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Slashback: Bnetd, Salmon, Towers
All I'm certain of is my true love's hair. CompaniaHill writes: "As previously reported on /., first they though it was turquoise. Then they found an error in their early calculations, and announced it was really beige. But doubts lingered, and color experts pointed out that an objective color as viewed from the theoretical blackness of space would appear different when viewed on Earth in typical daylight. So adjustments were made, and calculations were revised and rechecked by color scientists Michael Brill of McClendon Automation Inc. and Mark Fairchild of the Munsell Color Science Laboratories. And now, at last, Ivan Baldry and Karl Glazebrook, astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the final result: The universe is decidedly salmon. Really."
The milestones are getting closer together. Dare Obasanjo writes: "Xindice (http://xml.apache.org/xindice), the Apache native XML database has finally reached version 1.0. Xindice used to be called dbXML and was mentioned in my article on XML and databases."
Three From the Courts TheFrood writes: "It looks as though the battle between Blizzard and bnetd (as reported in previous stories here(1), here(2), and here(3))is heating up. Vivendi has sent another letter to the EFF, which has wasted no time responding."
ElitusPrime writes with an update in the strange case of Ken Hamidi, the Intel employee whose mass-mail to Intel employees brought charges of trespassing. Now the California Supreme Court may take another look at the case. Says ElitusPrime: "If this guy is put in jail, I can think of more then a few other spammers that need to go up the creek with him..."
In a very different case, pagan26 writes: "It seem that DMCA will have its day in court. With ElmcoSoft."
Well, at least you can trust their word, right? Masem writes: "According to MSNBC, the developers of the spyware program WinWhatWhere will no longer have their install program trample the bits of anti-spyware programs, after word broke that this behavior was occurring. However, no word has been made by a similar spyware program developed by SpectreSoft that does similar damage."
I will fork out to see this, happily. Pingsmoth writes "It looks like the faithful fans of Peter Jackson and Tolkien will be able to catch a glimpse of The Two Towers this Saturday. Lordoftherings.net is reporting, through a video of Peter Jackson, that a preview (read: not a trailer) of The Two Towers will be shown in theatres this Saturday, presumably attached to The Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe at the end? At any rate, it looks like I'll be seeing the film at least seven times now, and it's a good thing I got a morning shift tomorrow." For a more colorful description of this 4-minute tease, check out Ain't it Cool News' version.
ill have to upgrade my computers video card. Right now it can only see the univese in 8-bit mode. I don't think salmon is one of those colors.
And now, at last, Ivan Baldry and Karl Glazebrook, astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the final result: The universe is decidedly salmon. Really.
I knew it all along; God is a She!
I Personally Recommend ML
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Someone should inform the offices of the world.
On the other hand, don't. I'd rather have beige everything than salmon. How did they determine it was salmon, anyway? Are they sure it isn't coral? Or sunset pink? Or...
Someone find a box of crayons for these researchers. In the name of research, of course.
from the letter to bnetd
"""...
which circumvents technological controls, in violation of section 1201 of the Copyright Act. The
bnetd.org site exists, in our view, to allow multi-player game play, over the Internet, of pirated copies of
our games. Contrary to the characterization in your letter, the CD-Key authentication code which is being
bypassed by the bnetd server software is a classic example of the type of technological measure intended
to be addressed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the circumvention of that protection is
prohibited by law.
"""
Is this not a reasonable use of DMCA legislation?
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
They have completly disbanded, all the current development is being done by Warforge and to a lesser extent Warez-U.
Just to clear things up:
Trailers used to be shown after a film, thus the name trailers they trail the film. But as you've I'm sure noticed most people leave the theatre well before the credits reach the top of the screen. So theatres started to show "previews" the exact same thing only before the movie. This had the added bonus of keeping people entertained. And in resent years earning ticket sales to movies people wouldn't other wise be cought dead in (wing commander anyone???)
I just had to point this out after the talk of a preview (not a trailer) but it would be after the movie.
-Mike
Oreilly@foxnews.com
tell them you hate DMCA and why
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Commercial speech deservces less protection than non-commercial speech. In addition, complaints about employment practices may come under protection by the ADA, FMLA, Title VII, and the NLRA.
But, this intersect with the rights of Intel to have control over their mail servers. Maybe the lawmakers should look at this case when drafting anti-spam statutes.
Fight Spammers!
baaaa.. everyone is sheep of the movie industry.
I would think that this is a way to get people to see movies repeatedly in the theater at the inflated price... your average geek can see LOTR on some pirated version by now, so all the replay value has to be added via these teasers n'previews.
You are drooling because of a very short piece of film, and you are allowing yourself to be marketed to. The fansites could be very useful centers of discussion and analysis, if they weren't so breathlessly following announcements of a teaser of a trailer.
Goat sex free since 2001
a trailer in the LotR story?
Video Game cheats, hints a
Decidedly Salmon is a great band name.
Fat people are harder to kidnap.
That's not oil in Uranus, that's vaseline...
The man in question, pleading guilty under both Copyright law and the DMCA for illegally copying video tapes, faces the following sentances:
What was so lacking in the punishment for violating the copyright laws that the DMCA was needed?
This and the Blizzard BNETD case show, IMHO, that the DMCA is nothing more than a legal weapon paid for the entertainment industry to chill any speech or action that they feel cuts into their profits. It does not impact the 'for-profit' pirates that actually cost the industry revenue, it tramples on the average consumer.
Copying copyrighted video tapes was illegal before the DMCA. There is no need for an additional law like the DMCA to put "fear" into the pirates like this guy. They face stricter punishments for violating copyright laws than they do the DMCA. The DMCA just broadens the scope to include that so-called gray area that is the average consumer wanting to time-shift/space-shift their belongings, which happens to cut into the entertainment industries profits.
Fuck the DMCA and Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen.
---
Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
Now that the quantifiable color of the universe has been computed, can it be seen by the human eye? This is a great computational effort, but can our eyes tell the difference? It looks pretty blue when I turn my head toward the sky during the day, but pretty black when I repeat the experiment at night. Strange...
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
The correct url is here.
good work guys! Salmon it is... right, so now we know its size, mass, expansion rate, age, density, constituents (most), and now color .... could we maybe figure out its smell?
how does one change his
When I think about The Lyrics Guy, I touch myself.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
He is not a man. He is a machine. He is like a piece of iron.
I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is easily my favourite book. I vastly enjoyed BBC Radio 4's adaptation of it, and I quite enjoyed the animated film.
With that in mind, I can't understand why people loved Peter Jackson's film so much. I tried to remain open minded, but I found it incredibly hard not to just walk out in anger.
He completely ruined the spirit of the tale, and quite unecessarily at that. Most of his changes were totally not needed. Once he decided to remove Tom Bombadil/The Barrow Downs he easily had enough time to remain true to the story, and so many of his alterations took longer to correct later on in the story than he would have ever have saved if he'd just left it be.
That is one of the main problems with making alterations to a story as deep as The Lord of the Rings, if you remove one thing, all the other parts of the story connected to it have to be altered, which cause more alterations later on.
Plus since when has 4 Oscars been a "snub"?
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Really? And we all thought we were joking originally when we said the universe was flesh-toned. Or... was that the internet?
That was close! I already have my tickets for my 5th screening tomorrow (Friday).
Vivendi knows it, and the EFF knows it, and it's easily made obvious by this overwhelmingly clear statement:
We have reviewed the arguments in your letter, and do not find them convincing. We continue to believe [that bnetd is] an infringement of VUG's copyrights. Those activities implicate a number of VUG's exclusive rights under copyright... etc etc.
Their response is classic, and I love their lawyer.
It would be more helpful in the future, however, if rather than summarily claiming that you believe that "the activities engaged in by www.bnetd.org" violate "a number" of your copyrights, you would state specifically what portions of the website and which particular files you believe are infringing, which of your copyrights you believe are infringed and how. We are also uncertain about the exact nature of the technological protection measure you believe has been circumvented...
The CD-Key protection isn't really a "protection measure" per se. You can install the game without using a valid key, you can even play the single-player mode (well, there IS no SP mode in the beta, but you know what I mean) without a true key. Ergo, a circumvention has only occurred if I loaded a program that caused your official server to validate my fake key.
Vivendi knows this, and that's why they're unclear about the "several copyrights" that were infringed. The copyrights were to the "for" method, the "if" statement, the "void" function type and the "main()" function, is the only thing I can see here...
But I suppose I shouldn't joke about that, or we'll have some bright guy trying to patent them, eh?
Bah. I find this highly amusing....
Am I the only person on this site that wants to see a movie when it comes out?!? There's so much drama about a preview of Towers or whenever there's a trailer for Clone Wars. Why do you want to see the best scenes in a movie 6 months before you'll get to see the rest?!
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
Good stuff.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Follow-up to the Larsen ice-shelf disintegrating story: another BBC report says Cambridge scientists have discovered that the ice-caps (those that float on the sea, anyway) are melting from beneath - due to warmer sea-water - as well as from above, due to warmer air temperatures. The sea-level won't rise just because floating sea-ice melts - obviously - but glaciers and icesheets on land that are propped up by sea ice will slide into the ocean more quickly without them, which willraise sea levels. And of course Larsen is just another canary data-point pointing the same way as most studies from the last 15 years.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Did anyone notice how INCREDIBLY unprofessional the letter from Blizzard/Vivendi was? Seriously, it basically amounted to "nope, we're right, you're wrong, post the software and we'll send Blizzard cops to go arrest you!" Then, I cracked up when I saw the EFF letter, which politely begins "Um, I hope this is going to the right place, considering you didn't have a return address...."
Vivendi didn't address ANY of their claims, specifically the point that 1201(c) and 1201(f) clearly ALLOW software such as bnetd (they might as well have specifically given this as an example of what the DMCA does NOT prevent) - just saying "no, you suck, go away." They also misinterpreted 17 U.S.C. it looks like, thinking that bnetd only had 10 business days to respond or they can't file a counter notification, whereas the statute is saying that the offending material can't be redistributed in less than 10 days after sending a counter notification.
Vivendi's actions are going to look really bad from a court's perspective - they're being very aggressive and holding their cards all to their chest, so if they do sue, and try to pull some trick, a judge isn't going to be very lenient.
I am very glad that the EFF is handling this, though - it would've been very difficult, if not impossible, for bnetd to handle it themselves.
If this is the same Hon. Ronald M. Whyte of the many Scientology trials, then ElcomSoft, the EFF, and anyone else opposing the DMCA will likely be disappointed in his findings...
A quick search on Google is a good primer on his previous rulings, which generally favored Scientology rather than ISPs and individuals.
if the universe was pink, and smelled like tuna that had been left in a garbage pail for 3 days.
but the laws are (or should be) decided upon actual code, rather than vague notions.
Currently, the way Intel decides who they "allow" onto their system is determined by how they configure their mail servers. There are exceptions for cracking and some very weak (civil) penalties for unsolicited commercial email. That's it.
But instead, they sued after the fact for "trespassing" -- when there's no law to suit your case, just make the crime fit the law.
The fact that Intel might be able to get away with this is, in my opinion, more troubling than the actual emails which were sent out. Imagine if a company could sue for trespassing anyone who sent an email through it's servers, that management afterwards decided they didn't like. Can Taco sue the trolls around here, when they play games to bypass the lameness filter? If I get pissed off, and write an email to my working group, can I be sued for trespassing? What if I write an email and ask someone else to forward it -- will that party be trespassing? I think the whole approach is wrong. If Intel uses an intra-net that's firewalled off, and someone hacks into it to send an email -- well, fine that's trespassing. But for an internet and mail server connected to the net, trespassing is just ludicrous. Until some anti-spam laws are actually passed that do not restrict themselves to commercial email, they should have no case. And I hope you see the folly of passing any such law.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Isn't that Sesame Street's new software venture?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
but seriously this is cool but how long are they gonna keep FotR in the cinemas? its been there for ages allready. are they gonna keep it there until the 2 towers comes out at x mas or something?
Somebody please correct me on this, but since XML is just text, and text is not compressed (usually) .. how can a XML based db even be plausible when compared to a 'standard' database that compresses date, indexes it, etc etc etc...
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Email systems are designed to accept email messages from arbitrary sources. Calling it "trespassing" is a major distortion of the meaning of the word. The EFF has a press release on the Intel vs Hamidi case.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Johns Hopkins Administration: Okay, what are you guys working on now?
Astronomers (quickly alt-tabbing from Return to Castle Wolfenstein to a spreadsheet): Uhhh... we're calculating... the... color of the universe! We'll need at least two weeks.
JHA: Right then. Talk to you in two weeks.
Astronomer 1: Whew. How're we gonna figure out the color of the universe?
Astronomer 2: Who cares? It's turquoise. Now be quiet. I'm sniping.
[two weeks later]
Astronomer 1: Hey check it out! The Warcraft III beta is out!
[JH Admin comes in]
JHA: Hey guys, got your report on the universe being turquoise. Great work.
Astronomer 2: Yeah, um, we've got a problem. We think it might be beige. We've got to do spectral graphalisys and whatnot. we'll need another two weeks.
JHA: Okay.
etc...
c-hack.com |
Yeah, they're so disbanded that they've just finished putting up a new website.
Idiot.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
According to TORN, most places will be able to see the trailer friday, not saturday.
why is everyone is so hysterical about global warming? do they not know that this is part of the larger ice-age cycle that repeats about every 20k years? we're in the warming period. we go from nearly covered in ice to nearly devoid of ice (with huge sea-level fluctuations) and then back again. is there some kind of expectation that this change is linear? that there will be no bursts of exponential change followed by other plateaus? that these kinds of global changes will not create increased levels of extinction? hey, maybe humans are influencing the cycle. maybe we've shortened it a few thousand years. maybe nobody really knows jack shit but needs something to bitch about between commercials.
any politician that is not strongly in favor of alternate forms of energy is a dick. not because fossil fuels are inherently evil (ok, the corps behind them may be), but more importantly, they're never going to get us off this idiot-infested rock. oh, and they're not renewable. go nuclear! it's god's favorite power source. check out, oh, say, the rest of the universe if you're in doubt. hey, god can't be wrong.
um, that's about it.
It would seem that the problem with the movie (for some), is that LOTR doesn't seem to be something that it's really possible to digest in three hours. Any attempt to do so is therefore doomed to fail, or at least be less adequate a depiction of Tolkien's original vision than the book - it's just not possible to cram everything from the book into a movie and retain entirely the spirit of the book. Which is fine of course, and I think Jackson did a reasonable job, but (to continue with the digestion metaphor), the movie is something like take out from McDonalds, the book is a five course banquet with all the trimmings. Both can be enjoyable in their own way, but you can't compress a banquet into the space of a Big Mac and expect to avoid a little heart burn.
...the tough question: What wine goes good with a universe?
Salmon
I've read in an article down here in NZ that the trailer/preview will be at the end of the movie, but before the credits.
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
It smells like fish.
Undoubtedly tastes like chicken, though.
-- 'intellectual property' is oxymoronic
I masturbate with a pair of tweezers.
White is by definition the sum of all colors in the visible spectrum. The average of all colors of all the galaxies in the universe is simply a more accurate measure of the value of "white" than has previously been achieved.
The fact that we are perceiving a color to the universe just indicates that we are not properly color balanced!
at a screening of Ice Age (funny movie BTW)
looked pretty cool.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
http://boycottblizzard.org/
I also have a link from there to a petition that I would appreciate signatures by anyone against the use of the DMCA by
Blizzard (Vivendi Universal Games) in this case (even if you don't plan on boycotting).
that sucks, i am red/orange color blind... :-(
As of a few days ago, the fan website has been banned any discussion of the legality of bnetd in their chatroom, #diabloii on irc.wiregrass.com. Furthermore, when many of the regular members protested this action by included [censored] or [oppressed] in their nicknames, they were banned. The nickname modifications that resulted in being banned include: [bnetd], [censored], [oppressed], and [not_battle_net] (there may have been others).
A posting to their forums mentioning the censorship was deleted, and the account of the poster (myself) is no longer allowed to post (not a big deal, I created the account specifically for that purpose). Don't petty tyrants surpress news of censorship, too?
As it stands, discussing bnetd is forbidden in the chat room. Protesting the censorship in any way is forbidden. Discussing bnetd or the censorship in the forums is forbidden.
Under a different account, I posted a rebuttal to their recent anti-bnetd article. I wonder if they will censor that as well?
-- Will program for bandwidth
what about the tcp/ip support in blizzard games?
"Director Peter Jackson takes you behind the scenes on The Two Towers and talks about his process and inspiration for this special extended footage. See this new footage only in theaters everywhere with The Fellowship of the Ring starting on Friday, March 29th." (emphasis added)
So, this is not some once-off thing. It will continue to play for the foseeable future. That's how I read it.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
Less than an hour ago astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using revised spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the corrected result: The universe is a pale shade of lemon.
After the latest press conference some color experts were asking how it could possibly be yellow. The head astronomer explained that it was a red-shift effect. "My assistant Bob can explain it to you, he entered the red-shift adjustments..." Bob: "Me? I didn't enter them. You were supposed to do that" Head astronomer: "You didn't? Oh shit..."
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
My name comes from salmo trutta commonly known as the Brown Trout, a relative of the salmon. I just want to say that I'm glad that the salmonoids are finally getting their due props. It's a pretty big deal to have the color of the universe called the color you are (or can exhibit). I just hope that in the future people don't end up saying that salmon are universe colored.
Hey all, it seems there's a mistake in this article! Here it says that it's on FRIDAY!! Hope you guys catch this before you go on Saturday!! :-P
If only we could tattoo that on their foreheads...
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Battle net sucks. I really shouldn't have to say any more, but having distributed servers is great. I want to be able to host my own games with my own people on my own server. bnetd lets me do this.
If the issue here is piracy blizzard's complaint has to be read as a demand that bnetd servers authenticate cd keys. Right now blizzard provides no way to verify cd keys so it's not an issue of copyright circumvention it's an issue of bnetd not having access to blizzard's authentication mechanisms. The solution is the same as that for the creation of the bnetd server itself. Figure it out. I'm sure someone out there has figured out the cd key algorithm, submit it to the bnetd project so they can include their own key checking in the server.(and include a p2p system that checks for duplicates every so often and kicks both people with duped cd keys) At that point bnetd will be a viable complete legitimate product in competition with a bloated overtaxed service. Which is what free markets are all about. What judge in their right mind would judge in favor of a slower overused centrally controlled monopoly on game hosting over a distributed system that does everything battle net does but better?(Don't answer that just cross you fingers and hope some day judges come to their senses.)
We should stop talking about what can be used for illegitimate purposes and keep the discussion of a products capabilities separate from the potential for misuse. For example it is true that I could use a pen to write nasty letters, but this should in no way be used as an argument that no one should manufacture pens.
that global warming isn't a farce or not. Unfortunatly 15 years of recorded data, and 100 years of written records along with a few hundred thousand or even a couple of million years doesn't tell us that if this is natural or unnatural. The thing is...and the big point is...that no one really seems to be getting is the earth is 4 billions maybe as old as 6 billion years or even older, but this could be a natural cycle. But compareing human emssions to the ammount of CO2 and CO, along with sulphurous compounds naturaly produced is a crock.
But I suppose we'll see if this is natural or not, just remeber though you can go from this weather to an ice age in 10 years.
Om, nomnomnom...
it's highly unlikely that humans will stop the rise of the seas. it's basically inevitable, unavoidable and unstoppable. we're quibbling over the timeframe. however, no one can tell you exactly (or even approximately) how much human activity has influenced this progression, if in fact it has.
the problem is that humans have this pesky habit of building their civilizations right along the shoreline. it's not a good long-term plan when you're in the thawing cycle. building further north becomes problematic during the freezing cycle because glaciers tend to be fairly persistent and, oh, huge and unstoppable.
humans have this other rather irksome habit of being, on the whole, fairly short-sighted. most civilizations aren't really planned. no where is it ingrained in our personalities to go out of our way to make sure our current agenda has any real positive bearing on future generations. and don't go thinking you're going to make a difference. the power is in the hands of the governments and megacorps.
behold the USA, pinnacle of "Democracy" and "Freedom"! how much of the wrangling that occurs in Washington, DC every day has the enlightened future of humans in mind? bingo if you said, "zippo, zilch and nada". it's grubbing for money and power with the occasional kissing of babies and touching of cripples to please the electorate. and no where else is any better.
oh, wait, it looks like florida is flooding. well, we just didn't see that coming. quick, who do we blame? who can I use this against? sorry, until we have a global change of consciousness and get past our basic animal instincts, it'll be slow and perilous going.
We also know its:
and they all turn out to be 'none'... although an awful lot of the non-existent sex between the non-existent people seems to be going on.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Actually,
If the tresspasser is not there, usually the police can't do anything. They must witness the misdemenor (sp?) to be able to arrest. Anyways, they may not want to do the paperwork.
Fight Spammers!
wee wee poo poo lalalalala. slashdot is a bunch of homos wee wee wee lalallala. hahaha. wweeee poo poo poo poo poo wee wee wee. bloop bloop whap whap hahah lallallala penis hrhrhrhr got troll hrhrhr
Basically good thought, but thats not *exactly* how it works. The photons radiated by any body are determined by the blackbody curve, which is kind of like a statistical curve of how much light of each wavelength will be emitted. Now, if the curve is about centered on visible light, the object is "white hot". If the curve is centered in the infrared, it is "red hot". But if the object is still hotter, then the curve is centered in the ultra-violet and it is "straw hot". If you don't believe me ask anyone whos worked in a steel mill.
Sorry, but IPX REALLY sucks. Network performance is terrible if you're on a local LAN and want to connect to someone across the Internet (with Kali, let's say), especially if that person is on a slow modem
LAN = Local Area Network.
Under IPX, everyone's performance is synced to the person with the slowest network connection
Some of Blizz's games are synchronous, like the starcraft you mentioned, so your friend with the modem is going to slow down everyone else, IPX vs. TCP/IP is irrelevant in this case.
Battle.Net is also pretty bad -- laggy as hell, unstable, and filled with people where the average maturity seems to be that of a 12-year old
Nearly all of Blizz's games are peer-to-peer, again the starcraft you mention, so battle.net is not lagging your game. Battle.net unstable? Well the whiney 12-years old do blame battle.net rather than their systems, the f'd up hacks they loaded, AOL, etc. when they loose a connection.
Setting up a bnetd server on my box was the best way for myself and a small circle of friends to connect together, have our own ladder games, and play in our own private environment. It probably wouldn't have been necessary if Starcraft came with a TCP/IP option, but it doesn't.
You are mistaken, Starcraft does have TCP/IP LAN play. It was added about the time the MacOS X version was released.
Yes. In the analogy, Intel only asked for a formal "don't come around here no more" (i.e., stop spamming us) injunction against Hamidi, NOT to have him arrested and carted off to jail.
// fotr.c
#include "tt.h"
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Why don't you anti-corporate-abuse Slashdotters just boycott technology altogether? That'd certainly save some effort as to remembering which companies we're buying from this week, and which ones were picketing.
Yeah, sure, this'll get modded down, but the 'boycott everything' tactic achieves no purpose, as most people don't give a red rat's ass about creating a clone of battle.net, as Blizzard has created a service which is free and stable.
Next on Slashdot: Boycotting the Catholic Church...
"I showed a video to my fraternity brothers after they didn't believe I had a girlfriend at another college."
>Try MS XP.
>It will solve any problem you have.
I've heard that Emma's ex pee would fix lots of problems also, but I really don't this that's the solution to this one.
. . . of course.
Last night I went to see LOTR again and was surprised to see the preview attached at the end. I guess they leaked it early, it was awesome, I can't wait.
Under Sumner v. US Postal (3rd or 9th circuit) an employee is protected in reasonable protests for their rights. In Payne v. McLemore picketing against racial discrimination was held to be protected. Is sending lots of email more intrusive than picketing?
The Supreme Court in Robison v. Shell Oil considers that protections extend to ex-employees.
My argument (and seems to be the AFL-CIO's) that this is a protected act, and did this cross the line or being overly intrusive.
Though Intel argues that it is tens of thousands of emails, it is not that many per person and only 450 requested removal.
Fight Spammers!
while i agree that commercial speech is somewhat less protected, i think we have to look at why spam is a problem at all: because the cost is not borne by the sender.
in the real world, junk mail does cost the sender. but the internet essentially recreates a "tragedy of the commons" that has no constraints on abuse.
the solution is _not_ to gut free speech, but to correctly allocate the costs of distribution. isn't sender-pays why wireless is so much more widespread in europe than in the u.s.?
free-lunch advocates should be wary of what they want...they don't like what they get;-}
You know all those times websites ask you for an email address for downloading a file or something else, which they can spam like mad? I've found that hotline@mpaa.org (the MPAA's piracy reporting hotline address) works nicely, but this Viviendi gentleman just handed us another nice email address to use as a junk address:
:-)
piracy@vuinteractive.com
The way I see it, let the spammers and the large copy control organizations duke it out. No matter who comes out on top, we end up winning.
May we never see th
I agree...my understanding is that Blizzard can ban someone from battle.net for cheating or whatever other issues they feel are a problem.
I will not accuse them of doing the wrong thing here -- cheating is a major issue that affects other players and the value of those players' purchase. However, there is nothing on the box that tells cheating users that this service that allows them to play the product multiplayer over the Internet may be simply revoked. They paid for the product with the expectation that they could use it.
bnetd allows people to set up their own servers, with their own rules for who to ban. If someone ticks off Blizzard, then they're SOL on the value of their product. Perhaps these players cheated once, got caught, and would have stopped...but they're banned and are out the value of their purchase. Perhaps they feel that cheating against people is legitimate behavior -- not a view that most people will agree with, but taking away the value of someone's purchase because they have different views has certain issues. It is not *illegal* to cheat, just against Blizzard's rules. Heck, someone could even be falsely accused of cheating and stripped of the value of their purchase.
I don't have a problem with Blizzard providing a premium service that removes cheaters or bad sports or whatever from the system *as long as there are other options for those people*. If you want a place to go where an effort to weed out cheaters has been made, then good, but do not eliminate the ability to play multiplayer for those cheaters.
AFAIK, Blizzard does not *guarantee* battle.net service to any of their customers, which gives bnetd value as a risk-eliminator -- if Blizzard goes under tomorrow, players can continue to play.
Also, I do not believe that guaranteed battle.net service is considered part of the product. If it were so, than I don't think that Blizzard can just strip players of their purchased product without giving them a refund -- suppose someone fires the thing up and cheats...Blizzard has the right to prevent them from playing further, but needs to give them their money back in return.
So if guaranteed battle.net service is not part of the product, then why is Blizzard claiming copyright circumvention issues? The key check is not to prevent you from playing the game -- the LAN and single player modes can testify to that. It's to keep unauthorized users from using battle.net. So they're claiming copyright infringement on an access control mechanism to multiplayer which is just a "free extra" and not even part of the sold package? Get real.
May we never see th
nice. i wanna see more copy and pastes from the onion.
kali: Does not check for deleted/duplicate/valid CD keys, piracy is certainly possible. Has no Blizzard oversight. In itself does not allow for Warcraft 3 play.
I believe Kali actually went out and got a license from Blizzard. Comparisons to bnetd are misguided, especially since the Kali/Blizzard license pre-existed battle.net and pre-existed cdkeys.
Hi all (and Ms. 3141), it's me!
Have you missed me? I know I haven't written for long, but it's because of temporary instability in my life.
Anyway, let me tell you about LOTR.
It begins with the story of poor Bilbo, who had great life in his hobbit hole, until Gandalf took him out of his cozy hole and forced him into a completely unnecessary adventure, which caused many people in a village to get killed, and also resulted him in being much more rich - and gain a magical ring. All those things did not make him happier.
It continues with The Fellowship Of The Rings, about Bilbo's heir, Frodo, who's forced into going to another adventure of his own. He needs to get rid of the ring that Bilbo found in his previous unnecessary adventure. Now, while Frodo's adventure may be a necessity, it could have been entirely avoided if Bilbo hadn't gone to his uselesss adventure.
Another annoying thing with The Fellowship is that it has almost no girls. I remember only 3.5: Lobelia (that greedy old woman), Tom's wife, Arwen and the Elven Witch. When the list of Frodo's friends was written, I was so annoyed to see that it is consisted of males alone! It's so old fashioned, and makes that book unfit to the year 2002.
Now, ask me what fantasy book I'd love to read now? I'd say none. There's nothing interesting. All the fantasies disappointed me. I used to like Narnia, but I read it again and found it old fashioned (although it was much better than LoTR - at least they had female characters there)
Oh.. and the movie was much more interesting than the book. I couldn't complete The Fellowship.. (I managed to finish The Hobbit, which turned into a real page-turner by its end). And I hate Tom Bombadil. He shouldn't have appeared there at the first place - and besides, I deserve to have his wife.
[ ] [ ] [ ] - bYe - [ ] [ ] [ ] <--- Wings of Mayonnaise
I want tender love now!
Elkobim