The fact is that it's illegal for you to sing an artists song. If anybody heard you singing that is a performance and you owe the record company money. Sure if you are singing in the shower the police would have to break in but if you are singing in the street they don't have to.
IANAL, but I believe copyright violation is a civil offense not a criminal offense. There would not be any police raids on Fridays if they started using "Happy Birthday" without permission of the copyright holders, but there might be C&D letters and/or a lawsuit.
We're not living in a police state, at least not in this country. Not yet, anyway.
Here are some of the patents I have decided to file: [10 examples of things with prior art]
Patents aren't supposed to allow you to claim invention of something for which there is demonstrable prior art. Counter-examples of this illustrate flaws in the implementation not the design.
Advantages: We will be able to communicate with the people who run our world from the "real" world. I can already see people on IRC asking all kinds of favors, like "I want to be rich. Someone important. Like an actor."
But it was too late - the button was already pressed down, and he - like a suicide bomber waiting to blow up - had only to release his finger.
Unlike a bomb trigger, in Windows you can simply move the mouse cursor away from the focus area of the control before releasing the mouse button if you want to abort the button push.
Similar devices are used in The Trigger by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael P. Kube-McDowell, and Emprise, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. The former has a device which detonates conventional explosives, the latter has one that nullifies nuclear weapons (and fission-based nuclear energy).
These books are probably equally science fiction, but probably have better plots.
We're talking several kilometres of neutron star material (at a density of tons per teaspoon) or light years of lead. Neither solution is particularly practical.
If we could obtain "kilometers" of neutronium near Earth, nuclear weapons cease to be the big problem. Cubic kilometers worth of neutronium would probably rip the planet apart. Not practical, indeed.
Maybe a few decades down the road you could construct artificial black holes, and place them beneath your nuclear stockpile.
And this is practical?:-)
"Earth sucked into defensive black hole, film at 1100."
If we consider the anti-fax-spam law to be a good one, it should simply be extended to the email age due to the close similarities. Spammers have been successfully sued based on the fax laws.
So do something about it
on
Spam, Milord
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· Score: 1
You know, it's not legal to spam faxes either, but guess what... my office fax is loaded with crap every day!
And since the offense is being committed in the privacy of your office, who do you expect to do what about it?
The federal law against unsolicited faxes provides a few ways of dealing with them:
Sue the sender yourself in small claims for $500 apiece, $1500 if you can demonstrate they knowingly violated that law. (I've seen convincing documentation showing that existing rulings in this area mean that by knowingly sending a fax they knowingly violated the law, but I am not a lawyer.)
Complain to your state Attorney General, who aggregates complaints and attempts to whack the offenders in court with a larger mallet than Joe Consumer can wield.
Complain to the FCC, who may get around to doing something about the violation.
Have you done anything about those faxes? If not, you have zero right to complain about nothing being done. If someone burglarizes you and you don't report it, is it justafiable to complain about the lack of police action on it?
But NVRAM still needs some kind of power to keep its previous settings. This is why your digital alarm clock has a battery backup, and your computer's motherboard has a CMOS battery.
It depends on what your definition for NVRAM is. If you only refer to the SRAM-with-battery combination, obviously power is required to maintain it. Since volatile in this context refers to losing memory when power is removed, this is only non-volatile with respect to the main power source, not the backup power source.
I should have chosen my words more carefully. True non-volatile, writeable memory includes EEPROM and Flash memory which don't need power to maintain memory contents. Since these aren't truly RAM, the term NVRAM has debatable applicability, but this is a technical nit.
This is wrong. The mail is not unreliable. In 25 years of paying my own bills, I cannot recall a single instance where somebody I owed money claimed not to have received the check I sent them. That's hundreds of pieces of important mail without a single loss or serious delay, going back to the late Seventies.
Maybe you're just lucky. Admittedly it hasn't happened frequently, but it does happen. One particularly annoying instance was when we lost over a dozen outbound bill payments. We had even dropped them off in person at the Post Office. They were hand-cancelled and were tossed into a large tub-o-mail. No idea what happened to the rest of that mail, but all of ours disappeared without a trace.
In our current location, the Post Office seems to apply a random permutation to mail delivery, as we often get other people's mail and others seem to get ours. Not everyone seems to be as honest as we are, because we've had a significant number of inbound Netflix movies disappear, never to be seen again.
Not exactly 100% reliable for everyone, it would seem.
You can vaccinate against Smallpox, but the existing vaccination is somewhat more risky than some would like. They may be looking for a less risky vaccination. Also, it would be worthwhile having a TREATMENT in case someone who wasn't vaccinated caught it.
Since Enterprise has had a running plotline involving time travel and interference from the future, it wouldn't suprise me if they planned to wipe everything back to the beginning in the finale.
Either that, or Bob Newhart wakes up and marvels at the bizarre dream he just finished.
Furthermore, the dangerous Delphic Expanse, likened to the Bermuda Triangle, causes those who enter to "become anatomically inverted (skin on the inside, organs on the outside)."
Okay, whose third-grade son came up with that plotline?
I think you meant to say SPAM, in all caps. Quoth the site,
We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact is that it's illegal for you to sing an artists song. If anybody heard you singing that is a performance and you owe the record company money. Sure if you are singing in the shower the police would have to break in but if you are singing in the street they don't have to.
IANAL, but I believe copyright violation is a civil offense not a criminal offense. There would not be any police raids on Fridays if they started using "Happy Birthday" without permission of the copyright holders, but there might be C&D letters and/or a lawsuit.
We're not living in a police state, at least not in this country. Not yet, anyway.
Here are some of the patents I have decided to file: [10 examples of things with prior art]
Patents aren't supposed to allow you to claim invention of something for which there is demonstrable prior art. Counter-examples of this illustrate flaws in the implementation not the design.
Advantages: We will be able to communicate with the people who run our world from the "real" world. I can already see people on IRC asking all kinds of favors, like "I want to be rich. Someone important. Like an actor."
This neatly explains Bill Gates.
Not sure it would surprise anyone to learn that these folks are opt-out spammers, too.
Not to mention the "outer layer of waterproof nylon."
But it was too late - the button was already pressed down, and he - like a suicide bomber waiting to blow up - had only to release his finger.
Unlike a bomb trigger, in Windows you can simply move the mouse cursor away from the focus area of the control before releasing the mouse button if you want to abort the button push.
We owe the UN inspectors an apology, they were did better with less, and a lot fewer dead bodies.
I think if an apology is indicated, there are plenty of more important recipients than UN weapons inspectors.
Similar devices are used in The Trigger by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael P. Kube-McDowell, and Emprise, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell. The former has a device which detonates conventional explosives, the latter has one that nullifies nuclear weapons (and fission-based nuclear energy).
These books are probably equally science fiction, but probably have better plots.
We're talking several kilometres of neutron star material (at a density of tons per teaspoon) or light years of lead. Neither solution is particularly practical.
If we could obtain "kilometers" of neutronium near Earth, nuclear weapons cease to be the big problem. Cubic kilometers worth of neutronium would probably rip the planet apart. Not practical, indeed.
Maybe a few decades down the road you could construct artificial black holes, and place them beneath your nuclear stockpile.
And this is practical? :-)
"Earth sucked into defensive black hole, film at 1100."
If we consider the anti-fax-spam law to be a good one, it should simply be extended to the email age due to the close similarities. Spammers have been successfully sued based on the fax laws.
Can you provide a reference to this?
At the very least, the PA Superior Court just ruled that the ban on unsolicited faxes in the TCPA can't be applied to email. I'm not aware of anyone successfully arguing otherwise in court, but it might be nice to hear otherwise.
You know, it's not legal to spam faxes either, but guess what... my office fax is loaded with crap every day!
And since the offense is being committed in the privacy of your office, who do you expect to do what about it?
The federal law against unsolicited faxes provides a few ways of dealing with them:
Have you done anything about those faxes? If not, you have zero right to complain about nothing being done. If someone burglarizes you and you don't report it, is it justafiable to complain about the lack of police action on it?
But NVRAM still needs some kind of power to keep its previous settings. This is why your digital alarm clock has a battery backup, and your computer's motherboard has a CMOS battery.
It depends on what your definition for NVRAM is. If you only refer to the SRAM-with-battery combination, obviously power is required to maintain it. Since volatile in this context refers to losing memory when power is removed, this is only non-volatile with respect to the main power source, not the backup power source.
I should have chosen my words more carefully. True non-volatile, writeable memory includes EEPROM and Flash memory which don't need power to maintain memory contents. Since these aren't truly RAM, the term NVRAM has debatable applicability, but this is a technical nit.
When you shut your car off, power still goes to the stereo via a separate feed, so you don't lose your preset stations.
Most cars I've owned killed power to the car stereo when the car was switched off and the key removed.
Ever hear of non-volatile memory?
This is wrong. The mail is not unreliable. In 25 years of paying my own bills, I cannot recall a single instance where somebody I owed money claimed not to have received the check I sent them. That's hundreds of pieces of important mail without a single loss or serious delay, going back to the late Seventies.
Maybe you're just lucky. Admittedly it hasn't happened frequently, but it does happen. One particularly annoying instance was when we lost over a dozen outbound bill payments. We had even dropped them off in person at the Post Office. They were hand-cancelled and were tossed into a large tub-o-mail. No idea what happened to the rest of that mail, but all of ours disappeared without a trace.
In our current location, the Post Office seems to apply a random permutation to mail delivery, as we often get other people's mail and others seem to get ours. Not everyone seems to be as honest as we are, because we've had a significant number of inbound Netflix movies disappear, never to be seen again.
Not exactly 100% reliable for everyone, it would seem.
Is that a robotic rabbit?
You can vaccinate against Smallpox, but the existing vaccination is somewhat more risky than some would like. They may be looking for a less risky vaccination. Also, it would be worthwhile having a TREATMENT in case someone who wasn't vaccinated caught it.
IIRC, he used this short story as a chapter in the Martian Chronicles.
Honestly, this story always bugged me. An interactive house should react to the desires and demands of the occupants, not the other way around.
Since Enterprise has had a running plotline involving time travel and interference from the future, it wouldn't suprise me if they planned to wipe everything back to the beginning in the finale.
Either that, or Bob Newhart wakes up and marvels at the bizarre dream he just finished.
Nothing says "it's over" like the crew encountering an alien race that requres a threesome in order to reproduce.
They stole that from Alien Nation ("Three to Tango") anyway.
I think this officially qualifies as jumping the shark. There's even a new hair style.
Furthermore, the dangerous Delphic Expanse, likened to the Bermuda Triangle, causes those who enter to "become anatomically inverted (skin on the inside, organs on the outside)."
Okay, whose third-grade son came up with that plotline?
...through time and space by an evil Empire from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Hmmm. Can't seem to get to the RIAA site right now...
You mean this site? They've probably been Slashdotted...
Brad Templeton has previously argued that unsolicited email falls under the free speech rights enumerated by the US Constitution, and that sending UBE/UCE is legal. He also stated, "The free speech rights on ONE SINGLE PERSON outweigh the speech-prohibition rights of 49,999,999 others."
Interestingly, about six years later, spam costs US businesses an estimated $9B per year, including costs for increased hardware and software to handle the load, and has been estimated by the EU to globally cost recipients 10B per year just to download it all, all for delivery of unsolicited (and usually unwanted) advertisements.
One wonders if Mr. Templeton still believes this is a free speech issue.
I think you meant to say SPAM, in all caps. Quoth the site,
If the worms can survive the crash, why can't they build the whole shuttle out of whatever worms are made of?
Or rather the container the worms were in.
It would most likely have the aerodynamic profile of a brick, making it somewhat more maneuverable than the shuttle on re-entry.