And then there's always the good old, "Respond as if the commenter said something they actually didn't say." On that note, vi is clearly superior.

... is a time-tested Slashdot commenting strategy!

But seriously, I don't always carry my wallet with me, but I almost always carry my phone with me. Last year I found myself in the perfect position to benefit tremendously from a mobile wallet on my phone.

I was on mile 4 of a long bike ride when my rear tire failed. Not the tube (I carry a spare), the actual tire. I had decided not to bring my wallet with me, but I did have my phone. Anyway, I needed a replacement tire, but I had no money on me, and I realized that despite having my credit card number memorized, I didn't actually have any direct way to pay a bicycle shop for a tire, so I walked home.

But it felt silly - that I was carrying around a smartphone that has access to multiple bank accounts and payment services, and that I even knew my credit card number, yet without a little piece of plastic, I couldn't pay for anything.

Since then I don't go on bike rides without my wallet, but that's not really the point. Sometimes I take walks and don't want to bring my wallet. Occasionally I change my mind on the way home and decide it would be a good idea to stop at the grocery store. But no wallet, no way to purchase anything, despite having my phone.

In other words, there do exist situations in which one might reasonably have a phone but not a wallet. You may argue they are edge cases, but I am just one person. Other people mentioned check splitting, which is especially a headache in recent years since no one seems to carry cash anymore.

Problem is, where I live, cabs are regulated, but the service is anything but first class. They're not on time, they're not nice and clean (seems like DC usually gets other cities' worn out cabs). At night, sometimes drivers turn off their meters. They're not allowed to refuse taking you to a destination, but they do anyway. They're not allowed to force passengers to share rides, but they do anyway. They are legally required to take credit cards, but they lie and say their machines are broken (until you say you can't pay because you don't have cash, at which point the machine magically starts working).

Point being, regulation doesn't necessarily mean good service. I've never used UberX, but the few times I've used Uber, while more expensive, it's been a much better experience than the typical cab.

Well, he was going to be prosecuted primarily for violations of the CFAA, not copyright infringement.

Anyway the point I was trying to make is that I'm not convinced that OSVDB has any exclusive right to the information, period. If they don't have any exclusive right to it, then can try and "license" it all they want, but it doesn't matter. You don't get to just throw up a bunch of factual, non-copyrighted (and non-copyrightable) information on a public web page, then claim that anyone who doesn't comply with your "license" is doing something illegal... because they're facts. If you want to play that game, you'd better get your audience to sign a contract. There's no trade secrecy here, either, because the information is public.

Maybe OSVDB has some claim for unfair competition under state misappropriation laws, similar to the "hot news" doctrine. But their case would be much more convincing if they had a copyright claim, which even they don't seem convinced about.

Actually, given the way the CFAA is written (and abused), maybe that would cover the situation.

Of course McAfee is probably being a bad citizen here - I assume the point of the license, whether enforceable or not, is to try to defray the costs of establishing and maintaining the database. But simply being a bad citizen isn't necessarily illegal.

Yeah, I also read something suggesting he wanted to do some text mining on the articles to find bias in corporate funded research. I think it was the prosecution pushing the idea that he wanted to release the articles, based on quotes from the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, etc.

There is no copyright in facts, which is why the Register article says there is a "debate" about copyright protection in databases. If a database is nothing more than a collection of facts, it won't be eligible for copyright protection. (It might be eligible for a database protection right in Europe, though)

That said, databases can be copyrighted if they contain original creative content, or if the selection and arrangement of the facts is original and creative. The article hints at a sweat of the brow justification, which would not work - just because you spend a lot of time compiling facts doesn't mean you get copyright in them (well, at least not in the U.S.). But the threshold for originality and creativity is pretty low, so if OSVDB does any editing or categorization or summarizing of reports, that might be enough to get them copyright in the database.

From a purely legal perspective, Swartz's intentions would probably be considered "worse." He mass-downloaded a bunch of articles from JSTOR (and no, I doubt all of them or even most of them were funded with public money), although he arguably had the right to do so. From what I understand, his intention was to release the articles to the public, but he never got that far. Had he done so, that would certainly have been a massive copyright violation, and there would have been multiple suits from multiple publishers (meanwhile, I'd imagine most of the authors of the articles wouldn't care, since they rarely if ever receive royalties for those articles, and often have to pay fees to have them published).

Whereas McAfee scrapes data from a publicly-accessible database that may or may not be protected by copyright. OSVDB will first have to prove they have a valid copyright in order to claim infringement. Maybe they'll fall back on this argument that even if not copyrighted, the data was licensed, but it's hard to throw up uncopyrighted data on a public web page and claim that there is some kind of binding license on everyone who accesses it. When uncopyrightable databases are licensed, that will usually involve signing a contract.

Unless you live in a non-WTO member country, I highly doubt that's accurate. Maybe you're referring to the clause that sometimes appears in fair use/fair dealing statutes that says "multiple copies for classroom use"? If so, no, that doesn't mean you can take a book and copy the entire thing an indefinite number of times (although it does give a lot more flexibility than most educational institutions use).

I would wager it's more likely that that may be the de facto practice where you live, and nobody enforces the law.

Agree. I have 6 watches. One is a dirt cheap analog Casio which is strapped to a motorcycle. One is a dirt cheap digital Timex which is also strapped to a different motorcycle. The other four are fancier, various colors (gold & leather, aluminum, steel, copper). I might wear a watch once a week, and I pick it to match what I'm wearing.

All the fancy ones were gifts. The next watch I buy will probably be another cheap Casio to strap on my bicycle. I think a smart watch is going to be a tough sell when everyone already has what will likely be a more capable smart phone on them already.

I'm surprised you even find garages that let you in. Most garages around me (and even just lots) specifically say no motorcycles. I think it's liability fears about the gate coming down on your head or something.

Theft/burglary is extremely common in South Africa. Also, the Metrorail is well-known to be a prime location for crime. I visited a few months ago, and the advice was that the train was fine with more than a few people, but sometimes the cars will be nearly empty, and that is bad news. At the flat where I was staying, a tourist had had her baggage rifled through when she accidentally left a window open (virtually all properties are fenced in, so the burglar had to climb the fence to get in through the window).

Not at all. Remember, in addition to buying all that media, he explicitly said this:

Sony v. Universal pretty clearly indicated that building a library of tapes recorded off the air (as opposed to purely time-shifting) was not a fair use. So it's probably more like, "Sir, you are a model customer. Keep up the good work. Also, you will be hearing from our lawyers shortly. Love, the MPAA."

After all, there's hardly anyone the content industries love to sue more than their customers!

I went to a private high school. It was small and didn't have many resources. Still, I was fortunate to have a very supportive environment for my exploration and learning related to computing.

The teacher who taught programming had actually managed IT/network stuff in Micronesia, so she was not in the habit of throwing old tech out. We received a lot of donated equipment from various businesses, and she saved most of it in a storage room. When she found out how interested I was in technology, she basically gave me the run of the place - allowed me to take home equipment to play with, just hang out in there during lunch and after school, put together new machines for the lab, etc. This was where I first learned about other architectures - got my hands on an old DEC Alpha.

When she saw that I had already self-taught some programming, she allowed me to skip directly to an advanced programming course, and teach myself as an independent study.

Later, she let me set up an NT server with roving profiles and network home directories for the lab, so that students in the general office suite classes could save their work on the network, keep it backed up, and their teacher would have centralized access to it. Prior to this, they were all using floppy disks.

Without that environment I'd still have been interested and involved with tech, but it sure made it easier and more interesting, and I learned a lot. I suspect that many teachers might not have been willing to allow a student so much freedom, or that policies might have forbidden it.

That really depends on how far you have to go. In my experience, upright seating might be more comfortable for short distances, and it's probably easier to get on and off. But I bicycle to my office most days, about 4.5 miles one way (which is not long) on a road bike outfitted with a rack and panniers. It is not a "racing" position, but I do lean forward and have drop handlebars. The seat is level with the handlebars.

That position removes a lot of weight from your crotch area, and transfers it to your arms. I find sharing the weight between two areas to be more comfortable, although it requires proper positioning of the handlebars, wearing gloves, and switching grip positions to keep hands and wrists comfortable.

The view is fine, and is amplified by a rear view mirror. Also wearing a high-visibility vest will do much more for your visibility than the difference between the two positions.

Then, the nice thing is I can remove the panniers and easily ride 30 miles or more on a weekend in a reasonable amount of time without needing a second bicycle.

Trashing some mod points to post this, but here's a side-by-side comparison.

Important differences: Classic shows me the text of 7 comments. Beta shows me the text of 2.

Classic uses about 85% of the horizontal width of the screen for comments. Beta uses about 50% or less.

Those are probably the most relevant differences for me. We all come here for the comments, since the stories are by definition published elsewhere first. If a redesign makes it harder to read comments, that's a problem.

It's different because Gitmo is not a bar.

Nope. Easiest way out of this is to claim that torturing detainees is not a public performance, so the use does not need to be licensed. And frankly, that argument is probably correct. Especially if they are blasting it with headphones, which is one of the things I've read. Maybe if they're piping it to a bunch of headphones simultaneously Skinny Puppy could have an argument...

But how do you think this lawsuit will go down? The government will simply say it can't describe interrogation techniques in detail because NATIONAL SECURITY. Also, suing the Feds for copyright infringement is harder than suing anyone else, and even if you win you can only collect minimum statutory damages.