Only if you are in the USA and are encoding/decoding MP3s for certain commercial purposes (as Thomson explicitly let you do it for personal use) does this patent apply to you.
Sure, their site says that end users don't need a license, but does using an unlicensed decoder expose you as well? Or is there also an exemption for people who develop decoders for their own personal use?
For someone who doesn't want to participate in patent civil disobedience, isn't it just as unethical to use an unlicensed decoder as it is to release your own decoder and ignore the licensing?
I agree about the likelihood of a lawsuit from Thomson, but I think the availability of a legal alternative makes Linux a more attractive solution for those who want to live on the right side of the law.
Ok, I have a serious question about LCDs. When I set up X11, it requires me to specify horizontal and vertical frequencies (and refresh rates). This is fine for my CRT, but do LCDs even have these frequencies? I've never seen them in any specs I've looked through.
In my experience as an intern in Congress, it's probably not the actual elected officials that are writing these bills, at least not at the outset. I realize that this is California, but I'm sure that it's the legislative aides that are writing these bills to begin with, with input from the congressman and outside sources.
Instead of it being the "old guys" that don't understand technology, I'm afraid it's more of a problem of nobody in public service really understanding it. This is where tech-minded correspondence with your local congressmen (or aides) would help.
OSRM estimated last August that Linux may infringe on 283 patents.
Personally, I believe that if specific instances of actual infringement are known, those parts of the code should be rewritten. Unless the kernel writers are part of a civil disobedience campaign I'm not aware of?
For me, MOHAA had atmosphere. Especially the snowy-woods mission, where you, sniper rifle in hand, crept through a winter forest trying not to get shot by the German turrets scattered here and there. There was no background music, just the crunch of the snow under your feet. I would jump clean out of my chair when I got a bullet to the head out of nowhere.
I wonder why there aren't more aggregators for other media (or maybe I missed something). There's RottenTomatoes for movies, GameRankings for games, but nothing for CDs or books? Electronics?
I convert videos to Linux-friendly formats on my website. I can't seem to get to this Yahoo! clip to download it, but I'll attempt the FF trailer when it's released.
Are you sure about that? In Miller v. California, the Court said that obscenity is not protected speech, and defined it as such:
This much has been categorically settled by the Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment.
[...]
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Since I doubt that much of the pornography one would find on such a service would meet the above tests, it would generally be unprotected speech and subject to restriction by the states. Although the question of states' authority over online transmissions is another matter entirely...
Epiphany (the GNOME browser) is one of the few browsers to develop a completely different way of dealing with bookmarks. It stores them all in a big database-type thing, searchable and catagorizable by keywords. I wish there was a Firefox extension or something that would let it use my E bookmark db.
Speaking of the "web of trust" concept - I've always viewed it as trusting keys that you've personally verified with the owner, trickling out slowly as networks grow.
When I submitted my key to this story's server, though, I got a message at the end telling me to trust the server's verification key, and thus all keys verified by the server.
I don't really have a good concept of how this stuff works, so I'm wondering - is that a good (safe) idea?
But he points out an interesting perception: that the Hamilton article actually degraded over time with subsequent editing.
The first version was more accurate than the one he saw, even though it had been through dozens of edits. Editing does not necessarily lead in the right direction from the start.
Even if it ends up as more accurate 20 years from now, it may have been a steaming pile of lies in the meantime.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you are in the USA and are encoding/decoding MP3s for certain commercial purposes (as Thomson explicitly let you do it for personal use) does this patent apply to you.
Sure, their site says that end users don't need a license, but does using an unlicensed decoder expose you as well? Or is there also an exemption for people who develop decoders for their own personal use?
For someone who doesn't want to participate in patent civil disobedience, isn't it just as unethical to use an unlicensed decoder as it is to release your own decoder and ignore the licensing?
I agree about the likelihood of a lawsuit from Thomson, but I think the availability of a legal alternative makes Linux a more attractive solution for those who want to live on the right side of the law.
Debian proper doesn't include any mp3 software. lame isn't even in the non-free repository. mpg123 is in non-free.
Did you know FDR skipped out on any big celebration during his relection during WWII?
If that is true, then I'd like to see some more of that kind of frugality in the future.
Is it true? Reference?
Ok, I have a serious question about LCDs. When I set up X11, it requires me to specify horizontal and vertical frequencies (and refresh rates). This is fine for my CRT, but do LCDs even have these frequencies? I've never seen them in any specs I've looked through.
In my experience as an intern in Congress, it's probably not the actual elected officials that are writing these bills, at least not at the outset. I realize that this is California, but I'm sure that it's the legislative aides that are writing these bills to begin with, with input from the congressman and outside sources.
Instead of it being the "old guys" that don't understand technology, I'm afraid it's more of a problem of nobody in public service really understanding it. This is where tech-minded correspondence with your local congressmen (or aides) would help.
Yes, this appears to be valid. I can't find the part of the actual spec, but w3schools' XHTML reference lists it as an acceptible attribute to <a>.
"rel" is short for "relationship" - it can contain values like "previous", "next", "contents", "index", etc.
So its the same as the official kernel then!!
OSRM estimated last August that Linux may infringe on 283 patents.
Personally, I believe that if specific instances of actual infringement are known, those parts of the code should be rewritten. Unless the kernel writers are part of a civil disobedience campaign I'm not aware of?
Safe, but still wrong.
This is a blatant troll. Jabberstudio.org is a thriving community, and the transports are updated quite often.
For me, MOHAA had atmosphere. Especially the snowy-woods mission, where you, sniper rifle in hand, crept through a winter forest trying not to get shot by the German turrets scattered here and there. There was no background music, just the crunch of the snow under your feet. I would jump clean out of my chair when I got a bullet to the head out of nowhere.
I wonder why there aren't more aggregators for other media (or maybe I missed something). There's RottenTomatoes for movies, GameRankings for games, but nothing for CDs or books? Electronics?
I convert videos to Linux-friendly formats on my website. I can't seem to get to this Yahoo! clip to download it, but I'll attempt the FF trailer when it's released.
For anyone that doesn't want to deal with MS WMV files, I converted the vid to an open format (XviD/Vorbis/Matroska).
Get it here.
And here's the clip: http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2652831
Are you sure about that? In Miller v. California, the Court said that obscenity is not protected speech, and defined it as such:
This much has been categorically settled by the Court, that obscene material is unprotected by the First Amendment.
[...]
(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Since I doubt that much of the pornography one would find on such a service would meet the above tests, it would generally be unprotected speech and subject to restriction by the states. Although the question of states' authority over online transmissions is another matter entirely...
I'm not arguing with you here, I'm genuinely curious:
Do you have evidence of Freenet being used for any kind of actual dissident/freedom fighter/whistleblower activity?
I run a server myself, but every time I log on, it seems like there's nothing but pornographers, pirates, and bigots.
Does anyone list SVG wallpapers? I posted a suggestion to the Deviantart forums, but I guess it didn't generate any interest.
He didn't qualify his tip with the necessary background info. On Windows, pressing Ctrl-K makes Firefox 1.0 move the cursor to the search box.
Epiphany (the GNOME browser) is one of the few browsers to develop a completely different way of dealing with bookmarks. It stores them all in a big database-type thing, searchable and catagorizable by keywords. I wish there was a Firefox extension or something that would let it use my E bookmark db.
To reply to my own comment here, gate 88 works on Linux, and is quite fun.
I wish these articles would indicate what OSs the games run on. Does anyone know if any of these can run on Linux (or work with Wine)?
Speaking of the "web of trust" concept - I've always viewed it as trusting keys that you've personally verified with the owner, trickling out slowly as networks grow.
When I submitted my key to this story's server, though, I got a message at the end telling me to trust the server's verification key, and thus all keys verified by the server.
I don't really have a good concept of how this stuff works, so I'm wondering - is that a good (safe) idea?
Directory paths are specified by the Filesystem Heirarchy Standard, not the LSB.
(X)HTML offers the <acronym> tag. In Gecko-based browsers, when you hover your mouse over such a tag, a box pops up with the expanded definition.
Slashdot, however, doesn't support it in comments.
But he points out an interesting perception: that the Hamilton article actually degraded over time with subsequent editing.
The first version was more accurate than the one he saw, even though it had been through dozens of edits. Editing does not necessarily lead in the right direction from the start.
Even if it ends up as more accurate 20 years from now, it may have been a steaming pile of lies in the meantime.