+1 informative. In the US, electricity generated would make between 60% to 120% as much CO2 as gas burned to go the same distance. In Canada, where they have much more hydro, electricity would make between 23% to 46% of the CO2 as a gasoline engine.
[Note: those numbers are comparing an estimated electric vehicle's power usage to average gasoline vehicle's gas usage. If we made them specific to the Prius, which has higher than average gas efficiency, the CO2 benefits of electricity would be less than given above.]
But I have to give only partial credit to the question of total environmental impact. There are non-CO2 pollutants for both modes, and there's also the CO2 and other pollution from extracting, refining and distributing gas. These are significant consequences in either case.
Good point. Dollar cost isn't all that matters, especially to most Prius buyers.
So what's the environmental impact / mile of gasoline vs. electricity, given the average mix of power sources used in the US? [Which is mostly coal, which has been pretty dirty, but also includes nukes, natural gas, renewables.]
Of course with electricity the consumer has options with varying environmental impact, whereas with gasoline the consumer has almost zero choice about the impact of refining the gas or burning it. (Once they've already chosen the Prius over a Hummer.)
Whether you buy this or not, there is plenty of historical precedent that shows that companies that produce useful hardware and publish too many details about how they do things have their ideas copied.
It would be more persuasive if you could provide some relevant examples. Examples where an open-source driver have lead to cloning would be relevant.
But seriously, the specs needed to implement a driver are *far* from the detailed specs needed to clone hardware. If you doubt that, just go read some open source drivers and see if you could design the hardware from them.
(PS - Your argument is remarkably combative and irrational for a Canadian.)
You're saying that the Chinese (e.g.) couldn't disassemble a binary driver, and that's the only thing holding them back from developing a cheaper graphics card clone? I don't buy it at all.
Couldn't they use the robotic arm to clean the panels before it's too late? Maybe just bang them against the side a bit, if they didn't include a mini-broom.
Apparently no laptops today currently support OpenBIOS, according to the RMS talk in an earlier topic. He said the reason is "Trusted Computing", which is a hardware component that allows, among other things, something called Remote Attestation.
Remote Attestation basically allows software running on the system to be unchangeable by the user, and to take control of the computer away from the user. This can be done, for example, to enforce DRM.
As Mark Shuttleworth has pointed out, firmware is not the only non-free part of computers. The BIOS is important too.
One guy in the audience asked how he was supposed to pay for his university education by releasing free software. Stallman didn't really give him an answer, he just told the student that he didn't have to go to school, and he had no right to release closed source software in an attempt to earn money.
I listened to the q&a that included that question. The questioner was saying "since it costs me a lot to learn programming and to have a house, I should be be able to make proprietary software".
Stallman's answer was interesting. He said that most programmers don't get paid to make proprietary software, which is evil, or free software either. Most programmers get paid to make custom software, which is OK.
The distinction is that custom software is made for someone (usually a business), and that as a programmer you normally don't restrict the rights of that person. You tend to give them the source code. Therefore your own behavior is ethical towards that client, and Stallman sees no problem with it.
Whereas with proprietary software, you are explicitly being unethical towards your customers. And your mortgage or student loan is really no excuse for unethical behavior. (After all, you freely made the choice to take on the debt.)
He made some similar comments about not letting Steve Jobs off the hook after his invitation to the music companies to let iTunes distribute non-DRMed music. Stallman basically said that unless Jobs was doing all he could to stop the madness (while being part of the system), then merely foisting the blame on the music companies while continuing to benefit doesn't relieve Jobs of his responsibility for participating in that system.
Yeah but what about error introduced by the mass production technique? I'm saying, a faithfully recorded zero-energy ("perfectly" smooth -> no sound) groove from 1910, when put under a 21st century scanning tunneling microscope, looks pretty darn craggy, in a random high-frequency ("hiss") kind of way. You wouldn't want to try playing back the image of the groove without taking into account what a 1910 needle would "see".
I'm not saying I'm right about the hiss existing in production though. Just making a case.
A feature of dailykos that I like is that it keeps track of what's new since I last viewed a discussion, even if I close the discussion and re-open it later.
New comments are highlighted in red.
Also, if I reload the equivalent of the Slashdot front page, a topic I've seen before will say "X new comments".
Enterprise users (or anyone actually) can buy licensed codecs to protect themselves from legal liability. These have been available for a little while now, but perhaps still aren't that well known.
Fluendo currently offer this range of commercially licensed plugins for Linux and Solaris operating systems. The plugins are available to OEM manufacturers who are using GStreamer in their products and for end users through our Fluendo Webshop. For customers with more than 20 seats please contact us through our contact for a quote on a site license.
Interesting. I didn't RTFA, but my first thought was that the optical technique was picking up hiss (high frequency) that existed on the originally produced media, but that was smoothed out (i.e. not reproduced) by the mechanical arm-and-needle.
For the record, I absolutely do not hate America, and have never said such. But I do hate the erosion of the liberties upon which it was founded. Every inch towards a police state, including gag orders and warrantless searches would fall in that category.
I'd like to see them ask that question. After all, virus checkers see every file on your disk, every email you get and send, every IM chat. So it's a natural point of leverage for any kind of spying. Only the OS itself would be a better target.
And it's even better than whitelisting, because you can do a blanket search of *everyone* using the virus checker for interesting keywords or known-enemy email addresses. Hey Poindexter, get on it!
The question was "Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge...". But if what they had received instead was a NSL, they would be under a gag provision (with *jail* as the penalty) to not mention anything about it.
But from reading TFA, you might think "*yawn*, some big companies got hacked, who cares."
I don't know about DoT, but a lot of government services are being run by Booz Allen and other contractors. I called up some Federal agency hotline a while back and got a greeting like "Welcome to the US Dept. of XYZ hotline, run by Booz Allen. Please call back [during a time of day that is impossibly inconvenient in your time zone]." Think of them like Halliburton, only in Washington D.C. instead of Iraq.
If any outsourced Federal agencies handling citizen's personal information got hit, this problem *could* be more relevant to the average joe than they would think from reading TFA.
But it will be hard to find out, because those agencies' spokespersons will only be able to say something stupid, like: "the agency couldn't find any indication of a security breach".
Does GPLv3 require that voters be able to modify the software running in a voting machine?
No. Companies distributing devices that include software under GPLv3 are at most required to provide the source and Installation Information for the software to people who possess a copy of the object code. The voter who uses a voting machine (like any other kiosk) doesn't get possession of it, not even temporarily, so the voter also does not get possession of the binary software in it.
Note, however, that voting is a very special case. Just because the software in a computer is free does not mean you can trust the computer for voting. We believe that computers cannot be trusted for voting. Voting should be done on paper.
The anti-DRM (or anti "TiVO-ization") provisions only affect equipment that a consumer would reasonably want to modify.
PS: sorry, but Linus is being a wanker on this issue. For one thing, the restraint on moralizing by the GPL has always held that there would never be a provision against, for example, using GPL'd code for military uses or other uses that might well be against the morals of RMS and other FOSS coders. It's not about injecting morals, it's about FREEDOM FOR SOFTWARE. I know, I should have made this a separate post.
FWIW, in my opinion the Surgeon General has no more credibility on Global Warming than does Rush Limbaugh, and so his being asked to "stifle" does not bother me.
Ok, I'll bite.
The Surgeon General has the capacity (and duty) to evaluate scientific (i.e. evidence-based) input relating to public health. If there is scientific reporting that shows that global climate change is expected to have negative health repercussions (and there is), it falls in his area of responsibility.
the FBI has been tapping lawyers phone calls since the 60s. [...] if they get something incrmininating or your client says something bad over the phone they wipe the rest of trhe transscript and only introduce that one sentence in court
Not without getting a warrant before the conversation though, right?
I think in the EFF vs. AT&T case it may be easier to show that specific individuals were affected.
IIRC, they have as part of their case a lawyer and a journalist who needed as part of their jobs to communicate _privately_ with individuals who were part of the group the US stated would be wiretapped (persons possibly associated with Al Qaeda).
However, the notion of "standing" -- that you have to show you have been injured in order to sue in the first place -- is not black and white. A biased (or pressured) judge anywhere up the chain can use it to close the courtroom door on a case they don't want to rule fairly on.
Slashdot Mirror
Just being able to say "f@!# you" to the oil companies is all the blackmail I need, baby.
Toyota's electric-only version of the RAV4, which they only offered through fleet sales, IIRC, went an average of 117 miles per charge.
+1 informative. In the US, electricity generated would make between 60% to 120% as much CO2 as gas burned to go the same distance. In Canada, where they have much more hydro, electricity would make between 23% to 46% of the CO2 as a gasoline engine.
[Note: those numbers are comparing an estimated electric vehicle's power usage to average gasoline vehicle's gas usage. If we made them specific to the Prius, which has higher than average gas efficiency, the CO2 benefits of electricity would be less than given above.]
But I have to give only partial credit to the question of total environmental impact. There are non-CO2 pollutants for both modes, and there's also the CO2 and other pollution from extracting, refining and distributing gas. These are significant consequences in either case.
Good point. Dollar cost isn't all that matters, especially to most Prius buyers.
So what's the environmental impact / mile of gasoline vs. electricity, given the average mix of power sources used in the US? [Which is mostly coal, which has been pretty dirty, but also includes nukes, natural gas, renewables.]
Of course with electricity the consumer has options with varying environmental impact, whereas with gasoline the consumer has almost zero choice about the impact of refining the gas or burning it. (Once they've already chosen the Prius over a Hummer.)
Any by extension, what is the cost/mile on electricity vs. the cost/mile on gasoline?
It would be more persuasive if you could provide some relevant examples. Examples where an open-source driver have lead to cloning would be relevant.
But seriously, the specs needed to implement a driver are *far* from the detailed specs needed to clone hardware.
If you doubt that, just go read some open source drivers and see if you could design the hardware from them.
(PS - Your argument is remarkably combative and irrational for a Canadian.)
You're saying that the Chinese (e.g.) couldn't disassemble a binary driver, and that's the only thing holding them back from developing a cheaper graphics card clone? I don't buy it at all.
The secret sauce tastes like teen spirit.
Couldn't they use the robotic arm to clean the panels before it's too late?
Maybe just bang them against the side a bit, if they didn't include a mini-broom.
Apparently no laptops today currently support OpenBIOS, according to the RMS talk in an earlier topic.
He said the reason is "Trusted Computing", which is a hardware component that allows, among other things, something called Remote Attestation.
Remote Attestation basically allows software running on the system to be unchangeable by the user, and to take control of the computer away from the user. This can be done, for example, to enforce DRM.
As Mark Shuttleworth has pointed out, firmware is not the only non-free part of computers. The BIOS is important too.
I listened to the q&a that included that question. The questioner was saying "since it costs me a lot to learn programming and to have a house, I should be be able to make proprietary software".
Stallman's answer was interesting. He said that most programmers don't get paid to make proprietary software, which is evil, or free software either. Most programmers get paid to make custom software, which is OK.
The distinction is that custom software is made for someone (usually a business), and that as a programmer you normally don't restrict the rights of that person. You tend to give them the source code. Therefore your own behavior is ethical towards that client, and Stallman sees no problem with it.
Whereas with proprietary software, you are explicitly being unethical towards your customers. And your mortgage or student loan is really no excuse for unethical behavior. (After all, you freely made the choice to take on the debt.)
He made some similar comments about not letting Steve Jobs off the hook after his invitation to the music companies to let iTunes distribute non-DRMed music. Stallman basically said that unless Jobs was doing all he could to stop the madness (while being part of the system), then merely foisting the blame on the music companies while continuing to benefit doesn't relieve Jobs of his responsibility for participating in that system.
Yeah but what about error introduced by the mass production technique? I'm saying, a faithfully recorded zero-energy ("perfectly" smooth -> no sound) groove from 1910, when put under a 21st century scanning tunneling microscope, looks pretty darn craggy, in a random high-frequency ("hiss") kind of way. You wouldn't want to try playing back the image of the groove without taking into account what a 1910 needle would "see".
I'm not saying I'm right about the hiss existing in production though. Just making a case.
That's what I really want.
A feature of dailykos that I like is that it keeps track of what's new since I last viewed a discussion, even if I close the discussion and re-open it later.
New comments are highlighted in red.
Also, if I reload the equivalent of the Slashdot front page, a topic I've seen before will say "X new comments".
Steal those f*cking features, Taco!
From Fluendo:
Interesting. I didn't RTFA, but my first thought was that the optical technique was picking up hiss (high frequency) that existed on the originally produced media, but that was smoothed out (i.e. not reproduced) by the mechanical arm-and-needle.
For the record, I absolutely do not hate America, and have never said such. But I do hate the erosion of the liberties upon which it was founded. Every inch towards a police state, including gag orders and warrantless searches would fall in that category.
Totalitarian dictatorships absolutely would do this. But then, that's actually my point.
I'd like to see them ask that question. After all, virus checkers see every file on your disk, every email you get and send, every IM chat. So it's a natural point of leverage for any kind of spying. Only the OS itself would be a better target.
And it's even better than whitelisting, because you can do a blanket search of *everyone* using the virus checker for interesting keywords or known-enemy email addresses. Hey Poindexter, get on it!
The question was "Have you ever received such a court order signed by a judge...".
But if what they had received instead was a NSL, they would be under a gag provision (with *jail* as the penalty) to not mention anything about it.
That's only in Amerika of course.
Good one.
But from reading TFA, you might think "*yawn*, some big companies got hacked, who cares."
I don't know about DoT, but a lot of government services are being run by Booz Allen and other contractors. I called up some Federal agency hotline a while back and got a greeting like "Welcome to the US Dept. of XYZ hotline, run by Booz Allen. Please call back [during a time of day that is impossibly inconvenient in your time zone]." Think of them like Halliburton, only in Washington D.C. instead of Iraq.
If any outsourced Federal agencies handling citizen's personal information got hit, this problem *could* be more relevant to the average joe than they would think from reading TFA.
But it will be hard to find out, because those agencies' spokespersons will only be able to say something stupid, like: "the agency couldn't find any indication of a security breach".
As a coder, I much prefer the share-alike concept behind the GPL to the give-away concept behind BSD. Apparently so do a lot of other people.
But if TiVo wants to use BSD code instead of GPL code, they are free to make that choice.
The anti-DRM (or anti "TiVO-ization") provisions only affect equipment that a consumer would reasonably want to modify.
PS: sorry, but Linus is being a wanker on this issue. For one thing, the restraint on moralizing by the GPL has always held that there would never be a provision against, for example, using GPL'd code for military uses or other uses that might well be against the morals of RMS and other FOSS coders. It's not about injecting morals, it's about FREEDOM FOR SOFTWARE. I know, I should have made this a separate post.
Ok, I'll bite.
The Surgeon General has the capacity (and duty) to evaluate scientific (i.e. evidence-based) input relating to public health. If there is scientific reporting that shows that global climate change is expected to have negative health repercussions (and there is), it falls in his area of responsibility.
Not without getting a warrant before the conversation though, right?
I think in the EFF vs. AT&T case it may be easier to show that specific individuals were affected.
IIRC, they have as part of their case a lawyer and a journalist who needed as part of their jobs to communicate _privately_ with individuals who were part of the group the US stated would be wiretapped (persons possibly associated with Al Qaeda).
However, the notion of "standing" -- that you have to show you have been injured in order to sue in the first place -- is not black and white. A biased (or pressured) judge anywhere up the chain can use it to close the courtroom door on a case they don't want to rule fairly on.