Maybe it's just me, but was anybody else bothered by the flipflop at the end of the article?
Not all giving others copies of music is to avoid payment. People make mixes of songs for other people as gifts....
The "gift" is the compilation [emphasis mine]-- the mix -- not the music, since they already have the music. (That's interesting, because a compilation can be an expressive thing, maybe even worthy of its own copyright protection.) Our use of music is evolving and it isn't just to save money.
OK, I suppose I can see that, it IS nice to get a gift that shows effort on the part of the giver... so what's with the very next paragraph saying the exact opposite?
Another area is buying CDs as gifts. A "real" CD is even more special today, and that makes it an even more special gift. You show you care enough to get the pretty shrink-wrapped copy, not the hand-labeled home-burned one.
The writer seems to be trying to satisfy all readers, to the point of absurdity.
Of course I can't find the story when I want it, but didn't/. have a story earlier this summer about a grad student who used declassified satellite photography to show that forested lands are on the increase in the northern hemisphere? IIRC, the idea was that marginal farmland in higher latitudes was being left fallow as it became financially unfeasible to farm there, and that much of that former farmland was going back to forest.
I also recall the article stated the total acreage under treecover increased worldwide, despite the acreage lost in the Amazon, etc.
Anybody else remember this one? And have the details?
I work across the street, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and the answer is simple: They have the high tech ergonomic chairs to prevent RSI. It's one of the coolest features of working here that they will go to almost any length to accommodate a ergomonic need (not want, but need.)
Waste of money, you say? Actually, given the cost of the security clearances (up to $100K) it's insanely cost-effective to spend money on keeping their people well. They don't buy these chairs because the chair is comfortable, they buy the chair because it is designed to let you work without hurting yourself, which seems to involve a high level of comfort.
Unfortunatley, it looks like I may have to pay a premium to not buy Windows. All of the best deals on laptops come with Windows preinstalled! You pay more to not have Windows!
Bzzzt! The reason computers with Windows preinstalled are cheaper is because Microsoft is subsidizing the cost of the system by selling their OS at a huge discount! The other OS options cost Dell money, either as a straight charge for the OS (MacOS, Novell) or as the expected cost of supporting an OS (all the flavors of *nix.)
Microsoft offered a huge benefit (a vast cut in their own profits from the sale of the Windows OS that many users ask for) and received Dell's agreement to not sell computers without an OS. That isn't a tax, no matter how you parse it.
I'll keep exercising my right to self expression... [Me]
Enjoy that one while it lasts. When they over-turn Fair-Use, you're freedom of expression will soon follow. [You]
No, I'm pretty sure an Enumerated Right is going to be a LOT harder to pry from my cold, dead fingers. If it were as easy as you imply there would be no handguns in this country, and I don't see them going away anytime soon.
When I purchase some form of information on a media, I'm normally told I'm not "Buying the media, I'm buying the right to use/have access to/perceive/whatever" the information contained.
Who, exactly, is telling you this? I've worked retail, and sold music, and I can attest NOBODY in our store (or any other I've ever been in) said any such nonsense. We were in the business of selling music which came packaged on cassettes or CDs. You bought a CD, or a tape, not some "Right to Access Music"!
I'll skip ahead and paraphrase some, so feel free to tell me if I mischaracterize your thoughts:
The recording industry changed their tune about copyright, and they want $$$ everytime you read or listen... What's different about that? Technology changes, can't organizations change their processes too? Just because they WANT money doesn't mean they'll get it, either.
CD's are supposed to be superior, and they're not, except when they are, so because they can be damaged in a manner some other media might not be it should be OK to copy them... Which is it? Are they survivable or not? The only CDs I have that can be damaged easily are the data CDs I burn myself. I remember the hype when CDs were invented, but that was then and this is now. Those CDs had a lot less data, so they were a lot more forgiving when the media was damaged. Be that as it may, it's no excuse to copy somebody else's work.
You don't have a CD-changer in your car, so you should have the "Right to Select and Arrange the music you want to hear"... That's just pathetic. If I don't have $10000 in my wallet, should I have the "Right to Photocopy the Money I want to spend"? Again, no excuse to copy somebody else's work.
Thus I burn my discs. These rights are common sense things that the law should in no way be able to take away from me. While I agree the rights of the artists to own and profit from their work definately hold important, the general public's right to do what they want with the things they've paid for is even more so important. (Here's a concept -- Copyright owners are ALSO copyright consumers...)
Even though the artists have rights, the public's rights are more important? WTF? The public didn't create a single word or note, so why are they more important than the schmuck who sweated his ass off creating the content?! Because you are in the big group and not the little one? "Fair-Use" sure doesn't sound very fair the way you describe it...
If you don't agree with that, then you're going to be perfectly happy in 1984.
And lastly, you seek to vilify me by comparing me to some fictional authoritarian, or perhaps you think I'm more like the brainwashed-mass-of-victims of those fictional bosses. Sorry, Jace, I'm my own man and beholden to no one in making up my mind on this. As I said, it's MY opininon that "Fair Use Rights" are crap. You have said nothing to convince me otherwise.
I understand your position, I just do not agree with it. It may be legal to make copies, but it's not right. "Fair Use" is poor law, and it ought to be thrown out.
The original court decision which allowed the creation of audibly inferior tape copies has become the focus of all those who now demand the right to make audibly identical CD copies. Why the emphasis? Because that was one of the key points in the trial, that the copies were considered by the court to be non-competitive with the originals. The court based their decision on the technology of the day. Well, times have changed but the law hasn't. Thanks to improvements in hardware and software you can make CDs that sound so similar to the originals that experts can't tell them apart, so cheaply and easily you can share them with all your friends.
The court decided a point of law on the basis of a particular technology (cassette tapes), rather than on the underlying principle: Is it right to copy somebody else's work? As I pointed out in my previous message, this is not expected or even possible in most other venues, but because of this singular decision it has been enshrined in the popular mind as a "right".
As for "complete proof that you don't mind losing your rights", I'll go you one better: In my opinion, the "Fair Use Right" is crap, should never have been passed, and I'll celebrate the day it is overturned. Until then, I'll keep exercising my right to self expression, one spelled out after careful consideration and discussion, not created from whole cloth by a court.
Sorry you've been inconvenienced... but scratched and unplayable media means (A) You need to be more careful with the media, or (B) You have played with this set of media so long it has started to break down. In either case, the answer is simple: Buy A New Copy.
What you call 'backup copies' the manufacturer calls 'theft'. Why? Because if it were ANY OTHER FORMAT you would just go get a new one and think nothing of it. You want examples?
If you drive your car 250,000 miles and it's all clapped out, does the dealer provide you with a new one? No.
After sharpening your carving knife for another Thanksgiving turkey you notice it's worn down a bit. Do you demand a new one? I think not.
You bought all of %FAVORITE_BAND's albums on vinyl back in the day. Your needle dug some extra grooves in the album, and now the songs skip just a little. Do you ask the folks at the record store for free replacements? Uh-uh.
You bought a bunch of Books-On-Tape(tm) so you could enjoy the commute. Today your tape player ate your copy of %FAVORITE_AUTHOR'S_BESTSELLING_PIECE_OF_S**T. Do you go buy a new copy so you can once again hear that deathless prose you love? Abso-fraggin-lutely!
But for some crazy reason, since your stuff is on a CD, suddenly you think you have the right to identical duplicate copies, as many as you want? WHY? What's the difference? Just because it's possible to make a virtually identical copy doesn't mean it's a good idea, much less that it's "right" or legal to do so. My car can go 110, doesn't mean it should.
A minor point ...
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Built For Use
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· Score: 3, Funny
262 pages and you plan to 'slip it under the door' of your co-workers?
Excuse me, perhaps you should RTFA, buddy. The nice man in Japan has found a good, cheap, signal-ABSORBENT material, which he will place on walls/doors/etc so that cell phones in the room will get no signal. The effect is that of a Faraday cage, blocking transmissions from going in or out, but having no effect on signals passing by.
If you're outside, the signal is not blocked in any way.
As a former intercept operator, I can attest to that. (Any more specific and I have to... you know.) We were bound by extremely strict standards as to what we could and could not listen for, although even 10 years ago terrorism-related traffic WAS collectable, of course.
We were tasked to monitor for specific events or types of traffic, not specific people (that's what wiretaps are for, anyway.) We were allowed to copy foreign comms that met the criteria, but not comms involving "US persons"* unless they fell within specified guidelines. If we did "roll tape" on them, we had to remove all personal identification from all transcripts of those conversations.
If we DID hear something involving a crime, we would have to seek permission from the NSA to disseminate it to law enforcement, not a timely process. Even then, we couldn't reveal our source, leading to lines like "Well, we know these guys did it, but we can't tell you how we know." In 10+ years I don't know of a single case where we were responsible for catching a crook.
*The label of "US persons" included citizens, native or naturalized, resident aliens, and businesses incorporated in the US. If the conversation was between a 'US person' and a foreign person, we had to edit out the former in all transcripts, unless they were planning a terrorist act or selling/dealing drugs.
Re:Commands in vi don't change.
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I liked the first three paragraphs, they describe intelligent UI design considerations perfectly. Then I read your two examples and, well, cringed.
In both, to paraphrase: You went to a store, you got to the register, and the salesperson who had received no training with the software took more time than some previous trained & experienced salesperson did at the same task. Well, duh, the interface changed and there was no training, so of course the worker is slower! The exact same wait would have occured if it were a hardware change, wouldn't it?
It's a TRAINING FAILURE, Sparky!
In fact, you even point this out in your second example: "The guy started getting the hang of it when he served me."
Applying the usual/. 'arguement-by-tortured-example', here's a scenario for YOU: I rode in a taxicab yesterday to go get some new glasses made. I remember the old automatic transmission system. It wasn't pretty, but damn it, those folks could just put it in Drive and you'd be out of there. Instead, now they have a system based on manually shifting some lever while using a pedal. Because the interface is so different, nobody knew how to operate the damn thing. I was there from 12:00 to 2:00, just because the driver was trying to figure out this stupid new system. In other words, before, a new employee would learn which buttons to push and it just worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Let's just agree on the idea that programming of interfaces should be well thought out in advance, and changed as little as necessary. THAT I can totally agree with!
Regarding Uranium as an ingrediant in glass ...
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The visitor's center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a nice shelf display of this glass, seen in the picture at the bottom of the page. The uranium atoms fluoresce under UV light, giving a distinctive although kitschy look to the pieces.
In the same case (on the lower shelves) are common objects found to be radioactive, with the radiation sources identified and radiation levels listed. A pair of glasses contaminated with Thorium from early A-bomb tests, a chunk of "yellow-cake" from Canadian deposits, a piece of granite from Denver, etc. Kind of cool, in a geeky sort of way...
The scientific community have ALWAYS used *Experts* and publications to *Debunk* that which threatens them or threatens the foundations they have stood for and risked their reputations for.
Remember if the original scientists would not have endured the debunking attempts of the Catholic Church, we would still live on a flat earth at the center of the universe!
No, although we might still believe that to be the case, the world would be as we now know it to be, just another little spot in an expanding universe.
Sona-lumenience [sp] (I supposed I'll be de-frocked and ridiculed because I can't spell big scientific terms!) was just a theory a few months ago and now *that* appears it might be a new form of fusion!
Spelling, schmelling, the important thing is that it now appears that it's NOT a new form of fusion, as reported here and elsewhere in the scintific and popular press.
Give me a break, Let people experiment in peace. If the entrenched scientists of the world continue to "poo poo" every new idea then the money sources dry up and WE HAVE NO NEW IDEAS.
Nope, and this is the critical point, it's the job of the "entrenched scientists" to keep their fellows honest, in the scientific sense. If you discover some new and wonderful fact/process/theory but can't duplicate it, then it ain't science(TM).
What you *should* do is make the most honest attempt to verify the person's research to veerify and support his theory.
Which is what scientists do, although the press has been known to just pile onto the poor theorist...
If, after you have tried and it still doesnt work, have a meeting or discussion with the person about his results.
Actually, most scientists use written periodicals or the internet to exchange views, rather than face-to-face meetings...
Don't waste your time turning him/her into a laughingstock just to make yourself look bigger or to feather your own bed.
The only people getting made fun of are those who try to do an "end-around" of the usual process, by going to the media BEFORE exposing their theory to a proper peer-review. Pardon me for not being more sympathetic. I doubt anybody's getting rich off the process, either.
(a) ASSIGNMENT AUTHORITY- On request
from or with the agreement of a private sector organization,
They've got to get permission from the private sector, no dumping you on an unsuspecting dotcom.
and
with the consent of the employee concerned,
And they've got to get your permission too!
the head of an agency may arrange for the assignment of an employee of the agency to a private sector organization or an employee of a private sector organization to the agency. An eligible employee is an individual who--
(1) works in the field of information technology management;
(2) is considered an exceptional performer by the individual's current employer; and
(3) is
expected to assume increased information technology management responsibilities in the future.
So they're really looking to train future government IT Managers, apparently.
An employee of an agency shall be eligible to participate in this program only if the employee is
employed at the GS-11 level or above (or equivalent) and is serving under a career or career-conditional appointment or an appointment of equivalent tenure in the excepted service.
Which makes it definitely a search for management, not worker-bees.
And so we learn the real history of Alpha Complex and Our Friend, The Computer...
What do you mean, you don't love the Computer? You must be a no-good Commie Subversive Traitor, who probably belongs to a secret society as well... report to the Food Vats at once!
Try this on your boss every day, make them hate IT as much as you. (-;
/RANT ON
Make them hate IT as much as [they hate] you? You can't even remember your password and now you want to get the poor IT staff in trouble? Thanks a lot.
I LOVE folks like you. You're the one with the 30 GB of mp3s on the server, the collection of screensavers on your desktop machine, and the Zip disk you swore would be used "only for work files, really."
Sure that's one definition of computer but not the only one.
Sure, Mom-n-Pop might use a different definition, but do you? Do YOU think actually Microsoft makes computers? No, you know they don't, so let's assume we are both talking about the same thing and get to the meat of the issue.
When people hate computers they hate the software and not the hardware.
I agree completely, but that's an educational issue no-one is discussing. Let's move on.
Read the article.
I read the article, I asked how YOU know what you asserted. Are you in a Tech Support position? I am, so I am talking from my experience. If you have specific info or sources, I'd love to read them for myself.
The point is that there is no answer to problems with Microsoft software.
Here you return to trolling. If you don't want to learn how to make a system using Microsoft software operate smoothly and safely, then don't. If you aren't willing to learn about it, that's fine, but don't be surprised when you can't figure it out.
If there were answers then you would never be told to start over from scratch and reinstall the operating system. Instead, that's often the first thing you are told.
If that's true, then you have shitty technical support. Period. If it's just what you think, then you're wrong. Period. I work with M$ products daily, and I haven't reinstalled to fix a problem once in the last six months. The last time I did was due because the user had deleted so many files (including his own data files) that it wasn't worth replacing them one-by-one.
I'm not asking you to start loving M$ software, but take a lick on the clue stick, would you? If you had these issues with vi or Emacs you would at least RTFM, so try doing a little research and maybe you'll learn something which will let you HELP your friends with their problems.
Open Source software is often lambasted for being harder to use than its proprietary Windows equivalents. On the other hand, it simultaneously has far better user support available.
Open Source Software is developer friendly, but it sure as hell ain't user friendly.
Open Source based business, in contrast, is purely a service industry. By very nature it results in far closer communication between users and developers. Open Source breaks down arrogance and elitism quickly as the development community expands. A customer cannot be neglected if it is also a co-developer.
And when was the last time you answered a question from a non-developer? Those are the people JonK is talking about, not the "tech-savvy" readers of this fine electronic rag. If they don't know enough to tweak their own desktop, how are Ma-n-Pa Kettle supposed to know how to get in touch with the "Open Source Community(tm)"?
Open Source is a solution, and frequently it is the solution, but sometimes it doesn't have a damn thing to do with a problem. This is one of those times.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the best I can offer: Go See A Lawyer.
Maybe it's just me, but was anybody else bothered by the flipflop at the end of the article?
OK, I suppose I can see that, it IS nice to get a gift that shows effort on the part of the giverI also recall the article stated the total acreage under treecover increased worldwide, despite the acreage lost in the Amazon, etc.
Anybody else remember this one? And have the details?
Waste of money, you say? Actually, given the cost of the security clearances (up to $100K) it's insanely cost-effective to spend money on keeping their people well. They don't buy these chairs because the chair is comfortable, they buy the chair because it is designed to let you work without hurting yourself, which seems to involve a high level of comfort.
*That is to say, absurdly simplistic and hopelessly unlikely ...
Microsoft offered a huge benefit (a vast cut in their own profits from the sale of the Windows OS that many users ask for) and received Dell's agreement to not sell computers without an OS. That isn't a tax, no matter how you parse it.
I'll skip ahead and paraphrase some, so feel free to tell me if I mischaracterize your thoughts:
The original court decision which allowed the creation of audibly inferior tape copies has become the focus of all those who now demand the right to make audibly identical CD copies. Why the emphasis? Because that was one of the key points in the trial, that the copies were considered by the court to be non-competitive with the originals. The court based their decision on the technology of the day. Well, times have changed but the law hasn't. Thanks to improvements in hardware and software you can make CDs that sound so similar to the originals that experts can't tell them apart, so cheaply and easily you can share them with all your friends.
The court decided a point of law on the basis of a particular technology (cassette tapes), rather than on the underlying principle: Is it right to copy somebody else's work? As I pointed out in my previous message, this is not expected or even possible in most other venues, but because of this singular decision it has been enshrined in the popular mind as a "right".
As for "complete proof that you don't mind losing your rights", I'll go you one better: In my opinion, the "Fair Use Right" is crap, should never have been passed, and I'll celebrate the day it is overturned. Until then, I'll keep exercising my right to self expression, one spelled out after careful consideration and discussion, not created from whole cloth by a court.
What you call 'backup copies' the manufacturer calls 'theft'. Why? Because if it were ANY OTHER FORMAT you would just go get a new one and think nothing of it. You want examples?
But for some crazy reason, since your stuff is on a CD, suddenly you think you have the right to identical duplicate copies, as many as you want? WHY? What's the difference? Just because it's possible to make a virtually identical copy doesn't mean it's a good idea, much less that it's "right" or legal to do so. My car can go 110, doesn't mean it should.
If you're outside, the signal is not blocked in any way.
Sounds like a great concert, wish I could go ... but the drive would be a b!tch ...
Enough with the FUD! Groups that people want to hear DO get airplay.
We were tasked to monitor for specific events or types of traffic, not specific people (that's what wiretaps are for, anyway.) We were allowed to copy foreign comms that met the criteria, but not comms involving "US persons"* unless they fell within specified guidelines. If we did "roll tape" on them, we had to remove all personal identification from all transcripts of those conversations.
If we DID hear something involving a crime, we would have to seek permission from the NSA to disseminate it to law enforcement, not a timely process. Even then, we couldn't reveal our source, leading to lines like "Well, we know these guys did it, but we can't tell you how we know." In 10+ years I don't know of a single case where we were responsible for catching a crook.
*The label of "US persons" included citizens, native or naturalized, resident aliens, and businesses incorporated in the US. If the conversation was between a 'US person' and a foreign person, we had to edit out the former in all transcripts, unless they were planning a terrorist act or selling/dealing drugs.
In both, to paraphrase: You went to a store, you got to the register, and the salesperson who had received no training with the software took more time than some previous trained & experienced salesperson did at the same task. Well, duh, the interface changed and there was no training, so of course the worker is slower! The exact same wait would have occured if it were a hardware change, wouldn't it?
It's a TRAINING FAILURE, Sparky!
In fact, you even point this out in your second example: "The guy started getting the hang of it when he served me."
Applying the usual /. 'arguement-by-tortured-example', here's a scenario for YOU:
I rode in a taxicab yesterday to go get some new glasses made. I remember the old automatic transmission system. It wasn't pretty, but damn it, those folks could just put it in Drive and you'd be out of there. Instead, now they have a system based on manually shifting some lever while using a pedal. Because the interface is so different, nobody knew how to operate the damn thing. I was there from 12:00 to 2:00, just because the driver was trying to figure out this stupid new system. In other words, before, a new employee would learn which buttons to push and it just worked. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Let's just agree on the idea that programming of interfaces should be well thought out in advance, and changed as little as necessary. THAT I can totally agree with!
The visitor's center at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a nice shelf display of this glass, seen in the picture at the bottom of the page. The uranium atoms fluoresce under UV light, giving a distinctive although kitschy look to the pieces.
...
In the same case (on the lower shelves) are common objects found to be radioactive, with the radiation sources identified and radiation levels listed. A pair of glasses contaminated with Thorium from early A-bomb tests, a chunk of "yellow-cake" from Canadian deposits, a piece of granite from Denver, etc. Kind of cool, in a geeky sort of way
What do you mean, you don't love the Computer? You must be a no-good Commie Subversive Traitor, who probably belongs to a secret society as well ... report to the Food Vats at once!
What would be cool is having them play each other ...
Make them hate IT as much as [they hate] you? You can't even remember your password and now you want to get the poor IT staff in trouble? Thanks a lot.
I LOVE folks like you. You're the one with the 30 GB of mp3s on the server, the collection of screensavers on your desktop machine, and the Zip disk you swore would be used "only for work files, really."
You, Sir or Madam, put the "L" in user!
Whew, that felt good. Who needs Karma, anyway ...
Sure, Mom-n-Pop might use a different definition, but do you? Do YOU think actually Microsoft makes computers? No, you know they don't, so let's assume we are both talking about the same thing and get to the meat of the issue.
I agree completely, but that's an educational issue no-one is discussing. Let's move on.
I read the article, I asked how YOU know what you asserted. Are you in a Tech Support position? I am, so I am talking from my experience. If you have specific info or sources, I'd love to read them for myself.
Here you return to trolling. If you don't want to learn how to make a system using Microsoft software operate smoothly and safely, then don't. If you aren't willing to learn about it, that's fine, but don't be surprised when you can't figure it out.
If that's true, then you have shitty technical support. Period. If it's just what you think, then you're wrong. Period. I work with M$ products daily, and I haven't reinstalled to fix a problem once in the last six months. The last time I did was due because the user had deleted so many files (including his own data files) that it wasn't worth replacing them one-by-one.
I'm not asking you to start loving M$ software, but take a lick on the clue stick, would you? If you had these issues with vi or Emacs you would at least RTFM, so try doing a little research and maybe you'll learn something which will let you HELP your friends with their problems.
Nuff said.
Open Source Software is developer friendly, but it sure as hell ain't user friendly.
And when was the last time you answered a question from a non-developer? Those are the people JonK is talking about, not the "tech-savvy" readers of this fine electronic rag. If they don't know enough to tweak their own desktop, how are Ma-n-Pa Kettle supposed to know how to get in touch with the "Open Source Community(tm)"?
Open Source is a solution, and frequently it is the solution, but sometimes it doesn't have a damn thing to do with a problem. This is one of those times.