Well... unless you consider a big pile of loose, single-sided pages professional, I'd wonder about where the professional BINDING is.
Some of the O'Reilly books have nice bindings that allow them to lie flat, which is handy, but I'd even give that up if I didn't have to worry about the pages falling out, and being held in only by a frickin' alligator clip.
It's not _that_ hard to take a properly typeset document (e.g. LaTeX) and output ascii, html, pdf and paper. I'll take 'em all, please.
First, I didn't see anything to indicate that it comes with a robotic homing pigeon (essential if you don't have a cellphone, as it can carry messages recorded on small reels of tape)
Second, the Mach 5 is just not going to go over well in today's age of SUVs. What they ought to have done is to build a replica of the Mammoth Car - the one that was something like 200 yards long. Oh, it's hell to park, much less back up, but when you've got to smuggle gold by driving a car MADE out of it, it's definately the way to go. Good for groceries, and taking your kids to soccer games too.
Copyrights are only granted for a limited time. Public domain works should not suffer from conditions which prevent them from being used by the public in any manner whatsoever. This harms the public domain, and the first amendment (use of p.d. materials is protected speech) as well as anyone who holds a copyright on the materials that would be encrypted indiscriminately.
These sorts of schemes would deny the exercise of legal copyrights to anyone who wasn't a major media corporation.
Clearly it's time for the government to lean towards the side of the first amendment - better to have some infringing speech if that's the cost of having lots of free speech. Restricting speech to spare a few people screws everyone right up the ass.
Additionally, when it comes to TV, given that tv stations are tightly regulated by the government, allowing this sort of thing could be interpreted as the govt. attempting to circumvent the first amendment.
of course, the legality of this protection would severely break under the supreme court's ruling that time shifting is legal. but this is approximately the same thing that the decss fight is involved in, so there's some hope.
(besides - do you really think that sufficiently smart vcrs will allow commercial editing? dvds already play commercials that you can't fast forward through or skip, without a modified player)
The internet was not designed to be resistant to nuclear or conventional assault. it was designed to permit people to timeshare on remote computers without the hassle of setting up direct connections each time.
iirc, there was even the idea (briefly) of setting up a centralized switch in Omaha. packets, a relatively new idea, were just liked better for this application.
At the time ARPANet started, ARPA financed all kinds of stuff not related to DoD. You can tell when they changed their policy to only financing DoD related work, 'cos they changed their name to DARPA.
Sounds like supply and demand curves to me. I'd buy more cds too if they cost a lot less. as it is i just check stuff out of the library nowadays - hardly ever buy or rent any media anymore.
Good luck. I think you'll like the SE/30. It's an exceptionally good machine - very powerful, and quite expandable given the case. It's my favorite Mac in a lot of ways.
(The IIx and IIcx both had 68030 chips - that's what the 'x' stood for. For some reason, Apple decided not to name it the SEx. Can't imagine why, I bet it would have sold better.;)
This is getting offtopic even for/., but the culture of the army would pretty likely fragment it at worst - put it against the government at best.
and effectiveness aside, at present, guerilla armies are pretty damn effective if their enemies are planning to hold territory and not kill absolutely everyone to do it. We found that out in Viet Nam (although when they stopped hiding we kicked the shit out of them) and the Russians found out in Afghanistan. It's tough to nuke yourself from orbit, even if it's the only way to be sure.
Self defense - if your life is in immediate mortal danger (it can be from a rabid bear, if you're uncomfortable with the idea that some humans are likely to kill you) then this strikes me as a useful time to have and use a gun.
War is another one. It's very nice to make war illegal, but there are relatively few nations that are willing to submit without some kind of fight.
Suicide (legality varies wildly depending on your local jurisdiction)
Fishing - no really. When you catch large fish, they're usually alive and dangerous to get near, given as how they outweigh you, are strong, and are flopping around like mad. If you're gonna kill it anyway, you might as well not endanger yourself in the process. You'll note that we didn't have matches for a long time either, but there are few people willing to carry flint and tinder.
My favorite - overthrowing an unjust, illegitimate and immoral government (probably the underlying reason behind the US 2nd Amendment; a method to ensure that if it failed, it could be removed)
I'm sure there are others.
My point is, I would rather have the ACT or at most direct incitement to perform the act (e.g. telling Mr. B to murder Mr. C as opposed to talking out loud about how Mr. C is a pain in the ass and you wish he were dead) be illegal, not the tools.
There are good, constructive uses for virtually any *thing* that I can think of. Make it illegal to commit (or be about to commit) the negative acts with those things - don't make it illegal to possess them no matter what your intentions.
And yes, I think that Napster should remain online. If some company x has a problem with them, they should sue the people who are actually pirating stuff. Napster at worst (assuming that they haven't dl'd stuff illegally) has been negligent. this can be very serious, but their intent needs to be determined. did they create napster with the intent that it would be used illegally? did they take action when it was brought to their attention that it was used illegally?
Sure napster has it's faults, but what would be wrong with a system where files were transferred legally, with good faith on the part of napster that people weren't lying through their teeth? So like I said - find out what they were trying to do and what they knew, first.
Does Russia have copyright laws at all? If it does, do the laws permit this type of redistribution?
if the answer is no to the first, or yes to the second, then it's plenty fair. copyrights were not handed down by god to some prophet on the mountain - they're totally artificial and have to be implemented by law. furthermore, they can be repealed, and they don't have to be particularly consistant.
as i recall, taiwan has no copyright laws (or if it does, they're really lax)
at any rate, if it is an infringement of copyright law, that's a civil matter. go sue them (if possible)
But if I say in some public forum, 'Rodney, two doors down from me sells cocaine - we ought to run him out of town on a rail,' am I still liable, even if someone uses that information (and that information alone) to commit an illegal act?
The trick is *intent*, imho. If you knowingly tried to aid in the commission of a crime, you're in trouble. Making negligence a crime in any but the most extreme cases would have a terrible effect on the freedom of speech.
OTOH, censorware lists (when decrypted) provide a treasure trove of links. Someone should really prosecute them for providing, in a roundabout way, links to all of these horrible horrible things. Let's do it for the children;)
First you say that gun manufacturers ought to be liable for crimes committed with their products. Despite there being legal uses for their products.
But then you don't answer the question of whether film and camera manufacturers are liable for crimes committed with their products, and you disagree that DeCSS's creators should be liable at all.
In *EACH CASE* the product has both legal and illegal uses. You can't have your cake and eat it too - are the manufacturers of ANY product which is used illegally liable for that use? Yes or no? Ratios don't enter into it. The purpose the tool is created/used for (aside from legality - e.g. guns kill people, but this can be legal or illegal depending on circumstances) is irrelevant.
Like I said: the copyright lasts 10 years. So if the artist dies, the copyright passes to his heirs for the remainder of the duration. If it already expired before the artist died, it's their problem. The artists' family didn't create anything anyway - if they had, they'd jointly own the copyright.
So you've pointed out nicely how holding on to a copyright for a long period of time provides no incentive for the creation of creative work. Why should the poor family actually do something, when they can coast on something created years ago?
As for trademarks (in another reply to your post), I disagree. Trademarks on characters in copyrighted works should cease to exist once those works are in the public domain. How else are you supposed to use the p.d. work either by itself or by building on it? Again, this only promotes creativity - the company that owned the character will have to make _more_ characters if it wants control, or become one of many sources of material for a p.d. character. Either way, I don't see a downside.
I _want_ to see some more Mickey Mouse cartoons. There are a lot that would be really good, and not particularly difficult to do. (animation gets cheaper all the time - esp. with cgi) But this requires that both the original works, and the characters become public.
Of course, it's not like Disney (Snow White, Cinderella, Alladin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, etc.) has ever used someone else's characters and stories....
(let's not even get into the Lion King/Jungle King fiasco)
heh. Mac users either install drivers off of CD (which is probably cheaper than floppy by now) or don't need 'em at all, because it just works the second you plug it in.
Regarding Office, why would MS bother giving it away? They already have an OS monopoly, and there are virtually no competitors with Office on the Mac. Don't be suprised if they start charging for it again someday on the IBM side.
Well there are a couple of other issues as well, but yeah, good PS drivers is a big one.
Additionally, besides having exceptional mindshare in the DTP market, Macs just have a lot of software already developed for them that fills small niches but which no one is willing to give up.
And of course, while this is difficult to describe, Macs have a different 'feel' than IBMs. Even moving the mouse doesn't feel the same. Once you get comfortable on the Mac there's not much incentive to leave it. It's like the comfy chair of computing;)
Re: #1 They're pretty affordable for people who buy brand name hardware (which is what it is)
For a while there were parts floating around so that you could build your own Mac - I did - but when the cloning era ended so did that. And even then the reason wasn't so much the price (which was pretty similar) but that Apple didn't have BTO at that time.
But it makes no sense to compare a brand name machine with one you make from generic components. None of them are going to ever be as cheap, and they're really two different markets.
If I like it now, I'll watch it now. If I'm out to screw the maker of a work based on something fresh out of the public domain, then I'd wait 20 years and screw them too.
10 years is a lot for the distribution of the original work (admittedly it doesn't always end up okay, but lots of artists never get famous till they're dead - fat lot of good royalties do them then) but not so much for creating derivative works.
i'm more fond of seeing more works being created than having a few works make money forever at the expense of anyone who doesn't want to shell out, and who wants to create a derivative work.
tolkien created a lot of stuff from scratch, i'll grant. and good for him. but there's a lot of excellent stuff that wouldn't exist at all if people held onto their copyright forever. And yet, forever is exactly what the trend we're following leads to.
People have produced great works of art and literature with no protection whatsoever. Modern-day copyright law is effectively unconstitutional by retroactively granting longer and longer durations of copyright, before any expire.
It strikes me that this has the effect of diminishing the number of works that are created (see many Mickey Mouse cartoons lately?) while not benefiting the public at all. (just imagine if fanfic were 100% unmistakably legal - there might be lots of Middle Earth books instead of the relatively few we've got.)
Anyway, I too would like to see 10 year copyrights. Gives the author a good reason to keep on typin'.
If it's broadcast I sure as hell do. Those airwaves don't belong to the TV companies - they have to be licensed to use them, b/c of the overriding public interest in the EM spectrum. Sadly the sat. tv companies have rammed through legislation prohibiting the decoding of their signals, even should the signal end up trespassing onto my property (which is absurd - i don't care if they encrypt it, just don't make it illegal to decrypt it).
otoh, i really don't give a crap what they do on cable, though i'm sure there are non destructive ways of listening in on it w/o imparing the signal. there's clearly no such issue when it comes to broadcasting.
Well, are these rights granted by the government (and thus susceptible to being revoked) or are they inherent? That's the really big deal regarding the Bill of Rights in the states, anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... unless you consider a big pile of loose, single-sided pages professional, I'd wonder about where the professional BINDING is.
Some of the O'Reilly books have nice bindings that allow them to lie flat, which is handy, but I'd even give that up if I didn't have to worry about the pages falling out, and being held in only by a frickin' alligator clip.
It's not _that_ hard to take a properly typeset document (e.g. LaTeX) and output ascii, html, pdf and paper. I'll take 'em all, please.
there's basically two problems here.
First, I didn't see anything to indicate that it comes with a robotic homing pigeon (essential if you don't have a cellphone, as it can carry messages recorded on small reels of tape)
Second, the Mach 5 is just not going to go over well in today's age of SUVs. What they ought to have done is to build a replica of the Mammoth Car - the one that was something like 200 yards long. Oh, it's hell to park, much less back up, but when you've got to smuggle gold by driving a car MADE out of it, it's definately the way to go. Good for groceries, and taking your kids to soccer games too.
(Danger's one thing that Speed's not afraid of!)
See, to my mind the thing is this:
Copyrights are only granted for a limited time. Public domain works should not suffer from conditions which prevent them from being used by the public in any manner whatsoever. This harms the public domain, and the first amendment (use of p.d. materials is protected speech) as well as anyone who holds a copyright on the materials that would be encrypted indiscriminately.
These sorts of schemes would deny the exercise of legal copyrights to anyone who wasn't a major media corporation.
Clearly it's time for the government to lean towards the side of the first amendment - better to have some infringing speech if that's the cost of having lots of free speech. Restricting speech to spare a few people screws everyone right up the ass.
Additionally, when it comes to TV, given that tv stations are tightly regulated by the government, allowing this sort of thing could be interpreted as the govt. attempting to circumvent the first amendment.
No sir, I don't like it.
no, monoliths are 1 x 4 x 9 (and presumably more in higher dimensions)
maybe you're thinking of the import models.
of course, the legality of this protection would severely break under the supreme court's ruling that time shifting is legal. but this is approximately the same thing that the decss fight is involved in, so there's some hope.
(besides - do you really think that sufficiently smart vcrs will allow commercial editing? dvds already play commercials that you can't fast forward through or skip, without a modified player)
The internet was not designed to be resistant to nuclear or conventional assault. it was designed to permit people to timeshare on remote computers without the hassle of setting up direct connections each time.
iirc, there was even the idea (briefly) of setting up a centralized switch in Omaha. packets, a relatively new idea, were just liked better for this application.
At the time ARPANet started, ARPA financed all kinds of stuff not related to DoD. You can tell when they changed their policy to only financing DoD related work, 'cos they changed their name to DARPA.
"I'd buy CDs if they weren't so overpriced!"
Sounds like supply and demand curves to me. I'd buy more cds too if they cost a lot less. as it is i just check stuff out of the library nowadays - hardly ever buy or rent any media anymore.
Good luck. I think you'll like the SE/30. It's an exceptionally good machine - very powerful, and quite expandable given the case. It's my favorite Mac in a lot of ways.
;)
(The IIx and IIcx both had 68030 chips - that's what the 'x' stood for. For some reason, Apple decided not to name it the SEx. Can't imagine why, I bet it would have sold better.
This is getting offtopic even for /., but the culture of the army would pretty likely fragment it at worst - put it against the government at best.
and effectiveness aside, at present, guerilla armies are pretty damn effective if their enemies are planning to hold territory and not kill absolutely everyone to do it. We found that out in Viet Nam (although when they stopped hiding we kicked the shit out of them) and the Russians found out in Afghanistan. It's tough to nuke yourself from orbit, even if it's the only way to be sure.
Self defense - if your life is in immediate mortal danger (it can be from a rabid bear, if you're uncomfortable with the idea that some humans are likely to kill you) then this strikes me as a useful time to have and use a gun.
War is another one. It's very nice to make war illegal, but there are relatively few nations that are willing to submit without some kind of fight.
Suicide (legality varies wildly depending on your local jurisdiction)
Fishing - no really. When you catch large fish, they're usually alive and dangerous to get near, given as how they outweigh you, are strong, and are flopping around like mad. If you're gonna kill it anyway, you might as well not endanger yourself in the process. You'll note that we didn't have matches for a long time either, but there are few people willing to carry flint and tinder.
My favorite - overthrowing an unjust, illegitimate and immoral government (probably the underlying reason behind the US 2nd Amendment; a method to ensure that if it failed, it could be removed)
I'm sure there are others.
My point is, I would rather have the ACT or at most direct incitement to perform the act (e.g. telling Mr. B to murder Mr. C as opposed to talking out loud about how Mr. C is a pain in the ass and you wish he were dead) be illegal, not the tools.
There are good, constructive uses for virtually any *thing* that I can think of. Make it illegal to commit (or be about to commit) the negative acts with those things - don't make it illegal to possess them no matter what your intentions.
And yes, I think that Napster should remain online. If some company x has a problem with them, they should sue the people who are actually pirating stuff. Napster at worst (assuming that they haven't dl'd stuff illegally) has been negligent. this can be very serious, but their intent needs to be determined. did they create napster with the intent that it would be used illegally? did they take action when it was brought to their attention that it was used illegally?
Sure napster has it's faults, but what would be wrong with a system where files were transferred legally, with good faith on the part of napster that people weren't lying through their teeth? So like I said - find out what they were trying to do and what they knew, first.
Does Russia have copyright laws at all? If it does, do the laws permit this type of redistribution?
if the answer is no to the first, or yes to the second, then it's plenty fair. copyrights were not handed down by god to some prophet on the mountain - they're totally artificial and have to be implemented by law. furthermore, they can be repealed, and they don't have to be particularly consistant.
as i recall, taiwan has no copyright laws (or if it does, they're really lax)
at any rate, if it is an infringement of copyright law, that's a civil matter. go sue them (if possible)
But if I say in some public forum, 'Rodney, two doors down from me sells cocaine - we ought to run him out of town on a rail,' am I still liable, even if someone uses that information (and that information alone) to commit an illegal act?
;)
The trick is *intent*, imho. If you knowingly tried to aid in the commission of a crime, you're in trouble. Making negligence a crime in any but the most extreme cases would have a terrible effect on the freedom of speech.
OTOH, censorware lists (when decrypted) provide a treasure trove of links. Someone should really prosecute them for providing, in a roundabout way, links to all of these horrible horrible things. Let's do it for the children
Your argument makes no sense.
First you say that gun manufacturers ought to be liable for crimes committed with their products. Despite there being legal uses for their products.
But then you don't answer the question of whether film and camera manufacturers are liable for crimes committed with their products, and you disagree that DeCSS's creators should be liable at all.
In *EACH CASE* the product has both legal and illegal uses. You can't have your cake and eat it too - are the manufacturers of ANY product which is used illegally liable for that use? Yes or no? Ratios don't enter into it. The purpose the tool is created/used for (aside from legality - e.g. guns kill people, but this can be legal or illegal depending on circumstances) is irrelevant.
Liable or not? Just answer.
Like I said: the copyright lasts 10 years. So if the artist dies, the copyright passes to his heirs for the remainder of the duration. If it already expired before the artist died, it's their problem. The artists' family didn't create anything anyway - if they had, they'd jointly own the copyright.
So you've pointed out nicely how holding on to a copyright for a long period of time provides no incentive for the creation of creative work. Why should the poor family actually do something, when they can coast on something created years ago?
As for trademarks (in another reply to your post), I disagree. Trademarks on characters in copyrighted works should cease to exist once those works are in the public domain. How else are you supposed to use the p.d. work either by itself or by building on it? Again, this only promotes creativity - the company that owned the character will have to make _more_ characters if it wants control, or become one of many sources of material for a p.d. character. Either way, I don't see a downside.
I _want_ to see some more Mickey Mouse cartoons. There are a lot that would be really good, and not particularly difficult to do. (animation gets cheaper all the time - esp. with cgi) But this requires that both the original works, and the characters become public.
Of course, it's not like Disney (Snow White, Cinderella, Alladin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, etc.) has ever used someone else's characters and stories....
(let's not even get into the Lion King/Jungle King fiasco)
heh. Mac users either install drivers off of CD (which is probably cheaper than floppy by now) or don't need 'em at all, because it just works the second you plug it in.
Regarding Office, why would MS bother giving it away? They already have an OS monopoly, and there are virtually no competitors with Office on the Mac. Don't be suprised if they start charging for it again someday on the IBM side.
Well there are a couple of other issues as well, but yeah, good PS drivers is a big one.
;)
Additionally, besides having exceptional mindshare in the DTP market, Macs just have a lot of software already developed for them that fills small niches but which no one is willing to give up.
And of course, while this is difficult to describe, Macs have a different 'feel' than IBMs. Even moving the mouse doesn't feel the same. Once you get comfortable on the Mac there's not much incentive to leave it. It's like the comfy chair of computing
Re: #1
They're pretty affordable for people who buy brand name hardware (which is what it is)
For a while there were parts floating around so that you could build your own Mac - I did - but when the cloning era ended so did that. And even then the reason wasn't so much the price (which was pretty similar) but that Apple didn't have BTO at that time.
But it makes no sense to compare a brand name machine with one you make from generic components. None of them are going to ever be as cheap, and they're really two different markets.
If I like it now, I'll watch it now. If I'm out to screw the maker of a work based on something fresh out of the public domain, then I'd wait 20 years and screw them too.
10 years is a lot for the distribution of the original work (admittedly it doesn't always end up okay, but lots of artists never get famous till they're dead - fat lot of good royalties do them then) but not so much for creating derivative works.
i'm more fond of seeing more works being created than having a few works make money forever at the expense of anyone who doesn't want to shell out, and who wants to create a derivative work.
tolkien created a lot of stuff from scratch, i'll grant. and good for him. but there's a lot of excellent stuff that wouldn't exist at all if people held onto their copyright forever. And yet, forever is exactly what the trend we're following leads to.
What's your point?
People have produced great works of art and literature with no protection whatsoever. Modern-day copyright law is effectively unconstitutional by retroactively granting longer and longer durations of copyright, before any expire.
It strikes me that this has the effect of diminishing the number of works that are created (see many Mickey Mouse cartoons lately?) while not benefiting the public at all. (just imagine if fanfic were 100% unmistakably legal - there might be lots of Middle Earth books instead of the relatively few we've got.)
Anyway, I too would like to see 10 year copyrights. Gives the author a good reason to keep on typin'.
i own my house. and i have a tv with a 'rabbit ears'-type antanna. funny how the signal can get into my house.
because you can't wear out the dvd when you only keep watching the decent bits.
personally i'd rather see 4-6 on disc (minus the stupid 'Greedo fires first' stuff on #4)
If it's broadcast I sure as hell do. Those airwaves don't belong to the TV companies - they have to be licensed to use them, b/c of the overriding public interest in the EM spectrum. Sadly the sat. tv companies have rammed through legislation prohibiting the decoding of their signals, even should the signal end up trespassing onto my property (which is absurd - i don't care if they encrypt it, just don't make it illegal to decrypt it).
otoh, i really don't give a crap what they do on cable, though i'm sure there are non destructive ways of listening in on it w/o imparing the signal. there's clearly no such issue when it comes to broadcasting.
and what about 20th century fox?
Well, are these rights granted by the government (and thus susceptible to being revoked) or are they inherent? That's the really big deal regarding the Bill of Rights in the states, anyway.