They can have my jeans, as soon as they pry them off my dead, cold ass.
Well if your ass is cold and dead, and you need help to pry your jeans off, than all I can say is you should have taken them off several months ( or is it years?) ago, and washed them.
Despite what may programmers think, they do make many mistakes. Having been in QA for more than 7 years, blimey, the stories I could tell.
For example. Once there was a requirment for a windows program to do nothing. If it started up, it would just shut down . Simple? I would have thought so - even if it wasn't, it was simple for the developer to unit test. It took 7 attempts. Ranging from opening a window and sitting there - through several GPFs - and at least one reboot.
Then there was one time (of many) where despite assurances from development that the product had been properly unit tested, it would core dump on start up.
My point is that any CS student should understand the whole development process. It is more than just programming.
Whilst neither of the above were life threatening, it illustrates a point. No matter how many examples of catastrophe and failure you find, there would be alot more without testing and QA.
Of course, you could take the point that all those public failures are a result of lax QA.
We haven't passed some invisible "point of no return";
Perhaps we just didn't see it!
Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?
on
Electronic Paper
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· Score: 1
You make it sound as if some sugarplump(C) fairy were to descend and drop coins onto your pillow.
No, you make it sound as though thats what it takes to write a novel, wake up one morning, and there it is. Well, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.
Sklyarov (a Russian) is in jail for violating a U.S. law.
And this has what to do with copyright? He is not in jail because he breached a copyright - he is in jail because he broke another ( and I think you will agree, a stupid ) law, perhaps you should do a search on/. if you are unfamiliar with the case.
The right of first sale is being undermined
And what god given right is this, perhaps one granted by the same undemocratic regime that gives authors copyright?
Internet protocols, file formats, data standards (i.e. CD) are being deliberately broken.
Not sure what internet protocols, or file formats are being broken - perhaps you could enlighten me. As for the CDs, yes they are being broken - but that has nothing to do with the artists right to be rewarded or not for their work - it has to do with the way the publishers are enforcing the right, not the right itself.
Individual users, who often can't afford a lawyer, are bullied into shutting down legal websites. Linking to "circumvention" material is now outlawed. Again, what has any of this got to do with copyright? Lawyers have been bullying individuals since way before the internet started, and for any reason under the sun, as long as they get paid - nothing to do with copyright!
See, most of the world doesn't think in terms of you getting "a reward" -- they understand that they are being screwed. And what do you base that comment on? Do you have some research to back this up - probably not. However, if you look at how most of the world behaves you will see that most people do not break the law. They go into a book store, see a book by their favourit author and pick it up. They may look at the price and think it isn't worth it and put it down again. Most people do not put it in their pocket and walk out without paying. They understand the 'reward' the author gets.
Also, almost all (say 90%) of revenues from median books are made in the first 2 years of publication. Source?
There would be additional revenue from new distribution models. This theory is what drove the.com boom. New distribution / business models. However, as you may be aware most of these new models did not work! However, because you don't beleive there should be copyright involved, how is additional revenue going to be earned? Perhaps you mean additional revenue for publishers, of one sort or another, who would not have to pay the authors for their work. You then talk about open data formats - well copyright is not stoping anyone from developing an open data format / secure or not, for publishing purposes, and the little guy can 'self publish' if he wishes. There is nothing stoping him, except, as you say the cost. But there will always be costs incurred. He will either be able to recover those costs or not. There are 2 things that will help him -
1. The quality of the work ie will people enjoy it. 2. His copyright over the work. If the work is good, and people enjoy it, there may be a return. However, if the copyright is reduced and after a few years he has no rights on it at all ( ie anyone can copy it ) then the chances of making a return are reduced. Now, how does that help with increasing the number of authors / books? Simple, it doesn't! In fact it is the exact opposite!
You propose to limit the financial reward to authors. The simple economics of the western world ( and I'm assuming that your not a Bin Ladin supporter, so you should understand this ) means that, perhaps, some authors will not be able to write full time, and it will be far more difficult for new authors to be published at all, whether self published or not.
So, you argue that reducing copyright will increase the number of authors / books, when you argument supports the opposite.
Why don't you just admit it. You do not want to pay for it that's it, something for nothing. Simple!
Re:How is 28 years less than reasonable?
on
Electronic Paper
·
· Score: 1
Why not just the life time of the author?
If we are talking about fiction, then it is only ( and nothing more than ) entertainment! If I write a book today, and someone is entertained by it in 40 years time, why shouldn't I still be rewarded?
Being rewarded after my death does push it a bit far - but then and again, if I had any kids to leave the rights to, I might have a different opinion.
Re:Real advance is the refresh rate.
on
Electronic Paper
·
· Score: 1
Imagine having a roll-up video screen in your pda/laptop.
I think, in the end, it will be about as popular as one of those roll-up keyboard things you can get!
I don't think Intellectual Property should be "an endless fountain of money" either.
Why not. We are not talking about science or technology here, we are talking about entertainment. If you record a song or write a book, and someone wants to read it in 50 years, why shouldn't you be rewarded? They are being entertained - thats all!
What happened over the last century to make researches into money-grabbers?
How about..
1. The 80's
2. The late 90's
3. The fact that many of them are paid so little
4. If they don't grab the money ( after doing all the work ) some suit will grab it instead.
Realizing that I didn't know anybody lame enough to send me anything in all caps, I opened it anyway
Where have you been for the past few years - how many viruses have been passed around using emails in this manner ( ok you may not be using M$ Outlook, but come on ).
Anyway you say it was in HTML format, so all they sent you was probably the text - as soon as you opened it it grabed the images of their site ( perhaps increasing hit counts ). So THEY did not pay for the band width - you did.
As for the costs of marketing, if you can blankly cover the, almost, whole market cost effectively then why not. You piss of alot of people, get some business from others, and increase your advertisment potential. It makes good business sence.
It's all well and good to insist that NASA manage to a budget and a schedule; however, to hold these as the two highest priorities as they attempt to coordinate something
no one has ever tried before is ludicrous.
Instead of rewriting history, would it not be better to learn from it? The Russians launched and ran a space station for many years ( remember ), until the costs crippled the program. The same thing seems to be happening to NASA.
NASA has to understand that a large percentage of tax payers see little point in a Space Station, and unless it embrasses budget cuts it will either alianate tax payers even more, or face another Challenger.
Personaly, I hope for neither.
... no I don't think you do.
on
WipOut Contest
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· Score: 1
Perhaps they 're assuming the right to reproduce it without paying royalties!
Should they know better ?
on
WipOut Contest
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Now, IANAL but the following condition of entry seems strange
9. The counter essay contest committee does not claim any intellectual property rights over any
of the essays that are submitted to the contest. We do assume, unless you clearly state
otherwise, the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the essays in connection with
the contest and post-contest publicity.
Surely, they cannot assume the right to reproduce and distribute, that right must be granted by the author. And it is this assumption that copyright was meant to protect against.
Of course, they could make it a condition of entry that they may reproduce the works, but that is different.
the lighting supervisor
the electrician
camera grip
gaffer
make-up artist
catering crew
studio security ( think of the stories s/he could tell )
extras - old man a bus stop.
For those of you that don't read links ( Joseph ) here is what is said on the turing.org.uk page
He was found by his cleaner when she came in on 8 June 1954. He had died the day before of cyanide poisoning, a half-eaten apple beside his bed.
His mother believed he had accidentally ingested cyanide from his fingers after an amateur chemistry experiment, but it is more credible that he
had successfully contrived his death to allow her alone to believe this. The coroner's verdict was suicide.
I don't see how you can state the British killed him.
Reading the article, it seems the 1000 years bit is just looking at trends ( thats ignoring the typical journalistic simplistic spin ).
If you put a kettle filled with water on a stove, you know that in x minutes it will boil. You don't need to know the exact position of every water molecule ( except of course, the position is somewhere inside the kettle ). That is akin to the 1000 year forecast.
If you want to calculate all the eddies (sp?) and convection currents within the kettle ( ie like an accurate daily forcast ) you do need to know positions and state of each part of the water mass, down to molecules if you want to be realy accurate.
Of cause, rounding errors will probable give greater problems.
... but the human mind is slower at processing 3D data than 2D. Presenting your data in a 3D environment requires much more from the human interpreter.
I don't see how you can say this. For the odd million years or so, we all have only had 3D data to interprit! It's only relativly recently that important data is represented in 2D. Now, I'm no biologist, but I think that means we are more capable of seeing data / information in 3D than in 2D.
As a point, think of the difficulty in imagining a finished building from an architects drawing, compared to a 3D representation.
I think the problem lies with our ( and I mean IT / computing professionals ) imagination / ability to represent data to non techies - or even to ourselves.
But in our everyday lives we don't have the time, don't want and don't care about 3D environments
Slashdot Mirror
They can have my jeans, as soon as they pry them off my dead, cold ass.
Well if your ass is cold and dead, and you need help to pry your jeans off, than all I can say is you should have taken them off several months ( or is it years?) ago, and washed them.
Shouldn't be to difficult for them to do. Most of the spam I get originates from Hotmail.
Despite what may programmers think, they do make many mistakes. Having been in QA for more than 7 years, blimey, the stories I could tell.
For example. Once there was a requirment for a windows program to do nothing. If it started up, it would just shut down . Simple? I would have thought so - even if it wasn't, it was simple for the developer to unit test. It took 7 attempts. Ranging from opening a window and sitting there - through several GPFs - and at least one reboot.
Then there was one time (of many) where despite assurances from development that the product had been properly unit tested, it would core dump on start up.
My point is that any CS student should understand the whole development process. It is more than just programming. Whilst neither of the above were life threatening, it illustrates a point. No matter how many examples of catastrophe and failure you find, there would be alot more without testing and QA.
Of course, you could take the point that all those public failures are a result of lax QA.
Good old BBC is still here.
We haven't passed some invisible "point of no return";
Perhaps we just didn't see it!
You make it sound as if some sugarplump(C) fairy were to descend and drop coins onto your pillow.
/. if you are unfamiliar with the case.
.com boom. New distribution / business models. However, as you may be aware most of these new models did not work! However, because you don't beleive there should be copyright involved, how is additional revenue going to be earned? Perhaps you mean additional revenue for publishers, of one sort or another, who would not have to pay the authors for their work.
No, you make it sound as though thats what it takes to write a novel, wake up one morning, and there it is. Well, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it.
Sklyarov (a Russian) is in jail for violating a U.S. law.
And this has what to do with copyright? He is not in jail because he breached a copyright - he is in jail because he broke another ( and I think you will agree, a stupid ) law, perhaps you should do a search on
The right of first sale is being undermined
And what god given right is this, perhaps one granted by the same undemocratic regime that gives authors copyright?
Internet protocols, file formats, data standards (i.e. CD) are being deliberately broken.
Not sure what internet protocols, or file formats are being broken - perhaps you could enlighten me. As for the CDs, yes they are being broken - but that has nothing to do with the artists right to be rewarded or not for their work - it has to do with the way the publishers are enforcing the right, not the right itself.
Individual users, who often can't afford a lawyer, are bullied into shutting down legal websites. Linking to "circumvention" material is now outlawed.
Again, what has any of this got to do with copyright? Lawyers have been bullying individuals since way before the internet started, and for any reason under the sun, as long as they get paid - nothing to do with copyright!
See, most of the world doesn't think in terms of you getting "a reward" -- they understand that they are being screwed.
And what do you base that comment on? Do you have some research to back this up - probably not. However, if you look at how most of the world behaves you will see that most people do not break the law. They go into a book store, see a book by their favourit author and pick it up. They may look at the price and think it isn't worth it and put it down again. Most people do not put it in their pocket and walk out without paying. They understand the 'reward' the author gets.
Also, almost all (say 90%) of revenues from median books are made in the first 2 years of publication.
Source?
There would be additional revenue from new distribution models.
This theory is what drove the
You then talk about open data formats - well copyright is not stoping anyone from developing an open data format / secure or not, for publishing purposes, and the little guy can 'self publish' if he wishes. There is nothing stoping him, except, as you say the cost. But there will always be costs incurred. He will either be able to recover those costs or not. There are 2 things that will help him -
1. The quality of the work ie will people enjoy it.
2. His copyright over the work.
If the work is good, and people enjoy it, there may be a return. However, if the copyright is reduced and after a few years he has no rights on it at all ( ie anyone can copy it ) then the chances of making a return are reduced. Now, how does that help with increasing the number of authors / books? Simple, it doesn't! In fact it is the exact opposite!
You propose to limit the financial reward to authors. The simple economics of the western world ( and I'm assuming that your not a Bin Ladin supporter, so you should understand this ) means that, perhaps, some authors will not be able to write full time, and it will be far more difficult for new authors to be published at all, whether self published or not.
So, you argue that reducing copyright will increase the number of authors / books, when you argument supports the opposite.
Why don't you just admit it. You do not want to pay for it that's it, something for nothing. Simple!
Why not just the life time of the author?
If we are talking about fiction, then it is only ( and nothing more than ) entertainment! If I write a book today, and someone is entertained by it in 40 years time, why shouldn't I still be rewarded?
Being rewarded after my death does push it a bit far - but then and again, if I had any kids to leave the rights to, I might have a different opinion.
Imagine having a roll-up video screen in your pda/laptop.
I think, in the end, it will be about as popular as one of those roll-up keyboard things you can get!
No rights to fucking your users to get that profit.
As oppose to the users fucking the authors!!
Why is it that as an author you would not allow me to make any money - or a living, but most other professions are?
And when I was looking at buying a PC in those days, you checked for IBM compatability by using MS Flight Sim.
It would be interesting to see if this book has any copyrights or publishing rights.
I wonder how they would feel if someone published it on the web?
I don't think Intellectual Property should be "an endless fountain of money" either.
Why not. We are not talking about science or technology here, we are talking about entertainment. If you record a song or write a book, and someone wants to read it in 50 years, why shouldn't you be rewarded? They are being entertained - thats all!
What happened over the last century to make researches into money-grabbers?
..
How about
1. The 80's
2. The late 90's
3. The fact that many of them are paid so little
4. If they don't grab the money ( after doing all the work ) some suit will grab it instead.
If nobody (including presuambly SuSE) cared about profitability two years ago how can these people be serious about running a business?
Many of them aren't serious about running a business, in fact many of them aren't running any business any more!
Realizing that I didn't know anybody lame enough to send me anything in all caps, I opened it anyway
Where have you been for the past few years - how many viruses have been passed around using emails in this manner ( ok you may not be using M$ Outlook, but come on ).
Anyway you say it was in HTML format, so all they sent you was probably the text - as soon as you opened it it grabed the images of their site ( perhaps increasing hit counts ). So THEY did not pay for the band width - you did.
As for the costs of marketing, if you can blankly cover the, almost, whole market cost effectively then why not. You piss of alot of people, get some business from others, and increase your advertisment potential. It makes good business sence.
Hey, I'm only the programmer...
Dam right! It was probably the test / QA department that found all the bugs, and made you fix them, that made the customer impressed with the system.
But hey, they're only testers!
Piont wel maid.
Duh!
It's all well and good to insist that NASA manage to a budget and a schedule; however, to hold these as the two highest priorities as they attempt to coordinate something no one has ever tried before is ludicrous.
Instead of rewriting history, would it not be better to learn from it? The Russians launched and ran a space station for many years ( remember ), until the costs crippled the program. The same thing seems to be happening to NASA.
NASA has to understand that a large percentage of tax payers see little point in a Space Station, and unless it embrasses budget cuts it will either alianate tax payers even more, or face another Challenger.
Personaly, I hope for neither.
Perhaps they 're assuming the right to reproduce it without paying royalties!
Now, IANAL but the following condition of entry seems strange
9. The counter essay contest committee does not claim any intellectual property rights over any of the essays that are submitted to the contest. We do assume, unless you clearly state otherwise, the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the essays in connection with the contest and post-contest publicity.
Surely, they cannot assume the right to reproduce and distribute, that right must be granted by the author. And it is this assumption that copyright was meant to protect against.
Of course, they could make it a condition of entry that they may reproduce the works, but that is different.
we could all watch films now with commentaries by
the lighting supervisor
the electrician
camera grip
gaffer
make-up artist
catering crew
studio security ( think of the stories s/he could tell )
extras - old man a bus stop.
I can't wait.
For those of you that don't read links ( Joseph ) here is what is said on the turing.org.uk page
He was found by his cleaner when she came in on 8 June 1954. He had died the day before of cyanide poisoning, a half-eaten apple beside his bed. His mother believed he had accidentally ingested cyanide from his fingers after an amateur chemistry experiment, but it is more credible that he had successfully contrived his death to allow her alone to believe this. The coroner's verdict was suicide.
I don't see how you can state the British killed him.
Perhaps you should read your sources first.
Reading the article, it seems the 1000 years bit is just looking at trends ( thats ignoring the typical journalistic simplistic spin ).
If you put a kettle filled with water on a stove, you know that in x minutes it will boil. You don't need to know the exact position of every water molecule ( except of course, the position is somewhere inside the kettle ). That is akin to the 1000 year forecast.
If you want to calculate all the eddies (sp?) and convection currents within the kettle ( ie like an accurate daily forcast ) you do need to know positions and state of each part of the water mass, down to molecules if you want to be realy accurate.
Of cause, rounding errors will probable give greater problems.
Just for info. The plane didn't have a bird strike. The window came off due to the wrong size screws being used ( the plane had just been serviced )
I believe all involved are still flying for BA.
I don't see how you can say this. For the odd million years or so, we all have only had 3D data to interprit! It's only relativly recently that important data is represented in 2D. Now, I'm no biologist, but I think that means we are more capable of seeing data / information in 3D than in 2D.
As a point, think of the difficulty in imagining a finished building from an architects drawing, compared to a 3D representation.
I think the problem lies with our ( and I mean IT / computing professionals ) imagination / ability to represent data to non techies - or even to ourselves.
But in our everyday lives we don't have the time, don't want and don't care about 3D environments
I'm a member of the Flat Earth Society as well