zero_iq

deleted by creator

In addition to other reasons already given, commercial software may contain licensed code, libraries, assets, trademarks, and other IP that cannot legally be given away for free, or under an open source licence.

Sure, it may be possible to strip those things out, but that may leave the software broken or fundamentally changed, and it may be a significant amount of work to do, which am author or publisher is not likely to spend on abandoned software, especially if their free release would compete with any current products.

Users get a service, so it can be argued they are paid in kind. That's the price of their "free" services.

Whether you agree with that or not, websites are unlikely to pay users to use their services (unless they're at least providing content) any more than a coffee shop would pay its customers to drink their coffee.

3D printer that can print fully-populated functional electronic devices. Design or download a schematic for, say a new camera or phone, make whatever modifications I want, and just hit print!

Basically a replicator for electronic devices…

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. Theoretically, if everyone was using state-of-the-art designs of fast-breeder reactors, we could have up to 300,000 years of fuel. However, those designs are complicated and extremely expensive to build and operate. The finances just don’t make it viable with current technology; they would have to run at a huge financial loss.

As for Uranium for sea-water – this too is possible, but has rapidly diminishing returns that make it financially unviable quite rapidly. As Uranium is extracted and removed from the oceans, exponentially more sea-water must be processed to continue extracting Uranium at the same rate. This gets infeasible pretty quickly. Estimates are that it would become economically unviable within 30 years.

Realistically, with current technology we have about 80-100 years of viable nuclear fuel at current consumption rates. If everyone was using nuclear right now, we would fully deplete all viable uranium reserves in about 5 years. A huge amount of research and development will be required to extend this further, and to make new more efficient reactor designs economically viable. (Or ditch capitalism and do it anyway – good luck with that!)

Personally, I would rather this investment (or at least a large chunk of it) be spent on renewables, energy storage and distribution, before fusion, with fission nuclear as a stop-gap until other cleaner, safer technologies can take over. (Current energy usage would require running about 15000 reactors globally, and with historical accident rates, that’s about one major nuclear disaster every month). Renewables are simpler, safer, and proven ,and the technology is more-or-less already here. Solving the storage and distribution problem is simpler than building safe and economical fast-breeder reactors, or viable fusion power. We have almost all the technology we need to make this work right now, we mostly just lack infrastructure and the will to do it.

I’m not anti-nuclear, nor am I saying there’s no place for nuclear, and I think there should be more funding for nuclear research, but the boring obvious solution is to invest heavily in renewables, with nuclear as a backup and/or future option. Maybe one day nuclear will progress to the point where it makes more sound sense to go all in on, say fusion, or super-efficient fast-breeders, etc. but at the moment, it’s basically science fiction. I don’t think it’s a sound strategy to bank on nuclear right now, although we should definitely continue to develop it. Maybe if we had continued investing in it at the same rate for the last 50 years it might be more viable – but we didn’t.

Source for estimates: “Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?”, Prof. D. Abbott, Proceedings of the IEEE. It’s an older article, but nuclear technology has been pretty much stagnant since it was published.

In the latest version of the emergency broadcast specification (WEA 3.0), a smart phone’s GPS capabilities (and other location features) may be used to provide “enhanced geotargeting” so precise boundaries can be set for local alerts. However, the system is backwards compatible – if you do not have GPS, you will still receive an alert, but whether it is displayed depends on the accuracy of the location features that are enabled. If the phone determines it is within the target boundary, the alert will be displayed. If the phone determines it is not within the boundary, it will be stored and may be displayed later if you enter the boundary.

If the phone is unable to geolocate itself, the emergency message will be displayed regardless. (Better to display the alert unnecessarily than to not display it at all).

The relevant technical standard is WEA. Only the latest WEA 3.0 standard uses phone-based geolocation. Older versions just broadcast from cell towers within the region, and all phones that are connected to the towers will receive and display the alerts. You can read about it in more detail here.

Firefox + uBlock origin, and reVanced for YouTube ad-blocking/other features.

Worked fine for me (firefox mobile).

Hasn’t left the UK top 100 singles chart for 372 consecutive weeks! Longest charting single of all time.

Every US state has official state foods, sometimes getting as specific as state vegetable, state dessert, state grape, etc.

This list should give you a head start: list of official US state foods

Back in the day, I discovered I could i) print over IR to our office’s HP laser printer from my Psion organiser, ii) print control codes from the built-in OPL language to change the display message on the printer. I would occassionaly send messages like “insert coin”, “too much paper”, “grammatical error”, etc. when colleagues were printing.

Open source software is also notably lacking from the impact assessment documents, but I suspect this is because it was intended to not impact open source software at all. It seems the legislation intends to exclude open-source software, but doesn’t clearly and unambiguously exclude open source software that is developed or contributed to in a commercial setting (e.g by paid contributors).

I think the wording seems clear enough to determine the intent, but the ambiguity surrounding the “commercial activity” part might necessitate trial (which nobody wants to risk), or might lead to poor implementation of this directive in the laws of member states. I think we should be campaigning to improve the wording, not reject it outright.

Ah, OK. So it seems it’s a case of the spirit of the text not matching the precise technical wording used. IMO, the legislation clearly intends to exclude freely-distributable open-source software, but the issue lies with what constitutes a commercial activity. (I’ve not yet checked the rest of the document to see if it clearly defines “commercial activity” in relation to the legislation.)

TBH, it seems that what is needed here is a clarification and tightening up of definitions, not wholesale rejection of the legislation.

Trademarks and copyright are intellectual property.

Why is everyone up in arms about this?

The legislation specifically excludes open source software. Has nobody in this discussion actually read the proposed legislation?

From the current proposal legislation text:

In order not to hamper innovation or research, free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of a commercial activity should not be covered by this Regulation. This is in particular the case for software, including its source code and modified versions, that is openly shared and freely accessible, usable, modifiable and redistributable.

There is also a clause that states those using open source software in commercial products must report any vulnerabilities found to the maintainer.

You are partially correct. The general public also has protection written into in law in Canada (Yukon and Nunavut being current exceptions).

From the Ontario “Good Samaritan Act (2001)”, Section 2:

Protection from liability

2. (1) Despite the rules of common law, a person described in subsection (2) who voluntarily and without reasonable expectation of compensation or reward provides the services described in that subsection is not liable for damages that result from the person’s negligence in acting or failing to act while providing the services, unless it is established that the damages were caused by the gross negligence of the person. 2001, c. 2, s. 2 (1).[12]

What you are saying really only applies to people who are rendering aid in some kind of professional capacity, or for remuneration. (So a higher bar of competence should be met if it is part of your job to give such assistance, as the above text would not apply to you if it is your job.)

If you are simply helping someone with no expectation of payment, you are not liable for any damages due to your negligence, unless you are acting with gross negligence. And educating yourself in first aid would be a good first step in avoiding negligence.

Gross negligence requires recklessness, or purposeful ignoring of health and safety. If you are acting with good intentions and with due consideration for the health and well being to the best of your ability, it is difficult to see how the bar for gross negligence would be met.

Such “good samaritan” laws are a common feature in many countries around the world, although it should be noted that there are regions (including some in Canada: Yukon and Nunavut) where such laws do not exist.

Signal comes from the “chip-on-board” under the black epoxy blob. Looks like a circuit for simple sample or electronic tune playback. You press the (now damaged) button, and it plays a tune or sound sample(s) out of the speaker.

In that case the admin of the instance you registered with has disabled community creation for some reason. You can either contact the admin where you registered, or sign up with another instance that does allow community creation

If you’re on desktop, click Create Community at the top of the page.

If you’re on mobile, click the menu icon (top right), then click Create Community.

Best case scenario for reddit, I think, would be for its IPO to fail, spez and investors call it quits, and it eventually ends up maintained by a not-for-profit foundation in the way that, say, Wikipedia or Blender is.

Either that or it dies, its database published or scraped, and ends up accessible through archive.org or something similar.

EDIT: or a crowdfunded buy-out by John Oliver 😆