I've been there with the midwives for both my kids' births. It ain't easy for the woman. Neither is pregnancy, for that matter. Adding to her grief by pushing for some god-awful l33t name so you can demonstrate your hackerness just makes it that much less pleasant.
Harlan Ellison is one of the only spec fic writers who works almost exclusively in short stories (and articles, for that matter). A short story is a completely different beast than a novel; I could certainly see myself reading a couple of his stories on my Pilot while riding a subway. But I couldn't see myself reading a Roger Zelazny novel in the same way.
Always remember: copyright law is not evil in and of itself. Without it, the GPL would be meaningless: anyone could steal GPLed code to use as s/he wants. Ellison is trying to protect his work in the exact same way the FSF tries to protect its work. There are endless stories on/. about people protecting their GPLed code from being used in propietary software, or otherwise copied without the license agreement or permission of the author. They're heroes.
Why is Ellison a hard-ass Luddite for trying to protect his work from being spread in a manner he doesn't agree with? Because stealing software is bad, and stealing words is good?
Sometimes, you fight a fight for the principle involved, not because of the money.
It's tragic that we're losing one of our deepest links to the past.
Some things to ponder...
Linguistic family trees generally mirror genetic family trees. The links between the two assist both linguists and geneticists in determing where we come from and how we got there.
Every time we lose a language, we lose something unique or even magical. Yiddish has more words for simpleton than the Inuit use for "snow".
The native languages spoken by the Lapps, Basques and Welsh are relics from before Pro-Indo European language and culture spread from India to Europe, displacing most native languages and cultures.
Tiny New Guinea contains 1/5 of all the languages spoken on Earth.
If we lose these languages, we lose a piece of ourselves.
Just to keep things in perspective.
There are over 1 billion native speakers of either Cantonese or Mandarin. English might be spoken by a billion people, but it's unlikely that it's a first language of that many people.
Just a thought.
Check out research on trans, saturated, and unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats (marine and vegetable fats) = good for you. They raise the good cholesterol. Saturated (tropical oils, red meat) = not so good. They raise the bad. Trans fats (hydrogentated vegetable oil) raise the bad and schwack the good (or the body's ability to use unsaturated, I forget which).
Atkins is extremely heavy on saturated fats, FWIW. It's a good way to lose weight (25 pounds in less than 2 months b4 hernia surgery), but it is not necessarily a good long-term plan. 'Course, the long-term benefits of losing a bunch of weight probably outweigh the problems associated with obesity.
While I'm at it... red meat is nasty on the gut; it's a leading cause of colon cancer (having lost two family members to colon cancer, it's a concern).
A better, long-term diet (South Beach-esque) is to limit the saturated fats, bulk up on beans and nuts for protein + fibre (or chicken 'n' fish for protein), and, for god's sake, stay away from spuds, rice, and white flour.
One of the best studies ever done (and is still on-going) on the long-term effects of diet is the Nurses' Health Study at Harvard. Read on and do some researchin'... since Atkins hasn't done any long-term research on his diet.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt... not just the tool of Microsoft!
Let's see... the Athlon 64 is out, officially, in a few days... Intel's 64 bit part, the Itanium, is having trouble shaking its nickname, Itanic... lots of developers are excited 'bout having a chip running 64 and 32 bit software.
Solution? Don't make a better chip... just float a rumour that you'll be producing something better with some 64 bit instructions... Real Soon Now! With luck, you'll tank the sales of your competitor's chip, without doing any real work!
Blah blah blah.
If memory serves, at a security conference some time back, someone brought out the EMP "gun" and had to ask people with pacemakers to leave the auditorium. Pacemakers, apparently, can be totally buggered by EMP bursts. They're harmless to healthy people, but, if you're depending on electronic medical devices to keep you alive, you might be screwed.
Of course, this was all done in the remake of Ocean's Eleven, wasn't it? If Hollywood has thought of it, it must be good idea!
Pick up a couple books from Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct and Words and Rules. That's the real cutting edge of linguistics.
In a nutshell, chimps / primates / dolphins / etc. always come up short in some ways from anything you could call language. Just off the top of my head, using a finite set of words (English has ~ 500,000), we can come up with an infinite number of things to say. That's many, many orders of magnitude more complex. Throw in pronouns (and the implied ability to think of others as individual entities), verbs, adjectives, adverbs, tenses, affixes, etc. and the differences magnify.
Also, think of the physical differences. We have the pretty-much-unique ability in the animal kingdom to choke because of combined air/food passage in our throat (needed for speech). And the face control... and the tongue control. Even the deaf use the same areas of their brain while signing that the hearing world does for speech.
But it goes deeper than that. Humans have a tough time seeing language as something unique and special; and yet, we love giraffes for their giant necks; elephants for their trunks; bumblebees for their whacky ability to fly. We revel in what makes them unique... why can't we revel in what makes us unique? Comparing a chimp's ability to speak to our own is like comparing a crow's squawking to Mozart. Both involve sound, but one is music and the other isn't.
Neuromancer blew me away -- it was awesome. And clacked out on a manual typewriter. Count Zero was a little less so. Mona Lisa Overdrive was a decent read (awesome, awesome cover on the original hardcover, mind you). The Difference Engine was a slog. Idoru and Virtual Light blur together.
In lit-crit circles, it is often said that a poet's best work is his earliest (think Coleridge or Bob Dylan)... while novelists take time to mature (Dickens, P.K. Dick, or Kim Stanley Robinson). I think Gibson's a poet -- people read him (at least I do) for the descriptions, the images, the language, not the story.
Of course, if he's become a novelist and has learned how to tell a story... with fleshed-out characters, with substance over flash and some hook in the story to hold on to, he might yet become a worthwhile read again.
The bugs might just be a symptom -- the water content can be too high... or the ph is off making your box a cozy environment for something that otherwise wouldn't be there.. But starting over with fresh worms is not a bad idea. My brother just re-started his worm box with worms from mine -- turns out that making veggie slush in the blender is not good worm food:O
If mine ever has probs, I'll just grab a handful of critters from his.
I've been using a plastic worm compostor for years... add kitchen scraps and paper, the worms digest everything several times faster than any compost pile.
Oh yeah, standard designs all have drainage, and most are made to work indoors (low/no stink, if done properly). Just check out a link or two.
You can sue anyone for anything, no matter how specious. Being sued, however, does not mean that your case instantly goes to court... or, indeed, ever will. It can take months to get a preliminary court date. Tack on more time for both sides to examine evidence. After that, both sides file motions... yada yada yada. PanIP probably doesn't even want to go to court. They want to make a quick buck getting mom'n'pop shops to settle. They don't want to take on someone (say, WalMart) with more money, lawyers, and know-how. PanIP might win, but they victory would be pyrrhic; they'd have burned through all their cash.
However, the cost of settling a case like this for $15 or $20 000 is less than the cost of a coupla' good IP lawyers.
Sucks, but you can put your money where your mouth is and help out.
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Nice. They automatcially update your EULA, but reserve the right to not directly inform you about it -- it's up to you to periodically check in.
They might be getting some of the content distribution stuff right, but they're lousy on customer service... and rights.
No, he wouldn't be. Remember all those cd lending stores that were around about 10 years ago? Haven't seen one in a while? It's 'cause they were shut down (or became used CD stores to sell off their stock)... for copyright infringement.
Under fair use provisions in Canada, you are not, ever, allowed to copy a work in total that you have not previously purchased (licensed, if you listen to the rights owners). The only exception I know of is time-shifting, i.e., recording a TV show to watch at a later date. You are not, however, supposed to keep that copy indefinitely. You can excerpt from pieces -- generally for academic or journalistic reasons. But I'm assuming dude wasn't doing 30 second snippets of songs for his multimedia course.
Think about it: if Canadians were legally allowed to copy media, we'd still have ICraveTV and Napster would be in Vancouver.
A friend who was laid-off from a hardware company got a sweeter deal than originally offered. He was expecting to get laid off and got prepared.
First, he worked in legal; 'nuff said.
Second, he prepared a list of media contacts.
Third, on the day he was laid off, he walked into HR and said, "This deal is not adequate." "Where do your work?" "Legal -- and here are my contacts." "Ahhh, lemme make a phone call... OK, we can offer something better."
If your company's public, and you have embarrassing information shareholders should know, use it as leverage. Settling with one employee is cheaper than settling one lawsuit.
Severance packages are negotiable, especially if they're not up to your province's standards.
Why are you trying to read a map... while driving a gas-guzzling road hog... with a kid in your back seat... while, undoubtedly, talking on a cell phone? That's a certain recipe for mowing down pedestrians and cyclists.
Slashdot Mirror
IStop.
I pay $30 Canadian a month for 3 mbit down and something close to 1 mbit up. I can also share music, so I have a use for the upload speed ;)
so she should get to name the kid.
I've been there with the midwives for both my kids' births. It ain't easy for the woman. Neither is pregnancy, for that matter. Adding to her grief by pushing for some god-awful l33t name so you can demonstrate your hackerness just makes it that much less pleasant.
Just something to think about.
Always remember: copyright law is not evil in and of itself. Without it, the GPL would be meaningless: anyone could steal GPLed code to use as s/he wants. Ellison is trying to protect his work in the exact same way the FSF tries to protect its work. There are endless stories on /. about people protecting their GPLed code from being used in propietary software, or otherwise copied without the license agreement or permission of the author. They're heroes.
Why is Ellison a hard-ass Luddite for trying to protect his work from being spread in a manner he doesn't agree with? Because stealing software is bad, and stealing words is good?
Sometimes, you fight a fight for the principle involved, not because of the money.
No, it isn't. Neither the Celts nor the Romans could beat them back -- mostly due to terrain. Google "Hadrian's Wall".
Some things to ponder ...
Linguistic family trees generally mirror genetic family trees. The links between the two assist both linguists and geneticists in determing where we come from and how we got there.
Every time we lose a language, we lose something unique or even magical. Yiddish has more words for simpleton than the Inuit use for "snow".
The native languages spoken by the Lapps, Basques and Welsh are relics from before Pro-Indo European language and culture spread from India to Europe, displacing most native languages and cultures.
Tiny New Guinea contains 1/5 of all the languages spoken on Earth.
If we lose these languages, we lose a piece of ourselves. Just to keep things in perspective.
There are over 1 billion native speakers of either Cantonese or Mandarin. English might be spoken by a billion people, but it's unlikely that it's a first language of that many people. Just a thought.
And I bet the system will be "opt out" -- just like Yahoo Mail spam!
Atkins is extremely heavy on saturated fats, FWIW. It's a good way to lose weight (25 pounds in less than 2 months b4 hernia surgery), but it is not necessarily a good long-term plan. 'Course, the long-term benefits of losing a bunch of weight probably outweigh the problems associated with obesity.
While I'm at it ... red meat is nasty on the gut; it's a leading cause of colon cancer (having lost two family members to colon cancer, it's a concern).
A better, long-term diet (South Beach-esque) is to limit the saturated fats, bulk up on beans and nuts for protein + fibre (or chicken 'n' fish for protein), and, for god's sake, stay away from spuds, rice, and white flour.
One of the best studies ever done (and is still on-going) on the long-term effects of diet is the Nurses' Health Study at Harvard. Read on and do some researchin' ... since Atkins hasn't done any long-term research on his diet.
Fear, uncertainty, doubt ... not just the tool of Microsoft!
Let's see ... the Athlon 64 is out, officially, in a few days ... Intel's 64 bit part, the Itanium, is having trouble shaking its nickname, Itanic ... lots of developers are excited 'bout having a chip running 64 and 32 bit software.
Solution? Don't make a better chip ... just float a rumour that you'll be producing something better with some 64 bit instructions... Real Soon Now! With luck, you'll tank the sales of your competitor's chip, without doing any real work!
Blah blah blah.
You just gotta squeegee the seals gently. I got this from a guy in Newfoundland, so you know it can't be an April Fools.
Of course, this was all done in the remake of Ocean's Eleven, wasn't it? If Hollywood has thought of it, it must be good idea!
In a nutshell, chimps / primates / dolphins / etc. always come up short in some ways from anything you could call language. Just off the top of my head, using a finite set of words (English has ~ 500,000), we can come up with an infinite number of things to say. That's many, many orders of magnitude more complex. Throw in pronouns (and the implied ability to think of others as individual entities), verbs, adjectives, adverbs, tenses, affixes, etc. and the differences magnify.
Also, think of the physical differences. We have the pretty-much-unique ability in the animal kingdom to choke because of combined air/food passage in our throat (needed for speech). And the face control ... and the tongue control. Even the deaf use the same areas of their brain while signing that the hearing world does for speech.
But it goes deeper than that. Humans have a tough time seeing language as something unique and special; and yet, we love giraffes for their giant necks; elephants for their trunks; bumblebees for their whacky ability to fly. We revel in what makes them unique ... why can't we revel in what makes us unique? Comparing a chimp's ability to speak to our own is like comparing a crow's squawking to Mozart. Both involve sound, but one is music and the other isn't.
In lit-crit circles, it is often said that a poet's best work is his earliest (think Coleridge or Bob Dylan) ... while novelists take time to mature (Dickens, P.K. Dick, or Kim Stanley Robinson). I think Gibson's a poet -- people read him (at least I do) for the descriptions, the images, the language, not the story.
Of course, if he's become a novelist and has learned how to tell a story ... with fleshed-out characters, with substance over flash and some hook in the story to hold on to, he might yet become a worthwhile read again.
I'd bet that all those cell phones people junk every year or two are far, far worse for the environment.
Lifelike -- even better!
If mine ever has probs, I'll just grab a handful of critters from his.
Oh yeah, standard designs all have drainage, and most are made to work indoors (low/no stink, if done properly). Just check out a link or two.
However, the cost of settling a case like this for $15 or $20 000 is less than the cost of a coupla' good IP lawyers.
Sucks, but you can put your money where your mouth is and help out.
Been there, not yet, proxy war with Israel, supplies arms too, Libya and Sudan missiled.
No, you can also slash "defense" spending. How many more third world countries are left to invade / bomb?
You acknowledge that Listen may issue upgraded versions ... from time to time, and may automatically electronically upgrade the version of the Application that you are using on your computer. You consent to such automatic upgrading, and agree that this Agreement (as amended from time to time) will govern all such upgraded versions.
In effect, you agree at the time of initial installation of the software to all future installations of software from them. You are also bound to any and all future EULAs by agreeing to the first one, as borne out by:
13. Modification
Listen may modify this Agreement at any time in our sole discretion. A change of terms notice will be posted at the top of this Agreement located at [URL nuked], and we may also notify you by email in some instances.
Nice. They automatcially update your EULA, but reserve the right to not directly inform you about it -- it's up to you to periodically check in.
They might be getting some of the content distribution stuff right, but they're lousy on customer service ... and rights.
No, he wouldn't be. Remember all those cd lending stores that were around about 10 years ago? Haven't seen one in a while? It's 'cause they were shut down (or became used CD stores to sell off their stock) ... for copyright infringement.
Under fair use provisions in Canada, you are not, ever, allowed to copy a work in total that you have not previously purchased (licensed, if you listen to the rights owners). The only exception I know of is time-shifting, i.e., recording a TV show to watch at a later date. You are not, however, supposed to keep that copy indefinitely. You can excerpt from pieces -- generally for academic or journalistic reasons. But I'm assuming dude wasn't doing 30 second snippets of songs for his multimedia course.
Think about it: if Canadians were legally allowed to copy media, we'd still have ICraveTV and Napster would be in Vancouver.
First, he worked in legal; 'nuff said.
Second, he prepared a list of media contacts.
Third, on the day he was laid off, he walked into HR and said, "This deal is not adequate." "Where do your work?" "Legal -- and here are my contacts." "Ahhh, lemme make a phone call ... OK, we can offer something better."
If your company's public, and you have embarrassing information shareholders should know, use it as leverage. Settling with one employee is cheaper than settling one lawsuit.
Severance packages are negotiable, especially if they're not up to your province's standards.
Nice example you're setting for your kid.