Did the lawyers actually look at the website?
on
AmEx vs. rec.humor.funny
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Your unauthorized use of AMERICAN EXPRESSWAY... is likely to cause consumers to be confused, mistaken, or deceived as to the source of origin of your services.
...In addition, your continued use of these marks constitutes a deceptive business practice and unfair competition in violation of state law.
Considering that he's not running a business, claiming to run a business, or using these terms for advertising a business, these statements seem rather curious. Did they just use a search engine and automatically send out a nastigram based on the results? Would my writing "American expression, Membership has its Privileges" in this post result in Slashdot getting a letter? (If so, sorry guys)
You say no OS-specific code, but note that C/C++ don't understand things like directories in their default setup.
They just need files.
With this kind of application endian could be important, so you have linux/windows/mac os x.
This is easy enough to deal with in a macro.
Then of course he might have to compile it against multiple libcs under linux.
Distribute it as source. Use static linking for the binary distribution.
And you are going to want different versions optimised for the various different processors.
The C compiler can do that perfectly adequately. How many optimisations are there that slow down another machine noticeably? Even if they could, the architecture specific optimisations in Java aren't going to give anything like the same optimisation.
I'm up to at least 10 or so versions here and I'm not even really trying
I make it 3. Linux, Windows, Apple.
Oh yes, *BSD users might want a version to, theres another 3 or so.
It's just a number cruncher. There should be no OS specific code in there. Pure mathematical code can usually be ported simply by using a compiler for the OS targetted.
Wouldn't it be just as fast to stud the entire wall with cameras? They're not even real, so you can have as many as you want in one place, and just duplicated the ray if it hits more than one lens.
Did this work for the guy who had a map of the bank, equipment to disable the alarm, a large bag, some explosives and a detonator?
Yeah, okay. I realise it's just a joke. The thing is, you can make assumptions about what people are going to do with their equipment. Sometimes these assumptions are valid, sometimes they're not. Each case is different, and should be decided at the time on its own merits.
So I should have new tools delivered to the jobsite every day? My cordless tool set cost me $500 - I guess I'll charge you an extra $500 a day to work on your place. Sure, I could carry that on the subway, but then I'd leave behind my level, saws, hand tools, and every other tool I use on a job.
Well, you could simply get a lockable toolbox, and keep them onsite.
You have no idea what I bring to a job, please don't tell me to carry it all with me - it takes 30 minutes just to load my truck from my garage.
I don't. I suggest you leave it there.
And if I need to run to Home Desperate to buy that missing thing (bag of screws, one more 2x4, hinge or piece of plumbing) I should walk 4 miles each way?
This is another symptom of everybody having a car. No. You go to the shop that's only a few hundred yards away or a short bus ride away. This is the thinking that really bugs me. You burn stupid amounts of fuel travelling short distances causing conjestion and pollution as you go. If you must, then you could also leave your truck at the site when you deliver all the stuff.
Again, you have no idea of how I work, so don't tell me how to get there. Public transport is great for most people, but certainly not everybody.
Yup. This is the attitude of everyone else as well "It's great for other people, but not for me". Strangely, I've managed to work in places without driving there every day.
If you are concerned about spammers taking your WHOIS contact information and spamming you, you have reason to be -- spammers will take email addresses from anywhere and abuse them. However, you should recognize that this is the fault of spammers, not WHOIS:
Well, that's true, but surely it's prudent to take steps to reduce the effectiveness of spammers.
I think you must be wrong. I've responded to at least 200 of these, and therefore have in excess of $7030 000 000 000. Sadly, it all seems to be locked away in foreign security companies. I've just made the last round of payments though, and expect to see it delivered any day now.
I have a feeling you would be pissed when I brought 10 sheets of 4' x 8' sheetrock on the subway with me.
But that's bulk goods transport, not passenger transport. You could easily get all the tools and building materials delivered in a single shipment, and then travrleach day by public transport.
Besides, I live in LA, and public transportation here sucks.
That's another matter entirely. The local authority needs to invest in public transport and encourage people to use it.
Well, not exactly, but a typical professional will take a whole reel of the same shot, and then discard 90% of them. Even as an ameteur, I just take photos of anything I think may be worthwhile, and will probably throw most of them away. Digital makes this a lot cheaper and easier. An always on camera will make things even easier than that
Redistributing the music without paying royalties *is* a direct loss.
No it isn't. It's an indirect loss. If it was a direct loss, then you could put an entry on a balance sheet called "Losses due to piracy", and every time someone copied the track, you'd be able to put another value in there.
Yet it would likely hold up in court. No royalties were generated from the illegal distribution of the copyrighted work(s).
No royalties would have been generated if the file hadn't been illegally distributed either.
Seriously, thye may genuinely not believe the report, in which case, they should simply say that, but they seem to be a lot more aggressive than that with their refusals.
What if the record companies actually considered for a second, that there was a possibility that this report was actually right! Then the only possible result could be to increase their profits! By just dismissing it as rubbish, they're harming themselves more than anyone else.
Piracy involves boarding and stealing ships in the sea with the casual murder of people.
True, but the terms is generally accepted to mean unauthorised reproduction, and since Hollywood has romanticised the idea of cutthroat piracy, and the drawing an analogy between piracy on the high seas, and copyright infringement is generally considered ludicrous, few people object to the term.
But then the concrete on your roads would nver set for cable companies laying down cable. And the investment is too high for too many competitors.
Surely this could be solved easily enough by forcing the cable company to allow other people - including rival cable providers - to buy some bandwidth on the cables.
If there was only one supermarket, then they probably would demand you buy everything in chunks of standard sizes. The thing is, we have competition, so since the customers don't want it, they could go somewhere else that does offer what they want.
Cable companies don't have such competition. There's typically a choice between the local cable provider and a couple of satellite providers. They can get away with this sort of thing by a sort of unspoken agreement. If one of them offered a la carte, so would the others..
Essentially this is the prisoner's dilemma. They both know that they will both get the best results by cooperating
All of them will if you measure things accurately enough, but the ones that it's most pronounced on are applications dealing with a lot of memory access, such as 3D graphics, or those based on real world applications, such as the time it takes photoshop to apply a filter.
I have never ever seen a benchmark that can truly give a consistent, unbiased speed comparison between 2 different architectures. Many benchmarks wil run at different speeds if run twice on the same system, and it's always possible to bias a benchmark towards a certain processor simply by choosing the operations that can be performed efficiently by that processor.
Given this, I tend to consider speed to be opinion rather than factual information. The fact that a factoid looks like a fact, doesn't make it one. Because of this, I don't see it as a great crime to make semi-substantiated claims iabout speed in the advertising.
"seven million people in Britain steal music..." (it's not.. you know the argument
All the articles I've seen look like they're based on a press release from the BPI. Sadly, downloaders don't have a unified voice.
"downloading music from illegal sites" (no they're downloading from networks, peers, and the networks are legal.
I get the feeling that most journalists don't quite get the internet. Web and Internet seem to be used interchangably.
but in the long term unknown artists will lose out because record companies will not have the money to invest in new artists."
This is the stupidest argument they come up with. "Invest" is the key word here. Investments aren't something companies do for fun. It's not a cost that can be reduced, or a luxury item that they can do without if their profits go down. It's a core part of the business. It's the last thing they can afford to do without.
rip-off Britain strikes again!
I've heard this country referred to as "Treasure Island" because they can get away with such huge prices.
Slashdot Mirror
Your unauthorized use of AMERICAN EXPRESSWAY ... is likely to cause consumers to be confused, mistaken, or deceived as to the source of origin of your services.
...In addition, your continued use of these marks constitutes a deceptive business practice and unfair competition in violation of state law.
Considering that he's not running a business, claiming to run a business, or using these terms for advertising a business, these statements seem rather curious. Did they just use a search engine and automatically send out a nastigram based on the results? Would my writing "American expression, Membership has its Privileges" in this post result in Slashdot getting a letter? (If so, sorry guys)
You say no OS-specific code, but note that C/C++ don't understand things like directories in their default setup.
They just need files.
With this kind of application endian could be important, so you have linux/windows/mac os x.
This is easy enough to deal with in a macro.
Then of course he might have to compile it against multiple libcs under linux.
Distribute it as source. Use static linking for the binary distribution.
And you are going to want different versions optimised for the various different processors.
The C compiler can do that perfectly adequately. How many optimisations are there that slow down another machine noticeably? Even if they could, the architecture specific optimisations in Java aren't going to give anything like the same optimisation.
I'm up to at least 10 or so versions here and I'm not even really trying
I make it 3. Linux, Windows, Apple.
Oh yes, *BSD users might want a version to, theres another 3 or so.
I thought BSD could run ELFs.
It's just a number cruncher. There should be no OS specific code in there. Pure mathematical code can usually be ported simply by using a compiler for the OS targetted.
Wouldn't it be just as fast to stud the entire wall with cameras? They're not even real, so you can have as many as you want in one place, and just duplicated the ray if it hits more than one lens.
Did this work for the guy who had a map of the bank, equipment to disable the alarm, a large bag, some explosives and a detonator?
Yeah, okay. I realise it's just a joke. The thing is, you can make assumptions about what people are going to do with their equipment. Sometimes these assumptions are valid, sometimes they're not. Each case is different, and should be decided at the time on its own merits.
You'll get much better bandwidth if you simply take the data by train. Even with the delays inherent in English rail.
So I should have new tools delivered to the jobsite every day? My cordless tool set cost me $500 - I guess I'll charge you an extra $500 a day to work on your place. Sure, I could carry that on the subway, but then I'd leave behind my level, saws, hand tools, and every other tool I use on a job.
Well, you could simply get a lockable toolbox, and keep them onsite.
You have no idea what I bring to a job, please don't tell me to carry it all with me - it takes 30 minutes just to load my truck from my garage.
I don't. I suggest you leave it there.
And if I need to run to Home Desperate to buy that missing thing (bag of screws, one more 2x4, hinge or piece of plumbing) I should walk 4 miles each way?
This is another symptom of everybody having a car. No. You go to the shop that's only a few hundred yards away or a short bus ride away. This is the thinking that really bugs me. You burn stupid amounts of fuel travelling short distances causing conjestion and pollution as you go. If you must, then you could also leave your truck at the site when you deliver all the stuff.
Again, you have no idea of how I work, so don't tell me how to get there. Public transport is great for most people, but certainly not everybody.
Yup. This is the attitude of everyone else as well "It's great for other people, but not for me". Strangely, I've managed to work in places without driving there every day.
Have you ever tried to get a restraining order? It's really not as easy as it sounds.
And why should someone have to go to this effort? Just because of the beurocratic necessity of having accurate WHOIS information?
If you are concerned about spammers taking your WHOIS contact information and spamming you, you have reason to be -- spammers will take email addresses from anywhere and abuse them. However, you should recognize that this is the fault of spammers, not WHOIS:
Well, that's true, but surely it's prudent to take steps to reduce the effectiveness of spammers.
Nope. This is me.
I think you must be wrong. I've responded to at least 200 of these, and therefore have in excess of $7030 000 000 000. Sadly, it all seems to be locked away in foreign security companies. I've just made the last round of payments though, and expect to see it delivered any day now.
I have a feeling you would be pissed when I brought 10 sheets of 4' x 8' sheetrock on the subway with me.
But that's bulk goods transport, not passenger transport. You could easily get all the tools and building materials delivered in a single shipment, and then travrleach day by public transport.
Besides, I live in LA, and public transportation here sucks.
That's another matter entirely. The local authority needs to invest in public transport and encourage people to use it.
Well, not exactly, but a typical professional will take a whole reel of the same shot, and then discard 90% of them. Even as an ameteur, I just take photos of anything I think may be worthwhile, and will probably throw most of them away. Digital makes this a lot cheaper and easier. An always on camera will make things even easier than that
Redistributing the music without paying royalties *is* a direct loss.
No it isn't. It's an indirect loss. If it was a direct loss, then you could put an entry on a balance sheet called "Losses due to piracy", and every time someone copied the track, you'd be able to put another value in there.
Yet it would likely hold up in court. No royalties were generated from the illegal distribution of the copyrighted work(s).
No royalties would have been generated if the file hadn't been illegally distributed either.
Seriously, thye may genuinely not believe the report, in which case, they should simply say that, but they seem to be a lot more aggressive than that with their refusals.
What if the record companies actually considered for a second, that there was a possibility that this report was actually right! Then the only possible result could be to increase their profits! By just dismissing it as rubbish, they're harming themselves more than anyone else.
Piracy involves boarding and stealing ships in the sea with the casual murder of people.
True, but the terms is generally accepted to mean unauthorised reproduction, and since Hollywood has romanticised the idea of cutthroat piracy, and the drawing an analogy between piracy on the high seas, and copyright infringement is generally considered ludicrous, few people object to the term.
It's better than no competition at all, and if regulated properly can actually allow decent competition.
But then the concrete on your roads would nver set for cable companies laying down cable. And the investment is too high for too many competitors.
Surely this could be solved easily enough by forcing the cable company to allow other people - including rival cable providers - to buy some bandwidth on the cables.
Perhaps "Are local monopolies" would be better.
Uhmm.. No. Just that there should be no restriction to someone else opeining up a car service shop.
If there was only one supermarket, then they probably would demand you buy everything in chunks of standard sizes. The thing is, we have competition, so since the customers don't want it, they could go somewhere else that does offer what they want.
.
Cable companies don't have such competition. There's typically a choice between the local cable provider and a couple of satellite providers. They can get away with this sort of thing by a sort of unspoken agreement. If one of them offered a la carte, so would the others.
Essentially this is the prisoner's dilemma. They both know that they will both get the best results by cooperating
All of them will if you measure things accurately enough, but the ones that it's most pronounced on are applications dealing with a lot of memory access, such as 3D graphics, or those based on real world applications, such as the time it takes photoshop to apply a filter.
I have never ever seen a benchmark that can truly give a consistent, unbiased speed comparison between 2 different architectures. Many benchmarks wil run at different speeds if run twice on the same system, and it's always possible to bias a benchmark towards a certain processor simply by choosing the operations that can be performed efficiently by that processor.
Given this, I tend to consider speed to be opinion rather than factual information. The fact that a factoid looks like a fact, doesn't make it one. Because of this, I don't see it as a great crime to make semi-substantiated claims iabout speed in the advertising.
A few comments of my own
"seven million people in Britain steal music..." (it's not.. you know the argument
All the articles I've seen look like they're based on a press release from the BPI. Sadly, downloaders don't have a unified voice.
"downloading music from illegal sites" (no they're downloading from networks, peers, and the networks are legal.
I get the feeling that most journalists don't quite get the internet. Web and Internet seem to be used interchangably.
but in the long term unknown artists will lose out because record companies will not have the money to invest in new artists."
This is the stupidest argument they come up with. "Invest" is the key word here. Investments aren't something companies do for fun. It's not a cost that can be reduced, or a luxury item that they can do without if their profits go down. It's a core part of the business. It's the last thing they can afford to do without.
rip-off Britain strikes again!
I've heard this country referred to as "Treasure Island" because they can get away with such huge prices.
You can watch sport at broadcast quality with multiple camera angles through the internet!? Where!?