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User: rewt66

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  1. Re:Mandatory Drug Testing for VA's Favorite Son on VA Governor Wants Military Drones For Police · · Score: 3, Funny

    No. He speaks something that sounds like English, but the words have different meanings. It's called "Politician".

  2. Re:couldn't they just do this with earth based? on Hubble To Use the Moon To View Transit of Venus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not really. They'd have earth's atmosphere to account for. Since what they're trying to look at is Venus' atmosphere changing the spectrum of sunlight, getting Earth's atmosphere into the act would complicate things quite a bit...

  3. Re:The Ruling Wasn't About Verbatim Copying on Jury Rules Google Violated Java Copyright, Google Moves For Mistrial · · Score: 1

    Well, it's not quite that simple. The judge said that a function prototype/signature was not copyrightable. Oracle's only claim, then, was that the "structure, sequence, and organization" of them was copyrightable. But that "structure, sequence, and organization" is the set of signatures that you provide, and which packages you put them in - which, in fact, is a pretty good description of the API.

  4. Not what it sounds like on Jury Rules Google Violated Java Copyright, Google Moves For Mistrial · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The jury was instructed that APIs were copyrightable. They found that Google infringed Sun/Oracle's Java API. But the judge will actually decide later whether APIs are in fact copyrightable (which question will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court before it's all over).

    So what the jury actually decided doesn't mean much. It means that Google copied the Java API. Well, yeah, we knew that already.

  5. Re:I have an organ donor card... on When Are You Dead? · · Score: 1

    I carry a donor card. Here's what it looks like to me: If I'm dead, you're welcome to the spare parts, because I don't need them anymore.

    And if you don't take them, well, I'm still just as dead. Yeah, it's tragic that I'm dead, but that's a tragedy that's already happened (in our hypothetical situation), and you can't make it any better by refusing my organs.

  6. A rule from XP (eXtreme Programming) on Are 10-11 Hour Programming Days Feasible? · · Score: 2

    Never work overtime for longer than a week.

    Why? Because your brain gets tired. You make more mistakes. Mistakes slow you down enough that, after more than a week of overtime, net productivity goes down. (This isn't an assembly line, it's brain work.)

    If your boss can't wrap his brain around that, start looking.

  7. Birds on Magnetic Pole Shift Affects Tampa Airport · · Score: 5, Funny

    The birds got confused by the discrepancy between runway numbers and magnetic north, couldn't figure out where to land, ran out of fuel, and crashed?

  8. You think WHAT????!!!??? on MPAA Dismisses COICA Free Speech Concerns · · Score: 1

    You think that an "executive agreement" both:
    - has legal force, and
    - is exempt from the first amendment?

    Tell me your kidding.

    More to the point, tell me that the Supreme Court does not agree with you...

  9. Rail gun on Fun With an Induction Cooktop? · · Score: 1

    Hardware modding may be required. Remove ceiling or wall before use. If you try it, on your own head be it - I do not guarantee your safety.

  10. Not novel on Microsoft Patents GPU-Accelerated Video Encoding · · Score: 1

    Look, we already went through the era of patenting obvious, well-known process X "with a computer". Then we went through patenting X "on the internet". We look back on that now, and we say, "Duh, putting it on a computer or on the internet didn't make it novel."

    Is putting it on a GPU any better? No.

  11. Re:It's simple, really on Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers? · · Score: 1

    Well, gays (engineer or no, doesn't matter) aren't going to be welcomed into an extremist Muslim organization.

  12. Re:Does not violate the Fourth Amendment? on Denials Aside, Feds Storing Body Scan Images · · Score: 1

    Different 4th Amendment issue: Surveilance of your house from the street. If I understand correctly, the cops can look all they want, but they can't use any technology that "looks through walls" (infrared, etc.) without a warrant.

    So, by analogy (always a dangerous way to reason), TSA should be able to look with their eyes, but not with anything that looks under people's clothes. To do otherwise is to violate the 4th Amendment.

    And, they can't weasel out of it with "it doesn't apply to us", because TSA is a federal agency.

  13. Re:More Info & Dashboard on Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says · · Score: 1

    That's not "ruining it for everyone". That's "ruining it for a few people who were already relying on a subsidy to engage in a marginal activity". That doesn't exactly overwhelm me with the need for concern.

    Now, you could easily give examples of people who were subsistence farmers, who didn't have a subsidy, and if their activity goes from "marginal" to "no way", well...

  14. Savage punishment? on America Versus the UFO Hacker · · Score: 1

    Which will be what? Imprisonment? Well, that's too bad. Don't break into our computers, and you won't have that problem.

    Guantanamo? That's a different matter.

    Or is the allegation that US prisons are, in and of themselves, cruel and unusual punishment?

  15. Re:Can someone explain to me .. on House Proposes Legalizing, Taxing Online Gambling · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that "almost everything Jesus said was a general rule". Let's take a closer look at this particular conversation.

    A rich guy comes to Jesus and asks what he has to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus walks him through the Ten Commandments. More specifically, the Ten Commandments has two parts: commandments 1-4, which deal with our relationship with God, and commandments 5-10, which deal with our relationships with people. Jesus dealt exclusively with the second section, but omitted commandment 10 (thou shalt not covet).

    The rich guy said that he had done all that.

    Then Jesus hit the guy with where his problem really was - his money. (This is tightly related to the covetousness that Jesus didn't mention in his first pass.) Jesus is saying, "This is your problem, you can't hold on to your money and still follow God." But that's because the money is what this guy is holding on to. If Jesus were talking to somebody else, he would go after what they were holding on to - maybe sex or pride of position.

    See, you're either holding on to God, or to something else. If you're holding on to something else, that's what Jesus would go after - whatever it is for you. So it's not that having money is a problem, it's that holding on to the money (as the thing you put ahead of God) is a problem. Now, I will grant you that that problem is somewhat highly correlated with having lots of money, but not entirely so. (Poor people dream about the money they don't have instead of holding on to the money that they do have.)

    Then, after the rich guy leaves, Jesus said that it's essentially impossible for the rich to get into heaven. Now, what made this such a bombshell is that the culture said that being rich was a sign of God's favor - so being rich meant that you were much more likely to get into heaven, right? But Jesus' point isn't that the rich have to give up their money to get into heaven, it's that you can't get into heaven any way but through him. So it's hard for EVERYBODY, not just for the rich. And, true, it may be especially hard for the rich, because it's really easy for them to grab onto something other than Jesus (money), and that means that they miss the only way.

    But saying "Jesus clearly says in that passage that the only way for rich people to enter heaven is to drop their earthly possessions into the hands of the poor. All of it. For all of them. The passage can not be understood differently" is a bit much. No, Jesus didn't say that.

    I refer you to Acts 5, where there were people selling their property and giving to those in need. And Ananias and Sapphira tried to fake it. Peter says, "When it was yours, did it not remain your own? And after you sold it, wasn't the money under your control?" The issue wasn't that they weren't giving it all, the issue was that they were trying to pretend that they had done more than they had. That means that Peter didn't understand Jesus the way you did. No offense, but my money's on Peter to be right.

  16. Re:Can someone explain to me .. on House Proposes Legalizing, Taxing Online Gambling · · Score: 1

    But Jesus never said that the community owns everything, or anything close to that. He said, "YOU [the rich guy he was talking to at the moment] go and sell everything you have and give to the poor".

    He didn't say "bring down the capitalist system", or "confiscate everything from those who own it, because property is theft, or because the community owns everything". He said, "You who owns this stuff, you voluntarily give it away, not because I'm changing the social order, but because I'm changing YOU".

    That last paraphrase gets to the heart of the matter. Jesus was about changing people's hearts, not about changing the social order. The change in their hearts was supposed to change their behavior, including their behavior toward money. And that change was supposed to influence society. But the influence on society is a third-order effect. Jesus talks about money (the second-order effect) to expose the heart issue, which is what he's really after.

    So, no, Jesus is NOT a socialist. I'll give you this, though - he's not a capitalist either.

  17. Re:Can someone explain to me .. on House Proposes Legalizing, Taxing Online Gambling · · Score: 1

    "Jesus was a socialist"? Um, no.

    Theoretically, Jesus was a theocrat - God rules. But practically, he told those living under occupation by a foreign empire (Rome) to pay their taxes, and that there was no disloyalty to God in doing so.

    People say that Jesus was a socialist because he said things like "give to those who ask of you". But this is not at all what people call socialism. He didn't say "set up a government structure to take taxes from people and give to those who have need". Instead, he said "you who follow me, you give to the needs of others. Do this, not because the government makes you, but because of what God has done for you."

  18. Tried to read the article on New Method Could Hide Malware In PDFs, No Further Exploits Needed · · Score: 1

    but it's a PDF...

  19. Re:Just wondering out loud... on New Theory of Gravity Decouples Space & Time · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, Einstein assumed that because of the null result of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. He didn't just guess it out of the blue...

  20. Not so fast on New Theory of Gravity Decouples Space & Time · · Score: 1
    Relativity is wrong at some level... or quantum is. Or both.

    As far as I know, there is currently no basis for assuming that it is relativity that is wrong (or that is the only one wrong).

    My personal theory is in line with Have Brain Will Rent (just below), that relativity and quantum mean completely different things by "time". But that's just a guess.

  21. It's not working on Building a 32-Bit, One-Instruction Computer · · Score: 1

    The point was supposed to be speed. So, he gets 10 MHz? That's not very impressive...

  22. Death of one old bag of baloney? on Microsoft Takes Responsibility For GPL Violation · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If I recall correctly, MS at one point tried to say that, if something like this happened, you'd have to release all your source code. Now we find that MS knows that you only have to release the source code of the program in question. Big difference. (Of course, if this was in Windows itself, the difference would not matter much to MS...)

  23. Re:How is any of this new? on Microsoft Patents XML Word Processing Documents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because it's using XML to try to help an app that doesn't understand the new element to figure out what to do with it, rather than just ignore it (as happens by default under XML, as you pointed out).

  24. Re:Maybe, maybe not on The Long-Term Impact of Jacobsen v. Katzer · · Score: 1

    Thanks. I was running from memory, so it was plausible that I had it badly wrong. Nice to have my memory confirmed.

  25. Maybe, maybe not on The Long-Term Impact of Jacobsen v. Katzer · · Score: 5, Informative

    IANAL. Having gotten that standard disclaimer out of the way, here's how I understand it. Jacobsen v. Katzer was a blatant, deliberate ripoff of open source code, followed (IIRC) by suing the original author for using his own code that the thief had claimed after stealing it. Said thief claimed that the open source license didn't mean anything, so that the thief's claim on the code was the only real one. Said thief lost the case. Now, I may have some of the foregoing details wrong. Don't take that as the gospel about what happened. But the point is, this case doesn't have much to do with accidental infringement. So let's take a specific example. Let's say open source project X unwittingly gets some code in it that is actually owned by company Y. Let's say that you, company Z, are using this code in a widget that you have shipped a large number (N) of. Now company Y is raising a stink. Do you have to either pay company Y for the use of their code or update all of your widgets in the field? Yes, unless company Y decides to be nice. (Note, however, that this is no different than a situation that Microsoft found itself in a few years back, so it's no different because the code was open source.) Are you liable for some large number of dollars times N to penalize you for stealing company Y's code? Probably not, unless your lawyers do a lousy job. You did it in innocence, which is completely different than the facts of this case.