I see the tags 'butthurt' and 'whaaaaaaaaa', but no 'thanksforyourtime'. Why won't anyone show any gratitude for the years of work he's generously offered to the project?
If you really want to know, google up the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" and the Penny Arcade comic that comes up will explain it for you, though you can probably guess the gist from the name. Sad but true.
The portal rendering engine used by Descent has been rumored to be a simple extension of the Doom engine
Whoa, that would surprise me (not that it's impossible). Going from a raycasting engine which allows essentially arbitrary 2D geometry but very limited geometry in the 3rd dimension, to a texture mapping engine that is restricted to deformed rectangular prisms but allows them to be oriented arbitrarily wrt the world axes isn't a simple extension of any sort. Hell, the enemies were fully 3d texture mapped without any restrictions (but a low poly count of course). That's basically ripping up the innermost guts of the engine and replacing it with something very different. Completely new data structures, and a completely new rendering algorithm... at that point, what of the old engine would you even be using?
Re:Talk about getting your facts right!
on
Tetraktys
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· Score: 1
...tells the story of Ambrose Jerusalem, a gifted computer security expert,... who has a beautiful and loving girlfriend.
Yeah right!
Oh come on, it says he's a gifted computer expert. You don't think he could program his sexbot to "love" him?
Because that would mean ten times bigger, or just "ten times". The point is that "times" and "smaller" are not oxymoronic because they are not antonyms. The product of two numbers is not necessarily larger than the two numbers, ergo "times" does not necessarily mean "larger in magnitude".
Why does no one use a fraction with the word "times" colloquially?
Because it's awkward to say "One hundreth times the size". You would say "One hundreth the size", or if the fraction feels awkward you would say "One hundred times smaller."
It would better as "10 divisions smaller than x", as in "if you divided x into ten equally sized partitions, it would be the size of one of them," if not "1/10 the size of x".
What, your improvement is to say "10 divisions" to mean "divided by 10"? 10 divisions would mean you have divisions of some size, and you have ten of them. Without knowing the denominator that's meaningless. You're using a noun instead of a verb and it changes the meaning of the word. "X times smaller than Y" is clear because it uses the correct verb form to imply what two things are being multiplied, and "smaller" to indicate that the result should be smaller than Y and thus X should be taken as the reciprocal.
In an idiom employing redundancy, by using the antonym of only one of the words therein you create an oxymoron.
What are you on about? Using the antonym of one word in a phrase doesn't create an oxymoron; the point is to create a phrase that is opposite in meaning, not the same. "Extremely light" only uses the antonym of one word of "Extremely dark", and that's good because the point is to create the opposite, or inverse meaning. "Extremely" is not an oxymoron with "light", and "times" is not an oxymoron with "smaller".
Not that oxymorons are universally wrong.
Well whether you can understand that this isn't an oxymoron or not, can you at least understand that it is correct?
He said five big fans. Big fans spin more slowly to move the same amount of air and the noise output is related to fan RPM. I don't use desktops anymore, but my last one became a lot quieter when I replaced the small CPU fan with a big heatsink and a large case fan.
The basic problem is a lot clearer if you're dealing in percentages:
3 is 50% larger than 2. (3 = 2 + 50% of 2) 2 is 33% smaller than 3. (2 = 3 - 33% of 3)
2 is not generally considered 50% smaller than 3, even though 3/2=1.5. Nor is it considered 66% smaller than 3, even though 2/3=66.6%.
And the solution is clear when you look at the terms you are using versus the analogous terminology in summary. You are using additive terminology, the summary uses multiplicative terminology. See:
3 is 50% larger than 2. 3 is 150% of 2. 3 is 1.5 times larger than 2. 2 is 33% smaller than 3. 2 is 66% of 3. 2 is 0.66 times larger than 3. 2 is 1.5 times smaller than 3.
2 is not generally considered 50% smaller than 3, even though 3/2=1.5. Nor is it considered 66% smaller than 3, even though 2/3=66.6%.
See once again you use "smaller" instead "times smaller". That's the basic reading comprehension issue here. "Larger" means something different than "times larger", too.
Smallness has no meaning except as the inverse of largeness. The basic problem is that times and smaller have meanings of their own (multiplication and subtraction, respectively) which don't imply the use of the inverse "smallness" scale.
"Smaller" considered on its won does not mean subtraction. It means lesser magnitude. That's it. It implies subtraction when not used with any modifiers, but "times" means multiplication and when used to modify smaller it means exactly what it says "times smaller". It's the same as "larger" and "times larger" -- you don't actually find that terminology confusing, do you? You are correct though that "small" implies the inverse, as in reciprocal, and thus does the meaning of the phrase "times smaller" become clear.
One would have to use the nearly senseless statement "Ten times the smallness of 10" to clearly convey 1/x = 10 * 1/10...
Or you could stop using pedantry as an excuse to not understand the correct usage of language (because that's the opposite of pedantry), and realize that "X times smaller" means "1/X times larger".
No it isn't, unless you think you can only multiply by values larger than one, which would simply be moronic.
You're suggesting implied reciprocals means "one xth the size of" when the latter is perfectly fine English just to avoid explicitly mentioning a fraction.
Yes, heaven forbid there be multiple correct and clear ways to say the same thing in English. *eyeroll* In some cases it flows better than using fractions.
It makes as much sense as talking about the "near distant" future.
No, it makes perfect sense as long as you understand what it means. Which isn't complicated, and now you know it, so there should be no further issues with this perfectly clear and unambiguous language.
To cool it I use five big fans, making the noise out of this setup is a bit loud but acceptable (a little less than the noise out of a Nintendo Wii perhaps, though a Wii's noise is thinner and more annoying).
Your rig needs five fans, but makes a little less noise than the Wii? I can't even hear my Wii's fan from across the room, especially not over my computer's fans even when idling and the CPU and graphics card fans are at their lowest speeds.
The only thing that interests me about this new CPU is if I can bring down the power usage to about 100 watt (like my former computer) while keeping the perf, but pretty much all that is reported these day is how much so-and so chip overclocks.
Yeah, I specifically buy chips made for lower power grades than the top end (e.g. I have a 60W Athlon X2 instead of the 95W version). Unless I'm playing a game, my CPU fan barely needs to move. Which is why I'm surprised you say your Wii is louder than your PC...
There's no such thing as "chip performance". All that matters is tastiness.
You say that, but then someone hands you a bag of chips made with Olestra and sure they're tasty but in about half an hour you'll be feeling the importance of chip "performance".
Engineers and scientists, when talking about cyclically variable phenomena, will talk about the change in magnitude of the waveform. Yes it constantly changes. No that doesn't mean it is impossible to say anything about overall trends in its average value. No doing so doesn't mean ignoring the variability. Average values can be studied as a time-variant value too.
The voltage across the terminals of your home power outlet is constantly changing, yet it is perfectly possible and reasonable to talk about its average (or more specifically RMS) amplitude, and measure changes in that value.
Draw it on a number line: 10 is ten times larger than 1 because it is ten times farther from 0 on a number line. 1 is ten times less than x because it is ten times farther from y on a number line. Go on, fill in the values for x and y.
No, 10 is ten times larger than 1 because the ratio of their sizes is 10:1.
1 is ten times smaller than 10 because the ratio of their sizes is 1:10.
It's about relative not absolute size difference. That's why they say "10 times smaller" rather than "10 units smaller". "Times" is your clue that you're dealing with multiplication, i.e. ratios.
The language is perfectly clear, correct, and unambiguous. No, your reading comprehension is not fine.
Why yes, that is precisely what "10 times smaller" and "100 times less massive" means.
I know I'm picking nits, but this is slashdot. People should know better.
Yes, you should know better. The language is fine.
I understand it is simply a colloquialism arising from poor grammar among the masses, but in the case of a scientific article, poor writing makes it more difficult to take the writer seriously.
Yes, poor grammar from the "but this is slashdot" masses who think not understanding plain English is a sign of intelligence.
Maybe in US, in EU if they want to fire you they need to prove you are damaging them during your working hours.
What, you can't even fire a political appointee, one whose express purpose is to handle the public image of the politician they are working for, for expressing opinions publicly that are contrary to that politician's but would naturally be associated with them, because whether you are "on the clock" or not, you are their press secretary and your words are your bosses'?
The people reading the statement don't necessarily know or care that you're not making an official statement -- your words are still associated with the person you work for. It doesn't matter if you're on the clock or not, carelessly uttered words could do untold damage to the politician you represent. Any Press Secretary who doesn't understand this is unfit for their job.
For just about any other position on earth, I'd find firing someone for their political views to be heinous. But for a jobs which is all about political opinions and specifically supporting the political opinions of your boss in public, I'd say it's a perfect reason to fire someone.
Funny. In communist countries the joke was the other way 'round, i.e. "What's the atrocity of Capitalism? That man exploits his fellow man. What is great about Communism? That it's exactly the opposite".
Oh that could easily be the original source and the version I heard is just a corrupted hand-me-down.
How is this "thought crime?" "Thought" implies "non published thought." If I WRITE DOWN my thoughts and someone sues me for libel, that isn't thought crime.
No, "thought" implies "something you think", that's it. It does not imply that you have never expressed this thought in any fixed format.
The term "thoughtcrime" comes from 1984, where the Thought Police did *not* have mind-reading powers (this was of course considered their holy grail). "Thoughtcrime" was the crime of having unacceptable thoughts/beliefs, but that crime was discovered via things you said or wrote or did. Yet even though they only knew you had the thought because you expressed it out loud, you were still punished for the thought itself.
That's what "thoughtcrime" means. Being punished for your thoughts. How others become aware of those thoughts is largely immaterial. In a world where we cannot read thoughts, your version where thoughtcrime can only exist if the thought remains unexpressed means that thoughtcrime could not exist at all.
Both of these people were perfectly free to think their opinions all they wanted. They got in trouble when they wrote them down for a significant amount of other people to see.
Well that's certainly true in the case of the lady with the moldy apartment. It has nothing to do with thoughtcrime because it's libel, which is explicitly about publishing malicious statements not thinking them.
The other case it isn't so clear. Certainly she was fired because she published something that was politically embarrassing to her boss. What isn't clear is how her boss would have reacted if she had expressed her opinion privately to him that she thought the President is "O-dumb-a". It's possible he would have found that unacceptable and dismissed her. So the question is, was she fired for publishing her opinion, or was she fired for her opinion, which her employer discovered thanks to her publishing it? The latter could conceivably be called "thoughtcrime".
Excepting that it wasn't a crime, of course... The term "Thoughtcrime" wasn't coined to describe just any consequence of holding an opinion. Having people think you're an idiot because of what you think isn't making you a "thoughtcriminal", it's called people forming their own opinions of you. If that person is your boss, and especially if your job is a political appointment, you better expect their to be consequences for them thinking you're an idiot. So I definitely agree with you that ultimately neither of things warrant the "thoughtcrime" tag.
For one, she was asked by a judge what her opinion was and so she gave it. The judge was a known activist. She was asked and so she answered. Then she got reamed by the press for it. So naturally she defended it.
And... you think this somehow frees her from the natural consequences of making her opinions known? Like, we're not allowed to think she's a stupid homophobic prat, because her opinion was stated before a judge? I didn't know that's how it works.
The equivalent example would be if the press secretary, having posted or said nothing about it, was asked by her boss what she truly thought of his politics. She answers that she disagrees with it and is then fired.
And the problem with that would be? We're not talking about the justice department. Press Secretary is an explicitly political appointment.
Your conversational tone says a lot about you. Cussing just to cuss is often the weak attempt of a feeble mind to express itself forcibly.
I'll take swearing over the passive-aggressive douchbaggery inherent in that cliche any day.
No, they did incorporate GPL code into their drivers. That's how all this started, when that was discovered. This is not based on any theory of loading drivers into the kernel, so most of what you wrote was pointless. GPL code was found in their drivers. Thus they are complying with the license lest they be sued for copyright infringement. They know they're guilty and they know, like everyone else who violates the GPL then quietly complies knows, there is no chance the license will be invalidated. They wouldn't release the code otherwise if either of those things weren't true. MS would love to go to court and have a judge rule the GPL invalid, but they know that won't happen, because the terms are quite reasonable, and do not "magically" or otherwise change ownership of your own copyrighted work.
Say whatever you want. Microsoft, who has every reason in the universe to see things your way if your view was in any way conceivably correct, disagrees with you.
Complying with the license rather than trying to fight a legal battle they would certainly lose is not a good thing, it's a neutral thing. You're not being "good" when you serve the jail time the court sentences you to. You're not being "good" when you screw a supplier out of money you owe, then agree to pay them that money when you get caught. You don't get brownie points for doing what you are legally obligated to do to correct your mistakes!
So, net result: bad thing.
"Microsoft finally did what Slashdot has been demanding they do" -- what rubbish. They did it because if they didn't, they were going to get sued and this would have become an even more high-profile clump of dirt on their face. Now they can play it off to the gullible like they're being magnanimous, rather than be dragged kicking and screaming to the inevitable conclusion.
I don't remember Slashdot ever demanding Microsoft screw up and unwittingly violate the GPL, forcing them to either cripple their own product by removing the offending code or releasing the source.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, so the big question for me is where is Obama's safe house? Would it perchance also be directly beneath his regular house?
ZOMG the Presidential Safe House is the basement of the White House?!
I see the tags 'butthurt' and 'whaaaaaaaaa', but no 'thanksforyourtime'. Why won't anyone show any gratitude for the years of work he's generously offered to the project?
If you really want to know, google up the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" and the Penny Arcade comic that comes up will explain it for you, though you can probably guess the gist from the name. Sad but true.
The portal rendering engine used by Descent has been rumored to be a simple extension of the Doom engine
Whoa, that would surprise me (not that it's impossible). Going from a raycasting engine which allows essentially arbitrary 2D geometry but very limited geometry in the 3rd dimension, to a texture mapping engine that is restricted to deformed rectangular prisms but allows them to be oriented arbitrarily wrt the world axes isn't a simple extension of any sort. Hell, the enemies were fully 3d texture mapped without any restrictions (but a low poly count of course). That's basically ripping up the innermost guts of the engine and replacing it with something very different. Completely new data structures, and a completely new rendering algorithm... at that point, what of the old engine would you even be using?
...tells the story of Ambrose Jerusalem, a gifted computer security expert, ... who has a beautiful and loving girlfriend.
Yeah right!
Oh come on, it says he's a gifted computer expert. You don't think he could program his sexbot to "love" him?
Then why isn't it "1/10 times smaller"?
Because that would mean ten times bigger, or just "ten times". The point is that "times" and "smaller" are not oxymoronic because they are not antonyms. The product of two numbers is not necessarily larger than the two numbers, ergo "times" does not necessarily mean "larger in magnitude".
Why does no one use a fraction with the word "times" colloquially?
Because it's awkward to say "One hundreth times the size". You would say "One hundreth the size", or if the fraction feels awkward you would say "One hundred times smaller."
It would better as "10 divisions smaller than x", as in "if you divided x into ten equally sized partitions, it would be the size of one of them," if not "1/10 the size of x".
What, your improvement is to say "10 divisions" to mean "divided by 10"? 10 divisions would mean you have divisions of some size, and you have ten of them. Without knowing the denominator that's meaningless. You're using a noun instead of a verb and it changes the meaning of the word. "X times smaller than Y" is clear because it uses the correct verb form to imply what two things are being multiplied, and "smaller" to indicate that the result should be smaller than Y and thus X should be taken as the reciprocal.
In an idiom employing redundancy, by using the antonym of only one of the words therein you create an oxymoron.
What are you on about? Using the antonym of one word in a phrase doesn't create an oxymoron; the point is to create a phrase that is opposite in meaning, not the same. "Extremely light" only uses the antonym of one word of "Extremely dark", and that's good because the point is to create the opposite, or inverse meaning. "Extremely" is not an oxymoron with "light", and "times" is not an oxymoron with "smaller".
Not that oxymorons are universally wrong.
Well whether you can understand that this isn't an oxymoron or not, can you at least understand that it is correct?
He said five big fans. Big fans spin more slowly to move the same amount of air and the noise output is related to fan RPM. I don't use desktops anymore, but my last one became a lot quieter when I replaced the small CPU fan with a big heatsink and a large case fan.
Yeah and I use big fans too and yet still...
The basic problem is a lot clearer if you're dealing in percentages:
3 is 50% larger than 2. (3 = 2 + 50% of 2)
2 is 33% smaller than 3. (2 = 3 - 33% of 3)
2 is not generally considered 50% smaller than 3, even though 3/2=1.5. Nor is it considered 66% smaller than 3, even though 2/3=66.6%.
And the solution is clear when you look at the terms you are using versus the analogous terminology in summary. You are using additive terminology, the summary uses multiplicative terminology. See:
3 is 50% larger than 2. 3 is 150% of 2. 3 is 1.5 times larger than 2.
2 is 33% smaller than 3. 2 is 66% of 3. 2 is 0.66 times larger than 3. 2 is 1.5 times smaller than 3.
2 is not generally considered 50% smaller than 3, even though 3/2=1.5. Nor is it considered 66% smaller than 3, even though 2/3=66.6%.
See once again you use "smaller" instead "times smaller". That's the basic reading comprehension issue here. "Larger" means something different than "times larger", too.
Smallness has no meaning except as the inverse of largeness. The basic problem is that times and smaller have meanings of their own (multiplication and subtraction, respectively) which don't imply the use of the inverse "smallness" scale.
"Smaller" considered on its won does not mean subtraction. It means lesser magnitude. That's it. It implies subtraction when not used with any modifiers, but "times" means multiplication and when used to modify smaller it means exactly what it says "times smaller". It's the same as "larger" and "times larger" -- you don't actually find that terminology confusing, do you? You are correct though that "small" implies the inverse, as in reciprocal, and thus does the meaning of the phrase "times smaller" become clear.
One would have to use the nearly senseless statement "Ten times the smallness of 10" to clearly convey 1/x = 10 * 1/10...
Or you could stop using pedantry as an excuse to not understand the correct usage of language (because that's the opposite of pedantry), and realize that "X times smaller" means "1/X times larger".
It's oxymoronic to say "times smaller".
No it isn't, unless you think you can only multiply by values larger than one, which would simply be moronic.
You're suggesting implied reciprocals means "one xth the size of" when the latter is perfectly fine English just to avoid explicitly mentioning a fraction.
Yes, heaven forbid there be multiple correct and clear ways to say the same thing in English. *eyeroll* In some cases it flows better than using fractions.
It makes as much sense as talking about the "near distant" future.
No, it makes perfect sense as long as you understand what it means. Which isn't complicated, and now you know it, so there should be no further issues with this perfectly clear and unambiguous language.
My computer @ 2.4Gig spews out about 120Watt.
To cool it I use five big fans, making the noise out of this setup is a bit loud but acceptable (a little less than the noise out of a Nintendo Wii perhaps, though a Wii's noise is thinner and more annoying).
Your rig needs five fans, but makes a little less noise than the Wii? I can't even hear my Wii's fan from across the room, especially not over my computer's fans even when idling and the CPU and graphics card fans are at their lowest speeds.
The only thing that interests me about this new CPU is if I can bring down the power usage to about 100 watt (like my former computer) while keeping the perf, but pretty much all that is reported these day is how much so-and so chip overclocks.
Yeah, I specifically buy chips made for lower power grades than the top end (e.g. I have a 60W Athlon X2 instead of the 95W version). Unless I'm playing a game, my CPU fan barely needs to move. Which is why I'm surprised you say your Wii is louder than your PC...
There's no such thing as "chip performance". All that matters is tastiness.
You say that, but then someone hands you a bag of chips made with Olestra and sure they're tasty but in about half an hour you'll be feeling the importance of chip "performance".
Engineers and scientists, when talking about cyclically variable phenomena, will talk about the change in magnitude of the waveform. Yes it constantly changes. No that doesn't mean it is impossible to say anything about overall trends in its average value. No doing so doesn't mean ignoring the variability. Average values can be studied as a time-variant value too.
The voltage across the terminals of your home power outlet is constantly changing, yet it is perfectly possible and reasonable to talk about its average (or more specifically RMS) amplitude, and measure changes in that value.
You should buy up some land in those middle regions now while it is still cheap.
Indeed. I'm already buying up properties around what will soon be Arizona Bay.
Draw it on a number line: 10 is ten times larger than 1 because it is ten times farther from 0 on a number line. 1 is ten times less than x because it is ten times farther from y on a number line. Go on, fill in the values for x and y.
No, 10 is ten times larger than 1 because the ratio of their sizes is 10:1.
1 is ten times smaller than 10 because the ratio of their sizes is 1:10.
It's about relative not absolute size difference. That's why they say "10 times smaller" rather than "10 units smaller". "Times" is your clue that you're dealing with multiplication, i.e. ratios.
The language is perfectly clear, correct, and unambiguous. No, your reading comprehension is not fine.
10 times smaller?
100 times less massive?
Isn't it 1/10 the size and 1/100 the mass?
Why yes, that is precisely what "10 times smaller" and "100 times less massive" means.
I know I'm picking nits, but this is slashdot. People should know better.
Yes, you should know better. The language is fine.
I understand it is simply a colloquialism arising from poor grammar among the masses, but in the case of a scientific article, poor writing makes it more difficult to take the writer seriously.
Yes, poor grammar from the "but this is slashdot" masses who think not understanding plain English is a sign of intelligence.
Now all they have to do is make sure they don't flip the switch on the robots' backs from "fight" to "cause".
Maybe in US, in EU if they want to fire you they need to prove you are damaging them during your working hours.
What, you can't even fire a political appointee, one whose express purpose is to handle the public image of the politician they are working for, for expressing opinions publicly that are contrary to that politician's but would naturally be associated with them, because whether you are "on the clock" or not, you are their press secretary and your words are your bosses'?
The people reading the statement don't necessarily know or care that you're not making an official statement -- your words are still associated with the person you work for. It doesn't matter if you're on the clock or not, carelessly uttered words could do untold damage to the politician you represent. Any Press Secretary who doesn't understand this is unfit for their job.
For just about any other position on earth, I'd find firing someone for their political views to be heinous. But for a jobs which is all about political opinions and specifically supporting the political opinions of your boss in public, I'd say it's a perfect reason to fire someone.
Funny. In communist countries the joke was the other way 'round, i.e. "What's the atrocity of Capitalism? That man exploits his fellow man. What is great about Communism? That it's exactly the opposite".
Oh that could easily be the original source and the version I heard is just a corrupted hand-me-down.
How is this "thought crime?" "Thought" implies "non published thought." If I WRITE DOWN my thoughts and someone sues me for libel, that isn't thought crime.
No, "thought" implies "something you think", that's it. It does not imply that you have never expressed this thought in any fixed format.
The term "thoughtcrime" comes from 1984, where the Thought Police did *not* have mind-reading powers (this was of course considered their holy grail). "Thoughtcrime" was the crime of having unacceptable thoughts/beliefs, but that crime was discovered via things you said or wrote or did. Yet even though they only knew you had the thought because you expressed it out loud, you were still punished for the thought itself.
That's what "thoughtcrime" means. Being punished for your thoughts. How others become aware of those thoughts is largely immaterial. In a world where we cannot read thoughts, your version where thoughtcrime can only exist if the thought remains unexpressed means that thoughtcrime could not exist at all.
Both of these people were perfectly free to think their opinions all they wanted. They got in trouble when they wrote them down for a significant amount of other people to see.
Well that's certainly true in the case of the lady with the moldy apartment. It has nothing to do with thoughtcrime because it's libel, which is explicitly about publishing malicious statements not thinking them.
The other case it isn't so clear. Certainly she was fired because she published something that was politically embarrassing to her boss. What isn't clear is how her boss would have reacted if she had expressed her opinion privately to him that she thought the President is "O-dumb-a". It's possible he would have found that unacceptable and dismissed her. So the question is, was she fired for publishing her opinion, or was she fired for her opinion, which her employer discovered thanks to her publishing it? The latter could conceivably be called "thoughtcrime".
Excepting that it wasn't a crime, of course... The term "Thoughtcrime" wasn't coined to describe just any consequence of holding an opinion. Having people think you're an idiot because of what you think isn't making you a "thoughtcriminal", it's called people forming their own opinions of you. If that person is your boss, and especially if your job is a political appointment, you better expect their to be consequences for them thinking you're an idiot. So I definitely agree with you that ultimately neither of things warrant the "thoughtcrime" tag.
For one, she was asked by a judge what her opinion was and so she gave it. The judge was a known activist. She was asked and so she answered. Then she got reamed by the press for it. So naturally she defended it.
And... you think this somehow frees her from the natural consequences of making her opinions known? Like, we're not allowed to think she's a stupid homophobic prat, because her opinion was stated before a judge? I didn't know that's how it works.
The equivalent example would be if the press secretary, having posted or said nothing about it, was asked by her boss what she truly thought of his politics. She answers that she disagrees with it and is then fired.
And the problem with that would be? We're not talking about the justice department. Press Secretary is an explicitly political appointment.
Your conversational tone says a lot about you. Cussing just to cuss is often the weak attempt of a feeble mind to express itself forcibly.
I'll take swearing over the passive-aggressive douchbaggery inherent in that cliche any day.
So, you're saying that NEITHER tin nor aluminum is effective?!?
That's right. The only thing you can do is spend a year building up an immunity to government mind control rays.
I think you need to look it up again and realize that "error" and "accident" aren't synonyms.
Or do you think it is impossible to do something intentionally that turns out to be a mistake?
Like being such a hard-head about this as an example?
Seems to me we should be contracting out mobsters as researchers. Because they also just 'happen' to find people who suffer spinal cord injuries.
That's a good idea. They'd probably do it for free, too, because if there's one thing mobsters hate, it's a rat.
Oh man, I remember Perciformes With Attitude. I was a huge PWA fan in the 80s.
No, they did incorporate GPL code into their drivers. That's how all this started, when that was discovered. This is not based on any theory of loading drivers into the kernel, so most of what you wrote was pointless. GPL code was found in their drivers. Thus they are complying with the license lest they be sued for copyright infringement. They know they're guilty and they know, like everyone else who violates the GPL then quietly complies knows, there is no chance the license will be invalidated. They wouldn't release the code otherwise if either of those things weren't true. MS would love to go to court and have a judge rule the GPL invalid, but they know that won't happen, because the terms are quite reasonable, and do not "magically" or otherwise change ownership of your own copyrighted work.
Say whatever you want. Microsoft, who has every reason in the universe to see things your way if your view was in any way conceivably correct, disagrees with you.
They violated the GPL. That is a bad thing.
Complying with the license rather than trying to fight a legal battle they would certainly lose is not a good thing, it's a neutral thing. You're not being "good" when you serve the jail time the court sentences you to. You're not being "good" when you screw a supplier out of money you owe, then agree to pay them that money when you get caught. You don't get brownie points for doing what you are legally obligated to do to correct your mistakes!
So, net result: bad thing.
"Microsoft finally did what Slashdot has been demanding they do" -- what rubbish. They did it because if they didn't, they were going to get sued and this would have become an even more high-profile clump of dirt on their face. Now they can play it off to the gullible like they're being magnanimous, rather than be dragged kicking and screaming to the inevitable conclusion.
I don't remember Slashdot ever demanding Microsoft screw up and unwittingly violate the GPL, forcing them to either cripple their own product by removing the offending code or releasing the source.