Ironically you make RMS's own point for him. Since software is not a tangible good it has no * monetary* worth. That's the whole POINT of the GPL you know. The media it comes on, and the manuals that accompany it have monetary worth. MS realizes this better than anyone. That's WHY they absolutely NEED to maintain a monopoly. Without it Windows would only be able to sell for about $20. Tops. With or without the GPL eventually software will be viturally valuless unless proped up by some artificial legal structure.
Did you know that tomatoes are free? It's absolutely true. Anyone can grow tomatoes at virtually no expense. They are "worthless." What costs you money at the store isn't the tomato. It's the transportation and storage of the tomato, which is STILL so "worthless" that you find it preferable to buy it rather than grow your own. Zuccinni has NEGATIVE value. Sometimes you literally can't give it away.
It's just basic economics. Anything ubiquitous and transmitable without cost has no monetary worth.
Which is not at all the same thing as saying it has no *value.*
Interesting isn't it? The language of our merchant ancestors places monetary worth at such an extreme that the words price, value and worth, all orginally with different meanings, have come to blend with each other and all stand in some way for *price.*
For instance, the *value* of a house is that *it houses you.* This has nothing at all to do with its price.
This is why some prefer to use the French word "libre" when refering to OSS. It has no context of price.
I have already made you a free gift of F=ma. There would be no point in doing otherwise. It has no monetary worth. It is, however, an idea of such import that it literally changed the world, and vast fortunes have been made by knowledge of it.
You have to bare in mind that the GPL is not, despite popular belief, anticapitalistic and RMS is not anti property.
The GPL is founded on the idea that *ideas* are not property. Hence the catch phrase, " Free as in speach, not as in beer."
If you make beer you are making property. A manufactured item that can be inherently possesed and traded. If *I* own *this* beer, you do not. You inherently *cannot*, as the beer is a physical item. It is, by its very nature, exclusive in its title of ownership.
RMS believes that software is more like F=ma. As an IDEA it cannot be restricted as can a beer, and should not be. Indeed, like RMS, I am old enough to remember when all software was essentially academic in its derivation and distribution. The very idea of propriatary mathmatical formula and algorithms was once considered ubsurd.
Much of the reason we are in the mess we are at the moment with regards to propriatary information, ( like what Mickey Mouse *looks like*), is due to forcing a legal structure of ownership upon items which are inately of * the mind.*
Play Tolstoy for a bit and go stand in the corner and * not think* of a white elephant for half an hour.
I think this example goes right to the heart of the concept of propriatary knowledge.
The GPL does nothing to make beer "freer," nor is it intended to, any more than the law of gravity is intended to make anything "freer."
But if you run a brewery and your software is freely aquired OSS than perhaps you can sell your beer *cheaper* and make the same profit.
The GPL makes ideas free, and actual *property* cheaper.
Now perhaps my beer is popular because of some "secret formula." That would be a trade secret, so long as I don't tell anybody about it.
The GPL has not problem with that. Trade secrets, are fully recognized and supported by the GPL.
Just don't TELL anyone.
There is the crux of the matter right there. A secret is only a secret so long as it's . ..well, a secret. It's YOUR choice whether to let the cat out of the bag or not, but once it's out don't complain if it runs away from you. That's what cats, and ideas, do.
The GPL dosn't require you to let the cat out of bag, only admit that it's a cat once it's out.
In this case we happen to know that the key was the TLA of the orginization that placed the image.
The key was so poorly chosen that many would be able to *guess* it before the couple of seconds it took a computer to "brute force" it, if you can call coming up with "abc" as requiring brute force.
The coolest thing to come out of this though is the fact that literally millions of people who had never heard of steganography before have now not only heard of it, they've had it explained to them in detail.
Expect trivial usage, and thus the signal to noise ratio, to soar, making the technique far more useful for actually hiding information.
You aren't REALLY so naive as to believe they intend to use these to combat *terrorism*, are you?
These "antiterrorist" laws are nothing more than the standard antiprivacy "pro law" items that certain elements have been trying to get for years. Now they have a window of opportunity to ram them through.
If passed the average person convicted of a crime using the antiterrorist rules will be high school kids selling pot or dicking with their school's chess club web page.
They know damn well that these provisions won't really let them watch terrorists, but it will sure as hell let them watch YOU!
Indeed, my spelling sucks. Always has. Always will. I don't even try to deny it. Note I didn't bring up the spelling police.
I find it intriguing, however, that you caught my spelling error and took me to task for it, but neglected the intentional, and glaring error, I included with full knowledge that it was an error.
Kind of a troll I guess.
So we can both stay after school and share stories about our regret over not mastering the language.
I'm not trying to join the grammer police. I'm only posting this for your edification.
Honest.
The word you are looking for is the Yiddish shmir, commonly spelled schmeer or schmear in English.
It does come from the same root as the English smear though, originally meaning to cover, or smear, with grease, and thus came to mean "covering the whole thing" generically.
Most of them, actually. It is, litrally, backbreaking work.
Bear in mind also that speakers often have to be hauled to *hights.* The wheels are useless then. With inflatables you haul could haul 'em up deflated and inflate them in place. Windage wouldn't be a problem, they would be cabled in place, * just as they are now.*
One more factor is space. Did you know that when you buy a box of breakfast cereal the cereal itself only costs you about a quarter? Transporting the BOX takes up much of the rest of the price. A Smaller and lighter transport package means less space and fuel needed just to haul the buggers around.
I have hauled my own PA. It's a pain in the neck, back and elsewhere. I'd love an inflatable rig.
I've also worked on a professional crew, and let me tell you, hauling your own PA around is NOTHING compared to hauling in, setting up, and hauling out, two truckloads of speakers, day, after day, after day.
Come to think of it, I've never known a roadie who DIDN'T complain of back trouble. It's the main reason for retirement.
You are essentially correct. The last ten percent of any job takes ninety percent of the labor and resources. As much work as goes into writing a professional, one page, article, at least as much, and likely much more, work goes into making it fit for print.
As an object lesson here one need look no further than the Reg's recent announcement of a "Secret Meeting" of ip industry higher ups.
That article probably took the original author about an hour to write. It would have taken the Reg four or five hours to check it. They didn't.
The article was a hoax.
Somehow the time and money MUST be made available to do such basic editorial functions, or the resultant articles are quite literally worse than useless.
Compound this with the fact that journalism always runs that gauntlet of trying to be first to print, AND accurate. Somtimes one side or the other gives way. Sometimes the side that gives way is accuracy. That can bring disaster. On the web this effect is compounded many times. The web is all about being able to *publish right NOW, dammint!* Accuracy almost always suffers. Particularly in those arenas where the author self edits.
I will, however, take a moment to defend the other side. I think the original poster has some point, although he is missing a key issue.
The fact of the matter is that there ARE some rather good articles posted here on Slashdot now and again, *considering what they are.*
What they are are quick little notes written without much thought for the process or end result. I am typing this right now strictly train of thought, without revision or much contemplation of what I'm writting. Hell, I'm not even bothering to spell check, ( as some of you will no doubt take the bandwidth to point out to me in 'pithy' terms).
This is the nature of the *medium*, not the author. Slashdot is public forum, and one that anyone inclined to post well written and thought out will tend to avoid for such. It is a quick and dirty site. News items get posted. News items scroll off. I frequently find that I post an article, quite admitedly quick and dirty, and thus wide open for rebuttal, get rebutted, and then don't bother to come back and defend myself with better written piece.
What's the point? Who's going to read it a week later? In this respect Slashdot is even less serious and "professional" than usenet, where one can spend weeks positing and defending a thesis.
So, the point is that many articles posted here on Slashdot DO show the makings of professionally publishable articles, if their authors had any real inclination to take the time and trouble to make them such.
Ok, THAT brings us back to the point that the original poster may have missed.
Just what would induce such authors to take such time and trouble? Well, for most it would be *getting paid for it.* So we're right back to square one, arn't we?
Now some of you are already whipping your keyboards into a froth to tell me that that people will write to scratch an itch, and you're absolutely right. Once. Maybe twice. Who knows, maybe that would be enough to help LWN. Are there enough Slashdot posters with the actual skills and willingness to do so, to the extent that it would create a financial boom to LWN? I don't know.
ESR wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar to scratch an itch, he didn't need to, or expect to, get paid for it. The fact that he DID end up getting paid for has meant that he can *continue* to write though.
Here is the issue faced by all such websites as LWN. You start it to scratch an itch. You run a server that someone was throwing out out of your clothes closet. You have a day gig to support yourself. You do * a really good job* and become popular.
How do you eat and pay rent?
Well jeez Louise, isn't that what *everybody* has been trying to figure out, without success, for the past year or so? How many times has Britannica.com changed its business model?
Information is free. Information *delivery* is not! Advertising has been the traditional way to pay the messenger. Cable TV uses it. PUBLIC TV and radio use it. Magazines, newspapers, etc. all rely on advertising to pay the delivery boy. It not only works, but little else has been found * in any mass media* as a viable alternative.
The advertisers are no longer interested in the web. Well, that sucks for us. Unfortunately the only cure I can think of is to *reinterest* them.
Has anybody thought of THAT? Every traditional media outlet has a professional sales staff. Do they sell the media? No, they sell the *advertising space.* The web, so far, seems to based on an 'eyeball' model. Sell the site. Get eyeballs. Show the advertisers eyeballs, get check.
Well, it just dosn't WORK like that. You have to SELL the advertisers, who are the *primary customers of your site, NOT the readers.*
The reason LWN, and all other such sites, are in the trouble they are is largely due to a fundamental misunderstanding of *who their customer base is.* Treat your customers like a suger daddy or angel and they go away. Go figure.
So, any advice I have is already too late for LWN. I'll offer it for anyone else who is thinking of starting a professional website though. The very FIRST thing you should do is take a job as a salesman for a traditional print magazine and STAY there for at least a year, maybe two.
Then you'll have some idea of how the *business* of distributing free information works. NOW start your website. If you still dare.
(Warning: The above is a stream of conciousness Slashdot post and should not be taken seriously as an actual article. Not even as seriously as a usenet article, and I'm unlikely to spend any effort defending it)
KFG
Re:F. Lee Ermey, "Well...No Sh!t..."
on
GOVNET In the Works
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
As has already been noted:
"The difference between the Russian press and the American press is that in Russia the papers only print the government's lies, whereas here in America we can't get the press to quote its lies accurately."
It isn't exactly as if the course materials or curricumlum at MIT, or any *other* college, is some sort of great secret.
Nor is the actual *course material* really going to be online. That will be found in the textbooks.
If you want to learn physics or how to read the Iliad in the original greek all you need do is make the trip to your local public library, and in some states any state funded college library is also considered a public library, and take out a relevant text.
And read it.
Without trying to appear *too* snide, anyone who can't figure this out probably isn't up to college grade work in the first place.
The possibility of having lecture notes available online is an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure of what general relevance or use it might be. The textbook always contains superiour information, that is why they USE textbooks after all, and lecture notes are, in fact, often useless without the text and only needed to make sure you might have some niggling little tidbit that * that professor, in THAT course, is likely to sneak into a TEST.*
All in all I see how this might prove useful to the less actually educationally ambitious student of MIT, and how it might prove *interesting* to some of the public, but I fail to see how it in any way AIDS the public in an educational sense. The material is already available to the public, (including the course curiculum of MIT which is published and stocked by public libraries already), in the superiour form of actual texts.
MIT is correct. They can publish this material freely because 1) The essential information is *already* free and public, and 2) Because you don't pay MIT to reveal to you that F=MA, you pay them to have a professor *explain it to you.* and then be able to say you earned a degree from MIT!
If all you want is access to the learning material so that you may educate yourself at little or no expense you likely have a vastly superior resource right in your own community.
It's called a "reference librarian."
Go introduce yourself.
KFG
Re:The Palm is already dying
on
Pocket PC 2002
·
· Score: 1
I didn't say dishwasher. I said dishwater, i.e., *sink.*
I have done that, and retrieved all of my data, without any labor.
Havn't run it through the cloths washer yet. I might have some data loss with that.
Good thing backup media is even cheaper than the notebook.
KFG
Re:The Palm is already dying
on
Pocket PC 2002
·
· Score: 1
I'm still trying to figure out why to "upgrade" to a palm.
The pocket sized, spiral bound, notebook I got at CVS for $.69 works just fine for me.
It's easy to use. Battery life is phenomenal. It weighs about the same as a single AA cell. Cost. . . $.69!
What's more, it works in all conditions. Fonts are infinately variable. It only measures 5x3 inches but that's ALL screen size. I can drop it on the sidewalk, throw it against the wall, drop it in the dishwater, run over it with my car and * it still works!*
But wait, don't order now, there's MORE!
It can also be used to stick under wobbly restaraunt table legs. As a coaster, cat repeler, raw materials for small paper airplanes, a fan, kindling and lipstick blotter.
And those are just the ways I've actually used it. ( No, I *wasn't* the one wearing the lipstick)
It is also much easier to transfer data * to other people* with the "CVS PDA." Sometimes the girl is after MY number. ( Go figure)
It does have its disadvantages. It is multi lingual, but installation of other languages is difficult, and may take years to accomplish. It's math capabilities are only as good as your own, ( although it handles all mathmatical symbols, those currently extant AND those yet to be made up, with ease). I find the data needs to be defragged every 6 months or so for maximum speed of data retrieval. This can take about 15 minutes of actual labor. Every 5 years or so it needs to be replaced and data transfer can take up to half an hour of actual labor.
I think this labor is nicely offset by the labor saved by the price difference.
I've tried to explain it to them. I've tried to show how paint companies *pretend* to copyright colors when, in fact, they are only copyrighting the color chart as a printed document.
I can't help it if they don't get it.
As you point out there are so many variables in producing a paint color that every car that comes off an assembly line is actually a different color if examined sufficiently closely.
Why does a body shop paint an entire panel to get rid of a scratch? Because it's easier than matching the color!
Go into the public library. You will likely find a copier. You will also likely find a copyright warning taped to the copier.
Go into a paint store. You will find a custom color mixing machine. If it's a modern one it is extrememly sophisticated and can match any color at greater precision than the human eye can distinguish.
Notice any "copyright notice" attached to the machine or the service counter.
NO!
Tell the clerk that you like Glidden paint but want this Benjamin Moore color. Ask him to mix it up for you in Glidden. What will he say?
"Certainly sir, no problemo."
See the total lack of, " I'm sorry sir, but that color is copyrighted by Benjamin Moore"?
Why is that do you suppose?
Well, I'll tell you why. Because you * can't copyright a color!*
You can copyright the unique name you call that color. You can copyright the color chart. You can copyright the logo. You can copyright a description of color mix that produces the color. You can copyright the label on the can. You can *trademark* the association of your made up name for the color with the color itself. If you really, really want you can even copyright a photo of your ass painted that color, but you *can't copyright the color.*
Now it does occur on occasion that all the above will be done by some company, and then the marketing and legal depts. will *claim* that they have copyrighted the color, but that is because they are assholes, not because they have actually copyrighted the *color.*
Look, I own a small publishing company. I have *actual copyright application forms* right here in my desk file drawer.
I can submit a written work for copyright. I can submit an image for copyright. I can submit a sound recording for copyright. If I submit a written work that contains an image and if I wish a copyright on that image I have to file that *seperately* because legally the document containing the image and the image itself are entirely seperate.
They passed this law at the same time they passed the law requiring the manufacturers have to stock a complete line of replacement parts for seven years, right?
Notice the source of that story? Why, it was Enzo Ferrari himself. No witnesses.
That story is considered largely fabricated. Oh sure, there is surely some element of truth to it, but the story is *known* to have grown and changed over the years. It isn't fact.
Also, the fact that it was the ensignia on the plane of a single individual dosn't mean it that *wasn't* the insignia on the planes of everyone else in his squadron. It was. It was the squadron insignia, not the private insignia of the individual.
Just as Eddie Rickenbacker had a hat in a ring on the side of his plane, so did *everyone else* in his squadron. Georges Guynemer had a stork. So did *everyone else* in his squadron.
If you're actually interested in this subject you ought to read Brock Yates' biography of Enzo.
Yes, it does. The fact of the matter is that changing the background color alone can make a big difference in whether a copyright or trademark has been violated or not.
There is also the fact that Ferrari's logo has always been considered a bit on the weak side legally, at least with regards to the horse.
You see, that horse isn't Ferrari's invention, he took it from an insignia of an Italian fighter squadron in the first place.
Again, nicely illustrating my point that the ablility to trademark themes has its limits.
For starters, you can't copyright a color. Period. Thus your argument that my argument is invalid is invalid. All visible colors fall under the umbrella of prior art. You can copyright certain works using color. For instance you could paint a board red, hang it on the wall, call it a work of art, and own the copyright on it.
Good luck prosecuting people who "steal" your ip. Even if the red is the only board that previously existed with the "exact shade."
IP is only ip to the extent that it can be effectively protected. That is lesson number one in the ip "biz."
What you CAN do is define a logo that contains the words "Ferrari Red" and copyright, and trademark * THAT LOGO.* The copyright on the logo confers no protections whatsoever on the words contained within that logo, nor on the color they refer to. So, you can only buy "Ferrari Red" paint from Ferrari because Ferrari controls the name *Ferrari*, and thus the paint name and logo, not because they control the actual light wavelength reflected by the paint.
This is precisely the reason there are so many doofy names for colors. You *cannot protect the color.* So you make up a NAME for it you can protect.
And of course there is the fact that there is really no such thing as Ferrari Red in the first place. Ferrari has used literally dozens of different shades of red. There is also the fact that Ferrari didn't even invent the phrase, and it was in widespread public use before Ferrari ever used it. It was, in fact, forced on them through public use. Prior art.
You are also, of course, aware that virtually every Ferrari, even those painted the *same* color, are in fact different colors? What is the *exact* shade of "Ferrari Red"? How is it defined? How is its use defended when it isn't true that it can only be obtained from authorized Ferrari repairers because any dumb schlub at the paint store can simply mix up unlimited supplies of it for you? You can do it yourself on your desktop if you wish.
Are you even begining to get my point, which was *there are limits to trademarkability?*
What's more, a trademark or copyright *does not* confer title. This is perhaps the most misunderstood part of this branch of ip law. In truth *title* can only be granted by a JUDGE reviewing the facts of a particular challange.
Ferrari *owns* the shape of its cars because a JUDGE, reviewing an actual case has *said so.*
Oh, it was an American judge by the way, thus in truth Ferrari only owns the shape of its cars in America and those countries that will respect that American decision.
Trademark and copyright are not the same as registering your car. The fact of the matter is that you can have copyright and trademark certificates in hand and STILL not have the rights they seem to confer on you.
Slashdot Mirror
Ironically you make RMS's own point for him. Since software is not a tangible good it has no * monetary* worth. That's the whole POINT of the GPL you know. The media it comes on, and the manuals that accompany it have monetary worth. MS realizes this better than anyone. That's WHY they absolutely NEED to maintain a monopoly. Without it Windows would only be able to sell for about $20. Tops. With or without the GPL eventually software will be viturally valuless unless proped up by some artificial legal structure.
Did you know that tomatoes are free? It's absolutely true. Anyone can grow tomatoes at virtually no expense. They are "worthless." What costs you money at the store isn't the tomato. It's the transportation and storage of the tomato, which is STILL so "worthless" that you find it preferable to buy it rather than grow your own. Zuccinni has NEGATIVE value. Sometimes you literally can't give it away.
It's just basic economics. Anything ubiquitous and transmitable without cost has no monetary worth.
Which is not at all the same thing as saying it has no *value.*
Interesting isn't it? The language of our merchant ancestors places monetary worth at such an extreme that the words price, value and worth, all orginally with different meanings, have come to blend with each other and all stand in some way for *price.*
For instance, the *value* of a house is that *it houses you.* This has nothing at all to do with its price.
This is why some prefer to use the French word "libre" when refering to OSS. It has no context of price.
I have already made you a free gift of F=ma. There would be no point in doing otherwise. It has no monetary worth. It is, however, an idea of such import that it literally changed the world, and vast fortunes have been made by knowledge of it.
But it isn't *yours.*
KFG
Yeah, I a multilingual dyslexic. : )
KFG
You have to bare in mind that the GPL is not, despite popular belief, anticapitalistic and RMS is not anti property.
.well, a secret. It's YOUR choice whether to let the cat out of the bag or not, but once it's out don't complain if it runs away from you. That's what cats, and ideas, do.
The GPL is founded on the idea that *ideas* are not property. Hence the catch phrase, " Free as in speach, not as in beer."
If you make beer you are making property. A manufactured item that can be inherently possesed and traded. If *I* own *this* beer, you do not. You inherently *cannot*, as the beer is a physical item. It is, by its very nature, exclusive in its title of ownership.
RMS believes that software is more like F=ma. As an IDEA it cannot be restricted as can a beer, and should not be. Indeed, like RMS, I am old enough to remember when all software was essentially academic in its derivation and distribution. The very idea of propriatary mathmatical formula and algorithms was once considered ubsurd.
Much of the reason we are in the mess we are at the moment with regards to propriatary information, ( like what Mickey Mouse *looks like*), is due to forcing a legal structure of ownership upon items which are inately of * the mind.*
Play Tolstoy for a bit and go stand in the corner and * not think* of a white elephant for half an hour.
I think this example goes right to the heart of the concept of propriatary knowledge.
The GPL does nothing to make beer "freer," nor is it intended to, any more than the law of gravity is intended to make anything "freer."
But if you run a brewery and your software is freely aquired OSS than perhaps you can sell your beer *cheaper* and make the same profit.
The GPL makes ideas free, and actual *property* cheaper.
Now perhaps my beer is popular because of some "secret formula." That would be a trade secret, so long as I don't tell anybody about it.
The GPL has not problem with that. Trade secrets, are fully recognized and supported by the GPL.
Just don't TELL anyone.
There is the crux of the matter right there. A secret is only a secret so long as it's . .
The GPL dosn't require you to let the cat out of bag, only admit that it's a cat once it's out.
KFG
Second off, you are actually refering to Emily Latella.
KFG
You may well be entirely correct, however. . .
I tend to discount posts such as these which fail in any way, not even to the extent of *providing a link*, to correct the misinformation.
That is the correct protocol. Unadorned denials are worthless and a *cite* would be appreciated.
KFG
Why be depressed? Everyone has to make a living somehow, and you can only get outside employment at that which someone is willing to hire you.
And after all, *someone* has to shovel the shit out of the outhouse.
Every productive profession has some honor attached to it. Without such as yourself who would keep the MS stuff up and running, MS?
KFG
since Wine Is Not an Emulator.
KFG
In this case we happen to know that the key was the TLA of the orginization that placed the image.
The key was so poorly chosen that many would be able to *guess* it before the couple of seconds it took a computer to "brute force" it, if you can call coming up with "abc" as requiring brute force.
The coolest thing to come out of this though is the fact that literally millions of people who had never heard of steganography before have now not only heard of it, they've had it explained to them in detail.
Expect trivial usage, and thus the signal to noise ratio, to soar, making the technique far more useful for actually hiding information.
KFG
You aren't REALLY so naive as to believe they intend to use these to combat *terrorism*, are you?
These "antiterrorist" laws are nothing more than the standard antiprivacy "pro law" items that certain elements have been trying to get for years. Now they have a window of opportunity to ram them through.
If passed the average person convicted of a crime using the antiterrorist rules will be high school kids selling pot or dicking with their school's chess club web page.
They know damn well that these provisions won't really let them watch terrorists, but it will sure as hell let them watch YOU!
KFG
Indeed, my spelling sucks. Always has. Always will. I don't even try to deny it. Note I didn't bring up the spelling police.
I find it intriguing, however, that you caught my spelling error and took me to task for it, but neglected the intentional, and glaring error, I included with full knowledge that it was an error.
Kind of a troll I guess.
So we can both stay after school and share stories about our regret over not mastering the language.
KFG
I'm not trying to join the grammer police. I'm only posting this for your edification.
Honest.
The word you are looking for is the Yiddish shmir, commonly spelled schmeer or schmear in English.
It does come from the same root as the English smear though, originally meaning to cover, or smear, with grease, and thus came to mean "covering the whole thing" generically.
KFG
This makes absolutely no sense to me. Inflatables are clearly a pointless gimmik for most home use.
The Greatful Dead, on the other hand, might well have loved these things to pieces. Literally.
KFG
Most of them, actually. It is, litrally, backbreaking work.
Bear in mind also that speakers often have to be hauled to *hights.* The wheels are useless then. With inflatables you haul could haul 'em up deflated and inflate them in place. Windage wouldn't be a problem, they would be cabled in place, * just as they are now.*
One more factor is space. Did you know that when you buy a box of breakfast cereal the cereal itself only costs you about a quarter? Transporting the BOX takes up much of the rest of the price. A Smaller and lighter transport package means less space and fuel needed just to haul the buggers around.
I have hauled my own PA. It's a pain in the neck, back and elsewhere. I'd love an inflatable rig.
I've also worked on a professional crew, and let me tell you, hauling your own PA around is NOTHING compared to hauling in, setting up, and hauling out, two truckloads of speakers, day, after day, after day.
Come to think of it, I've never known a roadie who DIDN'T complain of back trouble. It's the main reason for retirement.
KFG
You are essentially correct. The last ten percent of any job takes ninety percent of the labor and resources. As much work as goes into writing a professional, one page, article, at least as much, and likely much more, work goes into making it fit for print.
As an object lesson here one need look no further than the Reg's recent announcement of a "Secret Meeting" of ip industry higher ups.
That article probably took the original author about an hour to write. It would have taken the Reg four or five hours to check it. They didn't.
The article was a hoax.
Somehow the time and money MUST be made available to do such basic editorial functions, or the resultant articles are quite literally worse than useless.
Compound this with the fact that journalism always runs that gauntlet of trying to be first to print, AND accurate. Somtimes one side or the other gives way. Sometimes the side that gives way is accuracy. That can bring disaster. On the web this effect is compounded many times. The web is all about being able to *publish right NOW, dammint!* Accuracy almost always suffers. Particularly in those arenas where the author self edits.
I will, however, take a moment to defend the other side. I think the original poster has some point, although he is missing a key issue.
The fact of the matter is that there ARE some rather good articles posted here on Slashdot now and again, *considering what they are.*
What they are are quick little notes written without much thought for the process or end result. I am typing this right now strictly train of thought, without revision or much contemplation of what I'm writting. Hell, I'm not even bothering to spell check, ( as some of you will no doubt take the bandwidth to point out to me in 'pithy' terms).
This is the nature of the *medium*, not the author. Slashdot is public forum, and one that anyone inclined to post well written and thought out will tend to avoid for such. It is a quick and dirty site. News items get posted. News items scroll off. I frequently find that I post an article, quite admitedly quick and dirty, and thus wide open for rebuttal, get rebutted, and then don't bother to come back and defend myself with better written piece.
What's the point? Who's going to read it a week later? In this respect Slashdot is even less serious and "professional" than usenet, where one can spend weeks positing and defending a thesis.
So, the point is that many articles posted here on Slashdot DO show the makings of professionally publishable articles, if their authors had any real inclination to take the time and trouble to make them such.
Ok, THAT brings us back to the point that the original poster may have missed.
Just what would induce such authors to take such time and trouble? Well, for most it would be *getting paid for it.* So we're right back to square one, arn't we?
Now some of you are already whipping your keyboards into a froth to tell me that that people will write to scratch an itch, and you're absolutely right. Once. Maybe twice. Who knows, maybe that would be enough to help LWN. Are there enough Slashdot posters with the actual skills and willingness to do so, to the extent that it would create a financial boom to LWN? I don't know.
ESR wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar to scratch an itch, he didn't need to, or expect to, get paid for it. The fact that he DID end up getting paid for has meant that he can *continue* to write though.
Here is the issue faced by all such websites as LWN. You start it to scratch an itch. You run a server that someone was throwing out out of your clothes closet. You have a day gig to support yourself. You do * a really good job* and become popular.
How do you eat and pay rent?
Well jeez Louise, isn't that what *everybody* has been trying to figure out, without success, for the past year or so? How many times has Britannica.com changed its business model?
Information is free. Information *delivery* is not! Advertising has been the traditional way to pay the messenger. Cable TV uses it. PUBLIC TV and radio use it. Magazines, newspapers, etc. all rely on advertising to pay the delivery boy. It not only works, but little else has been found * in any mass media* as a viable alternative.
The advertisers are no longer interested in the web. Well, that sucks for us. Unfortunately the only cure I can think of is to *reinterest* them.
Has anybody thought of THAT? Every traditional media outlet has a professional sales staff. Do they sell the media? No, they sell the *advertising space.* The web, so far, seems to based on an 'eyeball' model. Sell the site. Get eyeballs. Show the advertisers eyeballs, get check.
Well, it just dosn't WORK like that. You have to SELL the advertisers, who are the *primary customers of your site, NOT the readers.*
The reason LWN, and all other such sites, are in the trouble they are is largely due to a fundamental misunderstanding of *who their customer base is.* Treat your customers like a suger daddy or angel and they go away. Go figure.
So, any advice I have is already too late for LWN. I'll offer it for anyone else who is thinking of starting a professional website though. The very FIRST thing you should do is take a job as a salesman for a traditional print magazine and STAY there for at least a year, maybe two.
Then you'll have some idea of how the *business* of distributing free information works. NOW start your website. If you still dare.
(Warning: The above is a stream of conciousness Slashdot post and should not be taken seriously as an actual article. Not even as seriously as a usenet article, and I'm unlikely to spend any effort defending it)
KFG
As has already been noted:
"The difference between the Russian press and the American press is that in Russia the papers only print the government's lies, whereas here in America we can't get the press to quote its lies accurately."
KFG
or luddite, but. . .
It isn't exactly as if the course materials or curricumlum at MIT, or any *other* college, is some sort of great secret.
Nor is the actual *course material* really going to be online. That will be found in the textbooks.
If you want to learn physics or how to read the Iliad in the original greek all you need do is make the trip to your local public library, and in some states any state funded college library is also considered a public library, and take out a relevant text.
And read it.
Without trying to appear *too* snide, anyone who can't figure this out probably isn't up to college grade work in the first place.
The possibility of having lecture notes available online is an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure of what general relevance or use it might be. The textbook always contains superiour information, that is why they USE textbooks after all, and lecture notes are, in fact, often useless without the text and only needed to make sure you might have some niggling little tidbit that * that professor, in THAT course, is likely to sneak into a TEST.*
All in all I see how this might prove useful to the less actually educationally ambitious student of MIT, and how it might prove *interesting* to some of the public, but I fail to see how it in any way AIDS the public in an educational sense. The material is already available to the public, (including the course curiculum of MIT which is published and stocked by public libraries already), in the superiour form of actual texts.
MIT is correct. They can publish this material freely because 1) The essential information is *already* free and public, and 2) Because you don't pay MIT to reveal to you that F=MA, you pay them to have a professor *explain it to you.* and then be able to say you earned a degree from MIT!
If all you want is access to the learning material so that you may educate yourself at little or no expense you likely have a vastly superior resource right in your own community.
It's called a "reference librarian."
Go introduce yourself.
KFG
I didn't say dishwasher. I said dishwater, i.e., *sink.*
I have done that, and retrieved all of my data, without any labor.
Havn't run it through the cloths washer yet. I might have some data loss with that.
Good thing backup media is even cheaper than the notebook.
KFG
I'm still trying to figure out why to "upgrade" to a palm.
The pocket sized, spiral bound, notebook I got at CVS for $.69 works just fine for me.
It's easy to use. Battery life is phenomenal. It weighs about the same as a single AA cell. Cost. . . $.69!
What's more, it works in all conditions. Fonts are infinately variable. It only measures 5x3 inches but that's ALL screen size. I can drop it on the sidewalk, throw it against the wall, drop it in the dishwater, run over it with my car and * it still works!*
But wait, don't order now, there's MORE!
It can also be used to stick under wobbly restaraunt table legs. As a coaster, cat repeler, raw materials for small paper airplanes, a fan, kindling and lipstick blotter.
And those are just the ways I've actually used it. ( No, I *wasn't* the one wearing the lipstick)
It is also much easier to transfer data * to other people* with the "CVS PDA." Sometimes the girl is after MY number. ( Go figure)
It does have its disadvantages. It is multi lingual, but installation of other languages is difficult, and may take years to accomplish. It's math capabilities are only as good as your own, ( although it handles all mathmatical symbols, those currently extant AND those yet to be made up, with ease). I find the data needs to be defragged every 6 months or so for maximum speed of data retrieval. This can take about 15 minutes of actual labor. Every 5 years or so it needs to be replaced and data transfer can take up to half an hour of actual labor.
I think this labor is nicely offset by the labor saved by the price difference.
*$.69!*
All hail the CVS PDA.
KFG
I've tried to explain it to them. I've tried to show how paint companies *pretend* to copyright colors when, in fact, they are only copyrighting the color chart as a printed document.
I can't help it if they don't get it.
As you point out there are so many variables in producing a paint color that every car that comes off an assembly line is actually a different color if examined sufficiently closely.
Why does a body shop paint an entire panel to get rid of a scratch? Because it's easier than matching the color!
Go into the public library. You will likely find a copier. You will also likely find a copyright warning taped to the copier.
Go into a paint store. You will find a custom color mixing machine. If it's a modern one it is extrememly sophisticated and can match any color at greater precision than the human eye can distinguish.
Notice any "copyright notice" attached to the machine or the service counter.
NO!
Tell the clerk that you like Glidden paint but want this Benjamin Moore color. Ask him to mix it up for you in Glidden. What will he say?
"Certainly sir, no problemo."
See the total lack of, " I'm sorry sir, but that color is copyrighted by Benjamin Moore"?
Why is that do you suppose?
Well, I'll tell you why. Because you * can't copyright a color!*
You can copyright the unique name you call that color. You can copyright the color chart. You can copyright the logo. You can copyright a description of color mix that produces the color. You can copyright the label on the can. You can *trademark* the association of your made up name for the color with the color itself. If you really, really want you can even copyright a photo of your ass painted that color, but you *can't copyright the color.*
Now it does occur on occasion that all the above will be done by some company, and then the marketing and legal depts. will *claim* that they have copyrighted the color, but that is because they are assholes, not because they have actually copyrighted the *color.*
Look, I own a small publishing company. I have *actual copyright application forms* right here in my desk file drawer.
I can submit a written work for copyright. I can submit an image for copyright. I can submit a sound recording for copyright. If I submit a written work that contains an image and if I wish a copyright on that image I have to file that *seperately* because legally the document containing the image and the image itself are entirely seperate.
I * cannot submit a color* for copyright.
Sheesh.
KFG
They passed this law at the same time they passed the law requiring the manufacturers have to stock a complete line of replacement parts for seven years, right?
KFG
Now see, you've made a common mistake of non professionals.
You can't copyright the horse, you have to *patent* it.
Sheesh, get it right.
KFG
Notice the source of that story? Why, it was Enzo Ferrari himself. No witnesses.
That story is considered largely fabricated. Oh sure, there is surely some element of truth to it, but the story is *known* to have grown and changed over the years. It isn't fact.
Also, the fact that it was the ensignia on the plane of a single individual dosn't mean it that *wasn't* the insignia on the planes of everyone else in his squadron. It was. It was the squadron insignia, not the private insignia of the individual.
Just as Eddie Rickenbacker had a hat in a ring on the side of his plane, so did *everyone else* in his squadron. Georges Guynemer had a stork. So did *everyone else* in his squadron.
If you're actually interested in this subject you ought to read Brock Yates' biography of Enzo.
KFG
Yes, it does. The fact of the matter is that changing the background color alone can make a big difference in whether a copyright or trademark has been violated or not.
There is also the fact that Ferrari's logo has always been considered a bit on the weak side legally, at least with regards to the horse.
You see, that horse isn't Ferrari's invention, he took it from an insignia of an Italian fighter squadron in the first place.
Again, nicely illustrating my point that the ablility to trademark themes has its limits.
KFG
And Coca-Cola won literally hundreds of such decisions giving them sole use of the world Cola when refering to soda.
And yet it is a generic term freely used by all, *despite* Coca-Cola vigorously defending it, *successfully*, against all comers.
Things are not always as they appear at first glance when dealing issues of trademark.
KFG
For starters, you can't copyright a color. Period. Thus your argument that my argument is invalid is invalid. All visible colors fall under the umbrella of prior art. You can copyright certain works using color. For instance you could paint a board red, hang it on the wall, call it a work of art, and own the copyright on it.
Good luck prosecuting people who "steal" your ip. Even if the red is the only board that previously existed with the "exact shade."
IP is only ip to the extent that it can be effectively protected. That is lesson number one in the ip "biz."
What you CAN do is define a logo that contains the words "Ferrari Red" and copyright, and trademark * THAT LOGO.* The copyright on the logo confers no protections whatsoever on the words contained within that logo, nor on the color they refer to. So, you can only buy "Ferrari Red" paint from Ferrari because Ferrari controls the name *Ferrari*, and thus the paint name and logo, not because they control the actual light wavelength reflected by the paint.
This is precisely the reason there are so many doofy names for colors. You *cannot protect the color.* So you make up a NAME for it you can protect.
And of course there is the fact that there is really no such thing as Ferrari Red in the first place. Ferrari has used literally dozens of different shades of red. There is also the fact that Ferrari didn't even invent the phrase, and it was in widespread public use before Ferrari ever used it. It was, in fact, forced on them through public use. Prior art.
You are also, of course, aware that virtually every Ferrari, even those painted the *same* color, are in fact different colors? What is the *exact* shade of "Ferrari Red"? How is it defined? How is its use defended when it isn't true that it can only be obtained from authorized Ferrari repairers because any dumb schlub at the paint store can simply mix up unlimited supplies of it for you? You can do it yourself on your desktop if you wish.
Are you even begining to get my point, which was *there are limits to trademarkability?*
What's more, a trademark or copyright *does not* confer title. This is perhaps the most misunderstood part of this branch of ip law. In truth *title* can only be granted by a JUDGE reviewing the facts of a particular challange.
Ferrari *owns* the shape of its cars because a JUDGE, reviewing an actual case has *said so.*
Oh, it was an American judge by the way, thus in truth Ferrari only owns the shape of its cars in America and those countries that will respect that American decision.
Trademark and copyright are not the same as registering your car. The fact of the matter is that you can have copyright and trademark certificates in hand and STILL not have the rights they seem to confer on you.
KFG