Leaving me wondering: what did they call it before 1937?
Philosophy of informational value...?
on
Is IP Property?
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· Score: 1
Leaving aside society's opinions of how to treat IP, I'd like to know your opinion (as an IP attorney) about the inherent contradictory nature of artifically treating information (of any type) as property. As a layman, I would think that "property" must be a limited resource that one can control access to. In nature, something that can be reproduced or accessed for little or no cost has little or no value, and artificially placing a value on it doesn't change that fact. This disparity bothers me to no end. I don't even want to get started about the travesty of allowing something like a "business model" to be patented...
In my opinion, information itself has no value (though perhaps access to it does). The real value in most information lies in how it is used. Until we develop an economic and social attitude that is harmonious with this concept, we'll continue to waste countless amounts of time and money arguing over who really has rights to the air we're breathing.
Please, do enlighten me...I want to know how I'm being naive.
I think that's what he meant...
on
Star Wars on DVD
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· Score: 1
...given that he recognized it had been changed from the original. Everyone wants Han to shoot first, except for the creator of Jar-Jar Binks, apparently.
Agreed...check out Firefly, if you haven't already. Joss Whedon knows how to create a protagonist with some funny and cool moral ambiguities, including no qualms about shooting first.
Ding ding ding! I knew as soon as I skimmed the web page that skeptical Slashdotters would immediately regurgitate jokes based on either the laws of thermodynamics or perpetual motion. Still, despite the predictable response, it's funny stuff.
I haven't seen anyone discuss the obvious possibility of this being a hoax (of course, I do browse at +4...). It looks way more like a model airplane that someone modified to look like it ran off a jet engine. The video looks a lot more like a normal prop plane with jet-engine sound effects pasted over it (okay, they made an effort to match doppler effect to the video). The plane's aerodynamic behavior clearly indicates low-speed propeller-powered flight, not jet powered flight.
With regard to these movies, Slashdot doesn't have opinions. It has geekloads of rock-solid, indisputable facts. Though these facts might vary and occasionally even conflict, they are all absolutely true, from a certain point of view.
This reminds me of how each of the Endless kept real-time representations of their siblings in their domains. For example, Destiny's statues, or Dream's stained glass windows, each depicting the seven Endless in their current emotional/physical states. Not a bad idea...
Oh man, this parody shared too much with the movie(s) it was making fun of...poor script, outdone only by the god-awful acting (that's what you get when you use family and friends). The "special effects" basically amounted to the worst blue-screen compositing work I've ever seen, which was probably the funniest part of the parody. Nice try, I could tell there was a lot of effort put into it, but where's the funny? This is part of that 800MB of data generated per person this year that would have been better left ungenerated.
While I agree that the teens and their parents should be held responsible, not the company that made the game, your rant is way off the mark. It was not the parents of the teens that sued the gaming company, it was the family of one of the victims, which they are undoubtedly doing per the advice of their attorney, since the gaming company will have far deeper pockets than the teens' parents. In all likelyhood, it may have been the attorney defending the teens that prompted them to cite the game as their inspiration, to try to shift as much blame as possible away from them and their parents.
Truth is in the eye of the beholder...remember to consider that the media-slanted articles that get posted on slasdhot often only report the most hyped-up, controversial version of the truth they can come up with.
I may have misinterpreted the submitter's remarks as being stereotypical anti-MS trolling, whereas he may have only been commenting on the disturbingly effective monopolistic practices MS uses to market its software.
Stop with the groupthink already, PLEASE.
on
Big Company on Campus
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The aricle may be overstating the case, but it does make it sound as though MS products are displacing others at a disturbing rate in computer science departments. Given that academic computing has traditionally been both the source of and the stronghold for innovative software, this is a disturbing long-term trend.
WTF. Seriously. Why the hell is it disturbing that MS products are gaining market share on campuses (or anywhere, in general)? Perhaps...just maybe...it's because they actually make some fairly decent, reasonably functional, well designed software? But wait, -GASP- they are closed source and evil, so it MUST be disturbing! They release software to the public that ISN'T PERFECTLY FLAWLESS!!! OMG!!11!
I know there are lots of people like me, who read Slashdot (and like it), use Microsoft (and like it), and just chuckle at all the self-righteous open-source trolls that refuse to consider that maybe MS isn't totally evil and maybe their products are useful. But like any joke, these trolls and their mass groupthink become old after a while.
Oh man, any possibly useful answers to this interesting question are going to get buried by all the IANAL geeks willing to impart their pseudo-wisdom.
So how about this...if you ain't a lawyer or don't have accurate experience with the legal aspects of this sort of situation, post your IANAL comments under this thread!
A new Hollywood blockbuster starring Kevin Costner, about a lone movie pirate and his merry #movies men, who rip movies from the rich to drive click-through web site traffic to support the poor.
lol, hell yeah man. I've read it twice, and I'm on my second trip through Cryptonomicon now. Don't forget the coolness factor of the glass knives, the smartwheel skateboards, the magnapoons, etc. I actually tried to get a personalized license plate that read "POON ME", but it didn't make it past their damned vulgarity censors. Man, that book was great.
Now I have all I need to build my own NUCLEAR POWERED GAUSS CANNON!
Pls post more info on how to refine radioactive materials...oh, wait, you've already got my back.
Slashdot...news for terrorists. Stuff that works.
Faster is not the only concern for many businesses
on
Can .NET Really Scale?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Unless you're an ISP, you've got to colocate all that equipment. At nontrivial $$$/rack unit, a bunch of low-density (performance) desktop machines will quickly eat up their performance cost gain in additional hosting fees.
Plus you have to consider extra licenses. At $1200/Windows 2003 Standard license and $3500/SQL 2000 CPU license, buying the software for the additional machines substantially boosts their actual cost, unless you're using open source stuff. Of course, this thread isn't about open source, it's about Windows and.NET.
Slashdot Mirror
Leaving me wondering: what did they call it before 1937?
Leaving aside society's opinions of how to treat IP, I'd like to know your opinion (as an IP attorney) about the inherent contradictory nature of artifically treating information (of any type) as property. As a layman, I would think that "property" must be a limited resource that one can control access to. In nature, something that can be reproduced or accessed for little or no cost has little or no value, and artificially placing a value on it doesn't change that fact. This disparity bothers me to no end. I don't even want to get started about the travesty of allowing something like a "business model" to be patented...
In my opinion, information itself has no value (though perhaps access to it does). The real value in most information lies in how it is used. Until we develop an economic and social attitude that is harmonious with this concept, we'll continue to waste countless amounts of time and money arguing over who really has rights to the air we're breathing.
Please, do enlighten me...I want to know how I'm being naive....given that he recognized it had been changed from the original. Everyone wants Han to shoot first, except for the creator of Jar-Jar Binks, apparently.
Agreed...check out Firefly, if you haven't already. Joss Whedon knows how to create a protagonist with some funny and cool moral ambiguities, including no qualms about shooting first.
Using the same exact camera, I bet I could make a panaroma up to 361 degrees, 720 degrees, hell, unlimited degrees!
For giving the popular press one of the most annoyingly overused quotes ever. PS: spooky first post at a distance.
Hmm, but what if this is an attempt to patent something that they don't want companies/entities doing? Could be good for all P2P users...
Ding ding ding! I knew as soon as I skimmed the web page that skeptical Slashdotters would immediately regurgitate jokes based on either the laws of thermodynamics or perpetual motion. Still, despite the predictable response, it's funny stuff.
I hacked my Sony Aibo into its component parts. Worthless f'n robot.
Right we site...Pudge only feels guilty because he'll need that extra power to run his Windows emulator at even a marginal speed.
I haven't seen anyone discuss the obvious possibility of this being a hoax (of course, I do browse at +4...). It looks way more like a model airplane that someone modified to look like it ran off a jet engine. The video looks a lot more like a normal prop plane with jet-engine sound effects pasted over it (okay, they made an effort to match doppler effect to the video). The plane's aerodynamic behavior clearly indicates low-speed propeller-powered flight, not jet powered flight.
With regard to these movies, Slashdot doesn't have opinions. It has geekloads of rock-solid, indisputable facts. Though these facts might vary and occasionally even conflict, they are all absolutely true, from a certain point of view.
This reminds me of how each of the Endless kept real-time representations of their siblings in their domains. For example, Destiny's statues, or Dream's stained glass windows, each depicting the seven Endless in their current emotional/physical states. Not a bad idea...
Oh man, this parody shared too much with the movie(s) it was making fun of...poor script, outdone only by the god-awful acting (that's what you get when you use family and friends). The "special effects" basically amounted to the worst blue-screen compositing work I've ever seen, which was probably the funniest part of the parody. Nice try, I could tell there was a lot of effort put into it, but where's the funny? This is part of that 800MB of data generated per person this year that would have been better left ungenerated.
Here's some awesome FREE music that may help you decide to get off your ass and do some anti-RIAA bounty hunting:
MC Chris - Fett's Vette (lyrics)
MC Chris, you rock! Sorry if you get slashdotted... ^_^
While I agree that the teens and their parents should be held responsible, not the company that made the game, your rant is way off the mark. It was not the parents of the teens that sued the gaming company, it was the family of one of the victims, which they are undoubtedly doing per the advice of their attorney, since the gaming company will have far deeper pockets than the teens' parents. In all likelyhood, it may have been the attorney defending the teens that prompted them to cite the game as their inspiration, to try to shift as much blame as possible away from them and their parents. Truth is in the eye of the beholder...remember to consider that the media-slanted articles that get posted on slasdhot often only report the most hyped-up, controversial version of the truth they can come up with.
I may have misinterpreted the submitter's remarks as being stereotypical anti-MS trolling, whereas he may have only been commenting on the disturbingly effective monopolistic practices MS uses to market its software.
WTF. Seriously. Why the hell is it disturbing that MS products are gaining market share on campuses (or anywhere, in general)? Perhaps...just maybe...it's because they actually make some fairly decent, reasonably functional, well designed software? But wait, -GASP- they are closed source and evil, so it MUST be disturbing! They release software to the public that ISN'T PERFECTLY FLAWLESS!!! OMG!!11!
I know there are lots of people like me, who read Slashdot (and like it), use Microsoft (and like it), and just chuckle at all the self-righteous open-source trolls that refuse to consider that maybe MS isn't totally evil and maybe their products are useful. But like any joke, these trolls and their mass groupthink become old after a while.
Open source is good. Microsoft can be too. Deal.
Come on, any more movies?
Oh man, any possibly useful answers to this interesting question are going to get buried by all the IANAL geeks willing to impart their pseudo-wisdom.
So how about this...if you ain't a lawyer or don't have accurate experience with the legal aspects of this sort of situation, post your IANAL comments under this thread!
A new Hollywood blockbuster starring Kevin Costner, about a lone movie pirate and his merry #movies men, who rip movies from the rich to drive click-through web site traffic to support the poor.
lol, hell yeah man. I've read it twice, and I'm on my second trip through Cryptonomicon now. Don't forget the coolness factor of the glass knives, the smartwheel skateboards, the magnapoons, etc. I actually tried to get a personalized license plate that read "POON ME", but it didn't make it past their damned vulgarity censors. Man, that book was great.
Now I have all I need to build my own NUCLEAR POWERED GAUSS CANNON!
Pls post more info on how to refine radioactive materials...oh, wait, you've already got my back.
Slashdot...news for terrorists. Stuff that works.
Unless you're an ISP, you've got to colocate all that equipment. At nontrivial $$$/rack unit, a bunch of low-density (performance) desktop machines will quickly eat up their performance cost gain in additional hosting fees. Plus you have to consider extra licenses. At $1200/Windows 2003 Standard license and $3500/SQL 2000 CPU license, buying the software for the additional machines substantially boosts their actual cost, unless you're using open source stuff. Of course, this thread isn't about open source, it's about Windows and .NET.