Fallout 2 has a hell of a lot text in it, including a non-too subtle satire of Scientology (the Hubologists). But you get to kill them. With a gauss rifle. So it's all good.
Standard journalistic practice. The Economist for example, always mentions if it's reviewing (say) a book written by a former employee, or published by it's parent company, or somesuch.
It's happened: The buggy-whip makers have been put in charge of the auto industry. Piece by piece, at the bequest of the old-guard publishing industries, our courts and legislators are killing the Internet and the promise it held.
No, it's the other way round. I've seen various prophecies of doom regarding copyright violation since I was 13 downloading "warez" from BBS's. Since then with broadband connections, P2P and the proliferation of IRC channels dedication to file exchange, copyright "violations" seem to have exploded in terms of scale.
The amount of piracy/sharing is difficult to get a proper grasp on. But in my office (a Call Centre with 100+ staff), _everyone_ is involved in "illegal" file sharing. Episodes of Buffy, albums, films, copies of Photoshop, etc. Not just the grunts, but the managers. The kind of dicks who have a stroke if you get round their idiotic restrictions on changing your background (Note to System Support : You can change your background in MSPaint...) Even these guys can be overheard asking for a crack for XYZ program, or a decent VCD of Monsters Inc for their kids. The legitimacy of intellectual property is in an awful state, and the RIAA know it.
Aside from a little homegrown (UK) TV, I don't really watch TV anymore. I could watch Buffy on TV with 20 mins of ads, or I could watch it a month earlier with no ads at my own convenience and timing.
I could spend £100+ on a copy of XP Pro, or I could just get it for free. I don't buy albums, and my DVD collection probably won't grow much in the immediate future. (Thank you DIVX). Yes, I'm a parasite. So?
You can't really blame the RIAA et al for their efforts. But they're not destroying anything. The last grunts of collapsing empires. And this is the situation in a core capitalist state. Look to India/China where even business piracy is probably over 80%, let alone amongst individuals. Try telling these guys that their copy of Office is illegal, or worse still, immoral. You'll get laughed at. And with rising educational (especially with regards to tech) standards in Asia, the RIAA have a battle on their hands. A battle they can't win. As a friend of mine says, they can get a thousand of the smartest guys in the world to develop security for them. The next hundred thousand smartest guys won't stop until it's cracked though.
It is not legal in PA. It's called criminal solicitation. There are laws against sex with a minor, and there are laws against giving alcohol to a minor.
Erm, yes. Oops. I missed an important bit in my setence : In *HOLLAND* it'd be legal to offer drink/sex to a 15 year old. Not because Holland is the total repistory of moral goodness, but that not everyone in the world finds this type of behaviour worthy of beatings and/or rape as punishment.
The happiest outcome for me would be that it is allowed into evidence, the guy goes to pound-me-in-the-ass prison for propositioning an underage girl
If someone was to say "Ha, I hope that person who offered alcohol to a minor is violently beaten", I would imagine they would be considered a bit Conservative to put it mildly. A bit whacked also.
It's odd that if someone propositions a minor with sex (not abducts, not attack)then some people would think a just reward would be their anal rape.
I realise the two offences (both illegal in the US) are vastly different, but afaik, it'd be legal to offer drink or sex to a 15yr old.
[joke]For any 15 year old girls out there, you can find me on Dalnet with the nick.....[/joke]
Note, I don't have access to the article at the moment, so am not sure of the case specifics. If there was something more sinister in the defendents actions (i.e. stalking, attempted abductions, etc) then that's something different. But I have seen nothing in the comments posted thus far that indicate that way.
They can charge what the hell they like. Regardless of what a lot of the automatons around here think, business is not duty bound to provide you with what you want at the price you want it.
Very true. However, if I then decide I'm not going to pay the price they like for it, and then "steal" (i.e. make copies, download from Kazaa, get stuff out of libraries, etc) it, please don't whine about it..
If you're going to be Nietzschian (blatant sp, I know), run with it. (Likewise, I won't whine when death squads come to my house at 3am)
Re:Bah. Weak argument at best.
on
The Crime of Sharing
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· Score: 3, Informative
Serious question though: How is "theft" defined in U.S. law? Im my country, it only applies if you take something away [uni-mannheim.de] (sorry, link to German site), which is different from copying something.
IANAL (or an American) so can't answer that specifically. However, I do remember hearing that historically Anglo-Saxon law classifies theft (or stealing) as permanently denying the owner of a physical item.
This is why, in the UK, if you are arrested for joy-riding you are charged with "Taking and Driving Away" rather than simply Car Theft, because a possible defence exists that you were intending to return the car. A "temporary" theft is not realy theft (in these terms). Hence the need for a new law to be made (TADA)
It seems to me that under the same criteria copyright infringement cannot be classified theft. You might argue that it's depriving the artist (or studio, or shop) of revenue, but certainly not the physical item (the CD) Whether it is right or not is another matter.
Re:I was somewhat disappointed, with the article
on
Inside Intel
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· Score: 1
BTW, In economics, my teacher said "The reason companies set up factories in third world countries is because they wish to sell to the people in those countries someday" I think he would know what he's talking about
Even if you wished to argue this line, there was a lot better ways of putting it than "My teacher knows best".
Companies set up factories in low wage areas because they want to lower costs. With a lot of industries I'm sure there is some desire to sell to the citizens of the country (e.g. comparatively low cost goods such as Cigarettes) but mainly it's about costs.
Dyson (the UK vacuum cleaner manufacturer) recently announced moving part of it's manufacturing to Asia. Why? Low labour costs (lower wages and associated costs). I'm sure as an associated benefit they will sell more of their product in Asia, but this is _not_ their primary motivation.
At my work we can only see "authorised" websites, and Slashdot (oddly enough) is one of them. Pretty much all of the external links on Slashdot are inacessible to me, so I appreciate people posting the article, even if it is often just karma whoring.
Ideas of social capital withering being linked to mortality can be found in various British Medical Journals on-line.
Although I would overall agree with points made in the article, just because social capital has declined in the lifespan of the net (or TV) doesn't prove a causative relationship. Britney Spears career has probably coincided with higher rates of (say) terrorism, or suicides but that doesn't mean...Well maybe.
Anyway, increased usage of the 'net has also accompanied some pretty sharp increases in economic equality - which has also been linked to reduced social capital. On streets which are *perceived* as more dangerous (regardless of the truth) then obviously people are going to want to stay at home with the TV. These trends are self-reinforcing.
One last point, net usage isn't an all-encompassing term. This is aluded to in the article, but clearly being part of an active on-line community (e.g. a game community, or on-line programmers, etc) isn't as "alienating" as just browsing for web porn.
Re:what about B5, Buffy, Simpsons
on
Star Trek TNG DVDs
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· Score: 2, Informative
In the UK, WB have released Friends as entire seasons on both VHS and DVD. Not sure why WB America would drag their feet.
Up until fairly recently the studios didn't seem to appreciate that custs would want entire seasons, rather than "best ofs". Again, in the UK, we had themed best of's (which were generally lame) of the Simpsons, which was eventually followed by the Box-Sets. One migth cynically say that they did this to squeeze yet more money out of us...
I'm sure George Lucas could afford to pay for tickets to an N'Synch concert. I'm sure he could afford to buy a personal appearance from them. Most (99.99%) parents couldn't do this.
Let's have a little less pity for the offspring of billionaire's shall we?
These type of bandwidth issues are made x100 times worse by copyright restrictions which exist on the material which is being shared.
If (big if I realise) these materials were freely available to share, then much saner libraries of s/w could be built and cut bandwidth usage dramatically. For example, when downloading a DIVX movie file, most users with bandwidth will try and download two or three different versions at the same time - since one will inevitably be of poor quality, another will be corrupted and the other one will take resumes from different users when people go off-line.
If there was a on-site (in the Uni example) site which contained various movies, software, etc. then people would only have to utilise the downstream to get more unusual choices, etc. The warez/mp3/divx scenes are horrifically inefficient from a bandwidth point of view.
Yes, yes I know...unreconstructed anarchist fantasy.
RAM is volatile, I don't particularly care which DIMM is storing what when running on my machine.
However, if I want to take my HDD out of my machine to share data with someone else (or another usage which requires me to take out my HDD) it's vitally important to know where (physically) my data is stored among multiple HDDs.
When one of my disks fails, I want to know what I've lost. Mounting disks as folders could be OK though, as you could maintain the integrity of each drive.
The whole debate seems to be influenced by an overhand of CLI usage. Even when using XP, I still sometimes like to use the DOS interface, it just gets annoying when having to type cd Documents and Settings, etc. When using a DOS type CLI, having drive letters is incredibly useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Fallout 2 has a hell of a lot text in it, including a non-too subtle satire of Scientology (the Hubologists). But you get to kill them. With a gauss rifle. So it's all good.
Standard journalistic practice. The Economist for example, always mentions if it's reviewing (say) a book written by a former employee, or published by it's parent company, or somesuch.
Well, you showed them!
Did System of a Down do a cover of this song? I wondered if the file I downloaded had some kind of incorrect info. Either way, it's fab.
So inheritance of wealth/property has been abolished?
No, it's the other way round. I've seen various prophecies of doom regarding copyright violation since I was 13 downloading "warez" from BBS's. Since then with broadband connections, P2P and the proliferation of IRC channels dedication to file exchange, copyright "violations" seem to have exploded in terms of scale.
The amount of piracy/sharing is difficult to get a proper grasp on. But in my office (a Call Centre with 100+ staff), _everyone_ is involved in "illegal" file sharing. Episodes of Buffy, albums, films, copies of Photoshop, etc. Not just the grunts, but the managers. The kind of dicks who have a stroke if you get round their idiotic restrictions on changing your background (Note to System Support : You can change your background in MSPaint...) Even these guys can be overheard asking for a crack for XYZ program, or a decent VCD of Monsters Inc for their kids. The legitimacy of intellectual property is in an awful state, and the RIAA know it.
Aside from a little homegrown (UK) TV, I don't really watch TV anymore. I could watch Buffy on TV with 20 mins of ads, or I could watch it a month earlier with no ads at my own convenience and timing.
I could spend £100+ on a copy of XP Pro, or I could just get it for free. I don't buy albums, and my DVD collection probably won't grow much in the immediate future. (Thank you DIVX). Yes, I'm a parasite. So?
You can't really blame the RIAA et al for their efforts. But they're not destroying anything. The last grunts of collapsing empires. And this is the situation in a core capitalist state. Look to India/China where even business piracy is probably over 80%, let alone amongst individuals. Try telling these guys that their copy of Office is illegal, or worse still, immoral. You'll get laughed at. And with rising educational (especially with regards to tech) standards in Asia, the RIAA have a battle on their hands. A battle they can't win. As a friend of mine says, they can get a thousand of the smartest guys in the world to develop security for them. The next hundred thousand smartest guys won't stop until it's cracked though.
Erm, yes. Oops. I missed an important bit in my setence : In *HOLLAND* it'd be legal to offer drink/sex to a 15 year old. Not because Holland is the total repistory of moral goodness, but that not everyone in the world finds this type of behaviour worthy of beatings and/or rape as punishment.
If someone was to say "Ha, I hope that person who offered alcohol to a minor is violently beaten", I would imagine they would be considered a bit Conservative to put it mildly. A bit whacked also.
It's odd that if someone propositions a minor with sex (not abducts, not attack)then some people would think a just reward would be their anal rape.
I realise the two offences (both illegal in the US) are vastly different, but afaik, it'd be legal to offer drink or sex to a 15yr old.
[joke]For any 15 year old girls out there, you can find me on Dalnet with the nick.....[/joke]
Note, I don't have access to the article at the moment, so am not sure of the case specifics. If there was something more sinister in the defendents actions (i.e. stalking, attempted abductions, etc) then that's something different. But I have seen nothing in the comments posted thus far that indicate that way.
Very true. However, if I then decide I'm not going to pay the price they like for it, and then "steal" (i.e. make copies, download from Kazaa, get stuff out of libraries, etc) it, please don't whine about it..
If you're going to be Nietzschian (blatant sp, I know), run with it. (Likewise, I won't whine when death squads come to my house at 3am)
IANAL (or an American) so can't answer that specifically. However, I do remember hearing that historically Anglo-Saxon law classifies theft (or stealing) as permanently denying the owner of a physical item.
This is why, in the UK, if you are arrested for joy-riding you are charged with "Taking and Driving Away" rather than simply Car Theft, because a possible defence exists that you were intending to return the car. A "temporary" theft is not realy theft (in these terms). Hence the need for a new law to be made (TADA)
It seems to me that under the same criteria copyright infringement cannot be classified theft. You might argue that it's depriving the artist (or studio, or shop) of revenue, but certainly not the physical item (the CD) Whether it is right or not is another matter.
Even if you wished to argue this line, there was a lot better ways of putting it than "My teacher knows best".
Companies set up factories in low wage areas because they want to lower costs. With a lot of industries I'm sure there is some desire to sell to the citizens of the country (e.g. comparatively low cost goods such as Cigarettes) but mainly it's about costs.
Dyson (the UK vacuum cleaner manufacturer) recently announced moving part of it's manufacturing to Asia. Why? Low labour costs (lower wages and associated costs). I'm sure as an associated benefit they will sell more of their product in Asia, but this is _not_ their primary motivation.
No, please don't stop this.
At my work we can only see "authorised" websites, and Slashdot (oddly enough) is one of them. Pretty much all of the external links on Slashdot are inacessible to me, so I appreciate people posting the article, even if it is often just karma whoring.
Ideas of social capital withering being linked to mortality can be found in various British Medical Journals on-line.
Although I would overall agree with points made in the article, just because social capital has declined in the lifespan of the net (or TV) doesn't prove a causative relationship. Britney Spears career has probably coincided with higher rates of (say) terrorism, or suicides but that doesn't mean...Well maybe.
Anyway, increased usage of the 'net has also accompanied some pretty sharp increases in economic equality - which has also been linked to reduced social capital. On streets which are *perceived* as more dangerous (regardless of the truth) then obviously people are going to want to stay at home with the TV. These trends are self-reinforcing.
One last point, net usage isn't an all-encompassing term. This is aluded to in the article, but clearly being part of an active on-line community (e.g. a game community, or on-line programmers, etc) isn't as "alienating" as just browsing for web porn.
In the UK, WB have released Friends as entire seasons on both VHS and DVD. Not sure why WB America would drag their feet.
Up until fairly recently the studios didn't seem to appreciate that custs would want entire seasons, rather than "best ofs". Again, in the UK, we had themed best of's (which were generally lame) of the Simpsons, which was eventually followed by the Box-Sets. One migth cynically say that they did this to squeeze yet more money out of us...
I'm sure George Lucas could afford to pay for tickets to an N'Synch concert. I'm sure he could afford to buy a personal appearance from them. Most (99.99%) parents couldn't do this. Let's have a little less pity for the offspring of billionaire's shall we?
If (big if I realise) these materials were freely available to share, then much saner libraries of s/w could be built and cut bandwidth usage dramatically. For example, when downloading a DIVX movie file, most users with bandwidth will try and download two or three different versions at the same time - since one will inevitably be of poor quality, another will be corrupted and the other one will take resumes from different users when people go off-line.
If there was a on-site (in the Uni example) site which contained various movies, software, etc. then people would only have to utilise the downstream to get more unusual choices, etc. The warez/mp3/divx scenes are horrifically inefficient from a bandwidth point of view. Yes, yes I know...unreconstructed anarchist fantasy.
RAM is volatile, I don't particularly care which DIMM is storing what when running on my machine. However, if I want to take my HDD out of my machine to share data with someone else (or another usage which requires me to take out my HDD) it's vitally important to know where (physically) my data is stored among multiple HDDs. When one of my disks fails, I want to know what I've lost. Mounting disks as folders could be OK though, as you could maintain the integrity of each drive. The whole debate seems to be influenced by an overhand of CLI usage. Even when using XP, I still sometimes like to use the DOS interface, it just gets annoying when having to type cd Documents and Settings, etc. When using a DOS type CLI, having drive letters is incredibly useful.