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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.
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.
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!
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 )
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
You're either a troll, or someone incredibly ignorant. Did it occur to you that Vivendi might just be firing off BULLSHIT in their letters? Reading a legal document from the bad guy isn't going to give you an accurate profile of the entirety of the situation. Hence, your ignorance.
Bnetd wasn't created to pirate Blizzard games any more than DeCSS was created to pirate DVDs. It was created so people playing Blizzard games could have multiplayer games on local LANs without having to rely on battle.net.
Blizzard is just using the lack of CD key authentication as a reason to kill the project. Bnetd asked Blizzard to provide a means to authenticate CD keys, and Blizzard refused. So what happens? Bnetd functions happily without it.
They tried to take their ball and run home, but they made their OWN ball. Boo hoo for Blizzard.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
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"?
That was close! I already have my tickets for my 5th screening tomorrow (Friday).
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
Perhaps you should read EFF's response, and possibly even Title 17, Chapter 12 where it says (as referenced by the EFF letter):
1201 (c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.
... (3)
1201 (f) Reverse Engineering... (3)
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
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....
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.
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.
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