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  1. Re:Several Suggestions on Computer Art For a CS Dept Office? · · Score: 1

    In my living room, I have an 11x14 print of the Buddhabrot set, which was generated by a C program I got off of Wikipedia and customized to my own preference. It's gorgeous.

  2. Re:Automatic Trademark? on Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark? · · Score: 1

    You should have then turned around and brought charges against the guy for extortion. The only way this would have a chance of being successful is if you could prove that he had no intention of doing business under that trademark as such, but purchased it solely for the purpose of extorting money from you. But wouldn't that be covered under the fact that a link pharmer has many many other websites that have no purpose other than to generate ad revenue? Sure, it's not concrete (since the owner of the linkpharms could, hypothetically, suddenly start marketing a business under that domain name), but I think it would show a judge that there's no good faith intention to begin operating a business under that trademark. I mean, IANAL, but it's a common sense thing to me (not that the law has anything to do with common sense). In my eyes, it would backfire on the link pharmer, because his track record would damn him in this case.
  3. Re:NOT Washington State LUG. on Washington State LUG to Hold "Nerd Auction" · · Score: 1

    Well, maybe you shouldn't jump to conclusions by just reading a headline, then. :)

  4. Re:And they're going to lose.. on ACLU Protests Police Scanning License Plates · · Score: 1

    1) In many states it's illegal for them to pull someone over unless they personally observe reckless/illegal behavior. This includes swerving, speeding, drinking from what looks like an alcohol container, etc. What's to stop them, though, from saying that they witnessed a driver go over the double-yellow, or driving erratically, or braking too fast or driving too closely to the car in front of them? If a cop wants to pull you over, he can find whatever reason he likes and make it stick.
  5. Re:Barack Obama and Ron Paul? on White House E-mail Scandal Widens · · Score: 1

    Um... Vermonter? :)

    I find it amazing how many people think that Vermonters are all liberal tree-hugging hippies. That's true to a certain degree if you go into Burlington (University of Vermont territory), but I can remember being in college in 2000 (in New Hampshire, but still living at home in southern VT) when the civil union legislation passed and all of a sudden there were people all over the place putting up the phrase "Take Back Vermont" on bumper stickers and the sides of barns. It was this huge redneck rebellion; blew my mind.

    There are a LOT of old-school bigots in Vermont. It's really unfortunate.

  6. Re:I say... on Boston University Student Challenges RIAA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And if the distributor was not aware of the download and did not offer permission to download, he's still liable? How about a library with a photocopier? Are they liable if someone copies a book or magazine? Or the parent win an unlocked liqueur cabinet, or a homeowner that leaves an ax in an unlocked shed and an insane person starts running around with it chopping peoples heads off?


    The library isn't at fault because its very design is to provide fair use to the public for copyright documents.

    But as for the homeowner that leaves the liquor cabinet unlocked, you're damned right that they're liable. They're liable for what their children do: If their child gets drunk and then goes out driving and kills somebody, then the parent is responsible to some degree for not parenting enough.

    And in the case of the ax, well, that's silly, because the primary purpose of an ax is not chopping people's heads off, whereas the primary purpose of having music files in a publicly accessible area is specifically to allow for downloading.

    It's the opposite of the argument that Diebold was trying to make when somebody downloaded the source code for their voting machines from a public Diebold FTP server. They were claiming that the person had no right to download it, but the assumption must be made that when files are put in the open, they are given permission by the person hosting them to download them. In the Diebold case, they owned the copyright to the files and thus the person downloading them had a legal right to assume that they had permission from the copyright holder to download them. In the case of music files on a public server, the person downloading does not have the legal right to assume this, because they know that the files' copyrights aren't owned by the person who put them there. The person who uploaded them has the responsibility to reasonably make an effort to prevent them from unauthorized access. Again, nothing has been done wrong until the download happens, but once it does, the person who made them available is at fault just as much as the person who downloads it. This is specifically because the person who uploads them, just like Diebold, has to assume that if it's available, it's going to be downloaded.
  7. Re:I say... on Boston University Student Challenges RIAA · · Score: 1

    Like I said before, until the file is downloaded, no copyrights are violated at all. Once the file is downloaded by a third party, then both the "distributer" and the downloader are in violation of copyright.

  8. Re:I say... on Boston University Student Challenges RIAA · · Score: 1

    By your argument, it would be illegal to have beer or a liquor cabinet in the house if you have children, because it would be "available" to them to take. Or it would be illegal to have beer in your fridge and leave your front door unlocked because somebody could easily come into your house and take it.

    Until somebody downloads that file, there has been no violation of copyright, period.

  9. Re:This isn't federal on Is Videotaping the Police a Felony? · · Score: 1

    I was informed by a friend that inadmissibility due to illegally obtained evidence only counts when it was a law enforcement agency that illegally collected the evidence. Apparently, if you illegally tape something, it's still admissible because you aren't acting as an agent of the law.

  10. Re:Reliability on Is Your Printer Ripping You Off? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Add my praise for laser printers. I was faced with the idea of paying $109 for a decent HP deskjet, then having to pay for another two ink cartridges when they ran out about 200 (!) pages later. $70 for black and color cartridges.

    Or, I had the option of buying a $130 HP LaserJet 1280. All it took was one look at the statistics on the toner cartridge for that printer to buy it. Cost of a toner cartridge: $65, with number of pages rated at around 2000. Since the vast majority of things that I print at home (emails, driving directions and sheet music are probably the top three) are in black and white, I can just wait and print in color at work or something, or take it to Kinko's.

    Can't stress how awesome having a laser printer at home is.

  11. Re:And so? on Anti-Spam Suits and Booby-Trapped Motions · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Argh, I click the wrong thing and moderate Redundant. Sorry--replying to the post so that the moderation gets taken away.

    I think they need to fix that in the new commenting system...

  12. Re:The police ought to follow the law. on Police Objecting to Tickets From Red-Light Cameras · · Score: 4, Insightful

    so why shouldn't they be allowed to run them?

    Because when an ambulance or firetruck does it, their sirens are on and they're responding to a call. Any other time, they follow the rules of the road, same as everybody else.

    And when that police cruiser's lights are on, you bet your ass I'm going to get out of its way and let it run whatever lights it damn well pleases. But if the lights aren't on, that cop had better be sitting his ass behind me in line waiting for the light to turn green, just like everybody else on the road does.

  13. Re:Students Not Second-Class Citizens on MySpace is Free Speech, Case Overturned · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I think the GP is overstating things a bit. The fact of the matter is that most children who would bother to go register to vote would take it seriously. There are a lot of issues that involve children without allowing them a say, such as cutting arts funding in schools or other educational requirements. If you made high school staff accountable to their students in addition to their teachers, you might see schools improving quite a bit.

    Yes, there are always children who don't take things seriously. But they usually turn into adults that don't take things seriously, either. Most children, when given the opportunity to step up and do something important, take that opportunity and make the best out of it.

  14. Re:How bizarre... on Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The fact you don't plan to buy something doesn't mean you're entitled to have it for free. Some people just want to justify music piracy and not paying artists for their work. They want something for free, because they're freeloaders. I wasn't making any judgment calls about the legality here. The fact remains that regardless of what the RIAA wants to say, one download does NOT correspond to one lost sale. That's the plain and simple truth, regardless of whether it's right or not.
  15. Re:How bizarre... on Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The difference is that the RIAA and other similar industry reps will tell you that it affects sales for the simple reason that they view every download as a lost sale. What they refuse to admit is that in the vast majority of the cases where a song or album is downloaded, it never would have been a sale in the first place because the person wouldn't have ordinarily bought that album or song. By the RIAA's rationale, people would otherwise be spending hundreds of dollars more per year on music, which we all know is just not true. If there was no means for them to have free music, they would just not listen to as much music. What I never understood was why the RIAA thinks that people listening to less music is a good thing, regardless of the reason.

  16. Re:This guys is lucky. on Dance Copyright Enforced by DMCA · · Score: 2, Informative

    It looks something like this. If each beat is delineated by vertical lines (for our purposes, a pipe: | ), each half-beat is a "dum" and each quarter beat is a "da", rests are dictated by underscores and in between each bar is a double |, then it would look like this:

    Under Pressure:
    |dum dum|dum da-da|dum dum|____||dum dum|dum da-da|dum dum|____||

    Ice Ice Baby:
    |dum dum|dum da-da|dum dum|__dum||dum dum dum da-da|dum dum|__dum||

    That's the best way I can really break it down for non-musical types. :)

  17. Re:This guys is lucky. on Dance Copyright Enforced by DMCA · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nope. In Queen's song, the bass line is completely contained within the first three beats of the measure ("dum dum dum da-da dum dum" etc... It's hard to write that out without notation) whereas with Ice Ice Baby, there's an extra bass note as a pickup to the measure on the second half of the fourth beat.

    I need to go to bed now as I've expended my geek quota for the day.

  18. Re:Not the primary goal, yes :) on Can You Be Sued for Quitting? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not illegal, just ill advised, in the States at least. My father, who is an HR director, has told me that while he doesn't generally say even factual negative things about former employees, there is one question that he has absolutely no problem answering: "Would you hire this person again if given the opportunity?"

  19. Re:I have heard of attempts to sue... on Can You Be Sued for Quitting? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Neither defamation nor libel can be used as a complaint if what he says is true. Further, they have to be able to prove that he had an intent to defame them by posting what he did, which is difficult. The burden of proof is on the plaintiff in these situations.

    In most states, the labor laws clearly state that employment is at-will. He can leave whenever he wants and they can fire him any time they want and, barring employment or non-competition contracts, they have no means of precluding him from working at a competitor, provided that he's not bringing any trade secrets with him.

  20. Re:I don't think this is that bad on George Orwell Was Right — Security Cameras Get an Upgrade · · Score: 1

    Harrassment implies the ability to DO something. Sexual harrassment, for example, is partially defined as it is because it implies the ability to exert pressure due to a working environment (i.e. a male superior vs. a female subordinate).

    A hand gesture to a policeman does nothing except get the policeman upset. A hand gesture to a camera is even less likely to be called a crime, given that (at least here in the states), you have a right to confront your accuser and there is no accuser when a camera gives you a ticket. More than one speeding/red light tickets via camera have been fought to victory over that argument.

  21. Re:Define "drink" on Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life · · Score: 1

    Note also that for those under 21 in the United States, the limit is 0.01% BAC.

    This differs from state to state, just like all liquor laws. In Vermont, where I grew up, the legal limit for a minor is 0.02% BAC. According to what the cop told us in Driver's Ed, that's about the equivalent of one drink.

    I find this ironic, but oh well.

    The one time I've used a breathalyzer (at a private party where the hosts were adamant about not allowing people to drive while impaired), I had been drinking all day but stopped for a few hours, and even with that under consideration, I blew triple zeroes. Sounds fairly accurate to me.

  22. Re:No, actually, it's not. on Unrefined "Musician" Gains a Global Audience · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The mellotron is present in lots and LOTS of progressive rock music. Groups like Spock's Beard and Porcupine Tree use the mellotron all over the place. Hell, in Porcupine Tree's latest album, Deadwing, there's even a track called "Mellotron Scratch."

  23. Re:hahaha on Bill Would Extend Online Obscenity Laws to Blogs, Mailing Lists · · Score: 1

    My kingdom for mod points.

    I guess you'll have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing that I marked you as a friend because of this post.

  24. Re:Give thanks to Starr on Clinton Prosecutor Now Targeting Free Speech · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This kid was on a school trip, supervised by school faculty. IANAL but I'm pretty sure "In Loco Parentis" applies. So the kid unveils the banner and gets suspended for breaking school policy for "promoting illegal drug abuse". Once could also argue he crossed the line on the separation of church and state by promoting his religious views during school time.

    Separation of church and state has no bearing on this issue. Students are not barred from promoting religion on school grounds and never have been. The ban is to prevent state entities from promoting religion. Students are free to practice as they choose.

    The argument that the kid was on a field trip is, in my opinion, bupkus. Regardless, I think that the phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" could be easily construed as political speech or parody/satire, both of which are protected even on school grounds. But that's not ultimately for me to decide.

    But yeah, you can't make the argument about separation of church and state.

  25. Re:Good. on "Revenge of the Nerds" Remake Cancelled · · Score: 1

    Based on a graphic novel.

    Since when does this make it an unoriginal film? We have movies that are made all the time that have been adapted from plays or novels--what makes a graphic novel adaptation any less original?

    A remake of a film based on a book.

    Just goes to show that you didn't see this film. For the record, it was an adaptation of the novel, whereas the "original film" had very little to do with the book. It was by NO means a remake.