Can we clone him and have the clones run for the rest of the seats in Congress?:)
Fraid not. As large portions of the human genome are patented by biotechnology companies, you'd have to do something funky like splice in reptile DNA or something. And then we'd just be back to standard politicians.
Something else as well: I just saw an advert for the sprint PCS voice-dialling where it's available on any sprint phone. Well, that was avalable a little under two years ago on the Orange network (c.f. Wildfire).
This really is an area where the USA is playing catchup with the rest of the world (along with HDTV)
There's two reasons for the USA to be so far behind. (And it's more than a year. Most of the networks in the UK had 97% population coverage three years ago)
Firstly, the coverage is so poor. Here in Tennessee, digital coverage is a 10-mile radius blob over Nashville itself, some 3-mile thick lines running along the interstates and some small blobs over the larger cities. Now, it's fair to say that the low population density makes it less financially attractive to cover the more rural areas but you have to remember that people buy cellphones so they can be contacted wherever they go. In the UK, it's annoying if you enter a deadspot for a few minutes in a day. Now imagine that it's like that 80% of the time or more in the USA for many people.
Secondly, here in the USA, mobile numbers are real numbers. That means that someone calling a mobile pays a normal rate and the owner of a mobile has to pick up the remaining cost. Most of the rest of the world, it's a higher charge to call a mobile and the owner doesn't pay. This means the owner of the mobile is in charge of their expenses. This is both a deterrent to callers so essential calls only tend to get made (Not your mother talking about her friends dodgy knee) but also insures that if someone calls, you don't have to rudely ask them to stop talking to you as it's costing you too much.
Man, I wish I had some points to mod you up. I have one modem that gets 46k but craps out several times a day when line quality plummets and onother that is stable but never gets a better connect than 31200.
When America broke up the telecomms industry, unfortunately, they didn't manage to get rid of the "don't give a damn about the customer" attitude.
I went to move to ISDN recently and couldn't get the areaplus plan because apparently "It isn't technically possible". Oh, since when is it not technically possible to change billing policies?
IANAL, but as I see it, the question is weather fair use _guarantees_ me the ability to make copies of
my CDs in such a way that the record companies are violating that guarantee. Or is it instead merely the
_freedom_ to make copies of my CDs provided that I have the technological means to do so?
I see where you're coming from. I would say that no, fair use does not guarantee that you have to be given access. However, if there are methods that companies will put in to attempt to prevent copying that would be considered fair use, then people should be quite free to attempt to circumvent those methods. Unfortunately the DMCA puts paid to that. Theoretically anyway.
Once again, I think we have to come back to what the purpose of copyright is. That is to encourage artistic activity and enrichen our culture. Currently, it is being used to generate profits and homogenise and dub down our culture.
Unfortunately, politicians are corrupt bastards so long as the big industry bucks keep rolling in, they aren't going to have any incentive to change.
As I see it, fair use is something that applies to the consumer. I.E. a freedom from prosecution
connected with copying media for personal use. There was no restriction placed on the record
companies, except to keep them from sueing end-users.
I would rather see it as something upon which copyright law does not encroach. The natural state of things is to have the freedom to copy anything at any time. Copyright law is a restriction of that freedom. Fair use is recognising that there are activities where application of the principles of copyright would harm society rather than advance it. And after all, copyright law is all about the advancement of society, right? Right?
OK, I'll give you "Are you being served" (in fact, I'll pay you to take it) but I'll have to sit on the fence with regard to Benny Hill (it actually had some quite subtle moments)
The DMCA (PDF), however villified it is here on Slashdot, was not intended to turn out as it did. Sen.
Hatch's intent was a law that would allow digital copies to be made. The no-circumvention clause that
we're all familiar with was supposed to be a pot sweetener to prod the recording industry into releasing
digital media. Unfortunately, we all know how the law was abused by those it sought to protect.
Sen. Hatch's office has links to a number of letters and opinions regarding his true stance on the issue of
digital media copying. I don't doubt he will bring this issue back up, and as the chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee the old media companies will be in the hot seat for what they have done.
So he was just negligent and stupid rather than malicious?
I mean, he's an elected representative, he asked for the job, he gets paid well. He should do the job that he's paid for and read legislation and understand its implications before he votes for it.
When I was taught to handle a gun, I was told to always treat it as if it was loaded. Legislation is in many ways more dangerous than a gun and should be treated with the approprate respect, not just rubber stamped.
The man is a buffoon. I do hope you're not being an apologist for him. Unfortunately, he's probably in a republican safe seat and will be back in next time.
Rich
(Not that it's much better in the UK. Maggie Thatcher (ex PM) signed over a huge chunk of the UK's sovereignty to Europe without even reading the relevant treaty. She later claimed she regretted it. Well, too fucking late, bitch)
Oh, shut the fuck up you Valley-speak wannabe asshole.
Anyway, ad homniem attacks out of the way, the guy you relied to was responding to the question
Would you like the work of your inspiration to be copied without regard to your rights as the
creator?
i.e. The "rights of the creator" doesn't come into it since those rights have been sold over to the record company anyway. Unless you really believe that the will of the creator is "I wish for the record company to do whatever the hell they want with the music I sweated over including only printing up 10,000 copies and doing absolutely no promotion"
Several years ago, I bought myself a CD player, my CD collection was proceeding apace. Over a year ago, I bought a DVD drive for my computer.
I haven't bought a music CD in over a year, maybe two, a new one in maybe three. I have one (1) DVD (The Matrix, I had to try out the player after all). I just find it impossible to do so, the thought of contributing money to these Jabba-the-Hut like entities just gives me a bad taste in my mouth.
But am I bitter? No. There's music on the radio and the stuff I used to listen to sounds as good today as it ever did. I'm intending to learn the guitar which will be more entertaining than listening to the latest pop pap. Movies come on TV sooner or later and a trip to the theatre isn't as simple when you have a small child anyway.
but the reason I say thank you is that I am on the verge of being debt free and owning the house I live in. The abuse that these companies have dealt out has given me a Pavlovian response against consumerism. I still like nice things, still want goods and services but there's no longer the overpowering compulsion to acquire things that there once was. I am regaining control of my finances.
So yes, I say thank you RIAA and MPAA. May you rot in the grave you've dug for yourself. Bring the music back to the people where it belongs.
Question: Do you live on more than 10 acres of land?
Answer (written): Yes
Answer (mental): Yes (it's called "North America")
Or: (For those that have large amounts of land)
Question: Do you live on more than 10 acres of land?
Answer (written): No
Answer (mental): No, about two square feet at a time. Except when I'm lying down
Does anyone remember The Ropers from Three's
Company
Actually, The English show from which "Threes company" was copied was called "man about the house" and spawned off the really rather successfull "George and Mildred" (Roper of course) and the somewhat less successful "Robin's Nest" (Where the guy shacks up with one of the girls and opens a restaurant).
Of course, differences in humour and the American entertainment industries tendency to dumb things down may have had something to do with it (I mean, "Cybil" is meant to be your version of "absolutely fabulous"?)
You say "You say tomato, I say tomahto", I say "You say tomaytoe, I say tomato".
Rich
Re:one of many ways Verizion frustrates customers
on
The State of Broadband
·
· Score: 2
However, a SLIC will KILL a 56k modem, and DSL is right out. It may be that your local area is just
chock full of SLICs, and the telco would have to run a SPL (shit pot load) of pairs from the CO to
enable DSL
I live in a rural area but I think this is what has happened to me. Every day at around 9-10 am and 530pm, the line quality degrades so much that my external USRobotics modem can't keep the signal and disconnects. As a home worker this pisses me off. Thankfully the 3com PCMCIA card (it is v.90) in my 486 laptop behaves a bit better and connects at a less optimistic speed (~31200) and stays conencted all day.
Unfortunately broadband is out of the question. BellSouth want to get everywhere wired up with ADSL by 2002 (they claim) but currently have no plans to put it in here. Intermedia actually came in a year or two ago and took out all the internet capable cable equpt and swapped it with another county
I can't even get ISDN reasonably. Bellsouth's areaplus plan which makes any of the POPs local is not available with ISDN. The only ISP which has a local pop (valley.net) has not returned any of my numerous calls or e-mails.
Sprint ion isn't here yet (big surprise). I think it's going to have to be Starband but I'm half suspecting that the satellite's going to have an imperfection is its dish so that we can't get it here.
It's exactly like that one comment said in the "bigger banner ads" thread yesterday (hey, what do you know, it was Shoeboy). He said that slashdot was posting it in order to soften us up for changes to the Slashdot revenue system. Looks like he was right
Not so (Score:5, Funny) now eh?
Rich
Re:Sounds like a good idea, but..
on
The Dot in .mars
·
· Score: 2
It sounds nice, but I can't really think of a
practical purpose for it, except for perhaps e-mail...
Or IRC. 8 minutes lag is nothing compared to what you can get on IRC.
Yes, if you are only using 8 or 10 digit numbers. You are going to transmit quite a few digits of Pi, likely enough to see that only the symbols 0-9 are used. Or perhaps you would transmit it in binary, only using 0 and 1. You might even transmit it in several different bases.
Rich
Re:pictures are the key, yes lets use math
on
Anticryptography
·
· Score: 2
It's a lie. Pi is a mathematical concept, not a physical one and is constant under all conceivable conditions (but perhaps not some unconceivable ones)
Yeah except what's to say that they count in base 10? They might count in base 2 or base 87. The value
of PI is "differnet" in base 87.
This is true but if you are using ten symbols to transmit (0-9) then it's a fair bet you're using base 10.
Plus PI is 3.14 in Arabic and III . I IV in roman. They might not understand our numbers.
I don't think the Romans really had the concept of irrational numbers so they really wouldn't have expressed it this way. It would probably have been more like XXII/VII or something.
*sigh*. I hope you're not trolling. Pi is Pi is Pi is Pi anywhere. In non-Euclidian space, it's the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference that changes, not Pi.
Slashdot Mirror
"Rickaaayyy!!!"
Rich
Fraid not. As large portions of the human genome are patented by biotechnology companies, you'd have to do something funky like splice in reptile DNA or something. And then we'd just be back to standard politicians.
And what's worse, they might start breeding.
Rich
This really is an area where the USA is playing catchup with the rest of the world (along with HDTV)
Rich
Firstly, the coverage is so poor. Here in Tennessee, digital coverage is a 10-mile radius blob over Nashville itself, some 3-mile thick lines running along the interstates and some small blobs over the larger cities. Now, it's fair to say that the low population density makes it less financially attractive to cover the more rural areas but you have to remember that people buy cellphones so they can be contacted wherever they go. In the UK, it's annoying if you enter a deadspot for a few minutes in a day. Now imagine that it's like that 80% of the time or more in the USA for many people.
Secondly, here in the USA, mobile numbers are real numbers. That means that someone calling a mobile pays a normal rate and the owner of a mobile has to pick up the remaining cost. Most of the rest of the world, it's a higher charge to call a mobile and the owner doesn't pay. This means the owner of the mobile is in charge of their expenses. This is both a deterrent to callers so essential calls only tend to get made (Not your mother talking about her friends dodgy knee) but also insures that if someone calls, you don't have to rudely ask them to stop talking to you as it's costing you too much.
Rich
When America broke up the telecomms industry, unfortunately, they didn't manage to get rid of the "don't give a damn about the customer" attitude.
I went to move to ISDN recently and couldn't get the areaplus plan because apparently "It isn't technically possible". Oh, since when is it not technically possible to change billing policies?
Rich
o-wor-n-wor-e-wordip
Rich
How about cream of wheat?
Rich
(And yes, I know it was a deliberate transliteration)
I see where you're coming from. I would say that no, fair use does not guarantee that you have to be given access. However, if there are methods that companies will put in to attempt to prevent copying that would be considered fair use, then people should be quite free to attempt to circumvent those methods. Unfortunately the DMCA puts paid to that. Theoretically anyway.
Once again, I think we have to come back to what the purpose of copyright is. That is to encourage artistic activity and enrichen our culture. Currently, it is being used to generate profits and homogenise and dub down our culture.
Unfortunately, politicians are corrupt bastards so long as the big industry bucks keep rolling in, they aren't going to have any incentive to change.
Rich
This must be stopped.
Jeez yeah, I don't know where we'd be supposed to get 0.15c pieces from
Rich
I would rather see it as something upon which copyright law does not encroach. The natural state of things is to have the freedom to copy anything at any time. Copyright law is a restriction of that freedom. Fair use is recognising that there are activities where application of the principles of copyright would harm society rather than advance it. And after all, copyright law is all about the advancement of society, right? Right?
Rich
Rich
Sen. Hatch's office has links to a number of letters and opinions regarding his true stance on the issue of digital media copying. I don't doubt he will bring this issue back up, and as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee the old media companies will be in the hot seat for what they have done.
So he was just negligent and stupid rather than malicious?
I mean, he's an elected representative, he asked for the job, he gets paid well. He should do the job that he's paid for and read legislation and understand its implications before he votes for it.
When I was taught to handle a gun, I was told to always treat it as if it was loaded. Legislation is in many ways more dangerous than a gun and should be treated with the approprate respect, not just rubber stamped.
The man is a buffoon. I do hope you're not being an apologist for him. Unfortunately, he's probably in a republican safe seat and will be back in next time.
Rich
(Not that it's much better in the UK. Maggie Thatcher (ex PM) signed over a huge chunk of the UK's sovereignty to Europe without even reading the relevant treaty. She later claimed she regretted it. Well, too fucking late, bitch)
Oh, shut the fuck up you Valley-speak wannabe asshole.
Anyway, ad homniem attacks out of the way, the guy you relied to was responding to the question
Would you like the work of your inspiration to be copied without regard to your rights as the creator?
i.e. The "rights of the creator" doesn't come into it since those rights have been sold over to the record company anyway. Unless you really believe that the will of the creator is "I wish for the record company to do whatever the hell they want with the music I sweated over including only printing up 10,000 copies and doing absolutely no promotion"
Rich
I haven't bought a music CD in over a year, maybe two, a new one in maybe three. I have one (1) DVD (The Matrix, I had to try out the player after all). I just find it impossible to do so, the thought of contributing money to these Jabba-the-Hut like entities just gives me a bad taste in my mouth.
But am I bitter? No. There's music on the radio and the stuff I used to listen to sounds as good today as it ever did. I'm intending to learn the guitar which will be more entertaining than listening to the latest pop pap. Movies come on TV sooner or later and a trip to the theatre isn't as simple when you have a small child anyway.
but the reason I say thank you is that I am on the verge of being debt free and owning the house I live in. The abuse that these companies have dealt out has given me a Pavlovian response against consumerism. I still like nice things, still want goods and services but there's no longer the overpowering compulsion to acquire things that there once was. I am regaining control of my finances.
So yes, I say thank you RIAA and MPAA. May you rot in the grave you've dug for yourself. Bring the music back to the people where it belongs.
Rich
Answer (written): Yes
Answer (mental): Yes (it's called "North America")
Or: (For those that have large amounts of land)
Question: Do you live on more than 10 acres of land?
Answer (written): No
Answer (mental): No, about two square feet at a time. Except when I'm lying down
Rich
Actually, The English show from which "Threes company" was copied was called "man about the house" and spawned off the really rather successfull "George and Mildred" (Roper of course) and the somewhat less successful "Robin's Nest" (Where the guy shacks up with one of the girls and opens a restaurant).
Of course, differences in humour and the American entertainment industries tendency to dumb things down may have had something to do with it (I mean, "Cybil" is meant to be your version of "absolutely fabulous"?)
Rich
Rich
I live in a rural area but I think this is what has happened to me. Every day at around 9-10 am and 530pm, the line quality degrades so much that my external USRobotics modem can't keep the signal and disconnects. As a home worker this pisses me off. Thankfully the 3com PCMCIA card (it is v.90) in my 486 laptop behaves a bit better and connects at a less optimistic speed (~31200) and stays conencted all day.
Unfortunately broadband is out of the question. BellSouth want to get everywhere wired up with ADSL by 2002 (they claim) but currently have no plans to put it in here. Intermedia actually came in a year or two ago and took out all the internet capable cable equpt and swapped it with another county
I can't even get ISDN reasonably. Bellsouth's areaplus plan which makes any of the POPs local is not available with ISDN. The only ISP which has a local pop (valley.net) has not returned any of my numerous calls or e-mails.
Sprint ion isn't here yet (big surprise). I think it's going to have to be Starband but I'm half suspecting that the satellite's going to have an imperfection is its dish so that we can't get it here.
Rich
a)British
and
b)Too old
Rich
Not so (Score:5, Funny) now eh?
Rich
Or IRC. 8 minutes lag is nothing compared to what you can get on IRC.
Rich
Rich
Rich
This is true but if you are using ten symbols to transmit (0-9) then it's a fair bet you're using base 10.
Plus PI is 3.14 in Arabic and III . I IV in roman. They might not understand our numbers.
I don't think the Romans really had the concept of irrational numbers so they really wouldn't have expressed it this way. It would probably have been more like XXII/VII or something.
Rich
Rich