Not by any consistent or sane definition of the term.
Like all political labels the term is abused (as is the term free market - most 'free market' advocates don't advocate anything close to it).
The most commonly accepted definition of libertarianism is political thought founded upon the Non Aggression Principle - that is, it is immoral to initiate aggression against another.
On those grounds, consistent libertarian thought opposes patents and copyright as arbitrarily enforced by an aggressive state. Free software on the other hand is a great example of decentralised, voluntary organisation - the very essence of any libertarian society.
That's not to say that there could not be software licenses - that's possible, but they'd probably be unenforceable.
For some more consistent libertarians who embrace open source/free software and apply it in their own work, try c4ss.org.
Wow, that is the most inaccurate expression of economics I have ever seen, and that's saying something.
Economics is not zero sum, there are unlimited amounts of the most valuable resource - human ingenuity. True, there's a limited amount of gold, but that doesn't matter, we find ways to use it more efficiently or extract more gold from the ground. We are told oil will run out, but we will find new ways to use other resources, we will find new ways to extract more oil which is too bothersome to extract now.
And as for suggesting printing money - the Federal Reserve printing money is the cause of so much economic instability. They made the Great Depression worse and longer through their policies (which they now admit). Printing money leads to inflation. That is economic fact.
And please, please, please. There is no such thing as an isolated economy. It is not possible for any country, even the US to supply its own needs fully, we need trade to get those things we need and want. You suggest that the US economy should be isolated. Why not the individual states then? Or perhaps cities? Or individuals, we could all be self-sufficient. Poor and miserable, but non of that evil trade.
Trade makes everyone richer and better off. It gives us all far more opportunities than we can ever imagine. To suggest otherwise is to go against all economics, even Marx knew trade is vital.
We all live in an interconnected world. India provides us with things cheaper than we can ourselves. We provide India with things they cannot provide for themselves. We both benefit. Economic nationalism is petty xenophobia and harms the US more than anyone else. Others benefit from you spending your money protecting jobs so we can have subsidised goods from you. Keep it up, those of us outside the US like you paying us to buy things.
Conditions in sweatshops are bad, but they are better than the alternatives by a long way, and unlike the alternatives they mean that people do not starve due to state imposed restrictions on labour or trade. These increase wages, increase skills, enable people to learn how to use new technology. Those who wish to will leave and set up their own businesses, and then employ more people. As competition for workers increases so do wages. And at the same time, it means that we in the west get cheaper produce, and can spend our time doing the things we're good at like designing iPods, or writing software.
The simple fact is that people would not work there if it wasn't worth their while. To treat them otherwise borders on racist, they're foreign or poor and don't know what's good for them and just won't do what's best unless we tell them to or make them...
It makes me sick that people would rather have people starve than be able to take control over their lives. We should be celebrating greater employment opportunities, greater opportunity to trade. It is what made the USA and the UK rich nations, why do we seek to deny others those opportunities?
If there was no prospect of progress, I'd join in with criticism of sweat shops, but the truth is they are a step on the ladder to greater prosperity and a better future, a future which they are rapidly progressing towards. (just think, an estimated $60 million people starved to death in China after Mao's 'Great Step Forwards', the economy was in tatters, look how far China has come).
Firstly: The RF Spectrum is land, it is a fixed quantity.
Secondly: Being land, scarcity comes into play, There's only a limited number of frequencies suitable for ionospheric propogation for example, and these frequencies change with time of day, season, sunspot number and many other factors (which aren't fully understood) so for reliable communications a range of frequencies is needed (and now with Automatic Link Establishment communications over HF is much more reliable). Similarly, there's a limit on the frequencies which don't get absorbed by normal atmospheric conditions, a limit on the range of frequencies for reliable short range communications. And the demmand for frequencies is very high. The RF spectrum is packed with users, be they domestic, broadcast, commercial, military, emergency services, scientific or PMR.
Thirdly: Markets fail when scarcity is involved. They cease to be efficient, the very definition of failure, so your statement that you cannot have a market until there is scarcity is just plain wrong.
I'd favour a transparent auction of parts of the spectrum for commercial users, with a Land Value Tax on spectrum use.
Markets are fascinating. Already they've been used to predict flu outbreaks with greater accuracy than experts.
The Iowa Electronic Markets is very interesting and in the UK there's a growing trend to use betting markets on political events to predict results.
Of course markets fail, and this one may, but its definitely worth a go, especially if it can be linked to implementing the idea somehow.
People seem to be missing the point...
on
Songbird Flies Today
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The point of this seems to me to be that it will let you buy from more than one store, it does not force bought music to have DRM. In other words it offers choice and freedom. iTunes restricts you. It is designed to be extensible. Hopefully there will be an iTunes plugin in the future, it also offers people a chance to use music differently.
It is only release 0.1. I'm sure iPod etc syncing is in the works.
Trade and the economy is not a zero-sum game, and things are so interlinked that protectionism in one area can result is disastrous.
Unfortunately we don't have free movement between countries, that would make this even better, the labour force could migrate if the work changes (although of course, real world factors like family can prevent this).
Protectionism is not the way forward though, it stiltifies the economy to the detriment to all.
The police want to be able to detain terrorist suspects for 90 days without charge. This is probably a figure they pulled out of the air as a good starting point for negotiations, however Tony Blair has decided that whatever the police want they should get when the magic word is mentioned.
One of the justifications was that they need that long to decrypt and analyse data. In which case, it is already a crime not to hand over a password of encryption key when requested so you can get them in custody on that charge for that long.
The arguments for the 90 days are incoherent, but that's what we have grown to expect from our government, especially when it comes to civil liberties and/or technology.
The House of Lords now only contains a few hereditary peers, the vast majority have been removed. Currently the make up is predominantly life peers appointed by successive governments (increasingly it seems for favours or money, but there is no direct evidence for that...)
Many of us would like to see a proportionally elected House of Lords, elected in a non-party list manner, but there is no will in government for that to happen (the forces of conservatism Mr Blair railed against being dominant there).
Today the House of Lords is the only reasonable check against an increasingly authoritarian government which forces badly drafted, ill thought out laws through the commons by limiting time for debate and misrepresenting reality (witness the ID Cards Bill where apparently the ICAO is to blame for biometrics when all they ask for is a digitised copy of the picture so be included on the card (and presumably signed by the the issuing authority)).
There were some legal wrangles not long ago about who even owns it and who has a license to develop it for the desktop. I think Castle may have something to say about open sourcing it as I think they actually own the rights to it (IIRC having bought them from Pace who bought them when Acorn or E14 went bust). RISC OS Ltd was set up when Acorn axed its desktop business (and then went bust) to develop RISC OS for the desktop and then released RISC OS 4 and the RISC OS Select scheme. In the meantime Pace were using it for set top boxes and things and then IIRC sold it to Castle who had bought the rights to the Acorn name. Castle then released a reasonably modern machine (new ARM processor with no legacy 26bit addressing support, PCI, NVidia graphics, USB) the Iyonic which runs RISC OS 5 which is sorted out so that it would run on 32bit addressing processors (ARM long ago dropped the legacy support for 26bit addressing). This led to legal wrangling with RISC OS Ltd and Castle accusing each other of breach of contract. Most people sided with Castle, seeing as they actually have a business which isn't on the verge of bankrupsy and are actually doing something with RISC OS, the notable exception being the editor of Qercus (which used to be Acorn User).
Personally I long ago gave up on RISC OS. It has a fantastic UI and was in its day a supurb platform (which really worried Apple, but Acorn failed to play its cards right and lost any advantage they may have had) but it no longer suits my needs and the OS architecture is frankly antiquated despite various moves in the past to drag it up into the modern world (notably some attempts to introduce pre-emptive multitasking and the Hydra multiprocessor boards). Still, RISC OS still has its followers (my father included as well as the company responsible for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire who originally at least ran the on screen graphics on RISC OS computers) and the recent hardware is very respectable some of which I have my eye on to run ARM Linux on as a low power small mail and print server for my LAN, but RISC OS is unfortunately a thing of the past.
Total deaths so far 43, from 4 bombs. 3 were on underground trains and 1 on a bus.
As a Londoner I've been expecting this, its inevitable, you can never have a free society and prevent every terrorist. The thing we must do is, like we did in the 70s under the threat from the IRA, is continue our lives and not let the terrorists dictate our actions and lives. We must not let our government use this as an excuse to impose more authoritarian laws and continue to spread the message of freedom and liberty, in its social, personal, political and economic guises. We must not give in to the terrorists and become like them. They want us to attack innocent people who just happen to be arabic or muslim, it will help swell their ranks.
*sighs* I suppose that this is an american centred board but Liberal doesn't seem to have that meaning anywhere else. Liberalism elsewhere breaks down into 3 main areas: 1) Political liberalism - small government, freedom to do what you like within the boundary that you do not harm another or impinge on their liberty and right to expect that your liberty is not infringed by another or the state. Also democratisation at the lowest level and a small government is a key aim. Decisions should be democratically made by those closest to the level they affect, ideally by the people themselves.
2) Economic liberalism - Free Trade (truly free trade, not the protectionism promulgated by the west under the guise of free trade), no protectionism.
3) Social liberalism - Best summarised by Lloyd George (British Liberal Prime Minister) - "Those who have liberty still need to live". Liberty is worthless if you cannot afford to feed yourself, and worthless if it is only enjoyed by those above a certain level of wealth. So the state has a responsibility to aid those who need it. This does not mean the state supporting people, but the state helping to educate people and ensuring adequate health care is available to all who need it and giving help to get back on your feet. Provision should of course be done in such a way as it is in line with the previous two forms of liberalism meaning no state monopoly or central control and market forces harnessed wherever...
So in a system where this has been acheived, a liberal would defend the status quo. The liberal's urge for change is not change for change's sake (a dangerous thing in my opinion) but change to make the world a better place (so they believe)
What you describe as Liberalism is closer to forms of Socialism and even forms of Conservatism.
So for a lot of the world, Liberalism is not left or right... economically it is more to the right (ie low state interference in economics, largely capitalistic) socially, it varies. The closest thing I see in the US is the Libertarians...
Liberals are often secularists due to their belief that you should not restrict another's liberty based upon your beliefs. Hence the legalisation of suicide and homosexuality were liberal moves because the basis upon which they were illegal were religious. You can be a devout Christian (or Mulsim, or Jew, or Hindu or...) and be a liberal but you don't force your beliefs on others.
The liberal reason for gun control and environmental laws are that these are things which effect others... Guns are designed to kill so there needs to be some control over them as they will be used against other people. Gun ownership is not a right, it is a privaledge, just like owning a car. Environmental controls: they are necessary as the world is plunged deeper into ecological crisis. The biggest misconception by many people is that environmentalism and business are opposite sides of a coin. This is simply not true. There are many opportunities for business to save and make money through environmental measures and environmental controls based upon market systems would offer even more opportunity.
On taxes: Liberals do not like to raise or cut taxes per-se. They prefer to tax those with more money (ie those who it would hurt less) more than those with little money (who are substantially harmed by taxation), but would ideally seek a simple, clear taxation system based on a person's ability to pay and with overall taxation as low as possible whilst still protecting the people of the country.
The war in Iraq is decidedly non-liberal. It is seeking to impose your values and order on another country. On others. It is also based around some suspect theory over the democratisation of arabs meaning secularisation in the manner of Attaturk in Turkey and the removal of Islam, but that's another debate.
On the philosophical outlook: Liberalism takes a less deterministic view, but tends to take a very positive view of humanity.
I have a friend who worked on this a bit for NASA. Its purely hardware based stuff, to do with fixing broken chips in flight and reducing the amount of redundant hardware needed. Admittedly its a very specialised area but an interesting one. The solution she was looking at was to use FPGAs to implement the hardware and when part of the silicon became damaged to use software to redesign the layout of the circuits to route around the damaged area. Its basically a SAT problem, finding a suitable SAT solving algorithm seems to be the main problem with this.
Okay, I've just ordered one of the webcams this module supports, and now I find that I can't use it with my primary desktop. That annoys me. I made my decision to buy it based on the fact that it was supported.
Okay, I understand why some people want to have a 'pure' kernel, and I understand the technical advantages. But this module is actively maintained and he would try to sort out any problems.
Linux will/never/ make inroads onto the desktop market if it doesn't work out of the box, and deliberately removing support for a common piece of hardware does not help that. People do not want to have to patch their kernels.
It is Philip's right to ask him to sign an NDA, it is their technology. You may not agree, but the right they exercise is what makes the GPL a valid license.
I also think that he's throwing something of a tantrum by demanding the removal of the code from the kernel. That's a pointless move and seeks to alienate the users even more.
I just wish all the zealots on every side would just get over themselves and realise that people want to use the best software for the job. For the first time in my computing life, Windows has won as the best platform for something. This is a sad day... I am glad that I have kept a Windows computer around. I never thought I'd say that.
As has been said many times before: Closed source is no guarantee of lack of tainting. Even with security checks its perfectly possible to have a hostile programmer working on the software.
I'd just like to put in a word for the NSA et al. They're perfectly capable of making their own decisions, and are probably far more qualified than anyone here. They know how to minimise risk using whichever development model they like... It is of course very possible that open source software could be written on behalf of the military. The people who keep the official version for use within the military/government will go through all code submitted with a fine tooth comb being very conservative with what patches they accept from the outside world...
This article is basically written for politicians to try and scare politicians into banning the FOSS competition. I doubt it would work if the military and friends didn't want it that way, they will make up their own minds.
The first point is just a matter of opinion. I feel that its counterproductive to hold this opinion, but its an opinion, not a myth.
More importantly, FOSS does let you tinker under the hood. That it not a myth. The importance of that is not whether you do, but that you/can/. This is an important difference and one that is necessarily true for FOSS, so its cetainly not a myth. Of course, if anyone claims that everyone does tinker, they're in cloud cuckoo land... I've done it three times. That will be out of several hundred programs I use. Most people want to use their computer not tinker...
There is a fair amount of opinion in the article rather than fact, but it is well presented and not zealot like:-) (and hey, where would we be without opinions being challenged?)
No. Because for things other than recorded sound it is 70 years after the author/creator's death. (funny, it was originally 15 years... but Micky Mouse is the reason we keep on gettnig extentions).
There's been a fuss about James Joyce's Ulysees recently. there was a period where it was out of copyright, but then they extended the copyright period and his estate is now arguing that its back in copyright so they need to be paid for public performance.
Yeah and South Korea wouldn't have been an oppressive military dictatorship for years. And Saddam Hussein wouldn't have had the gas he used on the Marsh Arabs and Iranians. And hundreds of thousands wouldn't have been killed and disappeared by US backed south american regimes (who usurped democratically elected governments). Oh and if it wasn't for us British and the US the Iranian revolution wouldn't have happened...
Don't get me wrong, the USA has done a lot of good, but has also done a lot of harm, and still does. US foreign policy is not about the world, its about votes (look at the AIDS donations which are restricted to groups who promote abstinence rather than condoms to satisfy the Christian Right).
I would like to thank the USA for (eventually) coming over to help Europe in WWII and for the Marshall Plan.
(oh and on Cuba: Castro was welcomed by the US when he won the civil war. Then he started chucking out the US companies who supported Batista so the US imposed sanctions so he turned to the USSR (and probably got paranoid). Pity he never stuck to what he said- standing down when Cuba was secure, then again, Cuba isn't exactly secure. He should go though.)
Functions as first class citizens, that is functions can be returned from functions and provided as arguments as functions. The basis of the functional paradigm and it makes life much much simpler. Pattern matching (some ML:)
Simple elegent functions requireing much less if_then_else's.
Automatic garbage collection and bounds checking: enables me to write the code to do the job, not the memory management.
Polymorphic typing: I can write general functions:
fun contains x [] = false
| contains x x::_ = true
| contains x _::xs = contains xs;
That will work with any type for which equality is defined.
These are the reasons I hate C for general programming. The most important thing is efficient algorithms, without them no amount of low level optimization will help. With good algorithms, functional languages are now normally at least as fast... (and much much easier to debug and even verifiable).
From non-functional languages, the object model is wonderful when used properly. Smalltalk & co's complete environment is a nice feature.
I also have a soft spot for BBC BASIC with its speed, interactivity and simplicity. These are combined to allow windowed applications including at least one web browser and anyone can start programming simple programs (which is missing from most modern computers)
Then there's the specialist languages. They have all sorts of nifty features (Mathematica is a good example) but I wouldn't expect them in an everyday language.
Yeah, I know he's blind and good for him to get to the position he's got, but it doesn't change the fact that he's an authoritarian socialist statist who's ideal society seems to be based upon the Soviet system but with more technology.
He deserves a special prize for his efforts to increase state control and reduce individual liberty and privacy.
Work experience (for free, in my case funded by the government (the welfare state is great, when I do get a job I will be contributing back, more than has been spent on me. You americans don't know what you're missing).
The number of jobs which advertise as being 'ideal for graduates' but ask for '2 years commercial C experience' or something like that are ridiculous.
And then companies hire a bunch of phycisists who 'know C' but can't engineer software to save their lives (the company then goes bust, but that's not the point).
The fact that I had a social life at Uni counts against me. And I don't want to go into management for some accountancy comapany.
There's still a fair amount of military and civil HF traffic. A quick scan of the HF bands reveals quite a lot of RTTY and FAX still, as well as VOLMET and the HF civil aviation frequencies (which are still quite active, choose the right frequency and its almost continuously active over the Atlantic). I heard an RAF SSB frequency the other day, it was still active (although the traffic was mostly asking for updates on the football). Then there's the US Government with its 'Radio Free $(region)' which is still active as well as all those US religious/evangelical stations.
The HF bands are still very active, and may even become moreso again if DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) takes off.
And the powerlines will probably not cause just HF interference. They could also cause interference on other bands, and may even affect medical equipment in hospitals as well as interference to emergency services.
It is a monumentally stupid idea...
(and if you want more broadband, well, BT is looking into running fibre optic cable to every house in the UK...)
Slashdot Mirror
Except patents are a government creation. The corporate world rests upon government intervention upon their behalf.
Not by any consistent or sane definition of the term.
Like all political labels the term is abused (as is the term free market - most 'free market' advocates don't advocate anything close to it).
The most commonly accepted definition of libertarianism is political thought founded upon the Non Aggression Principle - that is, it is immoral to initiate aggression against another.
On those grounds, consistent libertarian thought opposes patents and copyright as arbitrarily enforced by an aggressive state. Free software on the other hand is a great example of decentralised, voluntary organisation - the very essence of any libertarian society.
That's not to say that there could not be software licenses - that's possible, but they'd probably be unenforceable.
For some more consistent libertarians who embrace open source/free software and apply it in their own work, try c4ss.org.
Wow, that is the most inaccurate expression of economics I have ever seen, and that's saying something.
Economics is not zero sum, there are unlimited amounts of the most valuable resource - human ingenuity.
True, there's a limited amount of gold, but that doesn't matter, we find ways to use it more efficiently or extract more gold from the ground.
We are told oil will run out, but we will find new ways to use other resources, we will find new ways to extract more oil which is too bothersome to extract now.
And as for suggesting printing money - the Federal Reserve printing money is the cause of so much economic instability. They made the Great Depression worse and longer through their policies (which they now admit). Printing money leads to inflation. That is economic fact.
And please, please, please. There is no such thing as an isolated economy. It is not possible for any country, even the US to supply its own needs fully, we need trade to get those things we need and want. You suggest that the US economy should be isolated. Why not the individual states then? Or perhaps cities? Or individuals, we could all be self-sufficient. Poor and miserable, but non of that evil trade.
Trade makes everyone richer and better off. It gives us all far more opportunities than we can ever imagine. To suggest otherwise is to go against all economics, even Marx knew trade is vital.
We all live in an interconnected world. India provides us with things cheaper than we can ourselves. We provide India with things they cannot provide for themselves. We both benefit. Economic nationalism is petty xenophobia and harms the US more than anyone else. Others benefit from you spending your money protecting jobs so we can have subsidised goods from you. Keep it up, those of us outside the US like you paying us to buy things.
Conditions in sweatshops are bad, but they are better than the alternatives by a long way, and unlike the alternatives they mean that people do not starve due to state imposed restrictions on labour or trade.
These increase wages, increase skills, enable people to learn how to use new technology. Those who wish to will leave and set up their own businesses, and then employ more people. As competition for workers increases so do wages.
And at the same time, it means that we in the west get cheaper produce, and can spend our time doing the things we're good at like designing iPods, or writing software.
The simple fact is that people would not work there if it wasn't worth their while. To treat them otherwise borders on racist, they're foreign or poor and don't know what's good for them and just won't do what's best unless we tell them to or make them...
It makes me sick that people would rather have people starve than be able to take control over their lives. We should be celebrating greater employment opportunities, greater opportunity to trade. It is what made the USA and the UK rich nations, why do we seek to deny others those opportunities?
If there was no prospect of progress, I'd join in with criticism of sweat shops, but the truth is they are a step on the ladder to greater prosperity and a better future, a future which they are rapidly progressing towards.
(just think, an estimated $60 million people starved to death in China after Mao's 'Great Step Forwards', the economy was in tatters, look how far China has come).
Firstly:
The RF Spectrum is land, it is a fixed quantity.
Secondly:
Being land, scarcity comes into play, There's only a limited number of frequencies suitable for ionospheric propogation for example, and these frequencies change with time of day, season, sunspot number and many other factors (which aren't fully understood) so for reliable communications a range of frequencies is needed (and now with Automatic Link Establishment communications over HF is much more reliable).
Similarly, there's a limit on the frequencies which don't get absorbed by normal atmospheric conditions, a limit on the range of frequencies for reliable short range communications.
And the demmand for frequencies is very high. The RF spectrum is packed with users, be they domestic, broadcast, commercial, military, emergency services, scientific or PMR.
Thirdly:
Markets fail when scarcity is involved. They cease to be efficient, the very definition of failure, so your statement that you cannot have a market until there is scarcity is just plain wrong.
I'd favour a transparent auction of parts of the spectrum for commercial users, with a Land Value Tax on spectrum use.
Markets are fascinating. Already they've been used to predict flu outbreaks with greater accuracy than experts.
The Iowa Electronic Markets is very interesting and in the UK there's a growing trend to use betting markets on political events to predict results.
Of course markets fail, and this one may, but its definitely worth a go, especially if it can be linked to implementing the idea somehow.
The point of this seems to me to be that it will let you buy from more than one store, it does not force bought music to have DRM. In other words it offers choice and freedom. iTunes restricts you.
It is designed to be extensible. Hopefully there will be an iTunes plugin in the future, it also offers people a chance to use music differently.
It is only release 0.1. I'm sure iPod etc syncing is in the works.
Perhaps it will flop, but at least people tried.
Exactly.
Trade and the economy is not a zero-sum game, and things are so interlinked that protectionism in one area can result is disastrous.
Unfortunately we don't have free movement between countries, that would make this even better, the labour force could migrate if the work changes (although of course, real world factors like family can prevent this).
Protectionism is not the way forward though, it stiltifies the economy to the detriment to all.
The police want to be able to detain terrorist suspects for 90 days without charge. This is probably a figure they pulled out of the air as a good starting point for negotiations, however Tony Blair has decided that whatever the police want they should get when the magic word is mentioned.
One of the justifications was that they need that long to decrypt and analyse data. In which case, it is already a crime not to hand over a password of encryption key when requested so you can get them in custody on that charge for that long.
The arguments for the 90 days are incoherent, but that's what we have grown to expect from our government, especially when it comes to civil liberties and/or technology.
The House of Lords now only contains a few hereditary peers, the vast majority have been removed.
Currently the make up is predominantly life peers appointed by successive governments (increasingly it seems for favours or money, but there is no direct evidence for that...)
Many of us would like to see a proportionally elected House of Lords, elected in a non-party list manner, but there is no will in government for that to happen (the forces of conservatism Mr Blair railed against being dominant there).
Today the House of Lords is the only reasonable check against an increasingly authoritarian government which forces badly drafted, ill thought out laws through the commons by limiting time for debate and misrepresenting reality (witness the ID Cards Bill where apparently the ICAO is to blame for biometrics when all they ask for is a digitised copy of the picture so be included on the card (and presumably signed by the the issuing authority)).
There were some legal wrangles not long ago about who even owns it and who has a license to develop it for the desktop. I think Castle may have something to say about open sourcing it as I think they actually own the rights to it (IIRC having bought them from Pace who bought them when Acorn or E14 went bust).
RISC OS Ltd was set up when Acorn axed its desktop business (and then went bust) to develop RISC OS for the desktop and then released RISC OS 4 and the RISC OS Select scheme.
In the meantime Pace were using it for set top boxes and things and then IIRC sold it to Castle who had bought the rights to the Acorn name.
Castle then released a reasonably modern machine (new ARM processor with no legacy 26bit addressing support, PCI, NVidia graphics, USB) the Iyonic which runs RISC OS 5 which is sorted out so that it would run on 32bit addressing processors (ARM long ago dropped the legacy support for 26bit addressing).
This led to legal wrangling with RISC OS Ltd and Castle accusing each other of breach of contract. Most people sided with Castle, seeing as they actually have a business which isn't on the verge of bankrupsy and are actually doing something with RISC OS, the notable exception being the editor of Qercus (which used to be Acorn User).
Personally I long ago gave up on RISC OS. It has a fantastic UI and was in its day a supurb platform (which really worried Apple, but Acorn failed to play its cards right and lost any advantage they may have had) but it no longer suits my needs and the OS architecture is frankly antiquated despite various moves in the past to drag it up into the modern world (notably some attempts to introduce pre-emptive multitasking and the Hydra multiprocessor boards).
Still, RISC OS still has its followers (my father included as well as the company responsible for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire who originally at least ran the on screen graphics on RISC OS computers) and the recent hardware is very respectable some of which I have my eye on to run ARM Linux on as a low power small mail and print server for my LAN, but RISC OS is unfortunately a thing of the past.
Total deaths so far 43, from 4 bombs.
3 were on underground trains and 1 on a bus.
As a Londoner I've been expecting this, its inevitable, you can never have a free society and prevent every terrorist. The thing we must do is, like we did in the 70s under the threat from the IRA, is continue our lives and not let the terrorists dictate our actions and lives.
We must not let our government use this as an excuse to impose more authoritarian laws and continue to spread the message of freedom and liberty, in its social, personal, political and economic guises.
We must not give in to the terrorists and become like them. They want us to attack innocent people who just happen to be arabic or muslim, it will help swell their ranks.
*sighs*
I suppose that this is an american centred board but Liberal doesn't seem to have that meaning anywhere else.
Liberalism elsewhere breaks down into 3 main areas:
1) Political liberalism - small government, freedom to do what you like within the boundary that you do not harm another or impinge on their liberty and right to expect that your liberty is not infringed by another or the state.
Also democratisation at the lowest level and a small government is a key aim. Decisions should be democratically made by those closest to the level they affect, ideally by the people themselves.
2) Economic liberalism - Free Trade (truly free trade, not the protectionism promulgated by the west under the guise of free trade), no protectionism.
3) Social liberalism - Best summarised by Lloyd George (British Liberal Prime Minister) - "Those who have liberty still need to live". Liberty is worthless if you cannot afford to feed yourself, and worthless if it is only enjoyed by those above a certain level of wealth. So the state has a responsibility to aid those who need it.
This does not mean the state supporting people, but the state helping to educate people and ensuring adequate health care is available to all who need it and giving help to get back on your feet. Provision should of course be done in such a way as it is in line with the previous two forms of liberalism meaning no state monopoly or central control and market forces harnessed wherever...
So in a system where this has been acheived, a liberal would defend the status quo. The liberal's urge for change is not change for change's sake (a dangerous thing in my opinion) but change to make the world a better place (so they believe)
What you describe as Liberalism is closer to forms of Socialism and even forms of Conservatism.
So for a lot of the world, Liberalism is not left or right... economically it is more to the right (ie low state interference in economics, largely capitalistic) socially, it varies.
The closest thing I see in the US is the Libertarians...
Liberals are often secularists due to their belief that you should not restrict another's liberty based upon your beliefs. Hence the legalisation of suicide and homosexuality were liberal moves because the basis upon which they were illegal were religious. You can be a devout Christian (or Mulsim, or Jew, or Hindu or...) and be a liberal but you don't force your beliefs on others.
The liberal reason for gun control and environmental laws are that these are things which effect others...
Guns are designed to kill so there needs to be some control over them as they will be used against other people. Gun ownership is not a right, it is a privaledge, just like owning a car.
Environmental controls: they are necessary as the world is plunged deeper into ecological crisis. The biggest misconception by many people is that environmentalism and business are opposite sides of a coin. This is simply not true. There are many opportunities for business to save and make money through environmental measures and environmental controls based upon market systems would offer even more opportunity.
On taxes: Liberals do not like to raise or cut taxes per-se. They prefer to tax those with more money (ie those who it would hurt less) more than those with little money (who are substantially harmed by taxation), but would ideally seek a simple, clear taxation system based on a person's ability to pay and with overall taxation as low as possible whilst still protecting the people of the country.
The war in Iraq is decidedly non-liberal. It is seeking to impose your values and order on another country. On others. It is also based around some suspect theory over the democratisation of arabs meaning secularisation in the manner of Attaturk in Turkey and the removal of Islam, but that's another debate.
On the philosophical outlook: Liberalism takes a less deterministic view, but tends to take a very positive view of humanity.
This of co
I have a friend who worked on this a bit for NASA. Its purely hardware based stuff, to do with fixing broken chips in flight and reducing the amount of redundant hardware needed. Admittedly its a very specialised area but an interesting one.
The solution she was looking at was to use FPGAs to implement the hardware and when part of the silicon became damaged to use software to redesign the layout of the circuits to route around the damaged area.
Its basically a SAT problem, finding a suitable SAT solving algorithm seems to be the main problem with this.
Okay, I've just ordered one of the webcams this module supports, and now I find that I can't use it with my primary desktop. That annoys me. I made my decision to buy it based on the fact that it was supported.
/never/ make inroads onto the desktop market if it doesn't work out of the box, and deliberately removing support for a common piece of hardware does not help that.
Okay, I understand why some people want to have a 'pure' kernel, and I understand the technical advantages. But this module is actively maintained and he would try to sort out any problems.
Linux will
People do not want to have to patch their kernels.
It is Philip's right to ask him to sign an NDA, it is their technology. You may not agree, but the right they exercise is what makes the GPL a valid license.
I also think that he's throwing something of a tantrum by demanding the removal of the code from the kernel. That's a pointless move and seeks to alienate the users even more.
I just wish all the zealots on every side would just get over themselves and realise that people want to use the best software for the job. For the first time in my computing life, Windows has won as the best platform for something. This is a sad day...
I am glad that I have kept a Windows computer around. I never thought I'd say that.
As has been said many times before:
Closed source is no guarantee of lack of tainting. Even with security checks its perfectly possible to have a hostile programmer working on the software.
I'd just like to put in a word for the NSA et al. They're perfectly capable of making their own decisions, and are probably far more qualified than anyone here. They know how to minimise risk using whichever development model they like...
It is of course very possible that open source software could be written on behalf of the military. The people who keep the official version for use within the military/government will go through all code submitted with a fine tooth comb being very conservative with what patches they accept from the outside world...
This article is basically written for politicians to try and scare politicians into banning the FOSS competition. I doubt it would work if the military and friends didn't want it that way, they will make up their own minds.
The first point is just a matter of opinion. I feel that its counterproductive to hold this opinion, but its an opinion, not a myth.
/can/.
:-) (and hey, where would we be without opinions being challenged?)
More importantly, FOSS does let you tinker under the hood. That it not a myth. The importance of that is not whether you do, but that you
This is an important difference and one that is necessarily true for FOSS, so its cetainly not a myth.
Of course, if anyone claims that everyone does tinker, they're in cloud cuckoo land... I've done it three times. That will be out of several hundred programs I use. Most people want to use their computer not tinker...
There is a fair amount of opinion in the article rather than fact, but it is well presented and not zealot like
No.
Because for things other than recorded sound it is 70 years after the author/creator's death. (funny, it was originally 15 years... but Micky Mouse is the reason we keep on gettnig extentions).
There's been a fuss about James Joyce's Ulysees recently. there was a period where it was out of copyright, but then they extended the copyright period and his estate is now arguing that its back in copyright so they need to be paid for public performance.
Yeah and South Korea wouldn't have been an oppressive military dictatorship for years.
And Saddam Hussein wouldn't have had the gas he used on the Marsh Arabs and Iranians.
And hundreds of thousands wouldn't have been killed and disappeared by US backed south american regimes (who usurped democratically elected governments).
Oh and if it wasn't for us British and the US the Iranian revolution wouldn't have happened...
Don't get me wrong, the USA has done a lot of good, but has also done a lot of harm, and still does.
US foreign policy is not about the world, its about votes (look at the AIDS donations which are restricted to groups who promote abstinence rather than condoms to satisfy the Christian Right).
I would like to thank the USA for (eventually) coming over to help Europe in WWII and for the Marshall Plan.
(oh and on Cuba: Castro was welcomed by the US when he won the civil war. Then he started chucking out the US companies who supported Batista so the US imposed sanctions so he turned to the USSR (and probably got paranoid). Pity he never stuck to what he said- standing down when Cuba was secure, then again, Cuba isn't exactly secure. He should go though.)
What with the current move to try and get rid of knighthoods (why I can't understand, would the French get rid of the Legion D'Honour?)
For taking stills or moving pictures?
:-)
You might want to research how Radio Amateurs do SSTV (Slow Scan TV) and NBTV (Narrow Band TV) (and how they did it in the days before comuters).
NBTV uses mechanical equipment similar to Baird's original TV equipment which would be a really interesting project
Otherwise its playing around with the same components commercial web cams are made from.
Its also very likely you'll have to write or adapt software...
Functions as first class citizens, that is functions can be returned from functions and provided as arguments as functions. The basis of the functional paradigm and it makes life much much simpler.
Pattern matching (some ML:)
fun has_a [] = false
| has_a 'a'::_ = true
| has_a _::xs = has_a xs;
Simple elegent functions requireing much less if_then_else's.
Automatic garbage collection and bounds checking: enables me to write the code to do the job, not the memory management.
Polymorphic typing: I can write general functions:
fun contains x [] = false
| contains x x::_ = true
| contains x _::xs = contains xs;
That will work with any type for which equality is defined.
These are the reasons I hate C for general programming. The most important thing is efficient algorithms, without them no amount of low level optimization will help. With good algorithms, functional languages are now normally at least as fast... (and much much easier to debug and even verifiable).
From non-functional languages, the object model is wonderful when used properly.
Smalltalk & co's complete environment is a nice feature.
I also have a soft spot for BBC BASIC with its speed, interactivity and simplicity. These are combined to allow windowed applications including at least one web browser and anyone can start programming simple programs (which is missing from most modern computers)
Then there's the specialist languages. They have all sorts of nifty features (Mathematica is a good example) but I wouldn't expect them in an everyday language.
Yeah, I know he's blind and good for him to get to the position he's got, but it doesn't change the fact that he's an authoritarian socialist statist who's ideal society seems to be based upon the Soviet system but with more technology.
He deserves a special prize for his efforts to increase state control and reduce individual liberty and privacy.
Work experience (for free, in my case funded by the government (the welfare state is great, when I do get a job I will be contributing back, more than has been spent on me. You americans don't know what you're missing).
The number of jobs which advertise as being 'ideal for graduates' but ask for '2 years commercial C experience' or something like that are ridiculous.
And then companies hire a bunch of phycisists who 'know C' but can't engineer software to save their lives (the company then goes bust, but that's not the point).
The fact that I had a social life at Uni counts against me. And I don't want to go into management for some accountancy comapany.
Its fucked up.
There's still a fair amount of military and civil HF traffic.
A quick scan of the HF bands reveals quite a lot of RTTY and FAX still, as well as VOLMET and the HF civil aviation frequencies (which are still quite active, choose the right frequency and its almost continuously active over the Atlantic). I heard an RAF SSB frequency the other day, it was still active (although the traffic was mostly asking for updates on the football).
Then there's the US Government with its 'Radio Free $(region)' which is still active as well as all those US religious/evangelical stations.
The HF bands are still very active, and may even become moreso again if DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) takes off.
And the powerlines will probably not cause just HF interference. They could also cause interference on other bands, and may even affect medical equipment in hospitals as well as interference to emergency services.
It is a monumentally stupid idea...
(and if you want more broadband, well, BT is looking into running fibre optic cable to every house in the UK...)