First, corporations were declared people in America precisely to prevent laws of that sort from being made. They have been covered under the 14th Amendment since the late 19th century. That's an abuse of the 14th, but it's not one that's going to be corrected any time soon.
Second, I am against including "life" in copyright terms because we have no way of knowing how long anyone is going to live. "Life+" virtually guarantees that the copyright will last too long; copyright is primarily to benefit the artist, not his next of kin. "Life" alone encourages assassination for the public domain.
Plagiarizing from works already in the public domain is legal. That's one of the things that makes a work public domain: you don't have to say who did it first or where it came from when you borrow from it. It can be unethical, but it is legal.
A long time ago, people who ate at Howard Johnson's ordered Coca-Cola and, without being told, got HoJoCola. Coca-Cola found out, sued, and won.
If Apple doesn't win this suit, there will also be iPhones anywhere Linksys stuff is sold. Therefore, Cisco would get money by suing Cingular if they tried to sell Apple's new phones as iPhones. Or Apple if they tried it--Apple may take more than one slapdown. If Cisco still has the name and trademark & lots of Linksys iPhones, it would be an open&shut case.
Apple Inc. recently beat Apple Corp. (of the Beatles) over the legitimacy of using Apple (Inc.) trademarks all over the iTunes Store. It's probably still running off that high.
The worst of it is, Apple Inc. doesn't seem to realize all those iPhones are from the same corp., give or take a takeover. Apple's argument is this: so many "other" corps. have made iPhones that Cisco can't possibly claim to own that trademark!
Cite:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6250511.s tm
All right, so James Kim died of extreme hypothermia. In Oregon. You of course already know that Oregon doesn't normally get that cold in November.
It also looks likely that the 2000s will beat the 1990s if trends continue.
If you reply that we don't know that trends will continue--well, that is the exact problem right now with the weather!
It isn't that the earth is warmer--though my area is at the moment. It's that the weather has been "weird" for so long that we are starting to expect unpredictable strangeness in the weather.
We are starting to lose the seasons. Even if that isn't "global warming," it should be unnerving.
Yes, we really did worry about nuclear winter once.
We worried about nuclear winter until the end of the Cold War; even when we were worrying about being wiped out in a nuclear blast, we still worried about what would happen away from the blast. Remember, a lot of Americans live in sparsely-populated states which didn't appear to have many important strategic targets until after 9/11.
After the USSR fell, we thought there would be peace, and so we didn't need to worry about nuclear winter anymore. When we did start to worry about being wiped out in nuclear blasts again, we didn't worry about long term effects: we worried about "how will we know who set the thing off?"
I now have a mental image of Comcast giving equal priority to all VOIP calls--but only if you're calling 911.
Oh, and if your 911 call is long-distance, then you are in trouble.
And what happens if the number of local providers can be counted on one hand? Or worse, what if all the local providers can be counted on one finger?
What happens to people who want high-speed broadband, but live in areas where the government has to provide subsides to insure simple phone service?
HBO subscription fees are the method of communication the cable cos. have in mind. If you pay them, they likely will assume HBO has preference. If you don't pay them, you won't get HBO; therefore, BitTorrent will have preference.
Now, determining preferences between basic cable and BitTorrent will be somewhat trickier.
The relations between ISP, broadcaster, advertisers, and viewers are not as you describe. HBO does not have advertisements! (Unless you count self-promos.)
HBO makes its money from its viewers paying the cable and satellite networks for their channels. These days, HBO does theatrical films and box DVD sets as well, but the movie channels always came first. Viewers pay for HBO channels directly through the cable or satellite cos. Since HBO channels are all premium channels, the viewers are paying extra specifically to receive them.
The existence of HBO and other non-advertising premium channels on cable makes net neutrality somewhat complicated. The cable providers mustn't discriminate in who they cut off, as that violates agreements to their 'Net users. But they mustn't cut HBO off at all, because that violates agreements made to viewers who don't use their 'Net service but do subscribe to HBO.
They need to either increase their bandwidth capability or tone down their promises...
In case of emergency, break out the OpenOffice, specifically the "Writer" program. It can handle.doc files almost as well as Word, and it's free.
Also consider e-mailing the.doc files to your home computer, since your boss is apparently keeping an eye on what software is on your work computer.
Disclaimer:
I am getting two MS Updates today--one for IE7, and the usual malware "stinger." I don't actually use IE--I updated it for security...
This has actually been a better month for MS update-downloads than most months last year.
Yes, the Beatles did leave EMI for Apple Records. EMI distributes Apple Records CDs right now. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
EMI also distributes the CDs of MPL, Paul McCartney's own breakaway corp. I think that might be why Macca's last tour is out on DVD but is not yet on CD: he's having problems with EMI right now.
EMI is a British record company--or at least that's where its main office is.
Since it, like most huge corporations, is multinational, it does have branches elsewhere, inc. (of course) the Netherlands.
It just happens that EMI never used DRM in England or America. The non-British EU is the most Western market where they used DRM. So it's the branch in the Netherlands that got to announce that DRM won't return to EMI CDs.
Which Beatles album did you and your friend have a problem with? I'd like to know, in case I try to buy it.
BTW, here is a list of CDs (from every label) that had Copy Control (the relevant DRM software) on them: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Category:Copy_Control
There is a Beatles album, Let It Be...Naked, on that list. But according to its wiki and to Reuters, EMI didn't use Copy Control in every region, which explains why I was able to rip my copy of Disc One of that album to iTunes.
I do find it puzzling that EMI used Copy Control on every country in the EU except the UK!
Macrovision stopped making Copy Control six months ago, which is why EMI stopped using it then. I'll presume that they've spent time watching the change in "piracy" rates, or lack thereof, and are using that data to inform their decision. They already knew that DRM gives trouble to legit users, so if they see no difference in less-than-legit users, they've got reason to give DRM up for good.
I don't think they count DualDiscs as DRM'd...
Ah. That explains how I was able to get two copies of the same song into iTunes and have one be two seconds shorter than the other.
I was doing messy transfers: rip DRM'd iTS song to CD-R, then import to another copy of iTunes. Because I had forgotten some of the first imported copy's metadata, I included the same ex-DRM'd song on a second CD-R and then imported it (again) from the second CD-R. Results: two almost identical songs, one lasting 4:00, one lasting 3:58.
Plastic wheels that shred?
I'd think that a Roomba that didn't vacuum would be less likely to have its wheels shred. The only problems I've had with the wheels of my pet Roombas were caused by things getting entangled around the driveshaft; if the Roomba isn't vacuuming, then presumably that sort of thing won't happen as much.
It seems these new programmable Roombas have an extra wheel to better to support heavy things like robot arms, laundry baskets, or Dalek bodies. Would that make a difference in its durability?
Human-like robots are a nice dream, and I understand that people are still working on them.
But there is an advantage to Roomba-type robots: they are cute.
The same sci-fi that makes androids look plausible can make them look scary. If they clearly can do anything we can, and they have AI minds of their own, how do we know they won't turn on us? And if they look like persons, then we can easily imagine them acting like persons. We're not doing much toward Asimov's Three Laws yet--hey, even then there's a risk that a robot will discover the Zeroth Law and use it in ways we object to--so any true humanoid robot might feel risky.
Roombas are attractive mobile discs. They clearly are functional; the ones that know how and when to go to their charging stations are getting smart. But they are small, they don't look scary, and they don't look like people. Hey, you can push most of them aside with your foot (obviously excluding the little disc lawnmower), and we haven't (yet) built one that can climb stairs or dares try. So people feel safe around them.
If androids try to take over the world, humanity will be shooting them down or hitting their off switches quickly. If all the Roombas tried to take over the world, most of us humans won't even realize it at first, and we'll be very surprised when we do figure out what's going on.
In one case, Mr. Gilmore did go through that extensive search in lieu of showing a (non-existent) ID. He was still blocked from boarding by a TSA fella, and that practically at the door of the plane.
Slashdot Mirror
First, corporations were declared people in America precisely to prevent laws of that sort from being made. They have been covered under the 14th Amendment since the late 19th century. That's an abuse of the 14th, but it's not one that's going to be corrected any time soon.
Second, I am against including "life" in copyright terms because we have no way of knowing how long anyone is going to live. "Life+" virtually guarantees that the copyright will last too long; copyright is primarily to benefit the artist, not his next of kin. "Life" alone encourages assassination for the public domain.
I hate to break it to you, but architectural drawings do get "life+70" copyrights. (That is what CADs are for, right?)
Plagiarizing from works already in the public domain is legal. That's one of the things that makes a work public domain: you don't have to say who did it first or where it came from when you borrow from it. It can be unethical, but it is legal.
The corporation would claim itself as that agent. Corporations are people too, at least in the eyes of the law.
A long time ago, people who ate at Howard Johnson's ordered Coca-Cola and, without being told, got HoJoCola. Coca-Cola found out, sued, and won.
If Apple doesn't win this suit, there will also be iPhones anywhere Linksys stuff is sold. Therefore, Cisco would get money by suing Cingular if they tried to sell Apple's new phones as iPhones. Or Apple if they tried it--Apple may take more than one slapdown. If Cisco still has the name and trademark & lots of Linksys iPhones, it would be an open&shut case.
Apple Inc. recently beat Apple Corp. (of the Beatles) over the legitimacy of using Apple (Inc.) trademarks all over the iTunes Store. It's probably still running off that high.
The worst of it is, Apple Inc. doesn't seem to realize all those iPhones are from the same corp., give or take a takeover. Apple's argument is this: so many "other" corps. have made iPhones that Cisco can't possibly claim to own that trademark!s tm
Cite:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6250511.
All right, so James Kim died of extreme hypothermia. In Oregon. You of course already know that Oregon doesn't normally get that cold in November.
It also looks likely that the 2000s will beat the 1990s if trends continue.
If you reply that we don't know that trends will continue--well, that is the exact problem right now with the weather!
It isn't that the earth is warmer--though my area is at the moment. It's that the weather has been "weird" for so long that we are starting to expect unpredictable strangeness in the weather.
We are starting to lose the seasons. Even if that isn't "global warming," it should be unnerving.
Yes, we really did worry about nuclear winter once.
We worried about nuclear winter until the end of the Cold War; even when we were worrying about being wiped out in a nuclear blast, we still worried about what would happen away from the blast. Remember, a lot of Americans live in sparsely-populated states which didn't appear to have many important strategic targets until after 9/11.
After the USSR fell, we thought there would be peace, and so we didn't need to worry about nuclear winter anymore. When we did start to worry about being wiped out in nuclear blasts again, we didn't worry about long term effects: we worried about "how will we know who set the thing off?"
I now have a mental image of Comcast giving equal priority to all VOIP calls--but only if you're calling 911.
Oh, and if your 911 call is long-distance, then you are in trouble.
And what happens if the number of local providers can be counted on one hand? Or worse, what if all the local providers can be counted on one finger?
What happens to people who want high-speed broadband, but live in areas where the government has to provide subsides to insure simple phone service?
HBO subscription fees are the method of communication the cable cos. have in mind. If you pay them, they likely will assume HBO has preference. If you don't pay them, you won't get HBO; therefore, BitTorrent will have preference.
Now, determining preferences between basic cable and BitTorrent will be somewhat trickier.
The relations between ISP, broadcaster, advertisers, and viewers are not as you describe.
HBO does not have advertisements! (Unless you count self-promos.)
HBO makes its money from its viewers paying the cable and satellite networks for their channels. These days, HBO does theatrical films and box DVD sets as well, but the movie channels always came first. Viewers pay for HBO channels directly through the cable or satellite cos. Since HBO channels are all premium channels, the viewers are paying extra specifically to receive them.
The existence of HBO and other non-advertising premium channels on cable makes net neutrality somewhat complicated. The cable providers mustn't discriminate in who they cut off, as that violates agreements to their 'Net users. But they mustn't cut HBO off at all, because that violates agreements made to viewers who don't use their 'Net service but do subscribe to HBO.
They need to either increase their bandwidth capability or tone down their promises...
Yep. It is now officially the fault of Jeffrey Skilling, Andy Fastow, the Arthur Anderson accounting firm, and a British bank called NatWest.
In case of emergency, break out the OpenOffice, specifically the "Writer" program. It can handle .doc files almost as well as Word, and it's free. .doc files to your home computer, since your boss is apparently keeping an eye on what software is on your work computer.
Also consider e-mailing the
Disclaimer:
I am getting two MS Updates today--one for IE7, and the usual malware "stinger." I don't actually use IE--I updated it for security...
This has actually been a better month for MS update-downloads than most months last year.
Yes, the Beatles did leave EMI for Apple Records. EMI distributes Apple Records CDs right now. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
EMI also distributes the CDs of MPL, Paul McCartney's own breakaway corp. I think that might be why Macca's last tour is out on DVD but is not yet on CD: he's having problems with EMI right now.
Macrovision doesn't make DRM for CDs anymore. It stopped making CD DRM about the same time EMI stopped using DRM on CDs...
EMI is a British record company--or at least that's where its main office is.
Since it, like most huge corporations, is multinational, it does have branches elsewhere, inc. (of course) the Netherlands.
It just happens that EMI never used DRM in England or America. The non-British EU is the most Western market where they used DRM. So it's the branch in the Netherlands that got to announce that DRM won't return to EMI CDs.
Which Beatles album did you and your friend have a problem with? I'd like to know, in case I try to buy it.l
BTW, here is a list of CDs (from every label) that had Copy Control (the relevant DRM software) on them: http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Category:Copy_Contro
There is a Beatles album, Let It Be...Naked, on that list. But according to its wiki and to Reuters, EMI didn't use Copy Control in every region, which explains why I was able to rip my copy of Disc One of that album to iTunes.
I do find it puzzling that EMI used Copy Control on every country in the EU except the UK!
Macrovision stopped making Copy Control six months ago, which is why EMI stopped using it then. I'll presume that they've spent time watching the change in "piracy" rates, or lack thereof, and are using that data to inform their decision. They already knew that DRM gives trouble to legit users, so if they see no difference in less-than-legit users, they've got reason to give DRM up for good.
I don't think they count DualDiscs as DRM'd...
Ah. That explains how I was able to get two copies of the same song into iTunes and have one be two seconds shorter than the other.
I was doing messy transfers: rip DRM'd iTS song to CD-R, then import to another copy of iTunes. Because I had forgotten some of the first imported copy's metadata, I included the same ex-DRM'd song on a second CD-R and then imported it (again) from the second CD-R. Results: two almost identical songs, one lasting 4:00, one lasting 3:58.
Plastic wheels that shred?
I'd think that a Roomba that didn't vacuum would be less likely to have its wheels shred. The only problems I've had with the wheels of my pet Roombas were caused by things getting entangled around the driveshaft; if the Roomba isn't vacuuming, then presumably that sort of thing won't happen as much.
It seems these new programmable Roombas have an extra wheel to better to support heavy things like robot arms, laundry baskets, or Dalek bodies. Would that make a difference in its durability?
Human-like robots are a nice dream, and I understand that people are still working on them.
But there is an advantage to Roomba-type robots: they are cute.
The same sci-fi that makes androids look plausible can make them look scary. If they clearly can do anything we can, and they have AI minds of their own, how do we know they won't turn on us? And if they look like persons, then we can easily imagine them acting like persons. We're not doing much toward Asimov's Three Laws yet--hey, even then there's a risk that a robot will discover the Zeroth Law and use it in ways we object to--so any true humanoid robot might feel risky.
Roombas are attractive mobile discs. They clearly are functional; the ones that know how and when to go to their charging stations are getting smart. But they are small, they don't look scary, and they don't look like people. Hey, you can push most of them aside with your foot (obviously excluding the little disc lawnmower), and we haven't (yet) built one that can climb stairs or dares try. So people feel safe around them.
If androids try to take over the world, humanity will be shooting them down or hitting their off switches quickly. If all the Roombas tried to take over the world, most of us humans won't even realize it at first, and we'll be very surprised when we do figure out what's going on.
Would you feel differently if they were all stolen PS3s sold to the unsuspecting? Or iPods?
In one case, Mr. Gilmore did go through that extensive search in lieu of showing a (non-existent) ID. He was still blocked from boarding by a TSA fella, and that practically at the door of the plane.
In modern English, yes. It's the "tenative conclusion."
Still paradoxical...