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Me? I quit WoW and picked up poker. Money coming in rather than going out at the rate of $20 a month is a much better way to be addicted. Just as http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/Wil Wheaton.

I've played this a total of about 25 hours now, and I must say the answer is NO, it has not. The AI is horrible makes amateurish mistakes and isn't a stride towards anything good. I've seen countless enemies stand there and do nothing while I spend 2 minutes shooting fireballs at them. I've seen them ignore comrades being attacked from range, and get caught on crazy terrain features like stairs.

Xbox360 AI developer comments

read up on this and you can see how the xbox360 gimped the AI, and since this game is a port with no real improvements being made on the PC its quite telling about how the game was put together. The AI isn't even the worse part of the game. The level-scaling is attrocious and completely removes the feeling of immersion since every enemy you face is either leveled or replaced with a more powerful version. You only get ahead of meta-gaming and power-leveling.

Is the game enjoyable? Yes it is.

Is the game everything it was reported to be and should be? No, not by a long shot.

Thief had better AI awareness 8 or so years ago. Enemies reacted appropriately to things happening around them. They only react now if you're in range. You can stand there outside their response range, which is not outside your sight range and rain holy fire down around them. Unless you hit them, they don't care. You can do the same thing in a town.

If this is the patent that I think it is, it's still in the preliminary stages. On an application for a preliminary injunction, the trial judge looked at things...

Simply, no.

There has been a jury verdict. MercExchange is seeking injunctive relief, not a preliminary injunction. Let's Google for "MercExchange eBay patent".

Authoritative source:
"In this case, a jury found that eBay infringed MercExchange's patent, but the court refused to issue an injunction. Stating the "usual rule," the Federal Circuit reversed, finding that an injunction should issue. Now, Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case and determine the proper standards for issuing an injunction."

The District Court, acting on the verdict found that eBay infringed the patents back in 2003. How do I know this? I'm a patent attorney and I generally research the subjects that I write about.

During the war, the major Indian tribes in Oklahoma signed an alliance with the Confederacy and participated in its military efforts.

Alice has a transcript of the keynote. Missing a couple of phrases and names, but otherwise appears complete if you want to read what Iwata actually said.

Here is one link:
http://urbanist.typepad.com/photos/41114_books_by_ color/p1010010.html

And another:
http://flickr.com/photos/vsgoliath/54335788/

This will already kill lots more stuff than just ipods: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrill as/2006/01/weapons_the_rfi.html

And this differs from the effors of MPAA, RIAA, and various patent, trademark, and copyright law how?

note that even DC And Marvel Comics are trying to get a joint trademark on the phrase "Super Hero" so that no one else can use it.

The death of a thousand cuts.

BTW, the following article describes in a much more cogent way the issues with this particular case than the Crichton editorial.

http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/10/labcor p_v_metab_1.html

Fishing around on that site I found this later article which covers the case and the briefs in far more detail, as well as including links to the actual briefs. It is also important to note that the blog author was one of the drafters of the brief filed by the "Intellectual Property Owner".

Jedidiah.

BTW, the following article describes in a much more cogent way the issues with this particular case than the Crichton editorial.

http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/10/labcor p_v_metab_1.html

Fishing around on that site I found this later article which covers the case and the briefs in far more detail, as well as including links to the actual briefs. It is also important to note that the blog author was one of the drafters of the brief filed by the "Intellectual Property Owner".

Jedidiah.

I agree, and as far as I am concerned the publication of an article in the NYT that is so obviously full of factual errors exposes the editorial staff of what used to be a great newspaper as incompetant.Such ridiculous articles do nothing to further and in reality detract from efforts to promote real and needed patent reform.

The US patent process has some serious problems chief amoung them being the granting of business process patents and secondarily granting patents for material that does not actually constitute an invention. Congress should make it clear in patent reform legislation that a patent should only be granted for something novel and useful, and business proceses should not be covered. Software patents are an area of great abuse at present - many trivial ideas are being patented.

BTW, the following article describes in a much more cogent way the issues with this particular case than the Crichton editorial.

http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/10/labcor p_v_metab_1.html

Check it out, at least, at aws.typepad.com

"Whether the Federal Circuit erred in setting forth a general rule in patent cases that a district court must, absent exceptional circumstances, issue a permanent injunction after a finding of infringement."

A higher population density in democrat-voting areas leading to a seemingly insufficient amount of machines there purely through poor planning with a new untried system and no malice aforethought? Slightly related; I just saw these maps showing that the slave states and territories of the past correlate quite well with red states (and free states with blue states). ;)
http://sensoryoverload.typepad.com/sensory_overloa d/2004/11/free_states_vs_.html

Check out the article here by Kathy Sierra (of Head First fame). She quotes neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould of Princeton saying "complex surroundings create a complex brain". Basically, a monotonous environment causes the brain to stop producing new neurons. For years, it was thought that we were born with all the neurons we would ever have, largely because all studies of primate brains involved keeping the monkeys in cages -- an environment that inhibits neuron formation and growth! Now research shows that a stimulating environment fosters neuron formation and reduces brain stress. Time to bust out the electric screwdriver!

Duh, it's because Christianity is the ultimate evil!
http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/2004/07/one _nation_indi.html

I'm surprised a post linking to this piece of junk science is being modded up; doesn't anybody do their homework around here? Blondes are not going extinct, and they never will be as long as there is no selective pressure against blond genes in future populations; in fact it ought to be blatantly obvious that the claim that blondes are in peril is contradicted by the very title of this ridiculous Times article - if blondness is such a positive reproductive trait, how could the genes for it possibly vanish?

I'm surprised a post linking to this piece of junk science is being modded up; doesn't anybody do their homework around here? Blondes are not going extinct, and they never will be as long as there is no selective pressure against blond genes in future populations; in fact it ought to be blatantly obvious that the claim that blondes are in peril is contradicted by the very title of this ridiculous Times article - if blondness is such a positive reproductive trait, how could the genes for it possibly vanish?

Me too, this is a great site, however i'm not about to cut into my WoW time, this will be a good 'stick it to the Man's bandwith' site for the day instead. It may not beat the Dilbert Blog ( http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ ) for hours of humor, but it'll do nicely. :)

How about we link to the ARTICLE http://ninthwavedesigns.typepad.com/guilded_lilies /2006/03/annie_get_your_.html rather than linking to someone's lameass blog that REFERENCES the link to the article?

Editors should catch this crap.

Sure! I'll accept the consequences!

The funny thing is, back in the early 90s, SBC and the other telcos got about $200 billion in rescinded taxes, favorable legislation, and other goodies to deliver fiberish speeds, and deliver "ultra high speed broadband" to 85% of the country. By 1998 or so. Now the US is 16th in broadband penetration, and at speeds that are a fraction of several Asian countries' networks.

They claimed that it was so expensive to build the infrastructure, that there was no way they could do it while being burdened with their usual tax and service structure. So how much have they delivered? Little, if at all. One of them promised that 99% of NJ would have affordable 5-8 MB broadband. If you live in NJ and pay one of the highest tax rates in the country (on just about everything: gas, property, sales, etc.), you can't be happy to hear that a corporation got hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to deliver the Duke Nukem of broadband.

They ALL got similar breaks, and SBC is one of the worst violators. I wouldn't be surprised if they are currently making similar promises to get legislation on the books to outlaw third-party VoIP.

This is just a generalization of the issues at hand. Find out more at 200billionscandal.typepad.com

Um, maybe not. It is *paint* after all. You'd probably just shift from lookin' vaguely Devo to this (worksafe; I just picked a result from googling images with 'blue-hair'...)

I agree that Napster is indelibly associated with piracy, even though it's been years since such a thing existed. That funky headphone-wearing-cat will always be a pirate flag to those of us who were around for Napster's glory days. This new company's early advertising promised some badass 'tude, but couldn't match their ads and certainly couldn't live up to the original Napster. Their more recent advertising -- "Have everything - Own nothing" -- was just an annoying reminder that the real Napster is long gone.

Thanks for bringing this down to a new level. You rock :-D Nope, no head up my ass.

Robertson (not Robinson) called for the murder of Hugo Chavez, and it was a pretty lame thing to do. He was censured for it by the government.

Graciously nicked from http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterror ism_blog/2006/02/abu_hamza_almas_1.html

Masri was convicted on 11 counts under the UK's Terrorism Act of 2000,. Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, and Public Order Act of 1986. This included six of nine counts for soliciting-to-murder charges and two of four charges of "using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior with the intention of stirring up racial hatred". He was also found guilty of being in the possession of terrorism material including a ten volume set "The Encyclopedia of the Afghani Jihad," which contains information "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." The "Encyclopedia" included instructions on how to make explosives. It also identified key international landmarks, such as Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower as potential terrorist targets.

Here would be some data on what Pat Robertson did

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/robertson.chavez/

Did you notice the difference?

I'm not going to say that I agree or disagree with what happened to Abu Hamza al-Masri, but I will go ahead and say that he sounds a bit more radical to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Hamza_al-Masri

What was the last terrorist organization that Pat Robertson publicly supported? Did he chime in support for any particular group of radicals that might take down Hugo Chavez?

There is an interesting article on this guys site about software patents [Math You Can't Use]: http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2006/02/book_r eview_mat.html

Even if your home doesn't increase in value you are still better off owning than renting,

Unless of course, you end up in Golden Jail.

Because your property tax is set by the value of your property when it was first purchased, having rising prices all around can lead to you become financially trapped. You can't move up or down the market, nor do you want to leave the market.

Yes Dvorak can be full of sh**, and more often than not he is just that, full of sh**. However, he did predict Apple's move to Intel when everyone thought he was again full of sh**, and it did happen, eventually.

That being said, in this case there are a couple additional things to consider:

*developing/maintaining OS is a significant overhead for a company
*currently, even though the sales of computers in Apple generate a large portion of profits, they also amount to a large portion of expenditures (r & d, hardware, software etc.)
*if we compare the cost/performance ratio of iPod/iTunes business, this is really where Apple's bread and butter are
*recently, there have been a lot of rumors that Steve Jobs has gotten more and more disinterested in the Apple, especially around the time he was battling a cancer. This could be in part due to the fact that he is getting more and more involved with Pixar/Disney. See: this and this
*there are signs that OSX is increasingly becoming a mess (somewhat outdated but worth a look, although don't put too much weight into it: click here)


If we consider previous statements, dropping OS may actually free-up a significant portion of Apple's budget to do other things which appear to be more profitable and will definitely become more profitable as they become more dominant on other platforms. So, this does not seem so far-fetched, although I do admit that even I doubt this will happen anytime soon, if at all. On the other hand, whether you like hearing this or not, Microsoft in all likelihood hopes for Apple to stay independent as that is the last excuse they have to prevent the government from proclaiming them a monopoly (which they arguably already are).

You should read this. He argues the same points extremely well...

See Cute Overload. It's hard to resist!! ARGH!

The real point is that instead of making hay over the executive's increasingly intrusive surveillance of ordinary Americans, the right wing is trying to change the subject to Google's relatively neutral move to enter China on the Communists' terms. Google is in the news as an advocate of privacy (for not turning over a full week of searches) and the right is trying to tarnish their image.

As evidence, note the Mighty Wurlitzer's campaign for divestment led by right-wing PJ Media and friends. Like Roger Simon's "I like to think that if I had any Google stock I'd be divesting it now". Or here. Or Michelle "The case for interning American Muslims" Malkin.

Don't buy the head fake. Google waited a long time to enter the Chinese market. They didn't just do this for the money. Instead, get back to the NSA illegal wiretap scandal, the Hurricane Katrina scandal, the no-room-at-the-inn hotel evictions of Katrina victims, the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Valerie Plame scandal, the prewar Iraq intelligence scandal (still no Phase II report! senior intelligence official reports that the administration commissioned no strategic-level assessments in the run-up to war), the troop-fatality-body-armor scandal, the Iraq reconstruction money scandal... and many other scandals.

Play it, it's fun. Then you'll see why everyone here at Dotslash likes it.

Really though, I don't know why David Jaffe is the current Google in terms of Slashdot stories, but GoW sold a lot of copies, and it's a game people paid attention to. Yes, he's saying shit that's been said before, but the only difference is that because of his game's popularity, people are actually taking note (i.e., I've heard this all before, just not on Slashdot.)

But I agree with you. Saying and doing are two different things, and hopefully he'll follow his own advice for his next game.

It's not because cartoons were published depicting Mohammed as a terrorist, it's because cartoons were published. This is something that's completely forbidden in their Religion.
It doesn't matter if they depicted Mohammed as a peace-loving hippie, the reaction would have probably been the same.
Another big factor was the spread of fabricated cartoons and the incitement of violence through rumours spread via sms messages.
And of course, the fact that a few years ago Jyllands-Posten rejected Jesus cartoons on the grounds that their readers would find them offensive.

Excepting a few extreme edge cases, anyone who buys an mp3 player either has money to burn or is completely financially incompetent.

Granted, the financially incompetent group is probably larger.

Oh, nice price roundup, BTW.

I'm pretty sure about that:
http://tommcmahon.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized /newton160.jpg
There is a qualitative difference in their size, and "shirt pocket" just abou describes it.

Not to mention their cost...Palm was like one half to one third the Newton I think. Newton fans would say that corresponds to their functionality, but again, Palm was powerful enough to do custom apps, thus putting itself above the other "electronic organizers" of the day.

I respect the Newton, but it's not just bad marketing or politics or being the first out there w/ some unproven handwriting recongition that made it fail to thrive. (Actually, I was surprised Palm's graffiti wasn't a showstopper for more people, at the time I thought it was perverse that people would have to change to meet the computers needs, rather than the other way around, but I personally got used to it, and other people either got used to it or used the virtual keyboard.)

Send your congressman a copy of The 200 Billion Dollar Broadband Scandal, by Bruce Kushnick.

From the site: Bruce's central point is that in the 26 states controlled by Verizon and SBC the local phone companies sold new regulatory regimes to the state PUCs. That they promised to build fiber everywhere and deliver symmetrical 45 megabit per second data networks to homes and businesses - for the most part within a decade. The decade and more has now come and gone. The networks were never built. However the LECs continue to charge all customers the higher rates and the state PUCs don't complain. Bruce's 200 billion Broadband Scandal totals the figure that individuals and businesses in those 26 states paid for Broadband networks that were never delivered. He gets $206 billion dollars that they would not have had to pay, had rate-of- return regulation not been over turned.

Filters, fellow Coward. In Chris Anderson terms, post-filters. But under the right system, even the crap is worth putting up there.

Large voter turnouts lead to "the rule of the dumbest"

NO, it leads to the rule of the AVERAGE.
You have heard of bell curve distribution right?

Also the larger the group, the smarter the outcome:

http://webcast-law.uchicago.edu/levmore-cbi-09-29- 05.mp3
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2005/11/the _wisdom_of_g_1.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385503865/002-73 33566-8455228?v=glance&n=283155

"Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.

In other words the process of voting will tend to choose the better candidate. The more people you have voting, the more likely this is to happen, regardless of their reasons for voting.

I don't know how durable WorldChanging's servers are, but just in case, here's a coral cache of the article:

http://www.worldchanging.com.nyud.net:8090/archive s/004078.html

Additionally, here's the web site for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology: http://www.crnano.org/

Other links:
* Wikipedia article
* Responsible Nanotechnology blog
* Wise-Nano: their collaborate website (i.e. wiki) for "studying the facts and implications of advanced nanotechnology"

(I tried to post this anonymously, but Slashdot gave me a "There was an unknown error in the submission" error. I guess I'll have to risk being modded down for karma-whoring.)

I'll be darned if I can find the /. article, though. here's one blog post that mentioned it...

1. They are spying on people unrelated to domestic security issues like political opponents and anti-war protesters.
   
2. They are going on automated fishing expeditions against "suspicious" people, the vast majority of which are probably innocent or who have so little evidence against them that even FISA wouldn't support it.
   

I'll try my best.

How is it that we KNOW that *this time* it's going to go higher?

Well, this time we KNOW that there is a new process going on at global scale: the generation, at a significantly larger scale, of gasses which are known to affect the heat exchange processes in the atmosphere. But still, reformulating your question, do we KNOW that this will make the temperature go higher?

We don't know. We don't just get to know the future by doing science. All we can do is gather all the available data we can find, current and historic, we build the best models we can based on our best current understanding of the underlying physics, we make the most accurate simulations we can based on those models, we try to validate those simulations with other related observations, which in climate science are always scarce, and we try to infer what may happen.

This report is just a summary of this kind of research. Decissions are never based on KNOWING what will happen. That would make life easy, eh? We can only try to minimize risks and maximize potential benefits. That is what the report is about. Understanding risks.

Don't plants prefer warmer, higher-CO2 atmosphere?

Different plants have different favourite conditions. A significant change of the conditions at global scale will be bad for many plants, until a new ecological equilibrium is reached. The geopolitical consequences of a big transient change of that kind could be VERY COSTLY.

And the ammount of CO2 my benefit most kinds of plants, but that is an orthogonal issue. It will not compensate for the rise in temperature, the different local changes in humidity, etc.

Wasn't it much warmer than +2C at intermittent periods in humanity's past, as well as in more ancient geologic epochs?

No. At least in the last several hundred thousand years we have been going through periodic cold and warm periods (glaciar/interglaciar ages). We have been in one of the peaks for many centuries now, and the biggest peaks of the past tens of thousands of years are never more than 2 degrees above current average temperatures, if current estimates are correct. To find more than two degrees above this, you would have to go back in the order of millions of years. All known human civilizations sprung more recently than that.

Again, there was no one with a mercury thermometer making anotations at those times. Those numbers are based on indirect observations and models, but is the best we can do at this time. Instead of asking on slashdot, why don't you just do some research? Try, for example, starting on this report. The figure in pag. 31 show the trend I describe, and you can find references on peer-revied literature related to those results.

Wouldn't increased temperatures open up large swaths of North America to cultivation more intensively than before? This shift of 'main agricultural region' northward also sort of neatly solves the issue about soil and water table exhaustion in the Central US too, doesn't it?

Well maybe North America would do fine... maybe not... but what about the rest of the world? It seems reasonable to think that many of the areas with the biggest famine problems nowdays would be in a yet much worse situation with a shift of the agricultural regions towards the poles (there is another emisphere down there towards the south, you know) like the one you describe. The report also talks about that. But maybe you just don't care about those people and their future generations, do you?

Up to 2.8bn people at risk of water shortage * - I don't see how global warming is going to affect this? As far as I can see, the 'global warming' crowd is also predicting increased frequency and increased intensity weather events (ie rain?) which will be recharging aquif

Ah, there's the problem. I was looking at the link provided by the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent:

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/20 05/11/intelligent_des_1.html

It's a follow-up. Adams' thesis is not that the arguments against ID are weakened, but that the misrepresentations he points to make it difficult and/or impossible for the average Joe to find a credible source for those arguments.

I'm looking on this page (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2 005/11/intelligent_des.html) and I can't find it, even doing a search and replace. I admit I didn't read the comments - just the blog entry. I don't see why the arguments of people who don't know what ID is relevant? How does it weaken the case against ID?

From http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/20 05/11/intelligent_des.html:

To make things more complicated, both sides have good and bad arguments lumped into them. If you make a good argument on your side, I respond by attacking your bad argument instead. If it were a debate contest, both sides would lose.

For example, Darwinists often argue that Intelligent Design can't be true because we know the earth is over 10,000 years old. That would be a great argument, supported by every relevant branch of science, except that it has nothing to do with Intelligent Design.

If I have misunderstood his claim that IDers have good arguments, I regret it. But frankly, even his claim that there are good ID arguments blows his credibility for me. I have yet to hear one that isn't a variation on "x is too complex for us to understand how it could happen without the intervention of the Designer". If he finds these to be good arguments, he needs to get back to that high school science class.

No, I don't believe that IDers think the Universe is 10000 years old, and I've never heard a serious critic say so either. So they aren't Young-earth creationists, or biblical literalists, at least on the surface. But what are these people after? They aren't scientists. They do no research, publish no results, don't submit their work to peer review. They issue press releases and fight to get high school science curricula changed. That isn't science. That isn't how a scientific paradigm gets overthrown. It's something creepier. It is religion trying to disguise itself as science, and if Scott Adams can't see that because he's too busy sneering at people who care about science, well, fuck him and his New Ruling Class. His 15 minutes are long over anyway.
          -aiabx

If you're in the UK, you might want to visit some of the weblogs written by our Members of Parliament.

• Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, blogging since March 2003 (even entitling it 'First Post'!).
• Richard Allan, formerly Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam.
• Boris Johnson, Conservative MP for Henley-on-Thames. Article on his views on blogging.
• Clive Soley, formerly Labour MP for Hammersmith, Ealing Acton and Shepherds Bush, and now a member of the House of Lords. Why MPs Should Get Blogging.

Other important resources are TheyWorkForYou.com, which is a "Web 2.0" (ugh) way of keeping track of what your MP is doing and what's happening in the Houses of Parliament; and WriteToThem.com, which takes the hassle out of writing to your MP - they print it out and post it for you.

Of course, if that's not enough for you, you can switch on Celebrity Big Brother, where George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow has been residing for the past few weeks. As predicted by Tom Watson in 2004.

If you're in the UK, you might want to visit some of the weblogs written by our Members of Parliament.

• Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, blogging since March 2003 (even entitling it 'First Post'!).
• Richard Allan, formerly Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam.
• Boris Johnson, Conservative MP for Henley-on-Thames. Article on his views on blogging.
• Clive Soley, formerly Labour MP for Hammersmith, Ealing Acton and Shepherds Bush, and now a member of the House of Lords. Why MPs Should Get Blogging.

Other important resources are TheyWorkForYou.com, which is a "Web 2.0" (ugh) way of keeping track of what your MP is doing and what's happening in the Houses of Parliament; and WriteToThem.com, which takes the hassle out of writing to your MP - they print it out and post it for you.

Of course, if that's not enough for you, you can switch on Celebrity Big Brother, where George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow has been residing for the past few weeks. As predicted by Tom Watson in 2004.

Dilbert creator Scott Adamshas a good take on this.

I suppose what amazes me is how he is seen now. What Bush has done is amazing for anyone even slightly versed in US political history. The ideas of checks and balances and the separation of powers, so essential to the mechanism by which our government is kept from encroaching upon us, do not even give Bush pause. We are discussing a man who called the Constitution a goddamned piece of paper. Remember the Oath of Office? The Constitution specifies that:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

How will history remember him is a small consolation for those of us concerned about our liberty.

I want some big, important pundit on the right to give an example of something the president does not, by their lights, have the authority to do. If he becomes a dictator in wartime (which it's mighty sketchy to say we're in), why not come out and say this? Can he rape and murder? No, seriously, if he can break one law, why not others?

Shit, I thought I understood our system of government--the legislature expresses the will of the people in laws; the executive branch then implements and executes said laws. For instance, if Congress makes kidnapping a federal offense, the FBI (under the Department of Justice) investigates kidnappings. But according to some of our less stable pundits and her commenters, "The legislature cannot limit the authority of the president, just like the president cannot limit the authority of the legislature." So, does he have divine, kingly powers now? Did we suddenly get that?

Oh, who am I kidding? Clearly the president's imperial authority stops at the beginning of the next Democrat administration.