To most Americans, the period from 1790 to 1915 is kind of a mystery except for Gettysburg and the Ford Theater.
There was tremendous growth in the number of newspapers during that period, starting at a handful in 1790 to thousands in the 1920's. They fell on hard times with the advent of radio.
During that time, everyone with a spare nickel and a desire to publish something put out their own rag. They would trade stories, publish letters to each other, have flame wars, etc. I think it must have looked a lot like the blogosphere, with a bit more latency.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes, we need to see the old news to recall that.
I avoid those grocery store cards. I will go out of my way to find the stores that don't use them. Luckily the little mom&pop store down the street doesn't use them, so that's where I usually go.
Guess what? While their small size means their selection is limited, the overall prices are about the same as the larger stores that use the nasty little cards.
Even if the prices were higher, I'd still go there. Everyone in the store knows the location of every item. Can't find something? Ask the next kid in an apron, and they'll take you right to it.
Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world.
That's backwards thinking: we can't get a handle on it now, so we should make it more complicated?
Generate paper ballots however you want - sharpie-and-paper, hanging chad, Diebold, it really doesn't matter as long as the voter can see, before they put it in the box, that their choices are marked how they expected.
Then count the paper ballots electronically. It's faster and generally more reliable than when people do it.
Take a random sample of the original ballots from each precinct. Compare that sample to the electronic tally. Recount by hand if there's a significant difference.
Corporate strategy: if we do that, are we helping them or us?
Different preferences among the developer base of the distro, which may rise to the level of proselitizing.
Inertia: an object at rest tends to stay, etc. Subcontexts to that are
Corporate suits: who's going to pay some developer to make the change, instead of working on something more likely to make money right now?
Developers: why bother? (And by the way, what have *you* or *I* done?)
Users: The standard what?
Chorus:
"In the old days, we did it this way. We like doing it this way - it's better, and everyone should do it this way. Who are you to tell us to do it your way? Fine, we'll do it that way and then fork off another distro!"
Every time someone comes up with a Grand Plan or other big push to unify Linux, I am surprised by how few people get it. Unity is nice, but FOSS is not the place to find it. Want unity? Learn.NET.
My only serious point is the vibration. The page you linked to talked only about the overall resonance of the thing, calling it 'seven hours'. That doesn't consider.
I don't know how to fill in sqrt(tension/(mass/length)), so it's hard to really work on the problem.
Every time this is mentioned, I get all kinds of Larry Niven RingWorld flashbacks for some reason.
As cool as this idea is, there are some problems (especially for the lower altitudes). Some of the problems are more serious than others:
Wind shear: winds at various altitudes can differ widely. Both the cable and anything climbing it will be affected.
Resonance: a cable will tend to vibrate; it will be necessary to dampen the vibration. Usually this is done with strategically placed weights. With an object climbing the cable, however, the resonance will be constantly changing.
No Adspace: There will be no place to put banner ads, so the thing will never be profitable.
Environmentally Harmful: birds could run into it and die. Doesn't anyone consider birds?
Pixar loses the Disney marketing muscle. They also lose Disney's corporate arrogance and inertia, so that may be a net gain. The challenge for Pixar is to maintain their goodwill with the MOPS crowd while also doing projects that appeal to the rest of us.
Disney loses the creative talent behind the films. It will take them a while to become competitive, if they indeed can. There's a certain feel to a place like Pixar that finds its way into their work, and you can't manufacture that.
Whether Pixar can maintain a family-friendly line or not remains to be seen. I think they know where their bread is buttered, but who could blame them for wanting to branch out a little?
Sec. 2319B. Unauthorized recording of motion pictures in a motion picture exhibition facility
(f) Definitions, in this section
[...]
(3) MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITION FACILITY- The term "motion picture exhibition facility" means a movie theater, screening room, or other venue that is being used primarily for the exhibition of a copyrighted motion picture, if such exhibition is open to the public or is made to an assembled group of viewers outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances.
At least they don't try to regulate private screenings. I guess.
SEC. 210. ENHANCEMENT OF CRIMINAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.
(a) Criminal Infringement- Any person who--
(1) infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain,
(2) infringes a copyright willfully by the reproduction or distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, or
(3) infringes a copyright by the knowing distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement, during any 180-day period, of--
(A) 1,000 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works,
(B) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $10,000, or
(C) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted pre-release works,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish the necessary level of intent under this subsection.; and
[...]
(g) Limitation on Liability of Service Providers-
[...]
These provisions say that there are three ways you can be liable:
You try to sell the stuff to make money w/o paying the copyright owner
You put up some thing(s) worth $1000
You privately (or publicly) exchange 1000 files, a $10000 work, or a pre-release work.
The valuation is "retail value", but in effect they munge that in the definitions section to mean the asking price. So street value may or may not determine whether someone goes to jail; it may be some absurdly high asking price.
Still, on its face anyway, this is going after people who are either profiting or trafficking in other people's copyrighted commercial stuff.
The next question is, since FOSS is copyrighted, how does this change affect enforcement of the GPL? Someone who loses their right to copy under the GPL would be liable depending on the value of the work, which may or may not be its asking price.
This is intended to be 'interesting', nothing more.
As a conservative Christian, I heard all the appeals from the Hollywood Left (Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Doggy Dog, MTV, et al) and thought, "Man, I'd better make sure to vote! The college kids are going to turn out and who knows what will happen!"
Perhaps the Get Out the Vote campaign was more effective than they thought.
I first used NeXTStep in about 1989, when NeXT was still a hardware company.
NeXT made a big splash in the trade magazines by using standard UNIX industry hardware like the 680x0 processor, standard RAM, SCSI drives, etc. They did some neat stuff like having a 600M rewritable optical disk, unheard of capacity at the time. Unfortunately, no one else followed suit.
The big thing was the apps, though. Everything was done in Postscript, and there were several desktop publishing applications. As a math student at the time, Mathematica made my jaw drop. I figured out how to use it under ASCII mode via dialup, and checked all my homework that way.
The programming environment was interesting, though I never really delved into it. Underneath (or beside) the pretty GUI there was a 4.3BSD system with a Mach kernel. I was mostly interested in this compiler they had for it, gcc. They wanted you to copy it! And hunting around the ftp sites I found this new scripting language, perl, that was really great.
Slashdot Mirror
... and for once, it's interesting.
To most Americans, the period from 1790 to 1915 is kind of a mystery except for Gettysburg and the Ford Theater.
There was tremendous growth in the number of newspapers during that period, starting at a handful in 1790 to thousands in the 1920's. They fell on hard times with the advent of radio.
During that time, everyone with a spare nickel and a desire to publish something put out their own rag. They would trade stories, publish letters to each other, have flame wars, etc. I think it must have looked a lot like the blogosphere, with a bit more latency.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes, we need to see the old news to recall that.
They plan to own the whole planet by then.
'All your base are belong ...'
I avoid those grocery store cards. I will go out of my way to find the stores that don't use them. Luckily the little mom&pop store down the street doesn't use them, so that's where I usually go.
Guess what? While their small size means their selection is limited, the overall prices are about the same as the larger stores that use the nasty little cards.
Even if the prices were higher, I'd still go there. Everyone in the store knows the location of every item. Can't find something? Ask the next kid in an apron, and they'll take you right to it.
While I hope that no one gets shot from this hare-brained :) scheme, I do suspect his eternal seat is in the smoking section.
Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Religious Right, lover of geeky technology, of guns, and especially of red meat cooked over an open fire.
First robots with shotguns, now cyberednecks!
They build the roads, but get mad when we drive on them.
They subsidize the roads with tax dollars, then wonder why we don't take the bus.
They tax gas to keep us from buying it, then complain they have budget problems.
The State taxes me so I don't drive, but the Feds let me take it off my (business) taxes.
They want jobs, but they can't stand it when we make money.
What's a self-employed nerd to do?
That's backwards thinking: we can't get a handle on it now, so we should make it more complicated?
Generate paper ballots however you want - sharpie-and-paper, hanging chad, Diebold, it really doesn't matter as long as the voter can see, before they put it in the box, that their choices are marked how they expected.
Then count the paper ballots electronically. It's faster and generally more reliable than when people do it.
Take a random sample of the original ballots from each precinct. Compare that sample to the electronic tally. Recount by hand if there's a significant difference.
Chorus:
"In the old days, we did it this way. We like doing it this way - it's better, and everyone should do it this way. Who are you to tell us to do it your way? Fine, we'll do it that way and then fork off another distro!"
Every time someone comes up with a Grand Plan or other big push to unify Linux, I am surprised by how few people get it. Unity is nice, but FOSS is not the place to find it. Want unity? Learn .NET.
My only serious point is the vibration. The page you linked to talked only about the overall resonance of the thing, calling it 'seven hours'. That doesn't consider .
I don't know how to fill in sqrt(tension/(mass/length)), so it's hard to really work on the problem.
No, I don't think Ringworld had space elevators, or even escalators.
Maybe my psychosis is centered around the monomolecular cables used to attach the shade plates (or whatever he called them) together.
You have no heart. No heart at all.
As cool as this idea is, there are some problems (especially for the lower altitudes). Some of the problems are more serious than others:
Wind shear: winds at various altitudes can differ widely. Both the cable and anything climbing it will be affected.
Resonance: a cable will tend to vibrate; it will be necessary to dampen the vibration. Usually this is done with strategically placed weights. With an object climbing the cable, however, the resonance will be constantly changing.
No Adspace: There will be no place to put banner ads, so the thing will never be profitable.
Environmentally Harmful: birds could run into it and die. Doesn't anyone consider birds?
Pixar loses the Disney marketing muscle. They also lose Disney's corporate arrogance and inertia, so that may be a net gain. The challenge for Pixar is to maintain their goodwill with the MOPS crowd while also doing projects that appeal to the rest of us.
Disney loses the creative talent behind the films. It will take them a while to become competitive, if they indeed can. There's a certain feel to a place like Pixar that finds its way into their work, and you can't manufacture that.
Whether Pixar can maintain a family-friendly line or not remains to be seen. I think they know where their bread is buttered, but who could blame them for wanting to branch out a little?
Sec. 2319B. Unauthorized recording of motion pictures in a motion picture exhibition facility
[...]
At least they don't try to regulate private screenings. I guess.
SEC. 210. ENHANCEMENT OF CRIMINAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.
(1) infringes a copyright willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain,
(2) infringes a copyright willfully by the reproduction or distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, or
(3) infringes a copyright by the knowing distribution, including by the offering for distribution to the public by electronic means, with reckless disregard of the risk of further infringement, during any 180-day period, of--
(A) 1,000 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works,
(B) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works with a total retail value of more than $10,000, or
(C) 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted pre-release works,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish the necessary level of intent under this subsection.; and
[...]
(g) Limitation on Liability of Service Providers-
[...]
These provisions say that there are three ways you can be liable:
The valuation is "retail value", but in effect they munge that in the definitions section to mean the asking price. So street value may or may not determine whether someone goes to jail; it may be some absurdly high asking price.
Still, on its face anyway, this is going after people who are either profiting or trafficking in other people's copyrighted commercial stuff.
The next question is, since FOSS is copyrighted, how does this change affect enforcement of the GPL? Someone who loses their right to copy under the GPL would be liable depending on the value of the work, which may or may not be its asking price.
Does this mean I get to claim I'm just taking it for preventative measures?
... or something like that.
After all, "an ounce of prevention is worth a kilo of cure"
But Verizon is going to have to glue a giant parabolic antenna to the guy's head, and have him wander around in the desert adjusting his azimuth.
Oh, that's right. I forgot about that, probably since I never had more than about 50MB to store.
I bought one of those disks. I eventually sold it to Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg.
TFA says they've abdicated the PDA market for the integrated phone market.
So the market is converging, and saying that someone has a larger or smaller share of part of it is meaningless.
Are PalmOS sales as a whole up? Are WinCE sales up? Which is up more?
I still just want a Linux matchbox I can use to run nmap or ssh. It should have a VGA port, 2 USB ports, and built-in wifi.
When it doesn't get any comments.
See these things? They're gonna replace CD's soon.
Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again.
So did you vote?
....
No, really. Did you?
I think it's really important. I have to tell you that it's important. Vital to democracy.
So did you vote?
No, really. Did
This is intended to be 'interesting', nothing more.
As a conservative Christian, I heard all the appeals from the Hollywood Left (Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Doggy Dog, MTV, et al) and thought, "Man, I'd better make sure to vote! The college kids are going to turn out and who knows what will happen!"
Perhaps the Get Out the Vote campaign was more effective than they thought.
Yes, that's probably a better way to say it.
No, it was certainly 4BSD. It may have been 4.2, though. 3BSD didn't even have virtual memory. See a timeline.
They weren't real good about updating the OS, though, especially after money got tight. Or maybe it was always tight.
I first used NeXTStep in about 1989, when NeXT was still a hardware company.
NeXT made a big splash in the trade magazines by using standard UNIX industry hardware like the 680x0 processor, standard RAM, SCSI drives, etc. They did some neat stuff like having a 600M rewritable optical disk, unheard of capacity at the time. Unfortunately, no one else followed suit.
The big thing was the apps, though. Everything was done in Postscript, and there were several desktop publishing applications. As a math student at the time, Mathematica made my jaw drop. I figured out how to use it under ASCII mode via dialup, and checked all my homework that way.
The programming environment was interesting, though I never really delved into it. Underneath (or beside) the pretty GUI there was a 4.3BSD system with a Mach kernel. I was mostly interested in this compiler they had for it, gcc. They wanted you to copy it! And hunting around the ftp sites I found this new scripting language, perl, that was really great.
Too bad stuff like that will never catch on.