My dad uses Winamp to sync his iPod. He wants to manage his music the way he wants to do it, and not the way Apple tells him to do it. Now granted, Winamp is Windows software, and while I don't know of or care to find similar software for Linux, saying it requires iTunes is false.
We were talking about "most people" tm, remember. That you can get some limited functionality out of the device without itunes in some cases with other software is completely irrelevant.
TurboTax doesn't do anything particularly funky with respect to Windows. I see no reason why this couldn't run on WINE.
"Normal people" tm don't install WINE or even know what it is. All they know is the CD doesn't work, and the TurboTax support line is telling them Linux is absolutely not supported.
Lego RCX units and Harmony remotes can be programmed on Linux using 3rd party software....and... 5000 games are on the platinum list...
"normal people" tm just know the bundled CD doesn't work, and the support line can't help them.
I don't disagree in the slightest that a lot of this stuff can be made to work, and even made to work well. I might be able to do it. but my Mom isn't going to be able to do it. WINE is not "trivial". Running windows applications on linux is not a unified experience... the folder paths inside the application don't match the ones outside - for example, there can be font issues for another.... And if you have any trouble, support can't help you.
"I can't speak to other print companies but HP offers the HPLIP drivers, with support for some 2000 different pieces of hardware. Using it, I had absolutely no trouble getting printing or scanning working on my all-in-one unit."
Network scanning or just via the USB cable? What about faxxing? Does the automatic document feeder work? What about duplexing? When you say you had no trouble getting it working, is that because you like me know what your doing... or could my mom do it too with no trouble?
This is a Linux system they built, though. Shrinkwrapped software is very rare, verging on nonexistent, for that OS.
Good point. Frankly the whole article is a bit sketchy though... I mean... they assume you have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor already... doesn't that imply you already had a computer previously?
Doesn't that imply you had software for it? Software you might want to use on the new one? In which case going with linux was a bad move...
On the other hand... if your dismantling your old desktop to build a new one... perhaps you have an optical drive amongst the parts too...
[And now I have to futz around for a few minutes because apparently I can type comments faster than slashdot is willing to accept them... Its been 4 minutes since you last post? good god... if i took 5 minutes per email I'd never get anything done... WTF]
I've got to say, at this point there's no contest as far as basic functionality goes, and for doing the things that "most people" tm do on their computers most of the time. Linux is clearly superior to Windows. I dare you to take a dual boot challenge.
I'll take that dare... here's where linux breaks down for "most people" tm:
1) Itunes - sure there are plenty of great media players and what not for linux... but if you have an ios device whether its a new ipod, ipod touch, iphone, or ipad (and literally tens of millions of completely normal people do, they need itunes).
2) TurboTax etc... yep its just one week a year. But millions of completely ordinary people do their taxes with this type of software.
3) Miscellaneous Toys - from the child friendly Barbie photo manipulation software that came with the Barbie camera to setting up your new Logitech universal remote to an AppleTV to programming a Lego Mindstorms creation with LabView. This affects far more people than you might think.
4) Video games - Believe it or not, lots of perfectly normal people play everything from World of Warcraft,to Left4Dead, to the copy of Bejeweled or Riven they picked up at Walmart for $7 as an impulse buy.
5) Peripherals - Printer fax scanner copier combination devices in particular still suck with linux. Getting printing going is usually relatively straightforward, but anything else is a complicated crapshoot.
Because the http cookie completely trivial to set up and completely free too where as the database backend would need well.. a database back end. Which is neither trivial nor free, even for google.
to HTML5 web storage
How many people are still not using HTML5 browsers?
Not once, not ever, did it take a class of fourth graders more than five minutes of using this syntax to realize it was so much better than the 'traditional' syntax.
Except that its not so much better. And just because you managed to convince a group of 4th graders it was with a toy problem doesn't make it so.
The traditional rules of precidence are not complicated:
parenthesis inner to outer multipliation and division left to right addition and subtraction left to right
vs
lisp:
parenthesis inner to outer operation within parenthesis applied left to right [because (- 10 5 5) is not the same as (- 5 10 5) after all]
Yeah, that's SOO superior. And you just have to write a pile of parenthesis to avoid remembering that */ precedes +-. Big win there. Of course, its still too hard if you ask me, if you write even more parenthesis you don't ever have to remember what direction to work in.
Just inside to outside now.:p of course, why bother with prefix notation then; i mean if operator precedence is the problem, infix vs prefix is irrelevant... just throw more parenthesis at it...
((1+(2+(3+(4+(5+(6+(7+(8+(9+10))))))))))*15)
On top of it, it looks kind of weird and exotic, and kids love writing in codes -- the fourth graders took to it like ducks to water.
For sure. I'd agree to that. 4th graders love pig latin too.
If you had 18 fingers, six on each of three hands, dividing by 3, 6 and 18 would be trivial for you.
You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
Humans have 10 figures, 5 on each of two hands, and dividing by 5 is not trivial. Go ahead, take a pie and divide it into 5 pieces. Most people find that VERY annoying.
In fact most would find it much EASIER to divide a pie into 6 pieces, because that's just 2x3, and dividing a pie in half is trivial, and then dividing each half into 3rds isn't too bad at all.
Dividing by 10 is not just inherently easy, just easy for humans spending a lifetime working in decimal.
No. Dividing by "10" is inherently easy in ANY base system. Naturally, what "10" means depends on the base. In decimal "10" is ten. In hexadecimal "10" is sixteen. Division by "10" is easy in any base because it simply involves moving the radix point. (or decimal point in base 10). Its not easy because we're used to it, its easy because its defined to be easy.
(+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) is much more obvious to me than 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10
more obvious" really? equally obvious maybe, but not more obvious.
And that's cherry picking. The lisp actually looks slightly more readable, while the infix version is only SLIGHTLY less readable. But I can cherry pick too:
(expt 3 (+ (- (expt (* x 4) 2) (/ (- y 1) 3)) 5)
vs
3 ^ (4*x^2 - (y-1)/3 + 5)
Here infix is more readable, and not "slightly" more, a whole lot more.
I used to believe those nations who control the skies will be the top powers, but now I think more likely it's those nations or corporations that control the ladders up to the skies that will really hold all the cards.
Your ladder isn't going to be worth much if someone else can knock it down. Controlling the skies will continue to be the key... you control who gets to have a ladder.
So what you're saying is that your GUI won't let me merge a set of files from a zip file into an existing directory? It will, but its generally a stupid idea that leads to bad things whether you use the command line or a gui.
I tend to unzip to a separate folder, and then copy/paste or drag/drop to the true target folder.
Or are you saying no one can make mistakes on a GUI?
Of course not. I'm saying the gui defaults help minimize them.
Or maybe someone clicked "overwrite all" automatically, without thinking.
Then we're going to be recovering from backups regardless of whether we used the GUI or Command line, and your example of undoing the damage with some clever command line scripting is moot.
When GUIs present nag pop-ups all the time one develops a tendency to always click automatically some default buttons.
Command lines will prompt for overwriting files as well, (unless you set the switches not to ask.) This isn't restricted to GUIs.
GUIs are fine for searching visually among a set of images.
But that's still file management. And it wasn't just the visual search that set my example apart, it was the ability to interactively select a sub-set of the files that would have extremely cumbersome to do via a command line without typing out long lists of individual filenames.
The problem is people who do not know how to use the best tool for each job. When the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, I'm sure you've heard that one.
Yeah, but mastering the command line is a huge investment of time, with low dividends for most people.
Just as its asinine suggesting that everyone learn SQL because it would make generating a list of their contacts who live in city Y, work for company Z, and don't have CxO in their job description easier.
SQL might well be the best tool for the job... but learning SQL and keeping it fresh enough to use on demand when you only actually need sophisticated queries once every 3 months is silly. Better to just brute force it with a couple finds and then groom the resulting list manually than to take a month off learn sql, write your elegant query and then forget most of it before you need another one.
That, is how most people find the command line. Great tool, dimly aware its powerful, don't want to spend months mastering it just so they can save a few hours a couple times a year when it would really make a difference.
Right click, extract, it defaults to a new folder in the current directory that doesn't already exist with a name based on the zip file. How did you botch this up in the first place? Oh right... you were using the command line.;)
Now I have hundred files spread through a directory that already contained many files and directories. Delete only the files that were in that zip file.
Did the zip folder contain any files with the same name as files that were in the folder? When prompted for overwrite I presume you click no.
Bash solution:
1) unpack the zip file in a clean directory tmpdir 2) cd tmpdir; for f in *; do rm../$f; done
Oops. You just trashed any original files with conflicting names.
Probably should have sorted by date modified, and just deleted the ones made in that unzipping burst, something that can be done in decent gui's easily enough.
But here's a case GUIs blow command lines away, and its something I've done frequently...
Your mom wants pictures of the camping trip, and your daughters birthday burnt to a DVD so they can take it home with them.
The picture folder you just recently copied from an SD card onto your PC... you've got a folder of the last dump... file: 1004245.JPG down to 1007223.JPG; 3 months worth of pics...
In the GUI, you set it to a thumbnail view, scroll down until you see camping pics, click the first, control click the last one, ah but you went to a car show in the middle of the trip, she won't want those, so you control click around that batch, and then individually... control click out a few bad shots, along with the candid shot you grabbed of your wife sunbathing, and take the jumbled highlighted set, right click, send to DVD, the burn data disc window pops up, and your done.
Then I spent two years developing perl. Now I can't imagine a situation (a programming situation) that couldn't be improved by using regular expressions.
There's one of the reasons perl code is considered unmaintainable.
Poltical speech made in public by political figure should not protected by copyright. Full stop.
This is not in the public's interest, as exercising copyrights on it limits the public's access to political speech. Political speech is one of the most protected forms of speech, as its essential to democracy.
That is why the speech SHOULD NOT be protected by copyright.
But what argument for protecting is there? Bearing in mind that the purpose of copyright was primarily "to promote science and the useful arts", and does so by granting artists limited exclusive protections over their works to motivate and enable them to do so as the end goal.
Is anyone arguing that King would not have been motivated to make the speech without proprietary protections on it to enable him to profit from the sales of recordings and performances in the same way a poet or musician makes a living?
Frankly, that's absurd on its face.
You have to really contort to justify that copyright should apply to political speech in the first place. And then that argument needs to overcome the public interest in having political speech in the public domain.
Because copyright has no authority to prevent you from MAKING a derivative work. Period.
What happens if someone is performing a copyright play in a public place? Do you think you have the right to record that and make copies?
Right to record: yes. Right to make copies: no. (*1)
What if someone is airing music live over the public radio waves? Do you have the right to record that and make copies?
Right to record? Yes. (Its called time shifting a broadcast and its been recognized as legal forever. This is why VCRs and DVRs and casset players with a record button have been legal for decades...)
Right to make copies? No.
What if someone is showing a 'movie in the park'? Do you have the right to record that and make copies??
Right to record, yes. Right to make copies? No.
No, you do not have the right to make copies of copyrighted things even if they're in sitting in public.
Yes, actually you do.
And, believe it or not, there are exceptions to copyright that allow 'incidental' images of copyrighted things showing up in the background...
You can take a picture of anything you want in a public space. Copyright law doesn't prevent you from making derivative works. That's simply not one of the exclusive rights it grants rights holders. Period.
*1 They can ask you not to record it, and they can refuse to perform while you sit there pointing a camera at them if you decide to be a douche about it. And if you upload it to youtube they'll be able to get it taken town for copyright infringement.
With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.
Don't photograph X in public place because copyright is held on X should NOT stand up in court.
HOWEVER, the ability to publish the photograph could reasonably be argued as copyright infringement without the sculptors permission if the photograph is deemed a derivative work. (which if the sculpture was the subject of the photograph is not unreasonable).
Yeah, but I'm curious how that correlates to gamers and artists vs office work.
I won't blink at using a mouse with my right hand if I'm doing word, excel, installing software, troubleshooting, etc... I work at other peoples desks all the time and if the mouse is on the right, which it usually is, I'm perfectly comfortable with it there for almost everything I do, to the point that I don't even realize I'm using it off-hand.
But fire up an FPS game, or start drawing curves in Ilustrator, and suddenly using the mouse off hand is completely out of the question.
I don't know a lot of left handed gamers, but the few I do do use their mice left handed.
And I'd seriously buy one tomorrow if the touchpad was in the center instead of the right side...see Razer, I'm left handed... and precision mousing is like handwriting, drawing, pointing... I can use a mouse offhand for point-and-click stuff... but gaming? Sure I'll play you offhand... if you do too.
Too be fair they do have some abidextrous stuff and a left handed death adder which is actually not complete garbage... so they aren't the worst company, but a lot (although not all) of the RH only stuff could be ambidextrous with just a bit more effort.
The blade for example, could possibly have been engineered to let the end user swap the places of the keypad and mouse.... its a $2800 laptop, a few bucks to support this wouldn't have broken the bank. And it might have boosted sales by another 10%...
While you're at it, take some time to wonder why you're buying a client's computer at Best Buy. Are you really doing your client a favour by getting them a machine with a return-to-depot-and-you-probably-won't-get-your-data-back warranty?
I've done this. Its usually because they want a laptop by lunch time, and do not want to wait a week or even overnight for a special order job.
So you walk into BB and grab a unit that meets the specs, and just deal with the fact that its got windows 7 home premium, and you hope you aren't getting some goofy grey market product that you have to go to the japanese support site for drivers because according to the North America site that model doesn't exist...
Slashdot Mirror
My dad uses Winamp to sync his iPod. He wants to manage his music the way he wants to do it, and not the way Apple tells him to do it. Now granted, Winamp is Windows software, and while I don't know of or care to find similar software for Linux, saying it requires iTunes is false.
We were talking about "most people" tm, remember. That you can get some limited functionality out of the device without itunes in some cases with other software is completely irrelevant.
TurboTax doesn't do anything particularly funky with respect to Windows. I see no reason why this couldn't run on WINE.
"Normal people" tm don't install WINE or even know what it is. All they know is the CD doesn't work, and the TurboTax support line is telling them Linux is absolutely not supported.
Lego RCX units and Harmony remotes can be programmed on Linux using 3rd party software. ...and...
5000 games are on the platinum list...
"normal people" tm just know the bundled CD doesn't work, and the support line can't help them.
I don't disagree in the slightest that a lot of this stuff can be made to work, and even made to work well. I might be able to do it. but my Mom isn't going to be able to do it. WINE is not "trivial". Running windows applications on linux is not a unified experience... the folder paths inside the application don't match the ones outside - for example, there can be font issues for another.... And if you have any trouble, support can't help you.
"I can't speak to other print companies but HP offers the HPLIP drivers, with support for some 2000 different pieces of hardware. Using it, I had absolutely no trouble getting printing or scanning working on my all-in-one unit."
Network scanning or just via the USB cable? What about faxxing? Does the automatic document feeder work? What about duplexing? When you say you had no trouble getting it working, is that because you like me know what your doing... or could my mom do it too with no trouble?
This is a Linux system they built, though. Shrinkwrapped software is very rare, verging on nonexistent, for that OS.
Good point. Frankly the whole article is a bit sketchy though... I mean... they assume you have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor already... doesn't that imply you already had a computer previously?
Doesn't that imply you had software for it? Software you might want to use on the new one? In which case going with linux was a bad move...
On the other hand... if your dismantling your old desktop to build a new one... perhaps you have an optical drive amongst the parts too...
[And now I have to futz around for a few minutes because apparently I can type comments faster than slashdot is willing to accept them... Its been 4 minutes since you last post? good god... if i took 5 minutes per email I'd never get anything done... WTF]
I've got to say, at this point there's no contest as far as basic functionality goes, and for doing the things that "most people" tm do on their computers most of the time. Linux is clearly superior to Windows. I dare you to take a dual boot challenge.
I'll take that dare... here's where linux breaks down for "most people" tm:
1) Itunes - sure there are plenty of great media players and what not for linux... but if you have an ios device whether its a new ipod, ipod touch, iphone, or ipad (and literally tens of millions of completely normal people do, they need itunes).
2) TurboTax etc... yep its just one week a year. But millions of completely ordinary people do their taxes with this type of software.
3) Miscellaneous Toys - from the child friendly Barbie photo manipulation software that came with the Barbie camera to setting up your new Logitech universal remote to an AppleTV to programming a Lego Mindstorms creation with LabView. This affects far more people than you might think.
4) Video games - Believe it or not, lots of perfectly normal people play everything from World of Warcraft,to Left4Dead, to the copy of Bejeweled or Riven they picked up at Walmart for $7 as an impulse buy.
5) Peripherals - Printer fax scanner copier combination devices in particular still suck with linux. Getting printing going is usually relatively straightforward, but anything else is a complicated crapshoot.
Optical disks? How quaint! :)
You do realize people still buy software, and that it still comes on optical disks.
Not everyone has a broadband yet.
Optical discs aren't even close to dead yet.
Maybe you don't need one, that's just fine, good for you.
from the database backend
Because the http cookie completely trivial to set up and completely free too where as the database backend would need well.. a database back end. Which is neither trivial nor free, even for google.
to HTML5 web storage
How many people are still not using HTML5 browsers?
The point remains though that the corporations are not remotely required "by law" to maximize profits.
At corporation does what their OWNERS want them to do.
While it may be true that most owners want to maximize profits there is no law anywhere to the effect that this must be the case.
Not once, not ever, did it take a class of fourth graders more than five minutes of using this syntax to realize it was so much better than the 'traditional' syntax.
Except that its not so much better. And just because you managed to convince a group of 4th graders it was with a toy problem doesn't make it so.
The traditional rules of precidence are not complicated:
parenthesis inner to outer
multipliation and division left to right
addition and subtraction left to right
vs
lisp:
parenthesis inner to outer
operation within parenthesis applied left to right [because (- 10 5 5) is not the same as (- 5 10 5) after all]
Yeah, that's SOO superior. And you just have to write a pile of parenthesis to avoid remembering that */ precedes +-. Big win there.
Of course, its still too hard if you ask me, if you write even more parenthesis you don't ever have to remember what direction to work in.
(* (+ 1 (+ 2 (+ 3 (+ 4 (+ 5 (+ 6 (+ 7 (+ 8 (+ 9 10))))))))) 15)
Just inside to outside now. :p
of course, why bother with prefix notation then; i mean if operator precedence is the problem, infix vs prefix is irrelevant... just throw more parenthesis at it...
((1+(2+(3+(4+(5+(6+(7+(8+(9+10))))))))))*15)
On top of it, it looks kind of weird and exotic, and kids love writing in codes -- the fourth graders took to it like ducks to water.
For sure. I'd agree to that. 4th graders love pig latin too.
Ask any reputable Chiropractor about how radiation causes serious subluxations due to DNA malformation.
Is that why chiropractors order so many spinal x-rays? Job security?
The bing results are very similiar to the google results. The only difference is the bloomberg article which is link 1 on google is link 12 on bing.
I think we're just seeing a difference in the ranking algorithms... google is pushing "news" harder than the facebook, linked in, etc stuff.
As for not finding it on msnbc... its not on CNN either, or Fox News, or CBS News... so I don't read much into that at all either.
Yet another person who has no idea how standards actually work, but is apparently literate enough to read XKCD.
Do tell. How do you think they really work?
What do you get when you have THREE competing standards and you try to take elements of them to make something multi-platform and all inclusive?
FOUR competing standards
If you had 18 fingers, six on each of three hands, dividing by 3, 6 and 18 would be trivial for you.
You might think that, but you'd be wrong.
Humans have 10 figures, 5 on each of two hands, and dividing by 5 is not trivial. Go ahead, take a pie and divide it into 5 pieces. Most people find that VERY annoying.
In fact most would find it much EASIER to divide a pie into 6 pieces, because that's just 2x3, and dividing a pie in half is trivial, and then dividing each half into 3rds isn't too bad at all.
Dividing by 10 is not just inherently easy, just easy for humans spending a lifetime working in decimal.
No. Dividing by "10" is inherently easy in ANY base system. Naturally, what "10" means depends on the base. In decimal "10" is ten. In hexadecimal "10" is sixteen. Division by "10" is easy in any base because it simply involves moving the radix point. (or decimal point in base 10). Its not easy because we're used to it, its easy because its defined to be easy.
(+ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10) is much more obvious to me than 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10
more obvious" really? equally obvious maybe, but not more obvious.
And that's cherry picking. The lisp actually looks slightly more readable, while the infix version is only SLIGHTLY less readable. But I can cherry pick too:
(expt 3 (+ (- (expt (* x 4) 2) (/ (- y 1) 3)) 5)
vs
3 ^ (4*x^2 - (y-1)/3 + 5)
Here infix is more readable, and not "slightly" more, a whole lot more.
I used to believe those nations who control the skies will be the top powers, but now I think more likely it's those nations or corporations that control the ladders up to the skies that will really hold all the cards.
Your ladder isn't going to be worth much if someone else can knock it down. Controlling the skies will continue to be the key... you control who gets to have a ladder.
So what you're saying is that your GUI won't let me merge a set of files from a zip file into an existing directory?
It will, but its generally a stupid idea that leads to bad things whether you use the command line or a gui.
I tend to unzip to a separate folder, and then copy/paste or drag/drop to the true target folder.
Or are you saying no one can make mistakes on a GUI?
Of course not. I'm saying the gui defaults help minimize them.
Or maybe someone clicked "overwrite all" automatically, without thinking.
Then we're going to be recovering from backups regardless of whether we used the GUI or Command line, and your example of undoing the damage with some clever command line scripting is moot.
When GUIs present nag pop-ups all the time one develops a tendency to always click automatically some default buttons.
Command lines will prompt for overwriting files as well, (unless you set the switches not to ask.) This isn't restricted to GUIs.
GUIs are fine for searching visually among a set of images.
But that's still file management. And it wasn't just the visual search that set my example apart, it was the ability to interactively select a sub-set of the files that would have extremely cumbersome to do via a command line without typing out long lists of individual filenames.
The problem is people who do not know how to use the best tool for each job. When the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, I'm sure you've heard that one.
Yeah, but mastering the command line is a huge investment of time, with low dividends for most people.
Just as its asinine suggesting that everyone learn SQL because it would make generating a list of their contacts who live in city Y, work for company Z, and don't have CxO in their job description easier.
SQL might well be the best tool for the job... but learning SQL and keeping it fresh enough to use on demand when you only actually need sophisticated queries once every 3 months is silly. Better to just brute force it with a couple finds and then groom the resulting list manually than to take a month off learn sql, write your elegant query and then forget most of it before you need another one.
That, is how most people find the command line. Great tool, dimly aware its powerful, don't want to spend months mastering it just so they can save a few hours a couple times a year when it would really make a difference.
Let me see a GUI solve the following problem
Ok
I unpacked a zipped file in the wrong directory
Right click, extract, it defaults to a new folder in the current directory that doesn't already exist with a name based on the zip file. How did you botch this up in the first place? Oh right... you were using the command line. ;)
Now I have hundred files spread through a directory that already contained many files and directories. Delete only the files that were in that zip file.
Did the zip folder contain any files with the same name as files that were in the folder? When prompted for overwrite I presume you click no.
Bash solution:
1) unpack the zip file in a clean directory tmpdir ../$f; done
2) cd tmpdir; for f in *; do rm
Oops. You just trashed any original files with conflicting names.
Probably should have sorted by date modified, and just deleted the ones made in that unzipping burst, something that can be done in decent gui's easily enough.
But here's a case GUIs blow command lines away, and its something I've done frequently...
Your mom wants pictures of the camping trip, and your daughters birthday burnt to a DVD so they can take it home with them.
The picture folder you just recently copied from an SD card onto your PC... you've got a folder of the last dump... file: 1004245.JPG down to 1007223.JPG; 3 months worth of pics...
In the GUI, you set it to a thumbnail view, scroll down until you see camping pics, click the first, control click the last one, ah but you went to a car show in the middle of the trip, she won't want those, so you control click around that batch, and then individually... control click out a few bad shots, along with the candid shot you grabbed of your wife sunbathing, and take the jumbled highlighted set, right click, send to DVD, the burn data disc window pops up, and your done.
What's the bash solution?
Then I spent two years developing perl. Now I can't imagine a situation (a programming situation) that couldn't be improved by using regular expressions.
There's one of the reasons perl code is considered unmaintainable.
Why should a speech be a part of public domain?
Poltical speech made in public by political figure should not protected by copyright. Full stop.
This is not in the public's interest, as exercising copyrights on it limits the public's access to political speech. Political speech is one of the most protected forms of speech, as its essential to democracy.
That is why the speech SHOULD NOT be protected by copyright.
But what argument for protecting is there? Bearing in mind that the purpose of copyright was primarily "to promote science and the useful arts", and does so by granting artists limited exclusive protections over their works to motivate and enable them to do so as the end goal.
Is anyone arguing that King would not have been motivated to make the speech without proprietary protections on it to enable him to profit from the sales of recordings and performances in the same way a poet or musician makes a living?
Frankly, that's absurd on its face.
You have to really contort to justify that copyright should apply to political speech in the first place. And then that argument needs to overcome the public interest in having political speech in the public domain.
Why the fuck not?
Because copyright has no authority to prevent you from MAKING a derivative work. Period.
What happens if someone is performing a copyright play in a public place? Do you think you have the right to record that and make copies?
Right to record: yes. Right to make copies: no. (*1)
What if someone is airing music live over the public radio waves? Do you have the right to record that and make copies?
Right to record? Yes. (Its called time shifting a broadcast and its been recognized as legal forever. This is why VCRs and DVRs and casset players with a record button have been legal for decades...)
Right to make copies? No.
What if someone is showing a 'movie in the park'? Do you have the right to record that and make copies??
Right to record, yes. Right to make copies? No.
No, you do not have the right to make copies of copyrighted things even if they're in sitting in public.
Yes, actually you do.
And, believe it or not, there are exceptions to copyright that allow 'incidental' images of copyrighted things showing up in the background...
You can take a picture of anything you want in a public space. Copyright law doesn't prevent you from making derivative works. That's simply not one of the exclusive rights it grants rights holders. Period.
*1 They can ask you not to record it, and they can refuse to perform while you sit there pointing a camera at them if you decide to be a douche about it. And if you upload it to youtube they'll be able to get it taken town for copyright infringement.
But they can't legally stop you from recording.
With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.
Don't photograph X in public place because copyright is held on X should NOT stand up in court.
HOWEVER, the ability to publish the photograph could reasonably be argued as copyright infringement without the sculptors permission if the photograph is deemed a derivative work. (which if the sculpture was the subject of the photograph is not unreasonable).
Yeah, but I'm curious how that correlates to gamers and artists vs office work.
I won't blink at using a mouse with my right hand if I'm doing word, excel, installing software, troubleshooting, etc... I work at other peoples desks all the time and if the mouse is on the right, which it usually is, I'm perfectly comfortable with it there for almost everything I do, to the point that I don't even realize I'm using it off-hand.
But fire up an FPS game, or start drawing curves in Ilustrator, and suddenly using the mouse off hand is completely out of the question.
I don't know a lot of left handed gamers, but the few I do do use their mice left handed.
Your thinking about it too much as a gamer thing.
I'd like a powerful but small windows laptop with a large multitouch pad...
Hell.. this is why i bought a macbook pro.
Its a large multi-touch pad. Even if it spends all its time showing a static image or nothing at all, it will still be useful.
And I'd seriously buy one tomorrow if the touchpad was in the center instead of the right side...see Razer, I'm left handed... and precision mousing is like handwriting, drawing, pointing... I can use a mouse offhand for point-and-click stuff... but gaming? Sure I'll play you offhand... if you do too.
Too be fair they do have some abidextrous stuff and a left handed death adder which is actually not complete garbage... so they aren't the worst company, but a lot (although not all) of the RH only stuff could be ambidextrous with just a bit more effort.
The blade for example, could possibly have been engineered to let the end user swap the places of the keypad and mouse.... its a $2800 laptop, a few bucks to support this wouldn't have broken the bank. And it might have boosted sales by another 10%...
While you're at it, take some time to wonder why you're buying a client's computer at Best Buy. Are you really doing your client a favour by getting them a machine with a return-to-depot-and-you-probably-won't-get-your-data-back warranty?
I've done this. Its usually because they want a laptop by lunch time, and do not want to wait a week or even overnight for a special order job.
So you walk into BB and grab a unit that meets the specs, and just deal with the fact that its got windows 7 home premium, and you hope you aren't getting some goofy grey market product that you have to go to the japanese support site for drivers because according to the North America site that model doesn't exist...
(well, actually many people would take that cash and let you have extra pieces..).
But then they aren't really playing settlers of catan anymore; its some derivative but its not the same rules.
More importantly, I don't have to play with those people if I don't want to.
If I could have that option in mmoprgs I'd be happy. Let the people who want to buy shit play on one server, let the people who don't play on another.
Its cheating on one server, and heavily enforced bannable... and acceptable on the other. Hell... even fully supported in game for all I care.