Incorrect. He didn't have a contract with Monsanto. If you have a contract with Monsanto then you pay them a "property use fee" of $15 per acre. He didn't sign a contract and didn't pay $15 per acre because he didn't purchase the seeds.
I don't know what gave Monsanto the right to trespass on his property (without a contractual right to do so) and test his fields.
He clearly did it on purpose and dreamed up the blowing-pollen excuse afterward.
So?
Consider this scenario: I, Joe Farmer, am out in my field one day and notice that I have some mysterious canola seeds growing that aren't affected by Roundup. I spray that corner of my field with Roundup and by golly, these plants are still growing.
Interesting. I save the seeds from these plants and re-plant them next year to see what happens. By golly, the new plants are Roundup resistant too! Ok, now I have more of these seeds so I save them and plant a field of this Roundup resistant canola next year.
What have I done wrong? I found some plants growing on my land. I didn't plant them, but they are growing there so I took advantage of them. Heck, if I found an apple tree suddenly growing in my back yard should I not pick the apples?
we use (as an option - you can vote with paper if you want to) an electronic voting system
There should be no options, ideally. Everyone should vote using the same ballot/system/whatever as everyone else.
The reason for this is anonymity. If everyone votes using the machine except for me, then you know how I voted if I used the paper ballot. If everyone votes using the machine except for me and my next door neighbour, then you know that both of us voted for Lois Lane because both paper ballots had Lois Lane selected.
Is this really any different than a 'registration required' site?
Yes it is indeed, because as the person who asked the question pointed out, his cell phone records (name, address, and whatnot) are NOT imaginary. He could enter a fake email address if he wanted to, but that information would still be tied to his real name/address that his cell phone billing account is registered to.
So "Mickey Mouse, 1 Lois Lane" won't do. It's cyber-world tied to real-world and you can't fake the real-world end in this situation.
Re:Where, exactly, is modding prohibited?
on
XBox Linux HOWTOs
·
· Score: 1
(or a helmet on a motorcycle)
Funny story: Twenty years back (or so) a new law was passed in Saskatchewan (Canada) that said that if you were driving or riding on a motorcycle you had to wear a helmet. A fellow in the town where I lived at the time was known as a bit of a non-conformist (to say the least) so he started riding his motorcycle around with a helmet strapped to his knee.
It turned out that the law didn't say that the helmet had to be worn on your head. That got changed, of course.
Remenicient of the ever popular radar-detector-detector.
A radar detector detector is called a radar detector. Several years back I "almost" went to work for a law enforcement outfit in a jurisdiction where radar detectors were illegal. The patrol cars were equipped with radar detectors; when they went "chirp!" as another vehicle went past, it was time to hang a U-turn, flip on the lights and grab the ticket book because you had a live one on the hook!
I was going to suggest cpbk but the web page seems to have disappeared. I hope someone else has the source for this because all I bothered to download was the RPM.
Here is part of the man page that describes cpbk:
Backup Copy is basically a smart copy program that allows
a user to copy mass files from one place to another. When
coping over a previous copy, the key features will allow
coping only of new or non existing files in the backup.
This results in saving time and less load on the drive.
Built into the same feature of copying new files only, is
a file removal procedure. If a file is removed from the
source path, the same file will be removed when the next
backup is performed. This provides a backup that is
exactly the same as the source without filling up the
drive. As an added option, all files that will be over-
written or deleted when doing a copy over a previous
backup, have the opportunity to be stored in a trash bin.
You can leave this trash bin to grow and grow just in case
you need a backup of your backup. When you start running
out of disk space you will need to remove or clean up the
trash bin.
It's dead simple to use. Just cpbk srcdir destdir and all files in your backup directory (including subdirectories) are updated to the latest version in the source directory and deleted files are removed and so on.
I dunno! Say i'm in London/Amsterdam/NYC, where are you? Let's say I'm recording a 'hard to get together' session at 08.00 GMT tomorrow. Where will you be if your software 'shits it' and I need you to help me?
Based on his previous post, I suspect that he will be on the other end of the phone talking to you when that happens. This is, of course, assuming that you have entered into a support contract with him, just like any other support contract that you may require or desire.
One advantage of dealing with someone like him ("If you need me, here is my cell phone number") is that you get to talk to the actual developer who really knows what's going on under the hood. How many times will you get to talk to the person who actually wrote whatever part of, say, MS Windows that is giving you problems when you call their tech support line?
an auction system where the bidder changes the price after they have won?
After the purchaser has completed the purchase.
What that means is that you can buy something then immediately put it up for sale again at a higher price if you want to without having to actually having to take physical possession of the item.
I maintain that the objective of written communication is to communicate, i.e. to deliver a message of some kind. When you deliberately make the reader "work for it" then you are diluting your message.
If I am explaining my views to you verbally and we are standing beside a loudspeaker playing the Rolling Stones at high volume, you are likely going to end up with a less complete understanding of my views than you would have if we were standing in a quiet meadow having the same conversation. Same thing.
So what would you say if a notable person doesn't speak english as his native language? Would you guys pull this shit with him too?
There is a big difference between fractured English and stupid English. It's generally obvious when someone is not a native English-speaker and those people generally try the hardest to get their message out. They make a substantial effort to make their messages understandable.
This "shorthand" makes the author look either stupid or lazy (or both) and does nothing to help deliver the intended message.
How long before people who are attempting to send a message or make a point in a written medium learn that spelling and good grammer go a long way toward getting people to actually read your writings?
This 'leet speek stuff is silly, makes your message hard to read, and detracts from what you really want to say. You either make yourself look juvenile and uninformed or you get skipped-over by people who might otherwise be swayed by your opinions.
xbox-mame uses a pirated copy of the xbox dev kit, copyrighted by Microsoft. That's why MS could and did shut 'em down.
This, though, should allow us to get "real" xmame going in it with no need for MS's dev kit. Then MS will be unable to shut that down and all they could do is fume silently while the rest of us are going "WOCCA WOCCA WOCCA WOCCA GULP!" (Hey, Bill did say that Linux was PacMan so heck - if you've got it flaunt it! *tee hee*)
So I pay 200 so Microsoft loses 150? how is that going to work?
Look at it this way. Let's say I own a candy making shop where I make cotton candy on sticks. Let's say that my cost to make cotton candy is $1.50 per unit including the cost of sugar, electricity to run the pot, colouring and the stick.
I open my shop and sell you cotton candy on sticks for $1.00 each. I'm losing 50 cents on each sale, right? I paid $1.50 wholesale for something that I'm selling to you for $1.00 retail.
How long is my store going to stay in business before I'm so far behind on my rent payments that the bailiffs lock my door? This is where business volume can work against you. If I am selling 10 items per day I will go broke more slowly than if I am selling 100 items per day. "Hey, my store was a huge success! People were rushing in steadily and purchasing the product!" But I went broke.
If someone need to reach you in an emergency they can call the lobby and have someone get you or they can page you.
That's even worse. I own and operate a theatre. I get calls once in a while, "Hello, can I talk to Mrs. Jones please? She said she was going to the show tonight."
Now what? I don't know what Mrs. Jones looks like, and even if I did there are 150 people in the auditorium, the auditorium is dark and everyone is facing away from you so all you can see is the back of everyone's head. Would you like me to interrupt the movie for everyone, "Paging Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones please come to the lobby for an important phone call!"
I tell people that we don't have a facility to page someone but if they would like they can come to the theatre and take a look and see if they can find the person they are looking for. 99.99% of the time the response is, "Well, I guess I will wait until later then."
In my entire life running theatres I have delibertately interrupted a movie only three times. Once was when the police showed up to arrest someone who was believed to "hiding out" in the theatre. Once was when someone's car was on fire right in front of the door. And the third time was when the police and Family Services came in with an apparently abandoned/neglected child who said that Mommy was at the show.
Much as you may wiish it different, and protestations by Thomson public relations folks aside, the license page did change. Words were removed that were there previously and the words that were removed were the ones that exempted free software from the license fee.
resulting in much ado about nothing
Not at all. Much ado, and if you don't think that the change makes any difference then you haven't been paying attention. Would you believe Microsoft's public relations people if they said that security on the Windows platform is as good as security on the Linux platform? I'm sure that words to that effect will have come from that quarter before.
Public relations, advertising, bafflegab and wishful thinking don't make unpleasant realities go away and in this case the reality is that the terms of license have changed and free software for MP3 is no longer a safe project to undertake in the USA - as a programmer or distributor you may be placing yourself in legal jeopardy. Are you sure you want to take that chance?
The existence of a patent somewhere in the world should not affect the GPL.
That is an excellent point. If this project is somehow patent-encumbered in the USA but not in Canada or Europe, then it should be perfectly legal to use it in Canada and Europe under the terms of the GPL as was intended by the author. However, it seems to me that this project and others like it would be illegal in the USA.
Yet another reason why I'm thinking that advanced software development (hell, software development in general) may soon be moving out of the USA due to the prevailing legal climate in a manner similar to the way that some doctors are leaving due to the high cost of malpractice insurance created as a result of outrageous jury awards in malpractice suits.
It's not about a choice, it's about butchering art.
Movies are a product. It's part of the entertainment industry and movie studios make a great deal of money selling their product to the public in various ways.
Microsoft makes a number of products also, which they offer for sale ot the public on various terms and conditions.
Can you see any similarity here? Just because a movie is "entertainment" or "art" doesn't make it any less of a product and doesn't make it any less subject to such basic truths as supply and demand. Write a good computer program, lots of people want to use it. Make a good movie, lots of people want to see it.
(Incidentally, I own and operate a movie theatre.)
Argue the licensing fees per person (use, etc) down to very little:
But the minimum yearly license fee payment due is US$15,000 from each distributor of MP3 software. 75 cents per download, indeed, but $15,000 per year minimum fee. And that's a lot of 75 cent downloads!
In your discussions, don't forget that while the per-player license fee is 75 cents, the minimum yearly license fee is US$15,000. Therefore, you'll have to sell a helluva lot of players at $0.75 each to make up the minimum license fee payment due each year if this is the way that you decide to go.
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All of this is because of a contract.
Incorrect. He didn't have a contract with Monsanto. If you have a contract with Monsanto then you pay them a "property use fee" of $15 per acre. He didn't sign a contract and didn't pay $15 per acre because he didn't purchase the seeds.
I don't know what gave Monsanto the right to trespass on his property (without a contractual right to do so) and test his fields.
He clearly did it on purpose and dreamed up the blowing-pollen excuse afterward.
So?
Consider this scenario: I, Joe Farmer, am out in my field one day and notice that I have some mysterious canola seeds growing that aren't affected by Roundup. I spray that corner of my field with Roundup and by golly, these plants are still growing.
Interesting. I save the seeds from these plants and re-plant them next year to see what happens. By golly, the new plants are Roundup resistant too! Ok, now I have more of these seeds so I save them and plant a field of this Roundup resistant canola next year.
What have I done wrong? I found some plants growing on my land. I didn't plant them, but they are growing there so I took advantage of them. Heck, if I found an apple tree suddenly growing in my back yard should I not pick the apples?
we use (as an option - you can vote with paper if you want to) an electronic voting system
There should be no options, ideally. Everyone should vote using the same ballot/system/whatever as everyone else.
The reason for this is anonymity. If everyone votes using the machine except for me, then you know how I voted if I used the paper ballot. If everyone votes using the machine except for me and my next door neighbour, then you know that both of us voted for Lois Lane because both paper ballots had Lois Lane selected.
Is this really any different than a 'registration required' site?
Yes it is indeed, because as the person who asked the question pointed out, his cell phone records (name, address, and whatnot) are NOT imaginary. He could enter a fake email address if he wanted to, but that information would still be tied to his real name/address that his cell phone billing account is registered to.
So "Mickey Mouse, 1 Lois Lane" won't do. It's cyber-world tied to real-world and you can't fake the real-world end in this situation.
(or a helmet on a motorcycle)
Funny story: Twenty years back (or so) a new law was passed in Saskatchewan (Canada) that said that if you were driving or riding on a motorcycle you had to wear a helmet. A fellow in the town where I lived at the time was known as a bit of a non-conformist (to say the least) so he started riding his motorcycle around with a helmet strapped to his knee.
It turned out that the law didn't say that the helmet had to be worn on your head. That got changed, of course.
Remenicient of the ever popular radar-detector-detector.
A radar detector detector is called a radar detector. Several years back I "almost" went to work for a law enforcement outfit in a jurisdiction where radar detectors were illegal. The patrol cars were equipped with radar detectors; when they went "chirp!" as another vehicle went past, it was time to hang a U-turn, flip on the lights and grab the ticket book because you had a live one on the hook!
I just found a working source download for this: http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/cpbk/cpbk _4.1.0.orig.tar.gz.
I was going to suggest cpbk but the web page seems to have disappeared. I hope someone else has the source for this because all I bothered to download was the RPM.
Here is part of the man page that describes cpbk:
Backup Copy is basically a smart copy program that allows
a user to copy mass files from one place to another. When
coping over a previous copy, the key features will allow
coping only of new or non existing files in the backup.
This results in saving time and less load on the drive.
Built into the same feature of copying new files only, is
a file removal procedure. If a file is removed from the
source path, the same file will be removed when the next
backup is performed. This provides a backup that is
exactly the same as the source without filling up the
drive. As an added option, all files that will be over-
written or deleted when doing a copy over a previous
backup, have the opportunity to be stored in a trash bin.
You can leave this trash bin to grow and grow just in case
you need a backup of your backup. When you start running
out of disk space you will need to remove or clean up the
trash bin.
It's dead simple to use. Just cpbk srcdir destdir and all files in your backup directory (including subdirectories) are updated to the latest version in the source directory and deleted files are removed and so on.
Slick as all hell.
I dunno! Say i'm in London/Amsterdam/NYC, where are you? Let's say I'm recording a 'hard to get together' session at 08.00 GMT tomorrow. Where will you be if your software 'shits it' and I need you to help me?
Based on his previous post, I suspect that he will be on the other end of the phone talking to you when that happens. This is, of course, assuming that you have entered into a support contract with him, just like any other support contract that you may require or desire.
One advantage of dealing with someone like him ("If you need me, here is my cell phone number") is that you get to talk to the actual developer who really knows what's going on under the hood. How many times will you get to talk to the person who actually wrote whatever part of, say, MS Windows that is giving you problems when you call their tech support line?
an auction system where the bidder changes the price after they have won?
After the purchaser has completed the purchase.
What that means is that you can buy something then immediately put it up for sale again at a higher price if you want to without having to actually having to take physical possession of the item.
the red stapler from Office Space.
Link patrol!
if you heard it read, would it make it better?
Yes, it likely would.
I maintain that the objective of written communication is to communicate, i.e. to deliver a message of some kind. When you deliberately make the reader "work for it" then you are diluting your message.
If I am explaining my views to you verbally and we are standing beside a loudspeaker playing the Rolling Stones at high volume, you are likely going to end up with a less complete understanding of my views than you would have if we were standing in a quiet meadow having the same conversation. Same thing.
Hmmm, and the fact that being on a crosswalk gives them right of way doesn't bother you?
Not if it's a controlled intersection and they are facing a red light or "Don't Walk" signal.
So what would you say if a notable person doesn't speak english as his native language? Would you guys pull this shit with him too?
There is a big difference between fractured English and stupid English. It's generally obvious when someone is not a native English-speaker and those people generally try the hardest to get their message out. They make a substantial effort to make their messages understandable.
This "shorthand" makes the author look either stupid or lazy (or both) and does nothing to help deliver the intended message.
"How long b4"??
How long before people who are attempting to send a message or make a point in a written medium learn that spelling and good grammer go a long way toward getting people to actually read your writings?
This 'leet speek stuff is silly, makes your message hard to read, and detracts from what you really want to say. You either make yourself look juvenile and uninformed or you get skipped-over by people who might otherwise be swayed by your opinions.
Not done.
xbox-mame uses a pirated copy of the xbox dev kit, copyrighted by Microsoft. That's why MS could and did shut 'em down.
This, though, should allow us to get "real" xmame going in it with no need for MS's dev kit. Then MS will be unable to shut that down and all they could do is fume silently while the rest of us are going "WOCCA WOCCA WOCCA WOCCA GULP!" (Hey, Bill did say that Linux was PacMan so heck - if you've got it flaunt it! *tee hee*)
So I pay 200 so Microsoft loses 150? how is that going to work?
Look at it this way. Let's say I own a candy making shop where I make cotton candy on sticks. Let's say that my cost to make cotton candy is $1.50 per unit including the cost of sugar, electricity to run the pot, colouring and the stick.
I open my shop and sell you cotton candy on sticks for $1.00 each. I'm losing 50 cents on each sale, right? I paid $1.50 wholesale for something that I'm selling to you for $1.00 retail.
How long is my store going to stay in business before I'm so far behind on my rent payments that the bailiffs lock my door? This is where business volume can work against you. If I am selling 10 items per day I will go broke more slowly than if I am selling 100 items per day. "Hey, my store was a huge success! People were rushing in steadily and purchasing the product!" But I went broke.
See?
pointed to this video file
Lovely. A video clip showing Linux installation that's a Windows avi so we can't (easily) watch it on a Linux box.
What we really need to get running on this is xmame. Nearly 3500 arcade games on your living room television set!
Now there's $200 worth of entertainment!
If someone need to reach you in an emergency they can call the lobby and have someone get you or they can page you.
That's even worse. I own and operate a theatre. I get calls once in a while, "Hello, can I talk to Mrs. Jones please? She said she was going to the show tonight."
Now what? I don't know what Mrs. Jones looks like, and even if I did there are 150 people in the auditorium, the auditorium is dark and everyone is facing away from you so all you can see is the back of everyone's head. Would you like me to interrupt the movie for everyone, "Paging Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones please come to the lobby for an important phone call!"
I tell people that we don't have a facility to page someone but if they would like they can come to the theatre and take a look and see if they can find the person they are looking for. 99.99% of the time the response is, "Well, I guess I will wait until later then."
In my entire life running theatres I have delibertately interrupted a movie only three times. Once was when the police showed up to arrest someone who was believed to "hiding out" in the theatre. Once was when someone's car was on fire right in front of the door. And the third time was when the police and Family Services came in with an apparently abandoned/neglected child who said that Mommy was at the show.
as basically nothing changed?
Much as you may wiish it different, and protestations by Thomson public relations folks aside, the license page did change. Words were removed that were there previously and the words that were removed were the ones that exempted free software from the license fee.
resulting in much ado about nothing
Not at all. Much ado, and if you don't think that the change makes any difference then you haven't been paying attention. Would you believe Microsoft's public relations people if they said that security on the Windows platform is as good as security on the Linux platform? I'm sure that words to that effect will have come from that quarter before.
Public relations, advertising, bafflegab and wishful thinking don't make unpleasant realities go away and in this case the reality is that the terms of license have changed and free software for MP3 is no longer a safe project to undertake in the USA - as a programmer or distributor you may be placing yourself in legal jeopardy. Are you sure you want to take that chance?
The existence of a patent somewhere in the world should not affect the GPL.
That is an excellent point. If this project is somehow patent-encumbered in the USA but not in Canada or Europe, then it should be perfectly legal to use it in Canada and Europe under the terms of the GPL as was intended by the author. However, it seems to me that this project and others like it would be illegal in the USA.
Yet another reason why I'm thinking that advanced software development (hell, software development in general) may soon be moving out of the USA due to the prevailing legal climate in a manner similar to the way that some doctors are leaving due to the high cost of malpractice insurance created as a result of outrageous jury awards in malpractice suits.
It's not about a choice, it's about butchering art.
Movies are a product. It's part of the entertainment industry and movie studios make a great deal of money selling their product to the public in various ways.
Microsoft makes a number of products also, which they offer for sale ot the public on various terms and conditions.
Can you see any similarity here? Just because a movie is "entertainment" or "art" doesn't make it any less of a product and doesn't make it any less subject to such basic truths as supply and demand. Write a good computer program, lots of people want to use it. Make a good movie, lots of people want to see it.
(Incidentally, I own and operate a movie theatre.)
Argue the licensing fees per person (use, etc) down to very little:
But the minimum yearly license fee payment due is US$15,000 from each distributor of MP3 software. 75 cents per download, indeed, but $15,000 per year minimum fee. And that's a lot of 75 cent downloads!
In your discussions, don't forget that while the per-player license fee is 75 cents, the minimum yearly license fee is US$15,000. Therefore, you'll have to sell a helluva lot of players at $0.75 each to make up the minimum license fee payment due each year if this is the way that you decide to go.