"I think this is one of the ironies of internet communication -- in an environment which supposedly promotes universal communication, people only seem to communicate in enclaves of like minds, reinforcing each other's narrow world views."
But this has always been true of all forms of communication. Look at the book market, for instance. Who is buying Al Franken's book? Confused, doubtful conservatives? Are liberals buying Rush Limbaugh's books because they want a better understanding of both sides? Unlikely.
Even in the market for "literary" fiction, most people do not like to read books that will confront them with something that's alien to their own worldview. Alien to their own experience, maybe -- but if a novel ends on a note that is disharmonious with how they saw the world already, they will probably report that they did not like the book.
That's just the way it is. Most people -- even very intelligent people -- first seek out those opinions and works that reinforce and agree with what they already think they know and/or believe in. Only after they are confronted with evidence that suggests what they had previously adhered to is patently "wrong" do people start to change their minds -- and some people won't, even then.
However, as a side note, you cannot claim either statutory damages or attorney's fees for a work that has not been registered with the U.S. Copyright office. Primary authors of free software may want to take note. Slapping a GPL notice on your software may not be sufficient to give you the tools you need, should you ever need to go to court over an issue of copyright violation.
IANAL, but as I see it the problem goes something like this: Since you're probably making zero money from your code, you won't be able to prove any actual damages. The violator probably profited from their actions, but you would have to provide documentation establishing how much money they made, and they would be given the opportunity to make the case to the court of how infinitesimal your code's contribution to their overall product was. ("But your honor, Windows is eighteen billion lines of code. The infringing eight hundred lines are essentially worthless.")
So rather than play that game, you put it in the hands of the court: "Your honor, we are requesting statutory damages." The court, being no dummy, merely has to believe that the infringement was willful, and they can hand you as much as $150,000 in statutory damages, boom, just like that. Nobody needs to see anybody's bank record; you need prove nothing more than that willful infringement took place. Good deal, huh?
But again, you must have filed with the Copyright Office to be able to make this case. There is a little "grace period" -- you can actually register your work after the infringement took place and still claim -- but only if you still register within three months of publication.
See, if GNAA *really* knew how to troll, they would have changed something in that repost so it was actually funny, and pulled the wool over the eyes of the people who mod posts up before they actually read them. Simple cutting and pasting just increases the signal/noise ratio. It's redundant without being entertaining.
I have a friend who has ADD, and back in his "drug period" he used to freak out his friends because he could come home, do a line or two of speed, then hop into bed and go to sleep. I've never met even a hardcore speed freak who would do that -- those people generally just stay up for days at a time. Quite simply, speed does not affect my friend the way it does most people.
Give him a few Twinkies, on the other hand, and he will freak out. This is a man in his thirties, but he reacts to too much sugar just like a little kid does.
No. Love was pushed out by the Canopy Group, which had financial control over Caldera, and replaced him with McBride. McBride then changed the name of Caldera to the SCO Group.
For those unfamiliar with the techs, the spec set forth by Toshiba/Nec is backward compatible with the now current tech. The blu-ray is not backwards compatible.
What's interesting to me is that both the specs being talked about here seem to use blue lasers to pack more data onto the disc. Not too long ago, the competition vs. the Blu-ray group seemed to focus on sticking with traditional red lasers and just using more aggressive compression (e.g. MPEG-4). I'm glad to see that idea is going away. I still have a lot of early-generation DVDs where the compression artifacts are very noticable.
The thing that's true now is that the Mac systems are competitive. They're close to the fastest Intel/Athlon systems -- close enough that there's not an OBVIOUS performance reason to choose one or another.
Depends what you're doing.
Example: LAME isn't Altivec-enhanced yet, and shows no signs of getting that way. Ripping MP3s on my 733 MHz G4 takes roughly twice as long as on my 900 MHz Pentium-M laptop.
It's not like spammers are just now discovering fax machines. Junk faxes are old enough news that there's already legislation on the books to cover them, in the U.S.
The reason people like fax machines isn't because they don't get junk faxes. It's not because fax machines are easy to use, either (though they are -- but with a little computer literacy, email is too).
You can sum up fax's popularity in one word: Paper.
Maybe it would be taken more seriously if its most vocal supporters were also for the legalization of marijuana.
Are you kidding? The number one reason most people discount hemp "activism" automatically is because it's plain that most of the people in favor of it really just want to smoke weed.
I don't completely get it... So a sound file was used again and again...isn't this common place?
Sure, but it is kinda fun when you start to recognize these things. You'll hear more of them if you like to watch B-movies. When people say that, most folks think "movies from the 1950s-60s, but the fun thing is that you'll still hear the same sound effects in some brand-new, edited-on-Final-Cut, direct-to-video release that came out this year.
My personal favorite is the BBC audio "spooky werewolf" sound effect. You still hear it all over the place. It starts with the sound of a wolf (or old junkyard dog?) howling, then immediately follows that up with a cat giving two aggravated-sounding meows. The actual sound effect (you can get it on old BBC sound effects records; your library may have some) repeats this sound about 3-4 times, and it's always the same: Wolf howl, cat. Wolf howl, cat. It cracks me up when modern movies actually let the tape loop run through more than one sequence, cuz it's one of the goofiest things I've heard.
I think you have a really good point. Furthermore, if you want younger kids to read, they first have to have time to read. And the problem there is that, most of the times they have to "themselves" (on the bus, after school etc.) they're interacting with their friends (something else that is valuable for their development).
When I was a kid, I used to do a lot of reading right before I went to bed. The problem was that I got tired, so a lot of sections of books ended up getting absorbed where I wasn't maybe as sharp as I could have been. These days I'll read on the bus, or in a cafe or something -- I seem to have more time strictly to myself, and I certainly have more control over how I use it than when I was 12.
I wonder how many elementary school teachers set aside some time, maybe 15 minutes every day, where kids can just read? Not read aloud with the class, but just read a book -- any old book, of their own choosing. The teacher can help out with words etc., if need be. There would be a shelf full of books in the class that kids could pick from if they didn't have a book of their own. It would probably have been one of my favorite times of the school day.
Chuck Palahniuk's DIARY is without a doubt the worst of 2003 as it had such very high expectations (well, Chuck's expectations are dropping rapidly).
I am always, always disappointed by Palahniuk's novels, though I find myself reading them because I like his style. What was so bad about this one? Say, as compared to Lullaby (which wasn't great)?
See, I've often picked up this book after seeing all the stickers on it for the awards it's gotten, etc., but then I always put it back down. It seems the universal praise is: "And get this... he's on the boat with a tiger! Isn't that wild? What a gripping story!"
And yet, this doesn't sound all that "gripping" to me. It sounds like a story of limited scope that takes place in a single, mostly featureless setting. It doesn't sound like it has much characterization, based on the fact that it only has one character in it (plus tiger). Not to mention the fact that the idea of being in a lifeboat with a tiger sounds, well, a little ridiculous -- your typical "literary author's" contrivance.
And I might also note: don't even set foot in the building with the file. Mail them a PDF with your order, and come in a few hours later.
Actually, I get best results when I show up with a PowerBook and print it myself. They'll usually have a CD-ROM available with drivers for their printers. You can install those, plug your laptop into an Ethernet jack, and send your file to the Fiery or whatever. If it comes out crappy, you have the satisfaction of knowing it was your own damn fault. Added bonus: When you bring your own laptop, you don't have to worry about the money you're wasting on workstation fees. You can hang around as long as you want, until the prints come out right.
The amount of shit you are putting into the air is absurd. Use rubber cement and a brush. Yes, it takes five fucking minutes longer.
But of course, the correct technique for using rubber cement is to apply it to both surfaces, let it cure, and then take advantage of rubber cement's property of sticking to itself. You don't just slop it on there and then mash the two pieces of paper together. You let it dry on both surfaces, then put a slip shit made of something like tracing paper in between them while you position them, then pull out the slip sheet, press, and voila! A venerable, time-honored technique, but I'm afraid it does take a little more than five minutes longer than spray adhesive.
While not really sharing your political stance, though, I agree that anybody playing around with spray adhesive should have lots of ventilation and respiratory protection.
Slashdot Mirror
Even in the market for "literary" fiction, most people do not like to read books that will confront them with something that's alien to their own worldview. Alien to their own experience, maybe -- but if a novel ends on a note that is disharmonious with how they saw the world already, they will probably report that they did not like the book.
That's just the way it is. Most people -- even very intelligent people -- first seek out those opinions and works that reinforce and agree with what they already think they know and/or believe in. Only after they are confronted with evidence that suggests what they had previously adhered to is patently "wrong" do people start to change their minds -- and some people won't, even then.
IANAL, but as I see it the problem goes something like this: Since you're probably making zero money from your code, you won't be able to prove any actual damages. The violator probably profited from their actions, but you would have to provide documentation establishing how much money they made, and they would be given the opportunity to make the case to the court of how infinitesimal your code's contribution to their overall product was. ("But your honor, Windows is eighteen billion lines of code. The infringing eight hundred lines are essentially worthless.")
So rather than play that game, you put it in the hands of the court: "Your honor, we are requesting statutory damages." The court, being no dummy, merely has to believe that the infringement was willful, and they can hand you as much as $150,000 in statutory damages, boom, just like that. Nobody needs to see anybody's bank record; you need prove nothing more than that willful infringement took place. Good deal, huh?
But again, you must have filed with the Copyright Office to be able to make this case. There is a little "grace period" -- you can actually register your work after the infringement took place and still claim -- but only if you still register within three months of publication.
Sorry pal, my karma hit the cap years ago.
See, if GNAA *really* knew how to troll, they would have changed something in that repost so it was actually funny, and pulled the wool over the eyes of the people who mod posts up before they actually read them. Simple cutting and pasting just increases the signal/noise ratio. It's redundant without being entertaining.
Shame on you.
P.S. Real trolls don't post AC.
The text of this post is swiped from the "Konqueror on OS X" discussion here.
Give him a few Twinkies, on the other hand, and he will freak out. This is a man in his thirties, but he reacts to too much sugar just like a little kid does.
"Mr. Murphy, are you suggesting you lied on your application?"
"No! No -- well, yeah. But, just to get me foot in the door, likesay."
Example: LAME isn't Altivec-enhanced yet, and shows no signs of getting that way. Ripping MP3s on my 733 MHz G4 takes roughly twice as long as on my 900 MHz Pentium-M laptop.
It's not like spammers are just now discovering fax machines. Junk faxes are old enough news that there's already legislation on the books to cover them, in the U.S.
The reason people like fax machines isn't because they don't get junk faxes. It's not because fax machines are easy to use, either (though they are -- but with a little computer literacy, email is too).
You can sum up fax's popularity in one word: Paper.
Think about it.
In the same article, Pournelle describes SETI as "religion," rather than science.
Laughing Stock: The Darl McBride Story
The title works on so many levels...
Let's start with analyzing the sound effects in Star Wars...
My personal favorite is the BBC audio "spooky werewolf" sound effect. You still hear it all over the place. It starts with the sound of a wolf (or old junkyard dog?) howling, then immediately follows that up with a cat giving two aggravated-sounding meows. The actual sound effect (you can get it on old BBC sound effects records; your library may have some) repeats this sound about 3-4 times, and it's always the same: Wolf howl, cat. Wolf howl, cat. It cracks me up when modern movies actually let the tape loop run through more than one sequence, cuz it's one of the goofiest things I've heard.
I think you have a really good point. Furthermore, if you want younger kids to read, they first have to have time to read. And the problem there is that, most of the times they have to "themselves" (on the bus, after school etc.) they're interacting with their friends (something else that is valuable for their development).
When I was a kid, I used to do a lot of reading right before I went to bed. The problem was that I got tired, so a lot of sections of books ended up getting absorbed where I wasn't maybe as sharp as I could have been. These days I'll read on the bus, or in a cafe or something -- I seem to have more time strictly to myself, and I certainly have more control over how I use it than when I was 12.
I wonder how many elementary school teachers set aside some time, maybe 15 minutes every day, where kids can just read? Not read aloud with the class, but just read a book -- any old book, of their own choosing. The teacher can help out with words etc., if need be. There would be a shelf full of books in the class that kids could pick from if they didn't have a book of their own. It would probably have been one of my favorite times of the school day.
See, I've often picked up this book after seeing all the stickers on it for the awards it's gotten, etc., but then I always put it back down. It seems the universal praise is: "And get this ... he's on the boat with a tiger! Isn't that wild? What a gripping story!"
And yet, this doesn't sound all that "gripping" to me. It sounds like a story of limited scope that takes place in a single, mostly featureless setting. It doesn't sound like it has much characterization, based on the fact that it only has one character in it (plus tiger). Not to mention the fact that the idea of being in a lifeboat with a tiger sounds, well, a little ridiculous -- your typical "literary author's" contrivance.
What's so good about it?
The movie "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" was based on two or more of these.
You may want to read the P.S.
While not really sharing your political stance, though, I agree that anybody playing around with spray adhesive should have lots of ventilation and respiratory protection.