Of all the times for Russia to enforce another country's copyright laws, this was an odd choice. A lot of students in less financially sound countries don't have access to the latest publications, which are kept paywalled behind exorbitant fees, so they need Sci-Hub. What other choices do they have, pull $40 out their ass to skim a paper, a paper what was paid for by some country's tax payers which the journals now profit off of, that may or may not even be relevant to what they're looking for? Then do that again a hundred times over? Get real.
I notice that the second paper has an author at University of Louvain in Belgium and the third at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, so clearly, tax payer dollars already went into the listed works. I'm all for copyright laws protecting the rights of artists, writers, musicians, and the like, but the situation in scientific publications is just ridiculous. The journals are just using all the means they can to hold onto their bygone cash cow, to everyone else's detriment.
When I say toss, I mean 'properly dispose of' as in autoclave. Not literally throw outside.
But just FYI, glyphosate resistance didn't spread to nearby plants from the transgenic ones, it evolved in them. Selection pressure from continued spraying of glyphosate promoted the evolution of resistant weeds, which then had an advantage due to selection pressure, so they proliferated. I get what you're talking about, but that's not how it happened.
That's good to hear. I'm as concerned as anyone about the eugenics/GATTACA angle of this, but on a more immediate note, I think the potential off target effects are of ethical concern as well. If you're making a gene edited plant and you accidentally change something else that has a deleterious effect, who cares? Toss that plant and try again. In an animal model, if that happens and is causing undue problems, euthanizing the animal is an option.
But in humans? You get one shot, and it better work exactly right the first time. I'm all for gene editing, but even without the wide arching societal concerns, I don't think the technology is even close to using on humans at this time. Gene editing gets hyped up a lot, but there are still problems to be worked out when it comes to the actual practical application of the technology.
Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links, in a bid to prop up struggling print news outlets. Google responded by closing the service for Spanish consumers, which he said prompted a fall in traffic to Spanish news websites.
And there it is, same as usual. Google is directing traffic to these site, helping them generate ad revenue, but somehow still owes them. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm no Google cheerleader and the EU does sometimes make good points regarding some issues (like privacy), but I know a shakedown when I see one. As usual, the EU is just trying to skim money off the American companies to make up for their own lack of homegrown innovation. Notice how they'll never target Ecosia or Qwant for any of their ridiculous stuff.
It's not so much the warmth as it is the rocky terrain. At high elevations Mauna Loa is rocky, barren, and sort of Mars-like, and it can get chilly up there (although nothing ever approaching Martian cold obviously).
I think the biggest thing is probably that you're still close enough to the medical facilities in Hilo if something goes wrong. This was largely a psych study, and there's no way you're getting an IRB to approve a something where people might actually die. If something goes wrong in Hawai'i, you'll be fine, but if something goes wrong in the Arctic, maybe not.
sound like you have never created anything in your life.
I have. I know the hard work that goes into making something new (in my case it would be a patent matter not copyright, but still), however at the same time I acknowledge that did it on the shoulders of those who came before me. That should be the deal with copyright and patent law. You get protection for a reasonable period of time, enough time that you have a chance to make a living and support further creative work, then it goes back to the public domain. Sounds fair to me.
This has stopped happening in the case of copyright. Corporations want the first part of the bargain but, thanks to clever investments in the right politicians, they don't have to do the second part. There's a give and take, but all they want to do is take. That's not a fair balance.
I'd have sympathy if someone was distributing something recent, like Smash Bros Ultimate. If that were the case, then yeah, sue them. But if it is some old game from 20 years ago, or something that they aren't even selling anymore, then no. Companies shouldn't get to sit on culture indefinitely, even long after the artists are dead in some cases, and keep collecting paychecks. I think it is absurd that major cultural works, things whose creators died before I was even born, are going to be controlled by media corporations for decades to come, maybe even long if/when the media companies buy new copyright extension laws.
Most of them more or less work, and even if they don't have full functionality, it's usually still good enough. It's a trade off: security for mild annoyance. But the nice thing about NoScript is that you can select which sites you want to allow scripts from, so I can selectively allow some things but not others.
That's how I do it. I use NoScript, and rarely ever see ads. The ads themselves are all being served up from some other site anyway, so even if I allow the scripts coming from the site itself, the ads are still blocked, which is fine by me.
If advertisers really want me to see ads, the simple solution is to stop being assholes. Stop using tricks like native advertising to deceive users, stop redirecting to God knows which questionable and potentially malicious sites, stop advertising scams, and in general stop being so hostile. They'll piss and moan about how I'm taking away advertising revenue, when really, all I want to do is keep myself and my machine safe. You guys are the ones who started the hostile behavior, not me, so don't be surprised when I react accordingly.
If they really want me to see ads, it is simple. Have an image, using standard basic Img tag, saying 'Drink Brand X Cola!' or whatever, clearly linking to brandXcola.com. There, simple. No scams, no malware, no tricks, transparent and honest. If they don't want to do that, then it's not my problem if someone's unethical behavior bites them in the ass.
Censorship offends me. Therefore, you should either act in a logically consistent manner and silence yourself, or you should admit that what you really want is the ability to force people to not say certain things that you don't like, which is a very different thing altogether.
Censorship advocacy is either logical inconsistent, or openly unethical. Pick one.
And since Germany outranks the US here, I wonder how they handled the European 'right' to censorship. Say what you will about Ajit Pai and his corporate cronies, I certainty do, at least here in the US I won't face legal trouble for 'insulting someone's dignity' or 'insulting someone's religious sensibilities' (yeah, blasphemy, of all things) or violating someone's 'right to be forgotten' by continuing to host a factual news article.
I think that's a pretty open secret. Go on to DeviantArt or one of those sites sometime, and you'll see tons of skilled, tallented people with great art portfolios. But they're not marketing themselves at some ritzy gallery. Seems like none of these fancy art buyers have ever found talent at some random out of the way location, like rural Iowa or something. Nope, it all seems to come from those with the means and connections to present themselves to the millionaire crowd with some pretentious made up story about the emotions behind the piece. That is clearly 100% marketing.
At least this looks like something. I can't wait for the day when some pretentious, fart sniffing, trust fund baby blows $400k one of those modern art masterpieces that looks like a parrot crashed into a window, while going on about all the symbolism and emotion the brilliant artist put into some blurry smear of paint and how the peasant class just isn't sophisticated enough to get it, only to find out some soulless AI made it.
I'm sure they'll still find some way to justify it in a manner that eventually swings back around to 'poor people are stupid and uncultured' and the other privileged morons will eat it up, but still, I'll be laughing.
This has got to be the stupidest thing I have seen in a good long while. First, some unthinking drone creates a problem (open offices), and then, instead of recognizing the source of the problem and addressing it with something that was invented literally thousands of years ago (walls, real novel concept there) someone comes up with whatever the hell these things are.
This thing reminds me of the blinders you put on animals to keep them from getting stressed when you are transporting them. That's what this is. This is the bag you put over a bird's head or the muzzle you put on a pissed off cat to keep them in the dark. This is just an amazingly insulting 'solution' to an amazingly stupid, intentionally created problem.
Just to be clear here, I did not mean to imply that Christian = religious right. I'm not trying to take a dump on the religious, just the ones who callously put the health of their own children at risk over it.
You've got to be one stone cold prick to think that cancer is an appropriate punishment for having pre-marital sex. How can you be such a horrible person as to say 'Well honey, you made Jesus sad, so now you have to die miserably.' They're literally using disease as a cudgel to help enforce their views on sexuality. Congratulations, you've literally partnered with cancer, way to demonstrate your moral superiority.
Of all the evidence that the religious right is full of shit, this sure is some of it.
And no one is entitled to more from me than they would give in return. Do you think the employers care about how automating jobs effects their employees? Do they care about how replacing them impacts their lives, their families' lives? Do they care if some schmuck with bills to pay and kids to take care of suddenly finds themselves on the streets without health insurance?
No, they don't care, and if they can inflict that upon someone else to boost their own wealth by an amount that barely impacts their own lives, they'll do it in a heartbeat. When the poor screw someone over for money we call it cruel; when the rich do it it's 'just business.' So if someone's cool with doing nothing for a paycheck, more power to them. Work's still getting done. And it isn't like you can just hop down to the job store and get a more fulfilling one (assuming that's what the person wants, and not just a stable paycheck).
You only have one shot at life, and you have no moral duty to put your happiness at risk for someone who thinks you're expendable. Maybe if you work for mom & pop type business or a startup where everyone's needs are considered, than sure, reciprocate it. But that is by far the exception, not the norm. If management wants loyalty, they need to give it first, otherwise employees will act in their own rational self-interest. The business world has made it clear that people are just cogs in a machine to them, so why should we treat the companies better than they treat us? If you can do less work for the same pay, more power to you.
It'd be nice if they'd just sell the same software package (at a reasonable price for two decade old games), but on Steam. I neither need nor want an extra device sitting around when my PC can do the same job just as well. It's an all around waste to have a console specifically for 20 games that could be much more simply done on a pre-existing machine.
Of course, IMO two decade old games should be in the public domain anyway by now, so emulate away.
Darn right. This is all about supporting the arts. That's why copyright laws cover works where the artist has been dead for half a century. You're not sarcastically suggesting that the laws are designed to line the coffers of the corporations who essentially wrote the laws, are you?
Yeah, but IIRC weren't some of her big investors also of that royal class? Defrauding us peasants is one thing, but she committed the cardinal sin of screwing over the wealthy as well. That'll count for something in the American justice system.
The people doing the work aren't making any profit anyway. The funding comes from taxes, and the scientists aren't getting paid if someone buys a copy of their paper, they just do it because they have to publish in those journals if they want a job (which is a whole different issue). This is not at all like books or other written works, where the authors are the ones being paid.
The only ones who makes money, and therefore stands to lose, are the journals. In the past they did provide a valuable service, but in the digital age they're just trying to cling onto an antiquated business model and shove it down the rest of the world's throat. Well, screw them. Sorry about your business model, but that's the way it goes. Their time has come and gone, now it is time to open up science to the people who paid for it in the first place. It's absurd that tax dollars should go to producing documents that the tax payers then have to pay $40 to read.
"potentially undermines the whole research publishing system"
Translating that from weasel to English, what they mean is 'it undermines our sweet, sweet profit machine built on the backs of the taxpayers."
There's plenty wrong with the publishing system, from the publish or perish madness to walling off publicly funded research so that the public cannot access what they paid for. Good on the EU for taking steps to remove needless barriers. And for American research, there's still Sci-Hub.
True, but if you just have to smoke in public and can't be bothered to get a cheap, reusable, portable ashtray, and instead choose to conveniently litter, then you are a huge asshole. And no, you don't get to justify it by complaining that there are no ashtrays around; just because society stopped catering to you does not make you the victim.
Slashdot Mirror
Of all the times for Russia to enforce another country's copyright laws, this was an odd choice. A lot of students in less financially sound countries don't have access to the latest publications, which are kept paywalled behind exorbitant fees, so they need Sci-Hub. What other choices do they have, pull $40 out their ass to skim a paper, a paper what was paid for by some country's tax payers which the journals now profit off of, that may or may not even be relevant to what they're looking for? Then do that again a hundred times over? Get real.
I notice that the second paper has an author at University of Louvain in Belgium and the third at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, so clearly, tax payer dollars already went into the listed works. I'm all for copyright laws protecting the rights of artists, writers, musicians, and the like, but the situation in scientific publications is just ridiculous. The journals are just using all the means they can to hold onto their bygone cash cow, to everyone else's detriment.
When I say toss, I mean 'properly dispose of' as in autoclave. Not literally throw outside.
But just FYI, glyphosate resistance didn't spread to nearby plants from the transgenic ones, it evolved in them. Selection pressure from continued spraying of glyphosate promoted the evolution of resistant weeds, which then had an advantage due to selection pressure, so they proliferated. I get what you're talking about, but that's not how it happened.
That's good to hear. I'm as concerned as anyone about the eugenics/GATTACA angle of this, but on a more immediate note, I think the potential off target effects are of ethical concern as well. If you're making a gene edited plant and you accidentally change something else that has a deleterious effect, who cares? Toss that plant and try again. In an animal model, if that happens and is causing undue problems, euthanizing the animal is an option.
But in humans? You get one shot, and it better work exactly right the first time. I'm all for gene editing, but even without the wide arching societal concerns, I don't think the technology is even close to using on humans at this time. Gene editing gets hyped up a lot, but there are still problems to be worked out when it comes to the actual practical application of the technology.
Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links, in a bid to prop up struggling print news outlets. Google responded by closing the service for Spanish consumers, which he said prompted a fall in traffic to Spanish news websites.
And there it is, same as usual. Google is directing traffic to these site, helping them generate ad revenue, but somehow still owes them. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm no Google cheerleader and the EU does sometimes make good points regarding some issues (like privacy), but I know a shakedown when I see one. As usual, the EU is just trying to skim money off the American companies to make up for their own lack of homegrown innovation. Notice how they'll never target Ecosia or Qwant for any of their ridiculous stuff.
It's not so much the warmth as it is the rocky terrain. At high elevations Mauna Loa is rocky, barren, and sort of Mars-like, and it can get chilly up there (although nothing ever approaching Martian cold obviously).
I think the biggest thing is probably that you're still close enough to the medical facilities in Hilo if something goes wrong. This was largely a psych study, and there's no way you're getting an IRB to approve a something where people might actually die. If something goes wrong in Hawai'i, you'll be fine, but if something goes wrong in the Arctic, maybe not.
sound like you have never created anything in your life.
I have. I know the hard work that goes into making something new (in my case it would be a patent matter not copyright, but still), however at the same time I acknowledge that did it on the shoulders of those who came before me. That should be the deal with copyright and patent law. You get protection for a reasonable period of time, enough time that you have a chance to make a living and support further creative work, then it goes back to the public domain. Sounds fair to me.
This has stopped happening in the case of copyright. Corporations want the first part of the bargain but, thanks to clever investments in the right politicians, they don't have to do the second part. There's a give and take, but all they want to do is take. That's not a fair balance.
I'd have sympathy if someone was distributing something recent, like Smash Bros Ultimate. If that were the case, then yeah, sue them. But if it is some old game from 20 years ago, or something that they aren't even selling anymore, then no. Companies shouldn't get to sit on culture indefinitely, even long after the artists are dead in some cases, and keep collecting paychecks. I think it is absurd that major cultural works, things whose creators died before I was even born, are going to be controlled by media corporations for decades to come, maybe even long if/when the media companies buy new copyright extension laws.
Most of them more or less work, and even if they don't have full functionality, it's usually still good enough. It's a trade off: security for mild annoyance. But the nice thing about NoScript is that you can select which sites you want to allow scripts from, so I can selectively allow some things but not others.
That's how I do it. I use NoScript, and rarely ever see ads. The ads themselves are all being served up from some other site anyway, so even if I allow the scripts coming from the site itself, the ads are still blocked, which is fine by me.
If advertisers really want me to see ads, the simple solution is to stop being assholes. Stop using tricks like native advertising to deceive users, stop redirecting to God knows which questionable and potentially malicious sites, stop advertising scams, and in general stop being so hostile. They'll piss and moan about how I'm taking away advertising revenue, when really, all I want to do is keep myself and my machine safe. You guys are the ones who started the hostile behavior, not me, so don't be surprised when I react accordingly.
If they really want me to see ads, it is simple. Have an image, using standard basic Img tag, saying 'Drink Brand X Cola!' or whatever, clearly linking to brandXcola.com. There, simple. No scams, no malware, no tricks, transparent and honest. If they don't want to do that, then it's not my problem if someone's unethical behavior bites them in the ass.
Censorship offends me. Therefore, you should either act in a logically consistent manner and silence yourself, or you should admit that what you really want is the ability to force people to not say certain things that you don't like, which is a very different thing altogether.
Censorship advocacy is either logical inconsistent, or openly unethical. Pick one.
And since Germany outranks the US here, I wonder how they handled the European 'right' to censorship. Say what you will about Ajit Pai and his corporate cronies, I certainty do, at least here in the US I won't face legal trouble for 'insulting someone's dignity' or 'insulting someone's religious sensibilities' (yeah, blasphemy, of all things) or violating someone's 'right to be forgotten' by continuing to host a factual news article.
I think that's a pretty open secret. Go on to DeviantArt or one of those sites sometime, and you'll see tons of skilled, tallented people with great art portfolios. But they're not marketing themselves at some ritzy gallery. Seems like none of these fancy art buyers have ever found talent at some random out of the way location, like rural Iowa or something. Nope, it all seems to come from those with the means and connections to present themselves to the millionaire crowd with some pretentious made up story about the emotions behind the piece. That is clearly 100% marketing.
At least this looks like something. I can't wait for the day when some pretentious, fart sniffing, trust fund baby blows $400k one of those modern art masterpieces that looks like a parrot crashed into a window, while going on about all the symbolism and emotion the brilliant artist put into some blurry smear of paint and how the peasant class just isn't sophisticated enough to get it, only to find out some soulless AI made it.
I'm sure they'll still find some way to justify it in a manner that eventually swings back around to 'poor people are stupid and uncultured' and the other privileged morons will eat it up, but still, I'll be laughing.
This has got to be the stupidest thing I have seen in a good long while. First, some unthinking drone creates a problem (open offices), and then, instead of recognizing the source of the problem and addressing it with something that was invented literally thousands of years ago (walls, real novel concept there) someone comes up with whatever the hell these things are.
This thing reminds me of the blinders you put on animals to keep them from getting stressed when you are transporting them. That's what this is. This is the bag you put over a bird's head or the muzzle you put on a pissed off cat to keep them in the dark. This is just an amazingly insulting 'solution' to an amazingly stupid, intentionally created problem.
Tech definitely needs more people with language skills when it comes to pasting the summary.
Tech definitely needs more people with language skills when it comes to pasting the summary.
Just to be clear here, I did not mean to imply that Christian = religious right. I'm not trying to take a dump on the religious, just the ones who callously put the health of their own children at risk over it.
You've got to be one stone cold prick to think that cancer is an appropriate punishment for having pre-marital sex. How can you be such a horrible person as to say 'Well honey, you made Jesus sad, so now you have to die miserably.' They're literally using disease as a cudgel to help enforce their views on sexuality. Congratulations, you've literally partnered with cancer, way to demonstrate your moral superiority.
Of all the evidence that the religious right is full of shit, this sure is some of it.
And no one is entitled to more from me than they would give in return. Do you think the employers care about how automating jobs effects their employees? Do they care about how replacing them impacts their lives, their families' lives? Do they care if some schmuck with bills to pay and kids to take care of suddenly finds themselves on the streets without health insurance?
No, they don't care, and if they can inflict that upon someone else to boost their own wealth by an amount that barely impacts their own lives, they'll do it in a heartbeat. When the poor screw someone over for money we call it cruel; when the rich do it it's 'just business.' So if someone's cool with doing nothing for a paycheck, more power to them. Work's still getting done. And it isn't like you can just hop down to the job store and get a more fulfilling one (assuming that's what the person wants, and not just a stable paycheck).
You only have one shot at life, and you have no moral duty to put your happiness at risk for someone who thinks you're expendable. Maybe if you work for mom & pop type business or a startup where everyone's needs are considered, than sure, reciprocate it. But that is by far the exception, not the norm. If management wants loyalty, they need to give it first, otherwise employees will act in their own rational self-interest. The business world has made it clear that people are just cogs in a machine to them, so why should we treat the companies better than they treat us? If you can do less work for the same pay, more power to you.
Eh, I don't think those guys are bots. Bots usually have better spelling and more coherent grammar.
It'd be nice if they'd just sell the same software package (at a reasonable price for two decade old games), but on Steam. I neither need nor want an extra device sitting around when my PC can do the same job just as well. It's an all around waste to have a console specifically for 20 games that could be much more simply done on a pre-existing machine.
Of course, IMO two decade old games should be in the public domain anyway by now, so emulate away.
Darn right. This is all about supporting the arts. That's why copyright laws cover works where the artist has been dead for half a century. You're not sarcastically suggesting that the laws are designed to line the coffers of the corporations who essentially wrote the laws, are you?
Yeah, but IIRC weren't some of her big investors also of that royal class? Defrauding us peasants is one thing, but she committed the cardinal sin of screwing over the wealthy as well. That'll count for something in the American justice system.
The people doing the work aren't making any profit anyway. The funding comes from taxes, and the scientists aren't getting paid if someone buys a copy of their paper, they just do it because they have to publish in those journals if they want a job (which is a whole different issue). This is not at all like books or other written works, where the authors are the ones being paid.
The only ones who makes money, and therefore stands to lose, are the journals. In the past they did provide a valuable service, but in the digital age they're just trying to cling onto an antiquated business model and shove it down the rest of the world's throat. Well, screw them. Sorry about your business model, but that's the way it goes. Their time has come and gone, now it is time to open up science to the people who paid for it in the first place. It's absurd that tax dollars should go to producing documents that the tax payers then have to pay $40 to read.
I see no long term downside to this.
"potentially undermines the whole research publishing system"
Translating that from weasel to English, what they mean is 'it undermines our sweet, sweet profit machine built on the backs of the taxpayers."
There's plenty wrong with the publishing system, from the publish or perish madness to walling off publicly funded research so that the public cannot access what they paid for. Good on the EU for taking steps to remove needless barriers. And for American research, there's still Sci-Hub.
If you're getting government funding, than yeah, that's usually how it works.
True, but if you just have to smoke in public and can't be bothered to get a cheap, reusable, portable ashtray, and instead choose to conveniently litter, then you are a huge asshole. And no, you don't get to justify it by complaining that there are no ashtrays around; just because society stopped catering to you does not make you the victim.