Tapes don't really have a niche anymore. They're too slow and inconvenient even for backups, and tape robots are not that much cheaper than JBOD.
If only there was a decent free backup system which treated disks as disks instead of pretending they're tape. Bacula and Amanda both suck for to-disk backups.
They probably did purchase stuff which is already on the market in bulk. They just asked for it to be labelled Google, so people would be less likely to steal it. Although it's rare to double-sided double height sticks these days -- they must have an awful lot of RAM in each server. Perhaps the modules are actually specially made for Google. I bet the chips themselves are bog standard apart from the label though.
Let a non-profit own the last mile network and rent it to companies at fixed prices. For extra points allow them to own DSLAM's and fiber switches as well, as long as other companies are allowed to bypass them and handle it themselves if they prefer.
It's only the last mile which is the problem, there's lots of competition for backhaul. It's much easier to justify pulling one fiber to serve a thousand potential subscribers compared to running a new cable to each subscriber.
You could at least read the bill before panicking.
"however, when a person making an authorized call on behalf of another person inserts the name, telephone number or name and telephone number of the person on whose behalf the call is being made, such information shall not be deemed false information."
Why would they do that? They can still block caller ID and they can still show any number they own. Why would they want to show someone else's phone number, and why should we let them?
Why should they know? They're just mandating that the number you show when you dial someone is a number you own. A perfectly sensible rule and one which has been enforced by gentleman's agreements in other countries. Obviously gentleman's agreements aren't enough in Mississippi, and so they had to make a law.
I really don't see your point. Whatever you show to other people when calling should be numbers you own. Why should the law be concerned with how that is actually implemented?
If one goes to the UK Patent office page [ipo.gov.uk] (governed by EU laws) which states what can and can't be patented you will find that it only says you can't patent "some computer programs".
Exactly like the EPO's reading of the law.
If, however, an invention meets the criteria in that it relates "to how something works, what it does, what it is made of, or how it is made." then it is fine (assuming, of course, it is inventive and non-obvious)
Then the specific exclusion of computer programs in the law makes no sense.
Like I said, the EPO (and as you point out most national patent offices) reads the law one way. Lots of people, apparently including the European Parliament (because they actively refuse to remove the exclusion of computer programs), read it the other way. The courts haven't spoken and likely won't anytime soon.
You don't have them? 21Mbps is already old news here, although by law it can't be advertised as 21Mbps (because you'll never get anywhere near that, even theoretically). I think most companies have decided to call it 10Mbps.
It's advertised as a replacement for ADSL, but it just isn't. It beats trying to get on wireless in cafes or trains though -- especially when the train wireless is simply one of those shared by everyone on the train.
WiMAX is worlds better if you have line of sight because of its lower latency. That can easily replace ADSL and even compete with ethernet at the same speed, for fixed installations. I bet it's less successful when you only have a tiny antenna in a laptop or cell phone...
To forgo legal punishment because of the personal loss implies there are cases where the legal punishment can be waived. Which reduces deterrence.
Does deterrence really get reduced? It wouldn't deter me any less. It just seems like mindless cruelty to me which would if anything make me try to ignore the message.
I don't mind punishing people for criminal negligence for leaving a gun around a child. I doubt it'll make much difference though, because it's difficult to enforce laws about what people do in the privacy of their own homes. Likelihood of detection will be very low.
I just don't think punishing this particular guy will scare anyone. If they didn't get scared by him losing his child, they won't get scared by him doing a couple of years in jail. If you found a random person who did the same thing WITHOUT a child getting injured and put HIM in jail for a couple of years, that could work as deterrent.
What makes you assume "software" solutions to technological problems are not patentable in the EU?
It says so right in the law... However, the European Patent Office are able to read between the lines and divine what the lawmakers REALLY meant, so they allow software patents.
So far there is (AFAIK) absolutely zero case law about software patents in the EU, so the courts haven't decided whether EPO's reading is correct. Companies seem content with doing their patent fights in the US. Why bother with dealing with a troublesome case making a precedent in the EU when the defendant is likely selling the exact same software in the US where software patents have been involved in numerous cases?
The Commission ARE just bureaucrats. The fact that some politicians have influence on who is picked for the job doesn't change that.
If a parliament majority could form a proper government and pick their own ministers, that would be different. But ministers are primarily executive, while a large part of the job of the Commission is legislative.
In fact, the Commission members have to promise that they won't favour the people who "elected" them, namely the country picking them. So they're explicitly promising not to be politicians.
An executive branch usually has the power of execution... That is, the executive branch has people working for them who can carry out their decisions. E.g. the executive branch grabs criminals and puts them before the judicial branch who decides how to interpret the laws made by the legislative branch.
The European Parliament has no executive powers. Their minuscule powers are legislative.
Yeah, welcome to governing by consensus. There is no government in the world that doesn't work that way.
It's highly unusual that new legislation can only be introduced by bureaucrats, rather than politicians. I don't know of another country where that is the case.
Usually the bureaucracy is there to serve the politicians (and therefore the people), but in this case the bureaucracy runs the show and all the politicians can do is yell "STOP!" once in a while. It's a bit like that children's game where you can't move when you're being watched.
It's ironic "EFD" stands for Europe of Freedom and Democracy and these guys want secrecy.
I think it's unlikely that they actually want secrecy. I'm not particularly fond of right-wing groups like the UK Independence Party, but it would be a bit out of character for them to support agreements such as ACTA. The likelihood of them being paid off by the copyright lobby as others suggested is very low too.
Slashdot Mirror
True, but 10Gbps fiber is helping a lot in that problem space.
Here's your wake-up call: One of the two cheap drives mentioned is from Intel.
CD's are 800MB. You could easily replace them with SD cards without significantly affecting what the music industry earns.
But why would you replace one physical medium with another, when you can just switch to online distribution?
Where did you find reports from the field? All I've seen are lab studies and guesses.
Tapes don't really have a niche anymore. They're too slow and inconvenient even for backups, and tape robots are not that much cheaper than JBOD.
If only there was a decent free backup system which treated disks as disks instead of pretending they're tape. Bacula and Amanda both suck for to-disk backups.
Why would you need a godawful preamp built in for an external mic that probably sounds just as crappy?
Analog headsets.
BIND isn't a DNS resolver.
They probably did purchase stuff which is already on the market in bulk. They just asked for it to be labelled Google, so people would be less likely to steal it. Although it's rare to double-sided double height sticks these days -- they must have an awful lot of RAM in each server. Perhaps the modules are actually specially made for Google. I bet the chips themselves are bog standard apart from the label though.
Let a non-profit own the last mile network and rent it to companies at fixed prices. For extra points allow them to own DSLAM's and fiber switches as well, as long as other companies are allowed to bypass them and handle it themselves if they prefer.
It's only the last mile which is the problem, there's lots of competition for backhaul. It's much easier to justify pulling one fiber to serve a thousand potential subscribers compared to running a new cable to each subscriber.
Then read the damn bill instead of shooting down straw men.
You could at least read the bill before panicking.
"however, when a person making an authorized call on behalf of another person inserts the name, telephone number or name and telephone number of the person on whose behalf the call is being made, such information shall not be deemed false information."
Why would they do that? They can still block caller ID and they can still show any number they own. Why would they want to show someone else's phone number, and why should we let them?
Why should they know? They're just mandating that the number you show when you dial someone is a number you own. A perfectly sensible rule and one which has been enforced by gentleman's agreements in other countries. Obviously gentleman's agreements aren't enough in Mississippi, and so they had to make a law.
I really don't see your point. Whatever you show to other people when calling should be numbers you own. Why should the law be concerned with how that is actually implemented?
If one goes to the UK Patent office page [ipo.gov.uk] (governed by EU laws) which states what can and can't be patented you will find that it only says you can't patent "some computer programs".
Exactly like the EPO's reading of the law.
If, however, an invention meets the criteria in that it relates "to how something works, what it does, what it is made of, or how it is made." then it is fine (assuming, of course, it is inventive and non-obvious)
Then the specific exclusion of computer programs in the law makes no sense.
Like I said, the EPO (and as you point out most national patent offices) reads the law one way. Lots of people, apparently including the European Parliament (because they actively refuse to remove the exclusion of computer programs), read it the other way. The courts haven't spoken and likely won't anytime soon.
You don't have them? 21Mbps is already old news here, although by law it can't be advertised as 21Mbps (because you'll never get anywhere near that, even theoretically). I think most companies have decided to call it 10Mbps.
It's advertised as a replacement for ADSL, but it just isn't. It beats trying to get on wireless in cafes or trains though -- especially when the train wireless is simply one of those shared by everyone on the train.
WiMAX is worlds better if you have line of sight because of its lower latency. That can easily replace ADSL and even compete with ethernet at the same speed, for fixed installations. I bet it's less successful when you only have a tiny antenna in a laptop or cell phone...
To forgo legal punishment because of the personal loss implies there are cases where the legal punishment can be waived. Which reduces deterrence.
Does deterrence really get reduced? It wouldn't deter me any less. It just seems like mindless cruelty to me which would if anything make me try to ignore the message.
I don't mind punishing people for criminal negligence for leaving a gun around a child. I doubt it'll make much difference though, because it's difficult to enforce laws about what people do in the privacy of their own homes. Likelihood of detection will be very low.
I just don't think punishing this particular guy will scare anyone. If they didn't get scared by him losing his child, they won't get scared by him doing a couple of years in jail. If you found a random person who did the same thing WITHOUT a child getting injured and put HIM in jail for a couple of years, that could work as deterrent.
I know we're talking about deterring other people. What are you going to deter them with that is scarier than losing their child?
Why not? Seems like a classic case for deterrence to work, at least if you believe deterrence in general is a worthwhile concept. What am I missing?
If losing a child doesn't scare a criminal into not committing a crime, what do you think will do it?
What makes you assume "software" solutions to technological problems are not patentable in the EU?
It says so right in the law... However, the European Patent Office are able to read between the lines and divine what the lawmakers REALLY meant, so they allow software patents.
So far there is (AFAIK) absolutely zero case law about software patents in the EU, so the courts haven't decided whether EPO's reading is correct. Companies seem content with doing their patent fights in the US. Why bother with dealing with a troublesome case making a precedent in the EU when the defendant is likely selling the exact same software in the US where software patents have been involved in numerous cases?
The Commission ARE just bureaucrats. The fact that some politicians have influence on who is picked for the job doesn't change that.
If a parliament majority could form a proper government and pick their own ministers, that would be different. But ministers are primarily executive, while a large part of the job of the Commission is legislative.
In fact, the Commission members have to promise that they won't favour the people who "elected" them, namely the country picking them. So they're explicitly promising not to be politicians.
An executive branch usually has the power of execution... That is, the executive branch has people working for them who can carry out their decisions. E.g. the executive branch grabs criminals and puts them before the judicial branch who decides how to interpret the laws made by the legislative branch.
The European Parliament has no executive powers. Their minuscule powers are legislative.
Yeah, welcome to governing by consensus. There is no government in the world that doesn't work that way.
It's highly unusual that new legislation can only be introduced by bureaucrats, rather than politicians. I don't know of another country where that is the case.
Usually the bureaucracy is there to serve the politicians (and therefore the people), but in this case the bureaucracy runs the show and all the politicians can do is yell "STOP!" once in a while. It's a bit like that children's game where you can't move when you're being watched.
It's ironic "EFD" stands for Europe of Freedom and Democracy and these guys want secrecy.
I think it's unlikely that they actually want secrecy. I'm not particularly fond of right-wing groups like the UK Independence Party, but it would be a bit out of character for them to support agreements such as ACTA. The likelihood of them being paid off by the copyright lobby as others suggested is very low too.