GPL could possibly be abused in a "rent everything" situation. So, you are required to distribute the source code of a GPL'd program if you distribute the binaries. The first must come with the second. However, distribution is when it is required. If you modify GPL code and use it internally, no distribution is needed since you aren't distributing binaries.

So, go all "cloud" on that shit. Use and modify GPL'd software, but run it only on your servers. Everyone of your users interacts with it, but they don't get to have a copy, and they have to pay you monthly.

There you go, GPL avoided n' abused.

Wouldn't happen where I work (a state university). We don't "just sign it and scan it." You send us a contract, it goes over to contracting. If it is one they recognize, they change it, initial it, and sign it on behalf of the Regents. If not, it goes over to the general council's office and they work with contracting on it. Either way, it is getting changed and sent back to you to sign.

That copyright assignment thing? Right out. They'd agree to GPL, probably, but never to copyright assignment. All work by the university is copyright to the board of regents (and by extension the state).

For that matter the US government wouldn't be able to sign it. While they don't copyright their work that's the issue: Work by the federal government is public domain. They can't go and assign the copyright. Doesn't matter that it would be something "open", for them "open" means "public domain".

Most people who love to post these high speedtest numbers are people who's provider runs a speedtest server. Ok, so you can get that speed to their central office. Big deal, I get those speeds to our speedtest server at work... because it is down the hall from me.

A real speed test involves going off network and a good distance away. I generally test to FastServ Networks in California because they have a solid network on their test server, it is off my ISP (at home and at work) and in a different state. If my speed is good to them, I can confidently say my Internet connection is fast: I have a good uplink all the way to the outside world, off my network.

Also there is the question of congestion, or rather lack of it. I can't imagine Google is doing point-to-point fiber. It is probably GPON. That means the more subscribers in an area, the less speed.

I just question his gushing a bit because at work, I have "gigabit" speeds. I'm on a gig link, to a 10gig building link to our central systems. I'm not sure what our total off campus speed is, it's around 2gig to the Internet, 10gig to I2, but I haven't looked. Speedtests to FastServ show about 400mbits up and down generally during the work day. Downloads are nice and zippy, a Linux torrent just screams, and we have Akamai cache engines on the network so things like Windows updates are almost wire speed.

However for all that, I don't notice much difference over my home network, which is about 30mbit. I do for big downloads, of course, but not for general browsing. The speed of page loads seems to be limited mostly by rendering all the javascript and DHTML they use these days, not by the line, and I can stream whatever I like with no issues.

In particular, not everyone agrees with his rather narrow definition of "freedom". Some developers like the whole BSD thing, which gives more freedom to the person who uses and implements the software, rather than the original developer. It is akin to the CC-BY license, where you want to have your stuff acknowledged as a source, but you welcome people to do with it as they please.

I have no problem with the GPL, but the zealots that seem to think it is the only way EVAR that is ok and that people who want a less restrictive license like BSD are bad get on my nerves.

For some reason in the past century or so, Americans and other Western cultures have started to develop an aversion to offal, but that's a recent and somewhat stupid development.

I wonder if that timing is indicative -- I wonder if the Western aversion to organ meets is at all related to the ways in which 1) organ meats typically contain higher concentrations of environmental poisons, and 2) the number and dangerousness of environmental poisons has increased substantially since we started learning how to make more of them.

Cheers,

Not to say I like Firefox, but I am currently hating it the least. All the browsers are problematic in my opinion, just in different ways. I used FF for a long time but its Flash issues were just too much, among other things, so I switched to Chrome. Now I'm back on FF. I really like a lot about IE, but it has too many problems rendering a number of websites correctly so it is out.

Nobody can seem to make a good browser, just a less bad one :P.

If they'd just come out and said "Yes, some evil hax0rs got in to our system and stole lots of cards. Stupid haxors, everyone hates those guys. Here's how they did it, here's what we are doing, and here's some security experts that are helping us," well people would probably be fine with it.

Instead they are being all secretive and it makes people worry. They also are doing shit for notification. I always use my Target card when I shop at Target because it has the best bribes (5% off anything, since they actually run their own bank and don't have to pay payment processing fees on it). I have received zero notifications from Target about the compromise, and no new card. I know my card was hit, since I have friends who shop at the same store using non-Target cards that got notified, but Target hasn't done anything.

I'm not worried, they have to deal with all the fallout of any unauthorized charges and the card can only be used at Target, but it is just extremely bad form. It shows a real lack of care and understand as to the severity of this. It really makes them look bad.

If there's something history has show with regards to people and companies it is that you need to admit you fucked up, even if it wasn't your fault really, and show people how you are making it right. Then, they are happy and forgive. Get all secretive and hostile, and they'll get hostile right back.

Though, politically, there seems to be an awful lot of overlap... Somehow I'm reminded of this scene. Ah, science!

:-P

Even better, don't go to a movie theatre.

I can't even remember when I went last, it must've been more than a decade ago. It's not like it's an excessively pleasant experience to begin with and the handing of money to the MPAA in combination with the theatre anti-piracy crap pretty much was the final nail in that coffin.

Get a good projector and download cam releases made by people wearing google glass if you want the theatre experience.

I get real tired of this "XBox one cannot do 1080p" crap that Sony/ Nintendo fans keep trotting out. Yes, it can. FIFA Soccer 14, Forza Motorsport 5, NBA 2K14, Need for Speed Rivals, all run at 1080 internally. Yes, a number of games run at less and I imagine that'll only be more common as time goes on, but it doesn't change the fact that the system is perfectly capable of 1080. Heck for that matter, not all PS4 titles run at 1080, BF4 being an example.

I have no stake in this fight, I don't do console games I'm all PC all the time. I say "lolconsoles" to 1080p30, I do my gaming at 2560x1600 @ 60fps please and thanks. However don't go spreading misinformation, particularly technical information on a tech site.

Have you noticed that life is cruel and insensible?

That's because the creator is angry and insane -- Sithrak the Blind Gibberer!

So why not convert to Sithrak -- the god who hates you unconditionally.

http://imgur.com/gallery/YmOBmx1, sourced from:
http://oglaf.com/sithrak/ (use caution: other pages on this site are definitely NSFW)

Cheers,

ATMs don't have to worry about viruses n' such generally because users can't get at them. You can only use their custom interface, you can't surf the web with them. There also isn't USB access (or rather shouldn't be, I'm not saying there has never been a stupidly designed one). So a lot of the threats you'd face on a normal desktop don't apply.

Plus there's the unequal relationship with the bank, in that an ATM trusts it completely. They don't actually process your account, they just send data back to the bank, via special purpose built encryption cards. It hands off what you want to do to the bank, which then tells it what it can do. It doesn't deal with data security in a normal sense.

So what the OS on an ATM does is present a user interface to the users, and communicate to the hardware (the encryption device, the cash dispenser, that kind of thing). Hence their concern is something that is easy to develop a UI for, and supports the devices in the system. Not something that is hardened against security issues since that really isn't a problem in the way it is used.

Amazon operates on very thin margins. This is partially because they want to give customers a good price, which means they don't make a lot of profit per sale. It is also because they reinvest their profits in their business, buying more infrastructure, that kind of thing.

They are not like Apple, just hoarding tons of cash, they don't actually have a tone of money left over.

No consumer has more than 24 hours per day and most arts are infinitely duplicatable. The failure lies in demand as the entire worlds demand is easily filled by a miniscule number of producers who also get to compete with everything already produced.

Services are slightly more resilient, but frankly, replacing cooks, stylists and hairdressers is more a question of when it's profitable to do so than any inherent difficulty.

The limit in the new Sim City is 2km x 2km. That is pathetic. Literally all you can create is a couple city blocks, or a very tiny small town. I mean I live close enough to work to bike in, and I live a good deal further than that (8km).

While there are always limits as to what you can do reasonably in a game, this limit is way too small to be fun. It isn't a matter of being able to create a "big city" it is a matter that almost all small towns are far larger than that.

Apparently they aren't fixing it either. They say the performance isn't good on larger cities, which translates to "We fucked our engine up bad so it can't scale at all."

Unless that is fixed as well, I wouldn't get it. Offline mode is a requisite for sure, but if gameplay is still broken then it isn't worth money.