Before accussing/. of libel, how about reading Apple's own press release about it?/. is guilty, at times, of posting stuff without fully thinking about it, but if you're going to complain about it, you might want to make sure you're not doing the same.
Of course, this is akin to expecting Usenet spelling/grammar flames to be straight out of the Northwestern English department . .. --
Now, no matter what side you take in the open/free/closed software battle, you should at least give Apple a little respect in the business department. If the challenge to Amazon's patent is successful, what has Apple lost? Nothing, really, if they were smart about their licensing. While IANAL and I haven't seen the agreements, it'd make good sense to have Amazon return all licensing fees if their patent is eventually shown to be revoked. If the patent is held up--now doubt to the chagrin of the Slashdot crowd--Apple has simply beaten the competition to the punch, like Amazon did in patenting one-click in the first place. --
I've got it! Combine the functionality of a finger-tracing capacity with the knolwedge base of riffs from your favorite band, and you can convert your "Airboard" into an "Air Guitar". --
WASHINGTON--Congressman Bud Cramer (D, Ala.) couldn't believe it. "This is scary. All these emails!" An staffer who wished to remain anonymous stated, "It's really frightening. MP3.com starts a campaign to send emails, and all of a sudden, we get all these emails from kids at UAH. They just kept on coming! It's like they had some kind of denial of service thing going on, but by email! We didn't think that many people in Alabama had computers."
. . . make sure that default passwords aren't used and slap the heck out of the folks with "God" access when they aren't? Now that's something that's needed. --
I help run a set of sports ezines. We've always been fairly up-front with our readers -- we do this for fun, not for profit. We don't resell email addresses (despite the offers . . . the money's been nice, but no!). We don't gather funky data. We don't even use cookies, although we've considered it for reasons.
Now we're in a bind -- we're working on going "big time" and we need to back everything up. It helps that our Publisher's brother is a lawyuh.
One thing we are considering doing is open-sourcing our content management system. What we've got right now works, in a way, but to go where we want to, we've got to have a better engine under the hood. In fact, we've stopped adding another ezine or two at this point because of that fact. [Hint: Sports-minded geeks encouraged to contact me about helping out with the programming.]
We do have privacy and usage statements up there, but I think we snitched those from ESPN in large part -- I expect a lawsuit on copyright infringement any day now.
Considering that the predicted major failure rate was 2% from initial design, do you wonder why I cringe every time an STS launches? I just know it will blow up and my job goes kablooey with it. =)
GFM --
<><
I was just listening to MSNBC on cable and they said that the first thing they would install on the ISS would be a toilet. Hrm...
Actually, it's likely that it's a short-term solution. To be flat-out honest, they haven't designed it all yet. There was a contract to be awarded called IVEST (IntraVehicular Equipment, Services, and Training, IIRC) that was to build toilets, showers, etc. I know that because our company was bidding on it and my best friend tried to suck me in to writing the proposal. =) But NASA came back last week and said, "We don't have the money right now, let's hold off." Not surprised -- this thing ain't going up in a fully-usable mode for two-three years.
Don't you find it frightening to think of an organization that has so many layers of management?
The thing is, you don't go that many more levels, and you're at Bill Clinton. One of my friends is a very new MSFC engineer (25 y-o), and there are only nine levels of management, maybe ten, between him and Bill. Compare this to the military, which has an endless management structure . . . =)
We've been conditioned to think that global warming is a reality. Unfortunately, those scientists trumpeting GW usually start their "centuries-long" studies of GW starting somewhere in the 1400's -- which, according to the geological constructs that allow us to see back into the past, was one of the coldest times since the last Ice Age.
We have to remember that the Earth is not some climatologically stable planet. There are many, many factors involved in the various warming and cooling periods, and while man is no doubt a factor, it's not as much as some would think. Studies at UAH's and NASA's Global Hydrology Climate Center by Dr. John Christy, et al. have shown that the GW predictions are off by a factor of ten -- the earth has warmed up, but not at the rate even the most conservative models predict.
Am I for being environmentally unfriendly? Nope. Am I for not worrying about rising water levels? Nope. Am I for playing Chicken Little? Nope. We must, through science, strive to understand the situations at hand and try to solve them. This is a case of quod erat demonstrandum, and we've got to just let the facts speak for themselves, rather than trying to extrapolate why it's happening from small statistical samples.
Of course, maybe the George Strait song about "Oceanfront Property in Arizona" will come true . . . -veg-
AFAIK in Fl. at least being a "right to work" state, it's quite possible that his firing had 'nothing to do' with his whistlebowing activities.
Hey bud, Marshall Space Flight Center is in Alabama, not Florida, and while IANAL, I don't know that right-to-work statutes would apply here. I don't even remember if AL is right-to-work.
GFM -- who can see a big-ass Saturn V from his bedroom window . . . I live two miles down the road and have to go out there today. =) --
<><
As far as the gummint goes, I know NASA has a program for anonymous tips (via phone) to be called in WRT safety concerns. I kept wondering where I'd seen it at work today, and I realized it was back in the Assembly and Integration facility. I'll be out there in the morning (it's not just geeks that get no weekends off =), and I'll see what I can dig up, Web sites, etc. --
<><
I never said he was fired by NASA. As far as complaints from NASA contractors go, in cases where you're stuck with management at the contractor level that doesn't give a damn, when it's a safety concern, you go to the IG.
FWIW, I'm a member of the MSFC contractor community myself. I'm still appalled at AJT's decision and NASA's apparent lack of action in kind to AJT. This is a mindless, kill-the-whistle-blower attitude on AJT's part, and I hope to hell that they don't get their option renewed on their contract.
You can bet your ass I'll watch my ass next time I go into a radiation area out there. I don't know when that will be, but it will play a part in my thought processes, unless this problem is fixed.
RIAA never ceases to amaze. This is a stunning reversal to me, and for the first time in a while (outside of the whole Napster thing), I'm actually happy with RIAA. This is an incredible boon to musicians, who now only get screwed for 35 years, instead of forever.
Now, musicians must bind themselves together and get that 35 year threshhold lowered to, say, 10 years. Record companies deserve a little coin off of the work for they work they put into the the thing, but after a while, the artist does deserve the copyright. I've always thought that 35 years was waaaaaay too long . . . I'd be fine with much less.
Maybe that shoudl change. Books go out of print, music stops being published, and software that is still useful dies because authors and publishers no longer have an economic interest in providing copies. In all cases, cociety is poorer for the loss.
Society may be poorer for the loss, but the fundamental point here is that the publishers retain copyright to the situation. If they choose not to publish it, it is a business decision on their part. You pull stuff from production when it fails to make you money any more.
I can see where this sentiment is fine in the OS world, but in the business world, where people crave copyright (not saying that it's a good or bad thing!), it won't happen. Sad, maybe, but I think I agree with the business people. But that's because I create IP.
You know, when I first read this, I sat wondering about it. We at TOTK.com Sports run a great Web site, The Rodman Archive, which archives online content about Dennis Rodman. Much of the older archives -- about Dennis with some of his older teams -- are no longer available online. As many of you know, this is pretty common practice -- even Deja had to dump its online storage of NNTP for a short period of time.
In some ways, what we do is the same that Abandonware does -- if any publishing entity asks us to take down the content, we do so happily and willingly. Most of our readers consider it a great service -- they can watch the progression (and regression) of Rodzilla's career in the words of the nation's sportswriters.
But what we're publishing is content. What Abandonware pirates publish is code. I've got to wonder where you draw the fuzzy gray line -- between content and code, or to either side, right or wrong?
Why do I say that? I think the pirates are wrong, and that we are right. But that's damned petty.
Your point is taken, but if you're going to disseminate information, you have to have a face for it. Remember 1984? They had Big Brother's mug up everywhere. Same goes for the Nazis with Hitler. If you're going to revolutionize, you have to have something to visualize things around.
That's why we have heroes and villains. They are demonstrative, visual characters.
As for using it on trade rumors, etc., as you note, if I don't know who the heck you are, what level of credibility do you have with me? Not much. Neither do I with you. As I see it, Publius strips that away from you.
To go back to the original example, Publius was used for a pseudonym, but many knew who was responsible for the work of the Federalist Papers. In order to be convincing in their arguments, they had to craft their arguments well and fully. That is required to overcome the anonymity.
As an Internet publisher myself, I'm a bit miffed as to what's going on here. Sure, I publish stuff about sports, which is not exactly Earth-shattering in terms of societal impact (though I can argue for its societal worth, mind you), but what seems weird to me is that this is a way to hide behind the computer screen.
Looking at the root of the name of Publius -- familiar with the Federalist Papers myself, because I have to soon explain why we made all those changes in the UAH SGA last year anyway -- I see their point, but societal change is more often brought about by grassroots efforts led by out-in-front, standard-bearing individuals.
To demonstrate my point, could the American Civil Rights movement have progressed without someone like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., marching? Sure, he could have sat in Atlanta (or Memphis, or Selma, or . ..) and written beautiful works on what was wrong with the oppression of "Negroes" in American society. I dare say his impact was strengthened by his visible action.
Heck, to take it to a whole other level, Jesus Christ himself could have just written a bunch of stuff, but I guarantee fewer people would be affected by Christianity -- whether you have a positive or negative view of it -- without some decisive action in there.
Anonymity breeds a small hair of distrust. If you're going to take over the world, you've got to have people's trust.
Okay, I may get strung up by my toenails for suggesting this, but anyone who seeks to live long enough to outrun the next court date in this arena really needs to work with RIAA, not against them. Simply put, they're running scared. Why?
See, until now, the companies that make up RIAA have run the entire network -- from A&R all the way to producing the CD's. Napster and its ilk seek to remove the production end from the business, where the real money is made. In fact, they're also gobbling up A&R as well, as the A&R process becomes more democratized.
What does this do to the average record label? It simply puts them in a position where all they're doing is helping to organize touring (oftentimes done as a by-the-band function) and marketing. That is a low-margin area, as it's pretty cost-intensive.
Granted, how RIAA and its constiuents screw over artists is legendary. While the politicians are overlooking the IP rights to other things, they need to look at how IP is getting squelched for individual artists. But if you want to be successful in the digital (compressed) music world, you have to work with RIAA, not against them. Just guard your wallet.
Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public about the provisions of the bill and asked the House with help in promoting "the interests of this country's businesses when the time comes."
Funny . . . whenever a liberal government in America wants to have its issues understood by the populace, they turn to the best propoganda machine in America -- the American mainstream news media.
Slashdot Mirror
Before accussing /. of libel, how about reading Apple's own press release about it? /. is guilty, at times, of posting stuff without fully thinking about it, but if you're going to complain about it, you might want to make sure you're not doing the same.
Of course, this is akin to expecting Usenet spelling/grammar flames to be straight out of the Northwestern English department . . .
--
Now, no matter what side you take in the open/free/closed software battle, you should at least give Apple a little respect in the business department. If the challenge to Amazon's patent is successful, what has Apple lost? Nothing, really, if they were smart about their licensing. While IANAL and I haven't seen the agreements, it'd make good sense to have Amazon return all licensing fees if their patent is eventually shown to be revoked. If the patent is held up--now doubt to the chagrin of the Slashdot crowd--Apple has simply beaten the competition to the punch, like Amazon did in patenting one-click in the first place.
--
Maybe. Dunno. But I speak highly of UAH. I should, considering the position I hold.
--
I've got it! Combine the functionality of a finger-tracing capacity with the knolwedge base of riffs from your favorite band, and you can convert your "Airboard" into an "Air Guitar".
--
WASHINGTON--Congressman Bud Cramer (D, Ala.) couldn't believe it. "This is scary. All these emails!" An staffer who wished to remain anonymous stated, "It's really frightening. MP3.com starts a campaign to send emails, and all of a sudden, we get all these emails from kids at UAH. They just kept on coming! It's like they had some kind of denial of service thing going on, but by email! We didn't think that many people in Alabama had computers."
--
. . . make sure that default passwords aren't used and slap the heck out of the folks with "God" access when they aren't? Now that's something that's needed.
--
. . . become "FascDot Killed My Pr". They must have had a low bid on that eBay auction.
--
I help run a set of sports ezines. We've always been fairly up-front with our readers -- we do this for fun, not for profit. We don't resell email addresses (despite the offers . . . the money's been nice, but no!). We don't gather funky data. We don't even use cookies, although we've considered it for reasons.
Now we're in a bind -- we're working on going "big time" and we need to back everything up. It helps that our Publisher's brother is a lawyuh.
One thing we are considering doing is open-sourcing our content management system. What we've got right now works, in a way, but to go where we want to, we've got to have a better engine under the hood. In fact, we've stopped adding another ezine or two at this point because of that fact. [Hint: Sports-minded geeks encouraged to contact me about helping out with the programming.]
We do have privacy and usage statements up there, but I think we snitched those from ESPN in large part -- I expect a lawsuit on copyright infringement any day now.
--
Considering that the predicted major failure rate was 2% from initial design, do you wonder why I cringe every time an STS launches? I just know it will blow up and my job goes kablooey with it. =) GFM
--
<><
Actually, it's likely that it's a short-term solution. To be flat-out honest, they haven't designed it all yet. There was a contract to be awarded called IVEST (IntraVehicular Equipment, Services, and Training, IIRC) that was to build toilets, showers, etc. I know that because our company was bidding on it and my best friend tried to suck me in to writing the proposal. =) But NASA came back last week and said, "We don't have the money right now, let's hold off." Not surprised -- this thing ain't going up in a fully-usable mode for two-three years.
--
<><
You got me. I thought it was pretty cool. Cool enough to get posted, but not cool enough for main page. -shrug-
--
<><
. . . so the next thing you know, GNOME will be re-written in perl. =P
--
<><
LaRC is the NASA center at Langley. There's Langley AFB, LaRC, and then our good buddies in the CIA . . .
--
<><
The thing is, you don't go that many more levels, and you're at Bill Clinton. One of my friends is a very new MSFC engineer (25 y-o), and there are only nine levels of management, maybe ten, between him and Bill. Compare this to the military, which has an endless management structure . . . =)
--
<><
We've been conditioned to think that global warming is a reality. Unfortunately, those scientists trumpeting GW usually start their "centuries-long" studies of GW starting somewhere in the 1400's -- which, according to the geological constructs that allow us to see back into the past, was one of the coldest times since the last Ice Age.
We have to remember that the Earth is not some climatologically stable planet. There are many, many factors involved in the various warming and cooling periods, and while man is no doubt a factor, it's not as much as some would think. Studies at UAH's and NASA's Global Hydrology Climate Center by Dr. John Christy, et al. have shown that the GW predictions are off by a factor of ten -- the earth has warmed up, but not at the rate even the most conservative models predict.
Am I for being environmentally unfriendly? Nope. Am I for not worrying about rising water levels? Nope. Am I for playing Chicken Little? Nope. We must, through science, strive to understand the situations at hand and try to solve them. This is a case of quod erat demonstrandum, and we've got to just let the facts speak for themselves, rather than trying to extrapolate why it's happening from small statistical samples.
Of course, maybe the George Strait song about "Oceanfront Property in Arizona" will come true . . . -veg-
--
<><
Hey bud, Marshall Space Flight Center is in Alabama, not Florida, and while IANAL, I don't know that right-to-work statutes would apply here. I don't even remember if AL is right-to-work.
GFM -- who can see a big-ass Saturn V from his bedroom window . . . I live two miles down the road and have to go out there today. =)
--
<><
As far as the gummint goes, I know NASA has a program for anonymous tips (via phone) to be called in WRT safety concerns. I kept wondering where I'd seen it at work today, and I realized it was back in the Assembly and Integration facility. I'll be out there in the morning (it's not just geeks that get no weekends off =), and I'll see what I can dig up, Web sites, etc.
--
<><
I never said he was fired by NASA. As far as complaints from NASA contractors go, in cases where you're stuck with management at the contractor level that doesn't give a damn, when it's a safety concern, you go to the IG.
FWIW, I'm a member of the MSFC contractor community myself. I'm still appalled at AJT's decision and NASA's apparent lack of action in kind to AJT. This is a mindless, kill-the-whistle-blower attitude on AJT's part, and I hope to hell that they don't get their option renewed on their contract.
You can bet your ass I'll watch my ass next time I go into a radiation area out there. I don't know when that will be, but it will play a part in my thought processes, unless this problem is fixed.
--
<><
RIAA never ceases to amaze. This is a stunning reversal to me, and for the first time in a while (outside of the whole Napster thing), I'm actually happy with RIAA. This is an incredible boon to musicians, who now only get screwed for 35 years, instead of forever.
Now, musicians must bind themselves together and get that 35 year threshhold lowered to, say, 10 years. Record companies deserve a little coin off of the work for they work they put into the the thing, but after a while, the artist does deserve the copyright. I've always thought that 35 years was waaaaaay too long . . . I'd be fine with much less.
But then, I am a wannabe recording artist . . .
--
<><
Society may be poorer for the loss, but the fundamental point here is that the publishers retain copyright to the situation. If they choose not to publish it, it is a business decision on their part. You pull stuff from production when it fails to make you money any more.
I can see where this sentiment is fine in the OS world, but in the business world, where people crave copyright (not saying that it's a good or bad thing!), it won't happen. Sad, maybe, but I think I agree with the business people. But that's because I create IP.
--
<><
You know, when I first read this, I sat wondering about it. We at TOTK.com Sports run a great Web site, The Rodman Archive, which archives online content about Dennis Rodman. Much of the older archives -- about Dennis with some of his older teams -- are no longer available online. As many of you know, this is pretty common practice -- even Deja had to dump its online storage of NNTP for a short period of time.
In some ways, what we do is the same that Abandonware does -- if any publishing entity asks us to take down the content, we do so happily and willingly. Most of our readers consider it a great service -- they can watch the progression (and regression) of Rodzilla's career in the words of the nation's sportswriters.
But what we're publishing is content. What Abandonware pirates publish is code. I've got to wonder where you draw the fuzzy gray line -- between content and code, or to either side, right or wrong?
Why do I say that? I think the pirates are wrong, and that we are right. But that's damned petty.
Comments welcome and encouraged.
--
<><
Your point is taken, but if you're going to disseminate information, you have to have a face for it. Remember 1984 ? They had Big Brother's mug up everywhere. Same goes for the Nazis with Hitler. If you're going to revolutionize, you have to have something to visualize things around.
That's why we have heroes and villains. They are demonstrative, visual characters.
As for using it on trade rumors, etc., as you note, if I don't know who the heck you are, what level of credibility do you have with me? Not much. Neither do I with you. As I see it, Publius strips that away from you.
To go back to the original example, Publius was used for a pseudonym, but many knew who was responsible for the work of the Federalist Papers. In order to be convincing in their arguments, they had to craft their arguments well and fully. That is required to overcome the anonymity.
--
<><
As an Internet publisher myself, I'm a bit miffed as to what's going on here. Sure, I publish stuff about sports, which is not exactly Earth-shattering in terms of societal impact (though I can argue for its societal worth, mind you), but what seems weird to me is that this is a way to hide behind the computer screen.
Looking at the root of the name of Publius -- familiar with the Federalist Papers myself, because I have to soon explain why we made all those changes in the UAH SGA last year anyway -- I see their point, but societal change is more often brought about by grassroots efforts led by out-in-front, standard-bearing individuals.
To demonstrate my point, could the American Civil Rights movement have progressed without someone like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., marching? Sure, he could have sat in Atlanta (or Memphis, or Selma, or . . .) and written beautiful works on what was wrong with the oppression of "Negroes" in American society. I dare say his impact was strengthened by his visible action.
Heck, to take it to a whole other level, Jesus Christ himself could have just written a bunch of stuff, but I guarantee fewer people would be affected by Christianity -- whether you have a positive or negative view of it -- without some decisive action in there.
Anonymity breeds a small hair of distrust. If you're going to take over the world, you've got to have people's trust.
--
<><
Okay, I may get strung up by my toenails for suggesting this, but anyone who seeks to live long enough to outrun the next court date in this arena really needs to work with RIAA, not against them. Simply put, they're running scared. Why?
See, until now, the companies that make up RIAA have run the entire network -- from A&R all the way to producing the CD's. Napster and its ilk seek to remove the production end from the business, where the real money is made. In fact, they're also gobbling up A&R as well, as the A&R process becomes more democratized.
What does this do to the average record label? It simply puts them in a position where all they're doing is helping to organize touring (oftentimes done as a by-the-band function) and marketing. That is a low-margin area, as it's pretty cost-intensive.
Granted, how RIAA and its constiuents screw over artists is legendary. While the politicians are overlooking the IP rights to other things, they need to look at how IP is getting squelched for individual artists. But if you want to be successful in the digital (compressed) music world, you have to work with RIAA, not against them. Just guard your wallet.
--
<><
Clarke stressed that "propaganda is needed" to re-educate the public about the provisions of the bill and asked the House with help in promoting "the interests of this country's businesses when the time comes."
Funny . . . whenever a liberal government in America wants to have its issues understood by the populace, they turn to the best propoganda machine in America -- the American mainstream news media.
--
<><