I'd say then that the answer to "Do we really need another distro?" Is always yes. The more the merrier. Choice and redundancy are good things.
I agree with choice, but I agree with gparent, we have enough redudancy. I might agree with you if every problem inherent with linux were properly solved, but they're not. At this point, we have far too much wheel reinvention, and that's not generally a good thing.
With all the new uses of radio waves coming, won't we be bombarded by too much radiation? If every frequency just about is being used, that must mean a lot of electron particles flying through the air and through our brains and asses. (Please no jokes about goatse sitting on a cell phone.) How far are we from dangerous levels at this time?
Nowhere close. Radio waves cannot effect electronic transitions in DNA. Period. At that point, it has to be a massive radiation density argument, and the W/m2 created by radio transmission isn't even in the ballpark.
This is one thing that doesn't cause cancer, regardless of what the talking heads on the news would lead you to believe in the name of ratings.
One example the article gave was a 24 hour Hare Krishna station broadcasting nothing but chanting 24 hours a day.
I've long wished that the same rights were available in the U.S.
I think we continue to read it because we hope that we'll see that final nail in the coffin. Between groklaw and slashdot, I know I've had my fill. I rarely visit groklaw anymore and I usually skip the SCO articles here, but it is an important case, even if it's been beaten into the ground and borders on the ridiculous.
So I'm the only one here who is confident they'll die, but read because of 1) a legitimate interest in "IP" law, and 2) the comic value of it all?
And the fact that I'm even replying to this post, much less having read most of them--WTF am I doing?
Good question. I postulate that it has something to due with the lack of safe and legally available prostitution. But I'm not sure.
I don't think you can say for sure that someone who is truly addicted to gambling would sell their computer before wagering their rent money. I would imagine the nature of their addiction would incline them to think that they could make their money back in time to pay the rent.
If it wasn't clear, that was facetious - clearly, if someone has an addiction, the thing enabling it would be the last to go. In this case, someone addicted to online gambling would hock the computer as soon as a smack addict sold their needle and spoon. So yes, you're correct.
That said, I don't think anyone making claims of widespread online gambling addiction as a function of the number of people playing (or even as a function of the dollars gambled) have made any such case, as I've seen 0 evidence.
I think that the previous poster is referring to the fact that poker is a zero sum game. So, for you to win requires someone else to lose, or generally speaking you have to perform better than the average player.
If that's the case, then damned straight. I'd rather try that than the mathematical impossibility of beating the house at other games.
Having said all of that, though, I feel just about as sorry as Vegas does when I take someone else's money through gambling. Everyone knows the risks going in, and it's their fault for not monitoring themselves.
Damn straight, and I say this having gone to Vegas last month.;) I played Hold 'em, and I won against the moron tourists in the afternoons. I lost to the shark locals in the morning, and when I was drunk on Saturday night.;)
All told, I played for 4 days and ended up exactly $10. There were some people who schooled me, and there were some true morons that I fleeced.
Aww, what's the matter, Snotty? Are you shocked that your acts of theft, trespass and harassment have fostered ill will against you? Are you pissing your pants because there are people who actually want to give you what you deserve? Are you still such an arrogant shit that you see fit to sue Spamcop when they've done nothing wrong?
Actually, I'm shitting them. And Spamcop is a bunch of evil, mean assclowns. I will 0wnZ0r them.
I hate to be the wet blanket, but think about it. If you make any kind of money at poker, you do so becasue you're consistantly winning against the other players well above average. And the law of averages says that you're probably winning somebody elses rent money.
People can gamble for fun without being addicted. If it was their rent money, they'd have hocked the computer first. There are a lot of people on there to just have fun who don't care if they lose, and basically play till it's gone. You take their money.
I don't know what this law of averages is, or what exactly is being averaged here, but I'd like to see some facts first.
Is gambling evil. No! But I think I'd prefer to play Blackjack against the house.
This case is huge, not just in its implications for Linux, but in its scope, covering the GPL and open-source development models.
The implications may be there, but it's not something relevant to the case. SCO's public FUD, yes, but the GPL is completely irrelevant to anythign they've done in a case. It *might* be relevant to their suit with Red Hat if they completely screw every other chance and try to play that card, but it isn't relevant at all to the IBM case.
And given (1) Linux's dependence on the GNU toolchain, both for development and use of Linux,
Tools they use aren't relevant either. The developers also drive cars, but for some reason Ford was left off the subpoena list.
(2) the fact that the FSF/GNU is the home for most of the thinking/writing on the technicalities of open-source development and licensing,
First, you give the FSF too much credit. Second, that might be a reason for the FSF to be called as an expert witness, not to be subpoenaed for everything they've ever made.
there's at least a case that they have documents of some relevance to the case.
That's the definition of fishing, right there.
parties subpoena more than they expect to be allowed to see, and make the judge earn her salary by figuring the mess out. And yeah, I hope that the judge is sensible enough to construe "relevant" narrowly.
You try to make the judge "earn" her salary in that manner and you'll have one pissed off judge. Not a good idea. You do generally want to ask for more than you ultimately want, but not by that much, and you should have an idea of what you're going to find. Saying you want all documents related to the writing of computer software won't cut it when subpoenaing a software organization. Might as well go into court with a rod and reel, it's just as obvious.
There are a number of legal privileges, including between spouses, lawyers and clients, medical doctors and patients, and a few others, but there's no such thing as "geek-project" privilege.
You're right - and they said confidential, not privileged. Basically, they mean that SCO's fishing, and that anything you don't publish is confidential to random third parties until they show that it's actually relevant to a case. Much of the subpoena submitted (yep, I read it as well as IBM's recent motion) definitely falls outside the realm of relevant. Fortunately, not many judges are likely to allow that.
SCO is fishing. They have a suit with IBM, and they're going after the FSF's dealings with contributors to random OSS projects? In other words, conversations between two parties NOT involved with the suit? They'll need a damned good reason for that to fly.
And no, to substantiate your argument - I'm not a lawyer.
I live in Indiana, and I have taken these. They are not graded fairly, and they determine 10% of the final grade. A computer can obviously not grade essays fairly, so it shouldn't be done. I got a 5/6, which, according to the computer, was extremely well. However, this was an 83%, which brought down my grade significantly. This computerized grading isn't fair at all.
Sure, but that's the fault of the humans implementing the grade system, who don't understand the difference between Gaussian and uniform distributions. Don't blame the computers.
Not that computers are a great idea here - they can only grade at the shallowest level, and if they were grading like real teachers, then those "real" teachers weren't doing their jobs.
But this specific problem that you mention is entirely human based.
You also have no idea what kind of FTP server your computer has become, what kind of child porn people are downloading, how much spam you're forwarding. This doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
To me, this is a perfect honeypot. If there are any wardriving pedophiles or spammers, I say let's kill them. Set up insecure wireless network, wait for scumbag to use it, triangulate scumbag, beat the shit out of scumbag with a sack full of doorknobs.
It is not the direct energy of the RF field, it is when it is concentrated into a spark that it is significant
Yep, and I'm saying that ain't happening with a cell phone any more than it is with your engine block or muffler.
Secondly, a high enough temperature for ignition (surprisingly not an exhaust)
Depends, that catalytic converter is pretty hot! And that is why cars backfire, usually - muffler ignites unburned HC's that shouldn't be in your exhaust. But I'll admit those HC gases already have to be hot having passed through the engine.
I'll readily admit - you get a spark, regardless of source, and you're not going to be a happy camper. But I defy anyone to generate a spark with a cell phone. Fundamentally (as you well know), a spark is an electrical discharge that creates temperatures hot enough to make ozone from O2, and ionizes air sufficiently to generate light. The RF strength of a cell phone is nowhere near this strong, nor is the couple of volts in its battery.
I'm sick of this anti-rodent bias in humans! "Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?" says the poster, and not a one of you will disagree with him, will you?
I say we use a bunch of spammers, solve two problems in one. Oh wait. Shit. I mean, not me.
I personally would like to complain that one of the most influential media companies was not nominated. OptInRealBig touches the lives of millions of consumers every day, a "crime" for which we have been publicly and unjustly vilified.
That's OK, OptInRealBig will continue to bring great deals to those who want them. It should be a crime for service providers to deny the great offers we make to people who took their busy time to sign up for our lists.
I have this feeling that a very small amount of power is enough to cause a fire under certain circumstances. And that a very LARGE amount of power will NOT cause a fire under other circumstances. So I would say the issue to look into is the circumstances, not the power output.
Yeah, that reminds me - your exhaust system, which isn't that far from the tank, is at a few hundred degrees C, and is emitting a LOT more than 1.5W of IR energy as a black-body radiator. Note also that IR is a higher frequency than RF as well, if one was compelled by that argument.
You NEVER get back in a car when fueling. This lady suffered because of it. You are safe when fueling as long as you never open/close the car doors and more so if you don;t get in and out. It's tha static that causes this. Same thing goes when filling a can of gas for your lawn mower. Putting it in your car when filling not only puts you at risk for the gas overflowing, but also for the static to buiild up.
What's with the in/out part? Shifting around on upholstery while you're feet are off the ground in a poorly-grounded vehicle? Is that part of it?;)
Yeah, I've never understood this either. If these ladies need full serve, pay the extra $0.20/gallon or whatever.
In the case of something like a mobile, with digital modulation, the peak power is the important thing as regards ignition hazards. The peak power of a typical mobile is 1.5 watts and is definitely unsafe.
1.5W of *RF* is not going to make a spark. Nowayinhell. And resonances don't work that way, as they always break down (familiar with feedback in a speaker? Similar). To get more than a few times amplification with resonance you have to have perfect conditions. Get real. I would love to see any evidence of more than 10x amplification due to resonance using a cell phone signal under ambient conditions. Moreso, I would love evidence that someone ever, anywhere, managed to generate a spark with an unmodified cell phone.
It amazes me how in the UK, where warning notices are to be seen quite often in filling stations, that imbeciles continue their pathetic and unnecessary conversations while filling. If I see one near me, I move, and quickly...... It is a criminal offence under the petroleum spirit regulations, it is time that it was enforced properly.
First, that only shows that your legislators, like ours, have no clue about anything technical, and their willingness to make laws before educating themselves.. Second, I'm sure you provide with your antics endless entertainment for all others filling up their tanks.
FYI Bayesian Filtering isn't quite the same as a Neural network, a notable difference being that with bayes a much greater portion of the behavior learned by the system is easily available for analysis.
Interesting. What exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean it's easier to correlate inputs with the decision boundary established by Bayes due to its inherently more parametric nature compared to a fundamentally more convoluted neural net?
Also, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Bayes is just a method of finding a decision boundary based on conditional probabilitites - bayesian regularization is a commonly used technique for neural nets (hell, I'm running it on this machine now), and it effectively tries to find a bayes or bayes-like decision boundary for a neural network.
Personally, I value my personal relationships above petty "I told you so" point scoring. But then I don't live in a basement, so YMMV.
I think it depends. If the person is just clueless and didn't understand your instructions, or tried to follow them and messed up, then I help them. But if someone willfully disregards what I told them, and it screwed up like I said, then they're making me dinner or something for me to fix it.
To me, it can be about petty point scoring, but it can also be about some jackass taking advantage of you. I won't engage in the former if my friends/family don't engage in the latter.
All the above is weighed against my relationship with said person, naturally.
I have to say, RP's blog is as uninteresting as it comes, and gets way too much Slashdot time. RP almost reminds me of Jon Katz, without the sometime amusing I'm-not-sure-what-was-in-that-cigarette effect.
An interesting and pretty damned apt analogy. I've truly never understood the appeal of weblogging. Most people have absolutely nothing insightful to say, and as oft observed, their weblogs are barely more than poorly concealed plagiarism and linkfarms. I also have no idea what gives people the idea that other people give a shit what they think. Getting a few "+5"'s past the typically braindead/. mods does not qualify. These are the same people who don't check links and end up giving tubgirl a "+5."
I'd put RP in with that unless he actually is doing what g'parent is implying, just submitting his shit to/. so he can profit from his sidebar ads. And yes, they are his ads- other people doing weblogs on the same service (radio.weblogs.com) don't have them.
It is more than just a cost of business. Microsoft is saying that they can shift their cost curve, customers will pay, and there is little repercussion for the company. The only times that a company can get away with this is if it is either a monopoly or sells addictive products. This is why the government can jack up the prices of cigerettes cia taxes. Microsoft is admitting that it is a monopoly cuz I highly doubt that most people just can't get enough of XP.
If MS could increase their prices arbitrarily, and they didn't, then they're idiots for leaving money on the table. This isn't a circumstance where a business with a tiny margin has to pass costs on to avoid taking a loss. MS gets enormous margins, and an obscene amount of cash on hand, so this judgement made no difference to their business, really. So if windows could have been selling for more before, it should have been.
Ultimately, I think they're just being petulant, and trying to get the public on their side from some sort of grassroots outrage, because the evil state attorneys general made windows more expensive. Good luck guys.
Somehow, they'll argue this also increases the TCO of linux.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with choice, but I agree with gparent, we have enough redudancy. I might agree with you if every problem inherent with linux were properly solved, but they're not. At this point, we have far too much wheel reinvention, and that's not generally a good thing.
Nowhere close. Radio waves cannot effect electronic transitions in DNA. Period. At that point, it has to be a massive radiation density argument, and the W/m2 created by radio transmission isn't even in the ballpark.
This is one thing that doesn't cause cancer, regardless of what the talking heads on the news would lead you to believe in the name of ratings.
I bet people don't borrow your CDs much
So I'm the only one here who is confident they'll die, but read because of 1) a legitimate interest in "IP" law, and 2) the comic value of it all?
And the fact that I'm even replying to this post, much less having read most of them--WTF am I doing?
Good question. I postulate that it has something to due with the lack of safe and legally available prostitution. But I'm not sure.
*blam blam blam blam* *k-thud*
I don't know. Why are you?
If it wasn't clear, that was facetious - clearly, if someone has an addiction, the thing enabling it would be the last to go. In this case, someone addicted to online gambling would hock the computer as soon as a smack addict sold their needle and spoon. So yes, you're correct.
That said, I don't think anyone making claims of widespread online gambling addiction as a function of the number of people playing (or even as a function of the dollars gambled) have made any such case, as I've seen 0 evidence.
I think that the previous poster is referring to the fact that poker is a zero sum game. So, for you to win requires someone else to lose, or generally speaking you have to perform better than the average player.
If that's the case, then damned straight. I'd rather try that than the mathematical impossibility of beating the house at other games.
Having said all of that, though, I feel just about as sorry as Vegas does when I take someone else's money through gambling. Everyone knows the risks going in, and it's their fault for not monitoring themselves.
Damn straight, and I say this having gone to Vegas last month. ;) I played Hold 'em, and I won against the moron tourists in the afternoons. I lost to the shark locals in the morning, and when I was drunk on Saturday night. ;)
All told, I played for 4 days and ended up exactly $10. There were some people who schooled me, and there were some true morons that I fleeced.
Actually, I'm shitting them. And Spamcop is a bunch of evil, mean assclowns. I will 0wnZ0r them.
People can gamble for fun without being addicted. If it was their rent money, they'd have hocked the computer first. There are a lot of people on there to just have fun who don't care if they lose, and basically play till it's gone. You take their money.
I don't know what this law of averages is, or what exactly is being averaged here, but I'd like to see some facts first.
Is gambling evil. No! But I think I'd prefer to play Blackjack against the house.
If you prefer losing to winning, by all means do.
Thank you. Now could you tell that to the lynch mob trying to break down my door?
Thanks,
Scott
The implications may be there, but it's not something relevant to the case. SCO's public FUD, yes, but the GPL is completely irrelevant to anythign they've done in a case. It *might* be relevant to their suit with Red Hat if they completely screw every other chance and try to play that card, but it isn't relevant at all to the IBM case.
And given (1) Linux's dependence on the GNU toolchain, both for development and use of Linux,
Tools they use aren't relevant either. The developers also drive cars, but for some reason Ford was left off the subpoena list.
(2) the fact that the FSF/GNU is the home for most of the thinking/writing on the technicalities of open-source development and licensing,
First, you give the FSF too much credit. Second, that might be a reason for the FSF to be called as an expert witness, not to be subpoenaed for everything they've ever made.
there's at least a case that they have documents of some relevance to the case.
That's the definition of fishing, right there.
parties subpoena more than they expect to be allowed to see, and make the judge earn her salary by figuring the mess out. And yeah, I hope that the judge is sensible enough to construe "relevant" narrowly.
You try to make the judge "earn" her salary in that manner and you'll have one pissed off judge. Not a good idea. You do generally want to ask for more than you ultimately want, but not by that much, and you should have an idea of what you're going to find. Saying you want all documents related to the writing of computer software won't cut it when subpoenaing a software organization. Might as well go into court with a rod and reel, it's just as obvious.
You're right - and they said confidential, not privileged. Basically, they mean that SCO's fishing, and that anything you don't publish is confidential to random third parties until they show that it's actually relevant to a case. Much of the subpoena submitted (yep, I read it as well as IBM's recent motion) definitely falls outside the realm of relevant. Fortunately, not many judges are likely to allow that.
SCO is fishing. They have a suit with IBM, and they're going after the FSF's dealings with contributors to random OSS projects? In other words, conversations between two parties NOT involved with the suit? They'll need a damned good reason for that to fly.
And no, to substantiate your argument - I'm not a lawyer.
Sure, but that's the fault of the humans implementing the grade system, who don't understand the difference between Gaussian and uniform distributions. Don't blame the computers.
Not that computers are a great idea here - they can only grade at the shallowest level, and if they were grading like real teachers, then those "real" teachers weren't doing their jobs.
But this specific problem that you mention is entirely human based.
To me, this is a perfect honeypot. If there are any wardriving pedophiles or spammers, I say let's kill them. Set up insecure wireless network, wait for scumbag to use it, triangulate scumbag, beat the shit out of scumbag with a sack full of doorknobs.
Anyone with me here!?!
Yep, and I'm saying that ain't happening with a cell phone any more than it is with your engine block or muffler.
Secondly, a high enough temperature for ignition (surprisingly not an exhaust)
Depends, that catalytic converter is pretty hot! And that is why cars backfire, usually - muffler ignites unburned HC's that shouldn't be in your exhaust. But I'll admit those HC gases already have to be hot having passed through the engine.
I'll readily admit - you get a spark, regardless of source, and you're not going to be a happy camper. But I defy anyone to generate a spark with a cell phone. Fundamentally (as you well know), a spark is an electrical discharge that creates temperatures hot enough to make ozone from O2, and ionizes air sufficiently to generate light. The RF strength of a cell phone is nowhere near this strong, nor is the couple of volts in its battery.
I say we use a bunch of spammers, solve two problems in one. Oh wait. Shit. I mean, not me.
That's OK, OptInRealBig will continue to bring great deals to those who want them. It should be a crime for service providers to deny the great offers we make to people who took their busy time to sign up for our lists.
Scott
Yeah, that reminds me - your exhaust system, which isn't that far from the tank, is at a few hundred degrees C, and is emitting a LOT more than 1.5W of IR energy as a black-body radiator. Note also that IR is a higher frequency than RF as well, if one was compelled by that argument.
You NEVER get back in a car when fueling. This lady suffered because of it. You are safe when fueling as long as you never open/close the car doors and more so if you don;t get in and out. It's tha static that causes this. Same thing goes when filling a can of gas for your lawn mower. Putting it in your car when filling not only puts you at risk for the gas overflowing, but also for the static to buiild up.
What's with the in/out part? Shifting around on upholstery while you're feet are off the ground in a poorly-grounded vehicle? Is that part of it? ;)
Yeah, I've never understood this either. If these ladies need full serve, pay the extra $0.20/gallon or whatever.
1.5W of *RF* is not going to make a spark. Nowayinhell. And resonances don't work that way, as they always break down (familiar with feedback in a speaker? Similar). To get more than a few times amplification with resonance you have to have perfect conditions. Get real. I would love to see any evidence of more than 10x amplification due to resonance using a cell phone signal under ambient conditions. Moreso, I would love evidence that someone ever, anywhere, managed to generate a spark with an unmodified cell phone.
It amazes me how in the UK, where warning notices are to be seen quite often in filling stations, that imbeciles continue their pathetic and unnecessary conversations while filling. If I see one near me, I move, and quickly...... It is a criminal offence under the petroleum spirit regulations, it is time that it was enforced properly.
First, that only shows that your legislators, like ours, have no clue about anything technical, and their willingness to make laws before educating themselves.. Second, I'm sure you provide with your antics endless entertainment for all others filling up their tanks.
Interesting. What exactly do you mean by that? Do you mean it's easier to correlate inputs with the decision boundary established by Bayes due to its inherently more parametric nature compared to a fundamentally more convoluted neural net?
Also, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Bayes is just a method of finding a decision boundary based on conditional probabilitites - bayesian regularization is a commonly used technique for neural nets (hell, I'm running it on this machine now), and it effectively tries to find a bayes or bayes-like decision boundary for a neural network.
And the second. ;)
I think it depends. If the person is just clueless and didn't understand your instructions, or tried to follow them and messed up, then I help them. But if someone willfully disregards what I told them, and it screwed up like I said, then they're making me dinner or something for me to fix it.
To me, it can be about petty point scoring, but it can also be about some jackass taking advantage of you. I won't engage in the former if my friends/family don't engage in the latter.
All the above is weighed against my relationship with said person, naturally.
An interesting and pretty damned apt analogy. I've truly never understood the appeal of weblogging. Most people have absolutely nothing insightful to say, and as oft observed, their weblogs are barely more than poorly concealed plagiarism and linkfarms. I also have no idea what gives people the idea that other people give a shit what they think. Getting a few "+5"'s past the typically braindead /. mods does not qualify. These are the same people who don't check links and end up giving tubgirl a "+5."
I'd put RP in with that unless he actually is doing what g'parent is implying, just submitting his shit to /. so he can profit from his sidebar ads. And yes, they are his ads- other people doing weblogs on the same service (radio.weblogs.com) don't have them.
Talk about the ultimate in karmawhoring.
If MS could increase their prices arbitrarily, and they didn't, then they're idiots for leaving money on the table. This isn't a circumstance where a business with a tiny margin has to pass costs on to avoid taking a loss. MS gets enormous margins, and an obscene amount of cash on hand, so this judgement made no difference to their business, really. So if windows could have been selling for more before, it should have been.
Ultimately, I think they're just being petulant, and trying to get the public on their side from some sort of grassroots outrage, because the evil state attorneys general made windows more expensive. Good luck guys.
Somehow, they'll argue this also increases the TCO of linux. ;)