I know that Slashdot frowns on this kind of thing, but if you'd followed the last link in TFS, you would have discovered that the US Trade Representative has declared that ACTA will take effect in the US by Executive Order. Why? 'Cuz they said so.
That's right, folks, it's a treaty, but it's not a treaty! So that little part of the U.S. Constitution requiring ratification by the Senate doesn't apply! Really! This is not the treaty you're looking for!
house of representatives is the general term that is used in political literature/science to denote an assembly of representatives elected by the people in order to make legislation.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously. Can you provide one example from reputable journalistic or academic sources of the phrase "house of representatives", either in English or from an unambiguous literal translation to English, where that phrase is used generically to mean "legislature"? I would be quite curious to see it.
Now, if you were arguing that other nations use a literal equivalent to "house of representatives" as a title for one of their legislatorial chambers, you'd be on good grounds. The "House of Representatives" is the title for part of the legislature for a surprising number of nations. Maybe you'd have been better off arguing that.
No so. Linux is a terminal emulator that has migrated not just to desktops and servers, but practically every other kind of machine that can think, with the possible exception of pen clocks.
Good point. I guess that's one market space NetBSD still owns. That and toasters.
I am quite sure Hindenburg had deck chairs. She had decks. She had chairs, and unless they were also inflated with hydrogen or bolted to walls they were clearly resting on the decks.
You're a respected commentator on Free Software and its complex legal environment, and I've always admired that. Your consistent reputation has tended to increase the credibility of your ideas, in my eyes and in the eyes of many others.
But this article... in the interests of simple editorial transparency, you really should have predicated almost every assertion with "I have no factual insight into the specifics of the sealed settlement, but..."
Maybe a little bit of journalistic investigation might have been in order? Sealed terms leak quite often. Actually finding a legitimate basis for these concerns would have been doing the community a service. Raising potential and hypothetical concerns, explicitly as hypothetical and potential, would have also. Unfounded speculation and worst-case thinking do not.
FUD is as wrong in the hands of the Good Guys as it is in those of the Bad Guys.
That musta been an interesting phone conversation.
Phone: Ring ring! [Japanese Ambassador to the US answers phone] Hello! Good morning, Admiral, how are things going in Tokyo? Oh, you're not in Tokyo? Aboard the Akagi, eh? Interesting.
It shows a kink in the line of communication somewhere that this was cleared up almost immediately. And no, I am not saying the US military HAS to answer every question, but when a story breaks out like this and reaches around the globe, the military should have a better answer then "we don't what it is, we are fairly certain it wasn't our missle, but what it was, we don't know".
It took the Air Force 18 years to tell itself and its commanders that UFOs were just optical illusions and weather balloons. And they still haven't officially told the public-at-large anything.
If it's not a threat, and it has no potential as a military technology or other funding source, it's not interesting. It has other things to do, specifically those involving threats, operations, or funding sources. I mean advanced technology development.
I can't get my cats interested in The Discovery Channel or Slashdot, either. But they are very keenly interested in when I open a can of soup (or, as far as they know, possibly canned cat food). Pretty much the same phenomenon.
Anyway, there are a few provisos on the previous. As it stands, the status of First Sale for licensed software (per the software's own EULA) is valid within the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. (In other words, the states of Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.) In more sane jurisdictions, First Sale may still be alive. For now. But since the majority of the games being discussed right now are published in the United States, and (I bet) many within the 9th Circuit, it's not reasonable to claim without reservation that First Sale applies to the subject.
Looking at recent news, I can't tell if Vernor intends to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. If so, and the Supremes agree with the 9th, then First Sale is dead for licensed software within the US.
Until then (and even after), the Groklaw page on the ruling quotes an ArsTechnica discussion and makes a point to take to heart:
Stay away from software that comes with EULAs that restrict you in ways you don't like.
Specifically, if the EULA purports to restrict or prevent your rights under First Sale doctrine, you have to assume it might do so effectively, because at least some courts have begun to empower EULAs that way.
First Sale doctrine is why used book stores are legal. This US 9th Circuit of Appeals ruling is why First Sale doctrine doesn't necessarily apply to software. In other words, within the US 9th Circuit, there is no such thing as legal used software resale, if the EULA of that software prohibits it.
Steam's legal footing looks pretty good to me. IANAL, but neither are you, and at least I was aware of recent case law movement on this issue. Why you weren't is puzzling, considering that it's been covered pretty extensively and recently here.
Also, don't ever accidentally subject yourself to zero-day exploits in your browser, which means never browse any valid website compromised by malware pushers without the knowledge or consent of the website owner.
In other words, connect your computer only to a fantasy Internet powered by the carbon-offsetting power of unicorn farts and good wishes.
Yes, the world is out to get you. Not you personally, of course; you're not that interesting. Just you as part of the entire gamut of possible malware victims. The same way that a cluster bomb doesn't care if it kills you, but insisting you're cluster-bomb-proof is still naive and silly.
The only thing that will displace Facebook is something even more addictive, proprietary, privacy-shredding, and generally more despicable. So I, for one, hope you never get your wish.
You're complaining about the pasture the sheep have chosen to graze in. It's not worth giving yourself an ulcer. Sheep do what sheep do. Let 'em. Sheep talk about what they do. It's just sheep talking, Man.
At one time, COBOL was the only way to develop on tens of thousands of computers. Very expensive computers with very expensive maintenance and licensing contracts. There was a lot of money in this, measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year per site. That's probably an order of magnitude or two lower than the money at stake in the mobile software universe, but it's also probably a larger percentage of the overall market at the time.
There is a common but entirely mistaken belief that the great issues and controversies of this time are unique, unprecedented, and never-before seen. But license and market-control conflict is ancient in this industry. Almost every hassle you may see today has been seen by some earlier generation of dinosaurs.
You're missing the point. No one is contesting that NOTAMs are timestamped in ZULU. No one is arguing it's a bad idea. No one disputes this at all.
The actual argument is that the NOTAM you cite isn't applicable, because this launch occurred at "at around 5 p.m. Pacific time"... or about 01Z 9 October. Yes, the date is right. But that NOTAM wasn't effective yet, and wouldn't be for another 19 hours after the fact.
Seriously. When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.
Not that I'm confusing Larry's work with reality, but as a (generally) hard-SF author his ideas are subject to changing technologies.
Or, for that matter, the state of the science. The core of the galaxy was supposed to be exploding in chain hypernovas, remember? Kinda hard to reconcile with a supermassive black hole. I recall some mild handwaving in the shell story wrapper for "At the Core" in his collection Crashlander, but it just seemed to me to be (figuratively speaking) incomprehensible mumbling in his drink. Niven has retconned to accommodate scientific reality before ("The Ringworld is Unstable!") but I still haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for the whole "galactic supernova" thing, since it's pretty much crucial to the "Puppeteer migration" thing.
i'd say either neutrino-based (no reception problems in the subway!)
The good news is that holding the phone "the wrong way" doesn't affect reception either. The bad news is that the antenna is 1/2 light-year of lead. (Apple wanted to use neutronium, but it decays explosively when removed from Steve's RDF. Apple R&D is undertaking extensive marketing^Wresearch activity to address this.)
I hear that Sprint and HTC are signing up Gordon Freeman as their new spokes-scientist. Bad choice. Alyx Vance would have been much more effective. I mean, does Gordon Freeman even speak?
tachyon-based (get the message before it's sent!)
I must have something like this already, because the voice in my head is always telling me how badly my decisions will turn out just after I make a decision but before all the consequences. Get out of my head, temporal-causality-violator!
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm sorry...
that I got caught."
I know that Slashdot frowns on this kind of thing, but if you'd followed the last link in TFS, you would have discovered that the US Trade Representative has declared that ACTA will take effect in the US by Executive Order. Why? 'Cuz they said so.
That's right, folks, it's a treaty, but it's not a treaty! So that little part of the U.S. Constitution requiring ratification by the Senate doesn't apply! Really! This is not the treaty you're looking for!
house of representatives is the general term that is used in political literature/science to denote an assembly of representatives elected by the people in order to make legislation.
[Citation Needed]
Seriously. Can you provide one example from reputable journalistic or academic sources of the phrase "house of representatives", either in English or from an unambiguous literal translation to English, where that phrase is used generically to mean "legislature"? I would be quite curious to see it.
Now, if you were arguing that other nations use a literal equivalent to "house of representatives" as a title for one of their legislatorial chambers, you'd be on good grounds. The "House of Representatives" is the title for part of the legislature for a surprising number of nations. Maybe you'd have been better off arguing that.
they have to survive, they have to take care of their Farmville.
FTFY.
OK, not universally true, but true to an extent that pretty much guarantees the success of...OOH SHINY!
"Panem et circenses." Our culture surely has the "circenses" part down pat.
Old sk00l. When was the last MBR infector seen in the wild? 2002? Most of this class are from the DOS era, fercryingoutloud.
No so. Linux is a terminal emulator that has migrated not just to desktops and servers, but practically every other kind of machine that can think, with the possible exception of pen clocks.
Good point. I guess that's one market space NetBSD still owns. That and toasters.
I am quite sure Hindenburg had deck chairs. She had decks. She had chairs, and unless they were also inflated with hydrogen or bolted to walls they were clearly resting on the decks.
Deck chairs. QED.
"You're welcome" from the hyper-literal net.
You're a respected commentator on Free Software and its complex legal environment, and I've always admired that. Your consistent reputation has tended to increase the credibility of your ideas, in my eyes and in the eyes of many others.
But this article... in the interests of simple editorial transparency, you really should have predicated almost every assertion with "I have no factual insight into the specifics of the sealed settlement, but..."
Maybe a little bit of journalistic investigation might have been in order? Sealed terms leak quite often. Actually finding a legitimate basis for these concerns would have been doing the community a service. Raising potential and hypothetical concerns, explicitly as hypothetical and potential, would have also. Unfounded speculation and worst-case thinking do not.
FUD is as wrong in the hands of the Good Guys as it is in those of the Bad Guys.
Silent enim leges inter arma.
--Cicero, Pro Tito Annio Milone ad iudicem oratio
That musta been an interesting phone conversation.
It shows a kink in the line of communication somewhere that this was cleared up almost immediately. And no, I am not saying the US military HAS to answer every question, but when a story breaks out like this and reaches around the globe, the military should have a better answer then "we don't what it is, we are fairly certain it wasn't our missle, but what it was, we don't know".
It took the Air Force 18 years to tell itself and its commanders that UFOs were just optical illusions and weather balloons. And they still haven't officially told the public-at-large anything.
If it's not a threat, and it has no potential as a military technology or other funding source, it's not interesting. It has other things to do, specifically those involving threats, operations, or funding sources. I mean advanced technology development.
I can't get my cats interested in The Discovery Channel or Slashdot, either. But they are very keenly interested in when I open a can of soup (or, as far as they know, possibly canned cat food). Pretty much the same phenomenon.
If it's Microsoft, it'll be more akin to Guru Meditation Computing.
At least it won't be a blue (or black) screen.
Lol.
Anyway, there are a few provisos on the previous. As it stands, the status of First Sale for licensed software (per the software's own EULA) is valid within the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. (In other words, the states of Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.) In more sane jurisdictions, First Sale may still be alive. For now. But since the majority of the games being discussed right now are published in the United States, and (I bet) many within the 9th Circuit, it's not reasonable to claim without reservation that First Sale applies to the subject.
Looking at recent news, I can't tell if Vernor intends to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. If so, and the Supremes agree with the 9th, then First Sale is dead for licensed software within the US.
Until then (and even after), the Groklaw page on the ruling quotes an ArsTechnica discussion and makes a point to take to heart:
Specifically, if the EULA purports to restrict or prevent your rights under First Sale doctrine, you have to assume it might do so effectively, because at least some courts have begun to empower EULAs that way.
This is exactly why used book stores are legal.
First Sale doctrine is why used book stores are legal. This US 9th Circuit of Appeals ruling is why First Sale doctrine doesn't necessarily apply to software. In other words, within the US 9th Circuit, there is no such thing as legal used software resale, if the EULA of that software prohibits it.
Steam's legal footing looks pretty good to me. IANAL, but neither are you, and at least I was aware of recent case law movement on this issue. Why you weren't is puzzling, considering that it's been covered pretty extensively and recently here.
Also, don't ever accidentally subject yourself to zero-day exploits in your browser, which means never browse any valid website compromised by malware pushers without the knowledge or consent of the website owner.
In other words, connect your computer only to a fantasy Internet powered by the carbon-offsetting power of unicorn farts and good wishes.
Yes, the world is out to get you. Not you personally, of course; you're not that interesting. Just you as part of the entire gamut of possible malware victims. The same way that a cluster bomb doesn't care if it kills you, but insisting you're cluster-bomb-proof is still naive and silly.
The only thing that will displace Facebook is something even more addictive, proprietary, privacy-shredding, and generally more despicable. So I, for one, hope you never get your wish.
You're complaining about the pasture the sheep have chosen to graze in. It's not worth giving yourself an ulcer. Sheep do what sheep do. Let 'em. Sheep talk about what they do. It's just sheep talking, Man.
At one time, COBOL was the only way to develop on tens of thousands of computers. Very expensive computers with very expensive maintenance and licensing contracts. There was a lot of money in this, measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars per year per site. That's probably an order of magnitude or two lower than the money at stake in the mobile software universe, but it's also probably a larger percentage of the overall market at the time.
There is a common but entirely mistaken belief that the great issues and controversies of this time are unique, unprecedented, and never-before seen. But license and market-control conflict is ancient in this industry. Almost every hassle you may see today has been seen by some earlier generation of dinosaurs.
Good grief, now I accidentally an important word.
"Which is 19 hours after the event."
Aaaand, "Preview" button.... OK.
Good point. My brain is stuck in last month. But the NOTAM is effective 20Z 9 November. Which 19 hours after the event.
You're missing the point. No one is contesting that NOTAMs are timestamped in ZULU. No one is arguing it's a bad idea. No one disputes this at all.
The actual argument is that the NOTAM you cite isn't applicable, because this launch occurred at "at around 5 p.m. Pacific time"... or about 01Z 9 October. Yes, the date is right. But that NOTAM wasn't effective yet, and wouldn't be for another 19 hours after the fact.
Seriously. When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.
Indeed, NOTAM timestamps are in ZULU time.
At the time of this posting (18:50Z), that NOTAM isn't effective for at least one more hour.
I don't think the event and that NOTAM are directly related.
Indochina?
And don't try to tell me they're different. We know better.
If he had read TFA, this wouldn't have been Slashdot. It may in fact have been SPARTA!
Not that I'm confusing Larry's work with reality, but as a (generally) hard-SF author his ideas are subject to changing technologies.
Or, for that matter, the state of the science. The core of the galaxy was supposed to be exploding in chain hypernovas, remember? Kinda hard to reconcile with a supermassive black hole. I recall some mild handwaving in the shell story wrapper for "At the Core" in his collection Crashlander, but it just seemed to me to be (figuratively speaking) incomprehensible mumbling in his drink. Niven has retconned to accommodate scientific reality before ("The Ringworld is Unstable!") but I still haven't seen a satisfactory explanation for the whole "galactic supernova" thing, since it's pretty much crucial to the "Puppeteer migration" thing.
i'd say either neutrino-based (no reception problems in the subway!)
The good news is that holding the phone "the wrong way" doesn't affect reception either. The bad news is that the antenna is 1/2 light-year of lead. (Apple wanted to use neutronium, but it decays explosively when removed from Steve's RDF. Apple R&D is undertaking extensive marketing^Wresearch activity to address this.)
quantum-entanglement-based (zero lag, guaranteed!)
I hear that Sprint and HTC are signing up Gordon Freeman as their new spokes-scientist. Bad choice. Alyx Vance would have been much more effective. I mean, does Gordon Freeman even speak?
tachyon-based (get the message before it's sent!)
I must have something like this already, because the voice in my head is always telling me how badly my decisions will turn out just after I make a decision but before all the consequences. Get out of my head, temporal-causality-violator!