I have a hard time figuring out how the federal government may seize or forfeit prohibited items when the items are not tangible objects. Also, I wonder if the volume of music purchased from allofmp3,com and then imported into the US is significant enough for it to be a concern. Then there is the matter of whether a Russian web site would comply with an American subpoena. If a federal court decides that music downloads are not tangible objects, I wonder if that could affect the efforts of certain states to collect sales tax on downloads.
It was my understanding that for heavy duty "serious" sites that Netscape web server/Sun whatever web server had been the usual choice. news.bbc.co.uk (serios web site, number 8 behind Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google) is using Zeus/4.2 on most of it's sites. www.yahoo.com is running something under freebsd. cgi.ebay.com, #9, is mostly running WebSphere. #10, toolbar.netcraft.com (?) is running Apache The only Netcraft top 10 most visited site that is running IIS is www.microsoft.com (#6). For reference, www.sony.com, www.weather.com, and www.cnn,com are running Apache (all of which are serious sites)
I am going to have to start looking for CDs on Amazon Marketplace, I already buy books that way. Om Amazon Marketplace, are the CDs being sold as used, even though they are still in original factory sealed wrappers? I find many good buys on Amazon Marketplace also, mostly books for fraction of list price. Many of the books that I buy are sold as used, in new condition -- they don't appear to have ever been opened.
The music that you are buying is older and you are buying second-hand CDs. Of course second-hand CDs cost less than new CDs and older CDs are much less likely to contain DRM. Not everybody likes the older music, which is a good thing because it keeps second-hand prices lower.
Bad car analogy: Why do people buy new cars? Older second-hand cars cost less and have less intrusive computers in them than newer cars.
Let me tell you some things that I have observed about people expecting their first child.
When expecting your first child it is all new and sort of scary. You are going to want to read and watch videos about babies and raising children, but for some reason you will not listen to other people you know who have raised their children well.
You will be painting and decorating the baby's room, child proofing your house, and getting all of the stuff that you think that you want for the new baby. Everything for the first baby will be done by the book and everything will be sterilized.
By the time the baby is six months old you will have realized that you can hear the kid scream just fine without the child monitor and that baby bottles come out of the dishwasher "clean enough". You will also realize that many of the things that you got for the baby were not really needed, but that you can never have too many Onesies. You will realize that pacifiers are one thing that you don't want to leave home without and that car floor lint can be cleaned off of bottles and pacifiers by wiping them on your shirt. When your kid starts cruising around the house you will realize that most of the child proofing that you did was either ineffective or unneeded. Most experienced parents realize that it is better to teach their children not to do stupid things rather than trying to protect them from doing stupid things. Childless friends or friends with older children do not have child proof homes, it is far better to teach your child not to play with loose lamp cords or play with stuff in cupboards rather than to have your child do stupid tricks at a friend's house (or at your home when you forget to child proof something).
When people have their second child, it all changes; childproofing means not buying expensive furniture, babies are allowed to cry for a while, baby bottles and pacifiers are washed with the rest of the dishes, and you realize that kids don't have to go to the doctor when they get sniffles and colds. Your first kid teaches you that kids are much less breakable than you thought. The biggest thing that you should learn from your first child is that it is infinitely better to TEACH your children how to become a responsible and ethical member of society rather than to try to protect your children from the consequences of bad behavior.
"Electricity doesn't have the insane levels of taxes gasoline and diesel do (this is the primary reason it costs a fortune to fill up at the pump.)
States will eventually add a fuel tax to electric cars if they become popular (possibly an annual fee based upon the weight of the car -- some states do this for LP gas powered cars). The US government and some states currently give tax advantages to electric cars, these tax advantages will go away if a significant number of people start driving electric powered cars.
"Its about time car companies started boasting about the fuel economy in their ads..."
I believe that any car manufacturer that boasts about specific gas mileage numbers in their ads should be sued for false advertising. The EPA Fuel Economy Numbers on new cars are pretty much useless (even for relative comparison) and are the origin for the "your mileage may vary" disclaimer. The EPA is considering introducing a new method of determining gas mileage in 2008 which is based on real-world driving habits and may make things a bit more realistic (and make the miles per gallon numbers smaller). I understand that larger vehicles are likely to have their fuel economy numbers reduced by a smaller percentage than smaller cars. Another effect of the new EPA method is that it is likely to show that hybrid cars don't really get much better fuel economy than non-hybrid cars. A number of hybrid car buyers have taken their cars back to the dealer for repairs because their real world gas mileage does not come even close to the window sticker mileage; the cars are OK, the numbers on the sticker are wrong.
People who own stock in these telcos and cable companies have an interest in maximizing the return on their investment - and that may mean that they would be against Net Neutrality.
I know of at least two local restaurants that have a policy of "asking" (telling) parents to take misbehaving or disruptive kids outside; one of the restaurants has even told parents not to bring their child back until it has learned to behave. I have complained to restaurant mangagers and have walked out of restaurants that allowed screaming kids to remain in the restaurant.
I have two boys who are now 14 and 16 and they were well behaved in stores. Yes, they did not behave 100% of the time and I had to take them out of the store on a few rare occasions. Neither of my sons ever had a "temper tantrum" in any store.
Actually, it wasn't a troll, I do not blame salespeople for avoiding people who have a crying child. I do not believe that parents should subject other people to misbehaving or crying children. I have raised two boys (currently 14 and 16) without a nanny and even as one year olds they were well behaved in stores and restaurants. In the few times that my boys decided that they would cry or otherwise misbehave in a store or restaurant they were immediately taken outside.
Hint: if your kid isn't well behaved or routinely cries in stores; leave him at home. On a busy weekend, the last person that a salesperson is going to offer to help is the guy holding a crying brat.
Assuming that you would have a real email account not provided by the school, why would it matter if your friends were using a mail service that only worked on Windows PCs? In the past, people with real mail accounts got along reasonably well with friends that had AOL mail.
For any country to be dependant upon imported proprietary software can't be a good thing; it has to be even worse for a developing country's IT infrastructure to be dependant upon pirated copies of Microsoft Windows.
The suit was filed in Santa Clara county, California. I believe that according to California laws, absent a confidentiality agreement between the secret holder and the journalist, that a journalist has no obligation to keep a trade secret that was provided to him. I also believe that in California a journalist is not required to reveal his sources.
Lifted from http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-journalists.php: The California Constitution includes a reporter's shield which provides "absolute protection to nonparty journalists in civil litigation from being compelled to disclose unpublished information." It may be "overcome only by a countervailing federal constitutional right." The California reporter's shield protects all persons "connected with...a newspaper, magazines, or other periodical publication," without limitation.
"Journalists are journalists, sixpack bloggers are... guess what, they are _not_ journalists..."
That is EXACTLY what Apple is trying to get decided by the lawsuit. Many other people, including print journalists, disagree with you and Apple on this matter. If a "sixpack blogger" (your definition) is not a journalist, at what point does a blogger become a journalist? Rocketboom is distributed as a daily video program by TiVo, do you consider rocketboom.com to be journalism? What about Slate.com? Was Joshua Kucera's (now defunct) blog considered journalism? When a newspaper starts publishing a "sixpack blogger's" blog as a daily feature, does that blogger then become a journalist? Is the writer for a school district (printed) newsletter considered a journalist, what if the local paper reprints an article form the newsletter? If a "sixpack blogger" wins an Edward R. Murrow Award, is he still not a journalist? Was Richard Saunders a journalist? [Richard Saunders published Poor Richard's Almanac, and was a pen name for Benjamin Franklin, who might have been considered a blogger in his day]. I do not believe that defining what a "journalist" is, is as easy as you and Apple wish it could be.
The mechanisms that you are asking about do exist (and not just for Microsoft software). The people who are aware of the details of such mechanisms are certainly not going to tell you about those mechanisms.
Easter is not a continuation of Passover, Christians believe that it is a related event that occurred after passover. The date that Christians celebrate Easter is celebrated is not defined in the New Testament. Pagan Easter was customarily the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. The Eastern Orthodox Orthodox Church celebrates Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan (also known as the fourteenth day after the paschal moon), which follows the first evening of Passover. The Roman Christian Churches celebrate Easter on the Sunday following the first full moon occurring on or after the date of the vernal equinox -- the same day as the Pagan Easter. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that the Roman Church set their Easter to occur on the same day as the Pagan Easter.
Many music "CDs" and movie DVDs contain executable software. Certain Sony-BMG music "CDs" contain software that is executable - if you put them in a MS Windows PC they will execute a program that installs a root kit on the host computer. Other DRM'ed music disks also contain executable programs that install executables on a MS Windows PC when they are played. Some music CDs and movie DVDs contain executable programs provided as "extras", such as On Lady and the Tramp; there is an executable of a virtual pet shop.
Does your using spaces.msn.com/altitudinous/ (linked from http://www.petesmith.co.nz/) as your web site have anything to do with your astroturfing? I am a bit surprised that your web site didn't go to microsoft.nz.
What is your source for claiming that "Every software maker there is will fix bugs or patch holes without disclosing them."? I don't believe that this is a true statement.
The author of the story was Ryan Naraine; Google his name and you will find that he is not a green journalist and it does not appear that he has an anti-MS agenda.
Who would think that Outlook would be a mail and calendar client, or that Excel was a spreadsheet program? I am not sure about Exchange, it might be some sort of telephone app, perhaps VoIP. How intuitive are the names "Visual Studio" or ".net"?
According to the post he didn't record the program off-air (which would have been fair use), he got it from "on-line" (I presume from the internet and not authorized by the copyright holder). Recording an off-air program and then distributing on the internet it is not fair use. I really do not know if what he did it was a copyright violation (I suspect that it was) or if the copyright holder would care. The point was that the poster himself questioned his legal status and was using the "poor college student" excuse to justify the (possible) violation. Being a "poor college student" is not a valid excuse for copyright violations.
"My senior year of college found me looking up TAL episodes online" -- the material was being recorded from the internet, not recording them off-air. It is entirely possible that this was fair use, it is also possible that it was licensed for such use. The issue is about using "poor college student" as an excuse for possible copyright violations.
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I have a hard time figuring out how the federal government may seize or forfeit prohibited items when the items are not tangible objects. Also, I wonder if the volume of music purchased from allofmp3,com and then imported into the US is significant enough for it to be a concern. Then there is the matter of whether a Russian web site would comply with an American subpoena. If a federal court decides that music downloads are not tangible objects, I wonder if that could affect the efforts of certain states to collect sales tax on downloads.
It was my understanding that for heavy duty "serious" sites that Netscape web server/Sun whatever web server had been the usual choice. news.bbc.co.uk (serios web site, number 8 behind Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google) is using Zeus/4.2 on most of it's sites. www.yahoo.com is running something under freebsd. cgi.ebay.com, #9, is mostly running WebSphere. #10, toolbar.netcraft.com (?) is running Apache The only Netcraft top 10 most visited site that is running IIS is www.microsoft.com (#6). For reference, www.sony.com, www.weather.com, and www.cnn,com are running Apache (all of which are serious sites)
I am going to have to start looking for CDs on Amazon Marketplace, I already buy books that way. Om Amazon Marketplace, are the CDs being sold as used, even though they are still in original factory sealed wrappers? I find many good buys on Amazon Marketplace also, mostly books for fraction of list price. Many of the books that I buy are sold as used, in new condition -- they don't appear to have ever been opened.
The music that you are buying is older and you are buying second-hand CDs. Of course second-hand CDs cost less than new CDs and older CDs are much less likely to contain DRM. Not everybody likes the older music, which is a good thing because it keeps second-hand prices lower. Bad car analogy: Why do people buy new cars? Older second-hand cars cost less and have less intrusive computers in them than newer cars.
It appears that as long as it is for personal use that importing music from allofmp3.com is not a customs violation. IANAL, etc.
Let me tell you some things that I have observed about people expecting their first child.
When expecting your first child it is all new and sort of scary. You are going to want to read and watch videos about babies and raising children, but for some reason you will not listen to other people you know who have raised their children well.
You will be painting and decorating the baby's room, child proofing your house, and getting all of the stuff that you think that you want for the new baby. Everything for the first baby will be done by the book and everything will be sterilized.
By the time the baby is six months old you will have realized that you can hear the kid scream just fine without the child monitor and that baby bottles come out of the dishwasher "clean enough". You will also realize that many of the things that you got for the baby were not really needed, but that you can never have too many Onesies. You will realize that pacifiers are one thing that you don't want to leave home without and that car floor lint can be cleaned off of bottles and pacifiers by wiping them on your shirt. When your kid starts cruising around the house you will realize that most of the child proofing that you did was either ineffective or unneeded. Most experienced parents realize that it is better to teach their children not to do stupid things rather than trying to protect them from doing stupid things. Childless friends or friends with older children do not have child proof homes, it is far better to teach your child not to play with loose lamp cords or play with stuff in cupboards rather than to have your child do stupid tricks at a friend's house (or at your home when you forget to child proof something).
When people have their second child, it all changes; childproofing means not buying expensive furniture, babies are allowed to cry for a while, baby bottles and pacifiers are washed with the rest of the dishes, and you realize that kids don't have to go to the doctor when they get sniffles and colds. Your first kid teaches you that kids are much less breakable than you thought. The biggest thing that you should learn from your first child is that it is infinitely better to TEACH your children how to become a responsible and ethical member of society rather than to try to protect your children from the consequences of bad behavior.
Turning a "feature" off by default means that the functionality will never exist for the vast majority of Windows users.
"Electricity doesn't have the insane levels of taxes gasoline and diesel do (this is the primary reason it costs a fortune to fill up at the pump.)
States will eventually add a fuel tax to electric cars if they become popular (possibly an annual fee based upon the weight of the car -- some states do this for LP gas powered cars). The US government and some states currently give tax advantages to electric cars, these tax advantages will go away if a significant number of people start driving electric powered cars.
"Its about time car companies started boasting about the fuel economy in their ads ..."
I believe that any car manufacturer that boasts about specific gas mileage numbers in their ads should be sued for false advertising. The EPA Fuel Economy Numbers on new cars are pretty much useless (even for relative comparison) and are the origin for the "your mileage may vary" disclaimer. The EPA is considering introducing a new method of determining gas mileage in 2008 which is based on real-world driving habits and may make things a bit more realistic (and make the miles per gallon numbers smaller). I understand that larger vehicles are likely to have their fuel economy numbers reduced by a smaller percentage than smaller cars. Another effect of the new EPA method is that it is likely to show that hybrid cars don't really get much better fuel economy than non-hybrid cars. A number of hybrid car buyers have taken their cars back to the dealer for repairs because their real world gas mileage does not come even close to the window sticker mileage; the cars are OK, the numbers on the sticker are wrong.
People who own stock in these telcos and cable companies have an interest in maximizing the return on their investment - and that may mean that they would be against Net Neutrality.
I know of at least two local restaurants that have a policy of "asking" (telling) parents to take misbehaving or disruptive kids outside; one of the restaurants has even told parents not to bring their child back until it has learned to behave. I have complained to restaurant mangagers and have walked out of restaurants that allowed screaming kids to remain in the restaurant.
I have two boys who are now 14 and 16 and they were well behaved in stores. Yes, they did not behave 100% of the time and I had to take them out of the store on a few rare occasions. Neither of my sons ever had a "temper tantrum" in any store.
Actually, it wasn't a troll, I do not blame salespeople for avoiding people who have a crying child. I do not believe that parents should subject other people to misbehaving or crying children. I have raised two boys (currently 14 and 16) without a nanny and even as one year olds they were well behaved in stores and restaurants. In the few times that my boys decided that they would cry or otherwise misbehave in a store or restaurant they were immediately taken outside.
Hint: if your kid isn't well behaved or routinely cries in stores; leave him at home. On a busy weekend, the last person that a salesperson is going to offer to help is the guy holding a crying brat.
Assuming that you would have a real email account not provided by the school, why would it matter if your friends were using a mail service that only worked on Windows PCs? In the past, people with real mail accounts got along reasonably well with friends that had AOL mail.
For any country to be dependant upon imported proprietary software can't be a good thing; it has to be even worse for a developing country's IT infrastructure to be dependant upon pirated copies of Microsoft Windows.
The suit was filed in Santa Clara county, California. I believe that according to California laws, absent a confidentiality agreement between the secret holder and the journalist, that a journalist has no obligation to keep a trade secret that was provided to him. I also believe that in California a journalist is not required to reveal his sources.
p : The California Constitution includes a reporter's shield which provides "absolute protection to nonparty journalists in civil litigation from being compelled to disclose unpublished information." It may be "overcome only by a countervailing federal constitutional right." The California reporter's shield protects all persons "connected with...a newspaper, magazines, or other periodical publication," without limitation.
Lifted from http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-journalists.ph
"Journalists are journalists, sixpack bloggers are ... guess what, they are _not_ journalists..."
That is EXACTLY what Apple is trying to get decided by the lawsuit. Many other people, including print journalists, disagree with you and Apple on this matter. If a "sixpack blogger" (your definition) is not a journalist, at what point does a blogger become a journalist? Rocketboom is distributed as a daily video program by TiVo, do you consider rocketboom.com to be journalism? What about Slate.com? Was Joshua Kucera's (now defunct) blog considered journalism? When a newspaper starts publishing a "sixpack blogger's" blog as a daily feature, does that blogger then become a journalist? Is the writer for a school district (printed) newsletter considered a journalist, what if the local paper reprints an article form the newsletter? If a "sixpack blogger" wins an Edward R. Murrow Award, is he still not a journalist? Was Richard Saunders a journalist? [Richard Saunders published Poor Richard's Almanac, and was a pen name for Benjamin Franklin, who might have been considered a blogger in his day]. I do not believe that defining what a "journalist" is, is as easy as you and Apple wish it could be.
The mechanisms that you are asking about do exist (and not just for Microsoft software). The people who are aware of the details of such mechanisms are certainly not going to tell you about those mechanisms.
Easter is not a continuation of Passover, Christians believe that it is a related event that occurred after passover. The date that Christians celebrate Easter is celebrated is not defined in the New Testament. Pagan Easter was customarily the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. The Eastern Orthodox Orthodox Church celebrates Easter on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan (also known as the fourteenth day after the paschal moon), which follows the first evening of Passover. The Roman Christian Churches celebrate Easter on the Sunday following the first full moon occurring on or after the date of the vernal equinox -- the same day as the Pagan Easter. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that the Roman Church set their Easter to occur on the same day as the Pagan Easter.
Many music "CDs" and movie DVDs contain executable software. Certain Sony-BMG music "CDs" contain software that is executable - if you put them in a MS Windows PC they will execute a program that installs a root kit on the host computer. Other DRM'ed music disks also contain executable programs that install executables on a MS Windows PC when they are played. Some music CDs and movie DVDs contain executable programs provided as "extras", such as On Lady and the Tramp; there is an executable of a virtual pet shop.
Does your using spaces.msn.com/altitudinous/ (linked from http://www.petesmith.co.nz/) as your web site have anything to do with your astroturfing? I am a bit surprised that your web site didn't go to microsoft.nz.
What is your source for claiming that "Every software maker there is will fix bugs or patch holes without disclosing them."? I don't believe that this is a true statement.
The author of the story was Ryan Naraine; Google his name and you will find that he is not a green journalist and it does not appear that he has an anti-MS agenda.
Who would think that Outlook would be a mail and calendar client, or that Excel was a spreadsheet program? I am not sure about Exchange, it might be some sort of telephone app, perhaps VoIP. How intuitive are the names "Visual Studio" or ".net"?
According to the post he didn't record the program off-air (which would have been fair use), he got it from "on-line" (I presume from the internet and not authorized by the copyright holder). Recording an off-air program and then distributing on the internet it is not fair use. I really do not know if what he did it was a copyright violation (I suspect that it was) or if the copyright holder would care. The point was that the poster himself questioned his legal status and was using the "poor college student" excuse to justify the (possible) violation. Being a "poor college student" is not a valid excuse for copyright violations.
"My senior year of college found me looking up TAL episodes online" -- the material was being recorded from the internet, not recording them off-air. It is entirely possible that this was fair use, it is also possible that it was licensed for such use. The issue is about using "poor college student" as an excuse for possible copyright violations.