"Bike's are a great transportation solution for a lot of people, but they're not for everyone. There are many people that just can't ride a bike because of various physical limitations. Maintaining what you consider a reasonable 15 mph is beyond a lot of people."
Maintaining 15 mph is not very hard. Sure, there's people who can't, but I can sustain 20, and I'm... let's go with "portly".
"It's wider than a bike and the back could be painted a bright fluorescent color, making it quite visible to motorists."
So, the width is a disadvantage, obviously. I can wear bright flourescent colors, and if they don't see me, they're not looking that way; bigger won't help.
"And your bike can take how many passengers?" Mine? Two. But OK, most peoples passengers will have to get there own bikes.
"Its seat has a full length back, which can offer a bit of comfort if you have to spend time in traffic."
"The spinning wheels are the gyroscopes that keep vehicles with 2 in-line wheels upright."
This is a common misconception. A bicycle (or motorcycle) has a steering axis that slants at an angle, and intersects the ground in a position relative to the wheel, such that when the vehicle is moving forward and begins to tip sideways, forces are produced (by the weight and momentum of the vehicle/rider) that turn the front wheel back under the center of gravity. That is what makes such vehicles inherently stable.
Gyroscopic forces from the wheels are orders of magnitude smaller, and not significant.
"So I can see how they'd sue on behalf of copyright holders who haven't given google license to copy. But how did they manage to include in the class copyright holders who have disappeared off the face of the earth?"
I mis-spoke in my previous description. The class was actually a wider category of copyright holders who hadn't given Google license to copy; which necessarily includes those who have disappeared off the face of the earth. Members of a class who have nothing to do with a suit can still be bound by the disposition of the suit. That's the whole idea of a class action really: one side of a suit is too big a group to reasonably be addressed separately by the legal system, but it's still desirable to have some resolution of the issue.
"Universities do charge for access (or membership)."
Not in my experience. I've used the libraries at maybe half a dozen colleges and universities just by walking in the door. Libraries are not generally profit centers for their parent institutions driven by "business models". Every one I've had experience with was at pains to make the information at their disposal open to the public.
"After all, I have as much claim to the book as Google"
Sure, if you have negotiated an agreement with the legal representative of the the copyright holder, like Google did. This might be difficult, since outside the context this lawsuit to which Google is a party, no such representative exists.
As I understand it, it is "exclusive" in that the Authors Guild, as the class representative in the suit, is only empowered to negotiate with Google. It's not a clause in the agreement that says they can't negotiate a license with anyone else. It isn't legally possible to make a non-exclusive deal here.
"I guess I don't see why Google has a monopoly at all. Does anyone know how Google managed to get exclusive rights to orphaned books especially when, by definition, the owners of the materials weren't present for any negotiations?"
Google got sued in a class-action lawsuit. In certifying the suit the court empowered the Authors Guild to negotiate on behalf of all members of the class (holders of copyrights to orphaned works), so now Google has settled with them via that court-appointed representative. So, legally, Google now has the right to republish those works, while others who have not made a deal with the (unfindable, generally non-extant) authors do not. Note that the Authors Guild doesn't represent these authors in all things forever, just in this one lawsuit, so they can't make the same deal with someone else tomorrow.
For someone else to get access to the books, they would have to digitize them, get sued, get a class certified, and negotiate a settlement, just like Google did. And there's dozens of chances and reasons for it to not necessarily work out the same way.
"Why not just open the books up to everyone, including Google." Nobody has the authority to do that. (Short of new law, including soem international treaties).
"It really doesn't seem like this should be that hard. There's an audience that wants access to books that no one is expecting royalties on; in an age of unlimited free copying, that should be a no brainer."
I agree, though it is a bit harder than it seems. I'm inclined to cut Google some slack here, as there's no indication they particularly wanted it to work out this way. i.e. they wanted access clearly, but I imagine they'd be happy if everyone had access, and they could count on their other market advantages to give them the edge. But nobody has the legal authority to give everyone access.
"What about the author's rights? What if they don't want anyone reading their books anymore?"
Then they shouldn't have published. No legal system in history has assured authors any right to prevent their published books being read at some future point, nor to control by whom. The limited right to determine who can make copies of a work is all they have, and that expires at some point in every case.
"Here is the idea. If a book is orphaned for 10 years, then copies may freely be made, but the author must be paid royalties."
You idea won't work for the same reason orphaned children can't be sent home to live with their parents. If the author, or their heirs, are alive and identifiable, it's not an orphaned work. There is no one to pay royalties to.
"The answer to that question isn't relevant to this issue because the books that Google is scanning cannot be said to be 'by the side of the road' in any way, shape, or form."
Well, no. Thing left by the side of the road might have an owner who might or might not come back for them.
The books covered by this deal don't have owners at all.
"long-term compensation restrictions" could mean many things, including, but not remotely limited to, a pay cap. As it happens, your cite list the things it means in this case, and a pay cap isn't there.
We have:
"Requiring top executives at financial institutions to hold stock for several years before they can cash out." Could be a reasonable refinement of insider trading rules, could be stupid.
"Requiring nonbinding 'say on pay' resolutions -- that is, giving shareholders more say on executive compensation." Garaunteeing the owners of a company a nonbinding (?!?!) say on the CEOs compensation? I can't figure out if this is pointless or obvious. Not a pay cap either way.
"A Treasury-sponsored conference on a long-term overhaul of executive compensation." A conference. Super-pointless. Better watch out or they might convene a study group; maybe even a blue-ribbon commission!
With lots of misguided populist rage about executive compensation around, the Obama administration is making a bunch of noise to pretend they are doing something about it. This is better than actually doing something stupid; not as good as using their bully pulpit to tell people executive pay, while possibly maddening, is not the problem.
I share your concern for the deficit, and frustration with the intrest of the press in irrelevancies. But my original point stands.
Your contention: "The White House *has* actually considered capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies."
is unsupported, misleading, and false. There is no reliable report they have considered this. Not even on the obvious-political-theater level they have "considered" other things they obviously won't really do or that wouldn't really matter.
"Sorry I challenged your religious faith in Dear Leader."
So, you make up something that isn't true, offer a link that doesn't support it, and I'm the one with religious faith?
"I won't confront you with any further painful facts."
Well, clearly. You would have to present an initial fact before you could offer any further ones, painful or otherwise.
So now you'll resort to assuming you know what I think, and that it's irrational. Here's what I think: All this focus on executive pay is a red herring, and the administration is badly mis-serving the country by running with it; they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
If you'd said that, I'd agree, and maybe someone in the world would be persuaded. Instead you threw out some blatant falsehood and are now resorting to ad-hominems to avoid acknowledging your bad faith.
"Studies show that the number of birds killed by wind turbines is negligible compared to the number that die as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, power lines and high-rise buildings and especially the environmental impacts of using non-clean power sources."
"So, essentially, you would have to move your blades in such a way as to not be totally perpendicular to the wind for the majority of the time. This leads to less than optimal power generation."
The blades of a propeller are constantly moving sideways through the wind as they go around in a circle. Despite being counter-intuitive, it would actually be easy to design a windmill-powered boat that kept station versus the wind.
"Sounds a whole lot less efficient than just tethering the thing in the first place."
Well, sure, if you want to take the easy way out and skip the nifty physics puzzle.
If you take that code and make closed source improvements, my happiness that my code was useful to someone will outweigh my sadness that I can't use the improvements.
If you take that code and make GPL licensed improvements, my happiness that my code was useful to someone will outweigh my sadness that I can't use the improvements in the ways I would like to.
If you take that code and make GPL licensed improvements so that I can't use them in the ways I would like to and in which I let you use my code, and then tell me you your code is more free... my happiness that my code was useful to someone will have to compete my sadness that someone is an idiot.
[Citation needed that actually supports your contention]
Any mention at all of "capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies" would be a good start. I've no doubt you can find references to that, or anything, at random blogs because random bloggers make up BS that isn't true. Like slahdot posters.
Assuming they did any of the evil schemes you mention, and said "Hey, it was beta" - would that make you any less upset? If they came out of beta, and did any of those evil schemes a year later, would you have any more legal recourse? The beta tag is irrelevant to any evil schemes.
And that's exactly the problem. I tell people a build is "beta" and they think "Oh, like gmail... as stable as anything, half the world uses it all the time for important stuff, no problem" when I'm trying to say "Keep this the hell away from your production process, it hasn't been thoroughly tested so I assume there are horrible bugs in there somewhere"
Gmail is not beta. Google is misusing the term and screwing up the language for the rest of us. Excellent mail service though.
GMail is not beta. Does it matter to me that they wrongly call it beta when I decide what email service to use? No.
Does it matter to me when I have an incomplete, under-tested build of some software, not suitable for production use, and I want to communicate that to users? Yes, then it's a real pain in the ass that Google has promulgated an incorrect meaning for a previously useful term to the public.
Cycling has a big advantage though: Take that many hour race and edit it down to a 15 minute highlight reel, and you *do* have something you can watch in a bar. Even as a gamer, even if you cut it down to a highlight reel, I can't see wanting to watch others play for long.
Admittedly, in the US at least, non-cyclists don't watch cycling the way people watch football. Which is why pro cycling gets supported by people advertising to cyclists, and football gets supported by people marketing to a wider audience.
But cyclists-who-watch-cycling is still a reasonable market to try to sell stuff to, whereas gamers-who-watch-gaming isn't.
At least, that's my impression as someone who cycles and games but doesn't play football, and of the three would watch only cycling (but only highlights)
"People would go out of their way to enter tournaments even though they knew even if they won first place, it wouldnt pay for itself. They played because it was fun and they enjoyed it."
If it didn't pay for itself, you weren't a pro. That's not meant as a slam, just a definition.
Exactly. This is my problem: Linux currently works brilliantly for me in some contexts (netbook, file server), and is a disaster for me in other contexts (main all-purpose workstation). I'd like to figure out if it would work for me in a new context, and it is completely impossible to do so. Ask in any forum where there are people who actually know and they will be completely drowned out by hordes insisting Linux is fabulous in all cases, wondering how you deal with Windows constantly setting your box on fire, etc.
"I hope you don't expect anyone to fix your problems then. "
He doesn't expect anyone to fix his Linux problems. He has learned that they won't, so he doesn't use Linux.
"Because those two points are not very compatible: wanting others to fix your problems but not doing anything about them yourselves."
Actually, wanting others to do something about problems and not want to do something about them yourself are extremely compatible positions. In any case, he has done something about his Linux problems: stuck with Windows.
"let's not forget that if Steam goes belly up, games bought there will become unplayable."
I haven't forgotten that. I just don't care. I want to feel like I got good value for my entertainment dollar within a few days, maybe a week of making a purchase. And I generally do. Anything that happens after that is coincidental.
I'll also note that I've got a big stack of old games on CDs, and occasionally I'll try to pull one out. Usually, it is not playable. Sure, I could theoretically play the original C&C if I had the running Win95 system it insists on (98 won't do), and god knows what dependencies beyond that. But that's not going to happen. The difference between that and not being able to play because steam went away is totally academic.
"Let your 11 year old nephew play with your account for a few days, and he might get the account banned, and you lose access to all of your Steam games."
I should show you the "art" my son makes gluing together broken pieces of cds. Let children play with your stuff, and they might break your stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
"Bike's are a great transportation solution for a lot of people, but they're not for everyone. There are many people that just can't ride a bike because of various physical limitations. Maintaining what you consider a reasonable 15 mph is beyond a lot of people."
Maintaining 15 mph is not very hard. Sure, there's people who can't, but I can sustain 20, and I'm... let's go with "portly".
"It's wider than a bike and the back could be painted a bright fluorescent color, making it quite visible to motorists."
So, the width is a disadvantage, obviously. I can wear bright flourescent colors, and if they don't see me, they're not looking that way; bigger won't help.
"And your bike can take how many passengers?"
Mine? Two. But OK, most peoples passengers will have to get there own bikes.
"Its seat has a full length back, which can offer a bit of comfort if you have to spend time in traffic."
Which on a bike, you don't.
For a bike? Of course. Hell of a lot cheaper than for a car, and with them you can handle much deeper snow.
"The spinning wheels are the gyroscopes that keep vehicles with 2 in-line wheels upright."
This is a common misconception. A bicycle (or motorcycle) has a steering axis that slants at an angle, and intersects the ground in a position relative to the wheel, such that when the vehicle is moving forward and begins to tip sideways, forces are produced (by the weight and momentum of the vehicle/rider) that turn the front wheel back under the center of gravity. That is what makes such vehicles inherently stable.
Gyroscopic forces from the wheels are orders of magnitude smaller, and not significant.
"So I can see how they'd sue on behalf of copyright holders who haven't given google license to copy. But how did they manage to include in the class copyright holders who have disappeared off the face of the earth?"
I mis-spoke in my previous description. The class was actually a wider category of copyright holders who hadn't given Google license to copy; which necessarily includes those who have disappeared off the face of the earth. Members of a class who have nothing to do with a suit can still be bound by the disposition of the suit. That's the whole idea of a class action really: one side of a suit is too big a group to reasonably be addressed separately by the legal system, but it's still desirable to have some resolution of the issue.
"Universities do charge for access (or membership)."
Not in my experience. I've used the libraries at maybe half a dozen colleges and universities just by walking in the door. Libraries are not generally profit centers for their parent institutions driven by "business models". Every one I've had experience with was at pains to make the information at their disposal open to the public.
"After all, I have as much claim to the book as Google"
Sure, if you have negotiated an agreement with the legal representative of the the copyright holder, like Google did. This might be difficult, since outside the context this lawsuit to which Google is a party, no such representative exists.
As I understand it, it is "exclusive" in that the Authors Guild, as the class representative in the suit, is only empowered to negotiate with Google. It's not a clause in the agreement that says they can't negotiate a license with anyone else. It isn't legally possible to make a non-exclusive deal here.
"I guess I don't see why Google has a monopoly at all. Does anyone know how Google managed to get exclusive rights to orphaned books especially when, by definition, the owners of the materials weren't present for any negotiations?"
Google got sued in a class-action lawsuit. In certifying the suit the court empowered the Authors Guild to negotiate on behalf of all members of the class (holders of copyrights to orphaned works), so now Google has settled with them via that court-appointed representative. So, legally, Google now has the right to republish those works, while others who have not made a deal with the (unfindable, generally non-extant) authors do not. Note that the Authors Guild doesn't represent these authors in all things forever, just in this one lawsuit, so they can't make the same deal with someone else tomorrow.
For someone else to get access to the books, they would have to digitize them, get sued, get a class certified, and negotiate a settlement, just like Google did. And there's dozens of chances and reasons for it to not necessarily work out the same way.
"Why not just open the books up to everyone, including Google."
Nobody has the authority to do that. (Short of new law, including soem international treaties).
"It really doesn't seem like this should be that hard. There's an audience that wants access to books that no one is expecting royalties on; in an age of unlimited free copying, that should be a no brainer."
I agree, though it is a bit harder than it seems. I'm inclined to cut Google some slack here, as there's no indication they particularly wanted it to work out this way. i.e. they wanted access clearly, but I imagine they'd be happy if everyone had access, and they could count on their other market advantages to give them the edge. But nobody has the legal authority to give everyone access.
"What about the author's rights? What if they don't want anyone reading their books anymore?"
Then they shouldn't have published. No legal system in history has assured authors any right to prevent their published books being read at some future point, nor to control by whom. The limited right to determine who can make copies of a work is all they have, and that expires at some point in every case.
"Here is the idea. If a book is orphaned for 10 years, then copies may freely be made, but the author must be paid royalties."
You idea won't work for the same reason orphaned children can't be sent home to live with their parents. If the author, or their heirs, are alive and identifiable, it's not an orphaned work. There is no one to pay royalties to.
"The answer to that question isn't relevant to this issue because the books that Google is scanning cannot be said to be 'by the side of the road' in any way, shape, or form."
Well, no. Thing left by the side of the road might have an owner who might or might not come back for them.
The books covered by this deal don't have owners at all.
"long-term compensation restrictions" could mean many things, including, but not remotely limited to, a pay cap. As it happens, your cite list the things it means in this case, and a pay cap isn't there.
We have:
"Requiring top executives at financial institutions to hold stock for several years before they can cash out."
Could be a reasonable refinement of insider trading rules, could be stupid.
"Requiring nonbinding 'say on pay' resolutions -- that is, giving shareholders more say on executive compensation."
Garaunteeing the owners of a company a nonbinding (?!?!) say on the CEOs compensation? I can't figure out if this is pointless or obvious. Not a pay cap either way.
"A Treasury-sponsored conference on a long-term overhaul of executive compensation."
A conference. Super-pointless. Better watch out or they might convene a study group; maybe even a blue-ribbon commission!
With lots of misguided populist rage about executive compensation around, the Obama administration is making a bunch of noise to pretend they are doing something about it. This is better than actually doing something stupid; not as good as using their bully pulpit to tell people executive pay, while possibly maddening, is not the problem.
I share your concern for the deficit, and frustration with the intrest of the press in irrelevancies. But my original point stands.
Your contention:
"The White House *has* actually considered capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies."
is unsupported, misleading, and false. There is no reliable report they have considered this. Not even on the obvious-political-theater level they have "considered" other things they obviously won't really do or that wouldn't really matter.
"Sorry I challenged your religious faith in Dear Leader."
So, you make up something that isn't true, offer a link that doesn't support it, and I'm the one with religious faith?
"I won't confront you with any further painful facts."
Well, clearly. You would have to present an initial fact before you could offer any further ones, painful or otherwise.
So now you'll resort to assuming you know what I think, and that it's irrational. Here's what I think: All this focus on executive pay is a red herring, and the administration is badly mis-serving the country by running with it; they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
If you'd said that, I'd agree, and maybe someone in the world would be persuaded. Instead you threw out some blatant falsehood and are now resorting to ad-hominems to avoid acknowledging your bad faith.
Here's a fun quote that says you are wrong:
"Studies show that the number of birds killed by wind turbines is negligible compared to the number that die as a result of other human activities such as traffic, hunting, power lines and high-rise buildings and especially the environmental impacts of using non-clean power sources."
Can you guess what link I followed to find it?
"So, essentially, you would have to move your blades in such a way as to not be totally perpendicular to the wind for the majority of the time. This leads to less than optimal power generation."
The blades of a propeller are constantly moving sideways through the wind as they go around in a circle. Despite being counter-intuitive, it would actually be easy to design a windmill-powered boat that kept station versus the wind.
"Sounds a whole lot less efficient than just tethering the thing in the first place."
Well, sure, if you want to take the easy way out and skip the nifty physics puzzle.
I have released BSD code.
If you take that code and make closed source improvements, my happiness that my code was useful to someone will outweigh my sadness that I can't use the improvements.
If you take that code and make GPL licensed improvements, my happiness that my code was useful to someone will outweigh my sadness that I can't use the improvements in the ways I would like to.
If you take that code and make GPL licensed improvements so that I can't use them in the ways I would like to and in which I let you use my code, and then tell me you your code is more free... my happiness that my code was useful to someone will have to compete my sadness that someone is an idiot.
Sorry, I was a bit terse. I meant:
[Citation needed that actually supports your contention]
Any mention at all of "capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies" would be a good start. I've no doubt you can find references to that, or anything, at random blogs because random bloggers make up BS that isn't true. Like slahdot posters.
Assuming they did any of the evil schemes you mention, and said "Hey, it was beta" - would that make you any less upset? If they came out of beta, and did any of those evil schemes a year later, would you have any more legal recourse? The beta tag is irrelevant to any evil schemes.
And that's exactly the problem. I tell people a build is "beta" and they think "Oh, like gmail... as stable as anything, half the world uses it all the time for important stuff, no problem" when I'm trying to say "Keep this the hell away from your production process, it hasn't been thoroughly tested so I assume there are horrible bugs in there somewhere"
Gmail is not beta. Google is misusing the term and screwing up the language for the rest of us. Excellent mail service though.
GMail is not beta. Does it matter to me that they wrongly call it beta when I decide what email service to use? No.
Does it matter to me when I have an incomplete, under-tested build of some software, not suitable for production use, and I want to communicate that to users? Yes, then it's a real pain in the ass that Google has promulgated an incorrect meaning for a previously useful term to the public.
"The White House *has* actually considered capping CEO pay in *all* publically held companies"
[citation needed]
Cycling has a big advantage though: Take that many hour race and edit it down to a 15 minute highlight reel, and you *do* have something you can watch in a bar. Even as a gamer, even if you cut it down to a highlight reel, I can't see wanting to watch others play for long.
Admittedly, in the US at least, non-cyclists don't watch cycling the way people watch football. Which is why pro cycling gets supported by people advertising to cyclists, and football gets supported by people marketing to a wider audience.
But cyclists-who-watch-cycling is still a reasonable market to try to sell stuff to, whereas gamers-who-watch-gaming isn't.
At least, that's my impression as someone who cycles and games but doesn't play football, and of the three would watch only cycling (but only highlights)
"People would go out of their way to enter tournaments even though they knew even if they won first place, it wouldnt pay for itself. They played because it was fun and they enjoyed it."
If it didn't pay for itself, you weren't a pro. That's not meant as a slam, just a definition.
Exactly. This is my problem: Linux currently works brilliantly for me in some contexts (netbook, file server), and is a disaster for me in other contexts (main all-purpose workstation). I'd like to figure out if it would work for me in a new context, and it is completely impossible to do so. Ask in any forum where there are people who actually know and they will be completely drowned out by hordes insisting Linux is fabulous in all cases, wondering how you deal with Windows constantly setting your box on fire, etc.
"I hope you don't expect anyone to fix your problems then. "
He doesn't expect anyone to fix his Linux problems. He has learned that they won't, so he doesn't use Linux.
"Because those two points are not very compatible: wanting others to fix your problems but not doing anything about them yourselves."
Actually, wanting others to do something about problems and not want to do something about them yourself are extremely compatible positions. In any case, he has done something about his Linux problems: stuck with Windows.
"let's not forget that if Steam goes belly up, games bought there will become unplayable."
I haven't forgotten that. I just don't care. I want to feel like I got good value for my entertainment dollar within a few days, maybe a week of making a purchase. And I generally do. Anything that happens after that is coincidental.
I'll also note that I've got a big stack of old games on CDs, and occasionally I'll try to pull one out. Usually, it is not playable. Sure, I could theoretically play the original C&C if I had the running Win95 system it insists on (98 won't do), and god knows what dependencies beyond that. But that's not going to happen. The difference between that and not being able to play because steam went away is totally academic.
"Let your 11 year old nephew play with your account for a few days, and he might get the account banned, and you lose access to all of your Steam games."
I should show you the "art" my son makes gluing together broken pieces of cds. Let children play with your stuff, and they might break your stuff.