No, I don't think it was his point. If he was intending 5+ minutes of sarcasm about an early 90's rap song focusing on African American standards of beauty, it's pretty racist... which is NOT a word I'd use to describe Coulton.
So which is it, racist, or just plain boring? (actually, could be both, but I'd go for the latter).
That's about $20 less per month than a similar AT&T or Verizon plan, which is $480 over 2 years. Saves maybe $30, but then again T-Mobile's 4G sucks compared to the LTE for AT&T and Verizon (in my area, at least) so the extra $1.25 a month for LTE seems fair.
I assume you do realize that you sound pretty much exactly like the rich factory owners of 19th century England and America criticizing the attempts at labor laws and unionization at the turn of the century and are making an ironic joke?
If you buy your phone outright, you just pay less per month.
I have never seen any discounts for buying an unlocked phone from a carrier (in the US, at least). Do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
I could see someone claiming that the phone subsidy system in general results in higher long term costs, but at far as I can tell the major cellular providers are currently making those with unlocked phones off-contract pay the same rate as those with a subsidized contract...
"A 16GB unlocked iPhone 5, for instance, will cost you $650. Buy the same phone through AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, and you’ll pay just $200 thanks to carrier subsidies – but you also have to agree to a two-year contract. In the long run, you will likely end up paying more for your locked device than for an unlocked one."
Yeah... that would be true if you bought an unlocked phone and then just threw it in a drawer without using it. If you actually sign up for a voice and data plan in both cases how is paying an extra $450 going to save you money? (especially the way so many people upgrade their phone every few years).
Yes, if it was an infringement of the actual audio recording ("mechanical copyright") which what I already said. Arrangements are NOT AUTOMATICALLY OWNED BY THE ARRANGER. I mean, seriously, you can look this up in 20 seconds with Google.
You didn't actually go look at the law like I said, did you? You are completely incorrect, and software checkins have nothing to do with the massive common law precedent that is music copyrights.
If you look up "copyright of arrangement" every top answer already explains this, but here are a couple summarized:
"Arrangements are what the Copyright Act calls derivative works. Making derivative works is a right exclusively granted to the songwriter under copyright law. The arranger can claim a copyright only when the songwriter has granted that privilege to the arranger. "
"While you are free to create a new arrangement of an existing song, generally speaking you cannot commercially exploit that arrangement (e.g., on records, sheet music, etc.) without a license from the music publisher, or other copyright owner.... Publishers will usually include the right to make arrangements in a Mechanical License, provided the publisher receives full ownership of any arrangement created. "
Actually, no. If you look up the law, arrangements are not owned by the arranger, they are owned by the original copyright holder. Even Coulton said as much in TFA.
Now, IF they sampled his actual audio (the "mechanical copyright" in legal terms) then that would be copyright infringement. It's possible they did that, but will be pretty hard to prove definitively...
A law wasn't passed ex post facto and wasn't applied retroactively. A law passed years ago was declared unconstitutional, and the FTB is now making people re-file their taxes without its benefit.
I don't agree with the ruling, either, but if you are going to throw around all of those legal terms make sure they are used correctly...
Yeah, there sounds like a lot of bullshit in this...
"“What was once a multi-billion dollar industry in our country, employing almost 5% of our population has now shrunk to virtually nothing,” Antigua’s High Commissioner to London, Carl Roberts, said previously."
Antigua's growing financial industry wasn't based on online gaming, it was based on money laundering and lax banking rules (see "Stanford International Bank" to see what that allows). Now they are pissed because their shady banking industry was more or less shut down, and they want to pretend it's all gambling industry losses.
I completely agree if he is making idiotic statements like "he is 'no longer suited for the profession'" he has no grip on the real world (of post-CS jobs). Though I would most definitely NOT generalize this to other professors no matter where they teach. Ford put out a decent American super car for much less than the S7... and it has actually appreciated significantly over MSRP since its release...:)
I posted this in another comment, but the thing that strikes me most is a *computer science* professor trying to call his department a "profession". The CS major is a defined "profession" about as much as "political science" or "history". It's a good background to many computer-related careers, but the only "profession" it really describes is "computer science professor."
My experience was the exact opposite... I guess it depends on your university's priorities. I had professors teaching undergraduate courses who were not only doing serious research, but were often leading their field. Off the top of my head (it's been a while, but jeez looking at it in hindsight it is humbling):
I was thinking more along the lines of "when is Computer Science by definition a profession except for Computer Science professors?"
Software engineering, network engineering, systems analysis, DBA, etc are professions, and computer science is a decent major to prepare for them, but a CS department that tries to decide what professions its students are suitable for has become no more than a trade school (not to knock trade schools, just don't pretend you are more than that if you aren't!).
It is, but if they were careless enough to get the fact that they did this ON RECORD it's actually *better* proof of conspiracy (ie. they knew it was potentially illegal at the time they were planning it) than just sending out emails with a nice paper trail.
A common strategy when working on things that may or may not infringe patents is to tell the engineers not to worry about it and assume it's not (and leave that to the lawyers). That can be the difference between infringement and *willful* infringement...
How about maybe none of them were actually "evil"? They may have been cutthroat businessmen who didn't really care about their employees and even held some objectionable beliefs/opinions, but there is still a significant gap between "asshole" and "evil"....
Slashdot Mirror
Yes - *this* is the part of it all that I think is funny...
Damn, I haven't seen that White and Nerdy video for a couple years. I think it may be better. Either way Weird Al rules :)
Or even better Amish Paradise
Just because it's a joke, doesn't mean it can't be a REALLY BAD one.
Where did I miss the memo where slashdot no longer allowed opinions?
No, I don't think it was his point. If he was intending 5+ minutes of sarcasm about an early 90's rap song focusing on African American standards of beauty, it's pretty racist... which is NOT a word I'd use to describe Coulton.
So which is it, racist, or just plain boring? (actually, could be both, but I'd go for the latter).
You think that's true, but quote a few offers to prove it.
T-Mobile unlimited is $70 a month: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans
That's about $20 less per month than a similar AT&T or Verizon plan, which is $480 over 2 years. Saves maybe $30, but then again T-Mobile's 4G sucks compared to the LTE for AT&T and Verizon (in my area, at least) so the extra $1.25 a month for LTE seems fair.
Seriously - I just listened to it on Youtube and it's AWFUL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCWaN_Tc5wo
The Glee version is only slightly different but equally putrid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yww4BLjReEk
vs. the original version which is absolutely brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY84MRnxVzo
Honestly, Jonathan Coulton's version makes it painfully clear he's one of the white people at the beginning of the Sir Mix-a-lot video...
I assume you do realize that you sound pretty much exactly like the rich factory owners of 19th century England and America criticizing the attempts at labor laws and unionization at the turn of the century and are making an ironic joke?
Ok, I suddenly feel old when software released in 1990 is now considered "early" ;)
If you buy your phone outright, you just pay less per month.
I have never seen any discounts for buying an unlocked phone from a carrier (in the US, at least). Do you have any evidence to back up this claim?
I could see someone claiming that the phone subsidy system in general results in higher long term costs, but at far as I can tell the major cellular providers are currently making those with unlocked phones off-contract pay the same rate as those with a subsidized contract...
This is about the DMCA. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Non-digital analogies need not apply.
It's a horrible law, but a law nonetheless, which makes violating it illegal.
"A 16GB unlocked iPhone 5, for instance, will cost you $650. Buy the same phone through AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, and you’ll pay just $200 thanks to carrier subsidies – but you also have to agree to a two-year contract. In the long run, you will likely end up paying more for your locked device than for an unlocked one."
Yeah... that would be true if you bought an unlocked phone and then just threw it in a drawer without using it. If you actually sign up for a voice and data plan in both cases how is paying an extra $450 going to save you money? (especially the way so many people upgrade their phone every few years).
Yes, if it was an infringement of the actual audio recording ("mechanical copyright") which what I already said. Arrangements are NOT AUTOMATICALLY OWNED BY THE ARRANGER. I mean, seriously, you can look this up in 20 seconds with Google.
You didn't actually go look at the law like I said, did you? You are completely incorrect, and software checkins have nothing to do with the massive common law precedent that is music copyrights.
If you look up "copyright of arrangement" every top answer already explains this, but here are a couple summarized:
"Arrangements are what the Copyright Act calls derivative works. Making derivative works is a right exclusively granted to the songwriter under copyright law. The arranger can claim a copyright only when the songwriter has granted that privilege to the arranger. "
"While you are free to create a new arrangement of an existing song, generally speaking you cannot commercially exploit that arrangement (e.g., on records, sheet music, etc.) without a license from the music publisher, or other copyright owner. ... Publishers will usually include the right to make arrangements in a Mechanical License, provided the publisher receives full ownership of any arrangement created. "
Actually, no. If you look up the law, arrangements are not owned by the arranger, they are owned by the original copyright holder. Even Coulton said as much in TFA.
Now, IF they sampled his actual audio (the "mechanical copyright" in legal terms) then that would be copyright infringement. It's possible they did that, but will be pretty hard to prove definitively...
A law wasn't passed ex post facto and wasn't applied retroactively. A law passed years ago was declared unconstitutional, and the FTB is now making people re-file their taxes without its benefit.
I don't agree with the ruling, either, but if you are going to throw around all of those legal terms make sure they are used correctly...
Yeah, there sounds like a lot of bullshit in this...
"“What was once a multi-billion dollar industry in our country, employing almost 5% of our population has now shrunk to virtually nothing,” Antigua’s High Commissioner to London, Carl Roberts, said previously."
So, 5% of their population was in a "multi-billion dollar industry, when they have an estimated labor force of 30,000 and a total GDP of $1.6B. Riiiighht. So, where was that extra few billion in the GDP reports? http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=PPPGDPAGA619NUPN
Antigua's growing financial industry wasn't based on online gaming, it was based on money laundering and lax banking rules (see "Stanford International Bank" to see what that allows). Now they are pissed because their shady banking industry was more or less shut down, and they want to pretend it's all gambling industry losses.
I completely agree if he is making idiotic statements like "he is 'no longer suited for the profession'" he has no grip on the real world (of post-CS jobs). Though I would most definitely NOT generalize this to other professors no matter where they teach. Ford put out a decent American super car for much less than the S7... and it has actually appreciated significantly over MSRP since its release... :)
I posted this in another comment, but the thing that strikes me most is a *computer science* professor trying to call his department a "profession". The CS major is a defined "profession" about as much as "political science" or "history". It's a good background to many computer-related careers, but the only "profession" it really describes is "computer science professor."
My experience was the exact opposite... I guess it depends on your university's priorities. I had professors teaching undergraduate courses who were not only doing serious research, but were often leading their field. Off the top of my head (it's been a while, but jeez looking at it in hindsight it is humbling):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Hellman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Horowitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_(computer_scientist)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Fernald
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Heller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Knudsen
I was thinking more along the lines of "when is Computer Science by definition a profession except for Computer Science professors?"
Software engineering, network engineering, systems analysis, DBA, etc are professions, and computer science is a decent major to prepare for them, but a CS department that tries to decide what professions its students are suitable for has become no more than a trade school (not to knock trade schools, just don't pretend you are more than that if you aren't!).
Well, feel free to read the article and point out where it isn't. It's publicly available so there is no reason to criticize it without evidence...
No, that was all accounted for in the article, both in scientific/engineering academia as a whole and life sciences in particular.
It is, but if they were careless enough to get the fact that they did this ON RECORD it's actually *better* proof of conspiracy (ie. they knew it was potentially illegal at the time they were planning it) than just sending out emails with a nice paper trail.
A common strategy when working on things that may or may not infringe patents is to tell the engineers not to worry about it and assume it's not (and leave that to the lawyers). That can be the difference between infringement and *willful* infringement...
How about maybe none of them were actually "evil"? They may have been cutthroat businessmen who didn't really care about their employees and even held some objectionable beliefs/opinions, but there is still a significant gap between "asshole" and "evil"....