Re:or take a look at Xine
on
Mplayer Revisited
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But for a media player, i found Xine to be better than both. It supports all the formats that mplayer supports, it also has a browser plugin, but it handles DVDs a lot better. In fact, the DVD menus and stuff like that works exactly as with a standalone DVD player.
Actually, it doesn't seem to support all the same formats that mplayer does. For one thing, mplayer uses win32 codecs to play some of the formats it plays. I think they both use liblavac for divx playing, and they both play all of my.avi files (I have some commercial proprietary stuff in windows that won't play most of my.avi files, but mplayer and xine in Linux play them with no problems). Xine doesn't play.asf files, but mplayer does. And I've a few mpg's that mysteriously don't play on xine.
My main bitch about xine is how it renders the movies. For some reason, mplayer renders much more sharply and clearly than xine. Doesn't make sense to me, unless one is optimizing the display for my slow hardware and the other isn't, or one is trying harder to scale up without getting blocky and the other isn't.
Agreed. That 200 lines of atoi() code is definitely worth THREE BILLION DOLLARS.
Man, all the times I'd've killed to have a good function that converted ascii strings to integers. Don't underestimate the value of such a function. Don't ever do that. (Even if every single kernel since the original UNIX kernel built by Ritchie Kernigan and friends has had an atoi function)
Slashdot is populated by nerds that live in caves of steel, surrounded by nifty little electronic gadgets that never actually get used for their intended purpose. Slashdotters hate the sun because it hurts their eyes and tans their skin, but mostly they hate the sun because there are other people out there.
What is soo wrong with them asking the government of Mass to keep open the choice to use other OS's than Linux?
Maybe it's the fact that Massachussetts was't mandating Linux, it was mandating open standards, which isn't exactly the same as mandating open source, and is definitely not the same as mandating Linux.
Government using linux, good. Government forcing the use of linux and ignoring sound procurement procedures, bad.
I hate to be the one to point this out, but a government has to do a lot more than just keep their expenses low. They also have to keep the data secure and still be able to make it freely available to individuals who have a right to it. Ultimately, they have their citizens' rights to cater to, which should never take a backseat to cost.
I find that saying "Governments should pick the best tool for the lowest price for the job" is frequently short-sighted, leaving out the part of the job that includes "protecting and respecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens."
Sadly, this seems to be much less common that local apt or sources or portage or whatever mirrors.
That's partly because there are so many goddamn mirrors already (most universities mirror some amount of this stuff), and partly because many organizations that run linux are already hosting mirrors. Local mirror needed? POssibly. Is the pain ever felt like it is with Windows admins? Definitely not.
If GPL'ed software gets a monopoly, then it's a monopoly of a sort wholly new to the world: a monopoly where no single group has total control over it, and nobody can take exclusive possession of it.
Um, that's not called monopoly. It's called liberation.
I recently read this article (http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news _NewsRelease_09302003b) describing the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and its position with regard to Free Software. I am concerned because it doesn't appear that this position has been adopted with much research into the subject.
For example, The costs of maintaining an IT infrastructure include: 1. Procurement 2. Deployment 3. Continuing Support 4. Data protection (security) 5. Keeping software up-to-date and patched 6. Data recovery costs (especially in the case of virus infestations)
There are myriad costs associated with having and using an IT infrastructure. The most common non-Free operating system (Microsoft Windows) stands above most others in costs associated as follows:
1. Procurement (although you can get it heavily discounted, for a state government the costs are still very high) 2. Deployment (Deploying Windows XP requires a phone call to Microsoft for each and every machine installed. While the call may be toll-free, it costs a great deal of administration time to do it for every machine) 3. Upgrade costs (no upgrade is ever free with Microsoft) 4. Data protection (Windows of all flavors has the current worst track record for data protection. New exploits are literally being found every week) 5. Data recovery costs (due to frequent exploits, it becomes necessary to frequently rebuild machines and recover data) 6. Upgrade cycle (having to keep upgrading your software to become compatible with file formats that intentionally don't work with older versions of the software) 7. Personnel Costs (the ratio of administrators to users for Windows-based networks is about 20/1. Conversely, with GNU/Linux-based networks the ratio is much higher, more like 150/1. I know administrators that have even higher ratios than that, and are comfortable with it)
Furthermore, I saw that CAGW is opposed to Microsoft's DRM initiative, as told by this url: http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename =get_i nv_Advocacy_Govt_Mandate_on_Tech_IssuePage Of course, this begs the question, if you don't have access to the source code, how can you be sure there are no such measures built into your software? Microsoft has been convicted of using illegal anti-competitive measures to maintain their monopoly, measures which have frequently resulted in end-users' rights being taken away for the purpose of maintaining revenue streams. Do you really think that supporting such a company is going to reduce government waste?
A South American Congressman outlined all of the benefits of using Free Software over proprietary software in government in a very clear and concise fashion. I urge you to read this letter, posted on the internet as an open letter. I host a copy of it on my own website, and you can read it here:
http://benedict.servebeer.com/index.php?page=Fre eS oftwareInPeru
In this letter, he will address all of your concerns about what was described in your press release as the "socialistic nature" of Free Software.
I do not live in Massachussetts. Quite the contrary, I live in Bellevue, WA, approximately 10 miles away from One Redmond Way. In the Seattle Metropolitan Area, many schools have migrated to GNU/Linux-based networks when they found themselves being audited by Microsoft. Have you considered the costs of dealing with such software audits? That is money spent that cannot be recovered. There is no Return on Investment associated with software audits. There's just a big black hole that wastes the government's money and human resources just to satisfy the paranoia of a convicted monopolist.
Many competitive support vendors and software providers exist for Free Software, including RedHat Linux, Mandrake Linux, IBM, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. With all of these com
I would say that he might be right, but for the wrong reasons. Check this out:
(wrong, because care-provider to patient ratios are definitely linked to the health of patients)
I would venture that one of the biggest factors here is just being treated by a human. How much time do doctors spend researching for their patients? I don't know this, i'm expecting you to fill me in.:) If you could cut down on the time you spend doing research without decreasing the level of service you provide, you would be able to see more patients, in a slave-driving sort of fashion. I don't agree with the OP that machines can diagnose people, nor would I be willing to trust such a diagnosis. But medical databases could help you personally cut down time spent researching, and would open up a position as a medical research specialist that works under many doctors. Say, 5 doctors need research done and they all have 1 researcher to draw from. Perhaps that frees up enough time for each of those 5 doctors that they can reasonably increase their number of patients?
Like I said, I don't actually know how this stuff works. I really don't know if there's already some position like that, because I never get to see what goes on behind the scenes in a hospital.
I do think it's possible for people to engage in more self-diagnosis, provided they have certain basic levels of education on the matter. I personally take most sickness and injury matters of my own into my own hands and treat myself. I'm not a doctor.:) But I do know a bit of first aid and a fair amount about the drugs we get over the counter. But there's a magical point along this path where you have to say "something's going on and I don't know what it is, I need a doctor." With some things, you need to be able to identify that point quickly (SARS, I suppose), but with other things you have some leeway. But I definitely think our education systems can take the burden of providing a basic education to allow people to treat themselves for most common illnesses and injuries.
I was unaware that Mac OS X machines were coming with a button that had 3 mouses hooked up to it. So I only need one finger to push the button, but three hands to manipulate the mouse? Typical Apple UI design, I say.
outlawing product placement would also drive all travel shows off the air, as well as monster house, monster garage, all game shows, all shows set in an obvious city (like Las Vegas), etc. Seriously, where do you draw the line?
Well, let's see. There's the serious potential of outlawing all existing shows, especially "reality tv", then LET'S OUTLAW PRODUCT PLACEMENT!!!! Finally, an end solution to the whole TV problem.
Good, maybe the "Hallmark channel" will be next. FYI I was not being sarcastic, it really exists.
Well, until now I gave the Food Network the award for most annoying channel. Now I fear that I may have to give the award to the Hallmark Channel. Luckily for the food network, I don't actually have a TV with which I can confirm that the Hallmark Channel is more annoying than the Food Network. But the Food Network's radio commercials are pretty fuckin' annoying. In fact, any TV commercial on a radio station is pretty fuckin' annoying.
By strict interperetation, wouldn't that mean all use of products had to be realistic?
Bye-bye McGuyver.
Bullshit. THe only "product placement" in McGuyver (that I can remember) was his Swiss Army Knife. Now, I've got one of those, and I can testify that the things can do anything. *anything*
As other posters have mentioned, prize money motivated the early aviation industry, and I think that the X-Prize will manage to do the same for sub-orbital flight. Sure, skipping around the globe is fun, but what (monetary) incentives do we have to develop real space travel? Unless someone offers an X-Prize for LEO and above, I'm afraid that we still won't be getting off the planet in the near future. Maybe someone could sign up some rich space tourists in advance?
I think that one of the problems here is the idea that space is the destination. As a stepping-stone industry, it makes sense to work towards replacing airliners with rockets. You could significantly shorten flights that go around the world, and in fact make it possible to fly directly from New York to China in a pretty short amount of time. All the skills and technology that come out of the X Prize contest can be put to that end, and that industry would be able to fund a lot of the research needed to make space as a destination a real possibility.
On a related note, what are all wealthy people in the world doing with their money besides making more money? Even just a few million tossed in the direction of some qualified and enthusiastic engineers could probably yield some interesting results. The same probably goes for quite a few other fields (medicine, science research etc).
You don't get wealthy by tossing your money around. Wealthy people are the most conservative demographic. It's for this reason, incidentally, that they're not likely to make tourism a valid business model until the technology is proven safe.
Hell, I'd quit smoking to take that trip with you. In a heartbeat. Phone rings, Carmack says "Hey, fucksl4shd0t, we're sending you to Mars" and I've smoked my last cigarette.
Women's liberation need not fuck over the language. Mankind refers to men and women everywhere, not just men. Manned spaceflight doesn't exclude women, all it means is that humans will be going. Man, him, he, etc have all been accepted as neuter in many cases for centuries, and I really don't see a need to change that. Each person will perform to the best of his abilities. Consider that when you have a sentence like that, you could likely be referring to people who are women. On the other hand, had you said "her abilities", the assumption would be that they're all women. So women actually get a one-up on men, because their pronouns are kept feminine and only refer to women, while men's pronouns have been stolen and used to refer to women as well.
When does the language tyranny stop?
Re:I'm neither contradicting myself nor trolling
on
The "Spider Case"
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· Score: 1
If, on the other hand, you painted a picture on a canvas sail, and that made the boat go slower, I'd say you failed to manage your medium and balance form with function.
I got a tattoo of a big dick on my dick, and my dick got bigger. My wife says it's a work of art.
Seriously, dude, you've taken a lot of shit from the artsy-fartsy crowd, but I happen to think you're right. I also think the spidercase mod sucks, but that's just what I think.:)
So, maybe he's just trying to win some open source votes, but since when has the Open Source Community had any part in lobbying?
It's all in the demographics, baby. You see, Free Software nuts like us are in our own demographic now. I wouldn't be surprised if political strategists are looking at picking up the free software vote the same way they look at picking up the black vote, or the young vote, or whatever.
What are we really arguing about here? Are we contemplating whether or not such a list is unconstitutional? Maybe it's whether or not unsolicited phone calls are invasions of privacy? Is all this a debate over whether or not telemarketing is free speach?
Yes, exactly what we're discussing.:) I agree with the rest of your post, but it wasn't in the scope of the discussion we were having. The Denver judge is using Free Speech to try to knock down the do-not-call list, so we were discussing whether or not such a list violates Free Speech. I agree with you, however, that it's not actually a Free Speech issue. The Denver judge is smoking crack.
That's exactly what I am referring to. On one hand, you could have legislation prohibiting [expression of] speech which you don't want to hear, on the other hand - that same "speech" protected by the Constitution. If these principles were taken together, nobody would be able to talk to anybody without an express permission. And, again, only such permission-based "speech" would be legal; that and, monologues in your basement.
Let me clarify my exact stance. It's in there, but I realize it isn't clear. The "right to not listen" isn't anywhere in the Constitution, so far as I know. It's implied by freedom of speech, but not stated clearly. You point out good reasons why it should be left out of the Constitution. It would give the government the grounds it needed to legislate against certain types of speech that it doesn't like. Let's also be clear what's in the First Amendment. It says (quoting from memory) "Congress shall make no laws respecting the freedom of speech, etc." I interpret that to mean that Congress can't make any laws for or against any type of speech, because on either side Congress would be "respecting" that speech in some way. It would be nice if that was the end of it, but the problem is that it is extremly ambiguous. Either of us could probably point out everyday examples of speech that is dangerous, kills people, or what-have-you.
Point taken. However, as in your latter example - if you lived in a city and there was a peaceful protest outside your apartment, the absense of your obligation to listen to their [protersters'] speech does not trump their free speech rights (of course, city code, nuisance, are separate issues). This is my main point towards your original argument. If you agree that telephone conversation is a form of speech, then you cannot apply the above argument. If so, then that same argument can apply to protesters and other speech. Again, public vs. private property point taken, but that's not a speech issue; could be related to trespassing, violation of privacy, and number of other issues.
Actually, this is exactly why I think that that sort of protest should be considered protected speech.:) The point of protesting is to get attention to an issue and hopefully get attention to solving that issue. Making noise outside my house would certainly get me interested in resolving the issue, if for no other reason than to quiet the protestors. So take a point on this one.:)
Second, you misunderstood part of my argument. I did not intend to compare newspapers, TV, etc. in their entirety to telephones; obviously they are different; the comparison was to the extent of use of speech over any medium. If you argue that you don't have to read newspapers, books, billboards, etc. and you don't have to listen to TV or radio, then I can argue that you don't need to have a telephone either. Those are all services that you choose to use or not to use for your convenience.
Actually, I didn't misunderstand, I don't think, I was being thorough. The differences between the mediums have to be considered when determining what is protected speech and what isn't. That's why there are laws about swearing on TV and on the radio, both of which are available to all people (with the right equipment), but the same laws don't apply to books. You have to be more active to find the swearing in a book, by reading it, but you can passively be exposed to this stuff on TV and on the radio. You have the choice to use them, or not, at home, but you don't have the choice to be free of them elsewhere (Costco used to have TVs put up at the checkout line. That really bothers me.) other than to stay home. Obviously, I disagree that the phone is something you can live without. In an extreme viewpoint, I would have to concede the point, but as another poster pointed out living without a telephone seriously limits things like getting credit and so forth. I put up specific reasons why you need a telephone that ca
That's according the FSF's understanding of the GPL. Its not clear the courts would agree regarding dynamic linking (its very clear they would agree regarding static). That's why the seperation is made.
We're both right.:) From the GPL:
The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
Therefore, "derivative work" is defined under copyright law and not the GPL itself. In this case, I suspect there's case law to support both sides of the fence, which makes you right. What makes me right is that copyright law does (iirc) include a clear definition of "derivative work", even if case law seems to contradict it.
I suspect that Fair Use exemptions mean you can copy and paste small amounts of GPLd code into your program without requiring you to GPL your whole program, the same way a reporter can quote sections of lyrics so long as they don't quote the entire thing. That's interesting, I never looked at the GPL quite that way before. I wonder how it applies if you create a proprietary library that does exactly the same thing as a GPL library and you copy and paste sections of that GPL library into your proprietary library. I also wonder if that means that SCO has to really show a HUGE amount of code in order to have a claim, and that small amounts of code would be considered Fair Use.
Slashdot Mirror
But for a media player, i found Xine to be better than both. It supports all the formats that mplayer supports, it also has a browser plugin, but it handles DVDs a lot better. In fact, the DVD menus and stuff like that works exactly as with a standalone DVD player.
Actually, it doesn't seem to support all the same formats that mplayer does. For one thing, mplayer uses win32 codecs to play some of the formats it plays. I think they both use liblavac for divx playing, and they both play all of my .avi files (I have some commercial proprietary stuff in windows that won't play most of my .avi files, but mplayer and xine in Linux play them with no problems). Xine doesn't play .asf files, but mplayer does. And I've a few mpg's that mysteriously don't play on xine.
My main bitch about xine is how it renders the movies. For some reason, mplayer renders much more sharply and clearly than xine. Doesn't make sense to me, unless one is optimizing the display for my slow hardware and the other isn't, or one is trying harder to scale up without getting blocky and the other isn't.
Agreed. That 200 lines of atoi() code is definitely worth THREE BILLION DOLLARS.
Man, all the times I'd've killed to have a good function that converted ascii strings to integers. Don't underestimate the value of such a function. Don't ever do that. (Even if every single kernel since the original UNIX kernel built by Ritchie Kernigan and friends has had an atoi function)
What IS this anti-Sun thing on Slashdot??
Slashdot is populated by nerds that live in caves of steel, surrounded by nifty little electronic gadgets that never actually get used for their intended purpose. Slashdotters hate the sun because it hurts their eyes and tans their skin, but mostly they hate the sun because there are other people out there.
What is soo wrong with them asking the government of Mass to keep open the choice to use other OS's than Linux?
Maybe it's the fact that Massachussetts was't mandating Linux, it was mandating open standards, which isn't exactly the same as mandating open source, and is definitely not the same as mandating Linux.
Oops. "the ratio of users to administrators"
Oops, you're absolutely right. Too bad I already sent it. :(
Government using linux, good. Government forcing the use of linux and ignoring sound procurement procedures, bad.
I hate to be the one to point this out, but a government has to do a lot more than just keep their expenses low. They also have to keep the data secure and still be able to make it freely available to individuals who have a right to it. Ultimately, they have their citizens' rights to cater to, which should never take a backseat to cost.
I find that saying "Governments should pick the best tool for the lowest price for the job" is frequently short-sighted, leaving out the part of the job that includes "protecting and respecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens."
Sadly, this seems to be much less common that local apt or sources or portage or whatever mirrors.
That's partly because there are so many goddamn mirrors already (most universities mirror some amount of this stuff), and partly because many organizations that run linux are already hosting mirrors. Local mirror needed? POssibly. Is the pain ever felt like it is with Windows admins? Definitely not.
If GPL'ed software gets a monopoly, then it's a monopoly of a sort wholly new to the world: a monopoly where no single group has total control over it, and nobody can take exclusive possession of it.
Um, that's not called monopoly. It's called liberation.
For the record. :)
Here's the email I just wrote and sent:
To whom it may concern:
I recently read this article (http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news _NewsRelease_09302003b) describing the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and its position with regard to Free Software. I am concerned because it doesn't appear that this position has been adopted with much research into the subject.
For example,
The costs of maintaining an IT infrastructure include:
1. Procurement
2. Deployment
3. Continuing Support
4. Data protection (security)
5. Keeping software up-to-date and patched
6. Data recovery costs (especially in the case of virus infestations)
There are myriad costs associated with having and using an IT infrastructure. The most common non-Free operating system (Microsoft Windows) stands above most others in costs associated as follows:
1. Procurement (although you can get it heavily discounted, for a state government the costs are still very high)
2. Deployment (Deploying Windows XP requires a phone call to Microsoft for each and every machine installed. While the call may be toll-free, it costs a great deal of administration time to do it for every machine)
3. Upgrade costs (no upgrade is ever free with Microsoft)
4. Data protection (Windows of all flavors has the current worst track record for data protection. New exploits are literally being found every week)
5. Data recovery costs (due to frequent exploits, it becomes necessary to frequently rebuild machines and recover data)
6. Upgrade cycle (having to keep upgrading your software to become compatible with file formats that intentionally don't work with older versions of the software)
7. Personnel Costs (the ratio of administrators to users for Windows-based networks is about 20/1. Conversely, with GNU/Linux-based networks the ratio is much higher, more like 150/1. I know administrators that have even higher ratios than that, and are comfortable with it)
Furthermore, I saw that CAGW is opposed to Microsoft's DRM initiative, as told by this url:
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename =get_i nv_Advocacy_Govt_Mandate_on_Tech_IssuePage
Of course, this begs the question, if you don't have access to the source code, how can you be sure there are no such measures built into your software? Microsoft has been convicted of using illegal anti-competitive measures to maintain their monopoly, measures which have frequently resulted in end-users' rights being taken away for the purpose of maintaining revenue streams. Do you really think that supporting such a company is going to reduce government waste?
A South American Congressman outlined all of the benefits of using Free Software over proprietary software in government in a very clear and concise fashion. I urge you to read this letter, posted on the internet as an open letter. I host a copy of it on my own website, and you can read it here:
http://benedict.servebeer.com/index.php?page=Fre eS oftwareInPeru
In this letter, he will address all of your concerns about what was described in your press release as the "socialistic nature" of Free Software.
I do not live in Massachussetts. Quite the contrary, I live in Bellevue, WA, approximately 10 miles away from One Redmond Way. In the Seattle Metropolitan Area, many schools have migrated to GNU/Linux-based networks when they found themselves being audited by Microsoft. Have you considered the costs of dealing with such software audits? That is money spent that cannot be recovered. There is no Return on Investment associated with software audits. There's just a big black hole that wastes the government's money and human resources just to satisfy the paranoia of a convicted monopolist.
Many competitive support vendors and software providers exist for Free Software, including RedHat Linux, Mandrake Linux, IBM, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell. With all of these com
I would say that he might be right, but for the wrong reasons. Check this out:
(wrong, because care-provider to patient ratios are definitely linked to the health of patients)
I would venture that one of the biggest factors here is just being treated by a human. How much time do doctors spend researching for their patients? I don't know this, i'm expecting you to fill me in. :) If you could cut down on the time you spend doing research without decreasing the level of service you provide, you would be able to see more patients, in a slave-driving sort of fashion. I don't agree with the OP that machines can diagnose people, nor would I be willing to trust such a diagnosis. But medical databases could help you personally cut down time spent researching, and would open up a position as a medical research specialist that works under many doctors. Say, 5 doctors need research done and they all have 1 researcher to draw from. Perhaps that frees up enough time for each of those 5 doctors that they can reasonably increase their number of patients?
Like I said, I don't actually know how this stuff works. I really don't know if there's already some position like that, because I never get to see what goes on behind the scenes in a hospital.
I do think it's possible for people to engage in more self-diagnosis, provided they have certain basic levels of education on the matter. I personally take most sickness and injury matters of my own into my own hands and treat myself. I'm not a doctor. :) But I do know a bit of first aid and a fair amount about the drugs we get over the counter. But there's a magical point along this path where you have to say "something's going on and I don't know what it is, I need a doctor." With some things, you need to be able to identify that point quickly (SARS, I suppose), but with other things you have some leeway. But I definitely think our education systems can take the burden of providing a basic education to allow people to treat themselves for most common illnesses and injuries.
Your music is shockingly bad. Well, mainly the vocals.
Dammit, Jim, I'm a guitar player, not a singer!
(3-mouse button quite necessary :-))
I was unaware that Mac OS X machines were coming with a button that had 3 mouses hooked up to it. So I only need one finger to push the button, but three hands to manipulate the mouse? Typical Apple UI design, I say.
outlawing product placement would also drive all travel shows off the air, as well as monster house, monster garage, all game shows, all shows set in an obvious city (like Las Vegas), etc. Seriously, where do you draw the line?
Well, let's see. There's the serious potential of outlawing all existing shows, especially "reality tv", then LET'S OUTLAW PRODUCT PLACEMENT!!!! Finally, an end solution to the whole TV problem.
Good, maybe the "Hallmark channel" will be next. FYI I was not being sarcastic, it really exists.
Well, until now I gave the Food Network the award for most annoying channel. Now I fear that I may have to give the award to the Hallmark Channel. Luckily for the food network, I don't actually have a TV with which I can confirm that the Hallmark Channel is more annoying than the Food Network. But the Food Network's radio commercials are pretty fuckin' annoying. In fact, any TV commercial on a radio station is pretty fuckin' annoying.
Did Amazon pay for that advert on Slashdot? (I mean the string in the []s.)
No, that's a security feature. If you ever see [goatse.cx], you probably don't want to click on the link.
By strict interperetation, wouldn't that mean all use of products had to be realistic?
Bye-bye McGuyver.
Bullshit. THe only "product placement" in McGuyver (that I can remember) was his Swiss Army Knife. Now, I've got one of those, and I can testify that the things can do anything. *anything*
As other posters have mentioned, prize money motivated the early aviation industry, and I think that the X-Prize will manage to do the same for sub-orbital flight. Sure, skipping around the globe is fun, but what (monetary) incentives do we have to develop real space travel? Unless someone offers an X-Prize for LEO and above, I'm afraid that we still won't be getting off the planet in the near future. Maybe someone could sign up some rich space tourists in advance?
I think that one of the problems here is the idea that space is the destination. As a stepping-stone industry, it makes sense to work towards replacing airliners with rockets. You could significantly shorten flights that go around the world, and in fact make it possible to fly directly from New York to China in a pretty short amount of time. All the skills and technology that come out of the X Prize contest can be put to that end, and that industry would be able to fund a lot of the research needed to make space as a destination a real possibility.
On a related note, what are all wealthy people in the world doing with their money besides making more money? Even just a few million tossed in the direction of some qualified and enthusiastic engineers could probably yield some interesting results. The same probably goes for quite a few other fields (medicine, science research etc).
You don't get wealthy by tossing your money around. Wealthy people are the most conservative demographic. It's for this reason, incidentally, that they're not likely to make tourism a valid business model until the technology is proven safe.
Hell, I'd quit smoking to take that trip with you. In a heartbeat. Phone rings, Carmack says "Hey, fucksl4shd0t, we're sending you to Mars" and I've smoked my last cigarette.
If it's "manned" exploration, why "him/her"?
Women's liberation need not fuck over the language. Mankind refers to men and women everywhere, not just men. Manned spaceflight doesn't exclude women, all it means is that humans will be going. Man, him, he, etc have all been accepted as neuter in many cases for centuries, and I really don't see a need to change that. Each person will perform to the best of his abilities. Consider that when you have a sentence like that, you could likely be referring to people who are women. On the other hand, had you said "her abilities", the assumption would be that they're all women. So women actually get a one-up on men, because their pronouns are kept feminine and only refer to women, while men's pronouns have been stolen and used to refer to women as well.
When does the language tyranny stop?
If, on the other hand, you painted a picture on a canvas sail, and that made the boat go slower, I'd say you failed to manage your medium and balance form with function.
I got a tattoo of a big dick on my dick, and my dick got bigger. My wife says it's a work of art.
Seriously, dude, you've taken a lot of shit from the artsy-fartsy crowd, but I happen to think you're right. I also think the spidercase mod sucks, but that's just what I think. :)
So, maybe he's just trying to win some open source votes, but since when has the Open Source Community had any part in lobbying?
It's all in the demographics, baby. You see, Free Software nuts like us are in our own demographic now. I wouldn't be surprised if political strategists are looking at picking up the free software vote the same way they look at picking up the black vote, or the young vote, or whatever.
Maybe he was dictating?
Ok, I don't remember the next line, but good job with the python there. :)
What are we really arguing about here? Are we contemplating whether or not such a list is unconstitutional? Maybe it's whether or not unsolicited phone calls are invasions of privacy? Is all this a debate over whether or not telemarketing is free speach?
Yes, exactly what we're discussing. :) I agree with the rest of your post, but it wasn't in the scope of the discussion we were having. The Denver judge is using Free Speech to try to knock down the do-not-call list, so we were discussing whether or not such a list violates Free Speech. I agree with you, however, that it's not actually a Free Speech issue. The Denver judge is smoking crack.
That's exactly what I am referring to. On one hand, you could have legislation prohibiting [expression of] speech which you don't want to hear, on the other hand - that same "speech" protected by the Constitution. If these principles were taken together, nobody would be able to talk to anybody without an express permission. And, again, only such permission-based "speech" would be legal; that and, monologues in your basement.
Let me clarify my exact stance. It's in there, but I realize it isn't clear. The "right to not listen" isn't anywhere in the Constitution, so far as I know. It's implied by freedom of speech, but not stated clearly. You point out good reasons why it should be left out of the Constitution. It would give the government the grounds it needed to legislate against certain types of speech that it doesn't like. Let's also be clear what's in the First Amendment. It says (quoting from memory) "Congress shall make no laws respecting the freedom of speech, etc." I interpret that to mean that Congress can't make any laws for or against any type of speech, because on either side Congress would be "respecting" that speech in some way. It would be nice if that was the end of it, but the problem is that it is extremly ambiguous. Either of us could probably point out everyday examples of speech that is dangerous, kills people, or what-have-you.
Point taken. However, as in your latter example - if you lived in a city and there was a peaceful protest outside your apartment, the absense of your obligation to listen to their [protersters'] speech does not trump their free speech rights (of course, city code, nuisance, are separate issues). This is my main point towards your original argument. If you agree that telephone conversation is a form of speech, then you cannot apply the above argument. If so, then that same argument can apply to protesters and other speech. Again, public vs. private property point taken, but that's not a speech issue; could be related to trespassing, violation of privacy, and number of other issues.
Actually, this is exactly why I think that that sort of protest should be considered protected speech. :) The point of protesting is to get attention to an issue and hopefully get attention to solving that issue. Making noise outside my house would certainly get me interested in resolving the issue, if for no other reason than to quiet the protestors. So take a point on this one. :)
Second, you misunderstood part of my argument. I did not intend to compare newspapers, TV, etc. in their entirety to telephones; obviously they are different; the comparison was to the extent of use of speech over any medium. If you argue that you don't have to read newspapers, books, billboards, etc. and you don't have to listen to TV or radio, then I can argue that you don't need to have a telephone either. Those are all services that you choose to use or not to use for your convenience.
Actually, I didn't misunderstand, I don't think, I was being thorough. The differences between the mediums have to be considered when determining what is protected speech and what isn't. That's why there are laws about swearing on TV and on the radio, both of which are available to all people (with the right equipment), but the same laws don't apply to books. You have to be more active to find the swearing in a book, by reading it, but you can passively be exposed to this stuff on TV and on the radio. You have the choice to use them, or not, at home, but you don't have the choice to be free of them elsewhere (Costco used to have TVs put up at the checkout line. That really bothers me.) other than to stay home. Obviously, I disagree that the phone is something you can live without. In an extreme viewpoint, I would have to concede the point, but as another poster pointed out living without a telephone seriously limits things like getting credit and so forth. I put up specific reasons why you need a telephone that ca
That's according the FSF's understanding of the GPL. Its not clear the courts would agree regarding dynamic linking (its very clear they would agree regarding static). That's why the seperation is made.
We're both right. :) From the GPL:
Therefore, "derivative work" is defined under copyright law and not the GPL itself. In this case, I suspect there's case law to support both sides of the fence, which makes you right. What makes me right is that copyright law does (iirc) include a clear definition of "derivative work", even if case law seems to contradict it.
I suspect that Fair Use exemptions mean you can copy and paste small amounts of GPLd code into your program without requiring you to GPL your whole program, the same way a reporter can quote sections of lyrics so long as they don't quote the entire thing. That's interesting, I never looked at the GPL quite that way before. I wonder how it applies if you create a proprietary library that does exactly the same thing as a GPL library and you copy and paste sections of that GPL library into your proprietary library. I also wonder if that means that SCO has to really show a HUGE amount of code in order to have a claim, and that small amounts of code would be considered Fair Use.