If Congress wants to subvert the spirit of the Consitution in this regard, but stay within the letter of limited terms, all it has to do is extend the term of copyright for a really really long time. 300 million years after the death of the author seems like a nice, round, very large yet still finite number.
Seriously, the entire difficulty with the Supremes maintaining that as long as the term is finite it is not their problem is that there are ways to have finite yet effectively unlimited terms. Repeated small extension is one, and one-time obscenely large extension is another. If Congress is being auctioned off with respect to this kind of legislation, then the courts must eventually summon up the will to draw some line that makes the copyright extension power limited in reality, not just in its syntax.
Um, yeah, these techniques are great, but they are techniques for spamming. And they'll work pretty well right up until the search engine that you're trying to spam catches you, and then you will disappear from their index, and rightly so.
The battle between search engines and spammers trying to game those search engines is an arms race of sorts, and trying to naively use spam techniques to fool search engines is a bad idea, both morally and in terms of expected benefit. Search-engine spammers do this for a living, and so they are on the forefront of that arms race, in a sense. If you try to use their techniques from two years ago you will lose. (Disclaimer: I've worked for two different search engines that will remain nameless.)
Sure, I can believe that most accidents happen below the speed limit, because that is probably where most of the driving time happens. First of all, there are the drivers that never speed, so all of their time is spent under the speed limit. Then there are the drivers (like me) who live in areas congested enough that it's difficult to get up the speed limit (although their chances of getting close to another car are very large). Finally, even the speediest drivers have to start from zero, accelerate to over the speed limit, and then bring it back down to somewhere near zero before parking, so at least some of their time is spent under the limit.
This factoid is like the statistic that most accidental injuries happen within fifty miles of home. Conclusion: home is dangerous, and you would be advised to stay well away from it.:)
Right. I just tried your example (bicycle) on Excite's "Zoom In", and got these suggestions, among others:
bicycle parts
bicycle accessories
recumbent bicycles
Schwinn bicycles
mountain bicycles
used bicycles
..
Excite Search has a "Zoom in" feature that does something like this -- it gives you a set of alternate queries you can try to narrow the set of results returned. (Look at search.excite.com, try a query, and then use the Zoom In button.)
Re:American Television - Killed by commerce
on
15 Minutes
·
· Score: 1
I'm sure you're right that the sheer number of channels in the U.S. dilutes the average quality per channel, since the talent available to produce good TV is finite. But why do you care? If you were going to watch every channel at once, then concern for the average makes sense. Instead, though, you have a channel selector; if you can get good information on what is playing, then the relevant metric is how good the best program (for you) is at any given time. If, say, you end up choosing to watch PBS all the time, what does it matter if your cable company adds a 501st channel that shows game shows that you consider to be lacking in taste?
But maybe your concern isn't for yourself, and you're worried about all those other people who are voluntarily choosing to watch all those other bad channels, and could have their minds improved if some central authority restricted their choices to exclude the garbage. Is that it?
Other things equal, I think more choice is good, even if we find ourselves appalled at what gets chosen. (And for my part, I find most UK TV boring and stifled, except for Junkyard Wars and Question Time in Parliament.:) ) On the occasions when you, as a viewer in the UK, tune in and find nothing that you care to watch at the moment, do you offer silent thanks to your government for having stopped any attempts to offer you a tempting alternative?
--timboy
Other posters pointed out that Niven wrote about this problem more than once; the longest treatment is the novel "A Gift From Earth". The planet in the novel has a very repressive police state which is tolerated by its citizens mainly because executions lead to organs available for transplant
Niven felt strongly that our fate w.r.t. replacement organs rested on which technology matured first: artifical organs or transplantation from humans. If the latter, he thought it was pretty inevitable that, um, our correctional institutions and our medical institutions would begin to collaborate.
... by Caleb Carr's piece, which he irresponsibly posted on the Web as though it were fact. I'm considerably stupider now than before I read it, and Caleb is to blame.
There oughta be a law against spreading this kind of incoherent disinformation which is even now roiling in my mind's guts like a three-week-old pasta salad. Salon.com is lucky that The Food, Drug, and Information Administration hasn't padlocked their web servers already for their dangerous infohealth infractions.
I'm going to go stick my finger down my brain's throat now -- wish me luck.
I live and work in Silicon Valley, having moved from Chicago about eight months ago. As a place to live I'd prefer Chicago, but if you factor in job opportunities and workplace culture then the Valley is a big win for me.
But I do think that the diversity of the workforce here is overrated. There are three ethnic types in SV tech jobs: Northern Europeans, East Asians, and South Asians. (I know, a gross generalization, but true to a first approximation). In my old neighborhood in Chicago I lived near Puerto Ricans, American blacks, Eastern Europeans, and a number of other groups that I miss, and don't come across here very much. Luckily, yes, the groups that _do_ work here represent most of the world's great cuisines.:)
It's really from Niven's short story 'Neutron Star'. Protagonist goes on an exploratory visit to a close orbit around a neutron star, safe inside his ship's indestructible hull made by "General Products". He still almost dies. Why? Tidal forces --- his head wants to go in a slightly different orbit than his feet do.
I was once self-employed, supporting myself with contract work, and working out of my home. As I planned it, I thought: "This will be perfect! No commute, no boss, and I set my own schedule!"
After the nth day where a client phone call woke me up, and I found myself working within 30 seconds of awakening, I remembered how a short commute can be a nice way to ramp up to the day. And I realized that having multiple clients means multiple bosses rather than none. Finally, I noticed that I was _always_ in a work mindset while at home, and that there was nowhere to go home to if I wanted to leave it behind.
My employment is much more conventional now (although the schedule is still mighty loose), and when I go home, I'm home. And I never can seem to remember how to dial in to work from home...
Try the authors of good books on open-source technologies. They are likely to be good communicators, and they also have some incentive to be visible so that they can flog their book. Most such books will have an email address for the author.
istartedi said:
I don't know what arguments the MS attorneys used, but it seems pretty clear to me: Lessig was biased in that case because Bill Gates turned his back on the academic world before graduating and became a tremendous success--thus invalidating the idea that smart young men need professors like Lessig in order to become successful. Worse yet, BG turned his back on the very same institution on which Lessig relies for his livelihood.
"Seems pretty clear to me" --- sheesh! If you hate academics and/or liberals, just say so. No need to make stuff up about people you know nothing about.
I do like the secret-history theory you're promoting, though. Yeah, Gates was doing fine, until his shameful past caught up with him: twenty years ago, he dissed Harvard by dropping out! And if there's one thing that drives Lawrence Lessig into a killing rage, it's anyone dissing Harvard! (ha ha ha!)
Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at one of the major search engines.
Dirtside said: I mean, your site is ranked based on how many OTHER sites link to it. The only way to exploit this would be to get other people to link to your page... which is the whole idea in the first place!
Um, nope. This might be true if each person or company were allowed only one domain name...
A lot of effort and expertise goes into search-engine spamming, and I can assure you that the spammers are hip to link-indexing and try to exploit it.
Um, one difference between the radio and Napster is that artists get paid when their music plays on the radio. Ever hear of ASCAP and BMI? These organizations license radio stations to play copyrighted music, and much of the fees paid go back to the artists. See http://www.ascap.com --tim
Slashdot Mirror
If Congress wants to subvert the spirit of the Consitution in this regard, but stay within the letter of limited terms, all it has to do is extend the term of copyright for a really really long time. 300 million years after the death of the author seems like a nice, round, very large yet still finite number.
Seriously, the entire difficulty with the Supremes maintaining that as long as the term is finite it is not their problem is that there are ways to have finite yet effectively unlimited terms. Repeated small extension is one, and one-time obscenely large extension is another. If Congress is being auctioned off with respect to this kind of legislation, then the courts must eventually summon up the will to draw some line that makes the copyright extension power limited in reality, not just in its syntax.
This reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once:
The American Labor Movement --- the people who brought you the weekend
The battle between search engines and spammers trying to game those search engines is an arms race of sorts, and trying to naively use spam techniques to fool search engines is a bad idea, both morally and in terms of expected benefit. Search-engine spammers do this for a living, and so they are on the forefront of that arms race, in a sense. If you try to use their techniques from two years ago you will lose. (Disclaimer: I've worked for two different search engines that will remain nameless.)
--timboy
This factoid is like the statistic that most accidental injuries happen within fifty miles of home. Conclusion: home is dangerous, and you would be advised to stay well away from it. :)
--timboy
Right. I just tried your example (bicycle) on Excite's "Zoom In", and got these suggestions, among others:
bicycle parts
bicycle accessories
recumbent bicycles
Schwinn bicycles
mountain bicycles
used bicycles
..
Excite Search has a "Zoom in" feature that does something like this -- it gives you a set of alternate queries you can try to narrow the set of results returned. (Look at search.excite.com, try a query, and then use the Zoom In button.)
But maybe your concern isn't for yourself, and you're worried about all those other people who are voluntarily choosing to watch all those other bad channels, and could have their minds improved if some central authority restricted their choices to exclude the garbage. Is that it?
Other things equal, I think more choice is good, even if we find ourselves appalled at what gets chosen. (And for my part, I find most UK TV boring and stifled, except for Junkyard Wars and Question Time in Parliament. :) ) On the occasions when you, as a viewer in the UK, tune in and find nothing that you care to watch at the moment, do you offer silent thanks to your government for having stopped any attempts to offer you a tempting alternative?
--timboy
'Leveity' is to 'weightt' as 'doolerousness' is to ??.
Niven felt strongly that our fate w.r.t. replacement organs rested on which technology matured first: artifical organs or transplantation from humans. If the latter, he thought it was pretty inevitable that, um, our correctional institutions and our medical institutions would begin to collaborate.
--Timboy
There oughta be a law against spreading this kind of incoherent disinformation which is even now roiling in my mind's guts like a three-week-old pasta salad. Salon.com is lucky that The Food, Drug, and Information Administration hasn't padlocked their web servers already for their dangerous infohealth infractions.
I'm going to go stick my finger down my brain's throat now -- wish me luck.
--Timboy
But I do think that the diversity of the workforce here is overrated. There are three ethnic types in SV tech jobs: Northern Europeans, East Asians, and South Asians. (I know, a gross generalization, but true to a first approximation). In my old neighborhood in Chicago I lived near Puerto Ricans, American blacks, Eastern Europeans, and a number of other groups that I miss, and don't come across here very much. Luckily, yes, the groups that _do_ work here represent most of the world's great cuisines. :)
--tim
-t
After the nth day where a client phone call woke me up, and I found myself working within 30 seconds of awakening, I remembered how a short commute can be a nice way to ramp up to the day. And I realized that having multiple clients means multiple bosses rather than none. Finally, I noticed that I was _always_ in a work mindset while at home, and that there was nowhere to go home to if I wanted to leave it behind.
My employment is much more conventional now (although the schedule is still mighty loose), and when I go home, I'm home. And I never can seem to remember how to dial in to work from home ...
--tim
Try the authors of good books on open-source technologies. They are likely to be good communicators, and they also have some incentive to be visible so that they can flog their book. Most such books will have an email address for the author.
"Seems pretty clear to me" --- sheesh! If you hate academics and/or liberals, just say so. No need to make stuff up about people you know nothing about.
I do like the secret-history theory you're promoting, though. Yeah, Gates was doing fine, until his shameful past caught up with him: twenty years ago, he dissed Harvard by dropping out! And if there's one thing that drives Lawrence Lessig into a killing rage, it's anyone dissing Harvard! (ha ha ha!)
--tim
Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at one of the major search engines.
Dirtside said:
I mean, your site is ranked based on how many OTHER sites link to it. The only way to exploit this would be to get other people to link to your page... which is the whole idea in the first place!
Um, nope. This might be true if each person or company were allowed only one domain name...
A lot of effort and expertise goes into search-engine spamming, and I can assure you that the spammers are hip to link-indexing and try to exploit it.
Um, one difference between the radio and Napster is that artists get paid when their music plays on the radio. Ever hear of ASCAP and BMI? These organizations license radio stations to play copyrighted music, and much of the fees paid go back to the artists. See http://www.ascap.com
--tim