BSD is fine for a company like Google who makes so much money on the platform that the code runs on (both directly, and indirectly by further cementing the Google "brand") that it matters little to them that they give the source code away.
I can assure you that if you are an individual developer, your interests will be MUCH better served by releasing your code under GPL (NOT LGPL). If you release under BSD, you will get nothing of value back from anybody (except possibly some changes released back to you if whoever wrote them "feels like it"). If you release under GPL (NOT LGPL) you will get bug fixes and improvements because anyone who makes bug fixes or improvements, and intends to distribute them, must give them back to you. And you will also get money if your code is worthwhile enough, from companies who want to use your code to save them their own development time and money, and who will be happy to accept the code under a proprietary license from you in return for money.
I played around and made a software library with a fairly specific purpose that I released under GPL. I didn't intend to make money off of it; it was to be part of a larger project that I haven't (yet) completed (and is currently on hold as I've lost interest, but I intend to get back to it... eventually). I ended up making $6,000 so far from companies who wanted to use the code in their own products rather than re-developing it in-house. It's not a huge sum, but it sure is nice to get money instead of getting nothing, which is what I would have gotten if I had released under BSD.
Is it against the "sprit" of GPL to issue a separate closed source license for the library for money? I don't think so. Only the author of the software in question has any say whatsoever over what is right and what is wrong with respect licensing that software; no one else's opinion is even remotely relevent. And GPL is a great tool if you want to give your code away for others to use but want to be rewarded if anyone finds it useful.
The BSD license is a great license if you are a company like Google for whom the value of the platform is worth more than the value of the code used to make it. But if you are an individual developer, it's no different really than releasing to the public domain, for which you should expect to get, and will get, nothing in return for your efforts.
Do you think that the original author of the FFTW code that you want to use would have changed the license they used for their library if they knew your story?
I suspect they would not. If you're not willing to share your code, or pay them for a closed source license, then what motivation are they supposed to have for giving their code away to you? Do you think that they just want to "feel good" that people are using their code, and that they would "feel bad" that you decide not to use their code under the licensing terms they stipulate?
What they want is for you to share your source, or to pay them. You are willing to do neither. So probably they could not care less about the fact that you are inconvenienced by their licensing not allowing you to just take their code while giving nothing in return.
If their library is so small and easily replaced as you have insinuated it is, they are probably well aware of and used to this situation.
I developed a rather small and special-purpose library, and released it under GPL. My intention was to use it as a building block for a larger project, which unfortunately is still on the back burner. But the library was well written, well tested, and a nice standalone piece that could be used in other projects as well.
Without even advertising it (aside from having a web site dedicated to it and posting about it in a few forums), I have received and accepted two offers from commercial companies who wanted to pay me to license the library to them under a different license that was more friendly to their closed source software.
I have no doubt that there are individuals out there who will ignore the GPL license terms and use it however they want - but companies are much more likely to abide by the license terms and pony up $$$ if they want a custom license. It's simply not worth the risk for them to ignore licensing terms and be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.
I suppose you could just ask them. I have had several people write to me about my GPL'd library to ask if I would release it under LGPL. It probably didn't occur to them that I did in fact choose GPL for specific reasons; otherwise I'm not sure why'd they'd ask, except perhaps because of "wishful thinking". Of course, I refused all such requests.
I can second this approach. I wrote a libary for some rather obscure functionality that took me about 120 hours to produce. I am a reasonably good software developer and it's not really possible for any organization to produce the same library for much less than 120 man-hours. A couple of companies found out about my library and decided that it was worthwhile to license my library from me rather than re-writing it themselves. They got a well-written, functional, well-tested library for much less than they would have had to pay their own developers to produce, and I got some "free money" for something I did for fun anyway.
I released my library under GPLv2 and NOT LGPL. I STRONGLY recommend that if you write your own library, that you release under GPL. You get the best of both worlds: you get to share your code with others who want to share their own code back, and you also get to charge $$$ to closed source companies who want you to re-license your code to them under a license that allows them to integrate it into their product(s) without having to change their own product(s) licenses.
It's a win-win. I can't even comprehend what the advantage of LGPL could be when releasing libraries. Unless, I guess, you really like just giving your stuff away for free when you could instead be paid...
Of course, RMS would have not approve of using the GPL in this way; I am sure that he'd want the code to always be free rather than being incorporated into closed-source projects as well. And I absolutely respect his position on this, but as the creator of the code, I get to decide what I think are fair and moral licensing terms. Sharing with sharers and charging money to those who charge money, seems perfectly moral to me.
It's my understanding that the balance that SSD manufacturers like Intel have struck is a drive with excellent performance that is expected to life at least 3 or 4 years of heavy usage. Being extra conservative with erases at the expense of performance would increase the lifespan of the device, but in most circumstances, 3 or 4 years is good enough. Most people will have upgraded to a new drive by that point anyway. And quite a few hard drives die within that span as well.
You need to read up much, much more on the state of SSDs before making such sweeping, and incorrect, generalizations.
There are algorithms in existence, such as clever "garbage collection" (which is a bad name for this process when applied to SSDs - it's only a bit like "garbage collection" as it is traditionally known as a memory management technique in languages like Java) combined with wear levelling algorithms, and having extra capacity not reported to the OS to use as a cache of "always ready to write to" blocks, that can keep SSD performance excellent in 90% of use cases, and very good in most of the remaining 10%. Point being that for the majority of use cases, SSD performance is excellent almost all of the time.
Intel seems to have done the best job of implementing these smart algorithms in its drive controller, and their SSD drives perform at or near the top of benchmarks when compared against all other SSDs. They have been shown to retain extremely good performance as the drive is used (although not "fresh from the factory" performance, there is some noticeable slowdown as the drive is used, but it's like going from 100% of incredibly awesome performance to 85% of incredibly awesome performance - it's still awesome, just not quite as awesome as brand new), and except for some initial teething pains caused by flaws in their algorithms that were corrected by a firmware update, everything I have read about them - and I have done *alot* of research on SSDs, indicates that they will always be faster than any hard drive in almost every benchmark, regardless of how much the drive is used. And they have good wear levelling so they should last longer than the typical hard drive as well (not forever, of course - but hard drives don't last forever either).
Indilinx controllers (which are used in newer drives from OCZ, Patriot, etc) seem to be second best, about 75% as good as the Intel controllers.
Samsung controllers are in third place, either ahead, behind, or equal to Indilinx depending on the benchmark and usage pattern, but overall, and especially in the places where it counts the most (random write performance), a bit behind Indilinx.
There are other controllers that aren't benchmarked as often and so it's not clear to me where they sit (Mtron, Silicon Motion, etc) in the standings.
Finally, there's JMicron in a very, very distant last place. JMicron's controllers were so bad that they singlehandedly gave the entire early-generation SSD market a collective black eye. The one piece of advice that can be unequivically stated for SSD drives is, don't buy a drive based on a JMicron controller unless you have specific usage patterns (like, rarely doing writes, or only doing sequential writes) that you can guarantee for the lifetime of the drive.
I've read many, many articles about SSDs in the past few months because I am really interested in them. Early on in the process I bought a Mtron MOBI 32 GB SLC drive (I went with SLC because although it's more than 2x as expensive as MLC, I was concerned about performance and reliability of MLC). In the intervening time, many new controllers, and drives based on them, have come out that have proven that very high performance drives can be made using cheaper MLC flash as long as the algorithms used by the drive controller are sophisticated enough.
Bottom line: I would not hesitate for one second to buy an Intel SSD drive. The performance is phenomenal, and there is nothing to suggest that the estimated drive lifetime that Intel has specified is inaccurate. I would also happily buy Indilinx-based drives (OCZ Vertex or Patriot Torx), although I don't feel quite as confident in those products as I do in the Intel ones; in any case they all meet or exceed my expectations for hard drives. I've already decided that I'm never buying a spinning platter hard drive again. Ever. I have the good fortune of not being a movie/music/software pirate so I rarely use more than a couple dozen gigs on any of my systems anyway, so the smal
Thinking about it, it makes sense that they would disallow saying that all of your revenues were going to charity. Unless they police your bank account, they can't know whether or not you are abiding by this promise. And you could be malicious and just keep all of the revenues, duping people into believing that their money would go to charity.
If you want to give all of the revenues to charity, go ahead and do so. But there's no reason to announce it.
Taking such ridiculous offense at the reasonable posting of a random Slashdot user indicates that you need to seriously re-think your world view. Ever think there might be a REASON your life sucks so much?
I'm a white western male and I would really like to live in Japan, and I like to think that it's not for any of the reasons you stated. I've actually travelled there, once, for two weeks. It's a supremely beautiful place, and there is something about the aesthetic of the country that's very intruiging. I can't quite put my finger on it - but as an example, Japanese characters (the real Japanese ones, not the ones borrowed from Chinese) just seem so beautiful to me. I don't know if Japanese people can look at a Roman "P" or some other letter and think that it has something especially artistic about it, but I certainly feel that way about Japanese characters. Similarly, I found the style of houses, of public art, of clothing, just about everything, in Japan to be somehow more beautiful than anything I'd experienced before. Also, there is something so ultra-genteel about Japanese society, it feels very modern and refined. It feels like something I'd want to be a part of - if only I weren't such a western slob!
Of course I only spent two weeks there. And even that was enough time to get an idea of what *real* xenophobia feels like - from the outside. So there are things that are certainly not ideal about Japan. But in many ways the country felt like a living, breathing, work of art. I was there in October so maybe the fact that the countryside was in such wonderful fall colors had something to do with it, I don't know.
I certainly envy you for living in Japan. My wife and I (and our kids) just spent more than two years in New Zealand thinking that maybe it would be the perfect place for us. Unfortunately, distance from family and my tech career were just insurmountable problems in the end and we moved back to the USA last month. I dream of giving Japan a try but... having already experienced the financial setbacks of a short term life in another country, I'm not sure it's the best choice for us right now. And also, I've become convinced that the best way to kill your romantic vision of a place is to live there.
Probably. And my eyes are getting sore from reading so many pointless strawmen on Slashdot. We'd all be alot more comfortable if the retards spewing these strawmen would just keep their inane thoughts to themselves.
You've overstated your case. Personal opinions cannot be a "miscarriage of justice". Also, it's not indecent to hold an opinion contrary to the official position of the government, nor to state your opinions publicly.
> And the object is simply following the same path as before, but as the cells it "crosses" > are weirdly shaped, the point where the object leaves one cell isn't in line with the points > where the object left the previous cells.
This is where you lost me. What does 'in line' in this context mean? If the sheet defines space, then it must also define what a straight line is. So the cells by definition are 'in line'. The only way for them not to be 'in line' is to introduce some external space in which we can define the curvature necessary to get these cells out of line. But you said earlier that the rubber sheet 'is space' and so where exactly outside of the physical dimensions of the sheet are you drawing this straight line? And where is the corresponding straight line in the reality of the three dimensions of existing real space? Is it outside of space somewhere? If so, where?
To put it more succinctly, your alternate explanation of the rubber sheet analogy doesn't require extra dimensions outside of the rubber sheet in order to have a perpendicular gravity, but it does require extra dimensions outside of the rubber sheet in order to have 'straight lines' that aren't encompassed entirely within the sheet itself.
Thank you for that excellent answer. I have asked the same question as the GP many times, never understanding how an analogy describing what gravity is using a rubber sheet affected by gravity made any sense. Finally someone has pointed out that it's not really meant to be a good analogy, that it's simply meant to stop people who can't understand the analogy for what it is, from asking further questions. This helps me immensely - I can ignore this analogy and try to find other ways to understand gravity.
I have similar questions about the 'curvature of space-time', and am beginning to suspect that this seemingly impossible concept may also be just a similar analogy meant to stop questions rather than explain anything.
I think that in the end, it's all just complex math, with an imperfect common language system thrown on top, and that this adds greatly to the confusion of anyone trying to understand the concepts just using the words and not using the math. So 'curvature' and 'space' and 'time' are real-world concepts that have a multitude of implied meanings, only some of which actually are meant to apply to the mathematics that they are used for when talking about physics, and yet laypersons like myself who try to understand physics using those words end up hopelessly confused because of the additional meanings that would seem to be implied by the usage of those words and which make no sense.
It would appear that you can use these words if you already understand the math, because you will already know which aspects of these terms make sense in the mathematical context, but that if you don't know the math, you shouldn't try to use the words, as you will only become hopelessly confused, as I am whenever I try to understand modern physics...
If it has Japanese characters on the keyboard, does it also have many of the punctuation marks in the 'wrong' places, like real Japanese keyboards do?
If so, it wouldn't be something that I would want. I've declined some really nice Japanese import computers for that very reason - I don't want to have to re-learn how to type just to use the thing...
So you can't study Asthma because it "grows slow", but you can cure it virtually overnight by adopting a politically correct diet?
Let me know when you've tested your theory on hundreds or thousands of test subjects in controlled conditions. I'm not saying your second hand experience isn't interesting, but I'd believe the scientists over random friend-of-a-friend stories any day...
Re:HAHAHA Halo had a good story - yeah right
on
Review: Halo Wars
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· Score: 1
I paid attention for most of Halo's cutscene story build-up, and I did understand it, although I've forgotten it completely because it was so forgettable.
When I played Halo 2, I paid attention a little bit, but when I realized that it was the same garbage as in Halo, I stopped paying attention. After that, whenever I did bother to watch, I didn't figure too much more out about what was happening, and I didn't really care either. Cutscenes became bathroom breaks.
That is such a thoroughly fantastic idea. I will champion it as best I can. I wonder why the people who make policies on these things never think of solutions this good?
That is a good point. I think that many people probably *would* want to somehow limit the duration of profit that a person could receive from a single creative work, such as a designed car that you can then profit on as long as that model continues to sell. However, as you pointed out, such limits are not practical because they would introduce unnatural limits on your freedom to profit.
However, copyrights are *already* "unnatural" because they are wholly defined and defended by the government. In this context, because we *can* limit them, I think we *should* just as we *would* if we *could* do so for your example...
Your comments are quite rational and I agree with everything you say EXCEPT that "infinity plus a zillion years is good". This contradicts your own preceding statement that only you should decide what is done with your creations. After you are dead, you can no longer make this decision, so the copyright should die with you.
I think it's reasonable to talk about how many years a copyright should remain in force, but NOT reasonable to say "forever" and also not reasonable to say "never". Copyright is a valuable tool in creating markets for the kinds of products that everyone benefits from - intellectual works.
My vote would be for something between 10 and 20 years. That seems long enough for an author to benefit from their work, and gives them enough time to create a new work to derive profit from before the current one expires.
HAHAHA Halo had a good story - yeah right
on
Review: Halo Wars
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Halo/Halo 2 had some of the DUMBEST, most boring, and most repetitive cutscenes in any game I've ever played. I can't even begin to describe how simplistic and boring the story in these games was. Actually, I never really figured out too much of what was going on aside from various retarded looking aliens hissing at each other and posturing to show off how tough they are.
Halo/Halo 2 are some of the most overrated games ever in my opinion. They have fun moments but are so ridiculously repetitive. In each game you go through the same exact levels multiple times, just in different directions each time (and sometimes not even that, sometimes it's just 'do the exact same thing you did an hour ago over again'). That's how they filled out the content of those pieces of crap. My friend and I never actually finished Halo 2 because we got so bored playing it.
You are not forced to use Microsoft Word formats for your resume.
My resume is a LaTeX document with a Makefile to convert it to HTML, text, PostScript, and PDF.
Those formats should be sufficient for any purpose. If someone insists that you send them your resume in Microsoft Word format, refuse. They are are a recruiter who only wants your resume in Word format so that they can modify it, typically by removing your name and contact details so that they don't have to let the employer know who you are, which gives the recruiter a bit more leverage. You don't need or want that kind of recruiter.
Slashdot Mirror
BSD is fine for a company like Google who makes so much money on the platform that the code runs on (both directly, and indirectly by further cementing the Google "brand") that it matters little to them that they give the source code away.
I can assure you that if you are an individual developer, your interests will be MUCH better served by releasing your code under GPL (NOT LGPL). If you release under BSD, you will get nothing of value back from anybody (except possibly some changes released back to you if whoever wrote them "feels like it"). If you release under GPL (NOT LGPL) you will get bug fixes and improvements because anyone who makes bug fixes or improvements, and intends to distribute them, must give them back to you. And you will also get money if your code is worthwhile enough, from companies who want to use your code to save them their own development time and money, and who will be happy to accept the code under a proprietary license from you in return for money.
I played around and made a software library with a fairly specific purpose that I released under GPL. I didn't intend to make money off of it; it was to be part of a larger project that I haven't (yet) completed (and is currently on hold as I've lost interest, but I intend to get back to it ... eventually). I ended up making $6,000 so far from companies who wanted to use the code in their own products rather than re-developing it in-house. It's not a huge sum, but it sure is nice to get money instead of getting nothing, which is what I would have gotten if I had released under BSD.
Is it against the "sprit" of GPL to issue a separate closed source license for the library for money? I don't think so. Only the author of the software in question has any say whatsoever over what is right and what is wrong with respect licensing that software; no one else's opinion is even remotely relevent. And GPL is a great tool if you want to give your code away for others to use but want to be rewarded if anyone finds it useful.
The BSD license is a great license if you are a company like Google for whom the value of the platform is worth more than the value of the code used to make it. But if you are an individual developer, it's no different really than releasing to the public domain, for which you should expect to get, and will get, nothing in return for your efforts.
Your story wasn't all that funny.
Do you think that the original author of the FFTW code that you want to use would have changed the license they used for their library if they knew your story?
I suspect they would not. If you're not willing to share your code, or pay them for a closed source license, then what motivation are they supposed to have for giving their code away to you? Do you think that they just want to "feel good" that people are using their code, and that they would "feel bad" that you decide not to use their code under the licensing terms they stipulate?
What they want is for you to share your source, or to pay them. You are willing to do neither. So probably they could not care less about the fact that you are inconvenienced by their licensing not allowing you to just take their code while giving nothing in return.
If their library is so small and easily replaced as you have insinuated it is, they are probably well aware of and used to this situation.
I can speak from experience.
I developed a rather small and special-purpose library, and released it under GPL. My intention was to use it as a building block for a larger project, which unfortunately is still on the back burner. But the library was well written, well tested, and a nice standalone piece that could be used in other projects as well.
Without even advertising it (aside from having a web site dedicated to it and posting about it in a few forums), I have received and accepted two offers from commercial companies who wanted to pay me to license the library to them under a different license that was more friendly to their closed source software.
I have no doubt that there are individuals out there who will ignore the GPL license terms and use it however they want - but companies are much more likely to abide by the license terms and pony up $$$ if they want a custom license. It's simply not worth the risk for them to ignore licensing terms and be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.
I suppose you could just ask them. I have had several people write to me about my GPL'd library to ask if I would release it under LGPL. It probably didn't occur to them that I did in fact choose GPL for specific reasons; otherwise I'm not sure why'd they'd ask, except perhaps because of "wishful thinking". Of course, I refused all such requests.
I can second this approach. I wrote a libary for some rather obscure functionality that took me about 120 hours to produce. I am a reasonably good software developer and it's not really possible for any organization to produce the same library for much less than 120 man-hours. A couple of companies found out about my library and decided that it was worthwhile to license my library from me rather than re-writing it themselves. They got a well-written, functional, well-tested library for much less than they would have had to pay their own developers to produce, and I got some "free money" for something I did for fun anyway.
I released my library under GPLv2 and NOT LGPL. I STRONGLY recommend that if you write your own library, that you release under GPL. You get the best of both worlds: you get to share your code with others who want to share their own code back, and you also get to charge $$$ to closed source companies who want you to re-license your code to them under a license that allows them to integrate it into their product(s) without having to change their own product(s) licenses.
It's a win-win. I can't even comprehend what the advantage of LGPL could be when releasing libraries. Unless, I guess, you really like just giving your stuff away for free when you could instead be paid ...
Of course, RMS would have not approve of using the GPL in this way; I am sure that he'd want the code to always be free rather than being incorporated into closed-source projects as well. And I absolutely respect his position on this, but as the creator of the code, I get to decide what I think are fair and moral licensing terms. Sharing with sharers and charging money to those who charge money, seems perfectly moral to me.
It's my understanding that the balance that SSD manufacturers like Intel have struck is a drive with excellent performance that is expected to life at least 3 or 4 years of heavy usage. Being extra conservative with erases at the expense of performance would increase the lifespan of the device, but in most circumstances, 3 or 4 years is good enough. Most people will have upgraded to a new drive by that point anyway. And quite a few hard drives die within that span as well.
You need to read up much, much more on the state of SSDs before making such sweeping, and incorrect, generalizations.
There are algorithms in existence, such as clever "garbage collection" (which is a bad name for this process when applied to SSDs - it's only a bit like "garbage collection" as it is traditionally known as a memory management technique in languages like Java) combined with wear levelling algorithms, and having extra capacity not reported to the OS to use as a cache of "always ready to write to" blocks, that can keep SSD performance excellent in 90% of use cases, and very good in most of the remaining 10%. Point being that for the majority of use cases, SSD performance is excellent almost all of the time.
Intel seems to have done the best job of implementing these smart algorithms in its drive controller, and their SSD drives perform at or near the top of benchmarks when compared against all other SSDs. They have been shown to retain extremely good performance as the drive is used (although not "fresh from the factory" performance, there is some noticeable slowdown as the drive is used, but it's like going from 100% of incredibly awesome performance to 85% of incredibly awesome performance - it's still awesome, just not quite as awesome as brand new), and except for some initial teething pains caused by flaws in their algorithms that were corrected by a firmware update, everything I have read about them - and I have done *alot* of research on SSDs, indicates that they will always be faster than any hard drive in almost every benchmark, regardless of how much the drive is used. And they have good wear levelling so they should last longer than the typical hard drive as well (not forever, of course - but hard drives don't last forever either).
Indilinx controllers (which are used in newer drives from OCZ, Patriot, etc) seem to be second best, about 75% as good as the Intel controllers.
Samsung controllers are in third place, either ahead, behind, or equal to Indilinx depending on the benchmark and usage pattern, but overall, and especially in the places where it counts the most (random write performance), a bit behind Indilinx.
There are other controllers that aren't benchmarked as often and so it's not clear to me where they sit (Mtron, Silicon Motion, etc) in the standings.
Finally, there's JMicron in a very, very distant last place. JMicron's controllers were so bad that they singlehandedly gave the entire early-generation SSD market a collective black eye. The one piece of advice that can be unequivically stated for SSD drives is, don't buy a drive based on a JMicron controller unless you have specific usage patterns (like, rarely doing writes, or only doing sequential writes) that you can guarantee for the lifetime of the drive.
I've read many, many articles about SSDs in the past few months because I am really interested in them. Early on in the process I bought a Mtron MOBI 32 GB SLC drive (I went with SLC because although it's more than 2x as expensive as MLC, I was concerned about performance and reliability of MLC). In the intervening time, many new controllers, and drives based on them, have come out that have proven that very high performance drives can be made using cheaper MLC flash as long as the algorithms used by the drive controller are sophisticated enough.
Bottom line: I would not hesitate for one second to buy an Intel SSD drive. The performance is phenomenal, and there is nothing to suggest that the estimated drive lifetime that Intel has specified is inaccurate. I would also happily buy Indilinx-based drives (OCZ Vertex or Patriot Torx), although I don't feel quite as confident in those products as I do in the Intel ones; in any case they all meet or exceed my expectations for hard drives. I've already decided that I'm never buying a spinning platter hard drive again. Ever. I have the good fortune of not being a movie/music/software pirate so I rarely use more than a couple dozen gigs on any of my systems anyway, so the smal
Thinking about it, it makes sense that they would disallow saying that all of your revenues were going to charity. Unless they police your bank account, they can't know whether or not you are abiding by this promise. And you could be malicious and just keep all of the revenues, duping people into believing that their money would go to charity.
If you want to give all of the revenues to charity, go ahead and do so. But there's no reason to announce it.
Taking such ridiculous offense at the reasonable posting of a random Slashdot user indicates that you need to seriously re-think your world view. Ever think there might be a REASON your life sucks so much?
I'm a white western male and I would really like to live in Japan, and I like to think that it's not for any of the reasons you stated. I've actually travelled there, once, for two weeks. It's a supremely beautiful place, and there is something about the aesthetic of the country that's very intruiging. I can't quite put my finger on it - but as an example, Japanese characters (the real Japanese ones, not the ones borrowed from Chinese) just seem so beautiful to me. I don't know if Japanese people can look at a Roman "P" or some other letter and think that it has something especially artistic about it, but I certainly feel that way about Japanese characters. Similarly, I found the style of houses, of public art, of clothing, just about everything, in Japan to be somehow more beautiful than anything I'd experienced before. Also, there is something so ultra-genteel about Japanese society, it feels very modern and refined. It feels like something I'd want to be a part of - if only I weren't such a western slob!
Of course I only spent two weeks there. And even that was enough time to get an idea of what *real* xenophobia feels like - from the outside. So there are things that are certainly not ideal about Japan. But in many ways the country felt like a living, breathing, work of art. I was there in October so maybe the fact that the countryside was in such wonderful fall colors had something to do with it, I don't know.
It was a while ago (2001) but you can read about my trip if you are at all curious, at
http://www.ischo.com/china/japan2/index1.html.
I certainly envy you for living in Japan. My wife and I (and our kids) just spent more than two years in New Zealand thinking that maybe it would be the perfect place for us. Unfortunately, distance from family and my tech career were just insurmountable problems in the end and we moved back to the USA last month. I dream of giving Japan a try but ... having already experienced the financial setbacks of a short term life in another country, I'm not sure it's the best choice for us right now. And also, I've become convinced that the best way to kill your romantic vision of a place is to live there.
Probably. And my eyes are getting sore from reading so many pointless strawmen on Slashdot. We'd all be alot more comfortable if the retards spewing these strawmen would just keep their inane thoughts to themselves.
It's actually easy to take sides on this one. Software patents are WRONG, and so I'm on Microsoft's side. For once.
You've overstated your case. Personal opinions cannot be a "miscarriage of justice". Also, it's not indecent to hold an opinion contrary to the official position of the government, nor to state your opinions publicly.
Your other points seem valid.
> And the object is simply following the same path as before, but as the cells it "crosses"
> are weirdly shaped, the point where the object leaves one cell isn't in line with the points
> where the object left the previous cells.
This is where you lost me. What does 'in line' in this context mean? If the sheet defines space, then it must also define what a straight line is. So the cells by definition are 'in line'. The only way for them not to be 'in line' is to introduce some external space in which we can define the curvature necessary to get these cells out of line. But you said earlier that the rubber sheet 'is space' and so where exactly outside of the physical dimensions of the sheet are you drawing this straight line? And where is the corresponding straight line in the reality of the three dimensions of existing real space? Is it outside of space somewhere? If so, where?
To put it more succinctly, your alternate explanation of the rubber sheet analogy doesn't require extra dimensions outside of the rubber sheet in order to have a perpendicular gravity, but it does require extra dimensions outside of the rubber sheet in order to have 'straight lines' that aren't encompassed entirely within the sheet itself.
Thank you for that excellent answer. I have asked the same question as the GP many times, never understanding how an analogy describing what gravity is using a rubber sheet affected by gravity made any sense. Finally someone has pointed out that it's not really meant to be a good analogy, that it's simply meant to stop people who can't understand the analogy for what it is, from asking further questions. This helps me immensely - I can ignore this analogy and try to find other ways to understand gravity.
I have similar questions about the 'curvature of space-time', and am beginning to suspect that this seemingly impossible concept may also be just a similar analogy meant to stop questions rather than explain anything.
I think that in the end, it's all just complex math, with an imperfect common language system thrown on top, and that this adds greatly to the confusion of anyone trying to understand the concepts just using the words and not using the math. So 'curvature' and 'space' and 'time' are real-world concepts that have a multitude of implied meanings, only some of which actually are meant to apply to the mathematics that they are used for when talking about physics, and yet laypersons like myself who try to understand physics using those words end up hopelessly confused because of the additional meanings that would seem to be implied by the usage of those words and which make no sense.
It would appear that you can use these words if you already understand the math, because you will already know which aspects of these terms make sense in the mathematical context, but that if you don't know the math, you shouldn't try to use the words, as you will only become hopelessly confused, as I am whenever I try to understand modern physics ...
If it has Japanese characters on the keyboard, does it also have many of the punctuation marks in the 'wrong' places, like real Japanese keyboards do?
If so, it wouldn't be something that I would want. I've declined some really nice Japanese import computers for that very reason - I don't want to have to re-learn how to type just to use the thing ...
So you can't study Asthma because it "grows slow", but you can cure it virtually overnight by adopting a politically correct diet?
Let me know when you've tested your theory on hundreds or thousands of test subjects in controlled conditions. I'm not saying your second hand experience isn't interesting, but I'd believe the scientists over random friend-of-a-friend stories any day ...
I paid attention for most of Halo's cutscene story build-up, and I did understand it, although I've forgotten it completely because it was so forgettable.
When I played Halo 2, I paid attention a little bit, but when I realized that it was the same garbage as in Halo, I stopped paying attention. After that, whenever I did bother to watch, I didn't figure too much more out about what was happening, and I didn't really care either. Cutscenes became bathroom breaks.
That is such a thoroughly fantastic idea. I will champion it as best I can. I wonder why the people who make policies on these things never think of solutions this good?
That is a good point. I think that many people probably *would* want to somehow limit the duration of profit that a person could receive from a single creative work, such as a designed car that you can then profit on as long as that model continues to sell. However, as you pointed out, such limits are not practical because they would introduce unnatural limits on your freedom to profit.
However, copyrights are *already* "unnatural" because they are wholly defined and defended by the government. In this context, because we *can* limit them, I think we *should* just as we *would* if we *could* do so for your example ...
Your comments are quite rational and I agree with everything you say EXCEPT that "infinity plus a zillion years is good". This contradicts your own preceding statement that only you should decide what is done with your creations. After you are dead, you can no longer make this decision, so the copyright should die with you.
I think it's reasonable to talk about how many years a copyright should remain in force, but NOT reasonable to say "forever" and also not reasonable to say "never". Copyright is a valuable tool in creating markets for the kinds of products that everyone benefits from - intellectual works.
My vote would be for something between 10 and 20 years. That seems long enough for an author to benefit from their work, and gives them enough time to create a new work to derive profit from before the current one expires.
Halo/Halo 2 had some of the DUMBEST, most boring, and most repetitive cutscenes in any game I've ever played. I can't even begin to describe how simplistic and boring the story in these games was. Actually, I never really figured out too much of what was going on aside from various retarded looking aliens hissing at each other and posturing to show off how tough they are.
Halo/Halo 2 are some of the most overrated games ever in my opinion. They have fun moments but are so ridiculously repetitive. In each game you go through the same exact levels multiple times, just in different directions each time (and sometimes not even that, sometimes it's just 'do the exact same thing you did an hour ago over again'). That's how they filled out the content of those pieces of crap. My friend and I never actually finished Halo 2 because we got so bored playing it.
You are not forced to use Microsoft Word formats for your resume.
My resume is a LaTeX document with a Makefile to convert it to HTML, text, PostScript, and PDF.
Those formats should be sufficient for any purpose. If someone insists that you send them your resume in Microsoft Word format, refuse. They are are a recruiter who only wants your resume in Word format so that they can modify it, typically by removing your name and contact details so that they don't have to let the employer know who you are, which gives the recruiter a bit more leverage. You don't need or want that kind of recruiter.
Rain is not a problem. Snow, yes, that is a problem.