Since accepting the GPL actually gives you MORE freedoms than the normal copyright laws, if you don't accept the GPL on a program you get, you are actually more limited in what you can do with it.
Yes, the GPL grants permissions, but it also takes away rights, such as the right to first sale of binary-only copies.
Sure, you could try to simplify the GPL, but the fact of the matter is that what the GPL is attempting to do is very complicated. I challenge you to propose a simplified GPL which accomplishes the same goals as the GPL. I'm not even sure if the GPL itself accomplishes the goals of the GPL, this hasn't been tested in court at all yet.
I have a simple license, called the QingPL, but it is quite different from the GPL. Most significantly, it does not require that source code be released when a derivitive work is released.
Electrons can also exist in multiple places at once which is one of the weird phenomena that make Tunneling Electron Microscopes and semiconductors work.
Yes, electrons can exist in multiple places at once, but that is limited to very short distances - the planck length. Using a beam splitter you can show that the same photon exists in two positions miles apart from each other simultaneously. This is actually done in the Laser Interferometer Gravity Wave Ovservatory. Let's see you do that with electrons, and I'll concede that they are particles in the same sense.
Tunneling electron microscopes have more to do with uncertainty of energy than uncertainty of position. Yes, electrons can temporarily violate conservation of mass-energy, but this does not show that they exist in multiple places simultaneously.
Particles have a fixed position which can be determined within an error of the planck length. A single photon can exist in multiple locations simultaneously. If you want to call a photon a particle, you're seriously stretching your definition of particle.
It's always-on in the sense that when I request data, it will automatically connect and retrieve that data (charging me for at least one minute). It is not always on in the sense that I can maintain a static TCP connection 24 hours a day. That would use up way too many minutes.
Maybe you're thinking of the business plan, which charges by the Kb rather than the minute. I can see how that could be always on...
the Express Network data session automatically terminates after 5 minutes of inactivity.
the Express Network data session automatically terminates after 24 hours of activity.
Nope, I guess not. Now if properly implemented, businesses could still send 4 bytes/second, 24 hours a day, and not use up its bandwidth allotment of 10 megs. Maybe 8 bytes/second, 12 hours a day makes more sense.
Personally I'm holding out for richochet, or some other always-on service. I don't mind paying per meg, but I need the convenience of being able to push data, and I'd like to be able to set a daily usage limit if the allowance is small.
In the mean time my iPaq sits here only able to sync with the world when it's around an open 802.11 access point. I'd like to install a hard drive with an 802.11 hookup in my car, so I at least have more than 64 megs storage space when I'm in the vicinity of my car, but that's a task I don't yet have the time/money/geekfactor to do.
If you like that I'd be happy to give you an additional $5000 itemized deduction. Just mail me a check for $5000 for "income tax consulting". It's a perfectly legal deduction, feel free to call the IRS and ask them.
Unfortunately they don't give the personal rates right now because it's unlimited minutes for the first month.
The rate is that it uses your regular minutes. So if you have 300 weekday minutes and 2000 night and weekend minutes, then if you use the express network for 100 weekday minutes then you have 200 left. If you use more than your allotment, I think the charge is $.40/minute.
So basically unless you're using it mainly nights and weekends, it's expensive, and that's why I haven't signed up for it yet.
Yahoo maps and faster email is about the only tangible benefit I'd get from the speed when using 3G on my Ipaq. Add always-on and I'd be able to use MSN Messenger, and access my entire mp3 library from anywhere. Especially nice now that I have an adapter to hook my Ipaq's audio out to my car stereo.
True 3G is great. Verizon's current network is really 2.5G.
In other words, there is no validation that the card being used for the transaction really does belong to the person making the transaction.
Sure there is. Your signature matches the signature on the back of the card. Good combination of something you have (the card), and something you are (the signature).
Why are fingerprints so much harder to copy than signatures? They're both biometrics.
Exactly. My grandfather once had his credit card number stolen directly by a store worker who wrote it down on a piece of paper. Turns out she also had the unauthorized purchases shipped to her house, so the FBI came a knocking shortly later.
If you hand your card to the person at the register, then you are placing trust in them.
It's actually exactly the opposite. When you hand your credit card to the person at the register, they are placing their trust in you. Credit cards are nothing more than a promise to pay.
being penalized $750 for violating a law that didn't deprive anyone of anything to appese [sic] an outdated industry pushing dracoian [sic] tactics dosen't [sic] put you off just a bit?
Look, I am completely opposed to copyright law, but the only way copyright law is ever going to be overturned is to start enforcing it. Those who distribute mp3s using P2P systems are hurting me by making justifications for even stronger copyright laws. They are also hurting me by driving up the price of CDs. If these people can be forced to stop violating the law, I'm fully in support of it. I don't think they should go to jail, and I don't think they should be fined too heavily for their first offense, but IMHO fining an unauthorized copyright distributor $750 is going to make this world a better place, not a worse one.
It's corparate [sic] facisim [sic].
Who said anything about the copyright holder being a corporation?
What's fascist against supporting the civil enforcement of copyright law? I'm sure you could settle for $500 or so if you weren't breaking the law maliciously. Even if you can't I bet a guilty plea would get you off for the minimum civil penalty of $750, again assuming you weren't acting maliciously.
If you make no money at all from the transaction, your infringement is clearly civil.
That's not true. If you distribute copyrighted materials worth more than a certain amount of money, you can be prosecuted criminally.
I am held accountable and under civil copyright penalties must pay the copyright holder damages. Let's see, average CD: $17, average # songs: 12 = $1.41 per song.
That's just the actual damages. Civil copyright penalties include punitive damages ("in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just"), court costs, and attorney's fees.
The copyright holders need to start suing people who are using P2P programs to distribute copyrighted materials without permission. Once that happens the use of P2P software will stop really quickly.
But note that they could raise the retail price of Office XP to $900, announcing a $450 rebate offer in the box if you accept the EULA.
There's a simple reason that they won't do that. They know EULA's aren't enforcible. They don't have any intention of persuing the average consumer in court. The purpose of the EULA is to scare people. Not just to scare the consumer into complying, but also to scare companies like EBay into forcing compliance.
EULAs cannot take away your right to use the software you buy. They cannot take away your right to first sale. Almost every term in the average EULA is completely unenforcible, and the remaining terms affect things that the average consumer is never going to do.
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Since accepting the GPL actually gives you MORE freedoms than the normal copyright laws, if you don't accept the GPL on a program you get, you are actually more limited in what you can do with it.
Yes, the GPL grants permissions, but it also takes away rights, such as the right to first sale of binary-only copies.
Sure, you could try to simplify the GPL, but the fact of the matter is that what the GPL is attempting to do is very complicated. I challenge you to propose a simplified GPL which accomplishes the same goals as the GPL. I'm not even sure if the GPL itself accomplishes the goals of the GPL, this hasn't been tested in court at all yet.
I have a simple license, called the QingPL, but it is quite different from the GPL. Most significantly, it does not require that source code be released when a derivitive work is released.
Electrons can also exist in multiple places at once which is one of the weird phenomena that make Tunneling Electron Microscopes and semiconductors work.
Yes, electrons can exist in multiple places at once, but that is limited to very short distances - the planck length. Using a beam splitter you can show that the same photon exists in two positions miles apart from each other simultaneously. This is actually done in the Laser Interferometer Gravity Wave Ovservatory. Let's see you do that with electrons, and I'll concede that they are particles in the same sense.
Tunneling electron microscopes have more to do with uncertainty of energy than uncertainty of position. Yes, electrons can temporarily violate conservation of mass-energy, but this does not show that they exist in multiple places simultaneously.
Photons are particles that propagate as waves.
Particles have a fixed position which can be determined within an error of the planck length. A single photon can exist in multiple locations simultaneously. If you want to call a photon a particle, you're seriously stretching your definition of particle.
It can behave like a particle, in that it is quantized, but that doesn't make it a particle. It makes it a quantized wave.
Together they showed that light acts completely unlike anything we experience in the classical world.
Then the Davisson-Germer experiment came along and showed that electrons and even alpha particles behave exactly the same way.
With the same apparatus, it can be shown tha light is a particle.
Umm, you mean a quantized wave. To call light a particle is to seriously stretch the definition of particle.
It's always-on in the sense that when I request data, it will automatically connect and retrieve that data (charging me for at least one minute). It is not always on in the sense that I can maintain a static TCP connection 24 hours a day. That would use up way too many minutes.
Maybe you're thinking of the business plan, which charges by the Kb rather than the minute. I can see how that could be always on...
Nope, I guess not. Now if properly implemented, businesses could still send 4 bytes/second, 24 hours a day, and not use up its bandwidth allotment of 10 megs. Maybe 8 bytes/second, 12 hours a day makes more sense.
Personally I'm holding out for richochet, or some other always-on service. I don't mind paying per meg, but I need the convenience of being able to push data, and I'd like to be able to set a daily usage limit if the allowance is small.
In the mean time my iPaq sits here only able to sync with the world when it's around an open 802.11 access point. I'd like to install a hard drive with an 802.11 hookup in my car, so I at least have more than 64 megs storage space when I'm in the vicinity of my car, but that's a task I don't yet have the time/money/geekfactor to do.
Ever hear of Unreimbursed business expenses?
If you like that I'd be happy to give you an additional $5000 itemized deduction. Just mail me a check for $5000 for "income tax consulting". It's a perfectly legal deduction, feel free to call the IRS and ask them.
Unfortunately they don't give the personal rates right now because it's unlimited minutes for the first month.
The rate is that it uses your regular minutes. So if you have 300 weekday minutes and 2000 night and weekend minutes, then if you use the express network for 100 weekday minutes then you have 200 left. If you use more than your allotment, I think the charge is $.40/minute.
So basically unless you're using it mainly nights and weekends, it's expensive, and that's why I haven't signed up for it yet.
Yahoo maps and faster email is about the only tangible benefit I'd get from the speed when using 3G on my Ipaq. Add always-on and I'd be able to use MSN Messenger, and access my entire mp3 library from anywhere. Especially nice now that I have an adapter to hook my Ipaq's audio out to my car stereo.
True 3G is great. Verizon's current network is really 2.5G.
Those are the business rates. Personal rates just use your standard minutes, which usually includes thousands of free night and weekend minutes.
Sure, it's nice having the extra speed, but until I can get always-on access, I'll stick with Mobile Office, which is free.
In other words, there is no validation that the card being used for the transaction really does belong to the person making the transaction.
Sure there is. Your signature matches the signature on the back of the card. Good combination of something you have (the card), and something you are (the signature).
Why are fingerprints so much harder to copy than signatures? They're both biometrics.
Exactly. My grandfather once had his credit card number stolen directly by a store worker who wrote it down on a piece of paper. Turns out she also had the unauthorized purchases shipped to her house, so the FBI came a knocking shortly later.
If you hand your card to the person at the register, then you are placing trust in them.
It's actually exactly the opposite. When you hand your credit card to the person at the register, they are placing their trust in you. Credit cards are nothing more than a promise to pay.
Is it illegal for me to wave a magnet in just the right way near my computer as to flip the bit in the font to make it embed?
If the font is copyrighted, and you don't have permission, then yes.
If I practice and get good, is it illegal for me to use the magnet technique to decrypt DVDs?
If the DVD is copyrighted, and you don't have permission, then yes.
What's your point?
I never said anything about throwing anyone in jail.
being penalized $750 for violating a law that didn't deprive anyone of anything to appese [sic] an outdated industry pushing dracoian [sic] tactics dosen't [sic] put you off just a bit?
Look, I am completely opposed to copyright law, but the only way copyright law is ever going to be overturned is to start enforcing it. Those who distribute mp3s using P2P systems are hurting me by making justifications for even stronger copyright laws. They are also hurting me by driving up the price of CDs. If these people can be forced to stop violating the law, I'm fully in support of it. I don't think they should go to jail, and I don't think they should be fined too heavily for their first offense, but IMHO fining an unauthorized copyright distributor $750 is going to make this world a better place, not a worse one.
It's corparate [sic] facisim [sic].
Who said anything about the copyright holder being a corporation?
Go to court and try to win this one.
Put your money where your mouth is. Download the program and mirror it on your own site.
What's fascist against supporting the civil enforcement of copyright law? I'm sure you could settle for $500 or so if you weren't breaking the law maliciously. Even if you can't I bet a guilty plea would get you off for the minimum civil penalty of $750, again assuming you weren't acting maliciously.
If you make no money at all from the transaction, your infringement is clearly civil.
That's not true. If you distribute copyrighted materials worth more than a certain amount of money, you can be prosecuted criminally.
I am held accountable and under civil copyright penalties must pay the copyright holder damages. Let's see, average CD: $17, average # songs: 12 = $1.41 per song.
That's just the actual damages. Civil copyright penalties include punitive damages ("in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just"), court costs, and attorney's fees.
Defending yourself in civil court is next to impoosible when the complaintent has millions upon millions of dollars in petty cash.
So don't defend yourself in civil court. Settle, or don't break the law in the first place.
The copyright holders need to start suing people who are using P2P programs to distribute copyrighted materials without permission. Once that happens the use of P2P software will stop really quickly.
But note that they could raise the retail price of Office XP to $900, announcing a $450 rebate offer in the box if you accept the EULA.
There's a simple reason that they won't do that. They know EULA's aren't enforcible. They don't have any intention of persuing the average consumer in court. The purpose of the EULA is to scare people. Not just to scare the consumer into complying, but also to scare companies like EBay into forcing compliance.
EULAs cannot take away your right to use the software you buy. They cannot take away your right to first sale. Almost every term in the average EULA is completely unenforcible, and the remaining terms affect things that the average consumer is never going to do.