Paragraph (22) of section 301 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 431(22)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `Such term shall not include communications over the Internet.'.
That means that, if it had passed, anything posted on the Internet would be exempt from campaign finance laws. That means advertisements, editorials, etc. That means it would be perfectly legal for a political party to use campaign donations to hire people to write political blogs that they might not otherwise have written on their own time, initiative, and opinions. That means hiring people to comment on message boards and other people's blogs. In other words, it means astroturfing.
You may think this is a good thing, in which case it ought to be extended to the print and real worlds -- just remove all those limitations in the first place. But if you think we should be limiting the effect that money has on election campaigns, what makes the Internet special?
As it stands, anyone blogging on their own time already has free speech on the internet. So let's not cast this as a blogbing issue.
It's interesting to note that in the mobile web browser space, Nokia has supported or licensed a number of different players. They've licensed Opera for a long time, they've helped fund Minimo (Mozilla/Gecko), and of course they've just announced their own KHTML-based browser.
They seem to recognize that they're better off with choices -- if KHTML works best on one device, maybe Gecko will work best on another. Maybe Opera will be the best choice in another device, but they don't want to be stuck if, say, Opera's licensing deal becomes prohibitive, or Gecko or KHTML goes off in a completely new direction.
Forget coffee beer -- I'm sticking with Kahlua (a coffee liqueur). It's versatile. You can drink it, you can mix it with other forms of alcohol to create mixed drinks, you can add chocolate and ice cream to make a mudslide, you can put it in a milkshake, you can add it to brownies, you can make tiramisu...
Heck, you can put Kahlua in coffee!
I don't see being able to do any of that with a beer made from coffee. Not if I want the result to be drinkable, anyway.
Well, some things are only funny if you're in the right frame of mind, which can be encouraged by hearing the speaker's tone of voice, seeing facial expressions and/or body language, etc. But if you reduce it to plain text, that's all gone. End result: if you happen to be in one frame of mind, it's funny (though in this case not very), and if you're in another frame of mind, your reaction is more likely to be "WTF?" or "whatever."
When I was in school we were told to write essays or creative writing assignments without bold, italics, or any other formatting (yes, we had bold and italics available, I'm not that old). It's tricky to learn how to get the right mood across with words alone. I won't claim to have mastered it myself, either, and I often resort to <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags and the like on Slashdot.
Well, the story definitely fits Slashdot's "News For Nerds" slogan but I'm not so sure this is "stuff that matters".:)
I've always interpreted that as a union rather than an intersection. Add in the fact that different things matter to different people, and it makes it much easier to accept some of the stories that end up on Slashdot!
They need to try this in more than warm, sunny southern California. My sister has a Prius and loves it, though the battery sometimes doesn't respond well to being parked outside overnight in sub-zero.
That reminds me of a possibly apocryphal story I heard about some of the older (as in 1960s-era) Volkswagen cars. Apparently they were designed for Germany's climate, and in the considerably warmer American Southwest, some parts would expand at different rates and just not fit together.
However, they could start selling it at any point in the future - at which point the pre-existing unauthorized copies would potentially interefere with their making a profit
Yep. I, personally, would in most cases buy the official copy even if I had a bootleg. But how many people would do so, and how often? And what happens when the bootlegs start to rival the official copies in quality?
I always figured they were creating artificial scarcity to drive up demand. I'm sure there are some people who want every Disney movie ever made, but they're going to buy them all anyway. If you make every product a limited edition, suddenly there's this "Hmm, if I wait, I won't be able to get it for 7 years!" It'll get some of the fence-sitters and procrastinators who might otherwise never get around to buying it.
I was distinguishing physical products from intellectual products -- i.e. the books vs. the contents of the book.
It's laughable to say "You won't sell me your first edition Catcher in the Rye, so I'm going to take it." That's out-and-out theft. It would be if the book in question were in the public domain.
It's a bit different to say "You won't sell me a copy of this book, so I'm going to make my own copy." That's where the copyright infringement as theft metaphor breaks down -- he still has his copy of the book -- and why the laws governing theft and copyright infringement are different.
The big advantage of paper is that all you need to view it are your eyes. (Or your fingers, if it's written in Braille.)
On the other hand, anyone who has visited the US National Archives can see the efforts needed to preserve the original US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We have zillions of copies, but the originals are kept in sealed vaults with limited lighting. Exposure to air damages the paper. Exposure to light fades the ink. They've struck a careful balance to make sure that people can still see the physical artefact without destroying it.
Both paper and digital need to be copied to new physical media from time to time. It's a lot easier to make that digital-to-digital copy!
I've got an old enough copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy that the intro -- and the back cover -- commented on the existence of unauthorized (re: no royalties to Tolkien or even his publisher) copies printed in the US, finishing with something like "Those who believe in courtesy, at least, to living authors will buy this edition and no other." This would have been late 1960s or early 1970s. (I've also got a newer set as a reading copy, since the older books are starting to fall apart.)
Yeah, that's one of those cases where the legality is clear, but the ethics are debatable. You're certainly not damaging their ability to "leverage their assets" since they aren't doing anything to leverage them, and if they'd just sell you a copy, you'd be quite happy to buy it. (Of course, this argument would fall apart laughably with physical goods.)
The saddedst stories are the ones about silent-era films left practically rotting in the studio vaults. If the studio doesn't think they'll get any money for it, they have no reason to maintain/restore the old film, but film historians, who have every reason to want the film preserved, can't get at it.
On the other hand, you occasionally hear singers, authors, etc. talking about that early album or novel that they wish hadn't been published, and joking that they want to buy up every surviving copy and burn it.
And then there's the question of material that has never been published in the first place...
It's like the "What did the Romans ever do for us!" scene in The Life of Brian. Every time SCO comes out with some big claim, someone else pipes in with "what about...?" Every time, the case gets less and less credible.
It's possible it might eventually boil down to some viable claim, in which case you have to wonder why they didn't start there in the first place instead of burning through time and cash -- but I think it'll end up about as valid as "IBM looked at us funny."
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA, here's the full text of the bill:
That means that, if it had passed, anything posted on the Internet would be exempt from campaign finance laws. That means advertisements, editorials, etc. That means it would be perfectly legal for a political party to use campaign donations to hire people to write political blogs that they might not otherwise have written on their own time, initiative, and opinions. That means hiring people to comment on message boards and other people's blogs. In other words, it means astroturfing.
You may think this is a good thing, in which case it ought to be extended to the print and real worlds -- just remove all those limitations in the first place. But if you think we should be limiting the effect that money has on election campaigns, what makes the Internet special?
As it stands, anyone blogging on their own time already has free speech on the internet. So let's not cast this as a blogbing issue.
It's interesting to note that in the mobile web browser space, Nokia has supported or licensed a number of different players. They've licensed Opera for a long time, they've helped fund Minimo (Mozilla/Gecko), and of course they've just announced their own KHTML-based browser.
They seem to recognize that they're better off with choices -- if KHTML works best on one device, maybe Gecko will work best on another. Maybe Opera will be the best choice in another device, but they don't want to be stuck if, say, Opera's licensing deal becomes prohibitive, or Gecko or KHTML goes off in a completely new direction.
That way you will end up with a haunted computer room!
Forget coffee beer -- I'm sticking with Kahlua (a coffee liqueur). It's versatile. You can drink it, you can mix it with other forms of alcohol to create mixed drinks, you can add chocolate and ice cream to make a mudslide, you can put it in a milkshake, you can add it to brownies, you can make tiramisu...
Heck, you can put Kahlua in coffee!
I don't see being able to do any of that with a beer made from coffee. Not if I want the result to be drinkable, anyway.
Thanks. I figured there was a good chance I was misremembering that.
Well, some things are only funny if you're in the right frame of mind, which can be encouraged by hearing the speaker's tone of voice, seeing facial expressions and/or body language, etc. But if you reduce it to plain text, that's all gone. End result: if you happen to be in one frame of mind, it's funny (though in this case not very), and if you're in another frame of mind, your reaction is more likely to be "WTF?" or "whatever."
When I was in school we were told to write essays or creative writing assignments without bold, italics, or any other formatting (yes, we had bold and italics available, I'm not that old). It's tricky to learn how to get the right mood across with words alone. I won't claim to have mastered it myself, either, and I often resort to <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags and the like on Slashdot.
You seriously need to move! Although I'm sure it'll add a lot of km to your commute.
Well, the story definitely fits Slashdot's "News For Nerds" slogan but I'm not so sure this is "stuff that matters". :)
I've always interpreted that as a union rather than an intersection. Add in the fact that different things matter to different people, and it makes it much easier to accept some of the stories that end up on Slashdot!
California isn't just a small strip of sunny beach on the west coast.
Unfortunately that's what our tourist brochures imply. Otherwise our real estate market might not be quite so insane.
They need to try this in more than warm, sunny southern California. My sister has a Prius and loves it, though the battery sometimes doesn't respond well to being parked outside overnight in sub-zero.
That reminds me of a possibly apocryphal story I heard about some of the older (as in 1960s-era) Volkswagen cars. Apparently they were designed for Germany's climate, and in the considerably warmer American Southwest, some parts would expand at different rates and just not fit together.
Oh, wait, worldwide D&D Game day! I misread that as a worldwide D&D game!
Just as well we don't have to wait for everyone to roll up new characters.
What would that do to a country's international reputation?
Nothing we haven't done already. What reputation have we got left?
However, they could start selling it at any point in the future - at which point the pre-existing unauthorized copies would potentially interefere with their making a profit
Yep. I, personally, would in most cases buy the official copy even if I had a bootleg. But how many people would do so, and how often? And what happens when the bootlegs start to rival the official copies in quality?
It's the anime fansub debate, generalized.
I always figured they were creating artificial scarcity to drive up demand. I'm sure there are some people who want every Disney movie ever made, but they're going to buy them all anyway. If you make every product a limited edition, suddenly there's this "Hmm, if I wait, I won't be able to get it for 7 years!" It'll get some of the fence-sitters and procrastinators who might otherwise never get around to buying it.
I was distinguishing physical products from intellectual products -- i.e. the books vs. the contents of the book.
It's laughable to say "You won't sell me your first edition Catcher in the Rye, so I'm going to take it." That's out-and-out theft. It would be if the book in question were in the public domain.
It's a bit different to say "You won't sell me a copy of this book, so I'm going to make my own copy." That's where the copyright infringement as theft metaphor breaks down -- he still has his copy of the book -- and why the laws governing theft and copyright infringement are different.
The big advantage of paper is that all you need to view it are your eyes. (Or your fingers, if it's written in Braille.)
On the other hand, anyone who has visited the US National Archives can see the efforts needed to preserve the original US Constitution and Declaration of Independence. We have zillions of copies, but the originals are kept in sealed vaults with limited lighting. Exposure to air damages the paper. Exposure to light fades the ink. They've struck a careful balance to make sure that people can still see the physical artefact without destroying it.
Both paper and digital need to be copied to new physical media from time to time. It's a lot easier to make that digital-to-digital copy!
I've got an old enough copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy that the intro -- and the back cover -- commented on the existence of unauthorized (re: no royalties to Tolkien or even his publisher) copies printed in the US, finishing with something like "Those who believe in courtesy, at least, to living authors will buy this edition and no other." This would have been late 1960s or early 1970s. (I've also got a newer set as a reading copy, since the older books are starting to fall apart.)
Yeah, that's one of those cases where the legality is clear, but the ethics are debatable. You're certainly not damaging their ability to "leverage their assets" since they aren't doing anything to leverage them, and if they'd just sell you a copy, you'd be quite happy to buy it. (Of course, this argument would fall apart laughably with physical goods.)
The saddedst stories are the ones about silent-era films left practically rotting in the studio vaults. If the studio doesn't think they'll get any money for it, they have no reason to maintain/restore the old film, but film historians, who have every reason to want the film preserved, can't get at it.
On the other hand, you occasionally hear singers, authors, etc. talking about that early album or novel that they wish hadn't been published, and joking that they want to buy up every surviving copy and burn it.
And then there's the question of material that has never been published in the first place...
It's like the "What did the Romans ever do for us!" scene in The Life of Brian. Every time SCO comes out with some big claim, someone else pipes in with "what about...?" Every time, the case gets less and less credible.
It's possible it might eventually boil down to some viable claim, in which case you have to wonder why they didn't start there in the first place instead of burning through time and cash -- but I think it'll end up about as valid as "IBM looked at us funny."
Don't forget blogging while flying (flogging), which will continue until people's morale improves.
Although this could all just be blogging a dead horse.
You mean Blizzcon looked great, but came out eighteen months after it was originally scheduled?
And Mac users don't get in until next year's con?
the result was nothing less than the level of excellence that we have come to expect from Blizzard
Hey, as long as they didn't make you replace your name badge, it's all good!
I believe I read this recently:
http://simulatedcomicproduct.com/index.php?cid=21
Fired them on the spot. No one who posts here is worth my money.
Good thing you posted anonymously. Otherwise you'd have to take yourself off the payroll.
What is wrong with bring up a potentially interesting topic?
My God, man! You do realize you're talking about Slashdot, don't you?