How odd!! Are they claiming that CDs and DVDs never break or becomes unusable? In what type of cases IS there a need for a backup at all then?
The exact quote, from Mr Justice Jacob in Sony v Owen, is
"The fact is that if you spoil your CD, which has a recording of music on it, you have to go and buy another. The same is true of a CD carrying a game. Backups are not necessary at all."
Now you might quite reasonably consider this to be a completely daft ruling that only a judge that has never used a computer could come up with - and, academically, the judgement in Sony v Owens is considered rather flawed - but until a higher court overrules this interpretation of s.50A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, he is stating the law in the UK.
There is commentary elsewhere suggesting that backup of tape and floppy disk would be permitted (although AIUI it was said 'obiter dictum', i.e. it is not binding). UK law is not exactly up to date in this area..!
The UK has had no "fair use" defence since the 1930s (IIRC), when it was replaced with the statutory defence "fair dealing" and it's very limited - mainly copying printed material for "non-commercial research or private study".
In many countries, making backups is always allowed by law and can't be revoked through any contract.
Not in the UK. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) allows for backups "which it is necessary for [a user] to have for the purposes of his lawful use". This right cannot be revoked by contract, but the key words are "which it is necessary to have" - the courts have ruled in Sony v Owens (2002) that it is never necessary to backup a CD or DVD.
This is my area of expertise, from the observational side
This was my area of expertise too, although I've now left astronomy. I worked indirectly with Volker Springel, who is extremely good (his simulation code, GADGET, was depressingly better than mine!). The bit that's new is the treatment of radiative transfer, which is extremely hard to model (the full treatment is a time-dependent function of six variables, so you have to simplify it somehow). Doing it well is an achievement in itself, but it's also where the numerics are likely to be wrong. The non-radiative aspect of the simulations isn't new (I did similar simulations for galaxy clusters in my thesis, and although I did them better - at the time - it wasn't new then).
Bad news for IBM if it's blocked, because if you look at the full year report* it's clear why they're so keen to get rid of it.
Personal Systems Group made $162 million off turnover of nearly $13 billion, that's a 1.2% margin. Software group made $4.5 billion from a $15 billion turnover. Hell, WebSphere MQ Series made several times the profit of the whole PC business, and that's a team of maybe 200 people. CICS made even more. From IBM's point of view, Personal Systems Group isn't worth the effort or the risk.
A sculpture probably isn't going to show enough detail, but old charts are interesting as they can show stars as being brighter or dimmer than they are today. For example, in the mid 19th century Eta Carinae was the second brightest star in the sky (after Sirius), now it's almost invisible to the naked eye (around 5th magnitude IIRC). The bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini were around the same magnitude, now Castor is dimmer (the brighter Pollux is still 'beta Geminorum'). I wonder what Hipparchos might have seen that we dont see now?
Re:Offtopic...rant...
on
Prime Obsession
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
People don't get Literature majors "Shakespeare for Dummies".
The problem is that a lack mathematical understanding verging on innumeracy is socially acceptable, cool even. Imagine boasting that you couldn't "do reading", and found books aimed at ten-year-olds too much of a challenge. If that was true, then you wouldn't admit it - but go out to eat with half a dozen friends or workmates, and when it comes to the bill people will cheerfully admit that they're rubbish at Maths and can't divide the total by six. I had one colleague who was impressed that I could divide £45 between seven people...
Now, if you've ever shown any ability to do any Maths, however basic, from their point of view you're forever "good at Maths". They don't know this book from Landau & Lifshitz, but you're "good at Maths" so you'll like it. Won't you?
Could it be that the lay-person wouldn't be interested in any book about math, no matter how well written?
In the UK, at least, Simon Singh's book on Fermat's last theorem was very successful, so they can be interested. However, most Maths books, even 'popular' Maths books, are awful for the lay-person.
In numerical simulations of the Earth's climate, there's a "white earth" scenario where the Earth reaches a stable, very cold state.
It's usually regarded as a sign that the initial conditions and/or the model is somehow wrong - but as James Gleik points out in Chaos, it could just be that the real Earth hasn't done that yet.
Isn't GPS used to navigate ships and planes all over the world?
In Europe, this is precisely the reason why GPS cannot be used as your sole aid to navigation. Other radio navigation aids, e.g. VOR or ILS, have defined quality of service agreements and a defined failure mode so that, if it fails unexpectedly, you know. GPS has neither - the USA can disable it or introduce errors at will. Hence GPS can be used as an aid to navigation, just not the only one.
I think there's probably a lot of pilots out there would couldn't navigate if it weren't for their GPS.
There shouldn't be - you're required to demonstrate an ability to navigate (without GPS) at every licence renewal.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Can't really argue with that, but in in the European Convention on Human Rights it becomes
Article 8:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Just cry "crime and terrorism" and that small-print in 8(2) takes it away again...
The article cites that one reason for the sale is the slim profits on the PC business, and gives as evidence the $100M profit IBM will make on the division this year.
For comparison, WebSphere MQSeries makes a profit in excess of $400M per year, excluding profits generated by shipping it as part of WebSphere Application Server. You can fit the whole development and support team is a medium-sized conference room. CICS makes even more money from fewer people, although it's not a totally fair comparison - CICS is a very mature product.
The PC business may usually make a profit, but it's as a result of far greater expenditure and risk. A bad year could easily turn that $100M profit into a big loss.
I've owned 5 different Thinkpads over the years, from the 701C "Butterfly keyboard" model up through the T and X series. Every one of them still works perfectly.
I don't know if they're as good as they were. My 770 was a brick, but bombproof. The T30, OTOH, lost half of its memory one day - that needed a new motherboard - and then the hard disk failed. It's been replaced with a new T40, which lasted a few days before PgUp came to pieces. Lovely laptop though, even with one fewer key.
Anybody know who all the stockholders at IBM are? We all need to email all of them.
Great, thanks. I'd really like email from all of slashdot. Maybe you could try going on strike instead...!
She teaches music at a middle-ranking University in the UK. Instant expulsion for cheating is fairly rare here - depending on severity it's usually a warning and zero marks, which is probably enough in itself to keep you from the top degree classification, or a course fail forcing you to retake the year. The latter, with an extra year of tuition fees and student loans, is a severe financial punishment for an 18-year-old, so it's usually kept for particularly serious or repeat offences.
However, the University my wife teaches at takes the view that this is too harsh a penalty for new first-year students who have done something stupid in their first few weeks at university; better a public telling-off and a lesson that they (and other students) hopefully will remember, rather than screwing up their University career at the first step.
At the risk of being Offtopic, the really sad thing is that some students have obviously learned in school that Google is a good place to go for their homework, and carry that on at University...
Sure, we'll only find the lazy cheats, but after the first round it's one strike and your out - and the students know it. If you're caught then you're deregistered from the module, and if that happens you have to repeat the year, no exceptions.
So to 'cheat' they have to carefully combine multiple sources, rewrite the sources in their own words, and to do that they have to think about the topic. And that's just what they are supposed to do...
My wife teaches at a university, and each year many of the first essay assignments she sets are copied straight off the internet, maybe with a bit of cut'n'pasting but often just a straight copy. We spend half an hour Googling phrases that the students were unlikely to have written (look for the long words!) and i'll bet we find 9 out of 10 sources. A written warning and a lecture from the head of studies and the problem is solved until the next year.
Maybe 1 in 10 are smart enough to cover their sources so we can't prove they cheated, but, hey, that almost counts as research...;-)
The SSC was a circular collider, not a linear collider, so it isn't a direct replacement.
ILC would study collisions between electrons and positrons. With circular colliders, one problem is that particles lose energy as they go round the ring (due to synchnotron radiation). As the energy increase these losses also increase. This is less of a problem for heavy particles (e.g. proton-antiproton) collisions, but circular colliders don't scale well for electron-positron collisions, hence the need for a linear collider.
I agree, it's one of the best rollplaying games I played. While most others promised fame, power and fortune as your character advanced, in the best H.P.Lovecraft tradition progress in Call of Cthulhu ultimately led to madness and the Arkham Asylum.
Planescape:Torment was the best of the computer AD&D games and one of the best RPGs ever (only Ultima at its best could equal it IMHO). Conversation was as important as fighting, and the best aspect was the great interaction with the rest of the party - huge elements of plot could be uncovered by talking to your companions. Wish they would make another.
Rather than buy shares, i've placed two bets on it: Opening price below $110, and close UP on 1st day.
If the price is down because the institutions aren't buying into an auction that deprives them of big fees - as the conspiracy theory says - then the price should move up as they start buying in at the lower price...
Based on my experience, I don't think anybody manages it well. I work on a Big product for a Big IT company, and in the past i've found (or, to be more honest, stumbled across) security problems that have been there for years. In Windows they would probably have been exploited, but our advantage, as such, is just that the product doesn't have the same level of exposure - so we're certainly no better at managing this stuff than MS, just lower profile...
Slashdot Mirror
The exact quote, from Mr Justice Jacob in Sony v Owen, is
"The fact is that if you spoil your CD, which has a recording of music on it, you have to go and buy another. The same is true of a CD carrying a game. Backups are not necessary at all."
Now you might quite reasonably consider this to be a completely daft ruling that only a judge that has never used a computer could come up with - and, academically, the judgement in Sony v Owens is considered rather flawed - but until a higher court overrules this interpretation of s.50A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, he is stating the law in the UK.
There is commentary elsewhere suggesting that backup of tape and floppy disk would be permitted (although AIUI it was said 'obiter dictum', i.e. it is not binding). UK law is not exactly up to date in this area..!
The UK has had no "fair use" defence since the 1930s (IIRC), when it was replaced with the statutory defence "fair dealing" and it's very limited - mainly copying printed material for "non-commercial research or private study".
Not in the UK. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) allows for backups "which it is necessary for [a user] to have for the purposes of his lawful use". This right cannot be revoked by contract, but the key words are "which it is necessary to have" - the courts have ruled in Sony v Owens (2002) that it is never necessary to backup a CD or DVD.
This was my area of expertise too, although I've now left astronomy. I worked indirectly with Volker Springel, who is extremely good (his simulation code, GADGET, was depressingly better than mine!). The bit that's new is the treatment of radiative transfer, which is extremely hard to model (the full treatment is a time-dependent function of six variables, so you have to simplify it somehow). Doing it well is an achievement in itself, but it's also where the numerics are likely to be wrong. The non-radiative aspect of the simulations isn't new (I did similar simulations for galaxy clusters in my thesis, and although I did them better - at the time - it wasn't new then).
Personal Systems Group made $162 million off turnover of nearly $13 billion, that's a 1.2% margin. Software group made $4.5 billion from a $15 billion turnover. Hell, WebSphere MQ Series made several times the profit of the whole PC business, and that's a team of maybe 200 people. CICS made even more. From IBM's point of view, Personal Systems Group isn't worth the effort or the risk.
*http://www.ibm.com/investor/financials/quarterly/ 4q04earnings.phtml
A sculpture probably isn't going to show enough detail, but old charts are interesting as they can show stars as being brighter or dimmer than they are today. For example, in the mid 19th century Eta Carinae was the second brightest star in the sky (after Sirius), now it's almost invisible to the naked eye (around 5th magnitude IIRC). The bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini were around the same magnitude, now Castor is dimmer (the brighter Pollux is still 'beta Geminorum'). I wonder what Hipparchos might have seen that we dont see now?
The problem is that a lack mathematical understanding verging on innumeracy is socially acceptable, cool even. Imagine boasting that you couldn't "do reading", and found books aimed at ten-year-olds too much of a challenge. If that was true, then you wouldn't admit it - but go out to eat with half a dozen friends or workmates, and when it comes to the bill people will cheerfully admit that they're rubbish at Maths and can't divide the total by six. I had one colleague who was impressed that I could divide £45 between seven people...
Now, if you've ever shown any ability to do any Maths, however basic, from their point of view you're forever "good at Maths". They don't know this book from Landau & Lifshitz, but you're "good at Maths" so you'll like it. Won't you?
In the UK, at least, Simon Singh's book on Fermat's last theorem was very successful, so they can be interested. However, most Maths books, even 'popular' Maths books, are awful for the lay-person.
It's usually regarded as a sign that the initial conditions and/or the model is somehow wrong - but as James Gleik points out in Chaos, it could just be that the real Earth hasn't done that yet.
In Europe, this is precisely the reason why GPS cannot be used as your sole aid to navigation. Other radio navigation aids, e.g. VOR or ILS, have defined quality of service agreements and a defined failure mode so that, if it fails unexpectedly, you know. GPS has neither - the USA can disable it or introduce errors at will. Hence GPS can be used as an aid to navigation, just not the only one.
I think there's probably a lot of pilots out there would couldn't navigate if it weren't for their GPS.
There shouldn't be - you're required to demonstrate an ability to navigate (without GPS) at every licence renewal.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Can't really argue with that, but in in the European Convention on Human Rights it becomes
Article 8:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Just cry "crime and terrorism" and that small-print in 8(2) takes it away again...
Sometimes you just wish that both sides can lose...
The article cites that one reason for the sale is the slim profits on the PC business, and gives as evidence the $100M profit IBM will make on the division this year. For comparison, WebSphere MQSeries makes a profit in excess of $400M per year, excluding profits generated by shipping it as part of WebSphere Application Server. You can fit the whole development and support team is a medium-sized conference room. CICS makes even more money from fewer people, although it's not a totally fair comparison - CICS is a very mature product. The PC business may usually make a profit, but it's as a result of far greater expenditure and risk. A bad year could easily turn that $100M profit into a big loss.
I don't know if they're as good as they were. My 770 was a brick, but bombproof. The T30, OTOH, lost half of its memory one day - that needed a new motherboard - and then the hard disk failed. It's been replaced with a new T40, which lasted a few days before PgUp came to pieces. Lovely laptop though, even with one fewer key.
Anybody know who all the stockholders at IBM are? We all need to email all of them. Great, thanks. I'd really like email from all of slashdot. Maybe you could try going on strike instead...!
However, the University my wife teaches at takes the view that this is too harsh a penalty for new first-year students who have done something stupid in their first few weeks at university; better a public telling-off and a lesson that they (and other students) hopefully will remember, rather than screwing up their University career at the first step.
At the risk of being Offtopic, the really sad thing is that some students have obviously learned in school that Google is a good place to go for their homework, and carry that on at University...
So to 'cheat' they have to carefully combine multiple sources, rewrite the sources in their own words, and to do that they have to think about the topic. And that's just what they are supposed to do...
My wife teaches at a university, and each year many of the first essay assignments she sets are copied straight off the internet, maybe with a bit of cut'n'pasting but often just a straight copy. We spend half an hour Googling phrases that the students were unlikely to have written (look for the long words!) and i'll bet we find 9 out of 10 sources. A written warning and a lecture from the head of studies and the problem is solved until the next year. Maybe 1 in 10 are smart enough to cover their sources so we can't prove they cheated, but, hey, that almost counts as research... ;-)
The SSC was a circular collider, not a linear collider, so it isn't a direct replacement. ILC would study collisions between electrons and positrons. With circular colliders, one problem is that particles lose energy as they go round the ring (due to synchnotron radiation). As the energy increase these losses also increase. This is less of a problem for heavy particles (e.g. proton-antiproton) collisions, but circular colliders don't scale well for electron-positron collisions, hence the need for a linear collider.
I agree, it's one of the best rollplaying games I played. While most others promised fame, power and fortune as your character advanced, in the best H.P.Lovecraft tradition progress in Call of Cthulhu ultimately led to madness and the Arkham Asylum.
Planescape:Torment was the best of the computer AD&D games and one of the best RPGs ever (only Ultima at its best could equal it IMHO). Conversation was as important as fighting, and the best aspect was the great interaction with the rest of the party - huge elements of plot could be uncovered by talking to your companions. Wish they would make another.
Rather than buy shares, i've placed two bets on it: Opening price below $110, and close UP on 1st day. If the price is down because the institutions aren't buying into an auction that deprives them of big fees - as the conspiracy theory says - then the price should move up as they start buying in at the lower price...
...are advertisers ready for competitive gaming on TV? If they are, it'll be shown.
Based on my experience, I don't think anybody manages it well. I work on a Big product for a Big IT company, and in the past i've found (or, to be more honest, stumbled across) security problems that have been there for years. In Windows they would probably have been exploited, but our advantage, as such, is just that the product doesn't have the same level of exposure - so we're certainly no better at managing this stuff than MS, just lower profile...