Actually Captain Encryption is WHY your laptop is likely to be seized in the first place. Encryption software is deemed a munition by the State Department and requires permission to be exported. Waivers are pretty easy to come by but most people don't realize that even the encryption algorithims in wireless card drivers are export controlled.
I couldn't disagree more. Star Trek hasn't just been a passive part of our culture, it has had a distinct impact on the development of our society. Many new technologies that we are realizing today were at one point fictional devices that existed only in the Star Trek universe (think communicators/cell phones). Star Trek has been credited for inspiring some researchers down the path that eventually lead or is leading towards making those technologies a reality. Watching the Enterprise go to warp 9 was enough to convince some impressionable youths to become physicists and study how to make warp travel possible. It has raised the interest of several generations for space exploration. To act as if there is no value to studying the social impact of Star Trek is extremely ignorant. (and this is coming from someone who is more of a Star Wars fan.)
well, if you're using Windows 98 how can you say with a straight face concerned about security patches? You're using an operating system that's no longer being patched, if you're really concerned about security you wouldn't be on Win98.
It is an open but proprietary format. I'm not exactly sure what restrictions are on it, if any, but I would tend to belive that Adobe would only sue if MS put some non-standard, MS-Proprietary hooks into the PDF. This is probably a direct result of MA's switch to open formats. Rather than, you know, play nice and support open formats, Microsoft is going to smear the formats that MA named as acceptable and open. Creating this fictitious threat from Adobe is step 1, step 2 is bitch and moan about how unfair MA is being by choosing a format that will get them sued (step 3 of course is profit). This has all the marks of dis-information and creative interpretations of reality.
1)The use in quesiton is the use of the person producing the work, not the consumer of the work. the guy writing the guy is doing so to make money, so yes it is comercial.
2&3)The specifics of how the game works and how a character interacts with the world can be considered part of the copyrighted work. The settings, the unique characters, the mechanics are all creative expressions in addition to artwork. I'm not sure about the details here but in it's not quite as clear cut as you make it seem. Intuitively it seems like it would be very hard to make a game guide that doesn't rely heavily on at least some parts of the copyrighted work.
4)Blizzard publishes their own game guide based on their copyrighted game. Therefore this game guide directly competes with a Blizzard products and reduces the market. Also if the guide were especially bad it may as a side effect lower the percieved value of the actual game.
You may not like copyright laws, but Blizzard does have a very strong case here, especially if you add the trademark issues into the mix.
The thing about the PTO is that it is a big money maker for the government. When the PTO denies a patent they don't get to collect any fees, so the mentality in there is "grant everything you can and let the courts figure it out."
patents only last 20 years from the date of first publication and drgus after they are developed take several years to get FDA approved. copyrights last.... is it life of the auther plus 70(90?) years? it's hard to tell because every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, Disney throws money at Congress to have the term of copyrights extended for another 20 years.
true, but completely irrelevant. IBM said they would drop the patent charges to keep things on schedule, that doesn't mean IBM can't file the charges again later. Dropping the charges saves IBM money and SCO is going to be bankrupt by the end of this anyway. IBM saves time and money while not giving up anything; SCO will probably try to spin it as IBM knows it couldn't win the patent claims but the patents are not relevant to the Linux part of the case.
That's true, but they are still liable to procecution for their actions, hence these are part of a countersuit rather than defenses for the RIAA's claims.
Export controls mean that work can't be outsourced and foreign nationals can't be brought in to work on a lot of projects. Plus if you're working on stuff that requires a government clearance, not only is competition limited to other US citizens, but it raises your pay significantly and makes you a lot more desirable on the job market.
I don't know of too many other engineers who I graduated with in may who didn't have some sort of job lined up. People in the Business school did ok too but a majority of them are doing accounting and/or consulting and personally I'd rather shoot myself. My Arts & Letters friends if they miraculously found jobs they're probably making half of what I am. I'd say an engineering degree leaves you in pretty good shape after college
Or I could get my work to pay for my MBA, end up as an engineering manager, and eventually end up in a position where I can hire and fire guys like that at will.
all of the best stuff is off the Internet, no doubt about it. There is still a lot of unclassified technology that the State Department doesn't want exported from the country though, and that's probably what's being stolen. It's usually stuff that is common in industry but can be used in certain circumstances for military purposes (i.e. encryption software). Boeing got fined pretty big not too long ago because a tiny chip in one of the comercial airplanes they sold to china could be used in missle guidance systems if oyu put enough together.
It definitely took me a few tries to get Gentoo running when i started messing with it, now it's my distro of choice, and I actually understand kernel configs somewhat competently. The Gentoo community really is great, Whenever google, the Gentoo wiki and forum search turn up nothing, someone #gentoo on freenode almost always pulls through. Now that I've got 3 computers running it with Distcc and cccache installed, compile times aren't too bad anymore:)
!!!Error: the opinions/myobnoxiousbeliefs conflicts with another package.
!!!both can't be installed on the same system together.
!!!Please use 'emerge --pretend' to determine blockers.
Yes, rather than have the free market determine which brand X controllers stay on the market and at what price point, lets have one company control it and keep prices exorbitant!
I'm not too concerned though, it's going to be the same type of situation as it was with the chips in pinter ink cartridges.
1)DRM-like scheme locks out competitor
2)competitor reverse engineers said scheme
3)???
4)Profit!!
MS would be best off not suing under the DMCA, seeing as the SCOTUS was pretty firm in the Lexmark case about the DMCA not extending to interaction between components.
So long as SCO has complied with the GPL as far as its dealings with Saba are concerned, the team would have no cause to revoke the license. If they did and tried to sue SCO, SCO could probably make a compelling defense based on latches, estople, and unclean hands.
Threatening speech and speech intended to incite others to commit violent acts against someone else have been consistently considered to fall outside the boundaries of protected speech, along with slander, libel, obscenity, and other types of speech intended to cause harm or durress (like yelling "Fire!" in a movie theater). The courts have to balance your right to free speech with the rights of others. Idle threats and the like are actually considered protected speech so long as no person of average competence would take you seriously.
that's why they wrote in the ability to change the Constitution, they knew that the government was probably going to need to adapt over time and the amendment process was written in to ensure it could be done.
The principles contained in the Constitution are all in all pretty good. The founding fathers had just gotten through with a bloody war with an opressive government and initially gave the federal government next to no powers. when that system (the articles of confederation) failed they realized that they needed a stronger federal government to keep nation together but at the same time wanted to make it very hard for the government to become opressive. (I'll leave out the debate over how effective they've been)
the whole point is that we measure time relative to the rotation and orbit of the earth, what this proposal would do would slowly let things get out of wack only to have a sudden major readjustment than a lot of smallwer ones. It's not a fix, it's just putting off addressing a problem until it gets bigger.
The problem isn't the employees so much as the system in general. The USPTO makes money in fees for every patent they grant. More patents = more money. Since the courts ruled in the early 80's that anything created, discovered, or though up could be patented the responsibility for actually determining how valid a claim is got shifted from the USPTO to the courts. The standard to get a patent today is a lot lower than it was 25 years ago and a lot less stuff is considered out of bounds.
The end result is that the USPTO evaluates itself and its employees on throughput of patents. The USPTO is a very profitable agency and Congress likes the extra funds it sees coming from there so the chances of meaningful reform to reduce patent grants isn't looking so good. If they would shift some of the cost of the application process up to the begining of the process that might make them more likely to reject more patents since it won't hurt the revenue stream too much and it would also make people think twice about filing absurd patents. Of course the downside to that would be that it would make patenting a lot harder for the little guy who might not be able to risk the pattent application being rejeted.
Slashdot Mirror
They can be crummy universe A, we'll be universe 1... or the mongooses! yeah that's a good team name, The Fighting Mongooses!
Actually Captain Encryption is WHY your laptop is likely to be seized in the first place. Encryption software is deemed a munition by the State Department and requires permission to be exported. Waivers are pretty easy to come by but most people don't realize that even the encryption algorithims in wireless card drivers are export controlled.
I couldn't disagree more. Star Trek hasn't just been a passive part of our culture, it has had a distinct impact on the development of our society. Many new technologies that we are realizing today were at one point fictional devices that existed only in the Star Trek universe (think communicators/cell phones). Star Trek has been credited for inspiring some researchers down the path that eventually lead or is leading towards making those technologies a reality. Watching the Enterprise go to warp 9 was enough to convince some impressionable youths to become physicists and study how to make warp travel possible. It has raised the interest of several generations for space exploration. To act as if there is no value to studying the social impact of Star Trek is extremely ignorant. (and this is coming from someone who is more of a Star Wars fan.)
Seriously, I read through the whole thread and this is the only one that actually captures what's going on.
well, if you're using Windows 98 how can you say with a straight face concerned about security patches? You're using an operating system that's no longer being patched, if you're really concerned about security you wouldn't be on Win98.
It is an open but proprietary format. I'm not exactly sure what restrictions are on it, if any, but I would tend to belive that Adobe would only sue if MS put some non-standard, MS-Proprietary hooks into the PDF. This is probably a direct result of MA's switch to open formats. Rather than, you know, play nice and support open formats, Microsoft is going to smear the formats that MA named as acceptable and open. Creating this fictitious threat from Adobe is step 1, step 2 is bitch and moan about how unfair MA is being by choosing a format that will get them sued (step 3 of course is profit). This has all the marks of dis-information and creative interpretations of reality.
you're wrong on several counts:
1)The use in quesiton is the use of the person producing the work, not the consumer of the work. the guy writing the guy is doing so to make money, so yes it is comercial.
2&3)The specifics of how the game works and how a character interacts with the world can be considered part of the copyrighted work. The settings, the unique characters, the mechanics are all creative expressions in addition to artwork. I'm not sure about the details here but in it's not quite as clear cut as you make it seem. Intuitively it seems like it would be very hard to make a game guide that doesn't rely heavily on at least some parts of the copyrighted work.
4)Blizzard publishes their own game guide based on their copyrighted game. Therefore this game guide directly competes with a Blizzard products and reduces the market. Also if the guide were especially bad it may as a side effect lower the percieved value of the actual game.
You may not like copyright laws, but Blizzard does have a very strong case here, especially if you add the trademark issues into the mix.
The thing about the PTO is that it is a big money maker for the government. When the PTO denies a patent they don't get to collect any fees, so the mentality in there is "grant everything you can and let the courts figure it out."
music = copyrighted
patents only last 20 years from the date of first publication and drgus after they are developed take several years to get FDA approved. copyrights last.... is it life of the auther plus 70(90?) years? it's hard to tell because every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, Disney throws money at Congress to have the term of copyrights extended for another 20 years.
how is that statement homophobic? He said that a gay man and a woman are equivalent as far as liability is concerned.
true, but completely irrelevant. IBM said they would drop the patent charges to keep things on schedule, that doesn't mean IBM can't file the charges again later. Dropping the charges saves IBM money and SCO is going to be bankrupt by the end of this anyway. IBM saves time and money while not giving up anything; SCO will probably try to spin it as IBM knows it couldn't win the patent claims but the patents are not relevant to the Linux part of the case.
That's true, but they are still liable to procecution for their actions, hence these are part of a countersuit rather than defenses for the RIAA's claims.
two words: "Government Contractors"
Export controls mean that work can't be outsourced and foreign nationals can't be brought in to work on a lot of projects. Plus if you're working on stuff that requires a government clearance, not only is competition limited to other US citizens, but it raises your pay significantly and makes you a lot more desirable on the job market.
I don't know of too many other engineers who I graduated with in may who didn't have some sort of job lined up. People in the Business school did ok too but a majority of them are doing accounting and/or consulting and personally I'd rather shoot myself. My Arts & Letters friends if they miraculously found jobs they're probably making half of what I am. I'd say an engineering degree leaves you in pretty good shape after college
Or I could get my work to pay for my MBA, end up as an engineering manager, and eventually end up in a position where I can hire and fire guys like that at will.
and if you replace "bury" with "hug" and "kill" with "send lots of money to" it's a really nice statement. I fail to see what point you're making
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all of the best stuff is off the Internet, no doubt about it. There is still a lot of unclassified technology that the State Department doesn't want exported from the country though, and that's probably what's being stolen. It's usually stuff that is common in industry but can be used in certain circumstances for military purposes (i.e. encryption software). Boeing got fined pretty big not too long ago because a tiny chip in one of the comercial airplanes they sold to china could be used in missle guidance systems if oyu put enough together.
It definitely took me a few tries to get Gentoo running when i started messing with it, now it's my distro of choice, and I actually understand kernel configs somewhat competently. The Gentoo community really is great, Whenever google, the Gentoo wiki and forum search turn up nothing, someone #gentoo on freenode almost always pulls through. Now that I've got 3 computers running it with Distcc and cccache installed, compile times aren't too bad anymore :)
!!!Error: the opinions/myobnoxiousbeliefs conflicts with another package.
!!!both can't be installed on the same system together.
!!!Please use 'emerge --pretend' to determine blockers.
I'm not too concerned though, it's going to be the same type of situation as it was with the chips in pinter ink cartridges.
1)DRM-like scheme locks out competitor
2)competitor reverse engineers said scheme
3)???
4)Profit!!
MS would be best off not suing under the DMCA, seeing as the SCOTUS was pretty firm in the Lexmark case about the DMCA not extending to interaction between components.
So long as SCO has complied with the GPL as far as its dealings with Saba are concerned, the team would have no cause to revoke the license. If they did and tried to sue SCO, SCO could probably make a compelling defense based on latches, estople, and unclean hands.
Threatening speech and speech intended to incite others to commit violent acts against someone else have been consistently considered to fall outside the boundaries of protected speech, along with slander, libel, obscenity, and other types of speech intended to cause harm or durress (like yelling "Fire!" in a movie theater). The courts have to balance your right to free speech with the rights of others. Idle threats and the like are actually considered protected speech so long as no person of average competence would take you seriously.
The principles contained in the Constitution are all in all pretty good. The founding fathers had just gotten through with a bloody war with an opressive government and initially gave the federal government next to no powers. when that system (the articles of confederation) failed they realized that they needed a stronger federal government to keep nation together but at the same time wanted to make it very hard for the government to become opressive. (I'll leave out the debate over how effective they've been)
the whole point is that we measure time relative to the rotation and orbit of the earth, what this proposal would do would slowly let things get out of wack only to have a sudden major readjustment than a lot of smallwer ones. It's not a fix, it's just putting off addressing a problem until it gets bigger.
The end result is that the USPTO evaluates itself and its employees on throughput of patents. The USPTO is a very profitable agency and Congress likes the extra funds it sees coming from there so the chances of meaningful reform to reduce patent grants isn't looking so good. If they would shift some of the cost of the application process up to the begining of the process that might make them more likely to reject more patents since it won't hurt the revenue stream too much and it would also make people think twice about filing absurd patents. Of course the downside to that would be that it would make patenting a lot harder for the little guy who might not be able to risk the pattent application being rejeted.