>4) MATERIALS are PROPERTY and INFORMATION is NOT.
Yes, yes, I have heard this countless times before. Copying music is not stealing since the original still exists.
But from the perspective of the person who owns it, the effect is the same. Whether you physically took the object from me or not, by copying it without paying for it you have reduced its value to zero.
I also find the argument that information is not property a bit sketchy. For example, I consider my medical information my property and consequently I would, can, and do place limits on how that information is disseminated.
The OP asks, "And why should people be forced to pay for the failed film and music industries?"
The thing is, they didn't fail! The film and music industry have created, and continue to create, massive amounts of content that people disparately want. They want it so badly they are willing to acquire it illegally. They want it so badly that entire software packages, protocols and even political parties have sprung up to support the distribution of it.
They didn't fail. A business that failed would be one that produced a product no one wanted. Everyone still wants the product, and people still get it. They just don't pay for it.
To me, looks are an important part of the car buying criteria. Now with the price of gas as it was recently, I admit, I'll buy anything that gets good gas mileage.
But what I really [u]want[/u] to drive is a sports car. Even if it doesn't perform like a sports car.
ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, I'll pick the car that looks like a Corvette.
I don't think that's what I'm after. CellWriter looks like a handwriting recognition module. I'm not really looking for handwriting recognition. I'm just looking for a digital "notebook", with "notebook" meaning the old-school 3-ring binder with paper sort of thing.
I just want to write on the digital paper, then click on a forward or backwards arrow to move forwards or backwards through the pages.
Steve
Even the "liberal" members of the Supreme Court in Heller held that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. On that point the justices were unanimous.
It is my firm belief that one of the major limitations to the ability to practice medicine today is the physician's lack of ability to SEE. Yes, the next step, of course, will be to develop tools that can actually perform work at such scales, but the first step, simply, is to see and thus to understand.
Just as the microscope revolutionized medicine, so too will technologies like this, and then some.
For years I have pined for "Star Trek medicine", where you go to the doctor and they wave some device over you and accurately diagnose your problems. Today such diagnosis seem to be largely based on interviewing the patient and whatever symptoms can be crudely gauged with the eye and sense of touch and smell.
The more ubiquitous such highly accurate 3D scanning devices become, the better off we will all be for it.
Computer Science is basically the science of converting mathematics and logic into a series of instructions that a computer can understand. This is known as "algorithm development". The physical embodiment of this process is programming, or "writing code".
In spite of the fact that it involves "computers", Computer Science is not about computer tech support.
If you do not enjoy algorithm development, Computer Science is not for you.
I was an early adopter of the CFL bulbs. I, too, noticed that the early generations of these bulbs 1) were slow to ignite 2) took up to a minute to get up to full brightness and 3) Did not last nearly as long as claimed.
It got so bad that I started taking a Sharpie pen and writing the date of purchase on the base of the bulbs so I could take them back for a refund when they did not live up to their guarantee.
However, within the last couple of years they have gotten noticeably better. They ignite faster, are up to full brightness faster, and they last much longer. Since we moved into our house a year ago and installed CFLs, I have not had to replace a single one.
If I had a web site as popular as Wikipedia I'd be milking that sucker for advertising dollars hand over fist.
Wikipedia is a great service. I would not mind advertisements on it any more than I mind them on Slashdot. I ignore them, Slashdot get paid, I get to enjoy Slashdot. All is well.
>Once faculty reports it, the IT department filters it out. Once her dickish >move stops working, and her e-mail no longer even reaches the faculty >and staff, she'll have to resort to doing it properly.
>"There's been some debate about this plan and Techdirt has a detailed >explanation of why a music tax is a bad idea, noting that it effectively >rewards those who failed in the marketplace,"
They failed in the marketplace? Bullshit! The world wants and demands their product and will do anything to get it, including breaking the law. This is a failure?
This is like claiming victims of looters failed in the market place.
Oh, I know, I know, it's not actually looting since no physical property was taken. The effect is the same - people won't pay for your product BECAUSE THEY ALREADY GOT IT FOR FREE.
Retail customers expect to check out knowing the full price they will be paying, including shipping. This means that you HAVE TO calculate shipping during order placement (checkout). You're asking for customer service headaches if you have to manually charge shipping after the customer has already (they thought) completed the order.
So your only option, if you don't want to rely on a third-party server for shipping costs, is to have your shopping cart do its own calculations.
>Ok, but "ignored and thwarted" means now she'll have to win in court against >clearly defined policies that prohibited what she did. When you're trying to >beat the system, at least make sure you're able to win.
If the policies in place are immoral, the moral thing to do is challenge the policies. This is what she did.
And if you beat her down for this you know what will happen?
Next time the email will simply be sent anonymously.
>It wasn't the right avenue to make her dissent known via, and when she was informed of this fact she apparently didn't care.
I'm sure _the_university_ didn't think it was the right avenue, but you know what? I wouldn't care, either. "The University" isn't going to like anyone doing an end-around on their policy decisions. Tough shit. More power to her.
>Unless there are policies that say that this isn't allowed. The University has policies for distributing information, and this person ignored those policies.
Well no shit, sherlock. Of course the University is going to try and control the flow of information concerning unpopular policy changes.
Such attempts at control SHOULD BE ignored and thwarted.
The university was trying to pull a fast policy change. This girl alerted everyone to it using the most efficient, straight-forward technique available. I don't care if the university "has policies" for damage contro....er for distributing information. What she did was right.
>Given the lazy, unthoughtful way she went about this, I also don't consider this anything
>more than a waste of everbody's time. Sending what amounts to a bulk form letter via email isn't going to influence anyone.
I read the email from TFA. It was thoughtfully and carefully worded, polite, and articulate. It was a professional email concerning a policy change that would affect all faculty and students. It was quite appropriate.
It MAY BE a waste of time, but only because of the apathy of the people she informed about the policy change, not because she was wrong in her message or even how she went about it.
If a "network administrator" told me I could not email all the faculty and staff at a university I was paying to attend concerning a change in university policy that affects everyone, I'd tell them to go piss up a rope, too.
>So why do so many of us nowadays seem to equate spam with
>only 'unsolicited commercial e-mail'? In my mind, spam is any
>piece of unwanted bulk mail, whether it is 'commercial' in nature or not.
If I, a student at a university, desire to send an email to all faculty and staff at that university concerning university policy, this should not be considered spam, whether the recipients wanted to receive it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
>4) MATERIALS are PROPERTY and INFORMATION is NOT.
Yes, yes, I have heard this countless times before. Copying music is not stealing since the original still exists.
But from the perspective of the person who owns it, the effect is the same. Whether you physically took the object from me or not, by copying it without paying for it you have reduced its value to zero.
I also find the argument that information is not property a bit sketchy. For example, I consider my medical information my property and consequently I would, can, and do place limits on how that information is disseminated.
The OP asks, "And why should people be forced to pay for the failed film and music industries?"
The thing is, they didn't fail! The film and music industry have created, and continue to create, massive amounts of content that people disparately want. They want it so badly they are willing to acquire it illegally. They want it so badly that entire software packages, protocols and even political parties have sprung up to support the distribution of it.
They didn't fail. A business that failed would be one that produced a product no one wanted. Everyone still wants the product, and people still get it. They just don't pay for it.
>In other words, it's fine to steal things as long as they're of low value.
More importantly and relevantly, it's fine to steal music, since it's no worse than stealing a bar of hotel soap.
Did this guy just equate the value of a song to a bar of hotel soap?
BWHAHAHAHAHAH
To me, looks are an important part of the car buying criteria. Now with the price of gas as it was recently, I admit, I'll buy anything that gets good gas mileage.
But what I really [u]want[/u] to drive is a sports car. Even if it doesn't perform like a sports car.
ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, I'll pick the car that looks like a Corvette.
I don't think that's what I'm after. CellWriter looks like a handwriting recognition module. I'm not really looking for handwriting recognition. I'm just looking for a digital "notebook", with "notebook" meaning the old-school 3-ring binder with paper sort of thing. I just want to write on the digital paper, then click on a forward or backwards arrow to move forwards or backwards through the pages. Steve
I would love a device like this with pen input, so I can use it to take notes in class.
Notebook computers are great for textual classes, because I can type like a demon.
But much of my engineering curriculum is math, and keyboards don't lend themselves well to that.
I would ABSOLUTELY JUMP for a $300 tablet computer that let me write on it like digital notebook paper.
I paid about this much for my first engineering calculator (HP32S).
Even the "liberal" members of the Supreme Court in Heller held that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. On that point the justices were unanimous.
It is my firm belief that one of the major limitations to the ability to practice medicine today is the physician's lack of ability to SEE. Yes, the next step, of course, will be to develop tools that can actually perform work at such scales, but the first step, simply, is to see and thus to understand.
Just as the microscope revolutionized medicine, so too will technologies like this, and then some.
For years I have pined for "Star Trek medicine", where you go to the doctor and they wave some device over you and accurately diagnose your problems. Today such diagnosis seem to be largely based on interviewing the patient and whatever symptoms can be crudely gauged with the eye and sense of touch and smell.
The more ubiquitous such highly accurate 3D scanning devices become, the better off we will all be for it.
I hold a B.S. in Computer Science.
Computer Science is basically the science of converting mathematics and logic into a series of instructions that a computer can understand. This is known as "algorithm development". The physical embodiment of this process is programming, or "writing code".
In spite of the fact that it involves "computers", Computer Science is not about computer tech support.
If you do not enjoy algorithm development, Computer Science is not for you.
Not to mention the fact that the vagina-based designs cost a lot more.
Now that was funny. I don't care who you are.
I was an early adopter of the CFL bulbs. I, too, noticed that the early generations of these bulbs 1) were slow to ignite 2) took up to a minute to get up to full brightness and 3) Did not last nearly as long as claimed.
It got so bad that I started taking a Sharpie pen and writing the date of purchase on the base of the bulbs so I could take them back for a refund when they did not live up to their guarantee.
However, within the last couple of years they have gotten noticeably better. They ignite faster, are up to full brightness faster, and they last much longer. Since we moved into our house a year ago and installed CFLs, I have not had to replace a single one.
If I had a web site as popular as Wikipedia I'd be milking that sucker for advertising dollars hand over fist.
Wikipedia is a great service. I would not mind advertisements on it any more than I mind them on Slashdot. I ignore them, Slashdot get paid, I get to enjoy Slashdot. All is well.
>Once faculty reports it, the IT department filters it out. Once her dickish
>move stops working, and her e-mail no longer even reaches the faculty
>and staff, she'll have to resort to doing it properly.
Or, she'll just do it anonymously next time.
One only needs to look at the lack of anything like Apollo in 30+ years.
>"There's been some debate about this plan and Techdirt has a detailed
>explanation of why a music tax is a bad idea, noting that it effectively
>rewards those who failed in the marketplace,"
They failed in the marketplace? Bullshit! The world wants and demands their product and will do anything to get it, including breaking the law. This is a failure?
This is like claiming victims of looters failed in the market place.
Oh, I know, I know, it's not actually looting since no physical property was taken. The effect is the same - people won't pay for your product BECAUSE THEY ALREADY GOT IT FOR FREE.
Retail customers expect to check out knowing the full price they will be paying, including shipping. This means that you HAVE TO calculate shipping during order placement (checkout). You're asking for customer service headaches if you have to manually charge shipping after the customer has already (they thought) completed the order.
So your only option, if you don't want to rely on a third-party server for shipping costs, is to have your shopping cart do its own calculations.
>Ok, but "ignored and thwarted" means now she'll have to win in court against
>clearly defined policies that prohibited what she did. When you're trying to
>beat the system, at least make sure you're able to win.
If the policies in place are immoral, the moral thing to do is challenge the policies. This is what she did.
And if you beat her down for this you know what will happen?
Next time the email will simply be sent anonymously.
>It wasn't the right avenue to make her dissent known via, and when she was informed of this fact she apparently didn't care.
I'm sure _the_university_ didn't think it was the right avenue, but you know what? I wouldn't care, either. "The University" isn't going to like anyone doing an end-around on their policy decisions. Tough shit. More power to her.
Whatever her opinion on the matter was, she WAS emailing the faculty about a change in university policy that affects everyone.
>Unless there are policies that say that this isn't allowed. The University has policies for distributing information, and this person ignored those policies.
Well no shit, sherlock. Of course the University is going to try and control the flow of information concerning unpopular policy changes.
Such attempts at control SHOULD BE ignored and thwarted.
The university was trying to pull a fast policy change. This girl alerted everyone to it using the most efficient, straight-forward technique available. I don't care if the university "has policies" for damage contro....er for distributing information. What she did was right.
>Given the lazy, unthoughtful way she went about this, I also don't consider this anything >more than a waste of everbody's time. Sending what amounts to a bulk form letter via email isn't going to influence anyone. I read the email from TFA. It was thoughtfully and carefully worded, polite, and articulate. It was a professional email concerning a policy change that would affect all faculty and students. It was quite appropriate. It MAY BE a waste of time, but only because of the apathy of the people she informed about the policy change, not because she was wrong in her message or even how she went about it.
If a "network administrator" told me I could not email all the faculty and staff at a university I was paying to attend concerning a change in university policy that affects everyone, I'd tell them to go piss up a rope, too.
>So why do so many of us nowadays seem to equate spam with >only 'unsolicited commercial e-mail'? In my mind, spam is any >piece of unwanted bulk mail, whether it is 'commercial' in nature or not. If I, a student at a university, desire to send an email to all faculty and staff at that university concerning university policy, this should not be considered spam, whether the recipients wanted to receive it or not.