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morninj

1,032 karma · joined January 24, 2012

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morninj··on Your Ubuntu-based container image is probably a copyright violation
> is probably a copyright violation

No, it's not. The relevant language (which this post cites) from the Canonical IP policy deals with trademarks, not copyrights:

Any redistribution of modified versions of Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate it with the Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries.

Canonical is trying to prevent third parties from passing off forks as genuine versions of Ubuntu. (Not that I agree with its approach, but that's what this language does.) Distributing a Docker image to your own web server doesn't "associate it with the Trademarks."

(edit: formatting)

morninj··on The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay
The motivations are different: paying down my debt enhances my own financial well-being, while donating to charities enhances others'. Or: paying down debt is self-interested, while donating is selfless (or at least self-interested in a different way).
morninj··on The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay
> The muscles you use for giving are the same muscles you use to save or pay down debt.

Citation needed.

morninj··on Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand
What browser do you use now? I agree with your points, but I've stuck with Chrome because of the range of extensions.
morninj··on On Secretly Terrible Engineers
In no way is it true that the CA bar exam is an exercise in "trivial questions."
morninj··on Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma
But how will I remember to use Beeminder?
morninj··on LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug? (2006)
In fact, yes: there are nonprofits that distribute testing kits for recreational drugs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_testing).
morninj··on Skinny Puppy demands royalties from US govt for using their music in Guantanamo
> No, your rights to use copyrighted content under the law are zero (excluding fair use). No, your rights to use copyrighted content under the law are zero (excluding fair use).

No. You can "perform" the work as long as the performance is not "public." For instance, watching a DVD on your laptop by yourself at home is a "performance," but it's not public. This is a perfectly valid use of copyrighted content.

morninj··on Cellphone searches upon arrest allowed by Canada's top court
In the United States, evidence from an illegal search can't be used at trial. In Canada, the trial judge has the option to exclude illegally gathered evidence.
morninj··on Show HN: Code Words, a quarterly publication about programming
Looks great! It would be nice if I could subscribe by email.
morninj··on Nature makes all articles free to view
As soon as a link is shared, each person who learns the URL is potentially a "culprit."
morninj··on Nature makes all articles free to view
free to read in a proprietary screen-view format

Free, under our control.

morninj··on Nature makes all articles free to view
Their definition of "free" is interesting. Only paid subscribers can search for articles, and apparently others can view articles only if subscribers share links with them. For many purposes, articles might be "free" but still hidden from the public.
morninj··on The Next Chapter
The content owners would have to agree to license their works to Aereo.
morninj··on The Next Chapter
Copyright law forces cable companies to pay to retransmit content. According to the Supreme Court, Aereo is "substantially similar" to a cable system, so it's bound by the same requirements. Unfortunately for Aereo, it's not actually a cable company, so it can't participate in the compulsory licensing scheme.
morninj··on Copywrong
I can't tell if you agree or disagree. If current IP regimes are bad, that doesn't prove that IP itself is bad.
morninj··on Copywrong
> One of the most tragic ideas to evolve in this century is the idea of "intellectual property"--that you can own an idea for years, sometimes tens or hundreds of years.

(1) Intellectual property protections didn't originate in the twentieth century. In the U.S., they exist in the original text of the Constitution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause), and they existed in other countries well before then.

(2) Copyright doesn't protect ideas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea%E2%80%93expression_divide). The ideas underlying copyrighted works can be freely copied.

Of course, the duration of copyright protection has gotten completely out of control. But I think that should be attributed to the ability of copyright lobbyists to influence lawmakers, rather than to the idea of intellectual property itself.

morninj··on MakeMeASandwich.js

    if(process.platform !== 'win32'){
      if(process.env.USER !== "root"){
        console.log("What? Make it yourself.");
        process.exit();
      }
    }
from https://github.com/travist/makemeasandwich.js/blob/master/li...
morninj··on For Cinephiles, Netflix Is Less and Less an Option
> piracy has killed the market for new production runs of obscure films

Source?

morninj··on I was asked to crack a program in a job interview
> En-dashes have one use

Actually, the en dash has more than one use: http://cddc.uchicago.edu/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDash...

morninj··on The New Linode Cloud: SSDs, Double RAM and much more
What makes it lame?
morninj··on Your location history
It's possible that Google is telling the truth. The FTC is paying close attention, especially after the settlements in the Buzz and Safari cookie incidents. Deceptive data collection and use practices--like lying about having location data--would certainly trigger FTC enforcement.
morninj··on Should we still write Internet with a capital 'i'?
I just found an answer to this yesterday:

"An internet (lowercase “i”) is any collection of separate physical networks, interconnected by a common protocol, to form a single logical network. The Internet (uppercase “I”) is the worldwide collection of interconnected networks, which grew out of the original ARPANET, that uses Internet Protocol (IP) to link the various physical networks into a single logical network. In this book, both “internet” and “Internet” refer to networks that are interconnected by TCP/IP."

http://www.morninj.com/2012/03/internet-or-internet/

morninj··on Kill Hollywood? Let's fix politics instead: kill lobbying.
The problem isn't lobbying. The problem is the corruption that occurs when lawmakers grow dependent on campaign cash (much of which comes from those who lobby for wealthy interests).
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