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ROBERT MacNEIL: And it's the strange idea that's come out of this medium, because it's become so much a captive of its tool--as its use as a sales tool that it's driven increasingly, I think, by a tyranny of the popular.
MacNeil is talking about television, obviously, but I do wonder, no, make that that I do not wonder, if the lesson could be applied to a number of new media that we're shaping today.
posted by ruffin
at 9/23/2005 03:22:00 PM
I've been interested in the Google Print vs. the Authors' Guild legal grumblings escapade for a few reasons. For one, I'm admittedly somewhat personally invested, as I've written a system that does a similar function, namely create, as Google is trying, concordances from digital texts. From another point of view, to some degree copyright has become less a tool to ensure works eventually pass back into the public domain -- ostensibly, and I tend to agree, for the good of the community at large -- and more of a tool for corporations to jostle for, well, larger hats o' money. If there's a winnable legal case for Google to be able to start scanning and get to digitizing, I hope they press the point. Even if it's illegal to put the goods online for now for books from 1924 and later, having the work started is going to be a big boon as publishers and other copyright holders opt in.
And there's the proverbial rub: Right now Google requires that copyright holders opt out of their program if they don't want to be included. So if your favorite self-published author is living in a cave and can't even spell "Google", Google plans to put his info online, at least in a searchable format. What's more, if an author wants to have control over concordances to their texts (is a conventional concordance allowed without copyright?) and, say, exclusively use some small business' concordance creation system that can insure that no user would ever be able the original back together from successive searches, well, Google will 800 lbs gorilla that right out of existence. (Do note: Google's example page, linked to below, is not a lossy process; the original could, in theory, afaict, be reconstructed, eventually, from multiple searches.) I'm not sure I agree with this, and I believe this is obviously the source of the Authors' Guild's concern. (see last paragraph for the obvious solution)
(Note that the Authors' Guild, iirc, might be the same schmoes who were against Amazon posting links to used copies of books alongside the pages where consumers could order new ones, to the point the AG threatened (?) legal action. Hint: If you don't want so many used books coming back to bite the third printing in the rear, don't release so many overpriced copies that aren't well-written enough for readers to keep in their library with the first printing. Even though it may not be obvious, you're competing with yourself. Amazon's not losing you money; you are. End [of that] rant.)
I like that Google uses, as a test page (screenshot here), a text copyrighted in 1924. If I understand correctly, this is the first year (perhaps second if I'm guilty of an "obo error") that US copyright is enforced. That is, a book copyrighted in 1923 is fair game to be used however you want. Books from 1924, along with Mickey Mouse, are still protected, and it seems like they will continue to be protected until the end of time, if coprorations keep Congress in their pocket as well as they have to this point. Having a 1924 example helps to illustrate just how innane the law is. Seriously, what's to be lost if True Stories of Pioneer Life is, at long last, unleased to the public domain? And look what's to gain!
Which brings us to the afore-advertised "obvious solution". Does Google understand how many books were printed before 1924? When they're done with Harvard et al's collection of pre-1924 texts, and only then, should they start functionally/practically worrying about challenges from publishers. Fight the battles in the courts now, sure, but until then I fully expect and hope Google will "do no evil", even "do the right thing" (cue Terminator X?), by scanning and digitizing what they are fully entitled to appropriate -- and, at the same time, show the public the power of their domain, so to speak. If Google can convince the people of the US (and elsewhere) the worth of books from the 20s and earlier, imagine how that lesson can be made to pay it forward. (Starting to feel like Hand Duet during his self-introduction with all the pop culture references here, though I, obviously, haven't even made a parodic appearance in them)
posted by ruffin
at 9/21/2005 09:02:00 AM
To change the default location for screen captures so they get saved in a specific location instead of cluttering the desktop, you need to use the defaults command in the Terminal to change the path. It can be done like this:
Create the folder in which you want the screen captures to be saved in the location of your choice.
Open a Terminal window and type this:
How is REALbasic different than Visual Basic for Applications?
The syntax REALbasic uses for Office Automation is very similar to Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). One difference between the two is that REALbasic is not built into Office, thus allowing you to create software that can operate independently of Office. In addition, REALbasic has extended capabilities, such as Internet and database access that VBA does not provide.
Okay, admittedly it's been a while since I've VBA'd in Office (it's almost always easier for me to start in VB-land), but I'm confident you can do both of the examples (Internet and dbms access) Real Software has listed, above, with VBA on Windows. Perhaps they mean the subset of VBA that's supported on the Mac? Last I checked, Office on OS X came with a small RealBasic bundle for one to use when automating, so I'm not real sure what they're trying to say.
Unfortunately it appears, and I can't really tell as my trial license is up again before I could put in more than thirty minutes of play, that you can't embed a Word 'control' in RealBasic (REALbasic?) the way you can with VB6 and VB.NET. Having a custom Word UI that de-emphasizes Word (that is, not adding toolbar after toolbar to Word with VBA but surrounding the edit control only with customized widgets) is a very nice feature I'd like to have on OS X.
posted by ruffin
at 9/13/2005 10:43:00 AM
1.) Goggle's Google Talk is just iChat A/V for Windows. Pretty obvious, but it's interesting to consider. Why can't Microsoft pull this off? Two reasons: They're too big (watch Longhorn's release slip and slip and slip...) and they don't have the same cachรฉ Google and Apple have been able to create. It's no wonder Ballmer has been fuming about Google both internally and externally, though from a few eWeek reports, the external fumes are awfully calm, relatively speaking. In any event, Google is what MS thought Netscape and Sun could be. Will be interesting to see if Google gets squashed as well. Though it seems it'd be awfully difficult, Netscape was quite literally on everyone's boxes not all that long ago. Thanks for Mosaic and an all too open license at the NCSA it's, um, not now.
2.) If Mosaic had too open a license, I'm still beginning to get annoyed by how many GPL libs there are out there. Ran into one for Gmail address book exports recently. Neat idea and I'd love to have that code, even contribute, but I still have this strange notion that one day I'll finish up the mail handler I've started and sell one or two of 'em. Ask Matt how difficult it is to get someone to give up a Ben Franklin or so of income yearly and you'll see where I'm coming from, I'm afraid. Vive la GPL, etc, but please, can't we use more business friendly licenses at times? Libs would get more use and more contributions if they'd open up the possibility of linking with something commercial. Are programmers who desire profit really all that bad, or did Hurd mature without anyone noticing? I'm betting there's a reason we see "GNU Hurd Task List Version 1.22. Last updated 21 March 2000".
[Blog update 9/13 -- That is to say, I'm all for people making open source code and for people who use it to contribute their improvements to that lib back to the project at large. No really, I've talked about it before.]
3.) Will VB6 ever go away? MS could make it happen by breaking the VB6 "virtual machine" dll in Longhorn or afterwards, but why would they? VB6 still works great, there are millions withh expertise, and, well, VB.NET isn't a drop-in replacement. It doesn't seem like it'd be all that difficult to write a VB6 dll that translates VB6 to OS X, in theory. Though tons of apps would still break at points (all those WinAPI calls, for example), it would make Real Basic look like a pretender again. (Not that I've got anything against Real Basic; I'm probably the only person in my office with a REALbasic book on the shelves.)
posted by ruffin
at 9/06/2005 10:08:00 AM
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