How do you know? Man, you conservatives are soooooo close minded. Free yourself, dude. Open yourself up to the five between the three and four. It's there, man. I've SEEN it, and it is righteous.
It has to be explained all over again every time someone explains group velocity all over again: group velocity can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum in resonant conditions, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_velocity cannot.
with astonomical interferometry, you cause light from two different paths to hit on the SAME detector at the same point, thereby interfering. also, light from stars IS pretty much spatially coherent (because it's from so far away that it looks like a plane wave). but the main thing i was talking about was the fact that you can only do interferometry when you get the two (or more) sources onto the same detector. if we could measure the phase of light directly, there would be no end to the really cool stuff we could do, as you intuited.
for example, we can measure the phase of radio waves directly without having to do interferometry, and that's why we can do neat things like synthetic aperture radar. so, your idea was very sound; you essentially proposed optical synthetic aperture imaging. unfortunately, we just don't have the technology to coherently measure optical waves (i.e. measure the phase of the electric field instead of just the integrated intensity) and i don't think we ever will in any general case.
a-fucking-men. as a grad student making about $32k a year, you can be assured that i'm not biased towards ceo's or people who make a lot of money. but this resentment of the ultrarich ceo is just pathetic.
(a) financially it makes sense. a good ceo can earn a company billions. as an asset, a good ceo is worth millions a year.
(b) being a ceo is like winning the lottery, except there is skill involved. for chrissake, even a hippie can count the number of Fortune 500 CEOs in the entire country. (hint: it's less than 600.) do these simpering liberal douches whining about ceo pay ever whine about people who win the lottery or people who make $10 million on a tort settlement? of course not. but at least ceos benefit all of society and, in some real sense, have earned their position at lottery winners.
(c) the total pay of all ceos in nothing compared to our GDP, but the revenue of their companies pretty much IS our GDP. so it's not hurting us, and if buying the best helps our economy and our country compete, then we ALL benefit from the admittedly crazy salaries these guys get.
I think it should be obvious that limiting the type of computer software runs on isn't even in the same zipcode as selling yourself into slavery. Remind me never to enter into a contract with you...:)
For one, their contract simply refers to things you cannot do with something they are giving you. I can see no reason for limits, there. You can't possibly harm yourself by not running software somewhere.
Second, I hope you understand the ridiculousness of a statement like "what passes for contracts in X's mind isn't going to sway me." So, you get to decide what a reasonable contract is, and only abide by those which you like? If everybody did that, our society would collapse. God forbid everybody should not be as clearly reasonable as you about the decision...
I suppose I see the point of blaming the media for going too far. But I have no respect for some get rich quick asshole who's own choice of profession screws over his kids and then says "I have no idea what to do." What a dick. He could quit while he's a millionaire and give his kids a normal life. Jeez.
First, let me apologize. I was trying to be funny. I understand that funny in my head sometimes sounds like "complete and utter jerk" in text. So, I'm sorry.
Back to the discussion.:-) I agree that revealing a contract after the sale is not cool. Having said that, it is legal. I think it's dangerous to say "well, I don't like the way they did that, so I'm going to ignore the contract". I think it's better to live in a society where people run around jerking people around like Apple, but do so in a "proper" way than to live in a society where everybody makes up the rules based on how they feel about the "fairness" of things. I'm not saying I think you're wrong so much as I think it's not our place to void contracts based on our objection to their execution or content. You sound like an eminently reasonable person, but if we let you do it, we'll have to let everybody do it.
By the way, I'm not sure if this makes you feel any differently, but: by law, if, after opening the box and finding that you don't like the contract you find, Apple is required to refund your sale fully upon your refusal of the contract. I've been temped to try that some time...
What the heck are you talking about? It's a contract. If you don't like it, don't enter in to it. What the hell does the government have to do with this? You want congress to let you welch any contract that you don't think is fair?
A glance at apple.com suggests I can purchase a box of OS X without buying Apple hardware, yes? DMCA considerations aside, I can and should be able to do whatever I please with my purchase save copying it. This includes running it on any hardware I please (copying software into RAM etc. for the purpose of running it is not copyright violation). If Apple doesn't like it, then boo hoo to them. If you don't like it, then boo hoo to you. If Apple won't provide tech support for me, then boo hoo to me. What's good for Apple isn't necessarily good. On one hand, you say Apple can dictate what is done with its IP; on the other hand, by doing so Apple is limiting my freedom.
That's quite a convenient argument for you to take on the matter. Unfortunately there are some problems with it, such as the fact that it is completely contrary to fact and logic. The fact is that copying software into the RAM of a PC is in violation of your contract with Apple. Maybe you say, "fuck you, Apple, I am not a man of my word when it comes to matters of RAM or love!" but at least be honest and say so.
And logically, I really can't follow your equivocation between Apple's freedom with regard to their IP and your freedom with regard to their IP. See, there is a significant asymmetry here: it's THEIR fucking IP! This will naturally lend them some leeway that you don't have. I trust you don't feel the same way about your wife that you expect Apple to feel about their IP, though if you do I'd like to have her number. (What the hell am I saying? Based on your apparent age from your post and the fact that this is/. I'm guessing you haven't seen a women in months except your mother on the few occasions she happens to visit her own basement.)
At one time you had to agree not to sell a house to a black person in order to buy it. Such a provision has no force of law. Any unreasonable provision in any agreement can and should be ignored.
That's a good point. But who is being more moral, a person who buys a house from a racist and makes a racist contract which he then violates, or a person who refuses to buy a house if there are racist contingencies. We can't have everybody going around and making up for themselves which contracts they enter into are worth keeping.
At any rate, it goes without saying that Apple's EULA is a far cry from racist housing covenents. Apple is just being overly restrictive, but if every contract had to be perfectly reasonable, we wouldn't need contracts, would we?
Don't lump me in with people who have no respect for religion. I have tremendous respect for religion. But rights are matter of legality and power. Every right you have somebody had to fight for. God will not step in and protect you if somebody violates your "God given" rights, but the state might. The flip side is that even though God may have given you the right to do with OS X what you will, congress has not and so your theological theories of copyright are rather moot.
The only thing I would add is that if somebody's wishes are unreasonable, you have the choice to maintain your integrity AND not abide them by just avoiding their product. It sounds like what you're saying is that there is no point in showing integrity to somebody who doesn't show you any. (That may be fair but if everybody does that it's a recipe for ethical deflation.) However, Apple asking an unreasonable demand is not dishonorable of them.
Anyway, my original point was that I objected to the rationalization that one could just do what one wants without any ethical implications just because. That's miles away from what you're thinking. In fact, the point is that you're actually thinking instead of operating on indignance and a sense of entitlement, which was basically all I was arguing against.
That's a very interesting point. I'm not sure our legal system would see it that way, but it does bring up a very interesting question. Anyway, I think that's why they put the contract on the package the CDs come in, so you can't use that excuse. It's opening the CD wrapper that binds you to the contract, not buying the box.
For the record, I agree with you in principle. I don't think our legal system should allow contracts which can be "signed" simply by opening a wrapper. But that's not even what I was originally arguing. One shouldn't have to look to the law to know what is right. And regardless of the legality of their EULA, you know damn well that Apple is implicitly selling this to you with the understanding that you won't do X, Y or Z with it. If you're going to go against their wishes, at least have the integrity to admit that you're being dishonorable. It seems counterintuitive to have integrity about being dishonest, but the point is to have some respect for yourself even if you don't think Apple deserves any.
Rights are dicated by society, not individuals wanting to do what they want. It's a common misperception to think otherwise, but it really doesn't make much sense to talk about inalienable rights when it comes to doing what you want with a product that took millions of people interacting through markets to produce. Hence, you can't drive drunk with the Chevy, according to our laws, and you can't copy OS X onto a PC either (since our laws protect contracts). You can argue the sanity of a society which often punishes the latter more harshly than the former, but there's no point in talking about "rights" you have no means to defend.
If you want the right to do what you wish with Apple's software, get some land and form an Army. (I'll probably join you.)
I most certainly can. I can urinate on it if I so choose, I could also throw it from the top of a building or microwave the disc. All perfectly permissible because I would own that one particular copy.
Forgot to address this. You most certainly can subject your media to whatever bodily functions you wish. That's not covered by the EULA. In fact, Apple would love nothing more than for you to soil your CD, because that would probably distract you from copying it or installing it elsewhere.
If I give you something, and I say "you can have this only if you agree to use it as I wish" you have the right to say yes or no. If you say 'yes' but then proceed to use it in a way I didn't specify, you're being dishonest. I can totally understand your frustration with Apple being twits about their IP, and I'm not equivocating between misusing Apple's IP and stealing boxed copies out of the store. But there are different levels of integrity, and the highest would respect other's wishes with their property. Apple doesn't owe you an OS, and they sell you one with conditions. For the record, I certainly don't live up to this level of integrity, but I think it's important that we not fool ourselves out of our ethical standards. Maybe you're comfortable being dishonorable at the level of misusing software. I am in most cases. I'm just worried about the fact that we're starting to justify it with our senses of entitlement, which is far more worrisome for society than EULA violations, in my opinion.
Ah, the fanboi ad hominum, followed by the left strawman to the face. First, I wrote my little missive from a Windows machine and am reading this one on a Sun. Second, Apple you can't do what you want with "your" copy of OS X. They don't sell OS X, they sell a license to use it. If you could buy OS X to do with what you pleased, you could resell it, couldn't you? Better a fanboi than a guy with no sense of subtlety...
Nice abstract discussion. Except for one thing: right now you can't have humans do shit on Mars because we can't get them there right. This sounds like a semantic point, but it's really not. By the time we are able to send people there, who knows what rovers will be able to. You can't compare today's technology with tomorrow's alternatives. Unmanned will always be so much cheaper and efficient that it will probably be better. First of all, for all the weight and complexity of a manned mission, we could send an army of rovers. Second, unmanned doesn't mean autonomous. There are still humans controlling, so you could argue that the only real different between manned and unmanned (besides the huge cost difference) is decision latency.
You sound like a spoiled child. Apple doesn't owe you the ability to do what you want with their IP, and they have good reasons (elucidated in many other posts) for not wanting to have to support their OS on the infinite number of hardware combinations possible.
And you betray a infantile understanding of ethics and morality if you think not getting your way is justification for violating somebody else's IP and wishes for their property.
I agree with absolutely everything you said, though for the sake of argument, I don't think you're right about the person in the 35% bracket not spending the money. First of all, people do an incredible job of expanding their lifestyle to fit their income. This is the main operating principle of much of California and all of Boston. Second, I never said when they'd spend it. Eventually much of the money earned by a 35% backeter will get spent, perhaps in their retirement. At the end of the day, between income tax, sales tax, fees, and all the myriad taxes on the producers of the stuff we buy, I think we'd all be appalled to the point of armed revolt if we knew how little of our earnings actually ends up being our own.
But, like you said, the same kind of people that get up in the brackets are the same kind of people who don't back down from productivity just because some statist fools have appropriated the majority of their labor for the "good" of the government.
Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood because I just saw a significant percentage of my income fly out the door to the crooks that "run" this state and country, even though I'm a grad student making barely the poverty level in Cambridge...
Ok, I think I understand at least some of the disconnect that's happening between the two camps here. I think in many cases those of us who are arguing against the laptop are arguing that it won't help basic skills like math and reading. Those arguing for it are arguing that it will help IT knowledge, and that IT knowledge is an important thing to know. Unfortunately, both of us are using the same word: education. So I didn't understand why you thought math skills would be helped by a laptop and you didn't see how I could possibly not understand that IT skills will be helped by a laptop. Or something close to that.
Anyway, I guess that means the argument should really be about whether or not IT education is useful to third world children. I certainly agree that their computer literacy will be greatly helped by the laptops. So the question is what kind of jobs will be available to them as young adults? I'd assumed that they would be unskilled labor, or maybe skilled factory jobs at best. Learning IT skills probably wouldn't help there. But maybe there will actually be white collar jobs being outsourced to the degree that IT skills will actually be needed among the poor. Then I'd agree that the laptops will help them greatly. In fact, in that case poor third world children would make better use of them in primary education than first world children would.
Yeah, you can buy it. Pump: $20. Copper pipe: $40. Borer rental: $40. Free irrigation water for your village: Priceless.
Of course, all joking aside it's probably hard to buy $100 at a time (especially in Africa where things would have to be imported) and do much good, which was perhaps your point...
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How do you know? Man, you conservatives are soooooo close minded. Free yourself, dude. Open yourself up to the five between the three and four. It's there, man. I've SEEN it, and it is righteous.
It has to be explained all over again every time someone explains group velocity all over again: group velocity can exceed the speed of light in a vacuum in resonant conditions, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_velocity cannot.
for example, we can measure the phase of radio waves directly without having to do interferometry, and that's why we can do neat things like synthetic aperture radar. so, your idea was very sound; you essentially proposed optical synthetic aperture imaging. unfortunately, we just don't have the technology to coherently measure optical waves (i.e. measure the phase of the electric field instead of just the integrated intensity) and i don't think we ever will in any general case.
No you can't. Image sensors are incoherent. There's no way to reconstruct phase differences between the light falling on each one.
(a) financially it makes sense. a good ceo can earn a company billions. as an asset, a good ceo is worth millions a year.
(b) being a ceo is like winning the lottery, except there is skill involved. for chrissake, even a hippie can count the number of Fortune 500 CEOs in the entire country. (hint: it's less than 600.) do these simpering liberal douches whining about ceo pay ever whine about people who win the lottery or people who make $10 million on a tort settlement? of course not. but at least ceos benefit all of society and, in some real sense, have earned their position at lottery winners.
(c) the total pay of all ceos in nothing compared to our GDP, but the revenue of their companies pretty much IS our GDP. so it's not hurting us, and if buying the best helps our economy and our country compete, then we ALL benefit from the admittedly crazy salaries these guys get.
For one, their contract simply refers to things you cannot do with something they are giving you. I can see no reason for limits, there. You can't possibly harm yourself by not running software somewhere.
Second, I hope you understand the ridiculousness of a statement like "what passes for contracts in X's mind isn't going to sway me." So, you get to decide what a reasonable contract is, and only abide by those which you like? If everybody did that, our society would collapse. God forbid everybody should not be as clearly reasonable as you about the decision...
I suppose I see the point of blaming the media for going too far. But I have no respect for some get rich quick asshole who's own choice of profession screws over his kids and then says "I have no idea what to do." What a dick. He could quit while he's a millionaire and give his kids a normal life. Jeez.
Back to the discussion. :-) I agree that revealing a contract after the sale is not cool. Having said that, it is legal. I think it's dangerous to say "well, I don't like the way they did that, so I'm going to ignore the contract". I think it's better to live in a society where people run around jerking people around like Apple, but do so in a "proper" way than to live in a society where everybody makes up the rules based on how they feel about the "fairness" of things. I'm not saying I think you're wrong so much as I think it's not our place to void contracts based on our objection to their execution or content. You sound like an eminently reasonable person, but if we let you do it, we'll have to let everybody do it.
By the way, I'm not sure if this makes you feel any differently, but: by law, if, after opening the box and finding that you don't like the contract you find, Apple is required to refund your sale fully upon your refusal of the contract. I've been temped to try that some time...
What the heck are you talking about? It's a contract. If you don't like it, don't enter in to it. What the hell does the government have to do with this? You want congress to let you welch any contract that you don't think is fair?
That's quite a convenient argument for you to take on the matter. Unfortunately there are some problems with it, such as the fact that it is completely contrary to fact and logic. The fact is that copying software into the RAM of a PC is in violation of your contract with Apple. Maybe you say, "fuck you, Apple, I am not a man of my word when it comes to matters of RAM or love!" but at least be honest and say so.
And logically, I really can't follow your equivocation between Apple's freedom with regard to their IP and your freedom with regard to their IP. See, there is a significant asymmetry here: it's THEIR fucking IP! This will naturally lend them some leeway that you don't have. I trust you don't feel the same way about your wife that you expect Apple to feel about their IP, though if you do I'd like to have her number. (What the hell am I saying? Based on your apparent age from your post and the fact that this is /. I'm guessing you haven't seen a women in months except your mother on the few occasions she happens to visit her own basement.)
That's a good point. But who is being more moral, a person who buys a house from a racist and makes a racist contract which he then violates, or a person who refuses to buy a house if there are racist contingencies. We can't have everybody going around and making up for themselves which contracts they enter into are worth keeping.
At any rate, it goes without saying that Apple's EULA is a far cry from racist housing covenents. Apple is just being overly restrictive, but if every contract had to be perfectly reasonable, we wouldn't need contracts, would we?
Don't lump me in with people who have no respect for religion. I have tremendous respect for religion. But rights are matter of legality and power. Every right you have somebody had to fight for. God will not step in and protect you if somebody violates your "God given" rights, but the state might. The flip side is that even though God may have given you the right to do with OS X what you will, congress has not and so your theological theories of copyright are rather moot.
Likewise!
Anyway, my original point was that I objected to the rationalization that one could just do what one wants without any ethical implications just because. That's miles away from what you're thinking. In fact, the point is that you're actually thinking instead of operating on indignance and a sense of entitlement, which was basically all I was arguing against.
For the record, I agree with you in principle. I don't think our legal system should allow contracts which can be "signed" simply by opening a wrapper. But that's not even what I was originally arguing. One shouldn't have to look to the law to know what is right. And regardless of the legality of their EULA, you know damn well that Apple is implicitly selling this to you with the understanding that you won't do X, Y or Z with it. If you're going to go against their wishes, at least have the integrity to admit that you're being dishonorable. It seems counterintuitive to have integrity about being dishonest, but the point is to have some respect for yourself even if you don't think Apple deserves any.
If you want the right to do what you wish with Apple's software, get some land and form an Army. (I'll probably join you.)
Forgot to address this. You most certainly can subject your media to whatever bodily functions you wish. That's not covered by the EULA. In fact, Apple would love nothing more than for you to soil your CD, because that would probably distract you from copying it or installing it elsewhere.
If I give you something, and I say "you can have this only if you agree to use it as I wish" you have the right to say yes or no. If you say 'yes' but then proceed to use it in a way I didn't specify, you're being dishonest. I can totally understand your frustration with Apple being twits about their IP, and I'm not equivocating between misusing Apple's IP and stealing boxed copies out of the store. But there are different levels of integrity, and the highest would respect other's wishes with their property. Apple doesn't owe you an OS, and they sell you one with conditions. For the record, I certainly don't live up to this level of integrity, but I think it's important that we not fool ourselves out of our ethical standards. Maybe you're comfortable being dishonorable at the level of misusing software. I am in most cases. I'm just worried about the fact that we're starting to justify it with our senses of entitlement, which is far more worrisome for society than EULA violations, in my opinion.
Yes, and I can go steal a car if I want. That's about the level at which you're arguing, isn't it?
Ah, the fanboi ad hominum, followed by the left strawman to the face. First, I wrote my little missive from a Windows machine and am reading this one on a Sun. Second, Apple you can't do what you want with "your" copy of OS X. They don't sell OS X, they sell a license to use it. If you could buy OS X to do with what you pleased, you could resell it, couldn't you? Better a fanboi than a guy with no sense of subtlety...
Nice abstract discussion. Except for one thing: right now you can't have humans do shit on Mars because we can't get them there right. This sounds like a semantic point, but it's really not. By the time we are able to send people there, who knows what rovers will be able to. You can't compare today's technology with tomorrow's alternatives. Unmanned will always be so much cheaper and efficient that it will probably be better. First of all, for all the weight and complexity of a manned mission, we could send an army of rovers. Second, unmanned doesn't mean autonomous. There are still humans controlling, so you could argue that the only real different between manned and unmanned (besides the huge cost difference) is decision latency.
And you betray a infantile understanding of ethics and morality if you think not getting your way is justification for violating somebody else's IP and wishes for their property.
But, like you said, the same kind of people that get up in the brackets are the same kind of people who don't back down from productivity just because some statist fools have appropriated the majority of their labor for the "good" of the government.
Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood because I just saw a significant percentage of my income fly out the door to the crooks that "run" this state and country, even though I'm a grad student making barely the poverty level in Cambridge...
Anyway, I guess that means the argument should really be about whether or not IT education is useful to third world children. I certainly agree that their computer literacy will be greatly helped by the laptops. So the question is what kind of jobs will be available to them as young adults? I'd assumed that they would be unskilled labor, or maybe skilled factory jobs at best. Learning IT skills probably wouldn't help there. But maybe there will actually be white collar jobs being outsourced to the degree that IT skills will actually be needed among the poor. Then I'd agree that the laptops will help them greatly. In fact, in that case poor third world children would make better use of them in primary education than first world children would.
Of course, all joking aside it's probably hard to buy $100 at a time (especially in Africa where things would have to be imported) and do much good, which was perhaps your point...