It is a mathematical consequence of some models of the universe. Other models don't bring it as a consequence. Remember, we don't know how the universe behaves, we just have clues.
Sometimes I wonder if we are just like the people in Plato's Allegory of the Cave - staring at the wall, watching the shadows move and then try to come up with scientific explanations of the shadows' behaviour - without knowing what's really going on because there's so much that we can't see/measure yet.
The first German hybrid plant started operating in Berlin last month. Surplus wind power is used to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen will be used to produce heat and energy, but will also be sold at local gas stations for use in fuel cells. So Vattenfall, Deutsche Bahn and Total seem to think that it's indeed worth it.
And there are projects starting next year that will built plants to convert the hydrogen into methane.
They'd take you to court. And they don't have to prove anything. The law in this case says that GEMA can safely assume that every artist is a GEMA member and it's on you to prove them wrong. The German laws in this regard are unfortunately really fucked up and far from common sense...
Because German record labels, publishers and other greedy companies want to continue making money from works created by long-dead authors and have lots of lobbyists and politicians on their payroll?
You don't need to get into the plants to cause serious damage to them. Just hi-jack a large plane and crash it into the plant. IIRC there were some studies a while back in Germany that showed that several of the country's nuclear plants were not built to withstand such forces. And it's not just the initial impact that causes damage, you have take into account the thousands of liters of burning fuel. And central Europe isn't that big, so there are many airports less than a few minutes of flight away from nuclear plants.
Not really. Shooting raw materials 350 Km up into orbit is a bit easier than travelling a few hundred million km into the void, cruising around in the asteroid belt looking for those materials (remember, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one!) and then returning into earth orbit.
I somehow doubt that a catastrophic failure at an offshore wind farm or at an concentrated solar power plant would involve damage to humans on a scale compared to nuclear power plants or coal plants.
Nuclear and coal are not the only power sources, but they certainly are the worst ones considering their potential and innate risks.
Exactly. Modern nuclear power plants are much safer now. And they are operated by the smartest and best paid workers in the world, so we don't have to fear that they may make mistakes. And even if they explode, no radiation will be spread across the land, nobody will be harmed. And we have solved the waste problem since then, so we no longer have to fear that the locations where we store the contaminated waste may some day release radiation into the environment.
Oh, wait...
AFAIK, in most European countries reproductions of two-dimensional works don't generate new copyrights. The UK seems to be one of the few countries where museums can legally claim to own the copyrights to photos/scans of very old paintings.
Well, the seed they sell you is sterile. Terminator crops will not reproduce so you can't save seed from last year for this year's planting.
"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously. " -- Dr. Ian Malcolm
What about if some people just want to get a paper version of those? I'm not sure if Wikipedia currently offers such
Since 2009, Wikipedia has a feature that lets you save articles, transform these collections of articles into PDF or OpenDocument files and even order printed book versions of these articles via PediaPress. See this and this page for more information.
Also: here's a question... do german history books not have pictures of swastikas in them? Does this law not also make any such book illegal? It's interesting to note that the German wikipedia is clearly not following any such proscription.
German law includes exceptions for the use of symbols of banned organizations in education, science, research, news coverage and art (Â86 StGB, (3)). So history books and educational sites like Wikipedia are allowed to use these symbols (as long as they don't use them in totally different contexts). IMHO, the use of swastikas in video games should be allowed, as games are art, just like movies (Indiana Jones, Inglorious Basterds, etc..). But not everything that's allowed by the law is allowed by the BPjM.
The German Wikipedia did it that way. New versions by anonymous and new users are added to the version history just like any other edit. Users that are not logged in get the to see the latest reviewed version and a new button/tab called "Entwurf" (draft) is shown at the top linking to the latest non-reviewed version (if one exists).
And just like in the Road Runner cartoons, Wikipedia will just ignore the abyss below, run to the opposite side of the canyon and happily continue its journey into the future, while the coyotes (= trolls, spammers, vandals) will suddenly notice the large amount of fresh air beneath their feet and descend into the land of pain (because now people will pay even less attention to their desperate attempts of getting some social interaction with real people).
They are not hidden in the history. If an edit has not been reviewed yet, a new button/tab titled "Entwurf" (draft) is shown at the top (between the "article" and "edit" buttons) that links to the latest non-reviewed version. So the "extra effort" consists of one simple click.
One celebrity image was posted by the photographer under a CC permissive licence and got a notice slapped on it
*snip*
They just don't want pictures.....
I don't see the problem. The personality rights warning doesn't mean that they don't want the image (it doesn't lead to deletion of the image), it just warns re-users that they probably can't do everything they want with this image. Many countries have laws that limit what you can do with images of other people without their explicit permission. For example, if there's a photo of Harrison Ford under a free license, it would be no problem to use it in encyclopedia articles, news stories, etc.. But a company can't use it to advertise their products without the permission of Mr. Ford.
Maybe the recent collapse of the Historical Archive of Cologne that buried thousands of invaluable historical documents underneath tons of rubble will cause more historical archives to re-think and open up and share their contents with the public.
Unfortunately, many museums and archives are more concerned about making profits with their historical documents rather than making some effort to make them available to the broad public. Many still think they own the copyrights to century old documents and paintings just because they are in the museum's possession.
And 250k free historical photos are great news of course. As Germany's terms of copyright protection are 70 years after the author's death (just like the rest of Europe), most photos of 20th century historical events are still copyrighted. With this donation and the recent donation by the Bundesarchiv, we finally get lots of free images from this period of time.
There are exceptions for works of art and science, see Strafgesetzbuch  86a. So it's allowed to use the swastika in films, documentaries, history books, etc.. but it's not OK to print it on t-shirts for example.
Kaufhof is a fairly big chain, but not when it comes to games and electronics. The few Kaufhof stores I know have a rather limited selection of games and their prices are usually pretty high, so only few people buy their games there. Most of the time, they don't even change their prices over time, so you have to pay full price for games that are more than a year old.
It's just a PR stunt to get some press (at the moment, the press will print anything that vaguely mentions "killer games"). I guess they are going to just put the games back on the shelves in a few month when nobody cares any more.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice 10nant quote.
It is a mathematical consequence of some models of the universe. Other models don't bring it as a consequence. Remember, we don't know how the universe behaves, we just have clues.
Sometimes I wonder if we are just like the people in Plato's Allegory of the Cave - staring at the wall, watching the shadows move and then try to come up with scientific explanations of the shadows' behaviour - without knowing what's really going on because there's so much that we can't see/measure yet.
The first German hybrid plant started operating in Berlin last month. Surplus wind power is used to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen will be used to produce heat and energy, but will also be sold at local gas stations for use in fuel cells. So Vattenfall, Deutsche Bahn and Total seem to think that it's indeed worth it.
And there are projects starting next year that will built plants to convert the hydrogen into methane.
They'd take you to court. And they don't have to prove anything. The law in this case says that GEMA can safely assume that every artist is a GEMA member and it's on you to prove them wrong. The German laws in this regard are unfortunately really fucked up and far from common sense...
Because German record labels, publishers and other greedy companies want to continue making money from works created by long-dead authors and have lots of lobbyists and politicians on their payroll?
That should teach you a lesson about the importance of off-site backups.
You don't need to get into the plants to cause serious damage to them. Just hi-jack a large plane and crash it into the plant. IIRC there were some studies a while back in Germany that showed that several of the country's nuclear plants were not built to withstand such forces. And it's not just the initial impact that causes damage, you have take into account the thousands of liters of burning fuel. And central Europe isn't that big, so there are many airports less than a few minutes of flight away from nuclear plants.
Facebook Continues Assault On StudiVZ, Opens Office In Hamburg
Not really. Shooting raw materials 350 Km up into orbit is a bit easier than travelling a few hundred million km into the void, cruising around in the asteroid belt looking for those materials (remember, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand, seven hundred and twenty to one!) and then returning into earth orbit.
Obligatory XKCD
I somehow doubt that a catastrophic failure at an offshore wind farm or at an concentrated solar power plant would involve damage to humans on a scale compared to nuclear power plants or coal plants.
Nuclear and coal are not the only power sources, but they certainly are the worst ones considering their potential and innate risks.
Exactly. Modern nuclear power plants are much safer now. And they are operated by the smartest and best paid workers in the world, so we don't have to fear that they may make mistakes. And even if they explode, no radiation will be spread across the land, nobody will be harmed. And we have solved the waste problem since then, so we no longer have to fear that the locations where we store the contaminated waste may some day release radiation into the environment. Oh, wait...
T-Mobile is a German company, owned by Deutsche Telecom, I believe. They have customers all over Europe, as well as in the US.
Incorrect. T-Mobile UK is owned by Everythingeverywhere
And according to this page, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom each own 50% of Everythingeverywhere.
AFAIK, in most European countries reproductions of two-dimensional works don't generate new copyrights. The UK seems to be one of the few countries where museums can legally claim to own the copyrights to photos/scans of very old paintings.
Well, the seed they sell you is sterile. Terminator crops will not reproduce so you can't save seed from last year for this year's planting.
"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously. " -- Dr. Ian Malcolm
Maybe they'll hire Quinto.
What about if some people just want to get a paper version of those? I'm not sure if Wikipedia currently offers such
Since 2009, Wikipedia has a feature that lets you save articles, transform these collections of articles into PDF or OpenDocument files and even order printed book versions of these articles via PediaPress. See this and this page for more information.
Also: here's a question... do german history books not have pictures of swastikas in them? Does this law not also make any such book illegal? It's interesting to note that the German wikipedia is clearly not following any such proscription.
German law includes exceptions for the use of symbols of banned organizations in education, science, research, news coverage and art (Â86 StGB, (3)). So history books and educational sites like Wikipedia are allowed to use these symbols (as long as they don't use them in totally different contexts). IMHO, the use of swastikas in video games should be allowed, as games are art, just like movies (Indiana Jones, Inglorious Basterds, etc..). But not everything that's allowed by the law is allowed by the BPjM.
The German Wikipedia did it that way. New versions by anonymous and new users are added to the version history just like any other edit. Users that are not logged in get the to see the latest reviewed version and a new button/tab called "Entwurf" (draft) is shown at the top linking to the latest non-reviewed version (if one exists).
And just like in the Road Runner cartoons, Wikipedia will just ignore the abyss below, run to the opposite side of the canyon and happily continue its journey into the future, while the coyotes (= trolls, spammers, vandals) will suddenly notice the large amount of fresh air beneath their feet and descend into the land of pain (because now people will pay even less attention to their desperate attempts of getting some social interaction with real people).
They are not hidden in the history. If an edit has not been reviewed yet, a new button/tab titled "Entwurf" (draft) is shown at the top (between the "article" and "edit" buttons) that links to the latest non-reviewed version. So the "extra effort" consists of one simple click.
One celebrity image was posted by the photographer under a CC permissive licence and got a notice slapped on it
*snip*
They just don't want pictures .....
I don't see the problem. The personality rights warning doesn't mean that they don't want the image (it doesn't lead to deletion of the image), it just warns re-users that they probably can't do everything they want with this image. Many countries have laws that limit what you can do with images of other people without their explicit permission. For example, if there's a photo of Harrison Ford under a free license, it would be no problem to use it in encyclopedia articles, news stories, etc.. But a company can't use it to advertise their products without the permission of Mr. Ford.
Maybe the recent collapse of the Historical Archive of Cologne that buried thousands of invaluable historical documents underneath tons of rubble will cause more historical archives to re-think and open up and share their contents with the public.
Unfortunately, many museums and archives are more concerned about making profits with their historical documents rather than making some effort to make them available to the broad public. Many still think they own the copyrights to century old documents and paintings just because they are in the museum's possession.
And 250k free historical photos are great news of course. As Germany's terms of copyright protection are 70 years after the author's death (just like the rest of Europe), most photos of 20th century historical events are still copyrighted. With this donation and the recent donation by the Bundesarchiv, we finally get lots of free images from this period of time.
There are exceptions for works of art and science, see Strafgesetzbuch  86a. So it's allowed to use the swastika in films, documentaries, history books, etc.. but it's not OK to print it on t-shirts for example.
Kaufhof is a fairly big chain, but not when it comes to games and electronics. The few Kaufhof stores I know have a rather limited selection of games and their prices are usually pretty high, so only few people buy their games there. Most of the time, they don't even change their prices over time, so you have to pay full price for games that are more than a year old. It's just a PR stunt to get some press (at the moment, the press will print anything that vaguely mentions "killer games"). I guess they are going to just put the games back on the shelves in a few month when nobody cares any more.