I believe the applicable law here is Title VIII of the Lanham act, which deals with "False designations of origin and false descriptions".
On
this page you can read about a case where Monty Python successfully sued ABC TV under the Lanham Act, for editing and thus "damaging the integrity of the work":
the court upheld these claims on the theory that the ABC edits had substantially altered the work and exceeded the scope of the licensing agreement. The court held, on alternative grounds, that when ABC edited the work and attributed it to Monty Python, it erroneously attributed authorship of the edited work to the group and that such attribution constituted a false designation of origin and thus misrepresented the author's work in violation of federal trademark laws
Note that the court argued both sides of the issue, which could apply in the Cage case too.
However, it's a sad comment on the state of the arts in America that such a simple, whimsical attribution becomes subject to a legal dispute.
Apparently Batt's propaganda campaign is succeeding!:) I think it's simplistic to dismiss this issue in that way. The laws in this area exist for good reasons, and "whimsically" attributing authorship of a song without explanation is a lot like inserting "whimsical" statements into a legal contract. A reasonable person could look at Batt's album and come to the conclusion that the "work" in question had something to do with Cage, so Cage's estate has a legitimate interest on that basis and under law.
Finally, one could see this as simply an extension of Cage's original conception beyond the artistic sphere and into the legal sphere, which is consistent with Cage's contention that "art and life should no longer be separate, but one and the same". Consider this legal action a piece of performance art, perhaps in fulfilment of Cage's piece 4'33" No. 2 (described at the above link), which exhorts the artist to "fulfil an obligation to others" with "maximum amplification" (in this case, provided by the web). Cage's estate is thus both performing a Cage work, and fulfilling their obligation to protect Cage's name. We should applaud!;)
I think the point the original poster was (correctly) trying to make is that it's the "credit" of Cage, for which Batt apparently did not have permission, that is at issue, and really has nothing to do with the content of the track.
Since Cage's name was mentioned in a context that usually indicates authorship credit, but without permission, Cage's estate is presumably saying that Batt is trading unfairly off Cage's name by implying (misrepresenting) that the track in question has something to with Cage.
If Batt had simply acknowledged Cage in the liner notes somewhere, the same issue would not have arisen, since there would be no misrepresentation.
Batt is simply trying to make the issue go away by making fun of the silence aspect, but Cage's estate does in fact have a point, legally speaking, which has nothing to do with a copyright on silence.
Your ideas about memory usage are outdated. Name an application that you think wasn't bloated, and I'll point out the additional capabilities that modern programs provide.
Once you increase your RAM to 256MB or 512MB, you'll find Eclipse will perform just fine. I run it on a 450MHz PIII with 512MB, and it's as fast as any GUI editor ever is.
"Soccer" is a perfectly correct term
on
World Cup Final
·
· Score: 2
Stop calling [American] football "soccer"
I grew up in an ex-British colony which shall remain nameless, and although there was no American football, so no potential for confusion, we still called football "soccer", mostly. We had a "soccer team" and "soccer players".
This Short History of Soccer has a description of the origin of the term at Oxford in the 1880's. Although the term derives from a contraction of "association football", it is in widespread colloquial use, and appears in modern dictionaries. I don't see what purpose is being served by correcting people about it. Or is that just a pathetic attempt to tweak Americans?
I was responding to a religious nut who was "in-your-face"-ing me. Tit for tat has been proved to be the best strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma, perhaps it'll work on/. too...
You're discussing a different question, that of our existence, which is not the same as the question of the existence of deities.
To dispute my point, you'd have to describe a deity that can withstand rational analysis. If such a deity solves the problem of our existence, so much the better, but that's a different issue.
BTW, it can be a little misleading to worry about things like the "cause of existence". This kind of question often tends to arise from a mistaken understanding of what science tells us, which is less than most people imagine. Science tells us how things work, but it very rarely answers any real "why" questions, or at best, it pushes them back a level.
For example, Newtonian physics didn't tell us anything about what gravity "is" - it's simply a mysterious force generated by mass. Similiarly, we still have no real clue as to what mass is (elusive Higgs bosons notwithstanding). General relativity did no better at explaining gravity, it simply shifted the mathematical explanation to warping of an imaginary spacetime continuum which apparently has very similar mathematical properties to the spacetime we occupy, but says nothing about what spacetime "is" or what warping of it "means".
An easy way to solve all the mysteries of existence is via a more Zen-like approach, which recognizes that we can never solve any of the mysteries of existence and is simply satisfied with what we can determine about the world. The purpose of science is not to explain the mystery of existence; it's extremely doubtful that this is even remotely possible.
According to Purism, the four-legged chair wins. It has been accepted by the masses as functional and fit for purpose, whereas the Egg chair has been banished to the fringes.
If you qualify this by saying "the four-legged chair wins as a chair for the masses", it becomes a truism. The Egg chair might appeal to artists and designers, and you might find it in some of their homes. So it's all about the audience you are after, which is exactly the point on the web: most web sites have to be designed for the masses, rather than other web designers.
Unattributed parody is perfectly acceptable. If you don't recognize what's being parodied, it probably won't mean that much to you anyway, and if you do, you don't need to be told where it came from.
Ah, so all that crap about 9/11 was deliberate Katzian obfuscation to make the editors' eyes glaze over? The problem is that the confused metaphor-drawing doesn't bode well for your books...
Re:Spielberg annoys to the end
on
Minority Report
·
· Score: 2
He cannot confront the horrors that he hints at in any sort artistic or philosophical way: he looks away before anyone has to consider them too long.
Would you say the same thing about Schindler's List?
Spielberg is probably smarter than we give him credit for, in terms of correctly estimating the level of his audience. When he decided he wanted an Oscar, and knew he wasn't going to get one for kiddie movies like ET or scifi like CE3K, he went and mined his heritage, and came up with Schindler's List. It is interesting to note that this movie centered around a character named Oscar Schindler. So even in his actual life, when Spielberg is trying to make a point (e.g. win an Oscar), he telegraphs his intentions as clearly as possible, just as he explains the plots in his movies as they go along. The subject matter of the movie alone was more than enough to say "OK, guys, I'm making a serious movie now and I'm looking for awards", but he had to pick a central character named Oscar, too.
It worked in the case of Schindler's List - seven Academy Awards - and it works in his movies, commercially. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all artistically. If you want movies with artistic integrity, look to someone else other than one of the most successful commercial producers & directors. The same goes for George Lucas, of course.
Movies like Minority Report and Star Wars are not, by any stretch of the imagination, art. When the primary motivating factor is the amount of money they generate, quality and integrity will not be the result.
My basic claim is that the government should promote the majority culture.
My point, which I stated too personally, is that you only take this perspective because you happen to believe that the majority culture is your culture. You're not basing this on any principle other than self-interest and, in essence, a happy coincidence (for you).
The United States was founded on some principles which were designed to allow people with differing self-interests to coexist reasonably peacefully. I like to think that if the situation were reversed - as the judges suggest in their decision (quoted below) - that my position would still be the same, whereas it's clear that yours would change.
The judges wrote:
"A profession that we are a nation "under God" is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation "under Jesus," a nation "under Vishnu," a nation "under Zeus," or a nation "under no god," because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion."
If you haven't already, I suggest you read the decision from at least page 9122 onwards, since it provides arguments for the position that are far better than anything you'll read on/.
You prove the point by your self-centered attitude that the traditional American way of life happens to be *your* way. Your views are only encouraged by unconstitutional acts such as the one corrected today by the Ninth Circuit.
It's worth noting that the original, Christian author of the Pledge of Allegiance deliberately left out any reference to gods. As a Christian, perhaps you should take a lesson from Francis Bellamy's book, about tolerance and avoiding alienation and opression of people with views different than yours. You've probably never stood in school and been forced to recite material from a religion not your own - try to imagine that and imagine how you would feel about it.
The "Establishment of Religion" clause is not being used to suppress all religion, it's being used to suppress all state sponsorship and imposition of religion, which was the case with the Pledge, and which is exactly the original intent of the clause.
As for the non-religious part of the Pledge, I am not one of those who has a problem with it. However, I do think there should be more to patriotism than indoctrination - true education would be preferable. Indoctrination implies that the audience, the citizens of which a country should be able to be proud, is not capable of reaching the right conclusions on its own about the merits of their country.
Backing down from your beliefs because you're afraid of other people's intolerance is not a good thing.
What you're suggesting is at the opposite extreme from what e.g. Rosa Parks did by refusing to allow a white passenger to take her seat on the bus.
This court decision is a big step forward, and a sorely needed one. If you simply sit back and allow religious zealotry to drive the national agenda, especially in this time of reduced rationality, I can guarantee you that you won't like the results.
My SSH config on Red Hat 7.2 has exactly the same comment and setting you quoted, with challenge/response set to no. I can't remember now how I installed SSHD originally, though, i.e. whether I downloaded a newer version or used the one on the Red Hat CDs.
Some of my clients use Worldcom (UUNet). One of them has been burned by an ISP bankruptcy before (PSI), and another by a local provider that screwed up a premises move and went dark for days. Does anyone have any suggestions on who's a safe bet to switch to? Worldcom had some good pricing on their burstable T1s, quite a bit cheaper than e.g. AT&T, IIRC.
Customers like choosing big-name companies because they seem like they ought to be safe. I've come across some real horror stories related to smaller, more local ISPs. So, what's an ordinary business supposed to do to get ISP service that they can rely on for a few years running, without paying through the nose?
If one adds up the cost incurred by employees who do unnecessary work that could be done more efficiently, managers who assign unnecessary or counterproductive work because they don't truly understand what they're trying to achieve, etc., it would easily come to ten times the quoted figure.
The real problem is that most humans don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it half the time, and these studies simply point out some of the implications of that...
Here's a clue for you about the severe bug in your ability to do logic in your head: "improvement" does not equal "perfection". Garbage collection is an improvement, in terms of integrity, reliability, and safety. Having garbage collection is an improvement over not having it. That doesn't make it perfect, and no-one's claiming it is.
That message focuses on security, presumably as a kind of PR hook, but it's really much more about integrity. There's a quote in there about "Then the programmer can never mess things up", and that's the real point about garbage collection.
If a VM doesn't support garbage collection, then programs written for it will be buggier and less safe than programs written for a VM with garbage collection.
One of the biggest reasons that existing software is so unreliable and unsafe is because of its dependence on C, and the lack of both type safety and garbage collection in C. This allows buffer overflows and memory access violations. You're correct that adding garbage collection (and true type safety) doesn't buy security in and of itself, but it buys a heck of a lot of safety.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that many companies use open source software in their internal development.
I believe the applicable law here is Title VIII of the Lanham act, which deals with "False designations of origin and false descriptions".
On this page you can read about a case where Monty Python successfully sued ABC TV under the Lanham Act, for editing and thus "damaging the integrity of the work":
Note that the court argued both sides of the issue, which could apply in the Cage case too.
However, it's a sad comment on the state of the arts in America that such a simple, whimsical attribution becomes subject to a legal dispute.
Apparently Batt's propaganda campaign is succeeding! :) I think it's simplistic to dismiss this issue in that way. The laws in this area exist for good reasons, and "whimsically" attributing authorship of a song without explanation is a lot like inserting "whimsical" statements into a legal contract. A reasonable person could look at Batt's album and come to the conclusion that the "work" in question had something to do with Cage, so Cage's estate has a legitimate interest on that basis and under law.
Finally, one could see this as simply an extension of Cage's original conception beyond the artistic sphere and into the legal sphere, which is consistent with Cage's contention that "art and life should no longer be separate, but one and the same". Consider this legal action a piece of performance art, perhaps in fulfilment of Cage's piece 4'33" No. 2 (described at the above link), which exhorts the artist to "fulfil an obligation to others" with "maximum amplification" (in this case, provided by the web). Cage's estate is thus both performing a Cage work, and fulfilling their obligation to protect Cage's name. We should applaud! ;)
Since Cage's name was mentioned in a context that usually indicates authorship credit, but without permission, Cage's estate is presumably saying that Batt is trading unfairly off Cage's name by implying (misrepresenting) that the track in question has something to with Cage.
If Batt had simply acknowledged Cage in the liner notes somewhere, the same issue would not have arisen, since there would be no misrepresentation.
Batt is simply trying to make the issue go away by making fun of the silence aspect, but Cage's estate does in fact have a point, legally speaking, which has nothing to do with a copyright on silence.
Once you increase your RAM to 256MB or 512MB, you'll find Eclipse will perform just fine. I run it on a 450MHz PIII with 512MB, and it's as fast as any GUI editor ever is.
I grew up in an ex-British colony which shall remain nameless, and although there was no American football, so no potential for confusion, we still called football "soccer", mostly. We had a "soccer team" and "soccer players".
This Short History of Soccer has a description of the origin of the term at Oxford in the 1880's. Although the term derives from a contraction of "association football", it is in widespread colloquial use, and appears in modern dictionaries. I don't see what purpose is being served by correcting people about it. Or is that just a pathetic attempt to tweak Americans?
I was responding to a religious nut who was "in-your-face"-ing me. Tit for tat has been proved to be the best strategy in the Prisoner's Dilemma, perhaps it'll work on /. too...
To dispute my point, you'd have to describe a deity that can withstand rational analysis. If such a deity solves the problem of our existence, so much the better, but that's a different issue.
BTW, it can be a little misleading to worry about things like the "cause of existence". This kind of question often tends to arise from a mistaken understanding of what science tells us, which is less than most people imagine. Science tells us how things work, but it very rarely answers any real "why" questions, or at best, it pushes them back a level.
For example, Newtonian physics didn't tell us anything about what gravity "is" - it's simply a mysterious force generated by mass. Similiarly, we still have no real clue as to what mass is (elusive Higgs bosons notwithstanding). General relativity did no better at explaining gravity, it simply shifted the mathematical explanation to warping of an imaginary spacetime continuum which apparently has very similar mathematical properties to the spacetime we occupy, but says nothing about what spacetime "is" or what warping of it "means".
An easy way to solve all the mysteries of existence is via a more Zen-like approach, which recognizes that we can never solve any of the mysteries of existence and is simply satisfied with what we can determine about the world. The purpose of science is not to explain the mystery of existence; it's extremely doubtful that this is even remotely possible.
Almost right. What you mean to say is, "the natural conclusion of rational thought is atheism".
If you qualify this by saying "the four-legged chair wins as a chair for the masses", it becomes a truism. The Egg chair might appeal to artists and designers, and you might find it in some of their homes. So it's all about the audience you are after, which is exactly the point on the web: most web sites have to be designed for the masses, rather than other web designers.
'nuff said...
Analysis of the lyrics of White Room
Unattributed parody is perfectly acceptable. If you don't recognize what's being parodied, it probably won't mean that much to you anyway, and if you do, you don't need to be told where it came from.
It makes for a short, catchy name that consumers can latch onto, unlike 802.11b. What kind of sense does "Ethernet" make?
Ah, so all that crap about 9/11 was deliberate Katzian obfuscation to make the editors' eyes glaze over? The problem is that the confused metaphor-drawing doesn't bode well for your books...
Would you say the same thing about Schindler's List?
Spielberg is probably smarter than we give him credit for, in terms of correctly estimating the level of his audience. When he decided he wanted an Oscar, and knew he wasn't going to get one for kiddie movies like ET or scifi like CE3K, he went and mined his heritage, and came up with Schindler's List. It is interesting to note that this movie centered around a character named Oscar Schindler. So even in his actual life, when Spielberg is trying to make a point (e.g. win an Oscar), he telegraphs his intentions as clearly as possible, just as he explains the plots in his movies as they go along. The subject matter of the movie alone was more than enough to say "OK, guys, I'm making a serious movie now and I'm looking for awards", but he had to pick a central character named Oscar, too.
It worked in the case of Schindler's List - seven Academy Awards - and it works in his movies, commercially. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at all artistically. If you want movies with artistic integrity, look to someone else other than one of the most successful commercial producers & directors. The same goes for George Lucas, of course.
Movies like Minority Report and Star Wars are not, by any stretch of the imagination, art. When the primary motivating factor is the amount of money they generate, quality and integrity will not be the result.
My point, which I stated too personally, is that you only take this perspective because you happen to believe that the majority culture is your culture. You're not basing this on any principle other than self-interest and, in essence, a happy coincidence (for you).
The United States was founded on some principles which were designed to allow people with differing self-interests to coexist reasonably peacefully. I like to think that if the situation were reversed - as the judges suggest in their decision (quoted below) - that my position would still be the same, whereas it's clear that yours would change.
The judges wrote:
If you haven't already, I suggest you read the decision from at least page 9122 onwards, since it provides arguments for the position that are far better than anything you'll read on /.
It's worth noting that the original, Christian author of the Pledge of Allegiance deliberately left out any reference to gods. As a Christian, perhaps you should take a lesson from Francis Bellamy's book, about tolerance and avoiding alienation and opression of people with views different than yours. You've probably never stood in school and been forced to recite material from a religion not your own - try to imagine that and imagine how you would feel about it.
The "Establishment of Religion" clause is not being used to suppress all religion, it's being used to suppress all state sponsorship and imposition of religion, which was the case with the Pledge, and which is exactly the original intent of the clause.
As for the non-religious part of the Pledge, I am not one of those who has a problem with it. However, I do think there should be more to patriotism than indoctrination - true education would be preferable. Indoctrination implies that the audience, the citizens of which a country should be able to be proud, is not capable of reaching the right conclusions on its own about the merits of their country.
What you're suggesting is at the opposite extreme from what e.g. Rosa Parks did by refusing to allow a white passenger to take her seat on the bus.
This court decision is a big step forward, and a sorely needed one. If you simply sit back and allow religious zealotry to drive the national agenda, especially in this time of reduced rationality, I can guarantee you that you won't like the results.
My SSH config on Red Hat 7.2 has exactly the same comment and setting you quoted, with challenge/response set to no. I can't remember now how I installed SSHD originally, though, i.e. whether I downloaded a newer version or used the one on the Red Hat CDs.
...but than /. would be like MSNBC, and they'red be no fun in it!
Customers like choosing big-name companies because they seem like they ought to be safe. I've come across some real horror stories related to smaller, more local ISPs. So, what's an ordinary business supposed to do to get ISP service that they can rely on for a few years running, without paying through the nose?
The real problem is that most humans don't know what they're doing or why they're doing it half the time, and these studies simply point out some of the implications of that...
...is that you're more likely to be a victim of warchalking, than a beneficiary.
If a VM doesn't support garbage collection, then programs written for it will be buggier and less safe than programs written for a VM with garbage collection.
One of the biggest reasons that existing software is so unreliable and unsafe is because of its dependence on C, and the lack of both type safety and garbage collection in C. This allows buffer overflows and memory access violations. You're correct that adding garbage collection (and true type safety) doesn't buy security in and of itself, but it buys a heck of a lot of safety.