"And the feed rendering engines should make sure their last modified is accurate."
I'm working on an aggregator right now and I'm using a couple feeds to test it on. Currently my aggregator does only get the rss file if it has been modified since it was last checked (or at least should, I havn't finished testing it), the problem is it almost always finds that it has been modified, even if no new items have been added. I manually checked the feeds and found that yes, they had been updated in the last hour, at least according to the pubdate and lastBuildDate items. I guess the feed rendering engine is updating the feed regardless of whether any real changes were made, thus my aggregator checks it when there is nothing new available.
Up to the minute information is not the point of RSS at all. In fact, people who think it is (and who thus set their aggregators to check the feeds every 10 minutes) are part of the problem.
Do you realize how unlikely it is for life to evolve, even given optimal conditions such as the existence of water? And even if life did spring up, do you realize how unlikely it would be that they would evolve into kingdoms identical or even similar to our terrestrial animal and plant kingdoms? Or do you doubt modern evolutionary theory and think some supernatural force experimented with life on Mars before finally getting it right on Earth?
Water != Life. To claim that evidence of water means life likely existed just shows your ignorance of the subject.
But would at the very least imply a market for them. Thus the idea that people buy books but don't read them doesn't explain why book vending machines are not catching on in the US.
"This would seem to substantially increase the chance that life once existed on the red planet."
What, from nil to nearly nil?
It took a lot more than just water to cause create reproducing life. Most of our modern theories concerning evolution and the origin of life on Earth point to life being very rare in the universe. Of course those theories could be wrong, but barring evidence to the contrary, I find that it is more likely than not that life is rare and thus the chances that Mars once had life on it are astronomically small. But clearly NASA feels differently or they wouldn't be so eager to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to disprove commonly accepted theories on the origin of life.
$5 says that if life did ever exist on Mars, it came over on a poorly sterilized spaceship.
Re:So, here's the question I find interesting.
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"But there is less openness and accountability for the police than there is for Joe Citizen."
Is there? Joe has a few rights of his own which meet, if not exceed, what the cops have in terms of information gathering.
"The police can view anything anyone does on the streets in downtown Boston, even if it's just walking across a street. Fine. But this viewing will take place behind closed doors."
Joe can, behind closed doors, view anything anyone does on the streets in downtown Boston, even if it's just walking down the street. All he has to do is peep out of his window.
" Recording of any suspicious activity, behind closed doors."
As long as he has a video camera, Joe can do the same.
"Facial recognition, behind closed doors."
Another check, Joe can do that as well.
"Background checks, behind closed doors."
All that takes is an Internet connection and maybe $20 and Joe has the same access.
Add to that, there are numerous things Joe can do that the cops cannot without a warrant or it will be thrown out of court. The cops can't badger a suspect (at least not after he has asked for his lawyer), they are severe limitations on how and what they can search, etc.
Re:So, here's the question I find interesting.
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Well thats the media's fault. But just because the media doesn't report on something doesn't mean that nothing happens because of it. Don't be fooled into thinking that what you see on CNN is everything that goes on in this world.
And I take issue with your assumption that cops and federal officials get away with crimes at an unusually high rate. Lots of people, government officials, millionares, and ordinary citizens, get away with crimes. That doesn't mean that the entire group is above the system and unaccountable, it means our justice system is not perfect
Re:So, here's the question I find interesting.
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1984 Comes To Boston
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By that logic, since Laci Peterson made the national news, murder cases must be rare in this country.
The media is not consistent in how they choose what is newsworthy and what is not. For every case that gets a segment on CNN or Fox, there are hundreds just like it that no one pays attention to.
Re:So, here's the question I find interesting.
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1984 Comes To Boston
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Its happened before. There are many instances where police brutality was caught on surveillance cameras and was shown to the public.
Please, police cameras in public areas are a long way away from thought crimes, telescreens, and the Ministry of Love. Save the hyperbole for your English lit class, it in no way serves your argument.
I disagree. Being a newbie isn't the same thing as being an incompetent moron. In fact, newbies generally refers to a class of people who have very little experience in something but are interested in learning. What better learning experience than something that has you do the configuration yourself rather than having some script do it hidden away in the background?
Saying Slackware is newbie-friendly does not mean it is right for grandma, merely that it is a good choice for someone interested in learning about Linux/Unix but who currently has little experience.
The point is google is more than just a search engine now. I used to use Yahoo a lot, but then I got mad at them (I think it was when I tried to cancel a service that I had purchased, but they never honored the cancelation, even after I had that credit card canceled (in fairness, they gave me my money back every month, but still...)). So I left Yahoo as my primary Internet portal, though I still use them quite a lot as I have a lot invested in them. I have a lot of email in my old account that I sometimes want to access, I use their fantasy leagues, and I would use LaunchCast if they would port it to browsers other than IE (maybe that was what pissed me off about Yahoo...).
And I'm not one of those guys who gets stuck with an application forever and refuses to get a better one. Recently I dropped Windows and everything that came with it in favor of Linux. Now think how hard it would be for my mom, who panics if IE opens up to somewhere other than msn.com and she can't find hotmail, to change from google to some other service.
Not really. People get used to the web services and have trouble leaving them. Same with applications. Its not exactly that hard to switch from IE to Firefox and doesn't cost a dime, yet MS still has 90-something% of the market there.
Aside from the fact that the given quote came from after he posted his claim that I said Red Hat had lied, nothing in there states or even implies that Red Hat was guilty of lying, merely that the original poster was willing to let them get away with it.
"Look, it doesn't take an SEC investigation just to see the changes are trivial."
Why are you still talking about the changes Red Hat in their accounting practices? I thought I had made it clear that I was talking about the SEC investigation. The only relationship between the two is that the investigation prompted the changes.
"There's a huge gap between a blind eye and an investigation. HUGE!"
But having no investigations is, for all intensive purposes, tantamount to turning a blind eye.
Well thats certainly interesting, but it really has nothing to do with what I had posted, did it?
Regardless of whether or not Red Hat actually did lie and hurt investors in this case, the SEC has an obligation to investigate potential violations and cannot just turn a blind eye to Red Hat because they support OSS. Thus SQLz's complaint over the SEC investigating Red Hat is unjustified. RTFP.
I'm sorry, when did I imply that Red Hat was lying? Oh thats right, I didn't. I was talking about the ggp's feelings about how the SEC should act, not about Red Hat's business practices.
Did you even read my post or the post I was responding to? I didn't say they lied. They guy was complaining that the SEC is investigating Red Hat. Meaning he apparently thinks the SEC should treat Red Hat with a blind eye, which is basically equivalent to them getting a free pass to lie about their earnings. Hence why what I accused him of thinking that "That Red Hat can lie about earnings...", not Red Hat itself of lying. Minor difference between the two.
I was attacking his apparent belief that Red Hat should be given special treatment by the SEC and that they should instead go after SCO with a vendetta, not Red Hat's business practices.
" Again YOU ARE THE PERSON "discussing" (monologuing) that - others have long since started talking about other stuff."
Wrong. I was replying to a post arguing that patents hurt employment. You responded with a bunch of off topic red herring arguments that had nothing to do with the origional debate. I am willing to entertain you, but reserve the right to mock your inability to follow a message thread.
"I suggest you read a few patents. And maybe a dictionary."
Get back to me after you have taken that middle school English class. Then maybe we can continue this. Until then, I'm not going to go about teaching you the English language.
"You do realise it's the mere threat of a patent lawsuit that suppresses many would-be innovators, particularly in america, where there is little loser-pays-legal-fees ruling, right?"
Nope. There are many holders of very questionable patents who will never bother to sue over them because they know they will lose and just end up paying a lot of legal fees, along with looking like an ass.
In industry, the idea generally is you get paid to invent, so your base salary includes your compensation for the invention.
But allow me to rephrase my origional statement. Which would get paid more, a researcher whose employer patents and sells his research, or a hypothetical researcher whose research is all released into the public domain?
"If they can afford the costs of getting a patent and defending it."
Give me a break. There are plenty of examples of individuals applying for and recieving patents. If its a good idea, they can make money off of it. Otherwise, they have no need to defend it.
"The USPTO will let you patent any trivial modification of an existing design these days."
There is a great difference between the Patent Office granting you a patent and a judge enforcing it. The fact is the Patent Office cannot investigate every patent that comes to them in detail, as it is it generally takes years for patent applications to go through.
"but anti-patent sentiment gels with the typical opinions of most of the scientists and engineers I've met. "
Well gee, if you met them they must be representative of the population as whole.
"it's my opinion that matters regarding inventions I produce, which _will_ be released without patent protection."
And you are free to do as you choose. No one is forcing you to do things their way. You are merely trying to force others (who may like the patent system) to do things your way.
"Absurdity. People have been creating long before there were patent rights..."
Yet another red herring (notice how he has completely left the origional line of discussion which was on the effect of patents on employment)... For the less literate portion of the population, let me qualify that. There is no motivation for corporations and investors (which are needed for much of the research done today) to aide in the creation of innovative innventions.
"You often hear people claim people are "naturally selfish". This is rubbish, as anyone who has worked with children knows. Selfish behaviour has to be learned."
LOL. Now I get it. You are some idealistic 10 year old.
"A patent "implementation" of an idea is a description of "a method and apparatus for catching mice" - that's what patents are supposed to describe and protect, particular implementations of ideas like "a device for catching mice"."
A description of a method is an idea, genius. The implementation is the device itself. I'm sure you will understand the difference when you take high school English.
"The apple tree thing was an allegorical example."
No, thats called a gross exaggeration. Allegories are a bit different. You will learn that in middle school English.
"Maybe I should have used Microsoft's stupid mouse click patent instead."
In which case I would rule it irrelevant as it has never been enforced by a judge. Besides, they didn't patent mouse clicks, you must have just read a very biased summary to think that was what it was.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm working on an aggregator right now and I'm using a couple feeds to test it on. Currently my aggregator does only get the rss file if it has been modified since it was last checked (or at least should, I havn't finished testing it), the problem is it almost always finds that it has been modified, even if no new items have been added. I manually checked the feeds and found that yes, they had been updated in the last hour, at least according to the pubdate and lastBuildDate items. I guess the feed rendering engine is updating the feed regardless of whether any real changes were made, thus my aggregator checks it when there is nothing new available.
Up to the minute information is not the point of RSS at all. In fact, people who think it is (and who thus set their aggregators to check the feeds every 10 minutes) are part of the problem.
Water != Life. To claim that evidence of water means life likely existed just shows your ignorance of the subject.
But would at the very least imply a market for them. Thus the idea that people buy books but don't read them doesn't explain why book vending machines are not catching on in the US.
What, from nil to nearly nil?
It took a lot more than just water to cause create reproducing life. Most of our modern theories concerning evolution and the origin of life on Earth point to life being very rare in the universe. Of course those theories could be wrong, but barring evidence to the contrary, I find that it is more likely than not that life is rare and thus the chances that Mars once had life on it are astronomically small. But clearly NASA feels differently or they wouldn't be so eager to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to disprove commonly accepted theories on the origin of life.
$5 says that if life did ever exist on Mars, it came over on a poorly sterilized spaceship.
Is there? Joe has a few rights of his own which meet, if not exceed, what the cops have in terms of information gathering.
"The police can view anything anyone does on the streets in downtown Boston, even if it's just walking across a street. Fine. But this viewing will take place behind closed doors."
Joe can, behind closed doors, view anything anyone does on the streets in downtown Boston, even if it's just walking down the street. All he has to do is peep out of his window.
" Recording of any suspicious activity, behind closed doors."
As long as he has a video camera, Joe can do the same.
"Facial recognition, behind closed doors."
Another check, Joe can do that as well.
"Background checks, behind closed doors."
All that takes is an Internet connection and maybe $20 and Joe has the same access.
Add to that, there are numerous things Joe can do that the cops cannot without a warrant or it will be thrown out of court. The cops can't badger a suspect (at least not after he has asked for his lawyer), they are severe limitations on how and what they can search, etc.
And I take issue with your assumption that cops and federal officials get away with crimes at an unusually high rate. Lots of people, government officials, millionares, and ordinary citizens, get away with crimes. That doesn't mean that the entire group is above the system and unaccountable, it means our justice system is not perfect
The media is not consistent in how they choose what is newsworthy and what is not. For every case that gets a segment on CNN or Fox, there are hundreds just like it that no one pays attention to.
Its happened before. There are many instances where police brutality was caught on surveillance cameras and was shown to the public.
Please, police cameras in public areas are a long way away from thought crimes, telescreens, and the Ministry of Love. Save the hyperbole for your English lit class, it in no way serves your argument.
See, I too can make irrelevant analogies that in no way benefit the conversation.
News for Nerds, remember? Some of us don't mind getting down and dirty with our computers.
Saying Slackware is newbie-friendly does not mean it is right for grandma, merely that it is a good choice for someone interested in learning about Linux/Unix but who currently has little experience.
And I'm not one of those guys who gets stuck with an application forever and refuses to get a better one. Recently I dropped Windows and everything that came with it in favor of Linux. Now think how hard it would be for my mom, who panics if IE opens up to somewhere other than msn.com and she can't find hotmail, to change from google to some other service.
Not really. People get used to the web services and have trouble leaving them. Same with applications. Its not exactly that hard to switch from IE to Firefox and doesn't cost a dime, yet MS still has 90-something% of the market there.
"Look, it doesn't take an SEC investigation just to see the changes are trivial."
Why are you still talking about the changes Red Hat in their accounting practices? I thought I had made it clear that I was talking about the SEC investigation. The only relationship between the two is that the investigation prompted the changes.
"There's a huge gap between a blind eye and an investigation. HUGE!"
But having no investigations is, for all intensive purposes, tantamount to turning a blind eye.
Regardless of whether or not Red Hat actually did lie and hurt investors in this case, the SEC has an obligation to investigate potential violations and cannot just turn a blind eye to Red Hat because they support OSS. Thus SQLz's complaint over the SEC investigating Red Hat is unjustified. RTFP.
I'm sorry, when did I imply that Red Hat was lying? Oh thats right, I didn't. I was talking about the ggp's feelings about how the SEC should act, not about Red Hat's business practices.
I was attacking his apparent belief that Red Hat should be given special treatment by the SEC and that they should instead go after SCO with a vendetta, not Red Hat's business practices.
So if Enron had invested in OSS, would you be defending Kenneth Lay and complaining about how he is being persecuted by the SEC?
Wrong. I was replying to a post arguing that patents hurt employment. You responded with a bunch of off topic red herring arguments that had nothing to do with the origional debate. I am willing to entertain you, but reserve the right to mock your inability to follow a message thread.
"I suggest you read a few patents. And maybe a dictionary."
Get back to me after you have taken that middle school English class. Then maybe we can continue this. Until then, I'm not going to go about teaching you the English language.
"You do realise it's the mere threat of a patent lawsuit that suppresses many would-be innovators, particularly in america, where there is little loser-pays-legal-fees ruling, right?"
Nope. There are many holders of very questionable patents who will never bother to sue over them because they know they will lose and just end up paying a lot of legal fees, along with looking like an ass.
But allow me to rephrase my origional statement. Which would get paid more, a researcher whose employer patents and sells his research, or a hypothetical researcher whose research is all released into the public domain?
No it does not, you are free to release your ideas freely. Or you are free to apply for patents and not enforce them (like most patents out there).
Give me a break. There are plenty of examples of individuals applying for and recieving patents. If its a good idea, they can make money off of it. Otherwise, they have no need to defend it.
"The USPTO will let you patent any trivial modification of an existing design these days."
There is a great difference between the Patent Office granting you a patent and a judge enforcing it. The fact is the Patent Office cannot investigate every patent that comes to them in detail, as it is it generally takes years for patent applications to go through.
"but anti-patent sentiment gels with the typical opinions of most of the scientists and engineers I've met. "
Well gee, if you met them they must be representative of the population as whole.
"it's my opinion that matters regarding inventions I produce, which _will_ be released without patent protection."
And you are free to do as you choose. No one is forcing you to do things their way. You are merely trying to force others (who may like the patent system) to do things your way.
Yet another red herring (notice how he has completely left the origional line of discussion which was on the effect of patents on employment)... For the less literate portion of the population, let me qualify that. There is no motivation for corporations and investors (which are needed for much of the research done today) to aide in the creation of innovative innventions.
"You often hear people claim people are "naturally selfish". This is rubbish, as anyone who has worked with children knows. Selfish behaviour has to be learned."
LOL. Now I get it. You are some idealistic 10 year old.
"A patent "implementation" of an idea is a description of "a method and apparatus for catching mice" - that's what patents are supposed to describe and protect, particular implementations of ideas like "a device for catching mice"."
A description of a method is an idea, genius. The implementation is the device itself. I'm sure you will understand the difference when you take high school English.
"The apple tree thing was an allegorical example."
No, thats called a gross exaggeration. Allegories are a bit different. You will learn that in middle school English.
"Maybe I should have used Microsoft's stupid mouse click patent instead."
In which case I would rule it irrelevant as it has never been enforced by a judge. Besides, they didn't patent mouse clicks, you must have just read a very biased summary to think that was what it was.