"hey kids, tell daddy to put the phone away! I'll even take it off his hands and put it in a safe place, how about that?!" Seriously? You want staff at Alton Towers to suggest to kids that they tell their dad or mum to hand over their smartphone to some complete stranger? I can think of no way on earth that would be considered socially acceptable.
Personally I think Alton Towers would be mad to try to implement this. The whole idea is fraught with problems and smartphones, I guess mainly Blackberries, are such a small part of the phone population in the UK that it hardly seems worth doing.
Now Chavs and Chavettes with music playing over their tinny phone speakers, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
Well, no. These sites' purpose and content consisted substantially of indexing and enabling the search for unlawful copies of copyrighted works. While Google certainly has some capability to do this as well, I don't think most people would see that as a substantial portion of their content or their purpose. Agreed. Although google does index Torrent search sites which probably makes their position somewhat ambiguous.
This case really isn't that surprising. Agreed for the specific example sites.
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Agreed. Though if you're not filtering the content and looking at every URL, this ruling sort of implies that even hosting the link makes you liable. OK so from TFA that sounds a bit of a stretch, and I do hate to invoke the thin end of the wedge, but I do sometimes wonder where common sense comes into law...
No, they can't filter without running a much higher risk of being held responsible for the content.
I see what you mean. An even worse can of worms to open.
Google's "SafeSearch" feature sort of skirts the fine edge of this reasoning, but hasn't been challenged yet (i.e. Google getting sued because someone found kiddie porn being "make available" via their search engine). Their broad filtering of search results in some non-U.S. markets might be "iffy" as well.
I would have thought the visibility of the safe search function would mitigate against this - it's very clearly there and easy to turn on and off.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers [wikipedia.org].
I would hope so, otherwise the whole concept of a searchable internet falls on its arse there and then.
I see this as a very bad thing all around. Surely the point of search engines is that they provide access to all corners of teh interweb and can only do this by hitting every site and indexing it. If they become responsible for the content on those sites, or rather not providing links to "illegal" content, how do they continue to provide that access when they may potentially have to vet every link they index?
OK, so they can filter but surely that's as much of a minefield as indexing everything? Imagine the law suits when their filtering algorithms start excluding one company and include their opposition.
I have several major clients in London and Canary Wharf that I visit occasionally. I do have a glance at the machines on people's desks as I'm making my way to a server room somewhere but I can't recall ever seeing a Mac.
I suspect I should have qualified that.
There were often macs in use in coffee shops at Canary Wharf, so not in offices but a more general response to "I've never seen..." and I suspect those end up being used in offices out there.
At the company where I worked, most of the technical architecture team were transitioning to using macs. When I moved on there four users out of a team of 12 with Macs with more on order. 50-50 sexiness and the outrageous charges for running a thinkpad/xp for a year.
And in ***ALL*** that time here in the UK, I have seen a total of ***THREE*** Macs anywhere - one was a notebook owned by an American trainer on a course I did, my friend has a Mac gathering dust in its box in his study because his boss gave it to him not knowing what to do with it and he doesn't know what to do with it either, and the third was a student posing with one in a local coffee store.
It's odd. I've had four macs myself since 2002. Now running a MacBook Pro. While working on site at a client there were 8 other Mac users all on the same floor. And at Canary Wharf they're all over the place.
By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.
I have a feeling the window of opportunity Apple opened by the unlimited internet deals they struck has now been closed.
Back in September, unlimited deals were rare and the Apple contract looked like a good deal. Now, data costs are dropping like a stone and the iPhone I was sure I was going to buy in November when my Orange contract expires is starting to look expensive.
If Apple don't re-negotiate those contracts the whole deal becomes less attractive. If they do, then they're into the price-cutting non-premium end of the market which is where they don't want to be.
Or "The Santaroga Barrier". No special effects, a bit "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but with a good cast would work well. Or "The Dragon in the Sea", all closed spaces and psycholgy.
Just not "The Jesus Incident", for ghod's sake not that ever.
People who read Dune had problems with the Lynch version -- HUGE problems. But it was paced well, delivered lines with impact and was visually stunning. A big-budget film needs to take its cues from the Lynch version, not SciFi's.
To be honest I'm in the enjoy them both camp. Dune is for me one of the finest Sci Fi novels ever written. By a distance.
Lynch's film isn't in the same class, there are just too may odd things added and subtracted from the story, but I still think it's a decent film which I enjoy watching and will watch again.
Are you kidding? Disabling the device would have users furious, and rightly so. And it may not be possible to skip the parts which are incompatible... but only Microsoft can tell us that one.
I'm confused, or perhaps it's the Magners. But why is it that a device that was supported under Vista isn't supported under Vista SP1?
Agreed, disabling devices would be bad and refusing to install on a working machine is good but did Microsoft take a red pen to the supported devices list in SP1?
I'll have to second this. Peter F. Hamilton's space operas are more accessible, equally engrossing, and after finishing them, more rewarding.
Although he does suffer Stephenson's disease - he really has a hard time finishing a story. But having said that, I've enjoyed pretty much every book he's written.
Alastair Reynolds has fast become one of my favourites. The Redemption Arc series are good value, improving as they go on, and Century Rain and Pushing Ice are absolutely brilliant.
And the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard Morgan are worth a look - the first one, Altered Carbon has been picked up, possibly to be filmed for some time in 2009.
I'm happy to call it American football if you're okay to call soccer European or world football.
Feel free. Though I should point out that Soccer is a contraction of Association Football, there's a good article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(soccer)#History_and_development, and predates American Football by some time - the first rules being codified in the 1850s. The less charitable among us followers of more robust codes tend to call it Wendyball or poofball, mainly because of all the falling over, rolling about and crying that goes on.
Then there's Rugby Union (football), which dates from around the same time, and the bastard child Rugby League, aka the thickhead crashball game. Not to mention a whole host of other games including a number of forms played in Ireland (Gaelic) which have been played for close to 700 years.
Compared to all of these games, American Football can be considered something of a johny-come-lately.
So call it Football if you want, but the rest of the world differentiates different styles of football even if you're not aware of their existence.
Why not just install XP on the laptop she already has?
The only reason I can think of is access to drivers. If the vendor ships a laptop with Vista on it and doesn't offer XP as an option then you're unlikely to get drivers from them. That leaves you with going to the original manufacturer and if they don't make it easy for you to get them, you could be making a lot of work for yourself.
But having said that, going long on copies of XP may be a good way of getting around the current financial market instability.
Actually, it sounds like a pretty solid novel by Algis Budrys called Rogue Moon [wikipedia.org]
See also Clifford Simak's Way Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Station_(novel). Both excellent books IMHO.
Probably because if push came to shove the RIAA would lose any such battles. Anyway their current tactics, intended for use against individuals, probably just wouldn't be much use against other corporates.
So stating the obvious, nothing more than playground bullies.
I believe the UK agency formerly known as Customs and Excise didn't need a warrant to search your house. In that respect they had more powers of search and seizure than the Police.
Aren't Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Sandisk and anyone else that sells a device and software to transfer music from CDs to the device doing just the same? If what they're doing is illegal, why are the RIAA not hitting them as well?
Same here. I'm saying, in a nutshell, "even if Miss Bloody Perfect sat next to me on a _plane_, after all that air travel ordeal, I just wouldn't be in the mood to chat even her up." It just doesn't carry the same message if you pick something in between. "If a passable woman, nothing that enough beer won't fix, and only a little overweight sat next to me, I'd be too stressed to chat her up," just doesn't have the same impact, you know.
Seriously? Too stressed?
One of my last flights was from London to Boston, economy class, and even then I was sorely tempted to try out the sarf london accent on the rather hot security guard (female before anyone asks) at the passport check queue. Even with the uniform, the night stick and the 9mm she was a very attractive proposition. Or was that because of the uniform, the night stick and the 9mm? I can't be sure.
OK, so that's not on a plane but pretty near close...
Setting aside the complex question of copyright infringement, isn't plagiarism, as TFA mentions, the more obvious "crime" here? Although as they don't appear to be an educational establishment perhaps they don't view the plagiarism of someone else's research in quite the same light.
A research and advocacy project is selected when it is in harmony with Discovery's mission, when the Institute can make an original and significant contribution to the issue's development and when it is within the Institute's resources.
Well I suppose it is an original spin on the information.
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Personally I think Alton Towers would be mad to try to implement this. The whole idea is fraught with problems and smartphones, I guess mainly Blackberries, are such a small part of the phone population in the UK that it hardly seems worth doing.
Now Chavs and Chavettes with music playing over their tinny phone speakers, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
if i was in charge of a search engine and my web spiders found some kiddie porn i would most definitely forward that information to the police as quickly as possible, (i am sure Google already does that)...
Agreed. Though if you're not filtering the content and looking at every URL, this ruling sort of implies that even hosting the link makes you liable. OK so from TFA that sounds a bit of a stretch, and I do hate to invoke the thin end of the wedge, but I do sometimes wonder where common sense comes into law...
Sounds horrible to me.
No, they can't filter without running a much higher risk of being held responsible for the content.
I see what you mean. An even worse can of worms to open.
Google's "SafeSearch" feature sort of skirts the fine edge of this reasoning, but hasn't been challenged yet (i.e. Google getting sued because someone found kiddie porn being "make available" via their search engine). Their broad filtering of search results in some non-U.S. markets might be "iffy" as well.
I would have thought the visibility of the safe search function would mitigate against this - it's very clearly there and easy to turn on and off.
Although not meeting the strict legal definition as such, search engine providers like Google could conceivably angle for the protections afforded common carriers [wikipedia.org].
I would hope so, otherwise the whole concept of a searchable internet falls on its arse there and then.
I see this as a very bad thing all around. Surely the point of search engines is that they provide access to all corners of teh interweb and can only do this by hitting every site and indexing it. If they become responsible for the content on those sites, or rather not providing links to "illegal" content, how do they continue to provide that access when they may potentially have to vet every link they index?
OK, so they can filter but surely that's as much of a minefield as indexing everything? Imagine the law suits when their filtering algorithms start excluding one company and include their opposition.
Not sure I like the sound of this.
I have several major clients in London and Canary Wharf that I visit occasionally. I do have a glance at the machines on people's desks as I'm making my way to a server room somewhere but I can't recall ever seeing a Mac.
I suspect I should have qualified that.
There were often macs in use in coffee shops at Canary Wharf, so not in offices but a more general response to "I've never seen..." and I suspect those end up being used in offices out there.
At the company where I worked, most of the technical architecture team were transitioning to using macs. When I moved on there four users out of a team of 12 with Macs with more on order. 50-50 sexiness and the outrageous charges for running a thinkpad/xp for a year.
And in ***ALL*** that time here in the UK, I have seen a total of ***THREE*** Macs anywhere - one was a notebook owned by an American trainer on a course I did, my friend has a Mac gathering dust in its box in his study because his boss gave it to him not knowing what to do with it and he doesn't know what to do with it either, and the third was a student posing with one in a local coffee store.
It's odd. I've had four macs myself since 2002. Now running a MacBook Pro. While working on site at a client there were 8 other Mac users all on the same floor. And at Canary Wharf they're all over the place.
New assignment and it's me alone.
Some places do, some don't.
By comparison, my current phone contract which gave me a free HTC Tytn II is £15/month for free internet and £60+ worth of calls and texts.
I have a feeling the window of opportunity Apple opened by the unlimited internet deals they struck has now been closed.
Back in September, unlimited deals were rare and the Apple contract looked like a good deal. Now, data costs are dropping like a stone and the iPhone I was sure I was going to buy in November when my Orange contract expires is starting to look expensive.
If Apple don't re-negotiate those contracts the whole deal becomes less attractive. If they do, then they're into the price-cutting non-premium end of the market which is where they don't want to be.
It could get interesting.
I suspect you've misunderstood the saying "I'll be fucked if I'd pay that much for an iPhone."
Or "The Santaroga Barrier". No special effects, a bit "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but with a good cast would work well. Or "The Dragon in the Sea", all closed spaces and psycholgy.
Just not "The Jesus Incident", for ghod's sake not that ever.
People who read Dune had problems with the Lynch version -- HUGE problems. But it was paced well, delivered lines with impact and was visually stunning. A big-budget film needs to take its cues from the Lynch version, not SciFi's.
To be honest I'm in the enjoy them both camp. Dune is for me one of the finest Sci Fi novels ever written. By a distance.
Lynch's film isn't in the same class, there are just too may odd things added and subtracted from the story, but I still think it's a decent film which I enjoy watching and will watch again.
And I'm +1 on Viggo for Leto.
Well it is if you've got it on top of windows.
Now that's just plain nasty.
Soon you'll need the entire contents of Mac OSX on your computer just to listen to music.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Are you kidding? Disabling the device would have users furious, and rightly so. And it may not be possible to skip the parts which are incompatible... but only Microsoft can tell us that one.
I'm confused, or perhaps it's the Magners. But why is it that a device that was supported under Vista isn't supported under Vista SP1?
Agreed, disabling devices would be bad and refusing to install on a working machine is good but did Microsoft take a red pen to the supported devices list in SP1?
I'll have to second this. Peter F. Hamilton's space operas are more accessible, equally engrossing, and after finishing them, more rewarding.
Although he does suffer Stephenson's disease - he really has a hard time finishing a story. But having said that, I've enjoyed pretty much every book he's written.
Alastair Reynolds has fast become one of my favourites. The Redemption Arc series are good value, improving as they go on, and Century Rain and Pushing Ice are absolutely brilliant.
And the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard Morgan are worth a look - the first one, Altered Carbon has been picked up, possibly to be filmed for some time in 2009.
I'm happy to call it American football if you're okay to call soccer European or world football.
Feel free. Though I should point out that Soccer is a contraction of Association Football, there's a good article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(soccer)#History_and_development, and predates American Football by some time - the first rules being codified in the 1850s. The less charitable among us followers of more robust codes tend to call it Wendyball or poofball, mainly because of all the falling over, rolling about and crying that goes on.
Then there's Rugby Union (football), which dates from around the same time, and the bastard child Rugby League, aka the thickhead crashball game. Not to mention a whole host of other games including a number of forms played in Ireland (Gaelic) which have been played for close to 700 years.
Compared to all of these games, American Football can be considered something of a johny-come-lately.
So call it Football if you want, but the rest of the world differentiates different styles of football even if you're not aware of their existence.
Why not just install XP on the laptop she already has?
The only reason I can think of is access to drivers. If the vendor ships a laptop with Vista on it and doesn't offer XP as an option then you're unlikely to get drivers from them. That leaves you with going to the original manufacturer and if they don't make it easy for you to get them, you could be making a lot of work for yourself.
But having said that, going long on copies of XP may be a good way of getting around the current financial market instability.
Actually, it sounds like a pretty solid novel by Algis Budrys called Rogue Moon [wikipedia.org] See also Clifford Simak's Way Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Station_(novel). Both excellent books IMHO.
... no, they'd deserve far better.
Cue the appearance of 100 million unsold copies of Windows ME.
Probably because if push came to shove the RIAA would lose any such battles. Anyway their current tactics, intended for use against individuals, probably just wouldn't be much use against other corporates.
So stating the obvious, nothing more than playground bullies.
I believe the UK agency formerly known as Customs and Excise didn't need a warrant to search your house. In that respect they had more powers of search and seizure than the Police.
Imagine if the RIAA ever had those powers...
Aren't Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Sandisk and anyone else that sells a device and software to transfer music from CDs to the device doing just the same? If what they're doing is illegal, why are the RIAA not hitting them as well?
Same here. I'm saying, in a nutshell, "even if Miss Bloody Perfect sat next to me on a _plane_, after all that air travel ordeal, I just wouldn't be in the mood to chat even her up." It just doesn't carry the same message if you pick something in between. "If a passable woman, nothing that enough beer won't fix, and only a little overweight sat next to me, I'd be too stressed to chat her up," just doesn't have the same impact, you know.
Seriously? Too stressed?
One of my last flights was from London to Boston, economy class, and even then I was sorely tempted to try out the sarf london accent on the rather hot security guard (female before anyone asks) at the passport check queue. Even with the uniform, the night stick and the 9mm she was a very attractive proposition. Or was that because of the uniform, the night stick and the 9mm? I can't be sure.
OK, so that's not on a plane but pretty near close...
Setting aside the complex question of copyright infringement, isn't plagiarism, as TFA mentions, the more obvious "crime" here? Although as they don't appear to be an educational establishment perhaps they don't view the plagiarism of someone else's research in quite the same light.
They also seem to have a different view of the word original. From http://www.discovery.org/aboutFunctions.php
A research and advocacy project is selected when it is in harmony with Discovery's mission, when the Institute can make an original and significant contribution to the issue's development and when it is within the Institute's resources.
Well I suppose it is an original spin on the information.