CxP takes Shuttle and other legacy technology and tries to make it safer than any of the previous systems ever were. Apollo and Shuttle were developed without any idea what the reliability would be or what the risks were. Constellation was given the go-ahead with the understanding that it would be made much MUCH safer. Unfortunately, we actually tried to make it that much safer and the peanut gallery wondered why it was costing so much.
I'm sorry, but I fundamentally disagree. Ares I was based on a solid fuel rocket -- a fundamentally expensive, inflexible, and unsafe technology. There's no redundancy, no engine-out capability, no early engine shut-off capability, no restart capability, no possibility of practical stage re-use. Once the rocket segments have been poured and cured they're effectively "loaded" and have to be handled with great care to make sure there's no possibility of accidental ignition -- something totally avoided with liquid fuel rockets where the oxidiser and fuel are kept completely separately until the engines are actually running.
As someone who works in the space industry, I was dismayed at the decision by NASA to ignore the valuable lessons of other nations' experience with man-rated rockets, in particular the value of engine-out capability. While watching the Ares IX launch, one of my colleagues remarked that, "No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd." I think that's the situation CxP found itself in; trying make a fundamentally inappropriate technology safe enough for human spaceflight is always going to be both very expensive and eventually unsuccessful.
I'm just glad that the Ares-I got cancelled before it killed yet more astronauts.
Obama *is* a darn politician. NASA's charter is not to buy off-the-shelf hardware, but rather to R&D low technology readiness level (TRL) projects and to and operate missions that no commercial entity would consider.
What you're missing is that NASA can both "operate missions that no commercial entity would consider" and "buy off-the-shelf hardware" to launch those missions.
I consider region locking a plus. It's not very fun having someone on the other side of the world lagging up your game, which they seem to love doing in Warcraft 3.
I prefer Valve's solution: show all the servers available, but allow you to filter them by region and latency. Region locking is a crock to help Blizzard enforce differential pricing between regions.
It's worth remembering that the Tories vastly outnumber the LibDems and there are a vast army of old-school 'evil' walking-dead tories who I think view Cameron's charm as just they ticket they needed to get their heads round the door and start with bringing back the 'good old days' (of poverty and misery at the bottom and the quaffing of fine wines and cuban cigars at the top).
I suspect they see the LibDems as dupes they can exploit until they piss all over electoral reform and they get back to swinging between the Neo-Stalinist Big-Brother Labour party and their own Devil Take the Hindmost duopoly.
Now, I'm not at all a fan of the Conservative party or their general approach to government, but even so I can see that the parent is clearly a tin-foil-hat-wearing rabid paranoiac. (I may be willing to withdraw this classification if he produces evidence to support his wild allegations).
Although I think he's probably correct in thinking that neither the Tories nor Labour take electoral reform seriously.
That person should be a British citizen,other British national or Commonwealth citizen who is a Member of Parliament, Justice of the Peace, Minister of Religion, Bank Officer, Established Civil Servant, or professionally qualified person, e.g. Lawyer, Engineer, Doctor, School Teacher, Police Officer or a person of similar standing.
In practice, I've recently seen a lot of griping from fellow professional engineers in one of the trade journals about how the passport office hasn't been recognising their professional standing to countersign their friends' passport photos...
It might be useful for citizens (and, if necessary, visitors) to have a common identity number for all government services. Don't we effectively have that with our National Insurance numbers already, other than only issuing them in the teens rather than at birth?
No. The NI number is only used for taxation and benefits purposes. I didn't need to give my NI number to the bank to open an account, nor to the public library to get a library card, nor to the local NHS surgery to register with the doctor there.
Not having a single identifying number is not a bug, it's a feature.
I think we may have the least worst option really. I just think everybody should be aware that their vote is in theory traceable.
Note that at the moment only the original, hand-written, hard copy of the polling station register is kept -- no copies are ever made -- and that the register and ballot papers are securely destroyed after a set period (IIRC 3 years).
NHS Card (I don't even know what this is, but not having it is a problem, apparently)
It's a card (about A6 format IIRC) which shows your name and address, your doctor's name and address, and your NHS number. The only reason for having the card is as a record for you to have of your NHS number.
The NHS number is used as the index number for your medical records, so if you change doctor, it's easier for your records to follow you. The NHS number is *only* used for identifying your medical records (just like your National Insurance number should *only* be used for identifying your tax records). One use for the NHS card is in changing doctor -- your new doctor will fill in a form on the card and mail it to your old doctor to request your records, IIRC, and then you'll be issued with a new card with your new doctor's details.
You don't need an NHS number to get care. If you lose your NHS card, it's no big deal, because your local Primary Care Trust can look up your NHS number for you. I don't know who told you that not having an NHS card was a problem, but they were misinformed.
Similarly, I have no idea where my NI number card is -- I haven't seen it since I was a teenager. If I need to fill out my NI number on paperwork, I just find a P45 or P60 from a previous job and copy it from there...
I am currently carrying the following cards in my wallet (total 27 items):
Driving licence
University card (used for library & building access)
University alumni society card
Professional institution membership cards (x2)
Sports club membership card (x6)
Public library cards (3x, for different counties)
Prepaid Oyster card (contactless payment system used for public transport in London)
Video rental card
Bank account cards, Visa etc (x4)
A couple of other things
And you know what? It may seem silly, but I prefer it that way to having one single piece of plastic that if I lost I'd lose my life with it.
I've read the licence but I'm saying that certain causes are potentially unenforceable towards the first party (developer) let alone any third parties. The viral nature of the license for example from even linking to code should be denied. That implies that the license can somehow overwrite the copyright of another author.
Listen, it's pretty bloody simple: as soon as you make a copy of a piece of software, you need to have a licence to make that copy. If you don't have a licence, you can't make the copy. That's the reason it's illegal to copy computer games and share them using BitTorrent or Gnutella. The only difference here is that the FSF is using copyright law backwards, to make sure that nobody tries to stop you from sharing their software with anyone you like.
I don't know who you think is a "third party" in this case. The FSF wrote the software (first party); they distributed it to the "developer", who modified the software (second party); he distributed it to Apple (second party); Apple distributed it to end users (second party); the end users were prevented from distributing it.
Everyone other than the FSF, who hold the original copyright, requires a licence to use and distribute the software. In this case, that licence is the GPL, and the GPL requires that everyone who receives a copy of the software is free to make copies of that copy and distribute them to others. Apple are giving copies of the software to end users, but making them sign contracts saying that they won't redistribute it. Apple are therefore breaking the terms of the licence, and can't distribute the software. This case has nothing to do with linking, and nothing to do with any allegedly "viral" nature of the GPL.
Finally, no-one's forcing you to use GPL-licensed software. If you don't like the terms of the licence, either don't use the software, or wait until it comes out of copyright protection.
From my reading of the iPhone developer license agreement, the Apple Store EULA and the GPL, it's literally impossible to legally publish Free software applications for the iPhone or iPad. The requirements are impossible to reconcile.
And for a change, the problems aren't to do with distributing source code.
The situation is extremely unfortunate, and I hope that Apple relent and open up their platform sometime soon. As it is, I'm still very glad that I bought an n900 instead of an iPhone.
Yes. Apple doesn't really try to stop anyone, they do strongly advise against it and won't support you if you do it. They certainly don't have to provide you with the tools to do so.
They make you enter into a legal contract that you will not redistribute the software or allow it to be redistributed.
The fact that there are technical ways around the technical measures they impose are neither here nor there.
You're thinking of the academic edition, he is talking about the student/teacher version, which is sold in Walmart right next to the crossword programs and the latest Norton crapware. since he is buying it at retail, where the only thing anyone asks him for is money, I don't see how they could stick him with the EULA after the sale has been completed. Not unless part of the EULA states you get a full 100% refund if you refuse the terms, and I don't see Walmart going for that.
The reverse of the Microsoft Office Student/Teacher Edition box says:
You must accept the enclosed License Agreement before you can use this product.... If you do not accept the terms of the License Agreement, you should promptly return the product for a refund.
Seems pretty clear to me. I don't see how Walmart could weasel out of giving a refund.
Those terms don't attempt to bind third parties to anything, they limit what third parties can do with the code released under the GPL.
Apple is doing nothing with the code. They receive a binary from the developer.
They still need to comply with the terms of the GPL. You really need to go read the license, read the FAQ (which clarifies many of the misconceptions under which you appear to be labouring), and possible read the article, then come back and see if you can actually contribute a post to this discussion that isn't factually incorrect.
If you can't be bothered to do any of that, I think I'm going to have to assume you're a troll.
If I download the binary of a GPL'ed program, I am not bound by the GPL one bit because it is not an end user or recipient license agreement for the binary. It only covers code.
Incorrect. It's been determined that since a binary is directly derived from the source code, the copyright holders of the source code also have copyright on the binary. The GPL covers both the source code and the binary.
One of the privileges of copyright is exclusive rights to distribution of the copyrighted work. If you are not the copyright holder, you require a license to distribute it. The GPL is such a license, and controls distribution of code and of binaries compiled from that code. If you do not comply with the terms of the license (basically, 1) always make source code available, 2) let anyone use the program for any purpose and 3) give anyone you give the program to the same rights you did), then you have no permission to distribute the program.
So if you download the binary of a GPL'd program, you are bound by the GPL. In practice, you can ignore the requirements of the GPL right up until the point at which you give a copy of the binary to someone else. (I'm deliberately ignoring the precedent that says that you must have a license to be allowed to make the copies within your computer's RAM required to simply run a program).
Then explain the WRT54g and Android phones why the kernel source isn't in the box?
I recently bought a Netgear ADSL modem. In the box there was a piece of paper informing me of how to obtain the source code for the Free software used in the modem firmware. This constitutes a "written offer to supply the corresponding source" and thus it complied.
I recently bought a Nokia N900 mobile phone. In the box... etc.
This is prohibited under the App store, each download is code signed to only work for one account. Thus it is a prohibition on the user, not the developer.
Actually that is fine. They are not required to give you the keys to make it useful or even help you get it off of your iPhone and onto something else. What they can't do is tell the developer or anyone else they can't distribute the binary elsewhere.
Incorrect if the code in question is GPLv3. From the GPLv3:
A “User Product” is either (1) a “consumer product”, which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling. In determining whether a product is a consumer product, doubtful cases shall be resolved in favor of coverage. For a particular product received by a particular user, “normally used” refers to a typical or common use of that class of product, regardless of the status of the particular user or of the way in which the particular user actually uses, or expects or is expected to use, the product. A product is a consumer product regardless of whether the product has substantial commercial, industrial or non-consumer uses, unless such uses represent the only significant mode of use of the product.
“Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.
If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).
IANAL, but I believe that the iPhone and iPad meet the above definition of "User Product", and Apple would therefore be obligated to supply the Installation Information (i.e. signing keys to install the software to the phone).
Do you mean Kevin Warwick? Funnily enough he's also from the University of Reading.
Indeed, also from the Cybernetics Department! Several years ago I worked there for a couple of weeks on a "work experience" placement -- seems to me like the research has gone a bit downhill since the days when Kevin Warwick had a chip implanted in his wrist's median nerve and then used it to control a robot hand...
Re:Windows mirrors linux mirrors windows.
on
Fedora 13 Is Out
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· Score: 1
Some examples where Microsoft is still producing retarded software:
- Focus follows mouse.
Is a UI catastrophe.
- Roll up windows.
Are of highly questional utility given the Taskbar.
- Multiple desktops.
Are dramatically overrated.
Clearly you and the GP have a difference of opinion. With Linux, you can each have things set up the way you like it! With Windows, you don't have that option.
It is not teaching the students to question government, it is teaching students to see a problem with not living in a theocracy. Seperation of Church and State is one of the very cores of this nation, and it is an issue that revolves around the issues that religion can cause. God does not belong in government, assuming he exists he has his domain and we have ours. (I assume he doesn't but hey)
Sort of like Formula One motors. No one reuses them. Why not? No one cares. You build them. You use them, they wear out after 20 hours, and you build another one. Simpler, cheaper, better.
SpaceX regularly test-fire their engines with full mission-duration burns, then use the same engines on their launchers. Their engines are designed for re-use, to the extent of avoiding ablative coatings and materials wherever possible. They've even been careful to design for immersion in salt water so that in theory they can recover first stages, give them a quick going over, and whack them back on the launch pad.
As someone who works in the space industry, I think that saying, "You shouldn't reuse rockets," is a rather blinkered and negative attitude. With that sort of stance, how could we ever improve the state of the art?
Slashdot Mirror
According to SpaceX, the launch windows will open at 11:00 EDT (10 CDT for those of us in NOLA), which is 1500 UTC.
Yeah, sorry -- I'm an idiot who, apparently, can neither read the e-mail in my inbox nor the website I linked to.
Hey, you get what you pay for. :-P
I believe that is a US vs British situation.
Confirming that I'm British, if that helps.
Just curious: which space industry do you work in? Your British spelling makes me curious
I'm a PhD student at Surrey Space Centre, which is in the UK.
CxP takes Shuttle and other legacy technology and tries to make it safer than any of the previous systems ever were. Apollo and Shuttle were developed without any idea what the reliability would be or what the risks were. Constellation was given the go-ahead with the understanding that it would be made much MUCH safer. Unfortunately, we actually tried to make it that much safer and the peanut gallery wondered why it was costing so much.
I'm sorry, but I fundamentally disagree. Ares I was based on a solid fuel rocket -- a fundamentally expensive, inflexible, and unsafe technology. There's no redundancy, no engine-out capability, no early engine shut-off capability, no restart capability, no possibility of practical stage re-use. Once the rocket segments have been poured and cured they're effectively "loaded" and have to be handled with great care to make sure there's no possibility of accidental ignition -- something totally avoided with liquid fuel rockets where the oxidiser and fuel are kept completely separately until the engines are actually running.
As someone who works in the space industry, I was dismayed at the decision by NASA to ignore the valuable lessons of other nations' experience with man-rated rockets, in particular the value of engine-out capability. While watching the Ares IX launch, one of my colleagues remarked that, "No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd." I think that's the situation CxP found itself in; trying make a fundamentally inappropriate technology safe enough for human spaceflight is always going to be both very expensive and eventually unsuccessful.
I'm just glad that the Ares-I got cancelled before it killed yet more astronauts.
Obama *is* a darn politician. NASA's charter is not to buy off-the-shelf hardware, but rather to R&D low technology readiness level (TRL) projects and to and operate missions that no commercial entity would consider.
What you're missing is that NASA can both "operate missions that no commercial entity would consider" and "buy off-the-shelf hardware" to launch those missions.
Those who can't, well guess you'll be playing the cracked version.
No, I'll be paying for and playing games by developers who don't treat their customers like criminals.
I consider region locking a plus. It's not very fun having someone on the other side of the world lagging up your game, which they seem to love doing in Warcraft 3.
I prefer Valve's solution: show all the servers available, but allow you to filter them by region and latency. Region locking is a crock to help Blizzard enforce differential pricing between regions.
It's worth remembering that the Tories vastly outnumber the LibDems and there are a vast army of old-school 'evil' walking-dead tories who I think view Cameron's charm as just they ticket they needed to get their heads round the door and start with bringing back the 'good old days' (of poverty and misery at the bottom and the quaffing of fine wines and cuban cigars at the top).
I suspect they see the LibDems as dupes they can exploit until they piss all over electoral reform and they get back to swinging between the Neo-Stalinist Big-Brother Labour party and their own Devil Take the Hindmost duopoly.
Now, I'm not at all a fan of the Conservative party or their general approach to government, but even so I can see that the parent is clearly a tin-foil-hat-wearing rabid paranoiac. (I may be willing to withdraw this classification if he produces evidence to support his wild allegations).
Although I think he's probably correct in thinking that neither the Tories nor Labour take electoral reform seriously.
In practice, I've recently seen a lot of griping from fellow professional engineers in one of the trade journals about how the passport office hasn't been recognising their professional standing to countersign their friends' passport photos...
It might be useful for citizens (and, if necessary, visitors) to have a common identity number for all government services. Don't we effectively have that with our National Insurance numbers already, other than only issuing them in the teens rather than at birth?
No. The NI number is only used for taxation and benefits purposes. I didn't need to give my NI number to the bank to open an account, nor to the public library to get a library card, nor to the local NHS surgery to register with the doctor there.
Not having a single identifying number is not a bug, it's a feature.
I think we may have the least worst option really. I just think everybody should be aware that their vote is in theory traceable.
Note that at the moment only the original, hand-written, hard copy of the polling station register is kept -- no copies are ever made -- and that the register and ballot papers are securely destroyed after a set period (IIRC 3 years).
NHS Card (I don't even know what this is, but not having it is a problem, apparently)
It's a card (about A6 format IIRC) which shows your name and address, your doctor's name and address, and your NHS number. The only reason for having the card is as a record for you to have of your NHS number.
The NHS number is used as the index number for your medical records, so if you change doctor, it's easier for your records to follow you. The NHS number is *only* used for identifying your medical records (just like your National Insurance number should *only* be used for identifying your tax records). One use for the NHS card is in changing doctor -- your new doctor will fill in a form on the card and mail it to your old doctor to request your records, IIRC, and then you'll be issued with a new card with your new doctor's details.
You don't need an NHS number to get care. If you lose your NHS card, it's no big deal, because your local Primary Care Trust can look up your NHS number for you. I don't know who told you that not having an NHS card was a problem, but they were misinformed.
Similarly, I have no idea where my NI number card is -- I haven't seen it since I was a teenager. If I need to fill out my NI number on paperwork, I just find a P45 or P60 from a previous job and copy it from there...
I am currently carrying the following cards in my wallet (total 27 items):
And you know what? It may seem silly, but I prefer it that way to having one single piece of plastic that if I lost I'd lose my life with it.
I've read the licence but I'm saying that certain causes are potentially unenforceable towards the first party (developer) let alone any third parties. The viral nature of the license for example from even linking to code should be denied. That implies that the license can somehow overwrite the copyright of another author.
Listen, it's pretty bloody simple: as soon as you make a copy of a piece of software, you need to have a licence to make that copy. If you don't have a licence, you can't make the copy. That's the reason it's illegal to copy computer games and share them using BitTorrent or Gnutella. The only difference here is that the FSF is using copyright law backwards, to make sure that nobody tries to stop you from sharing their software with anyone you like.
I don't know who you think is a "third party" in this case. The FSF wrote the software (first party); they distributed it to the "developer", who modified the software (second party); he distributed it to Apple (second party); Apple distributed it to end users (second party); the end users were prevented from distributing it.
Everyone other than the FSF, who hold the original copyright, requires a licence to use and distribute the software. In this case, that licence is the GPL, and the GPL requires that everyone who receives a copy of the software is free to make copies of that copy and distribute them to others. Apple are giving copies of the software to end users, but making them sign contracts saying that they won't redistribute it. Apple are therefore breaking the terms of the licence, and can't distribute the software. This case has nothing to do with linking, and nothing to do with any allegedly "viral" nature of the GPL.
Finally, no-one's forcing you to use GPL-licensed software. If you don't like the terms of the licence, either don't use the software, or wait until it comes out of copyright protection.
From my reading of the iPhone developer license agreement, the Apple Store EULA and the GPL, it's literally impossible to legally publish Free software applications for the iPhone or iPad. The requirements are impossible to reconcile.
And for a change, the problems aren't to do with distributing source code.
The situation is extremely unfortunate, and I hope that Apple relent and open up their platform sometime soon. As it is, I'm still very glad that I bought an n900 instead of an iPhone.
Yes. Apple doesn't really try to stop anyone, they do strongly advise against it and won't support you if you do it. They certainly don't have to provide you with the tools to do so.
They make you enter into a legal contract that you will not redistribute the software or allow it to be redistributed.
The fact that there are technical ways around the technical measures they impose are neither here nor there.
You're thinking of the academic edition, he is talking about the student/teacher version, which is sold in Walmart right next to the crossword programs and the latest Norton crapware. since he is buying it at retail, where the only thing anyone asks him for is money, I don't see how they could stick him with the EULA after the sale has been completed. Not unless part of the EULA states you get a full 100% refund if you refuse the terms, and I don't see Walmart going for that.
The reverse of the Microsoft Office Student/Teacher Edition box says:
You must accept the enclosed License Agreement before you can use this product. ... If you do not accept the terms of the License Agreement, you should promptly return the product for a refund.
Seems pretty clear to me. I don't see how Walmart could weasel out of giving a refund.
Those terms don't attempt to bind third parties to anything, they limit what third parties can do with the code released under the GPL.
Apple is doing nothing with the code. They receive a binary from the developer.
They still need to comply with the terms of the GPL. You really need to go read the license, read the FAQ (which clarifies many of the misconceptions under which you appear to be labouring), and possible read the article, then come back and see if you can actually contribute a post to this discussion that isn't factually incorrect.
If you can't be bothered to do any of that, I think I'm going to have to assume you're a troll.
If I download the binary of a GPL'ed program, I am not bound by the GPL one bit because it is not an end user or recipient license agreement for the binary. It only covers code.
Incorrect. It's been determined that since a binary is directly derived from the source code, the copyright holders of the source code also have copyright on the binary. The GPL covers both the source code and the binary.
One of the privileges of copyright is exclusive rights to distribution of the copyrighted work. If you are not the copyright holder, you require a license to distribute it. The GPL is such a license, and controls distribution of code and of binaries compiled from that code. If you do not comply with the terms of the license (basically, 1) always make source code available, 2) let anyone use the program for any purpose and 3) give anyone you give the program to the same rights you did), then you have no permission to distribute the program.
So if you download the binary of a GPL'd program, you are bound by the GPL. In practice, you can ignore the requirements of the GPL right up until the point at which you give a copy of the binary to someone else. (I'm deliberately ignoring the precedent that says that you must have a license to be allowed to make the copies within your computer's RAM required to simply run a program).
Insert usual IANAL disclaimer here.
Then explain the WRT54g and Android phones why the kernel source isn't in the box?
I recently bought a Netgear ADSL modem. In the box there was a piece of paper informing me of how to obtain the source code for the Free software used in the modem firmware. This constitutes a "written offer to supply the corresponding source" and thus it complied.
I recently bought a Nokia N900 mobile phone. In the box... etc.
Yes, it is a fundamental incompatibility. This highly informative post shows it quite clearly.
This is prohibited under the App store, each download is code signed to only work for one account. Thus it is a prohibition on the user, not the developer.
Actually that is fine. They are not required to give you the keys to make it useful or even help you get it off of your iPhone and onto something else. What they can't do is tell the developer or anyone else they can't distribute the binary elsewhere.
Incorrect if the code in question is GPLv3. From the GPLv3:
A “User Product” is either (1) a “consumer product”, which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling. In determining whether a product is a consumer product, doubtful cases shall be resolved in favor of coverage. For a particular product received by a particular user, “normally used” refers to a typical or common use of that class of product, regardless of the status of the particular user or of the way in which the particular user actually uses, or expects or is expected to use, the product. A product is a consumer product regardless of whether the product has substantial commercial, industrial or non-consumer uses, unless such uses represent the only significant mode of use of the product.
“Installation Information” for a User Product means any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source. The information must suffice to ensure that the continued functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or interfered with solely because modification has been made.
If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with, or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this section must be accompanied by the Installation Information. But this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party retains the ability to install modified object code on the User Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).
IANAL, but I believe that the iPhone and iPad meet the above definition of "User Product", and Apple would therefore be obligated to supply the Installation Information (i.e. signing keys to install the software to the phone).
Do you mean Kevin Warwick? Funnily enough he's also from the University of Reading.
Indeed, also from the Cybernetics Department! Several years ago I worked there for a couple of weeks on a "work experience" placement -- seems to me like the research has gone a bit downhill since the days when Kevin Warwick had a chip implanted in his wrist's median nerve and then used it to control a robot hand...
Some examples where Microsoft is still producing retarded software: - Focus follows mouse.
Is a UI catastrophe.
- Roll up windows.
Are of highly questional utility given the Taskbar.
- Multiple desktops.
Are dramatically overrated.
Clearly you and the GP have a difference of opinion. With Linux, you can each have things set up the way you like it! With Windows, you don't have that option.
It is not teaching the students to question government, it is teaching students to see a problem with not living in a theocracy. Seperation of Church and State is one of the very cores of this nation, and it is an issue that revolves around the issues that religion can cause. God does not belong in government, assuming he exists he has his domain and we have ours. (I assume he doesn't but hey)
"My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36
As a Christian myself, I agree with you!
Sort of like Formula One motors. No one reuses them. Why not? No one cares. You build them. You use them, they wear out after 20 hours, and you build another one. Simpler, cheaper, better.
SpaceX regularly test-fire their engines with full mission-duration burns, then use the same engines on their launchers. Their engines are designed for re-use, to the extent of avoiding ablative coatings and materials wherever possible. They've even been careful to design for immersion in salt water so that in theory they can recover first stages, give them a quick going over, and whack them back on the launch pad.
As someone who works in the space industry, I think that saying, "You shouldn't reuse rockets," is a rather blinkered and negative attitude. With that sort of stance, how could we ever improve the state of the art?