It certainly is a meager collection, but I am comparing it to the thousands of CDs owned by some people that I know.
ALL I said was that my collection could easily fill any drive that I own. I never said how much it would overfill it, nor how big the drives that I own are. (notice I never said I own a 20 gig drive, I don't. The largest drive in my ownership is 4 gig - my CD collection, as images, would fill that MANY MANY times over)
In short, I admitted nothing. All I said was that I took my CD collection into work and made mp3s out of most of it.
Do I have more mp3s than I have CDs for? Yup. Course for all you know I could have 1 more mp3 han CD and it could be the wtodisco by Dana Lyons which is only on mp3 and doesn't exist on CD yet (I do have it too)
Though, I don't feela need to justify anything I do here. Ive said before that, while I have never used napster, or gnutella - I see nothing wrong with sharing music from a moral standpoint and wouldn't feel the least bit guilty of using them.
What music I may or may not have is hardly the issue. My point was that bandwidth is secondary to disk space. People have demonstrated willingness to spend days on end downloading files. (not me, I have better things to do with my time than spend whole days downloading software that sucks anyway)
> The artists who create music have the right > to distribute that music however they want.
Your missing the point. Copyright is not the same as property.
Copyright is a concession. It is the legal embodiment of the people realizing that authorship is important and that printers/distributers have been taking advantage of authors.
Copyright is THE PEOPLE giving up their rights to copy and distribute a work for a LIMITED TIME. Note that deeds to property to not automatically expire with no way to renew after so many years. If you die, your fammily doesn't have to move out from your house 70 years later because the deed expires 70 years after your death.
In short, copyright was invented for the specific purpose of encouraging authors to produce works by stopping publishers from being able to take authors works and sell them without compensation to the author.
It was NOT invented because of authors "right to property". Property doesn't have a concept of "Fair Use" or "Compulsory Licence" (yes its true, you can legally distribute music for profit, as long as you pay royalties, and theres nothing that can be done to stop it)
> People need to grow up and realized they don't > have the right to have everything handed to them
Then there are others who need to realize that just because they have a profitable buisness model here, today, doesn't mean that they have a 'right' to have it always be profittable.
People are free to try to make money. They do not have any sort of 'right to profit' any more than to fail.
I think its time to overhaul and redefine copyright. It is getting to be too much lik eproperty and used too often more as weapon for publishers than protection for authors. This makes it horribly broken and in need of fixing.
Well MP3s can sound pretty damned good to my ears. Of course, I encode all of mine at a high bitrate (192).
The thing is, bandwidth isn't the problem. Hell I knew people who used to sit on 28 k dialups and download entire CD images of programs like Microsloth Office. Bandwidth is hardly the issue.
Its Hard drive space. 1 CD image can be up to 650 MB or so. So you can MAYBE fit 2 per gig if the CDs arn't full. So even with a 20 gig drive, thats only about 40 CDs!
Even my meager CD collection would fill any of the drives that I own! However with MP3s, even with high bitrates, I can fit my entire collection on my work machine and barely take up a gig.
> Actually, it caused only the field to explode, > but the blast would be strong enough to > obliterate an area larger than the range of > any lasgun.
I seem to remember (and mind you I just finished finished reading Both Dune and Dune Messiah and am now reading Children of Dune), that it would cause the gun to also explode.
However, this was only explained once (though refered to several times). I supose I could look it up when i get home....but I probably wont.
> I was wondering about that. Star Wars is owned > by George Lucas. But since it came out, it has > in many ways become a part of our society's > mythos.
Which goes back to the very reason that art is so important to culture and WHY we benefit from encouraging art through copyright. It goes back to the problem of publishers who would publish books and not pay the author, that discouraged art. It was needed to stop this problem and encourage it - because it is part of our cultural identity.
> In a way, he borrowed from our stories and > sold it back to us.
Oh most definitly. Human storytelling isan ancient art form. Many stories contain similar plots and stories. How could they not? As I remember even Shakespear's 'Romeo and Julliet' was based on a much older poem (that was well known in his time).
It would be interesting to identify storylines and plots and to go back through litterary history and see the incremental borrowings and developments of them through successive stories.
Like take this one "group of peopl eneed hero(s) find and actor playing a hero and mistake him for a real hero. They contract him to help through misunderstanding (he thinks they know hes an actor and want him to act for them). Truth is discovered, he initially tries to run, ends up rising to the occasion and saving the day".
Very common story. In the past few years 2 movies that I know of used it. Galaxey Quest, A Bugs life, and I know I have seen it before even that.
I have to wonder how old the story itself is. How many other times has it been used?
But I digress....thats really somewhat offtopic. Anyway I agree, these stories belong to us. They are a part of our cultural identity, part of our very selves. We don't just watch a movie, we absorb it. Art changes us, becomes part of us.
Im not saying copyright is horrible (I have said it, but now that I think about it, its worst to have a situation where authors get screwed over too), but its not ownership and should never be mistaken for it.
That would be a better protest of the anti-meth bill. I know I shouldn't reply but... not only is the information wrong, I would caution anyone against doing this. Wildly offtopic, of course but it should be noted.
HBWR seeds contain some nasty toxic stuff. Im not sure what exactly but I have eaten these seeds and the toxic effect is unmistakable. Body pains, headache. Run down feelings all persisting for about 24 hours too. Extraction is said to remove the toic stuff and leave only LSAs (not LSD) but I wouldn't try it.
Just figured I would throw that in to save others from making the mistake I did. The toxic syndrome from those things is quite nasty (though luckily only lasts about 24 hours - the LSA effects are not part of the toxic effects and end long before the toxic effects do)
> all the copyright holder gets is the legal > assurance that he/she will have exclusive > rights of first sale for a limited time.
And even then, its not total. In fact, hows this for a kicker in the whole "information as property" copyright argument:
There is a section of copyright law, which applies explicitly to music. It states that you do NOT need to obtain permission to distribute copyrighted musical works AT ALL. There is a simple, outlined procedure whereby you notify the copyright holder, distribute, and then send them royalties.
It is called a compulsory licence. You notify them, not ask for permission. Why? Because they can't refuse. Its law, its compulsory. All you need to do is be sure to notify them and send in the royalties in the manner that is specified.
I think that is a pretty clear statment that posessing a copyright is NOT the same as owning property.
> Tonight's homework: What about circumvention of > access control AFTER the copyright expires and > the work enters the public domain?
It doesn't matter, no software will be going into the public domain for the next 80 years or so (ok more like 60). Certainly no current day, well used software. By that time the interests of Big Buisness will have done away with the concepts of public domain and "fair use".
This comes back to the whole question of "Intellectual Property" what is it, and what rights does/should it bestow upon its owner.
This is, by no means, a simple matter that everyone agrees on. If you write a book, and sell a copy to me, then what situation do we have?
I own the book, I bought it. You have certain rights to the content of that book. However, you have no right to take the book back from me. You have no right to tell me whether or when I can read the book. You can't even stop me from lending it to a freind and letting them read it.
I think this is a case of mistaking authorship for ownership. They are not the same. Copyright is a concession by the masses. It is our society (or rather our maf..government) saying "We will allow authors certain rights over their works for the purpose of encouraging them to write and publish their works".
It is nothing more than that. Those rights were never intended to say "Authors OWN their works just like I own this hammer". Only a physical thing can be "owned". There are similarities between the rights confered by ownership and authorship but they are NOT the same (or rather they don't have to be the same, and in the setup of our copyright system they have never been the same - one could imagine a system where they woul d be the same - but it gets real ugly real quick)
IMNSHO It is important to remember that copyright is not "We allow authors to do this, because they made their work and they deserve to own it" it is "We allow authors certain rights because we wish to encourage authorship for the good of society as a whole". Copyright comes from a desire for art, and a belief we , as a whole, win by temporarily giving up our rights to authors. It does NOT derive from the basic "right to property".
Face it, physical things and intellectual "things" are not the same. Each has properties of its own. They can not be governed by the same set of rules.
(Well I supose they can, afterall there are no rules, unless you choose to make them)
Its perfectly legal for me to go out and buy a bunch of locks, then break/smash/melt/pick them.
Picking a lock, or smashing it etc is "Circumventing an access control device". That should not be illegal, unless the intended result is illegal.
ie, it should be illegal for me to smash or even pick your front door lock, so that I can enter your house and steal your stuff. It should NOT be illegal for me to smash, cut, or pick my own front door lock to get into my own house (or even just to see if I can do it)
The DMCA is an attempt to make it illegal for me to go out, purchase some software (not that I normally do that,othe ONLY peice of software that I actually bought within the past few years has been a lokisoftware game for linux), and then 'circumvent its access control'.
So I can buy the locked box with the key, but im not allowed to take the lock apart or smash the lock to see if I can break it.
Seems to me to be an attempt to take away my rights as a consumer.
I like the idea of what Mr King is trying to do (unfortunaly I am not a fan of his actual work, and even if I was, am participating in the amazon.com boycott) and I share the opinion that it has a high probablity of failure. However, I don't think the analasis was fair.
> King's terms make the question one of relative > loyalty, not absolute popularity. He's not > offering a transaction with his readers -- > he's testing them.
However you don't know how loyal his readers are. Perhaps his readers ARE loyal enough to pass his test?
> No matter what happens, you do better by not > sending in your dollar.
Yes, however this assumes a purely profit-oriented world-veiw. This is NOT the worldview of most humans. You could make similar assertions about the lotto, or casino gambling.
> Of course there are other considerations > (can you sleep at night knowing you cheated > Stephen King out of a dollar?) but for the most > part, people will weigh these options and > decide they're not going to pay.
I am cynical enough to agree that this is, by far, the most probable outcome. However, to say that this WILL be the case, on the other hand, is premature.
Other considerations include how much they enjoy reading the novel, and how well it hooks them. Can they stand the thought that they will never know how the story ends?
> First of all, the percentage thing needs to go. > King doesn't write for the satisfaction of > knowing that he has honest readers. He writes >to make money.
Really? has he said this? Perhaps he writes because he enjoys it? Perhaps he write for money, simply because he needs money to live off from and to support his writting because he CAN make money from it, rather than the other way around.
Anyway, in the end I agree, he is doing it wrong. He is making a much bigger chance of failure. However, the chances of success are, I think, nonzero still.
> That's not up to the user, but to the foreign > government
Well it *IS* up to the user. Its up to how knowledgable they are at subverting the controls and how much risk they are willing to take.
The government can only make the communication harder and more costly, they can't actually stop it from happening completely (even severing all net connections and stopping all mail in and out. it just raises the bar alot)
Its always possible. Its just not always safe. Its always up to the individual to determine their own level of acceptable risk, the government can;t do that for them.
> Step 1: Download Gnu Privacy Guard. > Step 2: Exchange keys > Step 3: Communicate to your heart's content.
Well if the Government controlls all network access points into and out of the country (which I have to imagine China and Iran probably both do) then saving and looking through emails is easy.
All they need to do is know what to look for. Files going through email that are not in known formats, or worst yet, apear to be very random data, might raise red flags.
Encryption is what solves the problem of moving data through untrusted channels. It does not however solve the problem of hiding the fact that communication is going on. That is steganography.
What could be done, set up a dialog. Develop a hobby of picture taking. Move the dialog towards sharing pictures of eachothers hometowns and other things, sunsets and whatnot.
Then use something like the jpeg steganography tools to hide the secret messages in the data. If they are encrypted, then the aparent randomness of the message may help to hide the fact that a message exists. Of course, be sure to include text with each picture talking about how beautiful the place is and giving background.
Re:Slashdot Users and Spam
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
·
· Score: 1
> 1.SPAM is effective because people actually like > it,
Some people DO in fact like it (or at least not mind it). In my experience they tend to be in the minority.
> 2.SPAM is effective because people get so > enraged that they flame in reply, proving that > their email address is read by a human being; > and eventually, by repeatedly being bombarded > by the same message, you unconsciously want to > buy that product.
Here is one legitimate one... but not for the end result you claim. IF the adress is verified as correct, then thats one more verified adress.
Remember, spammers come in different flavors. Some just sell lists of email adresses, others do actual spamming. Generally, it seems, the person doing the spammer couldn't care less if the product sells. They are just the advertiser. They get paid either way.
If an adress is verified as good, then they can claim "We have the best adress list there is" or what not.
The question is, who is spam effective for? Its certainly effective for the spammers themseleves, does it work for their customers?
My gut feeling is that it probably is. Most people arn't so offended by spam that they will refuse to do buisness with the company. When its just a web page getting paid by banner ads, even worst. Most people will load a page once if they can.
> Instead of a blanket ruling disrupting more > than one business plan, the ruling could apply > to anyone ignoring the robots.txt is in > violation.
Your missing one thing which is why this ruling could not take place. Its simple, ebay does not (well did not as of yesterday) have a robots.txt that actually said "don't index this site". ALL it did was instruct robots to avoid certain CGI directories.
> Yuck. That is like asking each and every store > you visit if you can come in
Yup. Its a matter of what they want to do. The more they inconvinence their customers, the more customers they will lose.
Its sounds like their goal is to prevent customers from having an easy way to comparison shop with sites outside of their own.
Hopefully, for the sake of consumers, they will find that this is infeasable.
AFAIK they do. Cell phones vary the power of their transmission with distance from the Cell. So where you are does matter.
This was part of the issue with Airplane Cell phone usage...in an airplane the phone is going to be fairly far from the nearest cell and will need to transmit at a higher power
(their power MUST be limited to some upper range, I wonder what it is)
> But what happens if I am keeping an eye on an > specific item and bookmark it so I can jump > straight to it? huh?
That case could be handled as a special case. No Referer is different from a referer to another host outside of ebay.
Since most clients arn't hacked to allow people to forge referers, that would effectivly make the service useless.
> there are robots.txt files but they are being > ignored,
As was pointed out numerous times, there are robots.txt, they do NOT stop indexing of most of the site. The main site has no robots.txt (I checked myself even). ALL they stop is indexing of certain dirs.
Secondly...if they are acting bad...then ban their robot. Redirect anything comming from its IP into lower elbonia. If a robot is acting poorly...then block it. Simple as that.
> which in all fairness is not right.
I only partially agree. Look, you either make available for public consumption, or you don't. You either make it world veiwable, or you don't.
It is a technical impossibility to block "robots" and not users, since the two are the same as far as the protocol is concerned. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I look at robots.txt as a nice way to steer robots away from cgis and things that are not condusive to robotic checking. (afterall CGIs and stuff are useless to index usually).
I look at it as a curtesy to the people running the robot to tell them what they should avoid, rather than as a set of rules for where I don't want them to go (because thats impossible to enforce anyway).
Bottom line: If you don't want them to go there, you can stop them. You can't stop them AND allow the public at large to browse freely and without authentication. (like logins)
Seriously, all these people are doing is making it easier for ebay customers and the customers of other sites to shop and auction.
> Frankly I agree that if eBay has spent time and > money creating a world class brand, it is wrong > for anyone who can write a Perl script to be > able to steal their customers especially when > some of these are paying customers
Well why?
IF ebay stuff gets listed on this, then people who bid on it are STILL bidding through ebay...so ebay and its sellers are STILL profitting.
ALL this is doing is listing them alongside other auctions and stuff. It lets consumers comparison shop a little more between ebay and other sites.
It would be like I sent people out to a buch of stores in the area and compiled all their prices and made a listin gfor people so they could goto the store with the lowest price.
If ebay doesn't like it...why not stop it? Can't they figure out how to make a robots.txt? Then if the robots.txt isn't obeyed, just see where the indexer is comming from and block it at the boarder router...its not that hard.
Better yet...redirect all pages that have someone outside as a referer. Its not like they are powerless to stop it and they need the courts to help them. Either they just want to be pricks about it, or they are incompetent at running their own systems.
> Free Software: Binaries you don't have to pay > money for. If it breaks, you must bug the author > (if you can find him)
This is usually called "FreeWare". When people talk specifically of "Free Software" it usually means Something where source code is available under a GPL/BSD/Artistic/etc licence.
> A motorcycle won't be any good in winter or rain > though.
Its all a matter of how much you care. You can get good rain suits to keep you dry. You can layer clothing to keep warm (even 55 F weather is fsck'n COLD at 50 MPH with no gloves)
There are some, even here in the northeast US, who ride all winter long, snow, rain they just don't care (I hope to be one of them someday)
> Also they are horribly loud.
Hardly. The reason they are loud is some people go out and buy loud pipes for them. A proper exhaust system isn't loud at all. My bike is super quiet.
There are some people who like the sound. There are others who mistakenly believe that "Loud Pipes Save lives" because cars can hear them.
Its all in what ya like. Theres no feeling quite like riding.
I disagree...I want to see the price of gas go UP.
And yes, I live in the states, and no, I don't own stock in any companies that sell oil. (or any other companies for that matter)
I don't think we should feel guilty for having low gas prices. I just think we shouldn't be whining about it. Right now Americains have the lowest prices in the world that I know of...and they are whining about it!
I think its great myself. It motivated me to finnaly get a mototcyle (which has become my primary vehicle). Hopefully it will motivate others to do things of the sort.
Also it will hopefully create more demand for more fuel effcient vehicles. Even at these prices for gas it would still be cheaper to keep a honda insight filled up than it would cost to keep most cars filled up BEFORE prices went up. Plus it conserves oil supplies, AND is better for the environment.
If you ask me, they are a win all around. If gas prices go up more, perhaps we will see mid-size and fullsize versions of them...then maybe even some of those god-forsaken SUVs (I hoope not but c'est la vie - some people actually like them)
Yea and I thought my Buick LeSaber was FUN to drive. Believe me...if you want fun get a motorcycle. Beat most cars on fuel economy and emissions. (but remember loud pipes do NOT save lives, they just annoy the neihbors)
Not to mention they are so fun. I can't stand driving my car anymore. Its just so boring. Ever since I got a bike, its ALL I want to ride.
Not to mention they are smaller. Makes them SOOO easy to park, in most places theres plenty of room to park in-between spots or something and they usually don't get ticketed for it.
Plus they cut down on traffic congestion because they take up less space on the road. Not to mention a good bike can accelrate faster than most cars (though the faster cars like the porches will beat most average bikes, but not all bikes)
As for collision protection, you have your brain. You have to use it. Its the only protection you have.
True but.... a mirror has alot less parts that can break. In fact, short of physical impact they just wont break. Even if you have power mirrors and the electrical system that runs them breaks...you can still see something in the mirror.
However then again....You can drive without mirrors...just turn your damned head. I drove for 2 years with no left side mirror once (was broke when the car was given to me...was broke when I traded it in).
I supose the possibility of autoadjustment and night vision outweigh the danger of failure....but how much does it cost to have fixed?
No...because when OpenSource was coind it was INTENDED to have the exact same meaning as "Free Software" but without the 'political focus' for the stated reason of "convincing suits"
So this is a case more of "Is it a square or an equilatteral rectangle?"
> Please remember that Open Source != Free > Software.
That depends who you are talking to.
When people originally started talking about OpenSource, the idea (as I understand it was) "Lets take the 'Free Software' concept and repackage it under a new name, because the word 'free' scares suits".
The basic idea being Open Source *IS* free software in the same way that Zantac is Ranitidine (same chemical, different name).
So when we talk about "OpenSource" we talk about how you have source code and all sorts of other things. When we talk about "Free Software" we call all those things 'side effects' and talk about freedom as the main concern.
That doesn't mean there is a difference, just a different focus. In original intent though, the "focus" is the only difference, and when not trying to sell suits on the idea, the two terms can be used interchangably.
It has come to pass that you can seem to tell a persons beliefs on the subject by which term they use. FSF types will ALWAYS talk about "Free Software" and disparage the term "OpenSource". Those who just care that the code exists and think that having source code is better for the technical reasons, will call it "OpenSource".
The entire criticizm of the term is the focus change. People like RMS argue that the focus shift is bad. The whole point of free software is freedom and focusing on the other benefits instead is diminishing the value of the work by removing the political association of it.
At the end of the day though...the two are the same in every way but terminology and connotation.
I mentioned the insight because its the only gas/electric hybrid I know of.
Personally I drive a Buick LeSaber which gets like 13 mpg. It sucks (though I loive the car itself otherwise). So what I have done is get a motocycle (I admit..gas milage was an excuse not the real reason I got a bike)....so now I ride my motocycle every day and use the car once or twice a week when I really need it.
Course the bike is in need of some work, I just found out this weekend that it is losing power and getting less than 20 mpg... I think its a compression problem or maybe needs a carberaeur adjustment...need to have it serviced.
Slashdot Mirror
Did I? And how is that?
Did I ever say how large my CD collection is?
It certainly is a meager collection, but I am comparing it to the thousands of CDs owned by some people that I know.
ALL I said was that my collection could easily fill any drive that I own. I never said how much it would overfill it, nor how big the drives that I own are. (notice I never said I own a 20 gig drive, I don't. The largest drive in my ownership is 4 gig - my CD collection, as images, would fill that MANY MANY times over)
In short, I admitted nothing. All I said was that I took my CD collection into work and made mp3s out of most of it.
Do I have more mp3s than I have CDs for? Yup. Course for all you know I could have 1 more mp3 han CD and it could be the wtodisco by Dana Lyons which is only on mp3 and doesn't exist on CD yet (I do have it too)
Though, I don't feela need to justify anything I do here. Ive said before that, while I have never used napster, or gnutella - I see nothing wrong with sharing music from a moral standpoint and wouldn't feel the least bit guilty of using them.
What music I may or may not have is hardly the issue. My point was that bandwidth is secondary to disk space. People have demonstrated willingness to spend days on end downloading files. (not me, I have better things to do with my time than spend whole days downloading software that sucks anyway)
> The artists who create music have the right
> to distribute that music however they want.
Your missing the point. Copyright is not the same as property.
Copyright is a concession. It is the legal embodiment of the people realizing that authorship is important and that printers/distributers have been taking advantage of authors.
Copyright is THE PEOPLE giving up their rights to copy and distribute a work for a LIMITED TIME. Note that deeds to property to not automatically expire with no way to renew after so many years. If you die, your fammily doesn't have to move out from your house 70 years later because the deed expires 70 years after your death.
In short, copyright was invented for the specific purpose of encouraging authors to produce works by stopping publishers from being able to take authors works and sell them without compensation to the author.
It was NOT invented because of authors "right to property". Property doesn't have a concept of "Fair Use" or "Compulsory Licence" (yes its true, you can legally distribute music for profit, as long as you pay royalties, and theres nothing that can be done to stop it)
> People need to grow up and realized they don't
> have the right to have everything handed to them
Then there are others who need to realize that just because they have a profitable buisness model here, today, doesn't mean that they have a 'right' to have it always be profittable.
People are free to try to make money. They do not have any sort of 'right to profit' any more than to fail.
I think its time to overhaul and redefine copyright. It is getting to be too much lik eproperty and used too often more as weapon for publishers than protection for authors. This makes it horribly broken and in need of fixing.
-Steve
Well MP3s can sound pretty damned good to my ears. Of course, I encode all of mine at a high bitrate (192).
The thing is, bandwidth isn't the problem. Hell I knew people who used to sit on 28 k dialups and download entire CD images of programs like Microsloth Office. Bandwidth is hardly the issue.
Its Hard drive space. 1 CD image can be up to 650 MB or so. So you can MAYBE fit 2 per gig if the CDs arn't full. So even with a 20 gig drive, thats only about 40 CDs!
Even my meager CD collection would fill any of the drives that I own! However with MP3s, even with high bitrates, I can fit my entire collection on my work machine and barely take up a gig.
-Steve
> Actually, it caused only the field to explode,
> but the blast would be strong enough to
> obliterate an area larger than the range of
> any lasgun.
I seem to remember (and mind you I just finished finished reading Both Dune and Dune Messiah and am now reading Children of Dune), that it would cause the gun to also explode.
However, this was only explained once (though refered to several times). I supose I could look it up when i get home....but I probably wont.
> I was wondering about that. Star Wars is owned
> by George Lucas. But since it came out, it has
> in many ways become a part of our society's
> mythos.
Which goes back to the very reason that art is so important to culture and WHY we benefit from encouraging art through copyright. It goes back to the problem of publishers who would publish books and not pay the author, that discouraged art. It was needed to stop this problem and encourage it - because it is part of our cultural identity.
> In a way, he borrowed from our stories and
> sold it back to us.
Oh most definitly. Human storytelling isan ancient art form. Many stories contain similar plots and stories. How could they not? As I remember even Shakespear's 'Romeo and Julliet' was based on a much older poem (that was well known in his time).
It would be interesting to identify storylines and plots and to go back through litterary history and see the incremental borrowings and developments of them through successive stories.
Like take this one "group of peopl eneed hero(s) find and actor playing a hero and mistake him for a real hero. They contract him to help through misunderstanding (he thinks they know hes an actor and want him to act for them). Truth is discovered, he initially tries to run, ends up rising to the occasion and saving the day".
Very common story. In the past few years 2 movies that I know of used it. Galaxey Quest, A Bugs life, and I know I have seen it before even that.
I have to wonder how old the story itself is. How many other times has it been used?
But I digress....thats really somewhat offtopic. Anyway I agree, these stories belong to us. They are a part of our cultural identity, part of our very selves. We don't just watch a movie, we absorb it. Art changes us, becomes part of us.
Im not saying copyright is horrible (I have said it, but now that I think about it, its worst to have a situation where authors get screwed over too), but its not ownership and should never be mistaken for it.
--Steve
That would be a better protest of the anti-meth bill. I know I shouldn't reply but... not only is the information wrong, I would caution anyone against doing this. Wildly offtopic, of course but it should be noted.
HBWR seeds contain some nasty toxic stuff. Im not sure what exactly but I have eaten these seeds and the toxic effect is unmistakable. Body pains, headache. Run down feelings all persisting for about 24 hours too. Extraction is said to remove the toic stuff and leave only LSAs (not LSD) but I wouldn't try it.
Just figured I would throw that in to save others from making the mistake I did. The toxic syndrome from those things is quite nasty (though luckily only lasts about 24 hours - the LSA effects are not part of the toxic effects and end long before the toxic effects do)
> all the copyright holder gets is the legal
> assurance that he/she will have exclusive
> rights of first sale for a limited time.
And even then, its not total. In fact, hows this for a kicker in the whole "information as property" copyright argument:
There is a section of copyright law, which applies explicitly to music. It states that you do NOT need to obtain permission to distribute copyrighted musical works AT ALL. There is a simple, outlined procedure whereby you notify the copyright holder, distribute, and then send them royalties.
It is called a compulsory licence. You notify them, not ask for permission. Why? Because they can't refuse. Its law, its compulsory. All you need to do is be sure to notify them and send in the royalties in the manner that is specified.
I think that is a pretty clear statment that posessing a copyright is NOT the same as owning property.
> Tonight's homework: What about circumvention of
> access control AFTER the copyright expires and
> the work enters the public domain?
It doesn't matter, no software will be going into the public domain for the next 80 years or so (ok more like 60). Certainly no current day, well used software. By that time the interests of Big Buisness will have done away with the concepts of public domain and "fair use".
This comes back to the whole question of "Intellectual Property" what is it, and what rights does/should it bestow upon its owner.
This is, by no means, a simple matter that everyone agrees on. If you write a book, and sell a copy to me, then what situation do we have?
I own the book, I bought it. You have certain rights to the content of that book. However, you have no right to take the book back from me. You have no right to tell me whether or when I can read the book. You can't even stop me from lending it to a freind and letting them read it.
I think this is a case of mistaking authorship for ownership. They are not the same. Copyright is a concession by the masses. It is our society (or rather our maf..government) saying "We will allow authors certain rights over their works for the purpose of encouraging them to write and publish their works".
It is nothing more than that. Those rights were never intended to say "Authors OWN their works just like I own this hammer". Only a physical thing can be "owned". There are similarities between the rights confered by ownership and authorship but they are NOT the same (or rather they don't have to be the same, and in the setup of our copyright system they have never been the same - one could imagine a system where they woul d be the same - but it gets real ugly real quick)
IMNSHO It is important to remember that copyright is not "We allow authors to do this, because they made their work and they deserve to own it" it is "We allow authors certain rights because we wish to encourage authorship for the good of society as a whole". Copyright comes from a desire for art, and a belief we , as a whole, win by temporarily giving up our rights to authors. It does NOT derive from the basic "right to property".
Face it, physical things and intellectual "things" are not the same. Each has properties of its own. They can not be governed by the same set of rules.
(Well I supose they can, afterall there are no rules, unless you choose to make them)
Your missing the point.
Its perfectly legal for me to go out and buy a bunch of locks, then break/smash/melt/pick them.
Picking a lock, or smashing it etc is "Circumventing an access control device". That should not be illegal, unless the intended result is illegal.
ie, it should be illegal for me to smash or even pick your front door lock, so that I can enter your house and steal your stuff. It should NOT be illegal for me to smash, cut, or pick my own front door lock to get into my own house (or even just to see if I can do it)
The DMCA is an attempt to make it illegal for me to go out, purchase some software (not that I normally do that,othe ONLY peice of software that I actually bought within the past few years has been a lokisoftware game for linux), and then 'circumvent its access control'.
So I can buy the locked box with the key, but im not allowed to take the lock apart or smash the lock to see if I can break it.
Seems to me to be an attempt to take away my rights as a consumer.
I like the idea of what Mr King is trying to do (unfortunaly I am not a fan of his actual work, and even if I was, am participating in the amazon.com boycott) and I share the opinion that it has a high probablity of failure. However, I don't think the analasis was fair.
> King's terms make the question one of relative
> loyalty, not absolute popularity. He's not
> offering a transaction with his readers --
> he's testing them.
However you don't know how loyal his readers are. Perhaps his readers ARE loyal enough to pass his test?
> No matter what happens, you do better by not
> sending in your dollar.
Yes, however this assumes a purely profit-oriented world-veiw. This is NOT the worldview of most humans. You could make similar assertions about the lotto, or casino gambling.
> Of course there are other considerations
> (can you sleep at night knowing you cheated
> Stephen King out of a dollar?) but for the most
> part, people will weigh these options and
> decide they're not going to pay.
I am cynical enough to agree that this is, by far, the most probable outcome. However, to say that this WILL be the case, on the other hand, is premature.
Other considerations include how much they enjoy reading the novel, and how well it hooks them. Can they stand the thought that they will never know how the story ends?
> First of all, the percentage thing needs to go.
> King doesn't write for the satisfaction of
> knowing that he has honest readers. He writes
>to make money.
Really? has he said this? Perhaps he writes because he enjoys it? Perhaps he write for money, simply because he needs money to live off from and to support his writting because he CAN make money from it, rather than the other way around.
Anyway, in the end I agree, he is doing it wrong. He is making a much bigger chance of failure. However, the chances of success are, I think, nonzero still.
> That's not up to the user, but to the foreign
> government
Well it *IS* up to the user. Its up to how knowledgable they are at subverting the controls and how much risk they are willing to take.
The government can only make the communication harder and more costly, they can't actually stop it from happening completely (even severing all net connections and stopping all mail in and out. it just raises the bar alot)
Its always possible. Its just not always safe. Its always up to the individual to determine their own level of acceptable risk, the government can;t do that for them.
> Step 1: Download Gnu Privacy Guard.
> Step 2: Exchange keys
> Step 3: Communicate to your heart's content.
Well if the Government controlls all network access points into and out of the country (which I have to imagine China and Iran probably both do) then saving and looking through emails is easy.
All they need to do is know what to look for. Files going through email that are not in known formats, or worst yet, apear to be very random data, might raise red flags.
Encryption is what solves the problem of moving data through untrusted channels. It does not however solve the problem of hiding the fact that communication is going on. That is steganography.
What could be done, set up a dialog. Develop a hobby of picture taking. Move the dialog towards sharing pictures of eachothers hometowns and other things, sunsets and whatnot.
Then use something like the jpeg steganography tools to hide the secret messages in the data. If they are encrypted, then the aparent randomness of the message may help to hide the fact that a message exists. Of course, be sure to include text with each picture talking about how beautiful the place is and giving background.
> 1.SPAM is effective because people actually like
> it,
Some people DO in fact like it (or at least not
mind it). In my experience they tend to be in the
minority.
> 2.SPAM is effective because people get so
> enraged that they flame in reply, proving that
> their email address is read by a human being;
> and eventually, by repeatedly being bombarded
> by the same message, you unconsciously want to
> buy that product.
Here is one legitimate one... but not for the end result you claim. IF the adress is verified as correct, then thats one more verified adress.
Remember, spammers come in different flavors. Some just sell lists of email adresses, others do actual spamming. Generally, it seems, the person doing the spammer couldn't care less if the product sells. They are just the advertiser. They get paid either way.
If an adress is verified as good, then they can claim "We have the best adress list there is" or what not.
The question is, who is spam effective for? Its certainly effective for the spammers themseleves, does it work for their customers?
My gut feeling is that it probably is. Most people arn't so offended by spam that they will refuse to do buisness with the company. When its just a web page getting paid by banner ads, even worst. Most people will load a page once if they can.
-Steve
> Instead of a blanket ruling disrupting more
> than one business plan, the ruling could apply
> to anyone ignoring the robots.txt is in
> violation.
Your missing one thing which is why this ruling could not take place. Its simple, ebay does not (well did not as of yesterday) have a robots.txt that actually said "don't index this site". ALL it did was instruct robots to avoid certain CGI directories.
> Yuck. That is like asking each and every store
> you visit if you can come in
Yup. Its a matter of what they want to do. The more they inconvinence their customers, the more customers they will lose.
Its sounds like their goal is to prevent customers from having an easy way to comparison shop with sites outside of their own.
Hopefully, for the sake of consumers, they will find that this is infeasable.
AFAIK they do. Cell phones vary the power of their transmission with distance from the Cell. So where you are does matter.
This was part of the issue with Airplane Cell phone usage...in an airplane the phone is going to be fairly far from the nearest cell and will need to transmit at a higher power
(their power MUST be limited to some upper range, I wonder what it is)
> But what happens if I am keeping an eye on an
> specific item and bookmark it so I can jump
> straight to it? huh?
That case could be handled as a special case. No Referer is different from a referer to another host outside of ebay.
Since most clients arn't hacked to allow people to forge referers, that would effectivly make the service useless.
> there are robots.txt files but they are being
> ignored,
As was pointed out numerous times, there are robots.txt, they do NOT stop indexing of most of the site. The main site has no robots.txt (I checked myself even). ALL they stop is indexing of certain dirs.
Secondly...if they are acting bad...then ban their robot. Redirect anything comming from its IP into lower elbonia. If a robot is acting poorly...then block it. Simple as that.
> which in all fairness is not right.
I only partially agree. Look, you either make available for public consumption, or you don't. You either make it world veiwable, or you don't.
It is a technical impossibility to block "robots" and not users, since the two are the same as far as the protocol is concerned. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I look at robots.txt as a nice way to steer robots away from cgis and things that are not condusive to robotic checking. (afterall CGIs and stuff are useless to index usually).
I look at it as a curtesy to the people running the robot to tell them what they should avoid, rather than as a set of rules for where I don't want them to go (because thats impossible to enforce anyway).
Bottom line: If you don't want them to go there, you can stop them. You can't stop them AND allow the public at large to browse freely and without authentication. (like logins)
Seriously, all these people are doing is making it easier for ebay customers and the customers of other sites to shop and auction.
> Frankly I agree that if eBay has spent time and
> money creating a world class brand, it is wrong
> for anyone who can write a Perl script to be
> able to steal their customers especially when
> some of these are paying customers
Well why?
IF ebay stuff gets listed on this, then people who bid on it are STILL bidding through ebay...so ebay and its sellers are STILL profitting.
ALL this is doing is listing them alongside other auctions and stuff. It lets consumers comparison shop a little more between ebay and other sites.
It would be like I sent people out to a buch of stores in the area and compiled all their prices and made a listin gfor people so they could goto the store with the lowest price.
If ebay doesn't like it...why not stop it? Can't they figure out how to make a robots.txt? Then if the robots.txt isn't obeyed, just see where the indexer is comming from and block it at the boarder router...its not that hard.
Better yet...redirect all pages that have someone outside as a referer. Its not like they are powerless to stop it and they need the courts to help them. Either they just want to be pricks about it, or they are incompetent at running their own systems.
-Steve
> Free Software: Binaries you don't have to pay
> money for. If it breaks, you must bug the author
> (if you can find him)
This is usually called "FreeWare". When people talk specifically of "Free Software" it usually means Something where source code is available under a GPL/BSD/Artistic/etc licence.
-Steve
> A motorcycle won't be any good in winter or rain
> though.
Its all a matter of how much you care. You can get good rain suits to keep you dry. You can layer clothing to keep warm (even 55 F weather is fsck'n COLD at 50 MPH with no gloves)
There are some, even here in the northeast US, who ride all winter long, snow, rain they just don't care (I hope to be one of them someday)
> Also they are horribly loud.
Hardly. The reason they are loud is some people go out and buy loud pipes for them. A proper exhaust system isn't loud at all. My bike is super quiet.
There are some people who like the sound. There are others who mistakenly believe that "Loud Pipes Save lives" because cars can hear them.
Its all in what ya like. Theres no feeling quite like riding.
I disagree...I want to see the price of gas go UP.
And yes, I live in the states, and no, I don't own stock in any companies that sell oil. (or any other companies for that matter)
I don't think we should feel guilty for having low gas prices. I just think we shouldn't be whining about it. Right now Americains have the lowest prices in the world that I know of...and they are whining about it!
I think its great myself. It motivated me to finnaly get a mototcyle (which has become my primary vehicle). Hopefully it will motivate others to do things of the sort.
Also it will hopefully create more demand for more fuel effcient vehicles. Even at these prices for gas it would still be cheaper to keep a honda insight filled up than it would cost to keep most cars filled up BEFORE prices went up. Plus it conserves oil supplies, AND is better for the environment.
If you ask me, they are a win all around. If gas prices go up more, perhaps we will see mid-size and fullsize versions of them...then maybe even some of those god-forsaken SUVs (I hoope not but c'est la vie - some people actually like them)
Really...only good can come of it.
Yea and I thought my Buick LeSaber was FUN to drive. Believe me...if you want fun get a motorcycle. Beat most cars on fuel economy and emissions. (but remember loud pipes do NOT save lives, they just annoy the neihbors)
Not to mention they are so fun. I can't stand driving my car anymore. Its just so boring. Ever since I got a bike, its ALL I want to ride.
Not to mention they are smaller. Makes them SOOO easy to park, in most places theres plenty of room to park in-between spots or something and they usually don't get ticketed for it.
Plus they cut down on traffic congestion because they take up less space on the road. Not to mention a good bike can accelrate faster than most cars (though the faster cars like the porches will beat most average bikes, but not all bikes)
As for collision protection, you have your brain. You have to use it. Its the only protection you have.
-Steve
True but.... a mirror has alot less parts that can break. In fact, short of physical impact they just wont break. Even if you have power mirrors and the electrical system that runs them breaks...you can still see something in the mirror.
However then again....You can drive without mirrors...just turn your damned head. I drove for 2 years with no left side mirror once (was broke when the car was given to me...was broke when I traded it in).
I supose the possibility of autoadjustment and night vision outweigh the danger of failure....but how much does it cost to have fixed?
No...because when OpenSource was coind it was INTENDED to have the exact same meaning as "Free Software" but without the 'political focus' for the stated reason of "convincing suits"
So this is a case more of "Is it a square or an equilatteral rectangle?"
-Steve
> Please remember that Open Source != Free
> Software.
That depends who you are talking to.
When people originally started talking about OpenSource, the idea (as I understand it was) "Lets take the 'Free Software' concept and repackage it under a new name, because the word 'free' scares suits".
The basic idea being Open Source *IS* free software in the same way that Zantac is Ranitidine (same chemical, different name).
So when we talk about "OpenSource" we talk about how you have source code and all sorts of other things. When we talk about "Free Software" we call all those things 'side effects' and talk about freedom as the main concern.
That doesn't mean there is a difference, just a different focus. In original intent though, the "focus" is the only difference, and when not trying to sell suits on the idea, the two terms can be used interchangably.
It has come to pass that you can seem to tell a persons beliefs on the subject by which term they use. FSF types will ALWAYS talk about "Free Software" and disparage the term "OpenSource". Those who just care that the code exists and think that having source code is better for the technical reasons, will call it "OpenSource".
The entire criticizm of the term is the focus change. People like RMS argue that the focus shift is bad. The whole point of free software is freedom and focusing on the other benefits instead is diminishing the value of the work by removing the political association of it.
At the end of the day though...the two are the same in every way but terminology and connotation.
-Steve
Thats great to hear about.
...need to have it serviced.
I mentioned the insight because its the only gas/electric hybrid I know of.
Personally I drive a Buick LeSaber which gets like 13 mpg. It sucks (though I loive the car itself otherwise). So what I have done is get a motocycle (I admit..gas milage was an excuse not the real reason I got a bike)....so now I ride my motocycle every day and use the car once or twice a week when I really need it.
Course the bike is in need of some work, I just found out this weekend that it is losing power and getting less than 20 mpg... I think its a compression problem or maybe needs a carberaeur adjustment