There is NOTHING preventing free books from being released by authors now. There is effectively ZERO barriers to entry. You don't even need your own internet connection. 1. Write book at home on an old 286 2. Borrow someone's connection and upload it to the web. 3. DONE. Your book is infinitely published.
Yeah, just like uploading your band's new song to YouTube (or, a more apt analogy, uploading it to your band's website that no one has ever heard of) makes you instantly successful.
Do you really think the publishing industry does nothing to promote the books it prints?
So basically you want to be allowed to steal the book.
No, he wants to make a copy of the *content* of the book. Which has already been done for him by the e-format publishers. conveniently enough. No trees were harmed or middlemen involved in the dissemination of the contents!
The book is merely the carrier, the container format for the information within. And when you read a *real* book from the library, you're making a copy in your head anyway. Does the library try to take the knowledge back when you return the book?
One way or another, some day soon people need to realize that artificial scarcity of digital content is DOA. And if the concept of a library were conceived of today, it would be laughed into the mud in about 10 seconds as being anti-capitalist.
Stephen King has sort of thrown in the towel and is happy to let the visual media butcher his stories in the past
Actually that's not true. He was that way UNTIL "The Shining" movie came out, which he absolutely HATED. I believe he said it's the only adaptation of his works that he's truly hated.
that it's a bad movie, but that it completely destroys King's narrative and characterizations.
"Stephen King has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was not a good adaptation of his novel[17] and is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating".[18] It has been noted that prior to this King often said he didn't care about the film adaptations of his novel.[19]"
Quoth wikipedia (from the "Optical Tweezers" article:
Optical tweezers (originally called "single-beam gradient force trap") is a scientific instrument that uses a highly focused laser beam to provide an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the refractive index mismatch to physically hold and move microscopic dielectric objects. Optical tweezers have been particularly successful in studying a variety of biological systems in recent years. -------- So does that mean this new method works on a different principle?
Do you still code in Assembler? No, you code in Java or something else that's high-level, unless you have very specific needs (embedded systems, etc). But what about those poor people with 286 processors?
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
"Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface. Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.
Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.
The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.
Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up."
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
That's why. Truly believing that an infallible force instructed you to do something is justification to do ANYTHING. And while religion may not be the "true" core of many seemingly-religious conflicts, religion makes war MUCH easier to start/escalate/get away with. The ultimate artificial dividing line.
Suppose I put twenty boxes in front of you and told you that one of them contained a good cheque for $1,000,000 and the others contained nothing. You can open any one, and keep the contents. What are the changes of picking the right one? Not great. What reason is there for choosing one box over another? Not much: maybe hunch, maybe try to interpret my facial expressions. One thing is sure, though: any strategy that involves opening a box is better than the strategy of not opening any of them because you can't decide.
Unless, of course, there's a 21st box hiding out of view, which no one has ever heard of, that actually contains the cheque. And that box sends you to "hell" for opening one of the 20 boxes that were presented to you.
Religions come into being all the time. Why is one of the currently-existing ones correct?
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Thanks for the info, but doesn't it make a LOT more sense that these devices would be calling home via cellular/mobile networks? I can't imagine a cop tailing the target with a VHF receiver...doesn't that negate the entire point of having a GPS tracking device?
What kind of range does a VHF transmitter have in an urban environment? And what if the guy drives 50 miles away?
Slashdot Mirror
There NEEDS to be a financial incentive for a publisher to publish books. And there NEEDS to be a financial incentive for an author to write a book.
Statement 1: True
Statement 2: False
There is NOTHING preventing free books from being released by authors now. There is effectively ZERO barriers to entry. You don't even need your own internet connection.
1. Write book at home on an old 286
2. Borrow someone's connection and upload it to the web.
3. DONE.
Your book is infinitely published.
Yeah, just like uploading your band's new song to YouTube (or, a more apt analogy, uploading it to your band's website that no one has ever heard of) makes you instantly successful.
Do you really think the publishing industry does nothing to promote the books it prints?
So basically you want to be allowed to steal the book.
No, he wants to make a copy of the *content* of the book. Which has already been done for him by the e-format publishers. conveniently enough. No trees were harmed or middlemen involved in the dissemination of the contents!
The book is merely the carrier, the container format for the information within. And when you read a *real* book from the library, you're making a copy in your head anyway. Does the library try to take the knowledge back when you return the book?
One way or another, some day soon people need to realize that artificial scarcity of digital content is DOA. And if the concept of a library were conceived of today, it would be laughed into the mud in about 10 seconds as being anti-capitalist.
There's so much material there though, how could you possibly adapt it even into 7-films without leaving newcomers behind?
Skip "Wolves of the Calla"? :)
Stephen King has sort of thrown in the towel and is happy to let the visual media butcher his stories in the past
Actually that's not true. He was that way UNTIL "The Shining" movie came out, which he absolutely HATED. I believe he said it's the only adaptation of his works that he's truly hated.
that it's a bad movie, but that it completely destroys King's narrative and characterizations.
"Stephen King has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was not a good adaptation of his novel[17] and is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating".[18] It has been noted that prior to this King often said he didn't care about the film adaptations of his novel.[19]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film)#Response_by_Stephen_King
Quoth wikipedia (from the "Optical Tweezers" article:
Optical tweezers (originally called "single-beam gradient force trap") is a scientific instrument that uses a highly focused laser beam to provide an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the refractive index mismatch to physically hold and move microscopic dielectric objects. Optical tweezers have been particularly successful in studying a variety of biological systems in recent years.
--------
So does that mean this new method works on a different principle?
Do you still code in Assembler? No, you code in Java or something else that's high-level, unless you have very specific needs (embedded systems, etc). But what about those poor people with 286 processors?
QQ
Ah, Wipeout XL (or Wipeout 2097 in Europe), the best game ever. Seriously.
Never played the first one.
I personally make around $35k as a young single person with no debt, and feel rich, fwiw. I can't even spend it all--- after $1k/month on rent for a nice apt near the beach, and another $1k on food/car/entertainment, my expenses are pretty much covered.
Awesome, now have a kid. Get back to me later.
Heh, November 11 is my son's birthday. :)
Indeed. Thank you for your service in the LAST WAR that protected American freedoms. Everything post WWII.....well, it's history.
I know God is real. Jesus is LORD. I know for an absolute fact.
[Citation Needed]
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Read and be enlightened. Quote:
"Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the "curvature" of the earth's surface. Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn't deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.
Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn't. The curvature of the earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That's why the theory lasted so long.
The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile, as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat earth to the spherical earth.
Mind you, even a tiny difference, such as that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up."
We'd still believe the planets and sun orbited the earth in perfect circles.
We require more epicycles.
/Protoss
Photons beg to disagree!
Why do so many atheists feel the need to be smug assholes? What the fuck does it matter to you if he believes in 'an invisible sky wizard'? Why can't you just let people believe what they will, why must you impose your beliefs on other people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years_War
That's why. Truly believing that an infallible force instructed you to do something is justification to do ANYTHING. And while religion may not be the "true" core of many seemingly-religious conflicts, religion makes war MUCH easier to start/escalate/get away with. The ultimate artificial dividing line.
If you can find someone who actually believes that children go to hell by default, then they're basically a lost cause).
You mean pretty much all Christians? No baptism = hell. Period.
Suppose I put twenty boxes in front of you and told you that one of them contained a good cheque for $1,000,000 and the others contained nothing. You can open any one, and keep the contents. What are the changes of picking the right one? Not great. What reason is there for choosing one box over another? Not much: maybe hunch, maybe try to interpret my facial expressions. One thing is sure, though: any strategy that involves opening a box is better than the strategy of not opening any of them because you can't decide.
Unless, of course, there's a 21st box hiding out of view, which no one has ever heard of, that actually contains the cheque. And that box sends you to "hell" for opening one of the 20 boxes that were presented to you.
Religions come into being all the time. Why is one of the currently-existing ones correct?
Such beliefs were common method of spreading religion in times when people were fearful, uneducated and ignorant.
You don't get out much, do you?
Today you're much more unlikely to make a person religious by threatening them with Hell and eternal sufferings.
Yeah, that only works on small children.
There are **FOUR** elephants!! /picard
Yup. A surgeon friend of mine says human meat is very similar to pork. There's a reason it's called "long pig" in certain places.
And he said that, after a few years, the smell of cauterizing flesh makes you hungry.
So what were you, a "No Limit Soldier"? lol
Are you saying that goodness is only goodness if the decision to be good is made in a vacuum?
No, but it is a higher grade of goodness. External vs internal locus of control, and all that.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
(H. L. Mencken)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
Thanks for the info, but doesn't it make a LOT more sense that these devices would be calling home via cellular/mobile networks? I can't imagine a cop tailing the target with a VHF receiver...doesn't that negate the entire point of having a GPS tracking device?
What kind of range does a VHF transmitter have in an urban environment? And what if the guy drives 50 miles away?