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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.
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
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"?
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.
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.
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