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Hate to spam, but we are still waiting for our original shipment, we ordered from an additional source, so we'll have an overstock.

Available at our store at 15% off retail, here's the link below:

http://www.dragonmagicstore.com/dmostore.cgi?user_ action=detail&catalogno=PIO-AKI002D

Dragon Magic

The Government has conceded that yes, Video Games make kids smarter, but they also make them more violent. Therefore, a request has been sent to all schools, warning them of the possible criminal activity of those "smart" kids.

Dragon Magic

I'm sorry, but your protest does more harm than it ever could do good.

You're telling everyone to demand liberty and to hurt the companies. But then, you don't realize, or maybe you don't care, that you're breaking the law by copying and redistributing software that does not allow itself to be copied and redistributed. It's not going to hurt the company since they can just stick you and others in jail. And you'll be hurting the progress anyone could make to battle them that they're evil, because they'll help the media in painting the protestors as evil little thieves.

Plus, not paying taxes, that's just stupid. Why? You'll be thrown in jail quickly, and for what? Just not paying the government. No one will even notice you're not paying.

No, the best way to battle this, write your congressmen, or vote them out if they won't listen. If all else fails, run yourself!

Dragon Magic

I can tell you very firmly that this is absolutely incorrect with Network Solutions, and I'll tell you a little story that happened to me.

I first offered to purchase the .com to our domain (dragonmagic.com) from the original owner. He wasn't using it, and his site sat unupdated for over a year. He refused saying he may update it later.

Well, the domain was to expire May 3, 2000. And I sat and waited. His site never updated, and May 3, 2000, rolled around. Still was registered to him. In fact, about four months later, his hosting finally gave out, but his domain still showed in the Registry and at NSI.

Finally, in late June, 2001, that's well over a YEAR after it was going to expire, NSI returned that their database no longer had the domain, but it was still showing in the registry. I waited patiently some more, and saw that the registry hadn't updated for nearly a week on that bit of data.

Then, when I went to go check it the following day, it had been registered the previous week by a Hong Kong cybersquatter, who just sits on domains to resell them.

Apparently, they grab many domains that people have been looking for and waiting for them to expire. My guess, NSI is selling domain requests and these people go to the backorder query to reserve these domains in hopes of reselling them for big money.

Instead, we're building more sites, and only the main company site uses a .net. The rest are using .coms. Pissed me off, but what can you do when people just care about money and not about integrity?

P.S. If anyone wants to buy this domain and donate it to us, life-long cheap anime and gaming stuff await!

Dragon Magic

They arrested him under the DMCA, which means, he broke a Copyright (*cough* yeah right *cough*) law, not a patent law.

Dragon Magic

That the BoycottAdobe site is Made With Adobe GoLive (has button at the bottom as well). I mean:

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive 5">
<title>Boycott Adobe</title>

If you're going to boycott Adobe, why support their software in this manner? Using it would be okay, but remove the Generator tag and take that button off the site at least.

Dragon Magic

I'm not sure. When I applied for my debit card at two different banks, both of them required a credit card up front before I could get the debit card, even though I was over 18.

They said it was standard policy not to give debit cards out to those without credit cards.

Dragon Magic

Studies found that ads which take over your entire screen, play obnoxiously loud sounds, and force you to click on them to get access to the website to where you were going, have been found to be 100% more effective in getting traffic!

Actually, I find that with some ads, I am waiting for them to load their java and other crud, and while I go to click on a link, since the ad did not specify its size, when I click, suddenly there's the ad in its place, moving the link down the page. Oops. Count that as another click-through.

Dragon Magic

Visa has setup a way for teens and kids to get cards, where anyone can put more money on them. They're not exactly debit or credit cards, but they act in the same way.

Instead of handing your kid $10 a week in allowance, just tell Visa to add $10 a week on their card and take it off your card or out of your checking account.

The card's name is Visa Buxx, and their site is here: http://www.visabuxx.com/

This is why places like Adult Check, etc., are no longer viable. Any kid can now have his or her own credit card that would work fine, and they can be of any age. No need to steal them, no need to apply for them themselves...

So yes, 12 year old kids can go to the Big Brother Site and legally get an account to see into the bathroom or bedrooms of the show. Thanks, Visa!

Dragon Magic

That attitude is everywhere with some elitists. People who can rebuild a car from spare parts without needing to look at a book feel everyone should be able to take their own car into his garage and be able to fix it in less than five minutes. Anyone who can't is just dumb.

You get it with nearly anything. People who are fully knowledged in something, and have a chip on their shoulder, feel everyone should know something about it. So when you get what Taco described, people demanding support for Linux even though Linux still isn't a profitable operating system for many of the peripheral manufacturers. Since they know Linux well, everyone should, and therefore, there should be as much support for it as with Windows.

It's too bad, too, because without all this elitism people show on forums, and with more support and assistance with a smile, more people may migrate over, even to test it out. Systems are cheap, many have more than one computer in their houses, why not? But the demanding that there be support or you'll call the company names you used in seventh grade will just cause more harm to your operating system's PR, not only to the company, but to those who visit the forums for their new OS.

Who wants to keep Linux loaded when they see that people threaten companies because they won't support that OS? Watch how many get scared that this may happen to everything and get Windows back on the system. Double edged sword in more ways than one.

Dragon Magic

But, don't patents become public domain if they're not enforced? If it was granted, even if it were only filed, in 1985, there's been over a decade of public-knowledge uses of their patent they never sued to enforce. Wouldn't this make the patent unenforceable now?

Dragon Magic

People may think that this is nothing, but remember how adamant Microsoft has been with its licensing terms and how OEMs had to conform to stricter guidelines. Allowing them to remove Windows icons and programs from the desktop and system as they please when they ship their products, is actually a bigger step than some may think.

MS may be trying to defer suspicion of something greater, but for now, they're proving that they realize they don't have the hold on the market that they once had, and that people, like Big Blue, will just as easily jump ship and promote other software when Microsoft demands too much.

I'm waiting for these steps to get to a more open licensing of Windows, so we'd see other companies getting licenses to distribute their own versions of Windows which are 100% compatible with Microsoft Windows.

Dragon Magic

And a building made from the same name is not a dwelling?

Dragon Magic

I know the ol' IANAL, but... But please, people, as much as Trademark and Copyright law is discussed here, can you please get the gist of these laws before spouting off nonsense?

You cannot register a trademark name after it is in common use and them successfully sue for infringement the people who were using it before you. Therefore, if you register a trademark on Wordprocessor and tried to sue anyone using this term, you'd not only lose the case, but lose your trademark if you had registered it.

Just because a name is obvious, does not mean it is not trademarkable. Trademarks do come from the patent office, but are not the same thing. Any name, word, phrase or imagery is trademarkable so long as it represents a trade or traded item, and is not currently in use by another similar company. So Adobe's trademark on Illustrator, though obvious, is also legit and perfectly legal. They can ask people not to call their software's name "Illustrator", but they can't stop people from saying their software is great for illustrators.

And you cannot dilude people's trademarks by comparing them. For example, you cannot market Coke as the Intelligent Pepsi. It doesn't work that way. You can say that Coke has a better taste than Pepsi, if you have any reports that say so, but you cannot say that Coke is the red-canned Pepsi, etc.

So therefore, KDE cannot name their illustrator-like software, "The KDE Illustrator" in any fashion. Leave this to the reviewers.

Dragon Magic

No, you can trademark common names. Ford is a trademark (and a passing), Apple is a trademark (and a fruit), Adobe is a trademark (and a dwelling)...

But trademarks that common can only be associated with a class of trade. For Adobe, Illustrator covers computer software. That means someone can release a trademarked item for a supply of painting aids, like brushes, with the name Illustrator, too.

It's when the name becomes unique, like "Microsoft", that the trademarked name itself is hard to trademark again by another company.

So, from trademark law, Adobe's full in their right to kill the name Killustrator, because it is similar to their trademark. However, why not rename it to Killware or something else? Make it unique enough, then Adobe has nothing but hopes that their money can help them win.

Dragon Magic

Remember, this just says that the breakup was unwarranted for the tying in of their browser. They're still going to get reprimanded by the same court who broke them up. And, with their Smart Tags, .NET, and many other technologies made to focus more on forcing people to comply with Windows/Microsoft standards, they may see themselves back in court with the threat of a breakup again.

Dragon Magic

Get a listing of who voted FOR this bill, who helped draft it, and then remember their names when it comes time to vote.

All votes of bills issued into state or federal Congress is public. Don't like how a bill is written and hurts your freedom? Make sure people know who voted for it, and make sure they don't win again next election.

Dragon Magic

Again, why should people be forced to speak a language? Obviously, if a business does not wish to cater to French speaking people, they should not be forced to do so. They obviously do not want the business of the French speakers, or may not need it. So what would forcing French into their business do, besides prove that French needs legislation to keep it alive?

If a language, culture or affluence is losing because another language, culture or affluence is greater in acceptance, then it's either time to let go, or setup a historical district (like Colonial Williamsburgh or Amish Country here), in which people can still learn about these with unfettered access, without laws.

But pushing people to always be a certain way through laws, for culture or language, is Fascist, not protecting a culture or language. The language and culture should change and modify itself for how its masses see fit, not how a Government demands it.

That's what I'm missing. Why this is accepted and not fought.

Dragon Magic

I'm missing something that's been throughout this entire thread, when people argue in favour of this decision. Since when is it that internet sites do not have the right to choose what language they want to have their sites in, that they must make it French accessible, but yet Quebeccers have every right to be able to access the site in French?

Pardon me, but it's the business's decision to whom they cater, not being forced by the Government. Just as someone pointed out, what if a bookstore with only English Language books, for all those who wanted to learn English or knew English and wanted to read, setup shop there? Why would they have to cater to the French speakers, who probably would not want to shop there as frequently as English speakers? Forcing them to spend more money on something they won't use is just hurting the business, which will hurt the government with lost taxes.

Any Government which legislates mandatory restrictions on how people can speak, deal business, and live, to the point that it has to be this certain way and no other, has come down to the point of being a Fascist State. And that is not a State of which I would be proud.

Sure, the US Constitution makes exceptions where the general public or others may be harmed by exchange of words or print, but that's an extreme of harm. In Quebec, if you harm even the French Language or culture, or just not make everything about your business accessible for French speakers, you've done this imaginary harm.

Wake up, Quebeccers, you're a Fascist state when you let this happen. Stand up and demand that they stop with the iron grip, or you'll soon find that the DMCA, which sneaked into our laws, will be a wonderful law compared to what gets introduced for you.

Dragon Magic

Oftentimes, if an order through our store is fishy, the billing contact will be addressed. Since there is no overnight delivery available, deliveries can be delayed. We don't use the phone number so much as the mailing address, or the credit card company.

Online stores should be more paranoid about orders which have different billing and shipping addresses. Yes, people send out gifts, but then again, if they're shipping out a gift and you contact them, then you'll know whether it's a true order or a scam.

Dragon Magic

People are complaining that companies should stop trying to push the envelope and think about the people who can't get better bandwidth. That's a very selfish statement to make, since more people everyday are getting faster services, or finding the means to get faster services.

There are cities near here with less than 400 people with cable service because the cable provider is Time/Warner, and they already have the fibre lines down, and these towns are at least an hour or two from any city with a building taller than five stories.

You'd be surprised how much begging and pleading, and pressure from game manufacturers, will go. But if you're serious enough that you want to halt online gaming's progress because you can't get faster service online, then you should be serious enough about your gaming to move.

Dragon Magic

Well, if you think about it, most games have made the push to force computer manufacturers to make better and cheaper hardware so that newer games could be produced. You can get CPUs now for under $200 which will play any game on the market presently, video cards for about $150 that will do the same . . . And it used to be that memory alone would cost you that much, now it's down to under $40 in some markets.

I say game manufacturers should keep pushing the technology and try to make analog modems obsolete. Yeah, so many people can't get high speed access, but in the US you don't really have room to complain, now that there is satellite access, and DSL and Cable access in more than 400 metropolitan areas. Simply move if your Telco or Cable provider wants to wait, and they don't want to hear you complain every day.

As for those who live in other countries, well, again, beg your Telco and Cable providers, or move, if you're that serious about games that you want them to stay stagnate.

I'd rather see Doom III require at least a fractional T-1 Line to play multiplayer. Many will hate me for saying this, but imagine how fast TelCos will lay lines knowing that over 1,000,000 copies of the game will sell on the first day.

This might also be a good time for game manufacturers to start contacting the proper companies to let them know how valuable faster lines would be.

Just a couple cents.

Dragon Magic

Since CueCat and other sources are out there, why not create a program where people can scan in a CD's UPC, have that become the band/album name, then list out the tracks after the number?

For example, the song Urban Suicide from the band Dink could be found on napster at 7-2438-30333-2-4_05.mp3. They would have to sit there and ban different types of UPC numbering, etc, to keep people from passing these around.

What's more, there's plenty of databases already up where people can find UPC codes in existence, so it shouldn't be hard to find an interface to pull out a certain album's UPC number and have a client search Napster for it.

It's just a thought. I don't like the fact that the RIAA is trying to tell us that a band name like "James" will be banned from passing through its servers, or their hit song "Laid". I mean, what if James Rutherford's country song "Laid Off" is passed around Napster because he wants to share it? (I don't believe this guy exists, but just for example). Where does the RIAA get off telling Napster, et. al., that he has no right to do so?

Dragon Magic

The FBI will start renaming anything with a slightly offensive term in its name. We'll soon no longer have the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) division of the FBI, if this continues. All three of those are terms which can get you expelled from school for even mentioning in a book report, so can't have a name like that. We should start naming them what they really are, the FBI's Home Excavation & Relocation Department. They did such a wonderful job with places like Camp Davidian, Elian Gonzalez, etc. Such a fitting name!

What's more, no annoying confusion that they deal with those evil things. You'd never know that they were masking their true identities!

Now, off to work, and away from stupid jokes.

Dragon Magic

But recently, KSU's security had made a purchase of M-16s. The administration claimed that it was necessary to help maintain order in case of any problems which may arise.

The administration for nearly 30 years failed to closed the parking lot where the students from the massacre had fallen, even after protest of students and alumni. They finally, I believe in 1998, erected memorials for those who died at the spots where they had died.

I guess their inability to comprehend just how horrible this act was is still apparent. They finally cancelled the orders for the M-16s, after it was pointed out to them often that there hasn't been a violent protest or affair where students had ever had guns in Kent State's history.

And now they're confiscating computers of students who were playing a game. The administration feels that playing a fantasy game and having a page where you talk about defeating enemies in such a game is similar to those students back in 1970 who had those guns firing at the police. Oh, wait, it never happened that way.

Excuse the rant, but since I live close to KSU, I often hear of the extremely asinine policies and decisions the administrators constantly make and saying they are to protect from things which never happened, on the possibility they may happen some day in the future.

Dragon Magic

Either it's just the fact that a computer guru got up in front of buyers and other people of the industry and added colourful language every sentence, or they just find the word "fuck" funny.

Who knows? But I do agree, the only meat to the story was the new Titanium and the digital capture to disc standard for the DV Macs. Why in the world nearly the entire first page was devoted to Jobs swearing, who knows?

Both Wired and Slashdot felt the need to make that bigger news than an all-digital video presence in the consumer computer market.

Dragon Magic

Wasn't the internet developed and released from the CERN, which was on the border between Switzerland and France? There you would have German, French, Italian, minor English, but no Spanish, really. And the development of many of the materials on the Internet, including applications, hardware and designs have been mainly from an English origin.

It's not only Spanish which is being "destroyed" by having to integrate English words of "jargon" for technology, but so many more languages. Since World War II, Japanese has been adding quite a few words of English into their language, sometimes even replacing words they already had with English words.

It's a little arrogant to ask everyone to make everything accessible to everyone else. Instead of asking that people start integrating other languages into the internet, or allow for more foreign jargon instead of English words, why not just develop a Spanish network, or maybe a Hindi one?

The World Wide Web, as it is, is mainly English dominant. This is because most of the users online come from English speaking countries and locales. If someone just doesn't like that fact, get more non-English speakers online and have them develop non-English applications, etc.

* tries to excuse the rant, but hears often about things like this, where people want something established to conform, instead of themselves conforming to it.

Dragon Magic

Actually, Nader wasn't stealing votes from Gore. Nader, as well as major Republicans, were out getting MORE people to vote. They weren't pulling votes from general voters, as much as they were getting more and more people, especially absentees, to vote when they normally wouldn't. I doubt the outcome would be much different without Nader. There would just be fewer votes all around.

Dragon Magic

Joe Lieberman won his seat, he's still got a job, but come January, Al Gore will be without a job, if the Electoral College votes as projected.

However, it is rumoured that he could take up the presidency at his alma mater, Harvard. Anyone feel this would be a much better move for him to accept an academic role for future leaders, rather than attempt to run again in 2004 where he may lose even more footage for not holding a political office?

Dragon Magic

Why is it that websites are being shutdown for swapping votes? I agree that if it is against the law, the law should be challenged if it is not appreciated or working. However, the fact that a website which gives an avenue for people in different states to exchange votes shouldn't be considered the problem, nor is it a California decision.

IANAL, but wouldn't an interstate agreement be federal, not local? And I'd appreciate someone in the Congress or the Presidency to acknowledge that the internet is an international network, and just because a machine is in California, or New York, or wherever, doesn't mean that this is where it really is online. Online, you can be anywhere, reachable nearly anywhere.

Just a couple pennies I had laying around. I think the ACLU was right, but it's their burden to show why it's right.

Dragon Magic

It's not growing up that they truly want. Believe me, I've seen all types throughout this country, from running dealers' booths at anime cons and other cons where anime has been sold, to being a guest and reselling it mail order. I've seen people as young as 5 come up and buy stuff, and people as old as 70 purchase anime. That's right, 70.

Over in Japan, it's not really cartoons like we figure it. In fact, businessmen, scientists, and many others will read manga in public. You can see it often on subways and trains, even more than standard newspapers or books. And anime is shown in primetime on a couple major channels in Japan. There are merchandise stores throughout Toukyou, even a Miyazaki store in the Toukyou Tower, I've been told. This is not something which would happen if it were simply for kids.

However, the typical mainstream American only sees what the typical mainstream American media really shows. These are the same people who think hacking's bad because it causes great harm. The same people who have no idea what UCITA or the DMCA is, because it's not discussed on the news. People from Slashdot know what these really are because they keep up with them, so why is it that Trolls on here often think that Anime = Cartoons or Anime = Naked schoolgirls having tentacle sex?

Well, maybe not that far. But Taco's suggestion of watching Blue Sub #6 is seconded here. It's a great show, really detailed, nice soundtrack and acting, and a good story. In fact, if you really ask a true anime fan, and not some obsessed otaku/fanboy/fangirl, what good anime is there, you'll find a great number of titles that are worth picking up.

And most of them have no sex and aren't for kids. Princess Mononoke, Laputa and Nausicaa, all by Miyazaki Hayao, are great films that probably a majority of Slashdot would love, and would be unsuitable for kids because they'd just go over their heads.

So please, don't troll Anime. I can understand if you just don't like some aspects of Anime, but since Anime is just the Japanese word for animation, it's like saying you hate live action because of a couple shows you saw you hated.

Dragon Magic

Lame is thinking that everyone has to be open and completely fair. Last time I saw, no one has been forced to put an AOL CD into their PC or Mac and load up the software to use the internet. There are far many more ISPs out there. MSN, as much as people hate MS anymore, is still competition. Juno, Mindspring, many many many more.

So what that AOL wants to make itself its own homepage and not let you change it? You can always change your ISP.

Dragon Magic

I mean, my school system wanted to bring in dogs to check lockers for drug items. Randomly, too. They claimed that lockers were the property of the schools, and as such, the school had the right to search them as they pleased.

The drug testing was a notion as well. Saying that kids while in the schools were the responsibility of the schools and they could remove anyone who would be too burdensome.

I dunno whether your comment was meant to be funny, but mine was pretty serious with what they did. My only question is, Don't the schools belong to the people? So the lockers would then be property of the public, not the schools, and if the public is going to school there and want to use them for drug hideouts, well, the schools have to oblige.

Not promoting such usage, but when will the US government learn that it's a government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people, not our mother and father who tells us how things will be. Time to remake our government, don't you think? Or at least wake them up this next election?

Dragon Magic

DARE when I grew up in high school was pretty much cops coming in and saying, "Drugs are bad. Stay away from them." That was it. No presentations on how they were bad, no ways to know how to escape peer pressure, nothing.

And drugs were fairly uncommon, but noticeable, in my school. I saw kids trading marijuana, acid and speed quite often. Sometimes when you'd pass a bathroom during a class, it would smell of smoke, either cigarettes or marijuana.

I think DARE needs a good rehaul. It needs to take the time to educate not only students, but teachers and parents, on how to resist the "bad drugs", and how to make the choices of your life.

To me, if you want to grow your own plants for your own consumption, more power to you bud! If you want to grow cocao plants to powder your nose, or hemp to smoke away some worries, whatever, you should be fully allowed.

Someone coming up to you saying "Don't, it's bad." isn't going to change someone's behaviour or choice at all. Even someone saying "Drugs kill!" won't make much difference in today's society.

We need better education as to what REALLY drugs do (c'mon, is marijuana really a gateway drug or is peer pressure? Cocaine used to be used for a local anesthetic for eye surgery . . .). We don't need Mr. Cop, who already may have a bad rap because he just does his job and puts people in jail who ruin only their own lives or choose to do drugs in the sanctity of their own homes, telling us that what he says is the only way to go because he's the law.

Drugs, nudity and foul language are all bad things to show on television these days in the USA, and killing someone or beating them up with a 2x4 is perfectly acceptable primetime drama. We're really screwed up.

Sorry about the rant, I guess my tangents had too many points before they could revert to the circle again.

Dragon Magic

There's a road nearby here that is constantly under construction. It's about a two-mile stretch, but it's so busy, being a main throughway between two suburbs and the main city, and being the main road to the industrial parks, that it's heavily traveled by many trucks. It's always under construction so much, that the sign which was erected several years ago for "Road Construction Ahead" has a permanent pole, and is ruined from all the road salt and weathering. Still today, it's got a portion under construction. They'll never "complete" it.

Dragon Magic

Too true... Maybe, in my morning haze, I should have phrased, "The vocal opinionated slashdotters". Then it would be more precise.

Not all, just it's so overwhelming it's become a stereotype.

Dragon Magic

Just like the one person who thought I said "Open Sores", was looking at me like I had just belched during church. She couldn't figure out why I'd support lepracy or something.

Just a second chain of weird humour based on this. Maybe it's been said too often already?

Dragon Magic

Great, now all we need is a "Linux Country"! Seriously, think about it! It's great and all that Linux is really starting to move up in the popularity, and that there are commercial apps coming out, but it's not good enough yet.

Hear me out . . . Microsoft's Windows is only popular because its ease of use, its dominance in the market and its number of available titles. Walk into a Best Buy or a CompUSA, you see aisle after aisle of commerical Windows product.

Linux? Well, all I really see at these places are the OS distros and maybe a couple utilities or Corel WordPerfect Office Suite. The Best Buy here has only one four-foot (just over a metre for the Non-American-System people) section with five shelves for Linux, and probably twelve aisles of Windows products (mainly games).

For Linux really to have some power in the same market as Windows, and make it more popular, it has to be the three things Windows already is. Ease of use: Well, last I saw, Debian and Red Hat were fairly easy to use. Maybe there are more already. Dominance? Well, as a server OS, it does fairly well. As a desktop or business solution, it's still got a little while to go. And number of available titles? Sure, Open Source is great, and free software is better, but the only people who are developing these are developing them because they want to, not to really make a living.

How do we remedy these? Well, open a dedicated store! Linux Country! Really. Walk inside, have nice black cases all around with white spots (not those stores with the white boxes and black spots), notebooks which are preinstalled with your favourite distribution, software as far as the eye can see . . .

Well, it's a dream. But if someone really wanted to invest in it, would it be that difficult of a dream? If people could make money off Linux developing the games, software and utilities, they would. Though people on slashdot often don't think software should be commercialised, it's one of the only ways to feasibly make Linux and Linux software more dominant.

In this fantasy store, we'd have all these titles. We'd have pretty plush penguin Tuxes. We'd have training courses so even the computer-illiterate will be untarring and bashing and telnetting!

It's feasible. But then again, it was feasible fifty years ago we'd have flying cars. It's 2000, and the only flying my car will be doing is if I get tired of it breaking down and I drive it down to the local gorge.

Just a little daydreaming on my part. Don't mind me.

Dragon Magic

Those Who Hunt Elves (ADV Films)
Rurouni Kenshin (TV, Media Blasters/AnimeWorks; OAV [Samurai X], ADV Films)
Jubei-chan (Pioneer)

The article claims that the company is one of only two who can crack passwords from clients or for criminal cases, or even from ex-employees who left companies and changed all the passwords. It may just be possible that they cracked passwords to get into all these porn sites. Or they could have just asked to be let in to inventory. Who knows?

Dragon Magic

And tomorrow, it will all be obsolete. I can put a server up today at an IP and domain, then the next day ship it off to another state or country to give to someone else to host.

Or I can just decide that my FTP server needs to house jazz tunes tomorrow instead of the rap tunes today.

Who knows? The net changes that anyone who spent the time "mapping" it mapped it while it was changing, and after compiling the map, has realized that much of it is already outdated. Look at the search engines and how often a 404 creeps up, or even server not found.

No way they can know definitely attachments and files. It changes too fast too often.

Dragon Magic

It's not the record companies asking for the royalties. I shouldn't have tried to be creative with the flow. The companies are part of the publishers, and are already getting paid.

It's the RIAA claiming royalties from webcasts, but as stated, the people who work on it are already getting paid, and the RIAA isn't doing anything about the webcasting except wanting money.

Dragon Magic

Well, it's a month old, yes, but it's also the only privacy promise on their site. If there's an admendment, I doubt they're going to remove an entire customer service allowance just to please a few partners. Most people don't even call the numbers to opt out, only those really concerned with their privacy and information and know it's possible to opt out.

When they update the new one, it'll probably still have the toll-free information. Well, hopefully more than probably.

Dragon Magic

Summary of TiVo's Privacy Promise to You

TiVo knows how important personal privacy is to you, so we have established strict policies to help protect the privacy of your personal information. In summary, we promise that:

No one outside your home, not even the TiVo staff or any of TiVo's computer systems, will ever have access to any of your personal viewing information without your prior consent. Your preferences are personal. The TiVo Service has no way of knowing what shows you have rated with "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down." If you don't want even your anonymous viewing information (information that does not identify you or your household) used in any way, simply tell us by calling our toll-free telephone number (1-877-FOR-TiVo).

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Dragon Magic

I read through the patent, and it's more of a method of TV applications than customer service. It apparently maintains that a client will continue to send data to the server to maintain a connection, much like dedicated LANs, but it never says anything about collecting customer data for expediting shopping information.

The only prior art I can see is the business method of a client connecting to a server repeatedly. I don't think it will have a chance to invalidate Bezos' patent.

Dragon Magic

If they're going to collect the royalties, they should do something to earn it. The publishers and the composers, singers, writers and musicians get money, and they do nearly all the work on them. The record companies don't create anything for webcasting, so why should they earn anything?

If they want royalties, I say they should help market and produce webcast materials. Send out that CD of the new music, include some free CDs to give away, maybe some tee shirts, frisbees, whatever floats their boats, and if a webcaster uses it, they should pay the royalties back to the record label.

But finding a loophole in the laws to collect for nothing? And they say they're working on behalf of the artists, who are already earning money. Shame shame, RIAA. Caught in another lie?

Dragon Magic

Instead of thinking of it as the analog-version of an internet technology, think of it, as the bill supposedly states, as the analog-version of the business method.

So it's not one-click technology... Bezos' patent is instead one of using a way to keep track of a repeat customer using a database so that the person can just shop there again and again by just choosing what they want to buy and using that way of keeping track to supply the shipping and billing info. Bezos uses a cookie for the digital world. In the analog world, businesses use Customer Numbers or Account Numbers, and the databases are either real computer databases or folders with all that customer's info.

A method to find the best price by comparison shopping online? I seem to remember that one can call AAA and get similar info for hotels.

Again, don't think of it as "How is this computer technology similar to something in the analog world", but as "How is this online business method similar to something in the analog business world"? Then you'll easily see where we can pull prior art.

Dragon Magic

Here's the Patent

The frightful thing is that many other softwares already use this similar method. I remember using NetObjects Fusion Authoring Server to do pretty much what this patent does.

Also, this is another old news story. Emedicine announced this back in early August on their site, from the news postings.

Dragon Magic

Well, not really. But here comes something:

Whose brainstorm was it to take the lowest-ranking Star Trek spinoff series without any hopes of having a movie deal and terrible, nonlinear storylines, and putting it into an engine that takes a serious amount of bandwidth to play tight online anyways, so that only those who have something better than a standard dialup can play it as it was meant to be played?

Don't get me wrong, about time there was a good Star Trek anything since "First Contact", and game since... well, whenever. But still, why Voyager? Why a 3D adventure/action game (as it seems to be from the pictures)?

I guess we'll all have to wait and see when it arrives. I'd rather Alice over this, however. Not because I like those books better than Star Trek, but because I think there's more of a storyline and environment than ST:V has ever had.

*rant off* Okay, thanks for that soapbox.

Dragon Magic

Sure, I send /. many articles... I get early press releases for some animation and sci-fi releases and distributions, as well keep up with some of the YRO stuff. But every single thing I've submitted is rejected. As well, others I know who post to /. also get rejected.

It's not that the articles are bad, it's just that they don't fit the /. recent theme of Big Business is bad, Patents suck, Microsoft is crap, RIAA/MPAA are evil vicious people and Politicians and Media mark us all as bad people . . .

Again, this is all just grouping a lot of things together, but at least at K5 people choose what they want to see, and if they've seen it before they can kill it. Here, we're at the whim of the very few with those agendas, and often without looking to see the timeliness of the articles, nor whether it's been posted already.

Dragon Magic