Well, I live 5 minutes from downtown in the 15th largest city in the USA. I have two choices for broadband, both of which suck.
Please cut out the flames. It is unnecessary and rude to call the GP a whiner (and likely untruthful as well, although that is hardly relevant to what I am saying).
The insufficiency of analogy to more traditional means of communication (postal service in sealed envelopes, telegraph, town crier, word of mouth, whatever) is sufficient demonstration that the constitution is unclear on these matters.
To expound a bit: If you make an analogy between IP packets and letters sent via USPS, then clearly the gov't must not search your correspondence. However, you could just as plausibly (read: not very plausibly) make an analogy between IP packets and shouting across a crowded room. In that case, anything the gov't hears is fair game.
The typical test is, AFAIK, whether or not you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your correspondence (be it mail, talking face to face, phone calls, email, IP packets, whatever). However, when it comes to any correspondence over the internet (especially, ye gods especially, wireless), people's expectations are all over the place, and most people can come up with a decently rational argument in favor of their expectation. The law as it stands on the books does not adequately specify how much privacy internet communications may enjoy.
I'm no economist, but it sure seems that comparing the rate of increase of your stocks to the rate of increase of the money supply is only not a red herring provided the population is static. Inflation rates are based on a basket of prices, and prices are what actually matter when you want to know how much your money is really worth (This dollar is worth 2 previously-frozen clams at the supermarket, for instance)
Add to that that the intersection of A and B is empty, and I think you'll be ok. Maybe. Of course, it isn't 9am yet, and I have a midterm in an hour, so maybe I'm just screwed up here. (I'm reading slashdot for a short break)
Speed limits are often based on the quality of the road (of the road surface, of the ability of drivers entering the road to see cars coming, and of the ability of drivers on the road to see hazards on the road ahead of them (reduced by curves, for instance)). The road surface quality degrades with time. Occasionally, studies are done in specific areas that demonstrate that the speed limit really is too high for the visibility of the road, both for drivers entering the road and drivers on the road. Other times, the population increases, and thus so does traffic. In each of these situations, reducing the speed limit is the appropriate immediate step. Further steps might include resurfacing the road, widening the road, etc.
Yes, speed limits are often arbitrary and designed to trap drivers. But claiming that speed limits are never related to safety is foolish, and claiming that speeding is not at all dangerous is also foolish. Higher speed increases both your reaction distance and the severity of any mistakes. Increasing either of these reduces safety.
I thought one of the main selling points of e-paper was that you could read it just as well in bright sunlight as in normal interior lighting. Texas summer sun is probably brighter than a scanner's lamp.
First, some (not so small) percentage of seeds fail to germinate in any case. This is why farmers and gardeners put down seeds with a much greater density than they actually want plants in, and then after they start coming up, thin out the crop to the desired density. They destroy a significant portion of the plants that do come up already!
Second, the vast majority of seeds come from self-pollination, or at least pollination from plants in the same field. Actual inter-field contamination is really quite small, almost certainly (without actually studying it, I admit) much less than 25%.
So, he wouldn't lose any crop to speak of, and if he did, it would be a lot less than 25%.
Yes, I know it has already happened. I view this case (and the potential others like it) as one of the biggest (and only?) problems with GM crops. However, if you stuck a gene in there which would prevent the GM seeds from germinating without a chemical which you buy from Monsanto, then accidental contamination could not occur. The contaminated seeds would not germinate, and only the heritage varieties would survive into the next generation, unless you were intentionally growing Monsanto crops, with permission from Monsanto.
Now, yes, someone could synthesize whatever chemical in their barn. If they were, it would be extremely strong evidence that they were intentionally violating Monsanto's patents, unlike the case you cite, in which the contamination could have been accidental and could have been intentional (see discussion under other replies to you.).
I wouldn't be surprised if eventually ou would need to buy a special chemical, without which, the wheat or whatever crop will not grow. Actually, this would be a good thing. Then people wouldn't get in trouble for accidentally growing Monsanto's crops (pollen blew in on the wind and mingled with some unsuspecting farmer's seed crop), and it wouldn't take over from other varieties in the wild. Thus, you could still grow heritage wheat (or whatever) in your backyard.
Global warming has nothing to do with peace. Global warming activists were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize specifically for their global warming activism. This is like giving Bret Favre the Olympic Gold Medal for the decathalon, and saying that he deserves it because he's a really good quarterback. Being a quarterback has nothing to do with the decathalon. Bret Favre might well be incidentally really good at decathalon, but his abilities as a quarterback are utterly orthogonal to winning the Olympic Gold Medal for the decathalon. Global warming activism is utterly orthogonal to winning a prize for Peace.
Precisely. Magnetic reconnection releases a tremendous amount of energy, most of it in the form of EM radiation. It is the phenomenon responsible for, IIRC, many (most?) solar weather events, perhaps most notably solar flares.
The general explanation, as I have seen it given many many times previously, is that, rather than write a/. story which links to some science/tech article, roland will paraphrase the article in his blog, and link the/. story to his paraphrase. This is a means of gaining ad revenue for himself and his employers (ZDnet, I think?), but it doesn't give any ad revenue to those who actually did and wrote up the research.
GP never said he was speaking for "the rest of us". He merely said that GGP was not speaking for "the rest of us". The fact that GGP isn't speaking for GP demonstrates adequately (by counterexample) that GGP was not speaking for "the rest of us", since "the rest of us" includes GP.
A significant amount of research is paid for by the universities, as well. The universities obtain that money from a number of sources, including philanthropic donation, tuition, and endowment interest. That money is not taxpayer money. Furthermore, in my field at least, a huge amount of research is done by people who are not US citizens and who are supported by grants from their own countries. So, when all is said and done, I would estimate that less than half of all research is paid for by your taxes. Should we release to you only the portion paid for by your taxes? That'd only be fair after all.
Anyway, you could look at it this way: taxes and grants pay for the research to be done. If you want the results to be available for free, then perhaps you should lobby for grants to be made for that purpose. That would be an appropriate thing to do. As it stands, the grants that are issued do not include any money which is marked for the purpose of making research available for free, so using the grant money for that purpose would violate the terms of the grant, and the grant would be withdrawn. Advocating the abolition of peer-reviewed journals is simply ludicrous, and a complete non-solution.
I know, don't feed the trolls... I'm doing it anyway.
Why don't all scientists work for free? Talk about a strawman. We have families to feed, man! Rent to pay! Sure, I would do research even if I weren't being paid for it. But, I have to do something for money, or else I and my family starve living on the streets. So, I suppose I could bus tables for pay, and do research for free. But that would be pretty stupid, seeing as how people are willing to pay for research.
Furthermore, if you "cut out the middleman", then you cut out deadtree versions of the journal (important) and you cut out monetary compensation for those doing the reviewing (see above, important). "Cut out the middleman" is a nice catchy phrase that strikes a chord in the hearts of many. But unless someone can come up with a real way in which it can be made to work, it is nothing more than demagogy.
At any rate, the argument is over removing an authors original license. Which, if I understand the BSD license correctly, is definitely allowed (provided attribution remains). If you have an issue with people changing the original license on your code (or removing it), then you definitely need a license other than the BSD license. If you're going to put up a big stink because someone took your BSD code and released it under the GPL, then you are a hypocrite, and either lied or shot yourself in the foot when it was time to choose a license.
It's like the kid who says "Ok, you can play with my legos. Do anything you want with them!"... later... "Hey! I don't want you to do that with my legos! I'm taking them back and going home, poophead!". Nobody likes that kid. Don't be that kid.
I don't know the details here, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the 4.5 minute variation in travel time (or possibly 3-4 second... depends on which article you read) even over a 4.5 billion year journey would correspond to a bump in the road the size of the Matterhorn... In other words, the travel time varies hardly at all (perhaps microseconds, usually) even for very large road bumps, so a variation on this scale is statistically significant. Once again, I don't know the details of this particular experiment, so I can't say for sure. But I do know how physics is usually done, and what I have suggested above is a quite reasonable thing to suppose, given that knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
My favorite kind of switch is the magic kind.
Well, I live 5 minutes from downtown in the 15th largest city in the USA. I have two choices for broadband, both of which suck.
Please cut out the flames. It is unnecessary and rude to call the GP a whiner (and likely untruthful as well, although that is hardly relevant to what I am saying).
The insufficiency of analogy to more traditional means of communication (postal service in sealed envelopes, telegraph, town crier, word of mouth, whatever) is sufficient demonstration that the constitution is unclear on these matters.
To expound a bit: If you make an analogy between IP packets and letters sent via USPS, then clearly the gov't must not search your correspondence. However, you could just as plausibly (read: not very plausibly) make an analogy between IP packets and shouting across a crowded room. In that case, anything the gov't hears is fair game.
The typical test is, AFAIK, whether or not you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your correspondence (be it mail, talking face to face, phone calls, email, IP packets, whatever). However, when it comes to any correspondence over the internet (especially, ye gods especially, wireless), people's expectations are all over the place, and most people can come up with a decently rational argument in favor of their expectation. The law as it stands on the books does not adequately specify how much privacy internet communications may enjoy.
You should have then turned around and brought charges against the guy for extortion...
I'm no economist, but it sure seems that comparing the rate of increase of your stocks to the rate of increase of the money supply is only not a red herring provided the population is static. Inflation rates are based on a basket of prices, and prices are what actually matter when you want to know how much your money is really worth (This dollar is worth 2 previously-frozen clams at the supermarket, for instance)
Huh. With me, it's more of a preference for the number 'beer'.
Add to that that the intersection of A and B is empty, and I think you'll be ok. Maybe. Of course, it isn't 9am yet, and I have a midterm in an hour, so maybe I'm just screwed up here. (I'm reading slashdot for a short break)
Speed limits are often based on the quality of the road (of the road surface, of the ability of drivers entering the road to see cars coming, and of the ability of drivers on the road to see hazards on the road ahead of them (reduced by curves, for instance)). The road surface quality degrades with time. Occasionally, studies are done in specific areas that demonstrate that the speed limit really is too high for the visibility of the road, both for drivers entering the road and drivers on the road. Other times, the population increases, and thus so does traffic. In each of these situations, reducing the speed limit is the appropriate immediate step. Further steps might include resurfacing the road, widening the road, etc.
Yes, speed limits are often arbitrary and designed to trap drivers. But claiming that speed limits are never related to safety is foolish, and claiming that speeding is not at all dangerous is also foolish. Higher speed increases both your reaction distance and the severity of any mistakes. Increasing either of these reduces safety.
I'm glad I don't have to share the road with you.
I thought one of the main selling points of e-paper was that you could read it just as well in bright sunlight as in normal interior lighting. Texas summer sun is probably brighter than a scanner's lamp.
First, some (not so small) percentage of seeds fail to germinate in any case. This is why farmers and gardeners put down seeds with a much greater density than they actually want plants in, and then after they start coming up, thin out the crop to the desired density. They destroy a significant portion of the plants that do come up already!
Second, the vast majority of seeds come from self-pollination, or at least pollination from plants in the same field. Actual inter-field contamination is really quite small, almost certainly (without actually studying it, I admit) much less than 25%.
So, he wouldn't lose any crop to speak of, and if he did, it would be a lot less than 25%.
Yes, I know it has already happened. I view this case (and the potential others like it) as one of the biggest (and only?) problems with GM crops. However, if you stuck a gene in there which would prevent the GM seeds from germinating without a chemical which you buy from Monsanto, then accidental contamination could not occur. The contaminated seeds would not germinate, and only the heritage varieties would survive into the next generation, unless you were intentionally growing Monsanto crops, with permission from Monsanto.
Now, yes, someone could synthesize whatever chemical in their barn. If they were, it would be extremely strong evidence that they were intentionally violating Monsanto's patents, unlike the case you cite, in which the contamination could have been accidental and could have been intentional (see discussion under other replies to you.).
I don't know. You'd better ask a lawyer. I know some good ones! Their website is at http://cybertriallawyer.com/.
ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!!
That, my friend, is the flamewar to end all flamewars.
Global warming has nothing to do with peace. Global warming activists were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize specifically for their global warming activism. This is like giving Bret Favre the Olympic Gold Medal for the decathalon, and saying that he deserves it because he's a really good quarterback. Being a quarterback has nothing to do with the decathalon. Bret Favre might well be incidentally really good at decathalon, but his abilities as a quarterback are utterly orthogonal to winning the Olympic Gold Medal for the decathalon. Global warming activism is utterly orthogonal to winning a prize for Peace.
Tin foil hats: Not just for humans anymore!
Precisely. Magnetic reconnection releases a tremendous amount of energy, most of it in the form of EM radiation. It is the phenomenon responsible for, IIRC, many (most?) solar weather events, perhaps most notably solar flares.
The general explanation, as I have seen it given many many times previously, is that, rather than write a /. story which links to some science/tech article, roland will paraphrase the article in his blog, and link the /. story to his paraphrase. This is a means of gaining ad revenue for himself and his employers (ZDnet, I think?), but it doesn't give any ad revenue to those who actually did and wrote up the research.
Is this true? I don't know. I never RTFA.
GP never said he was speaking for "the rest of us". He merely said that GGP was not speaking for "the rest of us". The fact that GGP isn't speaking for GP demonstrates adequately (by counterexample) that GGP was not speaking for "the rest of us", since "the rest of us" includes GP.
A significant amount of research is paid for by the universities, as well. The universities obtain that money from a number of sources, including philanthropic donation, tuition, and endowment interest. That money is not taxpayer money. Furthermore, in my field at least, a huge amount of research is done by people who are not US citizens and who are supported by grants from their own countries. So, when all is said and done, I would estimate that less than half of all research is paid for by your taxes. Should we release to you only the portion paid for by your taxes? That'd only be fair after all.
Anyway, you could look at it this way: taxes and grants pay for the research to be done. If you want the results to be available for free, then perhaps you should lobby for grants to be made for that purpose. That would be an appropriate thing to do. As it stands, the grants that are issued do not include any money which is marked for the purpose of making research available for free, so using the grant money for that purpose would violate the terms of the grant, and the grant would be withdrawn. Advocating the abolition of peer-reviewed journals is simply ludicrous, and a complete non-solution.
I know, don't feed the trolls... I'm doing it anyway.
Why don't all scientists work for free? Talk about a strawman. We have families to feed, man! Rent to pay! Sure, I would do research even if I weren't being paid for it. But, I have to do something for money, or else I and my family starve living on the streets. So, I suppose I could bus tables for pay, and do research for free. But that would be pretty stupid, seeing as how people are willing to pay for research.
Furthermore, if you "cut out the middleman", then you cut out deadtree versions of the journal (important) and you cut out monetary compensation for those doing the reviewing (see above, important). "Cut out the middleman" is a nice catchy phrase that strikes a chord in the hearts of many. But unless someone can come up with a real way in which it can be made to work, it is nothing more than demagogy.
It's like the kid who says "Ok, you can play with my legos. Do anything you want with them!"
I don't know the details here, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the 4.5 minute variation in travel time (or possibly 3-4 second... depends on which article you read) even over a 4.5 billion year journey would correspond to a bump in the road the size of the Matterhorn... In other words, the travel time varies hardly at all (perhaps microseconds, usually) even for very large road bumps, so a variation on this scale is statistically significant. Once again, I don't know the details of this particular experiment, so I can't say for sure. But I do know how physics is usually done, and what I have suggested above is a quite reasonable thing to suppose, given that knowledge.