Probably under the theory that ANY protest, however misaimed (such as crying copyright when they really mean trademark), qualifies as "attempting to protect our trademark".
Historically, has any trademark been lost due to similar fanboy type activities??
The two sample images from TFA looked to me like advertising photos that had been run through some filters. They didn't look like original fan-made images.
If that's the case, then maybe Toyota has a point. But if not -- a finding in Toyota's favour could make it unlawful to take and manipulate photos of your own car.
Which would be ridiculous... Maybe they plan to claim that the car is a manifestation of Toyota's copyrighted blueprints, and therefore protected -- just like some artists and architects have claimed, in attempts to prohibit "unauthorized" photos of otherwise-public buildings and sculptures.
"During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Kennedy estimated the probability of a nuclear holocaust as somewhere between one out of three and even"
Of *course* JFK put the odds that high. Per someone I knew who was on the spot, JFK had his finger on the trigger and was all gung-ho to nuke the Soviets; he had to be "talked down" by cooler heads.
"almost as if ads crawl out of the monitor and maul you"
Well, some of them nearly do. Blinking, flashing, making noise, waving some chick's tits around, nagging me to view this here popup before I can see the rest of the page.. THAT is the kind of advertising I hate, ignore, or block. THAT is what gave online advertising a bad name in the first place -- the constant race to be BIGGER SHINIER AND MORE VISIBLE -- which since it was initially pay-per-click-driven, completely failed to understand the concept of ads as brand awareness rather than as instant sale devices. In short, most internet advertising is essentially visual spam.
OTOH there are some good ads -- IBM's series in various tech mags is hilarious, and so well done that I look forward to each new incarnation. In the early days of Google's text ads, they were useful and I even complained when I couldn't see them. (Nowadays they're all for linkfarms and the like, so I started blocking them.) Similarly, some websites have all nicely made and relevant ads that don't whap you upside the head, and I have no problem with those.
Put it this way: Billboards aren't too much of a problem when they're beside the highway; you can look at them or not, as you like. But if you were forced to view them before you could continue on to your destination, wouldn't that annoy you into finding a different route, if you could? Same thing with internet ads.
I only buy W.D. myself:) Comes of noticing which random salvaged drives are most likely to still be alive! My antique (1991) 20mb HD is a W.D. too.
My most elderly W.D. in everyday service has been running 24/7 for 11 years now:)
I've RMA'd a few, but considering how many WDs I've bought and their average lifespan, the occasional RMA doesn't excite me all that much. And they never fail to give plenty of warning when they do get sick, which in my view is a huge bonus. I've nursed a couple of 'em along for 3 years after they came down with the creeping crud -- with no data loss.
Rocks are more durable than cinder blocks, as blocks tend to crack/break from the heat. However, it's easier to wind up with a flat level cooking surface with blocks.:)
If your house is well-insulated and you're not in an extreme weather area, wood is doubtless fine. My trailer in Montana had HEARD of insulation but was weak on the concept (I piled snow up the walls and on the roof to help out!) and wood didn't cut it... it was okay down to zero or so, but below that it couldn't keep up. Coal kept it toasty even at -65 temps, but coal forces you to become an expert on fire management, as the chimney draft is very sensitive to outdoor temperature... coal smoke is thick, heavy, and dense... at -45 you need a HOT fire to get it up the chimney (then it lays on the ground in a pile that you can actually shovel up and carry off in a bucket!) Conversely if you get an unexpected chinook, er, warm spell, and you don't account for that, you need to keep it well-banked and barely burning, or it'll draw too hard and burn your house down:) OTOH, with good banking skills, you can keep a coal fire going continuously for the whole winter.
Saltcedar makes a good renewable woodlot -- dies back in harsh weather, cut off whole tree (multiple 5" trunks) and burn it, two years later it's grown back fullsized again, rinse and repeat as often as you like. Trouble is it's now classed as noxious/invasive most places. -- I mostly used downed cottonwoods and mill scrap in MT... easy to cut and in infinite supply.
Where you do live, anyway? As noted I grew up in MT but have been in SoCal for the past couple decades. I miss winter like I miss boils on my ass, but CA has gone batshit insane, so am trying to get moved back.:/
Good to know there are others who can still do for themselves, indeed!:D
I used to have a pit stove for summer too -- it was just a hole in the ground with four cinder blocks around it. Could cook in or atop the coals, or warm stuff in the holes in the blocks. Good place to use up the scrap and chips that aren't worth dragging into the house as kindling.
Coal actually heats much better than wood, as it puts out way more heat per pound AND the quality of the heat is better -- the room can be the same temperature yet it *feels* a lot warmer (longer wavelength, I think -- more penetrating). And when it's -60 out, wood can't keep up, but coal can. And you can keep a coal fire going continuously all winter. Trouble is, coal is a lot dirtier and more bother, especially with cleaning the chimney! And then there was the year I had to drive to Wyoming and mine my own coal...!!
I used to work variable-timeframe jobs down in Los Angeles, so I'd be coming home up the 405 freeway to I-5 at fairly random hours. Regardless of the time, as I came into that interchange, I often found myself directly behind the same car -- a small sporty sedan type.
How did I know it was always the very same car? By the license plate, which read (I shit you not):
2SPY007
Which is one of the normal sequential plates in the California passenger-car system. Why so often at the same time? My guess is that whoever it was (I never could see the driver) also worked for a studio and lived north of L.A., and when we happened to be on the same production, we wound up driving home at about the same (variable) time.
I vastly prefer living out by myself too -- it is indeed far less stressful, not to mention less annoying. Most of what people think of as urban necessities, I do quite well without, or find some other way to manage, or would rather not be bothered with in the first place (this troglodyte doesn't have a cell phone and doesn't WANT one!)
Broadband would be hard to give up, tho -- mainly because I no longer have the patience for the World Wide Wait. (And to think I started with a 2400 baud modem! Tho I still use a BBS, and could run one myself if I needed it for email.) Probably the only way I'd get a cell phone was if I needed it for the associated broadband connection.
I never heard of any such thing (tho I don't doubt it's been worked out as a theoretical exercise) but... I live under one of the flight paths into Edwards AFB. A while back I noticed a correlation between various political crises and a spate of unmarked aircraft (mainly smaller passenger-type jets) coming in for a landing along this flight path. (Otherwise, it's not generally used, except for the larger cargo planes.) And sometimes a clump of these unmarked aircraft arrive without any reported news, which always makes me wonder what's going on that we don't hear about.:)
Actually, I know someone like that. He's a classical paranoid (has all but one of the 9 or 10 recognised symptoms, and it only takes 3 to diagnose), he wears his emotions on his sleeve, he wants to be acknowledged by others, and he's quick to take offense for any imagined slight.
The result is that this encourages "button pushers" and other small-time bullies to pick on him, because it's fun to make him snap and snarl ineffectively.
And in consequence, he believes that entities like the MTA are "conspiring against him" and cites "proofs" like that sometimes the bus stops 6 inches further away from the curb, making it harder for disabled people (like himself) to get on. But it can't be random driving error; it has to be because the driver hates him and wants to make his life difficult!
He also rejects any shrink who points out this paranoia or tries to treat it as such. He's really only interested in enablement, NOT in "getting treatment".
I've known people who are round-the-bend looney, where it doesn't negatively impact their daily lives, because they've managed to set up their lives to wholly enable their psychosis.
I've observed that neglect. In fact, anyone can observe it just by following side roads thru rural California. It's a wonder that dialup works, let alone DSL!
I'm not familiar with VDSL2; is that where the range is extended if it's a "dry" (unused) line??
You are right -- "reasonably ubiquitous" really only applies to populated areas and travel corridors, where probably 99% of the population lives. Get very far from settled and traveled areas, and public services of this sort are rare to nil... tho I've noticed that areas settled a long time ago are far more likely to have run wires to remote (unprofitable to the provider) ranches, whereas the "newer" states are less likely to do so. Might be a side effect of rural co-ops.
As I did point out somewhere in this thread, there are chunks even of 40-million-pop California that have neither power nor phone, and as you say are unlikely to EVER get any wired services, due to the obscene cost/benefit ratio. Get more than a mile or so off the grid, and you're looking at the high six-figures to bring in power or phone.
When I priced it back in 1982 or so, the end-user cost was $16/foot for overhead, $40/foot for buried cable, and as a rule you don't have a choice which you use -- the state or county dictates it. Likely costs 3x as much by now. Another problem here in SoCal is that overhead wires are taxed, but underground cable is not; the long-term cost benefit to the provider is to use cable and avoid the tax, but the county doesn't want to lose that revenue, so it won't issue permits for new buried cable... but the state says "No more overhead wires". Catch-22, no grid power for you!! (Unless, of course, you're a big developer and can pay the appropriate bri^H^H^ fees.)
I've lived where neither power nor phone was available, and survived the experience (this was before solar panels and cell phones, too!) much as did most of our ancestors:)
There are pockets like that all over L.A., where DSL, cable, or both are unavailable, sometimes for no visible reason!
Have to agree with ya.. for some stuff, such as services that should be ubiquitous, gov't tends to do better than anyone else. If it would stick to just that, and stay the hell out of everything else, it would cost us far less and we'd be better off all around!
Given what you say, it's probably an It Depends thing, based on the condition of the system and its various parts.
Speaking of the two grids with which I'm familiar.. CA's in rural areas is often in rough shape, with lots of near-failing transformers; MT's is in much better condition and experiences far fewer spikes and sags. So at a guess, it would work better in MT than in CA.
Where the ONLY alternative is a 26k modem hookup, it may look pretty good even at its worst.:(
Very true. In fact I have friends within the Los Angeles city limits who can't get DSL at all.
I only concentrated on rural areas in my posts because so many slashdotters think only in terms of ideal suburbs with DSL and cable to every house, and it's tough to get 'em to think outside that unless the contrast is decidedly evident.:/
Slashdot Mirror
Your comment makes me wonder.. what happens if someone posts a photo of their own car, captioned "Toyota sold me this lemon" ??
I'm sure someone must have done so, somewhere...
Probably under the theory that ANY protest, however misaimed (such as crying copyright when they really mean trademark), qualifies as "attempting to protect our trademark".
Historically, has any trademark been lost due to similar fanboy type activities??
The two sample images from TFA looked to me like advertising photos that had been run through some filters. They didn't look like original fan-made images.
If that's the case, then maybe Toyota has a point.
But if not -- a finding in Toyota's favour could make it unlawful to take and manipulate photos of your own car.
Which would be ridiculous... Maybe they plan to claim that the car is a manifestation of Toyota's copyrighted blueprints, and therefore protected -- just like some artists and architects have claimed, in attempts to prohibit "unauthorized" photos of otherwise-public buildings and sculptures.
The person cited was in Joe Sr's organization., back when the Irish Mob was a significant power.
I think there must be some bad drugs in today's slashdot ads ;)
From TFA:
"During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President
Kennedy estimated the probability of a nuclear holocaust as somewhere between one out of three and even"
Of *course* JFK put the odds that high. Per someone I knew who was on the spot, JFK had his finger on the trigger and was all gung-ho to nuke the Soviets; he had to be "talked down" by cooler heads.
"almost as if ads crawl out of the monitor and maul you"
Well, some of them nearly do. Blinking, flashing, making noise, waving some chick's tits around, nagging me to view this here popup before I can see the rest of the page.. THAT is the kind of advertising I hate, ignore, or block. THAT is what gave online advertising a bad name in the first place -- the constant race to be BIGGER SHINIER AND MORE VISIBLE -- which since it was initially pay-per-click-driven, completely failed to understand the concept of ads as brand awareness rather than as instant sale devices. In short, most internet advertising is essentially visual spam.
OTOH there are some good ads -- IBM's series in various tech mags is hilarious, and so well done that I look forward to each new incarnation. In the early days of Google's text ads, they were useful and I even complained when I couldn't see them. (Nowadays they're all for linkfarms and the like, so I started blocking them.) Similarly, some websites have all nicely made and relevant ads that don't whap you upside the head, and I have no problem with those.
Put it this way: Billboards aren't too much of a problem when they're beside the highway; you can look at them or not, as you like. But if you were forced to view them before you could continue on to your destination, wouldn't that annoy you into finding a different route, if you could? Same thing with internet ads.
I only buy W.D. myself :) Comes of noticing which random salvaged drives are most likely to still be alive! My antique (1991) 20mb HD is a W.D. too.
My most elderly W.D. in everyday service has been running 24/7 for 11 years now :)
I've RMA'd a few, but considering how many WDs I've bought and their average lifespan, the occasional RMA doesn't excite me all that much. And they never fail to give plenty of warning when they do get sick, which in my view is a huge bonus. I've nursed a couple of 'em along for 3 years after they came down with the creeping crud -- with no data loss.
Rocks are more durable than cinder blocks, as blocks tend to crack/break from the heat. However, it's easier to wind up with a flat level cooking surface with blocks. :)
If your house is well-insulated and you're not in an extreme weather area, wood is doubtless fine. My trailer in Montana had HEARD of insulation but was weak on the concept (I piled snow up the walls and on the roof to help out!) and wood didn't cut it... it was okay down to zero or so, but below that it couldn't keep up. Coal kept it toasty even at -65 temps, but coal forces you to become an expert on fire management, as the chimney draft is very sensitive to outdoor temperature... coal smoke is thick, heavy, and dense... at -45 you need a HOT fire to get it up the chimney (then it lays on the ground in a pile that you can actually shovel up and carry off in a bucket!) Conversely if you get an unexpected chinook, er, warm spell, and you don't account for that, you need to keep it well-banked and barely burning, or it'll draw too hard and burn your house down :) OTOH, with good banking skills, you can keep a coal fire going continuously for the whole winter.
Saltcedar makes a good renewable woodlot -- dies back in harsh weather, cut off whole tree (multiple 5" trunks) and burn it, two years later it's grown back fullsized again, rinse and repeat as often as you like. Trouble is it's now classed as noxious/invasive most places. -- I mostly used downed cottonwoods and mill scrap in MT... easy to cut and in infinite supply.
Where you do live, anyway? As noted I grew up in MT but have been in SoCal for the past couple decades. I miss winter like I miss boils on my ass, but CA has gone batshit insane, so am trying to get moved back. :/
Good to know there are others who can still do for themselves, indeed! :D
I used to have a pit stove for summer too -- it was just a hole in the ground with four cinder blocks around it. Could cook in or atop the coals, or warm stuff in the holes in the blocks. Good place to use up the scrap and chips that aren't worth dragging into the house as kindling.
Coal actually heats much better than wood, as it puts out way more heat per pound AND the quality of the heat is better -- the room can be the same temperature yet it *feels* a lot warmer (longer wavelength, I think -- more penetrating). And when it's -60 out, wood can't keep up, but coal can. And you can keep a coal fire going continuously all winter. Trouble is, coal is a lot dirtier and more bother, especially with cleaning the chimney! And then there was the year I had to drive to Wyoming and mine my own coal...!!
That's an interesting take on "environmental cleanup" ;)
I used to work variable-timeframe jobs down in Los Angeles, so I'd be coming home up the 405 freeway to I-5 at fairly random hours. Regardless of the time, as I came into that interchange, I often found myself directly behind the same car -- a small sporty sedan type.
How did I know it was always the very same car? By the license plate, which read (I shit you not):
2SPY007
Which is one of the normal sequential plates in the California passenger-car system. Why so often at the same time? My guess is that whoever it was (I never could see the driver) also worked for a studio and lived north of L.A., and when we happened to be on the same production, we wound up driving home at about the same (variable) time.
Sure was an amusing coincidence all around.
Let's try that stove link again... seems it only works when it feels like it. Direct link: http://www.kountrylife.com/cookstoves/ccblk.jpg
I've used others but this model was perfect in every way.
Having lived with propane lamps and candles.. I agree with you, electric light is superior in almost every way :) OTOH, nothing beats a really good wood stove for cooking. http://www.kountrylife.com/cgi-bin/coll_pic.cgi?coll=cookstoves&picfile=ccblk.jpg&mode=All&Parameter=&SelectParameter=All&firstrec=1&lastrec=15 I once lived in a place that had one of this model. Great stove to cook on! Baked stuff really evenly. Heated the house. :)
I vastly prefer living out by myself too -- it is indeed far less stressful, not to mention less annoying. Most of what people think of as urban necessities, I do quite well without, or find some other way to manage, or would rather not be bothered with in the first place (this troglodyte doesn't have a cell phone and doesn't WANT one!)
Broadband would be hard to give up, tho -- mainly because I no longer have the patience for the World Wide Wait. (And to think I started with a 2400 baud modem! Tho I still use a BBS, and could run one myself if I needed it for email.) Probably the only way I'd get a cell phone was if I needed it for the associated broadband connection.
Ah, okay, thanks. I looked up the Wikipedia article but didn't learn much. :)
Given this.. I'm wondering if booster boxes along the route would extend its practical distance??
I never heard of any such thing (tho I don't doubt it's been worked out as a theoretical exercise) but... I live under one of the flight paths into Edwards AFB. A while back I noticed a correlation between various political crises and a spate of unmarked aircraft (mainly smaller passenger-type jets) coming in for a landing along this flight path. (Otherwise, it's not generally used, except for the larger cargo planes.) And sometimes a clump of these unmarked aircraft arrive without any reported news, which always makes me wonder what's going on that we don't hear about. :)
Actually, I know someone like that. He's a classical paranoid (has all but one of the 9 or 10 recognised symptoms, and it only takes 3 to diagnose), he wears his emotions on his sleeve, he wants to be acknowledged by others, and he's quick to take offense for any imagined slight.
The result is that this encourages "button pushers" and other small-time bullies to pick on him, because it's fun to make him snap and snarl ineffectively.
And in consequence, he believes that entities like the MTA are "conspiring against him" and cites "proofs" like that sometimes the bus stops 6 inches further away from the curb, making it harder for disabled people (like himself) to get on. But it can't be random driving error; it has to be because the driver hates him and wants to make his life difficult!
He also rejects any shrink who points out this paranoia or tries to treat it as such. He's really only interested in enablement, NOT in "getting treatment".
I've known people who are round-the-bend looney, where it doesn't negatively impact their daily lives, because they've managed to set up their lives to wholly enable their psychosis.
The ironic thing is, when I read Szasz's stuff, I concluded that *he* is schizophrenic.
I've observed that neglect. In fact, anyone can observe it just by following side roads thru rural California. It's a wonder that dialup works, let alone DSL!
I'm not familiar with VDSL2; is that where the range is extended if it's a "dry" (unused) line??
You are right -- "reasonably ubiquitous" really only applies to populated areas and travel corridors, where probably 99% of the population lives. Get very far from settled and traveled areas, and public services of this sort are rare to nil... tho I've noticed that areas settled a long time ago are far more likely to have run wires to remote (unprofitable to the provider) ranches, whereas the "newer" states are less likely to do so. Might be a side effect of rural co-ops.
As I did point out somewhere in this thread, there are chunks even of 40-million-pop California that have neither power nor phone, and as you say are unlikely to EVER get any wired services, due to the obscene cost/benefit ratio. Get more than a mile or so off the grid, and you're looking at the high six-figures to bring in power or phone.
When I priced it back in 1982 or so, the end-user cost was $16/foot for overhead, $40/foot for buried cable, and as a rule you don't have a choice which you use -- the state or county dictates it. Likely costs 3x as much by now. Another problem here in SoCal is that overhead wires are taxed, but underground cable is not; the long-term cost benefit to the provider is to use cable and avoid the tax, but the county doesn't want to lose that revenue, so it won't issue permits for new buried cable... but the state says "No more overhead wires". Catch-22, no grid power for you!! (Unless, of course, you're a big developer and can pay the appropriate bri^H^H^ fees.)
I've lived where neither power nor phone was available, and survived the experience (this was before solar panels and cell phones, too!) much as did most of our ancestors :)
There are pockets like that all over L.A., where DSL, cable, or both are unavailable, sometimes for no visible reason!
Have to agree with ya.. for some stuff, such as services that should be ubiquitous, gov't tends to do better than anyone else. If it would stick to just that, and stay the hell out of everything else, it would cost us far less and we'd be better off all around!
Given what you say, it's probably an It Depends thing, based on the condition of the system and its various parts.
Speaking of the two grids with which I'm familiar.. CA's in rural areas is often in rough shape, with lots of near-failing transformers; MT's is in much better condition and experiences far fewer spikes and sags. So at a guess, it would work better in MT than in CA.
Where the ONLY alternative is a 26k modem hookup, it may look pretty good even at its worst. :(
And it's a wonder that they can get their noses unstuck from the ceiling ;)
Very true. In fact I have friends within the Los Angeles city limits who can't get DSL at all.
I only concentrated on rural areas in my posts because so many slashdotters think only in terms of ideal suburbs with DSL and cable to every house, and it's tough to get 'em to think outside that unless the contrast is decidedly evident. :/