Last time I checked, innovation was a function of brains, not money. But, that is the problem with this system, isn't it?
"you find the money to file a patent and defend it. There are investors that do exactly this. If your idea is that good, you will find them with no problem."
If your idea *and your presentation of it* are that good, yes. If you're just a "little guy" who has a great idea but no experience or training in pitching an idea, and not very many social resources (i.e. friends with that experience), you're going to at best get politely listened to and then shoved out the door, and at worst, your idea stolen from someone who knows how the system works and recognizes your naivete.
"Here's a newsflash, capitalism works,"
That is a very subjective statement. Works... for big guys. Not for little guys. The US is the most wealthy nation in the world, with the largest proportion in poverty of any industrialized nation. If that's how you define something "working," then capitalism works great.
"If you don't like capitlism, move out of the US and join an autocratic commune somewhere."
Actually, I'd rather exercise my constitutional right as an American Citizen to vote and work to change the system. After all, the framers expected that things wouldn't stay the same forever. That's why we have the flexibility to change.
The US is still the Great Experiment. Presentation of conclusions on this experiment is premature.
(I'm noticing a pattern here... you can't seem to actually cope with my arguments, so you resort to telling me I don't have a right to speak on the subject or hold certain political views in this country.)
"The difference is you know what wasn't around before the patent system? Huge corporations bent on greed and stock price. This is why patents are necessary."
Then why did we come up with patents, if their raison d'être came into being after they did?
Or, could it be that patents are part of the structure that brought us to this point, where our economy, our politics, and our technology are driven by megacorporations?
Yes, they can, but it's harder and if you have the money to develop and patent, you at least have a strong chance of making them play nice. Much more so than if there were no patents. -- emphasis added
See, that's the problem right there. Yes, in theory, patents give everyone the same ground to stand on... but as it turns out, it takes money (and other resources) to correctly file defensible patents, no matter how good your idea is.
That's why it's so much more common for big guys to screw little guys over with patents than for little guys to protect their ideas. The system is basically imbalanced because of the expense and complexity of getting a patent.
If the USPTO charged a static fee for every patent application, then charged a small tax on royalties from enforced patents, and undertook all prior art search and enforcement activities, then it might be fair... but it would also be semi-socialistic, and therefore would scare the market-driven capitalists who the current system works well for.
"For example copyrights on specific music pieces in Europe expire and as such they are free to copy, but not in the US."
Point of order, here... yes, they *do* expire in the US. Trademarks don't (as long as you defend them), but the protections there are quite different, and music is not usually a trademark.
US copyrights may last significantly longer than European ones, but here's the current breakdown (from a flyer I picked up the other day in the public library). It gets pretty messy, because the laws have been changed so many times, but here goes:
Works created 1/1/1978 or after: Protection starts when work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, expires after life of the creator + 70 years (or, if work is of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter).
Published before 1923: in public domain.
Published between 1923 and 1963: Protection starts when published with notice, expires after 28 years + optional 47-year renewal, which was later extended to 67 years. If not renewed, it's now in public domain.
Published from 1964-1977: Protection starts when published with notice, expires after 28 years + automatic 67-year extension.
Chreated before 1/1/1978 but not published: Protection starts 1/1/1978, expires after life of creator + 70 years or 12/31/2002, whichever is greater.
Created before 1/1/1978 but published between then and 12/31/2002: Protection starts 1/1/1978, expires after life of creator + 70 years or 12/31/2047, whichever is greater.
So it can be difficult to tell when things expire, but they do expire.;-)
Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with patents, which is what the article was about...
Tell that to Tony Blair. I think he'd be really amused.
The UK still has a monarchy, supported by tax dollars. But when was the last time they made a decision that actually affected what people in Britain or the rest of the world do (besides setting fashion trends)?
Well, I agree that we're seeing the beginnings of the American Empire.
As I see it, the American Empire began with the end of WWII. What we're seeing now is the fall of the American Empire.
The phrase "bread and circuses" clangs loudly in my head every time I see another ad for "reality TV." "Here, watch these people risk their necks and stab each other in the back, to take your mind off of the real world falling apart around you." It's not a new thing; anyone remember American Gladiators?
When the government starts handing out free food at the movies, I'm packing up and moving to Finland.
"I tend to go into "deep hack" mode rather easily, where I'm doing a task and all my attention is on that task.... My wife does not seem to have deep hack mode. Her brain always multitasks."
This is something else that comes into it: it's starting to become apparent that high-functioning autism (Asperger's Syndrome) can make people very good coders, for exactly the reason you describe. (Tried to find the Wired article from last year or so about this, but no dice.)
Autism is three to four times as likely to hit males as females.
So there may be something to the idea that men genetically concentrate better. But, if that's the case, there's also something to the notion that women are naturally better with social subtleties and communication.
Take 2 years of vacations and you are dead for CS for at least 2 more years to catch the industry living by Moore's law (18 months for hardware, something similar for software).
Maternity is a biology factor, not a social one.
There's nothing about maternity that mandates 2 years off. For that matter, federal law only requires employers to give 6 weeks unpaid leave for pregnancy. I've known several women in various types of jobs, from lawyers to Docutech operators, who worked up until they went into labor. Women who give birth the "natural" way can, physically, return to work within a couple weeks; C-sections take a little longer to recover from. Babies who are breast-fed do better physically and intellectually than those who aren't, though, so there's a lot of motivation for women to have jobs that allow them to do this... some have on-site childcare, others work from home some or all of the time.
The idea that the mother is the only parent for the first year is outdated. Some women may choose to take on that role, and there's nothing wrong with it... but you can raise a healthy child by giving the dad some responsibility too.
"Girls do not like doing anything that involves concentrating on one single thing for long periods. They like to switch from one thought to another, and keep many balls up in the air at one time."
That's slightly incorrect. It should read:
Girls are discouraged from doing anything that involves concentrating on one single thing for long periods. They are easier to keep in line if they feel they have to to switch from one thought to another, and keep many balls up in the air at one time.
How do I know? Because I grew up in this society, but was more or less raised as a boy. I saw really, really painfully the differences in how girls and boys were treated by teachers and other authority figures. My mom wouldn't stand for it, of course... so I was good at math and stuff like that. And not particularly popular with any of the students, since they had this sinking feeling that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.
Why are women the ones who wear high heels and skirts and industrial-strength underwear and study lower-paying professions? It's not because they're born wanting to. It's because they learn, from the beginning, that it's what they're *supposed* to do to get by in society. The rewards are good, and the punishments for not doing it are very, very bad.
Hey, whatever it takes to get more women in the IT field, I'm all for it. If they can't get more of us who are born female to go into computers, then hey, let's just even things out with science.;-)
But in all seriousness, I would guess that the number of transgender women in IT is similar in proportion to the number of XX chromasomes in IT. After all, people that choose to become women do so because it feels more natural to them... and we live in a society that teaches us from day one that science and math aren't "natural" to women.
Wouldn't fit in my current desk; this thing is 15" wide, and the computer shelf under my desk is only 10". But, my current case is taller and longer than this guy.
The "easy access" isn't quite so easy, though, when you realize you'll have to pull the computer all the way out from the wall every time you want to open it. Or you could just turn it, but that requires more maneuvering room.
I like the idea of the cables plugging into the side, though. I can't count the number of times I have wished I had one of those dentist mirror-thingies when figuring out which plug goes in which jack. It won't reduce cable clutter in the slightest, but it will make them more accessible. (The only real way to reduce cable clutter, I've decided, is the liberal application of zip ties.)
As a resident of Los Angeles, I'm eligible for an LAPL Library card. With that, I can go to their website, punch in my card number and ZIP code, and go through their subscription to the OED and other fantastic things... from home.
'OOOO, look at the dolphin, he's smiling' "yes, johnny, he's glad his namesake a/k/a mahi mahi is so well know by that alias. He doesn't realize that good red meat by any other name is still porpoise"
They were worried about the image, not whether the article was actually committing statutory rape under California law. Many players argued that at level 14, a character is already out adventuring and stuff... but that wasn't what the story had said (it said age not level), so it brought a very different image to mind.
Clinical studies show that, while only about 20% (less now, I'm thinking) of Americans are addicted to cigarettes, 100% are addicted to food.
Hopefully, this patch will help people with a food abuse problem to combat it and overcome it. In moderation, food is a good and healthy thing, but as with so many things, there is such a thing as too much.
I wonder how long it's going to take them to come up with the Sleep patch? Now that's an addiction I'd like to kick...
About a year and a half ago or so, an Everquest player had his game account banned and was asked to remove some fan fiction from a website by Sony (and I believe there was a threat of legal action if he did not). That fiction involved a 14-year-old dark elf female being raped.
But, as was frequently pointed out in the resulting furor (the player in question apologized and took it like a man, but some players want any reason to bitch), the general policy on EQ fan sites is to let them be, and even throw them bones now and then. People post screenshots, walk-throughs, fan fics, and all kinds of other game-related content all over the web. And apparently Sony Online Entertainment and/or Verant Interactive realize that this is a *good* thing, so long as it doesn't hurt their image. They also realize that if they decide a particular work is hurting them more than helping them (as they decided with the depiction of child rape), they have the right to enforce their copyright selectively.
It seems that perhaps copyright law needs a proof of damage clause attached to it, similar to slander and libel. This could be used to expand the doctrine of Fair Use, for example. In many cases such a clause wouldn't be appropriate; you could, if it were done badly, end up with situations where someone loses their copyright because "they weren't using it." (Of course, that happens now, too... see the Darwin fish. But anyway.)
Social engineering. In RL people can cheat and make other people feel miserable, too. Why is it still in acceptable bounds? Because people get punished by the community, who don't behave. An online-game is a community, too. But why doesn't it work? Because, there is no real punishment possible.
In EverQuest, it's "illegal" to do many things that feel like "cheating," including kill-stealing and trade scamming. It's against the Play Nice Policy, and is subject to enforcement by the GMs. What typically happens is, if a player willfully does this stuff and admits it on chat, a player can send that chat with a/report command so that the GMs can verify it, and then they can put a "soulmark" on the account. If you get caught multiple times, you can lose your account, along with any time you've already paid for (no refunds).
It doesn't stop things from happening; mostly because people don't properly report or GMs don't respond quickly enough to catch the perpetrator. But they do have a system, and it does work sometimes.
FCC should mandate offering DSL service without making the customer pay for landline telephone service. It shuts out VoIP.
Sure, it seems that way to the consumer. But what are the interests of the FCC? How do you demonstrate to them that DSL falls under their purvey, or more accurately, doesn't?
That's what's been boggling my mind for the last couple years: how do you convince the FCC to (a) take an interest in and (b) take a position in favor of mandating the unbundling of DSL from POTS. Sure, *I* know of all kinds of reasons, and if we were dealing with the FTC it might be easier to argue it... but from a communications standpoint, given what the FCC is in charge of doing, how do we convince them?
Interesting article overall, but I have to nitpick:
They are selling us a kind of ZapPhone service, where they've digitized their entire network up to the last mile, but are still charging the high and confusing rates established when the network was analog.
Well, no, they're not. I remember when I was a child, we'd sit there and wait until the phone ticked one minute past 5:00, then we'd call the family in Oklahoma. The amount you saved by calling "after the rates went down" was significant enough that in most residences, you didn't make long-distance calls during business hours unless it was an emergency.
I thought it was just my mom having grown up poor and all that, but then a couple years ago I had occasion to see the comparative per-minute rates from The Phone Company(tm) vs. Now. Then it all made sense. (Wish I could remember where I saw it so I could cite it.)
Since the company has been split up, and has switched over to digital signaling, our costs have gone down significantly. When you factor in cost-of-living changes, I believe that even the value-added services (like call waiting, voicemail, etc.) are significantly cheaper than they were a decade ago.
The average music lover was willing, even eager, to give up driving to the mall to buy high quality but expensive CDs, once Napster made it possible to download lower quality but free music.
Or so the RIAA would have you believe, but no one's yet demonstrated that P2P networking ever replaced any purchasing activity.
Voice over IP doesn't sound as good as a regular phone call, and everyone knows it. But like [MP3] music, people don't want the best voice quality they can get no matter what the cost, they want a minimum threshold of quality, after which they will choose phone service based on an overall mix of features.
I think the author missed a really good bet when he made this comparison. After all, cell phones are the really, really obvious example of how people don't care quite so much about voice quality in a telephone call. We're willing to say "What? What was that? Can you hear me now?" many times in a conversation if it means we can take our phones with us everywhere and play games on them when we're bored. Losing a little quality to have cheaper, more flexible "landline" service is a no-brainer.
While an interesting article, it would seem to imply that being able to use a FAX machine at, say, Kinko's should not be possible because people would just have bought their own FAX machines. For a business that sends many FAX machines, buying and maintaining their own FAX machine as opposed to using some one else's may make sense. For personal use, it may not be worth the investment. The article does not seem to take that sort of market segmentation into account.
Actually, I think the article was about that kind of market segmentation. What he was picking on ZapMail for, and using it as an example of, is providing a service that is much cheaper to provide at only a small discount over the old service. That means that the end-user finds the service to be even cheaper to provide for themselves.
FedEx Standard Overnight for sending an envelope weighing.1 lbs from the West Coast to the East Coast is $16.48. Kinko's is $2.00 a page (maybe $3 by now) for the same thing, and it gets there about 20 hours earlier. (If I'm just sending it across town, it's only $11.59 by FedEx, and only $1.00 per page by Kinko's... or $0.75 gas money to take it there myself, if I have the time.)
Kinko's is providing the service with a pricing scheme based on the assumption that, if you really thought it was worth it, you'd just buy a fax machine. FedEx wasn't taking that into account as an option; they were only looking at it in comparison to their own existing service, which was (and is) predominantly used by businesses. If they'd marketed it at cheaper rates to the general public, who knows? it might have taken off. But it wasn't the author who didn't realize that, it was the company.
I want my land line so that I can call my family and not pay 35 cents a minute as most cell services charge for overage.
And yet, that's why cell phones are becoming more and more the staple rather than the extra: I called my best friend (who lives 500 miles away) and talked for an hour today. I pay $39.99+tax for my cell phone coverage, and it was included. I can call anywhere in the US, from anywhere in the US (that has cell coverage), and it's all rolled up into my 500 anytime + 3500 night/weekend minutes... which I've never come close to exceeding.
If I want to call the pizza place down the street, sure, I'll pick up the landline. But if I want to call someone far away and talk for a while, the cell phone is far more economical.
Today's phones (aside from cordless) are powered from the CO and hence a power outage in the customer premise doesn't cut off the customer calling for help.
I assume you meant cellular, not cordless. Cordless phones are the ones that are guaranteed not to work in a power outage, since the base station needs power to transmit to the phone.
Tell me how it makes sense for any more than say 5-10% of the population (really... what's broadband penetration at?)to go out and plunk down $40-50 US (us Canucks don't pay as much...:P ) then pay someone like Vonage (who serves relatively small pockets of the US thus far (at least if you want your number to be local...) another $40 smackers!
Right.. if I'm grandma, uncle Ted, or mom&dad I'll stick with my $30 Baby Bell line...
$30 huh?
When I actually used my landline, it was routinely $40-50 per month (including long distance, call waiting, etc... which are included in the $40 from Vonage). Currently, we pay around $85/month for our phone line... and $65 of that is "enhanced" DSL. That's $20/month for a phone that we spend more time talking to wrong numbers on than anything else. We'd probably do away with it entirely if my husband's cellular got better reception here. In my old apartment, I didn't even have a handset hooked up, and had the cheapest measured-rate service with no frills available from PacBell (which is cheaper than Verizon, the other big player in the LA residential market). I paid $53 and change per month, and the DSL portion was $39.95. (No, there was NO WAY to get DSL without getting phone service. And I didn't have a TV, so cable modem wouldn't have been cheaper.)
So if I was in the habit of using a landline for my calls, I'd probably jump at $40/month including everything, as would a lot of people... if only to get rid of their phone company (some aren't bad, but some are atrocious).
911 is designed to provide the following services:
- A universal, easy to remember phone number that people can dial in any kind of emergency. - Quick forwarding of your crisis to the appropriate agency, whether it be fire, police, or paramedics, along with your location (even if you can't speak -- people have successfully used 911 to save their lives when choking, or when an armed intruder is present). - Operators trained to talk you through the situation, with first-aid instructions, advice on how to stay safe, or just sympathy and a calm presence.
I can call the local police department, or fire department, or paramedics... but that's three numbers I need to know, for the area I'm in. If I'm at my friend's house and he keels over, I better hope he's looked them all up and has them clearly posted.
or else to make sure that the VOIP standards are updated to do a better job of passing location information (for people who want to pass it)
Actually, you hit the nail on the head there. It's not legal to block your phone number from 911 (or from toll-free numbers, because they're picking up the tab). If VOIP is to take off, the same standards need to be applied to it for residential telephone service.
I imagine it's like finding out that Australia isn't actually a separate continent, but part of Asia.
It's not just that there's a ring of stars around a disk of stars, but that that ring relates to the disk in a particular way, which makes the galaxy bigger than previously thought.
Slashdot Mirror
"If you have the money to design something,"
Last time I checked, innovation was a function of brains, not money. But, that is the problem with this system, isn't it?
"you find the money to file a patent and defend it. There are investors that do exactly this. If your idea is that good, you will find them with no problem."
If your idea *and your presentation of it* are that good, yes. If you're just a "little guy" who has a great idea but no experience or training in pitching an idea, and not very many social resources (i.e. friends with that experience), you're going to at best get politely listened to and then shoved out the door, and at worst, your idea stolen from someone who knows how the system works and recognizes your naivete.
"Here's a newsflash, capitalism works,"
That is a very subjective statement. Works... for big guys. Not for little guys. The US is the most wealthy nation in the world, with the largest proportion in poverty of any industrialized nation. If that's how you define something "working," then capitalism works great.
"If you don't like capitlism, move out of the US and join an autocratic commune somewhere."
Actually, I'd rather exercise my constitutional right as an American Citizen to vote and work to change the system. After all, the framers expected that things wouldn't stay the same forever. That's why we have the flexibility to change.
The US is still the Great Experiment. Presentation of conclusions on this experiment is premature.
(I'm noticing a pattern here... you can't seem to actually cope with my arguments, so you resort to telling me I don't have a right to speak on the subject or hold certain political views in this country.)
"The difference is you know what wasn't around before the patent system? Huge corporations bent on greed and stock price. This is why patents are necessary."
Then why did we come up with patents, if their raison d'être came into being after they did?
Or, could it be that patents are part of the structure that brought us to this point, where our economy, our politics, and our technology are driven by megacorporations?
Yes, they can, but it's harder and if you have the money to develop and patent, you at least have a strong chance of making them play nice. Much more so than if there were no patents.
-- emphasis added
See, that's the problem right there. Yes, in theory, patents give everyone the same ground to stand on... but as it turns out, it takes money (and other resources) to correctly file defensible patents, no matter how good your idea is.
That's why it's so much more common for big guys to screw little guys over with patents than for little guys to protect their ideas. The system is basically imbalanced because of the expense and complexity of getting a patent.
If the USPTO charged a static fee for every patent application, then charged a small tax on royalties from enforced patents, and undertook all prior art search and enforcement activities, then it might be fair... but it would also be semi-socialistic, and therefore would scare the market-driven capitalists who the current system works well for.
That is the idiots approach to patents.
And the US uses the idiot's approach.
That's the problem... we'd be better off with nothing than the leveraged system we have now. If you can come up with something better, spit it out.
"For example copyrights on specific music pieces in Europe expire and as such they are free to copy, but not in the US."
;-)
Point of order, here... yes, they *do* expire in the US. Trademarks don't (as long as you defend them), but the protections there are quite different, and music is not usually a trademark.
US copyrights may last significantly longer than European ones, but here's the current breakdown (from a flyer I picked up the other day in the public library). It gets pretty messy, because the laws have been changed so many times, but here goes:
Works created 1/1/1978 or after: Protection starts when work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, expires after life of the creator + 70 years (or, if work is of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter).
Published before 1923: in public domain.
Published between 1923 and 1963: Protection starts when published with notice, expires after 28 years + optional 47-year renewal, which was later extended to 67 years. If not renewed, it's now in public domain.
Published from 1964-1977: Protection starts when published with notice, expires after 28 years + automatic 67-year extension.
Chreated before 1/1/1978 but not published: Protection starts 1/1/1978, expires after life of creator + 70 years or 12/31/2002, whichever is greater.
Created before 1/1/1978 but published between then and 12/31/2002: Protection starts 1/1/1978, expires after life of creator + 70 years or 12/31/2047, whichever is greater.
So it can be difficult to tell when things expire, but they do expire.
Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with patents, which is what the article was about...
# The UK is still ruled by a monarch.
Tell that to Tony Blair. I think he'd be really amused.
The UK still has a monarchy, supported by tax dollars. But when was the last time they made a decision that actually affected what people in Britain or the rest of the world do (besides setting fashion trends)?
Well, I agree that we're seeing the beginnings of the American Empire.
As I see it, the American Empire began with the end of WWII. What we're seeing now is the fall of the American Empire.
The phrase "bread and circuses" clangs loudly in my head every time I see another ad for "reality TV." "Here, watch these people risk their necks and stab each other in the back, to take your mind off of the real world falling apart around you." It's not a new thing; anyone remember American Gladiators?
When the government starts handing out free food at the movies, I'm packing up and moving to Finland.
"I tend to go into "deep hack" mode rather easily, where I'm doing a task and all my attention is on that task. ...
My wife does not seem to have deep hack mode. Her brain always multitasks."
This is something else that comes into it: it's starting to become apparent that high-functioning autism (Asperger's Syndrome) can make people very good coders, for exactly the reason you describe. (Tried to find the Wired article from last year or so about this, but no dice.)
Autism is three to four times as likely to hit males as females.
So there may be something to the idea that men genetically concentrate better. But, if that's the case, there's also something to the notion that women are naturally better with social subtleties and communication.
Take 2 years of vacations and you are dead for CS for at least 2 more years to catch the industry living by Moore's law (18 months for hardware, something similar for software).
Maternity is a biology factor, not a social one.
There's nothing about maternity that mandates 2 years off. For that matter, federal law only requires employers to give 6 weeks unpaid leave for pregnancy. I've known several women in various types of jobs, from lawyers to Docutech operators, who worked up until they went into labor. Women who give birth the "natural" way can, physically, return to work within a couple weeks; C-sections take a little longer to recover from. Babies who are breast-fed do better physically and intellectually than those who aren't, though, so there's a lot of motivation for women to have jobs that allow them to do this... some have on-site childcare, others work from home some or all of the time.
The idea that the mother is the only parent for the first year is outdated. Some women may choose to take on that role, and there's nothing wrong with it... but you can raise a healthy child by giving the dad some responsibility too.
"Girls do not like doing anything that involves concentrating on one single thing for long periods. They like to switch from one thought to another, and keep many balls up in the air at one time."
That's slightly incorrect. It should read:
Girls are discouraged from doing anything that involves concentrating on one single thing for long periods. They are easier to keep in line if they feel they have to to switch from one thought to another, and keep many balls up in the air at one time.
How do I know? Because I grew up in this society, but was more or less raised as a boy. I saw really, really painfully the differences in how girls and boys were treated by teachers and other authority figures. My mom wouldn't stand for it, of course... so I was good at math and stuff like that. And not particularly popular with any of the students, since they had this sinking feeling that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do.
Why are women the ones who wear high heels and skirts and industrial-strength underwear and study lower-paying professions? It's not because they're born wanting to. It's because they learn, from the beginning, that it's what they're *supposed* to do to get by in society. The rewards are good, and the punishments for not doing it are very, very bad.
Hey, whatever it takes to get more women in the IT field, I'm all for it. If they can't get more of us who are born female to go into computers, then hey, let's just even things out with science. ;-)
But in all seriousness, I would guess that the number of transgender women in IT is similar in proportion to the number of XX chromasomes in IT. After all, people that choose to become women do so because it feels more natural to them... and we live in a society that teaches us from day one that science and math aren't "natural" to women.
Wouldn't fit in my current desk; this thing is 15" wide, and the computer shelf under my desk is only 10". But, my current case is taller and longer than this guy.
The "easy access" isn't quite so easy, though, when you realize you'll have to pull the computer all the way out from the wall every time you want to open it. Or you could just turn it, but that requires more maneuvering room.
I like the idea of the cables plugging into the side, though. I can't count the number of times I have wished I had one of those dentist mirror-thingies when figuring out which plug goes in which jack. It won't reduce cable clutter in the slightest, but it will make them more accessible. (The only real way to reduce cable clutter, I've decided, is the liberal application of zip ties.)
The OED -- do you subscribe?
;-)
As a resident of Los Angeles, I'm eligible for an LAPL Library card. With that, I can go to their website, punch in my card number and ZIP code, and go through their subscription to the OED and other fantastic things... from home.
Libraries are so underrated.
'OOOO, look at the dolphin, he's smiling'
"yes, johnny, he's glad his namesake a/k/a mahi
mahi is so well know by that alias. He doesn't
realize that good red meat by any other name
is still porpoise"
Unless of course it's Dolphinfish, but whatever.
They were worried about the image, not whether the article was actually committing statutory rape under California law. Many players argued that at level 14, a character is already out adventuring and stuff... but that wasn't what the story had said (it said age not level), so it brought a very different image to mind.
Clinical studies show that, while only about 20% (less now, I'm thinking) of Americans are addicted to cigarettes, 100% are addicted to food.
Hopefully, this patch will help people with a food abuse problem to combat it and overcome it. In moderation, food is a good and healthy thing, but as with so many things, there is such a thing as too much.
I wonder how long it's going to take them to come up with the Sleep patch? Now that's an addiction I'd like to kick...
About a year and a half ago or so, an Everquest player had his game account banned and was asked to remove some fan fiction from a website by Sony (and I believe there was a threat of legal action if he did not). That fiction involved a 14-year-old dark elf female being raped.
But, as was frequently pointed out in the resulting furor (the player in question apologized and took it like a man, but some players want any reason to bitch), the general policy on EQ fan sites is to let them be, and even throw them bones now and then. People post screenshots, walk-throughs, fan fics, and all kinds of other game-related content all over the web. And apparently Sony Online Entertainment and/or Verant Interactive realize that this is a *good* thing, so long as it doesn't hurt their image. They also realize that if they decide a particular work is hurting them more than helping them (as they decided with the depiction of child rape), they have the right to enforce their copyright selectively.
It seems that perhaps copyright law needs a proof of damage clause attached to it, similar to slander and libel. This could be used to expand the doctrine of Fair Use, for example. In many cases such a clause wouldn't be appropriate; you could, if it were done badly, end up with situations where someone loses their copyright because "they weren't using it." (Of course, that happens now, too... see the Darwin fish. But anyway.)
Social engineering.
/report command so that the GMs can verify it, and then they can put a "soulmark" on the account. If you get caught multiple times, you can lose your account, along with any time you've already paid for (no refunds).
In RL people can cheat and make other people feel miserable, too.
Why is it still in acceptable bounds? Because people get punished by the community, who don't behave.
An online-game is a community, too. But why doesn't it work? Because, there is no real punishment possible.
In EverQuest, it's "illegal" to do many things that feel like "cheating," including kill-stealing and trade scamming. It's against the Play Nice Policy, and is subject to enforcement by the GMs. What typically happens is, if a player willfully does this stuff and admits it on chat, a player can send that chat with a
It doesn't stop things from happening; mostly because people don't properly report or GMs don't respond quickly enough to catch the perpetrator. But they do have a system, and it does work sometimes.
Is that kind of what you're talking about?
FCC should mandate offering DSL service without making the customer pay for landline telephone service. It shuts out VoIP.
Sure, it seems that way to the consumer. But what are the interests of the FCC? How do you demonstrate to them that DSL falls under their purvey, or more accurately, doesn't?
That's what's been boggling my mind for the last couple years: how do you convince the FCC to (a) take an interest in and (b) take a position in favor of mandating the unbundling of DSL from POTS. Sure, *I* know of all kinds of reasons, and if we were dealing with the FTC it might be easier to argue it... but from a communications standpoint, given what the FCC is in charge of doing, how do we convince them?
Well, no, they're not. I remember when I was a child, we'd sit there and wait until the phone ticked one minute past 5:00, then we'd call the family in Oklahoma. The amount you saved by calling "after the rates went down" was significant enough that in most residences, you didn't make long-distance calls during business hours unless it was an emergency.
I thought it was just my mom having grown up poor and all that, but then a couple years ago I had occasion to see the comparative per-minute rates from The Phone Company(tm) vs. Now. Then it all made sense. (Wish I could remember where I saw it so I could cite it.)
Since the company has been split up, and has switched over to digital signaling, our costs have gone down significantly. When you factor in cost-of-living changes, I believe that even the value-added services (like call waiting, voicemail, etc.) are significantly cheaper than they were a decade ago.
Or so the RIAA would have you believe, but no one's yet demonstrated that P2P networking ever replaced any purchasing activity.
I think the author missed a really good bet when he made this comparison. After all, cell phones are the really, really obvious example of how people don't care quite so much about voice quality in a telephone call. We're willing to say "What? What was that? Can you hear me now?" many times in a conversation if it means we can take our phones with us everywhere and play games on them when we're bored. Losing a little quality to have cheaper, more flexible "landline" service is a no-brainer.
While an interesting article, it would seem to imply that being able to use a FAX machine at, say, Kinko's should not be possible because people would just have bought their own FAX machines. For a business that sends many FAX machines, buying and maintaining their own FAX machine as opposed to using some one else's may make sense. For personal use, it may not be worth the investment. The article does not seem to take that sort of market segmentation into account.
.1 lbs from the West Coast to the East Coast is $16.48. Kinko's is $2.00 a page (maybe $3 by now) for the same thing, and it gets there about 20 hours earlier. (If I'm just sending it across town, it's only $11.59 by FedEx, and only $1.00 per page by Kinko's... or $0.75 gas money to take it there myself, if I have the time.)
Actually, I think the article was about that kind of market segmentation. What he was picking on ZapMail for, and using it as an example of, is providing a service that is much cheaper to provide at only a small discount over the old service. That means that the end-user finds the service to be even cheaper to provide for themselves.
FedEx Standard Overnight for sending an envelope weighing
Kinko's is providing the service with a pricing scheme based on the assumption that, if you really thought it was worth it, you'd just buy a fax machine. FedEx wasn't taking that into account as an option; they were only looking at it in comparison to their own existing service, which was (and is) predominantly used by businesses. If they'd marketed it at cheaper rates to the general public, who knows? it might have taken off. But it wasn't the author who didn't realize that, it was the company.
I want my land line so that I can call my family and not pay 35 cents a minute as most cell services charge for overage.
And yet, that's why cell phones are becoming more and more the staple rather than the extra: I called my best friend (who lives 500 miles away) and talked for an hour today. I pay $39.99+tax for my cell phone coverage, and it was included. I can call anywhere in the US, from anywhere in the US (that has cell coverage), and it's all rolled up into my 500 anytime + 3500 night/weekend minutes... which I've never come close to exceeding.
If I want to call the pizza place down the street, sure, I'll pick up the landline. But if I want to call someone far away and talk for a while, the cell phone is far more economical.
Today's phones (aside from cordless) are powered from the CO and hence a power outage in the customer premise doesn't cut off the customer calling for help.
:P ) then pay someone like Vonage (who serves relatively small pockets of the US thus far (at least if you want your number to be local...) another $40 smackers!
I assume you meant cellular, not cordless. Cordless phones are the ones that are guaranteed not to work in a power outage, since the base station needs power to transmit to the phone.
Tell me how it makes sense for any more than say 5-10% of the population (really... what's broadband penetration at?)to go out and plunk down $40-50 US (us Canucks don't pay as much...
Right.. if I'm grandma, uncle Ted, or mom&dad I'll stick with my $30 Baby Bell line...
$30 huh?
When I actually used my landline, it was routinely $40-50 per month (including long distance, call waiting, etc... which are included in the $40 from Vonage). Currently, we pay around $85/month for our phone line... and $65 of that is "enhanced" DSL. That's $20/month for a phone that we spend more time talking to wrong numbers on than anything else. We'd probably do away with it entirely if my husband's cellular got better reception here. In my old apartment, I didn't even have a handset hooked up, and had the cheapest measured-rate service with no frills available from PacBell (which is cheaper than Verizon, the other big player in the LA residential market). I paid $53 and change per month, and the DSL portion was $39.95. (No, there was NO WAY to get DSL without getting phone service. And I didn't have a TV, so cable modem wouldn't have been cheaper.)
So if I was in the habit of using a landline for my calls, I'd probably jump at $40/month including everything, as would a lot of people... if only to get rid of their phone company (some aren't bad, but some are atrocious).
911 is designed to provide the following services:
- A universal, easy to remember phone number that people can dial in any kind of emergency.
- Quick forwarding of your crisis to the appropriate agency, whether it be fire, police, or paramedics, along with your location (even if you can't speak -- people have successfully used 911 to save their lives when choking, or when an armed intruder is present).
- Operators trained to talk you through the situation, with first-aid instructions, advice on how to stay safe, or just sympathy and a calm presence.
I can call the local police department, or fire department, or paramedics... but that's three numbers I need to know, for the area I'm in. If I'm at my friend's house and he keels over, I better hope he's looked them all up and has them clearly posted.
or else to make sure that the VOIP standards are updated to do a better job of passing location information (for people who want to pass it)
Actually, you hit the nail on the head there. It's not legal to block your phone number from 911 (or from toll-free numbers, because they're picking up the tab). If VOIP is to take off, the same standards need to be applied to it for residential telephone service.
I imagine it's like finding out that Australia isn't actually a separate continent, but part of Asia.
It's not just that there's a ring of stars around a disk of stars, but that that ring relates to the disk in a particular way, which makes the galaxy bigger than previously thought.