If you are going to have traffic shaping it should be up to the customer which of thier traffic they want to pay high priority prices for and which of thier traffic they want to send on the slack capacity, not based on a value judgement of thier content by the local monopoly/duopoly communication providers.
While I agree in principle with this statement, it falls down in practice due to the fact that the internet's value comes not only from having your traffic prioritized the way that you want it but also by having the people with whom you're communicating having speedy connections as well. If they aren't configured exactly the way that you want them to be, then your connection with suffer as well if you're both being shaped by different priorities. The only way to maximize the speed/value equation is to build out enough bandwidth that prioritization becomes a marginal factor. Most of us here know how cheaply that can be done and therefore don't feel that we need to resort to tiered plans/individual prioritizations to get what we've already paid our tax dollars to get anyway. Remember, that 100Mbs plan from Verizon costs them the exact same amount to deliver as their 40Mbs plan does. People are already paying for higher max theoretical bandwidth, I see no reason other than corporate greed as to why we should pay again to have our packets delivered in a timely fashion no matter what tier we're on.
Uh, I think the point is that you can go to war with those weapons. The Constitution was designed so that the people always had the option of bloody, bloody revolution. I wasn't there, so I don't know for certain what the founding father's were thinking, but I'll guess that they left this option in so that the legislators would have reason for pause when considering draconian laws.
Yeah, I'll never meet my great-great-great-great grandkids either, so It's kind of stupid to plan that far into the future... I mean, what's the benefit to me?
How is it wrong to teach our children, using this example and others, that there is always at least one other opinion on a certain matter?
It isn't wrong to teach this...in a comparative religion or philosophy course. Science is about observable facts and facts are therefore what should be taught in science classes. I'm all for teaching any and all religions in a religion or philosophy class though.
They're your device. However, the warrantee doesn't cover the complete range of what you could possibly do with it. I see three main aspects to this. First is that if you want better warrantee coverage then you better start lobbying your legislators. No company is going to greatly exceed minimum requirements for meeting regulated "suitability for purpose" unless there's a great market impetus, and I don't see one here. Second, people try to get what they don't deserve. Whether you think that in this case it's Apple trying to get absolute assurances that you're not baking your iPod Touch to dry it after dropping it in the commode, or the consumer trying to get coverage after dropping it into said commode is up to you. Both parties do these kinds of things; setting the limits of what each party can do is for the public to decide with both laws and by determining the social norms (I think that Apple's going a bit to far, but then again they're doing it because people try to scam them. I'd love to be able to call bullshit on some customer's but without solid proof it's, well, hard to prove sometimes.) Third, what's the real benefit here for Apple? Are there really that many fraudulent warrantee claims that they will actually make money after the cost of installing these devices? On a $2k+ laptop, I can see the margin. On a $200 iPod? The cost of these devices would have to be quite marginal in order for this to make more sense than just trying to use judgment when issuing warrantee service. Is there really a business case for this, or is it just to have the patent?
IANAL but I believe that it's illegal in the U.S. under the DMCA to transfer instructions for circumventing devices whose stated purpose is to "protect" copyright. So, if those books of which you speak show how to hack around the copy-protection circuitry then they are illegal (~no, not censorship though!~). That's why so many people used the DeCSS key as their sig a while back- to flaunt that provision of the law. Regardless, I agree that the possible sentence is way out of line for the crime. It's the wacked-out-ed-ness of so many laws that makes is so hard for so many to respect any of them.
Nah,just that the new "hip" is to look like you're being tight with your money, "oh, look at me forgoing my Gucci for Eddie Bauer". It's actually the perfect time for Microsoft to open stores... nothing says that you're cheap and shows that you're stupid like buying a windows laptop *rimshot*. And remember, just because your investment income doesn't match your $300K salary right now doesn't mean that you're poor.
A lot of ISPs in the U.S.A. are media giants first and ISPs second. Most connections above 56kbps are provided by ISPs who own movie, music, or telecom rights and do not for one minute think that they are above traffic shaping and lawsuits to direct you away from IP activities that compete with their other products; think VOIP limiting, lawsuit threats against downloading of products which they offer but not against those that only their competitor's offer, and other fun stuff. I know one person who downoaded literally TBs of movies, music, pictures and other copyrighted works without his ISP blinking; then he downloaded one pay-per-view event that his TV-Cable-Company-First -ISP had produced and he got a cease and desist specifically mentioning that video within a week. These companies look at being an ISP more as having their customer's pay to keep their network running to deliver their other products than as providing a service. Other ISPs who realize that that's where the money is want to play nice and they hope to get in on the game.
If you take away that revenue from Prometheus, what motive do they or other labs have to continue this kind of research?
I know that you're trolling since you're purposefully misunderstanding arguments to keep this thread going, but you make a very good argument for the socialization of this type of research. If a company cannot make a profit without patenting an idea rather than a unique technology, but society finds these ideas useful, then it's time for the NIH to be funded publicly to do this research. Of course, both arguments are predicated on the misconception you're promulgating that this wasn't already a known methodology for testing all sorts of crap in our bodies.
Uh, that sounds like a pretty good idea if you get your money back too and agree in advance to those terms. It compensates you for the product you bought and it gives you a readable copy of the material to compensate for the lost ability to read the book. But taking the e-book away without asking if the deal is acceptable? No. At best what Amazon is doing is like a friend who's been given a key to your house coming in, taking books, and leaving what they think the book is worth on the table. Unless they're reaaaaally good friends, you'd probably call the cops, or at least not be friends anymore. I don't care if Amazon didn't have the right to sell you the license. They did, so they distributed without a license, and we can even prove distribution in this case as there're credit card records. Amazon should have to pay the publisher at least $80,000 per copy. Then they should have to foot the publisher's bill to sue each individual who bought a license from Amazon to make them all relinquish their copies. That's what the courts have determined is fair, so apply it equally thank you very much.
Well, heck, if one song is worth $80,000 if distributed without proper licensing, then Amazon should owe each person well in excess of that as market value of the book they deleted from the Kindle.
Buy "FSC", "SFI", "PEFC" or "Green Edition" books. It guarantees that the forests were managed correctly and that the corrugated was recycled humanely.
I have to disagree in this case. The amount effort that went into the photo deserves some recognition. OTOH, if people aren't allowed to take non-flash photography of these pictures while in the gallery, then there might be an argument that such photography must either be allowed or that the photos in in the article must be put into the public domain in order to compensate for the "control" being placed by not allowing photographs of out-of-copyright works.
Case in point, in Paris I was able to take a great picture of one of Van Gogh's famous 'blue' self protraits. As such, I wouldn't dream of copying the museum's reproductions which you can buy in the gift shop. However, if they didn't allow me to photograph the painting, then I'd feel little compunction about making a copy of their photograph. This isn't a legal opinion, just my 2 as to what's morally right.
I've never ever seen one of their cars before so I work everything out for myself.
Nice straw man argument. The research is supposed to come first, that way you actually invent instead of re-invent and that actually does inspire innovation. BTW, that's also why people around here feel that only things should be patentable...it's hard to work around a patent that tells you how to do something, but some neat shit can come out of re-engineering variably-timed injectors.
Your post was cogent, entertaining, informative, and it had a duck! And me without any mod points... it's like the credit card thread under this topic. It's linked to you as a person, but doesn't identify you. I've been able to have fraudulent charges reversed due to this. When I purchase things in real life I have "see ID" written on my card instead of my signature, that way it puts the onus on the merchant to ask for a drivers license which does identify me rather than relying on the card which simply means that I'm a guy with a piece of plastic in my wallet. It's splitting hairs to separate "identifying" from "personally identifying", but that's what the law's mostly about these days anyway, right?
Try your comment again without the "shill" dig leading it off, eh? Then re-read my comment. I'd applaud anyone who can do texts well, but I've never seen one done well that doesn't cost a ton of money to produce and that money needs to come from somewhere. If you don't like how "local administrations philosophies" require many multiple versions of texts, then vote, get on school boards or show up to school board meetings, and make yourself heard. In the mean time, there's a market for high-quality texts and someone is going to fill it. If you can show me a model that gives the quality that we have in current texts from publishers like Cengage, Houghton-Mifflin, and Pearson Learning for free or substantially lower cost then I'll stand corrected. Until you can do that, or create it yourself, then you're just dreaming out loud. (BTW, I'm sorry if you're out of work as your post implied, but you don't earn a living by dreaming, you do it by making dreams reality)
As for the degree? Go to a library, learn what you need, then start the business of your dreams. Bill Gates has no earned degree. A degree is a shortcut into the system. It says that you agree to pay thousands to get the education that the system wants, that you'll have a certain set of desired skills, and that, essentially, you'll play by their rules. In return you get hired first, get business loans first, and have some hope (but not much) of reaching the top slowly by playing the game. Texts are just one part of that system. If you don't like it, then fix it, change it (eg. drop out of the system), or STFU. I'm just sick of reading posts about how easy it is to do something, and how someone should do it, and never seeing these whiners produce.
Disclaimer: I have that degree, and I work every day to bring down the cost of texts (no, not in a publishing house). If you can do it better than me, go ahead. I welcome competition, but have yet to see any from Open Source Text projects.
It is entirely acceptable for a textbook project. However, it's essentially the same model as we have now, i.e. professional gatekeepers. The money just comes from different sources. I applaud the people who do this well, it's just not the model that appeared to be under discussion until you brought it up; I also caution that "free" isn't. The money always comes from somewhere, it's good to have transparency regarding funding. Note that I'm not arguing against a well run OSS type text, merely cautioning that while it can be done well, it's not as simple a proposition as some would make it seem.
open-source textbook market where academia would be free to create and modify textbooks. These textbooks would cost nothing.
This is one of those few times when the mod system has failed. We already have a free, open source, modifiable text for every topic. It's called Wikipedia and it's the living embodiment of why we have professional, accountable, paid editors for text books. Editions can be viewed as a scam, or they can be viewed as the one tool professional publishers have to continue to generate money to pay for more quality products. If it was mandatory to go to college and buy texts I might be a bit more sympathetic, but its ones own choice to participate in the system. I really think that this is one of those cases where if you think that you can do it better, then put up or, well, you know...
You could be right, I'm extrapolating from experience, not using a crystal ball. I'm just not encouraged by that fact that iTunes songs used to be 99 across the board and run $1.29 (for the vast majority of songs) now that digital downloads are so popular, and CDs still out numbered downloads 2 to 1 in 2008. In fact, you could be very right and publishers will charge less on average per book; of course even that could have the consequence of lower pay to authors, which might result in more crap and less quality (like, in my opinion, has happened in music, and is already happening in publishing as it is). I hope that your optimism is justified, but the cynic in me has a hard time trusting that things are going to get better before they get a lot worse.
Just remember "To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it", and if you believe that you can see everything clearly 100% of the time, you're really just fooling yourself.
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While I agree in principle with this statement, it falls down in practice due to the fact that the internet's value comes not only from having your traffic prioritized the way that you want it but also by having the people with whom you're communicating having speedy connections as well. If they aren't configured exactly the way that you want them to be, then your connection with suffer as well if you're both being shaped by different priorities. The only way to maximize the speed/value equation is to build out enough bandwidth that prioritization becomes a marginal factor. Most of us here know how cheaply that can be done and therefore don't feel that we need to resort to tiered plans/individual prioritizations to get what we've already paid our tax dollars to get anyway. Remember, that 100Mbs plan from Verizon costs them the exact same amount to deliver as their 40Mbs plan does. People are already paying for higher max theoretical bandwidth, I see no reason other than corporate greed as to why we should pay again to have our packets delivered in a timely fashion no matter what tier we're on.
Uh, I think the point is that you can go to war with those weapons. The Constitution was designed so that the people always had the option of bloody, bloody revolution. I wasn't there, so I don't know for certain what the founding father's were thinking, but I'll guess that they left this option in so that the legislators would have reason for pause when considering draconian laws.
Yeah, I'll never meet my great-great-great-great grandkids either, so It's kind of stupid to plan that far into the future... I mean, what's the benefit to me?
Or did I misunderstand your argument?
It isn't wrong to teach this...in a comparative religion or philosophy course. Science is about observable facts and facts are therefore what should be taught in science classes. I'm all for teaching any and all religions in a religion or philosophy class though.
It may be the faustian deal they've made with AT&T...
They're your device. However, the warrantee doesn't cover the complete range of what you could possibly do with it. I see three main aspects to this. First is that if you want better warrantee coverage then you better start lobbying your legislators. No company is going to greatly exceed minimum requirements for meeting regulated "suitability for purpose" unless there's a great market impetus, and I don't see one here. Second, people try to get what they don't deserve. Whether you think that in this case it's Apple trying to get absolute assurances that you're not baking your iPod Touch to dry it after dropping it in the commode, or the consumer trying to get coverage after dropping it into said commode is up to you. Both parties do these kinds of things; setting the limits of what each party can do is for the public to decide with both laws and by determining the social norms (I think that Apple's going a bit to far, but then again they're doing it because people try to scam them. I'd love to be able to call bullshit on some customer's but without solid proof it's, well, hard to prove sometimes.) Third, what's the real benefit here for Apple? Are there really that many fraudulent warrantee claims that they will actually make money after the cost of installing these devices? On a $2k+ laptop, I can see the margin. On a $200 iPod? The cost of these devices would have to be quite marginal in order for this to make more sense than just trying to use judgment when issuing warrantee service. Is there really a business case for this, or is it just to have the patent?
IANAL but I believe that it's illegal in the U.S. under the DMCA to transfer instructions for circumventing devices whose stated purpose is to "protect" copyright. So, if those books of which you speak show how to hack around the copy-protection circuitry then they are illegal (~no, not censorship though!~). That's why so many people used the DeCSS key as their sig a while back- to flaunt that provision of the law. Regardless, I agree that the possible sentence is way out of line for the crime. It's the wacked-out-ed-ness of so many laws that makes is so hard for so many to respect any of them.
Nah,just that the new "hip" is to look like you're being tight with your money, "oh, look at me forgoing my Gucci for Eddie Bauer". It's actually the perfect time for Microsoft to open stores... nothing says that you're cheap and shows that you're stupid like buying a windows laptop *rimshot*. And remember, just because your investment income doesn't match your $300K salary right now doesn't mean that you're poor.
A lot of ISPs in the U.S.A. are media giants first and ISPs second. Most connections above 56kbps are provided by ISPs who own movie, music, or telecom rights and do not for one minute think that they are above traffic shaping and lawsuits to direct you away from IP activities that compete with their other products; think VOIP limiting, lawsuit threats against downloading of products which they offer but not against those that only their competitor's offer, and other fun stuff. I know one person who downoaded literally TBs of movies, music, pictures and other copyrighted works without his ISP blinking; then he downloaded one pay-per-view event that his TV-Cable-Company-First -ISP had produced and he got a cease and desist specifically mentioning that video within a week. These companies look at being an ISP more as having their customer's pay to keep their network running to deliver their other products than as providing a service. Other ISPs who realize that that's where the money is want to play nice and they hope to get in on the game.
I know that you're trolling since you're purposefully misunderstanding arguments to keep this thread going, but you make a very good argument for the socialization of this type of research. If a company cannot make a profit without patenting an idea rather than a unique technology, but society finds these ideas useful, then it's time for the NIH to be funded publicly to do this research. Of course, both arguments are predicated on the misconception you're promulgating that this wasn't already a known methodology for testing all sorts of crap in our bodies.
You're right, I like your analogy better. I do hope that this comes before a judge to find out what the legal system does with this.
Yup, that's where the $ amount comes from. What's good for the goose...
Uh, that sounds like a pretty good idea if you get your money back too and agree in advance to those terms. It compensates you for the product you bought and it gives you a readable copy of the material to compensate for the lost ability to read the book. But taking the e-book away without asking if the deal is acceptable? No. At best what Amazon is doing is like a friend who's been given a key to your house coming in, taking books, and leaving what they think the book is worth on the table. Unless they're reaaaaally good friends, you'd probably call the cops, or at least not be friends anymore. I don't care if Amazon didn't have the right to sell you the license. They did, so they distributed without a license, and we can even prove distribution in this case as there're credit card records. Amazon should have to pay the publisher at least $80,000 per copy. Then they should have to foot the publisher's bill to sue each individual who bought a license from Amazon to make them all relinquish their copies. That's what the courts have determined is fair, so apply it equally thank you very much.
Well, heck, if one song is worth $80,000 if distributed without proper licensing, then Amazon should owe each person well in excess of that as market value of the book they deleted from the Kindle.
Buy "FSC", "SFI", "PEFC" or "Green Edition" books. It guarantees that the forests were managed correctly and that the corrugated was recycled humanely.
I have to disagree in this case. The amount effort that went into the photo deserves some recognition. OTOH, if people aren't allowed to take non-flash photography of these pictures while in the gallery, then there might be an argument that such photography must either be allowed or that the photos in in the article must be put into the public domain in order to compensate for the "control" being placed by not allowing photographs of out-of-copyright works.
Case in point, in Paris I was able to take a great picture of one of Van Gogh's famous 'blue' self protraits. As such, I wouldn't dream of copying the museum's reproductions which you can buy in the gift shop. However, if they didn't allow me to photograph the painting, then I'd feel little compunction about making a copy of their photograph. This isn't a legal opinion, just my 2 as to what's morally right.
Nice straw man argument. The research is supposed to come first, that way you actually invent instead of re-invent and that actually does inspire innovation. BTW, that's also why people around here feel that only things should be patentable...it's hard to work around a patent that tells you how to do something, but some neat shit can come out of re-engineering variably-timed injectors.
Your post was cogent, entertaining, informative, and it had a duck! And me without any mod points... it's like the credit card thread under this topic. It's linked to you as a person, but doesn't identify you. I've been able to have fraudulent charges reversed due to this. When I purchase things in real life I have "see ID" written on my card instead of my signature, that way it puts the onus on the merchant to ask for a drivers license which does identify me rather than relying on the card which simply means that I'm a guy with a piece of plastic in my wallet. It's splitting hairs to separate "identifying" from "personally identifying", but that's what the law's mostly about these days anyway, right?
I like it. I'm also thinking right now of how meanings of phrases would change such as "I lost my ASS in Vegas".
Try your comment again without the "shill" dig leading it off, eh? Then re-read my comment. I'd applaud anyone who can do texts well, but I've never seen one done well that doesn't cost a ton of money to produce and that money needs to come from somewhere. If you don't like how "local administrations philosophies" require many multiple versions of texts, then vote, get on school boards or show up to school board meetings, and make yourself heard. In the mean time, there's a market for high-quality texts and someone is going to fill it. If you can show me a model that gives the quality that we have in current texts from publishers like Cengage, Houghton-Mifflin, and Pearson Learning for free or substantially lower cost then I'll stand corrected. Until you can do that, or create it yourself, then you're just dreaming out loud. (BTW, I'm sorry if you're out of work as your post implied, but you don't earn a living by dreaming, you do it by making dreams reality)
As for the degree? Go to a library, learn what you need, then start the business of your dreams. Bill Gates has no earned degree. A degree is a shortcut into the system. It says that you agree to pay thousands to get the education that the system wants, that you'll have a certain set of desired skills, and that, essentially, you'll play by their rules. In return you get hired first, get business loans first, and have some hope (but not much) of reaching the top slowly by playing the game. Texts are just one part of that system. If you don't like it, then fix it, change it (eg. drop out of the system), or STFU. I'm just sick of reading posts about how easy it is to do something, and how someone should do it, and never seeing these whiners produce.
Disclaimer: I have that degree, and I work every day to bring down the cost of texts (no, not in a publishing house). If you can do it better than me, go ahead. I welcome competition, but have yet to see any from Open Source Text projects.
It is entirely acceptable for a textbook project. However, it's essentially the same model as we have now, i.e. professional gatekeepers. The money just comes from different sources. I applaud the people who do this well, it's just not the model that appeared to be under discussion until you brought it up; I also caution that "free" isn't. The money always comes from somewhere, it's good to have transparency regarding funding. Note that I'm not arguing against a well run OSS type text, merely cautioning that while it can be done well, it's not as simple a proposition as some would make it seem.
This is one of those few times when the mod system has failed. We already have a free, open source, modifiable text for every topic. It's called Wikipedia and it's the living embodiment of why we have professional, accountable, paid editors for text books. Editions can be viewed as a scam, or they can be viewed as the one tool professional publishers have to continue to generate money to pay for more quality products. If it was mandatory to go to college and buy texts I might be a bit more sympathetic, but its ones own choice to participate in the system. I really think that this is one of those cases where if you think that you can do it better, then put up or, well, you know...
You could be right, I'm extrapolating from experience, not using a crystal ball. I'm just not encouraged by that fact that iTunes songs used to be 99 across the board and run $1.29 (for the vast majority of songs) now that digital downloads are so popular, and CDs still out numbered downloads 2 to 1 in 2008. In fact, you could be very right and publishers will charge less on average per book; of course even that could have the consequence of lower pay to authors, which might result in more crap and less quality (like, in my opinion, has happened in music, and is already happening in publishing as it is). I hope that your optimism is justified, but the cynic in me has a hard time trusting that things are going to get better before they get a lot worse.
Just remember "To see it partially or to fail to see it clearly is to be influenced by it", and if you believe that you can see everything clearly 100% of the time, you're really just fooling yourself.
Or, because the advert passes into your brain at only a subconscious level, it's more powerful than it ever has been before.