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To infringe that claim, a speaker must have both these claim elements. Any speaker with both elements is an infringing device, and any speaker without both elements is (probably) not an infringing device.

Said quote refers to one claim. To infringe a claim, a device must have all the elements of the claim. But infringing even one claim of the patent is sufficient to infringe the patent.

refer to the USPTO

I found some general patent information on the USPTO's site. But I also found this on uspatentagent.com (not affiliated with USPTO) and this ruling in which damages of $324.4 million were awarded for infringement of one claim of a patent with six claims.

Yes, but the claims of a patent are ANDed together. To infringe, you have to have a product that not only falls under Claim 1, but also Claim 2 AND 3 AND 4 AND...

B*llsh*t. Patent claims are ORed. If you infringe one claim of any of the 2-million-odd unexpired U.S. patents, you can be sued, and if you are an individual, the corporation suing you (lawyers don't sue people; plaintiffs sue people) will run the trial so long that you run out of money to pay your attorney(s).

Obviously the client-server architecture needs to be carefully constructed with the assumption that the client is always compromised

What if the rules of the game are such that reflexes rule (think the Quake series)? How would you reject aiming proxies and the like?

move as much as you can server side, send the client only information he should display anyway

The only perfect solution to this is generating all visuals on the game server, and sending them to the player's X11 server. And it's dog slow with current long-haul network technology.

they would only be required to release the source if they release a binary.

Most cracks contain executable code. (And yes, they are cracks, as they exploit vulnerabilities in the server. They don't give you root, but they do give you extra game privileges.) Distributing your crack is considered "releasing a binary" under the GNU GPL; source code must be either included with the binary patch, right next to it on the downloads page, or available on CD-R by mail to satisfy Section 3 of the License.

Cracks you write yourself for yourself, on the other hand...

We will write a tux vs daemon fighting game

You could do a mod for GNOME vs KDE: Battle of the Desktops with Tux and the BSD daemon. Or you could just try XTux.

This article describes the advantages that legless astronauts would have in microgravity.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Quit forwarding those damn jokes and chain mails and get your lazy ass back to work.

If you feel you need to forward that joke, feel free to write it up on Everything and forward the URL. Takes up a lot less bandwidth that way, and sending it as plain text excludes the possibility of malicious EcmaScripts.

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.

• Copying: copying the program from network to disk, or from disk to RAM.
• Modification: translating the program from a gzip'd tar file to an uncompressed tar file.

But what's to stop someone from dismantling the secure speakers and tapping the audio just before it gets to the speakers

A tamper-evident seal that, when broken, causes the secure speaker to stop decrypting content. Try to get around that.

On Slashdot:
Anonymous Coward will never be a moderator. From what I've read in the FAQ: Create an account, stay on about a year, browse an average amount, make sure "Willing to moderate" is checked, and keep your karma above +10, and you may get moderator points about once a month.

On Kuro5hin:
Create an account; bang, you're already a moderator with unlimited points. And you can moderate the stories also.

On Everything:
Create an account, write about 30 or so good write-ups, and you'll get 10 mod points per day. Continue adding content to the database and you'll get more mod points.

On this system, all 64 Megs of RAM were consumed by Gnome and X

One of the fastest forms of interprocess communication under Linux is shared memory. However, top reports shared memory use incorrectly. For example, if two programs are loaded into RAM, and each is using 16 MB (8 MB for itself and 8 MB shared between the two), top will report 32 MB in use instead of 24. Under Linux, processes and threads are pretty much the same except that threads share memory; top barfs on multithreaded applications such as Mozilla. When X is running, top also reports your video card's RAM as in use by X and whatever apps are using MIT Shared Memory for their pixmaps.

someone really has to sit down with the GTK and Gnome libraries and start optimizing them for size and speed

Another example of the shared memory bug in top is in libraries. Under Linux, a library's code segment is marked read-only; it can be shared among several processes, making top misreport the memory the library is actually using.

So run WIndows 2000 in a virtual box on VMWare and write a hardware emulation of an "approved" soundblaster soundcard (ie: with signed drivers).

It's almost always possible for programs to discern whether or not they are run under emulation (VMWare is a virtualizer, that is, a motherboard emulator). For example, check out this four-line 6502 assembly segment that determines to 99.x% certainty whether it's running on a real NES or the NESticle emulator. There will probably be several similar flaws in VMWare that Microsoft can detect, and Windows will refuse to enable the Secure Audio Path in those cases.

Unless your line out is in a digital format, that's lossy.

(It won't be digital because of Secure Audio Path.) But the quality degradation from using an audiophile-quality analog setup is still a couple orders of magnitude less than the degradation from encoding to 128 Kbit/s MP3 format (the most popular format on Napster) even with excellent LAME or Fraunhofer encoders.

Even then, you run into the SDMI watermarks on new content.

They are mostly interested in people making copies of the media that are undiscernable from the original

I can hear the quality degradation from a CD to a 128 Kbit/s MP3 stream, even with the excellent LAME and Fraunhofer encoders and cheap-@$$ Sony Walkman headphones. 128 Kbit/s MP3 files are common on Napster, but they're not "undiscernable from the original." So, from your argument, why in the world is RIAA going after Napster?

Okay, then you rip appart your speakers

And in the process set off the tamper detection, causing the speakers to stop decrypting incoming audio. Yes, it is possible (see also Capcom Suicide).

since most users won't have a compiler on their system, it shouldn't compromise "security" too much

The DOS and Windows versions of GCC are quite easy to install (unzip, set a couple environment variables in autoexec, reboot, and you can gcc files). Seeing as you have to compile your own MP3 encoder, I see the free DJGPP compiler gaining a wide userbase.

course, there's nothing stopping you from providing your own sound card driver, or a shim

Have you even read the article? Secure Audio Path specifically excludes drivers that have not been tested for conformance and signed by Microsoft Corporation.

As for USB digital speaker systems, they still rely on an analog speaker. If need be you can get one of these, open it up

And in the process, breaking the tamper-evident seal, which is detected by the hardware, and the speaker no longer decrypts audio.

That 'boot sector' your describing, called by most the IP.BIN, resides in the first 16 sectors (32k) of the first data session of the cd does NOT contain any specific information that Sega could consider 'copyrighted'

0300-36FF 8C008300-8C00B6FF SEGA license screen code

This is the entry point which the ROM calls after both IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.bin have been loaded. The code here displays the SEGA logo and message "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." for about 6 seconds and then transfers control to Bootstrap 1. Note that the code in this area can not be modified. The ROM checks every byte of it against a copy in the ROM, and will not boot the disk if there is a difference.

If Apple wants to sue somebody, they should sue the makers of Vitamins, a game that takes the Aqua "pill" buttons and drops them into a bottle on top of viruses, as in Nintendo's Dr. Mario.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Also, why don't people say the same thing about Chevy's NorthStar. They can track you in you car.

YM OnStar. Northstar is the engine in the Cadillac. Yes, it's confusing, because Northstar and OnStar are often equipped in the same vehicle.

they don't have binaries available for this dreamcast port.

And they won't. The BIOS checks the boot sector against a copy in ROM, and if it isn't bit-for-bit identical, it won't boot the disc. "So just copy the boot sector in the ISO!" Sorry, the Dreamcast boot sector is copyright SEGA.

The gamemaster's ultimate goal is neither coincident with the players' (if, above all else, he wanted the players to reach their goal, he could make it insanely easy for them to do so) nor opposed to it (if he wanted to stop them from achieving their goal, he could do that as well). The gamemaster's goal is to create an interesting game

Think dissociative identity disorder. A gamemaster can also be analyzed as two separate players; one represents Team Evil (who engages in zero-sum gaming against Team Good), and the other is the referee (who engages in non-zero-sum activity with both Team Good and Team Evil).

Any roleplaying game fits ... Since the point of most RPGs is to work together.

That doesn't rule out a zero-sum game between Team Good and Team Evil.

The initial set of rules in Mao is similar to Bartok. (Read more about Mao at Everything.)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

But aren't many servers idle during the night while people sleep?

Name one hour of the day when everybody in the world with Internet access is asleep. The world is more than the USA, you know.

Also, people are WRITING software for it because the protection can be beaten

The boot sector of all Dreamcast discs contains an access control measure under the DMCA: it contains 14 KB of data that must match data in ROM bit-for-bit, or the disc won't boot. And this 14 KB of data contains code that displays trademarks (renewable perpetually in the USA) and is copyrighted (also perpetual in the USA).

tried IE

Didn't you read the license for IE when you installed it?

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID EULA FOR EITHER MICROSOFT WINDOWS 95, WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS ME, WINDOWS NT 4, OR WINDOWS 2000, (each an "OS Product"), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

What ever happened to the VESA video card standards? Its about time we get a VESA3 out folks, as it is though, few new cards are even VESA2 complient

There already is VESA 3 VBE/AF; here's a few free VBE/AF drivers, and here are some you have to pay for.

Windows is free with PCs. You have Windows.

The version of Wintendo that comes with store-bought PCs runs everything as root, providing no real memory protection. A Windows license is often the most expensive part of a PC built from parts, costing upwards of US$300 per box.

Windows has a GUI that is easy to use because it has been developed in conjunction with literally millions of beta testers and focus groups.

Mac OS has an even better GUI than Windows's, so why aren't people using Macintosh computers?

emulation has to be slower, because there's two layers.

Wine Is Not an Emulator. The layered structure of a Wine system is similar to that of a Windows 2000 system: application on top of Win32 on top of the kernel.

you don't have to compile Windows for your PC like you do with Wine (you can get pre-built builds, but they don't work as well).

Which means you can't recompile Windows to create a system optimized for your CPU's pipelines. (AFAIK, Windows 9x is still optimized for a 486.)

For WINE to work usably, you are required to have Windows on your PC (true: all those shots of Word running on Linux only happen because Linux is using the dlls and vxds)

This is partially rebutted by your first point. Wine with the Windows 98 DLLs can be more stable than Windows 98 itself because of the protection that the underlying system provides. Even then, you don't need to use Word; you can use Emacs and LaTeX, and your output may even look better.

In a large, free market, with all kinds of roughly interesting movies to choose from, this is no big deal. You don't do business with the movie studios that require lobotomies.

But what if 90% of the sheeple[?] do? The 10% of knowledgeable geeks (I'm overestimating) who boycott "lobo studios" won't be enough to put them out of business. The only way to win is to educate the sheeple. Join EFF and help fight the good fight.

Save $600 (100%) off the retail price of Photoshop by giving up prepress capabilities (which are not necessary for web or game graphics). Try WinGIMP. Sure, it takes an hour to get used to, but so does Photoslop.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Most musicians get the vast majority of thier money for live performance, not for records sold. Selling CDs or singles is a way to get people to want to see them live.

Your argument seems to discriminate against artists in genres that don't have a concept of live performance. For instance, do electronic artists perform live? Most of their music is generated by a computer program (e.g. Modplug Tracker or some other sequencer); what is there to watch?

But I won't give you any points for not being able to look at the filesize and be able to guess that it is the complete song.

Normally, when I search, I sort by song length. This puts all the complete files together; then I go for low pings. But this still doesn't help with users who log off and users who set their simultaneous uploads to 0.

"Black" Access - The software you get is so *ucking clever it works out what you want before you want it downloads it and puts it into your playlist so all you need to do is press play and you get the music you want without even having to think about it...

Black access would be straightforward to implement. It would be similar to platinum access, except it automatically suggests singles or albums from the same genre and artist as the ones you regularly download. Riffage.com did this.

I agree that the Bono Act has gone too far. Imagine if patent terms were as long: we wouldn't have generic drugs at all. IMHO, 25 years is more than enough to cover an author's expenses and provide a decent profit. If 17 to 20 years for a patent is enough to keep the drug industry running, why wouldn't a similar time period also work for the copyright industry?

It appears copyright has been continuously extended on everything produced since 1917 (not sure that's the right year, the copyright office website has it somewhere).

The correct year (in the US at least) is 1923. To me, a copyright date provides only one bit of information: before 1923 or on-or-after 1923. Read my short essay on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, the root source of DisneyCo's power.

I would gladly donate to an organization doing copyright law reform.

You could start at the Eldred v. Reno page. Also consider joining the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I don't know if i'm supposed to feel bad about laughing at that gimp artist commercial

That "gimp artist" commercial didn't have anything to do with GIMP, did it?

if you walk into an emergency room and say "I need to see a doctor" it doesn't matter how much money it costs to treat you, there in no hospital in the US that can legally turn you away.

Have you seen The Confession? That film explores this very issue. Oh wait, you're boycotting Hollywood because of the DMCA that turns perpetual copyright into a perpetual patent on DVD.

It's also well excepted by most mainstream economists economists that intellectual property is absolutely necessary to innovation.

Assuming s/excepted/accepted/, it was once also "well [accepted] by most mainstream" philosophers that the Earth was at the center of the universe. "Because $CELEBRITY says so" is a logical fallacy.

The term should be long enough to make the design work to create the invention a profitable investment, and no longer.

Too bad Congress doesn't apply this logic to copyrights also. Does it really take 95 years for Disney to recoup its investment in creating Mickey Mouse?

That's why we pay the estate of Alan Turing a percentage when we use a computer, or Alexander Graham Bell's descendants own the IP on the telephone.

Unlike copyrights, which are perpetual in the USA and WIPO states because DisneyCo owns Congress, patents expire 20 years after they're filed or 17 years after they're granted, but it doesn't matter because the USPTO takes three years to process a patent. And in those three years, a company (except for drug companies that also deal with FDA induced lag) can start selling the products and building a market. Because the patent is "pending," it's still not illegal to clone the product. But after the patent is granted, the company can "pull a Unisys" and make a killing in the courtroom.

The difference is that with these market monopolies, we're talking about the ENDS, not the MEANS. You're mostly incorrectly assuming that there is only one means to an end.

Sometimes there is. What if a drug company finds a cure for AIDS, but it can be proven that the biomechanism it uses is the only mechanism possible to kill the virus without killing the patient? It'd be like the MP3 and LZW patents, where the only way to produce a conforming bitstream is by infringing the patent.

The Pokemon anime was not inspired by Nintendo's videogame. I think it was the other way around

First, there were Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue for the Game Boy handheld console, quite good console RPGs. Then the TV show came out and fscked up the whole franchise. For example, instead of Team Rocket being like the Mafia, it became two dumbarses. And Ash was also dumbed down and given a voice nearly identical to that of Noddy from PBS's Noddy. It's almost as bad as what happened to Super Mario Bros. the Movie. Ecch. And then they tried to turn the TV show into a video game (Pokemon Special Pikachu Edition, commonly known as Pokemon Yellow).

there's plenty of strategical thinking in that game

Only for newbies. Once you're good at it (> 20 hours of play), Tetris does not involve all that much strategy. Eventually, placing the next tetramino becomes almost a reflex action. Some newer versions of Tetris try to break this up by adding bonuses for forming 4x4 squares (The New Tetris), chain reactions (Tetanus, Quadra, The Next Tetris), "magic" items (TetriNET; DuelTris for Apple IIGS; Tetris Jr.), or distracting display effects (TOD; Tetripz).

JNap only runs on Java platforms. Sun provides the Java platform (J2SE) only for Microsoft Windows 9x, Microsoft Windows NT/2000, Solaris for x86, Linux for x86, and Solaris for SPARC. A C program can be more cross-platform than a Java program; just look at any application or game written with the Allegro library.

But I may try it out, as the latest official Napster client can no longer connect to OpenNap servers.

How long before that goatse guy gets a hold of this?

I used the NetPBM suite to convert goatse.cx's "The Receiver" image to ASCII. It didn't look very good.

Oh, and IANTGCG (I am not the Goatse.cx guy).

Do you have any thoughts about why the shell concept has not caught on with other operating systems?

Probably because Mac OS and Windows are designed around an assumption that newbies are very afraid of a command line.

I'm thinking of NT and Win2K in particular, but it seems to be true in general.

Bash and Fileutils have been ported to DOS (you'll need at least bsh204b.zip, fil316.zip, and txt20b.zip to get a useful shell). So has a lot of other GNU software; start with DJGPP, the DOS port of GCC.

Install Red Hat Cygwin and you get Bash, GCC, and other things you may be used to on GNU/Linux, BSD, or UNIX systems.

According to The Open Group, there is no such thing as a "UNIX-like" system. I personally use the term "nixclones" for GNU systems (GNU/Linux, Cygwin) and BSD systems. Or is that also a trademark abuse?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?