There's nothing wrong with his math, but there's clearly something wrong with your reading ability. The post SJHillman was responding to was wrong about the estimated MPGs as well as everything else. In fact, he has the correct estimated MPG amounts listed in his post.
You don't prevent piracy. There's no law supporting that position at all. Copyright law is to punish people after the fact and provide monetary compensation for damages done.
The reason for this should be obvious: you CAN'T prevent piracy.
Piracy is not the problem. Their mentality about how to deal with it is the problem.
Of course it's derivative, but then so is everything else these days. It's impossible to create any new work wholly of new cloth, and that's especially true when your work is simply organizing and expounding on publicly available facts.
As for a textbook, it only makes sense that any such book is going to be similar to most other textbooks on the same subject material, because there's a natural flow to learning. You don't teach someone algebra without first teaching them basic addition.
So yes, it's absolutely true that this open textbook couldn't have worked without an original textbook to align to. But there's nothing wrong with that. Where, pray tell, did the authors of the previous textbook get all their information from? Did they put in the time and money to do all the experiments and research themselves? No. Did they make sure to carefully pay a license fee to every individual whose work they borrowed for their textbook? I highly doubt it. But that's how academia is supposed to work. You can't stand on the shoulders of those before you and then cry foul when someone else stands on yours.
Seems to me, there's a fairly obvious reason why ideas were excluded from copyright. Once you start, where do you stop? So a bear catching a fish is "too similar"? What if it's a different color bear, catching a different kind of fish? What if it's a different kind of animal that looks like a bear, but isn't really? Or what if it's a bear catching something that looks like a fish, but isn't? One could also argue that *any* animal catching *any* fish or anything similar is "non-obvious" and therefore too similar.
But above all, the authors of the textbooks knew what kind of risks there are before they ever started. They knew you can't copyright facts or ideas. If you're merely organizing and explaining certain facts, you shouldn't be too surprised if someone else attempts to do the same thing in a slightly different (although similar) manner.
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
I misread it as Jeff Dunham at first, which would also have been interesting.
On topic, I'm glad this guy won this case. I'm not a democrat, but I have high respect for astronauts, whether current or former, and I support his right to use that as his occupation if he wishes.
There's plenty of money to be made in the PC game ecosystem. It's just not all accessed exactly the same way as with consoles. For example, F2P with microtransactions on PCs is huge right now. In fact, I'd wager that market alone makes more money than all consoles (including handhelds) put together. So yes, it's flourishing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Go see what Mark Pincus or Markus Persson might have to say about it.
You're looking at it with tunnel vision. The beauty of the PC as a gaming platform is that you're not limited to AAA games from big pulishers. Far, far from it. There's so many different PC games available from millions of sources, it would be completely impossible to list them all. The PC doesn't need AAA publishers at all. The second they die or move on, someone else will be there to fill the void.
Except that's demonstrably false in the case of gas pricing. The only "zone pricing" in gas is extra price hikes at locations that see more traffic. It doesn't cost $.10/gallon more to deliver gas 3 miles further down the road, especially if the higher-priced location is just off the freeway, while the other location is 3 miles further away from the freeway. It also doesn't cost $.20/gallon less to deliver gas to the middle of nowhere. But that's often where you find the best deals.
Also note that I never said I was surprised or necessarily upset at any of this. It's just it's very obviously collusion blessed by the government. Call a spade a spade.
If that were true, then the prices for any particular chain of gas stations would be more or less the same throughout the region, but slightly different from the other chains, because the different chains have different amounts of gasoline in their stockpile, thus they're hedging against a different load of gas. But that's not what we see. The prices that are the same are stations at the same street corner, of whatever brand. Except, of course, one brand that may always be exactly 1 cent lower than the rest (so much for Bob's "they're selling at state minimum" excuse). Also, large truck stops generally DON'T have lower prices. They usually have higher prices. But there again, all the truck stops at any given intersection are all going to have exactly the same price. Except for the rare mom & pop truck stop. Theirs might be higher or lower, depending on what the market is actually doing.
Except the only way that's true is if all across the US, gas stations in any given small area always buy their gas of the same truck within minutes of each other. Otherwise, the gas being sold at different stations on any given day didn't cost the same and there is no reason for their prices to be raised and lowered simultaneously to identical amounts. You would see one station raising or lowering prices a day or two after another, based on when they bought their gas, etc. There would also be stations marketing "higher quality" gas that would keep their prices higher (but not necessarily always the same amount higher). But that's not how it works, because they're told when they have to raise or lower their prices, and by how much. You must either have no understanding of economics at all or be willfully blind to not see the collusion going on here.
Not sure why you even bothered posting all that garbage about gas stations. It's so obvious they're in collusion one way or another. Stations in any given area will always raise or lower prices almost simultaneously, and to the exact same price. This happens even with price increases or drops of $.20, $.30 or more. Occasionally you'll have a chain that's exactly 1 cent lower than the other gas stations in the area, but this is a slight exception that just proves the rule. A couple miles down the road, you'll find another set of stations doing the exact same thing, except the prices will be 10 cents higher or lower. You'll see this being done by all chain gas stations everywhere in the US. The only true exceptions are the rare Mom & Pop stations that are not franchises of some chain.
If they weren't in collusion, they would rarely have their prices set exactly the same, and they certainly wouldn't always be changing their prices at almost exactly the same times.
Ugh. I HATE having to defend Apple. I've never bought an Apple product, and highly doubt I ever will.
China's economic problems and poor living conditions are NOT Apple's reponsibility to take care of. If the factories they hire to manufacture their parts consistently provide higher living standards than the workers would have had otherwise, then they are doing their job. We can't just wish away the poor living conditions throughout a country with over 1 billion people, and 100 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket when it comes to actually solving that problem - even if Apple in any way DID have responsiblity for China. We can hope for the Chinese to all one day enjoy the same standard of living as middle-class Americans, but if that's ever going to happen we're ALL going to have to contribute and do our part. And no, that doesn't mean buying from Apple instead of someone else.
In short, laying the responsiblity for this solely on Apple is a copout. What have YOU done this year to help the poor, whether they be Chinese, American, or otherwise?
I carry my trusty transmogrifier gun with me. That way, should I happen to accidentally get carried several miles into the air by a balloon I'm still safe!
But aside from all of that, how the hell do they even know exactly what the motivation was? Just because the intruder said so? Just because nothing bad happened immediately?
BTW, does anyone have the contact number of the people who made this determination? I have a really nice bridge I'd like to sell them.
Much as I like the idea of cyber Robin Hoods, you still gotta call them what they are.
Ah, but see, that's the thing. If you get rid of the industry, you change everything. It puts the market in control instead of a handful of moguls. Everything we currently know about what you just posted goes out the door.
You took the quotes completely out of context. He doesn't mean what you're implying at all.
For those who don't want to bother RTFA, here's the full paragraph:
Others like me that are interested in comics, manga and anime should become informed about this important issue and stick together. Some people may be tempted to say things like, “Well, I don’t like that type of manga” or “That doesn’t bother me — I’ve never read that title,” but you should step back and take a look at the big picture. The law shouldn’t be based on what you like or don’t like. The people should have their own choice to pursue what they like and avoid what they don’t like. When overzealous governments try to unjustly attack comics and manga, they are attacking all of literature and art as a whole. Free speech should be absolute, not a pick-and-choose sort of thing. This is a very important right that we enjoy every day and we need to stand up for ourselves and protect it!
one major flawed assumption: that the "unprinted' paper will be used in printers instead of recycled paper. As a professional laser printer repair tech, I can tell you right now that won't happen. Even paper that has just been run through the printer once and left on a neat pile is significantly more likely to cause printer jams than fresh paper that's never been used. Any "savings" (whether carbon footprint, money, or otherwise) over using recyled paper will be quickly consumed by the extra repair trips.
Except it's really not a problem, because there IS a common definition.
Fact: copyright is entirely a legal construct Fact: the legal term for illegally copying something that is copyrighted is "infringement". It is not and never has been "theft".
If you're going to accept the legal construct of copyright, you must also accept how that law defines it.
There is no argument. There is only what is correct, and what is not.
It's not theft, and it's not a crime. It's infringement, and it's a civil matter. Theft and infringement are no more the same thing than are murder and libel.
Slashdot Mirror
There's nothing wrong with his math, but there's clearly something wrong with your reading ability. The post SJHillman was responding to was wrong about the estimated MPGs as well as everything else. In fact, he has the correct estimated MPG amounts listed in his post.
Of course you can. You probably won't win though.
crucial in preventing piracy
You don't prevent piracy. There's no law supporting that position at all. Copyright law is to punish people after the fact and provide monetary compensation for damages done.
The reason for this should be obvious: you CAN'T prevent piracy.
Piracy is not the problem. Their mentality about how to deal with it is the problem.
Of course it's derivative, but then so is everything else these days. It's impossible to create any new work wholly of new cloth, and that's especially true when your work is simply organizing and expounding on publicly available facts.
As for a textbook, it only makes sense that any such book is going to be similar to most other textbooks on the same subject material, because there's a natural flow to learning. You don't teach someone algebra without first teaching them basic addition.
So yes, it's absolutely true that this open textbook couldn't have worked without an original textbook to align to. But there's nothing wrong with that. Where, pray tell, did the authors of the previous textbook get all their information from? Did they put in the time and money to do all the experiments and research themselves? No. Did they make sure to carefully pay a license fee to every individual whose work they borrowed for their textbook? I highly doubt it. But that's how academia is supposed to work. You can't stand on the shoulders of those before you and then cry foul when someone else stands on yours.
Except now you're trying to copyright an idea.
Seems to me, there's a fairly obvious reason why ideas were excluded from copyright. Once you start, where do you stop? So a bear catching a fish is "too similar"? What if it's a different color bear, catching a different kind of fish? What if it's a different kind of animal that looks like a bear, but isn't really? Or what if it's a bear catching something that looks like a fish, but isn't? One could also argue that *any* animal catching *any* fish or anything similar is "non-obvious" and therefore too similar.
But above all, the authors of the textbooks knew what kind of risks there are before they ever started. They knew you can't copyright facts or ideas. If you're merely organizing and explaining certain facts, you shouldn't be too surprised if someone else attempts to do the same thing in a slightly different (although similar) manner.
This isn't really about copyright infringement at all. It's about an industry that is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the greedy fat cats trying to keep it going to keep getting fatter off it.
I misread it as Jeff Dunham at first, which would also have been interesting.
On topic, I'm glad this guy won this case. I'm not a democrat, but I have high respect for astronauts, whether current or former, and I support his right to use that as his occupation if he wishes.
There's plenty of money to be made in the PC game ecosystem. It's just not all accessed exactly the same way as with consoles. For example, F2P with microtransactions on PCs is huge right now. In fact, I'd wager that market alone makes more money than all consoles (including handhelds) put together. So yes, it's flourishing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Go see what Mark Pincus or Markus Persson might have to say about it.
And that has what, exactly, to do with this discussion? Oh, right. Nothing at all.
You're looking at it with tunnel vision. The beauty of the PC as a gaming platform is that you're not limited to AAA games from big pulishers. Far, far from it. There's so many different PC games available from millions of sources, it would be completely impossible to list them all. The PC doesn't need AAA publishers at all. The second they die or move on, someone else will be there to fill the void.
Except that's demonstrably false in the case of gas pricing. The only "zone pricing" in gas is extra price hikes at locations that see more traffic. It doesn't cost $.10/gallon more to deliver gas 3 miles further down the road, especially if the higher-priced location is just off the freeway, while the other location is 3 miles further away from the freeway. It also doesn't cost $.20/gallon less to deliver gas to the middle of nowhere. But that's often where you find the best deals.
Also note that I never said I was surprised or necessarily upset at any of this. It's just it's very obviously collusion blessed by the government. Call a spade a spade.
If that were true, then the prices for any particular chain of gas stations would be more or less the same throughout the region, but slightly different from the other chains, because the different chains have different amounts of gasoline in their stockpile, thus they're hedging against a different load of gas. But that's not what we see. The prices that are the same are stations at the same street corner, of whatever brand. Except, of course, one brand that may always be exactly 1 cent lower than the rest (so much for Bob's "they're selling at state minimum" excuse). Also, large truck stops generally DON'T have lower prices. They usually have higher prices. But there again, all the truck stops at any given intersection are all going to have exactly the same price. Except for the rare mom & pop truck stop. Theirs might be higher or lower, depending on what the market is actually doing.
Except the only way that's true is if all across the US, gas stations in any given small area always buy their gas of the same truck within minutes of each other. Otherwise, the gas being sold at different stations on any given day didn't cost the same and there is no reason for their prices to be raised and lowered simultaneously to identical amounts. You would see one station raising or lowering prices a day or two after another, based on when they bought their gas, etc. There would also be stations marketing "higher quality" gas that would keep their prices higher (but not necessarily always the same amount higher). But that's not how it works, because they're told when they have to raise or lower their prices, and by how much. You must either have no understanding of economics at all or be willfully blind to not see the collusion going on here.
Not sure why you even bothered posting all that garbage about gas stations. It's so obvious they're in collusion one way or another. Stations in any given area will always raise or lower prices almost simultaneously, and to the exact same price. This happens even with price increases or drops of $.20, $.30 or more. Occasionally you'll have a chain that's exactly 1 cent lower than the other gas stations in the area, but this is a slight exception that just proves the rule. A couple miles down the road, you'll find another set of stations doing the exact same thing, except the prices will be 10 cents higher or lower. You'll see this being done by all chain gas stations everywhere in the US. The only true exceptions are the rare Mom & Pop stations that are not franchises of some chain.
If they weren't in collusion, they would rarely have their prices set exactly the same, and they certainly wouldn't always be changing their prices at almost exactly the same times.
Ugh. I HATE having to defend Apple. I've never bought an Apple product, and highly doubt I ever will.
China's economic problems and poor living conditions are NOT Apple's reponsibility to take care of. If the factories they hire to manufacture their parts consistently provide higher living standards than the workers would have had otherwise, then they are doing their job. We can't just wish away the poor living conditions throughout a country with over 1 billion people, and 100 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket when it comes to actually solving that problem - even if Apple in any way DID have responsiblity for China. We can hope for the Chinese to all one day enjoy the same standard of living as middle-class Americans, but if that's ever going to happen we're ALL going to have to contribute and do our part. And no, that doesn't mean buying from Apple instead of someone else.
In short, laying the responsiblity for this solely on Apple is a copout. What have YOU done this year to help the poor, whether they be Chinese, American, or otherwise?
Apologies. Reread the GP post and realized the above links don't really deal with what he was getting at.
Here's one that's a bit more helpful, but still doesn't have all the details. It appears all the sites and cached pages are gone.
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/blog-debunks-13-year-olds-solar-power-breakthrough.html
Here's the links to what you're looking for:
http://www.amnh.org/news/2011/08/valuable-lesson-about-variables/
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html
And here's another link about the MIT solar panels:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57404585-76/accordion-shaped-solar-tower-captures-more-light/?tag=mncol;inside
I carry my trusty transmogrifier gun with me. That way, should I happen to accidentally get carried several miles into the air by a balloon I'm still safe!
But aside from all of that, how the hell do they even know exactly what the motivation was? Just because the intruder said so? Just because nothing bad happened immediately?
BTW, does anyone have the contact number of the people who made this determination? I have a really nice bridge I'd like to sell them.
Much as I like the idea of cyber Robin Hoods, you still gotta call them what they are.
That's odd, and I find it fairly doubtful, as I've always been told that's about the only way musicians make any signficant money.
Ah, but see, that's the thing. If you get rid of the industry, you change everything. It puts the market in control instead of a handful of moguls. Everything we currently know about what you just posted goes out the door.
You took the quotes completely out of context. He doesn't mean what you're implying at all.
For those who don't want to bother RTFA, here's the full paragraph:
Others like me that are interested in comics, manga and anime should become informed about this important issue and stick together. Some people may be tempted to say things like, “Well, I don’t like that type of manga” or “That doesn’t bother me — I’ve never read that title,” but you should step back and take a look at the big picture. The law shouldn’t be based on what you like or don’t like. The people should have their own choice to pursue what they like and avoid what they don’t like. When overzealous governments try to unjustly attack comics and manga, they are attacking all of literature and art as a whole. Free speech should be absolute, not a pick-and-choose sort of thing. This is a very important right that we enjoy every day and we need to stand up for ourselves and protect it!
No shit. A pistol is a MUCH more worthwhile thing to steal than some stupid iPad.
one major flawed assumption: that the "unprinted' paper will be used in printers instead of recycled paper. As a professional laser printer repair tech, I can tell you right now that won't happen. Even paper that has just been run through the printer once and left on a neat pile is significantly more likely to cause printer jams than fresh paper that's never been used. Any "savings" (whether carbon footprint, money, or otherwise) over using recyled paper will be quickly consumed by the extra repair trips.
Except it's really not a problem, because there IS a common definition.
Fact: copyright is entirely a legal construct
Fact: the legal term for illegally copying something that is copyrighted is "infringement". It is not and never has been "theft".
If you're going to accept the legal construct of copyright, you must also accept how that law defines it.
There is no argument. There is only what is correct, and what is not.
It's not theft, and it's not a crime. It's infringement, and it's a civil matter. Theft and infringement are no more the same thing than are murder and libel.