This article needs to be forwarded to Michael Powell at the FCC. See what a pain in the ass this creates for the consumers that you are supposed to protect?
I hope this gets the electronics manufactures to lobby the FCC to lighten up - it will affect their bottom line if people do not want to upgrade their TVs and VCRs/DVRs because of consumer unfriendly restrictions.
I have no clue, go look it up for a complete run down, but the US is still releasing the information.
Reluctantly. The Pentagon has now banned digital cameras so that it's harder to learn of our abuses in the future. When CBS was first going to air the story, the Pentagon tried its best to suppress it rather than deal with it.
You have two options: buy their stuff, but don't complain, or don't buy their stuff, and try and support alternative markets - local bands, live concerts, low power FM, etc.
If you avoid getting screwed by the RIAA by not buying their stuff ASCAP will do their best to screw you and your local venues. Sickening.
This car really looks to be targeted at the Asian/Euro market. This would be feasible for metropolitan commutes where large vehicles are rarer and high speed collisions are not as frequent. Japan and Europe both have tiny cars like the smart carin them already, this is not a giant leap for them.
US cities like San Francisco and New York (Manhattan) with high population densities and no parking this might work but does have the fruity image problem. This wold make crossing town and finding parking quite a bit easier for a daily commuter.
The 'high speed mode' is a bit baffling to me, i suspect that is just the concept car thing of "We can do it, thought it was cool so threw it in". Practically I doubt it could work in a mixed use expressway safely.
Japan has a space based solar array planned for 2040. Space elevators should help with cheap access to geosynchronous orbit.
Lotta birds gonna fry going through the microwave beams that send the power to earth, not to mention the james Bond style money making opportunities having a spaced base microwave beams would lead too. 1 billion dollars!
sheilding isn't really a problem we've been doing that since the 40's with Trinity and the Manhattan project, (which is one of the reasons that those anti-lunar people are nuts, we had the technology to sheild against radiation in the 40's and 50's in nuclear testing, but we couldn't do it in the 60's?)
Shielding a bunker/lab on the ground versus shielding a spacecraft you have to propel to the moon is a very different proposal. The Apollo missions had carefully plotted courses through the thinnest areas of the belts and had about a foot of shielding. Not lead (induced Bremsstrahlung makes that a bad choice) but lighter weight metals (e.g. aluminum) and polyethylene make the best choices, the Apollo missions used about a foot of fibrous insulation between the inner and outer hulls. Many satellites (such as the Hubble) partially shutdown to protect themselves when they go pass through especially active areas of the belts. Obviously it can be done but it takes careful mission and spacecraft design to get it to work, no free lunch.
Patents gives one the right to reproduce something. When the object that is patented reproduces itself on MY land, then the resulting product is MINE. That simple. You have NEVER needed a license to USE a patented product. Don't let companies convice you that one does. Copyright people have already come close to convincing the US that you need a license to use software.
The goal of the plant is to grow and reproduce. When it does that, the patented object is doing EXACTLY what the company intened it to do and hence no patent protection should be violated. That simple.
You have a very insightful point in the using of patented products, but he was 'reproducing the patented genes' by cultivating it. I'm sure if he didn't sow the seeds and let his field lie fallow then he would not been found guilty of patent infringement for any of the stray GM plants that grew. While the goal of plants is to be fruitful and multiply they definitely didn't do it all by them selves in this case - if they had he would not have ended up with a canola monoculture in his fields.
Instead of destroying that canola, he harvested it and replanted it. This was Mr. Schmeiser's most grievous error, and also the source of the canola in question. Had he destroyed the plants, the issue would not have arisen in court. Of course, he would also not have had his seed source in the first place.
I doubt he actually needed to destroy it, he probably could have just sold it with the rest of his harvest. Even if he wanted to plant his own seeds (as someone's post pointed out that is rare in the US/Canada these days for quality issues) he could have used the seeds from the center of his field, then he would have ended up with ~0.25% GM seeds. He actually went through the trouble of testing for the gene and then selectively sowed those seeds, causing the whole suit.
He was not, then, planting Monsanto's canola. He was planting HIS canola. That the Monsanto engineered plants were still viable was not his fault, it was theirs. Arguably, he is not infringing their patents because he either A: has already payed to get the engineered seed, or B: it was non-engineered seed that was polinated by Engineered stock - which is not his fault.
From reading it looks like he was selective using the roundup resistant seeds. The study that was linked said that accidental contamination was about.25% (1 seed out of 400), it looks like his harvest was over 85% roundup resistant. I'm normally not a defender of large corporations but it appears they had a point.
why do merchants say the 1st amendment protect intrusive advertising?
I posted something in another thread that was related to this.
Part of it boils down to an unexplained aside in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling that grants corporations 14th amendment rights. This has been used to imply that corporations are 'citizens' and deserve the other rights too.
Also, it really isn't free speech if it costs people something is it (bandwidth, etc)?
I think you hit the nail on the head there - their right to freedom of speech does not grant them the right to use *your* private facilities to do it.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -Thomas Jefferson
How exactly is FAT not a "real" file system? It's still very widely in use, particularly on devices smaller than 2 GB (digital cameras come to mind). It's still useful because it's so simple, well-known, and easy to implement. That makes it real enough to be "real" to most people with a clue.
OK, I was being a bit snobbish in saying it is not a 'real filesystem', it does have its uses - small devices, floppies, etc. BUT, even when it was originally designed it was considered primitive it had many known flaws, among those: it is very easily fragmented (what we are all talking about, no redundancy to help recover from failure and wastes quite a bit of disk space.
My comparison between NTFS and FAT is valid because if you are running Windows, those are the only two filesystems you have to choose between. Comparing NTFS with, for instance, ReiserFS is not really interesting because they're not really alternatives to each other. Unless you choose your operating system based on what filesystems it supports...
The article was comparing HFS+ to NTFS, not windows filesystems. You your self said NTFS deals with fragmentation far better than many other file systems, most notably FAT (emphasis mine) which implies you were not only comparing NTFS to other windows file systems but to many other filesystems. It was the apparent straw man argument that I was pointing out. NTFS is leaps and bounds better than FAT, I 100% agree with you on that. It could be better, and I wish it was open source (last I checked it was not) but is still the best option window users have.
NTFS deals with fragmentation far better than many other file systems, most notably FAT
That is like saying "My car performs notably better than many other cars, notably the Yugo". We should be comparing it to real filesystems, like ext2/3, ReiserFS, HSF+, XFS, UFS and JFS (not meant to be exhaustive).
If you are right then perhaps you can explain why other creative industries have flourished without the need for patentability of their techniques, methods and ideas? The movie industry for example...
Makes you wonder if they could patent movies and TV shows we would get more innovative entertainment and less rehashes of the same old crap. Might really reduce the number of reality TV shows. "I'm sorry, I have a patent on guy/girl matchmaker TV shows, you'll have to pay me a licensing fee to make another Bachelor."
they're these loopy pseudo ayn rand ideological attack dogs for the conservative right wing, no one really listens to them except other right wingers, they're known to have no journalistic integrity anyway
Unplug the antenna? Put a metal cage around the computer?... Maybe unplug the router and kick *everyone* off the network. I bet the latter would be the MS recommended solution: right up there with not clicking on links and typing them in by hand to avoid the deceptive URLs.
Re:So, anybody here think...
on
Metal Velcro
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· Score: 1
Now, I know this "metal velcro" is supposed to be an "industrial process" - meaning it will likely never be available for home use in the near future
Wow, I just had a vision of pointing my electron gun at two difference pieces of metal and then fusing them together. Now we just need to figure out a way to create the vacuum adnd still keep up the Buck Rogers looking electron gun.
In the article it did say that it lasts longer than using adhesives:
Dance says his early tests show that these joints will last far longer than current composite-metal joints, which are held together by adhesives.
The article does not mention if it will work to bond two pieces of metal together we all seem to be speculating about; it seems to be tailered for only the 'hook' end of velcro and the composite fibers make up all the 'loops'.
Re:This is old news...
on
Metal Velcro
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· Score: 1
Actually, the root of the word NEWS is: North East West South.
No, actualy the root word of newsis new, what you have my friend is a folk entymology. From the first link:
news - 1382, plural of new (n.) "new thing," from new (adj.), q.v.; after Fr. nouvelles, used in Bible translations to render M.L. nova (neut. pl.) "news," lit. "new things." Sometimes still regarded as plural, 17c.-19c. Meaning "tidings" is 1423; newspaper is first attested 1670, though the thing itself is much older. Newsreel was first recorded 1916; newscast is from 1930. Newsletter is attested from 1674, but fell from use until it was revived 20c. Newsworthy first attested 1932.
Ignoring the etymology of news, the article did seem to make it appear that they got gobsmacked recently.
Re:SCOX at $5.15 - Where's the bottom
on
Groklaw Turns One
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· Score: 2, Funny
I'm just saying, quit harping on the stock price. It doesn't matter except as a reflection of what a very small pool of not-very-influential people (ie. mostly small investors) think about SCO's future business prospects.
I keep harping on it in my head because I'm thinking shoot - I knew I should have shorted them.
There have been quite a few slashdotarticles on the subject of anti-trust lawsuits and Microsoft. What it boils down too is that Microsoft makes enough money breaking the law that we (not just the US but the EU too) cannot fine them enough to make it fiscally unsound for them to obey the law. They view it as a 'cost of doing business'.
Even if we raise the fines the legal systems move too slowly to make a difference. On one hand a slow legal system can be good - better to have the time make sure that a innocent person/party doesn't get convicted, on the other hand man does it burn. We do need better penalties to make this work better. One would be to amend the 14th amendment to allow us to punish those at the helms of corporations rather than the corporation itself, or better yet re-evaluate parts of the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court case which (without any explanations) decided that corporations are people. According to the official records Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite stated right before the arguments started:
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.
Before that ruling corporations were quite a bit more limited - they could not contribute any money to any political candidates or attempt to influence an elections, the 5th amendment double jeopardy clause didn't apply to them and in some states they couldn't even own other corporations.
I don't think that all of those things are inherently bad (I work for corporations and do think that many of them are good) but I think we should take a nice long hard look at corporations and what rights we (real humans) think they should have. As Thomas Jefferson said: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
The long trip to Mars will need strong shielding, just like a space station at the Eeath/Moon's L5 would need (not to mention the sheilding needed to get through the Van Allen belts). Of course a long term habitat would be served nicely by the 'free' sheilding.
I believe if they actually add the fees while you are under contract you can use that to get out of the contract. Of course they don't have to pay you any contract termnitaion fees and you no longer have a the 'cheap' contract you wanted.
I'd rather see the carrier pay a penalty to the subscriber for non-performance of the contract. Or best, just have the carrier honour the original agreement as written
I'd like to see the carrier pay the same fee that I would have to pay them if I terminated the contract early. Not likely but I would like to see it.
I wonder if it is from Russia?
on
A Worm's Worm
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· Score: -1, Troll
Slashdot Mirror
I hope this gets the electronics manufactures to lobby the FCC to lighten up - it will affect their bottom line if people do not want to upgrade their TVs and VCRs/DVRs because of consumer unfriendly restrictions.
Reluctantly. The Pentagon has now banned digital cameras so that it's harder to learn of our abuses in the future. When CBS was first going to air the story, the Pentagon tried its best to suppress it rather than deal with it.
If you avoid getting screwed by the RIAA by not buying their stuff ASCAP will do their best to screw you and your local venues. Sickening.
US cities like San Francisco and New York (Manhattan) with high population densities and no parking this might work but does have the fruity image problem. This wold make crossing town and finding parking quite a bit easier for a daily commuter.
The 'high speed mode' is a bit baffling to me, i suspect that is just the concept car thing of "We can do it, thought it was cool so threw it in". Practically I doubt it could work in a mixed use expressway safely.
Lotta birds gonna fry going through the microwave beams that send the power to earth, not to mention the james Bond style money making opportunities having a spaced base microwave beams would lead too. 1 billion dollars!
With the added advantage that the gasses (helium) would not be radioactive.
Shielding a bunker/lab on the ground versus shielding a spacecraft you have to propel to the moon is a very different proposal. The Apollo missions had carefully plotted courses through the thinnest areas of the belts and had about a foot of shielding. Not lead (induced Bremsstrahlung makes that a bad choice) but lighter weight metals (e.g. aluminum) and polyethylene make the best choices, the Apollo missions used about a foot of fibrous insulation between the inner and outer hulls. Many satellites (such as the Hubble) partially shutdown to protect themselves when they go pass through especially active areas of the belts. Obviously it can be done but it takes careful mission and spacecraft design to get it to work, no free lunch.
The goal of the plant is to grow and reproduce. When it does that, the patented object is doing EXACTLY what the company intened it to do and hence no patent protection should be violated. That simple.
You have a very insightful point in the using of patented products, but he was 'reproducing the patented genes' by cultivating it. I'm sure if he didn't sow the seeds and let his field lie fallow then he would not been found guilty of patent infringement for any of the stray GM plants that grew. While the goal of plants is to be fruitful and multiply they definitely didn't do it all by them selves in this case - if they had he would not have ended up with a canola monoculture in his fields.
I doubt he actually needed to destroy it, he probably could have just sold it with the rest of his harvest. Even if he wanted to plant his own seeds (as someone's post pointed out that is rare in the US/Canada these days for quality issues) he could have used the seeds from the center of his field, then he would have ended up with ~0.25% GM seeds. He actually went through the trouble of testing for the gene and then selectively sowed those seeds, causing the whole suit.
From reading it looks like he was selective using the roundup resistant seeds. The study that was linked said that accidental contamination was about .25% (1 seed out of 400), it looks like his harvest was over 85% roundup resistant. I'm normally not a defender of large corporations but it appears they had a point.
I posted something in another thread that was related to this.
Part of it boils down to an unexplained aside in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling that grants corporations 14th amendment rights. This has been used to imply that corporations are 'citizens' and deserve the other rights too.
Also, it really isn't free speech if it costs people something is it (bandwidth, etc)?
I think you hit the nail on the head there - their right to freedom of speech does not grant them the right to use *your* private facilities to do it.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -Thomas Jefferson
OK, I was being a bit snobbish in saying it is not a 'real filesystem', it does have its uses - small devices, floppies, etc. BUT, even when it was originally designed it was considered primitive it had many known flaws, among those: it is very easily fragmented (what we are all talking about, no redundancy to help recover from failure and wastes quite a bit of disk space.
My comparison between NTFS and FAT is valid because if you are running Windows, those are the only two filesystems you have to choose between. Comparing NTFS with, for instance, ReiserFS is not really interesting because they're not really alternatives to each other. Unless you choose your operating system based on what filesystems it supports...
The article was comparing HFS+ to NTFS, not windows filesystems. You your self said NTFS deals with fragmentation far better than many other file systems, most notably FAT (emphasis mine) which implies you were not only comparing NTFS to other windows file systems but to many other filesystems. It was the apparent straw man argument that I was pointing out. NTFS is leaps and bounds better than FAT, I 100% agree with you on that. It could be better, and I wish it was open source (last I checked it was not) but is still the best option window users have.
That is like saying "My car performs notably better than many other cars, notably the Yugo". We should be comparing it to real filesystems, like ext2/3, ReiserFS, HSF+, XFS, UFS and JFS (not meant to be exhaustive).
Makes you wonder if they could patent movies and TV shows we would get more innovative entertainment and less rehashes of the same old crap. Might really reduce the number of reality TV shows. "I'm sorry, I have a patent on guy/girl matchmaker TV shows, you'll have to pay me a licensing fee to make another Bachelor."
You mean the Washington Times?
My karma's on fire.
Not any more....
Unplug the antenna? Put a metal cage around the computer?... Maybe unplug the router and kick *everyone* off the network. I bet the latter would be the MS recommended solution: right up there with not clicking on links and typing them in by hand to avoid the deceptive URLs.
Wow, I just had a vision of pointing my electron gun at two difference pieces of metal and then fusing them together. Now we just need to figure out a way to create the vacuum adnd still keep up the Buck Rogers looking electron gun.
In the article it did say that it lasts longer than using adhesives:
The article does not mention if it will work to bond two pieces of metal together we all seem to be speculating about; it seems to be tailered for only the 'hook' end of velcro and the composite fibers make up all the 'loops'.No, actualy the root word of news is new, what you have my friend is a folk entymology. From the first link:
Ignoring the etymology of news, the article did seem to make it appear that they got gobsmacked recently.I keep harping on it in my head because I'm thinking shoot - I knew I should have shorted them.
Even if we raise the fines the legal systems move too slowly to make a difference. On one hand a slow legal system can be good - better to have the time make sure that a innocent person/party doesn't get convicted, on the other hand man does it burn. We do need better penalties to make this work better. One would be to amend the 14th amendment to allow us to punish those at the helms of corporations rather than the corporation itself, or better yet re-evaluate parts of the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court case which (without any explanations) decided that corporations are people. According to the official records Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite stated right before the arguments started:
Before that ruling corporations were quite a bit more limited - they could not contribute any money to any political candidates or attempt to influence an elections, the 5th amendment double jeopardy clause didn't apply to them and in some states they couldn't even own other corporations.I don't think that all of those things are inherently bad (I work for corporations and do think that many of them are good) but I think we should take a nice long hard look at corporations and what rights we (real humans) think they should have. As Thomas Jefferson said: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
The long trip to Mars will need strong shielding, just like a space station at the Eeath/Moon's L5 would need (not to mention the sheilding needed to get through the Van Allen belts). Of course a long term habitat would be served nicely by the 'free' sheilding.
I believe if they actually add the fees while you are under contract you can use that to get out of the contract. Of course they don't have to pay you any contract termnitaion fees and you no longer have a the 'cheap' contract you wanted.
I'd like to see the carrier pay the same fee that I would have to pay them if I terminated the contract early. Not likely but I would like to see it.
Ahh, I couldn't resist.