Anyways, this cuts down on piracy on one hand. On the other hand, I'm seriously bothered by the fact that they are using MY highly priced college tuition to support a convicted felon.
The term "convicted felon" can only apply to a person, not a corporation. MS was not convicted of a crime, it was found in violation of various anti-trust laws.
I think the point of the other poster was that it is the responsibility of the college to sign a contract that comports with state disclosure laws, not the responsibility of MS. It is trivially easy (and required by law) for the college to say, "hey, we like your deal, but are required by state law to disclose our contracts." It is not the responsibility of MS to be aware of the laws of each of the 50 states, it is the responsibility of the state colleges to obey the law and make MS aware of the law.
However, the entire purpose of these Public-Disclosure laws is that citizens (who pay for these Universities with tax money) should have the right to know what is being done with their money.
How often do you actually check your local university to see how much they spent on:
Duh, I don't get it.
I followed your link thinking it'd be something funny, but no go. I was fooled by your "not interesting at all" assuming you were kidding.
I don't understand what's so funny about the Knights Who Say Nee. There's no point in modding a personal nee when a professional model is readibly available for anyone who needs to say nee.
Sorry if you expected humor in my post. There are quite a few, "hehe, what if Enron had this" posts which are completely unfunny. Just thought I'd point out that there are genuine heavy-duty shredders available out there.
The original article was obviously a joke and really didn't belong on/. The Enron jokes were even stupider.
Not interesting at all. Anyone who really needs to shred documents will purchase a high-volume shredder, such as those found on Papershredders.com, instead of modding a personal shredder.
so i cant copy dvds i have authored myself? especially since this is being bundled with burners
If you authored a DVD yourself, you presumably would have the master somewhere (on harddrive, on videotape, etc.). You wouldn't need this software to copy those DVDs, as you can make an unlimited number of DVDs from your master.
As we've all read a thousand times, this is no different than the movie studio's rabid reaction to the introduction of VCR's - a product that can duplicate video media and *might* be used for piracy.
VCRs can be used for time-shifting: recording a show that is on at 8:00 so you can watch it the next morning. DVD copying software doesn't have such a "substantial non-infringing use," it's primary purpose is to allow consumers to rent movies for $3, and keep a copy of the movie. There really is no "substantial non-infringing use." (And don't point to those who make their own movies. If you make your own movie, it is not CSS encrypted and you can make unlimited copies off of the files on your hard drive.)
The Audio Home Recording Act allows you to make an unlimited number of copies of audio recordings, with a few restricions, including, but not limited to: 1) no restrictions for noncommercial analog copies; 2) you can only make a noncommercial digital copy if the recorder meets the Serial Copy Management standards (SCMS) (which doesn't allow a digital copy of a copy.
There is no analogous provision for books or any other form of media. (I'm not sure about software, though. I was under the impression that the license agreement covers backup provisions in that case.) That said, you are probably more likely to win the Powerball than to be prosecuted for making one copy of a book.
First of all, Internet Explorer was originally a separate product. Microsoft then tied it to Windows when they saw that Netscape was remaining dominant in the browser market.
Or maybe MS thought that browsers were so useful that users would want a browser with their OS? Obviously the makers of OS X think that users want a browsr, because they include one with their OS, as does Red Hat and a large number of other Linux distributers. Linux distributors decide that users want a browser with their OS and that's a good thing. But when MS decides users want a browser with their OS, that's a bad thing.
According to the article, there are 5 patents involved, but two of them are more important: 5,132,992 and 6,144,702.
The '992 patent was filed January 7, 1991 and issued July 21, 1992, and will thus be enforceable until January 6, 2011 (20 years after filing, which is longer than 17 years after issue in this case.)
The first independent claim reads as follows:
1. A transmission system for providing information to be transmitted to remote locations, the transmission system comprising:
library means for storing items containing information; identification encoding means for retrieving the information in the items from the library means and for assigning a unique identification code to the retrieved information;
conversion means, coupled to the identification encoding means, for placing the retrieved information into a predetermined format as formatted data;
ordering means, coupled to the conversion means, for placing the formatted data into a sequence of addressable data blocks;
compression means, coupled to the ordering means, for compressing the formatted and sequenced data blocks;
compressed data storing means, coupled to the data compression means, for storing as files the compressed, sequenced data blocks received from the data compression means with the unique identification code assigned by the identification encoding means; and
transmitter means, coupled to the compressed data storing means, for sending at least a portion of one of the files to one of the remote locations.
What are the elements of the invention: 1) storage; 2) unique id code for each item of information in the storage; 3) a way to convert the data into another format; 4) a way to place the formatted data into addressable data blocks; 5) a way to compress the formatted data; 6) a second storage area for the compressed data; 7) a way to transmit the data to remote locations.
Do you really think anyone read this patent and said, "Hey! Let's transmit porn over the Internet. I just found out how to do it!"
SACD and DVD-Audio were never intended to replace regular CDs. To the vast majority of music listeners, regular CDs are "good enough." For those who crave higher quality audio (i.e., audiophiles, those who call a $5000 amplifier a bargain) SACD and DVD-Audio were developed. I'm not sure about DVD-A, but there is not a single SACD release that is unavailable in regular CD format.
(For the same reason, IMO, high definition DVD will fail, as today's DVD format is "good enough" for the majority of people.)
But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight.
Is this just a question of semantics? Isn't an airplane just a glider with power? The article points out that the Wright plane had better controlled descents, so is the difference in the controllability?
Leaving aside the people who feel the need to have the latest and fastest It's just incremental improvements, when you have a 2x burner and the new ones are 4x, who cares? But when it's a 24x that's significant.
2x = CD-R in 40 minutes; 4x = CD-R in 20 minutes. I'd say that is a significant improvement.
I went from 4x to 24x to 48x. 4x to 24x was a significant improvement. 24x to 48x was more minor.
On Amazon: for non-fiction books, you can usually read the reviews and, if there is a consensus, decide to get the book or not. For instance, I was in the market for a baby book, and it seemed that all the reviewers said the book wasn't as good as another book. Since everyone pointed to the same book, it seemed like a good choice.
Totally different question with creative works i.e., fiction books, music, movies, etc. In those categories, personal taste is very relevant and you basically have to read the reviews to determine if the reviewer knows what he/she is talking about.
I have a pet peeve about music for instance. What I hate is when people who hate a particular genre of music, go on and post a negative review of an album. Examples are readily available on metal, rap, or trance music. Opinionated people will post and say, in essence, "trance/rap/metal sucks, is boring, repetetive, etc." These can be ignored.
Much better reviews are ones where the poster says something like, "I have all their albums, this is not as cohesive as their 1999 release, but is commendable for . .." These people may be lying, of course, but they are better sources for info.
Conclusion, read the reviews and determine the credibility of the reviewers on your own. If there are too many reviews, look at the negative reviews, then the positive reviews, then the 'helpful' reviews.
Assuming that no written contract is in play and also that I have a legally obtained copy, I can copy it with impunity. I just can't redistribute the copies, nor can I retain them if I sell my original copy. Copyright governs distribution only. Further, copies made as a part of normal use are explicitly permitted.
I guess the part of the copyright code that says the owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to make copies doesn't apply to you.;-) It is possibly (maybe even probably) a fair use, but the statute specifically prohibits your copying.
As Lessig points out in his article, first sale is not at issue with e-books. With a normal book, after the first sale, you can do re-distribute the book, but you can't copy it. As Lessig points out, with e-books, a distribution necessarily results in a copy being made, which is not allowed under current copyright law.
I sell things on Ebay as well (usually old games that I'm done with) - and I don't do COD. Paypal - sure. Checks and money orders, but I wait until they clear before they ship.
That is what I thought when I first read the article. But it was a forged cashier's check. Cashier's checks are usually as good as cash. I won't do COD either, but you can't really blame him for accepting a cashier's check. When I Ebay, if I get a cashier's check, I ship without waiting for the cashier's check to clear because, if legit, it is guaranteed to clear. (Of course, I normally don't sell things worth $2900.)
Insurance fraud means that the insurance company is actually PAYING OUT money where they shouldn't have to. There is, in other words, an actual cost to the insurance company.
I think you miss the point. With insurance fraud, the insurance companies raise the rates to make up for the money lost. The publishing analogy would be that software or music has inflated prices because legitimate users are paying for pirated copies. IOW, CDs wouldn't be $18 if it wasn't for the pirated copies.
I'm not sure if I buy that argument, as the costs of producing CDs has dropped dramatically since the early days of CDs, but there was no drop in retail price of CDs (the original reason CDs cost more than LPs and cassettes was because of the higher manufacturing costs. It now (and has for a while) costs less to make a CD than a cassette or LP.)
A reason turntables won't die. High-end turntables look really cool. Check out the Clearaudio Master Reference (at the bottom of the page). Unfortunately, it retails for $12,500.
While I was being half-facetious above, there is a very vocal segment of the 'high-end audio' community that believes that vinyl sounds better than CD.
Doesn't this miss the fact that this girl (and many others like her) is NOT normal? Her IQ (147) is MUCH higher than an average person's (100). Provided her IQ test was done correctly, this qualifies her as a "genius" (I believe genius is defined as being 140-145 or above, depending on who you ask). I've heard that people with even higher IQs have even more extreme "behavior tendencies."
It depends on the IQ test being used. According to Mensa, an IQ of 132 on some tests qualifies the person for membership. To join U.S. Mensa (which accepts the top 2 percentile, check this page for acceptable test scores.)
I think this is something that has largely been ignored in the world at large. Remember that the IQ is a bell curve. An IQ of 130 is as rare as an IQ of 70. An IQ of 147 is as rare as an IQ of 53. (According to the Estimated IQs site, an IQ of 147 is equivalent to 99.83 percentile. Your child is "smarter" than 99.83 percent of the world.)If you think about how rare it is that a person has an IQ of 53, you begin to appreciate how special your daughter really is.
Personally, my biggest problem was motivation to work hard. All the way up throgh Sophmore year of college, I didn't have to work hard to get good grades, relying on just my memory, I could do very well. But when college got harder, I didn't have the patience to work through harder problems.
I think that you have to push your child so that they never become intellectually lazy. The problem you get is burn-out.
ADHD does exist, but I think it is rarer than is actually diagnosed. An incredibly gifted child may be labled ADHD merely because she is bored with what is, to her, very easy school work. Get a second opinion.
What's actually a gas is all the small computer companies (mostly Mom 'n Pops) that think they can get by without a webpage in this day and age, or, almost as bad, with just a webpage that has their name on it, no directions to the store, and no catalog. It seems even computer companies can't "get it", and it strongly helps explain why there's an 80% new startup business failure rate.
It's not just small companies. Fry's Electronics has several large stores in California, Texas, Oregon, and Arizona. However, for a long time, the only website they had was frys.com, which only pointed to their ISP services. They had a link to the addresses of the brick and mortar stores, but that's all.
They've recently opened outpost.com, which finally gives people a way to purchase goods on-line. But it is still separate from the brick-and-mortar stores, in that it is strictly an e-commerce site. In fact, even though they have the Fry's Electronics logo on the site, I see no reference to the stores on the site (though I only looked for about 5 minutes). Contrast that to Best Buy or Circuit City, each of which has a store locator prominently located on their web site.
At work, I get a ton of spam. I think I may have entered my work email address on one site once, and it just went everywhere. Now that I use a Hotmail account for all my public postings, I get no spam on any of my personal email accounts, except the Hotmail account, of course.
Slashdot Mirror
The term "convicted felon" can only apply to a person, not a corporation. MS was not convicted of a crime, it was found in violation of various anti-trust laws.
I think the point of the other poster was that it is the responsibility of the college to sign a contract that comports with state disclosure laws, not the responsibility of MS. It is trivially easy (and required by law) for the college to say, "hey, we like your deal, but are required by state law to disclose our contracts." It is not the responsibility of MS to be aware of the laws of each of the 50 states, it is the responsibility of the state colleges to obey the law and make MS aware of the law.
How often do you actually check your local university to see how much they spent on:
Sorry if you expected humor in my post. There are quite a few, "hehe, what if Enron had this" posts which are completely unfunny. Just thought I'd point out that there are genuine heavy-duty shredders available out there.
The original article was obviously a joke and really didn't belong on /. The Enron jokes were even stupider.
Not interesting at all. Anyone who really needs to shred documents will purchase a high-volume shredder, such as those found on Papershredders.com, instead of modding a personal shredder.
If you authored a DVD yourself, you presumably would have the master somewhere (on harddrive, on videotape, etc.). You wouldn't need this software to copy those DVDs, as you can make an unlimited number of DVDs from your master.
VCRs can be used for time-shifting: recording a show that is on at 8:00 so you can watch it the next morning. DVD copying software doesn't have such a "substantial non-infringing use," it's primary purpose is to allow consumers to rent movies for $3, and keep a copy of the movie. There really is no "substantial non-infringing use." (And don't point to those who make their own movies. If you make your own movie, it is not CSS encrypted and you can make unlimited copies off of the files on your hard drive.)
There is no analogous provision for books or any other form of media. (I'm not sure about software, though. I was under the impression that the license agreement covers backup provisions in that case.) That said, you are probably more likely to win the Powerball than to be prosecuted for making one copy of a book.
Or maybe MS thought that browsers were so useful that users would want a browser with their OS? Obviously the makers of OS X think that users want a browsr, because they include one with their OS, as does Red Hat and a large number of other Linux distributers. Linux distributors decide that users want a browser with their OS and that's a good thing. But when MS decides users want a browser with their OS, that's a bad thing.
The '992 patent was filed January 7, 1991 and issued July 21, 1992, and will thus be enforceable until January 6, 2011 (20 years after filing, which is longer than 17 years after issue in this case.)
The first independent claim reads as follows:
What are the elements of the invention: 1) storage; 2) unique id code for each item of information in the storage; 3) a way to convert the data into another format; 4) a way to place the formatted data into addressable data blocks; 5) a way to compress the formatted data; 6) a second storage area for the compressed data; 7) a way to transmit the data to remote locations.
Do you really think anyone read this patent and said, "Hey! Let's transmit porn over the Internet. I just found out how to do it!"
(For the same reason, IMO, high definition DVD will fail, as today's DVD format is "good enough" for the majority of people.)
Is this just a question of semantics? Isn't an airplane just a glider with power? The article points out that the Wright plane had better controlled descents, so is the difference in the controllability?
2x = CD-R in 40 minutes; 4x = CD-R in 20 minutes. I'd say that is a significant improvement.
I went from 4x to 24x to 48x. 4x to 24x was a significant improvement. 24x to 48x was more minor.
Totally different question with creative works i.e., fiction books, music, movies, etc. In those categories, personal taste is very relevant and you basically have to read the reviews to determine if the reviewer knows what he/she is talking about.
I have a pet peeve about music for instance. What I hate is when people who hate a particular genre of music, go on and post a negative review of an album. Examples are readily available on metal, rap, or trance music. Opinionated people will post and say, in essence, "trance/rap/metal sucks, is boring, repetetive, etc." These can be ignored.
Much better reviews are ones where the poster says something like, "I have all their albums, this is not as cohesive as their 1999 release, but is commendable for . . ." These people may be lying, of course, but they are better sources for info.
Conclusion, read the reviews and determine the credibility of the reviewers on your own. If there are too many reviews, look at the negative reviews, then the positive reviews, then the 'helpful' reviews.
I guess the part of the copyright code that says the owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to make copies doesn't apply to you. ;-) It is possibly (maybe even probably) a fair use, but the statute specifically prohibits your copying.
As Lessig points out in his article, first sale is not at issue with e-books. With a normal book, after the first sale, you can do re-distribute the book, but you can't copy it. As Lessig points out, with e-books, a distribution necessarily results in a copy being made, which is not allowed under current copyright law.
That is what I thought when I first read the article. But it was a forged cashier's check. Cashier's checks are usually as good as cash. I won't do COD either, but you can't really blame him for accepting a cashier's check. When I Ebay, if I get a cashier's check, I ship without waiting for the cashier's check to clear because, if legit, it is guaranteed to clear. (Of course, I normally don't sell things worth $2900.)
That is silly. He went through all the trouble because he lost $3000, not because it was a Mac.
I think you miss the point. With insurance fraud, the insurance companies raise the rates to make up for the money lost. The publishing analogy would be that software or music has inflated prices because legitimate users are paying for pirated copies. IOW, CDs wouldn't be $18 if it wasn't for the pirated copies.
I'm not sure if I buy that argument, as the costs of producing CDs has dropped dramatically since the early days of CDs, but there was no drop in retail price of CDs (the original reason CDs cost more than LPs and cassettes was because of the higher manufacturing costs. It now (and has for a while) costs less to make a CD than a cassette or LP.)
While I was being half-facetious above, there is a very vocal segment of the 'high-end audio' community that believes that vinyl sounds better than CD.
Professor Eugene Volokh provides the individual rights view of the 2nd amendment.
It depends on the IQ test being used. According to Mensa, an IQ of 132 on some tests qualifies the person for membership. To join U.S. Mensa (which accepts the top 2 percentile, check this page for acceptable test scores.)
For more information on genius in general, check out Estimated IQs of Greatest Geniuses.
I think this is something that has largely been ignored in the world at large. Remember that the IQ is a bell curve. An IQ of 130 is as rare as an IQ of 70. An IQ of 147 is as rare as an IQ of 53. (According to the Estimated IQs site, an IQ of 147 is equivalent to 99.83 percentile. Your child is "smarter" than 99.83 percent of the world.)If you think about how rare it is that a person has an IQ of 53, you begin to appreciate how special your daughter really is.
Personally, my biggest problem was motivation to work hard. All the way up throgh Sophmore year of college, I didn't have to work hard to get good grades, relying on just my memory, I could do very well. But when college got harder, I didn't have the patience to work through harder problems.
I think that you have to push your child so that they never become intellectually lazy. The problem you get is burn-out.
ADHD does exist, but I think it is rarer than is actually diagnosed. An incredibly gifted child may be labled ADHD merely because she is bored with what is, to her, very easy school work. Get a second opinion.
It's not just small companies. Fry's Electronics has several large stores in California, Texas, Oregon, and Arizona. However, for a long time, the only website they had was frys.com, which only pointed to their ISP services. They had a link to the addresses of the brick and mortar stores, but that's all.
They've recently opened outpost.com, which finally gives people a way to purchase goods on-line. But it is still separate from the brick-and-mortar stores, in that it is strictly an e-commerce site. In fact, even though they have the Fry's Electronics logo on the site, I see no reference to the stores on the site (though I only looked for about 5 minutes). Contrast that to Best Buy or Circuit City, each of which has a store locator prominently located on their web site.
At work, I get a ton of spam. I think I may have entered my work email address on one site once, and it just went everywhere. Now that I use a Hotmail account for all my public postings, I get no spam on any of my personal email accounts, except the Hotmail account, of course.
Another web hosting rating service is Web Hosting Ratings.