That is such utter bullshit. Losing patents will not stop development. It might hurt the little guy, but no little guy is going to invent a new miracle drug, not with the FDA the way it is.
The way patents are at the moment they are of little use to the "little guy". Even if you have a patent you need to expend your own resources to defend it.
Business process patents were a stupid idea to begin with. They need to go.
Ditto to software and GM crops (anything which is capable of self replication is rather outside the original idea of patents.)
Aerodynamics is a pretty mature science. Look at cars, aircraft, and ships. They do not double in performance every 18 months.
But they can be made to increase in performance. FIA keeps changing the rules in F1 in order to try and slow cars down. With aircraft the push is more towards fuel efficency than speed.
The A320's operating manual clearly stated (and presumably still states) that the aircraft required 7 secs ro reach full power.
This is a general characteristic of gas turbines. Though the actual performance depends on the engines concerned. Unless the A320 is only ever fitted with one type of engine the operating manual figures will be for a specific plane.
The pilot performed his stunt in a space that gave him only 3 secs.
What the pilot actually needed was for the plane to be flying at (or above) V2. With a critical value being the mass of the aircraft. A less massive aircraft will have a greater acceleration for a given thrust (due to Newton's Second Law) it will also require less lift to oppose gravity. The A320 involved was carrying less passengers, cargo and fuel than would be the case for one in service with an airline. On the other hand it probably hadn't burned enough fuel to significently alter it's mass. Failing to raise the landing gear probably didn't help either...
The way I heard this story was that the pilots deliberately flew near stall speed and that simply pulling up was not possible without crashing the plane immediately (which the plane's computer determine correctly).
One thing the computer is specifically intended to prevent is a stall. Thus it would not alter the pitch of the aircraft without sufficent airspeed. In this had been a non fly-by-wire plane it could have crashed rather more dramatically.
Before the turbines could give the plane a boost, the plane flew into the forest, which slowed it down and sealed its fate.
There is also the problem that aircraft engines tend to to produce much thrust when acting as "woodchippers".
It's a pretty comprehensive look at the history and motivations BEHIND the threats we are facing, from both the terrorists and the American government. Yes, at times it's not even trying to be objective, but still a lot of the events and facts that are presented are historical record and are considered far too little today.
Even when they are highly relevent. e.g. the Neocons liking for irrational conspiracy theorys.
What's interesting is that you can still go into a library, take a book off the shelf, photograph it [since the photocopier might be bugged] put the book back on the shelf, and there's no record of you using that book.
So how long before it becomes the law that cameras must be bugged? There's always the really low tech approach of making written notes or remembering what is in the book.
The ACTUAL attack on 9/11 was a bunch of guys who grabbed the steering wheel of vehicles they were in and crashed them.
Several of the accused hijackers turned up alive and well, the victims of identity theft. Yet the US Government still sticks with the original 19 names. Apparently unwilling to conduct a normal criminal investigation.
I don't want my liberty taken because the flavor of the month is the Terrorist Bogeyman.
It has all the hallmarks of this.
What happened to kids making pipebombs off the net? Not a big deal anymore, huh. What about the snuff film fracas of the 80s? Oh, turned out to be minor. Hmm. How about that the second worst terrorist attack was a crazy white guy working alone? Oh, that doesn't matter?
Ditto "Animal Rights", anti-abortionists, etc. Actual terrorists come in all shapes and sizes. It would probably be a good thing were the US Government to actually oppose terrorists, including terrorists who's aims the Government (or individual Government members) support.
You're the one with the weird imagination. You're fighting shadows.
The whole Al Quaeda thing has all the attributes of a very far fetched conspiracy theory.
And the fact that there is no copyright on the high seas? You can do whatever you want with intellectual property in international waters.
Only if you are on a pirate ship. Otherwise the laws of the country who's flag the ship flys apply. It's probably more that most ships' captains can't be bothered to enforce laws except where the operation of the ship is concerned.
Could DRM somehow protect the producer of the intellectual property if a person moved from the US to the UK where some copyright clauses are less strict while others are more strict?
What if the copyright holder were to move jurisdictions?
Computer programs cannot determine the intent of the user, and neither can the rightsholder without seriously breaching little things like 'right to privacy'.
Even human beings cannot always agree on issues of intent. Hence court case can be decided my "majority verdicts".
So DRM is a fundamentally flawed concept that will always be designed to restrict fair use and normal legal use - because that's the only way to prevent potential 'evil' uses where your intent is to make illegal copies.
Blurring the line between "fair use" and "evil use" also means that people become less concerned about piracy in general.
While this might be true.. its not the entire story. The entire story is simple -- there is still a LOT of software out there that simply DOES NOT RUN 100% CORRECTLY OUT OF THE BOX in anything BESIDES an administrative level account.
Which is a developer, rather than a user, problem.
Even things that SHIP WITH WINDOWS are prone to oversight which tells me one thing (and has been second'ed but not necessarily confirmed on/.) -- Microsoft doesn't believe in restricted access in its development model (read: Microsoft employees all have administrative level access).
Or possibly they don't understand how to do things. Even if an app does require elevated privs Windows has mechanisms to allow just a specific program to do so.
There's also the thing about that sport the entire world calls football and that USians (not sure about canadians) prefer to call soccer which was mentioned quite a bit in the first harry potter book...:)
"Soccer" is an abreviation of "Association Football". Similarly "Rugby"/"Rugga" is an abreviation of "Rugby Football".
Publishers reckoned Americans were too stupid to realise what a philosopher's stone is, and would be confused as to what philosophy had to do with it. Rather insulting, isn't it?
Or possibly publishers were too stupid and didn't want to admit it:)
c.f. the James Bond film, License To Kill, which was to be called License Revoked until they decided that no-one would understand what "revoked" means.
Ditto. Especially given that anyone who has seen "Lethal Weapon 2" would understand the term...
15 people managed to pick up copies and take them through a checkout manned by someone that neither knows or cares when the release date is before someone noticed and did something about it.
In order for this to happen the barcode would have had to have been in a database along with both a price and a (non zero) stock quantity, but without a field restricting when a sale could be made. A computer certainly can know about "release dates"...
If someone bought the book at a mass-market retailer, what they do with that book is of no concern to anyone (copyright notwithstanding).
It appears unlikely that such a retailer would be able to sell anything by accident. It's perfectly possible for a POS system to have a barcode flagged as "not yet for sale" (or for a barcode to not be in the sales system at all). It's quite possible that only someone at head/regional office could alter the relevent database.
But its the same policy used by Starwars and other "worldwide premiere" stunts. A few hours difference between asian, european and american midnight bookstore romps won't affect it.
Apparently OoTP was available for download within four hours. The East coast of the US is five hours behind the UK.
The point is they want to have the book in stores (thus accesible legally) before people scan it and share it via p2p...
A few hours does appear to be enough time for this to happen. With a movie the first showing is just a showing, rather than selling a piece of media.
Exactly. At the current time this would be of no benefit to the IRA. The IRA are on ceasefire and are contemplating a call by Gerry Adams to move their agenda forward solely by peaceful political means.
The IRA is not the only Irish terrorist group. It's also plenty of elements in Northern Ireland who would like to see the back of Gerry Adams. "Who benefits" something important to consider when looking for those responsible.
We were attacked first. WTC Bombings... USS Cole... Misc Embassy Bombings, and then the WTC collapse. Hey, and guess what. We were not over there at all!!!
Assuming "We" equates to the USA and "over there" equates to the Middle East you could not be more wrong. The US has been majorly messing with the govenments and politics of that region for over 60 years. Another problem is that with the majority of these examples it's very unclear who "they" are in the first place. Conspiracy theories trumpeted by governments and corporate media are no subsitute for proper evidence.
Also madrid proved again that there may be people with huge interest in pointing the finger at the wrong group. So keeping options open until real and somewhat independand evidence is in would be the smart move.
Just hope that any suspects don't "conveniently" blow themselves up.
It would suck if it would take years before stories indicating the real attackers would surface.
It could take rather more than years...
A story that is slowly becoming more and more credible is the idea that iran might be behind the bombing of an airliner over lockerbie. Nothing "islamic fundamentalist" about that, just payback for an iranian airliner that was shot down by the US by mistake. Ofcourse pointing the finger at iran wasn`t conveniant at the time becouse it was to play a role in gulf war one...
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Actually, examiners are under very high pressure to process applications quickly. That can mean approve or reject.
Is it that simple? The obvious way to deal with a questionable patent would be a default of "reject". Whereas it looks as "approve" is the default.
That is such utter bullshit. Losing patents will not stop development. It might hurt the little guy, but no little guy is going to invent a new miracle drug, not with the FDA the way it is.
The way patents are at the moment they are of little use to the "little guy". Even if you have a patent you need to expend your own resources to defend it.
Business process patents were a stupid idea to begin with. They need to go.
Ditto to software and GM crops (anything which is capable of self replication is rather outside the original idea of patents.)
Aerodynamics is a pretty mature science. Look at cars, aircraft, and ships. They do not double in performance every 18 months.
But they can be made to increase in performance. FIA keeps changing the rules in F1 in order to try and slow cars down. With aircraft the push is more towards fuel efficency than speed.
The A320's operating manual clearly stated (and presumably still states) that the aircraft required 7 secs ro reach full power.
This is a general characteristic of gas turbines. Though the actual performance depends on the engines concerned. Unless the A320 is only ever fitted with one type of engine the operating manual figures will be for a specific plane.
The pilot performed his stunt in a space that gave him only 3 secs.
What the pilot actually needed was for the plane to be flying at (or above) V2. With a critical value being the mass of the aircraft. A less massive aircraft will have a greater acceleration for a given thrust (due to Newton's Second Law) it will also require less lift to oppose gravity.
The A320 involved was carrying less passengers, cargo and fuel than would be the case for one in service with an airline. On the other hand it probably hadn't burned enough fuel to significently alter it's mass.
Failing to raise the landing gear probably didn't help either...
The way I heard this story was that the pilots deliberately flew near stall speed and that simply pulling up was not possible without crashing the plane immediately (which the plane's computer determine correctly).
One thing the computer is specifically intended to prevent is a stall. Thus it would not alter the pitch of the aircraft without sufficent airspeed.
In this had been a non fly-by-wire plane it could have crashed rather more dramatically.
Before the turbines could give the plane a boost, the plane flew into the forest, which slowed it down and sealed its fate.
There is also the problem that aircraft engines tend to to produce much thrust when acting as "woodchippers".
It's a pretty comprehensive look at the history and motivations BEHIND the threats we are facing, from both the terrorists and the American government. Yes, at times it's not even trying to be objective, but still a lot of the events and facts that are presented are historical record and are considered far too little today.
Even when they are highly relevent. e.g. the Neocons liking for irrational conspiracy theorys.
What's interesting is that you can still go into a library, take a book off the shelf, photograph it [since the photocopier might be bugged] put the book back on the shelf, and there's no record of you using that book.
So how long before it becomes the law that cameras must be bugged?
There's always the really low tech approach of making written notes or remembering what is in the book.
Why the HELL didn't they go after Bin Laden, ask yourselves that...
:)
In they had they'd have needed to recast the part of "Emanual Goldstein".
where are the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" there supposedly was in IRAQ?
Osama and Elvis stashed them in a flying saucer
The ACTUAL attack on 9/11 was a bunch of guys who grabbed the steering wheel of vehicles they were in and crashed them.
Several of the accused hijackers turned up alive and well, the victims of identity theft. Yet the US Government still sticks with the original 19 names. Apparently unwilling to conduct a normal criminal investigation.
I don't want my liberty taken because the flavor of the month is the Terrorist Bogeyman.
It has all the hallmarks of this.
What happened to kids making pipebombs off the net? Not a big deal anymore, huh. What about the snuff film fracas of the 80s? Oh, turned out to be minor. Hmm. How about that the second worst terrorist attack was a crazy white guy working alone? Oh, that doesn't matter?
Ditto "Animal Rights", anti-abortionists, etc.
Actual terrorists come in all shapes and sizes. It would probably be a good thing were the US Government to actually oppose terrorists, including terrorists who's aims the Government (or individual Government members) support.
You're the one with the weird imagination. You're fighting shadows.
The whole Al Quaeda thing has all the attributes of a very far fetched conspiracy theory.
The people who live there must make whatever changes they want. They must be the ones to organize, to decide their own future.
This is a reasonable definition of "democracy".
It does not work, when the USA goes into a country and tells the people "we are giving you democoracy".
A system of government imposed by an occupying army is mutually exclusive with any form of democratic government.
Congo is a "democratic republic", but allows little political freedom, and is riddled by conflict
Just because a country calls itself a "democratic republic" does not mean that it is either democratic or a republic. Ditto "Peoples' Republic".
It's not like you can just do an Iraq -- invade, install democracy, and hope all goes well thereafter.
You cannot "install democracy" in the first place.
And the fact that there is no copyright on the high seas? You can do whatever you want with intellectual property in international waters.
Only if you are on a pirate ship. Otherwise the laws of the country who's flag the ship flys apply. It's probably more that most ships' captains can't be bothered to enforce laws except where the operation of the ship is concerned.
Could DRM somehow protect the producer of the intellectual property if a person moved from the US to the UK where some copyright clauses are less strict while others are more strict?
What if the copyright holder were to move jurisdictions?
Computer programs cannot determine the intent of the user, and neither can the rightsholder without seriously breaching little things like 'right to privacy'.
Even human beings cannot always agree on issues of intent. Hence court case can be decided my "majority verdicts".
So DRM is a fundamentally flawed concept that will always be designed to restrict fair use and normal legal use - because that's the only way to prevent potential 'evil' uses where your intent is to make illegal copies.
Blurring the line between "fair use" and "evil use" also means that people become less concerned about piracy in general.
While this might be true .. its not the entire story. The entire story is simple -- there is still a LOT of software out there that simply DOES NOT RUN 100% CORRECTLY OUT OF THE BOX in anything BESIDES an administrative level account.
/.) -- Microsoft doesn't believe in restricted access in its development model (read: Microsoft employees all have administrative level access).
Which is a developer, rather than a user, problem.
Even things that SHIP WITH WINDOWS are prone to oversight which tells me one thing (and has been second'ed but not necessarily confirmed on
Or possibly they don't understand how to do things. Even if an app does require elevated privs Windows has mechanisms to allow just a specific program to do so.
There's also the thing about that sport the entire world calls football and that USians (not sure about canadians) prefer to call soccer which was mentioned quite a bit in the first harry potter book... :)
"Soccer" is an abreviation of "Association Football". Similarly "Rugby"/"Rugga" is an abreviation of "Rugby Football".
Publishers reckoned Americans were too stupid to realise what a philosopher's stone is, and would be confused as to what philosophy had to do with it. Rather insulting, isn't it?
:)
Or possibly publishers were too stupid and didn't want to admit it
c.f. the James Bond film, License To Kill, which was to be called License Revoked until they decided that no-one would understand what "revoked" means.
Ditto. Especially given that anyone who has seen "Lethal Weapon 2" would understand the term...
Speaking of which, why is it that the American versions contain different text than the ROTW (Rest of the World) version?
:)
It appears to be a cultural thing that the US likes to be different
15 people managed to pick up copies and take them through a checkout manned by someone that neither knows or cares when the release date is before someone noticed and did something about it.
In order for this to happen the barcode would have had to have been in a database along with both a price and a (non zero) stock quantity, but without a field restricting when a sale could be made.
A computer certainly can know about "release dates"...
If someone bought the book at a mass-market retailer, what they do with that book is of no concern to anyone (copyright notwithstanding).
It appears unlikely that such a retailer would be able to sell anything by accident. It's perfectly possible for a POS system to have a barcode flagged as "not yet for sale" (or for a barcode to not be in the sales system at all). It's quite possible that only someone at head/regional office could alter the relevent database.
No, actually, you're not. The injunction also prevents you from discussing the book in public. You'd be in breach of that order.
Does the injunction prevent someone from leaving the jurisdiction of the court? Even if it does what if someone had already done so...
But its the same policy used by Starwars and other "worldwide premiere" stunts. A few hours difference between asian, european and american midnight bookstore romps won't affect it.
Apparently OoTP was available for download within four hours. The East coast of the US is five hours behind the UK.
The point is they want to have the book in stores (thus accesible legally) before people scan it and share it via p2p...
A few hours does appear to be enough time for this to happen. With a movie the first showing is just a showing, rather than selling a piece of media.
i think this concept of releasing the harry potter book at the same time worldwide is a good thing.
Except that it isn't the same time. Otherwise the markings would say "Do not open before 23:00 15/07/05 GMT/UTC"
Exactly. At the current time this would be of no benefit to the IRA. The IRA are on ceasefire and are contemplating a call by Gerry Adams to move their agenda forward solely by peaceful political means.
The IRA is not the only Irish terrorist group. It's also plenty of elements in Northern Ireland who would like to see the back of Gerry Adams.
"Who benefits" something important to consider when looking for those responsible.
We were attacked first. WTC Bombings... USS Cole... Misc Embassy Bombings, and then the WTC collapse. Hey, and guess what. We were not over there at all!!!
Assuming "We" equates to the USA and "over there" equates to the Middle East you could not be more wrong. The US has been majorly messing with the govenments and politics of that region for over 60 years.
Another problem is that with the majority of these examples it's very unclear who "they" are in the first place. Conspiracy theories trumpeted by governments and corporate media are no subsitute for proper evidence.
Also madrid proved again that there may be people with huge interest in pointing the finger at the wrong group. So keeping options open until real and somewhat independand evidence is in would be the smart move.
Just hope that any suspects don't "conveniently" blow themselves up.
It would suck if it would take years before stories indicating the real attackers would surface.
It could take rather more than years...
A story that is slowly becoming more and more credible is the idea that iran might be behind the bombing of an airliner over lockerbie. Nothing "islamic fundamentalist" about that, just payback for an iranian airliner that was shot down by the US by mistake. Ofcourse pointing the finger at iran wasn`t conveniant at the time becouse it was to play a role in gulf war one...
However it is convenient to blame Iran now.