The gentleman I responded to was indeed calling net users cheap, just for expecting things free. I don't dispute that some users will pay for some content (the HBO analogy is a good one) -- although it's hardly a new idea. Many, many web sites already require payment for full use.
But when I pay $40 a month for internet access, I'm hardly cheap for expecting most basic content free. No one thinks you're cheap if you just order a normal cable package, and pass on all the specialty stuff.
No one calls people cheap for expecting to make local telephone calls for free (after paying for the phone line). No one calls people cheap for expecting to use their cable line for free (after paying for the cable line). So why is the internet different, after you've paid for the internet connection? What's so cheap about expecting to be able to use something that you've paid a pretty hefty amount for (more than cable and phone lines, in fact).
Patent law is thorny enough, but how bad must internation patent law be?
Incidentally, does anyone know if the US and Canada have automatic patents between them? Are patents in the US enforceable in Canada, and vice versa? You'd think so, what with the close trade ties and all.
You can afford all those electronic devices, but you still use a non-standard (crufty; that is to say, shitty) CPU? That seems a little silly. Pick yourself up a nice G5 or an Athlon 2600+. Stable as all hell, and speedy to boot.
Once you've done that, be a real man and install Mandrake post-haste. You can use the time save from compiling to go and kill a wild animal or have sex with something. Or even just to play a rousing game of Pingus or Star Control.
all music should be free in Canada -- after all, we pay money to the RIAA in our taxes already (a levy, technically). But the idea of politicians with balls is mostly a pipe dream, so it just aint the case. Sigh...
EULAs are meaningless, because
a) You don't sign them or agree to them in any way at the time of purchase.
b) Showing the EULA once you're already installing the software (and hence have already paid for it) is bait-and-switch, which is illegal in most countries.
c) Once you've already bought the software, it's too late for the manufacturer to suddenly try to license it to you. You bought it, you paid for it, it's yours. That's why you get a bill-of-sale when you buy software, not a license agreement.
Considering all nuclear reactors together may be rash. Aren't Canadian, Russian, and American nuclear reactors all quite different? For starters, I know that American reactors can't explode, the way Russian reactors could (Chernobyl anyone?) . They experience "meltdowns" instead, although I don't think it's ever happened.
Canadian reactors use weapons grade plutonium and uranium, rather than whatever it is that other reactors use (which is how India and Pakistan got their hands on nuclear material -- from nuclear reactors bought from Canada). I remember there was a big fuss during the Clinton administration, because the plutonium and uranamium from a number of decomissioned nuclear weapons was going to be shipped to Canada, and people on both sides of the border weren't too keen on that.
So -- as far as environmentally friendliness is concerned, how do the different types of reactors stack up?
Maybe it's time for the US to test some of their cool new weaponry. They must have SOMETHING neat that was designed to take out high altitude stuff. What better chance to prove it's effectiveness? I mean, the Hubble has to come down anyway, so why not give us all a show?
I can't believe organ donation is even optional. Families can bite it -- the fact is, healthy organs are always in short supply, and people NEED them. There's a time to let personal preference and religious belief rule, and there's a time when the needs of the state overrule them.
Personally, I'm a registered organ donor. Hell, my mother is donating anything that is isn't salvaged for sickies to medical schools for dissection.
Heat dissipation is a MAJOR, HUGE factor is clustering. The G5's extremely low power output is undoubtedly a big selling point for G5 clusters. You think climate control for a cluster of AMD chips is cheap? It's hard enough to keep ONE Athlon XP cool, let alone a few hundred.
All the creativity and talent in the world doesn't mean anything in the 3D rendering world without lots of hardcore computing muscle to turn it into a reality. Those scenes don't just jump from the writers' minds onto the screen.
Cygwin and Python should be your new best friends. They turn Windows into a very administrator-friendly system. Cygwin will give you all the great commandline tools you need, and Python is just about the best scripting language there is. Together, they rock Windows harder than you can imagine.
A great many application crashes in Windows are the result of the API being poorly documented and not working as "advertised". Linux applications crash far less often than Windows applications, even when written to similar levels of quality. Why? The Linux libraries and kernel are much more stable and don't pass gibberish back to applications.
For an example, try running "The Urquan Masters" on Windows, and then try on Linux. You'll see one application freeze regularly, and the other run like a frightened rat.
It's quite possible to have perfect code. It's called "formal verification". It produces flawless code -- everytime. It involves theorem provers and mathematical models of the software. Many companies that produce software that will have people's lives depending on it use formal verification.
I use bzip2 even in Windows these days. It's just a far superior compression aglorithm (just shy of perfect huffman lossless compression too, as I understand it). It's just too bad that more people don't know about. That goes double for GPG -- it's just impossible to convince most people that securing ANYTHING is worthwhile.
That's money wasted, that could otherwise have been spent on lawsuits and the persecution of file-sharers. Good job, I say. The MPAA can join history's ranks upon ranks of meaningless organizations that wailed and gnashed their teeth over piracy, and accomplished nothing.
Accountability for tax-money spent on software is commendable, but making open-source mandatory is silly. Not all product niches have quality OSS offerings. It makes sense to compel government agencies to use, say, Apache rather than the bug-ridden IIS. But compelling them to use, say, an OSS LDAP solution rather than the excellent Active Directory would be highly erroneous.
The point? Governments should merely be forced to be publically accountable, and to be frugal whenever possible.
Best case scenario, this makes people take Linux more seriously.
Worst case scenario, Microsoft starts making Windows a competitively priced and featured OS.
Might we be seeing NFS and Ext3 support built into Windows soon? Perhaps even a better set of console tools and a free development environment? MSVC 5 bundled with Windows would do nicely.
Sure has done a heck of a lot to keep illegal guns off the street though. As a law abiding citizen I'm glad to know that I can't buy the same kind of firearms that my coke dealing cousin can illegally. Makes me feel real damn safe at night.
As a law abiding citizen, you can't legally buy the coke he buys either. What on earth is your point? Some wierd sense of entitlement? SHOULD you be able to do what a coke dealer does?
It's a fraction, but it's a pretty big one -- something like 1/3rd per capita. That's not actually a whole lot less -- Canada is better armed than most nations other than the US. What do you expect from a country where everyone's descended from hunters and trappers?
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The gentleman I responded to was indeed calling net users cheap, just for expecting things free. I don't dispute that some users will pay for some content (the HBO analogy is a good one) -- although it's hardly a new idea. Many, many web sites already require payment for full use.
But when I pay $40 a month for internet access, I'm hardly cheap for expecting most basic content free. No one thinks you're cheap if you just order a normal cable package, and pass on all the specialty stuff.
No one calls people cheap for expecting to make local telephone calls for free (after paying for the phone line). No one calls people cheap for expecting to use their cable line for free (after paying for the cable line). So why is the internet different, after you've paid for the internet connection? What's so cheap about expecting to be able to use something that you've paid a pretty hefty amount for (more than cable and phone lines, in fact).
Patent law is thorny enough, but how bad must internation patent law be?
Incidentally, does anyone know if the US and Canada have automatic patents between them? Are patents in the US enforceable in Canada, and vice versa? You'd think so, what with the close trade ties and all.
You can afford all those electronic devices, but you still use a non-standard (crufty; that is to say, shitty) CPU? That seems a little silly. Pick yourself up a nice G5 or an Athlon 2600+. Stable as all hell, and speedy to boot. Once you've done that, be a real man and install Mandrake post-haste. You can use the time save from compiling to go and kill a wild animal or have sex with something. Or even just to play a rousing game of Pingus or Star Control.
all music should be free in Canada -- after all, we pay money to the RIAA in our taxes already (a levy, technically). But the idea of politicians with balls is mostly a pipe dream, so it just aint the case. Sigh...
EULAs are meaningless, because a) You don't sign them or agree to them in any way at the time of purchase. b) Showing the EULA once you're already installing the software (and hence have already paid for it) is bait-and-switch, which is illegal in most countries. c) Once you've already bought the software, it's too late for the manufacturer to suddenly try to license it to you. You bought it, you paid for it, it's yours. That's why you get a bill-of-sale when you buy software, not a license agreement.
Considering all nuclear reactors together may be rash. Aren't Canadian, Russian, and American nuclear reactors all quite different? For starters, I know that American reactors can't explode, the way Russian reactors could (Chernobyl anyone?) . They experience "meltdowns" instead, although I don't think it's ever happened.
Canadian reactors use weapons grade plutonium and uranium, rather than whatever it is that other reactors use (which is how India and Pakistan got their hands on nuclear material -- from nuclear reactors bought from Canada). I remember there was a big fuss during the Clinton administration, because the plutonium and uranamium from a number of decomissioned nuclear weapons was going to be shipped to Canada, and people on both sides of the border weren't too keen on that.
So -- as far as environmentally friendliness is concerned, how do the different types of reactors stack up?
Well, I live in Canada, so I don't think I'm eligble.
This is insightful??! Man, I gotta talk out my ass more often!
Maybe it's time for the US to test some of their cool new weaponry. They must have SOMETHING neat that was designed to take out high altitude stuff. What better chance to prove it's effectiveness? I mean, the Hubble has to come down anyway, so why not give us all a show?
I can't believe organ donation is even optional. Families can bite it -- the fact is, healthy organs are always in short supply, and people NEED them. There's a time to let personal preference and religious belief rule, and there's a time when the needs of the state overrule them. Personally, I'm a registered organ donor. Hell, my mother is donating anything that is isn't salvaged for sickies to medical schools for dissection.
Heat dissipation is a MAJOR, HUGE factor is clustering. The G5's extremely low power output is undoubtedly a big selling point for G5 clusters. You think climate control for a cluster of AMD chips is cheap? It's hard enough to keep ONE Athlon XP cool, let alone a few hundred.
All the creativity and talent in the world doesn't mean anything in the 3D rendering world without lots of hardcore computing muscle to turn it into a reality. Those scenes don't just jump from the writers' minds onto the screen.
If I'm not mistaken, only particles with mass can have an "anti" version. It may even be only particles with charge, but I wouldn't swear to it.
Cygwin and Python should be your new best friends. They turn Windows into a very administrator-friendly system. Cygwin will give you all the great commandline tools you need, and Python is just about the best scripting language there is. Together, they rock Windows harder than you can imagine.
A great many application crashes in Windows are the result of the API being poorly documented and not working as "advertised". Linux applications crash far less often than Windows applications, even when written to similar levels of quality. Why? The Linux libraries and kernel are much more stable and don't pass gibberish back to applications. For an example, try running "The Urquan Masters" on Windows, and then try on Linux. You'll see one application freeze regularly, and the other run like a frightened rat.
It's quite possible to have perfect code. It's called "formal verification". It produces flawless code -- everytime. It involves theorem provers and mathematical models of the software. Many companies that produce software that will have people's lives depending on it use formal verification.
I use bzip2 even in Windows these days. It's just a far superior compression aglorithm (just shy of perfect huffman lossless compression too, as I understand it). It's just too bad that more people don't know about. That goes double for GPG -- it's just impossible to convince most people that securing ANYTHING is worthwhile.
That's money wasted, that could otherwise have been spent on lawsuits and the persecution of file-sharers. Good job, I say. The MPAA can join history's ranks upon ranks of meaningless organizations that wailed and gnashed their teeth over piracy, and accomplished nothing.
Accountability for tax-money spent on software is commendable, but making open-source mandatory is silly. Not all product niches have quality OSS offerings. It makes sense to compel government agencies to use, say, Apache rather than the bug-ridden IIS. But compelling them to use, say, an OSS LDAP solution rather than the excellent Active Directory would be highly erroneous.
The point? Governments should merely be forced to be publically accountable, and to be frugal whenever possible.
Best case scenario, this makes people take Linux more seriously. Worst case scenario, Microsoft starts making Windows a competitively priced and featured OS. Might we be seeing NFS and Ext3 support built into Windows soon? Perhaps even a better set of console tools and a free development environment? MSVC 5 bundled with Windows would do nicely.
Where are our computer-aimed rail-gun turrets? Video games have made it quite clear that we should have these things by now!!
Other factors, like whether the bullet tilts as it travels, whether or not it fragments, and other interesting things also make a difference.
It's a fraction, but it's a pretty big one -- something like 1/3rd per capita. That's not actually a whole lot less -- Canada is better armed than most nations other than the US. What do you expect from a country where everyone's descended from hunters and trappers?