Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground.
I'm not up to date on my space program figures. But it is expensive as hell to put a kilogram of material into orbit. I'd much rather pay for a plain old bomb, or even a reusable space laser. Carrying a rod into space to shoot it back down to earth is not cost effective.
Perhaps, but what if a developer working for a rival company looks at it? Is that any different?
I think it would be fine if a competitor looked at it, so long as he didn't blatantly copy from it. That would be infringing on MS's rights. But I don't think it fair to lump the two together and assume that viewing the source makes you culpable as copying it does.
There is such thing as a Trade Secret. But that is only enforceable so far as you can do it yourself with confidentiality agreements and the like. Once your secret is blown, its blown. You can stick it to whoever broke their agreement or illegally stole and revealed your secret. But you can't force the public to ignore the information.
Since its a copyrighted work, you can't use it without a license. So compiling it (good luck) and using/distributing it would be way out of line.
Your example is a crime because you included hacking into a computer to do the stealing. Just like whoever stole/leaked the MS code committed a crime.
What we're talking about is more like picking up and reading the Harry Potter book that someone stole from a bookstore and left on the table. The reading part is not criminal, the stealing part is.
Furthermore, a books main purpose is to be read. A program's main purpose is to execute. I know that is knitpicking. But I wouldn't consider it copyright infringement to use a book I didn't own the rights to to prop up a table, or a CD I didn't own as a coaster.
While it may be illegal to steal source code that is privately held. I don't know that it is illegal to view it once it has been released. Perhaps someone has a more educated viewpoint. But this seems like a scare tactic without much legal standing.
There is much reason to beleive that the world is not as old as the currently held 4.6 billion years. To begin with, the radiometric dating methods used do not work. They are based on two key assumptions, one of which is a critical weakness.
1. At the beginning of the earth there was 100% parent radioactive material, and 0% daughter material. And there is no other source of daughter material. -> Very large assumption that is wrong.
2. Radioactive decay occurs at a somewhat constant rate. -> I'm ok with this one. The rate changes slightly with pressure and heat, but not enough to significantly impact results.
This isn't just talk. There is a lot of data available that shows how innacurate this method is.
For example:
If you send one rock to a dating lab to be tested using uranium/lead, rubidium/strontium, and potasium/argon procedures, you will receive three different results, often differing by tens or hundreds of millions of years. Now put on your scientist hat and listen to this. For a normal test, they would look at what layer it came from to estimate its age, and through out the data that didn't fit their estimate!
If all three tests show different ages, it is obvious that the dating method is flawed in at least two of the tests, more likely all three.
And the flaws have been tested and shown to be egregious. Tests of samples with known ages have shown just how wrong they can be. Lava flows less than 200 year old have tested, using the popular rubidium-strontium isochron method, to be 1.34 +/- 0.04 billion years old! This is not an isolated result. You could google all day long and not run out of errant tests like this. The problem is that these tests are so sensitive to error, that having just a minute amount of extra daughter material inflates the measured age by hundreds of millions of years.
I'm assuming when you did your calculations, you assumed an earth age of at least 3.5 billion years, as that is the oldest radiometrically dated rock. But those ages were all acquired using these radiometric methods, which we know don't work even when we know the age of what we're testing.
As a side note: I don't mean to be rude, but I'll have to stop posting to this thread soon. I love talking about the issue - a fascinating one I think you'll agree. But I've already spent so much time posting that I'm not getting any work done!:)
As I understand it (I'm not european though) it is anti-competitive to use a majority position, such as the Microsoft desktop monopoly, to unfairly promote an unrelated product over a competitor.
This is just my understanding, don't take it as fact. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the EU system could give you a better answer.
It appears that Microsoft might get more than a slap on the wrist this time around.
It's got to. If the risk of breaking the law and getting caught is not substantially worse than the negative consequences of acting lawfully, then rationally, there is no reason to follow the law. That is what MS has done for years. And if the trend continues, they would be smart to continue doing just that.
I beleive the EU may have this in mind as part of the reasoning for sticking it to them a little harder this time.
The door has swung the other direction. As a child, I wasn't the richest kid in town, and I didn't play arcade games much. It was a quarter a pop, and if you aren't much good (which you can't be without experience) your quarter doesn't last long.
I remember quite vividly getting my first nintendo, and how amazing it seemed that I could play Duck Hunt for half an hour with no line, and no quarters.
They are a terrible disservice. They waste out time searching, and should be on Google's top ten list. Google has made a lot of public statments about integrity of search, and returning the most relevant, information rich pages. Yet a couple of those pages always wind up on the first SERP!
And of course, 2 billion of that is goddamn blogs.
I run a website for a living. And while I really don't like blogs, Google's PageRank algorith (or what's left of it) normalizes all the pages it know of on the web. So in order for me to make my page have higher rank, there have to be a whole lot of crappy pages out there with lower rank.
I'm not thrilled with all the junk/info overload out there. But there is a silver lining.
Some of the newer housing complexes near me (not my own home) were built with local fiber networks connecting the neighborhood (~= 25 houses). They all have internet access this way. But what's even better is the bandwidth they enjoy within the neighborhood.
It's overkill if you ask me. But they seem to be having a great time downloading from each other's computers and playing multiplayer games with no lag time.
One GOOD outcome would be that if the dirty politicians were busy with the fiber network, they might be a little less involved with plain old broadcast TV, and stop forcing changes there.
And you apparantly don't think that natural selection is strange... why do you need to have a god to explain evolution?
First off, I don't need a god..., I choose to have faith in God more than I have faith in this particular idea.
Secondly, as you mentioned, mutations + natural selection = evolution and I have no qualms about natural selection. Here's the problem. For this process to work, you have to have a viable mutation, as you mentioned. But if someone offered me a billion dollars to tweak one of my genes, I'd turn it down, because it would almost certainly kill or maim me. Now you're saying, "that's ok, because given billions and billions of years..." Large expanses of time are necessary for this idea to work as well. But there isn't enough time. Radiometric dating is crap. And even if it's correct, there wouldn't have been time for single celled orgs to evolve into humans.
And lastly, the definition of "viable" is quite at odds. Lets take the idea that dolphins evolved from something like a taiper. If a population of taipers had (over millions of years) undergone mutations that left them with half-legs-half-flippers. At this time they are neigher the fastest thing on land or in the water. The in-betweeness of the mutation makes them vulnerable. They would have been naturally selected to become extinct. Yet this stage is required to get to being fully dolphins. And what's more, they would have to be in this intermediate stage more millions of years! Or at least a couple hundred thousand.
And when I think of a theory and whether not one has sufficient proof, and whether it all makes sense, that one doesn't sit so easy with me.
And as far as observation of evolution today, that has in fact been done many times, both in lab experiment and in nature.
I don't think anyone has observed evolution. I beleive you are referring to observing natural selection. For instance, if you take a culture of bacteria/moths/fruitflies, divide it, and place separate environmental pressure on each group, you will end up with two different groups.
The question is whether you just observed evolution or natural selection. If it was evolution, there would have to be new traits that none of the original specemins had. That has never happened in the lab or in observation. What you do see is traits held by a few specemins becoming more dominant throughout the entire culture (natural selection).
I won't argue natural selection with you. I agree that happens contstantly. Evolution incorportates natural selection, but depends on much more to be true.
I have to say though, its really hard to decide which is the fastest growing. There's so much movement and volitility, plus so many distros. Add to that everyone's different interpretation of "fastest growing" and you've got a pretty tough question to answer.
I think you got the right answer, showing rate of growth. Most people have been answering "who is the biggest."
Slashdot Mirror
... and large mirrors to reflect the beams at targets on the ground
So we're going to shoot a laser at our own satelite, which has a mirror to reflect it back to the ground somewhere else?
Two problems here:
You're shooting a high power laser at your own billion dollar satellite! Aim carefully.
If your mirror reflects your laser at point A to point B, then someone with a laser at point B can also use the mirror to shoot point A.
Plans include firing hypervelocity rods from space to targets on the ground.
I'm not up to date on my space program figures. But it is expensive as hell to put a kilogram of material into orbit. I'd much rather pay for a plain old bomb, or even a reusable space laser. Carrying a rod into space to shoot it back down to earth is not cost effective.
But in this case we KNOW that they're stolen "parts".
That's true. And I suppose that starts to blur the line to the point you can't really decide without a judge to help.
Perhaps, but what if a developer working for a rival company looks at it? Is that any different?
I think it would be fine if a competitor looked at it, so long as he didn't blatantly copy from it. That would be infringing on MS's rights. But I don't think it fair to lump the two together and assume that viewing the source makes you culpable as copying it does.
There is such thing as a Trade Secret. But that is only enforceable so far as you can do it yourself with confidentiality agreements and the like. Once your secret is blown, its blown. You can stick it to whoever broke their agreement or illegally stole and revealed your secret. But you can't force the public to ignore the information.
After someone steals your car, and subsequently redistributes the parts to chop shops around the state, do you feel OK with that?
No, I wouldn't feel OK with that. But whoever ends up with the stolen part is not responsible for the theft.
Since its a copyrighted work, you can't use it without a license. So compiling it (good luck) and using/distributing it would be way out of line.
Your example is a crime because you included hacking into a computer to do the stealing. Just like whoever stole/leaked the MS code committed a crime.
What we're talking about is more like picking up and reading the Harry Potter book that someone stole from a bookstore and left on the table. The reading part is not criminal, the stealing part is.
Furthermore, a books main purpose is to be read. A program's main purpose is to execute. I know that is knitpicking. But I wouldn't consider it copyright infringement to use a book I didn't own the rights to to prop up a table, or a CD I didn't own as a coaster.
While it may be illegal to steal source code that is privately held. I don't know that it is illegal to view it once it has been released. Perhaps someone has a more educated viewpoint. But this seems like a scare tactic without much legal standing.
Briefly,
:)
There is much reason to beleive that the world is not as old as the currently held 4.6 billion years. To begin with, the radiometric dating methods used do not work. They are based on two key assumptions, one of which is a critical weakness.
1. At the beginning of the earth there was 100% parent radioactive material, and 0% daughter material. And there is no other source of daughter material. -> Very large assumption that is wrong.
2. Radioactive decay occurs at a somewhat constant rate. -> I'm ok with this one. The rate changes slightly with pressure and heat, but not enough to significantly impact results.
This isn't just talk. There is a lot of data available that shows how innacurate this method is.
For example:
If you send one rock to a dating lab to be tested using uranium/lead, rubidium/strontium, and potasium/argon procedures, you will receive three different results, often differing by tens or hundreds of millions of years. Now put on your scientist hat and listen to this. For a normal test, they would look at what layer it came from to estimate its age, and through out the data that didn't fit their estimate!
If all three tests show different ages, it is obvious that the dating method is flawed in at least two of the tests, more likely all three.
And the flaws have been tested and shown to be egregious. Tests of samples with known ages have shown just how wrong they can be. Lava flows less than 200 year old have tested, using the popular rubidium-strontium isochron method, to be 1.34 +/- 0.04 billion years old! This is not an isolated result. You could google all day long and not run out of errant tests like this. The problem is that these tests are so sensitive to error, that having just a minute amount of extra daughter material inflates the measured age by hundreds of millions of years.
I'm assuming when you did your calculations, you assumed an earth age of at least 3.5 billion years, as that is the oldest radiometrically dated rock. But those ages were all acquired using these radiometric methods, which we know don't work even when we know the age of what we're testing.
As a side note: I don't mean to be rude, but I'll have to stop posting to this thread soon. I love talking about the issue - a fascinating one I think you'll agree. But I've already spent so much time posting that I'm not getting any work done!
U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit
That sounds oftly violent. Why didn't they just try to screw up all the meetings using their influence?
As I understand it (I'm not european though) it is anti-competitive to use a majority position, such as the Microsoft desktop monopoly, to unfairly promote an unrelated product over a competitor.
This is just my understanding, don't take it as fact. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the EU system could give you a better answer.
Ah, but my post had a Matrix reference, which appeals to our demographic!
I do know quite a bit about both points actually. In particular, I've studied the question of time quite in depth.
And it would be ignorant to assume that anyone who doesn't agree with your point of view is ignorant.
It appears that Microsoft might get more than a slap on the wrist this time around.
It's got to. If the risk of breaking the law and getting caught is not substantially worse than the negative consequences of acting lawfully, then rationally, there is no reason to follow the law. That is what MS has done for years. And if the trend continues, they would be smart to continue doing just that.
I beleive the EU may have this in mind as part of the reasoning for sticking it to them a little harder this time.
Danza Danza Revolution
Just the mention of that name makes me shudder...
Uh~h~h~h~h
The door has swung the other direction. As a child, I wasn't the richest kid in town, and I didn't play arcade games much. It was a quarter a pop, and if you aren't much good (which you can't be without experience) your quarter doesn't last long.
I remember quite vividly getting my first nintendo, and how amazing it seemed that I could play Duck Hunt for half an hour with no line, and no quarters.
Why go back?
I agree!, Mod parent up!
They are a terrible disservice. They waste out time searching, and should be on Google's top ten list. Google has made a lot of public statments about integrity of search, and returning the most relevant, information rich pages. Yet a couple of those pages always wind up on the first SERP!
Anyone else find it funny that Google has around one item for every man woman and child on earth?
With my luck, I bet my one item is a page with prescription drugs and weightloss suplements at bargain prices.
I hope your item is better.
And of course, 2 billion of that is goddamn blogs.
I run a website for a living. And while I really don't like blogs, Google's PageRank algorith (or what's left of it) normalizes all the pages it know of on the web. So in order for me to make my page have higher rank, there have to be a whole lot of crappy pages out there with lower rank.
I'm not thrilled with all the junk/info overload out there. But there is a silver lining.
Google Inc. today announced it expanded the breadth of its web index to more than 6 billion items.
One for every man, woman, and child. Sounds exactly like the thinking of a machine to me.
Some of the newer housing complexes near me (not my own home) were built with local fiber networks connecting the neighborhood (~= 25 houses). They all have internet access this way. But what's even better is the bandwidth they enjoy within the neighborhood.
It's overkill if you ask me. But they seem to be having a great time downloading from each other's computers and playing multiplayer games with no lag time.
I agree, and wince at some of the outcomes.
One GOOD outcome would be that if the dirty politicians were busy with the fiber network, they might be a little less involved with plain old broadcast TV, and stop forcing changes there.
And you apparantly don't think that natural selection is strange... why do you need to have a god to explain evolution?
..., I choose to have faith in God more than I have faith in this particular idea.
First off, I don't need a god
Secondly, as you mentioned, mutations + natural selection = evolution and I have no qualms about natural selection. Here's the problem. For this process to work, you have to have a viable mutation, as you mentioned. But if someone offered me a billion dollars to tweak one of my genes, I'd turn it down, because it would almost certainly kill or maim me. Now you're saying, "that's ok, because given billions and billions of years..." Large expanses of time are necessary for this idea to work as well. But there isn't enough time. Radiometric dating is crap. And even if it's correct, there wouldn't have been time for single celled orgs to evolve into humans.
And lastly, the definition of "viable" is quite at odds. Lets take the idea that dolphins evolved from something like a taiper. If a population of taipers had (over millions of years) undergone mutations that left them with half-legs-half-flippers. At this time they are neigher the fastest thing on land or in the water. The in-betweeness of the mutation makes them vulnerable. They would have been naturally selected to become extinct. Yet this stage is required to get to being fully dolphins. And what's more, they would have to be in this intermediate stage more millions of years! Or at least a couple hundred thousand.
And when I think of a theory and whether not one has sufficient proof, and whether it all makes sense, that one doesn't sit so easy with me.
And as far as observation of evolution today, that has in fact been done many times, both in lab experiment and in nature.
I don't think anyone has observed evolution. I beleive you are referring to observing natural selection. For instance, if you take a culture of bacteria/moths/fruitflies, divide it, and place separate environmental pressure on each group, you will end up with two different groups.
The question is whether you just observed evolution or natural selection. If it was evolution, there would have to be new traits that none of the original specemins had. That has never happened in the lab or in observation. What you do see is traits held by a few specemins becoming more dominant throughout the entire culture (natural selection).
I won't argue natural selection with you. I agree that happens contstantly. Evolution incorportates natural selection, but depends on much more to be true.
I'm impressed!
I have to say though, its really hard to decide which is the fastest growing. There's so much movement and volitility, plus so many distros. Add to that everyone's different interpretation of "fastest growing" and you've got a pretty tough question to answer.
I think you got the right answer, showing rate of growth. Most people have been answering "who is the biggest."
According to DistroWatch.com, ranked by hits per day on their website:
Mandrake 991
Red Hat 696
Knoppix 643
Debian 567
Fedora 518
Gentoo 477
SUSE 460
Slackware 423
and the list goes on and on
Of course this is very limited sample and probably doesn't include any enterprise use.