I believe they were all, at one time, patented items developed by one or the other of the big pharmas. I recall Allegra (now over the counter and generic or soon to be) as another one.
Amazingly, vaccines are the one thing big pharma can help the rest of the world out with. It's the bandaids (nasal sprays, cough syrups, headache medicine, etc) that don't do squat for us but result in recurring revenue for them.
You're missing 2003/XP64. That was a major release, it introduced the 64 bit OS. So at best, 7 is release 8, unless, of course, you start looking at point releases as minor, in which case there are only 4 releases.
MS's math just doesn't work out no matter how you slice it.
You don't want RAID, except to increase volume size or create a hot redundant system. What you really want is offline backups, in case you do something like "rm -rf *" or something similar in the wrong directory, like the root of your media library....
Not true - you can still make a reasonable copy via component inputs if you so choose. There is no DRM on those, and the equipment is readily available.
So then the real issue becomes, if I can effectively do A but not B, when the net effect is the same, is B really illegal? (I know that the DMCA says it is, this is more a philosophical question) For instance, if I fill a water barrel from my tap versus capturing rain water it would seem insane
IMHO the internet should not be mentioned explicitly. At most, the first amendment might be extended to include electronic communications. Plain and simple language is important, and specifics should be avoided. In fact, speech and things should not be taken as literal "speaking", but communication - in that case, the internet is already covered.
No, the internet should not be mentioned, nor electronic, photonic, or anything else. Speech and print are mentioned. That covers all current methods of conveying communication, be it electronic, light, photons, quarks, whatever. (The speaker may be recorded/transmitted, it's still "speech". Words can be written, printed, or displayed on a screen. etc)
...Free speech should always be allowed, regardless of opinion. Case closed.
- Disrespectful behaviour is bad behaviour, and bad behaviour should not be tolerated (and should never be legitimised for any reason, including free speech).
The left hand giveth, the right hand takes away.
Exactly who is going to determine what is bad behavior? In Iran, you cannot draw a picture and combine it with the letters m-o-h-a-m-m-e-d (or any of a series of spellings in English anyways) Actually, that's not limited to Iran - see Denmark Cartoons
The entire point was that you had to tolerate all speech. In fact, you even have to tolerate speech that causes harm, however, the one speaking may have to face the penalties for the harm caused ("fire" in a theater, for instance, or libel or slander)
The only thing I'd like to do to Fox news is remove "News" from their title. Perhaps replace it with "Editorials", as that's more appropriate. And yes, the FCC does have that power since they're chartered...
First, on the Linux vs Minix piece - Minix wasn't ready for any use at all or at least so it was perceived. So Linux won that one. Regarding BSD, Linux ran on current hardware that hobbyists had laying around, BSD generally required a level of effort above and beyond that, so despite being a much better system, Linux won there also. Quite honestly, BSD is just a much better designed system, but that's not going to help it win outright converts when Linux appears to meet the needs and has mindshare. However, BSD may yet make a come back. I don't think the final chapter has been written yet. There's all those Windows machines that can be converted, after all.;)
On the Java piece - Java took off because it actually worked for the things people needed. It had the libraries, so even though Smalltalk might be better designed, it fails to meet those goals for 90+% of the folks that needed something. Java was truly the first to deliver adequate functionality and performance across platforms, and people (and companies) embraced it for it came with a license and was backed by a company that everyone felt they could tolerate and trust. So far, neither's been violated. We'll see what happens now that Oracle is in charge.
... I've been labelled a troll myself on more than one occasion, usually because I disagreed with the topic at hand - a good example of this is the recent debacle with Windows Secure boot, whereby many are convinced that it's simply a ploy to sell more copies of windows and block Linux, whereas I don't believe it. I might be wrong, nobody actually knows for sure the real agenda at hand and we wont until devices start shipping with Windows 8 on them, but still I got labelled a troll when personally I thought I was being reasonable.
The main point is that with a large enough and public enough backlash at the potential for abuse might keep them from trying it at all, and therefore your "wait and see" attitude will falsely reward you with an "I told you so" result, whereas the real result was the scrapping of the feared process that caused the uproar ahead of time.
They could easily watermark serial numbers into every copy they sell, thereby assuring uniqueness and track copies. That they do not is no one's fault but their own.
Honestly, I'm against creating any more copyright law. What we had 50 years ago was sufficient, for everything, as it covered distribution, not the media or the technology used. Distribution is still the only problem the RIAA really needs to deal with.
Depends upon related - did it essentially enhance an existing company product, did it require company specific knowledge, did it require generic tools used by the company, such as a keyboard and mouse, did it require breathing....
The first item - 40 current active artists with good music in the top 40? I'd be happy if there were 3 I liked in a given week. This week, there appear to be 1 at the lower end of like, and 3 I'll tolerate if someone has them on. I wouldn't buy any of them for myself, and wouldn't keep them even for free. That would be the "popular" top 40 as determined by the distribution and radio cabal. (Yes, they're a single unit, despite laws against it) Diving into the various genres that appeal to me specifically, there's known bands, but nothing overly appealing at the moment that I don't already own.
Note: the last CD I bought was a year ago - that artist has a song from that CD on the top 40 in that genre today and it was the first song out then - how screwed up is that? Actually, that points out to the real problem with the music industry when the lead single of an album is still on the top 40 a year later. That means that in a year's time, 40 songs together couldn't beat a tired veteran off the charts. It was still in the top 30, and while a decent song, it wasn't that good. Matter of fact, looking at that particular chart, I note a whole roster of music that is older than 6 months. Which caused me to go back and look at the generic top 40, and there too there's a whole host of music that's old. From Spotify I know that albums are being made and released, so why is this admittedly old content still on the charts? Is the new that bad? In some cases, I would have to say yes but some of it has to be at least as acceptable as what's on the charts currently. It's just not getting airplay.
You're assuming that all music is desirable, or that dropping the price of music to free would diminish the value of desirable music.
In the case of music, for instance, I feel the Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, and Justin Beiber all owe me money for inflicting their noise on me in one area or another (you can't turn off a promo TV in a store, you can only walk away) ie, even free I wouldn't listen to it or keep a copy. Recall the running joke that Lars (Metallica) finally found an answer to the pirating of their music: St Anger? Even the torrent sites didn't have it.
So, having established that people that aspire to be rock stars, or even real rock stars, can produce "music" that people wouldn't take for free, I see large holes in that side of your argument. I agree about the middle men forming a cabal and colluding on pricing and milking the artists and the consumers both.
The real answer to the copyright issue is not to attempt force higher costs for a product than the market will bear. For instance, people will apparently happily pay $0.99 or even $1.29 for a song off of iTunes, millions are selling daily. However, they do not want to pay $20 for a CD, the price that Best Buy's MSRP states (or near enough) and as a result CD sales have tanked.
I still buy the occasional CD (gasp! I know!) when there is more than one worthwhile song on it (Muse or Adele come to mind) but for the most part, most CDs today are abysmal boilerplate formulaic crap with a potential single song that might not be offensive. Who's going to pay more than $1.29 for that? That's what's hurting the music industry, and has been ever since they stopped promoting $0.99 singles in the era of CDs. around the late 80s. Yes, there were insane profits as people switched to CDs and repurchased their favorite albums on a media that did not inherently self-destruct and degenerate with use, but that was a one time event. Apparently the RIAA folks thought it should continue occurring year after year.
The same basic process applies to Video, however here, with a few exceptions, most people will only watch something once, so there's no need to "own" most content. A simple rental or library checkout is fine. I do own a significant collection of movies as well, but most were bought on clearance or received as gifts. After all, a relatively recent movie for less than $4 is pretty hard to beat. Even at that, after watching them, quite a few will go back into the second hand market.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently they hold a PMP / PMI certification.
If I only had mod points.... then I'd have to decide between Funny, Insightful, or "EEEEEK!"
I believe they were all, at one time, patented items developed by one or the other of the big pharmas. I recall Allegra (now over the counter and generic or soon to be) as another one.
PS - like your sig
Depends upon what you want. I just want the movie. MakeMKV does that perfectly.
Amazingly, vaccines are the one thing big pharma can help the rest of the world out with. It's the bandaids (nasal sprays, cough syrups, headache medicine, etc) that don't do squat for us but result in recurring revenue for them.
Your mistake is thinking that law is rational or logical.
You're missing 2003/XP64. That was a major release, it introduced the 64 bit OS. So at best, 7 is release 8, unless, of course, you start looking at point releases as minor, in which case there are only 4 releases.
MS's math just doesn't work out no matter how you slice it.
You don't want RAID, except to increase volume size or create a hot redundant system. What you really want is offline backups, in case you do something like "rm -rf *" or something similar in the wrong directory, like the root of your media library....
You don't need AnyDVD.
MakeMKV works just fine.
Not true - you can still make a reasonable copy via component inputs if you so choose. There is no DRM on those, and the equipment is readily available.
So then the real issue becomes, if I can effectively do A but not B, when the net effect is the same, is B really illegal? (I know that the DMCA says it is, this is more a philosophical question) For instance, if I fill a water barrel from my tap versus capturing rain water it would seem insane
You are incorrect - DeCSS is legal, due to being grandfathered.
A bill should never be longer than the constitution. That would be a good way to limit the length of a bill.
After all, a mere bill shouldn't be longer than the framework used to run the country.
IMHO the internet should not be mentioned explicitly. At most, the first amendment might be extended to include electronic communications. Plain and simple language is important, and specifics should be avoided. In fact, speech and things should not be taken as literal "speaking", but communication - in that case, the internet is already covered.
No, the internet should not be mentioned, nor electronic, photonic, or anything else. Speech and print are mentioned. That covers all current methods of conveying communication, be it electronic, light, photons, quarks, whatever. (The speaker may be recorded/transmitted, it's still "speech". Words can be written, printed, or displayed on a screen. etc)
...Free speech should always be allowed, regardless of opinion. Case closed.
- Disrespectful behaviour is bad behaviour, and bad behaviour should not be tolerated (and should never be legitimised for any reason, including free speech).
The left hand giveth, the right hand takes away.
Exactly who is going to determine what is bad behavior? In Iran, you cannot draw a picture and combine it with the letters m-o-h-a-m-m-e-d (or any of a series of spellings in English anyways) Actually, that's not limited to Iran - see Denmark Cartoons
The entire point was that you had to tolerate all speech. In fact, you even have to tolerate speech that causes harm, however, the one speaking may have to face the penalties for the harm caused ("fire" in a theater, for instance, or libel or slander)
The only thing I'd like to do to Fox news is remove "News" from their title. Perhaps replace it with "Editorials", as that's more appropriate. And yes, the FCC does have that power since they're chartered...
First, on the Linux vs Minix piece - Minix wasn't ready for any use at all or at least so it was perceived. So Linux won that one. Regarding BSD, Linux ran on current hardware that hobbyists had laying around, BSD generally required a level of effort above and beyond that, so despite being a much better system, Linux won there also. Quite honestly, BSD is just a much better designed system, but that's not going to help it win outright converts when Linux appears to meet the needs and has mindshare. However, BSD may yet make a come back. I don't think the final chapter has been written yet. There's all those Windows machines that can be converted, after all. ;)
On the Java piece - Java took off because it actually worked for the things people needed. It had the libraries, so even though Smalltalk might be better designed, it fails to meet those goals for 90+% of the folks that needed something. Java was truly the first to deliver adequate functionality and performance across platforms, and people (and companies) embraced it for it came with a license and was backed by a company that everyone felt they could tolerate and trust. So far, neither's been violated. We'll see what happens now that Oracle is in charge.
... I've been labelled a troll myself on more than one occasion, usually because I disagreed with the topic at hand - a good example of this is the recent debacle with Windows Secure boot, whereby many are convinced that it's simply a ploy to sell more copies of windows and block Linux, whereas I don't believe it. I might be wrong, nobody actually knows for sure the real agenda at hand and we wont until devices start shipping with Windows 8 on them, but still I got labelled a troll when personally I thought I was being reasonable.
The main point is that with a large enough and public enough backlash at the potential for abuse might keep them from trying it at all, and therefore your "wait and see" attitude will falsely reward you with an "I told you so" result, whereas the real result was the scrapping of the feared process that caused the uproar ahead of time.
They could easily watermark serial numbers into every copy they sell, thereby assuring uniqueness and track copies. That they do not is no one's fault but their own.
Honestly, I'm against creating any more copyright law. What we had 50 years ago was sufficient, for everything, as it covered distribution, not the media or the technology used. Distribution is still the only problem the RIAA really needs to deal with.
wait until someone comments about 45s, or 78s.....
Depends upon related - did it essentially enhance an existing company product, did it require company specific knowledge, did it require generic tools used by the company, such as a keyboard and mouse, did it require breathing....
And visions of Tom Selleck shooting our garden tending overlords appear in my mind....
The first item - 40 current active artists with good music in the top 40? I'd be happy if there were 3 I liked in a given week. This week, there appear to be 1 at the lower end of like, and 3 I'll tolerate if someone has them on. I wouldn't buy any of them for myself, and wouldn't keep them even for free. That would be the "popular" top 40 as determined by the distribution and radio cabal. (Yes, they're a single unit, despite laws against it) Diving into the various genres that appeal to me specifically, there's known bands, but nothing overly appealing at the moment that I don't already own.
Note: the last CD I bought was a year ago - that artist has a song from that CD on the top 40 in that genre today and it was the first song out then - how screwed up is that? Actually, that points out to the real problem with the music industry when the lead single of an album is still on the top 40 a year later. That means that in a year's time, 40 songs together couldn't beat a tired veteran off the charts. It was still in the top 30, and while a decent song, it wasn't that good. Matter of fact, looking at that particular chart, I note a whole roster of music that is older than 6 months. Which caused me to go back and look at the generic top 40, and there too there's a whole host of music that's old. From Spotify I know that albums are being made and released, so why is this admittedly old content still on the charts? Is the new that bad? In some cases, I would have to say yes but some of it has to be at least as acceptable as what's on the charts currently. It's just not getting airplay.
police brains
????
You're assuming that all music is desirable, or that dropping the price of music to free would diminish the value of desirable music.
In the case of music, for instance, I feel the Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, and Justin Beiber all owe me money for inflicting their noise on me in one area or another (you can't turn off a promo TV in a store, you can only walk away) ie, even free I wouldn't listen to it or keep a copy. Recall the running joke that Lars (Metallica) finally found an answer to the pirating of their music: St Anger? Even the torrent sites didn't have it.
So, having established that people that aspire to be rock stars, or even real rock stars, can produce "music" that people wouldn't take for free, I see large holes in that side of your argument. I agree about the middle men forming a cabal and colluding on pricing and milking the artists and the consumers both.
The real answer to the copyright issue is not to attempt force higher costs for a product than the market will bear. For instance, people will apparently happily pay $0.99 or even $1.29 for a song off of iTunes, millions are selling daily. However, they do not want to pay $20 for a CD, the price that Best Buy's MSRP states (or near enough) and as a result CD sales have tanked.
I still buy the occasional CD (gasp! I know!) when there is more than one worthwhile song on it (Muse or Adele come to mind) but for the most part, most CDs today are abysmal boilerplate formulaic crap with a potential single song that might not be offensive. Who's going to pay more than $1.29 for that? That's what's hurting the music industry, and has been ever since they stopped promoting $0.99 singles in the era of CDs. around the late 80s. Yes, there were insane profits as people switched to CDs and repurchased their favorite albums on a media that did not inherently self-destruct and degenerate with use, but that was a one time event. Apparently the RIAA folks thought it should continue occurring year after year.
The same basic process applies to Video, however here, with a few exceptions, most people will only watch something once, so there's no need to "own" most content. A simple rental or library checkout is fine. I do own a significant collection of movies as well, but most were bought on clearance or received as gifts. After all, a relatively recent movie for less than $4 is pretty hard to beat. Even at that, after watching them, quite a few will go back into the second hand market.