i don't know what so many people are complaining about. i think the Simpsons is hilarious today just as it was in the past. for one, i'm totally glad they stopped having stupid plots that revolved around Bart, and concentrated instead on the whole family and the whole town.
also, let me note that the characters get into implausable situations BECAUSE IT IS A CARTOON. if they were shooting for realism, IT WOULDN'T NEED TO BE A CARTOON.
yo, two days ago i might have thought you were kidding. but last nite i was talking with my girlfriend and i was saying how i'm baffled about the choices people make about computers and software: if people hate popups, why the hell do they use the *only* browser which supports them? if people hate Word, why the hell don't they use one of the many full-features alternatives? she responded by saying well maybe people just don't know there are superior products out there, and gave Macintosh as her example: she said that before she started dating me, she had no idea that Macs were "supposed to be easier to use than PCs". i was shocked. i seriously thought that everyone knew that, but chose to buy PCs anyway.
it makes me think i could earn a million dollars with a simple ad in the paper: "Hey. Do popups annoy you when you surf the web? Well they don't annoy me because I never ever see them. For $250 I will come to your house and set up your computer so that you never see another popup in your life!"
isn't this a dupe? oh wait no, it's just another bug. i've only been reading slashdot for three or four years, but really -- couldn't we just have a "Today's Microsoft Vulnerability" slashbox or something?
Dear PC User: We're sure you already know this, but WINDOWS ISN'T SECURE. If you want a secure OS, choose a different on. Thank you.
i disagree. let's look at a dictionary definition: (ignore def. 5) "Something used in the performance of an operation; an instrument". i interpret Google as something which can be used in the performance of an operation (the operation could be, say, Finding a Certain Webpage). you may interpret it differently.
in that case, i would point out that it is easier to get the exact same menu from the right mouse button (if Mac had one) than to look around your screen, find the gear, navigate to it, and click it.
tell me about it. yo i just installed Yellow Dog on an old mac, and when i booted up all the KDE noises were going off all the time, on full volume. so naturally i did what Mac (and Windows I guess) has taught me to do: i went to the control panel application and tried to find where to turn down the volume -- but i never found it. a friend of mine taught me to use aumix on the command line -- but jesus, how hard should it be to change the volume? i still haven't found the volume control in Yellow Dog KDE.
oh, i couldn't find the settings to TURN OFF those noises either.
I'm a Java programmer. I develop using Xcode (ProjectBuilder) on my 15 inch TiBook. It's 1 GHz, 512 megs RAM. The application I write is not large so compile times are not a problem for me, but I can tell you that I am very happy dev'ing Java on 10.3. I imagine a 1.33 GHz machine would compile your bigger application with reasonable speed.
does this mean that mikerowesoft.com will now redirect to microsoft.com? i guess we'll see.
and if they happen to let the domain registration slip in a couple years, would i still be liable to registering it at that point? i mean, that would be them not protecting their trademark, right? which puts it up for grabs.
i definitely read a summary of the mission which stated that all the major systems on the rover had redundant parts, so i don't know what the problem with the memory is. in any case, NASA has always put backups of important parts into its spacecraft, and they have often been needed when primary units failed.
man that's so true. when i was a in college, a computer science major, i got a word doc from the department head's secretary or something. it was in an email to all CS majors, and the email stated that the contents of the document were TOTALLY URGENT for us all. lots of exclamation points. i responded by asking for any open format -- i generally suggested RTF, since word does well with RTF -- but i didn't even get a *response* from the lady much less a new document. i guess it wasn't so urgent; i graduated no problem.
Yo, at first I was going to respond with "why do you think Congress can't change the law? Courts can only interpret law (theoretically), not make it." But then I followed your link to findlaw and read this:
Article I, 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution mandates originality as a prerequisite for copyright protection. The constitutional requirement necessitates independent creation plus a modicum of creativity. Since facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship, they are not original, and thus are not copyrightable. Although a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality because the author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively, copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author, not to the facts themselves. This fact/expression dichotomy severely limits the scope of protection in fact-based works.
Quoth the Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
The court must have interpreted "author" to encompass originality (because originality is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution here). In accordance with Feist, simply compiling the facts into a database does not constitute "authorship", thus does not constitute "originality", thus is not copyrightable.
So, code dude, I guess I agree with you, and with the courts. Hopefully this bill will never pass, but even if it does there seems to be a ready constitutional challenge.
well i think the thing to do is to come up with a database which holds pretty much every fact that can be come across. put that database in the hands of the FSF, then have them sue a few high-profile people. if the FSF (for example) sued a couple congressmen for (for example) dialing a phone number or (for example) going to a webpage, then the law might "change back" pretty quck (which of course would be the whole point).
i imagine something like this: "your honor, we alledge that the defendant, Ms. Congresswoman, used what she called an 'address book' to keep lists of her friends and their contact information, which is in clear infringement of our database of phone numbers and addresses".
hell. just have CmdrTaco copyright the database which drives Everything2 and suddenly he'd be king of the world!
question: would the DNS databases be copyrightable? imagine the royalties that could be charged for the right to mirror the information which drives the entire internet.
i think there should be some kind of pool on when Longhorn will actually be released. check this -- 2004 doesn't need to be the year for the linux desktop, nor does 2005: we have until at LEAST 2006, right? and that's IF ms can actually release it on time -- extremely unlikely if history is an indicator.
maybe a slashdot poll is on order. heh. "When will Longhorn be released" "early 2006" "late 2006" "early 2007" "late 2007" "never" "same time as Duke Nukem Forever" "when the Cow(boy Neal)s come home"
they're john doe lawsuits. they're filed against a legal entity, a person, but the name of the person is unknown. now that there is a lawsuit the court can compel the discovery of the identity of the individual from, for instance, ISPs.
Slashdot Mirror
oh man that's funny
i don't know what so many people are complaining about. i think the Simpsons is hilarious today just as it was in the past. for one, i'm totally glad they stopped having stupid plots that revolved around Bart, and concentrated instead on the whole family and the whole town.
also, let me note that the characters get into implausable situations BECAUSE IT IS A CARTOON. if they were shooting for realism, IT WOULDN'T NEED TO BE A CARTOON.
i'm just sayin'.
yo, two days ago i might have thought you were kidding. but last nite i was talking with my girlfriend and i was saying how i'm baffled about the choices people make about computers and software: if people hate popups, why the hell do they use the *only* browser which supports them? if people hate Word, why the hell don't they use one of the many full-features alternatives? she responded by saying well maybe people just don't know there are superior products out there, and gave Macintosh as her example: she said that before she started dating me, she had no idea that Macs were "supposed to be easier to use than PCs". i was shocked. i seriously thought that everyone knew that, but chose to buy PCs anyway.
it makes me think i could earn a million dollars with a simple ad in the paper: "Hey. Do popups annoy you when you surf the web? Well they don't annoy me because I never ever see them. For $250 I will come to your house and set up your computer so that you never see another popup in your life!"
step two: profit!
he didn't say anything about the coders at MS, only about MS as an entity -- which to me means the upper management.
isn't this a dupe? oh wait no, it's just another bug. i've only been reading slashdot for three or four years, but really -- couldn't we just have a "Today's Microsoft Vulnerability" slashbox or something?
Dear PC User: We're sure you already know this, but WINDOWS ISN'T SECURE. If you want a secure OS, choose a different on. Thank you.
i disagree. let's look at a dictionary definition: (ignore def. 5) "Something used in the performance of an operation; an instrument". i interpret Google as something which can be used in the performance of an operation (the operation could be, say, Finding a Certain Webpage). you may interpret it differently.
in that case, i would point out that it is easier to get the exact same menu from the right mouse button (if Mac had one) than to look around your screen, find the gear, navigate to it, and click it.
i don't know, man. mine come out as pdfs. for sure.
dude, the "gear" button? yo i'm a mac user myself, but are you talking about keyboard shortcuts? i'm pretty sure Linux has keyboard shortcuts.
tell me about it. yo i just installed Yellow Dog on an old mac, and when i booted up all the KDE noises were going off all the time, on full volume. so naturally i did what Mac (and Windows I guess) has taught me to do: i went to the control panel application and tried to find where to turn down the volume -- but i never found it. a friend of mine taught me to use aumix on the command line -- but jesus, how hard should it be to change the volume? i still haven't found the volume control in Yellow Dog KDE.
oh, i couldn't find the settings to TURN OFF those noises either.
I'm a Java programmer. I develop using Xcode (ProjectBuilder) on my 15 inch TiBook. It's 1 GHz, 512 megs RAM. The application I write is not large so compile times are not a problem for me, but I can tell you that I am very happy dev'ing Java on 10.3. I imagine a 1.33 GHz machine would compile your bigger application with reasonable speed.
peace
parent is a reference to an Aerosmith song.
does this mean that mikerowesoft.com will now redirect to microsoft.com? i guess we'll see.
and if they happen to let the domain registration slip in a couple years, would i still be liable to registering it at that point? i mean, that would be them not protecting their trademark, right? which puts it up for grabs.
hmmm.
i definitely read a summary of the mission which stated that all the major systems on the rover had redundant parts, so i don't know what the problem with the memory is. in any case, NASA has always put backups of important parts into its spacecraft, and they have often been needed when primary units failed.
damn right.
man that's so true. when i was a in college, a computer science major, i got a word doc from the department head's secretary or something. it was in an email to all CS majors, and the email stated that the contents of the document were TOTALLY URGENT for us all. lots of exclamation points. i responded by asking for any open format -- i generally suggested RTF, since word does well with RTF -- but i didn't even get a *response* from the lady much less a new document. i guess it wasn't so urgent; i graduated no problem.
rta. the patents are on methods to interpret the xml.
i got an invite. pfffft! ;-)
Yo, at first I was going to respond with "why do you think Congress can't change the law? Courts can only interpret law (theoretically), not make it." But then I followed your link to findlaw and read this:
Article I, 8, cl. 8, of the Constitution mandates originality as a prerequisite for copyright protection. The constitutional requirement necessitates independent creation plus a modicum of creativity. Since facts do not owe their origin to an act of authorship, they are not original, and thus are not copyrightable. Although a compilation of facts may possess the requisite originality because the author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the data so that readers may use them effectively, copyright protection extends only to those components of the work that are original to the author, not to the facts themselves. This fact/expression dichotomy severely limits the scope of protection in fact-based works.
Quoth the Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
The court must have interpreted "author" to encompass originality (because originality is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution here). In accordance with Feist, simply compiling the facts into a database does not constitute "authorship", thus does not constitute "originality", thus is not copyrightable.
So, code dude, I guess I agree with you, and with the courts. Hopefully this bill will never pass, but even if it does there seems to be a ready constitutional challenge.
you shouldn't be able to copyright a fact, no matter what.
well i think the thing to do is to come up with a database which holds pretty much every fact that can be come across. put that database in the hands of the FSF, then have them sue a few high-profile people. if the FSF (for example) sued a couple congressmen for (for example) dialing a phone number or (for example) going to a webpage, then the law might "change back" pretty quck (which of course would be the whole point).
i imagine something like this: "your honor, we alledge that the defendant, Ms. Congresswoman, used what she called an 'address book' to keep lists of her friends and their contact information, which is in clear infringement of our database of phone numbers and addresses".
hell. just have CmdrTaco copyright the database which drives Everything2 and suddenly he'd be king of the world!
question: would the DNS databases be copyrightable? imagine the royalties that could be charged for the right to mirror the information which drives the entire internet.
off topic:
i think there should be some kind of pool on when Longhorn will actually be released. check this -- 2004 doesn't need to be the year for the linux desktop, nor does 2005: we have until at LEAST 2006, right? and that's IF ms can actually release it on time -- extremely unlikely if history is an indicator.
maybe a slashdot poll is on order. heh. "When will Longhorn be released" "early 2006" "late 2006" "early 2007" "late 2007" "never" "same time as Duke Nukem Forever" "when the Cow(boy Neal)s come home"
Their, not there; nor they're.
more likely this student got a call from his boss, who got a call from the college lawyers, who got a letter from the recording industry.
they're john doe lawsuits. they're filed against a legal entity, a person, but the name of the person is unknown. now that there is a lawsuit the court can compel the discovery of the identity of the individual from, for instance, ISPs.