It's not a matter of how many books you have on your Kindle as it is a matter of how many people have book X on their Kindles. If the latter can be regulated (i.e. DRM'ed), digital libraries would be possible. However, as we all know, digital data can be copied at virtually no cost. And that basically means DRM will not work.
Correct. But it's enough to discourage other people from outright copying the idea. At the very least, it makes other companies hold off on releasing their own products until they know the turnout of the patent application.
That is as it should be. A patent-pending notice shouldn't have any legal power. If it did, then there's no point in having the patent application process; all you'd need is the patent-pending application process.
Now, you can argue to change things so that there are two classes of patents, wherein the lesser class would replace patent-pending and is more easily granted (fewer prior art checks, etc.), but lasts for a much shorter time, and would be superceded by the greater patent once the latter is granted. But that's not the current system, and I would argue that the patent-pending label is sufficient and in fact, more than fair to everybody else.
Well, that did sort of happen, but quite a long time ago. The natives got eradiated, their resources raped and pillaged. And the invaders? Europeans.
Before, there were very few natives, and a lot of resources. So the invaders taking over was like a kid at the buffet counter of a candy store. And everybody who watched from outside wanted in. That pretty much describes American history from the colonial period to now. And I do mean American history, because the same happened and is happening in Canda, Central and South America.
And of course, the kid eventually gets fat and lazy from having too much candy. But that seems to just be a U.S. problem.
The team I worked with was mostly non-Americans, from both the Far East and Europe, and most of them were highly educated and wanted to stay, but I could never figure out why.
What's here is better than what they have at home.
The difference between BSD and GPL in this regard is that GPL requires other people to play by the rules of the original author (the rules being the GPL), while BSD doesn't care.
Strings are not arrays of bytes. A 16-bit limit is difficult to hit. A 32-bit limit is even less feasible. Even if a 4-billion character string existed (2 billion unicode), nobody would actually try to fit the entire 4 billion characters into memory. They'd optimize it using some sort of stream.
So the chances of short-sightedness is very small, especially with a sufficiently large initial maximum.
Besides, if there was a 16-bit character limit and you hit it, then just use an array of strings.
There's an even more interesting phenomena Amazon is employing. How much would you want to bet that e-books that disable the text to speech will be targeted for OCR and bittorrent distribution first? It isn't even out of spite necessarily, but utility. Somebody's going to want that TTS feature, and that somebody might just be motivated enough to borrow a hard copy from the local library to get it.
Or, you could just download the ebook in txt/doc/pdf format from demonoid and do your own conversions.
Cutting features using DRM isn't going to make people use the pay version. Amazon would have to cut the feature out of the Kindle2 itself. And that, I'm sure, is quite impossible to do now that the cat is out of the bag.
Yes, but what GP is trying to say is that downloading isn't copyright infringement. The burden of obtaining authorization to distribute is on the person offering the goods, or the uploader. And it shouldn't be on the burden of the receiver to know whether the copy is obtained through legit channels or not.
So people who download may be pirates, but they're not committing any crime or tort until they redistribute what they've downloaded. Whether it is moral or otherwise is another issue. But since copyright infringement is not theft, the data can't actually be "returned" and the owner of the files can't be charged with possession of stolen goods.
Yeah, but calling it Vista SP2 would pretty much kill the OS before it even had a chance. The "Vista" brand is in the dumps. It would be suicide to not change the name. But no matter how hard they try to justify the "7" in "Windows 7," it still doesn't make sense. They must have well have called it Windows 8, since XP should've been 6 and then Vista 7 by their logic.
Sometimes, I wonder if they hire people diametrically opposed to their developers for their business office.
Argue about details all you want, but with Vista already having been shown empirically to be more secure than OSX yet having basically infinitely higher infection rates than OSX, the solution on the OS side of things is anything but obvious.
There's no way there are so many Vista boxes out there.
Cell phones in asia are less tools, and more fashion statements. They're like your designer handbags or fancy shoes, except priced at a point even teenagers would be able to and do afford multiple phones. And because the major networks are GSM, people can easily switch phones to match their current attire with a swap of a SIM card. This means there's insane competition in Japan, and it means there's a huge drive for continuous innovation to stay ahead of the fashion curve (it's fashionable to be tech-competent over there). To even begin to do that here, the government needs to do a few relatively minor, but important things:
1) Encourage open infrastructure. Basically, undo everything the FCC has been doing for the past 8 years. If a government grant was used to build a network, then the operator should be forced to lease the network to a third party for wholesale prices. Or, put network operators in the same class as gas and electric companies, and heavily regulate them.
2) Encourage open standards within the government. The government should encourage standardization based on open standards. It should give grants to organizations that work towards such ends, and stipulate that by taking government money, the result is public domain. That eliminates a lot of barriers to entry to a market.
3) Return the rights to the people. That means outlawing anti-competitive exclusivity clauses and the likes. Forcing phone carriers to make their numbers portable was a great move. That trend of forcing interoperability has to continue. For example, France requires unlocked versions of phones to be sold alongside their locked version.
4) Remove the teeth of patent trolls. The patent system needs to be significantly overhauled. As the system exists currently, patents stifle innovation, not encourage it.
Doing this won't change the culture overnight. But I'm certain we'll start to see improvements within 5 years.
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It's not a matter of how many books you have on your Kindle as it is a matter of how many people have book X on their Kindles. If the latter can be regulated (i.e. DRM'ed), digital libraries would be possible. However, as we all know, digital data can be copied at virtually no cost. And that basically means DRM will not work.
Correct. But it's enough to discourage other people from outright copying the idea. At the very least, it makes other companies hold off on releasing their own products until they know the turnout of the patent application.
That is as it should be. A patent-pending notice shouldn't have any legal power. If it did, then there's no point in having the patent application process; all you'd need is the patent-pending application process.
Now, you can argue to change things so that there are two classes of patents, wherein the lesser class would replace patent-pending and is more easily granted (fewer prior art checks, etc.), but lasts for a much shorter time, and would be superceded by the greater patent once the latter is granted. But that's not the current system, and I would argue that the patent-pending label is sufficient and in fact, more than fair to everybody else.
Well, that did sort of happen, but quite a long time ago. The natives got eradiated, their resources raped and pillaged. And the invaders? Europeans.
Before, there were very few natives, and a lot of resources. So the invaders taking over was like a kid at the buffet counter of a candy store. And everybody who watched from outside wanted in. That pretty much describes American history from the colonial period to now. And I do mean American history, because the same happened and is happening in Canda, Central and South America.
And of course, the kid eventually gets fat and lazy from having too much candy. But that seems to just be a U.S. problem.
The team I worked with was mostly non-Americans, from both the Far East and Europe, and most of them were highly educated and wanted to stay, but I could never figure out why.
What's here is better than what they have at home.
For the moment anyway.
Making them citizens, or even green card holders tends to even this out, don't you think?
Instead of competing with effectively what is indentured servitude, you'll be competing with full-fledged citizens.
Or demand will simply dry up, and the crack cocaine gangs out of Mexico will need to find another way to make money.
And therein will be the RIAA's next marketing slogan to discourage piracy: Piracy kills Mexican babies!
The difference between BSD and GPL in this regard is that GPL requires other people to play by the rules of the original author (the rules being the GPL), while BSD doesn't care.
Strings are not arrays of bytes. A 16-bit limit is difficult to hit. A 32-bit limit is even less feasible. Even if a 4-billion character string existed (2 billion unicode), nobody would actually try to fit the entire 4 billion characters into memory. They'd optimize it using some sort of stream.
So the chances of short-sightedness is very small, especially with a sufficiently large initial maximum.
Besides, if there was a 16-bit character limit and you hit it, then just use an array of strings.
(I'm in London where bonuses are being denied; is it the same elsewhere?)
No.
Why does Santa Claus have a pair of katanas?
Well, there's this huge body of technologically-inclined people in China and India... oh wait...
...but does it run on Linux?
Maybe this is why the Hollywood types are in a perpetual competition to come up with a stranger name than the last for their next kid.
There's an even more interesting phenomena Amazon is employing. How much would you want to bet that e-books that disable the text to speech will be targeted for OCR and bittorrent distribution first? It isn't even out of spite necessarily, but utility. Somebody's going to want that TTS feature, and that somebody might just be motivated enough to borrow a hard copy from the local library to get it.
Then the people who would want to have the Kindle 2 read the book to them would procure the text via an alternate source.
Or, you could just download the ebook in txt/doc/pdf format from demonoid and do your own conversions.
Cutting features using DRM isn't going to make people use the pay version. Amazon would have to cut the feature out of the Kindle2 itself. And that, I'm sure, is quite impossible to do now that the cat is out of the bag.
Yes, but what GP is trying to say is that downloading isn't copyright infringement. The burden of obtaining authorization to distribute is on the person offering the goods, or the uploader. And it shouldn't be on the burden of the receiver to know whether the copy is obtained through legit channels or not.
So people who download may be pirates, but they're not committing any crime or tort until they redistribute what they've downloaded. Whether it is moral or otherwise is another issue. But since copyright infringement is not theft, the data can't actually be "returned" and the owner of the files can't be charged with possession of stolen goods.
You must be from the EU. Here in the US, we make our own cardboard macaroni cards. But the rest of the stuff comes up to about the same anyway.
Does this mean he ewill deflower her after the trial?
With their love of DRM, do you really think they're going to put this in by default?
Besides, Daemon Tools already does a perfectly good job. If Microsoft were going to put the feature into their OS, they'd just buy D-T out.
On the same lines, what I'd like to see is Process Explorer become the new task manager.
Yeah, but calling it Vista SP2 would pretty much kill the OS before it even had a chance. The "Vista" brand is in the dumps. It would be suicide to not change the name. But no matter how hard they try to justify the "7" in "Windows 7," it still doesn't make sense. They must have well have called it Windows 8, since XP should've been 6 and then Vista 7 by their logic.
Sometimes, I wonder if they hire people diametrically opposed to their developers for their business office.
Argue about details all you want, but with Vista already having been shown empirically to be more secure than OSX yet having basically infinitely higher infection rates than OSX, the solution on the OS side of things is anything but obvious.
There's no way there are so many Vista boxes out there.
Cell phones in asia are less tools, and more fashion statements. They're like your designer handbags or fancy shoes, except priced at a point even teenagers would be able to and do afford multiple phones. And because the major networks are GSM, people can easily switch phones to match their current attire with a swap of a SIM card. This means there's insane competition in Japan, and it means there's a huge drive for continuous innovation to stay ahead of the fashion curve (it's fashionable to be tech-competent over there). To even begin to do that here, the government needs to do a few relatively minor, but important things:
1) Encourage open infrastructure. Basically, undo everything the FCC has been doing for the past 8 years. If a government grant was used to build a network, then the operator should be forced to lease the network to a third party for wholesale prices. Or, put network operators in the same class as gas and electric companies, and heavily regulate them.
2) Encourage open standards within the government. The government should encourage standardization based on open standards. It should give grants to organizations that work towards such ends, and stipulate that by taking government money, the result is public domain. That eliminates a lot of barriers to entry to a market.
3) Return the rights to the people. That means outlawing anti-competitive exclusivity clauses and the likes. Forcing phone carriers to make their numbers portable was a great move. That trend of forcing interoperability has to continue. For example, France requires unlocked versions of phones to be sold alongside their locked version.
4) Remove the teeth of patent trolls. The patent system needs to be significantly overhauled. As the system exists currently, patents stifle innovation, not encourage it.
Doing this won't change the culture overnight. But I'm certain we'll start to see improvements within 5 years.
But it wasn't for kiddie porn.
Yes, then we mixed them together, ingested, digested, and what came out the other end after all was said and done was a flaming piece of turd.