So they're requesting for comments before it gets publicized as a Request For Comments?
I always thought that was strange myself, but eventually came to the conclusion that it must mean that at one time it had been submitted as a "request for comments" and then, once the comment period has ended it gets tagged with a number and then it's frozen. Once frozen it's only changed by the creation of a new RFC (i.e., no revision possible.) Once you have a copy of an RFC, you'll always have the latest version of it. You just need to keep an eye out for new RFCs that replace it.
Am I the only person who has a problem with the concept of artificial elements?
I think defining an element as something that "cannot be reduced to simpler substances by normal chemical means," is awfully convenient and runs contrary to a more simple definition: "A fundamental, essential, or irreducible constituent of a composite entity."
I think that cramming more protons into a nucleus and calling it a new "element" (yes I know this is over-simplified) is a bit of a logical stretch. No wonder people who were not brought up speaking English have such a problem learning it when we have contradictory definitions for the same word based on context.
Hate to break this to you Michael, but as you reported the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is closed. It's a shame really, because that quote's a shoe-in for the science-fiction category.
The sentence could be improved with the following, however:
... ", these features allow the users the freedom to innovate with a fresh lemon, or other user-configurable, scent."
Officer: Why did you shoot your friend in the back with that arrow?
Og: He was wearing his deer skin. Before I realized it was him, the bow just went off.
Officer: Well, we could haul him down the mountain, but let's just leave him there. That way when he's found people can speculate wildly about what happened.
I wish my laptop could withstand that kind of abuse. I given the occasional computer a well-placed whack (usually to quiet down a fan I couldn't immediately attend to), but I can't imagine throwing my laptop to the floor as a demonstration. Are we taking a step backwards settling for these high-resoluton LCD models?
Well, thanks for the info. While I didn't wildly speculate, I may have relied too much on the popular press on this issue.
I would point out though that the site you linked to says very little in concrete terms without a paid subscription. What it does say, for example:
The new "Patent Law" was promulgated in the year 2000 and will come into force on 1st July, 2001.
suggests that this is relatively new for them. Can you be certain even if they've ratified treaties and passed associated laws that they actually intend to enforce them, given they're ideology. There are plenty of uninforced laws on the books, even in the US. When was the last time you heard of anyone getting a ticket for J walking, for example.
My point is, even if they have recently enacted laws, so what.
Yes, I was thinking about 1936 as well. Hopefully, we'll have the balls to pull a 1980 style boycott of the games. It may not have done anything to get the Russians out of Afganistan, but it was mighty embarrassing.
If the US doesn't officially boycott, we should as individual citizens, encourage everyone we know to not watch the television coverage and boycott anyone who advertises during/sponsors it.
For that matter, I do not think they have any IP laws at all.
I believe you're right. IP laws != socialism/communism. To have IP you first have to have property. Although, on the other hand, there are many reforms toward a more market economy to attract foreign business, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're enforcing a basic concept of IP even if they don't have laws for it (or know what it means.)
NYT News: "Cyberterrorists Attack White House During G8 Summit"
NYT Ed: "Tougher Punishment Needed For Hackers"
WP News: "Microsoft To De-worm Servers"
WP Ed: "America Needs To Prepare For E-Terrorism"
with a label on the front of the package in a 1/4' font.
Heh. Did you mean one-quarter foot as in 3 inches high. That would be great. Of course it would take both sides of the CD to write "Warning: Copy Protected";)
Does this mean that if you play your CD (analogfully) into an audio in to your computer/mp3-making device, the copy protection is 100% defeated?
Everything I've read says that they do conceed that once it becomes analog, there's nothing they can really do about it. Of course, once it's analog it has degraded slightly, so making bootleg CDs and MP3 files from the analog signal may not be good enough quality to pass for the real thing if you were trying to pirate it.
Also, it's kind of a pain to make the conversion by comparison to simply popping the CD into the drive and copying the data.
There are no increase in returns therefore they seem to be inferring that the change is inaudable
I should point out that they did first pass samples by people who listen to music for a living, so called "golden ears," who couldn't detect it either.
Apparently the main defense is take out tiny portions of the music. Small enough that CD player error correction will accomodate, but a direct data transfer will turn into bursts of gibberish.
This secret release is their way of making sure that the CDs aren't returned simply because people know about the copy protection.
I don't agree with what they're doing. Not because I think they can't legally do it (of course they can,) but rather it's a problem with what it represents. They're actually changing the music as part of the protection. To paraphrase a critic from another article, it would like cutting gashes in priceless paintings to keep them from being stolen.
Want your ad to show up every time 'linux' is one of the keywords, here's your estimate according to: Google's AdWords Preview
6,622,100 impressions
Estimated cost per month: US$99,331.50
My guess would be that the price is why you get none. Add a second keyword, like 'server' and it drops precipitously (probably still more than VA can afford):
118,000 impressions
Estimated cost per month: US$1,770.00
It's a bit pricy per impression, but with a little trial and error, you can be really specific about the impressions you get. For example, here's the stats for both 'linux' and 'Torvalds' in case you want to really target that biography you just wrote:
2,100 impressions
Estimated cost per month: US$31.50
No, I don't work for Google, just played with this thing a lot while writing META tags...
Why I always sound like a dork on answering machines
You hear your voice directly from inside your head as the sound reaches your ears via the eustachian tubes that go from the throat up to the back of the ear drum. When you listen to any recording of your voice, it will not be what your used to hearing when you speak.
The DOJ went around and asked major computer companies if they would want to take ownership of Windows as part of a proposed anti-trust settlement. Not a single company volunteered to take Windows for free.
I don't think it is necessary for other companies to take Microsoft's place as distributors of Windows. What needs to occur is that they simply have the coypright taken away via eminent domain. They'll still keep all the customers as it's unlikely that anyone else will want to try distributing it; but they'll be unable to do much in the way of restrictive terms in any kind of license agreement. Also, if the copyright is public, so is the source, giving application developers the full API to code to instead of just the disclosed one.
Whoa, slow down...taking away one of a company's main products and making it public against their wishes is wrong on so many levels.
I think maybe I wasn't clear enough. There is plenty of legal precedence for the government to seize property in the name of the greater good. The concept is called eminent domain. Usually the party has to be fairly compensated for it.
I'm not suggesting the Windows be taken away from Microsoft. I'm saying the copyright should be. It's unlikely that anyone else would want to compete with Microsoft as a distributor of Windows so they'd still retain the customer base. The differencte is that if they don't own the copyright, there's very little they can do in the way of restrictive/absurd licensing terms. And, if we own the copyright, we get the source, so application developers can code to the full API instead of the disclosed one.
As a capitalist kinda guy, I don't mind a company leveraging their strengths.
I agree with you; and for the most part, as Microsoft is fond of saying, healthy competition creates innovation. However, as much as that's a good thing about free (as in unregulated) markets, it's also the bad thing.
We need a mechanism to congratulate the winner and move on. Microsoft has had near total control of the desktop almost since the term was coined. Microsoft doesn't need to be punished for playing the game well. We just need to recognize the win and start a new game.
I think that when you get to the point of having near-total control, there needs to be action on the part of the government to re-level the playing field, perhaps even compensating the winner if they got there lawfully.
Breaking up Microsoft wouldn't have worked. The reason is simple, and that is that there would still be a single corporate entity in control of the OS Intellectual Property. I think the correct solution would be for the government to invoke emminent domain on the OS. Make Windows public property. Then if Microsoft wants a closed source OS, they'll need to build a new one from scratch.
It is their offensive licensing that gives them their power. Make the OS public and *poof*, they're no longer in control.
I hate pedantic people too, but this one I can't help. If you want an amendment to the constitution for this, you'll be waiting like 10 years if you go back to 1780. The consitution wasn't ratified until 1788-89.
I'm with you though. You could even call it the "Right to Share Personal Property" Amendment. Of course, you'd still have to establish that your copy of someone elses copywritten material is your property, but I digress...
Look at it this way -- MSIE's dominance only really started when Netscape 4.x started to lag behind.
According to this dataquest press release, Microsoft had already captured 39% of the market when NN4 was being released.
Let my explain my perspective with an analogy: Mr. Netscape decides to take a short cut through an alley in the middle of the night. Out from the shadows, comes Mr. Microsoft, who stabs (bundles browser with OS) Netscape, takes his wallet (gives away the browser and pays others to do likewise), and leaves him for dead. Bleeding but still alive, Netscape stumbles out of the alley and turns south looking for help, eventually he collapses, and dies, on the door step of Mr AOL who revives him as an undead zombie. Mr AOL hides Netscape in his basement because he has an agreement with Microsoft not to show him to anyone, not even his closest friends (their subscribers.)
Now, was Netscape stupid to go down that alley? Sure. Could he have done a better job of defending himself against the knife weilding attacker? Sure. If he wasn't in shock and new first aid, could he have lived? Perhaps. Does his failure to do any of these things adequately make it his fault that he was knifed and robbed? No.
Another thing to consider is that had Netscape been more successful in fighting off Microsoft, something the court says would have been difficult given Microsoft's unfair dealings, it would mitigate much of any claims of damages Netscape could now sue for as a result of those judgements.
Slashdot Mirror
So they're requesting for comments before it gets publicized as a Request For Comments?
I always thought that was strange myself, but eventually came to the conclusion that it must mean that at one time it had been submitted as a "request for comments" and then, once the comment period has ended it gets tagged with a number and then it's frozen. Once frozen it's only changed by the creation of a new RFC (i.e., no revision possible.) Once you have a copy of an RFC, you'll always have the latest version of it. You just need to keep an eye out for new RFCs that replace it.
Am I the only person who has a problem with the concept of artificial elements?
I think defining an element as something that "cannot be reduced to simpler substances by normal chemical means," is awfully convenient and runs contrary to a more simple definition: "A fundamental, essential, or irreducible constituent of a composite entity."
I think that cramming more protons into a nucleus and calling it a new "element" (yes I know this is over-simplified) is a bit of a logical stretch. No wonder people who were not brought up speaking English have such a problem learning it when we have contradictory definitions for the same word based on context.
Hate to break this to you Michael, but as you reported the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is closed. It's a shame really, because that quote's a shoe-in for the science-fiction category.
... ", these features allow the users the freedom to innovate with a fresh lemon, or other user-configurable, scent."
The sentence could be improved with the following, however:
And how does congress fit into all this?
It's government's role to screw people. They don't want the competition.
They couldn't get anywhere near that detailed in the OJ Simpson case
Left to the same investigators as the Simpson case, this would almost assuredly be ruled a suicide.
I sort of feel sorry for the officer assigned to this case.
It was obviously a conspiracy involving everyone who was alive at the time. The only solution is to sentence them all to death. Oh, wait...
Nothing like a pre-historic hunting accident:
Officer: Why did you shoot your friend in the back with that arrow?
Og: He was wearing his deer skin. Before I realized it was him, the bow just went off.
Officer: Well, we could haul him down the mountain, but let's just leave him there. That way when he's found people can speculate wildly about what happened.
I wish my laptop could withstand that kind of abuse. I given the occasional computer a well-placed whack (usually to quiet down a fan I couldn't immediately attend to), but I can't imagine throwing my laptop to the floor as a demonstration. Are we taking a step backwards settling for these high-resoluton LCD models?
Well, thanks for the info. While I didn't wildly speculate, I may have relied too much on the popular press on this issue.
I would point out though that the site you linked to says very little in concrete terms without a paid subscription. What it does say, for example:
The new "Patent Law" was promulgated in the year 2000 and will come into force on 1st July, 2001.
suggests that this is relatively new for them. Can you be certain even if they've ratified treaties and passed associated laws that they actually intend to enforce them, given they're ideology. There are plenty of uninforced laws on the books, even in the US. When was the last time you heard of anyone getting a ticket for J walking, for example.
My point is, even if they have recently enacted laws, so what.
Yes, I was thinking about 1936 as well. Hopefully, we'll have the balls to pull a 1980 style boycott of the games. It may not have done anything to get the Russians out of Afganistan, but it was mighty embarrassing.
If the US doesn't officially boycott, we should as individual citizens, encourage everyone we know to not watch the television coverage and boycott anyone who advertises during/sponsors it.
For that matter, I do not think they have any IP laws at all.
I believe you're right. IP laws != socialism/communism. To have IP you first have to have property. Although, on the other hand, there are many reforms toward a more market economy to attract foreign business, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're enforcing a basic concept of IP even if they don't have laws for it (or know what it means.)
The third movie takes place on a DIFFERENT island than the first.
Yes, but it takes place on the SAME island as the second. Hope that helps.
Have you flamed SpanishInquisition today?
;)
That was unexpected
NYT News: "Cyberterrorists Attack White House During G8 Summit"
NYT Ed: "Tougher Punishment Needed For Hackers"
WP News: "Microsoft To De-worm Servers"
WP Ed: "America Needs To Prepare For E-Terrorism"
with a label on the front of the package in a 1/4' font.
;)
Heh. Did you mean one-quarter foot as in 3 inches high. That would be great. Of course it would take both sides of the CD to write "Warning: Copy Protected"
Does this mean that if you play your CD (analogfully) into an audio in to your computer/mp3-making device, the copy protection is 100% defeated?
Everything I've read says that they do conceed that once it becomes analog, there's nothing they can really do about it. Of course, once it's analog it has degraded slightly, so making bootleg CDs and MP3 files from the analog signal may not be good enough quality to pass for the real thing if you were trying to pirate it.
Also, it's kind of a pain to make the conversion by comparison to simply popping the CD into the drive and copying the data.
There are no increase in returns therefore they seem to be inferring that the change is inaudable
I should point out that they did first pass samples by people who listen to music for a living, so called "golden ears," who couldn't detect it either.
Apparently the main defense is take out tiny portions of the music. Small enough that CD player error correction will accomodate, but a direct data transfer will turn into bursts of gibberish.
This secret release is their way of making sure that the CDs aren't returned simply because people know about the copy protection.
I don't agree with what they're doing. Not because I think they can't legally do it (of course they can,) but rather it's a problem with what it represents. They're actually changing the music as part of the protection. To paraphrase a critic from another article, it would like cutting gashes in priceless paintings to keep them from being stolen.
Nice ad for you weblog dufus!
Want your ad to show up every time 'linux' is one of the keywords, here's your estimate according to: Google's AdWords Preview My guess would be that the price is why you get none. Add a second keyword, like 'server' and it drops precipitously (probably still more than VA can afford): It's a bit pricy per impression, but with a little trial and error, you can be really specific about the impressions you get. For example, here's the stats for both 'linux' and 'Torvalds' in case you want to really target that biography you just wrote:
No, I don't work for Google, just played with this thing a lot while writing META tags...
Why I always sound like a dork on answering machines
You hear your voice directly from inside your head as the sound reaches your ears via the eustachian tubes that go from the throat up to the back of the ear drum. When you listen to any recording of your voice, it will not be what your used to hearing when you speak.
The DOJ went around and asked major computer companies if they would want to take ownership of Windows as part of a proposed anti-trust settlement. Not a single company volunteered to take Windows for free.
I don't think it is necessary for other companies to take Microsoft's place as distributors of Windows. What needs to occur is that they simply have the coypright taken away via eminent domain. They'll still keep all the customers as it's unlikely that anyone else will want to try distributing it; but they'll be unable to do much in the way of restrictive terms in any kind of license agreement. Also, if the copyright is public, so is the source, giving application developers the full API to code to instead of just the disclosed one.
Whoa, slow down...taking away one of a company's main products and making it public against their wishes is wrong on so many levels.
I think maybe I wasn't clear enough. There is plenty of legal precedence for the government to seize property in the name of the greater good. The concept is called eminent domain. Usually the party has to be fairly compensated for it.
I'm not suggesting the Windows be taken away from Microsoft. I'm saying the copyright should be. It's unlikely that anyone else would want to compete with Microsoft as a distributor of Windows so they'd still retain the customer base. The differencte is that if they don't own the copyright, there's very little they can do in the way of restrictive/absurd licensing terms. And, if we own the copyright, we get the source, so application developers can code to the full API instead of the disclosed one.
As a capitalist kinda guy, I don't mind a company leveraging their strengths.
I agree with you; and for the most part, as Microsoft is fond of saying, healthy competition creates innovation. However, as much as that's a good thing about free (as in unregulated) markets, it's also the bad thing.
We need a mechanism to congratulate the winner and move on. Microsoft has had near total control of the desktop almost since the term was coined. Microsoft doesn't need to be punished for playing the game well. We just need to recognize the win and start a new game.
I think that when you get to the point of having near-total control, there needs to be action on the part of the government to re-level the playing field, perhaps even compensating the winner if they got there lawfully.
Breaking up Microsoft wouldn't have worked. The reason is simple, and that is that there would still be a single corporate entity in control of the OS Intellectual Property. I think the correct solution would be for the government to invoke emminent domain on the OS. Make Windows public property. Then if Microsoft wants a closed source OS, they'll need to build a new one from scratch.
It is their offensive licensing that gives them their power. Make the OS public and *poof*, they're no longer in control.
I hate pedantic people too, but this one I can't help. If you want an amendment to the constitution for this, you'll be waiting like 10 years if you go back to 1780. The consitution wasn't ratified until 1788-89.
I'm with you though. You could even call it the "Right to Share Personal Property" Amendment. Of course, you'd still have to establish that your copy of someone elses copywritten material is your property, but I digress...
Look at it this way -- MSIE's dominance only really started when Netscape 4.x started to lag behind.
According to this dataquest press release, Microsoft had already captured 39% of the market when NN4 was being released.
Let my explain my perspective with an analogy: Mr. Netscape decides to take a short cut through an alley in the middle of the night. Out from the shadows, comes Mr. Microsoft, who stabs (bundles browser with OS) Netscape, takes his wallet (gives away the browser and pays others to do likewise), and leaves him for dead. Bleeding but still alive, Netscape stumbles out of the alley and turns south looking for help, eventually he collapses, and dies, on the door step of Mr AOL who revives him as an undead zombie. Mr AOL hides Netscape in his basement because he has an agreement with Microsoft not to show him to anyone, not even his closest friends (their subscribers.)
Now, was Netscape stupid to go down that alley? Sure. Could he have done a better job of defending himself against the knife weilding attacker? Sure. If he wasn't in shock and new first aid, could he have lived? Perhaps. Does his failure to do any of these things adequately make it his fault that he was knifed and robbed? No.
Another thing to consider is that had Netscape been more successful in fighting off Microsoft, something the court says would have been difficult given Microsoft's unfair dealings, it would mitigate much of any claims of damages Netscape could now sue for as a result of those judgements.