Re:Sensationalist Journalism?
on
A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 1
Another point to remember while everyone is flagrantly throwing around "1918" as a point of reference:
- World War I fighting was just about wrapping up in 1918. - World War I was the first war in which biochemical warfare was utilized - World War I was the first war in which trench warfare was utilized ( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WW_I )
So let's put these together:
In 1918, a whole lot of men who had been exposed to (a) chemicals intended to reduce the efficiency of their immune systems, (b) dead people (lots of them), and (c) all manner of vile and vermin in trenches, began moving out of their trenches and onto airplanes and trains and boats back home.
Oh, yeah, and before you start comparing Iraq the the War To End All Wars, don't.
So let's put "1918" into a little bit of perspective before we start spouting off about how much worse things will be than "1918" when the next pandemic hits.
That's absolutely correct. If someone first approached me claiming that I was infringing on their IP, and then subsequently asked me to "sign over" the rights to the IP in question, I would walk away from those talks immediately, and only come back to talk to them with a decent IP lawyer.
I feel sorry for the guy, just like I feel sorry for people who walk in front of moving busses. It's still their own damn fault.
"For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. "
Maybe I'm missing something, but in order for this to work, wouldn't all of our existing VCRs have to be replaced? And retailers don't really even sell standard VCRs anymore because of DVDs... so the retailers are effectively killing the market now for any new DRM-enabled VCR that might come on the market later.
This isn't about the EULA, or education in America selling out, yadda-yadda-yadda. What a bunch of hooey. This is about shaving the publishing cost off of a book and still earning the part of a normal book's sale price that goes to the publisher/editor/author/benefactor.
Those who will use this are students who need a book for a class, who don't care about the subject or ever plan on referring to the text again after class is over, and want to save some money over printed costs. What does he or she care if the book expires in 150 days? Who cares that he can't print a full copy out? If he/she wanted a full printed copy, they'd just buy one!
The only competitor to this sort of deal is book sell-back, where that's offered. Then, you can maybe get a percentage (but never ALL) of the original price back. In that scenario, you end up with nothing left over (but the knowlege of course) too, so what's the BFD?
Well we are talking about Eben Moglen after all, he has been donating his time to the Free Software Foundation for years. It's not that big of a surprise.
I realize that your comment was meant in humor, however there are some very cool Excel application out there... take for instance Pac Man and Space Invaders for Excel.
You want that house in Cherry or Beefsteak red?;-)
Actually, this is exactly the roll of a federal government, and something that should have been done long before 9/11. Currently there is no standardization of drivers licenses nationally, even though someone can use a drivers license from one state to prove their identity in another state. States with tougher identification laws lose when states with lax ID requirements (like my very own Illinois) will issue a license to anyone with a piece of mail with their name on it.
I used to do this. It started with my in-laws, which I really don't mind because they respect my time and opinions. But then their friends would start calling me, asking for advise about this-or-that, using or ignoring the advise as their pocketbooks felt most appropriate, then calling me to fix it when it didn't work.
So one day I was talking to my in-laws and mentioned that many of their friends were calling me regularly about computer problems, and my in-laws, who were flabbergasted that their friends were taking advantage of me, offered me the best advise I ever heard: Take the highest number I could possibly find for onsite tech support, and send them a bill for 20% more. Bill incrementally by the hour, even for 3 minutes. Get the absolute top dollar I could get from them.
Within weeks, they had stopped calling me and my free time was my own again.
You're putting too much into this. I have one of those club cards. When I go to buy a box of condoms, three tubes of KY jelly, 50 feet of rope and a jar of Smuckers (TM) strawberry jam, I just give them my next door neighbor's phone number.
Here's a supposedly true story I heard in some class years ago - probably dynamics or physics or organic or something...
A physics teacher gives each student a barometer, and tells them that using only the barometer and brief visits to the town's tallest building, they have to determine the height of the building. Grades would be awarded based on the most creative solution.
One student started at the top, took a reading, moved to the ground floor, took a reading, and then based on that information and the barometric pressure that day, determined the approximate height of the building.
Other students basically copied the first, although with different variations (bottom to top, etc)
The student who received the only A? He went to the basement. Found the building engineer's office. Knocked on the door. Told the guy who answered, "I have a fine barometer. If you tell me exactly how tall this building is, it's yours."
We found we don't need instant, 24X7 communication. What were we thinking in 1995????
The only place I use email is at work, and they have a pretty effective SPAM filter, plus I don't post my work email address anywhere, ever. I get maybe 1 spam a week on average, and it's usually "legitimate" spam.
The inventor of Morse Code, of course! Naturally tho, ------------------'s contribution cannot be examined without inclusion of his partner,...................
Yeah, I knew a guy who said he was speeding slightly at the time of an accident, it was when he hit me. He claims he was going slightly over the posted 30 miles per hour. After the accident, the driver's seat was located in the back seat, and although I had my seat belt on I was not located in either the driver's seat or the place it used to be.
Hate to say this, but you're part of the problem they're trying to solve. You're the argument for supporting this.
It was an equally daunting task to provide universal phone system coverage to those people in Montana and the mountains of Washington State in the mid-20th century.
Looking at the revenue from one network drop at a Paradise, WA vs. the cost is the wrong way. That's why the FCC forced the phone company to install one there, and recover it's cost via a fee that was charged to all businesses for phone usage (and I think, probably still is).
The same thing could be applied here, if the FCC could get its nose out of Howard Stern's butt for a moment and concentrate on what they should be doing, providing universal broadband.
Yes, you can reduce the amount of static electricity you generate if you turn off your heart. Since that's not easy to do if you don't have a pacemaker, they're starting with the low hanging fruit.
There's already a database of plantifs, you can access it anytime you want without a membership or paying any fees: it's called YOUR LOCAL COURT CLERK'S OFFICE.
Hello??? McFly??? Court records are public documents.
Actually, in this case it's not about cash OR how much money investors will provide. Comcast is simply bigger than Disney, they are offering 0.78 CCZ share per DIS share. Even at that fraction, it represents a fairly significant premium to DIS closing yesterday. If it flies, post-merger DIS shareholders would end up with approx. 20% fewer shares of CCZ than they had of DIS to start with, but worth approx. 20% more than their holdings were worth when it was announced.
In fact, that's probably why DIS (or at least Eisner) turned them down... no cash, no deal.
My comment was going to be: "The question is not, can computer power replace the human brain by year 20XX, but will the people who pay for services and products be willing to buy from these systems?" I think you summed it up pretty well though.
So what? When was that? How did the provider bill it? What bearing does a service that you apparently purchased years ago have on a service that is being sold today?
And, how does it matter that 128k would be "OK" for a household?
Aren't there scores of websites dedicated to uncovering up-to-the-minute pricing blunders, for people to take advanatge of? Is this really the remit of Slashdot?
Slashdot Mirror
Another point to remember while everyone is flagrantly throwing around "1918" as a point of reference:
- World War I fighting was just about wrapping up in 1918.
- World War I was the first war in which biochemical warfare was utilized
- World War I was the first war in which trench warfare was utilized
( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WW_I )
So let's put these together:
In 1918, a whole lot of men who had been exposed to (a) chemicals intended to reduce the efficiency of their immune systems, (b) dead people (lots of them), and (c) all manner of vile and vermin in trenches, began moving out of their trenches and onto airplanes and trains and boats back home.
Oh, yeah, and before you start comparing Iraq the the War To End All Wars, don't.
So let's put "1918" into a little bit of perspective before we start spouting off about how much worse things will be than "1918" when the next pandemic hits.
That's absolutely correct. If someone first approached me claiming that I was infringing on their IP, and then subsequently asked me to "sign over" the rights to the IP in question, I would walk away from those talks immediately, and only come back to talk to them with a decent IP lawyer.
I feel sorry for the guy, just like I feel sorry for people who walk in front of moving busses. It's still their own damn fault.
"For instance, if a fan wishes to tape a Baseball game on his VCR, the VCR would re-encode the content of that game and convert it into a digital form, which would then be filled with right restrictions and so forth. "
Maybe I'm missing something, but in order for this to work, wouldn't all of our existing VCRs have to be replaced? And retailers don't really even sell standard VCRs anymore because of DVDs... so the retailers are effectively killing the market now for any new DRM-enabled VCR that might come on the market later.
This isn't about the EULA, or education in America selling out, yadda-yadda-yadda. What a bunch of hooey. This is about shaving the publishing cost off of a book and still earning the part of a normal book's sale price that goes to the publisher/editor/author/benefactor.
Those who will use this are students who need a book for a class, who don't care about the subject or ever plan on referring to the text again after class is over, and want to save some money over printed costs. What does he or she care if the book expires in 150 days? Who cares that he can't print a full copy out? If he/she wanted a full printed copy, they'd just buy one!
The only competitor to this sort of deal is book sell-back, where that's offered. Then, you can maybe get a percentage (but never ALL) of the original price back. In that scenario, you end up with nothing left over (but the knowlege of course) too, so what's the BFD?
Well we are talking about Eben Moglen after all, he has been donating his time to the Free Software Foundation for years. It's not that big of a surprise.
You want that house in Cherry or Beefsteak red? ;-)
Why are you asking Slashdot? :) Yeah, I can afford the karma.
Actually, this is exactly the roll of a federal government, and something that should have been done long before 9/11. Currently there is no standardization of drivers licenses nationally, even though someone can use a drivers license from one state to prove their identity in another state. States with tougher identification laws lose when states with lax ID requirements (like my very own Illinois) will issue a license to anyone with a piece of mail with their name on it.
I used to do this. It started with my in-laws, which I really don't mind because they respect my time and opinions. But then their friends would start calling me, asking for advise about this-or-that, using or ignoring the advise as their pocketbooks felt most appropriate, then calling me to fix it when it didn't work.
So one day I was talking to my in-laws and mentioned that many of their friends were calling me regularly about computer problems, and my in-laws, who were flabbergasted that their friends were taking advantage of me, offered me the best advise I ever heard: Take the highest number I could possibly find for onsite tech support, and send them a bill for 20% more. Bill incrementally by the hour, even for 3 minutes. Get the absolute top dollar I could get from them.
Within weeks, they had stopped calling me and my free time was my own again.
(And, oh yeah, they all paid up too.)
You're putting too much into this. I have one of those club cards. When I go to buy a box of condoms, three tubes of KY jelly, 50 feet of rope and a jar of Smuckers (TM) strawberry jam, I just give them my next door neighbor's phone number.
Here's a supposedly true story I heard in some class years ago - probably dynamics or physics or organic or something...
A physics teacher gives each student a barometer, and tells them that using only the barometer and brief visits to the town's tallest building, they have to determine the height of the building. Grades would be awarded based on the most creative solution.
One student started at the top, took a reading, moved to the ground floor, took a reading, and then based on that information and the barometric pressure that day, determined the approximate height of the building.
Other students basically copied the first, although with different variations (bottom to top, etc)
The student who received the only A? He went to the basement. Found the building engineer's office. Knocked on the door. Told the guy who answered, "I have a fine barometer. If you tell me exactly how tall this building is, it's yours."
I stopped using personal email some time ago.
My friends now call me again.
My family now write me letters again.
We found we don't need instant, 24X7 communication. What were we thinking in 1995????
The only place I use email is at work, and they have a pretty effective SPAM filter, plus I don't post my work email address anywhere, ever. I get maybe 1 spam a week on average, and it's usually "legitimate" spam.
> ------------------
...................
The inventor of Morse Code, of course! Naturally tho, ------------------'s contribution cannot be examined without inclusion of his partner,
Yeah, I knew a guy who said he was speeding slightly at the time of an accident, it was when he hit me. He claims he was going slightly over the posted 30 miles per hour. After the accident, the driver's seat was located in the back seat, and although I had my seat belt on I was not located in either the driver's seat or the place it used to be.
Hate to say this, but you're part of the problem they're trying to solve. You're the argument for supporting this.
It was an equally daunting task to provide universal phone system coverage to those people in Montana and the mountains of Washington State in the mid-20th century.
Looking at the revenue from one network drop at a Paradise, WA vs. the cost is the wrong way. That's why the FCC forced the phone company to install one there, and recover it's cost via a fee that was charged to all businesses for phone usage (and I think, probably still is).
The same thing could be applied here, if the FCC could get its nose out of Howard Stern's butt for a moment and concentrate on what they should be doing, providing universal broadband.
Yes, you can reduce the amount of static electricity you generate if you turn off your heart. Since that's not easy to do if you don't have a pacemaker, they're starting with the low hanging fruit.
What about if:
- I have a legal copy of an album
- That copy is not in a format that can be easily ripped (i.e. cassette tape, records)
Do I not have a fair use right to have an electronic copy of that album? And, should it matter where that electronic copy comes from?
"Arugula. It's a vegetable."
There's already a database of plantifs, you can access it anytime you want without a membership or paying any fees: it's called YOUR LOCAL COURT CLERK'S OFFICE.
Hello??? McFly??? Court records are public documents.
Actually, in this case it's not about cash OR how much money investors will provide. Comcast is simply bigger than Disney, they are offering 0.78 CCZ share per DIS share. Even at that fraction, it represents a fairly significant premium to DIS closing yesterday. If it flies, post-merger DIS shareholders would end up with approx. 20% fewer shares of CCZ than they had of DIS to start with, but worth approx. 20% more than their holdings were worth when it was announced.
In fact, that's probably why DIS (or at least Eisner) turned them down... no cash, no deal.
You gotta be kidding me. I was going to suggest that it must be some nuts; clearly we don't have anybody like that running around the world right now.
My comment was going to be: "The question is not, can computer power replace the human brain by year 20XX, but will the people who pay for services and products be willing to buy from these systems?" I think you summed it up pretty well though.
This article which, based on the discussion content was clearly authored in 1999, only just now got posted on /. What happened?
>My first cable modem was only 256k
So what? When was that? How did the provider bill it? What bearing does a service that you apparently purchased years ago have on a service that is being sold today?
And, how does it matter that 128k would be "OK" for a household?
Aren't there scores of websites dedicated to uncovering up-to-the-minute pricing blunders, for people to take advanatge of? Is this really the remit of Slashdot?