"...that's only if you count both 1984 and Brave New World as sci-fi, which is a huge stretch".
I'll have to disagree with you there. Aldus Huxley and George Orwell both wrote "speculative fiction dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology upon society." [1]
It's not that the companies don't have the money, they don't have the will or incentive. That's why they're milking the customers located in densly populated areas for all they can. Take a look at Canada, which has a lower population density yet cheaper and faster service. Why? Because their laws make the system tend towards that, where as ours tend towards monopolies. It's all about the attitude of the country towards broadband in general. We don't see it as a necessary infrastructure like they do.
Oh man, if only this country would have more peole that were as well informed about these kinds of issues, we'd be electing a government that could lead this country to new highs.
Oh man, if we had more people as well informed about the issues and the world, we'd be electing a government that could really take this country to new highs.
I don't think that when I get the choice of one, perhaps two, ISPs that offer compelling service in a major metropolitan city and am paying more for less than just about any other developed country in the world, I am getting "decent broadband".
I used to live in downtown Boston, and I had a choice of "broadband" from two providers, both of which charged about the same rate, the cheaper one being cheaper only if we got a phone line, every cable channel, and cable interenet for the low rate of $280/mo. We did that because we were going to use the services anyhow, had we gone for a la carte service, we'd be paying more.
Now I live in Seattle and I have the choice of either getting a phone line and DSL or Cable. DSL costs me about $60/mo. and cable internet would cost me about $45 they say, but only if I get their cable package too, and that's not what I want.
In both cases I'm getting slower service from companies that couldn't care two shits about me since they have the monopoly and the government in their pocket anyhow than just about any Europeaner. Our laws that created the possibility of this situation, and I hope the article gets more people interested in the issue so come the next election we choose representation that's a bit more on par with the modern day world.
You missed Canada, which has better service for less than we do due to their citizenry friendly but business fair legislation. I mean business *fair*, not business gets everything they ever wanted without having to give anything really back to the community.
Country Area (sq km) Population Pop. Density (ppl/sq km) United States of America 9 631 418 295 734 134 30.7 France 547 030 60 656 178 110.9 Korea, South 98 480 48 422 644 490.7 Canada 9 984 970 32 805 041 3.3
Canada is 1/10th the density of the US and still provides better service for less, so clearly the population density problem is surmountable with the right attitude from the legislature.
P.S. I don't know from where you got your data because you did not site it. I got mine from the CIA World Factbook which has been updated in July of 2005.
I think you missed the article's point...that legislation in other countries allows for ISPs to provide cheaper and better services. Rather than doling out monopolies for corporate kickbacks, they force communication networks to be rented out at wholesale prices so any ISP can compete for the consumers Euro, Yen, what have you. They see it as a public utility to some extent, feeling that the entire economy benefits when the general populace has access to fast, always on, broadband connections. Increased education and all that. Note, that most other countries define broadband as being in the Mbps and not Kbps like the FCC does.
Oh, and if you think that population densities are a real factor, which they are to come extent, they are not impossible to overcome. Case in point, Canada, with lower population densities than the US has better service for less, because their legislation keeps monopolies out.
Like the example from the article where a small town with zero broadband ISPs which started to have companies leave for that reason decided to do somethin about it. They asked the ISPs if they could serve the community, but they refused citing the small amount of profit they'd make there not being worth their time. So the community started a public community internet project to offer WiFi throughout the town. The ISP's reaction? Trying to convince the state to pass a law to make that illegal.
That's the kind of mentality we as a nation have, and it's hurting us. We should stop being so high on ourselves, admit our faults, look to others which do it better than we, and fix it!
1) Windows does indeed support IPv6 and does so pretty well. We use it at the office along with IPSec on all our machines.
2) I don't think that introducing a rigid four or more layer heirarchy of classification for domain names is going to be without loads of problems. Where would entities that fall into three or four categories fit? Whould they be in multiple categories? Would they be seperate instances, or some sort of virtual copy? How and who would maintain this? I'll agree that working from the general to the specific makes sense, but the current TLDs make sense. We don't need our domain names acting as a global directory.
We should though, enforce a few rules. Non-state TLDs should be managed by some international consortium. Entities should only be allowed to register one name in the TLD of their choice for which they qualify. They can branch sub-domains as they see fit. This would also kill the fad of having sonygame1.com, sonygame1.org, sonygame2.com, etc. They can structure it as com.sony.games.ourgametitle or what have they. This will also reduce fishing since each entity has one legitimate domain. Entities that don't fall under the internationaly managed TLDs can register in their state controlled TLD. I'd love to see all the US-centric entities have us.* domains rather than com.* domains. Truly global companies which have presense in more than X contries can have com.* domains. Anyhow, that's just a rough outline for how I think the DNS system should be managed for everyone's benefit, not just the United State's.
You pay the monthly fee for the programming data. TiVo has the best programming data I've seen, which allows it to follow a show around when it gets moved. It's this data that really allows TiVo to provide the richness in scheduling for which it is famous.
If you think that the monthly fees or lifetime subscriptions are too expensive then go ahead and use an alternative. I have paid a total of $450 for my TiVo box, 300GB harddrive, and lifetime subscription. I've been using it for two years now, and expect to use it for at yeast another year or more. That comes to about $12.50 a month for a service which has totally allowed me freedom from the tube.
I watch less TV now than I ever have and much higher quality television than I thought was possible in this country. As it turns out, the majority of the programming which I value is on at times other than "primetime". Most independant films, foreign films, foreign newscasts are on either late at night or early in the morning. I think Nova is about the only show I record which is primetime. That's a service which is well worth my $12.50 plus cable.
"Those who analyze art, music or literature too deeply, usually do so because they don't get it."
While that may be true in certain cases, I think a blanket statement like that is actually pretty far off of the mark. I'll agree that those who analyze creative arts 'too deeply' don't get it--if by not getting it you mean have a appreciation for the structure that's different than a casual interpretation.
I've listened to classical music for decades. I find that although from the beginning I could enjoy pieces and appreciated their form, it was a study of formal music theory that gave me new tools for appreciating what I heard. When I hear a composition from one era and can place how the composer rejected the norms of the previous era I have a different--and I feel deeper--appreciation of the pience than if I am in the dark about certain things.
The same goes for literature. Being aware of the significance of certain workplay brings a much greater understanding than just being able to follow the plot on the surface. When reading Orwell's 1984 being aware of the irony of 'doubpleplusungood' make for a richer appreciation than just thinking "wow, they use odd forms instead of the more mainstream 'bad'". Granted it doesn't take much to analyze the irony of the wordplay, but that analysis creates in the reader a different level of appreciation than not analyzing anything.
I guess my point is that just because one can apply an indepth analysis into the struture of a creative piece does not mean they are unable to appreciate a work at face value anymore. It just gives them more tools which they can apply to appreciation of art.
If you lose your wallet and don't tell anyone for days and your cards get maxed out, it's your fault. If you tell them as soon as you know, then it's no longer your responsibility. What the bank does is ask the merchants at which the fraudulent purchases were made to produce your signature that you authorized them. If they can't then they don't get the money from the bank as they didn't follow their agreement with them.
Now, if we're talking debit cards and you had your PIN written down on the back of the card or on a sticky in your wallet, then it's totally your fault. The merchants can show that a valid PIN was entered, the merchants get their money, and the money "you" spent is deducted from your account.
Here's a reason why I *never* use my debit card when making purchases at merchants:
1. Clerk: "That'll be $35.21."
2. I produce a card.
3. Clerk: "Credit or debit?"
4. Debit. I swipe my card in the reader, enter my pin after checking the amount is correct.
5. Clerk: "I'm sorry, it didn't go through, we've been having problems with our connection to the bank, can you swipe it again?"
6. Me: "Sure, could you please provide me a receipt that the transaction was attempted and failed?"
7. Clerk: "No, it didn't print a receipt because it didn't go through, why?"
8. Me: "Um, because I entered a PIN and authorized a charge and have no real indication if it was successful or not. Say I try paying again and then get double charged because the first transaction was queued for later processing or something? I'd like some record of the transaction, even if it failed."
9: At this point the clerk is annoyed, as are the customers behind me. And they're all perplexed.
This happened to me once, and indeed I only got charged once, but the fact that I had no record of the transaction frieghtened me. Never again, I use credit from now on.
So you are saying buying a product which forms a good basis for your future concept and improving upon it does not consitute innovation? Are you saying that things get created from nothing?
I think he is, and I agree with him. Innovation as a concept as I see it does include taking two items and finding a symbiotic way in which they improve upon what each accomplises alone. The mouse and scrollwheel device is strictly better than a vanilla mouse, and better than a trackball for the majority of people who feel more comfortable manipulating a mouse than trackball. Just because both mice and trackballs existed before does mean that the one to put them together into something greater than the constituent parts did not innovate.
I think the concept you are thinking of is creation, but even most philosophers will argue that it's no different than innovation in that creating something from nothing is impossible.
Do you know when the Tablet features started being developed at Microsoft? It would make a much better criticism if you could say company A developed technology X which allowed Tablets to become real user ready and Microsoft did not start their approach to the problem until a later date and bought the company A. What you said was there was a company NCR which released a Tablet that was not real user ready in the 1990's and Microsoft released their Tablet in year X where X > 1990. That's hardly evidence that Microsoft did not innovate on the Tablet PC.
A product with handwriting recognition with accuracy ahead of the competiton does not just appear a year after a PR release says its coming. It takes decades to produce such things. I'm speaking just of the recognition here, since yes, they concept of a Tablet though poorly executed has been around since much earlier than 1990.
Most inventors, though I'm even inclined to say all, use previous advancements upon which they build their inventions. You can't really say that the Hotmail today is the same as the one they bought many years ago. You can't say that Window's hasn't changed since the release of 1.0. Perhaps what you are looking for are wild earth shattering innovations that are felt around the world in every field of research. The might not have any of those, but nor does any other large software company I know of, and nor does any free OS I know of. Yes, the GPL is pretty earth shattering and had reprecussions that were deep and wide, but that was Stalman's idea a long time before Linux really took off. One could similarly argue that Microsoft's idea to *gasp* sell software seperate from the hardware was a counterpart to the GPL, though diametrically opposed in philosophy, which also had reprecussions that were deep and wide. The software *industary* would not exist as it does today without it. Note, software would, but the Oracle's of the world would be selling their products as complete solutions with hardware, etc.
It seems from your comments that you do not really understand what the Google Print project entails. They are not giving people access to complete copyrighted works unless the copyright has expired or the current copyright holder has given permission for people to access their entire work. They are giving people access to excerpts of copyrighted works--all of which fall under the doctrine of fair use--including the table of contents, index, copyright page, and sample text around their search terms.
At first glance from an untrained legal eye, it seems that Google is well within their rights and actually doing a service to the publishing community by providing an indexed database of works and an avenue for people to find and legally procure the works that interest them. It also seems to me that the Guild does not really understand the implications of the Google Print project and could be doing more harm to themselves than the harm they fear Google's project will do to them.
At least one real good will come of this lawsuit. It may end up shaping copyright law well into the next century as the courts analyze the original intent of the law and how current technology relates to that intent.
P.S. I really don't understand your comment that "unless someone agrees to work for free... you can't force someone to work for free".
I used to use TVtome.com because it provided uniform data access to past episode titles. I could do something like this:
1. Pull up a table listing of the episodes on TVtome.com. 2. Cut and past it into Excel. 3. Add a column for the status on which I have seen, which I have missed, which are on my TiVo, etc. 4. Use that data to search upcomming listings on my feed based on episode title and my priority. 5. Print out a weekly "program TiVo" checklist.
This allowed me to select an older show which I may have not watched when it first aired but is in re-runs. Then let's say it's a show one would want to watch in order. Since re-runs are not always predictable, etc, having a list of things on this week that I missed and a spreadsheet with information like a list of all episodes, and if I've seen them, let me easily record those episodes I needed.
This might seem like overkill, I mean, I can always just tell my TiVo to get all episodes. I've tried that, but then for shows like "The Simpsons" I have to weed through 15 episodes a week and delete those I've seen. And I run the risk that it recorded an episode of "The Simpsons" that I've seen over an episode of a show that's lower priority on my TiVo but yet has an episode I haven't seen airing at the same time.
Remember, the TiVo only tracks repeats for a few weeks. When you talk about trying to catch up on 8 shows, some of which have had 100's of episodes, after a few months of watching, 90% of the stuff TiVo records is repeats. So augmenting the TiVo with a spreadsheet and weekly checklist solves the record only that which I plan on watching problem. Only TVtome.com let me grab all the episode titles for all my shows in an easy to use tabular format, with just one copy and paste from each show.
That's why someone would use TVtome.com over fan sites, each of which has a different layout.
I read the article, and the summary was really not sensationalizing. It's true that businesses are worried that such broad and strict legislation could hamper their ability to gain benefit from the games which they help pay for through taxes. It article stated there are already laws in place to combat true hijack marketing, and the businesses are crying foul that this goes too far. That's pretty much what the summary said.
Re:I have a question about this - seriously
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 1
Actually, Opera makes money from their browser. I would guess most of their sales are for mobile and embedded devices, but I'm sure their desktop browsers also pull in some significant amount.
You clearly haven't been using the system properly. I have never, not once in my life, gotten any spyware, virus, worm, or trojan on my windows machines. It's really quite simple: do not run anything as Administrator unless you must, learn how to configure your services to match your needs and no more, and finally make sure you're all patched up.
So, yes, malicious software installed and running as administrator can bring a box down just as well in Windows as it can in any other operating system. The trick is to reduce your attackable surface.
I hope not, as the suits would be without merrid I believe. I don't think any of the above mentioned companies and products compete in the OS market. Trademark names apply only in the product space in which they are filed. Yes, there are some blurry lines between certain product spaces, but none of those are anything close to the overlap and competition of Windows as Linux.
I wonder what technology (and fossil fuels) are used to compress the air. I wonder how often the air tank must be refilled. I see this as being a technology of a lot of future potential, but how effective is it today in terms of automobile range, environmental impact on compressing the air vs. environmental impact on burning biodiesel or other alternatives, etc. The site compares their PHEV with a convential battery driven electric motor, but they're short on some critical data points for comparision, which to me is a red flag...or at least orange.
Slashdot Mirror
"...that's only if you count both 1984 and Brave New World as sci-fi, which is a huge stretch".
I'll have to disagree with you there. Aldus Huxley and George Orwell both wrote "speculative fiction dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology upon society." [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
It's not that the companies don't have the money, they don't have the will or incentive. That's why they're milking the customers located in densly populated areas for all they can. Take a look at Canada, which has a lower population density yet cheaper and faster service. Why? Because their laws make the system tend towards that, where as ours tend towards monopolies. It's all about the attitude of the country towards broadband in general. We don't see it as a necessary infrastructure like they do.
Oh man, if only this country would have more peole that were as well informed about these kinds of issues, we'd be electing a government that could lead this country to new highs.
Oh man, if we had more people as well informed about the issues and the world, we'd be electing a government that could really take this country to new highs.
I don't think that when I get the choice of one, perhaps two, ISPs that offer compelling service in a major metropolitan city and am paying more for less than just about any other developed country in the world, I am getting "decent broadband".
I used to live in downtown Boston, and I had a choice of "broadband" from two providers, both of which charged about the same rate, the cheaper one being cheaper only if we got a phone line, every cable channel, and cable interenet for the low rate of $280/mo. We did that because we were going to use the services anyhow, had we gone for a la carte service, we'd be paying more.
Now I live in Seattle and I have the choice of either getting a phone line and DSL or Cable. DSL costs me about $60/mo. and cable internet would cost me about $45 they say, but only if I get their cable package too, and that's not what I want.
In both cases I'm getting slower service from companies that couldn't care two shits about me since they have the monopoly and the government in their pocket anyhow than just about any Europeaner. Our laws that created the possibility of this situation, and I hope the article gets more people interested in the issue so come the next election we choose representation that's a bit more on par with the modern day world.
You missed Canada, which has better service for less than we do due to their citizenry friendly but business fair legislation. I mean business *fair*, not business gets everything they ever wanted without having to give anything really back to the community.
Country Area (sq km) Population Pop. Density (ppl/sq km)
United States of America 9 631 418 295 734 134 30.7
France 547 030 60 656 178 110.9
Korea, South 98 480 48 422 644 490.7
Canada 9 984 970 32 805 041 3.3
Canada is 1/10th the density of the US and still provides better service for less, so clearly the population density problem is surmountable with the right attitude from the legislature.
P.S. I don't know from where you got your data because you did not site it. I got mine from the CIA World Factbook which has been updated in July of 2005.
I think you missed the article's point...that legislation in other countries allows for ISPs to provide cheaper and better services. Rather than doling out monopolies for corporate kickbacks, they force communication networks to be rented out at wholesale prices so any ISP can compete for the consumers Euro, Yen, what have you. They see it as a public utility to some extent, feeling that the entire economy benefits when the general populace has access to fast, always on, broadband connections. Increased education and all that. Note, that most other countries define broadband as being in the Mbps and not Kbps like the FCC does.
Oh, and if you think that population densities are a real factor, which they are to come extent, they are not impossible to overcome. Case in point, Canada, with lower population densities than the US has better service for less, because their legislation keeps monopolies out.
Like the example from the article where a small town with zero broadband ISPs which started to have companies leave for that reason decided to do somethin about it. They asked the ISPs if they could serve the community, but they refused citing the small amount of profit they'd make there not being worth their time. So the community started a public community internet project to offer WiFi throughout the town. The ISP's reaction? Trying to convince the state to pass a law to make that illegal.
That's the kind of mentality we as a nation have, and it's hurting us. We should stop being so high on ourselves, admit our faults, look to others which do it better than we, and fix it!
1) Windows does indeed support IPv6 and does so pretty well. We use it at the office along with IPSec on all our machines.
2) I don't think that introducing a rigid four or more layer heirarchy of classification for domain names is going to be without loads of problems. Where would entities that fall into three or four categories fit? Whould they be in multiple categories? Would they be seperate instances, or some sort of virtual copy? How and who would maintain this? I'll agree that working from the general to the specific makes sense, but the current TLDs make sense. We don't need our domain names acting as a global directory.
We should though, enforce a few rules. Non-state TLDs should be managed by some international consortium. Entities should only be allowed to register one name in the TLD of their choice for which they qualify. They can branch sub-domains as they see fit. This would also kill the fad of having sonygame1.com, sonygame1.org, sonygame2.com, etc. They can structure it as com.sony.games.ourgametitle or what have they. This will also reduce fishing since each entity has one legitimate domain. Entities that don't fall under the internationaly managed TLDs can register in their state controlled TLD. I'd love to see all the US-centric entities have us.* domains rather than com.* domains. Truly global companies which have presense in more than X contries can have com.* domains. Anyhow, that's just a rough outline for how I think the DNS system should be managed for everyone's benefit, not just the United State's.
You pay the monthly fee for the programming data. TiVo has the best programming data I've seen, which allows it to follow a show around when it gets moved. It's this data that really allows TiVo to provide the richness in scheduling for which it is famous.
If you think that the monthly fees or lifetime subscriptions are too expensive then go ahead and use an alternative. I have paid a total of $450 for my TiVo box, 300GB harddrive, and lifetime subscription. I've been using it for two years now, and expect to use it for at yeast another year or more. That comes to about $12.50 a month for a service which has totally allowed me freedom from the tube.
I watch less TV now than I ever have and much higher quality television than I thought was possible in this country. As it turns out, the majority of the programming which I value is on at times other than "primetime". Most independant films, foreign films, foreign newscasts are on either late at night or early in the morning. I think Nova is about the only show I record which is primetime. That's a service which is well worth my $12.50 plus cable.
"Those who analyze art, music or literature too deeply, usually do so because they don't get it."
While that may be true in certain cases, I think a blanket statement like that is actually pretty far off of the mark. I'll agree that those who analyze creative arts 'too deeply' don't get it--if by not getting it you mean have a appreciation for the structure that's different than a casual interpretation.
I've listened to classical music for decades. I find that although from the beginning I could enjoy pieces and appreciated their form, it was a study of formal music theory that gave me new tools for appreciating what I heard. When I hear a composition from one era and can place how the composer rejected the norms of the previous era I have a different--and I feel deeper--appreciation of the pience than if I am in the dark about certain things.
The same goes for literature. Being aware of the significance of certain workplay brings a much greater understanding than just being able to follow the plot on the surface. When reading Orwell's 1984 being aware of the irony of 'doubpleplusungood' make for a richer appreciation than just thinking "wow, they use odd forms instead of the more mainstream 'bad'". Granted it doesn't take much to analyze the irony of the wordplay, but that analysis creates in the reader a different level of appreciation than not analyzing anything.
I guess my point is that just because one can apply an indepth analysis into the struture of a creative piece does not mean they are unable to appreciate a work at face value anymore. It just gives them more tools which they can apply to appreciation of art.
If you lose your wallet and don't tell anyone for days and your cards get maxed out, it's your fault. If you tell them as soon as you know, then it's no longer your responsibility. What the bank does is ask the merchants at which the fraudulent purchases were made to produce your signature that you authorized them. If they can't then they don't get the money from the bank as they didn't follow their agreement with them.
Now, if we're talking debit cards and you had your PIN written down on the back of the card or on a sticky in your wallet, then it's totally your fault. The merchants can show that a valid PIN was entered, the merchants get their money, and the money "you" spent is deducted from your account.
Here's a reason why I *never* use my debit card when making purchases at merchants:
1. Clerk: "That'll be $35.21."
2. I produce a card.
3. Clerk: "Credit or debit?"
4. Debit. I swipe my card in the reader, enter my pin after checking the amount is correct.
5. Clerk: "I'm sorry, it didn't go through, we've been having problems with our connection to the bank, can you swipe it again?"
6. Me: "Sure, could you please provide me a receipt that the transaction was attempted and failed?"
7. Clerk: "No, it didn't print a receipt because it didn't go through, why?"
8. Me: "Um, because I entered a PIN and authorized a charge and have no real indication if it was successful or not. Say I try paying again and then get double charged because the first transaction was queued for later processing or something? I'd like some record of the transaction, even if it failed."
9: At this point the clerk is annoyed, as are the customers behind me. And they're all perplexed.
This happened to me once, and indeed I only got charged once, but the fact that I had no record of the transaction frieghtened me. Never again, I use credit from now on.
So you are saying buying a product which forms a good basis for your future concept and improving upon it does not consitute innovation? Are you saying that things get created from nothing?
I think he is, and I agree with him. Innovation as a concept as I see it does include taking two items and finding a symbiotic way in which they improve upon what each accomplises alone. The mouse and scrollwheel device is strictly better than a vanilla mouse, and better than a trackball for the majority of people who feel more comfortable manipulating a mouse than trackball. Just because both mice and trackballs existed before does mean that the one to put them together into something greater than the constituent parts did not innovate.
I think the concept you are thinking of is creation, but even most philosophers will argue that it's no different than innovation in that creating something from nothing is impossible.
Do you know when the Tablet features started being developed at Microsoft? It would make a much better criticism if you could say company A developed technology X which allowed Tablets to become real user ready and Microsoft did not start their approach to the problem until a later date and bought the company A. What you said was there was a company NCR which released a Tablet that was not real user ready in the 1990's and Microsoft released their Tablet in year X where X > 1990. That's hardly evidence that Microsoft did not innovate on the Tablet PC.
A product with handwriting recognition with accuracy ahead of the competiton does not just appear a year after a PR release says its coming. It takes decades to produce such things. I'm speaking just of the recognition here, since yes, they concept of a Tablet though poorly executed has been around since much earlier than 1990.
Most inventors, though I'm even inclined to say all, use previous advancements upon which they build their inventions. You can't really say that the Hotmail today is the same as the one they bought many years ago. You can't say that Window's hasn't changed since the release of 1.0. Perhaps what you are looking for are wild earth shattering innovations that are felt around the world in every field of research. The might not have any of those, but nor does any other large software company I know of, and nor does any free OS I know of. Yes, the GPL is pretty earth shattering and had reprecussions that were deep and wide, but that was Stalman's idea a long time before Linux really took off. One could similarly argue that Microsoft's idea to *gasp* sell software seperate from the hardware was a counterpart to the GPL, though diametrically opposed in philosophy, which also had reprecussions that were deep and wide. The software *industary* would not exist as it does today without it. Note, software would, but the Oracle's of the world would be selling their products as complete solutions with hardware, etc.
Should have decided this earlier and convinced others to vote against Bush as well. It's a tad late now, we elected him.
An to whom do the proceed of such a tax go?
It seems from your comments that you do not really understand what the Google Print project entails. They are not giving people access to complete copyrighted works unless the copyright has expired or the current copyright holder has given permission for people to access their entire work. They are giving people access to excerpts of copyrighted works--all of which fall under the doctrine of fair use--including the table of contents, index, copyright page, and sample text around their search terms.
... you can't force someone to work for free".
At first glance from an untrained legal eye, it seems that Google is well within their rights and actually doing a service to the publishing community by providing an indexed database of works and an avenue for people to find and legally procure the works that interest them. It also seems to me that the Guild does not really understand the implications of the Google Print project and could be doing more harm to themselves than the harm they fear Google's project will do to them.
At least one real good will come of this lawsuit. It may end up shaping copyright law well into the next century as the courts analyze the original intent of the law and how current technology relates to that intent.
P.S. I really don't understand your comment that "unless someone agrees to work for free
I used to use TVtome.com because it provided uniform data access to past episode titles. I could do something like this:
1. Pull up a table listing of the episodes on TVtome.com.
2. Cut and past it into Excel.
3. Add a column for the status on which I have seen, which I have missed, which are on my TiVo, etc.
4. Use that data to search upcomming listings on my feed based on episode title and my priority.
5. Print out a weekly "program TiVo" checklist.
This allowed me to select an older show which I may have not watched when it first aired but is in re-runs. Then let's say it's a show one would want to watch in order. Since re-runs are not always predictable, etc, having a list of things on this week that I missed and a spreadsheet with information like a list of all episodes, and if I've seen them, let me easily record those episodes I needed.
This might seem like overkill, I mean, I can always just tell my TiVo to get all episodes. I've tried that, but then for shows like "The Simpsons" I have to weed through 15 episodes a week and delete those I've seen. And I run the risk that it recorded an episode of "The Simpsons" that I've seen over an episode of a show that's lower priority on my TiVo but yet has an episode I haven't seen airing at the same time.
Remember, the TiVo only tracks repeats for a few weeks. When you talk about trying to catch up on 8 shows, some of which have had 100's of episodes, after a few months of watching, 90% of the stuff TiVo records is repeats. So augmenting the TiVo with a spreadsheet and weekly checklist solves the record only that which I plan on watching problem. Only TVtome.com let me grab all the episode titles for all my shows in an easy to use tabular format, with just one copy and paste from each show.
That's why someone would use TVtome.com over fan sites, each of which has a different layout.
I read the article, and the summary was really not sensationalizing. It's true that businesses are worried that such broad and strict legislation could hamper their ability to gain benefit from the games which they help pay for through taxes. It article stated there are already laws in place to combat true hijack marketing, and the businesses are crying foul that this goes too far. That's pretty much what the summary said.
Actually, Opera makes money from their browser. I would guess most of their sales are for mobile and embedded devices, but I'm sure their desktop browsers also pull in some significant amount.
You clearly haven't been using the system properly. I have never, not once in my life, gotten any spyware, virus, worm, or trojan on my windows machines. It's really quite simple: do not run anything as Administrator unless you must, learn how to configure your services to match your needs and no more, and finally make sure you're all patched up.
So, yes, malicious software installed and running as administrator can bring a box down just as well in Windows as it can in any other operating system. The trick is to reduce your attackable surface.
I hope not, as the suits would be without merrid I believe. I don't think any of the above mentioned companies and products compete in the OS market. Trademark names apply only in the product space in which they are filed. Yes, there are some blurry lines between certain product spaces, but none of those are anything close to the overlap and competition of Windows as Linux.
Man, that would suck for me, today where I live is not the shortest day of the year, and here's our sunrise and sunset times:
Sunrise: 5:33
Sunset: 20:57
That's over fifteen hours of daylight. I hope my employer won't expect me to work longer in the summers.
I wonder what technology (and fossil fuels) are used to compress the air. I wonder how often the air tank must be refilled. I see this as being a technology of a lot of future potential, but how effective is it today in terms of automobile range, environmental impact on compressing the air vs. environmental impact on burning biodiesel or other alternatives, etc. The site compares their PHEV with a convential battery driven electric motor, but they're short on some critical data points for comparision, which to me is a red flag...or at least orange.