Businesses do NOT have rights; only individuals do. (Of course in the USA, corporations have more rights than individuals, but that's a bug in the current implementation.)
Your friend does not have the right to make money in a profession of his choosing. If he wants to go into a line of work where fraud is so prevalent, that's his problem; he can't make all hundreds of millions of other residents pay with their liberty so he can make a buck.
Note, they also used the ground-zero/oceans to calibrate the device on every orbit of the earth which means it doesn't penetrate into the water.
It's true that radar doesn't penetrate the ocean's surface. However, the surface of the ocean is not spherical (or even oblate eillipsoidal) -- the water surface mirrors the topography of the ocean floor. (Strictly speaking, the water just follows the equipotential surface of earth's gravity field, which is influenced by the rocks in the seafloor.)
Over an area as small as even the Bolivian salt flat, though, is the difference likely to be at all significant?
Yes. In fact, the article itself points out that there are bumps in the surface due to large rock formations a few km below the surface.
The surface of the ocean varies hugely from a sphere over the mid-oceanic ridges. Precisely mapping the sea surface height allows us to deduce the relief of the ocean floors. Check out the front cover picture of Mapping the Next Millenium: The Discovery of New Geographies
by Stephen S. Hall.
Yet we have observations that don't fit the theory, both on the small and large scales.
So? We know GR is not THE solution; I said it was the best we have. We know it has holes. But GR is not just about gravity; it is about the structure of space-time. Gravity (and lots of other things) fall out of it. MOND is a hack to explain one kind of phenomenon. Of course we need to strive towards a better model of the physical universe than GR+QM, but MOND isn't it. As wikipedia puts it, "MOND is an effective theory, not a physical one."
(And the less said about string theory's connection to reality, i.e. the physical world, the better. Name one testable prediction made by string theory. Maybe some day string theory will give us the grand unified theory, but not any time soon.)
The problem is that dark matter explains three different phenomena, but MOND can only do galactic rotation curves. If you throw out GR, can MOND explain the precession of Mercury's orbit? Or gravitational lensing, or frame-dragging, or gravitational time-dilation, or... that GR models correctly?
Puny human! Your intuition is no good to reason with about the very small, very fast etc. Are you a practicing physicist? No? In that case I hope you'll forgive those of us that are willing to take the word of of physicists. And that word is that today GR is the best theory of gravity we have.
To this non-physicist, MOND looks just like string theory -- New! Exciting! but no real predictions, just lots of knobs you can twiddle to get any result you want.
just because apt-get dist-ugprade works doesn't mean everything works well after that, especially if you have any customizations, or odd bits of hardware or applications.
If by customizations, you mean things like non free software and by "odd" hardware you mean hardware with binary blobs, your experience is no different from mine.
No need for non-free software, or exotic hardware supported only by binary blobs: I had a dual-headed video setup (two monitors) and a Wacom serial graphics tablet, for a really nice GIMP workstation. (I was using Hoary.) One day I foolishly ran apt-get dist-upgrade and that was the end. If you ever had to edit a config file to get something to work, you'll be fucked by dist-upgrade.
Not all bugs are created by some, "bad coders" sneaking into a project and plying their trade of writing bad code..... Bugs are created from many different factors and one of them is the fact that people, no matter how skilled, make mistakes.
Sadly the truth is even bleaker. The fact is that in large systems bugs are inevitable. We never begin from a rigorous and correct functional spec that only needs to be implemented correctly for bug-free code. The reality is that the spec, the design, and the code co-evolve; in the earlier phases you might not even know which assumptions you're making, let alone ensure you don't make any unwarranted ones. And there will always be miscommunication (damn humans!)... then add the usual time and resource constraints. If the project is large enough -- say anything greater than five full-time hackers -- no mistakes need be made; there will be bugs. Projects like OpenBSD and TeX give us proofs-by-example of what kind of extraordinary effort bug-free software takes -- and I'll bet that they aren't bug-free yet.
Maybe because everyone involved in an air plane crash usually dies.
Not true. It's a little hard to compare stats between driving and flying... (And then there's the whole matter of whether or not you include the numbers from Sept 11 2001.) For fatal crashes (accidents in which at least one person died) you have a 35% chance of death. And that doesn't even count the non-fatal accidents.
Think about the horrific crashes where many people lived -- the Sioux City crash following complete loss of hydraulics (there was an actual fireball!), or the Aloha "convertible" 737. The fact is that airline pilots super-skilled and super-trained; there is just no comparison between the average airline pilot and the average car driver. Ditto maintenance on the average car vs. the average airliner.
Of course there are exceptions like those drunk Southwest pilots, or ValueJet maintenance. But when you consider the number of flights every day, those are lost in the noise.
(My own anecdotal evidence: I do not personally know anyone that has been in an airliner accident, but I do know people that have been in (and died in) car accidents, motorcycle accidents, ski accidents, and "small plane" accidents.)
People just make problems for themselves. If you're just sending a quick note to a friend, what's wrong with good ol' plain text?
In fact, 95% of the goddamn (work related).doc files people send me would have been just as good as plain text. Better, because it's about 100 times more likely I'll read a plain text file as open a.doc (because first I have to find and launch a giant program and then get further annoyed at the gratuitous colours and fonts).
FWIW, Sun's operating system (SunOS) has been fairly close to Unix standards over its lifetime. In fact, the official version of System V release 4 was written by Sun and called SunOS 5, integrated into Solaris 2
Not exactly, all Sun operating systems are called SunOS. SunOS 4.1 == Solaris 1 and SunOS 5.x == Solaris 2.x. (Of course then Sun decided they needed some big numbers -- MacOS was up there in the 9s and 10s, and Windows was at 2000! Solaris 2.8 was renamed Solaris 8 and voila! instant credibility!)
When most people say "SunOS" they usually mean SunOS 4 which is BSD -- from a user's standpoint SunOS 4.1.3 on a Sun workstation was pretty much the same as BSD 4.3 on a VAX.
SIGH... You are right you can USE it under either license. But you must distribute the source as dual license unless all the authors allow you to relicense the code.
You're being disingenuous. In the context of this discussion we're talking about modification and redistribution. Neither the GPL or the BSD license say anything about mere use of a program.
On what basis do you do you say that
But you must distribute the source as dual license unless all the authors allow you to relicense the code.
Remember that this is the law, and "but that's not what I meant!" counts for nothing; only what's written down matters. In this case, if I see "This code is dual-licensed A or B, your choice" then that's exactly what it means: on my derivative work I get to decide if I want to use A or B (or retain a dual license). If you mean "all derivative works must also be dual licensed" then say that.
Theo is not a copyright lawyer and it's clear that neither are you. (But then again, neither am I.)
2) The Linux guys are technically in the right but still taking dual licensed GPL/BSD code and locking it up is a pretty shitty thing to do.
Let us keep in mind that this is not a Linux vs. OpenBSD question. It's a Theo (and a few others) vs. The Guy Who Submitted The Patch (and a few others).
I disagree that taking a dual-licensed work and releasing a derivative work under only one of those licenses is shitty.
What is shitty is removing copyright notices and giving the impression (intentionally or not) that TGWSTP is the author of the entire thing.
3) Hot heads on both sides have managed to turn what should have been a quiet chat about a moderate, considered approach and with the magic described most eloquently as the PA Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory ensured that relations remain as hostile as possible.
Man, I couldn't agree more! (And I applaud your eloquence.) I use both OpenBSD and Linux (also FreeBSD and Solaris), and I'd like to buy Theo, Linus, and all the other notables a beer. But if they're just going to start throwing that beer at each other,
Actually they cannot change the source code license.
The code in question is dual licensed: you can use it either under the BSD license or the GPL. It's your choice. In this case the person chose the GPL (and not BSD).
As good a hacker Theo is, he's not a copyright lawyer. (His digs at Eben Moglen are in extremely poor taste.)
Perhaps now the "BSD is the only free license!!!" zealots will admit that they too want to restrict what others can do with their code. (There is no "100% freedom".)
The lesson from all this is: do NOT pick a license based on politics, religion, and fashion. Read the license (or talk to a copyright lawyer) and pick the license that works the way you want it to -- not because RMS or Theo or Joe Blow says it is the only true and FREE!!! license. (You'd think hackers would be able to deal with the law better than this -- with both software and the law, what is written down is the only thing that matters. Your intentions, what you really meant, have nothing to do with anything once it's written down.)
I would say instead that this "Dark Web" will be invaluable in identifying characteristics of perfectly law-abiding forum posters, slashdotters, and so forth, and that the data gleaned will fetch a good price from directed marketeers, pharmaceutical companies, spammers, government bureaucracies, and other servants of the Dark Lord.
Makes perfect sense -- after all, this project is in the "Eller College of Business" at the University of Arizona.
Why would the CEO not be responsible for the actions of his company? I didn't send the rebate form to that disgruntled employee, and it's no concern of mine why my rebate ended up in a dumpster. And not the CEO of that outsourced firm, but the one that sold the original item to the consumer.
(Just like that rootkit writer -- if he did it for a company, the company is responsible. Sure, the writer needs lessons in ethics, but the company that paid him is the true villain.)
But taking responsibility is so out of style! Just hire a PR firm to fix up the bad publicity, grease a few politicians' palms, and give that CEO another bonus!
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, this is news?
Indeed. In fact some (e.g. Lynn Margulis) believe that this is the primary way species evolve, not through mutation. See her book Aquiring Genomes .
- The EFF has very limited funds and cannot join every case they'd like (or should).
- A legal brief means exactly what the words in it say (like source code), it either makes the case or it doesn't, there is no "between the lines".
And it could be argued that in our system precedents are much more important (to society, hence as news) than the individual's suffering.Businesses do NOT have rights; only individuals do. (Of course in the USA, corporations have more rights than individuals, but that's a bug in the current implementation.)
Your friend does not have the right to make money in a profession of his choosing. If he wants to go into a line of work where fraud is so prevalent, that's his problem; he can't make all hundreds of millions of other residents pay with their liberty so he can make a buck.
It's true that radar doesn't penetrate the ocean's surface. However, the surface of the ocean is not spherical (or even oblate eillipsoidal) -- the water surface mirrors the topography of the ocean floor. (Strictly speaking, the water just follows the equipotential surface of earth's gravity field, which is influenced by the rocks in the seafloor.)
This was first done by Haxby using Seasat data back in the 70s -- see Mapping the sea's 'surface' reveals secrets of the deep - seafloor. The article mentions Sandwell and Smith, who are the scientists working on that problem today, and this is the latest topographical map of the ocean floor derived from gravity measurements.
Which toolkit did you have in mind? (GTK+ is the GIMP toolkit.)
Sorry, Netfix envelopes are ordinary paper, not Tyvek. They're also not square. (And I'm more annoyed that first-class mail subsidizes junk mail.)
Yes. In fact, the article itself points out that there are bumps in the surface due to large rock formations a few km below the surface.
The surface of the ocean varies hugely from a sphere over the mid-oceanic ridges. Precisely mapping the sea surface height allows us to deduce the relief of the ocean floors. Check out the front cover picture of Mapping the Next Millenium: The Discovery of New Geographies by Stephen S. Hall.
So? We know GR is not THE solution; I said it was the best we have. We know it has holes. But GR is not just about gravity; it is about the structure of space-time. Gravity (and lots of other things) fall out of it. MOND is a hack to explain one kind of phenomenon. Of course we need to strive towards a better model of the physical universe than GR+QM, but MOND isn't it. As wikipedia puts it, "MOND is an effective theory, not a physical one."
(And the less said about string theory's connection to reality, i.e. the physical world, the better. Name one testable prediction made by string theory. Maybe some day string theory will give us the grand unified theory, but not any time soon.)
The problem is that dark matter explains three different phenomena, but MOND can only do galactic rotation curves. If you throw out GR, can MOND explain the precession of Mercury's orbit? Or gravitational lensing, or frame-dragging, or gravitational time-dilation, or ... that GR models correctly?
Science is not based on what's easier to believe.
Puny human! Your intuition is no good to reason with about the very small, very fast etc. Are you a practicing physicist? No? In that case I hope you'll forgive those of us that are willing to take the word of of physicists. And that word is that today GR is the best theory of gravity we have.
To this non-physicist, MOND looks just like string theory -- New! Exciting! but no real predictions, just lots of knobs you can twiddle to get any result you want.
No need for non-free software, or exotic hardware supported only by binary blobs: I had a dual-headed video setup (two monitors) and a Wacom serial graphics tablet, for a really nice GIMP workstation. (I was using Hoary.) One day I foolishly ran apt-get dist-upgrade and that was the end. If you ever had to edit a config file to get something to work, you'll be fucked by dist-upgrade.
Sadly the truth is even bleaker. The fact is that in large systems bugs are inevitable. We never begin from a rigorous and correct functional spec that only needs to be implemented correctly for bug-free code. The reality is that the spec, the design, and the code co-evolve; in the earlier phases you might not even know which assumptions you're making, let alone ensure you don't make any unwarranted ones. And there will always be miscommunication (damn humans!)... then add the usual time and resource constraints. If the project is large enough -- say anything greater than five full-time hackers -- no mistakes need be made; there will be bugs. Projects like OpenBSD and TeX give us proofs-by-example of what kind of extraordinary effort bug-free software takes -- and I'll bet that they aren't bug-free yet.
Not true. It's a little hard to compare stats between driving and flying... (And then there's the whole matter of whether or not you include the numbers from Sept 11 2001.) For fatal crashes (accidents in which at least one person died) you have a 35% chance of death. And that doesn't even count the non-fatal accidents.
Think about the horrific crashes where many people lived -- the Sioux City crash following complete loss of hydraulics (there was an actual fireball!), or the Aloha "convertible" 737. The fact is that airline pilots super-skilled and super-trained; there is just no comparison between the average airline pilot and the average car driver. Ditto maintenance on the average car vs. the average airliner.
Of course there are exceptions like those drunk Southwest pilots, or ValueJet maintenance. But when you consider the number of flights every day, those are lost in the noise.
(My own anecdotal evidence: I do not personally know anyone that has been in an airliner accident, but I do know people that have been in (and died in) car accidents, motorcycle accidents, ski accidents, and "small plane" accidents.)
People just make problems for themselves. If you're just sending a quick note to a friend, what's wrong with good ol' plain text?
In fact, 95% of the goddamn (work related) .doc files people send me would have been just as good as plain text. Better, because it's about 100 times more likely I'll read a plain text file as open a .doc (because first I have to find and launch a giant program and then get further annoyed at the gratuitous colours and fonts).
Not exactly, all Sun operating systems are called SunOS. SunOS 4.1 == Solaris 1 and SunOS 5.x == Solaris 2.x. (Of course then Sun decided they needed some big numbers -- MacOS was up there in the 9s and 10s, and Windows was at 2000! Solaris 2.8 was renamed Solaris 8 and voila! instant credibility!)
When most people say "SunOS" they usually mean SunOS 4 which is BSD -- from a user's standpoint SunOS 4.1.3 on a Sun workstation was pretty much the same as BSD 4.3 on a VAX.
You're being disingenuous. In the context of this discussion we're talking about modification and redistribution. Neither the GPL or the BSD license say anything about mere use of a program.
On what basis do you do you say that
Remember that this is the law, and "but that's not what I meant!" counts for nothing; only what's written down matters. In this case, if I see "This code is dual-licensed A or B, your choice" then that's exactly what it means: on my derivative work I get to decide if I want to use A or B (or retain a dual license). If you mean "all derivative works must also be dual licensed" then say that.
Theo is not a copyright lawyer and it's clear that neither are you. (But then again, neither am I.)
Let us keep in mind that this is not a Linux vs. OpenBSD question. It's a Theo (and a few others) vs. The Guy Who Submitted The Patch (and a few others).
I disagree that taking a dual-licensed work and releasing a derivative work under only one of those licenses is shitty.
What is shitty is removing copyright notices and giving the impression (intentionally or not) that TGWSTP is the author of the entire thing.
Man, I couldn't agree more! (And I applaud your eloquence.) I use both OpenBSD and Linux (also FreeBSD and Solaris), and I'd like to buy Theo, Linus, and all the other notables a beer. But if they're just going to start throwing that beer at each other,
The code in question is dual licensed: you can use it either under the BSD license or the GPL. It's your choice. In this case the person chose the GPL (and not BSD).
As good a hacker Theo is, he's not a copyright lawyer. (His digs at Eben Moglen are in extremely poor taste.)
Perhaps now the "BSD is the only free license!!!" zealots will admit that they too want to restrict what others can do with their code. (There is no "100% freedom".)
The lesson from all this is: do NOT pick a license based on politics, religion, and fashion. Read the license (or talk to a copyright lawyer) and pick the license that works the way you want it to -- not because RMS or Theo or Joe Blow says it is the only true and FREE!!! license. (You'd think hackers would be able to deal with the law better than this -- with both software and the law, what is written down is the only thing that matters. Your intentions, what you really meant, have nothing to do with anything once it's written down.)
Surely you jest. A jury going against what the judge said? On what basis?
They're always called lie-detectors on TV, ergo they detect lies -- that's the end of it.
Why would the CEO not be responsible for the actions of his company? I didn't send the rebate form to that disgruntled employee, and it's no concern of mine why my rebate ended up in a dumpster. And not the CEO of that outsourced firm, but the one that sold the original item to the consumer. (Just like that rootkit writer -- if he did it for a company, the company is responsible. Sure, the writer needs lessons in ethics, but the company that paid him is the true villain.)
But taking responsibility is so out of style! Just hire a PR firm to fix up the bad publicity, grease a few politicians' palms, and give that CEO another bonus!