I guess WiFi PDA's will be SOL, but I'm sure most execs that need to connect to the internet via their cell phones will probably use their cell phone network's internet connection.
Except that they're not allowed to use their cell phone connection in flight.
I don't think they would require you to bring a cable with you, since it's probably only a matter of time before they ban all cables of any kind from airplanes because they could be used to make bombs or something.
Or I could use a CAT5 cable to strangle the TSA representative who is telling me that my 4 oz bottle of hair gel is a danger to the plane and its passengers.
(think just about how many traffic laws you break in a given week, including speeding, rapid lane changes, rolling stops, and similar minor offenses)
That would be none. And if traffic cameras prevent people like you from driving like an inconsiderate twat, I'd really rather like more.
And maybe if the laws were more reasonable and didn't keep you prostrate bootlickers driving like little old ladies, I wouldn't need to pass your pokey ass on the right.
"Safe driving" varies by road, weather conditions, vehicle, and driver competence. To think that the extra-conservative one-size-fits-all rules of the road are The Right Way To Drive (tm) is simplistic and overly accepting of authority.
(1) The public has already chosen what they like to listen to and watch -- the market can, and does, give people what they want.
This is true on a certain level (democracies are based on the opinion of the majority), but how do you add checks and balances for minority or dissenting opinions, to prevent mob rule? I don't agree with the Fairness Doctrine, but this is still a valid question.
(2) This is really just a back-door attempt to squelch a format where liberals have been unsuccessfully trying to penetrate for years: talk radio. The idea is to FORCE radio stations to pick up the next "Air America" if they're going to continue to broadcast Rush Limbaugh. But, (going back to #1), if nobody listens, is there a benefit? To Liberals there is -- by forcing "fairness," a Radio station will have to silence about half of its conservative voices.
And there's not always two sides to an issue. Sometimes an issue has no incorrect side ("News at 11: the sun is BIG!...2E10 kg, actually." "And now another perspective, in the interest of fairness: no it's not! It's only the size of a quarter, if you hold one up next to it."), and sometimes there are hundreds of varied perspectives on complex issues, like the Iraq war. Who gets to decide which opinions are valid enough to be included in the "balance"? The stations? The politicians? I like it the way it is now: I hear from lots of sources, and I get to decide what's valid and what's not.
(3) It's not like there's a paucity of available opinions -- the Internet has made it possible for every side to get its message out, with very little budget. Plus, things have changed since the days where CBS, NBC and ABC rules the TV airways. There are now hundreds of television stations.
The Fairness Doctrine would only affect those stations operating on public resources, namely, the broadcast stations. Last time I checked, that's only ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, and CW (the new WB/UPN combo network). All the cable news networks are not using public airwaves, just private cable lines, and would not be subject to the Doctrine. Radio gets a bit more complicated, but there's a lot of corporate consolidation there, too.
(4) What about the First Amendment? Sure, the fact that they're public airways means that they are subject to some restrictions, but do we really want to add more limits on speech?
You hit the nail on the head with this one. This is definite free speech issue, and if it goes into effect, expect all the major conservative radio stations to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
(5) Despite what Commissioner Copps said, it's not going to get rid of garbage TV (I'm thinking NBC's "Fear Factor" as a great example), because those shows don't espouse any political opinions.
And who gets to decide what a "political opinion" is? To use your example, what if Fear Factor had people camping on icebergs in the North Sea, as they broke up around them due to global warming? Is that political?
The Democrats are beginning the process of making sure they're not re-elected in 2 years. Did any candidate run on the Fairness Doctrine?
No one ran on it, because it was in effect since the beginning of the FCC, and was one of the (misguided) founding principles of the FCC. Most of those founding principles, both good and bad, have since been abandoned.
Incidently, the differences between the Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality are: (1) one is content-based and one isn't and (2) Net-Neutrality regulates the information pipes, not the sources.
True, but I'm not sure what the relevance to the discussion at hand is. Net neutrality has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with monopolized power. The Fairness Doctrine is, by definition, affecting free speech.
But, the radio station, as I pointed out, with minimal research should have known going in this was dangerous and not even hosted this contest.
Or, at the very least, should have had a team of EMTs standing by, in case something like this happened. A quick shot of some electrolytes by a professional is all it would have taken to prevent the death.
Of course this guy doesn't believe in global warming: the greater Seattle area got a couple inches of snow this week and the city shut down like a BSOD. I'm sure tomorrow he's going to go out and buy a 20kW generator just in case the seventh seal is opened over the weekend.
The problem is that with any scheme is that both legal in illegal actions will likely look identical to the system.
That's absolutely correct.
The key to this whole mess is intent. The DRM scheme cannot possibly know why I made the copy, and therefore it doesn't know if the copy is illegal or not.
But back to the question of whether my objection to DRM is on practical or philisophical grounds: at this stage in the game, the question doesn't make any sense. It's like asking how much the color blue weighs. There is no way for a technological system to know intent of the copy, and therefore the hypothetical Perfect DRM is an impossibility.
What worries me more is the implicit acceptence and slow erosion of our rights that happens when we settle for a system that's "almost good enough." Apple's DRM is infringing on people's fair use rights, but it only takes away a few, and that's "almost good enough." It's a slippery slope.
After all, it is theoretically possible for cars to know what road they are on (via GPS) and what the speed limit is (via a wireless connection to a database) and it is possible to install a device that limits maximum speed (a governer). Would people be opposed to installing a speed limiter in a car that would force drivers to drive at the speed limit or below at all times? What if installing such a device meant you saved 50% on your car insurance premiums? What if car makers started voluntarily installing them standard on all models? What if Congress passed a law saying it was illegal to tamper with or remove them once installed unless you are a licensed and bonded repairman? What if farther down the line, the government makes it mandatory that all cars sold in the U.S. have them installed?
DRM in any form takes away rights, even if they're rights that 99% of the population will never use. Losing any rights at all is a Bad Thing (tm).
A little digging at the library showed that the population of at federal, state, county and local detention facilities was roughly doubling every 10 years.
There's no way to sustain a growth rate like that.
I was skeptical of the claim of 2 million, so I hit up Google.
Overall, the United States incarcerated 2,320,359 persons at yearend 2005. This total represents persons held in--
--Federal and State prisons (1,446,269, which excludes State
and Federal prisoners in local jails)
--territorial prisons (15,735)
--local jails (747,529)
--facilities operated by or exclusively for the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement(10,104)
--military facilities (2,322)
--jails in Indian country (1,745 as of midyear 2004)
--juvenile facilities (96,655 as of 2003).
2.3 million! Holy crap, you were right! The report from 1995 claims:
Nearly 1.6 million inmates were held in the Nation's prisons and local jails
<snip>
Since 1985 the Nation's prison and jail population has nearly doubled on a per capita basis. In 1995 the number of inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents was 600 -- up from 313 in 1985.
So we're just under the "double every decade" curve.
Luckily, our population is also increasing. Also from the 2005 bulletin:
The rate of incarceration in prison at yearend 2005 was 491 sentenced inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents, up from 411 in 1995.
That's only a 20% increase in the incarceration rate in the last decade. So even though the raw number of people in prison is doubling, our population is keeping up, and the per-capita incarceration rate is increasing much more slowly. Looking at the historical trends, it would seem that the rate of incarceration is increasing. But by fitting trend lines to the graphs of the rate of incarceration and the rate of increase, we can see that the rate of increase of the rate of incarceration is actually decreasing! (Read it again before your brain implodes.) That means that fairly soon we should expect the rate of incarceration (inmates per 10,000 persons) to level off.
So yes, the number of inmates in our prisons is doubling every decade, which makes for some real problems involving funding and facilities, but the rate of incarceration is actually decreasing, and should plateau in the next decade or two. Finally, our prison population will be increasing only as fast as our population!
That some of us still use the word steal, instead of your newspeak and backpatting wording, is your problem.
Holy hell, this argument is tiresome.
What we're talking about here is jargon. Different professions use words in very specific ways to mean very specific things, and many of these definitions are contrary to the common, accepted, non-jargon definition of the word.
To use another flamebait example: The intelligent design nutjobs keep insisting that evolution is "just a theory", and most of us here on Slashdot understand that the word "theory" in the scientific sense means something completely different than in standard English. A scientific "theory" is simply a working framework which makes accurate predictions, and which has not yet been proven wrong. But the word "theory" in common English can even mean "wild speculation without substantiation," as in a conspiricy theory. If people don't pay attention to the jargon meanings of words, they can even believe that The Theory of Evolution is wild speculation without substantiation, which is clearly not the case.
We run into the same problem with "theft." In the parlance of law, words have very specific meanings. "Theft" in this case means physically taking property from someone without permission, and is defined as a crime (which also has a specific meaning, resulting in a trial in a criminal court). Copyright infringement (at least the kind DRM is designed to protect, and the kind we are arguing about here; we'll leave the resellers out of this for the moment) is defined in law as a civil matter. You cannot be tried as a criminal or sent to jail for copyright infringement. The most that can happen is a fine, and you will be tried in a civil court, where the burden of proof is not as high for the prosecution.
The only time copyright infringement is considered "theft" is when it meets the conditions of 17 USC 506, which I will reprint here:
Sec. 506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright
willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial
gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by
electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies
or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a
total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18,
United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of
reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself,
shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
18 USC 2319 sets forth fine amounts and jail time, which is not to exceed 10 years in any case.
In short, according to the official legal definition, copying an mp3 to your iPod is not theft. Selling ripped and burned CDs on the street is.
Joe Average doesn't know or care what OS stands for. The only real barrier to the mass-adoption of Linux or any other OS is the fact that Windows comes pre-installed on every computer for sale at every store in every mall (with rare exception).
You're absolutely right.
Just like Joe Average has no idea what a "web browser" is or even that he has a choice, because MSIE comes preinstalled on every computer for sale at every store in every mall (with rare exception).
But remember that people were grumbling about how much surfing the internet sucked, what with all the Flash ads, popups, annoying JavaScripts, and so forth. Along came the Firefox advertising team, and they said, "we know it sucks. There's a better way." Education caused people to install Firefox in droves, because it really was that much better than the preinstalled competition. MS played catch up with IE7, but Firefox has mindshare now, and that's priceless.
People complain about MS Windows and MS Office all the time, even when they don't recognize the difference between Windows and Office or even realize they have a choice. Education, advertising, and being unequivically better than the preinstalled competition is the only way Linux will take off as a desktop OS.
The Mac is a computer, not a gadget and it seems unforgivable, IMO, that all that was announced during the keynote were gadgets.
Unforgivable? I think not.
Apple Computer, Inc. changed their name to Apple, inc. just before the keynote! Their computers are becoming more and more gadget-like every day, and the various iterations of the iPod represent a significant chunk of their revenue.
Let's face it: Apple is a gadget company. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is not paying attention.
Nice to see a fellow Gentooer admitting that not everyone should run Gentoo. I run Gentoo on everything I own, but it's a power user's OS, not Joe Average's.
The average user wants to click Yes and have everything run. There are a few distros out there for this, but they have their problems as well (security, portability, package management).
Well, sure. But Windows suffers from all these problems and more. For every "I couldn't get my digital camera working in Ubuntu" anecdote out there, there is a similar "I couldn't get this scanner working in Windows" anecdote. Technical issues are not the problem. Technically, Linux is ready for the desktop.
The big barrier here is user perception, and market fragmentation. Would Firefox have been as successful if people were told to switch, and then told that they could choose from Firefox, Mozilla, or Seamonkey, and that each one is very similar but different in some visible ways, and that users of each one are fiercely loyal and will tell you to bugger off if you asked in the wrong forum for help? Of course not. The same situation applies to Linux. We (the Linux evangelists) push Linux on people, but then we are ambiguous about what Linux actually is. Is it Ubuntu? Is it Debian? Is it BSD? Is it Gentoo? And even within distros, there is ambiguity about KDE vs. Gnome, etc.
Joe Average is not ready for a change in paradigm, just a change in OS. What we need to do as a community is to standardize on a single "evangelist" distribution, that comes with fewer choices than most distros. Then we need to start a marketing campaign, like the GetFirefox campaign, that encourages people to use a LiveCD. Give this distribution the "click Yes to install" functionality that people expect. Once we've gained marketshare, THEN we can start introducing Joe Average to the paradigm of choice within the OS itself.
Remember that when trying to unseat a major market player, your product can't simply be "as good as." It must be better. So much better that people have incentive to switch.
In short, he's given up on his pragmatic rationale since they've been proven almost entirely wrong.
They're not proven wrong yet.
Remember that the copyleft movement is a movement about purity of design; in essence, all of his conclusions about open-source vs. closed-source software are based on the assumption of all else being equal. With no other factors involved, his three points about software are absolutely correct. More people will use a free product over a product they have to pay for, if those products are equal (and/or are percieved as equal). People are more productive when they can adjust their tools to their preferences. And no one likes reinventing the wheel over and over just because of some proprietary agreements.
Unfortunately for his movement, we don't live in a world where all else is equal, and there are a number of very important factors affecting people's software choices. Advertising. Capital. Perception. Inertia. Economy. All of these create conditions where proprietary software thrives (in terms of sheer number of programs), seemingly contradicting his aims.
Perception and inertia are the most important two. Companies that create software still, for the most part, see software as a product, and not a means to achieve a service. Therefore, they apply all the standard rules to their product that any other company would: they keep the plans and the means to reproduce it secret, so that they can't be undercut in the market by someone else with a lower initial investment. This thinking is very firmly ingrained in our culture, and I don't expect it to change anytime soon. Those of us who see software as a tool, i.e., a means to an end and not the end itself, understand that it is much more valuable in the long run to ensure the customer has the best tool for the job at all times, even if that involves letting the customer modify the tool as they see fit. In this model, the software is a service, not a product, and allowing the customer to make changes is part of that service. There is plenty of money to be made in this sector, and many people are already doing that with Free Software, but the majority of companies (and managers making purchasing decisions) are still in the software-as-product mindset, where "free" means "cheap and useless."
Inertia is important because it causes people to not make changes that would benefit them, even when they have the means to do so. How many people have looked at an application on their computer and thought to themselves, "boy, I really wish it would do X when I do Y, instead of doing Z."? And how many people, even if they are using Free Software, *truly* have the means to make that change themselves? Slashdotters aside, almost no one. The learning curve is too high. No cubicle monkey is going to spend time coding some new function that exports vector data to.dxf from their favorite drawing program, then spend the time getting that function integrated into the main branch of the CVS tree, wait for a full release, and finally wait for their company's IT department to integrate the new release into their computer's hdd image so they can finally start using it. Even if it makes them far more productive in the long run. So even though the ability to make changes to the tool is there, it doesn't mean everyone will. And once we accept that fact, it makes sense that people are willing to simply purchase or download a program and grumble about it. If I can't (or won't) tinker with it, what does it matter if it's open or closed source?
Stallman's points have not yet been proven wrong. He is simply fighting hundreds of years of conventional thinking which is being brought to an industry that's just getting started. And the metrics we typically use for measuring the "success" of a program, i.e., number of installations, are not the same metrics Stallman uses for measuring the "success" of a program. If a program is the proper tool for the job, and helps a person do something more effectively or efficiently, then that program is a success. His three points you mentioned will very much aid in creating that type of success.
Stallman is not wrong. He just hasn't changed the world yet.
I just bought a guitar, but I'm going to return it because I think it should just produce the music I want to hear when I hammer at it like a retarded orangutang.
Bank of America. Worst cancellation experience of my life.
I had several Bank of America accounts in college, including a checking account, savings account, and a Visa credit card. When I got a job after college and moved to a different state, I set myself up with my company's credit union, which of course was a much better deal than B of A.
Cancelling the checking and savings accounts was fairly easy; I did that in person at a branch. But they told me I would have to call customer service to cancel my credit card.
I phoned the national number, and spoke with a representative, who asked for my name and social security number. She transferred me to a credit card account rep, who I gave my name and social security number to. This was not the person who could cancel, so she transferred me. The next person I spoke to (and who I gave my name and social security number to) was cancellation for accounts in $NEW_STATE, and could not help with cancellations of accounts from $OLD_STATE. He also transferred me. Then I spoke to (and gave my name and social security number to) representative from $OLD_STATE, who transferred me to the cancellation department of $OLD_STATE, who I had to give my name and social security number to. This person looked up my account and noticed that I opened the account in $ORIGINAL_STATE before I moved, so she transferred me to a rep from $ORIGINAL_STATE, who I gave my name and social security number to, just to have him transfer me to a cancellation rep of $ORIGINAL_STATE, who I was also required to give my name and social security number to.
FINALLY, the person I was talking to had the authority to cancel my account, but she wasn't going down without a fight.
"I'm sorry to hear you're leaving us, Mr. AeroIllini. I am authorized to offer you an automatic 2% rate reduction on your credit card if you choose to stay with us."
"No thanks. I have a credit card with my company's credit union."
"May I ask what the rate on your new card is?"
I told her.
She laughed and laughed. "Sir, there's no way I can match that. I will cancel your account now."
Two hours on the phone (there was hold time with every transfer) and giving out my social security number SEVEN times, just to be strong-armed into staying by a company with inferior customer service.
If I understood the AllofMP3.com situation correctly, they are paying the Russian equivalent of the RIAA licensing and royalty fees for the songs they sell, under some obscure loophole of Russian law that allows them to classify their website alongside radio stations and use the much cheaper fees for broadcast licenses. If this is true, then they are violating no Russian law.
But, I also thought that it is illegal for people to import into the United States products that are illegal here, even if said products are legal in the originating country (like bringing weed back from Amsterdam with you... they won't let it in the country, and you'll probably be arrested for possession). If that's the case, then wouldn't the US customers of AllofMP3.com be in violation of these importation laws by buying the songs in Russia (where it's legal) and then importing them to the United States (where it's illegal)? Why would the RIAA not use this vector for attack on AllofMP3, and bring down Capone on tax evasion?
Also, the original poster asked about tumblers, which are about 10 oz. by default, so we're talking a lot less than one tumbler of reasonably good scotch.
Yes, but when ordering a Scotch, even though it's served in a 10 oz tumbler, it's never full to the top... in fact, if it's served neat, there's just the 1.5 oz in the bottom. On the rocks looks better, because the ice takes up most of the space in the glass.
If someone cares to do a more scientific conversion, rather than the half-assed one I just put together, we're looking for what content of scotch contains 30 grams of ethanol.
Ok.
A standard "drink", as defined in the US, is 0.6 oz of ethenol. We will assume 43% alcohol by volume (the content of my favorite Scotch, Glenmorangie 18 year).
At 43% ABV, a "standard drink" of Glenmorangie would be 0.6/0.43 = 1.40 oz, or slightly less than a shot (1.5 oz). 0.6 oz of ethanol weighs about 14g, assuming a specific gravity of 0.789 for ethanol. Calculations below:
So with a drink allowance of 4 drinks at 10g of ethanol each would allow you to have *almost* three Scotches, by American drink size standards. In the UK, where a standard drink is only 10 ml of ethanol, you could have five drinks. Whether this amount is more or less than what you actually pour for yourself is left as an exercise for the reader.
Slashdot Mirror
"Safe driving" varies by road, weather conditions, vehicle, and driver competence. To think that the extra-conservative one-size-fits-all rules of the road are The Right Way To Drive (tm) is simplistic and overly accepting of authority.
And there's not always two sides to an issue. Sometimes an issue has no incorrect side ("News at 11: the sun is BIG!
The Fairness Doctrine would only affect those stations operating on public resources, namely, the broadcast stations. Last time I checked, that's only ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, and CW (the new WB/UPN combo network). All the cable news networks are not using public airwaves, just private cable lines, and would not be subject to the Doctrine. Radio gets a bit more complicated, but there's a lot of corporate consolidation there, too.
You hit the nail on the head with this one. This is definite free speech issue, and if it goes into effect, expect all the major conservative radio stations to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
And who gets to decide what a "political opinion" is? To use your example, what if Fear Factor had people camping on icebergs in the North Sea, as they broke up around them due to global warming? Is that political?
No one ran on it, because it was in effect since the beginning of the FCC, and was one of the (misguided) founding principles of the FCC. Most of those founding principles, both good and bad, have since been abandoned.
True, but I'm not sure what the relevance to the discussion at hand is. Net neutrality has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with monopolized power. The Fairness Doctrine is, by definition, affecting free speech.
They report. We decide.
*snicker*
*calls Comcast*
Of course this guy doesn't believe in global warming: the greater Seattle area got a couple inches of snow this week and the city shut down like a BSOD. I'm sure tomorrow he's going to go out and buy a 20kW generator just in case the seventh seal is opened over the weekend.
(In case you don't live in Seattle and/or don't get the joke: one inch of snow, and temperatures of 20 degrees Fahrenheit should not cause this much chaos. We get snow every year, for crying out loud.)
The key to this whole mess is intent. The DRM scheme cannot possibly know why I made the copy, and therefore it doesn't know if the copy is illegal or not.
But back to the question of whether my objection to DRM is on practical or philisophical grounds: at this stage in the game, the question doesn't make any sense. It's like asking how much the color blue weighs. There is no way for a technological system to know intent of the copy, and therefore the hypothetical Perfect DRM is an impossibility.
What worries me more is the implicit acceptence and slow erosion of our rights that happens when we settle for a system that's "almost good enough." Apple's DRM is infringing on people's fair use rights, but it only takes away a few, and that's "almost good enough." It's a slippery slope.
After all, it is theoretically possible for cars to know what road they are on (via GPS) and what the speed limit is (via a wireless connection to a database) and it is possible to install a device that limits maximum speed (a governer). Would people be opposed to installing a speed limiter in a car that would force drivers to drive at the speed limit or below at all times? What if installing such a device meant you saved 50% on your car insurance premiums? What if car makers started voluntarily installing them standard on all models? What if Congress passed a law saying it was illegal to tamper with or remove them once installed unless you are a licensed and bonded repairman? What if farther down the line, the government makes it mandatory that all cars sold in the U.S. have them installed?
DRM in any form takes away rights, even if they're rights that 99% of the population will never use. Losing any rights at all is a Bad Thing (tm).
I was skeptical of the claim of 2 million, so I hit up Google.
From the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin "Prisoners in 2005" (the most recent one I could find):
2.3 million! Holy crap, you were right! The report from 1995 claims:
So we're just under the "double every decade" curve.
Luckily, our population is also increasing. Also from the 2005 bulletin:
That's only a 20% increase in the incarceration rate in the last decade. So even though the raw number of people in prison is doubling, our population is keeping up, and the per-capita incarceration rate is increasing much more slowly. Looking at the historical trends, it would seem that the rate of incarceration is increasing. But by fitting trend lines to the graphs of the rate of incarceration and the rate of increase, we can see that the rate of increase of the rate of incarceration is actually decreasing! (Read it again before your brain implodes.) That means that fairly soon we should expect the rate of incarceration (inmates per 10,000 persons) to level off.
So yes, the number of inmates in our prisons is doubling every decade, which makes for some real problems involving funding and facilities, but the rate of incarceration is actually decreasing, and should plateau in the next decade or two. Finally, our prison population will be increasing only as fast as our population!
What we're talking about here is jargon. Different professions use words in very specific ways to mean very specific things, and many of these definitions are contrary to the common, accepted, non-jargon definition of the word.
To use another flamebait example:
The intelligent design nutjobs keep insisting that evolution is "just a theory", and most of us here on Slashdot understand that the word "theory" in the scientific sense means something completely different than in standard English. A scientific "theory" is simply a working framework which makes accurate predictions, and which has not yet been proven wrong. But the word "theory" in common English can even mean "wild speculation without substantiation," as in a conspiricy theory. If people don't pay attention to the jargon meanings of words, they can even believe that The Theory of Evolution is wild speculation without substantiation, which is clearly not the case.
We run into the same problem with "theft." In the parlance of law, words have very specific meanings. "Theft" in this case means physically taking property from someone without permission, and is defined as a crime (which also has a specific meaning, resulting in a trial in a criminal court). Copyright infringement (at least the kind DRM is designed to protect, and the kind we are arguing about here; we'll leave the resellers out of this for the moment) is defined in law as a civil matter. You cannot be tried as a criminal or sent to jail for copyright infringement. The most that can happen is a fine, and you will be tried in a civil court, where the burden of proof is not as high for the prosecution.
The only time copyright infringement is considered "theft" is when it meets the conditions of 17 USC 506, which I will reprint here:
18 USC 2319 sets forth fine amounts and jail time, which is not to exceed 10 years in any case.
In short, according to the official legal definition, copying an mp3 to your iPod is not theft. Selling ripped and burned CDs on the street is.
Can we move on now?
Just because something is not suitable for every man, woman, and child doesn't mean no one will buy it.
Just like Joe Average has no idea what a "web browser" is or even that he has a choice, because MSIE comes preinstalled on every computer for sale at every store in every mall (with rare exception).
But remember that people were grumbling about how much surfing the internet sucked, what with all the Flash ads, popups, annoying JavaScripts, and so forth. Along came the Firefox advertising team, and they said, "we know it sucks. There's a better way." Education caused people to install Firefox in droves, because it really was that much better than the preinstalled competition. MS played catch up with IE7, but Firefox has mindshare now, and that's priceless.
People complain about MS Windows and MS Office all the time, even when they don't recognize the difference between Windows and Office or even realize they have a choice. Education, advertising, and being unequivically better than the preinstalled competition is the only way Linux will take off as a desktop OS.
One Wii, many Wii. A group of Wii is a club.
One XBox, many XBoxen. A group of XBoxen is a pack.
One PS3, many PS3s. A group of PS3s is a rarity.
*rimshot*
LAWL (Score:4, Insightful)
AeroIllini (726211) O on 12:17 PM January 12th, 2007 (#1839446)
Dupe!
--
Witty sig goes here.
[Reply to this] [Parent]
Apple Computer, Inc. changed their name to Apple, inc. just before the keynote! Their computers are becoming more and more gadget-like every day, and the various iterations of the iPod represent a significant chunk of their revenue.
Let's face it: Apple is a gadget company. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is not paying attention.
Well, sure. But Windows suffers from all these problems and more. For every "I couldn't get my digital camera working in Ubuntu" anecdote out there, there is a similar "I couldn't get this scanner working in Windows" anecdote. Technical issues are not the problem. Technically, Linux is ready for the desktop.
The big barrier here is user perception, and market fragmentation. Would Firefox have been as successful if people were told to switch, and then told that they could choose from Firefox, Mozilla, or Seamonkey, and that each one is very similar but different in some visible ways, and that users of each one are fiercely loyal and will tell you to bugger off if you asked in the wrong forum for help? Of course not. The same situation applies to Linux. We (the Linux evangelists) push Linux on people, but then we are ambiguous about what Linux actually is. Is it Ubuntu? Is it Debian? Is it BSD? Is it Gentoo? And even within distros, there is ambiguity about KDE vs. Gnome, etc.
Joe Average is not ready for a change in paradigm, just a change in OS. What we need to do as a community is to standardize on a single "evangelist" distribution, that comes with fewer choices than most distros. Then we need to start a marketing campaign, like the GetFirefox campaign, that encourages people to use a LiveCD. Give this distribution the "click Yes to install" functionality that people expect. Once we've gained marketshare, THEN we can start introducing Joe Average to the paradigm of choice within the OS itself.
Remember that when trying to unseat a major market player, your product can't simply be "as good as." It must be better. So much better that people have incentive to switch.
Remember that the copyleft movement is a movement about purity of design; in essence, all of his conclusions about open-source vs. closed-source software are based on the assumption of all else being equal. With no other factors involved, his three points about software are absolutely correct. More people will use a free product over a product they have to pay for, if those products are equal (and/or are percieved as equal). People are more productive when they can adjust their tools to their preferences. And no one likes reinventing the wheel over and over just because of some proprietary agreements.
Unfortunately for his movement, we don't live in a world where all else is equal, and there are a number of very important factors affecting people's software choices. Advertising. Capital. Perception. Inertia. Economy. All of these create conditions where proprietary software thrives (in terms of sheer number of programs), seemingly contradicting his aims.
Perception and inertia are the most important two. Companies that create software still, for the most part, see software as a product, and not a means to achieve a service. Therefore, they apply all the standard rules to their product that any other company would: they keep the plans and the means to reproduce it secret, so that they can't be undercut in the market by someone else with a lower initial investment. This thinking is very firmly ingrained in our culture, and I don't expect it to change anytime soon. Those of us who see software as a tool, i.e., a means to an end and not the end itself, understand that it is much more valuable in the long run to ensure the customer has the best tool for the job at all times, even if that involves letting the customer modify the tool as they see fit. In this model, the software is a service, not a product, and allowing the customer to make changes is part of that service. There is plenty of money to be made in this sector, and many people are already doing that with Free Software, but the majority of companies (and managers making purchasing decisions) are still in the software-as-product mindset, where "free" means "cheap and useless."
Inertia is important because it causes people to not make changes that would benefit them, even when they have the means to do so. How many people have looked at an application on their computer and thought to themselves, "boy, I really wish it would do X when I do Y, instead of doing Z."? And how many people, even if they are using Free Software, *truly* have the means to make that change themselves? Slashdotters aside, almost no one. The learning curve is too high. No cubicle monkey is going to spend time coding some new function that exports vector data to
Stallman's points have not yet been proven wrong. He is simply fighting hundreds of years of conventional thinking which is being brought to an industry that's just getting started. And the metrics we typically use for measuring the "success" of a program, i.e., number of installations, are not the same metrics Stallman uses for measuring the "success" of a program. If a program is the proper tool for the job, and helps a person do something more effectively or efficiently, then that program is a success. His three points you mentioned will very much aid in creating that type of success.
Stallman is not wrong. He just hasn't changed the world yet.
Bank of America. Worst cancellation experience of my life.
I had several Bank of America accounts in college, including a checking account, savings account, and a Visa credit card. When I got a job after college and moved to a different state, I set myself up with my company's credit union, which of course was a much better deal than B of A.
Cancelling the checking and savings accounts was fairly easy; I did that in person at a branch. But they told me I would have to call customer service to cancel my credit card.
I phoned the national number, and spoke with a representative, who asked for my name and social security number. She transferred me to a credit card account rep, who I gave my name and social security number to. This was not the person who could cancel, so she transferred me. The next person I spoke to (and who I gave my name and social security number to) was cancellation for accounts in $NEW_STATE, and could not help with cancellations of accounts from $OLD_STATE. He also transferred me. Then I spoke to (and gave my name and social security number to) representative from $OLD_STATE, who transferred me to the cancellation department of $OLD_STATE, who I had to give my name and social security number to. This person looked up my account and noticed that I opened the account in $ORIGINAL_STATE before I moved, so she transferred me to a rep from $ORIGINAL_STATE, who I gave my name and social security number to, just to have him transfer me to a cancellation rep of $ORIGINAL_STATE, who I was also required to give my name and social security number to.
FINALLY, the person I was talking to had the authority to cancel my account, but she wasn't going down without a fight.
"I'm sorry to hear you're leaving us, Mr. AeroIllini. I am authorized to offer you an automatic 2% rate reduction on your credit card if you choose to stay with us."
"No thanks. I have a credit card with my company's credit union."
"May I ask what the rate on your new card is?"
I told her.
She laughed and laughed. "Sir, there's no way I can match that. I will cancel your account now."
Two hours on the phone (there was hold time with every transfer) and giving out my social security number SEVEN times, just to be strong-armed into staying by a company with inferior customer service.
Never again.
If I understood the AllofMP3.com situation correctly, they are paying the Russian equivalent of the RIAA licensing and royalty fees for the songs they sell, under some obscure loophole of Russian law that allows them to classify their website alongside radio stations and use the much cheaper fees for broadcast licenses. If this is true, then they are violating no Russian law.
But, I also thought that it is illegal for people to import into the United States products that are illegal here, even if said products are legal in the originating country (like bringing weed back from Amsterdam with you... they won't let it in the country, and you'll probably be arrested for possession). If that's the case, then wouldn't the US customers of AllofMP3.com be in violation of these importation laws by buying the songs in Russia (where it's legal) and then importing them to the United States (where it's illegal)? Why would the RIAA not use this vector for attack on AllofMP3, and bring down Capone on tax evasion?
Agreed.
A standard "drink", as defined in the US, is 0.6 oz of ethenol. We will assume 43% alcohol by volume (the content of my favorite Scotch, Glenmorangie 18 year).
At 43% ABV, a "standard drink" of Glenmorangie would be 0.6/0.43 = 1.40 oz, or slightly less than a shot (1.5 oz). 0.6 oz of ethanol weighs about 14g, assuming a specific gravity of 0.789 for ethanol. Calculations below:
(0.6 oz) * (29.57 ml/oz) * (0.789 g/cm^3) * (1 ml/cm^3) = 14.0 grams
So with a drink allowance of 4 drinks at 10g of ethanol each would allow you to have *almost* three Scotches, by American drink size standards. In the UK, where a standard drink is only 10 ml of ethanol, you could have five drinks. Whether this amount is more or less than what you actually pour for yourself is left as an exercise for the reader.