I've been an amazon customer since the very beginning and order monthly. I have NEVER had a botched order. One time I got a dupe (my fault) and they took it back. The site is complex and you have to pay attention to shipping, but if you consolidate your orders, you should never have to pay. It amazes me when people report such consistent problems. I'm not doubting you, but it's like we're ordering from two entirely different businesses.
I've used Word since version 1.0 when it came with a mouse in the box. I've written three 300+ page books with it as well as dozens of lesser works (RFPs, manuals, etc.) using every version except 2007. (I stalled on 2003.) It is NOT TRUE that Word 'doesn't work' for longer documents. Although its foibles are greatly exaggerated, it's also NOT TRUE that Word has zero problems. I like the way it generates TofC and indexes, but in my book before last I discovered if you want to do more than one index, it flat out won't work even though you know technically how to change the code to do it.
The real issue is that a word processor should stay out of your way and be as invisible as possible. You want to concentrate on writing the content rather than paying constant attention to the word processor itself. If it takes a great deal of time to figure out how to do something new, then that is time wasted and not spent on content. In that sense what you are familar with will slow you down less. It's like deciding to use a Dvorak keyboard instead of Qwerty for a new project. Sure, Dvorak is more efficient. How much time do you have to unlearn the first and memorize the second? My fingers do the walking and they walk all over qwerty without me thinking about it at all. Same issue applies.
Would someone who knows please explain how the EU Court has jurisdiction over national laws? Has the UK (and other countries in the EU, for that matter) ceded its soverignity to the EU to such an extent that the EU acts as a Supreme Court? Is the EU as a whole like the Federal government is to the US states or Canadian provinces? I really do not know myself and am asking for a serious answer. Thanks.
HEY!!! This is Slashdot! We don't have anyone over 35 here.
Yes "we" do, proving your assertion ignorant. Might I suggest a poll that covers this topic?
Why should we have to listen to stories about decrepid (sic) old fogies seeing things that arnt (sic) there? Theyr (sic) just seeing things because theyr (sic) brains are giving up and thyeyr (sic) going mad. They should die off quicker, and leave more room fo (sic) us, the new generation.
I agree with the OP that the Baroque Cycle was a disappointment. I tried several times to get into it. I'm only half way through Anathem, so I won't read the rest of the review, but it's grabbed me. He definitely has his buzz back. It's the best a novel can be by taking you into another world. I really don't wasnt it to end at this point.
What Neal Stephenson thinks about Linux is of absolutely zero relevance here. If you have a problem with what he thinks about Linux and that affects what you think about his novels, then you are the people he is talking about.
Most of the answers here are dealing with the pros and cons of technical competence, the potential for age discrimination suits, and how time in grade does not always mean 'better.' I concur, but I have a different perspective. In keeping with the OP's question, my answer as an interviewee would be something like this:
You know, it's true that I'm much older than your next applicant. Perhaps he or she is well-versed in new technologies and might even know more than I do about specific areas. I also know that my journey-level competence with Cobol and dBase may not be of interest to you. If it's of interest to you, I'd love to talk about why I chose dBase to do a full-fledged accounts receivable system that was responsible for over a billion dollars of transactions for over ten years. It's kind of a fun story and I like to talk about it. It's one of my successes.
But in terms of what I know that is useful to you today, this month, compared to the 23 year old, I'd have to say my main strength is that I know how to behave. Let me explain. I've been around. I've seen companies and people succeed and I've seen companies and people fail. Almost never have either companies or people utterly failed because of technical incompetence. Companies fail most often because they have no vision of where they want to go. They try to do everything and wind up doing nothing well. I know it's common to blame bad management, but the way I see it is that companies will often promote their technically competent people into management positions where they have no training or expertise. They probably should have found a way to promote a technically competent employee into a better salary for being so competent, not move him out of his field of expertise. FRew companies do that. Naturally, I've seen people promoted for the wrong reasons. I think we've all seen that sort of thing. Good companies do that the least amount of time.
The other issue I see is technically competent people doing incompetent things, like having affairs in the office, like thinking they are too special for meetings, like spreading hate and discontent beyond their technical sphere because they think they are more important than the company. I've seen employees get their companies in trouble for a variety of reasons, none of which were knowing or not knowing the latest and greatest script language. It's usually some sort of people issue.
It's all about behavior. Are you hiring mature adults or would you rather have emotionally retarded geeks working for your company? To get along in the workplace you are going to have to learn several things pretty quickly. Things like don't hit on the cute woman in the office, accept the corporate culture; you won't change it. Be respectful, on time, and friendly to your coworkers. Don't call in sick on Monday because you were out partying all weekend. And, above all, if you are doing personnel-related duties, never ask an applicant anything about age, race, gender, or religion. It's illegal.
Since you just did that, I have a question of my own. Why should I come to work for your company when the next one down the street appears to be an up and coming winner that is professional enough not to ask about my age? They're more interested in what I can do for them and what successful projects I have accomplished in the past. What does your company offer that they don't? Same rule applies.
We know already that the vast majority of people visiting/. are rational beings who would never stoop so low as to 'believe' in the irrational concept of a 'soul.' Such a belief is to be relegated to superstition, mythology, emotion, and the intellectually stunted among our species who seem to have some sort of idiotic need for such ridiculous beliefs. Thank goodness there are places like/. where rational people may have a rational discussion without having to deal with the idiocy of the world around us.
However, just for the sake of argument, just as a kind of mental exercise--without the HOPE of being anywhere near accurate--let us suppose that there IS something that fits the traditional definition of a 'soul.' I KNOW this is entirely impossible, but just suspend disbelief for a couple of minutes to see where such an idea takes us.
Already we're in trouble because the very idea of a disembodied 'thing' carries with it all these absurd beliefs in an after-life, reincarnation, and all that ridiculous stuff. So, okay, just for this once, we'll have to take something like that as a given, some 'other space' where a 'soul' could hang out before and/or after it inhabits, cohabits with, is associated with, or is somehow connected to a physical biological body. This 'other place' is simply something physicists haven't figured out yet. It's kind of like the aether or the Cosmological Constant. We'll stick it in there so the equations still work. That's not really cheating; it's just a temporary convenience. (We'll fix it later.)
Now, the human body is such that it has a physical brain that is complemented by the rest of the body so that the brain can effect actions as we go about our daily lives. We call this 'consciousness,' but no one really knows what it is. We think of ourselves as self-aware, but beyond that we have a hard time dealing with what it is. Most of us rationalists tend to believe that consciousness is simply an artifact of a brain our size. Since 'souls' are by their own definition impossible in a physical universe, they cannot exist beyond just this kind of mental exercise.
We know all this, but because we are bound by the parameters of our exercise here let us say that when the brain reaches a certain level of complexity, it is possible for a soul to inhabit, cohabit, or somehow be associated with a physical body. Why? Who knows? I don't. I don't believe in souls anyway.
So the question becomes, if a machine could be made that mimics the human brain in every way possible, including the complexity in terms of memory, neurons, capacity, and patterns, could it be possible for a soul to inhabit, cohabit, or otherwise be associated with a mechanical 'being?' the question is, what is so special about biological life that it is the only suitable host for a soul? It's more vulnerable, subject to planned obsolesence, disease, etc. If there were a choice, a biological entity would seem a totally unsuitable choice to associate with a soul. If the machine had the same number of 'parts' I would think it would be preferrable to a fallible biological entity--unless all souls are masochists, which I suppose, is possible, too.
So if the question is, can a soul inhabit a suitable machine? the answer is "Yes."
Of course, that is an absurd notion. No one with even half a brain could come close to accepting such a bizarre notion. Souls don't exist. God doesn't exist. Heaven is an imaginary place, and everyone knows this is so except the brainwashed cretins who mindlessly insist on their delusions. Such a concept may be suitable for fiction, but nothing else. This was just an exercise, nothing else.
Thank God for/. Oh! I mean Thank GOODNESS for/. Sorry.
"Maybe they'll take inspiration from Terrafugia's "drivable airplane."
I don't think so. With Terrafugia you have to drag your wings behind you and put the thing together when you want to take off, complete with standard runway. It takes a few minutes to transition from a land vehicle to an airplane. These guys are talking about instant transition. One second you're driving on the ground and the next you are airborne.
How do you know? You don't know what avenues I tried over the years, which would have been beside the point anyway--I didn't want to bore you. Even if there were other methods, so what? Classmates worked this time. Get over it. Is it politically correct to have classmates be a bad guy here?
I am a systems librarian (librarian who is in charge of the servers and systems) who has dealt with OCLC for thirty years. They tried to do this with libraries as well, claiming ownership of information that has, for the most part, been contributed by libraries themselves. OCLC does very little original cataloguing. It's mostly value-added stuff by little podunk, and a few large, libraries all over the world. They're going to have a hard time asserting their so-called rights here and the quite substantial 'library community' is not going to be on their side.
One note here: Several have already asserted that open source integrated library systems (ILS) projects are 'superior' to OCLC. You are comparing apples and oranges. KOHA is an ILS. It is NOT a bibliographic utility. KOHA (along with Dynix, Sirsi, Gaylord, VTLS, and a few others) provides a suite of programs to manage library collections and inventory, allow the check out and in of books and materials, provide an online public catalog, send overdue notices--that sort of thing. They are, by and large, local to and managed by a library system (which is exactly what I did for years), though there are many libraries which share such systems on a regional basis as well.
OCLC is a BIBLIOGRAPHIC utility, though they also dabble in other things such as acquisitions, collection analyses, and interlibrary loans. They are responsible for keeping records of books and materials in standard formats such as MARC (Machine Readable Cataloguing, a format originally designed to transport bibliographic records via 9-track tape, i.e.: it is a 'serially organized' database making use of tags and sub-tags to parse the data.) which are then made available to other libraries. This provides the kind of centralization that means 16,000 libraries don't have to all individually catalog the same book. Once is sufficient. Every ILS has an interface to OCLC that allows them to grab records and download them to the local system--as well as upload original cataloging to OCLC (a crucial point, I think.) Every library that owns a particular title attached their own identifier to the main record, which is what makes OCLC a good source for interlibrary loan information. In a sense, OCLC is the world's online catalog, but it DOES NOT displace the local OPAC. (Online Public Access catalog).
Now, places like librarything.com get their records from a variety of places, including Amazon, well known for crap-quality bibliographic records, and any number of universities and large library systems around the world. OCLC would be hard-pressed to 'prove' records in place at librarything originated with OCLC, much less that they are 'owned' by OCLC. In other words, OCLC can be easily circumvented.
With the demise of the smaller bibliographic utilities such as WLN (The Washington, then Western Library Network) OCLC has achieved world domination in some sense, but it is also a membership organization with library representation on its board and governing committees. Having seen OCLC try this crap before, my take on it is that it won't fly. I wouldn't worry about it.
Mostly negative stuff about classmates here; and I don't disagree with the lawsuit, which is about tactics, not content. But let me tell you a couple of stories about how classmates contributed positively to a couple of situations.
I had a colleague who told me an intriguing and sorrowful story. She got pregnant during her very first sexual experience. Her mother was in denial until the baby started kicking. Her mother then proceeded to put her daughter in an apartment in a nearby city, cut her red hair and dye it black, and wait for the baby to come to term. It was born and whisked away for adoption before my colleague laid eyes on it. (What a mother, eh?) The father was never informed and told my colleague was spending the semester overseas. Mother arranged letters to be sent from France until they dwindled to nothing. I was told this story maybe 20 years ago, and the thing is, I knew the father slightly because I knew I had see a picture of him on the swim team in my annual, who had gone to my high school (along with Ted Bundy). About 5 years ago my colleague, through her own research, found her long-lost son. We decided to try to contact the father. I went through classmates.com and found him. My colleague paid for my gold membership for a year. I contacted the father via email, set up a meeting, and he and my colleague were re-united. He was, of course, very surprised to know he had a grown son. Father and son got into contact, and, for better or worse, both natural parents are in contact with their son. Naturally, they do not replace the 'real' family who raised the kid, but it certainly expanded all their lives. I didn't re-up with Classmates. I get an email once in awhile, but it's certainly nothing overwhelming or particularly bothersome.
The second thing classmates has allowed me to do is researh in genealogy. A few of us were into DNA analysis of the family (for our own reasons) going back to the late 1700's when our ancestor in question lived. His name was Jeremiah Pack and we wanted to know his ethnic background along with that of his wife. We found direct descendents of Jeremiah pretty readily, but finding direct descendents of his wife was a daunting task because surnames of females change every generation. After several years of research we finally found a 4th cousin or so who had a complete chart with names. I was able to go onto classmates.com and find the names, and write to the likely suspects. I found a couple of women who were direct descendents of Jeremaih's wife through the female lines, therefore their MtDNA was a match. We were able to do the testing and come to a suitable conclusion. This is not as 'heart-rending' a story as the first one, but I have to tell you it settled a generations-old mystery and legend for our families.
In both cases, the positive conclusions would not have been possible without classmates.com. That doesn't forgive their questionable marketing tactics, but let's not claim the service has no value. It depends on what you are looking for.
At first I was going succumb to your point and just call it pedantic--like, cut me some slack, dude.:-) In other words, yeah, I see your point. I was, as usual, moving too fast. But then I thought about those ghastly problems I remember writing on the chalkboard and how we got from premis to conclusion by following all these twisty turns: 'if A implies B and B implies the price of tea in China then what color was John's shoes--symbolically, I mean?' (with no GOTOs allowed) to get to a final answer--took up the whole board, with my laconic professor pointing out oh-so-snidely my (Bzzt!) 'syntax errors.' ('You obviously know what you are doing, but you are WRONG!' the prof told me once, in front of 30 other students. I guess that's what you call a 'mixed blessing.') And from that standpoint, I think either way would work! I remember it as kinda fun, though, maybe because my recollection (from 1968) is kind of vague!
Actually, a course in the philosophy department on logic got me into computers. Years later I took a programming course and discovered it was the same thing as symbolic logic, mostly. The rest is history. It made my career.:-)
Ha ha. I used to live in Macon. I worked at a B.Dalton--Bookseller store out at the Macon Mall. The cops busted us and stole 500 copies of the "Joy of Sex" because it was 'pornographic.' Naturally, every cop in Macon wound up with a copy. There was even a trial. It wound up in a 'hung' jury. Oh, man, minimum wage was fun.
I dunno, if my servers had 45 minutes of unplanned downtime per month, I think the condition would be called 'chronic repeated failures' and be subject to some 'employee counseling.' I can understand planned, scheduled downtime after hours, but I don't think that's what they are saying here. Our users get nasty when the net is not available for 20 seconds. 45 minutes a month isn't acceptable around here. And saying, "Hey, this isn't a hospital. It's not as if anyone was at risk!" is not something you'd want to say either. Nope, I think they need to add some more nine's there. Not something to earn you bragging rights or put on your resume.
"which develops bespoke networking software" and he's the guy quoted most extensively in the article. So that's legit, right? And if you'll just buy his software suite, productivity will skyrocket, business will be better, and--uh--Turrell gets rich! Such a deal.
The things they say they want to promote could be easily handled by a plain old listserv. Got a question? Put it on the listserv. Everybody sees it. Reply comes quickly. Works for us.
Yeah, it's 'fair' as determined by the courts. There was a woman whose name was Sony who used it in her restaurant name: Sony's Restaurant. Sony sued. Sony won. Trademark law has a long and illustrious past. Once you get that (r) you're on the 'registered list' and that mark is inviolate--not just a 'tm' which is just a wannabe in comparison legally. You have to have a certain amount of 'time in grade' as a 'tm' before you qualify for (r).
That's not the first time. In terms of surnames, netidentity.com swooped in and got zillions of surnames which they now will rent back to you. Had I jumped on it three weeks earlier, I would have gotten it, but I hesitated--and lost. But why should I be the one to get my surname? I'm not the only one with it. What of there are several people with the name Chevy? Who gets it? First come first served? Date of birth? High bidder? When you invoke 'fairness' what you're really saying is, "I don't agree.' Fairness is dubious at best. As for 'rich corporations,' I think that's assuming a lot, too. Netidentity can barely keep their servers online. I don't think they are very rich, but they sure do own a lot of surnames.
Look, he's an Assistant Professor, not an Associate Professor. He just got his PhD a coupola years ago and somehow he managed to land a job. He needs to publish something, anything. He needs tenure. So he's saying the library (OK: 'Data' if you will) is on fire and we need a government rule to protect it. The librarians are going to nod wisely and agree with him (I'm a librarian and I've seen way too many wisely nodding librarians in my time.) It's all a bit of a smoke and mirrors thing and he'll be able to milk this for a few more articles to put on his c.v. He's whoring for points just like on/.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been an amazon customer since the very beginning and order monthly. I have NEVER had a botched order. One time I got a dupe (my fault) and they took it back. The site is complex and you have to pay attention to shipping, but if you consolidate your orders, you should never have to pay. It amazes me when people report such consistent problems. I'm not doubting you, but it's like we're ordering from two entirely different businesses.
I've used Word since version 1.0 when it came with a mouse in the box. I've written three 300+ page books with it as well as dozens of lesser works (RFPs, manuals, etc.) using every version except 2007. (I stalled on 2003.) It is NOT TRUE that Word 'doesn't work' for longer documents. Although its foibles are greatly exaggerated, it's also NOT TRUE that Word has zero problems. I like the way it generates TofC and indexes, but in my book before last I discovered if you want to do more than one index, it flat out won't work even though you know technically how to change the code to do it.
The real issue is that a word processor should stay out of your way and be as invisible as possible. You want to concentrate on writing the content rather than paying constant attention to the word processor itself. If it takes a great deal of time to figure out how to do something new, then that is time wasted and not spent on content. In that sense what you are familar with will slow you down less. It's like deciding to use a Dvorak keyboard instead of Qwerty for a new project. Sure, Dvorak is more efficient. How much time do you have to unlearn the first and memorize the second? My fingers do the walking and they walk all over qwerty without me thinking about it at all. Same issue applies.
Would someone who knows please explain how the EU Court has jurisdiction over national laws? Has the UK (and other countries in the EU, for that matter) ceded its soverignity to the EU to such an extent that the EU acts as a Supreme Court? Is the EU as a whole like the Federal government is to the US states or Canadian provinces? I really do not know myself and am asking for a serious answer. Thanks.
HEY!!! This is Slashdot! We don't have anyone over 35 here.
Yes "we" do, proving your assertion ignorant. Might I suggest a poll that covers this topic?
Why should we have to listen to stories about decrepid (sic) old fogies seeing things that arnt (sic) there? Theyr (sic) just seeing things because theyr (sic) brains are giving up and thyeyr (sic) going mad. They should die off quicker, and leave more room fo (sic) us, the new generation.
That's one scary thought, indeed.
Except if you can't read the plate, it remains unidentifed. Hence the need for this camera.
I agree with the OP that the Baroque Cycle was a disappointment. I tried several times to get into it. I'm only half way through Anathem, so I won't read the rest of the review, but it's grabbed me. He definitely has his buzz back. It's the best a novel can be by taking you into another world. I really don't wasnt it to end at this point.
What Neal Stephenson thinks about Linux is of absolutely zero relevance here. If you have a problem with what he thinks about Linux and that affects what you think about his novels, then you are the people he is talking about.
Most of the answers here are dealing with the pros and cons of technical competence, the potential for age discrimination suits, and how time in grade does not always mean 'better.' I concur, but I have a different perspective. In keeping with the OP's question, my answer as an interviewee would be something like this:
You know, it's true that I'm much older than your next applicant. Perhaps he or she is well-versed in new technologies and might even know more than I do about specific areas. I also know that my journey-level competence with Cobol and dBase may not be of interest to you. If it's of interest to you, I'd love to talk about why I chose dBase to do a full-fledged accounts receivable system that was responsible for over a billion dollars of transactions for over ten years. It's kind of a fun story and I like to talk about it. It's one of my successes.
But in terms of what I know that is useful to you today, this month, compared to the 23 year old, I'd have to say my main strength is that I know how to behave. Let me explain. I've been around. I've seen companies and people succeed and I've seen companies and people fail. Almost never have either companies or people utterly failed because of technical incompetence. Companies fail most often because they have no vision of where they want to go. They try to do everything and wind up doing nothing well. I know it's common to blame bad management, but the way I see it is that companies will often promote their technically competent people into management positions where they have no training or expertise. They probably should have found a way to promote a technically competent employee into a better salary for being so competent, not move him out of his field of expertise. FRew companies do that. Naturally, I've seen people promoted for the wrong reasons. I think we've all seen that sort of thing. Good companies do that the least amount of time.
The other issue I see is technically competent people doing incompetent things, like having affairs in the office, like thinking they are too special for meetings, like spreading hate and discontent beyond their technical sphere because they think they are more important than the company. I've seen employees get their companies in trouble for a variety of reasons, none of which were knowing or not knowing the latest and greatest script language. It's usually some sort of people issue.
It's all about behavior. Are you hiring mature adults or would you rather have emotionally retarded geeks working for your company? To get along in the workplace you are going to have to learn several things pretty quickly. Things like don't hit on the cute woman in the office, accept the corporate culture; you won't change it. Be respectful, on time, and friendly to your coworkers. Don't call in sick on Monday because you were out partying all weekend. And, above all, if you are doing personnel-related duties, never ask an applicant anything about age, race, gender, or religion. It's illegal.
Since you just did that, I have a question of my own. Why should I come to work for your company when the next one down the street appears to be an up and coming winner that is professional enough not to ask about my age? They're more interested in what I can do for them and what successful projects I have accomplished in the past. What does your company offer that they don't? Same rule applies.
We know already that the vast majority of people visiting /. are rational beings who would never stoop so low as to 'believe' in the irrational concept of a 'soul.' Such a belief is to be relegated to superstition, mythology, emotion, and the intellectually stunted among our species who seem to have some sort of idiotic need for such ridiculous beliefs. Thank goodness there are places like /. where rational people may have a rational discussion without having to deal with the idiocy of the world around us.
However, just for the sake of argument, just as a kind of mental exercise--without the HOPE of being anywhere near accurate--let us suppose that there IS something that fits the traditional definition of a 'soul.' I KNOW this is entirely impossible, but just suspend disbelief for a couple of minutes to see where such an idea takes us.
Already we're in trouble because the very idea of a disembodied 'thing' carries with it all these absurd beliefs in an after-life, reincarnation, and all that ridiculous stuff. So, okay, just for this once, we'll have to take something like that as a given, some 'other space' where a 'soul' could hang out before and/or after it inhabits, cohabits with, is associated with, or is somehow connected to a physical biological body. This 'other place' is simply something physicists haven't figured out yet. It's kind of like the aether or the Cosmological Constant. We'll stick it in there so the equations still work. That's not really cheating; it's just a temporary convenience. (We'll fix it later.)
Now, the human body is such that it has a physical brain that is complemented by the rest of the body so that the brain can effect actions as we go about our daily lives. We call this 'consciousness,' but no one really knows what it is. We think of ourselves as self-aware, but beyond that we have a hard time dealing with what it is. Most of us rationalists tend to believe that consciousness is simply an artifact of a brain our size. Since 'souls' are by their own definition impossible in a physical universe, they cannot exist beyond just this kind of mental exercise.
We know all this, but because we are bound by the parameters of our exercise here let us say that when the brain reaches a certain level of complexity, it is possible for a soul to inhabit, cohabit, or somehow be associated with a physical body. Why? Who knows? I don't. I don't believe in souls anyway.
So the question becomes, if a machine could be made that mimics the human brain in every way possible, including the complexity in terms of memory, neurons, capacity, and patterns, could it be possible for a soul to inhabit, cohabit, or otherwise be associated with a mechanical 'being?' the question is, what is so special about biological life that it is the only suitable host for a soul? It's more vulnerable, subject to planned obsolesence, disease, etc. If there were a choice, a biological entity would seem a totally unsuitable choice to associate with a soul. If the machine had the same number of 'parts' I would think it would be preferrable to a fallible biological entity--unless all souls are masochists, which I suppose, is possible, too.
So if the question is, can a soul inhabit a suitable machine? the answer is "Yes."
Of course, that is an absurd notion. No one with even half a brain could come close to accepting such a bizarre notion. Souls don't exist. God doesn't exist. Heaven is an imaginary place, and everyone knows this is so except the brainwashed cretins who mindlessly insist on their delusions. Such a concept may be suitable for fiction, but nothing else. This was just an exercise, nothing else.
Thank God for /. Oh! I mean Thank GOODNESS for /. Sorry.
Decades ago: The Last Question: http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html/
"Maybe they'll take inspiration from Terrafugia's "drivable airplane."
I don't think so. With Terrafugia you have to drag your wings behind you and put the thing together when you want to take off, complete with standard runway. It takes a few minutes to transition from a land vehicle to an airplane. These guys are talking about instant transition. One second you're driving on the ground and the next you are airborne.
Video Professor?
How do you know? You don't know what avenues I tried over the years, which would have been beside the point anyway--I didn't want to bore you. Even if there were other methods, so what? Classmates worked this time. Get over it. Is it politically correct to have classmates be a bad guy here?
I am a systems librarian (librarian who is in charge of the servers and systems) who has dealt with OCLC for thirty years. They tried to do this with libraries as well, claiming ownership of information that has, for the most part, been contributed by libraries themselves. OCLC does very little original cataloguing. It's mostly value-added stuff by little podunk, and a few large, libraries all over the world. They're going to have a hard time asserting their so-called rights here and the quite substantial 'library community' is not going to be on their side.
One note here: Several have already asserted that open source integrated library systems (ILS) projects are 'superior' to OCLC. You are comparing apples and oranges. KOHA is an ILS. It is NOT a bibliographic utility. KOHA (along with Dynix, Sirsi, Gaylord, VTLS, and a few others) provides a suite of programs to manage library collections and inventory, allow the check out and in of books and materials, provide an online public catalog, send overdue notices--that sort of thing. They are, by and large, local to and managed by a library system (which is exactly what I did for years), though there are many libraries which share such systems on a regional basis as well.
OCLC is a BIBLIOGRAPHIC utility, though they also dabble in other things such as acquisitions, collection analyses, and interlibrary loans. They are responsible for keeping records of books and materials in standard formats such as MARC (Machine Readable Cataloguing, a format originally designed to transport bibliographic records via 9-track tape, i.e.: it is a 'serially organized' database making use of tags and sub-tags to parse the data.) which are then made available to other libraries. This provides the kind of centralization that means 16,000 libraries don't have to all individually catalog the same book. Once is sufficient. Every ILS has an interface to OCLC that allows them to grab records and download them to the local system--as well as upload original cataloging to OCLC (a crucial point, I think.) Every library that owns a particular title attached their own identifier to the main record, which is what makes OCLC a good source for interlibrary loan information. In a sense, OCLC is the world's online catalog, but it DOES NOT displace the local OPAC. (Online Public Access catalog).
Now, places like librarything.com get their records from a variety of places, including Amazon, well known for crap-quality bibliographic records, and any number of universities and large library systems around the world. OCLC would be hard-pressed to 'prove' records in place at librarything originated with OCLC, much less that they are 'owned' by OCLC. In other words, OCLC can be easily circumvented.
With the demise of the smaller bibliographic utilities such as WLN (The Washington, then Western Library Network) OCLC has achieved world domination in some sense, but it is also a membership organization with library representation on its board and governing committees. Having seen OCLC try this crap before, my take on it is that it won't fly. I wouldn't worry about it.
Mostly negative stuff about classmates here; and I don't disagree with the lawsuit, which is about tactics, not content. But let me tell you a couple of stories about how classmates contributed positively to a couple of situations.
I had a colleague who told me an intriguing and sorrowful story. She got pregnant during her very first sexual experience. Her mother was in denial until the baby started kicking. Her mother then proceeded to put her daughter in an apartment in a nearby city, cut her red hair and dye it black, and wait for the baby to come to term. It was born and whisked away for adoption before my colleague laid eyes on it. (What a mother, eh?) The father was never informed and told my colleague was spending the semester overseas. Mother arranged letters to be sent from France until they dwindled to nothing. I was told this story maybe 20 years ago, and the thing is, I knew the father slightly because I knew I had see a picture of him on the swim team in my annual, who had gone to my high school (along with Ted Bundy). About 5 years ago my colleague, through her own research, found her long-lost son. We decided to try to contact the father. I went through classmates.com and found him. My colleague paid for my gold membership for a year. I contacted the father via email, set up a meeting, and he and my colleague were re-united. He was, of course, very surprised to know he had a grown son. Father and son got into contact, and, for better or worse, both natural parents are in contact with their son. Naturally, they do not replace the 'real' family who raised the kid, but it certainly expanded all their lives. I didn't re-up with Classmates. I get an email once in awhile, but it's certainly nothing overwhelming or particularly bothersome.
The second thing classmates has allowed me to do is researh in genealogy. A few of us were into DNA analysis of the family (for our own reasons) going back to the late 1700's when our ancestor in question lived. His name was Jeremiah Pack and we wanted to know his ethnic background along with that of his wife. We found direct descendents of Jeremiah pretty readily, but finding direct descendents of his wife was a daunting task because surnames of females change every generation. After several years of research we finally found a 4th cousin or so who had a complete chart with names. I was able to go onto classmates.com and find the names, and write to the likely suspects. I found a couple of women who were direct descendents of Jeremaih's wife through the female lines, therefore their MtDNA was a match. We were able to do the testing and come to a suitable conclusion. This is not as 'heart-rending' a story as the first one, but I have to tell you it settled a generations-old mystery and legend for our families.
In both cases, the positive conclusions would not have been possible without classmates.com. That doesn't forgive their questionable marketing tactics, but let's not claim the service has no value. It depends on what you are looking for.
At first I was going succumb to your point and just call it pedantic--like, cut me some slack, dude. :-) In other words, yeah, I see your point. I was, as usual, moving too fast. But then I thought about those ghastly problems I remember writing on the chalkboard and how we got from premis to conclusion by following all these twisty turns: 'if A implies B and B implies the price of tea in China then what color was John's shoes--symbolically, I mean?' (with no GOTOs allowed) to get to a final answer--took up the whole board, with my laconic professor pointing out oh-so-snidely my (Bzzt!) 'syntax errors.' ('You obviously know what you are doing, but you are WRONG!' the prof told me once, in front of 30 other students. I guess that's what you call a 'mixed blessing.') And from that standpoint, I think either way would work! I remember it as kinda fun, though, maybe because my recollection (from 1968) is kind of vague!
Actually, a course in the philosophy department on logic got me into computers. Years later I took a programming course and discovered it was the same thing as symbolic logic, mostly. The rest is history. It made my career. :-)
Somebody give this guy a point. I swear this is the funniest thread I've ever read on /. My dog thinks I'm crazy laughing so much.
Ha ha. I used to live in Macon. I worked at a B.Dalton--Bookseller store out at the Macon Mall. The cops busted us and stole 500 copies of the "Joy of Sex" because it was 'pornographic.' Naturally, every cop in Macon wound up with a copy. There was even a trial. It wound up in a 'hung' jury. Oh, man, minimum wage was fun.
Well, slashdot.org KEEPS you single.
Google isn't a 9 to 5 shop, I don't think.
I dunno, if my servers had 45 minutes of unplanned downtime per month, I think the condition would be called 'chronic repeated failures' and be subject to some 'employee counseling.' I can understand planned, scheduled downtime after hours, but I don't think that's what they are saying here. Our users get nasty when the net is not available for 20 seconds. 45 minutes a month isn't acceptable around here. And saying, "Hey, this isn't a hospital. It's not as if anyone was at risk!" is not something you'd want to say either. Nope, I think they need to add some more nine's there. Not something to earn you bragging rights or put on your resume.
What's the difference? She had to change the name of her restaurant. Seems like they won to me.
"which develops bespoke networking software" and he's the guy quoted most extensively in the article. So that's legit, right? And if you'll just buy his software suite, productivity will skyrocket, business will be better, and--uh--Turrell gets rich! Such a deal.
The things they say they want to promote could be easily handled by a plain old listserv. Got a question? Put it on the listserv. Everybody sees it. Reply comes quickly. Works for us.
Yeah, it's 'fair' as determined by the courts. There was a woman whose name was Sony who used it in her restaurant name: Sony's Restaurant. Sony sued. Sony won. Trademark law has a long and illustrious past. Once you get that (r) you're on the 'registered list' and that mark is inviolate--not just a 'tm' which is just a wannabe in comparison legally. You have to have a certain amount of 'time in grade' as a 'tm' before you qualify for (r).
That's not the first time. In terms of surnames, netidentity.com swooped in and got zillions of surnames which they now will rent back to you. Had I jumped on it three weeks earlier, I would have gotten it, but I hesitated--and lost. But why should I be the one to get my surname? I'm not the only one with it. What of there are several people with the name Chevy? Who gets it? First come first served? Date of birth? High bidder? When you invoke 'fairness' what you're really saying is, "I don't agree.' Fairness is dubious at best. As for 'rich corporations,' I think that's assuming a lot, too. Netidentity can barely keep their servers online. I don't think they are very rich, but they sure do own a lot of surnames.
Look, he's an Assistant Professor, not an Associate Professor. He just got his PhD a coupola years ago and somehow he managed to land a job. He needs to publish something, anything. He needs tenure. So he's saying the library (OK: 'Data' if you will) is on fire and we need a government rule to protect it. The librarians are going to nod wisely and agree with him (I'm a librarian and I've seen way too many wisely nodding librarians in my time.) It's all a bit of a smoke and mirrors thing and he'll be able to milk this for a few more articles to put on his c.v. He's whoring for points just like on /.
Meh?