>The people on whom the connection is not lost, would see this as a tribute from Google to Philip K. Dick.
Agreed. And if the estate of PKD had any sense they'd be trying to license some of their copyrighted material for Google to use in their promotional material, and get some money out of the tribute legitimately.
Nope. At least essentially - copyright is a bloated monster these days - copyright grants a monopoly on the distribution and reproduction of a fixed tangible expression of an idea.
For example the gist of this post is, as an idea, to debunk the phrase "copyright protects ideas". The idea of that isn't copyrightable, but my individual expression of it (this post) assuming it passes a relatively low threshold of 'creativity', is.
As an aside (and a little offtopic) copyright was created and grew to it's current monstrous proportions in a different technological age - or ages - and despite the massive cancerous growths that festoon it's relatively modest (though not entirely wholesome) body today - none of those addendums and extensions seem to take into account the way conversation between two or more people has been transposed from an ephemeral expression - verbal, gestural - into something more fixed - text and image and audio and video - and the way it's used on the internet.
In a conversation, one party insisting they have absolute control over something they expressed forbidding it's reproduction, repetition or modification would be social suicide. And yet that's what happens with copyright and the internet where *everything* becomes part of a conversation where the language is not restricted solely to verbal communication and people want (and are able) to throw everything into the mix.
As ever, money = power and the moneyed power of the copyright cartels get to write the laws that are imposed upon the rest of us, in their own interests. And those interests are that they express an idea in a fixed tangible form and we pay them money for it. They are interested in a series of monologues, where they do the talking from on high and we do the listening and this goes against the interests of the peoples as a whole who wish to engage with one another in conversation on the internet, digitally - where anything and everything is just more grist for the mill.
Back on topic - Ms Dick is being taken for a ride by her lawyers, IMO, who if they were diligent and responsible, would advise her that she had no case whatsoever, in copyright, Trademark or other so-called intelectual property law.
>In practice, anything that enjoys the sanction of tradition and/or substantial popular support, even if formally blasphemous under the text of the law, will not be charged.
Doesn't this mean that the law will be selectively applied - and therefore illegitimate - and therefore be able to be struck down?
I mean, not without a fight, obviously, but nonetheless it'll be clear evidence that the law will only be used against the 'little guy' (not institutions like the major religions) and that what the 'establishment' can say will not be allowed by the peons.
>China brought them up to the 17th century in a single generation!!
So it's an improvement to go from being a 'free' people living in a less than perfect feudalist state to an occupied people suffering genocide and cultural decimation; an oppressed and hated minority in your own land?
I hope you one day are able to experience the kind of liberation the Tibetan people underwent, since you think it's so spiffing.
>You can simulate all those things on a Kindle by deleting the e-book.
What are you talking about? A Kindle ebook is tied to the account for which you can only have 6 users who then share everything - ideal for a family - not so ideal if you're looking to lend a book to a friend. Deleting the book on your Kindle in no way simulates selling the book: the prospective buyer can't read it unless they're using the same account; same with giving the book away: you can't. So how exactly does deleting the book on your Kindle simulate anything?
Of course none of those sales are really sales - they're just rentals: no lending, no resales, no giving them to a friend or leaving them on a train for strangers (never mind still being capable of being deleted by Amazon as they see fit).
At least they're cheaper than buying a real book though. Oh wait.
>A member of the House of Lords is preparing a bill that would, among other things, require foreigners to demonstrate that they have suffered actual harm in England before they can sue there.
Can't we just change the law so that it no longer reverses the burden of proof (so you nolonger have to prove your statements are *not* untrue) and as such upholds freedom of speech? FFS.
>We have cryptographically secure algorithms for anonymous digital cash. [...] We really should be working to switch to such a system.
Never going to happen.
The government - any technologically advanced 'Western' government, but specifically the British - will never accept anonymous over monitored; tracked; recorded or vetted *anything* where there is the option of doing one or the other or both.
Information is power - and they like their power over the serfs too much.
So what you're saying, if I'm reading you right, is that if someone else went around raping their own foster children, but calling themselves "Ted Alvin Klaudt", he would have a case for dilution of his brand and market confusion?
I bet he feels like a right chump for not registering his brand identity before now.
>The obvious legislative solution to this problem is to ban kids from using the internet until they are at least 18 years of age.
And so the more likely approach they would take would be to ban adults from the internet, forever.
The people who make these laws are unable to think through the issues they're dealing with or the consequences of the laws they make. It's their job, but they repeatedly show themsleves incabable (sorry I have a cold) of it, incompetent at it and unqualified to craft, legislate or oversee well-thought-out laws that are properly balanced and take into account a wide view of the society they're effecting and the implications such 'rules written down in paper and backed up by violent force' have.
The UK's approach to this wave of 'protect the children & finance our own political capital through villifying adults' moral panic, has been to wedge itself between adults and children as a gatekeeper. Where an adult has employment where any regular (read: not that frequent even) contact with children occurs, the adult is deemed a potential threat and must submit him or herself for scrutiny by the state as to his or her fitness to come into contact with said children. Rumours are allowed in the database which a potential pedophile (formerly 'adult') must be checked against and this can bar them from any profession, permanently as far as I'm aware, where such contact occurs or may occur, forever.
What the state is doing int hese cases is labelling all adults as threats to children and portraying itself as the saviour of children against these bad adults. It is devisive in the extreme and a fundemental attack on a healthy and normal society where children and adults get along, pretty much for the most part, in a caring and loving environment. It's a social evil of the most extreme kind, IMO, to drive a wedge between the population of adults and their children for the sake of the state's own glorification and political standing (in the eyes of certain punitive-minded and ignorant voters).
It is a horrific attack on one of the most fundemental aspects of a species: the relationship between the adults and their young, where a third party defines the adults as a threat and seeks to portray itself as the only true protector the offspring could have.
Every website you visit that stores a cookie is tracking your browsing habits on its site, until you delete that cookie. What Google's doing is just the same.
To disable the tracking, you just delete the cookie. Set Firefox to delete cookies on exit or startup, or disallow that site's cookie and you're golden. This 'feature' from google is no different.
Yeah, I did. What I saw is a bunch of links to other sites that define related phrases.
When i click on a definition link that's on Answers.com, I get what you would expect from a dictionary - a bunch of definitions for the word I was inquiring about. Google Dictionary doesn't do that (in this case) - it gives one single definition out of the many available and then gives me other links to follow for what it calls ' related phrases'. In other words, i have to go to yet more sites to get the definition I was looking for when I clicked 'definition' and was taken to Google Dictionary.
It's not a dictionary. It's 'some' definitions (one in this case) and then a buch of links to other sites that may have the definition i want. Why do i want to hop from site to site in search of my definition? That's what i thought I was clicking on 'definition' for.
The value of Google to Rupert Murdoch (for example) is that he get's page views through them (he doesn't want to admit this in the tack he's taking 'cos he's just after cold hard cash). Google aren't the only source of links for people to find news and those links also influence Google's results.
Once a paywall goes up, people aren't generally going to bother clicking the link. Only subscribers will. In Google this is fine, the site will marked as subscription and people can make up their own mind, but these links will disappear from the results over time (effectively - they'll go further down the rankings) because no one will be linking to them - why would they? People link to news stories as part of a conversation.
The same applies to any newspaper which implements Google's new '5 Clicks & You're Out' system. Once it becomes clear a site is using this, links to it will decrease, readers of link aggregator sites (like Digg) or intelligent and civil discussion boards (like Slashdot)... *cough*... will meet links to these sites with complaint "I've already read 5 stories from Your-first-few-hits-R-free-news.com today, is there another link? Why keep linking to these crippled links? FFS!" and either the crippled sites will be routed around (ala bugmenot vs NYT) or become an increasing irrelevance as they cease to be linked to and free-er ccompetitors move in - which are also more easily found and propagated through Google as a result of being more linked.
Google has shifted the game away from itself to let the news sites duke it out but in a different arena. Instead of just competing on quality of stories and journalism, they're going to compete on free and open versus crippled also (paywalled sites are out of the game since they are not part of online conversations).
Microsoft felt guilty about not allowing you to change the desktop picture in Windows Starter Edition, so they realeased this variation of the BSoD to everyone, to make up for it.
I have patented the 'placement of an orifice below the chin but above the shoulder for the purposes of sexual gratification'. Please cease and desist you potentially infringing suggestions immediately.
No you misunderstand - not an educational establishment - that's what I mean by 'sect not an actual school': as in the Zen school of Buddhism or Pure Land school - 'school' meaning sect or branch.
>Here in the UK there is a fascinating point of law - religions only get tax-exempt status if they are monotheistic.
Not true. I know of a school of Buddhism (a 'sect' - not an actual school) here in the UK which has charitable status. Definitely not mono- or anything-else-theistic.
Also, don't forget that when Windows 7 came to mass market, Microsoft still didn't allow you to change the default search engine from Bing to Google in IE8. I tried several times and MS only allowed you to download 'something' Google-related (some plug-in) from their site that wasn't Google Search for the toolbar. It's only just recently they 'fixed' this.
Anyone who snagged Windows 7 early and was using IE8 (poor deluded souls) would possibly be contributing to this 10%. Since they fixed the 'glitch' maybe we can see this 10% go down from now.
Slashdot Mirror
>The people on whom the connection is not lost, would see this as a tribute from Google to Philip K. Dick.
Agreed. And if the estate of PKD had any sense they'd be trying to license some of their copyrighted material for Google to use in their promotional material, and get some money out of the tribute legitimately.
>Copyright protects ideas
Nope. At least essentially - copyright is a bloated monster these days - copyright grants a monopoly on the distribution and reproduction of a fixed tangible expression of an idea.
For example the gist of this post is, as an idea, to debunk the phrase "copyright protects ideas". The idea of that isn't copyrightable, but my individual expression of it (this post) assuming it passes a relatively low threshold of 'creativity', is.
As an aside (and a little offtopic) copyright was created and grew to it's current monstrous proportions in a different technological age - or ages - and despite the massive cancerous growths that festoon it's relatively modest (though not entirely wholesome) body today - none of those addendums and extensions seem to take into account the way conversation between two or more people has been transposed from an ephemeral expression - verbal, gestural - into something more fixed - text and image and audio and video - and the way it's used on the internet.
In a conversation, one party insisting they have absolute control over something they expressed forbidding it's reproduction, repetition or modification would be social suicide. And yet that's what happens with copyright and the internet where *everything* becomes part of a conversation where the language is not restricted solely to verbal communication and people want (and are able) to throw everything into the mix.
As ever, money = power and the moneyed power of the copyright cartels get to write the laws that are imposed upon the rest of us, in their own interests. And those interests are that they express an idea in a fixed tangible form and we pay them money for it. They are interested in a series of monologues, where they do the talking from on high and we do the listening and this goes against the interests of the peoples as a whole who wish to engage with one another in conversation on the internet, digitally - where anything and everything is just more grist for the mill.
Back on topic - Ms Dick is being taken for a ride by her lawyers, IMO, who if they were diligent and responsible, would advise her that she had no case whatsoever, in copyright, Trademark or other so-called intelectual property law.
(IANAL)
It sounds like EA is trying to reposition their brand. Perhaps they should go the whole way and rebrand entirely.
EA (Electronic Arts) becomes BO (Built-in Obsolescence).
From 'EA Sports, it's in the game' to 'BO Sports, the contents of this box stink'.
>The level of advertising on the London Underground is pretty much at saturation level, I'd say.
I refuse to use the London Underground until it gets a decent adblocker.
>In practice, anything that enjoys the sanction of tradition and/or substantial popular support, even if formally blasphemous under the text of the law, will not be charged.
Doesn't this mean that the law will be selectively applied - and therefore illegitimate - and therefore be able to be struck down?
I mean, not without a fight, obviously, but nonetheless it'll be clear evidence that the law will only be used against the 'little guy' (not institutions like the major religions) and that what the 'establishment' can say will not be allowed by the peons.
>China brought them up to the 17th century in a single generation!!
So it's an improvement to go from being a 'free' people living in a less than perfect feudalist state to an occupied people suffering genocide and cultural decimation; an oppressed and hated minority in your own land?
I hope you one day are able to experience the kind of liberation the Tibetan people underwent, since you think it's so spiffing.
>You can simulate all those things on a Kindle by deleting the e-book.
What are you talking about? A Kindle ebook is tied to the account for which you can only have 6 users who then share everything - ideal for a family - not so ideal if you're looking to lend a book to a friend. Deleting the book on your Kindle in no way simulates selling the book: the prospective buyer can't read it unless they're using the same account; same with giving the book away: you can't. So how exactly does deleting the book on your Kindle simulate anything?
Of course none of those sales are really sales - they're just rentals: no lending, no resales, no giving them to a friend or leaving them on a train for strangers (never mind still being capable of being deleted by Amazon as they see fit).
At least they're cheaper than buying a real book though. Oh wait.
>A member of the House of Lords is preparing a bill that would, among other things, require foreigners to demonstrate that they have suffered actual harm in England before they can sue there.
Can't we just change the law so that it no longer reverses the burden of proof (so you nolonger have to prove your statements are *not* untrue) and as such upholds freedom of speech? FFS.
>We have cryptographically secure algorithms for anonymous digital cash. [...] We really should be working to switch to such a system.
Never going to happen.
The government - any technologically advanced 'Western' government, but specifically the British - will never accept anonymous over monitored; tracked; recorded or vetted *anything* where there is the option of doing one or the other or both.
Information is power - and they like their power over the serfs too much.
So what you're saying, if I'm reading you right, is that if someone else went around raping their own foster children, but calling themselves "Ted Alvin Klaudt", he would have a case for dilution of his brand and market confusion?
I bet he feels like a right chump for not registering his brand identity before now.
>The obvious legislative solution to this problem is to ban kids from using the internet until they are at least 18 years of age.
And so the more likely approach they would take would be to ban adults from the internet, forever.
The people who make these laws are unable to think through the issues they're dealing with or the consequences of the laws they make. It's their job, but they repeatedly show themsleves incabable (sorry I have a cold) of it, incompetent at it and unqualified to craft, legislate or oversee well-thought-out laws that are properly balanced and take into account a wide view of the society they're effecting and the implications such 'rules written down in paper and backed up by violent force' have.
The UK's approach to this wave of 'protect the children & finance our own political capital through villifying adults' moral panic, has been to wedge itself between adults and children as a gatekeeper. Where an adult has employment where any regular (read: not that frequent even) contact with children occurs, the adult is deemed a potential threat and must submit him or herself for scrutiny by the state as to his or her fitness to come into contact with said children. Rumours are allowed in the database which a potential pedophile (formerly 'adult') must be checked against and this can bar them from any profession, permanently as far as I'm aware, where such contact occurs or may occur, forever.
What the state is doing int hese cases is labelling all adults as threats to children and portraying itself as the saviour of children against these bad adults. It is devisive in the extreme and a fundemental attack on a healthy and normal society where children and adults get along, pretty much for the most part, in a caring and loving environment. It's a social evil of the most extreme kind, IMO, to drive a wedge between the population of adults and their children for the sake of the state's own glorification and political standing (in the eyes of certain punitive-minded and ignorant voters).
It is a horrific attack on one of the most fundemental aspects of a species: the relationship between the adults and their young, where a third party defines the adults as a threat and seeks to portray itself as the only true protector the offspring could have.
Every website you visit that stores a cookie is tracking your browsing habits on its site, until you delete that cookie. What Google's doing is just the same.
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048
To disable the tracking, you just delete the cookie. Set Firefox to delete cookies on exit or startup, or disallow that site's cookie and you're golden. This 'feature' from google is no different.
Just rememeber to obliterate those evil, sneaky Flash cookies too: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623
Yeah, I did. What I saw is a bunch of links to other sites that define related phrases.
When i click on a definition link that's on Answers.com, I get what you would expect from a dictionary - a bunch of definitions for the word I was inquiring about. Google Dictionary doesn't do that (in this case) - it gives one single definition out of the many available and then gives me other links to follow for what it calls ' related phrases'. In other words, i have to go to yet more sites to get the definition I was looking for when I clicked 'definition' and was taken to Google Dictionary.
It's not a dictionary. It's 'some' definitions (one in this case) and then a buch of links to other sites that may have the definition i want. Why do i want to hop from site to site in search of my definition? That's what i thought I was clicking on 'definition' for.
Oh great, and slashdot craps all over the google link, presumably because of the pipe character.
Another word not in there is "poop", synonymous with poo, bot unlisted as another word for faeces.
Compare Google Dictionary's result: http://www.google.co.uk/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en|en&hl=en&q=poop
which merely lists poop deck, with Answes.com's: http://www.answers.com/topic/poop
which is comprehensive and exactly what you'd expect from a dictionary.
I'd say Google fails pretty badly on this (relatively childish) example and isn't up to the job (or should that be jobbie).
n/t
The value of Google to Rupert Murdoch (for example) is that he get's page views through them (he doesn't want to admit this in the tack he's taking 'cos he's just after cold hard cash). Google aren't the only source of links for people to find news and those links also influence Google's results.
Once a paywall goes up, people aren't generally going to bother clicking the link. Only subscribers will. In Google this is fine, the site will marked as subscription and people can make up their own mind, but these links will disappear from the results over time (effectively - they'll go further down the rankings) because no one will be linking to them - why would they? People link to news stories as part of a conversation.
The same applies to any newspaper which implements Google's new '5 Clicks & You're Out' system. Once it becomes clear a site is using this, links to it will decrease, readers of link aggregator sites (like Digg) or intelligent and civil discussion boards (like Slashdot) ... *cough* ... will meet links to these sites with complaint "I've already read 5 stories from Your-first-few-hits-R-free-news.com today, is there another link? Why keep linking to these crippled links? FFS!" and either the crippled sites will be routed around (ala bugmenot vs NYT) or become an increasing irrelevance as they cease to be linked to and free-er ccompetitors move in - which are also more easily found and propagated through Google as a result of being more linked.
Google has shifted the game away from itself to let the news sites duke it out but in a different arena. Instead of just competing on quality of stories and journalism, they're going to compete on free and open versus crippled also (paywalled sites are out of the game since they are not part of online conversations).
Valid theory?
Microsoft felt guilty about not allowing you to change the desktop picture in Windows Starter Edition, so they realeased this variation of the BSoD to everyone, to make up for it.
See: they're not totally evil*.
*may be totally evil
I have patented the 'placement of an orifice below the chin but above the shoulder for the purposes of sexual gratification'. Please cease and desist you potentially infringing suggestions immediately.
No you misunderstand - not an educational establishment - that's what I mean by 'sect not an actual school': as in the Zen school of Buddhism or Pure Land school - 'school' meaning sect or branch.
I wasn't the only person to have experienced this issue (which may have been more an ie8 than windows 7 issue) -
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web_Development/Search_Engines/Q_24641989.html
(scroll to the bottom for the posts)
>Here in the UK there is a fascinating point of law - religions only get tax-exempt status if they are monotheistic.
Not true. I know of a school of Buddhism (a 'sect' - not an actual school) here in the UK which has charitable status. Definitely not mono- or anything-else-theistic.
>"Someone get me an e-meter, quick!"
>I'm afraid sir you'll have to buy your own. This is a business not a religion.
Fixed that for ya.
Also, don't forget that when Windows 7 came to mass market, Microsoft still didn't allow you to change the default search engine from Bing to Google in IE8. I tried several times and MS only allowed you to download 'something' Google-related (some plug-in) from their site that wasn't Google Search for the toolbar. It's only just recently they 'fixed' this.
Anyone who snagged Windows 7 early and was using IE8 (poor deluded souls) would possibly be contributing to this 10%. Since they fixed the 'glitch' maybe we can see this 10% go down from now.