When you put a resource out there where everyone can use it and you don't tell people that they aren't allowed to use it, and it is a low cost thing that many many people and organisations put out there for people to use without charge, and you don't do anything to stop people using it, of course people are going to use it.
Or an even more appropriate analogy: Putting a computer on your lawn, connected to the internet in your name, with a big sign on it saying:
"Look! No passwords, there's nothing to stop you using this, and I'm not going to tell you not to."
Really, with the prevalance of "It's illegal to use this computer without permission" messages that open on connection, an open machine which doesn't tell you not to use it is very much like an invitation.
When I upgraded from Debian Woody to Sarge I had to fix my mail server daemon. It took 2 hours. When I last upgraded a Windows machine - 98 to XP - I had to throw away a scanner, mothball a printer and bid a fond farewell to several games. The games and printer became useful again after a few months when the manufacturers got around to releasing an XP patch.
Naturally I intended to put some carriage returns in that. Sorry. Second attempt:
Peaceful uses of railguns
There is interest in using railguns as mass drivers for space exploration and mining. They would be useful for launching bulk ores into space, particularly from low-gravity bodies such as moons and asteroids; electrically powered from solar panels, they would not require any consumables such as rocket fuels.
Rail guns have been proposed for use in delivering projectiles to space, especially from bodies without atmospheres (such as the Moon). Its main competitors are coil guns and ram accelerators.
Also, railguns may be used to initiate fusion reactions, by firing pellets of fusible material at each other. The impact would create immense temperatures and pressures, allowing nuclear fusion to occur. However current railguns are not yet sufficient to achieve the energies required.
From the linked Wikipedia article:
Peaceful uses of railguns
There is interest in using railguns as mass drivers for space exploration and mining. They would be useful for launching bulk ores into space, particularly from low-gravity bodies such as moons and asteroids; electrically powered from solar panels, they would not require any consumables such as rocket fuels.
Rail guns have been proposed for use in delivering projectiles to space, especially from bodies without atmospheres (such as the Moon). Its main competitors are coil guns and ram accelerators.
Also, railguns may be used to initiate fusion reactions, by firing pellets of fusible material at each other. The impact would create immense temperatures and pressures, allowing nuclear fusion to occur. However current railguns are not yet sufficient to achieve the energies required.
The company doesn't need to have an interest, the defendant needs also to protect himself from error or idiocy.
If a company refuses to admit how it is that their machine tests for alcohol, then perhaps it's because it doesn't work correctly, perhaps it gives positive results for the presence of compounds other than alcohol.
The public has the right to know if the device works, and how well. Without knowing how it works how can a citizen know if the charges against them are valid?
No, it's not about the PATRIOT (it's an acronym, not a word) Act - they admit that it was all done with decades old wiretap laws (and we all know that PATRIOT Act is for catching drug offenders).
This one's all about "give us enough money and we can catch those rascally computer crimanals".
But, of course, they can't. They can only catch the idiots and those that allow their anonymous computer crime syndicates to grow so large that it can't keep a secret. The moral: If you're a clever computer criminal you won't be caught unless you let a snitch in on your secrets. That, and don't try to set up a criminal ebay outside Russia.
One of the big things with electric power in general is the high low end torque. It's nothing spectacular to have an electric car with no gears, they had them in the 50s. Of course, in production you'd have at least 2 gears so you can make use of that torque when you're cruising on the highway.
I just RTFA and it's a news report. Absolutely useless. I want to know if this is a useful motor. I want to know how much power it draws, I want to know how much power it delivers at a reasonable driving speed, eg 100km/h (60 mph).
Er... what have DVD pirates and the DMCA got to do with Linux geeks? Most pirates are windows users.
(PS, have those of you who grew up in the '80s noticed that all of the kids you went to school with who, as kids, wanted to be a pirate? Now they probably are, wonder if they're dissapointed that they don't get to rape and pillage and wear an eyepatch)
Okay, I'll grant that not all religious belief is based entirely on what a person's been told. There's also belief based on the perfection and beauty of the world etc.
I can probably better put what I was trying to say as the big difference is that no matter how a person comes to their initial belief, in science beliefs that are not borne out by evidence are abandoned (sure, some hold onto them, but those people are no longer behaving scientifically), wheras in religion the absence of provability and the ability to explain anything contrary to the religious belief as either human fallability or the awesome differentness of God (or gods or the Great Green Arkleseizure) means that there is not a rational way to choose between any religion or atheism or solipsism or whatever.
Of course, that logically leads clearly to the thought that I'm acting just by faith in my atheism as you are in your belief in God (or gods or the GGA or whatever). Oh well, I feel that I'd change my belief if presented with evidence that another belief was more right, I'm sure you would too (being a rational slashdotter and all), but the religion that people here are railing against is the religion that people hold to regardless of evidence that it is wrong (well, partly wrong at least).
It's too easy to jump to the assumption that anyone identifying themselves as "religious" is religious in the style that makes the news, eg fanatical like those nuts in Kansas who don't believe in evolution, but still go out and buy different pesticides for their crops every few years because those dang bugs just keep on evolving a tolerance to the old pesticides.
NG, you're somewhat misleading there. Hopefully just mistaken.
Regarding the Earth revolving around the Sun, the process wasn't like: "Hmm, I think the Earth goes around the Sun, not vice versa, lucky me, I was right"
It was more like: "People say that everything in the heavans go around the earth, but if that was true, things would look like that, but they don't, they look like this. Looking at the evidence from my observations, the best explanation for that is the Earth goes around the Sun."
Similar for atoms, people didn't start by saying "I think that everything is made of teeny tiny things, I'll call them atoms - Oh look, some evidence!" The word "atom" was originally greek, it didn't mean atoms as we use it, it meant "small things", when evidence started showing up that everything was made up of really small parts, they called those parts "atoms" - they thought they were indivisible. When they worked out that wasn't right, the theory was changed to better explain what we knew.
We make observations, we learn things, we make theories that fit our observations.
That's why some people despise religion and religious belief - science goes "observation" --> "theory" --> "experiment to prove/disprove theory" --> "modify theory to better fit evidence".
Religious belief, on the other hand, goes "someone told me" --> "belief".
Some people are unable to understand that one person can follow both processes. Of course, most people can and do follow both.
PS. I'm an atheist, but I can't see a problem with people believing in a religion. My only problems are with people forcing their religious beliefs on others, especially nations doing so, and using tax dollars to promote religious beliefs.
Damn, hit "submit" instead of "preview". 'twas these people I was talking about.
By the way, although most cancers aren't apparantly caused by stem cells (leukaemia aside), stem cells if left to reproduce too long in the lab often turn cancerous.
Actually, no. Stem cells are not generally responsible for cancer. Generally it's caused by cells that have been damaged and learn to make telomerase. Telomeres causes cells to die after a certain number of divisions. Telomerase stops that working, and the cells become immortal and cancer can ensue.
These people know more than me about this.
Re:Anyone else think this is stupid?
on
Tinfoil Hat House
·
· Score: 1
Sheets of a condutor will reflect radio waves. That's why aluminium (not a misspelling - I'm Australian) foil is used in some antennas.
A text sketch:
( | )
( | )
( | ) Anenna in the middle, radio waves radiating out both ways.
Same, but with reflector (the right hand line):
(( | ( |
(( | ( |
(( | ( |
To usefully use this to increase a radio signal in a particular direction you need to know about wavelengths etc.
To use it to block a radio signal, you just need to put the radio reflective material (eg aluminium) between you and the transmitter. Oh, you also have to make sure that it's sufficiently large to reflect the radio wave. You can avoid all calculations just by building a farady cage, surround yourself with foil in all directions.
Of course, if you look at the photos that go with TFA (or it may have been a different report of the same thing - if so it's linked in an earlier post) you can see that these people have made one serious mistake - they've rested the metal between their fence and their house. The radio waves (electromagnetic radiation) are cheerfully passing straight through the fence. At least they've got foil inside too.
Sorry, mate, it is a whole different language. Different spelling, different words for some things (my car doesn't have a hood, nor does my house have any faucets. My baby didn't wear diapers.)
It qualifies as its own language, and thank... um, what should I as an un-american atheist thank... goodness for it. I'd hate to have to think that the Americans were speaking the same language as I.
The flake bar could be disaterous - I've had electronic equipment destroyed by chocolate before!
But seriously, add in likelyhood of the food being eaten over a keyboard and top of the list of most dangerous foods would have to be potato chips (what I think USofAmericans call crisps).
Twisties == death to keyboards.
BTW. easiest way of cleaning them is pull off the keys,turn the board upside down and shake. To pull off the keys using common office equipment, take a paperclip, straighten it, bend it into a U shape about as wide as a key, put a small hook on each end of the U, pointing inwards. The hooks can be made by bending the paperclip around the shirt clip of a pen. Slip the open end of the U over a key, engage the hooks underneath the keycap and pull.
Laptop keyboards are often most easily de-keyed with a butter knife (pref. without butter)
nice one, but igorance of the license does not make it invalid.
Of course it does. If I sold you a disc with some music I'd written on it - but didn't give you a copy of a licence to go with it, you'd rightly assume that you owned it and had the right to do whatever you wanted with it. If I later told you that it was - always was - licenced under these terms, including, say, that you had to pay me $10,000 for every 10 hours you listen to it, of course that licence would be illegal.
I believe what you're thinking of is copyright law - ignorance of it isn't an excuse. A licence is a contract, and must be agreed to by both parties to be valid.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't grok US law, but it shouldn't be theft.
When you put a resource out there where everyone can use it and you don't tell people that they aren't allowed to use it, and it is a low cost thing that many many people and organisations put out there for people to use without charge, and you don't do anything to stop people using it, of course people are going to use it.
Or he could assume, like I would, that the access point was left open by the owner because he liked sharing it.
Or an even more appropriate analogy: Putting a computer on your lawn, connected to the internet in your name, with a big sign on it saying:
"Look! No passwords, there's nothing to stop you using this, and I'm not going to tell you not to."
Really, with the prevalance of "It's illegal to use this computer without permission" messages that open on connection, an open machine which doesn't tell you not to use it is very much like an invitation.
When I upgraded from Debian Woody to Sarge I had to fix my mail server daemon. It took 2 hours. When I last upgraded a Windows machine - 98 to XP - I had to throw away a scanner, mothball a printer and bid a fond farewell to several games. The games and printer became useful again after a few months when the manufacturers got around to releasing an XP patch.
Naturally I intended to put some carriage returns in that. Sorry. Second attempt:
Peaceful uses of railguns
There is interest in using railguns as mass drivers for space exploration and mining. They would be useful for launching bulk ores into space, particularly from low-gravity bodies such as moons and asteroids; electrically powered from solar panels, they would not require any consumables such as rocket fuels.
Rail guns have been proposed for use in delivering projectiles to space, especially from bodies without atmospheres (such as the Moon). Its main competitors are coil guns and ram accelerators.
Also, railguns may be used to initiate fusion reactions, by firing pellets of fusible material at each other. The impact would create immense temperatures and pressures, allowing nuclear fusion to occur. However current railguns are not yet sufficient to achieve the energies required.
From the linked Wikipedia article: Peaceful uses of railguns There is interest in using railguns as mass drivers for space exploration and mining. They would be useful for launching bulk ores into space, particularly from low-gravity bodies such as moons and asteroids; electrically powered from solar panels, they would not require any consumables such as rocket fuels. Rail guns have been proposed for use in delivering projectiles to space, especially from bodies without atmospheres (such as the Moon). Its main competitors are coil guns and ram accelerators. Also, railguns may be used to initiate fusion reactions, by firing pellets of fusible material at each other. The impact would create immense temperatures and pressures, allowing nuclear fusion to occur. However current railguns are not yet sufficient to achieve the energies required.
The company doesn't need to have an interest, the defendant needs also to protect himself from error or idiocy.
If a company refuses to admit how it is that their machine tests for alcohol, then perhaps it's because it doesn't work correctly, perhaps it gives positive results for the presence of compounds other than alcohol.
The public has the right to know if the device works, and how well. Without knowing how it works how can a citizen know if the charges against them are valid?
Um, if they've stolen enough of your ID to get credit, surely they've stolen enough to get your credit report released.
One man's funny is another man's offtopic.
No, it's not about the PATRIOT (it's an acronym, not a word) Act - they admit that it was all done with decades old wiretap laws (and we all know that PATRIOT Act is for catching drug offenders).
This one's all about "give us enough money and we can catch those rascally computer crimanals".
But, of course, they can't. They can only catch the idiots and those that allow their anonymous computer crime syndicates to grow so large that it can't keep a secret. The moral: If you're a clever computer criminal you won't be caught unless you let a snitch in on your secrets. That, and don't try to set up a criminal ebay outside Russia.
One of the big things with electric power in general is the high low end torque. It's nothing spectacular to have an electric car with no gears, they had them in the 50s. Of course, in production you'd have at least 2 gears so you can make use of that torque when you're cruising on the highway.
I just RTFA and it's a news report. Absolutely useless. I want to know if this is a useful motor. I want to know how much power it draws, I want to know how much power it delivers at a reasonable driving speed, eg 100km/h (60 mph).
But despite that, geeks are still being born. It must be a recessive gene, perhaps there's a lot of non-geeks out there carrying it.
Er... what have DVD pirates and the DMCA got to do with Linux geeks? Most pirates are windows users.
(PS, have those of you who grew up in the '80s noticed that all of the kids you went to school with who, as kids, wanted to be a pirate? Now they probably are, wonder if they're dissapointed that they don't get to rape and pillage and wear an eyepatch)
Okay, I'll grant that not all religious belief is based entirely on what a person's been told. There's also belief based on the perfection and beauty of the world etc.
I can probably better put what I was trying to say as the big difference is that no matter how a person comes to their initial belief, in science beliefs that are not borne out by evidence are abandoned (sure, some hold onto them, but those people are no longer behaving scientifically), wheras in religion the absence of provability and the ability to explain anything contrary to the religious belief as either human fallability or the awesome differentness of God (or gods or the Great Green Arkleseizure) means that there is not a rational way to choose between any religion or atheism or solipsism or whatever.
Of course, that logically leads clearly to the thought that I'm acting just by faith in my atheism as you are in your belief in God (or gods or the GGA or whatever). Oh well, I feel that I'd change my belief if presented with evidence that another belief was more right, I'm sure you would too (being a rational slashdotter and all), but the religion that people here are railing against is the religion that people hold to regardless of evidence that it is wrong (well, partly wrong at least).
It's too easy to jump to the assumption that anyone identifying themselves as "religious" is religious in the style that makes the news, eg fanatical like those nuts in Kansas who don't believe in evolution, but still go out and buy different pesticides for their crops every few years because those dang bugs just keep on evolving a tolerance to the old pesticides.
NG, you're somewhat misleading there. Hopefully just mistaken.
Regarding the Earth revolving around the Sun, the process wasn't like: "Hmm, I think the Earth goes around the Sun, not vice versa, lucky me, I was right"
It was more like: "People say that everything in the heavans go around the earth, but if that was true, things would look like that, but they don't, they look like this. Looking at the evidence from my observations, the best explanation for that is the Earth goes around the Sun."
Similar for atoms, people didn't start by saying "I think that everything is made of teeny tiny things, I'll call them atoms - Oh look, some evidence!" The word "atom" was originally greek, it didn't mean atoms as we use it, it meant "small things", when evidence started showing up that everything was made up of really small parts, they called those parts "atoms" - they thought they were indivisible. When they worked out that wasn't right, the theory was changed to better explain what we knew.
We make observations, we learn things, we make theories that fit our observations.
That's why some people despise religion and religious belief - science goes "observation" --> "theory" --> "experiment to prove/disprove theory" --> "modify theory to better fit evidence".
Religious belief, on the other hand, goes "someone told me" --> "belief".
Some people are unable to understand that one person can follow both processes. Of course, most people can and do follow both.
PS. I'm an atheist, but I can't see a problem with people believing in a religion. My only problems are with people forcing their religious beliefs on others, especially nations doing so, and using tax dollars to promote religious beliefs.
Damn, hit "submit" instead of "preview". 'twas these people I was talking about. By the way, although most cancers aren't apparantly caused by stem cells (leukaemia aside), stem cells if left to reproduce too long in the lab often turn cancerous.
Actually, no. Stem cells are not generally responsible for cancer. Generally it's caused by cells that have been damaged and learn to make telomerase. Telomeres causes cells to die after a certain number of divisions. Telomerase stops that working, and the cells become immortal and cancer can ensue. These people know more than me about this.
Sheets of a condutor will reflect radio waves. That's why aluminium (not a misspelling - I'm Australian) foil is used in some antennas.
A text sketch:
( | )
( | )
( | )
Anenna in the middle, radio waves radiating out both ways.
Same, but with reflector (the right hand line):
(( | ( |
(( | ( |
(( | ( |
To usefully use this to increase a radio signal in a particular direction you need to know about wavelengths etc.
To use it to block a radio signal, you just need to put the radio reflective material (eg aluminium) between you and the transmitter. Oh, you also have to make sure that it's sufficiently large to reflect the radio wave. You can avoid all calculations just by building a farady cage, surround yourself with foil in all directions.
Of course, if you look at the photos that go with TFA (or it may have been a different report of the same thing - if so it's linked in an earlier post) you can see that these people have made one serious mistake - they've rested the metal between their fence and their house. The radio waves (electromagnetic radiation) are cheerfully passing straight through the fence. At least they've got foil inside too.
Nor was there a defining moment when English and German parted, or Latin and Italian.
Sorry, mate, it is a whole different language. Different spelling, different words for some things (my car doesn't have a hood, nor does my house have any faucets. My baby didn't wear diapers.)
It qualifies as its own language, and thank... um, what should I as an un-american atheist thank... goodness for it. I'd hate to have to think that the Americans were speaking the same language as I.
The flake bar could be disaterous - I've had electronic equipment destroyed by chocolate before!
But seriously, add in likelyhood of the food being eaten over a keyboard and top of the list of most dangerous foods would have to be potato chips (what I think USofAmericans call crisps).
Twisties == death to keyboards.
BTW. easiest way of cleaning them is pull off the keys,turn the board upside down and shake. To pull off the keys using common office equipment, take a paperclip, straighten it, bend it into a U shape about as wide as a key, put a small hook on each end of the U, pointing inwards. The hooks can be made by bending the paperclip around the shirt clip of a pen. Slip the open end of the U over a key, engage the hooks underneath the keycap and pull.
Laptop keyboards are often most easily de-keyed with a butter knife (pref. without butter)
News for Nerds.
It seems to me that more often than news, slashdot's thing is adverts for nerds.
Not saying it's a bad thing, there's a big grey area between news and adverts in this sort of thing, and hey, I'm here every day reading the stuff.
I'm saying this mainly because I'd never heard of LUG radio before. Now I'm interested.
Damn it "News for Nerds, Ads that bloody well work".
PS Sorry if this comes off as a bit trollish. Its just there's a fine line between news and well targetted advertising.
nice one, but igorance of the license does not make it invalid. Of course it does. If I sold you a disc with some music I'd written on it - but didn't give you a copy of a licence to go with it, you'd rightly assume that you owned it and had the right to do whatever you wanted with it. If I later told you that it was - always was - licenced under these terms, including, say, that you had to pay me $10,000 for every 10 hours you listen to it, of course that licence would be illegal.
I believe what you're thinking of is copyright law - ignorance of it isn't an excuse. A licence is a contract, and must be agreed to by both parties to be valid.