Lol! Of course it was. Saddam did nothing BUT provoke everyone else.
That does not really make him all that special...
Dunno what to tell you. Ask the Iranians. He locked them into 10 years of bloodshed for what?
Well... Strictly speaking, during those 10 years it was good that he did so. At least, one would imagine it was from all the sponsiring he got from the US.
My gosh, what people won't do to for politics.
Indeed. It really reaches the skill of an art when you see them forgetting the things they forget!
There is nothing of an ad hominem fallacy in suggesting that the war was motivated solely by greed.
It's a bit sad to see people throw latin words around as if they were actual arguments without having even bothered to look up the corresponding Wikipedia page to see if they mean something barely close to what they think they do, let alone get an actual book on logic and read it...
You do not need a hotmail account to be able to log on to MSN. You just create an account with whatever email address you have (iirc, it does not even have to actually exist...)
That you can emdeb the band smoothly in R^3 is no news: I can do it with some paper in a few seconds;-)
If f is a real polinomial function on R^n, then its gradient provides a non vanishing normal vector field on any connected subset of the set of smooth points of its set of zeros. So no such subset can be non-orientable. Thus, connected smooth subsets of real algebraic hypersurfaces are orientable. That is why I said that I doubt you can present the Möbius band as a semi algebraic subset of R^3. To get a proof, I'd start arguing that a semi algebraic subset of R^3 which is locally a smooth surface must be an open subset of a hypersurface and go on from there; I used the word `imagine' because my real algebraic geometry is quite poor.
So one needs to find a map (at least as nasty as the Boys surface) of RP^2 into R^3 such that the removal of the neighbourhood of a point in the domain of this map leaves an embedded Moebius strip. Smoothly this is possible, [...]
I am not sure this works: the Boy surface has a curve of self intersection (three loops at mutual right angles) so it is not quite obvious that you can remove that and still have enough left of the topology to have a Möbius band...
You cannot embed RP^3 in R^3 at all, not even continuously. This follows for example from the Alexander duality theorem, which has as an easy corollary that a non orientable compact n-manifold cannot be embedded in R^{n+1}.
As for your other reply: indeed, real algebraic varieties are not in general orientable (I do not know of a non-affine example, though). The fun starts when you want them inside R^3;-)
Just clone the damn menus and actions from office - they did a lot of legwork on this why not emulate it.
You cannot be serious: the menu layout in Word is probably only second to its amazing capabilities to break all laws of logic when automatically numbering anything with respect to suckness.
That anyone can take a look at the patent (and IP, by extension) landscape and conclude that it is putting power in the hand of individuals is just breath-taking.
I do not understand why you seem to think that what you are saying somehow contradicts what I said---as evinced by your starting with that 'no' there. Oh well.
I don't know if the GP realises that or not, but I'd say that the list of things the GGP considers immoral is enough for me to conclude that his idea of morality is so different from mine that whether he believes those things to be illegal or not becomes pretty irrelevant.
But GPL v3 does the same thing GPL v2 did: it ensures that any software you use under it, you can obtain the source code for and you can modify.
Actually, while the GPLv2 "ensures that any software you use under it, you can obtain the source code for and you can modify", the GPLv3 "ensures that any software you use under it, you can obtain the source code for and you can modify and still be able to use it". That's the whole point.
Meme 2: if you enter into a promise/agreement/contract (e.g. the vouchers) and then something changes that makes it illegal for you to carry out that promise (e.g. if/when GPLv3 code shows up in SUSE) then not only are you obliged to follow through with the promise and break the law, but the mere existence of the promise becomes a violation of the new law...
Nothing has changed that has made illegal that MS carry out their promise. They entered into an agreement (the vouchers) that included terms they did not control; those terms have been updated, and while they are perfectly able to comply with the updated terms, they just do not want to.
Well, I am quite sure that it would not be hard for a sufficiently well motivated group of people would be able to get people that appear to be as law-abiding as it is required to carry guns (and, from what I've read, that's not a lot, really)
Moreover, most non-law-abiding people were law-abiding before they became non-law-abiders...
I don't have an opinion about that, really. I was responding to what you wrote, not what you meant (my training as a mind reader is quite poor). And the two are quite different things.
The GCC is GPLed, which is not an use license. The GPL is quite explicit about what it covers in the first few paragraphs, and it excludes use explicitely. The GPLv2 covers only distribution and copying.
I think with CS we're still in the "tinkerer stage" where wonderfull new things come just as often from the guy working behind his computer in the attic as the computer science major working in some dev center for IBM.
That impression is most probably based on your not following what's being done in actual computer science these days.
The algorithm is the worst thing to have happened to computing. It is the primary reason that software is unreliable. Programming is hard precisely because it is based on the algorithm. I hope that this new realization among some of us that computing should not be based on the algorithm becomes more widespread. It will usher in the next computer revolution.
Wow. That's probably the most non-sensical statement I've read in Slashdot in a while, including the huge iraq-related threads... Quite an accomplishment!
I'm really not sure how one can argue with a straight face that the situation on 9/11 could possibly have turned out worse had the passengers been armed. The problem I see is not terrorist attacks (I am quite sure bad guys, who are greatly motivated people, would find ways to deal with a plane packed with armed guys...) but all the many, many, many other flights which do not have terrorists in them.
I'm assuming that gcc will be released under the GPL v3 in the future, which I assume will happen.
GCC currently is GPLv2 and it does not pass on GPLness to code compiled with it, not even though some of GCC's code does get included in compiled code. There is an explicit exemption in the license for this in particular. Can we not assume by now that GCC guys are more or less sensible?
Slashdot Mirror
That does not really make him all that special...
Dunno what to tell you. Ask the Iranians. He locked them into 10 years of bloodshed for what?Well... Strictly speaking, during those 10 years it was good that he did so. At least, one would imagine it was from all the sponsiring he got from the US.
My gosh, what people won't do to for politics.Indeed. It really reaches the skill of an art when you see them forgetting the things they forget!
So you are saying that the invasion of Iraq was `provoked'?!
There is nothing of an ad hominem fallacy in suggesting that the war was motivated solely by greed.
It's a bit sad to see people throw latin words around as if they were actual arguments without having even bothered to look up the corresponding Wikipedia page to see if they mean something barely close to what they think they do, let alone get an actual book on logic and read it...
A socialist is a morally bankrupt person?! Hah. How much propaganda can a human take?
You do not need a hotmail account to be able to log on to MSN. You just create an account with whatever email address you have (iirc, it does not even have to actually exist...)
That you can emdeb the band smoothly in R^3 is no news: I can do it with some paper in a few seconds ;-)
If f is a real polinomial function on R^n, then its gradient provides a non vanishing normal vector field on any connected subset of the set of smooth points of its set of zeros. So no such subset can be non-orientable. Thus, connected smooth subsets of real algebraic hypersurfaces are orientable. That is why I said that I doubt you can present the Möbius band as a semi algebraic subset of R^3. To get a proof, I'd start arguing that a semi algebraic subset of R^3 which is locally a smooth surface must be an open subset of a hypersurface and go on from there; I used the word `imagine' because my real algebraic geometry is quite poor.
So one needs to find a map (at least as nasty as the Boys surface) of RP^2 into R^3 such that the removal of the neighbourhood of a point in the domain of this map leaves an embedded Moebius strip. Smoothly this is possible, [...]I am not sure this works: the Boy surface has a curve of self intersection (three loops at mutual right angles) so it is not quite obvious that you can remove that and still have enough left of the topology to have a Möbius band...
You cannot embed RP^3 in R^3 at all, not even continuously. This follows for example from the Alexander duality theorem, which has as an easy corollary that a non orientable compact n-manifold cannot be embedded in R^{n+1}.
As for your other reply: indeed, real algebraic varieties are not in general orientable (I do not know of a non-affine example, though). The fun starts when you want them inside R^3 ;-)
The `Free' in `Free Software' is quite uncorrelated to `free as in free beer' freeness.
On the other hand, it is directly related to the fact that you can pay a developer to add the feature you want.
That you find something laughable in what you quote only shows that you do not understand what you are talking about.
You cannot be serious: the menu layout in Word is probably only second to its amazing capabilities to break all laws of logic when automatically numbering anything with respect to suckness.
WordPad is not a free word processor.
I would imagine an smooth semi-algebraic set over the reals would always be orientable...
Wow.
That anyone can take a look at the patent (and IP, by extension) landscape and conclude that it is putting power in the hand of individuals is just breath-taking.
8 * 160x100 = 1280x800 ?!
I do not understand why you seem to think that what you are saying somehow contradicts what I said---as evinced by your starting with that 'no' there. Oh well.
I don't know if the GP realises that or not, but I'd say that the list of things the GGP considers immoral is enough for me to conclude that his idea of morality is so different from mine that whether he believes those things to be illegal or not becomes pretty irrelevant.
Actually, while the GPLv2 "ensures that any software you use under it, you can obtain the source code for and you can modify", the GPLv3 "ensures that any software you use under it, you can obtain the source code for and you can modify and still be able to use it". That's the whole point.
Meme 2: if you enter into a promise/agreement/contract (e.g. the vouchers) and then something changes that makes it illegal for you to carry out that promise (e.g. if/when GPLv3 code shows up in SUSE) then not only are you obliged to follow through with the promise and break the law, but the mere existence of the promise becomes a violation of the new law...
Nothing has changed that has made illegal that MS carry out their promise. They entered into an agreement (the vouchers) that included terms they did not control; those terms have been updated, and while they are perfectly able to comply with the updated terms, they just do not want to.
There is a difference.
Do not apologise. Instead, next time a subject (any subject!) comes up, google up a bit, read relevant FAQs, and so on. Disinformation really hurts.
Well, I am quite sure that it would not be hard for a sufficiently well motivated group of people would be able to get people that appear to be as law-abiding as it is required to carry guns (and, from what I've read, that's not a lot, really)
Moreover, most non-law-abiding people were law-abiding before they became non-law-abiders...
I don't have an opinion about that, really. I was responding to what you wrote, not what you meant (my training as a mind reader is quite poor). And the two are quite different things.
The GCC is GPLed, which is not an use license. The GPL is quite explicit about what it covers in the first few paragraphs, and it excludes use explicitely. The GPLv2 covers only distribution and copying.
That impression is most probably based on your not following what's being done in actual computer science these days.
Wow. That's probably the most non-sensical statement I've read in Slashdot in a while, including the huge iraq-related threads... Quite an accomplishment!
GCC currently is GPLv2 and it does not pass on GPLness to code compiled with it, not even though some of GCC's code does get included in compiled code. There is an explicit exemption in the license for this in particular. Can we not assume by now that GCC guys are more or less sensible?