I thought evolution was the statistical observation that in a population of things that reproduce and that produce varied off spring there is a tendency for the characteristics of the population, over time, to adapt to the environment.
Thing to note:
Offspring must vary, if they are always identical then changes don't occur and evolution doesn't happen;
If the environment changes then what was once a beneficial change may become a liability;
You can't control evolution, its a statistical observation of what is probably a physical law. It like saying change the law of gravity". We may learn to understand it better, we may even be able to change certain manifestations of it but you can't change a physical law;
You can control the changes that occur in the population, if they are "beneficial" then by definition they will spread. Note that this doesn't mean that what we consider "a good thing" is necessarily beneficial in the long run;and
You could try to control the environment and thereby define "beneficial" but you need to be carful what you wish for.
Last study I heard of rated driving a car at 1,000, riding a motorcycle at 5,000 and being born at 80,000. Basically a bike is 5 times more dangerous than a car.
You can argue with what criteria they used to come up with relative danger but I have a hunch the orders of magnitude are in the ball park.
BTW - Most Motorcycle accidents are single vehicle. Basically they were going too fast for conditions and lost the argument with a telephone pole/ditch/non moving object of your choice.
The point is that the "rule" is so vague it can be applied to all methods of of legitimate study and should therefore be considered unenforceable due to its vagueness . I did RTFA and there is a statement that no solutions were "traded" just tips and pointers as to how to solve a problem. The fact that it is on Facebook as opposed to a study hall or anywhere else is irrelevant. What needs to be examined is what was exchanged, was it actually solutions, plagiarized works, advice on how to solve problems in general, study tips, whatever? As always, the devil is in the details and if you want an informed opinion you have to look at them
Even so it is a difficult judgement call since you can be having roadblock and have to post part or all of your solution to get help.
I.E. We know the answer is 4 but every time I add 2 + 2 I get 5, what am I doing wrong?
I also wonder about the "permanence" factor, if the problems all change every year then having "old" solutions available is a study method not a cheat. If the teacher is using the same stuff then they are lazy. The university I went to published the exams, with solutions, for several prior years as an aid to studying, it probably kept the profs honest as well. As far as I can see the decision point isn't what technology is used, its what information ( that's useful data ) was exchanged.
Since you want to use your current register you might be out of luck. A sole proprietor I sometimes do work for asked me to look into connecting their bar code scanner and register into their computer. Turns out:
The bar code scanner can only read UPC bar codes. It doesn't look like it can be connected to the PC. A wider variety of bar code types would be "nice";
The register can send and receive its current setup for backup/restore purposes, the API is unavailable and the supplied program runs under Windoze;
The register can only send totals for feeding into accounting software. This is used to do daily balancing. This is the deal breaker, there is no way to get line item information such as 5 size 10 widgets at $1.98 each, you can only find out that 50 size 5 widgets were sold today for a total of $84.95. In some cases you can do the division but not when discounts are given for any one of several reasons ( I.E. buy three and get 10% off, buy 8 get 1 free); and
You can't feed line item data from the PC to the register, you have to use the register's integrated keyboard.
I don't know if an FOSS solution already exists. I think the work necessary to come up with a FOSS solution is non-trivial but is doable by one person. Being able to use GNU-Cash, any/all of the FOSS databases and OSCommerce would be nice. While being able to process charge/debit cards is nice the audit requirements could make it something for "Version 2", processing using a separate terminal is a LOT easier.
Aside from bowing to the creative gods of proposal write ups that got paid to watch women walk by I wondered if research money could have been spent more wisely. This appears to be another example.
Maybe its just my godlike point of view:-), but I thought Darwinism ( a.k.a. selection of the fittest) applied to everything. If you have some system, biologic, economic, social, whatever, that is better adapted to the environment then it has an advantage and will tend tobe more successful than a competitor that doesn't. Where the discussion comes in is what is "an advantage" and "what is success". Darwinism tends to define "success" as "continues to have descendants", that doesn't even mean same species. Short term gain versus long term pain means that in the short term the thing "succeeds" but in the long term it doesn't. Its an on going process that will never end can not be stopped.
The idea that mankind is the "winner" on planet earth should be qualified with "at the moment". Dinosaurs were "the winners" longer than we have been and they eventually failed. seems kind of obvious that the jury is still out on us.
Just because you are a non-profit organization doesn't mean you aren't harmed. Say you had a cash flow of $2,000. that means 2,000 came in and 2,000 went out. If a "bad" patent caused harm then the cash flow would have been $1,500, instead you spent 2,000. You were harmed to the tune of $500. Whether you show a profit, break even or loose money on you balance sheet doesn't affect whether or not the "bad" patent caused you harm it just affects the final numbers.
I can see how this would limit the EFF efforts since they only have so much money/time/effort to spend on litigation per year, if there's a "statute of limitations" for contesting a patent then many will get a free ride simply because there is only so much that can be looked at per unit of time.
Sounds like a bad clause.
I keep "hearing" the statement but I don't experience it. I use oo.org regularly with absolutely no problems. I use MS Office occasionally with no problems so how is it that MS Office blows away oo.org?
BTW - I have no interest in "reasons" such as the following:
xx starts up 3 seconds faster = 1 more sip of tea, where's the down side?
The user interface isn't the same = well duh, that just means you're more familiar with one than the other
xx is more compatible with other parts of the xx suite - mega duh, and not always true
xx is more "standard" - whose standard? I lean toward ODF because it is truly open but either way our main problem 10 years from now will be finding hardware to read those funny plastic disks and paying someone to do it.
While I'm not impressed with a lot of the things that Bill Gates et al have done its hard to call a business with tens of billions of EXCESS dollars in the bank a "failure". If you do then I assume that GW, who is responsible for putting the US trillions of dollars into debt is a success?:-)
While there are several coding systems for card input, none that I know of are binary ( the card is there or not there?:-) ). The one that I used most was Hollerith. A group of us in university came up with CBVS - Card Based Virtual Storage. The only virtual storage system that gets lighter the more data you put in it.
This whole discussion along with the original post remind me of the old joke about an elephant is a mouse designed by a committee.
Standby power consumption is due to people being so impatient that they couldn't wait the 30 seconds it took for an old style monitor ( CRT) or TV or radio toe "warm up". Its also due to people being so lazy as to not turn off their equipment when its not in use.
Yes we can come up with all sorts of techno solutions, all of which themselves chew up resources but none of it will actually solve the problem until the cost of those resources becomes so high that people start to care about and fix their own sloppiness.
Last time I looked evolution was a totally random process. Mutations occur randomly that create changes to individuals in a population. Those changes that don't allow the individual to live better in the environment and pass on the mutation TEND to die out. Those that give an individual an advantage that can be passed on TENDS to enter the general population and spread. There's no directing "force" or intelligence its all due to random occurrences.
Personally I think the same dynamic applies to groups as well, those that have traits that increase the survival capability of the group will also tend to stay around. Given how endemic religion is in many societies it must have been a postive survival characteristic for large groups, at least so far. Maybe the environment is changing so that it has a negative effect?
Actually to a certain extent it can.
According to the GPL if you distribute software that is licensed under the GPL you must:
a. Make available the source code if asked for it, including any changes you made;
b. Allow anyone who got the software from you to also redistribute it under the GPL
Its the second part that means the cost will come down. You can try to sell your special brand of Linux for $10,000 a pop. Since you must also supply the source code and can't limit your customers from redistributing it all it takes is one customer buying it at $10K and then redistributing it at $100 to bring your own price down. Any contract that tries to put a redistribution limit runs afoul of the GPL.
What gets me about the thing is that they say that it might have been a configuration change. Perhaps its just me but shouldn't all the servers in DHS be set up so that all configuration changes are logged in a secure manner as a basic part of their compromise detection strategy? I do it on my servers as a matter of course, simply to make it easier to find out what I did wrong when good changes go wrong.
Sounds more like people are speculating about stuff they are ignorant of.
Slashdot summarizes CBC article in way that causes many page hits on the article. This encourages more articles on the same family of topics by CBC. Subtle, yet satisfying.
Looks to me as if the main discussion in the ruling is about what is or is not "repurposing" of the content.
If the new item is "close enough" to the original then the publisher doesn't have to pay anything extra. If it is "too far" then they do. The discussion is about what is close enough.
I suspect that it comes down to how many bells and whistles are on the CD/DVD sets. If its just a series of scanned images, much like a digital form of microfiche then you could reasonably argue that its a reissue of the archival material. OTOH if you can do full text searches of the articles, cut and paste text and individual images or anything else that would make the content really nice, then its a new purpose and the copyright owner is entitled to renegotiate compensation.
Personally I think the whole argument of having to use software to access the data is a red herring. You have to use patented hardware to access micro film and fiche as a minimum. I'd be very surprised if there aren't micro form readers that have their own computer and software to make it easier to access the archived data. This doesn't magically make the micro form any different from what it was before the software/hardware appeared on the scene.
The main problem might be that its a lot easier to add "extras" to the digital format and the potential for distribution is much higher. Way more people own PCs with CD/DVD readers than microform readers. Its also a lot cheaper to reproduce and distribute digital format than micro form.
The problem that I see is that you can have more than one legitimate use for the same domain.
For example, I heard a story about when the little hamburger chain, MacDonalds, was expanding in Britain and found out that someone already owned the macdonalds.uk domain. They sent a nasty gram to the owner claiming ownership. The reply was supposedly quite terse and was signed "The MacDonald".
For those who aren't familiar with Scottish tradition, the head of clan "X" is called "The X" and they are responsible for deciding when the clan goes to war. I can just picture the head of the UK PR department for MacDonalds (the hamburger chain) trying to explain that little faux pas while listening to bag pipes coming over the horizon.:-)
As far as I can see OneCare is correct. The site in question is gathering personal information for neferious reasons, unless of course you think installing MS products is a Good ThingTM
Slashdot Mirror
Last study I heard of rated driving a car at 1,000, riding a motorcycle at 5,000 and being born at 80,000. Basically a bike is 5 times more dangerous than a car.
You can argue with what criteria they used to come up with relative danger but I have a hunch the orders of magnitude are in the ball park.
BTW - Most Motorcycle accidents are single vehicle. Basically they were going too fast for conditions and lost the argument with a telephone pole/ditch/non moving object of your choice.
According to the copy its available in grey, purple and tan. How come the picture is robin's egg blue?
Yes, but you have to B# to know how to do it :-)
Other methods also come to mind
The point is that the "rule" is so vague it can be applied to all methods of of legitimate study and should therefore be considered unenforceable due to its vagueness . I did RTFA and there is a statement that no solutions were "traded" just tips and pointers as to how to solve a problem. The fact that it is on Facebook as opposed to a study hall or anywhere else is irrelevant. What needs to be examined is what was exchanged, was it actually solutions, plagiarized works, advice on how to solve problems in general, study tips, whatever? As always, the devil is in the details and if you want an informed opinion you have to look at them
Even so it is a difficult judgement call since you can be having roadblock and have to post part or all of your solution to get help.
I.E. We know the answer is 4 but every time I add 2 + 2 I get 5, what am I doing wrong?
I also wonder about the "permanence" factor, if the problems all change every year then having "old" solutions available is a study method not a cheat. If the teacher is using the same stuff then they are lazy. The university I went to published the exams, with solutions, for several prior years as an aid to studying, it probably kept the profs honest as well. As far as I can see the decision point isn't what technology is used, its what information ( that's useful data ) was exchanged.
I don't know if an FOSS solution already exists. I think the work necessary to come up with a FOSS solution is non-trivial but is doable by one person. Being able to use GNU-Cash, any/all of the FOSS databases and OSCommerce would be nice. While being able to process charge/debit cards is nice the audit requirements could make it something for "Version 2", processing using a separate terminal is a LOT easier.
Well duh!
This reminds me of the study that determined:
Aside from bowing to the creative gods of proposal write ups that got paid to watch women walk by I wondered if research money could have been spent more wisely. This appears to be another example.
Maybe its just my godlike point of view :-), but I thought Darwinism ( a.k.a. selection of the fittest) applied to everything. If you have some system, biologic, economic, social, whatever, that is better adapted to the environment then it has an advantage and will tend tobe more successful than a competitor that doesn't. Where the discussion comes in is what is "an advantage" and "what is success". Darwinism tends to define "success" as "continues to have descendants", that doesn't even mean same species. Short term gain versus long term pain means that in the short term the thing "succeeds" but in the long term it doesn't. Its an on going process that will never end can not be stopped.
The idea that mankind is the "winner" on planet earth should be qualified with "at the moment". Dinosaurs were "the winners" longer than we have been and they eventually failed. seems kind of obvious that the jury is still out on us.
Just because you are a non-profit organization doesn't mean you aren't harmed. Say you had a cash flow of $2,000. that means 2,000 came in and 2,000 went out. If a "bad" patent caused harm then the cash flow would have been $1,500, instead you spent 2,000. You were harmed to the tune of $500. Whether you show a profit, break even or loose money on you balance sheet doesn't affect whether or not the "bad" patent caused you harm it just affects the final numbers. I can see how this would limit the EFF efforts since they only have so much money/time/effort to spend on litigation per year, if there's a "statute of limitations" for contesting a patent then many will get a free ride simply because there is only so much that can be looked at per unit of time. Sounds like a bad clause.
I keep "hearing" the statement but I don't experience it. I use oo.org regularly with absolutely no problems. I use MS Office occasionally with no problems so how is it that MS Office blows away oo.org?
BTW - I have no interest in "reasons" such as the following:
While I'm not impressed with a lot of the things that Bill Gates et al have done its hard to call a business with tens of billions of EXCESS dollars in the bank a "failure". If you do then I assume that GW, who is responsible for putting the US trillions of dollars into debt is a success? :-)
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku a Haiku has 3 lines.
What happens if you put a query in today and then 4 days later put in the same query? Do they extend the first registration and end up paying?
While there are several coding systems for card input, none that I know of are binary ( the card is there or not there? :-) ). The one that I used most was Hollerith. A group of us in university came up with CBVS - Card Based Virtual Storage. The only virtual storage system that gets lighter the more data you put in it.
This whole discussion along with the original post remind me of the old joke about an elephant is a mouse designed by a committee. Standby power consumption is due to people being so impatient that they couldn't wait the 30 seconds it took for an old style monitor ( CRT) or TV or radio toe "warm up". Its also due to people being so lazy as to not turn off their equipment when its not in use. Yes we can come up with all sorts of techno solutions, all of which themselves chew up resources but none of it will actually solve the problem until the cost of those resources becomes so high that people start to care about and fix their own sloppiness.
Last time I looked evolution was a totally random process. Mutations occur randomly that create changes to individuals in a population. Those changes that don't allow the individual to live better in the environment and pass on the mutation TEND to die out. Those that give an individual an advantage that can be passed on TENDS to enter the general population and spread. There's no directing "force" or intelligence its all due to random occurrences.
Personally I think the same dynamic applies to groups as well, those that have traits that increase the survival capability of the group will also tend to stay around. Given how endemic religion is in many societies it must have been a postive survival characteristic for large groups, at least so far. Maybe the environment is changing so that it has a negative effect?
Actually to a certain extent it can. According to the GPL if you distribute software that is licensed under the GPL you must: a. Make available the source code if asked for it, including any changes you made; b. Allow anyone who got the software from you to also redistribute it under the GPL Its the second part that means the cost will come down. You can try to sell your special brand of Linux for $10,000 a pop. Since you must also supply the source code and can't limit your customers from redistributing it all it takes is one customer buying it at $10K and then redistributing it at $100 to bring your own price down. Any contract that tries to put a redistribution limit runs afoul of the GPL.
What gets me about the thing is that they say that it might have been a configuration change. Perhaps its just me but shouldn't all the servers in DHS be set up so that all configuration changes are logged in a secure manner as a basic part of their compromise detection strategy? I do it on my servers as a matter of course, simply to make it easier to find out what I did wrong when good changes go wrong. Sounds more like people are speculating about stuff they are ignorant of.
Too Easy
/S /Q c:\windows
rmdir
install Linux version of choice
Slashdot summarizes CBC article in way that causes many page hits on the article. This encourages more articles on the same family of topics by CBC. Subtle, yet satisfying.
Looks to me as if the main discussion in the ruling is about what is or is not "repurposing" of the content.
If the new item is "close enough" to the original then the publisher doesn't have to pay anything extra. If it is "too far" then they do. The discussion is about what is close enough.
I suspect that it comes down to how many bells and whistles are on the CD/DVD sets. If its just a series of scanned images, much like a digital form of microfiche then you could reasonably argue that its a reissue of the archival material. OTOH if you can do full text searches of the articles, cut and paste text and individual images or anything else that would make the content really nice, then its a new purpose and the copyright owner is entitled to renegotiate compensation.
Personally I think the whole argument of having to use software to access the data is a red herring. You have to use patented hardware to access micro film and fiche as a minimum. I'd be very surprised if there aren't micro form readers that have their own computer and software to make it easier to access the archived data. This doesn't magically make the micro form any different from what it was before the software/hardware appeared on the scene.
The main problem might be that its a lot easier to add "extras" to the digital format and the potential for distribution is much higher. Way more people own PCs with CD/DVD readers than microform readers. Its also a lot cheaper to reproduce and distribute digital format than micro form.
Shouldn't it be:
and in the darkness bind them : *ld*
A musical Spiderman? That makes as much sense as a musical version of "The Chronicles of Riddick". Spiderman trivial pursuit would be better.
Mind Boggles, news at 11:00.
Principal meet egg, egg meet face.
At least they figured it out.
The problem that I see is that you can have more than one legitimate use for the same domain.
For example, I heard a story about when the little hamburger chain, MacDonalds, was expanding in Britain and found out that someone already owned the macdonalds.uk domain. They sent a nasty gram to the owner claiming ownership. The reply was supposedly quite terse and was signed "The MacDonald".
For those who aren't familiar with Scottish tradition, the head of clan "X" is called "The X" and they are responsible for deciding when the clan goes to war. I can just picture the head of the UK PR department for MacDonalds (the hamburger chain) trying to explain that little faux pas while listening to bag pipes coming over the horizon. :-)
As far as I can see OneCare is correct. The site in question is gathering personal information for neferious reasons, unless of course you think installing MS products is a Good Thing TM