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Slashback: Galileo, Backlight, Tariffs
The man is not often wrong. Doc Searls writes: "I wrote a piece piece at the Linux Journal site that you might want to check out. The very first comment is 'This needs to be Slashdotted.' I agree. And not because I'm looking for attention. I want to *call* attention to the CARP Report, which will kill Webcasting with fees. It's a big deal, and I don't see anybody else talking about it. Yet. And we need to."
Would you say that these are more 'puppies," "babies," or "mommas"? Vladimir Vuksan writes: "There are already hundreds of so called Java midlets that will presumably execute on these Nokia puppies or any other Java enabled browser. Check out http://midlet.org/jsp/index.jsp"
Too bad I can't get the entire Economist free just by reading the ads. FortKnox writes: "ZDNet is running a story about generic "Ad-Free Subscription Services" being used on the internet today. The review of these services is from the 'Ad Space Buyer' and how marketing execs are not keen on the idea. Something interesting to read, seeing Slashdot is testing the services."
How about a countersuit for strong-arm tactics? iosphere writes "According to an article on Wired, the judge in BT's case issued a ruling that questions whether or not the technology that was patented is really analogous to todays definition of a hyperlink. She questions how the patent, which was written with only a single computer terminal in mind, can apply to the internet as we know it now."
Update: 03/15 00:31 GMT by T : arget writes with a few more data points: "An article at News.com suggests that Prodigy has won a TKO in the first round. Another story at ZDNet is more neutral, but quotes an expert saying that prior art will 'come back to haunt BT's efforts.' Both articles agree that motions for summary judgement and probably a ruling will come soon."
Portable Monopoly kylus writes "Roughly a month after it was last mentioned here, the Gameboy Advance light project over at Portable Monopoly takes another step closer to fruition. While the official release date is in May, the group will begin accepting preorders on Friday, March 15th for the $35 light kit, which has been officially named 'Afterburner.' In addition to this news, they've provided some video captures of the product in action."
Remember, as reader Vito puts it, that's Portable Monopoly's warranty-voiding, solder-requiring, tech-support-suiciding Gameboy Advance internal lighting kit. :) Your own risk, et cetera.
This goes beyond disputes about how to spell "meter." meehawl writes with an update on the European Union's plans for a GPS workalike system, which we had previously reported had been scrapped.
"So after the Pentagon removed GPS's Selective Availability, the maximum GPS accuracy is typically within 10 to 20 meters. Differential GPS can reduce this to minute levels, very useful for calling in airstrikes and pinpointing installations, and so on.
So it's probably no surprise that the the European Union's plans to build their own GPS system, the Galileo Project, met such stern resistance from the U.S., with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asking EU defence ministers not to go ahead, saying it could complicate US satellite-assisted warfare and furthermore could be more easily used by anti-US military forces.
The EU has has now rejected the latest message from the U.S., a State Department exhortation to forgo development. Interestingly, the latest rebuff was framed as an anti-monopoly stance, that competition in satellite navigation would be good for business.
Apparently, Osama is responsible for this latest rebirth of the European space industry.
Perhaps more worryingly, in a related development a UK company was awarded the "Skynet 5" military communications system contract. Don't these people watch movies at all?"
The principle of the thing. Boone^ writes "It's been well covered, but The Tech Report has written a nice little article going through the finer points of the proposed levy and why there should be more people than just Canadians lobbying against it."
Perhaps some more apprentices will emerge from the woodwork? pynchin writes "Kyle Sallee, creator of Sorcerer GNU Linux has just announced on #sorcerer that he will no longer be involved with SGL. Some disgruntled SGL users forked the distro a few days ago -- see www.lunar-penguin.com for details."
Let Java be the language that saves us all from .NET lock-in. Let it be.
I would recommend you snail mail and email a letter to your member of Parliament, politely declaring that you will never vote for the Liberal government, in any election, and will advise your friends, family and neighbours to do the same, unless they repeal this bill.
This money goes straight to the pockets of the Record Company. Which is very wrong, considering the amount of money they steal from musicians.
Is this, like, FUD that fits in a briefcase?
Hey now! I don't mind helping out poor artists like Bryan Adams* with my Data CD purchases, but whats to keep some malicious hacker from playing their MP3.com downloads on their PC's, thereby cheating the industry out of their cut? Where's the tax on Hard-drives?
*poor as in 'low quality' not poor as in 'without cash'.
air and light and time and space
Quote:
"No one on the Lunar team was, or is, interested in harming, or competing with the Sorcerer group or its' brilliant principle, Kyle Sallee.If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery (and it is!) we hope that Kyle is flattered by our existence and we wish him well."
That sure doesn't sound like a disgruntled user to me. Can anyone substantiate that claim?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
How can it be a monopoly, or need competition? Normally, I'm very anti-monopoly, but I can't see how what is a universal free service, paid for by the US gov, counts. It would be different, were the US doing something half-assed (which we often do) like threatening to selectively deny it to Europe... but hell, they're just wasting their own money, and making it that much easier for psycho's to use it. And for what, national pride? Hell, if they wanted that, they could do something impressive, like go to the moon, something which sadly, the US is abandoning.
it's just GSM 900/1800, so i guess you americans will just have to wait...
Acts@core.mailboks.com Acrux@core.mailboks.com Adam@core.mailboks.com Adar@core.mailboks.com Ada@core.mailboks.com
Some of these mobile java games look quite good actually. They have the golden oldies, as well as some other games - Street Fighter on your mobile anyone? Games seem quite basic, but i'm sure they'll get better over time.
;-)
Seriously, J2ME looks very useful; i think i'll have to download the kit to see how it works. Some of the stuff is very useful, considering I have my phone with me practically all the time. A portable graphical calculator, a note pad, games, a dictionary/language translator, and currency convertors? This'll really cut down on all the stuff you have to carry round. Hopefully charges for connecting to the internet via mobile phones will come down so it is cost-effective to use this kind of stuff.
P.S. Look under >graphics>adult for a *very* useful applet for your phone. Although it will be distracting to use when getting into those complicated positions
I'm really looking forward to this - my GBA is virtually unplayable unless I have a strong light directly above me. That rules out trains and buses, where I'm most likely to sit back and play some to while away the hours (so to speak). It also looks fun to install to a certain extent, though it'd probably be good to brush up my soldering skills first! :-) In any case, major kudos to those guys for doing what most people would have just sat back and bitched about... backlighting for the GBA should have been a fairly high priority for Nintendo, what with the prevalence of PDAs and mobile phones, etc, that use this technology. Silly Nintendo. Classy Portable Monopoly!
--
http://liedra.net
Okay now I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I agree that a unified GPS would be a *good* thing for global communications and security etc.... however
from the article... The US has another vital unilateralist interest; if GPS is the only global positioning network, all positioning on the planet can only be done by America, so that if the US wants to block, say, a military or civilian aircraft sale by the Europeans it can simply ban the use of GPS avionics in the aircraft's positioning system. French President Chirac is uncompromising about the consequences - this would be economic, security and technological 'vassalage'.
This could really be a REAL concern for other nations. Granted living in the US, it doesn't conern me as much on the loss of communications end, but what does concern me is the potential for abuse, and the backlash that abuse might cause...
Maybe a second network, but compatible network isn't such a bad idea after all.
-ryan... the karma sutra "applet" is only for "semens" (sic) phones...
With all the discussion we have here on Slashdot regarding copyrights and patents, especially concerning the amount of time one should be allowed to hold a patent or copyright, I found this line rather interesting.
BT's Hidden Text patent was filed in the U.S. in 1977 and issued in 1989. Hidden Text patents filed in Europe have already expired.
Perhaps this sort of thing should be pointed out here in the U.S. to our government. Should we allow lengthened patents, then those evil evil British Terrorists might have a patent on a technology we've based a majority of our new economy on.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
And the fact that Sun voted Yes with no comment speaks volumes.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Think how much impact this will have on our daily lives. In the coming years, GPS will become part not only of our cars but also of our mobile phones, PDAs and watches. It will become a key part of our interaction with commerce, transport and health services and will be a secure way to get location-based services (it is passive, unlike GSM location info).
With all that in mind, can you blame the Europeans if they don't trust the US government that this will always remain free and open?
I'm frying my hat in butter and a little garlic as we speak. Soon, in little strips and maybe tossed into a salid it shall be headed down my gullet because something I never thought would happen obviously has.
... and it doesn't like what it sees.
Europe, as a whole, as an administrative behemoth designed primarily to redistribute wealth towards French farmers, has got it. It has understood the whole concept of control of information systems to an almost Microsoft level of conception
GPS gives us stuff we *need* right now. It navigates our aircraft, ships, even satellite launches themselves and control of the GPS system equates to control of these increasingly critical resources. If George Dubbya, or indeed any future US president decides that the war against terrorism suddenly includes Europe he'll be able to shut the place down with the single click of a (probably Microsoft) mouse. Let's face it, it's not that unlikely. With the whole Afghanistan thing the US has proven it is quite willing to act unilaterally in kicking anyone's arse it damn well feels like.
Europe's take on the situation? Fuck that, we'll build our own. And using $2.2bn that was otherwise vital for Monsieur Marcaud to sit on his butt and watch Canal+ we suddenly have Europe taking control over it's own future. "if the EU went ahead with its own satellite positioning system its radio signals might interfere with US military operations based on GPS. " - I imagine it says that somewhere on the requirements document too.
Strike one for disarming the warmongering lunatics, thank god for that.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
On the topic of internet radio, it can be expected that large record companies will adopt such a uniform scheme.
Here's a great idea for someone to implement: An indie label rights clearinghouse.
Nothing in the proposal disallows an independent webcaster from using content for free with the permission of the record label. So if we can get a website up that will allow indpendent webcasters and small record labels to meet, they could agree that no broadcasting fees will need to be paid.
Both sides win. Indie labels that weren't going to get any radio play anyway lose nothing by allowing free webcasting. Indie webcasters get to use songs for free.
If Big Music wants too much money for you to use their stuff, then don't promote Big Music.
The Afterburner is a front light, not a back light.
My other
Mod this one up. (as if people will suddenly stop using shoutcast - hahaahahahahahahahaha)
They're half right. Since selling ads is really selling eyeballs, the ad-free subscription idea means less eyeballs to sell and the eyeballs are worth less. That means the site must either reduce the cost for advertisers or lose them. If they lose all their advertisers, the subscribers will stop subscribing because the ad-free version of the page is no longer less annoying than the "ad" version. That means the site has an incentive to have more and more ads, because the more ads there are on the site, the more money they make in subscriptions.
Hell, it would be in the site's interests to even run ads at no-charge to the advertisers. Wouldn't that be an ironic twist?
from the zdnet link:
Meanwhile, advertisers will choose a site because they are interested in targeting people who are most interested in the content. And those are precisely the people who this site can no longer deliver to the advertisers.
Slashdot's got that problem covered - even paying subscribers still see ads some of the time!
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
Just wondering- you seem to either love trolling or just hate /. I understand your post in you just hate /., but if you get pleasure from the trolling, won't you decrease your fun time if your plans do smother /.? For the record, I do use nested becuase I hate having to click a billion times in one article.
I like your post in and of itself (hey, I'm blowing karma by not going AC), I was just wondering what stance you are taking?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I take this as an absolute license to copy what ever i want on to media that i've prepaid the royalties on. Hey maybe this is the solution to the record companies delemma. Let bands distribute their music directly to the net, we will all pay to a big royalty pot that gets evenly distributed to all artists. Oh by the way, i just started a new group called White Noise.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Great, now my phone will crash too, just like my browser. No thanks.
sulli
RTFJ.
This is a subject I care about since I listen to a lot of internet radio. A short piece on the Radio Paradise web site discussing this issue: The Death of Web Radio? A fairly detailed (though obviously NOT unbiased) site dedicated to saving internet radio: Save Internet Radio -Phil
We're wanted men. I have the death sentence in 12 systems!
Fellow Canadians, head over and have a look, and sign it if you want to communicate your "strong disapproval with the levy on blank recording media."
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
So, just don't keep cache your documents before you view them.
from page 11:
"BT argues that this citation to the prosecution history merely discusses the advantages of the technology of the Sargent patent, rather than distinguishes prior art. BT further argues that the file wrapper describes a number of different "stores," and Prodigy improperly attempts to narrow the claim to only one of those descriptions.
However, BT is incorrect. "Teaches" is a term of art in the patent world - what the patent "teaches" is the invention. Therefore, the explanations in this passage relating to the way data is stored in the system are of particular significance. In this passage, the applicant notes that the manner of storing information is the distinction between his invention and prior art.
The parties are particularly concerned about whether this passage disclaims the use of RAM as a "main store." This quote, found in two of the applicant's appeal briefs, supports Prodigy's contention that RAM has been disclaimed. The briefs open by describing the prior art in the world of "data base storage and retrieval system[s]." (Jan. 24, 1986 Appeal Br. at 1; Jan. 5, 1987 Appeal Br. at 2.) The applicant acknowledges that the usefulness of "abbreviated keyed-in selection data is recognized in the prior art." (Jan. 24, 1986 Appeal Br. at 2; Jan. 5, 1987 Appeal Br. at 2.) In such systems (i.e., abbreviated keyed-in selection data systems), "Then one might store the necessary full address linkage data in RAM where it is readily accessible for use in translating a user's keyed-in single digit . . . into the full disk-store address of the next desired screen." (Jan. 24, 1986 Appeal Br. at 2; Jan. 5, 1987 Appeal Br. at 2.) However, this "scheme" has its disadvantages "as more voluminous and complex data bases are considered." (Jan. 24, 1986 Appeal Br. at 2; Jan. 5, 1987 Appeal Br. at 2.) These drawbacks, as stated by the applicant, are that more RAM must be used for this function, proper updating may become complicated, and inefficient use of RAM and disk storage may result.
The applicant explains that his invention flies in the face of the conventional wisdom regarding storage of the address linkage data. "
As a followup, this definitely "brightens" the already vibrant homebrew development scene.
The Visoly flash linker and carts are great, and available from (your friends and mine) Lik-Sang, GameGizmo and Easy Buy 2000 (all no-referral URLs).
The multi-boot cables (for downloading small apps to your GBA without needing to flash a cart) are cool, too, and have been exploited to turn your GBA into a handheld terminal. Check out the PDF on that last link; much nicer than reading the page, with pictures. Wish there was someplace within the continental US to order a couple non-ugly ones from, though. Those MBV2s are just too unweildly to use in sexy handheld terminal demonstrations.
According to that article's theory, I am out of the trolling business
I am Subscription Troll, you just paid $5 for 1000 page views of me, enjoy!
They web site hasn't been updated in a year, and email to the head of it doesn't get a reply! Is EFC dead? Must we depend on US groups like EFF and Slashdot to be informed and represented in our fights on the Frontiers of Cyberspace?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Does this mean that it's legal to download copyrighted mp3's in Canada because the artist's are getting paid? ;)
And if it's not legal, why the tax?
Yeah I know I'm dreamin' but just thought I'd point out the one-sided logic of the record companies.
Shh.
When the entertainment industry churns out some new content, we consume, breathlessly. And we complain about the price. How many of us would be willing to skip out on Star Wars Episode II to make a point? Zero? And we'll buy the CD-RWs etc., complaining all the way home about the price we just willingly paid for a product.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate how valuable their websites are, and to employ an unsustainable number of people generating content. There isn't any information on MacFixIt that I want and can't get on usenet.
Find free books.
Dear EuroTrash,
.Net. Blame MS, not us.
We're sorry, feel free to put up your system.
Sincerely,
The USA
(wait 5 years)
Dear EuroTrash,
Sorry we just lasered all your GPS sattelites, it was a freak accident caused by a security breach in MS
Sincerely,
The USA
(snicker, snicker)
If you're trying to convince me not to subscribe to Slashdot, can you at least tell me why?
/. provides a service, they should get something in return. $5 for 1,000 pages seems like a good model to me. It's cheap, and it's useful.
So ya hate Slashdot, big deal? Im willing to give them $5 if it keeps them online. Why? Because it's one site I can go to in order to keep an eye on what's going on in the world. If you don't like them, not subscribing is fine, but why on Earth would you be so keen on making them go offline? Did somebody mod one of your posts down?
In any case,
"Derp de derp."
Wait, so I can install a backlight on my Magellan?
sorry...
With high resolution printers and scanners significant amounts of data can be stored and recovered using plain paper.
A double sided sheet of paper with .5" margins at 1200 dpi data = 28MBs. More than enough for a few MP3s.
Perhaps people should mail the legistlators MP3s on plain paper to allow them to put things in perspective.
I am a Systems Developer , and have authored serveral extremely common macintosh utilities (two were multimillion dollar top ten utilities).
MacFixIt is sometimes WRONG a few percent of the time. Thats a few percent too much.
This was in its earliest years.
But when it was wrong I refused to try and fix or assist them instead I just told everyone to moslty ignore EVERYTHING they read on MacFixIt until the site stopped promoting wild misinformation and incorrect hunches on which system extension is to blame.
For the record... my products have always adhered to Apple's "Inside Macintsoh" programming specifications 100%. (Apples own crap never is fully compliant... almost NEVER)
But because MacFixIt was not staffed by a single competent engineer or had ties to any, I thought nothing positive about that site based on all the misinformation I always heard.
My hardware engineering friends of mac products felt the same way I did.,
In fact.... I never visited it ONCE in my life.
Not once. Ever.
And I frequent almost 15 mac web news sites religiously.
I harbor a near-pathological sheer hatred and contemptuous disgust for the MacFixIt site.
I am glad they attracted so many leeches on it sucking bandwidth that they now have a userbase of non-engineers and mere leeches willing to fork over a pocketful of change and slurping down the bandwidth.
It take no genius to see that it will get much crappier now that people like me would certainly NEVER go to their site.
Hell, if it was free and mac guru developers never visited it... do you think they will now that it costs money or is ad-soaked?!?!
MacFixIt needs to learn to print retrations and learn to peer review and learn to attract competent system engineers to oversee their posts.
Goodbye to them
comp.sys.mac.system is indeed worthwhile.
Hmm. I often read (and/or skim) court rulings (especially from the Supreme Court), and usually they more or less make sense. But this one... Geez. She starts off with pages on the subject of whether a word means what it seems to mean. And then several more pages about how this applies to "computer" and other words in the hyperlink case. I can sort of see the need for all this, but no wonder patents are such a black art.
Further, do they want to tax blank video tape? After all, with a Sony digital-8 camcorder, you can record 11 GB of data on an 8mm 120 minute video tape costing about $3, from your firewire port using free software. Right now that competes with CD-R as the cheapest ($/GB) form of mass storage available to consumers. DVD-R will probably start beating CD-R costwise soon, unless the Canadian music publishing lobby can put a stop to it...
Okay, if they tax all media, then I'll get all my music for free. A $2 data CDR is still cheaper than a $19 CD. And since the "artists" (a funny way to spell "record labels", isn't it?) are getting paid (apparently, this is very important), I would feel ZERO moral obligation to EVER buy a CD again (well actually I don't really feel obligated now, but I do it anyway, with a tax I would feel obligated to NOT buy any more music.. why pay twice?).
And OF COURSE every little indie label run out of somebody's bedroom with six releases is going to get their fair share, right?
Sounds good. Music as a public good, lets pay with public funds, and the record labels can go to hell.
Which of course isn't how it will work, the record labels will get fatter and more corrupt as they feast on the blood of the proletariate, most indie record labels will continue to operate at a loss, and CDs will grow to $24 to combat the extra "piracy" brought about by the tax, but we can pretend that life is fair...
Unfortunately the U.S. customs were told to intercept any of these imports.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
I'm being facetious here, of course, but if the Canadian government is going to get into the business of collecting arbitrary royalties on digital media, why do musicians have more of a claim on these royalties than people who write free software?
The important part of the ruling is as follows. The judge ruled that the the computer which stores the hyperlinked data must be a *central* computer. Specifically the central computer must be in one place. This could be very unhelpful to BT's case, since on the internet the data is stored in a distributed fashion.
The issue about RAM vs. disk may play an important role also. This is probably also unhelpful from BT's perspective
The ruling isn't really that long. Much of it is boilerplate text explaining how the law works in a case like this. All Markman rulings seem to be 75 percent the same.
It was intended for this story about Sun and others voting against Apache & IBM related to legal issues for Java standards. My bad!
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From the official statement:
r om-paragraph-to-paragraph applies to ALL of the described media, NOT merely that which is imported. Yes, Canadian made, Canadian sold cd media fall under the classification.
Anyone contemplating objecting to CPCC's proposed statement must realize that the Copyright Act sets out a number of limits on what the board may or may not do. No purpose is served by objecting to the proposed statement based on grounds about which the Board can do nothing. In the following paragraphs, we summarize some of the limits imposed on the Board's powers in this matter:
(1) The Board must certify a tariff and set a levy. (blah blah blah, everything else..)
The board is only setting the rate of tarriff. Also, contrary to what some people think, this tax/tarrif/levy/whatever-they-decide-to-call-it-f
Just thought the poster should know that :)
-----------------------------------------
Perversely greped and groped by PowerPenguin
So after the Pentagon removed GPS's Selective Availability, the maximum GPS accuracy is typically within 10 to 20 meters. Differential GPS can reduce this to minute levels, very useful for calling in airstrikes and pinpointing installations, and so on.
:)
The pentagon decided that maybe lives were worth saving, and a system that their citizens probably (i don't know) paid for with their tax dollars should not treat them as criminals. It was designed so they wouldn't keep bombing red cross shelters lol
So it's probably no surprise that the European Union's plans to build their own GPS system, the Galileo Project, met such stern resistance from the U.S.
i.e Bush pretends to like Euroupe, but when it comes to it, he'd nuke us in a second.
with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asking EU defence ministers not to go ahead
Paul Wolfowitz: "Um, err, so, um, we have this gps thing, and um we control it, but we don't want you to have one, because we are the un denied rulers of the world.. so um, could you like, um not make your own?"
saying it could complicate US satellite-assisted warfare and furthermore could be more easily used by anti-US military forces.
Complicate, meaning: "well sir, we we're going to bomb those euro asses with no fear of retaliation 'cause they can't pin-point our targets, but now they have their own system, so they can hit us back..."
anti-US military forces: What? you paint GPS targets over _other_ countries for years, but when someone paints it over your country, suddenly its not ok? There is a russian system already running, what about them?
The EU has has now rejected the latest message from the U.S., a State Department exhortation to forgo development.
They told Bush to go shove his GPS receiver up his ass so he could read it more clearly.
Interestingly, the latest rebuff was framed as an anti-monopoly stance, that competition in satellite navigation would be good for business.
And?
Apparently, Osama is responsible for this latest rebirth of the European space industry.
Oh, so if we're not with you we are against? just because we want some freedom, and independence, we are now all terrorists?
Perhaps more worryingly, in a related development a UK company was awarded the "Skynet 5" military communications system contract. Don't these people watch movies at all?"
I think the name was chosen as a joke.. maybe??
Oh, and we're not taking all this crap about it interfering with American GPS signals. If thats the best the government can come up with then...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This format appears to be more robust than raw encoding and thus must have smaller capacity per inch. http://www.dataglyphs.com/
I run squid with an ad filter. I know I'm lucky that this works so well. Eventually the content people will invent a protocol which makes it a lot more difficult to scratch out the crap.
But not impossible. When marketting people talk about ads, they don't mean the message. They mean blinking, scrolling, flashing, and all other forms of obnoxious behaviour that make it difficult to attend to anything else on the page.
This kind of content I will always be able to eliminate. Simple rule: if it blinks, flashes, or scrolls, trash it.
I'm so vehemently opposed to obnoxious inputs that I'm more likely to make a mental note to refuse to buy the product than to to be swayed that the product behind the irritation is going to solve all of my problems. One could argue that I'm doing them a favor by scraping out the ads: someone is no longer paying to have those bytes delivered, and none of those bytes are making a dime off of me.
Here's where it has to end up: the advertiser who wants to push their blinking piece of crap under my nose is going to have to pay a very high price. My attention doesn't come cheap. If I'm such a desirable demographic, pay me for it.
I have never posted as anything but an AC and will never post anything except as an AC and therefore will forever be abused by ads that I don't want, don't read and don't click through. It's not one's name, nick, power, or position that give value to words, words must find their power from the knowledge and experience expressed in the words. For these reasons and more I choose to be anonymous and to remain so as much as is possible in this treacherous land of cookies, logins, invasive scripts and asundry other privacy invading garbage. The purchase of a subscription being therefore totally out of the question as it would require surrendering myself to further loss of privacy. Regardless of the dollar amount, hell even if it was $0 it would be too much as it would require the use of my name etc and that is far too high a price to pay. I even purchase my newspapers and magazines off the rack rather then have a subscription. If all this labels me as a nutcase, then so be it for you should be free to think as you will and express those thoughts free from penalty, prejudice, and SPAM.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Perhaps what's worse is that this government program almost encourages piracy. Think about it. If you buy blank media whose price has been increased by a levy, you've got to rip some copyrighted material to get your money's worth. The artists are getting paid from the levy anyway, so you might as well steal their music, right?
I've tried. I really have. I've bought and paid for every damn thing of mine, all legally. I've also bought a hell of a lot of cd-r's, for backing up my legally made (ie: by me) software, photos, video, you name it. I've spent years watching everyone get in on the free ride, and I thought that somehow if I avoided it all, I wouldn't be caught in the backlash. I personally hate the recording industry, and as such, I've not bought anything released in years. Voting with my wallet, you could say. I've also voted to keep the current idiots in power AWAY from Ottawa each time (so much for that doing anything).
And now, the Federal Government is basically telling me to fuck off and die, because it knows that I must be pirating music!
That's it. I give. I hereby declare myself a wanton pirate, and will do my damndest to spread every bit of music that I can. Obviously the creators of it figure I pirate anyway, and would rather just make their money off of blank media, so they must not mind. The Government, having no right to even be involved in the issue, let alone taxing it, is also telling me to pirate all that I can. Fine. From hereon in, every single cdr I buy will be dedicated solely to the copying and distribution of pirated music.
Happy now?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
This is incorrect. The copyright office can't do a damned thing about broadcasting music on the net. Nor does CARP. All it addresses is broadcasting someone else's content to other people.
I am pretty convinced that the part of the real reason the xxAA organizations are trying to outlaw things like camcorders and associate music file formats with crime, is that they fear competition from low-budget production, since now, thanks to the Internet, those low-budget producers have just as good of an infrastructure for distribution as the old monopolies did. But it is pure dishonesty to try to pretend that webcasting RIAA music fits into this scheme. When you're playing someone else's music, you're not part of any "creative commons." Copying ain't creativity.
And if you are doing something creative (exactly the kind of stuff RIAA fears) CARP doesn't effect you. If you're making music, you can webcast your music. If you're helping local underground bands, then when you're talking with them at the local bar after the show, you get their permission. They're not going to charge you thousands of dollars. They're people, chat with them.
All this whining about CARP killing webcasting, is total bullshit. If CARP effects you, then you're part of the problem. You're just publicizing the megacorps' products. I don't know why you'd want to do that, or why RIAA doesn't want you to do that, but I don't care. You're still just a tool.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
[DataGlyphs] appears to be more robust than raw encoding and thus must have smaller capacity per inch.
Each DataGlyphs bit-cell is 5x5 pixels. With this 1200 dpi printer you speak of, an 8x10 inch printable area can hold 4608000 bit-cells. Given 10 bits per byte (including Reed-Solomon error correction), 450 KB per page (900 KB per double sided page) is still a lot of machine-readable data.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'd comment on their site, but I don't trust them with my email address...
;)
/CPM.
Here's what I wrote before their system figured out that sadasdasdasd@asdasdasda.asdasd was a bad address
---Begin---
Advertizers can bite me, and I say that as the owner of a web site which used to depend on advertizing revenue. (actually, oddly enough it was the company that now is Zdet that was providing our ads)
This was a year and a half ago during the final days of "we guarantee a sell out, $2.00
anyhow, we went from pulling revenue of $70,000 a month to nothing inside of 30 days when ZDnet pulled the ad contract from us (new economy, nothing nefarious like content problems).
8 Months ago we moved to a premium subscription model, now we have over 25,000 subscribers. Revenue is much more stable than it ever was during the Advertizing phase.
We still run advertizing on the site, but it's there to mostly convince people to pay to get rid of it, since we make about 100x more off a viewer who pays than a viewer who sees the ads.
Yes, we're an awful demographic. But in the end, the fact that we serve some 60 Million Ads a month should account for more than $3,000 revenue (which is all we get for ads these days)
So, the advertizers can do whatever the heck they like, but untill they're willing to pay more than the individual is willing to pay me to not see the ads, the can lick at the heels of people who don't buy things online as far as I'm concerned.
It's not short sighted. It's called comminity building. Many people will pay $2.00 a month to get rid of the ads on their favorite site. How many advertizers are willing to pay $2.00 for every viewer that comes to your site in a month?
The advertizers can reap the seeds they sewed.
~a
---End---
I posted the same thing when this came up the other day, but I was actually serious. Why should the recording artists get all of the 'tax' when some of us aren't burning music, we're burning ISOs of our favourite distros. I want to see all the 'tax' *I* pay on CD-R's go to Debian (and the good folks at IPcop.org, who make a hell of a nice firewall/router, and which is residing on a few cds around here somewhere...)
do not read this line twice.
Does this mean that it's legal to download copyrighted mp3's in Canada because the artist's are getting paid?
And if it's not legal, why the tax?
Here's an interesting analogy... if it makes any sense at all:
1) Speeding is illegal.
2) Speeders consume more gasoline.
3) Speeders pay more tax because gasoline is taxed.
Now, just because speeders pay more taxes, doesn't mean they are somehow not breaking the law. However, the people who use the roads more recklessly end up paying a higher portion of the road repair bill. At least, that's how it's supposed to work.
Of course, in the case of the Levy on recordable media, the money isn't going to help those who need it the most. Instead, it's supporting the overdue-for-extinction record companies who are too incompetent to adapt to changes in media technologies.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
While the folks at Lunar did indeed fork, and take half of the SGL users along with them, Sorcerer Linux still lives on even without Kyle's leadership. Indeed, in the past week, it has undergone massive changes in management when Kyle tried to remove the distro all together, and many of us stepped up to the plate to keep the project going.
While we are still growing into the project, we have accomplished a great deal in a week, and are planning great things for Sorcerer. It is a great distro, and we are fighting to keep it as such.
Wyatt DraggooKarma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
Damn, where are those mod points when you need them..
And they do : 100% siezure at all points of entry at the moment.
Malasian reroute being setup to thwart US from taking away citizens rights to program and backup their carts.
Be careful of ANYTHING from lik-sang for now.
try to see if COD can be setup with any international shipper.
otherwise it WILL be stopped.
billions are squanderred by US Customs... they even confiscate serial cables with tranciever chips from lik-sang used to program dreamcast.
I predicted they would so I bought mine before us customs started using the DMCA to take away the few american freedoms I used to have.
Holy shnitz, I just now realized that I spent the last 40 minutes writting this.
.
:)
Cruds, I have a final due in English too. . .
Ah oh well; here it goes. It is rather long mind you. I am submitting this through the petition that www.beethoven.com has running.
(begin paste)
As a citizen who believes in the rights of independent artisans to create their own works, I am highly opposed to the ideas for regulation recently introduced by the CARP report.
Art is something that should be free to be spread to all should the artist be willing. While I do not support or condone illegal music broadcasts in any form or by any medium, I do believe that if an artist working under no other contract chooses to release his or her work to the public domain that those who seek to fulfill the artist's wishes and spread that work of art should be allowed to do so with no extra fines or fees levied upon them.
Charging money for Web broadcasts of works in the public domain (let us ignore for the moment works that should not be distributed without proper royalties being paid) is the same as charging me money for putting up a painting in my living room and inviting my friends and family over to view it.
In fact it is even worse then that.
For in this case the painting is one that I was given freely by a friend, or even one that I may have painted myself.
An enactment of the regulations put forth by the CARP report or the enactment of any regulations similar to those, would be tantamount to charging an artist a fee just for painting.
Or charging a musician a fee just for playing their songs for free to anybody who is willing to listen.
This is the equivalent to the long feared Thought Crimes. Except that this is a viewing crime, a listening crime. But instead of charging each individual listener, instead the creator or the distributor of the work is charged instead.
If a United States Citizen opened up his or her house as a museum and allowed artists to freely put up works of art within the house, and allowed other fellow citizens to visit his or her house viewing these works of art, no mention of fees would be involved. In fact it would be quite likely that the citizen who worked to hard to create such a wondrous endeavor for his or her fellow citizens would have their museum granted with not for profit status and be given support by the government at a variety of levels to continue in the wonderful task that he or she is accomplishing.
Indeed, if a citizen pays for with their own money and sets up a radio station to support local artists for no fee, then that individual would be heralded as being a good hardworking samaritan who is doing his or her best to support the arts. Indeed many of the various taxations and regulator fees that are applicable to commercial radio stations would be bypassed and declared unapplicable to this wondrous spreader of the arts.
But under these regulations, if the same citizen guided by the same motivations sets up an online Internet webcasting station and pays for all of the equipment and server fees him or her self, if this United States Citizen dedicates their time and energy to giving freely available public domain artwork out to all for their enjoyment and enrichment;
now this person would be charged potentially thousand of dollars a month in regulatory fees.
This is wrong. Plain and simply, it is wrong. Dedication, hard work, and sacrifice towards an ideal should never in the lands of a free country be grounds for doing no less then what amounts to punishing a person.
This, this, hopefully what I have said, shall help to convince you that charging fees for none commercial entities is wrong.
But what about commercial entities?
I have no problems with fees levied as a portion of an organizations income. And indeed if that Organization is making even a portion of their income off of works of which the rights to are owned by another organization or person, then the profiteering organization should indeed pay a portion of their income in both federal taxes and in royalty fees to those of whom's work they are making a profit of.
But never should a company or an organization be charged more in regulatory fees or taxes or royalties then that organization is bringing in.
Indeed we all know that it is foolishness to charge anybody at a 200% tax rate. Indeed this is detrimental to all. The government itself shall find itself of reduced income after the organization being taxed to such an exorbitant extent is put out of business. It is not good practice to raise chickens, wait for the first batch of eggs to come through, and then kill all of the chickens.
The competitors also lose. They lose money and potential future talent. For it is by the smaller organizations, from free none profit art museums to small for profit radio stations that new and upcoming talents are revealed. The market itself can be carefully gauged from the responses that these new and upcoming artists receive.
Indeed, if Seattle Washington had not had outlets for independent bands to play their music in and gain popularity at, then Universal Music Group (a subsidiary or Universal Studios) would itself have been shortened a few millions dollars a year in revenue for quite number of years by the band Nirvana alone. This is not even taking into account the numerous other musicians who started there way in local clubs and moved up to small independent labels until they were able to eventually make it big so to speak and infuse the U.S. economy with the money that their fans spent on their CDs, Concerts, and other merchandise.
Had those musicians had to pay out thousands of dollars a month just for the right for other people to listen to them, then we all would be a bit poorer.
That the independent labels existed and were fairly taxed according to their profits and nothing else was the sole criteria responsible for allowing many worthwhile artists to align themselves with the major publishers.
The independent artistry industries are ones that we all rely on, and I dare say that one that we all need to continue to survive. My very own art teacher has yet to become a successful world renowned painter, but the money that she makes by selling her works through independent channels has allowed for her to pursue a teaching carrier in which she has the possibility, the potential, to teach artistry to someone who may very well be the next Grand Master of painting.
We can never know if that shall happen or not, but the ever lasting hope that it can happen, that it will happen, the knowledge that it has happened before, that the next great Artists born unto this world shall be an American, is what encourages us to keep going a system which allows for free and open potential and possibility for all.
Over taxing that industry, removing even once source of that potential, is to let that dream, that hope, those aspirations of not just the many, but those aspirations of the all; die.
Please, vote to instead levy only fair and reasonable taxes upon Internet Music Broadcasters. Removing them from business is to remove so much more.
*(End Paste)*
There it is, how do you like it?
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Jamming is the most common mode of intentional disruption. Russian handheld 4-watt jammers are said to disrupt the signal over an area 100 nautical miles in radius. Jamming devices are available and can be easily built, Carroll said. One-watt jammers, the size of a Coke can, can easily be moved around and deployed. "There is a fairly large GPS disruption industry," he said. (full story)
Using the inverse-square law, this implies that a kilowatt transmitter could disrupt GPS over an area of about 1,500 miles in radius. Admittedly, line-of-sight limitations would probably make a wide-range jammer impractical unless you could get it to altitude as you suggest -- but in any case, it would hardly take a nuclear EMP to impact the efficacy of the GPS system over a large portion of Europe.
Here's one other thought-provoking item, from Aviation International News:
Carroll also stressed the danger of "spoofing," where false GPS signals could slowly divert an aircraft off track, undetected by the pilot. This could be hazardous during an approach. Current civil receiver designs cannot counter spoofing and few provide immediate failure warnings, Carroll noted, so he proposed that new certification standards be developed. (full story)
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
What I want to know is how the hell did this tax law get through the canadian system.
I can understand the DMCA getting through in the USA via soft money, but we don't have soft money in canada.
I know the canadian government is pro-tax and all.
Can some one please explain this to me?.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
They can? How?
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Why should I try to convince you? My biggest problem in here is the moderators; make something vaguely amusing and you get modded way up. Genuinely informative submissions are generally overlooked and trawling the entire discussion for gems in the dung is just too unpleasant.
When, in the end, people resort to egostroking the moderators to get up it becomes awkward. When the moderators responds positively to vile grovelling it becomes too painful for me.
I was a regular a few years ago but now I pop in once a month or so to give it one more chance. entropy is still at work though.
so we are talking CAN$100 which is worth like what these days, USD $62?
It sucks, just not as badly as USD$100.
Note that all of this applies to the civilian system - the GPS satellites also send out a separate (and encrypted) signal that can be used only with military GPS receivers. Those receivers include both decryption information which must be refreshed every 6 months and a quick 2-3 finger way to flush that information if the receiver is about to fall into enemy hands. All of this means that civilian GPS can be turned off completely without preventing the US military from using it. There are also other limitations in civilian equipment (won't work above 50,000 feet and/or 1000mph, etc.) to make it less suitable for some military use.
Until relatively recently, SA was always on, generally with an accuracy of around 50 meters. That meant basically that 95+% of the time the position reported by a GPS receiver was within 50 meters of the actual position of that receiver. SA can be turned up much higher to at least the 250-300 meter mark. The one exception for SA was actually during the Gulf War, when there were not enough military receivers available to meet demand. For a time, SA was turned off so that the military could conveniently use civilian GPS hardware. More recently (2-3 years ago, during the Clinton administration), SA was turned off or at least down to a minimal level, so consumer units can get an accuracy of 3-5 meters with only the satellite signals. SA is the reason that many civilian receivers have an "average position" function - the best way to get an accurate position was to leave the receiver on and averaging for a day or two.
A concern for foreign governments and at times for the US FAA has been that military control of the availability and accuracy of the signals - no foreign military wants to be dependent on the US for something vital, and the FAA was looking at ways to do more flight automation and didn't like the possibility that they might someday have automated planes landing using GPS when something happened and the military tweaked or turned off the signals. The foreign solution was to build their own system, which the Europeans have been talking about for years now (the Russian GLONASS system was never finished and isn't as accurate as the US system). The FAA solution was to look at putting up one or two satellites of their own, effectively acting as differential GPS transmitters to let aircraft filter out the effects of SA.
Really all of this is a consequence of the system being at its heart a US military system and everyone understanding that what they want is for the most part irrelevant to the US military.
There is (or was) a fairly active Usenet group for discussion of all this at sci.geo.satellite-nav .
fencepost
just a little off
It's not offtopic. There's some dumbass moderator who rates everything offtopic.
In December 1999, when the Levy was first introduced, Malcolm Gray of Sycorp collected over 25,000 signatures of Canadian citizens.
The petition is up again, so if you're Canadian, and you don't want a price hike, sign up.
http://www.sycorp.com/petition.htm
In order to do Something Pointless and Stupid.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Being the American GPS and the European Galileo basically the same technology, whatever America can do to jam Galileo can be also done to jam the America system itself. Whatever sabotage the White House will threaten to do in the future against Europe communication systems can be likewise performed anytime against theirs.
(Wait 5 days) Dear USA allies, we are sorry to report that all your assets into Europe have been seized to repay the damage. We also regret to announce that all your personnel into the dismantled American military bases in Europe have been either arrested for sabotage or killed for resisting the arrest.^__^ PS. French and Russian Nuclear weaponry has been already pointed on Washington, Los Angeles, Boston, etc in case you will like to start a friendly exchange of nukes to show your appreciation for our permanent ban of all your goods. Sincerely, The EU
MY welcome?