No, I don't think so...but did Sonny Bono ever re-marry? Last I heard, he'd only married once, and I, for one, would welcome Cher as a Senate Overlord. Might be entertaining.
Then again, you'd've expected that Bono, Gopher, Cooter, and Fred Thompson would have been entertaining, too.
However, this idea works perfectly if you ditch the neurinos and use, say, UHF. Just shift the wavelengths of light up, and back down.
Actually, that had been my first thought, but I wasn't sure of any easy way (like any of this is easy!) to guarantee that only the appropriate emitter on the other side was triggered, and in the appropriate direction.
That is, a photon hits the "sensing" layer on the underside of the plane. That layer emits an EM wave in the UHF range. That EM wave passes through the plane (another big assumption), and strikes, er, well, most all of the molecules on the emitting side.
I suppose if this were easy, it'd have been done already.
you'd need to convert from the full spectrum to RGB, which means you'd need two or even three neutrinos for each photon.
Why would you need to convert to RGB? I thought light was simply a single photon of a given frequency, with an infinite variabity from infrared through red on up to violet and UV.
Or am I missing something?
Of course, there are a million other reasons why it can't work (which is why I posted with a smilie)....
not practical and not useful unless you get billions of these beads and can project the light to them from WITHIN your "cloak" and if each bead can display at least a few hundred thousand angles
I solved this a few years ago. One of these days, I'll submit a patent application for it. Or does this posting invalidate that?:)
There's a simple way to do all this. Imagine a thin layer of some special molecule (yet to be developed, but that's just an implementation issue), completely coating an object. That layer has two interesting properties:
Whenever a photon strikes the molecule, it (the molecule) emits a neutrino of a particular energy level at the same angle of the incoming photon. Basically, it converts a (say) blue photon to a "blue" neutrino.
Whenever the molecule is hit by a neutrino, it performs the reverse. A neutrino of level X gets turned back into a visible photonn of the appropriate energy level.
This has the effect of guaranteeing that all photons, of all colors, of all incoming angles, are properly processed through the object. But how does the information get from one side of the object to the other?
Simple!
We're using neutrinos! They go through EVERYTHING!
So you're looking down at a jet. There's an ambient light ray coming off the ground, and it's green (it reflected off a leaf). It hits the underside of the jet, is transformed magically into a "greenish" neutrino, which continues upwards through the jet, following the same path as the original green photon. Because it's a neutrino, it passes through the jet without bothering anything and without being bothered itself. It reaches the other side of the jet, where it strikes the invisibility layer on the top side of the jet and converts back into a green photon. So, from the perspective of the observer, the green light from the tree below passed right through the jet, as if the jet wasn't even there.
There's some nagging problem with this approach, though, that I can't seem to pinpoint....so it'll probably be a while before you see this in practice.:)
I don't own a laptop, but I do own a Palm Tungsten T3 with built-in bluetooth, and I've found recently that I wished hotspots spoke Bluetooth. Has anyone started seriously deploying public (free or pay) hotspots with BT?
I'd think that all the bluetooth-enabled phones out there would be a natural target for this kind of service, where people could get internet surfing for cheaper than the on-air data rates the cell phone companies charge.
Or are their technical reasons why this won't work in practice? I really don't want to wait for the next Tungsten rev (4? 5? 6?) to finally build-in 802.11.... (and I have no interest in filling my *1* slot with a wifi card, esp. if it's got an externally-protruding antenna).
If you know you shouldn't do something because you agreed not to do that thing, if you go ahead and do it anyway, you have shitty ethics.
Enforcable or not, *YOU* *AGREED* not to circumvent the DRM.
But if you "agreed" with full knowledge that such an agreement was not enforceable, but with intent to honor other enforceable terms of the "contract," then I'd say there's no ethical violation.
In fact, my/.-level knowledge of law leads me to believe that unless you take such an attitude, the "First Sale" doctrine would never have been established. My reasoning is like this:
Publisher sells a book with a restrictive license printed on the first page (we'll call it a EULA, though this predates that term)
Someone buys the book, knowing the EULA was invalid, and re-sells it after they're done reading it
Publisher sues buyer who re-sells book, citing EULA
Court steps in and says re-sale prohibitions in EULA were invalid, and thus establishes First Sale doctrine
Now, if your argument were to hold (that enforceable or not, you agreed to the terms), then the court would have found for the publisher (from a legal standpoint). Or you would say that the buyer, who flouted the terms after knowlingly "agreeing" to them, was acting unethically or immorally.
So, let's revisit the scenario, assuming that all potential buyers will behave "ethically" and honor the license, even though it was legally unenforceable:
Publisher sells a book with a restrictive EULA printed on the first page
Someone sees the license, says "Hey, that sucks. And it's probably not enforceable. But to buy it and sue would be unethical, so I'll not buy it and sue anyway."
Court throws lawsuit out, since someone who didn't buy the book wasn't bound by the EULA, even though there was no enforceable EULA to be bound to in the first place ("Lack of Standing")
Publisher gets to "enforce" the unenforceable EULA, because nobody is willing to look like a jerk and buy the book with full intention of not honoring their "gentleman's agreement" when they bought it
No First Sale doctrine is established
Civilization collapses.
(okay, that last bullet might be reaching a bit.:) )
So, let's review:
The presence of the license, that we may or may not have agreed to when buying a song through iTunes, does not legally bind one to an unforceable provision.
The only way to determine whether any provisions are unenforceable is to buy, violate, get sued, and win
Doing so doesn't make you a jerk, it makes you a patriot (if you win) or a criminal (if you lose), (or a martyr, if the case never completes and you go bankrupt in the process)
The enforceability of the license to begin with hasn't been strongly tested (though UCITA hurts the consumer's arguments there)
Either way, this portion of the discussion hinges on a contract dispute between Apple and the person who uses playfair. It does not, IMHO, involve a DMCA violation. So bringing up the "you agreed to a license" argument to support Apple's actions in quashing the distribution of playfair doesn't wash, in my book.
Whether playfair itself (and the distribution of playfair, in source and/or binary form) violates DMCA is a separate discussion, and could be equally applied to an instance where a FairPlay-encoded song was sold with no license at all (which isn't the case here). That is, playfair's DMCA status should be evaluated in light of whether it violates the anti-circumvention clauses without being ameliorated by the interoperability clauses (somebody shoot me, I'm really talking like a lawyer now!). If someone were to record a song, protect it with FairPlay, and sell it to someone else, as is, with no license attached, would the use of playfair on that file be in violation of DMCA? If so, then Apple's initial Cease
Remember, when you buy something, you accept the sale conditions that the seller (owner or owner's agent) specifies. That's a contract between you and the seller. If that contract involves DRM, well, too bad, but remember, you are not obligated to make the purchase.
Except that in some cases, even those conditions are not enforceable.
Many years ago (early 1900's, I think), book publishers tried to insert conditions on the front page of a book saying that you couldn't resell the book, etc. It was struck down, and thus the "doctrine of first sale" was born. (or something like that, IANAL and my memory isn't what it used to be).
So there might be an argument that these doctrines take precedence over the "agreement" entered into when you first started using iTunes. But nobody's tested it (and probably never will).
Is playfair even illegal under DMCA, at a technical (not practical) level?
This paragraph (Section (f)(2)) seems to explicitly allow applications like playfair, which have a primary use of enabling someone who has legally purchased a song to make use of it on other devices:
Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.
I'm not addressing the questions of whether the user is legally bound enough by the EULA that they can't *use* playfair, only asking whether, technically, playfair is in fact covered by this clause and therefore not subject to a "DMCA takedown."
If so, then sourceforge should be able to distribute it with no repercussions, and Apple could return to (1) going after people who distribute playfair'd tracks, or (2) going after people in civil court for contract violations pertaining to the EULA.
Of course, if anyone were to call Apple on this (and had the $$ and time to do so), and if Apple were to realize halfway through that they'd lose, then they'd just withdraw their C&D letter, pulling the rug out from under the defendants (who'd lose standing as a result) (yes, pun intended), and so no precedent would be set. Just like happened with the RIAA and, was it, Felten?
It wasn't quite like that. It was much more like "make it look like we wrote this, that it's proprietary, cutting edge, and that nobody else even comes close."
I don't remember all the details any more (this was about 4 or 5 years ago), but everyone I worked with agreed that it was way over the line, and could easily get us sued. Fortunately, when I complained (and got booted from the dev team), nobody else was given the task, and we were able to fail on our own merits.:)
Not long after having joined a development group, I was given a list of software (mostly open-source security / hacker sort of stuff), and instructed to find a way to "re-brand" the software to imply that we owned it. To make us look better to venture capitalists for a commercial INFOSEC spinoff we were trying to ramp up.
Needless to say, I said no, almost got fired, and eventually fled the sinking ship a year later. They ended up spinning off, failing miserably, and selling for less than the cost of my current house.
My biggest regret is not swiping an Aeron as I left.
What I'd like to see is a simple way to write GarageBand files from perl. It could be used to generate "music" based on a script output (imagine every few songs your streaming mp3 player would play an automtically generated GB song with "pleasant" sounding music when your net's okay, and "discordant" music when something weird's up).
Or, more usefully, for various tablature -> GB conversions.
I know there are some perl-to-MIDI modules, but from what I understand getting those into GarageBand requires additional steps, too, right?
Anyway, I haven't had time to really search for this, so I'm sure that someone else has already come up with a solution. I just thought I'd mention it to see if anyone's got anything cool done along these lines...
There's not much worth saving at any of them. It's just a lot of rusted metal and concrete.
Yes, but it's cool rusted metal and concrete.
I've been pad hopping a few times, too, and would love to spend a day or so just going over one or another of the sites in detail. But I'd be afraid of many things -- contamination, twisted rusted metal that could give me a nasty cut, and, of course, snakes and alligators.
It seems to me that major chunks of this tower have already been preserved. I'm not really sure that all the bits in the middle are as important as, say, the gantry they walked across to get into the capsule.
If someone can cheaply clean it up and move it to the visitor center, great, but they'd better not increase the cost of admission any -- that's already the worst bargain around. And I won't even mention how annoyed I was at not being able to visit the Memorial Wall last year after Columbia, without paying the $20 to get into the visitor center. Sure, okay, charge for a museum, but never for a memorial.
For me, this is the "killer app" for digital paper.
On my desktop(s), at various times, I've typically had:
Current month's calendar
Clock
Local weather
IM buddy list
three webcams (Rothenberg, Chesapeake Bay, and Skyline Drive -- places I'd rather be than at work)
Current stock prices for some key stocks
Department in/out board
Recent comic strips
But, of course, most of the time I can't *see* any of those, because they're covered up with real work. Sure, I could add a third (or fourth) monitor, but then that screen would just be filled with other windows.
If I could have an 11x17, nicely framed piece of color electronic paper on my office wall, then I could move all this slow-update information to that. The information would still be handy, but because of the properties of the display, I wouldn't be tempted to use it as a "live" desktop monitor. Also, having a large space, nicely framed and hung on the wall, would encourage me to pick nice-looking clocks and calendars and stuff, not the ugly windows that stick on the background, so it'd be pleasing as well as informative.
How about it? Please tell me you've been thinking on exactly the same lines. I've been asking for this for THREE YEARS, which is an eternity in the digital marketplace. I'm tired of waiting.:)
That's not really fair. If you read the article carefully, they "renewed" his account on November 15th, but didn't actually apply the charge to his credit card until December 26th
Absolutely right. It seems that there *is* a grace period after automatic renewal during which a customer can cancel. Microsoft is claiming the renewal happened in November, the original poster claims it happened in December. Since he didn't get *charged* until December, I'd say he's got a case that December was the renewal date, and should be able to get it reversed.
Either way, I'd definitely get the credit card company involved.
Also, if his email account was in fact disabled, then Microsoft will have gotten a bounce indicating that. Certainly, we'd expect that they ignored it, but if Microsoft is asserting that e-mail is a legal, reliable way to inform people of these renewals, then I'd say the bounce is a legal, reliable way to prove that he didn't get the message, therefore he wasn't informed. Hell, it's not like they couldn't get his home address from the credit card company...
Counterfeiting (in any denomination) is a serious crime. One that is punishable by serving jail time in a federal penitentiary.
A sentence that is somewhat reduced from this 1773 Pennsylvania note:
http://www.7cs.com/colonial/1773pa.htm
(Note the "To counterfeit is Death" notice)
Of course, we're still not talking about counterfeiting, we're talking about fair use of the images of currency -- namely, in academic papers, collector's newsletters, rap album covers, who knows what else. All these legitimate uses instantly prohibited by an unregulated and (if it gets deep enough into printers and other equipment) unavoidable system.
Simply, this is a great example of the darker side of DRM.
not quite. if the studios ever threaten again, we have this case to point to as precedence.
Not quite. I haven't R'd the FA yet, but I'm betting the cases were dismissed because the plantiffs "Lacked Standing." That's a legal term for "nobody's done anything wrong to you, so get out of my courtroom."
It's one of the more frustrating aspects of our legal system (to me, anyway) -- the inability to pre-emptively decide issues. Instead, you have to wait until you're actually *sued* for something, and then, if the plantiff drops the suit, you may have to go through it all again in the future the next time they decide to rattle your chain.
(Just like the RIAA and watermarking paper).
Now I'll go read the article to see just how wrong I am....
The initial comments here are focusing on BlueTooth for transfering images, which (personally) I think would be God-awful slow. Though it might be nice to be able to send an automagically-reduced-resolution image over a phone via BlueTooth, on occasion.
I'd be more interested in BT for other uses -- metadata on pictures, etc.
For example: Snap a picture, your palm (in your shirt pocket) gets a complete record of date, time, exposure info, and a thumbnail. So you can easily review shots with someone else around a nicer display than what your camera has.
Or: Snap a picture, your camera asks your GPS where you are and what you're facing, and the EXIM info gets a very precise record of location, direction, and field of view. So you know EXACTLY what the picture is of. (or at least exactly where it was:) )
Or: Set up your camera on a tripod. Walk inside the picture with the rest of your family. When you're ready, hit a button on your palm (or cell phone) and slide it back into your pocket, then 3 seconds later, the picture gets taken. Want another picture? Just pull the phone back out -- no need to return to the camera to reset a timer. You can even check the thumbnail to see if you even need another shot.
We've found that having a bright light on a timer (X10 does nicely) helps, too. There's nothing like having 150 watts of "oh my god turn that off" on your eyes to wake you up. Actually, I think it subtly starts the wakeup process, which completes when the loud alarm goes off a couple minutes later.
Of course, if your wakeup time is after sunrise, this probably won't help much.:)
You could always rig up a smoke detector buzzer, but that's probably not something you should really get sensitized to....
One thing that's still keeping me from taking the XM plunge is the lack of decent in-dash receivers. Sure, there are plenty of receivers that are "XM Ready" (though they all seem to require an additional $200+ receiver module that I'll have to attach somewhere else in the car). But most of them have only 8- or 16-character displays.
I mean, most cars these days (or so it seems -- all of our last cars at least) have large receiver openings (double-size or so). There's PLENTY of space for a CD / XM receiver with a nice, multi-line display and decent controls. But even the double-DIN receivers from Pioneer still only have 8-character displays. It's crazy.
And I don't even get me started on how most radios these days are just an ugly mess of widgets and doodads with very little thought to function or quality. The best-looking, most functional, radios out there all seem to be original factory radios. And they simply don't have the MP3 / Satellite features.
What I want, basically, is the nice Delphi XM receiver integrated in a double-DIN CD receiver, with aux inputs for my MP3 player, a half-dozen preset buttons, a volume knob, and a tuning / navigation / feature knob. Is that too much to ask? (and, no, I don't want to stick the Delphi receiver somewhere else on my dash -- with my Palm/GPS combo, I've already got more velcro then I'd really like.)
the sacrament of marriage (which by definition can only exist between a man and a woman)
[flame on] The sacrament of marriage, okay, fine I suppose I can accept that. However, the dispute isn't over sacramental unions, it's over civil unions.
What really gets me about this issue is the right-wing's constant harping about "defense of marriage" (even going so far as to pass a law called the "Defense of Marriage Act." You want to preserve marriage? Outlaw divorce. And start by arresting all the members of congress who've had affairs or divorces.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't his widow now server in his stead?
Oh, that'd be great.
No, I don't think so...but did Sonny Bono ever re-marry? Last I heard, he'd only married once, and I, for one, would welcome Cher as a Senate Overlord. Might be entertaining.
Then again, you'd've expected that Bono, Gopher, Cooter, and Fred Thompson would have been entertaining, too.
However, this idea works perfectly if you ditch the neurinos and use, say, UHF. Just shift the wavelengths of light up, and back down.
Actually, that had been my first thought, but I wasn't sure of any easy way (like any of this is easy!) to guarantee that only the appropriate emitter on the other side was triggered, and in the appropriate direction.
That is, a photon hits the "sensing" layer on the underside of the plane. That layer emits an EM wave in the UHF range. That EM wave passes through the plane (another big assumption), and strikes, er, well, most all of the molecules on the emitting side.
I suppose if this were easy, it'd have been done already.
So, anyone want to move on to warp theory?
you'd need to convert from the full spectrum to RGB, which means you'd need two or even three neutrinos for each photon.
Why would you need to convert to RGB? I thought light was simply a single photon of a given frequency, with an infinite variabity from infrared through red on up to violet and UV.
Or am I missing something?
Of course, there are a million other reasons why it can't work (which is why I posted with a smilie)....
I solved this a few years ago. One of these days, I'll submit a patent application for it. Or does this posting invalidate that?
There's a simple way to do all this. Imagine a thin layer of some special molecule (yet to be developed, but that's just an implementation issue), completely coating an object. That layer has two interesting properties:
- Whenever a photon strikes the molecule, it (the molecule) emits a neutrino of a particular energy level at the same angle of the incoming photon. Basically, it converts a (say) blue photon to a "blue" neutrino.
- Whenever the molecule is hit by a neutrino, it performs the reverse. A neutrino of level X gets turned back into a visible photonn of the appropriate energy level.
This has the effect of guaranteeing that all photons, of all colors, of all incoming angles, are properly processed through the object. But how does the information get from one side of the object to the other?Simple!
We're using neutrinos! They go through EVERYTHING!
So you're looking down at a jet. There's an ambient light ray coming off the ground, and it's green (it reflected off a leaf). It hits the underside of the jet, is transformed magically into a "greenish" neutrino, which continues upwards through the jet, following the same path as the original green photon. Because it's a neutrino, it passes through the jet without bothering anything and without being bothered itself. It reaches the other side of the jet, where it strikes the invisibility layer on the top side of the jet and converts back into a green photon. So, from the perspective of the observer, the green light from the tree below passed right through the jet, as if the jet wasn't even there.
There's some nagging problem with this approach, though, that I can't seem to pinpoint....so it'll probably be a while before you see this in practice.
I don't own a laptop, but I do own a Palm Tungsten T3 with built-in bluetooth, and I've found recently that I wished hotspots spoke Bluetooth. Has anyone started seriously deploying public (free or pay) hotspots with BT?
I'd think that all the bluetooth-enabled phones out there would be a natural target for this kind of service, where people could get internet surfing for cheaper than the on-air data rates the cell phone companies charge.
Or are their technical reasons why this won't work in practice? I really don't want to wait for the next Tungsten rev (4? 5? 6?) to finally build-in 802.11.... (and I have no interest in filling my *1* slot with a wifi card, esp. if it's got an externally-protruding antenna).
Enforcable or not, *YOU* *AGREED* not to circumvent the DRM.
But if you "agreed" with full knowledge that such an agreement was not enforceable, but with intent to honor other enforceable terms of the "contract," then I'd say there's no ethical violation.
In fact, my
Now, if your argument were to hold (that enforceable or not, you agreed to the terms), then the court would have found for the publisher (from a legal standpoint). Or you would say that the buyer, who flouted the terms after knowlingly "agreeing" to them, was acting unethically or immorally.
So, let's revisit the scenario, assuming that all potential buyers will behave "ethically" and honor the license, even though it was legally unenforceable:
(okay, that last bullet might be reaching a bit. :) )
So, let's review:
Either way, this portion of the discussion hinges on a contract dispute between Apple and the person who uses playfair. It does not, IMHO, involve a DMCA violation. So bringing up the "you agreed to a license" argument to support Apple's actions in quashing the distribution of playfair doesn't wash, in my book.
Whether playfair itself (and the distribution of playfair, in source and/or binary form) violates DMCA is a separate discussion, and could be equally applied to an instance where a FairPlay-encoded song was sold with no license at all (which isn't the case here). That is, playfair's DMCA status should be evaluated in light of whether it violates the anti-circumvention clauses without being ameliorated by the interoperability clauses (somebody shoot me, I'm really talking like a lawyer now!). If someone were to record a song, protect it with FairPlay, and sell it to someone else, as is, with no license attached, would the use of playfair on that file be in violation of DMCA? If so, then Apple's initial Cease
Remember, when you buy something, you accept the sale conditions that the seller (owner or owner's agent) specifies. That's a contract between you and the seller. If that contract involves DRM, well, too bad, but remember, you are not obligated to make the purchase.
Except that in some cases, even those conditions are not enforceable.
Many years ago (early 1900's, I think), book publishers tried to insert conditions on the front page of a book saying that you couldn't resell the book, etc. It was struck down, and thus the "doctrine of first sale" was born. (or something like that, IANAL and my memory isn't what it used to be).
So there might be an argument that these doctrines take precedence over the "agreement" entered into when you first started using iTunes. But nobody's tested it (and probably never will).
This paragraph (Section (f)(2)) seems to explicitly allow applications like playfair, which have a primary use of enabling someone who has legally purchased a song to make use of it on other devices:I'm not addressing the questions of whether the user is legally bound enough by the EULA that they can't *use* playfair, only asking whether, technically, playfair is in fact covered by this clause and therefore not subject to a "DMCA takedown."
If so, then sourceforge should be able to distribute it with no repercussions, and Apple could return to (1) going after people who distribute playfair'd tracks, or (2) going after people in civil court for contract violations pertaining to the EULA.
Of course, if anyone were to call Apple on this (and had the $$ and time to do so), and if Apple were to realize halfway through that they'd lose, then they'd just withdraw their C&D letter, pulling the rug out from under the defendants (who'd lose standing as a result) (yes, pun intended), and so no precedent would be set. Just like happened with the RIAA and, was it, Felten?
What's wrong with Re-branding GPL Software?
:)
It wasn't quite like that. It was much more like "make it look like we wrote this, that it's proprietary, cutting edge, and that nobody else even comes close."
I don't remember all the details any more (this was about 4 or 5 years ago), but everyone I worked with agreed that it was way over the line, and could easily get us sued. Fortunately, when I complained (and got booted from the dev team), nobody else was given the task, and we were able to fail on our own merits.
Not long after having joined a development group, I was given a list of software (mostly open-source security / hacker sort of stuff), and instructed to find a way to "re-brand" the software to imply that we owned it. To make us look better to venture capitalists for a commercial INFOSEC spinoff we were trying to ramp up.
Needless to say, I said no, almost got fired, and eventually fled the sinking ship a year later. They ended up spinning off, failing miserably, and selling for less than the cost of my current house.
My biggest regret is not swiping an Aeron as I left.
What I'd like to see is a simple way to write GarageBand files from perl. It could be used to generate "music" based on a script output (imagine every few songs your streaming mp3 player would play an automtically generated GB song with "pleasant" sounding music when your net's okay, and "discordant" music when something weird's up).
Or, more usefully, for various tablature -> GB conversions.
I know there are some perl-to-MIDI modules, but from what I understand getting those into GarageBand requires additional steps, too, right?
Anyway, I haven't had time to really search for this, so I'm sure that someone else has already come up with a solution. I just thought I'd mention it to see if anyone's got anything cool done along these lines...
Industries formerly regulated by the government, but released to "let the market decide":
Cable TV - rates increased, quality decreased
Airlines - rates increased, quality and choice decreased, most of the "big 6" now rely on government bailouts
I know there are more examples of this, but I can't think of any right now (in my post-lunchtime food coma).
So, anyone got a source for a nice, MPEG-2, digital audio rip of the original-version widescreen laserdiscs?
There's not much worth saving at any of them. It's just a lot of rusted metal and concrete.
Yes, but it's cool rusted metal and concrete.
I've been pad hopping a few times, too, and would love to spend a day or so just going over one or another of the sites in detail. But I'd be afraid of many things -- contamination, twisted rusted metal that could give me a nasty cut, and, of course, snakes and alligators.
It seems to me that major chunks of this tower have already been preserved. I'm not really sure that all the bits in the middle are as important as, say, the gantry they walked across to get into the capsule.
If someone can cheaply clean it up and move it to the visitor center, great, but they'd better not increase the cost of admission any -- that's already the worst bargain around. And I won't even mention how annoyed I was at not being able to visit the Memorial Wall last year after Columbia, without paying the $20 to get into the visitor center. Sure, okay, charge for a museum, but never for a memorial.
For me, this is the "killer app" for digital paper.
On my desktop(s), at various times, I've typically had:
- Current month's calendar
- Clock
- Local weather
- IM buddy list
- three webcams (Rothenberg, Chesapeake Bay, and Skyline Drive -- places I'd rather be than at work)
- Current stock prices for some key stocks
- Department in/out board
- Recent comic strips
But, of course, most of the time I can't *see* any of those, because they're covered up with real work. Sure, I could add a third (or fourth) monitor, but then that screen would just be filled with other windows.If I could have an 11x17, nicely framed piece of color electronic paper on my office wall, then I could move all this slow-update information to that. The information would still be handy, but because of the properties of the display, I wouldn't be tempted to use it as a "live" desktop monitor. Also, having a large space, nicely framed and hung on the wall, would encourage me to pick nice-looking clocks and calendars and stuff, not the ugly windows that stick on the background, so it'd be pleasing as well as informative.
How about it? Please tell me you've been thinking on exactly the same lines. I've been asking for this for THREE YEARS, which is an eternity in the digital marketplace. I'm tired of waiting.
That's not really fair. If you read the article carefully, they "renewed" his account on November 15th, but didn't actually apply the charge to his credit card until December 26th
Absolutely right. It seems that there *is* a grace period after automatic renewal during which a customer can cancel. Microsoft is claiming the renewal happened in November, the original poster claims it happened in December. Since he didn't get *charged* until December, I'd say he's got a case that December was the renewal date, and should be able to get it reversed.
Either way, I'd definitely get the credit card company involved.
Also, if his email account was in fact disabled, then Microsoft will have gotten a bounce indicating that. Certainly, we'd expect that they ignored it, but if Microsoft is asserting that e-mail is a legal, reliable way to inform people of these renewals, then I'd say the bounce is a legal, reliable way to prove that he didn't get the message, therefore he wasn't informed. Hell, it's not like they couldn't get his home address from the credit card company...
Counterfeiting (in any denomination) is a serious crime. One that is punishable by serving jail time in a federal penitentiary.
A sentence that is somewhat reduced from this 1773 Pennsylvania note:
http://www.7cs.com/colonial/1773pa.htm
(Note the "To counterfeit is Death" notice)
Of course, we're still not talking about counterfeiting, we're talking about fair use of the images of currency -- namely, in academic papers, collector's newsletters, rap album covers, who knows what else. All these legitimate uses instantly prohibited by an unregulated and (if it gets deep enough into printers and other equipment) unavoidable system.
Simply, this is a great example of the darker side of DRM.
not quite. if the studios ever threaten again, we have this case to point to as precedence.
Not quite. I haven't R'd the FA yet, but I'm betting the cases were dismissed because the plantiffs "Lacked Standing." That's a legal term for "nobody's done anything wrong to you, so get out of my courtroom."
It's one of the more frustrating aspects of our legal system (to me, anyway) -- the inability to pre-emptively decide issues. Instead, you have to wait until you're actually *sued* for something, and then, if the plantiff drops the suit, you may have to go through it all again in the future the next time they decide to rattle your chain.
(Just like the RIAA and watermarking paper).
Now I'll go read the article to see just how wrong I am....
The initial comments here are focusing on BlueTooth for transfering images, which (personally) I think would be God-awful slow. Though it might be nice to be able to send an automagically-reduced-resolution image over a phone via BlueTooth, on occasion.
:) )
I'd be more interested in BT for other uses -- metadata on pictures, etc.
For example: Snap a picture, your palm (in your shirt pocket) gets a complete record of date, time, exposure info, and a thumbnail. So you can easily review shots with someone else around a nicer display than what your camera has.
Or: Snap a picture, your camera asks your GPS where you are and what you're facing, and the EXIM info gets a very precise record of location, direction, and field of view. So you know EXACTLY what the picture is of. (or at least exactly where it was
Or: Set up your camera on a tripod. Walk inside the picture with the rest of your family. When you're ready, hit a button on your palm (or cell phone) and slide it back into your pocket, then 3 seconds later, the picture gets taken. Want another picture? Just pull the phone back out -- no need to return to the camera to reset a timer. You can even check the thumbnail to see if you even need another shot.
Get the picture? (sorry, couldn't resist.)
We've found that having a bright light on a timer (X10 does nicely) helps, too. There's nothing like having 150 watts of "oh my god turn that off" on your eyes to wake you up. Actually, I think it subtly starts the wakeup process, which completes when the loud alarm goes off a couple minutes later.
:)
Of course, if your wakeup time is after sunrise, this probably won't help much.
You could always rig up a smoke detector buzzer, but that's probably not something you should really get sensitized to....
One thing that's still keeping me from taking the XM plunge is the lack of decent in-dash receivers. Sure, there are plenty of receivers that are "XM Ready" (though they all seem to require an additional $200+ receiver module that I'll have to attach somewhere else in the car). But most of them have only 8- or 16-character displays.
I mean, most cars these days (or so it seems -- all of our last cars at least) have large receiver openings (double-size or so). There's PLENTY of space for a CD / XM receiver with a nice, multi-line display and decent controls. But even the double-DIN receivers from Pioneer still only have 8-character displays. It's crazy.
And I don't even get me started on how most radios these days are just an ugly mess of widgets and doodads with very little thought to function or quality. The best-looking, most functional, radios out there all seem to be original factory radios. And they simply don't have the MP3 / Satellite features.
What I want, basically, is the nice Delphi XM receiver integrated in a double-DIN CD receiver, with aux inputs for my MP3 player, a half-dozen preset buttons, a volume knob, and a tuning / navigation / feature knob. Is that too much to ask? (and, no, I don't want to stick the Delphi receiver somewhere else on my dash -- with my Palm/GPS combo, I've already got more velcro then I'd really like.)
the sacrament of marriage (which by definition can only exist between a man and a woman)
[flame on]
The sacrament of marriage, okay, fine I suppose I can accept that. However, the dispute isn't over sacramental unions, it's over civil unions.
What really gets me about this issue is the right-wing's constant harping about "defense of marriage" (even going so far as to pass a law called the "Defense of Marriage Act." You want to preserve marriage? Outlaw divorce. And start by arresting all the members of congress who've had affairs or divorces.
[/flame off]
Somebody please compress the text of law
i ca ATTHEFIRSTSESSIONBegunandheldattheCityofWashington onTuesday,theseventhdayofJanuary,twothousandandthr eeAnActToregulateinterstatecommercebyimposinglimit ationsandpenaltiesonthetransmissionofunsolicitedco mmercialelectronicmailviatheInternet.Beitenactedby theSenateandHouseofRepresentativesoftheUnitedState sofAmericainCongressassembled,SECTION1.SHORTTITLE. ThisActmaybecitedasthe`ControllingtheAssaultofNon- SolicitedPornographyandMarketi.....
It's not very efficient, but here goes:
OneHundredEighthCongressoftheUnitedStatesofAmer
(oh, like somebody ELSE wasn't going to do that?)
Actually, from what I understand 5.0 is the 2.x engine with the interface controls of 3.x. So it's the best of both worlds.
I've been using a beta of 5.0 for about a month now, and it's very nice. Definitely worth checking out.
The beanie baby example is bad because they were knockoffs whose very existance is illegal.
Actually, most of the instances I'd heard were not knockoffs, but were legal licensed products from overseas. Which just made it all the more galling.