So long as it remains in your possession, for your private use, you're covered under fair use provisions. The instant you turn it over to someone else, be it your copy, or a copy you make for them, you are now distributing the material
But wouldn't this then violate First Sale doctrine? A copy that you legally possess is yours to do with as you will -- watch, sell, donate, burn, etc. -- as long as you don't copy it. At leas that's how I understand it.
As to whether you can create ad-less video libraries: If I went through my collection of Scientific Americans and cut out all the ads, then stored the remainder, would that violate copyright? I don't think so -- I think you may do whatever you want, so long as you don't distribute a copy.
To M$' credit though, they did design Windows to be run by computer idiots, so I'm not surprised that the OS has a lot of tradeoffs that make it unstable so it's easier to use
Um, the fact that it's unstable comes from it being easier to use?? Most of the computer phobia I encounter among my less tech-driven friends stems exactly from the mysterious and unexplained Blue Screen of Death that strikes without cause or warning, like some angry pagan deity...
Someone reading your post might get the impression that the Moon manages to move such that the distance from the Moon to the Sun is less than the distance from the Moon to the Earth, and there's already too many people who are confused about astronomy posting to this article.
Dang. I usually pride myself on being semantically precise, but you definitely caught me here. I should have said "when the Moon is closer to the Sun than the Earth is". Of course even that could be improved: "... when the Sun, Mooon, and Earth are aligned, with the Moon between the other two."
No, its called the dark side of the moon because it always faces away from the SUN
No, it's called the "dark" side because an unfortunate linguistic misconception took root and is harder than weeds to pull out. The Moon rotates at exactly the same rate it revolves around the Earth. Tidal locking has accomplished this over billions of years. Now that the rates are equal, the Moon presents the same face to the Earth at all times.
A "new" moon occurs when the Moon is closer to the Sun than the Earth. Then all the light falls on the far side and none on the side facing the Earth. For a "full" moon, the Moon is further than the Earth and all of the sunlight falls on the face nearer the Earth. But in both cases we're seeing the same face.
The dark side of the moon does face the earth half the time. Have you ever heard of a new moon?
Bzzzt. But thanks for playing. The Moon rotates at exactly the same rate as it revolves. Thus it always presents the same face to the Earth. That face might be lit (full moon) or might be dark (new moon), but it is the same always. That's why the Soviet pictures (Luna 3 -- see here for one telling) were such a big deal, as they were the first time any human had seen the "dark" (better, far) side.
The Moon is "tidally locked" to the Earth. Tidal forces have adjusted its rotation so that it presents the same face, due to the equality of rotation rates and revolution rates. So something on the Far Side would indeed be shielded from Earth-based transmissions.
I would imagine that the influence of the earth's gravity on an object orbiting the moon could destabilize a satellite's orbit rather quickly.
Not any more than having the Moon there disrupts Earth satellites. Of course the three-body problem is harder than if the other gravitating mass wasn't there. But if you're in close enough, the Earth's effects would be a minor pertrubation.
Funny but you've misread things. The RIAA is just a bunch of dupes. They're not the real power or the real threat. The real threat is the movie industry, the MPAA. They have way more money to throw around, better "mindshare" (people always thought bootlegging for personal use is OK; almost no one thinks rampant movie copying is). So your line should probably more accurately read:
TARKIN: The National Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that Jack Valenti has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Second advantage: Valenti is an old coot who even looks like he could pass for the Emperor...:)
You have nothing to fear unless you are doing something illegal.
And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen -- the exact sentiment that will help destroy justice and the rule of law.
We worry about too much surveillance because it empowers law enforcement far beyond what it needs. The surveillance society cannot be free, because every person must worry at every moment that he/she is under surveillance. What's more, as law enforcement rushes to make more of the citizenry's actions public through surveillance, law enforcement also demands that more of its own actions be made secret -- thereby undermining the public oversight that is the fundament of American liberty.
If we could count on the police to only use this when needed and justified, well, then we wouldn't need excessive brutality laws, Miranda rights, or any of the other trappings of a civil society.
I am not against law enforcement -- my family is deep in law enforcement -- but I am against unaccountable law enforcement. I am against intrusive law enforcement. I am against law enforcement that sees every citizen as merely a crook who hasn't been caught yet.
There are good cops, there are good DAs, there are good judges. You know what? They play by the rules and they welcome the active oversight of an informed public. When one of the anniversaries of Miranda rolled around, a news organization interviewed a bunch of tough law enforcment types to see what impact the decision had had... how many criminals had walked on "technicalities". You know what? Most of the cops said, the Miranda process strengthened law enforcement, because it marked clear boundaries and built civic trust in the justice process.
It is not a choice between liberties and law. The two can coexist... people are just too lazy to see how.
Really? If an agent runs an intercept without court authorization, they are personally liable for civil damages for running an illegal wiretap
Does anyone have any stats or stories about law enforcement people being busted under this? I'm not being argumentative -- believe it or not -- but it'd be handy to see if this sort of legal protection is actually effective.
The fact is that this isn't as simple as saying it should be considered a "wiretap" or a "search."
In one sense, it is. Not that a keyboard sniffer is a wiretap, but that it is held to the same standard before being granted. I think it's perfectly legitimate to search for analogies to the procedure in question. In effect, the defense is saying, "This is as worrisome and intrusive as a wiretap, with similar potentials for abuse, and therefore should be restricted in the same way." Since the wiretap law exists, has lots of case law, strikes a workable balance, and is familiar, why not piggyback on it?
Of course the defense is proposing something that will lead to their winning. That doesn't make their argument invalid or their reasoning bad.
Because, sometimes, authors aren't perfect. It takes nothing away from the breath-taking audacity of Tolkein's genius to note that there are small places that things could be tightened up.
Also, isn't Glorfindel a bigger player in the Similarion(sp?)? Tolkein had a different tapestry in mind than just the War of the Rings. I still think Jackson's call was the right one for the movie.
Frodo does not put the Ring on in The Prancing Pony, it slips onto his finger to reveal itself to those who are looking for it. It is trying to return to Sauron, remember? It turns him invisible at a bad time, not what he would want.
Um, in both the book and the movie, what Frodo wants most at that time is to be invisible -- to not be seen by his pursuers. Sure, the actual invisibility granted by the Ring ironically serves to accentuate the attention paid to Frodo -- but it's still giving him what (he thinks) he wants. The Ring, I still hold, gives you what you want... while twisting what you want into something you don't. Indeed, all the characters who refuse the Ring worry most that it will twist them to evil, distorting the good they would try to do.
All that aside, I'll grant that, in the book (now that I opened it up and looked), in the Prancing Pony it does seem to slip onto Frodo's finger without his volition.
So what was Gollum's problem then? I can't imagine anyone would want to live of carrion buried under a mountain for 700 years.
Hmm, let's see. Gollum wanted the Ring itself, at first because it was pretty. (That's why he killed the other proto-Gollum, whose name escapes me.) Once he's committed the murder, what does he want? To escape, to get away with it, to have the Ring. And he gets that, doesn't he? He vanishes, he is never made to pay (by his people) for his crime, and he possesses the Ring for something like 500 years -- which, if you'll note, is actually way longer than anyone else. (Frodo, several months; Bilbo, 60 years; Sauron, who knows -- but you can't imagine the Dark Lord sitting around Barad-dur admiring it for very long.)
And Gollum likes fish -- his people being river people who subsisted on, I'm sure, fish -- and he does get enough. I don't think my reasoning is refuted (which is a far cry from saying it's irrefutable).
But the climax of Jedi is the defeat of the Emperor
No, the climax of Jedi is the redemption of Vader. The Emperor is just gravy. A clever writer could arrange that without having the Emperor on-screen. Even if you needed him present, he should been more a lurking presence, not a many-scened character.
I have always thought the lightning thing has made him seem random and, well, like a powered-up Grandpa Simpson. Though, to be honest, I love how the SFX guys colored in Luke's mouth for a few frames. That really brought home the power. And I like to think of the wild lightning bolts as proof that the Emperor is a less-disciplined (if more raw powerful) adherent of the Dark Side. Vader's use of the Force always seemed considered and efficient. Lightning bolts are just, well, flashy.
See the end of the Return of the King for some organized butt-stomping courtesy of a group of pissed-off hobbits.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that hobbits can't watch out for themselves intrinsically. I don't like hints of racial "intrinsic" abilities anyway. (The Elves make me nervous.) But hobbits historically don't knock heads and do not, presto chango, gain the ability.
As for the Scouring of the Shire -- which I came to like a lot more on my most recent read of the books -- I view that as more evidence of the Changing of the World and the ending of the Third Age. All things are changed, we are told -- the Elves fade, the Men resurge, and perhaps the Hobbits toughen up a bit. And the price, as always, is innocence.
All of the rings except of the 3 elven ones... made their owner invisible when put on and allowed him to see the the beings of the other world - as well as being seen by them.
Reference for this? I don't mean to be a noodge but I did just reread LOTR and I was watching out for such things. I don't recall any reference to the powers of the rings, except that they preserve their wearers. Sure, the Rings of the Men turned their bearers into Ringwraiths -- who, notice, most certainly are not invisible -- but nothing whatsoever is mentioned of the Rings of the Dwarves other than their numbers. (Oh, and there might have been something about the hearts of Dwarves being not completely corruptible, so at best Sauron accentuated their greed, or some such.)
That was my biggest gripe with the movie: the way the hobbits were portrayed as wide-eyed, bumbling know-nothings who couldn't fend for themselves if their lives depended on it.
Um, that's because hobbits are wide-eyed bumbling know-nothings who couldn't fend for themselves if their lives depended on it. I think that's quite clear in the book. Our four hobbits become more than that, but they do so during the journey... they (gasp!) grow into their herohood. It's pretty clear that people in the Shire have it easy and aren't really ready for the roughness of the world.
Frankly, for this reader, Tom's presesnce was very much an annoyance in FOTR, and added nothing to the story that couldn't have been handled in a much better manner. I, for one, was glad to not see him in the movie.
Amen. I'm glad to see I am not entirely alone in this... Bombadil was a good cut, IMHO.
but her replacement of Glorfindel (not to mention the general borking of the ford scene) is more than I can condone.
Gonna have to disagree on this. We did not need Yet Another Elf who would show up, do one thing, and vanish without any explanation. It makes a lot of sense to put Glorfindel's role into Arwen's.
The only verb sense of "borking" I can bring to mind is to deny a Supreme Court justice a seat based on his past writings, so I'm not sure how that applies to the ford.:)
Why didn't Sauron turn invisible when he wore the ring?
The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.
When Bilbo first finds the Ring, he most wants to escape.. he wants to evade Gollum. The Ring gives him that. Then, not knowing better, Bilbo takes that to be the power of the Ring. From then on, he only wears the Ring when he wants to be invisible (since it doesn't occur to him to wear it at other times). So, it still makes him invisible.
Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.
But in Mordor, Sam wears the Ring. Sometimes he wants to be invisible, and so he is. But at least once he instead uses the Ring to intimidate an orc, who sees him as some great Captain. At the time, that's what Sam needed done, and so that's what it does.
We can only speculate what Sauron's desire is, although it's pretty clearly dominion. So the Ring gives him dominion over the other rings and over the minds of lesser beings.
The essence of the Ring -- and perhaps, metaphysically, the source of its evil -- is that it gives the Bearer exactly what he wants, with no constraints.
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But wouldn't this then violate First Sale doctrine? A copy that you legally possess is yours to do with as you will -- watch, sell, donate, burn, etc. -- as long as you don't copy it. At leas that's how I understand it.
As to whether you can create ad-less video libraries: If I went through my collection of Scientific Americans and cut out all the ads, then stored the remainder, would that violate copyright? I don't think so -- I think you may do whatever you want, so long as you don't distribute a copy.
Um, the fact that it's unstable comes from it being easier to use?? Most of the computer phobia I encounter among my less tech-driven friends stems exactly from the mysterious and unexplained Blue Screen of Death that strikes without cause or warning, like some angry pagan deity...
Dang. I usually pride myself on being semantically precise, but you definitely caught me here. I should have said "when the Moon is closer to the Sun than the Earth is". Of course even that could be improved: "... when the Sun, Mooon, and Earth are aligned, with the Moon between the other two."
Mea culpa.
No, it's called the "dark" side because an unfortunate linguistic misconception took root and is harder than weeds to pull out. The Moon rotates at exactly the same rate it revolves around the Earth. Tidal locking has accomplished this over billions of years. Now that the rates are equal, the Moon presents the same face to the Earth at all times.
A "new" moon occurs when the Moon is closer to the Sun than the Earth. Then all the light falls on the far side and none on the side facing the Earth. For a "full" moon, the Moon is further than the Earth and all of the sunlight falls on the face nearer the Earth. But in both cases we're seeing the same face.
See here for a good treatment.
Bzzzt. But thanks for playing. The Moon rotates at exactly the same rate as it revolves. Thus it always presents the same face to the Earth. That face might be lit (full moon) or might be dark (new moon), but it is the same always. That's why the Soviet pictures (Luna 3 -- see here for one telling) were such a big deal, as they were the first time any human had seen the "dark" (better, far) side.
The Moon is "tidally locked" to the Earth. Tidal forces have adjusted its rotation so that it presents the same face, due to the equality of rotation rates and revolution rates. So something on the Far Side would indeed be shielded from Earth-based transmissions.
Since we don't repair GEO satellites anyway, who cares if the Moon base is hypothetically harder to service?
Not any more than having the Moon there disrupts Earth satellites. Of course the three-body problem is harder than if the other gravitating mass wasn't there. But if you're in close enough, the Earth's effects would be a minor pertrubation.
Heck, we should just be glad that there's a news organization that can even conceive of an alternative to Windows.
Maybe you should stick to circular CDs like the rest of us.
Ironically, of course, these techs failed in part due to the onerous burdens placed on users by, among others, the RIAA.
Second advantage: Valenti is an old coot who even looks like he could pass for the Emperor...
And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen -- the exact sentiment that will help destroy justice and the rule of law.
We worry about too much surveillance because it empowers law enforcement far beyond what it needs. The surveillance society cannot be free, because every person must worry at every moment that he/she is under surveillance. What's more, as law enforcement rushes to make more of the citizenry's actions public through surveillance, law enforcement also demands that more of its own actions be made secret -- thereby undermining the public oversight that is the fundament of American liberty.
If we could count on the police to only use this when needed and justified, well, then we wouldn't need excessive brutality laws, Miranda rights, or any of the other trappings of a civil society.
I am not against law enforcement -- my family is deep in law enforcement -- but I am against unaccountable law enforcement. I am against intrusive law enforcement. I am against law enforcement that sees every citizen as merely a crook who hasn't been caught yet.
There are good cops, there are good DAs, there are good judges. You know what? They play by the rules and they welcome the active oversight of an informed public. When one of the anniversaries of Miranda rolled around, a news organization interviewed a bunch of tough law enforcment types to see what impact the decision had had... how many criminals had walked on "technicalities". You know what? Most of the cops said, the Miranda process strengthened law enforcement, because it marked clear boundaries and built civic trust in the justice process.
It is not a choice between liberties and law. The two can coexist... people are just too lazy to see how.
Does anyone have any stats or stories about law enforcement people being busted under this? I'm not being argumentative -- believe it or not -- but it'd be handy to see if this sort of legal protection is actually effective.
Of course they can, like Cosmo.
In one sense, it is. Not that a keyboard sniffer is a wiretap, but that it is held to the same standard before being granted. I think it's perfectly legitimate to search for analogies to the procedure in question. In effect, the defense is saying, "This is as worrisome and intrusive as a wiretap, with similar potentials for abuse, and therefore should be restricted in the same way." Since the wiretap law exists, has lots of case law, strikes a workable balance, and is familiar, why not piggyback on it?
Of course the defense is proposing something that will lead to their winning. That doesn't make their argument invalid or their reasoning bad.
Because, sometimes, authors aren't perfect. It takes nothing away from the breath-taking audacity of Tolkein's genius to note that there are small places that things could be tightened up.
Also, isn't Glorfindel a bigger player in the Similarion(sp?)? Tolkein had a different tapestry in mind than just the War of the Rings. I still think Jackson's call was the right one for the movie.
Um, in both the book and the movie, what Frodo wants most at that time is to be invisible -- to not be seen by his pursuers. Sure, the actual invisibility granted by the Ring ironically serves to accentuate the attention paid to Frodo -- but it's still giving him what (he thinks) he wants. The Ring, I still hold, gives you what you want
All that aside, I'll grant that, in the book (now that I opened it up and looked), in the Prancing Pony it does seem to slip onto Frodo's finger without his volition.
Hmm, let's see. Gollum wanted the Ring itself, at first because it was pretty. (That's why he killed the other proto-Gollum, whose name escapes me.) Once he's committed the murder, what does he want? To escape, to get away with it, to have the Ring. And he gets that, doesn't he? He vanishes, he is never made to pay (by his people) for his crime, and he possesses the Ring for something like 500 years -- which, if you'll note, is actually way longer than anyone else. (Frodo, several months; Bilbo, 60 years; Sauron, who knows -- but you can't imagine the Dark Lord sitting around Barad-dur admiring it for very long.)
And Gollum likes fish -- his people being river people who subsisted on, I'm sure, fish -- and he does get enough. I don't think my reasoning is refuted (which is a far cry from saying it's irrefutable).
No, the climax of Jedi is the redemption of Vader. The Emperor is just gravy. A clever writer could arrange that without having the Emperor on-screen. Even if you needed him present, he should been more a lurking presence, not a many-scened character.
I have always thought the lightning thing has made him seem random and, well, like a powered-up Grandpa Simpson. Though, to be honest, I love how the SFX guys colored in Luke's mouth for a few frames. That really brought home the power. And I like to think of the wild lightning bolts as proof that the Emperor is a less-disciplined (if more raw powerful) adherent of the Dark Side. Vader's use of the Force always seemed considered and efficient. Lightning bolts are just, well, flashy.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that hobbits can't watch out for themselves intrinsically. I don't like hints of racial "intrinsic" abilities anyway. (The Elves make me nervous.) But hobbits historically don't knock heads and do not, presto chango, gain the ability.
As for the Scouring of the Shire -- which I came to like a lot more on my most recent read of the books -- I view that as more evidence of the Changing of the World and the ending of the Third Age. All things are changed, we are told -- the Elves fade, the Men resurge, and perhaps the Hobbits toughen up a bit. And the price, as always, is innocence.
Reference for this? I don't mean to be a noodge but I did just reread LOTR and I was watching out for such things. I don't recall any reference to the powers of the rings, except that they preserve their wearers. Sure, the Rings of the Men turned their bearers into Ringwraiths -- who, notice, most certainly are not invisible -- but nothing whatsoever is mentioned of the Rings of the Dwarves other than their numbers. (Oh, and there might have been something about the hearts of Dwarves being not completely corruptible, so at best Sauron accentuated their greed, or some such.)
Um, that's because hobbits are wide-eyed bumbling know-nothings who couldn't fend for themselves if their lives depended on it. I think that's quite clear in the book. Our four hobbits become more than that, but they do so during the journey... they (gasp!) grow into their herohood. It's pretty clear that people in the Shire have it easy and aren't really ready for the roughness of the world.
Amen. I'm glad to see I am not entirely alone in this... Bombadil was a good cut, IMHO.
Gonna have to disagree on this. We did not need Yet Another Elf who would show up, do one thing, and vanish without any explanation. It makes a lot of sense to put Glorfindel's role into Arwen's.
The only verb sense of "borking" I can bring to mind is to deny a Supreme Court justice a seat based on his past writings, so I'm not sure how that applies to the ford.
The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.
When Bilbo first finds the Ring, he most wants to escape
Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.
But in Mordor, Sam wears the Ring. Sometimes he wants to be invisible, and so he is. But at least once he instead uses the Ring to intimidate an orc, who sees him as some great Captain. At the time, that's what Sam needed done, and so that's what it does.
We can only speculate what Sauron's desire is, although it's pretty clearly dominion. So the Ring gives him dominion over the other rings and over the minds of lesser beings.
The essence of the Ring -- and perhaps, metaphysically, the source of its evil -- is that it gives the Bearer exactly what he wants, with no constraints.