I think it all depends on how you quantify an 'instant', i.e. how many fractions of a second is it?
In context with the post to which you are replying, "instant" would mean zero delay from one event to the next, that is, zero fractions of a second.
If there is a delay, any delay, even the tiniest fraction of a second, then it's not instantaneous. Maybe it's "almost instantaneous".
I realize that I am straying somewhat off topic here, but to give an example, the memory modules that I design, simulate and test have a transmission delay of something on the order of half a nanosecond from a register to the memory device. That's.0000000005 second (5x10^-10). Is that instantaneous? Not in my case. That's a significant amount of time because when all is said and done, by the time a memory cycle is finished, I may only have 50 to 100 picoseconds of time left over.
The long and the short? "Instantaneous" means zero delay between one event and the next. "Almost instantaneous" is something else.
We aren't fucking the planet, it'll survive, were fucking ourselves. All but a few of the world's major cities lie along the coast. ALL of the great port cities.
Ahem...almost all of the great port cities. Fortunately, Lewiston, Idaho is hundreds of miles away from the coast, thus guaranteeing its place in history as the world's preeminent port city once the coming deluge drowns the rest of them.
There is some info missing in the article that would probably add a little context.
Specifically, it doesn't mention the time period over which the sales took place. There is a relatively limited window of time during which "insiders" can sell stock. Generally, it's in the middle of financial quarters and definitely closes well before the quarter's beginning or end.
Although the article doesn't flat-out say it, it sort of implies that the execs selling stock have been doing it recently. Given the extraordinarily high level of scrutiny to insider trading abuses in publicly traded companies, I would be very surprised if the SCO insiders were anything other than legally scrupulous in their stock sales, particularly in the midst of litigation.
You may not agree with their position regarding Linux...no, let me rephrase that...you probably think that they are beneath contempt because of their position regarding Linux, but there's nothing unlawful or particularly unethical about realizing that your stock price is outrageously high, you're in an insider trading window and it's almost time for the new model-year Lexus introductions!
I think they deserve our scorn for playing fast and loose with the GPL and the Community in general, but I doubt they've broken any laws in this instance.
When you purcahse the car it is taxed and then when you resell it to another person it is taxed again. Double taxation.
Not so. The car is not taxed, the sale of the car is taxed. When you bought the car, you paid a tax based on the value of the transaction. When you sold the car, the purchaser paid a tax based on the value of that transaction. Two separate transactions, two separate tax payments.
You are taxed on your paycheck and then when you invest your money and it generates income it is taxed again. double taxation.
Wildly not so. You are taxed on your paycheck, then you are taxed on the income that your investment earned. The same money is not taxed twice. In fact, to a certain extent, if your investment results in a loss, you can exclude the amount of that loss from your taxable income.
I think that you would be hard pressed to find a situation where you paid the same tax twice for the same thing. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist...just fleetingly rare.
-h- I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant. I am not an economist. I am an engineer.
At Boise State University, there were no algebraic calculators allowed in most Calc and DiffEQ classes. They were allowed in engineering classes, however. The assumption was that, post Calculus, we were learning about engineering, not math. The problems were not designed to trip us up on the math, but, rather, on the engineering!
That being said, I have to say that I think that my 48GX is one of the best calculators ever made in terms of speed, size and ease of use. However, indefinite integrals are the devil on it! A TI92 makes them a piece of cake. Tests involving fields just couldn't be done with the 48GX because there wasn't enough time. I was lucky enough to be able to afford both the HP and the TI, so I could use whichever tool worked best.
As a practicing engineer, though, I only use the 48GX. I think I've used the TI92 to balance my checkbook when the HP was at work, but that's about it...and I only really do arithmetic on the HP anyway...computerized field solvers do all of the differential equations for me. Welcome to the real world!
No, you am just American. The Brits consider a collective noun (like the name of a company) to be plural, so "Activision are" would be correct.
So since/. has adopted this idiosyncracy of the British, how come they don't include an extra U in certain select words, e.g., colour? For that matter, why isn't a truck a lorrie, a subway a tube and a television a telly? Shouldn't they be substituting C for S in a select number of words, e.g., defence?
Obviously I'm too senstive to this whole affair of what constitutes "proper" grammar, but my English teachers always told me that "a" group of things was singular because there is only one group. Thus, "a" company may have a gazillion employees, but it is still "a" company.
Sure, the Internet is an international collective (oh crap, should that be "the Internet ARE...?) of individuals and companies, but since/. is an American organization (err...ARE an American...?) and its (their?) viewers are predominantly American (or at least American English-speakers), then shouldn't its (their?) grammar rules reflect American rules of grammar?
I guess it could be worse...at least we don't speak French (a joke, dammit, a joke!)
Oh, and for what it's worth, "am" does not agree with "you"...not even in Britain.
but isn't this essentially what caused the Boston Tea Party. I know that the markets have to be regulated to some extent, but the government should not be allowed to grant a monopoly or break up a monopoly (unless it was formed illegally) that was built from the ground. And that is basically what they are doing, even if it doesn't seem like it now but it is a real possibility in the future.
I'm not sure if you're right or you're wrong...I don't think that your analogy fits the situation because no monopoly exists. Right now, Samsung holds about 25% of the market, Micron around 20% and Hynix and Infineon both have something like 12% or so. Maybe what you're referring to is that Micron is the only US manufacturer of DRAM, but that doesn't make a monopoly.
The Boston Tea Party was a response to the British government requiring their colonies to pay a tax (payment of which was indicated by a stamp) on tea from Britain. The problem was, of course, that the only place that you could buy tea from was a British-approved company. Now, supposedly the participants didn't have a problem with the tax, per se, but with the fact that they were paying taxes to a government in which they had no voice. They felt (and rightly so!) that if they were paying taxes to the Crown, then they should have some right of input in how the government spent the money (among other things). Thus, the Boston Tea Party - if there's no tea to tax, then no taxes get paid!
Besides, the harbor was effectively blockaded until the tea was offloaded, but since the Sons of Liberty were preventing the offloading, the ships coudn't leave. No tea on board? Then the ships could leave. Of course, that's not quite how it worked out.
This gives Micron carte blanche to raise their prices by 44%, which while it may save a few jobs in Idaho, will ultimately cost even more jobs at US companies that buy memory (think the likes of Dell and so forth).
Actually, it doesn't. Maybe prices will go up, maybe they won't, but because memory is a commodity, Micron doesn't simply set a price and everybody pays...the prices are negotiated just like any other commodity. Also bear in mind that the duty is applied to chips and chips alone. If the chips come into the US on a module or as part of an electronic device, then no duty. If the chips are made in Hynix's Oregon fab, no duty. Hynix can pretty easily focus their Korean chip output in Asia, an extraordinarily rapidly developing market.
So maybe prices go up a little, but not 44%. On the other hand, if they go up 44% or 50% or even 100%, that's still reasonably cheap. Right now the prices are artificially low because manufacturers are selling below cost. At some point, something will give...the problem is, if the South Korean government is propping up Hynix (and with the number of jobs that Hynix provides South Korea, you can damn well bet that the government will not let the company fall), then it makes it a little more difficult for companies like Micron and Infineon to compete on the market. Competing against another company is one thing...competing against another government is something else!
No and no. The Supreme Court ruled in a number of search and seizure cases that once you put something in the trash, it becomes abandoned property and is free for the taking.
That is not what the Supreme Court ruled. They have ruled that an item placed for trash collection on public property is abandoned property. The back of a store in or near a dumpster on private property is not the same thing.
That's why the police can search your trash without a warrant. California vs Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35.
California vs Greenwood ruled that trash placed on the curb of a public street was searchable. Again, this is the same sort of case that the Supreme Court has upheld. Trash placed on private property, however, is most assuredly not covered by California vs Greenwood.
If I intentionally abandon an item on public property, under common law I lose all ownership rights in that item. After some reasonable period (providing evidence of abandonment) that item is free to be legally acquired by any passerby.
I don't get the number of people who don't understand the basic premise that if you don't have an ownership right to begin with, you can't lose it! In this case, we're talking about books and magazines that have been reported as unsold (and presumably destroyed...that's the purpose of putting them in the trash). The store no longer has an ownership interest in the items. The publisher or distributor, by virtue of reimbursing the bookstore has reclaimed the ownership of the property. Thus, the bookstore cannot abandon them because they have no ownership interest. The bookstore's obligation as an agent of the publisher or distributor is the destroy the items.
Try this from another angle. Say I take a computer to a consignment shop to be sold. The shop is acting as my agent, with specific instructions from me to sell the computer. Now say, for whatever reason, the shop puts the computer outside their door in a public area for a few days. Somebody comes along and thinks, hey, nice computer, I guess I'll take it because it's abandoned. Well...hang on a second...it's not abandoned! I didn't abandon it. Now somebody is in possession of a computer that doesn't belong to them. The consignment store didn't have the ownership interest to enable them to abandon the computer.
Back to the bookstore: they did not abandon the books...they placed them in the trash for a specific purpose: for the garbage company to take them and destroy them by dumping them in a landfill. And they did this on behalf of the publisher or distributor.
In addition, unless there are local ordinances to the contrary, placing trash on a public street curb causes the owner to immediately lose all rights of privacy and ownership in that material. (Not intellectual rights, of course)
Again, if the owner didn't place the trash on the public street curb, how can they lose any right of ownership? Further, what if the items in question are not on the street curb, but are on private property (albeit in a public place) awaiting garbage collection? If I steal something, then put it out on the curb for it to be collected as garbage, does that mean that the original owner no longer has any property interest? I don't think so.
The link that you posted is interesting, but somewhat narrowly focused. If the trash is in a dumpster behind the store, what then?
The retailer may not just be relying on the garbage company to destroy the material.
The grunts (can women be grunts?) could also be getting a little cash to "set aside" the patterns "next to" the dumpster for the folks picking them up.
Sure, I'm all for equal opportunity...anyone can be a grunt. So, if they're "setting aside" the patterns, then I guess this becomes a little more clear-cut case of theft.
If the retail business is anything like the pizza business, you can get college students and homless people to break down cardboard boxes and so forth for the "set asides" at the dumpster. (Not good food, but not poison and pretty tasty at 3am)
Well, when I worked for Dominoes, we didn't report back to the supplier that we couldn't sell all of the pepperoni and get a refund on it. So at the end of the night, leftover stuff got to go home with us, courtesy of the restaraunt's owner. But that was his call because he owned the food. In the case of the patterns, if they were reported as unsold and destroyed (assuming things work the same for patterns as they do for books and magazines), then the store doesn't have the same freedom - they no longer own the materials and must dispose of them as the publisher or distributor directs.
It seems to me that this problem could easily be solved by the retailers simply paying more attention and actually destroying the documents like they are supposed to do.
I agree.
If the supply for the things dries up, too bad for the reseller.
It is pretty sad that people always think of the lawyers first, rather than using common sense.
"Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership."
Where has copyright been violated here? Nobody is illegally copying patterns (although they may or may not be illegally selling them).
No copyright is violated. I never mentioned the word. I talked about ownership. Your parenthetical remarks pretty much sum up what I said in my post:
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
This is kind of funny. Doesn't destroyed mean gone, no longer in a recognizable form from what it once was? A book with it's cover torn off, sadly, is still a book. It is no more destroyed than stealing someone's hubcaps has totaled the car.
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
The covers are torn off to return to the publisher as evidence that the book did not sell, not to destroy the book. It's a token means of making sure that the bookstore doesn't sell the book then report it as being unsold.
The destruction part, naturally, occurs after the cover is torn off. Or at least, it's supposed to work that way.
One would assume that by throwing the books in a dumpster and having the trash company haul them to the landfill, the bookstore would have accomplished their mission of destroying the books. Given the kind of goo that ends up in the garbage truck, I'd say that they would be rather effectively rendered unreadable. However, sending them to a recycling center seems like a much better use of materials.
The "covers ripped off books" thing has always seemed very dubious indeed to me. How can you tell the difference between a book with the cover ripped off by the bookstore and one with the cover ripped off by a previous owner? (I can't think of a reason why a book owner would tear off the cover and sell it, but who knows.) Also, to prove it was stolen you'd have to trace a chain of ownership somehow and that could be difficult. I've always just laughed at it and bought anyway (if the book was cheap enough and interesting enough).
Well, as it applies in this case, if you are scouting out the dumpsters in the back of the bookstore and you find a bunch of books with no covers on them, what would you think? That some guy with a bunch of old paperbacks ripped off the covers and dumped them in the bookstore's dumpster?
If what I toss in the dumpster becomes the property of the garbage company, would that make dumpster diving by employees of the garbage company legal even if it were not legal for others? So they could (might, should) go through the trash stream looking for things that are recyclable/reusable.
I guess you'd have to check with the garbage company and see what their policy is with regard to transferring property of the garbage company to its employees. It's entirely possible. And I agree, it seems more practical to recycle rather than throw away. Maybe it would be better if the bookstore could give the books to a school or library.
But Monsterpatterns is not a party to the contractual agreement between the pattern manufacturer and the pattern retailer. If the retailer fails to execute their part of the agreement, no third party is bound to abide by the agreement in their stead.
Monsterpatterns is not a party to the contractual agreement (if such an agreement exists), but bear in mind that once the retailer reports the patterns (or books or magazines or whatever) as unsold, it strikes me that the ownership of the physical property reverts back to the distributor or publisher. In other words, the retailer could be on the hook for not properly disposing of the distributor's property and Monsterpatterns could be in some hot water for taking property that isn't theirs. Since the retailer has surrendered his right to dispose of the merchandise except by destroying it, that means that McCalls or their distributor ought to be able to tell Monsterpatterns that they are in possession of stolen property. Whether or not they stole it may be a fine point of discussion, but they obtained the property from somebody who didn't own it to begin with!
1. I find a bunch of old magazines in someone's trash.
Specifically, you find a bunch of magazines with no covers in the trash behind a bookstore.
2. I take the magazines and list them on my web site hoping to sell them.
3. I'm guilty of a DMCA violation?? This doesn't make sense! People are using the DMCA as a 'catch all' law to make EVERYTHING online illegal. This law must go away!
No, you aren't guilty of a DMCA violation, but under the DMCA, the owner of the magazines can send a letter to your ISP informing them that they believe that you are selling copyrighted material that you do not own or have a license to (in this case, magazines that have been reported to the publisher as unsold and destroyed - the property of the publisher). Your ISP, under the DMCA, cannot be held as a party to the alleged crime if they then remove your web site.
YOU didn't violate the DMCA - nobody violated it. The owner of the magazines in question simply informed the ISP that if they removed your web site, they would be protected by the DMCA.
Now, if the magazines were just in Joe Blow's garbage and at some point they had been purchased, given or somehow had the ownership or license (whatever you want to call it) legally transferred to Joe Blow, then, assuming you didn't violate any dumpster diving laws, the magazines are yours to sell.
IMHO, the first is perfectly legal, given one assumption -- I'm assuming he's legally allowed to do the "dumpster diving" which AFAIK *is* legal. That the stores simply tossed out rather than destroying the patterns is THEIR problem -- they're basically giving them to anyone who wants them at that point.
The store and the dumpster diver both have a problem, anti-dumpster diving laws notwithstanding. Assuming the store reported the patterns as unsold and destroyed, a la a paperback book, that means that they have transferred ownership of the pattern back to the distributor. The distributor then authorizes the store to destroy the property (the store is acting as the distributor's agent now.) Now, if they elect to throw the pattern in the dumpster, it would seem to me that they are basically subcontracting the destruction work to the garbage company. If Mr. Dumpster Diver comes along and plucks the patterns from the dumpster, he has actually stolen them from the distributor. They aren't abandoned and the store has given up its right to "give" them to anyone, other than somebody who will perform the destruction.
At best, the guy selling the patterns on the web is selling property that he doesn't own...at worst, he stole it.
The dumpster divers should be in the clear on this one, in my NSHO, but the company that threw it out needs to get an incenirator or contract to a garbage company who will come onto their property to collect the dirty goods.
Maybe this is making an incorrect assumption, but I'll fly with it: If the retailer throws the unsold patterns into a dumpster on their property, then, until the garbage company comes to collect the garbage (thus trasferring some semblance of ownership from the retailer to the garbage company), the patterns are not abandoned...they are still the property of the retailer and have been placed in the dumpster for a specific purpose: to be disposed of in a landfill by the garbage company.
In fact, here in Boise, Idaho, when you place the trash in a dumpster, you have transferred ownership of the trash to the garbage company. However, it strikes me that what may really be the case here is that the retailer, in reporting the merchandise as unsold and destroyed, is really relying on the garbage company as their agent to perform the destruction.
Perhaps it would be a different story if the retailer reported the patterns as unsold and destroyed and left them on a street corner. In that case, I think that the pattern companies might still have a case...but it would be against the retailer for not properly destroying the patterns. It also strikes me that they would probably be able to prevent the dumpster divers from selling the patterns by claiming that they were stolen property, which, in the scenario described above, they really are!
Let me try this again: Even in paperback books with the covers ripped off, the language warning against stripped books doesn't mention copyright liability. Here's the language used by one publisher: The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
The booksellers are authorized to destroy the books in lieu of returning them to the distributor, but the distributor retains the ownership of the book. The notice in the front of the book seems to me to be sufficient to inform you of just who owns the book. It's not a copyright issue at all - it's an issue a physical piece of property.
Oh, and just to maintain a thread of topicality, in my city (Boise, Idaho), when you toss something into the dumpster, it becomes the property of the garbage company. Of course, "property", in the sense of the book issue described above seems to take on a rather confusing label. Maybe custody is a better term.
Even in paperback books with the covers ripped off, the language warning against stripped books doesn't mention copyright liability. Here's the language used by one publisher: The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."
There are an awful lot of comments poking fun at MIT for some perceived paradigm shift - moving from theory to practice. But that's missing the point.
I got my EE degree from Boise State University, hardly the technological powerhouse of MIT's caliber, but one thing that concerned the faculty in the College of Engineering was the need to not just attract students who wanted to major in engineering, but also to retain them once they started the program.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an engineer) to realize that two years of core engineering classes full of theory, math and seemingly non-applicable ideas is pretty damn boring to an awful lot of people. Although you may disagree, I think that it is not just important, but critical to see some sort of practical engineering examples. Sure, I got a lab with my physics class (I made a telescope, charted magnetic flux lines and measured acceleration, etc.) and there was a chemistry lab (oh boy, we made Slime). There was even a rudimentary circuits lab that taught us something about discrete passive devices. But the one class that was the "hook" that worked to cause most of the borderline (as in not sure if they want to continue in engineering) students to keep on was the Introduction to Engineering course.
This was a course that featured a topic from a different engineering discipline each week: Electrical, Civil and Mechanical. The one hour lecture by a different professor from the field each week was followed by two three hour labs of projects related to that topic.
Sure, we were just taking Calculus I at the time and no, we didn't know Kirchoff's laws. We couldn't describe a system with differential equations, but there are a ton of things that a student can do that involve intuitive engineering knowledge that don't require any more science than simply understanding how something works - not why it works...that comes later.
At the end of the semester, the "capstone" project was, as I recall, a car that had to navigate away from obstacles using IR sensors. Yes, a lot of stuff was prepackaged, but the experience was valuable in that it showed the application of ideas and served as a way to tide us over those first couple of years when hours of math, physics and chemistry threatened to send us all screaming down the halls.
I should point out that, at least at Boise State, the College of Engineering has a very high graduation rate. I don't recall any EE student who started their freshman year with me who didn't go all the way to the end and graduate. Obviously there is a lot that goes into a high graduation rate, including the dedication and determination of the student as well as the quality and committment of the professors, but it seems to me that something works at BSU.
Also, every one of those graduates who took the Fundamentals exam (a prerequisite for becoming a Professional Engineer) passed. Did EE120 make the difference? I can't say, but I do know that it was one of the courses that I took that really sticks in my mind because it showed early on that the things that we were learning and were going to learn had practical applications.
The authors of the book, in a sort of twisted attempt at balance, did solicit Dennis Ritchie's input in the form of an "Anti-Forward". It's very funny, but the real hilarity jumps out in the last paragraph:
"Here is my metaphor: your book is a pudding stuffed with apposite observations, many well-conceived. Like excrement, it contains enough undigested nuggets of nutrition to sustain life for some. But it is not a tasty pie: it reeks too much of contempt and of envy."
Slashdot Mirror
In context with the post to which you are replying, "instant" would mean zero delay from one event to the next, that is, zero fractions of a second.
If there is a delay, any delay, even the tiniest fraction of a second, then it's not instantaneous. Maybe it's "almost instantaneous".
I realize that I am straying somewhat off topic here, but to give an example, the memory modules that I design, simulate and test have a transmission delay of something on the order of half a nanosecond from a register to the memory device. That's
The long and the short? "Instantaneous" means zero delay between one event and the next. "Almost instantaneous" is something else.
-h-
Ahem...almost all of the great port cities. Fortunately, Lewiston, Idaho is hundreds of miles away from the coast, thus guaranteeing its place in history as the world's preeminent port city once the coming deluge drowns the rest of them.
-h-
Specifically, it doesn't mention the time period over which the sales took place. There is a relatively limited window of time during which "insiders" can sell stock. Generally, it's in the middle of financial quarters and definitely closes well before the quarter's beginning or end.
Although the article doesn't flat-out say it, it sort of implies that the execs selling stock have been doing it recently. Given the extraordinarily high level of scrutiny to insider trading abuses in publicly traded companies, I would be very surprised if the SCO insiders were anything other than legally scrupulous in their stock sales, particularly in the midst of litigation.
You may not agree with their position regarding Linux...no, let me rephrase that...you probably think that they are beneath contempt because of their position regarding Linux, but there's nothing unlawful or particularly unethical about realizing that your stock price is outrageously high, you're in an insider trading window and it's almost time for the new model-year Lexus introductions!
I think they deserve our scorn for playing fast and loose with the GPL and the Community in general, but I doubt they've broken any laws in this instance.
-h-
Double taxation.
Not so. The car is not taxed, the sale of the car is taxed. When you bought the car, you paid a tax based on the value of the transaction. When you sold the car, the purchaser paid a tax based on the value of that transaction. Two separate transactions, two separate tax payments.
You are taxed on your paycheck and then when you invest your money and it generates income it is taxed again.
double taxation.
Wildly not so. You are taxed on your paycheck, then you are taxed on the income that your investment earned. The same money is not taxed twice. In fact, to a certain extent, if your investment results in a loss, you can exclude the amount of that loss from your taxable income.
I think that you would be hard pressed to find a situation where you paid the same tax twice for the same thing. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist...just fleetingly rare.
-h-
I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant. I am not an economist. I am an engineer.
That being said, I have to say that I think that my 48GX is one of the best calculators ever made in terms of speed, size and ease of use. However, indefinite integrals are the devil on it! A TI92 makes them a piece of cake. Tests involving fields just couldn't be done with the 48GX because there wasn't enough time. I was lucky enough to be able to afford both the HP and the TI, so I could use whichever tool worked best.
As a practicing engineer, though, I only use the 48GX. I think I've used the TI92 to balance my checkbook when the HP was at work, but that's about it...and I only really do arithmetic on the HP anyway...computerized field solvers do all of the differential equations for me. Welcome to the real world!
-h-
In Soviet Russia, the joke shuts you up!
-h-
Not as much as when they took out your sense of sarcasm!
So since
Obviously I'm too senstive to this whole affair of what constitutes "proper" grammar, but my English teachers always told me that "a" group of things was singular because there is only one group. Thus, "a" company may have a gazillion employees, but it is still "a" company.
Sure, the Internet is an international collective (oh crap, should that be "the Internet ARE...?) of individuals and companies, but since
I guess it could be worse...at least we don't speak French (a joke, dammit, a joke!)
Oh, and for what it's worth, "am" does not agree with "you"...not even in Britain.
-h-
I'm not sure if you're right or you're wrong...I don't think that your analogy fits the situation because no monopoly exists. Right now, Samsung holds about 25% of the market, Micron around 20% and Hynix and Infineon both have something like 12% or so. Maybe what you're referring to is that Micron is the only US manufacturer of DRAM, but that doesn't make a monopoly.
The Boston Tea Party was a response to the British government requiring their colonies to pay a tax (payment of which was indicated by a stamp) on tea from Britain. The problem was, of course, that the only place that you could buy tea from was a British-approved company. Now, supposedly the participants didn't have a problem with the tax, per se, but with the fact that they were paying taxes to a government in which they had no voice. They felt (and rightly so!) that if they were paying taxes to the Crown, then they should have some right of input in how the government spent the money (among other things). Thus, the Boston Tea Party - if there's no tea to tax, then no taxes get paid!
Besides, the harbor was effectively blockaded until the tea was offloaded, but since the Sons of Liberty were preventing the offloading, the ships coudn't leave. No tea on board? Then the ships could leave. Of course, that's not quite how it worked out.
-h-
Actually, it doesn't. Maybe prices will go up, maybe they won't, but because memory is a commodity, Micron doesn't simply set a price and everybody pays...the prices are negotiated just like any other commodity. Also bear in mind that the duty is applied to chips and chips alone. If the chips come into the US on a module or as part of an electronic device, then no duty. If the chips are made in Hynix's Oregon fab, no duty. Hynix can pretty easily focus their Korean chip output in Asia, an extraordinarily rapidly developing market.
So maybe prices go up a little, but not 44%. On the other hand, if they go up 44% or 50% or even 100%, that's still reasonably cheap. Right now the prices are artificially low because manufacturers are selling below cost. At some point, something will give...the problem is, if the South Korean government is propping up Hynix (and with the number of jobs that Hynix provides South Korea, you can damn well bet that the government will not let the company fall), then it makes it a little more difficult for companies like Micron and Infineon to compete on the market. Competing against another company is one thing...competing against another government is something else!
-h-
That is not what the Supreme Court ruled. They have ruled that an item placed for trash collection on public property is abandoned property. The back of a store in or near a dumpster on private property is not the same thing.
That's why the police can search your trash without a warrant. California vs Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35.
California vs Greenwood ruled that trash placed on the curb of a public street was searchable. Again, this is the same sort of case that the Supreme Court has upheld. Trash placed on private property, however, is most assuredly not covered by California vs Greenwood.
-h-
I don't get the number of people who don't understand the basic premise that if you don't have an ownership right to begin with, you can't lose it! In this case, we're talking about books and magazines that have been reported as unsold (and presumably destroyed...that's the purpose of putting them in the trash). The store no longer has an ownership interest in the items. The publisher or distributor, by virtue of reimbursing the bookstore has reclaimed the ownership of the property. Thus, the bookstore cannot abandon them because they have no ownership interest. The bookstore's obligation as an agent of the publisher or distributor is the destroy the items.
Try this from another angle. Say I take a computer to a consignment shop to be sold. The shop is acting as my agent, with specific instructions from me to sell the computer. Now say, for whatever reason, the shop puts the computer outside their door in a public area for a few days. Somebody comes along and thinks, hey, nice computer, I guess I'll take it because it's abandoned. Well...hang on a second...it's not abandoned! I didn't abandon it. Now somebody is in possession of a computer that doesn't belong to them. The consignment store didn't have the ownership interest to enable them to abandon the computer.
Back to the bookstore: they did not abandon the books...they placed them in the trash for a specific purpose: for the garbage company to take them and destroy them by dumping them in a landfill. And they did this on behalf of the publisher or distributor.
In addition, unless there are local ordinances to the contrary, placing trash on a public street curb causes the owner to immediately lose all rights of privacy and ownership in that material. (Not intellectual rights, of course)
Again, if the owner didn't place the trash on the public street curb, how can they lose any right of ownership? Further, what if the items in question are not on the street curb, but are on private property (albeit in a public place) awaiting garbage collection? If I steal something, then put it out on the curb for it to be collected as garbage, does that mean that the original owner no longer has any property interest? I don't think so.
The link that you posted is interesting, but somewhat narrowly focused. If the trash is in a dumpster behind the store, what then?
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The grunts (can women be grunts?) could also be getting a little cash to "set aside" the patterns "next to" the dumpster for the folks picking them up.
Sure, I'm all for equal opportunity...anyone can be a grunt. So, if they're "setting aside" the patterns, then I guess this becomes a little more clear-cut case of theft.
If the retail business is anything like the pizza business, you can get college students and homless people to break down cardboard boxes and so forth for the "set asides" at the dumpster. (Not good food, but not poison and pretty tasty at 3am)
Well, when I worked for Dominoes, we didn't report back to the supplier that we couldn't sell all of the pepperoni and get a refund on it. So at the end of the night, leftover stuff got to go home with us, courtesy of the restaraunt's owner. But that was his call because he owned the food. In the case of the patterns, if they were reported as unsold and destroyed (assuming things work the same for patterns as they do for books and magazines), then the store doesn't have the same freedom - they no longer own the materials and must dispose of them as the publisher or distributor directs.
It seems to me that this problem could easily be solved by the retailers simply paying more attention and actually destroying the documents like they are supposed to do.
I agree.
If the supply for the things dries up, too bad for the reseller.
It is pretty sad that people always think of the lawyers first, rather than using common sense.
Amen, brother!
-h-
Where has copyright been violated here? Nobody is illegally copying patterns (although they may or may not be illegally selling them).
No copyright is violated. I never mentioned the word. I talked about ownership. Your parenthetical remarks pretty much sum up what I said in my post:
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
See? Nothing about copyright.
-h-
Perhaps if they didn't want the book to be found by others and really meant it to be destroyed, they should follow through with it and pack unused books off to a recycling center for.. destruction.
The covers are torn off to return to the publisher as evidence that the book did not sell, not to destroy the book. It's a token means of making sure that the bookstore doesn't sell the book then report it as being unsold.
The destruction part, naturally, occurs after the cover is torn off. Or at least, it's supposed to work that way.
One would assume that by throwing the books in a dumpster and having the trash company haul them to the landfill, the bookstore would have accomplished their mission of destroying the books. Given the kind of goo that ends up in the garbage truck, I'd say that they would be rather effectively rendered unreadable. However, sending them to a recycling center seems like a much better use of materials.
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Well, as it applies in this case, if you are scouting out the dumpsters in the back of the bookstore and you find a bunch of books with no covers on them, what would you think? That some guy with a bunch of old paperbacks ripped off the covers and dumped them in the bookstore's dumpster?
If what I toss in the dumpster becomes the property of the garbage company, would that make dumpster diving by employees of the garbage company legal even if it were not legal for others? So they could (might, should) go through the trash stream looking for things that are recyclable/reusable.
I guess you'd have to check with the garbage company and see what their policy is with regard to transferring property of the garbage company to its employees. It's entirely possible. And I agree, it seems more practical to recycle rather than throw away. Maybe it would be better if the bookstore could give the books to a school or library.
-h-
Monsterpatterns is not a party to the contractual agreement (if such an agreement exists), but bear in mind that once the retailer reports the patterns (or books or magazines or whatever) as unsold, it strikes me that the ownership of the physical property reverts back to the distributor or publisher. In other words, the retailer could be on the hook for not properly disposing of the distributor's property and Monsterpatterns could be in some hot water for taking property that isn't theirs. Since the retailer has surrendered his right to dispose of the merchandise except by destroying it, that means that McCalls or their distributor ought to be able to tell Monsterpatterns that they are in possession of stolen property. Whether or not they stole it may be a fine point of discussion, but they obtained the property from somebody who didn't own it to begin with!
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Specifically, you find a bunch of magazines with no covers in the trash behind a bookstore.
2. I take the magazines and list them on my web site hoping to sell them.
3. I'm guilty of a DMCA violation?? This doesn't make sense! People are using the DMCA as a 'catch all' law to make EVERYTHING online illegal. This law must go away!
No, you aren't guilty of a DMCA violation, but under the DMCA, the owner of the magazines can send a letter to your ISP informing them that they believe that you are selling copyrighted material that you do not own or have a license to (in this case, magazines that have been reported to the publisher as unsold and destroyed - the property of the publisher). Your ISP, under the DMCA, cannot be held as a party to the alleged crime if they then remove your web site.
YOU didn't violate the DMCA - nobody violated it. The owner of the magazines in question simply informed the ISP that if they removed your web site, they would be protected by the DMCA.
Now, if the magazines were just in Joe Blow's garbage and at some point they had been purchased, given or somehow had the ownership or license (whatever you want to call it) legally transferred to Joe Blow, then, assuming you didn't violate any dumpster diving laws, the magazines are yours to sell.
-h-
The store and the dumpster diver both have a problem, anti-dumpster diving laws notwithstanding. Assuming the store reported the patterns as unsold and destroyed, a la a paperback book, that means that they have transferred ownership of the pattern back to the distributor. The distributor then authorizes the store to destroy the property (the store is acting as the distributor's agent now.) Now, if they elect to throw the pattern in the dumpster, it would seem to me that they are basically subcontracting the destruction work to the garbage company. If Mr. Dumpster Diver comes along and plucks the patterns from the dumpster, he has actually stolen them from the distributor. They aren't abandoned and the store has given up its right to "give" them to anyone, other than somebody who will perform the destruction.
At best, the guy selling the patterns on the web is selling property that he doesn't own...at worst, he stole it.
-h-
Maybe this is making an incorrect assumption, but I'll fly with it: If the retailer throws the unsold patterns into a dumpster on their property, then, until the garbage company comes to collect the garbage (thus trasferring some semblance of ownership from the retailer to the garbage company), the patterns are not abandoned...they are still the property of the retailer and have been placed in the dumpster for a specific purpose: to be disposed of in a landfill by the garbage company.
In fact, here in Boise, Idaho, when you place the trash in a dumpster, you have transferred ownership of the trash to the garbage company. However, it strikes me that what may really be the case here is that the retailer, in reporting the merchandise as unsold and destroyed, is really relying on the garbage company as their agent to perform the destruction.
Perhaps it would be a different story if the retailer reported the patterns as unsold and destroyed and left them on a street corner. In that case, I think that the pattern companies might still have a case...but it would be against the retailer for not properly destroying the patterns. It also strikes me that they would probably be able to prevent the dumpster divers from selling the patterns by claiming that they were stolen property, which, in the scenario described above, they really are!
-h-
Even in paperback books with the covers ripped off, the language warning against stripped books doesn't mention copyright liability. Here's the language used by one publisher:
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."
Many publishers amplify on this, stating that if you have purchased the book in question, it is stolen. Now, I don't know if the same rules apply in the case of the dumpster diver, but in the case of the stripped books, you are holding a piece of property that hasn't been paid for. It doesn't matter that you dug it out of a garbage bin or found it on the side of the street...if the bookstore reported it as unsold and destroyed to the publisher or distributor, then it cannot be sold. Does that mean that you are a criminal for possessing it? Beats me, but it seems to me that it puts you in a dubious position of being able to claim any right of ownership.
The booksellers are authorized to destroy the books in lieu of returning them to the distributor, but the distributor retains the ownership of the book. The notice in the front of the book seems to me to be sufficient to inform you of just who owns the book. It's not a copyright issue at all - it's an issue a physical piece of property.
Oh, and just to maintain a thread of topicality, in my city (Boise, Idaho), when you toss something into the dumpster, it becomes the property of the garbage company. Of course, "property", in the sense of the book issue described above seems to take on a rather confusing label. Maybe custody is a better term.
-h-
Even in paperback books with the covers ripped off, the language warning against stripped books doesn't mention copyright liability. Here's the language used by one publisher:
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed." Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this "stripped book."
I got my EE degree from Boise State University, hardly the technological powerhouse of MIT's caliber, but one thing that concerned the faculty in the College of Engineering was the need to not just attract students who wanted to major in engineering, but also to retain them once they started the program.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an engineer) to realize that two years of core engineering classes full of theory, math and seemingly non-applicable ideas is pretty damn boring to an awful lot of people. Although you may disagree, I think that it is not just important, but critical to see some sort of practical engineering examples. Sure, I got a lab with my physics class (I made a telescope, charted magnetic flux lines and measured acceleration, etc.) and there was a chemistry lab (oh boy, we made Slime). There was even a rudimentary circuits lab that taught us something about discrete passive devices. But the one class that was the "hook" that worked to cause most of the borderline (as in not sure if they want to continue in engineering) students to keep on was the Introduction to Engineering course.
This was a course that featured a topic from a different engineering discipline each week: Electrical, Civil and Mechanical. The one hour lecture by a different professor from the field each week was followed by two three hour labs of projects related to that topic.
Sure, we were just taking Calculus I at the time and no, we didn't know Kirchoff's laws. We couldn't describe a system with differential equations, but there are a ton of things that a student can do that involve intuitive engineering knowledge that don't require any more science than simply understanding how something works - not why it works...that comes later.
At the end of the semester, the "capstone" project was, as I recall, a car that had to navigate away from obstacles using IR sensors. Yes, a lot of stuff was prepackaged, but the experience was valuable in that it showed the application of ideas and served as a way to tide us over those first couple of years when hours of math, physics and chemistry threatened to send us all screaming down the halls.
I should point out that, at least at Boise State, the College of Engineering has a very high graduation rate. I don't recall any EE student who started their freshman year with me who didn't go all the way to the end and graduate. Obviously there is a lot that goes into a high graduation rate, including the dedication and determination of the student as well as the quality and committment of the professors, but it seems to me that something works at BSU.
Also, every one of those graduates who took the Fundamentals exam (a prerequisite for becoming a Professional Engineer) passed. Did EE120 make the difference? I can't say, but I do know that it was one of the courses that I took that really sticks in my mind because it showed early on that the things that we were learning and were going to learn had practical applications.
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All of this managed to make my Matrix experience just that much harder to enjoy.
-h-
"Here is my metaphor: your book is a pudding
stuffed with apposite observations, many
well-conceived. Like excrement, it contains
enough undigested nuggets of nutrition to
sustain life for some. But it is not a
tasty pie: it reeks too much of contempt and
of envy."
-h-