My NI Number is available to anyone who requests it for a legitimate purpose. Prove your purpose is legitimate and you can have it.
I don't own a passport or driver's license.
My mother's maiden name is Beaumont. God knows how that'll help you though, because there are millions of Beumonts in the world and I've never used her name as a password. Ever.
Again, prove you have a legitimate interest and I'll gladly supply my Bank account number.
I don't own a lot of value. What I do own is insured, but the only thing that's going to be easliy taken is my Rio. It's broken, and lost in the house somewhere anyway.
I have no family members under twelve.
I don't owna gun. It's illegal in this country.
My house is located about 50 yards south-south west of the Jaguar delaership, north-west England.
You can look at the windows for yourself. They're not too hard to see.
I don't have a dog.
And I've no idea what brand or model the burglar alarm is. it's just a panel in the wall to me.
We live in a digital age. It is becoming ridiculously easy to track people wherever they may go, in real life, or on the Net. I have a very different opinion to that of most people I have spoken to- namely that I accept that in all probability people are watching me to some extent,and accept it without qualm.
For example, my bank would be able to tell me that at the start of this month, I went away for a weekend to London by car, while I was there I travelled mainly by Tube, I visited Kingston and Wimbledon, and that I probably stayed with a friend. That's quite a lot of information to be derived from a few transactions on my debit card- but it's perfectly possible to infer this from just a small amount of information.
My cellphone company could tell me I have family in Scarborough despite the fact they've not got their address.
... and so on. Fact is, it's very very easy to track someone through their real life. As far as I understand it, why should life on the Net be any different? I accept that anonymity is nigh-on impossible in real life, so why should I expect more on-line? Cookies can be used to track where users go on the net, and indeed are. Why should I care? I accept the fact that I have no / very little privacy and live with it.
This may seem very scary to some of you, but why? Unless you've got something to hide, why do you need your privacy? I don't think you do. I know I certainly don't.
No, you're misinterpreting the legalese. Not difficult to do, I know, but you're missing the bit which says: ...in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published...
This is, in fact the equivalent of the "First Sale Doctrine" in the US. It says, in (I hope) english:
You may lend, re-sell, or hire this book as much as you want. You may not however, make a copy of this book and lend, hire or sell that copy Anyone who you lend, sell or hire this book to is also bound by these conditions.
As for the USA part, I don't know where that originates, but it's not in any of the books on my shelf poublished in the last 5 years. I think its meaning is that this edition is not available for sale in the US.
--
It's YOU that has paid for it.....
on
Can I Lend DVDs?
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· Score: 1
Technically, YOU are the one who has paid for the DVD, and you've bought a non-exclusive right to view the contents as many times as you wish. This means that you and you alone are allowed to watch it.
Or it would if the industry were able to enforce such a practice. In reality, they just can't do that. The best they can do is to try to ban you from letting too many other people from seeing it, throught the text you quote. It says "lending" is illegal, but what is lending?
If I lend you the DVD and let you watch it in your own home, then yes, that's lending. If I lend you the DVD to watch in *my* home while I'm off doing something else (maybe you don't have a DVD player), it *that* lending? Possibly.
And so on. I think the last word is that they would have a pretty hard time proving you'd lent it to anyone, and that particular word "lending" is just a scare tactic.
Of course if that friend then copied it using DivX (or however it's capitalised) you'd have a very different kettle of fish altogether....
> What was your honest opinion of the Hitchhiker's Guide movie that floats around on PBS? Actually it was made as a TV show in the early 80's by the BBC. The original was six half-hour parts, but later (VHS) versions had some extra footage inserted that didn't make it to the TV screen.
> Why the hell was Trillian a blonde? Why not? Trillian in the books is a completely different charcter from the radio show, who was again different from the TV show. The same goes for all the characters. There's a reason Douglas Adams describes them as 'Different and conflicting versions', and it ain't just because they all follow different storylines.
> And why did Zaphod have one floppy head that never said anything? Actually he did say a couple of things, but not all that many. The reason is this: it was the 80's. Money to spend on special effects budgets and the like was tight. Look at just about any sci-fi made by the BBC in that timeframe. Doctor Who and Blakes' Seven in particular- cardboard sets, no FX budget at all. HHGTTG's computer graphics were all drawn by hand because the company that made them couldn't afford a computer. Things were so bad because the budget was tiny.
When your bandwidth bill comes through you're going to regret that post a *hell* of a lot. Oh and when MCC network services get on to you for all this traffic going through their already flaky network you'll regret it even more.
Just don't do it, kids.... Slashdotting your uni just isn't fun.
But hey, if you want to contribute even more to the load on our servers, just go to.... Well I'm sure you can find out....
It's worth noting that if you install using the windows executable, you're presented with a licensing agreement you have to agree to. The usual stuff- will not use it for commercial purposes yadayadayada....
BUT installing using the linux tarball doesn't actually give you this license. You get the BFS image file, a boot floppy image and a readme file telling you how to install it. No license agreement. In fact, you don't get told about it until you try to use that installation to install a second one. So, I think Be have made a major mistake here- if you're not presented with the agreement you don't have to agree with it. IANAL of course, but if you're not presented with something to agree to, it seems to make sense that you don't have to agree with it.
I live in England and on the face of it this looks like it could be bad for everyone- ISPs who have to ensure that what they're carrying isn't defamatory and the users for whom the cost of doing this may well go up as a result of the companies having to look more closely at anything which is posted.
However: Reasonable Steps could well be a clause in the Terms of Service which states "You accept full responsibilty for any publishing of defamatory material made using your account". This the passes the buck to the customer. This brings me to a second point: Anonymity. At the moment, it is extremely easy to open an account with most ISPs in the country as these ISPs don't bill you directly. Instead part of the cost of the phone call you make to the ISP is passed on by the telecoms provider to the ISP. If the ISP needed to make sure the customer was liable then a whole load of checks would have to be made to ensure that you were who you said you were.
In all then, a bit of a blow for the public in general as the number of people signing up to use the net for the first time may well be put off by the stringent identity checks that ISPs could well impose on them (it's worth noting that unmetered ISPs such as BTInternet wouldn't suffer from this as they have billing details and credit card nos.), and a blow for the ISP as costs could increase as a result of this ruling.
This is the storyline that Tim Burton is going to use:
The astronauts arrive on the planet only to find that there is no sign of any animal life at all and most of the plant life is grape vines. In exploring, they find themselves trapped in a glade, surrounded on all sides by the vines. Suddenly the floor gives way and they find themselves in an underground chamber containing a New York subway station containing a convenient nuclear super-warhead.
Further exploration leads them to an area where they find the documents of a dying race, depicting how grapes were viciously enslaved in the production of a drink called "wine". One day, a vineyard decided it would have no more and killed it's masters. From that day on, the grapes took control of more and more of the world until they ruled it and one by one wiped out all other forms of life. In their panic, realising that this planet is Earth, one of the astronauts runs and trips over the supernuke, destroying the entire planet in the process.
Surely the entire case hinges on whether or not Coca-Cola have registered the trademark Coke in Switzerland. Let's assume they have, simply because it's a world-renowned brand name and foreigners visiting may well ask for a coke.
The fact that there is no such domain as.com.ch or.org.ch means that coca-cola have no definite claim- if for example you had registered coke.com.ch (if there were such a domain) I'd have thought that the conclusion would be pretty foregone. However, by the same token, coke.org.ch would be less likely to attract legal action as the domain implies a non-profit enterprise.
The fact that neither of these exist means that you are stuck in some sort of limbo between these two worlds. I'd say that as coke is both a trademark and a well-known slang word, then Coca-Cola would have a hard time proving that you wanted it in order to stop them having it. As a result of this I think that you'd probably get away with it in court (BICBW, IANAL).
If a roll of scotch tape which is, what, about an inch, two inches in diameter, can store ten gigs then a smaller roll, say around the size of a finger ring, could store (I'm guessing) a few hundred megs. Which is more than enough to store personal details, medical records, insurance details and so on... In my wallet I have no less than 14 different necessary pieces of plastic- debit card, credit card, various memberships to different things, and so on. It would be a lot simpler if I could combine them all into one single item that was easy to carry, and use that everywhere. With the ring, all I need do is wear that all the time and I have all the identity I need. This would also have the added benefits of instant access to my medical records if I were involved in an accident. Credit card fraud (at least of the goood old-fashioned, in a store variety) would become harder as the ring could contain a (recent) hi-res recent photo of me. Combine the sensitive information with encryption and you're sorted. People who have concerns about a national identity device may have well-grounded fears here, but isn't the total contents of someone's wallet more or less a national ID scheme anyway? --
High bandwidth for fixed-location machines is all very well, but when will we see something similar for the increasing number of wireless devices which are proliferating themselves in our lives?Text-mode for WAP isn't really the killer application that we want/need it to be.
I can see the possibilty of satellites of the future using banks of lasers to communicate across those regions of space between planets, and down to base stations, in a similar manner to this but without the fibre-optic cable in the way. Combine a GPS reciever with with your device, allow it to see the sky (or an intemediate relay) and bingo! The station aims a beam at your device, and you get instant connectivity at a reasonable transfer rate.
Of course the idea takes some thinking about and working round some of the more obvious problems (such as line of sight) but on the whole it would make for a much faster wireless system then is in place at the moment...
In 3001, Arthur C. Clarke predicts that the maximum amount of data we'll ever be able to get on a device about the size of today's zip disks is about a petabyte (=1000 terabytes), a staggering amount of information. With this it would appear that we're getting one step closer to this limit, or at least *a* limit. It will be interesting to see what the actual maximum data density storage is... it might even get as far as using the orientation of quarks to store the data. With this then you could store the majority of the world's knowledge (if not all) in a canister of oxygen, or a jug of water.
However, it seems that the more storage we invent, the more we need so in that jug of water all you would probaly fit would be Windows3000. The real problem isn't being addressed here: how to use the storage we have efficiently rather than how to invent more to waste.
As far as I understand it, it's a fairly standard policy here in the UK.
I've never actually heard of this rule being used, but it's there. In fact, this particular department is responsible for GNU Maverik, a virtual reality modelling system. I think the rule is only there as a last resort, in the case that, say, some new software with genuine profitability was created inside the dept. Credit would be given (as far as I understand it) but the Uni would still own the rights. Daft, I know.
At some point I think they'll have to refomulate their opinions on this, but I think that'll only happen after some major dispute. For example, I f I went to work for an IT company part time and wrote some webpages, the the IT company would own them and so technically would the university. If this ever comes to a head then I think it's fair to say fireworks will ensue...
What right does AOL have to stop these people from writing software on thier own time? I'm not a software writing kind of guy but is this even legal?
Quite a lot of rights, actually. As a student at a university, I have had to sign away my rights to any software I might develop, whether using my own equipment at home, or the computers in uni. This means that if I were to write (say) a napster clone, and start distributing it without using any of their resources, they would still be within their rights to tell me to withdraw it. (Incidentally, this particular uni doesn't block Napster, butit could...). I'm guessing that it would be rather silly for AOL not to impose the same restrictions on its employees- what if they developed a new MP3 player that was better than WinAmp? AOL's market in that particular sector could take quite a tumble.
In short, it's probably perfectly legal, even if it is wrong.
That's nothing on some of the wonderful technolgies that await us. With the advent of digital television, geeks in North-west England are puting the finishing touches to their new project... Television over Telnet!
Yes folks, you heard it right. Pictures broadcast over the airwaves, recaptured, changed to ASCII, subtitles added and broadcast over a telnet connection from linux box.... telnetevision will take the world by storm!
And all so that people needn't leave the public clusters to see the latest edition of Futurama...
What other wonders does the future have in store? Who knows, but with telnetevision, who will care? Not I!
I own the domain dentrassi.co.uk. It's named after a reference to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have yet to be sued by The Digital Village, Douglas Adams's interactive media company, for breach for copyright, trademark or whatever.
There are two options here:
1. TDV don't care about the fact I'm using what is one of their trademarks. My page contains no disclaimers that I have nothing to do with them, and I can't see that I'm going to put any up in the near future.
2. TDV don't know I'm using their trademark- unlikely, I'd have thought. But, nevertheless possible. This begs the question that will they sue once they know I have this domain? Probably not. There has been an independent website at http://www.vogon.com for as long as I can remember. This is by rights a trademark of *two* seperate conpanies- TDV and Vogon International. Neither of which seem to have done much about it.
So, the some companies seem to have an indifferent stand toward domain owners they *could* sue.
I think in the end it's just not worth the bother for them- let's hope this climate continues...
This is an interesting development- The amount of software which van use the Napster protocol has suddenly exploded recently. More importantly a lot of it is open source.
A program called Napigator, combined with the new OpenNap servers (currently in Alpha release...) will allow people who have napster.com blocked access to other non-official napster servers. Add to this the clients available for other OSes not currently covered by the 'official' software and Napster.com looks like it could be starting to lose out. This would be a shame in one sense, but in another it allows all these people who have had napster.com blocked back into the system.
With these releases, it looks like the future is once again rosy in the MP3-world.
> I don't know about anyone else here, but growing organs in animals is slightly distasteful to me.
That's as maybe, but you cite only one example- the mouse with the ear on its back. This is an example I'm assuming most/. readers will have seen. However, there is a world shortage of suitable transplant organs. Ethics aside, this is one of the few ways that the organs people need are going to be available (at least in the next twenty years or so).
Would your opinion change tomorrow if you found out that your liver was failing and the only way to survive was to have a pig's liver transplanted into you? I'm guessing you wouldn't (BICBW).
The majority of the world's population already depends on animals- in the form of food. All this is is taking that one stage further. I believe that the growing of organs for humans in animals is inevitable , if simply to allow for better healthcare. A sideshot of this may be that the black market in organ transplants vanishes (or is significantly reduced).
Sure, it's a long way off but if we don't try, who knows what we won't achieve?
--
Potential for more Shipmans?
on
Nanomedicine
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· Score: 2
The trouble with using nanobot-type technology for reapiring the body isn't that - it's what else these nanobots could be used for.
Here in the UK there was a recent case of a doctor who was killing his patients- Harold Shipman. How much easier does that necome with the use of nanotechnology? Just program the nanobots to modify the genes so the patient stops producing (say) insulin- you've now got someone who will depend on you for life, or worse. Autopsy reveals nothing wrong and so the doctor gerts away scot-free.
Nanotechnology puts the doctor almost on a par with God. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but one that needs close examintaion and discussion.
The whole trouble with converting the Dune series into books is this: None of the books stand up particurlarly well to being filmed. They're a great series of books alright, but there's far too much detail in there to come across in a miniseries.
This was what was missing from the new book- the intricate details that you never noticed in Dune because you were so wrapped up in the storyline are missing. Without those the story loses so much of its character. It was the downfall of David Lynch, it'll be the downfall of Brian Herbert, and it'll be the downfall of this miniseries too. So what if they've stuck to the original story more than the movie did? It was Frank Herbert's amazing storytelling that made the Dune books, and those stories retold by others somehow don't seem to have the impact.
Slashdot Mirror
Certainly.
My NI Number is available to anyone who requests it for a legitimate purpose. Prove your purpose is legitimate and you can have it.
I don't own a passport or driver's license.
My mother's maiden name is Beaumont. God knows how that'll help you though, because there are millions of Beumonts in the world and I've never used her name as a password. Ever.
Again, prove you have a legitimate interest and I'll gladly supply my Bank account number.
I don't own a lot of value. What I do own is insured, but the only thing that's going to be easliy taken is my Rio. It's broken, and lost in the house somewhere anyway.
I have no family members under twelve.
I don't owna gun. It's illegal in this country.
My house is located about 50 yards south-south west of the Jaguar delaership, north-west England.
You can look at the windows for yourself. They're not too hard to see.
I don't have a dog.
And I've no idea what brand or model the burglar alarm is. it's just a panel in the wall to me.
We live in a digital age. It is becoming ridiculously easy to track people wherever they may go, in real life, or on the Net. I have a very different opinion to that of most people I have spoken to- namely that I accept that in all probability people are watching me to some extent,and accept it without qualm.
For example, my bank would be able to tell me that at the start of this month, I went away for a weekend to London by car, while I was there I travelled mainly by Tube, I visited Kingston and Wimbledon, and that I probably stayed with a friend. That's quite a lot of information to be derived from a few transactions on my debit card- but it's perfectly possible to infer this from just a small amount of information.
My cellphone company could tell me I have family in Scarborough despite the fact they've not got their address.
... and so on. Fact is, it's very very easy to track someone through their real life. As far as I understand it, why should life on the Net be any different? I accept that anonymity is nigh-on impossible in real life, so why should I expect more on-line? Cookies can be used to track where users go on the net, and indeed are. Why should I care? I accept the fact that I have no / very little privacy and live with it.
This may seem very scary to some of you, but why? Unless you've got something to hide, why do you need your privacy? I don't think you do. I know I certainly don't.
--
This is, in fact the equivalent of the "First Sale Doctrine" in the US. It says, in (I hope) english:
You may lend, re-sell, or hire this book as much as you want.
You may not however, make a copy of this book and lend, hire or sell that copy
Anyone who you lend, sell or hire this book to is also bound by these conditions.
As for the USA part, I don't know where that originates, but it's not in any of the books on my shelf poublished in the last 5 years. I think its meaning is that this edition is not available for sale in the US.
--
Technically, YOU are the one who has paid for the DVD, and you've bought a non-exclusive right to view the contents as many times as you wish. This means that you and you alone are allowed to watch it.
Or it would if the industry were able to enforce such a practice. In reality, they just can't do that. The best they can do is to try to ban you from letting too many other people from seeing it, throught the text you quote. It says "lending" is illegal, but what is lending?
If I lend you the DVD and let you watch it in your own home, then yes, that's lending. If I lend you the DVD to watch in *my* home while I'm off doing something else (maybe you don't have a DVD player), it *that* lending? Possibly.
And so on. I think the last word is that they would have a pretty hard time proving you'd lent it to anyone, and that particular word "lending" is just a scare tactic.
Of course if that friend then copied it using DivX (or however it's capitalised) you'd have a very different kettle of fish altogether....
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> All of the phones have really cool musical rings
To you, maybe. To us poor suckers who have to put up with the things day-in, day-out 365 days a year they get very old very quickly.
And before you ask, I know when my cellphone is ringing because it has a 'brrr- brrr' noise, unlike 99% of the other phones out there.
Actually, given the timing of the supposed DDOS, I think it was actually slashdot getting slashdotted.
Kinda amusing, really...
Actually it was made as a TV show in the early 80's by the BBC. The original was six half-hour parts, but later (VHS) versions had some extra footage inserted that didn't make it to the TV screen.
> Why the hell was Trillian a blonde?
Why not? Trillian in the books is a completely different charcter from the radio show, who was again different from the TV show. The same goes for all the characters. There's a reason Douglas Adams describes them as 'Different and conflicting versions', and it ain't just because they all follow different storylines.
> And why did Zaphod have one floppy head that never said anything?
Actually he did say a couple of things, but not all that many. The reason is this: it was the 80's. Money to spend on special effects budgets and the like was tight. Look at just about any sci-fi made by the BBC in that timeframe. Doctor Who and Blakes' Seven in particular- cardboard sets, no FX budget at all. HHGTTG's computer graphics were all drawn by hand because the company that made them couldn't afford a computer. Things were so bad because the budget was tiny.
--
When your bandwidth bill comes through you're going to regret that post a *hell* of a lot. Oh and when MCC network services get on to you for all this traffic going through their already flaky network you'll regret it even more.
Just don't do it, kids.... Slashdotting your uni just isn't fun.
But hey, if you want to contribute even more to the load on our servers, just go to.... Well I'm sure you can find out....
--
It's worth noting that if you install using the windows executable, you're presented with a licensing agreement you have to agree to. The usual stuff- will not use it for commercial purposes yadayadayada....
BUT installing using the linux tarball doesn't actually give you this license. You get the BFS image file, a boot floppy image and a readme file telling you how to install it. No license agreement. In fact, you don't get told about it until you try to use that installation to install a second one. So, I think Be have made a major mistake here- if you're not presented with the agreement you don't have to agree with it. IANAL of course, but if you're not presented with something to agree to, it seems to make sense that you don't have to agree with it.
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However: Reasonable Steps could well be a clause in the Terms of Service which states "You accept full responsibilty for any publishing of defamatory material made using your account". This the passes the buck to the customer. This brings me to a second point:
Anonymity. At the moment, it is extremely easy to open an account with most ISPs in the country as these ISPs don't bill you directly. Instead part of the cost of the phone call you make to the ISP is passed on by the telecoms provider to the ISP. If the ISP needed to make sure the customer was liable then a whole load of checks would have to be made to ensure that you were who you said you were.
In all then, a bit of a blow for the public in general as the number of people signing up to use the net for the first time may well be put off by the stringent identity checks that ISPs could well impose on them (it's worth noting that unmetered ISPs such as BTInternet wouldn't suffer from this as they have billing details and credit card nos.), and a blow for the ISP as costs could increase as a result of this ruling.
--
This is the storyline that Tim Burton is going to use:
The astronauts arrive on the planet only to find that there is no sign of any animal life at all and most of the plant life is grape vines. In exploring, they find themselves trapped in a glade, surrounded on all sides by the vines. Suddenly the floor gives way and they find themselves in an underground chamber containing a New York subway station containing a convenient nuclear super-warhead.
Further exploration leads them to an area where they find the documents of a dying race, depicting how grapes were viciously enslaved in the production of a drink called "wine". One day, a vineyard decided it would have no more and killed it's masters. From that day on, the grapes took control of more and more of the world until they ruled it and one by one wiped out all other forms of life. In their panic, realising that this planet is Earth, one of the astronauts runs and trips over the supernuke, destroying the entire planet in the process.
Surely the entire case hinges on whether or not Coca-Cola have registered the trademark Coke in Switzerland. Let's assume they have, simply because it's a world-renowned brand name and foreigners visiting may well ask for a coke.
.com.ch or.org.ch means that coca-cola have no definite claim- if for example you had registered coke.com.ch (if there were such a domain) I'd have thought that the conclusion would be pretty foregone. However, by the same token, coke.org.ch would be less likely to attract legal action as the domain implies a non-profit enterprise.
The fact that there is no such domain as
The fact that neither of these exist means that you are stuck in some sort of limbo between these two worlds. I'd say that as coke is both a trademark and a well-known slang word, then Coca-Cola would have a hard time proving that you wanted it in order to stop them having it. As a result of this I think that you'd probably get away with it in court (BICBW, IANAL).
--
If a roll of scotch tape which is, what, about an inch, two inches in diameter, can store ten gigs then a smaller roll, say around the size of a finger ring, could store (I'm guessing) a few hundred megs. Which is more than enough to store personal details, medical records, insurance details and so on... In my wallet I have no less than 14 different necessary pieces of plastic- debit card, credit card, various memberships to different things, and so on. It would be a lot simpler if I could combine them all into one single item that was easy to carry, and use that everywhere. With the ring, all I need do is wear that all the time and I have all the identity I need. This would also have the added benefits of instant access to my medical records if I were involved in an accident. Credit card fraud (at least of the goood old-fashioned, in a store variety) would become harder as the ring could contain a (recent) hi-res recent photo of me. Combine the sensitive information with encryption and you're sorted. People who have concerns about a national identity device may have well-grounded fears here, but isn't the total contents of someone's wallet more or less a national ID scheme anyway? --
High bandwidth for fixed-location machines is all very well, but when will we see something similar for the increasing number of wireless devices which are proliferating themselves in our lives?Text-mode for WAP isn't really the killer application that we want/need it to be.
I can see the possibilty of satellites of the future using banks of lasers to communicate across those regions of space between planets, and down to base stations, in a similar manner to this but without the fibre-optic cable in the way. Combine a GPS reciever with with your device, allow it to see the sky (or an intemediate relay) and bingo! The station aims a beam at your device, and you get instant connectivity at a reasonable transfer rate.
Of course the idea takes some thinking about and working round some of the more obvious problems (such as line of sight) but on the whole it would make for a much faster wireless system then is in place at the moment...
--
In 3001, Arthur C. Clarke predicts that the maximum amount of data we'll ever be able to get on a device about the size of today's zip disks is about a petabyte (=1000 terabytes), a staggering amount of information. With this it would appear that we're getting one step closer to this limit, or at least *a* limit. It will be interesting to see what the actual maximum data density storage is... it might even get as far as using the orientation of quarks to store the data. With this then you could store the majority of the world's knowledge (if not all) in a canister of oxygen, or a jug of water.
However, it seems that the more storage we invent, the more we need so in that jug of water all you would probaly fit would be Windows3000. The real problem isn't being addressed here: how to use the storage we have efficiently rather than how to invent more to waste.
--
I've never actually heard of this rule being used, but it's there. In fact, this particular department is responsible for GNU Maverik, a virtual reality modelling system. I think the rule is only there as a last resort, in the case that, say, some new software with genuine profitability was created inside the dept. Credit would be given (as far as I understand it) but the Uni would still own the rights. Daft, I know.
At some point I think they'll have to refomulate their opinions on this, but I think that'll only happen after some major dispute. For example, I f I went to work for an IT company part time and wrote some webpages, the the IT company would own them and so technically would the university. If this ever comes to a head then I think it's fair to say fireworks will ensue...
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Quite a lot of rights, actually. As a student at a university, I have had to sign away my rights to any software I might develop, whether using my own equipment at home, or the computers in uni. This means that if I were to write (say) a napster clone, and start distributing it without using any of their resources, they would still be within their rights to tell me to withdraw it. (Incidentally, this particular uni doesn't block Napster, butit could...). I'm guessing that it would be rather silly for AOL not to impose the same restrictions on its employees- what if they developed a new MP3 player that was better than WinAmp? AOL's market in that particular sector could take quite a tumble.
In short, it's probably perfectly legal, even if it is wrong.
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That's nothing on some of the wonderful technolgies that await us. With the advent of digital television, geeks in North-west England are puting the finishing touches to their new project... Television over Telnet!
Yes folks, you heard it right. Pictures broadcast over the airwaves, recaptured, changed to ASCII, subtitles added and broadcast over a telnet connection from linux box.... telnetevision will take the world by storm!
And all so that people needn't leave the public clusters to see the latest edition of Futurama...
What other wonders does the future have in store? Who knows, but with telnetevision, who will care? Not I!
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I own the domain dentrassi.co.uk. It's named after a reference to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have yet to be sued by The Digital Village, Douglas Adams's interactive media company, for breach for copyright, trademark or whatever.
There are two options here:
1. TDV don't care about the fact I'm using what is one of their trademarks. My page contains no disclaimers that I have nothing to do with them, and I can't see that I'm going to put any up in the near future.
2. TDV don't know I'm using their trademark- unlikely, I'd have thought. But, nevertheless possible. This begs the question that will they sue once they know I have this domain? Probably not. There has been an independent website at http://www.vogon.com for as long as I can remember. This is by rights a trademark of *two* seperate conpanies- TDV and Vogon International. Neither of which seem to have done much about it.
So, the some companies seem to have an indifferent stand toward domain owners they *could* sue.
I think in the end it's just not worth the bother for them- let's hope this climate continues...
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This is an interesting development- The amount of software which van use the Napster protocol has suddenly exploded recently. More importantly a lot of it is open source.
A program called Napigator, combined with the new OpenNap servers (currently in Alpha release...) will allow people who have napster.com blocked access to other non-official napster servers. Add to this the clients available for other OSes not currently covered by the 'official' software and Napster.com looks like it could be starting to lose out. This would be a shame in one sense, but in another it allows all these people who have had napster.com blocked back into the system.
With these releases, it looks like the future is once again rosy in the MP3-world.
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> I don't know about anyone else here, but growing organs in animals is slightly distasteful to me.
/. readers will have seen. However, there is a world shortage of suitable transplant organs. Ethics aside, this is one of the few ways that the organs people need are going to be available (at least in the next twenty years or so).
That's as maybe, but you cite only one example- the mouse with the ear on its back. This is an example I'm assuming most
Would your opinion change tomorrow if you found out that your liver was failing and the only way to survive was to have a pig's liver transplanted into you? I'm guessing you wouldn't (BICBW).
The majority of the world's population already depends on animals- in the form of food. All this is is taking that one stage further. I believe that the growing of organs for humans in animals is inevitable , if simply to allow for better healthcare. A sideshot of this may be that the black market in organ transplants vanishes (or is significantly reduced).
Sure, it's a long way off but if we don't try, who knows what we won't achieve?
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The trouble with using nanobot-type technology for reapiring the body isn't that - it's what else these nanobots could be used for.
Here in the UK there was a recent case of a doctor who was killing his patients- Harold Shipman. How much easier does that necome with the use of nanotechnology? Just program the nanobots to modify the genes so the patient stops producing (say) insulin- you've now got someone who will depend on you for life, or worse. Autopsy reveals nothing wrong and so the doctor gerts away scot-free.
Nanotechnology puts the doctor almost on a par with God. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but one that needs close examintaion and discussion.
The whole trouble with converting the Dune series into books is this: None of the books stand up particurlarly well to being filmed. They're a great series of books alright, but there's far too much detail in there to come across in a miniseries.
This was what was missing from the new book- the intricate details that you never noticed in Dune because you were so wrapped up in the storyline are missing. Without those the story loses so much of its character. It was the downfall of David Lynch, it'll be the downfall of Brian Herbert, and it'll be the downfall of this miniseries too. So what if they've stuck to the original story more than the movie did? It was Frank Herbert's amazing storytelling that made the Dune books, and those stories retold by others somehow don't seem to have the impact.
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