Falsifying results on a research project, even something like the one you describe as work for hire, can come back to haunt you later if you decide to pursue an academic career in the physical sciences.
It would really suck to have your Ph.D. discredited because you did something like this, NDA or no NDA, contract or no contract.
Always remember, when doing research: Lab notes are admissible in court. I'd say, signing a contract that binds you to an agreement that you will falsify results, is already a sufficient ethical violation to sully your career. Before you've even done the deed.
My big annoyance is the disabling of the right mouse button, which is my back button on IE. I'm not here to steal your stupid pictures, and that trick doesn't work anyway.
The other thing I really hate is when you have to click a popup. You can't open-in-new-window, or you just get an error page with a javascript popup statement in the url field. Highly annoying.
"I doubt WhenU held a gun to people's head forcing them to install the WhenU client."
No, but I have suspected them of using an IE exploit to install their client without the user's knowledge or consent. I can't prove it, of course, and I'd imagine it would be a big stink if it were true (e.g., felony computer crime for each violation, one would think.)
They don't literally force anyone to install their software, but they certainly do it clandestinely and without a clear affirmative decision made by the user. It doesn't fall in the same category as literally holding a gun to the user's head, but that doesn't make it ok.
"To say it plainly, if it's MY computer, I'll install what I choose, and if I'm not happy, I know exactly where the uninstall is located."
This kind of spyware sneaks in. And without a certain amount of knowledge, such as knowing the registry inside and out, they are very hard to remove. I don't need help with this stuff either, but I know a thing or two about computers. That does not diminish my concern for a victim who cannot say that.
So instead of holding a gun to your head and making you talk, they sneak into your apartment while you're at work and bug the place. Does that make you feel better?
I've bought "off the shelf" machines lately: My Toshiba Notebook and a Shuttle XPC. Couldn't have done better with parts. Well technically, the Shuttle is parts.
I use everything on your list, and others. But I'm not moved to "never go back to Windows", and I won't be, until I get something to replace Magix Studio and Fruity Loops.
The GPL is completely tacit in regards to the licensee's right to USE the software. The GPL is concerned with DISTRIBUTION. If the GPL is somehow invalid for a given licensee, that party will have lost the distribution privilege granted by it. The right to use the software isn't in question to begin with.
> Sometime in the near future, the GPL is going to >be tested in court
It's hard to think of a credible scenario where a court case involving the GPL will have any effect on anyone other than the parties named in the suit. There's no magic ruling that is going to make "The GPL" == "The Law of the Land" any more or less than it already is.
The GPL is a software license based on copyright law. Copyright law is well-tested in court, and it holds up just fine. The GPL is not different in any significant way, from many other software licenses.
If there is something fundamentally flawed with the GPL, a court ruling against it would probably *also* be broad enough to sever your rights to use just about any software that is licensed to you. Notice that it won't magically make it free, rather, it would end your rights that you have under whatever license you currently have.
But the GPL does have legal weight. It does not need to be "tested in court" any more than the lease agreement between me and my landlord needs to be "tested".
If someone finds such a flaw in the GPL as to render it void, it will NOT magically deprive the licensors of their copyrights. Rather, it would deprive the licensees of their right to distribute the software until the copyright holder chooses to work something else out.
A finding that the GPL is "illegal" would require the GPL itself to have some very serious flaws, the kind of flaws that would be obvious, and those same flaws would be present in any other agreement whose basis is copyright law. So the agreement turns out to be "illegal." It's still a hell of a long stretch before you can deprive a copyright holder of his *Constitutional* right to the copyright.
IANAL. But I think I know what I'm talking about. Plenty of people who *ARE* lawyers have said the same things, many times. Nobody is really concerned that "the GPL" won't stand up in court. Maybe for a specific piece of code, with specific parties, the GPL is a problem between the parties, regarding that code. But in the general case? The GPL is as safe as any other software license whose basis is copyright; which is all of them -- even those which are explicitly placed in the public domain.
You meant well, but you haven't showed me a way to move away from the tools that force me onto the Windows platform. I know about the sound software that's available, and I use some of it and I think it's great. But where we have the Gimp for graphics, which is almost good enough that we can talk to graphics guys with a straight face, there's precious little for the DAW.
The folks who work at Goodwill around here are quite savvy, and know what stuff is worth. They're as savvy as any pawn shop owner I've ever seen. They know what electronics are worth having, which ones are crap, and even which crap is collectible. They know what books, music, and magazines are cool and need to be priced individually, and which are dogs, not getting shelf space.
It's actually OK if it's a bit hard to install. I really like the Knoppix approach. If they went one more step and had a slightly easier "full install" step, it would be fine.
But there is a problem. It's still very difficult to do some of the things that seriously need to be "instant-gratification" tasks.
Playing a DVD. Writing a CDR. ReadWriting a compact flash chip. Easy ACPI suspend/resume on laptops. Playing MPEG and other A/V formats. 2-track recording and wave editing. Printing. Wireless networking.
This stuff is still hard, and some of it is impossible depending on your hardware. I think there are serious deficiencies in basic usability, even for the seasoned linux fanatic. I have trouble with the items on my list, and I'm willing to work hard at it. I've been running linux since.99pl4. I have no need for point-and-drool interfaces.
In 1998, I saw a guy in the carpool lane, in a Ford pickup truck, with a small TV sitting on the dashboard between the steering wheel and the windshield. One person in the truck. In the carpool lane. Watching TV while driving in traffic. And it wasn't even a "car tv", it was just a portable.
Scared the hell out of me, although it was not the stupidest thing I'd seen on that road (I635, Dallas).
"but this is almost the most famous automotive design issue in history."
It was superseded by another Ford Fiasco -- the truck suspension that causes the vehicle to go into a roll if a front tire blows out. They successfully redirected attention onto the defective tire, but I say the suspension design was horribly flawed. I've had front tires blow out at highway speeds, and lived through the experience. Even had a tire leave the rim completely on a 60's model VW bus, which stayed in control long enough for me to slow down and pull over. Before you joke about the speed of the VW, I was going about 140 km/h at the time.
I wonder if there is no body of evidence that similar hoaxes were pulled by charlatans around that time. People look at the Voynich MS and assume it was a lot of trouble to go to, or that it is incredibly elaborate. But it really *isn't* that elaborate. The calligraphy and the illustration could be nothing more than a child's writing practice and coloring book of the time. (People who were at all literate, in those days, tended to be *very* literate.) It represents a few months of work, at best. It's really crude, in comparison to the state of the art of the time.
Throw in the element of financial gain, and it is even easier to believe. It's probably hard to understand the situation of a Renaissance artist (or con man) if you regard it from a modern context. The hard part of the job was the discipline needed to avoid using real words.
Another possible way of looking at it. What if all we had of Tolkein's work, was notebooks of elvish writing and illustrations, with no codec, and nothing to indicate the meaning? What if, instead of being a family storyteller and published author, he'd simply been a recluse, and left us only an undecipherable notebook?
Well, something similar may have happened in the 16th century, but with a darker side -- the purpose was to present a strange and mysterious artifact to a benefactor, with good assurances that the hoax would not be discovered -- and live large in the Renaissance style until the money ran out and it was time to pull the next hoax.
I've marvelled at the Voynich and other mysteries for more than 30 years now. I don't have any problem believing it's a 1500's equivalent of a CO$ OT document. More so if you can demonstrate that money changed hands over the book.
What? Lithium is toxic, sure. But not toxic enough for your "nearly perfect bomb" scenario.
I'll agree that batteries might be slightly more dangerous than some of the stuff that's not allowed, but I really don't think it's much of a weapon.
"By the kidneys of Allah, some of you may experience renal failure from this toxic exposure! You infidels with low sodium levels may be susceptible to a chronic degeneration of your central nervous system!"
Somehow, that just doesn't rise to the level that I think is needed to instill "terror." And it's sure as hell not going to put you in control of the plane.
If you say so. My two datapoints are co-workers, one with an 02 bug, the other with an Insight. The bug gets awesome mileage, but doesn't actually reach "50 mpg" territory. I'm far more interested in torque than mileage, so neither of these vehicles appeal to me.
Why bother? Well, it's probably not worth the effort *now*, but what if these projects are successful?
The X-Box is surprisingly inexpensive, considering its specs. Mine was $120 -- At that price, "shopping around" didn't occur to me, it hit my impulse-buy price point. If there was already a fully function linux distribution (or another general purpose OS, or even, say, a Windows installer!), I'd have bought another one to hack and replace my mini-itx machine for a file/print/mame/dvd box.
>Someone obviously hasn't heard Tiny Tim's >rendition of "Hey Jude"!
Sure, but even that is not as bad as Shatner's "Lucy". Neither is as bad as Nimoy's "Mr. Tambourine Man". And NOTHING compares to "Bilbo... Bilbo Baggins... only three feet tall...." Gah.
I'm not sure I want a hot wire into the fuel tank. I'm okay with a cold wire for a passive device to measure fuel level, but I don't think anything with a motor is a good idea in there.
Just in the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to mention that I stopped watching television on the day of the OJ Simpson car chase, whenever that was. I didn't own one again until the end of 2001. Didn't miss it, don't care about it much now. But I did encounter the phenomenon where people cannot relate. What bothered me was the realization of what it meant:
People spend as much as 10 hours a day in front of the TV. Some of them manage more. They don't have anything else to do with that time. They picture you without a TV, sitting around bored, picking lint out of your ass or whatever. It does not occur to them that there are other things to do besides sit and watch TV. They can't relate to me, I can't relate to them, and I don't have a problem with that status quo!
The problem with a "new" DVD format is the same as with any other "new" media: They can only hope for marginal increases.
When television went from an ephemeral medium to one that could be recorded, it was obvious that everyone needed to buy a recorder. The format stuff with Beta and VHS really was just a minor detail in a much bigger picture. When it became obvious that people were actually *buying* the things, it created the rental video market. It revolutionized television broadcast and motion picture distribution.
When music went from tape and vinyl to CD, it was extremely obvious that those formats had seen their day, more fundamentally than the wax-cylinder giving way to the Victrola, more significantly than monaural giving way to stereophonic, perhaps even more importantly than solid-state components and high-efficiency speakers!
But that was that. The opportunity does not exist for the entertainment industry to provide a medium that is so greatly improved over these, that a complete shift to the state of the art is necessary. I was happy go go from mono to stereo, from 8-track to cassette; I was a tad skeptical to go from vinyl LP to CD, but I was also painfully aware that records were destroyed in the process of playing them once, whereas CD's did not have this problem. Likewise, the quality of a videotape does not compare to the quality of a DVD, there simply isn't any question there. Even broadcast A/V quality is dramatically improved because of digital media. (Nobody seems to remember when radio had a record player at one end!)
But the next format doesn't revolutionize the media. Not to an extent that will magically cause every consumer to abandon his entire collection and move to it. Not unless it appeals to more senses besides sight and sound or gives realistic 3-D, or something along those lines.
I'm sure the media corporations will manage to use their market positions to force this to happen, but I think they had their last consumer-driven migration already.
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Falsifying results on a research project, even something like the one you describe as work for hire, can come back to haunt you later if you decide to pursue an academic career in the physical sciences.
It would really suck to have your Ph.D. discredited because you did something like this, NDA or no NDA, contract or no contract.
Always remember, when doing research: Lab notes are admissible in court. I'd say, signing a contract that binds you to an agreement that you will falsify results, is already a sufficient ethical violation to sully your career. Before you've even done the deed.
My big annoyance is the disabling of the right mouse button, which is my back button on IE. I'm not here to steal your stupid pictures, and that trick doesn't work anyway.
The other thing I really hate is when you have to click a popup. You can't open-in-new-window, or you just get an error page with a javascript popup statement in the url field. Highly annoying.
"I doubt WhenU held a gun to people's head forcing them to install the WhenU client."
No, but I have suspected them of using an IE exploit to install their client without the user's knowledge or consent. I can't prove it, of course, and I'd imagine it would be a big stink if it were true (e.g., felony computer crime for each violation, one would think.)
They don't literally force anyone to install their software, but they certainly do it clandestinely and without a clear affirmative decision made by the user. It doesn't fall in the same category as literally holding a gun to the user's head, but that doesn't make it ok.
"To say it plainly, if it's MY computer, I'll install what I choose, and if I'm not happy, I know exactly where the uninstall is located."
This kind of spyware sneaks in. And without a certain amount of knowledge, such as knowing the registry inside and out, they are very hard to remove. I don't need help with this stuff either, but I know a thing or two about computers. That does not diminish my concern for a victim who cannot say that.
So instead of holding a gun to your head and making you talk, they sneak into your apartment while you're at work and bug the place. Does that make you feel better?
I've bought "off the shelf" machines lately: My Toshiba Notebook and a Shuttle XPC. Couldn't have done better with parts. Well technically, the Shuttle is parts.
I use everything on your list, and others. But I'm not moved to "never go back to Windows", and I won't be, until I get something to replace Magix Studio and Fruity Loops.
The GPL is completely tacit in regards to the licensee's right to USE the software. The GPL is concerned with DISTRIBUTION. If the GPL is somehow invalid for a given licensee, that party will have lost the distribution privilege granted by it. The right to use the software isn't in question to begin with.
Did anyone else see THG and think "The Humble Guys?"
Man I miss those days.
>"Oh dear god they are doing some thing we don't
>like; SUE THEM!!!"
They are doing something illegal which is doing damage to my business. I shall seek to correct this matter through recourse to the law.
It's appropriate. It's hardly "no reason at all."
> Sometime in the near future, the GPL is going to
>be tested in court
It's hard to think of a credible scenario where a court case involving the GPL will have any effect on anyone other than the parties named in the suit. There's no magic ruling that is going to make "The GPL" == "The Law of the Land" any more or less than it already is.
The GPL is a software license based on copyright law. Copyright law is well-tested in court, and it holds up just fine. The GPL is not different in any significant way, from many other software licenses.
If there is something fundamentally flawed with the GPL, a court ruling against it would probably *also* be broad enough to sever your rights to use just about any software that is licensed to you. Notice that it won't magically make it free, rather, it would end your rights that you have under whatever license you currently have.
But the GPL does have legal weight. It does not need to be "tested in court" any more than the lease agreement between me and my landlord needs to be "tested".
If someone finds such a flaw in the GPL as to render it void, it will NOT magically deprive the licensors of their copyrights. Rather, it would deprive the licensees of their right to distribute the software until the copyright holder chooses to work something else out.
A finding that the GPL is "illegal" would require the GPL itself to have some very serious flaws, the kind of flaws that would be obvious, and those same flaws would be present in any other agreement whose basis is copyright law. So the agreement turns out to be "illegal." It's still a hell of a long stretch before you can deprive a copyright holder of his *Constitutional* right to the copyright.
IANAL. But I think I know what I'm talking about. Plenty of people who *ARE* lawyers have said the same things, many times. Nobody is really concerned that "the GPL" won't stand up in court. Maybe for a specific piece of code, with specific parties, the GPL is a problem between the parties, regarding that code. But in the general case? The GPL is as safe as any other software license whose basis is copyright; which is all of them -- even those which are explicitly placed in the public domain.
The "land grab" scenario is just more FUD.
You meant well, but you haven't showed me a way to move away from the tools that force me onto the Windows platform. I know about the sound software that's available, and I use some of it and I think it's great. But where we have the Gimp for graphics, which is almost good enough that we can talk to graphics guys with a straight face, there's precious little for the DAW.
The folks who work at Goodwill around here are quite savvy, and know what stuff is worth. They're as savvy as any pawn shop owner I've ever seen. They know what electronics are worth having, which ones are crap, and even which crap is collectible. They know what books, music, and magazines are cool and need to be priced individually, and which are dogs, not getting shelf space.
I'll see your installer and raise you usability.
.99pl4. I have no need for point-and-drool interfaces.
It's actually OK if it's a bit hard to install. I really like the Knoppix approach. If they went one more step and had a slightly easier "full install" step, it would be fine.
But there is a problem. It's still very difficult to do some of the things that seriously need to be "instant-gratification" tasks.
Playing a DVD.
Writing a CDR.
ReadWriting a compact flash chip.
Easy ACPI suspend/resume on laptops.
Playing MPEG and other A/V formats.
2-track recording and wave editing.
Printing.
Wireless networking.
This stuff is still hard, and some of it is impossible depending on your hardware. I think there are serious deficiencies in basic usability, even for the seasoned linux fanatic. I have trouble with the items on my list, and I'm willing to work hard at it. I've been running linux since
In 1998, I saw a guy in the carpool lane, in a Ford pickup truck, with a small TV sitting on the dashboard between the steering wheel and the windshield. One person in the truck. In the carpool lane. Watching TV while driving in traffic. And it wasn't even a "car tv", it was
just a portable.
Scared the hell out of me, although it was not the stupidest thing I'd seen on that road (I635, Dallas).
"but this is almost the most famous automotive design issue in history."
It was superseded by another Ford Fiasco -- the truck suspension that causes the vehicle to go into a roll if a front tire blows out. They successfully redirected attention onto the defective tire, but I say the suspension design was horribly flawed. I've had front tires blow out at highway speeds, and lived through the experience. Even had a tire leave the rim completely on a 60's model VW bus, which stayed in control long enough for me to slow down and pull over. Before you joke about the speed of the VW, I was going about 140 km/h at the time.
I wonder if there is no body of evidence that similar hoaxes were pulled by charlatans around that time. People look at the Voynich MS and assume it was a lot of trouble to go to, or that it is incredibly elaborate. But it really *isn't* that elaborate. The calligraphy and the illustration could be nothing more than a child's writing practice and coloring book of the time. (People who were at all literate, in those days, tended to be *very* literate.) It represents a few months of work, at best. It's really crude, in comparison to the state of the art of the time.
Throw in the element of financial gain, and it is even easier to believe. It's probably hard to understand the situation of a Renaissance artist (or con man) if you regard it from a modern context. The hard part of the job was the discipline needed to avoid using real words.
Another possible way of looking at it. What if all we had of Tolkein's work, was notebooks of elvish writing and illustrations, with no codec, and nothing to indicate the meaning? What if, instead of being a family storyteller and published author, he'd simply been a recluse, and left us only an undecipherable notebook?
Well, something similar may have happened in the 16th century, but with a darker side -- the purpose was to present a strange and mysterious artifact to a benefactor, with good assurances that the hoax would not be discovered -- and live large in the Renaissance style until the money ran out and it was time to pull the next hoax.
I've marvelled at the Voynich and other mysteries for more than 30 years now. I don't have any problem believing it's a 1500's equivalent of a CO$ OT document. More so if you can demonstrate that money changed hands over the book.
>Nearly perfect bomb
What? Lithium is toxic, sure. But not toxic enough for your "nearly perfect bomb" scenario.
I'll agree that batteries might be slightly more dangerous than some of the stuff that's not allowed, but I really don't think it's much of a weapon.
"By the kidneys of Allah, some of you may experience renal failure from this toxic exposure! You infidels with low sodium levels may be susceptible to a chronic degeneration of your central nervous system!"
Somehow, that just doesn't rise to the level that I think is needed to instill "terror." And it's sure as hell not going to put you in control of the plane.
If you say so. My two datapoints are co-workers, one with an 02 bug, the other with an Insight. The bug gets awesome mileage, but doesn't actually reach "50 mpg" territory. I'm far more interested in torque than mileage, so neither of these vehicles appeal to me.
Why bother? Well, it's probably not worth the effort *now*, but what if these projects are successful?
The X-Box is surprisingly inexpensive, considering its specs. Mine was $120 -- At that price, "shopping around" didn't occur to me, it hit my impulse-buy price point. If there was already a fully function linux distribution (or another general purpose OS, or even, say, a Windows installer!), I'd have bought another one to hack and replace my mini-itx machine for a file/print/mame/dvd box.
"Why does a 50 mile-per-gallon Honda hybrid car qualify for a tax deduction, but a 50 mile-per-gallon Volkswagen turbo-diesel car does not? "
Partly because the Honda actually accomplishes the mileage, while the VW merely "approaches" it.
Based on my personal observations of the cars, only.
>Nope. "Mr. Tambourine Man" was Shatner as well.
I had almost put it out of my mind enough to forget this. *Almost.*
>Someone obviously hasn't heard Tiny Tim's
>rendition of "Hey Jude"!
Sure, but even that is not as bad as Shatner's "Lucy". Neither is as bad as Nimoy's "Mr. Tambourine Man". And NOTHING compares to "Bilbo... Bilbo Baggins... only three feet tall...." Gah.
December 26th, "They" were searching every car going into the Hotel Bellaggio (in Las Vegas, NV, USA). It took more than an hour to get in.
I'm not sure I want a hot wire into the fuel tank.
I'm okay with a cold wire for a passive device to measure fuel level, but I don't think anything with a motor is a good idea in there.
Just in the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to mention that I stopped watching television on the day of the OJ Simpson car chase, whenever that was. I didn't own one again until the end of 2001. Didn't miss it, don't care about it much now. But I did encounter the phenomenon where people cannot relate. What bothered me was the realization of what it meant:
People spend as much as 10 hours a day in front of the TV. Some of them manage more. They don't have anything else to do with that time. They picture you without a TV, sitting around bored, picking lint out of your ass or whatever. It does not occur to them that there are other things to do besides sit and watch TV. They can't relate to me, I can't relate to them, and I don't have a problem with that status quo!
The problem with a "new" DVD format is the same as with any other "new" media: They can only hope for marginal increases.
When television went from an ephemeral medium to one that could be recorded, it was obvious that everyone needed to buy a recorder. The format stuff with Beta and VHS really was just a minor detail in a much bigger picture. When it became obvious that people were actually *buying* the things, it created the rental video market. It revolutionized television broadcast and motion picture distribution.
When music went from tape and vinyl to CD, it was extremely obvious that those formats had seen their day, more fundamentally than the wax-cylinder giving way to the Victrola, more significantly than monaural giving way to stereophonic, perhaps even more importantly than solid-state components and high-efficiency speakers!
But that was that. The opportunity does not exist for the entertainment industry to provide a medium that is so greatly improved over these, that a complete shift to the state of the art is necessary. I was happy go go from mono to stereo, from 8-track to cassette; I was a tad skeptical to go from vinyl LP to CD, but I was also painfully aware that records were destroyed in the process of playing them once, whereas CD's did not have this problem. Likewise, the quality of a videotape does not compare to the quality of a DVD, there simply isn't any question there. Even broadcast A/V quality is dramatically improved because of digital media. (Nobody seems to remember when radio had a record player at one end!)
But the next format doesn't revolutionize the media. Not to an extent that will magically cause every consumer to abandon his entire collection and move to it. Not unless it appeals to more senses besides sight and sound or gives realistic 3-D, or something along those lines.
I'm sure the media corporations will manage to use their market positions to force this to happen, but I think they had their last consumer-driven migration already.