Are you NUTS? The consumer got completely SCREWED on this deal. The ONLY winners here with the record labels who took in BILLIONS in extra profit because of ILLEGAL price fixing and all the consumers got back was a tiny percentage.
Few things more lame than replying to my own message, but this is important...
Someone at EFF needs to fix up their web page. The DONATE link at the bottom of the main page is broken. But I figured out that if you go directly to https://secure.eff.org/, you can donate to them.
Hopefully the regular donate page is down because they're being flooded with donations due to all of the 5-rated slashdot posts pointing to EFF and suggesting that people donate. Do it. You'll feel good.
Personally, a check that small is a slap in the face. They did nothing to account for the number of CDs purchased during the time in question. I checked. I added well over 200 CDs to my collection during that time. Yet I get the same amount back as someone who bought just a few.
JULES -- okay now, tell me about the P2P networks?
VINCENT What so you want to know?
JULES Well, P2P networks is legal there, right?
VINCENT Yeah, it's legal, but is ain't a hundred percent legal. I mean you can't log into a computer, download some copyrighted code, and start compilin' away. You're only supposed to download copyleft or certain designated GPL files.
JULES Those are P2P networks?
VINCENT Yeah, it breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of a P2P network, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, which doesn't really matter 'cause -- get a load of this -- if the cops stop you, it's illegal for them to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
JULES That did it, man -- I'm fuckin' goin', that's all there is to it.
That exactly the reason they won't be going back to Hubble. It has nothing to do with money. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe explained it very well in a press conference yesterday (the press conference was supposed to be about the impending landing of Opportunity, but all anyone really asked about was Hubble and Bush's Mars initiative). Anyway, he said that in hindsight, those missions to Hubble were very dangerous in many ways. Far more dangerous than other Shuttle missions. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommended that for future Shuttle missions that it needs to be able to dock with ISS in case of an emergency. It simply can't do that on a hubble mission due to the differing orbits.
I can see Kazaa suing, but under copyright infringement? Other than their actual software, what do they have that's copyrighted? It makes no sense to me (and yes, I did read the article).
Well, I should have seen this coming. Since it's now OK for any company to spam just as long as the subject isn't overtly fraudulent and there's a valid way to unsubscribe, I just received spam from our friends at x10.com. I've never gotten anything form them before and it would appear that the spam is indeed in compliance with the CAN SPAM act.
I've been a TiVo junkie for about 3 years now and an high definition junkie for about 6 months. I didn't realize how spoiled I was with TiVo until I had to watch HD content in real time (gasp!). So right now, I'm just itching to put my hands on the High Definition TiVo. It comes with a 250Gig HD which is enough for about 30 Hrs of HD content or 200 hours of standard definition content. It can record over-the-air (OTA) HD or DirecTV HD. Drool....
Is anyone surprised? It's a superior piece of software from the competition. And the users (meaning IT folks and people who run web sites) are not your average Joe Blow, so having open source software makes absoulute sense. It's not like a desktop app (like a word processor) where the person using it would have a need or want or ability to go mess with the code for some reason.
Additionally, any serious security bugs have been fixed with blazing speed. Compare that with the amount of time MS takes to patch a IIS hole when an exploit is found.
The problem with Google (and in fact a lot of the internet and in particular search engines) now is that it has almost entirely been taken over by commercial entities. When I was recently shopping for a digital camera, I did the usual internet searches. A few years back, similar searches would have found lots and lots of sites ABOUT the product in question (fan sites, discussion forums, reviews). Now I have to sort through page upon page of sites wanting to sell me said item, most of which aren't even actual store-fronts but instead just referral pages which have manipulated the Google ranking system to get on top. I recenlty hit the same problem when doing vacation planning. It used to be that I could easily find hundreds of pages ABOUT the destination, now I just find sites wanting to sell me airfare, book me into a hotel, and rent me a car. It's become extremely frustrating and has made Google far less useful than it once was. In fact, most of the big search engines are far less useful than they once were. Yahoo! used to be THE place to get organized info on any subject. The directory is almost entirely commercial now. DMOZ is extremely hit and miss and has started to get fairly out of date. I messed around with vivisimo a bit as well and found that to be hit and miss.
Despite the problems with Google, it's still the best place I've found to get good info. The trick is to be very careful about how you search for something by adding in search modifiers such as "-sale" or "-bargain" or "review" to weed out the overtly commercial results. But even then, things have changed and not for the better.
If you're going to spend a $1B on a telescope, aren't you reaching the point where the money would be better spent to put one in space away from the atmosphere and associated debris rather than sticking it on terra firma?
The new HD DirecTivo will have dual OTA tuners and dual Satellite tuners, meaning you can be recording up to 3 HD/SD programs while watching another one live.
Incorrect. You can use any two tuners at once while watching a third program that is already recorded.
I know know if it has any picture-in-picture capability, so I don't think you'll be able watch two things at once, but regardless, you'll be able to record two things at once and watch another. Pretty impressive actually that it'll be able to handle three simultaneous full-bandwidth HD signals.
Personally, I'll have one of these on pre-order the moment it becomes available. I've already been completely spoiled by TiVo and in the last few months I've been spoiled by high-definition TV. To marry the two will be awesome.
Bad science, that's all. There are MANY things that could have caused it that are not of alien nature. The articles even mention that. No chills here. Move along.
The biggest problem I have with novices is explaining what a "file" is. Simple things like directories are a difficult concept to grasp if you have no experience with computers.
Storage and memory are another big issue. There's a lot of confusion out there regarding the difference between fast temporary storage (memory) and slower long term storage (hard drive space) what what they're both used for.
It's maddening sometimes trying to communicate with someone who has very little computer know-how.
If you combine H2 with 02 you get water. one water molecule weights exactly the same as its composing atoms (conservation of mass). So the blimbs mass remains the same.
Depends on the source of the O2, doesn't it? In this case, it comes from the atmosphere and is not initially stored on the blimp. So the H2 it caries + O2 from the atmosphere water on the blimp that includes the O2 that it didn't have previously.
A blimb floats, which means the upwards force (Archimedes) equals the weight (downwards force) of the blimb and cargo. It uses its engines to ascend or descent.
Yes, but the weight, as I explained, decreases as the blimp flies if it is using traditional fuels. That assumes, as another poster pointed out, that they're not holding onto the combustion waste (which if they did, they'd have to do something with it once they got back down... and environmentally that's a pain to deal with. It's easier and cheaper just to blow the waste into the air).
What I was told was that the weight of the fuel is significant enough that often blimps have direct the steering motors straight up in order to generate enough downforce to get the thing down. If they can't, they have to blow off helium.
There's a organization in Worcester, MA building a fuel-cell powered plane for a human to fly in. I went to a very interesting presentation there last week put on by ASME.
During the presentation, someone asked about what the commercial applications were for such technology. Apparently, blimp companies are VERY interested in fuel cell technology. Blimps, as they burn off fuel for the steering engines, get lighter. In order to get back down to the ground, they sometimes have to blow out helium which is VERY expensive. But with a fuel cell, the blimp actually gets heavier as flight goes one because they can hang onto the "exhaust" (water) and keep the blimp in equilibrium through the entire flight.
The military is of course interested too because fuel cell powered planes are VERY quiet (electric motor) and the technolgoy will allow for far greater range than batteries.
Fair Use provisions of copyright law don't necessarily say that you have to be allowed to pursue the easiest possible way to exercise your fair use rights. You're right, technically you're not violating the law.
Like I said, I'm OK with this as long as they tread carefully. When I go online looking for live concerts (mostly of bands who are OK with it), I'm stunned at the amount of copyrighted works out there. Many many people with hundreds upon hundreds of commercially available copyrighted albums just sitting there for the taking. Just now I fired up Soulseek and it took me all of 30 seconds to find about 50 people sharing the latest Metallica and Linkin Park albums. The very first person who's catalog I scanned had about 60 or so full CDs shared... and as far as I could tell, they're all commercially available. If they go after those folks, I have no problem with it.
Isn't this pretty much what everyone wants? If someone stabs someone else to death with a knife, you don't go after the knife maker (P2P software) you go after the murderer (copyright violator).
(it's just an analogy, so save your breath... I'm not at all suggesting that copyright violators are equated with murderers and you know it)
My big concern is that I want to make sure the RIAA/MPAA/etc. are VERY careful about who the sue. They need to make VERY SURE that those they are suing are actually making the copyrighted works available for download or or downloading them. No blanket lawsuits that snag people who haven't done anything wrong (we all know the Professor with the with mp3 of his speach or the kid with the Harry Potter book report). And they also need to be very careful about snagging people who are sharing songs that the bands don't mind being shared. There are many bands out there that don't care at all if their live performances are shared amongst fans.
But I really have no problem with people being sued for sharing commercialy available copyrighted works. That's the law, it's how it should be, and it means that there's NO NEED for new laws to cover this.
It was obviously with the assumption all files on Kazaa must be illegal, so Kazaa should be illegal.
You're REALLY reaching. Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said such things. But, Kazaa has (in the public eye) a rather negative connotation as far as sharing of copyrighted files. So if you'll go back and read the original article it said "But what they canâ(TM)t do--and what companies like Microsoft and Sony wish they could--is regulate the transfer of such files (aka block them if theyâ(TM)ve been downloaded for free from KaZaa)."
That's what I took issue with. Not that the statment was in any way wrong. It's not. It's just that bringing up Kazaa or any other P2P program isn't the point. Protecting fair use rights IS the point, and that INCLUDES being able to use Kazaa or any other P2P program in the exercise of that right. It makes more sense when trying to convice companies, lawmakers, and the public at large to simply state the case about fair use rights rather than defending any particular P2P program.
For that matter, just because a file is on Kazaa doesn't mean it's illegal
Did you even read what I wrote? I never said that. But you can't possibly deny that that the vast majority of files available on Kazaa are "illegal" (illegal, by the definition I'm using here, are files where the copyright holder does not necessarily want them sahred). It's just that crying "waaah... I don't want DRM on this file I downloaded off of Kazaa" isn't anywhere near as convincing an argument as mentioning how DRM might mess up fair use rights on content that I legally have a right to copy.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you NUTS? The consumer got completely SCREWED on this deal. The ONLY winners here with the record labels who took in BILLIONS in extra profit because of ILLEGAL price fixing and all the consumers got back was a tiny percentage.
Score 1 my ass!
-S
Someone at EFF needs to fix up their web page. The DONATE link at the bottom of the main page is broken. But I figured out that if you go directly to https://secure.eff.org/, you can donate to them.
Hopefully the regular donate page is down because they're being flooded with donations due to all of the 5-rated slashdot posts pointing to EFF and suggesting that people donate. Do it. You'll feel good.
-S
Personally, a check that small is a slap in the face. They did nothing to account for the number of CDs purchased during the time in question. I checked. I added well over 200 CDs to my collection during that time. Yet I get the same amount back as someone who bought just a few.
-S
JULES
-- okay now, tell me about the P2P networks?
VINCENT
What so you want to know?
JULES
Well, P2P networks is legal there, right?
VINCENT
Yeah, it's legal, but is ain't a hundred percent legal. I mean you can't log into a computer, download some copyrighted code, and start compilin' away. You're only supposed to download copyleft or certain designated GPL files.
JULES
Those are P2P networks?
VINCENT
Yeah, it breaks down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of a P2P network, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, which doesn't really matter 'cause -- get a load of this -- if the cops stop you, it's illegal for them to search you. Searching you is a right that the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
JULES
That did it, man -- I'm fuckin' goin', that's all there is to it.
Thank you, Mark Knopfler.
The lyrics of that song do in some ways ring true to the comment at hand.
-S
According to some stuff on NASA TV today (been watching a lot of that lately), that is indeed what those markings are from.
-S
-S
I can see Kazaa suing, but under copyright infringement? Other than their actual software, what do they have that's copyrighted? It makes no sense to me (and yes, I did read the article).
-S
Well, I should have seen this coming. Since it's now OK for any company to spam just as long as the subject isn't overtly fraudulent and there's a valid way to unsubscribe, I just received spam from our friends at x10.com. I've never gotten anything form them before and it would appear that the spam is indeed in compliance with the CAN SPAM act.
Let the floodgates open...
-S
-S
Is anyone surprised? It's a superior piece of software from the competition. And the users (meaning IT folks and people who run web sites) are not your average Joe Blow, so having open source software makes absoulute sense. It's not like a desktop app (like a word processor) where the person using it would have a need or want or ability to go mess with the code for some reason.
Additionally, any serious security bugs have been fixed with blazing speed. Compare that with the amount of time MS takes to patch a IIS hole when an exploit is found.
-S
Despite the problems with Google, it's still the best place I've found to get good info. The trick is to be very careful about how you search for something by adding in search modifiers such as "-sale" or "-bargain" or "review" to weed out the overtly commercial results. But even then, things have changed and not for the better.
-S
If you're going to spend a $1B on a telescope, aren't you reaching the point where the money would be better spent to put one in space away from the atmosphere and associated debris rather than sticking it on terra firma?
-S
Incorrect. You can use any two tuners at once while watching a third program that is already recorded.
I know know if it has any picture-in-picture capability, so I don't think you'll be able watch two things at once, but regardless, you'll be able to record two things at once and watch another. Pretty impressive actually that it'll be able to handle three simultaneous full-bandwidth HD signals.
There's a great list of features of this unit at this thread at avsforum.com.
Personally, I'll have one of these on pre-order the moment it becomes available. I've already been completely spoiled by TiVo and in the last few months I've been spoiled by high-definition TV. To marry the two will be awesome.
-S
Bad science, that's all. There are MANY things that could have caused it that are not of alien nature. The articles even mention that. No chills here. Move along.
-S
The biggest problem I have with novices is explaining what a "file" is. Simple things like directories are a difficult concept to grasp if you have no experience with computers.
Storage and memory are another big issue. There's a lot of confusion out there regarding the difference between fast temporary storage (memory) and slower long term storage (hard drive space) what what they're both used for.
It's maddening sometimes trying to communicate with someone who has very little computer know-how.
-S
Depends on the source of the O2, doesn't it? In this case, it comes from the atmosphere and is not initially stored on the blimp. So the H2 it caries + O2 from the atmosphere water on the blimp that includes the O2 that it didn't have previously.
A blimb floats, which means the upwards force (Archimedes) equals the weight (downwards force) of the blimb and cargo. It uses its engines to ascend or descent.
Yes, but the weight, as I explained, decreases as the blimp flies if it is using traditional fuels. That assumes, as another poster pointed out, that they're not holding onto the combustion waste (which if they did, they'd have to do something with it once they got back down... and environmentally that's a pain to deal with. It's easier and cheaper just to blow the waste into the air).
What I was told was that the weight of the fuel is significant enough that often blimps have direct the steering motors straight up in order to generate enough downforce to get the thing down. If they can't, they have to blow off helium.
-S
During the presentation, someone asked about what the commercial applications were for such technology. Apparently, blimp companies are VERY interested in fuel cell technology. Blimps, as they burn off fuel for the steering engines, get lighter. In order to get back down to the ground, they sometimes have to blow out helium which is VERY expensive. But with a fuel cell, the blimp actually gets heavier as flight goes one because they can hang onto the "exhaust" (water) and keep the blimp in equilibrium through the entire flight.
The military is of course interested too because fuel cell powered planes are VERY quiet (electric motor) and the technolgoy will allow for far greater range than batteries.
-S
I guess I'll be creating a throw-away yahoo or hotmail address for this...
So yes, as I'd already pointed out, I have "heard of hotmail".
-S
I'm not particularly pleased that the US government now has a growing database tying email addresses to phone numbers.
(for those that didn't bother to read it, they require a valid email address to register your phone number online)
I guess I'll be creating a throw-away yahoo or hotmail address for this...
-S
Fair Use provisions of copyright law don't necessarily say that you have to be allowed to pursue the easiest possible way to exercise your fair use rights. You're right, technically you're not violating the law.
Like I said, I'm OK with this as long as they tread carefully. When I go online looking for live concerts (mostly of bands who are OK with it), I'm stunned at the amount of copyrighted works out there. Many many people with hundreds upon hundreds of commercially available copyrighted albums just sitting there for the taking. Just now I fired up Soulseek and it took me all of 30 seconds to find about 50 people sharing the latest Metallica and Linkin Park albums. The very first person who's catalog I scanned had about 60 or so full CDs shared... and as far as I could tell, they're all commercially available. If they go after those folks, I have no problem with it.
-S
Isn't this pretty much what everyone wants? If someone stabs someone else to death with a knife, you don't go after the knife maker (P2P software) you go after the murderer (copyright violator).
(it's just an analogy, so save your breath... I'm not at all suggesting that copyright violators are equated with murderers and you know it)
My big concern is that I want to make sure the RIAA/MPAA/etc. are VERY careful about who the sue. They need to make VERY SURE that those they are suing are actually making the copyrighted works available for download or or downloading them. No blanket lawsuits that snag people who haven't done anything wrong (we all know the Professor with the with mp3 of his speach or the kid with the Harry Potter book report). And they also need to be very careful about snagging people who are sharing songs that the bands don't mind being shared. There are many bands out there that don't care at all if their live performances are shared amongst fans.
But I really have no problem with people being sued for sharing commercialy available copyrighted works. That's the law, it's how it should be, and it means that there's NO NEED for new laws to cover this.
-S
Phase 1: Create platform that allows people to easily violate copyright laws.
Phase 2: Switch sides and join with copyright owners.
Phase 3: ??????
Phase 4: Profit!
You're REALLY reaching. Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said such things. But, Kazaa has (in the public eye) a rather negative connotation as far as sharing of copyrighted files. So if you'll go back and read the original article it said "But what they canâ(TM)t do--and what companies like Microsoft and Sony wish they could--is regulate the transfer of such files (aka block them if theyâ(TM)ve been downloaded for free from KaZaa)."
That's what I took issue with. Not that the statment was in any way wrong. It's not. It's just that bringing up Kazaa or any other P2P program isn't the point. Protecting fair use rights IS the point, and that INCLUDES being able to use Kazaa or any other P2P program in the exercise of that right. It makes more sense when trying to convice companies, lawmakers, and the public at large to simply state the case about fair use rights rather than defending any particular P2P program.
-S
Did you even read what I wrote? I never said that. But you can't possibly deny that that the vast majority of files available on Kazaa are "illegal" (illegal, by the definition I'm using here, are files where the copyright holder does not necessarily want them sahred). It's just that crying "waaah... I don't want DRM on this file I downloaded off of Kazaa" isn't anywhere near as convincing an argument as mentioning how DRM might mess up fair use rights on content that I legally have a right to copy.
-S