The question is ultimately what is money? The OED defines money as "Any generally accepted medium of exchange which enables a society to trade goods without the need for barter; any objects or tokens regarded as a store of value and used as a medium of exchange." Therefore bitcoins are money.
Government definitions are usually somewhat less flexible. I would expect that this might go to SCOTUS regardless of the ruling.
The cloud is no place to store your data. Clouds are, by their nature temporary and a very vapourous item.
I want my data on my servers. I need to be able to access the data from anywhere. I have no trust that the cloud where I store my data will not disappear, go out of business or otherwise vanish. I might keep a backup on a cloud server (as long as only I have a password and the encryption is 256bit) but, never my primary data.
When did the internet revolve around what the RIAA thought. It seems that their ultimate concern is that they will become irrevelant and end up with the buggy whip manufacturers. The world they were created in no longer exists and they are fighting to keep it around. What will happen if the RIAA is not around... nothing at all. Good bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
DRM is a method by which the distributors can keep charging consumers ad nauseum for access to what they already have paid for. Same goes for media format changes (LP, Cassette, CD, VHS, Beta, DVD, MP3, etc...) We are living an age where you don't purchase anything, you only rent it monthly or weekly. When you purchase a blender you own it. You can use it as you choose, where, when and how. Imagine if when you paid for a blender there was a EULA that stated that you actually did not purchase the blender but only a license to use it. Also by "opening this blender you agree to only blend drinks for 4 people or less" (you could purchase a license for a 4 to 8 person blender) and that you could not have any alcoholic product in the blender. And that if you violated any of the EULA that the licenser of the blender could turn off the blender remotely and you have no leave for appeal. That effectively is what the distributors of music want and DRM is the enforcement mechanism. We have become the ultimate in consumer society, we can now pay money for items we can never own. What's next on the restricted list, cars, shoes, clothing, food... (by purchasing this potato you agree that it will used for its nutritional content only and not for use in advertising or promotion, and built into it is a chip to sense camera lights and explode the potato to prevent such uses) We need to take back our rights as consumers, avoid DRM protected media, and challenge EULA's at every opportunity (most won't hold up in court anyway). Lets stop purchasing rights and start purchasing products.
The problem is that all large scale databases are doomed by stupidity from the start. The inputs are widely variable and the outputs change based on who you ask. Doctors need one set of information, accounting need something completely different and management wants to know when the client has exceeded they allotment of care. Also the parameters of the project keep changing, privacy issues arise, connectivity problems show up and the government adds legislation that adds a new level of complexity.
Under current project design specification and best practices we couldn't get a network protocol designed in 20 years with a $20Billion budget.
I guess I don't quite understand how billions of dollars can be wasted on something that doesn't work. If I spend money on something I expect it to perform the task for which it was designed. If it doesn't then I expect the manufacture, builder or employees to fix it. I realize that large projects mean large headaches and there are times when the problems happen. But if I contract to a company or hire employees to complete the job and they don't or are way over budget, its firing time. I understand hundreds and thousands and even hundreds of thousands, but billions! Lets use that money and hire filing clerks, filing cabinets and do the whole thing by hand. It almost sounds like it might cost less.
I guess if you have no defined project with no defined timeline and a virtually unlimited budget then spending a few billion is not a problem (I know this sounds an awful like a current war).
Lets define the problem, define the solution, create and timeline and budget and stick to it. If you change the parameters in the middle everything downstream changes and what you already have done may need to be scrapped. Let everything be completed and then start the change process. Just because you can make changes does not mean you have to.
There are a few things I have missed here and some ideas may have been simplified for illustration so if you don't get it you probably work for large organizations with unlimited budgets or the military.
There are much larger issues at stake than one persons employment. If your employer wants to "own" your thoughts and developments during the period of employment then they have to purchase that right. Employees have to stop signing employment contracts that remove their future rights without adaquate compensation. At it's simplest the implied employment contract is "I agree to perform work for you and you agree to pay me for that work". If an employer wants to extend the contract to include ideas that you might develop during your employment, however unrelated to the company, then they need to compensate you for that.
Remember, contracts are only enforceable if they are fair and equatible to both parties
.
Don't sign employment contracts without speaking to council. Your prospective employer spoke with their council to develop the contract. You have a right to speak with yours.
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"You can buy better, but you can't pay more"
The question is ultimately what is money? The OED defines money as "Any generally accepted medium of exchange which enables a society to trade goods without the need for barter; any objects or tokens regarded as a store of value and used as a medium of exchange." Therefore bitcoins are money. Government definitions are usually somewhat less flexible. I would expect that this might go to SCOTUS regardless of the ruling.
Who says they didn't?
The cloud is no place to store your data. Clouds are, by their nature temporary and a very vapourous item. I want my data on my servers. I need to be able to access the data from anywhere. I have no trust that the cloud where I store my data will not disappear, go out of business or otherwise vanish. I might keep a backup on a cloud server (as long as only I have a password and the encryption is 256bit) but, never my primary data.
When did the internet revolve around what the RIAA thought. It seems that their ultimate concern is that they will become irrevelant and end up with the buggy whip manufacturers. The world they were created in no longer exists and they are fighting to keep it around. What will happen if the RIAA is not around... nothing at all. Good bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
It looks like their site has stopped responding and offline. Making a dumb move and then a stupid comment can cause website outage.
DRM is a method by which the distributors can keep charging consumers ad nauseum for access to what they already have paid for. Same goes for media format changes (LP, Cassette, CD, VHS, Beta, DVD, MP3, etc...) We are living an age where you don't purchase anything, you only rent it monthly or weekly.
When you purchase a blender you own it. You can use it as you choose, where, when and how.
Imagine if when you paid for a blender there was a EULA that stated that you actually did not purchase the blender but only a license to use it. Also by "opening this blender you agree to only blend drinks for 4 people or less" (you could purchase a license for a 4 to 8 person blender) and that you could not have any alcoholic product in the blender. And that if you violated any of the EULA that the licenser of the blender could turn off the blender remotely and you have no leave for appeal. That effectively is what the distributors of music want and DRM is the enforcement mechanism.
We have become the ultimate in consumer society, we can now pay money for items we can never own. What's next on the restricted list, cars, shoes, clothing, food... (by purchasing this potato you agree that it will used for its nutritional content only and not for use in advertising or promotion, and built into it is a chip to sense camera lights and explode the potato to prevent such uses)
We need to take back our rights as consumers, avoid DRM protected media, and challenge EULA's at every opportunity (most won't hold up in court anyway). Lets stop purchasing rights and start purchasing products.
The problem is that all large scale databases are doomed by stupidity from the start. The inputs are widely variable and the outputs change based on who you ask. Doctors need one set of information, accounting need something completely different and management wants to know when the client has exceeded they allotment of care. Also the parameters of the project keep changing, privacy issues arise, connectivity problems show up and the government adds legislation that adds a new level of complexity. Under current project design specification and best practices we couldn't get a network protocol designed in 20 years with a $20Billion budget. I guess I don't quite understand how billions of dollars can be wasted on something that doesn't work. If I spend money on something I expect it to perform the task for which it was designed. If it doesn't then I expect the manufacture, builder or employees to fix it. I realize that large projects mean large headaches and there are times when the problems happen. But if I contract to a company or hire employees to complete the job and they don't or are way over budget, its firing time. I understand hundreds and thousands and even hundreds of thousands, but billions! Lets use that money and hire filing clerks, filing cabinets and do the whole thing by hand. It almost sounds like it might cost less. I guess if you have no defined project with no defined timeline and a virtually unlimited budget then spending a few billion is not a problem (I know this sounds an awful like a current war). Lets define the problem, define the solution, create and timeline and budget and stick to it. If you change the parameters in the middle everything downstream changes and what you already have done may need to be scrapped. Let everything be completed and then start the change process. Just because you can make changes does not mean you have to. There are a few things I have missed here and some ideas may have been simplified for illustration so if you don't get it you probably work for large organizations with unlimited budgets or the military.
There are much larger issues at stake than one persons employment. If your employer wants to "own" your thoughts and developments during the period of employment then they have to purchase that right. Employees have to stop signing employment contracts that remove their future rights without adaquate compensation. At it's simplest the implied employment contract is "I agree to perform work for you and you agree to pay me for that work". If an employer wants to extend the contract to include ideas that you might develop during your employment, however unrelated to the company, then they need to compensate you for that. Remember, contracts are only enforceable if they are fair and equatible to both parties . Don't sign employment contracts without speaking to council. Your prospective employer spoke with their council to develop the contract. You have a right to speak with yours.