The nice thing about faster than light communication is that it also allows for sending messages back in time. Since these guys haven't gotten any messages from their future selves yet the outlook of the whole project is bleak:-(
One other advantage of the low tech look: Waaaay cheaper to make sets. For example, they could have a bunch of funky "futuristic" boxes for holding tools, but instead they use toolboxes that seriously just look like Sears Craftsman toolboxes that have been repainted. The upside is they can spend more time/money on the plot and effects instead of making weird boxes for holding tools.
You forgot the "I'll bring my goat if you can bring some gasoline" part, though if that still didn't freak him out, you would probably have been a good candidate for the witness protection program.
The best part is you can spell it differently each time they repeat it back to you. Sound more and more pissed each time and repeat until they give up.
Could someone claim in court that they thought it would be ok to violate Microsoft's patents, since they apparently have announced that they don't plan on enforcing some of their patents? And are there time limits on enforcement after a company knows of infringers, or does the ability to enforce them never expire? If there is a time limit, that could seriously bite them later too.
p.s. How about just the top five then? Certainly that won't take too long, right?
Apparently my cynical unhumorous attempt to stir up a discussion about facts v.s. theories and the questioning thereof has utterly failed. For the record I agree with the grandparent post that sticking with a theory when it no longer fits the available facts isn't conducive to furthering our understanding of how things really work.
It's been said that any major change in the fundamental theories of a field will not be accepted until the old guard dies off.
Maybe something subtle, like a lunch symposia titled "Current Ideas in Granitized Fluids" where you serve poisoned food items would be a good idea now and then?
I figure if we're wrong about global warming, we won't be able to admit it until 2045 or so...
Yeah that would probably be pretty much too late either way.
Just goes to show that the most important thing you can learn in school is to evaluate the data yourself.
Yes indeed! My math teacher told me that PI is an irrational number; as soon as I am done computing it out to infinity I will know this fact for myself, but until then I am still pretty skeptical.
Of the 34 developers who responded, many of them are associated with projects like Apache and PostgreSQL that don't even use the GPL.
At least they had a choice. Any guesses on how many developers who didn't like the parade of Microsoft licenses (for the OS, tools, etc) got to choose a different licensing instead of what Microsoft rammed down their throats?
I wonder about legal liability for releasing this information if it leads to the death of the undercover agents...
Law & Order sort of tackled this in the 2004...
Yeah, all the best legal advice is on TV these days. I should catch up on all the episodes and memorize them so they are easier to cite the next time I defend myself in court.
Why Microsoft won't name the patents, straight from the horse's mouth (go here for the blog article):
The question I anticipate that most readers will want to ask (and that isn't really answered in the feature story) is: Why doesn't Microsoft identify the specific patents and explain what specific aspects of free software infringe them. I did ask Gutierrez that question, and here was his answer: "We do. But in private conversations in the process of licensing discussions with companies that are looking in good faith for ways of resolving the situation." In those contexts, he says, "we walk through a number of exemplary patents and go as deep as they want us to go. Our experience has been every time we've done that, it doesn't take companies a long time to figure out that there is an issue here."
Why won't he do the same thing in public? "There are a number of legal reasons why companies don't do that. No company does that. IBM (IBM) doesn't do that. HP (HPQ) doesn't. Fujitsu (FJTSY.PK) doesn't. For a number of practical reasons. Once you've made that statement from a public perspective, anybody in the world can go to court and ask for a declaratory judgment. That would spur potentially hundreds or thousands of lawsuits around the world, or reexaminations of patents around the world. Even if they're perfectly good patents, it would create an administrative nightmare."
I would be amazed if this miniseries didn't make a nice chunk of change from DVD sales/rentals though, especially if they made a movie spinoff later (though like Serenity, making it appeal to people who haven't seen the series might be tough).
I then print this, laminate it, and put it in my wallet (a backup copy somewhere isn't a bad idea either). Then, for every password I just remember a word (maybe "bank" for my bank for example) which gives me a password of: ?pE94$vw
Hard to guess, easy for me to "remember". If someone gets my paper (say I lose my wallet), it is still not simple to figure out what my passwords are, or even what the heck that little paper is. Shoulder surfing doesn't work too well either, unless you can memorize the whole card and then figure out which word I am using (it would be easier to try to watch me type the password on the keyboard then get it off the paper. Luckily I type fast and get annoyed when people stand over me while I type a password:-) ).
Yeah, I was so happy on the day my karma reached "excellent"; the money hasn't stopped rolling in since. By next week my 36,000 square foot mansion made from stacks of $100 bills should be completed.
Interesting; I will have to think about this more. I usually do my best thinking while I eat, so tomorrow I will contemplate your words as I eat scrambled condor eggs off my favorite plates made from loggerhead turtle shells while relaxing on my comfy pile of tiger pelts. Speaking of pelts, hopefully I can get some fresh panda skins for the seats in my new Hummer that runs on baby humpback whales instead of gasoline.
Maybe it could be bought for the purpose of housing out of work tech weenies whose jobs have been outsourced? The irony factor alone would be worth it.
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On the upside, matching our carpet to the color of the catfood has turned out to be a brilliant strategy so far.
The nice thing about faster than light communication is that it also allows for sending messages back in time. Since these guys haven't gotten any messages from their future selves yet the outlook of the whole project is bleak
I bet if they used SFTP engines instead the cylons would have a harder time hacking into their computers.
One other advantage of the low tech look: Waaaay cheaper to make sets. For example, they could have a bunch of funky "futuristic" boxes for holding tools, but instead they use toolboxes that seriously just look like Sears Craftsman toolboxes that have been repainted. The upside is they can spend more time/money on the plot and effects instead of making weird boxes for holding tools.
You forgot the "I'll bring my goat if you can bring some gasoline" part, though if that still didn't freak him out, you would probably have been a good candidate for the witness protection program.
...Smitty Jaegerwebermanjensen...
The best part is you can spell it differently each time they repeat it back to you. Sound more and more pissed each time and repeat until they give up.
Can they pay the fine with imported CDs, marked up to the cost of comperable local CD prices?
Wouldn't this be easier than exterminating them? Either way, they had no right to evolve on our planet before we got there.
p.s. How about just the top five then? Certainly that won't take too long, right?
So the font goggles are actually useful after all since they keep you from gouging out your eyes?
Apparently my cynical unhumorous attempt to stir up a discussion about facts v.s. theories and the questioning thereof has utterly failed. For the record I agree with the grandparent post that sticking with a theory when it no longer fits the available facts isn't conducive to furthering our understanding of how things really work.
Maybe something subtle, like a lunch symposia titled "Current Ideas in Granitized Fluids" where you serve poisoned food items would be a good idea now and then?
I figure if we're wrong about global warming, we won't be able to admit it until 2045 or so...
Yeah that would probably be pretty much too late either way.
Yes indeed! My math teacher told me that PI is an irrational number; as soon as I am done computing it out to infinity I will know this fact for myself, but until then I am still pretty skeptical.
At least they had a choice. Any guesses on how many developers who didn't like the parade of Microsoft licenses (for the OS, tools, etc) got to choose a different licensing instead of what Microsoft rammed down their throats?
Law & Order sort of tackled this in the 2004...
Yeah, all the best legal advice is on TV these days. I should catch up on all the episodes and memorize them so they are easier to cite the next time I defend myself in court.
I would be amazed if this miniseries didn't make a nice chunk of change from DVD sales/rentals though, especially if they made a movie spinoff later (though like Serenity, making it appeal to people who haven't seen the series might be tough).
Becoming tired of remembering passwords, I wrote a little perl program to randomly generate a matrix like this:
:-) ).
a-E9 b-?p c-&m
d-6K e-aY f-eP
g-!S h-gn i-D=
j-Hd k-vw l-Cb
m-W5 n-4$ o-R3
p-x% q-7M r-NF
s-+2 t-s* u-Ay
v-fL w-zG x-Zu
y-cX z-Qr
I then print this, laminate it, and put it in my wallet (a backup copy somewhere isn't a bad idea either). Then, for every password I just remember a word (maybe "bank" for my bank for example) which gives me a password of: ?pE94$vw
Hard to guess, easy for me to "remember". If someone gets my paper (say I lose my wallet), it is still not simple to figure out what my passwords are, or even what the heck that little paper is. Shoulder surfing doesn't work too well either, unless you can memorize the whole card and then figure out which word I am using (it would be easier to try to watch me type the password on the keyboard then get it off the paper. Luckily I type fast and get annoyed when people stand over me while I type a password
Action plan to achieve this goal: tip the server rack over on myself, crushing my legs and causing permanant damage.
Who says people in IT never plan ahead for retirement?
Yeah, I was so happy on the day my karma reached "excellent"; the money hasn't stopped rolling in since. By next week my 36,000 square foot mansion made from stacks of $100 bills should be completed.
All the artists should just do what I do and post art that is so crappy no one in their right mind would copy it.
Interesting; I will have to think about this more. I usually do my best thinking while I eat, so tomorrow I will contemplate your words as I eat scrambled condor eggs off my favorite plates made from loggerhead turtle shells while relaxing on my comfy pile of tiger pelts. Speaking of pelts, hopefully I can get some fresh panda skins for the seats in my new Hummer that runs on baby humpback whales instead of gasoline.
Whew; thanks for telling me before I got together with my buddies to go looting at Best Buy tonight.
How about, "the faster we hit rock bottom, the sooner the mobs with pitchforks will rise up?"
Maybe it could be bought for the purpose of housing out of work tech weenies whose jobs have been outsourced? The irony factor alone would be worth it.