I don't think this is particularly relavent. Especially since, during my last order with NewEgg (and I mean -ever-) they:
A: Stubbornly used an old billing address after I had revised it.
B: Sent me an email saying my order would be deleted in 3 days if I didn't contact them by phone or email to correct the billing address.
C: Ignored my repeated attempts to contact (15+ phone calls to a busy customer service line, and 2 emails sent the day I recieved the notice) until they-
D: Cancelled my order, at which point they responded to my email saying "we're sorry, we cannot help you because that order had been cancelled".
and of course,
E: When I contacted them about the bum service (using the same email address that they responded to the first time), they completely ignored me. I instead placed my order with Mwave, who got it to me two days after I ordered it (and saved $20 in the bargain).
I'll be hard pressed to ever shop at newegg.com again, and I definately do not care how they ship things (since the -if- seems to be a much more interesting adventure)
It is my opinion that the single most important war in Western history is the 30 years war. Only because the Peace of Westphalia basically resulted in Europeans not killing each other solely over religion anymore.
I thought the entire point of the CC licenses was to give people a choice past "All Rights Reserved". The way the law reads currently, I inherently hold exclusive copyrights to all my works, regardless of whether or not I put a (c) on the site. However, using a CC-license, I can not only choose, but show exactly what I'm ok and not ok with people doing. That's a lot of freedom, and it still allows me to protect what little work is mine.
I do not believe that writing and code are all that similar, and I do not support the concept that the laws for each should be identical.
With code, so much of what you're doing is following the rules of the language. These rules are exact, and tend to have problems when they're disobeyed (I.E. Windows). You'll end up breaking the reality of the machine when you use improper code. That being said, sharing your code allows for people to catch errors you missed, as well as add things that will make the code run better. I think it's terrible to see good code rot because people won't share.
However, with writing, there are no rules.
You can say there are rules of grammar, and I can point to a dozen different poems or pieces of writing that violate those rules. In fact, any rule you come up with about writing exists only because some people thought it should, not because it won't work if you don't. Reality (even the implied reality of a good novel) will not be harmed by improper word usage. Not unduly, any way.
That being said, when the code works, the program runs, and the inner workings of the code become irrelevant except as a reference. I believe (and this is just my opinion) that the code is only half of what makes a program work. The other half is presentation, craft, and usability (I think they're interchangable). If you have a graphics program, it can be using marvelous code, but it still also needs to be a usable graphics program, with a working interface and useful manuals and all that jazz. The code alone (again, in my humble opinion)does not a program make.
When the writing works, it must do so without hiding. The words are their own reward. They don't run anything. It's not like someone can change two lines and make a more stable code. It is only what it is. (A notable exception to this is Dr.Suess, comic books, and other illustrated pieces, which rely as well on the art and layout to work, but that's a different rant). A good book must exist independent of it's cover.
And unfortunately, this need to exist independent of all other influences is what makes a novel that much easier to steal. And I don't mean steal in the Intellectual Property sense, where you download a book to read off the net. I mean steal like you open that book with a text editor and replace the author's name with your own. That kind of theft eliminates the author, and removes the ability for any kind of credit. Sometimes this is done out of fun, and that's one thing, but other times people do it and then make money off it. One of the biggest places where this kind of theft occurs is in the poetry world, which is doubly sad since poetry pays so little.
I believe in sharing my work openly, but I'm not going to force anyone to give up their rights to protection. So I gladly use and support CC-licencing. Which allows me to say: Hey, read this. If you like it, share it, but please don't sell it or claim it as your own.
To quote the site:
"a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules."
As near as I can tell, the reason this patent (Tescher 4,541,012) is important is that it has EXPIRED (as of September, 2005... nice timing that). By invalidating the later patent, it basically drops the JPEG format into open domain.
However, let me make this perfectly clear: IANAL (Especially not a patent lawyer).
I'm sure one of the reasons that Top 10 sales would be down is because many of those people who buy Top-10 CDs buy them for the one song they heard on TRL or the radio, and want it and it alone. These same people were gladly paying 7$ for a single (featuring, at best, 5 songs), rather than the $15-$18 for the full CD. Now, with ITunes, they pay $.99, get their fix, and go about their day. Many of them don't care much about what other songs the artist has done.
One quick question: Does anyone know how much of that $.99 goes to the artist?
I have no problems with TV... I have problems with TV networks.
The big boys (ABC, CBS, NBC) don't produce the shows I want to watch (with very very rare exception). FOX produces shows that I want to watch, but usually cancels them after they:
A- Switch the timeslot at irregular intervals
B- Preempt it for Baseball/Football/Awards Show
or C- Show the show out of order, confusing everyone who's actually paying attention.
This is just wild speculation, but maybe these shows (that do so well on DVD) would do better on TV if they were given an ounce of respect by their network...
At my wife's parents' house, they have the BSafe internet filter installed. It automatically blocks ALL search engine results (as well as message boards, Yahoo Groups, etc). You actually have to load up the filter program and enter a password to disable it to use Google.
How could the law be any more effective at protecting children as it relates to search engines than total blackout? And since that's the point they're trying to make, how useful could the search engine results be? Unless something else is going on (which I don't doubt, unfortunately), I can't see Google's logs mattering to the Gov one bit.
And, more to the point, they had earlier badmouthed SpyBot for not talking to them before making a public claim. It seems to be to be an unfair double standard that the bigger company can say "talk to us first", but the littler company cannot.
Also, if a week wasn't enough time, couldn't've Symantec simply have mailed the SpyBot group and said "give us X more days, we're compiling what we need"? Silence, regardless of its justification, is not what leads to communication. Unless, of course, you're The Man With No Name.
My wife's a bigger geek then me, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Her solution to the IE -> Firefox problem was to have the IE icon load up FireFox instead. Then, when she installed her sister's computer, she did it again (except this time she didn't bother telling her)
she rocks.
That's completely true! That how's I ended up at Slashdot...
Of course, I promised myself I would never ever make an account or post comments or...
gah nuts
I actually happen to live in Utah's Wasatch Front, and the politics surrounding the disposal of nuclear waste is horrible. Mostly, the problem is one of information. There are several very active enviormental groups that work very hard at presenting a one sided case, "Nuclear waste is bad." and allowing for no dialogue about the actual repercussions of storage/transportation/etc.
The odd thing is in the last two years, there have been two major accidents that were hazerdous threats. The first was a chemical leak which caused a major section of I-15 to be shut down for about 8 hours. The second was a semi-truck that exploded on small highway going through the mountains. Neither one had anything to do with the Chemical Disposal Plant or Radioactive Storage.
Sadly, what many people don't realize is that Hospitals and Universities both generate small amounts of radioactive waste that must be disposed of. The whole "not in my backyard" mentality is dangerous when you consider how many hospitals and universities exist inside city limits, instead of 20+ miles away.
As far as storage, the opponents go out of their way to eliminate potential sites, siting concern for the enviorment, or potential dangers. They're quick to come up with alternatives that push these disposal facilities into another state, where some other activists can take care of it. They want it to be safe, so they demand extreme percautions, and when those percautions are met, they complain that they won't last 20 years.
It's actually pretty humorous, as there are defunct Uranium Mines where the radioactive material was harvested from originally that could easily serve as storage/disposal of used radioactive material. However, because the radiation "might" seep into the water and wreck havok on the landscape, they are considered unusable. Those mines existed for thousands of years without anybody lining the walls with lead and concrete, or diffusing the radioactive material, and the landscape didn't mutate out of control, but now that man has gotten his hands on that radiation, it's a danger to the enviroment.
So yeah, I'm for the systematic disposal/burial of the nuclear waste nearby, if it means that we can use more nuclear power plants, and fewer coal plants.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think this is particularly relavent. Especially since, during my last order with NewEgg (and I mean -ever-) they:
A: Stubbornly used an old billing address after I had revised it.
B: Sent me an email saying my order would be deleted in 3 days if I didn't contact them by phone or email to correct the billing address.
C: Ignored my repeated attempts to contact (15+ phone calls to a busy customer service line, and 2 emails sent the day I recieved the notice) until they-
D: Cancelled my order, at which point they responded to my email saying "we're sorry, we cannot help you because that order had been cancelled".
and of course,
E: When I contacted them about the bum service (using the same email address that they responded to the first time), they completely ignored me. I instead placed my order with Mwave, who got it to me two days after I ordered it (and saved $20 in the bargain).
I'll be hard pressed to ever shop at newegg.com again, and I definately do not care how they ship things (since the -if- seems to be a much more interesting adventure)
--Jimmy
Darn, now I have to go sell my palladium stash that I have put away just in case someone actually made it work the old fashioned way.
you're still playing Palladium?
It is my opinion that the single most important war in Western history is the 30 years war. Only because the Peace of Westphalia basically resulted in Europeans not killing each other solely over religion anymore.
History??? ON SLASHDOT???
[HEAD A SPLODES]
I thought the entire point of the CC licenses was to give people a choice past "All Rights Reserved". The way the law reads currently, I inherently hold exclusive copyrights to all my works, regardless of whether or not I put a (c) on the site. However, using a CC-license, I can not only choose, but show exactly what I'm ok and not ok with people doing. That's a lot of freedom, and it still allows me to protect what little work is mine.
I do not believe that writing and code are all that similar, and I do not support the concept that the laws for each should be identical.
With code, so much of what you're doing is following the rules of the language. These rules are exact, and tend to have problems when they're disobeyed (I.E. Windows). You'll end up breaking the reality of the machine when you use improper code. That being said, sharing your code allows for people to catch errors you missed, as well as add things that will make the code run better. I think it's terrible to see good code rot because people won't share.
However, with writing, there are no rules.
You can say there are rules of grammar, and I can point to a dozen different poems or pieces of writing that violate those rules. In fact, any rule you come up with about writing exists only because some people thought it should, not because it won't work if you don't. Reality (even the implied reality of a good novel) will not be harmed by improper word usage. Not unduly, any way.
That being said, when the code works, the program runs, and the inner workings of the code become irrelevant except as a reference. I believe (and this is just my opinion) that the code is only half of what makes a program work. The other half is presentation, craft, and usability (I think they're interchangable). If you have a graphics program, it can be using marvelous code, but it still also needs to be a usable graphics program, with a working interface and useful manuals and all that jazz. The code alone (again, in my humble opinion)does not a program make.
When the writing works, it must do so without hiding. The words are their own reward. They don't run anything. It's not like someone can change two lines and make a more stable code. It is only what it is. (A notable exception to this is Dr.Suess, comic books, and other illustrated pieces, which rely as well on the art and layout to work, but that's a different rant). A good book must exist independent of it's cover.
And unfortunately, this need to exist independent of all other influences is what makes a novel that much easier to steal. And I don't mean steal in the Intellectual Property sense, where you download a book to read off the net. I mean steal like you open that book with a text editor and replace the author's name with your own. That kind of theft eliminates the author, and removes the ability for any kind of credit. Sometimes this is done out of fun, and that's one thing, but other times people do it and then make money off it. One of the biggest places where this kind of theft occurs is in the poetry world, which is doubly sad since poetry pays so little.
I believe in sharing my work openly, but I'm not going to force anyone to give up their rights to protection. So I gladly use and support CC-licencing. Which allows me to say: Hey, read this. If you like it, share it, but please don't sell it or claim it as your own.
To quote the site:
"a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules."
--Joe
As near as I can tell, the reason this patent (Tescher 4,541,012) is important is that it has EXPIRED (as of September, 2005... nice timing that). By invalidating the later patent, it basically drops the JPEG format into open domain.
However, let me make this perfectly clear: IANAL (Especially not a patent lawyer).
--Jimmy
step 1. audit code
step 2. redo any code that is in dispute
step 3. package and sell your product
step 4. PROFIT!!
Wait, where's the ???
--Jimmy
I have no sig.
I'm sure one of the reasons that Top 10 sales would be down is because many of those people who buy Top-10 CDs buy them for the one song they heard on TRL or the radio, and want it and it alone. These same people were gladly paying 7$ for a single (featuring, at best, 5 songs), rather than the $15-$18 for the full CD. Now, with ITunes, they pay $.99, get their fix, and go about their day. Many of them don't care much about what other songs the artist has done.
One quick question: Does anyone know how much of that $.99 goes to the artist?
--Jimmy
I have no problems with TV... I have problems with TV networks.
The big boys (ABC, CBS, NBC) don't produce the shows I want to watch (with very very rare exception). FOX produces shows that I want to watch, but usually cancels them after they:
A- Switch the timeslot at irregular intervals
B- Preempt it for Baseball/Football/Awards Show
or C- Show the show out of order, confusing everyone who's actually paying attention.
This is just wild speculation, but maybe these shows (that do so well on DVD) would do better on TV if they were given an ounce of respect by their network...
just a thought
--Jimmy
It's amusing that you posted that comment on /.
At my wife's parents' house, they have the BSafe internet filter installed. It automatically blocks ALL search engine results (as well as message boards, Yahoo Groups, etc). You actually have to load up the filter program and enter a password to disable it to use Google.
How could the law be any more effective at protecting children as it relates to search engines than total blackout? And since that's the point they're trying to make, how useful could the search engine results be? Unless something else is going on (which I don't doubt, unfortunately), I can't see Google's logs mattering to the Gov one bit.
--Jimmy
And, more to the point, they had earlier badmouthed SpyBot for not talking to them before making a public claim. It seems to be to be an unfair double standard that the bigger company can say "talk to us first", but the littler company cannot.
Also, if a week wasn't enough time, couldn't've Symantec simply have mailed the SpyBot group and said "give us X more days, we're compiling what we need"? Silence, regardless of its justification, is not what leads to communication. Unless, of course, you're The Man With No Name.
--Jimmy
I think the Record Companies are more concerned with the Kazaa masterminds passing Go and Collecting $200
You're wrong! you're absolutely wrong! if you RTFA-- ...wait...
nevermind
Well if you don't believe in your $, can I have it?
My wife's a bigger geek then me, but that's a whole 'nother story. Her solution to the IE -> Firefox problem was to have the IE icon load up FireFox instead. Then, when she installed her sister's computer, she did it again (except this time she didn't bother telling her) she rocks.
Dood, FASA died a few years ago.
That's completely true! That how's I ended up at Slashdot... Of course, I promised myself I would never ever make an account or post comments or... gah nuts
To me, this is no different than HP.
If it's HP, and it's a printer, great.
If it's HP, and it's computers...well...RUN
I don't know how they do so great with one, and so damn poorly with the other.
Yeah, but you'd still be using IE
Please don't mix the green party with the libertarians. That's an insult to us libertarians out there ;D
I actually happen to live in Utah's Wasatch Front, and the politics surrounding the disposal of nuclear waste is horrible. Mostly, the problem is one of information. There are several very active enviormental groups that work very hard at presenting a one sided case, "Nuclear waste is bad." and allowing for no dialogue about the actual repercussions of storage/transportation/etc.
The odd thing is in the last two years, there have been two major accidents that were hazerdous threats. The first was a chemical leak which caused a major section of I-15 to be shut down for about 8 hours. The second was a semi-truck that exploded on small highway going through the mountains. Neither one had anything to do with the Chemical Disposal Plant or Radioactive Storage.
Sadly, what many people don't realize is that Hospitals and Universities both generate small amounts of radioactive waste that must be disposed of. The whole "not in my backyard" mentality is dangerous when you consider how many hospitals and universities exist inside city limits, instead of 20+ miles away.
As far as storage, the opponents go out of their way to eliminate potential sites, siting concern for the enviorment, or potential dangers. They're quick to come up with alternatives that push these disposal facilities into another state, where some other activists can take care of it. They want it to be safe, so they demand extreme percautions, and when those percautions are met, they complain that they won't last 20 years.
It's actually pretty humorous, as there are defunct Uranium Mines where the radioactive material was harvested from originally that could easily serve as storage/disposal of used radioactive material. However, because the radiation "might" seep into the water and wreck havok on the landscape, they are considered unusable. Those mines existed for thousands of years without anybody lining the walls with lead and concrete, or diffusing the radioactive material, and the landscape didn't mutate out of control, but now that man has gotten his hands on that radiation, it's a danger to the enviroment.
So yeah, I'm for the systematic disposal/burial of the nuclear waste nearby, if it means that we can use more nuclear power plants, and fewer coal plants.
--Jimmy