Engineers are the beneficiaries of that same several million year head start that you attribute to fools. Whether this is a good thing is certainly up for debate.
That's hardly an adequate explanation. I'll bet that iPhone SDK does not specify a bird throwing API... so surely Angry Birds is in violation for doing "things not specified in the official iPhone software developers' kit" too:)
The article mentioned nothing I could see about the owners and operators of the site being convicted of any crime. That is what disturbs me. Quite aside from the potential future free speech ramifications, the presumption of innocence seems to be forgotten. This really looks like the US Govt. picking up the tab for making inconvenient sites go away so the trademark holders etc. don't have to dip into their precious profits.
Can anyone point to a conviction that lead to this action?
Am I missing something, or is the "story" really as short as the Slashdot "summary"? Seems hardly worth the effort to summarise a six sentence piece into a four sentence piece.
While I agree in principal, I disagree in practice. Your argument is that if the dentist or doctor does a good job, then he/she will not have any complaints. I think most would accept though that there are some people that will never be satisfied. Also, doctors, and dentists, like people, can make mistakes and have bad days sometimes.
Absolutely agree that some people are never happy and that some people feel aggrieved when the worst of several outcomes is the end result. However, I look at it this way. A competent practice will have an overwhelmingly positive review with a few genuine complaints. Intelligent people understand that there is no such thing as perfect, that complaints are more visible than satisfied customers, and can usually judge when a complaint is an irrational rant or suspiciously like three hundred other "reviews". The sort of people that expect perfection or believe every negative thing written about a practice are precisely the sort of people I wouldn't want as patients. I say, let them rant and go elsewhere.
Retaliation, I feel, would only aggravate the complainant and provide ammunition of the "They're heartless bastards for attacking" variety. Medical care is an area rife with irrational emotion that you cannot fight with reason.
Overheating wasn't a problem for these systems. The aircraft cabin was kept a chilly 15 Celsius (60F, approx) to keep the electronics happy... not so good for the crew though. The magnetic core memory was a godsend when the aircraft power glitched. You could restart the software, state largely intact, without having to reload from tape.
Magnetic core memory was the main form of non-volatile memory for computers from the 50s through to the 70s.
I was working with a system using magnetic core in 1991. IIRC there was 64000 30-bit words internal to the CPU crate and 2 external units of 256000 30-bit words. The system was phased out during 90s.
It's a hard problem. Getting it through kilometre thick ice as hard as rock (approx -160 Celsius) while negotiating things like rock that might be embedded in the ice, keeping the access path open if needed, providing some sort of power source that lasts more than a few hours in the liquid and icy conditions, and making it light enough to make the journey. You also need to come up with some way to relay the information back to Earth from under the ice so you probably also need a Europa orbiter.
Travel time to Jupiter is measured in years (6 for Galileo)... so there's a good chunk of your first decade gone.
My 15c is always on the desk within easy reach. After 26 glorious years it is still going strong, still flummoxes my wife, and remains dear to my heart.
So, by challenging the assumed guilt you must abandon the lower penalty of a few months offline and substitute a huge financial penalty when it goes to court. Notice I said "when" it goes to court, because even if the "Copyright Tribunal" rules in your favour the copyright behemoths will simply appeal to the courts anyway. Not much of a protection.
How long can the opposition parties hold the government to ransom for funds in the US? Are there any mechanisms to break such a crippling deadlock?
In Australia the Governor General can dissolve both houses of parliament and call elections in this sort of deadlock event (http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/australian_electoral_system/electoral_procedures/Double_Dissolution.htm). After the elections if the bill is presented and still cannot pass then two houses can be combined for a single vote on the topic. It is not something that is done lightly, but it has happened in my lifetime over appropriation bills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_whitlam).
Would there be concern if a previous Anti-Copyright campaigner got the seat?
Yes.
Would you rather someone with no knowledge on the topic got the position?
No.
You need people with appropriate skills in these positions. It is surely not too difficult to find a lawyer (for example) that has practiced on both sides of centre when it comes to copyright issues. Anyone that has chosen to work as an integral part of a single issue lobby group on either side has demonstrated their bias and unsuitability for a public policy job in the area.
Curious, I would have assumed that such an action would be done to benefit US Government eavesdroppers, removing the need for decryption processing or pesky legal process, rather than the leadership of those various countries.
It is truly heartening that the standard large company practice of spinning off portions of the business to minimise taxation, isolate risk, provide a favourable legal environment, provide deniability, and reduce legal liability are precisely the things causing SCEA grief.
For the most part I don't care what product placement bollocks they various parties get up to: they get the ability to advertise at me, and I get the right to ignore either the movie or the advert (often the former if the movie is Hollywood drivel). However I do take issue when it becomes intrusive. One of our Aussie TV networks thought it would be good to insert their own advert into a CSI episode. So, they waited for one of the "through the microscope" shots and replaced the entire circular slide image with a Web 2.0 style button advert for some other upcoming show. Rude bastards. Only ever saw it once so I'm guessing I wasn't the only one that complained.
Slashdot Mirror
Engineers are the beneficiaries of that same several million year head start that you attribute to fools. Whether this is a good thing is certainly up for debate.
That's hardly an adequate explanation. I'll bet that iPhone SDK does not specify a bird throwing API... so surely Angry Birds is in violation for doing "things not specified in the official iPhone software developers' kit" too :)
Zork! Positively new-fangled. Try the original Colossal Cave Adventure. Played it to death on a Cyber-73.
The article mentioned nothing I could see about the owners and operators of the site being convicted of any crime. That is what disturbs me. Quite aside from the potential future free speech ramifications, the presumption of innocence seems to be forgotten. This really looks like the US Govt. picking up the tab for making inconvenient sites go away so the trademark holders etc. don't have to dip into their precious profits.
Can anyone point to a conviction that lead to this action?
NTSC is one more than the NTSB ... it has to be better :)
Am I missing something, or is the "story" really as short as the Slashdot "summary"? Seems hardly worth the effort to summarise a six sentence piece into a four sentence piece.
While I agree in principal, I disagree in practice. Your argument is that if the dentist or doctor does a good job, then he/she will not have any complaints. I think most would accept though that there are some people that will never be satisfied. Also, doctors, and dentists, like people, can make mistakes and have bad days sometimes.
Absolutely agree that some people are never happy and that some people feel aggrieved when the worst of several outcomes is the end result. However, I look at it this way. A competent practice will have an overwhelmingly positive review with a few genuine complaints. Intelligent people understand that there is no such thing as perfect, that complaints are more visible than satisfied customers, and can usually judge when a complaint is an irrational rant or suspiciously like three hundred other "reviews". The sort of people that expect perfection or believe every negative thing written about a practice are precisely the sort of people I wouldn't want as patients. I say, let them rant and go elsewhere.
Retaliation, I feel, would only aggravate the complainant and provide ammunition of the "They're heartless bastards for attacking" variety. Medical care is an area rife with irrational emotion that you cannot fight with reason.
Overheating wasn't a problem for these systems. The aircraft cabin was kept a chilly 15 Celsius (60F, approx) to keep the electronics happy... not so good for the crew though. The magnetic core memory was a godsend when the aircraft power glitched. You could restart the software, state largely intact, without having to reload from tape.
AQS-901. Airborne, real-time acoustic processing. For added flavour we patched binaries on-tape with paper tape patch reels.
Magnetic core memory was the main form of non-volatile memory for computers from the 50s through to the 70s.
I was working with a system using magnetic core in 1991. IIRC there was 64000 30-bit words internal to the CPU crate and 2 external units of 256000 30-bit words. The system was phased out during 90s.
It's a hard problem. Getting it through kilometre thick ice as hard as rock (approx -160 Celsius) while negotiating things like rock that might be embedded in the ice, keeping the access path open if needed, providing some sort of power source that lasts more than a few hours in the liquid and icy conditions, and making it light enough to make the journey. You also need to come up with some way to relay the information back to Earth from under the ice so you probably also need a Europa orbiter.
Travel time to Jupiter is measured in years (6 for Galileo)... so there's a good chunk of your first decade gone.
Try a deceptively familiar Turkish Q keyboard to type English text some time. For a while many an apostrophe will be wanting and letter i dot-less.
My 15c is always on the desk within easy reach. After 26 glorious years it is still going strong, still flummoxes my wife, and remains dear to my heart.
How on Earth do they expect to keep dog poop dispenser locations up to date? They tend to be rather mobile.
So, by challenging the assumed guilt you must abandon the lower penalty of a few months offline and substitute a huge financial penalty when it goes to court. Notice I said "when" it goes to court, because even if the "Copyright Tribunal" rules in your favour the copyright behemoths will simply appeal to the courts anyway. Not much of a protection.
How long can the opposition parties hold the government to ransom for funds in the US? Are there any mechanisms to break such a crippling deadlock?
In Australia the Governor General can dissolve both houses of parliament and call elections in this sort of deadlock event (http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/australian_electoral_system/electoral_procedures/Double_Dissolution.htm). After the elections if the bill is presented and still cannot pass then two houses can be combined for a single vote on the topic. It is not something that is done lightly, but it has happened in my lifetime over appropriation bills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_whitlam).
I think the word you were looking for is Freeloa... er... Descendants.
Would there be concern if a previous Anti-Copyright campaigner got the seat?
Yes.
Would you rather someone with no knowledge on the topic got the position?
No.
You need people with appropriate skills in these positions. It is surely not too difficult to find a lawyer (for example) that has practiced on both sides of centre when it comes to copyright issues. Anyone that has chosen to work as an integral part of a single issue lobby group on either side has demonstrated their bias and unsuitability for a public policy job in the area.
Curious, I would have assumed that such an action would be done to benefit US Government eavesdroppers, removing the need for decryption processing or pesky legal process, rather than the leadership of those various countries.
It is truly heartening that the standard large company practice of spinning off portions of the business to minimise taxation, isolate risk, provide a favourable legal environment, provide deniability, and reduce legal liability are precisely the things causing SCEA grief.
Abso-blinking-lutely, awesome ep.
Solid as a rock for me. Out of interest... what were the alternatives at the time, and what did they cost?
For the most part I don't care what product placement bollocks they various parties get up to: they get the ability to advertise at me, and I get the right to ignore either the movie or the advert (often the former if the movie is Hollywood drivel). However I do take issue when it becomes intrusive. One of our Aussie TV networks thought it would be good to insert their own advert into a CSI episode. So, they waited for one of the "through the microscope" shots and replaced the entire circular slide image with a Web 2.0 style button advert for some other upcoming show. Rude bastards. Only ever saw it once so I'm guessing I wasn't the only one that complained.
Start stockpiling then. If you can find them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#Australia
Of course, my parent and grandparent posters both meant "major tenets" and not "major tenants" of science. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tenets