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Submission + - UMG v Grooveshark settled, no money judgment against individuals

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: UMG's case against Grooveshark, which was scheduled to go to trial Monday, has been settled. Under the terms of the settlement (PDF), (a) a $50 million judgment is being entered against Grooveshark, (b) the company is shutting down operations, and (c) no money judgment at all is being entered against the individual defendants.

Comment Re:39/100 is the new passing grade. (Score 4, Interesting) 174

Assuming there is some actual effect being investigated, one reproduction will not get you to 'good' levels of surety about the effect. To hit '95%' - you're going to need likely over ten reproductions.

One study != one sample. Each study should have enough cases to make it statistically significant. The problem is related to issues with the sample population or systematic flaws in what you're measuring. To bring it into the realm of physics, if we do a high school gravity experiment and ignore air resistance we can make as many tests as we like, check for measurement uncertainty in our clocks and whatnot and put up some confidence intervals that are still horribly wrong. It's very hard to isolate and experiment with one tiny aspect of the human psyche and most of the problem is the result is nothing but either a statistical fluke or quirk with the people tested that doesn't generalize to the general population.

Comment Re:K Bye. (Score 1) 226

Note the "as part of a settlement agreement ..." part - which indicates that shutting down operations isn't the end of it for them.

It might not be all of it, but I'm pretty sure it's the end of it. Nobody settles half a case, particularly not when you bend over like this. The only reason Grooveshark would agree is if they got an exit opportunity where they could fold their hand and walk away from it, presumably because the other side's lawyers found there was nothing more to be gained from the company and piercing the corporate veil or pursuing criminal convictions wasn't possible or not worth it.

Comment Re:Can't wait to get this installed in my house (Score 1) 514

The specs allege "92% round-trip efficiency". I'm not sure how much weasel wording goes into that figure; but if it isn't a lie-for-all-but-legal-purposes, that could easily fall within the peak/off-peak price changes in many markets.

92% round-trip DC efficiency. Basically, if you put 100% DC power in, you get 92% DC power back. That's nice, but...

Where DC holds a tremendous amount of promise is in the home/office/building environment where local generation (wind or photovoltaic) is available. The conversion of photovoltaic (DC) power to AC, only to have that AC power converted back to DC for many home electrical devices, is an incredible waste of energy. Eliminating this waste, by some estimates, could improve photovoltaic system performance by as much as 25%.

One AC/DC round trip costs 25% so if you get 100% AC power from the grid, convert to DC, store it in the battery and convert it back to AC for use as a drop-in replacement your total efficiency will be more like 0.75*0.92 = 69% efficiency. On the other hand if you have a DC source like solar panels, store it in this battery and use it to charge a DC sink like an electric car which is the ideal case you get 92% efficiency.

Comment Re:Paid Advertisement (Score 4, Interesting) 76

Nah. The OpenSSL codebase will get cleaned up and become trustworthy, and it'll continue to be used. The other forks, especially LibreSSL and Google's BoringSSL, will be used, too... and that's a good thing. Three fairly API-compatible but differing implementations will break up the monoculture so bugs found in one of them (and they *will* have bugs) hopefully won't hit all three of them. It's tempting to see such apparent duplication of effort as wasteful, but it's really not. Diversity is good and competition is good.

Has the fact that there's three major BSDs and one Linux been in BSD's favor? I have to pick an implementation and live with its bugs, either my machine is compromised or it's not. And those using other implementations will be hit with other bugs compromising their machines. Does it really provide any tangible benefit that not all of us are hit at the same time with the same bug, when we're all vulnerable some of the time? You divide the number of targets, but you also divide the number of developers and testers. For that matter, the eyes in "many eyes makes all bugs shallow" as well. And if you think the only true test is the test of time, the total value and exposure to the bad guys.

Am I supposed to swap browsers every time a vulnerability is found in Firefox/Chrome/Safari/IE? And wouldn't that quickly lead to a monoculture as a project dies every time it screws up big? Or if not, what exactly are the other implementations going to do for me? Software isn't like experimental physics where you want independent verification that if you try the same thing you get the same result. It's more like math where you need a formal proof that the code will always do what you intend for it to do and that it stands up under scrutiny.

We're not talking about something that must have a fail rate, if you get it right it's good. For example look at Apache and IIS, they're massively exposed yet there's very, very few exploits of significance. Okay so that's two not one implementation, but lack of diversity is mostly a problem when you have one bad product like java or flash that is a serial offender. Nobody has a problem with a monoculture that works and there's many of those. Don't allow crap in, code defensively, have reviews and fix the security bugs that get past you in a timely fashion and there won't be any need to reinvent the wheel.

Comment Re:/.er bitcoin comments are the best! (Score 1) 253

EXACTLY... Argentina's currency is in SERIOUS trouble and has been in decline for a decade or more. It's where Greece is headed, and the whole EU if they don't disconnect from Greece or just outright forgive the bulk of their debt.

The Greek economy is something like 2% of the EU. Germany could pay it all off alone and still be in the comfort zone. There was a time when it looked like many dominoes could fall, but Ireland, Portugal and Spain all seem to be on a slow recovery, Italy still gives grounds for concern. The reason they can't give in to Greece is because many countries have been responsible. Many countries have taken harsh steps to bring their budgets in line. The opposition against giving Greece special treatment is strong all the way from the rich countries to the other poor countries.

Comment Re:So far so good. (Score 1) 211

Something I learned 20 years ago, is that you never, never have a non-tech directly manage techs. They will have no idea what their people are doing, will be incapable of distinguishing good workers from self-promoters, and will quickly lose the respect of their subordinates. It just doesn't work.

Just to add to that list the boss is the natural point of escalation when two people butt heads and won't agree. I don't expect my bosses to know the details or even the subject, but they need to understand technical write-ups listing the pros and cons so we can settle it and move on. If the boss clearly has no understanding of the issue and just goes with the person he likes best, of course he'll lose respect.

The other issue is representation, my boss often have to represent our interests in various formal channels. A tech explaining things to a non-tech might be hard enough but having a non-tech boss explaining to other non-techs in other departments means most will be lost in translation. And while it's natural that you need to bring back some questions or issues they raised, a non-tech will have to do it all the time creating a very long feedback loop.

That said, he does not need to be down into the nitty-gritty details. But really, would you hire a guy with no understanding of sales as sales manager? A guy with no understanding of financials as financial manager? It's very rare that you need just "generic people management" and nothing else, because usually you have a business role too not just an administrative role. And you can't do that without some understanding of the subject matter.

Comment Re:The good news is... (Score 5, Insightful) 211

Ha! It WAS me!

I was a really good developer. Then a great developer (in my mind, and others) so I moved up the ranks.

I was pretty good, and made it to the top of the tech heap at a fairly large organization, with 3 levels of employees under me.

It was horrible. I did a really crappy job.

Instead of being a great developer or architect, I become a HORRIBLE business contract negotiator and director. I got involved in 2 HR actions at the same time. I completely failed. In fact I think I 'Petered Out'.

I bailed on that life, and found an organization willing to match my salary- back down at a developer position. I'm a nominal supervisor to 2 people.

I really think I am doing great work again- even better than before, because my viewpoint is even better. I love being a developer, and they love what I'm doing.

The Peter Principal is real. I was promoted beyond my abilities, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Being really good at something doesn't necessarily mean that I'm able to manage a bunch of other people.

Comment Re:25% deflation? Amateurs, I tell you! (Score 2) 253

"Did you seriously just say something that exists only in the digital realm"

Seriously are we back in the 90's? Some of the most valuable things on earth only exist in the digital realm, see microsoft office and windows, google, and everything produced by the television and movie industries.

"which solves a cryptographic puzzle nobody actually asked or cares about"

The puzzle of money that can't be counterfeited, doesn't require inflation, and doesn't depend on a central bank? I'm not sure how that falls under a cryptographic puzzle nobody cares about. Using bitcoin to trade with the Chinese would certainly solve some massive problems for the US very quickly.

Comment Re:Innate Value (Score 1) 253

Other things that have innate value do if they didn't bitcoin wouldn't be unique and my argument would be invalidated. Things have an innate value "to people" (qualifier for the benefit of other dude who replied to you) because they have innate properties which make them useful to us. Short of reverting to a pure barter system we will always have need of a currency and if there is one thing with innate properties that makes it most useful to function as one it becomes innately valuable in that respect.

Comment Re:25% deflation? Amateurs, I tell you! (Score 3, Informative) 253

That is the price on the speculators market not the value. Most of those involved in those price shifts aren't even utilizing bitcoin and those markets only come into play when seeking liquidity in a secondary currency. Bitcoin has innate value as the only currency (along with clones):

1. Divisible to an infinite number of units so there are always enough pieces to grow to any transaction volume. (Gold has this flaw, there aren't small enough bits to use to transact in actual gold.)
2. No known method of counterfeiting.
3. Innately digital and transmittable in all major ways.
4. De-centralized system of initial creation and distribution.
5. Innate value in the sense of a useful commodity.
6. Is universal and requires no secondary currencies exchange once critical mass is achieved.

In other words, Bitcoin is the only currency that has innate value in the form of utility where that utility is to function as a quick assured universal means of value transmission where the assurance is not subject to the interests of a third party. Fiat currencies must be valued against other fiat currencies at critical mass. If bitcoin ever reaches critical mass it eliminates the utility of all other currencies except goods with valuations based on supply and demand so the speculative currency market becomes a non-entity.

Comment Re:And why is bitcoin different? (Score 1) 253

If bitcoin can be spent at businesses you don't need to convert to pesos and that is the only point the government has visibility into things. Even if you do convert to pesos no government has the resources needed to trace every transaction in every business to determine if the bitcoin funds originally came from tourists vs locals.

This is an oppressive government with immoral laws that are being circumvented. It doesn't let them avoid reporting income altogether unless bitcoin usage reaches critical mass but it does circumvent being legally forced to rely on the corrupt Argentinian fiat system by the corrupt Argentinian government.

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