Right now 'personal information' is a broad range of stuff - too broad to actually hold anyone accountable for its use. If we can get a classification system in place, then we can start talking about unauthorized uses and punishments.
Basically, there is a broad division between information that is unique to the person, and information that is assigned. Your fingerprints are unique, your SSN is assigned.
There has to be some sort of principle to govern the status of these classes. For example, I believe that it is your right to have and maintain exclusive control over the things which are uniquely yours. Within the class of assigned information, disclosures and aggregations must be with the consent of both assigner and assignee - if an information aggregator of any kind wants to warehouse information then they need to have the explicit, informed consent of all involved parties. Some information aggregation activities constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment, basically anything that informs about a particular person or any member of a small enough population, and should be protected as strongly as the physical boundaries of your house or car.
Once some principles are settled on, following those principles makes it possible to grade out the sensitivity of assigned information and establish guidelines for its use and disclosure.
Are directions to a street address provided by the inquirer enough to be held liable? Maybe not, but credit reports and real name to username correlations might be. The aggregation of username, real name, e-mail address, homepage URL, street address, city/state/zip, home phone, cell phone, profession, workplace, and job title certainly feel like a lot to give to register at an on-line forum - yet many ask for that much info.
What the service is allowed to do with all that personal information is mostly governed by some pretty flimsy laws and a feel for how far they can push the boundaries of community tolerance and civility. But without some principles to govern the effort, we'll just end up with frivolous litigation and foolish legislation.
...you can't trust gnomes, they are all out to get you, hiding your keys, eating your socks, stealing your plutonium.
Some say they are good and just being bullied and pressured to do bad by the leprechauns, but don't be fooled by this pro-gnome propaganda. We are freedom loving people who will not be held hostages to mythical wee creatures and fairy folk with weapons of mass destruction.
The gnomes must disarm or, for the safety of peace-loving everywhere, we will disarm them - and if they are still a threat, we will disleg them and debone them.
It occurs to me that this might be (part of ?) a fairly sophisticated methodology to gobble up bandwidth connecting a few 'well-connected-nodes' in the network. There is a finite but very large capacity-per-second for data transfer to and from these nodes that, if it is consumed by garbage, has the effect of the sewers backing up. The commonplace traffic (which ordinarily is in the majority?) uses the same physical path as the more esoteric traffic, like IRC or Freenet, gets squeezed by the increase in traffic that is normally used by a minority of the physical users. This could knock the utility of the Internet at large down a few notches for a period of time, which might be what is needed to accomplish another aim. As the number of incidences of DDoS increase in targeted segments of the Internet, does anyone else think 'Proof of Concept', or am I just paranoid?
Is this response missing the point, or is it just me? I mean, the issue is really whether the colleges are responsible for the behavior of the users of their networks, and whether they have to be proactive in that policing. Like it or not, as it currently stands, P2P files sharing is a form of re-distribution, and copyright exists to prevent re-distribution. Like it or not, as long as the case-law supports the application of analog media rights to both the digital form of analog works and wholly digital works, the copyright holders are entitled to reparations. The issue is who is responsible for the police work required to cite and punish offenders. The government doesn't want to do it. The copyright holders would like to, but that amounts to vigilantism, so no one thinks that is a good idea. The ISP's and GSP's are common-carriers, so can't be held responsible for the behavior of users. So, of course, corporate and educational WANs, with their many users and fat-pipe connections are logical targets. The argument against imposing such responsibilities upon these institutions aren't so much about privacy, its about not having to be proactive. Being proactive incurs expense without return, and these Institutions are only liable for the behavior of members when they act in the name of the Institution, not when they abuse internal resources to engage in private activities. There is little incentive to crack down on these internal abuses because the cost of enforcement is, in the big picture, greater than the return. They should say to the copyright holder, "Without violating the integrity of my network, bring me the hardware address of the suspect, and we will grant them due process, and if we believe they are in violation of the law, we will give the appropriate logs to the civil prosecutor in our jurisdiction." If the technology isn't available for the grieved party to identify their aggressor, then perhaps they should not release their digitized-analog and wholly-digital works into the wild. (Shepherds are not compensated for sending their flocks into the domain of the lion and wolf without protection, they are chastised.)
I work in a college IT department. The RIAA has sent letters to the boards which grant accreditation to all the U. S. Colleges "asking" them to help control the redistribution of material they own the distribution rights to by "asking" the Presidents of Colleges they accredit to prevent their students from violating their distribution monopoly. The implication is that future accreditation processes may include a "DRM good citizen" check. College presidents and trustees take this very seriously, folks, and this is no longer simply a matter of bandwidth. Without accreditation, its pretty damn hard to get students.
Well, I don't have a solution, but the product looks kind of cool. Just off the top of my head, I'd think that the building blocks would be apache and mod_dav, with a dash of wiki perhaps. The layout algorithms must be pretty easy, because I've seen a lot of similar java applets. You'd need a database and hooks into all the relevant programs - e-mail, IM, word processor, browser, spreadsheet, whatnot... Good luck finding it.
Ditch wired access: the labor costs are too high. Think more like a really big wifi network, trunked up to an even bigger distribution network. The community wireless paradigm is pretty good, and you might even find that someone has hacked up a wifi equivalent to a DSLAM - a nifty box that connects to an ATM fabric and shoots off wireless trunks to wireless distribution hubs, which in turn, feed wireless access points either in customer's homes or along public right of ways and in public spaces.
There are two key technologies that I think are needed; the wireless access module that interfaces with the fiber or pots backbone, and the box that is both a point-to-point trunk mux/demux/retransmitter and a wifi access point to hang on a telephone pole out in the middle of BFE. I think it should all fit into a box the size of the ones used by the cable company for their digital signal booting equipment (they look like a little beer fridge hanging on the pole).
The frequency spectrum for the trunks ought to be enough to get a five or six mile line of sight shot, even with the weather and the fog in the UP. Microwave is pretty power and infrastructure heavy, and the antennas aren't very discrete, but maybe a small SHF frequency radio with a good directional antenna.
Sure, using wireless forces you to actually use PKI and IPSEC, but everyone really ought to any way.
The business model could be one with a infrastructure owned and maintained as a utility, and the access and services provided in flat fee packages by ISP's that actually compete for customers. Perhaps there could be a minimal service, like an e-mail address with a small quota and a finite use account could be the right of taxpayers if the gov is footing the bill for install and maintenance of the infrastructure.
Perhaps it is because developing countries in Africa are too busy trying to stop genocide, mass starvations, the AIDS epidemic, inter-tribal violence, and a general shortage of things like electricity, running water, and reliable sources of food to worry about what OS they would run on their computers, if they had computers, for their governments, if they had governments.
From a distance it appears as though a large portion of African nations are held in place by aid organizations, foreign corporations, and men with guns.
The absence of a free software movement doesn't mean that there is no future for one in Africa, but it may mean that there isn't a place for a free software movement yet.
You'll notice from the article, that many of the nationally sponsered programs to develop and use free software are in response to widespread piracy. The market for software exists. In much of Africa, I suspect, there is relatively little software piracy, an indication that the market for software in general is low. When the societies stabilize enough to become pirates, then there will be a place for free software in response to the proprietary vendors demanding crackdowns on copyright violators.
Of course, the pharmacutical industry will have to settle its own claims of piracy and patent infringement first, after that, there may not be anyone alive in Africa to pirate from Microsoft.
The technical problem that fans solve is air movement: fast fans move a little air quickly but you could (theoretically) move the same amount of air with a larger volume, slower moving fan (generally the 'noise' of fans is caused by rpm).
You could try hacking fans to increase volume and decrease speed (noise) for use in livingrooms.
Basically just put a potentiometer or voltage regulator in front of a large diameter fan with big, dished blades. If you could tie some sort of negative feedback to the potentiometer the fan would speed-up as the temperature rose, and slow down as the temperature dropped.
Match this with an efficient heat dissipation system, and good case vibration control, and you might have a chance to hear the whispers of dialog in your movies.
Or the college may extend the privilege of using the high bandwidth access they have to buy to run their business and research operations, but only as a provisional user - meaning the dorms are second class citizens getting throttled access during the day and always being the fourth or fifth priority in the QoS tables. If there is no explicit fee, and no explicit statement promise of service, just a port in your room that works, then there is no contract to be broken.
At St. John's College (not the basketball University) the program is all about learning to consider well and formulate well-reasoned answers to problems by studying the thoughts of great thinkers throughout the history of Western Civilization. They grant a single degree (the equivalent of a BA Philosophy/BA History of Math-Science with minors in Classics and Comparative Liturature - 168 credit hours) and emphisize focusing on the evidence presented to consider how well the arguments of particular work resolves the issue iit sets out to address. Then the focus is directed to the consideration of how to apply what is gained by the work itself,and the consideration of the work, to the real world. In the end the goal is how to gather information and assess if it is valid and useful, then process the information to create new works that express the result of the analysis, and using the results, resolve other issues that may have not been the primary focus of the original thinker.
This produces an individual who is a Liberal Artist in the original sense - one who is qualified to apply a disciplined reason to any subject and arrive at innovative conclusions.
On the surface, it may not seem like much use to a person who wants to be in IT - there aren't any programming courses, management fads, or courses on building robots or designing digital circuits - but the substance of the courses gives a rock solid foundation to the intellect whch the canned courses of a departmentalized university training institutes lack.
What is there is the basic sparks of every issue in contemporary life - what is life, what separates man from beast, what is number, how is information moved between minds, how did the scientific knowledge we take for granted - geometry, arithmetic, algebra, calculus, astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, electricity, sound, and sight - come to be, and how little has changed in centuries. The ethical struggles of man are the same now as they were for those who have come before us, and they have good answers to many of them. The sciences have made remarkable strides in the last 60 years, but it is predicated on, and forshadowed by, the work of centuries . Knowing how and why things ended up as they did can give us a warning sign when we go off towards the cliff, show us the dark spots on the map that need to be explored, and remind us of fascinating subjects that had to be left unexplored because the tools were insufficient for the task. All that makes much more "well-rounded" individuals asfter four years of formal study than any program filled with HOW-TOs and formulas.
That sounds nice, but come on - right now we are displaying the power to impose our will on truely soverign nations, what defense does a tribal nation have against that force, no matter how well written their treaty is. The likelyhood that safe havens could be established on tribal lands is pretty slim - particularly if there isn't the ability to distinguish between the principled customer who is in violation of the law but practicing civil disobedience, and the criminal who acts with malice to endanger the populous and the government..
Imagine, online casinos create a positive cash flow for Tribal governments, the capital allows for real social change - illiteracy and alcoholism and domestic abuse decline - and every Res in America connected via wireless VPNs to every other Res in America. Best of luck, its a long road.
Alt. Energy is great, and solar is just part of the equation. I spent some time working on a trunked radio network (the digital radios that emergency services use) that was 100% non-grid. The power at each site came from a big solar array, a crap-load of batteries, a few wind generators, and two propane generators. This meant that if the site was fogged in, the batteries powered the site for upto 72 hours, and if it was a storm instead of fog, the wind generators fed the system instead of the solar arrays. And when the site was in the middle of a brushfire the generators could run for the whole week while the smoke obscured the sun. The only other time the generators ran when I worked there was for their maintenance cycles - just to keep things from gumming up.
I wondered about having the propane delivered out in the middle of nowhere, but, as one guy who had been there a long time said, when the EPA made them put in porta-johns, the prospect of getting propane refils delivered was "no worse than getting the shitters cleaned"
How long can this 'exclusive agreement between consenting parties' defense last before software licenses become too rediculous to function? And what happens when they do - is there a fair way to regulate intangible goods if there isn't a transfer of ownership?
I pay 12 bucks a year for a subscription to Wired yet will not subscribe to a newspaper. Why? Wired gives me the magazine, which I can keep, read over and over again, photocopy, write in, dog-ear, and tear up. They deliver it to my house, and it doesn't cost me extra to read it (as long as I read it during daylight). I could get most of the content for free, and sometimes I do go to the Wired web site, but usually I do not. I also enjoy looking at the ads in the magazine, though they rarely induce me to make a purchase. The newspaper puts all their content on-line, and renews it daily. There is no incentive to pay someone to deliver the paper to my house; I don't keep the paper after I read it, it just becomes a chore (recycling).
I pay Real networks and Major League Baseball 10 bucks to listen to games streamed to me over the Internet. Why? Because they are the sole provider of the service, AND they sell their content for a price which is easier to pay than to contrive a way to hack their system or circumvent their monopoly. Do I like the service? > No way, the audio sounds like its being fed through a water bong, but I'm a fan and the Mariners are kicking ass, so I pay.
So how does someone get me to pay for a web-based magazine or newspaper like content? First, give me lifetime access to what I've bought. ->If you are in fact selling content, then I get to keep the content. If you are selling access to content, then charge a flat fee for a long period of time ($5 for 12 months or longer) and don't be surprised if I look elsewhere for the content if you don't have a monopoly on it. Second, I don't want to sign in for every page or site, nor do I want an unsecured cookie sending my subscription information out to the world. -> Figure out how to know who I am without jeopardizing my privacy or inconveniencing me. A real world metaphor might be the pass technology used on toll roads -> bill me for where I go, keep the rates low and stable, and let me keep driving 70mph. Third, make it worth my while. If the draw of a site is the people (Slashdot & Kuro5hin), then you'd better be damn sure that the people who write for you are treated differently than those who just browse and never comment or submit. Content for hire inevitably becomes a regurgitation of the desires and opinions of the one handing out the paychecks, and when that happens, your significant Internet information boutique just became an aisle in Wal-Mart. And why should I pay to shop at Wal-Mart?
its one of those days where I spend all day beating my head against some MS server and then jump over to/. to get a pick-me-up and I see this. I'm so bummed. Is there any way to stop the big-bucks steamroller?
Let us say, for the purposes of this topic, that replication is an exact copy, and reproduction is an inexact copy. So, the content in question is digial and because it is digital we can make exact copies. Now, the gripe of the industry is that by making exact copies, the population of that particular content is increased and the market is weakened by the increase in supply, and they loose money. Ok, they loose money, I'm heartbroken, but here is the rub, it is less possible to reproduce a digital work, a fair use right, than it is to replicate a digital work. An example: I can go to the library and photocopy pages from a book, no one is fooled by the photocopy into thinking I tore the pages from the book itself. I can take an audio CD and copy it to cassette and, once again, it is not the same as the original. But how can I retain the funtionality of a work created in a digital media and so dedicated to that digital environment that "un-digitizing" it removes its funtionality? The T-shirt of the DeCSS is worthless for achieving its purpose (decrypting DVDs), as is the printout of the code for my Kernal, the binary text of Moby Dick, and any other example of works specifically tailored for the digital environment, which human beings must have technological assistance to experience. How can I be assured of my fair use rights on an enhanced audio CD, an electronic book, a special edition DVD with English, Spanish, and Ancient Greek dialog, the making of, interviews, alternate endings, reverse camera angles and all the other bells and whistles of digital movies, if the replication of such content is denied by Law. Furthermore, the conversion of digital to analog and back calls to question what exactly is preserved by copyright, the analog signature of the Matrix is not the same as the digital signature, and I presume that Warner expects that they hold the copyright on the string of binary bits which is the Matrix because they arranged them in their order, but what if I change even 10% of them... can I still see the movie and do they still own it? Where is the cutoff between the original digital work and the modification of that digital work into a distinct piece? (Sure, the Industry has dealt with something similar with cover songs and movie remakes, but is this still an appropriate paradigm?)
Well, the way I see it there are basically two kinds of information out ther that pertain to individuals: information that is unique to the individual, and information that is assigned.
Unique information is the information you create (intellectual products like a diary, a sketchbook, a portfolio of code, or the next killer app.) and the information you are (DNA, medical records, psych profiles, etc.). The assigned information is things given to you by others that they create (phone number, SSN, credit records, ISP logs, work evaluations, school records). I see two basic rights here: 1. Unique information about individuals shall not be collected, examined, duplicated, analyzed, or infringed upon in any way without affording exclusive rights to the origin, form, and profits related to such information. 2. Assigned information shall not be owned, counted as capital asset, or transferred. It shall not be disclosed without unanimous consent of all individuals in a data set. 2A. The issuer of assigned information is responsible for all damages incurred from the improper use or inaccurate collection and disclosure. I'm not sure about the 2A but the rest seems right. The bottom line is that criminal responsibility for the violation of specific, personal information isn't as effective as crafting a broad foundation in civil law before we start sending out the cops to bust heads.
Aside from the observation that M$ is just goofy, it seems that the real issue is that they want to talk to Congress to 'educate' them abou the threat of open source software. I know M$ has a presence in DC, but do we? EFF is all I can think of, does anyone know of any other open source lobbies? I have some maney I saved by not buying the latest edition of Windows they could have.
So, does this mean that if I wanted to run guinesskicksass.com that I would be barred from registering the domain, or is this heavy handed tactic reserved for use only against detractors of products and brands?
"I'm sorry for bursting your bubble, but student notes are verbatim copies of the lecture material"
Is the greater problem that these kids are supposed to be thinking in lecture and not just writing down verbatum the words of the profs? And that the profs are guilty of allowing the student who is best a regurgitating their lectures to be rewarded without actually displaying any ability to think about the substance of the course?
I buy lecture notes quite often, but they are the actual transcript of the lecture sold at cost by the bookstore, and I buy them not beacuse I don't take good notes, but because I like to have the thoughts of the lecturer on hand to validate my own thinking on the subject
THe general sense mmight sound logical, but in that meaning an argument in the same light might sound something like this, "Metallica exists for the sake of the listeners, and by the grace of the consumers who pay them to produce, so I, as their employer, can copy and distribute their music as much as I want." and you know where that gets us.
As it is, the Profs are usually given ownership of the fruit of their labors, unlike corporate employees who sell off patents to little things like styrofoam and PostIts for a dollar to the corporation. So it seems that the UC Regents aren't in the equation at all because they aren't the owner of the original work, nor are they in a position to license the work to others.
Evidently they see it differently.
Yes, notes taken in a lecture can be described as derivitive, but if they also contain unique interpretation or analysis of the facts and opinions presnted they become a new work in and of themselves, owned by they note-taker, eg.: if I copy word for word a discourse on free speech in America (or tape record it) and make no additions or subtractions, then I haven't created anything that is mine, but if, in the course of the lecture, I interpret what is being said, and comment with origional opinions, the resulting work isn't any different than an AP wire report on a White House press conference. IANAL but is sure seems to be a flailing effort for the UC Regents to be controlling. Or an admission that no original interpretation occurs in the lecture halls of the UC.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now 'personal information' is a broad range of stuff - too broad to actually hold anyone accountable for its use. If we can get a classification system in place, then we can start talking about unauthorized uses and punishments.
Basically, there is a broad division between information that is unique to the person, and information that is assigned. Your fingerprints are unique, your SSN is assigned.
There has to be some sort of principle to govern the status of these classes. For example, I believe that it is your right to have and maintain exclusive control over the things which are uniquely yours. Within the class of assigned information, disclosures and aggregations must be with the consent of both assigner and assignee - if an information aggregator of any kind wants to warehouse information then they need to have the explicit, informed consent of all involved parties. Some information aggregation activities constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment, basically anything that informs about a particular person or any member of a small enough population, and should be protected as strongly as the physical boundaries of your house or car.
Once some principles are settled on, following those principles makes it possible to grade out the sensitivity of assigned information and establish guidelines for its use and disclosure.
Are directions to a street address provided by the inquirer enough to be held liable? Maybe not, but credit reports and real name to username correlations might be. The aggregation of username, real name, e-mail address, homepage URL, street address, city/state/zip, home phone, cell phone, profession, workplace, and job title
certainly feel like a lot to give to register at an on-line forum - yet many ask for that much info.
What the service is allowed to do with all that personal information is mostly governed by some pretty flimsy laws and a feel for how far they can push the boundaries of community tolerance and civility. But without some principles to govern the effort, we'll just end up with frivolous litigation and foolish legislation.
Some say they are good and just being bullied and pressured to do bad by the leprechauns, but don't be fooled by this pro-gnome propaganda. We are freedom loving people who will not be held hostages to mythical wee creatures and fairy folk with weapons of mass destruction.
The gnomes must disarm or, for the safety of peace-loving everywhere, we will disarm them - and if they are still a threat, we will disleg them and debone them.
There just aren't enough taxes out there, we should get as many as we can.
:)
I hope that my State does the same damn thing, in fact, I hope they set up direct deposit so I can pay them all my money for a small fee.
Next up, distributed treasury services, where all your accounts are just part of the State's accounts! Yea boyo, that would be just swell.
It occurs to me that this might be (part of ?) a fairly sophisticated methodology to gobble up bandwidth connecting a few 'well-connected-nodes' in the network. There is a finite but very large capacity-per-second for data transfer to and from these nodes that, if it is consumed by garbage, has the effect of the sewers backing up. The commonplace traffic (which ordinarily is in the majority?) uses the same physical path as the more esoteric traffic, like IRC or Freenet, gets squeezed by the increase in traffic that is normally used by a minority of the physical users. This could knock the utility of the Internet at large down a few notches for a period of time, which might be what is needed to accomplish another aim. As the number of incidences of DDoS increase in targeted segments of the Internet, does anyone else think 'Proof of Concept', or am I just paranoid?
Is this response missing the point, or is it just me? I mean, the issue is really whether the colleges are responsible for the behavior of the users of their networks, and whether they have to be proactive in that policing. Like it or not, as it currently stands, P2P files sharing is a form of re-distribution, and copyright exists to prevent re-distribution. Like it or not, as long as the case-law supports the application of analog media rights to both the digital form of analog works and wholly digital works, the copyright holders are entitled to reparations. The issue is who is responsible for the police work required to cite and punish offenders. The government doesn't want to do it. The copyright holders would like to, but that amounts to vigilantism, so no one thinks that is a good idea. The ISP's and GSP's are common-carriers, so can't be held responsible for the behavior of users. So, of course, corporate and educational WANs, with their many users and fat-pipe connections are logical targets. The argument against imposing such responsibilities upon these institutions aren't so much about privacy, its about not having to be proactive. Being proactive incurs expense without return, and these Institutions are only liable for the behavior of members when they act in the name of the Institution, not when they abuse internal resources to engage in private activities. There is little incentive to crack down on these internal abuses because the cost of enforcement is, in the big picture, greater than the return. They should say to the copyright holder, "Without violating the integrity of my network, bring me the hardware address of the suspect, and we will grant them due process, and if we believe they are in violation of the law, we will give the appropriate logs to the civil prosecutor in our jurisdiction." If the technology isn't available for the grieved party to identify their aggressor, then perhaps they should not release their digitized-analog and wholly-digital works into the wild. (Shepherds are not compensated for sending their flocks into the domain of the lion and wolf without protection, they are chastised.)
I work in a college IT department. The RIAA has sent letters to the boards which grant accreditation to all the U. S. Colleges "asking" them to help control the redistribution of material they own the distribution rights to by "asking" the Presidents of Colleges they accredit to prevent their students from violating their distribution monopoly. The implication is that future accreditation processes may include a "DRM good citizen" check. College presidents and trustees take this very seriously, folks, and this is no longer simply a matter of bandwidth. Without accreditation, its pretty damn hard to get students.
Well, I don't have a solution, but the product looks kind of cool. Just off the top of my head, I'd think that the building blocks would be apache and mod_dav, with a dash of wiki perhaps. The layout algorithms must be pretty easy, because I've seen a lot of similar java applets. You'd need a database and hooks into all the relevant programs - e-mail, IM, word processor, browser, spreadsheet, whatnot... Good luck finding it.
Ditch wired access: the labor costs are too high. Think more like a really big wifi network, trunked up to an even bigger distribution network. The community wireless paradigm is pretty good, and you might even find that someone has hacked up a wifi equivalent to a DSLAM - a nifty box that connects to an ATM fabric and shoots off wireless trunks to wireless distribution hubs, which in turn, feed wireless access points either in customer's homes or along public right of ways and in public spaces.
There are two key technologies that I think are needed; the wireless access module that interfaces with the fiber or pots backbone, and the box that is both a point-to-point trunk mux/demux/retransmitter and a wifi access point to hang on a telephone pole out in the middle of BFE. I think it should all fit into a box the size of the ones used by the cable company for their digital signal booting equipment (they look like a little beer fridge hanging on the pole).
The frequency spectrum for the trunks ought to be enough to get a five or six mile line of sight shot, even with the weather and the fog in the UP. Microwave is pretty power and infrastructure heavy, and the antennas aren't very discrete, but maybe a small SHF frequency radio with a good directional antenna.
Sure, using wireless forces you to actually use PKI and IPSEC, but everyone really ought to any way.
The business model could be one with a infrastructure owned and maintained as a utility, and the access and services provided in flat fee packages by ISP's that actually compete for customers. Perhaps there could be a minimal service, like an e-mail address with a small quota and a finite use account could be the right of taxpayers if the gov is footing the bill for install and maintenance of the infrastructure.
Perhaps it is because developing countries in Africa are too busy trying to stop genocide, mass starvations, the AIDS epidemic, inter-tribal violence, and a general shortage of things like electricity, running water, and reliable sources of food to worry about what OS they would run on their computers, if they had computers, for their governments, if they had governments.
From a distance it appears as though a large portion of African nations are held in place by aid organizations, foreign corporations, and men with guns.
The absence of a free software movement doesn't mean that there is no future for one in Africa, but it may mean that there isn't a place for a free software movement yet.
You'll notice from the article, that many of the nationally sponsered programs to develop and use free software are in response to widespread piracy. The market for software exists. In much of Africa, I suspect, there is relatively little software piracy, an indication that the market for software in general is low. When the societies stabilize enough to become pirates, then there will be a place for free software in response to the proprietary vendors demanding crackdowns on copyright violators.
Of course, the pharmacutical industry will have to settle its own claims of piracy and patent infringement first, after that, there may not be anyone alive in Africa to pirate from Microsoft.
The technical problem that fans solve is air movement: fast fans move a little air quickly but you could (theoretically) move the same amount of air with a larger volume, slower moving fan (generally the 'noise' of fans is caused by rpm).
You could try hacking fans to increase volume and decrease speed (noise) for use in livingrooms.
Basically just put a potentiometer or voltage regulator in front of a large diameter fan with big, dished blades. If you could tie some sort of negative feedback to the potentiometer the fan would speed-up as the temperature rose, and slow down as the temperature dropped.
Match this with an efficient heat dissipation system, and good case vibration control, and you might have a chance to hear the whispers of dialog in your movies.
Or the college may extend the privilege of using the high bandwidth access they have to buy to run their business and research operations, but only as a provisional user - meaning the dorms are second class citizens getting throttled access during the day and always being the fourth or fifth priority in the QoS tables. If there is no explicit fee, and no explicit statement promise of service, just a port in your room that works, then there is no contract to be broken.
This produces an individual who is a Liberal Artist in the original sense - one who is qualified to apply a disciplined reason to any subject and arrive at innovative conclusions.
On the surface, it may not seem like much use to a person who wants to be in IT - there aren't any programming courses, management fads, or courses on building robots or designing digital circuits - but the substance of the courses gives a rock solid foundation to the intellect whch the canned courses of a departmentalized university training institutes lack.
What is there is the basic sparks of every issue in contemporary life - what is life, what separates man from beast, what is number, how is information moved between minds, how did the scientific knowledge we take for granted - geometry, arithmetic, algebra, calculus, astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, electricity, sound, and sight - come to be, and how little has changed in centuries. The ethical struggles of man are the same now as they were for those who have come before us, and they have good answers to many of them. The sciences have made remarkable strides in the last 60 years, but it is predicated on, and forshadowed by, the work of centuries . Knowing how and why things ended up as they did can give us a warning sign when we go off towards the cliff, show us the dark spots on the map that need to be explored, and remind us of fascinating subjects that had to be left unexplored because the tools were insufficient for the task. All that makes much more "well-rounded" individuals asfter four years of formal study than any program filled with HOW-TOs and formulas.
That sounds nice, but come on - right now we are displaying the power to impose our will on truely soverign nations, what defense does a tribal nation have against that force, no matter how well written their treaty is. The likelyhood that safe havens could be established on tribal lands is pretty slim - particularly if there isn't the ability to distinguish between the principled customer who is in violation of the law but practicing civil disobedience, and the criminal who acts with malice to endanger the populous and the government..
Imagine, online casinos create a positive cash flow for Tribal governments, the capital allows for real social change - illiteracy and alcoholism and domestic abuse decline - and every Res in America connected via wireless VPNs to every other Res in America. Best of luck, its a long road.
Alt. Energy is great, and solar is just part of the equation. I spent some time working on a trunked radio network (the digital radios that emergency services use) that was 100% non-grid. The power at each site came from a big solar array, a crap-load of batteries, a few wind generators, and two propane generators. This meant that if the site was fogged in, the batteries powered the site for upto 72 hours, and if it was a storm instead of fog, the wind generators fed the system instead of the solar arrays. And when the site was in the middle of a brushfire the generators could run for the whole week while the smoke obscured the sun. The only other time the generators ran when I worked there was for their maintenance cycles - just to keep things from gumming up.
I wondered about having the propane delivered out in the middle of nowhere, but, as one guy who had been there a long time said, when the EPA made them put in porta-johns, the prospect of getting propane refils delivered was "no worse than getting the shitters cleaned"
How long can this 'exclusive agreement between consenting parties' defense last before software licenses become too rediculous to function? And what happens when they do - is there a fair way to regulate intangible goods if there isn't a transfer of ownership?
I pay Real networks and Major League Baseball 10 bucks to listen to games streamed to me over the Internet. Why? Because they are the sole provider of the service, AND they sell their content for a price which is easier to pay than to contrive a way to hack their system or circumvent their monopoly. Do I like the service? > No way, the audio sounds like its being fed through a water bong, but I'm a fan and the Mariners are kicking ass, so I pay.
So how does someone get me to pay for a web-based magazine or newspaper like content? First, give me lifetime access to what I've bought. ->If you are in fact selling content, then I get to keep the content. If you are selling access to content, then charge a flat fee for a long period of time ($5 for 12 months or longer) and don't be surprised if I look elsewhere for the content if you don't have a monopoly on it. Second, I don't want to sign in for every page or site, nor do I want an unsecured cookie sending my subscription information out to the world. -> Figure out how to know who I am without jeopardizing my privacy or inconveniencing me. A real world metaphor might be the pass technology used on toll roads -> bill me for where I go, keep the rates low and stable, and let me keep driving 70mph. Third, make it worth my while. If the draw of a site is the people (Slashdot & Kuro5hin), then you'd better be damn sure that the people who write for you are treated differently than those who just browse and never comment or submit. Content for hire inevitably becomes a regurgitation of the desires and opinions of the one handing out the paychecks, and when that happens, your significant Internet information boutique just became an aisle in Wal-Mart. And why should I pay to shop at Wal-Mart?
its one of those days where I spend all day beating my head against some MS server and then jump over to /. to get a pick-me-up and I see this. I'm so bummed. Is there any way to stop the big-bucks steamroller?
Let us say, for the purposes of this topic, that replication is an exact copy, and reproduction is an inexact copy. So, the content in question is digial and because it is digital we can make exact copies. Now, the gripe of the industry is that by making exact copies, the population of that particular content is increased and the market is weakened by the increase in supply, and they loose money. Ok, they loose money, I'm heartbroken, but here is the rub, it is less possible to reproduce a digital work, a fair use right, than it is to replicate a digital work. An example: I can go to the library and photocopy pages from a book, no one is fooled by the photocopy into thinking I tore the pages from the book itself. I can take an audio CD and copy it to cassette and, once again, it is not the same as the original. But how can I retain the funtionality of a work created in a digital media and so dedicated to that digital environment that "un-digitizing" it removes its funtionality? The T-shirt of the DeCSS is worthless for achieving its purpose (decrypting DVDs), as is the printout of the code for my Kernal, the binary text of Moby Dick, and any other example of works specifically tailored for the digital environment, which human beings must have technological assistance to experience. How can I be assured of my fair use rights on an enhanced audio CD, an electronic book, a special edition DVD with English, Spanish, and Ancient Greek dialog, the making of, interviews, alternate endings, reverse camera angles and all the other bells and whistles of digital movies, if the replication of such content is denied by Law. Furthermore, the conversion of digital to analog and back calls to question what exactly is preserved by copyright, the analog signature of the Matrix is not the same as the digital signature, and I presume that Warner expects that they hold the copyright on the string of binary bits which is the Matrix because they arranged them in their order, but what if I change even 10% of them... can I still see the movie and do they still own it? Where is the cutoff between the original digital work and the modification of that digital work into a distinct piece? (Sure, the Industry has dealt with something similar with cover songs and movie remakes, but is this still an appropriate paradigm?)
Well, the way I see it there are basically two kinds of information out ther that pertain to individuals: information that is unique to the individual, and information that is assigned. Unique information is the information you create (intellectual products like a diary, a sketchbook, a portfolio of code, or the next killer app.) and the information you are (DNA, medical records, psych profiles, etc.). The assigned information is things given to you by others that they create (phone number, SSN, credit records, ISP logs, work evaluations, school records). I see two basic rights here: 1. Unique information about individuals shall not be collected, examined, duplicated, analyzed, or infringed upon in any way without affording exclusive rights to the origin, form, and profits related to such information. 2. Assigned information shall not be owned, counted as capital asset, or transferred. It shall not be disclosed without unanimous consent of all individuals in a data set. 2A. The issuer of assigned information is responsible for all damages incurred from the improper use or inaccurate collection and disclosure. I'm not sure about the 2A but the rest seems right. The bottom line is that criminal responsibility for the violation of specific, personal information isn't as effective as crafting a broad foundation in civil law before we start sending out the cops to bust heads.
Aside from the observation that M$ is just goofy, it seems that the real issue is that they want to talk to Congress to 'educate' them abou the threat of open source software. I know M$ has a presence in DC, but do we? EFF is all I can think of, does anyone know of any other open source lobbies? I have some maney I saved by not buying the latest edition of Windows they could have.
So, does this mean that if I wanted to run guinesskicksass.com that I would be barred from registering the domain, or is this heavy handed tactic reserved for use only against detractors of products and brands?
"I'm sorry for bursting your bubble, but student notes are verbatim copies of the lecture material" Is the greater problem that these kids are supposed to be thinking in lecture and not just writing down verbatum the words of the profs? And that the profs are guilty of allowing the student who is best a regurgitating their lectures to be rewarded without actually displaying any ability to think about the substance of the course? I buy lecture notes quite often, but they are the actual transcript of the lecture sold at cost by the bookstore, and I buy them not beacuse I don't take good notes, but because I like to have the thoughts of the lecturer on hand to validate my own thinking on the subject
THe general sense mmight sound logical, but in that meaning an argument in the same light might sound something like this, "Metallica exists for the sake of the listeners, and by the grace of the consumers who pay them to produce, so I, as their employer, can copy and distribute their music as much as I want." and you know where that gets us. As it is, the Profs are usually given ownership of the fruit of their labors, unlike corporate employees who sell off patents to little things like styrofoam and PostIts for a dollar to the corporation. So it seems that the UC Regents aren't in the equation at all because they aren't the owner of the original work, nor are they in a position to license the work to others. Evidently they see it differently.
Yes, notes taken in a lecture can be described as derivitive, but if they also contain unique interpretation or analysis of the facts and opinions presnted they become a new work in and of themselves, owned by they note-taker, eg.: if I copy word for word a discourse on free speech in America (or tape record it) and make no additions or subtractions, then I haven't created anything that is mine, but if, in the course of the lecture, I interpret what is being said, and comment with origional opinions, the resulting work isn't any different than an AP wire report on a White House press conference. IANAL but is sure seems to be a flailing effort for the UC Regents to be controlling. Or an admission that no original interpretation occurs in the lecture halls of the UC.