You may not be able to tell what your children is doing 100% of the time but it seems to me that its a lot easier to control the distribution of money at the parents end. If your kids don't have money then they can't buy the game or have to ask you for it.
The exception IMHO is if kids get a job. Ultimately, if they get a job and make their own money then they are already showing the signs of maturity to becoming independent and have the right to make a decision with the money they make.
I would never tell anyone how to raise their kids and every child is different but there are sensible alternatives out there then making more laws.
Is it okay for you to hire a gardener for 20 hours of work and have him actually work 10 hours and take a break for 10 hours?
Some people may feel that that analogy doesn't have any bearing cause its not in an IT field. Say, if you decide to hire a web design consultant, would you be okay with paying him out of your own pocket for a 40 hour week if it includes surfing the web, chatting with friends over the phone, taking long lunches etc?
This doesn't mean you need to chain someone down to their job and certainly taking small breaks throughout the day is needed just to mentally refocus, but if you don't feel comfortable paying someone 40 hours for 20 hours of work, why would an employer be okay about it?
Thank you for your comments. I also totally agree that as a technical achievement, Avatar makes its mark just like Jurassic Park or Matrix did when it first came out. Also, I agree that financially it did very well as only James Cameron could do in producing the film. In fact, I will certainly add Avatar to my collection of DVD's (of which I have over a thousand titles now so I'm certainly contributing to the MPAA as well.) The only reason I brought it up was to point out that the media industries have THAT much money to commit to a single film which ultimately had a return investment that was as great as expected. 10 years ago, it would have been unheard of for any movie investors to put that much money on a single title. In order for them to be able to put that kind of money into it means that their method of generating revenue through multiple streams is already a success for them.
As a side note, when a DVD stops making money it no longer gets produced (Out of Print). Yet sales for $4.99 DVD's (usually on older titles) means that movie companies can still make a profit on them at that price. Apple's model for their Itunes store is straightforward and simple. Every song gets a flat rate. If it does well, it makes a lot of money in sales. If people don't like it as much, they sell for less and the artist gets less money. Straightforward profit-gain ratio. Setting up adjusted prices so that popular stuff sells for more, and crappy stuff sells for less is designed only to eek more money out of a consumer base. There's no additional value being added or subtracted beyond what the music industry thinks people are willing to pay.
But that's because it was designed that way (to be complicated). There is no reason for content that has very little manufacture cost (can we say 1.5 cents per DVD in bulk?) to cost as much as it does. There are already tariffs for blank DVD's and CD-R's in many countries (see Canada, Italy and Spain) even if it is never used for anything but data duplication.
Money is already being generated through Ad-streams and revenue both on the DVD's and on the air and even on cable and paid subscription shows. We seem to necessitate that the movie industries should make profit from tarriffs on storage mediums as well as advertisements and sales of the DVD's. Yet even with multiple revenue streams, spending $15 on a DVD isn't enough? Even when the media industries have been so successful over the years that they make that they can afford to spend $500 million to have James Cameron make Avatar?
But that's true of just about any field. When's the last time you cared whether or not a blanket used a cross-stitch, chain-stitch or overlock?
Or whether the food you buy is flash pasteurized, irradiated or high pressure pasteurized?
Does it really matter? Maybe, maybe not. But every field has its own jargon and technobabble. People need to make the effort themselves to learn enough to make a qualified decision but the truth is a lot of times we just don't. It's easier to blame the sales person or the tech expert (in any field.) It's harder to blame ourselves for not making the effort.
I was looking at old posts and just noticed that you responded so I apologize for this being for an old article.
I can see the logic of your argument but that statement would require that you have control of the stream that you are describing. Since I do not have a twitter account, I know nothing about the service personally. (Although I guess I should look to see what the fuss is about.)
Do you have any kind of permit/deny control of the stream? (ie.block a person from reading it or only allow certain people to read it.) If that were the case then an argument would certainly have some validity.
Ah but the content has to be considered. In your case anyone who owns a computer is an administrator which may be true but by using that as your validation, then anyone would be considered a administrator based on the patent. Saying that using "... an administrator interface to transmit a message from an administrator to a user contact device" would include anyone who has a PC.This can in turn be interpreted as "an administrator interface to transmit a message from anyone (who has a PC) to a user contact device."
Although an argument can be made for this, it belittles the specificity of the patent, thereby weakening the patent itself as the counter argument would be then that the patent using that argument makes it too broad and therefore should be voided since it fails the set of limitations required by the "All Elements" test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_elements_test) since the term 'administrator' listed as one of the claims no longer precludes anybody and cannot be claimed as a limitation in the patent.
This doesn't necessarily invalidate the patent, but it will weaken the patent claim itself if the concept of administrator is extended outside of the context of the patent. The expected "administrator" would be an administrator of the system as claimed in the patent. Any other argument would weaken it.
Ah but the definition of administrator is either:
1. One who administers, especially one who works as a manager in a business, government agency, or school.
2. Law One appointed to administer an estate.
Def. 2 can't really apply in this case so Def.1 is the only definition that could be used. The verb use of administer is:
1. to manage (an organization or estate)
2. to organize and put into practice: anyone can learn to administer the test procedure
3. to give medicine to someone
4. to supervise the taking of (an oath) [Latin administrare]
Options 1,3, and 4 can't apply in this case either. SO definition 2 is the only one that is viable. Hence an administrator would have to be someone who organizes and puts into practice.
So a lawyer would have to argue that twitter allows someone to organize and put into practice either a process or a protocol that they have control over. He would further have to argue that every single twitter account is an administrator of some sort in order to make his/her case.
Personally, I don't support this, and I hope the patent gets overturned but I can see how it might be argued.
And to add to the argument, before MP3's ever came to the computer, games were the FIRST thing to be pirated. You would think that if pirating was so rampant as the RIAA would have you believe, then the games would have long since been completely wiped out and yet the gaming industry is still going.
Wait...so the California state government is not part of the U.S. government? I understand it's separate from the Federal government, but the code doesn't make the distinction between state and federal. That's why there's a separate "Federal Regulations" distinct from U.S. Code. In areas where there are distinctions, it defines it as Federal. Otherwise, how else would you define code that applies to the government (both federal and state) as a whole?
If the state of California is not part of the United States government then where is its state code that defines Copyright protection?
(Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if there was one...it is the home of the movie industry and I'm sure there's enough lobbyists out there to slip it into the books.) But it would be informative to see exactly where it contradicts the U.S. Code.
According to the link posted at the top, it is very clear that copyright protection is NOT available for laws specifically.
US.Code-Title 17.Chapter 1.Section 105: "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
This clearly states that the government is permitted to receive and hold copyrights for any work that is not created by the United States government (such as from a musical group or author) but works written within the government (such as tax forms and US codes) are NOT protected.
Is there a code that can be sited that contradicts this?
Does the mean the Recording Industry can no longer collect taxes on any and all CD/DVD recordable media once it passes since it'll be completely illegal to record anything for private use?
If this gets passed, it would mean that the primary use of CD/DVD recordable media would be for data backup purposes of which the Recording Industry has absolutely no involvement and the excuse that the media could be used for private duplication is out the window since it would be illegal to do so.
I bet the Recording Industry would back off if they knew their "free money" from media cds were cutoff.
I can totally understand the issues with Dell's Financial Services. Our company was a victim of theirs as well. It took 4 months to finally convince our sales rep to STOP setting us up withtheir Financial Services plan and just invoice us outright.
Their technical support on the other hand really isn't all that bad if you know what to ask for. (Of course we do pay for premium) It's not as good as Sun's tech support but I've had much worst response issues with companies like Gateways 2000 PCs back when I was supporting those. I'd give Dell an above average rating for their tech support.
Actually, 1-3 days isn't much of a punishment. I agree 3 months is excessive but 1-3 days would be like a vacation for most students. It's easy enough to catch up on homework and students have the notariety of being a "bad boy" or "rebel".
Better to have a sliding range with increasing punishment for repeat offenders. 1-3 days for the first time, 1-2 weeks for a second offense and 3 months for a third offense (because at this point, you're really doing it on purpose)
There's an aweful lot of "Ifs..." in what he's saying..
His logic is as simplistic as "If people stopped commiting crimes we wouldn't need to be secure...." Does anyeone else read anything in there thats the least bit insightful? Rather then whining about "if this" or "if that" how about talking about what needs to be done to make it secure? A long time ago, (in the 8-bit world) 64 bit encryption was thought to be "secured" cause at the time, the computing power would require months of analysis. Now it can be done on a single laptop to break a wireless network. In 10 years, I can imaging the same would be said for 128 bit encryption. What we need really are ideas on how to design, write and develop securely not whining about "what ifs".
The omnikey was not only the best feeling keyboard but I remember when Doom first came out (back in the old DOS and IPX days) if I ran the mode con: rate=32 delay=1 to max out the keyboard repeat rate and drop the timer delay, I could outrun any and all of my friends in Doom.
When friends chased me around on the old doom maps they couldn't figure out how come I could always outrun them until I broke down and admitted I had a REALLY good keyboard. After that, ALL my friends upgraded their keyboards to the Northgate Omnikey series....
Those were the days...when keyboards were REAL keyboards......
Shouldn't the stats also reflect the TOTAL number of licenses sold by Microsoft vs how many was validated? Or is Microsoft afraid the truth is that they sold a LOT more then 512 million copies of Windows that were legally sold.....
Slashdot Mirror
You may not be able to tell what your children is doing 100% of the time but it seems to me that its a lot easier to control the distribution of money at the parents end. If your kids don't have money then they can't buy the game or have to ask you for it.
The exception IMHO is if kids get a job. Ultimately, if they get a job and make their own money then they are already showing the signs of maturity to becoming independent and have the right to make a decision with the money they make.
I would never tell anyone how to raise their kids and every child is different but there are sensible alternatives out there then making more laws.
Is it okay for you to hire a gardener for 20 hours of work and have him actually work 10 hours and take a break for 10 hours?
Some people may feel that that analogy doesn't have any bearing cause its not in an IT field. Say, if you decide to hire a web design consultant, would you be okay with paying him out of your own pocket for a 40 hour week if it includes surfing the web, chatting with friends over the phone, taking long lunches etc?
This doesn't mean you need to chain someone down to their job and certainly taking small breaks throughout the day is needed just to mentally refocus, but if you don't feel comfortable paying someone 40 hours for 20 hours of work, why would an employer be okay about it?
Food for thought.
Thank you for your comments. I also totally agree that as a technical achievement, Avatar makes its mark just like Jurassic Park or Matrix did when it first came out. Also, I agree that financially it did very well as only James Cameron could do in producing the film. In fact, I will certainly add Avatar to my collection of DVD's (of which I have over a thousand titles now so I'm certainly contributing to the MPAA as well.) The only reason I brought it up was to point out that the media industries have THAT much money to commit to a single film which ultimately had a return investment that was as great as expected. 10 years ago, it would have been unheard of for any movie investors to put that much money on a single title. In order for them to be able to put that kind of money into it means that their method of generating revenue through multiple streams is already a success for them.
As a side note, when a DVD stops making money it no longer gets produced (Out of Print). Yet sales for $4.99 DVD's (usually on older titles) means that movie companies can still make a profit on them at that price. Apple's model for their Itunes store is straightforward and simple. Every song gets a flat rate. If it does well, it makes a lot of money in sales. If people don't like it as much, they sell for less and the artist gets less money. Straightforward profit-gain ratio. Setting up adjusted prices so that popular stuff sells for more, and crappy stuff sells for less is designed only to eek more money out of a consumer base. There's no additional value being added or subtracted beyond what the music industry thinks people are willing to pay.
But that's because it was designed that way (to be complicated). There is no reason for content that has very little manufacture cost (can we say 1.5 cents per DVD in bulk?) to cost as much as it does. There are already tariffs for blank DVD's and CD-R's in many countries (see Canada, Italy and Spain) even if it is never used for anything but data duplication.
Money is already being generated through Ad-streams and revenue both on the DVD's and on the air and even on cable and paid subscription shows. We seem to necessitate that the movie industries should make profit from tarriffs on storage mediums as well as advertisements and sales of the DVD's. Yet even with multiple revenue streams, spending $15 on a DVD isn't enough? Even when the media industries have been so successful over the years that they make that they can afford to spend $500 million to have James Cameron make Avatar?
But that's true of just about any field. When's the last time you cared whether or not a blanket used a cross-stitch, chain-stitch or overlock?
Or whether the food you buy is flash pasteurized, irradiated or high pressure pasteurized?
Does it really matter? Maybe, maybe not. But every field has its own jargon and technobabble. People need to make the effort themselves to learn enough to make a qualified decision but the truth is a lot of times we just don't. It's easier to blame the sales person or the tech expert (in any field.) It's harder to blame ourselves for not making the effort.
I was looking at old posts and just noticed that you responded so I apologize for this being for an old article.
I can see the logic of your argument but that statement would require that you have control of the stream that you are describing. Since I do not have a twitter account, I know nothing about the service personally. (Although I guess I should look to see what the fuss is about.)
Do you have any kind of permit/deny control of the stream? (ie.block a person from reading it or only allow certain people to read it.) If that were the case then an argument would certainly have some validity.
Ah but the content has to be considered. In your case anyone who owns a computer is an administrator which may be true but by using that as your validation, then anyone would be considered a administrator based on the patent. Saying that using "... an administrator interface to transmit a message from an administrator to a user contact device" would include anyone who has a PC.This can in turn be interpreted as "an administrator interface to transmit a message from anyone (who has a PC) to a user contact device."
Although an argument can be made for this, it belittles the specificity of the patent, thereby weakening the patent itself as the counter argument would be then that the patent using that argument makes it too broad and therefore should be voided since it fails the set of limitations required by the "All Elements" test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_elements_test) since the term 'administrator' listed as one of the claims no longer precludes anybody and cannot be claimed as a limitation in the patent.
This doesn't necessarily invalidate the patent, but it will weaken the patent claim itself if the concept of administrator is extended outside of the context of the patent. The expected "administrator" would be an administrator of the system as claimed in the patent. Any other argument would weaken it.
Ah but the definition of administrator is either:
1. One who administers, especially one who works as a manager in a business, government agency, or school.
2. Law One appointed to administer an estate.
Def. 2 can't really apply in this case so Def.1 is the only definition that could be used. The verb use of administer is:
1. to manage (an organization or estate)
2. to organize and put into practice: anyone can learn to administer the test procedure
3. to give medicine to someone
4. to supervise the taking of (an oath) [Latin administrare]
Options 1,3, and 4 can't apply in this case either. SO definition 2 is the only one that is viable. Hence an administrator would have to be someone who organizes and puts into practice.
So a lawyer would have to argue that twitter allows someone to organize and put into practice either a process or a protocol that they have control over. He would further have to argue that every single twitter account is an administrator of some sort in order to make his/her case.
Personally, I don't support this, and I hope the patent gets overturned but I can see how it might be argued.
And to add to the argument, before MP3's ever came to the computer, games were the FIRST thing to be pirated. You would think that if pirating was so rampant as the RIAA would have you believe, then the games would have long since been completely wiped out and yet the gaming industry is still going.
01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Hey, I'm not a geek!
(OK, maybe I am one..)
To apply RL concepts on virtual property is silly.
You cannot "OWN" virtual property.
You can only "VIRTUALLY OWN" virtual property.
(in other words, YOU do not own anything. Your character/avatar in the game owns it.)
Related Quote - "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon."
Wait...so the California state government is not part of the U.S. government? I understand it's separate from the Federal government, but the code doesn't make the distinction between state and federal. That's why there's a separate "Federal Regulations" distinct from U.S. Code. In areas where there are distinctions, it defines it as Federal. Otherwise, how else would you define code that applies to the government (both federal and state) as a whole?
If the state of California is not part of the United States government then where is its state code that defines Copyright protection?
(Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if there was one...it is the home of the movie industry and I'm sure there's enough lobbyists out there to slip it into the books.) But it would be informative to see exactly where it contradicts the U.S. Code.
I'm confused, why are you saying its not illegal?
According to the link posted at the top, it is very clear that copyright protection is NOT available for laws specifically.
US.Code-Title 17.Chapter 1.Section 105:
"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."
This clearly states that the government is permitted to receive and hold copyrights for any work that is not created by the United States government (such as from a musical group or author) but works written within the government (such as tax forms and US codes) are NOT protected.
Is there a code that can be sited that contradicts this?
Does the mean the Recording Industry can no longer collect taxes on any and all CD/DVD recordable media once it passes since it'll be completely illegal to record anything for private use?
If this gets passed, it would mean that the primary use of CD/DVD recordable media would be for data backup purposes of which the Recording Industry has absolutely no involvement and the excuse that the media could be used for private duplication is out the window since it would be illegal to do so.
I bet the Recording Industry would back off if they knew their "free money" from media cds were cutoff.
This is Slashdot after all...
I can totally understand the issues with Dell's Financial Services. Our company was a victim of theirs as well. It took 4 months to finally convince our sales rep to STOP setting us up withtheir Financial Services plan and just invoice us outright.
Their technical support on the other hand really isn't all that bad if you know what to ask for. (Of course we do pay for premium) It's not as good as Sun's tech support but I've had much worst response issues with companies like Gateways 2000 PCs back when I was supporting those. I'd give Dell an above average rating for their tech support.
More women?
We ARE talking about sysadmins aren't we? Either that or I'm working in the wrong place.
Actually, 1-3 days isn't much of a punishment. I agree 3 months is excessive but 1-3 days would be like a vacation for most students. It's easy enough to catch up on homework and students have the notariety of being a "bad boy" or "rebel".
Better to have a sliding range with increasing punishment for repeat offenders. 1-3 days for the first time, 1-2 weeks for a second offense and 3 months for a third offense (because at this point, you're really doing it on purpose)
There's an aweful lot of "Ifs..." in what he's saying..
His logic is as simplistic as "If people stopped commiting crimes we wouldn't need to be secure...." Does anyeone else read anything in there thats the least bit insightful? Rather then whining about "if this" or "if that" how about talking about what needs to be done to make it secure? A long time ago, (in the 8-bit world) 64 bit encryption was thought to be "secured" cause at the time, the computing power would require months of analysis. Now it can be done on a single laptop to break a wireless network. In 10 years, I can imaging the same would be said for 128 bit encryption. What we need really are ideas on how to design, write and develop securely not whining about "what ifs".
MY god! You've unconvered the secret origin of the first RAVE!
The omnikey was not only the best feeling keyboard but I remember when Doom first came out (back in the old DOS and IPX days) if I ran the mode con: rate=32 delay=1 to max out the keyboard repeat rate and drop the timer delay, I could outrun any and all of my friends in Doom.
When friends chased me around on the old doom maps they couldn't figure out how come I could always outrun them until I broke down and admitted I had a REALLY good keyboard. After that, ALL my friends upgraded their keyboards to the Northgate Omnikey series....
Those were the days...when keyboards were REAL keyboards......
That's only if the user gets the bionic x-ray eye upgrade.
Doesn't this mean we now have a substance that will make birds target you and crap all over you?
Shouldn't the stats also reflect the TOTAL number of licenses sold by Microsoft vs how many was validated? Or is Microsoft afraid the truth is that they sold a LOT more then 512 million copies of Windows that were legally sold.....
That may be what Sco wants...to be so aggravating that you give them money....
Besides who would want to buy a sinking ship with a huge hole in the bottom?