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Sorry if my attempt at ironic self-reflection fell flat.The Hulk could often be happy, it was only in comics that he was depicted as being morose/unhappy.Umm.. it was only in "comics" that he was unhappy? As opposed to? Real life when he was hanging out with jesus?-mouser (June 11, 2012, 09:19 PM)
Yes, that's what I figured. I know of similar programs in other prisons that have had similarly beneficial results for the inmates and the dogs.That WOOF programme looks pretty innovative too.Yes, and it has been quite successful in helping both the inmates and the dogs that they train (both were happier and better behaved after the experience).-IainB (June 10, 2012, 09:42 PM)
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Thak you to all that voted.-Stoic Joker (June 11, 2012, 06:36 AM)
...I am disgusted to see same persons participating in all contests. I am posting here because I want some good members to grab the offer, not just the regular ones who jump over any promotional offers.It is possible, of course, that the approach of turning the thing into a sort of promotional contest in the first place might not have been such a good idea...the law of unintended consequences, etc.-sujay85 (June 01, 2012, 04:34 AM)
Source: http://torrentfreak....haring-books-120610/
Anti-Piracy Patent Stops Students From Sharing Textbooks
A new patent granted this week aims to stop students from sharing textbooks, both off and online. The patent awarded to economics professor Joseph Henry Vogel hopes to embed the publishing world even further into academia. Under his proposal, students can only participate in courses when they buy an online access code which allows them to use the course book. No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science.
For centuries, students have shared textbooks with each other, but a new patent aims to stop this “infringing” habit.
The patent in question was granted to Professor of Economics Joseph Henry Vogel. He believes that piracy, lending and reselling of books is a threat to the publishing industry.
“Professors are increasingly turning a blind eye when students appear in class with photocopied pages. Others facilitate piracy by placing texts in the library reserve where they can be photocopied,” Vogel writes.
The result is less money for publishers, and fewer opportunities for professors like himself to get published. With Vogel’s invention, however, this threat can be stopped.
The idea is simple. As part of a course, students will have to participate in a web-based discussion board, an activity which counts towards their final grade. To gain access to the board students need a special code, which they get by buying the associated textbook.
Students who don’t pay can’t participate in the course and therefore get a lower grade.
The system ensures that students can’t follow courses with pirated textbooks, as tens of thousands are doing today. Lending books from a library or friend, or buying books from older students, isn’t allowed either. At least, not when the copyright holders don’t get their share.
Vogel’s idea leaves the option open for students to use second-hand textbooks, but they still have to buy an access code at a reduced price. This means publishers can charge multiple times for a book that was sold only once.
Needless to say, publishers are excited about gaining more control in the classroom. Anthem Press of London has already expressed interest in the system and Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, also welcomes the idea.
“For every rogue site that is taken down, there are hundreds more demanding similar effort. I can’t think of a more timely example of the need for additional tools,” he says.
On the surface the idea might seem well-intentioned, but to proponents of an open knowledge society it goes completely in the wrong direction. If anything, the Internet should make it easier for students to access knowledge, not harder or impossible.
While it’s understandable that publishers want to stop piracy, preventing poor students from borrowing textbooks from a library or friend goes too far.
Perhaps it’s a better idea to approach the problem from the opposite direction.
Thanks to the Internet, publishers are replaceable. And since many of the textbook authors are professors who get paid by universities, it is not hard to release books in a more open system.
Professor Vogel believes that sending more money to publishers helps academia, which might be a flawed line of reasoning. Isn’t it much better to strive to make knowledge open and accessible, instead of restricting it even further?
"Professor Vogel believes that sending more money to publishers helps academia..."Yeah, right.
...BTW, I don't see the US ceding anything to the UN without the US still remaining firmly in control once it got there...Yes, I would have thought that also, but not after reading this:LOST is Centralized Control of the World by the UN-40hz (June 10, 2012, 07:18 AM)
Sorry Iain, while you performed a useful service posting that article, I don't buy its premise. "Competing with themselves" = another way to say that they're playing all sides of the game. They're simultaneously trying to make us jaded so that anything more than 3 years old "isn't good enough and that we must buy new stuff", while echoing my note above "older stuff that isn't a Disney Mouse isn't worth fixing up to resell", and then finally "woe is us, if people got to watch/listen to all the old 80's classics they won't buy new stuff".No, quite. I don't buy that premise either. It's irrational. I think you have it pretty much spot-on there.-TaoPhoenix (June 08, 2012, 09:27 PM)
... the elephant in the room is Copyright...Yes. Exactly. I read about an interesting theory that copyright may need to exist to stop copyright holders competing with themselves, or something along those lines: Protectionism Against the Past (or: Why are Copyright Terms so Long?)-TaoPhoenix (June 08, 2012, 12:32 PM)
I think there may be various possibiles reasons. For example, when recovering JPEG photo/images, it's possible to get larger files than the originals...Yes, I had to recover a hard drive (hacked by a virus) a while back and that was exactly the case. The image in the .JPG files looked fine, and file size was typically 15Mb, and contained all the EXIF data. When I opened them in irfanview and then saved them as .JPG files (with no compression), they shrunk down to something more like their original size - e.g., 175Kb - with all the image and EXIF data intact. The cameras that had taken the pix (per EXIF data) could not have made 15Mb .JPG image files in the first place.-Mark0 (June 08, 2012, 11:12 AM)
U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs showNo, I suspect that you would be far from alone in seeing this bear-trap.
Global Internet tax suggested by European network operators, who want Apple, Google, and other Web companies to pay to deliver content, is proposed for debate at a U.N. agency in December.
http://news.cnet.com...es-leaked-docs-show/
Am I the only one seeing the bear trap setup? "Put it all in the cloud!" "Let's tax data!"-TaoPhoenix (June 08, 2012, 08:34 AM)
WSJ (pay-walled): Google's Monopoly and Internet Freedom
2012-06-07
BY JEFFREY KATZ
It's a position all business leaders would love to find themselves in—a massive IPO, dominance in the marketplace, and a blank slate from policy makers to do practically anything they please.
Google has enjoyed this unrivaled position for nearly a decade. It is the most popular search engine in the world, controlling nearly 82% of the global search market and 98% of the mobile search market. Its annual revenue is larger than the economies of the world's 28 poorest countries combined. And its closest competitor, Bing, is so far behind in both market share and revenue that Google has become, ...
How many will admit having an eHarmony account?That's unnecessarily unkind.-rgdot (June 08, 2012, 06:26 AM)
House to examine plan for United Nations to regulate the InternetHouse to examine plan for United Nations to regulate the Internet
House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.
The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.
It’s an unpopular idea with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, and officials with the Obama administration have also criticized it.
“We're quite concerned,” Larry Strickling, the head of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said in an interview with The Hill earlier this year.
He said the measure would expose the Internet to “top-down regulation where it's really the governments that are at the table, but the rest of the stakeholders aren't.”
At a hearing earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also criticized the proposal. He said China and Russia are "not exactly bastions of Internet freedom."-Renegade (May 26, 2012, 08:31 PM)
...At least once, I have mistaken this for an indication that I was not logged into LinkedIn...Yes, I noticed that too. Ruddy annoying cheek. I am not giving them my email contacts list to sell/spam.-daddydave (June 07, 2012, 06:05 PM)
...Waiting for SimpleNoteApp sync (it's on the approved list of items to be done).Yes, that would be good, but I think Simplenote sync currently only seems to works on text, and strips out all but the text in the records - i.e., so no RTF, it seems. I found that out by chance whilst using a sticky notes type app that could save RTF and images - when I saved it via S/note sync, all the non-text was stripped out of my database. Oops. Fortunately, I was just trialling it, so no essential data was lost.-dantheman (June 07, 2012, 05:31 AM)
Yes, that's right. The last one was because of a precaution, as a result of a breach at Gawker.com (assets include LifeHacker.com), and not a breach at LinkedIn. This is from the LinkedIn email to members, dated 2010-12-15:To my knowledge, this is the second time something like this has happened at LinkedIn. The last time was on 2010-12-14, when LinkedIn emailed members telling them to change their passwords.IIRC, the first time was due to a gawker.com breach, and they were advising that as a precaution in case the same password was used on their site.-IainB (June 06, 2012, 05:02 PM)-daddydave (June 07, 2012, 08:48 AM)
...We recently sent you a message stating that your LinkedIn password had been disabled for security reasons. (Note: If you have more than one email registered with us, you will receive more than one password reset message. You only need to act on one of them.)
This was in response to a security breach on a different site, Gawker.com, where a number of usernames and passwords were exposed. We want to make sure those leaked emails and passwords were not being used to attack any LinkedIn members.
There is no indication that your LinkedIn account has been affected, but since it shares an email with the compromised Gawker accounts, we decided to ensure its safety by asking you to reset its password.
If you haven't done that already, now is a good time to follow these steps:
Go to the LinkedIn website.
Click on "Sign In".
Click on "Forgot Password?" and follow the directions on the website.
Please keep in mind that the best defense against these types of attacks is to have unique passwords for each site you use. You can always search our support site and our blog for more security tips.
We apologize for the inconvenience, but we feel this action is in your best interest. Thanks for your immediate attention to our request.
Sincerely,
LinkedIn Privacy Team
