Under standard copyright law, something like benchmarks is considered fair use, and is thus not subject to asinine click through agreements. If something is not covered by copyright law, it cannot reasonably be covered by click through.
This is also the case in Europe, where, for example, you are legally allowed to resell Microsoft OS licenses. It is the only way to interpret copyright law wrt software that makes sense.
ONLY apply security updates as fully automated. ONLY point/etc/apt/sources.list to the security site, stable. If you are going to automate updating of the machine in cron, be very very conservative. And it is also a good idea to capture the standard output and standard error, and email it to the sys admin. That way you should at least be alerted in a timely manner when the machine is hosed.
Then, manually, upgrade the machine with apt-get -u dist-upgrade while/etc/apt/sources.list points to the main debian server, and debug things immediately.
Apt-get is a great tool. So is a gun. Both can wreak havoc when used inappropriately. But remember, it is not the gun's fault. Rather, it is the jerk on the trigger.
Here are just a few of the problems for a computer-non-expert: the changes to capitalization it does automatically (what, I need to say '{A}merica' to not get 'america'?),
So this requires a bibliography style file change.
the difficulty to debug if an entry is in the wrong format
This is pretty easy for me. Since my Perl script adds entries direcrtly from Melvyl, a problem with an entry results in hacking the script, and that particular problem never arises again.
This is happening increasingly as people create GNOME and KDE GUI interfaces for searching and adding to the bibliography database files. The GUI interface does most of the work in formatting the entries and error checking.
And of course, the journals would have no idea how to handle LaTeX code.
Journal are idiotic in that sense. It is actually MUCH MUCH easier for them to print something already in a well described typesetting language, than it is to print something in DOC format.
EndNote is our primary example of why we still mostly use Windows instead of Linux. I would love to see Niles port EndNote or to have someone else develop a product as easy to use.
I've asked them to port to linux several times. First was about 5 years ago. They said they had no demand for such a product. Last year they said they were working on it, but they were more than a little perturbed by the lack of standardization in software for word processing. I mean, they didn't know if they should write for StarOffice, WordPerfect, Applix, Koffice, or FrameMaker.
I, however, will continue to use LaTeX. I have a few very simple reasons. The first is that the format doesn't change in ways that cause incompatibility every few years to lock in the customer base. I know with confidence I will always be able to read and print my files. TeX has been reasonably standard for over 20 years now, since before Bill Gates was writing a BASIC interpreter for QDOS. The third reason is that my bibliography database management can be done in the UNIX way. I have small files and programs that each do their own small job well. The fourth reason is that I can load the word processor on as many machines as I like for free. The fifth reason is that if something is broken, I can fix it. The sixth reason is that if I am armed only with a text editor, I can edit my files.
Now, not all these reasons apply to other word processors, but taken on the whole I think I will be using LaTeX for a long time.
But I did just download neep, and it might be nice for a change.
I was using andale mono for a while - Microsoft's Truetype contribution to fixed width fonts.
My alltime favorite was dec terminal, but it is only available in 14 pt, which is not suitable on all the machines on which I code. But it reminds me of ForTran days hacking on VT terminals. Light green chars on a black background, using EDT.
All my current coding is black background, syntax highlighting on. Using JED with custom colors for highlighting.
One of my best friends in college went through computer training in the Marine Corps. He spent an inordinate amount of time learning and programming COBOL, for which the military has a tremendous amount of legacy code.
Then he left the military. In some ways, he was better off. People respect that an officer is responsible and disciplined. However, his tech skills hardly advanced at all. That is why I claim that if you want to advance your tech skills, the military is a waste. Great benefits, great vacation time, but not great training. The best training in computers is doing.
So they got the source code for guiding the systems. If the system is properly engineered, it shouldn't matter if you know how to guide it, you still need access to the system. If the system is poorly engineered, I'm going to buy some pillows like that TV guy in Willabong Australia or wherever.
Don't be silly. Some hacker didn't steal system codes to route satellites or missiles.
Some hacker stole system codes to sell them to Putin in Russia. For a LOT of money. Putin is the former head of international intelligence - ie: Russia's spy chief. This hacker will be very generously compensated for his efforts, and the US will need to re-tool EVERYTHING.
Take the ridiculous military programming classes ?? Actual scenario. When a prompt asked a student to press any button, the student asked "Which button is the any button ?"
The reply from the Marine Corps instructor was "The large button at the bottom of the keyboard is the any button."
If you want a tech career, really, the military is wasting your time. You will learn how to become an insignificant cog in the system, how to take 30 paid vacation days per year, how to accrue a nice pension and benefits, and you will be light years behind people who drop out of high school and just starting working as administrators/programmers once you leave the military.
I have a Perl script set up to grab all email from Medline and automatically strip out the citations, format them, and add them to my database file. Even spent some time hacking bst files - now THAT is a weird language.
Anyone interested in the Perl script can email me. It won't work "out of the box" unless the email comes from Melvyl ie: the UC system. However, the principle is pretty similar for Medline and Melvyl emails. I just prefer the console Melvyl interface:)
The rub here is that both work just fine. One is free. One costs money. One is developed to Suns specs, the other is Suns specs. Most experienced admins will say choose the Sun. I say, we use them both. They both work fine, even in a production environment. Backup often, and use the one you are more comfortable adminning.
I felt obliged to point out that Daniel Phillips, of the Tux2 file system, has now created indexed searched through directories (similar conceptually to btrees, but not quite as fast).
Check out the mailing list archives here
For directories with over 20000 files, the results are 10 times faster with the indexed searching. The ratio gets better with more than that. So I guess ext2 won't have to wait long for btrees. If Tux2 happens sometime soon then it will really rock ! Great job Daniel !
I think that's a little unfair. The comparison was between Tux2 and ext3, and if one is vapor then both are. They're at similar stages in development and their authors present similar pictures of their progress.
Except that you can download working ext3 code, and have been able to for more than a year. As of yet Tux2 is still design plans, without any public working implementation.
If I were to dissect it a bit, it's more than just *skinning*, which is to redefine the appearance of the buttons and widgets. The first claim mentions the method of rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects, as related to the appearance and behavior of bojects rendered by the theme. It specifically mentions that either appearance *or* behavior is controlled differently for an object when the theme is changed.
Of course it is. And enlightenment, when a new theme is applied, has different widgets on windows, with different functions mapped to them, and also can have different pull-down menus.
Just because Windoze, KDE, GNOME, and Winamp themes are only skins doesn't imply other windowmanagers/applications are incapable of changing more than just appearance.
Mod parent up !! Themes were available in linux at that point. Heck, my RedHat 5.2 release has themes for fvwm2, and that was before the patent filing date. I am pretty certain enlightenment had themes at that point too. GNOME's introduction of themes occured in very close time proximity to the patent filing as well.
Tux2 is still vaporware. I agree, it will be great when it comes out. However, it is currently vaporware.
ReiserFS and XFS are also really great,
So these have log structure (or btree) and journalling. However, ReiserFS is broken with NFS currently, and that is a BIG problem. XFS is still beta and not merged with the main kernel tree, which is also a BIG problem. Ever see the fallout when Alexander Viro (kernel VFS hacker) takes a newly merged filesystem to task ?? It is not pretty.
Ext3 has some advantages. It has been running stably for a long time now under development. It is journaled, and has a small code base. It also only exists for the 2.2 kernel series.
Phillips is also making a judgment call. He wants to build on ext2 with tux2. Ext2 is not log structured, which is why ReiserFS can beat it in well-structure benchmark tests run by Hans.
The future, IMHO, is a log structured file system with NO journaling and atomic updates. This creature already exists, and it is called FFS with Soft Updates, from the FreeBSD developers. Here is the breakdown.
Journalling is tricky, as it requires lots of intervention at other places in the kernel. You need to keep something synchronous - journalling just makes that something very small. Atomic updates avoid synchronous issues altogether. Instead, they structure the file system in groups of data and metadata. In each group, there is an atomic bit. When set, it means the group is intact. So, upon looking through the groups, you can immediately determine which ones are intact and which are incomplete. Recovery is REALLY fast after a power outage, in theory even faster than a journal recovery.
WRT log structuring and btrees, these allow small and large files to live together easily, and allow rapid searches in large directories. Both of these have substantial advantages.
And the future for linux file systems ?? I don't know, it is always interesting to see where things will head. The world is clamoring for easy crash recovery, and ext2's days are numbered. I think most people would be quite happy to simply add journaling to ext2. Or atomic updates. So I predict, after consulting the crystal ball, that tux2 develops a large following after release, and that Phillips then adds btree searches and log structuring, making it the first linux file system with all that.
That would then bring the state of the art file systems for linux up to par with those of FreeBSD. Of course, in linux at that time you can also use JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, or ext3 journaled file systems.
But journaling is worse than atomic updates, both for complexity and speed.
The copyright on the original vampire film Nosferatu expired in the ninties... I remeber when it did, because there was a flood of Nosferatu-based comic books and even a few movies, I believe.
It was a trick question.
In 1998 all copyright expirations were pushed back another 20 years by the Sonny Bono act. If Nosferatu expired, it was reinstated.
Again, as I mentioned, things are BECOMING copyright protected again even after expiration due to legislative acts pushed by congressmen who ski into trees.
Take a look at the diagram 5 in the original article. Cells receiving lots of light send back one data point saying "bright". Cells receiving not so much send back one data point saying "dark". Really, it is not some other way.
So if you see light dots and darks dots, then you have to have at least one individual cell making a strong response to make the bright dot.
This actually is basic sensor technology at the bilogical level. Individual sensors sending back point data.
This might make sense if there were not redundancy in coding of light. A single point of light is actually sent back by far more than one cell.
You can note that although there are 6-7 million rods and cones, there are only about 1 million retinal ganglion neurons - the neurons sending back information to the rest of the visual system.
And of that 1 million RGNs, only a small fraction are of the appropriate type to be used in high spatial acuity vision. So now we have a few dozen rods contributing to each "signal" that goes back to the brain. Although, in the fovea, this can be a one to one relationship.
In any case, all you can establish by looking at speckling patterns is that the spacing of the speckle is AT LEAST as broad as the spacing of the photoreceptors. Of course you know that the basic reason for the speckle is actually interference from the lit surface. Each reflecting point contains its own in phase laser signal, and these millions of in phase lasers interfere with each other, creating speckle.
The great abolitionists of the 19th century used their wonderful oratory to combat slavers, whose crude cuss words and uncouth bribes beat the orators every time. They had to fight a war to work it out.
Actually, the primary argument put forth by the slavers was anti-Federalist. Slavery should be a state's issue. That way, we can keep our slaves.
You can notice our current US Supreme Court has made a history out of placing items they disagree with on the state's chopping blocks - like abortion.
I make a living writing software, and I like the idea of authors, artists, etc. being able to make money from their creations. Someone out there give me a solid ethical justification for intellectual property restrictions, please.
The original intent of the law is to allow you monopolistic but time-limited rights over your expression. I think it is not truly appropriate to call copyright IP, since it is not protected against reverse engineering (unlike patents). Expression is a better word. If you wrote a play or a song, you have limited time rights to allow or disallow public performances.
Suppose there were no copyright protection. You wrote a huge software package and delivered it to a client. He had just paid a trivial amount for a pirated copy of that work, and now tells you to go away. Now, depending on how important you are to his business, he may or may not act this way. But, without copyright there is no legal recourse against it. After all, the pirates didn't remove anything from you.
But they did affect your monopolistically controlled market. And that can hurt you commercially. I would argue strenuously that today's market is absurd, and that is why something like Free Software can exist. But very few people argue against copyright. In fact, copyrights are the basis of the strength of the GPL. If do work for clients under the GPL/BSD/Artistic license, you will make it much cheaper and easier for someone else to provide a similar service, and the quality of software can rise dramatically.
The reasons for this move are simple. Computer sales are slowing down, as most places now have computers fast enough to do what they need to do.
Microsoft's profits come mostly from OEM sales of their software. Since OEM sales are down, their insanely high profits are down too. In order to recover, they will move to the.NET initiative, which means you will pay every year to use Microsoft products. Office will be first.
As a side benefit, M$ will see a dramatic decrease in the number of pirated copies of their software. They will force this down everyone's throats. They will claim it is an inherently better model. They will market it. They will introduce problems with backward compatibility. They will do all this to make money.
The real question is what consumers will do. I sincerely hope the day is coming when I no longer need to have a Microsoft box around to look at documents people email me.
Right. It is a process that goes in phases. First the base system is thoroughly tested, and development will stop. At this point the base system is considered 'ready to ship', and will not be patched unless patches are REALLY important.
Then the installer is tested, fixed, and considered 'ready to ship'. No more fixes are used to patch the installer unless it is really important.
Lastly the optional add-on packages are patched, fixed, and made ready to ship.
The freeze should be considered a process, not a state of affairs. This indicates the beginning. The end of the freeze will occur at the release.
Well, duh, we all know that. And so do the judges. The problem is, copyright hasn't been extended to be permanent yet!
So please tell me when it is you think the original Mickey Mouse cartoons will have their copyrights expire.
Better yet, please indicate any copyright that has expired since 1976 to indicate that copyright is not an indefinite right in the US.
The history of copyright in the last 30-40 years has been that it is getting extended, retroactively, faster than time itself. Copyright is not expiring - rather it is being restored, even to things that have already become public domain ! That is what the lawsuit is all about.
It would stifle new music: copyright would be seen as an encumberance, not protection. Why would a music director for a movie or commercial license the work of $NEW_BAND when he could get the Beatles for free?
You mean that an artist would have to produce something new that was of substantial value compared to works more than 10 years old in order to make money ??
I don't think you can argue with a straight face that the Beatles would not have made plenty of money if this was in effect 40 years ago.
I don't think you can argue with a straight face that Michael Jackson's millions would be worthless if this were in effect.
In any case, with music, there are cultural waves. Music from the late 70s is becoming 'in vogue' now. Imaging if it were copyright free, and new music could be made that sampled old music ad nauseam, and made useful new music from it.
Making music, especially old music, free does not stifle innovation anymore than making free software stifles paying software.
It is a blatant corruption of our government to claim that music should have exlusive rights to the artists for an open undefined infinite length of time. Now that stifles innovation.
The simple fact is that copyright establishes ownership. It allows the artist to establish control over his work.
According to the US Constitution, this is the purpose of copyright
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
The artist is allowed to have limited time exclusive rights to the writings that are copyrighted. The purpose is promoting useful arts for the citizens. The purpose is not allowing the artist to get rich off his writings - that is a necessary part of the promotion of the copyrighted material.
One may very well question how American it is to push the copyright protection so that it never expires just so that Walt Disney cartoons are protected. Limited time is certainly not infinite, and may be redefined by Congress whenever they see fit, as long as the goal is promotion of the useful arts.
Here is a proposal. Make music protected for 10 years. No online music except as authorized by the artists unless it is more than 10 years old. Then, the sky is the limit.
In any case, it doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to read the above statement from the US Constitution and see that Orrin Hatch's proposal is unconstitutional, since it deprives the artist of exclusive rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Under standard copyright law, something like benchmarks is considered fair use, and is thus not subject to asinine click through agreements. If something is not covered by copyright law, it cannot reasonably be covered by click through.
This is also the case in Europe, where, for example, you are legally allowed to resell Microsoft OS licenses. It is the only way to interpret copyright law wrt software that makes sense.
Oh, silly me. Who expected M$ to make sense ?
This is kinda silly.
/etc/apt/sources.list to the security site, stable. If you are going to automate updating of the machine in cron, be very very conservative. And it is also a good idea to capture the standard output and standard error, and email it to the sys admin. That way you should at least be alerted in a timely manner when the machine is hosed.
/etc/apt/sources.list points to the main debian server, and debug things immediately.
ONLY apply security updates as fully automated. ONLY point
Then, manually, upgrade the machine with apt-get -u dist-upgrade while
Apt-get is a great tool. So is a gun. Both can wreak havoc when used inappropriately. But remember, it is not the gun's fault. Rather, it is the jerk on the trigger.
Here are just a few of the problems for a computer-non-expert: the changes to capitalization it does automatically (what, I need to say '{A}merica' to not get 'america'?),
So this requires a bibliography style file change.
the difficulty to debug if an entry is in the wrong format
This is pretty easy for me. Since my Perl script adds entries direcrtly from Melvyl, a problem with an entry results in hacking the script, and that particular problem never arises again.
This is happening increasingly as people create GNOME and KDE GUI interfaces for searching and adding to the bibliography database files. The GUI interface does most of the work in formatting the entries and error checking.
And of course, the journals would have no idea how to handle LaTeX code.
Journal are idiotic in that sense. It is actually MUCH MUCH easier for them to print something already in a well described typesetting language, than it is to print something in DOC format.
EndNote is our primary example of why we still mostly use Windows instead of Linux. I would love to see Niles port EndNote or to have someone else develop a product as easy to use.
I've asked them to port to linux several times. First was about 5 years ago. They said they had no demand for such a product. Last year they said they were working on it, but they were more than a little perturbed by the lack of standardization in software for word processing. I mean, they didn't know if they should write for StarOffice, WordPerfect, Applix, Koffice, or FrameMaker.
I, however, will continue to use LaTeX. I have a few very simple reasons. The first is that the format doesn't change in ways that cause incompatibility every few years to lock in the customer base. I know with confidence I will always be able to read and print my files. TeX has been reasonably standard for over 20 years now, since before Bill Gates was writing a BASIC interpreter for QDOS. The third reason is that my bibliography database management can be done in the UNIX way. I have small files and programs that each do their own small job well. The fourth reason is that I can load the word processor on as many machines as I like for free. The fifth reason is that if something is broken, I can fix it. The sixth reason is that if I am armed only with a text editor, I can edit my files.
Now, not all these reasons apply to other word processors, but taken on the whole I think I will be using LaTeX for a long time.
Lucida console
But I did just download neep, and it might be nice for a change.
I was using andale mono for a while - Microsoft's Truetype contribution to fixed width fonts.
My alltime favorite was dec terminal, but it is only available in 14 pt, which is not suitable on all the machines on which I code. But it reminds me of ForTran days hacking on VT terminals. Light green chars on a black background, using EDT.
All my current coding is black background, syntax highlighting on. Using JED with custom colors for highlighting.
Yeah, I know.
One of my best friends in college went through computer training in the Marine Corps. He spent an inordinate amount of time learning and programming COBOL, for which the military has a tremendous amount of legacy code.
Then he left the military. In some ways, he was better off. People respect that an officer is responsible and disciplined. However, his tech skills hardly advanced at all. That is why I claim that if you want to advance your tech skills, the military is a waste. Great benefits, great vacation time, but not great training. The best training in computers is doing.
So they got the source code for guiding the systems. If the system is properly engineered, it shouldn't matter if you know how to guide it, you still need access to the system. If the system is poorly engineered, I'm going to buy some pillows like that TV guy in Willabong Australia or wherever.
Don't be silly. Some hacker didn't steal system codes to route satellites or missiles.
Some hacker stole system codes to sell them to Putin in Russia. For a LOT of money. Putin is the former head of international intelligence - ie: Russia's spy chief. This hacker will be very generously compensated for his efforts, and the US will need to re-tool EVERYTHING.
Program in COBOL ?
Take the ridiculous military programming classes ?? Actual scenario. When a prompt asked a student to press any button, the student asked "Which button is the any button ?"
The reply from the Marine Corps instructor was "The large button at the bottom of the keyboard is the any button."
If you want a tech career, really, the military is wasting your time. You will learn how to become an insignificant cog in the system, how to take 30 paid vacation days per year, how to accrue a nice pension and benefits, and you will be light years behind people who drop out of high school and just starting working as administrators/programmers once you leave the military.
BibTeX is just fine.
:)
I have a Perl script set up to grab all email from Medline and automatically strip out the citations, format them, and add them to my database file. Even spent some time hacking bst files - now THAT is a weird language.
Anyone interested in the Perl script can email me. It won't work "out of the box" unless the email comes from Melvyl ie: the UC system. However, the principle is pretty similar for Medline and Melvyl emails. I just prefer the console Melvyl interface
The rub here is that both work just fine. One is free. One costs money. One is developed to Suns specs, the other is Suns specs. Most experienced admins will say choose the Sun. I say, we use them both. They both work fine, even in a production environment. Backup often, and use the one you are more comfortable adminning.
why do they live in igloos ?
Why are they always getting caught in those fishing nets ?
I felt obliged to point out that Daniel Phillips, of the Tux2 file system, has now created indexed searched through directories (similar conceptually to btrees, but not quite as fast).
Check out the mailing list archives here
For directories with over 20000 files, the results are 10 times faster with the indexed searching. The ratio gets better with more than that. So I guess ext2 won't have to wait long for btrees. If Tux2 happens sometime soon then it will really rock ! Great job Daniel !
I think that's a little unfair. The comparison was between Tux2 and ext3, and if one is vapor then both are. They're at similar stages in development and their authors present similar pictures of their progress.
Except that you can download working ext3 code, and have been able to for more than a year. As of yet Tux2 is still design plans, without any public working implementation.
If I were to dissect it a bit, it's more than just *skinning*, which is to redefine the appearance of the buttons and widgets. The first claim mentions the method of rendering objects and handling behavior of said objects, as related to the appearance and behavior of bojects rendered by the theme. It specifically mentions that either appearance *or* behavior is controlled differently for an object when the theme is changed.
Of course it is. And enlightenment, when a new theme is applied, has different widgets on windows, with different functions mapped to them, and also can have different pull-down menus.
Just because Windoze, KDE, GNOME, and Winamp themes are only skins doesn't imply other windowmanagers/applications are incapable of changing more than just appearance.
Mod parent up !! Themes were available in linux at that point. Heck, my RedHat 5.2 release has themes for fvwm2, and that was before the patent filing date. I am pretty certain enlightenment had themes at that point too. GNOME's introduction of themes occured in very close time proximity to the patent filing as well.
Tux2 has a much more interesting technology
Tux2 is still vaporware. I agree, it will be great when it comes out. However, it is currently vaporware.
ReiserFS and XFS are also really great,
So these have log structure (or btree) and journalling. However, ReiserFS is broken with NFS currently, and that is a BIG problem. XFS is still beta and not merged with the main kernel tree, which is also a BIG problem. Ever see the fallout when Alexander Viro (kernel VFS hacker) takes a newly merged filesystem to task ?? It is not pretty.
Ext3 has some advantages. It has been running stably for a long time now under development. It is journaled, and has a small code base. It also only exists for the 2.2 kernel series.
Phillips is also making a judgment call. He wants to build on ext2 with tux2. Ext2 is not log structured, which is why ReiserFS can beat it in well-structure benchmark tests run by Hans.
The future, IMHO, is a log structured file system with NO journaling and atomic updates. This creature already exists, and it is called FFS with Soft Updates, from the FreeBSD developers. Here is the breakdown.
Journalling is tricky, as it requires lots of intervention at other places in the kernel. You need to keep something synchronous - journalling just makes that something very small. Atomic updates avoid synchronous issues altogether. Instead, they structure the file system in groups of data and metadata. In each group, there is an atomic bit. When set, it means the group is intact. So, upon looking through the groups, you can immediately determine which ones are intact and which are incomplete. Recovery is REALLY fast after a power outage, in theory even faster than a journal recovery.
WRT log structuring and btrees, these allow small and large files to live together easily, and allow rapid searches in large directories. Both of these have substantial advantages.
And the future for linux file systems ?? I don't know, it is always interesting to see where things will head. The world is clamoring for easy crash recovery, and ext2's days are numbered. I think most people would be quite happy to simply add journaling to ext2. Or atomic updates. So I predict, after consulting the crystal ball, that tux2 develops a large following after release, and that Phillips then adds btree searches and log structuring, making it the first linux file system with all that.
That would then bring the state of the art file systems for linux up to par with those of FreeBSD. Of course, in linux at that time you can also use JFS, XFS, ReiserFS, or ext3 journaled file systems.
But journaling is worse than atomic updates, both for complexity and speed.
The copyright on the original vampire film Nosferatu expired in the ninties... I remeber when it did, because there was a flood of Nosferatu-based comic books and even a few movies, I believe.
It was a trick question.
In 1998 all copyright expirations were pushed back another 20 years by the Sonny Bono act. If Nosferatu expired, it was reinstated.
Again, as I mentioned, things are BECOMING copyright protected again even after expiration due to legislative acts pushed by congressmen who ski into trees.
Take a look at the diagram 5 in the original article. Cells receiving lots of light send back one data point saying "bright". Cells receiving not so much send back one data point saying "dark". Really, it is not some other way.
So if you see light dots and darks dots, then you have to have at least one individual cell making a strong response to make the bright dot.
This actually is basic sensor technology at the bilogical level. Individual sensors sending back point data.
This might make sense if there were not redundancy in coding of light. A single point of light is actually sent back by far more than one cell.
You can note that although there are 6-7 million rods and cones, there are only about 1 million retinal ganglion neurons - the neurons sending back information to the rest of the visual system.
And of that 1 million RGNs, only a small fraction are of the appropriate type to be used in high spatial acuity vision. So now we have a few dozen rods contributing to each "signal" that goes back to the brain. Although, in the fovea, this can be a one to one relationship.
In any case, all you can establish by looking at speckling patterns is that the spacing of the speckle is AT LEAST as broad as the spacing of the photoreceptors. Of course you know that the basic reason for the speckle is actually interference from the lit surface. Each reflecting point contains its own in phase laser signal, and these millions of in phase lasers interfere with each other, creating speckle.
The great abolitionists of the 19th century used their wonderful oratory to combat slavers, whose crude cuss words and uncouth bribes beat the orators every time. They had to fight a war to work it out.
Actually, the primary argument put forth by the slavers was anti-Federalist. Slavery should be a state's issue. That way, we can keep our slaves.
You can notice our current US Supreme Court has made a history out of placing items they disagree with on the state's chopping blocks - like abortion.
I make a living writing software, and I like the idea of authors, artists, etc. being able to make money from their creations. Someone out there give me a solid ethical justification for intellectual property restrictions, please.
The original intent of the law is to allow you monopolistic but time-limited rights over your expression. I think it is not truly appropriate to call copyright IP, since it is not protected against reverse engineering (unlike patents). Expression is a better word. If you wrote a play or a song, you have limited time rights to allow or disallow public performances.
Suppose there were no copyright protection. You wrote a huge software package and delivered it to a client. He had just paid a trivial amount for a pirated copy of that work, and now tells you to go away. Now, depending on how important you are to his business, he may or may not act this way. But, without copyright there is no legal recourse against it. After all, the pirates didn't remove anything from you.
But they did affect your monopolistically controlled market. And that can hurt you commercially. I would argue strenuously that today's market is absurd, and that is why something like Free Software can exist. But very few people argue against copyright. In fact, copyrights are the basis of the strength of the GPL. If do work for clients under the GPL/BSD/Artistic license, you will make it much cheaper and easier for someone else to provide a similar service, and the quality of software can rise dramatically.
The reasons for this move are simple. Computer sales are slowing down, as most places now have computers fast enough to do what they need to do.
.NET initiative, which means you will pay every year to use Microsoft products. Office will be first.
Microsoft's profits come mostly from OEM sales of their software. Since OEM sales are down, their insanely high profits are down too. In order to recover, they will move to the
As a side benefit, M$ will see a dramatic decrease in the number of pirated copies of their software. They will force this down everyone's throats. They will claim it is an inherently better model. They will market it. They will introduce problems with backward compatibility. They will do all this to make money.
The real question is what consumers will do. I sincerely hope the day is coming when I no longer need to have a Microsoft box around to look at documents people email me.
Right. It is a process that goes in phases. First the base system is thoroughly tested, and development will stop. At this point the base system is considered 'ready to ship', and will not be patched unless patches are REALLY important.
Then the installer is tested, fixed, and considered 'ready to ship'. No more fixes are used to patch the installer unless it is really important.
Lastly the optional add-on packages are patched, fixed, and made ready to ship.
The freeze should be considered a process, not a state of affairs. This indicates the beginning. The end of the freeze will occur at the release.
Well, duh, we all know that. And so do the judges. The problem is, copyright hasn't been extended to be permanent yet!
So please tell me when it is you think the original Mickey Mouse cartoons will have their copyrights expire.
Better yet, please indicate any copyright that has expired since 1976 to indicate that copyright is not an indefinite right in the US.
The history of copyright in the last 30-40 years has been that it is getting extended, retroactively, faster than time itself. Copyright is not expiring - rather it is being restored, even to things that have already become public domain ! That is what the lawsuit is all about.
It would stifle new music: copyright would be seen as an encumberance, not protection. Why would a music director for a movie or commercial license the work of $NEW_BAND when he could get the Beatles for free?
You mean that an artist would have to produce something new that was of substantial value compared to works more than 10 years old in order to make money ??
I don't think you can argue with a straight face that the Beatles would not have made plenty of money if this was in effect 40 years ago.
I don't think you can argue with a straight face that Michael Jackson's millions would be worthless if this were in effect.
In any case, with music, there are cultural waves. Music from the late 70s is becoming 'in vogue' now. Imaging if it were copyright free, and new music could be made that sampled old music ad nauseam, and made useful new music from it.
Making music, especially old music, free does not stifle innovation anymore than making free software stifles paying software.
It is a blatant corruption of our government to claim that music should have exlusive rights to the artists for an open undefined infinite length of time. Now that stifles innovation.
The simple fact is that copyright establishes ownership. It allows the artist to establish control over his work.
According to the US Constitution, this is the purpose of copyright
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
The artist is allowed to have limited time exclusive rights to the writings that are copyrighted. The purpose is promoting useful arts for the citizens. The purpose is not allowing the artist to get rich off his writings - that is a necessary part of the promotion of the copyrighted material.
One may very well question how American it is to push the copyright protection so that it never expires just so that Walt Disney cartoons are protected. Limited time is certainly not infinite, and may be redefined by Congress whenever they see fit, as long as the goal is promotion of the useful arts.
Here is a proposal. Make music protected for 10 years. No online music except as authorized by the artists unless it is more than 10 years old. Then, the sky is the limit.
In any case, it doesn't take a Rhodes scholar to read the above statement from the US Constitution and see that Orrin Hatch's proposal is unconstitutional, since it deprives the artist of exclusive rights.
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