I'm only half kidding here - we need a shrink-wrap EULA for student papers that prevent this use of our intellectual property. In university they might have better standing to say "agree to it or get out", but in public schools I'm sure you could find a way to restrict use of your papers for the "originally intended purpose only" - i.e. grading me.
I strangely understand the airplane comment - no email coming in, no internet to distract you, lots of white noise. I get a TON done on an overseas flight (it's my catch-up chance).
I do know for sure that where I am now is not ideal... otherwise I wouldn't be on Slashdot posting this!:)
I went to high school with a Vietnamese guy named Huong Long (he went by Stephen... thankfully).
I was in cadets too, and there was a Major Putts in our building. I'm not sure if that's beter or worse than his previous rank would have been: Captain Putts.
PR blunder aside, I guess as the MCP the "fairness" of Microsoft's request would rest on whether or not they'd let me re-sell the license to another party for the remaining portion of the contract.
If they want me to pay up, but won't let me transfer the license... that's where it would get nasty.
>> lets ban airplanes because terrorists have used them before...and cell phones...terrorists love cell phones...ooh! and encryption
You missed the most obvious one which Americans will fight to the death not to let you ban: guns.
Blurring a map will not prevent a terrorist attack... it might make it a bit more difficult, but there are many other ways of getting the same information. OBL is probably laughing his arse off right now at the total inconvenience Americans have to live with right now, not to mention the total erosion of privacy and civil rights.
I've been doing that with my 24" white iMac for a couple years now. I have Windows running in Parallels full-screen on one monitor, and Mac OSX full-screen on the other. It's a great cross-platform development environment, as well as a home machine.
Macs handle multi-screen pretty cleanly - no mucking about needed. Trying to get it to work well on my Dell laptop is another matter... every time you undock it it gets farked up and you have to re-set all the settings.
My bigger concern is the onus this might put on websites with regards to allowing anonymous posting... might they have to retain logs or force "anonymous" posters to log in with an account and provable credentials?
What happens if a website simply says "sorry, they're anonymous... we don't know who they are and have no way of finding out."
>> The ad that Slashdot is choosing to serve with this story is for Al Jazeera. Am I the only one that thinks that's kind of funny?
Funny in what way? Al Jazeera is a normal, reputable news source in the Middle East. It's no more (and no less) a propaganda or terrorism hub than USA Today, Fox News or the New York Times. Just because it's in the Middle East doesn't make it "evil".
Go read it some time... it'll give you a good balance to offset the propaganda you're being spoon fed daily here.
>> Land (and forest) do not sequester carbon to any significant extent - the decomposition process of dead plant matter releases the carbon back into the atmosphere.
Actually, they do - however to a finite capacity. It's true that as plants die, the carbon goes back into the environment, but new plants grow to replace them. Once you deforest an area, or cut it down to grow crops, you've permanently released that carbon to the atmosphere - You're taking an existing carbon sink and destroying it.
If you compare that to farmland, it's not the same effect. You start with bare land, grow crops, then burn the results - net neutral except for the energy put into growing the crops (unless you chopped down a forest to create the farm land in the first place).
I agree that more advanced crops that are easier to convert to fuel are the answer, especially if we're not displacing existing carbon sinks to grow these. The fact that most ethanol comes from low-yield sources like corn today, competing with food crops, is worrying.
Is this really an Environmentally-friendly change, or just ensuring that it's a fuel that can be supplied long-term (not limited like fossil fuels)?
Consider these points before agreeing that it truly benefits the environment:
- what energy and chemicals goes into the growing, harvesting, and processing of the plants to make it into fuel? What CO2/pollution does that create?
- the land used to grow the crops... are we displacing food crops? Would that land otherwise have sequestered CO2 long term (benefitting us), whereas now we're taking that carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere?
It's all about "additionality"... comparing the results of using the new fuel type to the alternatives as a whole. It's hard to come up with solutions that truly make an impact today - until technology makes producing these things in the lab easy (algae seems the most promising).
USED LEXUS FOR SALE - CHEAP, MUST GO. Best suited to hearing impaired. Call 555-1212.
Stupidest... idea... ever. However, I'm afraid that the world will go more and more this way. I'm surprised that things like this come first in "premium brand" products though - I would expect it more in a bargain-basement car to help subsidize costs maybe, but Lexus?
>> Therefore, document when and where you're working on your idea, and have evidence that can, as clearly as possible, make a case for your having worked on this idea on your own time, with your own resources.
One point to this: unless he's on scholarship, 100% of his time is "his own time". He's paying to go to school, not the other way around. They don't own any of his time. On this basis alone, IP ownership clauses in school policies are dubious. If the University tried to claim ownership of an idea, I'd bill them for the personal time I spent developing it - at a reasonable INDUSTRY CONSULTING rate.
Using school resources is another issue though. Although it stinks, they can make a claim there - preventing you from claiming full ownership. However, I'd still go the route of billing them for my time.
>>Are things like Facebook and Myspace a legitimate use of a school computer?
Well, I didn't think they were a legitimate thing for a business computer... but now our company is on a "social networking" rampage. We're actually being encouraged to use them, but nobody seems to be able to quantify the business benefit yet, other than "get networking!". Yay.
And yes, I work for a Fortune-500 company (actually, a pretty stuffy historical brand name)
Ion drives need physical fuel as well as power... they just are a lot more efficient than traditional chemical-reaction drives. This is because they accelereate the fuel to near-lightspeed, maximizing the reactionary force per kg of fuel. (force is a combination of the mass expelled and the speed of which it is expelled... the faster the exhaust, the higher energy per kg of exhaust).
So, you'd still have to haul up fuel, just not as much as with chemical rockets.
No, actually... given the quality of music out today, you'd be coming out significantly BEHIND. Up to about 30 songs you could argue either way, but after that it's all downhill.
Hey, why don't we get candy and cola companies to sponsor vending machines in our schools to raise funds... no, wait... we did that. Now our kids are fat and lazy.
Do you really want to turn our schools into yet another place to target our kids with advertising? They're supposed to be LEARNING, not getting programmed to be consumer brand junkies. It's bad enough they're slammed with advertising just about everywhere else.
Given that their market cap is $2.81M, and the judgement was for $3.5M, doesn't that essentially seal their bankruptcy too? Basically, Novell owns their butts now...
>>There's taking money, then there's cost sharing. If the money they're taking doesn't exceed the standard mileage allowance ($.50/mile this year?) then this isn't really being done for profit.
I agree with you 100% in theory... but just because a business isn't profitable doesn't mean it doesn't need a license. If that were the case, half of wall street wouldn't need one.:) This is the only thing supporting the bus company's argument. Thinly.
It's protectionism... same as import duties. These rules support the continued operation of an otherwise unsustainable business model (or enhance the profitability of one).
If this model is taking business from the bus company, then that says clearly that it's providing a service or cost-effectiveness that the bus company can't (or isn't willing to). What's a better model for capitalism than this, for driving change and improvement for the customer?
Further, I doubt that a large percentage of the carpooling service would be bus customers anyways... I'd bet that most of them weigh it against the option of driving their own cars. That's good for the environment - fewer cars on the road, and maybe fewer cars altogether.
The only reason this gets messy is because the drivers are taking money for the service, making them an unlicensed small business operator. There's gotta be a better way to address this than outlawing an otherwise good-for-everyone-but-the-bus-company service.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm only half kidding here - we need a shrink-wrap EULA for student papers that prevent this use of our intellectual property. In university they might have better standing to say "agree to it or get out", but in public schools I'm sure you could find a way to restrict use of your papers for the "originally intended purpose only" - i.e. grading me.
MadCow.
What the copyright holders often fail to consider is the beneficial aspects of stuff like this:
How many Slashdotters, after seeing this video, have gone out and bought the iTunes version of this song? I guarantee there's someone out there!
Kevin.
I strangely understand the airplane comment - no email coming in, no internet to distract you, lots of white noise. I get a TON done on an overseas flight (it's my catch-up chance).
I do know for sure that where I am now is not ideal... otherwise I wouldn't be on Slashdot posting this! :)
MadCow.
>>Just call your artificial device a "Woomba" and you'll be in the clear!
Not in today's day and age of Copyright you wouldn't...
... and if he has survived to a ripe age of 93 (so far?) then the effects of radiation poisoning might not be that bad either.
Wow... sucks to be him though.
I once saw Spike Lee's Boyz in the Hood on TV. They had censored the word "Mother-fucker" everywhere to be replaced with over-dubbed "micki-ficki".
It was so disingenuous that I couldn't even finish the film. It turned every scene into comedy, destroying the film. I'd rather have had bleeps.
I went to high school with a Vietnamese guy named Huong Long (he went by Stephen... thankfully).
I was in cadets too, and there was a Major Putts in our building. I'm not sure if that's beter or worse than his previous rank would have been: Captain Putts.
PR blunder aside, I guess as the MCP the "fairness" of Microsoft's request would rest on whether or not they'd let me re-sell the license to another party for the remaining portion of the contract.
If they want me to pay up, but won't let me transfer the license... that's where it would get nasty.
MadCow.
>> lets ban airplanes because terrorists have used them before...and cell phones...terrorists love cell phones...ooh! and encryption
You missed the most obvious one which Americans will fight to the death not to let you ban: guns.
Blurring a map will not prevent a terrorist attack... it might make it a bit more difficult, but there are many other ways of getting the same information. OBL is probably laughing his arse off right now at the total inconvenience Americans have to live with right now, not to mention the total erosion of privacy and civil rights.
MadCow.
I've been doing that with my 24" white iMac for a couple years now. I have Windows running in Parallels full-screen on one monitor, and Mac OSX full-screen on the other. It's a great cross-platform development environment, as well as a home machine.
Macs handle multi-screen pretty cleanly - no mucking about needed. Trying to get it to work well on my Dell laptop is another matter... every time you undock it it gets farked up and you have to re-set all the settings.
MadCow.
My bigger concern is the onus this might put on websites with regards to allowing anonymous posting... might they have to retain logs or force "anonymous" posters to log in with an account and provable credentials?
What happens if a website simply says "sorry, they're anonymous... we don't know who they are and have no way of finding out."
MadCow.
Sorry, had to say it. :)
>> The ad that Slashdot is choosing to serve with this story is for Al Jazeera. Am I the only one that thinks that's kind of funny?
Funny in what way? Al Jazeera is a normal, reputable news source in the Middle East. It's no more (and no less) a propaganda or terrorism hub than USA Today, Fox News or the New York Times. Just because it's in the Middle East doesn't make it "evil".
Go read it some time... it'll give you a good balance to offset the propaganda you're being spoon fed daily here.
MadCow.
>> Land (and forest) do not sequester carbon to any significant extent - the decomposition process of dead plant matter releases the carbon back into the atmosphere.
Actually, they do - however to a finite capacity. It's true that as plants die, the carbon goes back into the environment, but new plants grow to replace them. Once you deforest an area, or cut it down to grow crops, you've permanently released that carbon to the atmosphere - You're taking an existing carbon sink and destroying it.
If you compare that to farmland, it's not the same effect. You start with bare land, grow crops, then burn the results - net neutral except for the energy put into growing the crops (unless you chopped down a forest to create the farm land in the first place).
I agree that more advanced crops that are easier to convert to fuel are the answer, especially if we're not displacing existing carbon sinks to grow these. The fact that most ethanol comes from low-yield sources like corn today, competing with food crops, is worrying.
MC
Is this really an Environmentally-friendly change, or just ensuring that it's a fuel that can be supplied long-term (not limited like fossil fuels)?
Consider these points before agreeing that it truly benefits the environment:
- what energy and chemicals goes into the growing, harvesting, and processing of the plants to make it into fuel? What CO2/pollution does that create?
- the land used to grow the crops... are we displacing food crops? Would that land otherwise have sequestered CO2 long term (benefitting us), whereas now we're taking that carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere?
It's all about "additionality"... comparing the results of using the new fuel type to the alternatives as a whole. It's hard to come up with solutions that truly make an impact today - until technology makes producing these things in the lab easy (algae seems the most promising).
MadCow.
My ad would read (aloud):
USED LEXUS FOR SALE - CHEAP, MUST GO. Best suited to hearing impaired. Call 555-1212.
Stupidest... idea... ever. However, I'm afraid that the world will go more and more this way. I'm surprised that things like this come first in "premium brand" products though - I would expect it more in a bargain-basement car to help subsidize costs maybe, but Lexus?
MadCow.
>> Therefore, document when and where you're working on your idea, and have evidence that can, as clearly as possible, make a case for your having worked on this idea on your own time, with your own resources.
One point to this: unless he's on scholarship, 100% of his time is "his own time". He's paying to go to school, not the other way around. They don't own any of his time. On this basis alone, IP ownership clauses in school policies are dubious. If the University tried to claim ownership of an idea, I'd bill them for the personal time I spent developing it - at a reasonable INDUSTRY CONSULTING rate.
Using school resources is another issue though. Although it stinks, they can make a claim there - preventing you from claiming full ownership. However, I'd still go the route of billing them for my time.
MadCow.
>>Are things like Facebook and Myspace a legitimate use of a school computer?
Well, I didn't think they were a legitimate thing for a business computer... but now our company is on a "social networking" rampage. We're actually being encouraged to use them, but nobody seems to be able to quantify the business benefit yet, other than "get networking!". Yay.
And yes, I work for a Fortune-500 company (actually, a pretty stuffy historical brand name)
Ion drives need physical fuel as well as power... they just are a lot more efficient than traditional chemical-reaction drives. This is because they accelereate the fuel to near-lightspeed, maximizing the reactionary force per kg of fuel. (force is a combination of the mass expelled and the speed of which it is expelled... the faster the exhaust, the higher energy per kg of exhaust).
So, you'd still have to haul up fuel, just not as much as with chemical rockets.
MadCow.
No, actually... given the quality of music out today, you'd be coming out significantly BEHIND. Up to about 30 songs you could argue either way, but after that it's all downhill.
MadCow.
Hey, why don't we get candy and cola companies to sponsor vending machines in our schools to raise funds... no, wait... we did that. Now our kids are fat and lazy.
Do you really want to turn our schools into yet another place to target our kids with advertising? They're supposed to be LEARNING, not getting programmed to be consumer brand junkies. It's bad enough they're slammed with advertising just about everywhere else.
MadCow.
>> The next obvious step is to do away with the machines entirely and just get a chessboard.
"Want To Play A Game?" :)
Given that their market cap is $2.81M, and the judgement was for $3.5M, doesn't that essentially seal their bankruptcy too? Basically, Novell owns their butts now...
>>There's taking money, then there's cost sharing. If the money they're taking doesn't exceed the standard mileage allowance ($.50/mile this year?) then this isn't really being done for profit.
I agree with you 100% in theory... but just because a business isn't profitable doesn't mean it doesn't need a license. If that were the case, half of wall street wouldn't need one. :) This is the only thing supporting the bus company's argument. Thinly.
MadCow.
It's protectionism... same as import duties. These rules support the continued operation of an otherwise unsustainable business model (or enhance the profitability of one).
If this model is taking business from the bus company, then that says clearly that it's providing a service or cost-effectiveness that the bus company can't (or isn't willing to). What's a better model for capitalism than this, for driving change and improvement for the customer?
Further, I doubt that a large percentage of the carpooling service would be bus customers anyways... I'd bet that most of them weigh it against the option of driving their own cars. That's good for the environment - fewer cars on the road, and maybe fewer cars altogether.
The only reason this gets messy is because the drivers are taking money for the service, making them an unlicensed small business operator. There's gotta be a better way to address this than outlawing an otherwise good-for-everyone-but-the-bus-company service.
MadCow.