I seriously don't care if polls are in the main story stream. I seriously think that the people complaining about it must have something wrong with them. Just skip over it. Whogivesashit.
Also, while I'm ranting, Slashdot polls have always been lame. So what if this one is also lame?
The one valid complaint about these polls... CowboyNeal Option
It certainly is looking that way, but there is the whole notion that what amount to call tables can be copyrighted. What the supreme Court has done here is basically unravel the common understanding of the difference between spec and implementation, and if Java is the most obviously vulnerable, in a very real way it means any number of APIs that have been re-implemented (like the standard *nix set of system calls) could suddenly be plunged into a purgatory-like nether world. I made vulgar jokes about using stdio.h in C programs, but that's the real question. Considering that in many cases header files and libraries whose origins go back decades in many different languages and on many different architectures could become low-hanging fruit, and since copyrights are in most industrialized countries are essentially perpetual now, big software houses now have a far better club to beat competitors with than patents.
Do you think another Samba or Wine project could happen if the lower courts rule for Oracle? Who would be crazy enough to even try?
Fucking hell, I guess I'm utterly fucked, because pretty much every C program I've ever written includes #include <stdio>. Here I thought I was invoking a free and open set of library functions passed on down since the 1970s, and now it turns out I've been stealing someone's hard work in creating a standard set of functional calls. I'm dirty fucking thief.
If specifications alone can be copyrighted, then the software industry is in for a world of hurt.
If there's a silver lining, it's that this will breed further contempt for the law among the educated. As they flee its jurisdiction.
It will also breed further contempt for Java. Has Oracle thought this one thr- OK, sorry, stupid question
A function name and parameter spec is now "someone's shit"? Oracle's position is about as sensible as SCO's was.
All the early games I played were very "crunchy"; D&D, AD&D, Palladium, Twilight 2000 and Traveler 2300. The inelegance of such systems really began to drive me nuts, and I ended up going with Fudge and its variants like Fate. I never really played Gurps very much, but as I recall it was the middle ground between the kind of ultra-loose systems like Fudge and the very complex systems like AD&D. Now, I run a couple of PBeMs; a Palladium Rifts one and a home-brew heavily narrative game in the Harn universe, and dice are rarely used in the Palladium game, and not even part of the Harn game
Do you have any idea what possessed them to do something that incredibly stupid?
Is there any doubt that someone led them on? And once they discovered the magnitude of their idiocy, they had no choice but to ride it out lest they reveal how easily led they are?
Most here are science types, and realize there is only one thing that can be done with it. Burn it up.
That'd be fine, but we're not talking about doing that in this country yet. That's the only kind of nuclear power I would promote. Show me an effort to fix that in the USA and I'll get behind it. Also, there is still some waste left over from that. I'm going to have to see some evidence that we'll handle that responsibly. So far, nope.
Oh yes... I think these were the same people who said, "we will put catalytic converters on cars. it will cost more, but they will convert the noxious fumes into harmless water and carbon dioxide."
Yes. They add a couple of hundred dollars to the price of the average car and they make the world a better place; unburned hydrocarbons are the most foul emission which automobiles make. You might also be interested in knowing that we averted the ozone depletion crisis by banning CFCs. Meanwhile, the O2 sensor that came along with those catalysts actually lets you make more power while burning less fuel.
And yet, to date, nuclear power has done less damage to the environment, as well as killing fewer people (by several orders of magnitude) than just coal mining, much less coal power in general.
Give it time. It's got thousands of years, even if we stop using it today.
The user is slowing down and doing it right when you're there. When you're elsewhere, they do it fast and they do it wrong. Tell them to slow down, close the case
That doesn't mean the ol' Musketeer won't experience some setbacks on his path to Mars.
I just threw up on my keyboard. Thanks Elon!
You forgot to thank Jesus, and the academy.
These days, they're not built like Roman roads and bridges, and don't last for generations.
The roman roads wouldn't last for generations without maintenance... and their maintenance costs helped bankrupt the empire. Hilariously, today road maintenance companies with Italian names are being drug through court for the offensively bad job they did around northern California. Less hilariously, the taxpayer is currently paying for some of those "repairs" to be repaired again. Last night I drove over the parts they're about to patch between Lakeport and Kelseyville on the CA 29, and it's a bunch of short disconnected sections so it'll be like speed bumps again in short order. Some of them are 80% of the width of the lane, to save a few bucks they're creating uneven lanes. Lake County CA has become a bedroom community for the Bay Area, and people are actually commuting now into there from parts beyond like Ukiah — if you're going into the East Bay, as bad as traffic is around the central BA and where the 101 passes through it, it may well make sense to go over St. Helena. Which, by the way, is also under maintenance right now, because California. A commuter coming from Ukiah might well face over an hour of delays alone (let alone secondary effects) if they don't know which back roads to take. I guess I forgot to mention the roundabout they're building at the intersection of CA 20 and CA 29.
I did mention the 101, though, which is still horrible. It's easily one of the worst freeways in the USA. It's the road I bring up any time anyone suggests building roadways out of concrete, or anything similar.
On the other hand, the Romans had very different standards. They didn't expect to carry multiple lanes of traffic at 80 miles per
The test of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Aldo Leopold
