Before reading TFA, an amusing idea of NASA sending a sail just 1 nm wide crossed my mind. After the can't be reaction, I though they are going to use nanometer thick sails, and wondered what they are made of? Graphene sheets maybe?
Turned out that is not:
NanoSail-D has a surface area of more than 100 square feet and is made of CP1, a polymer no thicker than single-ply tissue paper.
Rrright... It's like... say... an ISP providing a "broadband package" with speed no lower than 56 kbps.
Unless it is a helluva-lot thinner than a tissue paper, what's so Nano in this sail?
while i might agree that grabbing a photo of somebody's house and using that in a commercial would not be a very nice thing, i'm not even sure that would be illegal.
This is why I'm asking for opinions and not legal advice, and thank you for offering yours. Probably, would I be in the situation that pesky photographer posts a photo of my home, I'd need to call a court of law to make the law in this case.
this is about a compromise - privacy vs public place.
I beg to disagree on this one: it is not about privacy vs public place, it is about ownership of the look of my home.
Here, let me give other examples:
suppose a rock-concert (no matter how lame the bands) on the street during a public festival. Yes, I do have a right to record it for my consumption. Do I also have the right to use it in a "collation album" that I sell on the internet, without having the permission of the bands/authors? If not, why a picture of my home should be treated differently?
a museum is a public place - quite often actually maintained from public funding. In many of them, I don't have the right to take photos of the paintings/carving/whatever... even for my personal use. How come their rights to stop me prevails over my right to take pictures in public places?
you chose to have a house in a place that can be viewed from a public location. you chose a fence that allows it to be seen from the said location. in this case, and i agree with that, the right to take a photo from a public place trumps your desire to keep it to yourself.
I agree with that too. But this is NOT the point. The whole ranting is about your right to the photo on my home beyond your personal/private use. And I argue that you (as the person taking the photo) do not have the right to make public the photo that you took, even if I agree that you do have the right to take it (as long as it is from a public place).
a view that can be seen from a public place is not something you can copyright,
Why not? Who says that a house must be just a house, and cannot be classified as art work? If there is no law to say I can't say "My home is an art work", then I'm allowed to assume that I can say that and act accordingly.
so essentially just looking at your house is the same as taking a photo of it
Correct, no objection from my side.
and distributing it
This is the point of my objection.
- you are not chasing everybody who passes down the street and screaming at them if they dare to stare at the direction of your house, do you ?
No, I don't. They are quite welcome to stare as much as they like. Actually, I'd like more people to come and stare of my home, they'll contribute with something in the community I live (even if it is only taking a coffee from the cafeteria a bit down the street: the owner is part of the community, I do like his coffee and I think he deserves to be rewarded as well) - a thing that I might not like to be influenced in any way by a photo published on the internet.
and if somebody did ? i don't believe i have the right to prohibit that or limit them in any way.
So, that's a question of opinion and belief for the moment.
also, as i mentioned before, i would prefer somebody looking at a photo of my house instead of standing on the street in front of it and staring for days;)
Me too, but privacy is another contentious matter: I just wanted to explore the topic of "the ownership of the look of the home one's owns".
Anyway, thank you for the opinions, well appreciated.
Hi Rich,
please read once again the question I raised (and note that I didn't offer any opinion of one way or the other): do I have a right to stop someone making public a photo of my home on the Internet?
It is not about the right of people to look at the home, or to take a photo for their private use. It is about my right to oppose making that photo public.
Now, I'll offer my opinion: my home is not a public building, and I paid the architect for the design, the landscaper for the front garden, thus I own the look of the house as well. I feel that is in my right to oppose (if so I desire) making public any photo of it on the Internet, especially if it is for commercial purposes! After all, others own the look of their logo (and is only the look of it, not an object) and benefit from a very strongly protection from the IP laws, so why the look of my house is something worth less protecting?
Now, look, guys... I just raised a question: do I, as an owner, have the right to stop making public a photo of my home on Internet I didn't say anything about the rights of others to take a photo of my home (for their own private use), nor did I offered any opinion on whether or not such a right exists (so that I can't quite understand the logic of my post being moded as flamebite - if there is a logic).
I'll raise another (this time, openly admitted as loaded): don't you see a bit paradoxical the fact that a logo/trademark is defended with such an force by the "intellectual property" laws, while the image of a home (which is a more concrete object of ownership) is not? Or, does the aesthetic attributes of a home worth less protection? (afterall, I paid for these attributes to my architect, I invested in landscaping and such. I think how my home looks - good or bad - is also owned by me, is it not?)
Attempts to prevent this are only by scaremongers who have an idealistic view of privacy.
I'd wish you stop calling names, please? The reason person owning the place to refuse letting others use the image of it (in any way) is irrelevant... what is relevant is: does he have a right to do it?
just like someone -could- stalk someone using Twitter, but lets face it, no one cares you aren't suddenly so important that someone will spend time looking at your house.
It's irrelevant if others cares or not.
I care, I own the place and I would prefer not to have an image of my home posted on the Internet without my permission. The problem in discussion is: do the fact that I care matters or not? (do I have a right to stop someone making public a photo of my home on the Internet?)
A better (by brevity) YouTube clip to illustrate the article. For young and impressionable kids, time to go to bed at about 1:04-th second from the clip's start.
I'm not upset. Not even the slightest little binary digit.
Here, fixed that for ya! Now should be totally and unambiguously clear for tech nerds too, you linguistic oriented geek! <mumble>(could never understand how the humanity still manage to exist, with such fuzzy and ambiguous ways of communicating and mentally operating with notions and notion and terms that do have a clear definition)</mumble>
And well you did by smashing those female mosquitoes: my computations shows beyond doubt that, if you not have done that, the entire biomass of the earth would be now made of mosquitoes!
I'll rush to publish this statistic and start a new one on rodent population, stay tuned.
and they think iris scanners are going to make a damned bit of difference?
Yes, they are going to make a difference! For the official(s) that took the bribe to push this ahead and for the company providing the scanners. How big the difference ? For certain, more than a bit, but I can't say how big.
how dumb does a tech need to be to need smart phone to change ram? Wait most severs have that info on the door. just sounds like a way to sell some over priced help app.
some of the other ideas are better staring points to work from.
You know, the "augmented reality" principle is not that bad. Here's for an example: wouldn't you like a Phone app to augment the reality of you paycheck and (factually) make the amount bigger?
No, seriously now: this example benefits of the same cover in the real world as the usefulness of augmented reality to change the RAM.
How are users supposed to find the right tech person if we all look the same? Now if we can get our Avatars tied into OpenID, then miracles will happen.
Ok, I understand what's you meaning of the productive class.
If you didn't meant the people with disabilities being antagonized with the productive class (but the ruling one), then you have my apologies and thumbs-up for the entire post, with the exception of "economy-destroying" character of the law: I think is an exaggeration (but we can agree to disagree).
Meanwhile we have spent billions of dollars/pounds/whatever on compliance...
Wow, some numbers I'll let aside the request for quotation, and raise the following two questions on the topic of "limits":
Have you also considered how much you gained over the time for enabling some people with disabilities be (more) productive by their participation?
What about the cost that were saved in the men*hours of carers time?
How many disabled customers do you need through that door in order for it to make financial sense?
You mean: how many (peoples-with-disability) x (times-they-used-the-door)? Because making a door larger doesn't happen everyday, but probably 1 or 2 people in a wheel-chair using that door can happen everyday.
For those that ponder so much on the productive/social cost aspects, I invite you take some moments and think on the disability-vs-potential and investment-vs-cost. Hints
making something accessible for the people with disabilities is an one-off investment (be it a wheel-chair access, a screen-reader or subtitling a movie)
when it comes with "social cost", how much is gained by realizing the potential of disabled people that can/may now do something (not everything) a normal person do? How much is saved, in productive menhours, from the time of their carers?
It does not need help from soon-to-be-outdated government bills.
Just to put the things in perspective: if the industry is so successful, why do you care of a bill that is going to be outdated soon? And how come such a bill would destroy the economy which is so successful in doing, on its own, what the bill asks ? Could it be that some (i.e. isolated and rather anecdotal cases) are used to construct an argumentation here?
At which point does it actually become acceptable to say "Look, you are disabled, you are different, [...] - how about we look at it differently and stop trying to pretend that you have the same advantages in life that we non-disabled enjoy?".
Personally, agree with the first part. But there is a distance to infer that disabled people ask to be treated absolutely equal.
... and its not worth the cost of doing this...
Cannot agree with that, on multiple grounds:
as I said above, I don't think the people with disabilities ask to be treated equally. In most of the cases (that I know), they only want to be included within the limits of what can be made accessible to them. I know the case of a blind person that argued and obtained the right to be educated as a veterinary nurse even the professional association wouldn't grant the right to profess: she was doing only to be more able to figure out if something is wrong with her old cat, without having to put a burden on family, neighbors, friends
applying statistics to an individual case is never a good approach even when it comes to technical matters
you won't know what you may miss if you don't try to include (to the best of your possibilities) other human beings in what you are doing. Potentially, you may miss a Hawkins, even if he didn't stop at the pub around the corner
I'm betting that last comment in the paragraph above is going to get me into hot water in this discussion...
Personally, I do appreciate the sincerity, even if it shows (in my opinion) a lack of understanding of the specific needs of people with disabilities: ignorance is not to blame, persisting in ignorance when you can do better is.
If all media were required to be presented in all manner of forms so that anybody with any disability or who speaks any language could make use of it, everything would be extremely costly to create. that would be economic destruction, plain and simple.
Does the bill require that "all media to be presented in all manner of forms so that anybody with any disability...."
should government websites be disabled-accessable? sure. public services? obviously.
Agreed.
news websites? questionable.
Maybe... I'd argue towards a positive answer.
viral videos? christ, sometimes i wish i was disables so I COULDN'T be exposed to them...
Sincerely empathize with you, however would you mind to check if the proposed bill asks to made them accessible as well?
What makes you believe he believes that? It's pretty obvious that "productive class" doesn't mean "as opposed to people with vision deficiency" but "as opposed to politicians".
Because the way it's worded, I cannot exclude this meaning. But tell you what... I'd be happy to stand corrected by the original poster in this regard, as long as the intended meaning is non-ambiguously stated.
And, while at that, I'd be also happy to hear how some extra work to be done to make some sites accessible can be economy destruction, mainly in a time when the unemployment in IT is not quite low.
I'd be equally happy to ask apologies, would these apologies be necessary. What d'you think, is it fair enough?
Slashdot Mirror
"We chose the 'D' in the name, ..., but because it can stand for demonstrate, deploy, drag, and/or de-orbit."
Dumb!
Turned out that is not:
NanoSail-D has a surface area of more than 100 square feet and is made of CP1, a polymer no thicker than single-ply tissue paper.
Rrright... It's like... say... an ISP providing a "broadband package" with speed no lower than 56 kbps.
Unless it is a helluva-lot thinner than a tissue paper, what's so Nano in this sail?
while i might agree that grabbing a photo of somebody's house and using that in a commercial would not be a very nice thing, i'm not even sure that would be illegal.
This is why I'm asking for opinions and not legal advice, and thank you for offering yours. Probably, would I be in the situation that pesky photographer posts a photo of my home, I'd need to call a court of law to make the law in this case.
this is about a compromise - privacy vs public place.
I beg to disagree on this one: it is not about privacy vs public place, it is about ownership of the look of my home.
Here, let me give other examples:
you chose to have a house in a place that can be viewed from a public location. you chose a fence that allows it to be seen from the said location. in this case, and i agree with that, the right to take a photo from a public place trumps your desire to keep it to yourself.
I agree with that too. But this is NOT the point. The whole ranting is about your right to the photo on my home beyond your personal/private use. And I argue that you (as the person taking the photo) do not have the right to make public the photo that you took, even if I agree that you do have the right to take it (as long as it is from a public place).
a view that can be seen from a public place is not something you can copyright,
Why not? Who says that a house must be just a house, and cannot be classified as art work? If there is no law to say I can't say "My home is an art work", then I'm allowed to assume that I can say that and act accordingly.
so essentially just looking at your house is the same as taking a photo of it
Correct, no objection from my side.
and distributing it
This is the point of my objection.
- you are not chasing everybody who passes down the street and screaming at them if they dare to stare at the direction of your house, do you ?
No, I don't. They are quite welcome to stare as much as they like. Actually, I'd like more people to come and stare of my home, they'll contribute with something in the community I live (even if it is only taking a coffee from the cafeteria a bit down the street: the owner is part of the community, I do like his coffee and I think he deserves to be rewarded as well) - a thing that I might not like to be influenced in any way by a photo published on the internet.
and if somebody did ? i don't believe i have the right to prohibit that or limit them in any way.
So, that's a question of opinion and belief for the moment.
also, as i mentioned before, i would prefer somebody looking at a photo of my house instead of standing on the street in front of it and staring for days ;)
Me too, but privacy is another contentious matter: I just wanted to explore the topic of "the ownership of the look of the home one's owns".
Anyway, thank you for the opinions, well appreciated.
It is not about the right of people to look at the home, or to take a photo for their private use. It is about my right to oppose making that photo public.
Now, I'll offer my opinion: my home is not a public building, and I paid the architect for the design, the landscaper for the front garden, thus I own the look of the house as well. I feel that is in my right to oppose (if so I desire) making public any photo of it on the Internet, especially if it is for commercial purposes!
After all, others own the look of their logo (and is only the look of it, not an object) and benefit from a very strongly protection from the IP laws, so why the look of my house is something worth less protecting?
I'll raise another (this time, openly admitted as loaded): don't you see a bit paradoxical the fact that a logo/trademark is defended with such an force by the "intellectual property" laws, while the image of a home (which is a more concrete object of ownership) is not? Or, does the aesthetic attributes of a home worth less protection? (afterall, I paid for these attributes to my architect, I invested in landscaping and such. I think how my home looks - good or bad - is also owned by me, is it not?)
Attempts to prevent this are only by scaremongers who have an idealistic view of privacy.
I'd wish you stop calling names, please? The reason person owning the place to refuse letting others use the image of it (in any way) is irrelevant... what is relevant is: does he have a right to do it?
just like someone -could- stalk someone using Twitter, but lets face it, no one cares you aren't suddenly so important that someone will spend time looking at your house.
It's irrelevant if others cares or not.
I care, I own the place and I would prefer not to have an image of my home posted on the Internet without my permission. The problem in discussion is: do the fact that I care matters or not? (do I have a right to stop someone making public a photo of my home on the Internet?)
The only answer for inner-city public transit, for cities that aren't as dense as Manhattan (which is most American cities), is SkyTran.
Time for boarding during rush hours? Assume even only 10 secs/passenger for boarding and see if you can beat a train/bus coming every 10 minutes?
A better (by brevity) YouTube clip to illustrate the article. For young and impressionable kids, time to go to bed at about 1:04-th second from the clip's start.
I'm not upset. Not even the slightest little binary digit.
Here, fixed that for ya! Now should be totally and unambiguously clear for tech nerds too, you linguistic oriented geek!
<mumble>(could never understand how the humanity still manage to exist, with such fuzzy and ambiguous ways of communicating and mentally operating with notions and notion and terms that do have a clear definition)</mumble>
I'll rush to publish this statistic and start a new one on rodent population, stay tuned.
and they think iris scanners are going to make a damned bit of difference?
Yes, they are going to make a difference! For the official(s) that took the bribe to push this ahead and for the company providing the scanners. How big the difference ? For certain, more than a bit, but I can't say how big.
"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."
The moment Google steps on this direction far enough for me to detect it, I'm off google.
When enough of us are unemployed, there may be enough of us to start an alternative economy.
how dumb does a tech need to be to need smart phone to change ram? Wait most severs have that info on the door. just sounds like a way to sell some over priced help app.
some of the other ideas are better staring points to work from.
You know, the "augmented reality" principle is not that bad. Here's for an example: wouldn't you like a Phone app to augment the reality of you paycheck and (factually) make the amount bigger?
No, seriously now: this example benefits of the same cover in the real world as the usefulness of augmented reality to change the RAM.
How are users supposed to find the right tech person if we all look the same? Now if we can get our Avatars tied into OpenID, then miracles will happen.
Before going that far, would you settle for the cheaper Clippit and the gang?
If you didn't meant the people with disabilities being antagonized with the productive class (but the ruling one), then you have my apologies and thumbs-up for the entire post, with the exception of "economy-destroying" character of the law: I think is an exaggeration (but we can agree to disagree).
Meanwhile we have spent billions of dollars/pounds/whatever on compliance ...
Wow, some numbers
I'll let aside the request for quotation, and raise the following two questions on the topic of "limits":
How many disabled customers do you need through that door in order for it to make financial sense?
You mean: how many (peoples-with-disability) x (times-they-used-the-door) ? Because making a door larger doesn't happen everyday, but probably 1 or 2 people in a wheel-chair using that door can happen everyday.
It does not need help from soon-to-be-outdated government bills.
Just to put the things in perspective: if the industry is so successful, why do you care of a bill that is going to be outdated soon? And how come such a bill would destroy the economy which is so successful in doing, on its own, what the bill asks ?
Could it be that some (i.e. isolated and rather anecdotal cases) are used to construct an argumentation here?
Let me guess, you're the guy who, when asked if he'd like chicken or steak, says "Yes"?
Wrong guess.
There's no reference - none at all - to the visually deficient.
Apologies, I intended to say people with disabilities.
Now, this might have sufficient societal benefit to be worth it, or it might not - but you have to look at costs, too.
Cannot agree more. However from looking at the cost to economic destruction is a bit of a distance, isn't it?
At which point does it actually become acceptable to say "Look, you are disabled, you are different, [...] - how about we look at it differently and stop trying to pretend that you have the same advantages in life that we non-disabled enjoy?".
Personally, agree with the first part. But there is a distance to infer that disabled people ask to be treated absolutely equal.
... and its not worth the cost of doing this...
Cannot agree with that, on multiple grounds:
I'm betting that last comment in the paragraph above is going to get me into hot water in this discussion...
Personally, I do appreciate the sincerity, even if it shows (in my opinion) a lack of understanding of the specific needs of people with disabilities: ignorance is not to blame, persisting in ignorance when you can do better is.
If all media were required to be presented in all manner of forms so that anybody with any disability or who speaks any language could make use of it, everything would be extremely costly to create. that would be economic destruction, plain and simple.
Does the bill require that "all media to be presented in all manner of forms so that anybody with any disability...."
should government websites be disabled-accessable? sure. public services? obviously.
Agreed.
news websites? questionable.
Maybe... I'd argue towards a positive answer.
viral videos? christ, sometimes i wish i was disables so I COULDN'T be exposed to them...
Sincerely empathize with you, however would you mind to check if the proposed bill asks to made them accessible as well?
At each point stopping short before assisting someone as Stephen Hawking is justifiable (in any sense: moral, economical, whatever)?
What makes you believe he believes that? It's pretty obvious that "productive class" doesn't mean "as opposed to people with vision deficiency" but "as opposed to politicians".
Because the way it's worded, I cannot exclude this meaning. But tell you what... I'd be happy to stand corrected by the original poster in this regard, as long as the intended meaning is non-ambiguously stated.
And, while at that, I'd be also happy to hear how some extra work to be done to make some sites accessible can be economy destruction, mainly in a time when the unemployment in IT is not quite low.
I'd be equally happy to ask apologies, would these apologies be necessary. What d'you think, is it fair enough?