Sounds like, if you want to use VT, they will sell you a "different" laptop model, for probably 25-50% higher price, which is the exact same laptop with a BIOS that doesn't disable this feature.
I didn't really mean the probability, specifically, of human life, or any other species that does or doesn't exist. What I mean is just the overall complexity of all life, and the existence of life at all.
The long-odds I'm talking about aren't just drawing one particular permutation after shuffling the deck. It's more like, what are the odds of putting many decks of cards into one of those old machines they used to blow money around in and have contentstants grab at the money, then turning off the machine, and getting several royal flushes that just happen to land in a nice neat pile? It *could* happen, but the odds would seem to be so far against it it should be close to impossible in practice.
I've tried to spend some time examing the scientific evidence for the age of the universe and the evidence for evolution. I've come to the conclusion that the Universe most likely is Billions of years old, because there are just too many things that can't reasonably be explained simply by the idea that God created the Universe 6 or 10 thousand years ago (if he did, why bother making the universe have bizarre things that otherwise would indicate a very old universe).
However, looking at the amazing complexities of life, I still feel that given the long odds, the 'completely random permutation moderated by natural selection' isn't wholly sufficient to explain all life either. So, I fall into the camp of those who believe in God, believe that he had a plan when creating the Universe to cause life to arise on Earth (and possibly elsewhere; the Bible neither excludes the possibility, nor indicates it positively, and science has yet to find evidence of life elsewhere, but allows and renders it likely).
I believe he used a mechanism of evolution in 'creating' life on earth, but I think it's also possible that he fine-tuned the Universe to overcome the 'long odds' that would otherwise be against the random generation of life and rise of very complex organisms. That's not to say he was constantly intervening in evolution. If God is all knowing and all powerful, then it's perfectly plausible that he fine tuned everything from the start of the big bang such that from that point on, everything would happen that was necessary for life to arise somewhere in the Universe.
Am I an IDer? Am I a creationist? Am I an evolutionist? I'd say I'm not really a creationist, and most of the creationists would say I'm not, I suspect. Am I an IDer? My views, I think, would loosely fall into the ID camp because it is much less stringent about the 'how' and 'when' of the way that Intelligent Design was worked out (although, probably most IDers believe in a much more 'active' intervention in the design of life than I do). I do basically believe that evolution is correct, though I view it as less random than pure evolutionary theory suggests.
I think your statement that ID == Creationism (in disguise) is ignorant of the facts of the differing views of people.
However, all that said, I don't think ID should be taught in *science* class. It's not a matter of science, and I have no problem admitting that. I think it would be appropriate for it to be part of a philosophy and religion class, because that's more of what it is. I think it's appropriate for schools, both public and private, to have classes that educate students about the most commonly believed religions and philosophies (such classes, particularly in public schools, should be held from, as much as possible, a neutral perpective - anthropology rather than catechism - learning *what* people believe, rather than trying to convince students to believe one thing or another). People shouldn't graduate from high school without knowing anything at all about Judeaism, Chrisitianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Universalism, Atheistic Humanism, Existentialism, etc).
It has often occurred to me that, from an evolutionary standpoint, a great many things that aren't distinctly *negative* (that is, they don't particularly *negatively* impact survival/reproduction) could, once introduced into the genepool through random mutation, could continue to survive for a *very long time* before they *eventually* get removed from the genepool.
Why does *everything* necessarily have to be particularly useful? Mutations are random, so the chances are good that there are random things which are sort of 'neutral' to our survival, which might not get 'selected' out of the population for thousands (millions?) of years. . .
I recently took an English class where we were analyzing some written materials for rhetorical purposes (the class was about understanding rhetoric), and in that class, the teacher actually specified we were *supposed* to print out the digital materials and bring them to class.
Basically, what the parent says - RadioShack might have smaller locations, but they have *more* locations than *anybody* else (except, maybe soon, Walmart; I really wonder if Walmart is having any impact on RS's business - I bet they are a bigger problem than the Internet for RS). They're everywhere - even in strip malls in little out-of-the-way semi-rural areas. They might not have everything, but they have lots of adapters and cables to get things hooked up ("Oh, we got this new HDTV and we want to use it now, but we need a stupid adaptor which wasn't included with the device").
Radio Shack is convenient, and expensive. The expensive allows them to stay profitable with so many locations, the convenience makes them compelling for lots of 'small' purchases where, yeah, maybe Radio Shack is charging 50 percent more than anyone else, but it's a difference between $10 and $15 and people decide the extra $5 is just worth it to get the thing now.
I'm not surprised Radio Shack is re-branding itself. A) Radio is now 'old' technology, and doesn't have the 'cool' factor that once it did; B) As the parent points out, their business has largely changed. It's hard to find any radio's in a radio shack (I think you can find maybe a couple Ham radios, and a few unlicensed 2-way radios, and maybe some ridiculously over-priced stereo's and home theater systems, but largely their business and profits come from selling cell phones, computer accessories, toys, cables and batteries - radio is really not a 'focus' of their business any more; C) As time goes on, and tech progresses, they will have to keep going from one declining market to the 'next big thing', so it really doesn't make sense to have any particular technology in the name of the company, as it too, will eventually become obsolete, and not reflect the company's business anymore.
So, "The Shack" seems as reasonable a name change as any. It at least keeps *some* continuity with the established brand, while chucking the historical 'baggage'.
What I don't understand about these electric vehicles, to help people get over the 'range anxiety', is why they don't put a small gas or electric generator in the car somewhere? Not some expensive hybrid engine which switches between internal combustion drive and electric drive, but more like a Diesel Locomotive - when the battery dies, the generator automatically starts, and provides the electricity to keep the electric motors spinning.
What's the problem with this? Why doesn't anyone do this?
There *is* another approach to creating video games based off classic texts. It might make some people wish to gouge out their eyes, but you have things like "American McGee's Alice", or Square's "Kingdom Hearts I & II" (which were based off Disney franchises, which were in turn mostly based off of books by dead authors).
Basically, you use the setting, the characters, etc, but you create new stories, new adventures. That seems easier to do with more 'fantastic' fiction than something like Pride and Prejudice though. I remember many years ago there was some sort of Tom Sawyer video game for, I think it was the NES, or maybe it was the PC.
I could see someone making, for example, new "Wizard of Oz" video games. There's all sorts of works which you *could* adapt video games from, though as the parent points out, it's somewhat hard to do a literal adaptation of the actual book, because books are a bit too 'static'.
The article headline says this bootkit 'bypasses' TC encryption, but it doesn't appear to do that at all, as far as I can tell? Am I mis-reading the article, or is this simply describing software that runs *along side* of truecrypt, and after the user loads truecrypt and provides the password to decrypt the hard drive to truecrypt, this software simply uses truecrypt to access the hard drive like *ANY OTHER PROGRAM*? It's like saying Microsoft Word "bypasses truecrypt encryption" because Word is able to access your unencrypted Word docs after you've decrypted them with truecrypt?
Truecrypt was never designed to stop malware/trojans/viruses from being able to be active with Windows, and I wouldn't expect it to be able to stop them. It's like blaming Truecrypt because you opened an email attachment called anna_kournikova_sex_video.exe and got infected with a keylogger or something.
Per the GPL, the application binary does NOT have to include the source code - only a written OFFER to provide the source code.
I'm not a lawyer, but the following seems pretty clear:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, [emph. added]
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or, [emph. added]
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
Obviously, in this case, option 3 does not apply, but option b does allow you to distribute the binary without the source code, as long as you include a written offer (and, of course, the other requirements of the GPL - disclaimer of warranty, copy of the GPL text, copyright notices, etc) to provide the source in a medium customarily used for exchanging data between computers (which could be any Internet site, or a CD, or even tapes or floppy discs (but that's just being a jerk, at this point in time, to distribute data on tape of floppy since most people don't have those anymore lol).
just so that they can determine if the other life is a threat, and if so, take measures to avoid it.
For example, mankind is prone to cycles of agression and violence, so it would be worthwhile for other lifeforms, if they do not wish to either harm us or be harmed by us, to monitor our progress, and take measures to make sure we can't harm them.
That's at least one interest I'd have. Although, a species which isn't prone to agression might not have the imagination to conceive of a predatorial species, and might be lulled into a sense of false security by that, so that they *don't* look for other life forms and analyze them to see if they are a threat, and thus be taken completely by surprise when their destruction draws near.
"I know you know this, but that's not at all like open source."
What I meant is, Open Source projects do, from time to time, get abandoned by the *original development team*, but the key difference is, of course, because the source is open, anyone can come along later and bring it back to life. "Software necromancy", if you will.
That is, actually, a big difference from commercial products, where when it gets abandoned, you don't have access to the source, nor any legal right to modify it and distribute your new version. So, when it's dead, it's dead. In that regard, Open Source is *much better* than proprietary software. Sometimes people will disassemble and work on abandoned software, but the problem there is the substantial risk that, after spending time improving/updating the software, and building up a user base, some corporation that 'inherited' the rights to the 'abandoned' software will come along and see that you've made the product valuable to people again, then sue you.
Honestly, there needs to be a legal principle of 'salvage' - that anyone can come along and salvage abandoned 'intellectual property' - that the original rights holder or their successor in interest is limited in their rights with regards to abandoned software.
My take on this is, I mostly care that I know what I'm getting.
If I want to 'rent' a movie for a couple days to watch it, then I don't so much mind a DRM system (except, to the extent that usually DRM means I can't watch it on my platform of choice, or with my media player of choice, so that aspect of it sucks). As long as I know what I'm getting, that's ok.
If a company tells me I'm 'buying' a song or movie and can watch it as much as I want, then I *do* expect it to be DRM free and to work forever (at least as long as there is any extent functional hardware or software which knows how to interpret the data - either to play it directly, or to transcode it to whatever the 'current' standard is for audio or video). That is where voting with dollars becomes important. Just don't buy stuff that is DRM laden if you can't live with the DRM.
Of course, seems like companies should be required to clearly label products that are protected by a DRM system (I don't know if such a requirement actually is in place), or any other system designed to prevent copying (for example, optical discs which become opaque 48 hours after being exposed to air).
"And I reject the view that you have any real say in the matter. I just won't give you my money for it, if it has DRM."
There, I fixed it for you.
Seriously, people, nobody *forces* you to buy something with DRM. Just don't buy it. Don't steal it either. The RIAA has no inherent right to have their products bought, but if you copy their material without their permission, you are legally responsible to pay them for it. Basically, copyright infringement obligates you to buy their product, in a sense (granted, it's difficult for them to actually enforce that).
Really, if people just didn't buy anything with DRM, it would die a natural death (and gradually seems to be, in fact).
If I'm going to donate money to an Open Source project, I prefer that it be run by a Non-profit, and that I am donating to the non-profit. Why? If I just donate to Joe open-source maintainer, I've given the money to him, and he can do whatever with it. Maybe he gets a lot of donations to the project, but then just takes the money and buys a big screen TV, abandoning the project. In that case, I don't think he's actually broken any laws (perhaps you could argue that there was some sort of implied/verbal contract, or maybe you could possibly get him for false advertising, but in the end, you gave him the money, and it's his).
If, on the other hand, you donate to a non-profit, and someone who is an officer of the non-profit abuses his position and takes the money to buy himself a big-screen TV (assuming that the board of the non-profit didn't authorize some sort of payment/wage for the developer, of course), that officer is now a Felon (embezzlement). So, a non-profit can provide a certain level of oversight for how funds are used, and the project 'lead' can't just take the money and run.
Note: I'm not saying Open Source developers shouldn't be paid. Of course, the funds donated to a non-profit might very validly be used to either pay wages to the developers, or pay them on a code-completed basis (i.e., when you deliver working code that implements such-and-such functionality, you will be payed $1000 for the work completed). But the point is, the money in that case is definitely being used by the non-profit for the development of the project in a verifiable and responsible way.
Where to begin. . . on commercial projects, *I'm sure* that there are problems with developers all the time. They leave, they get fired, whatever. The corporate structure provides both continuation (hire another developer to replace them), and discreteness (you never actually *hear* in public, about the differences between developers, flame wars, immaturity, etc, but that doesn't mean they aren't there).
Also, companies go out of business and commercial software does get abandoned, just like open source.
So, commercial software has, usually, a corporate structure which provides continuity. What does open source have? A few things. . . the chief one being access to the source code. Maybe the project will have to change names, but I'm pretty sure it will continue. In a *well run* Open Source project, there wouldn't be a single point of failure - one guy holding all the keys. Instead, you'd have things split up among 2 to 3 people who can control things like the domain name, irc channels, etc. Additionally, for a *very well run* open source project (though most probably wouldn't go this far), you'd have a non-profit foundation with a board of directors who is the 'owner' of things like domain names, servers, etc.
That way, if the person(s) controlling key assets like servers or domain names goes 'rogue', the non-profit foundation can exert it's ownership, and sieze control back from that person who was designated as the 'administrator'. That may require going to court, but if the organization is on record as being the 'owner' of those assets, and can prove it, the court will use its power to restore control of those assets to the rightful owner.
Unfortunately, since most Open Source projects start out as one guy or gal, they often seem to never get around to the stage of maturity of making the project independent of that person - I think part of that is ego on the part of the project founder. They are too small minded, often, to think of the project in terms bigger than themselves, and give up control.
Which brings us back to the source. AT LEAST, we always have the source, which means no Open Source/Free Software project can ever truly die, unless nobody cares about it, then it doesn't matter if it does die. (If anybody was *using* an Open Source project, and it was vital to them, then they'd care enough about it to either maintain it themselves if they must, or get someone else to maintain it [which might mean spending some cash, but that's life]).
I don't understand why we *allow* Nuclear power operators to get into such a situation? If anyone wants a license to build a new plant (and this should have been instituted decades ago), why don't we estimate the decomissioning costs, demand like 40 percent up-front as part of the investment to even *get started*, and then every year it's in operation, have part of the revenue go to the 'clean-up fund'? That way, if the company goes under after 30 or 40 years, we've *already got the money* (or at least, a significant part of it). If the plant changes ownership, the obligation 'travels' with the title, so that the new owners keep paying into the fund?
The only potential problems I see with this idea are 1) Estimates are notoriously wrong, usually on the *low* side; you could try to allow for that by 'padding' the estimate, and if there ends up being any surplus left over, it goes back to the owners (that might even give the owners incentives to find ways to keep the decommissioning costs down, if that is at all possible - not sure if they have any control over it, probably not) 2) Much higher than expected inflation causes the clean-up costs in absolute dollar amounts to skyrocket (might be able to offset such costs by, I dunno, storing the money as 'gold' or other precious metals?), 3) The plant has to be decommsioned early, before enough revenue has been generated, maybe because of design flaws or something - but if that happens, the engineering firm that designed and manufactured it (G.E., Honeywell, etc) and was responsible for the flaw should probably be liable (although then we have to deal with the situation where they can't pay or are no longer around; maybe they have to put monies up-front into the pot, into some kind of, I dunno, insurance fund - that is, if nothing goes wrong with the design, they get most of the money back [minus fees by the fund manager, of course])?
Could it be that some of those older plants are based upon very early designs, which aren't as economically competitive with other sources of energy, and in particular, other nuclear plants? Maybe those plants had design flaws which didn't necessarily make them *dangerous*, but made them unprofitable? I don't know if that's the case, but my *very basic understanding of economics* says that any business which is making money keeps running, and any business which has been shut down was not making money. Or, maybe they had become too risky in terms of nearing the point of failure? Nothing lasts forever, not even nuclear plants. Nuclear plants which are 50 or 60 years old may be just reaching their natural end-of-life and need to be decommissioned, before they *do* become dangerous?
There's also the issue of doing it "right the first time", probably means that they *already* ran the experiment some reasonable number of times. If I've already reproduced the results an appropriate number of times for the experiment in question, then how is it scientific rigor to go to all the time and expense of having to do the whole series of tests again?
Honestly, I don't mind paying for an upgrade which has lots of real benefits/updates, even if each of the updates is fairly minor individually, but collectively represents a real step forward.
I dunno, Vista just, in a lot of ways, doesn't seem 'worth it'. I have Vista because it came with my laptop I bought a couple years ago. I turned off UAC, because that was just, pretty much, annoying, and most of the other 'improvements' to Vista seem to be, I dunno, arguable at best. For example, Windows Explorer is different, and I'm not really convinced it's better/easier to use. If anything, it's more confusing than before.
I find the User Interface, in a lot of ways, to be more confusing than before. I've been using it long enough now that I've basically figured out where everything is, but they went through and basically changed all of the normal windows your used to. Take, for example, right clicking on the desktop. Where there used to be "properties", there's now "personalize". When you click that, you get a screen which is quite a bit different than the previous 'properties' screen for the desktop, but if you click the right 'link' in there, you get to a screen which is basically the same as what you used to get to in XP/2000/98 when you clicked the "properties" context-menu item.
I dunno, Vista strikes me as a lot of changes for the sake of change, without a net benefit, that I can find, anyhow.
For those few of you wondering what I'm talking about, this is one of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and in it, it is revealed to us that the entire planet earth and all life on it was constructed as a large biological computer to find the right question which would make sense of the answer (which we're already given: 42) to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Microsoft released 3 Service Packs and countless updates for XP. They released 2 new major browser versions during the life of XP.
So it's obviously possible to make rather major changes to software after the release of that software.
What I'm saying is, you don't really need a whole new operating system, generally, to update something as small as a sound mixer application (although, it is possible that this particular improvement was only possible because of a re-architecting of the sound driver system in Vista, so really wouldn't have been possible in XP).
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like, if you want to use VT, they will sell you a "different" laptop model, for probably 25-50% higher price, which is the exact same laptop with a BIOS that doesn't disable this feature.
I didn't really mean the probability, specifically, of human life, or any other species that does or doesn't exist. What I mean is just the overall complexity of all life, and the existence of life at all.
The long-odds I'm talking about aren't just drawing one particular permutation after shuffling the deck. It's more like, what are the odds of putting many decks of cards into one of those old machines they used to blow money around in and have contentstants grab at the money, then turning off the machine, and getting several royal flushes that just happen to land in a nice neat pile? It *could* happen, but the odds would seem to be so far against it it should be close to impossible in practice.
I've tried to spend some time examing the scientific evidence for the age of the universe and the evidence for evolution. I've come to the conclusion that the Universe most likely is Billions of years old, because there are just too many things that can't reasonably be explained simply by the idea that God created the Universe 6 or 10 thousand years ago (if he did, why bother making the universe have bizarre things that otherwise would indicate a very old universe).
However, looking at the amazing complexities of life, I still feel that given the long odds, the 'completely random permutation moderated by natural selection' isn't wholly sufficient to explain all life either. So, I fall into the camp of those who believe in God, believe that he had a plan when creating the Universe to cause life to arise on Earth (and possibly elsewhere; the Bible neither excludes the possibility, nor indicates it positively, and science has yet to find evidence of life elsewhere, but allows and renders it likely).
I believe he used a mechanism of evolution in 'creating' life on earth, but I think it's also possible that he fine-tuned the Universe to overcome the 'long odds' that would otherwise be against the random generation of life and rise of very complex organisms. That's not to say he was constantly intervening in evolution. If God is all knowing and all powerful, then it's perfectly plausible that he fine tuned everything from the start of the big bang such that from that point on, everything would happen that was necessary for life to arise somewhere in the Universe.
Am I an IDer? Am I a creationist? Am I an evolutionist? I'd say I'm not really a creationist, and most of the creationists would say I'm not, I suspect. Am I an IDer? My views, I think, would loosely fall into the ID camp because it is much less stringent about the 'how' and 'when' of the way that Intelligent Design was worked out (although, probably most IDers believe in a much more 'active' intervention in the design of life than I do). I do basically believe that evolution is correct, though I view it as less random than pure evolutionary theory suggests.
I think your statement that ID == Creationism (in disguise) is ignorant of the facts of the differing views of people.
However, all that said, I don't think ID should be taught in *science* class. It's not a matter of science, and I have no problem admitting that. I think it would be appropriate for it to be part of a philosophy and religion class, because that's more of what it is. I think it's appropriate for schools, both public and private, to have classes that educate students about the most commonly believed religions and philosophies (such classes, particularly in public schools, should be held from, as much as possible, a neutral perpective - anthropology rather than catechism - learning *what* people believe, rather than trying to convince students to believe one thing or another). People shouldn't graduate from high school without knowing anything at all about Judeaism, Chrisitianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Universalism, Atheistic Humanism, Existentialism, etc).
It has often occurred to me that, from an evolutionary standpoint, a great many things that aren't distinctly *negative* (that is, they don't particularly *negatively* impact survival/reproduction) could, once introduced into the genepool through random mutation, could continue to survive for a *very long time* before they *eventually* get removed from the genepool.
Why does *everything* necessarily have to be particularly useful? Mutations are random, so the chances are good that there are random things which are sort of 'neutral' to our survival, which might not get 'selected' out of the population for thousands (millions?) of years. . .
I recently took an English class where we were analyzing some written materials for rhetorical purposes (the class was about understanding rhetoric), and in that class, the teacher actually specified we were *supposed* to print out the digital materials and bring them to class.
Oh well, paper is a renewable resource.
Basically, what the parent says - RadioShack might have smaller locations, but they have *more* locations than *anybody* else (except, maybe soon, Walmart; I really wonder if Walmart is having any impact on RS's business - I bet they are a bigger problem than the Internet for RS). They're everywhere - even in strip malls in little out-of-the-way semi-rural areas. They might not have everything, but they have lots of adapters and cables to get things hooked up ("Oh, we got this new HDTV and we want to use it now, but we need a stupid adaptor which wasn't included with the device").
Radio Shack is convenient, and expensive. The expensive allows them to stay profitable with so many locations, the convenience makes them compelling for lots of 'small' purchases where, yeah, maybe Radio Shack is charging 50 percent more than anyone else, but it's a difference between $10 and $15 and people decide the extra $5 is just worth it to get the thing now.
I'm not surprised Radio Shack is re-branding itself. A) Radio is now 'old' technology, and doesn't have the 'cool' factor that once it did; B) As the parent points out, their business has largely changed. It's hard to find any radio's in a radio shack (I think you can find maybe a couple Ham radios, and a few unlicensed 2-way radios, and maybe some ridiculously over-priced stereo's and home theater systems, but largely their business and profits come from selling cell phones, computer accessories, toys, cables and batteries - radio is really not a 'focus' of their business any more; C) As time goes on, and tech progresses, they will have to keep going from one declining market to the 'next big thing', so it really doesn't make sense to have any particular technology in the name of the company, as it too, will eventually become obsolete, and not reflect the company's business anymore.
So, "The Shack" seems as reasonable a name change as any. It at least keeps *some* continuity with the established brand, while chucking the historical 'baggage'.
s/gas or electric gen/gas or diesel electric gen/
What I don't understand about these electric vehicles, to help people get over the 'range anxiety', is why they don't put a small gas or electric generator in the car somewhere? Not some expensive hybrid engine which switches between internal combustion drive and electric drive, but more like a Diesel Locomotive - when the battery dies, the generator automatically starts, and provides the electricity to keep the electric motors spinning.
What's the problem with this? Why doesn't anyone do this?
There *is* another approach to creating video games based off classic texts. It might make some people wish to gouge out their eyes, but you have things like "American McGee's Alice", or Square's "Kingdom Hearts I & II" (which were based off Disney franchises, which were in turn mostly based off of books by dead authors).
Basically, you use the setting, the characters, etc, but you create new stories, new adventures. That seems easier to do with more 'fantastic' fiction than something like Pride and Prejudice though. I remember many years ago there was some sort of Tom Sawyer video game for, I think it was the NES, or maybe it was the PC.
I could see someone making, for example, new "Wizard of Oz" video games. There's all sorts of works which you *could* adapt video games from, though as the parent points out, it's somewhat hard to do a literal adaptation of the actual book, because books are a bit too 'static'.
The article headline says this bootkit 'bypasses' TC encryption, but it doesn't appear to do that at all, as far as I can tell? Am I mis-reading the article, or is this simply describing software that runs *along side* of truecrypt, and after the user loads truecrypt and provides the password to decrypt the hard drive to truecrypt, this software simply uses truecrypt to access the hard drive like *ANY OTHER PROGRAM*? It's like saying Microsoft Word "bypasses truecrypt encryption" because Word is able to access your unencrypted Word docs after you've decrypted them with truecrypt?
Truecrypt was never designed to stop malware/trojans/viruses from being able to be active with Windows, and I wouldn't expect it to be able to stop them. It's like blaming Truecrypt because you opened an email attachment called anna_kournikova_sex_video.exe and got infected with a keylogger or something.
Per the GPL, the application binary does NOT have to include the source code - only a written OFFER to provide the source code.
I'm not a lawyer, but the following seems pretty clear:
Obviously, in this case, option 3 does not apply, but option b does allow you to distribute the binary without the source code, as long as you include a written offer (and, of course, the other requirements of the GPL - disclaimer of warranty, copy of the GPL text, copyright notices, etc) to provide the source in a medium customarily used for exchanging data between computers (which could be any Internet site, or a CD, or even tapes or floppy discs (but that's just being a jerk, at this point in time, to distribute data on tape of floppy since most people don't have those anymore lol).
just so that they can determine if the other life is a threat, and if so, take measures to avoid it.
For example, mankind is prone to cycles of agression and violence, so it would be worthwhile for other lifeforms, if they do not wish to either harm us or be harmed by us, to monitor our progress, and take measures to make sure we can't harm them.
That's at least one interest I'd have. Although, a species which isn't prone to agression might not have the imagination to conceive of a predatorial species, and might be lulled into a sense of false security by that, so that they *don't* look for other life forms and analyze them to see if they are a threat, and thus be taken completely by surprise when their destruction draws near.
"I know you know this, but that's not at all like open source."
What I meant is, Open Source projects do, from time to time, get abandoned by the *original development team*, but the key difference is, of course, because the source is open, anyone can come along later and bring it back to life. "Software necromancy", if you will.
That is, actually, a big difference from commercial products, where when it gets abandoned, you don't have access to the source, nor any legal right to modify it and distribute your new version. So, when it's dead, it's dead. In that regard, Open Source is *much better* than proprietary software. Sometimes people will disassemble and work on abandoned software, but the problem there is the substantial risk that, after spending time improving/updating the software, and building up a user base, some corporation that 'inherited' the rights to the 'abandoned' software will come along and see that you've made the product valuable to people again, then sue you.
Honestly, there needs to be a legal principle of 'salvage' - that anyone can come along and salvage abandoned 'intellectual property' - that the original rights holder or their successor in interest is limited in their rights with regards to abandoned software.
My take on this is, I mostly care that I know what I'm getting.
If I want to 'rent' a movie for a couple days to watch it, then I don't so much mind a DRM system (except, to the extent that usually DRM means I can't watch it on my platform of choice, or with my media player of choice, so that aspect of it sucks). As long as I know what I'm getting, that's ok.
If a company tells me I'm 'buying' a song or movie and can watch it as much as I want, then I *do* expect it to be DRM free and to work forever (at least as long as there is any extent functional hardware or software which knows how to interpret the data - either to play it directly, or to transcode it to whatever the 'current' standard is for audio or video). That is where voting with dollars becomes important. Just don't buy stuff that is DRM laden if you can't live with the DRM.
Of course, seems like companies should be required to clearly label products that are protected by a DRM system (I don't know if such a requirement actually is in place), or any other system designed to prevent copying (for example, optical discs which become opaque 48 hours after being exposed to air).
"And I reject the view that you have any real say in the matter. I just won't give you my money for it, if it has DRM."
There, I fixed it for you.
Seriously, people, nobody *forces* you to buy something with DRM. Just don't buy it. Don't steal it either. The RIAA has no inherent right to have their products bought, but if you copy their material without their permission, you are legally responsible to pay them for it. Basically, copyright infringement obligates you to buy their product, in a sense (granted, it's difficult for them to actually enforce that).
Really, if people just didn't buy anything with DRM, it would die a natural death (and gradually seems to be, in fact).
If I'm going to donate money to an Open Source project, I prefer that it be run by a Non-profit, and that I am donating to the non-profit. Why? If I just donate to Joe open-source maintainer, I've given the money to him, and he can do whatever with it. Maybe he gets a lot of donations to the project, but then just takes the money and buys a big screen TV, abandoning the project. In that case, I don't think he's actually broken any laws (perhaps you could argue that there was some sort of implied/verbal contract, or maybe you could possibly get him for false advertising, but in the end, you gave him the money, and it's his).
If, on the other hand, you donate to a non-profit, and someone who is an officer of the non-profit abuses his position and takes the money to buy himself a big-screen TV (assuming that the board of the non-profit didn't authorize some sort of payment/wage for the developer, of course), that officer is now a Felon (embezzlement). So, a non-profit can provide a certain level of oversight for how funds are used, and the project 'lead' can't just take the money and run.
Note: I'm not saying Open Source developers shouldn't be paid. Of course, the funds donated to a non-profit might very validly be used to either pay wages to the developers, or pay them on a code-completed basis (i.e., when you deliver working code that implements such-and-such functionality, you will be payed $1000 for the work completed). But the point is, the money in that case is definitely being used by the non-profit for the development of the project in a verifiable and responsible way.
Where to begin. . . on commercial projects, *I'm sure* that there are problems with developers all the time. They leave, they get fired, whatever. The corporate structure provides both continuation (hire another developer to replace them), and discreteness (you never actually *hear* in public, about the differences between developers, flame wars, immaturity, etc, but that doesn't mean they aren't there).
Also, companies go out of business and commercial software does get abandoned, just like open source.
So, commercial software has, usually, a corporate structure which provides continuity. What does open source have? A few things. . . the chief one being access to the source code. Maybe the project will have to change names, but I'm pretty sure it will continue. In a *well run* Open Source project, there wouldn't be a single point of failure - one guy holding all the keys. Instead, you'd have things split up among 2 to 3 people who can control things like the domain name, irc channels, etc. Additionally, for a *very well run* open source project (though most probably wouldn't go this far), you'd have a non-profit foundation with a board of directors who is the 'owner' of things like domain names, servers, etc.
That way, if the person(s) controlling key assets like servers or domain names goes 'rogue', the non-profit foundation can exert it's ownership, and sieze control back from that person who was designated as the 'administrator'. That may require going to court, but if the organization is on record as being the 'owner' of those assets, and can prove it, the court will use its power to restore control of those assets to the rightful owner.
Unfortunately, since most Open Source projects start out as one guy or gal, they often seem to never get around to the stage of maturity of making the project independent of that person - I think part of that is ego on the part of the project founder. They are too small minded, often, to think of the project in terms bigger than themselves, and give up control.
Which brings us back to the source. AT LEAST, we always have the source, which means no Open Source/Free Software project can ever truly die, unless nobody cares about it, then it doesn't matter if it does die. (If anybody was *using* an Open Source project, and it was vital to them, then they'd care enough about it to either maintain it themselves if they must, or get someone else to maintain it [which might mean spending some cash, but that's life]).
I don't understand why we *allow* Nuclear power operators to get into such a situation? If anyone wants a license to build a new plant (and this should have been instituted decades ago), why don't we estimate the decomissioning costs, demand like 40 percent up-front as part of the investment to even *get started*, and then every year it's in operation, have part of the revenue go to the 'clean-up fund'? That way, if the company goes under after 30 or 40 years, we've *already got the money* (or at least, a significant part of it). If the plant changes ownership, the obligation 'travels' with the title, so that the new owners keep paying into the fund?
The only potential problems I see with this idea are 1) Estimates are notoriously wrong, usually on the *low* side; you could try to allow for that by 'padding' the estimate, and if there ends up being any surplus left over, it goes back to the owners (that might even give the owners incentives to find ways to keep the decommissioning costs down, if that is at all possible - not sure if they have any control over it, probably not) 2) Much higher than expected inflation causes the clean-up costs in absolute dollar amounts to skyrocket (might be able to offset such costs by, I dunno, storing the money as 'gold' or other precious metals?), 3) The plant has to be decommsioned early, before enough revenue has been generated, maybe because of design flaws or something - but if that happens, the engineering firm that designed and manufactured it (G.E., Honeywell, etc) and was responsible for the flaw should probably be liable (although then we have to deal with the situation where they can't pay or are no longer around; maybe they have to put monies up-front into the pot, into some kind of, I dunno, insurance fund - that is, if nothing goes wrong with the design, they get most of the money back [minus fees by the fund manager, of course])?
Could it be that some of those older plants are based upon very early designs, which aren't as economically competitive with other sources of energy, and in particular, other nuclear plants? Maybe those plants had design flaws which didn't necessarily make them *dangerous*, but made them unprofitable? I don't know if that's the case, but my *very basic understanding of economics* says that any business which is making money keeps running, and any business which has been shut down was not making money. Or, maybe they had become too risky in terms of nearing the point of failure? Nothing lasts forever, not even nuclear plants. Nuclear plants which are 50 or 60 years old may be just reaching their natural end-of-life and need to be decommissioned, before they *do* become dangerous?
There's also the issue of doing it "right the first time", probably means that they *already* ran the experiment some reasonable number of times. If I've already reproduced the results an appropriate number of times for the experiment in question, then how is it scientific rigor to go to all the time and expense of having to do the whole series of tests again?
Honestly, I don't mind paying for an upgrade which has lots of real benefits/updates, even if each of the updates is fairly minor individually, but collectively represents a real step forward.
I dunno, Vista just, in a lot of ways, doesn't seem 'worth it'. I have Vista because it came with my laptop I bought a couple years ago. I turned off UAC, because that was just, pretty much, annoying, and most of the other 'improvements' to Vista seem to be, I dunno, arguable at best. For example, Windows Explorer is different, and I'm not really convinced it's better/easier to use. If anything, it's more confusing than before.
I find the User Interface, in a lot of ways, to be more confusing than before. I've been using it long enough now that I've basically figured out where everything is, but they went through and basically changed all of the normal windows your used to. Take, for example, right clicking on the desktop. Where there used to be "properties", there's now "personalize". When you click that, you get a screen which is quite a bit different than the previous 'properties' screen for the desktop, but if you click the right 'link' in there, you get to a screen which is basically the same as what you used to get to in XP/2000/98 when you clicked the "properties" context-menu item.
I dunno, Vista strikes me as a lot of changes for the sake of change, without a net benefit, that I can find, anyhow.
Am I the only one who thought of Douglass Adams' Life, The Universe, and Everything when reading this article?
For those few of you wondering what I'm talking about, this is one of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and in it, it is revealed to us that the entire planet earth and all life on it was constructed as a large biological computer to find the right question which would make sense of the answer (which we're already given: 42) to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Hey, if the Microwave isn't properly shielded, it could cause *anyone* pain. . .
I'd have the Microwave checked first, then your heads.
Microsoft released 3 Service Packs and countless updates for XP. They released 2 new major browser versions during the life of XP.
So it's obviously possible to make rather major changes to software after the release of that software.
What I'm saying is, you don't really need a whole new operating system, generally, to update something as small as a sound mixer application (although, it is possible that this particular improvement was only possible because of a re-architecting of the sound driver system in Vista, so really wouldn't have been possible in XP).