"But the truth is Gimp enjoys a wider user base than all the other non-free graphics manipulation products combined as it is bundled by default on all Linux/Unix distributions worth their name."
Bundled with OS distro != used by every end user
Size of *nix distro != size of Gimp user base
"as an exercise in full disclosure" you should disclose that your disclosure is actually a poorly disclosed plug for your two podcasts...:-D
Nice book review, though.
When an editor wants to send back a marked-up piece of copy, they do it by fax. Any real editor in the world will tell you that you don't edit online. You do it with proofreaders' marks, circles, arrows, writing in between lines, etc.
Try telling that to the "real" editors at Oxford University Press, USA TODAY, Springer, the Washington Post, Newsday, the Associated Press, etc., etc.
Proofreader's marks still have their purpose, but to say that they are de rigueur for pro editing just ain't right -- newspapers and book publishers have been using online text editing systems for well over a decade.
This analysis doesn't account for costs associated with transport and disposal/storage of spent fuel and other wastes, nor does it account in any detail for costs associated with security. So the post's "cheaper" conclusion does not seem well supported. And the conclusion of the entire post is essentially an anti-regulatory rant.
Re:You have no idea...
on
NYT on RFID Tags
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Wal-Mart, for example, has a database TWICE the size of all the U.S. Government, combined.
This strikes me as an urban legend. Think about it -- all the tax data, census data, GIS data, weather data, etc. etc. etc. must amount to far far more than it takes to maintain Wal-Mart's inventory and financial systems.
What is your source for this factoid? If it is true, I can't believe Wal-Mart is turning a profit!
The solution is reviews. Preferably from as many sources as possible. I see us in a situation where we actively pick reviewers whose taste matches ours, and who gain our trust. These are our filters.
As much as I would like to believe this, I think it is an overstatement. And a bit of an inherent contradiction.
How many times have you seen a movie that many critics liked that didn't suit your taste? Or tried to find a book on the paperback rack in an airport that you really enjoyed? Or seen a post in/. that was modded up higher than you thought it deserved, however many people have "reviewed" it? Participation by many reviewers alone doesn't guarantee that quality will somehow rise to the top.
(I'm thankful that./ comment options allow me to filter out all "funny" messages, for example, whereas other users may want to highlight them.)
Actively picking reviewers whose taste matches my own is a good goal, but probably at odds with the concept of "many." Plus, some of the most thoughtful reviewers may not share my tastes, at least across the board. And the effort involved in determining how much a given reviewer's tastes match my own is not trivial.
Many copyright holders of those older songs have been very reluctant and restrictive to allow other artists to record and publish them.
The New York Times story is about copyright on recordings, not songs.
Copyright holders of songs generally like or encourage people to record new versions of their works, because they then can earn royalty income from sales and broadcast use of the new version.
I wish more Slashdot subscribers understood the basics of music copyright, especially considering the amount of bandwidth used here on discussing the record industry, intellectual property rights, digital rights, etc., etc.
Re:A Sympathy for the Doctor?
on
Complications
·
· Score: 1
I have not read the book. I'm planning on it, when finances permit me to spend something on myself again that isn't required for my profession (we've all just come through the annual gift-giving frenzy).
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
It is possible to hold copyright for a recording or for a musical composition (or both!), but these are not the same thing. So even if a ring tone producer is not sampling a recorded work, if their ring tones use melodies from copyrighted works, they may have to pay a royalty.
These ring tones may not use the same instrumental arrangements are the original recordings, but they do use the same melody notes (and "timing of the notes") -- otherwise they would not be identifiable as popular tunes!
The Los Angeles Times? Seattle Times? London Times? High Times?;-)
It's good to remember that the New York Times, although a very good newspaper, isn't the only "Times" and that not everyone is fixated on the East Coast.
If you want to support EFF or other nonprofit organizations, you may be better off donating directly than going through the Combined Federal Campaign, which is administered by the local (D.C.) United Way.
The United Way in D.C. has been dogged by scandal because of improper financial management.
An article last week in the Washington Post reports "A new audit of the local United Way's handling of federal employee donations shows that the group held onto about $1.3 million it should have distributed to charities, took an unexplained $3 million short-term loan from the contributions and ran up more than $120,000 in questionable or unsupported expenses."
The article also notes "A federal grand jury began investigating the Washington area United Way this summer after revelations that the organization had withheld donations from charities, inflated its donation totals and allowed a former executive to take a retirement payment that was not authorized by the pension's rules."
Automated charitable payroll deductions through CFC may be convenient, but at what cost?
The description "surrogate brain that never forgets anything" strikes me as overblown.
It's more a big personal library. It's not remembering anything, just storing and retrieving information in response to human input.
Of course, I'm sure that the hyperbole isn't hurting news coverage of this project -- and probably helped the story make it into/.
The article this item links to is a preview, and it sounds like it was cribbed from a press release hyping the features of the game. There's nothing in it that really describes what it's like to play this new version of the game.
I'm surprised any Slashdot readers would expect a "customer testimonial" in an advertisement to have any basis in fact. Ads are a form of propaganda designed to generate brand awareness and to sell products -- they aren't intended to present facts or to educate potential buyers.
Why should an idea be accorded less value than a thing?
If I spend time writing a song, why shouldn't I be able to profit from my effort?
If I record my song and offer it for sale, and someone "shares" my recording with tens, hundreds, or thousands of people, how am I rewarded for my work?
Well, a friend of a friend told me that this guy's brother he knows posted something on a Web site about a corporation putting some sort of farmer out of business for selling a vegetable which they had the some kind of patent on. The thing was, the vegetable had been engineered by the farmers cousin the real way, by cross-pollinating and whatnot, and the strain had been in the his cousin's family for generations. Don't have the specifics on it though.
Now/that's/ what I call/informative/!
Regardless of how factual or fact-based they may be, don't most contemporary American films bear a disclaimer such as:
"This motion picture is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental."
?
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad they didn't rename it "Springfield: Vice City"
"But the truth is Gimp enjoys a wider user base than all the other non-free graphics manipulation products combined as it is bundled by default on all Linux/Unix distributions worth their name." Bundled with OS distro != used by every end user Size of *nix distro != size of Gimp user base
"as an exercise in full disclosure" you should disclose that your disclosure is actually a poorly disclosed plug for your two podcasts ... :-D
Nice book review, though.
. . . not a "short."
When an editor wants to send back a marked-up piece of copy, they do it by fax. Any real editor in the world will tell you that you don't edit online. You do it with proofreaders' marks, circles, arrows, writing in between lines, etc.
Try telling that to the "real" editors at Oxford University Press, USA TODAY, Springer, the Washington Post, Newsday, the Associated Press, etc., etc.
Proofreader's marks still have their purpose, but to say that they are de rigueur for pro editing just ain't right -- newspapers and book publishers have been using online text editing systems for well over a decade.
'nuff said.
This analysis doesn't account for costs associated with transport and disposal/storage of spent fuel and other wastes, nor does it account in any detail for costs associated with security. So the post's "cheaper" conclusion does not seem well supported. And the conclusion of the entire post is essentially an anti-regulatory rant.
Wal-Mart, for example, has a database TWICE the size of all the U.S. Government, combined.
This strikes me as an urban legend. Think about it -- all the tax data, census data, GIS data, weather data, etc. etc. etc. must amount to far far more than it takes to maintain Wal-Mart's inventory and financial systems.
What is your source for this factoid? If it is true, I can't believe Wal-Mart is turning a profit!
The solution is reviews. Preferably from as many sources as possible. I see us in a situation where we actively pick reviewers whose taste matches ours, and who gain our trust. These are our filters.
As much as I would like to believe this, I think it is an overstatement. And a bit of an inherent contradiction.
How many times have you seen a movie that many critics liked that didn't suit your taste? Or tried to find a book on the paperback rack in an airport that you really enjoyed? Or seen a post in /. that was modded up higher than you thought it deserved, however many people have "reviewed" it? Participation by many reviewers alone doesn't guarantee that quality will somehow rise to the top.
(I'm thankful that ./ comment options allow me to filter out all "funny" messages, for example, whereas other users may want to highlight them.)
Actively picking reviewers whose taste matches my own is a good goal, but probably at odds with the concept of "many." Plus, some of the most thoughtful reviewers may not share my tastes, at least across the board. And the effort involved in determining how much a given reviewer's tastes match my own is not trivial.
Many copyright holders of those older songs have been very reluctant and restrictive to allow other artists to record and publish them.
The New York Times story is about copyright on recordings, not songs.
Copyright holders of songs generally like or encourage people to record new versions of their works, because they then can earn royalty income from sales and broadcast use of the new version.
I wish more Slashdot subscribers understood the basics of music copyright, especially considering the amount of bandwidth used here on discussing the record industry, intellectual property rights, digital rights, etc., etc.
I have not read the book. I'm planning on it, when finances permit me to spend something on myself again that isn't required for my profession (we've all just come through the annual gift-giving frenzy).
Why not break the cycle of consumerism and get a jump on the game by using your public library card?
The only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court.
If you want to fight effectively for free digital information, bone up on copyright law. Song titles are not copyrightable. For example, see this discussion about copyright and songwriting basics.
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
It is possible to hold copyright for a recording or for a musical composition (or both!), but these are not the same thing. So even if a ring tone producer is not sampling a recorded work, if their ring tones use melodies from copyrighted works, they may have to pay a royalty.
These ring tones may not use the same instrumental arrangements are the original recordings, but they do use the same melody notes (and "timing of the notes") -- otherwise they would not be identifiable as popular tunes!
The Los Angeles Times? Seattle Times? London Times? High Times? ;-)
It's good to remember that the New York Times, although a very good newspaper, isn't the only "Times" and that not everyone is fixated on the East Coast.
PC games, what about the great titles for Commodore 64 and Atari 800, back in the day?
My favorite old game was M.U.L.E. for C=64. Great gameplay (including one-to-four-player mode!) plus an infectious SID soundtrack.
A close second was the Sentinel, a pretty damn spooky strategy game with interesting polygon grafix.
Or "Elite," a 3D graphix game along the lines of "Space Trader."
If you want to support EFF or other nonprofit organizations, you may be better off donating directly than going through the Combined Federal Campaign, which is administered by the local (D.C.) United Way.
The United Way in D.C. has been dogged by scandal because of improper financial management.
An article last week in the Washington Post reports "A new audit of the local United Way's handling of federal employee donations shows that the group held onto about $1.3 million it should have distributed to charities, took an unexplained $3 million short-term loan from the contributions and ran up more than $120,000 in questionable or unsupported expenses."
The article also notes "A federal grand jury began investigating the Washington area United Way this summer after revelations that the organization had withheld donations from charities, inflated its donation totals and allowed a former executive to take a retirement payment that was not authorized by the pension's rules."
Automated charitable payroll deductions through CFC may be convenient, but at what cost?
The description "surrogate brain that never forgets anything" strikes me as overblown. It's more a big personal library. It's not remembering anything, just storing and retrieving information in response to human input. Of course, I'm sure that the hyperbole isn't hurting news coverage of this project -- and probably helped the story make it into /.
The article this item links to is a preview, and it sounds like it was cribbed from a press release hyping the features of the game. There's nothing in it that really describes what it's like to play this new version of the game.
I'm surprised to see so many posts slagging McLaren and the Sex Pistols for "media manipulation" -- as if it's a bad thing.
Media manipulation of any kind is a cool hack.
(Before you flame, note that I am not referring to media coersion or state-sponsored propaganda in this sense as "media manipulation".)
Media manipulation that results in a new scene or cultural change is a truly great hack!
Media manipulation can even be an artform unto itself -- for example check out this old-school media artist.
I'm surprised any Slashdot readers would expect a "customer testimonial" in an advertisement to have any basis in fact. Ads are a form of propaganda designed to generate brand awareness and to sell products -- they aren't intended to present facts or to educate potential buyers.
Why should an idea be accorded less value than a thing?
If I spend time writing a song, why shouldn't I be able to profit from my effort?
If I record my song and offer it for sale, and someone "shares" my recording with tens, hundreds, or thousands of people, how am I rewarded for my work?
Remember, most musicians are not wealthy. they are trying to make a living, just like everyone else.
Well, a friend of a friend told me that this guy's brother he knows posted something on a Web site about a corporation putting some sort of farmer out of business for selling a vegetable which they had the some kind of patent on. The thing was, the vegetable had been engineered by the farmers cousin the real way, by cross-pollinating and whatnot, and the strain had been in the his cousin's family for generations. Don't have the specifics on it though. Now /that's/ what I call /informative/!
At the National Science Resources Center's Web site, you can find a variety of hands-on science curriculum materials. The center is operated by the National Academies and Smithsonian Institution to improve science teaching U.S. schools. Teaching units include topics such as measuring time, plant growth and development, food chemistry, electric circuits, and microworlds.
Hi Alton, Can you tell us about some of your most memorable, instructive or whacky kitchen disasters?
Regardless of how factual or fact-based they may be, don't most contemporary American films bear a disclaimer such as: "This motion picture is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental." ?