Does anyone know of someplace which is offering access to these printers to paying customers? I would be perfectly happy to email CAD plans to a fabricator if I could get a quick, cheap kit of parts back in the mail.
Buy your own machine. You said you're into modeling. That's what these are made for. Their smaller solutions are only a couple grand for a scanner & printer. Just over a grand if you only want the printer. Very cool stuff.
I mean it's not like this thing scanned in the broken pulley and made a replica based on the scan.
Probably not, but the Roland Picza will scan in smaller objects. You can then use their Modela to print out an exact duplicate. I saw a review of these products where they scanned in a little Yoda figure and printed out a copy. It was nearly perfect in every detail, save for the coloring... Best part: These things aren't all that expensive. A couple thousand dollars for both.
Oh, and where the hell was this guy's boss when he used the quarter million dollar rapid prototyper to make a two dollar aluminum pulley for a sander... Don't even tell me that polycarbonate will be a good substitute for a pulley in a sander which was originally made from aluminum.
When down, most production lines cost the company huge amounts of money per hour. The production lines in some plants cost hundreds of thousands of dollars every hour that they are down. Why? Well, first, no product is being made. Second, you're paying x hundred employees to sit on their butts waiting for the line to be fixed. The labor costs alone are staggering.
The guy who made this part had two choices: Leave the line down for a few days while waiting for a replacement to arrive (and likely costing the company $Millions), or create a new one and get the line back up and running in just a couple of hours. Wherever his boss was, I bet he gave him a nice fat raise. The guy just paid for the quarter million dollar machine and then some.
As for the new part not being a good substitute: "It's been a month now, and the belt sander is still going strong... I have an aluminum replacement pulley now, but I'm in no hurry to install it. With the way this one has performed, I want to see how long it lasts!" (Link to quote)
Re:So I will drive with my windows open, NEXT
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Remote Breathalyzer
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· Score: 1
I say don't make laws prohibiting it. I guess mandatory was a bad word to use. Better to say: default install, but you can even request a car without one. OK, fine, so make it an optional feature.
In that case, I'm with you. I don't have a problem with people putting these in their cars by choice. Hell, I was arguing for freedom: If omeone wants one of these things in their car, I'm all for it. Have fun. As long as I don't have to put one in mine, I could care less what everyone else does.:)
Re:So I will drive with my windows open, NEXT
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Remote Breathalyzer
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· Score: 2
It should be mandatory that all cars have these devices once they've been tested to be highly reliable, and not sending out 'false positives' on aftershave, etc.
Great idea. While we're at it, why don't we put recording devices in your vehicle as well? That way if you say specific words ("bomb", "drugs") the police are notified. Or how about other sensors to make sure you don't violate any traffic laws? Exceed the speed limit, pull too many G's in a corner, accelerate too quickly, don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign, or violate any number of other laws and you get a ticket in the mail. We could even put sensors in your toilet, so if you take a piss after smoking a joint or eating a poppyseed muffin, the police can come confiscate your contraband and throw you in jail - we all know that drug users are violent, dangerous felons. Hey, if it saves thousands of lives each year...::rolleyes::
Look, I dislike drunk drivers as much as the next guy, but I also dislike this big brother mentality. I don't even drink, but I still don't want the government watching what I do. It's none of their damn business. Quite frankly if I purchased a car with this bullshit installed, I'd yank it right out. Anyone with even basic automotive skills can bypass something like this.
Finally, you're forgetting that we live in the USA, supposedly the land of the free. If you want to live in a safe society controlled by the government, move to China. I'm sure they'd love to have you. But don't fsck this country up; I for one enjoy my freedom.
Again, she's not suing for money. She's suing to force the company to disclose what they are doing. The idea is to get this information out to the public, so the average Joe will know before purchasing the disc that it won't play in his PC. This is a great way to start a public backlash; enough MP3 players have been sold that the general public would throw a fit if they were unable to convert their legally purchased discs into MP3s. The problem right now is most people have no idea this is going on.
Moreover there is likely no representation that the CD will play on a computer 'anonymously'.
You mean 'at all'. The CD won't play in a computer, period. The registration is to allow you to download the song in Windows Media format, not to allow the CD to play. As for no representation, you don't think the CD logo on the disc qualifies as representation? This indicates that the CD complies with the red book standard, which should be playable in any drive that can read said standard. Since it won't, it's technically broken.
Keep in mind that this lawsuit is about disclosure, not money. She's not trying to win a million bucks here.
If you're going to put out a CD that does not comply with the standards, you have an obligation to warn consumers. I would be pissed if I bought a CD that didn't play in my CD-ROM, my car, etc. (car stereos that read MP3s are technically CD-ROM drives and will not read these "encrypted" discs, either. Many higher end home CD players also have CD-ROM drives in them and will not read the discs).
I just tell them they can't have my phone number. That usually suffices. When they insist, I say, "You know what, I don't even have a phone." I'm waiting for some snotty employee to notice the cellphone clipped to my belt and demand that number so I can really piss them off ("That's not a phone, it's a garage door opener."), but it hasn't happened yet.
I work for $LARGE_COMPANY which owns many aircraft
Likewise. I haven't taken a trip on my company's Learjets yet, but have flown in their King Air a number of times. I've also flown commercial when their aircraft weren't available, and the differences are amazing.
Commercial: Arrive at airport. Check in. Xray luggage. Wait half an hour if you time it right. Whoops, airplane is behind schedule. Wait another hour. Board. Strap yourself into flimsy uncomfortable seat with 80 other people. Fan yourself with magazine because it's too damn hot in there. Wait another half hour. Takeoff. Eventually, land at another airport, wait 3 more hours and repeat above procedure. Arrive at destination.
Private: Arrive at airport. Board plane immediately. At worst, wait 5 minutes because you got there early. Hand baggage to pilots, climb aboard and get lost in the plush leather seating. Take shoes off, lean seat back and put your feet up on the seat in front of you. Temperature is perfect. If not, tell pilots to turn the AC on and get instant gratification. Hungry? Grab some peanuts, chips, doughnuts, or whatever. Thirsty? If you can think of it, they've probably got it, including hard alcohol. Enjoy the luxury and arrive at destination refreshed and ready to go.
Nothing compares to flying in a nice, private aircraft. The trips I've taken were $600 commercial. It costs them ~$1500 to fly the King Air on that route including fuel & pilots. So if three people fly (the plane holds 9 plus pilot/copilot) the company saves money. Actually, if one person flies they save money, because it's a 1 hour (one way) direct trip. Commercial takes 4+ hours (one way) and time is money.
What would be useful I think is to make use of telepresence - some sort of fridge cam you could manipulate from work to see if you have some key ingredients.
Hey, I have one of these! It's called "House Wife 1.0." I just call up and ask it anything. 9 out of 10 times I get a straight answer. I still have no idea how the damn thing works, though.
Unfortunately, it was considerably expensive, and requires a monthly subscription fee consisting of roughly 80% of my salary...
If they'd had satellite phone service they could have called for help immediately.
You don't have to have satellite "service" to call for help. Any cellular phone, including Iridium sat phones, can dial 911, assuming you're in the US. My buddy has 3 surplus Iridium phones that were given to him when Iridium declared bankruptcy. Now that they're back in operations, the phones work, but without a service contract they'll only dial 911. Which is just fine for him, as that's the only reason he would ever need to use one.
As for normal consumers ever carrying these things around - they'd better get a hell of a lot smaller. The antenna is the size and thickness of a large hot dog. The phone itself is about the size of a brick. It reminds me of early handheld cellular phones... works, but you'd look like an idiot with something that big hanging off your belt. Assuming your pants would even stay up.
But if you write a song in spare time, that's still your copyright, because it's not what the company hired you to do.
Not really. My father in law worked as a citizen for a major defense contractor most of his life. He developed and copyrighted a board game, of which a particular idea within the game became extremely valuable. He claims he was at one time offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, but that's beside the point.
He went to renew the copyright and was unable to do so. His employer had found out about it and had filed some sort of claim against it, since he was employed with them at the time it was created. He tried to sue but under the terms of his employment was forced into binding arbitration. While the company dragged the arbitration out, the copyright expired, at which point it became completely useless to him.
It should be noted that as a boiler operator, a board game had nothing whatsoever to do with his employment.
This is the side of the story WE heard, so take it with a grain of salt, but I did in fact read his employment contract which stated that any ideas he came up with while employed by the company belonged to the company. It didn't matter what it was regarding. OTOH, my employment contract with a private employer is exactly what you'd expect it to be: Items developed on company time or using company ideas or information belong to the company. Otherwise, I'm free to do whatever I want in my spare time, although if I developed a better method for producing my company's products and copyrighted it for myself I'd probably be sued and fired.
hence the reason alcohol as an alternative to gasoline
Hmmmmm.... what's this going to do to open container laws?;)
"But officer... that 12 pack of Bud in the back seat is my reserve tank!"
I can see it now: Drunks on the side of the road, pissing into their gas tanks trying to make it home... Teenagers running a fuel line from the tank right into a dash-mounted tap... New laws requiring horrible tasting additives to prevent people from drinking their gas...
Allow me to reiterate the point. Things are bad for a reason. And I mean a real reason, not some mystically inherent "sacred creation" reason. If that reason goes away, then those things are no longer bad.
STDs are not the only reason promiscuity is bad. Even if you could magically eliminate them, you still have to deal with broken families. Children being raised without a mother or a father - contrary to popular belief, this significantly affects children in a negative manner. Jealousy, lust, mistrust. You'll never elimate these issues.
The point that was being made here is that STDs function as a check and balance mechanism. Many people have absolutely no problem tearing their families apart or creating parentless children, but the fear of STDs keeps them in line. Theoretically, the elimination of STDs would result in a huge increase in sexual misbehavior. Broken families. Parentless children. All of the other reasons promiscuity is unacceptable to many, many people. Under that logic, the statement that STDs are good for humanity is almost tolerable.
In the meantime, NASA will be spending about a million dollars a year to store Triana. The craft's solid rocket propellant, which chemically degrades, expires in 2003 and will have to be replaced, at the cost of about $3 million, before Triana can fly. It would also take $5 to $10 million to recalibrate the instruments after the craft comes out of mothballs.
So, we're talking about $13 million bucks here. What's it cost to launch the shuttle? Seems like it would make more sense to just use the $13 mil to get that bad boy up into space right now instead of wasting it all...
It's bullshit. Do you know how many projection TVs I've seen with some station's watermark burned into the screen? I have a nice high-def projection set, and I refuse to watch any station that does this. Static images on any projector for a significant amount of time will cause burn in. Not cool.
BTW, I've never had a problem figuring out which station I'm on.
When companies shell out hard cash (business.com sold for $3.2 million) for a domain someone else got for $30, what do you expect? With this knowledge, if you could get your hands on business.biz for $30, wouldn't you bite? I sure as hell would. Someone will pay at least a few hundred grand for it...
If a website's content is copyrighted and this software ALTERS the content before it is presented to the user - are they liable in any way for mucking up the web site content?
If you choose to install this software, then you are choosing to filter/modify the content to suit your tastes. This is perfectly acceptable. You are in no way obligated to view the data exactly as the author intended you to.
The only issue I have with this story is it seems that KaZaA has snuck this TopText into user's systems without their knowledge or consent. IMHO, there should be legal ramifications for that. If you're going to include a piece of software like this, you need to make sure users are well aware of it during the installation process. Especially when it involves something like TopText!
I'd buy a PDA; I'd love to have one. But I already carry a cellular phone and refuse to lug two devices around. Include the following features in a PDA & I'll bite:
- Built in cellphone. I'm not talking about a bulky add-on module, and if I have to hold the whole PDA up to my head, you can forget it. Unless, of course, the PDA is the same size as a typical cellphone.
- Bluetooth support for wireless earpiece. That way I can leave the damn PDA in my pocket and receive a call with a small earpiece. Not a full headset, just a little thing that sits in my ear.
- Size. Keep 'em small. They're doing a pretty good job at this already.
- Power. Give me enough power to run the thing for hours. Power for the cellular feature alone should be at least 8 days standby/4 hours talk, on par with current phones. And give me a nice way to quickly recharge my wireless headset. Maybe a small port on the PDA itself that can recharge the headset in a matter of minutes from the PDA's battery.
While you're at it, make the headset strong. I want to be able to shove it in my pocket along with my keys and who knows what else without worrying about it getting torn up.
They can charge you for whatever they want. That doesn't mean you're obligated to pay.
It's easy: They suspend your service, you return their modem and give them the big "fuck you". When the bill shows up, rip it in half. When they send a collector after you and put a negative mark on your credit report, you write letters to the credit reporting agencies disputing the charges: "They refused to provide me with the service! I'm refusing to pay!" Then tell the collectors that if they ever call you again, you will have their asses thrown in jail for harassment.
The phone company owns the wires that carry your conversations. So I guess they have the right to "listen in," since you're using their equipment?
No, because you're paying for the use of those lines. A better analogy would be the phone company giving you a free phone line, and then paying you $25 an hour to use it. Then they would have the right to monitor it.
In my office, if I make a telephone call to my doctor to arrange a medical appointment does my employer have a right to invade my privacy by listening or recording my conversation simply because my employer owns the phone? That's absurd.
No, that's not absurd. Personally, I would not want to work for a company that recorded/monitored my phone calls, though I uphold their right to do so. If they pay for it, they should be able to monitor it. I do not mind their monitoring of my email: because email is a much more powerful tool than a telephone and presents many security & legal issues for the company.
Does he have a right to videotape me in the bathroom because he owns the toilet and pays the water bill? That's absurd.
Yes, that is absurd. While the company owns the toilet and pays the water bill, they have no right to watch you do your business, period. Why does this differ from the telephone? You're not naked. If using the restroom was as benign as using the phone in that department, I might have different thoughts. As for monitoring how you use the restroom, I believe employers have the right to monitor how many times you use it, or even to setup a system that only allows you x minutes per day in there. I'd never work for such a company and would protest anyone who actually did it, but I believe they have the right to do it if they so choose. As long as they can't WATCH you doing it.
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Does anyone know of someplace which is offering access to these printers to paying customers? I would be perfectly happy to email CAD plans to a fabricator if I could get a quick, cheap kit of parts back in the mail.
Buy your own machine. You said you're into modeling. That's what these are made for. Their smaller solutions are only a couple grand for a scanner & printer. Just over a grand if you only want the printer. Very cool stuff.
I mean it's not like this thing scanned in the broken pulley and made a replica based on the scan.
Probably not, but the Roland Picza will scan in smaller objects. You can then use their Modela to print out an exact duplicate. I saw a review of these products where they scanned in a little Yoda figure and printed out a copy. It was nearly perfect in every detail, save for the coloring... Best part: These things aren't all that expensive. A couple thousand dollars for both.
Oh, and where the hell was this guy's boss when he used the quarter million dollar rapid prototyper to make a two dollar aluminum pulley for a sander... Don't even tell me that polycarbonate will be a good substitute for a pulley in a sander which was originally made from aluminum.
When down, most production lines cost the company huge amounts of money per hour. The production lines in some plants cost hundreds of thousands of dollars every hour that they are down. Why? Well, first, no product is being made. Second, you're paying x hundred employees to sit on their butts waiting for the line to be fixed. The labor costs alone are staggering.
The guy who made this part had two choices: Leave the line down for a few days while waiting for a replacement to arrive (and likely costing the company $Millions), or create a new one and get the line back up and running in just a couple of hours. Wherever his boss was, I bet he gave him a nice fat raise. The guy just paid for the quarter million dollar machine and then some.
As for the new part not being a good substitute: "It's been a month now, and the belt sander is still going strong... I have an aluminum replacement pulley now, but I'm in no hurry to install it. With the way this one has performed, I want to see how long it lasts!" (Link to quote)
I say don't make laws prohibiting it. I guess mandatory was a bad word to use. Better to say: default install, but you can even request a car without one. OK, fine, so make it an optional feature.
:)
In that case, I'm with you. I don't have a problem with people putting these in their cars by choice. Hell, I was arguing for freedom: If omeone wants one of these things in their car, I'm all for it. Have fun. As long as I don't have to put one in mine, I could care less what everyone else does.
It should be mandatory that all cars have these devices once they've been tested to be highly reliable, and not sending out 'false positives' on aftershave, etc.
::rolleyes::
Great idea. While we're at it, why don't we put recording devices in your vehicle as well? That way if you say specific words ("bomb", "drugs") the police are notified. Or how about other sensors to make sure you don't violate any traffic laws? Exceed the speed limit, pull too many G's in a corner, accelerate too quickly, don't come to a complete stop at a stop sign, or violate any number of other laws and you get a ticket in the mail. We could even put sensors in your toilet, so if you take a piss after smoking a joint or eating a poppyseed muffin, the police can come confiscate your contraband and throw you in jail - we all know that drug users are violent, dangerous felons. Hey, if it saves thousands of lives each year...
Look, I dislike drunk drivers as much as the next guy, but I also dislike this big brother mentality. I don't even drink, but I still don't want the government watching what I do. It's none of their damn business. Quite frankly if I purchased a car with this bullshit installed, I'd yank it right out. Anyone with even basic automotive skills can bypass something like this.
Finally, you're forgetting that we live in the USA, supposedly the land of the free. If you want to live in a safe society controlled by the government, move to China. I'm sure they'd love to have you. But don't fsck this country up; I for one enjoy my freedom.
Again, she's not suing for money. She's suing to force the company to disclose what they are doing. The idea is to get this information out to the public, so the average Joe will know before purchasing the disc that it won't play in his PC. This is a great way to start a public backlash; enough MP3 players have been sold that the general public would throw a fit if they were unable to convert their legally purchased discs into MP3s. The problem right now is most people have no idea this is going on.
Moreover there is likely no representation that the CD will play on a computer 'anonymously'.
You mean 'at all'. The CD won't play in a computer, period. The registration is to allow you to download the song in Windows Media format, not to allow the CD to play. As for no representation, you don't think the CD logo on the disc qualifies as representation? This indicates that the CD complies with the red book standard, which should be playable in any drive that can read said standard. Since it won't, it's technically broken.
Keep in mind that this lawsuit is about disclosure, not money. She's not trying to win a million bucks here.
If you're going to put out a CD that does not comply with the standards, you have an obligation to warn consumers. I would be pissed if I bought a CD that didn't play in my CD-ROM, my car, etc. (car stereos that read MP3s are technically CD-ROM drives and will not read these "encrypted" discs, either. Many higher end home CD players also have CD-ROM drives in them and will not read the discs).
I just tell them they can't have my phone number. That usually suffices. When they insist, I say, "You know what, I don't even have a phone." I'm waiting for some snotty employee to notice the cellphone clipped to my belt and demand that number so I can really piss them off ("That's not a phone, it's a garage door opener."), but it hasn't happened yet.
In December of 1967 Paul C. Fisher, the inventer of the pen, sold 400 of them to NASA for $2.95 each.
And now, for some silly reason, they think they can get $40.00 a pop (!) for them.
I work for $LARGE_COMPANY which owns many aircraft
Likewise. I haven't taken a trip on my company's Learjets yet, but have flown in their King Air a number of times. I've also flown commercial when their aircraft weren't available, and the differences are amazing.
Commercial: Arrive at airport. Check in. Xray luggage. Wait half an hour if you time it right. Whoops, airplane is behind schedule. Wait another hour. Board. Strap yourself into flimsy uncomfortable seat with 80 other people. Fan yourself with magazine because it's too damn hot in there. Wait another half hour. Takeoff. Eventually, land at another airport, wait 3 more hours and repeat above procedure. Arrive at destination.
Private: Arrive at airport. Board plane immediately. At worst, wait 5 minutes because you got there early. Hand baggage to pilots, climb aboard and get lost in the plush leather seating. Take shoes off, lean seat back and put your feet up on the seat in front of you. Temperature is perfect. If not, tell pilots to turn the AC on and get instant gratification. Hungry? Grab some peanuts, chips, doughnuts, or whatever. Thirsty? If you can think of it, they've probably got it, including hard alcohol. Enjoy the luxury and arrive at destination refreshed and ready to go.
Nothing compares to flying in a nice, private aircraft. The trips I've taken were $600 commercial. It costs them ~$1500 to fly the King Air on that route including fuel & pilots. So if three people fly (the plane holds 9 plus pilot/copilot) the company saves money. Actually, if one person flies they save money, because it's a 1 hour (one way) direct trip. Commercial takes 4+ hours (one way) and time is money.
isn't it Elmosoft and Elmosoft only that's responsible?
Elmosoft? As in "Tickle Me Elmosoft?"
Just get a 3COM Audrey. $89 and for another $30 you can add a USB ethernet adapter.
What would be useful I think is to make use of telepresence - some sort of fridge cam you could manipulate from work to see if you have some key ingredients.
Hey, I have one of these! It's called "House Wife 1.0." I just call up and ask it anything. 9 out of 10 times I get a straight answer. I still have no idea how the damn thing works, though.
Unfortunately, it was considerably expensive, and requires a monthly subscription fee consisting of roughly 80% of my salary...
If they'd had satellite phone service they could have called for help immediately.
You don't have to have satellite "service" to call for help. Any cellular phone, including Iridium sat phones, can dial 911, assuming you're in the US. My buddy has 3 surplus Iridium phones that were given to him when Iridium declared bankruptcy. Now that they're back in operations, the phones work, but without a service contract they'll only dial 911. Which is just fine for him, as that's the only reason he would ever need to use one.
As for normal consumers ever carrying these things around - they'd better get a hell of a lot smaller. The antenna is the size and thickness of a large hot dog. The phone itself is about the size of a brick. It reminds me of early handheld cellular phones... works, but you'd look like an idiot with something that big hanging off your belt. Assuming your pants would even stay up.
But if you write a song in spare time, that's still your copyright, because it's not what the company hired you to do.
Not really. My father in law worked as a citizen for a major defense contractor most of his life. He developed and copyrighted a board game, of which a particular idea within the game became extremely valuable. He claims he was at one time offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for it, but that's beside the point.
He went to renew the copyright and was unable to do so. His employer had found out about it and had filed some sort of claim against it, since he was employed with them at the time it was created. He tried to sue but under the terms of his employment was forced into binding arbitration. While the company dragged the arbitration out, the copyright expired, at which point it became completely useless to him.
It should be noted that as a boiler operator, a board game had nothing whatsoever to do with his employment.
This is the side of the story WE heard, so take it with a grain of salt, but I did in fact read his employment contract which stated that any ideas he came up with while employed by the company belonged to the company. It didn't matter what it was regarding. OTOH, my employment contract with a private employer is exactly what you'd expect it to be: Items developed on company time or using company ideas or information belong to the company. Otherwise, I'm free to do whatever I want in my spare time, although if I developed a better method for producing my company's products and copyrighted it for myself I'd probably be sued and fired.
It all depends on who you work for.
hence the reason alcohol as an alternative to gasoline
;)
Hmmmmm.... what's this going to do to open container laws?
"But officer... that 12 pack of Bud in the back seat is my reserve tank!"
I can see it now: Drunks on the side of the road, pissing into their gas tanks trying to make it home... Teenagers running a fuel line from the tank right into a dash-mounted tap... New laws requiring horrible tasting additives to prevent people from drinking their gas...
Allow me to reiterate the point. Things are bad for a reason. And I mean a real reason, not some mystically inherent "sacred creation" reason. If that reason goes away, then those things are no longer bad.
STDs are not the only reason promiscuity is bad. Even if you could magically eliminate them, you still have to deal with broken families. Children being raised without a mother or a father - contrary to popular belief, this significantly affects children in a negative manner. Jealousy, lust, mistrust. You'll never elimate these issues.
The point that was being made here is that STDs function as a check and balance mechanism. Many people have absolutely no problem tearing their families apart or creating parentless children, but the fear of STDs keeps them in line. Theoretically, the elimination of STDs would result in a huge increase in sexual misbehavior. Broken families. Parentless children. All of the other reasons promiscuity is unacceptable to many, many people. Under that logic, the statement that STDs are good for humanity is almost tolerable.
In the meantime, NASA will be spending about a million dollars a year to store Triana. The craft's solid rocket propellant, which chemically degrades, expires in 2003 and will have to be replaced, at the cost of about $3 million, before Triana can fly. It would also take $5 to $10 million to recalibrate the instruments after the craft comes out of mothballs.
So, we're talking about $13 million bucks here. What's it cost to launch the shuttle? Seems like it would make more sense to just use the $13 mil to get that bad boy up into space right now instead of wasting it all...
I personally think it's a valid strategy
It's bullshit. Do you know how many projection TVs I've seen with some station's watermark burned into the screen? I have a nice high-def projection set, and I refuse to watch any station that does this. Static images on any projector for a significant amount of time will cause burn in. Not cool.
BTW, I've never had a problem figuring out which station I'm on.
When companies shell out hard cash (business.com sold for $3.2 million) for a domain someone else got for $30, what do you expect? With this knowledge, if you could get your hands on business.biz for $30, wouldn't you bite? I sure as hell would. Someone will pay at least a few hundred grand for it...
If a website's content is copyrighted and this software ALTERS the content before it is presented to the user - are they liable in any way for mucking up the web site content?
If you choose to install this software, then you are choosing to filter/modify the content to suit your tastes. This is perfectly acceptable. You are in no way obligated to view the data exactly as the author intended you to.
The only issue I have with this story is it seems that KaZaA has snuck this TopText into user's systems without their knowledge or consent. IMHO, there should be legal ramifications for that. If you're going to include a piece of software like this, you need to make sure users are well aware of it during the installation process. Especially when it involves something like TopText!
I'd buy a PDA; I'd love to have one. But I already carry a cellular phone and refuse to lug two devices around. Include the following features in a PDA & I'll bite:
- Built in cellphone. I'm not talking about a bulky add-on module, and if I have to hold the whole PDA up to my head, you can forget it. Unless, of course, the PDA is the same size as a typical cellphone.
- Bluetooth support for wireless earpiece. That way I can leave the damn PDA in my pocket and receive a call with a small earpiece. Not a full headset, just a little thing that sits in my ear.
- Size. Keep 'em small. They're doing a pretty good job at this already.
- Power. Give me enough power to run the thing for hours. Power for the cellular feature alone should be at least 8 days standby/4 hours talk, on par with current phones. And give me a nice way to quickly recharge my wireless headset. Maybe a small port on the PDA itself that can recharge the headset in a matter of minutes from the PDA's battery.
While you're at it, make the headset strong. I want to be able to shove it in my pocket along with my keys and who knows what else without worrying about it getting torn up.
They can charge you for whatever they want. That doesn't mean you're obligated to pay. It's easy: They suspend your service, you return their modem and give them the big "fuck you". When the bill shows up, rip it in half. When they send a collector after you and put a negative mark on your credit report, you write letters to the credit reporting agencies disputing the charges: "They refused to provide me with the service! I'm refusing to pay!" Then tell the collectors that if they ever call you again, you will have their asses thrown in jail for harassment.
In the meantime, you find a new ISP...
The phone company owns the wires that carry your conversations. So I guess they have the right to "listen in," since you're using their equipment?
No, because you're paying for the use of those lines. A better analogy would be the phone company giving you a free phone line, and then paying you $25 an hour to use it. Then they would have the right to monitor it.
In my office, if I make a telephone call to my doctor to arrange a medical appointment does my employer have a right to invade my privacy by listening or recording my conversation simply because my employer owns the phone? That's absurd.
No, that's not absurd. Personally, I would not want to work for a company that recorded/monitored my phone calls, though I uphold their right to do so. If they pay for it, they should be able to monitor it. I do not mind their monitoring of my email: because email is a much more powerful tool than a telephone and presents many security & legal issues for the company.
Does he have a right to videotape me in the bathroom because he owns the toilet and pays the water bill? That's absurd.
Yes, that is absurd. While the company owns the toilet and pays the water bill, they have no right to watch you do your business, period. Why does this differ from the telephone? You're not naked. If using the restroom was as benign as using the phone in that department, I might have different thoughts. As for monitoring how you use the restroom, I believe employers have the right to monitor how many times you use it, or even to setup a system that only allows you x minutes per day in there. I'd never work for such a company and would protest anyone who actually did it, but I believe they have the right to do it if they so choose. As long as they can't WATCH you doing it.