So, they're going to give up their common carrier status? I guess they want to be legally liable when child porn is distributed over their network. Can't wait to see their top execs go to prison for sex crimes.
Why is it a loss? Why do we get so sad when an influential person dies at a ripe old age? Surviving bone cancer to the age of 89 is an impressive feat. If anything, I'm happy that his suffering (and he surely did suffer) is over now.
His contributions will live on. I'm not glad that Don Herbert is dead, but hearing his name mentioned on Slashdot brings a smile to my face, not tears to my eyes. Most of us could hardly wish for a better and more fulfilled life than he lived.
I salute you, Mr. Wizard. Wherever and whatever you are now.
Like the atoms of the pole push each other on and on and so forth till it gets to the end. if it does take time, is it faster than light, or slower? what if the pole was 300,000,000 meters long? does it take about 1 second for u to notice the other end moves?
Things seem rigid because of the electromagnetic force. This force is conveyed by photons. Photons move at the speed of light. Therefore, if you had a very long rod and pushed one end, the other end could not possibly start to move sooner than a photon could have travelled from one end to the other.
This exact question was asked when I attended a lecture by David Greene. Unfortunately, the questioner used the word "string" instead of "rod," Dr. Greene got confused and thought he meant something about string theory, and didn't answer the question correctly. But yes. The force is conveyed from one end of the rod to the other no faster than the speed of light.
Really? So if I'm in Philadelphia on vacation and I want to record some sights on my camcorder, I can't do so unless I inform everybody within earshot that I might accidentally record portions of their conversations?
There are rapist, murderers and violent thugs on streets NOW!
So we should only prosecute the worst crimes on the books? Why bother having the others? And don't make me laugh by claiming you give a shit about violent crime. First of all, violent crime in most areas of the country has been DECREASING as of late. Second, I live within a few miles of the location of this bust and I can tell you firsthand that the swap meets in questions attracted all KINDS of unsavory characters and were basically brew-pots for other criminal activity, some of which was no doubt violent.
But I don;t see any officers patrolling those areas? Why is that?
Who knows. Sounds like your local police force sucks. The one around here is very obvious, very visible, and very active in controlling crime.
Not a moron, I want my tax money at work for the common people, not for some fucking corporation...bitch...
Once again, how is the arrest and prosecution of CRIMINALS the stooge-work of corporations? Counterfeiting of copyrighted materials has ALWAYS been illegal, FAR before organisations like the RIAA existed. You think you can personally pick and choose which crimes should be prosecuted. This tags you as an antisocial dumbfuck.
You shouldn't be able to patent something that already exists just by putting it on the internet. There is no innovation there.
Agreed, but there are a zillion patents already based on exactly that. If you're going to toss THIS one out, you have to toss them ALL out. That's probably a good thing, but I don't see it happening.
I basically agree with you. But the point of argument wasn't whether patents are a good thing on the whole, but whether this particular "invention" was obvious or not. Fact is, I have no idea, and without a time machine to skip back to 1996 I'm not sure we could ever answer that question.
That's the whole problem. These guys laid in wait for so long that when it finally might go to court, it's harder to answer question like "Was it obvious?" Maybe that's a part of the strategy. I dunno.
if i can come up with an idea completely on my own, without influence from someone else who had the same idea, why should someone else prevent me from using that idea just because they thought of it first?
What prevents you? I don't know, the PATENT the other guy has?
If you think the idea of patents is a crock, fine -- SAY SO.
What's with this "will never be realized" crap? First of all, the claim that an SDK is required to make a killer app is specious. Secondly, who says they won't change their minds and release an SDK in the next generation of iPhones? When's the last time the first release of a winning product was also the last release?
Obvious now, but was it obvious in 1996 when they filed for it? The problem is that this sector advances so damn fast that it's hard to even tell sometimes.
Of course, holding the patent in their back pocket then arising like a submarine is a despicable action, one which I think should invalidate a patent. I think if you patent something you should be required to at least attempt to make a business off it instead of suing the shit out of people who have more balls than you.
No, its the wrong thing to do. What if i choose not to dispose of the product? Why should i be penalized? Hell i should get a discount!
In an ideal world, sure. But in our NON-ideal world, most consumers are lazy and would probably dispose of their electronics in a dumpster. In fact, why not make it a refundable deposit like many states already do with recyclable bottles and cans?
Such would communicate instantaneously, not transmitting through normal space, and this is not time-travel at all.
No. Instantaneous communication is EQUIVALENT to time travel. This follows pretty trivially from special relativity. Suppose you launch a rocket at nearly the speed of light to a nearby star system. Because of time dilation, the astronauts on this rocket experience only a few days of travel time, while on earth, it appears to take 100 years. So suppose that we send, via this mystical instantaneous communication device, a packet every 1 second of Earth time. Because the communication is instant, the travelers on the spacecraft also perceive that these messages are arriving once per second. But because of the time dilation, in the 1 second on Earth it takes to send a message, thousands of seconds have passed on the spacecraft, and the astronauts have received thousands of messages. This means that the messages had to have been received before they were sent, e.g. TIME TRAVEL.
Have you considered that maybe that's the right thing? Maybe we SHOULD have to pay, up front, for the disposal costs of the items we purchase.
Having said that, the Texas government could just give the companies a tax break equivalent to the expense of running the recycling program. That way it is ultimately the government (and taxpayers) who pay for it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Who else should pay for it? Grays from Mars?
I believe its called impersonation and its against the law.
But they aren't impersonating the police. They aren't impersonating ANYONE. Their jackets say "RIAA." Just because you are conditioned to be fearful of people who wear official-looking clothing doesn't make it THEIR problem. I agree that they are a bunch of swine. I AGREE. But if you give in to the demands of some random person wearing a flack jacket without proof that they have official power, YOU are the idiot.
Violent crimes are happening and increasing everyday... My taxes pay for these cops salaries. These cops should be at least fired and lost of pension.
Yeah. How dare they enforce a law THAT'S ON THE BOOKS which makes it a CRIME to profit from sales of counterfeit materials? What assholes! Next thing you know they'll be hunting down murder suspects!
So let me see if I understand this: a Hispanic nature implies one is shift or devious? Wow. You know, if a real police officer said something like this his or her career would be over.
You gotta understand the Beaverton/Hillsboro area. There are so many Latin American immigrants there (many of them illegal) that it becomes a kind of backdrop where people can just sink in and disappear. People around here sometimes call the city of Hillsboro "Hillsburrito" for that reason. I agree it sucks.
Well, I'm glad to know we aren't suppose to have CD Duplication systems, anymore. Someone might want to pass the news on to, for example, Tiger Direct so they can stop selling them.
The wording "someone has a replicator who shouldn't" was chosen by some RIAA asshole. Now, if the POLICE start saying we can't have these things, we have a problem. But nobody should be surprised or even upset when some RIAA goon says stuff like that. It's par for the course.
Interesting idea, but even if we could create uncancellable advanced waves inside a black hole, what good would it do? They're inside the black hole, unable to influence anything outside the horizon.
Not "seriously studied." It was the kind of lame shit somebody would bust out at a party when conversation stalled. One of those "in things" that somehow became "too in" and started to suck.
When I bought my house, one of the things I did when I was up on the roof cleaning the gutters was count the number of aluminum roofing units (my roof is metal). Sure enough, there were 47 of them.
Pomona was a fascinating place. The kind of place where a professor (and I don't mean some young buck, but a grizzly, gray-haired old Greek literature instructor) would supply the kegs at the party. And the administration didn't care. I have no idea if it's still that way. I stopped by the campus a few years ago and walked through for nostalgia's sake. It looked pretty dead.
This guy isn't crazy, the idea of using advanced waves goes all the way back to Feynman (see Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory which is what this is based upon).
Except that Feynman demonstrated that the advanced waves ALWAYS cancel each other completely, UNLESS they propagate "beyond the edge of space," i.e. into a region with infinite extent and zero charge density. Since such a region is awfully hard to find around here (I keep looking for the pit of nothingness but can't seem to locate it), it would seem that advanced waves are pretty irrelevant in our day-to-day existence.
Here lies (TEACHER'S NAME)
still can't find the on switch on the IIc
Very sad to say, but doing something like this these days would probably have gotten you expelled or sent to an alternative school. It would literally ruin your life.
You have to do better than proving someone has a press to prove they were counterfitting and society should never fault someone for publishing legitimate materials.
I agree with you on this. Merely owning a duplicator, while incredibly suspicious (who spends a million bucks for their own personal use?) isn't enough to prove anything. But alongside other evidence, a "bit trail" connecting the pressed CDs to the machine in question, etc, it is pretty damning. If they know a duplicator was used, it makes sense from a forensic standpoint to start looking for the duplicator.
There IS a lot wrong with copyright. None of the failings of the current system excuse the wanton, flagrant, CRIMINAL actions of this group. We're not talking about downloading songs on BitTorrent, we're talking about making counterfeit media and SELLING it.
The guy's wording was unfortunate (and how can you blame him, being that he works for the RIAA) but you can't deny that the replication machine itself would be strong circumstantial evidence against the perpetrator, and would serve alongside other evidence if/when that person is brought to trial.
Just because anybody in the US can legally own a firearm, doesn't mean that firearms can't be used as evidence in murder trials, for instance.
The way you've worded your post is pretty much a flat contradiction of all optics since Newton. Go look up what a lens is.
I didn't say the shape of a lens doesn't matter. I said it doesn't alter the refractivity (and by that I mean its index of refraction). Of COURSE it alters the behavior of the lens. Refractivity is an intensive property, the geometry of the lens is an extensive property.
Perhaps my wording wasn't as clear as it should have been. The point stands that the shape of a lens does not alter the ability of the material to refract light, it only alters the specific geometries of the refracted rays.
Slashdot Mirror
So, they're going to give up their common carrier status? I guess they want to be legally liable when child porn is distributed over their network. Can't wait to see their top execs go to prison for sex crimes.
Why is it a loss? Why do we get so sad when an influential person dies at a ripe old age? Surviving bone cancer to the age of 89 is an impressive feat. If anything, I'm happy that his suffering (and he surely did suffer) is over now.
His contributions will live on. I'm not glad that Don Herbert is dead, but hearing his name mentioned on Slashdot brings a smile to my face, not tears to my eyes. Most of us could hardly wish for a better and more fulfilled life than he lived.
I salute you, Mr. Wizard. Wherever and whatever you are now.
Like the atoms of the pole push each other on and on and so forth till it gets to the end. if it does take time, is it faster than light, or slower? what if the pole was 300,000,000 meters long? does it take about 1 second for u to notice the other end moves?
Things seem rigid because of the electromagnetic force. This force is conveyed by photons. Photons move at the speed of light. Therefore, if you had a very long rod and pushed one end, the other end could not possibly start to move sooner than a photon could have travelled from one end to the other.
This exact question was asked when I attended a lecture by David Greene. Unfortunately, the questioner used the word "string" instead of "rod," Dr. Greene got confused and thought he meant something about string theory, and didn't answer the question correctly. But yes. The force is conveyed from one end of the rod to the other no faster than the speed of light.
Really? So if I'm in Philadelphia on vacation and I want to record some sights on my camcorder, I can't do so unless I inform everybody within earshot that I might accidentally record portions of their conversations?
There are rapist, murderers and violent thugs on streets NOW!
So we should only prosecute the worst crimes on the books? Why bother having the others? And don't make me laugh by claiming you give a shit about violent crime. First of all, violent crime in most areas of the country has been DECREASING as of late. Second, I live within a few miles of the location of this bust and I can tell you firsthand that the swap meets in questions attracted all KINDS of unsavory characters and were basically brew-pots for other criminal activity, some of which was no doubt violent.
But I don;t see any officers patrolling those areas? Why is that?
Who knows. Sounds like your local police force sucks. The one around here is very obvious, very visible, and very active in controlling crime.
Not a moron, I want my tax money at work for the common people, not for some fucking corporation...bitch...
Once again, how is the arrest and prosecution of CRIMINALS the stooge-work of corporations? Counterfeiting of copyrighted materials has ALWAYS been illegal, FAR before organisations like the RIAA existed. You think you can personally pick and choose which crimes should be prosecuted. This tags you as an antisocial dumbfuck.
You shouldn't be able to patent something that already exists just by putting it on the internet. There is no innovation there.
Agreed, but there are a zillion patents already based on exactly that. If you're going to toss THIS one out, you have to toss them ALL out. That's probably a good thing, but I don't see it happening.
I basically agree with you. But the point of argument wasn't whether patents are a good thing on the whole, but whether this particular "invention" was obvious or not. Fact is, I have no idea, and without a time machine to skip back to 1996 I'm not sure we could ever answer that question.
That's the whole problem. These guys laid in wait for so long that when it finally might go to court, it's harder to answer question like "Was it obvious?" Maybe that's a part of the strategy. I dunno.
if i can come up with an idea completely on my own, without influence from someone else who had the same idea, why should someone else prevent me from using that idea just because they thought of it first?
What prevents you? I don't know, the PATENT the other guy has?
If you think the idea of patents is a crock, fine -- SAY SO.
What's with this "will never be realized" crap? First of all, the claim that an SDK is required to make a killer app is specious. Secondly, who says they won't change their minds and release an SDK in the next generation of iPhones? When's the last time the first release of a winning product was also the last release?
Obvious now, but was it obvious in 1996 when they filed for it? The problem is that this sector advances so damn fast that it's hard to even tell sometimes.
Of course, holding the patent in their back pocket then arising like a submarine is a despicable action, one which I think should invalidate a patent. I think if you patent something you should be required to at least attempt to make a business off it instead of suing the shit out of people who have more balls than you.
No, its the wrong thing to do. What if i choose not to dispose of the product? Why should i be penalized? Hell i should get a discount!
In an ideal world, sure. But in our NON-ideal world, most consumers are lazy and would probably dispose of their electronics in a dumpster. In fact, why not make it a refundable deposit like many states already do with recyclable bottles and cans?
Such would communicate instantaneously, not transmitting through normal space, and this is not time-travel at all.
No. Instantaneous communication is EQUIVALENT to time travel. This follows pretty trivially from special relativity. Suppose you launch a rocket at nearly the speed of light to a nearby star system. Because of time dilation, the astronauts on this rocket experience only a few days of travel time, while on earth, it appears to take 100 years. So suppose that we send, via this mystical instantaneous communication device, a packet every 1 second of Earth time. Because the communication is instant, the travelers on the spacecraft also perceive that these messages are arriving once per second. But because of the time dilation, in the 1 second on Earth it takes to send a message, thousands of seconds have passed on the spacecraft, and the astronauts have received thousands of messages. This means that the messages had to have been received before they were sent, e.g. TIME TRAVEL.
Have you considered that maybe that's the right thing? Maybe we SHOULD have to pay, up front, for the disposal costs of the items we purchase.
Having said that, the Texas government could just give the companies a tax break equivalent to the expense of running the recycling program. That way it is ultimately the government (and taxpayers) who pay for it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Who else should pay for it? Grays from Mars?
I believe its called impersonation and its against the law.
But they aren't impersonating the police. They aren't impersonating ANYONE. Their jackets say "RIAA." Just because you are conditioned to be fearful of people who wear official-looking clothing doesn't make it THEIR problem. I agree that they are a bunch of swine. I AGREE. But if you give in to the demands of some random person wearing a flack jacket without proof that they have official power, YOU are the idiot.Violent crimes are happening and increasing everyday... My taxes pay for these cops salaries. These cops should be at least fired and lost of pension.
Yeah. How dare they enforce a law THAT'S ON THE BOOKS which makes it a CRIME to profit from sales of counterfeit materials? What assholes! Next thing you know they'll be hunting down murder suspects!
You're a fucking moron.
So let me see if I understand this: a Hispanic nature implies one is shift or devious? Wow. You know, if a real police officer said something like this his or her career would be over.
You gotta understand the Beaverton/Hillsboro area. There are so many Latin American immigrants there (many of them illegal) that it becomes a kind of backdrop where people can just sink in and disappear. People around here sometimes call the city of Hillsboro "Hillsburrito" for that reason. I agree it sucks.
Well, I'm glad to know we aren't suppose to have CD Duplication systems, anymore. Someone might want to pass the news on to, for example, Tiger Direct so they can stop selling them.
The wording "someone has a replicator who shouldn't" was chosen by some RIAA asshole. Now, if the POLICE start saying we can't have these things, we have a problem. But nobody should be surprised or even upset when some RIAA goon says stuff like that. It's par for the course.
Interesting idea, but even if we could create uncancellable advanced waves inside a black hole, what good would it do? They're inside the black hole, unable to influence anything outside the horizon.
Not "seriously studied." It was the kind of lame shit somebody would bust out at a party when conversation stalled. One of those "in things" that somehow became "too in" and started to suck.
When I bought my house, one of the things I did when I was up on the roof cleaning the gutters was count the number of aluminum roofing units (my roof is metal). Sure enough, there were 47 of them.
Pomona was a fascinating place. The kind of place where a professor (and I don't mean some young buck, but a grizzly, gray-haired old Greek literature instructor) would supply the kegs at the party. And the administration didn't care. I have no idea if it's still that way. I stopped by the campus a few years ago and walked through for nostalgia's sake. It looked pretty dead.
This guy isn't crazy, the idea of using advanced waves goes all the way back to Feynman (see Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory which is what this is based upon).
Except that Feynman demonstrated that the advanced waves ALWAYS cancel each other completely, UNLESS they propagate "beyond the edge of space," i.e. into a region with infinite extent and zero charge density. Since such a region is awfully hard to find around here (I keep looking for the pit of nothingness but can't seem to locate it), it would seem that advanced waves are pretty irrelevant in our day-to-day existence.The 47 jokes got pretty old after my first couple of months at Pomona. However, I do still see the number 47 everywhere.
Here lies (TEACHER'S NAME) still can't find the on switch on the IIc
Very sad to say, but doing something like this these days would probably have gotten you expelled or sent to an alternative school. It would literally ruin your life.
You have to do better than proving someone has a press to prove they were counterfitting and society should never fault someone for publishing legitimate materials.
I agree with you on this. Merely owning a duplicator, while incredibly suspicious (who spends a million bucks for their own personal use?) isn't enough to prove anything. But alongside other evidence, a "bit trail" connecting the pressed CDs to the machine in question, etc, it is pretty damning. If they know a duplicator was used, it makes sense from a forensic standpoint to start looking for the duplicator.
There IS a lot wrong with copyright. None of the failings of the current system excuse the wanton, flagrant, CRIMINAL actions of this group. We're not talking about downloading songs on BitTorrent, we're talking about making counterfeit media and SELLING it.
The guy's wording was unfortunate (and how can you blame him, being that he works for the RIAA) but you can't deny that the replication machine itself would be strong circumstantial evidence against the perpetrator, and would serve alongside other evidence if/when that person is brought to trial.
Just because anybody in the US can legally own a firearm, doesn't mean that firearms can't be used as evidence in murder trials, for instance.
The way you've worded your post is pretty much a flat contradiction of all optics since Newton. Go look up what a lens is.
I didn't say the shape of a lens doesn't matter. I said it doesn't alter the refractivity (and by that I mean its index of refraction). Of COURSE it alters the behavior of the lens. Refractivity is an intensive property, the geometry of the lens is an extensive property.
Perhaps my wording wasn't as clear as it should have been. The point stands that the shape of a lens does not alter the ability of the material to refract light, it only alters the specific geometries of the refracted rays.