So tiring to hear of people coming up with wild statements that are not supported by evidence:
"not a disease"
"probably... end up killing himself."
"a safeguard"
"increasing suicide rates 500%"
None of this has any scientific basis. And it's FUD like this that might keep people from seeking treatment. *That's* how people end up getting killed.
It has been shown that early episodes of depression may have identifyable external causes, but this link is broken for later episodes, which often have no observable "trigger" save from the regions of the brain that depression has damaged. And these regions are clearly identifyable by imaging techniques such as a PET scan.
Attribution please!! This is abject nonsense. SSRIs equvalent in addictive properties to heroin? Based on what studies? (Hint, there are none).
Depression is *not* a normal response that all humans experience. It is like nothing most people can possibly comprehend, an utterly alien, horrible feeling. Let me ask you: When was the last time *you* have felt that the decision to live or die was a coin toss? I've dealt with this over the past 25 years, w/ depressive episodes running between 2 and 14 months in length, covering over 2/3 of those years.
This is *not* a "make me happy" pill! This is a "take away the depression pill." Don't get the idea that slamming down a few prozac is like viagra for the mind -- it just ain't so.
The bit about being hooked to continue to feel normal is just plain wrong. The accepted science shows that depression is a degenerative disease that will continue to get worse and worse absent being arrested by medication (or sometimes just therapy for mild cases).
Lastly, about "going after the condition itself, rather than the cause" this is dead wrong. Once a depressive episode or two have been experienced, depression itself *is* the disease, and is no longer a reflection of any underlying "cause" (though stress and other things can accellerate the destruction.) The risk factor is simply that the mind has suffered from depression before, and external events become far less signficant. It is a disease pure and simple, and it needs to be taken seriously and attacked directly.
Short selling tends to lower the price of the stock. If the shorts are then forced to cover (i.e. buy stock and pay back, only then will the price tend to be inflated.
I work in a philanthropic foundation and spend a lot of time talking to other foundations about technology, and there is lots of interest in funding open source over closed source projects. Funders are interested in the fact that they won't have to fund zillions of identical projects -- it's just too expensive. It looks like this trend will continue.
I'm optimistic about this. The fact is that, barring China and some other pariah states, that there is free *connectivity* (not neccessarily free communication) between everyone on the Internet. There will always be an opportunity for people to build new channels (think network layers) on top of this infrastructure. It will always be possible to encrypt communications on these channels. So there will always be a minimal level at which the network must remain free.
Is is perfect, seamless, elegant, etc? Maybe not. But it will remain "open."
Interesting to think about this in terms of Moore's Law. ML states that costs of costs of chips will come down (and/or transistor density rises.)
Regarding costs, what good does it do to make chips cheaper if the costs of electricity negate the benefit? Some CPUs are exceeding 100W consumption. Over the course of a 3 year lifetime, at 15 cents per kWh, we get a cost of:
100 W * 3 years * 365 days / year * 24 hours / day * $0.15 / kW - hour * (1 kW / 1000 W) = $394.20
So that Pentium 4 that cost you $300 actually is going to cost you that again just for electricity!!
Not everyone leaves their machines on all the time, and YMMV, but this is only going to get worse over time. It will be interesting to see how CPU manufacturers repond with more efficiency, rather than just more transistors.
Look, you really don't have to care. And if you don't, why are you even reading this story?
Of course, you really *should* care, because this case has a lot to do with the future of tech, and our ability to create, share, and use it. That ability could be taken away from us. I'm glad there are plenty of people who do care, because without them, this can only get worse.
BTW, if someone does buy SCO, then Darl McBride will have shown a surefire way to make about $200 million in market cap by attacking open source. Others will follow. Is that what you want?
Oh, I forgot, you were bored.
More assertions. That's the problem with SCO's case -- they assert, they bluster, they make statements with no context, but they *don't* provide the facts necessary to evaluate their claims.
This is complete nonsense. First, Moore's law applies only to the cost and performance of computer chips.
Second, "regulation" goes both ways. In the wild wild west, very little production (contrast to exploration and discovery) happened at all. There was no safety, no assurance that property would be secure, no nothing. Not until the "regulation" of government and law enforcement came was industrial progress even possible.
HiKarma makes some good points about possible GPL loopholes that might need to be addressed in a future version of the GPL, but I disagree that the GPL doesn't mean as much as people think, in fact, it means much much more.
The *fact* that SCO has violated the GPL is the surest defense against the silly claims they are now making. The point of the GPL is that free software *remains* free, and that no organization (i.e. SCO) can use the embrace-extend-extinguish tactics that we've seen from Redmond.
Love it or hate it, the GPL (assuming the courts agree) is an extremely potent instrument that will be very difficult to circumvent in any practical way. The "program to modify GPL code" you suggest could only be used by end users (since further distribution would be against the GPL, however the changes themselves happened), and would not work in the real world.
In any event, if the GPL is tested and falls short, it will be revised and all our favorite projects will be relicensed under the new terms, and soon enough the old-GPL-releases will be obsolete. And Free Software lives on.
I interviewed for an analyst position with Gartner about 7 years ago, and eloquently opined that Windows had structural problems that would become burdensome in 5 to 10 years, thus opening themselves up to better architected competition.
Afterwards, they didn't return my calls.
Not true. Many individual lines of code are identical. The fact is that the probability of hitting an MD5 checksum (1 in 2^128) is far less than the odds of two arbitrary lines of code being identical.
Remember, far fewer than 2^128 lines of code have ever been written, or ever will be written.
Slashdot Mirror
- "not a disease"
- "probably
... end up killing himself."
- "a safeguard"
- "increasing suicide rates 500%"
None of this has any scientific basis. And it's FUD like this that might keep people from seeking treatment. *That's* how people end up getting killed.It has been shown that early episodes of depression may have identifyable external causes, but this link is broken for later episodes, which often have no observable "trigger" save from the regions of the brain that depression has damaged. And these regions are clearly identifyable by imaging techniques such as a PET scan.
Attribution please!! This is abject nonsense. SSRIs equvalent in addictive properties to heroin? Based on what studies? (Hint, there are none).
Depression is *not* a normal response that all humans experience. It is like nothing most people can possibly comprehend, an utterly alien, horrible feeling. Let me ask you: When was the last time *you* have felt that the decision to live or die was a coin toss? I've dealt with this over the past 25 years, w/ depressive episodes running between 2 and 14 months in length, covering over 2/3 of those years.
This is *not* a "make me happy" pill! This is a "take away the depression pill." Don't get the idea that slamming down a few prozac is like viagra for the mind -- it just ain't so.
The bit about being hooked to continue to feel normal is just plain wrong. The accepted science shows that depression is a degenerative disease that will continue to get worse and worse absent being arrested by medication (or sometimes just therapy for mild cases).
Lastly, about "going after the condition itself, rather than the cause" this is dead wrong. Once a depressive episode or two have been experienced, depression itself *is* the disease, and is no longer a reflection of any underlying "cause" (though stress and other things can accellerate the destruction.) The risk factor is simply that the mind has suffered from depression before, and external events become far less signficant. It is a disease pure and simple, and it needs to be taken seriously and attacked directly.
Short selling tends to lower the price of the stock. If the shorts are then forced to cover (i.e. buy stock and pay back, only then will the price tend to be inflated.
I work in a philanthropic foundation and spend a lot of time talking to other foundations about technology, and there is lots of interest in funding open source over closed source projects. Funders are interested in the fact that they won't have to fund zillions of identical projects -- it's just too expensive. It looks like this trend will continue.
Is is perfect, seamless, elegant, etc? Maybe not. But it will remain "open."
Interesting to think about this in terms of Moore's Law. ML states that costs of costs of chips will come down (and/or transistor density rises.) Regarding costs, what good does it do to make chips cheaper if the costs of electricity negate the benefit? Some CPUs are exceeding 100W consumption. Over the course of a 3 year lifetime, at 15 cents per kWh, we get a cost of: 100 W * 3 years * 365 days / year * 24 hours / day * $0.15 / kW - hour * (1 kW / 1000 W) = $394.20 So that Pentium 4 that cost you $300 actually is going to cost you that again just for electricity!! Not everyone leaves their machines on all the time, and YMMV, but this is only going to get worse over time. It will be interesting to see how CPU manufacturers repond with more efficiency, rather than just more transistors.
Look, you really don't have to care. And if you don't, why are you even reading this story? Of course, you really *should* care, because this case has a lot to do with the future of tech, and our ability to create, share, and use it. That ability could be taken away from us. I'm glad there are plenty of people who do care, because without them, this can only get worse. BTW, if someone does buy SCO, then Darl McBride will have shown a surefire way to make about $200 million in market cap by attacking open source. Others will follow. Is that what you want? Oh, I forgot, you were bored.
More assertions. That's the problem with SCO's case -- they assert, they bluster, they make statements with no context, but they *don't* provide the facts necessary to evaluate their claims.
And it's not a case just because you assert it is. Facts?
This is complete nonsense. First, Moore's law applies only to the cost and performance of computer chips. Second, "regulation" goes both ways. In the wild wild west, very little production (contrast to exploration and discovery) happened at all. There was no safety, no assurance that property would be secure, no nothing. Not until the "regulation" of government and law enforcement came was industrial progress even possible.
HiKarma makes some good points about possible GPL loopholes that might need to be addressed in a future version of the GPL, but I disagree that the GPL doesn't mean as much as people think, in fact, it means much much more.
The *fact* that SCO has violated the GPL is the surest defense against the silly claims they are now making. The point of the GPL is that free software *remains* free, and that no organization (i.e. SCO) can use the embrace-extend-extinguish tactics that we've seen from Redmond.
Love it or hate it, the GPL (assuming the courts agree) is an extremely potent instrument that will be very difficult to circumvent in any practical way. The "program to modify GPL code" you suggest could only be used by end users (since further distribution would be against the GPL, however the changes themselves happened), and would not work in the real world.
In any event, if the GPL is tested and falls short, it will be revised and all our favorite projects will be relicensed under the new terms, and soon enough the old-GPL-releases will be obsolete. And Free Software lives on.
I interviewed for an analyst position with Gartner about 7 years ago, and eloquently opined that Windows had structural problems that would become burdensome in 5 to 10 years, thus opening themselves up to better architected competition. Afterwards, they didn't return my calls.
Not true. Many individual lines of code are identical. The fact is that the probability of hitting an MD5 checksum (1 in 2^128) is far less than the odds of two arbitrary lines of code being identical.
Remember, far fewer than 2^128 lines of code have ever been written, or ever will be written.