Posts by Turtle

Re: process of notifying affected customers

"I believe the correct terminology is "marks" not customers."

You might feel a bit differently if it were you who needed a small advance your paycheck.

Ooops. Correction.

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/23/andreesseen_instagram_facebook/ :

"Andreessen's partner Ben Horowitz reckons the duo have made 312 times their original investment in the zero-revenue smartphone photo sharing site after committing $250,000 two years ago. That'll be worth $78,000,000 (£54m) when the acquisition closes, Horowitz wrote here"

(My original post has 360 instead of 312.)

Greshams's Law: Free Mickey Mouse tends to drive out non-Mickey Mouse

"And very long copyright terms rewards the endless promotion of non-risky old stuff over going out on a limb and creating something new. If copyright was limited to (say) a single generation - 20 or 30 years - then that would decrease the value of a product, but would incentivise people to create new ideas (or even to pick up the out-of-copyright "classics" in new ways). I reckon it would generate more new content, though the old stuff would still be available if people wanted it."

Well, no. If Mickey Mouse were to lose copyright protection, it would simply mean that more people would duplicate and then sell the old stuff that has been so popular. (I.e. "Duplicate" in the sense that you could buy a dvd with a given movie on it, that was produced and distributed by Disney itself, or you could buy the exact same film on a nearly identical dvd that was produced by, let's say, Nothing New Entertainment Inc.) If Mickey Mouse films and cartoons can be freely reproduced and broadcast, then they *will* be freely reproduced and broadcast, thereby making investment in new content an even less attractive risk than it might otherwise be.

And if Nothing New Entertainment Inc sells that dvd for less than Disney does, then already existing Mickey Mouse production will yet more strongly tend to drive other products out of circulation. (Think of this as a variation on Gresham's Law: Free Mickey Mouse tends to drive out non-Mickey Mouse when Mickey Mouse is free by law.)

I can see no other reason to expect any other outcome.

Of course, people will attempt to use the Mickey Mouse character in new productions, but is there really any reason to think that these new Mickey Mouse based productions will have any greater audience appeal than if the production were to be done without Mickey Mouse?

Why would anyone tolerate the risk and uncertainty of doing something new when using, in this case, characters, or complete existing works known to be popular would let them reduce both risk and uncertainty?

To me, it is pretty obvious that copyright and other forms of IP not only encourage but *demand* innovation, as one is prohibited from simply re-using existing, characters, works, productions, methods, and so forth.

Re: @Greg J Preece: Reliability: Soviet-era space vehicles?

">>Errrr, the Soviets hid their failures.

"Yes, they DID, but we know about them now, and the ratio of casualties is about 3:1 (one Russian died for every three Americans), which considering that USSR/Russia actually had more manned launches, did more things first and spent longer in space is actually a pretty good record."

Total casualties is not a good metric. Using this metric, seven Soviet flights each manned by one cosmonaut who was killed during reentry or landing for a total of seven fatalities, would be equivalent to seven Space Shuttle launches having six uneventful flights plus one fatal incident with seven dead. And that is not a good way of looking at it. One would want the rate of launches with fatalities (irrespective of the number of fatalities in any given launch), although there are other ways of looking at the matter, depending on what one was interested in. Then of course the matter could be examined as fatal incidents per launch for specific classes of vehicles, too. Or changes in the incident rate per class of vehicle over time - well there are many conceivable ways of working with the numbers to develop a metric. But at any rate, simply comparing total fatalities is not an overly meaningful metric.

Also, it is important to know what accidents you are including. Obviously the Challenger and Columbia Disasters would be included in your number, but what about Bondarenko? That did not occur during actual space flight. The same would be true of the Apollo 1 fire. Or the Nedelin Catastrophe, with at least 125 people dead?

For actual space flight, I see either

1) 14 dead on two space shuttles and 4 dead on two Soviet craft, OR

2) two American incidents with fatalities as opposed to 2 Soviet incidents with fatalities - and the American fatalities were in a class of vehicles for which the Soviets never had an operational equivalent.

">>the Apollo 1 fire had an exact counterpart in a Soviet space program accident<<

"Errrrrmm... exact? one was a hyperbaric chamber/living quarters (Rus) and one was on the launchpad of an actual spacecraft (USA), one was attributed to poor organisation when the incident occurred (Rus) and the other was attributed to a large number of design and construction flaws (USA), one was in a variety of pressure and O2 mix levels (Rus), not less than 50% during the incident, the other was a high pressure pure oxygen environment (USA)."

Well, if you want to quibble with the word "exact" you can do so, but in both incidents a necessary condition for the fatalities was a mixture unnecessarily rich in oxygen, the result of which in both cases that the amount of oxygen was lowered to less potentially catastrophic levels. *I* consider the incidents to be be exact counterparts for that reason. If you want to use a different adjective to replace "exact", you may do so.

">>the Soviet accident would have served as a lesson to the NASA and a less oxygen-rich mixture would have been used<<

"Is this a back-handed way of both criticising the Soviets for their accident and blaming them for Apollo 1? Seriously? do you think that the Apollo1 scientists, after the accident suddenly went "I've just realised, things burn really well in 100% O2 atmospheres, well that was a bit of a surprise."

Yes, I am criticizing the Soviets for the Bondarenko accident because engineers are supposed to foresee these kinds of possibilities, and these engineers were good ones. And that's what engineers do.

However, I also criticize the American engineers for the Apollo 1 fire, because they too were engineers, and very good ones too, and they too are supposed to foresee potentially lethal situations. It's their job to foresee and provide against accidents. Because that is what engineers do, irrespective of being Soviet, or American.

Why you seem to need to ridicule the American engineers for not realizing that "things burn really well in an 100% oxygen atmosphere" but not the Soviet engineers for not realizing that "things burn really well in an [50%] oxygen atmosphere" is not clear. *I* don't consider the difference to be terribly meaningful, although you, for whatever reasons, do.

And yes, I *do* give the Soviets partial responsibility for the Apollo 1 fire. Both the Soviets and Americans engineers made what seems, after the fact, to be a fairly elementary error. And after each accident, each respective group of engineers - after official investigations, no doubt - changed their practices. That's what engineers also do, right? Do you think that it is in somewhat far-fetched to think that, if the American engineers had known that accident that lead to Bondarenko's death was predicated on a too oxygen rich mixture, that the American would not have taken a lesson from it? That, having learned that Bondarenko died in a fire in a 50% oxygen atmosphere, that maybe, just maybe, a 100% oxygen atmosphere was even *more* dangerous?

That researchers, engineers, doctors, etc etc are capable of learning from the experience of others is the very reason why there are professional conventions and conferences, scholarly journals, investigative committees, and so forth: people can learn from other people's experience.

If you don't think that the American engineers would have learned something from the Bondarenko accident, had they known about it, I would like to know why.

Profiteer Or Publisher: Re: Julian Assange is a fanny

"and what factual insights into the world's corrupt powers have you published today my good sir?"

You might not know this, but it was Bradley Manning who got that material and is now rotting in a military brig for it, and is likely to remain there for the rest of his life (and deservedly so, as far as I am concerned). What Assange did, was merely PROFIT from what Manning did by SELLING the rights to publish this material. To think that Assange and WikiLeaks are anything other than profiteers and parasites would be profoundly mistaken. Assange gets the money and Manning gets the prison time. Oh, but let me not forget that WikiLeaks did give Manning $15,000. That won't pay for the coffee that his defense attorney will consume in the course of mounting Manning's defense.

Google's Free Labor Policy: Opting Out: Re: If they'd stop scanning books....

'If they'd stop scanning books....We wouldn't have to answer any more CAPTCHAs."

Whenever I see a photograph as part of a captcha, I *always* answer it incorrectly, and the incorrect answer is *always* accepted as correct.

Because I refuse to be part of Google's "the world is an endless supp\y of free labor for us" policy.

Re: Oh sweet jesus...

"the vast majority of windows users are not going to be using their fingers any time soon"

Having seen this, I can tell you which finger *I'll* be using...

@JDX: Re: Excellent Work by the Council

"Re: Excellent Work by the Council

They haven't censored her. They've told here she can't take photos in a private building, she can still blog. El Reg readers are generally pretty critical of kids being allowed to take phones/gadgets into school IIRC."

Consider her a whistleblower.

Re: Victims?!

"Matthew, it's extremely unlikely that you will see aggression on this sort of platform. It's an entirely different design goal to make a disaster relief or other civil technology to a military technology. While you could attempt a repurpose, it ends up being a bit like trying to use a car as a tank."

If the plans are available for free, it becomes far more convenient to build the drone than it is to order a drone and have it shipped from China, or anywhere else pretty much. And all it takes is a block or two of C4 and a detonator to turn the drone into a useful weapon for terrorists:

"OpenRelief is publishing all its plans and code online – the source at Gitorious and schematics on Solderpad. The team is also working hard at documentation – it will not be selling the drones itself, but handing all the information to organisations so they can build their own at a planned cost of between $750 to $1000 per unit, depending on component choices."

Just program it to fly into an open-air market, for example, at the busiest time of day. Why it would be anything other than easy to repurpose the vehicle for such tasks is not clear to me.

@andreas koch Re: @turtle - I don't quite understand

Thank you for the explanation! It's greatly appreciated.

Personally, although I do not really see what harm it could ever do me, I do not like having any retailers having information about me, and avoid it when I can. Buying online makes this impossible to avoid, of course. In many chain-stores here we also have what seem to be the same rewards programs, but I have my rewards cards under false names. Just for the sake of , you know, indulging my paranoia and suspiciousness. And of course, we do not - as far as I know - have any overarching multi-store rewards program. That would make me quite uncomfortable, frankly.

@ Graham Dawson: When does thing launch again?

"Re: When does thing launch again?

You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It’s just common sense."

Well that's easy for *you* to say.

Re: @NomNomNom: I am reminded...

"I haven't defended 'dishonest scientists'. Your premise is wrong. I'd like to know what Phil Jones has done dishonestly, in your opinion. I've given an example of the dishonesty of climate deniers. You haven't provided any example."

I said "ClimateGate'. If you think that all the dishonesty, manipulativeness, and effort put into gaming the way science works, as revealed in the ClimateGate emails, is anything less than a complete and utter disgrace to any institution purporting to be an educational institution, and if you think that the behavior shown in those emails is acceptable behavior for anyone with any pretensions to any reputation as a scientist, then you will have to explain why.

Personally, I would call the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia to be a hotbed of scientific dishonesty. And if you want to continue to defend dishonest scientists such as Phil Jones and his ilk, don't let anyone stop you... but don't deny that you are doing it, either.

@Giles Jones

It's not illegal to be a monopoly. It IS illegal to abuse one's dominant market position. And that is what Google is accused of doing. For some reason, the Google supporters on this thread seem incapable of grasping this very simple point.

Re: Try that with mythology (aka Religion)

"The issues which agitate the majority of human society outside of the comfortable world from which you dictate your missives are "Where is my next meal coming from?", "Why is there a 50% infant mortality rate" and "Can we have some potable water?": Questions which science helps with, and religion can only answer with either "there, there; it's ok: God loves you." or "because you DESERVE it, sinner"."

Err, no, "dude". What is done about each of the problems you list is *not* a matter of science because science has already provided the answers. What is done about the problems is a matter of morals and sentiments, and how they determine what a suitable course of action is. Let me put it this way: supplying potable water is not a matter to be solved by science, because the technology exists to solve the problem. Whether or not the technology is actually deployed to solve the problem is not a matter of science; it is a matter of morals, ideology, sentiment. Science might find various means to deal with certain problems, but people with ideas, emotions, likes and dislikes, decide how to react (or even whether to react at all) to problems, and what means (if any) to use to solve the problem. (Because one can always take the Paul Ehrlich point of view, which is to let everyone of the "wrong" color and social class die.)

"Religion can only answer with either "there, there; it's ok: God loves you." or "because you DESERVE it, sinner". Right, because atheists are so well-known for their great humanitarian efforts to help the poor, while organized religions have never done anything. Oh wait...

There's a Salvation Army Mission over on Skid Row here. I have also frequently various church groups distributing food and clothing to the poor. Somehow I have never seen any atheists get together to do anything similar. And as for religious organizations that work to ameliorate social ills, well, I guess in your world, they don't exist at all.

Re: Yes, but...

"Yes, but... What is a suitable calibre for a charging 23 tonne dinosaur?.60 nitro express suddenly seems inadequate."

Anti-tank gun. Flak 88, for example.

Re: FrankAlphaXII

"Its amazing to me that the people still sitting on a program 10 versions old hold opinions which are considered relevant. "

Now here is an example of someone who has been completely fooled by Mozilla's moronic "new version number every six weeks" marketing ploy!

Well apparently some people *enjoy* being, uh, "socially engineered".

@error handler: Re: Answer

Thank you for the answer! Although the question was meant to be ironic and rhetorical, the answer which you have taken the time and effort to discover is actually quite interesting. Thanks again!

Re: Amazingly enough

"Amazingly enough I was playing this earlier today!"

I still play this often. Tons o' fun. *Very* surprised to see that this is considered an antique in any way.

@Chris 19

That is a very concise yet complete overview of the situation! Very nicely done!

@Paul Smith: Re: Can he do that? A: Congressional Oversight

"Can a US senator simply demand personal information like that on a whim? What if I happened to be on one of those Oompa loompa flights? How is that the senators business, and why on earth would a senator from Iowa want to know?"

This is called "congressional oversight". It's a really big part of what Congress does for a living. Congress is expressly tasked with exercising congressional oversight over all parts of government. That all parts of government are accountable to Congress is almost the only thing that makes those parts of the government accountable for their actions at all.

(If you really have that much trouble figuring out why the passenger manifests etc are not the perfectly legitimate object of interest of government as personified in this instance by Sen. Grassley, as are the purposes for which Google is putting Moffet Field to use, then you probably shouldn't bother you little head about the matter.)

Re: Nice

Would Dish agree to compensate the content producers for revenue lost by removing the adverts?

Also, I wonder if it would not possible to resort to some sort of EULA to first make the advert-skipping a contravention of license, and then sue for violation of the license if the adverts were removed.