a library under contract with a search engine buys one copy and then let's the search engine digitize the book and make it available for free on the web. Does that seem fair? Isn't this happening with CDs? Why should I - and my fellow authors - write a book...
If the full content of the book is available for free on the web, this probably isn't fair, but that's not currently the situation or the goal. From Google:
The Library Project's aim is simple: make it easier for people to find relevant books specifically books they wouldn't find any other way such as those that are out of print while carefully respecting authors' and publishers' copyrights.
Google's current intention doesn't seem to be to offer all the content of every book ever written up for everyone. Google wants to act as a search tool so people can find one of your books and purchase it - not read it all online. This could obviously change at any moment, but this really isn't any more of a threat to the publishing industry than book reviews are.
The other major difference between a book and a CD is the format. Most people don't want to read books off their computer screen. Paper is a much nicer medium - if they want a book. As a tech book author, I would worry much more about all of the forums, faqs, blogs and other sites that offer some of the same education that you write about. I rarely read a tech book because I can find the answers to my questions so much faster in Google.
Contrary to what you might read in the press, authors don't make a lot of money writing books.
Now that's interesting. So, if I buy one of the books you authored for, say $30, you mean to tell me you don't get the majority of that money? If that's true, who does make all of the revenue from those book sales? The publishers, printers, distributors and retail outlets? Does that seem fair?
Honestly, I think the authors of the future will create their content in blogs, ebooks, podcasts or other types of digital formats and use subscriptions or advertising revenue to fund their efforts. The only reason the publishing industry is still viable at all is because no one has come up with a reasonable book reader that people like. As soon as that happens paper books will become a thing of the past.
The bottom line is the Internet has changed things for many different industries. Traditional media, music, advertising, etc... The best thing to do is find out how to apply your talents to a digital format rather than trying to resist the changes in the legislature and the courtroom.
It's never a good sign when you have to hold a press conference and directly try to blatently convince your customers your product is not too expensive. That's why we have marketing.
One of two things are going on here.
Either the sponsors of this bill think it will work, or the sponsors of this bill know this is completely ridiculous, unenforcable and ultimately will probably be overturned. I'm not sure which frightens me more. The idea that our government is completely inept or the idea that our goverment is completely wasteful and corrupt.
I'm all for it but you're talking about long timescales and either really innovative, forward-looking thought leadership from government, or heavy-handed restrictions of the types of freedoms that many of us enjoy.
Did you write this with a straight face? Forward-looking leadership? In a government? While I am not in favor of a crackerbox city existence in big cement buildings like 50s communist Russia I do belive there are some very basic foundational things that can be done in growning communities to reduce travel needs, encourage excercise and make a community both more efficient and more healthy. The sad thing is governments don't have the foresight and leadership to do these things. I live in the Colorado front range and in the last 15+ years we have seen a large influx of Californians fleeing the insanity out there. Has the government here been forward thinking? Absolutely not. The same things are happening here that happend in California 50 years ago. All the good jobs are concentrated in Denver and Boulder. There's little tech or industrial growth elswhere so everyone commutes from outlying cities. None of the governments attempt to encourage economic growth in other areas so traffic and pollution get worse. There's little public transportation so everyone drives their car. All the state does is build bigger highways. We have ridiculous malls with big box stores going up everywhere. There aren't any locally owned restaurants anymore, but TGI Fridays just moved it. Political leadership is split into two camps, ultra liberals that want to make everything open space and put moratoriums on building permits or big-business conservatives that want a Walmart and Home Depot on every corner. Colorado has had the opportunity to learn from California's mistakes and instead we are repeating them.
Nuclear power and safe fuels are good ideas and need research, but there is much technology that already exists and isn't implemented properly. Let's put some effort and funds into fixing things that are broken and improving our overall efficiency as a society.
I couldn't agree more. I didn't say it was a good thing. It's just the way it works.
Unions pretty much suck all the way around unless you are a lazy union worker. My brother-in-law works for a very large company. He's an EE, so non-union, but he gets saddled with the same healthcare plan that the company's union workers negotiate. If the unions trade a poorer healthcare plan for higher wage increases he gets screwed.
Frankly, in order for an IT union to get any real traction, you would have to unionize just about everyone in the world that's qualified, because outsourcing is so easy.
I disagree. Typically unions are very supportive of each other and a union shop won't let non-union workers be hired in any area. If your janitorial staff or truck drivers are union they could easily cause problems in the company outsourced IT and didn't hire local unionized workers.
My local library has a section for My Account where I can log in. Does this mean that I won't be able to access the library's site from the library?????
just like a yard without a fence, the fact the fence is there does not imply permission to run around there and dig up the flowers.
True, but I would assume that any government building with an unlocked doors during 'normal business hours' would be fair game to walk go in to. This was a publicly accessible server out in an area (the Internet) where the assumption is that everything not locked down is accessible.
Reproduction is a mechanism of evolution, not the goal.
Sure it is. The ONLY way for a species to survive is to reproduce. Once an organism is finished reproducing evolution has no more use for it. The organism is out of the cycle, and has no remaning impact on spreading genetic material. For Evolution to work an unfit specimen would have to to die BEFORE it could pass it's genetic material on to the next generation.
A better comparison is "Jail warden and guards let another 100 prisoner walk free because they didn't lock the prison door properly again"
No, actually a better comparison would be "Judge lets criminal go free on technicality". The problem isn't that the doors aren't locked or the system isn't airtight enough. The problem is that people still want to live and function under the system.
Our judicial system has rights for the accused that result in some criminals going free. Why? So the system is more usable and bearable. If everyone was considered guilty until proven innocent it would be much easier to lock criminals up.
In the same way IT security must allow users to function. There is a balance between security and usability as well as a balance between cost and benefit. Many solutions that are affordable are too intrusive. Other solutions are too expensive for their application. I could EASILY lock down anyone's machine and remove 99% of vulnerabilities, but the user might not be able to access their favorite blog, porn or music download site.
If so, wouldn't that make them an evolutionary dead end? Cancer, while bad, is a by-product of evolution.
Cancer, in humans, would have little impact on evolution. The whole idea of evolving is reproduction. Cancer doesn't typically manifest in humans below the age of reproduction. Generally it is just the opposite, it appears well after most people have stopped having children. As a result there is little or no impact on the creation of future generations. Arguably the human body has adapted to put off terminal cancer to well beyond child-bearing years so it does not impact the survival of the species.
Since evolution has no specific goal, there is really no meaningful definiiton of "devolving."
Actually, evolution has a VERY specific goal Reproduction. Evolution is 'survival of the fittest'. The organism with the traits most likely to allow it to reproduce is the one that survives.
Seems to me that this is the obstacle to most research in human biology (and psychology). It's just unethical to use people as 'lab rats'. I can't argue with the morality of the position, but think how useful it would be if we could breed a segment of society with the sole purpose of their lives being medical research. From a purely scientific point of view it would be invaluable.
I agree. The future of Linux and computing in general is going to be a symbiosis of open and closed source software. The sooner everyone realizes it the better off we will be. Hopefully, at some point, all widely used software will have a FOSS equivelant that is equal to or superior to closed source applications, but in the mean time room has to be made for proprietary vendors.
I agree. I'm not sure how anyone can give awards like this these days. I see sites every day that are as good or better in design or content the sites listed in these awards. Most of the 'award winners' are flash sites that take two minutes to load and have birds chirping in the background.
The reason Microsoft had to be dragged kicking and screaming was more related to the fact that they are a proprietary format than anything else. With an open format any foundation that helps disabled people could fund their own document reader. The app(s) could be updated and supported as needed and owned by the institutions that created them, rather than relying on a company like Microsoft to continue support and updates for screen readers, magnifiers, etc...
Hmm... you are right. I looked at that article, but guess I didn't comprehend that the ISPs WEREN'T common carriers. They just magically avoid liability anyway...
Naturally, most of us at/. would strongly encourage our "representatives" to deny the cables/telcos their liability protection if they can't play nicely, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that we could win.
Actually, I'm not sure this is true. Personally I wouldn't encourage that the cable/telcos lose their liability protection, it's not a bluff we want called. I would rather see an Internet where some traffic was optimized than live in a world where all of the content that comes across the net was potentially a liability and therefore tightly regulated.
Maybe this is all a conspiracy architected by Google. If ISPs start limiting their traffic they will have a pretext to start buying up cable companies. Soon Google will control the whole Internet.
These cable companies are being a bit shortsighted. This greed is going to come back to bite them in the ass. If they give up their Net Neutrality, all of the sudden they are going to have a responsibility for the traffic that goes across their network. This means the MPAA and RIAA will be lining up to sue them, they will have to put a stop to 'pirate' traffic and customers will leave them in droves. Many of the people I know only pay for high speed Internet because of 'illegal' activities.
Parents will start suing because little Johnny was looking at porn, terrorist victims will be suing because al-qaeda used the network, joe six-pack will sue because he got screwed on the time machine he bought on ebay, Grandma Johnson will sue because she sent all her money to Nigeria.
People do a lot of stupid stuff on the Internet. Giving up Common Carrier status could very well result in ISP's losing immunity for third party content and open Pandora's Box.
Slashdot Mirror
Onramps and stop signs are "Traffic Controllers" too. The problem you have is the changes the city makes in their methods of controlling traffic.
These scientists are actually bringing civilization to these molecules. Before it was just mayhem and gridlock.
a library under contract with a search engine buys one copy and then let's the search engine digitize the book and make it available for free on the web. Does that seem fair? Isn't this happening with CDs? Why should I - and my fellow authors - write a book...
If the full content of the book is available for free on the web, this probably isn't fair, but that's not currently the situation or the goal. From Google:
The Library Project's aim is simple: make it easier for people to find relevant books specifically books they wouldn't find any other way such as those that are out of print while carefully respecting authors' and publishers' copyrights.
Google's current intention doesn't seem to be to offer all the content of every book ever written up for everyone. Google wants to act as a search tool so people can find one of your books and purchase it - not read it all online. This could obviously change at any moment, but this really isn't any more of a threat to the publishing industry than book reviews are.
The other major difference between a book and a CD is the format. Most people don't want to read books off their computer screen. Paper is a much nicer medium - if they want a book. As a tech book author, I would worry much more about all of the forums, faqs, blogs and other sites that offer some of the same education that you write about. I rarely read a tech book because I can find the answers to my questions so much faster in Google.
Contrary to what you might read in the press, authors don't make a lot of money writing books.
Now that's interesting. So, if I buy one of the books you authored for, say $30, you mean to tell me you don't get the majority of that money? If that's true, who does make all of the revenue from those book sales? The publishers, printers, distributors and retail outlets? Does that seem fair?
Honestly, I think the authors of the future will create their content in blogs, ebooks, podcasts or other types of digital formats and use subscriptions or advertising revenue to fund their efforts. The only reason the publishing industry is still viable at all is because no one has come up with a reasonable book reader that people like. As soon as that happens paper books will become a thing of the past.
The bottom line is the Internet has changed things for many different industries. Traditional media, music, advertising, etc... The best thing to do is find out how to apply your talents to a digital format rather than trying to resist the changes in the legislature and the courtroom.
Or maybe Werner Forssmann
Modern scientists are just pussies.
Forbidden Planet
That brings to mind my favorite
Dr. Edward Morbius
No kidding, real scientists are BOOOORRRINGG!
It's never a good sign when you have to hold a press conference and directly try to blatently convince your customers your product is not too expensive. That's why we have marketing.
One of two things are going on here.
Either the sponsors of this bill think it will work, or the sponsors of this bill know this is completely ridiculous, unenforcable and ultimately will probably be overturned. I'm not sure which frightens me more. The idea that our government is completely inept or the idea that our goverment is completely wasteful and corrupt.
I'm all for it but you're talking about long timescales and either really innovative, forward-looking thought leadership from government, or heavy-handed restrictions of the types of freedoms that many of us enjoy.
Did you write this with a straight face? Forward-looking leadership? In a government? While I am not in favor of a crackerbox city existence in big cement buildings like 50s communist Russia I do belive there are some very basic foundational things that can be done in growning communities to reduce travel needs, encourage excercise and make a community both more efficient and more healthy. The sad thing is governments don't have the foresight and leadership to do these things. I live in the Colorado front range and in the last 15+ years we have seen a large influx of Californians fleeing the insanity out there. Has the government here been forward thinking? Absolutely not. The same things are happening here that happend in California 50 years ago. All the good jobs are concentrated in Denver and Boulder. There's little tech or industrial growth elswhere so everyone commutes from outlying cities. None of the governments attempt to encourage economic growth in other areas so traffic and pollution get worse. There's little public transportation so everyone drives their car. All the state does is build bigger highways. We have ridiculous malls with big box stores going up everywhere. There aren't any locally owned restaurants anymore, but TGI Fridays just moved it. Political leadership is split into two camps, ultra liberals that want to make everything open space and put moratoriums on building permits or big-business conservatives that want a Walmart and Home Depot on every corner. Colorado has had the opportunity to learn from California's mistakes and instead we are repeating them.
Nuclear power and safe fuels are good ideas and need research, but there is much technology that already exists and isn't implemented properly. Let's put some effort and funds into fixing things that are broken and improving our overall efficiency as a society.
I couldn't agree more. I didn't say it was a good thing. It's just the way it works.
Unions pretty much suck all the way around unless you are a lazy union worker. My brother-in-law works for a very large company. He's an EE, so non-union, but he gets saddled with the same healthcare plan that the company's union workers negotiate. If the unions trade a poorer healthcare plan for higher wage increases he gets screwed.
Frankly, in order for an IT union to get any real traction, you would have to unionize just about everyone in the world that's qualified, because outsourcing is so easy.
I disagree. Typically unions are very supportive of each other and a union shop won't let non-union workers be hired in any area. If your janitorial staff or truck drivers are union they could easily cause problems in the company outsourced IT and didn't hire local unionized workers.
My local library has a section for My Account where I can log in. Does this mean that I won't be able to access the library's site from the library?????
It's Skylab all over again.
just like a yard without a fence, the fact the fence is there does not imply permission to run around there and dig up the flowers.
True, but I would assume that any government building with an unlocked doors during 'normal business hours' would be fair game to walk go in to. This was a publicly accessible server out in an area (the Internet) where the assumption is that everything not locked down is accessible.
Reproduction is a mechanism of evolution, not the goal.
Sure it is. The ONLY way for a species to survive is to reproduce. Once an organism is finished reproducing evolution has no more use for it. The organism is out of the cycle, and has no remaning impact on spreading genetic material. For Evolution to work an unfit specimen would have to to die BEFORE it could pass it's genetic material on to the next generation.
A better comparison is "Jail warden and guards let another 100 prisoner walk free because they didn't lock the prison door properly again"
No, actually a better comparison would be "Judge lets criminal go free on technicality". The problem isn't that the doors aren't locked or the system isn't airtight enough. The problem is that people still want to live and function under the system.
Our judicial system has rights for the accused that result in some criminals going free. Why? So the system is more usable and bearable. If everyone was considered guilty until proven innocent it would be much easier to lock criminals up.
In the same way IT security must allow users to function. There is a balance between security and usability as well as a balance between cost and benefit. Many solutions that are affordable are too intrusive. Other solutions are too expensive for their application. I could EASILY lock down anyone's machine and remove 99% of vulnerabilities, but the user might not be able to access their favorite blog, porn or music download site.
If so, wouldn't that make them an evolutionary dead end? Cancer, while bad, is a by-product of evolution.
Cancer, in humans, would have little impact on evolution. The whole idea of evolving is reproduction. Cancer doesn't typically manifest in humans below the age of reproduction. Generally it is just the opposite, it appears well after most people have stopped having children. As a result there is little or no impact on the creation of future generations. Arguably the human body has adapted to put off terminal cancer to well beyond child-bearing years so it does not impact the survival of the species.
Since evolution has no specific goal, there is really no meaningful definiiton of "devolving."
Actually, evolution has a VERY specific goal Reproduction. Evolution is 'survival of the fittest'. The organism with the traits most likely to allow it to reproduce is the one that survives.
Seems to me that this is the obstacle to most research in human biology (and psychology). It's just unethical to use people as 'lab rats'. I can't argue with the morality of the position, but think how useful it would be if we could breed a segment of society with the sole purpose of their lives being medical research. From a purely scientific point of view it would be invaluable.
I agree. The future of Linux and computing in general is going to be a symbiosis of open and closed source software. The sooner everyone realizes it the better off we will be. Hopefully, at some point, all widely used software will have a FOSS equivelant that is equal to or superior to closed source applications, but in the mean time room has to be made for proprietary vendors.
I agree. I'm not sure how anyone can give awards like this these days. I see sites every day that are as good or better in design or content the sites listed in these awards. Most of the 'award winners' are flash sites that take two minutes to load and have birds chirping in the background.
Did I win? How much to I get?
The reason Microsoft had to be dragged kicking and screaming was more related to the fact that they are a proprietary format than anything else. With an open format any foundation that helps disabled people could fund their own document reader. The app(s) could be updated and supported as needed and owned by the institutions that created them, rather than relying on a company like Microsoft to continue support and updates for screen readers, magnifiers, etc...
Hmm... you are right. I looked at that article, but guess I didn't comprehend that the ISPs WEREN'T common carriers. They just magically avoid liability anyway...
/. would strongly encourage our "representatives" to deny the cables/telcos their liability protection if they can't play nicely, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that we could win.
Naturally, most of us at
Actually, I'm not sure this is true. Personally I wouldn't encourage that the cable/telcos lose their liability protection, it's not a bluff we want called. I would rather see an Internet where some traffic was optimized than live in a world where all of the content that comes across the net was potentially a liability and therefore tightly regulated.
Maybe this is all a conspiracy architected by Google. If ISPs start limiting their traffic they will have a pretext to start buying up cable companies. Soon Google will control the whole Internet.
These cable companies are being a bit shortsighted. This greed is going to come back to bite them in the ass. If they give up their Net Neutrality, all of the sudden they are going to have a responsibility for the traffic that goes across their network. This means the MPAA and RIAA will be lining up to sue them, they will have to put a stop to 'pirate' traffic and customers will leave them in droves. Many of the people I know only pay for high speed Internet because of 'illegal' activities.
Parents will start suing because little Johnny was looking at porn, terrorist victims will be suing because al-qaeda used the network, joe six-pack will sue because he got screwed on the time machine he bought on ebay, Grandma Johnson will sue because she sent all her money to Nigeria.
People do a lot of stupid stuff on the Internet. Giving up Common Carrier status could very well result in ISP's losing immunity for third party content and open Pandora's Box.