Well, it's not so much the method of index creation that matters
If it doesn't matter so much, why do you expend two whole paragraphs to details the indexing differences between Google and TPB?
No, but your willingness to comply with takedown notices is factored in cases like these.
Willingness (unwillingness in this case) which may, as well, be supported by consultations with attorneys. In such a case, "asking" (though a C&D is hardly asking) TPB to stop doing something that an attorney has said is legal is moot: TPB will comply or not on their own, since they aren't really breaking the law.
Anyway, since the judge seemed to have links to the accusers which may throw doubts about his impartiality, all this discussion may be as well be useless.
Most of the content on TPB is not legal, in the sense that the people sharing the files do not own the copyright and are not within the realm of fair use.
AFAIK, fair use doesn't apply in most EU countries, Sweden included. As such, your argument is moot. Please base your assertions in the appliable law.
This begs the question of why draw any line at all. Nature doesn't draw a line between planets and non-planets; why should scientists be so gung-ho on drawing one?
Simplicity: either there's a clear distinction between the Kuiper Belt objects and the planets or there isn't. If there isn't, then we will have to contend with so many planets it's not even funny. It's much simpler to drop just one planet and get some clear criteria on the side.
You should remember that not everything in science is prediction models: there are lots of categories that make talking about everything much simpler. According to your "laws of physics" argument, why should we even bother with "planets" and "stars"? They are all subjected to the same laws of physics, it just happens the size of "stars" is enough to start hydrogen fusion, right?
The decision was and still is controversial, which, prima facie, contradicts your claim that that criterion made it easier to decide.
I'm reading the Wikipedia article on the definition of planet and it states several controversies about the different points of the IAU. But it seems the problem is not having good enough numbers: how much the neighbourhood is cleared (the difference between Pluto, which hasn't cleared its orbit yet, and the rest of the planets which almost have completely cleared it is good enough, even if we don't have a exact percentile to use), how much hydrostatic equilibrium is required (which isn't actually important as Pluto seems to have achieved that quite well, thank you), and orbits around a star (which probably doesn't apply to Pluto as it seems to be dragged around by Neptune). The funniest thing about the "clearing the neighbourhood" controversy is that the main opponent of that criterium basically advocated it just a few years ago. Quite a change of heart.
I can't tell you how many times truly new knowledge about the universe was ignored because the scientific orthodoxy claimed "that *can't* be right" based on nothing but assertion.
Were they accepted later? Then your "ignoring truly new knowledge" argument doesn't hold water. Do you expect science to accept every new knowledge just because someone found it when it's not repeatable? I certainly hope you don't, and scientists rejected Weber's claims because they weren't able to repeat them (and not only in 1987, but in the 60s and 70s too). Weber got a bad deal? Sorry, that's life. It's not like he was told he would burn if he didn't stop his line of investigation, right?
Of course there are controversies, doubt is the steady state of science. And doubt applies also to new discoveries that, according to current knowledge, are below the threshold of detection. If, later, it is discovered that they were actually right, nothing is lost. Science is not about personalities, it is about knowledge (or, at least, it should be).
No matter how carefully and precisely they draw the line, it is still hopelessly arbitrary: why draw the line here and not there?
Because drawing the line "here" (as in Pluto not being a planet because it hasn't cleared its orbit of debris, among other things) makes it much easier to decide than drawing the line "there" (as in "we found this big spheroid and we decided it was a planet, and now we know there are many things around the same size or bigger, but we don't want to turn back").
Actually, I think the really difficult part is the take-off. I have heard about planes being able to land (in adequate conditions) since the 90s at least. See non-primary reference (no Wilhelm name was added when I read it).
As you can see, it's not made of small discs. The reason for this is easy to see, IMO: having one big plate allows for the kynetic energy of the bullet to be spread over a large surface. I.e., instead of getting hit a lot of force in a tiny area as the bullet would do, the victim will get hit with the same force spread across a big area, which will make the pressure per square centimetre much smaller. Using small discs (I guess you mean like chainmail) would probably turn a smallish entry hole into a big one due to the kynetic energy not being spread enough. At least, it would mean having bones breaking and inner tissue rupturing.
ODFM isn't cryptography, it's Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, which is somewhat similar to the old method of phone call multiplexing. I think you may be thinking of code division multiplexion as used in the US cell phone system, in which every phone talks to the tower in a different "language" over the whole channel so interferences is less noticeable (I'm talking from memory here, anybody who might correct my or make things clearer would help us all). Code division seems to be more secure than frequency or time division because you have to find the signal (code division, IIRC, could work with quite bad signal-noise ratios) and _then_ ou have to find out the "language" (this may be easier than I think if there's just a preset table of codes).
You have a point there. Then again, I have tested several machines on dual boots and Linux always transferred faster. But this is my experience, so yours may vary.
AFAIK, only having source code from third-parties would be a technical deterrent. If they own all the code, they can licence the version used in Tabula Rasa and keep working on it. It's not like it hasn't been done before, anyway.
That's supposing only one gene controls intelligence. Since the different degrees of intelligence point to several genes been involved, it makes sense to expect the average to be much lower.
Of course, imagine your new-fangled fanatic 6 year old kid learning how to use LEGO blocks to build a nuclear bomb using information gleaned from the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
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Well, it's not so much the method of index creation that matters
If it doesn't matter so much, why do you expend two whole paragraphs to details the indexing differences between Google and TPB?
No, but your willingness to comply with takedown notices is factored in cases like these.
Willingness (unwillingness in this case) which may, as well, be supported by consultations with attorneys. In such a case, "asking" (though a C&D is hardly asking) TPB to stop doing something that an attorney has said is legal is moot: TPB will comply or not on their own, since they aren't really breaking the law.
Anyway, since the judge seemed to have links to the accusers which may throw doubts about his impartiality, all this discussion may be as well be useless.
Most of the content on TPB is not legal, in the sense that the people sharing the files do not own the copyright and are not within the realm of fair use.
AFAIK, fair use doesn't apply in most EU countries, Sweden included. As such, your argument is moot. Please base your assertions in the appliable law.
Talking about methods of index creation, may I remind you that Google also allows users to add to the index database?
Btw, immatureness isn't yet punishable by law.
That would make the sites hosting your stuff without permission responsible, not Google.
To be really, really pedantic, it can show them: déjà vu. Don't underestimate the power of HTML entities ;)
This begs the question of why draw any line at all. Nature doesn't draw a line between planets and non-planets; why should scientists be so gung-ho on drawing one?
Simplicity: either there's a clear distinction between the Kuiper Belt objects and the planets or there isn't. If there isn't, then we will have to contend with so many planets it's not even funny. It's much simpler to drop just one planet and get some clear criteria on the side.
You should remember that not everything in science is prediction models: there are lots of categories that make talking about everything much simpler. According to your "laws of physics" argument, why should we even bother with "planets" and "stars"? They are all subjected to the same laws of physics, it just happens the size of "stars" is enough to start hydrogen fusion, right?
The decision was and still is controversial, which, prima facie, contradicts your claim that that criterion made it easier to decide.
I'm reading the Wikipedia article on the definition of planet and it states several controversies about the different points of the IAU. But it seems the problem is not having good enough numbers: how much the neighbourhood is cleared (the difference between Pluto, which hasn't cleared its orbit yet, and the rest of the planets which almost have completely cleared it is good enough, even if we don't have a exact percentile to use), how much hydrostatic equilibrium is required (which isn't actually important as Pluto seems to have achieved that quite well, thank you), and orbits around a star (which probably doesn't apply to Pluto as it seems to be dragged around by Neptune). The funniest thing about the "clearing the neighbourhood" controversy is that the main opponent of that criterium basically advocated it just a few years ago. Quite a change of heart.
I can't tell you how many times truly new knowledge about the universe was ignored because the scientific orthodoxy claimed "that *can't* be right" based on nothing but assertion.
Were they accepted later? Then your "ignoring truly new knowledge" argument doesn't hold water. Do you expect science to accept every new knowledge just because someone found it when it's not repeatable? I certainly hope you don't, and scientists rejected Weber's claims because they weren't able to repeat them (and not only in 1987, but in the 60s and 70s too). Weber got a bad deal? Sorry, that's life. It's not like he was told he would burn if he didn't stop his line of investigation, right?
Of course there are controversies, doubt is the steady state of science. And doubt applies also to new discoveries that, according to current knowledge, are below the threshold of detection. If, later, it is discovered that they were actually right, nothing is lost. Science is not about personalities, it is about knowledge (or, at least, it should be).
No matter how carefully and precisely they draw the line, it is still hopelessly arbitrary: why draw the line here and not there?
Because drawing the line "here" (as in Pluto not being a planet because it hasn't cleared its orbit of debris, among other things) makes it much easier to decide than drawing the line "there" (as in "we found this big spheroid and we decided it was a planet, and now we know there are many things around the same size or bigger, but we don't want to turn back").
...but discarding observations because they don't fit theories is the exact opposite of science.
Of course, discarding observations because the error margin was then considered too big makes a lot of sense. That is what happened.
Actually, I think the really difficult part is the take-off. I have heard about planes being able to land (in adequate conditions) since the 90s at least. See non-primary reference (no Wilhelm name was added when I read it).
...he started running around crying like a chicken with his head cut off.
I find it hard to imagine a headless chicken crying ;)
...around 2000 fps.
Now that's what I call a graphic card! Can I play Quake 4 at that speed too?
Last time I checked, car airbags weren't too bulky (until deployed, I mean).
As you can see, it's not made of small discs. The reason for this is easy to see, IMO: having one big plate allows for the kynetic energy of the bullet to be spread over a large surface. I.e., instead of getting hit a lot of force in a tiny area as the bullet would do, the victim will get hit with the same force spread across a big area, which will make the pressure per square centimetre much smaller. Using small discs (I guess you mean like chainmail) would probably turn a smallish entry hole into a big one due to the kynetic energy not being spread enough. At least, it would mean having bones breaking and inner tissue rupturing.
ODFM isn't cryptography, it's Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, which is somewhat similar to the old method of phone call multiplexing. I think you may be thinking of code division multiplexion as used in the US cell phone system, in which every phone talks to the tower in a different "language" over the whole channel so interferences is less noticeable (I'm talking from memory here, anybody who might correct my or make things clearer would help us all). Code division seems to be more secure than frequency or time division because you have to find the signal (code division, IIRC, could work with quite bad signal-noise ratios) and _then_ ou have to find out the "language" (this may be easier than I think if there's just a preset table of codes).
You have a point there. Then again, I have tested several machines on dual boots and Linux always transferred faster. But this is my experience, so yours may vary.
Actually, it just showed up on my metamoderation list.
Oh, really? Or perhaps you were trying to make a joke.
Mid to Big companies are not likely to do so. They do not need another competitor :p
I guess Id Software (76 people work in it, according to their teamlist) is a small company worried about competitors then ;)
...your local psychiatrist?
AFAIK, only having source code from third-parties would be a technical deterrent. If they own all the code, they can licence the version used in Tabula Rasa and keep working on it. It's not like it hasn't been done before, anyway.
And he wasn't the only survivor, just the publicized one.
A town? I think Gutenberg was a person.
That's supposing only one gene controls intelligence. Since the different degrees of intelligence point to several genes been involved, it makes sense to expect the average to be much lower.
Isn't it nice that I was thinking about kids in some Spanish comic when I wrote that? Yeah, ignorance seems to be bliss.
Of course, imagine your new-fangled fanatic 6 year old kid learning how to use LEGO blocks to build a nuclear bomb using information gleaned from the Encyclopaedia Britannica...