You've got me there... Still seems they should be listening at least. Surely there are issues at hand that need to be addressed more than once every four years
I'm four out of the five (relatively speaking), and I've yet to get one to listen to me, so don't think for a moment this has anything to do with race/status/religion
I find it really hard to believe that with as many people as the government employs that there would be no way for them to read the incoming, legit email. Even assuming that is the case, why not design the system such that the emails are forwarded to appropriate people for each region and not just the White House? It may not be read by who I want, but at least I know it's going to be read.
You should still be able to send opinions directly to the whitehouse, however, and have some level of confidence that it will eventually be read, even if it's not taken seriosuly
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country? What are we paying them for?
I wonder if anyone did get in trouble for the display being distracting... I'd be tempted to try something like that in my office if I wasn't afraid I would get a call on the cell phone in the middle of the night telling me that I caused an accident and I'm being sued
First this little office building... Next it will be a whole city block... Pretty soon I'll be able to play games from my private jet with my mile-diagonal screen on the ground...
I have enough prestige in my company where it's no big deal to explain what's up to those on the inside. It works and has pointed me to a couple people I can't trust in the company in the past year that I've used this method.
I've used the same concept before on my work computer. I plant suspiciously named files on my desktop or (usually) less obvious places so if someone tries to search my computer and comes across this file, reports its contents, and I hear about it, I know it's time to change my password;)
The appeal to Ogg Vorbis is that it's an open standard that can be constantly improved upon. I have also read that Ogg potentially has better sound quality than MP3 under certain circumstances, although the compression ratio is roughly the same.
It's supported by the same means that any other open source project is supported-- various contributions in time, code, and money. The best way to keep the project alive is to get involved somehow or another.
Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.
I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?
I think that the best thing that copyright laws can do for innovation is protect the investment of the inventors/authors for a short period of time-- just long enough to get the idea/product developed and on the market. After that, it should become public domain so others can improve upon it, if the author chooses not to do so
The current definition of copyrights and patents are really obsolete for a world in which technology can be duplicated overnight and any idea out there is always some derivation of an earlier technology. They are used for nothing other than lawsuits these days and need to be overhauled for a better system.
Patents and copyrights alike should be granted only to original ideas which are in product form. If the idea is too vague, such as to cause problems, it shouldn't be granted. And any patents that are granted should only extend for one year after the filing of the patent; so if, for example, the patent isn't granted until a year after it was filed, it will already be expired and will prevent such idiocy as is happening between Walmart and Netflix, and SCO and IBM.
The USPTO is getting grant-happy and granting patents to anybody who asks for one. This is not right and needs to be stopped. Before long, we won't be able to say a word without having to check if someone hasn't trademarked it for their own use.
Maybe it's good if the company investing in the project is worried about lawsuits-- it'll help encourage them to make damn sure the craft is built properly and follows sound engineering principles. When it's been demonstrated to be a reliable craft, then the gov can license it however they want.
Now does that go to say that if someone launches a craft and it crashes in the middle of the city and kills people that it was all in the name of science? No. I think the builders should be held liable to the full extent of the law. BUT, on the other hand, if they built it, had a successful test run, and nothing was damaged, killed, etc. in the process, then the government should leave them alone and let them build their craft.
And again, I believe in making use of designated, low population areas for these tests-- not in the middle of major cities. The deserts out west are ideal for this; they're the same areas used for testing various other rockets at times in our history
The simple answer to that is: don't license it. The first Wright Bros plane wasn't licensed-- do you think they got government approval to fly that around? What was the liability there? Pretty high as well. Of course, the world wasn't lawsuit happy back then like it is now, but if they were "approved" by the government and then something terrible happened, you could bet the government would be the first to be sued.
If the public wants to experiment, let them experiment in designated areas and put certain regulations on these craft, but don't license it. Then the only liability is on the builder of the craft.
This is why most experimental craft are required to be equipped with self-destruct mechanisms. Manned craft are a different story, but if something is truly still experimental, then such safety measures are a necessity
Why is it that the FAA can't create designated no-fly zones for general public research purposes? Seems like they could easily spare some airspace in several locations across the country-- just a couple square miles worth here and there.. That would be more than adequate for a good bit of lower end rocketry research and testing. Just make sure any test craft are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms in case they go off course and endanger commercial aircraft.
The space industry is stuck at a standstill. Too many regulations are cutting into innovation anymore... Not that I want to see one of these suborbital crafts get plastered on the windshield of a 747, but geez.
If an employee is going to get that distracted by a spam (or 50 of them a day) then they will probably also get easily distracted with other things, like Slashdot;)
I'm definitely leaning more towards Slashdot than my spam mail
Paid, company time spent on Slashdot, to date: 100.2 hours;)
The article fails to mention what the penalties are for companies that violate their new anti-spam laws. Are they simple little fines like are trying to be pushed here or do they have harsher punishments? Simply labelling SPAM as illegal won't do a whole lot unless violators have something serious to fear.
In the real world, legal has nothing to do with what is fundamentally "right" and "wrong". Legal only means that a law doesn't prevent something. And yes, from what I understand, it is perfectly within legal limits to distribute a clip of audio that is under 20 seconds or so.
If they are really so bold as to go and rewrite laws to prevent this, so be it, but all should be fair and equal. If I'm not allowed to share my chunk of a music file on the internet, than neither should the big sites. But if they're not going to put up a fight with the big sites, then they should leave me alone.
Slashdot Mirror
You've got me there... Still seems they should be listening at least. Surely there are issues at hand that need to be addressed more than once every four years
I'm four out of the five (relatively speaking), and I've yet to get one to listen to me, so don't think for a moment this has anything to do with race/status/religion
I find it really hard to believe that with as many people as the government employs that there would be no way for them to read the incoming, legit email. Even assuming that is the case, why not design the system such that the emails are forwarded to appropriate people for each region and not just the White House? It may not be read by who I want, but at least I know it's going to be read.
You should still be able to send opinions directly to the whitehouse, however, and have some level of confidence that it will eventually be read, even if it's not taken seriosuly
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country? What are we paying them for?
I wonder if anyone did get in trouble for the display being distracting... I'd be tempted to try something like that in my office if I wasn't afraid I would get a call on the cell phone in the middle of the night telling me that I caused an accident and I'm being sued
First this little office building... Next it will be a whole city block... Pretty soon I'll be able to play games from my private jet with my mile-diagonal screen on the ground...
I have enough prestige in my company where it's no big deal to explain what's up to those on the inside. It works and has pointed me to a couple people I can't trust in the company in the past year that I've used this method.
I've used the same concept before on my work computer. I plant suspiciously named files on my desktop or (usually) less obvious places so if someone tries to search my computer and comes across this file, reports its contents, and I hear about it, I know it's time to change my password ;)
The appeal to Ogg Vorbis is that it's an open standard that can be constantly improved upon. I have also read that Ogg potentially has better sound quality than MP3 under certain circumstances, although the compression ratio is roughly the same.
It's supported by the same means that any other open source project is supported-- various contributions in time, code, and money. The best way to keep the project alive is to get involved somehow or another.
It may not be in hard silicon yet, but it's a working design nonetheless. It can only be improved from here by using design-specific hardware.
Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.
I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?
I think that the best thing that copyright laws can do for innovation is protect the investment of the inventors/authors for a short period of time-- just long enough to get the idea/product developed and on the market. After that, it should become public domain so others can improve upon it, if the author chooses not to do so
The current definition of copyrights and patents are really obsolete for a world in which technology can be duplicated overnight and any idea out there is always some derivation of an earlier technology. They are used for nothing other than lawsuits these days and need to be overhauled for a better system.
Patents and copyrights alike should be granted only to original ideas which are in product form. If the idea is too vague, such as to cause problems, it shouldn't be granted. And any patents that are granted should only extend for one year after the filing of the patent; so if, for example, the patent isn't granted until a year after it was filed, it will already be expired and will prevent such idiocy as is happening between Walmart and Netflix, and SCO and IBM.
The USPTO is getting grant-happy and granting patents to anybody who asks for one. This is not right and needs to be stopped. Before long, we won't be able to say a word without having to check if someone hasn't trademarked it for their own use.
While I hate to see Netscape pushed aside by AOL, at least it promises to cut down their software package size by, oh, 50 meg?
Maybe it's good if the company investing in the project is worried about lawsuits-- it'll help encourage them to make damn sure the craft is built properly and follows sound engineering principles. When it's been demonstrated to be a reliable craft, then the gov can license it however they want.
Now does that go to say that if someone launches a craft and it crashes in the middle of the city and kills people that it was all in the name of science? No. I think the builders should be held liable to the full extent of the law. BUT, on the other hand, if they built it, had a successful test run, and nothing was damaged, killed, etc. in the process, then the government should leave them alone and let them build their craft.
And again, I believe in making use of designated, low population areas for these tests-- not in the middle of major cities. The deserts out west are ideal for this; they're the same areas used for testing various other rockets at times in our history
The simple answer to that is: don't license it. The first Wright Bros plane wasn't licensed-- do you think they got government approval to fly that around? What was the liability there? Pretty high as well. Of course, the world wasn't lawsuit happy back then like it is now, but if they were "approved" by the government and then something terrible happened, you could bet the government would be the first to be sued.
If the public wants to experiment, let them experiment in designated areas and put certain regulations on these craft, but don't license it. Then the only liability is on the builder of the craft.
This is why most experimental craft are required to be equipped with self-destruct mechanisms. Manned craft are a different story, but if something is truly still experimental, then such safety measures are a necessity
Forgot to add the rest of my message..
Why is it that the FAA can't create designated no-fly zones for general public research purposes? Seems like they could easily spare some airspace in several locations across the country-- just a couple square miles worth here and there.. That would be more than adequate for a good bit of lower end rocketry research and testing. Just make sure any test craft are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms in case they go off course and endanger commercial aircraft.
The space industry is stuck at a standstill. Too many regulations are cutting into innovation anymore... Not that I want to see one of these suborbital crafts get plastered on the windshield of a 747, but geez.
Now my boss can track me down to the bathroom if I keep my PDA with me
If an employee is going to get that distracted by a spam (or 50 of them a day) then they will probably also get easily distracted with other things, like Slashdot ;)
;)
I'm definitely leaning more towards Slashdot than my spam mail
Paid, company time spent on Slashdot, to date: 100.2 hours
The article fails to mention what the penalties are for companies that violate their new anti-spam laws. Are they simple little fines like are trying to be pushed here or do they have harsher punishments? Simply labelling SPAM as illegal won't do a whole lot unless violators have something serious to fear.
In the real world, legal has nothing to do with what is fundamentally "right" and "wrong". Legal only means that a law doesn't prevent something. And yes, from what I understand, it is perfectly within legal limits to distribute a clip of audio that is under 20 seconds or so.
If they are really so bold as to go and rewrite laws to prevent this, so be it, but all should be fair and equal. If I'm not allowed to share my chunk of a music file on the internet, than neither should the big sites. But if they're not going to put up a fight with the big sites, then they should leave me alone.