Thanks for trying, Karl, but you get low Marx for your analysis because your argument does not support, or even match, your hypothesis and conclusion. You've basically said "A monopoly is good. Here is a situation that is great and does not involve real monopolies. Therefore, monopolies are good."
What you have described is not a monopoly, but an industry leader (which is expected in any competitive industry).
Monopolies and free amrkets are mutually exclusive.
>>Personally I'm of the mind that radio by defination is free promotion, the webcasters should be charging for it.
>That's a great idea! I'm going to take one of the new BMW 7-series cars without the dealers permission, drive it around town everyday promoting it and then send BMW a bill for the favor I'm doing them by promoting their cars.
Some unknown person driving one car around is completely different than broadcasting a song to hundreds, or thousands of people who likely have the means to buy the album. Also, you've taken and consumed physical capital (the wear and tear on the car) whereas the radio station do not expend any of the music company's physical capital.
Go ahead, try to make a convincing argument of a recent musician who was mainstream super-successful WITHOUT the help of radio or internet broadcasts (besides Phish or Grateful Dead, who aren't mainstream anyway). Music companies know the power of promoting songs on the radio, and would gladly pay off DJ's to give their songs more airtime, but it's illegal to do so in such a direct manner. Top level 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' deals drive radio play these days.
Why then should Billy and his thugs be able to just come in and render everything useless?
Why should they let these vulnerabilities, some of which can be used for massive digital attacks, continue to exist in a product with their name on it? And it's not going to "render everything useless," Mr. Hyperbole.
When you have your computer connected to the internet, it is your responsibility to make sure you don't do any damage with it - intentional or not. Too many people have ignored that moral/social obligation.
Think of it as a Digital Emissions Inspection. If your old car can't pass modern emissions regulations, but you want to still drive it, you'll need to replace some old parts with new parts, and those repairs aren't guaranteed to be cheap.
What if people had a wireless phone that, due to age and poor initial programming, started jamming all other wireless signals within 500 feet. Is it fair to let these phones continue operating, just cause they were able to many years ago? Of course not. The FCC or some agency would recall/outlaw these phones. Well, computers are approaching that level of potential for damage, in that compromised systems can easily be used for massive DoS attacks that can seriously disrupt large networks. Software developers and users have a responsibility to do their best to make sure this does not happen.
Everyone complains about the security problems in Windows, and have derided them for it for years. So when Microsoft trys to own up and fix the problems, 3rd party application developers should do their part and follow suit.
Yea I can see WordPerfect 7 blowing up now. But I can't see Corel having the resources to fix it.
Then maybe Corel will profit when folks start upgrading to Corel 8, or 9. Corel doesn't make any money supporting old versions. The industry can't always wait around supporting really old software. I mean come on, I had version 8 five years ago! Most companies and people like to upgrade their computers at least every five years (and especially over the 1999-2001 tech boom, there's no excuse to still be running computers made so long ago).
How is this *not* off-topic? We're talking about Spiderman here.
No, we're talking about companies using clever or misleading accounting to misrepresent profits. This problem is especially relevant in a down economy, where companies aren't afraid of giving lower profit reports if it means they gain elsewhere.
In this case, Marvel stands to save ~$10,000,000 USD if they can avoid paying Stan Lee. They have the rest of the money from the movie, no matter what they add or subtract before they calculate 'profit'. Investors won't worry if profits are reported low for the Spiderman movie; they know how successful it and other Comic book movies tend to be, especially if we go to war.
Spiderman is just the context, but the debate can apply to many industries.
Yeah, I remember when I left a wad of cash sitting on a counter at a local store. When I came back for in an hour later, some theif had stolen it. Oh, woe is me. It was all the fault of the theif, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Ok, so you're an idiot for leaving it there, but whomever now has your money is still a thief for taking it.
Oh, judge, it was just so EASY I couldn't help myself! It CAN'T be my fault, waaaahhhhhhh! You mean I have to take responsibility for my OWN actions ?!?
>>As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.
>Sure I can, because I don't agree that copyright infringement should be a crime.
Well, that's a different argument altogether:-) You can believe what you want to believe. I agree with you that copyright infringement shouldn't be illegal, at least not in the form that it is now.
But good luck if you ever find yourself as a defendant in court facing serious copyright infringement charges, because what you believe happens to contradict with what current (US) law says...
whose fault is it when I don't have a car or $100?
I'm not saying we can live in a utopia where no one steals anything. I think you should do what you can to protect yourself and your assets. But it still doesn't make the stealing right (or the copyright infringement).
So in that case it was EXTREMELY bad judgement to leave those valuables unguarded, especially since all you had to do was put the $100 in your wallet, lock your Benz, and walk away with your keys in your pocket. But it's also definitely the thief's fault, becuase no matter how easy it was, it was still stealing. And if it weren't for him (or some other thief), you wouldn't have lost the money and car.
>>The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).
>The way I see it, stealing means taking something away from someone.
Haven't the guy and his partners taken away the movie company's status as sole distributor of the film? As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.
>>So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault?
>Comparing an abused woman to an obsolete exploitive international conglomeration of billion-dollar revenue companies backed by hundreds or thousands of lawyers is obscene
I wasn't comparing an abused woman to a multinational corporation; I was making a point on victim's rights and how we should not blame the victim. A victim is a victim, whether it's an abused woman or a movie company or anybody. The blame falls on the perpetrator, it is obscene to suggest otherwise.
If I write a new game, and then share my first copies with a few of my closest friends to try out; only a week later to find out it's all over the net, then who is to blame?
Your friends are to blame, and so are you. You are the game's owner, and you are the one who intentionally caused the leak. So you can sue yourself if you want. Or you could have been more careful with the people you let use your game, probably by having them sign a non-disclosure agreement contract that includes penalties should it be proven that they breach the contract. Did you make your friends legally promise to not share the game? If so, then they should be punished as stated in the contract. If you didn't come to a legal agreement with them in any form, then you can't use the justice system to recover any damages from them.
analogies are useless in debate
"Legal Precedence", used by judges to uphold the law in a consistent manner, is nothing more than a legal analogy. When you're debating something where there isn't a well established legal precedent (as with internet copyright infringement), you either need new interpretation and analogy of existing laws and cases, or you need completely new laws with wording specific to the issue at hand.
BTW, violoating copyright law != theft. It's called copyright infrigement They are separate laws, with entirely different legal definitions and punishment standards.
True, but it's still illegal in the form we're talking about here (taking a camcorder into a movie theater in the UK).
>>Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.
>Sure, but what does this have to do with theft?
The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).
In this case, the video pirates were the distributor, and they distributed it over the internet Black Market (although they did not make money from it, but probably gained respect among fellow software pirates).
I'm not sure how all this translated into law or whatever these days, but that's how I'd apply existing law to this situation.
>What would you say to the US government if they posted all the information (private) that they have on you online accidentally.
Gov't is responsible for all damages as a result of their negligence. Anyone who stole my information should be brought to court on any applicable charges.
>What if Mastercard or Visa accidentally put your credit card # online when someone screwed up in administrting their network?
Mastercard or Visa pays for any unauthorized charges, and/or sues the thief who used the credit card without my authorization.
>What if an admin leaves the password files as 755 and in plaintext for everyone to see?
The Admin (or Admin's employer if applicable) is sued for any damages caused.
>What about a guard sleeping on the job? If something gets stolen is it his fault?
As with the other cases, you're bringing up another "sloppy security" situation. Just cause it's easy to steal something doesn't stop it from being illegal to do so. The guard gets reprimanded according to company policy, and the company gets sued for damages, and the thief gets brought to court if he is caught.
>Accountabilty... I think that it can be the victim's fault. Sometimes, they were asking for it.
Then you need help, especially if you would apply this belief to abuse cases, and claim that battered/raped women are responsible for being battered, and not the person who abuses them.
I'd be wary of letting my friends or family be around someone who thinks "it's the victim's fault." Too many abusers, thiefs, and criminals believe that their own actions are someone else's fault; when, really, if it weren't for them, the crime wouldn't have been committed in the first place no matter how simple the security was.
It is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of poor security at the film distributor.
So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault? Are stores that get robbed to blame for not having armed guards posted at the door?
Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.
it's written in the German constitution that German citizens can't be extradited. But then again, the Brits have a weird justice system.
Ok... so Germany by law harbors international criminals (if they're german citizens), and you claim Britain's the country with the weird justice system?
The really good stuff is kept on an isolated network and even the cat 5 wires have to be kept a minimum of six inches from any other electronic devices not on that network. So, if you want the real stuff you have to cross an "air-gap" and I don't know of any networking protocol that can do that.
802.11a/b? Of course, that would take significant carelessness on the part of the classified network's administrator.
>PS, anyone else having trouble viewing the nytimes article? I can't believe we could actually/. nytimes.com...
Why do you think you have to log in to see the articles? It's protection from being slashdotted.
(sorry, going a little OT here...)
First of all, the login page is still off of the nytimes.com webserver, so unless registration prevents people from clicking the link at all, the same number of requests will be hitting the nytimes server as if it didn't have registration. Well, actually double, since we're all going through a registration page AND the article page.
In any case, I do have a login, but I can't even bring up their home page http://www.nytimes.com/, nor the no-registration link someone provided.
Maybe it's just my connection, though, although I can still visit any other website.
I don't think it is a waste to bury a few kilograms of earth material
As with most computing applications, the biggest loss isn't the hardware, it's the data. To send the data back to earth, you either need a relay system to get the signal back to the surface to be transmitted, or the robot itself must return to the surface to transmit the data. If they choose to have it climb back out to send home the data, but it gets stuck and has no backup plan, the mission is a failure.
and they're trying to prevent me from previewing music on places like Kazaa.
Well yeah, cause Kazaa is an illegal result of people being able to copy and share digital music without limit; which goes way beyond fair use copying. I can't think of a good defense for why I should be able to share copyrighted-mp3s on Kazaa without going into a "cause the recording industry deserves it" argument (although they do deserve it). Can you?
To be fair, you could listen to radio broadcasts and free downloadable/streaming song clips (likeon amazon); that does give you a reasonable chance to preview most CD's.
I make MP3's of almost all my CD's, but it's because they're more convenient than a disc, not because I intend to share them. I can't play a cd-based video game while listening to an audio cd at the same time on my computer, so I rip the audio into mp3's, and keep winamp on while I play my game. Flawed copy protection prevents me from performing this arguably fair use activity.
Believe me, I too have a good number of mp3's which I didn't pay for, and I would probably delete them if I was a better person:-). But I don't think that illegal file sharing (no matter whether you are for or against it) is the way to solve the real problems in the music industry: how crappily artists and consumers are treated by the large middlemen.
From EMI letter: There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for. Even without a degree in economics everyone should realise that such trends will result in the music industry ceasing to exist.
[breaks out calc.exe.... tap-tap-tap...] OMG! By similar calculation, I calculate that, allowing for deaf people, there are 12 Billion ears on this planet used for listening to EMI cd's, in comparison with the only 50 million or so microphones in the world. That means 99.995833% of all the world's hearing power is used for EMI music, but EMI's 1996 sales were still only about £2.7 billion. That puts the entire music industry's annual sales for 2002 at about £3 billion. Therefor, each individual ear only pays about £0.25 annually for the more than 213 Million CD's EMI gives to them. That's £0.00000000117370 per CD. Now subtract the greedy musician's 15% royalties, and poor EMI has only pulls in £0.00000000099764.5; not even enough to afford a spot of tea to quench their thirst after a hard day's work.
Oh, and I DO have a degree in Economics, but I didn't use one bit of it to write the preceding rant.
Let's see... 700nm would have to equal one pixel movement, right? That means that for a full 1280-pixel travel across the screen, he'd only have to move the mouse 0.896mm (I think).
(Disclaimer: fuzzy math ahead)
Who says the mouse hardware has to send a constant (not variable) motion:pixel signal? Lets assume it sends a 'move cursor' command once per millisecond. I (just now!) moved my mouse across my 1024 pixel screen, and it took about two inches (5 centimeters) of mouse movement, at default windows mouse settings. That's about 2.054 pixels per millimeter mouse movement. During each millisecond, a move of anywhere from 700nm-1cm could translate to a one pixel cursor movement, then 1.00000001cm - 2cm would be two pixels, etc. The sharpness would only come into play if someone managed to move it 701nm in less than one millisecond, it would still correspond to a one pixel movement, where as less accurate mice would not move the mouse at all.
I don't think it matters whether your beam is 400nm or 700nm, unless it helps the laser track the mouse across non-optimal surfaces such as solid colors or glass. What may appear solid to a sensor at 700nm resolution could appear slightly patterned at 400nm, kind of like doubling magnification on a microscope allows you to find texture on surfaces which previously seemed flat.
I live in Westchester County, NY, a suburb of NYC. We recently moved from one Cablevision area to another, and lost some favorite channels from the standard lineup. I called Cablevision, and they added each channel I wanted for about 75 cents per month. Not bad!
Although it sucks that we get fewer channels now for a higher price (even before adding the 75 cents) than we did in our old area.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for trying, Karl, but you get low Marx for your analysis because your argument does not support, or even match, your hypothesis and conclusion. You've basically said "A monopoly is good. Here is a situation that is great and does not involve real monopolies. Therefore, monopolies are good."
What you have described is not a monopoly, but an industry leader (which is expected in any competitive industry).
Monopolies and free amrkets are mutually exclusive.
Finally, I'll no longer have to waste hours and hours each day cleaning my shoes!
>>Personally I'm of the mind that radio by defination is free promotion, the webcasters should be charging for it.
>That's a great idea! I'm going to take one of the new BMW 7-series cars without the dealers permission, drive it around town everyday promoting it and then send BMW a bill for the favor I'm doing them by promoting their cars.
Some unknown person driving one car around is completely different than broadcasting a song to hundreds, or thousands of people who likely have the means to buy the album. Also, you've taken and consumed physical capital (the wear and tear on the car) whereas the radio station do not expend any of the music company's physical capital.
Go ahead, try to make a convincing argument of a recent musician who was mainstream super-successful WITHOUT the help of radio or internet broadcasts (besides Phish or Grateful Dead, who aren't mainstream anyway). Music companies know the power of promoting songs on the radio, and would gladly pay off DJ's to give their songs more airtime, but it's illegal to do so in such a direct manner. Top level 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' deals drive radio play these days.
Firestar, Rogue Star, Lode Star, and Falling Stars.
Central part of plot is a corporation developing aircraft that can fly into orbit, at commercially viable cost. Good hard sci-fi reads!
If this happens, video rental stores will need to have much much much larger quantities of DVD's on hand than they presently do.
Anyone know on average how many times a DVD gets rented before it is sold or retired?
Rental stores just do not have the retail or storage capabilities for this idea.
Why then should Billy and his thugs be able to just come in and render everything useless?
Why should they let these vulnerabilities, some of which can be used for massive digital attacks, continue to exist in a product with their name on it? And it's not going to "render everything useless," Mr. Hyperbole.
When you have your computer connected to the internet, it is your responsibility to make sure you don't do any damage with it - intentional or not. Too many people have ignored that moral/social obligation.
Think of it as a Digital Emissions Inspection. If your old car can't pass modern emissions regulations, but you want to still drive it, you'll need to replace some old parts with new parts, and those repairs aren't guaranteed to be cheap.
What if people had a wireless phone that, due to age and poor initial programming, started jamming all other wireless signals within 500 feet. Is it fair to let these phones continue operating, just cause they were able to many years ago? Of course not. The FCC or some agency would recall/outlaw these phones. Well, computers are approaching that level of potential for damage, in that compromised systems can easily be used for massive DoS attacks that can seriously disrupt large networks. Software developers and users have a responsibility to do their best to make sure this does not happen.
Everyone complains about the security problems in Windows, and have derided them for it for years. So when Microsoft trys to own up and fix the problems, 3rd party application developers should do their part and follow suit.
Yea I can see WordPerfect 7 blowing up now. But I can't see Corel having the resources to fix it.
Then maybe Corel will profit when folks start upgrading to Corel 8, or 9. Corel doesn't make any money supporting old versions. The industry can't always wait around supporting really old software. I mean come on, I had version 8 five years ago! Most companies and people like to upgrade their computers at least every five years (and especially over the 1999-2001 tech boom, there's no excuse to still be running computers made so long ago).
How is this *not* off-topic? We're talking about Spiderman here.
No, we're talking about companies using clever or misleading accounting to misrepresent profits. This problem is especially relevant in a down economy, where companies aren't afraid of giving lower profit reports if it means they gain elsewhere.
In this case, Marvel stands to save ~$10,000,000 USD if they can avoid paying Stan Lee. They have the rest of the money from the movie, no matter what they add or subtract before they calculate 'profit'. Investors won't worry if profits are reported low for the Spiderman movie; they know how successful it and other Comic book movies tend to be, especially if we go to war.
Spiderman is just the context, but the debate can apply to many industries.
Yeah, I remember when I left a wad of cash sitting on a counter at a local store. When I came back for in an hour later, some theif had stolen it. Oh, woe is me. It was all the fault of the theif, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.
Ok, so you're an idiot for leaving it there, but whomever now has your money is still a thief for taking it.
Oh, judge, it was just so EASY I couldn't help myself! It CAN'T be my fault, waaaahhhhhhh! You mean I have to take responsibility for my OWN actions ?!?
>>As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.
:-) You can believe what you want to believe. I agree with you that copyright infringement shouldn't be illegal, at least not in the form that it is now.
>Sure I can, because I don't agree that copyright infringement should be a crime.
Well, that's a different argument altogether
But good luck if you ever find yourself as a defendant in court facing serious copyright infringement charges, because what you believe happens to contradict with what current (US) law says...
whose fault is it when I don't have a car or $100?
I'm not saying we can live in a utopia where no one steals anything. I think you should do what you can to protect yourself and your assets. But it still doesn't make the stealing right (or the copyright infringement).
So in that case it was EXTREMELY bad judgement to leave those valuables unguarded, especially since all you had to do was put the $100 in your wallet, lock your Benz, and walk away with your keys in your pocket. But it's also definitely the thief's fault, becuase no matter how easy it was, it was still stealing. And if it weren't for him (or some other thief), you wouldn't have lost the money and car.
>>The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).
>The way I see it, stealing means taking something away from someone.
Haven't the guy and his partners taken away the movie company's status as sole distributor of the film? As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.
>>So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault?
>Comparing an abused woman to an obsolete exploitive international conglomeration of billion-dollar revenue companies backed by hundreds or thousands of lawyers is obscene
I wasn't comparing an abused woman to a multinational corporation; I was making a point on victim's rights and how we should not blame the victim. A victim is a victim, whether it's an abused woman or a movie company or anybody. The blame falls on the perpetrator, it is obscene to suggest otherwise.
If I write a new game, and then share my first copies with a few of my closest friends to try out; only a week later to find out it's all over the net, then who is to blame?
Your friends are to blame, and so are you. You are the game's owner, and you are the one who intentionally caused the leak. So you can sue yourself if you want. Or you could have been more careful with the people you let use your game, probably by having them sign a non-disclosure agreement contract that includes penalties should it be proven that they breach the contract. Did you make your friends legally promise to not share the game? If so, then they should be punished as stated in the contract. If you didn't come to a legal agreement with them in any form, then you can't use the justice system to recover any damages from them.
analogies are useless in debate
"Legal Precedence", used by judges to uphold the law in a consistent manner, is nothing more than a legal analogy. When you're debating something where there isn't a well established legal precedent (as with internet copyright infringement), you either need new interpretation and analogy of existing laws and cases, or you need completely new laws with wording specific to the issue at hand.
BTW, violoating copyright law != theft. It's called copyright infrigement They are separate laws, with entirely different legal definitions and punishment standards.
True, but it's still illegal in the form we're talking about here (taking a camcorder into a movie theater in the UK).
>>Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.
>Sure, but what does this have to do with theft?
The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).
In this case, the video pirates were the distributor, and they distributed it over the internet Black Market (although they did not make money from it, but probably gained respect among fellow software pirates).
I'm not sure how all this translated into law or whatever these days, but that's how I'd apply existing law to this situation.
>What would you say to the US government if they posted all the information (private) that they have on you online accidentally.
Gov't is responsible for all damages as a result of their negligence. Anyone who stole my information should be brought to court on any applicable charges.
>What if Mastercard or Visa accidentally put your credit card # online when someone screwed up in administrting their network?
Mastercard or Visa pays for any unauthorized charges, and/or sues the thief who used the credit card without my authorization.
>What if an admin leaves the password files as 755 and in plaintext for everyone to see?
The Admin (or Admin's employer if applicable) is sued for any damages caused.
>What about a guard sleeping on the job? If something gets stolen is it his fault?
As with the other cases, you're bringing up another "sloppy security" situation. Just cause it's easy to steal something doesn't stop it from being illegal to do so. The guard gets reprimanded according to company policy, and the company gets sued for damages, and the thief gets brought to court if he is caught.
>Accountabilty... I think that it can be the victim's fault. Sometimes, they were asking for it.
Then you need help, especially if you would apply this belief to abuse cases, and claim that battered/raped women are responsible for being battered, and not the person who abuses them.
I'd be wary of letting my friends or family be around someone who thinks "it's the victim's fault." Too many abusers, thiefs, and criminals believe that their own actions are someone else's fault; when, really, if it weren't for them, the crime wouldn't have been committed in the first place no matter how simple the security was.
It is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of poor security at the film distributor.
So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault? Are stores that get robbed to blame for not having armed guards posted at the door?
Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.
it's written in the German constitution that German citizens can't be extradited. But then again, the Brits have a weird justice system.
Ok... so Germany by law harbors international criminals (if they're german citizens), and you claim Britain's the country with the weird justice system?
The really good stuff is kept on an isolated network and even the cat 5 wires have to be kept a minimum of six inches from any other electronic devices not on that network. So, if you want the real stuff you have to cross an "air-gap" and I don't know of any networking protocol that can do that.
802.11a/b? Of course, that would take significant carelessness on the part of the classified network's administrator.
>PS, anyone else having trouble viewing the nytimes article? I can't believe we could actually /. nytimes.com ...
Why do you think you have to log in to see the articles? It's protection from being slashdotted.
(sorry, going a little OT here...)
First of all, the login page is still off of the nytimes.com webserver, so unless registration prevents people from clicking the link at all, the same number of requests will be hitting the nytimes server as if it didn't have registration. Well, actually double, since we're all going through a registration page AND the article page.
In any case, I do have a login, but I can't even bring up their home page http://www.nytimes.com/, nor the no-registration link someone provided.
Maybe it's just my connection, though, although I can still visit any other website.
I don't think it is a waste to bury a few kilograms of earth material
As with most computing applications, the biggest loss isn't the hardware, it's the data. To send the data back to earth, you either need a relay system to get the signal back to the surface to be transmitted, or the robot itself must return to the surface to transmit the data. If they choose to have it climb back out to send home the data, but it gets stuck and has no backup plan, the mission is a failure.
gnaw its way back to the surface, or lay a series of radio relay stations
/. nytimes.com ...
I'd hope it does both, since if one fails and has no backup plan, the entire mission would be gone to waste.
PS, anyone else having trouble viewing the nytimes article? I can't believe we could actually
and they're trying to prevent me from previewing music on places like Kazaa.
:-). But I don't think that illegal file sharing (no matter whether you are for or against it) is the way to solve the real problems in the music industry: how crappily artists and consumers are treated by the large middlemen.
Well yeah, cause Kazaa is an illegal result of people being able to copy and share digital music without limit; which goes way beyond fair use copying. I can't think of a good defense for why I should be able to share copyrighted-mp3s on Kazaa without going into a "cause the recording industry deserves it" argument (although they do deserve it). Can you?
To be fair, you could listen to radio broadcasts and free downloadable/streaming song clips (like on amazon); that does give you a reasonable chance to preview most CD's.
I make MP3's of almost all my CD's, but it's because they're more convenient than a disc, not because I intend to share them. I can't play a cd-based video game while listening to an audio cd at the same time on my computer, so I rip the audio into mp3's, and keep winamp on while I play my game. Flawed copy protection prevents me from performing this arguably fair use activity.
Believe me, I too have a good number of mp3's which I didn't pay for, and I would probably delete them if I was a better person
From EMI letter: There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for. Even without a degree in economics everyone should realise that such trends will result in the music industry ceasing to exist.
[breaks out calc.exe.... tap-tap-tap...] OMG! By similar calculation, I calculate that, allowing for deaf people, there are 12 Billion ears on this planet used for listening to EMI cd's, in comparison with the only 50 million or so microphones in the world. That means 99.995833% of all the world's hearing power is used for EMI music, but EMI's 1996 sales were still only about £2.7 billion. That puts the entire music industry's annual sales for 2002 at about £3 billion. Therefor, each individual ear only pays about £0.25 annually for the more than 213 Million CD's EMI gives to them. That's £0.00000000117370 per CD. Now subtract the greedy musician's 15% royalties, and poor EMI has only pulls in £0.00000000099764.5; not even enough to afford a spot of tea to quench their thirst after a hard day's work.
Oh, and I DO have a degree in Economics, but I didn't use one bit of it to write the preceding rant.
Let's see... 700nm would have to equal one pixel movement, right? That means that for a full 1280-pixel travel across the screen, he'd only have to move the mouse 0.896mm (I think).
(Disclaimer: fuzzy math ahead)
Who says the mouse hardware has to send a constant (not variable) motion:pixel signal? Lets assume it sends a 'move cursor' command once per millisecond. I (just now!) moved my mouse across my 1024 pixel screen, and it took about two inches (5 centimeters) of mouse movement, at default windows mouse settings. That's about 2.054 pixels per millimeter mouse movement. During each millisecond, a move of anywhere from 700nm-1cm could translate to a one pixel cursor movement, then 1.00000001cm - 2cm would be two pixels, etc. The sharpness would only come into play if someone managed to move it 701nm in less than one millisecond, it would still correspond to a one pixel movement, where as less accurate mice would not move the mouse at all.
I don't think it matters whether your beam is 400nm or 700nm, unless it helps the laser track the mouse across non-optimal surfaces such as solid colors or glass. What may appear solid to a sensor at 700nm resolution could appear slightly patterned at 400nm, kind of like doubling magnification on a microscope allows you to find texture on surfaces which previously seemed flat.
I live in Westchester County, NY, a suburb of NYC. We recently moved from one Cablevision area to another, and lost some favorite channels from the standard lineup. I called Cablevision, and they added each channel I wanted for about 75 cents per month. Not bad!
Although it sucks that we get fewer channels now for a higher price (even before adding the 75 cents) than we did in our old area.