I may be wrong, but I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the best flow occurs when the traffic does merge at the pinch point (where one of the lanes physically can no longer be used and a single lane continues), one vehicle from each lane in turn (ideally, as they head towards the pinch point, the vehicles should match speed with each vehicle next to a gap so that a smooth merge is effected: just like a couple of cogged wheels).
With people trying to merge before this point, you'll get many merge points, each with their queues - as the queues merge, the traffic slows, but once merged, it can speed up again; however, it then comes to another merge point and slows again, repeating until the physical pinch point whereupon the 2 streams of traffic have to become one and can then flow properly again. Also, you'll get the effect of "I've been queuing for ages, so I'm not going to let you in", and "I'm not going to let that bus beat me", etc resuling in tailgating and forcing any traffic to have to slow in the dying lane, making it more likey that traffic in the lane that continues will also have to slow down, upsetting the flow.
This is like a stretch of two lane highway which is reduced to one lane by two (or more) sets of road works, with no exits between them: there will be a queue at the first set where the capacity of the road is reduced to 1/2 (two lanes to one), but there will also be another queue at the next set, even though the capacity through all the road works is the same - one lane. Trying to merge before the physical pinch point is a bit like creating many "temporary" pinch points - each will cause a queue, somtimes with a bit of reasonable flow between them.
The basic problem is one of roads running near (if not over) capacity - it is an unstable flow: as long as the traffic is flowing, it will flow, but as soon as there is a slight hiccup, the flow breaks down and you get the phantom jams (the hiccup doesn't have to be as dramatic as an idiot suddenly changing lanes, it can be a simple small lapse in concentration effecting an over reaction creating a shock wave that runs backwards through the traffic, eventually causing someone to actually stop); and selfish behaviour by drivers, "racing".
As an aside, in the UK Highway Code it lists the typical stopping distances for various speeds. Using the figures given, to allow the maximum amount of traffic to flow along a stretch of road, if everyone kept these distaces between them and the vehicle in front, the optimum speed is given by sqrt(20 * len) mph where len is the average vehicle length in feet - thus if you want to get the most amount of traffic to flow at the highest speed possible, you want quite a few (ie a lot of) long vehicles (buses, lorries, etc)!
It all seems to boil down to exactly what you are buying: a licence to use a copy of the copyrighted thing (and possibly the physical packaging of the thing, eg DVD disk), and not the copy itself.
If the copyright holders (or their agent(s), etc) decide that you can only use that copy in one specific way, then tough, that's what you get: eg a DVD that may only be used within a [certain] DVD player; if you wish to play your DVD using say a general computer as opposed to a DVD [only] player then you'll have to buy a separate licence for that, the fact that your computer can play the DVD is irrelevant - it would be illegal for you to do it.
The problem is that end-users are unaware of this and the copyright holders, etc are more than happy to avoid educating the masses - would you feel inclined to go out and buy a "copy" of a film if it was advertised as
"out now for you to purchase a licence to watch on a certified DVD player only"
Vendors...charge what you are willing to pay for that product.
If that is true, why is there so much complaint (by the vendors) about "piracy" whereby you get the product for what you are willing to pay - nothing or a fraction of their "official" price?
Or to put it another way: vendors are not charging what people are willing to pay, they are charging much more - whatever they [think they] can get away with charging; thus people will look to getting their product for cheaper from whereever they can.
It's turning into a bit of a spiral: because the price is too high, people go for pirated copies meaning that there is less return for the vendors, thus the vendors have to charge even more to stay where they were financially, leading to more people turing to pirated copies...
By Purchasing this product you agree to...that you are actually only licencing this product.
Most EULAs actual say that you are only licencing the product, not purchasing it, otherwise you would actually own it and could do what you want with it. So either the EULA is self contradictory (if it refers to you purchasing the product), or the original sale was fraudulent, or both...
All these statistics boil down to what the browsers say they are. At least 80% of browsers say they are IE, but how many are those which have to pretend to be so for those borken web sites that only accept IE but still work with other browsers? It may only be 1%, but it could be 20% or more. You can prove anything you want with statistics.
Surely it's not the application that has patent protection, but the actual patent. I have no problems with patent applications per se being unpublished, but once the patent has been granted then the idea must be published, in full, with enough details so that anyone [skilled enough in the "craft"?] can make a duplicate implementation of the patented idea. (If this latter can't be done, then the patent application must fail.)
The questions I have are: Why did they want the patent application unpublished? What did/do they have to hide? What are they scared of? (Obvious prior art?) Or are there valid reasons for a patent application to be non-published?
There's the rub: MUST have both. Decreeing that all TVs now MUST have broadcast flag recognition is the same as if they had decreed "Must ONLY have UHF" then.
I'm confused. The SCO chart is based on the Eric Levenz 2003 chart. The 2004 chart is an upgrade of this, but they both (Eric's) show an arrow in 1984 from the Unix TSS line, just before V8 to the start of the Minix line, which then has an arrow in 1990/1991 from it to the start of the Linux line. From that, they could possibly claim derivation of ideas. But there is also a line in 1978 from the Unix TSS line (just prior to V7) to the start of the BSD line - how much can SCO claim of BSD considering that that's already been tried and found untenable (exact details of settlement sealed)?
The real confusion comes as they've [previously] claimed that the 2.2.x kernels are SCO IP free; only the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels are tainted (or so they claimed). They've just changed their minds and demonstrated that all Linux is their IP, not just part of it.
Is that screeching I can hear the barrel being scraped?
I think I was just highlighting the problem with the suggestion.
In every reform of which I could think, there would be exceptions to the norm that a nasty party could use to effectively wreck a perfectly law abiding party.
If it wasn't for frivolous lawsuits, most reforms re-adressing the balance of cash work well. But then the problem comes in defining what is a frivolous case.
Would you say that the case of the woman spilling a burger chain's coffee on herself and then suing the burger chain because the cup, although it [probably] said "caution contents hot", but didn't say "do not try to open the lid whilst holding cup between thighs as spillage of hot coffee may occur and cause serious scalding", is probably a frivolous one (on the basis that the second warning is more than obvious based on the first one - perhaps someone should ask the USPTO for their opinion...)?
Of the case of a supermarket putting the warning "This product contains nuts" on a packet of Peanuts - would anyone who sued them for a nut allegy if they didn't put this warning on the packet really expect to win; I mean a packet of peanuts!
All I can do is quote someones sig (which I think is quite appropriate/funny):
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
I'm sure people would be much more careful of their actions if they knew that there'd be little, or no, recourse to others for the results of them.
And if I sue a giant company and do my own legal work, and lose, I could end up costing them lots of money whilst I only accrue little legal fees. How much would they get from me? Especially if the case is a frivolous one?
Jurors are barred from speaking about [their deliberations on] a case, so why not bar the parties involved from public speaking about the case, or related issues, (except in generalities?) on threat of contempt of court: with fines of "dismissal with prejudice and damages" against the plaintiff, and "loss of case [with no appeal?] and damages" against the defendant.
This would have allowed the Linux community to call SCOs "bluff": SCO claim their code is in Linux but are unwilling to reveal what it is so that it could be fixed. RedHat could then have sued SCO to tell them what was the illegal code so that it could be removed. Now SCO could not claim that their code was in Linux without specifying what it was without being in contempt of court and being judged as having no illegal code in Linux, and being forced to pay damages.
if the suing company is worth 10x the smaller company, the suing company has to pay for all the smaller company's defense...[y]ou can even make it scale
And if the suer is the smaller business and is worth say 1/10x the suee (ie the party being sued is worth 10x the suer), what then? The suee has to foot the bill for both themselves and the suer, even though the case may be leaking worse than the Titanic?
Tho' why'd it displayed the whole page, quite nicely, to me BEFORE dying and telling me to download IE6 - I wonder how much Redmond are paying them for that?
I didn't understand "why anybody would voluntarily play a game where they knew they were going to loose."
It's not the playing with the knowledge "that they'll loose" that make them play, it's the knowledge "that they might win, and win big" - it's why many people get into playing the National Lotto: it's only a 1 pound stake, and there's a possible payout of a millon or 3 pounds, plus the smaller prizes which seem to give back something on the "investment"...I think it's been calculated that you've got more chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lotto, but how many people do you see deliberately going out in a thunder storm?
Not quite: in Casino Blackjack (only, I believe) the odds do occassionally actually favour the player - you just have to be good at remembering what cards have been dealt.
Roulette, because of green 0 [and 00 where appropriate], gives the house a percentage of a bit over 5% per bet - ie for every pound you bet, you can expect a return of at most 95p (in the long run).
Do I have to pay for a license for each client or do I just pay for the one license for the server?
Both. You pay a licence for the server OS, a licence for the client OS and then further Client Access Licences for the clients to access the server - you have a choice:
Per Seat where you need one licence per machine that could connect to any of your servers; or Per Client where you need one licence per machine that concurrently connects to that server.
So you obviously have a M$ Network Tax which is payable on either the total number of clients, or the number of concurrent clients to the server - obviously an extra licence for the [use of the] networking software which comes bundled with the OS which you thought you had licenced in the original price. And this is on top of any licencing requirements of any software you use over your network or on your server.
Disclaimer: This is based on my NT & Win2K knowledge; XP licencing may be different (but I doubt it).
Most of my spam (4878/4891 = 99.73% so far this year) arrives at one e-addr which I no longer use. [The rest (13/4891 = 0.27%) has arrived at another non-existant e-addr (looks like a message_id) - probably used by one spammer.]
None of the spam arrives at my active e-addrs - as soon as it does, I've got a sure fire moan at the source: each sign-up that requires an e-addr get an individual, traceable one. (The only problem is my main, family one: if that gets spammed, it implies that it's been leaked by a friend, possibly by a worm/virus.)
They claim to have sold a handful to unnamed companies.
In which case they have claimed to being in breech of the GPL and so have no licence to distribute the contributions of the other kernel hackers and so have claimed to have comitted copyright infringement - surely?
To repeat the oft quoted, and apparently often forgotten reason: because it costs me money and I've got little chance of not having it arrive in my mailbox (at my ISP), whereas the mass advertising I see everywhere else I do not have to pay for, nor do I really notice.
I cannot name the advertisements I've seen (probably for a car, amongst others), but I daily get repeat/multiple messages for products for organ enlargement (which I do not need), pornographic web sites (I do not wish to know about), etc.
If you want an example, out of 4,323 spam messages this year so far, 2178 (50.3%) were messages that spamvertised only 19 porn sites hosted by WANADOO.FR (ironically sister company of the ISP hosting my email address); now do you understand the difference?
Are these stats of actual browsers, or what the browsers report themselves to be?
I'd suspect that they're what the browsers are reporting themselves to be; this is akin to problems that have occurred with the census people when people have to state something, eg: in the United States, a 10-yearly census found more people in the 65-70 age band than in the 55-60 age band 10 years earlier and the difference could not be accounted for by immigration.
Until [all] sites are no longer browser demanding, these [self-given] stats have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
What's the point of such mail, other than to clog the web with really useless crap.
Any your filters with crap: you get it, see it as spam, give it to your spam filter to learn and, Robert's your father's brother, your filter starts filtering out proper email as spam as well.
I'm lucky as I can filter on "To:" alone; as in 2003, 8579/8625 (99.47%) and, so far this year, 2961/2969 (99.73%), arrive at one e-addr [all spam has arrived at one "Envelope-to:"] - the rest are message IDs and "postmaster@", "email@", "webmaster@" & "get.real@"
Slashdot Mirror
I may be wrong, but I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the best flow occurs when the traffic does merge at the pinch point (where one of the lanes physically can no longer be used and a single lane continues), one vehicle from each lane in turn (ideally, as they head towards the pinch point, the vehicles should match speed with each vehicle next to a gap so that a smooth merge is effected: just like a couple of cogged wheels).
With people trying to merge before this point, you'll get many merge points, each with their queues - as the queues merge, the traffic slows, but once merged, it can speed up again; however, it then comes to another merge point and slows again, repeating until the physical pinch point whereupon the 2 streams of traffic have to become one and can then flow properly again. Also, you'll get the effect of "I've been queuing for ages, so I'm not going to let you in", and "I'm not going to let that bus beat me", etc resuling in tailgating and forcing any traffic to have to slow in the dying lane, making it more likey that traffic in the lane that continues will also have to slow down, upsetting the flow.
This is like a stretch of two lane highway which is reduced to one lane by two (or more) sets of road works, with no exits between them: there will be a queue at the first set where the capacity of the road is reduced to 1/2 (two lanes to one), but there will also be another queue at the next set, even though the capacity through all the road works is the same - one lane. Trying to merge before the physical pinch point is a bit like creating many "temporary" pinch points - each will cause a queue, somtimes with a bit of reasonable flow between them.
The basic problem is one of roads running near (if not over) capacity - it is an unstable flow: as long as the traffic is flowing, it will flow, but as soon as there is a slight hiccup, the flow breaks down and you get the phantom jams (the hiccup doesn't have to be as dramatic as an idiot suddenly changing lanes, it can be a simple small lapse in concentration effecting an over reaction creating a shock wave that runs backwards through the traffic, eventually causing someone to actually stop); and selfish behaviour by drivers, "racing".
As an aside, in the UK Highway Code it lists the typical stopping distances for various speeds. Using the figures given, to allow the maximum amount of traffic to flow along a stretch of road, if everyone kept these distaces between them and the vehicle in front, the optimum speed is given by sqrt(20 * len) mph where len is the average vehicle length in feet - thus if you want to get the most amount of traffic to flow at the highest speed possible, you want quite a few (ie a lot of) long vehicles (buses, lorries, etc)!
Why should losing worry them so much? More to the point, it shows a lack of due diligence in filing of the original suit?
It all seems to boil down to exactly what you are buying: a licence to use a copy of the copyrighted thing (and possibly the physical packaging of the thing, eg DVD disk), and not the copy itself.
If the copyright holders (or their agent(s), etc) decide that you can only use that copy in one specific way, then tough, that's what you get: eg a DVD that may only be used within a [certain] DVD player; if you wish to play your DVD using say a general computer as opposed to a DVD [only] player then you'll have to buy a separate licence for that, the fact that your computer can play the DVD is irrelevant - it would be illegal for you to do it.
The problem is that end-users are unaware of this and the copyright holders, etc are more than happy to avoid educating the masses - would you feel inclined to go out and buy a "copy" of a film if it was advertised as
"out now for you to purchase a licence to watch on a certified DVD player only"
instead of
"out now for you to own"
Feature := Bug as described by the marketing department.[1]
[1] From the glossary of an Apple ][ manual.
Vendors...charge what you are willing to pay for that product.
If that is true, why is there so much complaint (by the vendors) about "piracy" whereby you get the product for what you are willing to pay - nothing or a fraction of their "official" price?
Or to put it another way: vendors are not charging what people are willing to pay, they are charging much more - whatever they [think they] can get away with charging; thus people will look to getting their product for cheaper from whereever they can.
It's turning into a bit of a spiral: because the price is too high, people go for pirated copies meaning that there is less return for the vendors, thus the vendors have to charge even more to stay where they were financially, leading to more people turing to pirated copies...
By Purchasing this product you agree to...that you are actually only licencing this product.
Most EULAs actual say that you are only licencing the product, not purchasing it, otherwise you would actually own it and could do what you want with it. So either the EULA is self contradictory (if it refers to you purchasing the product), or the original sale was fraudulent, or both...
All these statistics boil down to what the browsers say they are. At least 80% of browsers say they are IE, but how many are those which have to pretend to be so for those borken web sites that only accept IE but still work with other browsers? It may only be 1%, but it could be 20% or more. You can prove anything you want with statistics.
The questions I have are: Why did they want the patent application unpublished? What did/do they have to hide? What are they scared of? (Obvious prior art?) Or are there valid reasons for a patent application to be non-published?
There's the rub: MUST have both . Decreeing that all TVs now MUST have broadcast flag recognition is the same as if they had decreed "Must ONLY have UHF" then.
I'm confused. The SCO chart is based on the Eric Levenz 2003 chart. The 2004 chart is an upgrade of this, but they both (Eric's) show an arrow in 1984 from the Unix TSS line, just before V8 to the start of the Minix line, which then has an arrow in 1990/1991 from it to the start of the Linux line. From that, they could possibly claim derivation of ideas. But there is also a line in 1978 from the Unix TSS line (just prior to V7) to the start of the BSD line - how much can SCO claim of BSD considering that that's already been tried and found untenable (exact details of settlement sealed)?
The real confusion comes as they've [previously] claimed that the 2.2.x kernels are SCO IP free; only the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels are tainted (or so they claimed). They've just changed their minds and demonstrated that all Linux is their IP, not just part of it.
Is that screeching I can hear the barrel being scraped?
Can you say "Paladium"?
It looks like Microsoft can't.
I think I was just highlighting the problem with the suggestion.
In every reform of which I could think, there would be exceptions to the norm that a nasty party could use to effectively wreck a perfectly law abiding party.
If it wasn't for frivolous lawsuits, most reforms re-adressing the balance of cash work well. But then the problem comes in defining what is a frivolous case.
Would you say that the case of the woman spilling a burger chain's coffee on herself and then suing the burger chain because the cup, although it [probably] said "caution contents hot", but didn't say "do not try to open the lid whilst holding cup between thighs as spillage of hot coffee may occur and cause serious scalding", is probably a frivolous one (on the basis that the second warning is more than obvious based on the first one - perhaps someone should ask the USPTO for their opinion...)?
Of the case of a supermarket putting the warning "This product contains nuts" on a packet of Peanuts - would anyone who sued them for a nut allegy if they didn't put this warning on the packet really expect to win; I mean a packet of peanuts!
All I can do is quote someones sig (which I think is quite appropriate/funny):
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
I'm sure people would be much more careful of their actions if they knew that there'd be little, or no, recourse to others for the results of them.
And if I sue a giant company and do my own legal work, and lose, I could end up costing them lots of money whilst I only accrue little legal fees. How much would they get from me? Especially if the case is a frivolous one?
Jurors are barred from speaking about [their deliberations on] a case, so why not bar the parties involved from public speaking about the case, or related issues, (except in generalities?) on threat of contempt of court: with fines of "dismissal with prejudice and damages" against the plaintiff, and "loss of case [with no appeal?] and damages" against the defendant.
This would have allowed the Linux community to call SCOs "bluff": SCO claim their code is in Linux but are unwilling to reveal what it is so that it could be fixed. RedHat could then have sued SCO to tell them what was the illegal code so that it could be removed. Now SCO could not claim that their code was in Linux without specifying what it was without being in contempt of court and being judged as having no illegal code in Linux, and being forced to pay damages.
if the suing company is worth 10x the smaller company, the suing company has to pay for all the smaller company's defense...[y]ou can even make it scale
And if the suer is the smaller business and is worth say 1/10x the suee (ie the party being sued is worth 10x the suer), what then? The suee has to foot the bill for both themselves and the suer, even though the case may be leaking worse than the Titanic?
Easy: remove the "onload=..." bit
Tho' why'd it displayed the whole page, quite nicely, to me BEFORE dying and telling me to download IE6 - I wonder how much Redmond are paying them for that?
I think this bit of the main page says it all:
DESIGNED & MAINTAINED BY MAYBE GROUP LIMITED
(I can't seem to find them - perhaps someone's already punched 'em?)
Neither, it's either 1st April 2004 or 2001 April 4th.
I didn't understand "why anybody would voluntarily play a game where they knew they were going to loose."
It's not the playing with the knowledge "that they'll loose" that make them play, it's the knowledge "that they might win, and win big" - it's why many people get into playing the National Lotto: it's only a 1 pound stake, and there's a possible payout of a millon or 3 pounds, plus the smaller prizes which seem to give back something on the "investment"...I think it's been calculated that you've got more chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lotto, but how many people do you see deliberately going out in a thunder storm?
All casino games are "suckers games"
Not quite: in Casino Blackjack (only, I believe) the odds do occassionally actually favour the player - you just have to be good at remembering what cards have been dealt.
Roulette, because of green 0 [and 00 where appropriate], gives the house a percentage of a bit over 5% per bet - ie for every pound you bet, you can expect a return of at most 95p (in the long run).
Do I have to pay for a license for each client or do I just pay for the one license for the server?
Both. You pay a licence for the server OS, a licence for the client OS and then further Client Access Licences for the clients to access the server - you have a choice:
Per Seat where you need one licence per machine that could connect to any of your servers; or
Per Client where you need one licence per machine that concurrently connects to that server.
So you obviously have a M$ Network Tax which is payable on either the total number of clients, or the number of concurrent clients to the server - obviously an extra licence for the [use of the] networking software which comes bundled with the OS which you thought you had licenced in the original price. And this is on top of any licencing requirements of any software you use over your network or on your server.
Disclaimer: This is based on my NT & Win2K knowledge; XP licencing may be different (but I doubt it).
Most of my spam (4878/4891 = 99.73% so far this year) arrives at one e-addr which I no longer use. [The rest (13/4891 = 0.27%) has arrived at another non-existant e-addr (looks like a message_id) - probably used by one spammer.]
None of the spam arrives at my active e-addrs - as soon as it does, I've got a sure fire moan at the source: each sign-up that requires an e-addr get an individual, traceable one. (The only problem is my main, family one: if that gets spammed, it implies that it's been leaked by a friend, possibly by a worm/virus.)
They claim to have sold a handful to unnamed companies.
In which case they have claimed to being in breech of the GPL and so have no licence to distribute the contributions of the other kernel hackers and so have claimed to have comitted copyright infringement - surely?
To repeat the oft quoted, and apparently often forgotten reason: because it costs me money and I've got little chance of not having it arrive in my mailbox (at my ISP), whereas the mass advertising I see everywhere else I do not have to pay for, nor do I really notice.
I cannot name the advertisements I've seen (probably for a car, amongst others), but I daily get repeat/multiple messages for products for organ enlargement (which I do not need), pornographic web sites (I do not wish to know about), etc.
If you want an example, out of 4,323 spam messages this year so far, 2178 (50.3%) were messages that spamvertised only 19 porn sites hosted by WANADOO.FR (ironically sister company of the ISP hosting my email address); now do you understand the difference?
Are these stats of actual browsers, or what the browsers report themselves to be?
I'd suspect that they're what the browsers are reporting themselves to be; this is akin to problems that have occurred with the census people when people have to state something, eg: in the United States, a 10-yearly census found more people in the 65-70 age band than in the 55-60 age band 10 years earlier and the difference could not be accounted for by immigration.
Until [all] sites are no longer browser demanding, these [self-given] stats have to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Same thing with Red Hat. So what if I start a company called Blue Hat
Wasn't/isn't there Pink Hat Linux distribution?
What's the point of such mail, other than to clog the web with really useless crap.
Any your filters with crap: you get it, see it as spam, give it to your spam filter to learn and, Robert's your father's brother, your filter starts filtering out proper email as spam as well.
I'm lucky as I can filter on "To:" alone; as in 2003, 8579/8625 (99.47%) and, so far this year, 2961/2969 (99.73%), arrive at one e-addr [all spam has arrived at one "Envelope-to:"] - the rest are message IDs and "postmaster@", "email@", "webmaster@" & "get.real@"