Generally, I imagine that it has to do with the fact that word processing files don't carry fonts with them. Even if the file specification were 100% open and implementable, most fonts are licensed in a way that doesn't allow them to be redistributed. As a result, you can only print the document and send paper around, or export to PDF which renders the characters as lines and fills but doesn't include the font information itself.
While licensing restrictions may make it illegal to redistribute fonts, both word processor formats (certainly, Word has allowed this for many years) and PDF allow embedding fonts in the document file; it is neither something that word processor formats can't do nor something that PDF can only get around by "rendering the characters as lines and fills" without font information.
Word, in particular, has had trouble rendering consistently on different systems (not sure if 2007 retains this problem), IIRC, because its rendering is affected by OS level information about the current system-default printer. Fonts aren't the main source of the problem, it exists on Word even using the standard Windows fonts on different Windows boxes, and with the fonts bundled with Office.
4 authors of the bible are known: John, Luke, Matthew and Mark.
No, not really; while the gospels bearing the names of each (plus, in the case of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles) are traditionally ascribed to those apostles (just as most of the books of the Bible have traditionally-ascribed authors), those four aren't any more "known" than the rest, and the traditional authors aren't all that likely the people that actually wrote those gospels (or most of the other books.) IIRC, the only books of the Bible where historical evidence suggests the date of authorship is likely consistent with the traditional authorship are some of the NT epistles, particularly the Pauline corpus.
A) he inspired people to write it over a period of 2000 years.
Which 2000 years? Traditionally, the Pentateuch is held to have been written just after the Exodus; this would be sometime around 1500 BC or so. 2000 years would seem to suggest that the NT was written substantially later than the traditional dates for the works therein.
Of course, if you are including the process of selecting and refining the canon, then, well, that gets well over 2,000 years for at least some versions of the canon.
I mean common, 20+ people writing a book over 2000 years, including prophecies that are fulfilled hundreds (if not thousands) of years after they are written, with no contradictions in the book.
First, you are misusing the word "common".
Second, there are rather a lot of contradictions in the Bible (often in the same book, sometimes right up next to each as in the conflicting creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis.)
Third, there are no unambiguous prophecies in the Bible that are clearly fulfilled after the prophecy was written. There are some direct prophecies that were written after the events occurred (though, if they are accurate records, they were spoken before the events), and some of those direct prophecies were later re-interpreted as also being prophecies of more distant events that occurred later (if the Bible is to be believed), though often those later events lack independent evidence outside of the Bible.
Not to mention that it has the power to change lives (bring about world peace, etc.).
A power (that is, the one to "bring about world peace") that, whatever you may believe about it, you must admit is, at best, undemonstrated.
Modern Christians say its actually thou shalt not murder with legally sanction killing being permissible.
Actually, the idea that the proper understanding of the sense of the commandment is a prohibition on murder (which doesn't necessary give unlimited sanction to any killing a government sanctions, either) and not all killing isn't some innovation that "modern Christians" invented; it was the general interpretation before Christ (its hardly as if ancient Israel viewed either war or capital punishment as forbidden), and also the dominant interpretation from the earliest Christianity.
If anything, the "innovation" throughout the history of Christianity has been finding progressively broader classes of acts of killing that are considered within the prohibition of the commandment.
It's the type of thing I think you'd only see in movies, but imagine a hitman with a private doctor who injects stem cells after every hit... of a hitman who does it without the help of a doctor. The guy could leave different DNA at each crime scene with almost no worries of being linked to each murder.
Or, rather, he could leave multiple sets of DNA at each crime scene, and the only common one would be the original one.
How does the inventor know that? It's government policy and market forces that set currency prices, not the guy who designs the coins.
Perhaps the "coin" is, in effect, a bearer note exchangable for GBP 6.25 from the issuer or some other established entity guaranteed to be holding sufficient liquid assets to redeem all the coins issued. In which case, presuming a reasonable perception of the solvency of the issuer (or the redeeming entity), you'd expect the market valuable to be very close to GBP 6.25.
historical artifacts, for example, will always be worth more than even indistinguishable replicas.
No, if the replicas are actually indistinguishable (rather than merely superficially convincing), the originals won't be worth more, because no one will be able to tell the difference.
authors say that these results show that spontaneous brain activity is more than simply a physiological artifact; it helps account for some of the variability in human behavior. In that sense, they argue for a greater acceptance of the view that our brain may have some intrinsic activity that's somewhat independent of sensory input.
While that may be the case, how does one rule out that the possibility that the activity is a delayed reaction to sensory input, rather than an immediate one? Even assuming that the anesthetization is really enough to rule out the possibility of it being the result of immediate sensory input...
The FSF is very clear in its view that Copyright is NOT Intellectual Property.
The fact that the FSF and/or RMS claims that copyright is not Intellectual Property does not change the fact that copyright is a type of intellectual property.
The other ground-shaking part of the decision is this: "mental processes -- or processes of human thinking -- standing alone aren't patentable even if they have practical application." That would seem like grounds for invalidating a whole universe of bogus "business method" patents.
Business methods patents are patents on complexes of actions, not "mental processes", aren't they? And, if not, wouldn't this also imply that patents on algorithms (e.g., in cryptography) are not patentable?
I know little to nothing about programming but would like to start, fund, and maintain a GPL linux POS application.
This is noble, I suppose, but... consider that there are several F/OSS POS projects under the GPL already (and probably more under other F/OSS licenses): frustration that all you could find that met your immediate needs was commercial probably isn't a good motive for wanting to see better development on those, but why a new project? Unless you've got some stunning new approach in mind that isn't compatible with the existing project's orientations, starting another project probably doesn't help anything. You may be better off, if you want to help make this happen, researching the existing projects and finding one that you can help, providing testing, funding, or some other assistance.
And carefully consider how much time and money you can really afford to devote to this if you are also trying to launch another business of your own simultaneously, and whether you've really considered the relative priorities of the two projects. New small businesses are often precarious enough as it is, even without the owner devoting considerable time and resources to another side project.
The XO was designed through a very interesting process of contributed intellectual labor. There is literally no way to capitalize on that.
I'm not sure that's really true. As corporations supplying enterprise-oriented Linux (and other OSS products) have demonstrated, its quite possible to capitalize on "contributed intellectual labor" by (1) knowing the product well, and (2) using that knowledge to provide first-class services and support. You supply the product itself as a way to build the initial relationship that allows you to sell the services and support that make the product useful to the customer. I wouldn't be surprised if some clever service provide found a way to do that with a system incorporating technology largely derived from the OLPC.
Yes, you could theoretically use that to learn about those things. But computers don't bring in resources that aren't currently in a geographic location. Those are protected by people with guns. That's what people often forget: education is great and all, but without hard physical resources that education is useless.
Most of the developing world has resources of some kind, and they tend not be used effectively. Lack of education is one reason for that (government failures are another, but since these are being sold to national ministries of education, they aren't going to places where (a) the government doesn't care, or (b) no effective government exists and local warlords control everything.)
I'm all for education, but these people need education and resources.
Yeah, they do. No one is suggesting that OLPC is the only thing the developing world needs or can benefit from.
Its possible for the developed world to do more than one thing at a time.
The current state of many "poor" countries is that there is an immediate tradeoff between "hrm, should I study for an hour or spend an hour protecting the few vegetable plants I have from rodents or theives?"
That's true largely of the poorest of poor countries, which aren't really the primary target of the OLPC project (though some countries in that tier may get XOs because somewhat more developed countries are buying it for them, as Libya has discussed doing for Rwanda.)
Now how do we get them raw materials and factories
Er, the raw materials used in the developed world often come from the developing world.
Indeed, part of the reason they need better education is so that they can develop some kind of economic base besides agriculture and extractive industries. And the main problem with factories and other industries is the lack of local skills to mix with the resources to attract investment capital.
Education addresses that directly. Other things help to, e.g., microcredit programs have been shown to be a big boon to economic development and provide opportunities to develop business skills to tackle bigger challenges, so can be another key in skill development.
Remember, again, that most world problems today aren't technical, but political.
Mass education and access to information is a key to addressing political problems as well as technical problems.
Who cares about dedicated eBook readers. Any PDA does as good a job, and you're not locked in to DRMed formats.
Most PDA's don't have the high-resolution displays of good dedicated eBook readers or the XO, because being used as e-book readers wasn't high on their list of priorities. IMO, most PDA's don't make good e-Book readers.
I wouldn't say anything if TFA didn't characterize OLPCs as "cool", "fun" and "good for learning". If that was true, it would be marketable in US Walmart to parents who can not spare more than $200/child for a computer
Its "cool", "fun", and "good for learning", in the context for which it was designed: that is, in an environment where, for the student, everyone in their peer group also has them, and they are supported by a national infrastructure that includes a content distribution system that includes school servers, etc., providing content and services designed around the XO.
(It may be somewhat "cool", "fun", and "good for learning" individually, outside of that context, but not enough to justify the ~$175 mass-purchase cost of the bare machine except to a very small market -- one that may be overrepresented on/. -- not to mention the higher cost that would be necessary to support in-store retail sales, customer support, etc., even without providing any subsidy back to the OLPC project. If it was sold at Wal*Mart, it wouldn't be under $200 even before any subsidy.)
You make it sound more complicated than it is. In simple terms: nobody wants to spend a lot of money trying to market a cheap computer that isn't really designed for the U.S. market. Even if Americans wanted to buy it, there's no hope of making any money selling it.
I don't think "the U.S. market" is the thing that it is not designed for that makes the big difference. Sure, sure, its environment-proof in many ways to meet needs of the developing world, but that kind of kid-proofing isn't far from the needs of young users in the U.S.
What it isn't designed for that really makes a difference is the individual purchaser market, in the US or elsewhere. Most of the key features of interest to end-users rely on either (a) having regular access to an upstream content supplier, or (b) having lots of other people in your peer group that have a compatible system.
C#.Net is a good programming language, if it had been developed by anyone but Microsoft slashdotters would love it.
C# is a close parallel of Java; its got some improvements, but its in the same ballpark. Given that Java doesn't get much love on Slashdot, I doubt C# would be all that loved here even if it was an open-source language that had never come anywhere near Microsoft.
Then again, a close parallel to Java with a different VM wouldn't have any exposure or adoption if it wasn't from Microsoft, anyway.
The fact that the OLPCs are not offered in US toy stores even before pushing them abroad makes me suspect that they are seriously underpowered machines without much available software and are not as fun and cool as the project leaders would have us think.
They aren't designed as toys. They are designed as educational tools to be used in an environment where they interact with others with similar hardware, school servers, etc., and to support centralized distribution of software and content by the agency purchasing them.
I also don't think you understand the marketing costs and risk associated with a mass retail marketing effort, particular of a product which is designed for the specific needs of a very different one than you are trying to market it to at retail.
From TFA: "Linux is best for technically savvy users or for people whose needs are so basic that they will never need anything other than the bundled software"
That's probably somewhat true, if by "bundled" they mean "included in the standard repositories".
Of course, the set of people who are not "technically savvy", yet have needs that require software that isn't available in, say, the standard repositories for Ubuntu is small if not actually empty.
It's no secret what capsaicin, the fiery molecule of peppers, does to cell walls.
Actually, relevant to TFA, "cell membranes", not "cell walls". Any effect they have on cell walls (which are found in plants, but not, e.g., humans) would be pretty irrelevant to their utility in moving anesthetics into cells.
It just became economical for just about every application to be written in parallel.
Seriously, why would any developer waste time and money multi-threading something as inherantly serial as an event loop that doesn't come anywhere near saturating even a single core?
Depending on the implementation language, making tasks parallel that are logically independent may not add any additional time or money. Sure, it adds a lot if you are adding it to an existing app written in a language that doesn't accommodate it naturally, but GP referred to writing applications, not rewriting existing applications. The point at which it becomes sensible to apply parallelism widely to new applications isn't the same point at which becomes sensible to rewrite existing applications to incorporate parallelism.
Programming is done to create a product, not write in a specific language.
Some programming is done to create a product, some programming is done to learn tools and techniques (including particular languages) so as to broaden the selection of approaches available for (generally unknown) future products.
Slashdot Mirror
While licensing restrictions may make it illegal to redistribute fonts, both word processor formats (certainly, Word has allowed this for many years) and PDF allow embedding fonts in the document file; it is neither something that word processor formats can't do nor something that PDF can only get around by "rendering the characters as lines and fills" without font information.
Word, in particular, has had trouble rendering consistently on different systems (not sure if 2007 retains this problem), IIRC, because its rendering is affected by OS level information about the current system-default printer. Fonts aren't the main source of the problem, it exists on Word even using the standard Windows fonts on different Windows boxes, and with the fonts bundled with Office.
I'm well aware of that; the traditional association was the assumption most favorable to the poster to whom I was responding.
No, not really; while the gospels bearing the names of each (plus, in the case of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles) are traditionally ascribed to those apostles (just as most of the books of the Bible have traditionally-ascribed authors), those four aren't any more "known" than the rest, and the traditional authors aren't all that likely the people that actually wrote those gospels (or most of the other books.) IIRC, the only books of the Bible where historical evidence suggests the date of authorship is likely consistent with the traditional authorship are some of the NT epistles, particularly the Pauline corpus.
Which 2000 years? Traditionally, the Pentateuch is held to have been written just after the Exodus; this would be sometime around 1500 BC or so. 2000 years would seem to suggest that the NT was written substantially later than the traditional dates for the works therein.
Of course, if you are including the process of selecting and refining the canon, then, well, that gets well over 2,000 years for at least some versions of the canon.
First, you are misusing the word "common".
Second, there are rather a lot of contradictions in the Bible (often in the same book, sometimes right up next to each as in the conflicting creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis.)
Third, there are no unambiguous prophecies in the Bible that are clearly fulfilled after the prophecy was written. There are some direct prophecies that were written after the events occurred (though, if they are accurate records, they were spoken before the events), and some of those direct prophecies were later re-interpreted as also being prophecies of more distant events that occurred later (if the Bible is to be believed), though often those later events lack independent evidence outside of the Bible.
A power (that is, the one to "bring about world peace") that, whatever you may believe about it, you must admit is, at best, undemonstrated.
Actually, the idea that the proper understanding of the sense of the commandment is a prohibition on murder (which doesn't necessary give unlimited sanction to any killing a government sanctions, either) and not all killing isn't some innovation that "modern Christians" invented; it was the general interpretation before Christ (its hardly as if ancient Israel viewed either war or capital punishment as forbidden), and also the dominant interpretation from the earliest Christianity.
If anything, the "innovation" throughout the history of Christianity has been finding progressively broader classes of acts of killing that are considered within the prohibition of the commandment.
Or, rather, he could leave multiple sets of DNA at each crime scene, and the only common one would be the original one.
I think its fascinating that people think that creatures generally need to "grasp the idea" of doing something to be able to do it.
Perhaps the "coin" is, in effect, a bearer note exchangable for GBP 6.25 from the issuer or some other established entity guaranteed to be holding sufficient liquid assets to redeem all the coins issued. In which case, presuming a reasonable perception of the solvency of the issuer (or the redeeming entity), you'd expect the market valuable to be very close to GBP 6.25.
No, if the replicas are actually indistinguishable (rather than merely superficially convincing), the originals won't be worth more, because no one will be able to tell the difference.
While that may be the case, how does one rule out that the possibility that the activity is a delayed reaction to sensory input, rather than an immediate one? Even assuming that the anesthetization is really enough to rule out the possibility of it being the result of immediate sensory input...
The fact that the FSF and/or RMS claims that copyright is not Intellectual Property does not change the fact that copyright is a type of intellectual property.
Business methods patents are patents on complexes of actions, not "mental processes", aren't they? And, if not, wouldn't this also imply that patents on algorithms (e.g., in cryptography) are not patentable?
Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. He has different DNA in different cells (and the non-original DNA is in blood cells.)
If he has offspring, each will be produced by exactly one of his cells, which will have one set of (half of) his original DNA.
This is noble, I suppose, but
And carefully consider how much time and money you can really afford to devote to this if you are also trying to launch another business of your own simultaneously, and whether you've really considered the relative priorities of the two projects. New small businesses are often precarious enough as it is, even without the owner devoting considerable time and resources to another side project.
I'm not sure that's really true. As corporations supplying enterprise-oriented Linux (and other OSS products) have demonstrated, its quite possible to capitalize on "contributed intellectual labor" by (1) knowing the product well, and (2) using that knowledge to provide first-class services and support. You supply the product itself as a way to build the initial relationship that allows you to sell the services and support that make the product useful to the customer. I wouldn't be surprised if some clever service provide found a way to do that with a system incorporating technology largely derived from the OLPC.
Most of the developing world has resources of some kind, and they tend not be used effectively. Lack of education is one reason for that (government failures are another, but since these are being sold to national ministries of education, they aren't going to places where (a) the government doesn't care, or (b) no effective government exists and local warlords control everything.)
Yeah, they do. No one is suggesting that OLPC is the only thing the developing world needs or can benefit from.
Its possible for the developed world to do more than one thing at a time.
That's true largely of the poorest of poor countries, which aren't really the primary target of the OLPC project (though some countries in that tier may get XOs because somewhat more developed countries are buying it for them, as Libya has discussed doing for Rwanda.)
Er, the raw materials used in the developed world often come from the developing world.
Indeed, part of the reason they need better education is so that they can develop some kind of economic base besides agriculture and extractive industries. And the main problem with factories and other industries is the lack of local skills to mix with the resources to attract investment capital.
Education addresses that directly. Other things help to, e.g., microcredit programs have been shown to be a big boon to economic development and provide opportunities to develop business skills to tackle bigger challenges, so can be another key in skill development.
Mass education and access to information is a key to addressing political problems as well as technical problems.
Most PDA's don't have the high-resolution displays of good dedicated eBook readers or the XO, because being used as e-book readers wasn't high on their list of priorities. IMO, most PDA's don't make good e-Book readers.
Its "cool", "fun", and "good for learning", in the context for which it was designed: that is, in an environment where, for the student, everyone in their peer group also has them, and they are supported by a national infrastructure that includes a content distribution system that includes school servers, etc., providing content and services designed around the XO.
(It may be somewhat "cool", "fun", and "good for learning" individually, outside of that context, but not enough to justify the ~$175 mass-purchase cost of the bare machine except to a very small market -- one that may be overrepresented on
I don't think "the U.S. market" is the thing that it is not designed for that makes the big difference. Sure, sure, its environment-proof in many ways to meet needs of the developing world, but that kind of kid-proofing isn't far from the needs of young users in the U.S.
What it isn't designed for that really makes a difference is the individual purchaser market, in the US or elsewhere. Most of the key features of interest to end-users rely on either (a) having regular access to an upstream content supplier, or (b) having lots of other people in your peer group that have a compatible system.
C# is a close parallel of Java; its got some improvements, but its in the same ballpark. Given that Java doesn't get much love on Slashdot, I doubt C# would be all that loved here even if it was an open-source language that had never come anywhere near Microsoft.
Then again, a close parallel to Java with a different VM wouldn't have any exposure or adoption if it wasn't from Microsoft, anyway.
They aren't designed as toys. They are designed as educational tools to be used in an environment where they interact with others with similar hardware, school servers, etc., and to support centralized distribution of software and content by the agency purchasing them.
I also don't think you understand the marketing costs and risk associated with a mass retail marketing effort, particular of a product which is designed for the specific needs of a very different one than you are trying to market it to at retail.
That's probably somewhat true, if by "bundled" they mean "included in the standard repositories".
Of course, the set of people who are not "technically savvy", yet have needs that require software that isn't available in, say, the standard repositories for Ubuntu is small if not actually empty.
Actually, relevant to TFA, "cell membranes", not "cell walls". Any effect they have on cell walls (which are found in plants, but not, e.g., humans) would be pretty irrelevant to their utility in moving anesthetics into cells.
Depending on the implementation language, making tasks parallel that are logically independent may not add any additional time or money. Sure, it adds a lot if you are adding it to an existing app written in a language that doesn't accommodate it naturally, but GP referred to writing applications, not rewriting existing applications. The point at which it becomes sensible to apply parallelism widely to new applications isn't the same point at which becomes sensible to rewrite existing applications to incorporate parallelism.