... means nothing when the few parts you do have are prone to disaster.
never fear though - this is yet another imaginary product (they have nothing more than a computer rendering ffs), you need not fear that your car will deflate on you any time soon.
Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs) have been around for quite some time.
Self-sealing gloop (like mountain bike tyres) FTW.
Disney are using "PINOCCHIO" (case isn't important) to indicate that the goods or services thus marked originate with them. If someone else was using this mark before them then that person can carry on with that use. Once they have registered it and continue to register it then you can't use that mark for trade.
You can reproduce an associated image as long as it is out of copyright and you're not passing items off as originating with Disney (usually a disclaimer makes it clear).
Trademarks usually have a limited scope, eg "apparel" or "printed literature" determined by the NICE classification.
I hear tell that this is why the GPL exists. To stop exactly these kind of shenanigans. A person writes a derivative work, say a text editor, and wants to make it available to everyone, so does not copyright it. Another person makes a derivative work from the non copyrighted work, and then copyrights the result. Now, not even the original author has acess tot he work.
You misunderstand copyright. Copyright is what the GPL relies on, similarly CC, copyleft, etc.. The only reason you can dictate the terms of the GPL to someone is that you have the original copyright *automatically* by virtue of international agreements valid in almost every state on Earth (and there are agreements for space too apparently). [You noted some of that but it was worth repeating to set up for this....]
If something is PD then it cannot be GPL. If you have a GPL'ed work then when I reproduce it has to bear the license. If you then make it PD I don't have to add the license, I don't have to credit you. I can leave you credited and alter it to make you look bad (add in mistakes) and your only recourse is libel laws (!). Some parts of copyright are good.
The ring tone is the theme from Rocky, and the director decided she had to have that little bit of music to make the scene work. For that she needed clearance from Sprint (ring tone rights) and EMI (publishing rights). Sprint saw it as product placement and let her have clearance for free. But EMI wanted $10K! She finally bargained them down to $2K.
If the music is incidental then you can cut it. If the music is to be used under fair use exceptions then it needs to be essential to the report - eg you were reporting about Rocky's theme music being a copy of an earlier work.
If the music clip is being used commercially it's not fair use - MHB apparently has made $8million+. If they didn't want to pay EMI then they can simply not use that music.
So fair use if the documentary would have been factually deficit if the clip was removed (reporting exceptions) OR if the clip was not a substantial part (which it was, otherwise it wouldn't have been recognisable and they wouldn't have bothered using it).
If you re-type everything and get the company logos from the companies and effectively reproduce it so it looks nearly enough the same, you could get sued for copying the presentation - not the contents.
What you're saying is that if I listen to a song on the radio and write out the music I can't be sued for copying the song...
Did you copy it? Does the work you copied from have any originality in design, ie it's not just a list, you can be sued [I means successfully]. If your presentation differs then it's still a derivative work. If you get that same information by other means, ie you didn't copy it, then you're free to sell it but you may need to prove you got the information elsewise in order to stop yourself being sued.
Oh, and in the UK we have database rights that stop you copying large data sets that [may have] involved substantial work in their compilation.
Their claiming copyright on their specific printed edition of the work.
I doubt it. Unless their method of printing has some original creative work to it (I can't think what that might be, perhaps illumination like old Bibles?). The printed text is going to be a slavish reproduction. The cover, foreword, possibly the font, any non-original illustrations, these are going to be the copyright parts. As if I created a new frame for a Rembrandt - if the frame is creatively made then I can claim copyright in it, if it's just a couple of floor boards nailed together then I'm unlikely to win a claim to it being an original creative work. That doesn't stop you from copying the Rembrandt though (assuming you can get a look in a situation where you're not under further license not create copies of that particular item, eg the sign in the Museum that says "no photos").
and they also trademark the appearance of the characters in the features.
Why should Disney have the right to trademark such appearances when they are based closely on the original illustrations that entered the public domain along with the text?
A trademark indicates the origin of goods or services. You need a right to trademark a trademark either indicates origin or doesn't; you can register a mark to get extra protection and prevent others from using that mark. You can't just claim a work is a trademark in order to extend your rights.
it is your moral duty to do your utmost to circumvent, outmaneuver [sic], and otherwise destroy copyright law and the tools that enforce it
i am not in any way joking. copyright law has nothing to do with artists rights and rewarding artists for their work.
This came up the other day (and before!). The only reason one can license a work, say, CC-BY-SA is due to international copyright law. Without it everything is PD.
Berne Convention, Art 6bis includes something to the effect that an artist (content creator) has the right to be named as author of their work and to protect the work from alteration. These are important moral rights. The first because if I make something I feel I should be allowed to add my name to it and not allow others to pass it off as their work - if I want to, I don't have to assert my right. The second is equally important. If a work bears my name I have the right to prevent people from altering it and still attributing it to me.
These rights are only due to copyright law. Copyright's main problem has been commercial pressure to extend the terms which aren't specified in the international treaties - sadly our democracy (in the UK at least) is not fine-grained enough that such an issue will ever, IMO, fall to the people to decide. Unless the I get voted in and manage to enact a system of referenda by public vote, and maybe even then.
So to take Disney's version of Snow White as an example, the basic story of a wicked stepmother, beautiful princess, magic mirror, etc. are all free for the taking by anyone, even if they are taking these from the Disney version, rather than an older source.
Nope. These ideas existed before. This presentation of these ideas did not. If you read this presentation and derive your work from it then you are "copying". So no you can't take these elements from Disney's work (assuming the way you copy forms a substantial part of their work). But equally well Disney can't stop you from commercial use of a work unless they can prove you copied from them (including deriving a new work based on theirs). Their original elements will be assumed to be copied unless you can demonstrate they were not. Their traditional elements will be assumed not to have been copied - but may be shown still to have been copied if you include their typo's and such; it is the copying that is protected. The clue is in the name.
This is how sites like Project Gutenberg work; they ask people to type up the text of works that are out of copyright, and they put the words online formatted differently from any printed version.
Project Gutenburg asks you to scan in your books. That's one copy; then they store a copy on their server, 2 copies. Then when digitising they have individuals grab copies of a substantial part, at least 3 copies. They also say in their FAQ - http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Scanning_FAQ#S.21._Will_PG_store_scanned_page_images_of_my_book.3F - that they now keep image copies for reproduction purposes. So I think your analysis is wrong here.; they appear to not readily offer image reproductions simply for practical reasons. They also recommend suing Archive.org for hosting higher quality image reproductions (they certainly wouldn't do that, and not get sued, if they knew that such images were copyright).
Yes, if the packaging of the textual content requires particular skill and artistry then copyright may be granted in the manner of presentation of an expired work if that manner is sufficiently original and creative. Copyright can certainly be granted in any new "work" that is created to accompany the original text (foreword, synopsis, margin notes, etc.) - this may be the copyright that your "out of copyright" book has, the picture on the cover, etc..
I suspect the library boilerplate text wording to be subtly different to that claimed - claiming a book is still copyright is going to be plainly wrong in many instances where you order an old book. The owner of that copy of the book however may be licensing your use of _that_copy_. If I own a particular copy of a work I can license your use of that particular copy and not allow you to make a further copy from that particular one - I own the physical item after all. You don't have to agree to the license - I'll just refrain from letting you look at it then. This is not a copyright issue however. If my neighbour has the same book I can't stop him from giving you a copy of his, nor from you then printing and selling a copy.
In summary they don't have a copyright on that particular edition, but possibly through ownership are licensing it, or are claiming copyright on the "chrome" around the original work.
Editing and typesetting should not make a new copyright. It adds no useful art, unless it make massive changes to the original. If it is just to make the original clear why the heck should they get any copyright on it?
The problem with the law is specifying differences in a meaningful way. There's making the original clear: different font / repagination. And there's making the original clear: scanning velum for obliterated texts under later texts and transliterating/translating into modern scripts/language.
These are vastly different undertakings. The former can be 1 minute choosing a new font. The later can be many years poring over high resolution scans using novel scanning techniques and textual analysis to interpret the most likely letter in a given position, etc.. The later situation should be rewarded in some way, the breadth of historical knowledge has been re-enlarged. The former is laughably trivial. Both are "making the original clear".
I'm not sad and didn't particularly like him, never met him, pitied him perhaps. He was, from what I've seen of him on TV, a mixed up freak with serious psychological problems. But, particularly now I've heard some of his work again I realise I've enjoyed quite a bit of his music over the last 25 years or so.
good grief, by any serious consideration of musical talent he was nothing special, made no new contribution to the arts. Hype and marketing success story, sure. But being almost the same age as MJ I can tell you neither I nor any of my friends growing up cared for his music, especially as he spent half his life being a weirdo.
I don't own any Michael Jackson music, nor have I ever been to any of his concerts, etc..
He may not have had any serious musical talent (which pop stars do?), I suspect he did within his genre, but you can't deny that he was an exceptional performer. Perhaps he was just the canvas on which many people painted a performance, however, he was central to that. Perhaps you don't like that style but you've got to appreciate the fact that he's one of the highest selling artistes ever and entertained on stage over about 40 years. That's an achievement.
I'd also think he made substantial contributions to the arts in his performance of some quite novel choreographic sequences- who'd done a zombie dance before thriller!? Who'd seen moonwalking before MJ popularised it.
[...] In the Bible after Noah left the ark the only people available to marry was ones cousins for a considerable time.
Isn't that rather like the recent white immigration to North America? Unless your offspring were breeding with the natives (Sacajawea was a hottie by all accounts) then the early settlers were probably mainly breeding with close relations - like village life really.
You too would be infringing the rights of the original writers, particularly the right to be named as author of their work. I think they waive that right under GFDL (old Wikipedia license) but you must distribute the license with the work. Others appear to say that Wikipedia license now allows work licensed as CC-BY-SA 3.0 so you'd need to state the authors of the sections and make available any modifications under the same license - this can be pretty hard to establish for Wikipedia.
The term is largely meaningless if you accept all works are derivative.
Seems its only use is as writer's equivalent of gorilla feces-pitching.
[... ]Plagiarism is, in fact, when you *don't* accept that all works are derivative, and take credit for the whole body of work, not just the ideas that you added.
It's not a copyright issue.
[...]
Is too a copyright issue. The creator of a work has a right to be recognised as the creator . Similar things apply with patents, that's why "inventor" is listed on patent application/publications.
Berne Convention, Article 6bis S(1) "(1) Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation." ( http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P119_19081 )
Is that why Top Gear reviews all the cars in terms of miles per hour and horsepowers?
It seems that car manufacturer's for some reason enjoy the idea that retaining traditional imperial units makes it more difficult for us to buy outside the UK market. Can't imagine why that might be...
The countries that have converted to SI are the countries that were late to the industrial revolution party.
The whole of Europe was late in industrialising? Compared to which planet??
Sure there are traditional units that are still in use but my groceries by [locally ratified European] law must be in SI units and SI has been used nearly exclusively in Science and Engineering contexts for my whole life (I'm 33).
But if you are looking for another computer word that has made it into common usage, how about "reboot"? It's now used to describe starting anything over from scratch, especially in things like movies. For instance, the new Star Trek movie has been called a reboot by several movie critics.
I can imagine a time far in the future where "reboot" is listed in the dictionary with the etymology saying "origin unclear, borrowed from computer terminology". 95% of people will not know that it comes from the REpeating the action of BOOTstrapping a computer. Bootstrapping or booting a computer comes from the term "to lift oneself up by the bootstraps", which is impossible and refers to the apparent chicken and egg problem of a computer loading itself up with software.
LS
I assumed it came from the use of a bootstrap to aid putting on a boot. The bootstrap aids the preparation of the computer for use.
As opposed to say the "hadron bootstrap" which fits the quote you give.
If you hold your bootstraps, jump and pull, you'll realise you can lift yourself up by applying an angular change that temporarily increases the height of your centre of gravity. The ultimate result is a face full of floor however.
Re:Pre-1950 systems with configurable defaults.
on
On the Humble Default
·
· Score: 1
I'm trying to think of something prior to 1950 that had an overridable, configurable default. [...]
Trousers.
Default length is about 33" nowadays. You can turn them up or hem them, your choice.
Did you mean something technological: How about the tune in a player piano (aka pianola) - the default music program. The needle on a sewing machine. The gearing ratio on a pedal bike. The governor weights (ie speed) of a steam engine...
Something electronic? Possibly the receiving frequency of a crystal set or the gap on a morse key?
You're welcome to consider my opinion crap but I don't think I'm confused.
A monarch ain't a monarch if they don't rule. They're just some ponce that gets to wear a big hat. If a constitution/religious group/democratised population binds a king/queen such that they can't rule then they are no longer monarch.
To say someone is monarch says they are in charge, nigh autocracy, if they're not in charge they're not a monarch.
Slashdot Mirror
They are now too expensive as well, and their work will be outsourced to cheaper waffle irons that are presumably located somewhere in Belgium...
And when the waffle irons get too expensive we'll return to Oriental [child] labour ?
... means nothing when the few parts you do have are prone to disaster.
never fear though - this is yet another imaginary product (they have nothing more than a computer rendering ffs), you need not fear that your car will deflate on you any time soon.
Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs) have been around for quite some time.
Self-sealing gloop (like mountain bike tyres) FTW.
Disney are using "PINOCCHIO" (case isn't important) to indicate that the goods or services thus marked originate with them. If someone else was using this mark before them then that person can carry on with that use. Once they have registered it and continue to register it then you can't use that mark for trade.
You can reproduce an associated image as long as it is out of copyright and you're not passing items off as originating with Disney (usually a disclaimer makes it clear).
Trademarks usually have a limited scope, eg "apparel" or "printed literature" determined by the NICE classification.
I hear tell that this is why the GPL exists. To stop exactly these kind of shenanigans. A person writes a derivative work, say a text editor, and wants to make it available to everyone, so does not copyright it. Another person makes a derivative work from the non copyrighted work, and then copyrights the result. Now, not even the original author has acess tot he work.
You misunderstand copyright. Copyright is what the GPL relies on, similarly CC, copyleft, etc.. The only reason you can dictate the terms of the GPL to someone is that you have the original copyright *automatically* by virtue of international agreements valid in almost every state on Earth (and there are agreements for space too apparently). [You noted some of that but it was worth repeating to set up for this ....]
If something is PD then it cannot be GPL. If you have a GPL'ed work then when I reproduce it has to bear the license. If you then make it PD I don't have to add the license, I don't have to credit you. I can leave you credited and alter it to make you look bad (add in mistakes) and your only recourse is libel laws (!). Some parts of copyright are good.
The ring tone is the theme from Rocky, and the director decided she had to have that little bit of music to make the scene work. For that she needed clearance from Sprint (ring tone rights) and EMI (publishing rights). Sprint saw it as product placement and let her have clearance for free. But EMI wanted $10K! She finally bargained them down to $2K.
If the music is incidental then you can cut it. If the music is to be used under fair use exceptions then it needs to be essential to the report - eg you were reporting about Rocky's theme music being a copy of an earlier work.
If the music clip is being used commercially it's not fair use - MHB apparently has made $8million+. If they didn't want to pay EMI then they can simply not use that music.
So fair use if the documentary would have been factually deficit if the clip was removed (reporting exceptions) OR if the clip was not a substantial part (which it was, otherwise it wouldn't have been recognisable and they wouldn't have bothered using it).
This is absolutely not an instance for fair use.
If you re-type everything and get the company logos from the companies and effectively reproduce it so it looks nearly enough the same, you could get sued for copying the presentation - not the contents.
What you're saying is that if I listen to a song on the radio and write out the music I can't be sued for copying the song ...
Did you copy it? Does the work you copied from have any originality in design, ie it's not just a list, you can be sued [I means successfully]. If your presentation differs then it's still a derivative work. If you get that same information by other means, ie you didn't copy it, then you're free to sell it but you may need to prove you got the information elsewise in order to stop yourself being sued.
Oh, and in the UK we have database rights that stop you copying large data sets that [may have] involved substantial work in their compilation.
Their claiming copyright on their specific printed edition of the work.
I doubt it. Unless their method of printing has some original creative work to it (I can't think what that might be, perhaps illumination like old Bibles?). The printed text is going to be a slavish reproduction. The cover, foreword, possibly the font, any non-original illustrations, these are going to be the copyright parts. As if I created a new frame for a Rembrandt - if the frame is creatively made then I can claim copyright in it, if it's just a couple of floor boards nailed together then I'm unlikely to win a claim to it being an original creative work. That doesn't stop you from copying the Rembrandt though (assuming you can get a look in a situation where you're not under further license not create copies of that particular item, eg the sign in the Museum that says "no photos").
and they also trademark the appearance of the characters in the features.
Why should Disney have the right to trademark such appearances when they are based closely on the original illustrations that entered the public domain along with the text?
A trademark indicates the origin of goods or services. You need a right to trademark a trademark either indicates origin or doesn't; you can register a mark to get extra protection and prevent others from using that mark. You can't just claim a work is a trademark in order to extend your rights.
Did you mean a trademark?
it is your moral duty to do your utmost to circumvent, outmaneuver [sic], and otherwise destroy copyright law and the tools that enforce it
i am not in any way joking. copyright law has nothing to do with artists rights and rewarding artists for their work.
This came up the other day (and before!). The only reason one can license a work, say, CC-BY-SA is due to international copyright law. Without it everything is PD.
Berne Convention, Art 6bis includes something to the effect that an artist (content creator) has the right to be named as author of their work and to protect the work from alteration. These are important moral rights. The first because if I make something I feel I should be allowed to add my name to it and not allow others to pass it off as their work - if I want to, I don't have to assert my right. The second is equally important. If a work bears my name I have the right to prevent people from altering it and still attributing it to me.
These rights are only due to copyright law. Copyright's main problem has been commercial pressure to extend the terms which aren't specified in the international treaties - sadly our democracy (in the UK at least) is not fine-grained enough that such an issue will ever, IMO, fall to the people to decide. Unless the I get voted in and manage to enact a system of referenda by public vote, and maybe even then.
So to take Disney's version of Snow White as an example, the basic story of a wicked stepmother, beautiful princess, magic mirror, etc. are all free for the taking by anyone, even if they are taking these from the Disney version, rather than an older source.
Nope. These ideas existed before. This presentation of these ideas did not. If you read this presentation and derive your work from it then you are "copying". So no you can't take these elements from Disney's work (assuming the way you copy forms a substantial part of their work). But equally well Disney can't stop you from commercial use of a work unless they can prove you copied from them (including deriving a new work based on theirs). Their original elements will be assumed to be copied unless you can demonstrate they were not. Their traditional elements will be assumed not to have been copied - but may be shown still to have been copied if you include their typo's and such; it is the copying that is protected. The clue is in the name.
This is how sites like Project Gutenberg work; they ask people to type up the text of works that are out of copyright, and they put the words online formatted differently from any printed version.
Project Gutenburg asks you to scan in your books. That's one copy; then they store a copy on their server, 2 copies. Then when digitising they have individuals grab copies of a substantial part, at least 3 copies. They also say in their FAQ - http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Scanning_FAQ#S.21._Will_PG_store_scanned_page_images_of_my_book.3F - that they now keep image copies for reproduction purposes. So I think your analysis is wrong here.; they appear to not readily offer image reproductions simply for practical reasons. They also recommend suing Archive.org for hosting higher quality image reproductions (they certainly wouldn't do that, and not get sued, if they knew that such images were copyright).
Yes, if the packaging of the textual content requires particular skill and artistry then copyright may be granted in the manner of presentation of an expired work if that manner is sufficiently original and creative. Copyright can certainly be granted in any new "work" that is created to accompany the original text (foreword, synopsis, margin notes, etc.) - this may be the copyright that your "out of copyright" book has, the picture on the cover, etc..
I suspect the library boilerplate text wording to be subtly different to that claimed - claiming a book is still copyright is going to be plainly wrong in many instances where you order an old book. The owner of that copy of the book however may be licensing your use of _that_copy_. If I own a particular copy of a work I can license your use of that particular copy and not allow you to make a further copy from that particular one - I own the physical item after all. You don't have to agree to the license - I'll just refrain from letting you look at it then. This is not a copyright issue however. If my neighbour has the same book I can't stop him from giving you a copy of his, nor from you then printing and selling a copy.
In summary they don't have a copyright on that particular edition, but possibly through ownership are licensing it, or are claiming copyright on the "chrome" around the original work.
Editing and typesetting should not make a new copyright. It adds no useful art, unless it make massive changes to the original. If it is just to make the original clear why the heck should they get any copyright on it?
The problem with the law is specifying differences in a meaningful way. There's making the original clear: different font / repagination. And there's making the original clear: scanning velum for obliterated texts under later texts and transliterating/translating into modern scripts/language.
These are vastly different undertakings. The former can be 1 minute choosing a new font. The later can be many years poring over high resolution scans using novel scanning techniques and textual analysis to interpret the most likely letter in a given position, etc.. The later situation should be rewarded in some way, the breadth of historical knowledge has been re-enlarged. The former is laughably trivial. Both are "making the original clear".
Interesting comment, thanks.
I'm not sad and didn't particularly like him, never met him, pitied him perhaps. He was, from what I've seen of him on TV, a mixed up freak with serious psychological problems. But, particularly now I've heard some of his work again I realise I've enjoyed quite a bit of his music over the last 25 years or so.
good grief, by any serious consideration of musical talent he was nothing special, made no new contribution to the arts. Hype and marketing success story, sure. But being almost the same age as MJ I can tell you neither I nor any of my friends growing up cared for his music, especially as he spent half his life being a weirdo.
I don't own any Michael Jackson music, nor have I ever been to any of his concerts, etc..
He may not have had any serious musical talent (which pop stars do?), I suspect he did within his genre, but you can't deny that he was an exceptional performer. Perhaps he was just the canvas on which many people painted a performance, however, he was central to that. Perhaps you don't like that style but you've got to appreciate the fact that he's one of the highest selling artistes ever and entertained on stage over about 40 years. That's an achievement.
I'd also think he made substantial contributions to the arts in his performance of some quite novel choreographic sequences- who'd done a zombie dance before thriller!? Who'd seen moonwalking before MJ popularised it.
[...] In the Bible after Noah left the ark the only people available to marry was ones cousins for a considerable time.
Isn't that rather like the recent white immigration to North America? Unless your offspring were breeding with the natives (Sacajawea was a hottie by all accounts) then the early settlers were probably mainly breeding with close relations - like village life really.
You too would be infringing the rights of the original writers, particularly the right to be named as author of their work. I think they waive that right under GFDL (old Wikipedia license) but you must distribute the license with the work. Others appear to say that Wikipedia license now allows work licensed as CC-BY-SA 3.0 so you'd need to state the authors of the sections and make available any modifications under the same license - this can be pretty hard to establish for Wikipedia.
I'm sure someone will correct my errrors fr mee.
The term is largely meaningless if you accept all works are derivative.
Seems its only use is as writer's equivalent of gorilla feces-pitching.
[... ]Plagiarism is, in fact, when you *don't* accept that all works are derivative, and take credit for the whole body of work, not just the ideas that you added.
It's not a copyright issue.
[...]
Is too a copyright issue. The creator of a work has a right to be recognised as the creator . Similar things apply with patents, that's why "inventor" is listed on patent application/publications.
Berne Convention, Article 6bis S(1)
"(1) Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation." ( http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P119_19081 )
One part of copyright law that is actually right.
Suppose I need to look up a mathematical identity which is not obvious.
"The verification of this identity is left as an exercise for the reader."
since slashdot isn't a hive mind
Try posting something positive about Microsoft here...
"Microsoft really are the best at spreading FUD."
Will that do?
Is that why Top Gear reviews all the cars in terms of miles per hour and horsepowers?
It seems that car manufacturer's for some reason enjoy the idea that retaining traditional imperial units makes it more difficult for us to buy outside the UK market. Can't imagine why that might be ...
The countries that have converted to SI are the countries that were late to the industrial revolution party.
The whole of Europe was late in industrialising? Compared to which planet??
Sure there are traditional units that are still in use but my groceries by [locally ratified European] law must be in SI units and SI has been used nearly exclusively in Science and Engineering contexts for my whole life (I'm 33).
But if you are looking for another computer word that has made it into common usage, how about "reboot"? It's now used to describe starting anything over from scratch, especially in things like movies. For instance, the new Star Trek movie has been called a reboot by several movie critics.
I can imagine a time far in the future where "reboot" is listed in the dictionary with the etymology saying "origin unclear, borrowed from computer terminology". 95% of people will not know that it comes from the REpeating the action of BOOTstrapping a computer. Bootstrapping or booting a computer comes from the term "to lift oneself up by the bootstraps", which is impossible and refers to the apparent chicken and egg problem of a computer loading itself up with software.
LS
I assumed it came from the use of a bootstrap to aid putting on a boot. The bootstrap aids the preparation of the computer for use.
As opposed to say the "hadron bootstrap" which fits the quote you give.
If you hold your bootstraps, jump and pull, you'll realise you can lift yourself up by applying an angular change that temporarily increases the height of your centre of gravity. The ultimate result is a face full of floor however.
I'm trying to think of something prior to 1950 that had an overridable, configurable default. [...]
Trousers.
Default length is about 33" nowadays. You can turn them up or hem them, your choice.
Did you mean something technological: How about the tune in a player piano (aka pianola) - the default music program. The needle on a sewing machine. The gearing ratio on a pedal bike. The governor weights (ie speed) of a steam engine ...
Something electronic? Possibly the receiving frequency of a crystal set or the gap on a morse key?
You're welcome to consider my opinion crap but I don't think I'm confused.
A monarch ain't a monarch if they don't rule. They're just some ponce that gets to wear a big hat. If a constitution/religious group/democratised population binds a king/queen such that they can't rule then they are no longer monarch.
To say someone is monarch says they are in charge, nigh autocracy, if they're not in charge they're not a monarch.