If California bought 270,000 boxed copies from RedHat, they probably wouldn't be giving their money back if California found they needed less.
Now, it might seem pretty stupid to buy 270,000 boxed copies of RedHat, but then, we're talking about a group that bought 270,000 extra copies of Oracle.
Of course, with copies of RedHat we are talking about a tangeable, physical product. It would be a burden on RedHat to take back all those boxes. When we're talking about seat licenses, that's something else entirely.
Re:All my commercial software is licensed
on
Coding Fair Use
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· Score: 1
I do recall seeing some things about EULAs not applying on Slashdot. There's this and this.
So, are we to act like the licenses have no effect in order to invalidate licenses that deny us our Fair Use and First Sale rights?
All my commercial software is licensed
on
Coding Fair Use
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm not sure how Fair Use would apply to commercial software I use. All that I use, AFAIK, is both copyrighted and licensed.
From what I understand, the book publishers tried to license all their works around the turn of the century and this resulted in the "First Sale" doctrine we have now when the Courts struck that down.
I'd be in favor of "First Sale" recognition for software, but until we have that Fair Use doesn't have much affect on me. Even if Fair Use would allow me to do something with software that I don't already do, the license would probably forbid it.
Is there any chance that the Courts will just strike down the licenses for software? Are we to act like these software are only protected by copyright, including Fair Use provisions, to get this brought before a court?
If they are a higher quality, they could potentially sell at a higher price - except that as acknoledged above, most people aren't willing to spend the extra $ for a quieter HD.
It's really a shame. I, for one, certainly am willing to pay more for these great Travelstars. I have 3 of 'em that I carry around all the time, 2 of them being swappable. I've never had a single problem with any of them. Never had a problem with the 2 that I had previously with a different laptop.
I hope Hitachi keeps up the good work in this area.
The AlphaServers will run Linux and Compaq will sell you one, but no buyers yet among these big machines.
I'm pretty sure there are smaller ES45 (or ES50 or whatever) linux clusters around, in the low hundreds of nodes instead of thousands. Also, I thought Sandia's CPlant was running linux on some of these guys and it's sitting at #30. The TOP500 list doesn't say, and I've even used it and still don't remember....:)
I believe you are right. There are ES45/40s fielded with Linux, but when I said "big machines" I was referring to the really big machines of your list.
You are correct on the Compaq entries all being Tru64. The AlphaServers will run Linux and Compaq will sell you one, but no buyers yet among these big machines.
Are any Search engines running Windows yet? I would assume the msn.com search engine runs Windows, but I don't know for sure... If so, I'd believe it's the only one.
There are some facts that speak so loudly that MS Marketing can't overcome no matter how hard they try.
Due to the reliability and the lack of 911 coverage, I wouldn't consider this for my only phone.
But, if I had a home office, this would be the ultimate phone for business calls. I would love to be able to get all my calls in a digital mailbox for later reference. Can you direct all your conversations to a digital mailbox for your records? It'd also be nice to be able to capture all the caller IDs for your business calls. Is that possible?
It wouldn't bother me a bit that it didn't work when my broadband/power was out. I really wouldn't want to take many business calls when I couldn't access my computer or the Internet anyway. There's just too much on-line that I'd want to be able to reference or access while I'm talking. Your business might vary, of course. Can you redirect calls to another number (my personal phone/cell phone) if the service is unavailable for whatever reason? That'd be a neat feature.
I'm interested in the research that shows we could replace our dependence on fossil fuels with wind power.
I note that California had a massive program of building wind power stations in the 80s supported by energy deregulation and tax incentives yet California only gets a very tiny percentage of it's electrical needs supplied by wind today.
The huge capital costs of replacing oil with wind today would not only include the power stations themselves, but also the total switchover of all of our vehicles to electric power. There would also need to be instituted significant changes in our Power grids to support this and we'd need some Electric power stations to replace gas stations.
Also note that you lose quite a bit of efficiency in converting wind to electricity and storing electricity in batteries to drive cars. Batteries aren't very efficient, unfortunately. Good batteries also are expensive to manufacture and would require recycling infrastructure we don't currently have in place.
I'm willing to listen to your theories about how alternative energy is suppressed by the rich and powerful. If it's as easy to implement and economical as you imply, I would think that someone would just start building wind power stations. Since energy deregulation, power companies are required to buy it from you at market prices.
Either it can be implemented cheaply and it is economical to run, in which case I would think somebody would be doing it, or it requires huge capital investment, which the powers-that-be are denying. I don't think you can have it both ways.
I would like to see massive investment in this and other technologies to lessen our dependence on unstable sources of fossil fuels. I favor this for strategic reasons, but I believe the reason the private sector isn't doing it now are economic. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline in the US is quite a bargain lately. The price does fluctuate a great deal though.
"All configuration and administration is done by editing.conf files
If you buy the product your Apache from Covalent. They offer all kinds of Enterprise services to support Apache, too, so there goes the one about Apache not having a support organization behind it like IIS.
This is energy company spin. While your points about the transfer of economic power are interesting, putting the "they're just out to get us" angle back in there makes your reply a counter-screed to the parent screed. Second, if the US derives economic power from activities which put a burden on the rest of the world, then we gotta make restitution, even if that involves a transfer of power. You gotta pay to play.
You might have a point if Kyoto would actually help matters. Fact is, the reductions of Kyoto are very small or even non-existent (depending on the growth of the exempted countries). There are a lot of atmospheric scientists who think that this level of output is untenable. What Kyoto does is transfer production of greenhouse gases from current have nations to current have-not nations. Since it doesn't really help the Greenhouse gas equation, it's just about retribution against the nasty Americans.
Kyoto is worthless. If there is global warming due to greenhouse gases (not clear yet, could be Solar cycles) and if CO2 is the culprit (not clear yet, could be that reductions in other gases would have much greater benefit), then we need a real global treaty that would take real measures against it. Not just some token move that just penalizes the US out of spite.
If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us.
The "just stop selling them" argument is a little simplistic. By the same rights, the US has no business fighting a war on drugs abroad - we should "just stop" buying them.
OK, I agree with that. Next.
Even worse, it's totally cynical. You're suggesting that because we as the US have money, we're totally devoid of responsiblity for what happens when we throw it around, because after all, all those Congolese people "chose" to "sell" us their diamonds. Yes, there is an onus on Brazil to control it's own population and make sensible policy choices about their resources. But the onus is also on us to help them, because it's in our interests, as well as theirs to have less CO2 in the atmosphere.
Well, you've removed all the context of the previous discussion. I was pointing out the irony of his contending that we are "bossing" Brazil around with regard to the rain forests. Turns out, he was objecting to the US (and others, I assume) telling Brazilians that they can't destroy the Rain Forests if they want to! (I didn't realize that Brazilians felt this way, but I guess I should have.)
For the record, I don't think that the US or anybody should be encouraging the clearing of Rain Forests. As I pointed out, the primary reason for this cutting is indigenous agriculture, not lumber, anyway. I guess we need to encourage Brazilians to cut back on their population growth and move toward more productive farming methods. Good thing the US can help here.
I just thought it was odd that he'd be arguing that we were "bossing" them around by buying their trees. I thought this was odd language to use, but I was mistaken about his motivations. He seems to want to have us leave them alone so they can cut down all the rain forest they want and to advise us that we should switch to alcohol for our cars instead.
But, I can see you and I have a basic disagreement here anyway. You do seem to believe that buying and selling is coercive. I suppose you think that working is wage slavery, too.
I agree that we have a responsibility toward the Rain Forests and I pointed out the Americans are in the forefront of efforts to save the Rain Forest.
It's a bit of a stretch that this is directed at the MS/Unisys "way out" ads. It's much more clearly directed at all other Unix's (including Linux) on the desktop.
US would have to spend money to decrease poluting gasses production. Know what else ? All others would too.
That's not the Kyoto Treaty. Others, like China and Brazil come to think of it, would be allowed to dramatically increase production of greenhouse gases.
As I said, either you are for reduced greenhouse gases or not. This treaty just switches around the coutries producing greenhouse gases. It does little or nothing to reduce total production.
Again, you must be kidding. Brazil never sold one inch of the rain forest to USA, or any other country, for that matter.
I think you are mistaken. I distinctly recall where Environmental Groups from the US are buying up Amazon Rain Forest to protect them. I could probably find a reference, if you are interested.
And USA is trying to dictate what Brazil can do and can't do with the rain forest that is on its own territory.
Can you explain what you mean? How is the US trying to dictate how Brazil uses its rain forests? Are we pressuring you into not cutting them down? Is that the problem?
Not: we managed to reduce the CO2 emission.
And again, it does produce less CO2. Not that much less, but some.
We were talking about production of greenhouse gases, if you were changing the subject, you should have said so. If alcohol produces less CO2 for the amount of energy generated vs. Gasoline, I'd guess that it's miniscule. In fact, I would guess that it probably produces more CO2/joule because it doesn't produce the other pollutants. Most of those other pollutants represent oxidation that is the byproduct of energy production. Perhaps a chemist or other knowledgeable person could clear this up. I have to admit that I'm guessing.
Yes. Once again, I find myself trying to clear up the misconception that global warming = warmer weather.
I agree that global warming leads to more extremes, but it's also projected to warm some previously cold areas. They are testing for it by testing for average increase in the temperature of the crust and air temperature.
Sure, a warmer earth would be great. However, all we understand at this point is that warming it up makes it spin out of control.
I think you are misrepresenting the Atmospheric Science relating to this issue. Scientists have not settled on that yet. It may well be that some increase will increase cloud cover which will reflect solar heat and restabilize the system. Nobody knows yet.
Before anybody accuses me of advocating global warming, I'm not in favor of it because I believe it will restabilize due to increased cloud cover. I'm saying that nobody knows what the effects will be.
I also think it's a dangerous experiment, but one that we may be well into without the possibility of a quick fix.
Why has the USA refused (AFAIK, the only one to refuse) to sign that protocol/treat that would stablish rules about CO2 production (and other atmospheric emissions) ?
I really don't want to get into this, but. First, a lot of countries have not signed Kyoto.
Second, Kyoto has more to do with transfer of economic power from the US to other countries than it does with reducing greenhouse gases. Under Kyoto, countries like China are largely exempt and will begin producing more heavily. Either you are for reducing greenhouse gases or you aren't, I say. This treaty is a sham designed to hurt the US.
I live in Brazil, so I know every well how much USA is bossing about the Amazon Forest.
Bossing? I think we're just buying them. If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us. Of course, this ignores the fact that US activists are in the forefront of trying to protect rain forests, even establishing funds to buy up huge swaths in an effort to protect them.
Aren't a lot of the rain forest cut down to support indigenous agriculture? If this is the case, stop increasing your population and stop blaming the US on all the ills of the world.
Oh, did you cut all the trees ? Thought. Now, take care of your all problem.
We didn't cut down all of our trees. There are huge forests in the US. I believe I read that there are more trees now than 30 years ago through careful management. We may have increased our consumption our trees from Brazil, but that's because many of the fine woods are not and have never been available in the US are plentiful down there. Oh, I think you'll find the Japanese and others, not just Americans, buy a lot of that wood, too.
Brazil is a small fish of a country, but we managed to reduce the polution created by cars in about 20%, using alchool based fuels, and another few percent points by mixing some of this alchool on out gas. As far as I know, it's the only country where the usage of alchool fuel for cars really worked (not like ethanol in USA, where it's only in some isolated places).
I'm no chemist, but I think you'll find that alcohol produces very similar CO2 output to Gasoline for the same energy produced. Alcohol doesn't produce the Sulphur, CO1 and other nasty pollution that Gasoline produces, but similar CO2, I believe.
You are obviously not aware of the various island nations which will DISSAPPEAR from the face of the earth if the planet heats up as much as you indicate because of the rise in ocean level. Who are we to decide we can delete a few countries because we don't want our energy to cost a bit more?
If you go back and read what I said, instead of the strawman that you prefer to attack, you'll see that I am in no way an advocate for Global Warming.
I said:
Seems like a fairly dangerous experiment, however. But, if as some are saying that some global warming is here and there will be a trend for some years that's irreversible even if we drastically cut emissions, it might not be a bad thing.
Your argument is like accidentally stabbing someone, and then saying why not stab that person a few times more, since he's already wounded, and maybe the blood-loss will be a good thing instead of a bad thing.
I did not argue in favor of global warming. In fact, I said if this is what we are doing, that it's a dangerous experiment. I said that the results may not all bad.
If, as it appears, that there are global warming/cooling cycles based on cyclical solar activity, then global warming from greenhouse gases may be a good thing to warm the planet if Solar emissions go down. Again, I'm not arguing for playing with the weather, here. Just providing some information.
(Actually, they used to think removing someone's blood was a good thing. And we all know what that had as a consequence. Once again an indication we need to learn more about a system before we mess with it.)
Actually, it's been noted recently that those who give blood regularly have better health. I recognize that this may be a selection effect. People who give blood regularly may care about their health more, etc. But, also, women seem to have less heart disease partly because they have lower levels of iron in their blood. Perhaps some bleeding isn't such a bad thing after all?
I completely agree that we need to learn more about the system. I was just pointing out that if there is warming that's now occurring and we can't stop some additional warming, then it might not be all bad.
So what exactly is holding back solar power, wind power, and nuclear power?
Economics. Oil is cheaper to use than any of those. Solar, Wind and Nuclear require big capital investments up front and provide electrical energy which can't be stored without a big drop in efficiency. Oil and hydrogen, depending on how difficult it will be to mine it, don't have this problem.
They're all more freely available than hydrogen.
Are you sure? Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. If we've found a large, easily tapped reserve, this is a good thing, I think.
There are huge areas of Russia and Canada that would support more plant life if it were warmer.
Also, very hot (and humid) regions support some of densest growth known.
A general heating of the atmosphere may support a great deal more plant life than we have now.
Seems like a fairly dangerous experiment, however. But, if as some are saying that some global warming is here and there will be a trend for some years that's irreversible even if we drastically cut emissions, it might not be a bad thing.
Obviously a lot of carbon gets converted to all the hyrdocarbons we find in plant life. I don't have any feel for how much carbon is used in building the trees and how much is removed from the atmosphere.
Wouldn't the phitoplankton have similar breathing properties?
It is now 08:26 EST and the server is no longer responding - I suppose it had to give at some point. Though as said, its amazing it lasted as long as it did.
Isn't it though?
Makes me wonder if computing wouldn't be a lot more reliable if we didn't have the current tendency for everything to bloat out of control.
It's not just Windows, either, a lot of people are complaining that it's hard to run current Linux distros on older machines now.
A return to minimalism in computing environments would be welcome right now. We might think that these C64 hackers are just nuts who are serving no purpose except to prove that it can be done. Really though, this kind of thing should be a wakeup call.
Moore's Law is a wonderful thing. It has seem to support some distortions in how we develop and deploy systems, however.
Since the DMCA is going to be abused, knowingly helping the abusers select victims is unethical. And "my vendor isn't making as much money as they might" is a tort your vendor can demand relief for, not you.
I can see your point. As long as there is the DMCA, helping to enforce it's provisions involves YRO. Well, I guess someone told me what this has to do with YRO!:-)
Funny that this is being done out of England. Does England have anything like the DMCA?
Hell, pressing "F" is probably libel unless you're certain the work is copyrighted and they have no license.
IANAL, but I think to prosecute the libel case you'd have to show that the report was malicious or neglegent. You're putting the burden on the person making the report to make sure there's some violation. You'd have more of a case against FAST, since they should be better able to distinquish.
As for "vigilante": Merrian-Webster defines [m-w.com] this as (broadly) "a self-appointed doer of justice".
Very broadly. You left out the rest of the definition, which supplies needed context. Also, you're link is no good. Here's a good link. Here's the definition:
: a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice
Clearly, the meaning of "doer of justice" here is someone who takes justice into their own hands. These people almost certainly are using the courts and other legal means.
As I said, I'm not afraid of people collecting publicly available information (Web Pages) for evidence of crimes that may have been committed. If the reports are invalid, then the web page maintainer should be able to defend against the charge. If you think the DMCA is unfair in that it allows for action against alleged wrongdoers without court involvement, that's a problem with the DMCA, not those reporting what they see to be crimes.
As to legal standing, IANAL, but everyone has standing to report criminal behavior. It's only in civil cases that you have to prove you have standing in order to bring suit. Furthermore, anyone who purchases software can claim to be damaged by people distributing unlicensed material.
Well, the establishment of a self-appointed unaccountable vigilante force roaming the Web certainly seems to bear on YRO.
I'm not afraid of a "self-appointed unaccountable vigilante force" that just uses their right of free expression to report those that appear to be breaking the law. Besides, I think vigilante is off base here, don't you think? That implies taking the law into their own hands, which is not at all what they are doing here. They are just enlisting people's help in capturing publicly available information about activities which may be illegal. Also, these people are accountable in civil courts. If someone feels that they've been damaged by this activity, by all means, sue them.
If you want to complain about the DMCA, complain about the DMCA, but this doesn't seem to have much to do with that.
Slashdot Mirror
If California bought 270,000 boxed copies from RedHat, they probably wouldn't be giving their money back if California found they needed less.
Now, it might seem pretty stupid to buy 270,000 boxed copies of RedHat, but then, we're talking about a group that bought 270,000 extra copies of Oracle.
Of course, with copies of RedHat we are talking about a tangeable, physical product. It would be a burden on RedHat to take back all those boxes. When we're talking about seat licenses, that's something else entirely.
So, are we to act like the licenses have no effect in order to invalidate licenses that deny us our Fair Use and First Sale rights?
From what I understand, the book publishers tried to license all their works around the turn of the century and this resulted in the "First Sale" doctrine we have now when the Courts struck that down.
I'd be in favor of "First Sale" recognition for software, but until we have that Fair Use doesn't have much affect on me. Even if Fair Use would allow me to do something with software that I don't already do, the license would probably forbid it.
Is there any chance that the Courts will just strike down the licenses for software? Are we to act like these software are only protected by copyright, including Fair Use provisions, to get this brought before a court?
It's really a shame. I, for one, certainly am willing to pay more for these great Travelstars. I have 3 of 'em that I carry around all the time, 2 of them being swappable. I've never had a single problem with any of them. Never had a problem with the 2 that I had previously with a different laptop.
I hope Hitachi keeps up the good work in this area.
- The AlphaServers will run Linux and Compaq will sell you one, but no buyers yet among these big machines.
I'm pretty sure there are smaller ES45 (or ES50 or whatever) linux clusters around, in the low hundreds of nodes instead of thousands. Also, I thought Sandia's CPlant was running linux on some of these guys and it's sitting at #30. The TOP500 list doesn't say, and I've even used it and still don't remember....I believe you are right. There are ES45/40s fielded with Linux, but when I said "big machines" I was referring to the really big machines of your list.
Are any Search engines running Windows yet? I would assume the msn.com search engine runs Windows, but I don't know for sure... If so, I'd believe it's the only one.
There are some facts that speak so loudly that MS Marketing can't overcome no matter how hard they try.
Oh! I love Slashdot polls.
I use CowboyNeal.
But, if I had a home office, this would be the ultimate phone for business calls. I would love to be able to get all my calls in a digital mailbox for later reference. Can you direct all your conversations to a digital mailbox for your records? It'd also be nice to be able to capture all the caller IDs for your business calls. Is that possible?
It wouldn't bother me a bit that it didn't work when my broadband/power was out. I really wouldn't want to take many business calls when I couldn't access my computer or the Internet anyway. There's just too much on-line that I'd want to be able to reference or access while I'm talking. Your business might vary, of course. Can you redirect calls to another number (my personal phone/cell phone) if the service is unavailable for whatever reason? That'd be a neat feature.
Should have been something like
Trade:
For no more:
Oh well...
I note that California had a massive program of building wind power stations in the 80s supported by energy deregulation and tax incentives yet California only gets a very tiny percentage of it's electrical needs supplied by wind today.
The huge capital costs of replacing oil with wind today would not only include the power stations themselves, but also the total switchover of all of our vehicles to electric power. There would also need to be instituted significant changes in our Power grids to support this and we'd need some Electric power stations to replace gas stations.
Also note that you lose quite a bit of efficiency in converting wind to electricity and storing electricity in batteries to drive cars. Batteries aren't very efficient, unfortunately. Good batteries also are expensive to manufacture and would require recycling infrastructure we don't currently have in place.
I'm willing to listen to your theories about how alternative energy is suppressed by the rich and powerful. If it's as easy to implement and economical as you imply, I would think that someone would just start building wind power stations. Since energy deregulation, power companies are required to buy it from you at market prices.
Either it can be implemented cheaply and it is economical to run, in which case I would think somebody would be doing it, or it requires huge capital investment, which the powers-that-be are denying. I don't think you can have it both ways.
I would like to see massive investment in this and other technologies to lessen our dependence on unstable sources of fossil fuels. I favor this for strategic reasons, but I believe the reason the private sector isn't doing it now are economic. When adjusted for inflation, gasoline in the US is quite a bargain lately. The price does fluctuate a great deal though.
For:
If you buy the product your Apache from Covalent. They offer all kinds of Enterprise services to support Apache, too, so there goes the one about Apache not having a support organization behind it like IIS.
- This treaty is a sham designed to hurt the US.
This is energy company spin. While your points about the transfer of economic power are interesting, putting the "they're just out to get us" angle back in there makes your reply a counter-screed to the parent screed. Second, if the US derives economic power from activities which put a burden on the rest of the world, then we gotta make restitution, even if that involves a transfer of power. You gotta pay to play.You might have a point if Kyoto would actually help matters. Fact is, the reductions of Kyoto are very small or even non-existent (depending on the growth of the exempted countries). There are a lot of atmospheric scientists who think that this level of output is untenable. What Kyoto does is transfer production of greenhouse gases from current have nations to current have-not nations. Since it doesn't really help the Greenhouse gas equation, it's just about retribution against the nasty Americans.
Kyoto is worthless. If there is global warming due to greenhouse gases (not clear yet, could be Solar cycles) and if CO2 is the culprit (not clear yet, could be that reductions in other gases would have much greater benefit), then we need a real global treaty that would take real measures against it. Not just some token move that just penalizes the US out of spite.
- If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us.
The "just stop selling them" argument is a little simplistic. By the same rights, the US has no business fighting a war on drugs abroad - we should "just stop" buying them.OK, I agree with that. Next.
Well, you've removed all the context of the previous discussion. I was pointing out the irony of his contending that we are "bossing" Brazil around with regard to the rain forests. Turns out, he was objecting to the US (and others, I assume) telling Brazilians that they can't destroy the Rain Forests if they want to! (I didn't realize that Brazilians felt this way, but I guess I should have.)
For the record, I don't think that the US or anybody should be encouraging the clearing of Rain Forests. As I pointed out, the primary reason for this cutting is indigenous agriculture, not lumber, anyway. I guess we need to encourage Brazilians to cut back on their population growth and move toward more productive farming methods. Good thing the US can help here.
I just thought it was odd that he'd be arguing that we were "bossing" them around by buying their trees. I thought this was odd language to use, but I was mistaken about his motivations. He seems to want to have us leave them alone so they can cut down all the rain forest they want and to advise us that we should switch to alcohol for our cars instead.
But, I can see you and I have a basic disagreement here anyway. You do seem to believe that buying and selling is coercive. I suppose you think that working is wage slavery, too.
I agree that we have a responsibility toward the Rain Forests and I pointed out the Americans are in the forefront of efforts to save the Rain Forest.
It's a bit of a stretch that this is directed at the MS/Unisys "way out" ads. It's much more clearly directed at all other Unix's (including Linux) on the desktop.
That's not the Kyoto Treaty. Others, like China and Brazil come to think of it, would be allowed to dramatically increase production of greenhouse gases.
As I said, either you are for reduced greenhouse gases or not. This treaty just switches around the coutries producing greenhouse gases. It does little or nothing to reduce total production.
I think you are mistaken. I distinctly recall where Environmental Groups from the US are buying up Amazon Rain Forest to protect them. I could probably find a reference, if you are interested.
Can you explain what you mean? How is the US trying to dictate how Brazil uses its rain forests? Are we pressuring you into not cutting them down? Is that the problem?
And again, it does produce less CO2. Not that much less, but some.
We were talking about production of greenhouse gases, if you were changing the subject, you should have said so. If alcohol produces less CO2 for the amount of energy generated vs. Gasoline, I'd guess that it's miniscule. In fact, I would guess that it probably produces more CO2/joule because it doesn't produce the other pollutants. Most of those other pollutants represent oxidation that is the byproduct of energy production. Perhaps a chemist or other knowledgeable person could clear this up. I have to admit that I'm guessing.
I did say "If we've found an easily tapped reserve".
I agree that global warming leads to more extremes, but it's also projected to warm some previously cold areas. They are testing for it by testing for average increase in the temperature of the crust and air temperature.
I think you are misrepresenting the Atmospheric Science relating to this issue. Scientists have not settled on that yet. It may well be that some increase will increase cloud cover which will reflect solar heat and restabilize the system. Nobody knows yet.
Before anybody accuses me of advocating global warming, I'm not in favor of it because I believe it will restabilize due to increased cloud cover. I'm saying that nobody knows what the effects will be.
I also think it's a dangerous experiment, but one that we may be well into without the possibility of a quick fix.
I really don't want to get into this, but. First, a lot of countries have not signed Kyoto. Second, Kyoto has more to do with transfer of economic power from the US to other countries than it does with reducing greenhouse gases. Under Kyoto, countries like China are largely exempt and will begin producing more heavily. Either you are for reducing greenhouse gases or you aren't, I say. This treaty is a sham designed to hurt the US.
Bossing? I think we're just buying them. If you don't like losing them, stop selling them to us. Of course, this ignores the fact that US activists are in the forefront of trying to protect rain forests, even establishing funds to buy up huge swaths in an effort to protect them.
Aren't a lot of the rain forest cut down to support indigenous agriculture? If this is the case, stop increasing your population and stop blaming the US on all the ills of the world.
We didn't cut down all of our trees. There are huge forests in the US. I believe I read that there are more trees now than 30 years ago through careful management. We may have increased our consumption our trees from Brazil, but that's because many of the fine woods are not and have never been available in the US are plentiful down there. Oh, I think you'll find the Japanese and others, not just Americans, buy a lot of that wood, too.
I'm no chemist, but I think you'll find that alcohol produces very similar CO2 output to Gasoline for the same energy produced. Alcohol doesn't produce the Sulphur, CO1 and other nasty pollution that Gasoline produces, but similar CO2, I believe.
If you go back and read what I said, instead of the strawman that you prefer to attack, you'll see that I am in no way an advocate for Global Warming.
I said:
I did not argue in favor of global warming. In fact, I said if this is what we are doing, that it's a dangerous experiment. I said that the results may not all bad.
If, as it appears, that there are global warming/cooling cycles based on cyclical solar activity, then global warming from greenhouse gases may be a good thing to warm the planet if Solar emissions go down. Again, I'm not arguing for playing with the weather, here. Just providing some information.
Actually, it's been noted recently that those who give blood regularly have better health. I recognize that this may be a selection effect. People who give blood regularly may care about their health more, etc. But, also, women seem to have less heart disease partly because they have lower levels of iron in their blood. Perhaps some bleeding isn't such a bad thing after all?
I completely agree that we need to learn more about the system. I was just pointing out that if there is warming that's now occurring and we can't stop some additional warming, then it might not be all bad.
Economics. Oil is cheaper to use than any of those. Solar, Wind and Nuclear require big capital investments up front and provide electrical energy which can't be stored without a big drop in efficiency. Oil and hydrogen, depending on how difficult it will be to mine it, don't have this problem.
Are you sure? Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. If we've found a large, easily tapped reserve, this is a good thing, I think.
A general heating of the atmosphere may support a great deal more plant life than we have now.
Seems like a fairly dangerous experiment, however. But, if as some are saying that some global warming is here and there will be a trend for some years that's irreversible even if we drastically cut emissions, it might not be a bad thing.
Wouldn't the phitoplankton have similar breathing properties?
Isn't it though?
Makes me wonder if computing wouldn't be a lot more reliable if we didn't have the current tendency for everything to bloat out of control.
It's not just Windows, either, a lot of people are complaining that it's hard to run current Linux distros on older machines now.
A return to minimalism in computing environments would be welcome right now. We might think that these C64 hackers are just nuts who are serving no purpose except to prove that it can be done. Really though, this kind of thing should be a wakeup call.
Moore's Law is a wonderful thing. It has seem to support some distortions in how we develop and deploy systems, however.
I can see your point. As long as there is the DMCA, helping to enforce it's provisions involves YRO. Well, I guess someone told me what this has to do with YRO! :-)
Funny that this is being done out of England. Does England have anything like the DMCA?
IANAL, but I think to prosecute the libel case you'd have to show that the report was malicious or neglegent. You're putting the burden on the person making the report to make sure there's some violation. You'd have more of a case against FAST, since they should be better able to distinquish.
Very broadly. You left out the rest of the definition, which supplies needed context. Also, you're link is no good. Here's a good link. Here's the definition:
Clearly, the meaning of "doer of justice" here is someone who takes justice into their own hands. These people almost certainly are using the courts and other legal means.
As I said, I'm not afraid of people collecting publicly available information (Web Pages) for evidence of crimes that may have been committed. If the reports are invalid, then the web page maintainer should be able to defend against the charge. If you think the DMCA is unfair in that it allows for action against alleged wrongdoers without court involvement, that's a problem with the DMCA, not those reporting what they see to be crimes.
As to legal standing, IANAL, but everyone has standing to report criminal behavior. It's only in civil cases that you have to prove you have standing in order to bring suit. Furthermore, anyone who purchases software can claim to be damaged by people distributing unlicensed material.
I'm not afraid of a "self-appointed unaccountable vigilante force" that just uses their right of free expression to report those that appear to be breaking the law. Besides, I think vigilante is off base here, don't you think? That implies taking the law into their own hands, which is not at all what they are doing here. They are just enlisting people's help in capturing publicly available information about activities which may be illegal. Also, these people are accountable in civil courts. If someone feels that they've been damaged by this activity, by all means, sue them.
If you want to complain about the DMCA, complain about the DMCA, but this doesn't seem to have much to do with that.