Firstly, when one fills out one's warranty card for one's two-way radio, doesn't the manufacturer get this information anyway?
Sure, if you send it in (and assuming you fill it out honestly). However, in one of those laws that was passed a while back, sending in the card is not required for warranty service. That law would probably never make it today.
there's a thousand years, which is more than enough time for the human body to evolve such that it can withstand those conditions...
Uh, no. Evolution works on timescales of millions of years, not hundreds. More likely would be a technological solution, and it would have to be a solution that alters the environment, not one that alters biology.
...according to Nostradamus, the "end of the world"
should be fairly soon.
Oh, please.
According to Nostradamus, the end of the world should have been 500 year ago. Before you use Nostradamus for any kind of predictions, you ought to go see what kind of track record he's got. Hint -- it's pretty miserable. Hundreds of people try to use Nostradamus to predict things every few years, and they have uniformly flopped. Based on that track record, we probably can't expect any better today.
The year 1999 seven months
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
To resuscitate the great king of the Mongols.
Before and after Mars reigns by good luck.
The British Astrophysiker Stephen Hawking fears that the humanity will not survive a "further
millennium". Hawking declared in a presentation in Edinburgh, either an "accident or the
Erderwärmung" would become the life on the earth extinguish. The humanity could only
survive, if she herself on another planet ansiedle, had the almost completely paralyzed
scientist its listeners known in the presentation of its new book "The universe in a Nutshell".
The scientist suffers under the paralysis disease Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (AS) and can
notify himself only per Sprachcomputer.
"I fear, that the atmosphere always hotter becomes, and that it like Venus of sulfur acid be
simmered becomes", meant Hawking. "I make me concerns about the hothouse effect." The
humanity could only survive a further millennium, if it itself in "the space spreads." Without
the "Kolonialisierung" of other planets, the humanity of the extinction would be threatened.
Let it be the head task of the theoretical physics of the 21st century of offering a complete
theory over the events in the universe to the humanity. "We believe, we have the Endstücke of
a complete and uniform theory found, but in the middle is yet much auszufüllen", said
Hawking.
The idea is to do all the copying in the digital domain. Converting to analog and then back to digital will lose sound quality. The trick is to do it in such a way that the watermarking is bypassed.
Dirty? No more so than any other human activity. There's nothing dirty about sex, except in people's minds. Sex is a driving force for people and has been ever since there has been people, so to say that it "...spells doom for a society..." is remarkably narrow-minded.
Sex is a proper thing. People get obsessed with it because we (the American society) is torn between accepting it and covering it up. Cultures that accept sex as a natural part of human existence don't have the problems we do.
And, I personally lump Pat Buchanan with Art Bell. The only reason they are useful is to serve as a bad example.
The Cat is yours to do with as you please. I would suggest that you give it
to a friend if you do not want this for yourself. I'm sorry but we have no
way for you to conveniently return this to us.
Hmm. You might ask him about the obvious conflict between his statements and the EULA posted on their web site.
In a contractual transaction, the receiving party has to be given an opportunity to read and understand and agree to a contract (which is what a license agreement is) in order for it to be binding. I've gotten two of these little scanners so far, and neither has come with any kind of license agreement that I could see. There might have been something on the CDs, but I didn't need them, so I pitched them. There certainly wasn't anything on the package telling me that the hardware was being given to me under terms of any kind of contract or license.
Therefore, it appears that there is no contract is in force between Digital Convergence and myself. Any hardware that was given to me freely, with no conditions stated, is mine to do with AS I WILL, provided I don't violate anybody's copyrights or patents. (Copyrights and patents are binding on me no matter if I've signed a contract or not. There is no doubt a copyright on any microcode contained in the processor of the bar code reader, but I'm not attempting to do anything with that code, so I'm OK there. There have been no indications of patent violations, so I'll continue to do as I please until notified that I'm violating a patent. Note that this is different from a trade secret, which requires a contract between the secret owner and other parties. Without a signed contract, I'm under no obligation to keep private any trade secrets that may belong to Digital Convergence.)
I also understand that there might be something on a web site somewhere that talks about restricting what I can do with something that was given to me freely. Since I have not had the opportunity or desire or obligation to go to the web site, any words there are hearsay as far as I'm concerned, which also means they have no legal affect on me. It's also hard to see how terms could be imposed ex post facto, and I believe a court would agree.
Perhaps, but then you've paid for it with the subscription fee for the magazine, and it's yours on the same terms that the physical copy of the magazine is yours.
An alternative view is that the subscription fee you paid is for the magazine subscription alone, and everything else is unsolicited.
Apparently, DC doesn't like the fact that you can use a CueCat to drive the database query. It's not the database proper, it's the CueCat decode programming.
We are getting very close to the point where there will be lots of
people creating things that have never existed before in nature and for which there is no natural protection.
Oh, you mean like telephones, Post-It Notes (tm), automobiles, radios, computers, art, music, toilet paper, paper clips and cities?
You must live in perpetual fear.
...phil
Re:A rant on licensing and open source
on
CueCat At It Again
·
· Score: 2
There was a business plan here -- a business plan you chose to ignore but still applies.
So? I am under no obligation to support somebody else's business plan. And a business plan is not a license. A business plan is not a guarantee of success.
The company will lose money if all you do
is play with the device scanning rogue bar codes and not use it to buy Radio Shack merchandise.
Wah.
This means they will stop giving
them away, and we'll be the losers...
We lose yet another marketer collecting information on us via hidden motives. We lose another way for companies to make money off us. Small loss.
Plus, since I got mine before they changed the EULA (even assuming that it applied to me, which is impossible because I've never been presented with it), then they could not unilaterally change it after I agreed to it.
Actually, we can get a close guess based solely on the laws of optics.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope as an example.
Assume that the size of the Hubble is the maximum diameter mirror that can be launched. (Maybe not exactly, but probably close enough for this example.)
Undergraduate physics:
Resolving power R (resolution) of a diffraction limited telescope: R = wavelength/(2*diameter telescope)
This means for the HST (2.4 meter) and visual wavelenght (500nm) R = 500nm/4.8m = 1*10^(-7)
Since the Hubble is in orbit h = 680km (380 miles) high, this means it can theoretically resolve: Detail = R * h = 0.07.
Thus 7cm (3 inch) details. Not enuff for reading license plates, even if someone would hold it up to the sky so we dont have inclination effects.
(1/2 feet).
Then you have to factor in camera resolution and difficulties in aiming the satellite, plus atmosphereic effects (which get worse the further away from straight down you are). The end result probably cuts the effective resolution by a half or two-thirds -- 15 to 20 centimeters.
But some glass mirrors have been cast in a spinning mold, to get the glass nearer to the final desired shape. Doing this eliminates a great deal of grinding. And, when this came up in Scientific American a couple of years ago, the the guy who writes the "Amateur Scientist" article suggested spinning a cake pan on a record turntable and filling it with epoxy, then using the resulting curved slab as a blank for final grinding and mirroring.
While they may contain a license agreement, I have yet to see it. I've received two of the little buggers so far (total expenditure $0.00), taken them out of the package, plugged them in and used them. Nary a license agreement in site. Now, there's this CD in the package that I've never touched, so I have no idea what's on it. And, the company has a web site, that I have never had occasion to visit.
So. what license agreement are you referring to? I've not been given the opportunity to agree or disagree to one -- I've just been given some free hardware to play with.
In fact, the Hack SDMI site has exactly that. A given file has three samples, two of tune A and one of tune B. One of the tune A samples is clean, one is watermarked. Tune B is watermarked. Your challenge is to remove the watermark from tune B.
Slashdot Mirror
Must be you - they worked fine here.
...phil
Sure, if you send it in (and assuming you fill it out honestly). However, in one of those laws that was passed a while back, sending in the card is not required for warranty service. That law would probably never make it today.
...phil
To sell more copies of WinCE?
...phil
Uh, no. Evolution works on timescales of millions of years, not hundreds. More likely would be a technological solution, and it would have to be a solution that alters the environment, not one that alters biology.
Oh, please. According to Nostradamus, the end of the world should have been 500 year ago. Before you use Nostradamus for any kind of predictions, you ought to go see what kind of track record he's got. Hint -- it's pretty miserable. Hundreds of people try to use Nostradamus to predict things every few years, and they have uniformly flopped. Based on that track record, we probably can't expect any better today.
Oops. Missed another one. More reading here.
...phil
Stephen Hawking sees blackly for the human life
The British Astrophysiker Stephen Hawking fears that the humanity will not survive a "further millennium". Hawking declared in a presentation in Edinburgh, either an "accident or the Erderwärmung" would become the life on the earth extinguish. The humanity could only survive, if she herself on another planet ansiedle, had the almost completely paralyzed scientist its listeners known in the presentation of its new book "The universe in a Nutshell".
The scientist suffers under the paralysis disease Amyotrophe Lateralsklerose (AS) and can notify himself only per Sprachcomputer.
"I fear, that the atmosphere always hotter becomes, and that it like Venus of sulfur acid be simmered becomes", meant Hawking. "I make me concerns about the hothouse effect." The humanity could only survive a further millennium, if it itself in "the space spreads." Without the "Kolonialisierung" of other planets, the humanity of the extinction would be threatened.
Let it be the head task of the theoretical physics of the 21st century of offering a complete theory over the events in the universe to the humanity. "We believe, we have the Endstücke of a complete and uniform theory found, but in the middle is yet much auszufüllen", said Hawking.
...phil
Well, as global warming continues, you'll be able to tread water over it.
...phil
Everybody else has to walk.
...phil
The idea is to do all the copying in the digital domain. Converting to analog and then back to digital will lose sound quality. The trick is to do it in such a way that the watermarking is bypassed.
...phil
Sex is a proper thing. People get obsessed with it because we (the American society) is torn between accepting it and covering it up. Cultures that accept sex as a natural part of human existence don't have the problems we do.
And, I personally lump Pat Buchanan with Art Bell. The only reason they are useful is to serve as a bad example.
...phil
Hmm. You might ask him about the obvious conflict between his statements and the EULA posted on their web site.
...phil
As has been explained multiple times before...
In a contractual transaction, the receiving party has to be given an opportunity to read and understand and agree to a contract (which is what a license agreement is) in order for it to be binding. I've gotten two of these little scanners so far, and neither has come with any kind of license agreement that I could see. There might have been something on the CDs, but I didn't need them, so I pitched them. There certainly wasn't anything on the package telling me that the hardware was being given to me under terms of any kind of contract or license.
Therefore, it appears that there is no contract is in force between Digital Convergence and myself. Any hardware that was given to me freely, with no conditions stated, is mine to do with AS I WILL, provided I don't violate anybody's copyrights or patents. (Copyrights and patents are binding on me no matter if I've signed a contract or not. There is no doubt a copyright on any microcode contained in the processor of the bar code reader, but I'm not attempting to do anything with that code, so I'm OK there. There have been no indications of patent violations, so I'll continue to do as I please until notified that I'm violating a patent. Note that this is different from a trade secret, which requires a contract between the secret owner and other parties. Without a signed contract, I'm under no obligation to keep private any trade secrets that may belong to Digital Convergence.)
I also understand that there might be something on a web site somewhere that talks about restricting what I can do with something that was given to me freely. Since I have not had the opportunity or desire or obligation to go to the web site, any words there are hearsay as far as I'm concerned, which also means they have no legal affect on me. It's also hard to see how terms could be imposed ex post facto, and I believe a court would agree.
So. License? What license?
obDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
...phil
An alternative view is that the subscription fee you paid is for the magazine subscription alone, and everything else is unsolicited.
...phil
No, but it is possible for a corporation to publish a book.
...phil
writecongress.com ???
...phil
No, they sue the site for providing the capability of decoding CueCat data streams without going through the DC servers.
...phil
Apparently, DC doesn't like the fact that you can use a CueCat to drive the database query. It's not the database proper, it's the CueCat decode programming.
...phil
Hey, if you think THAT'S bad, try reading the article. I'm on the third page, and it's pretty heavy going.
...phil
Oh, you mean like telephones, Post-It Notes (tm), automobiles, radios, computers, art, music, toilet paper, paper clips and cities?
You must live in perpetual fear.
...phil
So? I am under no obligation to support somebody else's business plan. And a business plan is not a license. A business plan is not a guarantee of success.
The company will lose money if all you do is play with the device scanning rogue bar codes and not use it to buy Radio Shack merchandise.
Wah.
This means they will stop giving them away, and we'll be the losers...
We lose yet another marketer collecting information on us via hidden motives. We lose another way for companies to make money off us. Small loss.
...phil
Plus, since I got mine before they changed the EULA (even assuming that it applied to me, which is impossible because I've never been presented with it), then they could not unilaterally change it after I agreed to it.
...phil
Using the Hubble Space Telescope as an example.
Assume that the size of the Hubble is the maximum diameter mirror that can be launched. (Maybe not exactly, but probably close enough for this example.)
Undergraduate physics:
Resolving power R (resolution) of a diffraction limited telescope: R = wavelength/(2*diameter telescope)
This means for the HST (2.4 meter) and visual wavelenght (500nm) R = 500nm/4.8m = 1*10^(-7)
Since the Hubble is in orbit h = 680km (380 miles) high, this means it can theoretically resolve: Detail = R * h = 0.07.
Thus 7cm (3 inch) details. Not enuff for reading license plates, even if someone would hold it up to the sky so we dont have inclination effects. (1/2 feet).
Then you have to factor in camera resolution and difficulties in aiming the satellite, plus atmosphereic effects (which get worse the further away from straight down you are). The end result probably cuts the effective resolution by a half or two-thirds -- 15 to 20 centimeters.
...phil
But some glass mirrors have been cast in a spinning mold, to get the glass nearer to the final desired shape. Doing this eliminates a great deal of grinding. And, when this came up in Scientific American a couple of years ago, the the guy who writes the "Amateur Scientist" article suggested spinning a cake pan on a record turntable and filling it with epoxy, then using the resulting curved slab as a blank for final grinding and mirroring.
...phil
While they may contain a license agreement, I have yet to see it. I've received two of the little buggers so far (total expenditure $0.00), taken them out of the package, plugged them in and used them. Nary a license agreement in site. Now, there's this CD in the package that I've never touched, so I have no idea what's on it. And, the company has a web site, that I have never had occasion to visit.
So. what license agreement are you referring to? I've not been given the opportunity to agree or disagree to one -- I've just been given some free hardware to play with.
...phil
Wasn't the CueCat package actually mailed by Wired and Forbes? If so, then wouldn't this issue be better directed to those magazines?
...phil
Go ahead, and let us know how you make out.
...phil