Exchange rates in the US are horrible. Living in Europe, I can confirm that using your CC to exchange is indeed the best way. There are ATMs all over the place in Europe, but you probably will have some trouble using a VISA or Mastercard in stores, etc. There usually are minimum purchase limits if they take CC (~10-15 Euro). Of course, the more touristy a place is, the more likely it is to take credit cards (but prices will probably be higher, as well). Often, restaurants won't take cards (besides the European EC card), so be sure you have cash on hand.
Sounds like this would be a good place to use stolen cc information. SCO better check it out -- they might crow about having many licensees, only to discover that all the cc data is stolen:-P
If a cc thief would use a bot to register a random license for each cc number using the appropriate name and billing address... SCO would have to check each and every registration for cc piracy. That would slow 'em down a bit;-)
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note: this post does not in any way condone stealing personal information, much less using it.
It depends on what school of linguistics you subscribe to. In the US, Chomsky's generative grammar reigns nearly universally (MIT, etc.). In Europe, functional linguistics is widespread (Reading, Liverpool, Freiburg, Cologne, etc. but also Stanford, U AZ, etc.).
To us functional linguists, it is apparent that language does not determine thought, but also that language is determined by culture. In other words, use is what determines what language looks like (see Krug's work with string frequency, Lehmann and Traugott'sgrammaticalization, etc.).
Of course, it seems once again to boil down to the ancient question -- what came first, the chicken or the egg.
Once language appeared on the scene, it changed with usage. However, it is quite robust, as evidenced by the very slow linguistic changes compared with rapidly advancing culture.
It's sad to see how closed the record industry is to innovation. As the article points out, unreasonable restrictions are being put on retailers. However, once again it is being shown that not all retailers are treated equally.
Remember how mp3.com allowed you to listen to albums that you owned? Apparently RIAA isn't concerned about that kind of thing anymore because they allow Virgin to have Mega-Play (see the article). The issue at stake in the mp3.com suits was that mp3.com didn't have a separate physical medium for every customer... What about Virgin?!
And then there are the issues of quality and DRM. Personally, I like my music as 320kbps mp3s that I can put on my mp3 player, burn to CD, etc. Consequently, I'm limited to ripping it off CDs.
Incidentally, my CD purchases have exploded since I started downloading music. I download to check it out, and then get the CD. Fortunately, some artists are better than others and provide more songs per CD.
Being in Germany, I'm stuck with exorbitant prices (e.g., the album Down From The Mountain which I purchased for $15 at Walmart in the US costs 32.99 Euros/~$40 over here). So I consider the purchases that I make. But as I mentioned, I still purchase at least 1 CD per month for myself - plus any I give as gifts. Just give me my music as I like it! I'm happy to pay!
But what about the out-of-print music that the labels are sitting on? I can't believe that the studios have problems with people downloading _those_! There are a number of CDs that I've looked for and that I would have been more than happy to purchase, but they are no longer being sold.
Janis Ian wrote an interesting article that generated a lot of feedback. She proposed that the labels should charge $0.25 per song for download of out of print songs, and put their whole backlog of songs online. That would be a windfall for them. I'm quite sure that that would more than make up for the downturn in record sales. However, it seems that RIAA has forgotten that the whole economy went south. So it's not just downloading that's breaking them, but they could easily turn it to their favor.
Sorry, you missed the poster's point: there is no right to pirate, so consequently there is no right to incorporate GPL code into a commmercial product. That both _can_ be done is irrelevant.
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Sounds like Sanscrit! Offshoring, anyone? ;-)
Exchange rates in the US are horrible. Living in Europe, I can confirm that using your CC to exchange is indeed the best way. There are ATMs all over the place in Europe, but you probably will have some trouble using a VISA or Mastercard in stores, etc. There usually are minimum purchase limits if they take CC (~10-15 Euro). Of course, the more touristy a place is, the more likely it is to take credit cards (but prices will probably be higher, as well). Often, restaurants won't take cards (besides the European EC card), so be sure you have cash on hand.
Sounds like this would be a good place to use stolen cc information. SCO better check it out -- they might crow about having many licensees, only to discover that all the cc data is stolen :-P
;-)
If a cc thief would use a bot to register a random license for each cc number using the appropriate name and billing address... SCO would have to check each and every registration for cc piracy. That would slow 'em down a bit
------------ note: this post does not in any way condone stealing personal information, much less using it.
It depends on what school of linguistics you subscribe to. In the US, Chomsky's generative grammar reigns nearly universally (MIT, etc.). In Europe, functional linguistics is widespread (Reading, Liverpool, Freiburg, Cologne, etc. but also Stanford, U AZ, etc.).
To us functional linguists, it is apparent that language does not determine thought, but also that language is determined by culture. In other words, use is what determines what language looks like (see Krug's work with string frequency, Lehmann and Traugott's grammaticalization, etc.).
Of course, it seems once again to boil down to the ancient question -- what came first, the chicken or the egg.
Once language appeared on the scene, it changed with usage. However, it is quite robust, as evidenced by the very slow linguistic changes compared with rapidly advancing culture.
It's sad to see how closed the record industry is to innovation. As the article points out, unreasonable restrictions are being put on retailers. However, once again it is being shown that not all retailers are treated equally.
Remember how mp3.com allowed you to listen to albums that you owned? Apparently RIAA isn't concerned about that kind of thing anymore because they allow Virgin to have Mega-Play (see the article). The issue at stake in the mp3.com suits was that mp3.com didn't have a separate physical medium for every customer... What about Virgin?!
And then there are the issues of quality and DRM. Personally, I like my music as 320kbps mp3s that I can put on my mp3 player, burn to CD, etc. Consequently, I'm limited to ripping it off CDs.
Incidentally, my CD purchases have exploded since I started downloading music. I download to check it out, and then get the CD. Fortunately, some artists are better than others and provide more songs per CD.
Being in Germany, I'm stuck with exorbitant prices (e.g., the album Down From The Mountain which I purchased for $15 at Walmart in the US costs 32.99 Euros/~$40 over here). So I consider the purchases that I make. But as I mentioned, I still purchase at least 1 CD per month for myself - plus any I give as gifts. Just give me my music as I like it! I'm happy to pay!
But what about the out-of-print music that the labels are sitting on? I can't believe that the studios have problems with people downloading _those_! There are a number of CDs that I've looked for and that I would have been more than happy to purchase, but they are no longer being sold.
Janis Ian wrote an interesting article that generated a lot of feedback. She proposed that the labels should charge $0.25 per song for download of out of print songs, and put their whole backlog of songs online. That would be a windfall for them. I'm quite sure that that would more than make up for the downturn in record sales. However, it seems that RIAA has forgotten that the whole economy went south. So it's not just downloading that's breaking them, but they could easily turn it to their favor.
Sorry, you missed the poster's point: there is no right to pirate, so consequently there is no right to incorporate GPL code into a commmercial product. That both _can_ be done is irrelevant.