Actually the Fraunhofer institute did make it clear that their software was patented from the very start.
I think you're missing a very important fact
here: Algorithms as employed
in the MP3 format were NOT
patentable in many countries when MP3 first
showed up and Fraunhofer's reference implementation
was published.
I'm really glad that not that many countries
have jumped that US "you can patent everything,
including algorithms and IP" train even yet.
MP3 only came up because
it was available at low-to-no-cost. Regarding
some of the patents, of course. Nobody would've
had used it if they had charged this decoder
fee from the very beginning, and they
know!
Do what I am going to do: Write a letter
(paper!) to Fraunhofer and Thomson and explain your
concerns.
Yes, I know about Ogg Vorbis and stuff,
but there's no reason not
to protest against changed mp3 licenses.
I don't want to re-compress all my mp3s
to Ogg because this will reduce quality. So
I will still have mp3s around in several
years (don't mention all those CDs I burned).
So this is an issue, since
I will need a player/decoder to access them.
I found that if I charge more money for a
job than I think it's worth (and then maybe
negotiate down to what I wanted to get anyway),
I'm more successful. I mean: more successful
than just lower my price right from the start.
It seems to me that companies look more closer
at a project/employee if the cost is higher. So
it's never a good thing to ask for low wages.
Psychology. They'll think that you
think you are worth it and will have a closer look.
If you don't do this, nobody will believe that
you are better than what you asked for.
I don't know about the US, but here in Europe
there are several TV shows that show the
best/funniest/strangest commercials from all over
the world.
I love to watch these shows. Many of the
commercials are even by the usual big
companies that just don't run these commercials
in my country.
Hell, even _these_ shows are interrupted by
"local" commercials, but it is just fun to watch.
Most of the ads that are presented to us
by the companies' local departments are just
plain crap. Either crap, or they are running
far to often. I hate to see commercials for
the very same product four or five times
an hour. Worse if it's crap.
Marketing droids: Just make better
commercials. This doesn't have to cost
more. But most of what you produce is
just.. well...
You forgot to include lead-in/-out in
your calculations.
Re: Doesn't seem to discuss the legalities
on
Perl & LWP
·
· Score: 1
I meant: What is the difference between
fetching a site every morning in a browser
and - for example - have it pre-fetch with
a script so the info is already there when
you enter your office?
Asking for permission is never a bad
idea, though.
Re: Doesn't seem to discuss the legalities
on
Perl & LWP
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
How can this be less legal than surfing
the pages with a browser regularly?
Additional question for 5 bonus points:
Who the hack can sue me if I program my own
browser and call it "Perl" or "LWP" and let
it pre-fetch some news sites every morning
at 8am?
VCRs can be programmed to record my favorite
daily soap 5 days a week at 4pm as long as I'm on
vacation. Some TV stations here in Europe
even use VPS so my VCR starts and stops recording
exactly when the show begins and ends, so I don't get commercials before/after. Illegal
to automate this?
It is operated through a web page, according
to the article. But what about encryption? Do you
want somebody to sniff your password and let
your lawn mower go berzerk?
Try to explain this to
a lawyer...
The next step is an automatic vacuum cleaner, Bright said.
Sure. I'm looking forward for the pr0n spam
mails for this device...
Thanks for this interesting reply. This is
what I'm experiencing every single day, too.
On the other hand: How many % of people did
care about this maybe 10 years ago? And how many
do now?
I feel that awareness of these problems
has risen. It's still low, but AFAICS from here,
more people actually care than
did several years ago.
I hope this will continue, and I do my best.
This includes discussing things like this with
my mom, dad, siblings, and friends whenever such an
issue arises. It's often frustrating, but I
really see it as something I have to do to
have them think about it.
Make them care. Make them think before they buy.
This is the very complement of what the
industry does: They try to tell everybody
that they don't have to care about things
like this. Everything is fine, and if something
goes wrong, of course they will do their best
to help their customers. Lies. Seen this
far too much already.
modularity vs. integration. Now of course it's very nice to offer lots of services built into the operating system, because it means that your developers have to do less work, their apps are smaller, and their time-to-market is significantly shorter, if they can merely use one of your API calls.
Yeah, but it makes it harder to write
portable applications.
Surprise, surprise...
(In this case, the article mentions that
Internet Explorer is nearly the only application
to use these OS functions at all. But the concept
is clear - Put more convenient functions into
an OS so that vendors won't write them on their
own. The resulting product is then bound to this
single OS - if the vendor doesn't want to pay
more to his programmers to re-program all this
code. Most won't, after they've start selling
the product. And: This will artifically make
porting a product to another OS seem more expensive.)
Microsoft officials said it makes sense for the operating system to provide cryptographic services to any application that needs it, instead of each application having to include its own cryptographic technology.
They're perfectly right. Everybody can have a bug
like this. But there are two problems that puzzle me:
When will the patches for
the OSes be available?
And, the worse one: Will the patches for
this really ugly security leak will also come
with Microsoft's new EULA that gives them access
to one's computer?
I really fear the time where users have to
choose to either install a patch so fix a
severe security hole and sell their (OS and computer data) souls to
somebody else or just not fix their OS at all
and be open to these man-in-the-middle attacks.
This could become a very new quality of
unsecured machines from a security point
on the 'net: Users that don't want to install
patches because they don't want Microsoft
to own their machines - and trade this
with security. (I can fully understand this.)
With Open Source OSes, if the vendor won't
fix a bug like this, somebody else would (maybe
even you). With Windows, you have to rely on
Microsoft even recognizing something as a bug.
And if they do, there's nothing you can do
but wait.
Yes, I know, we all know this. But this
problem hasn't gone away yet.
It merely succeeded in figuring out the best series of motions to get maximum lift.
It's even worse. It didn't even try to learn
to fly. It tried to get to the best combination
of movements that its creators thought was
"flying".
See the difference? A real
evolution would consist of a robot that was
actually light enough to be able to fly. And
then it could measure its own
success by how much lift it got.
Since the different instruction lists that
were fed and tested inside this robot weren't
checked against "How high will it let it fly"
but only against "How close does it look to
what we scientists know that flying should
look like", this experiment is rather worthless.
Maybe the evolutional algorithm found out
a better way to fly with its wings than the
standard way birds do. And it was just thrown
away by the control program because it thought:
"This doesn't look to me like flying is supposed
to look." because it wasn't tested in real-life
with a robot corpus that could have proved that
this new movement combinations actually work.
Really a shame. Could have made a really
interesting study.
Re: (Sorta-kinda OT) - GCC3 and GCC 2.95.3 coexist
on
GCC 3.2 Released
·
· Score: 2
I did a "make bootstrap" and a "make install"...and ended up with two "gcc's" on the hard drive - no suffixes.
Use /path/to/configure --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=SOMETEXT and you will end
up with a binary installed as "/usr/bin/gccSOMETEXT".
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing a very important fact here: Algorithms as employed in the MP3 format were NOT patentable in many countries when MP3 first showed up and Fraunhofer's reference implementation was published.
I'm really glad that not that many countries have jumped that US "you can patent everything, including algorithms and IP" train even yet.
MP3 only came up because it was available at low-to-no-cost. Regarding some of the patents, of course. Nobody would've had used it if they had charged this decoder fee from the very beginning, and they know!
Do what I am going to do: Write a letter (paper!) to Fraunhofer and Thomson and explain your concerns.
Yes, I know about Ogg Vorbis and stuff, but there's no reason not to protest against changed mp3 licenses.
I don't want to re-compress all my mp3s to Ogg because this will reduce quality. So I will still have mp3s around in several years (don't mention all those CDs I burned). So this is an issue, since I will need a player/decoder to access them.
Contact Fraunhofer:
Fraunhofer Institut für Integrierte SchaltungenAm Wolfsmantel 33
91058 Erlangen
Germany
Phone +49 (0) 91 31/7 76-0
Fax +49 (0) 91 31/7 76-9 99
Email: info@iis.fhg.de
(Interesting: On the English homepage, their postal address doesn't show up - only eMail addresses. On the German homepage, it does.)
Contact Thomson:
Thomson multimedia16935 W. Bernardo Drive # 103
San Diego, CA 92127
USA
Fax: +1.858.451.6916
Email: info@mp3licensing.com
I wonder if this affects jobs as well.
I found that if I charge more money for a job than I think it's worth (and then maybe negotiate down to what I wanted to get anyway), I'm more successful. I mean: more successful than just lower my price right from the start.
It seems to me that companies look more closer at a project/employee if the cost is higher. So it's never a good thing to ask for low wages. Psychology. They'll think that you think you are worth it and will have a closer look. If you don't do this, nobody will believe that you are better than what you asked for.
Seems to apply to project costs as well.
Any experiences with this?
Never kiss a running lizard. :-)
The download link for Shareaza is dead (seems the host the download on their website points to fell out of DNS).
Most other sites only list shareaza.com as download site or don't offer the latest version (1600).
So here is a working mirror for Shareaza I found:
Download Shareaza 1600 from Freenet.de
There is a way to open tabs "in the background":
Preferences->Navigator->Tabbed_Browsing->Load_li nks_In_The_Background
(Space inserted by Slashcode.)
I'm not exactly sure whether you are talking about IE or Mozilla here.
Mozilla has "Group Bookmarks". This will open several URLs at once.
I don't know about the US, but here in Europe there are several TV shows that show the best/funniest/strangest commercials from all over the world.
I love to watch these shows. Many of the commercials are even by the usual big companies that just don't run these commercials in my country.
Hell, even _these_ shows are interrupted by "local" commercials, but it is just fun to watch.
Most of the ads that are presented to us by the companies' local departments are just plain crap. Either crap, or they are running far to often. I hate to see commercials for the very same product four or five times an hour. Worse if it's crap.
Marketing droids: Just make better commercials. This doesn't have to cost more. But most of what you produce is just.. well...
You forgot to include lead-in/-out in your calculations.
I meant: What is the difference between fetching a site every morning in a browser and - for example - have it pre-fetch with a script so the info is already there when you enter your office?
Asking for permission is never a bad idea, though.
How can this be less legal than surfing the pages with a browser regularly?
Additional question for 5 bonus points: Who the hack can sue me if I program my own browser and call it "Perl" or "LWP" and let it pre-fetch some news sites every morning at 8am?
VCRs can be programmed to record my favorite daily soap 5 days a week at 4pm as long as I'm on vacation. Some TV stations here in Europe even use VPS so my VCR starts and stops recording exactly when the show begins and ends, so I don't get commercials before/after. Illegal to automate this?
Disclaimer: I don't watch soaps. :)
Be assured, you're not the only one. I see it in letters from companies, bills, emails from my boss...
This font is just plain ugly.
I won't force people to join typography courses, but, really: This font looks unprofessional at the very first glance. Why do people use it at all?
My dad uses it as default font for his Windows installation (in Netscape). Shoot me...
Yes, typo. sorry.
Off-topic, I know, but...
One of the most prominent TV channels here in Germany just switched to a new jingle some months ago.
It says: "Powered by emotion".
Some people say that their marketing department picked "Powered by commercials" first, but this was just too real for the usual consumer. :-)
This is an IP capable mower, after all. :-)
Did you say "Futurama"? :-)
It is operated through a web page, according to the article. But what about encryption? Do you want somebody to sniff your password and let your lawn mower go berzerk?
Try to explain this to a lawyer...
Sure. I'm looking forward for the pr0n spam mails for this device...
The Bastard Lawn Mowers From Hell?
Just imagine:
Thanks for this interesting reply. This is what I'm experiencing every single day, too.
On the other hand: How many % of people did care about this maybe 10 years ago? And how many do now?
I feel that awareness of these problems has risen. It's still low, but AFAICS from here, more people actually care than did several years ago.
I hope this will continue, and I do my best. This includes discussing things like this with my mom, dad, siblings, and friends whenever such an issue arises. It's often frustrating, but I really see it as something I have to do to have them think about it. Make them care. Make them think before they buy.
This is the very complement of what the industry does: They try to tell everybody that they don't have to care about things like this. Everything is fine, and if something goes wrong, of course they will do their best to help their customers. Lies. Seen this far too much already.
Yeah, but it makes it harder to write portable applications.
Surprise, surprise...
(In this case, the article mentions that Internet Explorer is nearly the only application to use these OS functions at all. But the concept is clear - Put more convenient functions into an OS so that vendors won't write them on their own. The resulting product is then bound to this single OS - if the vendor doesn't want to pay more to his programmers to re-program all this code. Most won't, after they've start selling the product. And: This will artifically make porting a product to another OS seem more expensive.)
From the article:
They're perfectly right. Everybody can have a bug like this. But there are two problems that puzzle me:
I really fear the time where users have to choose to either install a patch so fix a severe security hole and sell their (OS and computer data) souls to somebody else or just not fix their OS at all and be open to these man-in-the-middle attacks. This could become a very new quality of unsecured machines from a security point on the 'net: Users that don't want to install patches because they don't want Microsoft to own their machines - and trade this with security. (I can fully understand this.)
With Open Source OSes, if the vendor won't fix a bug like this, somebody else would (maybe even you). With Windows, you have to rely on Microsoft even recognizing something as a bug. And if they do, there's nothing you can do but wait.
Yes, I know, we all know this. But this problem hasn't gone away yet.
This one hadn't anything to do with the whole UserFriendly story. If this really is your favorite, you're not a fan of UserFriendly.
It's even worse. It didn't even try to learn to fly. It tried to get to the best combination of movements that its creators thought was "flying".
See the difference? A real evolution would consist of a robot that was actually light enough to be able to fly. And then it could measure its own success by how much lift it got.
Since the different instruction lists that were fed and tested inside this robot weren't checked against "How high will it let it fly" but only against "How close does it look to what we scientists know that flying should look like", this experiment is rather worthless.
Maybe the evolutional algorithm found out a better way to fly with its wings than the standard way birds do. And it was just thrown away by the control program because it thought: "This doesn't look to me like flying is supposed to look." because it wasn't tested in real-life with a robot corpus that could have proved that this new movement combinations actually work.
Really a shame. Could have made a really interesting study.
Use /path/to/configure --prefix=/usr --program-suffix=SOMETEXT and you will end
up with a binary installed as " /usr/bin/gccSOMETEXT ".
This works.