In Canada it is a Levy, and if you had quoted further, you would have seen that the wording is indeed important. "A distinction is sometimes made between "tax" and "levy" based on the recipient of the accumulated funds; taxes are received by a government, while levies are received by a private body, such as a copyright collective.)"
In this case, the distinction is made because the government is not getting any funds from this, therefore it is not a tax. Although, it is confusing, since it is legally called a Tariff, and referred to by the CPCC as both a tariff and a levy...
When you've already legally purchased a CD there's no issue about artists not getting monetary compensation since you've already purchased that CD.
This is the issue the private copying levy is attempting to address. Not illegally downloaded music. The private copying levy is strictly in place to cover you privately copying your legally purchased music from one medium to another (e.g. CD to CD, CD to iPod, iPod to your phone's SD card, etc.)
I know, that on the surface, it seems that this is in place to make money off of illegal copies. If it were, I wouldn't be so outraged. What they are doing is charging you a fee to do something legally. If you don't believe me, look on the CPCC's website for any mention of illegal copying. If you are interested in what the CPCC considers private copying, look here.
Unfortunately, I did not find this particular FAQ until I finished writing the above. It is a little old, but not too out of date. A few choice FAQs:
5) Isn't this just another tax by the federal government?
The private copying royalty is not a tax. Unlike a tax, which is collected by the government, the private copying royalty is collected by the CPCC to provide remuneration to rights holders for private copying. The private copying royalty helps to ensure rights holders receive some payment for the copying of their work and to assist them in the creation of music.
11) Isn't the point of the levy to compensate rights holders for losses due to peer-to-peer file trading on the Internet?
No. The private copying legislation that passed in 1997 did two things. First, it made it legal for individuals to make copies of recorded performances of musical works if the copies were made for the private use of the copier on a medium ordinarily used to copy music. Second, the law provided for a fair and equitable levy to provide remuneration to copyright holders for the making of those private copies. The legislation recognizes that privately made copies have their own inherent value and for that reason it ensured that rights holders received compensation for the copy itself through the levy. It was never the purpose of the private copying levy to compensate copyright holders for lost revenue due to peer-to-peer file trading.
Are you sure that is the link you intended to provide? I see nothing on it regarding the private copying levy (although I could have missed something.)
..you use your ipod for nothing but your own performances, and/or public domain playback? Why is it you should pay this levy then?
It is worse than that, even. The CDs I use for my computer backups have this levy applied to them. The SD cards for my camera are going to have this levy applied to them next year. It is possible to buy levy-free media, but not as a private citizen.
This is not a tax and has nothing to do with pirated music or lawsuits related to pirated music. It is a private copying levy and is applied so that when you put your legally purchased music (e.g. CDs) onto your iPod, artists get some money.
I'm not sure you understand this "tax," (which is fair, considering Australia decided it would be unconstitutional in 1989.) It is called a private copying levy which is a very confusing cash-grab by the recording industry. They are explicitly charging you extra for making a private copy. This has nothing to do with downloading music illegally and putting it on your iPod. This is their way of making money from you putting your purchased CD collection onto your iPod.
my friends went to the movies on Saturday, and guess what the police is hired to do? The police is hired to check everyone's bag as they enter the theatre to make sure there is no camcorder. That is the most idiotic thing that Canadian politicians did - cave in to a foreign country's lobbying group, at the expense that each teenager and older person has his or her bag examined.
That's funny, I went to the theater (Calgary / Cineplex Odeon) on Friday afternoon and although I saw the signs saying they would check bags... They didn't even have anybody on hand to take tickets, let alone search anyone. I realize that afternoon showings are not very popular, but given this was opening night for the movie we saw, it seems like it would be a good time to enforce that policy.
Can you say, "sysconf?" Or the/proc filesystem? That's a "registry" if I ever saw one. Slightly more manageable than the one on Windows, but a registry nevertheless.
I can't think of many ways that/proc is similar to Windows Registry... would you care to enlighten me? I can think of many ways they are not similar... The fact that userland programs do not store persistent information in/proc is the first thing that comes to mind.
Even/etc/* is more like Windows Registry than/proc is.
Also, as a general point, having soft buttons that remap to specific key combinations is not a bad idea on an ultraportable - a single COPY button or PASTE key might be handy.
Friggin' Linux zealots.
I'm not sure what that last sentence was supposed to mean. The UNIX world has had access to keyboards with extra function keys (cut, copy, paste, and several others,) for decades.
Sure, it's not 350 ft, but it is pure digital, and uses some cool (to me, at least,) techniques like pre-emphasis and filtering to achieve the 100 ft transmission. Also in the episode is a 15m PCIe extender! (The demos are in the last half, the discussion on how it is done is in the first half.)
so what would consume more 32gb SRAM or 32gb disk?
MK3006GAL: 1.8" HD, 0.01W/GB, 1.1W power consumption during operation 0.4W idle, 0.07W sleep.
Now, SRAM is a different story. I only checked digikey for SRAM, and the biggest one they had was 128Mbit, but it was actually DRAM that is accessed like SRAM. With 128Mbit chips, you are looking at over 1800 chips! Even with the "low power" chip I found, those 1800 chips consume 375mA in standby mode (not including the insane amount of support chips required to drive 1800 chips!) To actually use the RAM, each chip has an "initial access" power rating of 35mA, making a whopping combined 65A, talk about some thick PCB traces!
I don't have time right now to look up the power requirements of 32GB of flash or SDRAM. There is a link somewhere in the comments for this article to a device that supposedly lasts up to 100 hours on batteries. It is a sort of large, palm os based device with only 16MB of memory, but can run on AAs. perhaps that would suit your needs for now.
Ideally a 1024x768 gray scale coupled with a low power cpu and 32GB of SRAM
I sure hope that was a typo, 32GB of modern SRAM would consume a large amount of power when in use. 32GB of SDRAM would require a large amount of power as well. 32MB of SDRAM might be ok, but a week of uptime will still require a very large (and heavy) battery or some other power source (solar, maybe?). A cholesteric display or some other sort of electronic paper display would help, but they are rather expensive and not very available right now. Keep dreaming though...
If you think that's cool, check this out. A homebrew CPU made out of 74 series TTL chips. You can even telnet to it if it's not too busy:-) There are some other ones out there, but this is the one I enjoy looking at the most.
Yep, and if you don't have zic installed, download tzcode*.tar.gz from the same site, compile it, and you have all of the updated timezone files automatically. I was surprised how painless it was. I recently had to update the timezone files on an embedded system. It's scary to think about how many embedded devices are going to be off by an hour for 4 weeks a year now.
To count non-operational (powered off) hours in the MTTF is just as dishonest as any other lie. Do you think aircraft engine manufacturers could get away with that?
I'm not sure they count the powered off hours, I have not found anything specifically stating that yet.
For the Pico PSU you do need an additional power brick like you plug into a laptop (which basically holds a transformer, a rectifier and a big capacitor)
Yeah, or for those of us who live in the year 2007 and purchase a new "power brick," it holds a switch-mode power supply that is considerably more efficient (and often more electrically noisy.) Still, overall I think you would have to be very lucky to get 80% efficiency from an AC->DC->DC solution.
To a rough approximation, that graph shows a 0.5% risk of failure independent of usage level, then an additional 0.5% risk per 3000 hours/year of usage.
Perhaps you misinterpreted the label on the y-axis of that figure. It is not in percent, it is a multiplier. So 0.5 means 50%.
Quoting the paper, emphasis mine:
The chart in Figure 9 shows the expected increase in AFR
due to higher power-on-hours. Moving a drive from an
expected 2,400 POH per year to 8,760 POH per year would
increase the failure rate almost two-fold, if there were no
compensation elsewhere in the design.
Do you seriously think a drive won't have reached thermal equilibrium after an hour, let alone after several hours? Mine seem to get up to their 'normal' temperatures in 30 minutes or less.
Sure, they will have reached "thermal equilibrium" after a short period of time. See Figure 9 in this paper " Reliability reduction with increased power
on hours, ranging from a few hours per day to 24 x 7
operation
" to see how I'm not sure that merely being hot is the problem.
And according to the Google study, heat doesn't lead to a significantly increased risk of failure till you get above 45 C
I'll have to take your word for it, I haven't read their study yet.
Slashdot Mirror
In Canada it is a Levy, and if you had quoted further, you would have seen that the wording is indeed important. "A distinction is sometimes made between "tax" and "levy" based on the recipient of the accumulated funds; taxes are received by a government, while levies are received by a private body, such as a copyright collective.)"
In this case, the distinction is made because the government is not getting any funds from this, therefore it is not a tax. Although, it is confusing, since it is legally called a Tariff, and referred to by the CPCC as both a tariff and a levy...
This is the issue the private copying levy is attempting to address. Not illegally downloaded music. The private copying levy is strictly in place to cover you privately copying your legally purchased music from one medium to another (e.g. CD to CD, CD to iPod, iPod to your phone's SD card, etc.)
I know, that on the surface, it seems that this is in place to make money off of illegal copies. If it were, I wouldn't be so outraged. What they are doing is charging you a fee to do something legally. If you don't believe me, look on the CPCC's website for any mention of illegal copying. If you are interested in what the CPCC considers private copying, look here.
Unfortunately, I did not find this particular FAQ until I finished writing the above. It is a little old, but not too out of date. A few choice FAQs:
5) Isn't this just another tax by the federal government? The private copying royalty is not a tax. Unlike a tax, which is collected by the government, the private copying royalty is collected by the CPCC to provide remuneration to rights holders for private copying. The private copying royalty helps to ensure rights holders receive some payment for the copying of their work and to assist them in the creation of music.
11) Isn't the point of the levy to compensate rights holders for losses due to peer-to-peer file trading on the Internet? No. The private copying legislation that passed in 1997 did two things. First, it made it legal for individuals to make copies of recorded performances of musical works if the copies were made for the private use of the copier on a medium ordinarily used to copy music. Second, the law provided for a fair and equitable levy to provide remuneration to copyright holders for the making of those private copies. The legislation recognizes that privately made copies have their own inherent value and for that reason it ensured that rights holders received compensation for the copy itself through the levy. It was never the purpose of the private copying levy to compensate copyright holders for lost revenue due to peer-to-peer file trading.
Are you sure that is the link you intended to provide? I see nothing on it regarding the private copying levy (although I could have missed something.)
This is not a tax and has nothing to do with pirated music or lawsuits related to pirated music. It is a private copying levy and is applied so that when you put your legally purchased music (e.g. CDs) onto your iPod, artists get some money.
I'm not sure you understand this "tax," (which is fair, considering Australia decided it would be unconstitutional in 1989.) It is called a private copying levy which is a very confusing cash-grab by the recording industry. They are explicitly charging you extra for making a private copy. This has nothing to do with downloading music illegally and putting it on your iPod. This is their way of making money from you putting your purchased CD collection onto your iPod.
At the start of every Simpsons and Futurama DVD commentary (that I remember hearing) he pronounces it Gray-ning.
Cue flashlight under the face...
In the year 2000:
Computers will cost half as much as they did in 1990, but will act twice as slow.
Axes can be used as a tool to hack as well. Actually, that is their intended purpose.
ScramblePad. I've heard they're around $500 though :-(
I can't think of many ways that /proc is similar to Windows Registry... would you care to enlighten me? I can think of many ways they are not similar... The fact that userland programs do not store persistent information in /proc is the first thing that comes to mind.
Even /etc/* is more like Windows Registry than /proc is.
I'm not sure what that last sentence was supposed to mean. The UNIX world has had access to keyboards with extra function keys (cut, copy, paste, and several others,) for decades.
Hmm... I think I will go and see if there is already a patent on whale-oil batteries. If not, I'll just jump straight to step 3. Profit!
Don't underestimate the bandwidth of an Alaska full of tapes going down the interstate.
You may be interested in seeing a 100 ft. DVI connection over CAT 6 cable. It was on the most recent episode of the National Semicondcutor Analog by Design Show.
Sure, it's not 350 ft, but it is pure digital, and uses some cool (to me, at least,) techniques like pre-emphasis and filtering to achieve the 100 ft transmission. Also in the episode is a 15m PCIe extender! (The demos are in the last half, the discussion on how it is done is in the first half.)
Furlongs between corporate headquarters?
MK3006GAL: 1.8" HD, 0.01W/GB, 1.1W power consumption during operation 0.4W idle, 0.07W sleep.
Now, SRAM is a different story. I only checked digikey for SRAM, and the biggest one they had was 128Mbit, but it was actually DRAM that is accessed like SRAM. With 128Mbit chips, you are looking at over 1800 chips! Even with the "low power" chip I found, those 1800 chips consume 375mA in standby mode (not including the insane amount of support chips required to drive 1800 chips!) To actually use the RAM, each chip has an "initial access" power rating of 35mA, making a whopping combined 65A, talk about some thick PCB traces!
I don't have time right now to look up the power requirements of 32GB of flash or SDRAM. There is a link somewhere in the comments for this article to a device that supposedly lasts up to 100 hours on batteries. It is a sort of large, palm os based device with only 16MB of memory, but can run on AAs. perhaps that would suit your needs for now.
I sure hope that was a typo, 32GB of modern SRAM would consume a large amount of power when in use. 32GB of SDRAM would require a large amount of power as well. 32MB of SDRAM might be ok, but a week of uptime will still require a very large (and heavy) battery or some other power source (solar, maybe?). A cholesteric display or some other sort of electronic paper display would help, but they are rather expensive and not very available right now. Keep dreaming though...
Your laptop suits your needs, not the needs of the person you were replying to. There is not one computer for everyone, get over it.
If you think that's cool, check this out. A homebrew CPU made out of 74 series TTL chips. You can even telnet to it if it's not too busy :-) There are some other ones out there, but this is the one I enjoy looking at the most.
Yep, and if you don't have zic installed, download tzcode*.tar.gz from the same site, compile it, and you have all of the updated timezone files automatically. I was surprised how painless it was. I recently had to update the timezone files on an embedded system. It's scary to think about how many embedded devices are going to be off by an hour for 4 weeks a year now.
I'm not sure they count the powered off hours, I have not found anything specifically stating that yet.
Perhaps you misinterpreted the label on the y-axis of that figure. It is not in percent, it is a multiplier. So 0.5 means 50%.
Quoting the paper, emphasis mine: