While I don't doubt that Microsoft has went to strenuous efforts to make sure that XP gets on these devices (cheap, small form factor devices are a huge, gaping hole in Microsoft's OEM channel) these projects always manage to shoot themselves in the foot, and the problem here is the software. Sugar is just complete shit, quite frankly. A self-righteous piece of software, full of its own self-importance, that didn't really solve or offer anything.
Now, maybe if somebody had got a clue, looked around the free software landscape and pre-installed some of the great educational software we have (KDE's EDU suite of apps, for example) that Microsoft couldn't pre-install by default on XP, that would have been worth something to a lot of people. If Negropante had any vision, he would have really put effort into the software, and even if Windows XP was pushed people would have used the free software anyway - because it was so good. Alas, another opportunity has been missed.
You're twisting words around to make it sound less viral than it is.
No I'm not. Who are you to shout the word 'viral' when no BSD or CDDL based kernel has the breadth of hardware and driver support that Linux does, and where it has nowhere near the amount of open source drivers and code? That's why the GPL was chosen and why other projects, some that have been around longer, have languished.
I'd argue that Linux's success is in spite of the license, not because of it.
No, you don't understand this like so many others. If the Linux kernel was under another license, even the LGPL, what you would get would be lots of companies distributing binary-only modules and not contributing any code at all to the kernel itself. The GPL in Linux is a big part of the reason why we have so many open sourced drivers and a working system out-of-the-box without having to download motherboard and other drivers and install them in the right order.
Linux's 'restrictive' license is one of the primary reasons why code is contributed to the kernel directly and not into binary-only modules that are stuck on to it and why Windows has a set of drivers and kernel developers that Linux users are pissed off that they don't have.
Hmmmmm, no. Linux's development model is far more scalable. The only reason why Linux hasn't filled in a few remaining blanks yet is down to popularity of the system in certain scenarios (desktops) and attracting developers and companies to do the work. The integrity and quality of drivers is quite frankly, shite most of the time in Windows and Linux has done an awful lot to increase the quality and integrity via its development model.
Linux runs on hardware, out-of-the-box I might add, that Windows can only dream of right now, and that situation will only get worse as time moves on.
The CDDL isn't the problem, it's that Linux's license doesn't permit linking. Not the other way around.
Hmmmm. Interesting way of putting it. Linux's license does permit linking, but you're going to have to use a compatible license and contribute something to the Linux kernel or the ecosystem or get your users to install it themselves to get around distribution. Given Linux's success with that development model, I'd be inclined to stick with it.
Now, the GPL has been around for quite a while, and Linux has used it forever, everyone knows what it means, and lo and behold, Sun comes up with something that is incompatible. Is that Sun's fault, or Linux's for not foreseeing that Sun would come up with a totally pointless and incompatible new license?
So, why not quit complaining about the permissive license ZFS is under, and start complaining about the restrictive license Linux is under?
Funny. Linux's 'restrictive' license is one of the primary reasons why Linux has maintained its integrity, code is contributed to the kernel directly and not into binary-only modules that are stuck on to it and why Linux has a set of drivers and kernel developers that Sun are pissed off that they don't have.
Yer, it sucks that ZFS is under an incompatible license, but frankly, sacrificing what Linux has now in order to accommodate the filesystem that is going to bring about world peace just isn't worth it.
I liked the way that Debian handled its server breach, and the more recent SSL bug.
Unfortunately, that uncovered something perhaps more serious at the heart of Debian. Stop hacking on stuff downstream that you don't have any real idea about and that will only affect you if it blows up. The SSL thing has been a disaster waiting to happen, and it will probably happen again.
SSDs are *very* compelling. The lack of mechanical moving parts, better seek time, better read and write rates, better random access (goodbye defragmentation?), less noise, lees heat, better power consumption and the ability for us to finally use a lot of the bandwidth of those interfaces we've had for ages - what's not to like?
However, they're going to need to get a lot cheaper, and we're going to need to see capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes before they start to take off, but take off they will.
They're using Norwich Pharmcal court orders, which basically obligate someone mixed up in wrongdoing (i.e. ISPs) to hand over information related to that wrongdoing. However, in many cases the ISPs seem to be handing over information without a court order, or signing off a confirmation with the letter they get from Davenport Lyons so they don't have to turn up to the court order hearing. The court order is merely in case ISPs are worried about little things like the Data Protection Act. They can then invoice Davenport Lyons, and in one case Telewest invoiced for over £18,000.
However, it seems that Davenport Lyons says that you can pay £300 and make all this legal stuff just 'go away'. I was under the impression that Norwich Pharmcal order were given out on a reasonable basis, simply because they can obviously be abused. I'm pretty sure that extortion, which is what this is pretty much, is against the terms of the order. You can't just use the order and the information you get from it to extract money from people.
This whole Sisvel MP3 patent is being carried along on one thing - the illusion of it being right. Not only are patents like the MP3 one Sisvel says it has arguably not enforceable in Europe, the MP3 patent is so vague you struggle to apply it to the MP3 'format' at all. It doesn't define MP3 or any of its defining features at all. It just arbitrarily describes features of an audio format that could apply to anything (conveniently in most cases, they apply it to MP3). What's interesting is the language they tend to use:
Giustino de Sanctis, head of Sisvel's Audio MPEG division, said that SanDisk had to "follow the standard" because it was "not possible to do it any other way".
One can only guess what he means by 'the standard' and 'not possible to do it any other way', but then, Sisvel's ability to collect money for this depends on those illusions being true.
No. It's the same old meaningless bullshit claptrap that people masquerade on Slashdot as 'scientific discussion'. But, whatever. Yer, we know it's a case of strong versus the weak. However, the scientific discussion about our superior place on the planet revolves around just what it was that enabled us to be superior and be stronger, and on this evidence, it wasn't our outright intelligence.
OK, so, lets say that the 95th floor collapses when a fifteen story building falls on it. What happens to 94th floor when a 16 story building falls on it a fraction of a second later?
Again. You're look at an individual floor. It isn't the 94th floor it falls on but the whole building as a structure.
And your undeducated opinion will not be taken over that of trained professionals.
Rinse and repeat. There are an awful lot of trained professionals who seriously question the current explanation of what happened. Being unable to accept that opposing view and respond to it is the sign of a loony bin with a cause.
Welcome to the end result of a Politically Correct(tm) education, folks.
Welcome to the notion of a superior human species touched by God. You kind of prove my point.
Years of considering the strong and the weak as somehow magically "equal", and we arrive at this as the pinnacle
Hmmmmm. I sometimes wonder how some people would react to a stronger species if it actually came along. That's nothing like what was being implied as the strong and weak argument was at the heart of it (just what is it that made us strong, because it wasn't intelligence), but anyway, please continue.
I have to admit, though, that idea does logically derive from the false premise that we all have some innate equality and value. Still doesn't make it true, but a valid conclusion.
Hmmmm. Let's wander off on a completely orthogonal bullshit tangent (whatever it is) and try and make myself look clever.
No. You want to know why "we" won and the neanderthals ceased to exist? Because, at some point, we wanted their stuff, and they didn't want to give it to us. So, we applied our tool-making skills to the task of killing, and did it just a little bit better than they did. And then we wiped them out and took their stuff.
You might care to explain why that happened. The above is just simplistic bullshit we already know that explains nothing. There is a mechanism as to why that happened though, and why 'we' did it better than 'they' did, with a lot of towing and frowing as to why that was in the scientific world. You've added jack shit to that debate, but it's what I've come to expect from the current IQ level of the average Slashdotter these days (and modded insightful too!).
I've always believed this to be true, and in terms of intelligence, I don't think we have any more individual 'intelligence' than other animals. What really sets us apart is our communication skills. We're able to communicate with each other in far better clarity than any other animal, and as far as we can tell, better than any other humanoid that has ever existed. Perhaps this gave our descendants the crucial advantage over the Neanderthals?
When you can see things from another individual's perspective and exchange ideas, it makes the world of difference. You amass knowledge at a fairly exponential rate, and perhaps this was the reason for the long debated issue of the increase in the size of our brains? I've heard a lot of rubbish to be perfectly honest, sometimes coming from scientists, as to how we came to have our unique position in the world, and I've even heard the ludicrous notion that we are somehow 'touched by God'. If a species comes along that has ESP or something and can communicate better than we can, we're fish food.
Really? So the walls of the 95th floor would not have had any problem with a building 15 stories tall falling on them?
Of course they would, but again, you're looking at an individual floor. Being able to collapse the 95th floor has no bearing on what effect that would have on the 40th floor apart. There would be an effect on the 95th, 94th, 93rd, 92nd floors and so on, probably resulting in their destruction, but the effect would be dramatically minimised the more floors down you go.
You can't just collapse an individual floor and then move on to the next one as a separate entity. There is a structure in every building that binds those floors together into one strong and coherent whole (as well as all the other variables involved in a collapse on them). If they didn't then, you know, the building would be..............unsafe. Seriously unsafe.
I am aghast that someone like you, quite apparently able to read and write, but who still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and government special task force demolition crews with Invisibility Cloaks.
Alas, trying to extrapolate some outlandish theory that I have never offered, and for which there is no evidence, from what I have written is not going to work. I'm just going to leave the loose ends dangling. It seems that you're already coming up with explanations to them yourself, so carry on!
Interesting. And this is what happened at the WTC? So not only does the government have invisible demolition crews and invisible thermite ignition cables......................
Fucking hell. You tell me! It sounds like you're accepting a demolition theory, and then proceeding to tell us that it is so fantastical that the official version must therefore be true. You're off into the twilight zone now, and that really is a conspiracy theory.
I have no evidence whatsoever for demolition crews at the WTC, nor does anyone who talks about demolitions at the WTC buildings. Even though people might be able to point out similarities, it's all conjecture really. The questions over 'accepted' explanations and the problems the present, however, remain.
You're under the mistaken impression here that I am offering up some alternate theory or explanation (hopefully, really outlandish!), and I'm not. I have no need for closure, nor do I offer some explanation to tie up those loose ends. You'll just have to deal with them.
You believe the experts to be wrong. You are claiming that they did not collapse as per the official reports. You must have some reason to have that belief.
I do, and it is scattered around here. Also, calling them 'experts' won't make the questions go away.
An explanation was presented, and you state that you think it isn't credible. You give no standards as to credible. You are not listening to others and saying "thanks for the info, I'll consider that."
Unfortunately, that is flawed because you obviously haven't read anything around here and taken it in. What's happened is that questions are asked, reasons have been provided as to why a certain view of the collapse is wrong, and all we've had is parts of the report repeated parrot fashion and the very statements that have precipitated the questions in the first place repeated again as answers.
The simple fact is that no one has ever destroyed a building that large. Extrapolation can be used to guess as to what might happen, but someone that takes an extrapolation over actual data must be insane.
Again, flawed. There has been plenty of data from many building collapses since the days of yore, as well as the history of many building collapses themselves. You trying to present that as my personal opinion is very funny. There is plenty of differences between the data in the report versus data and experiences from plenty of past collapses to formulate some questions about that data. Many people just don't like those questions because they struggle to explain those differences.
They must have a disconnect with reality in order to take what has been shown to happen and state it did not happen because it was called unlikely by some unnamed experts who have never done anything similar in their lives.
We've been shown that something has happened that has never happened in any other building collapse, and that there is no historical data to support. Essentially, a theory revolves around the buildings in question being 'different'. Also, trying to discredit 'unnamed' experts having labelled the report writers 'experts' doesn't aid credibility.
I can agree that it is unlikely that the events would have unfolded exactly as they did. However, every other possible explanation has been found to be impossible.
Have they? I don't believe they have. Besides, I'm not interested in alternate explanations really. I'm interested in the report and the 'official' version of events being able to explain the questions flagged up by historical building collapses and things that are chosen to be painted over. They cannot provide those answers, and if there are questions left dangling I'm not too bothered. Obviously you feel the need for some sort of closure, which is why you throw your hands up in the air and say "Oh well, it must be true because it's all we have".
That leaves only one explanation. If you have another, let us know. If you don't, then you are supporting my Sherlock Holmes theory that the unlikely has happened.
As I said, I'm not bothered about alternate explanations, nor that questions are left dangling. The lack of an alternate explanation won't make them go away.
Alas, you think you're boxing me into a corner here by getting me to come up with an alternate theory (hopefully really outlandish!) I don't have evidence for. Unfortunately, it won't make the questions regarding the version of events portrayed by the report and individuals around here go away. Holmes would laugh his head off at such Inspector Lestrade thinking.
Until an alternative theory comes along, there is only one, and there is no credible refutation of this theory.
Lovely. All we have is a lot of serious questions left as a result of this 'theory'. We've had a lot of towing an frowing on these threads about pancaking of floors being feasible, completely ignoring that floors themselves do not stand by themselves and there is a support structure in place for a building. That, in a nutshell, is the central tenet of the theory presented - finding some way, any way, that the pancaking of these floors would precipitate an entire collapse and that a collapse would have been initiated from the damage sustained. We just instantly jump to those 'known' states without explaining anything. I'm open to a reason for all that. I haven't seen one.
Your logic is also totally flawed. You don't pull a theory out of thin air and say "Disprove that, and if you can't then you're wrong and it's all we have so it must be true". The theory itself has to have credible evidence as proof that it happened that way and I am afraid there is no such thing. Questions are asked and we continually get answers thrown back which were the reasons why the questions were asked in the first place! Rinse and repeat.
And you haven't even been interested enough to actually read the NIST report. You are just sad.
When you have something that actually supports what your saying as a result of that report, give us a call. Unfortunately, questions are met with the same 'known' facts pulled from the report without explaining first why they are true. A lot of assumptions are presented as known facts and we are all expected to go from there.
And the only way to have the entire support structure vanish instantaneously is to have hundreds of professionals working on placing explosives along the entire support structure. These explosives are set of using utterly standard wiring, in the case of something as large as the WTC, hundreds of miles worth of wiring.................... Blah, blah, blah
I don't know. You tell me. I'm not claiming that the WTC buildings were demolished because I have no evidence for that. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses.
Here's idea: The premise for you conspiracy theory is incorrect.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. You're assuming that I'm implying a conspiracy here when I have no evidence for any such thing. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses. I'm still waiting.
That is not necessarily true. Now, compared to the weight and the inertia of the concrete slabs that is the floor, the debris "between" the slabs is irrelevant, even compacted. In other words, given the total weight og the floors above, each individual floor (the 10 fee4t of mostly air) will be crushed.
Yet again, it's floors (plural) and not floor. You fail to look at the building as a whole structure. Again.
Problem is, there is more. Below the building it self there is a huge hole in the ground called a "subway". The building collapse makes this cavity cave in.
You've gone from eighty odd storeys up to the subway in one fell swoop. Hmmmmmmmmm.
According to you any demolition crew that wants to pull down a tall building will run into the following problem "[t]he collapse [will] dramatically [lose] force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back". So, how do you explain that demolition crews are able to pull down buildings?
You've got to be fucking kidding me?
A building is 'pulled' down piece by piece when it is not feasible to get it down by any other safe means. A building like a tall office block is demolished, sometimes via explosives, by collapsing the floors in advance ahead of the advancing collapse itself, ensuring the collapse continues, ensuring little debris is spread outwards and a pancaking effect is minimised and ensuring the destruction of the building from the top to the ground floor.
Now, can you explain to me why anyone would build a tall building so strong that each floor could hold up the weight of a 15 story building slamming into it after a ten feet fall?
No, because it's not each individual floor you stupid twit, and that's where the flaw in your thinking remains. You're looking at this from the POV of each floor at a time. That's fucking stupid. It's all the floors underneath which are absorbing that force collectively, because it is one structure. You'll get one floor collapsing into another and so on (so no, one floor cannot take that force by itself to answer your idiotic question), but the floors underneath that will absorb at least some of that energy away, forcing the falling debris and collapsed floors to compact and go elsewhere, dissipating yet more energy and making it less likely the next floor will give way and so on until it stops. The process does not accelerate, as some stupid people are claiming.
One more time: The collapse does not continue unabated, and repeating that flawed piece of thinking is not going to make it come true.
Incidentally a floor that had been weakened by fire. Once they collapsed that floor, we have a 16 story building falling ten feet. Do you think the floor below could withstand a 16 story building.............
Shit. See above as to why. Repeating this shit won't make it true. Basically, not looking at a building as a whole is indicative of some really serious conceptual issues.
That is what pancaking is. The collapsing of a single floor. Many times over.
Well, it's the collapsing of another floor into the one below and so on, but well done. You're sort of getting there. The demolition industry avoids pancaking because it's dangerous and won't collapse a building by itself. The collapsed floors just get very compacted very quickly and the effect peters out unless the floors below give way to allow the process to continue.
Oh, and I forgot about your retarded "demolition team" comment too. Dang, should have done that first. But you are right, no demolition crew would have demolished the WTC in the way they fell.
Not too sure why you keep repeating this, nor am I sure why you're trying to claim that a demolition crew wouldn't have collapsed the WTC buildings in the way that they did. You probably have your own reasons for saying that.
My reasoning for that comment I made way back when is that if you could collapse buildings just by destabilising a few floors then demolition companies would have a far easier time. We then got a long line of bullshit that they collapse tall buildings in the manner that they do for safety. Well, yes they do (no shit, really?), and they also do it because it is the only way of initiating a complete collapse of a building from the top to the bottom floor in that manner. Get it?
If you were mentally handicapped I would have respected your opinions. You are not.
Yes. I know that you know that I'm not;-).
You have just elected to have an intellect comparable to a mentally handicapped person, and that annoys the shit out of me.
Anyone who cannot look at a building structure as a whole is retarded. Even a child with some building blocks has some conceptual knowledge of this. Your entire line of reasoning rests on looking at each individual floor and saying "That collapses because that collapses because that collapses" one individual floor at a time. It's called a building for a reason.
I'm aghast at what an educational system can produce.
Pulling a figure from the report won't get you out of this. He made the point that the rate of collapse would have slowed, but 40% is still an unusually low figure backed up by no previous observations and it's not apparent at all how they arrive at that figure.
For WTC1 and 2 this is easy to demonstrate - simply observe the speed of the cloud of debris falling on the outside of the building as opposed to the main mass.
No, no, no, no. Observing the debris cloud is not the same as observing the collapse.
No matter what the actual numbers, though, there's certainly no evidence to suggest that any of the three buildings collapsed at unusually high speeds.
Wow. That's an incredible statement to make considering what actually happened to those buildings, especially versus previous building collapses.
I see. Which engineering/construction company did you say you work for?
Fuck. Let me know any buildings you've had a hand in so I can avoid them. Make a list. Please.
You make my point for me. I have, allegedly seen it in the WTC collapses (from the way certain people describe it anyway) - but no one has seen anything like that anywhere else, ever. Not in reality and not with models either.
The 95th story collapsed under under the weight of these 15 slabs. Then 16 slabs rammed into 94th floor. Do you think that 16 slabs of concrete and steel has higher weight than 15? And thus it continued until 109 massive slabs of concrete and steel slammed into the bottom floor from ten feet.
Again, you're repeating a fallacy that pervades these threads - that the collapse continues unabated. It doesn't. What happens is that the debris and floors compact under the weight, resisting the force and forcing it elsewhere, usually out over. The collapse dramatically loses energy and force as it goes. The taller the building it is the further up the collapse stops. Simple.
When the top to slabs come crashing down on the slab below them, do you think the tiny straws will be able to hold the one slab they have been holding and the next two coming down with some velocity?
Yes, they will, otherwise you've got yourself one seriously unstable building that would already have collapsed most probably through normal wear and tear. You might get a few floors collapsing and damaged, but the debris will compact, dissipating the energy, the debris will tend to escape outwards and the force and energy will dramatically reduce as the collapse progresses. It is not linear.
I mean, technically you're right - the lower mass WILL eventually stop the collapse. Unfortunately it will stop it once there are no longer any empty spaces within that lower mass, which is exactly what happened.
No, because what you're not getting is that the collapse on to the lower mass will lose energy, force and acceleration dramatically as it goes, which is what happens in a building collapse. As the debris and floors compact their tendency will then to be to go out over and elsewhere, losing even more energy and force at a pretty reasonable rate. It doesn't just keep on going. It is dictated to by:
a) The ability of the lower structure to take the force.
b) How much of the building there is to absorb that force, which is crucial in tall buildings.
c) How the debris and floors compact, absorbing and dissipating the energy, and forcing the debris and mass above into other directions losing even more energy.
You're assuming that the collapse just cascades down in a linear fashion. It doesn't, and saying that it will continue until there are no empty spaces has a grain of truth in it because the floors and debris will compact quite quickly losing dramatic amounts of energy. You can't just put your hand on a model skyscraper and collapse it like an accordion, which is what you're trying to say here.
For the millionth fucking time, the reason we have controlled demolition companies is to PREVENT DAMAGE.
I'm not too sure why you insist on trying to point out this irrelevant factoid here. Like I said: No shit? You also don't get the point, which I'll get to below.
They're not there because blowing up buildings is hard - it's not
I can tell you quite categorically that it fucking is hard. Every building is different, has different foundations, a different structure, you have older buildings that might be quite unstable.......... The list is endless. However, there are constants. In the case of tall buildings, demolition companies destabilise the floors below a collapse not just because of safety, but because it is the only way of ensuring the complete collapse of the building.
Seriously, what's wrong with you?? Have you put ANY thought into this?
Yes. Unfortunately what you're doing here is coming up with a bunch of theories that don't actually fit the mechanics of what we're talking about rather than going out and doing some practical. There are a lot of other variables at play here.
It was a 15 story building collapsing a single floor after falling ten feet onto a 95 story building. Then it was a 16 story building falling ten feet onto a 94 story building and collapsing the top floor only, and then it was a 17 story building ramming into a 94 story building, again collapsing the top floor only. And so on until a 109 story building dropped ten feet onto a single story building, collapsing it.
No, because what you're doing here is that you're assuming that the collapse will continue unabated. It won't. The collapse dramatically loses force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back. In the face of that, the debris will then escape to where it can, which is usually out over, causing the collapse to lose even more energy.
Do you know any buildings in the US, single story, that would survive having a 109 story steel and concrete sky scraper dropped on it? Only from ten feet mind you.
If the 109 stories were destabilised to collapse straight onto a single floor then yes (which would be the point between the first and second floors), this would happen. However, that cannot happen in the manner you describe because it is totally flawed thinking. You're assuming that one object can crash into another and experience no loss of energy, force or acceleration. That's so shocking it isn't even funny.
Once the collapse got going the shock wave increased the overall damage of the building, but if you have a little bit of a brain, perhaps you get the point.
I'm always amused by how people start pulling out other little things out of nowhere such as 'shockwaves' to explain away something immoveable - rather like the rest of the building. Build yourself any kind of model of a building that tall and try and collapse it in the manner you describe. It will never happen.
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While I don't doubt that Microsoft has went to strenuous efforts to make sure that XP gets on these devices (cheap, small form factor devices are a huge, gaping hole in Microsoft's OEM channel) these projects always manage to shoot themselves in the foot, and the problem here is the software. Sugar is just complete shit, quite frankly. A self-righteous piece of software, full of its own self-importance, that didn't really solve or offer anything.
Now, maybe if somebody had got a clue, looked around the free software landscape and pre-installed some of the great educational software we have (KDE's EDU suite of apps, for example) that Microsoft couldn't pre-install by default on XP, that would have been worth something to a lot of people. If Negropante had any vision, he would have really put effort into the software, and even if Windows XP was pushed people would have used the free software anyway - because it was so good. Alas, another opportunity has been missed.
So Intel pull a Ferrari and take a leaf out of spygate?
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article.html?in_article_id=65980&in_page_id=58
No I'm not. Who are you to shout the word 'viral' when no BSD or CDDL based kernel has the breadth of hardware and driver support that Linux does, and where it has nowhere near the amount of open source drivers and code? That's why the GPL was chosen and why other projects, some that have been around longer, have languished.
No, you don't understand this like so many others. If the Linux kernel was under another license, even the LGPL, what you would get would be lots of companies distributing binary-only modules and not contributing any code at all to the kernel itself. The GPL in Linux is a big part of the reason why we have so many open sourced drivers and a working system out-of-the-box without having to download motherboard and other drivers and install them in the right order.
Hmmmmm, no. Linux's development model is far more scalable. The only reason why Linux hasn't filled in a few remaining blanks yet is down to popularity of the system in certain scenarios (desktops) and attracting developers and companies to do the work. The integrity and quality of drivers is quite frankly, shite most of the time in Windows and Linux has done an awful lot to increase the quality and integrity via its development model.
Linux runs on hardware, out-of-the-box I might add, that Windows can only dream of right now, and that situation will only get worse as time moves on.
Hmmmm. Interesting way of putting it. Linux's license does permit linking, but you're going to have to use a compatible license and contribute something to the Linux kernel or the ecosystem or get your users to install it themselves to get around distribution. Given Linux's success with that development model, I'd be inclined to stick with it.
Now, the GPL has been around for quite a while, and Linux has used it forever, everyone knows what it means, and lo and behold, Sun comes up with something that is incompatible. Is that Sun's fault, or Linux's for not foreseeing that Sun would come up with a totally pointless and incompatible new license?
Funny. Linux's 'restrictive' license is one of the primary reasons why Linux has maintained its integrity, code is contributed to the kernel directly and not into binary-only modules that are stuck on to it and why Linux has a set of drivers and kernel developers that Sun are pissed off that they don't have.
Yer, it sucks that ZFS is under an incompatible license, but frankly, sacrificing what Linux has now in order to accommodate the filesystem that is going to bring about world peace just isn't worth it.
Unfortunately, that uncovered something perhaps more serious at the heart of Debian. Stop hacking on stuff downstream that you don't have any real idea about and that will only affect you if it blows up. The SSL thing has been a disaster waiting to happen, and it will probably happen again.
SSDs are *very* compelling. The lack of mechanical moving parts, better seek time, better read and write rates, better random access (goodbye defragmentation?), less noise, lees heat, better power consumption and the ability for us to finally use a lot of the bandwidth of those interfaces we've had for ages - what's not to like?
However, they're going to need to get a lot cheaper, and we're going to need to see capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes before they start to take off, but take off they will.
According to them that's no excuse. You're responsible for your own equipment.
They're using Norwich Pharmcal court orders, which basically obligate someone mixed up in wrongdoing (i.e. ISPs) to hand over information related to that wrongdoing. However, in many cases the ISPs seem to be handing over information without a court order, or signing off a confirmation with the letter they get from Davenport Lyons so they don't have to turn up to the court order hearing. The court order is merely in case ISPs are worried about little things like the Data Protection Act. They can then invoice Davenport Lyons, and in one case Telewest invoiced for over £18,000.
However, it seems that Davenport Lyons says that you can pay £300 and make all this legal stuff just 'go away'. I was under the impression that Norwich Pharmcal order were given out on a reasonable basis, simply because they can obviously be abused. I'm pretty sure that extortion, which is what this is pretty much, is against the terms of the order. You can't just use the order and the information you get from it to extract money from people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5312696.stm
One can only guess what he means by 'the standard' and 'not possible to do it any other way', but then, Sisvel's ability to collect money for this depends on those illusions being true.
No. It's the same old meaningless bullshit claptrap that people masquerade on Slashdot as 'scientific discussion'. But, whatever. Yer, we know it's a case of strong versus the weak. However, the scientific discussion about our superior place on the planet revolves around just what it was that enabled us to be superior and be stronger, and on this evidence, it wasn't our outright intelligence.
Again. You're look at an individual floor. It isn't the 94th floor it falls on but the whole building as a structure.
Rinse and repeat. There are an awful lot of trained professionals who seriously question the current explanation of what happened. Being unable to accept that opposing view and respond to it is the sign of a loony bin with a cause.
Welcome to the notion of a superior human species touched by God. You kind of prove my point.
Hmmmmm. I sometimes wonder how some people would react to a stronger species if it actually came along. That's nothing like what was being implied as the strong and weak argument was at the heart of it (just what is it that made us strong, because it wasn't intelligence), but anyway, please continue.
Hmmmm. Let's wander off on a completely orthogonal bullshit tangent (whatever it is) and try and make myself look clever.
You might care to explain why that happened. The above is just simplistic bullshit we already know that explains nothing. There is a mechanism as to why that happened though, and why 'we' did it better than 'they' did, with a lot of towing and frowing as to why that was in the scientific world. You've added jack shit to that debate, but it's what I've come to expect from the current IQ level of the average Slashdotter these days (and modded insightful too!).
I've always believed this to be true, and in terms of intelligence, I don't think we have any more individual 'intelligence' than other animals. What really sets us apart is our communication skills. We're able to communicate with each other in far better clarity than any other animal, and as far as we can tell, better than any other humanoid that has ever existed. Perhaps this gave our descendants the crucial advantage over the Neanderthals?
When you can see things from another individual's perspective and exchange ideas, it makes the world of difference. You amass knowledge at a fairly exponential rate, and perhaps this was the reason for the long debated issue of the increase in the size of our brains? I've heard a lot of rubbish to be perfectly honest, sometimes coming from scientists, as to how we came to have our unique position in the world, and I've even heard the ludicrous notion that we are somehow 'touched by God'. If a species comes along that has ESP or something and can communicate better than we can, we're fish food.
Of course they would, but again, you're looking at an individual floor. Being able to collapse the 95th floor has no bearing on what effect that would have on the 40th floor apart. There would be an effect on the 95th, 94th, 93rd, 92nd floors and so on, probably resulting in their destruction, but the effect would be dramatically minimised the more floors down you go.
You can't just collapse an individual floor and then move on to the next one as a separate entity. There is a structure in every building that binds those floors together into one strong and coherent whole (as well as all the other variables involved in a collapse on them). If they didn't then, you know, the building would be..............unsafe. Seriously unsafe.
Alas, trying to extrapolate some outlandish theory that I have never offered, and for which there is no evidence, from what I have written is not going to work. I'm just going to leave the loose ends dangling. It seems that you're already coming up with explanations to them yourself, so carry on!
Fucking hell. You tell me! It sounds like you're accepting a demolition theory, and then proceeding to tell us that it is so fantastical that the official version must therefore be true. You're off into the twilight zone now, and that really is a conspiracy theory.
I have no evidence whatsoever for demolition crews at the WTC, nor does anyone who talks about demolitions at the WTC buildings. Even though people might be able to point out similarities, it's all conjecture really. The questions over 'accepted' explanations and the problems the present, however, remain.
You're under the mistaken impression here that I am offering up some alternate theory or explanation (hopefully, really outlandish!), and I'm not. I have no need for closure, nor do I offer some explanation to tie up those loose ends. You'll just have to deal with them.
I do, and it is scattered around here. Also, calling them 'experts' won't make the questions go away.
Unfortunately, that is flawed because you obviously haven't read anything around here and taken it in. What's happened is that questions are asked, reasons have been provided as to why a certain view of the collapse is wrong, and all we've had is parts of the report repeated parrot fashion and the very statements that have precipitated the questions in the first place repeated again as answers.
Again, flawed. There has been plenty of data from many building collapses since the days of yore, as well as the history of many building collapses themselves. You trying to present that as my personal opinion is very funny. There is plenty of differences between the data in the report versus data and experiences from plenty of past collapses to formulate some questions about that data. Many people just don't like those questions because they struggle to explain those differences.
We've been shown that something has happened that has never happened in any other building collapse, and that there is no historical data to support. Essentially, a theory revolves around the buildings in question being 'different'. Also, trying to discredit 'unnamed' experts having labelled the report writers 'experts' doesn't aid credibility.
Have they? I don't believe they have. Besides, I'm not interested in alternate explanations really. I'm interested in the report and the 'official' version of events being able to explain the questions flagged up by historical building collapses and things that are chosen to be painted over. They cannot provide those answers, and if there are questions left dangling I'm not too bothered. Obviously you feel the need for some sort of closure, which is why you throw your hands up in the air and say "Oh well, it must be true because it's all we have".
As I said, I'm not bothered about alternate explanations, nor that questions are left dangling. The lack of an alternate explanation won't make them go away.
Alas, you think you're boxing me into a corner here by getting me to come up with an alternate theory (hopefully really outlandish!) I don't have evidence for. Unfortunately, it won't make the questions regarding the version of events portrayed by the report and individuals around here go away. Holmes would laugh his head off at such Inspector Lestrade thinking.
Lovely. All we have is a lot of serious questions left as a result of this 'theory'. We've had a lot of towing an frowing on these threads about pancaking of floors being feasible, completely ignoring that floors themselves do not stand by themselves and there is a support structure in place for a building. That, in a nutshell, is the central tenet of the theory presented - finding some way, any way, that the pancaking of these floors would precipitate an entire collapse and that a collapse would have been initiated from the damage sustained. We just instantly jump to those 'known' states without explaining anything. I'm open to a reason for all that. I haven't seen one.
Your logic is also totally flawed. You don't pull a theory out of thin air and say "Disprove that, and if you can't then you're wrong and it's all we have so it must be true". The theory itself has to have credible evidence as proof that it happened that way and I am afraid there is no such thing. Questions are asked and we continually get answers thrown back which were the reasons why the questions were asked in the first place! Rinse and repeat.
When you have something that actually supports what your saying as a result of that report, give us a call. Unfortunately, questions are met with the same 'known' facts pulled from the report without explaining first why they are true. A lot of assumptions are presented as known facts and we are all expected to go from there.
I don't know. You tell me. I'm not claiming that the WTC buildings were demolished because I have no evidence for that. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses.
Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. You're assuming that I'm implying a conspiracy here when I have no evidence for any such thing. I just want a credible explanation for the collapses. I'm still waiting.
Yet again, it's floors (plural) and not floor. You fail to look at the building as a whole structure. Again.
You've gone from eighty odd storeys up to the subway in one fell swoop. Hmmmmmmmmm.
You've got to be fucking kidding me?
A building is 'pulled' down piece by piece when it is not feasible to get it down by any other safe means. A building like a tall office block is demolished, sometimes via explosives, by collapsing the floors in advance ahead of the advancing collapse itself, ensuring the collapse continues, ensuring little debris is spread outwards and a pancaking effect is minimised and ensuring the destruction of the building from the top to the ground floor.
No, because it's not each individual floor you stupid twit, and that's where the flaw in your thinking remains. You're looking at this from the POV of each floor at a time. That's fucking stupid. It's all the floors underneath which are absorbing that force collectively, because it is one structure. You'll get one floor collapsing into another and so on (so no, one floor cannot take that force by itself to answer your idiotic question), but the floors underneath that will absorb at least some of that energy away, forcing the falling debris and collapsed floors to compact and go elsewhere, dissipating yet more energy and making it less likely the next floor will give way and so on until it stops. The process does not accelerate, as some stupid people are claiming.
One more time: The collapse does not continue unabated, and repeating that flawed piece of thinking is not going to make it come true.
Shit. See above as to why. Repeating this shit won't make it true. Basically, not looking at a building as a whole is indicative of some really serious conceptual issues.
Well, it's the collapsing of another floor into the one below and so on, but well done. You're sort of getting there. The demolition industry avoids pancaking because it's dangerous and won't collapse a building by itself. The collapsed floors just get very compacted very quickly and the effect peters out unless the floors below give way to allow the process to continue.
Not too sure why you keep repeating this, nor am I sure why you're trying to claim that a demolition crew wouldn't have collapsed the WTC buildings in the way that they did. You probably have your own reasons for saying that.
My reasoning for that comment I made way back when is that if you could collapse buildings just by destabilising a few floors then demolition companies would have a far easier time. We then got a long line of bullshit that they collapse tall buildings in the manner that they do for safety. Well, yes they do (no shit, really?), and they also do it because it is the only way of initiating a complete collapse of a building from the top to the bottom floor in that manner. Get it?
Yes. I know that you know that I'm not ;-).
Anyone who cannot look at a building structure as a whole is retarded. Even a child with some building blocks has some conceptual knowledge of this. Your entire line of reasoning rests on looking at each individual floor and saying "That collapses because that collapses because that collapses" one individual floor at a time. It's called a building for a reason.
I'm aghast at what an educational system can produce.
Pulling a figure from the report won't get you out of this. He made the point that the rate of collapse would have slowed, but 40% is still an unusually low figure backed up by no previous observations and it's not apparent at all how they arrive at that figure.
No, no, no, no. Observing the debris cloud is not the same as observing the collapse.
Wow. That's an incredible statement to make considering what actually happened to those buildings, especially versus previous building collapses.
Fuck. Let me know any buildings you've had a hand in so I can avoid them. Make a list. Please.
You make my point for me. I have, allegedly seen it in the WTC collapses (from the way certain people describe it anyway) - but no one has seen anything like that anywhere else, ever. Not in reality and not with models either.
Again, you're repeating a fallacy that pervades these threads - that the collapse continues unabated. It doesn't. What happens is that the debris and floors compact under the weight, resisting the force and forcing it elsewhere, usually out over. The collapse dramatically loses energy and force as it goes. The taller the building it is the further up the collapse stops. Simple.
Yes, they will, otherwise you've got yourself one seriously unstable building that would already have collapsed most probably through normal wear and tear. You might get a few floors collapsing and damaged, but the debris will compact, dissipating the energy, the debris will tend to escape outwards and the force and energy will dramatically reduce as the collapse progresses. It is not linear.
No, because what you're not getting is that the collapse on to the lower mass will lose energy, force and acceleration dramatically as it goes, which is what happens in a building collapse. As the debris and floors compact their tendency will then to be to go out over and elsewhere, losing even more energy and force at a pretty reasonable rate. It doesn't just keep on going. It is dictated to by:
a) The ability of the lower structure to take the force.
b) How much of the building there is to absorb that force, which is crucial in tall buildings.
c) How the debris and floors compact, absorbing and dissipating the energy, and forcing the debris and mass above into other directions losing even more energy.
You're assuming that the collapse just cascades down in a linear fashion. It doesn't, and saying that it will continue until there are no empty spaces has a grain of truth in it because the floors and debris will compact quite quickly losing dramatic amounts of energy. You can't just put your hand on a model skyscraper and collapse it like an accordion, which is what you're trying to say here.
I'm not too sure why you insist on trying to point out this irrelevant factoid here. Like I said: No shit? You also don't get the point, which I'll get to below.
I can tell you quite categorically that it fucking is hard. Every building is different, has different foundations, a different structure, you have older buildings that might be quite unstable.......... The list is endless. However, there are constants. In the case of tall buildings, demolition companies destabilise the floors below a collapse not just because of safety, but because it is the only way of ensuring the complete collapse of the building.
Yes. Unfortunately what you're doing here is coming up with a bunch of theories that don't actually fit the mechanics of what we're talking about rather than going out and doing some practical. There are a lot of other variables at play here.
No, because what you're doing here is that you're assuming that the collapse will continue unabated. It won't. The collapse dramatically loses force, acceleration and momentum as the debris and the floors below compact and the reactive force pushes back. In the face of that, the debris will then escape to where it can, which is usually out over, causing the collapse to lose even more energy.
If the 109 stories were destabilised to collapse straight onto a single floor then yes (which would be the point between the first and second floors), this would happen. However, that cannot happen in the manner you describe because it is totally flawed thinking. You're assuming that one object can crash into another and experience no loss of energy, force or acceleration. That's so shocking it isn't even funny.
I'm always amused by how people start pulling out other little things out of nowhere such as 'shockwaves' to explain away something immoveable - rather like the rest of the building. Build yourself any kind of model of a building that tall and try and collapse it in the manner you describe. It will never happen.