Design Flaw: Readers are able to post on slashdot before actually reading the articles, leading to redundant information and questions being posted that were clearly mentioned in the article.
Example: A post of "Often it is difficult to figure out why certain options are dimmed and under what context they will become active. I don't see a better alternative though other than better documentation..." attached to a story containing the solution of "Make grayed-out objects clickable, revealing what has caused the object to be dimmed and what the user can do about it."
First Noticed: 1996
Proposed Solution: Require the user to read the article. This could be implemented in a number of ways: either the referring home page to the message board should BE the article, or a page between the story and the article should contain some sort of code permitting posting. Or a mod of "-9999999, RTFA" should be added.
Maybe Japanese people are less obsessed with blowing things up pointlessly and hence prefer better quality entertainment with a solid story and more things to do.
RTFA - Japanese tend to like games with *fewer* things to do. And surprisingly, there are explosions even in quintesentially Japanese games like FF. There were very few opportunities to make choices though, and were basically binary in nature presented to you by antother character.
They consider video gaming much more of an art, an investment, almost a career. Extremely talented video gamers are close to worshipped, especially in strategy games such as StarCraft. Maybe they also like and want to support their own video game industry.
I think it's even a little more clear than the parent post states since this is a rights issue. The United States is a democratic republic whose objective is to rule by the majority while protecting the rights of minorities. Political Science 101.
I'll have to disagree. The United States is a representative republic whose function is to represent vocal majorities, rich minorities and sympathetic, guilt-inspiring minorities, while completely ignoring non-vocal and non-rich minorities and even majorities. Poltical Science 102.
I mean, I hate to sound heartless, but the artist drew pictures advocating a completely free and open source OS. It would just therefore stand to reason that his artwork would be free as well.
I don't think that's reasonable at all. If I'm a journalist, and I cover a free concert, does that mean I can't claim that time with my employer? Are my stories and photos public domain? In any other context, that doesn't make sense.
It's like the new Firefox logo. I don't get that either. Is it really proper to allow artists to make money off of GPLed code? It may very well be legal, but I don't think it's right.
Why not, anyone else is allowed to. You may have noticed Red Hat charges for GPL'd linux too. GPL doesn't necessarily mean free as in beer.
I don't think PJ's point is whether or not they have broken the legal wording of the GPL, but that they have certainly missed the intent. And that as a result they'll fit in neither market, not supported by the free software people and not real competition to windows. Exactly the position Caldera ended up in.
If the point isn't whether they've violated GPL, then her point is moot (and I say this as a fan of most of her work). Either they're in violation, or they're not, and in fact the whole idea is that the GPL is absolutely INTENDED to create complete freedom of usage assuming the changes are returned back to the community, which they are by Sun. Complaining about Sun's usage here is much like free-speech "advocates" complaining that some disgusting speech is protected by the first amendment - we may not like it, but if we want true freedom, we have to embrace good usage with bad.
As far as "embracing" the GPL, I'm really not seeing a cause/effect relationship with windows competition, and certainly not with Caldera.
If I understand correctly, websites fall under the jurisdiction of where they are viewed from, not where they are served from. Doesn't this mean that they are subject to the sum of all the world's laws, since they can be viewed anywhere in the world?
That's the case in the US, jurisdiction==place where viewed. I imagine any host is bound to the sum of the laws of nations who also believe jurisdiction==place viewed, so yes.
Practically, though, it will be limited to a place where the host has a presence. If they liked, Surinam could make a law saying the dissemination of goat-based pornography is illegal. They can try to bring me on charges for my goat-porn, and I'll laugh at them because I don't live there. However, if I had a business there, I imagine they could seize my assets, or me if I were there too.
So basically, you're bound by the laws of places where you have a presence. Unfortunately for google, that's the entire industrialized world, and then some.
Actually, there were many thousands of absentee ballots in California that were not counted because all the elections there were already determined with the votes they had counted. Since absentee ballots generally trend Republican, it has been theorized that there might well have been enough of them there to tip the popular vote in Bush's favor.
...and a whole lot of dead people in Chicago and Texas.
Oh, and yes, desalination does stress the water source. If they do not process the salt into other forms then the source many become too salty near the plant. If they do not replace the salt then it may not be salty enough. Either way, a desalination plant affects the water source. Whether that's bad or good is subjective.
I haven't done any research on this, but it seems a bit tough to believe. Even if desal. were supplying all of Boston's water, the volume of pure water taken out should be miniscule compared to the local ocean. I realize that water currents determine how problematic this is, but unless you build it in a harbor or something (and it won't go in Boston harbor), I can't imagine that would be a real problem.
Microsoft needs exactly ONE new product... And that is "Windows Secure".
Oh, that and "Windows Stable." That's the one that 1) doesn't crash every day, and 2) doesn't leak memory so badly that you have to reboot every day. Otherwise, Win 2K/XP turns that nice P4 into a 386.
Although, for sheer, long-term caloric intake, you can't beat fat and protein. Of course, it's important to keep a balance, but if you're having trouble getting the calories, a general increase of fat, protein, and complex carbs is a better idea than consuming "instant calories", as those calories, as you say, can increase blood sugar and insulin levels (which strains the pancreas) while at the same time only providing short-term energy.
That's certainly true, but as a runner (which pertains to me and the previous poster), you do need a significant amount of carbs, even some simple ones, on running days. The reason is that it takes a while for the glycogen to switch over to efficient blood glucose production, and without some serious blood sugar, you can end up realllly dragging after eunning maybe for a half hour.
In other words, runners really need some short term energy for the first part of a run to mix in (kind of like nitrous for a car). Other times, I've been so low on blood sugar after running that I had the shakes and light-headedness, so I had to get some quick sugar to keep from passing out.
But I agree, I wouldn't recommend it for normal consumption by non runners.
It's also incredibly important to eat *frequently*. 5-6 times a day if you can. It's better for your body (no insulin spikes) and keeps the energy levels up.
Absolutely. Generally healthier on the GI system too.
That said, I'm running 35-40 km a week and I'm struggling with my weight. It dropped below 130 lbs in the last month (I'm 6' 1"). I've lost 25 lbs since I took up running 18 mos ago. I can't eat enough and I'm getting pretty fed-up with being constantly hungry and tired! Oh well, it won't stop me reaching my goal of a marathon.
Yikes! Are you getting enough of both carbs and fat? That could explain the tiredness, if not the hunger. Could be a diet balance issue - it's not always easy to maintain blood sugar. As for getting enough total calories, one thing I did in high school when I was running 50-60 km/week for a while, is I started drinking a *lot* of orange juice (and water, of course). Good for the vitamin C (and calcium if you get fortified), and it's like instant calories. Just watch the blood sugar problems, I'd recommend this more for *after* you run than before.
Many people believe that jogging burns calories. It does but very little compared to a regular, fairly moderate weight training,
I'd certainly agree you need both, and also agree that the best easy way to lost fat is to add muscle, which requres more calories/lb/day to maintain. However, for raw calorie loss, it's hard to beat *intense, sustained* aerobic exercise. I run a few times a week, and one of the runs is an 8-mile, 1-hour, hilly run. This burns about 1000 calories, in a one-shot deal. Granted, a slow, short jog isn't as useful. But if you exercise for 1000 calories a day, it'd be hard *not* to lose weight. I started running to lose weight, now I'm having trouble not falling below my target weight.
That said, I do also do weights 2-4 times a week, so I agree, balance is good. Keeps us runners from looking like sticks, if nothing else.
I love these "as we all know..." statements. "As many Slashdotters think to be true..." is a more accurate phrase in most cases. In the case of the price fixing settlement, it was just a few stores, a few years ago, and there is nothing preventing those stores from continuing to sell at the same price. The record companies made the same amount of money regardless of the stores' markup. The record companies got in trouble for giving co-op advertising money to a few chains in exchange for MAPs (minimum advertised pricing) -- a practice which is common in many industries. The record companies did this because the Wal-Marts and Best Buys of the world were selling music at little or no margin as an incentive to draw people into the store, and the smaller CD-only chains (like Tower Records) were hurting.
I'm aware of that, and I didn't want to get into the details. That said, the industries numbers, as quoted by them, weren't their revenue (ie, money from Best Buy, etc) but *retail* sales numbers, which were in fact affected by that decision. That's one reason why one can suggest that there are forces pushing retail, dollar sales down without invoking any sort of piracy argument. At the very least, the picture is nowhere near as simple as portrayed.
SCO's licensing behavior, as IBM has been pointing out in their Counterclaims to the SCO lawsuit (Counterclaim 6, para. 142-147 is especially relevant), violates the GPL, because SCO distributed Linux and other GPL software, then attempted to alter the terms of the license using SCOsource.
Thanks for either 1) the troll (which was great if it was) or 2) the thread-irrelevant RMS parrotting. Bottom line is there are no criminal penalties for these sorts of contract disputes. None of what you say makes any of the executives at SCO, nor SCO in general, guilty of a crime, no matter how much you might like. You can bitch and moan all you like, but there is no criminal code in the US that they have violated. Don't give me any of the weak barratry, extortion, etc arguments. If you have another idea, let's hear it.
As we all know, the recording industry recently got busted for price-fixing or something similar, with the result that they aren't able to charge as much, per CD, now as they did before.
I would love to see sales volume in units sold, not revenue, and I bet the reason why we haven't seen that is because it doesn't reflect a decrease. Also, I'm so sick of seeing numbers showing net decreases since 1999 - what HASN'T decreased since then, except unemployment?
They SHOULD know their claims are crap. Ignorance is no excuse, right?
So, what, anyone who loses a civil suit is immediately guilty of extortion? SCO's claims, while probably false, pass the laugh test. There have been enough people who have looked at them and found them wanting, but not ridiculous, for them to pass that standard.
First, they distribute Linux under the GPL. Then a while later, they go around telling people they owe $699 to them or they have to stop using Linux. How is that not extortion?
First, because it's not clear, legally, at this point, that the GPL has invalidated their IP that could possibly be in linux. There are a number of reasons for this, which I won't belabor here, if for no other reason than it's been knocked around for over a year now. Yes, yes, we all "know" SCO's claims (whatever they are today) are false, but until this is substantiated, they have every right to suggest that companies license. Anyone sued has an obvious tactic, which is to petition the court to wait until the IBM, Novell, etc. cases are resolved, but it's still not extortion to try to receive payment for something you think is yours. In effect, you're saying that a company must decide for itself whether its claims are bunk or not, and any attempt to reach an out-of-court settlement by a party who "would have" lost is extortion. And that's not going to work.
If you're still not convinced, look at the DirecTV racketeering lawsuit that was thrown out, and there was a great deal more evidence against them than exists against SCO.
Again, just because we don't like SCO doesn't mean they've committed a crime. They may be subject to civil decisions, but that's a different matter.
SUre, there's still one more thing that Red Hat could get - criminal charges filed against Darl McBride. Barratry, Racketeering, and Extortion.
No, you can't. The standard for such charges are pretty high. First, for barratry, one would have to have solid evidence that Darl/SCO/Canopy acted in bad faith, and were suing for fun. You'd have to have evidence that not only are their claims crap, but THEY KNEW IT. Good luck.
For racketeering and extortion, which I'm assuming you're using to attack their "licensing" behavior, you won't get that either. Reason is because they at least have a reasonable claim on their actions - basically, it's not extortion for them to defend their rights, and until it's damned clear they don't have such rights (like after some court case), you'll lose this one too. Also, what's the "weapon" (ie, the "or else...") behind the extortion claim? A lawsuit? So in that case, you'd have to prove the barratry case before starting the extortion case, and that won't work on it's own.
So I know the/. crowd loves the idea of criminal actions against Darl, including stoning, hanging, or general torture. But it isn't realistic, and I think people should learn the *legal* background of such terms if this barratry argument is to keep going around and around for another couple of years like it has so far.
Great, now I have to wait a year and some change to bitch about how bad Episode 3 is.
No way. This is slashdot, remember. Most of the people posting didn't read the article before commenting, why should they watch the movie before bitching and maning?
Anyone can get access to a POP3/SMTP provider for almost no cost, with pretty free limits. Why is webmail so popular?
For $9.95 a month, you can use PHP Webhosting...
I pay for enough crap every month, I don't feel the need to pay $120 a year for something I currently get for free. Particularly when Gmail rolls, and space isn't an issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Example: A post of "Often it is difficult to figure out why certain options are dimmed and under what context they will become active. I don't see a better alternative though other than better documentation..." attached to a story containing the solution of "Make grayed-out objects clickable, revealing what has caused the object to be dimmed and what the user can do about it."
First Noticed: 1996
Proposed Solution: Require the user to read the article. This could be implemented in a number of ways: either the referring home page to the message board should BE the article, or a page between the story and the article should contain some sort of code permitting posting. Or a mod of "-9999999, RTFA" should be added.
Then they came for the hell demons...
Maybe Japanese people are less obsessed with blowing things up pointlessly and hence prefer better quality entertainment with a solid story and more things to do.
RTFA - Japanese tend to like games with *fewer* things to do. And surprisingly, there are explosions even in quintesentially Japanese games like FF. There were very few opportunities to make choices though, and were basically binary in nature presented to you by antother character.
They consider video gaming much more of an art, an investment, almost a career. Extremely talented video gamers are close to worshipped, especially in strategy games such as StarCraft. Maybe they also like and want to support their own video game industry.
Yeah, let's be more like that. That's healthy.
I'll have to disagree. The United States is a representative republic whose function is to represent vocal majorities, rich minorities and sympathetic, guilt-inspiring minorities, while completely ignoring non-vocal and non-rich minorities and even majorities. Poltical Science 102.
I don't think that's reasonable at all. If I'm a journalist, and I cover a free concert, does that mean I can't claim that time with my employer? Are my stories and photos public domain? In any other context, that doesn't make sense.
It's like the new Firefox logo. I don't get that either. Is it really proper to allow artists to make money off of GPLed code? It may very well be legal, but I don't think it's right.
Why not, anyone else is allowed to. You may have noticed Red Hat charges for GPL'd linux too. GPL doesn't necessarily mean free as in beer.
If the point isn't whether they've violated GPL, then her point is moot (and I say this as a fan of most of her work). Either they're in violation, or they're not, and in fact the whole idea is that the GPL is absolutely INTENDED to create complete freedom of usage assuming the changes are returned back to the community, which they are by Sun. Complaining about Sun's usage here is much like free-speech "advocates" complaining that some disgusting speech is protected by the first amendment - we may not like it, but if we want true freedom, we have to embrace good usage with bad.
As far as "embracing" the GPL, I'm really not seeing a cause/effect relationship with windows competition, and certainly not with Caldera.
That's the case in the US, jurisdiction==place where viewed. I imagine any host is bound to the sum of the laws of nations who also believe jurisdiction==place viewed, so yes.
Practically, though, it will be limited to a place where the host has a presence. If they liked, Surinam could make a law saying the dissemination of goat-based pornography is illegal. They can try to bring me on charges for my goat-porn, and I'll laugh at them because I don't live there. However, if I had a business there, I imagine they could seize my assets, or me if I were there too.
So basically, you're bound by the laws of places where you have a presence. Unfortunately for google, that's the entire industrialized world, and then some.
...and a whole lot of dead people in Chicago and Texas.
Right. How could desalinization have anything to do with that? Dipshit.
I'm holding out hope he's a troll, otherwise our educational system is even more fucked than I thought.
That and better reflexes. You're like 10th.
I haven't done any research on this, but it seems a bit tough to believe. Even if desal. were supplying all of Boston's water, the volume of pure water taken out should be miniscule compared to the local ocean. I realize that water currents determine how problematic this is, but unless you build it in a harbor or something (and it won't go in Boston harbor), I can't imagine that would be a real problem.
Oh, that and "Windows Stable." That's the one that 1) doesn't crash every day, and 2) doesn't leak memory so badly that you have to reboot every day. Otherwise, Win 2K/XP turns that nice P4 into a 386.
That's certainly true, but as a runner (which pertains to me and the previous poster), you do need a significant amount of carbs, even some simple ones, on running days. The reason is that it takes a while for the glycogen to switch over to efficient blood glucose production, and without some serious blood sugar, you can end up realllly dragging after eunning maybe for a half hour.
In other words, runners really need some short term energy for the first part of a run to mix in (kind of like nitrous for a car). Other times, I've been so low on blood sugar after running that I had the shakes and light-headedness, so I had to get some quick sugar to keep from passing out.
But I agree, I wouldn't recommend it for normal consumption by non runners.
It's also incredibly important to eat *frequently*. 5-6 times a day if you can. It's better for your body (no insulin spikes) and keeps the energy levels up.
Absolutely. Generally healthier on the GI system too.
Yikes! Are you getting enough of both carbs and fat? That could explain the tiredness, if not the hunger. Could be a diet balance issue - it's not always easy to maintain blood sugar. As for getting enough total calories, one thing I did in high school when I was running 50-60 km/week for a while, is I started drinking a *lot* of orange juice (and water, of course). Good for the vitamin C (and calcium if you get fortified), and it's like instant calories. Just watch the blood sugar problems, I'd recommend this more for *after* you run than before.
I'd certainly agree you need both, and also agree that the best easy way to lost fat is to add muscle, which requres more calories/lb/day to maintain. However, for raw calorie loss, it's hard to beat *intense, sustained* aerobic exercise. I run a few times a week, and one of the runs is an 8-mile, 1-hour, hilly run. This burns about 1000 calories, in a one-shot deal. Granted, a slow, short jog isn't as useful. But if you exercise for 1000 calories a day, it'd be hard *not* to lose weight. I started running to lose weight, now I'm having trouble not falling below my target weight.
That said, I do also do weights 2-4 times a week, so I agree, balance is good. Keeps us runners from looking like sticks, if nothing else.
I'm aware of that, and I didn't want to get into the details. That said, the industries numbers, as quoted by them, weren't their revenue (ie, money from Best Buy, etc) but *retail* sales numbers, which were in fact affected by that decision. That's one reason why one can suggest that there are forces pushing retail, dollar sales down without invoking any sort of piracy argument. At the very least, the picture is nowhere near as simple as portrayed.
email your congress(wo)man.
Thanks for either 1) the troll (which was great if it was) or 2) the thread-irrelevant RMS parrotting. Bottom line is there are no criminal penalties for these sorts of contract disputes. None of what you say makes any of the executives at SCO, nor SCO in general, guilty of a crime, no matter how much you might like. You can bitch and moan all you like, but there is no criminal code in the US that they have violated. Don't give me any of the weak barratry, extortion, etc arguments. If you have another idea, let's hear it.
I would love to see sales volume in units sold, not revenue, and I bet the reason why we haven't seen that is because it doesn't reflect a decrease. Also, I'm so sick of seeing numbers showing net decreases since 1999 - what HASN'T decreased since then, except unemployment?
So, what, anyone who loses a civil suit is immediately guilty of extortion? SCO's claims, while probably false, pass the laugh test. There have been enough people who have looked at them and found them wanting, but not ridiculous, for them to pass that standard.
First, because it's not clear, legally, at this point, that the GPL has invalidated their IP that could possibly be in linux. There are a number of reasons for this, which I won't belabor here, if for no other reason than it's been knocked around for over a year now. Yes, yes, we all "know" SCO's claims (whatever they are today) are false, but until this is substantiated, they have every right to suggest that companies license. Anyone sued has an obvious tactic, which is to petition the court to wait until the IBM, Novell, etc. cases are resolved, but it's still not extortion to try to receive payment for something you think is yours. In effect, you're saying that a company must decide for itself whether its claims are bunk or not, and any attempt to reach an out-of-court settlement by a party who "would have" lost is extortion. And that's not going to work.
If you're still not convinced, look at the DirecTV racketeering lawsuit that was thrown out, and there was a great deal more evidence against them than exists against SCO.
Again, just because we don't like SCO doesn't mean they've committed a crime. They may be subject to civil decisions, but that's a different matter.
No, you can't. The standard for such charges are pretty high. First, for barratry, one would have to have solid evidence that Darl/SCO/Canopy acted in bad faith, and were suing for fun. You'd have to have evidence that not only are their claims crap, but THEY KNEW IT. Good luck.
For racketeering and extortion, which I'm assuming you're using to attack their "licensing" behavior, you won't get that either. Reason is because they at least have a reasonable claim on their actions - basically, it's not extortion for them to defend their rights, and until it's damned clear they don't have such rights (like after some court case), you'll lose this one too. Also, what's the "weapon" (ie, the "or else...") behind the extortion claim? A lawsuit? So in that case, you'd have to prove the barratry case before starting the extortion case, and that won't work on it's own.
So I know the /. crowd loves the idea of criminal actions against Darl, including stoning, hanging, or general torture. But it isn't realistic, and I think people should learn the *legal* background of such terms if this barratry argument is to keep going around and around for another couple of years like it has so far.
No way. This is slashdot, remember. Most of the people posting didn't read the article before commenting, why should they watch the movie before bitching and maning?
I pay for enough crap every month, I don't feel the need to pay $120 a year for something I currently get for free. Particularly when Gmail rolls, and space isn't an issue.