Free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and freedom of religion. Very busy amendment.
Wrong. Please stop spreading misinformation. Falsifiable means you can't disprove the thing, not that you can't disprove the opposites. Science doesn't work by that trite little Holmes saying, "Eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, is the truth." It works by finding the simplest explanation for all observations, making predictions with that model, and confirming those predictions until you falsify your current rules and need new ones. If a hypothesis cannot be falsified, it is useless because it is the end. If it's impossible to find a contradiction, it's impossible to refine the model.
1360 is in space, under constant light (which is why the microwave-beaming solar satellites are feasible at all). The atmosphere alone drops it to maybe 1100 or so (obviously less if its cloudy). But, that's still the number for high noon, not the overall figure. 250 is the actual global average. Higher near the equator, lower near the poles. Italy, like California, is about "average" in that sense. So, his number is a bit low because he assumed Sicily must get less sun than Florida (which is false), but 150 is much closer to the truth than 1360. If you want the plants average output, you should consider the average sunlight over 24 hours, not the peak.
Excellent point. Except, your numbers are wrong. The peak insolation in Sicily is over 1 kW/M^2 at high noon on the equinox. So, that would mean they are horribly inefficient if 5 MW was their peak. At any rate, 250 Watts is the average for the entire world, for the entire year. Sicily isn't that far north...I believe its average insolation (again averaged over an entire year, not just during daylight) is around 180-220 Watts. (Italy is farther north than Florida, you're right, but latitude isn't everything. The average insolation in Florida is the same as the average insolation in the southern half of Oregon, maybe lower).
So, if they found a particularly sunny bit of Sicily, which I think is rarely cloudy as it is, an average insolation of 220 is probably believable. That puts it at 70% efficiency. That's kind of high, considering that they are doing solar energy to heat salt to heat water to turn steam turbine. But, it's not impossible. Plus, if their 5 megawatt figure is only the average when it's active, and it's inactive between midnight and dawn, that puts it more like 50% efficient, which is totally believable.
The reason for this insane interpretation is that I could find your GPL program, add a plugin infrastructure and release the source for that, then create a proprietary plugin and sell it together. I've just improved your program without releasing my changes. GNU and the FSF consider this a hole in the GPL, and so they have plugged it by saying that any code designed to be run as part of a GPL program must also be GPL, even if it uses no code at all from the GPL program. Anyways, read the GNU FAQ, they make it clear that, in their minds at least, your plugin can be bound by the GPL even if it doesn't contain any code you didn't write yourself.
Read the GNU FAQ: Any plugin to a GPL program must be GPL. Otherwise, you could create a GPL program using somebody else's GPL code, but have the interesting work happen in a proprietary plugin, bypassing the GPL completely.
No, they are licensed under the GPL with linking exceptions, not the LGPL. GNU hates the LGPL and says if you want to make a library that can be used without being viral GPL, you can add a linking exception. They say you should only use LGPL if you hate freedom.
Yes, assuming the government is lying, you are totally correct. If you believe McKinnon, he deleted no files, he did nothing harmful at all, and only accessed computers with no passwords protecting them. The government maintains that he download classified documents, that the machines were protected, and that he also download the computers' password files to facilitate further break-ins. He himself admits to leaving a note saying that he will continue to disrupt their networks at the highest level if they do not admit 9/11 was an inside job. He also claims that the reason the government is making up all of these "facts" to prosecute him with is that they are afraid it will get out that the army and airforce have advanced free-energy reactors and anti-gravity fields that they reverse engineered from crashed UFOs. So, to silence him they want to have him shipped to Guantanimo Bay and executed. He says he found clear evidence of UFO encounters (256 MB photos from the ISS clearly showing UFOs), and NASA documents detailing the reverse engineering of free energy reactors, but he was so excited and stoned that he forgot to save them to his computer.
It's absurd to blame somebody for something they didn't do, with the justification that it seems like the sort of thing they would do. In fact, what you did is almost exactly like FOX running this very video, and when told it's fake saying "But it's the sort of thing Obama would do, so it's fair game!" Now, as it happens, FOX has, on their website, published an article based on a satire article (not Onion though) about a Global Warming expert freezing to death in a blizzard in Antarctica (in a way that article is so stupid and unfunny that you can't blame them for not noticing that it's false). But in this instance no mainstream media outlets have touched this video except to comment on the ridiculousness of republican nutjobs thinking Obama is keeping a Zombie/Chtulu invasion secret from them.
Blue in the face is just an expression, I've never seen anybody talk so much that they actually suffocate. But, if you've ever tried to explain something over and over to somebody who'd rather be filled with righteous indignation and aimless, untempered, unmitigated, hatred, you'd know that your face sure does turn red with rage;)
March 2001 is barely "Bush-era" and it's about Starbucks declaring Martial Law, not the government. A better Bush-era article in a similar vein was their one about the Department of Homeland Security mysteriously issuing every man woman and child a lifejacket, with no explanation, and assurances that they surely won't need it and everything is fine. Link
I don't know if my screen is special, but it's glossy, and I get no reflections if I'm looking directly at it. I can see myself if the background is very dark, and/or if I'm viewing from over 45 degrees. But yeah, I must be an idiot who prefers anything shiny, regardless of function. Thanks for that. Meanwhile its crisper and easier to read than my wife's matte screen. Oh, I guess if I use it outside its hard to read because of the bright and ugly face staring back at me. My wife's is impossible to read though, even if I try to shade the screen I can still see nothing but a gray haze. Indoors, even with fairly bright lighting, I don't see any reflections at all unless I tilt the screen.
Your confusion is based on the assumption that "about" means "exactly". But yes, of course you square the conversion factor if your units are squared. Take a 1 meter by 1 meter square. Express it in feet, 3.28 feet by 3.28 feet. The area is NOT 3.28 square feet.
For a while in Canada, everybody on the DNC list was getting 10-20 calls a day from a scammer. Bell's response was basically that they can't be bothered to do shit all. The phones were registered to fake companies that they'd rotate in and out, and the police took forever to track them down. There was much rejoicing when they did. Then for a while the Ottawa Citizen would call 5 times a day, usually at like 6 AM or 11 PM, and usually they'd just hang up a few seconds after you answer. But sometime they'd try to sell you a paper. And I'd say, no, you fuckers, don't call, and the response was "Newspapers are except from the list", and I'd say "I don't care about the list, I'm tell you, do not call me" "I don't think you have that right, so I'm going to keep calling until you buy this paper". They eventually stopped, too. Eventually.
Ha, they never get defensive with me. "You've one an all expenses paid cruise for two in the Bahamas" "No thanks" "Can you tell me why?" "Because it's a scam, you're lying to steal my credit card number" "Fair enough, have a good day *click*".
As as been pointed out, they do provide indemnification to vendors and users. However, indemnity doesn't make you immune from lawsuit. Patents, like it or not, protect the use and manufacture of a patented device, not just the distribution of that device. So, Sun, the vendor, and the customer all, separately, violated the parent. The patent holder thus has the right to sue separately all 3 of those entities. And, they can't lose their right to sue the vendor because of what it says in a contract they never signed.
However, while on paper you are still being sued, Sun is allowed to stand in your stead because of the Indemnity agreement. IANAL, but I helped my wife and her sister study for their insurance licenses. If you are sued for personal injury following a car crash (or accidental injury in your home) that your insurance indemnifies for you, then your insurance company has a financial interest in the outcome. This means they have the right to stand in your stead as defendant. In fact, because of the fact that they'll pay for most-all of the judgment, the insurance company has more of an interest in the outcome of the case than you do, so you cannot say no, if they want to stand in your stead, they can regardless of your feelings. That is, if you hit somebody and cause them substantial injury, but they are your friend, you cannot have them sue you, represent yourself poorly, and then have the insurance company pay out your $2,000,000 judgment. They have the right to take your place as defendant and you cannot refuse them without losing your coverage.
So, in this case, while technically you are not immune from suit, in practice Sun has the right, which they would almost certainly exercise, to stand in your stead as defendant, so you are, by most criteria, immune from lawsuits, thought your name would still be on the case. I'm not sure, but I don't think you'd even have to show up for court, so it really wouldn't inconvenience you at all. However, you would still get C&D letters, and still be sued.
But again, IANAL, so I don't know it it works different than the sort of indemnity used in car and home insurance. Plus, it differs from state to state, and I'm from Canada (where it varies province to province).
In his post he admits to using a patented algorithm without a license. That IS a patent violation. It doesn't just cover distribution like copyright. Patents cover use. That's what's dangerous about a software patent being used against Linux: They could do more than just sue the developer who wrote the code, they could file suit against anybody who has ever used a Linux system.
Wrong, patents cover everything. If I patent a gizmo, and you make your own, it doesn't matter if you distributed it, you are liable for patent infringement. And if you lend the device to your friend, he is too, because it covers not just the creation and distribution of the device, but also the use. So, by saying he got their code working, he's admitting to violating their patent.
You can sue for the public connecting two brands if you can show it was intentional. Obviously, if you use a very similar mark, you can be sued, even if technically it's not "the same" mark. In this case, though they do not call it a lightsaber, its made to look exactly like one (the picture in TFA is intentionally cropped to cut off most of the handle, so you can't see how similar they are). So, they MAY have a case. But it's quite weak, in my non-expert opinion.
In general, the idea that what connections the consumer makes is irrelevant (except in cases of brand confusion). For example, say I invent an entirely new kind of device, that's never been seen or imagined before! I patent it and sell it under some unique and distinctive tradename. Now, in 14 years or whatever, my patent is expired and others can sell the same product. If I was allowed to say "People think of my product when they see yours, so you violated my trademark even though you never used it!" then no competition would EVER be allowed, and I'd have an eternal monopoly past the duration of the patents, which is an incredibly non-desirable result.
However, the question is, what if they're not just making something similar, what if it's designed to look exactly like the fairly-distinctive design I used, well beyond the shape required for the function? It even has the cool fins! Well, that's different. They can't control that people think of my tradename because of the function and basic form, but they can control it by not copy&pasting the design exactly down to the angstrom. However, aesthetic design elements of a functional device are the realm of design patents. So again, if the patents are all expired now, using trademark in this manner would be using trademark to make a de facto extension of a monopoly right that has, by law, already expired. So, while I'm not a judge, it would be absurd to allow such a thing.
On the other hand, the C&D letter mentions suing over copyright, not trademark. They might have a chance. Copyright can be used to protect the creative design of a decorative or ornamental object. Since the lightsaber props don't do anything but sit there and look pretty, they are ornamental objects, and their design is protected by copyright law. As mentioned, the pictures of the laser on their site (though not in TFA) look very similar, so Lucas Flims would have a pretty good case. (Note that although the laser itself IS functional, it's a function object put inside an ornamental shell. If you make a mold of an artist's statue, and use it to make lamps, that's a copyright violation, even though YOUR thing is a functional object).
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Free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and freedom of religion. Very busy amendment.
Wrong. Please stop spreading misinformation. Falsifiable means you can't disprove the thing, not that you can't disprove the opposites. Science doesn't work by that trite little Holmes saying, "Eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbably, is the truth." It works by finding the simplest explanation for all observations, making predictions with that model, and confirming those predictions until you falsify your current rules and need new ones. If a hypothesis cannot be falsified, it is useless because it is the end. If it's impossible to find a contradiction, it's impossible to refine the model.
Sand?
1360 is in space, under constant light (which is why the microwave-beaming solar satellites are feasible at all). The atmosphere alone drops it to maybe 1100 or so (obviously less if its cloudy). But, that's still the number for high noon, not the overall figure. 250 is the actual global average. Higher near the equator, lower near the poles. Italy, like California, is about "average" in that sense. So, his number is a bit low because he assumed Sicily must get less sun than Florida (which is false), but 150 is much closer to the truth than 1360. If you want the plants average output, you should consider the average sunlight over 24 hours, not the peak.
Excellent point. Except, your numbers are wrong. The peak insolation in Sicily is over 1 kW/M^2 at high noon on the equinox. So, that would mean they are horribly inefficient if 5 MW was their peak. At any rate, 250 Watts is the average for the entire world, for the entire year. Sicily isn't that far north...I believe its average insolation (again averaged over an entire year, not just during daylight) is around 180-220 Watts. (Italy is farther north than Florida, you're right, but latitude isn't everything. The average insolation in Florida is the same as the average insolation in the southern half of Oregon, maybe lower).
So, if they found a particularly sunny bit of Sicily, which I think is rarely cloudy as it is, an average insolation of 220 is probably believable. That puts it at 70% efficiency. That's kind of high, considering that they are doing solar energy to heat salt to heat water to turn steam turbine. But, it's not impossible. Plus, if their 5 megawatt figure is only the average when it's active, and it's inactive between midnight and dawn, that puts it more like 50% efficient, which is totally believable.
The reason for this insane interpretation is that I could find your GPL program, add a plugin infrastructure and release the source for that, then create a proprietary plugin and sell it together. I've just improved your program without releasing my changes. GNU and the FSF consider this a hole in the GPL, and so they have plugged it by saying that any code designed to be run as part of a GPL program must also be GPL, even if it uses no code at all from the GPL program. Anyways, read the GNU FAQ, they make it clear that, in their minds at least, your plugin can be bound by the GPL even if it doesn't contain any code you didn't write yourself.
Read the GNU FAQ: Any plugin to a GPL program must be GPL. Otherwise, you could create a GPL program using somebody else's GPL code, but have the interesting work happen in a proprietary plugin, bypassing the GPL completely.
No, they are licensed under the GPL with linking exceptions, not the LGPL. GNU hates the LGPL and says if you want to make a library that can be used without being viral GPL, you can add a linking exception. They say you should only use LGPL if you hate freedom.
Yes, assuming the government is lying, you are totally correct. If you believe McKinnon, he deleted no files, he did nothing harmful at all, and only accessed computers with no passwords protecting them. The government maintains that he download classified documents, that the machines were protected, and that he also download the computers' password files to facilitate further break-ins. He himself admits to leaving a note saying that he will continue to disrupt their networks at the highest level if they do not admit 9/11 was an inside job. He also claims that the reason the government is making up all of these "facts" to prosecute him with is that they are afraid it will get out that the army and airforce have advanced free-energy reactors and anti-gravity fields that they reverse engineered from crashed UFOs. So, to silence him they want to have him shipped to Guantanimo Bay and executed. He says he found clear evidence of UFO encounters (256 MB photos from the ISS clearly showing UFOs), and NASA documents detailing the reverse engineering of free energy reactors, but he was so excited and stoned that he forgot to save them to his computer.
It's absurd to blame somebody for something they didn't do, with the justification that it seems like the sort of thing they would do. In fact, what you did is almost exactly like FOX running this very video, and when told it's fake saying "But it's the sort of thing Obama would do, so it's fair game!" Now, as it happens, FOX has, on their website, published an article based on a satire article (not Onion though) about a Global Warming expert freezing to death in a blizzard in Antarctica (in a way that article is so stupid and unfunny that you can't blame them for not noticing that it's false). But in this instance no mainstream media outlets have touched this video except to comment on the ridiculousness of republican nutjobs thinking Obama is keeping a Zombie/Chtulu invasion secret from them.
Also since the video in TFA is from 2007 it technically is also a "Bush-era" martial law story
Your mistake is calling it by the wrong name. Their review site is just "The A.V. Club" not "The Onion A.V. Club".
This wasn't FOX though, it was just Facebook and youTube. FOX News has run Onion articles as legitimate on their website though, but never on-air ;)
Blue in the face is just an expression, I've never seen anybody talk so much that they actually suffocate. But, if you've ever tried to explain something over and over to somebody who'd rather be filled with righteous indignation and aimless, untempered, unmitigated, hatred, you'd know that your face sure does turn red with rage ;)
March 2001 is barely "Bush-era" and it's about Starbucks declaring Martial Law, not the government. A better Bush-era article in a similar vein was their one about the Department of Homeland Security mysteriously issuing every man woman and child a lifejacket, with no explanation, and assurances that they surely won't need it and everything is fine. Link
I don't know if my screen is special, but it's glossy, and I get no reflections if I'm looking directly at it. I can see myself if the background is very dark, and/or if I'm viewing from over 45 degrees. But yeah, I must be an idiot who prefers anything shiny, regardless of function. Thanks for that. Meanwhile its crisper and easier to read than my wife's matte screen. Oh, I guess if I use it outside its hard to read because of the bright and ugly face staring back at me. My wife's is impossible to read though, even if I try to shade the screen I can still see nothing but a gray haze. Indoors, even with fairly bright lighting, I don't see any reflections at all unless I tilt the screen.
You might want to catch up on the series, too ;)
I think the drop rate that AT&T is BRAGGING about in the iPhone 3GS, is "only" 30% of all calls are dropped.
Your confusion is based on the assumption that "about" means "exactly". But yes, of course you square the conversion factor if your units are squared. Take a 1 meter by 1 meter square. Express it in feet, 3.28 feet by 3.28 feet. The area is NOT 3.28 square feet.
For a while in Canada, everybody on the DNC list was getting 10-20 calls a day from a scammer. Bell's response was basically that they can't be bothered to do shit all. The phones were registered to fake companies that they'd rotate in and out, and the police took forever to track them down. There was much rejoicing when they did. Then for a while the Ottawa Citizen would call 5 times a day, usually at like 6 AM or 11 PM, and usually they'd just hang up a few seconds after you answer. But sometime they'd try to sell you a paper. And I'd say, no, you fuckers, don't call, and the response was "Newspapers are except from the list", and I'd say "I don't care about the list, I'm tell you, do not call me" "I don't think you have that right, so I'm going to keep calling until you buy this paper". They eventually stopped, too. Eventually.
Ha, they never get defensive with me. "You've one an all expenses paid cruise for two in the Bahamas" "No thanks" "Can you tell me why?" "Because it's a scam, you're lying to steal my credit card number" "Fair enough, have a good day *click*".
As as been pointed out, they do provide indemnification to vendors and users. However, indemnity doesn't make you immune from lawsuit. Patents, like it or not, protect the use and manufacture of a patented device, not just the distribution of that device. So, Sun, the vendor, and the customer all, separately, violated the parent. The patent holder thus has the right to sue separately all 3 of those entities. And, they can't lose their right to sue the vendor because of what it says in a contract they never signed.
However, while on paper you are still being sued, Sun is allowed to stand in your stead because of the Indemnity agreement. IANAL, but I helped my wife and her sister study for their insurance licenses. If you are sued for personal injury following a car crash (or accidental injury in your home) that your insurance indemnifies for you, then your insurance company has a financial interest in the outcome. This means they have the right to stand in your stead as defendant. In fact, because of the fact that they'll pay for most-all of the judgment, the insurance company has more of an interest in the outcome of the case than you do, so you cannot say no, if they want to stand in your stead, they can regardless of your feelings. That is, if you hit somebody and cause them substantial injury, but they are your friend, you cannot have them sue you, represent yourself poorly, and then have the insurance company pay out your $2,000,000 judgment. They have the right to take your place as defendant and you cannot refuse them without losing your coverage.
So, in this case, while technically you are not immune from suit, in practice Sun has the right, which they would almost certainly exercise, to stand in your stead as defendant, so you are, by most criteria, immune from lawsuits, thought your name would still be on the case. I'm not sure, but I don't think you'd even have to show up for court, so it really wouldn't inconvenience you at all. However, you would still get C&D letters, and still be sued.
But again, IANAL, so I don't know it it works different than the sort of indemnity used in car and home insurance. Plus, it differs from state to state, and I'm from Canada (where it varies province to province).
In his post he admits to using a patented algorithm without a license. That IS a patent violation. It doesn't just cover distribution like copyright. Patents cover use. That's what's dangerous about a software patent being used against Linux: They could do more than just sue the developer who wrote the code, they could file suit against anybody who has ever used a Linux system.
Wrong, patents cover everything. If I patent a gizmo, and you make your own, it doesn't matter if you distributed it, you are liable for patent infringement. And if you lend the device to your friend, he is too, because it covers not just the creation and distribution of the device, but also the use. So, by saying he got their code working, he's admitting to violating their patent.
You can sue for the public connecting two brands if you can show it was intentional. Obviously, if you use a very similar mark, you can be sued, even if technically it's not "the same" mark. In this case, though they do not call it a lightsaber, its made to look exactly like one (the picture in TFA is intentionally cropped to cut off most of the handle, so you can't see how similar they are). So, they MAY have a case. But it's quite weak, in my non-expert opinion.
In general, the idea that what connections the consumer makes is irrelevant (except in cases of brand confusion). For example, say I invent an entirely new kind of device, that's never been seen or imagined before! I patent it and sell it under some unique and distinctive tradename. Now, in 14 years or whatever, my patent is expired and others can sell the same product. If I was allowed to say "People think of my product when they see yours, so you violated my trademark even though you never used it!" then no competition would EVER be allowed, and I'd have an eternal monopoly past the duration of the patents, which is an incredibly non-desirable result.
However, the question is, what if they're not just making something similar, what if it's designed to look exactly like the fairly-distinctive design I used, well beyond the shape required for the function? It even has the cool fins! Well, that's different. They can't control that people think of my tradename because of the function and basic form, but they can control it by not copy&pasting the design exactly down to the angstrom. However, aesthetic design elements of a functional device are the realm of design patents. So again, if the patents are all expired now, using trademark in this manner would be using trademark to make a de facto extension of a monopoly right that has, by law, already expired. So, while I'm not a judge, it would be absurd to allow such a thing.
On the other hand, the C&D letter mentions suing over copyright, not trademark. They might have a chance. Copyright can be used to protect the creative design of a decorative or ornamental object. Since the lightsaber props don't do anything but sit there and look pretty, they are ornamental objects, and their design is protected by copyright law. As mentioned, the pictures of the laser on their site (though not in TFA) look very similar, so Lucas Flims would have a pretty good case. (Note that although the laser itself IS functional, it's a function object put inside an ornamental shell. If you make a mold of an artist's statue, and use it to make lamps, that's a copyright violation, even though YOUR thing is a functional object).