What they need to do is get one person to cough up the whole million. That is what Monty Python did when they wanted to produce Life of Brian. Would there be a filthy rich person interested in sponsoring the show? Perhaps a popstar? Britney Spears? Nah, Firefly too intellensual. Michael Jackson? Nah, Firefly too adult. Someone else then? Bill Gates? Nah, Firefly not republican enough. Come on, there should be somebody...
Who cares if you can patent time travel. The first person to actually invent a time machine will just travel back in time and patent it first.
Mr. A invents a time machine. He travels back 10 years in time to patent the key technology. His patents get accepted. Unfortunately, Microsoft feels his patents are in conflict with theirs, and sends in an army of lawyers. Mr. A is tied up in court for the next decade, and cannot get around to actually creating the time machine. The timeline collapses and the time machine will never be invented. Mr. A, still in court, gets desperate and commits suicide (he would have preferred to go back in time and kill his own grandfather, but without time machine that option is moot).
How do I know that GPL version 17 wont give every user of my software a right to come by my house for a free lunch?
Because the GPL only talks about the software, not about the software's creator.
If the GPL version 17 states that every user of the software has the right to go to Bill Gates and receive a million dollars from him, do you think that Bill really has to cough up that dough? Well, that is exactly the same as the GPL version 17 stating that the original author of the software has to give the user a million dollars.
Basically, when the software comes under the GPL, it is out there; there is no "sole owner" anymore, it is just lines of code, for everyone to use, under the GPL. Sure, someone may still hold copyrights, but those are just rights, not obligations.
This is necisarry for the same reason that you can't use plain english to write code - plain english leaves to much open for interpretation.
That may be a good idea, and I once thought that was the reason, too. However, a couple of years ago I had to create an expert system that allowed a user to check whether he was conforming to a specific law. The legal document was about 30 pages thick, and I could not read it well, but I had lawyers supporting me in creating the system. "Should be no problem," I thought, "because this is a legal document and as such it should not be open to interpretation." But what I found was different. There were about a dozen articles in this document which the lawyers could not translate for me in understandable language. So I presented them with cases, to find out how these should be decided. Several of these cases could not be solved. Then one lawyer (who was co-author of the original document) admitted to me that they had left many of the articles purposefully vague, so that later on, when a conflict would arise, a judge could make a decision as he would see fit. They simply did not dare to make unequivocal decisions, because several big companies would be affected by this law, and they would certainly attack it if it would have too negative an impact. Actually, during the creation of this expert system at several points I found conflicting statements in the text, which caused the law to be changed.
No, I can't stand them. But I cannot stand any game that does not let me save at any time I like. I hate replaying a long sequence simply because I am not a good buttonmasher.
Well, it all started when they signed an onerous monopoly licensing agreement with IBM that said their OS would be distributed with all machines, and that everyone had to pay them wether or not they wanted it. Then they made boat loads of money.
Not quite correct. Microsoft signed a deal with IBM by which they provided IBM with an OS (MS-DOS, which was renamed PC-DOS for IBM), but Microsoft retained the full rights to the OS. This allowed Microsoft to provide the OS to clone manufacturers. IBM became a big success in the PC market, and Microsoft was coming along for the ride, with DOS becoming the default OS. At that point Microsoft made the brilliant move by giving PC manufacturers a huge cost reduction if they would pay them for the OS per PC they sold, and not per copy of the OS they delivered. They seemed like a good deal to all at the time, but it did provide Microsoft with its OS monopoly. IBM's attempt to reduce the impact of this monopoly by developing OS/2 in collaboration with Microsoft was sabotaged at several points by Microsoft, which allowed them to transfer the OS monopoly to its awful Windows shell. And that is where we are today.
When I got my first computer, a C64, a friend gave me Mission Impossible, with an evil grin, and remarking that I would never be able to finish it. I played the game for three days straight, and finially got the password. At that point, I was a bit in trouble, because no-one I knew had ever come so far, so no-one could tell me what to do at that point. However, if you play this game for three days, the answer comes pretty quickly, and I was the first in my neighbourhood to hear the evil scientist cry out "No! No!"
I played it for several weeks more, with my best time something around two-and-a-half hours (with two deaths).
The funny thing is that recently I connected my C64 to my TV again, for the first time after fifteen years. And I was still able to play Impossible Mission to the end! It has become part of my metabolism FOREVER. Which gives a new meaning to "stay a while,..."
And if you look to the history of invention, its usually the product of unrelated research.
(John Cleese's voice:) Would Rutherford have split the atom if he hadn't tried? Would Einstein have ever hit upon the theory of relativity if he hadn't been clever? Would Marconi have invented radio if he hadn't, by pure chance, spent years working on the problem?
Well, I don't think they gave IE away for free to make money off it, at least not directly. They did it to become a controlling force on the Internet. They wanted to kill off every other browser (at the time, Netscape most notably), and after that turn the Internet (at least the WWW part) into the Microsoftnet.
They did not succeed fully in their goal, although you can't deny they became a huge force on the Internet. But that is exactly what makes this move so strange. It seems they have given up on their ultimate goal. I mean, if you want to control the Internet, you should not tell 5% of your users that they should go to the competitor. That means you won't get that 5% of the Internet, and thus you won't control the complete Internet.
Perhaps they rightfully gave up their goal, seeing that Firefox is growing, that most Apple users use Safari, and that they do not have IE for Linux. So the browser might not be the key to the Internet.
But still, if they could turn IE into a really good browser, people might actually switch (back) to it. I mean a fast, safe, fully configurable browser. But perhaps that is not within powers.
Face it, being "just" a programmer is a starting job. It is not a career.
I started as a programmer. As I got more experience, I started to do design too, got extra education, started to do research, even got a Ph.D. next to my job. Nowadays, I lead projects, design stuff, do research (though not as much as I would like), educate new people, and, yes, also do the occasional bit of programming, just because I like to do that.
However, I cannot get worked up over yet another computer language, yet another library, or yet another operating system. Things don't change as fast as novice programmers think. Object oriented programming is still the same as 15 years ago, only now we use Java and C# instead of Delphi and C++.
During my career I learned about 20 computer languages, but became a wizard in only three (one of which I have already forgotten). Java is not one of them. If on a project I have to collaborate with other people who are versed in Java, or if it makes sense to use Java because of interoperability, I'll use Java. But if it is a project for my own research, I use Delphi. Not because it is the best choice around, but it is good enough and I know it very well. The thing is, I cannot get excited anymore about learning another computer language. I get excited about solving new problems and designing new algorithms.
I am not a programmer anymore. I have gone beyond that. It comes with experience. Which, if you do your job well, automatically comes with age.
"A man with one watch always knows what time it is, but a man with two watches never knows."
Unless of course one of the watches is a nixie watch and that the batteries have run out after 2 days usage, or the cathodes have busted from all that shaking.
Nice, but I would use another counterargument.
A man with one watch always knows his personal time, but will never know how his personal time is correlated with the actual time. While a man with a hundred watches will be able to average over all their indicated times and, taking the standard deviation into account, will have a pretty good idea what time it actually is. Assuming, of course, that all watches have been set to approach the correct time at some point during their life.
Any party involved in civil litigation has a legal right to obtain discovery...
It might be legal, but that does not mean it is morally right. Laws are created by governments, and are just as moral as the the government is. In this case, I am pretty glad that I live in a country where only the police is allowed to inspect my personal property, and that only at the order of a judge and with a search warrant.
Of course, the BSA still tries to strong-arm companies into letting them inspect their computers. It is just that in my country they have no legal right to do so, so you can just send them away.
Citing wikipedia should be grounds for immediate failure.
No, it should not, but it should also not be accepted as good research.
If a student is honest about his resources, if his resources are Wikipedia articles I will tell him that he needs to get other resources, and I will help him find them. If a student uses Wikipedia information without telling me and I find out - THAT is grounds for immediate failure.
Unfortunately, this happens far too often.
If there are only 78 innovative ideas
on
The Year in Ideas
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If there are only 78 innovative ideas, why is it that tens of thousands of patents were awarded?
Furthermore: tattooing a slogan on your forehead -- why does that fall under the category "Science"?
Yeah, I expected that that would be the case. So if these guys "lose" 500K, that was what they allowed Google to charge them. Regardless the effect of their ads. They are whiners. Whiners with lawyers, unfortunately.
Kubrick's Lolita was banned in quite a lot of places, for the suggestion that an adult man had sex with a 14 year old girl. Not that that scene is in the movie, or even explicitly talked about.
Or a blowjob, if you're a hot chick. I mean, the objective is to make the gamer happy, right?
While the article in question is just meant as being "funny" (although it does not really succeed at that), finding a gift for ANYONE who is mightly interested in objects of a certain category X, is not to buy anything in category X. Either what you will buy is crap, or what you will buy is good but already owned by the person in question.
Exceptions are: chocolates, wines, and blowjobs, as long as you are certain that they are of high quality.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they can get William Shatner next. The guys from Free Enterprise succeeded in that.
Buy Playboy for an article? Are you nuts? You DO know that there are pictures of naked ladies in there, do you?
What they need to do is get one person to cough up the whole million. That is what Monty Python did when they wanted to produce Life of Brian. Would there be a filthy rich person interested in sponsoring the show? Perhaps a popstar? Britney Spears? Nah, Firefly too intellensual. Michael Jackson? Nah, Firefly too adult. Someone else then? Bill Gates? Nah, Firefly not republican enough. Come on, there should be somebody...
Mr. A invents a time machine. He travels back 10 years in time to patent the key technology. His patents get accepted. Unfortunately, Microsoft feels his patents are in conflict with theirs, and sends in an army of lawyers. Mr. A is tied up in court for the next decade, and cannot get around to actually creating the time machine. The timeline collapses and the time machine will never be invented. Mr. A, still in court, gets desperate and commits suicide (he would have preferred to go back in time and kill his own grandfather, but without time machine that option is moot).
Because the GPL only talks about the software, not about the software's creator.
If the GPL version 17 states that every user of the software has the right to go to Bill Gates and receive a million dollars from him, do you think that Bill really has to cough up that dough? Well, that is exactly the same as the GPL version 17 stating that the original author of the software has to give the user a million dollars.
Basically, when the software comes under the GPL, it is out there; there is no "sole owner" anymore, it is just lines of code, for everyone to use, under the GPL. Sure, someone may still hold copyrights, but those are just rights, not obligations.
That may be a good idea, and I once thought that was the reason, too. However, a couple of years ago I had to create an expert system that allowed a user to check whether he was conforming to a specific law. The legal document was about 30 pages thick, and I could not read it well, but I had lawyers supporting me in creating the system. "Should be no problem," I thought, "because this is a legal document and as such it should not be open to interpretation." But what I found was different. There were about a dozen articles in this document which the lawyers could not translate for me in understandable language. So I presented them with cases, to find out how these should be decided. Several of these cases could not be solved. Then one lawyer (who was co-author of the original document) admitted to me that they had left many of the articles purposefully vague, so that later on, when a conflict would arise, a judge could make a decision as he would see fit. They simply did not dare to make unequivocal decisions, because several big companies would be affected by this law, and they would certainly attack it if it would have too negative an impact. Actually, during the creation of this expert system at several points I found conflicting statements in the text, which caused the law to be changed.
You're a Republican, right?
No, I can't stand them. But I cannot stand any game that does not let me save at any time I like. I hate replaying a long sequence simply because I am not a good buttonmasher.
Actually, 96% of the world population is outside the USA. However, 99% of the world population (including the USA) could not care less.
Not quite correct. Microsoft signed a deal with IBM by which they provided IBM with an OS (MS-DOS, which was renamed PC-DOS for IBM), but Microsoft retained the full rights to the OS. This allowed Microsoft to provide the OS to clone manufacturers. IBM became a big success in the PC market, and Microsoft was coming along for the ride, with DOS becoming the default OS. At that point Microsoft made the brilliant move by giving PC manufacturers a huge cost reduction if they would pay them for the OS per PC they sold, and not per copy of the OS they delivered. They seemed like a good deal to all at the time, but it did provide Microsoft with its OS monopoly. IBM's attempt to reduce the impact of this monopoly by developing OS/2 in collaboration with Microsoft was sabotaged at several points by Microsoft, which allowed them to transfer the OS monopoly to its awful Windows shell. And that is where we are today.
I played it for several weeks more, with my best time something around two-and-a-half hours (with two deaths).
The funny thing is that recently I connected my C64 to my TV again, for the first time after fifteen years. And I was still able to play Impossible Mission to the end! It has become part of my metabolism FOREVER. Which gives a new meaning to "stay a while,..."
(John Cleese's voice:) Would Rutherford have split the atom if he hadn't tried? Would Einstein have ever hit upon the theory of relativity if he hadn't been clever? Would Marconi have invented radio if he hadn't, by pure chance, spent years working on the problem?
Is this really good? I skipped it because as soon as I read the words "paranormal thriller" I start retching.
They did not succeed fully in their goal, although you can't deny they became a huge force on the Internet. But that is exactly what makes this move so strange. It seems they have given up on their ultimate goal. I mean, if you want to control the Internet, you should not tell 5% of your users that they should go to the competitor. That means you won't get that 5% of the Internet, and thus you won't control the complete Internet.
Perhaps they rightfully gave up their goal, seeing that Firefox is growing, that most Apple users use Safari, and that they do not have IE for Linux. So the browser might not be the key to the Internet.
But still, if they could turn IE into a really good browser, people might actually switch (back) to it. I mean a fast, safe, fully configurable browser. But perhaps that is not within powers.
"Mission accomplished. Congratulations."
Unfortunately, it stopped working 4 years ago when I moved.
I started as a programmer. As I got more experience, I started to do design too, got extra education, started to do research, even got a Ph.D. next to my job. Nowadays, I lead projects, design stuff, do research (though not as much as I would like), educate new people, and, yes, also do the occasional bit of programming, just because I like to do that.
However, I cannot get worked up over yet another computer language, yet another library, or yet another operating system. Things don't change as fast as novice programmers think. Object oriented programming is still the same as 15 years ago, only now we use Java and C# instead of Delphi and C++.
During my career I learned about 20 computer languages, but became a wizard in only three (one of which I have already forgotten). Java is not one of them. If on a project I have to collaborate with other people who are versed in Java, or if it makes sense to use Java because of interoperability, I'll use Java. But if it is a project for my own research, I use Delphi. Not because it is the best choice around, but it is good enough and I know it very well. The thing is, I cannot get excited anymore about learning another computer language. I get excited about solving new problems and designing new algorithms.
I am not a programmer anymore. I have gone beyond that. It comes with experience. Which, if you do your job well, automatically comes with age.
Unless of course one of the watches is a nixie watch and that the batteries have run out after 2 days usage, or the cathodes have busted from all that shaking.
Nice, but I would use another counterargument.
A man with one watch always knows his personal time, but will never know how his personal time is correlated with the actual time. While a man with a hundred watches will be able to average over all their indicated times and, taking the standard deviation into account, will have a pretty good idea what time it actually is. Assuming, of course, that all watches have been set to approach the correct time at some point during their life.
It might be legal, but that does not mean it is morally right. Laws are created by governments, and are just as moral as the the government is. In this case, I am pretty glad that I live in a country where only the police is allowed to inspect my personal property, and that only at the order of a judge and with a search warrant.
Of course, the BSA still tries to strong-arm companies into letting them inspect their computers. It is just that in my country they have no legal right to do so, so you can just send them away.
No, it should not, but it should also not be accepted as good research.
If a student is honest about his resources, if his resources are Wikipedia articles I will tell him that he needs to get other resources, and I will help him find them. If a student uses Wikipedia information without telling me and I find out - THAT is grounds for immediate failure.
Unfortunately, this happens far too often.
Furthermore: tattooing a slogan on your forehead -- why does that fall under the category "Science"?
Yeah, I expected that that would be the case. So if these guys "lose" 500K, that was what they allowed Google to charge them. Regardless the effect of their ads. They are whiners. Whiners with lawyers, unfortunately.
"I will pay Google 1 cent for every click on my ad. Regardless the number of clicks."
If it were me, I would always have a maximum in place, and a method of verifying the correctness of a bill.
Besides, do Internet ads really work?
Kubrick's Lolita was banned in quite a lot of places, for the suggestion that an adult man had sex with a 14 year old girl. Not that that scene is in the movie, or even explicitly talked about.
Or a blowjob, if you're a hot chick. I mean, the objective is to make the gamer happy, right?
While the article in question is just meant as being "funny" (although it does not really succeed at that), finding a gift for ANYONE who is mightly interested in objects of a certain category X, is not to buy anything in category X. Either what you will buy is crap, or what you will buy is good but already owned by the person in question.
Exceptions are: chocolates, wines, and blowjobs, as long as you are certain that they are of high quality.