And its worth pointing out that, in that last case, you're the type of person that would've pirated all his books anyway. If he hadn't had official eBooks, you or someone like you would've scanned and OCR'd them. So he loses nothing by providing them and actually gains a lot.
To be more precise, management has no long-term memory at all, and they regularly fire all the techs with enough experience to develop long-term memories to try and keep wages at "acceptable" levels. (IE, prevent the guy with all the skills from getting paid more than the monkey who drank his way through an MBA)
162 communities... Sounds like a lot, but probably a drop in the bucket. The three states the other poster mentioned sound much more... Interesting. Isn't one of the supposed Republican agendas "states' rights"? I wonder how they'll react to that without compromising their appearance of supporting small government?
That story's great! The Imperial Death March was a particularly nice, if not-so-subtle, touch.
Its especially interesting how the lower levels of government, even ones as large as Boston, have been actively working against things like the Patriot Act. Aren't there a couple dozen towns and cities now that've passed laws requiring their law enforcement officers to do the minimum necessary in response to any "PATRIOT"-related requests?
They still do. You just have to look in different places. Wil McCarthy, Lois McMaster Bujold, Peter Hamilton, David Weber, Timothy Zahn, Hiroyuki Morioka, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Tatsuya Hamazaki, and John Barnes all have very vivid (and different) pictures of the future. And that's just authors whose works (sci-fi novels, manga, and anime) I've enjoyed lately.
It hasn't disappeared. Its just that authors like Robinson didn't think big enough and Hollywood and TV have gotten scared of technology. They've seen what computers are doing to their business model, and how they were encouraged by all the sci-fi shows and movies of the '60s-80s. They don't want to feel responsible for the next big disruptive technology. Or authors falling victim to the "all we know now is all we'll ever know" poison.
To the sci-fi authors who're complaining: Stretch your imagination a little, guys!
Bujold, on the other hand, writes as though these people were real - they have fears, insecurities, hopes, dreams, and they change and mature as the characters are put into new situations.
Exactly. What makes Bujold's works interesting are the people. While other authors may muse about how people have no place in an increasing technological society, Bujold stretches her imagination and shows us how humans can have a place in an increasingly technological society. Not only that, she shows us how an un-technological society can move towards that sort of society without losing its identity. Her characters are interesting and deep, not cardboard cutouts dropped in to illustrate a point. And her wit is incredible - its amazing the places she finds to slip in witty comments and absurdities. (Interactions between Ivan and Miles, especially, never fail to crack me up)
The fact that she can actually write, unlike many sci-fi authors (especially "hard" sci-fi authors), makes her stories even more enjoyable.
Let me get this straight. You claim, with a straight face, that the right to own property isn't garunteed by the Constitution of the USA? This would be the right you went to WAR because of in the mid-1800s. (Because of that right, the government could not strip slaveowners of their slaves or ban them from trading them)
As for copyright duration, how about this? I release a copyrighted work protected by XOR "encryption". While my encryption is trivial to break, if you do, I throw you in jail. Because I continue releasing works using this "encryption", breaking it for any work "protected" by it, even one that has passed into the public domain, is illegal. My work now has effectively unlimited copyright, because no-one is capable of executing their rights on a public domain work without breaking the law.
As for the Supreme Court, I recommend you exercise those literary skills you prize so highly and do some digging into quotes of one Justice Scalia. You might be surprised at what you find if you actually look.
No, I think you'll find that First Sale is a right that is garunteed in the constitution. Namely, its the right to own property. Someone else cannot tell me what I may and may not do with my property after selling it to me.
As for the DMCA and the constitution, it is unconstitutional because it makes all copyrights infinite in duration. The Constitution does not allow this. Of course, since the Supreme Court has stated (Eldred VS Ashcroft) that "limited" doesn't mean "limited", I don't expect them to consider this unconstitutional. After all, they've publically stated that they believe our President was chosen by God himself and can do no wrong.
Possibly. IIRC, there was already a judgement saying that the potential damage to or elimination of "Fair Use" by the DMCA was irrelevant. The law was passed, and superceeds all previous laws. (Including, apparently, the Constitution, but we'll not open that barrel of worms) So if my memory's right and it happens to revoke the right of First Sale... Well, sucks to be you.
Oh, something else I thought of just as I hit submit. (That'll teach me!) The question isn't whether he's allowed to. The question is whether Apple is obligated to provide functionality in its DRM software to allow him to exercise his right, or whether its up to him to work around the DRM software to exercise his right. (And whether he's allowed to do so)
As should be obvious, if Apple is under no obligation to provide the functionality and he can go to jail for bypassing it, he has no First Sale rights.
Actually, its pretty easy technically, as long as Apple supports it through FreePlay. You tell the music store you've sold the file to this other guy. It authorizes him to download and play it, and maybe even handles the money transfer. Then it prevents you from downloading it or registering any new copies of the file. You've still got the problem of the seller keeping already-registered copy, or having burned one off to a CD, but you've got exactly the same problem with a used CD. (And CD copying is no less trivial in this day and age)
A-men! "We" want sane copyright terms, sane fair use rules, and sane infringement penalties. Oh yeah, and sane restrictions on copyright to make it serve its purpose. Namely, encouraging distribution of ideas to create a base of knowledge that others can learn from. You try and hide your knowledge away (say, by not distributing source code) or prevent it from passing into the public domain, you loose the protection of the law.
Let me ask this: is it just that, because I upload one music file to my friend, I'm hit with harsher penalties than a serial rapist or an executive that ruins the lives of millions by defrauding investors and stealing retirement funds?
The problem is that its hard, if not impossible, to stop your money from flowing to the RIAA, especially if you want to compete with them. Blank media taxes, recording device taxes, professional recording device taxes, and a few dozen other hidden fees go straight to their coffers.
Because due process is shallow and boring and not really necessary, right? If the RIAA says you're doing something bad, well, that should be all the proof the government needs!
Sheesh. If they're breaking the law to catch people breaking the law, they're still breaking the law.
Does it really? How fascinating. So you're not saying that I can't just walk into India and pick up a wife if I want to move there? That you can't "just marry one of their people" (leaving aside all the interesting implications of your using a "their people" there) on a whim, or that they might object to me doing that just to get a job there? Or that its not an option if I'm already married?
So its really not a feasible option after all, and is thus irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Consistancy is nice. You should try it sometime. But hardline neo-cons are never consistant, so what should I expect, eh?
The really amusing (or sad) thing is that, if I did that, I'd wind up in federal prison faster than you can say "due process". Then Microsoft or a record company does the same thing and gets applauded for being a good American citizen, and then handed several billion in payoffs and "contracts" from the government.
Remember, kids. If you break the law, you're a filthy godless commie terrorist. If a company breaks the law, its shrewd business.
Oh, so we're back to marrying for money and status now, are we? And of course, they're ignorant cattle that'll jump at the first chance they get to marry a great white man.
In fact, its very rare for places outside of Europe and North America to allow for permanent residency for foreigners. I know India and Japan both ban it, and I'm pretty sure China and Taiwan do. So you couldn't follow the jobs even if you wanted to.
Welcome to the free market. Enjoy the invisible thumb.
I'm the exact opposite. I found the way Mozilla handled the search bar to be annoying. I'd hit down, or have my mouse in the wrong place when I hit enter, and Mozilla would whisk me off to google instead of the URL I'd just typed in. Firebird separates the two, which means I don't have to think about that, and allows me to easily select what kind of search I want to do.
I use Firebird regularly, and I think its far, far better than regular Mozilla. The bookmarks sidebar, for example, is something I find myself using all the time. And I never use sidebars or drag-and-drop, but this is just so convenient that its hard not to. The Extension mechanism's also cool, especially since it allows you to install Extensions in your profile directory. And the interface is just generally consistant.
But you're right, its far too buggy for ordinary use. There's the startup script problem, for one. Though strangely enough, if you startup Firebird and then invoke Mozilla's startup script, you'll get a new Firebird window instead of the "profile in use" dialog. And I've had a number of mysterious crashes, including one that convinced GTK+ that my theme had bright blue as its text color.
All that is required is people who know what they're doing.
Exactly. The problem with Windows is that there's so many "administrators" out there who don't know what they're doing but have the right stuff on their resume and are willing to work for dirt that real admins can't compete. And everyone knows that quality's irrelevant, all that matters are cash-flow plans and the next quarter reports, which means that the cheaper alternatives get hired no matter how crappy they are.
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And its worth pointing out that, in that last case, you're the type of person that would've pirated all his books anyway. If he hadn't had official eBooks, you or someone like you would've scanned and OCR'd them. So he loses nothing by providing them and actually gains a lot.
To be more precise, management has no long-term memory at all, and they regularly fire all the techs with enough experience to develop long-term memories to try and keep wages at "acceptable" levels. (IE, prevent the guy with all the skills from getting paid more than the monkey who drank his way through an MBA)
162 communities... Sounds like a lot, but probably a drop in the bucket. The three states the other poster mentioned sound much more... Interesting. Isn't one of the supposed Republican agendas "states' rights"? I wonder how they'll react to that without compromising their appearance of supporting small government?
That story's great! The Imperial Death March was a particularly nice, if not-so-subtle, touch.
Its especially interesting how the lower levels of government, even ones as large as Boston, have been actively working against things like the Patriot Act. Aren't there a couple dozen towns and cities now that've passed laws requiring their law enforcement officers to do the minimum necessary in response to any "PATRIOT"-related requests?
They still do. You just have to look in different places. Wil McCarthy, Lois McMaster Bujold, Peter Hamilton, David Weber, Timothy Zahn, Hiroyuki Morioka, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Tatsuya Hamazaki, and John Barnes all have very vivid (and different) pictures of the future. And that's just authors whose works (sci-fi novels, manga, and anime) I've enjoyed lately.
It hasn't disappeared. Its just that authors like Robinson didn't think big enough and Hollywood and TV have gotten scared of technology. They've seen what computers are doing to their business model, and how they were encouraged by all the sci-fi shows and movies of the '60s-80s. They don't want to feel responsible for the next big disruptive technology. Or authors falling victim to the "all we know now is all we'll ever know" poison.
To the sci-fi authors who're complaining: Stretch your imagination a little, guys!
Bujold, on the other hand, writes as though these people were real - they have fears, insecurities, hopes, dreams, and they change and mature as the characters are put into new situations.
Exactly. What makes Bujold's works interesting are the people. While other authors may muse about how people have no place in an increasing technological society, Bujold stretches her imagination and shows us how humans can have a place in an increasingly technological society. Not only that, she shows us how an un-technological society can move towards that sort of society without losing its identity. Her characters are interesting and deep, not cardboard cutouts dropped in to illustrate a point. And her wit is incredible - its amazing the places she finds to slip in witty comments and absurdities. (Interactions between Ivan and Miles, especially, never fail to crack me up)
The fact that she can actually write, unlike many sci-fi authors (especially "hard" sci-fi authors), makes her stories even more enjoyable.
Let me get this straight. You claim, with a straight face, that the right to own property isn't garunteed by the Constitution of the USA? This would be the right you went to WAR because of in the mid-1800s. (Because of that right, the government could not strip slaveowners of their slaves or ban them from trading them)
As for copyright duration, how about this? I release a copyrighted work protected by XOR "encryption". While my encryption is trivial to break, if you do, I throw you in jail. Because I continue releasing works using this "encryption", breaking it for any work "protected" by it, even one that has passed into the public domain, is illegal. My work now has effectively unlimited copyright, because no-one is capable of executing their rights on a public domain work without breaking the law.
As for the Supreme Court, I recommend you exercise those literary skills you prize so highly and do some digging into quotes of one Justice Scalia. You might be surprised at what you find if you actually look.
No, I think you'll find that First Sale is a right that is garunteed in the constitution. Namely, its the right to own property. Someone else cannot tell me what I may and may not do with my property after selling it to me.
As for the DMCA and the constitution, it is unconstitutional because it makes all copyrights infinite in duration. The Constitution does not allow this. Of course, since the Supreme Court has stated (Eldred VS Ashcroft) that "limited" doesn't mean "limited", I don't expect them to consider this unconstitutional. After all, they've publically stated that they believe our President was chosen by God himself and can do no wrong.
Possibly. IIRC, there was already a judgement saying that the potential damage to or elimination of "Fair Use" by the DMCA was irrelevant. The law was passed, and superceeds all previous laws. (Including, apparently, the Constitution, but we'll not open that barrel of worms) So if my memory's right and it happens to revoke the right of First Sale... Well, sucks to be you.
Oh, something else I thought of just as I hit submit. (That'll teach me!) The question isn't whether he's allowed to. The question is whether Apple is obligated to provide functionality in its DRM software to allow him to exercise his right, or whether its up to him to work around the DRM software to exercise his right. (And whether he's allowed to do so)
As should be obvious, if Apple is under no obligation to provide the functionality and he can go to jail for bypassing it, he has no First Sale rights.
Actually, its pretty easy technically, as long as Apple supports it through FreePlay. You tell the music store you've sold the file to this other guy. It authorizes him to download and play it, and maybe even handles the money transfer. Then it prevents you from downloading it or registering any new copies of the file. You've still got the problem of the seller keeping already-registered copy, or having burned one off to a CD, but you've got exactly the same problem with a used CD. (And CD copying is no less trivial in this day and age)
A-men! "We" want sane copyright terms, sane fair use rules, and sane infringement penalties. Oh yeah, and sane restrictions on copyright to make it serve its purpose. Namely, encouraging distribution of ideas to create a base of knowledge that others can learn from. You try and hide your knowledge away (say, by not distributing source code) or prevent it from passing into the public domain, you loose the protection of the law.
Let me ask this: is it just that, because I upload one music file to my friend, I'm hit with harsher penalties than a serial rapist or an executive that ruins the lives of millions by defrauding investors and stealing retirement funds?
The problem is that its hard, if not impossible, to stop your money from flowing to the RIAA, especially if you want to compete with them. Blank media taxes, recording device taxes, professional recording device taxes, and a few dozen other hidden fees go straight to their coffers.
Because due process is shallow and boring and not really necessary, right? If the RIAA says you're doing something bad, well, that should be all the proof the government needs!
Sheesh. If they're breaking the law to catch people breaking the law, they're still breaking the law.
Does it really? How fascinating. So you're not saying that I can't just walk into India and pick up a wife if I want to move there? That you can't "just marry one of their people" (leaving aside all the interesting implications of your using a "their people" there) on a whim, or that they might object to me doing that just to get a job there? Or that its not an option if I'm already married?
So its really not a feasible option after all, and is thus irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Consistancy is nice. You should try it sometime. But hardline neo-cons are never consistant, so what should I expect, eh?
The really amusing (or sad) thing is that, if I did that, I'd wind up in federal prison faster than you can say "due process". Then Microsoft or a record company does the same thing and gets applauded for being a good American citizen, and then handed several billion in payoffs and "contracts" from the government.
Remember, kids. If you break the law, you're a filthy godless commie terrorist. If a company breaks the law, its shrewd business.
Oh, so we're back to marrying for money and status now, are we? And of course, they're ignorant cattle that'll jump at the first chance they get to marry a great white man.
Here, have a clue. You seem to be missing yours.
In fact, its very rare for places outside of Europe and North America to allow for permanent residency for foreigners. I know India and Japan both ban it, and I'm pretty sure China and Taiwan do. So you couldn't follow the jobs even if you wanted to.
Welcome to the free market. Enjoy the invisible thumb.
I've had a few mysterious crashes since then. But there's still the problem of the startup scripts, and a few other little things like that.
I'm the exact opposite. I found the way Mozilla handled the search bar to be annoying. I'd hit down, or have my mouse in the wrong place when I hit enter, and Mozilla would whisk me off to google instead of the URL I'd just typed in. Firebird separates the two, which means I don't have to think about that, and allows me to easily select what kind of search I want to do.
I use Firebird regularly, and I think its far, far better than regular Mozilla. The bookmarks sidebar, for example, is something I find myself using all the time. And I never use sidebars or drag-and-drop, but this is just so convenient that its hard not to. The Extension mechanism's also cool, especially since it allows you to install Extensions in your profile directory. And the interface is just generally consistant.
But you're right, its far too buggy for ordinary use. There's the startup script problem, for one. Though strangely enough, if you startup Firebird and then invoke Mozilla's startup script, you'll get a new Firebird window instead of the "profile in use" dialog. And I've had a number of mysterious crashes, including one that convinced GTK+ that my theme had bright blue as its text color.
Guess we're all going to have to switch to using unless, then. ;)
Patenting a stack would be like patenting the lever.
Hm. How long do you think its going to be before we start seeing patents on basic mechanical devices? ;)
Read the fucking protest page and think.
This IS Slashdot. You're seriously expecting someone to not only read the article, but think about it? You should know better!
All that is required is people who know what they're doing.
Exactly. The problem with Windows is that there's so many "administrators" out there who don't know what they're doing but have the right stuff on their resume and are willing to work for dirt that real admins can't compete. And everyone knows that quality's irrelevant, all that matters are cash-flow plans and the next quarter reports, which means that the cheaper alternatives get hired no matter how crappy they are.