Re:Offtopic?!? Hey Mods, B-O-O-K that spells book!
on
A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 2
Since when does being well read on Stephen King count as being literate? His stuff has been way more navel gazing as of late and less fun. I think he completely JTSed when he put himself into the Dark Tower books.
One of the original Memory Stick ads had a guy with a card slot in the back of his head and a Stick was about to be placed in it. At the time, I though Sony was subconsciously telegraphing where they'd like all of this to go. These days, I'm certain. What's really scary is the sheeple will go for "Neural Rights Management" if it means he gets to watch Survivor 15.
Perhaps there is a way to fight fire with fire when faced with a troll. You can't counter a troll with yet another software patent but what about a business method patent? These things are just as obvious and trite as most software patents. Surely some of these could be brought to bear against one aspect or another of the troll's firm. Just ratchet the fees such that every dime the troll squeezes from you comes right back. Make it crystal clear that this is what will happen.
In addition prior art and invalidation can brought against the troll as defenses in addition to the business method offense.
The Nvidia driver has a very well known problem with the render extension on certain hardware. What's more, render is enabled by default in recent X.Org releases.
Putting
Option "RenderAccel" "false"
in the device section will very likely take care of the lockups at the expense of 2D desktop redrawing speed. The Composite extension should be avoided as well.
Supposedly, the render problems are going to be addressed in the next major release of Nvidia's drivers.
I've already experienced scanners, printers, and other sundry items that failed to work during the shift from 98 to XP. Oddly enough, some of those devices had maintained Linux drivers. At least if I have something that works in Linux then there is some assurance that it will stay working....even if the manufacturer loses interest in that model of device. The reason why I have that assurance is that the driver isn't a black block at the mercy of the vendor.
Closed source drivers will necessitate the endless maintenance of cruft that can't be fixed even if a deeply rooted flaw can't be found. It also isn't in the kernel devs interests to have more and more and more and more (see where I'm going with this) troubleshooting paths tracing into more and more and more (ya know) black box binary drivers.
I have some influence over server purchases. Newer (expensive) equipment that uses Adaptec SCSI devices are off the list. I doubt I'm the only one rejecting Adaptec on that basis either. And the server purchases of Linux in many markets can be measured with more than single digit percentages.
Allowing closed source drivers would very convienient in the short term. In the long term the effect on the kernel's quality can't help but be negative. The Linux kernel devs (and the OpenBSD devs for that matter) are taking the correct position on this.
Economics 101 here. If a device won't work in Linux for WHATEVER reason then I just won't buy it. The manufacturer can whinge about his valuable IP until the cows come home.
Obviously all we know about Quantum Physics isn't wrong. If you feel like studying for about five years and getting a few million dollars with of equipment, there's a decent chance that you could test it experimentally.
You can test one aspect of quantum physics with a light source, three pieces of polaroid filter, and a projection screen. Shine the light through two of the filters and turn one 90 degrees and completely block the light from hitting the screen. Put a filter turned to 45 degrees between the first two and some light hits the screen. That would very tricky to explain without quantum physics as applied to photons.
Steve should just stock up a few lawyertron bombs for Apple Music. That or just buy them out to start with. At any rate, the idea is that Apple could pull a Sony-in-reverse. Sony has a consumer electronics division that can only make gimped up products because the Sony media arm decides on incredibly insane things like rootkitting Windows. That doesn't encourage me to plug anything from Sony into my PC.
Apple on the other hand could be a computer company that owns a few labels. If they can't buy one then they should start one. They could twist the knife a bit by not raping artists up the ass. If Apple controlled substantial amounts of their own content then they would have a strengthed position to deal with the rest of the labels. Since Apple's DRM is the least obnoxious going, they can continue sticking it to their Windows only competitors as well.
Remember recently one of our esteemed elected officials (in the USA that is) who wanted the ability to physically remotely destroy the pc of someone infringing on copywrighted material? I don't want to name the name because I'm not sure which one it was.
The whackjob in question is Orrin Hatch.
The KBE doesn't need the AAAS standards to create a bowdlerized version of evolution. Kids aren't going to be denied anything they weren't going to get in Kansas schools anyway. The AAAS move accomplishes two things. It will remove the scientific imprimituer from what the KBE mandates as the state education standards and will draw more unwelcome attention from better educated parts of the country and state.
If the state of affairs persists long enough then Kansas HS graduates will have a harder time getting into the better schools outside of Kansas. THAT is an unfortunate collateral damage to the kids but perhaps that is what it will take to get their parents to vote these clowns out of office.
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.
Since when does being well read on Stephen King count as being literate? His stuff has been way more navel gazing as of late and less fun. I think he completely JTSed when he put himself into the Dark Tower books.
One of the original Memory Stick ads had a guy with a card slot in the back of his head and a Stick was about to be placed in it. At the time, I though Sony was subconsciously telegraphing where they'd like all of this to go. These days, I'm certain. What's really scary is the sheeple will go for "Neural Rights Management" if it means he gets to watch Survivor 15.
Perhaps there is a way to fight fire with fire when faced with a troll. You can't counter a troll with yet another software patent but what about a business method patent? These things are just as obvious and trite as most software patents. Surely some of these could be brought to bear against one aspect or another of the troll's firm. Just ratchet the fees such that every dime the troll squeezes from you comes right back. Make it crystal clear that this is what will happen. In addition prior art and invalidation can brought against the troll as defenses in addition to the business method offense.
The Nvidia driver has a very well known problem with the render extension on certain hardware. What's more, render is enabled by default in recent X.Org releases.
Putting
Option "RenderAccel" "false"
in the device section will very likely take care of the lockups at the expense of 2D desktop redrawing speed. The Composite extension should be avoided as well.
Supposedly, the render problems are going to be addressed in the next major release of Nvidia's drivers.
I've already experienced scanners, printers, and other sundry items that failed to work during the shift from 98 to XP. Oddly enough, some of those devices had maintained Linux drivers. At least if I have something that works in Linux then there is some assurance that it will stay working....even if the manufacturer loses interest in that model of device. The reason why I have that assurance is that the driver isn't a black block at the mercy of the vendor.
Closed source drivers will necessitate the endless maintenance of cruft that can't be fixed even if a deeply rooted flaw can't be found. It also isn't in the kernel devs interests to have more and more and more and more (see where I'm going with this) troubleshooting paths tracing into more and more and more (ya know) black box binary drivers.
I have some influence over server purchases. Newer (expensive) equipment that uses Adaptec SCSI devices are off the list. I doubt I'm the only one rejecting Adaptec on that basis either. And the server purchases of Linux in many markets can be measured with more than single digit percentages.
Allowing closed source drivers would very convienient in the short term. In the long term the effect on the kernel's quality can't help but be negative. The Linux kernel devs (and the OpenBSD devs for that matter) are taking the correct position on this.
Economics 101 here. If a device won't work in Linux for WHATEVER reason then I just won't buy it. The manufacturer can whinge about his valuable IP until the cows come home.
There are more and more like me everyday.
Classical physics doesn't explain why inserting the 45 degree filter in the middle of a formerly opaque system allows some light to pass.
Obviously all we know about Quantum Physics isn't wrong. If you feel like studying for about five years and getting a few million dollars with of equipment, there's a decent chance that you could test it experimentally.
You can test one aspect of quantum physics with a light source, three pieces of polaroid filter, and a projection screen. Shine the light through two of the filters and turn one 90 degrees and completely block the light from hitting the screen. Put a filter turned to 45 degrees between the first two and some light hits the screen. That would very tricky to explain without quantum physics as applied to photons.
It is cheap to do too.
Steve should just stock up a few lawyertron bombs for Apple Music. That or just buy them out to start with. At any rate, the idea is that Apple could pull a Sony-in-reverse. Sony has a consumer electronics division that can only make gimped up products because the Sony media arm decides on incredibly insane things like rootkitting Windows. That doesn't encourage me to plug anything from Sony into my PC.
Apple on the other hand could be a computer company that owns a few labels. If they can't buy one then they should start one. They could twist the knife a bit by not raping artists up the ass. If Apple controlled substantial amounts of their own content then they would have a strengthed position to deal with the rest of the labels. Since Apple's DRM is the least obnoxious going, they can continue sticking it to their Windows only competitors as well.
Remember recently one of our esteemed elected officials (in the USA that is) who wanted the ability to physically remotely destroy the pc of someone infringing on copywrighted material? I don't want to name the name because I'm not sure which one it was. The whackjob in question is Orrin Hatch.
The KBE doesn't need the AAAS standards to create a bowdlerized version of evolution. Kids aren't going to be denied anything they weren't going to get in Kansas schools anyway. The AAAS move accomplishes two things. It will remove the scientific imprimituer from what the KBE mandates as the state education standards and will draw more unwelcome attention from better educated parts of the country and state. If the state of affairs persists long enough then Kansas HS graduates will have a harder time getting into the better schools outside of Kansas. THAT is an unfortunate collateral damage to the kids but perhaps that is what it will take to get their parents to vote these clowns out of office.
General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.
Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.