Even if the lost works were boring crap, it is still sad that they were lost. Writers both good and bad reflect their times, and historians can better understand what life was like through not only the lost literature, but even lost reports from the field and letters, even cargo manifests.
Not only that, I suspect many surviving plays and poems may have been remakes of older works, or repackagings. But we may never know, as only the most popular copies survived.
Which returns us to the only true way to ensure a work's survival: make copies, and every so often make fresh copies. No medium is forever. Old works died out because they were either copy-protected or because they were not considered valuable enough for the effort of making a copy.
Considering VAT rates of 18%, even then the price should be around US$3500, so even that can't explain away the padding. Shipping shouldn't be all that expensive either, unless they calculate for losses due to the piracy in the South China Sea and the Horn of Africa.
Just another case of abusing the exchange rate. Imagine how much worse it would be if we didn't have the Euro, and instead they fudged even DM versus Franc versus Lire...
I recall Babylon 5 taking a middle ground. For most of the shots, there was the sound in space unless they were doing the shot from specifically inside a room. Then you only heard the noises that the characters could hear. Two scenes I recall the most that followed this were the episode that centred on the two maintenance techs in the fifth season, where they were watching the battle from an observation deck, and in the made-for-TV movie Thirdspace, where Sheridan passes through the battle in a vacuum suit, and all you can hear is his breathing despite the explosions and shots all around him.
Granted, my memory is spotty, so it may be that the producers only adopted this later in the series, but it was still something that stood out in my memory, along with the Asteroids-like inertia instead of the more common fighter-plane style.
The relaunched Battlestar Galactica also tried to go in this direction, or at least it was the producers' original intent to reduce the sounds to an "in the cockpit" feeling, and instead use staccatos in the soundtrack more to fudge. I regret not seeing it in a long time, so I do not know how true they stayed to it.
So there is a trend amongst directors and producers to use more "realistic" sound, but often the studios tell them they can't do it because it's "too risky". With Iron Sky, though, I think it's the nod to the serials and the parody that played a role here, so it's in a different class.
I would argue that Apple has taken a stranger route, one of making server software designed mainly for Apple's own offices, perhaps also for Pixar but mainly so that Steve Jobs doesn't have to see "foreign" computers in One Infinite Loop.
I dunno, but why is this always mentioned so late? If it were the main reason, why did the author raise a stink about it being a competitor to a future work, and not just stick to the argument that the text is plagiarism?
As for factual errors, that would have been an argument in defence of the compendium's right to be published, really. How could it be plagiarism if it's wrong? Besides, how can speculation about fiction be wrong? There is no law, really, against being wrong. If there were, Ben Stein would be out of a job.
I really think this issue has been poisoned by personal opinions, Even if the main editor of the compendium is a real jerk, that doesn't matter in a legal sense. JKR and her defenders have been leaning so heavily on the emotional card that they have weakened their case, really.
I think that is the thing to ask here: is it valid to make a map, a catalogue of a work which belongs to someone else? Would this apply to the world of, say, real estate where a person publishes an unofficial guide to a museum? What if somebody drew his own maps and gave hints as to the best time to visit Disneyland, but didn't use trademarked art? Or what about a collector's guide to the Star Trek episodes and movies, which list in detail which scene, which character, which prop is in which DVD version? Or how about those unofficial hint books that exist for video games?
The only issue here should be whether the guide crosses a "laziness threshold" (as I call it), whether is is merely a copy-paste collection of quotes from the referenced books or uses its own descriptions. Well, there is another (less mentioned) issue as well, the issue of whether the publisher of the guide infringed upon the trademark look of the HP books and movies, but since nobody mentions this I suspect that it's not the case.
No, it means Google needs proof that you are either the executor of the estate or have been granted power of attorney by the executor. Quite simple, really.
Normally I would agree, but here it is still in question if the death was accidental or a suicide. Even the porn files could shed a light, and if anything were to be deleted the family would be left uncertain that maybe, maybe some vital piece of evidence was destroyed?
Assuming he has power of attorney, he has an ethical obligation to help retrieve whatever records there are and not withhold any information. If he has no such power, then he should help the executors as best as he can within the legal framework of his country.
I think that's the more nuanced way of saying what he wrote, so it is ethical in that it is on behalf of the estate, and also ethical on behalf of forensics. Remember, the family also wants to find evidence of whether this was a suicide or an accidental death.
There is no problem with cracking the contents of his computer. I also see no ethical issue with helping the executor to retrieve all records left on Google Mail or MySpace, as long as the executor is the one actually making the request. Otherwise the poster should get a limited power of attorney, really.
I am only considering the ethical questions, mind you, not the legal ones.
Like I said in a different response, there is a subtle difference. It's not making cool stuff instead of making a profit, but ensuring a profit by making cool stuff. And that is an argument that seems to convince enough shareholders that Apple's stock is still doing well.
That's the meta-game. The game which rewards how well you play the chosen game.
Microsoft: "We can ensure long-term value by dominating the playing field!" (the Monopoly/Risk way)
Apple: "We can ensure long-term value by being better and doing new, cool stuff!" (the race/exploration game way)
Both methods are risky. Microsoft's risk is that they trap themselves into only defining themselves through comparison. Apple risks ignoring the competition too much. But in the end, I think Apple's approach is better in that it tries not to lose sight of what they are good at. Trying to play Microsoft's game got Apple burned badly under Spindler and Amelio.
I think Apple is playing a different game than you imagine them to be playing. Market share isn't as important as influence. They aren't playing Monopoly or Risk, but instead it's a sort of race game where the goal is to lead the pack in "coolness points".
I think that's been the source of the friction between Microsoft and Apple since the Seventies: Apple was more interested in making neat stuff, whereas Microsoft has always been about the profits and dominating the market.
My guess is that Wiki links are more "trustworthy". That means they look less like pure PR (or like a misleading goatse-like link). Wikipedia isn't unimpeachable, but more flagrant troll-edits would get quashed soon.
There's another thing that may play a role here as well: slashdotting the site. The Wiki can handle the tonnes of Slashdotters out to RTFA (including all 23 of you who actually read it) better than a small company or a private page can.
Hmmm, now that I think of it, that/.-effect deflection makes even more sense than my first guess.
I think your numbers are a little screwy. Apple still dominates the design even in Europe, with France and Switzerland leading the pack. Even in Germany, Apple is making headway in creeping out of the graphics and print niche with companies trying to lower their support costs. I think the biggest argument lies in the painless conversion from MSOffice/Windows to MSOffice/Mac OS X with FileMaker replacing Access.
Then again, I won a convert by using Keynote. No lie. The guy loved it over PowerPoint.
You might have noticed that I was referring to the House Democrats growing a spine. After all, they are faring much better than their Republican counterparts in fundraising (Congressional re-election committees, not national party coffers, mind). It used to be that the Dems would cave to any attempt to smear them as unpatriotic due to the stigma of the Sixties.
But a funny thing happened: since they started standing tough on the PAA bill, they've seen their polls actually improve, and all of a sudden "safe" Republican districts are coming into play. It may just be what the Democrats need to carry this momentum to the Senate, where the GOP has been abusing the filibuster to such ridiculous lengths it's not even funny.
It's also interesting to note that turnout for the Democratic primaries has been breaking all sorts of records, and both Clinton and Obama have been building ground teams for not just the primaries, but also for the general election. So despite your attempts to naysay, I still feel that the sea-change is there, despite the attempts of the conservative press to prop up their candidates. Remember, Rove predicted a GOP landslide in 2006...
The success and the payback the Democrats experienced in overturning this train-wreck of a bill experienced, they aren't in the mood to roll over any more. Even the telcos prefer the Democratic version which grants the companies the ability to present evidence in their own defence.
And that is what scares the Bush administration most: transparency. They know that they are in a world of trouble, and the GOP is now looking at a sea-change as strong as when Roosevelt succeeded Hoover. It will be a long time before Republicans can overcome the legacy of Lee Atwater/ Karl Rove politics...
That's not the take I got from it. It's more like "Since we can't forbid you from using the old API outright, We won't let you use the new API unless you promise never, ever to use the old API any more." It's about which licences underlie the game, not under which license the supplement itself is released.
I doubt it would have any effect on companies that license other game systems. If Steve Jackson Games were to abandon the "Powered by GURPS" License and instead have an OGL-worded license, would a company that publishes a game usable with both D20 and GURPS get in trouble? I doubt it, really.
This is still a very troubled area, as it is still murky as to how much of a game rules system can be considered trademark, copyright or patent protected.
You might notice that most astronomy departments also will be pretty intolerant of a geocentric theory of planetary motion. Geology departments don't tolerate flat-earthers. Medicine schools are pretty intolerant of those who claim that the germ theory is heresy.
So tell me, what was the point of biology departments not tolerating theological discussion again?
It doesn't have to be taught since it really has nothing to do with it. Whether or not somebody started the process does not help in working out how process runs. Evolution is the process at work, including conjecture about steering and interference only muddies the study of the process itself.
Evolution only deals with the "how", and leaves the "why" up to philosophers and theologians.
As far as animal mascots go, I guess you could call fellow advocates of this configuration your LAPP dawgs. Writers of elegant solutions would be LAPP dancers, and the boys in the server farm would be running LAPPs...
I'll stick to Mac OS X, and look for a solution in that direction. Anyone else want to join me on a MAPP quest?
Of course, I don't think FreeBSD proponents would be too happy with being called FAPPers, but no solution is perfect. Also, I smell detractors complaining of the "peepee" smell from this...
Put it another way: Fair Use is already in the world, but the Network grabbed it before the Sons of Atlantis or the Discordians could. Now it's so deep in the power structure that it's making the Gnomes of Zurich very, very nervous. So now it looks like they are going to play the "whispering campaign" card to destroy, as Fair Use is immune to normal attacks to destroy.
It is in the Network's (and to a lesser degree, the Discordians' and the Sons of Atlantis') interests to keep Fair Use in play, because it is Peaceful, Communist and Criminal, and lowers the income of all media groups to half their normal Megabucks. So yeah, we're reacting to a threat of the Gnomes, but the longer Fair Use is in play, the better for all of us (except the Gnomes and possibly the Bavarian Illuminati...).
Slashdot Mirror
Even if the lost works were boring crap, it is still sad that they were lost. Writers both good and bad reflect their times, and historians can better understand what life was like through not only the lost literature, but even lost reports from the field and letters, even cargo manifests.
Not only that, I suspect many surviving plays and poems may have been remakes of older works, or repackagings. But we may never know, as only the most popular copies survived.
Which returns us to the only true way to ensure a work's survival: make copies, and every so often make fresh copies. No medium is forever. Old works died out because they were either copy-protected or because they were not considered valuable enough for the effort of making a copy.
Pulp fiction!
Well, with hookers in the mix, I think getting screwed is going to happen no matter what.
Considering VAT rates of 18%, even then the price should be around US$3500, so even that can't explain away the padding. Shipping shouldn't be all that expensive either, unless they calculate for losses due to the piracy in the South China Sea and the Horn of Africa.
Just another case of abusing the exchange rate. Imagine how much worse it would be if we didn't have the Euro, and instead they fudged even DM versus Franc versus Lire...
I recall Babylon 5 taking a middle ground. For most of the shots, there was the sound in space unless they were doing the shot from specifically inside a room. Then you only heard the noises that the characters could hear. Two scenes I recall the most that followed this were the episode that centred on the two maintenance techs in the fifth season, where they were watching the battle from an observation deck, and in the made-for-TV movie Thirdspace, where Sheridan passes through the battle in a vacuum suit, and all you can hear is his breathing despite the explosions and shots all around him.
Granted, my memory is spotty, so it may be that the producers only adopted this later in the series, but it was still something that stood out in my memory, along with the Asteroids-like inertia instead of the more common fighter-plane style.
The relaunched Battlestar Galactica also tried to go in this direction, or at least it was the producers' original intent to reduce the sounds to an "in the cockpit" feeling, and instead use staccatos in the soundtrack more to fudge. I regret not seeing it in a long time, so I do not know how true they stayed to it.
So there is a trend amongst directors and producers to use more "realistic" sound, but often the studios tell them they can't do it because it's "too risky". With Iron Sky, though, I think it's the nod to the serials and the parody that played a role here, so it's in a different class.
I would argue that Apple has taken a stranger route, one of making server software designed mainly for Apple's own offices, perhaps also for Pixar but mainly so that Steve Jobs doesn't have to see "foreign" computers in One Infinite Loop.
I dunno, but why is this always mentioned so late? If it were the main reason, why did the author raise a stink about it being a competitor to a future work, and not just stick to the argument that the text is plagiarism?
As for factual errors, that would have been an argument in defence of the compendium's right to be published, really. How could it be plagiarism if it's wrong? Besides, how can speculation about fiction be wrong? There is no law, really, against being wrong. If there were, Ben Stein would be out of a job.
I really think this issue has been poisoned by personal opinions, Even if the main editor of the compendium is a real jerk, that doesn't matter in a legal sense. JKR and her defenders have been leaning so heavily on the emotional card that they have weakened their case, really.
I think that is the thing to ask here: is it valid to make a map, a catalogue of a work which belongs to someone else? Would this apply to the world of, say, real estate where a person publishes an unofficial guide to a museum?
What if somebody drew his own maps and gave hints as to the best time to visit Disneyland, but didn't use trademarked art? Or what about a collector's guide to the Star Trek episodes and movies, which list in detail which scene, which character, which prop is in which DVD version? Or how about those unofficial hint books that exist for video games?
The only issue here should be whether the guide crosses a "laziness threshold" (as I call it), whether is is merely a copy-paste collection of quotes from the referenced books or uses its own descriptions. Well, there is another (less mentioned) issue as well, the issue of whether the publisher of the guide infringed upon the trademark look of the HP books and movies, but since nobody mentions this I suspect that it's not the case.
It was written by lawyers. Since when did they ever deal with "simple"? :P
No, it means Google needs proof that you are either the executor of the estate or have been granted power of attorney by the executor. Quite simple, really.
Normally I would agree, but here it is still in question if the death was accidental or a suicide. Even the porn files could shed a light, and if anything were to be deleted the family would be left uncertain that maybe, maybe some vital piece of evidence was destroyed?
Assuming he has power of attorney, he has an ethical obligation to help retrieve whatever records there are and not withhold any information. If he has no such power, then he should help the executors as best as he can within the legal framework of his country.
I think that's the more nuanced way of saying what he wrote, so it is ethical in that it is on behalf of the estate, and also ethical on behalf of forensics. Remember, the family also wants to find evidence of whether this was a suicide or an accidental death.
There is no problem with cracking the contents of his computer. I also see no ethical issue with helping the executor to retrieve all records left on Google Mail or MySpace, as long as the executor is the one actually making the request. Otherwise the poster should get a limited power of attorney, really.
I am only considering the ethical questions, mind you, not the legal ones.
Like I said in a different response, there is a subtle difference. It's not making cool stuff instead of making a profit, but ensuring a profit by making cool stuff. And that is an argument that seems to convince enough shareholders that Apple's stock is still doing well.
That's the meta-game. The game which rewards how well you play the chosen game.
Microsoft: "We can ensure long-term value by dominating the playing field!" (the Monopoly/Risk way)
Apple: "We can ensure long-term value by being better and doing new, cool stuff!" (the race/exploration game way)
Both methods are risky. Microsoft's risk is that they trap themselves into only defining themselves through comparison. Apple risks ignoring the competition too much. But in the end, I think Apple's approach is better in that it tries not to lose sight of what they are good at. Trying to play Microsoft's game got Apple burned badly under Spindler and Amelio.
I think Apple is playing a different game than you imagine them to be playing. Market share isn't as important as influence. They aren't playing Monopoly or Risk, but instead it's a sort of race game where the goal is to lead the pack in "coolness points".
I think that's been the source of the friction between Microsoft and Apple since the Seventies: Apple was more interested in making neat stuff, whereas Microsoft has always been about the profits and dominating the market.
My guess is that Wiki links are more "trustworthy". That means they look less like pure PR (or like a misleading goatse-like link). Wikipedia isn't unimpeachable, but more flagrant troll-edits would get quashed soon.
/.-effect deflection makes even more sense than my first guess.
There's another thing that may play a role here as well: slashdotting the site. The Wiki can handle the tonnes of Slashdotters out to RTFA (including all 23 of you who actually read it) better than a small company or a private page can.
Hmmm, now that I think of it, that
I think your numbers are a little screwy. Apple still dominates the design even in Europe, with France and Switzerland leading the pack. Even in Germany, Apple is making headway in creeping out of the graphics and print niche with companies trying to lower their support costs. I think the biggest argument lies in the painless conversion from MSOffice/Windows to MSOffice/Mac OS X with FileMaker replacing Access.
Then again, I won a convert by using Keynote. No lie. The guy loved it over PowerPoint.
You might have noticed that I was referring to the House Democrats growing a spine. After all, they are faring much better than their Republican counterparts in fundraising (Congressional re-election committees, not national party coffers, mind). It used to be that the Dems would cave to any attempt to smear them as unpatriotic due to the stigma of the Sixties.
But a funny thing happened: since they started standing tough on the PAA bill, they've seen their polls actually improve, and all of a sudden "safe" Republican districts are coming into play. It may just be what the Democrats need to carry this momentum to the Senate, where the GOP has been abusing the filibuster to such ridiculous lengths it's not even funny.
It's also interesting to note that turnout for the Democratic primaries has been breaking all sorts of records, and both Clinton and Obama have been building ground teams for not just the primaries, but also for the general election. So despite your attempts to naysay, I still feel that the sea-change is there, despite the attempts of the conservative press to prop up their candidates. Remember, Rove predicted a GOP landslide in 2006...
The success and the payback the Democrats experienced in overturning this train-wreck of a bill experienced, they aren't in the mood to roll over any more. Even the telcos prefer the Democratic version which grants the companies the ability to present evidence in their own defence.
And that is what scares the Bush administration most: transparency. They know that they are in a world of trouble, and the GOP is now looking at a sea-change as strong as when Roosevelt succeeded Hoover. It will be a long time before Republicans can overcome the legacy of Lee Atwater/ Karl Rove politics...
That's not the take I got from it. It's more like "Since we can't forbid you from using the old API outright, We won't let you use the new API unless you promise never, ever to use the old API any more." It's about which licences underlie the game, not under which license the supplement itself is released.
I doubt it would have any effect on companies that license other game systems. If Steve Jackson Games were to abandon the "Powered by GURPS" License and instead have an OGL-worded license, would a company that publishes a game usable with both D20 and GURPS get in trouble? I doubt it, really.
This is still a very troubled area, as it is still murky as to how much of a game rules system can be considered trademark, copyright or patent protected.
You might notice that most astronomy departments also will be pretty intolerant of a geocentric theory of planetary motion. Geology departments don't tolerate flat-earthers. Medicine schools are pretty intolerant of those who claim that the germ theory is heresy.
So tell me, what was the point of biology departments not tolerating theological discussion again?
It doesn't have to be taught since it really has nothing to do with it. Whether or not somebody started the process does not help in working out how process runs. Evolution is the process at work, including conjecture about steering and interference only muddies the study of the process itself.
Evolution only deals with the "how", and leaves the "why" up to philosophers and theologians.
As far as animal mascots go, I guess you could call fellow advocates of this configuration your LAPP dawgs. Writers of elegant solutions would be LAPP dancers, and the boys in the server farm would be running LAPPs...
I'll stick to Mac OS X, and look for a solution in that direction. Anyone else want to join me on a MAPP quest?
Of course, I don't think FreeBSD proponents would be too happy with being called FAPPers, but no solution is perfect. Also, I smell detractors complaining of the "peepee" smell from this...
I actually had an idea that the "nine billion names" thing could be redone as an old attempt to hack God's login, so that you could crash Reality...
Put it another way: Fair Use is already in the world, but the Network grabbed it before the Sons of Atlantis or the Discordians could. Now it's so deep in the power structure that it's making the Gnomes of Zurich very, very nervous. So now it looks like they are going to play the "whispering campaign" card to destroy, as Fair Use is immune to normal attacks to destroy.
It is in the Network's (and to a lesser degree, the Discordians' and the Sons of Atlantis') interests to keep Fair Use in play, because it is Peaceful, Communist and Criminal, and lowers the income of all media groups to half their normal Megabucks. So yeah, we're reacting to a threat of the Gnomes, but the longer Fair Use is in play, the better for all of us (except the Gnomes and possibly the Bavarian Illuminati...).