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CEO, CIO, CTO, etc. are not acronyms. They're just abbreviations. An acronym is an abbreviation that also fits within the phonotactic structure of a language so as to be pronounceable (e.g. "SHIT" for "Specialized High-Intensity Training[?]" or "INDOT" for "Indiana Department of Transportation").
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

It would be more useful to be able to do something like playing GTK Tetris while your new distro is installing.

Not Tetris. The Tetris Company has not yet licensed the TETRIS® trademark for use on a UNIX® system or clone. This didn't stop tetriscloners from doing their job though; they simply changed the name to something like "Bricks 2000", "Bedter", "Quadra", or "Tetanus".

If you really want to impress the sheeple[?], use the TOD engine. With features from The New Tetris, Quadra, and Tetripz, plus split-screen support and cross-platform compatibility thanks to the Allegro library, it's sure to impress.

i agree with you completely about the kids thing. now the Max Headroom world of "illegal off switches" on televisions doesn't seem that funny anymore.

by the way, there are some organized folks as worried about corporate control as you (we) are. i'd encourage people to pay a visit to Adbusters. their print magazine is good, too.

Indeed, a language that did bounds checking on arrays (and completely didn't support pointers) could have avoided this problem

Pointers are necessary for vector support, which is one of two conditions necessary for Turing completeness[?] (the other is conditionals). If you can't point into an array, you can't move the head over the tape.

If by "pointers" you meant "pointer arithmetic," on the other hand, I see your point. The Java and Scheme languages do not support pointer arithmetic.

anything that says UNDER CONSTRUCTION

What if the site is about something else that's under construction, such as a software package? What would a building construction company do?

clear 1X1 pixel gifs used for spacing with alt tags that say "spacer"

I agree here. Ditch the spacers except in Netscape 4.x which can't render CSS; even then, a spacer's alt tag should be alt=""

don't use javascript to display text

How do you generate dynamic content if you aren't paying big bux0r$$$ for access to a cgi-bin folder? The only way is through client-side EcmaScript or Java technology.

websites that play music

So are you saying that web-based interfaces to the Napster service are unacceptable? Sometimes, the music is the content, but I see your point when the music is there just for flashturbation[?].

websites that try to determine your browser type and give you messages about needing a different browser - deal with what I have. You're in no position to require me to do anything.

Even piece-of-crash Nutscrape 4.x?

more than one animated gif on a page

I agree here. Animation should be used with moderation; even then, it should be done using PNGs and EcmaScript (or MNGs in 6.0 browsers), not GIFs.

I'd like to add one more: right-click traps[?]. See also the Right-Click Trap Shit List.

anything that says UNDER CONSTRUCTION

What if the site is about something else that's under construction, such as a software package? What would a building construction company do?

clear 1X1 pixel gifs used for spacing with alt tags that say "spacer"

I agree here. Ditch the spacers except in Netscape 4.x which can't render CSS; even then, a spacer's alt tag should be alt=""

don't use javascript to display text

How do you generate dynamic content if you aren't paying big bux0r$$$ for access to a cgi-bin folder? The only way is through client-side EcmaScript or Java technology.

websites that play music

So are you saying that web-based interfaces to the Napster service are unacceptable? Sometimes, the music is the content, but I see your point when the music is there just for flashturbation[?].

websites that try to determine your browser type and give you messages about needing a different browser - deal with what I have. You're in no position to require me to do anything.

Even piece-of-crash Nutscrape 4.x?

more than one animated gif on a page

I agree here. Animation should be used with moderation; even then, it should be done using PNGs and EcmaScript (or MNGs in 6.0 browsers), not GIFs.

I'd like to add one more: right-click traps[?]. See also the Right-Click Trap Shit List.

I hate to break it to you, but the only BLO hack was a social engineering one. No actual Barbies/GI Joes were actually hacked -- the entire thing was a hoax aided and abetted by a willing media who accepted the BLO video press releases without verifying the story.

It's too bad you didn't include a link to something verifying this info. A lot of fairly reputible sites contain BLO info and don't say anything about it being a fraud. These include www.syntac.net, www.everything2.com, and ®(TM)ark which claims to have funded the operation. (A quick Google search will turn up many, many more.)

Besides a couple of USENET postings, the only info I could find regarding the BLO being a myth was this article which says that the only myth is the myth of the incident being a myth.

Of course this is neither authoritative nor exhaustive and I'm sure we would all be wiser if you would reveal the source of your wisdom.

If you write your Occam's Razor[?] essay, please post it on Everything 2.

If you write your Occam's Razor[?] essay, please post it on Everything 2.

If you write your Occam's Razor[?] essay, please post it on Everything 2.

I maintain a list of web sites that use the infamous right-click trap[?]. Nissan.com goes into the shitlist in the next site update.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

"Lord of the Token Ring"

One MC to rule them all
One MC to find them
One MC to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them...

Mr. Bungle, Cirith Ungol
I kick the shit from here to the motherfuckin Jungle
Crazy shit from the top of my head
Cuz I write the rhymes that'll Raise the Dead
Watch your front when steppin' to me, cuz
I'll stab your ass, just for a free buzz
Death trippin', the blood steady drippin'
Gotta send a shout out to Sam, Frodo & Pippin
On a mission, straight Gortician
Talk some shit and in your face I'm pissin'
The funky plumber, comin' like a Hummer
Cuz you know High-C just gets Dumb and Dumber
At The Gates of Cirith Gorgor
Steppin straight into Mordor
I get wicked like Sauron, bringin' chaos to order
Break beat poet, for ten years I flow it
You can't tell me shit because I already know it
1 percenter, political dissenter
El Duce was my motherfuckin Mentor
Mind blowin', Angry Samoan
I get high and then the funk starts flowin'
You fuckin' zombies need to wake the fuck up
You think you're the shit but I think you suck
Weak-minded, you're blinded by the blight
Sayin' I'm Guilty of Being White
My ancestors didn't own no slaves
The whole tired argument is oh so played
Face facts, we all get taxed
But like Possessed I'm fuckin' swingin' the axe
Grindin' up sacred cows
And now you know High-C's in the motherfuckin house...

J00 think J00 can 0utrhyme m3?

Cross-Referenced and Hyperlinked at Everything2

Snuh Snuh Meow Gortician Meow Snuh

Well, most GNU/Linux distributions come with a sh*tload of games in both GNOME and KDE. And they often have higher fun factors than Fake III Arena or whatever FPS-of-the-month the sheeple are buying. Also, most Allegro games (such as TOD: Tetanus On Drugs and freepuzzlearena) recompile seamlessly on Linux.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

See, I haven't contributed anything to the Linux community at all

If you feel guilty, you could

• Write software for the GNU/Linux system.
• Write documentation for the GNU/Linux system, especially if you speak human languages other than American.
• Buy a boxed GNU/Linux distribution. This funds development of the GNU/Linux system.
• Donate to Free Software Foundation. This funds development of GNU, the POSIX layer that runs on Linux (and on HURD). You can even specify FSF on your United Way "specific request."
• Buy a computer from VA Linux Systems or Penguin Computing. This supports hardware manufacturers who are not in bed with Microsoft <cough>winmodems</cough>.

(end comment) */ }

Flatland, like most popular works of classic literature written before 1923, is available from Project Gutenberg. It's also available from Project Nodeberg (Everything's partial PG mirror) here.

Sadly, nothing written on or after January 1, 1923, will ever expire into the public domain because of atrocities like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Every 20 years, Disney buys another 20 years of copyright in every major jurisdiction.

Flatland, like most popular works of classic literature written before 1923, is available from Project Gutenberg. It's also available from Project Nodeberg (Everything's partial PG mirror) here.

Sadly, nothing written on or after January 1, 1923, will ever expire into the public domain because of atrocities like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Every 20 years, Disney buys another 20 years of copyright in every major jurisdiction.

Naturally we shouldn't be overly concerned that Athena doesn't meet a "proven" (here, POSIX) standard--we aren't all using FORTRAN or writing real-time [deterministic-time] algorithms, are we?--, but shouldn't we take a moment to consider the fact that Athena's FAQ says:
["Does the Pandora Engine support POSIX compliancy?"]
"No. It's not practical, or even possible to implement most of the POSIX standard" (my bold)
because:
"POSIX was designed for procedural systems, so given that the Pandora Engine is object based..."
Now, it is of course a Good Thing (for easy, modular programming) to have a heavily OOP'd, high-level 'environment', (we can't even say OS anymore[1]) that can easily optimize later whatever tasks it does allow the application to run. However, the fact should worry us that the developers say it is not "possible" to run functions on a low enough level to ensure any kind of guaranteed (or "realtime" :) operational behavior on ANY level of what you're doing...short of writing bits out to a file (but you're getting nowhere near the FS--or any hardware for that matter). Forget HAL: this is HAL:THISMACHINE:HARDWARE:PERIPHERALS:OUTPUT:VISIBL E:MONITORS:ENVIRONMENT:WINDOWS:MYWINDOW:PLEASE:PRE TTY:PLEASE:LET:ME:NEAR:A:SET:METHOD(&MyAthenaApp.m ywindow.mypallette.color, GREEN); Not that this isn't useful, but what if their idea of green isn't your idea of green? Just dig around the standard, right, it's bound to be there somewhere?
"Pandora does not use a separate interface for game development (such as a DirectX style API)"..."Currently we are missing 3D support (OpenGL for example)"...Hmmmm...correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean that their "object based" methods are the only things programmers will have available, without even the Standardizd (eg OpenGL) niceties we can use to get around protected architectures once they're implemented?
Oh well: "there are plenty of existing engines that can be ported when the need for a 3D engine arises."
But I wonder...does "can be ported" mean "We can't exactly use them, because of how commercial we are, and we're not allowed to port GNU stuff, but, we assure you, we'll have really, really similar-sounding naming schemes..." ;-)
Anyone see a different take on this?

[1] Athena on BeOs on WIN2K on Linux??? Oh the thngs we do. :)

Due to moderator abuse, here's a repost at my normal _2_ (yep, I moderate too);

Octothorp recieved a Redundant? Moderators, isn't that a bit harsh?

I guess I'll get a -1 Troll for posting a few links, including an image of a nerd, though it seems to me both posts are on topic;

www.ultranet.com/~brons/NerdCorner/AHED-nerd.html

www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=nerd

I cursed and cursed. I learned emacs. I unlearned all those windows keystrokes. (not really, its kool to switch my fingers to windows mode on a win box). I killed gnome and kde and installed a gui that used only a few megs (in code and execution) and was as foreign looking to Windoze as possible, Windowmaker

But as I learned to make major changes to my system without a gui or goddamn, *f-ing rebooting every 5 minutes I began to feel that godlike power agian that hooked me on computers back when I was 9. I began to love Linux. I feel natural with it and can really get around.

Funny, but just after that transition phase I took an engineering management role in a dot com and help in the setup of a several hundred K in unix hardware (smp sun boxes, linux, raid arrays, yada). I can tell you being able to live at the command line (and I mead live - getting help, light browsing, writing code (java and c++), working with multiple apps, email) was incredibly useful - I'd say mecessary

Though I've said alot, I don't know what to say. Sometimes I actually don't want every joe 6 pack to be running linux. The prideful part of me says, "learn the goddamn system and stop complaining. And if you can't, puleeze go back to windows. Grandma shouldn't be anywhere near a linux box anyway." The human part of me (oh, pride IS human, Doh) says, "*sniff*, try these:"

linuxhelp.net
linuxhelp.org
linuxselfhelp.com
linuxnewbie.org
How To's

I cursed and cursed. I learned emacs. I unlearned all those windows keystrokes. (not really, its kool to switch my fingers to windows mode on a win box). I killed gnome and kde and installed a gui that used only a few megs (in code and execution) and was as foreign looking to Windoze as possible, Windowmaker

But as I learned to make major changes to my system without a gui or goddamn, *f-ing rebooting every 5 minutes I began to feel that godlike power agian that hooked me on computers back when I was 9. I began to love Linux. I feel natural with it and can really get around.

Funny, but just after that transition phase I took an engineering management role in a dot com and help in the setup of a several hundred K in unix hardware (smp sun boxes, linux, raid arrays, yada). I can tell you being able to live at the command line (and I mead live - getting help, light browsing, writing code (java and c++), working with multiple apps, email) was incredibly useful - I'd say mecessary

Though I've said alot, I don't know what to say. Sometimes I actually don't want every joe 6 pack to be running linux. The prideful part of me says, "learn the goddamn system and stop complaining. And if you can't, puleeze go back to windows. Grandma shouldn't be anywhere near a linux box anyway." The human part of me (oh, pride IS human, Doh) says, "*sniff*, try these:"

linuxhelp.net
linuxhelp.org
linuxselfhelp.com
linuxnewbie.org
How To's

There are many misconceptions about the intelligent race commonly known as `elves.' Elves are the descendants of Adam and Eve before they ate the apple. Though they are often depicted as midgets, elves are not midgets. They are as tall as human beings, and the only apparent difference to the `man on the street' is that elves have pointier ears. However, they age 140 to 150 times slower than humans do. After going to school off-and-on between the ages of 600 and 700 years and learning several professions, they often land a job working at the North Pole Inc. warehouses around the world.

`Santa's helpers' have incredible job security; they generally hold their jobs until age 2,000. They then work at various human jobs for 30 years each, retire, and route the pensions back through the school system and North Pole Inc. until death at around age 11,000. (Yes, like all other creatures, elves die.)

When I questioned my adoptive parents (who happen to be my bio-grandparents) about elves and Santa Claus, I made sure that my teachers agreed that it was plausible. I stopped believing when I set up a homemade burglar alarm around the tree one Christmas in hopes that Santa would trigger it. Nothing happened. After seeing the Disney movie The Santa Clause, I began to form this alternative version of the Santa myth:

It would be physically impossible for one Santa Claus to deliver toys to all the children in the whole world in 31 hours, even considering Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others who do not celebrate Yule holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah (or is it Chanukah?). The current CEO and Santa Claus, named Tim Allen, has numerous helpers of both races.

Regional North Pole offices and warehouses employ quite a few elves and one human Santa. The Santa hits the shopping malls and tabulates kids' wish lists. Elves then purchase toys in megabulk from the big manufacturers (Hasbro, Mattel, Nintendo, Sony, Tyco, etc.) with (among other income sources) the fines paid by the families of naughty juvenile delinquents, wrap up the toys, and distribute them by truck or train (the cars say North Pole Express, or `Norpolex') to other regional offices. The mall Santa then handles toy delivery in each town.

Now isn't that a bit more plausible than what your parents probably told you?

its defined on everything2, so it must exsist.
hey rob. you could probably include a spell checker in slashcode...

use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

• it restricts speech by having words, particularly swear words, banned. while their ideas may not exactly be noble, they are still speech.
• it restricts public assembly by not permitting groups that are unaffiliated with the school system to use the facilities, regardless of the nobility (or lack thereof) of their purpose.
• it restricts freedom of religion by, for example, conducting school-sponsored events at a local church (happened last week). that also violates the separation of church and state, as guaranteed by the constitution.
• it restricts press by having one school-sponsored newspaper that has been dubbed 'the weekly propaganda', even by some students on its staff. also, anything remotely controversial is to be kept put away or it is confiscated.
• it restricts petition of government for redress of grievances by beaurocratic dismissal of any legitimate concerns. my school has a "principal's suggestion box" in which suggestions/grievances/questions may be placed. he seems to tend to ignore those of any significance, but seems to like those with no measurable significance.

• formulating a test configuration file comprising a series of test inquiries for a web site to be tested

• initiating an HTTP communication to form a connection with said web site;

Every morning at work I fire up Mozilla. Upon starting, Moz' automatically contacts the webserver, requesting the home page (as per my configuration file).

• repetitively communicating with said web site by:
  • receiving HTML from said web site;
  • analyzing said HTML for errors and storing results in a database;
  • and formulating a new HTTP communication based upon said received HTML and said test configuration file.

If the document doesn't exist, then I'd be alerted to the error condition with a 404 message.
If the home page exists (as per my prefs.js config file), Moz' downloads the content, and chances are it stores the document in a datbase [it's cache].
Then Moz' analyzes the HTML content, repetitively executing more HTTP requests for any images, scripts, and other objects referenced in the HTML, because Moz's configuration file says to automatically get images.
If an image doesn't exist, I'm alerted to the problem with the generic-busted-graphic image.

Gosh-golly, it sure is nifty that Mozilla violates the First claim of the patent.
*sigh*
I guess it's gopher[?] for everyone.

The real missing link is here. If nothing else, this /. article gave me a few minutes amusement looking for the "missing link". Now where are those damn dirty apes?

of all, books can be read aloud per the First Amendment

You mean, books in the public domain can be read aloud. Public performance of a copyrighted work is an exclusive right of a copyright holder.

and second, Alice in Wonderland is in the public domain

Just like every other work created on or before December 31, 1922. Works created on or after January 1, 1923, on the other hand, are under perpetual copyright in the United States.

Fuck you Walt Disney.

copywrite does not last forever

Bullshit. Copyright is perpetual now.

Because the person who created Mickey Mouse, the one who should benefit from MM's fame and fortune, is long gone, so who are the laws protecting?

Politicians. Every time Congress retroactively extends copyright, every senator and representative who voted for it gets a huge chunk of change from The Walt Disney Company.

All works created on or before December 31, 1922, are in public domain in the United States. On the other hand, all works created on or after January 1, 1923, and not expressly released by their owners into PD, are under perpetual copyright in the United States.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

unfortunately, I do not have any points left

Come to Everything, where (once you get 50 xp) you get modpoints every day.

BSI's Everything 2 BBS is profusely linked in much the same way. But are you trying to link to Goats (a comic strip) or Goatse (the One True Ass Pic)?
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

BSI's Everything 2 BBS is profusely linked in much the same way. But are you trying to link to Goats (a comic strip) or Goatse (the One True Ass Pic)?
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

If you like the links in the article, you'll love Everything 2, BSI's collaboratively filtered, profusely linked database of, well, everything.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

They should just do a 'clean room' implementation of all the skins and models

This is called "creating your own cartoon environment, based on the same character stereotypes that the DBZ creators used, and making a mod about it." This would work and would be legal, but you'd need to pay lots of animators. Character stereotypes are uncopyrightable (see also Capcom v. Data East), but implementations of those stereotypes in any commercialized cartoon (Draggin'BallZ, PokeMoney, etc.) are trademarks of their respective companies; trademark infringement is unfair competition under the Lanham Act. And don't count on waiting for trademarks to expire; USPTO trademark registrations are renewable for an unlimited number of 10-year terms, and copyright is already perpetual.

"Unlike Napster, which is becoming subscription-based, Scour, which has succumbed to legal pressures, and Gnutella, which suffers from scalability issues, BitHive relies on no central servers or corporations to run."

Neither does Napster. With Napigator, users can connect to OpenNap directory servers and share their files without needing some big corporation's help (unless you count VA Linux's SourceForge, which hosts the OpenNap website). And this To demonstrate the legitimacy of OpenNap, simply make a Linux kernel tarball available on one of the servers, and run an OpenNap segment on your local network to ease the bandwidth problem. With that kind of cred[?], RIAA won't be able to touch it.

"Unlike Napster, which is becoming subscription-based, Scour, which has succumbed to legal pressures, and Gnutella, which suffers from scalability issues, BitHive relies on no central servers or corporations to run."

Neither does Napster. With Napigator, users can connect to OpenNap directory servers and share their files without needing some big corporation's help (unless you count VA Linux's SourceForge, which hosts the OpenNap website). And this To demonstrate the legitimacy of OpenNap, simply make a Linux kernel tarball available on one of the servers, and run an OpenNap segment on your local network to ease the bandwidth problem. With that kind of cred[?], RIAA won't be able to touch it.

It's unfortunate that the term for "legal work for a good cause" sounds just like a term meaning perpetual copyright: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?], the act that extended the term of all subsisting and new copyrights by 20 years and set a precedent that every 20 years, 20 more years are added.

as if any major game manufacturers besides id want to port to Linux

You forgot Loki. <ot>(Too bad Tribes 2's online registration is an invasion of privacy similar to that of MS Office 2000; the program accesses the manufacturer's server when the app is first started, possibly sending personal information.)</ot>

Anyway, the goal of any for-profit corporation is to make a profit; that's where the term "bottom line"[?] comes from. If a game house can release games for Dreamcast without paying Sega royalties, the company saves several dollars on every unit shipped. This. Adds. Up. Big. Time.

I believe it's "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!" - The Professor, Futurama

I live in the UK. My both my home phone lines and mobiles have 11 digit phone numbers. When I call someone, I select their name from the list on my phone and press the "call" button. I couldn't care less how many digits are in the number since the only time I see it is when entering it into the phone book.
What I'd really like to see is phones (obviously digital cellular phones or VoIP (voice over IP) phones) having the ability to automagically change their internal phone book numbers when the telco they're connected through is aware of changes in phone numbers (like the one in this article). That way nobody would care at all when they change since they wouldn't have to update all their phone book entries.

The GNU General Public License is a copyright license. Copyrights and trademarks are two distinct Licensable Rights (I hate the term intellectual property). Unlike copyrights, trademarks do not have to be original, just distinctive in the field at the time of registration. Trademark registrations can also be renewed (for extra money) ten years at a time, unlike copyright which is automatically perpetual for any work created on or after January 1, 1923.

The most bandwidth I can use is limited by ... my input devices (including video camera), and the number of individuals who want to see my content all at one time (strong added).

Remember, more people will want to see what you have than you think. There are hundreds of millions of people on the Internet; unless multicast gets REAL good REAL fast, you're going to have a problem serving even 0.1% of the world's population (6 million simultaneous users).

Remember, there *is* such a thing as too much porn.

Or too many users viewing the same pornogram[?].

$ man reality

This backlash against the English language [?] must be taken in a wider context. English is silently creeping its way to Absolute World Domination, IT being only its last (and most powerful) Trojan horse.

20 years ago, when the first IT wave hit our side of the Ocean, the French tried (and managed) to prevent the linguistic tsunami by creating new words (or reusing old ones) for IT-related stuff, and these words were indeed quite good ("ordinateur" and "logiciel" sound nicer to our ears than "computer" and "software") and were quickly adopted. But at some point you have to face the obvious : The Internet is 90% English-speaking. Whatever the subject, documentation written in English may be ten times as abundant as in any other language. What can you do against that ?

This is especially frightening for us in a EU context : how long will we be able to carry on with the current policy, that is,translating any document in the 3 major languages (German, French and English) and as many documents as possible in the 11 (as of now) languages of the EU ? It's already cumbersome enough today - so what will it be like in a 30-members EU ? We feel that at some point the case for "English Everywhere" will become extremely strong, and to be honest we find it not only unfair (Britons would get a huge comparative advantage) but downright terrifying.

"One world, one economy, one language" (I wonder what it sounds like in German ?). Welcome to a Brave New World of civilization and progress, where the global elite will use its own language (American English), turning every other language into minor dialects used only by poorly educated locals.

Now this may sound like plain paranoia (and it is, to some point). But History shows that whenever local tongues are confronted with a mainstream language used by the cultural/technical/administrative elite, the latter wins. Think of Russia in the 17th-18th century (or even better, read "War and Peace" to see how close Russia came to becoming a French-speaking country, and why it didn't). The only major exception I can think of is Quebec - which survived as a cultural entity thanks to the federal nature of Canada.

There's a real fear here, and although I understand that it may look somewhat ridiculous when looked at from the good side of the Babel Fish, you should realize that it is nothing like nationalistic ranting. If we were machines, driven by purely rational goals such as productivity, efficiency, etc., we would all agree to speak the same language - be it English, Latin, SmallTalk, whatever.

We're not machines. We have a thing which we call culture, and that culture is the very definition of our identity (this is especially true for old European countries). The current "Anglicization" of the world is seen by some as a menace to our national identities, virtually undistinguishable from a military one. The Quebec example, which is now seen as an exception, might soon become the general standard.

After European peasants destroying McDonald's diners, who knows the next step of the transatlantic cold war won't be angry academics sacking cybercafés ?

yerricide says

Making the same mistake[?] Everything 2 users make. Now to the topic:

this article about Mandrake Linux with Java

...is about bundling Java 2 Platform Standard Edition, the runtime environment. Mandrake is bundling only the class runner, not the development tools. The development tools still are not available in those parts of the world that lack fast, cheap Internet connections.

Clayfighter (cartoon fighting) was released on at least the SNES and possibly on other consoles as well. There were multi-player puzzle battle games in the arcades long before they were on N64.

How many controllers did Clay Fighter or Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo[?] support? Quite a bit of innovation was required to make the largely two-player genres work well for four players.

But what case could Sega make for continuing to have copyrights on Genesis games? ... Why would they even WANT to try to defend their rights?

Because if Sega doesn't defend the copyright on Sonic the Hedgehog.gen, Sega also isn't defending the trademark "Sonic the Hedgehog®" meaning Sega won't be able to make money off Sonic games anymore. If Sony PS2 kills Dreamcast and the GAMECUBE console can't keep up, I'd bet we'll see some heavy cross-licensing (Super Smash Bros. 2[?]: Sega vs. Nintendo, anyone?) like we saw with the CD-i system.

The SMS game binaries (commonly called ROMs) are still under copyright in the United States because Congress has recently followed a policy of perpetual copyright, using a loophole in the Constitution to extend all subsisting copyrights every 20 years or so. This policy is reflected in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?]. No copyrighted work created on or after January 1, 1923, will ever expire into the public domain.

Between synaesthesia and this, I really get the feeling that I'm just not experiencing the world as well as I could. Seeing letters as being different colors may not be the most exciting thing, but there seem to be so many others, "seeing" sounds, "hearing" textures, and the like, that seem like they'd enrich the world.

I honestly really feel left out - and get awfully jealous when reading about things like this.
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