mycroftiv

16 ms·

91.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
This is a clear case where we see the idea that governments should represent the will of their citizens break down completely. Every power structure serves its own needs first. In areas where the interest of governmental systems and the cit
92.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
I predict in about ten years things will go the other way - they will raid you because they suspect you of participating in cryptographic non-governmental currencies, and if they just find some grow lights and plants you will be fine. It se
93.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
What exactly is the "this" you are referring to? This article is pretty much an official acknowledgment that a problem exists and needs an investment of developer resources. The situation won't get better until/unless stakeholders make an i
94.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
According to the Daily Beast article linked from the Techcrunch article, Facebook admitted it: "Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because it believes G
95.
by mycroftiv 15y ago
The author has not done enough research into Bitcoin to make a well-informed judgment. Of his arguments, one of them is very strong: governments will not sit still for anything that undermines their economic power. Topics related to his oth
96.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
Wait, what about Android? Even though it runs the Linux kernel, it doesn't count as "Linux"? I guess the lesson here is that only GNU counts as Linux. Something seems confused in the terminology.
97.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
Articles like this do no favors for the viewpoints they espouse. The author has no scientific credentials, and the piece is a mishmash of broad generalizations from cultural history and questionable interpretations of scientific theories. T
98.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I believe there is an inevitable collision between the government's desire to control, regulate, and tax commerce, and virtual economies. It is hardly a secret that MMORPG items and characters are often bought and sold using real world curr
99.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
This is a disaster. A very sad day for the internet. We are entering into pastor Niemoller territory here: first they came for the file-sharing websites, next they came for the online gambling websites, and I would guess that Bitcoin is pro
100.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I think some of your confusion may be a result of using acme-SAC. I recall acme-SAC is built on top of Inferno, which is actually a small semivirtualized operating system. I think the host filesystem is accessible via the #U* kernel device,
101.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I know perfectly well that Android is not under the GPL, and nowhere in my posts have I implied that it is, and I have also not implied that Google is under any legal obligations whatsoever. The article which this entire discussion is based
102.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I cannot believe you accuse me of being "completely wrong" about what open source means. I would suggest you go to http://www.opensource.org/osd.html and read the open source definition. Your claim that "open source" drops the requirement
103.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
You are misconstruing my statements and ignoring the context. I am well aware that you can sell free software for money. However, if I purchase a Xoom with Honeycomb, I have been given a copy of the Android software, and I will not be given
104.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I always thought "open source" meant that I, the user, got access to the source code, and I was able to make changes and share them. I don't like seeing the meaning of open source progressively reduced to nothing. We already have a category
105.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
Ugg, what a silly article. I am a non-user of facebook and a dedicated civil libertarian, and this article is ridiculous speculation. Undoubtedly Facebook wants connections and influence in government, all big corporations do. The connectio
106.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I like this type of research, but I think these results are not really new or surprising. In fact, there is almost a kind of "circular reasoning" at work - the Euler lattice (or Tonnetz) was constructed for the purpose of trying to represen
107.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I get so frustrated reading blog posts by user interface designers. They almost invariably consist of reasoning I disagree and conclusions I disagree with in support of user interface decisions that make my experience as a user worse. Ubunt
108.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I apologize for sounding argumentative, but you are missing the point. I understand Google's motivations, there is nothing mysterious about a company trying to protect its brand by controlling the user experience. I agree their actions are
109.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I don't understand all the justifications for Google's behavior being posted. I chose to purchase an Android phone because I believed that Google was committed to a truly open source mobile operating system. To me, that means that when I bu
110.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I'm upvoting this submission just so I can grab my soapbox. They will pry my Noscript extension from my cold, dead fingers. Some websites and domains, such as HN, I am happy to enable js. However, I also would like to freely visit any links
111.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I was planning on purchasing an Android tablet, but no sale until the source code is out there. I own an Android phone and have been happy with it, but I'm not interested in giving up my freedom just to have my hands on the latest toy. I am
112.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
Many distributions try to provide some security assurance to users by having packages in the repo cryptographically signed. This makes it harder for naughty people to trick users into installing malicious software. As a relatively small, no
113.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I don't get this at all. What is the incentive for anyone to use this? Everything in the interview is focused on the business model, with an assumption that millions of people are going to start providing them with data. On the other hand,
114.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
One of the main realities of our current world that I strongly disagree with is the existence of the NDA. I don't believe that individual human beings should ever be required to waive their right to say whatever they want to about anything.
115.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I actually took the time to read those patents, and as broken as I thought the US patent system was, I didn't realize it was that bad. One of the patents is actually a patent on displaying a temporary loading animation when a browser is dow
116.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I have seen a lot of misinformation posted (and then strongly upvoted) in another thread related to this controversy. I would like to offer a very specific quotation which I believe illustrates the crux of the issue, excerpted from the link
117.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
You use both ad hominem ("this guy again? For those unaware, Florian Mueller...") and a strawman argument ("all built on the incorrect assumption that running proprietary software on a Free kernel/libc is illegal.") The claim is not that ru
118.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I think the part of the article everyone should make sure to focus on is that Google is doing exactly what Linus says is impermissible. "In short: you do _NOT_ have the right to use a kernel header file (or any other part of the kernel sour
119.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I'm also a music theorist and educator. I'm interested in your perspective on whether it is a good idea to try to introduce students to the acoustic/mathematical derivation of the scale. To provide context for non-technical readers, the phy
120.
by mycroftiv 16y ago
I really wish this was from a dystopian parody, and not the world we actually live in. Several decades ago, I thought that the critiques of the "consumer society" and marketing were overblown - but I have changed my mind. Now, when I read a

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