... when they build in the "reveal codes" feature that WordPerfect has. I think that the market share that WordPerfect lost to Word is one of the greatest tragedies of the computer world; WP is a far superior product, and the "reveal codes" feature is a big reason why. And it looks like OO.o has a sub-project going to build in this ability, although the link to give more information on its status seemed to be broken so I can't say how far along it is.
I read recently that the Army did a study which concluded that the maximum weight that soldier should be sent into combat carrying was (I think) 40 lbs. Of course, this figure is already routine exceeded. But without claiming any expertise in this area, I too have real doubts about whether the value the average soldier will get from this hardware justifies the weight. Plus, if soldiers are constantly transmitting their locations and heartbeat rate, etc., then doesn't this open up the possibility that their locations can be plotted by RDF?
Umm, Al Queda certainly seems to be able to "challenge" America. Not "invade and conquer," but challenge. Perhaps no other country's military is as powerful, but asymmetric warfare means that LOTS of countries/groups can still damage America.
If this isn't exactly what the first sale doctrine is supposed to protect, what is? Once the copyright holder lets go of a particular hard copy, their copyright doesn't give them any further control over what happens to it. (Or do I have this wrong? I'm open to correction.) Unless perhaps they had some contract with the retail shops that required them to destroy discontinued patterns, but in that case it seems like it is the retail shops they have a course of action against. What would have happened if the retail shops had not disposed of the patterns but had continued trying to sell them?
Thge very next /. story...
on
Copyright Defeats?
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· Score: 2, Informative
is about a bunch of kids who made a shot for shot reproduction of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Maybe the fact that they haven't gotten sued yet qualifies as a small victory for the supports of the intellectual commons? (THey even got nice letters from Spielberg.)
Re:Another news: US 'abused rights post-9/11'
on
Copyright Defeats?
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· Score: 4, Funny
Hey, c'mon, how can CNN be expected to cover a minor story like that when Martha Stewart is about to be indicted?
One of the (countless) obvious problems with this scheme is that it means that tax revenues will have to be used to buy all of this extra equipment (or individuals will have to buy it themselves, but then that is just the same as taxing them). The only way that I could see this making ANY sense would be if you allowed car owners and filling station owners to install the equipment voluntarily. What I am thinking is that maybe you could first raise the per gallon gas tax, then let people use this system as an alternative to paying the gas tax. This would let you "reward" people who don't drive during times that the roads are heavily congested, as the article suggests. But it is probably not worth using even in this way, because it will just get hacked.
"There are a lot of things we can do with that webcam and not spoil the excitement of the film for fans," said Jim Ward, head of Lucas Online and vice president of Lucasfilm Ltd. "
I wish they could find things to do with the scripts that didn't spoil the excitement. I was in 4th grade when the very first movie came out, and it was the center of my life for a year or two. But these newer films are crap. Among many other things, they are going to such absurd lengths to bring the characters from the first trilogy into the new films. When I realized that they were suggesting that Darth Vader had actually built C3PO, I saw all hope was lost.
Shouldn't the Miss Vermont case be handled under libel law? (This is a question for the lawyers, not an anssertion). As a public figure, she might have a tough time winning a libel suit.
Yes, and that keeps them from distracting each other by making it unnecessary for them to come to class:) No, seriously, that approach has some merit, but probably less in the humanities because our classes are less about the instructor conveying a set of information to students and more about generating discussion and getting students to try to think. Which, admittedly, makes taking notes in our classes so difficult. Besides, even when it comes to conveying information, the act of writing information down helps you to retain it in a way that just seeing it on a sheet of paper doesn't.
I actually threaten to dock the grades of people whose phones go off in class (although I'll make an exception, of course, if someone tells me ahead of time that his wife could go into labor every day or something). It is a sincere threat, although sometimes it is hard to carry out because my classes are large enough that I can't learn all of their names:(. Usually the people to whom it happens at least have the decency to be embarrassed; it is an innocent mistake, but a common and annoying one.
A colleague and I have discussed the possibility of each bringing our own cells to class the first day, and having the one who is not teaching call the one who is, as a way of making the point.
One other thought about the computers in the classroom. Although I teach in the humanities, most of my students are actually business students. Yet neither of the students who used a computer in the class was a business student---both came from the humanities. When I think about it, I would have expected to see more business students flashing fancy palm pilots. One other student I had last year used a Palm extensively, but not actually during class. He was a cop, and got it so he could write papers in his swuad car!
As a professor, I think I maybe had about 2 students using something electronic to take notes in class for the last two years (out of maybe 300 students total). One had a laptop, and one a Palm with folding keyboard. These were actually both students I had the year before last. I teach in the humanities, so I probably have fewer students who are really excited about computers than faculty members in other fields.
I have to say that I wish students would stick to paper and pen, or at least find quieter keyboards; I could very distinctly hear the students in question typing, and it was sort of distracting. Although if a few tap-tap noises are the biggest problem I have to face in the next school year, I'll count myself lucky! I'd be satisfied if I could just get people to remember to turn off their cell phones.
If your beer is getting too warm...
on
PeltierBeer
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· Score: 1
To see who would expose themselves as the biggest hypocrite on/. through posting an even less necessary complaint. Congratulations. Watch for your prize coming in the mail.
But I wasn't convinced by the analogy. Based on the sopranos, anyway, the mafia seems to have an ethos of servitude to---producing for---the higher ups, and I didn't see enough proof that the same is true of EQ guilds.
I'm not sure how any activity that is bound to produce a significant financial payoff can be written off as a complete waste of time. READING the book may be a waste of time, but if enough people will buy it then writing it was probably a pretty smart move.
Yes, that's right, although I wouldn't have remembered the name on my own. I read a short interview with him where he said it would take about two months for a professional mathematician to understand the error, it was so subtle.
Remember that an error was found when the British mathematician first announced that he had a proof of Fermat's Theorem a few years ago. He was able to fix it, however, and AFAIK his proof is currently considered sound (albeit LONG).
One book I would recommend if you would like to learn more about this stuff is Norman Barry's On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism (St. Martin's, 1987). It is a pretty sympathetic treatment of this broad school of thought. He takes as his starting point a distinction between consequentialist/utilitarian "classical liberal" arguments for a free market, and "natural rights"-based libertarian arguments. Hume, Smith, the Chicago School (Friedman), and the Austrians (Hayek, von Mises) are in the first camp, Buchanan, Rand, Nozick, and Rothbard in the second. He seems to think that the natural rights people are on firmer ground, and you might too, but it is a mistake to think that you can't even try to defend a market economy on the grounds that people overall will be happier or better under that kind of system.
You seem to think that utilitarians have to reify society, but they don't. The classical utilitarians were just as much methodological individualists as you are. Mill, for example, in his System of Logic, says that "Men are not, when brought together, converted into another kind of substance, with different properties . . . Human beings in society have no properties but those which are derived from, and may be resolved into, the laws of the nature of individual man."
But maybe this kind of reasoned, insult-free expression of disgreement has no place on/. I don't know, I'm pretty new here.
Among the best known utilitarians (more or less) who are fervent supporters of a free-market economic system, and adament opoonents of socialism/communism: Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman. Read a book.
Maybe the sound meter will signal the user if they themselves are talking too loudly. I'm getting sick and tired of listening to people scream into their cell phones. A speakerphone would be a great feature; then at least we could hear both sides of their conversations.
Slashdot Mirror
I want a global chain of grocery stores, where the only cost of entry is a bag to carry stuff home in.
... when they build in the "reveal codes" feature that WordPerfect has. I think that the market share that WordPerfect lost to Word is one of the greatest tragedies of the computer world; WP is a far superior product, and the "reveal codes" feature is a big reason why. And it looks like OO.o has a sub-project going to build in this ability, although the link to give more information on its status seemed to be broken so I can't say how far along it is.
I read recently that the Army did a study which concluded that the maximum weight that soldier should be sent into combat carrying was (I think) 40 lbs. Of course, this figure is already routine exceeded. But without claiming any expertise in this area, I too have real doubts about whether the value the average soldier will get from this hardware justifies the weight. Plus, if soldiers are constantly transmitting their locations and heartbeat rate, etc., then doesn't this open up the possibility that their locations can be plotted by RDF?
Umm, Al Queda certainly seems to be able to "challenge" America. Not "invade and conquer," but challenge. Perhaps no other country's military is as powerful, but asymmetric warfare means that LOTS of countries/groups can still damage America.
If this isn't exactly what the first sale doctrine is supposed to protect, what is? Once the copyright holder lets go of a particular hard copy, their copyright doesn't give them any further control over what happens to it. (Or do I have this wrong? I'm open to correction.) Unless perhaps they had some contract with the retail shops that required them to destroy discontinued patterns, but in that case it seems like it is the retail shops they have a course of action against. What would have happened if the retail shops had not disposed of the patterns but had continued trying to sell them?
I'd buy a Zaurus.
is about a bunch of kids who made a shot for shot reproduction of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Maybe the fact that they haven't gotten sued yet qualifies as a small victory for the supports of the intellectual commons? (THey even got nice letters from Spielberg.)
Hey, c'mon, how can CNN be expected to cover a minor story like that when Martha Stewart is about to be indicted?
One of the (countless) obvious problems with this scheme is that it means that tax revenues will have to be used to buy all of this extra equipment (or individuals will have to buy it themselves, but then that is just the same as taxing them). The only way that I could see this making ANY sense would be if you allowed car owners and filling station owners to install the equipment voluntarily. What I am thinking is that maybe you could first raise the per gallon gas tax, then let people use this system as an alternative to paying the gas tax. This would let you "reward" people who don't drive during times that the roads are heavily congested, as the article suggests. But it is probably not worth using even in this way, because it will just get hacked.
Shouldn't the Miss Vermont case be handled under libel law? (This is a question for the lawyers, not an anssertion). As a public figure, she might have a tough time winning a libel suit.
I expect (and hope) that he also had a healthy fear of his father after that episode.
Yes, and that keeps them from distracting each other by making it unnecessary for them to come to class :) No, seriously, that approach has some merit, but probably less in the humanities because our classes are less about the instructor conveying a set of information to students and more about generating discussion and getting students to try to think. Which, admittedly, makes taking notes in our classes so difficult. Besides, even when it comes to conveying information, the act of writing information down helps you to retain it in a way that just seeing it on a sheet of paper doesn't.
I actually threaten to dock the grades of people whose phones go off in class (although I'll make an exception, of course, if someone tells me ahead of time that his wife could go into labor every day or something). It is a sincere threat, although sometimes it is hard to carry out because my classes are large enough that I can't learn all of their names :(. Usually the people to whom it happens at least have the decency to be embarrassed; it is an innocent mistake, but a common and annoying one.
A colleague and I have discussed the possibility of each bringing our own cells to class the first day, and having the one who is not teaching call the one who is, as a way of making the point.
One other thought about the computers in the classroom. Although I teach in the humanities, most of my students are actually business students. Yet neither of the students who used a computer in the class was a business student---both came from the humanities. When I think about it, I would have expected to see more business students flashing fancy palm pilots. One other student I had last year used a Palm extensively, but not actually during class. He was a cop, and got it so he could write papers in his swuad car!
As a professor, I think I maybe had about 2 students using something electronic to take notes in class for the last two years (out of maybe 300 students total). One had a laptop, and one a Palm with folding keyboard. These were actually both students I had the year before last. I teach in the humanities, so I probably have fewer students who are really excited about computers than faculty members in other fields. I have to say that I wish students would stick to paper and pen, or at least find quieter keyboards; I could very distinctly hear the students in question typing, and it was sort of distracting. Although if a few tap-tap noises are the biggest problem I have to face in the next school year, I'll count myself lucky! I'd be satisfied if I could just get people to remember to turn off their cell phones.
...then you are drinking too slowly!
To see who would expose themselves as the biggest hypocrite on /. through posting an even less necessary complaint. Congratulations. Watch for your prize coming in the mail.
But I wasn't convinced by the analogy. Based on the sopranos, anyway, the mafia seems to have an ethos of servitude to---producing for---the higher ups, and I didn't see enough proof that the same is true of EQ guilds.
I'm not sure how any activity that is bound to produce a significant financial payoff can be written off as a complete waste of time. READING the book may be a waste of time, but if enough people will buy it then writing it was probably a pretty smart move.
Yes, that's right, although I wouldn't have remembered the name on my own. I read a short interview with him where he said it would take about two months for a professional mathematician to understand the error, it was so subtle.
for the ever-delayed release of Harpoon 4.
Remember that an error was found when the British mathematician first announced that he had a proof of Fermat's Theorem a few years ago. He was able to fix it, however, and AFAIK his proof is currently considered sound (albeit LONG).
One book I would recommend if you would like to learn more about this stuff is Norman Barry's On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism (St. Martin's, 1987). It is a pretty sympathetic treatment of this broad school of thought. He takes as his starting point a distinction between consequentialist/utilitarian "classical liberal" arguments for a free market, and "natural rights"-based libertarian arguments. Hume, Smith, the Chicago School (Friedman), and the Austrians (Hayek, von Mises) are in the first camp, Buchanan, Rand, Nozick, and Rothbard in the second. He seems to think that the natural rights people are on firmer ground, and you might too, but it is a mistake to think that you can't even try to defend a market economy on the grounds that people overall will be happier or better under that kind of system. You seem to think that utilitarians have to reify society, but they don't. The classical utilitarians were just as much methodological individualists as you are. Mill, for example, in his System of Logic, says that "Men are not, when brought together, converted into another kind of substance, with different properties . . . Human beings in society have no properties but those which are derived from, and may be resolved into, the laws of the nature of individual man." But maybe this kind of reasoned, insult-free expression of disgreement has no place on /. I don't know, I'm pretty new here.
Among the best known utilitarians (more or less) who are fervent supporters of a free-market economic system, and adament opoonents of socialism/communism: Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman. Read a book.
Maybe the sound meter will signal the user if they themselves are talking too loudly. I'm getting sick and tired of listening to people scream into their cell phones. A speakerphone would be a great feature; then at least we could hear both sides of their conversations.