Re:Will they ever listen?
on
The Cult of Kindle
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Although, if an affordable reader came out that could read normal PDFs, text files (ie, Project Gutenberg stuff), and web pages, with a reasonably-sized screen, then I would be interested. I don't know if the Kindle does this, but it does not fit my definition of "affordable". Maybe in a few years when google comes out with a similar g-something.
More importantly, it is a right defined in the constitution. The US government is very concerned about protecting citizens from each other, which could be argued as part of their stated goal of creating a more perfect union. "I don't wanna die" is not a moral statement.
You're quibbling over semantics. What is the difference between a "right" and a "doctrine which enables one to do something" (other than the doctrine)? The reason fair use matters is because it is assumed that one has the right to use his or her property. I'm not sure where you get the distinction between a "right" and "something we can't penalize you for", but fair use began in British common law, long before the U.S. was a country, and has been recognized by the U.S. government for over 230 years. I think its legitimacy has been established.
On the other hand, the legal punishment for murder (up to and including death) is far worse than for fornication (none). That means your analysis is missing something about how the US perceives the relative seriousness.
That is an interesting point. I think that our desire not to legislate morality is also a factor. Murder is taken far more seriously because it deprives us of our right to life, but fornication, not depriving anyone of any right, is seen differently.
Could it be that viewing death has not been seen traditionally as a temptation? That pornography "tempts" one to commit "fornication", but that witnessing depictions of murder do not give us a comparable and immediate urge to go out and kill people?
It's saying Steve Jobs is trying to make customers pay more for the right to do something that's already a right.
Unfortunately the DMCA makes it illegal to break encryption, including the css encryption used on nearly every DVD sold today. The fair use right still applies to audio CDs, however, because they aren't encrypted. I am surprised that the RIAA has not yet begun promoting a next-gen physical audio media, just as an excuse to DRM it.
You're still right. Fair use is a right that is being taken away, but it's by the DMCA. Steve Jobs is merely promoting a scheme to rent it back to us in small increments.
They also move the problem upsteam to the power plants.
IANA Scientist, but they also centralize the potential source of energy and, in so doing, open a variety of options. If petroleum is the most efficient source of energy, the we may start seeing petroleum-based power plants. Unlikely, but the point is that this would make it possible to (in an indirect way) power a car using anything, from nuclear, to solar, wind, or fossil fuels.
One other advantage is that, instead of having to implement emissions-reducing technology on every car, it would be implemented in one place.
Many people who are unable to speak are able to communicate in some other way (usually, some form of gesture, whether sign language, nodding, blinking, whatever.) It doesn't take a much to be able to indicate "right" or "wrong".
Remember, it's only 80% accurate. It may be more like "rigm!" or "prong!"
I understand that the FDA is very cautious with drugs, but how cautious are they in the approval of blood tests (or urine tests for that matter)? I could see test reliability being an issue (considering that harmful drugs may be prescribed and mental anguish may be caused as a consequence of a false positive), but is there any reason for this to be any more dangerous than any other blood test?
How do you know God isn't horrific and savage? Seriously, so you believe in a supernatural entity who created everything. Does he have to be good? Maybe he was just bored with the total nothingness around him.
As for the qu'ran not being written until after Mohammed's death, the Christian Bible wasn't written until long after Jesus' death, and many Christians believe the King James version, a translation done in the 16th century by a government appointed committee to be the unaltered word of God. If any of it was "the word of God", then man became the editor of god, and the translator of god.
As for using religion as an excuse to be crappy to others, I'm pretty sure Christians have done that. Ask a few of your gay friends, if you have any.
I can't defend Mohamed's actions, but I can say that similar things have occurred in the Christian bible. As for Allah being a Pagan god, the story of Jesus is not an original story either. Similar stories had been circulating for hundreds of years before his supposed birth. By your logic, that is enough to prove that Jesus was a false god.
The main difference between Islam and Christianity is that they are now, socially, where we were during the dark ages. Somehow our culture progressed out of that "all infidels shall be killed" phase, and they didn't.
Strange thing is, the other day I was thinking about Back to the Future 2, how all those years ago the writers thought we might all have flying cars in 2015, and how off the mark they were. Looks like they were right after all!
When I saw that movie, I thought how crazy it would be to have flying skateboards and cars, considering how bad a job most people do of steering when they only have two dimensions to worry about.
IANAL, but if the device has such a limited range that neighbors must either trespass, or come close to it, then, I could not assume that it was intended for public access.
Also, it seems to me that the issue of "does this use deprive the owner" should come into play. The water fountain analogy is good because drinking from a water fountain does not substantially deprive the owner of water. Had the man been using bit-torrent, hosting a website, or doing something else that would consume large amounts of bandwidth, then the bicycle analogy (posted by someone else), would be a better one, since the man's use is impacting the true owner. (This is relevant because anyone can assume that the owner wishes to use his or her possession).
IANAL, but from tfa, this was ruled unconscionable under California state law, by the 9th circuit. Even if it were federal law, it is being interpreted by the most overturned court in the country. We would be hoping for the current Supreme Court to either vote pro-consumer/anti-corporation, or to take no interest in the case. Let's also hope for them to buy us ice cream!
Of course, the proprietary software may very well be violating various patents as well, so technically they should pop up the same disclaimers.
IANAL, but doesn't commercial software provide indemnification against lawsuits directed at the end-user? That was a big part of the whole SCO/Linux fiasco. SCO was saying that because all Linux distros are distributed with the "all bets are off/use at your own risk" caveat (with a specific denial of indemnification), that anyone who uses Linux can be sued for piracy.
Some company at the time (either SCO, redhat, or Microsoft) was using indemnification as their selling point, making the claim that they take legal responsibility if any of their code turns out to e pirated.
Regardless of the legal status, one can usually assume that the entity with the most money and biggest liability will get sued. In the case of commercial software, this is often the software producer, because it make more sense than suing each and every customer. In the case of OSS, it is quite possible that a copyright owner can get more money from customers who can't afford to fight the case in court.
Of course it helps when the company sends you a letter saying "You have 200 mp3s on your hard drive. Federal copyright laws says we can fine you $700 per song, which comes out to $140,000. But, because we're reasonable people, we'll accept $10,000, paid in installments, and an apology". (Yes, I did change the subject from mp3 decoders to mp3 files, but the point is that, it may be hard to stand up for principal when you could slink away in defeat for a fraction of the price.)
Re:Patent Business Model
on
Patents Don't Pay
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The only place they are of any real use is in court.
It also has use in keeping competitors out of the market, by (dishonestly) telling competitors that they must pay to overcome some ridiculous and undeserved government-mandated monopoly. That isn't to say that all patents are ridiculous, or even that we should get rid of them, but it would be difficult to measure the value of intimidating would-be competitors out of the business.
Is it likely, or at least possible, that future versions of Windows or OS X could become pervasively multithreaded without creating an entirely new OS?"
If it were that easy, wouldn't we be discussing how Linux has it and Windows has "missed the bus" on yet another innovative feature? I may be speaking from ignorance, but I suspect that the only reason BeOS could do it ten years ago, and none of the key players can do it as well today, is that it would require a massive (and expensive) redesign of the low-level components of the OS. (which didn't affect BeOS, because the developers factored it into the original design)
I suppose they could sue Games Workshop, but that would drag on for a rather long period of time. By the end of the lawsuit, the movie will be irrelevant regardless of the outcome. And after 4 years of film development, that's a really cruddy result. Especially since it sounds like the only problem is that Games Workshop wants 100% control and they can't have it. Well duh, it's not your film. It's a fan creation that you *should* be finding a set of guidelines under which it can be distributed.
The real tragedy is that after four years of working on a project, just to have the company that originally gave you permission say "throw it away. We changed our minds and would like for you to undo all of your work". After that, how hard will they try to get it distributed? Someone may put it out there just for spite, but I doubt it will ever be the labor of love that it once was.
This seems very similar to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. The author declares that the traditional definition of the word "social class" is no longer valid, makes up a new definition that is now a synonym for "demographic" and then announces that the pages are segregated along class lines, as if that statement still had the same meaning.
Bush could have a live press conference where he bites the heads off kittens, and nobody would care.
That would never happen. Bush doesn't have press conferences, and Dick Cheney is more likely to be biting the heads off small animals, children, or short people.
The news media would report both sides of the story as if they had real credibility.
I think it's more likely that the "liberal" media would report that it happened, with a 30 second clip of Tony Snow explaining that the kittens had it coming. Fox News, MSNBC, and talk radio would report it as "the democrats never miss an opportunity. They are trying to make a big stink about the the kitten thing. Here's the Republican side of the story."
Honestly, I promise you Fox News would find a way to turn this into an accusation against the democrats. They would say the Dems were being opportunistic, feign outrage that dems would accuse republicans of being non-environmental or cruel, etc... That's how they work. They turn everything into an accusation against democrats and then give both sides "equal time" so they can claim they're fair and balanced. But that's like having a boxing match where one boxer isn't allowed to hit back, and then advertising it as fair because the defender had just as much time to block as the other guy had to punch.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the universe being estimated at 10 to 20 billion years old, then doesn't that mean that if we progressed 0.0000001% faster than them, then they would still be in the dark ages? If they progressed 0.0000001% faster than us, then they would have either conquered us, killed themselves off, or proven space travel to be a nearly-hopeless proposition, by now.
That's assuming they aren't following the prime directive, of course.
A better study would involve a warez site with an application designed to trigger false positives among AV scanners. I wonder if embedding a virus in a function that never gets called would set off a virus scanner.
Slashdot Mirror
Although, if an affordable reader came out that could read normal PDFs, text files (ie, Project Gutenberg stuff), and web pages, with a reasonably-sized screen, then I would be interested. I don't know if the Kindle does this, but it does not fit my definition of "affordable". Maybe in a few years when google comes out with a similar g-something.
More importantly, it is a right defined in the constitution. The US government is very concerned about protecting citizens from each other, which could be argued as part of their stated goal of creating a more perfect union. "I don't wanna die" is not a moral statement.
You're quibbling over semantics. What is the difference between a "right" and a "doctrine which enables one to do something" (other than the doctrine)? The reason fair use matters is because it is assumed that one has the right to use his or her property. I'm not sure where you get the distinction between a "right" and "something we can't penalize you for", but fair use began in British common law, long before the U.S. was a country, and has been recognized by the U.S. government for over 230 years. I think its legitimacy has been established.
That is an interesting point. I think that our desire not to legislate morality is also a factor. Murder is taken far more seriously because it deprives us of our right to life, but fornication, not depriving anyone of any right, is seen differently.
Could it be that viewing death has not been seen traditionally as a temptation? That pornography "tempts" one to commit "fornication", but that witnessing depictions of murder do not give us a comparable and immediate urge to go out and kill people?
Unfortunately the DMCA makes it illegal to break encryption, including the css encryption used on nearly every DVD sold today. The fair use right still applies to audio CDs, however, because they aren't encrypted. I am surprised that the RIAA has not yet begun promoting a next-gen physical audio media, just as an excuse to DRM it.
You're still right. Fair use is a right that is being taken away, but it's by the DMCA. Steve Jobs is merely promoting a scheme to rent it back to us in small increments.
The next steps are:
Make little hats > Wear little hats > wave little hats in air > learn to yell "yeehaw"
wow. Tough crowd.
:)
you ever performed at the Apollo before?
IANA Scientist, but they also centralize the potential source of energy and, in so doing, open a variety of options. If petroleum is the most efficient source of energy, the we may start seeing petroleum-based power plants. Unlikely, but the point is that this would make it possible to (in an indirect way) power a car using anything, from nuclear, to solar, wind, or fossil fuels.
One other advantage is that, instead of having to implement emissions-reducing technology on every car, it would be implemented in one place.
Remember, it's only 80% accurate. It may be more like "rigm!" or "prong!"
No, base 1 would be a counting system consisting of all 0s.
0=0.
00=0.
000=0.
I'm very familiar with it because it is how Bush adds up disaster relief spending.
safety of the performers? Did they fall down reaching for their ID? How does asking for proof that they're 18 endanger porn stars?
I understand that the FDA is very cautious with drugs, but how cautious are they in the approval of blood tests (or urine tests for that matter)? I could see test reliability being an issue (considering that harmful drugs may be prescribed and mental anguish may be caused as a consequence of a false positive), but is there any reason for this to be any more dangerous than any other blood test?
How do you know God isn't horrific and savage? Seriously, so you believe in a supernatural entity who created everything. Does he have to be good? Maybe he was just bored with the total nothingness around him.
As for the qu'ran not being written until after Mohammed's death, the Christian Bible wasn't written until long after Jesus' death, and many Christians believe the King James version, a translation done in the 16th century by a government appointed committee to be the unaltered word of God. If any of it was "the word of God", then man became the editor of god, and the translator of god.
As for using religion as an excuse to be crappy to others, I'm pretty sure Christians have done that. Ask a few of your gay friends, if you have any.
I can't defend Mohamed's actions, but I can say that similar things have occurred in the Christian bible. As for Allah being a Pagan god, the story of Jesus is not an original story either. Similar stories had been circulating for hundreds of years before his supposed birth. By your logic, that is enough to prove that Jesus was a false god.
The main difference between Islam and Christianity is that they are now, socially, where we were during the dark ages. Somehow our culture progressed out of that "all infidels shall be killed" phase, and they didn't.
Schedulesdirect charges the same rate that zap2it is planning to charge. so why should peope switch to them?
When I saw that movie, I thought how crazy it would be to have flying skateboards and cars, considering how bad a job most people do of steering when they only have two dimensions to worry about.
IANAL, but if the device has such a limited range that neighbors must either trespass, or come close to it, then, I could not assume that it was intended for public access.
Also, it seems to me that the issue of "does this use deprive the owner" should come into play. The water fountain analogy is good because drinking from a water fountain does not substantially deprive the owner of water. Had the man been using bit-torrent, hosting a website, or doing something else that would consume large amounts of bandwidth, then the bicycle analogy (posted by someone else), would be a better one, since the man's use is impacting the true owner. (This is relevant because anyone can assume that the owner wishes to use his or her possession).
IANAL, but from tfa, this was ruled unconscionable under California state law, by the 9th circuit. Even if it were federal law, it is being interpreted by the most overturned court in the country. We would be hoping for the current Supreme Court to either vote pro-consumer/anti-corporation, or to take no interest in the case. Let's also hope for them to buy us ice cream!
IANAL, but doesn't commercial software provide indemnification against lawsuits directed at the end-user? That was a big part of the whole SCO/Linux fiasco. SCO was saying that because all Linux distros are distributed with the "all bets are off/use at your own risk" caveat (with a specific denial of indemnification), that anyone who uses Linux can be sued for piracy.
Some company at the time (either SCO, redhat, or Microsoft) was using indemnification as their selling point, making the claim that they take legal responsibility if any of their code turns out to e pirated.
Regardless of the legal status, one can usually assume that the entity with the most money and biggest liability will get sued. In the case of commercial software, this is often the software producer, because it make more sense than suing each and every customer. In the case of OSS, it is quite possible that a copyright owner can get more money from customers who can't afford to fight the case in court.
Of course it helps when the company sends you a letter saying "You have 200 mp3s on your hard drive. Federal copyright laws says we can fine you $700 per song, which comes out to $140,000. But, because we're reasonable people, we'll accept $10,000, paid in installments, and an apology". (Yes, I did change the subject from mp3 decoders to mp3 files, but the point is that, it may be hard to stand up for principal when you could slink away in defeat for a fraction of the price.)
It also has use in keeping competitors out of the market, by (dishonestly) telling competitors that they must pay to overcome some ridiculous and undeserved government-mandated monopoly. That isn't to say that all patents are ridiculous, or even that we should get rid of them, but it would be difficult to measure the value of intimidating would-be competitors out of the business.
If it were that easy, wouldn't we be discussing how Linux has it and Windows has "missed the bus" on yet another innovative feature? I may be speaking from ignorance, but I suspect that the only reason BeOS could do it ten years ago, and none of the key players can do it as well today, is that it would require a massive (and expensive) redesign of the low-level components of the OS. (which didn't affect BeOS, because the developers factored it into the original design)
The real tragedy is that after four years of working on a project, just to have the company that originally gave you permission say "throw it away. We changed our minds and would like for you to undo all of your work". After that, how hard will they try to get it distributed? Someone may put it out there just for spite, but I doubt it will ever be the labor of love that it once was.
This seems very similar to the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. The author declares that the traditional definition of the word "social class" is no longer valid, makes up a new definition that is now a synonym for "demographic" and then announces that the pages are segregated along class lines, as if that statement still had the same meaning.
That would never happen. Bush doesn't have press conferences, and Dick Cheney is more likely to be biting the heads off small animals, children, or short people.
I think it's more likely that the "liberal" media would report that it happened, with a 30 second clip of Tony Snow explaining that the kittens had it coming. Fox News, MSNBC, and talk radio would report it as "the democrats never miss an opportunity. They are trying to make a big stink about the the kitten thing. Here's the Republican side of the story."
Honestly, I promise you Fox News would find a way to turn this into an accusation against the democrats. They would say the Dems were being opportunistic, feign outrage that dems would accuse republicans of being non-environmental or cruel, etc... That's how they work. They turn everything into an accusation against democrats and then give both sides "equal time" so they can claim they're fair and balanced. But that's like having a boxing match where one boxer isn't allowed to hit back, and then advertising it as fair because the defender had just as much time to block as the other guy had to punch.
But that's just my $.02
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the universe being estimated at 10 to 20 billion years old, then doesn't that mean that if we progressed 0.0000001% faster than them, then they would still be in the dark ages? If they progressed 0.0000001% faster than us, then they would have either conquered us, killed themselves off, or proven space travel to be a nearly-hopeless proposition, by now.
That's assuming they aren't following the prime directive, of course.
"click here for virus" sounds like a joke.
A better study would involve a warez site with an application designed to trigger false positives among AV scanners. I wonder if embedding a virus in a function that never gets called would set off a virus scanner.