Or, worse, I post an image online. Someone grabs it, posts it to their Facebook account without attribution (no link back and perhaps any watermark cropped). Maybe they add some funny text to the image as well. Now, Person #2 likes that and reposts it to THEIR account with the "attribution" of "saw this online somewhere."
Company X sees this image and decides it'll be perfect for their ad campaign. They do a "search" for the author of the image. (Where "search" = "does ti say on the web page where it's from? No? Ok, we're good to go.") Then they use the image. I see the ad with my image, but am SOL because some other folks copied my image over and over to the point that any link back to me was destroyed. Thanks to this act, I have no grounds to sue.
Not being able to find the author of an image to ask for permission *IS* a valid problem online. The solution isn't to just declare those images "free for the taking" so long as you do a "search".
Also, since the act "fails to prohibit sub-licensing", Company X can - instead of using my image for an ad - sell MY image to Companies Y, Z, and Q for use in THEIR ads. Company X profits and I'm given zip.
However, use any of Company X's Intellectual Property without asking permission....
In a sane world, "a comprehensive review of copyright law" would lead to cutting copyright terms back drastically. Something on the order of 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year extension. This would take care of abandoned works (after 14 or 28 years they'd be public domain) and would enable us to simplify copyright law. A sane world would also set different penalties for "non-commercial infringement" (you shared that movie on a P2P network for free) and "commercial infringement" (you burned that movie to a few dozen DVD discs and sold them for $5 each).
Of course, I don't think we live in a sane world. Instead, I'm sure we'll see proposals helpfully "guided" by the content industry. Perhaps terms will be lengthened. Maybe penalties will rise. Perhaps more criminal penalties will be enacted and law enforcement will be forced to take a bigger role in arresting individuals whose crime was installing a P2P program that shared out music files on their computer. (Because, you know, law enforcement has nothing better to do than help the RIAA/MPAA enforce their business model.)
I *really* hope that sanity will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.
Actually, some libraries are renting electronic versions of books. My wife will take out Kindle books via our local library and the New York Public Library. (You just need to be a New York resident, no need to live in New York City to sign up.) It goes through Amazon.com and it has DRM, of course, but it's still electronic rentals. She also takes out audio books that she can play on an iPod or other device.
Haven't you listened to the They Might Be Giants album, Here Comes Science? The sun isn't a mass of incandescent gas. It's a miasma of incandescent plasma!
I've tried using my Android phone for dictating texts. It works nice overall if I talk slowly, but it is prone to random glitches. Like the time when I said "each" and it typed out "eat sh**" (yes, it used stars for the last 2 letters).
... especially with my voice activated dialing. A usual exchange:
Me: "Call Beth Mobile." Phone: "Call Meg?" Me: "No" Phone: "Call Karen?" Me. "No!" Phone: "Call Susan?" Me: "NO! Who are these people? I don't even know a Meg, Karen, or Susan!" Phone: "Try again." Me (speaking slowly and over-enunciating): "C-A-L-L B-E-T-H M-O-B-I-L-E." Phone: "Text Virginia?" Me: "AAARRGGGHHH!!!!" (Picks up phone, switches to recently dialed numbers, and clicks my wife's entry.)
"anaesthetic bullets"? I don't think there's any such thing. The police were pursuing them and they were (from the reports I've heard) firing back. At that point, the police needed to protect themselves (not to mention everyone in the area since they had tons more bombs). If the reports I've heard are accurate, then using deadly force was completely justified.
It will not only lock users out if they fail to log in a certain number of times (defined by you but default is 5), but it can remove the meta data that tells people which version of Wordpress you're running (nothing like saying "Hey, hackers, attack me in this manner"), can rename the "admin" account easily, prevent direct PHP script execution of plugins (which might break some plugins so use with caution) and even keeps a log of failed login attempts. I've had it running for a few months on a couple of my sites and noted over 7,000 login attempts. I noted a few of the worst offenders (one tried 135 times in about 2 months' time) and IP banned them. (NOTE: This isn't a function of Apocalypse Meow. I simply ran a mySQL query on the database table it uses for its log and then added entries to the site's CPanel to ban the IP addresses.) Definitely recommend this plugin for any WordPress users.
Thanks to this, I finally found a text-based game that I remember as a kid, but nobody else seemed to recall. It was a "game" called Abuse. You typed in insults to the computer and it insulted you back. I couldn't track it down (the term "abuse" is just too vague), but this Internet Archive link listed it. It even helped me find another site with screenshots.
Considering that chickens are the closest living relative to dinosaurs, I wouldn't be too surprised if they did. Of course, serving a Pterodactylus wing would mean placing a 2.5 foot wing on the table.
Seriously a tweet is 140 characters, that's not something they can just write in a second if and when it happens?
Or, at worst, have in a text file somewhere. How long would it take to go from "We just got word that North Korea fired missiles" to "Open Text File" to "Copy" to "Paste" and "Send Tweet"? Probably less time than it takes to realize your tweet went out accidentally and delete it.
Exactly. They could even do as Amazon did and customize the interface so it doesn't look like a normal Android device. But it's easier to just complain that Google is somehow locking them out of the market (by producing a much better OS ----- whisper this last part and hope people don't hear you).
The difference is that there was no way to get Windows without IE. In fact, Microsoft also worked to make sure that IE was not only included, but the default browser on all Windows PCs sold. (Effectively all PCs sold since this was before Apple's resurgence and before the rise of tablets/smartphones.) Getting Windows with Netscape Navigator as the default browser was next-to-impossible and getting it with NN instead of IE was completely impossible.
Android, on the other hand, doesn't require that you bundle Google's apps. You can make an Android device and include only the apps you decide to include. (Exhibit A: The Kindle Fire.) So Microsoft could, theoretically, release a MS-customized Android smartphone or tablet that links to a Microsoft Android App Store without any ad money going to Google. In fact, by doing so, they'd instantly tap into and profit from the Android application ecosystem. All without giving tons of money to Google.
All Microsoft is really complaining about is that Google's Android is too popular and their own offerings aren't good enough to compete.
The article did mention that the "bigger" is going into shells, not meat. So perhaps, if the water is dissolving their shells, the bigger shells is a protection mechanism. Get a bigger shell so it will take longer before being eaten away by the water. Crabs who don't have the thicker shells will have them dissolved and will die out.
being called a tree hugging hippie when I mention it at work.
It always annoys me when people seem to think that protecting the environment is the sole domain of the left. (Clarification: I'm talking about the people calling you a tree hugging hippie.) If you want to protect your business, you need to think long term. In the case of fishing, long term protection of your fishing stock does NOT include fishing the bay until there's no more life and then figuring out what to do. Yes, you might reduce how much you fish in the near term, but you keep steady profits later on when your fishing stock would have been depleted.
Sadly, environmental protection seems to have been pushed to a "left wing issue" by a) short sighted businessmen who only care about boosting next quarter's results as much as possible (no matter what that does to the business long term) and b) an "Us Versus Them" political mentality that makes people dead set against agreeing with "the other side" even if their interests really do align.
After which the crab would demonstrate a up-till-then-never-hinted-at-power to make himself more powerful... at which point Vegeta would (after a few episodes of reactions/face-off shots) do the same. Repeat for a hundred episodes and then advance the plot by an inch.
... I submit myself as proof. Why just today, I loaded some birds on a giant slingshot to fire at some pigs. This senseless avian-porcine violence could have been avoided had video games been banned. Someone please ban them before I raise some plants to help battle zombies.
Honestly, it bothers me, but not enough to switch. Like I said, Verizon Wireless has the best coverage where I live. We also have no land line and don't want to wind up in a dead zone when we need to call 911. (We actually did have to call 911 a week after we ditched our land line. The cell phone 911 call worked perfectly.)
North Korea (and their leader) are like one of those small, annoying dogs that yaps incessantly to prove it is big and tough. Only in this case, the small dog has sharp teeth and rabies. Sure we can still beat it up, but in the process we'll get bitten quite a bit and it'll hurt a lot. Any war between us and North Korea will be messy on a level that would make Iraq look like a clean war.
Remember, those people might be living through hell on Earth, but thanks to the North Korea government's total control of the media, the people think that the US is to blame. They really think that their benevolent government officials would love to improve the conditions, but that evil United States keeps flexing their evil muscles to keep them down. This level of brainwashing has been going on for generations and will be difficult to undo.
Years ago, when my parents went on their honeymoon, they had a disaster of a trip. Long story short, my mother broke her neck on a hiking expedition and the area they were in had horrid medical care. Then, their plane back got diverted thanks to a storm. My father, who had reached the end of his rope, told the flight attendant that there had BETTER be medical care waiting for his wife when they landed.
When the plane landed, it didn't taxi in, but was surrounded by police and ambulance. Officers stormed the plane asking who had requested medical help and my father and mother were helped off. My father, using poor judgement even for the time, decided NOW was the perfect time to joke around so he whispered to my mother "I guess they found the bomb in the suitcase."
When they finally got home and went to claim their baggage, it was pushed off to one side with chains surrounding it. The person they spoke with said there was a bomb threat. My dad got off without even a warning. Today, he'd be locked up and charged with a federal offense.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, worse, I post an image online. Someone grabs it, posts it to their Facebook account without attribution (no link back and perhaps any watermark cropped). Maybe they add some funny text to the image as well. Now, Person #2 likes that and reposts it to THEIR account with the "attribution" of "saw this online somewhere."
Company X sees this image and decides it'll be perfect for their ad campaign. They do a "search" for the author of the image. (Where "search" = "does ti say on the web page where it's from? No? Ok, we're good to go.") Then they use the image. I see the ad with my image, but am SOL because some other folks copied my image over and over to the point that any link back to me was destroyed. Thanks to this act, I have no grounds to sue.
Not being able to find the author of an image to ask for permission *IS* a valid problem online. The solution isn't to just declare those images "free for the taking" so long as you do a "search".
Also, since the act "fails to prohibit sub-licensing", Company X can - instead of using my image for an ad - sell MY image to Companies Y, Z, and Q for use in THEIR ads. Company X profits and I'm given zip.
However, use any of Company X's Intellectual Property without asking permission....
So he tried to patent leaving YouTube comments?
In a sane world, "a comprehensive review of copyright law" would lead to cutting copyright terms back drastically. Something on the order of 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year extension. This would take care of abandoned works (after 14 or 28 years they'd be public domain) and would enable us to simplify copyright law. A sane world would also set different penalties for "non-commercial infringement" (you shared that movie on a P2P network for free) and "commercial infringement" (you burned that movie to a few dozen DVD discs and sold them for $5 each).
Of course, I don't think we live in a sane world. Instead, I'm sure we'll see proposals helpfully "guided" by the content industry. Perhaps terms will be lengthened. Maybe penalties will rise. Perhaps more criminal penalties will be enacted and law enforcement will be forced to take a bigger role in arresting individuals whose crime was installing a P2P program that shared out music files on their computer. (Because, you know, law enforcement has nothing better to do than help the RIAA/MPAA enforce their business model.)
I *really* hope that sanity will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.
Actually, some libraries are renting electronic versions of books. My wife will take out Kindle books via our local library and the New York Public Library. (You just need to be a New York resident, no need to live in New York City to sign up.) It goes through Amazon.com and it has DRM, of course, but it's still electronic rentals. She also takes out audio books that she can play on an iPod or other device.
Haven't you listened to the They Might Be Giants album, Here Comes Science? The sun isn't a mass of incandescent gas. It's a miasma of incandescent plasma!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA
I've tried using my Android phone for dictating texts. It works nice overall if I talk slowly, but it is prone to random glitches. Like the time when I said "each" and it typed out "eat sh**" (yes, it used stars for the last 2 letters).
... especially with my voice activated dialing. A usual exchange:
Me: "Call Beth Mobile."
Phone: "Call Meg?"
Me: "No"
Phone: "Call Karen?"
Me. "No!"
Phone: "Call Susan?"
Me: "NO! Who are these people? I don't even know a Meg, Karen, or Susan!"
Phone: "Try again."
Me (speaking slowly and over-enunciating): "C-A-L-L B-E-T-H M-O-B-I-L-E."
Phone: "Text Virginia?"
Me: "AAARRGGGHHH!!!!" (Picks up phone, switches to recently dialed numbers, and clicks my wife's entry.)
They didn't jump sharks, but they did jump gators on the moon in the second episode. Does that count?
"anaesthetic bullets"? I don't think there's any such thing. The police were pursuing them and they were (from the reports I've heard) firing back. At that point, the police needed to protect themselves (not to mention everyone in the area since they had tons more bombs). If the reports I've heard are accurate, then using deadly force was completely justified.
Apocalypse Meow: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/Apocalypse-Meow
It will not only lock users out if they fail to log in a certain number of times (defined by you but default is 5), but it can remove the meta data that tells people which version of Wordpress you're running (nothing like saying "Hey, hackers, attack me in this manner"), can rename the "admin" account easily, prevent direct PHP script execution of plugins (which might break some plugins so use with caution) and even keeps a log of failed login attempts. I've had it running for a few months on a couple of my sites and noted over 7,000 login attempts. I noted a few of the worst offenders (one tried 135 times in about 2 months' time) and IP banned them. (NOTE: This isn't a function of Apocalypse Meow. I simply ran a mySQL query on the database table it uses for its log and then added entries to the site's CPanel to ban the IP addresses.) Definitely recommend this plugin for any WordPress users.
Thanks to this, I finally found a text-based game that I remember as a kid, but nobody else seemed to recall. It was a "game" called Abuse. You typed in insults to the computer and it insulted you back. I couldn't track it down (the term "abuse" is just too vague), but this Internet Archive link listed it. It even helped me find another site with screenshots.
Considering that chickens are the closest living relative to dinosaurs, I wouldn't be too surprised if they did. Of course, serving a Pterodactylus wing would mean placing a 2.5 foot wing on the table.
Don't forget to paint flames on the side. Everyone knows that things go faster with flames painted on the side.
Or, at worst, have in a text file somewhere. How long would it take to go from "We just got word that North Korea fired missiles" to "Open Text File" to "Copy" to "Paste" and "Send Tweet"? Probably less time than it takes to realize your tweet went out accidentally and delete it.
Exactly. They could even do as Amazon did and customize the interface so it doesn't look like a normal Android device. But it's easier to just complain that Google is somehow locking them out of the market (by producing a much better OS ----- whisper this last part and hope people don't hear you).
The difference is that there was no way to get Windows without IE. In fact, Microsoft also worked to make sure that IE was not only included, but the default browser on all Windows PCs sold. (Effectively all PCs sold since this was before Apple's resurgence and before the rise of tablets/smartphones.) Getting Windows with Netscape Navigator as the default browser was next-to-impossible and getting it with NN instead of IE was completely impossible.
Android, on the other hand, doesn't require that you bundle Google's apps. You can make an Android device and include only the apps you decide to include. (Exhibit A: The Kindle Fire.) So Microsoft could, theoretically, release a MS-customized Android smartphone or tablet that links to a Microsoft Android App Store without any ad money going to Google. In fact, by doing so, they'd instantly tap into and profit from the Android application ecosystem. All without giving tons of money to Google.
All Microsoft is really complaining about is that Google's Android is too popular and their own offerings aren't good enough to compete.
The article did mention that the "bigger" is going into shells, not meat. So perhaps, if the water is dissolving their shells, the bigger shells is a protection mechanism. Get a bigger shell so it will take longer before being eaten away by the water. Crabs who don't have the thicker shells will have them dissolved and will die out.
It always annoys me when people seem to think that protecting the environment is the sole domain of the left. (Clarification: I'm talking about the people calling you a tree hugging hippie.) If you want to protect your business, you need to think long term. In the case of fishing, long term protection of your fishing stock does NOT include fishing the bay until there's no more life and then figuring out what to do. Yes, you might reduce how much you fish in the near term, but you keep steady profits later on when your fishing stock would have been depleted.
Sadly, environmental protection seems to have been pushed to a "left wing issue" by a) short sighted businessmen who only care about boosting next quarter's results as much as possible (no matter what that does to the business long term) and b) an "Us Versus Them" political mentality that makes people dead set against agreeing with "the other side" even if their interests really do align.
Even if every fish that he caught and released died, I doubt he'd be doing anywhere near the damage to the ecosystem as the commercial fishers do.
After which the crab would demonstrate a up-till-then-never-hinted-at-power to make himself more powerful... at which point Vegeta would (after a few episodes of reactions/face-off shots) do the same. Repeat for a hundred episodes and then advance the plot by an inch.
... I submit myself as proof. Why just today, I loaded some birds on a giant slingshot to fire at some pigs. This senseless avian-porcine violence could have been avoided had video games been banned. Someone please ban them before I raise some plants to help battle zombies.
Honestly, it bothers me, but not enough to switch. Like I said, Verizon Wireless has the best coverage where I live. We also have no land line and don't want to wind up in a dead zone when we need to call 911. (We actually did have to call 911 a week after we ditched our land line. The cell phone 911 call worked perfectly.)
North Korea (and their leader) are like one of those small, annoying dogs that yaps incessantly to prove it is big and tough. Only in this case, the small dog has sharp teeth and rabies. Sure we can still beat it up, but in the process we'll get bitten quite a bit and it'll hurt a lot. Any war between us and North Korea will be messy on a level that would make Iraq look like a clean war.
Remember, those people might be living through hell on Earth, but thanks to the North Korea government's total control of the media, the people think that the US is to blame. They really think that their benevolent government officials would love to improve the conditions, but that evil United States keeps flexing their evil muscles to keep them down. This level of brainwashing has been going on for generations and will be difficult to undo.
That's why I set all of my passwords to "12348". Nobody will guess that.
Oh... wait...
I need to change some passwords. (Maybe "12349".)
Years ago, when my parents went on their honeymoon, they had a disaster of a trip. Long story short, my mother broke her neck on a hiking expedition and the area they were in had horrid medical care. Then, their plane back got diverted thanks to a storm. My father, who had reached the end of his rope, told the flight attendant that there had BETTER be medical care waiting for his wife when they landed.
When the plane landed, it didn't taxi in, but was surrounded by police and ambulance. Officers stormed the plane asking who had requested medical help and my father and mother were helped off. My father, using poor judgement even for the time, decided NOW was the perfect time to joke around so he whispered to my mother "I guess they found the bomb in the suitcase."
When they finally got home and went to claim their baggage, it was pushed off to one side with chains surrounding it. The person they spoke with said there was a bomb threat. My dad got off without even a warning. Today, he'd be locked up and charged with a federal offense.