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Comment Re:save? (Score 1) 227

A big screen TV is no longer a rich man's luxury. The best displays are about $2,000. If you pay more, either you're paying for a brand, or you are buying a jumbo screen that's 65" or higher. Which even then, it isn't going to exceed $10,000 unless either you buy snake oil shit (think the 'monster cable' of TVs) or you buy something that's so big it can't even fit into the living room of a typical mansion.

The rich man's luxury these days depends on the kind of rich man you are. Some like coke and sex parties, some like menageries, some like exotic car collections, some like Learjets, some like live-in sushi chefs, and some like to own one of every kind of weapon in existence.

John Mcafee for example loves coke and sex parties.

That's the way it always has been. The rich aren't satisfied with consumer goods and never have been. Here's just a couple examples from the 1920s. Drugs and underaged girls aren't a recent invention.

Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 172

An author's copyrights can be assigned or transferred to a third party. This leaves the author with only the same rights as any member of the general public. (There are a few narrow exceptions, but nothing that would prevent the possibility of an author infringing on the copyright of a work he created)

It's also possible for a person who prepares a work to not be considered the author. This is the case for works made for hire.

And of course copyright isn't mandatory, though that just leads to works being in the public domain, so at least there's no danger of infringement there.

Comment Re:Correct, but silly (Score 1) 172

However, bear in mind that copyright only applies to original material, not to pre-existing material. A review which includes a quote is copyrightable, but the new copyright for the review only covers the portion original to the reviewer; the material quoted is only covered by the copyright of the work the quotes are drawn from.

17 USC 103(b):

The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material.

Comment Re: Design flaw? (Score 1) 72

Unfortunately, when it comes to rockets, a couple percent difference in performance means a huge difference in the first stage.

The Russians make quite good early-stages for their rockets - but they've long had trouble with the upper stages. The N1 being the glaring exception, even the first stage was big trouble... they just couldn't handle the necessary level of QA for such a complex design to work, at least not on the budget they were given.

Comment Re:dammit, it's the best he has. (Score 1) 73

Yes, but the whole plug to make it /.-worthy is that he's using 3D PRINTING. Which is pretty much like saying he's saving the Louvre by making PNGs of Mona Lisa for home printing. Most any art of significance is extensively photographed, measured and cataloged. Without the artifacts themselves you're relying on a chain of authenticity, meaning that whatever you photoshopped at home won't matter one bit. In short, your 3D printer is no more significant in preserving history than your 2D printer is, which is to say not at all.

Comment Re:Additional Equally Banal Comment (Score 1) 172

The key to this is that Mooney is "transforming" Prince's "work" in exactly the same way he "transformed" hers. If her use is infringing, so is his. The "transformation" of simply making a large printout isn't going to fly. Copyright doesn't depend on the size or transmission method.

I don't think that argument is going to fly, because you could argue the same about landscape photography. Nature isn't copyrighted and you could have been at the same place at the same time choosing to capture the same image. Yet that particular image is copyrighted. I think the argument will be that even though it's transformational, it is also part original. Imagine for example a news article, even though it may quote pieces of a book for context, it clearly also contains a lot of the journalist's original thoughts.

This isn't actually new ground, it's been thoroughly reviewed with songs and compilation albums, photographs and photobooks and many other situations. The selection, structure and composition may give rise to a new copyright on making that particular arrangement. I can license all the songs of one of the "Absolute hits" CDs, yet I can't make the exact same compilation CD. Then again, I think you'd have a strong case for a "fair use" defense of anyone using your work in a "fair use" way.

Comment Re: So, the other side? (Score 1) 422

Depends on what you measure. If you measure economy by the usual statistics, it looks good on paper, absolutely. But if you measure by what people get from it, the picture is much less clear. 15% of our children are below the poverty line. 35% of single mothers and fathers are. That's ashaming for an allegedly rich country.

Comment Re:So, the other side? (Score 2) 422

That is a nice socialist way of saying 'reducing deficit and preventing tax increases that would have hurt the economy'.

You're an imbecile. If their interest would've been to reduce the deficit, there would have been one hundred other ways to do it.

They like to create the impression it's all based on numbers and economy and so on, but it's all bullshit. The reality is that it's a philosophy. Benefits to unemployed people are cut not because it's necessary to save the economy (one bank's bonus payouts is equal to those savings). It's done because of the assumption that unemployed people are lazy and need to be forced more strongly. Basically, all of this is the brain-child of one top CEO, it's even named after him (Harz), and he's a victim to the assumption that everyone in the world is like him. As a CEO he lives in a cut-throat world of ambitious people, so to him everyone who is not successful must be lazy.

There's a lot more in this direction, but the point is that all these failures of the social system that create a lot of misery and poverty were intentionally created in order to protect the profits of international export companies. Note: Profit of companies. Not of people. That is what's wrong with it. If you need to change things to save people, then it's a noble thing to do what is hard to do. But to sacrifice the people for the artificial constructions of economic law is ethically wrong.

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