From the article:
The FTC has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create definitions for phrases that are common now--like renewable energy, carbon offsets and sustainability. This is a good example of the sluggish response of big government. Perhaps a bit of that carbon offset money should be spent on updating some federal publications and collecting feedback from citizens.
You're preaching to the choir:). I occasionally cringe at the thought of supporting clients using certain proprietary software packages that happen to run on a certain proprietary server operating system, but I guess it's their choice. For my own web and database apps (and the majority of the desktop programs I use), I greatly prefer an open development environment; Debian has never "done me wrong" in this respect. It's still difficult to get some people to understand that staking their business on a completely closed platform might not be a great business move, even for customers who really would have nothing to lose by switching to truly open systems (and a lot to gain).
At the end of the day, it's a big part of the reason I'm happy serving in the Navy now... I enjoy the ability to earn extra income from clients I choose to support, without having to deal with people who are 100% resistant to trying new things. If I decide to stop doing professional coding and network support for months on end, it's not a huge loss for me financially. It brings the fun back to I.T. work for me.
In many cases they can see the code, albeit under pretty restrictive NDAs. Alternately, you could simply ask the vendor for a sloccount. Or perhaps taking the binary file size and using an average lines of code per KB estimate.
You missed the truly funny part. GP's username is "MisterLawyer" and he thinks helium is flammable... I guess 3rd grade science isn't required for a Juris Doctor.
Your description of human nature's operation is precisely what has propelled our species through its evolution, arriving at a point where we're having this conversation over a globally interconnected communications grid using computing devices that may very well outperform human intelligence in our lifetimes. You may not like it, but it's the reason you exist in the first place. Until this things called "economic scarcity" doesn't exist anymore, this is the process that will continue to drive mankind.
Diamonds aren't the only gemstones that are mined under what some might consider "unfavorable" human rights conditions. I'm a married guy who did purchase a diamond set for my wife. Did you consider the source labor conditions for the computer you used to type your post? If you drive, what about the components that make up your automobile? Not trying to be insulting here, but exactly how old are? Just curious...
So let's review the march of progress: I was connecting to various BBSes in the early 90s with a 2400 baud modem, later on to the Internet with a 28.8 modem, later on the Internet with a DSL modem that did 1.5 Mb/s, and am now sitting on a relatively cheap business class cable connection that does 6 Mb/s x 2 Mb/s. My dad's got fiber to the curb in his neighborhood in GA (getting 50 Mb/s). Progress sure is slow, huh?
I live in a universe parallel to yours where offsite backups are the norm. This can be as simple as occasionally having the common sense to mirror the contents of your audio collection (along with the rest of your important data) to a separate drive, and store it in a lockbox somewhere else. You do have backups, right? If not, you're gonna be screwed out of a whole lot more than some songs when that drive crashes, as you put it...
QUALITY: Especially if you're converting the disc from digital (which is is to begin with) to another digital format at a high bitrate, I don't believe you can tell the difference with regard to quality. That's going to depend intensely on you having hearing sensitivity that exceeds 99.9% of the population, coupled with a high-fidelity setup that can actually reproduce the difference. As for your hope for better than CD quality sound in the future, the human ear can't hear outside that range. So good luck with that.
BACKUP CONSIDERATIONS: How hard is is the install a secondary hard drive in your rig for doing mirrored backups of your audio? How hard would it be to install three cheap drives? Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap these days; I've got dozens of albums backed up in this manner, on redundant media.
The factory stamped copy is probably going to be better quality than what you get from a download. That depends on the download quality. As the average household's bandwidth goes up, so does the potential quality of audio distributed via networks.
It's going to be more reliable than any additional backup medium you are likely to throw at the problem. Keyword: likely. I take backups pretty seriously, which is to say I consider a good backup more than just ripping the disc to an alternate file format and making a separate copy. I've still got data from 18 years ago archived in perfect condition in more than one location. It takes a bit of effort, but is very doable.
I'm sure that as music (and software) distribution moves more and more to digital formats, the notion that good backups are only for businesses will fade as well.
Please, your Honor, don't take what I actually said to heart. What I really meant to say was a complete reversal of the actual meaning of what some may interpret to be a broadly misunderstood fabrication of opinions based on statistical evidence to the contrary.
Just don't fuck me in the ass with DRM and an unreliable archive system that will leave me robbed of the tens of thousands of dollars of stuff I've bought in a decade. I agree with this sentiment. There's a very real need for easy to use distributed archival systems that don't violate copyright provisions for stored works. I'm wondering if things like the Amazon cloud, and implementations of such technologies still to come, might be a big part of the answer. We've got all this storage space lying around on the Internet, effectively doing nothing... distributed backup systems for "the common man" are something that will need to see real use as content is increasingly digitized.
Aside the case artwork and such, what's the significance of having a "physical copy" in your possession? Would it be equivalent to say that a duplicate copy (all DRM issues aside) made for fair use purposes would satisfy the physical copy need? It's just data; it could be stored on a hard drive, DVD, super-holographic-storage-media-9000, etc.
Is it that having a version of the work that you can hold in your hand reinforces a sense of property ownership? Honestly, I'm just asking for clarification on the root meaning.
The future is bleak for floppy diskettes, Zip drives, and CRT displays. This is simply the pace of technology; more efficient distribution formats wind up winning out in the long run (with a few exceptions here and there, true, but even these are eventually superseded by something more efficient). Even with all the music industry's "late to the game" problems and legalistic maneuvers, the switch to a majority audio distribution occurring via networks was bound to happen. Not really news to most of us...
If you're worried about "uncertainties" with respect to any software license, don't include code in your application that might cause those licensing terms to apply to it. End of story.
I ask this because I honestly don't know. How many routers on the net are embedded devices capable of receiving firmware updates to cope with the additional functionality? Or, how many full-fledged "router in a box" style server systems are capable of receiving software updates, or already support IPV6?
Office Space, meet Slashdot. Somebody please drop some mod points on the parent post:).
By the way, I'm gonna need you to come in on Sunday to discuss the market based synergistic implications of your perspective on cooperative corporate furtherance efforts. That would be great...
In fact, I would suggest that there is such a radical difference between these kinds of systems that they don't even belong in the same conversation. On that point I have to agree with you. You know, it's kinda odd talking to somebody on Slashdot who actually has real world experience with this stuff. How'd you wind up doing DOD contract stuff? I'm not hard to find if you want to chat off-thread. Happy New Year!
You and I are probably talking about different levels of severity when it comes to problems. Funny thing... I used to work for EDS, and now I'm active duty in the Navy (submarine community). I assure you, in the rare cases that major glitches that affect mission readiness are found in certain systems afloat, the vendor does fix their shit, and fast.
Slashdot Mirror
You're preaching to the choir :). I occasionally cringe at the thought of supporting clients using certain proprietary software packages that happen to run on a certain proprietary server operating system, but I guess it's their choice. For my own web and database apps (and the majority of the desktop programs I use), I greatly prefer an open development environment; Debian has never "done me wrong" in this respect. It's still difficult to get some people to understand that staking their business on a completely closed platform might not be a great business move, even for customers who really would have nothing to lose by switching to truly open systems (and a lot to gain).
At the end of the day, it's a big part of the reason I'm happy serving in the Navy now... I enjoy the ability to earn extra income from clients I choose to support, without having to deal with people who are 100% resistant to trying new things. If I decide to stop doing professional coding and network support for months on end, it's not a huge loss for me financially. It brings the fun back to I.T. work for me.
Darn pesky kids and their fancy buffer overflows. I outta HEAP on the insults, but I'll try to stick to my PROGRAM of keeping my smoke STACK cool.
Agreed on the problem of finding holes but not being able to inform a userbase. I've seen it happen in practice; not pretty.
I was going to recommend talking to Google's stockholder's for rational discussion, but realized that probably wouldn't work either...
In many cases they can see the code, albeit under pretty restrictive NDAs. Alternately, you could simply ask the vendor for a sloccount. Or perhaps taking the binary file size and using an average lines of code per KB estimate.
You missed the truly funny part. GP's username is "MisterLawyer" and he thinks helium is flammable... I guess 3rd grade science isn't required for a Juris Doctor.
Your description of human nature's operation is precisely what has propelled our species through its evolution, arriving at a point where we're having this conversation over a globally interconnected communications grid using computing devices that may very well outperform human intelligence in our lifetimes. You may not like it, but it's the reason you exist in the first place. Until this things called "economic scarcity" doesn't exist anymore, this is the process that will continue to drive mankind.
Diamonds aren't the only gemstones that are mined under what some might consider "unfavorable" human rights conditions. I'm a married guy who did purchase a diamond set for my wife. Did you consider the source labor conditions for the computer you used to type your post? If you drive, what about the components that make up your automobile? Not trying to be insulting here, but exactly how old are? Just curious...
So let's review the march of progress: I was connecting to various BBSes in the early 90s with a 2400 baud modem, later on to the Internet with a 28.8 modem, later on the Internet with a DSL modem that did 1.5 Mb/s, and am now sitting on a relatively cheap business class cable connection that does 6 Mb/s x 2 Mb/s. My dad's got fiber to the curb in his neighborhood in GA (getting 50 Mb/s). Progress sure is slow, huh?
I live in a universe parallel to yours where offsite backups are the norm. This can be as simple as occasionally having the common sense to mirror the contents of your audio collection (along with the rest of your important data) to a separate drive, and store it in a lockbox somewhere else. You do have backups, right? If not, you're gonna be screwed out of a whole lot more than some songs when that drive crashes, as you put it...
QUALITY: Especially if you're converting the disc from digital (which is is to begin with) to another digital format at a high bitrate, I don't believe you can tell the difference with regard to quality. That's going to depend intensely on you having hearing sensitivity that exceeds 99.9% of the population, coupled with a high-fidelity setup that can actually reproduce the difference. As for your hope for better than CD quality sound in the future, the human ear can't hear outside that range. So good luck with that.
BACKUP CONSIDERATIONS: How hard is is the install a secondary hard drive in your rig for doing mirrored backups of your audio? How hard would it be to install three cheap drives? Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap these days; I've got dozens of albums backed up in this manner, on redundant media.
It's going to be more reliable than any additional backup medium you are likely to throw at the problem. Keyword: likely. I take backups pretty seriously, which is to say I consider a good backup more than just ripping the disc to an alternate file format and making a separate copy. I've still got data from 18 years ago archived in perfect condition in more than one location. It takes a bit of effort, but is very doable.
I'm sure that as music (and software) distribution moves more and more to digital formats, the notion that good backups are only for businesses will fade as well.
IANAL, but I asked this guy Google about it and he directed me to this site's page on the legal definition of perjury, and here are a whole lotta case files related to the issue. Some investigation might be merited.
It runs Vista Premium Science Edition, and boy lemme tell ya, it's just Astronomically Priced!!!
Please, your Honor, don't take what I actually said to heart. What I really meant to say was a complete reversal of the actual meaning of what some may interpret to be a broadly misunderstood fabrication of opinions based on statistical evidence to the contrary.
Hilary, is that you?
Aside the case artwork and such, what's the significance of having a "physical copy" in your possession? Would it be equivalent to say that a duplicate copy (all DRM issues aside) made for fair use purposes would satisfy the physical copy need? It's just data; it could be stored on a hard drive, DVD, super-holographic-storage-media-9000, etc.
Is it that having a version of the work that you can hold in your hand reinforces a sense of property ownership? Honestly, I'm just asking for clarification on the root meaning.
The future is bleak for floppy diskettes, Zip drives, and CRT displays. This is simply the pace of technology; more efficient distribution formats wind up winning out in the long run (with a few exceptions here and there, true, but even these are eventually superseded by something more efficient). Even with all the music industry's "late to the game" problems and legalistic maneuvers, the switch to a majority audio distribution occurring via networks was bound to happen. Not really news to most of us...
If you're worried about "uncertainties" with respect to any software license, don't include code in your application that might cause those licensing terms to apply to it. End of story.
I ask this because I honestly don't know. How many routers on the net are embedded devices capable of receiving firmware updates to cope with the additional functionality? Or, how many full-fledged "router in a box" style server systems are capable of receiving software updates, or already support IPV6?
Office Space, meet Slashdot. Somebody please drop some mod points on the parent post :).
By the way, I'm gonna need you to come in on Sunday to discuss the market based synergistic implications of your perspective on cooperative corporate furtherance efforts. That would be great...
You and I are probably talking about different levels of severity when it comes to problems. Funny thing... I used to work for EDS, and now I'm active duty in the Navy (submarine community). I assure you, in the rare cases that major glitches that affect mission readiness are found in certain systems afloat, the vendor does fix their shit, and fast.