China isn't exactly unified. The cities are, but much of the country is still rural - small villages, far from central government, where the law is a distant force and the local officials can easily look the other way.
Linux has its own issues. It's a lot better than it used to be, certainly - but it suffers in a manner from great diversity. One Windows or OSX computer is almost exactly like any other - you don't have to worry about not having the correct versions of many different libraries, or system files not being in the same place on every distro. So long as you stick to the distro's own store or repository, all is well - venture outside, and trouble looms.
I think they mean business innovation, not technological. The ability to lock down hardware such that the manufacturer still retains control even after sale does enable a number of successful new business models. If the user can buy the hardware and do as they please, businesses are largely confined to the basic method of trying to sell equipment for more than it cost to manufacture.
You're right there. The NET act makes copyright a criminal offence if done for profit, but defines that profit in such a broad manner that almost anything qualifies.
I watched the movie having never heard of these claims. I didn't notice anything with the trade federation, but the other two are as blatant a caricature of an ethnicity as you can get. You can't miss them.
Short version: In certain circumstances, rarely encountered on modern operating systems but once frustratingly common, pressing backspace would not be recognised and instead give you a ^H symbol. Worse, under very specific circumstances the backspace might be recognised by the OS (erasing a character on screen) but passed as ^H to the application - from the user's perspective, all works, but really their typoes and erased sentences are getting recorded as part of whatever document they are writing.
I have encountered it myself only once, when connected via serial terminal with the wrong termtype set. Back when serial terminals were common this was a very easy mistake to make, but serial terminals today are confined only to hardware configuration ports and occasionally access-of-last-resort on servers.
How do you know that? A good manager is indistinguishable from the real thing, except for never saying anything offensive, legally dubious, or that could be seen as endorsing a product. Something no sensible celebrity would do. The only way I can imagine to know with any degree of reliability that a celebrity account is real and not filtered by their PR agent would be if they said something so monumentally stupid that no PR agency could possibly allow it - and I'm talking 'Blame the jews for ruining the economy' or 'If this law passes, I'm going to haul my gun to Washington and shoot Obama' level of dumb.
Even according to the NET act, copyright infringement isn't theft. The term has just been misapplied to copyright infringement so many times that it has become - quite intentionally - a recognised label in common use even if not legally accurate.
The US copyright industry cannot stand for this - even if the damage is actually minimal, it'll further establish a culture of infringement that could destroy them in the long term. The obvious solution is for them to make another attempt at SOPA, this time by utilising their weasel powers to the fullest - expect it to be passed as a rider on an unrelated act, or introduced on a day when most of congress is busy with other matters. Then they can simply block the site at the border.
This whole thing might be just a bargining ploy, though. The US government owes them money, but has no incentive to pay, and doing so would be quite embarassing for a number of politicians who run with 'internet gambling ruins families' as part of their platform. Now Antigua has an 'or else' they can use to demand what they are owed.
I considered that too. But that isn't fair - such a fine would be far more serious for a low-margin high-volume company than a high-margin low-volume company.
If you can make something that passes as a dinosaur, you'll inspire a lot of public interest. Funding follows. Dinosaurs are just cool. A mammoth might work if a bit less well, but no-one would really care about the tasmanian tiger.
You'd just see similar issues with manipulating the numbers. Easy enough for a corporate giant to simply contract out most operations to smaller 'independant' companies for a token fee, acting as essentially subdivisions but with a clear legal distinction. Thus the fine would be applied only to a very small sub-company, rather than the giant owner.
I used to think it'd be a good idea to define all fines not in absolutes, but percentages of income (individuals) or profits (corporations). Then I realised that many mega-corps don't actually have much in the way of profits on paper, for tax purposes.
When you strip the world of comforting delusions, nihilism is all you have left. I imagine a lot of activists remain so dedicated so they can avoid having to give up the last thing that gives their life any form of meaning. They fight because the alternative is to admit that in a long term view, they are nothing.
NTFS on linux was created through many years of hard work reverse engineering the filesystem from no documentation - what little MS had published was only available under licenses that would render it useless for open-source development. That it works at all is impressive, that it works so well is a small miracle. Even now, NTFS support in linux has to be via the NTFS-3G userspace filesystem - full support was never included in the kernel itsself, only read-only access. That may well be the future of linux and exFAT: It works, but exists in a legal grey area where MS could unleash the lawyers on a whim and requires untidy hacks to get around legal problems.
The courts do not have that power. Maybe - maybe - in a full antitrust case, but the last time MS was involved in one of those... well, United States v Microsoft was filed in 1998, and concluded in 2002. Four years, and it only finished because MS settled it on terms quite favorable to themselves. Legislative action could do it, but good luck out-lobbying microsoft, not to mention all the economic conservatives screaming about how the commies are trying to steal the hard work of a good American company.
Standardise all you want. You should know what'll happen. Windows will not support it out the box, and if Windows doesn't support it, that filesystem is effectively dead. Who is going to want a USB stick formatted so it won't work on the operating system running on upwards of ninety percent of desktops and laptops?
Supply and demand does meet the public need. What I meant is that it doesn't depend on altuism. No manufacturer needs to think 'There's a hammer shortage, I'd better make some more before we have a crisis on our hands.' All the manufacturer does is seek to maximise their own profit, entirely selfishly and greedily. They don't care about the public good - but the laws of supply and demand serve to focus them indirectly into providing the goods and services society needs, because that is where the money is to be made.
There are some things which subvert this model effectively, though. Advertising, for example, is able to effectively convince people to buy products they don't need or even really want.
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China isn't exactly unified. The cities are, but much of the country is still rural - small villages, far from central government, where the law is a distant force and the local officials can easily look the other way.
Linux has its own issues. It's a lot better than it used to be, certainly - but it suffers in a manner from great diversity. One Windows or OSX computer is almost exactly like any other - you don't have to worry about not having the correct versions of many different libraries, or system files not being in the same place on every distro. So long as you stick to the distro's own store or repository, all is well - venture outside, and trouble looms.
I think they mean business innovation, not technological. The ability to lock down hardware such that the manufacturer still retains control even after sale does enable a number of successful new business models. If the user can buy the hardware and do as they please, businesses are largely confined to the basic method of trying to sell equipment for more than it cost to manufacture.
You're right there. The NET act makes copyright a criminal offence if done for profit, but defines that profit in such a broad manner that almost anything qualifies.
The classic offshore subsiduary. Good for all manner of legal evasions, as well as legitimate business purposes.
I watched the movie having never heard of these claims. I didn't notice anything with the trade federation, but the other two are as blatant a caricature of an ethnicity as you can get. You can't miss them.
At six seconds, you could fit the whole video into one GOP.
Short version: In certain circumstances, rarely encountered on modern operating systems but once frustratingly common, pressing backspace would not be recognised and instead give you a ^H symbol. Worse, under very specific circumstances the backspace might be recognised by the OS (erasing a character on screen) but passed as ^H to the application - from the user's perspective, all works, but really their typoes and erased sentences are getting recorded as part of whatever document they are writing.
I have encountered it myself only once, when connected via serial terminal with the wrong termtype set. Back when serial terminals were common this was a very easy mistake to make, but serial terminals today are confined only to hardware configuration ports and occasionally access-of-last-resort on servers.
How do you know that? A good manager is indistinguishable from the real thing, except for never saying anything offensive, legally dubious, or that could be seen as endorsing a product. Something no sensible celebrity would do. The only way I can imagine to know with any degree of reliability that a celebrity account is real and not filtered by their PR agent would be if they said something so monumentally stupid that no PR agency could possibly allow it - and I'm talking 'Blame the jews for ruining the economy' or 'If this law passes, I'm going to haul my gun to Washington and shoot Obama' level of dumb.
Government-authorized piracy. Can we just stretch the language a little further and call it privateering?
Even according to the NET act, copyright infringement isn't theft. The term has just been misapplied to copyright infringement so many times that it has become - quite intentionally - a recognised label in common use even if not legally accurate.
The US copyright industry cannot stand for this - even if the damage is actually minimal, it'll further establish a culture of infringement that could destroy them in the long term. The obvious solution is for them to make another attempt at SOPA, this time by utilising their weasel powers to the fullest - expect it to be passed as a rider on an unrelated act, or introduced on a day when most of congress is busy with other matters. Then they can simply block the site at the border.
This whole thing might be just a bargining ploy, though. The US government owes them money, but has no incentive to pay, and doing so would be quite embarassing for a number of politicians who run with 'internet gambling ruins families' as part of their platform. Now Antigua has an 'or else' they can use to demand what they are owed.
I considered that too. But that isn't fair - such a fine would be far more serious for a low-margin high-volume company than a high-margin low-volume company.
If you can make something that passes as a dinosaur, you'll inspire a lot of public interest. Funding follows. Dinosaurs are just cool. A mammoth might work if a bit less well, but no-one would really care about the tasmanian tiger.
Should the raptors have feathers?
You'd just see similar issues with manipulating the numbers. Easy enough for a corporate giant to simply contract out most operations to smaller 'independant' companies for a token fee, acting as essentially subdivisions but with a clear legal distinction. Thus the fine would be applied only to a very small sub-company, rather than the giant owner.
I used to think it'd be a good idea to define all fines not in absolutes, but percentages of income (individuals) or profits (corporations). Then I realised that many mega-corps don't actually have much in the way of profits on paper, for tax purposes.
Furries are the greatest concentration of drama on the internet.
I can say that. See the name? I am one.
When you strip the world of comforting delusions, nihilism is all you have left. I imagine a lot of activists remain so dedicated so they can avoid having to give up the last thing that gives their life any form of meaning. They fight because the alternative is to admit that in a long term view, they are nothing.
Size. MicroSD is really the only option on phones and some other portable devices. Many tablets now are so thin there isn't even room for a USB port.
NTFS on linux was created through many years of hard work reverse engineering the filesystem from no documentation - what little MS had published was only available under licenses that would render it useless for open-source development. That it works at all is impressive, that it works so well is a small miracle. Even now, NTFS support in linux has to be via the NTFS-3G userspace filesystem - full support was never included in the kernel itsself, only read-only access. That may well be the future of linux and exFAT: It works, but exists in a legal grey area where MS could unleash the lawyers on a whim and requires untidy hacks to get around legal problems.
The courts do not have that power. Maybe - maybe - in a full antitrust case, but the last time MS was involved in one of those... well, United States v Microsoft was filed in 1998, and concluded in 2002. Four years, and it only finished because MS settled it on terms quite favorable to themselves. Legislative action could do it, but good luck out-lobbying microsoft, not to mention all the economic conservatives screaming about how the commies are trying to steal the hard work of a good American company.
First they'll give enough time for it to get established to the point of being considered an essential for any functional desktop.
*Then* they'll start suing.
Standardise all you want. You should know what'll happen. Windows will not support it out the box, and if Windows doesn't support it, that filesystem is effectively dead. Who is going to want a USB stick formatted so it won't work on the operating system running on upwards of ninety percent of desktops and laptops?
Supply and demand does meet the public need. What I meant is that it doesn't depend on altuism. No manufacturer needs to think 'There's a hammer shortage, I'd better make some more before we have a crisis on our hands.' All the manufacturer does is seek to maximise their own profit, entirely selfishly and greedily. They don't care about the public good - but the laws of supply and demand serve to focus them indirectly into providing the goods and services society needs, because that is where the money is to be made.
There are some things which subvert this model effectively, though. Advertising, for example, is able to effectively convince people to buy products they don't need or even really want.