You and your 4 cohorts have managed to create a successful independent software company, and built it to the point where a larger company found it worthwhile to buy you out. Given the business acumen of the typical Slashdotter (Sealand! Regulation is Socialism!) I don't think there's anybody here qualified to give you advice!
Is there a web site you can go to to figure out which politicians will do what they say? How about one with a way to get people to vote on the issues, instead of on personalities?
OK, good point. There are probably other people who couldn't use sprinklers for other reasons. But they're still a good idea for most people in the U.S., and I have to support those who would mandate them in the building codes.
Thomas Gold seems to associate himself with rather a lot of weird theories. He was one of those behind the "rocks from Antartica prove there's life on Mars" weirdness. (Yeah, I know it's a popular theory, but it's always struck me as a nasty stretch.) He's got a complicated theory that I won't even begin to describe, concerning subterranean microbes, helium concentrations, and non-biological origins of petroleum.
And he's got the biggest feature of the crank, a martyr complex:
I can give you there an example from my own experience where, when I was still very green and naive, just after the war, I had worked on the theory of hearing: how the inner ear works. As I had just come from wartime radar, I was full of signal processing methods and sophistication and receiver techniques and all that, and there I found myself discussion the physiology of hearing in those terms. I thought it was very appropriate because it is a very fine scientific instrument that we were discussing, the inner ear. But I had to address myself to an audience of otologists - the doctors and medical people who deal with hearing - the only ones who were doing any kind of research in this field. The mismatch was obvious; it was completely hopeless. There was no common language, and of course the medical profession just would not learn what it would take to understand the subject. On the other hand, they sure made their judgments about the matter, without having any basis at all.
(That's from a journal article he wrote.) Now from a purely scientific point of view, one is inclined to accept that Gold was the victim of medical close mindedness. The notion of "active hearing" does make a lot of sense, and medicos are notoriously rigid with respect to scientific issues. But other physical scientists have managed to bridge this gap: Norbert Weiner comes to mind. In fact, the very theories that Gold was trying to apply to hearing were originated by just that kind of cross-discipline collaboration.
I have to suspect that Gold likes to play the contrarian just to avoid dealling with his on collaboration issues.
I guess most people don't mind watching good actors do bad material. I'm not like that though. There are actors who, as the saying goes, can entertain you by reciting the phone book. Didn't see any of them on B5 though.
You really ought to read previous responses to a post before posting your own. I got a couple facts wrong, I'm glad somebody corrected me, but after two or three times, it gets old.
Your understanding of how trademarks work is... well, worse than Spike Lee's. Owning a trademark doesn't mean you have exclusive use of the mark. It just means that any mark that might be confused with yours isn't allowed. So you can call your company "McDonald's" as long as your company isn't any kind of restaurant.
Another difference: to grab a domain name, all you have to do is pay the registration fee. To grab a trademark, you have to identify the mark with something of potential value: a product, a service, a business, something. A trademark is part of a identity. A domain name is just a kind of address.
Oh yeah, and unlike domain names, you don't achieve ownership of a trademark just by registering it. The registration does help, but what's crucial is being able to show that you've used the mark.
OK, that's a decent point. I have to admit that the basic stories on my least favorite space opera, B5, are sometimes quite interesting. If only the show as a whole didn't make me nauseaous...
Huh. That's pretty apt. It also describes a lot of movies that weren't "bad", but which really turn me off. Like:
Batman. It wasn't about good versus evil. It was about establishing a brand.
Chicago. Yeah the song and dance numbers are cool. Anything from the brain of Bob Fosse is cool. But the device they used to translate the show from the stage to the screen (It's all Roxie's fantasy!) is totally lame, and relies too much on the credulity of the audience. I've never never seen a movie so thoroughly detached from actual human motivation.
Everything Steven Speilberg made after Jaws. And even that one was blind luck: if the mechanical shark hadn't broken down, forcing them to improvise around it, it would have been just another lame horror/disaster flick. Perhaps critics would be calling it "Airport goes to the beach"!
Well, I thought it was pretty bad too. But I find the outpouring of Galactica bashing to be very strange. Sure, it had a ripoff premise, bad writing, mostly bad acting, and of course bad science. But every space opera I've seen on the big or little screen had some or all of these. But if you bash Star Wars (at least the first trilogy) or Babylon 5 on Slashdot, somebody will spring to its defense, citing imaginary literary element or "suspension of disbelief". But not for BG. Very curious.
Especially since there are a lot of people there who are pretty fanatical about the original series. They're fairly pissed about this remake and have made a lot of noise in support of a sequel instead.
Of course, there's no chance that anybody except these same fans would watch a sequel of any kind. But hey, since when did fans care about stuff like that?
Hey, that's perfectly good physics. Check your Aristotle!
What used to really bug me is the way the fighters would act exactly like a fighter plane travelling through the atmosphere. They'd even sort of sway up and down while travelling a straight course.
But hey, the thing was a simple ripoff of Star Wars, right down to the cute robot. So of course it had to have bad physics!
Oops. I always confuse the Capra film with the William Wilder film that came out at the same time. Also a classic, by the way. Covers some of the same ground as the Capra movie, but it much less sentimental about it. I particularly admire its unflinching portrayal of a guy who loses both arms in the war.
From my very limited knowledge of the relevent law: early on, the Supreme Court ruled that the Ex Post Facto clause only applies to criminal laws, not civil laws. Some consider this decision flawed, and it might be overturned some day. But for now, it's what we have.
Not that it would make any difference. There's a similar principle that applies: Congress is only allowed to grant copyrights and patents for limited periods. One would think that extending the period every time it expires effectively negates this requirement. But in the Eldred v. Ashcroft decision (warning, big PDF file), the majority said otherwise. I suspect that they'll change their minds when Congress extends the expiration yet again, as I'm sure they will. But that's in the far future.
No, that's not actually much of an issue. As a matter of fact, making major changes in the character protects your work, in theory at least. You can argue that nobody would confuse your Mickey with the original. In practice nobody does that, because they'd have to defend their right to do so in court, and that's expensive.
In the 60s, there was a case involving a headshop poster that showed Disney characters doing various unwholesome things: Mickey was shooting IV drugs, and Minnie was turning tricks. When sued by Disney, the publishers argued that they had a first admendment right to satire, and that nobody could possible confuse their satire with a Disney product. I might be mistaken, but I seem to recall they one, after spending a bundle on lawyers.
The real issue is this: something popular that's sold as a monopoly is more profitable than that same something that's sold in an open market. Imagine a world where anybody could make a Mickey Mouse movie. With such a popular character, that would guarantee a lot of them. Some of them would be profitable, some of them wouldn't. But the profitable ones wouldn't be as profitable as Disney's existing material, and it wouldn't necessarily belong to Disney.
There's also the issue of overexposure. Disney deliberately takes their "classic" material out of circulation periodically, so people don't get tired of it. That wouldn't work if knock-off movies were being made every year.
Actually, the Grimm brothers didn't write their famous fairy tales, they collected them. Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm were students of language (Jakob discovered Grimm's Law) and folklore. All the tales originate from the Grimms' interviews with various peasant informants.
Which is why you have to have a cutoff date on copyrights -- the origins of so much material is lost in the poorly documented past. What's new is that we've effectively fixed the cutoff date for all material late in the 19th century. So Hollywood gets to have it both ways: they can mine traditional literature for free material, but their own work (even their own interpretations of traditional literature!) are protected forever.
There are two particular instances that I find particularly bizarre. The first is the song "Happy Birthday" which is under copyright even though nobody knows who wrote the lyrics. (The music dates back to 1893.) So every time it's sung at a part... well, maybe that's "fair use". But it's a fact that you can't sing it on TV without paying royalties.
The other bizarre example is the Frank Capra classic, The Best Years of Our Lives. For various reasons, nobody bothered to renew the copyright on this one. That's why it got played to death every Christmas for so many years. Then all of sudden, Aaron Spelling informed everybody that you couldn't show the film without paying him royalties. How did he seize control of a film in the public domain? By buying the rights to the story it was based on, and also to a song played in the movie.
Perhaps if you really wanted to, you could challenge Spelling's right to collect royalties on Lives. But no one will: Spelling has deep pockets, and it'd be expensive to assert a moral principle here.
And the moral of the story, boys and girls, is that it's not about what's right and wrong. It's about who can afford justice!
They only dump about 15 gallons a minute per head. And contrary to popular belief only one head goes off at a time.
That sounds like a lot of water to me. Not enough to snuff a major fire, but enough to prevent it from becoming major.
I recall seeing a demo of how a typical house fire starts. They buried an ordinary book of matches in an ordinary couch, and set the matches off electrically. (Very few fires start anything like that, of course, but the magnitude of the first ignition is typical.) It took maybe 3 or 4 minutes for exponential growth of the fire to involve the whole room.
The argument that was being made was for smoke detectors. The idea being that you need to get out while the only sign of the fire is some invisible ozone and/or particulate. By the time you actually smell smoke, there's a good chance your evacuation route is already blocked.
But I think I see an argument for sprinklers as well. I imagine the above demo would have to involve the whole couch before the fire would be hot enough to set off a sprinkler. But then it would probably set off 2 or 3! You know more about supressing fires than I do, but isn't 100 gallons in a couple of minutes enough to put out a burning couch?
Slashdot Mirror
You and your 4 cohorts have managed to create a successful independent software company, and built it to the point where a larger company found it worthwhile to buy you out. Given the business acumen of the typical Slashdotter (Sealand! Regulation is Socialism!) I don't think there's anybody here qualified to give you advice!
Is there a web site you can go to to figure out which politicians will do what they say? How about one with a way to get people to vote on the issues, instead of on personalities?
OK, good point. There are probably other people who couldn't use sprinklers for other reasons. But they're still a good idea for most people in the U.S., and I have to support those who would mandate them in the building codes.
Yeah, I know that's a childish response. But so's yours. If you see a flaw in my reasoning, let's hear it.
No, this week we're bashing smart-ass clowns who've got nothing better to do than make fun of other slashdotters.
Well, if you're travelling to the outer solar system, you better not be in a hurry, no matter what your means of propulsion!
And he's got the biggest feature of the crank, a martyr complex:
(That's from a journal article he wrote.) Now from a purely scientific point of view, one is inclined to accept that Gold was the victim of medical close mindedness. The notion of "active hearing" does make a lot of sense, and medicos are notoriously rigid with respect to scientific issues. But other physical scientists have managed to bridge this gap: Norbert Weiner comes to mind. In fact, the very theories that Gold was trying to apply to hearing were originated by just that kind of cross-discipline collaboration.I have to suspect that Gold likes to play the contrarian just to avoid dealling with his on collaboration issues.
I guess most people don't mind watching good actors do bad material. I'm not like that though. There are actors who, as the saying goes, can entertain you by reciting the phone book. Didn't see any of them on B5 though.
You really ought to read previous responses to a post before posting your own. I got a couple facts wrong, I'm glad somebody corrected me, but after two or three times, it gets old.
Another difference: to grab a domain name, all you have to do is pay the registration fee. To grab a trademark, you have to identify the mark with something of potential value: a product, a service, a business, something. A trademark is part of a identity. A domain name is just a kind of address.
Oh yeah, and unlike domain names, you don't achieve ownership of a trademark just by registering it. The registration does help, but what's crucial is being able to show that you've used the mark.
OK, that's a decent point. I have to admit that the basic stories on my least favorite space opera, B5, are sometimes quite interesting. If only the show as a whole didn't make me nauseaous...
Depth? Character screaming cliches at each other is depth?
To be really realistic, when you win the game, you should be required to buy and play an endless series of "occupation" games!
Especially since there are a lot of people there who are pretty fanatical about the original series. They're fairly pissed about this remake and have made a lot of noise in support of a sequel instead.
Of course, there's no chance that anybody except these same fans would watch a sequel of any kind. But hey, since when did fans care about stuff like that?
Yeah, Starlost was much better! Especially the dialog!
What used to really bug me is the way the fighters would act exactly like a fighter plane travelling through the atmosphere. They'd even sort of sway up and down while travelling a straight course.
But hey, the thing was a simple ripoff of Star Wars, right down to the cute robot. So of course it had to have bad physics!
Oops. I always confuse the Capra film with the William Wilder film that came out at the same time. Also a classic, by the way. Covers some of the same ground as the Capra movie, but it much less sentimental about it. I particularly admire its unflinching portrayal of a guy who loses both arms in the war.
Not that it would make any difference. There's a similar principle that applies: Congress is only allowed to grant copyrights and patents for limited periods. One would think that extending the period every time it expires effectively negates this requirement. But in the Eldred v. Ashcroft decision (warning, big PDF file), the majority said otherwise. I suspect that they'll change their minds when Congress extends the expiration yet again, as I'm sure they will. But that's in the far future.
In the 60s, there was a case involving a headshop poster that showed Disney characters doing various unwholesome things: Mickey was shooting IV drugs, and Minnie was turning tricks. When sued by Disney, the publishers argued that they had a first admendment right to satire, and that nobody could possible confuse their satire with a Disney product. I might be mistaken, but I seem to recall they one, after spending a bundle on lawyers.
The real issue is this: something popular that's sold as a monopoly is more profitable than that same something that's sold in an open market. Imagine a world where anybody could make a Mickey Mouse movie. With such a popular character, that would guarantee a lot of them. Some of them would be profitable, some of them wouldn't. But the profitable ones wouldn't be as profitable as Disney's existing material, and it wouldn't necessarily belong to Disney.
There's also the issue of overexposure. Disney deliberately takes their "classic" material out of circulation periodically, so people don't get tired of it. That wouldn't work if knock-off movies were being made every year.
Which is why you have to have a cutoff date on copyrights -- the origins of so much material is lost in the poorly documented past. What's new is that we've effectively fixed the cutoff date for all material late in the 19th century. So Hollywood gets to have it both ways: they can mine traditional literature for free material, but their own work (even their own interpretations of traditional literature!) are protected forever.
There are two particular instances that I find particularly bizarre. The first is the song "Happy Birthday" which is under copyright even though nobody knows who wrote the lyrics. (The music dates back to 1893.) So every time it's sung at a part... well, maybe that's "fair use". But it's a fact that you can't sing it on TV without paying royalties.
The other bizarre example is the Frank Capra classic, The Best Years of Our Lives. For various reasons, nobody bothered to renew the copyright on this one. That's why it got played to death every Christmas for so many years. Then all of sudden, Aaron Spelling informed everybody that you couldn't show the film without paying him royalties. How did he seize control of a film in the public domain? By buying the rights to the story it was based on, and also to a song played in the movie.
Perhaps if you really wanted to, you could challenge Spelling's right to collect royalties on Lives. But no one will: Spelling has deep pockets, and it'd be expensive to assert a moral principle here.
And the moral of the story, boys and girls, is that it's not about what's right and wrong. It's about who can afford justice!
...then you could never understand!
I recall seeing a demo of how a typical house fire starts. They buried an ordinary book of matches in an ordinary couch, and set the matches off electrically. (Very few fires start anything like that, of course, but the magnitude of the first ignition is typical.) It took maybe 3 or 4 minutes for exponential growth of the fire to involve the whole room.
The argument that was being made was for smoke detectors. The idea being that you need to get out while the only sign of the fire is some invisible ozone and/or particulate. By the time you actually smell smoke, there's a good chance your evacuation route is already blocked.
But I think I see an argument for sprinklers as well. I imagine the above demo would have to involve the whole couch before the fire would be hot enough to set off a sprinkler. But then it would probably set off 2 or 3! You know more about supressing fires than I do, but isn't 100 gallons in a couple of minutes enough to put out a burning couch?