Visa is a sister to visus and visum, yes. But it's not, by itself, where our word "visa" came from.
You've evidently put some effort into this, and I think that merits a reply, even if your attitude doesn't.
Your idea of "etymologically related" appears to be different from that of the rest of the world. If they're all participles of the same verb, they're certainly "etymologically related"! The fact that the English word comes from a phrase that uses the participle isn't really relevant; if you leave out the noun, it doesn't suddenly stop being a participle -- it's standard practice in Latin to use a modifier without a noun as a substantive in its own right. (That being the case, I can certainly see how once you omit the noun, it is not unnatural for it to shift to neuter, so it's not really hard to see why the Dutch use that form. I refer you to the sibling post by pimpimpim (thank you, pimpimpim) on the relevance of Dutch.)
I repeat: "visa" (which, as you correctly repeat, comes from carta visa) comes from videre "to see", not from visere -- even though visere is, dare I say, etymologically related to videre, and has a related meaning, the two are definitely separate verbs.
"clamose" is an adverb, not a noun; you might want to consider removing the preposition. It doesn't really look like that is supposed to be ironic, it just looks like unintentionally poor Latin.
Business software isn't the be-all and end-all. As long as there are home/private users there'll be a market for standalone software. Not everyone has internet access; of those who do, most are still on dial-up; and of those who are on broadband, a non-negligible number have bandwidth caps. Standalone software isn't going anywhere.
You have no business criticising other people's Latin: your own is poor. The verb is videre, not visere; visum most certainly is etymologically related, it is simply the neuter form; "ptp." doesn't mean anything; your sig is bad Latin; the form visum is routinely used in some languages, notably Dutch; and, to boot, you are wildly off-topic (as I am also, now -- see what you made me do?!!).
Most interesting. Yet another response that is aimed not at disagreeing with ESR, but with attacking his character.
But you know what? As a potential Linux user myself, I don't give a toss about his character. But a look at the responses he got, both on-list and here, has certainly led me to have strong views about which distro I will go to first when I do finally make space for a Linux partition. (Hint: it won't be Fedora. It might not be Ubuntu either, but it certainly won't be Fedora.)
I disagree, i hear many people wishing for a online app repository of free apps for windows and osX
There are one or two options. I've found Fink on Mac OS X to be OK (though annoying in some ways). On Windows there's win-get; I haven't tried it, but here's an app list. Some of them look a bit out of date though.
Something to add to what the sibling posts have already said:
The other side of the coin is if anyone creates a work, it's theirs, not you the consumer. If you purchase a song, a book, a bit of art, or a software product, you understand you are purchasing it for your use under certain conditions of the sale.
This is absolutely untrue in most parts of the world. In the US, the First-sale Doctrine, and elsewhere in the world the Principle of Exhaustion of Rights, which are firmly established in law in most parts of the world, state that when you buy a copyrighted work, you are most definitely free to do with it as you please, subject to specific limitations imposed by copyright law; in particular, you are allowed to re-sell it.
That is to say, by law, copyright is not a catch-all "The buyer has no rights" licence; the conditions that are imposed on the buyer are very specific in scope.
No. In the Roman Empire, there was a very active publishing scene, where the recitals of poets or the plays of playwrights were transcribed, copied by slaves, and sold in the marketplace.
I guess you're making the point that potential control of distribution channels doesn't necessarily have to mean an actual monopoly over distribution channels -- that a free market in distribution without the existence of copyright can work perfectly well. Some sibling posts seem to have missed that; I guess it needs to be made explicit. However, I think you're over-simplifying: it could only work in ancient Rome because of patronage:
Most popular literary figures had little contact with the ruling powers in the writing and dissemination of their works. People like Plautus were relatively insignificant commoners, and do you think that Hesiod and Homer had to wait for the permission of a king for their poetry to gain acclaim? And even when some work or another ended up irking the powers that be, the result was not an end to publication (Ovid's work spread widely) by the exile of the individual writer.
-- here is where I think you are over-simplifying. Ovid's work may have been widely distributed, but obviously he didn't want to be exiled. People like Ovid and other Augustan poets (and earlier Greek poets like Pindar and, yes, perhaps Homer) depended on their social superiors as patrons, not in an economic sense, but at the very least for PR -- and yes, of course that relationship worked both ways: both sides stood to gain in status. Some exceptional figures (like Catullus?) may have been able to gain fame and publish their work without patronage, but that can't have been a common situation. And who knows what Plautus' situation was with respect to patronage? We don't have the evidence from his period.
You need to calculate the economy over the entire segment. As a segment with monopolistic competition, the revenue extraction is more or less maximized, ie, you pretty much cannot get more total money out of the consumers for the specific product segment.
You may want to be careful about offering arguments like this. The report itself offers figures to show that the intellectual property industry as a whole constituted well over 11% of the US GDP in 2005, that the figure is steadily growing, and that the added value from the IP industry is out of proportion with the size of the industry. Now, you may want to dispute the figures; I'd be happy to see that. But it really doesn't look to me like an argument based on economic benefit is going to be on the side of the general public; it seems to me that the argument has to be based on cultural benefit, general all-purpose morality.
Thank you. That's something I've been looking for for a long time. It looks superb, and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Very interesting essay on engraving they've got, too.
Agreed. While WP would certainly be improved by greater involvement by academics, it is not a good time investment for academics. What you propose (which also serendipitously happens to be the status quo) remains a way to contribute indirectly.
(Having said that, I'm not sure how often WP editors who are not academics read peer-reviewed articles in established journals.)
I wonder if that's in cash moved, or in raw numbers of tracks/CDs. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in Australasia and Europe the market has been progressively flooded in the last ten years by budget classical CDs from Eastern Europe; it's kind of hard to resist splurging on a dozen CDs if they cost only 99 cents each, so I'd imagine that would have done something to sales. Even so I get the impression that the market for high-price specialist stuff is still doing well (classical music fans tend to be picky about performers, so iTunes/AllofMP3/etc. is rarely the last stop when shopping around).
I haven't played PNP D&D since the Basic days; all my contact since then has been via video games. But I actually really miss the numerical oddities of AD&D (2nd edition, I presume; I'm not sure if editions 1 or 2.5 have been used in video games). I also miss the less linear saving throw tables and the esoteric issues over multi-classing. I just kinda feel that because video games already simplify things enormously, the added simplification of using version 3/3.5 rules takes some of the fun away...
... it takes all sorts.
I wonder how difficult it would be for a D&D video game to implement multiple sets of stats in-game, and allow the player to choose 2nd or 3rd edition rules when starting a new game?... very, I suppose.
That does sound fun. Hope it comes out for PC someday. Tee-hee, this discussion does remind me of occasions in Deus Ex when I'd suddenly find myself moving only much closer to the ground than normal, very slowly and with a dragging motion, and eventually realise that it was because my legs had stopped working.
They're offering an inch and you're turning your noses up because you want a mile.
AllofMP3 already gave the world that mile. The only reason they're offering an inch is because miles are available through other channels.
Wanting a mile is the only way anything is ever going to change. Just like in any kind of bargaining: you're always going to get screwed unless you start off by asking for just a bit more than you think you can get away with.
No, DX10 cannot come to XP, as it relies on a totally different driver model. OTOH, it may one day be possible to get DX10 going on WinXP through WINE -- the wINE folks are working on it. (Although then, why bother with Windows?)
And, as others have pointed out already (though in different words), the expert on what to teach and how to teach it is... well, let's say it's not the campus cops, it's not the IT department, and it's not the university management.
Bascially, in a commercial business, the employees are there to serve the business; but in a university, everyone is there to serve the professor's needs. (Or should be. That's not actually been the case at any university I've been to.) I get the feeling academic freedom is often a misnomer, really; the real issue is with bureaucrats not trusting the expertise of the experts.
Slashdot Mirror
You've evidently put some effort into this, and I think that merits a reply, even if your attitude doesn't.
Business software isn't the be-all and end-all. As long as there are home/private users there'll be a market for standalone software. Not everyone has internet access; of those who do, most are still on dial-up; and of those who are on broadband, a non-negligible number have bandwidth caps. Standalone software isn't going anywhere.
You have no business criticising other people's Latin: your own is poor. The verb is videre, not visere; visum most certainly is etymologically related, it is simply the neuter form; "ptp." doesn't mean anything; your sig is bad Latin; the form visum is routinely used in some languages, notably Dutch; and, to boot, you are wildly off-topic (as I am also, now -- see what you made me do?!!).
Speak for yourself! -- damn whingeing pommies.
(No, no other English-speaking nation in the world is on your side in this .. well, maybe Ireland.)
Most interesting. Yet another response that is aimed not at disagreeing with ESR, but with attacking his character.
But you know what? As a potential Linux user myself, I don't give a toss about his character. But a look at the responses he got, both on-list and here, has certainly led me to have strong views about which distro I will go to first when I do finally make space for a Linux partition. (Hint: it won't be Fedora. It might not be Ubuntu either, but it certainly won't be Fedora.)
There are one or two options. I've found Fink on Mac OS X to be OK (though annoying in some ways). On Windows there's win-get; I haven't tried it, but here's an app list. Some of them look a bit out of date though.
Something to add to what the sibling posts have already said:
The other side of the coin is if anyone creates a work, it's theirs, not you the consumer. If you purchase a song, a book, a bit of art, or a software product, you understand you are purchasing it for your use under certain conditions of the sale.This is absolutely untrue in most parts of the world. In the US, the First-sale Doctrine, and elsewhere in the world the Principle of Exhaustion of Rights, which are firmly established in law in most parts of the world, state that when you buy a copyrighted work, you are most definitely free to do with it as you please, subject to specific limitations imposed by copyright law; in particular, you are allowed to re-sell it.
That is to say, by law, copyright is not a catch-all "The buyer has no rights" licence; the conditions that are imposed on the buyer are very specific in scope.
I guess you're making the point that potential control of distribution channels doesn't necessarily have to mean an actual monopoly over distribution channels -- that a free market in distribution without the existence of copyright can work perfectly well. Some sibling posts seem to have missed that; I guess it needs to be made explicit. However, I think you're over-simplifying: it could only work in ancient Rome because of patronage:
Most popular literary figures had little contact with the ruling powers in the writing and dissemination of their works. People like Plautus were relatively insignificant commoners, and do you think that Hesiod and Homer had to wait for the permission of a king for their poetry to gain acclaim? And even when some work or another ended up irking the powers that be, the result was not an end to publication (Ovid's work spread widely) by the exile of the individual writer.-- here is where I think you are over-simplifying. Ovid's work may have been widely distributed, but obviously he didn't want to be exiled. People like Ovid and other Augustan poets (and earlier Greek poets like Pindar and, yes, perhaps Homer) depended on their social superiors as patrons, not in an economic sense, but at the very least for PR -- and yes, of course that relationship worked both ways: both sides stood to gain in status. Some exceptional figures (like Catullus?) may have been able to gain fame and publish their work without patronage, but that can't have been a common situation. And who knows what Plautus' situation was with respect to patronage? We don't have the evidence from his period.
"we're better off having copyright laws."
You need to calculate the economy over the entire segment. As a segment with monopolistic competition, the revenue extraction is more or less maximized, ie, you pretty much cannot get more total money out of the consumers for the specific product segment.
You may want to be careful about offering arguments like this. The report itself offers figures to show that the intellectual property industry as a whole constituted well over 11% of the US GDP in 2005, that the figure is steadily growing, and that the added value from the IP industry is out of proportion with the size of the industry. Now, you may want to dispute the figures; I'd be happy to see that. But it really doesn't look to me like an argument based on economic benefit is going to be on the side of the general public; it seems to me that the argument has to be based on cultural benefit, general all-purpose morality.
Thank you. That's something I've been looking for for a long time. It looks superb, and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Very interesting essay on engraving they've got, too.
Anything that makes WP even more arcane is 100% certain to drive off potential contributors.
Agreed. While WP would certainly be improved by greater involvement by academics, it is not a good time investment for academics. What you propose (which also serendipitously happens to be the status quo) remains a way to contribute indirectly.
(Having said that, I'm not sure how often WP editors who are not academics read peer-reviewed articles in established journals.)
I am an academic, and occasionally I have tried putting on my CV some substantial WP articles that I have created. It has not gone down well.
Notice what happens when you go to http://local.wikia.com/ and try to "choose your town"? Notice what all the articles at http://politics.wikia.com/ are about? See any Bollywood stars at http://entertainment.wikia.com/ ?
Seems to me it's not focused in three areas, it's focused in precisely one area and one area only; outsiders not welcome.
Someone mod parent informative to the roof. This is the most important question people have been posting.
I wonder if that's in cash moved, or in raw numbers of tracks/CDs. I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in Australasia and Europe the market has been progressively flooded in the last ten years by budget classical CDs from Eastern Europe; it's kind of hard to resist splurging on a dozen CDs if they cost only 99 cents each, so I'd imagine that would have done something to sales. Even so I get the impression that the market for high-price specialist stuff is still doing well (classical music fans tend to be picky about performers, so iTunes/AllofMP3/etc. is rarely the last stop when shopping around).
Anyway, thanks for the pointer.
Fear not. Dr Kool, PhD, is one of the funniest people on Slashdot. I say that thinking particularly of this recent masterpiece.
I haven't played PNP D&D since the Basic days; all my contact since then has been via video games. But I actually really miss the numerical oddities of AD&D (2nd edition, I presume; I'm not sure if editions 1 or 2.5 have been used in video games). I also miss the less linear saving throw tables and the esoteric issues over multi-classing. I just kinda feel that because video games already simplify things enormously, the added simplification of using version 3/3.5 rules takes some of the fun away ...
... it takes all sorts.
I wonder how difficult it would be for a D&D video game to implement multiple sets of stats in-game, and allow the player to choose 2nd or 3rd edition rules when starting a new game? ... very, I suppose.
Whoops, it is of course out for PC, it's just that my usual game store doesn't have it in its catalogue at the moment. Ho-hum ...
That does sound fun. Hope it comes out for PC someday. Tee-hee, this discussion does remind me of occasions in Deus Ex when I'd suddenly find myself moving only much closer to the ground than normal, very slowly and with a dragging motion, and eventually realise that it was because my legs had stopped working.
That's most interesting -- I hadn't heard that. Could you suggest some further reading on this (a.k.a. provide a source)?
...why do we even still need record companies?So, you get record companies. They distribute and market your songs,
There's your answer. The internet takes care of distribution, but marketing still controls what people actually spend their money on.
AllofMP3 already gave the world that mile. The only reason they're offering an inch is because miles are available through other channels.
Wanting a mile is the only way anything is ever going to change. Just like in any kind of bargaining: you're always going to get screwed unless you start off by asking for just a bit more than you think you can get away with.
No, DX10 cannot come to XP, as it relies on a totally different driver model. OTOH, it may one day be possible to get DX10 going on WinXP through WINE -- the wINE folks are working on it. (Although then, why bother with Windows?)
And, as others have pointed out already (though in different words), the expert on what to teach and how to teach it is ... well, let's say it's not the campus cops, it's not the IT department, and it's not the university management.
Bascially, in a commercial business, the employees are there to serve the business; but in a university, everyone is there to serve the professor's needs. (Or should be. That's not actually been the case at any university I've been to.) I get the feeling academic freedom is often a misnomer, really; the real issue is with bureaucrats not trusting the expertise of the experts.