You'll notice that the odometer on the Bel Aire broke at 74000 miles, so I'm not sure you want to spend too much time talking up the reliability of a '50s era car. Yes, the odometer isn't essential (unless you want to sell it) but when minor things break, it's a sign of overall workmanship.
On the other hand, when the '50s era car breaks down it's easier to fix than a modern car. But cars aren't more complicated just for the sake of it, computer controlled fuel injection is BETTER than a carburetor. We all know that american car makers had serious quality issues starting in the late 70s, but an American car today will present you with far fewer problems than an antique - and if you do have problems they're likely to be cheaper to fix due mostly to the fact that parts for 50 year old cars are hard to come by.
Removing traffic control devises only works in areas with slow (~10mph) driving, like really congested city centers and parking lots.
If you want to travel at speed, you need lane markings, traffic lights, and road signs. We all know that it's not 100% certain that you won't be T-boned going through a light that's been green for 35 seconds, but we prefer to take that chance, rather than driving everywhere at the same speed horses travel.
how is it that so few people on slashdot understand the concept of controlled trials.
This trial had a control group - if the control group is infected at a rate that is statistically significantly higher than the test group, the vaccine is at least partially effective with a certain confidence interval.
Use of condoms, exposure rate, etc don't matter if you randomly select your groups and properly blind them.
that's all well and good, but if you don't understand statistics, you probably shouldn't be complaining about the statistics in a study that is undergoing peer review.
I'm not saying you're complaining about the study, I just don't think the excuse you presented holds water.
(a) both groups received education, counseling and condoms - that alone reduces infection rate (b) 1.5% of Thais contracted HIV sometime in the last 30 years. This study lasted three years. Presumably, had the study run for a decade the control groups infection rate would have approached the national average, i.e going from ~1% to ~1.5% (again correcting for education, counseling, and condoms.)
There's absolutely no reason why a single entity had to / has to scan all the world's back catalog on their own as fast as they can
The reason one entity is doing this is the orphaned copyright problem. Google was sued and settled, and now seems to have the right to distribute these copyrighted works. Anyone could do the same, but they'd have to be prepared for the legal battle. Perhaps this is a question best settled through the legislative process, but that's not the way things stand today. Besides, if there wasn't a single entity doing the scans, wouldn't we end up with, "5-10 scanned versions, by Google, Microsoft, and various local library projects, in black and white or colour none of which is truly good quality: broken characters, pages with dark margins, missing pages, typos or incorrect titles, wrong authors etc."?
As for your other complaints, they boil down to - someone making data available, which is helpful, but it's not good enough for my (specialized) purpose... To which, I'll let you answer yourself:
How about good old fashioned legwork? It *is* possible to make sure that the metadata is consistent with the facts, but that involves doing actual research and verification such as academics have been doing for hundreds of years.
I still maintain that this isn't frivolous. The company bringing suit may well lose, but whether taking the specific sound that a duck call makes is sufficient for trademark purposes for differentiating it from the other ways of making duck-like sounds is at least a legitimate question.
I imagine during the trial the defendant will argue that the quacking is generic and the judge or jury will have to sort out exactly what the mark covers - if anything at all.
It doesn't have to be substantially enhanced, if you include bonus features or even a new title screen, you don't have the rights to it.
You are allowed to take a game you previously purchased and try to make it run on whatever hardware you'd like (with some DMCA exceptions), you're not allowed to copy a new release of an old game and claim you have rights to it.
For another example, you're allowed to scan a book you own and transfer it to your ebook reader. Whether you're allowed to download digitized version of the exact same edition to your kindle is a legal gray area. You're not allowed to download a slightly different version, even if all the words are the same but there are some minor editing or typographical differences.
Ford's trademark is a blue oval - not something particularly complex. DuPont's logo is a red oval. The company name doesn't have to be in the logo either, try selling customization packages for a camereo that puts a blue oval in the grill and see how long it takes to get a cease and desist order.
Microsoft, actually was unable to trademark windows because a judge decided that the term was already in general use for computers. So in this case, if the use of duck calls is already in widespread use he'll likely lose. I've never actually been on a duck boat tour (I've just seen the boats), so I don't know how widespread the quacking is. If it's sufficiently generic, you're right, the suit should be dismissed, but if this is the only tour operator who, until recently, handed out actual duck calls, they probably (IMHO) have a case. Either way, from where I sit there's enough questions that this isn't a frivolous suit.
(If they made a unique duck call, they'd have to patent it, they wouldn't trademark the sound it makes.)
One day, a long time ago, Ford just took a generic piece of steel, cut it into an oval, painted it blue, and scrawled his name on it and stuck it on the front of his car.
Anyone could put a blue oval on their car, but nooo Ford owns that mark and won't let us.
Do the passengers on this other tour line get to a certain point in their tour, play with duck calls for a moment, and suddently think "wait, am I on that other carrier's tour?"
Is a passerby likely to see the tour boat, hear the duck calls, and associate it with the other carrier, perhaps tracking the boat to port so they too can get a tour from this well-reputed carrier, only to find themselves duped into taking someone else's tour?
Yes and Yes. You've seen these duck-tours right? They all look sort of the same. One company thinks that by handing out duck calls it is distinguishing itself. You don't go on a duck boat tour to hear duck calls, you go on duck boat tours to see the tour.
So, who do you think the IP abuser is?
The company that registered the mark, or the one that's misappropriating it?
the way trademarks work is that anyone can use the mark, they just can't use it in a way that might lead someone to believe what you're offering a product similar to the one to which the trademark applies.
For instance, if I own a ranch I can advertise mustang (horse) rides without running afoul of Ford's trademark.
In this case, the duck boat operator who holds the mark isn't going to go after hunters, he's going to go after other companies that use duck calls in their duck boat tours.
whether you like it or not, unless they're releasing the exact same game, with the exact same content, you aren't legally entitled to a copy because you bought a license to a previous version.
In the real world, consider the dictionary. Just because you bought a copy of Webster's dictionary 10 years ago doesn't mean you have the right to download a copy of this years version - even if 99.99% of the content is identical. You do have a right to make copies of your old dictionary for your own personal use. (also consider textbook editions, which, by and large, is a scam, but a legally protected one.)
thankfully, no I don't, but I did go to wikipedia to look it up...
I found this nugget, "Another attempted replacement is genocide bombing. The term was coined in 2002 by Canadian member of parliament Irwin Cotler, in an effort to replace the term homicide bomber as a substitute for "suicide bomber."[95] The intention was to focus attention on the alleged intention of genocide by militant Palestinians in their calls to "Wipe Israel off the map"
If you're astonished at the cost of developing a new drug you'll be doubly (or triply) astonished at the cost of marketing a new drug
over the last three decades, companies spent about 3 times as much on marketing/administration as R&D (36% vs. 12% of revenues).
(administrative costs are a small portion of that spending, as the next quote illustrates)
It's not all bad news though:
The news, however, is that recently, R&D spending has been increasing more rapidly than marketing-- since about 2000, R&D has gone up from about 10% to 17%, while marketing has been just about flat near 39%.
(-source - a blog that gets it's info from a paper in Nature - which is behind a paywall.)
Our country was formed with an opinion contrary to this libertarian nonsense:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment....
Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
what you're arguing for is the right for moneyed interests to run roughshod over both individual rights (e.g. the right to a safe workplace) and drive down individual opportunities.
We tried laissez faire in the 1890s - we got slums, tenements, sweatshops, and ultimately the dustbowl and the great depression. Every time we dial back regulation we end up with another S&L fiasco, Enron, or Lehman Brothers.
I know I'm not about to disabuse you of your supply side fantasy, but the facts are against you.
absolutely. I can't believe we enslave all those teachers so that our kids can read and write.
Or all those lawyers who have to provide legal council to the accused.
And the police and fire fighters - horror of horrors, why do we have that massive slave army of public safety workers in case you're foolish enough to burn your house down or get mugged?
You don't want that one. That one says that the states can legislate away your right to privacy. You're much better going with it being implicit in the 4th and 14th.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand the sentiment, but the 1999 2WD explorer wasn't ever going to be a classic.
You'll notice that the odometer on the Bel Aire broke at 74000 miles, so I'm not sure you want to spend too much time talking up the reliability of a '50s era car. Yes, the odometer isn't essential (unless you want to sell it) but when minor things break, it's a sign of overall workmanship.
On the other hand, when the '50s era car breaks down it's easier to fix than a modern car. But cars aren't more complicated just for the sake of it, computer controlled fuel injection is BETTER than a carburetor. We all know that american car makers had serious quality issues starting in the late 70s, but an American car today will present you with far fewer problems than an antique - and if you do have problems they're likely to be cheaper to fix due mostly to the fact that parts for 50 year old cars are hard to come by.
Removing traffic control devises only works in areas with slow (~10mph) driving, like really congested city centers and parking lots.
If you want to travel at speed, you need lane markings, traffic lights, and road signs. We all know that it's not 100% certain that you won't be T-boned going through a light that's been green for 35 seconds, but we prefer to take that chance, rather than driving everywhere at the same speed horses travel.
hey back off, on an evolutionary time scale, that's lightning fast.
how is it that so few people on slashdot understand the concept of controlled trials.
This trial had a control group - if the control group is infected at a rate that is statistically significantly higher than the test group, the vaccine is at least partially effective with a certain confidence interval.
Use of condoms, exposure rate, etc don't matter if you randomly select your groups and properly blind them.
that's all well and good, but if you don't understand statistics, you probably shouldn't be complaining about the statistics in a study that is undergoing peer review.
I'm not saying you're complaining about the study, I just don't think the excuse you presented holds water.
(a) both groups received education, counseling and condoms - that alone reduces infection rate
(b) 1.5% of Thais contracted HIV sometime in the last 30 years. This study lasted three years. Presumably, had the study run for a decade the control groups infection rate would have approached the national average, i.e going from ~1% to ~1.5% (again correcting for education, counseling, and condoms.)
Wow contradictions.
The reason one entity is doing this is the orphaned copyright problem. Google was sued and settled, and now seems to have the right to distribute these copyrighted works. Anyone could do the same, but they'd have to be prepared for the legal battle. Perhaps this is a question best settled through the legislative process, but that's not the way things stand today. Besides, if there wasn't a single entity doing the scans, wouldn't we end up with, "5-10 scanned versions, by Google, Microsoft, and various local library projects, in black and white or colour none of which is truly good quality: broken characters, pages with dark margins, missing pages, typos or incorrect titles, wrong authors etc."?
As for your other complaints, they boil down to - someone making data available, which is helpful, but it's not good enough for my (specialized) purpose... To which, I'll let you answer yourself:
I defer to your superior duck boat knowledge.
I still maintain that this isn't frivolous. The company bringing suit may well lose, but whether taking the specific sound that a duck call makes is sufficient for trademark purposes for differentiating it from the other ways of making duck-like sounds is at least a legitimate question.
I imagine during the trial the defendant will argue that the quacking is generic and the judge or jury will have to sort out exactly what the mark covers - if anything at all.
It doesn't have to be substantially enhanced, if you include bonus features or even a new title screen, you don't have the rights to it.
You are allowed to take a game you previously purchased and try to make it run on whatever hardware you'd like (with some DMCA exceptions), you're not allowed to copy a new release of an old game and claim you have rights to it.
For another example, you're allowed to scan a book you own and transfer it to your ebook reader. Whether you're allowed to download digitized version of the exact same edition to your kindle is a legal gray area. You're not allowed to download a slightly different version, even if all the words are the same but there are some minor editing or typographical differences.
Let's talk about trademarks.
Ford's trademark is a blue oval - not something particularly complex. DuPont's logo is a red oval. The company name doesn't have to be in the logo either, try selling customization packages for a camereo that puts a blue oval in the grill and see how long it takes to get a cease and desist order.
Microsoft, actually was unable to trademark windows because a judge decided that the term was already in general use for computers. So in this case, if the use of duck calls is already in widespread use he'll likely lose. I've never actually been on a duck boat tour (I've just seen the boats), so I don't know how widespread the quacking is. If it's sufficiently generic, you're right, the suit should be dismissed, but if this is the only tour operator who, until recently, handed out actual duck calls, they probably (IMHO) have a case. Either way, from where I sit there's enough questions that this isn't a frivolous suit.
(If they made a unique duck call, they'd have to patent it, they wouldn't trademark the sound it makes.)
think about it.
One day, a long time ago, Ford just took a generic piece of steel, cut it into an oval, painted it blue, and scrawled his name on it and stuck it on the front of his car.
Anyone could put a blue oval on their car, but nooo Ford owns that mark and won't let us.
Yes and Yes. You've seen these duck-tours right? They all look sort of the same. One company thinks that by handing out duck calls it is distinguishing itself. You don't go on a duck boat tour to hear duck calls, you go on duck boat tours to see the tour.
So, who do you think the IP abuser is?
The company that registered the mark, or the one that's misappropriating it?
the way trademarks work is that anyone can use the mark, they just can't use it in a way that might lead someone to believe what you're offering a product similar to the one to which the trademark applies.
For instance, if I own a ranch I can advertise mustang (horse) rides without running afoul of Ford's trademark.
In this case, the duck boat operator who holds the mark isn't going to go after hunters, he's going to go after other companies that use duck calls in their duck boat tours.
whether you like it or not, unless they're releasing the exact same game, with the exact same content, you aren't legally entitled to a copy because you bought a license to a previous version.
In the real world, consider the dictionary. Just because you bought a copy of Webster's dictionary 10 years ago doesn't mean you have the right to download a copy of this years version - even if 99.99% of the content is identical. You do have a right to make copies of your old dictionary for your own personal use. (also consider textbook editions, which, by and large, is a scam, but a legally protected one.)
well it depends, is it shot from an artillery piece?
If so then it's called artillery fire, otherwise, it's an IED.
thankfully, no I don't, but I did go to wikipedia to look it up...
I found this nugget, "Another attempted replacement is genocide bombing. The term was coined in 2002 by Canadian member of parliament Irwin Cotler, in an effort to replace the term homicide bomber as a substitute for "suicide bomber."[95] The intention was to focus attention on the alleged intention of genocide by militant Palestinians in their calls to "Wipe Israel off the map"
I then snorted fairly loudly.
If you're astonished at the cost of developing a new drug you'll be doubly (or triply) astonished at the cost of marketing a new drug
(administrative costs are a small portion of that spending, as the next quote illustrates)
It's not all bad news though:
(-source - a blog that gets it's info from a paper in Nature - which is behind a paywall.)
clearly this is just another step in the international jewish banking conspiracy to stifle discussion of the situation in the west bank
Our country was formed with an opinion contrary to this libertarian nonsense:
The international community Thinks it's a right too. You seem to be the outlier.
obviously not the dustbowl - put that in by mistake
what you're arguing for is the right for moneyed interests to run roughshod over both individual rights (e.g. the right to a safe workplace) and drive down individual opportunities.
We tried laissez faire in the 1890s - we got slums, tenements, sweatshops, and ultimately the dustbowl and the great depression. Every time we dial back regulation we end up with another S&L fiasco, Enron, or Lehman Brothers.
I know I'm not about to disabuse you of your supply side fantasy, but the facts are against you.
absolutely. I can't believe we enslave all those teachers so that our kids can read and write.
Or all those lawyers who have to provide legal council to the accused.
And the police and fire fighters - horror of horrors, why do we have that massive slave army of public safety workers in case you're foolish enough to burn your house down or get mugged?
you do realize you're arguing for a lower standard of living right?
Why did you send your business overseas? -> people are poor there and will work for what we give them.
You don't want that one. That one says that the states can legislate away your right to privacy. You're much better going with it being implicit in the 4th and 14th.