I think it depends on exactly how anal you are about the condition of your music disks. Computer disks don't get the same abuse, but I store them the same way, cuz it's convenient to do so.
I use hard plastic racks (you can get them in 20/30/40/60 & 90-CD sizes; mine are from LazerLine) and put 'em on the wall. You need a 3x3 foot wall space to store 4 90-disk cases. Note: use the good kind of drywall anchors (I use E-Z Ancor, mfg by National, bought from Home Depot, cast zinc) because all that plastic is heavy and your disks will explode if the case falls off the wall.
At least that's how I used to do it.
Last fall I bought a 80GB drive and now encode each new disk as 16bit/44.1Khz AIFF files (WAV would work just as well). All my music is stored on the HD. iTunes reports 160 albums and 155 artists; I have about 10GB left. A quick calculation gives room for 15 new 650MB disks, but in reality that translates to room for probably 30 more retail CDs, as they typically are 300~450MB, and I might not want to store every song. All CD playback is through the computer (either alone or to the hifi), not a standalone/component CD player. I could probably use a 120GB drive next time, but right now I have room for about $300~600 worth of new CDs, which will take me about a year to purchase.
Now I can store the disks themselves, in the original cases, out of sight and harm's way. I use emply liquor (case-sized) boxes, because the cardboard spacers for each bottle make nice CD-sized compartments, and add a bit of protection to the notoriously fragile jewell case. I get 'em from the local booze store for the price of asking.
Data disks go on the wall, where the CD's used to be. Out of the way, but easily accessable if needed.
This solution is probably overkill for many people, but I don't like how mp3/AAC sounds compared to RedBook, so I needed a method that kept the original fidelity intact.
If you want to archive 16/44.1 (or any other bitrate/sampling frequency) disks, you can compress the audio files to about 50%; using a lossless format and the Shorten program to encode/decode them (Mac/Win/*NIX).
The best option in your situation might be to talk up the CO2 attractor/bug killer machines. They can cost up to $600, maybe more. But, if you know a gadget-crazy neighbor, preferrably a lot or two away, get him (somehow) to buy one. It will attract mosquitoes from your yard to his.
Perhaps a friendly neighborhood barbeque, some free liquor, and a catalog from The Sharper Image on the table might get the conversation in the right direction;-) Nature will supply the topic (a few mosquitoes). Say you heard they work great.
No, they don't work on insects (at least, nobody has been able to get them to work in independant testing labs). Apparently, this is due to the fact that mosquitoes are nearly deaf.
You can buy expensive CO2 generator/electrostatic killers; they work to a certain extent. By that I mean they attract mosquitoes, they kill mosquitoes, but they don't kill as many as they attract. Net result: more mosquitoes than you had before.
You can buy bug zappers. They work as well, but apparently there are serious health hazards associated with haveing microscopic bits of blown up insects landing in your food. "Zapper" is an interesting description; but the correct term is more like "vaporizing".
You can use Citronella candles, and citronella bug sprays. They work, but not so well; some lose effectiveness after as little as 15 minutes, some as long as 2 hours.
You can use Avon Skin-so-soft, which works for 15 minutes. Apparently mosquitoes hate slick skin creams of all kinds, so plain-jane lotions work as well and as long.
DEET is the only thing that actually deals with flying insects over a decent period of time. Currently the recommendation is to use no stronger than 30% DEET formulas.
Other, "envoiornmentally friendly" spray/apply lotions work, but for short periods of time. Since most should not be used more than twice a day, that doesn't help if you're really outdoors.
Mosquito coils work because they contain a pesticide. You decide if that's what you want your kids breathing.
Bug jackets work; remember that if the screen touches your skin they can bit through it.
What really works is getting rid of the breeding sites. A single coke can with an inch of rainwater can grow about ten thousand mosquitoes; you have your work cut out for you, but it does make a real difference. If you have a pond, put fish in it. They eat the larvae.
There are about 90 kinds of North American mosquitoes, and they have specific habitat preferences. Thus, in the rain, you get the kind that like humidity and lower temps. At evening, you get the kind that like the sun going down and the temps falling a bit. So, chances are that the kind that give you the reaction will either die off sometime during the season, or you're having consistent weather they like, but getting at the breeding sites is your true best option.
You may well be having an allergic reaction of some kind as well; since allergies are cumulative (ie the reaction doesn't happen until you get some personally significant number of bites, a threshold you may have exceeded). I would use DEET but it's up to you.
Laptop battery packs generally will have a certain number of cells, of a certain type and electical specification. Replacing them (imagine that rectangular box filled with a bunch of AA cells) with the correct ones, and you may have a perfectly fresh batt-pack.
There are also some solid-state components in many battery packs; either replace them (if they're bad) or re-use them (if the refurbisher bothered to test them; most do). A common problem is somebody cutting or damaging these parts when taking the thing apart.
The cells need to be soldered, usually, and to metal, not wires. You need to know what you're doing when soldering batteries (heat can make 'em explode, or fail).
I've done a few myself; they work fine. The only reason I went that route, however, was because I had an old laptop I got for free and wanted to play with it, not spend a hundred or more bucks on it. I ended up spending about $50 for cells.
Having said that, I prefer fresh (newly manufactured) batteries over refurbished ones; a refurb is only as fresh as the cells the guy used to make it.
If you buy from a reputable refurbisher, I don't see a real problem; especially if he does enough volume to have fresh cells in the battpack. But, like anything, it's buyer beware; there are plenty of ways to screw it up, and you need to be able to trust your supplier.
Ivory bar soap is exactly as it was when first introduced (it's an important part of why people use it in the first place), and that's why it's specified for certain tasks (dermatologists recommend it to some people with problem skin and allergies, for example).
Another very common example: if you talk to an auto or motorcycle painter, they always say to use Ivory brand soap as a lubricant when wet-sanding to avoid contaminating additional applications of paint (it will wash off with water and leave no contaminating traces).
Although there are many other brands of pure soap, others contain perfumes and additives. Thus the "safe" name-brand recommendation of Ivory.
The 99 & 44/100ths thing actually refers directly to the air whipped into the bars of Ivory. The 54/100ths is (you guessed it) the air.
An interesting post, and I don't want to take away from your point, which is well reasoned.
"... Here's the bottom line, if we (media users) don't act responsibly and avoid the urge to pirate videos, music, and software (at least buy it or otherwise support the creator somehow), these companies will force DRM onto us...."
However, I must disagree with the implication that if we all acted like good citizens, DRM is dead. DRM is about what could happen, not what actually happens. As others have mentioned, copy protection and other limits are as old as the floppy itself with regard to commercial software. It's a given that some vendors will employ it, because: They can envision a situation where rights could be easily circumvented (even if it had so far never happened); and: They can employ methods to interfere with the circumvention of those rights; Then it is prudent to consider the potential problem and proposed solutions, and to implement solutions after considering the issue and it's implications, such as cost vs potential lost revenue (lost revenue whether by loss of potential sales or by alienation of existing customers, or some other means).
I don't want DRM. But I'm not the CEO of a software or media company; if I were it would be my duty to consider them.
Nor am I head of Microsoft; but MS clearly feels that it can gain a toehold on Internet technologies by making an attractive DRM system built into the OS. What reasonable CEO would offer his movies and music in anything other than the dominant, MS-supported, DRM-managed format?
It even has the (not insignificant) advantage of placing blame somewhere else. "We don't use MS Media-whatever for our downloads because of DRM, we use it because most of our customers yadda yadda yadda..."
DRM is about MS dominating a part of IT where other compainies have irritatingly provided competing technologies that run on both MS and non-MS systems. The debate is over (at least within MS); it's coming because it offers MS a competitive advantage (or at least a feature that equals others, which are coming or implemented now, as well).
Copyright entails competing rights (consumers and content creators both have rights under law) and although your "good community" model is laudable, it's irrelevant to what is actually going to happen next; at least some people in a small, tightly knit and safe community will still walk around with the car keys in their pocket, not in the ignition.
I think it's more important that we insure that DRM does not erode the rights we currently have as consumers and citizens; after that I'm afraid that's all we can do.
It's kind of irrelevant as to where you live (ie which company/division is making your retail music CDs). Although it may well change, so far the record companies' most common practise with copy protection schemes (there are a bunch of them) has been to CP on a batch-by-batch basis.
So, there may well be (for example) many copies of Norah Jones' latest disk for sale in Australia with no copy protection while other retail copies of the very same title do employ it.
For the best information on exactly which titles may have copy protection employed on at least some retail CDs, go to Fat Chuck's.
In a broad way, that's correct. However, I can't agree with "must have".
If the extradition is challenged, then the defense can argue that there is no Canadian near-equivalent. However, there is no requirement that there must be one, it is simply one arguement that can be made and would be considered.
If you think about it a bit, it becomes obvious why this is so. Since virtually every law is somehow variant from one jurisdiction to another, making this a binding provision would severely restrict the extradition process.
Also, many extraditions are covered by bilateral treaties; where there is a treaty then a request that complies with the treaty would be granted even if there were no equivalent violation in law in Canada.
For one possible example, consider some of the very restrictive laws in the UK designed to combat the IRA (they would be uncostitutional in Canada); it is unlikely that a challenge would be upheld in that example (ie extradition would proceed), just as it's likely that the arguement would be made that there is no Canadian equivalent by defense lawyers during the challenge.
Although it hasn't happened yet, I find it hard to believe Canada would refuse to extradite to the US based on the DMCA.
Another possible illustrative example is the situation with the most recent US laws regarding trade with Cuba (the "Helms-Burton Law"); in that example Canada actually passed a law specifically contradicting the US law.
They did so because they realised that there was a very good likelyhood that extradition (of Canadian citizens residing entirely in Canada, no less) would have been granted under the Canadian legal system, despite the lack of an equivalent law in Canada. The contradictory law was the only means available to insure extradition could not proceed.
As for question b), the DMCA certainly covers US citizens and US residents. Temporarily moving to Canada doesn't change his citizenship, nor would posting the info on a foreign-hosted site exempt him from the DMCA.
He could elect never to return to the US, but that rarely works in the long term (people get homesick). He can't change his citizenship that fast (and would have to renounce his US citizenship as well, or he would still have dual); and if he ever stepped foot in America (even after a change in citizenship) he'd be arrested if a charge had been ever laid.
Also, once a charge is filed in the US, Canada will respect an extradition request for any US citizen and under many circumstances, foreign citizens or Canadians as well. So would most other countries he probably could stand to live in.
If he lied during a citizenship application (in Canada you will be asked about all investigations, any charges, and any convictions or aquittals) the citizenship is automatically nulled; even if it's not discovered for decades.
*1 If the crime carries the death penalty, Canada will ask the jurisdiction to waive the death penalty option (part of the law abolishing Capital Punishment in Canada), prior to granting extradition. Keyword: Ask. A refusal to waive the death penalty doesn't mean the extradition request will be ignored, but it will introduce a delay (his lawyer in Canada will drag it out a bit). Doesn't apply to the DMCA yet, but there's still time to correct that little oversight;-)
*2 Generally the crime must have taken place in the US for Canada to agree to an extraditon request to America for a Canadian citizen. Exeptions apply (ie: Canada signed a treaty, such as the child porn or Nazi-hunter treaties; there are many other exeptions as well).
",,, Yes, of course, but in the case of patents, this costs quite a bit of money. As a result, hardly anybody will do this.... that the company filing this "preemptyive patent"..."
They are a publicly funded Cancer Research Institute, in British Columbia. Precisely the kind of orgainisation that has the money for such "public good" work and (at least in Canada) the kind of people who get the current administration into shit if they don't do what they said they would with the patent.
You are of course correct in that few corporate entities would do such a thing, and even if they said they would, they are just as likely to go "screw you" once they get what they want.
However, good intentions are not part of the patent validation process, so it's not like these promises will have any effect on the actual granting of a patent.
In other words, there's no upside to a company making such promises in the first place, but there is for a publicly funded research institute.
"... A patented idea is no longer in the public domain...."
This somewhat misinterprets what "Public Domain" really means. Patents and copyrights are automatic; the moment a relevant work or discovery is made, it is eligible for patent/copyright by the first discoverer/creator, and no-one else. Before that moment, it simply wasn't there.
Now, Patents and Copyrights assign special rights that normally don't exist, so there is a legal process to go through. The process can be screwed up so that you don't get the patent/copyright you had the right to, but that's a process and if you blow it, illustrates a flaw in the process or perhaps neglect on someone's part.
Once a Patent/Copyright is granted, the rights associated with that will automatically expire (sometime). If they don't expire, they simply never were Patents or Copyrights in the first place, they are some other (in our world, illegal) exclusive benifit.
When they expire, they become Public Domain. Once a work enters the public domain (by any means) it cannot revert to an exclusive right, ever. So, if I own a patent and make it public domain the day after it's granted, no-one can change that, even me. It's final. *
A Patent/Copyright holder controls the rights granted by statute to him for his work, for a period of time. He can choose to assign any or all rights to anyone, including the public. Thus, to make a patentable item Public Domain, the patent must first be granted and the patent owner must choose to do so.
If the work is not patentable, then it's moot. But if it is, and you intend to assign all rights to the public, you had better make sure you get the patent in the first place, because whomever does get it, controls those rights.
* Had Congress waffled long enough so that Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, Disney could not claim a copyright, even if Congress had later lengthened the expiry date to a thousand years (which brings up another issue, a thousand year copyright is probably not legally a copyright at all, that's why the revision was for a much shorter period). But that's another thread altogether.
Yeah, $500 for "a professional recording studio that used to cost tens to hundreds of thousands" is major cost reduction. Unfortunately, the above quote (I made it up) is basically, like nearly every software program's hype, full of omissions.
Like what you have to buy to get the program to work. Let's start with a computer, in the interest of brevity.
Any old computer? Nope. How about my brand-new multigahertz PC wonder? Probably not. You have to run it on a ProTools approved system. One reason why a whole bunch of audio is still done with Macs; once it's all said and done, Macs and PCs for audio (at this level) cost the same, maybe even less.
Like all the other stuff you have to buy. Including ProTools hardware; a bunch of extra software, and the rest of the stuff that makes a recording studio what it is. Singers are blowing through microphones that cost thousands of dollars and explode if you look at them funny (well, maybe not that easy; singing too close, or dropping them even once, maybe a hard bump, that will do it. Spend $5K).
Wages, wages, wages. Heat, rent, electricity. A cable inventory that's worth more than your car. You know, the usual stuff. When it comes right down to it, you could get the software for free* and it still wouldn't make much difference in the bill.
Now, many musicians are on the edge and do some great things with (only) many thousands of dollars invensted. Don't expect to see their efforts in a major label release though; if they get signed the record company is going to send them back to do it again, with the big buck guys. And yes, you can hear the difference.
As to the question why the product hasn't gone down in price, the answer is it has. I used to pay $10-16 for LP records. According to this inflation calculator, that translates as $33.73 to $53.96 (1975-2000, US). I won't go into about how the music industry has been trying to get us to pay $25 since the early 80's, suffice to say consumer resistance has tended to curb their periodic attempts to raise the retail price.
* Get ProTools Free direct from Digidesign here (Win98/Me & MacOS9): Digidesign It will run on less critical hardware, and is a functional but somewhat limited version of the paid programs. Don't expect your next CD to cost $0 to finish.
For those of you who would rather not click the link here's an example (there's a lot of requirements, but whatever): The only fully approved CPU's are Compaq EVO W2000, an IBM Intellistation M Pro model 6850 or Intellistation Z Pro model 6221, and a Turnkey solution from a company called Carillion. Don't be expecting to run Quake and MS Office on this box either, it will probably break the audio hardware functionality. You can run it with any G4/AGP/OSX Mac though (although that's not all you'll need, on either platform).
Anyone notice how ZDNetUK absolutely hated the wireless display the topic links to, but gave it a score of 6.6 out of 10? A big 7 for "features"? Only a 6 for a product that mostly doesn't work and may require the installation of a new OS to mostly not work?
Seems to me I could get an easy 5.0 from these guys by duct-taping a non-functional USB cable to a lead pencil, and sending it in for review.
A system used in at least two nations and incorporating the exact or essentially similar methods to "secure" grades, private living access, meals, and in some cases businesses that have nothing, besides an eagerness to make a buck, to do with dozens, hundreds or thousands of University Campuses is as far from "obscure" as you can get.
Each campus writing it's own security software/implementing it's own security hardware and never divulging how it works or what it does is one possible example of security by obscurity. Buying your system off the shelf from a vendor whose business model is to sell one to everybody (ie every university) is the exact opposite.
In fact, buying ANY security system that even one other person could buy off the shelf is already at least one step away from obscure; if it actually sells then the chance it can accurately be described as obscure quickly moves to zero.
If I decide, by myself, without hearing about this "idea" from anyone and rejecting all ideas I have heard from anyone, to rig my car so that touching the brake without first turning the wipers on then off again causes a GPS tracker and a cellcall to the cops with a prerecorded message that says something like "automated response, this car is stolen and is here" and never tell anyone or even comment that I have some security, that's obscure.
Note: since I am posting this publicly, this method is no longer obscure (I won't even go into whether it's a good idea to begin with). But if you like it and want security by obscurity, figure out another method yourself.
"... Here's a question - how do you set up this kind of "recovery" kit without running into licensing issues?..."
Naturally, all software has licensing issues. However, think of it this way: the software is one thing. The license is another.
You need both, but if you are working on a machine with a valid license, then you are not obligated to enter the license for the OS Install CD you happen to use; they are two separate things. It's just like a replacement CD you might get from a SW developer; the software itself is not licensed until you authorize the installation with a valid key.
Use the Install disks and enter the user's license; this is perfectly acceptable to Microsoft or anyone else for that matter.
That's the basic principle of how it works. It's actually called Prion Exchange Membrane technology. For detailed information do a google on Ballard Power or check out their site. You can start here: Ballard Power: How it works
Ballard is a Vancouver, BC, Canada firm listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BLD and more recently NASDAQ: BLDP). They have contracts to produce vehicles with GM, Ford, Daylmer/Chrysler and others.
The first auto with a Ballard Fuel Cell was introduced as a working prototype Necar 1 (Daylmer-Benz, 1994). Recently such vehicles as the Ford Focus FCV (2000) have been demonstrated.
The P3 Bus was introduced to daily use by the cities of Chicago and Vancouver in 1998, with 3 buses each.
Other cities that use this technology in public transportation include Orlando, FL and various California locations. The most recent model is the Mercedes-Benz Citaro which will deploy 30 buses in 10 European cities beginning this year.
Ballard also has Methanol-fueled technology which operates similarly (zero emissions). This is still currently under devopment.
"... bout 10 years ago Denver modified some of their public buses to run on hydrogen (internal combustion engines). The only reason it seems that feul cells are so hot is because of global/local preassure to lower emmissions and also someone has to make Hydrogen for you, guess who that will be... here's a few hints , Exxon, Shell, BP, etc...."
I'm not sure how Denver did it; but I suppose it's possible it was with hydrogen fuel made outside the vehicle (so Exxon, Shell, BP, etc is probably very appropriate). Chicago and most other cities with Ballard Power fuel cell buses don't buy hydrogen from anyone.
Modern hydrogen-powered public transport vehicles do not use external fuel (except plain water). They create hydrogen from water in a self-contained unit called a fuel cell. It does so by passing water through a membrane which can separate, briefly, hydrogen from oxygen atoms. The hydrogen/oxygen is used as fuel while what is not used is recombined to water (very quickly; the trick so far is using the fuel to perform work during the brief period they are separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms).
In any case, that's more or less what's going on, and no Oil company is going to sell you or me water from a filling station when I know somewhere else to get it.
Yes, but in Canada you can legally make, purchase, or use Ethanol for Fuel use, free of all taxes. You don't even need a permit (as in the US) or any form of regulatory permission. Just do it, and don't drink it.
"... With the amounts of RAM and flash memory available these days, I don't see why we couldn't run an OS off one...."
Well, you can. For information on extremely large (and expensive) solid state disks, see storagesearch.com. For smaller needs (desktop and up) you can use RAM drives from platypus technologies who offer PCI card (and other) solutions.
Platypus PCI cards (QuikDRIVE) offer up to 8GB per slot (can be combined to form larger virtual drives) for about $2 to 10K per card. They are designed to read from and back up to regular HDs upon startup/shutdown. Essentially you can run the OS and all applications in RAM (the platypus drives are seen by the hardware as the startup drives) along with whatever documents fit. The OS sees the cards as hard drives, so as far as the user is concerned, they act as if they were.
This type of application of solid state storage requires higher spec RAM than "regular" sticks, so it's a bit pricy, but hardly out of the question. A lot of companies are using them now (eg Monster.com). Check out Section 6.0 Applications on the Platypus site for more info on currently deployed uses. Mac, Linux, UNIX & Windows compatible.
"... as mechanics have a big book of repair jobs, and how many man hours can be charged for each one. It's like Kellys Blue Book but lists fair market value for repair work...."
Well, kind of. What it does is give hours for a job (x shop rate = price charged) based on some nebulous calculation derived from brain-addled mechanics and ordinary tools at hand. It certainly not based on what the average repair takes to perform.
If you work for an auto shop, and take book time to do every job, they will fire your ass. What they want are guys who can do the job in less time than the book, so they can squeeze more business in per day (kind of like doing 14 hours of work in an 8 hour shift; they pay employees for 8 hours but charge as if it took 14).
Yeah, the CD refund thingy. From the article you linked to: "... "We deny any wrongdoing," Warner-Elektra-Atlantic said in a statement. "We have made a business decision to settle these matters and avoid continuing with expensive and protracted litigation. The settlement made sense to us from a business perspective, and enables WEA to put this matter behind us."..."
Pretty standard stuff there ("Smithers, release the weasels!").
But this next part is the real gem:
"... "We believe our polices were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal Music Group said in a statement...." [Emphasis mine]
Ummm, that is practically the definition of price fixing.
How about Carbon Dioxide (CO2)? Or as someone mentioned in an earlier post (I'm not familiar with this one for pest control) Nitrogen gas?
I have a friend who is an organic farmer in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. He had some cars of grain for export to Japan via the port of Seattle. Somehow, they ended up on a siding in Utah for a few days, and picked up cotton weevils (probably hanging around on the ground; there is lots of spilled cargo on sidings). Now, they won't eat grain, but like any crop, the grade does down if there are too many bugs in it. And you can't use pesticides, because, again, it's not organic grain at that point. He was getting 3x standard grain price for his organic crop, so there's a major loss potential there.
This was about 15 years ago. What he did was use a method developed by the University of Manitoba. They travelled to Utah, bought rolls of poly and duct tape. They sealed the cars involved (I think there were three). Then they pumped CO2 into the cars, with a fairly low-tech system involving compressed gas cylinders bought at the local welding supply store. Kills all bugs dead in 24 hours.
At the port, the grain is screened (separates dead bugs from grain) and since there were no live bugs to propegate, he got his grade and his $C 9.00 a bushel ($ US 6.00) for organic wheat. The port grain handlers said there wasn't any living bugs, of any kind, that they could find.
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I think it depends on exactly how anal you are about the condition of your music disks. Computer disks don't get the same abuse, but I store them the same way, cuz it's convenient to do so.
I use hard plastic racks (you can get them in 20/30/40/60 & 90-CD sizes; mine are from LazerLine) and put 'em on the wall. You need a 3x3 foot wall space to store 4 90-disk cases. Note: use the good kind of drywall anchors (I use E-Z Ancor, mfg by National, bought from Home Depot, cast zinc) because all that plastic is heavy and your disks will explode if the case falls off the wall.
At least that's how I used to do it.
Last fall I bought a 80GB drive and now encode each new disk as 16bit/44.1Khz AIFF files (WAV would work just as well). All my music is stored on the HD. iTunes reports 160 albums and 155 artists; I have about 10GB left. A quick calculation gives room for 15 new 650MB disks, but in reality that translates to room for probably 30 more retail CDs, as they typically are 300~450MB, and I might not want to store every song. All CD playback is through the computer (either alone or to the hifi), not a standalone/component CD player. I could probably use a 120GB drive next time, but right now I have room for about $300~600 worth of new CDs, which will take me about a year to purchase.
Now I can store the disks themselves, in the original cases, out of sight and harm's way. I use emply liquor (case-sized) boxes, because the cardboard spacers for each bottle make nice CD-sized compartments, and add a bit of protection to the notoriously fragile jewell case. I get 'em from the local booze store for the price of asking.
Data disks go on the wall, where the CD's used to be. Out of the way, but easily accessable if needed.
This solution is probably overkill for many people, but I don't like how mp3/AAC sounds compared to RedBook, so I needed a method that kept the original fidelity intact.
If you want to archive 16/44.1 (or any other bitrate/sampling frequency) disks, you can compress the audio files to about 50%; using a lossless format and the Shorten program to encode/decode them (Mac/Win/*NIX).
You are absolutely right. Too bad that's not what he said happened.
The best option in your situation might be to talk up the CO2 attractor/bug killer machines. They can cost up to $600, maybe more. But, if you know a gadget-crazy neighbor, preferrably a lot or two away, get him (somehow) to buy one. It will attract mosquitoes from your yard to his.
;-) Nature will supply the topic (a few mosquitoes). Say you heard they work great.
Perhaps a friendly neighborhood barbeque, some free liquor, and a catalog from The Sharper Image on the table might get the conversation in the right direction
No, they don't work on insects (at least, nobody has been able to get them to work in independant testing labs). Apparently, this is due to the fact that mosquitoes are nearly deaf.
You can buy expensive CO2 generator/electrostatic killers; they work to a certain extent. By that I mean they attract mosquitoes, they kill mosquitoes, but they don't kill as many as they attract. Net result: more mosquitoes than you had before.
You can buy bug zappers. They work as well, but apparently there are serious health hazards associated with haveing microscopic bits of blown up insects landing in your food. "Zapper" is an interesting description; but the correct term is more like "vaporizing".
You can use Citronella candles, and citronella bug sprays. They work, but not so well; some lose effectiveness after as little as 15 minutes, some as long as 2 hours.
You can use Avon Skin-so-soft, which works for 15 minutes. Apparently mosquitoes hate slick skin creams of all kinds, so plain-jane lotions work as well and as long.
DEET is the only thing that actually deals with flying insects over a decent period of time. Currently the recommendation is to use no stronger than 30% DEET formulas.
Other, "envoiornmentally friendly" spray/apply lotions work, but for short periods of time. Since most should not be used more than twice a day, that doesn't help if you're really outdoors.
Mosquito coils work because they contain a pesticide. You decide if that's what you want your kids breathing.
Bug jackets work; remember that if the screen touches your skin they can bit through it.
What really works is getting rid of the breeding sites. A single coke can with an inch of rainwater can grow about ten thousand mosquitoes; you have your work cut out for you, but it does make a real difference. If you have a pond, put fish in it. They eat the larvae.
There are about 90 kinds of North American mosquitoes, and they have specific habitat preferences. Thus, in the rain, you get the kind that like humidity and lower temps. At evening, you get the kind that like the sun going down and the temps falling a bit. So, chances are that the kind that give you the reaction will either die off sometime during the season, or you're having consistent weather they like, but getting at the breeding sites is your true best option.
You may well be having an allergic reaction of some kind as well; since allergies are cumulative (ie the reaction doesn't happen until you get some personally significant number of bites, a threshold you may have exceeded). I would use DEET but it's up to you.
Like anything, there's room for problems.
Laptop battery packs generally will have a certain number of cells, of a certain type and electical specification. Replacing them (imagine that rectangular box filled with a bunch of AA cells) with the correct ones, and you may have a perfectly fresh batt-pack.
There are also some solid-state components in many battery packs; either replace them (if they're bad) or re-use them (if the refurbisher bothered to test them; most do). A common problem is somebody cutting or damaging these parts when taking the thing apart.
The cells need to be soldered, usually, and to metal, not wires. You need to know what you're doing when soldering batteries (heat can make 'em explode, or fail).
I've done a few myself; they work fine. The only reason I went that route, however, was because I had an old laptop I got for free and wanted to play with it, not spend a hundred or more bucks on it. I ended up spending about $50 for cells.
Having said that, I prefer fresh (newly manufactured) batteries over refurbished ones; a refurb is only as fresh as the cells the guy used to make it.
If you buy from a reputable refurbisher, I don't see a real problem; especially if he does enough volume to have fresh cells in the battpack. But, like anything, it's buyer beware; there are plenty of ways to screw it up, and you need to be able to trust your supplier.
Ivory bar soap is exactly as it was when first introduced (it's an important part of why people use it in the first place), and that's why it's specified for certain tasks (dermatologists recommend it to some people with problem skin and allergies, for example).
Another very common example: if you talk to an auto or motorcycle painter, they always say to use Ivory brand soap as a lubricant when wet-sanding to avoid contaminating additional applications of paint (it will wash off with water and leave no contaminating traces).
Although there are many other brands of pure soap, others contain perfumes and additives. Thus the "safe" name-brand recommendation of Ivory.
The 99 & 44/100ths thing actually refers directly to the air whipped into the bars of Ivory. The 54/100ths is (you guessed it) the air.
An interesting post, and I don't want to take away from your point, which is well reasoned.
... Here's the bottom line, if we (media users) don't act responsibly and avoid the urge to pirate videos, music, and software (at least buy it or otherwise support the creator somehow), these companies will force DRM onto us. ..."
..."
"
However, I must disagree with the implication that if we all acted like good citizens, DRM is dead. DRM is about what could happen, not what actually happens. As others have mentioned, copy protection and other limits are as old as the floppy itself with regard to commercial software. It's a given that some vendors will employ it, because:
They can envision a situation where rights could be easily circumvented (even if it had so far never happened); and:
They can employ methods to interfere with the circumvention of those rights;
Then it is prudent to consider the potential problem and proposed solutions, and to implement solutions after considering the issue and it's implications, such as cost vs potential lost revenue (lost revenue whether by loss of potential sales or by alienation of existing customers, or some other means).
I don't want DRM. But I'm not the CEO of a software or media company; if I were it would be my duty to consider them.
Nor am I head of Microsoft; but MS clearly feels that it can gain a toehold on Internet technologies by making an attractive DRM system built into the OS. What reasonable CEO would offer his movies and music in anything other than the dominant, MS-supported, DRM-managed format?
It even has the (not insignificant) advantage of placing blame somewhere else. "We don't use MS Media-whatever for our downloads because of DRM, we use it because most of our customers yadda yadda yadda
DRM is about MS dominating a part of IT where other compainies have irritatingly provided competing technologies that run on both MS and non-MS systems. The debate is over (at least within MS); it's coming because it offers MS a competitive advantage (or at least a feature that equals others, which are coming or implemented now, as well).
Copyright entails competing rights (consumers and content creators both have rights under law) and although your "good community" model is laudable, it's irrelevant to what is actually going to happen next; at least some people in a small, tightly knit and safe community will still walk around with the car keys in their pocket, not in the ignition.
I think it's more important that we insure that DRM does not erode the rights we currently have as consumers and citizens; after that I'm afraid that's all we can do.
It's kind of irrelevant as to where you live (ie which company/division is making your retail music CDs). Although it may well change, so far the record companies' most common practise with copy protection schemes (there are a bunch of them) has been to CP on a batch-by-batch basis.
So, there may well be (for example) many copies of Norah Jones' latest disk for sale in Australia with no copy protection while other retail copies of the very same title do employ it.
For the best information on exactly which titles may have copy protection employed on at least some retail CDs, go to Fat Chuck's.
In a broad way, that's correct. However, I can't agree with "must have".
If the extradition is challenged, then the defense can argue that there is no Canadian near-equivalent. However, there is no requirement that there must be one, it is simply one arguement that can be made and would be considered.
If you think about it a bit, it becomes obvious why this is so. Since virtually every law is somehow variant from one jurisdiction to another, making this a binding provision would severely restrict the extradition process.
Also, many extraditions are covered by bilateral treaties; where there is a treaty then a request that complies with the treaty would be granted even if there were no equivalent violation in law in Canada.
For one possible example, consider some of the very restrictive laws in the UK designed to combat the IRA (they would be uncostitutional in Canada); it is unlikely that a challenge would be upheld in that example (ie extradition would proceed), just as it's likely that the arguement would be made that there is no Canadian equivalent by defense lawyers during the challenge.
Although it hasn't happened yet, I find it hard to believe Canada would refuse to extradite to the US based on the DMCA.
Another possible illustrative example is the situation with the most recent US laws regarding trade with Cuba (the "Helms-Burton Law"); in that example Canada actually passed a law specifically contradicting the US law.
They did so because they realised that there was a very good likelyhood that extradition (of Canadian citizens residing entirely in Canada, no less) would have been granted under the Canadian legal system, despite the lack of an equivalent law in Canada. The contradictory law was the only means available to insure extradition could not proceed.
As for question b), the DMCA certainly covers US citizens and US residents. Temporarily moving to Canada doesn't change his citizenship, nor would posting the info on a foreign-hosted site exempt him from the DMCA.
;-)
He could elect never to return to the US, but that rarely works in the long term (people get homesick). He can't change his citizenship that fast (and would have to renounce his US citizenship as well, or he would still have dual); and if he ever stepped foot in America (even after a change in citizenship) he'd be arrested if a charge had been ever laid.
Also, once a charge is filed in the US, Canada will respect an extradition request for any US citizen and under many circumstances, foreign citizens or Canadians as well. So would most other countries he probably could stand to live in.
If he lied during a citizenship application (in Canada you will be asked about all investigations, any charges, and any convictions or aquittals) the citizenship is automatically nulled; even if it's not discovered for decades.
*1 If the crime carries the death penalty, Canada will ask the jurisdiction to waive the death penalty option (part of the law abolishing Capital Punishment in Canada), prior to granting extradition. Keyword: Ask. A refusal to waive the death penalty doesn't mean the extradition request will be ignored, but it will introduce a delay (his lawyer in Canada will drag it out a bit). Doesn't apply to the DMCA yet, but there's still time to correct that little oversight
*2 Generally the crime must have taken place in the US for Canada to agree to an extraditon request to America for a Canadian citizen. Exeptions apply (ie: Canada signed a treaty, such as the child porn or Nazi-hunter treaties; there are many other exeptions as well).
Well, it could be spelt, or it could be spelled.
Both are considered correct, according to The American Heritage Dictionary [©2000; The Houghton Miffin Company] and the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary [online].
Spelt derives from before the 12th Century and Spelled from the 14th C.
" ,,, Yes, of course, but in the case of patents, this costs quite a bit of money. As a result, hardly anybody will do this. ... that the company filing this "preemptyive patent" ..."
They are a publicly funded Cancer Research Institute, in British Columbia. Precisely the kind of orgainisation that has the money for such "public good" work and (at least in Canada) the kind of people who get the current administration into shit if they don't do what they said they would with the patent.
You are of course correct in that few corporate entities would do such a thing, and even if they said they would, they are just as likely to go "screw you" once they get what they want.
However, good intentions are not part of the patent validation process, so it's not like these promises will have any effect on the actual granting of a patent.
In other words, there's no upside to a company making such promises in the first place, but there is for a publicly funded research institute.
" ... A patented idea is no longer in the public domain. ..."
This somewhat misinterprets what "Public Domain" really means. Patents and copyrights are automatic; the moment a relevant work or discovery is made, it is eligible for patent/copyright by the first discoverer/creator, and no-one else. Before that moment, it simply wasn't there.
Now, Patents and Copyrights assign special rights that normally don't exist, so there is a legal process to go through. The process can be screwed up so that you don't get the patent/copyright you had the right to, but that's a process and if you blow it, illustrates a flaw in the process or perhaps neglect on someone's part.
Once a Patent/Copyright is granted, the rights associated with that will automatically expire (sometime). If they don't expire, they simply never were Patents or Copyrights in the first place, they are some other (in our world, illegal) exclusive benifit.
When they expire, they become Public Domain. Once a work enters the public domain (by any means) it cannot revert to an exclusive right, ever. So, if I own a patent and make it public domain the day after it's granted, no-one can change that, even me. It's final. *
A Patent/Copyright holder controls the rights granted by statute to him for his work, for a period of time. He can choose to assign any or all rights to anyone, including the public. Thus, to make a patentable item Public Domain, the patent must first be granted and the patent owner must choose to do so.
If the work is not patentable, then it's moot. But if it is, and you intend to assign all rights to the public, you had better make sure you get the patent in the first place, because whomever does get it, controls those rights.
* Had Congress waffled long enough so that Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, Disney could not claim a copyright, even if Congress had later lengthened the expiry date to a thousand years (which brings up another issue, a thousand year copyright is probably not legally a copyright at all, that's why the revision was for a much shorter period). But that's another thread altogether.
Yeah, $500 for "a professional recording studio that used to cost tens to hundreds of thousands" is major cost reduction. Unfortunately, the above quote (I made it up) is basically, like nearly every software program's hype, full of omissions.
Like what you have to buy to get the program to work. Let's start with a computer, in the interest of brevity.
Any old computer? Nope. How about my brand-new multigahertz PC wonder? Probably not. You have to run it on a ProTools approved system. One reason why a whole bunch of audio is still done with Macs; once it's all said and done, Macs and PCs for audio (at this level) cost the same, maybe even less.
Like all the other stuff you have to buy. Including ProTools hardware; a bunch of extra software, and the rest of the stuff that makes a recording studio what it is. Singers are blowing through microphones that cost thousands of dollars and explode if you look at them funny (well, maybe not that easy; singing too close, or dropping them even once, maybe a hard bump, that will do it. Spend $5K).
Wages, wages, wages. Heat, rent, electricity. A cable inventory that's worth more than your car. You know, the usual stuff. When it comes right down to it, you could get the software for free* and it still wouldn't make much difference in the bill.
Now, many musicians are on the edge and do some great things with (only) many thousands of dollars invensted. Don't expect to see their efforts in a major label release though; if they get signed the record company is going to send them back to do it again, with the big buck guys. And yes, you can hear the difference.
As to the question why the product hasn't gone down in price, the answer is it has. I used to pay $10-16 for LP records. According to this inflation calculator, that translates as $33.73 to $53.96 (1975-2000, US). I won't go into about how the music industry has been trying to get us to pay $25 since the early 80's, suffice to say consumer resistance has tended to curb their periodic attempts to raise the retail price.
* Get ProTools Free direct from Digidesign here (Win98/Me & MacOS9): Digidesign It will run on less critical hardware, and is a functional but somewhat limited version of the paid programs. Don't expect your next CD to cost $0 to finish.
Read the System Requirements here:
Windows XP
For those of you who would rather not click the link here's an example (there's a lot of requirements, but whatever):
The only fully approved CPU's are Compaq EVO W2000, an IBM Intellistation M Pro model 6850 or Intellistation Z Pro model 6221, and a Turnkey solution from a company called Carillion. Don't be expecting to run Quake and MS Office on this box either, it will probably break the audio hardware functionality. You can run it with any G4/AGP/OSX Mac though (although that's not all you'll need, on either platform).
Anyone notice how ZDNetUK absolutely hated the wireless display the topic links to, but gave it a score of 6.6 out of 10?
A big 7 for "features"?
Only a 6 for a product that mostly doesn't work and may require the installation of a new OS to mostly not work?
Seems to me I could get an easy 5.0 from these guys by duct-taping a non-functional USB cable to a lead pencil, and sending it in for review.
A system used in at least two nations and incorporating the exact or essentially similar methods to "secure" grades, private living access, meals, and in some cases businesses that have nothing, besides an eagerness to make a buck, to do with dozens, hundreds or thousands of University Campuses is as far from "obscure" as you can get.
Each campus writing it's own security software/implementing it's own security hardware and never divulging how it works or what it does is one possible example of security by obscurity. Buying your system off the shelf from a vendor whose business model is to sell one to everybody (ie every university) is the exact opposite.
In fact, buying ANY security system that even one other person could buy off the shelf is already at least one step away from obscure; if it actually sells then the chance it can accurately be described as obscure quickly moves to zero.
If I decide, by myself, without hearing about this "idea" from anyone and rejecting all ideas I have heard from anyone, to rig my car so that touching the brake without first turning the wipers on then off again causes a GPS tracker and a cellcall to the cops with a prerecorded message that says something like "automated response, this car is stolen and is here" and never tell anyone or even comment that I have some security, that's obscure.
Note: since I am posting this publicly, this method is no longer obscure (I won't even go into whether it's a good idea to begin with). But if you like it and want security by obscurity, figure out another method yourself.
" ... Here's a question - how do you set up this kind of "recovery" kit without running into licensing issues? ..."
Naturally, all software has licensing issues. However, think of it this way: the software is one thing. The license is another.
You need both, but if you are working on a machine with a valid license, then you are not obligated to enter the license for the OS Install CD you happen to use; they are two separate things. It's just like a replacement CD you might get from a SW developer; the software itself is not licensed until you authorize the installation with a valid key.
Use the Install disks and enter the user's license; this is perfectly acceptable to Microsoft or anyone else for that matter.
That's the basic principle of how it works. It's actually called Prion Exchange Membrane technology. For detailed information do a google on Ballard Power or check out their site. You can start here: Ballard Power: How it works
Ballard is a Vancouver, BC, Canada firm listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BLD and more recently NASDAQ: BLDP). They have contracts to produce vehicles with GM, Ford, Daylmer/Chrysler and others.
The first auto with a Ballard Fuel Cell was introduced as a working prototype Necar 1 (Daylmer-Benz, 1994). Recently such vehicles as the Ford Focus FCV (2000) have been demonstrated.
The P3 Bus was introduced to daily use by the cities of Chicago and Vancouver in 1998, with 3 buses each.
Other cities that use this technology in public transportation include Orlando, FL and various California locations. The most recent model is the Mercedes-Benz Citaro which will deploy 30 buses in 10 European cities beginning this year.
Ballard also has Methanol-fueled technology which operates similarly (zero emissions). This is still currently under devopment.
" ... bout 10 years ago Denver modified some of their public buses to run on hydrogen (internal combustion engines). The only reason it seems that feul cells are so hot is because of global/local preassure to lower emmissions and also someone has to make Hydrogen for you, guess who that will be... here's a few hints , Exxon, Shell, BP, etc. ..."
I'm not sure how Denver did it; but I suppose it's possible it was with hydrogen fuel made outside the vehicle (so Exxon, Shell, BP, etc is probably very appropriate). Chicago and most other cities with Ballard Power fuel cell buses don't buy hydrogen from anyone.
Modern hydrogen-powered public transport vehicles do not use external fuel (except plain water). They create hydrogen from water in a self-contained unit called a fuel cell. It does so by passing water through a membrane which can separate, briefly, hydrogen from oxygen atoms. The hydrogen/oxygen is used as fuel while what is not used is recombined to water (very quickly; the trick so far is using the fuel to perform work during the brief period they are separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms).
In any case, that's more or less what's going on, and no Oil company is going to sell you or me water from a filling station when I know somewhere else to get it.
Yes, but in Canada you can legally make, purchase, or use Ethanol for Fuel use, free of all taxes. You don't even need a permit (as in the US) or any form of regulatory permission.
Just do it, and don't drink it.
" ... With the amounts of RAM and flash memory available these days, I don't see why we couldn't run an OS off one. ..."
Well, you can. For information on extremely large (and expensive) solid state disks, see storagesearch.com.
For smaller needs (desktop and up) you can use RAM drives from platypus technologies who offer PCI card (and other) solutions.
Platypus PCI cards (QuikDRIVE) offer up to 8GB per slot (can be combined to form larger virtual drives) for about $2 to 10K per card. They are designed to read from and back up to regular HDs upon startup/shutdown. Essentially you can run the OS and all applications in RAM (the platypus drives are seen by the hardware as the startup drives) along with whatever documents fit. The OS sees the cards as hard drives, so as far as the user is concerned, they act as if they were.
This type of application of solid state storage requires higher spec RAM than "regular" sticks, so it's a bit pricy, but hardly out of the question. A lot of companies are using them now (eg Monster.com). Check out Section 6.0 Applications on the Platypus site for more info on currently deployed uses. Mac, Linux, UNIX & Windows compatible.
" ... as mechanics have a big book of repair jobs, and how many man hours can be charged for each one. It's like Kellys Blue Book but lists fair market value for repair work. ..."
Well, kind of. What it does is give hours for a job (x shop rate = price charged) based on some nebulous calculation derived from brain-addled mechanics and ordinary tools at hand. It certainly not based on what the average repair takes to perform.
If you work for an auto shop, and take book time to do every job, they will fire your ass. What they want are guys who can do the job in less time than the book, so they can squeeze more business in per day (kind of like doing 14 hours of work in an 8 hour shift; they pay employees for 8 hours but charge as if it took 14).
Yeah, the CD refund thingy. From the article you linked to: ..."
... "We believe our polices were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal Music Group said in a statement. ..." [Emphasis mine]
"... "We deny any wrongdoing," Warner-Elektra-Atlantic said in a statement. "We have made a business decision to settle these matters and avoid continuing with expensive and protracted litigation. The settlement made sense to us from a business perspective, and enables WEA to put this matter behind us."
Pretty standard stuff there ("Smithers, release the weasels!").
But this next part is the real gem:
"
Ummm, that is practically the definition of price fixing.
How about Carbon Dioxide (CO2)?
Or as someone mentioned in an earlier post (I'm not familiar with this one for pest control) Nitrogen gas?
I have a friend who is an organic farmer in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. He had some cars of grain for export to Japan via the port of Seattle. Somehow, they ended up on a siding in Utah for a few days, and picked up cotton weevils (probably hanging around on the ground; there is lots of spilled cargo on sidings). Now, they won't eat grain, but like any crop, the grade does down if there are too many bugs in it. And you can't use pesticides, because, again, it's not organic grain at that point. He was getting 3x standard grain price for his organic crop, so there's a major loss potential there.
This was about 15 years ago. What he did was use a method developed by the University of Manitoba.
They travelled to Utah, bought rolls of poly and duct tape. They sealed the cars involved (I think there were three).
Then they pumped CO2 into the cars, with a fairly low-tech system involving compressed gas cylinders bought at the local welding supply store. Kills all bugs dead in 24 hours.
At the port, the grain is screened (separates dead bugs from grain) and since there were no live bugs to propegate, he got his grade and his $C 9.00 a bushel ($ US 6.00) for organic wheat. The port grain handlers said there wasn't any living bugs, of any kind, that they could find.
Cool. I will have to try it.
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that MS can't read the Mac drive (just to stay on topic).
Thanks for the tip.