Basically, the modern diamond industry is a scam designed to promote the illusion of value and scarcity around diamonds, and has been since mass diamond mines emerged in the late 19th century and the owners formed the De Beers cartel to promote their own self interest.
So, if these diamonds on Saturn were somehow accessible to us... well, yeah, diamond would become a lot less valuable. But it's not like they're actually *that* rare or valuable just now.
Basically, digitizing them automatically extends the copyright
I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I'm sceptical that you're right. There are a lot of half-truths, myths and downright misunderstandings around. On what basis do you hold this belief- is it something you think *should* be the case, something you *think* actually is the case based on some vague understanding, or do you know for sure that this is what UK law says?
Bearing in mind that "digitizing" is essentially just the process of making a copy of an analogue source using a digital format (rather than, say analogue to analogue or digital to digital) are you sure that this is covered?
"If the original work is in the public domain, it will remain in the public domain; you cannot prevent anyone else using the same public domain work for their own purposes.", and
"Provided it is significantly different to the original work the derivative work will be subject to copyright in its own right, and you will own copyright to the new content you have created as a result of your actions. Bear in mind that to be subject to copyright the creation of the derivative work must itself be an original work of skill, labour and judgement; minor alterations that do not substantially alter the original would not qualify."
, since it's "remastering"
Does "remastering" have any legal meaning? You could make any copy and claim that it's a new "master".
What are you trying to do there?
If you're talking about the ternary operator ".. ?.. :.." then I don't see how that's a problem as syntactically a "=" symbol can't follow the colon (either by existing or changed rules), so it could only be parsed as a single ":=" operator. Not ambiguous AFAICT.
Yeah, I'd often thought that the:= operator should have been used instead of = (possibly leaving == as the equality operator and having a single = give a compiler error).
The only problem is that:= *might* look quite similar to != (i.e. doesn't equal). If we were starting again from scratch, of course, we could choose BASIC's <> instead to avoid that problem, but whether it would be a good idea now, I don't know.
Your post, sir, is one of the wittiest and most incisive I've seen on here in a long time.
Except that- as I'd already explained- his entire "incisive" rebuttal was based on incorrect assumptions he put into my mouth- which were the complete opposite of those I actually held!
This kind of logic is itself part of the problem. It presumes that people are engaged in the political dimensions of their life activities everywhere and always.
It doesn't presume that at all. On the contrary, it rests on the assumption that the complete opposite is the case- that most people aren't that bothered about it in their daily lives unless the problem is clear.
If people were the way you implied I thought they were, by definition, this wouldn't be an issue. [emphasis added to ram home the point that]
In short, what I said clearly assumed that the majority of people *weren't* that obsessed with the issue... yet for some reason he felt free to assume (and attach to me) the complete opposite view. Despite the fact that what I said wouldn't have had any point if it was that way round(!!!)
And for someone who attacked what he (mistakenly and stupidly) thought was meant to be an "ivory towers" viewpoint, he obviously hasn't done any serious walking in a badly-fitting pair of boots.:-)
Your analysis is somewhat faulty because you're leaving out the word "customer" and implying that millions of users are the people receiving a product.
Let me get this straight; firstly you criticised me for *not* using the word "customer"... then you attack my analysis due to the implications of that specific word that I *hadn't* used and you'd just criticised me for *not* using?!!
You have to realize that the millions of people logging in are the product, and the businesses supplying ads are Facebook's real customers and users. That is their business model.
Yes, most people here- myself included- are already aware of this. It's bordering on cliche now- people "insightfully" pointing out how advertisers are the customers of free services and end-users are the product are ten-a-penny on Slashdot.
But back to your original comment- I'm well aware of how the "free" Facebook service works, and nothing I said is contradicted by your observation. The fact is that the end-users are still the "users" of the Facebook service itself, even if they're not the "customers". The latter *explains* Facebook's attitude towards them (well, duh- I could have told you that), but it doesn't change the fact that their attitude is cynical and contemptious.
They nearly sold out when, at the counter, the customer said "Cool, now I can finally use some apps" to which the salesman replied "Oh, I'm sorry, you have the wrong tablet, let me get you an iPad or Android tablet".
Yeah, right. More like the salesman got triple commission for helping shift their dust-gathering stock of Surface tablets, lied through his/her/its teeth about the apps it could run and will deny ever having said any of that when the pissed-off customer returns.
This kind of logic is itself part of the problem. It presumes that people are engaged in the political dimensions of their life activities everywhere and always.
It doesn't presume that at all. On the contrary, it rests on the assumption that the complete opposite is the case- that most people aren't that bothered about it in their daily lives unless the problem is clear.
If people were the way you implied I thought they were, by definition, this wouldn't be an issue.
Now perhaps you think the world would be a better place if this were true
I don't; you mistakenly assumed that I did.
from within the confines of your evidently narrow and sheltered life
This is only "evident" to you on the basis of words you put into my mouth, or at least beliefs you felt free to assume I held.
But sure, if your boots pinch, burn your socks. It's true: you won't ever buy a bad-fitting pair of boots ever again.
This is a poor analogy.
It's more akin to a crappy boot maker dominating the market and a mini-economy springing up to build accessories that work around the shortcomings of those boots. And even good quality boots require socks, so it's more like *having* to buy an extra, specially-designed pair of socks for your Crapola-brand boots.
That said, it's hard and pointless to argue it further in terms of *your* boot analogy because as I said, it was a flawed analogy to begin with and continuing it would be a distraction.
Boots are a one-off regular purchase that isn't really like social media at all.
Too bad about those refrigerated vaccines you were trekking into a remote African village.
Please- enough with the blatant appeal to emotion. Cute-faced, starving African children are not going to die because someone couldn't post a photo of themselves drinking a Barcardi Breezer at their friend's 21st on Facebook.
And while I don't want to dignify that "boots" analogy further, if it were the case that one was delivering vaccines in that way, you sure as hell wouldn't (or shouldn't) be doing it in anything other than properly fitting boots to start off with.
It's unlikely that somebody'll sue them for reporting incorrectly that episodes of Dr. Who have been recovered
Hence the increased possibility that if they had to make something up to fill space they decided to go for this instead of something involving Harry Styles, Hazell Dean, a lorryload of quaaludes and a goat.
Well, as I said previously, the problem with Social Fixer was that they *were* giving people a reason to use Facebook by making an app that *temporarily* alleviates some of the inconvenience caused by the latter's behaviour and policies without actually forcing- or even encouraging- them to change. Then failing as soon as Facebook change things round again.
They've designed an app that automatically jumps when Facebook wants their users to jump. It fixes nothing in the long term; quite the opposite, by making it marginally more comfortable to stay with Facebook, they're hiding and drawing attention away from the fundamental issue, which is Facebook's behaviour, business model and contemptious attitude towards its users. Only they have the power to change that, and they won't. The only solution is to encourage people not to use Facebook, and Social Fixer is a hindrance in that respect.
Social Fixer might seem helpful on the surface, but it's part of the Facebook ecosystem, and part of the problem, not the solution.
NASA recorded over the Moon Landing masters, at a time when they were better-funded than they have ever been. The BBC is in good company.
Now *that* was a gross failure if ever I saw one.
Quick background; NASA used a custom "slow scan" transmission system to send TV pictures from the moon, but those weren't compatible with ordinary TV transmissions, so they had to be converted for live transmission for viewers at home. Conversion technology was basic at the time, so the method was basically to point a camera at a monitor displaying the slow scan pictures.
That was fine. Not fine as in "good quality", because they probably lost quite a lot of the original quality, but fine as in I appreciate that was the best *live* on-the-fly conversion they could probably have managed in those days.
What *wasn't* remotely "fine" was that they didn't keep- or at least properly archive- a recording of the original, pre-conversion transmissions. If we had those today, we would easily have much higher quality footage of the moon landing transmissions that could easily be converted to a viewable resolution and framerate using digital technology. But we don't; all we have are the converted-on-the-fly versions. They've remastered those- but let's face it, that's still a piss-poor alternative to actually having the originals.
I don't think that had *anything* to do with money; I think it was a major institutional failure. And unlike something that- at the time- was seen as a low budget family scifi show- these were transmissions of *the first bloody moon landing* and they knew damn well they were important, even then.
While I'm not in a position to say whether Clancy deserved to be here or not, since you bring up the issue, I must admit that I was surprised that the death of Ray Dolby a few weeks back apparently didn't make it to the front page.
Careful not to crank the music on your new nanopodz(tm) too loud, or you'll literally fry your eardrums...
No, you "literally" won't fry your eardrums, because frying by definition requires oil or fat and if it's not already there in significant quantities, it's not frying:-P
I'm willing to accept what that guy was saying in that it's what a *lot* of people say about drug addicts; that the drugs are a (non-)solution for an underlying problem and that solving the addiction without fixing what it was trying to cover is just going to move it on to something else. While I'm not 100% convinced that all underlying problems are as clearly-defined (and hence easily fixable) as that "ONE" comment implies, I do agree somewhat with the general principle of what he says.
I know it's been said before, but I still find it amusingly ironic that after one selects the "disable silly animated characters in sidebar" option in Windows XP they run a final f*****g animation of the cartoon dog running into the distance before disappearing over a hill!!
I honestly half-suspect that this was intentional...:-)
Sorry but any teens shooting codeine and gas into their veins? not gonna be worth anything to anybody but the prison industrial complex.
As far as I can tell, this seems to be favoured by people who are *already* deep into heroin/opiate addiction and don't care about anything but a cheap hit.
So even the brain-dead teenager probably wouldn't start out on this stuff- the depressing thing is that they'll quite possibly end on this drug.
Specifically, I've heard that a surprising number of GPs and people in medicine (IIRC) apparently have a heroin habit, yet keep it under control and are able to hold down their jobs because they have reliable access- through their job, albeit presumably illegally- to a clean, consistent supply of the stuff.
I've also heard it said that the biggest (though not necessarily all) problems caused by heroin are essentially a consequence of its illegal status, and the effect that has on the supply of the drug and the behaviour of its users.
That still doesn't change the fact that RMS did not re-implement UNIX as the summary suggests. UNIX user-space utilities are useful, yes, but are not UNIX in themselves.
It's a shame that the borderline trollish aspects of your original post distracted from the legitimate point it *did* make- that RMS and the GNU project were *not* responsible for the most popular GPL kernel (i.e. Linux).
On the other hand, they kicked off the whole thing and were responsible for a *significant* proportion of the utilities that make that kernel into a proper OS. And it's quite possible- if not probable- that had Stallman not created and popularised the GPL that Linux would never have been released under anything resembling the GPL. (It's worth remembering that early versions of Linux had a noncommercial-use-only license; according to Wikipedia "Torvalds has described licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did." ".)
Would people have been so willing to contribute to Linux under the original license terms? Would it have ever taken off?
So, to reverse Stallman's usual bugbear, it's not just GNU, it's, er... Linux/GNU. But ultimately, beyond who gets credit for what, that's not that big a deal- RMS and the GNU project didn't write it, but they certainly do deserve the credit for creating the GPL it's licensed under, something which probably benefited Linux as much as Linux benefited GNU and free software in general. Stallman himself acknowledges that Linux meets the need for a free kernel and that finishing Hurd is no longer essential. (Ironically, I'm guessing that the success of Linux probably attracted developers who might otherwise have worked on the Hurd).
So it's a win-win situation; beyond the very worthwhile software that the GNU project created, its popularisation of the GPL encouraged a whole lot more- including Linux.
The impression I get from reading the featured article is that "Internet of things" refers to giving each electrical appliance a microcontroller to connect to the Internet so that the appliance's owner can manage it remotely.
That's probably as good a guess at the interviewee's...
""We don't have a good notion of what the Internet of Things is yet,"
Yeah, thanks for that. So what you're basically saying is that it's a techno-fetishists' obsession with networking everything for the sake of it masquerading as a solution looking for a problem. Which ironically *will* cause problems.
The benefits? Well, er... I guess it lets the Boys' Toys mob show off their IP-enabled, iPod app-controllable nasal hair trimmer to their mates until they get bored of it five minutes later and lose it down the back of the sofa.
Seriously... what *really* does this obsession with the "Internet of Things" actually offer us?
Right now, it comes across as something being pushed by for-the-sake-of-it technological fetishists meeting control freak tendencies, both playing into the hands of authoritarians everywhere.
Meanwhile, YouTube's comments essentially confirm that the direction they're pushing for in comment moderation is the partisan, groupthink one and the "mod it up if you agree with it" attitude... which tends to lead to "mod it down if the group/fans disagree with it":-
Let’s say you’re watching a video from Justin Timberlake. What type of video comment would be awesome to see: one from JT himself, one from people you care about who love the video...or one from just the last random person to stop by?
Note the emphasis; "people you care about" (e.g. fellow groupthinking fans defending Lady Gaga to the death against those who say her latest weird-ass dressing up video for an otherwise relatively normal pop song isn't the best thing since sliced bread) and "who love the video" (i.e. pro positive comments). Very adolescent.
Frankly, if I stop by to see the video and I decide to say something negative about it for an entirely legitimate reason, I consider it mod abuse if it's clearly downvoted purely because it's not the majority and/or fan opinion. (And one must remember that rabid fans in small groups can push above their weight if they're aggressive in pushing their views against a less obsessed majority who disagree- or at least don't agree- with them; this doesn't make it legitimate however.)
But it appears that YouTube are now encouraging this behaviour.
We know this already happens (and that YouTube comments frequently descend into moronic flamewarring) but it's disappointing to see that YouTube (i.e. Google) are officially condoning it. This is likely to encourage the spread of this attitude even to videos on less fan-oriented but still divisive topics (e.g. controversial science and politics). It's also likely to legitimise such mod abuse elsewhere as people now think that's what they're for... if they didn't already.
Well, as the other reply noted, the hardware recalls *did* cost them a lot of money (circa $1 bn). But I'd assume that the main reason the PS3 was so expensive to build originally (requiring subsidy even at its high launch cost) is due to the entirely new Cell processor and the inclusion of a then-expensive Blu-Ray drive. Whereas the 360 was just a (very-heavily) customised PowerPC- i.e. based on established technology- that can't have cost anything like as much even when "new", and only included a DVD drive, which was cheap even then.
I saved some cash when I figured out that, for him, "focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences" meant chasing his tail and licking his private parts...
If you could lick your private parts, you wouldn't be wasting your time on an XBox either.
(Sorry, but as everyone knows, it *is* obligatory to make that joke;-) ).
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Nope, not forever, diamond is just transparent coal, it'll burn away to nothing in a hot enough fire.
Ssssshhhhhh! Don't spoil the industry's carefully nurtured romantic image.
Also, please don't spoil the manufactured illusion that diamonds are rare and valuable which you'll soon find some problems with if you try to sell a gem-grade diamond for anything like the price you paid for it.
Basically, the modern diamond industry is a scam designed to promote the illusion of value and scarcity around diamonds, and has been since mass diamond mines emerged in the late 19th century and the owners formed the De Beers cartel to promote their own self interest.
So, if these diamonds on Saturn were somehow accessible to us... well, yeah, diamond would become a lot less valuable. But it's not like they're actually *that* rare or valuable just now.
Basically, digitizing them automatically extends the copyright
I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I'm sceptical that you're right. There are a lot of half-truths, myths and downright misunderstandings around. On what basis do you hold this belief- is it something you think *should* be the case, something you *think* actually is the case based on some vague understanding, or do you know for sure that this is what UK law says?
Bearing in mind that "digitizing" is essentially just the process of making a copy of an analogue source using a digital format (rather than, say analogue to analogue or digital to digital) are you sure that this is covered?
From here;
"If the original work is in the public domain, it will remain in the public domain; you cannot prevent anyone else using the same public domain work for their own purposes.", and
"Provided it is significantly different to the original work the derivative work will be subject to copyright in its own right, and you will own copyright to the new content you have created as a result of your actions. Bear in mind that to be subject to copyright the creation of the derivative work must itself be an original work of skill, labour and judgement; minor alterations that do not substantially alter the original would not qualify."
, since it's "remastering"
Does "remastering" have any legal meaning? You could make any copy and claim that it's a new "master".
What are you trying to do there? If you're talking about the ternary operator " .. ? .. : .." then I don't see how that's a problem as syntactically a "=" symbol can't follow the colon (either by existing or changed rules), so it could only be parsed as a single ":=" operator. Not ambiguous AFAICT.
Yeah, I'd often thought that the := operator should have been used instead of = (possibly leaving == as the equality operator and having a single = give a compiler error).
:= *might* look quite similar to != (i.e. doesn't equal). If we were starting again from scratch, of course, we could choose BASIC's <> instead to avoid that problem, but whether it would be a good idea now, I don't know.
The only problem is that
Your post, sir, is one of the wittiest and most incisive I've seen on here in a long time.
Except that- as I'd already explained- his entire "incisive" rebuttal was based on incorrect assumptions he put into my mouth- which were the complete opposite of those I actually held!
This kind of logic is itself part of the problem. It presumes that people are engaged in the political dimensions of their life activities everywhere and always.
It doesn't presume that at all. On the contrary, it rests on the assumption that the complete opposite is the case- that most people aren't that bothered about it in their daily lives unless the problem is clear. If people were the way you implied I thought they were, by definition, this wouldn't be an issue. [emphasis added to ram home the point that]
In short, what I said clearly assumed that the majority of people *weren't* that obsessed with the issue... yet for some reason he felt free to assume (and attach to me) the complete opposite view. Despite the fact that what I said wouldn't have had any point if it was that way round(!!!)
:-)
And for someone who attacked what he (mistakenly and stupidly) thought was meant to be an "ivory towers" viewpoint, he obviously hasn't done any serious walking in a badly-fitting pair of boots.
Your analysis is somewhat faulty because you're leaving out the word "customer" and implying that millions of users are the people receiving a product.
Let me get this straight; firstly you criticised me for *not* using the word "customer"... then you attack my analysis due to the implications of that specific word that I *hadn't* used and you'd just criticised me for *not* using?!!
You have to realize that the millions of people logging in are the product, and the businesses supplying ads are Facebook's real customers and users. That is their business model.
Yes, most people here- myself included- are already aware of this. It's bordering on cliche now- people "insightfully" pointing out how advertisers are the customers of free services and end-users are the product are ten-a-penny on Slashdot.
But back to your original comment- I'm well aware of how the "free" Facebook service works, and nothing I said is contradicted by your observation. The fact is that the end-users are still the "users" of the Facebook service itself, even if they're not the "customers". The latter *explains* Facebook's attitude towards them (well, duh- I could have told you that), but it doesn't change the fact that their attitude is cynical and contemptious.
They nearly sold out when, at the counter, the customer said "Cool, now I can finally use some apps" to which the salesman replied "Oh, I'm sorry, you have the wrong tablet, let me get you an iPad or Android tablet".
Yeah, right. More like the salesman got triple commission for helping shift their dust-gathering stock of Surface tablets, lied through his/her/its teeth about the apps it could run and will deny ever having said any of that when the pissed-off customer returns.
This kind of logic is itself part of the problem. It presumes that people are engaged in the political dimensions of their life activities everywhere and always.
It doesn't presume that at all. On the contrary, it rests on the assumption that the complete opposite is the case- that most people aren't that bothered about it in their daily lives unless the problem is clear.
If people were the way you implied I thought they were, by definition, this wouldn't be an issue.
Now perhaps you think the world would be a better place if this were true
I don't; you mistakenly assumed that I did.
from within the confines of your evidently narrow and sheltered life
This is only "evident" to you on the basis of words you put into my mouth, or at least beliefs you felt free to assume I held.
But sure, if your boots pinch, burn your socks. It's true: you won't ever buy a bad-fitting pair of boots ever again.
This is a poor analogy.
It's more akin to a crappy boot maker dominating the market and a mini-economy springing up to build accessories that work around the shortcomings of those boots. And even good quality boots require socks, so it's more like *having* to buy an extra, specially-designed pair of socks for your Crapola-brand boots.
That said, it's hard and pointless to argue it further in terms of *your* boot analogy because as I said, it was a flawed analogy to begin with and continuing it would be a distraction.
Boots are a one-off regular purchase that isn't really like social media at all.
Too bad about those refrigerated vaccines you were trekking into a remote African village.
Please- enough with the blatant appeal to emotion. Cute-faced, starving African children are not going to die because someone couldn't post a photo of themselves drinking a Barcardi Breezer at their friend's 21st on Facebook.
And while I don't want to dignify that "boots" analogy further, if it were the case that one was delivering vaccines in that way, you sure as hell wouldn't (or shouldn't) be doing it in anything other than properly fitting boots to start off with.
The first episodes of Monty Python weren't received that well when first aired either, if things had gone differently those could also have been lost.
Apparently the BBC *did* consider erasing the Monty Python master tapes.
It's unlikely that somebody'll sue them for reporting incorrectly that episodes of Dr. Who have been recovered
Hence the increased possibility that if they had to make something up to fill space they decided to go for this instead of something involving Harry Styles, Hazell Dean, a lorryload of quaaludes and a goat.
The proof is in the pudding
No, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating".
Well, as I said previously, the problem with Social Fixer was that they *were* giving people a reason to use Facebook by making an app that *temporarily* alleviates some of the inconvenience caused by the latter's behaviour and policies without actually forcing- or even encouraging- them to change. Then failing as soon as Facebook change things round again.
They've designed an app that automatically jumps when Facebook wants their users to jump. It fixes nothing in the long term; quite the opposite, by making it marginally more comfortable to stay with Facebook, they're hiding and drawing attention away from the fundamental issue, which is Facebook's behaviour, business model and contemptious attitude towards its users. Only they have the power to change that, and they won't. The only solution is to encourage people not to use Facebook, and Social Fixer is a hindrance in that respect.
Social Fixer might seem helpful on the surface, but it's part of the Facebook ecosystem, and part of the problem, not the solution.
either the GPU or CPU cock increased.
Whoa, can cell phones do that now? I hold these things to my ear, for Christ's sake!
Yeah, they'll f**k your brains out... literally.
NASA recorded over the Moon Landing masters, at a time when they were better-funded than they have ever been. The BBC is in good company.
Now *that* was a gross failure if ever I saw one.
Quick background; NASA used a custom "slow scan" transmission system to send TV pictures from the moon, but those weren't compatible with ordinary TV transmissions, so they had to be converted for live transmission for viewers at home. Conversion technology was basic at the time, so the method was basically to point a camera at a monitor displaying the slow scan pictures.
That was fine. Not fine as in "good quality", because they probably lost quite a lot of the original quality, but fine as in I appreciate that was the best *live* on-the-fly conversion they could probably have managed in those days.
What *wasn't* remotely "fine" was that they didn't keep- or at least properly archive- a recording of the original, pre-conversion transmissions. If we had those today, we would easily have much higher quality footage of the moon landing transmissions that could easily be converted to a viewable resolution and framerate using digital technology. But we don't; all we have are the converted-on-the-fly versions. They've remastered those- but let's face it, that's still a piss-poor alternative to actually having the originals.
I don't think that had *anything* to do with money; I think it was a major institutional failure. And unlike something that- at the time- was seen as a low budget family scifi show- these were transmissions of *the first bloody moon landing* and they knew damn well they were important, even then.
While I'm not in a position to say whether Clancy deserved to be here or not, since you bring up the issue, I must admit that I was surprised that the death of Ray Dolby a few weeks back apparently didn't make it to the front page.
Careful not to crank the music on your new nanopodz(tm) too loud, or you'll literally fry your eardrums...
No, you "literally" won't fry your eardrums, because frying by definition requires oil or fat and if it's not already there in significant quantities, it's not frying :-P
That was very informative, thanks.
I'm willing to accept what that guy was saying in that it's what a *lot* of people say about drug addicts; that the drugs are a (non-)solution for an underlying problem and that solving the addiction without fixing what it was trying to cover is just going to move it on to something else. While I'm not 100% convinced that all underlying problems are as clearly-defined (and hence easily fixable) as that "ONE" comment implies, I do agree somewhat with the general principle of what he says.
I know it's been said before, but I still find it amusingly ironic that after one selects the "disable silly animated characters in sidebar" option in Windows XP they run a final f*****g animation of the cartoon dog running into the distance before disappearing over a hill!!
:-)
I honestly half-suspect that this was intentional...
Sorry but any teens shooting codeine and gas into their veins? not gonna be worth anything to anybody but the prison industrial complex.
As far as I can tell, this seems to be favoured by people who are *already* deep into heroin/opiate addiction and don't care about anything but a cheap hit.
So even the brain-dead teenager probably wouldn't start out on this stuff- the depressing thing is that they'll quite possibly end on this drug.
Yes- what you say ties in with things I've heard.
Specifically, I've heard that a surprising number of GPs and people in medicine (IIRC) apparently have a heroin habit, yet keep it under control and are able to hold down their jobs because they have reliable access- through their job, albeit presumably illegally- to a clean, consistent supply of the stuff.
I've also heard it said that the biggest (though not necessarily all) problems caused by heroin are essentially a consequence of its illegal status, and the effect that has on the supply of the drug and the behaviour of its users.
That still doesn't change the fact that RMS did not re-implement UNIX as the summary suggests. UNIX user-space utilities are useful, yes, but are not UNIX in themselves.
It's a shame that the borderline trollish aspects of your original post distracted from the legitimate point it *did* make- that RMS and the GNU project were *not* responsible for the most popular GPL kernel (i.e. Linux).
On the other hand, they kicked off the whole thing and were responsible for a *significant* proportion of the utilities that make that kernel into a proper OS. And it's quite possible- if not probable- that had Stallman not created and popularised the GPL that Linux would never have been released under anything resembling the GPL. (It's worth remembering that early versions of Linux had a noncommercial-use-only license; according to Wikipedia "Torvalds has described licensing Linux under the GPL as the "best thing I ever did." ".)
Would people have been so willing to contribute to Linux under the original license terms? Would it have ever taken off?
So, to reverse Stallman's usual bugbear, it's not just GNU, it's, er... Linux/GNU. But ultimately, beyond who gets credit for what, that's not that big a deal- RMS and the GNU project didn't write it, but they certainly do deserve the credit for creating the GPL it's licensed under, something which probably benefited Linux as much as Linux benefited GNU and free software in general. Stallman himself acknowledges that Linux meets the need for a free kernel and that finishing Hurd is no longer essential. (Ironically, I'm guessing that the success of Linux probably attracted developers who might otherwise have worked on the Hurd).
So it's a win-win situation; beyond the very worthwhile software that the GNU project created, its popularisation of the GPL encouraged a whole lot more- including Linux.
It's called natural selection. If you are stupid enough to drive across a runway because your phone told you to, I say let them go ahead.
Very insightful... er, no, because you forgot the possibility that it could end badly for the pilot and passengers on any plane it collides with.
The impression I get from reading the featured article is that "Internet of things" refers to giving each electrical appliance a microcontroller to connect to the Internet so that the appliance's owner can manage it remotely.
That's probably as good a guess at the interviewee's...
""We don't have a good notion of what the Internet of Things is yet,"
Yeah, thanks for that. So what you're basically saying is that it's a techno-fetishists' obsession with networking everything for the sake of it masquerading as a solution looking for a problem. Which ironically *will* cause problems.
The benefits? Well, er... I guess it lets the Boys' Toys mob show off their IP-enabled, iPod app-controllable nasal hair trimmer to their mates until they get bored of it five minutes later and lose it down the back of the sofa.
As I commented recently:-
Seriously... what *really* does this obsession with the "Internet of Things" actually offer us?
Right now, it comes across as something being pushed by for-the-sake-of-it technological fetishists meeting control freak tendencies, both playing into the hands of authoritarians everywhere.
Let’s say you’re watching a video from Justin Timberlake. What type of video comment would be awesome to see: one from JT himself, one from people you care about who love the video ...or one from just the last random person to stop by?
Note the emphasis; "people you care about" (e.g. fellow groupthinking fans defending Lady Gaga to the death against those who say her latest weird-ass dressing up video for an otherwise relatively normal pop song isn't the best thing since sliced bread) and "who love the video" (i.e. pro positive comments). Very adolescent.
Frankly, if I stop by to see the video and I decide to say something negative about it for an entirely legitimate reason, I consider it mod abuse if it's clearly downvoted purely because it's not the majority and/or fan opinion. (And one must remember that rabid fans in small groups can push above their weight if they're aggressive in pushing their views against a less obsessed majority who disagree- or at least don't agree- with them; this doesn't make it legitimate however.)
But it appears that YouTube are now encouraging this behaviour.
We know this already happens (and that YouTube comments frequently descend into moronic flamewarring) but it's disappointing to see that YouTube (i.e. Google) are officially condoning it. This is likely to encourage the spread of this attitude even to videos on less fan-oriented but still divisive topics (e.g. controversial science and politics). It's also likely to legitimise such mod abuse elsewhere as people now think that's what they're for... if they didn't already.
I can't wait.
Well, as the other reply noted, the hardware recalls *did* cost them a lot of money (circa $1 bn). But I'd assume that the main reason the PS3 was so expensive to build originally (requiring subsidy even at its high launch cost) is due to the entirely new Cell processor and the inclusion of a then-expensive Blu-Ray drive. Whereas the 360 was just a (very-heavily) customised PowerPC- i.e. based on established technology- that can't have cost anything like as much even when "new", and only included a DVD drive, which was cheap even then.
Yes, marketing probably wasn't cheap either...
I saved some cash when I figured out that, for him, "focus relentlessly on delivering delightful, seamless experiences" meant chasing his tail and licking his private parts...
If you could lick your private parts, you wouldn't be wasting your time on an XBox either.
;-) ).
(Sorry, but as everyone knows, it *is* obligatory to make that joke