termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs', and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site'
What part of our confrontational legal system does the RIAA not understand?
On the other hand, saying that the FSF is "dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs" is extremely accurate. In fact, though I didn't see it on the home page, it's the quote that comes up in the Google blurb when you search.
Copyright covers what can be published. This site is about what teachers will give students a grade for. This site isn't about limiting what students can publish.
Yeah, I'm sure this won't be applied to someone's Master's Thesis or scientific papers.
It also seems quite ironic that they have a fair use right to the full work for the goal in enforcing that no one else can reuse even the smallest snippet.
No, ironic is students trying to use copyright law to prevent their plagiarism from being detected. I.e. accusing the university of stealing copyrighted works when that's what the students were doing.
Sounds more like employing the rules of evidence barring "fruit from the poisonous tree". Evidence obtained illegally cannot be used against even the defendant even if it proves guilt as it rewards lawlessness on the part of law enforcement.
Though I'm surprised the defense was entertained. Usually a defendant can't assert the rights of others to his own defense; he'd be without standing. He'd need the person whom he plagiarized come to his defense for that. And still the school's rules against plagiarism would be notwithstanding the plagiarized author's permission:
Jason Melon: Dad, why don't join me on a little reality break, ok? Just cuz you're in love with Dr. Turner, that does not mean you're gonna pass her course. Now, you got a major paper comin' up on Kurt Vonnegut. You haven't even read any of the books. Thornton Melon: I tried... [knock on door] Thornton Melon: I don't understand a word of it. Jason Melon: [going to the door] So, how you gonna write the paper then, huh? [Jason opens the door to see Kurt Vonnegut standing there] Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: [removing his hat] Hi, I'm Kurt Vonnegut. I'm looking for Thornton Melon.
[Diane gives Thornton an 'F' for his report] Diane Turner: Whoever did write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut! [cut to Thornton's dorm suite] Thornton Melon: [on the phone] And another thing, Vonnegut: I'm gonna stop payment on the cheque! [Kurt tells him off] Thornton Melon: Fuck me? Hey, Kurt, can you read lips? Fuck you! Next time I'll call Robert Ludlum! [hangs up]
I still wouldn't use this case as a precedent for defense against downloading music ostensibly for creating a music database to check works against for infringement... mainly because I expect such software has already been patented as evidenced by its use by YouTube to identify infringing soundtracks on uploaded videos, so you'd be on the hook for both multiple copyright infringements and patent infringement.
It also seems quite ironic that they have a fair use right to the full work for the goal in enforcing that no one else can reuse even the smallest snippet.
You want easy proof? stick a watermelon in a helmet and drop it out of the car while you're going 60 mph and then do the same again without the helmet this time. Hint: do the experiment with the helmet first because there wont be much of a watermelon left after you drop it out of the moving car without a helmet.
I've seen that PSA, but it wasn't about helmets, it was about seatbelts, countering the idea that it would be better to be thrown clear of the vehicle. (It may have been pumpkins instead of watermelons, too.)
"...or just lying there, stunned in the road." [squish]
Ever since then I always put seatbelts on my large produce. I guess I should put helmets on them too.
[1885] Doc: And in the future, we don't need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles. Saloon Old Timer #3: If everybody's got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore? Doc: Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun. Saloon Old Timer #3: Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?
Lintilla: You see? These different strata in the rock face of the shaft represent the successive pages of this planet's history. Arthur: Oh yes. Isn't that interesting. Lintilla: Interesting? It's frightening! Arthur: Is it? Well, actually it just looks like a slice of layer cake to me. Lintilla: Well why did you say it looked interesting? Arthur: Oh, well, I'm quite interested in layer cake. Lintilla: Look at it. Doesn't anything strike you? Arthur: Well it's... it's rock isn't it? Lintilla: Down here we have layer after layer: the remains of early settlements, one on top of another. Then more layers, thicker ones - the remains of cities, each built on the ruins of the previous one. We're talking about thousands of years you see! And then suddenly above this level, what? Arthur: Er... more rock? Lintilla: What's special about it? Arthur: Uhhh. Well it's all smooth with no layers. Lintilla: Yes. No further building, no one actually living on the planet, or at least on its surface. So this previous layer is the significant one. And do you know what it consists of? Arthur: Rock? Lintilla: No. Arthur: Er, stone? Lintilla: No. Arthur: Umm, some different sort of rock the name of which temporarily escapes me? Lintilla: No! Feel it. Scratch it. Arthur: Oh yes... It's slightly sort of soft and crumbly. Lintilla: What's it like? Arthur: Errr... I know! It's um - Lintilla: Yes?! Arthur: What's the name of that soft, crumbly sort of rock? Lintilla: But it isn't rock. Arthur: Well what is it then? Lintilla: Shoes. Arthur: What?! Lintilla: Shoes. Billions of them! An entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes. Arthur: Shoes?! How can you tell? Lintilla: We knew all along, we just needed confirmation. Arthur: Why shoes?
[Laser shot]
Hig Hurtenflirst: Because fella, shoes are the economic future of this Galaxy. Arthur: What? Hig Hurtenflirst: Stand up, both of ya. Arthur: Who are you?! Hig Hurtenflirst: I only happen to be Hig Hurtenflirst. I only happen to be the risingest young executive in the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation. I only happen to have masterminded the entire rationalisation of this planet to total shoe orientation. I only happen to be sitting on top of the biggest development deal in the entire history of footwear and I only happen to be very deeply disturbed at finding my planet riddled with subversives bent on undermining the whole structure of the Dolmansaxlil operation - and thus the very economic future of the galaxy itself. And I only happen to think that I would be very well advised to have both of you weirdos and the other two chicks revoked on the spot. Does that answer your question? Arthur: Er, I can't remember what I asked you now.
The Shoe Event Horizon is now a firmly established and rather sad economic phenomenon, which in future times will be taught as part of the basic middle school "Life, the Universe, and Everything" syllabus. Here is a typical computer class from the Bratisvogan Megalycee Unidate 911VCK168:
Compu-Teach: Good morning life-form. Pupil: Hi teach. Compu-Teach: Are you sitting comfortably? Pupil: Yes. Compu-Teach: Then stand up! Harsh Economic Truths, Class Seventeen. You are standing up? Pupil: Yes. Compu-Teach: Good. Posit: you are living in an exciting, go-ahead civilization. Where are you looking? Pupil: Up. Compu-Teach: What do you see? Pupil: The open sky. The stars. An infinite horizon. Compu-Teach: Correct! You may press the button. Pupil: Thank you.
At least it's easier than constantly muttering block transfer computations into charged vacuum emboitments to hold back the inevitable heat death of the universe.
You obviously don't like that artist anyway, since you don't respect the decisions they've made about how and when they wish to publish what they've created.
You presume it was the artist's decision.
Beyond contracts between artists and publishers, the Berne Convention forces everything(*) to be copyrighted and Disney decides how long everything is copyrighted. The system is rigged so that it is practically impossible to relinquish a work into the public domain before its ever-extended copyright expires. Even works under a Creative Commons license are still copyrighted.
I'm in favor of repealing the ex post facto extensions of copyright. If a work was published under one term of copyright, it should enter the public domain according to the law as it was at the time it was created. That was your contract with society when you published; if you want longer terms, change the law before you publish.
Then we can talk about the concept of how an artist is encouraged through copyright duration to continue creating works after his death.
(*) There are some exceptions, but they are not worth going into here.
Does your operating system phone home to the maker of every installer (independently of where the untrusted installer says to phone home) to check that it is indeed what it purports to be?
If so, then that's not a computer, that's a videogame console whose manufacturer has a stranglehold over what software you're permitted to run on it.
Not good enough. The bartender could audit his liquor to see how much of each bottle was dispensed.
This is why when they do this sort of thing, the gentleman just serves the bartender a National Security Letter and takes more than what he wants without paying a dime.
Isn't that just another way of giving the co-location facility the method to decrypt your data and search terms? They have physical access to your hardware, even if you do encase it in Gloopstik®.
the way it unfolded in front indicated a non rigid structure that should have been pushed back towards the spacecraft by the pressure of the atmosphere.
You neglect the internal pressure of the ballute which would be made greater than that of the outer layer of the atmosphere of Jupiter at that altitude, giving it rigidity.
Someone should try putting a balloon held in a forward position by a solid structure (so it doesn't flutter backwards) against the wind in a wind tunnel to test this, post the video to YouTube, and provide a link here.
Before they were books (and after they were books), they were radio plays. In the second set of fits (now called Secondary Phase) there are some significant differences which never made it into the books, mainly due to missed deadlines on the first book. The above quote is from that version.
The complete series can be imported wherever you like. Well, complete except for a bit on Magrathea where Marvin hums like Pink Floyd which is cut from all pressings due to rights issues and will probably never be reinstated within the lifetime of anyone alive today. Arthur's awe of being on an alien planet for the first time and the discovery of the remains of the whale are a casualty of this cut. Someone has a couple copies of this scene on-line somewhere at differing qualities recorded from the first airing.
Also there are some differences in the UK edition of one of the books as well. There's more adult language in the UK edition (Arthur is called an "arsehole" instead of "knee-biter") and the bit about Belgium is not there (the Rory is for The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay in the UK edition). I haven't tried buying the books from Amazon UK for delivery to the US. I do know they won't ship toys (unless they're attached to a DVD box set) and most electronics.
Live in a crappy neighborhood makes for crappy moods? Lemme be the first to tell the CDC: DUUUH!
I don't know how many times I've read of someone discovering a self-reenforcing feedback loop of one kind or another and reporting it as a hitherto unknown and insightful fact.
Life, as many people have spotted, is, of course, terribly unfair. For instance, the first time the Heart of Gold ever crossed the galaxy the massive improbability field it generated caused two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly-fried eggs to materialize in a large, wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had just died out from famine, except for one man who died of cholesterol-poisoning some weeks later.
The Poghrils, always a pessimistic race, had a little riddle, the asking of which used to give them the only tiny twinges of pleasure they ever experienced. One Poghril would ask another Poghril, "Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?" to which the second Poghril would reply, "I don't know, why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?" to which the first Poghril would reply, "I don't know either. Wretched, isn't it?"
Still, even in what the popular consensus holds to be the happiest of places, the following quotation could still apply:
Ursa Minor is almost certainly the most appalling place in the universe. Though it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of the magazine Play-Being headlined an article with the words "When You Are Tired of Ursa Minor You Are Tired of Life" the suicide rate in the constellation quadrupled overnight.
Not that I've ever understood the humor in quoting movies - it seems more like a feel-good "yay, we share the same taste in entertainment" type of laughter. It sure as hell isn't funny in the general sense.
I can see where reference humor can fall flat if it's just for reference sake or a common free-association, but at times it is intended in a sense of life imitating art and applying the idea of learning from history to avoid its repetition also to learning from popular culture (often a specific what-could-possibly-go-wrong reference).
That's not the case here.
Me, I would not have gone for the Star Trek reference; it was already implied. I would have taken it in a slightly less obvious direction and tried to come up with a reference to invisible police, but I can only come up with one source right now and I'm not familiar enough with Ghost in the Machine: Standalone Complex to come up with a convincing witticism. Plus you'd need to tie in the "through the roof" somehow to fit the humor of threes.
But overall, I'm not sure "transparent copper" called for a witty response anyway. Appreciation of the humor was already registered with the modding up as Funny. That he was anonymously appreciated by others through modding gives the reader a sense of vicarious appreciation for also getting the joke. I'd consider friending Lord Ender instead.
Automate them with artificial intelligence and give them defocused temporal perception so that they're always ready to pick you up even before you know you wanted one.
Make the interior stainless steel and have it go through an internal wash and rinse cycle at the conclusion of every trip as there will always be people excreting various unwanted solids, fluids, and gases inside.
Slashdot Mirror
termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs', and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site'
What part of our confrontational legal system does the RIAA not understand?
On the other hand, saying that the FSF is "dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs" is extremely accurate. In fact, though I didn't see it on the home page, it's the quote that comes up in the Google blurb when you search.
I think that's their paid Google keywords link.
Copyright covers what can be published. This site is about what teachers will give students a grade for. This site isn't about limiting what students can publish.
Yeah, I'm sure this won't be applied to someone's Master's Thesis or scientific papers.
It also seems quite ironic that they have a fair use right to the full work for the goal in enforcing that no one else can reuse even the smallest snippet.
No, ironic is students trying to use copyright law to prevent their plagiarism from being detected. I.e. accusing the university of stealing copyrighted works when that's what the students were doing.
Sounds more like employing the rules of evidence barring "fruit from the poisonous tree". Evidence obtained illegally cannot be used against even the defendant even if it proves guilt as it rewards lawlessness on the part of law enforcement.
Though I'm surprised the defense was entertained. Usually a defendant can't assert the rights of others to his own defense; he'd be without standing. He'd need the person whom he plagiarized come to his defense for that. And still the school's rules against plagiarism would be notwithstanding the plagiarized author's permission:
Jason Melon: Dad, why don't join me on a little reality break, ok? Just cuz you're in love with Dr. Turner, that does not mean you're gonna pass her course. Now, you got a major paper comin' up on Kurt Vonnegut. You haven't even read any of the books.
Thornton Melon: I tried...
[knock on door]
Thornton Melon: I don't understand a word of it.
Jason Melon: [going to the door] So, how you gonna write the paper then, huh?
[Jason opens the door to see Kurt Vonnegut standing there]
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: [removing his hat] Hi, I'm Kurt Vonnegut. I'm looking for Thornton Melon.
[Diane gives Thornton an 'F' for his report]
Diane Turner: Whoever did write this doesn't know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut!
[cut to Thornton's dorm suite]
Thornton Melon: [on the phone] And another thing, Vonnegut: I'm gonna stop payment on the cheque!
[Kurt tells him off]
Thornton Melon: Fuck me? Hey, Kurt, can you read lips? Fuck you! Next time I'll call Robert Ludlum!
[hangs up]
I still wouldn't use this case as a precedent for defense against downloading music ostensibly for creating a music database to check works against for infringement... mainly because I expect such software has already been patented as evidenced by its use by YouTube to identify infringing soundtracks on uploaded videos, so you'd be on the hook for both multiple copyright infringements and patent infringement.
It also seems quite ironic that they have a fair use right to the full work for the goal in enforcing that no one else can reuse even the smallest snippet.
You want easy proof? stick a watermelon in a helmet and drop it out of the car while you're going 60 mph and then do the same again without the helmet this time. Hint: do the experiment with the helmet first because there wont be much of a watermelon left after you drop it out of the moving car without a helmet.
I've seen that PSA, but it wasn't about helmets, it was about seatbelts, countering the idea that it would be better to be thrown clear of the vehicle. (It may have been pumpkins instead of watermelons, too.)
"...or just lying there, stunned in the road." [squish]
Ever since then I always put seatbelts on my large produce. I guess I should put helmets on them too.
("Here, that tomato just ejected itself!")
[1885]
Doc: And in the future, we don't need horses. We have motorized carriages called automobiles.
Saloon Old Timer #3: If everybody's got one of these auto-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?
Doc: Of course we run. But for recreation. For fun.
Saloon Old Timer #3: Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that?
Lintilla: You see? These different strata in the rock face of the shaft represent the successive pages of this planet's history.
Arthur: Oh yes. Isn't that interesting.
Lintilla: Interesting? It's frightening!
Arthur: Is it? Well, actually it just looks like a slice of layer cake to me.
Lintilla: Well why did you say it looked interesting?
Arthur: Oh, well, I'm quite interested in layer cake.
Lintilla: Look at it. Doesn't anything strike you?
Arthur: Well it's... it's rock isn't it?
Lintilla: Down here we have layer after layer: the remains of early settlements, one on top of another. Then more layers, thicker ones - the remains of cities, each built on the ruins of the previous one. We're talking about thousands of years you see! And then suddenly above this level, what?
Arthur: Er... more rock?
Lintilla: What's special about it?
Arthur: Uhhh. Well it's all smooth with no layers.
Lintilla: Yes. No further building, no one actually living on the planet, or at least on its surface. So this previous layer is the significant one. And do you know what it consists of?
Arthur: Rock?
Lintilla: No.
Arthur: Er, stone?
Lintilla: No.
Arthur: Umm, some different sort of rock the name of which temporarily escapes me?
Lintilla: No! Feel it. Scratch it.
Arthur: Oh yes... It's slightly sort of soft and crumbly.
Lintilla: What's it like?
Arthur: Errr... I know! It's um -
Lintilla: Yes?!
Arthur: What's the name of that soft, crumbly sort of rock?
Lintilla: But it isn't rock.
Arthur: Well what is it then?
Lintilla: Shoes.
Arthur: What?!
Lintilla: Shoes. Billions of them! An entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes.
Arthur: Shoes?! How can you tell?
Lintilla: We knew all along, we just needed confirmation.
Arthur: Why shoes?
[Laser shot]
Hig Hurtenflirst: Because fella, shoes are the economic future of this Galaxy.
Arthur: What?
Hig Hurtenflirst: Stand up, both of ya.
Arthur: Who are you?!
Hig Hurtenflirst: I only happen to be Hig Hurtenflirst. I only happen to be the risingest young executive in the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation. I only happen to have masterminded the entire rationalisation of this planet to total shoe orientation. I only happen to be sitting on top of the biggest development deal in the entire history of footwear and I only happen to be very deeply disturbed at finding my planet riddled with subversives bent on undermining the whole structure of the Dolmansaxlil operation - and thus the very economic future of the galaxy itself. And I only happen to think that I would be very well advised to have both of you weirdos and the other two chicks revoked on the spot. Does that answer your question?
Arthur: Er, I can't remember what I asked you now.
The Shoe Event Horizon is now a firmly established and rather sad economic phenomenon, which in future times will be taught as part of the basic middle school "Life, the Universe, and Everything" syllabus. Here is a typical computer class from the Bratisvogan Megalycee Unidate 911VCK168:
Compu-Teach: Good morning life-form.
Pupil: Hi teach.
Compu-Teach: Are you sitting comfortably?
Pupil: Yes.
Compu-Teach: Then stand up! Harsh Economic Truths, Class Seventeen. You are standing up?
Pupil: Yes.
Compu-Teach: Good. Posit: you are living in an exciting, go-ahead civilization. Where are you looking?
Pupil: Up.
Compu-Teach: What do you see?
Pupil: The open sky. The stars. An infinite horizon.
Compu-Teach: Correct! You may press the button.
Pupil: Thank you.
[Button is pressed. A surge of energy]
Pupil: Wow! That feels nice.
Comp
At least it's easier than constantly muttering block transfer computations into charged vacuum emboitments to hold back the inevitable heat death of the universe.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
That statement is demonstrably false for multiple values of "broken" and "clock".
And before you ask, the sky in my world is capable of many colors.
You obviously don't like that artist anyway, since you don't respect the decisions they've made about how and when they wish to publish what they've created.
You presume it was the artist's decision.
Beyond contracts between artists and publishers, the Berne Convention forces everything(*) to be copyrighted and Disney decides how long everything is copyrighted. The system is rigged so that it is practically impossible to relinquish a work into the public domain before its ever-extended copyright expires. Even works under a Creative Commons license are still copyrighted.
I'm in favor of repealing the ex post facto extensions of copyright. If a work was published under one term of copyright, it should enter the public domain according to the law as it was at the time it was created. That was your contract with society when you published; if you want longer terms, change the law before you publish.
Then we can talk about the concept of how an artist is encouraged through copyright duration to continue creating works after his death.
(*) There are some exceptions, but they are not worth going into here.
To summarize: PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair).
Though I'm sure some would rather update that to be PEBMAC (...Mouse And Chair).
Does your operating system phone home to the maker of every installer (independently of where the untrusted installer says to phone home) to check that it is indeed what it purports to be?
If so, then that's not a computer, that's a videogame console whose manufacturer has a stranglehold over what software you're permitted to run on it.
Not good enough. The bartender could audit his liquor to see how much of each bottle was dispensed.
This is why when they do this sort of thing, the gentleman just serves the bartender a National Security Letter and takes more than what he wants without paying a dime.
Isn't that just another way of giving the co-location facility the method to decrypt your data and search terms? They have physical access to your hardware, even if you do encase it in Gloopstik®.
if the server cannot decipher the query it cannot execute it on a binary blob of encrypted data. FAIL.
Gung jbhyq qrcraq ba ubj gevivny lbhe rapelcgvba zrgubq vf.
the way it unfolded in front indicated a non rigid structure that should have been pushed back towards the spacecraft by the pressure of the atmosphere.
You neglect the internal pressure of the ballute which would be made greater than that of the outer layer of the atmosphere of Jupiter at that altitude, giving it rigidity.
Someone should try putting a balloon held in a forward position by a solid structure (so it doesn't flutter backwards) against the wind in a wind tunnel to test this, post the video to YouTube, and provide a link here.
Before they were books (and after they were books), they were radio plays. In the second set of fits (now called Secondary Phase) there are some significant differences which never made it into the books, mainly due to missed deadlines on the first book. The above quote is from that version.
The complete series can be imported wherever you like. Well, complete except for a bit on Magrathea where Marvin hums like Pink Floyd which is cut from all pressings due to rights issues and will probably never be reinstated within the lifetime of anyone alive today. Arthur's awe of being on an alien planet for the first time and the discovery of the remains of the whale are a casualty of this cut. Someone has a couple copies of this scene on-line somewhere at differing qualities recorded from the first airing.
Also there are some differences in the UK edition of one of the books as well. There's more adult language in the UK edition (Arthur is called an "arsehole" instead of "knee-biter") and the bit about Belgium is not there (the Rory is for The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay in the UK edition). I haven't tried buying the books from Amazon UK for delivery to the US. I do know they won't ship toys (unless they're attached to a DVD box set) and most electronics.
Live in a crappy neighborhood makes for crappy moods? Lemme be the first to tell the CDC: DUUUH!
I don't know how many times I've read of someone discovering a self-reenforcing feedback loop of one kind or another and reporting it as a hitherto unknown and insightful fact.
Life, as many people have spotted, is, of course, terribly unfair. For instance, the first time the Heart of Gold ever crossed the galaxy the massive improbability field it generated caused two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly-fried eggs to materialize in a large, wobbly heap on the famine-struck land of Poghril in the Pansel system. The whole Poghril tribe had just died out from famine, except for one man who died of cholesterol-poisoning some weeks later.
The Poghrils, always a pessimistic race, had a little riddle, the asking of which used to give them the only tiny twinges of pleasure they ever experienced. One Poghril would ask another Poghril, "Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?" to which the second Poghril would reply, "I don't know, why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena offal?" to which the first Poghril would reply, "I don't know either. Wretched, isn't it?"
Still, even in what the popular consensus holds to be the happiest of places, the following quotation could still apply:
Ursa Minor is almost certainly the most appalling place in the universe. Though it is excruciatingly rich, horrifyingly sunny and more full of wonderfully exciting people than a pomegranate is of pips, it can hardly be insignificant that when a recent edition of the magazine Play-Being headlined an article with the words "When You Are Tired of Ursa Minor You Are Tired of Life" the suicide rate in the constellation quadrupled overnight.
Not that I've ever understood the humor in quoting movies - it seems more like a feel-good "yay, we share the same taste in entertainment" type of laughter. It sure as hell isn't funny in the general sense.
I can see where reference humor can fall flat if it's just for reference sake or a common free-association, but at times it is intended in a sense of life imitating art and applying the idea of learning from history to avoid its repetition also to learning from popular culture (often a specific what-could-possibly-go-wrong reference).
That's not the case here.
Me, I would not have gone for the Star Trek reference; it was already implied. I would have taken it in a slightly less obvious direction and tried to come up with a reference to invisible police, but I can only come up with one source right now and I'm not familiar enough with Ghost in the Machine: Standalone Complex to come up with a convincing witticism. Plus you'd need to tie in the "through the roof" somehow to fit the humor of threes.
But overall, I'm not sure "transparent copper" called for a witty response anyway. Appreciation of the humor was already registered with the modding up as Funny. That he was anonymously appreciated by others through modding gives the reader a sense of vicarious appreciation for also getting the joke. I'd consider friending Lord Ender instead.
Automate them with artificial intelligence and give them defocused temporal perception so that they're always ready to pick you up even before you know you wanted one.
Make the interior stainless steel and have it go through an internal wash and rinse cycle at the conclusion of every trip as there will always be people excreting various unwanted solids, fluids, and gases inside.
Share and Enjoy.
A scenario somewhat like this occurs in Crawford Killian's Empire of Time (which I enjoyed).
As well as Issac Asimov's short story Reason, collected in his book I, Robot.
Sure would've relived my stress.
Oh no, we're entering infinite recursion!
Perhaps you should stop reliving your stress and instead try relieving it.
Next step: using Google Cache to stash data. :D
"We have to fill this thing up with data. I want her to live, I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize."