Of course other countries are not crazy enough to insist that children with Down's syndrome be "mainstreamed" with the normal kids. But I've also noticed that an astoundingly large fraction of kids these days are labeled "special needs" (far more than could be accounted for by serious disabilities like Down's syndrome or blindness). Either we need eugenics real soon or some bureaucrats have found it profitable to define a lot of normal kids as disabled.
"...evolutionary theory, a theory that has been shown to explain the origins of life time and time again..."
Evolutionary theory does a good job of explaining how life has changed,
adapted, and speciated over millions of years. It does *not* explain the
"origins of life". You need a reproducing organism before you can even apply
evolutionary theory.
The truth is that there is not at present any sort of good theory for the
origins of life. The more you delve into the literature on that subject the
more you realize that nobody has a clue. In some sense the poster was correct
when he said the the origins of life have been explained "time and time
again.." -- a host of origin-of-life theories have been proposed, because none
of them are any good.
It is known that under certain circumstances you can generate amino acids
abiotically. But the yields are very low, and generate lots of random
hydrocarbons ("tars") that would poison any useful reactions. And you
don't get the exclusively left- or right-handed isomers that are used in
living organisms -- you get a racemic mixture of each chemical.
Then of course you can't get a living organism with just amino acids. You
need lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleotides. The conditions needed to
create each of these chemicals are different and in contradiction with each
other.
But suppose, by some miracle, you had all the right parts, and with the
right isomers, and with no poisoning tars to botch up the system. What are
the odds of throwing them together in a way that creates a reproducing
organism? Sufficiently low that a galaxy of earths, each with an ocean
to try zillions of these combinations every second, would still not
come up with a bacterium after 10 billion years.
None of this of course gives any comfort to a silly biblical literalism.
But we shouldn't pretend we have a scientific explanation for a problem
when we don't.
Among the differences: Git can't rename a file; users must instead delete one and recreate it elsewhere with the new name, McVoy said. And it doesn't handle space efficiently; a tiny one-character change to a 1MB file in Git will result in a 2MB file, whereas BitKeeper's file will grow only by one byte.
So Git doesn't have the most basic functionality of all "real" source code control systems -- the ability to save historical versions of a file as a series of diffs from the current version. It was, in short, a quick and dirty hack.
The WSJ has excellent reportage, although their editorial page is about as anti-environment as it could be. The fact that they can make more profit with online subscriptions than on more expensive paper subscriptions is good news for trees -- entire forests get mowed down to create newspapers that primarily contain advertisements nobody reads and get thrown out the next day. (Yes, I know newspapers can be made largely with recycled paper, but paper can only be recycled a limited number of times, as the fibers get shorter on each iteration.)
Larry has a very clear moral standpoint: "You can compete with me, but you can't do so by riding on my coat-tails. Solve the problems on your own, and compete _honestly_. Don't compete by looking at my solution."
And that is what the BK license boils down to. It says: "Get off my coat-tails, you free-loader". And I can't really argue against that.
I hate to sound like an SCO troll but Linux is basically a reverse engineered Unix. While it does not contain proprietary Unix code (SCO's claims notwithstanding) it was designed to be compatible with Unix, making it feasible to port Unix apps to it.
So it seems odd to me that Linus would agree that reverse engineering BitKeeper is immoral.
Under the GPL, the company doesn't have to make the source code public unless it distributes the binaries.
I don't believe they can patent GPLed code.
If you signed a conventional employment agreement, handing over to your employer all rights to intellectual property that you create, then it is incumbent upon you to check with upper management *before* you start incorporating GPLed code into the software they pay you to write. Otherwise you will generate irresolvable conflicts and they will be justified for firing you for incompetence.
I have deliberately avoided using GPLed libraries in some cases because I knew that it was not compatible with my employer's licensing plans.
This can create some extra costs for the company, but those are costs they have chosen to incur.
One everyday consequence of the Patriot Act is that your government is making your bank spy on you. I recently moved some money from a money market account that I have with one bank to my checking account at another bank. I then wired the money from that account to make an investment. (It was easier for me to wire money from my checking account). I got a call on my answering machine from the bank saying that it was about my checking account. I figured they just wanted to be sure it was me who was wiring that money, not some thief with my drivers license and bank card. So I called them back. The lady at the bank started asking all sorts of questions -- who I worked for, where the money I had deposited came from, what the "business purpose" of my investment was, etc. I asked what this was all about and she said it was required by the Patriot Act.
I've never seen D&D players do the "dress up with shields and swords" thing. Those pictures look like they're of a meeting of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or some other group of similar ilk. But four nerds sitting at a table with dice and paper maps wouldn't be so photogenic.
The apps may work happily together (assuming they've agreed on the cut and paste thing) but the user isn't especially happy when every app has a different look and feel, different conventions for keyboard shortcuts, different file choosers, yadda yadda yadda. 3133t h@x0rs may think that "choice is good" but to the average end user it looks like an incoherent mess.
So if I oppose DRM and software patents that makes me a communist? Funny, here I thought I was just a pro-environment paleocon who believes in minimal government, one that does not hand out monopolies like candy (as our current patent office does) and that does not infringe on peoples right to tinker with their computers, stereos, and other gadgets (as the DRM does).
The above post pretty well sums up the cloud cuckoo land that libertarians live in, and shows why I am not one. The principal of one man, one vote is made meaningless when a multi-billionaire can extort a government to produce the laws he wants. It is especially ironic when you consider that of the 800 employees who are programmers, most of them no doubt oppose software patents themselves.
True, but up to now it looked as though any free Windows app using QT was going to have to be locked into the version 3.whatever release that came with the book. Now we know that the latest and greatest 4.0 version will also be made available under the GPL, which is a good thing.
Most programmers are male, whether doing open source work or otherwise. Most engineers are male. Most mechanics are male. So are most carpenters. Guys like to make stuff. The sexes are different. Get over it.
...to change from 'theory' it to The Laws Of Relativity?
The problem is that you're using the laymen's notion of "theory", which roughly means "a tentative guess". But that's not how scientists use the word. A theory is simply a proposed set of relations among observables, and its status may range from rampant speculation to solidly established fact. After all mathematicians talk about "Group Theory" and "Number Theory", when there's nothing tentative about, say, the prime number theorem.
Your point is a valid one and was brought up years ago when the Gnome project began (as a result of license issues in KDE/QT that have long since been resolved). The usual counterarguments were made: "Memories are getting bigger so bloat doesn't matter", and , invariably, "Choice is good." Well, computer memories are bigger -- but so are the GUI packages, so bloat remains a problem. And choice is not good. I want basic things like file choosers, help systems, and cut and paste conventions to be *exactly the same* on all my apps. The main reason the Mac is so user friendly is that developers were given relatively few choices about how their programs were to interact with the user. I'm glad drivers don't get to choose which side of the street to drive on.
I don't think the Republican/Democrat divide has much to do with this. Democrats depend very much upon Hollywood money (more than the Republicans do) and so are quite inclined to do the bidding of their corporate masters on this issue.
About 95% of my music is on old fashioned CDs (I'm an old enough fart to remember when CDs were amazing new technology) and all of it was bought and paid for. 95% of that is classical. There has been much noise in the classical music scene about declining sales and half empty concerts. While that may be true, it is not due to people downloading house music over Kazaa. It is because we live in a culture that has long denigrated classical music as both elitist and boring, so a generation has grown up that won't listen to it, even if they got it free in their breakfast cereal. My local public radio station hardly plays the stuff any more, which is why they no longer get any money from me.
If labels like BIS and Hyperion start using "digital rights mangagement" in the mistaken belief that that will restore their lost sales they will lose one of their best customers.
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Of course other countries are not crazy enough to insist that children with Down's syndrome be "mainstreamed" with the normal kids. But I've also noticed that an astoundingly large fraction of kids these days are labeled "special needs" (far more than could be accounted for by serious disabilities like Down's syndrome or blindness). Either we need eugenics real soon or some bureaucrats have found it profitable to define a lot of normal kids as disabled.
The time to parse XML is utterly negligible compared to the time needed to start the proceses specified by the XML.
Evolutionary theory does a good job of explaining how life has changed, adapted, and speciated over millions of years. It does *not* explain the "origins of life". You need a reproducing organism before you can even apply evolutionary theory.
The truth is that there is not at present any sort of good theory for the origins of life. The more you delve into the literature on that subject the more you realize that nobody has a clue. In some sense the poster was correct when he said the the origins of life have been explained "time and time again.." -- a host of origin-of-life theories have been proposed, because none of them are any good.
It is known that under certain circumstances you can generate amino acids abiotically. But the yields are very low, and generate lots of random hydrocarbons ("tars") that would poison any useful reactions. And you don't get the exclusively left- or right-handed isomers that are used in living organisms -- you get a racemic mixture of each chemical.
Then of course you can't get a living organism with just amino acids. You need lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleotides. The conditions needed to create each of these chemicals are different and in contradiction with each other.
But suppose, by some miracle, you had all the right parts, and with the right isomers, and with no poisoning tars to botch up the system. What are the odds of throwing them together in a way that creates a reproducing organism? Sufficiently low that a galaxy of earths, each with an ocean to try zillions of these combinations every second, would still not come up with a bacterium after 10 billion years.
None of this of course gives any comfort to a silly biblical literalism. But we shouldn't pretend we have a scientific explanation for a problem when we don't.
So Git doesn't have the most basic functionality of all "real" source code control systems -- the ability to save historical versions of a file as a series of diffs from the current version. It was, in short, a quick and dirty hack.
The WSJ has excellent reportage, although their editorial page is about as anti-environment as it could be. The fact that they can make more profit with online subscriptions than on more expensive paper subscriptions is good news for trees -- entire forests get mowed down to create newspapers that primarily contain advertisements nobody reads and get thrown out the next day. (Yes, I know newspapers can be made largely with recycled paper, but paper can only be recycled a limited number of times, as the fibers get shorter on each iteration.)
Is there going to be at least one straight news story today?
Offer the suspects chocolate or free move tickets in return for their passwords.
And global warming has put nearly all of Florida underwater.
Under the GPL, the company doesn't have to make the source code public unless it distributes the binaries.
I don't believe they can patent GPLed code.
If you signed a conventional employment agreement, handing over to your employer all rights to intellectual property that you create, then it is incumbent upon you to check with upper management *before* you start incorporating GPLed code into the software they pay you to write. Otherwise you will generate irresolvable conflicts and they will be justified for firing you for incompetence.
I have deliberately avoided using GPLed libraries in some cases because I knew that it was not compatible with my employer's licensing plans. This can create some extra costs for the company, but those are costs they have chosen to incur.
As an American (don't blame me -- nobody I vote for ever gets elected) I can sympathize with the Aussies. I have to buy my mod chips from Switzerland.
One everyday consequence of the Patriot Act is that your government is making your bank spy on you. I recently moved some money from a money market account that I have with one bank to my checking account at another bank. I then wired the money from that account to make an investment. (It was easier for me to wire money from my checking account). I got a call on my answering machine from the bank saying that it was about my checking account. I figured they just wanted to be sure it was me who was wiring that money, not some thief with my drivers license and bank card. So I called them back. The lady at the bank started asking all sorts of questions -- who I worked for, where the money I had deposited came from, what the "business purpose" of my investment was, etc. I asked what this was all about and she said it was required by the Patriot Act.
You have no privacy any more.
I've never seen D&D players do the "dress up with shields and swords" thing. Those pictures look like they're of a meeting of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or some other group of similar ilk. But four nerds sitting at a table with dice and paper maps wouldn't be so photogenic.
The apps may work happily together (assuming they've agreed on the cut and paste thing) but the user isn't especially happy when every app has a different look and feel, different conventions for keyboard shortcuts, different file choosers, yadda yadda yadda. 3133t h@x0rs may think that "choice is good" but to the average end user it looks like an incoherent mess.
Given the state of "democracy" in the United States, it's pretty damn sick that we've invaded another country to bring them the same thing.
So if I oppose DRM and software patents that makes me a communist? Funny, here I thought I was just a pro-environment paleocon who believes in minimal government, one that does not hand out monopolies like candy (as our current patent office does) and that does not infringe on peoples right to tinker with their computers, stereos, and other gadgets (as the DRM does).
The above post pretty well sums up the cloud cuckoo land that libertarians live in, and shows why I am not one. The principal of one man, one vote is made meaningless when a multi-billionaire can extort a government to produce the laws he wants. It is especially ironic when you consider that of the 800 employees who are programmers, most of them no doubt oppose software patents themselves.
True, but up to now it looked as though any free Windows app using QT was going to have to be locked into the version 3.whatever release that came with the book. Now we know that the latest and greatest 4.0 version will also be made available under the GPL, which is a good thing.
Most programmers are male, whether doing open source work or otherwise. Most engineers are male. Most mechanics are male. So are most carpenters. Guys like to make stuff. The sexes are different. Get over it.
Don't forget the giant rats (mentioned in the National Geographic article). Your hypothesis is confirmed.
Your point is a valid one and was brought up years ago when the Gnome project began (as a result of license issues in KDE/QT that have long since been resolved). The usual counterarguments were made: "Memories are getting bigger so bloat doesn't matter", and , invariably, "Choice is good." Well, computer memories are bigger -- but so are the GUI packages, so bloat remains a problem. And choice is not good. I want basic things like file choosers, help systems, and cut and paste conventions to be *exactly the same* on all my apps. The main reason the Mac is so user friendly is that developers were given relatively few choices about how their programs were to interact with the user. I'm glad drivers don't get to choose which side of the street to drive on.
I don't think the Republican/Democrat divide has much to do with this. Democrats depend very much upon Hollywood money (more than the Republicans do) and so are quite inclined to do the bidding of their corporate masters on this issue.
About 95% of my music is on old fashioned CDs (I'm an old enough fart to remember when CDs were amazing new technology) and all of it was bought and paid for. 95% of that is classical. There has been much noise in the classical music scene about declining sales and half empty concerts. While that may be true, it is not due to people downloading house music over Kazaa. It is because we live in a culture that has long denigrated classical music as both elitist and boring, so a generation has grown up that won't listen to it, even if they got it free in their breakfast cereal. My local public radio station hardly plays the stuff any more, which is why they no longer get any money from me. If labels like BIS and Hyperion start using "digital rights mangagement" in the mistaken belief that that will restore their lost sales they will lose one of their best customers.
Flowers that are pollinated by flies (rather than by bees or butterflies) smell like rotting flesh.