This is Microsoft going after their small business customers that can't afford to pay the legal fees and threatening them with legal action just for the hell of it.
I've been audited by microsoft; it took a couple hours to fill out. They asked a few follow up questions and were satisfied and went away. It wasn't a big deal because I had documentation. I mean, you do maintain a software inventory right? You know where your licenses are right? You do actually have enough licenses right?
So that you know you are in compliance with your license agreement right?
The only way I'd "true up" is if I knew the audit would find a lot of non-compliance's... and then truing up, like the other poster said... its sort of like an out of court settlement. I don't acknowledge any wrong doing for what I was doing, they get some extra money, we sort of agree how to square things off... end of story.
But I don't need to true up because I'm clean. If they want to do a more thorough audit themselves, they're welcome to have at it. It's their money to burn.
I'm about 10 years past using email clients. I would have to guess most of this audience is, too.
Um nope.
Compared to gmail accessed via web, email clients offer slower startup,
Compared to launching a browser, clicking on your webmail bookmark, signing in, waiting for your mail to load? Or do you give webmail a headstart be prelaunching the browser? My mail client starts up just as fast as my browser does, if not faster.
higher bug count
Not really, mail is pretty mature after all, it mostly just works. But sure, it does a lot more stuff, and has capabilities the web clients simply don't have at all, so sure some of that has bugs.
, a crazily confusing configuration burden
Its mostly a case of entering your email address and password. The same as the web versions. Sure if you've got some byzantine security labyrinth to get through to check your mail then its complex to set up.
, create a deep disincentive to access email from any machine but your own,
An advantage if you care at all about security.
a centrifugal bumble-puppy model for where your emails reside that can be relied upon to place the emails "on the wrong machine" (or none at all, or N-fold on each of M machines) when you need it most,
It's on you if you aren't syncing your mail. Hell, I use Office365 with 3 different companies, and I use the desktop Outlook client.
and they bifurcate your message store when you change jobs or ISPs, etc.
Yeah, webmail doesn't change that. And if you've ever tried to migrate your mail between ISPs when all you have is webmail... well... for most of them, you need to do it with a desktop client. Gmail and Office365 have some migration tools, and they work, with some caveats... and issues usually need to be fixed with a desktop client.
Moreover, I am spared the horrors of the aged hacks and platform-bound kludgery intended to address the above faults (e.g., IMAP or whatever Office thinks it provides).
And instead have all manner of other annoying issues. Browser application window management is an outright clusterfuck, with your mail being in a browser tab mixed with your other tabs, a new message popping in a new browser window, your taskbar being completely unable to differentiate between what's your 'collection of email windows' from all your other browser and web app windows.
Its also a royal PITA to be logged into multiple accounts at the same time (2 different Its a royal PITA to copy or move multiple messages, or folders, or multiple selections between multiple accounts. And excruciating if the accounts belong to the same provider. (e.g. two different and separate google apps for enterprises accounts...or two separate office365 accounts... I practically need two separate browsers to do that. Meanwhile, both thunderbird and outlook handle it gracefully.
You also pretty much give up any pretense of encrypted/secure messaging, and expose yourself to browser xss and other browser related flaws that simply can't happen with a standalone client.
inferior search tools
This one point I agree with you. subject/sender search in thunderbird is great, but its full body search needs work. But outlook backing onto exchange/office 365 is very good; although local mail is subject to windows searchindexer which can cause problems sometimes. I'd like to see much better search / indexing come to Thunderbird... there's no inherent reason it can't do it.
Just because someone can compute the results of what would have happened in some simulated scenario, doesn't mean that that a conscious experience of that scenario magically gets created.
Or does it? We don't know.
But it's leads to all kinds of neat thought experiments. If I simulated my own brain, would it be conscious? Why wouldn't it be? If every neuron and cellular chemical and electrical interaction were modeled, shouldn't it be conscious? If Consciousness isn't "magic" so it must arise from the various interactions in the body/brain... so i all of that is simulated, then so too must the consciousness be simulated?!
If it *were* conscious, what if I run the simulation slower, would it still be conscious, just 'slower' perceiving my time as moving faster than i do? why not?
What then, if I evaluated the simulation using pen and paper, and it took thousands of years to evaluate each new state... would the simulation still be conscious? And that's crazy. Yet, I see no reasonable argument against it.
... one guy uses Tor to check Facebook anonymously 1 million times per month.
No, facebooks knows who the million are.
So the headline should be 1 million idiots used tor thinking they connected to facebook anonymously and here follows a list of their names, addresses, birthdays, favorite snack, last vacation they went on, and who their dentist is.
First we don't have an infinite timeline because our universe has a finite lifetime and will eventually end in one of a variety of different scenarios e.g. heat death and the "big rip".
What's true of our universe, isn't necessarily true of the universe that simulates it.
Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe.
And? IF the ghosts in pacman are having a similar argument...it turns out our universe has plenty of complexity and energy to spare to simulate theirs.
This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman.
Quite possibly. But if THE universe has infinite mass and energy then it can simulate an infinite number of other universes, including other infinite universes.
Hence the assumption that there is an infinite chain running for an infinite time is simply not logically consistent.
I think your argument's own assumptions have failed you here, in particular that "real" universe must be finite just because ours appears to be.
Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe. This would require all the energy and matter in our universe leaving nothing with which to construct the simulator.
Are you sure about that? What if you only need to simulate the parts that are observed? What if you can get a pretty good simulation going using just a fraction of the universe to build it. What if, like a game of Civilization the game fits into a certain amount of memory, and yes, eventually if there is no winner and all cililizations grow without bound and eventually the host systems resources are exhausted... so the simulation crashes. The host system starts a new game. Whose to say we aren't a few billion more humans from an out of memory exception in the host universe?
Weird to have you beat someone up for not reading the bill when you didn't even read TFA.
Not that weird. Common sense applies here.
California already had a stupid law saying x% of new buildings statewide must be "solar capable", meaning not shaded.
That's not quite what it means. It means they must be constructed so that they themselves don't preclude the use of solar on their roofs by their own design, it obviously doesn't mean that they passed a law requiring new buildings to somehow defy physics and receive sunlight even if there is a mountain or neighboring building blocking it.
That is the stupid law.
How is it a stupid law? It's a pretty modest 15% and easily achievable.
and if I'm building on the north side of a hill???
Did you read the bill? They are typically more than one liners. There's probably all sorts of caveats and exclusions in the details. Not to mention that just because the law says something any builder can request a variance.
So its a bit premature to just assume you would actually need to put solar panels on a building that gets no sunlight.
idiots....
Once you've determined the bill actually does require you to put panels on your permashaded building AND your request for a variance has been denied you can call them idiots.
Until then though, I figure the idiot is more likely to be you.
Apple recycled $40 million worth of gold from phones last year"
Apple has in its possession or (has sold) 40 million in gold as a result? Well no. But the gold was from phones? Well mostly no. And it was last year? Well... mostly. Sure. But 40 million in gold was recycled? Yes. That part happened.
So it should have read:
In the last fiscal year Apple paid recylers to process various ewaste from which the recyclers extracted 40 million worth of gold. It cost more than that to process the ewaste.
If He doesn't already have a nickname, catchphrase, favorite hat, or other distinguishing element that we already We don't know what either car they drives. We don't know where either works. We don't know who either's girlfriend is etc...... Then sure I'll eventually end up at 'black Jason' or 'white Jason'.
But honestly, It'll probably be "JJ" or "Honda Jason" or "Jason and Monica Jason" or "Passed-out-at-your-stag Jason"... "Jason from Highschool" or "not Jason from Highschool" or "not Jason and Monica Jason" or "Single Jason" or "Divorced Jason" or "Stupid Jason" or "Guitar Jason" or "Tatoo Jason" or "Manslut Jason" or "Wannabe rapper Jason" or "Bad Hair Jason" or "Cheap Suit Jason" or "Star Trek Jason"...
This is assumed to such an extent that the high school teachers regularly incorporate their use into their lessons.
When we registered my daughter in highschool we had to tick off a box saying whether she had a laptop or tablet that would be provided for her to use at school. I think all of her classmates have something too. I think if we'd ticked the no box, the school has a small supply of tablets they give out as loaners.
A phone is not required. And I find it doubtful your daughter actually needs a *phone*.
It is astonishing to me that the teachers can't comprehend that a teenager might not have a smart phone.
Every school district is different. But in ours, it *would* be pretty unusual for a student not to have a device. And as I said, our school district has a small loaner supply to give those kids access, so that the internet, and basic document editing etc can be part of the curriculum.
It makes sense, the school library compared to the internet is a pitiful resource for research. And more importantly, that's just not HOW research is done anymore; so its not the skill they should be learning. (Don't get me wrong its a good skill to have, but they need to learn how to use the internet, and to critically evaluate the credibility of sources they find there more than they need to learn how to use a card catalog and the dewey decimal system.)
Beats me, but my sister ordered a book off amazon once something about comedians; she knew I liked Jon Stewart etc.
The "book" was nothing but a verbatim cut and paste articles from Wikipedia. No chapters. No organization. No value add over the wikipedia content. And one of the entire later sections was about 30-40 pages of nothing but random garbage (that looked like a corrupt PDF file).
Your argument is essentially a "no true scotsman" argument
Not really.
Your definition apparently requires "over the Internet".
My definition requires that a book be purchased.
As for authors being paid for books in book stores: that's not true. In the USA, at least, book stores can "strip" books and return them for credit. Authors effectively only get paid when the book store sells a book and not while it is on the shelf.
Yes and no. Its more complicated than that.
In the past, authors have attempted to make libraries pay when library patrons check out a book.
Yes, its not like the author's guild are saints.
This action by the Authors' guild is quite simply a money grab.
So is the action by Google. I don't see any reason to take Google's side in the money grab over the author's guild's side. I do think an equitable solution exists... I don't think this was it.
I have purchased a few books based only on the excerpts found in google searches...but of course that breaks your nice little narrative...go shill for a publisher somewhere else.
No, it doesn't "break my narrative" at all. I don't doubt that it happens. Sales are generated. Sales are lost. Who knows whether more or gained then lost as a result? Not me. Not you.
The point I'm making is: it doesn't matter. Its not up to you or me.
If I think McDonalds would sell more apple pies if it let me eat half of one and then decide whether to pay for the 2nd half, that's neat... I can think that all I want. Maybe its even true. But I can't make McDonald's sell Apple Pie under this business model just because I think it might work better for them. Its their pie, they can decide how they want to sell it, at what price, and how much of a preview to give.
So why isn't it up to the author how much of a preview is available, and what parts, of their books?
And why on earth is it up to *google* to decide what pages are available on the internet for free? (And not even a public service, as a for profit advertising company making money off the venture.) To relate this back to McDonalds... now some google dude is just reaching into the kitchen handing pies to random people and saying... hey did you like it? Want some more? I can only give you a few bites, but you can buy it if you want some more. Or maybe come back tomorrow... I'm here all week. Or Maybe you'd be interested in these other apple pies we sell...other customers have liked these other pies a lot *... come, come lets go talk over here.
And in your world McDonalds has to be ok with this? Because hey, YOU purchased a few pies based on these tastings so it doesn't matter what mcdonalds thinks of the deal; clearly it must be in there best interest and anyone who disagrees is a shill.
(* other pie makers are paying me to tell you this.)
Did you ever go into a large US bookstore in the late '90s/early '00s? If you did, you would see several people reading books from cover to cover. The staff did not prevent this activity.
Ok. But "reading books cover to cover" is definitely not the same thing as what I said " if you brought in your laptop, a scanner/camera, set yourself up on a desk and started doing your "research". Taking notes, scanning/photographic pages getting everything you need, and then putting the books back."
See those are quite different, and I never saw anybody doing that in a book store in 90s and 00s.
But sure lets talk briefly about your scenario. It is quite different from google books -- just for starters every copy of every book in every in every store had been paid for by the store. None of the books were allowed to leave the store unpaid. And nobody was sitting there copying and scanning pages into a computer to be referenced later etc; and while there were a number of freeloaders quite a lot of people were taking the book they'd started home with them (paying for it) after spending the afternoon in the shop, having coffee etc.
The whole business model was designed to sell books, and it was actually fairly successful. (And still exists; 2 of 3 book stores I frequent are still set up for this.)
And above all else the authors and booksellers were ok with the business model. (And those that were not were free to sell books in tamper-proof clear plastic wraps that could not be opened until they were bought and paid for. And isn't that the important part... the sellers were setting the terms. Isn't that their prerogative? Do they need to live you to your sense of what is logical or rational? If they want to prevent google from making significant enough chunks of books available that the authors think it will cost them sales... isn't that up to the author?
In the case of fiction, missing half the pages is pretty much a deal breaker. Almost nobody is going to read that. But technical or science works... if the pages there are the pages you need, then your done. Shouldn't it be up to each author to decide how much and what should be available as a free preview?
You don't have to buy it if you aren't happy with what is being previewed, after all.
The chance of someone buying a book after seeing a page or two show up on google books is bigger than them buying the same book without seeing that preview.
Says you. I for one am unlikely to buy most books that I've already got free access to all the information I need from them. In fact, that is what the original poster himself claimed... the book had "important information". he got it. he didn't buy the book.
He can argue that not knowing about the book gives zero odds of buying it. But if hadn't been able to just take what he wanted from the book, he'd still be searching for that important information, which he might discover is in that book. And then maybe he'd buy it. So you can't claim categorically that the exposure they got from google books increased sales. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
What does it even matter though?
Isn't it normally up to the seller to set the terms of sale transaction?
I mean, if I'm selling my car; maybe if you take it for a test drive it'll close the deal; or maybe you are just there to kick the tires and joyride someone else's car... but its up to me whether you take the car out for a spin. You don't get to "decide" that driving it might increase the odds of you buying it, and then dictate that you get to take it out for a spin.
If a book author wants you to decide whether to buy a book based on the dust jacket and reviews then isn't that their perogative? If they are ok with you flipping through the pages in a book store, but not on the internet, isn't that their prerogative? If they want to plastic seal it so you can't peruse it in store, or put it under glass so you can't even touch it... isn't that up to them ? You can choose not to buy it. You can go through life without ever knowing it exists. So be it. They can go broke for being too hostile and preventing sales if it comes to that.
No. They are scared you'll just see it as "important information" then take what you need without paying; which is exactly what the post I responded to said he did.
for example, I might look at google or amazon's showing of a $1000 book, but I'm not going to be buying it, whether I can see it or not.
And therefore? They should let you read it, and still not pay? While you benefit from that, nobody else does though.
In all actuality, consider it closer to the original bookstore model - unless I'm ordering in something special, I can flip open nearly any book in the store and look at any page I want to. No limits.
Well.. there actually are pragmatic limits. Several of them. The bookstore doesn't really want you just sitting there treating their retail shelves as a library. You are welcome to browse. But if you brought in your laptop, a scanner/camera, set yourself up on a desk and started doing your "research". Taking notes, scanning/photographic pages getting everything you need, and then putting the books back. They'd ask you to leave.
The average book store also has a relatively small collection. Making it infeasible for you to really use it as a research facility.
It sounds like you want a public library. Lets make a library.
I can't tell you how many times I've found important information from Google Books on scientific topics that I otherwise wouldn't have had ready access to - even though interspersed by blank pages.
So.. it was simultaneously important, but also not worth paying the authors anything?
I can always buy the book if I want the additional information in the missing pages -
How often did you though? A potential sale, as slashdot loves to point out to the music industry is NOT a sale.
but the key point being
That you didn't buy anything.
I would never have known that the book existed and provided the information I was looking for had it not been scanned, indexed, and shown up in Google searches.
True enough; there is clearly a problem that does need solving here. But perhaps google's solution here... isn't the solution.
Perhaps being able to search google's scanned books should be a subscription service with some portion of that subscription payment going back to the authors of the books you looked at.
Or perhaps it should be nationalized into a public library system and we pay taxes into it that go back to the authors.
I'm just not sure a system that benefits you and google but not the authors is the best solution to the problem here.
"Ok, Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, explain to me how to insert a back door into a one-time pad encryption system"
Easy, all OTP ciphers must be registered with the new created FBU run Decipher Unit Message Box service (aka DUMB); which will store the OTP key and provide a hash of the file. All ciphers transmitted must be prefixed with their hash.
Companies can use this nice RESTFUL API to submit copies of the key to the DUMB service as it is generated; as compliance with the backdoor policies.
" It is the only existing mathematically unbreakable encryption."
Sure. Unbreakable by math; but backdoors are more about circumvention of security rather than actually breaking it.
Security updates to a web browser won't help if the operating system itself has forever-day vulnerabilities.
Sure they will. If the browser is secure, OS flaws won't be exposed.
Agreed that any browser flaws that do get exploited on an old OS ensure the OS does get pwned too... but there is no reason not keep updating and securing internet facing/accessing tools after the OS isn't being updated.
Provided the OS is behind a working firewall, any exploits that do hit are going to come through those internet facing/accessing programs. So if they are secure, then nothing reaches the holes in the OS.
And as in all things its a balance of risks, and I'd say its far riskier to use an unpatched browser than an unpatched OS. And riskier still for both to be unpatched.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't a company using software illegally.
Isn't that exactly what is is though?
This is Microsoft going after their small business customers that can't afford to pay the legal fees and threatening them with legal action just for the hell of it.
I've been audited by microsoft; it took a couple hours to fill out. They asked a few follow up questions and were satisfied and went away. It wasn't a big deal because I had documentation. I mean, you do maintain a software inventory right? You know where your licenses are right? You do actually have enough licenses right?
So that you know you are in compliance with your license agreement right?
The only way I'd "true up" is if I knew the audit would find a lot of non-compliance's... and then truing up, like the other poster said... its sort of like an out of court settlement. I don't acknowledge any wrong doing for what I was doing, they get some extra money, we sort of agree how to square things off... end of story.
But I don't need to true up because I'm clean. If they want to do a more thorough audit themselves, they're welcome to have at it. It's their money to burn.
I'm about 10 years past using email clients. I would have to guess most of this audience is, too.
Um nope.
Compared to gmail accessed via web, email clients offer slower startup,
Compared to launching a browser, clicking on your webmail bookmark, signing in, waiting for your mail to load? Or do you give webmail a headstart be prelaunching the browser? My mail client starts up just as fast as my browser does, if not faster.
higher bug count
Not really, mail is pretty mature after all, it mostly just works. But sure, it does a lot more stuff, and has capabilities the web clients simply don't have at all, so sure some of that has bugs.
, a crazily confusing configuration burden
Its mostly a case of entering your email address and password. The same as the web versions. Sure if you've got some byzantine security labyrinth to get through to check your mail then its complex to set up.
, create a deep disincentive to access email from any machine but your own,
An advantage if you care at all about security.
a centrifugal bumble-puppy model for where your emails reside that can be relied upon to place the emails "on the wrong machine" (or none at all, or N-fold on each of M machines) when you need it most,
It's on you if you aren't syncing your mail. Hell, I use Office365 with 3 different companies, and I use the desktop Outlook client.
and they bifurcate your message store when you change jobs or ISPs, etc.
Yeah, webmail doesn't change that. And if you've ever tried to migrate your mail between ISPs when all you have is webmail... well... for most of them, you need to do it with a desktop client. Gmail and Office365 have some migration tools, and they work, with some caveats... and issues usually need to be fixed with a desktop client.
Moreover, I am spared the horrors of the aged hacks and platform-bound kludgery intended to address the above faults (e.g., IMAP or whatever Office thinks it provides).
And instead have all manner of other annoying issues. Browser application window management is an outright clusterfuck, with your mail being in a browser tab mixed with your other tabs, a new message popping in a new browser window, your taskbar being completely unable to differentiate between what's your 'collection of email windows' from all your other browser and web app windows.
Its also a royal PITA to be logged into multiple accounts at the same time (2 different Its a royal PITA to copy or move multiple messages, or folders, or multiple selections between multiple accounts. And excruciating if the accounts belong to the same provider. (e.g. two different and separate google apps for enterprises accounts...or two separate office365 accounts... I practically need two separate browsers to do that. Meanwhile, both thunderbird and outlook handle it gracefully.
You also pretty much give up any pretense of encrypted/secure messaging, and expose yourself to browser xss and other browser related flaws that simply can't happen with a standalone client.
inferior search tools
This one point I agree with you. subject/sender search in thunderbird is great, but its full body search needs work. But outlook backing onto exchange/office 365 is very good; although local mail is subject to windows searchindexer which can cause problems sometimes. I'd like to see much better search / indexing come to Thunderbird... there's no inherent reason it can't do it.
Just because someone can compute the results of what would have happened in some simulated scenario, doesn't mean that that a conscious experience of that scenario magically gets created.
Or does it? We don't know.
But it's leads to all kinds of neat thought experiments. If I simulated my own brain, would it be conscious? Why wouldn't it be? If every neuron and cellular chemical and electrical interaction were modeled, shouldn't it be conscious? If Consciousness isn't "magic" so it must arise from the various interactions in the body/brain... so i all of that is simulated, then so too must the consciousness be simulated?!
If it *were* conscious, what if I run the simulation slower, would it still be conscious, just 'slower' perceiving my time as moving faster than i do? why not?
What then, if I evaluated the simulation using pen and paper, and it took thousands of years to evaluate each new state... would the simulation still be conscious? And that's crazy. Yet, I see no reasonable argument against it.
Unless consciousness is magic.
... one guy uses Tor to check Facebook anonymously 1 million times per month.
No, facebooks knows who the million are.
So the headline should be 1 million idiots used tor thinking they connected to facebook anonymously and here follows a list of their names, addresses, birthdays, favorite snack, last vacation they went on, and who their dentist is.
First we don't have an infinite timeline because our universe has a finite lifetime and will eventually end in one of a variety of different scenarios e.g. heat death and the "big rip".
What's true of our universe, isn't necessarily true of the universe that simulates it.
Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe.
And? IF the ghosts in pacman are having a similar argument...it turns out our universe has plenty of complexity and energy to spare to simulate theirs.
This means that each simulation must be simpler than the universe it runs in and so there will be a finite limit on how long the chain can be before the most complex simulation possible resembles Pacman.
Quite possibly. But if THE universe has infinite mass and energy then it can simulate an infinite number of other universes, including other infinite universes.
Hence the assumption that there is an infinite chain running for an infinite time is simply not logically consistent.
I think your argument's own assumptions have failed you here, in particular that "real" universe must be finite just because ours appears to be.
Next you cannot simulate a universe as complex as ours inside our universe since such a system must have as many possible states as our universe. This would require all the energy and matter in our universe leaving nothing with which to construct the simulator.
Are you sure about that? What if you only need to simulate the parts that are observed? What if you can get a pretty good simulation going using just a fraction of the universe to build it. What if, like a game of Civilization the game fits into a certain amount of memory, and yes, eventually if there is no winner and all cililizations grow without bound and eventually the host systems resources are exhausted... so the simulation crashes. The host system starts a new game. Whose to say we aren't a few billion more humans from an out of memory exception in the host universe?
Weird to have you beat someone up for not reading the bill when you didn't even read TFA.
Not that weird. Common sense applies here.
California already had a stupid law saying x% of new buildings statewide must be "solar capable", meaning not shaded.
That's not quite what it means. It means they must be constructed so that they themselves don't preclude the use of solar on their roofs by their own design, it obviously doesn't mean that they passed a law requiring new buildings to somehow defy physics and receive sunlight even if there is a mountain or neighboring building blocking it.
That is the stupid law.
How is it a stupid law? It's a pretty modest 15% and easily achievable.
and if I'm building on the north side of a hill???
Did you read the bill? They are typically more than one liners. There's probably all sorts of caveats and exclusions in the details. Not to mention that just because the law says something any builder can request a variance.
So its a bit premature to just assume you would actually need to put solar panels on a building that gets no sunlight.
idiots....
Once you've determined the bill actually does require you to put panels on your permashaded building AND your request for a variance has been denied you can call them idiots.
Until then though, I figure the idiot is more likely to be you.
It wasn't some silly made-up stage name like Madonna or Jon Stewart. It was his real name.
Prince --> Prince Rogers Nelson
Madonna --> Madonna Louise Ciccone
Jon Stewart --> Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz
There's a bit of fiddling with Jon's name; but its hardly a "silly made up name"
"Are you retarded? His name was Rogers Nelson, you twat."
According to all sources I can find his name was:
Prince Rogers Nelson
Because he didn't. He was able to read enough to realize that the book is a good discussion of the topic he was researching
Actually he DID get enough from the scans that he DIDN'T need to purchase or otherwise obtain a copy of the book.
And, with that, the rest of your smug response goes down the drain.
Apple recycled $40 million worth of gold from phones last year"
Apple has in its possession or (has sold) 40 million in gold as a result? Well no.
But the gold was from phones? Well mostly no.
And it was last year? Well... mostly. Sure.
But 40 million in gold was recycled? Yes. That part happened.
So it should have read:
In the last fiscal year Apple paid recylers to process various ewaste from which the recyclers extracted 40 million worth of gold. It cost more than that to process the ewaste.
Yeah.
What would you say?
If ...
He doesn't already have a nickname, catchphrase, favorite hat, or other distinguishing element that we already
We don't know what either car they drives.
We don't know where either works.
We don't know who either's girlfriend is etc...
Then sure I'll eventually end up at 'black Jason' or 'white Jason'.
But honestly, It'll probably be "JJ" or "Honda Jason" or "Jason and Monica Jason" or "Passed-out-at-your-stag Jason"... "Jason from Highschool" or "not Jason from Highschool" or "not Jason and Monica Jason" or "Single Jason" or "Divorced Jason" or "Stupid Jason" or "Guitar Jason" or "Tatoo Jason" or "Manslut Jason" or "Wannabe rapper Jason" or "Bad Hair Jason" or "Cheap Suit Jason" or "Star Trek Jason"...
This is assumed to such an extent that the high school teachers regularly incorporate their use into their lessons.
When we registered my daughter in highschool we had to tick off a box saying whether she had a laptop or tablet that would be provided for her to use at school. I think all of her classmates have something too. I think if we'd ticked the no box, the school has a small supply of tablets they give out as loaners.
A phone is not required. And I find it doubtful your daughter actually needs a *phone*.
It is astonishing to me that the teachers can't comprehend that a teenager might not have a smart phone.
Every school district is different. But in ours, it *would* be pretty unusual for a student not to have a device. And as I said, our school district has a small loaner supply to give those kids access, so that the internet, and basic document editing etc can be part of the curriculum.
It makes sense, the school library compared to the internet is a pitiful resource for research. And more importantly, that's just not HOW research is done anymore; so its not the skill they should be learning. (Don't get me wrong its a good skill to have, but they need to learn how to use the internet, and to critically evaluate the credibility of sources they find there more than they need to learn how to use a card catalog and the dewey decimal system.)
Beats me, but my sister ordered a book off amazon once something about comedians; she knew I liked Jon Stewart etc.
The "book" was nothing but a verbatim cut and paste articles from Wikipedia. No chapters. No organization. No value add over the wikipedia content. And one of the entire later sections was about 30-40 pages of nothing but random garbage (that looked like a corrupt PDF file).
Here's an article on the subject...
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Am...
They were talking about the first generation of the 'new' macbooks with the 12" screen and USBC charging connector.
I was under the impression that we're not really THAT far from a workable laser solution; at least technologically.
Your argument is essentially a "no true scotsman" argument
Not really.
Your definition apparently requires "over the Internet".
My definition requires that a book be purchased.
As for authors being paid for books in book stores: that's not true. In the USA, at least, book stores can "strip" books and return them for credit. Authors effectively only get paid when the book store sells a book and not while it is on the shelf.
Yes and no. Its more complicated than that.
In the past, authors have attempted to make libraries pay when library patrons check out a book.
Yes, its not like the author's guild are saints.
This action by the Authors' guild is quite simply a money grab.
So is the action by Google. I don't see any reason to take Google's side in the money grab over the author's guild's side. I do think an equitable solution exists... I don't think this was it.
I have purchased a few books based only on the excerpts found in google searches...but of course that breaks your nice little narrative...go shill for a publisher somewhere else.
No, it doesn't "break my narrative" at all. I don't doubt that it happens. Sales are generated. Sales are lost. Who knows whether more or gained then lost as a result? Not me. Not you.
The point I'm making is: it doesn't matter. Its not up to you or me.
If I think McDonalds would sell more apple pies if it let me eat half of one and then decide whether to pay for the 2nd half, that's neat... I can think that all I want. Maybe its even true. But I can't make McDonald's sell Apple Pie under this business model just because I think it might work better for them. Its their pie, they can decide how they want to sell it, at what price, and how much of a preview to give.
So why isn't it up to the author how much of a preview is available, and what parts, of their books?
And why on earth is it up to *google* to decide what pages are available on the internet for free? (And not even a public service, as a for profit advertising company making money off the venture.) To relate this back to McDonalds... now some google dude is just reaching into the kitchen handing pies to random people and saying... hey did you like it? Want some more? I can only give you a few bites, but you can buy it if you want some more. Or maybe come back tomorrow... I'm here all week. Or Maybe you'd be interested in these other apple pies we sell...other customers have liked these other pies a lot *... come, come lets go talk over here.
And in your world McDonalds has to be ok with this? Because hey, YOU purchased a few pies based on these tastings so it doesn't matter what mcdonalds thinks of the deal; clearly it must be in there best interest and anyone who disagrees is a shill.
(* other pie makers are paying me to tell you this.)
Did you ever go into a large US bookstore in the late '90s/early '00s? If you did, you would see several people reading books from cover to cover. The staff did not prevent this activity.
Ok. But "reading books cover to cover" is definitely not the same thing as what I said " if you brought in your laptop, a scanner/camera, set yourself up on a desk and started doing your "research". Taking notes, scanning/photographic pages getting everything you need, and then putting the books back."
See those are quite different, and I never saw anybody doing that in a book store in 90s and 00s.
But sure lets talk briefly about your scenario. It is quite different from google books -- just for starters every copy of every book in every in every store had been paid for by the store. None of the books were allowed to leave the store unpaid. And nobody was sitting there copying and scanning pages into a computer to be referenced later etc; and while there were a number of freeloaders quite a lot of people were taking the book they'd started home with them (paying for it) after spending the afternoon in the shop, having coffee etc.
The whole business model was designed to sell books, and it was actually fairly successful. (And still exists; 2 of 3 book stores I frequent are still set up for this.)
And above all else the authors and booksellers were ok with the business model. (And those that were not were free to sell books in tamper-proof clear plastic wraps that could not be opened until they were bought and paid for. And isn't that the important part ... the sellers were setting the terms. Isn't that their prerogative? Do they need to live you to your sense of what is logical or rational? If they want to prevent google from making significant enough chunks of books available that the authors think it will cost them sales... isn't that up to the author?
In the case of fiction, missing half the pages is pretty much a deal breaker. Almost nobody is going to read that. But technical or science works... if the pages there are the pages you need, then your done. Shouldn't it be up to each author to decide how much and what should be available as a free preview?
You don't have to buy it if you aren't happy with what is being previewed, after all.
They should offer people a reasonable preview so they can decide that it may be worth their money.
Isn't it ultimately up to them whether they allow a preview or not, and how "reasonable" that preview is?
Just as its ultimately up to you whether to buy it or not based on the information, reviews, and whatever preview they did make available.
How on earth is it up to you and/or google to decide how much of a preview they make available?
The chance of someone buying a book after seeing a page or two show up on google books is bigger than them buying the same book without seeing that preview.
Says you. I for one am unlikely to buy most books that I've already got free access to all the information I need from them. In fact, that is what the original poster himself claimed... the book had "important information". he got it. he didn't buy the book.
He can argue that not knowing about the book gives zero odds of buying it. But if hadn't been able to just take what he wanted from the book, he'd still be searching for that important information, which he might discover is in that book. And then maybe he'd buy it. So you can't claim categorically that the exposure they got from google books increased sales. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
What does it even matter though?
Isn't it normally up to the seller to set the terms of sale transaction?
I mean, if I'm selling my car; maybe if you take it for a test drive it'll close the deal; or maybe you are just there to kick the tires and joyride someone else's car... but its up to me whether you take the car out for a spin. You don't get to "decide" that driving it might increase the odds of you buying it, and then dictate that you get to take it out for a spin.
If a book author wants you to decide whether to buy a book based on the dust jacket and reviews then isn't that their perogative? If they are ok with you flipping through the pages in a book store, but not on the internet, isn't that their prerogative? If they want to plastic seal it so you can't peruse it in store, or put it under glass so you can't even touch it... isn't that up to them ? You can choose not to buy it. You can go through life without ever knowing it exists. So be it. They can go broke for being too hostile and preventing sales if it comes to that.
Are they scared we'll decide their book is crap?
No. They are scared you'll just see it as "important information" then take what you need without paying; which is exactly what the post I responded to said he did.
for example, I might look at google or amazon's showing of a $1000 book, but I'm not going to be buying it, whether I can see it or not.
And therefore? They should let you read it, and still not pay? While you benefit from that, nobody else does though.
In all actuality, consider it closer to the original bookstore model - unless I'm ordering in something special, I can flip open nearly any book in the store and look at any page I want to. No limits.
Well.. there actually are pragmatic limits. Several of them. The bookstore doesn't really want you just sitting there treating their retail shelves as a library. You are welcome to browse. But if you brought in your laptop, a scanner/camera, set yourself up on a desk and started doing your "research". Taking notes, scanning/photographic pages getting everything you need, and then putting the books back. They'd ask you to leave.
The average book store also has a relatively small collection. Making it infeasible for you to really use it as a research facility.
It sounds like you want a public library. Lets make a library.
I can't tell you how many times I've found important information from Google Books on scientific topics that I otherwise wouldn't have had ready access to - even though interspersed by blank pages.
So.. it was simultaneously important, but also not worth paying the authors anything?
I can always buy the book if I want the additional information in the missing pages -
How often did you though? A potential sale, as slashdot loves to point out to the music industry is NOT a sale.
but the key point being
That you didn't buy anything.
I would never have known that the book existed and provided the information I was looking for had it not been scanned, indexed, and shown up in Google searches.
True enough; there is clearly a problem that does need solving here. But perhaps google's solution here... isn't the solution.
Perhaps being able to search google's scanned books should be a subscription service with some portion of that subscription payment going back to the authors of the books you looked at.
Or perhaps it should be nationalized into a public library system and we pay taxes into it that go back to the authors.
I'm just not sure a system that benefits you and google but not the authors is the best solution to the problem here.
"Ok, Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, explain to me how to insert a back door into a one-time pad encryption system"
Easy, all OTP ciphers must be registered with the new created FBU run Decipher Unit Message Box service (aka DUMB); which will store the OTP key and provide a hash of the file. All ciphers transmitted must be prefixed with their hash.
Companies can use this nice RESTFUL API to submit copies of the key to the DUMB service as it is generated; as compliance with the backdoor policies.
" It is the only existing mathematically unbreakable encryption."
Sure. Unbreakable by math; but backdoors are more about circumvention of security rather than actually breaking it.
Security updates to a web browser won't help if the operating system itself has forever-day vulnerabilities.
Sure they will. If the browser is secure, OS flaws won't be exposed.
Agreed that any browser flaws that do get exploited on an old OS ensure the OS does get pwned too... but there is no reason not keep updating and securing internet facing/accessing tools after the OS isn't being updated.
Provided the OS is behind a working firewall, any exploits that do hit are going to come through those internet facing/accessing programs. So if they are secure, then nothing reaches the holes in the OS.
And as in all things its a balance of risks, and I'd say its far riskier to use an unpatched browser than an unpatched OS. And riskier still for both to be unpatched.