It took me a while to find it, but you can find a nice downloadcounter at http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/ They're at about 6.5 million at the time of posting.
Let's take a look at what she actually said, shall we?
I'd like to take that suggestion a step further. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.... Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy
That's a pretty darn reasonable point of view, and very much pro science. It just so happens that scientific consensus does in fact support anthropogenic global warming. Just look at the rigorously peer reviewed reports of the IPCC, and the endorsements of a vast number of scientific institutes in the world out there, and pretty much all the climatological and meteorological organizations in the US. And when looked at peer reviewed science, no real opposing scientific theory can be found at this point, see a study published by Nature, "Beyond the ivory tower: The scientific consensus on climate change".
Now, the part of her statement this controversy is about, which is making just speaking on the actual scientific work out there part of the requirements of the seal of approval, rather then spreading misinformation not based on peer reviewed science. But what is the purpose of this seal. Well, let's check their site:
The AMS Seal of Approval was launched in 1957 as a way to recognize on-air meteorologists for their sound delivery of weather information to the general public.
And they now have a specific certificate for broadcast meteorologists, which states its purpose as:
In January 2005, the AMS introduced a new program called the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) program, intended to raise the professional standard in broadcast meteorology and encourage a broader range of scientific understanding, especially with respect to environmental issues. The goal of the CBM program is to certify that the holder meets specific educational and experience criteria and has passed rigorous testing in their knowledge and communication of meteorology and related sciences needed to be an effective broadcast meteorologist.
Hey, how about that. It's about giving accurate information on the actual scientific understanding out there, and communicating this in an accurate and effective way. Not at all about "censoring", this call is merely suggesting that people who are certified under this hold themselves to the peer reviewed science out there on climate change. Which matches remarkably well with the stated purpose of the certification.
I'm not exactly sure if it is a good idea though, but this blogger linked by the/. write up is misrepresent things and has pulled the statements out of context.
It won't be 20 minutes, acording to B5 creator JMS. From a usenet post by him:
No, it's closer to one-half-hour per story, so figure about 75-90
minutes per DVD, plus additional material adding up to a two-hour DVD.
jms
I for one am looking forward to this tremendously. I know that all the previous B5 spin-offs have been rather anti-climatic, abortive affairs (although I haven't seen nearly all of it), but the creative freedom he is getting seems rather amazing. As opposed to, say, Crusade, that according to JMS suffered from a death by studio interference. And having seen some of the memos that were leaked, I see no reason to doubt him.
And for those of you wondering exactly what the hell he is talking about: Inferno, a Doctor Who story, in the first season of the third Doctor. It's pretty decent Who story, where a similar experiment ends up blowing up the world (they drill completely through to the crust though). Which the Doctor witnesses in a parralel universe, so he can warn his own universe of the dangers of the experiment. Throw some weird green hairy zombies in, to make sure you do not forget it is Doctor Who.:P
After watching Doctor Who for the first time with the new series last year, I've actually started going through all the old Doctor Who stories I never saw in chronological order, and boy is there a lot of (26 seasons, to be precise). And I just happened to have watch Inferno yesterday, so it is fresh on my mind, and was actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this newsbit also.:)
Has Linus misread the DRM provisions in GPL3?
on
Linus on GPL3 In Forbes
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Maybe someone can explain this to me, but I'm not sure if GPL3 is saying what Linus says (or thinks) it's saying.
I watched some of the explanations on GPL3 given by RMS and Moglen here, and they seemed fairly adamant about the fact that GPL3 did not forbid the use of DRM-ish encryption/authentication in code that falls under it, just that any keys necesary for running it need to be given to the user.
Same deal for Trusted Computing-esque machines; it's perfectly fine to make a machine that uses keys to restrict usage of the machine maker's code that falls under GPL3, as long as they give the keys to the end-user. It's even fine to make a seperate key for each and every machine, only give it's unique key to one single end user tied to his or her machine. Just as long as the end-user gets those keys:
RMS: Now, if each machine has a different signature key, they only have to give your signature key to you. Your machine's signature key. They have to give it to you, they don't have to publish it, they don't have to give it to anyone else. They can even promise you that they won't give it to anyone else, but they have to give it to you.
Or as the GPL3 licence puts it:
Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or principal context of use, such that its functioning in all circumstances is identical to that of the work, except as altered by your modifications. It also includes any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work's output. Notwithstanding this, a code need not be included in cases where use of the work normally implies the user already has it.
Complete Corresponding Source Code need not include anything that users can regenerate automatically from other parts of the Complete Corresponding Source Code.
Reading through the DRM clause it mentions "no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy" which is already "illegal", so you wouldn't be allowed to do it anyway, and "[no permission is given] for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License" which you wouldn't be allowed to do anyway, without breaking the licence.
Or is this dispute about some other part of the new licence?
In case someone is interested, I was bored and translated the open letter. The [...] remarks are translation notes added by me. I did it pretty quickly so there are probably quite a few spelling and other mistakes. You have been warned.
To:
Prime-Minister Balkenende
Ministry of General Affairs
PO box 20001
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3564683
Minister De Graaf
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
PO box 20011
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3639153
Minister Brinkhorst
Ministry of Economic Affairs
PO box 20101
2500 EC the Hague
Transcripts to:
Permanent commision for Economic Affairs
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183439
Permanent commision for Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183444
Send by fax and lettermail.
Amsterdam, 10th of december 2004
Subject: state government[literaly the kingdoms' government in Dutch] contract with Microsoft
Very honored mister Balkenende, de Graaf, Brinkhorst,
The Automationguide of Friday 3rd of december reported that the state government and some muncipalities want to close an exclusive contract worth 147 milion Euro and a term of five years with Microsoft. In the realization thereof no public
bidding took place.
Undersigned organisations are worried about this intention and want to make you aware of the negative effects that such a
contract has on the software market and the climate of inovation in the Netherlands. Likewise such a contract is contrary to
the by the Cabinet stipulated policy regarding the use of open standards and open source at the government level and the
aspiration to make the government less depandant of a single software supplier. On top of this Microsoft has been convicted
by the European Commision because of poor interoperability of its server software.
On the 20th of november 2002 the Second chamber spoke out unanimously for the motion [a proposal by the Parliament to the
government] Vendrik in which the Government was asked to counteract concentrations in the software market, to make sure that
in 2006 all sofware used by the public sector adheres to open standards and to "actively stimulate the spreading and
development of software with open sourcecode (open source software) in the public sector and formulate concrete and
ambitious goals for this".
The ministries of BZK [internal affairs] and EZ [economic affairs] have set up the programme Open Standards and Open Source
Software (OSOSS) to stimulate government organizations in a wide sense to use open standards in their ICT-applications.
Moreover the programme Purchasing Taskasignment (PIT) has set up a ICT-purchasestrategy for the state government in which
the following starting points have been included: guaranteeing of interoperability and the avoidance and where necesary
breaking of vendor lock-in.
Undersigned organizations are of the opinion that the closing of such a contract with Microsoft will to the locking of the
door in the coming five years with regards to the application of open standards, free software and open source software. The
now held contract negotiations are squarly oposed to the motion Vendrik and undermine the positive results of the OSOSS
programme. On top of this the carefully formulated targets of the PIT are being bypassed.
Undersigned organizations call on the Cabinet to take in take in hand the usage of open standards, free software and open
source software seriously and ambitiously. Meanwhile there are sufficient initiatives within the government that proof that
such software kan offer many advantages on the areas of interoperability, security and costs.
I have been using Wikipedia for a while and one of the biggest selling point IMO is the great browsing experience. I often find myself actually surfing again by going from hyperlink to hyperlink, trying to soak up all the information, something I have stopped doing a while ago with most other webpages. There is lot of very good, indepth content on there.
TLDP is a bunch of mostly technical articles (HOWTO's, guides, FAQs and man pages) that are very usefull, but don't really form a coherent whole. It would be wonderfull to have a somewhat more encyclopedia oriented linux documentation to consult, that is updated consistently to boot. A encyclopedia aproach also alows you to cover a wide spectrum of topic, from, say, obscure technical details to general *nix design philosophies.
However, wiki's for this type of large projects (like wikipedia) need a certain critical mass of contributors for it to, I would think. While I don't know if this project will be "it", I think a wiki aproach would be a great idea.
For the Dutch slashdotters; Jan Smit said something about it on the Dutch radio(it's about 10 minutes into the stream), where he basicly called everything said by Kellar bullocks("a lott of mud throwing" and "facts that are verifiably wrong").
He has one of the samples of this study was based on (and (acording to above mentioned radioshow) the who divided up the original).
In the end of the radiointerview he sugests letting all the original drill samples be tested by a third party for magnesium or calcium to prove if what Kellar has found are actual organism or just cristaline structures (as Smit seem to think). Sounds good to me, but then IANAPaleontologist.
Slashdot Mirror
It took me a while to find it, but you can find a nice downloadcounter at http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/ They're at about 6.5 million at the time of posting.
Now, the part of her statement this controversy is about, which is making just speaking on the actual scientific work out there part of the requirements of the seal of approval, rather then spreading misinformation not based on peer reviewed science. But what is the purpose of this seal. Well, let's check their site: And they now have a specific certificate for broadcast meteorologists, which states its purpose as: Hey, how about that. It's about giving accurate information on the actual scientific understanding out there, and communicating this in an accurate and effective way. Not at all about "censoring", this call is merely suggesting that people who are certified under this hold themselves to the peer reviewed science out there on climate change. Which matches remarkably well with the stated purpose of the certification.
I'm not exactly sure if it is a good idea though, but this blogger linked by the
And for those of you wondering exactly what the hell he is talking about: Inferno, a Doctor Who story, in the first season of the third Doctor. It's pretty decent Who story, where a similar experiment ends up blowing up the world (they drill completely through to the crust though). Which the Doctor witnesses in a parralel universe, so he can warn his own universe of the dangers of the experiment. Throw some weird green hairy zombies in, to make sure you do not forget it is Doctor Who. :P
:)
After watching Doctor Who for the first time with the new series last year, I've actually started going through all the old Doctor Who stories I never saw in chronological order, and boy is there a lot of (26 seasons, to be precise). And I just happened to have watch Inferno yesterday, so it is fresh on my mind, and was actually the first thing I thought of when I saw this newsbit also.
I watched some of the explanations on GPL3 given by RMS and Moglen here, and they seemed fairly adamant about the fact that GPL3 did not forbid the use of DRM-ish encryption/authentication in code that falls under it, just that any keys necesary for running it need to be given to the user.
Same deal for Trusted Computing-esque machines; it's perfectly fine to make a machine that uses keys to restrict usage of the machine maker's code that falls under GPL3, as long as they give the keys to the end-user. It's even fine to make a seperate key for each and every machine, only give it's unique key to one single end user tied to his or her machine. Just as long as the end-user gets those keys: Or as the GPL3 licence puts it: Reading through the DRM clause it mentions "no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy" which is already "illegal", so you wouldn't be allowed to do it anyway, and "[no permission is given] for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License" which you wouldn't be allowed to do anyway, without breaking the licence.
Or is this dispute about some other part of the new licence?
In case someone is interested, I was bored and translated the open letter. The [...] remarks are translation notes added by me. I did it pretty quickly so there are probably quite a few spelling and other mistakes. You have been warned.
To:
Prime-Minister Balkenende
Ministry of General Affairs
PO box 20001
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3564683
Minister De Graaf
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
PO box 20011
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3639153
Minister Brinkhorst
Ministry of Economic Affairs
PO box 20101
2500 EC the Hague
Transcripts to:
Permanent commision for Economic Affairs
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183439
Permanent commision for Internal Affairs and Kingdomsrelations
Second chamber of the States-General [Dutch Parliament]
PO box 20018
2500 EA the Hague
fax 070-3183444
Send by fax and lettermail.
Amsterdam, 10th of december 2004
Subject: state government[literaly the kingdoms' government in Dutch] contract with Microsoft
Very honored mister Balkenende, de Graaf, Brinkhorst,
The Automationguide of Friday 3rd of december reported that the state government and some muncipalities want to close an exclusive contract worth 147 milion Euro and a term of five years with Microsoft. In the realization thereof no public bidding took place.
Undersigned organisations are worried about this intention and want to make you aware of the negative effects that such a contract has on the software market and the climate of inovation in the Netherlands. Likewise such a contract is contrary to the by the Cabinet stipulated policy regarding the use of open standards and open source at the government level and the aspiration to make the government less depandant of a single software supplier. On top of this Microsoft has been convicted by the European Commision because of poor interoperability of its server software.
On the 20th of november 2002 the Second chamber spoke out unanimously for the motion [a proposal by the Parliament to the government] Vendrik in which the Government was asked to counteract concentrations in the software market, to make sure that in 2006 all sofware used by the public sector adheres to open standards and to "actively stimulate the spreading and development of software with open sourcecode (open source software) in the public sector and formulate concrete and ambitious goals for this".
The ministries of BZK [internal affairs] and EZ [economic affairs] have set up the programme Open Standards and Open Source Software (OSOSS) to stimulate government organizations in a wide sense to use open standards in their ICT-applications. Moreover the programme Purchasing Taskasignment (PIT) has set up a ICT-purchasestrategy for the state government in which the following starting points have been included: guaranteeing of interoperability and the avoidance and where necesary breaking of vendor lock-in.
Undersigned organizations are of the opinion that the closing of such a contract with Microsoft will to the locking of the door in the coming five years with regards to the application of open standards, free software and open source software. The now held contract negotiations are squarly oposed to the motion Vendrik and undermine the positive results of the OSOSS programme. On top of this the carefully formulated targets of the PIT are being bypassed.
Undersigned organizations call on the Cabinet to take in take in hand the usage of open standards, free software and open source software seriously and ambitiously. Meanwhile there are sufficient initiatives within the government that proof that such software kan offer many advantages on the areas of interoperability, security and costs.
In the opinion of the undersigned a contract of s
I have been using Wikipedia for a while and one of the biggest selling point IMO is the great browsing experience. I often find myself actually surfing again by going from hyperlink to hyperlink, trying to soak up all the information, something I have stopped doing a while ago with most other webpages. There is lot of very good, indepth content on there.
TLDP is a bunch of mostly technical articles (HOWTO's, guides, FAQs and man pages) that are very usefull, but don't really form a coherent whole. It would be wonderfull to have a somewhat more encyclopedia oriented linux documentation to consult, that is updated consistently to boot. A encyclopedia aproach also alows you to cover a wide spectrum of topic, from, say, obscure technical details to general *nix design philosophies.
However, wiki's for this type of large projects (like wikipedia) need a certain critical mass of contributors for it to, I would think. While I don't know if this project will be "it", I think a wiki aproach would be a great idea.
He has one of the samples of this study was based on (and (acording to above mentioned radioshow) the who divided up the original). In the end of the radiointerview he sugests letting all the original drill samples be tested by a third party for magnesium or calcium to prove if what Kellar has found are actual organism or just cristaline structures (as Smit seem to think). Sounds good to me, but then IANAPaleontologist.