I'd think game theory would have something to say about this exact situation, but not being familiar with it, I'm not sure what parts come into play. Any ideas?
No kill animal shelters need people to maintain donor databases and websites. As do public radio stations.
One big thing I notice is that small nonprofits seem to create their own own donor database systems. I'd think that this would be a good opportunity for a free software project to fill the need, or if such a project exists, to take it and customize/generalize it for certain classes of nonprofits -- e.g., there are lots of animal shelters around the country; a dog is a dog and a cat is a cat everywhere; one would think a single donor database system would serve a significant portion of the needs of many of these shelters.
If you do find yourself in a position to work on or repair unfamiliar Windows installations, you might want to consider putting together a toolkit of portable applications on a flash drive or a usb pocket drive. This would allow you to spend more of your time debugging and repairing windows systems and less time installing support software or struggling with their generic counterparts.
Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit, which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.
Forget top 10% of humanity, I'd say that puts him in the top 10% of any subgroup he could claim rights to -- even if that subgroup was weighted towards the more intelligent end of humanity.
Unfortunately, far too many people take an attitude of "if you don't know what I know, you're an idiot".
They need to watch this show -- if they can't (a) identify with Sheldon and (b) laugh at his approach towards life -- at least a little in both cases -- their own ability to observe and eventually change that part of their personality is probably deeply suppressed.
Admittedly, this is a shallow plug for this show, which I enjoy greatly for those reasons.
So if someone used Galois to release a binary, and released the Cryptol source under the GPL, would the resulting binary be considered Free Software per the FSF's definition?
Wasn't there an article recently about this describing that if only one core was working at peak capacity that the die would heat unevenly, causing problems?
It makes me think that applying data related to this together with Moore's law could produce a heuristic to estimate the relative benefits of each approach:
Say you can optimize the code to give you a shot (P probability) at speeding up your entire operation by a factor of N or by M orders of magnitude, for a cost of D dollars in person-hours
speedup/dollar == f(P, N or M, D), a mostly multiplicative estimate assuming you can get a rough idea of P from a profiling run and a little thought about the architecture
Applying some form of Moore's law to your hardware setup to compare c (CPU speed), i (I/O speed), and m (amount of memory) of your existing setup, vs C, I, and M for a new setup, costing H dollars in total upgrade costs
speedup/dollar == g(c,i,m,C,I,M,H), where g involves knowledge of how much your operation depends on the speed of the various components, again assisted by the profiling run, and likely depends on C/c, I/i, and M/m ratios
One could compare the speedup/dollar in both cases, and if they're off by some major multiplicative factor adjusted against the absolute dollar figure involved in each case ($100::$200 (expense report) != $3400::$3500 or $3000::$6000 (purchase order)), you'd have a good first guess to use. In your situation, buying even 100x faster hardware wouldn't have improved the situation, and it seems like with one good profiling run (assuming the tools are available), your colleague could have easily made the case, at least in numbers.
And at least one skilled person from that era in a leadership position made this tradeoff with significant economic -- as well as entertaining and educational -- consequences.
At our company, decision came from on high as part of a 'green initiative' to turn off cover page generation. I used to be able to identify uncollected printouts and stick them in the appropriate mailboxes -- now they just sit near the printer because you can't tell who printed what, and eventually they end up in the recycling bin without anyone having read them.
Maybe you'd have better luck if you had the head of the hip new green initiative at your company repackage your suggestion as part of a longer list; since they have a mandate from management, they might have better luck with it.
However, as you noted, all it takes is for one customer to put the source up for download, and you're screwed.
Not if you accompany it with a contract that adds additional restrictions:
Attorneys and courts are
familiar with licenses that are contracts and they regularly
apply the well-developed law of contracts to handle issues of
license interpretation. In the absence of contract law, there is
no ready framework for license language interpretation.
Per additional detail in the above document, the Gnu GPL is a 'bare license'. It's not a 'contract', but -- someone with a legal background please chime in here -- I'd think it could be accompanied by one that would provide further restriction over redistribution.
When Bobby lost the tip of his finger in an unfortunate band saw accident, you can bet your ass that everyone perked up and paid attention. Nowadays, nobody respects the machines. Everyone depends on the "safety features" to keep them out of harm's way.
The Linux Foundation's IPv6 workgroup analyzed the DoD certification requirements and identified key areas where Linux's IPv6 stack needed adjustments in order to guarantee compliance. They collaboratively filled in the gaps and have succeeded in bringing the shared technology into alignment with the DoD's standards."
So this statement of compliance is as of which mainline kernel revs (2.4 and/or 2.6) or which distro versions?
These make for great legends, but as much as I hate to admit it, I've gotten very serious about my work. Easter eggs are not generally appreciated by the Powers That Be, or by clients paying big cash for a product. My personal reputation, and producing a quality product have become important to me.
Here's one of those legends where a well-executed easter egg of sorts served to corroborate one's professional reputation:
My old boss spent some time writing statistical analysis packages for the Archimedes. One of them got fairly popular for Archie software, and he started a small business selling it. For those who don't know, Archie software usually came as source code and was executed through an interpreter.
One day at a scientific meeting, he noticed that another company was showing Archie software with remarkably similar functionality to his own, so he wandered over. The longer he watched, the more familiar it looked. Eventually, when the sales representative had gathered a good crowd, he asked in a loud voice:
My Boss: "Are you using my copyrighted code for this?"
Sales Representative: "Of course not."
My Boss: "So what happens if you press [key combination]?"
Sales Representative: "Nothing."
My Boss: "Do it for me."
Sales Representative: "Ok sir, but I can assure you it does--"
The screen displayed my boss' copyright notice. All they'd done was remove the front end.
It widely accepted as the biggest laugh of the show.
One minor slip up and because the media latched onto it this is all she'll ever be remembered for.
"I dropped a toolbag on a spacewalk. But I learned my lesson. And that's why I'll use nothing but Husky brand tethered toolbags, now with lined pockets for those messy grease gun spills."
I expect we will get Open Source Law, and so-called lawyers will no longer be able to charge excessively for basic legal advice in simple cases.
This currently exists, in a basic form, in California at least. From what I can tell, this press was founded by attorneys who wanted to provide people exactly the service you're describing. They also detail where your situation diverges from a 'simple case' and that you should consult an attorney in those cases.
Considering how much FUD there is about the liability of providing legal advice outside of the attorney-billfold-client arrangement, it's pleasantly surprising how far these books will get you on your own. Sadly, since it's based in California, the books can be California-specific depending on the topic covered. But it's a great starting point for what 'Open Source Law' could be.
And along those lines, I have to suspect that anything which becomes available to do-it-yourselfers ends up providing finer granularity to the market. Where previously you had a single choice -- to buy product and service from vendors that provide a specific skillset -- you now can choose to buy the parts and do the work yourself, do some of the prep work yourself and let a professional do the rest, or ask a professional to do the whole thing. Following the broken window idea, if someone doesn't spend money to buy software, they may spend money out of that 'budget' for add-ons or improvements to that software that meet their specific needs. Giving the informed consumer more real choice is a good thing for a free market.
I think there there may be enough people in the former category to make it worthwhile for existing plumbers to extend their skills to offer more sophisticated services, and that there are enough people in the latter category to make it worthwhile to continue to provide your existing services. But expecting the market to go entirely in one direction or the other is a bad bet.
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I'd think game theory would have something to say about this exact situation, but not being familiar with it, I'm not sure what parts come into play. Any ideas?
No kill animal shelters need people to maintain donor databases and websites. As do public radio stations.
One big thing I notice is that small nonprofits seem to create their own own donor database systems. I'd think that this would be a good opportunity for a free software project to fill the need, or if such a project exists, to take it and customize/generalize it for certain classes of nonprofits -- e.g., there are lots of animal shelters around the country; a dog is a dog and a cat is a cat everywhere; one would think a single donor database system would serve a significant portion of the needs of many of these shelters.
Some useful sites I've found are:
Using mostly these sites, I've come up with a very useful collection of apps and utilities totalling under 2Gb, which easily fits on a flash drive with room to spare for data. One example is winaudit, which will generate an extensive report when run on a pc. You can save the reports on various pcs to your flash drive in various formats (pdf, html, text, csv), bring them home, and go over them in more detail to see what needs to be fixed or updated on the various pcs you encountered.
Mix the right kind of glue with some gravel and sand, and you've got something you can build a house on.
Forget top 10% of humanity, I'd say that puts him in the top 10% of any subgroup he could claim rights to -- even if that subgroup was weighted towards the more intelligent end of humanity.
When is somebody going to name a Linux distro "Blackfoot?" It would be HOT!
Not as hot as being able to say 'I run Jackass Linux'.
Unfortunately, far too many people take an attitude of "if you don't know what I know, you're an idiot".
They need to watch this show -- if they can't (a) identify with Sheldon and (b) laugh at his approach towards life -- at least a little in both cases -- their own ability to observe and eventually change that part of their personality is probably deeply suppressed.
Admittedly, this is a shallow plug for this show, which I enjoy greatly for those reasons.
Reminds me of people complaining about their cell phones having cameras in them.
I wouldn't have been able to take my cell phone into the Santa Clara County Superior Courthouse if it had a camera in it.
So if someone used Galois to release a binary, and released the Cryptol source under the GPL, would the resulting binary be considered Free Software per the FSF's definition?
Wasn't there an article recently about this describing that if only one core was working at peak capacity that the die would heat unevenly, causing problems?
One could compare the speedup/dollar in both cases, and if they're off by some major multiplicative factor adjusted against the absolute dollar figure involved in each case ($100::$200 (expense report) != $3400::$3500 or $3000::$6000 (purchase order)), you'd have a good first guess to use. In your situation, buying even 100x faster hardware wouldn't have improved the situation, and it seems like with one good profiling run (assuming the tools are available), your colleague could have easily made the case, at least in numbers.
And at least one skilled person from that era in a leadership position made this tradeoff with significant economic -- as well as entertaining and educational -- consequences.
Maybe you'd have better luck if you had the head of the hip new green initiative at your company repackage your suggestion as part of a longer list; since they have a mandate from management, they might have better luck with it.
Has Jenny cured her sons supposed vaccine induced autism yet?
According to this article she says her son no longer has autism. She doesn't explicitly assert here that she was the one who cured it.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty or security.
I thought the right to bear arms was an essential liberty, as elaborated in the US Constitution?
However, as you noted, all it takes is for one customer to put the source up for download, and you're screwed.
Not if you accompany it with a contract that adds additional restrictions:
Attorneys and courts are familiar with licenses that are contracts and they regularly apply the well-developed law of contracts to handle issues of license interpretation. In the absence of contract law, there is no ready framework for license language interpretation.
Per additional detail in the above document, the Gnu GPL is a 'bare license'. It's not a 'contract', but -- someone with a legal background please chime in here -- I'd think it could be accompanied by one that would provide further restriction over redistribution.
When Bobby lost the tip of his finger in an unfortunate band saw accident, you can bet your ass that everyone perked up and paid attention. Nowadays, nobody respects the machines. Everyone depends on the "safety features" to keep them out of harm's way.
I agree with you -- and so do the power tool manufacturers, in a sense.
Looking up this entry in Wikipedia and her entry, it looks like you're right!
The Linux Foundation's IPv6 workgroup analyzed the DoD certification requirements and identified key areas where Linux's IPv6 stack needed adjustments in order to guarantee compliance. They collaboratively filled in the gaps and have succeeded in bringing the shared technology into alignment with the DoD's standards."
So this statement of compliance is as of which mainline kernel revs (2.4 and/or 2.6) or which distro versions?
These make for great legends, but as much as I hate to admit it, I've gotten very serious about my work. Easter eggs are not generally appreciated by the Powers That Be, or by clients paying big cash for a product. My personal reputation, and producing a quality product have become important to me.
Here's one of those legends where a well-executed easter egg of sorts served to corroborate one's professional reputation:
My old boss spent some time writing statistical analysis packages for the Archimedes. One of them got fairly popular for Archie software, and he started a small business selling it. For those who don't know, Archie software usually came as source code and was executed through an interpreter.
One day at a scientific meeting, he noticed that another company was showing Archie software with remarkably similar functionality to his own, so he wandered over. The longer he watched, the more familiar it looked. Eventually, when the sales representative had gathered a good crowd, he asked in a loud voice:
The screen displayed my boss' copyright notice. All they'd done was remove the front end.
It widely accepted as the biggest laugh of the show.
By that definition, the hullabaloo at Guantanamo would certainly be both immoral and unethical ...
This is all too confusing. Can't we use terminology that we're all familiar with ?
Thankfully, there's another option for this for rotary table saws.
I think I see something with butt hinges coming this direction ... it looks like ... a shower of chairs. [Gets under desk]
One minor slip up and because the media latched onto it this is all she'll ever be remembered for.
"I dropped a toolbag on a spacewalk. But I learned my lesson. And that's why I'll use nothing but Husky brand tethered toolbags, now with lined pockets for those messy grease gun spills."
The possibilities are endless.
I expect we will get Open Source Law, and so-called lawyers will no longer be able to charge excessively for basic legal advice in simple cases.
This currently exists, in a basic form, in California at least. From what I can tell, this press was founded by attorneys who wanted to provide people exactly the service you're describing. They also detail where your situation diverges from a 'simple case' and that you should consult an attorney in those cases.
Considering how much FUD there is about the liability of providing legal advice outside of the attorney-billfold-client arrangement, it's pleasantly surprising how far these books will get you on your own. Sadly, since it's based in California, the books can be California-specific depending on the topic covered. But it's a great starting point for what 'Open Source Law' could be.
And along those lines, I have to suspect that anything which becomes available to do-it-yourselfers ends up providing finer granularity to the market. Where previously you had a single choice -- to buy product and service from vendors that provide a specific skillset -- you now can choose to buy the parts and do the work yourself, do some of the prep work yourself and let a professional do the rest, or ask a professional to do the whole thing. Following the broken window idea, if someone doesn't spend money to buy software, they may spend money out of that 'budget' for add-ons or improvements to that software that meet their specific needs. Giving the informed consumer more real choice is a good thing for a free market.
I think there there may be enough people in the former category to make it worthwhile for existing plumbers to extend their skills to offer more sophisticated services, and that there are enough people in the latter category to make it worthwhile to continue to provide your existing services. But expecting the market to go entirely in one direction or the other is a bad bet.