My argument against this line of reasoning is always the same.
Sure, space aliens from planet X that came to visit us would have to be be way more advanced than us. Sure they could wipe us out in a heartbeat.
But, why would they bother?
Why would a race so far advanced, bother to travel so far just to wipe ot some inconsequential race? There is nothing we would have that they would want. Any resources available on Earth they would be able to harvest from any number of other places closer and more convenient given their technology.
It would be like you traveling from the US to Hong Kong to squash an annoying moth. Sure you *can* do it but why on earth would you ever bother? If you are going on such a trip it is far more likely that you are a scientist going to STUDY the moth than it is that you are going to kill it for no reason.
The whole article is about twisted pair vs. coax and why HDMI sucks for long cable runs. it has NEXT TO NOTHING to do with DRM.
Aside from that - this article is pointless. HDMI is not DESIGNED for long runs. Its to go from your TV to your reciever, that's it. No one transmits video over long runs anymore - the type of crap he talks about in the article (running video to a set 300 feet away) seems so 10 years ago - nowadays everyone who wants to do this kind of thing has a central media server serving the CONTENT to their set-top device to play it - no one streams video all over the freaking place.
If it were up to this guy HDMI cables would cost about $100 for a 3 foot cable instead of being able to find them the $6 bin at your nearest big box.
What a waste of time. Good thing no one in here RTFA but me anyways.
Just playing devil's advocate, but unless you're with CitiBank I doubt your credit card / debit card has your photo on it, while your driver's license likely does.
And you can't steal someone's identity with their driver's license. It is one of the more difficult things to get a copy of when stealing someone's identity, because the photo is intrinsically tied to it. You can't go into the DMV and get someone else's license reprinted, no matter how much other supporting docs you have, because if the photo doesn't match you're SOL - unless you can convince them you got plastic surgery or some other nonsense.
... who finds the examplemuch harder to read than the "non-enhanced" version?
Maybe my brain is wired differently than most or something (I have always been a very quick reader, even when I was young), but I find the need to have to shift my eyes from line to line VERY TIME CONSUMING. I also find that breaking up the sentences like this makes me insert artificial breaks in the narrative.
See, the thing is, you're supposed to read text the same way you listen to it. Hence the existence of punctuation. Sticking these artificial line breaks in the middle of sentences introduces pauses in places the author did not intend.... it makes a concise paragraph about cell biology read like a poem or haiku - which is not the best way to converse when you're talking about a technical subject.
Umm.... SecureID guards stuff a lot more valuable than the pithy amount in your bank account. It's used by most government agencies for VPN logins to access (among other things) classified intelligence data. Trust me if it was as easily crackable as you think it is then it would have been by now, discovered, and replaced with something else.
RSA has been issuing SecureID keyfobs with this technology for at least 10 years. Hundreds of thousads, of not millions, exist worldwide. While I am sure they had issues like this in the past they would have long since sorted it out. SecureID keyfobs are one of the standard pilliars in the seucirty chain - encompassing the "something you have".
Usually you have to type in your password (the "something you know") along with the current number on the keyfob ("something you have"), in order to successfully authenticate with a SecureID system. They're very common in government; basically they make stealing passwords muuch less useful, since the hacker would need to steal both the password AND the keyfob - and if someone loses their keyfob they would be issued a new one and the original deactivated, so there is a small window of opportunity there as well.
Frankly it is about time someone pressured the banks into issuing this technology. I have wished I needed a keyfob for online banking and CC transactions for YEARS. The initial expense of the rollout would be quickly offset by the savings in fraud I suspect.
The move is being hailed by groups such as OpenTheGovernment.org, but the Electronic Privacy Information Center expressed concerns, given what they call Google's "checkered past" with regard to privacy on the Internet.
Google's mandate is "to organize the world's information". Like it or not, this includes information about you. If there is stuff about you that you don't want Google to know, don't put it on the Internet and don't give it to anyone who could possibly one day leak it to the internet (i.e. the government).
Everything else is fair game. Including that time back in the 80's when you were arrested for snorting coke.
Now if there is real private info, like SSNs that the government needs and you don't want leaking, then the answer is simply pass laws disallowing anyone from sharing SSN info. No one outside the government, banks, and yuour employer should even be allowed to know your SSN in the first place.
I wonder how many times I have to paste the below link? This is about the 8th tim ei have done so foon a slashdot article.
p>
OK.... for starters.... if you dropped a thermometer on the ground and it broke would you call int he freaking EPA to do a $2000 decontamination?!?!?
First of all I want to say kudos to this driver developer. While the article is in fact wrong (he did not write 352 drivers, he wrote 8 those 8 drivers just support 352 known cameras), 8 device drivers is still a large accomplishment, and thanks to him for sure. I am certain this was very hard and difficult work.
However -this guy is not alone, and no this is not really an isolated occurrence (it is not "news"). Nearly every device driver IN LINUX has been written by people like this - people who are unpaid and just want their stuff to work.
The RedHats and the IBMs of the world finance more of the back-end kernel architecture development and finance support for their own hardware (IBM) and features (Intel). The vast majority of drivers for consumer-level devices are unfunded. They are developed by hobbiests who just want to make things work and then share their work with everyone else.
Much thanks and praise should go to all of these tireless kung-fu wizards who are overlooked every day. Without them Linux would not be where it is today - and in fact I would not be working in the job I am.
The mouse would obviously commit suicide in that case. So, the program is correct.
The funny thing I find is you could refactor your mouse algorithm into a "human male" simply by replacing "smell cheese" with "see hot woman" and "east cheese" with....
IN fact that's where the terminology game from. Why do you think a bunch of data is called a packet? Its cause packets are what you send through the mail, at least in the 50's thats what they were called (nowadays everyting is a "package" but that's more because the term "packet" is now more widely used electronically.
If you want to explain the internet to people, use the analogies that the original terms were modeled after!
Server - A server is like a waiter or customer service person. You ask it for something and get get sir for you. The ony difference is the server is a computer that is handling the requests.
Client - A client is like a patron or business client; he is the person asking the server for things. In the case of the internet the client is another computer, who is asking the server for something.
Packet - A bundle of information, with an address, that needs to be delivered. The packet could be going from the client to the server, in which case it is how the client is asking the server for something. If it is going from the server to the client, it is the information the server asked for.
Server, Client, Packet. Three simple words any layperson SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. It's not really hard to explain.
It doesn't matter what the MPG of the cars were as long as it's the exact same car and year for comparison.
What was stupid is how small their sample was - they were planing on driving a whole tank off but then said that would take too long so they sucked it down to a gallon in each car or something. Which I don't think is a fair test; how do you know if the AC performs better as it runs longer or something?
Also it'd dumb that they had the AC running full blast as that's not a realistic scenario - once the cabin got cool enough people would turn the temp to a more normal level and the compressor would kick off more often making it even better.
Can anyone explain to me what benefits this has over QR codes, which are already widely deployed in Japan and free for anyone to use (the patent on them is for public use by the holder) ??
When it comes down to it, you are born with Diabetes. You aren't born with AIDS - you got it either due to being extremely unlocky or due to your own ineptitide.
People with Type I diabetes lives are no picnic. Imagine telling a 1 year old child they have to inject a needle ito themselves 3 times a day for the rest of their known lives. Imagine having too explain to everyone you aren't a junkie, you are a diabetic, every time they see needles all over your house.
There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE in morality between treating someone who was born with a genetic defect, vs. treating someone who basically shot themselves in the foot by not wearing a condom or sharing needles.
I don't mean to be insensitivity or brash. I am very hopeful this will turn into a cure. But statements like "I'll still be seeing friends die" sounds like lies to me - how many friends with HIV can you actually have?
When it comes down to it - HIV and AIDS are very easily preventable diseases. Anyone who takes proper minimal precautions will not get HIV or AIDS, unless they are maliciously targetted or woth in a health-related field and/or are VERY unlucky.
Personally I have always felt the absolutely enormous amounts of money funneled into AIDS research would be much better spent on areas like Type 1 diabetes, MLS, and other genetic diseases, which affect far more people and is not preventable in any way.
In the end, it of course all comes down to the all mighty dollar. The reason you see so much money pumped into HIV/AIDS is there is so much potential for money to be MADE FROM IT. If someone has HIV/AIDS they will pay ANYTHING for a cure. Someone with Type I diabetes can live a full life, even if the quality of it is degraded. You can't say the same for an AIDS patient, even if it is their fault they became infected.
Not saying the article isn't a POS, but the remarks that they spent most on software with the biggest recipient being the Xbox is perfectly accurate.
People need to remember - while Microsoft makes the Xbox they are NOT IN the hardware business. Every aspect of the Xbox's manufacture is outsourced. and it's design is a fairly simple one compared to say the PS3. The most complex part of the Xbox is by far the video chipset which is outsourced in it's entirety.
Sure Microsoft has a lot of input no doubt into the design of things like the CPu and the vieo chopset - but they don't put up most of the R+D costs there it is the manufacturer they outsource to that does. The vast majority of Microsoft's R+D last year in the Xbox was undoubtedly for things like Xbox Live the Xbox OS, and games. Hardware would be a very small portion.
The amount of mercurty in 5 CFLs is approximately the same amount as 1 WATCH BATTERY. And those 5 CFLs will light your house for around twice as long as that watch battery lasts.
Damn Straight. This is what you should remember whenever there is news coverage of a notorious cracker getting arrested, or some huge identity theft ring being broken up.
It is not the crimes you KNOW about, it's the ones you DON'T KNOW ABOUT that are the real issue.
Smart criminals not only do not get caught, they aren't even being looked for because their crimes go undetected.
If this is a legitimate patent, then Verizon was right to enforce it, and it will only help innovation in the long run, by continuing the legal tradition of protecting new ideas. And the court decisions suggest that it was a legitimate patent.
Wrong. Even assuming Verizon has patented a novel idea (which is highly in question), they DID NOTHING with that patent except sit on it, thus transforming it into a submarine patent, which is only used to extract peanalties from ANOTHER COMPANY that ACTUALLY HAD THE BALLS to pursue the idea.
This is the whole problem with the patent situation. While patents are a good idea on paper, they are not in practice. This is because, basically, if you are granted a patent your best busines case IS TO NOT DEVELOP IT. It is far less risky and more cost-effeftive, to just sit on it for a few years until some unlocky company unknowingly creates a successful business around it - then sue the pants off them.
Patents do not encourage innovation at all - all they do is stifle it. Patent reform is desperatly needed. Companies should not be allowed to sit on a patent. The way things SHOULD procced is this:
Company / person has idea. File patent application.
Patent is reviewed and approved. Patent enters implementation phase, which is some fixed period of time during which the idea is allowed to be brought to market by the company / person. Maybe 1 year?
Implementation phase complete. Patent office then reviews patent AND evidence of implementation. If the company / person HAS NOT brought patent to market, then the patent is REJECTED and any and all ideas are now public domain. If they HAVE, then the patent is granted as par. current patent term length, whatever that is (I think it's 10 years?).
Computer's don't make mistakes (with the exception of the f00f bug et. al of course... ).
People do.
The computer did not make the mistake. Either the person using it did, or the person who wrote the software for it did. The computer itself did not make a mistake, it just did what it was told.
There is a difference between distributing and re-licensing.
What this is saying, is someone can take the work, submit new modifications under the **GPL v3 license**, and then distribute the work and other changes **under the V3 license***. But you can't take the work and change it's license wholesale.
It's like saying, you could download the whole Linux kernel, fork it, re-license it under GPLv3, and start distributing it. No problem. You just can't say, of your own volition, that the GPlv3 is the *only* license the code falls under, because I never agreen to that, I as the copyright holder only agreed to GPLv2 and later versions.
Think of it this way - the GPL license is forward-compatible. It is not however backward-compatible. You can run GPlv2 apps under Gplv3, but not vice-versa.
No a project CAN NOT switch from GPLv2 to GPLv3 unless EVERYONE who contributed code agrees.
However - the reality is if a majority agree and a minority do not then what happens is that minorities code is removed from the project and re-implemented by those who do.
Now of course this only works if the minority is very small. If the minority is large enough to make it unfeasible then such a license change does not take place. Which is the way things SHOULD be.
I have been a contributor to projects that subsequently changed their license and I was always contacted.
There is a big difference between a business who does thousands of dollars a week in businesses son eBay, and a consumer who sells a cell phone/Xbox/etc once in awhile.
They only want to tax businesses. Consumers do not have to pay tax on goods they sell because of the reasons you just stated - they already paid tax on that object. Businesses do have to pay tax because they get to buy these objects tax free.
The ironic thing is how often you hear people give this as a valid reason to not use web hosted email/services/etc, and then back up their files once every 6 months tops.
Truthfully I trust Google to back up my email and documents WAY MORE than I would EVER trust myself to maintain any kind of backup regimen. Hell - with the way the Google Filesystem works it is questionable if you even need backups since you can just yank whole nodes and clusters out at random without losing data.
Also - there is nothing from stoping you from downloading the data and backing it up locally on some kind of a schedule. Google apps have great public APIs available to do this sort of thing.
Slashdot Mirror
My argument against this line of reasoning is always the same.
Sure, space aliens from planet X that came to visit us would have to be be way more advanced than us. Sure they could wipe us out in a heartbeat.
But, why would they bother?
Why would a race so far advanced, bother to travel so far just to wipe ot some inconsequential race? There is nothing we would have that they would want. Any resources available on Earth they would be able to harvest from any number of other places closer and more convenient given their technology.
It would be like you traveling from the US to Hong Kong to squash an annoying moth. Sure you *can* do it but why on earth would you ever bother? If you are going on such a trip it is far more likely that you are a scientist going to STUDY the moth than it is that you are going to kill it for no reason.
The whole article is about twisted pair vs. coax and why HDMI sucks for long cable runs. it has NEXT TO NOTHING to do with DRM.
Aside from that - this article is pointless. HDMI is not DESIGNED for long runs. Its to go from your TV to your reciever, that's it. No one transmits video over long runs anymore - the type of crap he talks about in the article (running video to a set 300 feet away) seems so 10 years ago - nowadays everyone who wants to do this kind of thing has a central media server serving the CONTENT to their set-top device to play it - no one streams video all over the freaking place.
If it were up to this guy HDMI cables would cost about $100 for a 3 foot cable instead of being able to find them the $6 bin at your nearest big box.
What a waste of time. Good thing no one in here RTFA but me anyways.
Just playing devil's advocate, but unless you're with CitiBank I doubt your credit card / debit card has your photo on it, while your driver's license likely does.
And you can't steal someone's identity with their driver's license. It is one of the more difficult things to get a copy of when stealing someone's identity, because the photo is intrinsically tied to it. You can't go into the DMV and get someone else's license reprinted, no matter how much other supporting docs you have, because if the photo doesn't match you're SOL - unless you can convince them you got plastic surgery or some other nonsense.
... who finds the example much harder to read than the "non-enhanced" version?
Maybe my brain is wired differently than most or something (I have always been a very quick reader, even when I was young), but I find the need to have to shift my eyes from line to line VERY TIME CONSUMING. I also find that breaking up the sentences like this makes me insert artificial breaks in the narrative.
See, the thing is, you're supposed to read text the same way you listen to it. Hence the existence of punctuation. Sticking these artificial line breaks in the middle of sentences introduces pauses in places the author did not intend.... it makes a concise paragraph about cell biology read like a poem or haiku - which is not the best way to converse when you're talking about a technical subject.
Umm.... SecureID guards stuff a lot more valuable than the pithy amount in your bank account. It's used by most government agencies for VPN logins to access (among other things) classified intelligence data. Trust me if it was as easily crackable as you think it is then it would have been by now, discovered, and replaced with something else.
RSA has been issuing SecureID keyfobs with this technology for at least 10 years. Hundreds of thousads, of not millions, exist worldwide. While I am sure they had issues like this in the past they would have long since sorted it out. SecureID keyfobs are one of the standard pilliars in the seucirty chain - encompassing the "something you have".
Usually you have to type in your password (the "something you know") along with the current number on the keyfob ("something you have"), in order to successfully authenticate with a SecureID system. They're very common in government; basically they make stealing passwords muuch less useful, since the hacker would need to steal both the password AND the keyfob - and if someone loses their keyfob they would be issued a new one and the original deactivated, so there is a small window of opportunity there as well.
Frankly it is about time someone pressured the banks into issuing this technology. I have wished I needed a keyfob for online banking and CC transactions for YEARS. The initial expense of the rollout would be quickly offset by the savings in fraud I suspect.
The move is being hailed by groups such as OpenTheGovernment.org, but the Electronic Privacy Information Center expressed concerns, given what they call Google's "checkered past" with regard to privacy on the Internet.
Google's mandate is "to organize the world's information". Like it or not, this includes information about you. If there is stuff about you that you don't want Google to know, don't put it on the Internet and don't give it to anyone who could possibly one day leak it to the internet (i.e. the government).
Everything else is fair game. Including that time back in the 80's when you were arrested for snorting coke.
Now if there is real private info, like SSNs that the government needs and you don't want leaking, then the answer is simply pass laws disallowing anyone from sharing SSN info. No one outside the government, banks, and yuour employer should even be allowed to know your SSN in the first place.
Of course not.
Guess what... a thermometer has 400 times more mercury than a CFL . So do many of your other household products you use every day.
Can we go back to saving energy and the air now? I don't want to die of skin cancer by 2012.
Thanks.
First of all I want to say kudos to this driver developer. While the article is in fact wrong (he did not write 352 drivers, he wrote 8 those 8 drivers just support 352 known cameras), 8 device drivers is still a large accomplishment, and thanks to him for sure. I am certain this was very hard and difficult work.
However -this guy is not alone, and no this is not really an isolated occurrence (it is not "news"). Nearly every device driver IN LINUX has been written by people like this - people who are unpaid and just want their stuff to work.
The RedHats and the IBMs of the world finance more of the back-end kernel architecture development and finance support for their own hardware (IBM) and features (Intel). The vast majority of drivers for consumer-level devices are unfunded. They are developed by hobbiests who just want to make things work and then share their work with everyone else.
Much thanks and praise should go to all of these tireless kung-fu wizards who are overlooked every day. Without them Linux would not be where it is today - and in fact I would not be working in the job I am.
Thanks to ALL kernel developers!
Without cheese what is there to live for?
The mouse would obviously commit suicide in that case. So, the program is correct.
The funny thing I find is you could refactor your mouse algorithm into a "human male" simply by replacing "smell cheese" with "see hot woman" and "east cheese" with....
IN fact that's where the terminology game from. Why do you think a bunch of data is called a packet? Its cause packets are what you send through the mail, at least in the 50's thats what they were called (nowadays everyting is a "package" but that's more because the term "packet" is now more widely used electronically.
If you want to explain the internet to people, use the analogies that the original terms were modeled after!
Server - A server is like a waiter or customer service person. You ask it for something and get get sir for you. The ony difference is the server is a computer that is handling the requests.
Client - A client is like a patron or business client; he is the person asking the server for things. In the case of the internet the client is another computer, who is asking the server for something.
Packet - A bundle of information, with an address, that needs to be delivered. The packet could be going from the client to the server, in which case it is how the client is asking the server for something. If it is going from the server to the client, it is the information the server asked for.
Server, Client, Packet. Three simple words any layperson SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. It's not really hard to explain.
It doesn't matter what the MPG of the cars were as long as it's the exact same car and year for comparison.
What was stupid is how small their sample was - they were planing on driving a whole tank off but then said that would take too long so they sucked it down to a gallon in each car or something. Which I don't think is a fair test; how do you know if the AC performs better as it runs longer or something?
Also it'd dumb that they had the AC running full blast as that's not a realistic scenario - once the cabin got cool enough people would turn the temp to a more normal level and the compressor would kick off more often making it even better.
Why don't they just throw some more Tacheyons at the problem?
It always worked on Voyager.
Can anyone explain to me what benefits this has over QR codes, which are already widely deployed in Japan and free for anyone to use (the patent on them is for public use by the holder) ??
When it comes down to it, you are born with Diabetes. You aren't born with AIDS - you got it either due to being extremely unlocky or due to your own ineptitide.
People with Type I diabetes lives are no picnic. Imagine telling a 1 year old child they have to inject a needle ito themselves 3 times a day for the rest of their known lives. Imagine having too explain to everyone you aren't a junkie, you are a diabetic, every time they see needles all over your house.
There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE in morality between treating someone who was born with a genetic defect, vs. treating someone who basically shot themselves in the foot by not wearing a condom or sharing needles.
I don't mean to be insensitivity or brash. I am very hopeful this will turn into a cure. But statements like "I'll still be seeing friends die" sounds like lies to me - how many friends with HIV can you actually have?
When it comes down to it - HIV and AIDS are very easily preventable diseases. Anyone who takes proper minimal precautions will not get HIV or AIDS, unless they are maliciously targetted or woth in a health-related field and/or are VERY unlucky.
Personally I have always felt the absolutely enormous amounts of money funneled into AIDS research would be much better spent on areas like Type 1 diabetes, MLS, and other genetic diseases, which affect far more people and is not preventable in any way.
In the end, it of course all comes down to the all mighty dollar. The reason you see so much money pumped into HIV/AIDS is there is so much potential for money to be MADE FROM IT. If someone has HIV/AIDS they will pay ANYTHING for a cure. Someone with Type I diabetes can live a full life, even if the quality of it is degraded. You can't say the same for an AIDS patient, even if it is their fault they became infected.
Not saying the article isn't a POS, but the remarks that they spent most on software with the biggest recipient being the Xbox is perfectly accurate.
People need to remember - while Microsoft makes the Xbox they are NOT IN the hardware business. Every aspect of the Xbox's manufacture is outsourced. and it's design is a fairly simple one compared to say the PS3. The most complex part of the Xbox is by far the video chipset which is outsourced in it's entirety.
Sure Microsoft has a lot of input no doubt into the design of things like the CPu and the vieo chopset - but they don't put up most of the R+D costs there it is the manufacturer they outsource to that does. The vast majority of Microsoft's R+D last year in the Xbox was undoubtedly for things like Xbox Live the Xbox OS, and games. Hardware would be a very small portion.
The amount of mercurty in 5 CFLs is approximately the same amount as 1 WATCH BATTERY. And those 5 CFLs will light your house for around twice as long as that watch battery lasts.
r s/questions-answers.cfm#mercury
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/ENERGYSTAR/english/consume
People are stupid. Thats why they get caught.
Damn Straight. This is what you should remember whenever there is news coverage of a notorious cracker getting arrested, or some huge identity theft ring being broken up.
It is not the crimes you KNOW about, it's the ones you DON'T KNOW ABOUT that are the real issue.
Smart criminals not only do not get caught, they aren't even being looked for because their crimes go undetected.
If this is a legitimate patent, then Verizon was right to enforce it, and it will only help innovation in the long run, by continuing the legal tradition of protecting new ideas. And the court decisions suggest that it was a legitimate patent.
Wrong. Even assuming Verizon has patented a novel idea (which is highly in question), they DID NOTHING with that patent except sit on it, thus transforming it into a submarine patent, which is only used to extract peanalties from ANOTHER COMPANY that ACTUALLY HAD THE BALLS to pursue the idea.
This is the whole problem with the patent situation. While patents are a good idea on paper, they are not in practice. This is because, basically, if you are granted a patent your best busines case IS TO NOT DEVELOP IT. It is far less risky and more cost-effeftive, to just sit on it for a few years until some unlocky company unknowingly creates a successful business around it - then sue the pants off them.
Patents do not encourage innovation at all - all they do is stifle it. Patent reform is desperatly needed. Companies should not be allowed to sit on a patent. The way things SHOULD procced is this:
Company / person has idea. File patent application.
Patent is reviewed and approved. Patent enters implementation phase, which is some fixed period of time during which the idea is allowed to be brought to market by the company / person. Maybe 1 year?
Implementation phase complete. Patent office then reviews patent AND evidence of implementation. If the company / person HAS NOT brought patent to market, then the patent is REJECTED and any and all ideas are now public domain. If they HAVE, then the patent is granted as par. current patent term length, whatever that is (I think it's 10 years?).
Computer's don't make mistakes (with the exception of the f00f bug et. al of course... ).
People do.
The computer did not make the mistake. Either the person using it did, or the person who wrote the software for it did. The computer itself did not make a mistake, it just did what it was told.
There is a difference between distributing and re-licensing.
What this is saying, is someone can take the work, submit new modifications under the **GPL v3 license**, and then distribute the work and other changes **under the V3 license***. But you can't take the work and change it's license wholesale.
It's like saying, you could download the whole Linux kernel, fork it, re-license it under GPLv3, and start distributing it. No problem. You just can't say, of your own volition, that the GPlv3 is the *only* license the code falls under, because I never agreen to that, I as the copyright holder only agreed to GPLv2 and later versions.
Think of it this way - the GPL license is forward-compatible. It is not however backward-compatible. You can run GPlv2 apps under Gplv3, but not vice-versa.
No a project CAN NOT switch from GPLv2 to GPLv3 unless EVERYONE who contributed code agrees.
However - the reality is if a majority agree and a minority do not then what happens is that minorities code is removed from the project and re-implemented by those who do.
Now of course this only works if the minority is very small. If the minority is large enough to make it unfeasible then such a license change does not take place. Which is the way things SHOULD be.
I have been a contributor to projects that subsequently changed their license and I was always contacted.
There is a big difference between a business who does thousands of dollars a week in businesses son eBay, and a consumer who sells a cell phone/Xbox/etc once in awhile.
They only want to tax businesses. Consumers do not have to pay tax on goods they sell because of the reasons you just stated - they already paid tax on that object. Businesses do have to pay tax because they get to buy these objects tax free.
The ironic thing is how often you hear people give this as a valid reason to not use web hosted email/services/etc, and then back up their files once every 6 months tops.
Truthfully I trust Google to back up my email and documents WAY MORE than I would EVER trust myself to maintain any kind of backup regimen. Hell - with the way the Google Filesystem works it is questionable if you even need backups since you can just yank whole nodes and clusters out at random without losing data.
Also - there is nothing from stoping you from downloading the data and backing it up locally on some kind of a schedule. Google apps have great public APIs available to do this sort of thing.