Is it that project management and programming skills are two incompatible skills for the human brain?
I can only tell my experiences (no! not from the management:). I'm not that a coder either, but I'm most productive, when I go into the famous "deep hack" mode, concentrating on a problem, and then I don't have any sense of time.
I'd have to agree... I know that "deep hack" mode as well sometimes. In it, time seems to become irrelevant. Sometimes, it'll take me a week to finish a particular problem at work. Other times, I chew through the available work, finishing what would normally take a month in two days. Unfortunately, the environment I'm in tends to push me into the slow deep hack more than the fast deep hack.:( Managers can influence the programmers' mental states, but typically are clueless enough that they end up doing more harm than good.
Personally, the best way to put my mind in a fast deep hack is a quiet work environment with cool, slightly humid air, lots of natural colored light, and a feeling like I'm slightly isolated but able to interact with my coworkers. Poorly working, loud air conditioner units are bad. Flourescent lights are bad. A quarter of the flourescent light bulbs are worse. Cubes with only two walls are bad. Cubes with a second worker are worse. More than that and you've ruined the entire point of hiring more people. Don't bother putting a worker at an open desk against the wall when you run out of space. You'll get more bang for your buck by not spending it. Cubes with four walls, even if one is a half height wall where the entry opening is are better. The size of the cube is less relevant as long as its well lit, ventilated, and quiet.
And on a related note, snacks and drinks are good, too. Personally, I'd love to see free snacks and drinks available in the breakroom. (oh, yeah, having a breakroom's good too... it should be very well lit and ventilated and have non-tinted windows to the outside world) I know free snacks and drinks can be a problem, since it can get abused too easily, but what about a system which accounts for who got what? Maybe take that magstripe on the back of my id badge and allow me to swipe for free cokes & snacks. That way, if someone's taking an inordinately high amount of cokes, you can talk to them (or sign them up for coca-cola's anonymous).
Your problem is clearly then that CPS are morons, not that the kids were watching porn. I mean, if you accept that kids watching porn is bad, is there any issue here beyond the difference in treatment between the mother and father?
My problem was 2 parts. First, CPS are morons, yes.
Second, they could indeed restrict the father's visitation rights due to child endangerment. Repeated offenses could quite easily land him in prison. Parents aren't allowed to endanger their children, the courts believe that showing them that sort of material falls into that category. (Personally, I'd much rather have kids watch porn than people blowing each other up in the latest action flick.)
I guess I may be denser than some, but what is the news here?
We have a LOCAL LAW (important part) that states that children < 17 cannot play certain titles of video games.
We have a judge that says that the law is OK.
These must be the same people that say that certain movie titles are not appropriate for children < 17.
So again... I fail to see what the problem is here.
The people who say that certain movie titles are not appropriate for children < 17. do not have a law backing them up. The movie ratings do not have a legal enforcement route of their own. You could potentially sue a theater for admitting a 16 year old to a porn flick, but the rating on the film wouldn't matter. If someone were to make a law backing up the film ratings, who would get to assign what movie which rating? Would it be in the private or public sector? Who would be responsible for mistakes? etc...
The reason the ordinance is flawed is twofold. Its definitions of what it prohibits seems vague, and either it prohibits content already prohibited by obscenity laws, or it oversteps its bounds by prohibiting more than is constitutionally permissible for a law to prohibit.
Parents, at home, they can let their kids play whatever games they want, or watch whatever movies, or look at whatever magazines. But in public space, there is a certain generally accepted level of protection for children that applies to all of these.
Until your kid tells someone else they watched naked people doing weird stuff on the tv at home and child protective services comes along, slapping you with child endangerment. Doesn't even have to be that clear cut, CPS was called on a divorced friend of mine. Her kid saw pornos at daddy's house and came home with a filthy mouth. CPS came, inspected *THE MOTHER's* house, told her if she didn't shape up they'd take the kid away. Her house is impeccable. They then went to daddy's house. She called him ahead of time and warned him, but he didn't bother to put the videos away. They made him throw away the videos and secure all the weapons he had lying around, but he only got a slap on the wrist.
Religion is just another name for Corporation. Cults are just too small and too early in their development to have the benefit of being based on the words and actions of people long forgotten. For all we know Jesus was considered a cult leader,
I thought he basically was a cult leader, at the time? He was a rabbi who led some people who disagreed with the structure and some of the beliefs of the religious faith.
and if he were around today we'd have the DoJ storm his compound and torch his followers.
Um... didn't the government hunt him down and kill him? Seems pretty parallel.
What I'd really like to see happen is California take some initiative and put this software to good use! Yes, they've got WAY more licenses than they need. But, that's based on their CURRENT need. California has the chance now to do some really big things with information management.
Yes, but they're seat licenses. They have the ability to sit 270,000 state workers down at computers and all of them can use the database at once. Problem is, the state of california, once you discount the nontechnical workers, has far less than 270,000 employees. So they could've purchased far fewer licenses and still been able to perform the tasks you suggest. I'd cite some numbers, but I can't seem to find any numbers that nail down how many people do what for the state of California.
ah yes, NetRape. Remember the good ole' days, when Netscape was the non-standards-compliant enemy, embracing and extending HTML?
Yeah, but you used it anyway, because it could show you the text of the webpage while the images were still downloading, but shitty ole' mosaic you had to wait for all the images, before you could see anything at all....
And don't forget the other part... when netscape first came out, IIRC, mosaic could only render gifs, and netscape could render jpegs.
Your fuel tank isn't under pressure like a hydro tank would be. A puncture in your fuel tank won't cause a massive explosion. Besides, a bowl of gasoline on fire doesn't cause a violent explosion, say, compared to a bowl/whatever of hydrogen.
A common misconception. Actually, a bowl of gasoline is much more damaging than an equivalent volume of hydrogen. I'm not sure where you got your misconception, since there are several sources, but the most common example is the Hindenberg. Contrary to popular belief, the Hindenberg didn't explode due to its hydrogen contents, but its skin caught fire from a spark and burned. From the Rocky Mountain Insitute page:
Most hydrogen concerns stem from the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. The hydrogen gas that once filled the Hindenburg zeppelin did burn, but it did so quickly, upwardly, and away from the people below. When the airship was docking, an unexpected electrical discharge ignited the airship's canvas (which was unknowingly treated with two major components of rocket fuel!) The clean hydrogen flames swirled above the occupants of the passenger compartment, and all those who rode the airship down to the ground survived. 35 of the 37 casualties perished from jumping to the ground, and most other injuries resulted from diesel burns.
As you can see this clearly indicates that the hydrogen on the Hindenburg was not the problem.
Unfortunately, I don't think this will reduce dependence on petroleum. If the hydrogen was not bound up in some molecules (like water), then it would be great. But at the moment there is no cheap way of getting hydrogen out common compounds.
I haven't read the linked article yet, as it appears to be/.-ed. So my comments are made in more than just the usual bit of ignorance.
The point of the article is that water deeper than 2 miles and shallower than 20 miles frequently breaks down and the free hydrogen gets trapped in rock formations at that level, not reaching the atmosphere. The problem the article raises is that the cost at the moment for mining and crushing the stone to release the hydrogen would be expensive, though they're looking at ways to drill for the hydrogen in locations where it isn't bound in small quantities with the rock, but large reservoirs.
Do you know how much energy it takes to make a solar panel?
I'm afraid I don't know, though I'd be surprised if a single 100W solar panel exceeded the 3.65 Megawatt-Hours it can generate over the course of its service life.
They are energy carriers, because it takes more energy to produce them than you get from burning them.
That's because the production energy for crop based fuels includes all that solar energy lavished on them for months. The available solar radiation is approximately 1.4 kW/m^2. Spread that over a 2 month (for sake of argument) crop with about 8 hours a day of energy and a single square meter of crop took in 672kWH of energy. BP, a manufacturer of solar cells, cites figures that show that 1.4kW/m^2 figure is for solar radiation outside the earth's atmosphere, and puts the available solar radiation at about 1 kW/m^2 at sea level, meaning the same crop took 480kWH to grow.
I'd also like to note that, with the same calculation, a theoretical 100% efficiency solar panel of 8m^2 (or about 9'x9') could power a large house with air conditioning and have room to spare. (alternative energy advocates frequently point to how great their house is because it uses so little energy, but they also fail to mention that air conditioning is the first thing to go since it is such an energy hog. I prefer to compare to the current average homeowner's situation, for a more realistic picture) That's calculated as 1.0kW*5H*30days*8m^2=1200kWH/month assuming only 5 hours/day since a fixed solar panel isn't always exposing a 100% cross section to the sun.
Here's a quick newsflash - there's *nothing* you can do about global warming. The greenhouse effect is tiny. What's happening is that we're moving out of a cloud of dust and gas, between us and the sun. In about 1000 years, not just the Earth, but all the outer planets too, will be much warmer. We also won't get meteor showers any more...
Ok, I admin, you've piqued my curiosity. Can you cite a source, please?
By the way, if they're looking for a barren, lifeless desert to put it in, I nominate the Los Angeles Basin. There's nothing there that anybody would miss that much, and it would cut back tremendously on the work the CO2 scrubbers would have to do. Everybody wins!
Actually, I know you're kidding, but think about it... to the east of the LA basin what is there? A bunch of desert (Yeah, they're not right next to it, but for purposes of this plant, its close enough.) Stick this on the edge of the desert and let it suck up all of LA's pollutants.
Of course, the only thing this would have a negative impact on would be plant life, and even that would only be a problem if co2 levels were reduced beyond the normal environmental level, so if it did nothing more than eliminate co2 down to where it should be, you could put this thing smack dab in the middle of LA and it would do nothing but improve the quality of life.
I'm not sure I see how the second half of Star Wars (after Leia is rescued) could be a western, though.
Let's see... Break into the enemy's stronghold/fortress/fort/etc, rescue the damsel, and skedaddle to your hideout. Exposition. The enemy has an expert tracker/scout/spy that reveals your hideout. The enemy's shows up, is about to burn down/blow up/otherwise destroy your hideout. Exposition. Attack the enemy and lose almost everyone in a blaze of glory, but win the day when the cavalry/missing buddy/questionable character lends a hand.
That about sum it up? That's just the second half, of course.
i believe it's ok for them to play public radio channels though, as that's public air
Morally, yes, since the number of listeners can boost the radio station's ratings which cascades into advertising revenues and royalties paid by the radio station to play the music.
However, fees are still collected (by ASCAP?) for this, since that's public performance of a work without a license for it. The fees here are a double-tax on the music, since its already been paid for at the radio station level. Personally, I have issues with the legality of this, but I don't know of any mom-and-pop restaurant that's successfully fought it.
Calling it a concrete rocket is a bit misleading however IMHO - if it is like the boat, it's got a very thin layer of concrete ( < half an inch) over the top of a structure made from another material.
And IMHO, you should read more about the current state of concrete boat races. The boat raced in 2001 is a concrete hull. No support structures, just the concrete. Granted, the fill components are anything but mundane, being far more advanced than basic crushed stone. From the website:
UAH's flexible concrete is the end product of more than 200 different combinations that were mixed and tested. It is made of Portland cement, glass microbeads (microscopic hollow spheres), latex, acrylic fortifier and water. Mix in the right proportions, then dry for 12 hours. The end product is concrete so light that a solid block will float in water, and so flexible it can bend without breaking.
The canoe itself flexes and is tuned to the harmonic wavelength it travels at in the races. I suggest reading their old press release from the 2001 races.
1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.
The only availability of the interoperability info is under a strict license that forbids them to use their current license. Therefore, the interoperability info is not readily available to the Samba team.
2. Read the Doc and implement the spec, but release under GPL anyway. This would save the Samba Team for the DMCA problems of #1, but would expose them to a lawsuit based on the violation of a licensing agreement (however, ridiculous its terms are).
This, I agree, is an impossible option to implement.
3. Switch the Samba license to a BSD-style license. This may not be possible, because many people have contributed code to the project over the years. In other words, the Samba team may not have the legal right to change the license.
The problem would be, as you point out, the contributors. The Samba code base is inextricably GPL at this point. Changing licenses is practically impossible, therefore the only alternative would be a rewrite.
Unless I'm misreading, they appear to have patented the notion of client-server communication over a persistent channel?
At worst, even if it can't be overturned with prior art, the patents are so specific that it would be fairly trivial for a free implementation of SMB to avoid crashing into them. Simply storing the transferred packets with their incoming headers eliminates infringement of the patents. I'm sure SMB developers can come up with something more elegant and efficient that avoids the patents, though.
A cardinal rule in submitting patents is to make them just general enough that another party can't circumvent them to perform the same task with a trivial change. It looks like whoever wrote these patents didn't remember that rule.
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
The MSGPL license, for GPL implementations of MS protocols need only include the clause that changes must be available in source code form or in binary digits tattooed across the backside of the author, and that a license fee of one wet honey glazed ham is due if the software is used consecutively for more than sixty thousand years.
You're not looking nearly close enough. Notice:
... any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license...
What does this say? It says that your license can't affect other software distributed with your software. For example, say I write an implementation of ls and an implementation of cat. Under a clause like this, the license for cat can't require that I release ls under a license requiring one of (a),(b), or (c) above. Note that the GPL doesn't even go this far. The GPL requires that extensions to the software be released under the same license. That's extensions, as in part of the same software, not other software, as defined in the license. It does not require that software released in the same tarball be released under the GPL. I can write my cat implementation under the GPL and my ls implementation under the BSD license, tar them up together, and release them.
In essence, the licensing restriction here has no teeth to bite with, because aside from explicitly mentioning the GPL/LGPL licenses, it prohibits licenses which don't even exist.
This is the third post I've seen suggesting that these glasses should have GPS embedded in them so the waitress can locate them.
GPS is a GLOBAL Positioning System. Do we really need to be able to locate a glass in another hemisphere? And besides, if GPS's resolution is only granular down to the square-meter level, what good will that do in a bar that has a dozen glasses per square meter?
So what we need here isn't a GPS, but a BPS (Beer Positioning System). Instead of having the glass figure out where it is, just have it figure out when the glass needs to be refilled. It broadcasts a basic "fill me" signal containing not much more than an id #. Located at various points around the bar you have a half dozen or more receivers that all listen for the signal of glasses asking for refills. Some or all of the receivers hear the signal at different times and different strengths, transmit the info to a central computer, and the central computer calculates the beer's position.
I also think books should be decommercialised. Imagine being able to just walk up to a machine like this one and be able to have it print out a book for you, or make copies from a file saved on a disc.
You mean
Books on Demand?
Been done, but no reason to call them 'decommercialised'. I haven't seen it mainstream, yet, but it would be great for out of print books. It would mean going to the bookstore to look for a book and finding it no longer in print wouldn't be such a bad thing. It might be on index, and you could just print up a fresh copy.
Music Industry Piracy Investigations spokesman Michael Speck said illegal copying already cost the Australian industry $70 million a year.
I'd really like to know the source of this number. This number implies something like 7 million illegal copies being distributed per year. (This assumes, for argument's sake, an average of $10 per cd retail.) I'm not sure there are that many blank cds being sold per year in Australia. Did they just take the number of blank cds being sold, multiply by the cost of some of the more expensive cds, and assume every cd was used to make a infringing copy of a music cd? To top that off, did they assume that if the recipient of that music cd hadn't gotten the infringing copy, the album would've been purchased instead?
Personally, I have just as many data cds as music cds, and most of the music cds I have are copies of my own music for travel and taking mp3s of my music to work.
not possible. a corporation is an abstract construct. abstract constructs do not create. everything that has ever been created has been created either by living beings or natural forces or god if you so beleive, but nothing has ever been created by a corporation. what were you thinking?
Living beings are what actually perform the cration, I'll agree, but when a large, comprehensive work is created, the collective whole own the work, as a corporation. Think of a movie, for example. Who owns the copyright on that strip of plastic, photos, sounds and all? Was it created by a living being, or a collection of living beings? A corporation is an abstract construct representing a collection of living beings. In the case of most movies, having every individual person who worked on it own a copyright on the little bit they worked on would make the overall production and distribution of movies prohibitively expensive, if not completely impossible. The corporation is a perfectly reasonable construct to hold the copyrights here, and if the corporation hired and paid a staff to come in and make a movie, then why shouldn't that same corporation hold the copyright?
Personally, and I know I'll probably get modded down for it, I don't have a problem with corporations holding copyrights just like any other legal entity. I'd be happy with returning the copyright duration back to its original. 14 years, plus renewal if the entity holding the copyright desires and is capable of renewing it. I.e., if the human creator of a work dies, it can't get renewed. If the corporation owning a copyright folds, it can't get renewed.
So this will be good news for anyone who writes software that gets round e-book encryption. After all, its the user that's instructing the software to do it, just like the user is instructing Kazaa to download the pirated music.
If the only use of the software is to get around legally protected encryption, then the software is intended to perform an illegal act, and the software programmer intended it as such. (Yes, I agree that making it illegal is stupid, personally.) The Kazaa software, however, is not restricted solely to performing an illegal act, therefore it is the users that direct it to perform the illegal act, not the programmer.
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Personally, the best way to put my mind in a fast deep hack is a quiet work environment with cool, slightly humid air, lots of natural colored light, and a feeling like I'm slightly isolated but able to interact with my coworkers. Poorly working, loud air conditioner units are bad. Flourescent lights are bad. A quarter of the flourescent light bulbs are worse. Cubes with only two walls are bad. Cubes with a second worker are worse. More than that and you've ruined the entire point of hiring more people. Don't bother putting a worker at an open desk against the wall when you run out of space. You'll get more bang for your buck by not spending it. Cubes with four walls, even if one is a half height wall where the entry opening is are better. The size of the cube is less relevant as long as its well lit, ventilated, and quiet.
And on a related note, snacks and drinks are good, too. Personally, I'd love to see free snacks and drinks available in the breakroom. (oh, yeah, having a breakroom's good too... it should be very well lit and ventilated and have non-tinted windows to the outside world) I know free snacks and drinks can be a problem, since it can get abused too easily, but what about a system which accounts for who got what? Maybe take that magstripe on the back of my id badge and allow me to swipe for free cokes & snacks. That way, if someone's taking an inordinately high amount of cokes, you can talk to them (or sign them up for coca-cola's anonymous).
Anyway, enough soapbox for now.
Your problem is clearly then that CPS are morons, not that the kids were watching porn. I mean, if you accept that kids watching porn is bad, is there any issue here beyond the difference in treatment between the mother and father?
My problem was 2 parts. First, CPS are morons, yes. Second, they could indeed restrict the father's visitation rights due to child endangerment. Repeated offenses could quite easily land him in prison. Parents aren't allowed to endanger their children, the courts believe that showing them that sort of material falls into that category. (Personally, I'd much rather have kids watch porn than people blowing each other up in the latest action flick.)
The people who say that certain movie titles are not appropriate for children < 17. do not have a law backing them up. The movie ratings do not have a legal enforcement route of their own. You could potentially sue a theater for admitting a 16 year old to a porn flick, but the rating on the film wouldn't matter. If someone were to make a law backing up the film ratings, who would get to assign what movie which rating? Would it be in the private or public sector? Who would be responsible for mistakes? etc...
The reason the ordinance is flawed is twofold. Its definitions of what it prohibits seems vague, and either it prohibits content already prohibited by obscenity laws, or it oversteps its bounds by prohibiting more than is constitutionally permissible for a law to prohibit.
Parents, at home, they can let their kids play whatever games they want, or watch whatever movies, or look at whatever magazines. But in public space, there is a certain generally accepted level of protection for children that applies to all of these.
Until your kid tells someone else they watched naked people doing weird stuff on the tv at home and child protective services comes along, slapping you with child endangerment. Doesn't even have to be that clear cut, CPS was called on a divorced friend of mine. Her kid saw pornos at daddy's house and came home with a filthy mouth. CPS came, inspected *THE MOTHER's* house, told her if she didn't shape up they'd take the kid away. Her house is impeccable. They then went to daddy's house. She called him ahead of time and warned him, but he didn't bother to put the videos away. They made him throw away the videos and secure all the weapons he had lying around, but he only got a slap on the wrist.
Religion is just another name for Corporation. Cults are just too small and too early in their development to have the benefit of being based on the words and actions of people long forgotten. For all we know Jesus was considered a cult leader,
I thought he basically was a cult leader, at the time? He was a rabbi who led some people who disagreed with the structure and some of the beliefs of the religious faith.
and if he were around today we'd have the DoJ storm his compound and torch his followers.
Um... didn't the government hunt him down and kill him? Seems pretty parallel.
Yes, but they're seat licenses. They have the ability to sit 270,000 state workers down at computers and all of them can use the database at once. Problem is, the state of california, once you discount the nontechnical workers, has far less than 270,000 employees. So they could've purchased far fewer licenses and still been able to perform the tasks you suggest. I'd cite some numbers, but I can't seem to find any numbers that nail down how many people do what for the state of California.
And don't forget the other part... when netscape first came out, IIRC, mosaic could only render gifs, and netscape could render jpegs.
Your fuel tank isn't under pressure like a hydro tank would be. A puncture in your fuel tank won't cause a massive explosion. Besides, a bowl of gasoline on fire doesn't cause a violent explosion, say, compared to a bowl/whatever of hydrogen.
A common misconception. Actually, a bowl of gasoline is much more damaging than an equivalent volume of hydrogen. I'm not sure where you got your misconception, since there are several sources, but the most common example is the Hindenberg. Contrary to popular belief, the Hindenberg didn't explode due to its hydrogen contents, but its skin caught fire from a spark and burned. From the Rocky Mountain Insitute page:
As you can see this clearly indicates that the hydrogen on the Hindenburg was not the problem.
The point of the article is that water deeper than 2 miles and shallower than 20 miles frequently breaks down and the free hydrogen gets trapped in rock formations at that level, not reaching the atmosphere. The problem the article raises is that the cost at the moment for mining and crushing the stone to release the hydrogen would be expensive, though they're looking at ways to drill for the hydrogen in locations where it isn't bound in small quantities with the rock, but large reservoirs.
Do you know how much energy it takes to make a solar panel?
I'm afraid I don't know, though I'd be surprised if a single 100W solar panel exceeded the 3.65 Megawatt-Hours it can generate over the course of its service life.
They are energy carriers, because it takes more energy to produce them than you get from burning them.
That's because the production energy for crop based fuels includes all that solar energy lavished on them for months. The available solar radiation is approximately 1.4 kW/m^2. Spread that over a 2 month (for sake of argument) crop with about 8 hours a day of energy and a single square meter of crop took in 672kWH of energy. BP, a manufacturer of solar cells, cites figures that show that 1.4kW/m^2 figure is for solar radiation outside the earth's atmosphere, and puts the available solar radiation at about 1 kW/m^2 at sea level, meaning the same crop took 480kWH to grow.I'd also like to note that, with the same calculation, a theoretical 100% efficiency solar panel of 8m^2 (or about 9'x9') could power a large house with air conditioning and have room to spare. (alternative energy advocates frequently point to how great their house is because it uses so little energy, but they also fail to mention that air conditioning is the first thing to go since it is such an energy hog. I prefer to compare to the current average homeowner's situation, for a more realistic picture) That's calculated as 1.0kW*5H*30days*8m^2=1200kWH/month assuming only 5 hours/day since a fixed solar panel isn't always exposing a 100% cross section to the sun.
I'm still waiting for a "Mr. Fusion" for my car so I can go 1000 miles on two banana peels and a quarter cup of coffee grounds.
And never be late again, either, with the flux capacitor under the hood.
Here's a quick newsflash - there's *nothing* you can do about global warming. The greenhouse effect is tiny. What's happening is that we're moving out of a cloud of dust and gas, between us and the sun. In about 1000 years, not just the Earth, but all the outer planets too, will be much warmer. We also won't get meteor showers any more...
Ok, I admin, you've piqued my curiosity. Can you cite a source, please?
By the way, if they're looking for a barren, lifeless desert to put it in, I nominate the Los Angeles Basin. There's nothing there that anybody would miss that much, and it would cut back tremendously on the work the CO2 scrubbers would have to do. Everybody wins!
Actually, I know you're kidding, but think about it... to the east of the LA basin what is there? A bunch of desert (Yeah, they're not right next to it, but for purposes of this plant, its close enough.) Stick this on the edge of the desert and let it suck up all of LA's pollutants.
Of course, the only thing this would have a negative impact on would be plant life, and even that would only be a problem if co2 levels were reduced beyond the normal environmental level, so if it did nothing more than eliminate co2 down to where it should be, you could put this thing smack dab in the middle of LA and it would do nothing but improve the quality of life.
I'm not sure I see how the second half of Star Wars (after Leia is rescued) could be a western, though.
Let's see... Break into the enemy's stronghold/fortress/fort/etc, rescue the damsel, and skedaddle to your hideout. Exposition. The enemy has an expert tracker/scout/spy that reveals your hideout. The enemy's shows up, is about to burn down/blow up/otherwise destroy your hideout. Exposition. Attack the enemy and lose almost everyone in a blaze of glory, but win the day when the cavalry/missing buddy/questionable character lends a hand.
That about sum it up? That's just the second half, of course.
i believe it's ok for them to play public radio channels though, as that's public air
Morally, yes, since the number of listeners can boost the radio station's ratings which cascades into advertising revenues and royalties paid by the radio station to play the music.
However, fees are still collected (by ASCAP?) for this, since that's public performance of a work without a license for it. The fees here are a double-tax on the music, since its already been paid for at the radio station level. Personally, I have issues with the legality of this, but I don't know of any mom-and-pop restaurant that's successfully fought it.
Calling it a concrete rocket is a bit misleading however IMHO - if it is like the boat, it's got a very thin layer of concrete ( < half an inch) over the top of a structure made from another material.
And IMHO, you should read more about the current state of concrete boat races. The boat raced in 2001 is a concrete hull. No support structures, just the concrete. Granted, the fill components are anything but mundane, being far more advanced than basic crushed stone. From the website:
The canoe itself flexes and is tuned to the harmonic wavelength it travels at in the races. I suggest reading their old press release from the 2001 races.
The Samba team has three choices right now:
1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.
The only availability of the interoperability info is under a strict license that forbids them to use their current license. Therefore, the interoperability info is not readily available to the Samba team.
2. Read the Doc and implement the spec, but release under GPL anyway. This would save the Samba Team for the DMCA problems of #1, but would expose them to a lawsuit based on the violation of a licensing agreement (however, ridiculous its terms are).
This, I agree, is an impossible option to implement.
3. Switch the Samba license to a BSD-style license. This may not be possible, because many people have contributed code to the project over the years. In other words, the Samba team may not have the legal right to change the license.
The problem would be, as you point out, the contributors. The Samba code base is inextricably GPL at this point. Changing licenses is practically impossible, therefore the only alternative would be a rewrite.
Unless I'm misreading, they appear to have patented the notion of client-server communication over a persistent channel?
At worst, even if it can't be overturned with prior art, the patents are so specific that it would be fairly trivial for a free implementation of SMB to avoid crashing into them. Simply storing the transferred packets with their incoming headers eliminates infringement of the patents. I'm sure SMB developers can come up with something more elegant and efficient that avoids the patents, though.
A cardinal rule in submitting patents is to make them just general enough that another party can't circumvent them to perform the same task with a trivial change. It looks like whoever wrote these patents didn't remember that rule.
The MSGPL license, for GPL implementations of MS protocols need only include the clause that changes must be available in source code form or in binary digits tattooed across the backside of the author, and that a license fee of one wet honey glazed ham is due if the software is used consecutively for more than sixty thousand years.
You're not looking nearly close enough. Notice:
What does this say? It says that your license can't affect other software distributed with your software. For example, say I write an implementation of ls and an implementation of cat. Under a clause like this, the license for cat can't require that I release ls under a license requiring one of (a),(b), or (c) above. Note that the GPL doesn't even go this far. The GPL requires that extensions to the software be released under the same license. That's extensions, as in part of the same software, not other software, as defined in the license. It does not require that software released in the same tarball be released under the GPL. I can write my cat implementation under the GPL and my ls implementation under the BSD license, tar them up together, and release them.
In essence, the licensing restriction here has no teeth to bite with, because aside from explicitly mentioning the GPL/LGPL licenses, it prohibits licenses which don't even exist.
So what we need here isn't a GPS, but a BPS (Beer Positioning System). Instead of having the glass figure out where it is, just have it figure out when the glass needs to be refilled. It broadcasts a basic "fill me" signal containing not much more than an id #. Located at various points around the bar you have a half dozen or more receivers that all listen for the signal of glasses asking for refills. Some or all of the receivers hear the signal at different times and different strengths, transmit the info to a central computer, and the central computer calculates the beer's position.
I'd really like to know the source of this number. This number implies something like 7 million illegal copies being distributed per year. (This assumes, for argument's sake, an average of $10 per cd retail.) I'm not sure there are that many blank cds being sold per year in Australia. Did they just take the number of blank cds being sold, multiply by the cost of some of the more expensive cds, and assume every cd was used to make a infringing copy of a music cd? To top that off, did they assume that if the recipient of that music cd hadn't gotten the infringing copy, the album would've been purchased instead?
Personally, I have just as many data cds as music cds, and most of the music cds I have are copies of my own music for travel and taking mp3s of my music to work.
You thought it was real... I'd have to say that's pretty good.
Living beings are what actually perform the cration, I'll agree, but when a large, comprehensive work is created, the collective whole own the work, as a corporation. Think of a movie, for example. Who owns the copyright on that strip of plastic, photos, sounds and all? Was it created by a living being, or a collection of living beings? A corporation is an abstract construct representing a collection of living beings. In the case of most movies, having every individual person who worked on it own a copyright on the little bit they worked on would make the overall production and distribution of movies prohibitively expensive, if not completely impossible. The corporation is a perfectly reasonable construct to hold the copyrights here, and if the corporation hired and paid a staff to come in and make a movie, then why shouldn't that same corporation hold the copyright?
Personally, and I know I'll probably get modded down for it, I don't have a problem with corporations holding copyrights just like any other legal entity. I'd be happy with returning the copyright duration back to its original. 14 years, plus renewal if the entity holding the copyright desires and is capable of renewing it. I.e., if the human creator of a work dies, it can't get renewed. If the corporation owning a copyright folds, it can't get renewed.
So this will be good news for anyone who writes software that gets round e-book encryption. After all, its the user that's instructing the software to do it, just like the user is instructing Kazaa to download the pirated music.
If the only use of the software is to get around legally protected encryption, then the software is intended to perform an illegal act, and the software programmer intended it as such. (Yes, I agree that making it illegal is stupid, personally.) The Kazaa software, however, is not restricted solely to performing an illegal act, therefore it is the users that direct it to perform the illegal act, not the programmer.