Nobody minds the governmentt paying for roads... I think it would be a Good Thing for state funded fibre-to-the-premises. Then, private companies can install their equipment at an exchange to provide the connectivity the customer wants.
Aside from that, there are 2 parts to what google is doing.
1. Google print. This is opt-in for works still in copyright, and there's nothing the publishers can do for out-of-copyright. This is where they show the whole page containing the search result + 2 pages either side. You can only look at a certain fraction of the book before it stops you (even if you do a subsequent search). The viewing restrictions only apply for in-copyright workds.
2. Google library. This is opt-out for still-in-copyright works. This only shows the line containing the search result (+/- a line or two). If a publisher wants to show the whole page, they can sign up for full google-print. Google's legal advice says this should be covered by fair-use.
Nuclear (fission) is a fossil fuel too. As far as I know, there's only a few hundred year's worth of Uranium to mine, and then we're in exactly the same position again.
I can also imagine that the sparseness of the number of IPv6 addresses that point to hosts will be a security benefit: it will make worm propagation a lot harder.
WoS (or Web of Knowledge, as it is now), so soooooo slooooooow. It takes minutes to search for something (if you include the time taken to log in, select which databases to search, etc). Google scholar takes fractions of a second, plus it searches the full text.
If I want to find a referenced article, I can just type in the citation (eg. science 287, 2237 (2000)), and it will find it. Far quicker than finding the journal website, then typing in the volume and page reference.
The network effect for Windows PCs is that people use Windows at work, so that is what they're used to. Therefore, they buy a Windows PC for home use too.
The peaks an troughs in the data are because the sample rate is wrong. It should be every 6 minutes, not every 5 minutes. This gives 2 samples too many per hour, hence the half-hourly occurrence of 0 songs being sold in that time interval...
If the customer wants to keep using the same IP addresses, they need a NAT router which translates them to their assigned external addresses when the IP packets leave their network.
Your assumption about the nature of pedestrian motion that caused the bridge wobble is incorrect:
They did take into account pedestrian movement on the bridge; they didnt take into account pedestrian motion on the bridge locking in to the motion of the bridge:
1) Pedestrians walk on bridge 2) Bridge wobbles slightly 3) Pedestrians adjust their walking to be in phase with bridge 4) Bridge wobbles more
This was a new phenomenon, due to the lightness of the construction of the bridge. It is now fixed, by the addition of dampers.
Totally agree. Anyone can write their own SmartTags, so what's to stop you getting the ones you want from your favourite search engine/ shop/ whatever and using them. I just hope that you can use 3rd party ones AND turn off the MS ones...
I think it would be awesome if the browser cross-referenced the words with a directory project like dmoz.
From the article:
Microsoft also says that other companies, besides itself, will be able to create and distribute add-ons for the browser that will launch their own Smart Tags all over the Web, directing users to their sites.
It sounds to me that it's more like their explorer bars, except that it's more closely linked to the content of the page. What's the problem? You can turn it off, and you can add ones that you do want... dmoz...google...whatever.
Well, if we want to have the "standard" language be "Chinese", you'll first have to decide which one you want.
China has 7 main dialects, according to my Chinese language class teacher. People in Shanghai speak a language that can almost be considered completely different than the one in Beijing. They use the same characters for writing, but use them to mean different things. At the very least, you have Mandarin and Cantonese.
Yeah, they speak in different dialects, but the characters mean the same thing... So someone in shanghai can read a beijing newspaper, and understand it...
...artists to profit. (Which they don't anyway...the profits accrue to the parasitic recording labels.)
Are these the same record labels which take a risk in deciding to sign a band, not knowing if the money they've payed out in recording, promotion, etc will be returned?
The purpose of copyright is to promote progress in the arts and sciences, not to allow artists to profit.
It promotes progress because the artists can make a profit from it! If, as a musician, you didn't earn enough to live from making music, would you still do it as much? Would you have time to, while doing your day-job?
In the presence of easy copying, copying restrictions no longer server to promote such progress.
Not sure I understand this, could you explain? If an artist doesn't make back the cost of producing their recorded work, how is this promoting progress?
Do you think it should be illegal for me to open up a gas station next to a popular Texaco because Texaco spent millions researching the location?
Of course not, unless you're getting the gas from the tanks under their gas station, without their permission. That's the closest parallel I can come up with - not sure how good it is...
Do you think that mathematical formulas should be patented simply because the researcher spent decades coming up with it?
Not sure about that one. For pure maths (ie. researched at a university) the researcher will be getting payed because of his hard work. I'm guessing a company researcher will also be suitably remonerated for their work! If the maths is done in someone's spare time it doesn't then take an expensive studio to make his research into something 'listenable' to!
As far as I know, there aren't many companies/ universities that pay for musicians to live while they record/ write their music - at least not outside classical music...
And, in addition, you never answered the question of whether I should be able to duplicate a hammer that I own. Doubtless the company that made the hammer spent R&D money building it, so should I be able to copy the hammer and give it away?
Dunno about that one... I think that's different because to do so, you would have to spend as much as the company did on raw materials and manufacturing equipment, plus you would have to reassure consumers that your product is as reliable, etc as the original. Are you really going to give this hammer away? With MP3s, there isn't this raw materials cost. I think that the hammer analogy is more similar to the copyright of the song (publishing) - if you were to record a cover version of my song, trying to sound as close to the original, then remarket it as your own song, that would be closer to the hammer thing.
Not entirely sure about whether the 'song' should be copyrightable and the design of the hammer shouldn't though...
"But, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it seems safe to assume that when somebody has taken positive action to run a filesharing service available to the world they meant for the public to be able to access it."
If people want to share their MP3s via SMB, why don't they call their share "SHARE_SNIFFER" or something similar, so that people KNOW that they have been given implicit permission to access that share.
At my uni, there's part of the computing rules that say we're not allowed to access a computer system unless we've been given explicit or implicit permission. Explicit permission being something like having an account on that computer, eg. my account on slashdot:
"explicit permission is the process of an authorising person allowing another person to use an IT facility for a defined period. It will normally involve the assignment of a username and password for the purpose in question."
Implicit permission is things like anon ftp, or computers in libraries, etc:
"Examples of implicit authorisation include IT facilities that are advertised by the University as being freely available, e.g. currently the library OPAC, or usernames on password-protected systems for which the password is openly published."
By naming your share "SHARE_SNIFFER" or whatever, people can take that as implicit authorisation. I don't think you can take the existence of an open SMB share as implicit authorisation because, as people have mentioned, it can be done without the sharer realising what they are doing.
This would be the equivalent of putting your bicycle out in front of your house with a sign saying "Free to a good home" or "feel free to take a spin on this".
Also, what right does someone else have to say what I can do with my own CDs?
You're confusing the CD (the bit of aluminium with a clear plastic coating) with the music that is recorded on it. Yes you can do what you like with the CD (use it as a coaster, frisbee, whatever). The music encoded on to the CD is a different matter. For instance, you're not allowed to broadcast that music (unless you have permission from the copyright holder).
Do you know how much time, effort and money it takes to record an album? About $500 dollars and hour for a pro studio, over a month or so... plus mastering, graphic design... Then there's the song writing: If you wrote a song which people wanted to listen to, and continued to want to listen to for the next 30 years, would you be a bit annoyed that someone else copied it and then made a fortune off doing that?
Napster is quite capable of making millions from 'just sitting on their arses'. Don't give me the arguement about the RIAA keeping people in unfair contracts - these people weren't forced to sign them! They could have signed to some independent label (and got less promotion, and possibly less money in the long run.)
...do you think any film or music company woould refrain from making CD or motion picture simply because they'd lose the rights in 20 years instead of 75? They make most of the money in the first couple of years anyway, and additional time is just a nice bonus in the rare cases where a work has lasting value.
In the UK, there are 3 (if not 4 - IANAL) different copyrights associated with the music on a CD:
mechanical copyright - This is the copyright of the actual, physical CD. Say a record label wanted to press a copy of my bands CD, they would have to pay the MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) a royalty, who in turn pass the money on to us (via our publishing company, in our case). As far as I know, the MCPS were set up to collect this money so that individual artists don't have to go round making sure that people pay them for copying their work.
Copyright in the sound recording - This deals with the songs in the form that they are recorded. So, if radio 1 (national 'pop' music radio station in the UK), plays our track 'saturday' on the radio, they (via the PRS) pay us money for doing so. This is part of the reason that radio 1 has 'sessions', where artist come in and record their material in the BBC's studios. The BBC will own the copyright in the sound recording for the session(because they payed for it - that's how the ownership works with this copyright). Also, if a different band records one of our songs, they (or their record company) owns their copyright in the sound recording. The royalties from this are collected by the PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited), 50% goes directly to the owner of the sound recording, the rest is split between the artists who recorded it.
song copyright - This is the copyright of the song (ie. the words and top line of tune). In theory you get money for each time your song is performed, but they actual mechanics are more complicated. The money venues, jukeboxes, etc pay in licensing as split between the people who's songs are played enough for the PRS (Performing Rights Society) to be bothered to count it.
I think that's all of them - I might well have got the details mixed up. It's quite a complicated area. Back to the original post...
You get money from your song: every time it's played on the radio/TV/jukebox, (in theory) every time someone else play/performs a version of it - including cover versions of the song. There have been cases where people have recorded cover versions of old (30 years) songs - sounding exactly like the original, and had quite big hits from them. Should someone make money from something you've written, with little or no effort on their part?
OK, here's the reason why things can't go faster than the speed of light.
Relativity (Special Relativity at least) is based on 2 postulates:
The laws of physics are the same in any inertial (ie. non-accelerating) frame of reference. This means that the laws of physics are the same on earth (technicall only without gravity) and if your on a (hypothetical) spaceship traveling at half the speed of light a million light-years away from earth.
There is a speed, which when you 'transform' from one frame of reference to annother, remains the same. 'Tranforming' your frame of reference is simply looking at what the other person would see.
For example: you're on a train, and your friend is next to the track as the train goes past. This is quite a fast train - it's going at half the speed of light. You shine a torch ahead of the train: The light coming out of the torch is going at the speed of light (from your point of view - your 'frame of reference') Your friend standing by the side of the track also sees the light coming out of the torch. From her point of view, it's also going at the speed of light. It looks like we have a problem here: She sees the train moving at half the speed of light, and the light moving at the speed of light - the light is going at half the speed of light relative to the train. You on the train however see the light moving away from you at the speed of light.
Paradox? No. Einstein showed that it is actually our concept of space and time that is wrong. From your perspective on the train, everything else (including your friend) is actually squashed up in the direction of the motion of the train - parallel to the tracks. So the light has gone 'further'. Your friend sees the train squashed up (parallel to the tracks) and that time has slowed down on the train.
All this is effectively saying is that where the light is at a particular motion is not disputed by either you or your friend, so there is paradox.
So that's relativity. All you need is a speed which is the same in all reference frames. It doesn't have to be anything to do with light at all. There isn't anything which forbids 'faster than light' travel.
There is a consequence though: If something is travelling faster than light in one frame of reference, there will we another frame of reference where it appears to be travelling backwards - it comes out of the end of the chamber before it's entered the other side.
This causes problems with causality. Things happen before they are caused to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody minds the governmentt paying for roads... I think it would be a Good Thing for state funded fibre-to-the-premises. Then, private companies can install their equipment at an exchange to provide the connectivity the customer wants.
Not quite. They're scanning all out-of-copyright works (principly the pre-1920 catalogue).
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/news/news58.htm
Aside from that, there are 2 parts to what google is doing.
1. Google print. This is opt-in for works still in copyright, and there's nothing the publishers can do for out-of-copyright. This is where they show the whole page containing the search result + 2 pages either side. You can only look at a certain fraction of the book before it stops you (even if you do a subsequent search). The viewing restrictions only apply for in-copyright workds.
2. Google library. This is opt-out for still-in-copyright works. This only shows the line containing the search result (+/- a line or two). If a publisher wants to show the whole page, they can sign up for full google-print. Google's legal advice says this should be covered by fair-use.
http://print.google.com/googleprint/screenshots.h
This would be a better link
http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat6928433.pdf
Nuclear (fission) is a fossil fuel too. As far as I know, there's only a few hundred year's worth of Uranium to mine, and then we're in exactly the same position again.
I can also imagine that the sparseness of the number of IPv6 addresses that point to hosts will be a security benefit: it will make worm propagation a lot harder.
WoS (or Web of Knowledge, as it is now), so soooooo slooooooow. It takes minutes to search for something (if you include the time taken to log in, select which databases to search, etc). Google scholar takes fractions of a second, plus it searches the full text.
If I want to find a referenced article, I can just type in the citation (eg. science 287, 2237 (2000)), and it will find it. Far quicker than finding the journal website, then typing in the volume and page reference.
No. A&E treatment has always been unrestricted.
The network effect for Windows PCs is that people use Windows at work, so that is what they're used to. Therefore, they buy a Windows PC for home use too.
An MP3 player doesn't have that network effect.
The peaks an troughs in the data are because the sample rate is wrong. It should be every 6 minutes, not every 5 minutes. This gives 2 samples too many per hour, hence the half-hourly occurrence of 0 songs being sold in that time interval...
If the customer wants to keep using the same IP addresses, they need a NAT router which translates them to their assigned external addresses when the IP packets leave their network.
They already do this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/broadband/info/bsp.shtml
(Even JANET, the universities' network, has one of their repeaters!)
Your assumption about the nature of pedestrian motion that caused the bridge wobble is incorrect:
They did take into account pedestrian movement on the bridge; they didnt take into account pedestrian motion on the bridge locking in to the motion of the bridge:
1) Pedestrians walk on bridge
2) Bridge wobbles slightly
3) Pedestrians adjust their walking to be in phase with bridge
4) Bridge wobbles more
This was a new phenomenon, due to the lightness of the construction of the bridge. It is now fixed, by the addition of dampers.
Totally agree. Anyone can write their own SmartTags, so what's to stop you getting the ones you want from your favourite search engine/ shop/ whatever and using them. I just hope that you can use 3rd party ones AND turn off the MS ones...
From the article:
It sounds to me that it's more like their explorer bars, except that it's more closely linked to the content of the page. What's the problem? You can turn it off, and you can add ones that you do want... dmoz...google...whatever.
Yeah, they speak in different dialects, but the characters mean the same thing... So someone in shanghai can read a beijing newspaper, and understand it...
Are these the same record labels which take a risk in deciding to sign a band, not knowing if the money they've payed out in recording, promotion, etc will be returned?
It promotes progress because the artists can make a profit from it! If, as a musician, you didn't earn enough to live from making music, would you still do it as much? Would you have time to, while doing your day-job?
Not sure I understand this, could you explain? If an artist doesn't make back the cost of producing their recorded work, how is this promoting progress?
Of course not, unless you're getting the gas from the tanks under their gas station, without their permission. That's the closest parallel I can come up with - not sure how good it is...
Not sure about that one. For pure maths (ie. researched at a university) the researcher will be getting payed because of his hard work. I'm guessing a company researcher will also be suitably remonerated for their work! If the maths is done in someone's spare time it doesn't then take an expensive studio to make his research into something 'listenable' to!As far as I know, there aren't many companies/ universities that pay for musicians to live while they record/ write their music - at least not outside classical music...
Dunno about that one... I think that's different because to do so, you would have to spend as much as the company did on raw materials and manufacturing equipment, plus you would have to reassure consumers that your product is as reliable, etc as the original. Are you really going to give this hammer away? With MP3s, there isn't this raw materials cost. I think that the hammer analogy is more similar to the copyright of the song (publishing) - if you were to record a cover version of my song, trying to sound as close to the original, then remarket it as your own song, that would be closer to the hammer thing.
Not entirely sure about whether the 'song' should be copyrightable and the design of the hammer shouldn't though...
If people want to share their MP3s via SMB, why don't they call their share "SHARE_SNIFFER" or something similar, so that people KNOW that they have been given implicit permission to access that share.
At my uni, there's part of the computing rules that say we're not allowed to access a computer system unless we've been given explicit or implicit permission. Explicit permission being something like having an account on that computer, eg. my account on slashdot:
Implicit permission is things like anon ftp, or computers in libraries, etc:
By naming your share "SHARE_SNIFFER" or whatever, people can take that as implicit authorisation. I don't think you can take the existence of an open SMB share as implicit authorisation because, as people have mentioned, it can be done without the sharer realising what they are doing.
This would be the equivalent of putting your bicycle out in front of your house with a sign saying "Free to a good home" or "feel free to take a spin on this".
Also, what right does someone else have to say what I can do with my own CDs?
You're confusing the CD (the bit of aluminium with a clear plastic coating) with the music that is recorded on it. Yes you can do what you like with the CD (use it as a coaster, frisbee, whatever). The music encoded on to the CD is a different matter. For instance, you're not allowed to broadcast that music (unless you have permission from the copyright holder).
Do you know how much time, effort and money it takes to record an album? About $500 dollars and hour for a pro studio, over a month or so... plus mastering, graphic design... Then there's the song writing: If you wrote a song which people wanted to listen to, and continued to want to listen to for the next 30 years, would you be a bit annoyed that someone else copied it and then made a fortune off doing that?
Napster is quite capable of making millions from 'just sitting on their arses'. Don't give me the arguement about the RIAA keeping people in unfair contracts - these people weren't forced to sign them! They could have signed to some independent label (and got less promotion, and possibly less money in the long run.)
In the UK, there are 3 (if not 4 - IANAL) different copyrights associated with the music on a CD:
I think that's all of them - I might well have got the details mixed up. It's quite a complicated area. Back to the original post...
You get money from your song: every time it's played on the radio/TV/jukebox, (in theory) every time someone else play/performs a version of it - including cover versions of the song. There have been cases where people have recorded cover versions of old (30 years) songs - sounding exactly like the original, and had quite big hits from them. Should someone make money from something you've written, with little or no effort on their part?
OK, here's the reason why things can't go faster than the speed of light.
Relativity (Special Relativity at least) is based on 2 postulates:
For example: you're on a train, and your friend is next to the track as the train goes past. This is quite a fast train - it's going at half the speed of light. You shine a torch ahead of the train: The light coming out of the torch is going at the speed of light (from your point of view - your 'frame of reference') Your friend standing by the side of the track also sees the light coming out of the torch. From her point of view, it's also going at the speed of light. It looks like we have a problem here: She sees the train moving at half the speed of light, and the light moving at the speed of light - the light is going at half the speed of light relative to the train. You on the train however see the light moving away from you at the speed of light.
Paradox? No. Einstein showed that it is actually our concept of space and time that is wrong. From your perspective on the train, everything else (including your friend) is actually squashed up in the direction of the motion of the train - parallel to the tracks. So the light has gone 'further'. Your friend sees the train squashed up (parallel to the tracks) and that time has slowed down on the train.
All this is effectively saying is that where the light is at a particular motion is not disputed by either you or your friend, so there is paradox.
So that's relativity. All you need is a speed which is the same in all reference frames. It doesn't have to be anything to do with light at all. There isn't anything which forbids 'faster than light' travel.
There is a consequence though: If something is travelling faster than light in one frame of reference, there will we another frame of reference where it appears to be travelling backwards - it comes out of the end of the chamber before it's entered the other side.
This causes problems with causality. Things happen before they are caused to happen.
BB.
PS. I'm studying physics at Oxford, England.