Nope, it was overrated because it misses the point completely, as it appears a number of people do. The original poster said the following:
If you ignore windows ports of other GNU applications, you end up with linux having a great superiority over Windows:
If comparing GNU/Linux (the OS) to GNU/Windows (Windows OS + GNU tools) then it is pointless to compare features in the GNU tools since they are the same. If we ignore GNU tools then we are comparing the Linux kernel with the Windows kernel. (Technically, we should also ignore Windows tools that aren't part of the kernel to do a fair comparison consistent with the article.)
So in other words, ignoring GNU tools on both sides (Linux or Windows) is the right thing to do here, which is what the poster said and got flak for.
Now whether the poster was right about the kernels with Linux being better or not is up for debate, but that doesn't change the fact that it is proper to ignore the GNU tools.
The part where saying, "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong" became a valid method of debate.
Except that doesn't apply here. Third party software running on Windows is not part of the Windows OS. GNU utilities ported to Windows is not the same thing as Windows. In fact, it's the opposite. It says GNU/Linux is so much better than Windows that in order to do comparable things in Windows you need to port things from GNU/Linux. So it was a valid point.
Yes, it's "old" 70's (well, really, 50's, as it differs very little from the original Alweg designs that run on Seattle and Anaheim trackage) technology. However, buses are, what, 30's technology? Light rail vehicles, also, are nothing more than the modern version of the 1910's streetcars.
Oh, everything's stolen nowadays. Why, the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached.
(I can't believe I managed to use a relevent Simpson's quote in a story on monorails without refering to the monorail episode.)
Re:I may screw this up...
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Perhaps it's just the Brit jargon, but I just barely can understand what they're talking about in the article
Here, let me help:
clean: ('klEn).
Adjective. 1 a : free from dirt or pollution b : free from contamination or disease
Re:I may screw this up...
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P2P Bits
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· Score: 1
I agree completely that most people don't tend to form opinions or act based on reason or even thinking. But as someone who works hard at being objective and living by reason, I can tell you it's very hard. Not that the thinking and reasoning is very hard, but I've found that people generally hate thinking and reasoning.
As an example, a certain person I know (who shall remain nameless) will go through the trouble of sterilizing the tongs that touch the caps that go over the tops that go on the bottles that hold baby formula. By "sterilize" I mean boil in water on the stove for 10 minutes, not just clean with soap and water. Meanwhile, while this person is doing this, the baby is eating food off the kitchen floor behind them.
I've tried explaining about the absurdity of this in terms of relative risk, but they just don't get it. The answer is always, "The doctor says this is right." (an "appealing to authority" logical falsehood). And of course the doctor never actually said that, she (the doctor) was most likely told that I suggested that baby bottles shouldn't be sterilized. I asked (the sterilizer person) for some study or demonstration that not sterilizing the tongs, but just washing them with soap and water, puts the baby at more risk than eating off the floor. Of course there aren't any because this simply isn't true even by common sense (or thinking, or analysis, or so on). Anyway, the sterilizing still continues and I get told I'm being "anal". To top it off, other people get told about me saying that "you shouldn't sterilize baby food" (which of course I don't say), thus getting the reputation of being "anal".
So in the end, what do I get for all my trouble of actually thinking and reasoning... a bad reputation, teasing, etc. Given all that, why is it worth it to think and be reasonable? It's an uphill battle all the way. I believe that's why most people don't bother.
Thanks for the advice, and indeed I've thought of starting the business just for the purpose of licensing the idea. However, I'm not really interested in starting and "invention business". The invention idea I have is a good one, but I'm not really interested in coming with small simple inventions for a living or hobby. I do like my job and the work I do now.
I realize my only real hope is partnering with someone and sharing the results (patents, profit, loss?). I just find that unfortunate.
If you read the grandparent message, he's not saying "how far you can go", but how big your gas tank has to be, which I believe he meant in dimensional units (cubic inches, for example), not volume.
For example, in metric, how big of a gas tank do I need to go 674 km at 7.4 L/100 km (on one tank)? Obviously I need 674 km * 7.4 L/100 km = 49.876 L which is trivial to calculate. But how big is it? 49.876 L * 1000 cm^3/L = 49876 cm^3. Again, trivial in metric.
Try it in imperial for 526 miles at 28 MPG. That's 526 miles / 28 miles/gallon = 18.78 gallons. OK, how big is it? That's 18.78 gallons * ??? inches^3 / gallon. Hmm, what's the "???" factor? Don't know, I'll have to go look it up somewhere.
I believe this was the point. In imperial, conversions alway require conversion factors that either require memorization (and hence often mistakes) or reference tables and books (and sometimes mistakes there too). Metric conversions are trivial without requiring memorization or tables and are less likely for mistakes in the conversion factor since they are all multiples of 10. Worst case is the conversion is off by some multiple of 10, which is generally obvious by the result.
... require that one working model can at least be demonstrated.
While that option has some merit, it also causes problems for the "small shed in the yard inventor" you mention. For example, I have a concept for a certain product that I think is very ingenious. The parts for me to build it probably cost tens of thousands of dollars. I cannot afford to build it myself. I cannot get VC investment because they generally invest in businesses, not products. I would have to come up with a full business proposal with marketing analysis an such, which I don't have the time or money to do. Plus I'm not really that interested in starting a company around the product and I certainly wouldn't want it to be controlled by venture capitalists.
I also cannot afford to patent it myself, which is generally $10K-$20K. And I certainly can't afford to defend my patent. (As we all should know, a patent is only worth as much as you can afford to defend it.)
Really my only viable option is to license the idea to a company that would find it a useful product and develop it from the idea. Unfortunately, they also generally want a working prototype. Even if they recognize the design will work and it is useful, I am not protected by a patent so they can legally steal my idea. A non-disclosure agreement could help somewhat, but it is not as powerful as a patent. All they would need to do is make some minor changes or improvements to my design and they can leave me in the dust.
So right now I don't have any really attractive options. But requiring a working model more than doubles the cost of patenting for me. So it isn't a solution and doesn't help the "small guy".
How on earth is it difficult to figure out how big a gas tank needs to be to drive 1000 miles at 50 miles/gallon??
I believe he was referring to the actual dimensional size of the gas tank, not the volume. Obviously the size in gallons is trivial. But how big is that in cubic inches? This is also not difficult if you know the conversion factor, but the point is that you have to know all sorts of strange conversion factors. In metric the converson factors themselves are essentially trivial because they're all factors of 10.
I wish. We've had to deal with everything in inches for years from NASA, now our requirements are a mix. They say we need to detect 1/4" damage from 5 to 7 feet moving at up to 1 meter/min and 1" damage from 7 to 10 feet at up to 3 meters/min. To make matters worse, our scanner measures in millimeters, so we have to convert the spec to mm anyway to know that we can meet the spec. And this is a safety-of-flight program to ensure the shuttle is not damaged.
If publishers who do not use DRM make more money than those that do...
This is exactly point I was arguing was the problem. People do not (generally) buy music based on who the publisher is, except for a few activists. People buy music based on the artist and what's played on radio and MTV. Most of the artists people like are with the major labels as is most of what's played on radio and MTV. That's why the major labels are the major labels. And the major labels are all members of the RIAA, who are pushing DRM.
So, who exactly are these "non-DRM" publishers that are going to make more money than the "DRM" publishers? People aren't going to buy their albums just because they don't have DRM, they still need good artists and need to get played on radio and MTV. It's just not going to happen. You can't turn the entire music consumer base (or even a large enough portion) into activists who will buy music they don't like.
You would have a valid point if you could chose which publisher to buy the latest Beastie Boys album from, but you can't. If you want it, you either buy it with DRM or don't get it at all, or get it illegally. None of these choices are any good.
surely, authors are allowed to sell their stuff *WITHOUT* DRM... DRM restrictions should slowly vanish for purely economic reasons
While this is true in general, it isn't really true is practise. When all of the publishers agree to use DRM there is no alternative. This happens more with monopolies or quasi-monopolies (e.g., RIAA, MPAA). Realistically, there'll be a few independents who will avoid this, but that brings us to the second problem: A given creation can only be produced by one producer. This is where the free market arguement falls apart.
If I want to buy an inkjet printer, there are dozens of companies to buy from with virtually identical products. The same with almost all devices. The same isn't true for creative content. Sure, I can get some crappy songs, books, or movies from some independent producers, and occasionally they'll even have some good stuff. But the content is unique. If I like a band, I can't go to a competing publisher and get a "virtually identical product". I have no choice but to go to the publisher of that work, which means I may have to decide between giving up my rights to them or not getting a copy of that creative work. Either choice is bad for me. The publishers only have to have enough percentage of people to chose the latter for DRM to take hold.
However, should he be required to help you, or even make it easy for you?
That's not an appropriate analogy. It's not whether the content creators are helping you or not, it's whether they're hindering you. Stopping you from doing something you legally have the right to do is indeed immoral. It's like saying we all have the right to free speech, but the government is allowed to cut out everyone's tongue. It's a de facto removal of that right. A right only exists if it can be exercised.
I don't believe that bypassing DRM for legal purposes should be against the law.
Great, that's a start, but that's still the equivalent of sewing your tongue back on. It's still wrong for the government to remove it in the first place. It makes an elitist society where rights only go to those with the skills to circumvent the removal of their rights.
The comparison just meant that this is a smart, adaptive method, not blunt uniform reduction everywhere.
True, but I don't see what's really new about this. The story makes it sound like they've come up with some amazing polygon reduction scheme. We've been doing this for several years using Innovmetric's PolyWorks Modeler. It does "smart" mesh reductions to minimize feature loss. And the purpose is actually for reducing the size of the model, i.e., 3D model compression.
The only difference I see with this new method is that the new one seems to be polygon reductions for rendering speed, not file size, which actually isn't really compression then.
Except that "all promotional expenses" sounds benign enough.
It's hard, or even impossible, for people to think of all possible interpretations or applications. Call it a "failure of imagination". A good entertainment lawyer should be familar with the terminology and what it really means though.
This is a nice statement, and has its own valid point that I do agree with, but it just restates the post 3 levels above that I already commented on, and you didn't comment on that point.
Sure, there's validity to your statement. But also some incorrect assumptions. Hell, I have a PhD in Engineering and there are bus drivers who make more than me. Plumbers have a higher salary than I did and some make more than I do now after 5 years of work.
You make the incorrect assumption, as do many people, that salary is (or should be) based off of years of study. This is obviously not true, though a lot of people would like it to be (such as me). Salary is based on a wide range of factors of which study period is a small one. The difficulty of the field is another. However, a more important factor is supply and demand. Yes, unions do skew it because they create a "union" factor which drives salary as a function of "strong arming" rather than functions of a real market.
But the original point is still valid. If the public puts more money into education, they'd like to see some improvement in the actual education, not just increased salaries to which they don't seen much direct benefit.
It's not a black and white issue, and is difficult to solve.
I don't think that was the point. Although I don't completely agree with the grandparent post, there is a valid point. If students are getting aren't getting a good education and you have limited funds, putting most of the increased funds into teachers salaries doesn't really improve their education any. What's a fair division between salaries and actual improvements to education? I don't know, but it's a valid questions. Increasing salaries does help get teachers paid what they're worth (as you suggest), but that still doesn't help the children much.
Won't somebody please think of the children. (=
Re:Caps Lock has another very important purpose
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Is Caps Lock Dead?
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There should be workaround for this. In some countries it is legal to copy songs between people. Now this doesn't mean this type of DRM is illegal, but in Canada our right to copy to other people (spelled out in law) comes in exchange for levys on recordable media. If the music industry makes it impossible to make copies for other people, I imagine there'd be a number of lawsuits related to the de facto removal of a legal right and/or the charging of the levy without the quid pro quo.
That being said, they probably couldn't implement this form of DRM in Canada, which means we could copy all the songs and make them available for those in the U.S. to download, bypassing the DRM in the U.S.
It seems like a futile effort on the part of the RIAA.
Re:Caps Lock has another very important purpose
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Is Caps Lock Dead?
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· Score: 3, Funny
Electric motors don't have an 'optimal' fuel-efficient or torque-producing range of RPMs
Perhaps not in the same sense as IC engines, but they do have a maximum efficiency (usually in the low torque range). And hybrids do have transmissions, though the Prius has a very unique transmission.
If your making anything that is about the size of a large poster or bigger you have no choice but analogue
Actually, that's not quite true. It is true for a single photo, but there are a number of ways to make super-resolution images from multiple images of the same scene. (And I don't mean just interlacing them -- do a Google search for "super resolution PDF".) For still images this works quite well. For slowly moving camera/scene it requires some registration (for which there are automated algorithms). For fast motion this approach isn't really an option. This approach can also be used to sharpen images without amplifying the noise (as does single image sharpening).
In fact, I'd prefer this method over more megapixels because the signal-to-noise usually gets worse with more pixels (same light divided among more pixels).
boycott: to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (as a person, store, or organization) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions.
Doesn't say a think about "refuse to use" and exactly describes getting music through non-RIAA sources. I think you are confusing refusing to deal with the RIAA with refusing to use music. They aren't the same thing.
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If comparing GNU/Linux (the OS) to GNU/Windows (Windows OS + GNU tools) then it is pointless to compare features in the GNU tools since they are the same. If we ignore GNU tools then we are comparing the Linux kernel with the Windows kernel. (Technically, we should also ignore Windows tools that aren't part of the kernel to do a fair comparison consistent with the article.)
So in other words, ignoring GNU tools on both sides (Linux or Windows) is the right thing to do here, which is what the poster said and got flak for.
Now whether the poster was right about the kernels with Linux being better or not is up for debate, but that doesn't change the fact that it is proper to ignore the GNU tools.
Except that doesn't apply here. Third party software running on Windows is not part of the Windows OS. GNU utilities ported to Windows is not the same thing as Windows. In fact, it's the opposite. It says GNU/Linux is so much better than Windows that in order to do comparable things in Windows you need to port things from GNU/Linux. So it was a valid point.
Oh, everything's stolen nowadays. Why, the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached.
(I can't believe I managed to use a relevent Simpson's quote in a story on monorails without refering to the monorail episode.)
No comment!
Here, let me help:
As an example, a certain person I know (who shall remain nameless) will go through the trouble of sterilizing the tongs that touch the caps that go over the tops that go on the bottles that hold baby formula. By "sterilize" I mean boil in water on the stove for 10 minutes, not just clean with soap and water. Meanwhile, while this person is doing this, the baby is eating food off the kitchen floor behind them.
I've tried explaining about the absurdity of this in terms of relative risk, but they just don't get it. The answer is always, "The doctor says this is right." (an "appealing to authority" logical falsehood). And of course the doctor never actually said that, she (the doctor) was most likely told that I suggested that baby bottles shouldn't be sterilized. I asked (the sterilizer person) for some study or demonstration that not sterilizing the tongs, but just washing them with soap and water, puts the baby at more risk than eating off the floor. Of course there aren't any because this simply isn't true even by common sense (or thinking, or analysis, or so on). Anyway, the sterilizing still continues and I get told I'm being "anal". To top it off, other people get told about me saying that "you shouldn't sterilize baby food" (which of course I don't say), thus getting the reputation of being "anal".
So in the end, what do I get for all my trouble of actually thinking and reasoning ... a bad reputation, teasing, etc. Given all that, why is it worth it to think and be reasonable? It's an uphill battle all the way. I believe that's why most people don't bother.
I realize my only real hope is partnering with someone and sharing the results (patents, profit, loss?). I just find that unfortunate.
For example, in metric, how big of a gas tank do I need to go 674 km at 7.4 L/100 km (on one tank)? Obviously I need 674 km * 7.4 L/100 km = 49.876 L which is trivial to calculate. But how big is it? 49.876 L * 1000 cm^3/L = 49876 cm^3. Again, trivial in metric.
Try it in imperial for 526 miles at 28 MPG. That's 526 miles / 28 miles/gallon = 18.78 gallons. OK, how big is it? That's 18.78 gallons * ??? inches^3 / gallon. Hmm, what's the "???" factor? Don't know, I'll have to go look it up somewhere.
I believe this was the point. In imperial, conversions alway require conversion factors that either require memorization (and hence often mistakes) or reference tables and books (and sometimes mistakes there too). Metric conversions are trivial without requiring memorization or tables and are less likely for mistakes in the conversion factor since they are all multiples of 10. Worst case is the conversion is off by some multiple of 10, which is generally obvious by the result.
While that option has some merit, it also causes problems for the "small shed in the yard inventor" you mention. For example, I have a concept for a certain product that I think is very ingenious. The parts for me to build it probably cost tens of thousands of dollars. I cannot afford to build it myself. I cannot get VC investment because they generally invest in businesses, not products. I would have to come up with a full business proposal with marketing analysis an such, which I don't have the time or money to do. Plus I'm not really that interested in starting a company around the product and I certainly wouldn't want it to be controlled by venture capitalists.
I also cannot afford to patent it myself, which is generally $10K-$20K. And I certainly can't afford to defend my patent. (As we all should know, a patent is only worth as much as you can afford to defend it.)
Really my only viable option is to license the idea to a company that would find it a useful product and develop it from the idea. Unfortunately, they also generally want a working prototype. Even if they recognize the design will work and it is useful, I am not protected by a patent so they can legally steal my idea. A non-disclosure agreement could help somewhat, but it is not as powerful as a patent. All they would need to do is make some minor changes or improvements to my design and they can leave me in the dust.
So right now I don't have any really attractive options. But requiring a working model more than doubles the cost of patenting for me. So it isn't a solution and doesn't help the "small guy".
I believe he was referring to the actual dimensional size of the gas tank, not the volume. Obviously the size in gallons is trivial. But how big is that in cubic inches? This is also not difficult if you know the conversion factor, but the point is that you have to know all sorts of strange conversion factors. In metric the converson factors themselves are essentially trivial because they're all factors of 10.
I wish. We've had to deal with everything in inches for years from NASA, now our requirements are a mix. They say we need to detect 1/4" damage from 5 to 7 feet moving at up to 1 meter/min and 1" damage from 7 to 10 feet at up to 3 meters/min. To make matters worse, our scanner measures in millimeters, so we have to convert the spec to mm anyway to know that we can meet the spec. And this is a safety-of-flight program to ensure the shuttle is not damaged.
This is exactly point I was arguing was the problem. People do not (generally) buy music based on who the publisher is, except for a few activists. People buy music based on the artist and what's played on radio and MTV. Most of the artists people like are with the major labels as is most of what's played on radio and MTV. That's why the major labels are the major labels. And the major labels are all members of the RIAA, who are pushing DRM.
So, who exactly are these "non-DRM" publishers that are going to make more money than the "DRM" publishers? People aren't going to buy their albums just because they don't have DRM, they still need good artists and need to get played on radio and MTV. It's just not going to happen. You can't turn the entire music consumer base (or even a large enough portion) into activists who will buy music they don't like.
You would have a valid point if you could chose which publisher to buy the latest Beastie Boys album from, but you can't. If you want it, you either buy it with DRM or don't get it at all, or get it illegally. None of these choices are any good.
While this is true in general, it isn't really true is practise. When all of the publishers agree to use DRM there is no alternative. This happens more with monopolies or quasi-monopolies (e.g., RIAA, MPAA). Realistically, there'll be a few independents who will avoid this, but that brings us to the second problem: A given creation can only be produced by one producer. This is where the free market arguement falls apart.
If I want to buy an inkjet printer, there are dozens of companies to buy from with virtually identical products. The same with almost all devices. The same isn't true for creative content. Sure, I can get some crappy songs, books, or movies from some independent producers, and occasionally they'll even have some good stuff. But the content is unique. If I like a band, I can't go to a competing publisher and get a "virtually identical product". I have no choice but to go to the publisher of that work, which means I may have to decide between giving up my rights to them or not getting a copy of that creative work. Either choice is bad for me. The publishers only have to have enough percentage of people to chose the latter for DRM to take hold.
That's not an appropriate analogy. It's not whether the content creators are helping you or not, it's whether they're hindering you. Stopping you from doing something you legally have the right to do is indeed immoral. It's like saying we all have the right to free speech, but the government is allowed to cut out everyone's tongue. It's a de facto removal of that right. A right only exists if it can be exercised.
I don't believe that bypassing DRM for legal purposes should be against the law.
Great, that's a start, but that's still the equivalent of sewing your tongue back on. It's still wrong for the government to remove it in the first place. It makes an elitist society where rights only go to those with the skills to circumvent the removal of their rights.
True, but I don't see what's really new about this. The story makes it sound like they've come up with some amazing polygon reduction scheme. We've been doing this for several years using Innovmetric's PolyWorks Modeler. It does "smart" mesh reductions to minimize feature loss. And the purpose is actually for reducing the size of the model, i.e., 3D model compression.
The only difference I see with this new method is that the new one seems to be polygon reductions for rendering speed, not file size, which actually isn't really compression then.
It's hard, or even impossible, for people to think of all possible interpretations or applications. Call it a "failure of imagination". A good entertainment lawyer should be familar with the terminology and what it really means though.
Sure, there's validity to your statement. But also some incorrect assumptions. Hell, I have a PhD in Engineering and there are bus drivers who make more than me. Plumbers have a higher salary than I did and some make more than I do now after 5 years of work.
You make the incorrect assumption, as do many people, that salary is (or should be) based off of years of study. This is obviously not true, though a lot of people would like it to be (such as me). Salary is based on a wide range of factors of which study period is a small one. The difficulty of the field is another. However, a more important factor is supply and demand. Yes, unions do skew it because they create a "union" factor which drives salary as a function of "strong arming" rather than functions of a real market.
But the original point is still valid. If the public puts more money into education, they'd like to see some improvement in the actual education, not just increased salaries to which they don't seen much direct benefit.
It's not a black and white issue, and is difficult to solve.
Won't somebody please think of the children. (=
Sorry, I accidently had the Caps Lock on.
That's an interesting point. Does this DRM mean that you can't sell your purchased music, thereby wiping out the used CD industry?
There should be workaround for this. In some countries it is legal to copy songs between people. Now this doesn't mean this type of DRM is illegal, but in Canada our right to copy to other people (spelled out in law) comes in exchange for levys on recordable media. If the music industry makes it impossible to make copies for other people, I imagine there'd be a number of lawsuits related to the de facto removal of a legal right and/or the charging of the levy without the quid pro quo.
That being said, they probably couldn't implement this form of DRM in Canada, which means we could copy all the songs and make them available for those in the U.S. to download, bypassing the DRM in the U.S.
It seems like a futile effort on the part of the RIAA.
YOU'RE CRAZY!
Perhaps not in the same sense as IC engines, but they do have a maximum efficiency (usually in the low torque range). And hybrids do have transmissions, though the Prius has a very unique transmission.
Actually, that's not quite true. It is true for a single photo, but there are a number of ways to make super-resolution images from multiple images of the same scene. (And I don't mean just interlacing them -- do a Google search for "super resolution PDF".) For still images this works quite well. For slowly moving camera/scene it requires some registration (for which there are automated algorithms). For fast motion this approach isn't really an option. This approach can also be used to sharpen images without amplifying the noise (as does single image sharpening).
In fact, I'd prefer this method over more megapixels because the signal-to-noise usually gets worse with more pixels (same light divided among more pixels).
From Merriam-Webster:
Doesn't say a think about "refuse to use" and exactly describes getting music through non-RIAA sources. I think you are confusing refusing to deal with the RIAA with refusing to use music. They aren't the same thing.