The first thing I would do, if I were a bookstore and the recipient of such a letter, would be to inform all the small authors (AND their agents) published by said company, that this is WHY my store no longer carries their books.
This letter is nothing but blackmail.
What's even more ironic, is that one reason the store isn't "sufficiently profitable" is because there is not enough demand for that publisher's books.
Well, I thought that was the point -- that the files were *available* to be infringed, but there wasn't any evidence that they actually *had* been infringed; therefore why is just having the files "parked" an infringement?
Just cuz I parked in front of the bank doesn't mean the bank got robbed!
Well, that is a good point... the suit has dire implications about ISPs and censorship (and personal irresponsibility), but AOL has the resources to potentially make the RIAA turn tail and run. And if nothing else, the spreading ripples will get attention where the RIAA suits hadn't been noticed before.
Hmm... Best case: the RIAA chucks a suit back at AOL, and they proceed to beat one another to death.
I had similar thoughts... and if this goes against AOL, one has to wonder what can of worms that opens up.
If "defective parental controls" get the blame, it could mean the end of ISPs providing said controls. (Probably a good thing, since parents ought to be responsible for their kids anyway.)
If *AOL* itself (as a "facilitating" ISP) gets the blame, it could be the start of severe ISP-imposed censorship, and the end of the concept of common-carrier immunity.
I can see how someone cursed with an RIAA lawsuit would be thrilled to shift the lawsuit to deeper pockets, but I'm not sure it's such a good thing for anyone else.
Oh, I see: Since I *might* use my car as a getaway vehicle, and perhaps even parked near the bank, that means I ought to be arrested for bank robbery, even tho I've never robbed a bank.
Per TFA... it refers to mere *possession of a shared folder* that is internet-accessable (per my analogy, possession of a car with a full gas tank) as an infringing act -- even if at no time were any files shared (at no time were any banks robbed).
I'm not promoting copyright infringement, but this "MIGHT be shared" qualification seems perilously close to thought crime. After all, if I buy a gun, I *might* shoot someone.... best arrest me before it can happen!!
[laughing] Yeah, if only we could pick our parents, and then cherrypick our genes!!
"Stronger" wasn't necessarily the most accurate word re immune systems... after all, autoimmune disease might be viewed as "too strong for its own good" as well as aimed at the wrong target, and an allergy is a response that shouldn't happen. But essentially I meant "appropriatly responsive", ie. not responding to ordinary stimuli (pollen, dust, cat dander), but responding well against potentially-pathogenic invaders. Geez, that's a lot of verbiage... How about "stronger" instead?:)
Funny thing, the stuff I considered most useless while I was in school, is what I have the most use for out in the Real World. Goes to show what kids know about what they really need to know.
And I totally agree with your post. My obvservations exactly.
I was with you (and had high school curricula almost exactly as you postulate) until this:
Rote memorization has its uses. It ensures that the data is instantly available to your brain without having to reinvent the pathway each and every time you need the data. Rote memorization means you don't have to stop and work out how to write each word and each sentence structure. It means you don't have to stop and add up the numbers every time you need to perform simple multiplication. It means the data STICKS in your brain for the rest of your life, without ever again needing to *waste time thinking about it* -- time that would be better spent at real problem-solving or creativity. In short, rote memorization means you don't have to reinvent the wheel on a daily basis.
And sometimes kids just WON'T learn something (especially boring stuff like grammar, spelling, and basic math) unless they're made to do this rote regurgitation. At the time it may seem to go in one ear and out the other, but just the *act of repetition* makes it stick in your brain, even if you don't =notice= that it has.
It works with adults, too. Here's a real-life example: My neighbour read the state driver handbook a dozen times and still couldn't remember enough from it to pass the written test. It all went in one eyeball and out the other. I made her sit down and COPY the entire booklet out LONGHAND (this is important, you cannot *type* stuff you need to memorize) -- and next time she passed the test with only one mistake.
Actually, the findings I've heard about have all agreed overwhelmingly that having dogs, cats, and a certain amount of normal dirt in the household will all help prevent allergies, and lead to stronger immune systems. However, there will always still be individuals like yourself who develop allergies regardless. Most likely that's an inherited component trumping the environment.
Several years ago, a friend and I talked to the Novell guys about that. They said Novell was already looking into opensourcing obsolete versions of Netware, especially for Netware 3.x and before. That nothing has yet come of it is probably, as others have speculated, due to too much of their own code being tangled up with licensed code. Second, getting a huge pile of closed-source codebase ready for the public eye is a major undertaking, and could be they can't justify paying their guys to do it, and there aren't enough volunteers.
As to later versions, could also be the fact that they still have a major chunk of customer base using Netware 4/5/6. You DON'T start giving away what active accounts too-recently paid for, unless you want said users to be mightily pissed.
Question I put up above: how much of the foot-dragging is Capitol not wanting to pay, and how much is them arguing with their laywers about WHO should pay? (You lost in court, YOU pay! It's not OUR case, YOU pay!)
Second, what's the chances of this coming to an asset seizure to force them to pay?
I'm wondering if there's some penalty statute that might be relevant and useful and would suck even more money out of the RIAA coffers (preferably without having to go back to court for it)... the more this can come out to be a losing deal for the RIAA cartel (and their lawyers) the better off the world will be.
I'm also wondering if the RIAA and their lawyers are fighting over just who should pay the awarded court costs!
That's a serious problem all right. The linkfarms have gotten so good at gaming the search engines, that sometimes it's not possible to find (or to separate out) the real results from the crap results.
And considering how many linkfarms show up in the adwords sidebar, one has to wonder just how serious Google is about keeping them out of the main search results.
Yes, yes, yes! I agree 10000%!!! I just want a damned search box, I don't want the kitchen sink, a Starbucks, and a French chef! fine, put links to all that other crap there, I don't care, just don't make me wade through it.
Maps usually show *dedicated* streets (ie. where the legal easement goes), not actual streets. And the two often don't match, sometimes not even close. The only maps I've ever seen that *always* showed actual streets (not dedicated streets) were the AAA maps from pre-1990. (Now they're as inaccurate as everyone else.)
Good example: the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power sits squarely atop a dedicated street. If you try to use said street, you'll smack into a large concrete wall.:)
Rural street maps are even more fun, since very often the easement and where people actually drive are hundreds of yards apart.
Not only that, but when Google DOES decide to "mature" its stuff, it BREAKS things that used to work for everyone.
How many folks here use some form of Mozilla/Firefox? How many of you have noticed that you can no longer maximize the Map area, since the arrow to get rid of the sidebar is invisible in anything but IE? There used to be a hack to fix this, but recently it stopped working. Oh, and if you complain, you do NOT get an answer anymore (used to, but not now).
And then there's Google search. It used to work in absolutely any browser (at least well enough). But now that they've "matured" it, if you're not using the CSS-enabled browser of their choice, it's a mess. It got bad enough that a friend and I worked up our own custom interface (which by bizarre coincidence, works just like the old one!), just so we could use the damned thing without having to fight with the layout.
SIMPLE isn't the problem. STOPPED WORKING is the problem. Sometimes lately I find myself going to Yahoo maps out of sheer desperation, because Google maps will NOT give me the correct location (sometimes not even in the correct state!), or INSISTS that I really wanted some OTHER location, etc, etc.
And what's to prevent an update from enforcing an End Of Life on software? (Intuit already does this occasionally...)
I can readily see this done such that it only affects home and small users, and leaves corporate systems untouched (because business would howl bloody murder at the colossal gall of such a move). One need merely predicate the patch's behaviour on the existing key, or on authenticating said key against a known-bad list.
I don't "act out" any of the behaviours learned in DOOM (tho I sometimes have fun dreams set in a DOOM environment). But I have noticed that playing DOOM (which I still do), and becoming GOOD at it, also made me a much better driver, because it made me more aware of ALL the moving and hazardous objects that my vehicle might intersect. And I've always been good at maps and navigation, but DOOM improved my ability to peg my location on and keep track of the map in my head.
On the other end of things, even speaking as a hunter, I fail to see how killing hellspawn on the screen equates to killing anything in real life. (Roast pinkies... eugh!!)
Tho if your workplace is invaded by hellspawn from that hole in the basement, I'm your man:)
Server is going so slow right now that I gave up on the download til the crowd thins, so don't know if this is what's going on, but:
Compressed executables can render the virus invisible. Different compression schemes can alter scanning results. So it behooves one to test both an uncompressed executable, and the same virus in a variety of compressed formats.
Incidentally, this problem was why I stopped using McAfee's DOS scanner, back about 1994: Every time its engine was updated, I'd test it against my zoo. One day the update was unable to find a common virus in compressed form, tho it could see it uncompressed. F-Prot saw them both. I switched, and never went back.
Ah. I can see that leading to an increase in neck injuries, too.
I do wonder what the injury stats are for skilled vs unskilled riders? back when I was a kid, everyone was expert on a bicycle, if only from necessity -- it was the only way most kids had to get from point A to point B, other than walking. No nanny expresses back then! No helmets either, and I never heard of anyone getting hurt.
My incident happened when supermarket lasers were newfangled tech. I wonder if they used a stronger laser back then?? my exposure was maybe half a second, tops.
Interesting link about photic sneeze reflex -- every Norwegian I know (including my mom's whole family) has this to a mild degree (one or two sneezes worth, never more). I wonder if it's a protective adaptation, given that in northern climates, the most common "sudden bright light" is sunlight reflecting off snow. Tho I've found as little as a 4W nightlight can trigger nasal drip.
Slashdot Mirror
I've noticed something fairly consistent about the people I know who like Vista well enough to make it their primary OS:
They are the same people who have been M$ beta testers for a number of versions, and have always been "early adopters" all the way back.
They are also people who tend to get bored with OS-related arguments very easily, and are always ready to move on to something new.
Nothing here is meant to be for or against such people; it's just what I've observed.
Myself, I haven't even tried it yet.
The first thing I would do, if I were a bookstore and the recipient of such a letter, would be to inform all the small authors (AND their agents) published by said company, that this is WHY my store no longer carries their books.
This letter is nothing but blackmail.
What's even more ironic, is that one reason the store isn't "sufficiently profitable" is because there is not enough demand for that publisher's books.
Well, I thought that was the point -- that the files were *available* to be infringed, but there wasn't any evidence that they actually *had* been infringed; therefore why is just having the files "parked" an infringement?
Just cuz I parked in front of the bank doesn't mean the bank got robbed!
Well, that is a good point... the suit has dire implications about ISPs and censorship (and personal irresponsibility), but AOL has the resources to potentially make the RIAA turn tail and run. And if nothing else, the spreading ripples will get attention where the RIAA suits hadn't been noticed before.
Hmm... Best case: the RIAA chucks a suit back at AOL, and they proceed to beat one another to death.
I had similar thoughts... and if this goes against AOL, one has to wonder what can of worms that opens up.
If "defective parental controls" get the blame, it could mean the end of ISPs providing said controls. (Probably a good thing, since parents ought to be responsible for their kids anyway.)
If *AOL* itself (as a "facilitating" ISP) gets the blame, it could be the start of severe ISP-imposed censorship, and the end of the concept of common-carrier immunity.
I can see how someone cursed with an RIAA lawsuit would be thrilled to shift the lawsuit to deeper pockets, but I'm not sure it's such a good thing for anyone else.
Oh, I see: Since I *might* use my car as a getaway vehicle, and perhaps even parked near the bank, that means I ought to be arrested for bank robbery, even tho I've never robbed a bank.
Per TFA... it refers to mere *possession of a shared folder* that is internet-accessable (per my analogy, possession of a car with a full gas tank) as an infringing act -- even if at no time were any files shared (at no time were any banks robbed).
I'm not promoting copyright infringement, but this "MIGHT be shared" qualification seems perilously close to thought crime. After all, if I buy a gun, I *might* shoot someone.... best arrest me before it can happen!!
[laughing] Yeah, if only we could pick our parents, and then cherrypick our genes!!
... after all, autoimmune disease might be viewed as "too strong for its own good" as well as aimed at the wrong target, and an allergy is a response that shouldn't happen. But essentially I meant "appropriatly responsive", ie. not responding to ordinary stimuli (pollen, dust, cat dander), but responding well against potentially-pathogenic invaders. Geez, that's a lot of verbiage... How about "stronger" instead? :)
"Stronger" wasn't necessarily the most accurate word re immune systems
Funny thing, the stuff I considered most useless while I was in school, is what I have the most use for out in the Real World. Goes to show what kids know about what they really need to know.
And I totally agree with your post. My obvservations exactly.
I was with you (and had high school curricula almost exactly as you postulate) until this:
Rote memorization has its uses. It ensures that the data is instantly available to your brain without having to reinvent the pathway each and every time you need the data. Rote memorization means you don't have to stop and work out how to write each word and each sentence structure. It means you don't have to stop and add up the numbers every time you need to perform simple multiplication. It means the data STICKS in your brain for the rest of your life, without ever again needing to *waste time thinking about it* -- time that would be better spent at real problem-solving or creativity. In short, rote memorization means you don't have to reinvent the wheel on a daily basis.
And sometimes kids just WON'T learn something (especially boring stuff like grammar, spelling, and basic math) unless they're made to do this rote regurgitation. At the time it may seem to go in one ear and out the other, but just the *act of repetition* makes it stick in your brain, even if you don't =notice= that it has.
It works with adults, too. Here's a real-life example: My neighbour read the state driver handbook a dozen times and still couldn't remember enough from it to pass the written test. It all went in one eyeball and out the other. I made her sit down and COPY the entire booklet out LONGHAND (this is important, you cannot *type* stuff you need to memorize) -- and next time she passed the test with only one mistake.
Actually, the findings I've heard about have all agreed overwhelmingly that having dogs, cats, and a certain amount of normal dirt in the household will all help prevent allergies, and lead to stronger immune systems. However, there will always still be individuals like yourself who develop allergies regardless. Most likely that's an inherited component trumping the environment.
Best punchline revision ever :D
Several years ago, a friend and I talked to the Novell guys about that. They said Novell was already looking into opensourcing obsolete versions of Netware, especially for Netware 3.x and before. That nothing has yet come of it is probably, as others have speculated, due to too much of their own code being tangled up with licensed code. Second, getting a huge pile of closed-source codebase ready for the public eye is a major undertaking, and could be they can't justify paying their guys to do it, and there aren't enough volunteers.
As to later versions, could also be the fact that they still have a major chunk of customer base using Netware 4/5/6. You DON'T start giving away what active accounts too-recently paid for, unless you want said users to be mightily pissed.
Question I put up above: how much of the foot-dragging is Capitol not wanting to pay, and how much is them arguing with their laywers about WHO should pay? (You lost in court, YOU pay! It's not OUR case, YOU pay!)
Second, what's the chances of this coming to an asset seizure to force them to pay?
I'm wondering if there's some penalty statute that might be relevant and useful and would suck even more money out of the RIAA coffers (preferably without having to go back to court for it) ... the more this can come out to be a losing deal for the RIAA cartel (and their lawyers) the better off the world will be.
I'm also wondering if the RIAA and their lawyers are fighting over just who should pay the awarded court costs!
That's a serious problem all right. The linkfarms have gotten so good at gaming the search engines, that sometimes it's not possible to find (or to separate out) the real results from the crap results.
And considering how many linkfarms show up in the adwords sidebar, one has to wonder just how serious Google is about keeping them out of the main search results.
Yes, yes, yes! I agree 10000%!!! I just want a damned search box, I don't want the kitchen sink, a Starbucks, and a French chef! fine, put links to all that other crap there, I don't care, just don't make me wade through it.
Maps usually show *dedicated* streets (ie. where the legal easement goes), not actual streets. And the two often don't match, sometimes not even close. The only maps I've ever seen that *always* showed actual streets (not dedicated streets) were the AAA maps from pre-1990. (Now they're as inaccurate as everyone else.)
:)
Good example: the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power sits squarely atop a dedicated street. If you try to use said street, you'll smack into a large concrete wall.
Rural street maps are even more fun, since very often the easement and where people actually drive are hundreds of yards apart.
Not only that, but when Google DOES decide to "mature" its stuff, it BREAKS things that used to work for everyone.
How many folks here use some form of Mozilla/Firefox? How many of you have noticed that you can no longer maximize the Map area, since the arrow to get rid of the sidebar is invisible in anything but IE? There used to be a hack to fix this, but recently it stopped working. Oh, and if you complain, you do NOT get an answer anymore (used to, but not now).
And then there's Google search. It used to work in absolutely any browser (at least well enough). But now that they've "matured" it, if you're not using the CSS-enabled browser of their choice, it's a mess. It got bad enough that a friend and I worked up our own custom interface (which by bizarre coincidence, works just like the old one!), just so we could use the damned thing without having to fight with the layout.
SIMPLE isn't the problem. STOPPED WORKING is the problem. Sometimes lately I find myself going to Yahoo maps out of sheer desperation, because Google maps will NOT give me the correct location (sometimes not even in the correct state!), or INSISTS that I really wanted some OTHER location, etc, etc.
So, you're saying it comes from the Department of Corrections? ;)
And what's to prevent an update from enforcing an End Of Life on software? (Intuit already does this occasionally...)
I can readily see this done such that it only affects home and small users, and leaves corporate systems untouched (because business would howl bloody murder at the colossal gall of such a move). One need merely predicate the patch's behaviour on the existing key, or on authenticating said key against a known-bad list.
I don't "act out" any of the behaviours learned in DOOM (tho I sometimes have fun dreams set in a DOOM environment). But I have noticed that playing DOOM (which I still do), and becoming GOOD at it, also made me a much better driver, because it made me more aware of ALL the moving and hazardous objects that my vehicle might intersect. And I've always been good at maps and navigation, but DOOM improved my ability to peg my location on and keep track of the map in my head.
:)
On the other end of things, even speaking as a hunter, I fail to see how killing hellspawn on the screen equates to killing anything in real life. (Roast pinkies... eugh!!)
Tho if your workplace is invaded by hellspawn from that hole in the basement, I'm your man
Server is going so slow right now that I gave up on the download til the crowd thins, so don't know if this is what's going on, but:
Compressed executables can render the virus invisible. Different compression schemes can alter scanning results. So it behooves one to test both an uncompressed executable, and the same virus in a variety of compressed formats.
Incidentally, this problem was why I stopped using McAfee's DOS scanner, back about 1994: Every time its engine was updated, I'd test it against my zoo. One day the update was unable to find a common virus in compressed form, tho it could see it uncompressed. F-Prot saw them both. I switched, and never went back.
Ah. I can see that leading to an increase in neck injuries, too.
I do wonder what the injury stats are for skilled vs unskilled riders? back when I was a kid, everyone was expert on a bicycle, if only from necessity -- it was the only way most kids had to get from point A to point B, other than walking. No nanny expresses back then! No helmets either, and I never heard of anyone getting hurt.
[goes off, reads]
My incident happened when supermarket lasers were newfangled tech. I wonder if they used a stronger laser back then?? my exposure was maybe half a second, tops.
Interesting link about photic sneeze reflex -- every Norwegian I know (including my mom's whole family) has this to a mild degree (one or two sneezes worth, never more). I wonder if it's a protective adaptation, given that in northern climates, the most common "sudden bright light" is sunlight reflecting off snow. Tho I've found as little as a 4W nightlight can trigger nasal drip.
Any idea why that is? I'm wondering if the extra weight of the helmet contributes.