I think the 9/11 conspiracy theorists argue that the reason 'they' chose to bring down the towers was the Big Lie propaganda technique.
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef set off a truck bomb in the basement of the world trade center, and the US public collectively yawned. Then, in 1995, Timothy McVeigh brought down the Murrah Federal building in Kansas City, and the US public said "Gosh, those white supremacist loners are nutty. Maybe we should start tracking sales of large amounts of fertilizer." Then, in 2001, airplanes hit the pentagon, the two towers, and one crashed in Pennsylvania, presumably headed for the White House. The entire nation went into a panic attack, and had PTSD for months afterwards. People talked about nuking the entire middle east, killing all the towel heads, and taking the oil. Almost overnight, the patriot act was made into law with little discussion. Programs such as domestic phone call monitoring, NSA wiretaps, and Total Information Awareness were started. Apparently, the two earlier attacks were not spectacular enough to warrant such a response, but most recent ones were.
There may have been easier false flag operations to pull off, but if you a conspiracist, the real agenda is totalitarianism and the removal of civil rights. Only the 9/11 attacks were spectacular enough to provide sufficient political cover to advance the agenda.
"Professional politicians are power hungry sociopaths. How do we solve that problem?"
Direct democracy. Have the people propose, amendment, and vote on law themselves. If we are capable of understanding the law enough to be held accountable for it, we are certainly smart enough to propose and vote on it.
Not only quantum physics, but there are other phenomena, such as weather, that are well understood mathematically, but can't be predicted and aren't subject to simple causality. It's not that we don't know enough to know whether it will rain three months from now, it's that it can't be known whether it will rain three months from now. To repeat a popular saying, "It's not decided that far in advance."
So chaos in general provides another "out" for free will. Perhaps emotions and free will are something like chemo-electrial 'storms' in the brain that are influenced by various inputs, but not directly caused by anything, and certainly not predictable.
Oh, now I get it. So that means that since it isn't MS developing GPL derived code, they aren't giving any implicit permission to use patented methods. Novell has an agreement with MS to use the patented methods, and they can develop GPL-derived code, but the recipients of Novell's GPL-derived code *don't* have an agreement with MS to use MS' patented software methods in the GPL code that Novell produced.
Now I get it.
However, this doesn't seem to be any kind of death knell for the GPL. If this were happening in the early nineties, it might be a problem, but we seem to have a critical mass of GPL software so that you can have an entire system that's GPL.
I predict that this patent-encumbered Samba can only boost Linux adoption. The customers for MS/Novell Samba will have Linux servers and windows desktops. There's no reason to use this if you don't have Linux servers. And if you have Linux servers already, you must use Linux on the server for reasons other than it's cheaper than a Windows license. Why migrate to Windows servers if you can have Linux servers with no software cost?
This type of software-patent work-around for proprietizing GPL code would seem to only work if there were an existing, well-developed GPL app that solely functions as a replacement or emulator for a proprietary program, and then, the proxy developer has to have an interest in creating and selling it. Sure, you can pay someone to create patent-encumbered GPL code using your patents, but then you have to get people to use it. That means that they have to have an agreement with you. So, just use the already free, already available alternative.
The GPL specifically states that the author of any GPL'ed derivative work must release such derivative work under the same terms, namely the GPL. The GPL specifically permits a user to use the code in any way they want to.
If MS creates code that is derivative of GPL'ed code, they understand that the terms of the contract are such that they must release code to others under the same terms. If they choose to use their own patented software methods in such code that they are knowingly releasing under the GPL, they are giving future users permission to use their software patents on account that MS is using such patented methods in code they are releasing under the GPL.
It sounds like there is potentially a conflict between the GPL and any patented code methods. This will probably be decided in court, and could very well be Microsoft's next move in destroying the GPL and open source.
However, there is a good argument that could work in favor of the GPL:
If you're a patent holder and you knowingly create derivative work from GPL'ed code, then you are implicitly giving license to recipients to use the patented methods. After all, you knew that you were entering into contract to re-distribute the code and allowing people to re-use it. If you knew that you were giving such permission when you started working on GPL'ed code, you are giving implicit permission for recipients of your code to use your patents.
Maybe we mistreat our fellow human beings because we dehumanize them. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but perhaps anthropomorphizing more things would lead us to treat actual human beings better.
Let me see if I understand what you are saying. They are creating works derived from GPL'ed code, but they claim that their contribution is covered by patents, so even if they were to distribute the code, end-users would have to deal with patented processes, ideas, etc. in that new code.
So there would be a kind of built-in conflict of the resulting code -- on the one hand, it's GPL'ed, but on the other hand, it's covered by patents. Is that about right?
Sure, MS can make a Unix-compatable windows file-server/domain controller at any time they want to. They could have done it before the Novell deal; they could do it now. Who cares? Let MS do whatever they want.
The only thing I would be concerned about is if MS were able to benefit from the Samba code without giving anything back. And the GPL prevents them from doing that.
Now witness the genius of the GPL. If you distribute software you have derived from GPL'ed code, you must provide that source code to the public under the terms of the GPL.
If MS/Novell create a better samba derived from the samba team's GPL code, they *must* provide access to the source code. Any improvements MS/Novell make to samba are guaranteed to become available to us, and they can never take it away.
I imagine it as totally optional. You could view your inbox as one big list of emails, or broken down into virtual folders based on sender, dates, subjects, etc.
I can and I do, but that's fairly laborious manual work that a computer program could do automatically -- and that's exactly why we have a computer -- to do laborious manual data sorting.
What I'd like to see is automatic grouping of emails into folders. This would be the same as a bunch saved searches, except you wouldn't have to manually make them, they would be created automatically.
The best place to start would be to automatically create saved searches for all emails in your address book. If you wanted to go nuts with it, you could do a saved search of all unique email addresses in your inbox, if they number above a certain threshold. You could then also do some standard groupings that a user could select, like 'Yesterday, this week, this month, last month', common strings in the subject lines, etc.
I read the wikipedia link that said that it was wrong. But as far as the experiment you suggest, what would convince a skeptic that any salt or sugar you place on your tongue isn't just rapidly dissolving into the saliva and spreading out over to the salt/sweet receptors?
OK, I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything you wrote, but bascially, you recommend Mitaka over LSD or salvia divinorum for understanding modern scientific astrophysics?
I think what the big bang postulates is that the universe ( meaning all matter, time and space ) *was* a point. If the universe were contained within a point, then when we were talking about the universe, we would also have to include whatever container contained the point -- thus making it incorrect to say that the universe was 'contained within' something. It would be like saying time in time, or space in space.
Not just matter, but also *time* and *space* were a point. Not a point like a tiny small dot (after all, what are we measuring it against?), but a point in the mathematical sense -- zero dimensions, all matter squished together, uniform. It's called singularity.
I may be leading you a little astray, but this might help. I'll assume that you understand that a cube has three dimensions, a flat square 2, a line 1 dimension, so therefore a point has 0 dimensions. A point is just there. There really isn't anywhere in it, nor is the point anywhere; you can't really talk about a place within the point that exists in a spot different than any other spot. There is only one 'place' in the point; or more accurately, no 'place' at all. A point is spaceless; it has zero dimensions.
Imagine you had two identical pennies. They were completely identical, down to the atom. What is the only quality that is different about them? Their location in space. If these 'two' pennies were identical in every quality, including location, we can't really tell any difference between one penny, two pennies, a billion pennies, or an infinite number of pennies. Inside the point, it's like a number of pennies that are identical in location. It just doesn't make sense anymore to talk about how many.
I don't know, maybe some LSD would help. Or try salvia divinorum; it's not illegal yet. Just make sure you have a sitter.
Maybe that's the problem -- the 'universe' isn't a thing floating in space, like a star or a galaxy, it *is* space -- and also everything in space. Universe is another way of saying 'everything', absolutely every thing, including space, which technically isn't a thing. So, whenever scientists are talking about the universe expanding, it's not a thing in space expanding, it is *space itself* expanding.
It's like when they talk about time speeding up or slowing down. There isn't a 'time' in time that is speeding up or slowing down; time itself is slowing or quickening.
This might help you understand what people generally mean. ( I might be totally wrong here, so anyone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me. )
You talk about a thing that exists 3-dimensionally needing to be measured. That's fine for a thing, but space is not a thing. Space sort of *is* the measure of things. If you imagine an x-y-z axis, space *is* that axis. And in the case of infinite space, those axes go on forever. Space is not a thing; it's the, uh, space in which things exist. It's just the distance between things. It's abstract -- not really a thing, but the relationship between things.
Maybe reading some philosophy or metaphysics about 'space' would help you understand, rather than physics that already assume you understand the concept.
"The problem is, you said: "You can smell about as well as a dog can," suggesting something like a 100X improvement in the human sense of smell, when accessed via your mouth."
Why is that a problem? That's basically the facts as we understand them now. We *can* smell as well as a dog can. It's just for that the longest time, what we thought was taste was actually our sense of smell.
Slashdot Mirror
"What would a HACKED variant of this technology be capable of?"
I don't know, but I was unable to read this article after it was tagged 'NSFW'!
I think the 9/11 conspiracy theorists argue that the reason 'they' chose to bring down the towers was the Big Lie propaganda technique.
In 1993, Ramzi Yousef set off a truck bomb in the basement of the world trade center, and the US public collectively yawned. Then, in 1995, Timothy McVeigh brought down the Murrah Federal building in Kansas City, and the US public said "Gosh, those white supremacist loners are nutty. Maybe we should start tracking sales of large amounts of fertilizer." Then, in 2001, airplanes hit the pentagon, the two towers, and one crashed in Pennsylvania, presumably headed for the White House. The entire nation went into a panic attack, and had PTSD for months afterwards. People talked about nuking the entire middle east, killing all the towel heads, and taking the oil. Almost overnight, the patriot act was made into law with little discussion. Programs such as domestic phone call monitoring, NSA wiretaps, and Total Information Awareness were started. Apparently, the two earlier attacks were not spectacular enough to warrant such a response, but most recent ones were.
There may have been easier false flag operations to pull off, but if you a conspiracist, the real agenda is totalitarianism and the removal of civil rights. Only the 9/11 attacks were spectacular enough to provide sufficient political cover to advance the agenda.
What did they call BJs back in the forties and fifties?
My cynical guess is because he wanted to use his inventions to improve the life of the common man, instead of making himself and industry wealthy.
"... I have free-will, and no-one can take that from me, not even god."
If god cannot take away your free will, does that mean he is not omnipotent? I.e. there is a 'rock so big that He cannot lift it'?
I think it's similar to the British 'gaol' system.
"Professional politicians are power hungry sociopaths. How do we solve that problem?"
Direct democracy. Have the people propose, amendment, and vote on law themselves. If we are capable of understanding the law enough to be held accountable for it, we are certainly smart enough to propose and vote on it.
Not only quantum physics, but there are other phenomena, such as weather, that are well understood mathematically, but can't be predicted and aren't subject to simple causality. It's not that we don't know enough to know whether it will rain three months from now, it's that it can't be known whether it will rain three months from now. To repeat a popular saying, "It's not decided that far in advance."
So chaos in general provides another "out" for free will. Perhaps emotions and free will are something like chemo-electrial 'storms' in the brain that are influenced by various inputs, but not directly caused by anything, and certainly not predictable.
Oh, now I get it. So that means that since it isn't MS developing GPL derived code, they aren't giving any implicit permission to use patented methods. Novell has an agreement with MS to use the patented methods, and they can develop GPL-derived code, but the recipients of Novell's GPL-derived code *don't* have an agreement with MS to use MS' patented software methods in the GPL code that Novell produced.
Now I get it.
However, this doesn't seem to be any kind of death knell for the GPL. If this were happening in the early nineties, it might be a problem, but we seem to have a critical mass of GPL software so that you can have an entire system that's GPL.
I predict that this patent-encumbered Samba can only boost Linux adoption. The customers for MS/Novell Samba will have Linux servers and windows desktops. There's no reason to use this if you don't have Linux servers. And if you have Linux servers already, you must use Linux on the server for reasons other than it's cheaper than a Windows license. Why migrate to Windows servers if you can have Linux servers with no software cost?
This type of software-patent work-around for proprietizing GPL code would seem to only work if there were an existing, well-developed GPL app that solely functions as a replacement or emulator for a proprietary program, and then, the proxy developer has to have an interest in creating and selling it. Sure, you can pay someone to create patent-encumbered GPL code using your patents, but then you have to get people to use it. That means that they have to have an agreement with you. So, just use the already free, already available alternative.
What do you think of this quasi-legal argument?
The GPL specifically states that the author of any GPL'ed derivative work must release such derivative work under the same terms, namely the GPL. The GPL specifically permits a user to use the code in any way they want to.
If MS creates code that is derivative of GPL'ed code, they understand that the terms of the contract are such that they must release code to others under the same terms. If they choose to use their own patented software methods in such code that they are knowingly releasing under the GPL, they are giving future users permission to use their software patents on account that MS is using such patented methods in code they are releasing under the GPL.
It sounds like there is potentially a conflict between the GPL and any patented code methods. This will probably be decided in court, and could very well be Microsoft's next move in destroying the GPL and open source.
However, there is a good argument that could work in favor of the GPL:
If you're a patent holder and you knowingly create derivative work from GPL'ed code, then you are implicitly giving license to recipients to use the patented methods. After all, you knew that you were entering into contract to re-distribute the code and allowing people to re-use it. If you knew that you were giving such permission when you started working on GPL'ed code, you are giving implicit permission for recipients of your code to use your patents.
Maybe we mistreat our fellow human beings because we dehumanize them. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but perhaps anthropomorphizing more things would lead us to treat actual human beings better.
Let me see if I understand what you are saying. They are creating works derived from GPL'ed code, but they claim that their contribution is covered by patents, so even if they were to distribute the code, end-users would have to deal with patented processes, ideas, etc. in that new code.
So there would be a kind of built-in conflict of the resulting code -- on the one hand, it's GPL'ed, but on the other hand, it's covered by patents. Is that about right?
Sure, MS can make a Unix-compatable windows file-server/domain controller at any time they want to. They could have done it before the Novell deal; they could do it now. Who cares? Let MS do whatever they want.
The only thing I would be concerned about is if MS were able to benefit from the Samba code without giving anything back. And the GPL prevents them from doing that.
Now witness the genius of the GPL. If you distribute software you have derived from GPL'ed code, you must provide that source code to the public under the terms of the GPL.
If MS/Novell create a better samba derived from the samba team's GPL code, they *must* provide access to the source code. Any improvements MS/Novell make to samba are guaranteed to become available to us, and they can never take it away.
Yeah, I failed to mention that in the specs ;)
I imagine it as totally optional. You could view your inbox as one big list of emails, or broken down into virtual folders based on sender, dates, subjects, etc.
I can and I do, but that's fairly laborious manual work that a computer program could do automatically -- and that's exactly why we have a computer -- to do laborious manual data sorting.
I'll be damned!
;)
Now what key to I press to get grouping by my address book?
What I'd like to see is automatic grouping of emails into folders. This would be the same as a bunch saved searches, except you wouldn't have to manually make them, they would be created automatically.
The best place to start would be to automatically create saved searches for all emails in your address book. If you wanted to go nuts with it, you could do a saved search of all unique email addresses in your inbox, if they number above a certain threshold. You could then also do some standard groupings that a user could select, like 'Yesterday, this week, this month, last month', common strings in the subject lines, etc.
I read the wikipedia link that said that it was wrong. But as far as the experiment you suggest, what would convince a skeptic that any salt or sugar you place on your tongue isn't just rapidly dissolving into the saliva and spreading out over to the salt/sweet receptors?
OK, I'm not going to pretend that I understand everything you wrote, but bascially, you recommend Mitaka over LSD or salvia divinorum for understanding modern scientific astrophysics?
I think what the big bang postulates is that the universe ( meaning all matter, time and space ) *was* a point. If the universe were contained within a point, then when we were talking about the universe, we would also have to include whatever container contained the point -- thus making it incorrect to say that the universe was 'contained within' something. It would be like saying time in time, or space in space.
Not just matter, but also *time* and *space* were a point. Not a point like a tiny small dot (after all, what are we measuring it against?), but a point in the mathematical sense -- zero dimensions, all matter squished together, uniform. It's called singularity.
I may be leading you a little astray, but this might help. I'll assume that you understand that a cube has three dimensions, a flat square 2, a line 1 dimension, so therefore a point has 0 dimensions. A point is just there. There really isn't anywhere in it, nor is the point anywhere; you can't really talk about a place within the point that exists in a spot different than any other spot. There is only one 'place' in the point; or more accurately, no 'place' at all. A point is spaceless; it has zero dimensions.
Imagine you had two identical pennies. They were completely identical, down to the atom. What is the only quality that is different about them? Their location in space. If these 'two' pennies were identical in every quality, including location, we can't really tell any difference between one penny, two pennies, a billion pennies, or an infinite number of pennies. Inside the point, it's like a number of pennies that are identical in location. It just doesn't make sense anymore to talk about how many.
I don't know, maybe some LSD would help. Or try salvia divinorum; it's not illegal yet. Just make sure you have a sitter.
Maybe that's the problem -- the 'universe' isn't a thing floating in space, like a star or a galaxy, it *is* space -- and also everything in space. Universe is another way of saying 'everything', absolutely every thing, including space, which technically isn't a thing. So, whenever scientists are talking about the universe expanding, it's not a thing in space expanding, it is *space itself* expanding.
It's like when they talk about time speeding up or slowing down. There isn't a 'time' in time that is speeding up or slowing down; time itself is slowing or quickening.
This might help you understand what people generally mean. ( I might be totally wrong here, so anyone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me. )
You talk about a thing that exists 3-dimensionally needing to be measured. That's fine for a thing, but space is not a thing. Space sort of *is* the measure of things. If you imagine an x-y-z axis, space *is* that axis. And in the case of infinite space, those axes go on forever. Space is not a thing; it's the, uh, space in which things exist. It's just the distance between things. It's abstract -- not really a thing, but the relationship between things.
Maybe reading some philosophy or metaphysics about 'space' would help you understand, rather than physics that already assume you understand the concept.
"The problem is, you said: "You can smell about as well as a dog can," suggesting something like a 100X improvement in the human sense of smell, when accessed via your mouth."
Why is that a problem? That's basically the facts as we understand them now. We *can* smell as well as a dog can. It's just for that the longest time, what we thought was taste was actually our sense of smell.