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The American Society of Composers, Artists, and Publishers is run by its member composers, artists, and publishers. It looks like GEMA works that way also.
Broadcast Music Inc. is run by radio execs, which means that ClearChannel likely has a large vote. It's probably as much like ROMS as like ASCAP. Many artist-composers sign up with them anyway, esp. if they are signed to the RIAA when they start publishing.
A strike by the ASCAP caused radio to found BMI. It appears that in the '40s and '50s, ASCAP wouldn't publish music by artists who couldn't write their compositions down. BMI, as a broadcast music corp., could and did publish that kind of work; since its members could directly promote the music that they were publishing, it got a foothold.
Cites, though I did do some original research:
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/ASCAP
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Broadcast_Music_Incor porated

The American Society of Composers, Artists, and Publishers is run by its member composers, artists, and publishers. It looks like GEMA works that way also.
Broadcast Music Inc. is run by radio execs, which means that ClearChannel likely has a large vote. It's probably as much like ROMS as like ASCAP. Many artist-composers sign up with them anyway, esp. if they are signed to the RIAA when they start publishing.
A strike by the ASCAP caused radio to found BMI. It appears that in the '40s and '50s, ASCAP wouldn't publish music by artists who couldn't write their compositions down. BMI, as a broadcast music corp., could and did publish that kind of work; since its members could directly promote the music that they were publishing, it got a foothold.
Cites, though I did do some original research:
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/ASCAP
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Broadcast_Music_Incor porated

Which Beatles album did you and your friend have a problem with? I'd like to know, in case I try to buy it.
BTW, here is a list of CDs (from every label) that had Copy Control (the relevant DRM software) on them: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Category:Copy_Control
There is a Beatles album, Let It Be...Naked, on that list. But according to its wiki and to Reuters, EMI didn't use Copy Control in every region, which explains why I was able to rip my copy of Disc One of that album to iTunes.
I do find it puzzling that EMI used Copy Control on every country in the EU except the UK!
Macrovision stopped making Copy Control six months ago, which is why EMI stopped using it then. I'll presume that they've spent time watching the change in "piracy" rates, or lack thereof, and are using that data to inform their decision. They already knew that DRM gives trouble to legit users, so if they see no difference in less-than-legit users, they've got reason to give DRM up for good.
I don't think they count DualDiscs as DRM'd...

I'm fond of automatic transmissions myself, but I have profound respect for anyone who knows how to work a manual.
I think you should know that the Wiki brake article includes a link to an article on "engine braking." http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Engine_braking
Apparently, every single non-hybrid car out there, regardless of transmission, is designed to use engine braking if your foot's off the pedal, the clutch isn't being used, and the car isn't in neutral. (And when cruise control is off, natch.) It seems that true brakes & tires alone aren't quite enough to stop a vehicle going, say, 55 mph, because there is so much friction that brakes and tires can melt. (You think fast cars burn rubber now?)
Of course, deliberately downshifting to brake is recommended only for special circumstances if you're not an automatic transmission. But engine braking is real.

It wasn't deliberate. America didn't shoot Skylab down like Mir was shot down. The US gov. thought Skylab was in a parking orbit safe for eight years; unfortunately, it left orbit about three years early. They wanted a Space Shuttle to move it to a higher orbit, but the Shuttles weren't ready in time. (Two years late.) They even considered using a unmanned satellite to try to move Skylab, but that wasn't even built.
Skylab wasn't brought down deliberately. It just fell out of the sky.
That said, the gov. should've paid that fine for littering.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Skylab

You're right. According to Wikipedia, there are still .su domains out there. In fact, the org. in charge of that country code thinks it can let new sites use that domain! (In Soviet Russia...)
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/.su

Wikipedia says that Malfunctioning Eddie was inspired by someone called Crazy Eddie.
Crazy Eddie has its own article. http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Crazy_Eddie (Yes, this article is about a corporation.)
Judging from what Crazy Eddie's article says, we had better hope that Allofmp3 is not overly similar to it. It's bad enough that buying from Allofmp3 is illegal in America; it would be worse if they proved to be (almost) as corrupt as the RIAA...

Heya;

I'm not a visa service, but the visa is 200rmb (USD24), I applied in Beijing both times through my travel agency, adding 4% to the air ticket cost. Foreign diplomats and foreign media are not permitted access. All others are OK, from what I've seen.

China Mainland includes all except HK, Macau, and Taiwan (even though TW is where the Kunming retreated to, TW is Greater-China, in BJ's eyes -- tough love for an errant child). There are also 4 cities in China that have rules like District of Columbia in the US: the municipality is federally-run (BJ, TJ, SH, and SZ?). Tibet is an autonomous region: Beijing allows it more latitude to run itself right now. Tibettans can vote for some levels of government, actually, according to Xinhua articles.

You need an additional visa to Tibet, but it's not too difficult nor expensive. If you visit Zhumolangmashan, you'll also need an additional visa: 600rmb (UDS75) for foreigners, 35rmb (USD5) for your guide and driver if they are PRC citizens, and we were also charged 100rmb (USD12) for our vehicle.

The point of my original article was: take a look before you render such a strong opinion, and I will help you get that look if you really want to. Visa discussions are a bit of a rat-hole tangent, best chased by skinny little terriers.

The original tangent:
http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Beijing_Subway -- unfiltered today
http://myspace.com/ -- unfiltered today
http://northbound.com/ -- unfiltered today
http://google.com/ -- unfiltered today

"I believe that many people will be doing lots of 'natural experiments' with collective intelligence in the next few years -- with or without us,"

This would be a good thing if they fought against all ideologies. But this, of course, won't be the case. Ideologues never acknowledge their unfounded beliefs are ideology. For them, only what "the others" (those who don't share their worldview) believe is ideology.

• Google
• Wikipedia
• Internet Archive
• Free Books (Project Gutenberg)

A friend got me to sign up for friendster a few years ago. I never really used it although I did run into a couple of folks I hadn't seen in years. We've now pretty much switched to Myspace but re-entering all the information was an annoyance.

Which brings up the big issue in my head: when will we have an open XML schema so migrating between different sites is a bit more seemless. Sorry, but FOAF and XFN just don't cut it. So far the closest thing I've seen to a workable solution is the XDI initiative(Web 3.0?). The W3C has passed on the proposal so far but I see something like it as an inevitable development of the Net. The closest analogy I can think of at the moment is a turbocharged vCard.

I've been researching Drupal and Wordpress in depth for a while now. These packages can offer many features of Myspace if you install the right modules . . . or you could hold your nose, join myspace and try to make the best of it.

This is actually nice -- now the police officers are engaged in wardriving. Now I won't worry so much when I do it, and the police wonder what all that equipment in my car is.

I certainly hope they don't pay thousands of dollars for their wardriving rigs, and I also hope there is enough accounting to deal with abuses the police officers might feel the need to engage in.

Perhaps we can send messages to our wardriving cops via the open wireless networks, like "Happy Wardriving!"

Actually, the latest this article could be, is 2004. First they mention the little-used warchalking, but no mention of any wifi mapping services. Then they mention the old , which seems to have shutdown mid '04. I suspect that this is '04 me-too news.

It's okay, though, I post old stuff on my site too.

Also, note that from the wiki entry on common carriers ISPs aren't considered telecommunications services (where common carrier status applies)...they're "information services":

...which holds that ISP service (both "retail" and backbone) is an "information service" (not subject to common carrier obligations) rather than a "telecommunications service" (which might be classified as "common carriage").

Yahoo retains the largest audience in the United States, though its visitor growth slowed to about 5 percent last year.

Am I being naive to suggest we're entering a new age of philanthropy?

[add nothing to the debate but link to wikipedia several times]

I think the summary on this article missed the point of Nielsen's article---though in fairness to the article submitter, I think Nielsen's own abstract also misses the point.

The article summary says that search engines "extract too much of the Web's value." He never gives us any criterion to make such a decision, so I assume this to be a personal opinion. Personal opinion aside, I would agree with his assertion that the "advertising arms race" inherent in the pay-for-ranking system can siphon revenue---potentially a lot of revenue---from a company. Nielsen then goes on to explain several good suggestions that companies could use to counter this outflow problem. His closing idea---that successful websites need to learn how to make people come back, not how to keep them on the page for hours---is, I believe, correct. Wikipedia is a good example of this, as others have mentioned; I'm also a favor of howstuffworks.com.

I don't know why Nielsen hid a good idea in so much scaremongering language; I suspect he felt it necessary to be heard above the regular Internet "blog noise" (we're discussing the article, so I guess it worked). But scaremongering aside, this is a pretty informative article.

Maybe that holds true for EA in the US, but I've had nothing but good experiences with people from EA Europe.
A couple of years ago, I was working for a big online gaming network, and got a few invitations to press events from EA.
Fast forward a bit and I ended up monkeying at an internet café, hosting such events along with the phenomenal EA crew - security/operations people, PR people, developers etc.

Were they just putting on a show? I don't think so; I managed to get the operations guy for Battlefield: Vietnam somewhat high on snus, had a great beer (or two) with some of the devs behind Battle for Middle-Earth etc.
In my oppinion, the EA Europe people are great - but then again, I can't really deny the ruckus that EA Spouse stirred up.

Any recommendations where one can still live free and unobserved in a non-nanny state?

I hear the government of Somalia is remarkably unintrusive.

More seriously, people who equate this EU bill with 1984 either haven't read the bill, or (more probably) haven't read 1984.

Thomas-

People claim to be experts all the time, and they lie or misinform out of ignorance; it's not a new phenomenon.

Imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert publishes an article in El Reg in which he announces to a dumbfounded audience that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf eats babies.

Papa Smurf can go to court, sue Joe X. Pert (and quite possibly The Register), force them to issue a public retractation and obtain damages. That's called "responsibility".

Now imagine that self-appointed expert Joe X. Pert goes to some cybercafe, connects to Wikipedia and anonymously edits the Papa Smurf entry, claiming that according to recent top-secret research, Papa Smurf actually does eat babies.

Now all the Papa Smurf can do is wait for someone to correct it (apparently in the case of Mr. Siegenthaler it took 4 months...), or find someone to correct it for him (hoping that no one reverts it), and he can't drag anyone to court to force them to "put up or shut up".

That's called "absence of responsibility". AKA a smear-machine's wet dream.

Thomas-

One solution (somewhat) has been http://wikipedia.com/. I know this is not a dictionary but works if you need to double check a spelling, but mainly I have found it useful while writing scientific pieces to double check a few pathways or cell types.

I am finishing up a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and have battled this throughout my collegiate years as well. I have searched long and far for a solution and have thus far not found anything. I have come across a few medical versions but even they tend to be for the lay person. One solution (somewhat) has been http://wikipedia.com/. I know this is not a dictionary but works if you need to double check a spelling, but mainly I have found it useful while writing scientific pieces to double check a few pathways or cell types. While its not comprehensive by any means, it is coming along at a suprisingly great rate. On a quick note... The Cell (which can be found at NCBI website) is a good book reference for such purposes as is Voet and Voet's Biochemistry.

Sorry... I guess I wasn't totally clear... I'm a Ph.D. student in Audiology, meaning that I have background in physiology/hearing science as well as clinical aspects (hearing loss, treatment). I do research specifically in noise-induced hearing loss. I'm working on MP3 player output levels at the moment...

As to your question about #3,4... that is a current speculation as to the additive properties of aspirin to tinnitus. However, tinnitus is typically idiopathic, meaning that it has no cause. Aspirin is related, but not causal at all. If you sever the auditory nerve, for example, tinnitis usually remains, indicating that it is central (brain). As to bloodflow, we're typically talking near the cochlea, not near the eardrum. You can have tinnitis caused by vascular problems in the middle ear (glomus tumor, for example)... which is real and caused, essentially, by hearing your own heart beat.

Unfortunately, tinnitis is a ridiculously difficult subject. I recommend the American Tinnitis Association's website for more info...

Some other links...

• American Academy of Audiology hearing anatomy/physiology info

• CDC info on Noise-induced hearing loss

• Wikipedia entry on Hearing Loss

There are many more on the web, too!

Seoul's subway system has complete cell coverage in all train tunnels, stations, pedestrian transfer tunnels etc. You can literally get on at steet level and exit anywhere else in the city at street level and maintain a call.

Since satellite-to-phone broadcast TV (DMB) launched last year they've added underground repeaters for that too. When WiBro launches here next year, I expect we'll be able to use wireless broadband internet system-wide too.

Seoul's subway system has complete cell coverage in all train tunnels, stations, pedestrian transfer tunnels etc. You can literally get on at steet level and exit anywhere else in the city at street level and maintain a call.

Since satellite-to-phone broadcast TV (DMB) launched last year they've added underground repeaters for that too. When WiBro launches here next year, I expect we'll be able to use wireless broadband internet system-wide too.

Aardvark
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Aardvark

Bear
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Bear

Cougar
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Cougar

etc...

Aardvark
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Aardvark

Bear
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Bear

Cougar
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Cougar

etc...

Aardvark
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Aardvark

Bear
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Bear

Cougar
-ref: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Cougar

etc...

That Hexus site is one of the most anoying I've ever seen. Every other word is highlighted with a sponsored link that's often not related at all to the subject at hand. It seems to me that the whole point of that site is to have mildly-useful content simply as click fodder.

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/D-VHS

... when button-style ads were the only ads. A small 160x90px button that linked somewhere. Maybe the button was flashy, maybe it was Spartan, maybe nobody clicked it.

The internet started as a mostly academic venture. The early adopters of most internet protocols (Gopher, email, NNTP, even HTTP) were government agencies and universities. If I lost free access to http://www.webmd.com/, I'd live. The truly good sites are the primarily free sites, such as http://www.wikipedia.com/. If the internet moved away from corporatization, it'd be better (like it was in the olden days). No spam, no ads, no crap, no millions of business websites that add no value to the global community. In other words, aside from the folk at DoubleClick losing their jobs, who really loses out here?

Take your spoon. Go to http://google.com/ or http://wikipedia.com/. Feed yourself. It has taken you longer to complain at others here for not feeding you than it would to find it yourself. You're demonstrating the Lazy Silver Spoon effect... (and I don't have the link for that. Sorry.)

Vader = Invader
Sidious = Insidious
Maul = Maul
Tyranus = Tyranny

Each one is really pretty appropriate for their respective characters if you think about it, although "Vader" probably is the farthest stretch out of the four.

Vader = Invader
Sidious = Insidious
Maul = Maul
Tyranus = Tyranny

Each one is really pretty appropriate for their respective characters if you think about it, although "Vader" probably is the farthest stretch out of the four.

Vader = Invader
Sidious = Insidious
Maul = Maul
Tyranus = Tyranny

Each one is really pretty appropriate for their respective characters if you think about it, although "Vader" probably is the farthest stretch out of the four.

Vader = Invader
Sidious = Insidious
Maul = Maul
Tyranus = Tyranny

Each one is really pretty appropriate for their respective characters if you think about it, although "Vader" probably is the farthest stretch out of the four.

Something critical like...Wikipedia? Wikipedia's flight from Hurricane Charley was well documented, including their use of mysqldump in disaster preparations.

Can we get a visualization for this wiki article?

With the way they're promoting Longhorn, you could swear it was a religion. Next, they'll declare a jihad on Linux.

A power outage has taken down wikipedia! as a community we must carry the torch!

You know, one thing that annoys me about Wikipedia (I know this is OT, but I don't care) is how so many articles have nonsensical links.

For example, let's say we're looking at the article on Wikipedia itself. Somewhere within it, it says "Wikipedia has been criticized for being an unreliable source of information."

Now, anywhere else on the web, you'd expect that the link in there would point to further information on that specific criticism of Wikipedia. But, instead it points to a page defining the term "critic"! How useless is that?

I can't count the number of times I've seen a link on Wikipedia that made me say "ooh, I'd like to know more about that" and clicked it, just to find out that it only points to a simple definition of whatever term I clicked. That's not what I wanted, dammit!

The Internet (specifically WWW) in its current form did not exist before advertising. To think that the Internet today can continue without ads based on some magical elf business model is simply absurd. Everyone says "Well they'll just have to find a new business model," but no one has any suggestions.

How the *%^& did this get modded as insightful?

The internet was born before advertising, and it was pretty bloody useful too, probably more useful than the cluttered space it has become.

Almost every large company on the web is selling something - that's how they make their money. If they're not selling something, then they use the web to place pre- or post-sales information: specs, drivers, downloads and so on. Using the web is much cheaper than manning a telephone helpline and sending out paper copies.

OK, There are some useful places on the web that may be funded by ad. revenue - places like Google, Google Groups and Yahoo Groups. To be honest, I'd pay a _small_ fee for search engines and archives (I'd pay a *lot* for a Cable TV service without adverts too, by the way.)

But personally, I think that the web is too clutered with far too many crappy blogs, geocities pages, band fan pages, lyrics pages, guitar tabs pages, and so on. If these people had to pay for their web space, there would be a dramatic reduction in this crappy content.

People who want to be heard, like Gentoo, Wikipedia and Apache already fund their rather large bandwidth and hosting needs through donations and such like.

The (occaisionally partial) eyelessness of cave fish species is a classic example of the removal of selective pressure for maintenance of a complex structure resulting in its degeneration...

Nonsense. Everyone knows that the Stonecutters rob cave fish of their sight.

At least you bagged one to talk to you. All the rest of use losers have to drool over whatever babe starred in the latest nerd-magnet-film and make cliche'd comments about wanting to see their warm southern dish... And quite frankly, who do you think got the better deal here?

To back you up, I'd point out that the question "where's the line" is almost impossible to answer exactly - but we can see vaguely where it is. It's like saying, "when did modern man arise" - we don't have a single year, but a range of several thousand years.

And are you actually agnostic, or a weak atheist? Look at Wikipedia's article on atheists if you're not sure.

* Weak atheism, or negative atheism, is the standpoint that there is no reason to believe that any particular god exists. A weak atheist sees no reality in any god he's been told about, and doesn't expect to ever find a god he can believe is real. This is not equivalent to agnosticism, although there is often an overlap between the two; an agnostic believes he does not or can not have enough information to say for certain whether any gods exist.
* Strong atheism, or positive atheism, goes further to make the assertion that there are no such things as gods. This may, but need not, include the opinion that the existence of a god is logically impossible; strong atheists base this on logical a priori arguments intending to demonstrate that omnipotent, omniscient, and/or transcendent conceptions of "God" are self-contradictory or internally inconsistent.

...

People unfamiliar with the distinction often misunderstand "weak atheism" to be agnosticism, and consider "strong atheism" to characterize all atheists. This leads to arguments against strong atheism being incorrectly levied against weak atheism as well.

The absoluteness isn't set out in a gotcha phrase, it's alluded to and rationalized in the arguments on the subject. I can't recommend enough Bernard Bailyn's "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, which won the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1968. It describes the mindset of the time. For a more modern view of the logical extension of this idea of liberalism see Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Barton focuses on one side of the record while ignoring or unaware of another aspect. It seems that Barton has forgotten a major contention. Someone is always going to take legitimate concern with tax dollars to support some religious belief they don't have. The Baptists and other Dissenters were considered nitpickers like, say, atheists are today. This was a hard won fight to get where we are today because of the greater separation of State and Federal powers. The Constitution took a long time before tax dollars going to religious causes were stopped. If the Founding Fathers sought to protect was commonly considered a minor annoyance, then if someone else can prove the same case, precedent holds that we must enforce this interpretation of the law.

The courts have upheld this position throughout the history of our nation. They were upheld because the First Amendment was sufficient for the courts and that's why you don't see clearer language in law. It was only until the Red Scare that these issues started to come up again. There was a national drive, as part of the Red Scare to put references to God funded by tax dollars. Since it's not a popular issue for elected legislatures, we are a culturally religious counatry, the courts have had to wait for challenges to the law.

If the 9th Circuit passes a decision that you think oversteps the bounds, you are welcome to bring a court case. If the Supreme Court abandons this principle of absolute separation, and I don't see how if they respect the rule of law, then things will change, but I believe that will be a dark day for this country.