Agreed, that's an eyebrow-raising attitude to say the least. Besides, there's one more side to this: the individuals comprising these tech companies are the same guys whose freedom supposedly needs to be defended (concentration of tech guys in tech companies is usually higher than at farms). So what he's saying boils down to something like "When you're at home, your freedom is sacred and shalt be protected. When you're at work, you're on your own".
That wasn't my intention. If you cared to read, I only wanted to know his opinion on the subject, because I found it interesting to see how would he apply the logic behind GPL to web applications. However, when I saw faults in the logic he told me, I felt the urge to object, informing him and changing his opinion in process. So much for pure academic interest...
Actually, it was me who alerted him on this issue (using GMail as an example). However, that was almost a year (!) ago. Took him a long time, but I couldn't expect any less, since the man almost never uses a browser at all...
P.S. For those interested, here is the transcript of our email conversation.
Don't worry, this time America has tens of thousands of former Soviet/Russian scientists who fled the country in the 90s when the USSR died, and it became obvious that this brave new Russia has little need of science (or anything else besides the oil pipe, for that matter). And yes, I know what I'm talking about.
While the scientific debate may be far from over, the problem here isn't that somebody on Earth questioned the validness of Pluto's classification. The problem here that a bunch of incompetent politicians (please read TFA to see; the "passing overhead through Illinois' skies" part is marvelous) attempt to intervene in none of their business under the ridiculous excuse of "...Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, being born on a farm near the Illinois community of Streator".
Yes, that's what I claim (that it's the only IAU resolution defining a planet to date, and it involves only the Solar system), and no, it would be up to you to show that I'm wrong. After all, you only need to post here a PDF link to IAU's definition of a planet outside the Solar system. Note that it should define the word 'planet' and not 'exoplanet'.
If an elected group of people decide that Pluto is a planet(which changes absolutely NOTHING), who are a bunch of snobbish scients to deny that?
Hey there. If this 'elected group of people' decided that Pluto is a star, would that be another matter and would be wrong?
If yes, then your argument appears to be based on the fact that nobody cares about the difference between a planet and a dwarf planet - which isn't so, because people who study the formation of the Solar system (the said 'snobbish scientists') do care.
If no, then you'd rather understand that definitions, words and so on are here to ease up and improve the process of gathering, exchanging and producing information, and every attempt to mess that up contradicts their very purpose. In other words, if competent scientists decide that Pluto is not a planet, that DOES matter and change something, and who are a bunch of corrupt politicians milking a state in North America to deny that?
You've been looking at wrong definitions. Try the one here. It only describes planets in the Solar system, and leaves the term undefined for the rest of the Universe. So the OP is right, after all.
The IAU definition of a planet says:
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies, except satellites,
in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the
following way:
(1) A planet 1 is a celestial body that
(a) is in orbit around the Sun,
(b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces
so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape,
and
(c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that
(a) is in orbit around the Sun,
(b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces
so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape 2 ,
(c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
(d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects 3,except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to
collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
As you can see, the word 'planet' is only defined for the Solar system. There are no planets outside of it - those are exoplanets! And we do not currently possess enough data to make conclusions if their generation process and other characteristics has anything to do with our planets'
It randomly follows an action rather than bringing up the menu about one time in ten.
I can confirm this behavior. However, I have discovered sort of a workaround: when right-clicking, hold the mouse button for half a second or so, i.e. do not release it right away. Works for me.
I'm not sure Google can effectively use info extracted from analysis of my private data (searches, gmail, etc.) to display relevant ads to me. Hell, they've been plastering my GMail with some sort of religious propaganda and astrology-related crap lately (me being a physicist), and it's been a week or so that AdSense has been showing throngs "Try Google Chrome" ads to me even when I'm using Chrome. You don't get much stupider and worthless advertisement than that:-)
It's pretty sad since some time ago I really hoped that Adsense will be actually useful by showing me ads for things that I would be interested in, both bringing revenue to the advertiser and making me a happy buyer.
I don't get it. If they still have the data, why is it so hard for them to write up a script to fix the mistake?
Because they insist that it wasn't a mistake and, generally, they wanted people's profiles clean. Now if this is true or not remains to be seen: they could be covering up their asses by saying it was intentional, because a company that accidentally kills or blocks your data would receive event less trust than a company that does it intentionally. So practically by this announcement they could be choosing the lesser of the two evils.
How many? That remains to be seen. The current population level would be impossible to reach with 18th century technology (nor the current technology level would be achievable by a population less than 1bn large). I can't say what will come next: orbital hydroponics, cleaning nanomachines, but an advance like this will raise the cap several times. Maybe, nothing revolutionary is invented in the observable future; that means that we have nearly hit our population cap.
Who makes it *my* job? I'm sorry, the word was ill-chosen, but I did put it in quotes to underscore that it's not really a job what I mean. Rather, it defines what we can and what we can't do to help our species as a hole evolve (coincidentally, also advancing our company/government/etc).
...a surviving child in the 1st world uses up 20 times the resources of a surviving child in the 3rd world. So what? I don't live a in a first world country, not even close. And the resources - the said 1st world country could, you know, buy it. Or suck them out from another country using a colonial agreement as an excuse. Somehow, they did pay for the resources, even if the 3rd world country didn't benefit from that payment.
...we will screw up the environment up to such a degree that there is a huge die back... Well, that's also a point of the evolution. I don't believe that the whole human race, down to the last village will somehow vanish. Some portions of population will remain and continue their struggle for life. And if this happens, it will also be evolution in action. Those who are unsuitable for life (no matter why, do they lack sharp teeth, strong legs, are very responsive to an exotic virus or just screw up the environment to the point they all die) are wiped out, the rest go on with their lives. So trying to be in this second group (even if it means sacrificing my personal life) is the definition of 'responsible behavior' to me.
I think that your personal decision not to have kids affects little. The current demographic growth is measured in millions per year, and most of surplus population comes from areas you've never been to and never will. And even there the population density doesn't grow beyond a certain threshold - the excesses die out due to starvation or illnesses.
Besides, why should only a genius have kids? Mankind as a whole needs healthy and strong guys and girls no less than it needs geniuses.
It could be also summarized this way: our 'job' as individuals is to produce as many children as we can support and grow till they reach fertility. The evolution will attend to itself: a species usually benefits from competition between its comprising populations/individuals, and such a competition only takes place when there's a limited supply of a resource, be it food, girls, oil or Lego Mindstorms.
Since the Iraqi oil reserves currently belong to American (and some British) oil companies, the Iraqi government's profit comes from taxes imposed on the said companies. This way, US oil consumers buy it from US oil producers at market prices.
Iraq exports oil to Europe and Japan as well. If this is the case, these parties are actually paying the US companies, too.
People keep complaining that the war in Iraq costs the US multiple billions, but why doesn't anybody take into account the profits that America receives from the captured oil fields? Somehow, I suppose the occupation of Iraq must be profitable after all, otherwise it would only be logical to withdraw troops from there. Same for Afghanistan.
Disclaimer: I'm not a US resident and might not understand what's happening under the hood of your political machine.
Please see my reply regarding "advocating genocide" here (you're at least the third poster who replied to me in this manner). In case you care, I am an ethnic Armenian, and due to certain events in the history of my people you'll hardly find someone less sympathetic to the cause of promoting genocide as an instrument of fighting spam than I am.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, that's an eyebrow-raising attitude to say the least. Besides, there's one more side to this: the individuals comprising these tech companies are the same guys whose freedom supposedly needs to be defended (concentration of tech guys in tech companies is usually higher than at farms). So what he's saying boils down to something like "When you're at home, your freedom is sacred and shalt be protected. When you're at work, you're on your own".
That wasn't my intention. If you cared to read, I only wanted to know his opinion on the subject, because I found it interesting to see how would he apply the logic behind GPL to web applications. However, when I saw faults in the logic he told me, I felt the urge to object, informing him and changing his opinion in process. So much for pure academic interest...
P.S. For those interested, here is the transcript of our email conversation.
It will be available in Europe in 2011. Link.
I stand corrected.
Microsofts prior hardware experience consists of building a bunch of mice and keyboards
Not really. To the best of my knowledge, all Microsoft keyboards are essentially rebranded products of Philips and Razer.
This thread is such a beauty :-)
Don't worry, this time America has tens of thousands of former Soviet/Russian scientists who fled the country in the 90s when the USSR died, and it became obvious that this brave new Russia has little need of science (or anything else besides the oil pipe, for that matter). And yes, I know what I'm talking about.
While the scientific debate may be far from over, the problem here isn't that somebody on Earth questioned the validness of Pluto's classification. The problem here that a bunch of incompetent politicians (please read TFA to see; the "passing overhead through Illinois' skies" part is marvelous) attempt to intervene in none of their business under the ridiculous excuse of "...Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of the planet Pluto, being born on a farm near the Illinois community of Streator".
Yes, that's what I claim (that it's the only IAU resolution defining a planet to date, and it involves only the Solar system), and no, it would be up to you to show that I'm wrong. After all, you only need to post here a PDF link to IAU's definition of a planet outside the Solar system. Note that it should define the word 'planet' and not 'exoplanet'.
If an elected group of people decide that Pluto is a planet(which changes absolutely NOTHING), who are a bunch of snobbish scients to deny that?
Hey there. If this 'elected group of people' decided that Pluto is a star, would that be another matter and would be wrong?
If yes, then your argument appears to be based on the fact that nobody cares about the difference between a planet and a dwarf planet - which isn't so, because people who study the formation of the Solar system (the said 'snobbish scientists') do care.
If no, then you'd rather understand that definitions, words and so on are here to ease up and improve the process of gathering, exchanging and producing information, and every attempt to mess that up contradicts their very purpose. In other words, if competent scientists decide that Pluto is not a planet, that DOES matter and change something, and who are a bunch of corrupt politicians milking a state in North America to deny that?
You've been looking at wrong definitions. Try the one here. It only describes planets in the Solar system, and leaves the term undefined for the rest of the Universe. So the OP is right, after all.
As you can see, the word 'planet' is only defined for the Solar system. There are no planets outside of it - those are exoplanets! And we do not currently possess enough data to make conclusions if their generation process and other characteristics has anything to do with our planets'
It randomly follows an action rather than bringing up the menu about one time in ten.
I can confirm this behavior. However, I have discovered sort of a workaround: when right-clicking, hold the mouse button for half a second or so, i.e. do not release it right away. Works for me.
Maybe Steve "Developers, developers, developers" Ballmer?
It's pretty sad since some time ago I really hoped that Adsense will be actually useful by showing me ads for things that I would be interested in, both bringing revenue to the advertiser and making me a happy buyer.
I don't get it. If they still have the data, why is it so hard for them to write up a script to fix the mistake?
Because they insist that it wasn't a mistake and, generally, they wanted people's profiles clean. Now if this is true or not remains to be seen: they could be covering up their asses by saying it was intentional, because a company that accidentally kills or blocks your data would receive event less trust than a company that does it intentionally. So practically by this announcement they could be choosing the lesser of the two evils.
How many? That remains to be seen. The current population level would be impossible to reach with 18th century technology (nor the current technology level would be achievable by a population less than 1bn large). I can't say what will come next: orbital hydroponics, cleaning nanomachines, but an advance like this will raise the cap several times. Maybe, nothing revolutionary is invented in the observable future; that means that we have nearly hit our population cap.
Who makes it *my* job? I'm sorry, the word was ill-chosen, but I did put it in quotes to underscore that it's not really a job what I mean. Rather, it defines what we can and what we can't do to help our species as a hole evolve (coincidentally, also advancing our company/government/etc).
I think that your personal decision not to have kids affects little. The current demographic growth is measured in millions per year, and most of surplus population comes from areas you've never been to and never will. And even there the population density doesn't grow beyond a certain threshold - the excesses die out due to starvation or illnesses.
Besides, why should only a genius have kids? Mankind as a whole needs healthy and strong guys and girls no less than it needs geniuses.
It could be also summarized this way: our 'job' as individuals is to produce as many children as we can support and grow till they reach fertility. The evolution will attend to itself: a species usually benefits from competition between its comprising populations/individuals, and such a competition only takes place when there's a limited supply of a resource, be it food, girls, oil or Lego Mindstorms.
Google has a service just like that, for free. You only have to supply your own domain, they do the rest.
"Makes [perfect] sense to me" is more like it.
P.S. Have you got any pink ones left?
Absolutely crystal clear. Thanks.
People keep complaining that the war in Iraq costs the US multiple billions, but why doesn't anybody take into account the profits that America receives from the captured oil fields? Somehow, I suppose the occupation of Iraq must be profitable after all, otherwise it would only be logical to withdraw troops from there. Same for Afghanistan.
Disclaimer: I'm not a US resident and might not understand what's happening under the hood of your political machine.
Please see my reply regarding "advocating genocide" here (you're at least the third poster who replied to me in this manner). In case you care, I am an ethnic Armenian, and due to certain events in the history of my people you'll hardly find someone less sympathetic to the cause of promoting genocide as an instrument of fighting spam than I am.