I think that universities are in a different boat than high schools. My son has to turn his high school papers in to TurnItIn. The fact that he has to do this, plus government compulsion to attend school, makes me feel that his IP is being misused.
For a university student, it's a different matter since there isn't the compulsion.
If that were true, then most academic, published papers would be plagiarism. As I've seen it, authors copy whole sections of their previous papers and put them into current papers. Think about it, you are writing about step 10 of a 12 step research process. You previously wrote a summary of steps 1-8 for a paper on step 9, and for paper 10 you plop in the 1-8 summary, plus a section or two for step 9. And the summary 1-8 isn't just a sentence or two, it's a page worth of material. If would be completely ridiculous for you to have to re-write it, and putting it all in quotes would be stupid. So, you just add it.
It's only a 'punishment' if you count a bad grade as a punishment. The grade is for student's original work, and they (implicitly?) agree that they will turn in their own work and accept the grade for that.
In terms of how does it hurt me? If someone gets a good grade for turning in someone else's work, then my good grades are diluted. It means that I can't legitimately present my grades as evidence of original thought and hard work.
If they don't distribute the work, then how can the professor make a determination that their student plagiarized? That is, if a student's work is flagged by the service as plagiarism, the service sends at least some of plagiarized work to the professor for comparison. Otherwise, the professor will have to take the services word for it.
If I have IP on the paper, can't I say that I want absolutely no part of my paper redistributed to anybody? Including other professors? As part of their service, they are selling part of my paper to the professor. I deserve a piece of that, and I get to negotiate my piece.
It's not "their problem" when the botnet can be used to attack services affecting everyone.
If a bank gets robbed by masked gunmen, is it 'their problem' or everyone's problem? I'd say the effects are on everyone, so it's everyone's problem and society should do something about it (i.e. hiring police to go get them).
Customer reviews design, expected ship date, signs off. (Because the design has to be fit for the customer, no UML diagrams or fancy methodologies that the customer doesn't understand. These things have their place, to be sure. But if you cannot describe it in pictures and words, it may be too complicated for you and your organization's current level of development methodology.)
Pretty good post, but my quibbles would be:
o Use Case diagrams are UML. The convey, quickly and clearly, who can do things with the system and what they can do. And it's really important that if you are unable to do something, you have a Use Case that shows a person doing something with a 'You Can't Do This!' on it (or, preferably, "you will be able to do this in version 2.0"). It's largely about 'managing expections' by the customer.
o Design must mean something different to you than it does to me, and I think maybe you meant architecture. The customer won't understand the high-level design. They will be able to understand the architecture, especially how the architecture will be able to allow the Use Cases to happen, which is the important thing.
It depends on what you do. We recently took the family from DC to Orlando on the AutoTrain. The beds were small, but reasonable, and it was as cheap to take the train with the minivan than to fly and rent. And a heck of a lot easier. The time was considerably more, but when you factor in the time associated with security and car rental associated with flying, it was worth it.
There is no doubt that it's better to take the train from DC to NY city than to fly. It's as fast, factoring the dismal security process and where you end up at the end of the trip.
A lot of the 'do trains make sense' depends on the distance, population density, time, cost of train, and cost of flight, which appears to be highly dependent on gas prices. It seems to me that the NE corridor is ripe for such a system. As are other high-population to high-population, limited-distance trips. But, it doesn't make sense to try to replace airlines for cross-country or even most of the way cross-country. Changing planes is a pain the the ass to begin with, but changing trains would be even worse. The autotrain from DC to Orlando makes sense because you just get on, eat, sleep, get off. No changes necessary.
Plus, as a failsafe, books don't need a device that can break, or needs power, etc. Call me paranoid but with the current economic climate the world of "Mad Max" is looking like a possible eventuality, and the regular books will be useful far longer into that period than an ebook.
If we ever hit the 'Mad Max' stage, regular books like Twilight will be especially useful...as toilet paper and for starting fires.
I'm using Amazon EC2 and S3, and I've specifically separated the amazon 'buy-books' account from the 'do-web-stuff' account. It's annoying, but worth the possible issues when something happens with one or the other service so that it doesn't bleed over. I can see Amazon using leverage from one side on the other. Same with Gmail and Google AppEngine, since I use my Gmail account to store stuff.
They were right that we do not have a workable solution to nuclear waste, where workable means both technically and politically. The environmentalists were not the ones who killed Yucca mountain, it was entirely political.
I know I've personally wasted hours, probably days, boredly surfing the web and chatting on MSN; what's the difference between that and doing what amounts to the same in an MMORPG?
Or wasted many, many hours reading/.?
I've played WoW for a long time now, but I play with people I like, and like to chat with, and I like to explore the world and go on the quests. I think that some people would find it truly boring, but it's fun and relaxing for me. Some people like to knit, or collect stamps, I play WoW.
I've never understood the need to grind for gold. What do you get for it? You might be able to buy slightly better gear, but so what? So you can kill the monster a little faster? I haven't found that I can't do something that I want to do (an instance for example) or go somewhere I want to go. If I've got a problem (monster X is too hard for my alt shaman), I ask a higher level guild-mate to tank for me.
The only time I've wanted more money is trying to get a flying mount. I got it eventually anyway, just later than other people did. And I'll eventually get an epic flying mount, but there's no rush.
Even unlocked, a private residence, even if visible to the street (or internet via google maps) cannot be entered and it's items used / taken without permission. It's still theft, even if my door isn't locked.
Well, I don't think that this is a good analogy. Here's another analogy: You left your pogo stick on the street. I hopped up and down on it a couple of times and set it back down. Did I steal from you? I don't think so, or at least 'steal' is the wrong word. I caused incremental stress and wear/tear to something that belonged to you in a public space.
That's a better analogy for misusing a wiki site for me storing some data on it.
My rights have not been trampled. I have been (purposefully) misinformed. They labeled a feature on their web site 'sales ranking' and then provide a list that does not represent their sales ranking. They have removed books that (they feel) are "inappropriate". I think that this is mildly wrong and misleading.
It would be more honest and accurate for them to either include an asterisk saying what they have done, or include a button with which I can say "Add the porn back in". Because, frankly, I am interested in seeing how the porn ranks, and I'd rather read higher quality porn than lower quality porn. And, yes, I know that rankings are not necessarily correlated with quality, but it's a step in the search.
Sometimes it is a good idea to build a dam, sometimes it is a bad idea. The Hoover dam seems to have been a pretty good idea; the Kariba dam seems like a pretty bad one. Whether it is a good idea or a bad idea depends on who is doing the calculating and the weights given to different features. I don't think that the Chinese government thought that moving millions of people for the Three Gorges dam deserved much weight; but I'm guessing that the people who were moved have different opinions.
But, in general, normal people separate out what humans do from 'nature'. I can't look at the Three Gorges dam and call it 'nature'.
And yes Al Gore is often an exaggerated propagandist and he isNOT helpful in this debate, that doesn't however mean that there isn't real climate science out there pointing to the anthropogenic origin of observed climate change.
I'm not sure that this follows. One of the problems with science in the US is that it is poorly taught and largely ignored by the public. A bunch of scientists saying 'yep, we're undergoing climate change' has no effect on anything. In addition, the solution to the issue is not primarily a scientific one; it's economic and social. Thus, you need to have a political person or group discussing it, promoting solutions, and generating the interest and political momentum to get anything done.
I can't claim that Al Gore is the best spokesperson possible, but at least he's publicizing the issue, presenting solutions, and moving the country in the right direction, something the scientists by themselves could not do. Answer me this: who's the second most important politician talking about climate change? I can't even think of a second one that's passionate about it, much less who is the most important.
Einstein as a patent worker when we wrote the theory of relativity
You are well aware that Einstein didn't just spout off about relativity in a magazine, right? He actually wrote a paper, submitted it, it got reviewed, and published. And now he's famous for it.
Maybe the people that are saying that climate change is wrong should try doing the same.
Citation needed. this one says 4% is used. I don't really believe it, as it appears to be a popular science article, but it's better than what you cited (which was nothing).
this one says 3-7%.
Your claim does not pass the smell test.
A coil gun could do it easily. You "merely" put a large one on the side of a mountain, appropriately placed on the equator, and shoot stuff into space.
Some place on Hawaii would work, although they might not like it.
The big hitch is the energy to power the coil gun. Under this scenario, problem solved! Off to beat some Hawaiians!
I don't see this at all. If I am not allowed to say anything about you, and I call you a jerk, and you are, then I have an absolute defense against libel. And I've violated the confidentiality agreement and will probably lose a suit over that.
To me, they are separate issues. Yes, you can argue that the details of the employment relationship are confidential, and that the company violated them, and so they are liable for damages. But not for libel.
Bullshit. First, it affects everybody. It means that the truth is not an absolute defense against libel. The lawyers for the guy say that it only applies in case X, but, no, when it is not a defense, it is not a defense. You have no reason to think that in case Y this will not be used as a precedent.
Second, the guy is a thief, he stole from the company. When a guy is a thief, you are allowed to call him a thief. They didn't publish it in the NY Times or anything. If an employee steals from a company, the company should be allowed to say to the other employees that he stole. They (and the other employees) have a vested interest in employees not stealing from them.
As someone who has no idea, do you have some citations for this? Earlier in this discussion, people were arguing that it does not matter how long each clip can be, just the content. In particular, it seems like the length argument is a common myth. Please show us otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
Turnitin is the only practical way I know of that faculty can use to detect plagiarism by citation - where you steal someone else's bibliography.
Which is why I always use an old Vladivostok telephone directory.
I think that universities are in a different boat than high schools. My son has to turn his high school papers in to TurnItIn. The fact that he has to do this, plus government compulsion to attend school, makes me feel that his IP is being misused.
For a university student, it's a different matter since there isn't the compulsion.
If that were true, then most academic, published papers would be plagiarism. As I've seen it, authors copy whole sections of their previous papers and put them into current papers. Think about it, you are writing about step 10 of a 12 step research process. You previously wrote a summary of steps 1-8 for a paper on step 9, and for paper 10 you plop in the 1-8 summary, plus a section or two for step 9. And the summary 1-8 isn't just a sentence or two, it's a page worth of material. If would be completely ridiculous for you to have to re-write it, and putting it all in quotes would be stupid. So, you just add it.
It's only a 'punishment' if you count a bad grade as a punishment. The grade is for student's original work, and they (implicitly?) agree that they will turn in their own work and accept the grade for that.
In terms of how does it hurt me? If someone gets a good grade for turning in someone else's work, then my good grades are diluted. It means that I can't legitimately present my grades as evidence of original thought and hard work.
If they don't distribute the work, then how can the professor make a determination that their student plagiarized? That is, if a student's work is flagged by the service as plagiarism, the service sends at least some of plagiarized work to the professor for comparison. Otherwise, the professor will have to take the services word for it.
If I have IP on the paper, can't I say that I want absolutely no part of my paper redistributed to anybody? Including other professors? As part of their service, they are selling part of my paper to the professor. I deserve a piece of that, and I get to negotiate my piece.
It's not "their problem" when the botnet can be used to attack services affecting everyone.
If a bank gets robbed by masked gunmen, is it 'their problem' or everyone's problem? I'd say the effects are on everyone, so it's everyone's problem and society should do something about it (i.e. hiring police to go get them).
Customer reviews design, expected ship date, signs off. (Because the design has to be fit for the customer, no UML diagrams or fancy methodologies that the customer doesn't understand. These things have their place, to be sure. But if you cannot describe it in pictures and words, it may be too complicated for you and your organization's current level of development methodology.)
Pretty good post, but my quibbles would be:
o Use Case diagrams are UML. The convey, quickly and clearly, who can do things with the system and what they can do. And it's really important that if you are unable to do something, you have a Use Case that shows a person doing something with a 'You Can't Do This!' on it (or, preferably, "you will be able to do this in version 2.0"). It's largely about 'managing expections' by the customer.
o Design must mean something different to you than it does to me, and I think maybe you meant architecture. The customer won't understand the high-level design. They will be able to understand the architecture, especially how the architecture will be able to allow the Use Cases to happen, which is the important thing.
It depends on what you do. We recently took the family from DC to Orlando on the AutoTrain. The beds were small, but reasonable, and it was as cheap to take the train with the minivan than to fly and rent. And a heck of a lot easier. The time was considerably more, but when you factor in the time associated with security and car rental associated with flying, it was worth it.
There is no doubt that it's better to take the train from DC to NY city than to fly. It's as fast, factoring the dismal security process and where you end up at the end of the trip.
A lot of the 'do trains make sense' depends on the distance, population density, time, cost of train, and cost of flight, which appears to be highly dependent on gas prices. It seems to me that the NE corridor is ripe for such a system. As are other high-population to high-population, limited-distance trips. But, it doesn't make sense to try to replace airlines for cross-country or even most of the way cross-country. Changing planes is a pain the the ass to begin with, but changing trains would be even worse. The autotrain from DC to Orlando makes sense because you just get on, eat, sleep, get off. No changes necessary.
Plus, as a failsafe, books don't need a device that can break, or needs power, etc. Call me paranoid but with the current economic climate the world of "Mad Max" is looking like a possible eventuality, and the regular books will be useful far longer into that period than an ebook.
If we ever hit the 'Mad Max' stage, regular books like Twilight will be especially useful...as toilet paper and for starting fires.
I'm using Amazon EC2 and S3, and I've specifically separated the amazon 'buy-books' account from the 'do-web-stuff' account. It's annoying, but worth the possible issues when something happens with one or the other service so that it doesn't bleed over. I can see Amazon using leverage from one side on the other. Same with Gmail and Google AppEngine, since I use my Gmail account to store stuff.
They were right that we do not have a workable solution to nuclear waste, where workable means both technically and politically. The environmentalists were not the ones who killed Yucca mountain, it was entirely political.
I know I've personally wasted hours, probably days, boredly surfing the web and chatting on MSN; what's the difference between that and doing what amounts to the same in an MMORPG?
Or wasted many, many hours reading /.?
I've played WoW for a long time now, but I play with people I like, and like to chat with, and I like to explore the world and go on the quests. I think that some people would find it truly boring, but it's fun and relaxing for me. Some people like to knit, or collect stamps, I play WoW.
I've never understood the need to grind for gold. What do you get for it? You might be able to buy slightly better gear, but so what? So you can kill the monster a little faster? I haven't found that I can't do something that I want to do (an instance for example) or go somewhere I want to go. If I've got a problem (monster X is too hard for my alt shaman), I ask a higher level guild-mate to tank for me.
The only time I've wanted more money is trying to get a flying mount. I got it eventually anyway, just later than other people did. And I'll eventually get an epic flying mount, but there's no rush.
Why does Brokeback Mountain have a sales ranking? It is, I think, one of the best known pro-gay books out there.
I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Well, no, it was either John Philpot Curran or Wendell Phillips, though it is frequently misattributed to Jefferson.
Even unlocked, a private residence, even if visible to the street (or internet via google maps) cannot be entered and it's items used / taken without permission. It's still theft, even if my door isn't locked.
Well, I don't think that this is a good analogy. Here's another analogy: You left your pogo stick on the street. I hopped up and down on it a couple of times and set it back down. Did I steal from you? I don't think so, or at least 'steal' is the wrong word. I caused incremental stress and wear/tear to something that belonged to you in a public space.
That's a better analogy for misusing a wiki site for me storing some data on it.
My rights have not been trampled. I have been (purposefully) misinformed. They labeled a feature on their web site 'sales ranking' and then provide a list that does not represent their sales ranking. They have removed books that (they feel) are "inappropriate". I think that this is mildly wrong and misleading.
It would be more honest and accurate for them to either include an asterisk saying what they have done, or include a button with which I can say "Add the porn back in". Because, frankly, I am interested in seeing how the porn ranks, and I'd rather read higher quality porn than lower quality porn. And, yes, I know that rankings are not necessarily correlated with quality, but it's a step in the search.
Sometimes it is a good idea to build a dam, sometimes it is a bad idea. The Hoover dam seems to have been a pretty good idea; the Kariba dam seems like a pretty bad one. Whether it is a good idea or a bad idea depends on who is doing the calculating and the weights given to different features. I don't think that the Chinese government thought that moving millions of people for the Three Gorges dam deserved much weight; but I'm guessing that the people who were moved have different opinions. But, in general, normal people separate out what humans do from 'nature'. I can't look at the Three Gorges dam and call it 'nature'.
Hm....test post!
And yes Al Gore is often an exaggerated propagandist and he isNOT helpful in this debate, that doesn't however mean that there isn't real climate science out there pointing to the anthropogenic origin of observed climate change.
I'm not sure that this follows. One of the problems with science in the US is that it is poorly taught and largely ignored by the public. A bunch of scientists saying 'yep, we're undergoing climate change' has no effect on anything. In addition, the solution to the issue is not primarily a scientific one; it's economic and social. Thus, you need to have a political person or group discussing it, promoting solutions, and generating the interest and political momentum to get anything done.
I can't claim that Al Gore is the best spokesperson possible, but at least he's publicizing the issue, presenting solutions, and moving the country in the right direction, something the scientists by themselves could not do. Answer me this: who's the second most important politician talking about climate change? I can't even think of a second one that's passionate about it, much less who is the most important.
Einstein as a patent worker when we wrote the theory of relativity
You are well aware that Einstein didn't just spout off about relativity in a magazine, right? He actually wrote a paper, submitted it, it got reviewed, and published. And now he's famous for it. Maybe the people that are saying that climate change is wrong should try doing the same.
Citation needed. this one says 4% is used. I don't really believe it, as it appears to be a popular science article, but it's better than what you cited (which was nothing).
this one says 3-7%.
Your claim does not pass the smell test.
A coil gun could do it easily. You "merely" put a large one on the side of a mountain, appropriately placed on the equator, and shoot stuff into space. Some place on Hawaii would work, although they might not like it. The big hitch is the energy to power the coil gun. Under this scenario, problem solved! Off to beat some Hawaiians!
I don't see this at all. If I am not allowed to say anything about you, and I call you a jerk, and you are, then I have an absolute defense against libel. And I've violated the confidentiality agreement and will probably lose a suit over that.
To me, they are separate issues. Yes, you can argue that the details of the employment relationship are confidential, and that the company violated them, and so they are liable for damages. But not for libel.
Bullshit. First, it affects everybody. It means that the truth is not an absolute defense against libel. The lawyers for the guy say that it only applies in case X, but, no, when it is not a defense, it is not a defense. You have no reason to think that in case Y this will not be used as a precedent.
Second, the guy is a thief, he stole from the company. When a guy is a thief, you are allowed to call him a thief. They didn't publish it in the NY Times or anything. If an employee steals from a company, the company should be allowed to say to the other employees that he stole. They (and the other employees) have a vested interest in employees not stealing from them.
As someone who has no idea, do you have some citations for this? Earlier in this discussion, people were arguing that it does not matter how long each clip can be, just the content. In particular, it seems like the length argument is a common myth. Please show us otherwise.