The point is, that originally any country is free to legislate it's own copyright rules. You know, in the 19th century in the US copyright existed only for works of US origin. Before that, there was no copyright at all.
Be joining the WTO a country forfeits that right and the legislation agrees to implement certain rules. Now the US do not play by the rules they agreed on, so Antigua asks to get another rule lifted in return. This can't be the same rule, because Antigua is allready complying to that rule and intends to continue that.
As seen by the WTO, it is not someone else paying. The USA cause the harm, so the USA pays the price. The USA is free to compensate internally (The US government could try to force casinos to pay to the RIAA), but that is none of WTOs business.
"then I will continue to wait until the evidence is something more substantial."
That is a common attitude, not only for global warming: Do nothing until you can be really sure what will be the right decision. The depiction is that this way bad decisions are avoided. However, doing nothing is a decision, and it might be a bad one.
Instead, game theory should be applied to compare all four cases:
a) doing nothing and beeing right about it
b) doing nothing and beeing wrong about it
c) doing something and beeing right about it
d) doing something and beeing wrong about it
For each of these options cost, gain and probability based on the currently available knowledge can be estimated.
Sometimes the cost of d) is so high compared to the other scenarios, that you better wait until you know for sure.
Sometimes the cost of b) is so high that you better act immediately at the risk of some extra cost.
For example if I was living below a damn that suddenly shows a crack, I would leave immediately and only come back
after everybody is sure that it does not break. Even though I spent extra money, time and effort in the process that
might turn out to be unneccessary later.
Somehow for global warming many people seem to prefer the option of living below the damn until everybody agrees that
it will break. This only is a smart decision if at that point there is still enough time to leave.
I spent a semester at UC Berkeley. Let's test these criteria against an average foreign student...
> failing to report overseas travel, So, which governement organisation do I need to call if I want to visit my mom?
> showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope In Berkeley it is mandatory to take off-topic classes, called "DeCal". I had "theory of nonviolence" and "Energy and Society" as a EE major.
> keeping unusual work hours Everybody did.
> unreported contacts with foreign nationals At a university with 60% foreigners both in faculty and among students? In an area with many tourists? In a state with 30% mexican residents? ROTFL
> unreported contact with foreign government In Berekeley there even is a computer science institute funded by german government. Also, my stay in Berkeley was funded by the german government. The request regular reports in return.
> contact with foreign military. If I get a drafting letter, does that count?
> You made the copy before they ordered, not the other way 'round.
No. I can have a legal copy on my harddrive. The distribution only happens after they order.
>Using the hash [...] they can identify the file
Not if I created my own MP3 from a non DRM original CD.
> Since they don't identify as the RIAA
Yes, that is indeed a valid and very important point.
I am nitpicking on this, because it actually happened to me that I offered songs from my brothers band on a P2P network and the german equivalent of the RIAA downloaded a file and sent me an e-mail that filesharing was illegal and that they would forward the evidence to the police.
I answered that claiming false copyright on a song is a crime in germany and never heard of them again.
True. But I can show Disney a comic I bought and offer them to draw something similar. This is what a file sharer does (assuming the file on his hard this is a legal copy).
The allegedly illegal copying and distribution is performed by the filesharing software only on request of the downloading party. Therefore the copy that is documented by the RIAA has been ordered by them.
That's true if I make a copy without permission. But in the case at hand the rights holder requested a copy. Clearly this counts as permission?
It's like Walt Disney walking up to you saying: "Please draw a Mickey Mouse for me".
I do not even see how the EULA is involved here.
First of all, there are ways to get access to Visual Studio without the EULA coming into effect.
(Go to a store any buy a package for some reason or another the EULA can't be read on the package.
The purchase contract is finalized at the cashier and in most european countries will not be ammended
retroactively by clicking anything during installation.)
Second, In theory you can implement an extension without using Visual Studio at all. No EULA involved.
The API can be described to you in a clean room process by others.
Also, he is providing an extension. If the EULA prohibits using extensions this only effects the users
running the extension. Microsoft can try to go after them. After all APIs are neither protected by copyright
nor patents so someone else could come up with a compiler suite that implements the same API to run the
extension on.
In that speculative line of evidence: Doesn't the RIAA hold the copyright on these files? So making the files available to them clearly is legal, isn't it? Surely they are allowed to make copies of their own works? Where is the evidence that someone besides the RIAA downloaded anything?
There also is another issue. It makes a big difference whether the sign outside the shop reads "Free WiFi", "Free WiFi with each purchase" or "Free Wifi inside".
In the first case anyone passing buy can understand it the way that the Wifi is a free givaway like balloons with ads on them.
The seconds case still leave it open how long after a purchase the access is authorized. He might have ordered there sometime.
I don't know about the US, but in germany if the terms of a contract were formulated by one party alone, anything that can be interpreted in multiple ways must be interpreted in the way that is beneficial for the other party.
>The main culprit is corn-based ethanol. The energy consumed to produce a barrel of corn-based ethanol consumes exceeds the energy offered by that barrel.
While this claim is disputed even in the article you link to, you should not forget that this is might be the case for fossile fuels, too. Extracting oil from oils shale is not easy. Then it needs to be refined and transported for long distances. All this requires energy.
Currently there are voices suggesting to use plants to bind carbon dioxide created by power plants. This will require even more energy.
Anyways, ethanol is nice for the air quality in large cities because it burns cleanly. In most other aspects other biofuels are preferable.
Like oil or diesel from rapeseed. They have a much better energy balance.
> It has been known and understood for years that China doesn't care about IP laws
Of cause they do not care about your laws. They are a country for gods sake. They can come up with their own laws. The only concern here are international treaties. While I agree that all countries should adhere to these treaties, I would like to point out that china breaks other international treaties that are far more important. (Various human rights issues for example).
But at least China does not claim to be the best country of the world that all others should follow. As far as international treaties go I am by for more concerned with the long tradition of the US ignoring international treaties or not signing them to begin with.
Copyright and patents are currently good for the US economy, so the US decides to adhere to these specific treaties and making a big fuss about others not doing so. But I doubt that this will last once the RAGAE-states start surpassing the US with patents. The US never cared about any treaty that it does not immediately benefit from.
That's the way it goes if you are the bully and there are no teachers around.
DRAM used to use the single transistor as capacitor. But with shrinking feature sizes the capacitance of these became smaller and smaller. To still be able to store and read out the value reliably special chip features called "stacked capacitors" or "trenches" were implemented. These are extremely dificult to manufacture. Stacked capcitors essentially are huge cirular towers on top of each transistor.
Additionaly, to achieve high speeds with the very small amount of charge in each cell you need to have short bitlines which result in a large amount of sense amplifiers adding to the area of the chip.
Also, non volatile memories like FLASH inherently make it simple to have redundant memory blocks that are mapped over defective blocks: The factory just stores the mapping table in a hidden memory block. This increases yield significantly.
Exactly. Either there is a contract about free DVDs, or there is no contract at all.
There can't be a contract about DVDs to some other price made up by Amazon.
> What's certainly true, however, is that Amazon have no authorization to take those payments from those > credit cards. Extracting an unauthorized payment is credit card fraud.
This is an important point. Even if you owe them the money they cannot simply take it. Instead they would have to send you an invoice that you could pay anyway that you like.
At least in german law at least there is the possibility that the contract is void because Amazon did not intend to enter the contract under the stated terms. In this case you must return the goods, but Amazon is liable for any damages that they caused you due to their mistake. I would expect these to be much larger than the price of a DVD. (Shipping cost, legal costs, etc.)
Speaking for germany there are three different laws that apply:
* catalog and online sales return There is a right to return anything within 14 days. This shall compensate for often aggressive and misleading sales tactics, illsuive product descriptions, etc. The package needs to be unopened. In the case of services (as opposed to goods) contracts can be cancelled but the part of the service that has been used allready needs to be paid. (e.g. cancelling a phone contract after 14 days requires payment of half a month).
* return of damaged goods Within 2 years after purchase you can return goods that were defective at purchase. Within the first 6 month the seller needs to proof that the good was flawless when sold. For music this could include the quality of the recording, defective DRM, content not as advertised, etc.
* voiding a contract because of misapprehension If you clicked on the wrong song. (Say, your finger slipped, or you wanted another song with the same title) there was no binding contract enacted. The goods can be returned. You are not required to pay the price, but you must pay for the actual expenses of the seller. (Usually shipping cost)
There are special bombs for special purposes.
There are bombs designed solely agains human targets. Most countries agreed not to use them, but some countries insist that they need them. The US are among those who use them. So is Israel. Don't know about N. Korea.
When I was at UC Berkeley some classes were taped by the university. Students could watch them in a special room in case they could not attend or wanted to see it again. Usually students preferred to attend class, because you get a 3D image, surround sound and could ask questions.
I just do not understand what this discussion is about. The word "faculty" is closely related to "facultative". It is an old university tradition that you can or can not attend classes. It should be the students choice.
This is not about the absolute amount of CO2 but about the change, especially a rapid change.
This is not about the absolute amount of CO2 but about a rapid change in the total amount.
Nature always has emitted lots of CO2 and also sinked a lot of CO2 and doing that achieved the temperature distribution that could be observed 200 years ago.
Now man is adding lots of CO2 on top of that, changing that equlibrum to another value. In pcrinciple neither nature nor mankind should have a problem with another temperature and water distribution on earth. It is just a pity if you allready built a city on a place that is soon to be within an ocean or under ice or if you spent ten thousand years growing a rain forest in an area that soon will have dry climate.
Once a new equlibrum is achieved you can spent some time moving your cities and crop and forest and animals around and everything will be in order again.
Yes you can. Having incomplete information does not mean that not acting is the best strategy. When leading a company or a country it is very rare that you have definite information about the consequences of your action. For example you rarely know the strategy of your antagonists in advance. You can not just sit around idly and do nothing until you know.
With climate change you have the classical 2x2 cost matrix that is so common with game theory:
The options are 1 act against climate change and either
a Find out later that your money was spent for nothing
b Find out later that you saved the world 2 do not act against climate change and either
a Find out later that you were right and saved some money
b Get hit by catatstrophic effects of the climate change
Putting all the inaccuracy aside that measuring the cost of these options in advanve has, it is clear that the expected cost of these options varies from country to country. Clear a country like the maledives the would be wiped out by option 2b will opt for strategy 1 while it is unclear whether action is necessary.
A country that is large and rich and can pull ressources forcibly from other countries if needed can clearly risk more and wait a little. Just don't expect the rest of the world to love you for beeing the bully.
- solar energy that's +60% effecient
Almost. The next big thing might be solar energy that is only 5% efficient but does not cost more than ordinary paint. There are a couple of technologies today that achieve this but they are unstable i.e. they seize to function after a few month for one reason or another. Maybe these problems can never be solved, but they might as well be ready tomorrow.
> So, I guess the International Red Cross is kinda obligated to go after the non-military uses of that symbol.
Dunno about the US, but german copyright law has the so called "panorama priviledge". This means for example, that when I take picture that contains among other things other copyrighted material I do not need to obtain a license for the reproduction of the work as long as the other work is not essential to my work.
Otherwise it would be impossible to take publish pictures taken inside a civilization. (Think billboards, restaurant logos, coke cans, car designs, cloths)
Although the geneva convention is not copyright law, I assume that by similar reasoning you are allowed to depict objectes that lawfully bear the red cross sign in your own work without violating the convention.
On the other hand: Violating the geneva convention doesn't seem to be that much of a big deal nowadays. (Showing POW in TV for example)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, so this is not about PCI compliance workshops? http://www.pcisig.com/events/compliance_workshop/
The point is, that originally any country is free to legislate it's own copyright rules. You know, in the 19th century in the US copyright existed only for works of US origin. Before that, there was no copyright at all.
Be joining the WTO a country forfeits that right and the legislation agrees to implement certain rules. Now the US do not play by the rules they agreed on, so Antigua asks to get another rule lifted in return. This can't be the same rule, because Antigua is allready complying to that rule and intends to continue that.
As seen by the WTO, it is not someone else paying. The USA cause the harm, so the USA pays the price. The USA is free to compensate internally (The US government could try to force casinos to pay to the RIAA), but that is none of WTOs business.
"then I will continue to wait until the evidence is something more substantial." That is a common attitude, not only for global warming: Do nothing until you can be really sure what will be the right decision. The depiction is that this way bad decisions are avoided. However, doing nothing is a decision, and it might be a bad one. Instead, game theory should be applied to compare all four cases: a) doing nothing and beeing right about it b) doing nothing and beeing wrong about it c) doing something and beeing right about it d) doing something and beeing wrong about it For each of these options cost, gain and probability based on the currently available knowledge can be estimated. Sometimes the cost of d) is so high compared to the other scenarios, that you better wait until you know for sure. Sometimes the cost of b) is so high that you better act immediately at the risk of some extra cost. For example if I was living below a damn that suddenly shows a crack, I would leave immediately and only come back after everybody is sure that it does not break. Even though I spent extra money, time and effort in the process that might turn out to be unneccessary later. Somehow for global warming many people seem to prefer the option of living below the damn until everybody agrees that it will break. This only is a smart decision if at that point there is still enough time to leave.
I spent a semester at UC Berkeley. Let's test these criteria against an average foreign student...
> failing to report overseas travel,
So, which governement organisation do I need to call if I want to visit my mom?
> showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope
In Berkeley it is mandatory to take off-topic classes, called "DeCal". I had "theory of nonviolence" and "Energy and Society" as a EE major.
> keeping unusual work hours
Everybody did.
> unreported contacts with foreign nationals
At a university with 60% foreigners both in faculty and among students? In an area with many tourists? In a state with 30% mexican residents?
ROTFL
> unreported contact with foreign government
In Berekeley there even is a computer science institute funded by german government. Also, my stay in Berkeley was funded by the german government.
The request regular reports in return.
> contact with foreign military.
If I get a drafting letter, does that count?
> unexplained absences
No more exessive partying?
is make them pay, and then donate the money to a school district in another state.
> You made the copy before they ordered, not the other way 'round. No. I can have a legal copy on my harddrive. The distribution only happens after they order. >Using the hash [...] they can identify the file Not if I created my own MP3 from a non DRM original CD. > Since they don't identify as the RIAA Yes, that is indeed a valid and very important point. I am nitpicking on this, because it actually happened to me that I offered songs from my brothers band on a P2P network and the german equivalent of the RIAA downloaded a file and sent me an e-mail that filesharing was illegal and that they would forward the evidence to the police. I answered that claiming false copyright on a song is a crime in germany and never heard of them again.
True. But I can show Disney a comic I bought and offer them to draw something similar. This is what a file sharer does (assuming the file on his hard this is a legal copy). The allegedly illegal copying and distribution is performed by the filesharing software only on request of the downloading party. Therefore the copy that is documented by the RIAA has been ordered by them.
That's true if I make a copy without permission. But in the case at hand the rights holder requested a copy. Clearly this counts as permission? It's like Walt Disney walking up to you saying: "Please draw a Mickey Mouse for me".
I do not even see how the EULA is involved here. First of all, there are ways to get access to Visual Studio without the EULA coming into effect. (Go to a store any buy a package for some reason or another the EULA can't be read on the package. The purchase contract is finalized at the cashier and in most european countries will not be ammended retroactively by clicking anything during installation.) Second, In theory you can implement an extension without using Visual Studio at all. No EULA involved. The API can be described to you in a clean room process by others. Also, he is providing an extension. If the EULA prohibits using extensions this only effects the users running the extension. Microsoft can try to go after them. After all APIs are neither protected by copyright nor patents so someone else could come up with a compiler suite that implements the same API to run the extension on.
In that speculative line of evidence: Doesn't the RIAA hold the copyright on these files? So making the files available to them clearly is legal, isn't it? Surely they are allowed to make copies of their own works? Where is the evidence that someone besides the RIAA downloaded anything?
There also is another issue. It makes a big difference whether the sign outside the shop reads "Free WiFi", "Free WiFi with each purchase" or "Free Wifi inside". In the first case anyone passing buy can understand it the way that the Wifi is a free givaway like balloons with ads on them. The seconds case still leave it open how long after a purchase the access is authorized. He might have ordered there sometime. I don't know about the US, but in germany if the terms of a contract were formulated by one party alone, anything that can be interpreted in multiple ways must be interpreted in the way that is beneficial for the other party.
>The main culprit is corn-based ethanol. The energy consumed to produce a barrel of corn-based ethanol consumes exceeds the energy offered by that barrel. While this claim is disputed even in the article you link to, you should not forget that this is might be the case for fossile fuels, too. Extracting oil from oils shale is not easy. Then it needs to be refined and transported for long distances. All this requires energy. Currently there are voices suggesting to use plants to bind carbon dioxide created by power plants. This will require even more energy. Anyways, ethanol is nice for the air quality in large cities because it burns cleanly. In most other aspects other biofuels are preferable. Like oil or diesel from rapeseed. They have a much better energy balance.
> It has been known and understood for years that China doesn't care about IP laws Of cause they do not care about your laws. They are a country for gods sake. They can come up with their own laws. The only concern here are international treaties. While I agree that all countries should adhere to these treaties, I would like to point out that china breaks other international treaties that are far more important. (Various human rights issues for example). But at least China does not claim to be the best country of the world that all others should follow. As far as international treaties go I am by for more concerned with the long tradition of the US ignoring international treaties or not signing them to begin with. Copyright and patents are currently good for the US economy, so the US decides to adhere to these specific treaties and making a big fuss about others not doing so. But I doubt that this will last once the RAGAE-states start surpassing the US with patents. The US never cared about any treaty that it does not immediately benefit from. That's the way it goes if you are the bully and there are no teachers around.
using Octave or SciLab.
DRAM used to use the single transistor as capacitor. But with shrinking feature sizes the capacitance of these became smaller and smaller. To still be able to store and read out the value reliably special chip features called "stacked capacitors" or "trenches" were implemented. These are extremely dificult to manufacture.
Stacked capcitors essentially are huge cirular towers on top of each transistor.
Additionaly, to achieve high speeds with the very small amount of charge in each cell you need to have short bitlines which result in a large amount of sense amplifiers adding to the area of the chip.
Also, non volatile memories like FLASH inherently make it simple to have redundant memory blocks that are mapped over defective blocks: The factory just stores the mapping table in a hidden memory block. This increases yield significantly.
Exactly. Either there is a contract about free DVDs, or there is no contract at all. There can't be a contract about DVDs to some other price made up by Amazon.
> What's certainly true, however, is that Amazon have no authorization to take those payments from those
> credit cards. Extracting an unauthorized payment is credit card fraud.
This is an important point. Even if you owe them the money they cannot simply take it. Instead they would have to send you an invoice that you could pay anyway that you like.
At least in german law at least there is the possibility that the contract is void because Amazon did not intend to enter the contract under the stated terms. In this case you must return the goods, but Amazon is liable for any damages that they caused you due to their mistake. I would expect these to be much larger than the price of a DVD. (Shipping cost, legal costs, etc.)
Speaking for germany there are three different laws that apply:
* catalog and online sales return
There is a right to return anything within 14 days. This shall compensate for often aggressive and misleading sales tactics, illsuive product descriptions, etc. The package needs to be unopened. In the case of services (as opposed to goods) contracts can be cancelled but the part of the service that has been used allready needs to be paid. (e.g. cancelling a phone contract after 14 days requires payment of half a month).
* return of damaged goods
Within 2 years after purchase you can return goods that were defective at purchase. Within the first 6 month the seller needs to proof that the good was flawless when sold. For music this could include the quality of the recording, defective DRM, content not as advertised, etc.
* voiding a contract because of misapprehension
If you clicked on the wrong song. (Say, your finger slipped, or you wanted another song with the same title) there was no binding contract enacted. The goods can be returned. You are not required to pay the price, but you must pay for the actual expenses of the seller. (Usually shipping cost)
There are special bombs for special purposes. There are bombs designed solely agains human targets. Most countries agreed not to use them, but some countries insist that they need them. The US are among those who use them. So is Israel. Don't know about N. Korea.
When I was at UC Berkeley some classes were taped by the university. Students could watch them in a special room in case they could not attend or wanted to see it again.
Usually students preferred to attend class, because you get a 3D image, surround sound and could ask questions.
I just do not understand what this discussion is about.
The word "faculty" is closely related to "facultative". It is an old university tradition that you can or can not attend classes. It should be the students choice.
This is not about the absolute amount of CO2 but about the change, especially a rapid change.
This is not about the absolute amount of CO2 but about a rapid change in the total amount.
Nature always has emitted lots of CO2 and also sinked a lot of CO2 and doing that achieved the temperature distribution that could be observed 200 years ago.
Now man is adding lots of CO2 on top of that, changing that equlibrum to another value. In pcrinciple neither nature nor mankind should have a problem with another temperature and water distribution on earth. It is just a pity if you allready built a city on a place that is soon to be within an ocean or under ice or if you spent ten thousand years growing a rain forest in an area that soon will have dry climate.
Once a new equlibrum is achieved you can spent some time moving your cities and crop and forest and animals around and everything will be in order again.
>we can't act on the information.
Yes you can. Having incomplete information does not mean that not acting is the best strategy.
When leading a company or a country it is very rare that you have definite information about the
consequences of your action. For example you rarely know the strategy of your antagonists in advance.
You can not just sit around idly and do nothing until you know.
With climate change you have the classical 2x2 cost matrix that is so common with game theory:
The options are
1 act against climate change and either
a Find out later that your money was spent for nothing
b Find out later that you saved the world
2 do not act against climate change and either
a Find out later that you were right and saved some money
b Get hit by catatstrophic effects of the climate change
Putting all the inaccuracy aside that measuring the cost of these options in advanve has, it is clear that the expected cost of these options varies from country to country.
Clear a country like the maledives the would be wiped out by option 2b will opt for strategy 1 while it is unclear whether action is necessary.
A country that is large and rich and can pull ressources forcibly from other countries if needed can clearly risk more and wait a little. Just don't expect the rest of the world to love you for beeing the bully.
- solar energy that's +60% effecient Almost. The next big thing might be solar energy that is only 5% efficient but does not cost more than ordinary paint. There are a couple of technologies today that achieve this but they are unstable i.e. they seize to function after a few month for one reason or another. Maybe these problems can never be solved, but they might as well be ready tomorrow.
> So, I guess the International Red Cross is kinda obligated to go after the non-military uses of that symbol.
Dunno about the US, but german copyright law has the so called "panorama priviledge". This means for example, that when I take picture that contains among other things other copyrighted material I do not need to obtain a license for the reproduction of the work as long as the other work is not essential to my work.
Otherwise it would be impossible to take publish pictures taken inside a civilization. (Think billboards, restaurant logos, coke cans, car designs, cloths)
Although the geneva convention is not copyright law, I assume that by similar reasoning you are allowed to depict objectes that lawfully bear the red cross sign in your own work without violating the convention.
On the other hand: Violating the geneva convention doesn't seem to be that much of a big deal nowadays. (Showing POW in TV for example)
has presented this exact application years ago.