"Yes, humans are flawed, but that doesn't mean our method of producing valid approximations to reality haven't been useful. That doesn't mean we don't understand ANYTHING about our universe."
I certainly never said we didn't produce anything, I said the opposite. I said our current method was a cheap hack that has resulted in us producing MORE in a short period of time than we would without it. The problem isn't in what we've produced, the problem is you can only build a house of straw so tall before it collapses under it's own weight... or the wind blows.
Your post was interesting, and I hope you do realize that nothing you said refutes anything in my post. In fact you restated many of my points but tried to paint them as positive things. The only point I must disagree on is this one:
'There really is no such thing (see 1)) as a "correct theory", just an approximately correct theory.'
Correct is defined as truth. There is actually a correct and true answer to every problem in the universe of course. The only requirement for a theory is that it not be proven, it's certainly possible for a theory to be true and correct.
'Basically, you conclude that we need to "re-review" theories from time-to-time. We do. When we get new evidence that contradicts an established (by that I mean well tested) theory, we first check that the evidence is not flawed.'
I'm proposing we not only review the established ones, but the ones that were never accepted to begin with. Further that we need a formal recurring process for making sure this happens instead of simply letting it go it's course.
"If dont make available the actual source code used for that particular binary, no matter how similar, then you had no licence to distributed the binary and you infringed on the original author's copyrights."
Great, except that wasn't really the question. Besides, it's easier to dynamically change a line of text in each copy if the copies are distributed electronically, not harder.
The question is, would doing so be considered source code control. I don't think so, controling is forcing an outcome. Tagging like the parent is referring to isn't controling, rather it's something which can be used to control.
"Then again, most companies stupid enough to infringe GPL software at all are also too stupid to remove all the other strings..."
What makes you assume that? I wouldn't venture to believe most companies who heist gpl code get caught, let alone do something stupid. I WOULD venture that most companies who GET CAUGHT do something stupid like leave the strings in;)
Negative, SCO is challenging the validity of the GPL in their case against IBM. It's not the only thing involved in the case by a long shot, but it's in there.
I consider this new release a wonderful thing even if it makes little or no change. The reason is simple, because there is a new release alot of people will read it who never read the license before.
Since the GPL is plain english they will discover quite a few myths that float around about it.
That would make sense for copyright infringment, but not patent infringement. You don't patent source code. Technically your not supposed to patent a function either, only a physical object which you've actually constructed. But software patents are on functions the software performs, most violations can be seen at a higher level than the sourcecode. For instance "A method by which an ascii encoded text file is interpreted for the purpose of deriving values".
It doesn't take seeing the sourcecode to determine if a program uses a text based configuration file. The reason every program violates so many patents is that our wonderful patent office would rant the above patent tomorrow if filed by a customer who spends enough on patent fees each year!
"if the Firefox authors don't deem their product worthy of a 1.0 release, then we must assume that their product isn't ready yet"
In their eyes yes. Perhaps the authors have a bit higher standards of "ready" than their competitors? Internet Explorer has been in development for how long? From the very first release of IE to the release of sp2 is how long it took Microsoft to develop a program of the stability, security, and function set IE has today. Version numbers, or the number of releases or whether those releases were labeled preview or stable is meaningless.
The fact of the matter is that in 2 years the mozilla foundation has using an open source process developed and released a browser with a comparable feature set (arguably a superior one), comparable stability, and superior security. They've done all this without adding any features that break standards compliance, and yet HAVE added great features which IE is lacking, such as popup blocking, transparent png, and tabbed browsing. There is a multi-search bar. There are several annoying javascript functions which you can disable. There is an interface through which almost all critical default settings and behaviors are accesible to the user and can be directly manipulated. The browser they've released weighs in at under 5mb and is completely self contained, it can operate out of a folder. This browser runs on a plethora of platforms which IE is incapable of running on.
It's taken MS over 10yrs to develop a browser which is inferior to what the mozilla foundation developed in 2yrs. You can talk about "stable" releases and version numbers all day sir. But you'll never convince me that achieving a result in 2yrs isn't faster than achieving less or even the same results in 10.
I dare to imply that Occum's razor and the scientific method could need reform, even giving a reasonably likely situation in which this could occur. And having done so makes me a troll?
The scientific method coupled with peer review is wonderful, it has brought us far. Unfortunately it is inherently flawed.
It is flawed because the scientific method relies on the belief that when all evidence is presented the conclusion one logically arrives, which fits all said evidence and symptoms, is the correct one.
The problem with that is that all the cards don't always have only one possible resolution, even if there is only one we can think of at the moment. It's perfectly possible for an incorrect premise to yield correct results. It's perfectly possible for it to do so for 5000 yr, or 10,000, or 10,000,000. The more cards are on the table, the more closely that incorrect premise will be to the FUNCTION of the correct premise but the cards are not always enough to reach the correct premise. The closer the function of false premise is the function of the correct premise, the longer it takes for a decidedly provable evidence of falsehood to appear.
I submit the following premises.
1. The scientific method is flawed due to the assumption that all evidence which can be collected will ultimately yield a correct premise.
2. The closer a false theory is in FUNCTION to a correct theory, the longer it takes to discover a discrepancy in the theory.
3. A false theory which has been adjusted to provide a function which fits new evidence is no closer to being a correct theory, contrary, it is closer to providing the FUNCTION of the correct theory, this in turn triggers assertion 2.
4. Man is inherently flawed, possibly due to our short lifespans and the inevitability of death, and believes that a premise which has not been disproven given a length of time should be attributed credibility.
5. When a premise has attained credibility, other premises that depend on a solution to the evidence it appears to solve will rely on it more and more blindly. This results in more false premises which are close in function to correct premises.
6. Premises arrived at via premise 5 can be correct or incorrect, because they are based on the function of the original premise. This can make the original false premise more difficult to discover.
7. Because of premise 6, a functioning premise having been derived from a premise DOES NOT constitute a reduction in the odds the original premise is false.
8. Because of premise 4, when man encounters a premise as described in premise 2, man will take the most dangerous of false premises and will end up adjusting it, causing premise 3 to take effect. In turn this lengthens the lifespan of the false premise more securely rooting premise 4 and ensuring that this cycle will repeat.
9. Occum's razor is a false premise. Since the CORRECT answer to a problem can be more complex than a false one, and since there is more than one answer which can resolve a given set of evidence, it's perfectly plausible, in fact likely that Occum's razor is regularly used to cut away correct answers. Further premise 4 increases this likelihood.
10. These premises taken together present an unresolvable situation.
Due to human flaws, and flaws in our standard methods, we've unintentionally implemented a hack. That allows us to base further progress on false premises which emulate the function of correct premises. While this certainly results in accelerated tangible progress, ultimately this string of false premises MUST FAIL to be extendable and we will achieve the limits we can progress to using this system.
Although we can't resolve this problem via any solution I am able to think of. What we can is patch the human flaw in the system. We can do this by submitting the same findings to peer review we do now, but doing so again at intervals in the future, assuring as much material is re-reviewed in light of new e
If you read my post again, you'll see again, that this argument is meaningless in this case. We aren't talking about freenet, or AROS, we are talking about firefox. Firefox is extremely popular and has a huge developer base.
Do you really think I'd debate software quality with someone who judges an application by version NUMBER?
I can release software with a full.0 release for EVERY release as well, that doesn't make my development fast or slow. Firefox has been more stable than IE for at least 5 releases (if you only count full releases), 1.0 is just another number, it's notable only because it's a neat and even one.
By your logic, Netscape should increment by 10's, then they'd be at 60 now instead of 6 and would be WAY better than IE's measily 6!
" I know this is/. and asking people to RTFA is a waste of effort, but just do it and you will have your answer. But since you won't, I will spoon feed you."
I know this is/. and asking people to RTFA is a waste of effort, but just do it and you will have your answer. But since you won't, I will spoon feed you.
"...we will see the day when getting to the moon will not require having to get into spacecraft at all except to taxi from the Earth space elevator to the moon elevator."
As the article clearly points out, traveling the elevator would take weeks alone, during which time human travelers would be exposed to FAR more than survivable levels of radiation. The case is even worse for survival going up an earth elevator.
Space elevators are for cargo, not people. Get the parts up, and then send the people up to assemble them the old fashioned way. Or transshipping between the earth and moon, just shuttling the cargo between the elevators.
That isn't to say this can't help people travel in space. This makes it much more economical to get the things they need to survive into space such as oxygen, water, and food. With the elevator we can send up the parts for very large non-aerodynamic craft that have room to hold plenty of air, fuel, and reasonably edible food. Then just shuttle up astronauts to assemble them. Once constructed we can use them to transport people over larger distances with greater comfort and less risk than we can now.
First thing is first though, it will be used for science. We can use this to contruct and maintain craft in space and to get what previously would have been ungodly amounts of fuel up relatively cheaply. Since we surely won't spend any less than we do now on travel, this will mean bringing more equipment and taking it farther.
Your right, I had misunderstood that, but if anything it firms my point. If that is the case than my purchase price covered my copy of the game working indefinately. It's not paid through the 30th, it's paid off for the rest of time (not even life, since I can legally see my copy and so forth for the rest of eternity).
But we've been using the current method for a long time. What happens if we adjust the model instead of changing of our method, resulting in a new model which appears to work for a long time. In the meantime this discovery is determined not to be correct.
Eventually it is almost forgotten, but remembered just well enough that anyone who it occurs to, and checks, will see that someone else already thought of that and the theory was found to be incorrect (since it clashed with our new false model).
Sure someday we would probably figure it out, but how long would it take to rediscover the correct solution? How long would mankind of have been robbed of true knowledge by Occums razor?
Open source software is not bugfree by any means. But the development time is by orders of magnitude faster than that of closed source development. Combine that with lots of eyes and there are no "easy" bugs left like there often are in closed source offerings.
Most closed source supporters don't even dispute this. Instead they claim that it only works in a very popular project and most projects arent. There is a counter argument to that but I won't go into it. The point is that firefox is an extremely popular project so that argument doesn't refute that the open source development model should yield the ideal result.
Microsoft probably has the worst reputation for stability in the software industry and it is one that is not lacking in actual merit by any account. So this is not exactly random piece of open source software versus random equivelent closed source software.
This is one of the best open source applications with repute for one of the cleanest designs, against the absolute worst repute closed source firm and further a product of theirs with a known terrible design.
"Are you proposing that Microsoft has a "black ops" department, whose sole purpose is to cause Windows to behave incorrectly when 3rd party software is run?"
You try to make it sound like he is mel gibson in a Conspiracy Theory. This isn't exactly that, this is a company with a PROVEN track record of doing just that, RECENTLY and doing so IN THE BROWSER MARKET specifically. Read up on the MSN website and the way it renders in Opera.
Further you speak as if your a developer on windows, that means if you've done anything non-trivial you know that windows does NOT behave as documented in NUMEROUS cases. Finding a system call which is only used by one competitor with a significant user base and making an intentional design change to break them is easy enough. If too many people report the problem you can claim it's a bug introduced by the update instead of an intentional change. This would be blatantly obvious if the relevant source were revealed, but it's not.
It's hardly a conspiracy theory at all to believe Microsoft would engage in any illegal anti-competative practices they can which they believe will ultimately preserve more market share than they will cost.
Particually after US CERT advisories to change browsers firefox has become a serious threat to their browser monopoly. I'd venture Microsoft would be willing to risk a substantial number of customers to discredit the stability of the first fully stable release of the first significant threat to their monopoly in almost a decade.
"If you vote with your pocketbook, the company will listen."
Well, either listen, or engage in anti-competitive practices to ensure you no longer have that option. After all, allowing you the option to choose a competitors product simply because it is superior or you don't them is a bad business strategy! First step is as simple as a minor api change that doesn't affect many applications but that firefox uses. This way you can make some customers feel firefox is unstable. That way you can buy time until you can get DRM'd which use encryption that is only compatible with windows. After all, you've already got the DMCA in place to ensure competition can't beat that simply because they figure out how the encryption works.
Then you don't have to worry about competiton on inexpensive x86 systems anymore.
This is so drastically in contrast to the experience of everyone I've encountered, both on the web and in person, that I've no choice to conclude that the parent either has a system problem or is a MS mole and/or sympathizer (of the variety who feels slashdot is biased, and are especially stupid, resulting in pro-ms anti-anything else statements here instead of chatting a forum which is relevant to their own interests).
Re:Now the real question
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My apologies, the parent was below my threshold. Your tone could use a bit of calibration though.
Perhaps we could attach electrodes to your testicles and run a bitch of current through each time we shove a bit of coal up your arse and discover a diamond when go to retrieve it. When we finally retrieve coal your tone should be about right.
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"given the prices they quote for Vladimir Vodka, and knowing as I do how much Brita filters cost (about $7 each, or $15 or so for three)."
How do you figure he forgot the cost of the filters?
Re:From the linked article
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"One standard Brita filter. I believe this cost roughly $15 at the supermarket. It probably should be used after the experiment to filter water."
No they stated $15, and if you read you'll find that when they say filter here, they mean the pitcher and the included filter.
'Yeah, I guess Symbian, iTron, and EVERY OTHER embedded operating system isn't "flexible".'
I realize your being sarcastic, but from what I've heard, alot of them aren't, particularly Symbian.
"we can use Linux with CLI
Right. On a cell phone."
Agreed, a geek might like to be able to perform and emergency ssh session to send a hup to restart a service on a server while on vacation. Other than that I can't see it mattering much, except perhaps on a development system that isn't really a cell phone (since linux abstracts the hardware), where it might be easiest to develop certain parts of an application using linux's powerful cli development tools, or where it's easiest to feed parameters in the cli to test functions.
The biggest advantage is in development. With linux the hardware is abrastracted by the kernel, this means that existing libraries and codebases can be used with no or little modification in many cases. It's also nice for security, as phones are more often connected to the web, we introduce the possibility of phones being hacked, possibly notes read, recordings listened to, images on picture phones viewed, who knows, maybe even calls made. Since most components are open source and used in everything from watches to super computers to NASA's Cluster of supercomputers security fixes are routinely available... with symbian you would likely be vulnerable until you bought a new phone.
We were talking about legitimate users who purchased the game and used cracks to disable stream authentication.
HL2 isn't a multiplayer game, you don't play it on the internet or anything. The only reason it connects to stream is to authenticate and show you bought it, that makes the game startup slow. As a result lots of people use cracks or the already cracked warez version, even though they've purchased the game.
If the TOS isn't printed on the OUTSIDE of the box then that is shakey and not truely proven ground AFAIK.
Although not illegal, they could have civil suits on their hands if they ban accounts on the first which are paid through the 30th and do for illegit reasons.
Thankyou for reminding me that you are a troll. I won't be responding further to your posts after this.
"You do realise that "copyright", "right", "ownership", "public domain" are artificial constructs, right?"
All words are artificial constructs which exist only by common consent, the only thing in that list which isn't a label for something that exists whether that label is applied or not is "copyright".
Rights are factual, certain rights may be artificial constructs but a right is something which would exist without that label. The "public domain" is the term we use to describe the state of things without a copyright. Without copyright law, everyone may copy everything and distribute it as they please and are able... and did, copyright is a new idea and doesn't exist everywhere.
Ownership is factual existing thing, no matter what label you put to it. As proof I submit the universal reaching of this concept by EVERY people in every part of the earth before communication between them.
"Quite a few folks"
YOU are 'quite a few'? Your the only one who has responded in the negative to anything I've said in this thread.
'they are "wrong" in "fact"'
As I've just stated, what "they", there is just you. As for being wrong, you are, and you certainly need to check your facts.
"Thanks for confirming that you really have no understanding of the topic"
Your post proves the same of yourself.
"just half-baked ideosyncratic notions of maybe how it might work if the world worked the way you want it to."
Again the same.
"Ownership can most certainly change hands. That principle is the bedrock of the entire mercantile system (and accepted in all but the smallest scale forms of communism)."
True enough, it has nothing to do with anything I said, but true enough. But since nobody owns something which is copyrighted (or everybody owns it, however you prefer to look at it) then only the copyright and not the ownership can change hands. Copyright is a far cry from ownership!! Someone who holds a copyright is most definately limited in what they can do, what they can do is explicitly spelled out, and unless they are specifically granted an authority by copyright the default is that authority belongs to the public.
"Ideas are not covered in any way by copyright, so you're right that they aren't owned... but the statement has no point."
All things eligable for copyright are intangibles and therefore ideas. If you create a sculpture the physical object itself is not copyrighted, the intagible idea of the form and colors are copyrighted. If I can look at something, and then walk away and close my eyes, that thing in my mind is what is subject to copyright. If it can be contained within my mind, it's an idea.
"One could just as easily argue that when copyright expires, actual ownership changes hands from the creator to the public (as it should)."
Without copyright the default is the public domain. While control changes hands, ownership cannot. You cannot OWN an idea, only control access to it and expression of it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yes, humans are flawed, but that doesn't mean our method of producing valid approximations to reality haven't been useful. That doesn't mean we don't understand ANYTHING about our universe."
I certainly never said we didn't produce anything, I said the opposite. I said our current method was a cheap hack that has resulted in us producing MORE in a short period of time than we would without it. The problem isn't in what we've produced, the problem is you can only build a house of straw so tall before it collapses under it's own weight... or the wind blows.
Your post was interesting, and I hope you do realize that nothing you said refutes anything in my post. In fact you restated many of my points but tried to paint them as positive things. The only point I must disagree on is this one:
'There really is no such thing (see 1)) as a "correct theory", just an approximately correct theory.'
Correct is defined as truth. There is actually a correct and true answer to every problem in the universe of course. The only requirement for a theory is that it not be proven, it's certainly possible for a theory to be true and correct.
'Basically, you conclude that we need to "re-review" theories from time-to-time. We do. When we get new evidence that contradicts an established (by that I mean well tested) theory, we first check that the evidence is not flawed.'
I'm proposing we not only review the established ones, but the ones that were never accepted to begin with. Further that we need a formal recurring process for making sure this happens instead of simply letting it go it's course.
"If dont make available the actual source code used for that particular binary, no matter how similar, then you had no licence to distributed the binary and you infringed on the original author's copyrights."
Great, except that wasn't really the question. Besides, it's easier to dynamically change a line of text in each copy if the copies are distributed electronically, not harder.
The question is, would doing so be considered source code control. I don't think so, controling is forcing an outcome. Tagging like the parent is referring to isn't controling, rather it's something which can be used to control.
"Then again, most companies stupid enough to infringe GPL software at all are also too stupid to remove all the other strings..."
;)
What makes you assume that? I wouldn't venture to believe most companies who heist gpl code get caught, let alone do something stupid. I WOULD venture that most companies who GET CAUGHT do something stupid like leave the strings in
Negative, SCO is challenging the validity of the GPL in their case against IBM. It's not the only thing involved in the case by a long shot, but it's in there.
I consider this new release a wonderful thing even if it makes little or no change. The reason is simple, because there is a new release alot of people will read it who never read the license before.
Since the GPL is plain english they will discover quite a few myths that float around about it.
That would make sense for copyright infringment, but not patent infringement. You don't patent source code. Technically your not supposed to patent a function either, only a physical object which you've actually constructed. But software patents are on functions the software performs, most violations can be seen at a higher level than the sourcecode. For instance "A method by which an ascii encoded text file is interpreted for the purpose of deriving values".
It doesn't take seeing the sourcecode to determine if a program uses a text based configuration file. The reason every program violates so many patents is that our wonderful patent office would rant the above patent tomorrow if filed by a customer who spends enough on patent fees each year!
"if the Firefox authors don't deem their product worthy of a 1.0 release, then we must assume that their product isn't ready yet"
In their eyes yes. Perhaps the authors have a bit higher standards of "ready" than their competitors? Internet Explorer has been in development for how long? From the very first release of IE to the release of sp2 is how long it took Microsoft to develop a program of the stability, security, and function set IE has today. Version numbers, or the number of releases or whether those releases were labeled preview or stable is meaningless.
The fact of the matter is that in 2 years the mozilla foundation has using an open source process developed and released a browser with a comparable feature set (arguably a superior one), comparable stability, and superior security. They've done all this without adding any features that break standards compliance, and yet HAVE added great features which IE is lacking, such as popup blocking, transparent png, and tabbed browsing. There is a multi-search bar. There are several annoying javascript functions which you can disable. There is an interface through which almost all critical default settings and behaviors are accesible to the user and can be directly manipulated. The browser they've released weighs in at under 5mb and is completely self contained, it can operate out of a folder. This browser runs on a plethora of platforms which IE is incapable of running on.
It's taken MS over 10yrs to develop a browser which is inferior to what the mozilla foundation developed in 2yrs. You can talk about "stable" releases and version numbers all day sir. But you'll never convince me that achieving a result in 2yrs isn't faster than achieving less or even the same results in 10.
I dare to imply that Occum's razor and the scientific method could need reform, even giving a reasonably likely situation in which this could occur. And having done so makes me a troll?
The scientific method coupled with peer review is wonderful, it has brought us far. Unfortunately it is inherently flawed.
It is flawed because the scientific method relies on the belief that when all evidence is presented the conclusion one logically arrives, which fits all said evidence and symptoms, is the correct one.
The problem with that is that all the cards don't always have only one possible resolution, even if there is only one we can think of at the moment. It's perfectly possible for an incorrect premise to yield correct results. It's perfectly possible for it to do so for 5000 yr, or 10,000, or 10,000,000. The more cards are on the table, the more closely that incorrect premise will be to the FUNCTION of the correct premise but the cards are not always enough to reach the correct premise. The closer the function of false premise is the function of the correct premise, the longer it takes for a decidedly provable evidence of falsehood to appear.
I submit the following premises.
1. The scientific method is flawed due to the assumption that all evidence which can be collected will ultimately yield a correct premise.
2. The closer a false theory is in FUNCTION to a correct theory, the longer it takes to discover a discrepancy in the theory.
3. A false theory which has been adjusted to provide a function which fits new evidence is no closer to being a correct theory, contrary, it is closer to providing the FUNCTION of the correct theory, this in turn triggers assertion 2.
4. Man is inherently flawed, possibly due to our short lifespans and the inevitability of death, and believes that a premise which has not been disproven given a length of time should be attributed credibility.
5. When a premise has attained credibility, other premises that depend on a solution to the evidence it appears to solve will rely on it more and more blindly. This results in more false premises which are close in function to correct premises.
6. Premises arrived at via premise 5 can be correct or incorrect, because they are based on the function of the original premise. This can make the original false premise more difficult to discover.
7. Because of premise 6, a functioning premise having been derived from a premise DOES NOT constitute a reduction in the odds the original premise is false.
8. Because of premise 4, when man encounters a premise as described in premise 2, man will take the most dangerous of false premises and will end up adjusting it, causing premise 3 to take effect. In turn this lengthens the lifespan of the false premise more securely rooting premise 4 and ensuring that this cycle will repeat.
9. Occum's razor is a false premise. Since the CORRECT answer to a problem can be more complex than a false one, and since there is more than one answer which can resolve a given set of evidence, it's perfectly plausible, in fact likely that Occum's razor is regularly used to cut away correct answers. Further premise 4 increases this likelihood.
10. These premises taken together present an unresolvable situation.
Due to human flaws, and flaws in our standard methods, we've unintentionally implemented a hack. That allows us to base further progress on false premises which emulate the function of correct premises. While this certainly results in accelerated tangible progress, ultimately this string of false premises MUST FAIL to be extendable and we will achieve the limits we can progress to using this system.
Although we can't resolve this problem via any solution I am able to think of. What we can is patch the human flaw in the system. We can do this by submitting the same findings to peer review we do now, but doing so again at intervals in the future, assuring as much material is re-reviewed in light of new e
If you read my post again, you'll see again, that this argument is meaningless in this case. We aren't talking about freenet, or AROS, we are talking about firefox. Firefox is extremely popular and has a huge developer base.
Do you really think I'd debate software quality with someone who judges an application by version NUMBER?
.0 release for EVERY release as well, that doesn't make my development fast or slow. Firefox has been more stable than IE for at least 5 releases (if you only count full releases), 1.0 is just another number, it's notable only because it's a neat and even one.
I can release software with a full
By your logic, Netscape should increment by 10's, then they'd be at 60 now instead of 6 and would be WAY better than IE's measily 6!
" I know this is /. and asking people to RTFA is a waste of effort, but just do it and you will have your answer. But since you won't, I will spoon feed you."
/. and asking people to RTFA is a waste of effort, but just do it and you will have your answer. But since you won't, I will spoon feed you.
I know this is
"...we will see the day when getting to the moon will not require having to get into spacecraft at all except to taxi from the Earth space elevator to the moon elevator."
As the article clearly points out, traveling the elevator would take weeks alone, during which time human travelers would be exposed to FAR more than survivable levels of radiation. The case is even worse for survival going up an earth elevator.
Space elevators are for cargo, not people. Get the parts up, and then send the people up to assemble them the old fashioned way. Or transshipping between the earth and moon, just shuttling the cargo between the elevators.
That isn't to say this can't help people travel in space. This makes it much more economical to get the things they need to survive into space such as oxygen, water, and food. With the elevator we can send up the parts for very large non-aerodynamic craft that have room to hold plenty of air, fuel, and reasonably edible food. Then just shuttle up astronauts to assemble them. Once constructed we can use them to transport people over larger distances with greater comfort and less risk than we can now.
First thing is first though, it will be used for science. We can use this to contruct and maintain craft in space and to get what previously would have been ungodly amounts of fuel up relatively cheaply. Since we surely won't spend any less than we do now on travel, this will mean bringing more equipment and taking it farther.
Your right, I had misunderstood that, but if anything it firms my point. If that is the case than my purchase price covered my copy of the game working indefinately. It's not paid through the 30th, it's paid off for the rest of time (not even life, since I can legally see my copy and so forth for the rest of eternity).
Yeah, cuz damn, we all know some guy posting on slashdot saying that a guy he knows made one is SOLID prior art!
But we've been using the current method for a long time. What happens if we adjust the model instead of changing of our method, resulting in a new model which appears to work for a long time. In the meantime this discovery is determined not to be correct.
Eventually it is almost forgotten, but remembered just well enough that anyone who it occurs to, and checks, will see that someone else already thought of that and the theory was found to be incorrect (since it clashed with our new false model).
Sure someday we would probably figure it out, but how long would it take to rediscover the correct solution? How long would mankind of have been robbed of true knowledge by Occums razor?
Open source software is not bugfree by any means. But the development time is by orders of magnitude faster than that of closed source development. Combine that with lots of eyes and there are no "easy" bugs left like there often are in closed source offerings.
Most closed source supporters don't even dispute this. Instead they claim that it only works in a very popular project and most projects arent. There is a counter argument to that but I won't go into it. The point is that firefox is an extremely popular project so that argument doesn't refute that the open source development model should yield the ideal result.
Microsoft probably has the worst reputation for stability in the software industry and it is one that is not lacking in actual merit by any account. So this is not exactly random piece of open source software versus random equivelent closed source software.
This is one of the best open source applications with repute for one of the cleanest designs, against the absolute worst repute closed source firm and further a product of theirs with a known terrible design.
"Are you proposing that Microsoft has a "black ops" department, whose sole purpose is to cause Windows to behave incorrectly when 3rd party software is run?"
You try to make it sound like he is mel gibson in a Conspiracy Theory. This isn't exactly that, this is a company with a PROVEN track record of doing just that, RECENTLY and doing so IN THE BROWSER MARKET specifically. Read up on the MSN website and the way it renders in Opera.
Further you speak as if your a developer on windows, that means if you've done anything non-trivial you know that windows does NOT behave as documented in NUMEROUS cases. Finding a system call which is only used by one competitor with a significant user base and making an intentional design change to break them is easy enough. If too many people report the problem you can claim it's a bug introduced by the update instead of an intentional change. This would be blatantly obvious if the relevant source were revealed, but it's not.
It's hardly a conspiracy theory at all to believe Microsoft would engage in any illegal anti-competative practices they can which they believe will ultimately preserve more market share than they will cost.
Particually after US CERT advisories to change browsers firefox has become a serious threat to their browser monopoly. I'd venture Microsoft would be willing to risk a substantial number of customers to discredit the stability of the first fully stable release of the first significant threat to their monopoly in almost a decade.
"If you vote with your pocketbook, the company will listen."
Well, either listen, or engage in anti-competitive practices to ensure you no longer have that option. After all, allowing you the option to choose a competitors product simply because it is superior or you don't them is a bad business strategy! First step is as simple as a minor api change that doesn't affect many applications but that firefox uses. This way you can make some customers feel firefox is unstable. That way you can buy time until you can get DRM'd which use encryption that is only compatible with windows. After all, you've already got the DMCA in place to ensure competition can't beat that simply because they figure out how the encryption works.
Then you don't have to worry about competiton on inexpensive x86 systems anymore.
This is so drastically in contrast to the experience of everyone I've encountered, both on the web and in person, that I've no choice to conclude that the parent either has a system problem or is a MS mole and/or sympathizer (of the variety who feels slashdot is biased, and are especially stupid, resulting in pro-ms anti-anything else statements here instead of chatting a forum which is relevant to their own interests).
My apologies, the parent was below my threshold. Your tone could use a bit of calibration though.
Perhaps we could attach electrodes to your testicles and run a bitch of current through each time we shove a bit of coal up your arse and discover a diamond when go to retrieve it. When we finally retrieve coal your tone should be about right.
"given the prices they quote for Vladimir Vodka, and knowing as I do how much Brita filters cost (about $7 each, or $15 or so for three)."
How do you figure he forgot the cost of the filters?
"One standard Brita filter. I believe this cost roughly $15 at the supermarket. It probably should be used after the experiment to filter water."
No they stated $15, and if you read you'll find that when they say filter here, they mean the pitcher and the included filter.
'Yeah, I guess Symbian, iTron, and EVERY OTHER embedded operating system isn't "flexible".'
I realize your being sarcastic, but from what I've heard, alot of them aren't, particularly Symbian.
"we can use Linux with CLI
Right. On a cell phone."
Agreed, a geek might like to be able to perform and emergency ssh session to send a hup to restart a service on a server while on vacation. Other than that I can't see it mattering much, except perhaps on a development system that isn't really a cell phone (since linux abstracts the hardware), where it might be easiest to develop certain parts of an application using linux's powerful cli development tools, or where it's easiest to feed parameters in the cli to test functions.
The biggest advantage is in development. With linux the hardware is abrastracted by the kernel, this means that existing libraries and codebases can be used with no or little modification in many cases. It's also nice for security, as phones are more often connected to the web, we introduce the possibility of phones being hacked, possibly notes read, recordings listened to, images on picture phones viewed, who knows, maybe even calls made. Since most components are open source and used in everything from watches to super computers to NASA's Cluster of supercomputers security fixes are routinely available... with symbian you would likely be vulnerable until you bought a new phone.
We were talking about legitimate users who purchased the game and used cracks to disable stream authentication.
HL2 isn't a multiplayer game, you don't play it on the internet or anything. The only reason it connects to stream is to authenticate and show you bought it, that makes the game startup slow. As a result lots of people use cracks or the already cracked warez version, even though they've purchased the game.
If the TOS isn't printed on the OUTSIDE of the box then that is shakey and not truely proven ground AFAIK.
Although not illegal, they could have civil suits on their hands if they ban accounts on the first which are paid through the 30th and do for illegit reasons.
Thankyou for reminding me that you are a troll. I won't be responding further to your posts after this.
"You do realise that "copyright", "right", "ownership", "public domain" are artificial constructs, right?"
All words are artificial constructs which exist only by common consent, the only thing in that list which isn't a label for something that exists whether that label is applied or not is "copyright".
Rights are factual, certain rights may be artificial constructs but a right is something which would exist without that label. The "public domain" is the term we use to describe
the state of things without a copyright. Without copyright law, everyone may copy everything and distribute it as they please and are able... and did, copyright is a new idea and doesn't exist everywhere.
Ownership is factual existing thing, no matter what label you put to it. As proof I submit the universal reaching of this concept by EVERY people in every part of the earth before communication between them.
"Quite a few folks"
YOU are 'quite a few'? Your the only one who has responded in the negative to anything I've said in this thread.
'they are "wrong" in "fact"'
As I've just stated, what "they", there is just you. As for being wrong, you are, and you certainly need to check your facts.
"Thanks for confirming that you really have no understanding of the topic"
Your post proves the same of yourself.
"just half-baked ideosyncratic notions of maybe how it might work if the world worked the way you want it to."
Again the same.
"Ownership can most certainly change hands. That principle is the bedrock of the entire mercantile system (and accepted in all but the smallest scale forms of communism)."
True enough, it has nothing to do with anything I said, but true enough. But since nobody owns something which is copyrighted (or everybody owns it, however you prefer to look at it) then only the copyright and not the ownership can change hands. Copyright is a far cry from ownership!! Someone who holds a copyright is most definately limited in what they can do, what they can do is explicitly spelled out, and unless they are specifically granted an authority by copyright the default is that authority belongs to the public.
"Ideas are not covered in any way by copyright, so you're right that they aren't owned... but the statement has no point."
All things eligable for copyright are intangibles and therefore ideas. If you create a sculpture the physical object itself is not copyrighted, the intagible idea of the form and colors are copyrighted. If I can look at something, and then walk away and close my eyes, that thing in my mind is what is subject to copyright. If it can be contained within my mind, it's an idea.
"One could just as easily argue that when copyright expires, actual ownership changes hands from the creator to the public (as it should)."
Without copyright the default is the public domain. While control changes hands, ownership cannot. You cannot OWN an idea, only control access to it and expression of it.