I'm not sure how the state is put first in Starship Troopers.Could you explain that for me?
Personally, I've always understood that it's more an implementation of "those who lead must first serve." What service gains an individual is the right to vote. I'm not sure how good of an idea it is, but it's not putting the state before the individual.
My first Vernor Vinge novel was Deepness in The Sky. Damn good book. So is Fire Upon the Deep. But not as good as Deepness.Then again, I also like The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime. They're not as good as the first, too.
For what it's worth, Heinlein is an awesome author. I'd post more or on wone of the more controversial threads here, but I'd end up in a flame war.
I really mean to look at your code sometime, i just haven't gotten a chance yet. I know several people who are considering putting together GPL'd dynamics engine, perhaps a little more general than yours. I need to look at your code to know, though. I will.... eventually.
No, the purpose of copyright law in the United States is explicitly stated in the Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..." It's to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The DMCA definitely does not do this, and thus isn't Constitutional to begin with. Notice also the "limited times" provision. It's definitely not ownership if it just evaporates after a certain time. Furthermore, you can argue you own the copyright, but even then, you don't own the data and you don't own the content. You merely "own" a partial ability to dictate when others can copy it. If you owned it, you'd be able to take it away from them after they copied it, etc. That's not how copyright law is supposed to work.
That said, some people, such as the RIAA and friends, do seem to view data ownership as the purpose of copyright law. They're just wrong from both a moral and Constitutional basis.
I can do whatever you want with this number so long as I don't identify it as the decryption key for YOUR encrypted data. But what if it's the encryption key for my encrypted data. It's hard to say data "belongs" to anybody to begin with, and if I paid for the DVD on which the data is encrypted I should unquestionably have access to the tools necessary to decrypt it (for fair use backups, for example) regardless of whether I own the data or not. Furthermore, I contend that free speech protections allow me to say "x is the key to the AACS encryption scheme." Even if you don't agree, arguing (for example) that it's analogous to giving out password or personal data is fallacious. The data encrypted by the key is neither, and, as I noted earlier, decryption ability is necessary for fair use.
Here's another example: A tennis racket. By itself, a tennis racket is made for whacking tennis balls. However, I could whack YOU with the racket, and suddenly its role changes from "sporting equipment" to "deadly weapon". But it's the same piece of equipment, and yes, a tennis racket is a plenty good enough weapon to kill somebody with. Yeah, yeah... but we don't ban the tennis raquet. Nor do we ban you talking about the tennis raquet. Anything, anything at all, can be abused. That doesn't mean we should ban it, or talking about it in a certain context. By your own logic, you've commited a crime... by talking about using a tennis raquet in the context of murder. You've "crossed the line."
Even so, I'll grant you that such logic might sell in court. That doesn't matter to me, I feel that one's free speech rights should only be limited by what actually harms others... not merely could be used to harm others. Anything can be abused.
US laws -- and constitutional rights -- apply to US citizens. Wrong. Well, not wrong as a statement, but too limited in scope. The U.S. Constitution doesn't create the rights it talks about, it specifically excludes the U.S. government from infringing on them, and not just for U.S. citizens, but for everybody. The Bill of Rights is a set of Limitations on the government power, not an instantiation of Rights. Those rights already exist. The underlying assumption, as expressed in Declaration of Independence and other works, is that those rights are inherent to each and every human being, and that governments are only just and legitimate when they respect those rights. It never refers to "citizens," but always to "people." Thus, the protections in the Constitution apply to everyone the U.S. government interacts with. To argue otherwise, that Constitutional protections apply only to Citizens, destroys the whole idea of democracy by creating the ruling class and allows for fun things like slavery -- "of course slavery is legal, the Constitution applies only to citizens and the slaves aren't!"
Unfortunately, our current government has decided that it is not in fact a limited government and has repeatedly ignored the Constitution. Even the courts have noted this. Hopefully, hopefully we will be able to steer things back on course before it's too late. But that hope strikes me as dim, given the fact that Congress, for instance, has so much it can impeach the president for -- Gitmo, Warrantless searches, authorizing torture, denying habeus corpus, etc -- but has done nothing.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
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· Score: 3, Funny
Who's blog? Feynman's? He died in 1988, I don't think he had a blog. Also, in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he distinctly says he was rejected from the army. Seems to me either you've been bullshitted or are bullshitting yourself. Not sure which.
I believe your point is that only civilians have rights, and that soldiers, particularly deployed soldiers, do not. As a result, different rules apply to soldiers and civilians. I'll agree that's how it looks in practice.
But in principle, it should not be this way. The U.S. was founded on the idea that all people have rights, and that those rights are inalienable (though they can be limited on an individual level to prevent that individual from harming others). Furthermore, the government is, in principle, limited. There are things it can not legally do, like restrict an individual's freedom of speech. This limitation (the First Amendment) does not mention exceptions for soldiers, nor should it -- rights like freedom of speech should be inalienable. The key here is that we're not discussing rules for either civilians or soldiers, we're discussing rules for the government, and one of those rules is "no laws limiting freedom of speech." There's no constitutional basis for an exception.
As to your last point, it is somewhat valid. Though, to my knowledge, you can't contract alway your fundamental rights. For instance, you can't sell yourself into slavery. But even if you could, your point only stands for policies that exist when I sign up. So, maybe new soldiers have no grounds to complain, but current ones do.
It seems to me that a Dyson sphere would have a local gravitation field directed toward the surface. At small distances from the surface, this field should be approximately equal to that of the field produced by an infinite plate of finite thickness. Yeah, there's no net gravity field at the center, but unless the material the sphere is made from is massless, there will be a field near the surface. I should do the math, but I'm at work (at least, that's my excuse.)
What the public wants is sometimes in conflict with what the public demands. We demand 100% safety, but we want to keep ideals of freedom, free speech, etc. - when push comes to shove, we end up dropping our ideals for our demands. I'm not quite sure what you mean. What's the difference between "wants" and "demands"? But if you mean the public often wants things against it's own interest, I'd agree. That's often what the public does, no doubt. But it's not something I'll do. Even 100% safety were possible, which it isn't, there's no point it being safe if I'm not free. The point of the government is to protect those rights from that very public.
As to the line, it is a great one, but it's a rationalization for murder, not a true justification of his actions. It's the statement of a man so arrogant he never stops to question if he's doing the right thing. And he justifiably pays for it in the end. I do enjoy good discussions on slashdot.
Right, but they can be removed forcibly. That force can be allowable within the framework of the Constitution as long as there is due process of law.
Can you not see how, for example, laws against treason and freedom of speech are in tension?
You're right, but I understand "Due process of law" to be a trial by jury of ones peers. Neither Congress nor the executive can remove limit those rights. Though I can definitely see how the constitutional definition of treason conflicts with the freedom of speech. I'd argue that the treason definition is still allowed, since it is not a law passed by Congress or even the empowerment of the executive to limit the right. If it somehow were, I'd feel obliged to hold that the Amendment supersedes it, but it's not. So, constitutionally, treasonous speech is still illegal. Good point.
So, if you and I are in the same platoon, and I give away vital operational information resulting in your death I should be fired, but you aren't sure if I should be prosecuted? There might be such a thing as being too noble.
Hey, it might be treason. Do we have two witnesses? But no, you shouldn't be prosecuted for speaking. Maybe you should be prosecuted for "conspiracy to commit murder" or held liable in civil court. And you should damn well be kicked out of the army. But I feel that limited government is vital, and the government is simply not empowered to limit your speech. Period. I'm not entirely opposed to changing that, but a government that doesn't play by it's own rules is not a legitimate government, so why should we fight to protect it in the first place? (Possible answer, because it's the best so far. I think so, anyway. But it should still be better.) As to the possibility of being too noble, perhaps.
This isn't a "democracy" issue. It's a "freedom of speech/press" issue. And while I'm not sure what you mean by "I'm a complete not when I comes to the first amendment", but HOW EXACTLY do soldiers not have that right? Rights are inherent to human beings. (Remember how rights are "endowed by the Creator"?)
If the government actually obeys the First Amendment, there can be no law that punishes anyone, including soldiers, for excercising their freedom of speech. Constitutionally, the Government can't tell me what I can and cannot say, ever. This applies to "classified" information, operational security, etc. Admittedly, that's not how things have been interpreted by the courts, and they may even have valid reasons for it. But the clear interpretation of the Constitution and it's First Amendment is that laws limiting freedom of speech are prohibited.
Now, having said that, I agree that operations security is important. Soldiers should be careful about what they talk about, and should definitely be required to follow legal orders. And if they violate OpSec, they should definitely be removed from combat and/or fired -- they're government employees after all. It may even be reasonable to hold that in violating OpSec, they have criminally violated their orders, but I'm not sure. It seems to me that those orders would not be legal, as an officer is an agent of the Government and Congress, and any empowerment of the officer to limit his or her soldiers' freedom of speech would be a violation of the First Amendment, and thus not a legal order. But that does seem like a grey area.
In short, OpSec is important, and violating it should definitely have consequences -- firing, removal of benefits, KP duty, etc. But if the government really is limited by the Constitution, then it cannot criminalize anyone's freedom of speech, including soldiers. Admittedly, that's not how the Constitution is usually interpreted by the courts, but it should be. Limited government means the government plays by the clear rules.
--sabre86
Re:How long must a number be to be copyrightable?
on
Censoring a Number
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· Score: 1
Indeed.
After all, it's copyright, not creationright.
Wikipedia article on the number is down too.
on
Censoring a Number
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· Score: 5, Insightful
When I read this slashdot post, the first thing I thought was "I bet there's a wikipedia article on it!" Sure enough, either somebody has posted one and it's been deleted and protected, or the editors went ahead and jumped on it and protected it. (I haven't checked yet, though there are "additional information links. Nor have I check it in other bases.)
Guess I should look into postng this to one of the "anti-censorship on wikipeida" sites.
For what it's worth, this is utter crap, but it shows a severe weakness in copyright law. Anything that can be represented with data, anything at all, can be encoded/encrpyted on anything else, given an arbitrary coding mechanism. For instance, let us create "sabre86's stanard coding scheme": add 1 to any number. After encoding we have 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1. Look, it's a different number! I guess it isn't a circumvention. Or is it?
You can extend this logic arbitarily to anything, so that not only can any string represent any other string (and thus be a "copy"), any string can be the key to an encoding scheme, meaning that posting any string is "circumvention" if I see fit to describe my encryption process such that it encrypts/encodes a copyrighted work using that string as a "key."
So all strings are copyrighted because they can derived from other copyrighted strings through an arbitrary encoding scheme and all strings are potentially circumventions of DRM/CRAP because they are both a representation of a known key in a different encoding and the key for some other arbitrary encryption algorithm that "circumvents the copyright protections."
Late thought:
It just occured to me that I may have to export the copy to be liable, perhaps by allowing it to be downloaded internationally from my server. I'm not familiar with the patent law in question, but the article seems to imply that this applies to exporting components.
That confuses me. Is the patent for "using the software with a computer" or for the software -- or some algorithm in the software -- itself?
As somebody said earlier, if anyone can actually explain what this means, please do.
--sabre86
So if I make a copy of, say, Linux that has a "patent-infringing" software in it, am I liable for violating the patent, or is the author of the software? Or are both of us, if we're in the US?
At the same time, using bittorrent does increase the total upstream bandwidth. Not only am I downloading, but I'm uploading too, which I wouldn't be doing if I weren't using it. So will the original ftp server might only be uploading at 2 MB/s (I'm sure it's much faster than that) that everyone has to share, a thousand users uploading at 2 kB/s almost doubles that (admittedly, they can only upload what they already have, etc, etc. but still, once they have it.... like you said, its the people [like me] who keep seeding after their done downloading that really help). And honestly, I'm sure you know that... probably better than I.
So I guess what the OP of this particular thread should've said was "Seed the torrents, people." Because that's what we really need. That's what I'm doing. I've seed uploads speeds of better than 1 MB/s today and have uploaded like 5 gigs of the i386-desktop iso. It makes me feel good (which I guess is why I'm bragging).
But I see your point, now that I've written this... for the rest of us, it doesn't matter that you're using the torrents, it matters that you're seeding them -- particularly after you've got the whole file and if you've got a fast upload speed. Please don't take your torrents down.
The posts says "For copyright reasons I can't post the file or a complete disassembly. However, I can describe the program in terms of 16-bit DOS C:" While I understand the author's worries, it's frightening he feels this way. He shouldn't have to worry.
Doesn't fair use specifically include an exception for Comment and Criticism? If the whole code is being criticized and commented on, it should be reproduced in full, particularly given that it's distribution and dissemination does not harm Skype's marketshare.
Never mind that a reasonable interpretation of freedom of the press demands that the entire code be reported on and shared in an informative matter. Right? Right?
My meteorologist friend -- she's a student at the moment -- is a senior in operational meteorology. As I understand it that's the science of predicting weather. The school also has a degree in broadcast meteorology, which focuses on being a TV meteorologist. The operational students seem to hold the broadcast students in a bit of contempt for not being "real" meteorologists. I understand the broadcast meteorology degree, while apparently becoming more science-like, has historically been more communications oriented. So a degree in meteorology, particularly if it's broadcast, does not necessarily imply a fair knowledge of sciences.
Of course, the contempt may be just rivalry, I'm not entirely sure.
Here's Mississippi State's (the school she attends) relevant websites: Broadcast Meteorology and Operational Meteorology. A quick perusal suggests that operational meteorology does have stronger science requirements than the vanilla broadcast meteorology degree (though not necessarily the professional broadcast meteorology degree). And yeah, I realize they're more concentrations than degrees.
Odd. A friend of mine refers Jackson's suburb Florence as "podunk."
As you can see from the responses on the blog, Jackson's mayor is out of control. It's ludicrous. It's city council is even worse.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure how the state is put first in Starship Troopers.Could you explain that for me?
Personally, I've always understood that it's more an implementation of "those who lead must first serve." What service gains an individual is the right to vote. I'm not sure how good of an idea it is, but it's not putting the state before the individual.
--sabre86
My first Vernor Vinge novel was Deepness in The Sky. Damn good book. So is Fire Upon the Deep. But not as good as Deepness.Then again, I also like The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime. They're not as good as the first, too.
For what it's worth, Heinlein is an awesome author. I'd post more or on wone of the more controversial threads here, but I'd end up in a flame war.
--sabre86
I'm going to guess you're talking about Combat or Battlezone. Both games for the Atari with tanks.
--sabre86
I really mean to look at your code sometime, i just haven't gotten a chance yet. I know several people who are considering putting together GPL'd dynamics engine, perhaps a little more general than yours. I need to look at your code to know, though. I will.... eventually.
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
Then select the 64 bit version.
Hope you don't watch Youtube, though.
No, the purpose of copyright law in the United States is explicitly stated in the Constitution: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..." It's to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The DMCA definitely does not do this, and thus isn't Constitutional to begin with. Notice also the "limited times" provision. It's definitely not ownership if it just evaporates after a certain time. Furthermore, you can argue you own the copyright, but even then, you don't own the data and you don't own the content. You merely "own" a partial ability to dictate when others can copy it. If you owned it, you'd be able to take it away from them after they copied it, etc. That's not how copyright law is supposed to work.
That said, some people, such as the RIAA and friends, do seem to view data ownership as the purpose of copyright law. They're just wrong from both a moral and Constitutional basis.
--sabre86
Here's another example: A tennis racket. By itself, a tennis racket is made for whacking tennis balls. However, I could whack YOU with the racket, and suddenly its role changes from "sporting equipment" to "deadly weapon". But it's the same piece of equipment, and yes, a tennis racket is a plenty good enough weapon to kill somebody with. Yeah, yeah... but we don't ban the tennis raquet. Nor do we ban you talking about the tennis raquet. Anything, anything at all, can be abused. That doesn't mean we should ban it, or talking about it in a certain context. By your own logic, you've commited a crime... by talking about using a tennis raquet in the context of murder. You've "crossed the line."
Even so, I'll grant you that such logic might sell in court. That doesn't matter to me, I feel that one's free speech rights should only be limited by what actually harms others... not merely could be used to harm others. Anything can be abused.
--sabre86
Unfortunately, our current government has decided that it is not in fact a limited government and has repeatedly ignored the Constitution. Even the courts have noted this. Hopefully, hopefully we will be able to steer things back on course before it's too late. But that hope strikes me as dim, given the fact that Congress, for instance, has so much it can impeach the president for -- Gitmo, Warrantless searches, authorizing torture, denying habeus corpus, etc -- but has done nothing.
--sabre86
Yes. Dick Rutan.
Who's blog? Feynman's? He died in 1988, I don't think he had a blog. Also, in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! he distinctly says he was rejected from the army. Seems to me either you've been bullshitted or are bullshitting yourself. Not sure which.
I believe your point is that only civilians have rights, and that soldiers, particularly deployed soldiers, do not. As a result, different rules apply to soldiers and civilians. I'll agree that's how it looks in practice.
But in principle, it should not be this way. The U.S. was founded on the idea that all people have rights, and that those rights are inalienable (though they can be limited on an individual level to prevent that individual from harming others). Furthermore, the government is, in principle, limited. There are things it can not legally do, like restrict an individual's freedom of speech. This limitation (the First Amendment) does not mention exceptions for soldiers, nor should it -- rights like freedom of speech should be inalienable. The key here is that we're not discussing rules for either civilians or soldiers, we're discussing rules for the government, and one of those rules is "no laws limiting freedom of speech." There's no constitutional basis for an exception.
As to your last point, it is somewhat valid. Though, to my knowledge, you can't contract alway your fundamental rights. For instance, you can't sell yourself into slavery. But even if you could, your point only stands for policies that exist when I sign up. So, maybe new soldiers have no grounds to complain, but current ones do.
--sabre86
It seems to me that a Dyson sphere would have a local gravitation field directed toward the surface. At small distances from the surface, this field should be approximately equal to that of the field produced by an infinite plate of finite thickness. Yeah, there's no net gravity field at the center, but unless the material the sphere is made from is massless, there will be a field near the surface. I should do the math, but I'm at work (at least, that's my excuse.)
--sabre86
As to the line, it is a great one, but it's a rationalization for murder, not a true justification of his actions. It's the statement of a man so arrogant he never stops to question if he's doing the right thing. And he justifiably pays for it in the end. I do enjoy good discussions on slashdot.
--sabre86
Can you not see how, for example, laws against treason and freedom of speech are in tension?
You're right, but I understand "Due process of law" to be a trial by jury of ones peers. Neither Congress nor the executive can remove limit those rights. Though I can definitely see how the constitutional definition of treason conflicts with the freedom of speech. I'd argue that the treason definition is still allowed, since it is not a law passed by Congress or even the empowerment of the executive to limit the right. If it somehow were, I'd feel obliged to hold that the Amendment supersedes it, but it's not. So, constitutionally, treasonous speech is still illegal. Good point.
So, if you and I are in the same platoon, and I give away vital operational information resulting in your death I should be fired, but you aren't sure if I should be prosecuted? There might be such a thing as being too noble.
Hey, it might be treason. Do we have two witnesses? But no, you shouldn't be prosecuted for speaking. Maybe you should be prosecuted for "conspiracy to commit murder" or held liable in civil court. And you should damn well be kicked out of the army. But I feel that limited government is vital, and the government is simply not empowered to limit your speech. Period. I'm not entirely opposed to changing that, but a government that doesn't play by it's own rules is not a legitimate government, so why should we fight to protect it in the first place? (Possible answer, because it's the best so far. I think so, anyway. But it should still be better.) As to the possibility of being too noble, perhaps.
--sabre86
This isn't a "democracy" issue. It's a "freedom of speech/press" issue. And while I'm not sure what you mean by "I'm a complete not when I comes to the first amendment", but HOW EXACTLY do soldiers not have that right? Rights are inherent to human beings. (Remember how rights are "endowed by the Creator"?)
If the government actually obeys the First Amendment, there can be no law that punishes anyone, including soldiers, for excercising their freedom of speech. Constitutionally, the Government can't tell me what I can and cannot say, ever. This applies to "classified" information, operational security, etc. Admittedly, that's not how things have been interpreted by the courts, and they may even have valid reasons for it. But the clear interpretation of the Constitution and it's First Amendment is that laws limiting freedom of speech are prohibited.
Now, having said that, I agree that operations security is important. Soldiers should be careful about what they talk about, and should definitely be required to follow legal orders. And if they violate OpSec, they should definitely be removed from combat and/or fired -- they're government employees after all. It may even be reasonable to hold that in violating OpSec, they have criminally violated their orders, but I'm not sure. It seems to me that those orders would not be legal, as an officer is an agent of the Government and Congress, and any empowerment of the officer to limit his or her soldiers' freedom of speech would be a violation of the First Amendment, and thus not a legal order. But that does seem like a grey area.
In short, OpSec is important, and violating it should definitely have consequences -- firing, removal of benefits, KP duty, etc. But if the government really is limited by the Constitution, then it cannot criminalize anyone's freedom of speech, including soldiers. Admittedly, that's not how the Constitution is usually interpreted by the courts, but it should be. Limited government means the government plays by the clear rules.
--sabre86
Indeed.
After all, it's copyright, not creationright.
When I read this slashdot post, the first thing I thought was "I bet there's a wikipedia article on it!" Sure enough, either somebody has posted one and it's been deleted and protected, or the editors went ahead and jumped on it and protected it. (I haven't checked yet, though there are "additional information links. Nor have I check it in other bases.)
Guess I should look into postng this to one of the "anti-censorship on wikipeida" sites.
For what it's worth, this is utter crap, but it shows a severe weakness in copyright law. Anything that can be represented with data, anything at all, can be encoded/encrpyted on anything else, given an arbitrary coding mechanism. For instance, let us create "sabre86's stanard coding scheme": add 1 to any number. After encoding we have 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1. Look, it's a different number! I guess it isn't a circumvention. Or is it?
You can extend this logic arbitarily to anything, so that not only can any string represent any other string (and thus be a "copy"), any string can be the key to an encoding scheme, meaning that posting any string is "circumvention" if I see fit to describe my encryption process such that it encrypts/encodes a copyrighted work using that string as a "key."
So all strings are copyrighted because they can derived from other copyrighted strings through an arbitrary encoding scheme and all strings are potentially circumventions of DRM/CRAP because they are both a representation of a known key in a different encoding and the key for some other arbitrary encryption algorithm that "circumvents the copyright protections."
Bullshit
--sabre86
Ah! Thanks, that was extremely informative. It now makes perfect sense. Sincerely, --sabre86
Late thought: It just occured to me that I may have to export the copy to be liable, perhaps by allowing it to be downloaded internationally from my server. I'm not familiar with the patent law in question, but the article seems to imply that this applies to exporting components. That confuses me. Is the patent for "using the software with a computer" or for the software -- or some algorithm in the software -- itself? As somebody said earlier, if anyone can actually explain what this means, please do. --sabre86
"patented software?"
So if I make a copy of, say, Linux that has a "patent-infringing" software in it, am I liable for violating the patent, or is the author of the software? Or are both of us, if we're in the US?
--sabre86
At the same time, using bittorrent does increase the total upstream bandwidth. Not only am I downloading, but I'm uploading too, which I wouldn't be doing if I weren't using it. So will the original ftp server might only be uploading at 2 MB/s (I'm sure it's much faster than that) that everyone has to share, a thousand users uploading at 2 kB/s almost doubles that (admittedly, they can only upload what they already have, etc, etc. but still, once they have it.... like you said, its the people [like me] who keep seeding after their done downloading that really help). And honestly, I'm sure you know that... probably better than I.
So I guess what the OP of this particular thread should've said was "Seed the torrents, people." Because that's what we really need. That's what I'm doing. I've seed uploads speeds of better than 1 MB/s today and have uploaded like 5 gigs of the i386-desktop iso. It makes me feel good (which I guess is why I'm bragging).
But I see your point, now that I've written this... for the rest of us, it doesn't matter that you're using the torrents, it matters that you're seeding them -- particularly after you've got the whole file and if you've got a fast upload speed. Please don't take your torrents down.
--sabre86
The posts says "For copyright reasons I can't post the file or a complete disassembly. However, I can describe the program in terms of 16-bit DOS C:" While I understand the author's worries, it's frightening he feels this way. He shouldn't have to worry.
Doesn't fair use specifically include an exception for Comment and Criticism? If the whole code is being criticized and commented on, it should be reproduced in full, particularly given that it's distribution and dissemination does not harm Skype's marketshare.
Never mind that a reasonable interpretation of freedom of the press demands that the entire code be reported on and shared in an informative matter. Right? Right?
--sabre86
My meteorologist friend -- she's a student at the moment -- is a senior in operational meteorology. As I understand it that's the science of predicting weather. The school also has a degree in broadcast meteorology, which focuses on being a TV meteorologist. The operational students seem to hold the broadcast students in a bit of contempt for not being "real" meteorologists. I understand the broadcast meteorology degree, while apparently becoming more science-like, has historically been more communications oriented. So a degree in meteorology, particularly if it's broadcast, does not necessarily imply a fair knowledge of sciences.
Of course, the contempt may be just rivalry, I'm not entirely sure.
Here's Mississippi State's (the school she attends) relevant websites: Broadcast Meteorology and Operational Meteorology. A quick perusal suggests that operational meteorology does have stronger science requirements than the vanilla broadcast meteorology degree (though not necessarily the professional broadcast meteorology degree). And yeah, I realize they're more concentrations than degrees.
--sabre86
Odd. A friend of mine refers Jackson's suburb Florence as "podunk."
As you can see from the responses on the blog, Jackson's mayor is out of control. It's ludicrous. It's city council is even worse.
That'd be Russell Peters. He's awesome