What if you had invested a huge amount of money and time hiring people to program and build the machine?
Then it would still not be theft.
For a creator, who depends on the creation for income, there is a loss of potential income.
If I post a scathing movie review on my blog, and that review prompts several people to not go see said movie, then I have deprived the movie studio of potential income. Am I guilty of theft?
The main point here is that the crime isn't "depriving someone of money (real or potential)", it's "depriving someone of control of their work." The crime is not "theft", it's "copyright infringement."
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
Except that, in this case, the behavior of the audio version of the book is not substantially different than the behavior needed to get audio from the kindle version: Push 'play'.
This would be like selling frozen burritos with a self-heating wrapper that heats it up when you open it, so that, from a consumer standpoint, they might as well be buying a ready-to-eat burrito.
I'm not convinced that this is a problem, but it's probably borderline enough to merit further investigation.
So I have a thought that this will be a gargantuan marketing flop. I don't see much out there in the way of parents my age that would buy this sort of thing.
You're forgetting that there's a generation that's halfway between you and your kids. As a 3X-year-old, I and my similarly-aged friends are huge fans of Rock Band. Bear in mind that we're probably one of the earliest generations to have grown up with video games (enabling us to see past the stigma of games being "for kids"), so we're most certainly within the target demographic for the game. We're also of the age that we're not put off by The Beatles, and would almost certainly find the songs to be both familiar and entertaining.
So no, I don't think this will be a marketing flop at all. It just won't appeal as strongly to non-game-playing-Beatles-fans (obviously), nor to teens. Then again, there's been a significant spike in album sales of some of the classic rock featured in Rock band (citation not included on grounds of laziness), so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this being a hit with the kids, too.
The immunity is unconstitutional (see ex post facto [wikipedia.org]) even without the 4th amendment violations.
It has been ruled that the restriction on ex post facto laws only applies to situations where an act would be made a crime, or the punishment would be made greater. Reducing a punishment, or decriminalizing an act, is exempt.
In practice, this makes sense. One shouldn't be punished for something that wasn't a crime when you committed it, and at the same time one shouldn't be punished for something that has subsequently been determined not to be a crime.
I think the big problem here is the concept of corporate personhood. That really should be changed, so that we can draft a separate set of laws to make things like retroactive immunity illegal for corporation, even while it remains legal for individual people.
This guy is ruining the legitimate hitman industry now that most of our (err, their) emails are ending up in spam bins.
If you're actually trying to blackmail your targets rather than just doing your job, then you're only shooting yourself in the foot. You won't get any repeat business that way.
Why not? Often, the voicemail contains all of the info needed for you to determine what action needs to be taken, including whether or not a callback is even necessary.
When I call someone, I only leave voicemail if doing so would add useful information. Something like "I need your input on something by 4:00 today, but I'll be out between noon and 1. Give me a call when you get a chance." That lets them know that I require a callback, and what timeframe we're dealing with.
Another example might be "I need you to email me that file by tomorrow afternoon. Thanks." In that case, no callback is required as long as they email me the file in a reasonable timeframe.
The problem is that idiots think voicemail should be used for "Hi, I just called you. Call me back." as if my phone doesn't keep track of incoming calls.
I've always dreaded that, upon growing older, I would become one of those old folks who just don't "get it". You know, like your granddad who doesn't know what all this hype is about the Internet, or your elderly Aunt whose VCR always flashes "12:00". Thus, I've made an effort to keep abreast of current technologies and trends.
Now I look at Twitter, and I have to wonder, has the "not getting it" finally started to overwhelm me? Is it possible that Twitter isn't something other than just broadcast instant messaging for the ADD crowd? Could it actually be something more than taking social networking to a pathetic extreme, where informing your friends of your breakfast choices and bowel movements via SMS somehow seems like a good idea? Am I going to be relegated to shaking my fists and yelling at kids to "Get off of my lawn^H^H^H^H Internets!" like some sort of crotchety old miser?
I'm in the same boat. I bought the FLAC format for $5, and then wasn't able to get the download to go through. I downloaded the MP3 torrent, but I'm still hoping to get the FLAC format once my support email is answered.
Once distribution problems like this are ironed out, I think we'll be hearing the death knells of music distribution's old guard. Ghosts I-IV is the first time in over a decade that I've paid for music, and I'm not even a big NIN fan (I just wanted something without lyrics to listen to while coding).
Not so, ever heard of compression, mpeg, H264?
(And yes, it is the same pristine crystal clear hi-res quality as the 'original'.) Many Blu-ray movies already use H.264, so you're not going to be able to reduce the file size by transcoding to the same codec.
(And 720p is real time with a 2MB/s bandwidth internet connection.) I have a 1080p display, so I'd like 1080p content. Yes, I realize that the difference is very slight. But if I wanted an upsampled image, I'd just stick with standard DVDs.
I hate the idea of spending hard earned cash on DRM infested discs that will be obsolete in five years.
There's always NetFlix. Personally, I watch individual movies so infrequently that it doesn't make sense for me to actually buy them. I don't mean that I don't watch movies. Just that, if I've seen a particular movie, I probably won't feel like watching it again for several years.
But it seems to me we should be getting our movies over the internet and distributing these little plastic discs is kind of silly.
It's an issue of bandwidth and storage limitations. Let's say that you want to watch a Blu-ray movie on a single-sided disc. Let's further say that the movie takes up the full 25GB (not unreasonable) for a 2-hour movie. To watch it streaming in real-time would require roughly 3.5MB/s, if my quick-n-dirty calculations are correct. That's at or above saturation for the majority of broadband subscribers in the US. You'd need a hell of a lot of buffering to make it work. That, or a massive rollout of to-the-door fiber (which I think is probably inevitable).
Then there's the storage issue. Let's say that you own a couple dozen movies. That's 600GB. I'll admit that storage is cheap, but I'd prefer not to allocate 600GB to store movies that I may watch once a year, if that. So I'd want to copy those off to some sort of long-term storage medium. Like, say, Blu-ray.
With increasing Internet bandwidth and decreasing storage costs and sizes, streaming Hi-Def media is inevitable. But then, maybe by the time streaming and storing Blu-ray style movies is feasible for the common man, we'll be dealing with multiple-terrabyte, holographic movies.
Be sure to rummage through their pockets for spare change. Collecting enough coins can grant you the power to resurrect yourself, should the need arise.
Can anyone explain, by way of analogy, what having four time-like dimensions and no time-like dimensions would entail? Would everything just . . . stop? Would our current motion through time carry forward through Newton's Laws, so that we don't even notice the switch? I did RTFA, and it's light on details. I attempted to RTF paper, and immediately zoned out. So, anyone understand this well enough to attempt to clarify?
Yes and no. Would you say you lose depth perception while watching a movie? Of the movie itself? Of course. They came up with 3D movies because regular movies aren't. The difference is that you're not moving through the movie scene, and using the information it provides to manipulate objects. Try spending a day wearing an eyepatch or something, and it'll quickly become apparent why two eyes are better than one.
What "waggle" does is break the symmetry between consoles. Before, it was easy (or at least not overly difficult) to develop a game for a single console, and then just port it over to the other ones. Adding a unique control scheme forces game studios that want to follow that same model to either port games to the Wii poorly, or port games from the Wii poorly. Assuming that the Wii can reach a "critical mass" of market penetration -- whatever that number might be, I don't know -- what I anticipate is a greater number of exclusive titles for the Wii (as compared to previous Nintendo systems). Exclusive titles, assuming that they're good, lead to more console sales, which lead to more exclusives.
So yes, "waggle" does have the potential to change things. It could be a long shot, true, but it's a definite possibility.
two nearby asteroids may be evidence of a new class of asteroid One of the major distinguishing features of this new class of asteroid is that, when leaving the telescope's field of view, they reappear on the opposite edge.
The last thing I need when attempting to invade my enemies' nano-castles is to have the ram start exhibiting quantum effects and tunneling through the gates!
As the article I link points out, that wouldn't work too well unless you had a torch up your arse. Gotta love the subtle differences between British and American English. If you put a torch up someone's ass here in the states, it's wouldn't be quite as . . . illuminating . . . an experience. Well, not unless you were one of the bystanders. You could even have some marshmallows ready to roast over the soon-to-be bonfire -- if you're able to deal with your bonfire running around, flailing and screaming, that is.
wasting money on programs like sex education (sorry that is the job of the parents) I both agree and disagree with you there. It should be the parents' job, but many, many parents delay this out of embarrassment, and the results of that can be disastrous for the child. Basically, sex education is something that everyone needs to know, and that parents just can't be reliable counted on to deal wit.
Slashdot Mirror
Next thing you know, they'll have an article that just copies the dictionary definition of "Money Laundering".
What if you had invested a huge amount of money and time hiring people to program and build the machine?
Then it would still not be theft.
For a creator, who depends on the creation for income, there is a loss of potential income.
If I post a scathing movie review on my blog, and that review prompts several people to not go see said movie, then I have deprived the movie studio of potential income. Am I guilty of theft?
The main point here is that the crime isn't "depriving someone of money (real or potential)", it's "depriving someone of control of their work." The crime is not "theft", it's "copyright infringement."
There's no issue. If I have a contract which allows me to sell frozen burritos, but not ready-to-eat burritos, selling frozen burritos along with a microwave (which turns them into ready-to-eat burritos) doesn't violate the contract.
Except that, in this case, the behavior of the audio version of the book is not substantially different than the behavior needed to get audio from the kindle version: Push 'play'. This would be like selling frozen burritos with a self-heating wrapper that heats it up when you open it, so that, from a consumer standpoint, they might as well be buying a ready-to-eat burrito. I'm not convinced that this is a problem, but it's probably borderline enough to merit further investigation.
You're forgetting that there's a generation that's halfway between you and your kids. As a 3X-year-old, I and my similarly-aged friends are huge fans of Rock Band. Bear in mind that we're probably one of the earliest generations to have grown up with video games (enabling us to see past the stigma of games being "for kids"), so we're most certainly within the target demographic for the game. We're also of the age that we're not put off by The Beatles, and would almost certainly find the songs to be both familiar and entertaining.
So no, I don't think this will be a marketing flop at all. It just won't appeal as strongly to non-game-playing-Beatles-fans (obviously), nor to teens. Then again, there's been a significant spike in album sales of some of the classic rock featured in Rock band (citation not included on grounds of laziness), so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this being a hit with the kids, too.
It has been ruled that the restriction on ex post facto laws only applies to situations where an act would be made a crime, or the punishment would be made greater. Reducing a punishment, or decriminalizing an act, is exempt.
In practice, this makes sense. One shouldn't be punished for something that wasn't a crime when you committed it, and at the same time one shouldn't be punished for something that has subsequently been determined not to be a crime.
I think the big problem here is the concept of corporate personhood. That really should be changed, so that we can draft a separate set of laws to make things like retroactive immunity illegal for corporation, even while it remains legal for individual people.
If you're actually trying to blackmail your targets rather than just doing your job, then you're only shooting yourself in the foot. You won't get any repeat business that way.
Amateurs.
Why not? Often, the voicemail contains all of the info needed for you to determine what action needs to be taken, including whether or not a callback is even necessary.
When I call someone, I only leave voicemail if doing so would add useful information. Something like "I need your input on something by 4:00 today, but I'll be out between noon and 1. Give me a call when you get a chance." That lets them know that I require a callback, and what timeframe we're dealing with.
Another example might be "I need you to email me that file by tomorrow afternoon. Thanks." In that case, no callback is required as long as they email me the file in a reasonable timeframe.
The problem is that idiots think voicemail should be used for "Hi, I just called you. Call me back." as if my phone doesn't keep track of incoming calls.
I've always dreaded that, upon growing older, I would become one of those old folks who just don't "get it". You know, like your granddad who doesn't know what all this hype is about the Internet, or your elderly Aunt whose VCR always flashes "12:00". Thus, I've made an effort to keep abreast of current technologies and trends.
Now I look at Twitter, and I have to wonder, has the "not getting it" finally started to overwhelm me? Is it possible that Twitter isn't something other than just broadcast instant messaging for the ADD crowd? Could it actually be something more than taking social networking to a pathetic extreme, where informing your friends of your breakfast choices and bowel movements via SMS somehow seems like a good idea? Am I going to be relegated to shaking my fists and yelling at kids to "Get off of my lawn^H^H^H^H Internets!" like some sort of crotchety old miser?
I'm in the same boat. I bought the FLAC format for $5, and then wasn't able to get the download to go through. I downloaded the MP3 torrent, but I'm still hoping to get the FLAC format once my support email is answered.
Once distribution problems like this are ironed out, I think we'll be hearing the death knells of music distribution's old guard. Ghosts I-IV is the first time in over a decade that I've paid for music, and I'm not even a big NIN fan (I just wanted something without lyrics to listen to while coding).
So McDonald's emphasizes personal responsibility when it involves what people eat, but not when it involves their recreational activities?
(And yes, it is the same pristine crystal clear hi-res quality as the 'original'.)
Many Blu-ray movies already use H.264, so you're not going to be able to reduce the file size by transcoding to the same codec. (And 720p is real time with a 2MB/s bandwidth internet connection.) I have a 1080p display, so I'd like 1080p content. Yes, I realize that the difference is very slight. But if I wanted an upsampled image, I'd just stick with standard DVDs.
There's always NetFlix. Personally, I watch individual movies so infrequently that it doesn't make sense for me to actually buy them. I don't mean that I don't watch movies. Just that, if I've seen a particular movie, I probably won't feel like watching it again for several years.
It's an issue of bandwidth and storage limitations. Let's say that you want to watch a Blu-ray movie on a single-sided disc. Let's further say that the movie takes up the full 25GB (not unreasonable) for a 2-hour movie. To watch it streaming in real-time would require roughly 3.5MB/s, if my quick-n-dirty calculations are correct. That's at or above saturation for the majority of broadband subscribers in the US. You'd need a hell of a lot of buffering to make it work. That, or a massive rollout of to-the-door fiber (which I think is probably inevitable).
Then there's the storage issue. Let's say that you own a couple dozen movies. That's 600GB. I'll admit that storage is cheap, but I'd prefer not to allocate 600GB to store movies that I may watch once a year, if that. So I'd want to copy those off to some sort of long-term storage medium. Like, say, Blu-ray.
With increasing Internet bandwidth and decreasing storage costs and sizes, streaming Hi-Def media is inevitable. But then, maybe by the time streaming and storing Blu-ray style movies is feasible for the common man, we'll be dealing with multiple-terrabyte, holographic movies.
Be sure to rummage through their pockets for spare change. Collecting enough coins can grant you the power to resurrect yourself, should the need arise.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
Can anyone explain, by way of analogy, what having four time-like dimensions and no time-like dimensions would entail? Would everything just . . . stop? Would our current motion through time carry forward through Newton's Laws, so that we don't even notice the switch? I did RTFA, and it's light on details. I attempted to RTF paper, and immediately zoned out. So, anyone understand this well enough to attempt to clarify?
What "waggle" does is break the symmetry between consoles. Before, it was easy (or at least not overly difficult) to develop a game for a single console, and then just port it over to the other ones. Adding a unique control scheme forces game studios that want to follow that same model to either port games to the Wii poorly, or port games from the Wii poorly. Assuming that the Wii can reach a "critical mass" of market penetration -- whatever that number might be, I don't know -- what I anticipate is a greater number of exclusive titles for the Wii (as compared to previous Nintendo systems). Exclusive titles, assuming that they're good, lead to more console sales, which lead to more exclusives.
So yes, "waggle" does have the potential to change things. It could be a long shot, true, but it's a definite possibility.
No, it just means that the scientists in Italy are entangled with the scientists in the US.
"It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, both at the same time!"
The last thing I need when attempting to invade my enemies' nano-castles is to have the ram start exhibiting quantum effects and tunneling through the gates!