I don't buy Linux to support the distros. (I figure I've done my part by accepting my reduced earning potential and new, less interesting job.) I buy Linux for the packaging and cover art.
This isn't linus. His last name is spelled "Torvalds" NOT "Thorvals". Just a troll begging for attention.
Unless he got locked out of his previous account and couldn't get back in (because the e-mail address is way out of date) so he had to create a new account. If you look at the account info, notice that this was the first time it was used, and subsequent postings do nothing to suggest that this was a troll.
I write a few shell scripts in Perl, mostly when I need a hash table, but because I don't use it often it still takes a long time to research and debug. The problem with scripting languages is that they are meant to be compact so the syntax is so crazy.
I always want to do a simple search and replace in a shell script ala echo "$TEXT" | sed "s/$FILENAME/xyz/". But filename is bound to contain some control characters, such as '/' or '.'. I end up using "s,$FILENAME,xyz,", but every once in a while I still get strange results. Can Perl do any better?
Just like a gun, ecnryption can be used for good things (hiding my p0rn from my girlfriend), or bad (emailing terrorism plots to agents.) In this country (USA), if the police have enough evidence, they can go to a judge and get a very specific search warrant. So, if they accuse me of having illegal p0rn (instead of just the good stuff), they can search my computer till the cows come home. But if they find a terrorism plot, they can't use that information.
I agree. I support using encryption to keep information safe on the Internet, but technology shouldn't be used as an excuse to protect criminals. I suspect that the people who are adamantly opposed to laws such as these are the same people who would be opposed to existing search and seizure laws.
Well, a hockey game has attendance limited to somewhere around 20,000, as opposed to a couple hundred million possible consumers for a television program.
But most television shows don't have 100,000 viewers. Those that do have no problem paying for themselves with advertising. The downside of having 200 channels is that most of them have a very small viewership. And in hockey, they don't print ads around the top of the glass, they put them in places where it doesn't affect your ability to view the game itself, like on the boards, on the stairs, around the balcony, on every side of the scoreboard.... but not anywhere that makes it so you can't see the action.
That's not really the point. But you were claiming that a tv show should be profitable at $3 per hour with *no ads*. Also, notice how ads at hockey games aren't easy to ignore. They don't obscure the action, but they are still in your frame of vision. You can't fast forward past them. It would be like they shrunk the tv image and put scrolling ads at the bottom. I don't mind product placement either. I know from the Men In Black previews that I'm supposed to want a Mercedes E class, with about 26 coats of paint and a good wax on it. This does not bother me.
But as the OP said, networks like TNN who show A-team re-runs all day can't exactly put product placement into their shows. I'm not saying there should be no ads anywhere, hell, I like good advertising. It doesn't bother me that when I go to the orchestra, I walk into Verizon Hall, but I'd cancel my subscription in a second if during the performance a James Earl Jones walked out and announced 'This performance is brought to you by verizon'.
But that's why it costs $50 to go to the symphony and orchestras still rely on reams of public funding. BTW, at hockey games (at least in smaller markets) you do get the guy on the PA saying that "this power play is brought to you by Verizon".
There's no excuse whatsoever for advertising that destroys the main content, and I think the argument that advertising is neccessary contains fundamental flaws.
I agree that I don't like advertising which destroys the main content. But how much extra do you want to pay? You claim that you pay enough money to support the amount of tv you watch. That may be true, but I think your system is unworkable.
Cable is a flat-rate business model; you pay $X per month, no matter how much you watch. I watch ridiculous amounts of tv (and thus ads) per day, but it's mostly on in the background while I do something else (like surf the web). If I had to pay for what I watch, I would watch much less, and that's the last thing they want. Personally, I wouldn't be upset if they just passed a law which put some restrictions on PVR devices, such as preventing them from skipping commercials. Of course, that's not a popular opinion on Slashdot. I also wouldn't be that upset if they just let some of the specialty channels go bankrupt rather than increasing my cable bill.
Okay, I don't think $200 per month TV bill is typical. My bill has certainly gone up since they added all those specialty channels (even though I didn't order any), but it's still less than $100. But where did you get this magical idea that $3/hr is a fair price to pay for TV without ads? Entertainment is expensive. You can go to a hockey game for $15 an hour or to a movie for $6 an hour or see a play for $30 and hour. And at the hockey game and the movie you still get ads.
but if they make the process more efficient then they might get the same amount of energy back, or you might get 90% of it back. Except you couldn't get all of it back because the entropy of the universe has to be increasing.
I probably shouldn't be the one saying this (seeing as I failed thermodynamics in university), but every chemical reaction has ideal conditions of temperature and pressure at which the reaction is 100% efficient and the process can be reversed without creating entropy. Anyway, I'm not claiming we can attain this, but we can attempt to make the process as efficient as possible.
Well let's see. The best fuel cells are somewhere around 70% efficient, so you pay a 30% penalty just to recover the energy. Prior to that, you pay a penalty to extract the hydrogen (I don't know how efficient electrolysis is). Before that, you pay a penalty transfering the electricity to your home (about 15% IIRC). Before that, you pay a penalty converting fossil fuels into electricity (another 60%). So you end up with:
0.4 x 0.85 x 0.7 = 0.238
Or about 24% of the energy you started with minus whatever efficiency you lose electroyizing the water. Contrast this with a typical car engine with about 30% efficiency.
If you read my orginal post, you will see that I clearly said "if they make the process more efficient". Anyway, aren't you forgetting the energy required to drill the oil, transport it to the refinery, refine it, and then distribute it to the service stations?
The power source could be wind, solar power, or hydroelectric, which have less emissions. Any of those will be more efficient than a gasoline engine. True, but then it would be wise to electrolyize the water right at the power plant.
Sure, but then you have to go out and buy hydrogen all the time. We already have a means to distribute water to each person's home (assuming you don't need some special kind of ultra-pure water for this process).
What if you could make your own hydrogen out of water, right in the garage? The technology is already available; you electrolyze water by more or less running a fuel cell in reverse.At the moment, this takes more electricity than the hydrogen would ultimately generate.
I just can't wait until they can fix that problem!
I don't think the article is suggesting that they will eventually consume less energy than the hydrogen will eventually generate, but if they make the process more efficient then they might get the same amount of energy back, or you might get 90% of it back. The point is, you may pay a 10% penalty to convert an immobile source of power into a portable one, but you will probably get that back because the original source of power can be cleaner and more efficient.
The power source could be wind, solar power, or hydroelectric, which have less emissions. Any of those will be more efficient than a gasoline engine. Even if it is coal, the emissions don't have to be released in residential areas. Also, since the power station is immobile, you can scrub the emissions better. You don't have to worry about the guy with a hole in his muffler and a leaky gas tank who just doesn't care about the environment.
Well, I've looked over my agreement with Time Warner, and there's nothing in there about capped usage or anything like that. Not even the sections regarding copyright. Only thing in there is that clause how "we can change the terms and not tell you about it and you will bend over and like it." That sort of crap is about as bad as a EULA that 'reserves the right to demand your firstborn in payment for services rendered.'
I can't say I read my broadband EULA, but when they promised 1 Mbps, I naturally assumed it would be 1 Mbps burst rate, not 1 Mbps of steady streaming 24/7. Anyway, they recently added bandwidth limits and they sent me an e-mail telling me about it. The pawn shop doesn't compare, since we're concerning ourselves with how the business is held accountable for what their customers do with products they have bought and paid for. Neither does the liquor store, since ABC doesn't get blamed if a 22-year old gets drunk and does something naughty. Gun manufacturers aren't held responsible for the crime if someone uses a weapon to kill or steal or whatever.
See, this is what I mean about picking apart an analogy. Pawn shops have two sets of customers: those who buy and those who sell. They are nor responsible for who they sell to, but they are responsible for who they buy from. Liquor stores have to verify that their customers are of age. Asking your customer to show their id may insult them but you still have to do it.
And bars are liable for lots of things that happen on their premises. If you get drunk and do something stupid, they very well might be liable. They are responsible for cutting you off when you have had too much to drink. (My favorite story recently was about a bartender who allowed a man to wear pork chops strapped to his feet like shoes. A customer slipped on the grease and sued the bar.) You can also be liable if you host a private party and a guest drinks and drives. But I do see your point. Regardless, the whole 'guilty until you prove otherwise' aspect of how the -AA's are handling this via the DMCA is despicable. Would you like it if, after taping the superbowl on your VCR to watch more than once, the MPAA got your power disconnected?
But I don't think that will happen because I believe that that -AAs have a better sense of proportion than the average Slashdot reader. And if the guy they elect reneges and raises the speeding fines even higher?
Okay, admittedly we don't control that. Although the fact that we have political parties means that the leaders have to pay attention to their party's reputation. Suffice to say, I think we can both agree that less government control is generally far better than more, yes?
I don't fundamentally believe in less government control or more. I think it depends on the specific industry. For dialups they don't. For broadband they most definitely do. And that particular situation is getting worse.
I dunno. Where I live, you can get broadband from both the phone company and the cable company. Maybe that's atypical.
Anyone can pick apart an analogy; it's just not productive. Certainly true, but the better the analogy, the harder it is to take apart
I disagree. An analogy is an argument that if A1=>B1 and A1 is "like" A2 therefore A2=>B2. You can always pick apart an analogy by simply stating that A1 is not A2. My high school physics teacher used to explain that electricity going through a wire is analagous to water going through a pipe. It was a perfectly good analogy for illustrating the macroscopic equations of voltage, current, resistance, etc, and that's all it was intended to accomplish. You can always pick it apart by complaining that it doesn't explain electron tunneling.
stores that prosecute shoplifters aren't worried about pissing off the shoplifters Certainly not. But a shoplifter is stealing from the store whereas the P2P user is not stealing anything from the ISP (they did pay for unlimited bandwidth, after all. the ISP doesn't get to bitch about it later).
Not particularly relevant here, but a common misconception. The user doesn't pay for unlimited bandwidth. They pay for uncapped bandwidth, on the presumption that they won't abuse it. Of course they do abuse it, which is why all the ISPs have hand to either institute bandwidth caps or byte limits. Imagine the shoplifter situation thus: the actual store isn't worrying overly much about shoplifters, but the marketing agencies for some of the products they carry are going nuts over it and are demanding that the store start doing crazy things like strip searches at the door or kicking out anyone who has baggy clothes since it _might_ be used to shoplift or, as is happening here, letting you pay for a product but then not letting you use it.
An overdramatization. Generally, the manufacturers don't have the ability to impose arbitrary limitations on what you can do with a product, but the government can (or the manufacturers, with permission from the government). Imagine how the gun lobby feels about those silly restrictions that prevent you from turning your semi-automatic weapon into a fully-automatic one. P2P programs, for the most part, used to be to ISP's only something that sucked bandwidth and cost them a bit more money. The -AA's are going beyond that and trying to make them legally accountable for other people's actions. I can't think of a single other industry where this sort of insanity is tolerated, much less considered a Good Thing by Congress.
Oh really? Have you ever heard of the strict regulations placed upon pawn shops? They are responsible for ensuring that their customers aren't selling stolen goods. Liquor stores can't sell alcohol to minors, even if it means pissing off their customers. Swiss banks were held accountable for not asking questions about the source of Nazi art. In many, many cases, industries which can be used to facilitate illegal acts are held responsible for monitoring and preventing those acts.
The government uses my tax dollars to pave the roads and pay the police officers' salaries. Then they turn around and charge me a fine just because I occasionally break the law Again, the government and the police don't really care about your satisfaction with them since you pay taxes and get fined and arrested whether you want to or not. They are a 'local monopoly' and your only choice is emigration. Which is a tad more involved than changing an ISP and so not an option for most people.
Not true. If enough people took issue with speeding fines and made it a big issue in the next election then the laws would be changed. The government has a vested intrest in pleasing the electorate. A non-monopoly _has_ to keep their customers happy since they'll just spend money elsewhere if they aren't.
There are some cases where we need to have monopolies. For example, governments. We can change the government every 4 years, but in the meantime they have a monopoly. I can't start my own government franchise (with my own constitution that allows murder), and then my customers could murder people with impunity. (That would be called a mafia.)
ISPs don't have monopolies in most areas. And anyway, I doubt that the MPAA is selectively enforcing its copyright against some ISPs and not others, so that has no effect. It is perfectly reasonable for a film studio to have a monopoly on one particular movie, as long as they don't have a monopoly on all movies.
I'm considering not paying my taxes next year. I applaud your determination and wish you luck. Can you post to/. from prison?
Unfortunately, my tax bills seem to always come out negative, so my form of protest is only costing me money.
Not a very good analogy. The cops have no stake in your being happy with them. You are not their customers.
Okay, firstly it wasn't an analogy, it was a counter-example. The OP thought it was ridiculous that anyone would try to impose fines against millions of people. Secondly, analogies aren't meant to be perfect. They are meant to illustrate one idea by making an imperfect comparison to some other idea. Anyone can pick apart an analogy; it's just not productive. Thirdly, stores that prosecute shoplifters aren't worried about pissing off the shoplifters, even though the shoplifters probably buy more than they steal. If you want to use the car comparison, then it's more like the company that makes the car is giving you speeding tickets.
The government uses my tax dollars to pave the roads and pay the police officers' salaries. Then they turn around and charge me a fine just because I occasionally break the law. Is that the thanks I get for all my hard work? (I'm considering not paying my taxes next year.)
There're literally millions of p2p network users, how could MPAA possibly disconnect them all? It's even more laughable that MPAA is asking the ISPs to disconnect their OWN MILLIONS OF USERS. And even if they've sucessfully disconnected and maybe prosecuted that millions of users, what would the people think about this?
The police hand out millions of speeding tickets every year, and I still think it's unfair when they get me.
Yeah, that could work. By choosing the initial path, you can have the net stay within the target area for most of its orbit. Of course, as soon as the net splits, you basically lose control of where the pieces are going.
The question is, can we find a way to support the movie making industry without propping up its outdated monopoly on distribution?
That's the thing. I really doubt it. But some people would like to abolish copyright without thinking all the consequences through. That could theoretically work for music (although I doubt it), but it can hardly work for books and movies where there is nothing sacred about a live performance.
No, you are failing to see a major point. What remained in demand was *transportation*. The current situation with restricting fair use is more analogous to car manufacturers forbidding me to lend someone my car for the weekend - then of course they would be 'enjoying the Ford experience' without paying. What my point is is that *I* have purchased this movie/song NOT just the media, and the right to use this movie/song in which ever way I wish. Yes, selling or giving away reproductions of the movie is wrong. However, it is laughable to suggest that I am committing a crime if I choose to listen to my CD on a computer CD-ROM drive, or even back up my movie to ensure my free *paid for* access in the future. This is why DRM is wrong.
Well it's funny that I missed your point, considering that I wasn't talking to you and I never read any previous posts by you. In fact, I didn't say anything about fair use or DRM or commiting a crime in this thread, so unless you happen to have read the discussion a few months back where I said that DRM wasn't as bad as people think it is, then you are putting words in my mouth.
The only thing I said today was that governments should consider passing legislation to ensure the health of industries where the product is in demand but the business model is being affected by technology. That is a much narrower statement than a demand that DRM should be put into all technology (although that is one solution which certainly deserves investigation).
And BTW, I don't see what major point I am missing. I realize that what remained in demand was transportation. However, am I wrong in stating that as soon as people realized that automobiles were a superior form of transportation, blacksmiths became obsolete? Sure, they could have all become auto mechanics, but the skill sets don't immediately translate.
On the other hand, LPs and 8-tracks may have become obsolete, but the art of writing and performing songs hasn't. There is still strong demand for music, recorded on whatever medium.
I'm not going to address your other points, since you are arguing with things I never said.
There are still blacksmiths. There just aren't as many as there were before. Many do it as a hobby rather than a job. Likewise farmers. If there's a market for movies, people will make movies. But you shouldn't expect the movie industry to be as big or as profitable as it is now, and that's what upsets the people who currently run that industry.
You're missing the point. There isn't a market for horseshoes because horse-drawn carriages are now obsolete. The small remaining market is nostalgia... blacksmiths at tourist traps, carriage rides through the park, etc. However, music and movies are just as popular as they have always been, and only copyright-circumvention technology threatens their business case.
This is an absolutely fundamental difference. No, the government shouldn't go around propping up industries that are dying out because of technological obsolescence. However, they should take a marked interest in industries that are hurting because of abuses of technology.
Guns are an example of a potentially harmful technology. Did the government decide that guns make law enforcement obsolete and people are going to have to find a new way to survive? No, of course not.
Let's say that farming is unprofitable because of fierce competition from other countries. Should the government cave in, remove all subsidies, and depend entirely on foreign sources of food? I certainly hope not.
Believe it or not, most people like to see big budget movies. Even a low budget Hollywood movie costs $3M. I hope you like indie films because under your system every movie will be an indie movie.
Just because something that used to be profitable is no longer profitable is no reason to change the law. It is a reason to go do something else.
You statement is true in some instances, but I hope you're not dogmatic about it. Many slashdotters will preface it with some comment about how the cars destroyed the horse and buggy industry and so all the blacksmiths were anti-car.
The difference is that horseshoes are no longer in demand, but music and movies very much still are. When new technology destroys the profitability of an item without rendering it obsolete, there is ample reason to consider a change to the law. That's part of the reason why governments subsidize farming.
Not that it matters too much. How much junk is in a precisely circular orbit?
That's what I'm wondering about. NASA is mostly concerned about man-made junk, right? I figure there must be some rules about where you put this stuff, just like air traffic control. You don't want expensive satellites colliding. I bet most of the satellites are in a circular orbit, and if random debris gets knocked off of a satellite, it will probably stay in a near-circular orbit as well.
The problem with the swath approach is that you're not going to get much change in speed unless you choose a fairly eccentric orbit, and in that case you will be spending quite a lot of time outside the swath.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't buy Linux to support the distros. (I figure I've done my part by accepting my reduced earning potential and new, less interesting job.) I buy Linux for the packaging and cover art.
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Immature hackers dissing and backstabbing each other. It's like wrestling... only lamer.
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Believe me, a laptop can already spring a leak. That goop inside your LCD screen can seep out and fry your computer.
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This isn't linus. His last name is spelled "Torvalds" NOT "Thorvals". Just a troll begging for attention.
Unless he got locked out of his previous account and couldn't get back in (because the e-mail address is way out of date) so he had to create a new account. If you look at the account info, notice that this was the first time it was used, and subsequent postings do nothing to suggest that this was a troll.
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A link to DjVu libre wouldn't have hurt. Here it is: http://djvu.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
What are you talking about? It's right there in the story submission.
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Thanks. That will come in very handy.
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I write a few shell scripts in Perl, mostly when I need a hash table, but because I don't use it often it still takes a long time to research and debug. The problem with scripting languages is that they are meant to be compact so the syntax is so crazy.
I always want to do a simple search and replace in a shell script ala echo "$TEXT" | sed "s/$FILENAME/xyz/". But filename is bound to contain some control characters, such as '/' or '.'. I end up using "s,$FILENAME,xyz,", but every once in a while I still get strange results. Can Perl do any better?
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There is no extent to which Slashdot readers will not go to defend their right to receive something for free.
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You know what I'd like? A regex syntax I could use in shell scripts that would take less time to debug than the equivalent C++ program.
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Just like a gun, ecnryption can be used for good things (hiding my p0rn from my girlfriend), or bad (emailing terrorism plots to agents.) In this country (USA), if the police have enough evidence, they can go to a judge and get a very specific search warrant. So, if they accuse me of having illegal p0rn (instead of just the good stuff), they can search my computer till the cows come home. But if they find a terrorism plot, they can't use that information.
I agree. I support using encryption to keep information safe on the Internet, but technology shouldn't be used as an excuse to protect criminals. I suspect that the people who are adamantly opposed to laws such as these are the same people who would be opposed to existing search and seizure laws.
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Well, a hockey game has attendance limited to somewhere around 20,000, as opposed to a couple hundred million possible consumers for a television program.
But most television shows don't have 100,000 viewers. Those that do have no problem paying for themselves with advertising. The downside of having 200 channels is that most of them have a very small viewership.
And in hockey, they don't print ads around the top of the glass, they put them in places where it doesn't affect your ability to view the game itself, like on the boards, on the stairs, around the balcony, on every side of the scoreboard.... but not anywhere that makes it so you can't see the action.
That's not really the point. But you were claiming that a tv show should be profitable at $3 per hour with *no ads*. Also, notice how ads at hockey games aren't easy to ignore. They don't obscure the action, but they are still in your frame of vision. You can't fast forward past them. It would be like they shrunk the tv image and put scrolling ads at the bottom.
I don't mind product placement either. I know from the Men In Black previews that I'm supposed to want a Mercedes E class, with about 26 coats of paint and a good wax on it. This does not bother me.
But as the OP said, networks like TNN who show A-team re-runs all day can't exactly put product placement into their shows.
I'm not saying there should be no ads anywhere, hell, I like good advertising. It doesn't bother me that when I go to the orchestra, I walk into Verizon Hall, but I'd cancel my subscription in a second if during the performance a James Earl Jones walked out and announced 'This performance is brought to you by verizon'.
But that's why it costs $50 to go to the symphony and orchestras still rely on reams of public funding. BTW, at hockey games (at least in smaller markets) you do get the guy on the PA saying that "this power play is brought to you by Verizon".
There's no excuse whatsoever for advertising that destroys the main content, and I think the argument that advertising is neccessary contains fundamental flaws.
I agree that I don't like advertising which destroys the main content. But how much extra do you want to pay? You claim that you pay enough money to support the amount of tv you watch. That may be true, but I think your system is unworkable.
Cable is a flat-rate business model; you pay $X per month, no matter how much you watch. I watch ridiculous amounts of tv (and thus ads) per day, but it's mostly on in the background while I do something else (like surf the web). If I had to pay for what I watch, I would watch much less, and that's the last thing they want. Personally, I wouldn't be upset if they just passed a law which put some restrictions on PVR devices, such as preventing them from skipping commercials. Of course, that's not a popular opinion on Slashdot. I also wouldn't be that upset if they just let some of the specialty channels go bankrupt rather than increasing my cable bill.
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Okay, I don't think $200 per month TV bill is typical. My bill has certainly gone up since they added all those specialty channels (even though I didn't order any), but it's still less than $100. But where did you get this magical idea that $3/hr is a fair price to pay for TV without ads? Entertainment is expensive. You can go to a hockey game for $15 an hour or to a movie for $6 an hour or see a play for $30 and hour. And at the hockey game and the movie you still get ads.
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but if they make the process more efficient then they might get the same amount of energy back, or you might get 90% of it back.
Except you couldn't get all of it back because the entropy of the universe has to be increasing.
I probably shouldn't be the one saying this (seeing as I failed thermodynamics in university), but every chemical reaction has ideal conditions of temperature and pressure at which the reaction is 100% efficient and the process can be reversed without creating entropy. Anyway, I'm not claiming we can attain this, but we can attempt to make the process as efficient as possible.
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Well let's see. The best fuel cells are somewhere around 70% efficient, so you pay a 30% penalty just to recover the energy. Prior to that, you pay a penalty to extract the hydrogen (I don't know how efficient electrolysis is). Before that, you pay a penalty transfering the electricity to your home (about 15% IIRC). Before that, you pay a penalty converting fossil fuels into electricity (another 60%). So you end up with:
0.4 x 0.85 x 0.7 = 0.238
Or about 24% of the energy you started with minus whatever efficiency you lose electroyizing the water. Contrast this with a typical car engine with about 30% efficiency.
If you read my orginal post, you will see that I clearly said "if they make the process more efficient". Anyway, aren't you forgetting the energy required to drill the oil, transport it to the refinery, refine it, and then distribute it to the service stations?
The power source could be wind, solar power, or hydroelectric, which have less emissions. Any of those will be more efficient than a gasoline engine.
True, but then it would be wise to electrolyize the water right at the power plant.
Sure, but then you have to go out and buy hydrogen all the time. We already have a means to distribute water to each person's home (assuming you don't need some special kind of ultra-pure water for this process).
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I don't think the article is suggesting that they will eventually consume less energy than the hydrogen will eventually generate, but if they make the process more efficient then they might get the same amount of energy back, or you might get 90% of it back. The point is, you may pay a 10% penalty to convert an immobile source of power into a portable one, but you will probably get that back because the original source of power can be cleaner and more efficient.
The power source could be wind, solar power, or hydroelectric, which have less emissions. Any of those will be more efficient than a gasoline engine. Even if it is coal, the emissions don't have to be released in residential areas. Also, since the power station is immobile, you can scrub the emissions better. You don't have to worry about the guy with a hole in his muffler and a leaky gas tank who just doesn't care about the environment.
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Well, I've looked over my agreement with Time Warner, and there's nothing in there about capped usage or anything like that. Not even the sections regarding copyright. Only thing in there is that clause how "we can change the terms and not tell you about it and you will bend over and like it." That sort of crap is about as bad as a EULA that 'reserves the right to demand your firstborn in payment for services rendered.'
I can't say I read my broadband EULA, but when they promised 1 Mbps, I naturally assumed it would be 1 Mbps burst rate, not 1 Mbps of steady streaming 24/7. Anyway, they recently added bandwidth limits and they sent me an e-mail telling me about it.
The pawn shop doesn't compare, since we're concerning ourselves with how the business is held accountable for what their customers do with products they have bought and paid for. Neither does the liquor store, since ABC doesn't get blamed if a 22-year old gets drunk and does something naughty. Gun manufacturers aren't held responsible for the crime if someone uses a weapon to kill or steal or whatever.
See, this is what I mean about picking apart an analogy. Pawn shops have two sets of customers: those who buy and those who sell. They are nor responsible for who they sell to, but they are responsible for who they buy from. Liquor stores have to verify that their customers are of age. Asking your customer to show their id may insult them but you still have to do it.
And bars are liable for lots of things that happen on their premises. If you get drunk and do something stupid, they very well might be liable. They are responsible for cutting you off when you have had too much to drink. (My favorite story recently was about a bartender who allowed a man to wear pork chops strapped to his feet like shoes. A customer slipped on the grease and sued the bar.) You can also be liable if you host a private party and a guest drinks and drives.
But I do see your point. Regardless, the whole 'guilty until you prove otherwise' aspect of how the -AA's are handling this via the DMCA is despicable. Would you like it if, after taping the superbowl on your VCR to watch more than once, the MPAA got your power disconnected?
But I don't think that will happen because I believe that that -AAs have a better sense of proportion than the average Slashdot reader.
And if the guy they elect reneges and raises the speeding fines even higher?
Okay, admittedly we don't control that. Although the fact that we have political parties means that the leaders have to pay attention to their party's reputation.
Suffice to say, I think we can both agree that less government control is generally far better than more, yes?
I don't fundamentally believe in less government control or more. I think it depends on the specific industry.
For dialups they don't. For broadband they most definitely do. And that particular situation is getting worse.
I dunno. Where I live, you can get broadband from both the phone company and the cable company. Maybe that's atypical.
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Anyone can pick apart an analogy; it's just not productive.
/. from prison?
Certainly true, but the better the analogy, the harder it is to take apart
I disagree. An analogy is an argument that if A1=>B1 and A1 is "like" A2 therefore A2=>B2. You can always pick apart an analogy by simply stating that A1 is not A2. My high school physics teacher used to explain that electricity going through a wire is analagous to water going through a pipe. It was a perfectly good analogy for illustrating the macroscopic equations of voltage, current, resistance, etc, and that's all it was intended to accomplish. You can always pick it apart by complaining that it doesn't explain electron tunneling.
stores that prosecute shoplifters aren't worried about pissing off the shoplifters
Certainly not. But a shoplifter is stealing from the store whereas the P2P user is not stealing anything from the ISP (they did pay for unlimited bandwidth, after all. the ISP doesn't get to bitch about it later).
Not particularly relevant here, but a common misconception. The user doesn't pay for unlimited bandwidth. They pay for uncapped bandwidth, on the presumption that they won't abuse it. Of course they do abuse it, which is why all the ISPs have hand to either institute bandwidth caps or byte limits.
Imagine the shoplifter situation thus: the actual store isn't worrying overly much about shoplifters, but the marketing agencies for some of the products they carry are going nuts over it and are demanding that the store start doing crazy things like strip searches at the door or kicking out anyone who has baggy clothes since it _might_ be used to shoplift or, as is happening here, letting you pay for a product but then not letting you use it.
An overdramatization. Generally, the manufacturers don't have the ability to impose arbitrary limitations on what you can do with a product, but the government can (or the manufacturers, with permission from the government). Imagine how the gun lobby feels about those silly restrictions that prevent you from turning your semi-automatic weapon into a fully-automatic one.
P2P programs, for the most part, used to be to ISP's only something that sucked bandwidth and cost them a bit more money. The -AA's are going beyond that and trying to make them legally accountable for other people's actions. I can't think of a single other industry where this sort of insanity is tolerated, much less considered a Good Thing by Congress.
Oh really? Have you ever heard of the strict regulations placed upon pawn shops? They are responsible for ensuring that their customers aren't selling stolen goods. Liquor stores can't sell alcohol to minors, even if it means pissing off their customers. Swiss banks were held accountable for not asking questions about the source of Nazi art. In many, many cases, industries which can be used to facilitate illegal acts are held responsible for monitoring and preventing those acts.
The government uses my tax dollars to pave the roads and pay the police officers' salaries. Then they turn around and charge me a fine just because I occasionally break the law
Again, the government and the police don't really care about your satisfaction with them since you pay taxes and get fined and arrested whether you want to or not. They are a 'local monopoly' and your only choice is emigration. Which is a tad more involved than changing an ISP and so not an option for most people.
Not true. If enough people took issue with speeding fines and made it a big issue in the next election then the laws would be changed. The government has a vested intrest in pleasing the electorate.
A non-monopoly _has_ to keep their customers happy since they'll just spend money elsewhere if they aren't.
There are some cases where we need to have monopolies. For example, governments. We can change the government every 4 years, but in the meantime they have a monopoly. I can't start my own government franchise (with my own constitution that allows murder), and then my customers could murder people with impunity. (That would be called a mafia.)
ISPs don't have monopolies in most areas. And anyway, I doubt that the MPAA is selectively enforcing its copyright against some ISPs and not others, so that has no effect. It is perfectly reasonable for a film studio to have a monopoly on one particular movie, as long as they don't have a monopoly on all movies.
I'm considering not paying my taxes next year.
I applaud your determination and wish you luck. Can you post to
Unfortunately, my tax bills seem to always come out negative, so my form of protest is only costing me money.
-a
Not a very good analogy. The cops have no stake in your being happy with them. You are not their customers.
Okay, firstly it wasn't an analogy, it was a counter-example. The OP thought it was ridiculous that anyone would try to impose fines against millions of people. Secondly, analogies aren't meant to be perfect. They are meant to illustrate one idea by making an imperfect comparison to some other idea. Anyone can pick apart an analogy; it's just not productive. Thirdly, stores that prosecute shoplifters aren't worried about pissing off the shoplifters, even though the shoplifters probably buy more than they steal.
If you want to use the car comparison, then it's more like the company that makes the car is giving you speeding tickets.
The government uses my tax dollars to pave the roads and pay the police officers' salaries. Then they turn around and charge me a fine just because I occasionally break the law. Is that the thanks I get for all my hard work? (I'm considering not paying my taxes next year.)
-a
There're literally millions of p2p network users, how could MPAA possibly disconnect them all? It's even more laughable that MPAA is asking the ISPs to disconnect their OWN MILLIONS OF USERS. And even if they've sucessfully disconnected and maybe prosecuted that millions of users, what would the people think about this?
The police hand out millions of speeding tickets every year, and I still think it's unfair when they get me.
-a
Yeah, that could work. By choosing the initial path, you can have the net stay within the target area for most of its orbit. Of course, as soon as the net splits, you basically lose control of where the pieces are going.
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The question is, can we find a way to support the movie making industry without propping up its outdated monopoly on distribution?
That's the thing. I really doubt it. But some people would like to abolish copyright without thinking all the consequences through. That could theoretically work for music (although I doubt it), but it can hardly work for books and movies where there is nothing sacred about a live performance.
-a
No, you are failing to see a major point. What remained in demand was *transportation*. The current situation with restricting fair use is more analogous to car manufacturers forbidding me to lend someone my car for the weekend - then of course they would be 'enjoying the Ford experience' without paying. What my point is is that *I* have purchased this movie/song NOT just the media, and the right to use this movie/song in which ever way I wish. Yes, selling or giving away reproductions of the movie is wrong. However, it is laughable to suggest that I am committing a crime if I choose to listen to my CD on a computer CD-ROM drive, or even back up my movie to ensure my free *paid for* access in the future. This is why DRM is wrong.
Well it's funny that I missed your point, considering that I wasn't talking to you and I never read any previous posts by you. In fact, I didn't say anything about fair use or DRM or commiting a crime in this thread, so unless you happen to have read the discussion a few months back where I said that DRM wasn't as bad as people think it is, then you are putting words in my mouth.
The only thing I said today was that governments should consider passing legislation to ensure the health of industries where the product is in demand but the business model is being affected by technology. That is a much narrower statement than a demand that DRM should be put into all technology (although that is one solution which certainly deserves investigation).
And BTW, I don't see what major point I am missing. I realize that what remained in demand was transportation. However, am I wrong in stating that as soon as people realized that automobiles were a superior form of transportation, blacksmiths became obsolete? Sure, they could have all become auto mechanics, but the skill sets don't immediately translate.
On the other hand, LPs and 8-tracks may have become obsolete, but the art of writing and performing songs hasn't. There is still strong demand for music, recorded on whatever medium.
I'm not going to address your other points, since you are arguing with things I never said.
-a
There are still blacksmiths. There just aren't as many as there were before. Many do it as a hobby rather than a job. Likewise farmers. If there's a market for movies, people will make movies. But you shouldn't expect the movie industry to be as big or as profitable as it is now, and that's what upsets the people who currently run that industry.
You're missing the point. There isn't a market for horseshoes because horse-drawn carriages are now obsolete. The small remaining market is nostalgia... blacksmiths at tourist traps, carriage rides through the park, etc. However, music and movies are just as popular as they have always been, and only copyright-circumvention technology threatens their business case.
This is an absolutely fundamental difference. No, the government shouldn't go around propping up industries that are dying out because of technological obsolescence. However, they should take a marked interest in industries that are hurting because of abuses of technology.
Guns are an example of a potentially harmful technology. Did the government decide that guns make law enforcement obsolete and people are going to have to find a new way to survive? No, of course not.
Let's say that farming is unprofitable because of fierce competition from other countries. Should the government cave in, remove all subsidies, and depend entirely on foreign sources of food? I certainly hope not.
Believe it or not, most people like to see big budget movies. Even a low budget Hollywood movie costs $3M. I hope you like indie films because under your system every movie will be an indie movie.
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Just because something that used to be profitable is no longer profitable is no reason to change the law. It is a reason to go do something else.
You statement is true in some instances, but I hope you're not dogmatic about it. Many slashdotters will preface it with some comment about how the cars destroyed the horse and buggy industry and so all the blacksmiths were anti-car.
The difference is that horseshoes are no longer in demand, but music and movies very much still are. When new technology destroys the profitability of an item without rendering it obsolete, there is ample reason to consider a change to the law. That's part of the reason why governments subsidize farming.
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Not that it matters too much. How much junk is in a precisely circular orbit?
That's what I'm wondering about. NASA is mostly concerned about man-made junk, right? I figure there must be some rules about where you put this stuff, just like air traffic control. You don't want expensive satellites colliding. I bet most of the satellites are in a circular orbit, and if random debris gets knocked off of a satellite, it will probably stay in a near-circular orbit as well.
The problem with the swath approach is that you're not going to get much change in speed unless you choose a fairly eccentric orbit, and in that case you will be spending quite a lot of time outside the swath.
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