http://courts.delaware.gov/Courts/Supreme%20Court/ ?justices.htm While he doesn't look that tough, he is a fairly intimidating man. Really, you don't want to be there in his courtroom and try to piss him off. Some folks have 'it', that odd quality that makes you intimidating.
In general, the business model to almost give away some piece of equipment and then afterwards cash in on the required consumables or assecoires should be prevented, since it is misleading for the public and unethical.
Out of curiosity - how differrent is this practice from that of most open-source companies? Most of those companies that I know of allow you to download the software for free, but you'll have to pay for any service. OK true, you can go to anyone for the service, but guess what? I can buy any razor blade that I want (if it fits the razor). So no. I see nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with this business practice. Actually in many cases I really really like it. Now making it so you can only get service from my company on that code, well, that's the difference between the definition of free now ain't it. -cpd
I'll second EVERYTHING he just said. That you Rob? This is Chris. Heck I even wrote some of that crap to do this. I was wondering if anyone else was gonna post. -cpd
actually we did just evaluate Linux as our complete desktop solution. Choices didn't hurt us, it caused some headaches to decide which we wanted to use, but then, heck, our users would never have seen that. At the end there were 3 'problems' (and these will seem odd at first).
Floppies. Asking our users to mount and unmount a floppy disk was gonna be a chore. Floppies are used a lot. That was actually gonna be a headache. Windows with its waiting for the green light to go out and then pop it out is (in theory) a better solution from a user point.
Palm support. This was a difficult thing to get all kludged together and still didn't feel right. Had to stop on it eventually.
Monitor resolution. For the most part resoltion changes would've been difficult within X. Yeah there's some trick utilities, but again with the Windows does it better.
Now. Those 3 problems vs. M$ licensing and prices? (And yeah that was _all_ of the problems we really had) Which do you choose? Ahhh see I tricked you. Office politics intruded. mummble mummble. But I can honestly stand here and tell you - it would be possible. It wouldn't be simple, or quick, or painless, but it can be done. And should. -cpd
And its a huge nightmare the more we think of it and that's just the tech side. And we use Corel Office, so should have an easier time. The problem is all those custom access databases that people have that won't work anymore. That's gonna hurt big time. OpenOffice is good. Heck its great. But there isn't an access equivelent yet. That's were all the customization dookickeys happen that the IT staff probably won't know about. And they important. Other then that we may be doing it. It looks good, its cheaper, we can make more simple user menus. People can't install their cool version of something unless we let them. Less viruses. Less crashing. Better preformance on lower grade hardware. If people can run word processing, spread sheet, access the internet, get mail, run calendars, print, listen to a cd, and not crash 10 minutes into the day. People would be thrilled. Dang. Now I gotta go fix someone else. -cpd
Ever bought a house? Yes I can do anything to the house I want however the house I just bought is part of the home owners association and part of the agreement to buy that house said that I agreed to join the HOA. Now the rules of the HOA are such that I must abide by those terms or else (dum-dum-duuum). So yeah you do get stuck with a contract when you buy a house. Or a car, unless you buy that car with pure cash the finance company usually stipulates that the car must have insurance. -cpd
Use their annonymous tip line. Report that your local courthouse is using illegal software. But just give the address and claim the violations are in the hundreds. Esp if you call from right outside the courthouse. Somehow I think it'd be amusing. "Your honor that computer you're using is illegal." Wham. "Contempt. Go to jail." Sorry daydreaming now.
So you can play Carmegeddon while driving? There's just something inherently screwy about that. Or playing a racing game while stuck in a traffic jam. Yesh the irony.
-cpd
hurmph. I wonder if it could almost be a good thing. Used as a teaching tool. It used to be there were complaints. OH you get 3 lives. That's not realistic. Well with these MMORPG you get that little payoff but you want more and more. Kinda like real life. Ya want to go to college. Then you want to live off campus. Then your own apartment and a job. And your own car. And well ya saved enough, why not a house. Well that's as far as I've gotten in this curve. But I've seen more 'I want a raise.' 'A better car.' etc. So games are doing this more incrementaly. Kids _may_ realize that they'll never be completely satisfied and there's always something better out there. Ok enough rambling.
-cpd
The big issue I have with your specs is the monitor. I've found any lcd screen uses up my battery much quicker. Heck even turning down the brightness saves battery. So why don't you try something like the eyeglass monitors. No they're not big, but this one uses RCA connections. So make sure your video card can handle that. When you can, hook it to a tv should make life a bit easier. They have batteries for it too. The other problem I have is that a "high gain antenna" probably sucks up quite a bit of juice to knock into that insane battery life. Defintely make that switchable. So at this point instead of your laptop, you're building more of a pc. So you should be able to use standard pc parts. Then just muddle with the power parts (the real magic), and you'd probably want to use a solid state drive to save on power too.
-cpd
Ummm. Don't probabilities and stuff not rely on past effects? So if you have a 1/1000 chance of a major asteroid strike per year, and haven't had one for a while doesn't mean that probability changes. And if you had one last year, this year's chances are still 1/1000. (On the other hand if asteroid strikes were tied to some periodic 1000 year event my statement's aren't relevant.)
-cpd
I'm still a bit confused what exactly does this (and presumably passport) offer me? So I can store all my data at one location? OK why don't we use my PC as that? True I'll have to take a copy to my work pc too, but that's easy enough. Why do I want some company keeping this? Rule 1 is not to give my password to others. Why give it to some company? Personally I like mozilla's feature for storing my passwords, and form info if I want. Now that would be cool. If all the websites out there had a standard form for filling in address, credit card, so it's recognized by a browser at all times. That'd be nice. And I could control where my info is stored/give to.
-cpd
OK we complain if someone has open ports on their servers allowing others to log into their servers and send spam endlessly, start DOS attacks etc. And here we're lauding people who want to comepletely open their networks? Gee if I was a spammer I'd be loving this. Just walk along and keep poping into different networks and send my bs. Nice.
I'll throw out a couple responses. Using a few companies and their statements (while probably not 100% accurate these are SEC and FDA liable statements).
AstraZeneca Produces Nolvadex (used to prevent breast cancer), Seroquel (used to treat schizophrenia), and many others. Rougly spending $2 billion per year on research.
Bristol Myers Procuces Taxol (used to treat various cancers), Gloucophage (used to treat diabtes), Videx (used to treat HIV) amongst others. Rougly spending $2 billion per year on research.
Roche (yes the trigger for all this hoopla) Produces several cancer fighting drugs, many to fight heart disease, and many to fight various STDs. Spending roughly $2 billion per year on research.
Do remeber these companies research tons of drugs and many turn out to be busts. Never showing any signs of efficacy. Or doing more harm then good. But roughly speaking say 2-5 drugs launches (actually selling to the public) per year. So on a year by year a rough guess is somewhere between $.4billion and $1billion. Although that guess doesn't take into account new indications for already developed drugs. Which would push the numbers up though.
And yes drugs got developed before drug companies existed. But then again so did snakeoil. And worse. Then came the FDA (and MCA and all the other regulatory agencies). And now yes you could discover a great drug in your basement, but you couldn't do jack with it. Except try to sell it to these comapnies. Try to sell it to other people and go to jail. Try to actually manufacture it - go to jail. The public demanded oversight on the manufacture of drugs due to way to many people dying from taking them. The public got regulation. But with that regulation comes some restrictions.
Besides I'd say that more and better drugs have been found by companies (which you hate) then by non-companies. Your turn. Prove it.
Yes but that falls directly under his point in the intro. He says that he agrees with parts of both sides. As do I, as do (I think) most people. Not everything is black and white. And his point in the article is that it is virtually impossible for him (or me) to resolve our opinions of what we _beleive_ is right to the statements of "There are only two positions." Neither to me holds completely true. So that leaves us stuck. He has offered a new framework for us to try and resolve this issue. He's not proposing a solution, merely a framework to look at it differently. In terms of 'rights' you either do or do not there is no middle. In terms of 'structure' as he discusses then there are no double standards in his beliefs. He's looking at this in a different way then you. One that agrees with his morals. Which to me makes sense.
-cpd
So why don't we flip the choices and see what their responses are? Create say "Intelligent Links" on sites from within mozilla. And create a similar XML file that allows key words and links to sites that microsoft wouldn't like. So - any time there appears the words Microsoft - link to www.apple.com. M$ - link to www.linux.org. Windows - www.xfree.org or www.gnome.org, etc. travel plans -> www.travelocity.com not www.expedia.com. browser - www.mozilla.org. Internet -> www.google.com. And so on and so on.
-cpd
Hmmm Catch-22. Are they allowed to? Aren't the companies under some fiduciary liability to make sure their stock holders make as much money as possible? If they report things that make their own stock go down aren't they guilty of wrongdoing to their stockholders? Or even if they reported something good about their company couldn't that be seen as stock manipulation by the SEC?
Last time I checked - 60,000 feet. There's airspace classes. If you pass through these airspaces you must have permission of the FAA to do so. There is a layer from 18,000 ft(???) to 60,000 feet. I think those numbers are right. FAA has control over those spaces. So the floating hotel should be fine. The flying through us airspace is gonna get tricky. As for being in other countries they will have regs too. Oh and then on return you have to come through cutoms. For FAA details on this stuff see here. -cpd
In the reply envelope put nasty stuff.
Carbon fibres.
Fiberglass insulation.
Broken styrofoam.
Hair from a brush, esp dog hair.
Or along the lines of my personal favoite...
Put tape on the inside of the flap. Duct tape would be great. Then when the auto-opener opens the mail it will jam and get gummed up.
These are just ideas.
-cpd
One slight flaw in your argument is that although libraries currently do not provide pron (except in rare cases), they do so more due to cost issues. The cost of getting that porn outweighs their benefits that it would bring.
The addition of internet filters actually increases cost, and reduces information. Neither of which are in any libraries goals.
-cpd
Yes what you say is true. But I'm going to argue against it from sevel points.
First some people only have access from school or public libraries. Consider that those in poorer areas are dependant on publicly provided internets. No other way to use the internet.
Second most filters are horribly broken. Look through some of the past articles on the site for how horribly wrong the filters are. How many sites they block accidently. How often you can't gather information that you really should be able to.
Third there seems an inherent problem using public funds to limit any form of speech. "Well you can use unfiltered internet but the gov't won't pay for it." "Well you can use unfiltered books but the gov't won't pay for it." Really what is the difference? How many times have people tried to ban books on the grounds of moral outrage. Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter amongst many. And everytime it has been decried as an evil abomination to try to restrain a library from putting whatever information it deemed appropriate forward. This on the other hand is viewed as a good.
Fourth - finally - borrowing their arguments - think of the children. If we give up some freedom, if we allow others to remove parts of what we feel is right, then what is to prevent other parts from being removed? From slowly eroding our freedoms into something none of us want. OK that's scare tactics. But so is what the bills are using.
-cpd
Voila! Poof instant explosion.
Get the same results using copyriht and Slashdot.
Relax folks. I would guess the following is the case. That the reader software needs extra bits to "Read Aloud" the book. Since the book was from Guttengerg it probably does not have these extra bits. It may be that it needs a translation dictionary to fully 'speak' all the words. Further more let's assume its like some of the original pdfs. The ones that - funny - you can't select text in. Gee then you can't copy text out of the file now can you? Perhaps the book needs these copying capabilities to either Lend or Give the book. So poof you can't give it away because their software can't deal with this book.
Before people get further up in arms about the ADA ummm think for a minute. My real book copy of Alice in Wonderland can't read itself to me. Hell even the Gutenberg version can't read itself to you. (Although you can add software to accomplish this.) Are these also violations of the ADA?
Consider that the "Permissions" are "Added Capabilities" not "You Are not Allowed to do this". I will agree that its poorly worded though.
-cpd
Slashdot Mirror
UHhh. That's a bad idea.
Give me your vote or I'll brain ya.
http://courts.delaware.gov/Courts/Supreme%20Court/ ?justices.htm
While he doesn't look that tough, he is a fairly intimidating man. Really, you don't want to be there in his courtroom and try to piss him off. Some folks have 'it', that odd quality that makes you intimidating.
Out of curiosity - how differrent is this practice from that of most open-source companies? Most of those companies that I know of allow you to download the software for free, but you'll have to pay for any service. OK true, you can go to anyone for the service, but guess what? I can buy any razor blade that I want (if it fits the razor). So no. I see nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with this business practice. Actually in many cases I really really like it.
Now making it so you can only get service from my company on that code, well, that's the difference between the definition of free now ain't it.
-cpd
I'll second EVERYTHING he just said. That you Rob? This is Chris. Heck I even wrote some of that crap to do this. I was wondering if anyone else was gonna post.
-cpd
try it. Put a floppy in. copy some stuff onto it. yank it out as soon as the green light stops flashing. Any complaints from the system?
-cpd
Now. Those 3 problems vs. M$ licensing and prices? (And yeah that was _all_ of the problems we really had) Which do you choose?
Ahhh see I tricked you. Office politics intruded. mummble mummble. But I can honestly stand here and tell you - it would be possible. It wouldn't be simple, or quick, or painless, but it can be done. And should.
-cpd
And its a huge nightmare the more we think of it and that's just the tech side. And we use Corel Office, so should have an easier time. The problem is all those custom access databases that people have that won't work anymore. That's gonna hurt big time. OpenOffice is good. Heck its great. But there isn't an access equivelent yet. That's were all the customization dookickeys happen that the IT staff probably won't know about. And they important. Other then that we may be doing it. It looks good, its cheaper, we can make more simple user menus. People can't install their cool version of something unless we let them. Less viruses. Less crashing. Better preformance on lower grade hardware. If people can run word processing, spread sheet, access the internet, get mail, run calendars, print, listen to a cd, and not crash 10 minutes into the day. People would be thrilled. Dang. Now I gotta go fix someone else.
-cpd
Ever bought a house?
Yes I can do anything to the house I want however the house I just bought is part of the home owners association and part of the agreement to buy that house said that I agreed to join the HOA. Now the rules of the HOA are such that I must abide by those terms or else (dum-dum-duuum). So yeah you do get stuck with a contract when you buy a house.
Or a car, unless you buy that car with pure cash the finance company usually stipulates that the car must have insurance.
-cpd
Use their annonymous tip line. Report that your local courthouse is using illegal software. But just give the address and claim the violations are in the hundreds. Esp if you call from right outside the courthouse. Somehow I think it'd be amusing. "Your honor that computer you're using is illegal." Wham. "Contempt. Go to jail." Sorry daydreaming now.
So you can play Carmegeddon while driving? There's just something inherently screwy about that. Or playing a racing game while stuck in a traffic jam. Yesh the irony.
-cpd
hurmph. I wonder if it could almost be a good thing. Used as a teaching tool. It used to be there were complaints. OH you get 3 lives. That's not realistic. Well with these MMORPG you get that little payoff but you want more and more. Kinda like real life. Ya want to go to college. Then you want to live off campus. Then your own apartment and a job. And your own car. And well ya saved enough, why not a house. Well that's as far as I've gotten in this curve. But I've seen more 'I want a raise.' 'A better car.' etc. So games are doing this more incrementaly. Kids _may_ realize that they'll never be completely satisfied and there's always something better out there. Ok enough rambling.
-cpd
The big issue I have with your specs is the monitor. I've found any lcd screen uses up my battery much quicker. Heck even turning down the brightness saves battery. So why don't you try something like the eyeglass monitors. No they're not big, but this one uses RCA connections. So make sure your video card can handle that. When you can, hook it to a tv should make life a bit easier. They have batteries for it too. The other problem I have is that a "high gain antenna" probably sucks up quite a bit of juice to knock into that insane battery life. Defintely make that switchable. So at this point instead of your laptop, you're building more of a pc. So you should be able to use standard pc parts. Then just muddle with the power parts (the real magic), and you'd probably want to use a solid state drive to save on power too.
-cpd
Ummm. Don't probabilities and stuff not rely on past effects? So if you have a 1/1000 chance of a major asteroid strike per year, and haven't had one for a while doesn't mean that probability changes. And if you had one last year, this year's chances are still 1/1000. (On the other hand if asteroid strikes were tied to some periodic 1000 year event my statement's aren't relevant.)
-cpd
I'm still a bit confused what exactly does this (and presumably passport) offer me? So I can store all my data at one location? OK why don't we use my PC as that? True I'll have to take a copy to my work pc too, but that's easy enough. Why do I want some company keeping this? Rule 1 is not to give my password to others. Why give it to some company? Personally I like mozilla's feature for storing my passwords, and form info if I want. Now that would be cool. If all the websites out there had a standard form for filling in address, credit card, so it's recognized by a browser at all times. That'd be nice. And I could control where my info is stored/give to.
-cpd
OK we complain if someone has open ports on their servers allowing others to log into their servers and send spam endlessly, start DOS attacks etc. And here we're lauding people who want to comepletely open their networks? Gee if I was a spammer I'd be loving this. Just walk along and keep poping into different networks and send my bs. Nice.
-cpd
I'll throw out a couple responses. Using a few companies and their statements (while probably not 100% accurate these are SEC and FDA liable statements).
Do remeber these companies research tons of drugs and many turn out to be busts. Never showing any signs of efficacy. Or doing more harm then good. But roughly speaking say 2-5 drugs launches (actually selling to the public) per year. So on a year by year a rough guess is somewhere between $.4billion and $1billion. Although that guess doesn't take into account new indications for already developed drugs. Which would push the numbers up though.
And yes drugs got developed before drug companies existed. But then again so did snakeoil. And worse. Then came the FDA (and MCA and all the other regulatory agencies). And now yes you could discover a great drug in your basement, but you couldn't do jack with it. Except try to sell it to these comapnies. Try to sell it to other people and go to jail. Try to actually manufacture it - go to jail. The public demanded oversight on the manufacture of drugs due to way to many people dying from taking them. The public got regulation. But with that regulation comes some restrictions.
Besides I'd say that more and better drugs have been found by companies (which you hate) then by non-companies. Your turn. Prove it.
-cpd
Yes but that falls directly under his point in the intro. He says that he agrees with parts of both sides. As do I, as do (I think) most people. Not everything is black and white. And his point in the article is that it is virtually impossible for him (or me) to resolve our opinions of what we _beleive_ is right to the statements of "There are only two positions." Neither to me holds completely true. So that leaves us stuck. He has offered a new framework for us to try and resolve this issue. He's not proposing a solution, merely a framework to look at it differently. In terms of 'rights' you either do or do not there is no middle. In terms of 'structure' as he discusses then there are no double standards in his beliefs. He's looking at this in a different way then you. One that agrees with his morals. Which to me makes sense.
-cpd
Geez traffic looks rather light in New York today.
-cpd
So why don't we flip the choices and see what their responses are? Create say "Intelligent Links" on sites from within mozilla. And create a similar XML file that allows key words and links to sites that microsoft wouldn't like. So - any time there appears the words Microsoft - link to www.apple.com. M$ - link to www.linux.org. Windows - www.xfree.org or www.gnome.org, etc. travel plans -> www.travelocity.com not www.expedia.com. browser - www.mozilla.org. Internet -> www.google.com. And so on and so on.
-cpd
Hmmm Catch-22. Are they allowed to? Aren't the companies under some fiduciary liability to make sure their stock holders make as much money as possible? If they report things that make their own stock go down aren't they guilty of wrongdoing to their stockholders? Or even if they reported something good about their company couldn't that be seen as stock manipulation by the SEC?
Last time I checked - 60,000 feet. There's airspace classes. If you pass through these airspaces you must have permission of the FAA to do so. There is a layer from 18,000 ft(???) to 60,000 feet. I think those numbers are right. FAA has control over those spaces. So the floating hotel should be fine. The flying through us airspace is gonna get tricky. As for being in other countries they will have regs too. Oh and then on return you have to come through cutoms. For FAA details on this stuff see here.
-cpd
In the reply envelope put nasty stuff.
Carbon fibres.
Fiberglass insulation.
Broken styrofoam.
Hair from a brush, esp dog hair.
Or along the lines of my personal favoite...
Put tape on the inside of the flap. Duct tape would be great. Then when the auto-opener opens the mail it will jam and get gummed up.
These are just ideas.
-cpd
One slight flaw in your argument is that although libraries currently do not provide pron (except in rare cases), they do so more due to cost issues. The cost of getting that porn outweighs their benefits that it would bring.
The addition of internet filters actually increases cost, and reduces information. Neither of which are in any libraries goals.
-cpd
Yes what you say is true. But I'm going to argue against it from sevel points. First some people only have access from school or public libraries. Consider that those in poorer areas are dependant on publicly provided internets. No other way to use the internet. Second most filters are horribly broken. Look through some of the past articles on the site for how horribly wrong the filters are. How many sites they block accidently. How often you can't gather information that you really should be able to. Third there seems an inherent problem using public funds to limit any form of speech. "Well you can use unfiltered internet but the gov't won't pay for it." "Well you can use unfiltered books but the gov't won't pay for it." Really what is the difference? How many times have people tried to ban books on the grounds of moral outrage. Huck Finn, Scarlet Letter amongst many. And everytime it has been decried as an evil abomination to try to restrain a library from putting whatever information it deemed appropriate forward. This on the other hand is viewed as a good. Fourth - finally - borrowing their arguments - think of the children. If we give up some freedom, if we allow others to remove parts of what we feel is right, then what is to prevent other parts from being removed? From slowly eroding our freedoms into something none of us want. OK that's scare tactics. But so is what the bills are using. -cpd
Voila! Poof instant explosion.
Get the same results using copyriht and Slashdot.
Relax folks. I would guess the following is the case. That the reader software needs extra bits to "Read Aloud" the book. Since the book was from Guttengerg it probably does not have these extra bits. It may be that it needs a translation dictionary to fully 'speak' all the words. Further more let's assume its like some of the original pdfs. The ones that - funny - you can't select text in. Gee then you can't copy text out of the file now can you? Perhaps the book needs these copying capabilities to either Lend or Give the book. So poof you can't give it away because their software can't deal with this book.
Before people get further up in arms about the ADA ummm think for a minute. My real book copy of Alice in Wonderland can't read itself to me. Hell even the Gutenberg version can't read itself to you. (Although you can add software to accomplish this.) Are these also violations of the ADA?
Consider that the "Permissions" are "Added Capabilities" not "You Are not Allowed to do this". I will agree that its poorly worded though.
-cpd