Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Jun 2010 @ 5:56am
Re: Little known fact
This is a well known fact. Anyone who has filled out their NC state tax forms has to declare "mail order and out of state" purchases that has not been taxed.
The fact that most people mark that as $0 is a different problem entirely. If NC wants to accuse an individual of tax evasion, they should subpoena specific information on a case-by-case basis. A state should not have the right to demand any retailer provide their entire database of customer information just because the state's sales taxes are dropping.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jun 2010 @ 12:06pm
Re: There's a choice to be made here
"decide that individual fillings make the law unenforceable and allow this."
In other words, enforcing copyright law means you get to lump possibly guilty parties in with innocent parties and litigate them all at once, even though none of them know each other.
Maybe a better solution is to not have unenforceable laws at all.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jun 2010 @ 8:05am
Re: Re: Re:
"in the past, some seo work has been done by buying a small amount of adwords, as a bribe to the google gods. it does tend to work. i have seen sites put adwords on their pages and suddenly get indexed more often and become more relevant. using google webmaster tools and submitting a sitemap tends to get you better results, especially if the site is also using google trends or google adwords."
Lets assume your premise is true and buying adwords or using Google's tools actually does increase a site's ranking (I'm not saying it is, just assuming for the sake of argument). I see two ways this can be explained. The first is extremely simplistic, that Google is artificially biasing those sites because of money.
The second is more complex and nuanced. By buying adwords, the site starts appearing on the paid results section, and thus starts getting more traffic. By getting more traffic, it gets more people linking to it, talking about stuff on the site, and hence becomes more relevant and Google's algorithm correctly identifies this. By using the Google webmaster tools, creating a sitemap, etc, the site makes it easier for Google's algorithm to correctly identify parts of the site that are more relevant than the algorithm could do without the "help" of the sitemap, thus once again, correctly raising the ranking for particular search terms because it is in fact relevant.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 21 Jun 2010 @ 8:37am
Re: Re:
"Actually it's a problem we all have. Everyone has a religion - even those who claim to be atheists or agnostics."
Sorry, that is incorrect. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god or gods. And agnostics are atheists who just haven't followed their own train of thought to its conclusion.
I am an atheist. I am a rationalist. If there is something that I think is true that you believe otherwise, all I ask is independently verifiable evidence showing that I'm wrong. I will be perfectly happy to change my mind.
"The most violent and destructive "religions" of the 20th century held atheism up as their totem (I refer here to Stalin and Pol Pot)."
Again, incorrect. Neither Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or others did what they did in the *name* of atheism. They had their own belief systems that were based on irrational concepts and not facts. Mostly it was communism and its faith in the radiant future, but individual personalities and their paranoia certainly had their impact in the atrocities committed. But the atrocities were never done in the name of atheism, it was always another untenable belief named as the reason.
Religion is not the entire problem, and there are some that are mostly harmless (Jainism, Taoism, even the genuine Wicca are full of irrational beliefs but are mostly harmless). Religion is just one of the larger groups in the wider issue of irrational behaviors and the problems they cause. Others include nationalism, ethnocentrism, sexism, and that hardly scrapes the surface of the issue.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 May 2010 @ 1:28pm
Re: Criminy!
The MPAA lobbying campaign said that their members would release content earlier if they could enable SOC. The president of the MPAA later said that he didn't know about any plans to release content earlier.
So either the lobbying effort was a lie and there never were any plans, or the statement by Pisani is a lie in that he has no knowledge of the plans.
Now if Pisani had said that he didn't know specifically which movies were planned to be released early, that's another matter entirely. But he didn't say that. Therefore, he is lying now or was lying before.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 May 2010 @ 1:20pm
Reasons
I think it is important to note that TWC is not standing up to the subpeona for reasons of principle, common sense, or because the US Copyright Group has solid evidence. TWC is only fighting because its just way too much work for the 4 full time and 1 temp workers they have budgetted to deal with this stuff on a regular basis.
TWC is happy to use the right language in the court documents, but they don't come out and say that the whole infringment lawsuit is nonsense.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 14 May 2010 @ 2:15pm
Re: Devil's Advocate
"The creator of a work should be able to decide how their work is being consumed and used."
Under that same logic, Ford would have the "right" to determine what places you could take your car for service, or even what states you can drive it in.
"If a creator wants to distribute his work in a way that restricts the use, then that is his right, and it is not our place to strip that right from him."
So if Ford were to install a system in a car that prevents the car from going over 40mph, and you removed that system so you could drive 50mph on a road with a 50mph speed limit, taking the system out would be illegal, even if you're still following the speed limit?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 10 May 2010 @ 10:51am
Re: This is about Warhammer Online, not the boardgame.
Correct.
Its also interesting that the site has been in existence for at least 2 years (it has been running since the MMO was in beta).
While Games Workshop may not have been aware of the site, the Electronic Arts (they run the MMO) folks absolutely were, as there were EA devs and EA community people discussing various issues on this and many other fan sites in beta and in the months after launch.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 20 Apr 2010 @ 12:31pm
Re:
"physical flea markets are large and hard to check. online flea markets are electronic and can rapidly be checked."
Incorrect. There are at least two major difficulties.
One is the same problem of content filters. Start filtering out everything with "porn" and very quickly "pron" is used instead - then filter "pron" as well and "pr0n" comes along. Oh, and you just blocked cooking sites who insist you wear an a-pron by accident. Slaying the hydra quickly becomes insurmountable.
Two is also one of the key issues with Youtube/Viacom lawsuit. How was Youtube to tell the difference between legit Viacom uploads and non-legit uploads? Even Viacom itself couldn't tell.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Apr 2010 @ 6:28am
Re: Re: Big Pharma
Explaining the high costs will only come after:
1. They've managed to get an overly broad patent which "remarkably" covers this.
2. They've convinced the scientists to shut down their research over threat of lawsuits.
3. They decided not to make the thing that actually cures the disease because they can make more money selling treatments that only prolong it.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 8 Apr 2010 @ 10:49am
Re: The Good Reason
"Economics - by having a single hardware platform to aim at, developers can make games faster and more easily. The PC as a platform is a huge range of incompatible hardware. "
Not incompatible. Unpredictable, at least as far as a developer having to start planning and coding a game 18+ months prior to release.
There are 2 big things going for the future of PC games:
Windows XP is starting to die off and is being replaced by Windows 7 - this will give a more predictable base level of hardware, certain speed processor, RAM, video card. XP would run on decade old hardware, but Windows 7 won't.
At the same time, the gains coming off of new hardware are starting to hit diminishing returns. Processors aren't really getting much faster, there's just more cores. Same for video cards - there's more pipes and parellelization, but there's not wildly changing underlying specs.
Both these issues will make the PC more predictable to code games for. We just now need to ween the big publishers off spending gobs of money on DRM (that won't work and are simply a waste of money) instead of making games better.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 1 Apr 2010 @ 6:36am
Re: Solution?
"All this being said, what is the real world solution?"
By making things forbidden by an authority, you tend to dramatically increase its appeal. Instead of attempting to shelter children from "bad things" en masse, teaching children (and adults too) critical thinking skills. Teach them how to discern reliable information from unreliable nonsense. Teach them why it wouldn't be a good idea to spend all day looking at porn instead of doing their homework.
I see no problem in exposing children to new ideas or experiences as long as they have been given the mental tools to process those experiences in a healthy manner.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 19 Mar 2010 @ 12:08pm
Re: I'm just glad I gave up on them
"bought HP. I'm glad my money won't be fueling this."
I don't remember the specifics on inkjets, but many of HP's laser printer cartridges are made by Canon at a manufacturing plant in Hampton, Virginia.
I no longer work for Canon, but those printheads are expensive for a reason, and are where most of the cost of the printer is. The "shell" of the printer is decades old technology and built only to get the paper and printhead into the right position. The printhead is where all the work is done, spraying millions of exceedingly tiny drops of ink on the paper (it was 2 pico-liter drops a few years ago when I left). Sorry for sounding like a marketing droid.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Mar 2010 @ 6:51am
Nah, that's inconceivable!
The ridiculousness of ACS almost makes me think that someone in charge over there knows that the amount of backlash this is causing and is deliberately going over the line. Maybe to just highlight the issue, or to actually get a ruling getting these 'pre-settlement' letters as improper.
On the post: ACLU Jumps Into Case Where North Carolina Wants Detailed Info On Your Amazon Purchases
Re: Little known fact
The fact that most people mark that as $0 is a different problem entirely. If NC wants to accuse an individual of tax evasion, they should subpoena specific information on a case-by-case basis. A state should not have the right to demand any retailer provide their entire database of customer information just because the state's sales taxes are dropping.
On the post: Why Google's Street View WiFi Data Collection Was Almost Certainly An Accident
Re: Curious form of argument: state possible reasons,
"
How is taking pictures along public streets even remotely similar to an invasion of privacy?
On the post: US Copyright Group Says BitTorrent's Architecture Explains Why It's Ok To Lump 5,000 Defendants Into One Lawsuit
Re: There's a choice to be made here
In other words, enforcing copyright law means you get to lump possibly guilty parties in with innocent parties and litigate them all at once, even though none of them know each other.
Maybe a better solution is to not have unenforceable laws at all.
On the post: Trademark Cluelessness: The Other White Meat
Re: Re: Re: ethics?
Either way, I hope someone makes a big thing out of pointlessly wasting money on lawyers over this.
On the post: A Recommendation Is Not The Same As Corruption
Re: Re: Re:
Lets assume your premise is true and buying adwords or using Google's tools actually does increase a site's ranking (I'm not saying it is, just assuming for the sake of argument). I see two ways this can be explained. The first is extremely simplistic, that Google is artificially biasing those sites because of money.
The second is more complex and nuanced. By buying adwords, the site starts appearing on the paid results section, and thus starts getting more traffic. By getting more traffic, it gets more people linking to it, talking about stuff on the site, and hence becomes more relevant and Google's algorithm correctly identifies this. By using the Google webmaster tools, creating a sitemap, etc, the site makes it easier for Google's algorithm to correctly identify parts of the site that are more relevant than the algorithm could do without the "help" of the sitemap, thus once again, correctly raising the ranking for particular search terms because it is in fact relevant.
I'm gonna go with the second option.
On the post: Pakistani Lawyer Apparently Seeks Death Penalty For Facebook Founders Because Of User Contest
Re: Re:
Sorry, that is incorrect. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god or gods. And agnostics are atheists who just haven't followed their own train of thought to its conclusion.
I am an atheist. I am a rationalist. If there is something that I think is true that you believe otherwise, all I ask is independently verifiable evidence showing that I'm wrong. I will be perfectly happy to change my mind.
"The most violent and destructive "religions" of the 20th century held atheism up as their totem (I refer here to Stalin and Pol Pot)."
Again, incorrect. Neither Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, or others did what they did in the *name* of atheism. They had their own belief systems that were based on irrational concepts and not facts. Mostly it was communism and its faith in the radiant future, but individual personalities and their paranoia certainly had their impact in the atrocities committed. But the atrocities were never done in the name of atheism, it was always another untenable belief named as the reason.
Religion is not the entire problem, and there are some that are mostly harmless (Jainism, Taoism, even the genuine Wicca are full of irrational beliefs but are mostly harmless). Religion is just one of the larger groups in the wider issue of irrational behaviors and the problems they cause. Others include nationalism, ethnocentrism, sexism, and that hardly scrapes the surface of the issue.
On the post: Newspaper Edits Politicians Out Of Bill Signing Photograph; Doesn't Get Why People Think That's Bad
Sounds familiar...
On the post: Remember How Hollywood Promised Lots Of New Content If It Could Break Your TV/DVR? Yeah, That's Not Happening...
Re: Criminy!
So either the lobbying effort was a lie and there never were any plans, or the statement by Pisani is a lie in that he has no knowledge of the plans.
Now if Pisani had said that he didn't know specifically which movies were planned to be released early, that's another matter entirely. But he didn't say that. Therefore, he is lying now or was lying before.
On the post: Time Warner Cable Stands Up To Automated Copyright Infringement Filing Factory
Reasons
TWC is happy to use the right language in the court documents, but they don't come out and say that the whole infringment lawsuit is nonsense.
On the post: Can Someone Explain Why Circumvention For Non-Infringing Purposes Is Illegal?
Re: Devil's Advocate
Under that same logic, Ford would have the "right" to determine what places you could take your car for service, or even what states you can drive it in.
"If a creator wants to distribute his work in a way that restricts the use, then that is his right, and it is not our place to strip that right from him."
So if Ford were to install a system in a car that prevents the car from going over 40mph, and you removed that system so you could drive 50mph on a road with a 50mph speed limit, taking the system out would be illegal, even if you're still following the speed limit?
On the post: How Not To Win Fans: Game Maker Sues Fan Site
Re: This is about Warhammer Online, not the boardgame.
Its also interesting that the site has been in existence for at least 2 years (it has been running since the MMO was in beta).
While Games Workshop may not have been aware of the site, the Electronic Arts (they run the MMO) folks absolutely were, as there were EA devs and EA community people discussing various issues on this and many other fan sites in beta and in the months after launch.
On the post: Now Available At Your Local Flea Market: Safe Harbors
Re:
Incorrect. There are at least two major difficulties.
One is the same problem of content filters. Start filtering out everything with "porn" and very quickly "pron" is used instead - then filter "pron" as well and "pr0n" comes along. Oh, and you just blocked cooking sites who insist you wear an a-pron by accident. Slaying the hydra quickly becomes insurmountable.
Two is also one of the key issues with Youtube/Viacom lawsuit. How was Youtube to tell the difference between legit Viacom uploads and non-legit uploads? Even Viacom itself couldn't tell.
On the post: Indian Scientists Refuse To Patent Tuberculosis Genome, Encourage Anyone To Make The Drugs
Re: Re: Big Pharma
1. They've managed to get an overly broad patent which "remarkably" covers this.
2. They've convinced the scientists to shut down their research over threat of lawsuits.
3. They decided not to make the thing that actually cures the disease because they can make more money selling treatments that only prolong it.
On the post: Japanese Video Game Guru Says Console Days Are Numbered
Re: The Good Reason
Not incompatible. Unpredictable, at least as far as a developer having to start planning and coding a game 18+ months prior to release.
There are 2 big things going for the future of PC games:
Windows XP is starting to die off and is being replaced by Windows 7 - this will give a more predictable base level of hardware, certain speed processor, RAM, video card. XP would run on decade old hardware, but Windows 7 won't.
At the same time, the gains coming off of new hardware are starting to hit diminishing returns. Processors aren't really getting much faster, there's just more cores. Same for video cards - there's more pipes and parellelization, but there's not wildly changing underlying specs.
Both these issues will make the PC more predictable to code games for. We just now need to ween the big publishers off spending gobs of money on DRM (that won't work and are simply a waste of money) instead of making games better.
On the post: How Internet Filtering Blocks All Sorts Of Legit Info
Re: Solution?
By making things forbidden by an authority, you tend to dramatically increase its appeal. Instead of attempting to shelter children from "bad things" en masse, teaching children (and adults too) critical thinking skills. Teach them how to discern reliable information from unreliable nonsense. Teach them why it wouldn't be a good idea to spend all day looking at porn instead of doing their homework.
I see no problem in exposing children to new ideas or experiences as long as they have been given the mental tools to process those experiences in a healthy manner.
On the post: Syphilis (Or Was It Facebook?) Blamed For People Not Understanding That Correlation Does Not Mean Causation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I like Facebook\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s response
Math fail. The 18th century was from 1701-1800.
If you don't believe me, what century was year 1-100?
On the post: Canon Becomes The Online Equivalent Of Madonna Or Prince, Becoming The First Single Word Domain Holder
Re: I'm just glad I gave up on them
I don't remember the specifics on inkjets, but many of HP's laser printer cartridges are made by Canon at a manufacturing plant in Hampton, Virginia.
I no longer work for Canon, but those printheads are expensive for a reason, and are where most of the cost of the printer is. The "shell" of the printer is decades old technology and built only to get the paper and printhead into the right position. The printhead is where all the work is done, spraying millions of exceedingly tiny drops of ink on the paper (it was 2 pico-liter drops a few years ago when I left). Sorry for sounding like a marketing droid.
On the post: Canon Becomes The Online Equivalent Of Madonna Or Prince, Becoming The First Single Word Domain Holder
I wish...
You would not believe the difficulty of getting the average end user to a webpage to download a driver for their printer/scanner/camera/whatever.
Too bad they didn't buy "cannon" as well - spelling was also a rather difficult concept for the average user.
On the post: ACS:Law Keeps Sending Out More Threat Letters -- Condemned By Politicians, ISPs And General Common Sense
Nah, that's inconceivable!
Almost.
On the post: Simon Singh Stops Writing His Column To Focus On Fighting 'Bogus' Libel Suit
Re: Re: Oh for frak's sake
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