This gives a whole new meaning to "microkernel". And what
with microkernel now equivalent to "peakbrain", it looks like
neuroscience sides with Linus against RMS and Tannenbaum.:)
Kay had long experience as a weapons inspector, for the Pentagon and the United Nations, before he worked for SAIC, according to his Wikipedia bio. The question is more the other way around then: what was a weapons inspector doing as VP of a software firm? I don't know why they hired him, but I can imagine that his experience would be useful in management even if he isn't, presumably, expert in computer science.
The argument for federal jurisdiction here seems pretty shaky, and one can question the validity of a subpoena based on mere speculation that video might show illegal activity, but I don't see why this should fall under shield laws for journalists. The purpose of shield laws is to enable journalists to make use of confidential sources. There aren't any confidential sources here. The guy shot video footage of people with whom he had no confidentiality agreement in a public place in which they had no expectation of privacy. There's absolutely no reason that journalists shouldn't turn over evidence of this type. If the state shield law actually does allow journalists to refuse to turn over evidence in situations like this, it is a badly written law.
Whoever enforces the ordinances against excess noise in your community, which is often not the police, should have a sound-level meter. When there's a problem with noise from industry or roads, they don't just send somebody to listen and say "yes, it's too loud" - they measure the sound level. Since lower frequency sounds tend to be the problem, many sound-level meters only go up to 8KHz or 12.5 KHz, but some models go up to 20KHz. A measurement with such a wide-band sound level meter should do the trick.
It may have been Rep. Don Young who got the funding for the bridge in the first place,
but according to the Washington Post Stevens blocked the proposal to cancel the bridge and use the money for reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. And why exactly is this bridge needed? There is already a ferry service that takes only 15 minutes for a crossing.
Even if it were clearer than it is that providing laptops has educational advantages over not providing laptops, it still would not be clear that this would be the most effective investment of India's money. It's one thing to ask whether a well-off community in the US should provide laptops and quite another to ask the same question in India. Given limited resources, I don't find it at all difficult to believe that the rational decision in India is to invest in teachers and teacher training, textbooks, and schoolbuildings, or in school lunches and breakfasts, health care for children (its hard to learn if you're sick), adult literacy programs (in addition to other benefits, literate parents are a boon to a child's education), economic assistance to poor families so that their children don't need to work and can attend school, and so forth.
There's another issue here that I don't think anyone has mentioned. One of the stated purposes of this project is to enable kids to learn without teachers. Now, I'm all for kids learning independently, and indeed did a lot of that myself, but a program based on learning independently of teachers is likely to fail in a culture that views learning from teachers as really important, which I believe to be the case in India. There are no doubt/. readers who can tell me whether I am right or wrong about this. If parents think that it is important to learn from a teacher, they are not going to encourage their kids to use the laptops, and the society as a whole may not be supportive and may not develop materials for the kids to use. The little peasant kids that Negroponte would like to reach aren't going to study Math World and Wikipedia and the like: they're going to need materials appropriate to their age and cultural background written in their own languages. Where is all that going to come from?
I didn't say that Hogan's argument is correct, only what I think he is arguing.
As to whether it is correct, the criterion you set "show me in any codified law", is far
too stringent. Lots of things are not explicitly stated in statutes. Indeed, it is well known to anyone familiar with copyright law that what constitutes fair use is not well settled and is not made
precise in the relevant statuetes.
It looks like the Indian government has some clear thinkers. There is probably a great
deal that they can do with the $100 million they'd have to spend to buy the laptops, not
to mention the costs of training, support, and maintenance. If you weigh that against the
vague and questionable benefits of giving young children laptops, they're probably
making the right decision. The whole project strikes me as typical of the Media Lab: flashy
but lacking in substance.
I suspect thatt the people who have criticized Hogan's claim that he already
owned the DVD have missed his point. He probably didn't intend that as an argument that
he had no reason to download it. Rather, he was probably referring to the idea
that it is legal to download a copy of something that you have legally
purchased because it is equivalent to making a backup copy or shifting
to another medium.
They may have arrested him when they did because it was a Friday, which lets them hold him over the weekend. If they arrested him on another day of the week he would get to court sooner and have a chance of making bail or having the charges dismissed.
This seems generally to be true, but some small outfits are apparently still making money selling compilers. In the early 90s I used the Power C compiler for DOS. It was a nice compiler and cheap ($20). Recently I was amazed to see that the company, Mix Software, is still in business, with the same low prices. How they do this I have no idea.
Maybe I'm ignorant, but could somebody please define what "enterprise search" is?
It seems not to have to do with databases, and I'm hard put to believe it is just
"web search done for business purposes". Exactly what sort of market and technology is this about?
I'm not so sure that one can guess that "Palaco" is unlikely to be Catalan for "Catalan". The name that people call themselves is often different from what other people call them, so you can't assume that Catalans call themselves something like "Catalan". Note, for example, that Germans call themselves "deutsch". And it isn't always the case that the language's own name for itself is related to the name of the people. Depending on who you ask, the Chinese name for Chinese may be given as guo yu ("national language") or pu tong hua "standard language", neither of which contains the word "China".
Leaving aside the general issue of Wikipedia accuracy, Wikipedia isn't the best source of linguistic information, something for which there are specialized resources. In the case of Catalan, there is DACCO (Diccionari Anglès-Català de Codi Obert), an open source bilingual dictionary project. DACCO allows users to contribute, but via a more controlled process than just letting anybody edit. This approach, of starting with a few experts, having them admit others whom they recognize as responsible and having expertise, and allowing others to make suggestions but not actually edit, may well be the best way to combine openness with accuracy.
Some Wikipedia articles do have extensive lists of software, but Wikipedia is not supposed to be a link list. I've seen very useful lists of software deleted from Wikipedia articles precisely because they were just link lists, not references for the article. These deletions were correct under Wikipedia policy.
Get legal advice before relying on postings on slashdot
This goes without saying. If you really need to know, you need a lawyer with knowledge of the relevant jurisdiction. In fact, in most countries conspiracy does not require an overt act, and it did not under English common law, but in the United States in most jurisdictions for most kinds of conspiracy it does. Since the context of the discussion is an American case, this is relevant.
Not quite. Conspiracy requires an overt act in furtherance of the crime. If you do nothing but plan, you're safe. If, however, you take a concrete step in addition to planning, such as obtaining weapons or other equipment, then you are guilty of conspiracy. It doesn't take an awful lot, but the need for an overt act is intended to prevent prosecution for mere bs-ing and to make it worthwhile to back off from a plan even if it is serious.
This is probably a good development. On the one hand, Gates as Chief Software Architect has reportedly been a negative influence, unfamiliar as he is with modern software development and devoted as he is to thelegacy of Basic and DOS. On the other hand, he seems to be doing quite a creditable job of philanthropy.
Slashdot Mirror
Indix, a localized GNU/Linux, is already available in Malayalam, the principal language of Kerala, so they're in good shape on that score.
This gives a whole new meaning to "microkernel". And what with microkernel now equivalent to "peakbrain", it looks like neuroscience sides with Linus against RMS and Tannenbaum. :)
I run GNU/thalamus.
Kay had long experience as a weapons inspector, for the Pentagon and the United Nations, before he worked for SAIC, according to his Wikipedia bio. The question is more the other way around then: what was a weapons inspector doing as VP of a software firm? I don't know why they hired him, but I can imagine that his experience would be useful in management even if he isn't, presumably, expert in computer science.
The biggest objection to ICANN that comes to my mind is that they renewed their contract with Verisign, which seems a very dubious decision indeed.
The argument for federal jurisdiction here seems pretty shaky, and one can question the validity of a subpoena based on mere speculation that video might show illegal activity, but I don't see why this should fall under shield laws for journalists. The purpose of shield laws is to enable journalists to make use of confidential sources. There aren't any confidential sources here. The guy shot video footage of people with whom he had no confidentiality agreement in a public place in which they had no expectation of privacy. There's absolutely no reason that journalists shouldn't turn over evidence of this type. If the state shield law actually does allow journalists to refuse to turn over evidence in situations like this, it is a badly written law.
Whoever enforces the ordinances against excess noise in your community, which is often not the police, should have a sound-level meter. When there's a problem with noise from industry or roads, they don't just send somebody to listen and say "yes, it's too loud" - they measure the sound level. Since lower frequency sounds tend to be the problem, many sound-level meters only go up to 8KHz or 12.5 KHz, but some models go up to 20KHz. A measurement with such a wide-band sound level meter should do the trick.
It may have been Rep. Don Young who got the funding for the bridge in the first place, but according to the Washington Post Stevens blocked the proposal to cancel the bridge and use the money for reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. And why exactly is this bridge needed? There is already a ferry service that takes only 15 minutes for a crossing.
Tops-20 had automatic versioning too, before VMS I'm pretty sure.
Even if it were clearer than it is that providing laptops has educational advantages over not providing laptops, it still would not be clear that this would be the most effective investment of India's money. It's one thing to ask whether a well-off community in the US should provide laptops and quite another to ask the same question in India. Given limited resources, I don't find it at all difficult to believe that the rational decision in India is to invest in teachers and teacher training, textbooks, and schoolbuildings, or in school lunches and breakfasts, health care for children (its hard to learn if you're sick), adult literacy programs (in addition to other benefits, literate parents are a boon to a child's education), economic assistance to poor families so that their children don't need to work and can attend school, and so forth.
There's another issue here that I don't think anyone has mentioned. One of the stated purposes of this project is to enable kids to learn without teachers. Now, I'm all for kids learning independently, and indeed did a lot of that myself, but a program based on learning independently of teachers is likely to fail in a culture that views learning from teachers as really important, which I believe to be the case in India. There are no doubt /. readers who can tell me whether I am right or wrong about this. If parents think that it is important to learn from a teacher, they are not going to encourage their kids to use the laptops, and the society as a whole may not be supportive and may not develop materials for the kids to use. The little peasant kids that Negroponte would like to reach aren't going to study Math World and Wikipedia and the like: they're going to need materials appropriate to their age and cultural background written in their own languages. Where is all that going to come from?
If you're a US citizen or permanent resident, they do indeed have a legal obligation to admit you to the United States. Otherwise, no.
I suppose I might post as an anonymous coward too if I couldn't manage to make a coherent comment.
I didn't say that Hogan's argument is correct, only what I think he is arguing. As to whether it is correct, the criterion you set "show me in any codified law", is far too stringent. Lots of things are not explicitly stated in statutes. Indeed, it is well known to anyone familiar with copyright law that what constitutes fair use is not well settled and is not made precise in the relevant statuetes.
It looks like the Indian government has some clear thinkers. There is probably a great deal that they can do with the $100 million they'd have to spend to buy the laptops, not to mention the costs of training, support, and maintenance. If you weigh that against the vague and questionable benefits of giving young children laptops, they're probably making the right decision. The whole project strikes me as typical of the Media Lab: flashy but lacking in substance.
I suspect thatt the people who have criticized Hogan's claim that he already owned the DVD have missed his point. He probably didn't intend that as an argument that he had no reason to download it. Rather, he was probably referring to the idea that it is legal to download a copy of something that you have legally purchased because it is equivalent to making a backup copy or shifting to another medium.
They may have arrested him when they did because it was a Friday, which lets them hold him over the weekend. If they arrested him on another day of the week he would get to court sooner and have a chance of making bail or having the charges dismissed.
This is the most plausible explanation yet for SCO's abortion of case.
This seems generally to be true, but some small outfits are apparently still making money selling compilers. In the early 90s I used the Power C compiler for DOS. It was a nice compiler and cheap ($20). Recently I was amazed to see that the company, Mix Software, is still in business, with the same low prices. How they do this I have no idea.
Maybe I'm ignorant, but could somebody please define what "enterprise search" is? It seems not to have to do with databases, and I'm hard put to believe it is just "web search done for business purposes". Exactly what sort of market and technology is this about?
I'm not so sure that one can guess that "Palaco" is unlikely to be Catalan for "Catalan". The name that people call themselves is often different from what other people call them, so you can't assume that Catalans call themselves something like "Catalan". Note, for example, that Germans call themselves "deutsch". And it isn't always the case that the language's own name for itself is related to the name of the people. Depending on who you ask, the Chinese name for Chinese may be given as guo yu ("national language") or pu tong hua "standard language", neither of which contains the word "China".
Leaving aside the general issue of Wikipedia accuracy, Wikipedia isn't the best source of linguistic information, something for which there are specialized resources. In the case of Catalan, there is DACCO (Diccionari Anglès-Català de Codi Obert), an open source bilingual dictionary project. DACCO allows users to contribute, but via a more controlled process than just letting anybody edit. This approach, of starting with a few experts, having them admit others whom they recognize as responsible and having expertise, and allowing others to make suggestions but not actually edit, may well be the best way to combine openness with accuracy.
For those who know Catalan, the Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana is available on-line.
Some Wikipedia articles do have extensive lists of software, but Wikipedia is not supposed to be a link list. I've seen very useful lists of software deleted from Wikipedia articles precisely because they were just link lists, not references for the article. These deletions were correct under Wikipedia policy.
This goes without saying. If you really need to know, you need a lawyer with knowledge of the relevant jurisdiction. In fact, in most countries conspiracy does not require an overt act, and it did not under English common law, but in the United States in most jurisdictions for most kinds of conspiracy it does. Since the context of the discussion is an American case, this is relevant.
Not quite. Conspiracy requires an overt act in furtherance of the crime. If you do nothing but plan, you're safe. If, however, you take a concrete step in addition to planning, such as obtaining weapons or other equipment, then you are guilty of conspiracy. It doesn't take an awful lot, but the need for an overt act is intended to prevent prosecution for mere bs-ing and to make it worthwhile to back off from a plan even if it is serious.
This is why superstition has been giving way to reason.
This is probably a good development. On the one hand, Gates as Chief Software Architect has reportedly been a negative influence, unfamiliar as he is with modern software development and devoted as he is to thelegacy of Basic and DOS. On the other hand, he seems to be doing quite a creditable job of philanthropy.