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I haven't seen a significant growth of that -- in fact, just the opposite. I've seen more and more users who, as much as they might grumble, are forced to use Windows, at least some of the time -- myself included.

Being forced to use Windows != being forced to use Vista. And that being forced, wasn't Wine breaking the lock-in?

That being the official one. I don't recall if they had deals with others, like YouTube. I'm sure it was on YouTube anyway, but the legal way to watch the Olympics did require Silverlight.

That's wierd, I could have sworn that the official page was fules by Flash~: http://en.beijing2008.cn/

Indeed. It's also the problem with Apple -- it is a tool for exactly what Apple lets it be used for.

Same goes for your microwave... It's a tool.

That is: You buy a new one, you turn it on, you try to plug in your camera... only to find that Apple removed FIreWire in this version. You now either have to bring the computer back and buy a much more expensive Macbook Pro, or you have to buy a new camera.

A friend of mine has a TV tuner card and the IR sensor for his remote is a serial port that is also not supported by his 'PC' Intel motherboard. Seriously, your point?

The larger problem there is, most consumers don't always realize it's choice they're wanting. For example, just today, I saw a woman squinting over some tiny text in a webpage viewed on Internet Explorer, on a high-resolution monitor. I showed her Firefox, and ctrl plus/minus.

That's awesome adn also doable with the GUI zoomer in IE7 and beyond (bottom-right corner). Of course you meant choice, but you're generalising.

The Blue E == The Internet, to them.

No, the Blue E is just the mash of pixels on their screen they need to click to get on the internet. People are well aware they can also 'internet' on their mobile phones (commercials everywhere).

If their computer gets viruses, it must mean they didn't have strong enough antivirus -- or just that it happens to everyone, nothing they could do about it.

This is also not true because people in the US have seen Apple commercials like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHFy6egYcUg

Beijing 2008

Interesting that the only example supplied with a link to the appropriate site uses the country TLD. Chicago2016.us was registered in 2006 and looks like it is parked. Maybe they should go after that one first.

And exactly where is this trademark that is infringed by this domain?

According to TFA, "<city> <year>" combos have become a common method of referring to a specific instance of the Olympics. e.g. Syndney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, etc. Such naming has all the trappings of a protected mark.

This fellow registered the domains in 2004. Which was AFTER the practice had become commonplace among Olympic cities.

begin boycotting all things china. maybe they'll figure it out eventually ... and grow up.

We've been failing miserably at boycotting China-related stuff right now. Too important to strut America's National Wang to care about little things like human rights violations.

Then again we've got to remember that no official table exists and it's not in the Olympic spirit. Personally, I think an official one should be made just to settle things once and for all. It's all well and good saying people shouldn't rank the countries, but they do and it affects both tactics and funding.

There is an official one, the IOC (International Olympic Comittee). http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml

Don't know why but i'm not surprised the US is different from the rest of the world...

There's a reasonably official one at the official site: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml

It has an extra column, rank by total medals, for those searching for some redemption because of sheer numbers of participants. Aussies don't mind the American sorting though, as it puts us fourth :)

The official rank is always sorted by the amount of gold medals, i guess because they want USA to be on top they go for the alternate "Rank by total medals". Still, you can check the real rank and the rank by total on the official website.

And how much would this technology cost in Canadian dollars?

Cause we're in the market right now.

You're not alone, I've also decided to boycott the Genocidolympics.

These companies have also lost, or will not get, me as a customer: Sponsors of the Bejing 2008 Olympic Games.
(Except for UPS and Volkswagen, where I have no choice, or it just is not feasible to switch.)
I will not be renewing my VISA, and will be switching to Mastercard as soon as it expires.

If you go and look at the Olympics' own figures, they state that the numbers are those 'who have access' to see the Athens Olympics are 3.9 billion, and then watch 12 hours of coverage. Both figures are simply not credible but go unchallenged.

I am sorry about calling you a troll. Rather I should have said that your post (rather than yourself) seemed like trolling. It didn't seem to me that "Who is going to watch the olympics?" was a rethoric question. You stated below that "content that nobody's going to view". If you were serious then you are very far removed from reality. You can look at some of the numbers for the Athens 2004 olympics here http://en.beijing2008.cn/16/8/article211928716.shtml

Didn't you get the memo? It's terrorists these days, not communists. Communists are providing our bread and circuses these days. I know it's hard to keep up, but believe me, we've always been at war with Oceania.

So what will happen when the 2008 Olympics start ?

Cute game - looks like they've removed it from the Olympics website now?

http://en.beijing2008.cn/funpage/game/clouds/ - just show front page's content.

Google cache shows some more detail:

http://66.102.9.104/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fen.beijing2008.cn%2Ffunpage%2Fgame%2Fclouds%2F

"Fuwa fights the winter clouds"

"Shameware" anybody? ;)

Looks like the game has been removed. It's no longer on their games menu either.

Sadly, the wayback machine doesn't have a copy and while you can see the old games menu in google's cache, google didn't cache the actual game (which was at http://en.beijing2008.cn/upload/e-games/fuwa_02_e.swf)

Looks like the game has been removed. It's no longer on their games menu either.

Sadly, the wayback machine doesn't have a copy and while you can see the old games menu in google's cache, google didn't cache the actual game (which was at http://en.beijing2008.cn/upload/e-games/fuwa_02_e.swf)

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

If that's the case then several other people should feel "flattered". What I haven't seen posted anywhere is that this isn't some kind of isolated coincidental instance of theft. The creator of Snow Day has a blog entry in which he talks about the theft and points out that several (original) other (original) games have been stolen from others. They can all be found on the Olympics Fun Page. How many others besides these three are rip-offs?

(As an aside, the stolen games are all significantly inferiors to the originals. You'd think if they were going to go to the effort of taking another person's game they would at least improve it. That said, I personally found Winter Bells' graphics and music strangely addictive. My high score right now is around 120,000. Anyone else? :)

Normally this wouldn't wouldn't amount to all that much as I'm sure this kind of "borrowing" happens on a regular basis, however the hypocrisy in this astounds me. As others have pointed out, the Beijing Olympics committee has been merciless over infringement of their trademarked/copyrighted materials (including the name Olympics). Ironically they even have a form where you can snitch on people that are guilty of infringement. I urge all of Slashdot to go there and give them an earful.

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

If that's the case then several other people should feel "flattered". What I haven't seen posted anywhere is that this isn't some kind of isolated coincidental instance of theft. The creator of Snow Day has a blog entry in which he talks about the theft and points out that several (original) other (original) games have been stolen from others. They can all be found on the Olympics Fun Page. How many others besides these three are rip-offs?

(As an aside, the stolen games are all significantly inferiors to the originals. You'd think if they were going to go to the effort of taking another person's game they would at least improve it. That said, I personally found Winter Bells' graphics and music strangely addictive. My high score right now is around 120,000. Anyone else? :)

Normally this wouldn't wouldn't amount to all that much as I'm sure this kind of "borrowing" happens on a regular basis, however the hypocrisy in this astounds me. As others have pointed out, the Beijing Olympics committee has been merciless over infringement of their trademarked/copyrighted materials (including the name Olympics). Ironically they even have a form where you can snitch on people that are guilty of infringement. I urge all of Slashdot to go there and give them an earful.

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

If that's the case then several other people should feel "flattered". What I haven't seen posted anywhere is that this isn't some kind of isolated coincidental instance of theft. The creator of Snow Day has a blog entry in which he talks about the theft and points out that several (original) other (original) games have been stolen from others. They can all be found on the Olympics Fun Page. How many others besides these three are rip-offs?

(As an aside, the stolen games are all significantly inferiors to the originals. You'd think if they were going to go to the effort of taking another person's game they would at least improve it. That said, I personally found Winter Bells' graphics and music strangely addictive. My high score right now is around 120,000. Anyone else? :)

Normally this wouldn't wouldn't amount to all that much as I'm sure this kind of "borrowing" happens on a regular basis, however the hypocrisy in this astounds me. As others have pointed out, the Beijing Olympics committee has been merciless over infringement of their trademarked/copyrighted materials (including the name Olympics). Ironically they even have a form where you can snitch on people that are guilty of infringement. I urge all of Slashdot to go there and give them an earful.

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

If that's the case then several other people should feel "flattered". What I haven't seen posted anywhere is that this isn't some kind of isolated coincidental instance of theft. The creator of Snow Day has a blog entry in which he talks about the theft and points out that several (original) other (original) games have been stolen from others. They can all be found on the Olympics Fun Page. How many others besides these three are rip-offs?

(As an aside, the stolen games are all significantly inferiors to the originals. You'd think if they were going to go to the effort of taking another person's game they would at least improve it. That said, I personally found Winter Bells' graphics and music strangely addictive. My high score right now is around 120,000. Anyone else? :)

Normally this wouldn't wouldn't amount to all that much as I'm sure this kind of "borrowing" happens on a regular basis, however the hypocrisy in this astounds me. As others have pointed out, the Beijing Olympics committee has been merciless over infringement of their trademarked/copyrighted materials (including the name Olympics). Ironically they even have a form where you can snitch on people that are guilty of infringement. I urge all of Slashdot to go there and give them an earful.

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

If that's the case then several other people should feel "flattered". What I haven't seen posted anywhere is that this isn't some kind of isolated coincidental instance of theft. The creator of Snow Day has a blog entry in which he talks about the theft and points out that several (original) other (original) games have been stolen from others. They can all be found on the Olympics Fun Page. How many others besides these three are rip-offs?

(As an aside, the stolen games are all significantly inferiors to the originals. You'd think if they were going to go to the effort of taking another person's game they would at least improve it. That said, I personally found Winter Bells' graphics and music strangely addictive. My high score right now is around 120,000. Anyone else? :)

Normally this wouldn't wouldn't amount to all that much as I'm sure this kind of "borrowing" happens on a regular basis, however the hypocrisy in this astounds me. As others have pointed out, the Beijing Olympics committee has been merciless over infringement of their trademarked/copyrighted materials (including the name Olympics). Ironically they even have a form where you can snitch on people that are guilty of infringement. I urge all of Slashdot to go there and give them an earful.

Just searched the official Beijing 2008 site for "censorship", aptly returned nothing. Searching on "Human rights" had a few results, the following page on the paralympics caught my eye:

"Training in advocacy and human rights starts successfully

Today, a training for Paralympic leaders in advocacy and human rights has started in Seoul, Korea.

Organized by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in collaboration with Landmine Survivors Network and Rehabilitation International, a total of 28 participants from 16 countries, including Paralympic athletes, are currently defining and approaching advocacy as well as discussing human rights and the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities."
http://en.beijing2008.cn/paralympic/news/news/n214200482.shtml
So there is *some* peripheral human rights work underway, in the context of disability issues. IMHO this is valuable in its own right, and the principles of advocacy, campaigning and lobbying are more widely applicable.

Interesting to note that this work is taking place outside China.

I hate to imagine what will happen if he fails. My money is on him becoming the Chinese Olympics Symbol