Your analysis and comments are superficial; a more in depth assessment of the situation is something like this:
The artist signs a contract with the publisher. That contract gives the artist something in exchange for the publisher's right to sell his work. Why should we assume that the artist suffers? The publisher may take a loss, but they already claim that only 10% of their artists produce a profit for them. Then they use this statistic to justify paying the artist 10% of what they charge for his work.
Artists now have the ability to sell directly to the public, in various ways through the internet. Steven King's online experiment has shown that money can be made this way. Napster is another method that could be adapted to produce revenue for the artist, but the Record CO's won't look at that. The common factor here is that the publishers lose out. In light of the antitrust action against the publishers controling the cd market, is it any wonder/. sees big business in a bad light?
As this issue has come up in our local library, where I maintain the publicly available PC's, it appears that there may be an easy solution. Any legislation of this kind will only be able to restrict the use of systems purchased with federal money. Simply donate a pc to your local library with the express wish that it not be filtered. You may have to spring for seperate Internet access as well, since many libraries have their internal networks and net access funded with federal money. I believe that may libraries would find the donation of a PC with Linux installed and some minimum maintenance to be valued more highly a simple email to your local congress critter alone.
We have two systems for Internet access; one windows box with NetNanny for filtering and one Linux system that is not filtered. Our library policy is that children under 12 may only use the filtered box, and young adults may use the unfiltered machine if they have parential consent. A further note is that state law prohibits the display of "obscene" material in a public place, so that we may ask a patron to not view such material at the library. This lets patrons visit sites for information (GBL sites, abortion, et. al.) why still giving us the power to not have Playboy or www.whitehouse.com on public display.
One side note here is that NetNanny is one of the only filtering programs for Windows that releases the blocked site list and allows the user to alter it. This gives the knowledgeable sysadmin some leeway. If someone knows of useable Linux filtering software, please let me know.
SCA martial arts have a large variety of simulated weapons effects, which include impact, piercing and slashing. Actual swordplay against actual armor does not use a cutting motion with the broadsword of the middle ages because it can't slice through the metal armor of the time.
AFAIR, there was a SCI-FI story about a time traveller who used a sword prepared with post modern technology. They used a time displacement field to divide a broadsword in half and placed a slab of diamond a few hundred microns thick in the center.
I wonder if any work has gone it making a composite laminate sword along these lines, rather than using the fold and flatten katana method.
Illiad at UserFriendly already had the best 3-way split: Marketing Legal Finance I don't know why the DOJ is complaining about the monopoly status of these parts though, as there are plenty of lawyers, accountants & PR flacks to go around. Still, a breakup in this fashion would let the rest of us ignore the other useless corporation entities (OS, Apps, and that networking stuff) that these guys prop up.
The overall program will be coordinated by PeoplePC, Inc. of San Francisco. The computers and printers will be provided by Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif. UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company based in Fairfax, Va., will provide the Internet service.
The base computer will have a 500-Mhz Celeron chip, 64 MB of RAM, a 4.3GB hard disk for storage, a CD-ROM, software, a 15-inch monitor, speakers and a modem. The printer will be a color inkjet. Employees can upgrade to three more powerful computers at their expense and the monthly fee will cover incidental personal use.
I believe that the program would be much more useful if the employees were allowed to choose from a wider range of hardware & software. These systems seem to be little more than cheap Wintel boxes. Buying 350,000+ of them ought to get a bit of a discount, so on the scale of corporate employee benefits, "this ain't that big."
It seems that Ford is attempting to create a corporate culture here; unfortunately, this culture looks to have all the variety and creativity of the model T. ("Any color they want, so long as its black." paraphrase attributed to H. Ford)
Michael Chaney made life a little easier for a lot of folks, and he did it without seeking a personal gain for his actions. That's what seperates him from Bill Gates and Microsoft.
Bill Gates funnels his "donations" through the entity (I don't know what species of legal business the Gates Foundation is) that his parents control, which gives them access to anything the foundation might buy for their personal use. This is a standard tax dodge, and should not be seen as a solely benevolent gesture.
Slashdot Mirror
Your analysis and comments are superficial; a more in depth assessment of the situation is something like this:
The artist signs a contract with the publisher. That contract gives the artist something in exchange for the publisher's right to sell his work. Why should we assume that the artist suffers? The publisher may take a loss, but they already claim that only 10% of their artists produce a profit for them. Then they use this statistic to justify paying the artist 10% of what they charge for his work.
Artists now have the ability to sell directly to the public, in various ways through the internet. Steven King's online experiment has shown that money can be made this way. Napster is another method that could be adapted to produce revenue for the artist, but the Record CO's won't look at that. The common factor here is that the publishers lose out. In light of the antitrust action against the publishers controling the cd market, is it any wonder /. sees big business in a bad light?
As this issue has come up in our local library, where I maintain the publicly available PC's, it appears that there may be an easy solution. Any legislation of this kind will only be able to restrict the use of systems purchased with federal money. Simply donate a pc to your local library with the express wish that it not be filtered. You may have to spring for seperate Internet access as well, since many libraries have their internal networks and net access funded with federal money. I believe that may libraries would find the donation of a PC with Linux installed and some minimum maintenance to be valued more highly a simple email to your local congress critter alone.
We have two systems for Internet access; one windows box with NetNanny for filtering and one Linux system that is not filtered. Our library policy is that children under 12 may only use the filtered box, and young adults may use the unfiltered machine if they have parential consent. A further note is that state law prohibits the display of "obscene" material in a public place, so that we may ask a patron to not view such material at the library. This lets patrons visit sites for information (GBL sites, abortion, et. al.) why still giving us the power to not have Playboy or www.whitehouse.com on public display.
One side note here is that NetNanny is one of the only filtering programs for Windows that releases the blocked site list and allows the user to alter it. This gives the knowledgeable sysadmin some leeway. If someone knows of useable Linux filtering software, please let me know.
SCA martial arts have a large variety of simulated weapons effects, which include impact, piercing and slashing. Actual swordplay against actual armor does not use a cutting motion with the broadsword of the middle ages because it can't slice through the metal armor of the time.
AFAIR, there was a SCI-FI story about a time traveller who used a sword prepared with post modern technology. They used a time displacement field to divide a broadsword in half and placed a slab of diamond a few hundred microns thick in the center.
I wonder if any work has gone it making a composite laminate sword along these lines, rather than using the fold and flatten katana method.
Illiad at UserFriendly already had the best 3-way split:
Marketing
Legal
Finance
I don't know why the DOJ is complaining about the monopoly status of these parts though, as there are plenty of lawyers, accountants & PR flacks to go around. Still, a breakup in this fashion would let the rest of us ignore the other useless corporation entities (OS, Apps, and that networking stuff) that these guys prop up.
The overall program will be coordinated by PeoplePC, Inc. of San Francisco. The computers and printers will be provided by Hewlett-Packard Company of Palo Alto, Calif. UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company based in Fairfax, Va., will provide the Internet service.
The base computer will have a 500-Mhz Celeron chip, 64 MB of RAM, a 4.3GB hard disk for storage, a CD-ROM, software, a 15-inch monitor, speakers and a modem. The printer will be a color inkjet. Employees can upgrade to three more powerful computers at their expense and the monthly fee will cover incidental personal use.
I believe that the program would be much more useful if the employees were allowed to choose from a wider range of hardware & software. These systems seem to be little more than cheap Wintel boxes. Buying 350,000+ of them ought to get a bit of a discount, so on the scale of corporate employee benefits, "this ain't that big."
It seems that Ford is attempting to create a corporate culture here; unfortunately, this culture looks to have all the variety and creativity of the model T. ("Any color they want, so long as its black." paraphrase attributed to H. Ford)