Broadcast blackouts only benefit MLB if local broadcasting would detract from attendance at games. Would that really happen? I don't follow baseball, but from what I know, there are lots of people who find it more exciting to go to the stadium than to watch on TV, so unless the stadium prices are so high as to keep the fans away, local broadcasting would not have any impact on their stadium income. Am I wrong about this? Does MLB even have a real economic incentive to block local broadcasting?
I agree that many of these issue deserve more attention than they have received, though it isn't clear whether that is because the news agencies aren't interested or because they have correctly judged that people aren't all that interested. These stories have not been censored in the usual sense of the word. They are, and have been, out there.
Some of the choices are also odd. Why is World Bank funding for the Israel/West Bank wall big news? The wall itself is well known, and the central issue from every point of view is whether it should be built, not who funds it or how it is funded. It's not like there is some sort of scandal over the funding. The issues are whether or not it is a good security measure for Israel, whether or not it improperly infringes on Arab land, and whether or not it is improper because it would impose "apartheid". None of these issues has anything to do with whether the World Bank is involved in the funding.
The characterization of this wall as the "apartheid wall" also demonstrates clear bias on the part of the Sonoma State people. One can argue about the other issues, that this wall has anything to do with "apartheid" is idiotic. It has no more to do with apartheid than the boundary fences on the borders of most countries, only it is more justified since Israel is under constant terrorist attack. If Israel were interested in apartheid, it would not have allowed hundreds of thousands of Arabs to become citizens and to live all over the country. The people who want to impose apartheid are the Arabs, who can't stand the idea of Jews living anywhere in the Mideast.
That isn't right. First, here's a link that works. Fred Gilbert (whom I knew, slightly, ten years ago) did not have wifi removed from Lakehead. He merely decided that no further wifi would be installed until the health risks were clarified. This was not a big deal since the university had an extensive wired network. Lakehead had wifi in a few areas not reached by the wired network - he left that wifi alone. His position on the health issues is at the conservative end, but he hasn't drawn any conclusion about the dangers of wifi and explicitly said that in the future he might allow further use of wifi - he just wants a clearer picture of the risks.
I too used to believe that the BBC was the Voice of God, but I've been disillusioned. Their straight (that is, nonscience) news seems to be good as ever, but around 1990 their science coverage started to go bad. My first experience of this was when they broadcast a "documentary" on how all human languages are descended from a single mother tongue that can be, and has been, reconstructed. The people interviewed were cranks, with one brief appearance by a mainstream historical linguist. It was just loaded with BS and extremely unbalanced. WGBH in Boston had a contract to rebroadcast such BBC material - when they got hold of this one they realized it was so bad that they almost completely redid it.
Since then, the BBC has done more and more fringe science. It is very sad.
The one point at which the kids are reported to have been outraged was when they looked at his beekeeper (tinfoil) hat, which isn't really the same point. Otherwise, they are reported as having made some valid points (e.g. that they don't get such high levels because they aren't allowed to download files), but they're points of detail that don't necessarily invalidate the whole thing (wifi might be dangerous even if those particular kids aren't in danger - after all, other people do download files). The critical points about the meaninglessness of the thresholds used, the question of what exactly the meter measured, etc. all appear to be due to the science teacher, not the students.
Uh, did anybody read the article? I don't find anything in it about the kids detecting the BS. It was the science teacher who realized that the Panorma crew was pulling a scam and threw them out. Kudos to him, but this episode doesn't tell us anything about the ability of the kids to detect nonsense.
Agreed, with one exception. A kahen (cohen) may not marry a woman who is a convert. That is the only way in which a convert is different from someone born Jewish.
I was only talking about jurisdiction. What law governs the claim is another matter. In general, the law has been "finder's keeper's", even for fairly recent wrecks. For example, the Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956, was salvaged by an outfit that obtained complete rights to it. Historically there have been some exceptions for government vessels, but even these did not apply if the vessel was engaged in a primarily non-governmental activity (e.g. serving as a treasure ship.) The whole business is complicated and different countries had different ideas - there was not always agreement.
In recent years the "finder's keeper's" principle has been increasingly challenged, partly by ship owners and insurance companies that want to maintain ownership and partly by archaeologists who want the opportunity to explore wrecks scientifically. In the United States, legislation was passed a while back that considerably changed the picture. This applies to
freshwater and to coastal waters but does not affect the high seas.
PDF is an "open" format in that the full specification is published. I know - I've read it. You can download it here.
Adobe owns the trademark, but anyone can implement PDF.
The idea that the word processor should store previous versions in the same file is bizarre. Emacs doesn't do this, and many of us do just fine with emacs and TeX. If automated versioning is needed, have the filesystem do it like in TOPS-20, or use a version control system.
I'm having trouble with this. Granted, the guidance systems of the missiles wouldn't work on old wooden planes, but the 20mm cannon of the jet fighters would be quite effective against both the planes themselves and their pilots.
The wreck appears to be in international waters. Therefore, the company may obtain an order for admiralty arrest from a competent court of any nation. In the general case, admiralty arrest is the approximate equivalent in admiralty law of a lien on property. In a case such as this, what it amounts to is a declaration by the court that the ship has been abandoned by its original owner and that the applicant therefore has exclusive salvage rights.
For critical applications I can well see that you would want to be
sure that the software you install is really what it is supposed to be, but that isn't quite the same issue as piracy. Suppose that you have a dozen identical pieces of equipment that are controlled by a piece of proprietary software - say Microsoft Radiation Therapy. If you have an installation CD and one license but install on all twelve machines, you are violating the license, but you aren't endangering anyone since you're installing the same software, presumably safe and certified, on every machine. On the other hand, if your little sister tries her hand at writing a similar program and licenses it to you for all twelve machines, there is no copyright infringement but you are taking a risk in installing a potentially unsafe and uncertified program. In general, the licensing issue and the genuineness/safety issue don't go together.
This provision isn't worrisome in its own right since the situation in which it would be applicable is one that already falls under other laws against unintentional homicide, such as reckless endangerment and manslaughter. The disturbing thing about it is that it is a subtle attempt to equate "pirated" with "counterfeit and inferior". When somebody sells black market antibiotics, for example, there is a serious risk that they are not what they claim to be or are contaminated, so the black market drugs may really be inferior and dangerous. When somebody sells pirated copies of Microsoft Windows, the OS that the purchaser gets is just as safe (or just as unsafe) as a licensed copy.
This attempt at equating "pirated" with "counterfeit,inferior, and dangerous" is an instance of the same scam that Microsoft attempted with its "Windows Genuine Advantage" program, which implies that pirated copies of MS Windows are not "genuine".
This is no longer true. A recent decision has relaxed the requirements for declaratory judgements in cases of alleged patent infringement. See http://www.wiggin.com/db30/cgi-bin/pubs/IPadvisory March2007.pdf.
Am I the only one who finds it bizarre and offensive that ISPs must purchase a proprietary standard in order to comply with the law? Surely technical information about what is required ought to be freely available from the government.
Aside from the fact that their interpretation of the DMCA is contorted, the companies that sent the Cease and Desist letters suffer from an additional, critical disability: they do not have standing to sue. Perhaps a real expert like NewYorkCountryLawyer will comment, but as I read it, only the copyright owners have standing to sue under the DMCA. DRM providers do not. When a lawsuit is actually filed, one of the first things the plaintiff needs to establish (along with the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case) is standing to sue. Failure to do so should result in a successful motion for summary judgment by the defendant.
Matt Raymond, the LOC Communications Director who made the complaint, is not a lawyer and therefore probably has no understanding of trademark law. According tot
the bio on his blog, he has a background in journalism, with most of his career in "communication"/public relations.
The WashingtonWatch site does not purport to be "official". It refers to the Library of Congress site only by way of comparison. Here's a hint: when you compare A with B, that implies that A and B are different. Such comparison is not a "use of the trademark for endorsement". They don't even need a court ruling on this. This is well settled law. So long as there are no false claims of fact, Toyota is free to advertise that their vehicles are better than Ford's. Mentioning the competitor's trademark in this way is quite legal. WashingtonWatch should just tell the LOC to go jump in a lake. If the LOC wants to procede, they'll have to involve their lawyers, who will rapidly disabuse them of the idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Broadcast blackouts only benefit MLB if local broadcasting would detract from attendance at games. Would that really happen? I don't follow baseball, but from what I know, there are lots of people who find it more exciting to go to the stadium than to watch on TV, so unless the stadium prices are so high as to keep the fans away, local broadcasting would not have any impact on their stadium income. Am I wrong about this? Does MLB even have a real economic incentive to block local broadcasting?
I agree that many of these issue deserve more attention than they have received, though it isn't clear whether that is because the news agencies aren't interested or because they have correctly judged that people aren't all that interested. These stories have not been censored in the usual sense of the word. They are, and have been, out there.
Some of the choices are also odd. Why is World Bank funding for the Israel/West Bank wall big news? The wall itself is well known, and the central issue from every point of view is whether it should be built, not who funds it or how it is funded. It's not like there is some sort of scandal over the funding. The issues are whether or not it is a good security measure for Israel, whether or not it improperly infringes on Arab land, and whether or not it is improper because it would impose "apartheid". None of these issues has anything to do with whether the World Bank is involved in the funding.
The characterization of this wall as the "apartheid wall" also demonstrates clear bias on the part of the Sonoma State people. One can argue about the other issues, that this wall has anything to do with "apartheid" is idiotic. It has no more to do with apartheid than the boundary fences on the borders of most countries, only it is more justified since Israel is under constant terrorist attack. If Israel were interested in apartheid, it would not have allowed hundreds of thousands of Arabs to become citizens and to live all over the country. The people who want to impose apartheid are the Arabs, who can't stand the idea of Jews living anywhere in the Mideast.
There's the problem. As we all know, science is based on mathematics, and mathematics is based on coffee.
That isn't right. First, here's a link that works. Fred Gilbert (whom I knew, slightly, ten years ago) did not have wifi removed from Lakehead. He merely decided that no further wifi would be installed until the health risks were clarified. This was not a big deal since the university had an extensive wired network. Lakehead had wifi in a few areas not reached by the wired network - he left that wifi alone. His position on the health issues is at the conservative end, but he hasn't drawn any conclusion about the dangers of wifi and explicitly said that in the future he might allow further use of wifi - he just wants a clearer picture of the risks.
I too used to believe that the BBC was the Voice of God, but I've been disillusioned. Their straight (that is, nonscience) news seems to be good as ever, but around 1990 their science coverage started to go bad. My first experience of this was when they broadcast a "documentary" on how all human languages are descended from a single mother tongue that can be, and has been, reconstructed. The people interviewed were cranks, with one brief appearance by a mainstream historical linguist. It was just loaded with BS and extremely unbalanced. WGBH in Boston had a contract to rebroadcast such BBC material - when they got hold of this one they realized it was so bad that they almost completely redid it.
Since then, the BBC has done more and more fringe science. It is very sad.
The one point at which the kids are reported to have been outraged was when they looked at his beekeeper (tinfoil) hat, which isn't really the same point. Otherwise, they are reported as having made some valid points (e.g. that they don't get such high levels because they aren't allowed to download files), but they're points of detail that don't necessarily invalidate the whole thing (wifi might be dangerous even if those particular kids aren't in danger - after all, other people do download files). The critical points about the meaninglessness of the thresholds used, the question of what exactly the meter measured, etc. all appear to be due to the science teacher, not the students.
Uh, did anybody read the article? I don't find anything in it about the kids detecting the BS. It was the science teacher who realized that the Panorma crew was pulling a scam and threw them out. Kudos to him, but this episode doesn't tell us anything about the ability of the kids to detect nonsense.
Agreed, with one exception. A kahen (cohen) may not marry a woman who is a convert. That is the only way in which a convert is different from someone born Jewish.
Hmm. I guess a female shark without a male is like a woman without a bicycle, or something like that.
Exactly. This is like some company selling me a book and then getting pissed off because I ignored the injunction in the book not to read page 22.
I was only talking about jurisdiction. What law governs the claim is another matter. In general, the law has been "finder's keeper's", even for fairly recent wrecks. For example, the Andrea Doria, which sank in 1956, was salvaged by an outfit that obtained complete rights to it. Historically there have been some exceptions for government vessels, but even these did not apply if the vessel was engaged in a primarily non-governmental activity (e.g. serving as a treasure ship.) The whole business is complicated and different countries had different ideas - there was not always agreement.
In recent years the "finder's keeper's" principle has been increasingly challenged, partly by ship owners and insurance companies that want to maintain ownership and partly by archaeologists who want the opportunity to explore wrecks scientifically. In the United States, legislation was passed a while back that considerably changed the picture. This applies to freshwater and to coastal waters but does not affect the high seas.
PDF is an "open" format in that the full specification is published. I know - I've read it. You can download it here. Adobe owns the trademark, but anyone can implement PDF.
The idea that the word processor should store previous versions in the same file is bizarre. Emacs doesn't do this, and many of us do just fine with emacs and TeX. If automated versioning is needed, have the filesystem do it like in TOPS-20, or use a version control system.
I'm having trouble with this. Granted, the guidance systems of the missiles wouldn't work on old wooden planes, but the 20mm cannon of the jet fighters would be quite effective against both the planes themselves and their pilots.
The wreck appears to be in international waters. Therefore, the company may obtain an order for admiralty arrest from a competent court of any nation. In the general case, admiralty arrest is the approximate equivalent in admiralty law of a lien on property. In a case such as this, what it amounts to is a declaration by the court that the ship has been abandoned by its original owner and that the applicant therefore has exclusive salvage rights.
Which, reflecting the bloat, will be named Skylight.
Well, it means that 0.16% are idiots who can read. Unknown hordes of idiots can't read or don't use computers.
Does anyone know why Microsoft is doing well in South America but not in North America? What's the difference between the two markets?
For critical applications I can well see that you would want to be sure that the software you install is really what it is supposed to be, but that isn't quite the same issue as piracy. Suppose that you have a dozen identical pieces of equipment that are controlled by a piece of proprietary software - say Microsoft Radiation Therapy. If you have an installation CD and one license but install on all twelve machines, you are violating the license, but you aren't endangering anyone since you're installing the same software, presumably safe and certified, on every machine. On the other hand, if your little sister tries her hand at writing a similar program and licenses it to you for all twelve machines, there is no copyright infringement but you are taking a risk in installing a potentially unsafe and uncertified program. In general, the licensing issue and the genuineness/safety issue don't go together.
This provision isn't worrisome in its own right since the situation in which it would be applicable is one that already falls under other laws against unintentional homicide, such as reckless endangerment and manslaughter. The disturbing thing about it is that it is a subtle attempt to equate "pirated" with "counterfeit and inferior". When somebody sells black market antibiotics, for example, there is a serious risk that they are not what they claim to be or are contaminated, so the black market drugs may really be inferior and dangerous. When somebody sells pirated copies of Microsoft Windows, the OS that the purchaser gets is just as safe (or just as unsafe) as a licensed copy.
This attempt at equating "pirated" with "counterfeit,inferior, and dangerous" is an instance of the same scam that Microsoft attempted with its "Windows Genuine Advantage" program, which implies that pirated copies of MS Windows are not "genuine".
This is no longer true. A recent decision has relaxed the requirements for declaratory judgements in cases of alleged patent infringement. See http://www.wiggin.com/db30/cgi-bin/pubs/IPadvisory March2007.pdf.
Am I the only one who finds it bizarre and offensive that ISPs must purchase a proprietary standard in order to comply with the law? Surely technical information about what is required ought to be freely available from the government.
Aside from the fact that their interpretation of the DMCA is contorted, the companies that sent the Cease and Desist letters suffer from an additional, critical disability: they do not have standing to sue. Perhaps a real expert like NewYorkCountryLawyer will comment, but as I read it, only the copyright owners have standing to sue under the DMCA. DRM providers do not. When a lawsuit is actually filed, one of the first things the plaintiff needs to establish (along with the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case) is standing to sue. Failure to do so should result in a successful motion for summary judgment by the defendant.
Matt Raymond, the LOC Communications Director who made the complaint, is not a lawyer and therefore probably has no understanding of trademark law. According tot the bio on his blog, he has a background in journalism, with most of his career in "communication"/public relations.
The WashingtonWatch site does not purport to be "official". It refers to the Library of Congress site only by way of comparison. Here's a hint: when you compare A with B, that implies that A and B are different. Such comparison is not a "use of the trademark for endorsement". They don't even need a court ruling on this. This is well settled law. So long as there are no false claims of fact, Toyota is free to advertise that their vehicles are better than Ford's. Mentioning the competitor's trademark in this way is quite legal. WashingtonWatch should just tell the LOC to go jump in a lake. If the LOC wants to procede, they'll have to involve their lawyers, who will rapidly disabuse them of the idea.