Living out in the country, I now only get 5 channels. Three are in Spanish, one seems to be non-stop evangelical sermons, and the last one is my local TV station. Also, the image frequently stutters, goes to a black "no signal screen", and comes back a minute or two later. It's completely unwatchable.
Yes, I've tried getting a better antenna, but website I've checked out indicate I would need a huge, expensive, directional one to have even a chance of getting good signal.
They've essentially turned off public television, and sold the profits to the highest bidder. At least I still have Hulu.
Ah, the classic internet QQ post. "No, really, I wasn't trying to make a point. I'm just trolling you. Boy, I sure got you!"
FYI, no one believes those sorts of posts. You didn't dig up those links to troll me, you didn't adopt that tone to troll me. You do care, and you like to think "boy, I sure owned that guy".
Uh-huh, sure. That's why, as of right now, there is one pro-copyright post thats been modded up more than once (and that only to +2), and that one actually just says "copyright shouldn't be *completely* destroyed."
Anyone who relies on the logic, "We would listen to opposing viewpoints, but the rest of the world is all too stupid to make a coherent point" is both arrogant and a fool.
Someone shouts "Time!" at the end of your test? Are you in high school? Not once in my entire college career was a test ended so abruptly.
The questions I refer to are things like, "A 50 ohm cable carrying such-and-such a signal into a a trace with the following physical layout... what are the reflections going to be like, and how could you reduce them?" I had questions like that in exams, and just today I had to solve a similar problem at work. It's a very simple question, and you should not need a reference for it.
Pure memorization such as your opcode question is one thing. Recognizing the principles at work in a situation and quickly arriving at a solution is entirely another.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
It's pretty fucking clear that the goal is for them to be able to (try to) turn a profit. What's your theory on what that limited period of exclusive rights is for?
The state legislature of Indiana once passed a law that said "3 times the diameter of a circle is the circumference".
Nope. Urban legend, with some basis in fact. They *almost* passed a bill which had been prepared by some nutjob pretending to be a mathematical genius. Part of the bill claimed (indirectly) that pi was 3.2.
The law was never passed, and even if it had been, it wouldn't have been against the law to calculate the actual value of pi. It would have been like those bills Congress loves to pass along the lines of "We hereby recognize that puppies are cute." They're not gonna fine you for preferring kittens.
Ok. In that case, let's go to a model where society pays salary to all artists, bad ones get fired, good ones promoted, etc... basically the same as other jobs. Of course, that money needs to come from somewhere. There are two options:
1) Corporations employ the artists and make money by selling their works. Looks like we still need copyright after all. 2) The government employs artists, gives their works away to the public for free, but has to pay for it with a substantial tax hike.
Right now, you only pay for the media you want (in most cases - cable TV packages suck). The alternative is for everyone to subsidize all art, whether they like it or not. Or, I suppose, a third option is for us to not have any TV or movies or big budget media of any sort. But if you want that third option, then you already have the choice of simply not paying for it.
Let's be honest. The status quo needs reform, but copyright is much better than the alternative.
You're right, of course, but Slashdot's moderation and meta-moderation systems are quite good at enforcing groupthink. As long as the majority of people on this site just want free stuff, rational opinions will be marginalized, and the same tired old lines will get modded up over and over.
"Hollywood only makes crap, no one would pay for it even if they couldn't download it." "Piracy doesn't take a physical good from anyone, so it's OK." "They've over-extended terms/sued for too much/employed illegal tactics to harass filesharers, therefore I'm justified in stealing their stuff." "It's my right to free speech to copy that guy's free speech verbatim!" "Artists are just leeches trying to coast on a few minutes of work" blah blah blah...
I am so tired of this bullshit reasoning. This idea that no one's watching movies or listening to music because it's all crap... if that's true, then why can I search for torrents of any current movie and find tens of thousands of people downloading it at that instant? Do you honestly believe that not a single one of those people would be willing to pay for it?
No, of course not. You know full well that many (though certainly not all) downloads do represent a lost sale. You're simply trying to justify your actions, 'cuz you want free stuff.
Maple, fyi, is a program for doing symbolic mathematics (as opposed to say matlab which is analytic), and it knows more calculus than I ever would or could.
No. Maple is a program for fucking with students, and while it may know more calculus than I ever will, it'll be damned if it's gonna share.
I have screen shots of that program giving entirely different answers for the exact same input after hitting the "reset and run this sheet from the beginning" button.
I had nearly blocked that God-forsaken program from my memory....
Since graduating, never in my career have I encountered a situation where I had to solve 25 simple yet unrelated problems in under an hour without the use of references or collaboration. I'm sure it's possible someone has, or could construct a scenario in which they would, but in general I just don't think the ability to do this is necessary to demonstrate competence in your field.
I couldn't disagree more. I do this every day. Of course, I don't do 25 problems in one hour, but I do 25 problems/hour, i.e. solving a simple problem in a couple minutes many times per day.
If you need to take ten minutes, possibly digging through reference materials, to solve a simple problem then you simply won't get as much done as someone who can answer questions quickly. You can still be a valuable team player, but you won't be as productive, and it is entirely reasonable to grade you lower for that.
e)if you are going to assume I'm a thief, don't be surprised if I decide to fuck you over. REMEMBER, this was/is OUR world, if you want your bullshit music not to play by OUR rules, keep it OUT of OUR fucking world.
Just FYI, "OUR world" does not mean that the world is yours, personally. It's everyone's. That includes people who are in favor of copyright. As a result, "OUR rules" happen to include laws protecting copyright.
Also, "if you think I'm a thief, then I'm gonna rob you" is not a legal, ethical, or sane defense.
No, actually. When changing an acronym to another part of speech, you always include the apostrophe. You append the 's' directly when changing the acronym to a plural.
"OK's" is a verb "OKs" is the plural of "OK"
The apostrophe can also be used in the plural form if lower case letters are used in the acronym.
While I certainly agree that the punishment does not fit the crime, the overwhelming majority of people on Slashdot aren't taking that stance. Instead, they are insisting that the RIAA can't prove it, or hoping for legal loopholes to get her off. They aren't interested in the system being fair, only in their side winning.
What it comes down to is that people on this site believe themselves to possess a God-given right to enjoy other people's work without paying, and they'll demand that "right" be defended by any means necessary. I can't even count how many times I've seen people advocate the murder of record company execs as an appropriate response.
But... but... My Cousin Vinnie told me that voir dire occurs right in front of the jury! Now what am I supposed to base my entire knowledge of the judicial system on?!
Not really. Cellphones, along with cars, buildings, trees, people, and nearly everything else will already weaken the signal. That's why devices can easily transmit 10 billion* times more power than would be needed by the receiver in a lossless environment. We might as well grab some of that power back out of the air and put it to good use, instead of just letting it turn to heat.
* 10 billion == 100 dB, which is an entirely reasonable attenuation from transmitter to receiver, but the actual multiplier varies. Most devices will adjust their output power based on the strength of the signals they're receiving so as not to waste electricity.
It is absolutely maddening that this is what Slashdot has become. For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?
The digital entertainment industry in its current form might depend on copyright, but abolishing copyright would result in a new digital entertainment industry that separates producing content (their job) from making copies (not their job).
And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free? Just hope for donations? There's a guy with a guitar on the corner of my street who does that. It doesn't seem to be working all that well for him.
But not, apparently, the freedom to share information. So what "freedom of information" are you talking about -- the freedom for information to exist? The freedom to own information and stifle the speech and actions of anyone else who wishes to use or share it?
How about the freedom of matters of fact? For example, we should have the freedom to know how our tax dollars are spent. That doesn't mean Microsoft should have the freedom to steal the code for Firefox, slap an IE-logo on it, and call it their own.
Copyright is a totally different issue to freedom and privacy.
Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.
You've got to be kidding. You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?
Why assume that if they find us, they must have sci-fi movie technology? Isn't it more likely, that they'd find us through their equivalent of a SETI project, or perhaps by saying "Hey, that planet over there looks like it might have some water on it. Maybe there's life there."
In which case, we might find ourselves receiving a weak signal from them many years later, and perhaps an un-manned (un-aliened?) probe many years after that.
No matter who finds who, it's likely that it'll take many years just to let the other know they've been found. Distances measured in light-years suck like that.
Of course, other silly Windows programs, like SolidWorks, PSpice, Photoshop won't run either. Might make certain classes difficult depending on your major, though I'm sure it can be worked around. In the worst case, you could keep a Windows partition specifically for essential programs.
Slashdot Mirror
Living out in the country, I now only get 5 channels. Three are in Spanish, one seems to be non-stop evangelical sermons, and the last one is my local TV station. Also, the image frequently stutters, goes to a black "no signal screen", and comes back a minute or two later. It's completely unwatchable.
Yes, I've tried getting a better antenna, but website I've checked out indicate I would need a huge, expensive, directional one to have even a chance of getting good signal.
They've essentially turned off public television, and sold the profits to the highest bidder. At least I still have Hulu.
Ah, the classic internet QQ post. "No, really, I wasn't trying to make a point. I'm just trolling you. Boy, I sure got you!"
FYI, no one believes those sorts of posts. You didn't dig up those links to troll me, you didn't adopt that tone to troll me. You do care, and you like to think "boy, I sure owned that guy".
Ah, quote #3 from my list: "They did bad things to us, so it's ok for us to steal from them!"
See what I mean? It's all the same, every time. Even when you try to directly refute my post, you prove part of it true.
Uh-huh, sure. That's why, as of right now, there is one pro-copyright post thats been modded up more than once (and that only to +2), and that one actually just says "copyright shouldn't be *completely* destroyed."
Anyone who relies on the logic, "We would listen to opposing viewpoints, but the rest of the world is all too stupid to make a coherent point" is both arrogant and a fool.
Someone shouts "Time!" at the end of your test? Are you in high school? Not once in my entire college career was a test ended so abruptly.
The questions I refer to are things like, "A 50 ohm cable carrying such-and-such a signal into a a trace with the following physical layout... what are the reflections going to be like, and how could you reduce them?" I had questions like that in exams, and just today I had to solve a similar problem at work. It's a very simple question, and you should not need a reference for it.
Pure memorization such as your opcode question is one thing. Recognizing the principles at work in a situation and quickly arriving at a solution is entirely another.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
It's pretty fucking clear that the goal is for them to be able to (try to) turn a profit. What's your theory on what that limited period of exclusive rights is for?
So, how about movies? TV shows? Books? GPL'd code?
Oops, looks like it can't be generalized all that easily!
The state legislature of Indiana once passed a law that said "3 times the diameter of a circle is the circumference".
Nope. Urban legend, with some basis in fact. They *almost* passed a bill which had been prepared by some nutjob pretending to be a mathematical genius. Part of the bill claimed (indirectly) that pi was 3.2.
The law was never passed, and even if it had been, it wouldn't have been against the law to calculate the actual value of pi. It would have been like those bills Congress loves to pass along the lines of "We hereby recognize that puppies are cute." They're not gonna fine you for preferring kittens.
Ok. In that case, let's go to a model where society pays salary to all artists, bad ones get fired, good ones promoted, etc... basically the same as other jobs. Of course, that money needs to come from somewhere. There are two options:
1) Corporations employ the artists and make money by selling their works. Looks like we still need copyright after all.
2) The government employs artists, gives their works away to the public for free, but has to pay for it with a substantial tax hike.
Right now, you only pay for the media you want (in most cases - cable TV packages suck). The alternative is for everyone to subsidize all art, whether they like it or not. Or, I suppose, a third option is for us to not have any TV or movies or big budget media of any sort. But if you want that third option, then you already have the choice of simply not paying for it.
Let's be honest. The status quo needs reform, but copyright is much better than the alternative.
You're right, of course, but Slashdot's moderation and meta-moderation systems are quite good at enforcing groupthink. As long as the majority of people on this site just want free stuff, rational opinions will be marginalized, and the same tired old lines will get modded up over and over.
"Hollywood only makes crap, no one would pay for it even if they couldn't download it."
"Piracy doesn't take a physical good from anyone, so it's OK."
"They've over-extended terms/sued for too much/employed illegal tactics to harass filesharers, therefore I'm justified in stealing their stuff."
"It's my right to free speech to copy that guy's free speech verbatim!"
"Artists are just leeches trying to coast on a few minutes of work"
blah blah blah...
I am so tired of this bullshit reasoning. This idea that no one's watching movies or listening to music because it's all crap... if that's true, then why can I search for torrents of any current movie and find tens of thousands of people downloading it at that instant? Do you honestly believe that not a single one of those people would be willing to pay for it?
No, of course not. You know full well that many (though certainly not all) downloads do represent a lost sale. You're simply trying to justify your actions, 'cuz you want free stuff.
Yes, because clearly whenever you suffer buyers' remorse, you get a full refund!
Maple, fyi, is a program for doing symbolic mathematics (as opposed to say matlab which is analytic), and it knows more calculus than I ever would or could.
No. Maple is a program for fucking with students, and while it may know more calculus than I ever will, it'll be damned if it's gonna share.
I have screen shots of that program giving entirely different answers for the exact same input after hitting the "reset and run this sheet from the beginning" button.
I had nearly blocked that God-forsaken program from my memory....
Since graduating, never in my career have I encountered a situation where I had to solve 25 simple yet unrelated problems in under an hour without the use of references or collaboration. I'm sure it's possible someone has, or could construct a scenario in which they would, but in general I just don't think the ability to do this is necessary to demonstrate competence in your field.
I couldn't disagree more. I do this every day. Of course, I don't do 25 problems in one hour, but I do 25 problems/hour, i.e. solving a simple problem in a couple minutes many times per day.
If you need to take ten minutes, possibly digging through reference materials, to solve a simple problem then you simply won't get as much done as someone who can answer questions quickly. You can still be a valuable team player, but you won't be as productive, and it is entirely reasonable to grade you lower for that.
e)if you are going to assume I'm a thief, don't be surprised if I decide to fuck you over. REMEMBER, this was/is OUR world, if you want your bullshit music not to play by OUR rules, keep it OUT of OUR fucking world.
Just FYI, "OUR world" does not mean that the world is yours, personally. It's everyone's. That includes people who are in favor of copyright. As a result, "OUR rules" happen to include laws protecting copyright.
Also, "if you think I'm a thief, then I'm gonna rob you" is not a legal, ethical, or sane defense.
Good point. As with most aspects of English grammar, there are more exceptions than rules.
Yup, they're bad.
That doesn't mean we should be too.
No, actually. When changing an acronym to another part of speech, you always include the apostrophe. You append the 's' directly when changing the acronym to a plural.
"OK's" is a verb
"OKs" is the plural of "OK"
The apostrophe can also be used in the plural form if lower case letters are used in the acronym.
While I certainly agree that the punishment does not fit the crime, the overwhelming majority of people on Slashdot aren't taking that stance. Instead, they are insisting that the RIAA can't prove it, or hoping for legal loopholes to get her off. They aren't interested in the system being fair, only in their side winning.
What it comes down to is that people on this site believe themselves to possess a God-given right to enjoy other people's work without paying, and they'll demand that "right" be defended by any means necessary. I can't even count how many times I've seen people advocate the murder of record company execs as an appropriate response.
But... but... My Cousin Vinnie told me that voir dire occurs right in front of the jury! Now what am I supposed to base my entire knowledge of the judicial system on?!
Not really. Cellphones, along with cars, buildings, trees, people, and nearly everything else will already weaken the signal. That's why devices can easily transmit 10 billion* times more power than would be needed by the receiver in a lossless environment. We might as well grab some of that power back out of the air and put it to good use, instead of just letting it turn to heat.
* 10 billion == 100 dB, which is an entirely reasonable attenuation from transmitter to receiver, but the actual multiplier varies. Most devices will adjust their output power based on the strength of the signals they're receiving so as not to waste electricity.
It is absolutely maddening that this is what Slashdot has become. For people who supposedly pride themselves rational thought, have you ever taken a step back to look at your own views?
The digital entertainment industry in its current form might depend on copyright, but abolishing copyright would result in a new digital entertainment industry that separates producing content (their job) from making copies (not their job).
And how do they get paid if anyone can replicate their content for free? Just hope for donations? There's a guy with a guitar on the corner of my street who does that. It doesn't seem to be working all that well for him.
But not, apparently, the freedom to share information. So what "freedom of information" are you talking about -- the freedom for information to exist? The freedom to own information and stifle the speech and actions of anyone else who wishes to use or share it?
How about the freedom of matters of fact? For example, we should have the freedom to know how our tax dollars are spent. That doesn't mean Microsoft should have the freedom to steal the code for Firefox, slap an IE-logo on it, and call it their own.
Only if your definition of "freedom" excludes freedom of speech.
You've got to be kidding. You really think that the "freedom" to steal an author's or musician's work is the same as the freedom to criticize government policies?
You're acting like a child.
You develop a game on the PC, and put it on NewGrounds or some similar site. Duh. This is the sort of closet piracy BS that the GP is talking about.
Why assume that if they find us, they must have sci-fi movie technology? Isn't it more likely, that they'd find us through their equivalent of a SETI project, or perhaps by saying "Hey, that planet over there looks like it might have some water on it. Maybe there's life there."
In which case, we might find ourselves receiving a weak signal from them many years later, and perhaps an un-manned (un-aliened?) probe many years after that.
No matter who finds who, it's likely that it'll take many years just to let the other know they've been found. Distances measured in light-years suck like that.
Of course, other silly Windows programs, like SolidWorks, PSpice, Photoshop won't run either. Might make certain classes difficult depending on your major, though I'm sure it can be worked around. In the worst case, you could keep a Windows partition specifically for essential programs.