Your simplified example means that after the new people have joined, the Firefox share would be 17%. The stats figures show us that it grows, so it actually is at least 20%.
This means for FF to retain 20% either: A) Overall browsing is increasing and one of 5 new users have Firefox _while_ none use IE. Says FF keeps the same popularity level. B) People are switching from IE to FF (and Safari, Opera,...) because the trends show the IE share falling while FF is rising. Says FF is gaining popularity.
Both points describe what is called "cutting into market share". In practice, it will of course be a mix of those.
Sorry for being harsh, but you sir sound like a self-glorious asshat. I'm all for discussing contrasting opinions, and you make some good points which are well thought out... but then you drag them down by insulting people and charging them with criminal intentions: just because someone says he'd think Linux would increase the benefit for those children this doesn't imply that he's about to travel to Peru and forcibly take away those laptops from every single kid. Your starving analogies are even worse.
As for "the end justifies the means"... this is an opinion, nothing more (though nothing less either). And, as we all know, other people may have different opinions and act according to them, but I disgress... I think one should still choose the better method if the result is similar (or if it's 'good enough' aka 'it works', as you would phrase it).
In my opinion, this would _not_ be Windows.
The main reason is performance: these laptops simply weren't designed for WinXP and Office2003, but instead optimized for that Fedora derivate. By that I mean that it will simply run smoother on Linux. Another reason is less related, but nevertheless important: Microsoft's goals. This might seem like zealotry, but I think we can safely assume that that Microsoft only has customer lock-in and profit maximization in mind. That's good for them and nobody can blame them for it, since profit is their purpose. But if you don't care what "kind of drugs saved your life", that's your thing. I do. Especially when I can _choose_ between drugs that just save my life and drugs that have an additional chance of giving me cancer 10 years later. OK, bad analogy... here's a better one: I wouldn't like to buy the drugs from a company that tries to pull me into some scheme where I cannot buy pills from certain other companies, must unquestioningly buy their new (upgraded) products, cannot see the ingredients list (just maybe a few trimmings they decide to disclose, while the rest is "dangerous to know"), you can continue this list yourself... all that while an easy alternative without this crap is available. Putting WinXP on the XO laptop? Sure it works, but why not have it working better?
And then there's the thing about freedom and the encouragement to thinker with the underlying system. This certainly doesn't apply to the majority of those children. This doesn't mean we should prevent those who want to look at it from pursuing their interest. After all, the goal is to give them a tool for self-education.
The most valid point _for_ putting Windows on these laptops is the world-wide dominance of this OS. It's definitely an advantage if those kids are familiar with most of the other systems they come across. The counter point is that Linux isn't harder to learn than Windows nowadays and switching is really easy if you just surf the web, write documents and emails. And having broader usage and interface experience might just benefit those children. Now this might be a point for a discussion...
I've spent some time on chess AI... modern chess engines actually include a lot of weighted probability models paired with game theory. Number crunching engines have no say in the top tournaments because we simply lack the processing power to calculate that many variations.
Makes me wonder whether poker can be "brute forced" too.
All possible moves (raise, fold, check...) in an average poker game amount to much less than the count of possible variations in an average chess game (36-40 moves).
Then you just have to weigh this with an appropriate model... well that might be a wee bit tricky, but then there'd be a "variation tree" from which one can choose the best move each turn. Such a model would differ from just calculating the best momentary odds in that it calculates the opponents decisions too and one can make the decision at every point depending on the outcome many turns later.
Thats actually how brute forcing chess would work... something we are _very_ far away from achieving.
Before you mod me into oblivion, I'd like to ask whether I've missed some kind of inverse threshold indicator which ignores posts higher than a given score?
Now I'll be modded into oblivion for this, but I can't find another way to explain why so many posts with "mod me into oblivion" included get modded +5.
If I had to have a programmer code a not-so-trivial application for me, then...
I wouldn't trust him to do it properly if he had no experience with low-level languages, because it is my opinion that a good coder must understand what happens between his code and the hardware aswell as he should have some knowledge about optimization and mission-critical algorithms*.
I wouldn't pay him if he had no experience with high-level languages, because he'll end up using too much time coding and optimizing instead of planning and designing the application structure, management, etc.
Of course, if I needed a non-mission-critical GUI-app to be coded within a short timeframe, I certainly wouldn't ask for a programmer with years of C-experience, but still the additional knowledge wouldn't hurt.
Once again, The-right-tool-for-the-right-job (tm) is the way to go.
Replacing most of the native code with interpreted one? Nah. You wouldn't want your database software/search engine/OS/compilers (calm down, just kidding) coded in a high-level language, would you?
IMO, low-level won't die, since there will always be need for mission-critical programs... and there's still something the high-level code needs to run on.
*Yes, these are necessary. How many search- and sort-algorithms do you know and know how to code? How many modern applications can do without? How many of those algorithms can be, of course after some optimization, executed in C (or Assembler if you really need those cycles...) much faster than in any high-level language?
Wait a minute, since when should a search engine have an "editorial viewpoint"?
Well, "Google The Search Engine" shouldn't and doesn't have an editorial viewpoint. "Google News" does.
You can search google.com for those articles, nothing "surpresses" them... but you won't find such rants in, let's say, the Times - which is a news service being maintained by editors, just like news.google.com.
I think YOU are the one that needs a dictionary, becuse if "employing force to suppress or remove opposing political views" isn't censorship, then I don't know what is.
So if I choose not to publish an article on my webpage because I consider it "hate speech" or just simply irrelevant then I commit censorship? I neither remove nor surpress it, just choose not to promote it any further.
Why do you state Google's censoring if they do the same?
Granted, such an influential company like Google could be assumed to have a certain responsibility towards the public, but they're still a commmercial, non-government organization and don't owe anything to anyone if not stated in a contract or promised otherwise. They're especially not obliged to present every blog or news article on the web anyone has ever written in their news service.
And they didn't take those blogs off the web, blocked their connections, or disabled them otherwise, so they're hardly censoring them.
"it's an interesting system when you examine it. You are using a wire to generate heat, to turn water into oxygen and hydrogen, and then BURNING that hydrogen (presumably with the oxygen you make, to improve efficiency) and that actually gets you... water. I suppose technically it may not need water refils rbecause of this. But then if you look at that, you've come full circle. The only addition has been the wire being turned into physical motion. It's too bad they need to go through the water-to hydrogen-to water convesion but it provides a buffer that allows for fast accelleration etc. Considering the zero emissions and loss of reliance on fossil fuels, it sounds like a very good move, environmentally."
Stop philosophising please... you cannot use the oxygen to burn the water since it has been bound to the wire. Splitting it apart would require more energy than you got from the reaction (because of the heat loss).
Well, I agree with you that Kasparov has done quite some damage, but that's not the whole truth.
He increased the public interest in chess aswell as the prizes in the tournaments. Before him, only the top players in the world could afford a living by playing chess alone. Nowadays all the grandmasters and many IM's don't have to look for an additional job to get through life. I should know, I'm an active tournament player myself;)
Socialism is a political system that includes the economy aswell. You can very well compare it to democracy. (We did it in school here;) )
Communism for example is based on socialism (read Marx and/or Engels for more info on that)
The problem is that in the US the term was distorted and abused for various interests and reasons. That's why it's meaning isn't well known to many people today.
Here are some links about socialism:
Liberalism can be pretty much of an economic science too, but I think it's all right declaring it as a way of thinking.
Mozilla has taken the Gecko engine and implemented it as its core. Firefox has taken the Gecko engine and implemented it as its core.
Where do you see Mozilla core in FF? Where do you see Mozilla code in FF?
Just because Mozilla implements the Gecko core, this doesn't make Gecko Mozilla.
If FF was a (stripped or whatever) version of Mozilla, they would have taken Mozilla code and changed it/removed a part of it. But this just didn't happen. So your point is invalid.
"Copyright infringement is a form of theft." Theft has been regarded as a crime as long as law has existed. Copyright infringement hasn't. Additionally, it's a category by itself in the law (at least in my lawbook).
"You are just taking someone's ideas and hard work instead of physical property." You do NOT take them since they still have it after you COPIED the stuff. You don't even steal their right to copy it, you just make unauthorized use of it. It's illegal because of the copyright, but I can't see the theft in that.
"You are not respecting the value of someone's hard work." That's got nothing to do with theft.
"You want to benefit from someone's work without paying them for their work." No theft either.
"It is theft." As far as I see it, this is your emotionally based judgement, because you don't like copyright infringement. I don't like criminal assault so I'm going to call it murder...;)
As for the term "intellectual property"... one can argue about that for months...
I don't think that the studios etc. lose much money when someone downloads a movie for himself, because it's certainly not guaranteed that he would buy the movie if he hadn't the option to download it. It's rather mass redistribution that accounts for the loss of profit for the companies. Still, the ones who shout loudest are the ones who already have their millions:\
One more thing. IMO you shouldn't call people thieves because they don't have the same opinion as you. Your writing has a bit of an arrogant touch, just my view, no offense meant.
Bottom line: Copyright infringement is illegal according to the US law, but it's not the same as theft.
Slashdot Mirror
Your simplified example means that after the new people have joined, the Firefox share would be 17%. The stats figures show us that it grows, so it actually is at least 20%.
This means for FF to retain 20% either: ...) because the trends show the IE share falling while FF is rising. Says FF is gaining popularity.
A) Overall browsing is increasing and one of 5 new users have Firefox _while_ none use IE. Says FF keeps the same popularity level.
B) People are switching from IE to FF (and Safari, Opera,
Both points describe what is called "cutting into market share".
In practice, it will of course be a mix of those.
Sorry for being harsh, but you sir sound like a self-glorious asshat.
I'm all for discussing contrasting opinions, and you make some good points which are well thought out... but then you drag them down by insulting people and charging them with criminal intentions: just because someone says he'd think Linux would increase the benefit for those children this doesn't imply that he's about to travel to Peru and forcibly take away those laptops from every single kid.
Your starving analogies are even worse.
As for "the end justifies the means"... this is an opinion, nothing more (though nothing less either). And, as we all know, other people may have different opinions and act according to them, but I disgress...
I think one should still choose the better method if the result is similar (or if it's 'good enough' aka 'it works', as you would phrase it).
In my opinion, this would _not_ be Windows.
The main reason is performance: these laptops simply weren't designed for WinXP and Office2003, but instead optimized for that Fedora derivate. By that I mean that it will simply run smoother on Linux.
Another reason is less related, but nevertheless important: Microsoft's goals.
This might seem like zealotry, but I think we can safely assume that that Microsoft only has customer lock-in and profit maximization in mind. That's good for them and nobody can blame them for it, since profit is their purpose.
But if you don't care what "kind of drugs saved your life", that's your thing. I do. Especially when I can _choose_ between drugs that just save my life and drugs that have an additional chance of giving me cancer 10 years later.
OK, bad analogy... here's a better one: I wouldn't like to buy the drugs from a company that tries to pull me into some scheme where I cannot buy pills from certain other companies, must unquestioningly buy their new (upgraded) products, cannot see the ingredients list (just maybe a few trimmings they decide to disclose, while the rest is "dangerous to know"), you can continue this list yourself... all that while an easy alternative without this crap is available.
Putting WinXP on the XO laptop? Sure it works, but why not have it working better?
And then there's the thing about freedom and the encouragement to thinker with the underlying system. This certainly doesn't apply to the majority of those children.
This doesn't mean we should prevent those who want to look at it from pursuing their interest.
After all, the goal is to give them a tool for self-education.
The most valid point _for_ putting Windows on these laptops is the world-wide dominance of this OS. It's definitely an advantage if those kids are familiar with most of the other systems they come across.
The counter point is that Linux isn't harder to learn than Windows nowadays and switching is really easy if you just surf the web, write documents and emails.
And having broader usage and interface experience might just benefit those children.
Now this might be a point for a discussion...
I've spent some time on chess AI... modern chess engines actually include a lot of weighted probability models paired with game theory. Number crunching engines have no say in the top tournaments because we simply lack the processing power to calculate that many variations.
...) in an average poker game amount to much less than the count of possible variations in an average chess game (36-40 moves).
Makes me wonder whether poker can be "brute forced" too.
All possible moves (raise, fold, check
Then you just have to weigh this with an appropriate model... well that might be a wee bit tricky, but then there'd be a "variation tree" from which one can choose the best move each turn. Such a model would differ from just calculating the best momentary odds in that it calculates the opponents decisions too and one can make the decision at every point depending on the outcome many turns later.
Thats actually how brute forcing chess would work... something we are _very_ far away from achieving.
Before you mod me into oblivion, I'd like to ask whether I've missed some kind of inverse threshold indicator which ignores posts higher than a given score? Now I'll be modded into oblivion for this, but I can't find another way to explain why so many posts with "mod me into oblivion" included get modded +5.
If I had to have a programmer code a not-so-trivial application for me, then...
I wouldn't trust him to do it properly if he had no experience with low-level languages, because it is my opinion that a good coder must understand what happens between his code and the hardware aswell as he should have some knowledge about optimization and mission-critical algorithms*.
I wouldn't pay him if he had no experience with high-level languages, because he'll end up using too much time coding and optimizing instead of planning and designing the application structure, management, etc.
Of course, if I needed a non-mission-critical GUI-app to be coded within a short timeframe, I certainly wouldn't ask for a programmer with years of C-experience, but still the additional knowledge wouldn't hurt.
Once again, The-right-tool-for-the-right-job (tm) is the way to go.
Replacing most of the native code with interpreted one? Nah. You wouldn't want your database software/search engine/OS/compilers (calm down, just kidding) coded in a high-level language, would you?
IMO, low-level won't die, since there will always be need for mission-critical programs... and there's still something the high-level code needs to run on.
*Yes, these are necessary. How many search- and sort-algorithms do you know and know how to code? How many modern applications can do without? How many of those algorithms can be, of course after some optimization, executed in C (or Assembler if you really need those cycles...) much faster than in any high-level language?
Wait a moment... your system is crapfree? But you're running Windows, dude!
Squeeze, just squeeze...
I guess in this case, it would be more appropriate to say:
"THROUGH MY DEAD BODY"
Well, "Google The Search Engine" shouldn't and doesn't have an editorial viewpoint. "Google News" does.
You can search google.com for those articles, nothing "surpresses" them... but you won't find such rants in, let's say, the Times - which is a news service being maintained by editors, just like news.google.com.
So if I choose not to publish an article on my webpage because I consider it "hate speech" or just simply irrelevant then I commit censorship? I neither remove nor surpress it, just choose not to promote it any further.
Why do you state Google's censoring if they do the same?
Granted, such an influential company like Google could be assumed to have a certain responsibility towards the public, but they're still a commmercial, non-government organization and don't owe anything to anyone if not stated in a contract or promised otherwise. They're especially not obliged to present every blog or news article on the web anyone has ever written in their news service.
And they didn't take those blogs off the web, blocked their connections, or disabled them otherwise, so they're hardly censoring them.
"it's an interesting system when you examine it. You are using a wire to generate heat, to turn water into oxygen and hydrogen, and then BURNING that hydrogen (presumably with the oxygen you make, to improve efficiency) and that actually gets you... water. I suppose technically it may not need water refils rbecause of this. But then if you look at that, you've come full circle. The only addition has been the wire being turned into physical motion. It's too bad they need to go through the water-to hydrogen-to water convesion but it provides a buffer that allows for fast accelleration etc. Considering the zero emissions and loss of reliance on fossil fuels, it sounds like a very good move, environmentally." Stop philosophising please... you cannot use the oxygen to burn the water since it has been bound to the wire. Splitting it apart would require more energy than you got from the reaction (because of the heat loss).
Well, I agree with you that Kasparov has done quite some damage, but that's not the whole truth.
;)
He increased the public interest in chess aswell as the prizes in the tournaments. Before him, only the top players in the world could afford a living by playing chess alone.
Nowadays all the grandmasters and many IM's don't have to look for an additional job to get through life.
I should know, I'm an active tournament player myself
err, forgot the links :o)/ [eserver.org]a lism.html [worldsocialism.org]
http://eserver.org/marx/1877-soc.utopian.sci
http://worldsocialism.org/usa/soci
You've got it wrong.
Socialism is a political system that includes the economy aswell. You can very well compare it to democracy. (We did it in school hereCommunism for example is based on socialism (read Marx and/or Engels for more info on that) The problem is that in the US the term was distorted and abused for various interests and reasons. That's why it's meaning isn't well known to many people today. Here are some links about socialism: Liberalism can be pretty much of an economic science too, but I think it's all right declaring it as a way of thinking.
Mozilla has taken the Gecko engine and implemented it as its core.
Firefox has taken the Gecko engine and implemented it as its core.
Where do you see Mozilla core in FF?
Where do you see Mozilla code in FF?
Just because Mozilla implements the Gecko core, this doesn't make Gecko Mozilla.
If FF was a (stripped or whatever) version of Mozilla, they would have taken Mozilla code and changed it/removed a part of it. But this just didn't happen.
So your point is invalid.
"Copyright infringement is a form of theft."
;)
:\
Theft has been regarded as a crime as long as law has existed. Copyright infringement hasn't.
Additionally, it's a category by itself in the law (at least in my lawbook).
"You are just taking someone's ideas and hard work instead of physical property."
You do NOT take them since they still have it after you COPIED the stuff. You don't even steal their right to copy it, you just make unauthorized use of it. It's illegal because of the copyright, but I can't see the theft in that.
"You are not respecting the value of someone's hard work."
That's got nothing to do with theft.
"You want to benefit from someone's work without paying them for their work."
No theft either.
"It is theft."
As far as I see it, this is your emotionally based judgement, because you don't like copyright infringement.
I don't like criminal assault so I'm going to call it murder...
As for the term "intellectual property"... one can argue about that for months...
I don't think that the studios etc. lose much money when someone downloads a movie for himself, because it's certainly not guaranteed that he would buy the movie if he hadn't the option to download it. It's rather mass redistribution that accounts for the loss of profit for the companies. Still, the ones who shout loudest are the ones who already have their millions
One more thing. IMO you shouldn't call people thieves because they don't have the same opinion as you. Your writing has a bit of an arrogant touch, just my view, no offense meant.
Bottom line: Copyright infringement is illegal according to the US law, but it's not the same as theft.