I think you are taking the parasite analogy to literally. No need to use the exact definition of parasites. I he probably just meant that copyright holders are not adding value.
There is a reason that in computer games the world revolves around you. It would be a waste of computing power and memory if it didn't.:) Ofcourse exceptions are multiplayer games.
Ok the statement i said is false, the computing may revolve round you but the perceived game doesnt need to follow.
"But I also have no doubt that we will at some point, discover a way to permit us to distant stars."
If its posible, we may find out how, if it isn't we will definitely not.
Obviously..
"new Office XML specifications are freely available for anyone to download and Microsoft offers perpetual, royalty-free licenses to use them"
If the format is efficient and simple enough to handle, this seems good enough for me. ofcourse Microsoft is hardly an independend organisation, and i think these kinds of standards should be from such a organisation. Is the ODF more independend?
I think if you happen to come along and you want the source code, then they'll have to give it for free. (somehow, does not have to be on a cd (because cd costs)) I think least the GPL requires that you keep the source free, no strings on how you get that. So its a bit pointless to try to sell it to people who know how to compile it.
Ok I am setting a bad example, should have read the GPL before saying this.
I dont see that benefit of the patents, in software a method is patented, the code isnt, its under copyright. So basically you still have to write your own code, but only after the patent runs out. (rather then just using the method when its first found out)
As for patents being usefull for the public record, we have these people called historians. Besides important code/ideas circulating the web will get stored at many places where we can "dig em up" later. Ofcourse we can always reinvent them.
Unfortunate deaths can also occur before publication/patentation.
Btw i thought mickey mouse was going out of copyright soon?
I hope people here understand the difference between copyright and patents. They are totally different things. Copyright protects instances expressions of ideas, also sometimes variations of them. The variations are simply included so people dont just change some work and say its diffent, its commonsense. Ofcourse in some cases only small variations between seperate works can exist simply because the range of posibilities is small. For instance (as said earlier)saying "hello" or code for linked lists, the work doesnt nessesarally have to be short to have a good chance of looking like another! Personnaly, I like the idea of people actually being rewarded for their creations, having some right to helps getting reward. Dont get me wrong, I certainly dislike intrusive, restrictive or overzealous policies to enfore copyright. (like DRM)
Patents protects the ideas themselves, they are much more vague, especially dealing with algorithms, or code. It is a matter of philosofy whether an idea can be owned in the first place. In mathematics for instance most people think that ideas are found, rather then created. Also ideas can overlap, you can make a linked list for integers, but also for arbitrary data structures. (btw you can replace linked list with black-white tree or whatever, but rather a trivial example) I personnally hate software patents and i am unsure about physical invention-patents.
Now to respond to the replied-to post. I am all for legal tricks to get round patents. As i read somewhere: In a dungeon you must first kill the monsters you meet before you destroy the source of them.
PS i am no expert, what i've written here is the current status of my thinking of patents and copyright. If there something dumm in here feel free to reply. (if im correct ill get a mail that there was a reply) I think all people who reply in/. should always check back if there is a response. The idea is that people are aware of their critics, and corrected in their facts.
A cannon is a fundamentally different idea then a rocket.
A "cannonball" projectile obtains its impulse by imparting it on its firer, in this case the earth, a rocket obtains its impuls by "firing" off its own mass.
In vacuum rocket is _way_ less efficient then the cannon, it has to carry its fuel, which it fires at great speed. (relative to the rocket) In contrast the cannon fires its "thrust" at the whole earth, which barely moves in the rest frame, and hardly takes up any energy. Also the cannon doesnt need to carry fuel.
Ok im not saying a cannon is a good way into space, just that its energy efficient. The shock of liftoff is a problem, also (as parent post said) air drag. I think it may be possible to send out really small satelites with robust electronics with chemical cannons. Larger satelites may result in problems with the barrel. And I dont think people are cannonproof.
A railgun could stretch the acceleration, but it has to be incredably long to make it acceptable. As ever, wikipedia has usefull links and information about space cannons
Ps could do the cannon-propulsion vs rocket propulsion in vacuum in math, so pretty sure of it.
Wasnt there a story a couple of months ago about dark matter not existing? I am not sure whether i believe that, though it sounded plausible. (The article was about that the classical approximation just wasnt good enough, the mass came out correct without dark matter with general relativity.)
"By measuring these mysterious effects of gravity, researchers determine how much "extra" gravity is present, and hence how much extra mass, or dark matter, must exist."
Thank you for making my point space.com (i know maybe not the most scientific source, but gravity really is the only way to measure "dark matter" currently)
By the way dark energy isnt so vague, i am convinced that that exists. also how did they simulate the dark matter?
Example of a dissenter for western goverments (and most others) is a rapist, would it be a bad thing to inprison them? be more specific plz.
Dissenters send to prison for saying things that are illegal is and not calling for voilence and such is bad. I think it's immoral because if the people don't decide on what laws and regulations are used in their goverment who will? The people will need free and open discussion to decide on laws and regulations. (ofcourse here is a assumption that the people are smart enough and organised to do this)
I do dislike that microsoft abides by China's law, some of the parties involved, be it the stockholders, microsoft staff, the goverment or the people should do something about it.
The stockholders did nothing, microsoft abided law, the goverment didnt do anything either, gues its up to the people. So what do we want? Basicly what we want is that companies in other countries have to obey rules we make. Basicly in this case there should be a US law that is broken when microsoft prevents free speech in foreign countries.
Ofcourse this would put US companies in hard places (giving advantage to foreign companies sometimes), but this is intrinsic to being moral. If you want to live by your morals, you have fewer options, meaning the chance that they are good ones is smaller. Said differently if you decrease the set of things that you think is good, the chance of hitting something good randomly is decreased. (you have to work harder to find it)
PS I live in the netherlands so in principle I will have to look into the EU laws for this. In principle, because i probably dont have the skill, time or patience for it. (probably the EU or its states already have some laws for this, and there may even be some international laws, but i may be a bit over-optimistic, there are for some products marks that indicate that they're ecologically ok and stuff)
Google, is a big company. Yes the make cool things, but big companies almost by definition are only out for making money. Im supprised that people actually want to see google buy up smaller companies.
Maybe this is good for opera in the short term, but in the long term? I rather see many smaller businesses then a few larger ones. How do we know google wont turn out to become more like microsoft?
When things happen like software companies aiding china with its censorship people say that they're only abiding with the law there, and they're just making money, or just doing it for the shareholders.
That may be their reason, but i do not agree with it. We have to try to do the moral thing -that will mean we have to use resources- and where are the resources? Mostly in the companies.
Ok this is a bit off topic - but the open- vs closed source debate is also.
Good point, it all depends on the capabilities of the spacevessels. I wasn't to nice with the "hint" thing.
I do think in the future there will probably be little hiding. (though there is a lot of space out there, and a lot of stuff (asteroids, comets) that isn't your enemy)
But dont underestimate the uses gravity, further away it may be small, but closeby it peaks, making it usefull for getting those delta v's.
I've done some math, suppose the spacecraft can accelerate at 10.0 m/s^2 (earth gravity) (yes, i am assuming it isnt dragonball z space combat for the aliens yet) which is realistic, it will bring you up to relativistic (relative)speed in a year, good enough for space travel (300 000 000/10.0)/(3600*24*365.25)=0.95
(classical mechanics good enough, will actually be like 200 000 000 or something)
and obviously these kinds of accelerations occur because of gravity in space. (its close to it near earth surface) Dont know wether they'll use it in space combat though, they could send seeking missiles with much more acceleration. (which would be undodgeable by ships)
uhm, "space tactics" is probably much more complicated. hint: gravity
orbits may play a large role, being close in space may not mean you can reach each other to dock or shoot each other, what about each others speed?
In that sense there is some terain, the planets and sun as potential wells.
I agree, with this. And if you see a really nice change in the code that works. You can always send a mail, trying to convince them its better. If they respond no, you might learn something about why not. If they don't respond or you still dont agree, you can _always_ start an alternative project if its GPL- licenced.
PS Ofcourse in the latter case be nice and give credits and also think about what your doing, is it really worth the time?
What is going to happen to opengl then? I'm a bit worried about opengl, as far as i know it is the only competitor of directx.
Opengl probably wont be supported (wel) on the OS vista, and microsoft has the Xbox.
Sounds like microsoft has opengl by the balls.:(
from the article
"The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again."
Yay we're reusing the capsule! -wait we're wasting the rockets that brought it into space.. Why don't they just leave the capsule in earth orbit and send only a new crew, that can be send up in a much smaller rocket? This way, you just have to replace heat-shield of a much smaller vehicle, and save a lot of rocket. also there can't be any damage on the capsule because of landing.
Must admit disadvantages that you can't repair as much in orbit, maybe something in the orbital mechanics (dont think so the last one). And ofcourse the orbiting capsule must be refuelled every time. (or just replace propulsion as a whole)
And the new crew has to dock with the capsule.
I'm sure NASA has its reasons for doing things the way it does (and creating jobs, for people and/or (US)companies will be part of it), but why dont they link to them? Americans (I am Dutch) may want to know where their tax-money is going..
What your saying is in a way quite a positive point, though a games may start small, they may grow to be much larger, if they stick around long enough.
MSN messager server had a few games supported. If this was also implemented and widely used in open networks people could download games (or demos) to each other and play it immediatly, which is very effective word of mouth.
There was an article about instant messaging earlier:
It's Time To Take Back Instant Messaging
0^0=1,is the senseable definition. I dont know why exactly. but it seems to me that a^0=1 for all a. Since ^n can be defined by multiplying 1 n times by a. (for n natural number)
if you multiply something zero times to one you get one. btw is there a a better way to say that 0^0=1 is a good definition?
Thanks for your replies.
I dont think what i said will happen, but i was talking about it as a worst-case scenario.
If they can ban applications, they could ban all applications they dont trust and then use interpreted code to test, that way normal people can only make (slower) interpreted code. They could also use special computers that can authorize programs for programmers on their machine. They could ask the programmers to pay for it.
But honestly, i dont know how exactly they could ban applications.
I think the ties of the closed programming industry with the open one will keep the industry from banning non-trusted software. But we have to think forward -as an other reply also said- things may change.
If they start putting trusted (or rather threatherous) computing on mobile phones, they'll start doing it with cumputers too.
Joe consumer will buy the computers and there arent that many processor chip makers out there, there will be less and less non-trusted computing chips around. At first they will be breakable or allow (free like in speech) open source software to be run. Later gradually options of open source software will run out, and it will die. Leaving they hard- and software industries free to ask whatever price they wish for there heavily encumbered and restricting products. And companies and goverments are able to censor the internet.
That's the worst case scenario. I think its posible, since theoretically trusted computing seems unbreakable to me. Dont buy trusted computing, or (the much less frightening) DRM-ed products. Even if it means your stuff wont be compatible with other people. (or rather as a reason
PS Why doesnt all the whitespace work... the \n (enter button) doesnt.. its lame text doesnt read easily this way.
I wouldnt count on internet censorship not being practical, they could use trusted computing (some call it -more accurately i think- threatcherous computing) which can be made in theory unbreakable.
Probably using codewords like saying bubbles for democracy will still hamper free speech. (people new to it wont understand it.) And i dont think it will stop procecution either.
I have to admit this has been said before, but usually when internet censorship the idea that it isnt practical or effective pops up. I think we should rather think about what we can do against it, rather then just hope.
Bmm sorry that i missed the if would work directly from chemical energy, while i quoted it (next time ill pay more attention).
If we're talking about direct conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy. Not that this is a bit vaguely defined, for instance an internal combustion energy is directly from chemical energy? (as implied in a post earlier in thread) The energy goes into heat and presure first and only then into the movement of the pistons.in a steam engine its even water that is is heated up before causing mechanical energy. We're just discussing energy conversion methods here. In this context it seems irrelevant how "direct" the conversions are.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are taking the parasite analogy to literally. No need to use the exact definition of parasites. I he probably just meant that copyright holders are not adding value.
There is a reason that in computer games the world revolves around you. It would be a waste of computing power and memory if it didn't. :)
Ofcourse exceptions are multiplayer games.
Ok the statement i said is false, the computing may revolve round you but the perceived game doesnt need to follow.
"But I also have no doubt that we will at some point, discover a way to permit us to distant stars." If its posible, we may find out how, if it isn't we will definitely not. Obviously..
Quote from where the parent linked to, link:
"new Office XML specifications are freely available for anyone to download and Microsoft offers perpetual, royalty-free licenses to use them"
If the format is efficient and simple enough to handle, this seems good enough for me. ofcourse Microsoft is hardly an independend organisation, and i think these kinds of standards should be from such a organisation. Is the ODF more independend?
I think if you happen to come along and you want the source code, then they'll have to give it for free. (somehow, does not have to be on a cd (because cd costs))
I think least the GPL requires that you keep the source free, no strings on how you get that. So its a bit pointless to try to sell it to people who know how to compile it.
Ok I am setting a bad example, should have read the GPL before saying this.
I dont see that benefit of the patents, in software a method is patented, the code isnt, its under copyright. So basically you still have to write your own code, but only after the patent runs out. (rather then just using the method when its first found out) As for patents being usefull for the public record, we have these people called historians. Besides important code/ideas circulating the web will get stored at many places where we can "dig em up" later. Ofcourse we can always reinvent them. Unfortunate deaths can also occur before publication/patentation. Btw i thought mickey mouse was going out of copyright soon?
I hope people here understand the difference between copyright and patents. They are totally different things.
/. should always check back if there is a response. The idea is that people are aware of their critics, and corrected in their facts.
Copyright protects instances expressions of ideas, also sometimes variations of them. The variations are simply included so people dont just change some work and say its diffent, its commonsense. Ofcourse in some cases only small variations between seperate works can exist simply because the range of posibilities is small. For instance (as said earlier)saying "hello" or code for linked lists, the work doesnt nessesarally have to be short to have a good chance of looking like another!
Personnaly, I like the idea of people actually being rewarded for their creations, having some right to helps getting reward. Dont get me wrong, I certainly dislike intrusive, restrictive or overzealous policies to enfore copyright. (like DRM)
Patents protects the ideas themselves, they are much more vague, especially dealing with algorithms, or code.
It is a matter of philosofy whether an idea can be owned in the first place.
In mathematics for instance most people think that ideas are found, rather then created.
Also ideas can overlap, you can make a linked list for integers, but also for arbitrary data structures.
(btw you can replace linked list with black-white tree or whatever, but rather a trivial example)
I personnally hate software patents and i am unsure about physical invention-patents.
Now to respond to the replied-to post. I am all for legal tricks to get round patents. As i read somewhere: In a dungeon you must first kill the monsters you meet before you destroy the source of them.
PS i am no expert, what i've written here is the current status of my thinking of patents and copyright. If there something dumm in here feel free to reply. (if im correct ill get a mail that there was a reply)
I think all people who reply in
A cannon is a fundamentally different idea then a rocket.
A "cannonball" projectile obtains its impulse by imparting it on its firer, in this case the earth, a rocket obtains its impuls by "firing" off its own mass.
In vacuum rocket is _way_ less efficient then the cannon, it has to carry its fuel, which it fires at great speed. (relative to the rocket)
In contrast the cannon fires its "thrust" at the whole earth, which barely moves in the rest frame, and hardly takes up any energy. Also the cannon doesnt need to carry fuel.
Ok im not saying a cannon is a good way into space, just that its energy efficient.
The shock of liftoff is a problem, also (as parent post said) air drag.
I think it may be possible to send out really small satelites with robust electronics with chemical cannons. Larger satelites may result in problems with the barrel. And I dont think people are cannonproof.
A railgun could stretch the acceleration, but it has to be incredably long to make it acceptable.
As ever, wikipedia has usefull links and information about space cannons
Ps could do the cannon-propulsion vs rocket propulsion in vacuum in math, so pretty sure of it.
hmm I am wondering how opengl is going to get into vista properly without games-industry support. EA is microsoft too..
Im ok with people buying top of the line.. covers development costs.
PS im not for capitalism, but thats how it works currently
Wasnt there a story a couple of months ago about dark matter not existing? I am not sure whether i believe that, though it sounded plausible.
a rk_matter_sidebar_010105.html
(The article was about that the classical approximation just wasnt good enough, the mass came out correct without dark matter with general relativity.)
But when some mass is missing in the estimates, it seems like that mysterious "dark matter" of which we know _nothing_ is blamed, just stuff some of that where your missing mass.
Here a quote from when you click through darkmatter:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/d
"By measuring these mysterious effects of gravity, researchers determine how much "extra" gravity is present, and hence how much extra mass, or dark matter, must exist."
Thank you for making my point space.com (i know maybe not the most scientific source, but gravity really is the only way to measure "dark matter" currently)
By the way dark energy isnt so vague, i am convinced that that exists.
also how did they simulate the dark matter?
Example of a dissenter for western goverments (and most others) is a rapist, would it be a bad thing to inprison them? be more specific plz.
Dissenters send to prison for saying things that are illegal is and not calling for voilence and such is bad. I think it's immoral because if the people don't decide on what laws and regulations are used in their goverment who will? The people will need free and open discussion to decide on laws and regulations. (ofcourse here is a assumption that the people are smart enough and organised to do this)
I do dislike that microsoft abides by China's law, some of the parties involved, be it the stockholders, microsoft staff, the goverment or the people should do something about it.
The stockholders did nothing, microsoft abided law, the goverment didnt do anything either, gues its up to the people.
So what do we want? Basicly what we want is that companies in other countries have to obey rules we make. Basicly in this case there should be a US law that is broken when microsoft prevents free speech in foreign countries.
Ofcourse this would put US companies in hard places (giving advantage to foreign companies sometimes), but this is intrinsic to being moral.
If you want to live by your morals, you have fewer options, meaning the chance that they are good ones is smaller. Said differently if you decrease the set of things that you think is good, the chance of hitting something good randomly is decreased. (you have to work harder to find it)
PS I live in the netherlands so in principle I will have to look into the EU laws for this. In principle, because i probably dont have the skill, time or patience for it. (probably the EU or its states already have some laws for this, and there may even be some international laws, but i may be a bit over-optimistic, there are for some products marks that indicate that they're ecologically ok and stuff)
Google, is a big company. Yes the make cool things, but big companies almost by definition are only out for making money. Im supprised that people actually want to see google buy up smaller companies. Maybe this is good for opera in the short term, but in the long term? I rather see many smaller businesses then a few larger ones. How do we know google wont turn out to become more like microsoft? When things happen like software companies aiding china with its censorship people say that they're only abiding with the law there, and they're just making money, or just doing it for the shareholders. That may be their reason, but i do not agree with it. We have to try to do the moral thing -that will mean we have to use resources- and where are the resources? Mostly in the companies. Ok this is a bit off topic - but the open- vs closed source debate is also.
Good point, it all depends on the capabilities of the spacevessels. I wasn't to nice with the "hint" thing.
I do think in the future there will probably be little hiding. (though there is a lot of space out there, and a lot of stuff (asteroids, comets) that isn't your enemy)
But dont underestimate the uses gravity, further away it may be small, but closeby it peaks, making it usefull for getting those delta v's.
I've done some math, suppose the spacecraft can accelerate at 10.0 m/s^2 (earth gravity) (yes, i am assuming it isnt dragonball z space combat for the aliens yet)
which is realistic, it will bring you up to relativistic (relative)speed in a year, good enough for space travel
(300 000 000/10.0)/(3600*24*365.25)=0.95
(classical mechanics good enough, will actually be like 200 000 000 or something)
and obviously these kinds of accelerations occur because of gravity in space.
(its close to it near earth surface)
Dont know wether they'll use it in space combat though, they could send seeking missiles with much more acceleration. (which would be undodgeable by ships)
uhm, "space tactics" is probably much more complicated. hint: gravity orbits may play a large role, being close in space may not mean you can reach each other to dock or shoot each other, what about each others speed? In that sense there is some terain, the planets and sun as potential wells.
I agree, with this. And if you see a really nice change in the code that works. You can always send a mail, trying to convince them its better. If they respond no, you might learn something about why not. If they don't respond or you still dont agree, you can _always_ start an alternative project if its GPL- licenced. PS Ofcourse in the latter case be nice and give credits and also think about what your doing, is it really worth the time?
What is going to happen to opengl then? I'm a bit worried about opengl, as far as i know it is the only competitor of directx. Opengl probably wont be supported (wel) on the OS vista, and microsoft has the Xbox. Sounds like microsoft has opengl by the balls. :(
from the article "The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again." Yay we're reusing the capsule! -wait we're wasting the rockets that brought it into space.. Why don't they just leave the capsule in earth orbit and send only a new crew, that can be send up in a much smaller rocket? This way, you just have to replace heat-shield of a much smaller vehicle, and save a lot of rocket. also there can't be any damage on the capsule because of landing. Must admit disadvantages that you can't repair as much in orbit, maybe something in the orbital mechanics (dont think so the last one). And ofcourse the orbiting capsule must be refuelled every time. (or just replace propulsion as a whole) And the new crew has to dock with the capsule. I'm sure NASA has its reasons for doing things the way it does (and creating jobs, for people and/or (US)companies will be part of it), but why dont they link to them? Americans (I am Dutch) may want to know where their tax-money is going..
What your saying is in a way quite a positive point, though a games may start small, they may grow to be much larger, if they stick around long enough. MSN messager server had a few games supported. If this was also implemented and widely used in open networks people could download games (or demos) to each other and play it immediatly, which is very effective word of mouth. There was an article about instant messaging earlier: It's Time To Take Back Instant Messaging
0^0=1 ,is the senseable definition. I dont know why exactly. but it seems to me that
a^0=1 for all a. Since ^n can be defined by multiplying 1 n times by a. (for n natural number)
if you multiply something zero times to one you get one.
btw is there a a better way to say that 0^0=1 is a good definition?
Thanks for your replies. I dont think what i said will happen, but i was talking about it as a worst-case scenario. If they can ban applications, they could ban all applications they dont trust and then use interpreted code to test, that way normal people can only make (slower) interpreted code. They could also use special computers that can authorize programs for programmers on their machine. They could ask the programmers to pay for it. But honestly, i dont know how exactly they could ban applications. I think the ties of the closed programming industry with the open one will keep the industry from banning non-trusted software. But we have to think forward -as an other reply also said- things may change.
If they start putting trusted (or rather threatherous) computing on mobile phones, they'll start doing it with cumputers too. Joe consumer will buy the computers and there arent that many processor chip makers out there, there will be less and less non-trusted computing chips around. At first they will be breakable or allow (free like in speech) open source software to be run. Later gradually options of open source software will run out, and it will die. Leaving they hard- and software industries free to ask whatever price they wish for there heavily encumbered and restricting products. And companies and goverments are able to censor the internet. That's the worst case scenario. I think its posible, since theoretically trusted computing seems unbreakable to me. Dont buy trusted computing, or (the much less frightening) DRM-ed products. Even if it means your stuff wont be compatible with other people. (or rather as a reason PS Why doesnt all the whitespace work... the \n (enter button) doesnt.. its lame text doesnt read easily this way.
I wouldnt count on internet censorship not being practical, they could use trusted computing (some call it -more accurately i think- threatcherous computing) which can be made in theory unbreakable.
Probably using codewords like saying bubbles for democracy will still hamper free speech. (people new to it wont understand it.) And i dont think it will stop procecution either.
I have to admit this has been said before, but usually when internet censorship the idea that it isnt practical or effective pops up. I think we should rather think about what we can do against it, rather then just hope.
They dont look very practical, and they're really ugly.. why did they try to put a "head" on it?
Bmm sorry that i missed the if would work directly from chemical energy, while i quoted it (next time ill pay more attention). If we're talking about direct conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy. Not that this is a bit vaguely defined, for instance an internal combustion energy is directly from chemical energy? (as implied in a post earlier in thread) The energy goes into heat and presure first and only then into the movement of the pistons.in a steam engine its even water that is is heated up before causing mechanical energy. We're just discussing energy conversion methods here. In this context it seems irrelevant how "direct" the conversions are.