Thieves who broke into a government contractor's office snatched computer hard drives containing Social Security numbers, addresses and other records of about 500,000 members of the military and their families.
Only the harddrives were taken from the machines, so unless the thieves were desperate for more space to download mp3s onto, then it's quite probable that they were just after the data.
If a ringtone's "musical composition is totally different" from an existing musical work then, by definition, it doesn't sound the same.
But the compositions can be different and the songs only sound similar. How different do the songs have to be to avoid being sued ? I find it hard to recognize some ringtones, are they still infringing 'copies' ?
However, what we're talking about is works that do sound the same. However, if I had tried to sell recordings of my rendition of the tune as an original work then the corporate lawyers representing John Williams (or his record label) would have stomped all over me, and rightly so. I would have been infringing on the copyright of an established artist, pure and simple
Please explain on what grounds they would be able to sure you for copyright infringement. Your composition would have differed from his even though the listeners can recognise what the original song is.
I could create a close (but not identical) copy of the classic Coca-Cola bottle that doesn't give me the right to use it commercially
You're comparing apples and oranges. The shape of the Coca-Cola bottle is probably covered both by a patented design and a trademark shape. The patent on the design has probably expired by now, but the trademark is presumably still enforced and in force.
Finally, your assertion that "the only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court", is laughable. You claim to be familiar with the arguments surrounding copyright ownership but yet you don't know that you can't copyright facts?
No, I said that the record companies could _TRY_ and argue that the songs title is copyrighted, but that they should be laughed out of court because it would be a bogus argument to make.
Could you be more wrong? and yes I could always be more wrong, if I tried. For example I could say that I have a patent on the process of making downloadable tunes on mobile phones, which would be complete bollocks.
bone up on copyright law. Song titles are not copyrightable
Yes I know that's why I said that the record companies could _try_ to argue, but they would get laughed out of court. Let's face it they would try something like that.
These ring tones may not use the same instrumental arrangements are the original recordings, but they do use the same melody notes (and "timing of the notes")
The ring tones are similar, but are not going to be identical to the original arrangements/recordings because of the limitations of the phones abilities. How different do they have to be to be considered a new work ? What if the tunes in different key ?
Just because the song is similar enough to be recognisbly hum-able to the original song doesn't make it a copy, or an infringing derivative work. If you've got evidence to the contrary (either US/UK law or precedent) please share them.
No, you're wrong. If the melody is recognizable, the copyright owner has a pretty good case against you. (And if it isn't, then it's not a very good ringtone.)
How different would a ring tone have to be before it was't covered by copyright ? Personally I'd say that they're already very different from the music they're imitating.
Creating a ringtone that tries to sound like a pre-existing piece of music is clearly not making a completely new work. It's making an arrangement of someone else's art, and the originator of that art deserves compensation.
Can you point to any laws or precedent set in either US or UK law for this ? (I'm not saying your wrong, it's just that I haven't seen any evidence backing that argument up)
It's making an arrangement of someone else's art
Yep, that's what I'm wondering about, the arrangement is different and the notes are different - although it sounds similar why shouldn't it be treated as a new work ? Otherwise you could argue that as all modern Pop music sounds the same (to my ears at least) and so new Pop songs should have to pay royalties to similar the artists that have made similar songs.
Can someone please explain why the music labels feel that they deserve to get any cash for these ring tones ? I am not a copyright lawyer, but I have been connected with most of the arguments.
AFAIK this is a classic example of a (remotely) derived work, and lets face it a phone going dee-da-da-dee-da is not in really remotely related to or produced from the actual music that they phone melody makers are trying to reproduce.
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
The only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court.
So although it looks like a nice revenue stream for the music industry, why should they get any cash ?
Why do I get the nasty idea that the some people in the military/CIA had thought of the Total Information Awareness program some time ago and were just waiting for a problem to propose it as a solution ?
I mean the horrendous events of Sept 11th didn't slip past the security services because there wasn't enough information available, they slipped past because none of the analysts connected the dots between known associates of terrorists in the USA + money being sent to these people from Saudi + lots of odd(*) people wanting to learn how to fly jets = big friqin problem.
Increasing the amount of detail that the analysts have to deal with would not solve any of the problems that allowed Sept. 11th to happen, but would make the governments job of cracking down on US dissidents easier.
It's the same in the UK. The civil service seem very eager for there to be a national identity card, and keep proposing it as a solution for a variety of different problems. One year it can be used to combat terrorism, the next it can be used to crack down on asylum seekers. ooh how about we use to prevent identity fraud ? Every time the public refuses to accept this government monitoring of them, but still the civil servants keep suggesting the same plan over and over.
* Odd people = Students who come to the US on a visa, then are allowed to drop the studying and start learning how to do a job (breaking the terms of their visa), and who then act suspiciously enough during the lessons, so that the instructors call the FBI to warn them they think the students might be terrorists wanting to fly the planes into buuldings
Sterling interviewed Gail Thackeray, a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona, who offered this view of computer crime 10 years hence -- in other words, right about now:
"It'll be like drugs are. Like our problems with alcohol. All the cops and laws in the world never solved our problems with alcohol. If there's something people want, a certain percentage of them are just going to take it. Fifteen percent of the populace will never steal. Fifteen percent will steal anything that's not nailed down. The battle is for the hearts and minds of the remaining 70 percent."
Yeah but as the Register said it's a pretty odd selection of companies from a pretty odd selection of countries.
In fact if you take away companies from the USA then it seems to leave lot's of companies from Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Odd, all these countries have very strong ties with the CIA, oil and defence industries and all have either (effectively) dictatorships or incredibly bad human rights records.
If someone had a couple of months to investigate this they could probably come up with a pretty good conspiracy theory.
I'm not saying that the product doesn't work but I must say that the guy who runs the business should stop smoking his own ozone.
All From http://www.aranizer.com/producti.asp
Our government, through the FDA and EPA, have set "guidelines" which made the presence of Ozone acceptable in industry and public areas. Yet, there has not been one documented incident related to a death caused by Ozone anywhere in the government's extensive research!
Furthermore, it is clear that cigarettes cause cancer, and that secondary smoke can be more harmful to a non- smoker than first hand smoke may be to a smoker. Yet, the government is not too quick to "outlaw" cigarettes or to restrict smoking to "SMOKING ROOMS ONLY" areas.
Er, it appears that this webpage hasn't been updated since, um, 1968 ?
As my father's patent was searched by the Patent Office and granted a patent in 1965, the 04, 05, 06, 07, 0X, etc. created by the ARAN(TM) generator was a significant breakthrough in the Air and Water Purification Industry since ARAN(TM) was created without splitting the Nitrogen molecule.
While there are many "experts" stating that ARAN(TM) as O4, O5, O6, OX, etc., cannot and does not exist, a Japanese physicist, Dr.Uozumi, through "balanced mathematical and chemical equations," revealed that airborne Oxygen, when exposed to dense, high velocity electron plasma (without any heat from electrode sparking), will form into higher atomic groupings like O10.
I think you'd probably win at least one Nobel prize for creating molecules of O10 that exist for more than a thousandth of a second, as it would make a FANTASTIC oxidizer for rockets.
Just as there are individuals that claim Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) if taken orally in very dilute amounts will help keep the human body free of bacteria and disease, the use of Ozone either taken anally or intravenously is touted by many users of Ozone as the panacea for most human ailments.
Since Nick Trikilis was the National Sales Manager for Automatic Electrical Devices from 1946 to 1950, his sale of Ozone producing machines under the Trademark "HomOzone"
This shouldn't be funny, but what would the sales pitch be: Salesman 'Would you like a homozone in your home?' Customer 'How do I use it?' Salesman 'well you could try sticking it up your ass.'
Hmm, I wonder if he'll actually be brought to trial or will get judged to be a nutter and sent to a mental hospital.
When I was at primary school in Colchester(UK) there was a spate of school fires in my area which the police believed to be arson. They got extremely excited when they realised that the headmaster(principal) of my school had visited each of the schools just before the fires. Obviously they questioned him quite closely but then couldn't find any evidence against him, so they started secret surveillance on his movements.
A couple of days into the surveillance, my school got burnt down completely and what the police saw was another teacher torching the school. Apparently this guy had flipped and he was trying to assasinate the headmaster by burning down any buildings that he visited. Not really the most efficient way of taking someone out, but that's madness for you.
I'm pretty sure he was judged to be clinically insane and sent away pretty much permanently....
Actually, there is an SCEJ. They're the Product Development side of Sony Computer Entertainment that makes games for PlayStation consoles.
I thought that all the PlayStation development was included in the SCEI company, which is why they and their second party developers get all the devkits and all the information about the PS first.
Generalised statements like "Sony wants this... Microsoft wants that..." ignores that these companies are comprised of thousands of individuals
Hmm, but most of Microsoft strategic decisions are made by just two people, Stevie and Billy.
....not a single robotic policy maker. Though the AIBO guys are probably working on one.
Arf! Do you think it will waggle it's legs in the air when you tickle it's belly ?
Sony is way, way more than two companies. You can find their list of subsidaries in Japan and outside Japan, which seems to be about 85 companies.
The subsidaries seem to be free to act as they see fit and their seems to be very little interference in how they are run from the Sony group company.
Just the computer games divisions are divided into Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEI*), Sony Computer Entertainment America(SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe(SCEE). All of these companies are separate entities, with seperate responsibilities and ideas about how they should be doing business.
*Yes I know it should be SCEJ, but it isn't, okay?
"It was an actual customer," spokeswoman Charmaine Gravning said. "We kind of figured out that really isn't the best way to go about communicating. "
Oops, no it's not....btw is there an advertising standards agency in the US ? In the UK there's a government body set up to slap companies for exactly this behaviour.
In a very timely interview Christopher Reeves blames a breakdown in the separation between church and state, namely Bushes dependence and appreciation of right wing Christian groups, for him still being paralysed
"We've had a severe violation of the separation of church and state in the handling of what to do about this emerging technology. Imagine if developing a polio vaccine had been a controversial issue," he says. "There are religious groups - the Jehovah's Witnesses, I believe - who think it's a sin to have a blood transfusion. What if the president for some reason decided to listen to them, instead of to the Catholics, which is the group he really listens to in making his decisions about embryonic stem cell research? Where would we be with blood transfusions?"
Whether it's right for the separation of the church from deciding what's right and wrong in science experiments could be argued till the cows come home. What's not arguable is that any intrusion of politics into scientific debate won't be to the benefit of some special interest group.
A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.
Ugh, can you imagine that scientist being totally objective ? At the moment US politics is completely dominated by companies trying to screw as much as they can out of the world. Putting them in charge of any advisory committees that help determine federal policy is going to be good for business and terrible for the US public.
Once in a great while we'll look up and see a jet and it will seem as strange as seeing a hot air balloon or the Concorde today.
I work under the flight approach to Heathrow and have a window (three in fact) facing the planes coming in, so I get to see(hear + feel, it is really loud) Concorde every couple of days.
Many complaints criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to everyone, not just U.S. companies, and thus hurting American business.
Microsoft would not comment directly on its lobbying efforts, but did stress that it wanted to ensure the government continued to fund commercial ventures. "Our interest is in helping to ensure that the government licenses its research in ways that take into account a stated goal of the U.S. government: to promote commercialization of public research."
Hmm, so let's get this straight, using tax-payers money to do useful research and then giving the results of the research out to the tax-payers, hurts companies, so instead the research should be handed over to a commercial company who will sell the IP at a huge profit ?
There is something wrong in American society where the needs of a few (or one) companies, outweighs the need of all the citizens, and the other 99.99% of companies, who would all benefit from the research being released into the public domain.
I suggest for the benefit of your country, you send a message of support to the Open Source now bill, before your government is completely assimilated.
I've been concerned about the entertainment giants being able to dominate and control all information in the future, through DRM schemes and other usage-control schemes.
However, I think now that none of these schemes are likely to be widely adopted by the public as they are all WAY too complicated to understand, let alone use.
For example, here is Microsofts page for its Personal License Update Wizard, which apparently will let you transfer DRM limited music from one machine to another. Of course you need to run it before you transfer the music, so if your installation of Windows dies, but the hard drive is still readable you have still lost all your music.
Read the page and see how many times you say 'huh?' (for me it was about 8)
Compare this to MP3s, which work transparently across PC, Macs and portable devices without difficulty, and can be shared by people without having to transfer their 'Digital Rights' to another machine. It's going to take a lot of armtwisting to make people pay for entertainment products, which are more difficult to use and less useful (if they're tied to single devices) than current major formats, eg CDs and DVDs.
Talking of arm twisting, anyone interested in the UK 'equivalent' of the DMCA should read an overview of the implementationof the EU directive on Copyright Harmonisation. This is very probably going to become UK law before Christmas and basically makes it illegal, to intefere with any DRM schemes. So for example if a music CD has a program that phones home on it, whenever the disc is played in a PC, it's going to be illegal to use a firewall from stopping it from sending any information out.
Oh and btw, of course everyone copying music from CDs to a computer in the UK is breaking the law anyway, as we appear not to have a doctrine of fair-use (or fair-dealing as it's known in the UK). oops.
also btw Microsoft has slightly modified the Eula for this update wizard, from the horrendous 'by using this software you allow Microsoft to run any software on your machine or stop you running any software' to being able only to affect software that is concerned with security for the DRM.
Owners of Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners") may, from time to time, request Microsoft to provide security related updates to this Software ("Security Updates") that may affect your ability to use this Software. Such Security Updates would be provided only for the purpose of controlling the use of security technologies in this Software and would not affect other software or content on your computer.
I'd much rather that SGI and Nokia would get other companies involved (ie nVidia + Sun )to support bindings for OpenGL through Java, so that we can have a fully independent graphics platform, with all the fruitiness of Java and all the zing of OpenGL. (mmmnn, hardware accelerated 3d in a browser...)
There are some open source projects (http://www.jausoft.com/gl4java/) that enable the use of OpenGL through Java, but it'd obviously be better if there was a major force to push for it to be a standard way of implementing graphics on all platforms that support Java + OpenGL _now_, rather than after they develop this new OpenGL ES.
btw anyone know if/when OpenGL ES or OpenML is meant to be appearing ? The Khronos website doesn't mention any dates....
First up here's a Karma-whoring link to an in depth article about the profit/loss of each company selling games consoles:
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter0 2. html
Secondly I don't really believe either Microsofts maths for the Xbox, or Dean Takahashi's (he was the author of 'Opening the Xbox', which is alledgedly an outside view of the Xbox development process, but is actually really only about glorifying Seamus Blackley, one of the original xbox designers).
The article claims that each Xbox cost $325 (which is below the $375 that other analysts have come up with), and that each Xbox is sold to retail at $175, leaving a massive margin of $24 or 12% for the shop, which is much below the 15-20% that shops expect.
Also none of Mr Takahashi's articles (or any others) mention the huge bribes^H^H^H, joint marketing schemes that Microsoft makes available to companies that want to develop Xbox games. I've heard rumours from a company that I used to work for (codemaster.com) that Microsoft would give up to $3 million for a game to be ported to the xbox, mulitply that by 100 games that they want, and you've got a whole load of cash.
But anyway I doubt real figures for how much the Xbox costs microsoft will ever come out, as they have enough accountants to obsure the real figure, from their shareholders, who ought to be asking why Microsoft are willing to spend $4-6 billion, when most of the games industry have always said that they never had a chance to beat Sony.
They are sinking money in data centers and support. Then they have to give a cut to the game makers.
This is why EA aren't going to be releasing any XBox live games this year. With the PS2 and PC games they can charge the gameplayer a subscription for the months that the player wants to play that particular game. With Xbox live they would only a get a fraction of the cash the player pays, with their own games that get all the cash.
Lets say 10% (an overly hopeful figure) of XBox owners sign up. If we come up with another hopeful figure of 6 million total XBox owners in 3 months time.
I'd say that the 10% signup ratio is probably a slightly low estimate for North America. However it's probably too high for Europe where broadband internet access is not very common (i think maybe 10% of homes have it installed).
Also the sales of XBoxes would have to rise to about ten times current sales to reach 6 million within 6 months, and I don't see any killer games coming this summer for Xbox, whereas the GameCube has a great lineup.
As for the stockholders, you've got to ask when they're going to rise up and demand that Microsoft gets its act together and start actually innovating and introducing good products rather than bullying there way through business.
Just for anyone confused by the cute little troll, Michael was reffering to EA not wanting to develop online games for Xbox, due to M$ wanting to control the servers, EA Cites MS Bullying, Says No Xbox Online Games.
Why is this a big deal for EA ? Because if M$ contol the servers then they control all the revenue that comes, in through online games. EA hate this as at the moment they are free to pick and choose which games they develop for which consoles.
If M$ had the power to 'accidentally' disconnect EAs online games, then EA would not be able to make free decisions about what games are made for the Xbox, and so would be bound into supporting M$ for ever, even if it made more economic sense for them not to.
This is one of the main reasons why most game companies are reasonably happy with Sony and Nintdendo dominating the games industry. Yes, they can be selfish and hard to work with, but they at least let other games companies exist and don't try to bully them into handing over all their future profits on online games.
Same efficiency as always, energy out from the work / energy put in to do the work.
In this case the energy out is the potential energy of the heat that's been moved around,or how much energy you could back from that heat.
eg if you use the a cooling device to heat one block of metal whilst cooling another block of metal, you could use a thermocouple device to generate electricity. The theoretical maximum amount of energy you can generate would be the energy out from the cooling device. The amount of energy used by the cooling device would be the work in.
Slashdot Mirror
It's in the first line.
Thieves who broke into a government contractor's office snatched computer hard drives containing Social Security numbers, addresses and other records of about 500,000 members of the military and their families.
Only the harddrives were taken from the machines, so unless the thieves were desperate for more space to download mp3s onto, then it's quite probable that they were just after the data.
If a ringtone's "musical composition is totally different" from an existing musical work then, by definition, it doesn't sound the same.
But the compositions can be different and the songs only sound similar. How different do the songs have to be to avoid being sued ? I find it hard to recognize some ringtones, are they still infringing 'copies' ?
However, what we're talking about is works that do sound the same.
However, if I had tried to sell recordings of my rendition of the tune as an original work then the corporate lawyers representing John Williams (or his record label) would have stomped all over me, and rightly so. I would have been infringing on the copyright of an established artist, pure and simple
Please explain on what grounds they would be able to sure you for copyright infringement. Your composition would have differed from his even though the listeners can recognise what the original song is.
I could create a close (but not identical) copy of the classic Coca-Cola bottle that doesn't give me the right to use it commercially
You're comparing apples and oranges. The shape of the Coca-Cola bottle is probably covered both by a patented design and a trademark shape. The patent on the design has probably expired by now, but the trademark is presumably still enforced and in force.
Finally, your assertion that "the only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court", is laughable. You claim to be familiar with the arguments surrounding copyright ownership but yet you don't know that you can't copyright facts?
No, I said that the record companies could _TRY_ and argue that the songs title is copyrighted, but that they should be laughed out of court because it would be a bogus argument to make.
Could you be more wrong?
and yes I could always be more wrong, if I tried. For example I could say that I have a patent on the process of making downloadable tunes on mobile phones, which would be complete bollocks.
bone up on copyright law. Song titles are not copyrightable
Yes I know that's why I said that the record companies could _try_ to argue, but they would get laughed out of court. Let's face it they would try something like that.
These ring tones may not use the same instrumental arrangements are the original recordings, but they do use the same melody notes (and "timing of the notes")
The ring tones are similar, but are not going to be identical to the original arrangements/recordings because of the limitations of the phones abilities. How different do they have to be to be considered a new work ? What if the tunes in different key ?
Just because the song is similar enough to be recognisbly hum-able to the original song doesn't make it a copy, or an infringing derivative work. If you've got evidence to the contrary (either US/UK law or precedent) please share them.
How different would a ring tone have to be before it was't covered by copyright ? Personally I'd say that they're already very different from the music they're imitating.
Can you point to any laws or precedent set in either US or UK law for this ? (I'm not saying your wrong, it's just that I haven't seen any evidence backing that argument up)
It's making an arrangement of someone else's art
Yep, that's what I'm wondering about, the arrangement is different and the notes are different - although it sounds similar why shouldn't it be treated as a new work ? Otherwise you could argue that as all modern Pop music sounds the same (to my ears at least) and so new Pop songs should have to pay royalties to similar the artists that have made similar songs.
Can someone please explain why the music labels feel that they deserve to get any cash for these ring tones ? I am not a copyright lawyer, but I have been connected with most of the arguments.
AFAIK this is a classic example of a (remotely) derived work, and lets face it a phone going dee-da-da-dee-da is not in really remotely related to or produced from the actual music that they phone melody makers are trying to reproduce.
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
The only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court.
So although it looks like a nice revenue stream for the music industry, why should they get any cash ?
Mod that up, That's how the jokes meant to work....
Why do I get the nasty idea that the some people in the military/CIA had thought of the Total Information Awareness program some time ago and were just waiting for a problem to propose it as a solution ?
I mean the horrendous events of Sept 11th didn't slip past the security services because there wasn't enough information available, they slipped past because none of the analysts connected the dots between known associates of terrorists in the USA + money being sent to these people from Saudi + lots of odd(*) people wanting to learn how to fly jets = big friqin problem.
Increasing the amount of detail that the analysts have to deal with would not solve any of the problems that allowed Sept. 11th to happen, but would make the governments job of cracking down on US dissidents easier.
It's the same in the UK. The civil service seem very eager for there to be a national identity card, and keep proposing it as a solution for a variety of different problems.
One year it can be used to combat terrorism, the next it can be used to crack down on asylum seekers. ooh how about we use to prevent identity fraud ? Every time the public refuses to accept this government monitoring of them, but still the civil servants keep suggesting the same plan over and over.
* Odd people = Students who come to the US on a visa, then are allowed to drop the studying and start learning how to do a job (breaking the terms of their visa), and who then act suspiciously enough during the lessons, so that the instructors call the FBI to warn them they think the students might be terrorists wanting to fly the planes into buuldings
Interesting quote, here's the source:
Sterling interviewed Gail Thackeray, a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona, who offered this view of computer crime 10 years hence -- in other words, right about now:
"It'll be like drugs are. Like our problems with alcohol. All the cops and laws in the world never solved our problems with alcohol. If there's something people want, a certain percentage of them are just going to take it. Fifteen percent of the populace will never steal. Fifteen percent will steal anything that's not nailed down. The battle is for the hearts and minds of the remaining 70 percent."
Like Terry Bollinger at MITRE
How's about a link to a document then ?
blah blah blah time lameness filter
blah blah blah
No other big names
Yeah but as the Register said it's a pretty odd selection of companies from a pretty odd selection of countries.
In fact if you take away companies from the USA then it seems to leave lot's of companies from Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Odd, all these countries have very strong ties with the CIA, oil and defence industries and all have either (effectively) dictatorships or incredibly bad human rights records.
If someone had a couple of months to investigate this they could probably come up with a pretty good conspiracy theory.
I'm not saying that the product doesn't work but I must say that the guy who runs the business should stop smoking his own ozone.
All From http://www.aranizer.com/producti.asp
Our government, through the FDA and EPA, have set "guidelines" which made the presence of Ozone acceptable in industry and public areas. Yet, there has not been one documented incident related to a death caused by Ozone anywhere in the government's extensive research!
Furthermore, it is clear that cigarettes cause cancer, and that secondary smoke can be more harmful to a non- smoker than first hand smoke may be to a smoker. Yet, the government is not too quick to "outlaw" cigarettes or to restrict smoking to "SMOKING ROOMS ONLY" areas.
Er, it appears that this webpage hasn't been updated since, um, 1968 ?
As my father's patent was searched by the Patent Office and granted a patent in 1965, the 04, 05, 06, 07, 0X, etc. created by the ARAN(TM) generator was a significant breakthrough in the Air and Water Purification Industry since ARAN(TM) was created without splitting the Nitrogen molecule.
While there are many "experts" stating that ARAN(TM) as O4, O5, O6, OX, etc., cannot and does not exist, a Japanese physicist, Dr.Uozumi, through "balanced mathematical and chemical equations," revealed that airborne Oxygen, when exposed to dense, high velocity electron plasma (without any heat from electrode sparking), will form into higher atomic groupings like O10.
I think you'd probably win at least one Nobel prize for creating molecules of O10 that exist for more than a thousandth of a second, as it would make a FANTASTIC oxidizer for rockets.
Just as there are individuals that claim Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) if taken orally in very dilute amounts will help keep the human body free of bacteria and disease, the use of Ozone either taken anally or intravenously is touted by many users of Ozone as the panacea for most human ailments.
Since Nick Trikilis was the National Sales Manager for Automatic Electrical Devices from 1946 to 1950, his sale of Ozone producing machines under the Trademark "HomOzone"
This shouldn't be funny, but what would the sales pitch be:
Salesman 'Would you like a homozone in your home?'
Customer 'How do I use it?'
Salesman 'well you could try sticking it up your ass.'
Monopolies raise prices, more details at nine !
Surely this should be from the 'Economics 101' department.
Hmm, I wonder if he'll actually be brought to trial or will get judged to be a nutter and sent to a mental hospital.
When I was at primary school in Colchester(UK) there was a spate of school fires in my area which the police believed to be arson. They got extremely excited when they realised that the headmaster(principal) of my school had visited each of the schools just before the fires. Obviously they questioned him quite closely but then couldn't find any evidence against him, so they started secret surveillance on his movements.
A couple of days into the surveillance, my school got burnt down completely and what the police saw was another teacher torching the school. Apparently this guy had flipped and he was trying to assasinate the headmaster by burning down any buildings that he visited. Not really the most efficient way of taking someone out, but that's madness for you.
I'm pretty sure he was judged to be clinically insane and sent away pretty much permanently....
I thought that all the PlayStation development was included in the SCEI company, which is why they and their second party developers get all the devkits and all the information about the PS first.
Generalised statements like "Sony wants this... Microsoft wants that..." ignores that these companies are comprised of thousands of individuals
Hmm, but most of Microsoft strategic decisions are made by just two people, Stevie and Billy.
Though the AIBO guys are probably working on one.
Arf! Do you think it will waggle it's legs in the air when you tickle it's belly ?
Sony is way, way more than two companies. You can find their list of subsidaries in Japan and outside Japan, which seems to be about 85 companies.
The subsidaries seem to be free to act as they see fit and their seems to be very little interference in how they are run from the Sony group company.
Just the computer games divisions are divided into Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEI*), Sony Computer Entertainment America(SCEA) and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe(SCEE). All of these companies are separate entities, with seperate responsibilities and ideas about how they should be doing business.
*Yes I know it should be SCEJ, but it isn't, okay?
"It was an actual customer," spokeswoman Charmaine Gravning said. "We kind of figured out that really isn't the best way to go about communicating. "
Oops, no it's not....btw is there an advertising standards agency in the US ? In the UK there's a government body set up to slap companies for exactly this behaviour.
In a very timely interview Christopher Reeves blames a breakdown in the separation between church and state, namely Bushes dependence and appreciation of right wing Christian groups, for him still being paralysed
"We've had a severe violation of the separation of church and state in the handling of what to do about this emerging technology. Imagine if developing a polio vaccine had been a controversial issue," he says. "There are religious groups - the Jehovah's Witnesses, I believe - who think it's a sin to have a blood transfusion. What if the president for some reason decided to listen to them, instead of to the Catholics, which is the group he really listens to in making his decisions about embryonic stem cell research? Where would we be with blood transfusions?"
Whether it's right for the separation of the church from deciding what's right and wrong in science experiments could be argued till the cows come home. What's not arguable is that any intrusion of politics into scientific debate won't be to the benefit of some special interest group.
A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.
Ugh, can you imagine that scientist being totally objective ? At the moment US politics is completely dominated by companies trying to screw as much as they can out of the world. Putting them in charge of any advisory committees that help determine federal policy is going to be good for business and terrible for the US public.
Once in a great while we'll look up and see a jet and it will seem as strange as seeing a hot air balloon or the Concorde today.
I work under the flight approach to Heathrow and have a window (three in fact) facing the planes coming in, so I get to see(hear + feel, it is really loud) Concorde every couple of days.
Neener, neener, neener !
Many complaints criticized the agency for providing the fruits of research to everyone, not just U.S. companies, and thus hurting American business.
Microsoft would not comment directly on its lobbying efforts, but did stress that it wanted to ensure the government continued to fund commercial ventures. "Our interest is in helping to ensure that the government licenses its research in ways that take into account a stated goal of the U.S. government: to promote commercialization of public research."
Hmm, so let's get this straight, using tax-payers money to do useful research and then giving the results of the research out to the tax-payers, hurts companies, so instead the research should be handed over to a commercial company who will sell the IP at a huge profit ?
There is something wrong in American society where the needs of a few (or one) companies, outweighs the need of all the citizens, and the other 99.99% of companies, who would all benefit from the research being released into the public domain.
I suggest for the benefit of your country, you send a message of support to the Open Source now bill, before your government is completely assimilated.
I've been concerned about the entertainment giants being able to dominate and control all information in the future, through DRM schemes and other usage-control schemes.
However, I think now that none of these schemes are likely to be widely adopted by the public as they are all WAY too complicated to understand, let alone use.
For example, here is Microsofts page for its
Personal License Update Wizard, which apparently will let you transfer DRM limited music from one machine to another. Of course you need to run it before you transfer the music, so if your installation of Windows dies, but the hard drive is still readable you have still lost all your music.
Read the page and see how many times you say 'huh?' (for me it was about 8)
Compare this to MP3s, which work transparently across PC, Macs and portable devices without difficulty, and can be shared by people without having to transfer their 'Digital Rights' to another machine. It's going to take a lot of armtwisting to make people pay for entertainment products, which are more difficult to use and less useful (if they're tied to single devices) than current major formats, eg CDs and DVDs.
Talking of arm twisting, anyone interested in the UK 'equivalent' of the DMCA should read an overview of the implementationof the EU directive on Copyright Harmonisation. This is very probably going to become UK law before Christmas and basically makes it illegal, to intefere with any DRM schemes. So for example if a music CD has a program that phones home on it, whenever the disc is played in a PC, it's going to be illegal to use a firewall from stopping it from sending any information out.
Oh and btw, of course everyone copying music from CDs to a computer in the UK is breaking the law anyway, as we appear not to have a doctrine of fair-use (or fair-dealing as it's known in the UK). oops.
also btw Microsoft has slightly modified the Eula for this update wizard, from the horrendous 'by using this software you allow Microsoft to run any software on your machine or stop you running any software' to being able only to affect software that is concerned with security for the DRM.
Owners of Secure Content ("Secure Content Owners") may, from time to time, request Microsoft to provide security related updates to this Software ("Security Updates") that may affect your ability to use this Software. Such Security Updates would be provided only for the purpose of controlling the use of security technologies in this Software and would not affect other software or content on your computer.
I'd much rather that SGI and Nokia would get other companies involved (ie nVidia + Sun )to support bindings for OpenGL through Java, so that we can have a fully independent graphics platform, with all the fruitiness of Java and all the zing of OpenGL. (mmmnn, hardware accelerated 3d in a browser...)
There are some open source projects (http://www.jausoft.com/gl4java/) that enable the use of OpenGL through Java, but it'd obviously be better if there was a major force to push for it to be a standard way of implementing graphics on all platforms that support Java + OpenGL _now_, rather than after they develop this new OpenGL ES.
btw anyone know if/when OpenGL ES or OpenML is meant to be appearing ? The Khronos website doesn't mention any dates....
First up here's a Karma-whoring link to an in depth article about the profit/loss of each company selling games consoles:
0 2. html
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter
Secondly I don't really believe either Microsofts maths for the Xbox, or Dean Takahashi's (he was the author of 'Opening the Xbox', which is alledgedly an outside view of the Xbox development process, but is actually really only about glorifying Seamus Blackley, one of the original xbox designers).
The article claims that each Xbox cost $325 (which is below the $375 that other analysts have come up with), and that each Xbox is sold to retail at $175, leaving a massive margin of $24 or 12% for the shop, which is much below the 15-20% that shops expect.
Also none of Mr Takahashi's articles (or any others) mention the huge bribes^H^H^H, joint marketing schemes that Microsoft makes available to companies that want to develop Xbox games. I've heard rumours from a company that I used to work for (codemaster.com) that Microsoft would give up to $3 million for a game to be ported to the xbox, mulitply that by 100 games that they want, and you've got a whole load of cash.
But anyway I doubt real figures for how much the Xbox costs microsoft will ever come out, as they have enough accountants to obsure the real figure, from their shareholders, who ought to be asking why Microsoft are willing to spend $4-6 billion, when most of the games industry have always said that they never had a chance to beat Sony.
They are sinking money in data centers and support. Then they have to give a cut to the game makers.
This is why EA aren't going to be releasing any XBox live games this year. With the PS2 and PC games they can charge the gameplayer a subscription for the months that the player wants to play that particular game. With Xbox live they would only a get a fraction of the cash the player pays, with their own games that get all the cash.
Lets say 10% (an overly hopeful figure) of XBox owners sign up. If we come up with another hopeful figure of 6 million total XBox owners in 3 months time.
I'd say that the 10% signup ratio is probably a slightly low estimate for North America. However it's probably too high for Europe where broadband internet access is not very common (i think maybe 10% of homes have it installed).
Also the sales of XBoxes would have to rise to about ten times current sales to reach 6 million within 6 months, and I don't see any killer games coming this summer for Xbox, whereas the GameCube has a great lineup.
As for the stockholders, you've got to ask when they're going to rise up and demand that Microsoft gets its act together and start actually innovating and introducing good products rather than bullying there way through business.
Just for anyone confused by the cute little troll, Michael was reffering to EA not wanting to develop online games for Xbox, due to M$ wanting to control the servers, EA Cites MS Bullying, Says No Xbox Online Games.
Why is this a big deal for EA ? Because if M$ contol the servers then they control all the revenue that comes, in through online games. EA hate this as at the moment they are free to pick and choose which games they develop for which consoles.
If M$ had the power to 'accidentally' disconnect EAs online games, then EA would not be able to make free decisions about what games are made for the Xbox, and so would be bound into supporting M$ for ever, even if it made more economic sense for them not to.
This is one of the main reasons why most game companies are reasonably happy with Sony and Nintdendo dominating the games industry. Yes, they can be selfish and hard to work with, but they at least let other games companies exist and don't try to bully them into handing over all their future profits on online games.
Same efficiency as always, energy out from the work / energy put in to do the work.
In this case the energy out is the potential energy of the heat that's been moved around,or how much energy you could back from that heat.
eg if you use the a cooling device to heat one block of metal whilst cooling another block of metal, you could use a thermocouple device to generate electricity. The theoretical maximum amount of energy you can generate would be the energy out from the cooling device. The amount of energy used by the cooling device would be the work in.