No, the Sony Betamax decision established that mere percentages of illegal use are not relevant, but the Grokster decision established that how you promote your technology is. With those precedents, the case is likely to come down to the question of whether IsoHunt ever actively promoted the illegal uses of their system—something Google has never been accused of.
Google has never actively promoted the illegal uses of their system. That clearly puts them in the safe area between the exception to contributory infringement laws carved out by the Sony Betamax case ("substantial non-infringing uses") and the limits to that exception defined in the Grokster case ("no active promotion of the illegal uses"). Can IsoHunt say the same? (I honestly don't know.)
Fortunately for the point he was trying to make, exclusivity isn't the issue--he just got that little detail wrong. Actively promoting illegal activity is the issue (or an issue). Grokster lost when they tried the Sony Betamax defense ("substantial non-infringing uses") because they were actively promoting the illegal uses of their system. Google has never crossed that line. I don't know if IsoHunt (or Pirate Bay) has crossed that line, but the question is likely to be key.
Yeah, too bad they're relying entirely on light pressure, and aren't planning to take advantage of, say, the possibly-catastrophic outgassing they might get from heating one side of an object. I mean, obviously one of their main concerns is going to be not damaging the objects they're trying to destroy.
Google's going to be fine for the same reason that Bittorrent and its variants were fine even after Grokster peer-to-peer system lost its case. Grokster lost (even though they didn't distribute any files directly) because they promoted and advertised the illegal uses of their system. Bittorrent (and Google) have never promoted the illegal uses of their systems.
Guess what I suspect the problem with this guy's site was? (And why I suspect he'll lose if it goes to trial, and why I don't believe there are any constitutional issues involved?)
Has had for years and years. w3m.el. I don't think its support for javascript is very good though, so it probably won't run many of the advanced browser apps. But who cares--emacs probably already has built in versions of most of those anyway.:)
Because FLAC is very poorly supported among both portable media devices and media center devices?
So are CDs, yet people buy those. I have bought FLACs from livedownloads.com, and it's a lot like buying a CD, except it was a little cheaper (about halfway between the MP3 price and the CD price), and I didn't have to wait for delivery. Once I got 'em, I transcoded 'em (once) for my portable, and burned 'em for my CD player(s), so the total amount of work was almost exactly the same as for a CD (which I would rip instead of burn). I didn't see any particular downside, and I'd like it to be an option more often.
Wow. Just wow! Do you simply not know which direction the clock is adjusted at which time of year, or do you honestly think that I might have been suggesting that you deprive yourself of an hour of sleep when everyone else is sleeping for an extra hour, putting yourself two hours out of sync with the world?
I kinda hope its the second one, just because that's a cool thing to have believed someone meant long enough to try to insult them for having said it.:)
> If it's really a health issue, why adjust your sleep schedule to match the changing clock?
Because neither work nor school will adjust their schedules for him?
Yes, that's why I suggested getting up an hour earlier in winter rather than the otherwise-equivalent change of getting up an hour later in summer, which would make him late.
Frankly, DST should be abandoned entirely
But it hasn't been, and unless and until it is, this guy has to live with it. Are you suggesting that he should continue to risk his health and mental well-being just to try to prove your point? I gotta say, I'm not very comfortable with demanding that someone else martyr themselves for my cause, no matter how much I think they may agree with it. But maybe that's just me.:)
I'm not sure what you're saying. I do get up an hour earlier in the summer, I certainly could do so without changing my clocks (though that would seem like a silly and pointless exercise, since the everyone around me changes their clocks), and I'm not regulating anyone! Perhaps you mistook my practical suggestion for pro-DST advocacy?
So get up an hour earlier during winter rather than an hour later during summer, and you won't have to come in late or have your circadian rhythms disrupted.
Technically, it should be something other than a comma, but the semicolon is only one of a number of options. It could be a period, an exclamation point, an em-dash, or even (though it would give a slightly archaic feel) a colon. Simply inserting the word "to" before "go" would also fix the problem.
I'm also a fan of the semicolon, but—unfortunately—the only time it's mandatory in English is in a list of lists.
If not running at all on my system counts as increased security, then I agree, but it doesn't make me want to use it. As for resource usage, it's hard to beat won't-run for consuming minimal resources, but again, that's hardly a plus. It may date me, but I find the whole idea of saying that something which requires me to install Windows is "ahead on security" to be curiously ironic.
I agree with your general assessment, though. If I wanted to maximize security, I'd probably run Chromium on OpenBSD. Since I'm not using either of those, it's pretty clear that security is not my top priority.
"Horace and Aristotle have told us of the virtues of their fathers and the vices of their own time, and authors down the centuries have done the same. If they were right, men would now be bears." -- Montesquieu
When are we going to get an interface that is totally configurable to user preferences?
You mean like FVWM or IceWM or WindowMaker or E or any of the other WMs that experts love and newbies hate? Gosh, I don't know--when will we get something like that?:)
I actually find FVWM's eight separate configurations for a window border (the four sides and the four corners) to be a little bit overkill. I can't really imagine wanting the left edge to act differently from the right. Fortunately, my editor does copy-and-paste, so it's not a big issue.:)
RTFA. It's not a default, the buttons are removed for good and you can't put them back.
Really? 'Cause last I checked (which admittedly was a while ago), Gnome had a default window manager, not a required one. Has that actually changed?
I'm also not sure how you can call a keyboard shortcut "harder to use". Harder to learn, perhaps, but I would have expected someone on slashdot to understand the difference between "easy to use" and "easy to learn", even if so many so-called "UI experts" can't. The concepts are orthogonal, but in this case, something that readily involves muscle-memory (like a keyboard shortcut) is invariably going to be easier to use--and almost as invariably harder to learn.
There are so many bad/clueless style guides out there that sheer quantity doesn't really say much. The Chicago Manual of Style—one of the few really widely-respected guides to American English style and usage—recommends using the apostrophe with 's', but explicitly says that just the apostrophe is not incorrect. (This is a change from the previous edition where they didn't even state a preference.)
Easy. Americans don't actually like beer. This also explains products like "American cheese" and other staples of the American diet. Americans don't like things with flavor.
Aside from this quibble, though, I agree with you.
Q. Which is the correct singular possessive form? “Professor Davis’ class” or “Professor Davis’s class”? [...] A. In its 15th edition, CMOS allowed the style shown in your first example, but the new 16th edition (7.21) no longer recommends it, although it is not incorrect...
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No, the Sony Betamax decision established that mere percentages of illegal use are not relevant, but the Grokster decision established that how you promote your technology is. With those precedents, the case is likely to come down to the question of whether IsoHunt ever actively promoted the illegal uses of their system—something Google has never been accused of.
Google has never actively promoted the illegal uses of their system. That clearly puts them in the safe area between the exception to contributory infringement laws carved out by the Sony Betamax case ("substantial non-infringing uses") and the limits to that exception defined in the Grokster case ("no active promotion of the illegal uses"). Can IsoHunt say the same? (I honestly don't know.)
Fortunately for the point he was trying to make, exclusivity isn't the issue--he just got that little detail wrong. Actively promoting illegal activity is the issue (or an issue). Grokster lost when they tried the Sony Betamax defense ("substantial non-infringing uses") because they were actively promoting the illegal uses of their system. Google has never crossed that line. I don't know if IsoHunt (or Pirate Bay) has crossed that line, but the question is likely to be key.
Yeah, too bad they're relying entirely on light pressure, and aren't planning to take advantage of, say, the possibly-catastrophic outgassing they might get from heating one side of an object. I mean, obviously one of their main concerns is going to be not damaging the objects they're trying to destroy.
That's easy! They don't make their own original content! Oh...wait.
You obviously haven't tried bashing Microsoft here in quite a while. There's plenty of MS fans and/or astroturfers with mod points these days.
Google's going to be fine for the same reason that Bittorrent and its variants were fine even after Grokster peer-to-peer system lost its case. Grokster lost (even though they didn't distribute any files directly) because they promoted and advertised the illegal uses of their system. Bittorrent (and Google) have never promoted the illegal uses of their systems.
Guess what I suspect the problem with this guy's site was? (And why I suspect he'll lose if it goes to trial, and why I don't believe there are any constitutional issues involved?)
Does emacs have an integrated web browser yet? :-)
Has had for years and years. w3m.el. I don't think its support for javascript is very good though, so it probably won't run many of the advanced browser apps. But who cares--emacs probably already has built in versions of most of those anyway. :)
And I just keep using the same old ~/.fvwm2rc file, year after year after year.
Really? I'm pretty sure I've had to update mine at least once in the last decade. :)
Because FLAC is very poorly supported among both portable media devices and media center devices?
So are CDs, yet people buy those. I have bought FLACs from livedownloads.com, and it's a lot like buying a CD, except it was a little cheaper (about halfway between the MP3 price and the CD price), and I didn't have to wait for delivery. Once I got 'em, I transcoded 'em (once) for my portable, and burned 'em for my CD player(s), so the total amount of work was almost exactly the same as for a CD (which I would rip instead of burn). I didn't see any particular downside, and I'd like it to be an option more often.
Wow. Just wow! Do you simply not know which direction the clock is adjusted at which time of year, or do you honestly think that I might have been suggesting that you deprive yourself of an hour of sleep when everyone else is sleeping for an extra hour, putting yourself two hours out of sync with the world?
I kinda hope its the second one, just because that's a cool thing to have believed someone meant long enough to try to insult them for having said it. :)
> If it's really a health issue, why adjust your sleep schedule to match the changing clock?
Because neither work nor school will adjust their schedules for him?
Yes, that's why I suggested getting up an hour earlier in winter rather than the otherwise-equivalent change of getting up an hour later in summer, which would make him late.
Frankly, DST should be abandoned entirely
But it hasn't been, and unless and until it is, this guy has to live with it. Are you suggesting that he should continue to risk his health and mental well-being just to try to prove your point? I gotta say, I'm not very comfortable with demanding that someone else martyr themselves for my cause, no matter how much I think they may agree with it. But maybe that's just me. :)
I'm not sure what you're saying. I do get up an hour earlier in the summer, I certainly could do so without changing my clocks (though that would seem like a silly and pointless exercise, since the everyone around me changes their clocks), and I'm not regulating anyone! Perhaps you mistook my practical suggestion for pro-DST advocacy?
So get up an hour earlier during winter rather than an hour later during summer, and you won't have to come in late or have your circadian rhythms disrupted.
If it's really a health issue, why adjust your sleep schedule to match the changing clock? Can't you simply get up an hour earlier during winter?
Not true--IE9 is blindingly fast on my Linux box. Of course, it also fails the most basic tests, such as rendering a minimal blank page. :)
Technically, it should be something other than a comma, but the semicolon is only one of a number of options. It could be a period, an exclamation point, an em-dash, or even (though it would give a slightly archaic feel) a colon. Simply inserting the word "to" before "go" would also fix the problem.
I'm also a fan of the semicolon, but—unfortunately—the only time it's mandatory in English is in a list of lists.
IE is ahead in security [...] and resource usage.
If not running at all on my system counts as increased security, then I agree, but it doesn't make me want to use it. As for resource usage, it's hard to beat won't-run for consuming minimal resources, but again, that's hardly a plus. It may date me, but I find the whole idea of saying that something which requires me to install Windows is "ahead on security" to be curiously ironic.
I agree with your general assessment, though. If I wanted to maximize security, I'd probably run Chromium on OpenBSD. Since I'm not using either of those, it's pretty clear that security is not my top priority.
"Horace and Aristotle have told us of the virtues of their fathers and the vices of their own time, and authors down the centuries have done the same. If they were right, men would now be bears." -- Montesquieu
When are we going to get an interface that is totally configurable to user preferences?
You mean like FVWM or IceWM or WindowMaker or E or any of the other WMs that experts love and newbies hate? Gosh, I don't know--when will we get something like that? :)
I actually find FVWM's eight separate configurations for a window border (the four sides and the four corners) to be a little bit overkill. I can't really imagine wanting the left edge to act differently from the right. Fortunately, my editor does copy-and-paste, so it's not a big issue. :)
RTFA. It's not a default, the buttons are removed for good and you can't put them back.
Really? 'Cause last I checked (which admittedly was a while ago), Gnome had a default window manager, not a required one. Has that actually changed?
I'm also not sure how you can call a keyboard shortcut "harder to use". Harder to learn, perhaps, but I would have expected someone on slashdot to understand the difference between "easy to use" and "easy to learn", even if so many so-called "UI experts" can't. The concepts are orthogonal, but in this case, something that readily involves muscle-memory (like a keyboard shortcut) is invariably going to be easier to use--and almost as invariably harder to learn.
I think Randall Munroe knows the difference between "your" and "you're". :)
There are so many bad/clueless style guides out there that sheer quantity doesn't really say much. The Chicago Manual of Style—one of the few really widely-respected guides to American English style and usage—recommends using the apostrophe with 's', but explicitly says that just the apostrophe is not incorrect. (This is a change from the previous edition where they didn't even state a preference.)
how else can you explain American domestic beer?
Easy. Americans don't actually like beer. This also explains products like "American cheese" and other staples of the American diet. Americans don't like things with flavor.
Aside from this quibble, though, I agree with you.
According to whom? From the Chicago Manual of Style FAQ:
Q. Which is the correct singular possessive form? “Professor Davis’ class” or “Professor Davis’s class”? [...]
A. In its 15th edition, CMOS allowed the style shown in your first example, but the new 16th edition (7.21) no longer recommends it, although it is not incorrect...