Posts by Oninoshiko

One fifth of humans say aliens walk among us

yep!

It is only ever split if you are figuring mow much value you are getting by volume. Things like "two candies per cent," or the like.

But you are correct in that "20 per cent of the populaton" is incorrect.

Murdoch tells old media to 'stand up' to Google, Bing

Open mouth, insert foot.

Why would you use a meta tag? If you use the meta tag tthe bot has already copied the page (violated his copyright). They should, and are useing robots.txt. For example, take a look at http://www.sky.com/robots.txt Not being a vistor of sky.com, I couldn't tell you how through this is.

they are much more conservitive about their robots.txt in the US. http://www.foxnews.com/robots.txt

The do need to update the US ones (for sure), but they are probibly waiting 'till they can get some other "old media" on board in the US.

Opera alerts EU to hidden Windows browser-ballot

Counter-fail.

If your going there, at least get it right. it's "Kool-Aid(tm)" and even that's not right because I have it under good authority that cultists prefer to mix their cynide with grape "Flavor Aid(tm)"

skull, obvious reasons.

New Reg comments system ready to launch

good show chaps,

highly amusing!

^_^

Greenpeace fears clouds will turn earth brown

I don't think so...

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we can use wind, but that kills birds (and UFOs in Blighty). Hyrdo interferes with the spawning of fish.

The only answer is seppaku.

Ad broker throws Flash a Jobsian lifeline

Where are all the "YAY! No Flash adverts folks now?"

so... you can have psudo-flash-adverts on a iPad... maybe this has nothing to do with protecting you all from "punch the monkey" ads, and is really about makeing sure your latest "Flatulence Simulator" makes apple it's fee.

Video giant embraces Flash-phobic iPad with HTML 5

what kind of drival is this?

It is a standard, maybe not one you like, maybe not an OPEN standard, but it is a standard.

(FTR: I am opposed both to settleing on h.264 and not settleing on a required codec)

The Pirate Party is the shape of things to come

Re: a simple solution

While on some levels I do like this, there is a small problems with it, namely works that are of multiple authorship. While establishing an author for a book or sheet-music is easy, who would own the latest album by the current hot band (who I know nothing about)? songs on it are written by various members of the band (in some cases multiple), the recording is done by a tech (tweaking balance, under direction of a producer). cover-art is someone else. what spacific individual owns it?

How about a video game? You have 5 charictor modelers, 7 texture artists, 3 level modelers, 8 programmers, 20 Q/A staff, 5 group managers, 2 writers, 2 producers. Which one is the owns the copyright?

Corperate ownership of copyrights, in the case of large-scale projects, is the only thing that really makes any sense.

Please sir, avoid argumentum ad hominem like in your last sentance.

I agree with you that new works are worth protecting. I am one of the people who thinks it's important that authors actually have the chance to make some money on their work, but it's a balencing act, eventually works do need to be able to be aknowladged as part of our culture.

I do wonder if you actually read my post. I beleave Aesop and Homer where both greek. Because you obviously failed to comprhend the point, I will try to simplify it for you even more: "If all works created had fallen under the modern concept of perpetual copyright vast swaths of art would not have been possible." To clarify for you "perpetual" means "never ending." I assure you there are more examples of this then our modatrix will let me post, including productions of and based on the works of greek playwrites and artists.

Now the opinion that was excerpted from was (as I noted in the post) originally directed as USAians, who have an establised track record of perptual copyright, but do you really think Blighty is any better? Before you answer, may I remind you that Copyright, Desgns and Patents Act of 1988 extended the copyright to 50 years past the death of the author, then in 1995 it was extended to 70 years past the death of the author, worded such that it actually pulled works out of the public domain that where already there (not even the USAians have pulled THAT one)

Why I think 10 years is silly

"When copyright was first created it was decided that 14 years was a sensible length."

Actually, you are incorrect, in the "Copyright Act of 1709." 28 years was a sensible number, requireing one renewal after 14. (I did mention having atleast one renewal)

"This was back when merely copying a work could take days and distributing it across a country and around the world could take weeks or months."

Worldwide distribution would be months, just at sea, but it is a non-sequitor anyway because the orignal copyright laws only delt with domestic copying. Once your work left your own country, the copyright disappeared. It wasn't until 1887 that the Berne Convention took affect for anyone (let alone most-everyone, as is the case now).

"Now content can be transmitted around the world (or even into space) near-instantly."

Transmission time over the interwebs is completely irrelevant. If I am an author I still have to send the final manuscript to a publisher at (which point it is fixed to media, so if we are not going to require registration, we sould start counting) who then has to do a production run, now these stacks of books get put in ISO containers and loaded up on big ships which meander to the ports. Just the time at sea will likely exceed a week. Then the product has to move via land baised transit to reginal distributors before finally going from there to booksellers.

Because we are able to move many goods, not just books, or even just MY book through this system at any one time it is highly effecent over-all, but not partiularly fast. We have economics of scale kicking in at almost every level: the printing press/bindry, the port, the container ship, freight trains. Now it is in the stores, the publisher and I get to start recuping our costs, paying for the editor, the people running the presses, those operating the binding equipment, the transportation costs. That's an awful lot of £9.99 paperbacks I have sell now (and remember, the bookseller is going to take their cut from that too).

I, for one, am not willing to give up real books. when I read for enjoyment, I want to enjoy it. I want to be able to turn the pages. I am also not willing to pay the costs for lower-scale more local production.

Most authors are not going to author if they are not making a reasonable income. Many authors take years to write a manuscript. Joanne Murray's fist manuscript took 5 years. Ray Bradbury took 6 years from the short story he based it on to the first publication of "Fahrenheit 451, " it took 8 years to bring Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" from a short-story to novel, and Nancy Kress 2 to take "Beggers in Spain" from a novella to a full novel.This is not an insignificant chunk of these people's lives, and I think 50 years, is a reasonable period for them to try and earn their living from it, with a check at 25 to see if they really still care.

(I will admit to only haveing read 1/2 of these, but I leave as an exersise to the reader which 1/2 that is)

Extremes on both sides

Andrew, you said: "No PP has offered a coherent justification for stripping rights from people. Or why creators and businesses should be poorer. Or why we should handicap an important part of our economy." While I am not a PPUKer, I'll bite. The following is baised on something I wrote targeting USAians, asking them to use their process to deal with this issue:

'I assert that the public domain is what is at the greatest risk, it's already been eroding faster then Niagara Falls, and it's important. It's vitally important. It's what allows us to do new animated versions of "Macbeth." Imagine trying to track down the successors-in-intrest to Shakespeare (or did Francis Bacon write them?), Homer, or Aesop. let's look at how our art would be different if our modern "in perpetuity" copyright law applied to the works we take for granted as being public domain. Disney would not exist: "Pinocchio" (1940) (based on "The Adventures of Pinocchio" (1883) by Carlo Collod), "Cinderella" (1950) (was based on a folk tale published in "The Pentamerone" (1664) (also in "Mother Goose Tales" (1697) and "Grimm's Fairy Tales" (1812))), "Alice in Wonderland" (1951) (from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) by Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carrol)), "The Jungle Book" (1967) (based VARY loosely on "The Jungle Book" (1894) by Rudyard Kipling). That is a lot of things from my childhood that would be gone.'

PPUK is silly, no doubt about that, but I think the group is more about getting people to think about it then actually getting elected. Also they probibly need to learn that copyrights, trademarks and patents are completely different.

Yes, 10 yrs on a copyright is just rediculous, but so is the modern "in perpetuity" copyright concept. pesonally I think around 50-60 years is a good length for copyrights, possibly involving a renewal in that period.

For me, this isn't about P2P. P2P isn't ilegal AFAIK, some uses of it may be, but that is another matter entirely. It's kind of like claiming cars are ilegal because you aren't allowed to run red lights. I have put things on P2P networks, as well as downloaded them, but these where either orignal works, or ones that I had the permission of the creator of the work, so no laws were broken.

Vast 'Cloud 9' sky-wedding balloon destroyed in Vegas prang

you, sir, are a genius!

If I could only thumbs up you more then once, I would. That is the best idea I have heard all day!

Roger Boyes probes Vienna Boys’ Choir

Could Bee....

could just be that she's moderating them away... I mean moderating you proles *IS* what she does.

Segway + motorbike = futuristic dorkmobile

does anyone else think she looks

very uncomfertable?

MPs criticise government's climate of fear

the date in 1984....

It has been a bit since I read 1984, but as I recall in the book Orwell establishes that history has been so minipulated that noone is even really sure of the date anymore. The implication is that it's probibly not actually 1984, but could be substantally later.

Don't blame Willy the Mailboy for software security flaws

the problem with your verbage...

I would never warrent the 2nd, I might on the first (but you would have to pay me one hell of a lot to do it). The reason is that I have seen requirements handed to me on projects that introduce security problems. As a devoloper I can point out that is bad, I can reccomend it be removed, but I am not the one who can remove it.

Knowingly not fullfilling the requirements is not an option.

Pirate Party UK launches manifesto

Simple, really.

All of these are over ten years old. Therefore any version from 10 years ago would be public domain.

new versions would have new code that would be under newer copyrights though. which actually puts MS in an interesting position. while they would lose the copyright on WinXP, any updates would still be copywritten... weird.

(this is probibly all lost on these fellows)

Court bars charges against teen who posed semi-nude

All that may be

but would you want her forever listed as a child pornographer and sex offender for it? these kind of threats would be silly if they weren't so serious, and long-lasting. That becomes a matter of public record and never goes away.

Furthermore, why should your opinion on what your daughter should be doing matter legally? It is your perogitive (indeed, it could be argued, duty) as a parent to instill your values in your child, but other parents should be afforeded similar protection. It's not the place of the DA to determine how the child should be parented to this degree.

There was a time when that was understood, and social norms where maintained ostrisizing those who did not feel the need to follow them. Now we see people trying to create laws to do it. The problem is not everyone is in agreement as to what is "moral" (beyond the basics).

The law is a very blunt insterment, and not approprite for enforceing morality. Social norms should be enforeced by social systems, not legal systems. Leave the legal systems for cases where someone is actively hurting someone else.

And I think that calling everyone who does not share your opinion that a child should be branded for life as a sexual predator because of pictures she took of herself as a "Fucktard" qualifies you as the troll.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Anyone misread his name as "shmuck?"

<--- I'll get new glasses one of these days

YouTube accuses Viacom of secretly uploading videos

Actually

Actually, if Viacom (or their agents) put up Viscom owned material, The vary act of putting it up is giving google concent to show it (they had to agree to the TOS for you tube). If this is true now Viacom is screwwed.

As a copyright holder, I can't grant you permission to copy my work, then sue you for it. (well, i can but it tends to lead to laughing judges, and me paying both bills)

Hobbit cameras start rolling in July

Stop the presses!

An orignal story?

HEHEHEHE....

out of hollywood?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Peter Jackson wouldn't know an original story if I beat him over the head with it.

IE9 - the big questions and Microsoft's half answers

not supriseing...

Not supriseing at all. WMV is not a codec, it's a container format.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but OGG is also a container format rather then a codec, the codec in question is Theora.

US broadband seeks ISP speed stickers

News Flash!

noone in the US government OR the ISPing busness knows what it means either.

I do note that they don't require explicite definition of what the limitations are that they start capping, injecting RSTs, faking pages with DPI...

In short, it's worthless

Microsoft cuts out paste

Tell them to get a patent on that one!

They will make a killing after the next AEE...

El Reg insults 'millions of Irish Catholics'

hmm

wait... there's a US site?

Irate Aussies go after US website

YUM!

Well, there are two things. first, KFC is a US company. ED is not an Australian entity.

Second, YUM! Brands (the owner of the KFC franchise rights, A spin-off of PepsiCo) Is quite likely very responsive to percived outrage, particularly from minority groups in the US. I am not familure with this case, but where they forced to stop it by law, or by consumer perssure (In the US)? Again, these would be two VERY different things.

Mines the one with "Public Relations for Dummies" in the pocket.

Game developer's lost electric buggy FOUND ON MOON

not enough

to hear the joke zooming over?

Apple's Mac - the ghostbuster's choice

hmm...

"GarageBand, another included application, allows you to do almost anything you can dream up with your ghostly audio files."

Anything you can dream up? Like... twitialling around with your audio until you get the results you want?

US kiddies treated to Playboy TV

and to think,

everyone here keeps saying 'merkins are prudes!

Dedicated Vi device vies for buyers

Embedded Linux

By "embedded linux" I was refering to "very small linux distro designed for use in embedded systems." An embedded system being one that the resources availble are less then would generally be present for even a lightweight full-computer (even still, I think alot of these are probibly not truelly embedded, but grandfathered in by using some of the same minimalization techniques and dealing with a lot of the same problems (such as cross compilation). While, I will admit I never undersood the reason for using linux for applications where space was a SERIOUS consern (and therefore grit my teath when calling any linux application embedded), it does appear to be becoming more common in the self-described "embedded community"

This does not imply the software is embedded or particulary difficult to get out, just tighter constraints on the copibilities of the system. If you want to run somthing else that runs on MIPS and can fit in the constraints, feel free.

But the site (as unstable as it is) was less then nessicary in establishing that it was fully capible of running kernel of penguins.

from the Fine Article

"The device comes from Qi-Hardware and features a 3in colour screen, 2GB of Flash storage along with 32MB of Ram, but not much in the way of applications as it will boot into a Linux kernel featuring Vi and mutt"

That would be the second paragraph, first sentence. See near the end? Linux kernel. So, it comes with an embedded linux.

You could strip down the whole thing to mostly use busybox for the userspace, maybe uclibc instead of glibc. yse the execute-in-place functionality. I think that might help with some of the issues with space limitation on it.

Computer forensics tool for banks aims to trace Trojans

anyone else misread that as

fleshlight?

(maybe i need new glasses)

Google fails to grab Nexus name

not completely...

You are correct that it's not a patant, but I believe the PKD estate is claiming that google's use if violating their copyrights.

The argument is that "Android" alone is not enough (there is a rich and old history behind the word) "Nexus" alone is not enough (same reson), but you take the two, put them together with a number it's clearly a reference to PKD's work, and under the current law they have a point.

Of course this is EXACTLY why copyrights should not extend beyond 56 years. (It wouldn't apply in this case, as DADOES is only 42 years old, so it would need to ripen another 14 years before being public domain, but it does show just how fast works move to being thought of as part of our common cultures.)

EU fails to shift unwanted perv scanners

LOL

now that you mention is, it does look like that

^_^

Funny this should come up...

They just today brought one online at O'Hare in Chicago, Illinois, USA...

SGI punts baby Xeon blade box

And to think

I thought "Going back to its Origins" would have been interesting non-x86 kit, rather then "me-too" servers.

Mines the one with the faded cube on the back.

Googlephone sales top, um, 135,000

Meh

I'll just keep useing whatever the boss hands me for free.

US Army considered attack on Wikileaks

Not suprising

What does suprise me is that they are not using this to spread disinformation. it's the perfect forum for it.

It's what I would do.

Historian warns against copyright-fight heavy hitting

silly dates...

Not the USA, indeviduals in the USA. I think you might find that many of them (no matter how great a muse) are now decomposing. You'd even be hard-pressed to find the successors in intriest. Again, "Europeans" are not entitled to anything, just spacific sucessors-in-intriest.

Of couse that assumes that the Burene convention was in force in the "early years of the history of the US of A." The treaty was not in force until 1887, and the USA was not a party to it until 1982. I suppose the USA was a part of UCC Paris in 1974, but until then there could not have been a treaty violation because no treaty existed. You wouldn't be perposing an ex post facto law would you?

Symbian sees (Silver) light at the end of the tunnel

the truth about ffmpeg...

"the capability of using the existing ffmpeg codecs that every system has."

The ffmpeg codecs are not on every system. Linux vendors do get a little fast and loose with patants, but not everyone is, and with good reason. To quote the ffmpeg website (http://ffmpeg.org/legal.html):

"Q: Is it perfectly alright to incorporate the whole FFmpeg core into my own commercial product?

A: You might have a problem here. There have been cases where companies have used FFmpeg in their products. These companies found out that once you start trying to make money from patented technologies, the owners of the patents will come after their licensing fees. Notably, MPEG LA is vigilant and diligent about collecting for MPEG-related technologies. "

At the vary least Oracle(Sun) does not ship ffmpeg in any offical repository for opensolaris. (this is something that has come up on a few occations. (yes, that's US specific, but all the companies are US companies, so US laws are highly relevent (even if insane))

Trojan armed with hardware-based anti-piracy control

yes, but

why bother? If you have the expertese couldn't you just write your own malware? then again, I dont claim to understand the mindset of all of these people....

Female porn director turned pol grabs Kent by the ballots

Sarah...

you've got my pity on this one! between the trolls, sexests, and the echo chamber....

TSA worker tried to sabotage terror database, feds say

wha?

Why did he have access to anything one week after losing his job?

Did he access them on-site or via the internet?

If over the internet, why where these systems even connected to the internet?

Who is responceable for the state of the 3 above?

why do they still have a job?

That's all i can think of right now... but I think it's a good place to start.

Japanese phone boasts killer slacker-sensing app

it beats....

patenting math^wsoftware.

makeing single-player games require an internet connection

squirting brestmilk at the arresting officer because they arrested you because you where drunk enough to think that it would be a good idea to be squ....

(better break out the hasmat suit, we are talking bioweapons now)

US comp-boffins claim fix for multicore 'concurrency bugs'

Or

I say we just give them a 100 core machine with no OS and tell them to "go to town." They can keep the machine as long as they forgo internet access until the solve <insert task> using all cores. They will either get it, give up, or go insane.

give a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for the night, light a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life....

Whatever happened to the email app?

But...

Ahh but for many of us, with our work accounts, that stuff that flies about on port 25 ends up in a groupware client, be it Notes or Outlook. Email is still heavily used in busness, and that's the reality of how it is used. I suppose we can ignore the 800 lb gorilla in the room if you like, be someone still has to shovel gorilla-poo.

Botnet takedowns 'don't hurt crooks enough'

Crimes must be illegal to be crimes.

"countries where it isn't illegal to engage in online criminal activities"

If it isn't illegal, then how is it a crimanal activity? I suppose i know what he ment, but still, isnt there a common "stop trying to force your laws on us, US" meme? Isn't whats good for the goose, good for the gander?

Compliance bods treat Cebit to watersports

this is a letters and/or digits.

playmobil reenactment or it never happend..

(why don't we have an icon for that?)

Intel: Just 3,000 employees run Windows 7

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

10BaseT AUI transevers are still pretty easy to get. I had a boat load of them come in recently for some older cisco kit. (don't recall what, most of them are still on the shelf).

I am having troubles with IDE drives in general. The memory and proc you might have to find on online auctions, along with the monitor.

if all that is wrong with it though... you have some serious dryrot.

MS uses court order to take out Waledac botnet

one problem...

are said programs microsoft products?

As much as I love pointing out every mistake MS makes, they really has no control over what ISVs write (hence being an "Independnt" Software Vendor).

I suppose they could take an iphone-like approach where every bit of software has to be approved, and get a microsoft-approved cryptographic-signiture. you'd have to by everything from the microsoft store... They could even get HW vendors to include a chip (let's call it a "Trusted Platform Management" chip) so the hardware would only run signed code.

hmm... anyone else think this might get antitrust regulators on them? RMS would have a heartattack!