory? Can't tell.
To my thinking the key is that we have such a narrow definition of life, since we are only aware of one kind - life on Earth. Perhaps there exist intelligent entities out there that are undetectable to us. Perhaps, they are so different that they are also looking for life but with an entirely different definition. So it's like ships passing in the night.
Not sure why people refuse to understand that freedom requires restrictions. Lack of restrictions is called Anarchy. To maximize everyone's freedoms requires restrictions. It's the difference between being free to punch someone in the face and being free to not get punched in the face.
You may be correct that Gnash can currently play youtube videos. But you're missing the point of this article. FTA:
The issue is not only being able to view the content using free/open software but more generally being able to do something useful with the video without having to jump through hoops. Especially hoops that have difficult to decipher legal encumbrance.
There are 2 definitions that I can think of for Free Will.
A) Free Will is the assertion that our are actions are not deterministic and not random but something else.
B) Free Will is the experience of knowing that some other agent (like another person) has goals and will make choices and actions to meet those goals that may or may not be predictable to us.
Regarding A, I've never heard of this "some other thing" described in any meaningful way. I've also heard arguments that make anything other than determinism sound impossible.
As for B, (which is probably better termed the concept of Self Agency) I think it's a critically important part of getting what you want from the world.
Speaking of useful things that one doesn't want to re-invent... But seriously, when you're implementing stuff like hashmap you're either creating a new programming language or it's time to select a better tool.
Why?
The problem there, as you mention, is the amount of resources Americans consume. The post you are replying to said, "make life's basics free for anyone who asks". An Xbox, Brittany Spears and a Big Mac are not life's basics.
Also, if it would take 3 Earths of resources to give everyone the lifestyle you talk about, then all we need to do is consume one third less resources and we have a solution.
Anyway, it's much more complicated than that. Even if the basic necessities were provided, that wouldn't prevent other problems like intolerance and violence. Does it matter that your are warm, clothed and fed when dudes with assault rifles are murdering your family?
I don't think we can say what the effect of the Foundation will be for a long time. I am, however, skeptical. BillG was a robber baron for 3 decades, proving that power and money were his greatest ideals.
Now he wants to give some money back. It seems like everyone assumes that giving away large sums of money means you're a great philanthropist. I disagree. Lots of his pay outs seem to be band aid solutions that sound good but are not really concerned with affecting the deep and painful social change necessary to make lasting improvements in impoverished parts of the world. He seems to be giving people fish so they will be dependent on gifts rather than teaching them to fish.
His gifts seem like investments in the same apathetic economic machinery that does little or nothing to help these impoverished places. Investing in drug research? Why, so these companies can make a profit selling the drugs to these needy and poor people? Thanks Bill!
Freedom can mean different things to different people. If we compare two islands, first, an island where there are no laws and I am free to stab you in your face and take your money. Or second, an island where laws restrict some freedoms to guarantee others?
I can see why both options are attractive, but you know what? I don't want to get stabbed in the face no matter which is more free.
Freedom is relative, your idea of freedom is not the same as my idea of freedom. There is no such thing as absolute freedom.
GPL and BSDL both attempt to maximize different kinds freedoms. Which you prefer has to do with what's important to you, not some discovery of what "absolute" freedom means to all of humanity.
If we were to define the type of freedom we are interested in then we could argue which license supports those freedoms better. For example, BSDL is the great at giving me access to an existing codebase I can own and totally control. Or, GPL is great for being a good neighbor and creating a legacy of code that is committed to it's users freedom to share and use it.
One of the 4 freedoms of free software and the GPL is; "the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors". To me this sounds very much like a belief in community expressed by the license.
In your example both Bob and Alice are giving and taking from the software community created by free software and the GPL. Alice likely used preexisting GPL software as the tools or basis of the software she built. Bob benefits as such and also has the source code for the modifications that he paid for thanks to the GPL. Both people are members of and have benefited from the free software community.
Sounds to me like this isn't about one place being better or worse than the other. Rather, that the blog author just likes Microsoft's old school, process heavy approach rather than Google's freestyle, open and engineer focus style.
I'm not a big PC game player, but $1000-$1500 to play games at a minimum? You must be talking about bleeding edge games. A Geforce 8600GT 256MB DDR3 costs about CDN$120. Add that on to a $400 dollar computer (2GB DDR2, AMD X2 5000+) and you're playing games. Maybe not the newest games or games at 8x antialiasing. But you're playing games and having fun for much less than $1500.
Heck my brother and his girlfriend get some good mileage out of their 3 year old computer for playing older games like Elder Scrolls and Wolfenstien ET. A modern $600 computer that includes a decent graphics card and a non Semperon/Celeron proccess seems like it will go a long way. But then again, I'm somewhat out of the loop where modern gaming is concerned.
This rests heavily on how one defines "notable originals". I think Linux and GNU qualify as notable and original in that they are the first piece of software of their kind to be so powerful, flexible and open and free. Those characteristics make it hugely notable, original and innovative. Obviously Linux has been greatly influenced by past works, but it's originality lies in it's sum, not it's parts. I don't buy this. The development of GNU for 24+ years or Linux for 17+ years is not focus? And even so, I don't see a correlation between duration (of development) and highly original things.
Many comments are debating whether this or that is innovative, but I think they're missing the point of what it means to innovate. To innovate is to alter something or create something new. That's it. Better or worse, it's still innovation. Even so, I don't think his argument is about innovation. It's more about how best to create what he calls "notable originals" and whether science can benefit from a more open source, community process type approach. Can it? I don't know. But I do feel he's shafting OSS with some narrow definition of what notable and original mean.
I think two more interesting questions are as follows. First, to date, which has generated the most notability, originality and innovation, OSS or closed software? Secondly, which model has the most potential for notability, originality and innovation, OSS or closed source software?
we need to create an incentive structure that is best for society Why do we? What is the dark alternative that we face?
I think music is the incentive of music. I suspect that listeners and musicians would continue to enjoy music just fine even if every last artificial incentive for the production of music disappeared.
I don't like the state of the music industry, but what you describe sounds like more of the same type of problem.
I've been using a hosts file that I downloaded from http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm and it works like a charm. Anytime I see an ad (which is exceedingly rare), I add it to my hosts file and I never see ads from that ad server again.
One time, I was trying to do something with google ads and I realized it wasn't working, so I removed the google entries from hosts and everything worked fine.
Anyway, it's been an awesome solution for me.
I hear you. I recently got back in to D&D with some friends who play the 3.5 edition. And I found it surprising that the game was so damn complicated. I think perhaps D&D players want the complicated game mechanics so they can comb over dozens of books looking for loopholes and the right combination of rules to make silly "powerful" characters. I guess they would be roll-players rather than role-players. I've always liked the White Wolf World of Darkness games. Fairly simple, fun, creative. Good stuff.
They are similar but not the same.
From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.html
Regarding Open Source software from http://www.opensource.org/
The confusing part is that the GPL (and many other licenses) is both a Free Software license and a Open Source license. Some people choose it to further Open Source and other use it to further Free Software.
I guess choosing which ideology to support depends on what one is ultimately willing to sacrifice; freedom or quality.
Sure. But Open Source software is not going to uphold your freedoms, only Free Software will. Any freedoms that Open Source software gives you is just incidental to the development methodology used. They will be the first to go when sacrificed for some technical merit.
Here's an amusing quote by RMS about Free Softare and Open Source from here,
I totally agree. Also, why do I have to pay for the education system? I don't have any kids. Why do I have to pay for the fire department? I have smoke alarms. Why do I pay for a police department? I have locks on my doors. Why do I pay tax to build roads and such? I don't drive a car. Why do I have to pay tax for health care, I'll never get sick or ever run out of money for medical expenses.
Oh wait, it's because of the huge benefits these services provide to society at large.
Google indexes torrent too. So I guess it's time to shut down Google
I've used both GNOME and KDE, but I decided to use GNOME. Been using it with Fedora Core 3 for over a year now and it works just fine. What's this big problem with GNOME anyway? My 2 biggest complaints are lack of a "show in groups" in the nautilus file view and closing multiple instances of the same program from the taskbar (there's no close all, you have to click close on each one).
Macromedia should school Adobe on help files?
7 _2/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/html/wwhelp.htm?href=Part_ASL R.html?
Where is the single list of all classes? Also, the amount of typos and error in the Flash documentation has been astounding.
Have you seen Macromedia LiveDocs? I remember they sent out a survey about what users wanted for an online help system - and LiveDocs is somehow what they came up with. Why are docs javascript driven? Why do they take 45 seconds to load? Why do all the pages have stupid urls like http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/mx2004/main_