What we need is to use hemp paper. Cared for properly, it will last thousands of years, and if you get sick of it, you can put it in your compost (unless the inks are toxic) and nourish your vegetables with it later.
It would be interesting to see how the CD's would behave if they were placed in a temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled environment. Would temps and humidity, also temperature changes day/night and summer/winter lower the life expectancy? Probably more than likely.
Another thing I never quite figured out is what the best containers are for the CDs. I thought a jewel case might be best, because the readable surface isn't touching the plastic; but there are also polyethylene CD sleeves, polypropylene CD sleeves, Tyvek CD sleeves, and probably other types of storage solutions too. It would be interesting to see if sleeves help extend the lives of CD-Rs - maybe air gets next to the readable surface when it's in a jewel case and degrades the surface?
"If we don't have a resolution by midnight on Friday the 13th, the AIX world will be a different place." [June 12 2003]
I was napping when my guard dog started barking like crazy for some reason. It was a little past 4 in the afternoon. I woke up and went back and sat down at my computer, where I was working on a report. Of course, while the coffee is brewing you have to go to Slashdot,
right? So there is this story about SCO declaring the GPL invalid - of course I had to see
what was up. I went to click on the link and my monitor made a strange noise and went dead. My computer case beeped and I was startled. The surround sound system started making this very low cyclical sound - (scared the hell out of the dog) - I sort of wheeled myself back from the monitor as to ward off some evil spirit - that was that Thursday - I called the power company, and the 1800 number was busy - for hours - and eventually, of course I found out that was that power outage.
SCO is fighting for its right to use certain things that it has up to this point thought that it had the right to use, and because SCO has broken contracts, they are no longer entitled to use certain things. Because they continue to use them, they are infringing.
This caught my eye from the barely coherent interview link: It was in answer to the question from CNET:
"What if, during the course of discovery or another time, you find that the code was originally under the GPL?"
Mr. Heise's answer:
"Using that hypothetical, if Caldera (International) put something into the GPL, with copyright attribution, the whole nine yards, they can't make the claim about what that thing is that they put in there. But that doesn't mean that--well, let's use an example. Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL. That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files. So I don't think it's going to have an impact." (emphasis is mine - that is the sentence I was boggled by - Who? What? Hello? )
The bracketed comments are my guess at what all those ambiguous pronouns mean, I am just trying to make some sense of what Mr. Heise was trying to say. It is kind of confusing, but it sounds like he is siding with the open-source community's review of the code that was presented at the recent forum...
"they[SCO] can't make the claim [the claim that the code belongs to SCO] about what that thing [the GPL'ed files in question that SCO claims are infringing code] is that they [SGI] put in there."
I couldn't figure out what else he could be trying to say.
Is he saying: "If Caldera, or any UNIX licensee, releases something as GPL software, then SCO cannot claim that they are being infringed if other people use it" - the whole interview just makes little sense, but that line in particular doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It would be interesting to see if someone might suggest a levy on the recording media. It's in the best interests of everyone to make it legal to make copies of music for yourself. Not for others, to give away, or to make profit from, but for no other purpose than to make a copy of a friend's original CD for yourself.
This means that the copy you made is for you and only you and you can't give your copy to someone else so they can make a second copy, because in that case you would have been making a copy originally for a purpose other than to make a copy for yourself.
Apparently, Canada was one of the last of a group of nations that has accepted this model - this is becoming an alternative model - I have seen articles about discussions like this in Europe as well. It's not just one country that is making it legal to make copies for yourself. It needs to be legalized - that's really the only sane way to do it.
First thing, obviously, is when you install software on your machine you have a right to know what it is that you are installing and what that software program is going to do. The software company should also be required (legally) to disclose any such monitoring that is going on.
Second thing, this is all very new. If organizations put secret spyware code in their applications so that they can bust you later, soon people will know that this is going on, and people will move to protect themselves from false positives, and potential crackers will perhaps be deterred from pirating software. This kind of stuff should be out in the open, and well known. Keeping this kind of stuff secret is besides the point. Traumatizing people is different from informing people the software phones home. If the software phones home, the manufacturer should be required to disclose that fact in big letters somewhere.
Certainly, snooping out credit card numbers, or other software programs, or other confidential family photos and things like that would be way out of line, but if a software manufacturer wants to collect information to later sue people, that manufacturer should realize that sooner or later people are going to find out that this is what that manufacturer is doing. And this can be good, because it will act like a deterrent. So the whole "spy" concept is wrong. It should clearly state that information will be collected about computers running the program that are unauthorized and leave it at that.
If the point is to spread FUD, then I think they are missing the point. So no, there's nothing wrong will collecting a reasonable amount of data, but there is something wrong about being sneaky and underhanded about it.
There should be a disclosure, or even a screen on the intall wizard that lets you know that "This software phones home and it will report you if you are using an unofficial copy". That way, people won't even install it. Which is the whole point, right?
The cost of having software do this, and the cost of monitoring and dealing with all this info drives up the price of the software, too. That's another thing to consider. If you can prevent someone from installing it in the first place, then the "spyware" has done its job.
Focus on mitigation, not "A-ha! Gotcha! Betcha didn't know I've been spying on you all this time you snivveling infringer!"
Monitoring users adds cost to the program, and not telling people that they are being monitored totally negates the deterrent effect of people realizing that they will be phoned in by the software if they install it.
I just thought of something. If any company gets threatened or sued by SCO for using Linux ( given that there is no pre-existing contract with SCO ) then the potential defendant can require SCO to sign an NDA if SCO wants certain details about the company network ( a security risk - so an NDA would be wise ) including details concerning the number of CPUs running linux. Personally, I would set company policy to forbid such information from being released to unsolicited vendors period - the only thing is that perhaps an NDA for unsolicited vendors policy could prevent an SCO lawsuit?
Just a thought.
exactly... the stock has been falling, so they sue someone. I bet that they won't reveal who they are suing until the stock is falling some more again. Then when it falls again they will reveal another person that they are suing, and so on. But once that first lawsuit happens, they will have to do something else to keep the stock price up.
What I still want to know is how they intend to prove that someone is violating their IP. Any company can change the kernel source if they really want to. How do you subpeona the kernel binary running on another company's machine and decompile it? Can this even be done?
SCO is going to have to show a copy of the kernel source that was used to compile that binary kernel the people they intend to sue are running, and how exactly do they intend to do that? If they had the source, and they saw infringment, that would be another story. If you look at what code went in to a typical Linux binary kernel compilation, you would find that those individuals who compile their own kernels probably have differences in each and every kernel - in other words, it is probable that any organization that SCO would sue has compiled their own custom kernel. If the kernel source has been modified by the user, for whatever reason, or if the kernel source is not even anywhere on premises, and no SCO code was used to compile that particular kernel then there is no violation. Consequently, SCO is going to have a difficult time proving that infringing code was used during the process of configuring and compiling that particular kernel.
I mean, it's one thing to post infringing mp3 files on your personal home page, but accusing someone of having infringing source code in a kernel binary, whose sources are unknown, a kernel binary that sits behind a corporate firewall - this is a slightly different story. I would even question whether or not it would get past a grand jury.
Here is what I don't understand. How can SCO prove that a company is running Linux? I doubt that evidence from netcraft.com is going to hold very much weight in court.
If you run Microsoft software, they may audit your organization to see if you are in full compliance. If you run Solaris, and only Solaris, Microsoft has no business auditing your systems. They will get a nice boot from the security guard and get charged with trespassing if they even try to get in the front door.
Without an audit - an audit of the source code that was used to compile the kernel - SCO has no case against any of these Fortune 500 companies. All any company has to do is create their own "custom" kernel, compile it, declare there is no IP violations in their own custom kernel, and they are off the hook. The best part is that the Fortune 500 company doesn't have to prove anything. It would become SCO's responsibility to prove that the kernel that is being used to run Linux within that Fortune 500 company was compiled with source code that infringes their IP.
If a company's legal department makes sure there is no offending code in their own custom kernel that they compiled for themselves, I really don't see how SCO, or anyone, can prove in court that their IP is being violated without some sort of criminal trespass.
So if you sign that SCO license, then they can audit you for the rest of forever - DON'T sign anything with SCO. They can't "bust" you anyway.
It would take an insider, an employee "turning in" their employer to get the evidence, if that would even work, because that person would have to have access to the source code that those custom kernels were compiled from. So with a security measure that locks up that kernel source, and prevents employees from getting at that source unless they actually are compiling a kernel, combined with a 24 hour security guard and a strict policy that all hardware and software representatives must have appointments, and even perhaps have someone come to the door to meet them.
SCO is not going to get anywhere without an audit, if you sign the contract with them they will audit you until kingdom come. If you don't sign with them, they can't really catch you anyway. With Kazaa, for instance, when someone is sharing copyrighted material against the wishes of the organization that protects that copyright, there is evidence that can be presented in court that this infringement took place. Nothing of the sort can happen in the SCO-Linux situation unless SCO can get their hands on the actual source code that was used to compile the kernel that is running.
Sure, SCO lawyers can say 2.4 kernel or 2.5 kernel is this or that, but the nice thing about Linux is that an organization can have its IT staff go in there and change the source code - that's the nice thing about Linux - you can change the source - and then compile. Now the responsibility shifts to SCO's side to prove that your kernel violates their IP. Maybe a "stock" 2.4 kernel does violate, but it doesn't matter, the Fortune 500 company is under no obligation to prove anything to anyone. SCO has to prove that the Fortune 500 company violated the IP, and there is no way of doing that short of auditing every hard drive and hunting down every bit of source code that organization has in its possession, and how do they propose to do that? It's called trespassing -- they can't. Or unauthorized access to the Fortune 500 company's network, which could mean criminal consequences for any individual who wants to attempt that.
Maybe the best way to look at this is that there is no way in hell that SCO can "bust" you for using Linux if you run a tight ship. If any employee can browse your source code that you use for your Linux deployment, you may be having some problems. If hardware and software vendors come and go freely, and your staff don't have a clue as to who these people are, what vendor they are from, and what they are doing, you will have problems anyway, sooner or later.
This is interesting.. so they want you to pay them for anything past 2.4 -- usually, if I were to switch from Windows 98 to something newer, XP, for instance, there is still a $50 upgrade price?
So if I purchase one time from SCO a license for whatever they are trying to sell ( not Linux, they can't sell Linux unless it's under the GPL ) - so I license from them for 2.4 and above, so that means I only have to give them whatever they want and they will go away forever? So when I am using kernel 3.4 my license I bought now is still good?
If that is the case, it wouldn't be as problematic as if they kept coming out with a new thing you have to buy to not be sued by them, etc... so what kind of upgrade policy is going along with this "thing" that I am buying from SCO, whatever it is I am buying?
Once I hit 2.6 or 2.7, do I have to fork over another however many CPU's I have? I would not be surprised, and of course it may very well be likely.
So... the most economically feasible thing to do is to fight SCO now. Sure, it might be cheaper to pay them ( once ) a couple hundred thousand dollars than take the thing to court, but if you pay them this time, then the next time they will ask you for upgrade fees, or for some kind of continuation of this nonsense, it is much more likely that the least expensive route is letting the lawsuits go to court. That way, you can get it over with; at least you will have a chance to defend yourself and state your case. I bet that the last thing SCO wants it to have to take anyone to court - not because they have a heart - more like they don't have a case - I vaguely remember something being said along those lines. Think "upgrade fees" before you think "lawsuit costs" and getting sued by SCO will begin to look like the more desirable option.
If SCO is right, which they are not, but let's just PRETEND they were - it would still be best to find out ASAP, because then you could redeploy with some other OS. You're only opening yourself up to other lawsuits from Linux developers if you continue to use Linux while violating the GPL.
So from a financial standpoint, the long-term costs associatied with licensing fees being paid to SCO on a regular basis are greater than the one-time costs of letting the whole thing go to court, or perhaps settling out of court.
I *just* started reading the Tao of Physics... we'll see how that goes.
I have to recommend these books:
"Rhetoric" by Aristotle
A great book, really. Takes a while to read a translation, but well worth it. I always associated Aristotle with the arts in one way or another but it is surprising how relevant many of his concepts are today, given that the book was written in 350 BC.
The Diamond Sutra
A very old and very important Buddhist text - A Chinese translation of this book is the world's earliest dated printed book (868 AD). ( There are earlier books, but none of those actually had a date stamped on them. ) You will need a good translation and will probably spend more time in the footnotes, but this is an incredible book. Just an incredible book.
A university should make available to students whatever it can. If it can economically make available multimedia from a particular vendor / conglomerate / distribution company, great. If not, a college can still have a common multimedia network where students from theatre groups, film classes, marching bands, symphony orchestras (if the college has one), jazz ensembles, dance recitals, and any other class / university event can make their multimedia available to the rest of the staff and students free of charge. This should be fairly easy to implement - obviously, people are afraid of getting sued, so they won't implement anything like this at all, right? All it takes is for someone to put a mp3 on that network and whoever wrote that software and God knows who else will be sued for a couple trillion dollars?
The entertainment industry is wasting taxpayer dollars, they are creating a dangerous situation with privacy rights, and they are trying to bend everyone else's reality to suit their needs. This won't work, because, amongst other reasons, the modern human being / organization / family needs to learn to adapt to their enviroment. We are living in a modern age where the environment we live in is constantly changing, technology constantly improving. If we don't adapt to keep up, we will be left behind. Not that being left behind is the worst thing, sometimes it's the best thing.
With all the hype about college degrees getting you this and that financial reward, it's difficult to justify not sending your son or daughter to college. However, I am beginning to feel more frequently than before that the quality of education is dropping. There are more students desperate to get into school, so naturally, as the numbers increase, the quality of education recieved will decrease.
It's HARD to find a good school!!
That being said, if you don't want to be a part of a lot of nonsense, and you can afford it, off-campus housing is the way to go. Then you can just get DSL or whatever like everyone else.
But I still think that colleges should try to make whatever multimedia they can LEGALLY distribute available to the staff / students free of charge. Take the cost of that network and maybe have that be paid for by tuition.
But bringing in entertainment just to avoid lawsuits is stupid. That's why building a "legit" campus-wide multimedia network that is monitored closely by school officials, and does not act as a repository for any mp3's anyone has on their hard drive would be a logical constructive step towards solving this problem.
A college should be able to monitor and maintain a legitimate campus-wide multimedia network without interference of lawsuits from any third-party organization. Once such a network exists, material from other legitimate sources can be added effortlessly.
Cars kill. Cars injure. Cars are dangerous. Much more dangerous than many other things that are illegal:) -- statistically, and in other ways.
Cars are highly regulated in the U.S.and throughout the world. And being as dangerous as they are (statistically), especially when mixed with alcohol, it's obvious that there is a good reason to regulate a car to a much greater extent than there is a good reason to regulate a computer in the same way.
Compared to cars, computers are somewhat safer; while they still do present some risks, they are safer. Your chances of getting killed or injured by using a computer are statistically very slim. Your chances of killing someone or injuring someone through use of your computer are statistically very slim. Has anyone every killed or injured someone through the use of a computer? Doubt it. Even a 5 year-old can safely type on a keyboard things they don't understand and be safe from death or injury. A 5 year-old driving a car... well... I just never imagined something like that before anyway.
So regulating computers isn't going to be as easy for anyone to do as regulating cars is. First of all, it's a waste of money. There is no risk to the citizenry, so regulating something that poses no risk to the citizens is extremely expensive and a utter waste of taxpayer money. Societies regulate things that have the potential to cause harm; there is no reason to regulate something that does not need to be regulated. Standardized? YES, PLEASE! But regulated like cars - I don't think that's necessary.
I think eventually executives will realize that the internet as we have known it up to this point does not represent "easy money" the way many large organizations think it does. I bet cable TV ads are much more effective, dollar for dollar. Sure, ordering online is handy, but it's not going to ever become the primary way we do things - not yet.
Attempting to regulate computers for corporate financial gain by hijacking the American justice system is not a very profitable thing to do. Corporations may not have realized it yet, but they will... computers and computer-related jobs and industry sectors may, from time to time, be profitable, but trying to make more money for yourself by attempting to regulate the computer industry with rules you made up yourself and politicans you bought is an utter waste of time.
That's one way... is to have artists move over to a different model. By supporting independent music, more artists will be willing to take a chance in that direction. An artist is taking a chance regardless of what label he or she chooses to go with, so if independent labels become known for being able to create successes for artists, this would be a great way out of this mess that we are currently in.
I wonder if there is a way to use hemp in the manufacture of bicycles as well? Ford was experimenting building cars out of it, and using the oil from the seeds as raw material fuel to run those cars, but nothing ever came of that, unfortunately.
They make houses out of hemp. There is a hemp pulp that gets mixed with the right minerals and you can build walls. So far, however, the shipping from France, which is where you can get what is sometimes called "hemp concrete" or "hemp cement", has been more expensive than the product itself, which is rather inexpensive, and a relatively inexpensive way to build a house, or a shed, or a barn, etc....
Some hemp pulp and the right minerals to make a cement - molded into tubes or other shapes - maybe with a little bamboo helping out here and there... I bet you could make a fairly nice bicycle out of hemp products.
If we get to a point where we act like courts don't exist, and try to get through life without them, that's probably all fine, but courts and legal systems are a part of life and cowering in the corner in fear of them (your tax dollars support them) makes no sense at all.
It does not appear to be the case that there is any reason anyone has to worry about using Linux.
Judging from the options - buying a license for a different product - could someone like Sun offer me a Linux binary rights too?? -- end users have not necessarily, in a historical sense, purchased their licenses to use UNIX from AT&T, but they have bought them from Sun, or HP, or IBM... could I get a "linux license" from HP?
Buying a "linux license" at this point in time would be a mistake. Not to mention that it goes against the GPL. The only option is to either use Linux or not use it. The SAFEST thing is to not use Linux at all, if you are of that mental pre-disposition to be cowardly. Paying someone else a license to use a product that they have no right to license to you is not an option. Not that there isn't a possibility that there may have been some IP problems (I doubt it) - but even if there are IP problems (I doubt there are) - that gets resolved later, in a different way. It's not a viable option - SCO may not be the only one doing the suing. (likely).
If Linux is to survive, there will be no "linux licenses" from UNIX vendors allowed. You can't do this. That's not what Linux is all about. You may very well open yourself up to lawsuits from other individuals and groups if you do try to license Linux in any other way other than the GPL.
Despite what many of these people think, this event is going to increase Linux's popularity tenfold. Linux is soon going to become the most popular operating system in the world.
There is this thing that some people do with spam - in other words, if you continue to send people spam they will track down your IP and charge you a "fee" for every e-mail you send at a rate of a couple hundred dollars an hour, with a minimum number of hours as a baseline. After sending the spammer, once tracked down, a letter stating that further unsolicited e-mails constitute a written agreement, or contract, for consulting services.
If I were a business owner and SCO contacted me about purchasing their product, and I told them I wasn't interested, what would happen?
They would continue to say that there may be risk of a lawsuit. Well, I would reply: "We do offer consulation services. For a fee of $900/hr. we can help you with your lawsuit situation."
So it's obvious that either they are spamming my organization with unsolicited offers for a product I am not interested in, or they would like to set up an account with my organization so that we could consult with them r.e. the potential lawsuit they are talking about.Or I may just refer them to someone who can offer them the consulting services they are looking for.
Either way, time is money... if SCO wants to consult, they will pay for the consultation fee. If they choose to file a lawsuit against my organization in an effort to avoid paying the consulting fees, they will be sued for them.
Otherwise it's spam. And if you think about it, that's exactly what it is.
There is no fundamental reason any one particular individual can abuse the United States justice system for their own personal gain more than any other particular individual, equallly skilled at milking the justice system, can. Other than the fact that it's something most intelligent people don't want to stoop low enough to do.
I purchased an old HP color deskjet from the local university property disposition warehouse just for printing webpages and reciepts when you buy something online - it's PS and networked, and $25 - so I can't complain. But the four separate color ink cartridges each individually cost more than I paid for the printer - something like $30+ each.
I ordered a kit from inksupply.com and I am very happy with it. Refilling, for me, probably because I am new to this, is kind of messy - I always use latex or vinyl gloves and a good sink - but it works and it's cheap. The entire process takes about 15 minutes or so. I just re-used the old cartridges that came with the printer and everything checks out.
The interesting thing I noticed on the MIS website was that they have Archival Inks for Epson, very high quality ink.
I had a very good experience refilling my own cartridges - after the tools, these 40ml HP cartridges (the colors are also 40ml, rated at 1600 pages a piece) - it works out to about less than $3 per cartridge.
If I were going to look for a printer, right now, for really good color, I would get a near-top-of-the-line Epson and use those Archival Inks. That's what I would do. The continuous flow system uses the same ink that you can refill yourself, and if you buy a larger quantity of ink , you pay the same price for the ink whether or not you are using it in a continuous flow. Continuous flow is just if you get sick of refilling your cartridges all the time. (depends how much you print). There is tons of information on their website, but just from browsing it a little bit it looks like continuous flow is not the best choice if you are not printing a LOT. But if you are into massive production of high-quality prints it's the way to go.
If I understand this properly, if you register your material with the US Copyright Office, you can sue for the act of copyright violation itself - it's something like $250,000.
Now that copyright is automatic, anyone can sue for damages under copyright laws whether or not he or she has registered with the Copyright Office.
Those who register with the Copyright Office also get to sue for the act itself, plus damages.
this means our universe, the universe we call home.
but what we don't know yet, and from what I understand this is still under debate, or maybe we'll never know for sure, is whether we will one day say
"this universe"
as opposed to all of the other universes, past, present and future.
I like this concept; it's kind of cool.
I would imagine that the composition of this planet would be different from the composition of our planet, provided that the globular cluster has less "recycled" supernova remnants. Or is it possible that there had already been supernova explosions prior to the time the planet was formed? Or is this some complex interrelationsip between the white dwarf, the pulsar, and the planet? Some strange type of accretion or something? If that planet contains heavier elements, then maybe it's artificially manufactured by intelligent beings! It would be cool to check it out.
I was looking at the HP 3420 - it was on sale recently for something like $40 or so.
I had always used second-hand DeskJet 500's, 560's etc... with the "26" cartridge - that cartridge holds 40 ml and prints out about 800+ or so pages. These "51626" cartridges are right around slightly less than $30 US. I have printed thousands of pages of material using these old HP DeskJets and have had no problems. I like those printers. They are kind of slow, but very reliable.
The black cartridge for the HP 3420 holds 10ml and is expected to print about 200+ pages. It costs slightly less than $20 US. The color cartridge for this printer holds 8ml and produces slightly less than 200 pages.
The higher quality (and more expensive) printers have larger page number counts for their refills, but many of the less expensive brands and printers had page counts of less than 500 pages per cartridge, and even though the cartridges have dropped in price, they hold a lot less ink and you can hardly get anything printed with one cartridge. These bargain printers are probably an excellent solution for those who just need to print out an occasional web page or order confirmation here or there. They probably are not designed for people who print a lot. And, paying 18 dollars for a cartridge just kind of feels better than paying 28 dollars for a cartridge, despite the fact that there is only 1/4 as much ink in there!!! The boxes are all the same size on the shelf, who would guess that one cartridge has 10ml and the other has 40ml?
I have come to expect over 500 pages from one deskjet cartridge. Closer to 1000 would be better - some printer can do this. The HP DeskJet 1200 (which is an older model) - this black print cartridge was rated at 1100+ pages before it ran out (42ml). Same price as the others - about $30 US.
I don't doubt that the quality of the printed pages is good - I love Hewlett Packard printers, it's just that if you print a lot of stuff, you really need to get a printer (even second-hand, if you can find one) that was originally designed to do some serious printing. I found a second-hand HP printer (I love HP printers) that is rated for 12,000 pages per month; not like I would ever print that many pages per month, but it is kind of cool to know that you could if you wanted to.
Office Depot's site has page counts on all the refills - I found it helpful when shopping around for a printer. To some people, page counts per cartridge don't matter - they don't print enough stuff to have that matter. But to many of us, it does make a big difference, and it is surprising how expensive the ink is for the really inexpensive printers.
I've also bought shareware, when I really felt that it was necessary. Linux, of course, and shareware is not quite the same situation - but if you are using Windows, or Apple, shareware can be a wonderful thing. Of course I would never buy shareware that didn't work, just good solid programs that do work and serve a purpose. Definitely.
On the other hand, our current situation with media changing every few decades, there are movies I want that are out of print, and cost $50 and up to buy a "collectors" VHS of unknown quality (can't get a new VHS) - but there are no DVD versions either. What's wrong with a timeless movie? There are some really cool movies out there that are hard to get, or you pay some ridiculous amount of money for a collectible.
The same thing can be said for music, too... there is lots of music that is out of print and no longer available, but more importantly than that, there is lots of music out there that many people have never heard of or discovered before. It is obvious that for most people, there is more music and more artists and more movies that they haven't seen, and would probably enjoy, than they have. This is a shame. Artwork that has taken years to produce is no longer available for many people, certainly not at a reasonable price.
We need to get to a point where every work of art that gets produced, books, too... every piece of IP should have a digital backup of some sort that can be special ordered for a fee. Of course the special order would cost more than what we pay for the stuff that is mass-produced in bulk, print-on-demand would cost more than that same book if it were available at the new book store, but still... we shouldn't have this situation where there are good movies and good songs and great books that have become hard to find because of the quantity issue.
The worst thing about mp3 files is the sound quality. I don't know about the Apple format, but lossy is lossy and if you care enough about the presentation of your works that you don't want them split up into singles, certainly sound quality is way more important than the music being split up into individual songs. Sound quality can make a real difference.
But of course if an artist doesn't want to split the songs up, then why doesn't that artist just go ahead and not let the album get split up? These artists are "protesting". If you want to stipulate something, stipulate it already, but it hardly qualifies as "news". Make your decision and go with it, tell the world about it if you want. But protest? Aren't there better things to protest?
Because it's not going to work for every artist, and because there is a demand for single songs from the customers, and because there is more to music than epic musical works, these types of stipulations aren't the "right" choice for every musician. Each artist should choose what he or she wants to do. The timing of this "protest" is poorly planned and ill-concieved, considering what has been going on with the "war on piracy", the recent opening of Apple's music service, and the recent court cases involving P2P. Again, it really should be up to each individual artist to choose what to do. And where does it say that this decision needs to be splattered on the front page of every newspaper... it's a private decision, and it's no big deal. And that decision does not need to become a public debate, I think the obvious solution is that it's the artist's choice. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with an artist choosing to offer low(er) sound quality single songs for online download if her or she chooses to do so. Nor is there anything wrong with an artist preventing the online distribution of compressed audio files of their work.
When you put together music that moves lots of people in a positive direction - good music, music that people can relate to - not necessarily your greatest fans, but people who will casually encouter your music, people who have never heard your latest album, single, whatever - music that starts a trend, music that leaves a cool vibe, good pop music - this kind of music is not so much about material things, so whether or not you can buy an album or a single electronically or not is almost completely irrelevant. An artist needs to carefully weigh the pros and cons, and make that decision. If they feel that have to make a press release about the reasons behind their choosing to disallow electronic single sales, more power to them.
This whole thing is just a distraction of sorts. By the time the media gets involved you have a new "task" on your hands - everyone knows that, so I have to wonder what is really going on here.
As a musician, I have always felt that it's not even the whole song that leaves the impression on the listener. Certainly any musician wishes to leave some sort of impression on the listener, maybe impart a certain message to the listener. Really, all it takes is one vibe. You can have many cool vibes in one song, typical song being 5 minutes (pop music).
Those vibes add up in the forms of choruses, verses, and catchy melodies. You could call it a "hit" if you want, but that's not every musician's goal. It's not as simple as having a nice album to put on your wall. I don't think that's it.
It shouldn't matter if the listener hears the song on the radio, or from a passing car, or in some other temporary, incomplete setting. One vibe, one chorus, one chord, one sound should be enough to get the message across.
I find it hard to believe that any artist would find that it takes an entire album for a listener to derive something positive and beneficial, or just cool and funky, or upbeat and exciting, or slow and introspective. It should only take 5 seconds of music from a passing car to share a good vibe through music.
I am not sure that insisting that people buy the whole album is all it's cracked up to be. It's probably best to make sure that anyone who wants the album can buy it just as easily as they can the single (i.e. have a link next to the single that says "buy album" or something similar).
The thought that music that you make will be heard by millions of people around the world should be enough to realize that one song is all that you really need to take that first step on the path towards expressing yourself. Certainly, people buying your work hardly qualifies as something that stands in your way!
I would rather have millions and millions of people listen to part of one song than hundreds of thousands of people listen to a whole album. Better yet, there shouldn't be any reason to not have both, unless you are just in it for the money, or the fame, or the luxuries, etc...
It's an imperfect world - as an artist, I prefer to concentrate on the good parts - knowing that music you create is going to be heard by lots and lots of people you will probably never meet is REALLY COOL - it's better to step back and just let it happen (in my opinion). The minute you get eccentric and strange you lose a certain connection, and the music becomes less meaningful than it has the potential to be.
Essentially, the artist(s), more precisely the performer(s), are in business for themselves. They get whatever is left over once everyone else is taken care of, in a technical sense.
Even though the artists sometimes ride around in limos and stay at expensive hotels, and have money to do stuff and people to call if they need a loan, the bottom line ends up being negative. And then there are taxes to deal with (or not deal with).
So essentially, the artist(s) is / are, on paper, more or less (an) entrepreneur(s). An entrepreneur that is being bossed around by the people who's salaries he or she (or they) pay. If I hire someone, I should at least be able to tell them what to do, not the other way around.
It is unfortunate, and most people don't realize it until they get involved in it. It's really true, it's a rip-off. Historically, a rip-off with deadly consequences. Now I just speak for my experiences with this, there may very well be some people who can succeed in the music industry and come out the other end better people than they went in, but those kind of people are few and far between. It's a struggle.
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What we need is to use hemp paper. Cared for properly, it will last thousands of years, and if you get sick of it, you can put it in your compost (unless the inks are toxic) and nourish your vegetables with it later.
It would be interesting to see how the CD's would behave if they were placed in a temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled environment. Would temps and humidity, also temperature changes day/night and summer/winter lower the life expectancy? Probably more than likely.
Another thing I never quite figured out is what the best containers are for the CDs. I thought a jewel case might be best, because the readable surface isn't touching the plastic; but there are also polyethylene CD sleeves, polypropylene CD sleeves, Tyvek CD sleeves, and probably other types of storage solutions too. It would be interesting to see if sleeves help extend the lives of CD-Rs - maybe air gets next to the readable surface when it's in a jewel case and degrades the surface?
"If we don't have a resolution by midnight on Friday the 13th, the AIX world will be a different place." [June 12 2003]
I was napping when my guard dog started barking like crazy for some reason. It was a little past 4 in the afternoon. I woke up and went back and sat down at my computer, where I was working on a report. Of course, while the coffee is brewing you have to go to Slashdot, right? So there is this story about SCO declaring the GPL invalid - of course I had to see what was up. I went to click on the link and my monitor made a strange noise and went dead. My computer case beeped and I was startled. The surround sound system started making this very low cyclical sound - (scared the hell out of the dog) - I sort of wheeled myself back from the monitor as to ward off some evil spirit - that was that Thursday - I called the power company, and the 1800 number was busy - for hours - and eventually, of course I found out that was that power outage.
I can't take SCO seriously anymore, sorry.
So it's the other way around then.
SCO is fighting for its right to use certain things that it has up to this point thought that it had the right to use, and because SCO has broken contracts, they are no longer entitled to use certain things. Because they continue to use them, they are infringing.
This caught my eye from the barely coherent interview link: It was in answer to the question from CNET:
"What if, during the course of discovery or another time, you find that the code was originally under the GPL?"
Mr. Heise's answer:
"Using that hypothetical, if Caldera (International) put something into the GPL, with copyright attribution, the whole nine yards, they can't make the claim about what that thing is that they put in there. But that doesn't mean that--well, let's use an example. Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL. That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files. So I don't think it's going to have an impact." (emphasis is mine - that is the sentence I was boggled by - Who? What? Hello? )
The bracketed comments are my guess at what all those ambiguous pronouns mean, I am just trying to make some sense of what Mr. Heise was trying to say. It is kind of confusing, but it sounds like he is siding with the open-source community's review of the code that was presented at the recent forum...
"they[SCO] can't make the claim [the claim that the code belongs to SCO] about what that thing [the GPL'ed files in question that SCO claims are infringing code] is that they [SGI] put in there."
I couldn't figure out what else he could be trying to say.
Is he saying: "If Caldera, or any UNIX licensee, releases something as GPL software, then SCO cannot claim that they are being infringed if other people use it" - the whole interview just makes little sense, but that line in particular doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
It would be interesting to see if someone might suggest a levy on the recording media. It's in the best interests of everyone to make it legal to make copies of music for yourself. Not for others, to give away, or to make profit from, but for no other purpose than to make a copy of a friend's original CD for yourself.
This means that the copy you made is for you and only you and you can't give your copy to someone else so they can make a second copy, because in that case you would have been making a copy originally for a purpose other than to make a copy for yourself.
Apparently, Canada was one of the last of a group of nations that has accepted this model - this is becoming an alternative model - I have seen articles about discussions like this in Europe as well. It's not just one country that is making it legal to make copies for yourself. It needs to be legalized - that's really the only sane way to do it.
America is WIERD.....
First thing, obviously, is when you install software on your machine you have a right to know what it is that you are installing and what that software program is going to do. The software company should also be required (legally) to disclose any such monitoring that is going on.
Second thing, this is all very new. If organizations put secret spyware code in their applications so that they can bust you later, soon people will know that this is going on, and people will move to protect themselves from false positives, and potential crackers will perhaps be deterred from pirating software. This kind of stuff should be out in the open, and well known. Keeping this kind of stuff secret is besides the point. Traumatizing people is different from informing people the software phones home. If the software phones home, the manufacturer should be required to disclose that fact in big letters somewhere.
Certainly, snooping out credit card numbers, or other software programs, or other confidential family photos and things like that would be way out of line, but if a software manufacturer wants to collect information to later sue people, that manufacturer should realize that sooner or later people are going to find out that this is what that manufacturer is doing. And this can be good, because it will act like a deterrent. So the whole "spy" concept is wrong. It should clearly state that information will be collected about computers running the program that are unauthorized and leave it at that.
If the point is to spread FUD, then I think they are missing the point. So no, there's nothing wrong will collecting a reasonable amount of data, but there is something wrong about being sneaky and underhanded about it.
There should be a disclosure, or even a screen on the intall wizard that lets you know that "This software phones home and it will report you if you are using an unofficial copy". That way, people won't even install it. Which is the whole point, right?
The cost of having software do this, and the cost of monitoring and dealing with all this info drives up the price of the software, too. That's another thing to consider. If you can prevent someone from installing it in the first place, then the "spyware" has done its job.
Focus on mitigation, not "A-ha! Gotcha! Betcha didn't know I've been spying on you all this time you snivveling infringer!"
Monitoring users adds cost to the program, and not telling people that they are being monitored totally negates the deterrent effect of people realizing that they will be phoned in by the software if they install it.
I just thought of something. If any company gets threatened or sued by SCO for using Linux ( given that there is no pre-existing contract with SCO ) then the potential defendant can require SCO to sign an NDA if SCO wants certain details about the company network ( a security risk - so an NDA would be wise ) including details concerning the number of CPUs running linux. Personally, I would set company policy to forbid such information from being released to unsolicited vendors period - the only thing is that perhaps an NDA for unsolicited vendors policy could prevent an SCO lawsuit? Just a thought.
exactly... the stock has been falling, so they sue someone. I bet that they won't reveal who they are suing until the stock is falling some more again. Then when it falls again they will reveal another person that they are suing, and so on. But once that first lawsuit happens, they will have to do something else to keep the stock price up.
What I still want to know is how they intend to prove that someone is violating their IP. Any company can change the kernel source if they really want to. How do you subpeona the kernel binary running on another company's machine and decompile it? Can this even be done?
SCO is going to have to show a copy of the kernel source that was used to compile that binary kernel the people they intend to sue are running, and how exactly do they intend to do that? If they had the source, and they saw infringment, that would be another story. If you look at what code went in to a typical Linux binary kernel compilation, you would find that those individuals who compile their own kernels probably have differences in each and every kernel - in other words, it is probable that any organization that SCO would sue has compiled their own custom kernel. If the kernel source has been modified by the user, for whatever reason, or if the kernel source is not even anywhere on premises, and no SCO code was used to compile that particular kernel then there is no violation. Consequently, SCO is going to have a difficult time proving that infringing code was used during the process of configuring and compiling that particular kernel.
I mean, it's one thing to post infringing mp3 files on your personal home page, but accusing someone of having infringing source code in a kernel binary, whose sources are unknown, a kernel binary that sits behind a corporate firewall - this is a slightly different story. I would even question whether or not it would get past a grand jury.
SCO's Not Linux is SNL, which is also Saturday Night Live.
hmmmm.... there has to be a deeper meaning to this somehow
Here is what I don't understand. How can SCO prove that a company is running Linux? I doubt that evidence from netcraft.com is going to hold very much weight in court.
If you run Microsoft software, they may audit your organization to see if you are in full compliance. If you run Solaris, and only Solaris, Microsoft has no business auditing your systems. They will get a nice boot from the security guard and get charged with trespassing if they even try to get in the front door.
Without an audit - an audit of the source code that was used to compile the kernel - SCO has no case against any of these Fortune 500 companies. All any company has to do is create their own "custom" kernel, compile it, declare there is no IP violations in their own custom kernel, and they are off the hook. The best part is that the Fortune 500 company doesn't have to prove anything. It would become SCO's responsibility to prove that the kernel that is being used to run Linux within that Fortune 500 company was compiled with source code that infringes their IP.
If a company's legal department makes sure there is no offending code in their own custom kernel that they compiled for themselves, I really don't see how SCO, or anyone, can prove in court that their IP is being violated without some sort of criminal trespass.
So if you sign that SCO license, then they can audit you for the rest of forever - DON'T sign anything with SCO. They can't "bust" you anyway.
It would take an insider, an employee "turning in" their employer to get the evidence, if that would even work, because that person would have to have access to the source code that those custom kernels were compiled from. So with a security measure that locks up that kernel source, and prevents employees from getting at that source unless they actually are compiling a kernel, combined with a 24 hour security guard and a strict policy that all hardware and software representatives must have appointments, and even perhaps have someone come to the door to meet them.
SCO is not going to get anywhere without an audit, if you sign the contract with them they will audit you until kingdom come. If you don't sign with them, they can't really catch you anyway. With Kazaa, for instance, when someone is sharing copyrighted material against the wishes of the organization that protects that copyright, there is evidence that can be presented in court that this infringement took place. Nothing of the sort can happen in the SCO-Linux situation unless SCO can get their hands on the actual source code that was used to compile the kernel that is running.
Sure, SCO lawyers can say 2.4 kernel or 2.5 kernel is this or that, but the nice thing about Linux is that an organization can have its IT staff go in there and change the source code - that's the nice thing about Linux - you can change the source - and then compile. Now the responsibility shifts to SCO's side to prove that your kernel violates their IP. Maybe a "stock" 2.4 kernel does violate, but it doesn't matter, the Fortune 500 company is under no obligation to prove anything to anyone. SCO has to prove that the Fortune 500 company violated the IP, and there is no way of doing that short of auditing every hard drive and hunting down every bit of source code that organization has in its possession, and how do they propose to do that? It's called trespassing -- they can't. Or unauthorized access to the Fortune 500 company's network, which could mean criminal consequences for any individual who wants to attempt that.
Maybe the best way to look at this is that there is no way in hell that SCO can "bust" you for using Linux if you run a tight ship. If any employee can browse your source code that you use for your Linux deployment, you may be having some problems. If hardware and software vendors come and go freely, and your staff don't have a clue as to who these people are, what vendor they are from, and what they are doing, you will have problems anyway, sooner or later.
This is interesting.. so they want you to pay them for anything past 2.4 -- usually, if I were to switch from Windows 98 to something newer, XP, for instance, there is still a $50 upgrade price?
So if I purchase one time from SCO a license for whatever they are trying to sell ( not Linux, they can't sell Linux unless it's under the GPL ) - so I license from them for 2.4 and above, so that means I only have to give them whatever they want and they will go away forever? So when I am using kernel 3.4 my license I bought now is still good?
If that is the case, it wouldn't be as problematic as if they kept coming out with a new thing you have to buy to not be sued by them, etc... so what kind of upgrade policy is going along with this "thing" that I am buying from SCO, whatever it is I am buying?
Once I hit 2.6 or 2.7, do I have to fork over another however many CPU's I have? I would not be surprised, and of course it may very well be likely.
So... the most economically feasible thing to do is to fight SCO now. Sure, it might be cheaper to pay them ( once ) a couple hundred thousand dollars than take the thing to court, but if you pay them this time, then the next time they will ask you for upgrade fees, or for some kind of continuation of this nonsense, it is much more likely that the least expensive route is letting the lawsuits go to court. That way, you can get it over with; at least you will have a chance to defend yourself and state your case. I bet that the last thing SCO wants it to have to take anyone to court - not because they have a heart - more like they don't have a case - I vaguely remember something being said along those lines. Think "upgrade fees" before you think "lawsuit costs" and getting sued by SCO will begin to look like the more desirable option.
If SCO is right, which they are not, but let's just PRETEND they were - it would still be best to find out ASAP, because then you could redeploy with some other OS. You're only opening yourself up to other lawsuits from Linux developers if you continue to use Linux while violating the GPL.
So from a financial standpoint, the long-term costs associatied with licensing fees being paid to SCO on a regular basis are greater than the one-time costs of letting the whole thing go to court, or perhaps settling out of court.
Nice list...
I *just* started reading the Tao of Physics... we'll see how that goes.
I have to recommend these books:
"Rhetoric" by Aristotle
A great book, really. Takes a while to read a translation, but well worth it. I always associated Aristotle with the arts in one way or another but it is surprising how relevant many of his concepts are today, given that the book was written in 350 BC.
The Diamond Sutra
A very old and very important Buddhist text - A Chinese translation of this book is the world's earliest dated printed book (868 AD). ( There are earlier books, but none of those actually had a date stamped on them. ) You will need a good translation and will probably spend more time in the footnotes, but this is an incredible book. Just an incredible book.
A university should make available to students whatever it can. If it can economically make available multimedia from a particular vendor / conglomerate / distribution company, great. If not, a college can still have a common multimedia network where students from theatre groups, film classes, marching bands, symphony orchestras (if the college has one), jazz ensembles, dance recitals, and any other class / university event can make their multimedia available to the rest of the staff and students free of charge. This should be fairly easy to implement - obviously, people are afraid of getting sued, so they won't implement anything like this at all, right? All it takes is for someone to put a mp3 on that network and whoever wrote that software and God knows who else will be sued for a couple trillion dollars?
The entertainment industry is wasting taxpayer dollars, they are creating a dangerous situation with privacy rights, and they are trying to bend everyone else's reality to suit their needs. This won't work, because, amongst other reasons, the modern human being / organization / family needs to learn to adapt to their enviroment. We are living in a modern age where the environment we live in is constantly changing, technology constantly improving. If we don't adapt to keep up, we will be left behind. Not that being left behind is the worst thing, sometimes it's the best thing.
With all the hype about college degrees getting you this and that financial reward, it's difficult to justify not sending your son or daughter to college. However, I am beginning to feel more frequently than before that the quality of education is dropping. There are more students desperate to get into school, so naturally, as the numbers increase, the quality of education recieved will decrease.
It's HARD to find a good school!!
That being said, if you don't want to be a part of a lot of nonsense, and you can afford it, off-campus housing is the way to go. Then you can just get DSL or whatever like everyone else.
But I still think that colleges should try to make whatever multimedia they can LEGALLY distribute available to the staff / students free of charge. Take the cost of that network and maybe have that be paid for by tuition.
But bringing in entertainment just to avoid lawsuits is stupid. That's why building a "legit" campus-wide multimedia network that is monitored closely by school officials, and does not act as a repository for any mp3's anyone has on their hard drive would be a logical constructive step towards solving this problem.
A college should be able to monitor and maintain a legitimate campus-wide multimedia network without interference of lawsuits from any third-party organization. Once such a network exists, material from other legitimate sources can be added effortlessly.
Cars kill. Cars injure. Cars are dangerous. Much more dangerous than many other things that are illegal :) -- statistically, and in other ways.
Cars are highly regulated in the U.S.and throughout the world. And being as dangerous as they are (statistically), especially when mixed with alcohol, it's obvious that there is a good reason to regulate a car to a much greater extent than there is a good reason to regulate a computer in the same way.
Compared to cars, computers are somewhat safer; while they still do present some risks, they are safer. Your chances of getting killed or injured by using a computer are statistically very slim. Your chances of killing someone or injuring someone through use of your computer are statistically very slim. Has anyone every killed or injured someone through the use of a computer? Doubt it. Even a 5 year-old can safely type on a keyboard things they don't understand and be safe from death or injury. A 5 year-old driving a car... well... I just never imagined something like that before anyway.
So regulating computers isn't going to be as easy for anyone to do as regulating cars is. First of all, it's a waste of money. There is no risk to the citizenry, so regulating something that poses no risk to the citizens is extremely expensive and a utter waste of taxpayer money. Societies regulate things that have the potential to cause harm; there is no reason to regulate something that does not need to be regulated. Standardized? YES, PLEASE! But regulated like cars - I don't think that's necessary.
I think eventually executives will realize that the internet as we have known it up to this point does not represent "easy money" the way many large organizations think it does. I bet cable TV ads are much more effective, dollar for dollar. Sure, ordering online is handy, but it's not going to ever become the primary way we do things - not yet.
Attempting to regulate computers for corporate financial gain by hijacking the American justice system is not a very profitable thing to do. Corporations may not have realized it yet, but they will... computers and computer-related jobs and industry sectors may, from time to time, be profitable, but trying to make more money for yourself by attempting to regulate the computer industry with rules you made up yourself and politicans you bought is an utter waste of time.
That's one way... is to have artists move over to a different model. By supporting independent music, more artists will be willing to take a chance in that direction. An artist is taking a chance regardless of what label he or she chooses to go with, so if independent labels become known for being able to create successes for artists, this would be a great way out of this mess that we are currently in.
I wonder if there is a way to use hemp in the manufacture of bicycles as well? Ford was experimenting building cars out of it, and using the oil from the seeds as raw material fuel to run those cars, but nothing ever came of that, unfortunately.
They make houses out of hemp. There is a hemp pulp that gets mixed with the right minerals and you can build walls. So far, however, the shipping from France, which is where you can get what is sometimes called "hemp concrete" or "hemp cement", has been more expensive than the product itself, which is rather inexpensive, and a relatively inexpensive way to build a house, or a shed, or a barn, etc....
Some hemp pulp and the right minerals to make a cement - molded into tubes or other shapes - maybe with a little bamboo helping out here and there... I bet you could make a fairly nice bicycle out of hemp products.
If we get to a point where we act like courts don't exist, and try to get through life without them, that's probably all fine, but courts and legal systems are a part of life and cowering in the corner in fear of them (your tax dollars support them) makes no sense at all.
It does not appear to be the case that there is any reason anyone has to worry about using Linux.
Judging from the options - buying a license for a different product - could someone like Sun offer me a Linux binary rights too?? -- end users have not necessarily, in a historical sense, purchased their licenses to use UNIX from AT&T, but they have bought them from Sun, or HP, or IBM... could I get a "linux license" from HP?
Buying a "linux license" at this point in time would be a mistake. Not to mention that it goes against the GPL. The only option is to either use Linux or not use it. The SAFEST thing is to not use Linux at all, if you are of that mental pre-disposition to be cowardly. Paying someone else a license to use a product that they have no right to license to you is not an option. Not that there isn't a possibility that there may have been some IP problems (I doubt it) - but even if there are IP problems (I doubt there are) - that gets resolved later, in a different way. It's not a viable option - SCO may not be the only one doing the suing. (likely).
If Linux is to survive, there will be no "linux licenses" from UNIX vendors allowed. You can't do this. That's not what Linux is all about. You may very well open yourself up to lawsuits from other individuals and groups if you do try to license Linux in any other way other than the GPL.
Despite what many of these people think, this event is going to increase Linux's popularity tenfold. Linux is soon going to become the most popular operating system in the world.
There is this thing that some people do with spam - in other words, if you continue to send people spam they will track down your IP and charge you a "fee" for every e-mail you send at a rate of a couple hundred dollars an hour, with a minimum number of hours as a baseline. After sending the spammer, once tracked down, a letter stating that further unsolicited e-mails constitute a written agreement, or contract, for consulting services.
If I were a business owner and SCO contacted me about purchasing their product, and I told them I wasn't interested, what would happen?
They would continue to say that there may be risk of a lawsuit. Well, I would reply: "We do offer consulation services. For a fee of $900/hr. we can help you with your lawsuit situation."
So it's obvious that either they are spamming my organization with unsolicited offers for a product I am not interested in, or they would like to set up an account with my organization so that we could consult with them r.e. the potential lawsuit they are talking about.Or I may just refer them to someone who can offer them the consulting services they are looking for.
Either way, time is money... if SCO wants to consult, they will pay for the consultation fee. If they choose to file a lawsuit against my organization in an effort to avoid paying the consulting fees, they will be sued for them.
Otherwise it's spam. And if you think about it, that's exactly what it is.
There is no fundamental reason any one particular individual can abuse the United States justice system for their own personal gain more than any other particular individual, equallly skilled at milking the justice system, can. Other than the fact that it's something most intelligent people don't want to stoop low enough to do.
I purchased an old HP color deskjet from the local university property disposition warehouse just for printing webpages and reciepts when you buy something online - it's PS and networked, and $25 - so I can't complain. But the four separate color ink cartridges each individually cost more than I paid for the printer - something like $30+ each.
I ordered a kit from inksupply.com and I am very happy with it. Refilling, for me, probably because I am new to this, is kind of messy - I always use latex or vinyl gloves and a good sink - but it works and it's cheap. The entire process takes about 15 minutes or so. I just re-used the old cartridges that came with the printer and everything checks out.
The interesting thing I noticed on the MIS website was that they have Archival Inks for Epson, very high quality ink.
I had a very good experience refilling my own cartridges - after the tools, these 40ml HP cartridges (the colors are also 40ml, rated at 1600 pages a piece) - it works out to about less than $3 per cartridge.
If I were going to look for a printer, right now, for really good color, I would get a near-top-of-the-line Epson and use those Archival Inks. That's what I would do. The continuous flow system uses the same ink that you can refill yourself, and if you buy a larger quantity of ink , you pay the same price for the ink whether or not you are using it in a continuous flow. Continuous flow is just if you get sick of refilling your cartridges all the time. (depends how much you print). There is tons of information on their website, but just from browsing it a little bit it looks like continuous flow is not the best choice if you are not printing a LOT. But if you are into massive production of high-quality prints it's the way to go.
If I understand this properly, if you register your material with the US Copyright Office, you can sue for the act of copyright violation itself - it's something like $250,000.
Now that copyright is automatic, anyone can sue for damages under copyright laws whether or not he or she has registered with the Copyright Office.
Those who register with the Copyright Office also get to sue for the act itself, plus damages.
"the universe"
this means our universe, the universe we call home.
but what we don't know yet, and from what I understand this is still under debate, or maybe we'll never know for sure, is whether we will one day say
"this universe"
as opposed to all of the other universes, past, present and future.
I like this concept; it's kind of cool.
I would imagine that the composition of this planet would be different from the composition of our planet, provided that the globular cluster has less "recycled" supernova remnants. Or is it possible that there had already been supernova explosions prior to the time the planet was formed? Or is this some complex interrelationsip between the white dwarf, the pulsar, and the planet? Some strange type of accretion or something? If that planet contains heavier elements, then maybe it's artificially manufactured by intelligent beings! It would be cool to check it out.
I was looking at the HP 3420 - it was on sale recently for something like $40 or so.
I had always used second-hand DeskJet 500's, 560's etc... with the "26" cartridge - that cartridge holds 40 ml and prints out about 800+ or so pages. These "51626" cartridges are right around slightly less than $30 US. I have printed thousands of pages of material using these old HP DeskJets and have had no problems. I like those printers. They are kind of slow, but very reliable.
The black cartridge for the HP 3420 holds 10ml and is expected to print about 200+ pages. It costs slightly less than $20 US. The color cartridge for this printer holds 8ml and produces slightly less than 200 pages.
The higher quality (and more expensive) printers have larger page number counts for their refills, but many of the less expensive brands and printers had page counts of less than 500 pages per cartridge, and even though the cartridges have dropped in price, they hold a lot less ink and you can hardly get anything printed with one cartridge. These bargain printers are probably an excellent solution for those who just need to print out an occasional web page or order confirmation here or there. They probably are not designed for people who print a lot. And, paying 18 dollars for a cartridge just kind of feels better than paying 28 dollars for a cartridge, despite the fact that there is only 1/4 as much ink in there!!! The boxes are all the same size on the shelf, who would guess that one cartridge has 10ml and the other has 40ml?
I have come to expect over 500 pages from one deskjet cartridge. Closer to 1000 would be better - some printer can do this. The HP DeskJet 1200 (which is an older model) - this black print cartridge was rated at 1100+ pages before it ran out (42ml). Same price as the others - about $30 US.
I don't doubt that the quality of the printed pages is good - I love Hewlett Packard printers, it's just that if you print a lot of stuff, you really need to get a printer (even second-hand, if you can find one) that was originally designed to do some serious printing. I found a second-hand HP printer (I love HP printers) that is rated for 12,000 pages per month; not like I would ever print that many pages per month, but it is kind of cool to know that you could if you wanted to.
Office Depot's site has page counts on all the refills - I found it helpful when shopping around for a printer. To some people, page counts per cartridge don't matter - they don't print enough stuff to have that matter. But to many of us, it does make a big difference, and it is surprising how expensive the ink is for the really inexpensive printers.
I've also bought shareware, when I really felt that it was necessary. Linux, of course, and shareware is not quite the same situation - but if you are using Windows, or Apple, shareware can be a wonderful thing. Of course I would never buy shareware that didn't work, just good solid programs that do work and serve a purpose. Definitely.
On the other hand, our current situation with media changing every few decades, there are movies I want that are out of print, and cost $50 and up to buy a "collectors" VHS of unknown quality (can't get a new VHS) - but there are no DVD versions either. What's wrong with a timeless movie? There are some really cool movies out there that are hard to get, or you pay some ridiculous amount of money for a collectible.
The same thing can be said for music, too... there is lots of music that is out of print and no longer available, but more importantly than that, there is lots of music out there that many people have never heard of or discovered before. It is obvious that for most people, there is more music and more artists and more movies that they haven't seen, and would probably enjoy, than they have. This is a shame. Artwork that has taken years to produce is no longer available for many people, certainly not at a reasonable price.
We need to get to a point where every work of art that gets produced, books, too... every piece of IP should have a digital backup of some sort that can be special ordered for a fee. Of course the special order would cost more than what we pay for the stuff that is mass-produced in bulk, print-on-demand would cost more than that same book if it were available at the new book store,
but still... we shouldn't have this situation where there are good movies and good songs and great books that have become hard to find because of the quantity issue.
Better to use the technology, not fight it!
The worst thing about mp3 files is the sound quality. I don't know about the Apple format, but lossy is lossy and if you care enough about the presentation of your works that you don't want them split up into singles, certainly sound quality is way more important than the music being split up into individual songs. Sound quality can make a real difference.
But of course if an artist doesn't want to split the songs up, then why doesn't that artist just go ahead and not let the album get split up? These artists are "protesting". If you want to stipulate something, stipulate it already, but it hardly qualifies as "news". Make your decision and go with it, tell the world about it if you want. But protest? Aren't there better things to protest?
Because it's not going to work for every artist, and because there is a demand for single songs from the customers, and because there is more to music than epic musical works, these types of stipulations aren't the "right" choice for every musician. Each artist should choose what he or she wants to do. The timing of this "protest" is poorly planned and ill-concieved, considering what has been going on with the "war on piracy", the recent opening of Apple's music service, and the recent court cases involving P2P. Again, it really should be up to each individual artist to choose what to do. And where does it say that this decision needs to be splattered on the front page of every newspaper... it's a private decision, and it's no big deal. And that decision does not need to become a public debate, I think the obvious solution is that it's the artist's choice. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with an artist choosing to offer low(er) sound quality single songs for online download if her or she chooses to do so. Nor is there anything wrong with an artist preventing the online distribution of compressed audio files of their work.
When you put together music that moves lots of people in a positive direction - good music, music that people can relate to - not necessarily your greatest fans, but people who will casually encouter your music, people who have never heard your latest album, single, whatever - music that starts a trend, music that leaves a cool vibe, good pop music - this kind of music is not so much about material things, so whether or not you can buy an album or a single electronically or not is almost completely irrelevant. An artist needs to carefully weigh the pros and cons, and make that decision. If they feel that have to make a press release about the reasons behind their choosing to disallow electronic single sales, more power to them.
This whole thing is just a distraction of sorts. By the time the media gets involved you have a new "task" on your hands - everyone knows that, so I have to wonder what is really going on here.
But you know what, it probably doesn't matter.
Peace.
As a musician, I have always felt that it's not even the whole song that leaves the impression on the listener. Certainly any musician wishes to leave some sort of impression on the listener, maybe impart a certain message to the listener. Really, all it takes is one vibe. You can have many cool vibes in one song, typical song being 5 minutes (pop music).
Those vibes add up in the forms of choruses, verses, and catchy melodies. You could call it a "hit" if you want, but that's not every musician's goal. It's not as simple as having a nice album to put on your wall. I don't think that's it.
It shouldn't matter if the listener hears the song on the radio, or from a passing car, or in some other temporary, incomplete setting. One vibe, one chorus, one chord, one sound should be enough to get the message across.
I find it hard to believe that any artist would find that it takes an entire album for a listener to derive something positive and beneficial, or just cool and funky, or upbeat and exciting, or slow and introspective. It should only take 5 seconds of music from a passing car to share a good vibe through music.
I am not sure that insisting that people buy the whole album is all it's cracked up to be. It's probably best to make sure that anyone who wants the album can buy it just as easily as they can the single (i.e. have a link next to the single that says "buy album" or something similar).
The thought that music that you make will be heard by millions of people around the world should be enough to realize that one song is all that you really need to take that first step on the path towards expressing yourself. Certainly, people buying your work hardly qualifies as something that stands in your way!
I would rather have millions and millions of people listen to part of one song than hundreds of thousands of people listen to a whole album. Better yet, there shouldn't be any reason to not have both, unless you are just in it for the money, or the fame, or the luxuries, etc...
It's an imperfect world - as an artist, I prefer to concentrate on the good parts - knowing that music you create is going to be heard by lots and lots of people you will probably never meet is REALLY COOL - it's better to step back and just let it happen (in my opinion). The minute you get eccentric and strange you lose a certain connection, and the music becomes less meaningful than it has the potential to be.
Essentially, the artist(s), more precisely the performer(s), are in business for themselves. They get whatever is left over once everyone else is taken care of, in a technical sense.
Even though the artists sometimes ride around in limos and stay at expensive hotels, and have money to do stuff and people to call if they need a loan, the bottom line ends up being negative. And then there are taxes to deal with (or not deal with).
So essentially, the artist(s) is / are, on paper, more or less (an) entrepreneur(s). An entrepreneur that is being bossed around by the people who's salaries he or she (or they) pay. If I hire someone, I should at least be able to tell them what to do, not the other way around.
It is unfortunate, and most people don't realize it until they get involved in it. It's really true, it's a rip-off. Historically, a rip-off with deadly consequences. Now I just speak for my experiences with this, there may very well be some people who can succeed in the music industry and come out the other end better people than they went in, but those kind of people are few and far between. It's a struggle.