Safari is closed source. WebKit (the layout engine Safari uses) is open source, but the builds used by Safari rely on a binary closed source blob from Apple. If you value software freedom, you shouldn't use Safari.
Any good programmer attempting to translate a large program into Brainfuck would not try to do it manually. There are already programs which can translate various languages into Brainfuck (1234). It should be feasible to target one of those languages.
The big company is not as likely to use your code if it is under a copyleft license instead of a permissive license. If you're trying to increase the usage of any kind of standard, that standard can benefit by the big company using your code, even if they contribute back absolutely nothing. The implementation may not be as well off, but the standard will see much better adoption.
Several standards, like compression schemes, file formats, programming languages, and communication protocols, have spread faster due to having implementations with permissive licenses. Standards with only copyleft licensed implementations don't spread as quickly.
If you don't have a standard to push, a copyleft license is probably a better option. But when you are trying to further a standard, that standard is more important than the implementation of it, so it is better to use a permissive license. A permissive license benefits the standards, at the sake of the implementation.
C# is gaining features much faster than Java, and there are no signs of slowing down. If Microsoft keeps piling on more stuff this way, C# is quickly going to become greatly overburdened. Everybody will be struggling to read each others' code because everybody will be using different subsets of the enormous C# super language.
Unless C# eventually breaks backwards compatibility, which seems very unlikely, I don't think it's going to last for too long. It'll just become too big to be practical.
How many times have you seen a program packaged with it's own virtual machine image? I sure haven't seen many. The pendulum has hardly begun to swing.
That said, I think it'll be a very long time before we have AI smart enough to rewrite program blobs written for one operating system into programs for another operating system. Bytecode requires zero AI and is already gaining significant ground.
Strategies of lesbian separatism are also controversial within feminism. At its most extreme, male genocide (androcide) has been put forward as a strategy for achieving women's emancipation
SCUM Manifesto (Society For Cutting Up Men) is a misandrous screed written in 1968 by Valerie Solanas which advocated a violent revolution to create an all-female society. Solanas was indicted for the attempted murder of Andy Warhol, Mario Amaya, and Fred Hughes...
You might respond that only a tiny minority want this, but that's only because it involves violence to remove males, and leaves heterosexual females without potential partners. If feminists could produce females who did not desire men, they would be all over it, and they would love for the percentage of lesbians to slowly increase, totally nonviolently, until they formed a substantial majority.
That's not very imaginative. As soon as it is possible, radical feminists will be popping out as many lesbians as they possibly can. Feminists would love to be able to select for this. A world without men is the biggest feminist fantasy.
Now male-male sexuality, that might take a hit.
But in any case, it will probably be quite a long time before we know enough about human genetics to be able to select for something as complex as sexuality with any reasonable chance of success. And I imagine any research into the area will be met with controversy, slowing development.
I am not sure that email is really by Gates Like most articles (and blog entries), this is just a rip-off of another article. They link to the original, from Seattle Pi, at the bottom. Seattle Pi claims to have had an interview with Bill Gates where they asked him about the email.
But even if Seattle Pi is lying about that, they link to a PDF of the case file, which is labeled as "Plaintiff's Exhibit 7199" in the case "Comes V. Microsoft". If you look up the case you may be able to verify if this document is authentic, which would be relatively good evidence that this email came from Bill Gates.
why not HTTP as well? With the current way things are done, that would require millions of costly security certificates, to ensure that the public keys you're getting are really from the people you think they're from. We're talking about enormous amounts of money.
*except* to do things to try to further cement their monopolistic hold on things.
But they didn't even do that! Five years passed between Internet Explorer 6 and 7 without a single ounce of new lock-in. By the time Firefox started looking threatening, Microsoft could have introduced a mountain of proprietary features that would have taken ages to reverse engineer.
Microsoft could have easily maintained their monopoly if they had been introducing new proprietary features during these five years. So why didn't they? I'm sure glad they didn't, but I cannot imagine why they didn't.
Microsoft worked hard to create the best browser at the time, and then when it was clear they had won, they took most of the developers off the project and let IE rot for several years. Internet Explorer went from being a top priority to being mostly ignored.
Why did Microsoft fight to completely own the browser market if they weren't planning to do anything with it? They could have made things much more difficult for their competitors if they had put the slightest bit of attention into IE.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has put a lot of effort into something and then let it go like it was nothing.
There is no danger if you have nothing to hide obviously.
I wish we could seriously apply this to laws. Why not create a "Scope" section for bills that specifies what the bill is about and limits its reach? Then interpret the bill such that anything outside the specified scope would be ignored.
Anything nasty trying to sneak in unnoticed would be in danger of going outside the specified scope and being ignored, but anything legitimately related to the bill would not be affected.
Congressmen often vote on bills they haven't read, but perhaps they could at least make time to review scope sections.
Read "The Peaceful Pill Handbook". You should be able to pirate a PDF online in case you can't, or don't want to, purchase it. It's probably the best guide to practical suicide methods you can find.
Light can be blocked quite easily. That's what makes it useful for communication. Radio communication would be overcome with noise if every signal transmitted could shoot right through the entire universe with no problem. We rely on being able to use the same wavelength and frequency for communication in different areas. We rely on distant signals being blocked and filtered away.
Slashdot Mirror
In a lot of fertilizers for gardern and lawn use it
This combination of words really makes my head freak out every time I try to read it.
The replies to the parent are even more disappointing than the parent.
Safari is closed source. WebKit (the layout engine Safari uses) is open source, but the builds used by Safari rely on a binary closed source blob from Apple. If you value software freedom, you shouldn't use Safari.
Any good programmer attempting to translate a large program into Brainfuck would not try to do it manually. There are already programs which can translate various languages into Brainfuck (1 2 3 4). It should be feasible to target one of those languages.
The big company is not as likely to use your code if it is under a copyleft license instead of a permissive license. If you're trying to increase the usage of any kind of standard, that standard can benefit by the big company using your code, even if they contribute back absolutely nothing. The implementation may not be as well off, but the standard will see much better adoption.
Several standards, like compression schemes, file formats, programming languages, and communication protocols, have spread faster due to having implementations with permissive licenses. Standards with only copyleft licensed implementations don't spread as quickly.
If you don't have a standard to push, a copyleft license is probably a better option. But when you are trying to further a standard, that standard is more important than the implementation of it, so it is better to use a permissive license. A permissive license benefits the standards, at the sake of the implementation.
C# is gaining features much faster than Java, and there are no signs of slowing down. If Microsoft keeps piling on more stuff this way, C# is quickly going to become greatly overburdened. Everybody will be struggling to read each others' code because everybody will be using different subsets of the enormous C# super language.
Unless C# eventually breaks backwards compatibility, which seems very unlikely, I don't think it's going to last for too long. It'll just become too big to be practical.
After #1 is depleted by roughly 2100 (?), a global world war for resources will dwarf the calamity of World War II.
Sounds more like the plot for a bad movie than a realistic expectation of future events.
You're thinking too small. What we really need is a processing core for every photon.
the pendulum would have to swing mighty far back.
How many times have you seen a program packaged with it's own virtual machine image? I sure haven't seen many. The pendulum has hardly begun to swing.
That said, I think it'll be a very long time before we have AI smart enough to rewrite program blobs written for one operating system into programs for another operating system. Bytecode requires zero AI and is already gaining significant ground.
Lesbian separatism
SCUM Manifesto
You might respond that only a tiny minority want this, but that's only because it involves violence to remove males, and leaves heterosexual females without potential partners. If feminists could produce females who did not desire men, they would be all over it, and they would love for the percentage of lesbians to slowly increase, totally nonviolently, until they formed a substantial majority.
I shudder at the idea of the beauty and joy in my society going out inside a couple generations
Wait, you're not seriously thinking gay people are the sole source of beauty are you? And the sole source of joy, WTF?
If a straight person were to say something even remotely approaching that, even most homophobes would think they're crazy.
That's not very imaginative. As soon as it is possible, radical feminists will be popping out as many lesbians as they possibly can. Feminists would love to be able to select for this. A world without men is the biggest feminist fantasy.
Now male-male sexuality, that might take a hit.
But in any case, it will probably be quite a long time before we know enough about human genetics to be able to select for something as complex as sexuality with any reasonable chance of success. And I imagine any research into the area will be met with controversy, slowing development.
But even if Seattle Pi is lying about that, they link to a PDF of the case file, which is labeled as "Plaintiff's Exhibit 7199" in the case "Comes V. Microsoft". If you look up the case you may be able to verify if this document is authentic, which would be relatively good evidence that this email came from Bill Gates.
But they didn't even do that! Five years passed between Internet Explorer 6 and 7 without a single ounce of new lock-in. By the time Firefox started looking threatening, Microsoft could have introduced a mountain of proprietary features that would have taken ages to reverse engineer.
Microsoft could have easily maintained their monopoly if they had been introducing new proprietary features during these five years. So why didn't they? I'm sure glad they didn't, but I cannot imagine why they didn't.
This reminds me of Internet Explorer.
Microsoft worked hard to create the best browser at the time, and then when it was clear they had won, they took most of the developers off the project and let IE rot for several years. Internet Explorer went from being a top priority to being mostly ignored.
Why did Microsoft fight to completely own the browser market if they weren't planning to do anything with it? They could have made things much more difficult for their competitors if they had put the slightest bit of attention into IE.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has put a lot of effort into something and then let it go like it was nothing.
I wish we could seriously apply this to laws. Why not create a "Scope" section for bills that specifies what the bill is about and limits its reach? Then interpret the bill such that anything outside the specified scope would be ignored.
Anything nasty trying to sneak in unnoticed would be in danger of going outside the specified scope and being ignored, but anything legitimately related to the bill would not be affected.
Congressmen often vote on bills they haven't read, but perhaps they could at least make time to review scope sections.
Read "The Peaceful Pill Handbook". You should be able to pirate a PDF online in case you can't, or don't want to, purchase it. It's probably the best guide to practical suicide methods you can find.
http://www.peacefulpillhandbook.com/
It might be (or have been) major news, but it's not technology related, and Slashdot is known for tech news.
So he confused the words "compatibility" and "incompatibility"? Isn't that pretty bad?
If you think Linux users have to worry about "exploits, botnets, keyloggers, malware, [and] Trojans" then you probably shouldn't be on Slashdot.
/. mods have always done a terrible job. Nothing new there.
Light can be blocked quite easily. That's what makes it useful for communication. Radio communication would be overcome with noise if every signal transmitted could shoot right through the entire universe with no problem. We rely on being able to use the same wavelength and frequency for communication in different areas. We rely on distant signals being blocked and filtered away.