I know they're not giving it away, but all its going to take is a year of these things being popular and the amount of landfill junk would be astounding.
That, right there, will alienate loads of people. Fair use and content control issues aside, this is a stupid, stupid idea from an environmental perspective and a PR perspective.
And I'm sure it wouldn't be cost-effective for them to include a recycling program for it, either.
As far as I know, what happened was that about four years ago, Gabe and Tycho tried to negotiate a book deal. Because they were stone ignorant of such matters at the time, they entered into a legal agreement with their publisher to publish a book.
First, the book never actually ended up coming to market, insofar as I'm aware. While they were objecting to this development (despite paying money, I think), they also discovered that they had signed away their legal rights to have any of their comics in print (or at least, they had signed away control).
Enter their manager that showed up a few years ago, and the proverbial, "WTF!?" moment. They ended up in court after that, and have been fighting ever since.
Disclaimer: This is what I've gathered, and is probably RIDDLED with inaccuracies and suppositions. I'm not clear on the details, but that's about as much as I know/have inferred. If anybody wants to correct me, please be my guest.
Start troubleshooting by process of elimination. If the predictions of global warming are even half-right, that's a pretty serious situation. Whether or not you believe it, if we can't judge our effect on the environment whatsoever, we should at least try to minimize our impact as much as possible so as to determine what might really be going on.
And besides, efficiency is a good thing, right? Recycling materials, minimizing energy use, that sort of thing...in the long run, that's good business sense. Get the most out of what you have.
I woudl think that even if you don't believe global warming is an issue, you would at least be willing to address issues of efficiency and consumption for the tertiary benefits they'd include. Not to mention the aesthetic.
If I were an engineer, I'd be working on landfills. Those things are goldmines waiting to happen, when it comes to recoverable materials. And they stink. Getting rid of them or not making new ones would make life more pleasant.
I could really use one of those, or I could someday.
The problem with digital cameras and our bloody, damned computer media is that I take so many more pictures, but hard drive corruption, decaying optical discs, and flash drive failure have a habit of winnowing my useable image files away from time to time. I've lost enough pictures permanently that sometimes plain old traditional archiving seems like a smart idea.
If I was more than an amateur, I'd be racing for something with archival ink. At least, of course, until somebody comes up with an electronic medium that has the durability of a marble block.
SOCAN isn't poor. SOCAN has LOTS and LOTS of cash.
The reason being that every artist and label in the country pays into them, and they charg for radio play of members' music pretty much everywhere.
In fact, I remember a lawsuit with a local restaurant who was playing CDs over the stereo system and got the stick from SOCAN because he wasn't paying his royalties (not that there was much sympathy in the community for him, since that guy was a raging asshole).
I could be wrong on the details, but I'm sure that SOCAN has a lot of agreements that allow them to pull in the cash. Not on the scale of American record industry groups, granted, but in Canadian terms, they ain't broke.
Here's a link to their "Tariff" system, which details how they charge whom, and where:
SOCAN Tariffs
I grew up less than 15 minutes from the US border. My family kept a mailbox in Northport, Wa., where my grandmother was born and raised. She later moved to Canada to marry my grandfather.
My family has many friends in the United States of America, and I have relatives down there to this day. I spent nearly every summer of my childhood near Kettle Falls, swimming on the shores of the Columbia river, flying kites and catching june bugs.
From the mountains near my hometown, you can see the United States. It's absolutely no different from the landscape in Canadian. All you can see to distinguish the two nations -- if you're lucky -- is a cutline less than twenty feet across.
When we used to go across the border, my father was waved through. The border guards knew him well.
As I got older, that slowly changed. Border checks took longer, the guards were more insistent on searching him, and even though they all expressed regret, asking how we kids were, much of the time they still spent time checking him out.
The last time I went to the US, I spent an hour at the border while the car I was driving in was searched top to bottom. The border guards were rude, humorless and in-your-face.
Canada is still exempt from this change in the laws, and I love the USA.
But I can honestly say that if the laws ever change to require that kind of invasive documentation with respect to Canadians, I will never go back to the USA again.
Watching the US over the last four years has been very much like watching a family member go crazy. I sincerely hope things change, soon, because I would really like to take the kids I will someday have swimming in the river down there, and show them what awesome neighbours we were lucky enough to have.
Right now, I think it's even money that that will happen.
The last time I quit caffeine (it only stuck for a few months), I killed it good by ALSO giving up cigarettes, sugar, and drinking at the same time
It creates a situation where you feel so fucking miserable that really, you stop worrying about caffeine or really anything else, for that matter
Anyways, caffeine exits your system after about three days. I suggest giving it up when you next have the flu, next have a really, REALLY bad bender, or next time you have a fever. The other feelings will be so painful, additional misery shouldn't bother you (much)
NOW SEE HERE
Banks don't represent Canada
They just represent EVIL
Evil, as we all know, is an international syndicate with offices in every country and district on the planet. If they ever have an IPO, you can bet I'm shelling out to get a piece
While I'm sure that there will be a massive puscht to trade and sell biometrics about employees (and, looking down the road, consumers, should the technology be adapted for things like credit cards and ABMS), it sets off giant, giant alarm bells for me.
I mean, while we have things like addresses and phone numbers being traded and sold by large companies, such details about a person are easily changed.
The basic structure of your retina or your fingerprints, however, are things you're stuck with. I really can't see any technology coming along that will rewrite your retinal signature outside of expensive surgery.
That leaves fingerprint and retinal data, at the least, even more personal and, to my mind, private than your name.
You can change just about everything about yourself, statisticwise; eye color, hair colour, weight, musculature, name, address, phone number, SIN number, credit card number, employer, and so on
But you're stuck with your body. Barring six-million-dollar-man bionics, the one you've got is the only one you're ever going to get.
Having unique bodily markers floating about on an advertiser's list, or worse, a blacklist for potential hires or borrowers, in the case of employers or credit companies, seems....alarming
I'd rather be anonymous than tracked for my own safety. Anonymity is a risk I'm willing to take.
Re:The heart of the Net is American Culture
on
Heart of the Net
·
· Score: 1
American Culture?
I've never noticed that America had culture before.
Random yankee-bashing aside, perhaps the Net IS uniquely american in that it does espouse things like freedom and equality and whatnot, but when it comes down to it, most of the Net will drop all of those high ideals if it can make a buck, quick (or worse, as soon as it realizes that those ideals are PREVENTING it from making a buck...as the last two years have shown).
Just like america.
Slashdot Mirror
Way to go, Microsoft. Didn't they learn from AOL?
I know they're not giving it away, but all its going to take is a year of these things being popular and the amount of landfill junk would be astounding.
That, right there, will alienate loads of people. Fair use and content control issues aside, this is a stupid, stupid idea from an environmental perspective and a PR perspective.
And I'm sure it wouldn't be cost-effective for them to include a recycling program for it, either.
Microsoft: Buy our Garbage!
First, the book never actually ended up coming to market, insofar as I'm aware. While they were objecting to this development (despite paying money, I think), they also discovered that they had signed away their legal rights to have any of their comics in print (or at least, they had signed away control).
Enter their manager that showed up a few years ago, and the proverbial, "WTF!?" moment. They ended up in court after that, and have been fighting ever since.
Disclaimer: This is what I've gathered, and is probably RIDDLED with inaccuracies and suppositions. I'm not clear on the details, but that's about as much as I know/have inferred. If anybody wants to correct me, please be my guest.
Start troubleshooting by process of elimination. If the predictions of global warming are even half-right, that's a pretty serious situation. Whether or not you believe it, if we can't judge our effect on the environment whatsoever, we should at least try to minimize our impact as much as possible so as to determine what might really be going on.
And besides, efficiency is a good thing, right? Recycling materials, minimizing energy use, that sort of thing...in the long run, that's good business sense. Get the most out of what you have.
I woudl think that even if you don't believe global warming is an issue, you would at least be willing to address issues of efficiency and consumption for the tertiary benefits they'd include. Not to mention the aesthetic.
If I were an engineer, I'd be working on landfills. Those things are goldmines waiting to happen, when it comes to recoverable materials. And they stink. Getting rid of them or not making new ones would make life more pleasant.
The problem with digital cameras and our bloody, damned computer media is that I take so many more pictures, but hard drive corruption, decaying optical discs, and flash drive failure have a habit of winnowing my useable image files away from time to time. I've lost enough pictures permanently that sometimes plain old traditional archiving seems like a smart idea.
If I was more than an amateur, I'd be racing for something with archival ink. At least, of course, until somebody comes up with an electronic medium that has the durability of a marble block.
I can never find myself on Google, even with my full name. Sometimes not even with the city I'm in.
All those years bemoaning the mundanity of my name, and it turns out it may someday become my greatest defense against the All-Seeing Eye of Google
SOCAN isn't poor. SOCAN has LOTS and LOTS of cash.
The reason being that every artist and label in the country pays into them, and they charg for radio play of members' music pretty much everywhere.
In fact, I remember a lawsuit with a local restaurant who was playing CDs over the stereo system and got the stick from SOCAN because he wasn't paying his royalties (not that there was much sympathy in the community for him, since that guy was a raging asshole).
I could be wrong on the details, but I'm sure that SOCAN has a lot of agreements that allow them to pull in the cash. Not on the scale of American record industry groups, granted, but in Canadian terms, they ain't broke.
Here's a link to their "Tariff" system, which details how they charge whom, and where: SOCAN Tariffs
Extremism is a world wide infection that if we don't squash it then we are all doomed as are our freedoms...
A wise man once said the following:
"If we could only get rid of the ideologues, everything would be PERFECT!"
I grew up less than 15 minutes from the US border. My family kept a mailbox in Northport, Wa., where my grandmother was born and raised. She later moved to Canada to marry my grandfather. My family has many friends in the United States of America, and I have relatives down there to this day. I spent nearly every summer of my childhood near Kettle Falls, swimming on the shores of the Columbia river, flying kites and catching june bugs. From the mountains near my hometown, you can see the United States. It's absolutely no different from the landscape in Canadian. All you can see to distinguish the two nations -- if you're lucky -- is a cutline less than twenty feet across. When we used to go across the border, my father was waved through. The border guards knew him well. As I got older, that slowly changed. Border checks took longer, the guards were more insistent on searching him, and even though they all expressed regret, asking how we kids were, much of the time they still spent time checking him out. The last time I went to the US, I spent an hour at the border while the car I was driving in was searched top to bottom. The border guards were rude, humorless and in-your-face. Canada is still exempt from this change in the laws, and I love the USA. But I can honestly say that if the laws ever change to require that kind of invasive documentation with respect to Canadians, I will never go back to the USA again. Watching the US over the last four years has been very much like watching a family member go crazy. I sincerely hope things change, soon, because I would really like to take the kids I will someday have swimming in the river down there, and show them what awesome neighbours we were lucky enough to have. Right now, I think it's even money that that will happen.
The last time I quit caffeine (it only stuck for a few months), I killed it good by ALSO giving up cigarettes, sugar, and drinking at the same time It creates a situation where you feel so fucking miserable that really, you stop worrying about caffeine or really anything else, for that matter Anyways, caffeine exits your system after about three days. I suggest giving it up when you next have the flu, next have a really, REALLY bad bender, or next time you have a fever. The other feelings will be so painful, additional misery shouldn't bother you (much)
NOW SEE HERE Banks don't represent Canada They just represent EVIL Evil, as we all know, is an international syndicate with offices in every country and district on the planet. If they ever have an IPO, you can bet I'm shelling out to get a piece
While I'm sure that there will be a massive puscht to trade and sell biometrics about employees (and, looking down the road, consumers, should the technology be adapted for things like credit cards and ABMS), it sets off giant, giant alarm bells for me. I mean, while we have things like addresses and phone numbers being traded and sold by large companies, such details about a person are easily changed. The basic structure of your retina or your fingerprints, however, are things you're stuck with. I really can't see any technology coming along that will rewrite your retinal signature outside of expensive surgery. That leaves fingerprint and retinal data, at the least, even more personal and, to my mind, private than your name. You can change just about everything about yourself, statisticwise; eye color, hair colour, weight, musculature, name, address, phone number, SIN number, credit card number, employer, and so on But you're stuck with your body. Barring six-million-dollar-man bionics, the one you've got is the only one you're ever going to get. Having unique bodily markers floating about on an advertiser's list, or worse, a blacklist for potential hires or borrowers, in the case of employers or credit companies, seems....alarming I'd rather be anonymous than tracked for my own safety. Anonymity is a risk I'm willing to take.
American Culture? I've never noticed that America had culture before. Random yankee-bashing aside, perhaps the Net IS uniquely american in that it does espouse things like freedom and equality and whatnot, but when it comes down to it, most of the Net will drop all of those high ideals if it can make a buck, quick (or worse, as soon as it realizes that those ideals are PREVENTING it from making a buck...as the last two years have shown). Just like america.