Before today, I had never been to newser.com. I went just to see why the traditional news industry was making such a fuss over it (and others). I went in with the preconception that it would be a lot like slashdot for every day news. Low and behold, other than look and feel, it was. Many tech sites realized long ago that being mentioned on /. was a good thing. Years ago, (as an example) TomsHardware would see a 30% increase in traffic due to the slashdot effect. (Granted, now it's apparently less than 10%.) I'm sure Mike can attest to the increased traffic /. brings in whenever one of his posts makes it onto the front page. I don't think it's hard to see that TomsHardware is where it is today partly because of /., and I'm sure that a large number of other tech sites are in the same position.
Of course there is a huge disparity between traditional news and the tech sites that /. links to. The fact that /. works so well for tech sites doesn't mean a similar service will automatically work for news. However, the fact that the news sites are completely dismissing such services tells me that they haven't even considered that it works for someone else.
When I first read the title, I had a similar reaction to when I first heard the following that Lewis Black quoted from a random woman:
"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
"If this was an adult who gave up their password, I don't know that the teacher did anything criminal, serious bad form yes, but not criminal."
Fixed that for you. The girl still can sue based on a number of torts (libel/slander) or even breach of contract (a stretch, I know, but a case could be made).
I think that in engineering (and probably the sciences, I wouldn't know since I am an engineer), your analysis is correct. However, some of my arts electives were either memorize facts and answer short or multiple choice questions, or memorize facts and spew out an essay without actually forming an opinion. Neither of these approaches are conducive to critical thinking, and collaboration is considered (or on rare occasions, mistaken for) cheating in this context. I was fortunate enough to take a history course that didn't rely on this testing paradigm for the entire mark. Sure, a good portion of the midterm and final were multiple choice and short answer, but there were also essay sections that required knowing more than just the facts.
Unfortunately, I suspect the largest portion of offenders here are students in memorize and spew courses. In my experience, they're often the intro courses, which due to shear class size, precludes the use of collaborative projects and assignments. Memorize and spew is used in these courses because it makes it easy to mark the (100 | 500 | 1000) exams at the end of the term.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I had a prof who was fully aware of, acknowledged, and to some degree, encouraged rampant "cheating" in the name of collaboration on his midterms, essentially making them group tests. Certainly some students took this further than was intended (I won't say one way or the other if I was one of them), but it does show that some teachers are open to new technologies (it was an online test) in order to foster teamwork.
And the perfect example of why this is a bad idea is someone who is waiting for their internet to be hooked up won't be able to play the game. I've been there. When I first moved into my apartment I hadn't had time to make an installation appointment for an early install, and thus had to wait several weeks for my internet (I ended up going with the prime competitor from who I first contacted, but that's irrelevant). Luckily someone had an unsecured wifi network, but unfortunately, my connection was flaky at best (assuming I managed to connect in the first place). Suffice it to say, Steam doesn't like it if there's no internet connection and it's set to online mode (one of the first things I did after connecting to this network), so I was unable to play any of my Steam games until I was able to set Steam back to offline mode, something that couldn't be done without an internet connection.
The cost of shelf space in supermarkets is so high partly because of very high turn-over rates. Many products will only stay the shelf for between a day and a week. Sure, this is true of high volume items in record stores, which is why those items are displayed prominently, but for lower volume items, a record store might sell one every month. It actually pays to have those lower volume items not only in stock, but in the customer area, because if a customer can't find it, they usually won't buy it. There's also a supply and demand aspect here as well. Supermarkets try to keep their shelves highly stocked, whereas a record store doesn't care as much. Having items in their low volume section stocked to the brim will usually mean lower sales of those items for the aforementioned reason that customers can't find what they're looking for. Therefore, record stores usually have an excess supply of shelf space (thus lowering the cost).
Except that it costs virtually nothing for a store to have a CD just sitting on the shelf. Why does EMI care if that CD sells in a week or a year, especially when they've already been paid! The only effect that not having guaranteed sales is that the store orders fewer CDs in the future. This has little effect on EMI anyways because the unit cost increase from removing a single item from an order (even one that isn't big) is fairly small.
I really wish that my first post had actually submitted, as my sentiments towards the first poster have already been echoed. Black/white fallacies are some of the most painfully obvious fallacies to spot, yet so many people fall into them.
The judge doesn't need to be at the other end of the spectrum, and in fact shouldn't. A judge that's a member of the Pirate Party would similarly suffer the same accusations of bias. All the Swedes need to do is find a judge who has no ties to either RIAA, MPAA, et. al. and without ties to the Pirate Party or TPB. One would think that wouldn't be too hard to do. Their philosophical beliefs regarding piracy shouldn't enter into the discussion at all because, as a judge, it's expected not to influence their decision anyway. Obviously a public supporter of either group with no real ties will still be seen as biased, but that bias is still less influential than being on the same pro-copyright committee as three of the prosecutors.
Not only are they trying trademark some of the English lyrics, but also a line in the French lyrics, whose rough translation is something like "the more brilliant deeds" (the literal translation uses exploits). As a Canadian, I am not at all happy that my national anthem is being trademarked, even for the Olympics.
It has always been my position that if you can't bring a product to market based on a patent, or have someone license that patent, then you have no right to sue over patent infringement. IMHO, this is what the US patent system was set up to do; give some limited protection to inventor/innovator and allow them to bring a product to market before anyone else. All this encourages innovation as newly introduced products can be further innovated on. When someone hoards patents, the opposite happens, as no new products reach the market, an consequentially, there is less inspiration for further innovation.
...would he have received any royalties? That's the first question to be asked. If the answer is no, then his estate is not entitled to anything. Plain and simple. If instead the answer is yes, as the story leads me to believe, then the issue becomes a little muddy. If it is documented in Tolkien's will that any future earnings from past works would go to his estate, than the family may have a case.
On the post: Is There Really A 'Piracy' Problem For Newspapers?
Of course there is a huge disparity between traditional news and the tech sites that /. links to. The fact that /. works so well for tech sites doesn't mean a similar service will automatically work for news. However, the fact that the news sites are completely dismissing such services tells me that they haven't even considered that it works for someone else.
On the post: B&N Claims It Must DRM Public Domain Books To Protect The Copyright On Them
My head just exploded
"If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."
On the post: Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages
Re: giving away her rights?
On the post: Is It Cheating Or Is It Collaboration?
Re: Already Being Done?
Unfortunately, I suspect the largest portion of offenders here are students in memorize and spew courses. In my experience, they're often the intro courses, which due to shear class size, precludes the use of collaborative projects and assignments. Memorize and spew is used in these courses because it makes it easy to mark the (100 | 500 | 1000) exams at the end of the term.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I had a prof who was fully aware of, acknowledged, and to some degree, encouraged rampant "cheating" in the name of collaboration on his midterms, essentially making them group tests. Certainly some students took this further than was intended (I won't say one way or the other if I was one of them), but it does show that some teachers are open to new technologies (it was an online test) in order to foster teamwork.
On the post: EA To Require Internet Connection For Command & Conquer
It's a bad idea
On the post: EMI Stops Selling CDs To Indie Record Stores
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: EMI Stops Selling CDs To Indie Record Stores
Re:
On the post: Swedish Judge In Charge Of Determining Bias Of Pirate Bay Judge Removed... For Bias
This isn't black and white
The judge doesn't need to be at the other end of the spectrum, and in fact shouldn't. A judge that's a member of the Pirate Party would similarly suffer the same accusations of bias. All the Swedes need to do is find a judge who has no ties to either RIAA, MPAA, et. al. and without ties to the Pirate Party or TPB. One would think that wouldn't be too hard to do. Their philosophical beliefs regarding piracy shouldn't enter into the discussion at all because, as a judge, it's expected not to influence their decision anyway. Obviously a public supporter of either group with no real ties will still be seen as biased, but that bias is still less influential than being on the same pro-copyright committee as three of the prosecutors.
On the post: Canadian Olympic Committee Tries To Trademark Lyric From National Anthem
This isn't all
On the post: NTP Can't Leave Well Enough Alone Concerning RIM
Patent Hoarders
On the post: Do J.R.R. Tolkien's Kids Deserve Money For The Lord Of The Rings Movies?
If Tolkien were still alive...
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