Stop doing this and make my car drive itself first.
I thought that between them the DARPA challenge entrants pretty much had that one sorted? Admittedly the regulatory process to get them on the roads will be long and arduous, for good reason (for once), but the tech's looking good.
That I understand. What continues to escape me is how the movie and music industries manage to call the shots like this when there are far bigger players (Google) who stand to lose from congressional pandering to them.
I...get repetitive stress injuries easily (had to drive one-handed for 6 months once from lifting a beer keg into my car)
Genuine question: how does lifting a keg equate to repetitive stress? I can understand pulling a muscle or something, but lifting something in and out of the car once or twice seems far from all but the most excessive definition of 'repetitive'.
If humans were perfectly logical automatons, I'd agree with you, but that's just not how people work. In the real world, though, the impact of a law is far more complex than that - it's a psychological trigger, a reminder of how one is supposed to be behaving, not just a rule to be analysed.
If you want perfect adherence to the law, then yes, but with that attitude you may as well mandate GPS trackers and speed limiters on cars to combat speeding while you're at it. The world works in shades of grey, and laws don't need to be obeyed perfectly to have a purpose; I think speed limits are actually a decent example - again, I don't think they're perfectly implemented, and they're certainly regularly breached, but they provide some kind of framework and fines that give moderate disincentive to doing anything too far in excess of the law. Copyright could be the same: not a free-for-all, nor the dystopian government monopoly on information that you suggest, but a legal nudge to remind people that paying for the benefits of others' creativity will help to prevent 'tragedy of the commons' situations in which everyone takes a work but nobody bothers to pitch in towards it - the overexploited resource there isn't the creative work itself, since as you said its supply is infinite, but the creator's time is not, and that's what risks depletion (in my opinion) without some gentle legal guidance in the right direction. A law that serves first to remind people of what the right thing is to do ('right' defined here as giving the greatest current and future benefit to all involved), and disincentivises the opposite behaviour with, say, a moderate fine (and I'm thinking of speeding ticket levels of fine here, not "moderate" as the **AA would define it), seems reasonable to me.
You wouldn't consider 20 year copyrights to be sane? I accept you might disagree, and have your reasons for backing one or other, but saying that all or nothing are the only sane options seems odd.
Does anyone really take things like this seriously? This and the "Pirate Party" only hurt copyright reform movements.
This? I doubt it, although it's always satisfying (if potentially counterproductive) to see people stretching the definition of 'religion' in order to exploit its preferential treatment.
As for the Pirate Party, I'm genuinely glad they exist. On balance I'd probably choose zero copyright over the mess we have now, although it's a close run thing, but realistically I think 15-20 year terms and an end to the legal abuse of copyright for censorship purposes are all we actually need to fix the system. In either case, the Pirate Party's voice at one extreme should help to balance the mainstream politicians' voices at the other end of the spectrum, hopefully dragging the actual outcome towards the sane equilibrium that lies somewhere between "no copyright" and "infinite copyright", the latter of which being the de facto effect of the legislation chosen by every other political party.
Not just speed of transfer, but synchronisation. If either train is early/late by more than a few minutes it'll either leave all the passengers stranded or require one of the trains to wait, which destroys the advantage of the system and potentially causes knock-on delays further down the line.
It's a combination of the fact that current tech is good enough for the moment, and both BT and Virgin's offerings are capped, throttled, very expensive, or some combination of the above. Not to say I don't expect to pay more for new infrastructure, just to say that I won't do so if it doesn't represent good value overall. A couple of years down the line I'm sure I'll be very glad that the fibre is in place, and I sincerely hope they don't take the low early demand as an excuse to stop investing, but for now it just doesn't seem worth it.
I'm in central London, so I have a fairly wide range of ISPs to choose from - I currently get about 17Mbps over copper with Sky, genuinely unlimited usage, and it costs around £22/month including line rental (if you're comparing, most of the figures quoted online exclude line rental, and it's generally about £10-12/month) and evening weekend calls (not that I ever really use the landline, but it's a free addition). As it stands, there really aren't many occasions that the current line feels sluggish, although I'd probably want a little more headroom if I were regularly streaming HD video. If I went over to fibre (or copper, they're the same price) with BT I'd be paying either £28/month for 40Mbps with a data cap of 40GB/month, or £38/month for 40Mbps unlimited - a 40GB cap renders the high speed service all but useless to me (Steam alone probably eats through that much between three of us in the house), so I'm looking at an extra 75% on my bill every month if I want a usable fibre line from BT. Virgin's 50Mbps and below packages have both packet shaping and caps of varying onerousness, so they're already off the table, and the 100Mbps service costs £48.90/month.
Like I said, I don't expect to get top end service for nothing, but there's no way I'm using crippled fibre, nor am I paying somewhere in the region of twice as much for a proper fibre line that I'll see, at best, a minimal boost from.
Yup, the asshats just got a bit more leverage. It's a shame Google didn't try to buy them - not that I believe the whole "Don't be evil" bit is applicable to a company that large, but when it comes to resisting net censorship and moving with the times, their interests align with what benefits the rest of us.
Although you're absolutely right, there are still serious problems with a system that allows certain types of information to be banned (and I'm not talking about the copyrighted files, it's the links to the files that they've gone after here). Pragmatic as it is, "It's not a major issue because they can't enforce it" is just asking for trouble a few years down the line.
Nope. What I'd like to see some more signatures on this one, actually - not that I expect any tangible results, but it'd be at least mildly entertaining to see how they respond to it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as (quote) "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun" (unquote). We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York. "
So? Surely that's better than a box that costs a few hundred dollars, uses much more power, and still requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse? Not to mention that plenty of uses either don't actually require any peripherals or can use ones that are already owned.
I'm planning to grab a Raspberry Pi next month to replace the Xbox in the living room for media streaming, for example - no whirring fans, better flexibility in terms of codecs and interface, and the total cost will be $35 for the Model B.
I'd say the majority aren't stupid, although most seem to be scientifically illiterate, which is a serious issue in itself. That said, there are definitely a few charismatic idiots in the group too, not to mention a couple who have managed to take "YOU MUST OBEY ME BECAUSE I'M LOUD!" to its logical conclusion.
My point is, it's a mixed bag; they aren't all evil geniuses with no care for humanity, they aren't all drooling morons, and to classify them all under either heading just makes them harder to deal with.
It sounds good, but the ruling has loopholes you could drive a bus through. Specifically, while the match itself cannot be subject to exclusivity agreements, any copyrighted material (theme tunes and title sequences before the ad breaks, the little logo in the bottom right of the screen, the commentary, etc.) can still be controlled as the copyright holder wishes.
There are plenty of items that are only available in certain countries and are only sold by companies that don't ship internationally. With popular items you can normally find them on eBay with international shipping, but if it's a niche product then your best bet is a re-shipper. It doesn't surprise me for a second that they're being used for fraud, but there is a logical and legitimate purpose to their existence.
Would you really want to? A typo is just going to lead to the kid reacting somewhere along the spectrum from "Meh" to "Dude, WTF?!", and then closing the page. Genuine curiosity seems like the last thing you'd want to place technical measures in the way of. Either way, the blocking software just creates a counter-productive air of mistrust between the parent and child.
The HTC Chacha is a decent option if you ignore the bloody stupid name and the Facebook branding. The Samsung Galaxy M Pro B7800 also looks promising, if you're happy enough waiting a few months.
Slashdot Mirror
The UK particularly, since apparently we're bound by US copyright laws now...
Stop doing this and make my car drive itself first.
I thought that between them the DARPA challenge entrants pretty much had that one sorted? Admittedly the regulatory process to get them on the roads will be long and arduous, for good reason (for once), but the tech's looking good.
That I understand. What continues to escape me is how the movie and music industries manage to call the shots like this when there are far bigger players (Google) who stand to lose from congressional pandering to them.
Treaties that essentially say "Actions taken on the internet are subject to the jurisdiction of whoever damn well feels like it"?
I...get repetitive stress injuries easily (had to drive one-handed for 6 months once from lifting a beer keg into my car)
Genuine question: how does lifting a keg equate to repetitive stress? I can understand pulling a muscle or something, but lifting something in and out of the car once or twice seems far from all but the most excessive definition of 'repetitive'.
If humans were perfectly logical automatons, I'd agree with you, but that's just not how people work. In the real world, though, the impact of a law is far more complex than that - it's a psychological trigger, a reminder of how one is supposed to be behaving, not just a rule to be analysed.
If you want perfect adherence to the law, then yes, but with that attitude you may as well mandate GPS trackers and speed limiters on cars to combat speeding while you're at it. The world works in shades of grey, and laws don't need to be obeyed perfectly to have a purpose; I think speed limits are actually a decent example - again, I don't think they're perfectly implemented, and they're certainly regularly breached, but they provide some kind of framework and fines that give moderate disincentive to doing anything too far in excess of the law. Copyright could be the same: not a free-for-all, nor the dystopian government monopoly on information that you suggest, but a legal nudge to remind people that paying for the benefits of others' creativity will help to prevent 'tragedy of the commons' situations in which everyone takes a work but nobody bothers to pitch in towards it - the overexploited resource there isn't the creative work itself, since as you said its supply is infinite, but the creator's time is not, and that's what risks depletion (in my opinion) without some gentle legal guidance in the right direction. A law that serves first to remind people of what the right thing is to do ('right' defined here as giving the greatest current and future benefit to all involved), and disincentivises the opposite behaviour with, say, a moderate fine (and I'm thinking of speeding ticket levels of fine here, not "moderate" as the **AA would define it), seems reasonable to me.
You wouldn't consider 20 year copyrights to be sane? I accept you might disagree, and have your reasons for backing one or other, but saying that all or nothing are the only sane options seems odd.
Does anyone really take things like this seriously? This and the "Pirate Party" only hurt copyright reform movements.
This? I doubt it, although it's always satisfying (if potentially counterproductive) to see people stretching the definition of 'religion' in order to exploit its preferential treatment.
As for the Pirate Party, I'm genuinely glad they exist. On balance I'd probably choose zero copyright over the mess we have now, although it's a close run thing, but realistically I think 15-20 year terms and an end to the legal abuse of copyright for censorship purposes are all we actually need to fix the system. In either case, the Pirate Party's voice at one extreme should help to balance the mainstream politicians' voices at the other end of the spectrum, hopefully dragging the actual outcome towards the sane equilibrium that lies somewhere between "no copyright" and "infinite copyright", the latter of which being the de facto effect of the legislation chosen by every other political party.
Dev accounts can load apps directly onto factory standard iOS devices - it'd be a bitch to chase down bugs otherwise!
Indeed.
Not just speed of transfer, but synchronisation. If either train is early/late by more than a few minutes it'll either leave all the passengers stranded or require one of the trains to wait, which destroys the advantage of the system and potentially causes knock-on delays further down the line.
Many people, myself included, still find a reflective screen much more pleasant for reading large amounts of text.
It's a combination of the fact that current tech is good enough for the moment, and both BT and Virgin's offerings are capped, throttled, very expensive, or some combination of the above. Not to say I don't expect to pay more for new infrastructure, just to say that I won't do so if it doesn't represent good value overall. A couple of years down the line I'm sure I'll be very glad that the fibre is in place, and I sincerely hope they don't take the low early demand as an excuse to stop investing, but for now it just doesn't seem worth it.
I'm in central London, so I have a fairly wide range of ISPs to choose from - I currently get about 17Mbps over copper with Sky, genuinely unlimited usage, and it costs around £22/month including line rental (if you're comparing, most of the figures quoted online exclude line rental, and it's generally about £10-12/month) and evening weekend calls (not that I ever really use the landline, but it's a free addition). As it stands, there really aren't many occasions that the current line feels sluggish, although I'd probably want a little more headroom if I were regularly streaming HD video. If I went over to fibre (or copper, they're the same price) with BT I'd be paying either £28/month for 40Mbps with a data cap of 40GB/month, or £38/month for 40Mbps unlimited - a 40GB cap renders the high speed service all but useless to me (Steam alone probably eats through that much between three of us in the house), so I'm looking at an extra 75% on my bill every month if I want a usable fibre line from BT. Virgin's 50Mbps and below packages have both packet shaping and caps of varying onerousness, so they're already off the table, and the 100Mbps service costs £48.90/month.
Like I said, I don't expect to get top end service for nothing, but there's no way I'm using crippled fibre, nor am I paying somewhere in the region of twice as much for a proper fibre line that I'll see, at best, a minimal boost from.
Yup, the asshats just got a bit more leverage. It's a shame Google didn't try to buy them - not that I believe the whole "Don't be evil" bit is applicable to a company that large, but when it comes to resisting net censorship and moving with the times, their interests align with what benefits the rest of us.
Although you're absolutely right, there are still serious problems with a system that allows certain types of information to be banned (and I'm not talking about the copyrighted files, it's the links to the files that they've gone after here). Pragmatic as it is, "It's not a major issue because they can't enforce it" is just asking for trouble a few years down the line.
Nope. What I'd like to see some more signatures on this one, actually - not that I expect any tangible results, but it'd be at least mildly entertaining to see how they respond to it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as (quote) "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun" (unquote). We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York. "
So? Surely that's better than a box that costs a few hundred dollars, uses much more power, and still requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse? Not to mention that plenty of uses either don't actually require any peripherals or can use ones that are already owned.
I'm planning to grab a Raspberry Pi next month to replace the Xbox in the living room for media streaming, for example - no whirring fans, better flexibility in terms of codecs and interface, and the total cost will be $35 for the Model B.
I'd say the majority aren't stupid, although most seem to be scientifically illiterate, which is a serious issue in itself. That said, there are definitely a few charismatic idiots in the group too, not to mention a couple who have managed to take "YOU MUST OBEY ME BECAUSE I'M LOUD!" to its logical conclusion.
My point is, it's a mixed bag; they aren't all evil geniuses with no care for humanity, they aren't all drooling morons, and to classify them all under either heading just makes them harder to deal with.
It sounds good, but the ruling has loopholes you could drive a bus through. Specifically, while the match itself cannot be subject to exclusivity agreements, any copyrighted material (theme tunes and title sequences before the ad breaks, the little logo in the bottom right of the screen, the commentary, etc.) can still be controlled as the copyright holder wishes.
There are plenty of items that are only available in certain countries and are only sold by companies that don't ship internationally. With popular items you can normally find them on eBay with international shipping, but if it's a niche product then your best bet is a re-shipper. It doesn't surprise me for a second that they're being used for fraud, but there is a logical and legitimate purpose to their existence.
Would you really want to? A typo is just going to lead to the kid reacting somewhere along the spectrum from "Meh" to "Dude, WTF?!", and then closing the page. Genuine curiosity seems like the last thing you'd want to place technical measures in the way of. Either way, the blocking software just creates a counter-productive air of mistrust between the parent and child.
The HTC Chacha is a decent option if you ignore the bloody stupid name and the Facebook branding. The Samsung Galaxy M Pro B7800 also looks promising, if you're happy enough waiting a few months.
Last I checked, the Northern line won't be stopping at TCR until the refurb is done, so that might be a little difficult...