You can have a copyrighted work with quite strict license conditions encoded in a free video format, or you can have some public domain stuff encoded in a heavily patent-encumbered video format. Also, if you write a video codec for a free video format, you still have the copyright on that code, and can impose arbitrary license conditions.
I actually don't understand the common fear of the command line. Indeed, I'm much more frightened to modify some random registry entry with close to zero documentation (and usually a more than cryptic name) than typing a command where I can get at least basic information through the man page. Why should it be less frightening to click on something with a cryptic name than typing a cryptic name? Moreover, if I happen to miss the thing to click on, generally I'll click on something else which most likely will do something I did not intend, and I might not even have an idea what exactly I did, if it has a negative effect (which I may find out about maybe much later), and how to undo it. If I mistype a command, the chances are quite high that it simply won't work (although I have to admit that the most basic commands on the Unix/Linux console are not exactly ideal in this respect).
But then, I grew up with computers which expected commands to be entered (either BASIC commands for the early home computers, or DOS commands for the early PCs) to do anything.
MJPEG is insanely ineffective. It's no different from just a series of JPEG stills, without taking any advantage of frames being similar to each other.
Which makes it an ideal format for video editing. Yes, they give huge files, but then, today disk space is cheap, and it's not the form you distribute anyway. There's no problem if your currently edited film needs 100 GB. On the other hand, the less compression losses/artifacts you get in the intermediate steps, the better.
This means, you have a really huge bitrate for lousy quality.
Nonsense. It means huge bitrate for better quality, because you get less compression losses/artifacts.
* some people have clever ideas put bad way. linus is (unfortunately) too busy, to check every idea, so he skips them (sometimes), if they are not polished (enough for him)
No, you can't. The GPL places limits on both liberalness and zealotry.
Well, he certainly can't accept code with a license that violates the GPL (strictly speaking, even that is not true; he'd just have to relicense Linux and remove all code from people not willing to have their code relicensed accordingly). But other than that, he's completely free in what he accepts in the tree and what he rejects.
It is of course also true that others will react on his decisions, and therefore the decisions may make his Linux tree obsolete. But that doesn't mean he can't do it. It only means that he will have to live with the consequences. Also note that this is not specific to Linux or the GPL. It would also be true for a proprietary product, provided it doesn't have a monopoly: If the vendor makes decisions the users don't agree with, the users will just switch to another vendor, and if the developers are not content with how the development is handled, most of them will try hard to find a job in another company.
Not securing your wifi is CHOOSING to make it public.
No. Just because I forgot to lock my front door doesn't mean I invite everyone to come in.
The NYT ad example is besides the point, because you have to do explicit steps to get the ad into NYT, steps which you only do if you want to make that information public. If you don't do anything, your ad does not appear in the NYT (and if it happens to appear there anyway without your consent, AFAIK you do have the right to stop its distribution through the courts). Defaults matter!
or why we should consider it more important than the data mining that goes on in other contexts, like when you actually use Google services.
Normally, when you use google services, you do it voluntarily. You explicitly go to Google to search, and you know that whatever you enter will be known by Google, and if there's something you don't want Google to know, you just don't enter it. The same is true for most other Google services: You are in control of the data you give to Google, because you know when you connect to Google (there are some exceptions, though, like Google analytics). This is different in that you don't ask Google to come and record your WLAN data. There's no practical way to evade.
No, you put the fan behind, so it goes against the wind. It not only reduces the generated power, but in addition removes some of the generated power directly at the generation place, so it doesn't hit the grid. As added bonus, the article mentions that the renewable energy credits are only generated when the blades are spinning, however it doesn't tell that you may not use that power yourself (and if there's some regulation to that effect, you simply found a second company to put up the fans, and sell the required electricity to that second company).
The point stands that in former times, the model numbers did include the frequency, and that frequency was heavily marketed. Also, when the multicore business started, that was also noted directly in the name (up to actually determining the name: Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad). And while it's true that you can get the technical data from the web, the name of something is always also a marketing instrument. And therefore it's quite significant that Intel now doesn't include the core features (no pun intended) in the name. It means that it considers that sort of marketing no longer worthwhile.
err, "fortran lobster". Maybe with a 30,000 core box, Slashdot would be able to handle editing a post?
I think that's a deliberate decision to prevent someone changing a post after someone commented on it (possibly linking from another thread, so just checking replies isn't sufficient).
There's preview to catch those errors. However I know quite well that often you don't see your errors in preview, just to notice them immediately after submit...
Maybe a comment editing system where you have to access to previous versions of a comment (and permalinks to them) would work. For replies, if a comment is edited, an automatic note could be added that the parent was edited since that comment was made, linking to the old version of the comment.
However there's also the question what to do with moderations, which may not be appropriate with the edited version of the comment. One possibility would be to lose all moderations on a post as soon as you edit, but that would enable trolls to effectively fight a down moderation by making minimal changes to their posts.
Anyway, even a 30,000 core box won't help you with those problems.
That is a very good point but honestly they're looking to present a "helpful" marketing image. Blatantly ignoring a competitor cheats the user of a choice from the user's point of view. And when the user finds out they've been cheated they'll go to another vendor.
The question they try to answer is: "If I buy a Dell computer, should I order one with Windows or with Ubuntu." They are presenting a page which is intended to be helpful for (potential) Dell costomers. They are definitively not trying to make a general "which operating system is best for me" page. Note that they not only omitted OS X, but also OpenSUSE, Gentoo and FreeBSD, despite the fact that all three operating systems will run on Dell hardware.
Well, it's simple: It gives good results if the designer of the font put considerable work into it (and the software correctly interprets it, but I assume that's the case). It gives terrible results if the font designer didn't. Now if it looks bad for free fonts, then I can imagine several possible causes:
There are simply no good font designers making free fonts. If that is the case, the patent expiring will not help.
The designers of free fonts didn't consider it worthwhile to put work in it because it was ignored by free software anyway. In that case the patent expiration will help, because now it will become worthwhile to them.
Or maybe it's just boring to do that specific work, and therefore few designers of free fonts do it (similar to the fact that often free software projects are badly documented). In that case the expired patent might have an effect, because the font designers don't have the patent excuse any more.
Finally I also could imagine that the patent also prevented free software from creating properly hinted fonts. In that case, again the expiring of the patent will probably help.
While I don't know how fonts are rendered in Wine, if Wine actually renders them itself and sends the resulting bitmaps to the X server, then this will certainly consume more bandwidth than if it just sends the text and font info and lets X render it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is completely unrelated to copyright.
You can have a copyrighted work with quite strict license conditions encoded in a free video format, or you can have some public domain stuff encoded in a heavily patent-encumbered video format. Also, if you write a video codec for a free video format, you still have the copyright on that code, and can impose arbitrary license conditions.
I actually don't understand the common fear of the command line. Indeed, I'm much more frightened to modify some random registry entry with close to zero documentation (and usually a more than cryptic name) than typing a command where I can get at least basic information through the man page. Why should it be less frightening to click on something with a cryptic name than typing a cryptic name? Moreover, if I happen to miss the thing to click on, generally I'll click on something else which most likely will do something I did not intend, and I might not even have an idea what exactly I did, if it has a negative effect (which I may find out about maybe much later), and how to undo it. If I mistype a command, the chances are quite high that it simply won't work (although I have to admit that the most basic commands on the Unix/Linux console are not exactly ideal in this respect).
But then, I grew up with computers which expected commands to be entered (either BASIC commands for the early home computers, or DOS commands for the early PCs) to do anything.
"Give the computer special permission to do certain potentially dangerous things." Doesn't sound very complicated to me.
So the solution would be to write bloatware for Linux and pay Dell to install it on their Ubuntu PCs?
Hiding messages in child porn would be like smuggling cigarettes by hiding them between large containers of cocaine.
Which makes it an ideal format for video editing. Yes, they give huge files, but then, today disk space is cheap, and it's not the form you distribute anyway. There's no problem if your currently edited film needs 100 GB. On the other hand, the less compression losses/artifacts you get in the intermediate steps, the better.
Nonsense. It means huge bitrate for better quality, because you get less compression losses/artifacts.
In an ideal world there is no marketing.
And where would I found it? AFAIK all known land is already owned by some existing nation.
Which sounds exactly like a scalability problem.
Well, he certainly can't accept code with a license that violates the GPL (strictly speaking, even that is not true; he'd just have to relicense Linux and remove all code from people not willing to have their code relicensed accordingly). But other than that, he's completely free in what he accepts in the tree and what he rejects.
It is of course also true that others will react on his decisions, and therefore the decisions may make his Linux tree obsolete. But that doesn't mean he can't do it. It only means that he will have to live with the consequences. Also note that this is not specific to Linux or the GPL. It would also be true for a proprietary product, provided it doesn't have a monopoly: If the vendor makes decisions the users don't agree with, the users will just switch to another vendor, and if the developers are not content with how the development is handled, most of them will try hard to find a job in another company.
Ah, now I understand why we don't get mobile phone contracts with no strings attached!
It isn't inevitable. There's the (admittedly remote) chance that Linux becomes obsolete (due to the rise of another OS) before Linus stops scaling.
No. Just because I forgot to lock my front door doesn't mean I invite everyone to come in.
The NYT ad example is besides the point, because you have to do explicit steps to get the ad into NYT, steps which you only do if you want to make that information public. If you don't do anything, your ad does not appear in the NYT (and if it happens to appear there anyway without your consent, AFAIK you do have the right to stop its distribution through the courts). Defaults matter!
Normally, when you use google services, you do it voluntarily. You explicitly go to Google to search, and you know that whatever you enter will be known by Google, and if there's something you don't want Google to know, you just don't enter it. The same is true for most other Google services: You are in control of the data you give to Google, because you know when you connect to Google (there are some exceptions, though, like Google analytics). This is different in that you don't ask Google to come and record your WLAN data. There's no practical way to evade.
And the MAC address cannot be used to identify you?
No, you put the fan behind, so it goes against the wind. It not only reduces the generated power, but in addition removes some of the generated power directly at the generation place, so it doesn't hit the grid. As added bonus, the article mentions that the renewable energy credits are only generated when the blades are spinning, however it doesn't tell that you may not use that power yourself (and if there's some regulation to that effect, you simply found a second company to put up the fans, and sell the required electricity to that second company).
That's one reason not to use Chrome. I don't have a Google account, and I don't want a Google account.
The point stands that in former times, the model numbers did include the frequency, and that frequency was heavily marketed. Also, when the multicore business started, that was also noted directly in the name (up to actually determining the name: Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad). And while it's true that you can get the technical data from the web, the name of something is always also a marketing instrument. And therefore it's quite significant that Intel now doesn't include the core features (no pun intended) in the name. It means that it considers that sort of marketing no longer worthwhile.
However they couldn't finish their job, because the legal department noted they violated the company's patent on using firearms in marketing.
err, "fortran lobster". Maybe with a 30,000 core box, Slashdot would be able to handle editing a post?
I think that's a deliberate decision to prevent someone changing a post after someone commented on it (possibly linking from another thread, so just checking replies isn't sufficient).
There's preview to catch those errors. However I know quite well that often you don't see your errors in preview, just to notice them immediately after submit ...
Maybe a comment editing system where you have to access to previous versions of a comment (and permalinks to them) would work. For replies, if a comment is edited, an automatic note could be added that the parent was edited since that comment was made, linking to the old version of the comment.
However there's also the question what to do with moderations, which may not be appropriate with the edited version of the comment. One possibility would be to lose all moderations on a post as soon as you edit, but that would enable trolls to effectively fight a down moderation by making minimal changes to their posts.
Anyway, even a 30,000 core box won't help you with those problems.
Ubuntu's image is 16:9. Windows' image is 4:3. Now 16:9 is clearly the more modern alternative.
The question they try to answer is: "If I buy a Dell computer, should I order one with Windows or with Ubuntu." They are presenting a page which is intended to be helpful for (potential) Dell costomers. They are definitively not trying to make a general "which operating system is best for me" page. Note that they not only omitted OS X, but also OpenSUSE, Gentoo and FreeBSD, despite the fact that all three operating systems will run on Dell hardware.
You've got to start somewhere. Pretty soon, we'll invent the moon wheel!
Well, assuming we can agree to its colour.
Well, it's simple: It gives good results if the designer of the font put considerable work into it (and the software correctly interprets it, but I assume that's the case). It gives terrible results if the font designer didn't. Now if it looks bad for free fonts, then I can imagine several possible causes:
While I don't know how fonts are rendered in Wine, if Wine actually renders them itself and sends the resulting bitmaps to the X server, then this will certainly consume more bandwidth than if it just sends the text and font info and lets X render it.