I read things like this and can't help but thing about some alien engineers coming to earth, deciding that they don't have time to explore it properly, and plop down some solar powered "robots" to gather some data on the planet. A few millenia pass and some more alien engineers come by, having the same idea but being jerks, deciding to make "robots" that eat the solar powered "robots".
That reminds me of that SNL skit about the bank who made money by providing change.
"Got a dollar, and want two quarters, four dimes and two nickels? We can do it!"
"You might ask yourself how a bank makes money through making change, our answer, sheer volume."
Simply put, at $5, no one would be making any money on it. Perhaps the unemployed losers of slashdot are unaccustomed to the concept of making a profit, but I guarantee you if no one is making a profit on it, then no one will do it.
... but I was recently at my dentist, and he asked me to sign some big form saying how he could use my information, because said act prevented him from doing such simple things as sharing my X-rays with another doctor if he needed to consult with someone. I read through it and most of the clauses had to do with the consulting aspect, or patient referals, but buried in the clauses was a little blurb about sharing my personal information with "medical equipment providers and vendors".
Which kinda gave me pause but, in the end, does anyone really care? It's only time-on-their-hands-kinda-people that are pursuing this whole "privacy legislation" thing. Its just needless beauracracy so the curmudgeon portion of the population can have someone to complain to other then their local politician. Business are just gonna get around it in the end.
It was terrorists! We had a lightning stike! We didn't have enough money to updgrade our equipment! My transformer didn't come back from the cleaners! Dick Cheney came in from out of town! Someone stole my power! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! A GE software bug! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!
Did you even read the article? This is the ninth one installed in the United States. There are 400 world wide,... its primary use is to protect crops...
And you think it doesn't work? How'd they sell 400 of the things? When's the last time you saw an apple with hail damage? Did you think it had just stopped hailing?
As for changing nature, sweet jeebus, we're humans we change nature to suit us all the time, or did you think crops just naturally formed in large patches of ground? You're surfing the net, if you have a CRT monitor you have electrons shooting out into your face right now. Did you think that someone just found it on the beach?
The basic principle is that nature is not as fragile as it's portrayed. I don't think shooting a couple of shock waves into the air is going to cause any irreparable damage, and if we didn't screw with nature occasionally we would still be sitting in caves, eating berries and grubs.
For its part, the RIAA maintains that the up-close-and-personal techniques are nothing new. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy says its investigators do not represent themselves as police, and that the incident reports vendors are asked to sign, in which they agree to hand over their discs, explicitly state that the forfeiture is voluntary.
So wait... I can go upto someone with my gang of cronies, wearing gang colours that look like uniforms, claim I'm a wallet inspector, take peoples stuff, and as long as they sign something saying it's voluntary, it's all legal?
I can just see the Intels, Siemens, TIs and NECs of the world lining up for patent suits on this one. If Microsoft plans to wade into this battle without any existing IP they are going to get smacked very hard with the infringement stick...... all the "old boys" need to do is wait for the system to come out and then the money to start rolling in.
Third world countries have a lower incidence of prostate cancer because they get killed by other stuff, like bullets and starvation... and they have insufficient medical infrastructure to diagnose cancers properly.
Sorry man, He was dark and gritty first 39 - mid 50's, then they made him campy and colourful later. Basically, around the mid 50's - early 70's he was colourful. The got dark again early 80's, late 70's.
I mean, come on, the guy was in "Gotham City", he dressed in black, and the whole idea of the character was he was out for vengence for the death of his father. That's pretty dark.
The campy Batman was cool too tho' in my opinion, they both have their place. I always thought that for a campy batman Adam West was the best. The dark Batman has never been done right, the closest was Michael Keaton; Val Kilmer and George Clooney always made jokes, I'm sorry but that's Spiderman, not Batman. Anyway....
I think what the article is getting at is that the director may have something called "Moral Rights" over the work. Essentially this means that the item is a work of art that was produced for a fee and that the author of the work has the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work (i.e. censoring scenes).
The idea being that once a piece of art has been created the author has his/her name attached to it, and thus any treatments of the work done later that do not fit the artist's vision taints the artist's reputation.
I don't know how this works with film, because there are limitations to this when an artists produces work for an employer.. so it may be that the studio owns the moral rights, and I'm also not sure how this works in the US, but the UK and Canada both have moral rights. I'm not entirely sure as IANAL.
But.. here is a link for my karma-whore points... Moral Rights .
This is a very interesting link you've provided, thank you, I was looking for something that explained laches more clearly.
As I understand; laches only apply if it can be proven that the rights holder knew of the infringement. Which is different than in trademark law, where the rights holder must "vigoursly defend its rights". In this particular case with JPEG's you are probably right and laches would apply as it was a known standard. However, I don't know how successful this defense has been in the past, the best recent example where I don't even think laches was attempted were the Rambus cases. The patents had been issued around '91, the infringement began occuring in '96, but the suits didn't start till '00. Why didn't laches apply there? I'm just curious if anyone knows...
No, it was filed in 1986. Therefore it has 20 years from the date of filing or 17 years from the date of issue, whichever is longer. Therefore, the patent would last until 2006.
That is not correct. You are thinking of trademark law. The best example is Kleenex. Kleenex made no attempt to protect their trademark and it has become so prolific in society that it has come to mean disposable tissue in the generic sense. Patent law has no such requirement.
My argument to your devil's advocate is that a published work is still as feely available as the day it was published; not all but most published documents are still freely available in the public libraries of the world; in book stores; and in private archives. If I publish a libelous statement in a magazine or a newspaper, it would almost certainly be archived, and most documents these days have keywords added to enable searching for them. Often as easily as a document is searchable on the internet.
You would have to assume that if they based this decision on the 1948 case, they had to consider that the 'act' occured when the document was published, not when someone read it. Therefore the same would be said for the internet, the act occurs when the writer writes it, and puts it in the public domain; not when the reader reads the offending material.
who remember the great, golden age of Marvel Comics. I'm one of them, I was there
I don't think you were, the Golden age was way the hell back with World War II. Spiderman, and the rest of the popular Marvel comics of today are from the Silver age, which actually ended with the story that the move was about.
but not before Marvel and other comic creators cranked out some classic yarns, from Spider-Man and Batman to the X-Men and other superheroic tales.
The rating system was more to do with the horror comics and crime comics that were coming out at the time, rather than the superhero comics, and the system was put in pretty much in the fifties, during the McCarthy years. I'm not sure, but I think all of the superhero comics from Marvel were CCA approved, with the exception of the "Goblin's Last Stand Issues" around Amazing Spider Man 96-99. But that was because of drug use in the issues.
Or he's a mutant wolverine with fingers of steel who can't ever have a casual beer with his pals.
Ahem... claws. Greatest Canadian Superhero of all time, please don't goof him up.
Enough Comic Book guy stuff...
Peter Parker isn't as deep as the Skywalker brothers and Uncle Ben is no Obi-Wan. But as the box office receipts demonstrate, the writers at Marvel comics have held their own when it comes to myth-making. Sometimes, simpler is better.
Huh? A) who are the Skywalker brothers? B) What? Not as deep? Both are as shallow as kiddie pools.. movies made to sell merchandise.. don't get me wrong they're both fun and entertaining movies, but Starwars is based of crappy "Flash" serials from the 40's. It's not very deep. Good is good, evil is evil. And you can tell because the bad guy wears black and the good guy wears white. I understand your point about myth being more easily understood and entertaining, but isn't that obvious? People in general don't like to sit there going, "Huh?" after a movie. In terms of Sci-fi/fantasy movies as an artform there are a number that aren't as commerically successful as Spider-man, or the Starwars franchise, but they are equally as entertaining and slightly more artistic. Just of the top of my head, "Bladerunner" the directors cut is a much better movie than both.. is it as fun, no... but it's a better movie
What evil Fox executive stuck you in such a lethal timeslot? Why didn't they slot you behind the Simpson's then move you to the lethal Thursday timeslot?
I had to fight with my girlfriend to watch the show last night since 'Will and Grace' was on.
Slashdot Mirror
I read things like this and can't help but thing about some alien engineers coming to earth, deciding that they don't have time to explore it properly, and plop down some solar powered "robots" to gather some data on the planet. A few millenia pass and some more alien engineers come by, having the same idea but being jerks, deciding to make "robots" that eat the solar powered "robots".
Jerks.
That reminds me of that SNL skit about the bank who made money by providing change.
"Got a dollar, and want two quarters, four dimes and two nickels? We can do it!"
"You might ask yourself how a bank makes money through making change, our answer, sheer volume."
Simply put, at $5, no one would be making any money on it. Perhaps the unemployed losers of slashdot are unaccustomed to the concept of making a profit, but I guarantee you if no one is making a profit on it, then no one will do it.
I look forward to serving our mouse overlords, and want to let them know that I would be excellent at supervising the cheese factories.
I've never kissed a girl?
With this new source of peroxide, we can guarantee to be surrounded by people with unnaturally blonde hair well into the next millenium....
My boss has been diamonds sythethically between his ass cheeks for years.
... but I was recently at my dentist, and he asked me to sign some big form saying how he could use my information, because said act prevented him from doing such simple things as sharing my X-rays with another doctor if he needed to consult with someone. I read through it and most of the clauses had to do with the consulting aspect, or patient referals, but buried in the clauses was a little blurb about sharing my personal information with "medical equipment providers and vendors".
Which kinda gave me pause but, in the end, does anyone really care? It's only time-on-their-hands-kinda-people that are pursuing this whole "privacy legislation" thing. Its just needless beauracracy so the curmudgeon portion of the population can have someone to complain to other then their local politician. Business are just gonna get around it in the end.
Just my 2 cents... now worth 1.4 cents American.
It was terrorists! We had a lightning stike! We didn't have enough money to updgrade our equipment! My transformer didn't come back from the cleaners! Dick Cheney came in from out of town! Someone stole my power! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! A GE software bug! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!
Wait...
So those penis enlargement pills don't work?
Did you even read the article? This is the ninth one installed in the United States. There are 400 world wide, ... its primary use is to protect crops...
And you think it doesn't work? How'd they sell 400 of the things? When's the last time you saw an apple with hail damage? Did you think it had just stopped hailing?
As for changing nature, sweet jeebus, we're humans we change nature to suit us all the time, or did you think crops just naturally formed in large patches of ground? You're surfing the net, if you have a CRT monitor you have electrons shooting out into your face right now. Did you think that someone just found it on the beach?
The basic principle is that nature is not as fragile as it's portrayed. I don't think shooting a couple of shock waves into the air is going to cause any irreparable damage, and if we didn't screw with nature occasionally we would still be sitting in caves, eating berries and grubs.
For its part, the RIAA maintains that the up-close-and-personal techniques are nothing new. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy says its investigators do not represent themselves as police, and that the incident reports vendors are asked to sign, in which they agree to hand over their discs, explicitly state that the forfeiture is voluntary.
So wait... I can go upto someone with my gang of cronies, wearing gang colours that look like uniforms, claim I'm a wallet inspector, take peoples stuff, and as long as they sign something saying it's voluntary, it's all legal?
I think I found myself a new job
I can just see the Intels, Siemens, TIs and NECs of the world lining up for patent suits on this one. If Microsoft plans to wade into this battle without any existing IP they are going to get smacked very hard with the infringement stick...
Maybe CNN and the RIAA have set up trojans in "millions of PCs" to track deletion activity...
Third world countries have a lower incidence of prostate cancer because they get killed by other stuff, like bullets and starvation... and they have insufficient medical infrastructure to diagnose cancers properly.
They hear me through a receptor in my teeth.
Student Attendance: Frequent Mental Absence ...
Discipline: KUNG-FU, Monkey Style
Couldn't resist...
Sorry man, He was dark and gritty first 39 - mid 50's, then they made him campy and colourful later. Basically, around the mid 50's - early 70's he was colourful. The got dark again early 80's, late 70's.
I mean, come on, the guy was in "Gotham City", he dressed in black, and the whole idea of the character was he was out for vengence for the death of his father. That's pretty dark.
The campy Batman was cool too tho' in my opinion, they both have their place. I always thought that for a campy batman Adam West was the best. The dark Batman has never been done right, the closest was Michael Keaton; Val Kilmer and George Clooney always made jokes, I'm sorry but that's Spiderman, not Batman. Anyway....
I think what the article is getting at is that the director may have something called "Moral Rights" over the work. Essentially this means that the item is a work of art that was produced for a fee and that the author of the work has the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work (i.e. censoring scenes).
The idea being that once a piece of art has been created the author has his/her name attached to it, and thus any treatments of the work done later that do not fit the artist's vision taints the artist's reputation.
I don't know how this works with film, because there are limitations to this when an artists produces work for an employer.. so it may be that the studio owns the moral rights, and I'm also not sure how this works in the US, but the UK and Canada both have moral rights. I'm not entirely sure as IANAL.
But.. here is a link for my karma-whore points... Moral Rights .
This is a very interesting link you've provided, thank you, I was looking for something that explained laches more clearly.
As I understand; laches only apply if it can be proven that the rights holder knew of the infringement. Which is different than in trademark law, where the rights holder must "vigoursly defend its rights". In this particular case with JPEG's you are probably right and laches would apply as it was a known standard. However, I don't know how successful this defense has been in the past, the best recent example where I don't even think laches was attempted were the Rambus cases. The patents had been issued around '91, the infringement began occuring in '96, but the suits didn't start till '00. Why didn't laches apply there? I'm just curious if anyone knows...
No, it was filed in 1986. Therefore it has 20 years from the date of filing or 17 years from the date of issue, whichever is longer. Therefore, the patent would last until 2006.
That is not correct. You are thinking of trademark law. The best example is Kleenex. Kleenex made no attempt to protect their trademark and it has become so prolific in society that it has come to mean disposable tissue in the generic sense. Patent law has no such requirement.
Sorry.
My argument to your devil's advocate is that a published work is still as feely available as the day it was published; not all but most published documents are still freely available in the public libraries of the world; in book stores; and in private archives. If I publish a libelous statement in a magazine or a newspaper, it would almost certainly be archived, and most documents these days have keywords added to enable searching for them. Often as easily as a document is searchable on the internet.
You would have to assume that if they based this decision on the 1948 case, they had to consider that the 'act' occured when the document was published, not when someone read it. Therefore the same would be said for the internet, the act occurs when the writer writes it, and puts it in the public domain; not when the reader reads the offending material.
who remember the great, golden age of Marvel Comics. I'm one of them, I was there
I don't think you were, the Golden age was way the hell back with World War II. Spiderman, and the rest of the popular Marvel comics of today are from the Silver age, which actually ended with the story that the move was about.
but not before Marvel and other comic creators cranked out some classic yarns, from Spider-Man and Batman to the X-Men and other superheroic tales.
The rating system was more to do with the horror comics and crime comics that were coming out at the time, rather than the superhero comics, and the system was put in pretty much in the fifties, during the McCarthy years. I'm not sure, but I think all of the superhero comics from Marvel were CCA approved, with the exception of the "Goblin's Last Stand Issues" around Amazing Spider Man 96-99. But that was because of drug use in the issues.
Or he's a mutant wolverine with fingers of steel who can't ever have a casual beer with his pals.
Ahem... claws. Greatest Canadian Superhero of all time, please don't goof him up.
Enough Comic Book guy stuff...
Peter Parker isn't as deep as the Skywalker brothers and Uncle Ben is no Obi-Wan. But as the box office receipts demonstrate, the writers at Marvel comics have held their own when it comes to myth-making. Sometimes, simpler is better.
Huh? A) who are the Skywalker brothers? B) What? Not as deep? Both are as shallow as kiddie pools.. movies made to sell merchandise.. don't get me wrong they're both fun and entertaining movies, but Starwars is based of crappy "Flash" serials from the 40's. It's not very deep. Good is good, evil is evil. And you can tell because the bad guy wears black and the good guy wears white. I understand your point about myth being more easily understood and entertaining, but isn't that obvious? People in general don't like to sit there going, "Huh?" after a movie. In terms of Sci-fi/fantasy movies as an artform there are a number that aren't as commerically successful as Spider-man, or the Starwars franchise, but they are equally as entertaining and slightly more artistic. Just of the top of my head, "Bladerunner" the directors cut is a much better movie than both.. is it as fun, no... but it's a better movie
Was the Man-eating Cow changed to Apocalypse Cow? I was really hoping to see some Man-eating cow in future episodes...
What evil Fox executive stuck you in such a lethal timeslot? Why didn't they slot you behind the Simpson's then move you to the lethal Thursday timeslot?
I had to fight with my girlfriend to watch the show last night since 'Will and Grace' was on.