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>> There is an alarming trend for the opensource community to appear to outsiders as very cavalier with issues dealing with protecting rights for others to derive profit from their works. Perhaps the mindset is "I gave all my code away for free, why should I care if you make money from your game/music/movie/software/patent/intellectual property/licensed image/registered trademark ?"

You're preaching to the wrong crowd. We just like to make fun of the RIAA et. al., not steal their 'music.' If you are familiar with the mess with SCO, then you know that the OS community respects IP. Of course, I don't speak for everyone, but you don't either.

>> Do you know that you're not allowed to have a picture of Bart Simpson on your website?

Well, maybe you should inform these people.

>> ... if you don't want to support MPAA and RIAA, then *WE* need to provide an alternative ...

I can play "Chopsticks".

>> otherwise we need to play by their rules or petition to have the rules changed.

I've got a stick of chewing gum. I think I'll go buy a senator.

If they're willing to put up with animated actors, why not animated games? I'm not saying that the nintendo games themselves aren't necessarily targeted at children, just that cartoon-looking games will still be accepted by adults depending on the gameplay and content.

If they're willing to put up with animated actors, why not animated games? I'm not saying that the nintendo games themselves aren't necessarily targeted at children, just that cartoon-looking games will still be accepted by adults depending on the gameplay and content.

Conflicts of interest like that can be dealt with. After all, NASDAQ and the NYSE are both public companies, traded on the very exchanges which they operate.

Personally, I think there is a much better mechanism available to place bets on such things...

Finally, Dewey and Craig arrived. Craig went ballistic but the gang responded by making him their sex slave. We were about to abandon Craig but apparently he and Dewey bonded and Dewey wasn't gonna leave him. So he did the only sensible thing anyone could do in the situation: he told on them...to their mothers.

Surprisingly enough, it worked like a charm. These "mothers" came over and berated the gang and they left. Who knew? The best part - Mom and Dad didn't even find out. I guess this could go down as the first time in adolescent history, blah, blah. But we didn't exactly have a party now did we?

Having seen this last night, and being unable to shake it from my head, I gotta ask:

How much money will greedy SCO bully out of the Linux community?

A. under $10 million
B. $10 million - $20 million
C. $20 million - $50 million
D. more than $50 million

Bet Now!

The article fails the burden of proof to its thesis. In order to show decline, you must show a simultaneous drop in: console sales, console titles. With the dropping price of PCs, you must also include PC's as a console and count game software as console titles.

If you can show a consistent drop in all those areas, then yes, the thesis is upheld. Even better, if you multiply console sales drops by their previous market share, you can take a weighted average and pretty closely estimate that drop.

The article fails to do this. I'm not saying the article is wrong, but what happened to responsible journalism? Oh, yeah. FOX!

someone lost an eye.

Eric's going to be the star of the upcoming Hackers Gone Wild! video

Check your TV guide dude, he's gonna be in Fox's Police Videos.

Well, most of the latest technological shifts have mostly been used to get free Pr0n to the masses. Why not this one?
We could even do the obvious thing and let the exec's at Fox handle it for us.

(1 Karma point for the first person to post the correct Simpson's ref.)

I don't think Fox will like this. I smell a cease and desist soon. :)

If you think that artificial intelligence going nowhere is a problem, what about natural human intelligence? There's clear evidence that it's going rapidly backward!

Superduper alien weapon threatening the Earth and the existance of mankind? All new hairdos and plastic noses? Ooh.
Maybe this is new to Trek, but haven't we all seen and heard this before? About dozen times?
At least B5 and JMS did with style, somehow I have a feeling that B&B will turn this into mainstreamed, preprocessed junk that Voyager was (and the current Enterprise episodes have been).
How about a real first frontier sci-fi series? Wagons, cattle, gunsliging captains and a interesting story? Oh that's right, you took the sky from me... damn Fox.

Video on demand won't replace DVDs for the same reason that proprietary (and possibly all) e-books won't replace regular books.

In a similar way in which a regular book gives me the security of knowing that I don't have to worry if the company that published it goes belly up, if I buy the DVD, I own it (for my own use, of course). I can watch it when I want. I can watch it on an airplane, I can take it with me on business trips overseas. It's going to be a long, long time before everyone in coach can watch "on demand" flicks on an airplane.

When you have a DVD, you're not dependent on the whim of a company. Consider shows like The Family Guy or Futurama where Fox never gave them a fair chance, then pulled the plug. They treated these shows like shit the first time; what possible reason do I have to believe that they're be treated any better "on demand?"

What about British shows like I'm Alan Partridge, Good Neighbors, or Father Ted? At best, I can watch them on BBC America or PBS, but unless I buy the DVD (or VHS, or whatever comes next), what are the chances that I *know* I'll be able to see these shows, when I want, here in the USA?

Then there's the content itself. What happens when the company that owns the rights to these shows goes out of business? What happens if a bunch of Jeezoids decided to buy the rights to something just to kill it (for the chillllldren, of course)? Or what if they just decide that something is insensitive and cut it. Jesus, what if they alter the original: Colorizing it or adding those fucking "informational" popups like they do when they show Double Indemnity on the Lifetime network?

What happens when some soulless bean counter decides that since I'm the only one who wants to watch Seriously Dude, Where's My Car?, they should just save the server space and dump it? You already see this sort of thing in video stores, when they decide how many foreign films can fit in that little section. The Internet Movie Database lists 268,836 movies released theatrically, 35,200 made-for-TV movies, 23,625, TV series, 21,420 direct-to-video movies, and 3,081 mini series. How many of these are going to make the cut? Which do you think will come first, some of those films, or "on demand" sports, so folks can have "Classic Games of when the Red Sox blew the World Series" nights?

Finally, why should I keep paying for the content through a subscription or a download fee each time? Compare the price of DVDs with rentals and pay-per-view -- if I think I might watch it three times in the rest of my life (or I might want to loan it to a friend) why not buy it outright for the extra ten bucks?

Video on demand won't replace DVDs for the same reason that proprietary (and possibly all) e-books won't replace regular books.

In a similar way in which a regular book gives me the security of knowing that I don't have to worry if the company that published it goes belly up, if I buy the DVD, I own it (for my own use, of course). I can watch it when I want. I can watch it on an airplane, I can take it with me on business trips overseas. It's going to be a long, long time before everyone in coach can watch "on demand" flicks on an airplane.

When you have a DVD, you're not dependent on the whim of a company. Consider shows like The Family Guy or Futurama where Fox never gave them a fair chance, then pulled the plug. They treated these shows like shit the first time; what possible reason do I have to believe that they're be treated any better "on demand?"

What about British shows like I'm Alan Partridge, Good Neighbors, or Father Ted? At best, I can watch them on BBC America or PBS, but unless I buy the DVD (or VHS, or whatever comes next), what are the chances that I *know* I'll be able to see these shows, when I want, here in the USA?

Then there's the content itself. What happens when the company that owns the rights to these shows goes out of business? What happens if a bunch of Jeezoids decided to buy the rights to something just to kill it (for the chillllldren, of course)? Or what if they just decide that something is insensitive and cut it. Jesus, what if they alter the original: Colorizing it or adding those fucking "informational" popups like they do when they show Double Indemnity on the Lifetime network?

What happens when some soulless bean counter decides that since I'm the only one who wants to watch Seriously Dude, Where's My Car?, they should just save the server space and dump it? You already see this sort of thing in video stores, when they decide how many foreign films can fit in that little section. The Internet Movie Database lists 268,836 movies released theatrically, 35,200 made-for-TV movies, 23,625, TV series, 21,420 direct-to-video movies, and 3,081 mini series. How many of these are going to make the cut? Which do you think will come first, some of those films, or "on demand" sports, so folks can have "Classic Games of when the Red Sox blew the World Series" nights?

Finally, why should I keep paying for the content through a subscription or a download fee each time? Compare the price of DVDs with rentals and pay-per-view -- if I think I might watch it three times in the rest of my life (or I might want to loan it to a friend) why not buy it outright for the extra ten bucks?

Neutrinos, I believe, count as WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), the current prime candidate for just what makes up dark matter.

Come on, everyone knows that dark matter is the excrement of Nibblonians.

I suggested Firefly since the browser is supposed to be light weight. :-) But I guess then they would have to put up with the fury of Firefly fans...

I hope they call the batteries Bender.

Yes, bring back Futurama!

I think Bender was built from Windows judging by his character traits listed here, and here.

its not so much a mater of need as a mater of quality, think, what if we said, whats the point of cd when we have casset tapes

Excellent point. However, I'd like to point out that when CDs first came out, they cost the same or slightly more than tapes/LPs.

Perhaps the original comment was in regards to the quality of the content? With music there is quality content in many different genres available to the consumer. While there is no accounting for taste, there are several excellent arguments that the content:junk ratio on TV hardly justifies the cost of this technical improvement.

Friends isn't any funnier on HDTV but Bach sure does sound better on my CD.

I remember her acting on Herman's Head on Fox.

Lets try to bring back Firefly too while were at it. If you need a reason read the subject again and click here here and here and scroll about halfway down.

Ahem. I believe you meant to write "bite my red-raw, distended shiny metal ass".

Recent references to that oh so clever comedian were on King of the Hill about a month ago. Bobby was paid $10 for a "In Soviet Russia. . ." joke.

You've got to be kidding. When the authorities come to debate the issue with you, what, exactly, are you going to do? Shoot some cop, soldier, or CTU agent? Some guy with a job to do, and maybe a family, or a dog, or whatever back home waiting for him?

Then what? The authorities are going to back down and let you keep whatever rights they were planning to take away from you? Please.

If you're lucky, you'll get that grunt's commander in your sights before they gun you down, but it's not like he sets policy either. Or maybe you're betting that once the SWAT team figures out that the job involves getting shot at, they'll call the whole thing off.

Of course, if you get enough citizens armed and ready to fight, you might have some impact--the exact same impact a large number of citizens would have if they engaged in peacful noncompliance.

Would people get shot during a nonviolent protest? Probably. Would people get shot during a violent protest? Most definitely. So where's the benefit to your solution?

If the SWAT team does desert, it won't be because you're shooting at them--it'll be because they've heard a lot of reasonable debate on the subject, and you position makes much more sense to them than the other guy's. So there they are, teetering between their responsibility to their employer and their growing conviction that their employer is wrong. They're having second thoughts about this whole raid. Maybe you're a nice guy, they're thinking. Maybe you have a good point. Maybe taking you down would be the wrong thing to do. Maybe it's time to take a stand and make a change.

And then you start shooting at them. Nice going, Einstein. Now you, and your family, and your dog, and your mp3 collection--gassed, and firebombed, and mercilessly slaughtered. And the media will carry the story of another crazy gun nut getting shut down before he could endanger innocent lives.

Of course, if you don't think your arguments could make a change, or you don't relish joining thousands of other dissenters in prison for your beliefs, or you've seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid one too many times, then maybe going out in a violent, bloody, and futile blaze of glory might seem pretty appealing. It's certainly more cinematic than sitting in prison for a couple decades, like Nelson Mandela. Certainly more heroic than traveling the countryside, educating citizens with your example of passive resitance, like Gandhi. Congratulations! Vin Diesel will star in the MTV movie of your extreme rebellion.

What do your "votes" have to offer that peaceful protest does not, except more dead people and less calm discussion?

By all means, excercise your rights! Keep those guns, enjoy them. But if you think they're going to help you make a difference during some armed rebellion, you may want to consider moving to the United States of Some Parallel Universe. I hear that there, the 2nd Amendment guarantees everybody's right to own a main battle tank, a joint strike fighter, mechanized artillery, a recon satellite, and a cruise missile.

Anyways, I might as well try to say something half-ways intelligent...

We often take technology for granted, assuming that lack of understanding is some sort of mental or cultural deficiency, whereas our general and almost complete in ability to survive if left in the middle of a rain forest without help is somehow a noble mark of civilization. Those who hunt and provide for their own food are somehow throwbacks in a technological society.

To ensure that this ties into News for Nerds, I'd like to point out that the juxtaposition of high and low technology is one of the central concepts to Firefly. I find it funny when people complain about the rediculousness of low-tech firearms on a spaceship... on the frontiers of civilization.

Does the soviet Russia thing bother anyone else?

No.

I suppose soviet USSR, or communist USSR could work, but soviet Russia?

Clearly, you just don't get it.

And Farscape is not the only show that may be leaving for good. There is also talk of cancelling Firefly on FOX. I find it somewhat depressing that we finally get two creative and innovative sci-fi shows, and both are squashed. Both actions are blaimed on "lack of ratings", but what do you expect when putting a show on on a Friday night. Only nerds have time on Friday... er, oh right. I'm posting this on Slashdot...

Anyway, I wish more people knew about these two shows because they are far more intelligently written and produced than 90% of the junk that's on TV the rest of the week. Are these shows too intelligent for the average viewer, or is it the sci-fi image that pushes people away? Or is it simply the strange times that these shows are offered (anyone remember Babylon 5 at 11:30 pm if you were lucky)? When will sci-fi get its fair share of good time slots? Will sci-fi ever be considered as or more valuable than the rehashed sitcoms we have today?

Besides, Fox already did this with a TV show - it's called 24

Besides, Fox already did this with a TV show - it's called 24

Somehow I've got images of the next series of 24 involving this.

In Matt Groening's Futurama, this form of transportation is commonplace. Even better, they've been able to do away with the annoying capsule!

I hope that by the 30th century, we too will have mastered the technology required to insert a human being in a vacuum tube without them exploding or asphyxiating :P

I, for one, am really enjoying Firefly. The characters have to deal with fairly authentic problems of running a small ship in space. I like the "skin of our teeth" setting; reminds me a bit of Star Wars or _Downbelow Station_, while staying a bit closer to home. The writing is decent, too.

Ok, this maybe a bit off topic, but i think a majority of /.ers would be extremely suprised at how creative Firefly is. Its funny, refreshing, and the writting has been incredible. Not to mention the great job of the cast.

One of the great twists of this western space show (yes western space show), is that they have incorporated some chinese dialogue and culture. Followers of the show have surmised that 500 years in the future there are 2 competing cultures: chinese and western.

Great sci-fi shows are still out there, they are just hiding in poor time slots in fox's lineup.

This teacher has intimate knowlege of nanotechnology.

Be that as it may, there are times when I need to allow popups in order to get full use out of a site. What's needed is a simple popup policy engine, something like the cookies privacy engine in IE. In particular, I'd like to impose a global limit on popup frequency, so a site can't force me to accept all their crap just to get single popup window that I want to see. The simplistic "no popups" option in Mozilla is not useful for most of us.

The real score would be a Temptation Island game, though. Tiffani may have been underutilized on the show, but I can assure you she'd play a much more prominent role in my fantasies, errrr, gaming.

The real score would be a Temptation Island game, though. Tiffani may have been underutilized on the show, but I can assure you she'd play a much more prominent role in my fantasies, errrr, gaming.

I'm not saying that Star Trek/Wars is much better, but at least they *tried* to have characters. Firefly is looking like an old war movie with "The Black Guy", "The Loose Cannon", and of course, "The Pointexter."

And what's the gripping premise?

Set 500 years in the future in the wake of a universal civil war, FIREFLY tells the tale of Serenity, a small transport spaceship without a homeport. Captain Malcolm ("Mal") Reynolds commands Serenity for legitimate transport and salvage runs, as well as, more "entrepreneurial" endeavors.

So give me a break already. Yeah there's a new sci-fi show. If we're lucky, there'll be some new hot chicks every week. But don't make the mistake of thinking this is groundbreaking, original material. Enjoy it for what it is.

There's a heavy western/civil war feel (supposedly it's all inspired by The Killer Angels and Stagecoach), but it's not just old adventure stories in SF drag (anyone notice the similarity between Balance of Terror and The Enemy Below?). It's something new and original, and I'm looking forward to it a lot more than I ever did a Farscape ep.

This fan site has more info than does the official site, including a lot of good stills.

Any relation to Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth? Oh, and wasn't this cancelled?

My best guess is that Berman never intended to use the Wesley footage, and Wheaton is in denial over the fact that he's been conned yet again.

What's really irritating is this "it's all for the trekkies" BS. That might wash with the mentally challenged types who never take off their Starfleet uniforms, and insist that people address them by naval rank. For those of us who live in the real world, this is nauseating tripe.

But WTF. I was a Star Trek fan 3/4 of my life, but the stupidity of Enterprise finally put me over the edge. I deliberately read all the Nemesis spoilers just so I wouldn't be tempted to go see it. And anyway, real space opera is finally returning to TV, so who cares?

Just imagine it on celebrity boxing! Whoo hoo!
If not FOX, then a deathmatch of course!

Unfortunately you're wrong on this point. Its not GNU/Linux that allows one to steal content. Its actually the GNU "information wants to be free" philosophy that encourages people to steal. Remember, GNU/Linux users are used to not paying for software. Even when the software is commercial, GNU/Linux users won't pay for it, mostly because they're incredibly cheap (although they mask this behind a poorly thought-out political agenda.)

Its no suprise that they use Tivo to steal content. The ad skipping is particularly obnoxious because these hard-working television studios that put out quality shows can only do so by making money through advertising. If everyone skips ads, there will eventually only be crap on TV.

...saying a lot of what we all knew. I read the article on CNN about the "JPG virus", and it was obvious that they'd either got it totally wrong, or were trying to hype it.

One of my favorite quotes was:
Until now, viruses infected program files -- files that can be run on their own. Data files, like movies, music, text and pictures, were safe from infection. While earlier viruses deleted or modified data files, Perrun is the first to infect them.

Uhm... see. I had always thought that Word documents were data files (text). And I remember them being particularly responsible for a whole lot of annoying macro virii.

But on the Katzian subject, at least it was obvious that michael knew more about the subject than the people who wrote (and were interviewed) for the article I quoted. And it was nice to see an article that presented a bigger picture.

However, just because every other news outlet in the world spends all their time trying to expose shocking stories about conspiracy, etc, etc -- all of which could probably be titled something like "capitalists still trying to make money off of consumers" -- doesn't mean that /. should follow suit and do the same thing. Unless, of course, michael does some actual investigative research and finds out something *new* and *exciting* or *revealing* and then has something to tell us.

What's my point? Well - Slashdot already links to other stories from other news sources. We don't need to steal their shitty journalism too. We already have our own style of shitty journalism.

How the hell can I read an article with so many links?

You'd think so, but, amazement of all amazements, Fox ordered up a new sci-fi series from Joss Whedon (Buffy/Angel/Ripper) called "Firefly". Sure, it looks like it might be Buffy In Space, but as Joss put it (and I wish like hell I could find the quote, so this is a paraphrase), it will be humans doing evil things to humans; no aliens need apply.

YMMV, but I'm looking forward to at least giving it a try, hoping that he has enough clout to keep the fingers of money-hungry network execs from making it the kind of pablum you'd expect from Fox. (Mind you, I won't scream if the show has a little soft-core porn.)

And if it flies, Joss would have his shows on four major TV networks. (Fox, BBC, WB, UPN.) Go rah.

Fox has done an excellent job this year bringing 24 to their schedule...that show is fantastic, Keifer Sutherland is awesome, and Dennis Hoppers' addition to the cast in the past few episodes has been outstanding too...to me, this was the best new show on any newtork this season...of course, it sounds like their gonna ruin it next season when, according to articles i've read, the shows switch from 24 episodes each covering one hour of time...to each episode covering 1 24-hour block of time...it just won't be the same..please FOX, try to bring it back in the original format...

also...

Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Undeclared are, in my opinion, two of the funniest new shows this season...yet, Undeclared has been conspicously absent from the spring schedule, and there are rumours that Andy Richter will not be picked up for next season...these two shows are great...and if you haven't checked out Andy Richter consider watching..it's on Tuesday's at 8:30 (although not this tuesday) as a lead in to "24"...it's damn funny...and the office humour in it is great...

i do think Fox's lineup does have some potential over all....these 3 shows i mentioned....plus Simpsons, Malcom in the Middle, King of the Hill and That 70's show give them a nice core group of programming...albeit one that doesn't really appeal to older viewers....but it should appeal to the all important 18-25 year old male demographic...

just my opinion...

For those interested here is a link that will let you find your local FOX affiliate.