As someone else has posted, Rosa Parks didn't have to ride the bus.
The Supreme court has repeatedly ruled and held inviolate that the freedom to travel (regardless of means) is a constitutional right even though it's not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
You're right, I don't have to travel to Hawaii, but it is my constitutional right to freely travel to Hawaii via any means possible, without having to surrender my constitutionally given freedom of privacy.
And not everyone is traveling their optionally. I'm in the military, if I get orders to travel to Hawaii, I'll do so via commercial air and will have to submit. What then? It's not an option, other jobs can be on the line as well.
And I love the comparison I started with. Rosa Parks didn't HAVE to ride the bus at all. She could have walked, or taken a taxi, or hitched a ride if she didn't feel like moving to the back of the bus.
The Taliban as an organized group didf not exist during the cold war. We supported the Mujahideen Fighters against the Soviets. But then when the Ruskies pulled out so did we, leaving a war torn country to fend for itself. Thus allowing the Taliban to form, and to seize power.
The U.S. did not fund/help the Taliban during the cold war. and we tended to back the Northern Alliance in the 90s until 9/11 when we put our full strength behind the NA, helping them to throw out the Taliban Regime.
Iraq and Iran were a whole different story, I'll grant you that, but don't lump Afghanistan in with them.
Exactly what guarantee do you have with your hard copy books? If you take care of your digital data, moving and backing it up from device to device as you upgrade, those books will still be there, and in better condition than your paper versions.
You kids could decide to use your paper versions for coloring books or to make confetti, you could drop it in the toilet while reading it, you could spill something on it, your entire bookshelf could burn up.
All that could happen to your e-reader and with proper back-ups you still have your entire e-library in pristine condition. Digital copies don't fade, they have no paper, glue or ink for the publisher to go cheapskate on you with resulting in the book falling apart the first time you read it.
Yes if you expect to save the book on your current device and hope to read it on the same device in 20 years you are most likely going to be very disappointed, but who doesn't have at least a couple back-up options that they periodically update to newer technologies?
Now let's skip to today as you get the idea. Books are created on computers, and computers are nearly ubiquitous. Not only that but many computers are connected via the internet. The typography is easy to get down and you can easily write and distribute a digital copy of a book via a PDF file (perhaps form a LaTeX source file) and with a little more work you can send it to the printing press to get a physical book. Suddenly all of the work of copying the information has been reduced drastically. You don't have to copy the physical object anymore. You have the information without it being put into a physical form. Couple this with the falling technology prices and the ease of copying and it is suddenly too easy to resist sending a copy rather than lending your copy. Now that you have a digital copy and no hard copy, suddenly the idea of lending doesn't quite make sense. Making a copy is essentially free. The publishers have to actively combat this to make it work more like it used to.
Funny you just pointed out another big problem in the ebook industry, the overpricing of the product compared to the cost of production, no need to have the entire book painstakingly typeset 16 or 32 pages at a time. Not even the cost of paper or ink. The Author does the original typing, editors tweak the wording, a "typesetter"/layout artist changes the font, tweaks the margins and hit's save. That file is transported to a modern printer for hard copies, or the typesetter adjusts the layout slightly to maximize readability in a couple different ebook formats and drops the resulting files on a file server.
So if I'm going to pay near hardcopy prices for my ebook (paperbacks are breaking the $10 mark) and Barnes and Nobel wants $9.99 for most new release ebooks), I'd better have full first sale doctrine privileges.
Thus Option C does actually make sense, unless the publishing industry wants to push readers willing to pay for their products to the easier, cheaper, and more friend-friendly option of out right piracy. I just don't see your point on the ease of digital production in-violating option C as a viable option. With the availability of option C, the need/push to crack and strip DRM is greatly diminished. Will it still happen, absolutely, but for many readers, just having the ability to borrow and share books will eliminate the desire to pirate books. Yes it's really easy, but If I've really enjoyed a book, I'm more likely to just lend it to my brother for him to enjoy and vise versa.
The ease of creating exact duplicates indicates the critical need for a viable implementation of option C to avoid/limit the market for massive ebook piracy.
Every library I know of bought dozens of copies of the later HP novels. The ease of sharing argument you give makes no sense, because not only can the libraries share copies, but so can regular HC buyers.
In fact my wife and I bought two copies of each of the last two HP novels because we were so into the series. We finished and started lending them to friends and family who were more patient than we were.
Many others who purchased copies of those books shared them out after reading them as well. Yet with all this rampant sharing (and second hand selling) of hard copies, J.K. Rowling is still filthy rich. Did she lose sales because of Libraries and buyers who then lent or even sold their books to others, absolutely. But that is the Doctrine of Right of First Sale at work there. And that doctrine doesn't go away just because much of the cost of producing storing and shipping a hard copy has gone away.
I bought it. Go ahead and try to lock it so I can't just share it in violation of your IP. But I'd damn well better be able to share or sell it to others as I want to. As long as I lose access while it's shared or once it's sold.
I have no problem buying books, but let me share/sell them as I want as long as I'm not violating IP ownership, which properly designed lending/second sales would prevent.
Uh, back up? Maybe?
The current ebook readers have a life expectancy of two to three years. The books purchased from the seller of the reader (Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Nobel/Nook) are held on-line for your re-download at no cost.
With the Nook (and I'm sure it's the same with the kindle) you can get reader apps for your Mac, pc, or other smart device and thus can have the books stored there as well.
Books from other sources you just keep backed up like any-other slightly valuable data.
But with a proper implementation of the lending systems Amazon and B&N have cooked up it would be the same.
I buy a book for my nook from B&N, I read it and decide I want to lend it to my brother. Currently my options are to A: Lend it to him for 14 days, hoping he has time to read it in that time, and that I don't want to lend it to someone else. B:Strip the DRM and share a copy with him thus committing IP infringement. Note that if I choose option A, but then want to lend the book to my mother, or if he decides he needs more time, I'm forced to resort to option B again.
What we are asking for is an Option C: As with the current version A, when I hit lend, I loose access to that book until he returns it. If he never returns it (very likely; some of my HC books are on his book shelves and vise versa) I never get access to it again. If he returns it, I can then lend it to my mother, or he can lend it to my mother and when she hits return it bounces all the way back to me.
That is the way it should be. Yes we can just strip the DRM and share it willy nilly, But we are willing to treat lending ebooks like lending hc books. Coming from a family with multiple over flowing book racks in every home, my family doesn't mind buying books, and we love to share the books between each other. That is what we want to do. Currently the two largest sellers are trying to block the type of lending we've been used to, the type of lending that Libraries operate on, and the type of lending the Doctrine of First Sale guarantees us.
This gives me an idea, perhaps someone should start a campaign with a site where you can print out Book lending agreements.
Each agreement will state in appropriately scary legalese that it authorizes the purchaser of the book to lend the book once, for a period of 14 days to one individual of their choice. Upon completion of the 14 day period the lender is legally obligated to recover the book from the lendee, even if their not done reading it yet, and that they are legally prohibited from ever lending that book again.
Then place these lending agreements, one (and one only) per book at every book store they can get them into.
We can complain about it all we want here in cyberspace, but the only way to really point out how flawed these "Lending programs" really are is to let hard copy buyers feel the same frustration at such ridiculous rules which totally violate the right of first sale.
If you figure out how to make a profit off this idea, I want a can of Mt. Dew as payment for use of my intellectual property of the idea.;) I know, the idea really isn't worth that much, but ya gotta think big.
Naw, we can just torrent the part specs from Car-PirateBay.com and get em for free. Additionally the torrented parts have stripped out the DRM that requires the printer to use substandard plastics and intentionally place flaws and weak spots in the printing pattern to ensure a frequent replacement rate.
But then the AMIAA (Automobile Manufacturing Industry Association of America) will start suing random VIN numbers hoping to catch part-pirates.
You defined an Executive Order as an Executive Order, which, as you noted, if not continued by the next president does indeed sunset with the end of a President's period in office. But find a definition of "Executive Agreement." I've never seen it used before in our system of government.
If your reply was to my comment that it would be shot down. I guarantee that any executive order imposing ACTA would be quickly challenged and declared unconstitutional, as it would be attempting to impose a treaty while avoiding the constitutional requirement for Senate ratification.
But it requires a 2/3 majority vote to ratify. President Obama has a difficult time even getting the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, let alone an additional 6 votes to reach the 2/3rds margin required under the Constitution.
Now that's not denying the fact that many republicans may support it, but with the current Tea Party movement kicking out many incumbents, that becomes less likely.
And we have a Supreme Court that could even then nullify it on constitutional grounds. We have many problems and flaws in our system of government, but unlike most the rest of the world, those problems do not include recognizing international law as superseding our Constitution.
This court is most definitely NOT in his pocket. He's been able to nominate two justices, but the replaced justices were leaned heavily to the left (even if one of the two was appointed by a republican president) and their selection did nothing to change the balance which is currently 5-4 in favor of a more conservative viewpoint. Thus the Heller and McDonald decisions affirming the right of the individual to keep and bear arms. A court in Obama's pockets would most certainly not have ruled that way.
Exactly. I think of when I added an HD to my Ubuntu (okay Mythbuntu to be precise) box this last year, versus one I added to a Windows box.
Ubuntu I (being not an Uber Linux geek) had to do some web searches to remind myself of the best way to identify, format and mount the new drive. Not hard at all, just a little extra reading to get to the "Oh' yea that's right" moment.
On the windows box I put in the HD and turned on the power. As soon as windows was up, it popped up window saying "Hey I see a new HD want to format it?" A few clicks and the drive is up and running. No need to remember or go find how to format and mount the drive. It's 2010 the OS knows how to detect and guide me through the process automatically. When Linux is as user friendly as Windows and Mac, then it will achieve greater acceptance.
Yes that service exists, as does the ability to go to their website and track your minutes and bill. What is wanted is a way for your phone to automatically track usage and allow the user to set notifications when you get close to going over. Or having the carriers send such notifications. So that overages are NEVER a surprise.
But do those phones break the minutes out into free in-network, weekend and night minutes versus minutes they actually charge for?
Most phones do have some type of built in airtime/usage tracker but it just tracks total usage and is unable to determine if a minute is charged or free.
Both Companies had both TDMA and GSM services running in the same areas. Often any roaming by one would be on the others network. Who ever told you that was just trying to push some specific upsell plan, and you should have demanded to speak to a supervisor.
Note: Cingular (SBC) bought AT&T, and then changed their name to AT&T. So the blame was on the company you'd been with Cingular, NOT the recent acquisition AT&T.
Actually, Espionage is what we nail our people who spy on us with, not just foreigners. Treason can only be applied for activities occurring during time of war. But even then the charge of Espionage or spying would also be applied as it's an easier conviction to get.
However; as you correctly noted this was just industrial espionage, and not very effective espionage at that.
The crime of espionage requires an attempt to transmit National Defense information to a foreign party with intent, or reason to believe that the information will be used to the injury of the US, or to the advantage of a foreign nation. (paraphrased from 18 US 794)
This "intent" or "reason to believe" does not exist in this case so Espionage is out, so they chose a charge that they could be sure would stick and still have a hefty penalty (20 years).
This is/was an attempt at industrial espionage, NOT TREASON. Big difference, this one the worst he will face is the potential of a few years in prison. And in fact he's only being charged with Wire Fraud.
Treason can (very unlikely) face the death penalty.
Isn't this at least the third time/. has had an article about somebody who has stuck a camera to a weather balloon?
What exactly is newsworthy about this?
Slashdot Mirror
As someone else has posted, Rosa Parks didn't have to ride the bus.
The Supreme court has repeatedly ruled and held inviolate that the freedom to travel (regardless of means) is a constitutional right even though it's not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
You're right, I don't have to travel to Hawaii, but it is my constitutional right to freely travel to Hawaii via any means possible, without having to surrender my constitutionally given freedom of privacy.
And not everyone is traveling their optionally. I'm in the military, if I get orders to travel to Hawaii, I'll do so via commercial air and will have to submit. What then? It's not an option, other jobs can be on the line as well.
And I love the comparison I started with. Rosa Parks didn't HAVE to ride the bus at all. She could have walked, or taken a taxi, or hitched a ride if she didn't feel like moving to the back of the bus.
The Taliban as an organized group didf not exist during the cold war. We supported the Mujahideen Fighters against the Soviets. But then when the Ruskies pulled out so did we, leaving a war torn country to fend for itself. Thus allowing the Taliban to form, and to seize power.
The U.S. did not fund/help the Taliban during the cold war. and we tended to back the Northern Alliance in the 90s until 9/11 when we put our full strength behind the NA, helping them to throw out the Taliban Regime.
Iraq and Iran were a whole different story, I'll grant you that, but don't lump Afghanistan in with them.
Exactly what guarantee do you have with your hard copy books? If you take care of your digital data, moving and backing it up from device to device as you upgrade, those books will still be there, and in better condition than your paper versions.
You kids could decide to use your paper versions for coloring books or to make confetti, you could drop it in the toilet while reading it, you could spill something on it, your entire bookshelf could burn up.
All that could happen to your e-reader and with proper back-ups you still have your entire e-library in pristine condition. Digital copies don't fade, they have no paper, glue or ink for the publisher to go cheapskate on you with resulting in the book falling apart the first time you read it.
Yes if you expect to save the book on your current device and hope to read it on the same device in 20 years you are most likely going to be very disappointed, but who doesn't have at least a couple back-up options that they periodically update to newer technologies?
Now let's skip to today as you get the idea. Books are created on computers, and computers are nearly ubiquitous. Not only that but many computers are connected via the internet. The typography is easy to get down and you can easily write and distribute a digital copy of a book via a PDF file (perhaps form a LaTeX source file) and with a little more work you can send it to the printing press to get a physical book. Suddenly all of the work of copying the information has been reduced drastically. You don't have to copy the physical object anymore. You have the information without it being put into a physical form. Couple this with the falling technology prices and the ease of copying and it is suddenly too easy to resist sending a copy rather than lending your copy. Now that you have a digital copy and no hard copy, suddenly the idea of lending doesn't quite make sense. Making a copy is essentially free. The publishers have to actively combat this to make it work more like it used to.
Funny you just pointed out another big problem in the ebook industry, the overpricing of the product compared to the cost of production, no need to have the entire book painstakingly typeset 16 or 32 pages at a time. Not even the cost of paper or ink. The Author does the original typing, editors tweak the wording, a "typesetter"/layout artist changes the font, tweaks the margins and hit's save. That file is transported to a modern printer for hard copies, or the typesetter adjusts the layout slightly to maximize readability in a couple different ebook formats and drops the resulting files on a file server.
So if I'm going to pay near hardcopy prices for my ebook (paperbacks are breaking the $10 mark) and Barnes and Nobel wants $9.99 for most new release ebooks), I'd better have full first sale doctrine privileges.
Thus Option C does actually make sense, unless the publishing industry wants to push readers willing to pay for their products to the easier, cheaper, and more friend-friendly option of out right piracy. I just don't see your point on the ease of digital production in-violating option C as a viable option. With the availability of option C, the need/push to crack and strip DRM is greatly diminished. Will it still happen, absolutely, but for many readers, just having the ability to borrow and share books will eliminate the desire to pirate books. Yes it's really easy, but If I've really enjoyed a book, I'm more likely to just lend it to my brother for him to enjoy and vise versa.
The ease of creating exact duplicates indicates the critical need for a viable implementation of option C to avoid/limit the market for massive ebook piracy.
Every library I know of bought dozens of copies of the later HP novels. The ease of sharing argument you give makes no sense, because not only can the libraries share copies, but so can regular HC buyers.
In fact my wife and I bought two copies of each of the last two HP novels because we were so into the series. We finished and started lending them to friends and family who were more patient than we were.
Many others who purchased copies of those books shared them out after reading them as well. Yet with all this rampant sharing (and second hand selling) of hard copies, J.K. Rowling is still filthy rich. Did she lose sales because of Libraries and buyers who then lent or even sold their books to others, absolutely. But that is the Doctrine of Right of First Sale at work there. And that doctrine doesn't go away just because much of the cost of producing storing and shipping a hard copy has gone away.
I bought it. Go ahead and try to lock it so I can't just share it in violation of your IP. But I'd damn well better be able to share or sell it to others as I want to. As long as I lose access while it's shared or once it's sold.
I have no problem buying books, but let me share/sell them as I want as long as I'm not violating IP ownership, which properly designed lending/second sales would prevent.
Uh, back up? Maybe? The current ebook readers have a life expectancy of two to three years. The books purchased from the seller of the reader (Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Nobel/Nook) are held on-line for your re-download at no cost.
With the Nook (and I'm sure it's the same with the kindle) you can get reader apps for your Mac, pc, or other smart device and thus can have the books stored there as well.
Books from other sources you just keep backed up like any-other slightly valuable data.
But with a proper implementation of the lending systems Amazon and B&N have cooked up it would be the same.
I buy a book for my nook from B&N, I read it and decide I want to lend it to my brother. Currently my options are to A: Lend it to him for 14 days, hoping he has time to read it in that time, and that I don't want to lend it to someone else. B:Strip the DRM and share a copy with him thus committing IP infringement. Note that if I choose option A, but then want to lend the book to my mother, or if he decides he needs more time, I'm forced to resort to option B again.
What we are asking for is an Option C: As with the current version A, when I hit lend, I loose access to that book until he returns it. If he never returns it (very likely; some of my HC books are on his book shelves and vise versa) I never get access to it again. If he returns it, I can then lend it to my mother, or he can lend it to my mother and when she hits return it bounces all the way back to me.
That is the way it should be. Yes we can just strip the DRM and share it willy nilly, But we are willing to treat lending ebooks like lending hc books. Coming from a family with multiple over flowing book racks in every home, my family doesn't mind buying books, and we love to share the books between each other. That is what we want to do. Currently the two largest sellers are trying to block the type of lending we've been used to, the type of lending that Libraries operate on, and the type of lending the Doctrine of First Sale guarantees us.
This gives me an idea, perhaps someone should start a campaign with a site where you can print out Book lending agreements.
;) I know, the idea really isn't worth that much, but ya gotta think big.
Each agreement will state in appropriately scary legalese that it authorizes the purchaser of the book to lend the book once, for a period of 14 days to one individual of their choice. Upon completion of the 14 day period the lender is legally obligated to recover the book from the lendee, even if their not done reading it yet, and that they are legally prohibited from ever lending that book again.
Then place these lending agreements, one (and one only) per book at every book store they can get them into.
We can complain about it all we want here in cyberspace, but the only way to really point out how flawed these "Lending programs" really are is to let hard copy buyers feel the same frustration at such ridiculous rules which totally violate the right of first sale.
If you figure out how to make a profit off this idea, I want a can of Mt. Dew as payment for use of my intellectual property of the idea.
True, but I'd add one caveat, I can print my new car body of the week, but can I print the engine, drive train, electrical system etc...?
I don't think true "replication" is coming anytime soon.
Naw, we can just torrent the part specs from Car-PirateBay.com and get em for free. Additionally the torrented parts have stripped out the DRM that requires the printer to use substandard plastics and intentionally place flaws and weak spots in the printing pattern to ensure a frequent replacement rate.
But then the AMIAA (Automobile Manufacturing Industry Association of America) will start suing random VIN numbers hoping to catch part-pirates.
You defined an Executive Order as an Executive Order, which, as you noted, if not continued by the next president does indeed sunset with the end of a President's period in office. But find a definition of "Executive Agreement." I've never seen it used before in our system of government.
If your reply was to my comment that it would be shot down. I guarantee that any executive order imposing ACTA would be quickly challenged and declared unconstitutional, as it would be attempting to impose a treaty while avoiding the constitutional requirement for Senate ratification.
But it requires a 2/3 majority vote to ratify. President Obama has a difficult time even getting the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, let alone an additional 6 votes to reach the 2/3rds margin required under the Constitution.
Now that's not denying the fact that many republicans may support it, but with the current Tea Party movement kicking out many incumbents, that becomes less likely.
And we have a Supreme Court that could even then nullify it on constitutional grounds. We have many problems and flaws in our system of government, but unlike most the rest of the world, those problems do not include recognizing international law as superseding our Constitution.
But an "Executive Agreement" what ever that is has no force of law. At most it's equal to a congressional resolution.
And any attempt to impose this by fiat as an Executive Order (which does have standing) will quickly be shot down.
This court is most definitely NOT in his pocket. He's been able to nominate two justices, but the replaced justices were leaned heavily to the left (even if one of the two was appointed by a republican president) and their selection did nothing to change the balance which is currently 5-4 in favor of a more conservative viewpoint. Thus the Heller and McDonald decisions affirming the right of the individual to keep and bear arms. A court in Obama's pockets would most certainly not have ruled that way.
Slashdot uses a guide when writing summaries?
Except they also get the 80 year old grandmother walking along with the hottie. And the fat shop keeper sweeping the steps of his shop.
Is the hottie worth the risk of seeing the eye burning imagaes of the non-hotties also roaming the streets?
Exactly. I think of when I added an HD to my Ubuntu (okay Mythbuntu to be precise) box this last year, versus one I added to a Windows box.
Ubuntu I (being not an Uber Linux geek) had to do some web searches to remind myself of the best way to identify, format and mount the new drive. Not hard at all, just a little extra reading to get to the "Oh' yea that's right" moment.
On the windows box I put in the HD and turned on the power. As soon as windows was up, it popped up window saying "Hey I see a new HD want to format it?" A few clicks and the drive is up and running. No need to remember or go find how to format and mount the drive. It's 2010 the OS knows how to detect and guide me through the process automatically. When Linux is as user friendly as Windows and Mac, then it will achieve greater acceptance.
Until then it's probably not going to make it.
Yes that service exists, as does the ability to go to their website and track your minutes and bill. What is wanted is a way for your phone to automatically track usage and allow the user to set notifications when you get close to going over. Or having the carriers send such notifications. So that overages are NEVER a surprise.
But do those phones break the minutes out into free in-network, weekend and night minutes versus minutes they actually charge for?
Most phones do have some type of built in airtime/usage tracker but it just tracks total usage and is unable to determine if a minute is charged or free.
Both Companies had both TDMA and GSM services running in the same areas. Often any roaming by one would be on the others network. Who ever told you that was just trying to push some specific upsell plan, and you should have demanded to speak to a supervisor.
Note: Cingular (SBC) bought AT&T, and then changed their name to AT&T. So the blame was on the company you'd been with Cingular, NOT the recent acquisition AT&T.
Actually, Espionage is what we nail our people who spy on us with, not just foreigners. Treason can only be applied for activities occurring during time of war. But even then the charge of Espionage or spying would also be applied as it's an easier conviction to get.
However; as you correctly noted this was just industrial espionage, and not very effective espionage at that.
The crime of espionage requires an attempt to transmit National Defense information to a foreign party with intent, or reason to believe that the information will be used to the injury of the US, or to the advantage of a foreign nation. (paraphrased from 18 US 794)
This "intent" or "reason to believe" does not exist in this case so Espionage is out, so they chose a charge that they could be sure would stick and still have a hefty penalty (20 years).
This is/was an attempt at industrial espionage, NOT TREASON. Big difference, this one the worst he will face is the potential of a few years in prison. And in fact he's only being charged with Wire Fraud.
Treason can (very unlikely) face the death penalty.
Isn't this at least the third time /. has had an article about somebody who has stuck a camera to a weather balloon?
What exactly is newsworthy about this?
None of which I'm aware of track targets in this manner. Either they are heat seekers, radar guided or optically guided (video camera's).