If this were an Egyptian dig, no one here would denigrate it.
They would if it was intended to find the golden chariot that Ra used to pull the Sun accross the sky.
It is the absurdity of the claims and the long history of chicanery by those claiming to have proved them. What religion it relates to is irrelevant. There may be a few rare exceptions, but as a general trand on Slashdot (or just about anywhere else), this "open hatred" that you perceive is no more real than Ra's chariot.
But, it uses regular AAA batteries so I don't what you're talking about there.
He's probably talking about very old TI calculators. I remember one that I had in the late 1970's that had a custom nicad battery pack. The LED displays consumed enough power to make rechargeable batteries pretty attractive. But those battery packs had a useful life that was much shorter than the useful life of the rest of the calculator. However, it had pretty ordinary tabbed nicad cells inside, so it was no big deal to replace them yourself if you didn't mind prying the thing open and doing a little soldering. Still not as convenient as regular department-store batteries though.
No it's not. The 9th Circuit ruled the "under God" bit unconstitutional, but even that's been stayed until the Supreme Court makes its decision. The only thing unconstitutional is forcing people to say it.
I think there's more to it than that. I believe that Congress violated the constitution when they passed the law that made "under God" official. So, while individuals are certainly free to say it, the law that establishes it as an official oath remains unconstitutional even if no one is forced to say it.
The first amendment states in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof,". I think it's pretty clear that "respecting an establishment of religion" was exactly what Congress intended. This becomes especially clear when you put it in its historical context. This was the time of the "red scare". Communism was the demon of the day. The characteristic that (predominantly Christian) Americans most despised about communism was its official adoption of Atheism. In reaction to that, and to gain political favor at home, Congress made several moves to officially distance the US from the "godlessness" of communism. Freedom of religion is something the US already had (at least officially), so there was nothing to be gained by pushing neutrality or freedom. What the politicians needed in order to win votes was to take a decidedly pro-religious stance, and to favor mainstream religion as much as they could get away with, constitution be damned. "In God We Trust" on the money was another facet of this same effort.
Some will argue that these are OK because they don't specify which god. But seriously, who really believes that Congress intended anything other than the Judeo-Christian God? And how many gods are actually named "God"? (Note the capitalization in the Pledge of Allegiance) To put it in perspective, "one nation under gods" doesn't specify which gods, and "one nation under goddess" doesn't specify which goddess. So by the same argument those should also be considered neutral and clear of any First Amendment complications. Right? Somehow I suspect that the people who are defending the "God" addenda are the ones who would howl the loudest if either of those phrases were in the Pledge. And they should howl about it because those are clearly biased against monotheistic and patriarchal religions, and also against atheism, agnosticism, and just simple non-religiousness. It's just that if they could see past their own religious bias they would be howling about it now because of the clear bias against polytheistic religions, matriarchal religions, atheism, etc. That "In God We Trust" and "under God" deprecate the views of those who do not believe in any gods is particularly hard to counter since it's pretty obvious from the historical context that this is exactly what they were intended to do.
So, regardless of any court's ruling, it is as clear as the nose on your face that the presence of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance as well as "In God We Trust" on the currency is now and has always been unconstitutional.
I believe the only reason these continue to be is that they are political land mines that can blow up in the face of any politician who dares to try to set it right, or even just to speak the truth about it.
This is why there can be no honest politicians. As long as the majority of the populace is unable to be honest even with themselves and put truth above popularity, no honest man can ever be elected.
"We increasingly view computers as sources of information not just mediums of information. We attribute social characteristics and treat them as autonomous," said the professor.
This could lead to an over dependence on electronically-generated news and information.
The tendency to treat computers as human could lead to people favouring or even blindly accepting computer-generated information, to the point of depending on it over superior alternatives, warned Prof Sundar.
I think Prof. Sundar is overreaching a bit on this point. First of all, I don't personally know anyone who doesn't readily understand that news on cnn.com comes from CNN, not from inside their computer, any more than they'd think that news on TV originates inside their television. Second, I don't see it as much of a problem if people depend more on computers (by "computers" here I really mean the information resources that can be accessed through them, primarily the Internet) than on other sources of information. Often computers are the "superior alternative". You just have to use good judgement and keep your baloney detection kit in good working order, just as you should do with any other source of information.
I visited my public library just yesterday. And I can assure you that there is plenty of bunk there too.
"A better advertising strategy might be to portray computers as something durable and reliable, something that grows with you," Prof Sundar told BBC News Online.
Back in the days of 8-bit home computers, many were promoted that way. "Expandability" was a major selling point, even if it only meant having a variety of external peripherals that you could plug into it. Now that we have an almost overwhelming variety of add-ons for every mainstream platform, you don't hear much about that any more.
If people can feel loyalty to something as unintelligent as an automobile, then it is not at all unexpected that they feel that way towards their computers.
Get a new job. A less stressful one. Chances are if your stressed out over what you are doing, you dont actually like what you are doing. If the stress bothers you that much, its time to look for something else.
And even if you do like what you are doing, getting a new job might still be a good idea. Perhaps even more so. I've experienced very stressful work environments in which the work itself was actually pretty enjoyable. The trouble is that if you stay in a job like that, the stress becomes a conditioned response associated with the work you love. If something bad happens every time you do a certain thing, eventually you will develop a distaste for the thing itself even after the bad stuff stops happening.
If it gets that far, it can take years to undo the damage. I know this because I've been through it. And for me, a career change was the solution. Even though it was something that I knew I wouldn't want to do forever, it was low stress and allowed the conditioning to wear off so I could get back to my preferred line of work, which I now have. I believe that this is what "burnout" really is. A form of conditioning in which good work becomes associated with bad experiences.
or living closer to work, or working more via Internet
Yes, let's produce cars, baked bean cans, houses and pencil cases on the great Internet.
Fact: people who can work remotely are a minority.
You seem to have missed the "or living closer to work" part. He offerred two possible solutions, and never claimed that either, or even the combination of the two, would work for everyone. You're countering an argument he never made.
Make the cities big enough and people won't be able to walk to work. You contradict your arguments over and over.
No, he doesn't. Right or wrong, his arguments are not at all contradictory. It's the current trend of people moving ever further out into the suburbs while the office space remains downtown that causes the problem you describe. All he's suggesting is living closer to work. And for many people, that means moving into the city. Living closer to work is by far the most effective way to reduce transportation problems. Even if you choose to drive a 5000 pound, 12mpg monstrosity instead of walking or biking, the impact is minimal if you live only 1 mile from work.
Of course, the alternative to moving people back into the cities is to move more of the work into the suburbs. I actually see some of this happening already. In fact, the place where I work now is in a small industrial area within a suburb. That's probably a good trend. But like all the other solutions, it won't solve all transportation problems for everyone. It's a multi-faceted problem that requires multiple solutions.
I think what makes the difference in the for-profit and not-for-profit scenarios is that when illegally copied copyrighted material is used for profit, the failure to share the wealth with the copyright holder(s) is an additional wrongdoing, over and above the illegal copying itself.
With the GPL, the "wealth" that gets shared is improvements to the code base (if any), rather than a share of the profits. But I think the idea is still applicable that someone who is financially profiting from distributing GPL'ed software has a greater ethical obligation to honor the terms of the agreement and return some benefit to the developers who helped facilitate that profit.
So yeah, I think it should be considered a worse offense if profit is involved.
Sounds like bunk to me. The energy must come from somewhere. If his process demagnetizes the permanent magnets requiring them to be periodically replaced or re-magnetized, then maybe it could work. But that would have to be considered in any efficiency calculation. I suspect that with everything properly accounted for, the net efficiency would be as bad or worse than conventional motor designs. It sounds to me that the inventor is either a fraud, or has let his excitement about one aspect of his idea impede his ability to objectively examine it objectively and completely. I think a fair portion of perpetual motion, reactionless drive*, and similar hokum is driven more by self-delusion than by ill intent.
I've seen some very intelligent people taken in by such things, though they usually figure it out eventually. I was briefly bitten by the reactionless drive bug myself. It's an exciting delusion. Discovering the fatal flaw is a big disappointment. I can understand why that realization is often met with denial. You just don't want it to be true.
*(google for "Dean Drive" if you are curious and not already familiar with reactionless drives)
I thought they had permanent magnets on the trains, and that it was electromagnets in the rails that are powered and provide the propulsion and control the lift. Thus requiring only modest on-board power for lights, heat/AC, control equipment, communications equipment, etc.
On the other hand, there's one aspect to it that the PHB's might actually like. The cube farm inhabitants might be less likely to engage in frivolous web browsing knowing that other people can hear what they're doing.
The 1988 movie "Willow" has some good early examples of morphing. One of the "special features" on my Willow DVD has a fellow named Doug Smythe talking about working on morphing software in 1987. It also mentions the "morf" vs. "morph" contention at ILM. Though it contains some interviews recorded around the time of the movie, the feature appears to have been put together some time later, so it still isn't really clear whether the term was used back then. But it does establish that the technique dates back at least to 1987.
Also, I could have sworn I had seen the word "morph" used in conjunction with some early Amiga animation software. So I googled "Amiga morph Aegis Animator" and found this archived fidonet post dated 17 March 1986 that mentions a "morph-hook" tool. Not sure if that's really related though.
on the website it says they're offering a license that cures the IP infringement in Linux. So can they be sued for misleading in a product once the infringement is proven imaginative?
In a perfect world (and hopefully even in this imperfect one) they could be sued for it regardless of whether the infringement is imaginary. If it is imaginary, then agreeing to SCO's license creates an IP infringement (violation of the GPL) where none existed before. If it isn't imaginary, then it still fails to cure the IP issues, because it would still create a GPL violation, even if it untaints the parts that SCO owns. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure this is true at least for distribution, even if not for usage. Even SCO cannot legally distribute Linux under SCO's license, because it violates the copyrights of everyone who contributed any original GPL'd code.
Their offer is entirely fraudulent. If not legally, then at least morally.
So...anyone want to take bets on how many people actually buy a license?
It is the enemies of free sofware who will purchase licenses. They are the only ones with anything to gain by doing so. Not any direct benefit, but indirectly through the fulfillment of their desire to harm the open source community by lending false credibility to SCO.
So the success of SCO's offer depends mostly on how many of these there are. This offer might just bring the vermin crawling out from the woodwork. Like cockroaches, for every one you see in the open, there may be many more hiding in the crevaces.
Not everyone who's against free software can afford to contribute millions of dollars to SCO's fud campaign. This gives the little guys a chance.
I'd sure like to figure out a way to make the word liberal lose its negative connotation...
That's an uphill battle. Part of the negative connotation is earned. Liberalism is not without it's fair share of faulty ideology and crackpots. But mostly it is a very deliberately constructed strawman. It is much easier to rally the troops if you can persuade them that the enemy are ogres. Your efforts to lose the negativity would have to exceed the efforts of those who endeavor to increase it. And that's no small feat.
"Conservative" has some negative connotations too. For a similar mix of reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
It is the absurdity of the claims and the long history of chicanery by those claiming to have proved them. What religion it relates to is irrelevant. There may be a few rare exceptions, but as a general trand on Slashdot (or just about anywhere else), this "open hatred" that you perceive is no more real than Ra's chariot.
The first amendment states in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free practice thereof,". I think it's pretty clear that "respecting an establishment of religion" was exactly what Congress intended. This becomes especially clear when you put it in its historical context. This was the time of the "red scare". Communism was the demon of the day. The characteristic that (predominantly Christian) Americans most despised about communism was its official adoption of Atheism. In reaction to that, and to gain political favor at home, Congress made several moves to officially distance the US from the "godlessness" of communism. Freedom of religion is something the US already had (at least officially), so there was nothing to be gained by pushing neutrality or freedom. What the politicians needed in order to win votes was to take a decidedly pro-religious stance, and to favor mainstream religion as much as they could get away with, constitution be damned. "In God We Trust" on the money was another facet of this same effort.
Some will argue that these are OK because they don't specify which god. But seriously, who really believes that Congress intended anything other than the Judeo-Christian God? And how many gods are actually named "God"? (Note the capitalization in the Pledge of Allegiance) To put it in perspective, "one nation under gods" doesn't specify which gods, and "one nation under goddess" doesn't specify which goddess. So by the same argument those should also be considered neutral and clear of any First Amendment complications. Right? Somehow I suspect that the people who are defending the "God" addenda are the ones who would howl the loudest if either of those phrases were in the Pledge. And they should howl about it because those are clearly biased against monotheistic and patriarchal religions, and also against atheism, agnosticism, and just simple non-religiousness. It's just that if they could see past their own religious bias they would be howling about it now because of the clear bias against polytheistic religions, matriarchal religions, atheism, etc. That "In God We Trust" and "under God" deprecate the views of those who do not believe in any gods is particularly hard to counter since it's pretty obvious from the historical context that this is exactly what they were intended to do.
So, regardless of any court's ruling, it is as clear as the nose on your face that the presence of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance as well as "In God We Trust" on the currency is now and has always been unconstitutional.
I believe the only reason these continue to be is that they are political land mines that can blow up in the face of any politician who dares to try to set it right, or even just to speak the truth about it.
This is why there can be no honest politicians. As long as the majority of the populace is unable to be honest even with themselves and put truth above popularity, no honest man can ever be elected.
I visited my public library just yesterday. And I can assure you that there is plenty of bunk there too.
If people can feel loyalty to something as unintelligent as an automobile, then it is not at all unexpected that they feel that way towards their computers.
If it gets that far, it can take years to undo the damage. I know this because I've been through it. And for me, a career change was the solution. Even though it was something that I knew I wouldn't want to do forever, it was low stress and allowed the conditioning to wear off so I could get back to my preferred line of work, which I now have. I believe that this is what "burnout" really is. A form of conditioning in which good work becomes associated with bad experiences.
Ugh. Was it really necessary to use the word "juicy"?
Of course, the alternative to moving people back into the cities is to move more of the work into the suburbs. I actually see some of this happening already. In fact, the place where I work now is in a small industrial area within a suburb. That's probably a good trend. But like all the other solutions, it won't solve all transportation problems for everyone. It's a multi-faceted problem that requires multiple solutions.
I think what makes the difference in the for-profit and not-for-profit scenarios is that when illegally copied copyrighted material is used for profit, the failure to share the wealth with the copyright holder(s) is an additional wrongdoing, over and above the illegal copying itself.
With the GPL, the "wealth" that gets shared is improvements to the code base (if any), rather than a share of the profits. But I think the idea is still applicable that someone who is financially profiting from distributing GPL'ed software has a greater ethical obligation to honor the terms of the agreement and return some benefit to the developers who helped facilitate that profit.
So yeah, I think it should be considered a worse offense if profit is involved.
I've seen some very intelligent people taken in by such things, though they usually figure it out eventually. I was briefly bitten by the reactionless drive bug myself. It's an exciting delusion. Discovering the fatal flaw is a big disappointment. I can understand why that realization is often met with denial. You just don't want it to be true.
*(google for "Dean Drive" if you are curious and not already familiar with reactionless drives)
I thought they had permanent magnets on the trains, and that it was electromagnets in the rails that are powered and provide the propulsion and control the lift. Thus requiring only modest on-board power for lights, heat/AC, control equipment, communications equipment, etc.
Is this not correct?
Or maybe call it the "Mozilla Streamlined Internet Explorer", or MSIE for short.
On the other hand, there's one aspect to it that the PHB's might actually like. The cube farm inhabitants might be less likely to engage in frivolous web browsing knowing that other people can hear what they're doing.
The 1988 movie "Willow" has some good early examples of morphing. One of the "special features" on my Willow DVD has a fellow named Doug Smythe talking about working on morphing software in 1987. It also mentions the "morf" vs. "morph" contention at ILM. Though it contains some interviews recorded around the time of the movie, the feature appears to have been put together some time later, so it still isn't really clear whether the term was used back then. But it does establish that the technique dates back at least to 1987.
Also, I could have sworn I had seen the word "morph" used in conjunction with some early Amiga animation software. So I googled "Amiga morph Aegis Animator" and found this archived fidonet post dated 17 March 1986 that mentions a "morph-hook" tool. Not sure if that's really related though.
It's loaded with grits, obviously.
Their offer is entirely fraudulent. If not legally, then at least morally.
So the success of SCO's offer depends mostly on how many of these there are. This offer might just bring the vermin crawling out from the woodwork. Like cockroaches, for every one you see in the open, there may be many more hiding in the crevaces.
Not everyone who's against free software can afford to contribute millions of dollars to SCO's fud campaign. This gives the little guys a chance.
"Conservative" has some negative connotations too. For a similar mix of reasons.
That thing's enough to make the user crash.
The problem is that pretty much everyone is someone else's "stupid people".
I've even been accused of that myself, but only by stupid people.
When is it not "just days after the latest MS security fiasco"?
Maybe Microsoft or Sun can provide a nice cushy position for him and the other execs.