What makes it a viral marketing ploy as opposed to a normal (non-viral) marketing ploy? The key feature of a virus is that it can replicate itself, and I don't see how the original article can replicate itself. Covert or one of its many synonyms I could understand, but viral???
Or is the word "viral" simply being misused in a sad attempt to throw confusion over the meaning of Microsoft's "GPL is viral" stuff? Are we now calling everything evil viral?
> Sure, the field will reverse some day. But what does that have to do with alternative energy sources?
Nothing. Let me summarise the exchange so far:
Article: some article on energy sources Reply 1: the author's an idiot because she wrote about aliens and MFR. Reply 2: MFR's valid so she's not necessarily an idiot. You: What's MFR got to to with the article?
> an identical tag at the start of the subject line (like "[YOURCOMPANY-info]")
Ew, yuck, no thanks. Put a custom header in the email instead. All but the most retarded version 0.0.0.1 pre-alpha mail clients should be able to filter by headers. Or at least give the victim...er...valued customer the option of which to have.
The problem with the subject line tags, on a discussion list anyway, is that you end up with crap like "[tag] subject", "[tag] re: subject", "re: [tag] subject", "re: [tag] re: subject" which totally fscks up the order of messages even for some of the smarter clients that try to sort out the re's. Not to mention when you add a German into the discussion and you end up with re: auf: re: [tag] auf: re: auf: auf: [tag] auf: re: subject.
You know how hard it is to write a French paper without easy access to a cedilla or other diacritic marks?
Actually it's dead simple to do accented characters if you're using MS Word. Ctrl-comma c (nb: not ctrl-comma ctrl-c) gives you ç; ctrl-/ o for ø, ctrl-` e for è, ctrl-shift-6 (ctrl-^) o for ô... The only one that catches me out all the time is the umlaut which is ctrl-shift-; (ctrl-:) rather than ctrl-shift-2 (ctrl-"). Then copy/paste to dump the text into, for example, a Slashdot text form.
Acute accent is ctrl-', tilde is ctrl-~. I think that's everything - if not, just find a character that looks like the accent, add ctrl, push the letter to be accented, then see what you get.
The rules for ctrl-shift are simple - if you need shift to get the character (e.g. shift 6 for ^) then you need shift to get the accent: ctrl-^ = ctrl-shift-6.
No, they key is to include the phrase "with a computer." If you file a patent about asking customers questions using a computer, then you should get it.
I'm just glad I'm in the UK where none of these stupid patent shenanigans apply.
Don't forget arrangers' rights as well. It's possible the BBC performances were done from copyrighted arrangements rather than the original public domain score. If this is the case, then copying the arrangement by reverse-engineering the performance itself would [also] be a breach of the copyright on the arrangement.
Not sure what the status would be of an arrangement that is identical to the public domain arrangement which was used for the performance, but that was transcribed from the performance itself. You could argue it's a derivative of the performance, but it's identical to the PD work so by doing (even profitable) stuff with your transcription you're not exactly doing the performers out of anything (which is what they'd have to prove if they took you to court).
Feel free to point out any part that says something along the lines of "receiving or owning a copy of copyrighted material for personal/domestic use is an offence."
No. The subject of the sentence is "blocks", so although the second part (usage of have) is correct, the first part is incorrect. "A fun toy is" sets up the sentence to have a singular subject, so you can't say "a fun toy is blocks". Lego is a collective noun, so you can say "a fun toy is Lego", but the bit about "blocks...have" would have to be in a separate clause. "A fun toy is Lego, which comprises blocks which have interlocking M/F parts" is a bit stilted but grammatically, if not technically on the grounds that Lego isn't just about the blocks, correct ("with" would be better than "which have").
...an executive summary for PHBs, perhaps along the lines of:
"Look, the point of this licence is this: if you steal our stuff, you can expect to get crapped on. If you don't, you don't. That's all there is to it. It isn't 'viral'; it isn't going to 'infect' your company unless you do something to initiate such an infection. Which boils down to this: not respecting our wishes."
An arbitrary system is one like Japanese kanji, which have no phonetic component whatsoever.
The third person singular of "to have" is "has", not "have." Now if you'd said "Arbitrary systems are those like Japanese kanji," that would have been third person plural and "have" would have been correct.
Woohoo! Finally a subject where Grammar Nazis are ON topic!
Another thing: Something like Japanese...or Chinese puts all their eggs...
The sense is singular, so that should be "puts all its eggs."
...and is therefore reporting according to British law. Here downloading isn't illegal (although uploading is). Copying copyrighted material for personal use is also legal, although copying for profit or for someone else's use isn't. So you can't copy a game and give me the copy, but I can legally copy a game that you lend me. That's why we pay a levy on blank media. Downloading according to British law is not theft; it is not piracy; it is not copyright infringement; it is 100% legal. The other end of a download is an upload though, and that part IS illegal (unless the uploader owns the copyright or is acting with the consent of the copyright holder).
Good question. ObQuestion: if the original oil painting took several deaths and propped up a large corporation, would that be more or less beautiful than a cheap replica oil painting that cost next to nothing and caused no deaths?
I suppose it depends on your definition of beauty.
> why would you need to embed a video in a text document?
Why not? The other way is to distribute a bunch of files and have references in the document like "play video 1 now". If you want to distribute a document that describes a series of video clips, embedding those videos in the document itself is seamless.
Just because the OSS community doesn't consider it necessary doesn't mean it's a daft idea. Geeks are completely at home with receiving a bunch of files and playing them as prompted within a document, but the average PHB who can't tell one end of a mouse from the other isn't going to want to mess around like that or to spend more than a microsecond trying to figure out why one of the distributed videos won't play on his system. Geeks will spend hours messing with GSpot and downloading codecs, but PHBs aren't going to fanny around with all that geeky crap.
Plus any boss who fiddles with Linux for a bit isn't going to take long before concluding Linux is retarded because you can't embed video in docs like you can in Word. Sorry, but you have to address "what the users want" and not just "what the geeks want" if Linux is to take over from Microsoft. Windows may be the biggest pile of bugs since a very big pile of bugs but apart from keeling over once in a while it does do what most people want.
So does that mean that if you launch it from 2000 feet above sea level, you've only got 8000 feet of headroom? What if you launch it from 10,000 feet? And how does it know how far the ground is above sea level?
$0 OS + $6 modem + 200 hours at $40/h trying to figure out why the fuck Linux won't recognise a totally 100% standard modem, or won't use a higher display resolution than 10x10, or whatever other stupid basic thing it won't recognise = $8006.
OK, I'm exaggerating. Let's take a concrete example. New PC (Dell Optiplex GX270). Works perfectly with Windows at full resolution (1280x1024 on a nice shiny LCD monitor). Install Linux (SuSE 9.0 so this isn't exactly ancient software) - only does 640x480. Took me EIGHT HOURS to figure out that Linux needed telling to use more video memory, whereas Windows worked that one out for itself probably in a couple of microseconds.
And that's not an eight hours that can be counted a one-off expense by dividing it by the number of computers sold. This dude is reconditioning old PCs - there is no way he has the luxury of being able to solve the problems on one platform then ship just that platform. That's going to be eight hours PER COMPUTER until Linux gets its fucking act together and "just works" without being told how to work.
Windows is considerably cheaper in this case. The sentiment expressed round here at times that "Linux is free if your time is worth absolutely nothing" is one I'm increasingly agreeing with.
Slashdot Mirror
What makes it a viral marketing ploy as opposed to a normal (non-viral) marketing ploy? The key feature of a virus is that it can replicate itself, and I don't see how the original article can replicate itself. Covert or one of its many synonyms I could understand, but viral???
How, for example, is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron NOT a "viral marketing ploy" for New Line Cinemas and/or Tolkien's estate?
Or is the word "viral" simply being misused in a sad attempt to throw confusion over the meaning of Microsoft's "GPL is viral" stuff? Are we now calling everything evil viral?
I don't think you can kill it but you can optimise it, as the following research by IBM shows:
r y/pa-unrollav3/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/libra
> Sure, the field will reverse some day. But what does that have to do with alternative energy sources?
Nothing. Let me summarise the exchange so far:
Article: some article on energy sources
Reply 1: the author's an idiot because she wrote about aliens and MFR.
Reply 2: MFR's valid so she's not necessarily an idiot.
You: What's MFR got to to with the article?
> an identical tag at the start of the subject line (like "[YOURCOMPANY-info]")
Ew, yuck, no thanks. Put a custom header in the email instead. All but the most retarded version 0.0.0.1 pre-alpha mail clients should be able to filter by headers. Or at least give the victim...er...valued customer the option of which to have.
The problem with the subject line tags, on a discussion list anyway, is that you end up with crap like "[tag] subject", "[tag] re: subject", "re: [tag] subject", "re: [tag] re: subject" which totally fscks up the order of messages even for some of the smarter clients that try to sort out the re's. Not to mention when you add a German into the discussion and you end up with re: auf: re: [tag] auf: re: auf: auf: [tag] auf: re: subject.
You know how hard it is to write a French paper without easy access to a cedilla or other diacritic marks?
Actually it's dead simple to do accented characters if you're using MS Word. Ctrl-comma c (nb: not ctrl-comma ctrl-c) gives you ç; ctrl-/ o for ø, ctrl-` e for è, ctrl-shift-6 (ctrl-^) o for ô... The only one that catches me out all the time is the umlaut which is ctrl-shift-; (ctrl-:) rather than ctrl-shift-2 (ctrl-"). Then copy/paste to dump the text into, for example, a Slashdot text form.
Acute accent is ctrl-', tilde is ctrl-~. I think that's everything - if not, just find a character that looks like the accent, add ctrl, push the letter to be accented, then see what you get.
The rules for ctrl-shift are simple - if you need shift to get the character (e.g. shift 6 for ^) then you need shift to get the accent: ctrl-^ = ctrl-shift-6.
PC World are useless for keyboards unless you want to spend a fortune, then a second fortune on replacement batteries all the time.
It seems the only way to get a decent standard non-remote control keyboard is to buy a new computer, which is really somewhat excessive.
No, they key is to include the phrase "with a computer." If you file a patent about asking customers questions using a computer, then you should get it.
I'm just glad I'm in the UK where none of these stupid patent shenanigans apply.
Don't forget arrangers' rights as well. It's possible the BBC performances were done from copyrighted arrangements rather than the original public domain score. If this is the case, then copying the arrangement by reverse-engineering the performance itself would [also] be a breach of the copyright on the arrangement.
Not sure what the status would be of an arrangement that is identical to the public domain arrangement which was used for the performance, but that was transcribed from the performance itself. You could argue it's a derivative of the performance, but it's identical to the PD work so by doing (even profitable) stuff with your transcription you're not exactly doing the performers out of anything (which is what they'd have to prove if they took you to court).
Don't take my word for it - look it up. Nothing here suggests to me that downloading is an offence. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_1988004 8_en_7.htm#mdiv107
s _cdr_tax/
Feel free to point out any part that says something along the lines of "receiving or owning a copy of copyrighted material for personal/domestic use is an offence."
Looks like you're right about the levy though; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/20/uk_reject
No. The subject of the sentence is "blocks", so although the second part (usage of have) is correct, the first part is incorrect. "A fun toy is" sets up the sentence to have a singular subject, so you can't say "a fun toy is blocks". Lego is a collective noun, so you can say "a fun toy is Lego", but the bit about "blocks...have" would have to be in a separate clause. "A fun toy is Lego, which comprises blocks which have interlocking M/F parts" is a bit stilted but grammatically, if not technically on the grounds that Lego isn't just about the blocks, correct ("with" would be better than "which have").
...an executive summary for PHBs, perhaps along the lines of:
"Look, the point of this licence is this: if you steal our stuff, you can expect to get crapped on. If you don't, you don't. That's all there is to it. It isn't 'viral'; it isn't going to 'infect' your company unless you do something to initiate such an infection. Which boils down to this: not respecting our wishes."
An arbitrary system is one like Japanese kanji, which have no phonetic component whatsoever.
The third person singular of "to have" is "has", not "have." Now if you'd said "Arbitrary systems are those like Japanese kanji," that would have been third person plural and "have" would have been correct.
Woohoo! Finally a subject where Grammar Nazis are ON topic!
Another thing: Something like Japanese...or Chinese puts all their eggs...
The sense is singular, so that should be "puts all its eggs."
So stop whining, whiners, and learn the system.
Sounds like you need to learn the system as well.
Just what I thought when I read it.
1. Irritate the hell out of millions of Windows users
2. Sell self to Microsoft
3. Profit!!!
I mean, how inconsiderate - part 2 is supposed to be "...?" or something like that.
...and is therefore reporting according to British law. Here downloading isn't illegal (although uploading is). Copying copyrighted material for personal use is also legal, although copying for profit or for someone else's use isn't. So you can't copy a game and give me the copy, but I can legally copy a game that you lend me. That's why we pay a levy on blank media. Downloading according to British law is not theft; it is not piracy; it is not copyright infringement; it is 100% legal. The other end of a download is an upload though, and that part IS illegal (unless the uploader owns the copyright or is acting with the consent of the copyright holder).
This is /. were pedantic nerds with...
Did you mean where?
(smiles at the typo in your Slashdot English Lesson)
Good question. ObQuestion: if the original oil painting took several deaths and propped up a large corporation, would that be more or less beautiful than a cheap replica oil painting that cost next to nothing and caused no deaths?
I suppose it depends on your definition of beauty.
Where's the link to the counter - then we can all know when to stop downloading and let them return to their normal server load?
> why would you need to embed a video in a text document?
Why not? The other way is to distribute a bunch of files and have references in the document like "play video 1 now". If you want to distribute a document that describes a series of video clips, embedding those videos in the document itself is seamless.
Just because the OSS community doesn't consider it necessary doesn't mean it's a daft idea. Geeks are completely at home with receiving a bunch of files and playing them as prompted within a document, but the average PHB who can't tell one end of a mouse from the other isn't going to want to mess around like that or to spend more than a microsecond trying to figure out why one of the distributed videos won't play on his system. Geeks will spend hours messing with GSpot and downloading codecs, but PHBs aren't going to fanny around with all that geeky crap.
Plus any boss who fiddles with Linux for a bit isn't going to take long before concluding Linux is retarded because you can't embed video in docs like you can in Word. Sorry, but you have to address "what the users want" and not just "what the geeks want" if Linux is to take over from Microsoft. Windows may be the biggest pile of bugs since a very big pile of bugs but apart from keeling over once in a while it does do what most people want.
> up to 10,000 feet above sea level
So does that mean that if you launch it from 2000 feet above sea level, you've only got 8000 feet of headroom? What if you launch it from 10,000 feet? And how does it know how far the ground is above sea level?
...and will there be an Extended Edition of the DVD that will contain extra scenes?
Oops, too much Lord of the Rings...sorry.
> bravery (willing to break it apart and tinker with it)
Not to mention:
skill - it works when you put it back together
not sure what you'd call this one - not worrying about that leftover spring that doesn't go anywhere but the thing still works flawlessly without it.
You missed a bit:
$0 OS + $6 modem + 200 hours at $40/h trying to figure out why the fuck Linux won't recognise a totally 100% standard modem, or won't use a higher display resolution than 10x10, or whatever other stupid basic thing it won't recognise = $8006.
OK, I'm exaggerating. Let's take a concrete example. New PC (Dell Optiplex GX270). Works perfectly with Windows at full resolution (1280x1024 on a nice shiny LCD monitor). Install Linux (SuSE 9.0 so this isn't exactly ancient software) - only does 640x480. Took me EIGHT HOURS to figure out that Linux needed telling to use more video memory, whereas Windows worked that one out for itself probably in a couple of microseconds.
And that's not an eight hours that can be counted a one-off expense by dividing it by the number of computers sold. This dude is reconditioning old PCs - there is no way he has the luxury of being able to solve the problems on one platform then ship just that platform. That's going to be eight hours PER COMPUTER until Linux gets its fucking act together and "just works" without being told how to work.
Windows is considerably cheaper in this case. The sentiment expressed round here at times that "Linux is free if your time is worth absolutely nothing" is one I'm increasingly agreeing with.
> I've owned a few pinball machines, and loved them literally to death.
Ewww...
Er, I hope you mean "extension." I hate to think what a penile ejection unit might be...