I have to ask how you can possibly judge any tv series uninteresting w/o watching a single episode? Ask the majority of people who have seen the movie *AND* have watched the series at all and they'll tell you the movie doesn't hold a candle to the series...HBO made a gigantic mistake in letting SG1 go. The Sci-Fi channel saved its financial backside w/ that show.
If Mars Inc. had ponied up more than Hershey, he'd have been happily munching on peanut M&Ms.
ironically Spielberg offered the deal to M&M's first but they turned it down! Nobody but nobody realized that E.T. was going to be the monsterous success that it was. The M&M's execs are still probably reeling from that one to this day...
"I imagine the purists who want full organic food..."
I am sick and tired of all these so called purists calling genetically modified crops inorganic. Rocks are inorganic...plants are all organic...regardless of what has or hasn't been added to them or changed in them.
Call them pure..call them unmodifed...but for the love of God, please stop misusing the word by calling them non-organic.
-rilian
"...or else in the USofA people would have a recount in the last presidential election -- it did not happen, and will not happen)"
If you are referring to Florida in 2000, yes it did happen. The state law mandates a recount when the vote tally is closer than a certain percentage(I can't remember the exact number). Which it was. That recount was conducted as specified by law.
What you may be referring to is the requested hand recount called for by the democratic party.
"The software blocks anything that's copyrighted, whether you already own the song in another format or not."
This statement embodies the entire issue of going after illegal song swappers...you simply cannot tell from network traffic whether either the sender or the receiver has a legal license to have a copy of any given song. I just can't see how any legal action can hold up when you can't say whethere or not either party is actually comitting a crime.
I agree here. I live near a town where this happens constantly. I am driving home at night after midnight and the lights all change to red on me even though there isn't a car in sight in any direction.
Also, YOU DO HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO LISTEN! No one has taken that away from you
This argument is irresponsible. It can be used to allow almost any behavior in the name of freedom.
Your rights only go as far as to not impinge upon the rights of others. You have the freedom, for example, to swing your arms around in any direction you choose...Let's say you are walking down a *PUBLIC* sidewalk swing said arms..but as soon as those arms hit somebody, that freedom stops...why? because the person on the end of that blow has the right not to be punched. Going by your argument, the person swing his or her arms around could say "Well if you don't want to be punched, go somewhere else." However, both of you are on a *PUBLIC* sidewalk. The person who got hit has the right to be on that sidewalk w/o fearing being accidentally punched.
I use this as an example because the trash he puts out is offensive and obscene to people like me and is being aired on public airwaves. Every time I stumble across his show while channel surfing, I hear something vulgar or obscene and it acts to me like that punch in the above illustration. I don't think the public should have to put up with someone's trash airing all over the radio in the name of free speech. Stern is welcome to belive what he wants but he is not welcome to flood the airwaves with garbage. I shouldn't have to get punched so someone's right to swing their arms around isn't curtailed.
IMHO, encyclopedia books and software are both static. Thus by today's standards are out of date very quickly. At least some encyclopedia software can be updated via the web. Even still, things change so fast that internet searches are really the easiest way to find the most up to date information you're looking for.
I tend to put newspapers in the same group. Why look at day old news when you can get up to the minute news at cnn.com or google or a plethora of other sites. I would much prefer looking at the website of my local news affiliate and taking what news I am interested in then and there than have to wade through a paper with all those continued on page n articles or listen through an entire boring newscast to get at the one piece of interesting news for the day.
my $.02
Thanks for this post. I thought you made a lot of very valid points. I do happen to work in a public school district and am a networking/computer professional in a high school. I know exactly what you mean. The administration and faculty of the school at which I work have to deal with very similar situations to your essay bruhaha on a daily basis.
It is unfortunate that the large majority of public schools cannot afford a qualified person to run their computer systems. Most school technology people are woefully underpaid and therefore those who are qualified don't want to work for a school when they can get 2 to 3 times as much money in the private sector. I would be very tempted to do so myself if the right opportunity came my way.
The only part of your post I even remotely question is the last sentence. This school is apparently ignorant enough to believe that the net-send command is hacking or they wouldn't have called it such. The 2nd part of your last sentence, though, is still perfectly valid!
Thanks again for posting. The/. crowd needs to hear this kind of thing more often.
-rilian
Excellent point. I noticed this myself. I am the computer tech/sysadmin/webmaster/everything else having to do with computers for a high-school near where I live as a full-time job. I was a bit surprised that the computer person mentioned in this article would not be aware of this functionality. It's a simple command.
Then again, there are a lot of technology employees in school districts who are not adequately trained and thus wouldn't know "net send" from "format c:". (This is because most people with adequate training are working in the private sector and getting paid 2x as much as they would in a school district. Trust me I know!)
Oh and for all you/.'ers who say this wouldn't/couldn't happen under linux...linux has this neat little protocol for talking to windows called Samba. It contains a command that can send the same pop-ups as "net send". So unless your entire school is running under linux(not a bad idea in and of itself), this scenario could still happen...and the linux command can have a file or any other text redirected as the input for the message text so it could be much much worse in theory.
Am I right in assuming this? Wouldn't the same apply here? If there was not a victim to get upset at her public display then how could there be a crime?
IANAL but The article says the owner of the bar where one of the pictures was shot did in fact object to having the pictures taken...I would think this constitutes having a "victim" as you put it..
Fifteen percent DVR penetration implies that 9.1 percent of all ads would not be watched...
As if I watch them now w/o a DVR? I do useful things during ads on tv shows I have to watch live...like using the restroom or getting a bite to eat or checking my email, etc, etc, etc...
I pay as little attention as is physically possible to ads as it is and I would assume a statistically significant percentage of the general tv-viewers out there do the same.
It seems to me as though ad minutes are constantly rising while minutes of actual programming seem to be falling. Take NFL football broadcasts...a team scores a touchdown...break to an ad...2 minutes later...extra point (a whole 30-45 seconds)...break to an ad....2 minutes later...team kicks off to other team(another 20-30 seconds)...break to yet another ad...now after 6 minutes of ads and 2 minutes of football finally we might get to see another 4 or 5 minutes before a punt/td/fieldgoal. Then, you guessed it, we start into more ads....and lets not forget each team has 3 timeouts per half(12 total in the game) and there are built-in TV timeouts and of course half-time which is another 80%+ filled with ads.
With this much advertising interrupting a show, is it any wonder people like DVR's? I record a few shows on VCR to watch later and I can tell you it takes only about 25-30 minutes to watch an hour show when you can fast forward through the ads.
I guess my point is that people are already ignoring ads because of the large volume out there so ad companies should take the hint and find a less intrusive way to pitch their products while still continuing to sponser tv programming.
I work for a school district and the IT staff here developed our own web based system to do requests. It's based on Filemaker Pro, which isn't the most feature rich database out there, but it gets the job done. We don't have a way for non-IT staff to check the status of a request sent to IT but an IT manager can check the status of requests in the list of a given IT techie. The system also emails an abbreviated form of the request to the email address and pager of the appropriate person.
My 2
"If you have a music (or other copyrighted work) file, and you didn't buy it, technically you stole it"
This is a completely incorrect assumption and it is ignorance like this that allows bills such as the one in this discussion to gain a foothold.
Here are some examples of having a copyrighted file on your system w/o purchasing it and being completely legal:
Example1: The owner of the work gave you a copy! Forgot about that possibility didn't we?
Example2: You own a legal copy of the same work on a different medium...say you bought a record in the 1970s or 1980s and you download a song from said record today(maybe to get a digital copy of the song or because the album was never released to CD). Not illegal yet you didn't buy the file...
Example3: Open Source Software!!! OSS can be and is copyrighted all the time and yet owning a file that is released as such is not illegal by any stretch of the imagination and most often, OSS is available for free.
There are other examples, these are just a few. The point being that the powers that be need to wake up and realize the many significant and legitimate uses of file sharing.
I'm glad they're on our side
Speak for yourself. Not everyone is on "Your" side. Don't assume that every reader or poster on this site agrees with you. ...And before you get too cranky, I am somewhat wary of the patriot act myself. I am just making a point...
Slashdot Mirror
I have to ask how you can possibly judge any tv series uninteresting w/o watching a single episode? Ask the majority of people who have seen the movie *AND* have watched the series at all and they'll tell you the movie doesn't hold a candle to the series...HBO made a gigantic mistake in letting SG1 go. The Sci-Fi channel saved its financial backside w/ that show.
That was Samantha Carter(played by Amanda Tapping) who said that.
The game logic of the tic-tac-toe game linked to by this thread is flawed. I was able to repeatedly win by starting in the center square.
This is from an insider...nuff said.
I am sick and tired of all these so called purists calling genetically modified crops inorganic. Rocks are inorganic...plants are all organic...regardless of what has or hasn't been added to them or changed in them.
Call them pure..call them unmodifed...but for the love of God, please stop misusing the word by calling them non-organic. -rilian
What you may be referring to is the requested hand recount called for by the democratic party.
I agree here. I live near a town where this happens constantly. I am driving home at night after midnight and the lights all change to red on me even though there isn't a car in sight in any direction.
This argument is irresponsible. It can be used to allow almost any behavior in the name of freedom.
Your rights only go as far as to not impinge upon the rights of others. You have the freedom, for example, to swing your arms around in any direction you choose...Let's say you are walking down a *PUBLIC* sidewalk swing said arms..but as soon as those arms hit somebody, that freedom stops...why? because the person on the end of that blow has the right not to be punched. Going by your argument, the person swing his or her arms around could say "Well if you don't want to be punched, go somewhere else." However, both of you are on a *PUBLIC* sidewalk. The person who got hit has the right to be on that sidewalk w/o fearing being accidentally punched. I use this as an example because the trash he puts out is offensive and obscene to people like me and is being aired on public airwaves. Every time I stumble across his show while channel surfing, I hear something vulgar or obscene and it acts to me like that punch in the above illustration. I don't think the public should have to put up with someone's trash airing all over the radio in the name of free speech. Stern is welcome to belive what he wants but he is not welcome to flood the airwaves with garbage. I shouldn't have to get punched so someone's right to swing their arms around isn't curtailed.
I get it. There are a few of us out here in /. land who are sports fans...
"...what kind of idiot is at the helm?"
The kind of idiot worth billions of dollars.
He may be a lot of things, but an idiot he is not. He knows how to sell (or at least force consumers to buy) his products. This made him lots o cash.
IMHO, encyclopedia books and software are both static. Thus by today's standards are out of date very quickly. At least some encyclopedia software can be updated via the web. Even still, things change so fast that internet searches are really the easiest way to find the most up to date information you're looking for.
I tend to put newspapers in the same group. Why look at day old news when you can get up to the minute news at cnn.com or google or a plethora of other sites. I would much prefer looking at the website of my local news affiliate and taking what news I am interested in then and there than have to wade through a paper with all those continued on page n articles or listen through an entire boring newscast to get at the one piece of interesting news for the day. my $.02
Thanks for this post. I thought you made a lot of very valid points. I do happen to work in a public school district and am a networking/computer professional in a high school. I know exactly what you mean. The administration and faculty of the school at which I work have to deal with very similar situations to your essay bruhaha on a daily basis.
/. crowd needs to hear this kind of thing more often.
-rilian
It is unfortunate that the large majority of public schools cannot afford a qualified person to run their computer systems. Most school technology people are woefully underpaid and therefore those who are qualified don't want to work for a school when they can get 2 to 3 times as much money in the private sector. I would be very tempted to do so myself if the right opportunity came my way.
The only part of your post I even remotely question is the last sentence. This school is apparently ignorant enough to believe that the net-send command is hacking or they wouldn't have called it such. The 2nd part of your last sentence, though, is still perfectly valid!
Thanks again for posting. The
Then again, there are a lot of technology employees in school districts who are not adequately trained and thus wouldn't know "net send" from "format c:". (This is because most people with adequate training are working in the private sector and getting paid 2x as much as they would in a school district. Trust me I know!) Oh and for all you
IANAL but The article says the owner of the bar where one of the pictures was shot did in fact object to having the pictures taken...I would think this constitutes having a "victim" as you put it..
Fifteen percent DVR penetration implies that 9.1 percent of all ads would not be watched...
As if I watch them now w/o a DVR? I do useful things during ads on tv shows I have to watch live...like using the restroom or getting a bite to eat or checking my email, etc, etc, etc...
I pay as little attention as is physically possible to ads as it is and I would assume a statistically significant percentage of the general tv-viewers out there do the same.
It seems to me as though ad minutes are constantly rising while minutes of actual programming seem to be falling. Take NFL football broadcasts...a team scores a touchdown...break to an ad...2 minutes later...extra point (a whole 30-45 seconds)...break to an ad....2 minutes later...team kicks off to other team(another 20-30 seconds)...break to yet another ad...now after 6 minutes of ads and 2 minutes of football finally we might get to see another 4 or 5 minutes before a punt/td/fieldgoal. Then, you guessed it, we start into more ads....and lets not forget each team has 3 timeouts per half(12 total in the game) and there are built-in TV timeouts and of course half-time which is another 80%+ filled with ads.
With this much advertising interrupting a show, is it any wonder people like DVR's? I record a few shows on VCR to watch later and I can tell you it takes only about 25-30 minutes to watch an hour show when you can fast forward through the ads.
I guess my point is that people are already ignoring ads because of the large volume out there so ad companies should take the hint and find a less intrusive way to pitch their products while still continuing to sponser tv programming.
I work for a school district and the IT staff here developed our own web based system to do requests. It's based on Filemaker Pro, which isn't the most feature rich database out there, but it gets the job done. We don't have a way for non-IT staff to check the status of a request sent to IT but an IT manager can check the status of requests in the list of a given IT techie. The system also emails an abbreviated form of the request to the email address and pager of the appropriate person. My 2
If Atari is gone, why is their logo on Neverwinter Nights and its sequels. How does this all fit together?...
"If you have a music (or other copyrighted work) file, and you didn't buy it, technically you stole it"
This is a completely incorrect assumption and it is ignorance like this that allows bills such as the one in this discussion to gain a foothold. Here are some examples of having a copyrighted file on your system w/o purchasing it and being completely legal:
Example1: The owner of the work gave you a copy! Forgot about that possibility didn't we?
Example2: You own a legal copy of the same work on a different medium...say you bought a record in the 1970s or 1980s and you download a song from said record today(maybe to get a digital copy of the song or because the album was never released to CD). Not illegal yet you didn't buy the file...
Example3: Open Source Software!!! OSS can be and is copyrighted all the time and yet owning a file that is released as such is not illegal by any stretch of the imagination and most often, OSS is available for free.
There are other examples, these are just a few. The point being that the powers that be need to wake up and realize the many significant and legitimate uses of file sharing.
I am 29 and I was taught how to do a square-root sans calculator. I don't remember how now but I distinctly remember being taught.
Appears to be slashdotted already...anyone have a mirror?
I'm glad they're on our side
...And before you get too cranky, I am somewhat wary of the patriot act myself. I am just making a point...
Speak for yourself. Not everyone is on "Your" side. Don't assume that every reader or poster on this site agrees with you.
The soldier was British not American...but that doesn't change the points made...