That's not what he said. Prima facie (or prima faciæ) means "at first sight", or "by external appearance." Some might argue that it currently IS prima facie illegal to download copyrighted material, since the overwhelming majority of copyright material on the net is not licensed for that method of distribution.
What the original poster said was that copyrighted material is not ipso facto illegal to download. Which is to say, the fact that it's copyrighted material doesn't necessarily mean that downloading it is illegal (though some other factor might).
How about a relay that doesn't send mail immediately, but sits on it for x minutes; and if, during that period, more than y messages are submitted that are more than z% identical, it asks the administrator for confirmation before sending any of them?
Indeed it didn't. But I suspect it might have had a bit more success if it had been launched with native versions of Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Cubase, Logic, Dreamweaver, Final Cut...
What about if I were to break into your house and steal a CD containing the only existing copy of a program you've written, leaving in its place a blank CD? What would you call that?
I hear this a lot, but to be honest I don't see it as a showstopper. There may be a billion and one hardware devices available for the PC, but that doesn't mean Apple has to write drivers for them all.
I really can't imagine it's beyond Apple to ship a version of OS X for i386 that supports maybe ten different motherboards, five graphics cards, five sound cards, ten printers and maybe a few things like scanners and firewire cards. If they were to do this, retailers could immediately start building systems for (say) £600 that screamed past G4 systems twice the price. I suspect this market would take off extremely quickly; and of course, as it did, OEMs with any sense would start writing drivers to ship with their devices.
I know as geeks what we all really want is to take OS X home and install it on our existing computers; but I don't think it's too unreasonable that we should have to upgrade some of our hardware at the same time - or of course write drivers for the hardware we already have!
Re:May as well be the first to say it
on
AOL Sues Spammers
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· Score: 1
This argument is fine and pragmatic so far as it goes; but I think the original poster's point was that it is wrong in principle for AOL to incur even a negligible cost to him (whether directly or through taxes). If a thousand companies were sending you junk CDs through the post it would be a major problem, but each could still argue - as you just have on AOL's behalf - that their own promo material was cheap and easy to dispose of. Indeed, a spammer could, by the same token, argue that he is not causing a nuisance because the amount of bandwidth you consume in receiving his 4k message is so tiny.
We should fight the perception that it's OK for advertisers to incur any cost to their victims - even when the amounts are so tiny they can hardly be measured. It's wrong in principle; and even very small costs have a way of adding up.
If you're such a stickler for syntax, why are you writing "never mind" as one word? You could argue that it's an increasingly common usage, but then so is writing "loose" to mean "lose."
Sadly, as Taco implied, even if you know where the spam came from - and have an effective blocker set up so you never see it - you still have to download the stuff. On a modem, that can be an irritating bandwidth hit - not to mention an extra cost to those of us who pay for their connections by the second.
Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford UP, 1998) has this to say:
"In British English it is in order to use either a plural verb or a singular verb after most collective nouns, so long as attendant pronouns are made to follow suit: when the jury retires to consider its verdict; when the jury retire to consider their verdict. The same principle applies to all the main collectives like army, audience, clan, company, court, crew, folk, government, group, herd. By contrast, in American English the choice is much more restricted. For such words the following verb and any attendant pronouns are usually in the singular." (157)
And before you ask, yes it does define collective nouns to include the names of organisations, citing the BBC, Marks & Spencer and Tottenham Hotspur as examples.
Even that shouldn't be necessary. Any company that isn't 100% stupid will already have an indemnity cause in all of its advertising contracts whereby the advertisers agree to reimburse the company for any legal costs incurred to the company as a result of the advertisers' actions. These companies must know where the spammers are (after all, they hired them); so they can pursue them for reimbursement of the fine. Or, if they can't find them, they can call the authorities - it's all gravy.
I am not sure who this 1/3rd is since I have never met any of them.
Go to New York: there are tens of thousands of them. Seriously. I was there a few weeks ago and I didn't meet a single person who was in favour of the invasion. Those guys who've actually been in the firing line - the ones who really know what it's like to have your own home under attack - don't want this.
But if that's not convenient, maybe you can get some inkling of the point if you just have a hard, honest think about how pro-war you'd be you were kept awake every night by the sound of cruise missiles tearing into your local landmarks.
It's easy to support this war so long as none of it's affecting you. If it were, you might be a little more cautious.
That might equally mean that Slashdot's users are broken. Perhaps they should be replaced by a Bayesian classification system? That way posts could automatically be classified as Insightful, Funny or what have you as soon as they were posted. And meta-moderation would only improve the system's accuracy.
Typing quickly is pretty much a reflex; and "and" is one of the most common words in the language. So after typing "an," one's fingers tend to add on the "d" automatically. I think most people who type quickly have, on occasion, found themselves accidentally typing common words instead of the less common ones they intended.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what he said. Prima facie (or prima faciæ) means "at first sight", or "by external appearance." Some might argue that it currently IS prima facie illegal to download copyrighted material, since the overwhelming majority of copyright material on the net is not licensed for that method of distribution.
What the original poster said was that copyrighted material is not ipso facto illegal to download. Which is to say, the fact that it's copyrighted material doesn't necessarily mean that downloading it is illegal (though some other factor might).
How about a relay that doesn't send mail immediately, but sits on it for x minutes; and if, during that period, more than y messages are submitted that are more than z% identical, it asks the administrator for confirmation before sending any of them?
And it would die just as quickly, as soon as everyone realized the OS X/Intel has no software outside of what comes with OS X itself.
Do you not think existing OS X applications could be recompiled for Intel? I rather doubt they're written in assembler.
Indeed it didn't. But I suspect it might have had a bit more success if it had been launched with native versions of Office, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Cubase, Logic, Dreamweaver, Final Cut...
What about if I were to break into your house and steal a CD containing the only existing copy of a program you've written, leaving in its place a blank CD? What would you call that?
I hear this a lot, but to be honest I don't see it as a showstopper. There may be a billion and one hardware devices available for the PC, but that doesn't mean Apple has to write drivers for them all.
I really can't imagine it's beyond Apple to ship a version of OS X for i386 that supports maybe ten different motherboards, five graphics cards, five sound cards, ten printers and maybe a few things like scanners and firewire cards. If they were to do this, retailers could immediately start building systems for (say) £600 that screamed past G4 systems twice the price. I suspect this market would take off extremely quickly; and of course, as it did, OEMs with any sense would start writing drivers to ship with their devices.
I know as geeks what we all really want is to take OS X home and install it on our existing computers; but I don't think it's too unreasonable that we should have to upgrade some of our hardware at the same time - or of course write drivers for the hardware we already have!
This argument is fine and pragmatic so far as it goes; but I think the original poster's point was that it is wrong in principle for AOL to incur even a negligible cost to him (whether directly or through taxes). If a thousand companies were sending you junk CDs through the post it would be a major problem, but each could still argue - as you just have on AOL's behalf - that their own promo material was cheap and easy to dispose of. Indeed, a spammer could, by the same token, argue that he is not causing a nuisance because the amount of bandwidth you consume in receiving his 4k message is so tiny.
We should fight the perception that it's OK for advertisers to incur any cost to their victims - even when the amounts are so tiny they can hardly be measured. It's wrong in principle; and even very small costs have a way of adding up.
I'm amazed no one's done the ob. Simpsons' quote yet:
"I want all my groceries in one bag! And I don't want that bag to be heavy!"
"Uh, ma'am, I don't know if that's possible."
"What are you, the possible police?? Just do it!"
-Mhmd al-sharif, former iraqi information minister
Jeez, now al'Sahaf's denying his own name!
Wasn't that the internal IBM codename for MCA?
It might stop working while you're running Partition Magic? I imagine most people run that every few days.
Who can actually say, honestly, that there can be too much choice for our own good?
I'd be happy to have a smaller choice of penis enlargement treatments.
If you're such a stickler for syntax, why are you writing "never mind" as one word? You could argue that it's an increasingly common usage, but then so is writing "loose" to mean "lose."
Sadly, as Taco implied, even if you know where the spam came from - and have an effective blocker set up so you never see it - you still have to download the stuff. On a modem, that can be an irritating bandwidth hit - not to mention an extra cost to those of us who pay for their connections by the second.
Fowler's Modern English Usage (Oxford UP, 1998) has this to say:
"In British English it is in order to use either a plural verb or a singular verb after most collective nouns, so long as attendant pronouns are made to follow suit: when the jury retires to consider its verdict; when the jury retire to consider their verdict. The same principle applies to all the main collectives like army, audience, clan, company, court, crew, folk, government, group, herd. By contrast, in American English the choice is much more restricted. For such words the following verb and any attendant pronouns are usually in the singular." (157)
And before you ask, yes it does define collective nouns to include the names of organisations, citing the BBC, Marks & Spencer and Tottenham Hotspur as examples.
Is it the war on terror or something, or does the federal government just not give a shit about prosecuting fraud?
It's called being "pro-business." Welcome to the land of the free market. Caveat emptor.
Even that shouldn't be necessary. Any company that isn't 100% stupid will already have an indemnity cause in all of its advertising contracts whereby the advertisers agree to reimburse the company for any legal costs incurred to the company as a result of the advertisers' actions. These companies must know where the spammers are (after all, they hired them); so they can pursue them for reimbursement of the fine. Or, if they can't find them, they can call the authorities - it's all gravy.
The sad thing is, that actually is the best part.
I am not sure who this 1/3rd is since I have never met any of them.
Go to New York: there are tens of thousands of them. Seriously. I was there a few weeks ago and I didn't meet a single person who was in favour of the invasion. Those guys who've actually been in the firing line - the ones who really know what it's like to have your own home under attack - don't want this.
But if that's not convenient, maybe you can get some inkling of the point if you just have a hard, honest think about how pro-war you'd be you were kept awake every night by the sound of cruise missiles tearing into your local landmarks.
It's easy to support this war so long as none of it's affecting you. If it were, you might be a little more cautious.
I don't think you're even going to register in this life.
Maybe not right now, but remind him in a week's time.
That might equally mean that Slashdot's users are broken. Perhaps they should be replaced by a Bayesian classification system? That way posts could automatically be classified as Insightful, Funny or what have you as soon as they were posted. And meta-moderation would only improve the system's accuracy.
Ah, solipsism.
Typing quickly is pretty much a reflex; and "and" is one of the most common words in the language. So after typing "an," one's fingers tend to add on the "d" automatically. I think most people who type quickly have, on occasion, found themselves accidentally typing common words instead of the less common ones they intended.
Although some businesses may be drawn toward RMS...
Not once they hear this!
"Loosing" is a word. It's just not the same word as "losing."