Vernor Vinge was my networking teacher at SDSU... He mentioned an idea in passing similar to this (around 1997ish), except that in his vision, the network would be explosively formed. Imagine that you could get these nodes down to the size of a quarter. maybe it had a solar cell + battery combo. You could fire off a missle or a shell over a field of battle, a low yield explosive would disperse these nodes over some area, and would automatically create a mesh network. I still think that the idea has merit, maybe somehow install Byzantium into a tiny embedded controllers, etc...
Are we inventing enemies? China couldn't even keep its roads open this winter, and they're the big military threat we're worried about? Russia today couldn't even compete militarily with USA from the 80's. I don't want it to sound like I don't value progress, but there are betting things to spend our money on that hyper advanced (ie. hyper-expensive) military hardware. Isn't that what lead to the fall of the soviet union? unsustainable military overspending.
You don't nead a mission statement...you need a mantra. I'm also a fan of making a business plan one page long. It forces you to cut out the perfunctory bs...like projecting sales 5 years out, when all you've got is essentially a public beta. Just do it. Do it quickly. And if you're not cash flow positive within 6 months, then stop doing it.
My guess that this is for poor villages, not hunter gatherers. Even in some of the poorest villages in the world, there is still at least some literacy. Sometimes it's a suprising amount of literacy. Where my parents come from, the Philippines literacy is 92%. Not bad for one of the poorest countries in the world.
Anyway, I think the most powerful and wonderful possiblity of these devices is having access to the larger world of knowledge that we take for granted on the internet. Even if all they had was Wikipedia, it could radically change their world. Did you know that you can double the egg production output of chickens simply by leaving a light on in a chicken coop? I didn't know that until I read it on the internet. Twice as much food by simply having access to a lightbulb and the knowledge of what to do with it. I'm sure there are millions other useful pieces of information that that could help the lives of people in the developing world.
Look, I'm not trying to flame here... but if you're not a lawyer, and don't have any other knowledge... don't try to render a legal opinion.
I appreciate that, and I'll try to respond in the same spirit. One definition of restraint of trade is: Illegally interfering with free marketplace participation. Regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.It seems that using that definition, there are two important points. Was It Viacom illegally interfering with trade, and does Irllicht participate in the free marketplace.
I don't think that there is a profit motive requirement for participating in the free marketplace, so I think Irllicht, as well as every other open source/FSF based company or organization qualifies as participating in the free marketplace.
The 2nd part of the definition is the important part. Was Viacom acting illegally?
Irrlicht doesn't need to sue Viacom. Because Viacom isn't trying to 'muscle out a smaller company'. To anyone - ANYONE! - in this thread who thinks Viacom should be sued, answer me this - What damages is Irrlicht suing for? Did Viacom really try to destroy their business - to 'restrain trade'? Did they prevent Irrlicht from selling their product, from promoting their wares?
Is malice or intent required for Illegally Interfereing ? There are plenty of crimes where the absense of intent is not a defense. A drunk driver didn't intend to run over a kid...that doesn't mean he won't be tried for manslaughter.
THEY TOOK AN EFFING VIDEO OFF OF YOUTUBE. Not only that, but a video they had at least SOME basis to believe infringed on their copyright material. And the DMCA - despite the HUGE problems with that piece of legislation - does at least provide a remedy for this stuff. It takes about ten minutes to kick off an email in response.
This is also gray area, at least in my opinion. From the article, is says that the video was part of the help/tutorial system of the Irlicht website. Is preventing customers from accessing support or help, even for a free product, interferring with the free trade between the Irlicht group and the Irlicht customers? Some would say yes. What if one person tried to access the tutorial, got a broken link and decided not to download? (in their case this is roughly equivalent to a purchase)
Show me damage. Show me Viacom acting in bad faith, rather than merely negligently or recklessly. THEN talk about lawsuits and restraint of trade. Until then... this is just not a big deal. The DMCA has a million huge problems - and this is somewhere around 950,000 on that list.
I think this is where the reason to respond legally becomes apparent. Let's assume that Viacom simply was negligent, and they sent out one accidental takedown notice. The burden is pretty low. As you said, you simply send them a letter, or email somebody ( I don't know who exactly ) wait some period of time, and the video goes back up. If you allow negligence to be a defence of this type of behavior, then what's to stop viacom to send out thousands, or millions of these youtube takedown notices. Then the cost is greater. Now it's millions of people sending out emails, waiting for YouTube support to restore their videos. Now YouTube is processing Millions of emails. Maybe it's not 20 minutes before your video is back up. Maybe its two weeks now...or a month. If negligence is a defence, then if someone loses a business, or even a single sale, Viacom's defense could be "Sorry, My Bad", and the smaller business would just have to bend over and take it. For viacom, it costs nothing extra to spam the world with takedown notices, but the costs to the receivers would be onerous. That's called a fishing expedition, and isn't allowed in american law.
As for the damages for Irrlicht...well, damages probably would be zero
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that's the right terminology for when a bigger company tries to muscle out a smaller company with no legal basis. At the very least, fire off a letter to their legal council. Go to a Legal Aid office, and I'm sure someone will help you out. At the very least, it will cost them thousands of dollars just to respond. Clearly you are in the right, and their actions are not even remotly defensable. Also, lawsuits generate alot of publicity...and the media loves a good david vs goliath story. That's the only way to make companies accountable now a days. Bad Press and Lawsuits. I wish it wasn't so...but it is.
Unfortunatly someone tried this already and faced the swift hammer of justice...This is colloquially known as tampering with evidence, which i believe is a criminal offence. what you want to do is use TrueCrypt. You give them all your music in triple DES or AES encrypted format. What I think is pretty awesome is that they have fake out passwords that give the appearance of decrypting the volume, while actually hiding it!
It is kind of like suggesting that GM no longer sell cars.
oddly enough, many people suggest GM doing just that. GM makes the bulk of its money through its lending arm GMAC. GM has often been called a bank that happens to make cars for a hobby.
why don't they just make their own...or make yahoo mail a social network
eg. just take all the yahoo mail accounts and create a yahoo "network" account for them. next time they log in, ask if they can send an invite to everyone in their address book. bickety bam. done. and pretty much "free" in that it won't cost them almost a billion dollars.
Boy, do those jokers get a lot of mileage out of inventing gun powder. What a crock.
you aren't kidding. The Fire Lance, a precursor to the firearm was first seen in the 10th century in china. Also showing up around the same time was a cute little number called the Fire Arrow. By the time of the Ming dynasty, gunners were widely employed in its infantry. By the 16th century, the armies had transitioned to almost entirely gunpowder based weaponry. Can you imagine back in those days facing up against a highly organized army with cannons, hand guns, grenades, rockets, and a napalm like substance similar to greek fire!
My personal belief is that if it weren't for geography, the chinese would have expanded all the way across europe. Of course the corruption of the ming dynasty eventually led to the downfall of china. That corruption still looms today in the chinese communist party. Open societies are like kryptonite for corruption. If there was a more open society during the Ming dynasty, it's entirely possible that it would be them talking shit about our space program.
WHAT? China's greatest minds put together a launch and re-entry vehicle, and "officials" load it with almost 500 pounds of seeds so that they will magically become superplants? WTF? Did someone in China not get the memo that their former occupiers are not *really* developing giant robots, and that Little Shop of Horrors is a work of fiction, not a battle plan?
you're right...sounds like a perfect cover story. I wonder what they really put up there.
what no one has heard of Long Term Capitol Managment? Wasn't that their schtick too? The stock market can be reduced to a formula? Didn't they almost collapse the entire US economy!!! Nope, sorry...i'm not buying it. The market has always been about fundamentals over the long term (10yrs+) and emotions over the short term. This is just a way for money managers to abdicate responsibility for poor performance. "But the software said it should go up..."
Just out of curiosity, what would it take to design a newton replacement from the ground up? I mean, as a community, slashdot probably has everybody that would be required. I wouldn't be suprised if the guy that *invented* the newton was a slashdot reader. It would be interesting to see if a community/open source *hardware* project would be viable.
*** And with the ghost of Genuine Advantage approaching, i think ReactOS will make its debut just in time. When it's finished, the people who are using pirated copies of XP will probably switch instantly. ***
Not until it plays all Windows games....
such as by charging a higher monthly fee for an "accelerated account" that will be capped at the number of hours you can play it per month, but will allow you to advance in the game faster (such as by getting more XP per kill). I'm actually surprised nobody has thought of that model yet.
You need to patent this idea immediatly so that EA/SONY/{{insert joyless game corporation here}} can never do this to us, or make them pay severely if they do.
Slashdot Mirror
Vernor Vinge was my networking teacher at SDSU... He mentioned an idea in passing similar to this (around 1997ish), except that in his vision, the network would be explosively formed. Imagine that you could get these nodes down to the size of a quarter. maybe it had a solar cell + battery combo. You could fire off a missle or a shell over a field of battle, a low yield explosive would disperse these nodes over some area, and would automatically create a mesh network. I still think that the idea has merit, maybe somehow install Byzantium into a tiny embedded controllers, etc...
Are we inventing enemies? China couldn't even keep its roads open this winter, and they're the big military threat we're worried about? Russia today couldn't even compete militarily with USA from the 80's. I don't want it to sound like I don't value progress, but there are betting things to spend our money on that hyper advanced (ie. hyper-expensive) military hardware. Isn't that what lead to the fall of the soviet union? unsustainable military overspending.
You don't nead a mission statement...you need a mantra. I'm also a fan of making a business plan one page long. It forces you to cut out the perfunctory bs...like projecting sales 5 years out, when all you've got is essentially a public beta. Just do it. Do it quickly. And if you're not cash flow positive within 6 months, then stop doing it.
My guess that this is for poor villages, not hunter gatherers. Even in some of the poorest villages in the world, there is still at least some literacy. Sometimes it's a suprising amount of literacy. Where my parents come from, the Philippines literacy is 92%. Not bad for one of the poorest countries in the world.
Anyway, I think the most powerful and wonderful possiblity of these devices is having access to the larger world of knowledge that we take for granted on the internet. Even if all they had was Wikipedia, it could radically change their world. Did you know that you can double the egg production output of chickens simply by leaving a light on in a chicken coop? I didn't know that until I read it on the internet. Twice as much food by simply having access to a lightbulb and the knowledge of what to do with it. I'm sure there are millions other useful pieces of information that that could help the lives of people in the developing world.
is in your fuel.
10: Solar Energy + CO2 + ??? -> BioFuel ( Sequestered Carbon )
20: BioFuel -> Energy to move car + C02 + ???
30: goto 10
almost everything in this cycle already exists...just not a way to make '???' efficient. My personal guess is on bio-engineered algae cultures for producing bio-diesel...almost 250% more efficient that producing bio-diesel from soybeans.
It must be said that some claim that the tecnology to harness algae is a long way from being commercially viable, however, the efficiency, as well as having the answer to food vs fuel makes it a much more attractive long term solution, and should be pursued irregardless if other methods of bio-diesel generation can be brought to market quicker.
just my 2cents.
I appreciate that, and I'll try to respond in the same spirit. One definition of restraint of trade is: Illegally interfering with free marketplace participation. Regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.It seems that using that definition, there are two important points. Was It Viacom illegally interfering with trade, and does Irllicht participate in the free marketplace . I don't think that there is a profit motive requirement for participating in the free marketplace, so I think Irllicht, as well as every other open source/FSF based company or organization qualifies as participating in the free marketplace. The 2nd part of the definition is the important part. Was Viacom acting illegally?
Is malice or intent required for Illegally Interfereing ? There are plenty of crimes where the absense of intent is not a defense. A drunk driver didn't intend to run over a kid...that doesn't mean he won't be tried for manslaughter.
This is also gray area, at least in my opinion. From the article, is says that the video was part of the help/tutorial system of the Irlicht website. Is preventing customers from accessing support or help, even for a free product, interferring with the free trade between the Irlicht group and the Irlicht customers? Some would say yes. What if one person tried to access the tutorial, got a broken link and decided not to download? (in their case this is roughly equivalent to a purchase)
I think this is where the reason to respond legally becomes apparent. Let's assume that Viacom simply was negligent, and they sent out one accidental takedown notice. The burden is pretty low. As you said, you simply send them a letter, or email somebody ( I don't know who exactly ) wait some period of time, and the video goes back up. If you allow negligence to be a defence of this type of behavior, then what's to stop viacom to send out thousands, or millions of these youtube takedown notices. Then the cost is greater. Now it's millions of people sending out emails, waiting for YouTube support to restore their videos. Now YouTube is processing Millions of emails. Maybe it's not 20 minutes before your video is back up. Maybe its two weeks now...or a month. If negligence is a defence, then if someone loses a business, or even a single sale, Viacom's defense could be "Sorry, My Bad", and the smaller business would just have to bend over and take it. For viacom, it costs nothing extra to spam the world with takedown notices, but the costs to the receivers would be onerous. That's called a fishing expedition , and isn't allowed in american law.
As for the damages for Irrlicht...well, damages probably would be zero
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that's the right terminology for when a bigger company tries to muscle out a smaller company with no legal basis. At the very least, fire off a letter to their legal council. Go to a Legal Aid office, and I'm sure someone will help you out. At the very least, it will cost them thousands of dollars just to respond. Clearly you are in the right, and their actions are not even remotly defensable. Also, lawsuits generate alot of publicity...and the media loves a good david vs goliath story. That's the only way to make companies accountable now a days. Bad Press and Lawsuits. I wish it wasn't so...but it is.
Unfortunatly someone tried this already and faced the swift hammer of justice...This is colloquially known as tampering with evidence, which i believe is a criminal offence. what you want to do is use TrueCrypt. You give them all your music in triple DES or AES encrypted format. What I think is pretty awesome is that they have fake out passwords that give the appearance of decrypting the volume, while actually hiding it!
why don't they just make their own...or make yahoo mail a social network eg. just take all the yahoo mail accounts and create a yahoo "network" account for them. next time they log in, ask if they can send an invite to everyone in their address book. bickety bam. done. and pretty much "free" in that it won't cost them almost a billion dollars.
you aren't kidding. The Fire Lance, a precursor to the firearm was first seen in the 10th century in china. Also showing up around the same time was a cute little number called the Fire Arrow. By the time of the Ming dynasty, gunners were widely employed in its infantry. By the 16th century, the armies had transitioned to almost entirely gunpowder based weaponry. Can you imagine back in those days facing up against a highly organized army with cannons, hand guns, grenades, rockets, and a napalm like substance similar to greek fire!
My personal belief is that if it weren't for geography, the chinese would have expanded all the way across europe. Of course the corruption of the ming dynasty eventually led to the downfall of china. That corruption still looms today in the chinese communist party. Open societies are like kryptonite for corruption. If there was a more open society during the Ming dynasty, it's entirely possible that it would be them talking shit about our space program.
what no one has heard of Long Term Capitol Managment? Wasn't that their schtick too? The stock market can be reduced to a formula? Didn't they almost collapse the entire US economy!!! Nope, sorry...i'm not buying it. The market has always been about fundamentals over the long term (10yrs+) and emotions over the short term. This is just a way for money managers to abdicate responsibility for poor performance. "But the software said it should go up..."
ps. here's the Printer Friendly link
Just out of curiosity, what would it take to design a newton replacement from the ground up? I mean, as a community, slashdot probably has everybody that would be required. I wouldn't be suprised if the guy that *invented* the newton was a slashdot reader. It would be interesting to see if a community/open source *hardware* project would be viable.
Bookpool is the cheapest