But what if his intent was only to give himself access to his data from any location on campus?
In that case, it is not distribution. It is giving himself location free and operating system unlimited access to his purchased content.
If possession is 9/10ths of the law, then my receipt says I can do whatever I want with my legally purchased content so long as I don't produce copies for financial gain.
There is law against selling copies of content without access to copyrights. There is law against copying content without access to copyrights. There is no law against making one's legally purchased content accessible to oneself (unless you break encryption in the process).
No, not for slander. We (OSS) should sue Microshaft for patent infringement.
There are plenty more OSS patents that undoubtedly are infringed by Microsoft. And if the entire OSS patent holding community (IBM, Sun, FSF, GNU, Redhat, etc.) sue Microsoft with all their patents, Microsoft can't hope to meet them on a cross-licensing deal, unless that deal includes a ceasing of patent hostilities against OSS users. Since they won't do that (and here's where most those companies would back out), it would go all the way to the Supreme Court, which would hopefully throw out software patents since algorithms (mathematical processing) cannot be patented according to US Patent Law.
See, Microshaft, and other software companies who support the existence of software patents, game the system by defining software as an end product that is patentable because it includes the hardware on which it runs (a system and method). This is, in fact, not acceptable, because, regardless of the fact that a computer is doing the processing at an accelerated rate, a human could do that same processing, thus it is a mathematical algorithm and not an end product.
This is why most companies dislike software patents, because software patents are a dishonest end run around patent law that was legislated specifically to prevent patents like this. Most only participate because the few that like software patents will take over the industry if they don't.
With radio waves, wavelength * frequency = speed of light, thus frequency = speed of light / wavelength
The speed of light is 299792458 meters/second
1 Hz = 1/second
For wifi,
frequency = 2.4 GHz or 2400000000 Hz (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
wavelength = 12 cm or.12 meters (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
thus, 299792458 /.12 = 2498270483.333333333 or 2.4 GHz
For red light (the largest wavelength of visible light [most incandescent bulbs are yellow]),
frequency = 460 PHz (Peta = 10^15) or 460000000000000 Hz (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
wavelength = 650 nm or.00000065 meters (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
Do not misunderstand, however, the conclusion to which this leads.
Microwave radio frequencies give a wavelength of 1mm to 10cm, so the power level is a significant factor which distinguishes wifi from dangerous radiation.
It doesn't take much power to transmit data. It takes a lot of power to cook a turkey.
I think it's a front company which was created to bring the DMCA up to the Supreme Court for review, especially considering how nearly useless the technological proposal is. Most likely, the DMCA would be thrown out for violating fair use laws if it ever made it to the Supreme Court. Hmmm... or the fair use laws could be revoked for being overwritten by the DMCA. This should be interesting to watch, indeed.
The internet is a series of pipes, and through those pipes people push stuff they've stolen so that others can steal it, too. So what we've got to do is block those pipes.
Sorry for the late reply. Ironically enough, the moderation system prevented me from responding yesterday.
I understand your point and I concede that one can be both factually and morally wrong.
However... My point was that moderating something "-1,wrong" suggests that it should not have been posted in the first place. Such a suggestion could not possibly be further from the truth even if it were on opposite ends of an infinite Universe. (Gotta love hyperbole:p)
If he did not post it, you would not have had that wonderfully successful opportunity to debate the idea and many/.ers would be continuing in their misconceptions about the issue.
I agree with you, but if you had just moderated him "-1,wrong" that would have hurt the discussion much more than you just posting your opinion, which has helped the discussion.
Moderation is for keeping out of the discussion those who would hijack or murder the discussion, not for punishing people for incorrect or implausible ideas.
Thank you for expressing succinctly what I tried to express by appealing to logic. I need to start remembering that everyone assumes that one is attacking them him or her one corrects him or her, which throws logic out the window.
Look, I totally agree with your sentiment, and especially the sound byte at the end, but you don't understand the patent system.
The patent system is already nontransferable and only individuals are allowed to use it.
When you invent something and patent it, your company doesn't own it. You own it. The company owns the rights, by contract with you, to the monopoly that patent provides. I understand that there are no alternatives, but you agreed to give up your rights by signing that contract to work there. I did, too. Almost everyone working for a corporation did.
The only way to keep the teeth is to make it illegal to sign away one's patent rights by contract. Anything else would be more fodder for corporate lawyers.
A) It was probably the sig, and though I don't necessarily agree, I wouldn't have done that.
B) The modder probably has something against the poster (this is a community that has it's infants unfortunately).
C) Just wait a week. The metamoderation on that one will hose his karma.
A majority of the moderators on slashdot don't understand the concept of "moderation != my personal vendetta tool." I had given insightful to ideas that I totally disagreed with until some nutjob gave me a single "Overrated" and suddenly I'm down to bad karma with very little interaction allowed.
As to your off-topic comment, you have misunderstood the entire purpose of the slashdot moderation system... The moderation system is not for rating whether you agree or disagree with a poster. It is for rating whether or not the post continues the discussion in a meaningful way.
There isn't a "-1,wrong" because there is no wrong statement when the purpose is to discuss a topic.
...Ideas, while conceivably wrong in a moral sense, can not simply be wrong to exist. If that were the case then history would be nothing but wrong and banned from public schools like it were pornography.
The only problem is that that's already the way the patent system works.
Corporations basically do and end-run around the "individuals only" requirement by contracting with the individual to give up his or her rights to the the patent in any and all situations. Since individuals usually can't compete otherwise, they do so willingly in most cases. At the last company for which I worked, there was a man that invented something on his own time (granted using company tools) who got a patent and then my company forced him, through litigation, to sign off his entire rights to the patent. (Needless to say, as soon as I found out about that, I started looking for a new job.)
So that man still has a patent in his name, that he paid to push through, but he has no right to either use or litigate it. This is our patent system. A way for corporations to "stick to the people."
So it seems that the best way to fix this problem is to severely shorten the life of patents in time-conscious industries or limit the scope of patent infringement so that it can only be litigated in such situations that it is not significantly improved by the defendant's invention or use.
I agree with your on-topic assessment of the situation:
Published ideas are by definition prior art.
As to your off-topic comment, you have misunderstood the entire purpose of the slashdot moderation system. I've been personally burned by such misunderstanding, so you'll probably never read this. The moderation system is not for rating whether you agree or disagree with a poster. It is for rating whether or not the post continues the discussion in a meaningful way.
There isn't a "-1,wrong" because there is no wrong statement when the purpose is to discuss a topic.
There may be statements that are off-topic, rude(troll), or contentious(flamebait), but there is no such thing as a wrong idea. Ideas, while conceivably wrong in a moral sense, can not simply be wrong to exist. If that were the case then history would be nothing but wrong and banned from public schools like it were pornography.
Slashdot Mirror
But what if his intent was only to give himself access to his data from any location on campus?
In that case, it is not distribution. It is giving himself location free and operating system unlimited access to his purchased content.
If possession is 9/10ths of the law, then my receipt says I can do whatever I want with my legally purchased content so long as I don't produce copies for financial gain.
There is law against selling copies of content without access to copyrights. There is law against copying content without access to copyrights. There is no law against making one's legally purchased content accessible to oneself (unless you break encryption in the process).
Don't forget constantly making introspective jokes about the stuff we do here.
Why would you consider them godless? They love money almost as much as we do.
http://www.reactos.org
It's looking vaguely possible, though it is in an early alpha.
No matter how good the idea, some one always beats you to it now days...
Glad I read this far before pulling that same joke and embarrassing myself.
You guys realize that the Gates Foundation has a maddening propensity for causing more trouble than it prevents/removes, right? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/07/143121 0
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/12/175621 2
No, not for slander. We (OSS) should sue Microshaft for patent infringement.
There are plenty more OSS patents that undoubtedly are infringed by Microsoft. And if the entire OSS patent holding community (IBM, Sun, FSF, GNU, Redhat, etc.) sue Microsoft with all their patents, Microsoft can't hope to meet them on a cross-licensing deal, unless that deal includes a ceasing of patent hostilities against OSS users. Since they won't do that (and here's where most those companies would back out), it would go all the way to the Supreme Court, which would hopefully throw out software patents since algorithms (mathematical processing) cannot be patented according to US Patent Law.
See, Microshaft, and other software companies who support the existence of software patents, game the system by defining software as an end product that is patentable because it includes the hardware on which it runs (a system and method). This is, in fact, not acceptable, because, regardless of the fact that a computer is doing the processing at an accelerated rate, a human could do that same processing, thus it is a mathematical algorithm and not an end product.
This is why most companies dislike software patents, because software patents are a dishonest end run around patent law that was legislated specifically to prevent patents like this. Most only participate because the few that like software patents will take over the industry if they don't.
Verified:
With radio waves, wavelength * frequency = speed of light, thus frequency = speed of light / wavelength
The speed of light is 299792458 meters/second
1 Hz = 1/second
For wifi, .12 meters (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
frequency = 2.4 GHz or 2400000000 Hz (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
wavelength = 12 cm or
thus, 299792458 / .12 = 2498270483.333333333 or 2.4 GHz
For red light (the largest wavelength of visible light [most incandescent bulbs are yellow]), .00000065 meters (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
frequency = 460 PHz (Peta = 10^15) or 460000000000000 Hz (with a resolution of 2 significant digits);
wavelength = 650 nm or
thus, 299792458 / .00000065 = 461219166153846.153846154
Do not misunderstand, however, the conclusion to which this leads.
Microwave radio frequencies give a wavelength of 1mm to 10cm, so the power level is a significant factor which distinguishes wifi from dangerous radiation.
It doesn't take much power to transmit data. It takes a lot of power to cook a turkey.
Hear! Hear!
And along those lines:
DCE: Digital Consumer Extortion
I think it's a front company which was created to bring the DMCA up to the Supreme Court for review, especially considering how nearly useless the technological proposal is. Most likely, the DMCA would be thrown out for violating fair use laws if it ever made it to the Supreme Court. Hmmm... or the fair use laws could be revoked for being overwritten by the DMCA. This should be interesting to watch, indeed.
Most PC's are something like 95% made in China.
I thought the patent and copyright systems were intended to serve the public, not the business world.
The intent was to encourage release into the public domain by offering a short term monopoly, emphasis on the words "short" and "term."
Oooh! Since you went there:
"Digital Colon Excavation"
That's a DCE that nobody wants.
Perhaps "Digital Consumer Extraction" (as in extraction of funds from the Digital Consumer for every device he/she owns)?
No, see, a better analogy would be:
The internet is a series of pipes, and through those pipes people push stuff they've stolen so that others can steal it, too. So what we've got to do is block those pipes.
;)
Sorry for the late reply. Ironically enough, the moderation system prevented me from responding yesterday.
I understand your point and I concede that one can be both factually and morally wrong.
However... My point was that moderating something "-1,wrong" suggests that it should not have been posted in the first place. Such a suggestion could not possibly be further from the truth even if it were on opposite ends of an infinite Universe. (Gotta love hyperbole :p)
If he did not post it, you would not have had that wonderfully successful opportunity to debate the idea and many /.ers would be continuing in their misconceptions about the issue.
I agree with you, but if you had just moderated him "-1,wrong" that would have hurt the discussion much more than you just posting your opinion, which has helped the discussion.
Moderation is for keeping out of the discussion those who would hijack or murder the discussion, not for punishing people for incorrect or implausible ideas.
Thank you for expressing succinctly what I tried to express by appealing to logic. I need to start remembering that everyone assumes that one is attacking them him or her one corrects him or her, which throws logic out the window.
Look, I totally agree with your sentiment, and especially the sound byte at the end, but you don't understand the patent system.
The patent system is already nontransferable and only individuals are allowed to use it.
When you invent something and patent it, your company doesn't own it. You own it. The company owns the rights, by contract with you, to the monopoly that patent provides. I understand that there are no alternatives, but you agreed to give up your rights by signing that contract to work there. I did, too. Almost everyone working for a corporation did.
The only way to keep the teeth is to make it illegal to sign away one's patent rights by contract. Anything else would be more fodder for corporate lawyers.
Dang it!
I forgot to <p> on my post!
A) It was probably the sig, and though I don't necessarily agree, I wouldn't have done that. B) The modder probably has something against the poster (this is a community that has it's infants unfortunately). C) Just wait a week. The metamoderation on that one will hose his karma. A majority of the moderators on slashdot don't understand the concept of "moderation != my personal vendetta tool." I had given insightful to ideas that I totally disagreed with until some nutjob gave me a single "Overrated" and suddenly I'm down to bad karma with very little interaction allowed.
You can't patent life! I already patented breathing and in some cases that is necessary for life.
Did you even read my post? Allow me to help you:
As to your off-topic comment, you have misunderstood the entire purpose of the slashdot moderation system... The moderation system is not for rating whether you agree or disagree with a poster. It is for rating whether or not the post continues the discussion in a meaningful way.
There isn't a "-1,wrong" because there is no wrong statement when the purpose is to discuss a topic.
...Ideas, while conceivably wrong in a moral sense, can not simply be wrong to exist. If that were the case then history would be nothing but wrong and banned from public schools like it were pornography.
The only problem is that that's already the way the patent system works.
Corporations basically do and end-run around the "individuals only" requirement by contracting with the individual to give up his or her rights to the the patent in any and all situations. Since individuals usually can't compete otherwise, they do so willingly in most cases. At the last company for which I worked, there was a man that invented something on his own time (granted using company tools) who got a patent and then my company forced him, through litigation, to sign off his entire rights to the patent. (Needless to say, as soon as I found out about that, I started looking for a new job.)
So that man still has a patent in his name, that he paid to push through, but he has no right to either use or litigate it. This is our patent system. A way for corporations to "stick to the people."
So it seems that the best way to fix this problem is to severely shorten the life of patents in time-conscious industries or limit the scope of patent infringement so that it can only be litigated in such situations that it is not significantly improved by the defendant's invention or use.
I agree with your on-topic assessment of the situation:
Published ideas are by definition prior art.
As to your off-topic comment, you have misunderstood the entire purpose of the slashdot moderation system. I've been personally burned by such misunderstanding, so you'll probably never read this. The moderation system is not for rating whether you agree or disagree with a poster. It is for rating whether or not the post continues the discussion in a meaningful way.
There isn't a "-1,wrong" because there is no wrong statement when the purpose is to discuss a topic.
There may be statements that are off-topic, rude(troll), or contentious(flamebait), but there is no such thing as a wrong idea. Ideas, while conceivably wrong in a moral sense, can not simply be wrong to exist. If that were the case then history would be nothing but wrong and banned from public schools like it were pornography.