Err... if a theory is not falsifiable, it is certainly not a useful theory, scientifically speaking.
Nice to know you think that we shouldn't include the beginning of the world in science. After all, it's kinda hard to prove that evolution or creationism or a big bang or a big crap or what-have-you happened without time-travel. Likewise, it is impossible to disprove.
And, yes, creationism is science. It just isn't something most people can understand. After all, we're not gods. Now, the proof of the existence of god can be achieved scientifically, but is really more of a philosophical topic.
Yes. I can guarantee I'd spend 3-5 years writing a book. Well, I'm a little slower. 5-8 years. Anyway, I will write my books and attempt to sell them in dead tree format. Whether I release free e-books of them is still undecided.
Likewise, I will continue to sculpt as long as I live. The only reason my scultptures aren't free is that I cannot freely reproduce them. I would, if possible, give sculptures away, but I do not make re-useable molds, so that won't work.
Although I am not a musician, I know musicians who would be willing to just make music and let people hear it.
The issues restricting these freedoms are as follows:
1: Copyright. I will never give up the Rights to my works. And if you want them, fuck you. However, I will gladly let you have copies, if 2 can be fulfilled.
2: The Business Model: That one's the kicker. If I could make twenty-thousand a year working as an artist, I would do so the rest of my life. I figure that fifteen or forty years down the road, when automization has reduced jobs and replication has made copyright irrelevant, we will shift further towards socialism and this will be possible. Not that I want to live in a communist state, but I think a little change that way could help.
Now, things have changed a bit. I think artists can support themselves on concert performances.
Excuse me? Are you daft? How am I gonna support myself off a concert? I'm an author. Oh, wait, you thought copyright only applied to music! Or did you think that the changes should only apply to songs? Yeah, just try to technically define the difference between songs and poetry. I'm sorry, I thought your opinion was based on REALITY for a second there.
Possibly a canidate who doesn't think money is the center of the universe? Possibly, pro-human? pro-freedom? pro-existentialism?
There's a sight more than rich/poor out there. And, yes, it does bug me when the canidate clearly favors being rich and enhancing the rights of the rich, as pro-rich is clearly meant to refer to.
I would say many of us vote the way we do because we find the other side to be consistently idiotic. I would always say I am a democrat if asked, but I would have voted McCain over Gore, if Bush wasn't the Republican nominee.
The Democrat/Republican statement is basically there just to give others a basis to play off, because most of us are too stupid to try to understand someone without a clear point to start from.
I don't think it will help anything if section six of the GPL can overrule section one. If the copyright holder did not Know they had code in Linux, they should not be obligated to have that code be considered GPLed because they distribute it.
It is a question of knowledge, and I suspect it would be hard to prove that SCO hadn't just missed a few snippets of code.
A ruling that SCO put its code under the GPL unknowingly would destroy corporate faith in the GPL, and that's a very bad thing.
Also, I don't think it is morally correct to punish for distributing code they did not know about.
Of course, I hope SCO dies painfully a few months later when its law-suit actually hits IBM.
First: Many of the hotkeys in Windows were picked due to being standard, such as alt+enter being fullscreen, which I've seen used in a couple dozen other programs.
Secondly, installing on a non-RPM based distro, such as Slackware is so mindbogglingly easy, I'm amazed whoever you replied to managed to fuck it up. I've done it about seven times and not once has my method failed:./configure && make && make install
Hmmmmm...what's so tough? Okay, so you might want to install a couple hundred extra codecs, but that's just a matter of downloading them and COPYING them to the directory noted in the installation howto (which is incredibly clear, as well). Or, you can just stick 'em wherever and point to them with an option after./configure.
Of course, if you want the GUI it's a little harder. Add --with-gui to the command line after./configure. Then download a GUI, and put it in the appropriate directory, just where it tells you to in the installation howto.
Note 1: The GUI sucks, and should not be used under any circumstances, although a decent front-end called eMotion should be available shortly
Note 1++: Those front-ends already available (such as kmplayer) are hideous crimes against humanity.
Personally, I'm much more bothered by the bypassing of the process. I'm a big advocate of the slippery slope theory, which is why I'm against gun control even though I think it would reduce the crime rate.
However, the occasional fear has bothered me. I, personally, only have mostly legal things shared out (unlicensed anime and anime music videos), but my roommates often have less legal things shared. It's kinda scary to think that the RIAA could just walk in and screw us all over.
I would say it is definitely the only threat. Now, it might not be the only threat to open source expanding further, but open source has gone this far with only what it has, and a strong legal suit is the only thing that can make it backtrack.
Worries about open source being profitable forget that open source lasted plenty long without profitability.
I think we would do well to be reasonable in such matters. Just because the RIAA have sunk to the point that their personal integrity is as solid as air doesn't mean that we should start giving them shit about what they didn't do. That WAS a genuine mistake. Maybe most of the world is sue-happy, but that doesn't mean that everyone else should join them.
On the other hand, you might have a better chance having all your dreams come true if you just hope capitalism collapses outright pretty soon.
If it doesn't just collapse, corporations might be able to really grow and effectively replace governments. Then we'd all be fucked.
Ever read Heroes Die? Nice picture of how corporations would run the world (and a good book besides)
If capitalism does just completely collapse, the government will probably take over and force some semblance of security for the majority of people (and, no I don't think the rich will be on the same level as the others, they'll still stay on top).
No matter how much money there is, food, water, and shelter are what matter. If capitalism dies, these other things do not. It might suck for 10-20 years, but I expect that the current progression of capitalism could suck for 400-500 years.
"I feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like I just ate a kitten." - Heroes Die
Because if they don't, they'll go under. Outsourcing is cheaper. If their prices get undercut, they die. Then their countrymen are fscked. How about you think about how easy it is to hold on in a big market?
And don't just say, "But, it's IBM. They're always there." Wasn't it Montgomery Wards that was the biggest store of its type for around eighty years and then died a hideous, horrible death? And, on a similar note, massive Microsoft's only got another 6-12 years left, now.
If you work with programming, writing manuals may be a good angle, although its not a big market. Basically, any good manual needs to be written locally. Realistically, even nations with the same language (like the US and Britain) should have seperate manuals to appreciate the differences, although thats not such a big deal. However, it'll be a while before they have Indians writing manuals to be sold in the US.
I'd say that it is mostly a misnamed article. Really, they are just asking for how much they spend on Microsoft. As such, all they are asking for is a direct, factual record of what is being spent. That may or may not be embarrasing, but it is most definitely reasonable. Governments can't just flush money away.
Embarrasing would be more like making them disclose how many security breaches they have each year on their Microsoft servers.
Actually, IBM usually makes remarkably nice looking boxes. As for desktops, the Aptivas looked pretty good. The two Netfinities I've seen are damn good looking, a whole not better looking than the Compaqs of the same time period. Likewise, the older AS/400s are damn nice looking too. They tend towards a solid black, but I like that.
Now, I admit that's all based off slightly older boxes, because those are what I have in the living room, but they are most definitely not 'big and ugly.'
Photoshop is a monopoly, but it hasn't ever suffered the failures of the common monopoly. It has continually innovated and improved, and has stayed on top by being better in every aspect than everything else.
I beg to differ. There is a right to have your vote restricted in no manner by your literacy, race, sex, economic standing, or basically anything else. Seeing as Windows costs about $400 dollars, usually, that's a pretty high hurdle to use a voting system.
And, I know there will be claims that other people can still use other methods, such as mail-in ballots. However, any convenience in voting should be equally distributed. It is not fair to say, 'the rich can vote from the comfort of their homes, the rest of you can drive to the post-office and mail-in'.
Sure, $400 dollars is not something only the 'rich' can afford, but it is a barrier to entry. A well-built system using java applets downloaded during the process could be used securely by any modern OS with any modern web-browser and would have virtually no barrier to access as Linux with Mozilla is free (after the expense of a computer) and it would be readily available at internet locations world-wide, such as internet cafes and many libraries.
I think that an economic barrier to use is a very serious constitutional issue and must by need be prevented.
(Slightly off-topic, but I also think that voting-day should be an official national holiday such as labor day so people can get the goddamn day off and go vote.)
I think not. At the very least, Acrobat is completely unrivaled. If you've ever really used it for PDF editing and creation, it is multiple thousands of times better than the competition.
Likewise, Illustrator is noticeably better than MacroMedia FreeHand or the Corel Suite. Also, Illustrator is enormously improved from the earlier verions. The change between 9 and 10 is a vast improvement (if nothing else, svg support is really nice) and if you try going back at 5 or 6 after using 10 you will find youself trying to gouge your own eyes out.
Now, these aren't maybe their biggest products, but Acrobat Writer is very important and Illustrator is definitely of significant note.
Also, Adobe has many little features which the opposition cannot compete with. Premiere, however, has always been one of their less impressive offerings. While Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat are all the absolute best at what they do, Premiere has never been as good as Final Cut Pro.
I suspect its more a matter of AOL getting the heebie-jeebies about the words 'File Sharing'. WASTE wasn't a massive-share system. Rather, it was a tool for work-groups, something many companies want.
Or, equally likely, AOL saw the product and saw big money, because people Will pay for something that does that, and with reason. Secure sharing of whatever is needed to be shared is something many companies need, especially if they want to allow their employees to work on confidential files from home.
Honestly, I bet this bad logic will flood this topic. It was up a bit higher too.
Read their new page. It may NOT be under the GPL. They claim it was illegally released. If the person who posted it did not have the rights to the source, they cannot GPL it. Hence, it was not actually under the GPL.
Now, there are decent odds the releaser actually did have rights, but we cannot know that now, and we may never be able to if AOL just keeps a lid on things.
They Can. Read what they posted in its place. They say it wasn't released legally. If it wasn't released by anyone with the right to the code, it isn't under the GPL, just as an employee at MicroSoft couldn't release Windows under the GPL.
On another note, although I usually don't think companies are this Machiavellian, does anyone else see this possibility: AOL faked an illegal release so that tons of people would have copied of illegal source code. Then, if a similar competing Open-Source project is created they can easily claim it used their code and wasn't actually developed independently. After all, they could definitely say that the authors of the other project could have easily stolen their source code. I'd only suspect something like this because WASTE actually isn't that complex of a program. It's not nothing, but its definitely something the community could put out in a month if some people tried.
However, I suspect it is more likely this was just a mistake, or Nullsoft not checking with the high-ups.
The point is that, while a hand-held scanner is hard to notice, someone ten feet away with a scanner in his briefcase on the subway is virtually impossible.
I recall when the place I worked at had a card scanner with way too much power. All you had to do was, assuming you had the card somewhere in your rear pocket, twist slightly while walking past. It'd catch things over a foot away.
Really, it takes no made-up-numbers. I can state for a fact from what my room-mate last year did (total anime fanatic) that you can reliably download 6 gigs/day if you keep on top of your download lists, and that's using DC++.
No way in hell just browsing can keep up with that, and there isn't enough new software updates from keeping up-to-date to counterbalance that kind of draw.
Slashdot Mirror
And, yes, creationism is science. It just isn't something most people can understand. After all, we're not gods. Now, the proof of the existence of god can be achieved scientifically, but is really more of a philosophical topic.
> people would devote 3-5 years to writing a book
Yes. I can guarantee I'd spend 3-5 years writing a book. Well, I'm a little slower. 5-8 years. Anyway, I will write my books and attempt to sell them in dead tree format. Whether I release free e-books of them is still undecided.
Likewise, I will continue to sculpt as long as I live. The only reason my scultptures aren't free is that I cannot freely reproduce them. I would, if possible, give sculptures away, but I do not make re-useable molds, so that won't work.
Although I am not a musician, I know musicians who would be willing to just make music and let people hear it.
The issues restricting these freedoms are as follows:
1: Copyright. I will never give up the Rights to my works. And if you want them, fuck you. However, I will gladly let you have copies, if 2 can be fulfilled.
2: The Business Model: That one's the kicker. If I could make twenty-thousand a year working as an artist, I would do so the rest of my life. I figure that fifteen or forty years down the road, when automization has reduced jobs and replication has made copyright irrelevant, we will shift further towards socialism and this will be possible. Not that I want to live in a communist state, but I think a little change that way could help.
Possibly a canidate who doesn't think money is the center of the universe? Possibly, pro-human? pro-freedom? pro-existentialism?
There's a sight more than rich/poor out there. And, yes, it does bug me when the canidate clearly favors being rich and enhancing the rights of the rich, as pro-rich is clearly meant to refer to.
I would say many of us vote the way we do because we find the other side to be consistently idiotic. I would always say I am a democrat if asked, but I would have voted McCain over Gore, if Bush wasn't the Republican nominee.
The Democrat/Republican statement is basically there just to give others a basis to play off, because most of us are too stupid to try to understand someone without a clear point to start from.
I do recommend fucking pantsless. It just helps a bit.
No, really, I do.
I don't think it will help anything if section six of the GPL can overrule section one. If the copyright holder did not Know they had code in Linux, they should not be obligated to have that code be considered GPLed because they distribute it.
It is a question of knowledge, and I suspect it would be hard to prove that SCO hadn't just missed a few snippets of code.
A ruling that SCO put its code under the GPL unknowingly would destroy corporate faith in the GPL, and that's a very bad thing.
Also, I don't think it is morally correct to punish for distributing code they did not know about.
Of course, I hope SCO dies painfully a few months later when its law-suit actually hits IBM.
First: Many of the hotkeys in Windows were picked due to being standard, such as alt+enter being fullscreen, which I've seen used in a couple dozen other programs.
./configure && make && make install
./configure.
./configure. Then download a GUI, and put it in the appropriate directory, just where it tells you to in the installation howto.
Secondly, installing on a non-RPM based distro, such as Slackware is so mindbogglingly easy, I'm amazed whoever you replied to managed to fuck it up. I've done it about seven times and not once has my method failed:
Hmmmmm...what's so tough?
Okay, so you might want to install a couple hundred extra codecs, but that's just a matter of downloading them and COPYING them to the directory noted in the installation howto (which is incredibly clear, as well). Or, you can just stick 'em wherever and point to them with an option after
Of course, if you want the GUI it's a little harder. Add --with-gui to the command line after
Note 1: The GUI sucks, and should not be used under any circumstances, although a decent front-end called eMotion should be available shortly
Note 1++: Those front-ends already available (such as kmplayer) are hideous crimes against humanity.
Personally, I'm much more bothered by the bypassing of the process. I'm a big advocate of the slippery slope theory, which is why I'm against gun control even though I think it would reduce the crime rate.
However, the occasional fear has bothered me. I, personally, only have mostly legal things shared out (unlicensed anime and anime music videos), but my roommates often have less legal things shared. It's kinda scary to think that the RIAA could just walk in and screw us all over.
I would say it is definitely the only threat. Now, it might not be the only threat to open source expanding further, but open source has gone this far with only what it has, and a strong legal suit is the only thing that can make it backtrack.
Worries about open source being profitable forget that open source lasted plenty long without profitability.
I think we would do well to be reasonable in such matters. Just because the RIAA have sunk to the point that their personal integrity is as solid as air doesn't mean that we should start giving them shit about what they didn't do. That WAS a genuine mistake. Maybe most of the world is sue-happy, but that doesn't mean that everyone else should join them.
On the other hand, you might have a better chance having all your dreams come true if you just hope capitalism collapses outright pretty soon.
If it doesn't just collapse, corporations might be able to really grow and effectively replace governments. Then we'd all be fucked.
Ever read Heroes Die? Nice picture of how corporations would run the world (and a good book besides)
If capitalism does just completely collapse, the government will probably take over and force some semblance of security for the majority of people (and, no I don't think the rich will be on the same level as the others, they'll still stay on top).
No matter how much money there is, food, water, and shelter are what matter. If capitalism dies, these other things do not. It might suck for 10-20 years, but I expect that the current progression of capitalism could suck for 400-500 years.
"I feel all warm and fuzzy inside,
like I just ate a kitten." - Heroes Die
Because if they don't, they'll go under. Outsourcing is cheaper. If their prices get undercut, they die. Then their countrymen are fscked. How about you think about how easy it is to hold on in a big market?
And don't just say, "But, it's IBM. They're always there." Wasn't it Montgomery Wards that was the biggest store of its type for around eighty years and then died a hideous, horrible death? And, on a similar note, massive Microsoft's only got another 6-12 years left, now.
If you work with programming, writing manuals may be a good angle, although its not a big market. Basically, any good manual needs to be written locally. Realistically, even nations with the same language (like the US and Britain) should have seperate manuals to appreciate the differences, although thats not such a big deal. However, it'll be a while before they have Indians writing manuals to be sold in the US.
Just my seven cents.
I'd say that it is mostly a misnamed article. Really, they are just asking for how much they spend on Microsoft. As such, all they are asking for is a direct, factual record of what is being spent. That may or may not be embarrasing, but it is most definitely reasonable. Governments can't just flush money away.
Embarrasing would be more like making them disclose how many security breaches they have each year on their Microsoft servers.
> IBM gets to stamp out big ugly boxes
Actually, IBM usually makes remarkably nice looking boxes. As for desktops, the Aptivas looked pretty good. The two Netfinities I've seen are damn good looking, a whole not better looking than the Compaqs of the same time period. Likewise, the older AS/400s are damn nice looking too. They tend towards a solid black, but I like that.
Now, I admit that's all based off slightly older boxes, because those are what I have in the living room, but they are most definitely not 'big and ugly.'
Photoshop is a monopoly, but it hasn't ever suffered the failures of the common monopoly. It has continually innovated and improved, and has stayed on top by being better in every aspect than everything else.
VIM makes microsoft publisher unnecessary
> Their is no right to Vote from a Linux box.
I beg to differ. There is a right to have your vote restricted in no manner by your literacy, race, sex, economic standing, or basically anything else. Seeing as Windows costs about $400 dollars, usually, that's a pretty high hurdle to use a voting system.
And, I know there will be claims that other people can still use other methods, such as mail-in ballots. However, any convenience in voting should be equally distributed. It is not fair to say, 'the rich can vote from the comfort of their homes, the rest of you can drive to the post-office and mail-in'.
Sure, $400 dollars is not something only the 'rich' can afford, but it is a barrier to entry. A well-built system using java applets downloaded during the process could be used securely by any modern OS with any modern web-browser and would have virtually no barrier to access as Linux with Mozilla is free (after the expense of a computer) and it would be readily available at internet locations world-wide, such as internet cafes and many libraries.
I think that an economic barrier to use is a very serious constitutional issue and must by need be prevented.
(Slightly off-topic, but I also think that voting-day should be an official national holiday such as labor day so people can get the goddamn day off and go vote.)
I think not. At the very least, Acrobat is completely unrivaled. If you've ever really used it for PDF editing and creation, it is multiple thousands of times better than the competition.
Likewise, Illustrator is noticeably better than MacroMedia FreeHand or the Corel Suite. Also, Illustrator is enormously improved from the earlier verions. The change between 9 and 10 is a vast improvement (if nothing else, svg support is really nice) and if you try going back at 5 or 6 after using 10 you will find youself trying to gouge your own eyes out.
Now, these aren't maybe their biggest products, but Acrobat Writer is very important and Illustrator is definitely of significant note.
Also, Adobe has many little features which the opposition cannot compete with. Premiere, however, has always been one of their less impressive offerings. While Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat are all the absolute best at what they do, Premiere has never been as good as Final Cut Pro.
I suspect its more a matter of AOL getting the heebie-jeebies about the words 'File Sharing'. WASTE wasn't a massive-share system. Rather, it was a tool for work-groups, something many companies want. Or, equally likely, AOL saw the product and saw big money, because people Will pay for something that does that, and with reason. Secure sharing of whatever is needed to be shared is something many companies need, especially if they want to allow their employees to work on confidential files from home.
Honestly, I bet this bad logic will flood this topic. It was up a bit higher too.
Read their new page. It may NOT be under the GPL. They claim it was illegally released. If the person who posted it did not have the rights to the source, they cannot GPL it. Hence, it was not actually under the GPL.
Now, there are decent odds the releaser actually did have rights, but we cannot know that now, and we may never be able to if AOL just keeps a lid on things.
- - "exactly how can AOL plan to pull that?"
- They can't. Dave Winer has posted the source.
They Can. Read what they posted in its place. They say it wasn't released legally. If it wasn't released by anyone with the right to the code, it isn't under the GPL, just as an employee at MicroSoft couldn't release Windows under the GPL.
On another note, although I usually don't think companies are this Machiavellian, does anyone else see this possibility:
AOL faked an illegal release so that tons of people would have copied of illegal source code. Then, if a similar competing Open-Source project is created they can easily claim it used their code and wasn't actually developed independently. After all, they could definitely say that the authors of the other project could have easily stolen their source code. I'd only suspect something like this because WASTE actually isn't that complex of a program. It's not nothing, but its definitely something the community could put out in a month if some people tried.
However, I suspect it is more likely this was just a mistake, or Nullsoft not checking with the high-ups.
The point is that, while a hand-held scanner is hard to notice, someone ten feet away with a scanner in his briefcase on the subway is virtually impossible.
I recall when the place I worked at had a card scanner with way too much power. All you had to do was, assuming you had the card somewhere in your rear pocket, twist slightly while walking past. It'd catch things over a foot away.
Really, it takes no made-up-numbers. I can state for a fact from what my room-mate last year did (total anime fanatic) that you can reliably download 6 gigs/day if you keep on top of your download lists, and that's using DC++.
No way in hell just browsing can keep up with that, and there isn't enough new software updates from keeping up-to-date to counterbalance that kind of draw.