I think the difference is that in general in the states the attitude is that companies can do what they want and consumers can choose not to buy. In Europe the attitude is more like companies have mucho power and when consumers don't have choice things should be regulated. Given that until recently many european countries still had state phone monopolies this means that there is mucho regulation (another favorite european pasttime).
While I can't speak for the UK, I would love to see a law like this in the Netherlands. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if this is allready covered by privacy laws, but you never hear about anyone getting anything but profesional sanctions, if that.
How dare we threaten public employees? In most countries I've lived in or have ties with there seems to be a problem with overworked government employees. I agree that in many places this is a problem. Yes they should be helped out, probably by getting rid of alot of erroneous laws and extraneous information gathering. However, when a government (or private) employee is in charge of information that is protected by law, then he should be smart enough to realis that he is responsible for it if he takes it along. This means if you leave your laptop in the car and it gets stolen, it's not a matter of oh woe is me. It's a case of you idiot how could you be so stupid. Is it his fault the theft happened? No, but it is his fault he created the situation. If I leave a peice of meat in the yard I expect a cat to eat it. If they need training in this matter fine (is anyone that dense?) but negligence is negligence.
intent isn't even an issue. Most negligent people don't have the intent. It's sort of what negligence is about.
Why aren't we holding banks liable? Because that horrible system that requires stealing a laptop is not a problem. Stealing a laptop to get access to that persons account is that persons problem. In fact, it's that persons fault for nat having better security, not the banks. If the bank lost a laptop with everyones private data, I think that is actually allready covered.
I'm thinking we're only asking for responsible behaviour. Responsible behaviour from public employees? might as well squeeze blood from a stone.
so europe has the little brother syndorme? I don't really know what that is supposed to mean, but it seems to me that the U.S. is the little brother here. Anyway, Europeans (and the rest of the world) might gripe about the U.S. but the U.S. is giving them plenty of reason to. There was a time when everyone here loved the U.S.. Stop resting on your laurels, stop playing the bully and stop answering complaints with complaints.
Americans can be just as arrogant as Europeans and both love to point fingers at everywhere but themselves. Let's face it, the U.S. is the new Europe. Soon another country will achieve dominance and who cares? For most people the difference is only in whose name is in the paper.
Just for the record, I am dutch but I grew up in the states. I love the U.S. and I love the Netherlands. Both places, however, seem to have solipsism as their primary religion.
Actually the internet was designed to be decentralised so that you could blow up large bits and have it keep on working.
I am wondering how you think centralising power will be better for freedom of the internet. Fact is every country in the world is trying to plug the tubes or at least read everything going in and out. I am all for decentralisation because then even if there are idiots who mess up one part, at least it's only that one part. In fact, that is really the way the internets are run.
Icann is usefull for now, but they don't control the internet any more than I do (well, maybe a little more than I do). I say leave things as they are, if we don't like it we'll take our net some other place. Ok, easier said then done, but not imposible or improbable. The biggest obstacle is nobody wants the hassle such a move would entail. If it happened, however, all the big companies would make sure you get access to both becuase they aren't about to pass up a market for any reason.
The record industry doesn't have a f---ing clue how to make money Poor little rich people. They are so clueless that they are mere milionaires
I couldn't care less about the whole industry. Fact is I have tried to be good. I haven't made illegal copies. I haven't let people copy from me. What do I get in return? A tarrif added to every tape, cd or dvd I buy to pay for music other people "steal". Yes, even if I am burning 100% original content made by me. Even if I use it as coaster. So my attitude is finally changing. Fact is if the whole distibution mechanism was needed then they *might* have a moral high (or at least middle) ground. It isn't though. They just need it to maintain control. So if I'm paying for music every time I burn a program to a DVD, then I no longer have to buy it direct.
This may not be the case in your country, but in the netherlands the music industry is a legalised and protected cartel. Almost every store (99.9%) offers the same prices. That's competition? On this end I'm looking up a dark hole which produces....well this is a family thread, so I won't elaborate.
If I squint and ignore most of Asia, Europe and South America, Africa...unless of course India and China are included in the Commonwealth but I seem to remember them asserting some bit of independence.
Actually america only officially celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday. Thanksgiving isn't religious as such. All other official holidays are political, or however you want to call it. I doubt Easter would be an official holiday if it fell on monday (though politically you have to do the egg hunt like good pag..christians). I suppose Halloween is religious, but that isn't an official holiday.
I only complained they didn't have my cousin's birthday. Quite frankly, if I added that I think they would remove it for lacking notability. You don't happen to know my cousin do you?
Most parts of the world? Harldy, at least when you look it up on wikipedia. Here in the netherlands its a Catholic Holiday. ok, it's a catholic holiday everywhere, but here we celebrate it...at least the protestants do (I'ts sort of a halloween type thing where children beg for candy). Mostly its just my cousins birthday but they don't even *mention* it on wikipedia.
anyway, I imagine that when they were one google for the world it didn't make sense to highlight a relatively unimportant holiday. Now that there is one google per country it makes more sense. though Google in english is still the default site for most IT people I know.
wikipedia:
* Armistice Day in France and Belgium
* St. Martin's Day in the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders and Austria
* Veterans Day in the United States (called Armistice Day until 1952, when the name was changed, and the holiday was re-geared toward all military veterans)
* Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations, including United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
* Twins Day (1987) in Taiwan: a festival for biological twins and other multiples. The eleventh day of the eleventh month (11-11) consists of the same numeral in pairs and symbolizes their characteristics.
* Poland - Independence Day (1918)
* Colombia - Independence of Cartagena, Colombia, from Spain (1811)
* Lplsis Day (1919) in Latvia: the official date for commemoration of Latvian soldiers, who had died for the country's freedom.
* Angola - Independence Day (1975)
* Opening of carnival season in Germany ("Karneval"/"Fasching" on 11-11, at 11:11), the Netherlands, and other countries
* South Korea - Pepero Day
Feast day of:
* Bartholomew of Grottaferrata in the Roman Catholic Church
* Martin of Tours in the Roman Catholic Church
* Saint Mina in the Roman Catholic Church
I wonder wether it is correct to state that our beliefs are contradictory. This kind of thing can be used to show that people believe contradictory things, but perhaps what one believes doesn't translate well into language. In which case it is our ananlyis which falls short. Anyway, I think I'll try this out sometime. Maybe I'll even learn something;)
I don't believe I was implying that we were perfect. In fact I was saying that we follow rules. Which we do. This doesn't mean that we always follow every rule, but having lived in the states and here, having friends in various countries accross the world, I feel confident in saying that we do follow rules. The problem is that rules tend to be followed because rules have to be followed. This can mean following bad rules knowingly just because they are the rules.
I still maintain that the netherlands is a healthier society on the whole. This doesn't mean I don't like America or anywhere else. However corruption, crime, violence, things most people consider bad aren't as bad here as in the States.
What you say about the Dutch may be true, but email here does legally fall under protected communication. Email or Letter or Phone Conversation it doens't matter.
Now I will admit that Dutch security agency have always had more legal access to such communications. I would go so far as to say that the Americans have more privacy/security/freedom in theory. The Dutch have more invasive laws, however in practice I think we actually have more in the netherlands. At the very least I don't expect either police or prosecution to throw due process out the window. What it comes down to is that Americans seem to have come to believe that the ends justify the means, while the duthc believe that rules must always be obeyed. This meanse the Americans ignore just laws in a misguided pursuit of justice while the Duthc obey wrong laws in a misguided pursuit of...law following.
Ah well, when somebody founds the perfect society please have them give me a call.
It was also, almost certainly a mistake. Compare to most copyright infringement, which is almost always willful. Why was this almost certainly a mistake? For that matter, even if it was a mistake willful negligence can be explained in the same way.
But to suggest that this was intentional without knowing for sure is really pretty silly. considering the hardline stance from the record companies vs their target audience then all of a sudden it doesn't sound so strange. The fact is a big company has to be held to higher standards than an individual because there is a massive inbalance in the power of a company vs an individual. Therefore companies cannot simply pull out the cop out mistake excuse. Furthermore, they broke the law. At this point it is for them to prove that it was accidental.
For most physics and math there is no 'technology' that is going to be anything but distracting unless you can make its use transparent. Obviously I'm not talking about the apparatus required to de experiments or demonstrations, I'm talking support tech. Sure slides are great, though I'd use slides and the blackboard (since you never know what people will ask). Sure, you can use the web for making assignmetns available. What you don't want is a song and dance show, you want to teach not entertain.
What worries me most about tech in the classroom is that it can actually take away from learning. I was in the last class in my high school that wasn't allowed programmable calculators during exams. wtf? Simple calculator may be fine, but doing math or physics isn't about plugging numbers into an equation. If you don't understand what the equations mean you got nothing. So what is learned by letting you calculator do the work?
Ok, my math teacher used to let me write programs to do my homework, mostly because he knew that I'd be learning the formulas adn principles. Nowadays you'd be asking kids to google 'calculus package' rather than having them actually learn what to do. Unless you plan on checking their code. So yes, computers could be usefull, but only if it makes people do the work.
I would go so far to say that banning tech from the classroom might even be best. Basic math and physics (and indeed advanced math and physics as well up to a point) require no tech. Give those kids a clay tablet and get them thinking.
Mind you this applies to math and physics (and arguably chemistry or even biology). In any case it applies to exact subjects. If you're teaching sports I'd suggest some of those sentry robots they built in Korea.
Seems sort of crooked to me. It's like the copyright is only a shareware version and to get the complete protection you need to pay up. The evidence it provides is also of dubious value as I doubt that registering requires any proof that you own the work. So what is the point of this service other than to keep it self solvent? (which is true of many government agencies around the world).
Of course, if you're really for open info, then why worry about attribution? If you're work is any good then public recognition will work just as well. If you're worried about someone else running off with you're invention...well isn't your work prior art against any patent? If you're worried about someone claiming credit for your work...well if its onyl about personal recognition then just make sure you're work is interesting enough that people will know your name. I doubt anyone will copy passage directly from Dune without either attributing or assuming the audience recognizes it. If your work is obscure...well who's gonna steal it then?
From a whacko European perspective, or, since that doesnt exist for people without multiple personalities , from a whacko dutch perspecitve the wrong thing about this isn't the cap. We have fair-use policies here as well. If you're lucky, then you share your connection with a retirement home for technophobes. Otherwise you have to play nice with the other kids. This is all fine and reasonable. Most people want this kind of service.
What's wrong is how they want to solve it. A friend of mine here once reached, passed and waved goodbye to what was considered 'fair use'. They told him, your are using X and it's to much. Down boy. He didn't get it down, so the next month did they cut him off? Nope, they sent him a huge bill for any bandwidth that exceeded the fair-use. When they warned him to decrease his use they also told him what to stay under.
See, it's not hard. You don't have to defina a hard limit for most people, because what is 'fair' changes according to what everyone else is doing (perfectly fair to do big DL's at night when you're all alone). When someone is making trouble, then give them a limit to stay under. If they go over, fine, just pay up.
cutting someone off for a year works fine if there aint an alternative. Otherwise its just lazy. Yes, lazy. there's money to be made after all. Bandwidth hogs will either need to pay for it up front, or risk a huge suprise in the mail. Also, if you tell people they will be cut off, some wil react like 'let them try'. If you threaten their wallet they come neatly in line.
What do juries have to do with democracy? Juries are not inherently democratic nor do democracies imply juries. In fact, I personally have little to no trust in jury based decisions.
Judges have in fact been overriding juries for centuries. Appeals courts don't always tend to have juries and the higher you go the less juries you find.
Your last statement makes the least sense of all. This case isn't about the small fry against the big corporate monster. It's two big corporate monsters. So why would the judge prefer M$ to Lucent? well, unless you're implying a directer form of corruption.
No, this isn't prior art. It's future art. Since the courts will at some time extend patents into infinity, this obviously has great implications. Obviously paramount should be sued for using technologies they should've anticipated would be patented. They have an obligation to search out the antecedents of the lawye...inventors who wil patent the idea and pay them their fair share.
For those who will point out that the laws in Star Trek probably don't include patents...It's fiction man, get over it.
The patent isnt 11 years old and doesn't cover touchscreen keyboards. it covers touchscreen keyboards which can't be minimized. This is a serious infringement and I hope the judge throws the book....at somebody.
Speaking as one who gets sick of people complaining how hard it is to eat healthy food when all they have to do is stop with the candy and start with the carrots... well yes you're absolutely right.
btw I'm not kidding. Here in the netherlands I've heard people complain about how hard it is to eat healthy and even the consumer union said that supermarkets weren't doing enough to label healthy foods! My god, look it's an apple! what's that in the sky, is a brocoli? is it a brussel sprout? No its supper food! I figured everyones mom taught them candy bad veggies good, but apparantly some people are to dense for words. Personally I say stuff em full of sugar and let them die. Or else let them take responsibility for themselves. But I digress;)
Actually I know a lot of cooking nerds. In fact, Andrew Tanenbaum has even written a cookbook called 'How to prepare your input'.
My rules are:
1. Taste it. Taste it raw, taste it cooking and taste it done. Taste herbs, spices, meat, fish, oil, vinegar. basically everything. Am I being clear on this?
2. Nothing makes up for good ingredients and good materials. I generally don't like aluminum pans because the thermal properties suck.
3. Because of being a programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. You see, recipes don't take into account local variations. Thus they are only guidelines. Following a recipe to the letter is often a prelude to disaster. anyway most recipes aren't even that exact. A pinch of salt. Medium heat.
4. Cooking is easy. Most of it is a question of technique. This requires practice. Some techniques are difficult. Most aren't. Don't be afraid. Just do. And pretend that whatever comes out of the kitchen is exactly as you'd planned it.
And you really think the following are made or formulated in Granny's kitchen and not by chemists in some industrial-sized 'lab': well, let's see.
Cola & other soft drinks Well, Cola was originaly created by a chemist/pharmacist type of person, and nowadays that pretty much equates to industrial lab.
Yoghurt Well, maybe you are fooled by the ultra expensive left-turning specially formulated guaranteed to extend your life by 10 year or 5 minutes (whichever is less). I however eat regular yoghurt. As has been made for thousands of years. Sure, the mass production probably occurs in controlled, sterile conditions. But not much industrial lab in there.
Cheese in spray cans Well, if you want to call it cheese....
Extruded corn snacks hmm, maybe. Not necessarily though. Also industrial isn't equal to lab.
Fast food burgers what lab? you take a cow, grind it up and make patties. Where does the lab come in? Industrial sure. Are there artificial additives? Probably. On the whole though it doesn't qualify in my book.
Personally I buy gound beef and make my own hamburgers.
Sure the food industry uses chemistry and what not. Why not? This doesn't mean all our food comes out of a lab.
I suggest for your next meal you skip Mcdonalds, walk past Pizza Hut, take a left at Taco Bell and go into the grocery store. Ok it get difficult now. Do not go to the cold freezer section. Go to that place you always skip. You know, you always thought it was florist? Well they sell vegetables. They come from the ground. In fact you can buy a whole lot of non-factory foods if only you agree to food which requires more work than your average microwave is willing to do.
As I have understood the proposed legislations (and IANAL) the law will not apply specifically to proffesionals. Thus amateurs can be targeted. Furthermore the law does target non-tripod using photographers, as long as it involves an interaction of 2 or more people. So, standing around talking with you friends holding your camera would allready require a permit.
Even if the law doesn't actually allow that, if it is worded vaguely enough, and people know about it without knowing it, then the police can take your mobile phone with camera just by mentioning this law. It doen't matter if its legal, they will do this. Police worldwide hate being filmed and will alwyas attempt to ceize such equipment, even when not allowed. Are you going to argue with the man holding the gun whose buddies you just filmed doing something they shouldn't? I hope you are, but I doubt many have the courage.
btw, in the U.S. people are lawsuit-crazy, it doesn't necessarily apply to the rest of the world.
Oh, and your choice of vocabulary is not conducive to getting people to respect your opinion. Or in your phrasesology, stop fucking cussing, your rude s.o.b..
As far as the Founders go, I think they tended on the liberal side of things for their time. Many of their ideas were certainly revolutionary. It was, for example, the first time in history that, enshrined in a document (constitution), was the idea that a government's power came from the people it governs. Today that gets a resounding "duh," but it was liberal back then. Though getting horribly off-topic, I still can't let this one go. It certainly was not the first time in history that a document declared that power came from the people. Arguably Plato said this in his Republic. Certainly the French tried to imply something along those lines in their little domestic dispute at around the same time. One could even look to the Netherlands which had a republic long before the U.S. was even an idea (they only became a 'kingdom' because of the french and Napoleon....the rest of the european powers were scared of republics). I'm certain if you dig you'll find more examples. The USA, while definately a good idea at the time, borrowed many of its ideals from other countries. That isn't criticism, it's a compliment. I also believe they have turned on those same ideals. Saddam and Bush would've gotten along perfectly if it wasn't for those nasty political considerations.
The whole world is tending towards conservatism, thank you 'terrorists'...or rather thank you lying politicians and gullible/complacent populations.
Benjamin Franklin: "They who would give up an essential liberty for a temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."
Slashdot Mirror
who read Afro gpl the first time around?
I think the difference is that in general in the states the attitude is that companies can do what they want and consumers can choose not to buy. In Europe the attitude is more like companies have mucho power and when consumers don't have choice things should be regulated. Given that until recently many european countries still had state phone monopolies this means that there is mucho regulation (another favorite european pasttime).
While I can't speak for the UK, I would love to see a law like this in the Netherlands. Actually it wouldn't surprise me if this is allready covered by privacy laws, but you never hear about anyone getting anything but profesional sanctions, if that.
How dare we threaten public employees? In most countries I've lived in or have ties with there seems to be a problem with overworked government employees. I agree that in many places this is a problem. Yes they should be helped out, probably by getting rid of alot of erroneous laws and extraneous information gathering. However, when a government (or private) employee is in charge of information that is protected by law, then he should be smart enough to realis that he is responsible for it if he takes it along. This means if you leave your laptop in the car and it gets stolen, it's not a matter of oh woe is me. It's a case of you idiot how could you be so stupid. Is it his fault the theft happened? No, but it is his fault he created the situation. If I leave a peice of meat in the yard I expect a cat to eat it. If they need training in this matter fine (is anyone that dense?) but negligence is negligence.
intent isn't even an issue. Most negligent people don't have the intent. It's sort of what negligence is about.
Why aren't we holding banks liable?
Because that horrible system that requires stealing a laptop is not a problem. Stealing a laptop to get access to that persons account is that persons problem. In fact, it's that persons fault for nat having better security, not the banks. If the bank lost a laptop with everyones private data, I think that is actually allready covered.
I'm thinking we're only asking for responsible behaviour. Responsible behaviour from public employees? might as well squeeze blood from a stone.
Do we have issues?
so europe has the little brother syndorme? I don't really know what that is supposed to mean, but it seems to me that the U.S. is the little brother here. Anyway, Europeans (and the rest of the world) might gripe about the U.S. but the U.S. is giving them plenty of reason to. There was a time when everyone here loved the U.S.. Stop resting on your laurels, stop playing the bully and stop answering complaints with complaints.
Americans can be just as arrogant as Europeans and both love to point fingers at everywhere but themselves. Let's face it, the U.S. is the new Europe. Soon another country will achieve dominance and who cares? For most people the difference is only in whose name is in the paper.
Just for the record, I am dutch but I grew up in the states. I love the U.S. and I love the Netherlands. Both places, however, seem to have solipsism as their primary religion.
Actually the internet was designed to be decentralised so that you could blow up large bits and have it keep on working.
I am wondering how you think centralising power will be better for freedom of the internet. Fact is every country in the world is trying to plug the tubes or at least read everything going in and out. I am all for decentralisation because then even if there are idiots who mess up one part, at least it's only that one part. In fact, that is really the way the internets are run.
Icann is usefull for now, but they don't control the internet any more than I do (well, maybe a little more than I do). I say leave things as they are, if we don't like it we'll take our net some other place. Ok, easier said then done, but not imposible or improbable. The biggest obstacle is nobody wants the hassle such a move would entail. If it happened, however, all the big companies would make sure you get access to both becuase they aren't about to pass up a market for any reason.
I couldn't care less about the whole industry. Fact is I have tried to be good. I haven't made illegal copies. I haven't let people copy from me. What do I get in return? A tarrif added to every tape, cd or dvd I buy to pay for music other people "steal". Yes, even if I am burning 100% original content made by me. Even if I use it as coaster. So my attitude is finally changing. Fact is if the whole distibution mechanism was needed then they *might* have a moral high (or at least middle) ground. It isn't though. They just need it to maintain control. So if I'm paying for music every time I burn a program to a DVD, then I no longer have to buy it direct.
This may not be the case in your country, but in the netherlands the music industry is a legalised and protected cartel. Almost every store (99.9%) offers the same prices. That's competition? On this end I'm looking up a dark hole which produces....well this is a family thread, so I won't elaborate.
If I squint and ignore most of Asia, Europe and South America, Africa...unless of course India and China are included in the Commonwealth but I seem to remember them asserting some bit of independence.
Actually america only officially celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday. Thanksgiving isn't religious as such. All other official holidays are political, or however you want to call it. I doubt Easter would be an official holiday if it fell on monday (though politically you have to do the egg hunt like good pag..christians). I suppose Halloween is religious, but that isn't an official holiday.
I only complained they didn't have my cousin's birthday. Quite frankly, if I added that I think they would remove it for lacking notability. You don't happen to know my cousin do you?
Most parts of the world? Harldy, at least when you look it up on wikipedia. Here in the netherlands its a Catholic Holiday. ok, it's a catholic holiday everywhere, but here we celebrate it...at least the protestants do (I'ts sort of a halloween type thing where children beg for candy). Mostly its just my cousins birthday but they don't even *mention* it on wikipedia.
anyway, I imagine that when they were one google for the world it didn't make sense to highlight a relatively unimportant holiday. Now that there is one google per country it makes more sense. though Google in english is still the default site for most IT people I know.
wikipedia:
* Armistice Day in France and Belgium
* St. Martin's Day in the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders and Austria
* Veterans Day in the United States (called Armistice Day until 1952, when the name was changed, and the holiday was re-geared toward all military veterans)
* Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth of Nations, including United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
* Twins Day (1987) in Taiwan: a festival for biological twins and other multiples. The eleventh day of the eleventh month (11-11) consists of the same numeral in pairs and symbolizes their characteristics.
* Poland - Independence Day (1918)
* Colombia - Independence of Cartagena, Colombia, from Spain (1811)
* Lplsis Day (1919) in Latvia: the official date for commemoration of Latvian soldiers, who had died for the country's freedom.
* Angola - Independence Day (1975)
* Opening of carnival season in Germany ("Karneval"/"Fasching" on 11-11, at 11:11), the Netherlands, and other countries
* South Korea - Pepero Day
Feast day of:
* Bartholomew of Grottaferrata in the Roman Catholic Church
* Martin of Tours in the Roman Catholic Church
* Saint Mina in the Roman Catholic Church
Sounds like an interesting exercise.
;)
I wonder wether it is correct to state that our beliefs are contradictory. This kind of thing can be used to show that people believe contradictory things, but perhaps what one believes doesn't translate well into language. In which case it is our ananlyis which falls short. Anyway, I think I'll try this out sometime. Maybe I'll even learn something
Actually you are a good example of your own criticism of the dutch:
"They have a big idea about themselves being perfect"
or else they like to believe they have it so bad. We actually have it pretty damn great.
I don't believe I was implying that we were perfect. In fact I was saying that we follow rules. Which we do. This doesn't mean that we always follow every rule, but having lived in the states and here, having friends in various countries accross the world, I feel confident in saying that we do follow rules. The problem is that rules tend to be followed because rules have to be followed. This can mean following bad rules knowingly just because they are the rules.
I still maintain that the netherlands is a healthier society on the whole. This doesn't mean I don't like America or anywhere else. However corruption, crime, violence, things most people consider bad aren't as bad here as in the States.
What you say about the Dutch may be true, but email here does legally fall under protected communication. Email or Letter or Phone Conversation it doens't matter.
Now I will admit that Dutch security agency have always had more legal access to such communications. I would go so far as to say that the Americans have more privacy/security/freedom in theory. The Dutch have more invasive laws, however in practice I think we actually have more in the netherlands. At the very least I don't expect either police or prosecution to throw due process out the window. What it comes down to is that Americans seem to have come to believe that the ends justify the means, while the duthc believe that rules must always be obeyed. This meanse the Americans ignore just laws in a misguided pursuit of justice while the Duthc obey wrong laws in a misguided pursuit of...law following.
Ah well, when somebody founds the perfect society please have them give me a call.
For most physics and math there is no 'technology' that is going to be anything but distracting unless you can make its use transparent. Obviously I'm not talking about the apparatus required to de experiments or demonstrations, I'm talking support tech. Sure slides are great, though I'd use slides and the blackboard (since you never know what people will ask). Sure, you can use the web for making assignmetns available. What you don't want is a song and dance show, you want to teach not entertain.
What worries me most about tech in the classroom is that it can actually take away from learning. I was in the last class in my high school that wasn't allowed programmable calculators during exams. wtf? Simple calculator may be fine, but doing math or physics isn't about plugging numbers into an equation. If you don't understand what the equations mean you got nothing. So what is learned by letting you calculator do the work?
Ok, my math teacher used to let me write programs to do my homework, mostly because he knew that I'd be learning the formulas adn principles. Nowadays you'd be asking kids to google 'calculus package' rather than having them actually learn what to do. Unless you plan on checking their code. So yes, computers could be usefull, but only if it makes people do the work.
I would go so far to say that banning tech from the classroom might even be best. Basic math and physics (and indeed advanced math and physics as well up to a point) require no tech. Give those kids a clay tablet and get them thinking.
Mind you this applies to math and physics (and arguably chemistry or even biology). In any case it applies to exact subjects. If you're teaching sports I'd suggest some of those sentry robots they built in Korea.
Seems sort of crooked to me. It's like the copyright is only a shareware version and to get the complete protection you need to pay up. The evidence it provides is also of dubious value as I doubt that registering requires any proof that you own the work. So what is the point of this service other than to keep it self solvent? (which is true of many government agencies around the world).
Of course, if you're really for open info, then why worry about attribution? If you're work is any good then public recognition will work just as well. If you're worried about someone else running off with you're invention...well isn't your work prior art against any patent? If you're worried about someone claiming credit for your work...well if its onyl about personal recognition then just make sure you're work is interesting enough that people will know your name. I doubt anyone will copy passage directly from Dune without either attributing or assuming the audience recognizes it. If your work is obscure...well who's gonna steal it then?
From a whacko European perspective, or, since that doesnt exist for people without multiple personalities , from a whacko dutch perspecitve the wrong thing about this isn't the cap. We have fair-use policies here as well. If you're lucky, then you share your connection with a retirement home for technophobes. Otherwise you have to play nice with the other kids. This is all fine and reasonable. Most people want this kind of service.
What's wrong is how they want to solve it. A friend of mine here once reached, passed and waved goodbye to what was considered 'fair use'. They told him, your are using X and it's to much. Down boy. He didn't get it down, so the next month did they cut him off? Nope, they sent him a huge bill for any bandwidth that exceeded the fair-use. When they warned him to decrease his use they also told him what to stay under.
See, it's not hard. You don't have to defina a hard limit for most people, because what is 'fair' changes according to what everyone else is doing (perfectly fair to do big DL's at night when you're all alone). When someone is making trouble, then give them a limit to stay under. If they go over, fine, just pay up.
cutting someone off for a year works fine if there aint an alternative. Otherwise its just lazy. Yes, lazy. there's money to be made after all. Bandwidth hogs will either need to pay for it up front, or risk a huge suprise in the mail. Also, if you tell people they will be cut off, some wil react like 'let them try'. If you threaten their wallet they come neatly in line.
What do juries have to do with democracy? Juries are not inherently democratic nor do democracies imply juries. In fact, I personally have little to no trust in jury based decisions.
Judges have in fact been overriding juries for centuries. Appeals courts don't always tend to have juries and the higher you go the less juries you find.
Your last statement makes the least sense of all. This case isn't about the small fry against the big corporate monster. It's two big corporate monsters. So why would the judge prefer M$ to Lucent? well, unless you're implying a directer form of corruption.
For those who will point out that the laws in Star Trek probably don't include patents...It's fiction man, get over it.
The patent isnt 11 years old and doesn't cover touchscreen keyboards. it covers touchscreen keyboards which can't be minimized. This is a serious infringement and I hope the judge throws the book....at somebody.
Speaking as one who gets sick of people complaining how hard it is to eat healthy food when all they have to do is stop with the candy and start with the carrots... well yes you're absolutely right.
;)
btw I'm not kidding. Here in the netherlands I've heard people complain about how hard it is to eat healthy and even the consumer union said that supermarkets weren't doing enough to label healthy foods! My god, look it's an apple! what's that in the sky, is a brocoli? is it a brussel sprout? No its supper food! I figured everyones mom taught them candy bad veggies good, but apparantly some people are to dense for words. Personally I say stuff em full of sugar and let them die. Or else let them take responsibility for themselves. But I digress
Actually I know a lot of cooking nerds. In fact, Andrew Tanenbaum has even written a cookbook called 'How to prepare your input'.
My rules are:
1. Taste it. Taste it raw, taste it cooking and taste it done. Taste herbs, spices, meat, fish, oil, vinegar. basically everything. Am I being clear on this?
2. Nothing makes up for good ingredients and good materials. I generally don't like aluminum pans because the thermal properties suck.
3. Because of being a programmer where accuracy and preparation are paramount, I NEVER obey a recipe. You see, recipes don't take into account local variations. Thus they are only guidelines. Following a recipe to the letter is often a prelude to disaster. anyway most recipes aren't even that exact. A pinch of salt. Medium heat.
4. Cooking is easy. Most of it is a question of technique. This requires practice. Some techniques are difficult. Most aren't. Don't be afraid. Just do. And pretend that whatever comes out of the kitchen is exactly as you'd planned it.
Personally I buy gound beef and make my own hamburgers.
Sure the food industry uses chemistry and what not. Why not? This doesn't mean all our food comes out of a lab.
I suggest for your next meal you skip Mcdonalds, walk past Pizza Hut, take a left at Taco Bell and go into the grocery store. Ok it get difficult now. Do not go to the cold freezer section. Go to that place you always skip. You know, you always thought it was florist? Well they sell vegetables. They come from the ground. In fact you can buy a whole lot of non-factory foods if only you agree to food which requires more work than your average microwave is willing to do.
As I have understood the proposed legislations (and IANAL) the law will not apply specifically to proffesionals. Thus amateurs can be targeted. Furthermore the law does target non-tripod using photographers, as long as it involves an interaction of 2 or more people. So, standing around talking with you friends holding your camera would allready require a permit.
Even if the law doesn't actually allow that, if it is worded vaguely enough, and people know about it without knowing it, then the police can take your mobile phone with camera just by mentioning this law. It doen't matter if its legal, they will do this. Police worldwide hate being filmed and will alwyas attempt to ceize such equipment, even when not allowed. Are you going to argue with the man holding the gun whose buddies you just filmed doing something they shouldn't? I hope you are, but I doubt many have the courage.
btw, in the U.S. people are lawsuit-crazy, it doesn't necessarily apply to the rest of the world.
Oh, and your choice of vocabulary is not conducive to getting people to respect your opinion. Or in your phrasesology, stop fucking cussing, your rude s.o.b..
The whole world is tending towards conservatism, thank you 'terrorists'...or rather thank you lying politicians and gullible/complacent populations.
Benjamin Franklin: "They who would give up an essential liberty for a temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."