I agree, but only up to a point. Going back to the software development concept, the customer, who is paying me, may well demand that I work to make a product that I know will be a load of crap. For all of the fighting for what is right, I do what is told. Lo and behold, the product needs to be reworked, and the contract gets reissued, or extended, or what have you. Yes, I got more money. However, did I enjoy working on a known failure? Did my customer leave glowing reviews and refer all of his friends to me? Did I get any kind of bonus for what will be perceived as my mistake?
Unlikely.
So, now you have a customer telling you how to get from point A to point B. Oops, he sent you the wrong way. Oops, he just missed his flight. Now you have an angry tourist yelling at you (who will probably resort to racial epithets and the like) because YOU made him late (just by following his instructions). You probably don't enjoy having this tool in the backseat talking out his ass, nor do you enjoy having to split these 'extra' profits with your cab company. If, however, you had managed to get your customer to point B on time, or early, you could get a tip, which, if I understand correctly, is exempt from the cab company's cut of your income. Fraction of five dollars, or all five dollars? Angry guy yelling curses at you and your family or happy guy giving you a tip and talking amicably?
I agreed with your "Bad Routes avoided" statement, up until it got to the statement where you say that the consumer will be in control. As if that were a good thing. In some instances, consumer control is good. However, in this and many other cases, consumer awareness is what is desired. I would like to know if the cabbie has just been driving in circles. I would like to know if there might be a different route to take. But that will impact my tipping and potential report to the BBB or some other consumer rights group, not make me empowered to make demands that we "turn left here."
I know that customers often think that they are right. They have read about new technology 'x' - and it needs to be a part of the development solution, now! They may well be dead wrong. They do not know about the pitfalls and implementation details. Similarly, a tourist might think that taking route 'x' through Manhattan will be the best way, while the driver knows about the construction projects, traffic jams, and other norms that are beyond the knowledge of an overly enthusiastic customer.
Wait, people manipulating numbers to make a point? Surely you jest! I mean no offense, but isn't that the primary goal of numbers once taken out of a purely mathematical context? And now for a few gems of statistically-related quotes:
Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. ~Gregg Easterbrook
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein
Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth. ~Author Unknown
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than for illumination. ~Andrew Lang
I always find that statistics are hard to swallow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable. ~Mrs. Robert A. Taft
The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~Des McHale
Apparently he was a little too excited about the whole process to really listen to what his friend was doing to him. Cover him in algae? Perhaps he meant alginate, the substance typically used in the lifecasting process.
A troll? My organization is in the process of dealing with patent infringement for a patent that is obvious to anyone skilled in the art of computer programming (we have yet to find the perfect patent match in a preexisting patent, thereby making their patent invalid (which will still require legal council to defeat their potential suit) but we are getting close). We infringed upon this patent even though we created our application without knowledge of their patented method (because it is so f-ing obvious), and now are being faced with the license or litigate decision. We are asking the questions that I posited above... it's not a bloody troll, it's the truth of my current situation.
As someone currently dealing with the headache of patent law first hand, I have to agree with point made by both sides. Yes, I feel that the Google stance is 'righter,' but I also feel that the process of fighting patents in court is slightly broken and could be done better.
However, a major problem will always exist - money. If they manage to streamline the process (some judiciaries are creating "rocket dockets" for patent disputes), there will still be an overhead of legal fees and expensive expert witnesses that keep small players stuck in a bind. Sure, it might cost half as much to fight an obvious case, and it might take a fraction of the time, but half of an obscene amount of money is still, well, pretty damn obscene.
So, the little guys are left with the choice to take a license and deal with it, or fight the patent in court (recent changes make it so that the licensee can take a license and then turn around and sue the patent holder for non-infringement, which is a step in the right direction) for a sum of money that may well be beyond the operating costs of the organization.
Unless Apple is proposing that these "changes to the litigation process" include making lawyers fees non-existent, allowing experts to be experts without charging five-figure fees for their testimony, and reducing the amount of time that it takes to fight such cases, I don't see there being a very useful move in the legal process that will make a court battle any more appealing to a small software company.
A pretty good pile of non-sentences in a non-article about a pretty big non-story. TV will be killed by MySpace in the same way that it was killed by TiVo (only watching what the users wants?!) and by DVDs (which, with entire seasons of content being made available, was going to kill TV as opposed to increase overall viewrships), and by the VCR (content, when and where you want it?!), etc etc.
Meaning, of course, that TV will still be around long after MySpace goes the way of Geocities and Tripod.
So, with a decrease in religious assholes, will there be an increase in anti-religion assholes? Who will the anti-religion assholes hate (and bring into every debate) if there are no religious assholes around?
Take this matter to congress. Someone has to think of the children and their inalienable right to talk about religious assholes anywhere in this solar system.
The assertion that this research "does not benefit the tobacco companies" could be correct. But, then again, maybe not.
Tobacco companies are facing a huge problem wherein smoking has begun a slide off of the charts of socially acceptable drugs. In decades past, tobacco was balanced somewhere between a cultural norm (my grandmother smoked a pipe out in the Aleutians, because it was what EVERYONE did) and an indicator of social status (movie stars, musicians, etc using it brought it into the realm of 'cool' in areas where it wasn't a part of the culture). However, now the use of tobacco is being banned from enclosed public spaces, has a large anti-use campaign running against it, and is generally less a way of American life than it used to be.
That said, tobacco companies need to find a way to continue selling their product. With actual whole-leaf tobacco becoming less of a commodity, it is the active ingredients that will become beneficial. Cut out the tar and the slew of harmful chemicals while still delivering nicotine and you have a salable product. Make it medical and all of a sudden you have a new goldmine in your fields. If nicotine is found to be healthy, then I imagine tobacco companies will try to find a way to make extracting the chemical from tobacco a cheaper and more often used method than synthetically creating it.
Now, IANABE (I am not a biochemical engineer), but it seems to me that tobacco companies might have a very keen interest in making sure research into the health benefits of nicotine continues, along with methods of successfully extracting useful quantities of viable chemicals from tobacco leaves.
If I worked in a public environment, in a manner that was supposed to be for the benefit of the public, then I would not have a problem with it. If someone came into my private office, read code and product design specs meant for a private audience then I would have a problem.
I would not videotape the police at their desks, in their closed meetings, at their retirement parties. Only when they are acting in public interest in public places would I find it acceptable to videotape.
I read the Law.com summary, and it sounds like the issue is not just a digital re-distribution, but redistribution in a new, separately copyrighted format. Really, it looks like there were two parts to this:
1) National Geographic created new, copyrighted software and embedded both reproductions of the original issues within it.
2) National Geographic utilized content from the original issues (images) and repurposed them within the copyrighted software.
Issue 1 is fairly obviously okay - a digital redistribution of content in a new format but identical context. The images and articles were in the same layout as they were in print format. This is where the microfilm argument and comparison makes sense.
Issue 2 is, to me, more of a problem. NG had copyrights for the photos in a single use agreement. They paid the photographer for use of the photo in an issue of National Geographic. By taking the image out of context and adding it to a product that someone else is claiming copyright for, they are definitely crossing some bounds.
To me, digital distribution is great. It makes sense. No big deal. What I dislike, however, is this use of "digital distribution" as an umbrella for allowing a company to reuse images in a format and context not included in the original contract.
As a beginning freelance photographer and writer, this sends up red flags all over the place. I will have to be ever so vigilant in reading the fine print of my contracts in the future.
No, I think that record companies will cry foul when songs purchased by Joe Sixpack are being played by Jane Doe and the entire state of California, Xiang Dao and five million of his friends, and Janet Dunichkoff's entire extended family.
Similarly, if Jane Doe 10,000 songs purchased entirely by other people, eyebrows might be raised (a possibility, yes, but not likely).
I am not pro-RIAA by any means, but I think that saying all users must now cower in fear for receiving a gift of iTunes from a friend is a bit absurd. It is not financially feasible to hunt down such (legitimate) uses. It is the thousands and millions of copies that get distributed that start to equal money for their legal team.
I was pretty sure that Microsoft was creating the OS that ran on these boxes, and not actually producing the computers that users are buying. I can understand that people are angry, but I think that a large part of the responsibility should fall on the shoulders of the OEMs who have been slapping the label onto all of their products. Just as the summary says, the "Vista Capable" branding has been put onto the PC packaging and web advertisements.
A bit of deception all around, but really, what is advertisement if not a bunch of pretty lies and partial truths?
From the criticism: From the blurp:... Blurp is not a word.
Perhaps you meant something along the lines of blurb.
Please, critics of/. staff, be better than the subject of your scorn!
I think that you are the first person I have ever heard from who has said that their Honda lasted anything under 200K miles. I know that I sold mine at 180K miles, and the person who bought it was doing great with it (until he got a DUI a year later). My ex-girlfriend had one at 220K, and my aunt had one that was at 280K. Yeah, the 280K number blew me away when I first heard it. I had to check the odometer when she told me that.
Not full of crap. Not exaggerating. The body looked like shit, the suspension had been changed out, and a new transmission had been put in, but the engine was the same one that it was manufactured with.
Other friends absolutely love how well their little Hondas last.
After writing that two-sentence comment on poor grammar, one might hope that you are not too hard on yourself for making a similarly "idiotic" mistake.
to != too != two
Just a friendly reminder that the Grammar Nazis are in fact watching one another.
How many of the terrorist attacks in the past 100 years have been from Islamic militants?
Not a lot.
You say that large American cities are the targets of terrorists, and that we should make no mistake to think otherwise. Yes, it is agreed that terrorism is most effective when it is done against large, densely populated areas, as it will typically have the capacity to kill far more people in such an environment. However, let us go back through and look at the plethora of attacks against American cities that have been happening with such frequency as of late.
Um, so, waiting for something other than 9/11.
...
Got anything yet?
...
Yeah, sorry, not coming up with much, either. Anthrax mailings? Not against a major city, or a large group. Small distribution to a handful of news agencies and politicians...no big bomb in a big city killing everyone. A lot of small attacks, typically of a political or personal nature, and typically against very distinct targets that are aligned with said target. Or, if they were large (Oklahoma City, for example), they were done by Americans. And, as opposed to trying to simply kill people, most of the attacks were driven by political agendas. Even the Towers were attacked because of their symbolism (and yes, I admit that the people inside helped, too). An attack against a stadium of 40,000 would have been more devastating, given two jets crashing into them. People like you, with irrational fears of terrorists everywhere, are the same people that are giving credence and validation to the acts that our government are taking against us and against people around the world.
I am not Islamic, and I have not been attacked. Not even threatened. However, I was in Israel two years ago, talking with an Islamic Palestinian, and he was very nice. He actually liked me a good deal, despite the fact that he absolutely hated out government. We had a good talk, that crazy Islamic terrorist and I.
I am more afraid of gang bangers shooting me in a random exchange of gun fire than I am of getting killed by terrorists. Or a car accident. Or choking on a piece of food. Or a nasty systemic infection from an ingrown toe nail. And yet I still walk the streets. I still drive to work. I still enjoy a good meal. I still, most of the time, clip my toe nails.
But you're right, we should be more careful, more vigilant, and stay the course.
Point granted and agreed with (on a location-by-location basis, of course), although I am afraid that I am going to have to report you to the authorities and your supervisor for the terror that you are obviously bringing into your office.
Slashdot Mirror
Three (3) 8GB iPhones != Eight (8) 8GB iPhones. Or any other GB iPhones, for that matter.
I agree, but only up to a point. Going back to the software development concept, the customer, who is paying me, may well demand that I work to make a product that I know will be a load of crap. For all of the fighting for what is right, I do what is told. Lo and behold, the product needs to be reworked, and the contract gets reissued, or extended, or what have you. Yes, I got more money. However, did I enjoy working on a known failure? Did my customer leave glowing reviews and refer all of his friends to me? Did I get any kind of bonus for what will be perceived as my mistake?
Unlikely.
So, now you have a customer telling you how to get from point A to point B. Oops, he sent you the wrong way. Oops, he just missed his flight. Now you have an angry tourist yelling at you (who will probably resort to racial epithets and the like) because YOU made him late (just by following his instructions). You probably don't enjoy having this tool in the backseat talking out his ass, nor do you enjoy having to split these 'extra' profits with your cab company. If, however, you had managed to get your customer to point B on time, or early, you could get a tip, which, if I understand correctly, is exempt from the cab company's cut of your income. Fraction of five dollars, or all five dollars? Angry guy yelling curses at you and your family or happy guy giving you a tip and talking amicably?
I agreed with your "Bad Routes avoided" statement, up until it got to the statement where you say that the consumer will be in control. As if that were a good thing. In some instances, consumer control is good. However, in this and many other cases, consumer awareness is what is desired. I would like to know if the cabbie has just been driving in circles. I would like to know if there might be a different route to take. But that will impact my tipping and potential report to the BBB or some other consumer rights group, not make me empowered to make demands that we "turn left here."
I know that customers often think that they are right. They have read about new technology 'x' - and it needs to be a part of the development solution, now! They may well be dead wrong. They do not know about the pitfalls and implementation details. Similarly, a tourist might think that taking route 'x' through Manhattan will be the best way, while the driver knows about the construction projects, traffic jams, and other norms that are beyond the knowledge of an overly enthusiastic customer.
Wait, people manipulating numbers to make a point? Surely you jest! I mean no offense, but isn't that the primary goal of numbers once taken out of a purely mathematical context? And now for a few gems of statistically-related quotes:
Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. ~Gregg Easterbrook
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein
Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth. ~Author Unknown
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts - for support rather than for illumination. ~Andrew Lang
I always find that statistics are hard to swallow and impossible to digest. The only one I can ever remember is that if all the people who go to sleep in church were laid end to end they would be a lot more comfortable. ~Mrs. Robert A. Taft
The average human has one breast and one testicle. ~Des McHale
Apparently he was a little too excited about the whole process to really listen to what his friend was doing to him. Cover him in algae? Perhaps he meant alginate , the substance typically used in the lifecasting process.
A troll? My organization is in the process of dealing with patent infringement for a patent that is obvious to anyone skilled in the art of computer programming (we have yet to find the perfect patent match in a preexisting patent, thereby making their patent invalid (which will still require legal council to defeat their potential suit) but we are getting close). We infringed upon this patent even though we created our application without knowledge of their patented method (because it is so f-ing obvious), and now are being faced with the license or litigate decision. We are asking the questions that I posited above ... it's not a bloody troll, it's the truth of my current situation.
As someone currently dealing with the headache of patent law first hand, I have to agree with point made by both sides. Yes, I feel that the Google stance is 'righter,' but I also feel that the process of fighting patents in court is slightly broken and could be done better.
However, a major problem will always exist - money. If they manage to streamline the process (some judiciaries are creating "rocket dockets" for patent disputes), there will still be an overhead of legal fees and expensive expert witnesses that keep small players stuck in a bind. Sure, it might cost half as much to fight an obvious case, and it might take a fraction of the time, but half of an obscene amount of money is still, well, pretty damn obscene.
So, the little guys are left with the choice to take a license and deal with it, or fight the patent in court (recent changes make it so that the licensee can take a license and then turn around and sue the patent holder for non-infringement, which is a step in the right direction) for a sum of money that may well be beyond the operating costs of the organization.
Unless Apple is proposing that these "changes to the litigation process" include making lawyers fees non-existent, allowing experts to be experts without charging five-figure fees for their testimony, and reducing the amount of time that it takes to fight such cases, I don't see there being a very useful move in the legal process that will make a court battle any more appealing to a small software company.
A pretty good pile of non-sentences in a non-article about a pretty big non-story. TV will be killed by MySpace in the same way that it was killed by TiVo (only watching what the users wants?!) and by DVDs (which, with entire seasons of content being made available, was going to kill TV as opposed to increase overall viewrships), and by the VCR (content, when and where you want it?!), etc etc.
Meaning, of course, that TV will still be around long after MySpace goes the way of Geocities and Tripod.
So, with a decrease in religious assholes, will there be an increase in anti-religion assholes? Who will the anti-religion assholes hate (and bring into every debate) if there are no religious assholes around?
Take this matter to congress. Someone has to think of the children and their inalienable right to talk about religious assholes anywhere in this solar system.
Isn't the term "zombie" a little bit redundant?
Perhaps I meant -
"smoking has begun a slide off of the charts of socially acceptable BEHAVIORS"
or
"NICOTINE has begun a slide off of the charts of socially acceptable drugs"
Take your pick.
The assertion that this research "does not benefit the tobacco companies" could be correct. But, then again, maybe not.
Tobacco companies are facing a huge problem wherein smoking has begun a slide off of the charts of socially acceptable drugs. In decades past, tobacco was balanced somewhere between a cultural norm (my grandmother smoked a pipe out in the Aleutians, because it was what EVERYONE did) and an indicator of social status (movie stars, musicians, etc using it brought it into the realm of 'cool' in areas where it wasn't a part of the culture). However, now the use of tobacco is being banned from enclosed public spaces, has a large anti-use campaign running against it, and is generally less a way of American life than it used to be.
That said, tobacco companies need to find a way to continue selling their product. With actual whole-leaf tobacco becoming less of a commodity, it is the active ingredients that will become beneficial. Cut out the tar and the slew of harmful chemicals while still delivering nicotine and you have a salable product. Make it medical and all of a sudden you have a new goldmine in your fields. If nicotine is found to be healthy, then I imagine tobacco companies will try to find a way to make extracting the chemical from tobacco a cheaper and more often used method than synthetically creating it.
Now, IANABE (I am not a biochemical engineer), but it seems to me that tobacco companies might have a very keen interest in making sure research into the health benefits of nicotine continues, along with methods of successfully extracting useful quantities of viable chemicals from tobacco leaves.
If I worked in a public environment, in a manner that was supposed to be for the benefit of the public, then I would not have a problem with it. If someone came into my private office, read code and product design specs meant for a private audience then I would have a problem.
I would not videotape the police at their desks, in their closed meetings, at their retirement parties. Only when they are acting in public interest in public places would I find it acceptable to videotape.
I read the Law.com summary, and it sounds like the issue is not just a digital re-distribution, but redistribution in a new, separately copyrighted format. Really, it looks like there were two parts to this: 1) National Geographic created new, copyrighted software and embedded both reproductions of the original issues within it. 2) National Geographic utilized content from the original issues (images) and repurposed them within the copyrighted software.
Issue 1 is fairly obviously okay - a digital redistribution of content in a new format but identical context. The images and articles were in the same layout as they were in print format. This is where the microfilm argument and comparison makes sense.
Issue 2 is, to me, more of a problem. NG had copyrights for the photos in a single use agreement. They paid the photographer for use of the photo in an issue of National Geographic. By taking the image out of context and adding it to a product that someone else is claiming copyright for, they are definitely crossing some bounds.
To me, digital distribution is great. It makes sense. No big deal. What I dislike, however, is this use of "digital distribution" as an umbrella for allowing a company to reuse images in a format and context not included in the original contract.
As a beginning freelance photographer and writer, this sends up red flags all over the place. I will have to be ever so vigilant in reading the fine print of my contracts in the future.
No, I think that record companies will cry foul when songs purchased by Joe Sixpack are being played by Jane Doe and the entire state of California, Xiang Dao and five million of his friends, and Janet Dunichkoff's entire extended family.
Similarly, if Jane Doe 10,000 songs purchased entirely by other people, eyebrows might be raised (a possibility, yes, but not likely).
I am not pro-RIAA by any means, but I think that saying all users must now cower in fear for receiving a gift of iTunes from a friend is a bit absurd. It is not financially feasible to hunt down such (legitimate) uses. It is the thousands and millions of copies that get distributed that start to equal money for their legal team.
I was pretty sure that Microsoft was creating the OS that ran on these boxes, and not actually producing the computers that users are buying. I can understand that people are angry, but I think that a large part of the responsibility should fall on the shoulders of the OEMs who have been slapping the label onto all of their products. Just as the summary says, the "Vista Capable" branding has been put onto the PC packaging and web advertisements.
A bit of deception all around, but really, what is advertisement if not a bunch of pretty lies and partial truths?
Remotely activated razor blades, oh noes!
From the criticism: From the blurp: ...
/. staff, be better than the subject of your scorn!
Blurp is not a word.
Perhaps you meant something along the lines of blurb.
Please, critics of
I think that you are the first person I have ever heard from who has said that their Honda lasted anything under 200K miles. I know that I sold mine at 180K miles, and the person who bought it was doing great with it (until he got a DUI a year later). My ex-girlfriend had one at 220K, and my aunt had one that was at 280K. Yeah, the 280K number blew me away when I first heard it. I had to check the odometer when she told me that.
Not full of crap. Not exaggerating. The body looked like shit, the suspension had been changed out, and a new transmission had been put in, but the engine was the same one that it was manufactured with.
Other friends absolutely love how well their little Hondas last.
a sign on top of their cars saying in bright yellow letters saying that they drive like morons
Hey, leave taxi drivers out of this! They can't help how bad their driving is.
well played
After writing that two-sentence comment on poor grammar, one might hope that you are not too hard on yourself for making a similarly "idiotic" mistake.
to != too != two
Just a friendly reminder that the Grammar Nazis are in fact watching one another.
18 x 5.5 = 99
So, if there were MORE than 18 customers (as our friend here says), the total would be MORE than 99%.
19 x 5.5 = 104.5
And, to answer the original post, don't worry, they don't.
How many of the terrorist attacks in the past 100 years have been from Islamic militants?
...
...
Not a lot.
You say that large American cities are the targets of terrorists, and that we should make no mistake to think otherwise. Yes, it is agreed that terrorism is most effective when it is done against large, densely populated areas, as it will typically have the capacity to kill far more people in such an environment. However, let us go back through and look at the plethora of attacks against American cities that have been happening with such frequency as of late.
Um, so, waiting for something other than 9/11.
Got anything yet?
Yeah, sorry, not coming up with much, either. Anthrax mailings? Not against a major city, or a large group. Small distribution to a handful of news agencies and politicians...no big bomb in a big city killing everyone. A lot of small attacks, typically of a political or personal nature, and typically against very distinct targets that are aligned with said target. Or, if they were large (Oklahoma City, for example), they were done by Americans. And, as opposed to trying to simply kill people, most of the attacks were driven by political agendas. Even the Towers were attacked because of their symbolism (and yes, I admit that the people inside helped, too). An attack against a stadium of 40,000 would have been more devastating, given two jets crashing into them. People like you, with irrational fears of terrorists everywhere, are the same people that are giving credence and validation to the acts that our government are taking against us and against people around the world.
I am not Islamic, and I have not been attacked. Not even threatened. However, I was in Israel two years ago, talking with an Islamic Palestinian, and he was very nice. He actually liked me a good deal, despite the fact that he absolutely hated out government. We had a good talk, that crazy Islamic terrorist and I.
I am more afraid of gang bangers shooting me in a random exchange of gun fire than I am of getting killed by terrorists. Or a car accident. Or choking on a piece of food. Or a nasty systemic infection from an ingrown toe nail. And yet I still walk the streets. I still drive to work. I still enjoy a good meal. I still, most of the time, clip my toe nails.
But you're right, we should be more careful, more vigilant, and stay the course.
Point granted and agreed with (on a location-by-location basis, of course), although I am afraid that I am going to have to report you to the authorities and your supervisor for the terror that you are obviously bringing into your office.