skap35

That would all depend on which license you use. What you are referring to is releasing the software to the public domain, which is not necessarily the same thing as open source, it's just a subset of it.

I can go down to the Time Warner office or Best Buy and buy one. I don't think these companies would be selling illegal devices.

The development of Linux is controlled by Linus Torvalds (an individual, not a "collective mind"). Changes are made to Linux because programmers and companies submit their own customizations, which may or may not be approved for inclusion in the production kernel. As for a programming environment, I prefer Linux over Windows. I tend to think Windows is better for end user activities like browsing the web or typing a document. But when it comes to getting "real" work done, such as programming or setting up a server I think Linux is superior. I will say, however, that if you are very new to programming it would probably be better to learn on Windows with .NET and then later move to Linux. That's because I think Linux is more complex and assumes the programmer really knows what he's doing.

DVR's are readily available that allow you to record a movie. I have a MythTV box that does not lock down my recordings. This box is perfectly legal. Now, say I record them to a DVD instead of the hard drive. No difference. If your roomate recorded all those movies to a DVR instead of DVDs then there would clearly be no issue. So why are ripped DVD's so bad, but DVR recordings are perfectly fine?

Ruling strikes down D.C. gun ban!! http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,372041,00.html

In the "Bart on the Road" episode of The Simpsons, Martin buys a talking Al Gore doll. The only message it can say is "You are hearing me talk." lol, classic

I read this book a few years ago and thought the poetry was horrible. It was a very annoying read. I still gave Nietzsche the benefit of the doubt though. Since I read an English translation I figured his "poetry" sounds much better in the German version. From what I've heard a lot of American-English speakers don't care for his style either. btw, what is the correct pronunciation of Nietzsche? My parents always pronounced it "Neetchee" but I had a philosophy professor who said "Neetchuh." My professor was very "out there" so I was never quite sure if I should believe anything he said...

I didn't like the movie at all (I saw this over a month ago so I forget the main character's name). The main actor's performance was exceptional, but other than that, it wasn't that good. I also disagree with you about the movie being Objectivist. Sure he was hard-working and determined, but Objectivism doesn't advocate lying and cheating your way to the top. Semi-spoiler: Sure the religious people in the movie were nuts, but that doesn't justify dishonesty, which is certainly NOT an Objectivist trait. As a side note, I did like how the last several scenes took place at the Biltmore mansion, which is where I proposed to my fiance.

I recently subscribed to the forum RSS feed (the recent posts feed), which I love btw. I noticed in my viewer that I can see the title of a post, but there is no message body. Is there a way to set it up to display the text of just the first post from the RSS feed? That way I can get a better idea of what the post is about before I click the link. If there's no way to do it, no big deal. I just thought it would be convenient...

I was actually being facetious. I agree with you 100%. I was just playing on the standard opinion people have about weed being a "gateway" drug and how they seem to be extending that concept to include this product. btw, I do the same thing with Red Bull. I always chug one before I go to work out. That stuff works wonders.

The government is right to outlaw this evil product. Everyone knows caffiene and sugar are gateway drugs. They always lead to harder substances like coke. I drank a Red Bull once...had a meth problem ever since...

I do leg lifts. Lay on your back, keep your legs straight, and lift them up to a 90 degree angle. It's a simple routine and it's given me a nice 6 pack. I do 180 leg lifts every other day. There is another *excellent* exercise you can do, that gave me an 8 pack back in the day. Unfortunately they don't have the machine at my current gym, so I've been restricted to just leg lifts...Basically if you've ever seen those machines at the gym that are like two towers, with weights on both ends. People mainly use them to do chest exersises. For the ab routine, sit on your knees, grab the rope behind your head and pull your torso toward the floor. One problem with this exercise is that it pretty much has to be a two man operation. You really need someone to stand on your feet, otherwise it is really hard to keep yourself on the ground. I used to be really hardcore about working out (abs in particular). That's how I discovered that technique. I just experimented with every ab excercise I read about and that one had by far the best results. The only problem is that you have to find yourself a good gym because it's a pretty expensive machine...

Since he has some liberal issues, I actually thought he stood a better chance of winning than, say Romney. But I think Huckabee supports the Fair Tax, which I like very much. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the other top Republicans even know what that is...

I usually leave people to their own opinions on this sort of thing. However, my job requires me to be a Windows .NET programmer, but in my personal programming projects, as well as grad school, I am a UNIX/Linux programmer. So I feel I have experience in both areas. Visual Studio/.NET is perfectly fine for BASIC business development projects. I have also cursed myself with volunteering for ALGORITHM developent projects in C# (neural nets). As far as .NET languages go, C# is preferred, but when it comes to computer science projects, Windows in general is just painful. Don't get me wrong, .NET is just awesome for GUIs and BUSINESS projects. However, when it comes to A.K.A. "real" programming (algorithms), it's C++ and *NIX all the way. I have used Visual Studio for several years now and there are *many*, *many* times where I have a bunch of stupid things to do that would never be required in a UNIX environment. In other words, MS solutions end up wasting my time and force me to re-invent the wheel. *BUT* at work, where I mainly just build business solutions, it is very good. The whole drag-and-drop GUI development is quite nice. But I feel that MS has a corporate philosophy that mouse clicks are #1. There are certain areas of computers (programming) where GUIs just don't fit. MS has tried to force programming to be a graphical development process when it is inherently a text-based process. That's just my personal opinion, I'm sure everyone else has their own development preference.

I'm surprised democrats won this poll, especially considering the fact that their front runner is a socialist (Hillary). Ideally I would vote Libertarian. However, the most urgent issue for me is keeping the dems out, so I always vote Republican. They are certainly not the best, but it's still better than letting the dems have power.

I tried the "/lofiversion" but it does the same thing on my phone. Both versions of the site just display a blank screen. The document that loads has size 0 bytes which makes me suspect there is a problem with my browser. It seems like any page from {www|forum}.objectivismonline.net doesn't even send a page across. Has anyone else tried this with Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile 5.0? Every other site I've gone to with my phone works just fine though. I wonder if they make a mobile version of FireFox...

I tried to visit the site on my PDA phone, but it didn't go well. I was wondering if there was a WAP version of the site available, or if there are any plans to accomodate mobile devices. It's not really a huge deal, I can always come here on my laptop, but it would still be nice.

Visual Basic is a horrible language for anything remotely complicated. I use it at work and it gives me quite a few headaches every day. It does have its place as a RAD (Rapid Application Development) solution. If you need to do something quick then it's great. However, you start running into problems with code maintenance. The fact that MS has tried really hard to turn programming into a GUI based process has also made it harder to maintain code. Instead of having everything defined in a text file where you can easily see it, Visual Studio hides various settings behind a maze of menu options. This may not sound bad, but when you have to maintain code written by another programmer then you take away the advantage of comments. It's easy to maintain someone else's code if it's well commented. But with the GUI approach, there's nothing to explain why the programmer did what he did. The OOP design of VB also makes it virtually impossible to develop modular code. One basic rule of software engineering is to keep the UI separate from the data access modules. In VB, the way you make a SQL query is to drag and drop a SQL object (SQL Command, data adapter, etc) onto your form. This combines the UI and data access functions into one module, which goes right back to code maintenance. Granted, you can also create SQL commands programatically, but the drag and drop method is "supposed" to be preferred and manually creating a data adapter takes away some of the functionality as well. Another *huge* problem with VB is that it lacks many common features of more powerful languages. For loops are very limited in VB compared to C (this drives me crazy at work). Also, support for arrays (multi-dimensional arrays in particular) is very poor. Things like templates, operator overloading, "real" pointers (as opposed to just object references in VB), and that annoying problem where assignment and equivalence operators are the same token. I could go on forever, too. I will say that I'm basing all my experience on VB.NET 2003. Some of those problems may have been fixed in 2005, I'm not sure. VB is great for handling straightforward problems very quickly. The drag and drop features also make it easy to initially create a program with little effort. But those advantages cause a lot of problems when you start getting into more complicated programming. VB is also fairly easy for a newbie to understand compared to something like C++, so it could be a good place to start learning. The only problem, as I mentioned above, is that VB not only encourages, but sometimes forces you to use bad programming habits.

I wouldn't miss OO if it did go away. I've always disliked it because it does a lousy job of opening documents I created with MS Office. Personally I like to use emacs and LaTeX whenever possible but when I need to do "normal" word processing I have always liked MS. I only tried Star Office once a long time ago. Maybe it's time to give it another try...

When I had to deal with this type of professor I just kept my mouth shut and told them what they wanted to hear. When my dad was in school he would get into heated debates with his professors and they gave him bad grades as a result, so I figured it was in my best interest not to argue with them.

So what? Every pathetic attempt at DRM has been cracked in a matter of months anyway. It's not like *any* DRM scheme has been even remotely successful in preventing people from copying media. If you don't like Vista DRM just wait for the inevitable crack to come out... If you want to talk about morals, MS has every right to implement DRM. But I also have every moral right to crack it if I want, so this is really not an issue in my mind.

Isn't that also called professional...boxing, wrestling, UFC fights, etc? If two people voluntarily engage in a fight then what's the problem? The reason initiating force is generally wrong is when the other person doesn't want to be on the receiving end of that violence.

My job title is "Programmer/Analyst" so I'm basically a computer programmer. VB.NET and tons of SQL with a bit of C++. I'm also a student in the evenings...working towards a Master's in Computer Science.

So now that it's 2007 everyone is coming up with their new year's resolutions. So what new goals will you be working toward in 2007? As for me I have a bunch of projects that I keep putting off for various reasons. A MythTV box with a completely overkill amount of disk space (I want to get a 5-bay SATA drive array for it with 5 1TB drives). Probably way too overkill for home use but it will still be cool to have. The other project is a MAME arcade cabinet. My new roomate has already bought an old arcade cabinet so it looks like this is one that I might actually complete.

Well that's just nice. The only reason Saddam was hanged is because of America, yet they are chanting for Sadr. Does anyone have a clue why they would praise that guy when it's clear he had nothing to do with the execution?