Excellent. I've been saying for years that I want a cellphone with a woodgrain case and real metal buttons.
Then get some good close-grained wood, some sharp knifes, a Dremel, and start whittling! It really is not as hard as most people think, and you'd probably be able to create an acceptable cover with some practice. Plus, you'll have the satisfaction of having made it yourself.
According to TFA, the guy owns a brand named "Stealth," and he's essentially doing this to prevent other people from making brands similarly named.
The issue is that he has trademarked the word for a wide variety of different types of brands. To be fair, he is actually in the business of selling articles of most of these types. However, he doesn't seem to be adverse to legal blackmail of the kind so popular with "IP firms": license the name, settle out of court, or we will make sure your legal bills will be the end of you.
He's not much of a threat though. His results so far:
- A few companies have decided that not using the word 'stealth' was easier than fighting this silliness in court;
- A few companies chickened out and have settled out of court;
- A surprising number of cases actually made it to court. As far as I can tell, this guy has lost all of them except in cases where his claim had merit, i.e. where the defendant was actually using the stealth brand name for a product also produced by the claimant.
- This guy got sued for using the Steath trademark on watches, by some watch company. He lost the case.
I wonder... the more dangerous airplane manouevres are take-offs and landings, which often are over or near densely populated areas. Take the Bijlmer disaster, where an airplane in trouble remained under some degree of control for a good while nevertheless crashed into an apartment block.
In contrast, most of the high-speed train track is well away from populated areas. The passengers are at risk if something goes wrong, but no one else is (excluding disasters with chemical freight trains). And if you happen to be in a train which crashes at high speed, your chances of survival are still better than a crashing airplane.
Is riding on one of these trians much cheaper then flying?
Not really, considering how cheap air travel has become. But consider the following advantages:
- This train can make a few stops along the way; something rather impractical for an aircraft. You can even have it pick up passengers at a few stations in the same town, then accelerate to the top speed for the long haul.
- You can board the train right in town (or even in a choice of towns, see previous point). Compare that to airports that usually are a hundred miles from nowhere.
- No 2-hour check in procedure. Go to the station, bring your ticket, board the train. That's all... at least in my experience on the Eurostar and the Shinkansen.
- Usually you get better seating, more to see along the way, more opportunity to walk around, and if you're lucky the bar car will have actual food instead of airplane meals made from unclaimed luggage.
So yes, it has a number of good advantages. The main thing with flying is that it would be great if it was just flying, and didn't include the stressy stuff like getting to the airport, baggage check and claiming, passport control, checking in, security checks, etc.
Laws are ALWAYS about maximising the benefit to society except in cases where the laws are not imposed by the society but by a non-representative ruling body.
Not so. Laws are also made to protect individuals from society and "the greater good". It obviously is in everybody's best interest to seize someone's land to build a high school or freeway... except if you're the person whose land is being seized. Still, we have laws to prevent that sort of thing (or at least grant the landowner certain rights if it happens).
And if you aren't a musician by profession who earns their livelihood by their music, I've done you no harm whatsoever.
Exactly. Allowing people to freely copy music is in everyone's best interest... unless you happen to be that musician hoping to earn a living by selling CDs. Besides, if less people decide to produce works of art because they cannot prevent people from copying it as they please, society's interests are not being served either.
But unless it's in our collective best interests as a society to support cops, lawyers and judges while they look for me and take me to task for violating your so-called moral rights, we shouldn't be doing it.
That's what taxes are for. Taxes on royalties and record sales help fund the infrastructure needed to enforce copyrights, just like your income taxes help pay for the police protection you enjoy.
For all those people out there who constantly parrot "Whatever, it's stealing" whenever the subject comes up, do stop. It makes you look stupid, it's rather offensive to regurgitate such transparently manipulative crap in a forum that's presumably frequented by more intelligent people, and it rather quickly kills any discussion of the real issue: Should copyright be granted at all, why, and what limitations on its scope will result in the greatest benefit TO SOCIETY.
*sigh*. Calling it stealing has nothing to do with manipulative crap. Perhaps it's just laziness; "copyright infringement" is a rather more unwieldy word than "stealing". The exact definition of "stealing" may not fit the crime, but in common usage the word is used or this sort of thing often enough. When people hear about someone coming in late for work all the time, someone sneaking into a movie theatre, they say: "that's the same as stealing, you know!". Please take your own medicine and stop stating "It's not stealing!" every time this subject comes up, because it will, as you say, kill any discussion of the real issue.
But enough about language nitpicks. The point of the article was not that many people think that the definition of "stealing", as laid down in dictionary, does not exactly fit the crime of copyright infringement". The point was that many people do not see copyright infringement as immoral, or at most as a minor misdemeanor.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
Part of the reason the jobs are cheaper to the company is because they do not have to worry about a host of expenses, including for example the cost of complying with governmental regulations related to the outsourced job.
Not so. Many countries have rules about that sort of thing, especially when it comes to data protection.
And if they are able to force compliance then the source company should be held liable for failure to comply by the outsourcing company with all of the associated penalties.
This is already the case is many countries. A Dutch insurance firm outsourcing medical insurance functions to India, is still required to comply with Dutch law regarding data protection, and will be punished according to Dutch law if confidential information from customers' medical records is leaked or misused.
It's true though: outsourcing often isn't as cheap as it seems at first glance.
The transition to a more free economy in these countries was anything but graceful. But most of the social protection systems were not savagely gutted, as you put it. Often they were left in place but became financially unmaintainable, or they failed to deal with rampant inflation. Pensioners in Russia still get their state pension; the only problem is that it isn't worth anything these days.
In these countries, a lot of shady property deals went down, people got screwed over, there was profiteering, extortion, and theft on a grand scale, but many of these crimes of greed were perpetrated by people who were already criminals, or former socialist potentates (or both). 'Harvard Business school types' had very little to do with it.
Good advice, but hardly the whole story. "RSI" (mostly arm and wrist problems associated with keyboard use) is a catch-all term for a whole bunch of different ailments with different causes, such as prolonged muscle strain, posture, pressure, wear (and sleeping, perhaps). The susceptibility for each of these ailments also vary from person to person, how they're built, if they're overweight, etc, etc.
A few people have had good results reducing RSI by raising the room temperature slightly, or wearing thin woolen gloves. I'm not kidding... Another thing that seems to help many people is taking 'micro breaks', as enforced by various anti-RSI tools.
The real answer to RSI is to go see a physician, preferably a specialist knowledgable in this (still rather poorly understood) field.
I understand, but your story is mostly of a dorky government than an intrinsecally evil tool.
No tool is intrinsically evil; it's the use of the tool that is evil. The question is: will this tool open the door for serious (but still lawful) misuse by the government? My examples show that it is already being misused in a petty and frivolous manner, and indicates that it could be misused in a much more sinister way if they gov't would get serious about it.
It is beyond me why the protesters simply don't show up with ID, handing it over to the policemen with their middle fingers.
I hope that you can see there's something seriously wrong about people protesting the government and being required to show their IDs to policemen.
But with all the phishing scams, people are now wary about on-line sites and on-line transactions. For many, it's just not worth the hassle.
Ehh, on-line shopping, e-auctions, e-banking, and use of on-line services are all up, both in dollar turnover and in number of people participating. This despite all the virtual pitfalls one encounters on the 'net these days.
if you're looking to print anything, get a laser, they're built better, and cost less per page.
It all depends on the volume. I imagine many home users of printers are like me, and print stuff out only very, very rarely. I print out the occasional map/route description, short articles, stickers, photo's and CD sleeves. My volume is low but I want color and good quality printing. I got the cheapy HP OfficeJet, which also scans and copies; a really handy feature. With the amount of stuff I print, I'd need decades to recoup the higher initial purchase price of a laser (although... prices on them have dropped quite a bit. I imagine cheap lasers require more expensive toner though).
There's one good thing about the newer genuine HP cartridges. Sure, they cost more than my DVD player, but at least they stay good forever. The old ones used to dry up quite fast, but my current cartridge is about 2 years old now and still printing just fine. Again, a boon to people like me who only print stuff ocasionally.
As far as my experience goes, in Italy you can get fined for loitering if you are found without "papers" and you are over 18. Yet nobody ever asked me papers without a good reason (airport, electoral office, and such things). Never seen an evil use of that, and can hardly conceive one.
Never trust a government to restrict its use of any tool to the boundaries and restrictions originally set for it.
Mandatory ID was introduced in the Netherlands this year. Things have quieted down a bit since, but at first a lot of outrageous and sometimes hilarious cases made the press. Right on the stroke of midnight on new year's eve, police arrested several revellers for not having ID on them. Old grannies, and a woman with a 5 month old baby have been detained for hours for not having an ID. If the police stops a person for, say, not having a working light on their bicycle, they often ask for ID so they can stick on another fine. If there's a protest going on that the powers-that-be don't like (such as protests during Euro summits or antiglobalist protests), simply have the police go around asking for IDs and take everyone without one into custody and off the streets.
My favorite is the old lady who, when asked to produce her, pulled out one she had had for a long time (and, being issued by Dutch authorities might even still be technically valid), with her name, her picture... and a 6-pointed star with the work "JOOD" (Jew) stamped prominently across the document.
Funny thing is, the mandatory ID does nothing to combat crime. Sure, people used to give false names when caught riding the train without a ticket, shoplifting, or defacing property, but the police already had the right to detain these offenders if they had doubts about the person's identity.
People are complaining about a compulsory ID card. Registration in this database is voluntary.
How long will it stay voluntary, once in place? Things like this tend to creep into many facets of everyday life. Perhaps soon you will need to be registered if you want a visum to the US, obtain a passport, open a bank account, make use of the NHS, or buy a train ticket. That is, if the government doesn't simply decide one day to make the thing mandatory for everyone, because "only criminals have a reason not to register, and most people have registered already anyway".
nerds are obviously better lovers because they haven't gotten any their whole life, so they are making up for lost opportunities.
That may not work so well for the relationship... From Ferris Bueler's Day Off: "He will kiss her arse, because she will have given him what he in his mind has built up to be the be-all-end-all of human existence. And she will treat him like shit because you can't respect someone who kisses your arse".
Anyhoo, nerds stand a reasonable chance with women if they can get to speak with them alone(ish), and she can see that that shy nerd is actually a nice, interesting and caring guy. But in a large group, bar, club or whatever, it's a pure mating dance where a nerd's less-favorable physique and shy, introvert and insecure nature are a distinct disadvantage.
Does the device generate oxygen fast enough that if it does stop functioning, you have enough oxygen to get back to the surface?
A valid concern... the diagram in the article does show a diver carrying a 'pony bottle' on his chest; basically a very small pressure tank with a breathing apparatus on top, making it a completely self-contained and highly reliable emergency air source. I trust SCUBA enough not to take a pony bottle, but with a device such as this one I would definitely take one along.
For example, I remember reading in a tech manual that radar speedmeter readings can vary by as much as +/- 5%. It's not much, but it could make the difference between no fine, or a smaller and a bigger fine.
The radar guns used here in the Netherlands have a tolerance of 5km/h (+/-). This 5km is always substracted from the measured speed before the fine (if any) is issued. I expect they do the same in the US, since that's the highest proven speed of the vehicle.
When I was in the States a few years ago, I heard a guy on the radio say that many people succesfully got their speeding ticket torn up, by asking for radar gun maintenance logs, calibration reports, and for the cop's radar gun training certification. Apparently the cops often didn't have all the paperwork in order, in which case the judge dismissed the speeding charges.
When the MOT was introduced in the Netherlands, some group published numbers on its expected results based on readily availably accident statistics. Yes, people were driving remarkably shoddy vehicles. But the numbers showed that only a tiny percentage of accidents could be attributed to mechanical failure, or could have been avoided by having a properly serviced car. Of that tiny number of accidents caused by mechanical failure, only a small percentage was of a kind where the mechanical failure was likely to have shown up on a yearly MOT.
In other words, we're spending stupendous amounts of time, money and hassle on preventing literally a handful of accidents. It did accomplish one thing: it forced the old and thus most heavily polliting cars off the roads, but perhaps at the price of some less well off motorists no longer being able to afford their cars.
I mean, how often do you dream about taking the ant's home from them, so you can use up all their resources and suck them dry?
You don't. We don't care about ant homes. We don't care about stealing their babies from their mothers. We don't think any of those things, that we fear so much from "the aliens."
But we do, all the time. We won't go out of our way to remove ant farms or the habitats of other creatures... but by same token, we do not think much of removing these habitats if they get in the way of our own activities. If you happen to find minable gold on your land, you sure as hell are going to mine it, and any ants or spotted wood owls that get in the way be damned. We are stealing babies from mothers when we produce veal. If aliens find us a tasty lot, wouldn't they do the same?
Aliens probably wouldn't take over Earth for its resources (unless we happen to be located conveniently close to a wormhole or some such), but they might like it as a new home. Planets with a suitable gravity and atmosphere, and with an agreeable local biosphere, might be quite rare. Perhaps they'll settle here, and see us much as we see ants on a tropical island that we want to settle: not much of an annoyance at all, and perhaps something fun to set fire to when we're bored.
True, but that still doesn't make it right. I don't drive drunk, ever, but I am sure many legislators would still be happy enough to force this device on me, at my cost. This is just the government babysitting us again, and taking responsibility away from both the responsible and the irresponsible.
Besides... I very much doubt that this will have any significant impact on road safety. Just like car safety inspections have not made the roads much safer, but only made car shop owners a lot happier.
$400M buys you a space vehicle. However you'll need another billion or so for all the palm-greasing, bribes, kickbacks, piggyback pet projects, and environmental studies, which are all required for putting that vehicle into space.;)
So the only market for this thing is going to be for rich people who'd rather blow money on a toy than take the stairs.
A $20k price tag combined with simple installation and easy maintenance brings this "toy" well within reach of the fairly well-off, not just the rich. Hell... I could afford one if I really wanted to (and if my apartment had more than 1 floor).
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He's not much of a threat though. His results so far:
- A few companies have decided that not using the word 'stealth' was easier than fighting this silliness in court;
- A few companies chickened out and have settled out of court;
- A surprising number of cases actually made it to court. As far as I can tell, this guy has lost all of them except in cases where his claim had merit, i.e. where the defendant was actually using the stealth brand name for a product also produced by the claimant.
- This guy got sued for using the Steath trademark on watches, by some watch company. He lost the case.
In contrast, most of the high-speed train track is well away from populated areas. The passengers are at risk if something goes wrong, but no one else is (excluding disasters with chemical freight trains). And if you happen to be in a train which crashes at high speed, your chances of survival are still better than a crashing airplane.
- This train can make a few stops along the way; something rather impractical for an aircraft. You can even have it pick up passengers at a few stations in the same town, then accelerate to the top speed for the long haul.
- You can board the train right in town (or even in a choice of towns, see previous point). Compare that to airports that usually are a hundred miles from nowhere.
- No 2-hour check in procedure. Go to the station, bring your ticket, board the train. That's all... at least in my experience on the Eurostar and the Shinkansen.
- Usually you get better seating, more to see along the way, more opportunity to walk around, and if you're lucky the bar car will have actual food instead of airplane meals made from unclaimed luggage.
So yes, it has a number of good advantages. The main thing with flying is that it would be great if it was just flying, and didn't include the stressy stuff like getting to the airport, baggage check and claiming, passport control, checking in, security checks, etc.
But enough about language nitpicks. The point of the article was not that many people think that the definition of "stealing", as laid down in dictionary, does not exactly fit the crime of copyright infringement". The point was that many people do not see copyright infringement as immoral, or at most as a minor misdemeanor.
As to your last point: There are some people, myself included, who believe that artists should be able to reap the fruits of their work, and retain full rights to them. I think that copyright is a basic moral right that in principle belongs with the artist, and is not something to be lightly toyed with in order to maximise the benefit to society, as if we're communists dividing up the harvest.
It's true though: outsourcing often isn't as cheap as it seems at first glance.
The transition to a more free economy in these countries was anything but graceful. But most of the social protection systems were not savagely gutted, as you put it. Often they were left in place but became financially unmaintainable, or they failed to deal with rampant inflation. Pensioners in Russia still get their state pension; the only problem is that it isn't worth anything these days.
In these countries, a lot of shady property deals went down, people got screwed over, there was profiteering, extortion, and theft on a grand scale, but many of these crimes of greed were perpetrated by people who were already criminals, or former socialist potentates (or both). 'Harvard Business school types' had very little to do with it.
A few people have had good results reducing RSI by raising the room temperature slightly, or wearing thin woolen gloves. I'm not kidding... Another thing that seems to help many people is taking 'micro breaks', as enforced by various anti-RSI tools.
The real answer to RSI is to go see a physician, preferably a specialist knowledgable in this (still rather poorly understood) field.
There's one good thing about the newer genuine HP cartridges. Sure, they cost more than my DVD player, but at least they stay good forever. The old ones used to dry up quite fast, but my current cartridge is about 2 years old now and still printing just fine. Again, a boon to people like me who only print stuff ocasionally.
Mandatory ID was introduced in the Netherlands this year. Things have quieted down a bit since, but at first a lot of outrageous and sometimes hilarious cases made the press. Right on the stroke of midnight on new year's eve, police arrested several revellers for not having ID on them. Old grannies, and a woman with a 5 month old baby have been detained for hours for not having an ID. If the police stops a person for, say, not having a working light on their bicycle, they often ask for ID so they can stick on another fine. If there's a protest going on that the powers-that-be don't like (such as protests during Euro summits or antiglobalist protests), simply have the police go around asking for IDs and take everyone without one into custody and off the streets.
My favorite is the old lady who, when asked to produce her, pulled out one she had had for a long time (and, being issued by Dutch authorities might even still be technically valid), with her name, her picture... and a 6-pointed star with the work "JOOD" (Jew) stamped prominently across the document.
Funny thing is, the mandatory ID does nothing to combat crime. Sure, people used to give false names when caught riding the train without a ticket, shoplifting, or defacing property, but the police already had the right to detain these offenders if they had doubts about the person's identity.
Anyhoo, nerds stand a reasonable chance with women if they can get to speak with them alone(ish), and she can see that that shy nerd is actually a nice, interesting and caring guy. But in a large group, bar, club or whatever, it's a pure mating dance where a nerd's less-favorable physique and shy, introvert and insecure nature are a distinct disadvantage.
When I was in the States a few years ago, I heard a guy on the radio say that many people succesfully got their speeding ticket torn up, by asking for radar gun maintenance logs, calibration reports, and for the cop's radar gun training certification. Apparently the cops often didn't have all the paperwork in order, in which case the judge dismissed the speeding charges.
In other words, we're spending stupendous amounts of time, money and hassle on preventing literally a handful of accidents. It did accomplish one thing: it forced the old and thus most heavily polliting cars off the roads, but perhaps at the price of some less well off motorists no longer being able to afford their cars.
Aliens probably wouldn't take over Earth for its resources (unless we happen to be located conveniently close to a wormhole or some such), but they might like it as a new home. Planets with a suitable gravity and atmosphere, and with an agreeable local biosphere, might be quite rare. Perhaps they'll settle here, and see us much as we see ants on a tropical island that we want to settle: not much of an annoyance at all, and perhaps something fun to set fire to when we're bored.
Besides... I very much doubt that this will have any significant impact on road safety. Just like car safety inspections have not made the roads much safer, but only made car shop owners a lot happier.
Nice pictures. As for the picture of the guy in the suit watching the monitor... where is his other hand!?