Does this software use any GPL'ed components (modules, code portions, etc). If so, then even the author cannot go and just swap to a non-GPL license unless that license is in itself GPL-compliant... otherwise he himself may be in violation of the GPL in regards to using GPL'ed code without making his own source properly available.
That might not a bad idea. I could never figure out why MS couldn't build a VM or perhaps an intermediary layer of sorts to work with backwards compatability. Heck, if I can run windows programs on linux (Wine), or run a windows VM on linux/mac/whatever - or even a 32-bit environment under 63-bit OS... WTF Is preventing MS from making something similar to handle the legacy apps?
My co-worker has a high-end gaming rig (dual-core processor, shitloads of RAM, dual PCI-Express video cards, etc). He can't get his games to work on Vista nearly as well as on XP. Even new ones, such as the new Command and Conquer, althought I'm not sure if the issue is that it outright don't work or that it doesn't work well enough to bother.
One, and on a side-note, I too had the evil issues with SBLive drivers, which is why I moved over to using Linux/Wine rather than XP for the most-part. However, I later found that the Open-Source XP drivers fixed that issue... although I'm happy to continue using a linux desktop as many other things are just less of a headache.
I've heard interesting (aka not pleasant) things about running Office 2k on Vista... apparently there aren't any patches to fix those issues yet (other than forking out more money to buy office 2007).
Hell, I remember the same deal with XP. My *MICROSOFT* sidewinder gamepad (gameport variety) was not supported. Many other similar pieces of hardware (gameport joysticks etc) worked.
So if even Microsoft can't get their shit to work on their own newer OS's... how is anyone else supposed to manage?
With a mortgage, the bank gives me the cash, and the house is my responsibility. It's a pretty simple agreement, and things only get dicey if you're on variable-rate and the interest really goes crazy. The same applies for a lot of contracts. However, will cell phones and other such things, the difference is that you are paying for a continual service with unspecified guarantees of quality. If your internet is down for two weeks, are you entitled to refunds? If you cellphone service starts sucking (dropped calls, routing issues, etc), do you get refunds? Nope, under the contract they just keep taking your money and you can't get out.
I was a customer with the local cellphone provider, Telus, for many years. As a provider, they were excellent for many years. Good customer service, good network quality, competitive rates, and good local (shopside) service. Over the last several years, they made a lot of cutbacks. Suddenly I had calls which were going straight to voicemail (phone didn't ring, even if I was in a call - which means I definately had service - I didn't get the call-waiting beep). I know these issues were not phone-related as several other people I know on the same network experienced similar issues, however my phone also started acting up... the battery didn't last well beyond the first year, and it would decide to crash on occasion. I have a service contract, but according to the phone company it's the local retailer's responsibility, and the local retails never had any loaner phones (to replace the cellphone which is my *only* phone). Whenever I talk to the shop I get the runaround (they're not making a profit on the repair, after all) and when I talk to the phone company I'm lucky if I don't wait an hour on hold before getting cut off during a transfer (which happens a LOT).
So I check into canceling the contract with 1 year left, and the cost is barely below what it would be to keep up the phone on the minimal plan for the rest of the year. I gave the stupid thing to my dad (ordering a new battery) on a basic plan with a new number and had mine ported to another carrier. At the very least he'll be able to use the phone at home, since I couldn't get the damn thing to carry a call at my place without standing by a window since I moved about 9 months ago.
Again, it is not the "known data" that is at question here, but the database as an object in its entirety.
Nobody is accusing Google of "copying Chinese characters", but rather of copying a specific collection that somebody has invested time and money in creating. This is not a corpus, but rather more like a dictionary. Anyone can create one, but google - which I have emminent respect for in other areas, but not this one - has decided to take somebody else's "dictionary" rather than creating their own. The compilation existed as somebody else's work. Likely google could have made an attempt to buy it. Equally likely, they could have produced a similar offering on their own. Instead, they chose to take another group's work and then denied both giving said group adequate compensation, or even that they had taken it from said group.
The language isn't copyrighted, and google was more than free to come up with their own dictionary/database. However, in this case they used somebody else's. The infringement is not against the language itself, but against the use of somebody's precompiled database (inclusive of errors, amusingly enough).
I don't know if you could consider some of the errors you get under various conditions "easter eggs", but some of the error messages are interesting.
For example, being root, and then losing authentication for the root user (some error reading/etc/password, or otherwise), you get the error message:
"You don't exist, go away!"
Others includ the "something wicked happened while X" network messages and various fun messages that occur in certain obscure/erroneous scenarios.
I don't know about the US, but around here the law basically says that a deposit can't be in excess of a month's rent (actually I think it's half a month's rent).
Given that, it doesn't take much time at all to cause more than a month's rent in damage, and if your tenant is getting kicked out he/she might very well be pissed off enough to eat the loss of deposit (hell, if they're being kicked out, it might be that they already owe more than it already) and trash the place. Moreover, as the law does require a fairly lengthy notice/processing period on an eviction, it gives bad tenants all that much more time to do rather unpleasant things to the dwelling place before they are removed.
That's why I prefer roommate situations, technically the roommate by law falls more as an extended guest, and has a lot less protections that get in the way of removing bad one. For the record I have not nor would I kick a roommate out without due notice, except under extreme circumstances... but it's nice to know that if I did end up with a really bad one (dealer, crack addict, psycho or other such) I could get him out. Plus being present myself means that - although I have to deal with the roomie on a regular basis - I have a pretty firm idea of what is going on in my place.
Sounds like a good topic for a sci-fi book. Perhaps future space-yards will simply be a vast repository of consumables attached to a large fabricator and assembly machine.
Heck, cars are already being put together in a large-part by machines, if they could "fab" the parts that might greatly reduce the cost/time of production even more. Still, in a zero-G (or low-G) space environment they might be able to do things even better. The first country to build one can rent it out for creation of satellites and spacecraft. The major considerations would be putting it together and getting the consumables up there.
This also leads me to wonder, how does the durability of machinery in space compare to that on earth. Does lack of gravity affect lubrication/friction/wear? How about the lack of particles (or at least lower amount) in the atmosphere to jam things up? How about the low temperature?
Being an IT worker? Well, patching a whackload of systems/servers with updated DST settings comes to mind. This of course only includes those systems that could be patched, not the ones that had hardwired settings and/or required firmware updates that aren't yet available.
I seriously thought about lodging a small claims court claim for damages
Do it. Take them to court. Keep your receipts, and any logs you may have.
Unfortunately the fix it or be sued language is the only one a lot of big corps can understand nowadays. The reason they operate in this manner is that they don't expect anyone to call them in on their abusive behavior. Do you know anyone else who was unreasonably cut off by Verizon? a class-action might be useful in this case (it won't likely net you any large sum of cash, but it will cost Verizon enough to get the message across).
I have a place where myself, my girlfriend, and my roommate all share internet. Last month we blew past our 100GB about a week before month's end. While I'm fairly sure that I wasn't pulling a lot of traffic, and that the roommate was doing a fair share of torrenting, I'd bet that a fairly active household with multiple members could beat 100/120GB in a month without too much difficulty.
As an IT worker, my opinion the DST change was poorly brought-about and thought-up. It basically served a political agenda as well as a restricted economical one.
However, as a regular-workday employee (8-4), after getting over the technical headaches and early wake-up time, I quite enjoyed my extra little bit of sunlight after work. Personally, I'd rather that DST gets abolished altogether, the best way to do so being to just leave the damn clock where it is now.
If you excuse him, then no one can bitch and moan about hackers and vulnerabilities in Windows, OS X, Linux, or anything else.
So try him in his own fucking country then. The arguement is not whether he should be tried or even go to jail, but rather that he's being sent to the US rather than being tried in his home country (and he's not a US citizen).
Make Canadian content that people want to watch or listen to. I'm a Canadian, and frankly this stinks of protectionism no better than the issues with the US gambling industry/online-gambling issue and many others.
Why should Canadian content providers be able to block outside competitors? Isn't that part of free trade? If somebody wants to sell me programming on cable, satellite, or internet... then it seems to qualify is "trade" to me.
How about on Canadian banking, or at least online payment services. How about arresting the execs of said Canadian company.
I'd say that it's more than just regulation of US banking. Which is beside the point, because even if it was a restriction from say, disallowing any payment to an online ham-merchant from a US bank, it's still an issue of international trade if the government is using it to block German ham merchants.
I live in Canada. To my knowledge we can legally gamble online. However, I still know plenty of people who do such and are - in fact - going to Vegas this year. These people also regularly buy lottery tickets.
I don't know why the gambling companies would be concerned, as my experience indicates that the ease of entry into online gambling just increases overall interest in the activity. Somebody who plays online is no less likely to step into a casino or buy a lottery ticket, and - in fact - a low-level gambling who gets started online might become more willing to try real slots/casinos/etc.
I think that most modern distros are now using at least 2.6.18 (heck I think even debian/stable does), as that particular kernel introduced a lot of improvements to IO performance.
Even that apps look quite dated (1.5.x series firefox, etc)
It might be user-friendly, but it's definitely not very up-to-date.
Hmmm, apparently I missed my own joke. I meant to indicate that they didn't use an ammeter/voltmeter because electrodes would supposedly throw off the measurements...
Can you actually view the whole book? An argument there would be that google has presented a service which would actually be profitable to the author (by selling more books). It tends to go along with the argument that if students' works are being submitted, the students should in some way get compensated.
Still, it is a good comparison, and one that is still up-in-the-air as well.
Slashdot Mirror
The first thing that I wondered is:
Does this software use any GPL'ed components (modules, code portions, etc). If so, then even the author cannot go and just swap to a non-GPL license unless that license is in itself GPL-compliant... otherwise he himself may be in violation of the GPL in regards to using GPL'ed code without making his own source properly available.
As far as the products of the companies in question go, I think that This would be a fairly appropriate logo.
That might not a bad idea. I could never figure out why MS couldn't build a VM or perhaps an intermediary layer of sorts to work with backwards compatability. Heck, if I can run windows programs on linux (Wine), or run a windows VM on linux/mac/whatever - or even a 32-bit environment under 63-bit OS... WTF Is preventing MS from making something similar to handle the legacy apps?
My co-worker has a high-end gaming rig (dual-core processor, shitloads of RAM, dual PCI-Express video cards, etc). He can't get his games to work on Vista nearly as well as on XP. Even new ones, such as the new Command and Conquer, althought I'm not sure if the issue is that it outright don't work or that it doesn't work well enough to bother.
One, and on a side-note, I too had the evil issues with SBLive drivers, which is why I moved over to using Linux/Wine rather than XP for the most-part. However, I later found that the Open-Source XP drivers fixed that issue... although I'm happy to continue using a linux desktop as many other things are just less of a headache.
I've heard interesting (aka not pleasant) things about running Office 2k on Vista... apparently there aren't any patches to fix those issues yet (other than forking out more money to buy office 2007).
Hell, I remember the same deal with XP. My *MICROSOFT* sidewinder gamepad (gameport variety) was not supported. Many other similar pieces of hardware (gameport joysticks etc) worked.
So if even Microsoft can't get their shit to work on their own newer OS's... how is anyone else supposed to manage?
With a mortgage, the bank gives me the cash, and the house is my responsibility. It's a pretty simple agreement, and things only get dicey if you're on variable-rate and the interest really goes crazy. The same applies for a lot of contracts. However, will cell phones and other such things, the difference is that you are paying for a continual service with unspecified guarantees of quality. If your internet is down for two weeks, are you entitled to refunds? If you cellphone service starts sucking (dropped calls, routing issues, etc), do you get refunds? Nope, under the contract they just keep taking your money and you can't get out.
I was a customer with the local cellphone provider, Telus, for many years. As a provider, they were excellent for many years. Good customer service, good network quality, competitive rates, and good local (shopside) service. Over the last several years, they made a lot of cutbacks. Suddenly I had calls which were going straight to voicemail (phone didn't ring, even if I was in a call - which means I definately had service - I didn't get the call-waiting beep). I know these issues were not phone-related as several other people I know on the same network experienced similar issues, however my phone also started acting up... the battery didn't last well beyond the first year, and it would decide to crash on occasion. I have a service contract, but according to the phone company it's the local retailer's responsibility, and the local retails never had any loaner phones (to replace the cellphone which is my *only* phone). Whenever I talk to the shop I get the runaround (they're not making a profit on the repair, after all) and when I talk to the phone company I'm lucky if I don't wait an hour on hold before getting cut off during a transfer (which happens a LOT).
So I check into canceling the contract with 1 year left, and the cost is barely below what it would be to keep up the phone on the minimal plan for the rest of the year. I gave the stupid thing to my dad (ordering a new battery) on a basic plan with a new number and had mine ported to another carrier. At the very least he'll be able to use the phone at home, since I couldn't get the damn thing to carry a call at my place without standing by a window since I moved about 9 months ago.
Again, it is not the "known data" that is at question here, but the database as an object in its entirety.
Nobody is accusing Google of "copying Chinese characters", but rather of copying a specific collection that somebody has invested time and money in creating. This is not a corpus, but rather more like a dictionary. Anyone can create one, but google - which I have emminent respect for in other areas, but not this one - has decided to take somebody else's "dictionary" rather than creating their own. The compilation existed as somebody else's work. Likely google could have made an attempt to buy it. Equally likely, they could have produced a similar offering on their own. Instead, they chose to take another group's work and then denied both giving said group adequate compensation, or even that they had taken it from said group.
The language isn't copyrighted, and google was more than free to come up with their own dictionary/database. However, in this case they used somebody else's. The infringement is not against the language itself, but against the use of somebody's precompiled database (inclusive of errors, amusingly enough).
I don't know if you could consider some of the errors you get under various conditions "easter eggs", but some of the error messages are interesting.
/etc/password, or otherwise), you get the error message:
For example, being root, and then losing authentication for the root user (some error reading
"You don't exist, go away!"
Others includ the "something wicked happened while X" network messages and various fun messages that occur in certain obscure/erroneous scenarios.
I don't know about the US, but around here the law basically says that a deposit can't be in excess of a month's rent (actually I think it's half a month's rent).
Given that, it doesn't take much time at all to cause more than a month's rent in damage, and if your tenant is getting kicked out he/she might very well be pissed off enough to eat the loss of deposit (hell, if they're being kicked out, it might be that they already owe more than it already) and trash the place. Moreover, as the law does require a fairly lengthy notice/processing period on an eviction, it gives bad tenants all that much more time to do rather unpleasant things to the dwelling place before they are removed.
That's why I prefer roommate situations, technically the roommate by law falls more as an extended guest, and has a lot less protections that get in the way of removing bad one. For the record I have not nor would I kick a roommate out without due notice, except under extreme circumstances... but it's nice to know that if I did end up with a really bad one (dealer, crack addict, psycho or other such) I could get him out. Plus being present myself means that - although I have to deal with the roomie on a regular basis - I have a pretty firm idea of what is going on in my place.
Some of the other systems from companies like Dimension or Stratasys use stronger plastics but can't produce multicolored items
I wonder if one step then might be to have a machine that handles painting? For componentized items, it could be: Fab it, paint it, assemble it.
Sounds like a good topic for a sci-fi book. Perhaps future space-yards will simply be a vast repository of consumables attached to a large fabricator and assembly machine.
Heck, cars are already being put together in a large-part by machines, if they could "fab" the parts that might greatly reduce the cost/time of production even more. Still, in a zero-G (or low-G) space environment they might be able to do things even better. The first country to build one can rent it out for creation of satellites and spacecraft. The major considerations would be putting it together and getting the consumables up there.
This also leads me to wonder, how does the durability of machinery in space compare to that on earth. Does lack of gravity affect lubrication/friction/wear? How about the lack of particles (or at least lower amount) in the atmosphere to jam things up? How about the low temperature?
Nope, none of those third-party candidates for me, I voted democrat!
(that's a joke, BTW, I'm not in the US)
Quick, install one in a politician, I can nominate a few!
Being an IT worker? Well, patching a whackload of systems/servers with updated DST settings comes to mind. This of course only includes those systems that could be patched, not the ones that had hardwired settings and/or required firmware updates that aren't yet available.
I seriously thought about lodging a small claims court claim for damages
Do it. Take them to court. Keep your receipts, and any logs you may have.
Unfortunately the fix it or be sued language is the only one a lot of big corps can understand nowadays. The reason they operate in this manner is that they don't expect anyone to call them in on their abusive behavior. Do you know anyone else who was unreasonably cut off by Verizon? a class-action might be useful in this case (it won't likely net you any large sum of cash, but it will cost Verizon enough to get the message across).
I have a place where myself, my girlfriend, and my roommate all share internet. Last month we blew past our 100GB about a week before month's end. While I'm fairly sure that I wasn't pulling a lot of traffic, and that the roommate was doing a fair share of torrenting, I'd bet that a fairly active household with multiple members could beat 100/120GB in a month without too much difficulty.
As an IT worker, my opinion the DST change was poorly brought-about and thought-up. It basically served a political agenda as well as a restricted economical one.
However, as a regular-workday employee (8-4), after getting over the technical headaches and early wake-up time, I quite enjoyed my extra little bit of sunlight after work. Personally, I'd rather that DST gets abolished altogether, the best way to do so being to just leave the damn clock where it is now.
If you excuse him, then no one can bitch and moan about hackers and vulnerabilities in Windows, OS X, Linux, or anything else.
So try him in his own fucking country then. The arguement is not whether he should be tried or even go to jail, but rather that he's being sent to the US rather than being tried in his home country (and he's not a US citizen).
Make Canadian content that people want to watch or listen to. I'm a Canadian, and frankly this stinks of protectionism no better than the issues with the US gambling industry/online-gambling issue and many others.
Why should Canadian content providers be able to block outside competitors? Isn't that part of free trade? If somebody wants to sell me programming on cable, satellite, or internet... then it seems to qualify is "trade" to me.
How about on Canadian banking, or at least online payment services. How about arresting the execs of said Canadian company.
I'd say that it's more than just regulation of US banking. Which is beside the point, because even if it was a restriction from say, disallowing any payment to an online ham-merchant from a US bank, it's still an issue of international trade if the government is using it to block German ham merchants.
I live in Canada. To my knowledge we can legally gamble online. However, I still know plenty of people who do such and are - in fact - going to Vegas this year. These people also regularly buy lottery tickets.
I don't know why the gambling companies would be concerned, as my experience indicates that the ease of entry into online gambling just increases overall interest in the activity. Somebody who plays online is no less likely to step into a casino or buy a lottery ticket, and - in fact - a low-level gambling who gets started online might become more willing to try real slots/casinos/etc.
I think that most modern distros are now using at least 2.6.18 (heck I think even debian/stable does), as that particular kernel introduced a lot of improvements to IO performance.
Even that apps look quite dated (1.5.x series firefox, etc)
It might be user-friendly, but it's definitely not very up-to-date.
Hmmm, apparently I missed my own joke. I meant to indicate that they didn't use an ammeter/voltmeter because electrodes would supposedly throw off the measurements...
Can you actually view the whole book? An argument there would be that google has presented a service which would actually be profitable to the author (by selling more books). It tends to go along with the argument that if students' works are being submitted, the students should in some way get compensated.
Still, it is a good comparison, and one that is still up-in-the-air as well.