Why don't hardware makers build cheaper, non-state-of-the-art hardware for open source operating systems, with open source designs and drivers? If they're modern enough to get decent performance they'll sell a ton of them and they'll work for the open source community.
Call me crazy, but paying for a top of the line Nvidia or ATI card that will never have the driver support it needs to be utilized seems like a waste of my money. The same goes for any other piece of hardware that isn't/won't be fully supported by the manufacturers.
While I respect the fact that there are at least a handful of projects underway to develop open source hardware, it's a tough field to enter and likely when they do hit production each batch will sell out before most can get their hands on one. The hardware makers obviously have the resources and financial incentives to make a lower-end, open piece of hardware. The fact that they don't stinks to high heaven.
Am I wrong in thinking that a card with slightly older tech using open source drivers that can actually be optimized to spec is better than a state of the art card with poor drivers (be they open or proprietary)?
Well said. Now what about some solutions to the problems? Here's a few to think about:
1. The link between transportation of physical objects (including goods and people) and the transportation of information. We have an increasingly efficient ability to transport information, but our transportation of physical objects is nowhere near the necessary capacity. We allow convenience and speed to trump actual efficiency. A global comprehensive transportation system will lower shipping costs and ease the burdens of food production. It will save time, money, and lives. The trade off is that if we do it properly we can spread ourselves out a little better so that we're not as crowded.
2. The correct methodology for the establishment of a global society/world government needs to be recursive. Yeah, I know, how geek...but the hierarchical approach allows for different locations, regions, and then the globe to appropriate governmental funding and make independent chain of command style decisions that will ultimately build to serve us all. That means beyond a basic set of universal rights and laws, things can change depending where you go on the globe. It also means you can go there. The economy should and will remain decentralized in that fashion, and yet will have some overarching mechanisms of control (ie, money supply).
3. If we build first a world transportation system and second a world government (not in some lame globalist, totalitarian, commie, etc. sense; a real world government) we've got a great start toward the end of massive wastes of resources on things like war and importing goods from half a world away because they are cheaper than the same goods made next door. We can realign our values toward things such as science and art (and social security) while everyone remains independent and free.
And after all of that stuff has worked out we can start looking at space more seriously. Obviously this post is as much of a pipe dream as real human space exploration at this point, but if we actually focused on this sort of thing (as we did with going to the moon, or when the US got involved in WWII, etc.) there's very little doubt in my mind it would be possible.
Woohoo! You don't mention your OS at all so it's rather hard to diagnose the behavior you've mentioned.
That said I personally have encountered the bug under linux in VLC/fullscreen. In my case there's a kind of annoying work around: I right click in fullscreen (bringing up a context menu which I dismiss) and then the existing methods to reveal the player controls will work (pressing i (for interface), middle-click, and moving the mouse to the edge (top in my case) of the screen). Not sure if you are on linux.
It's annoying bug where the player seems to forget the order of the fullscreen layer compared to the player and actually moves itself 'on top' but still below the fullscreen as far as I can tell. The right-click work around seems to remind it where the top really is.
What about making them like onions? All these crazy layers of plastic that you peel off one by one. That will be very conspicuous for shoplifters to do, but it won't be anything more than a delay for true consumers. A trade off between "I nearly killed myself opening that" and "I can't stop crying, why the hell did they have to use real onions?!"
Yes, actually. If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!And if we all took your stance we'd be faced with another record deficit, a lackluster economy, a city and people left for dead, another attacked, and a couple of major armed conflicts that are giant messes.
Oh.
Wait.
After all, you have no proof one way or the other. So yes, we go by what has been released to the public so far and we don't need to make up more conspiracy theories.Paging Benjamin Franklin! Wow. Remember the ethic of the Bill of Rights at all? It's kind of an implicit suggestion that we ought not blindly trust our government, friend. You know, there's reasons for all of those rights to be there and that we're protected in those various ways...because otherwise the government is dysfunctional and we're all wasting our goddamn time.
So let me remind you that, based on what we've _seen_, which is more reliable than what we've been told, our government doesn't have a clue. And they don't have one badly. Do you trust the fact of their track record or the vagueness of their rhetoric?
You are invited to awaken and join the rest of us for freedom. BYOI (Bring your own ideas)
but nonetheless, a profitable failure. Buzz about things like this are much like the continual buzz leveraged by the political parties to generate donations. Nothing new there.
The difference here is mainly in the public's perception about what the internet is and isn't, and what the web is and isn't. In a lot of ways this stems from something like a meme, but not exactly. I guess a close characterization is an "ambience meme." It is to say, the feel of a time and place. The sixties, the great depression, world war II: these times and places held a special energy in them for those who lived through them and still carry a particular flavor for those of us who hear and read about their history.
So right now the web has a certain shift in ambience that is partly driven by the change in the major players on the web, and also how they do business. It could be claimed that this started with Google's IPO, or earlier, or later. Users are seeing redesigns on everything from Yahoo! to/. and beyond. They are seeing new and upcoming websites like YouTube and Digg. There's a lot going on right now. Some marketeers decided to memetize the process and deem it an idiotic "2.0"
Really, though, there's not as much going on right now as there seems to be. In a lot of ways the state of things stems from the fact that for awhile there was kind of a sticking point. There wasn't all of this major, visible progress, and then suddenly there was. But that is not '2.0-worthy' in itself. The question is whether there will be a _continual_ surge of changing and newness now, or if it was just a periodic shift. The latter is more likely, but if the former were to be the case it would seem worthy of being called a second version.
Now, what could possibly set a web 3.0 apart? The end of the web. Just like there are major misconceptions due to the ambient meme that has been labeled "web 2.0" there is a very pesky problem with the internet of ours: the dominance of the web; the fact is, for most people the web is the internet. Why is that a problem? Mainly because it seems as though we have an infrastructure capable of more diverse interactions and we limit it to a large extent. And I think that's where web 3.0 will be. There will be the web, but there will be new entities and institutions that will be separate and still connected with the web.
Slowly e-mail has been joining the web (webmail), and so has usenet (google groups). Over time it's come to the point where you can access the majority of the non-web internet via the web. In the future it seems highly likely there will be other interfaces developed to allow you to access equal volumes in different contexts.
As more people begin to express themselves and their feelings (and as a result, others discover that they can learn to express themselves and that they have feelings that aren't bookmarks of mass media views) it will get better. If you look at history there were times of persecution (or at least estrangement) for many different beliefs/associations, and as those groups continued to struggle they eventually gained acceptance (or at least community which yields a tacit acceptance by other groups).
In other words, as Bob the Painter reveals his escapades with multimarketing schemes, others will take note and share their stories giving a wealth of stories of the scammed that will help prevent them in the future. [Aside: How many people do you know that have worked for a multilevel marketing company or joined a pyramid scheme?]
As Sally the Court Reporter posts photos of her drunken debauchery (complete with a close up of her speedometer as she barrels down the highway swerving at 90mph) others will admit (at least in private) they drove drunk and luckily didn't get caught; we'll all sit back and laugh about how stupid our transportation system is and actually exert a change. [Aside: It'd be interesting to know what % of adults have driven drunk (ie, intoxicated above legal limit)]
It takes time, but having the information available is the first step toward parsing it and coming up with some methods to change our dysfunctionality and surplus our functionality as a culture.
Hell why keep it restricted to one day? Why keep it at polling places instead of allowing vote-by-mail?
Why not change up some other aspects (like instant runoff or Condorcet)? Why not tabulate the votes of those that are not allowed to legally vote (minors, the mentally insane, felons) simply for the informational purpose of knowing who they would vote for? At least in the case of minors it would get some of them thinking about the government and get them used to the idea of voting.
And of course, the why is the same as why we don't make a lot of other positive changes (and is the source of the article we are commenting on): power.
Those in the driver's seat have no interest in making any change that would possibly remove them from the driver's seat. Those that fund them and profit by their deeds have no interest in it either. They are all making far too much money and have far too much control for any major change to take place as is.
The best we can try to do is vote them out. Of course that won't work if this article is accurate. Then the options get a little more complicated.
The good news about this article is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It states unequivocally that in cases of disenfranchisement, the state where it occurs shall lose their representation proportionately. So if half the people were disenfranchised, the state loses half its representation.
Sadly, it will only be enforced if there is enough of a public outcry against fraud.
I'm wondering if and when... well if I weren't a luser I'd read for myself and see... basically, are there already available different calendar versions (ie, Jewish, Muslim, etc.)? And if so, how difficult would it be for me to create my own breed of calendar, setting up years, months, and dates, as well as days of the week from scratch?
Yes, I will try to find out myself, but the beauty of interaction is maybe someone who reads this already knows.
The steam distribution system if a good step toward cutting down on the inefficient practice of literally moving pieces of plastic around the world.
The better way would be to invoke some P2P action for such a system. Though VALVe has the bandwidth to toss around now, such a distributed distribution system would be more robust and faster.
VALVe has already stated publicly they intend to allow Steam account holders to order the game PRIOR to it going 'gold.' This means for all intents and purposes, those who preload may purchase the game before they can actually play it, so that when the switch is flipped the game (minus any last minute updates) will be playable.
The bottom line with Steam is that they have a great, fast distribution system not only for such things as this preload, mods, etc. It also gives them the capability to do this Counter-Strike: Source beta test to get the multiplayer bugs sorted out, and with such a system updates may be released at rapid pace painlessly.
I'll be the first to admit this system would be better open-sourced and p2p, among other more progressive approaches; customizability is quickly becoming a dominant and important feature in technology's applications. I don't want to download the crappy ringtones from my provider, I want to make my own. As such, VALVe has taken pains to make the Source engine highly mod-able. You will see some amazing modifications develop for this engine.
I'm not a VALVe employee, just a fan who has seen what good they do; it's a company that isn't afraid to work at their own pace and still knock the shit out of the competition.
How difficult (and guessing it's feasible, this is probably in the works) would it be to build with Mozilla an emulation of IE's embed? In other words, will there come a day when one could force a Mozilla embed by overriding the IE version?
Quoted in post: SP2 is a free update. If I download it, put it on a CD, and give it to someone else to install, it's not illegal.
Post: Oh yes it is. Reproduction and distribution are both exclusive to the copyright holder per 17 USC 106.
In that example, you are reproducing it probably beyond what MS has given you permission to do, and are definately distributing it without permission.
So that's illegal.
It doesn't matter if it's free. Free is a total non-issue.
Well. Humbly, I submit a hypothetical. Let's say my friend doesn't have 'net access, but he's got a box with XP SP1 on it. He decides he wants SP2 to install. Under your terms, me downloading it and putting it on a cd is illegal. Under your terms, him coming to my house, using my computer, 'net connection, and CD burner to make himself a copy to install on his own box is totally legit. Under your terms, it would seem, if I'd already downloaded the SP for my own use, left the file on my computer, and he copies it to a cd, that's illegal, but if I delete the SP, then he redownloads it, that's legal.
Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this kind of differentiation is hazardous and irresponsible. The law should not be making these distinctions in this case. I would hope (though, not being a lawyer, I don't know if it's the case) if this were brought to bear in an actual legal challenge, the court would dismiss it as absurd.
Anyway, hopefully this hypothetical will help to clear the air a bit, let me know.
This seems quite easy to me...I play CS, I play FPSs, etc...and the simple and reliable solution that works for things like/dogmode (read godmode), etc. is ADD THEM to the game. Let these kids have their wall hacks, their aimbots, their stupid lameness...build it in, and let server admins turn them off. If you go to Gamespy right now and look hard enough, you can find a server that invites and serves cheaters...so why not? Build the cheats in and let most the servers be free of cheats, while the people who "want to go weeee but ain't got drugs yet" can yack off to their 42448ness (or whatever the hip number of the CTIME is).
Okay...obviously they could still create proxys and such that would try to let them cheat where they can't, as they do now...but I think this would honestly help deter the average guy who isn't creating proxies for the time and effort it takes to actually find a way to slip through the current protections...I hope.
Maybe instead of blocking 'file share channels' from their net, they ought to consider blocking DDoS attacks? Hell, just because there's a law against speeding certainly doesn't stop it, and last time I checked politicians were still dirty fucks. Will they succeed in getting rid of file-shares? Nope. Will they simply be ridiculed and laughed at? Already were, and I see that as a continuing trend.
So far we've already seen some of the refugees (?) from Dalnet on the other nets, and I expect that if they do put some measures forth to end file shares it will continue, along with the people who are migrating for the simple reason that Dalnet sucks...
I've read some posts stating that the transition to OpenFT will be difficult without the users to spearhead the migration (as you mention, chicken and egg). It seems to me this could be "nipped in the bud" with Morpheus, which works with Kazaa, but is not the same organization and does not have any pending legal action (that I'm aware of). Morpheus makes itself compatible with OpenFT, the users are there, and we're all happy. Though, getting this to actually happen is an entirely different story.
...that this will come back to bite the evil empire that is microsoft. How long would they wait to remove this silly and obviously aggressive marketing tactic if a worm propogated itself across the next, somehow modifying all versions (or certain versions) of IE to report their user agent as "opera mozilla linux gecko lynx microsoft sucks" or something? You can bet they'd release a fix, but they would probably drop this entire "does not render" scheme, too. I use Opera on Win32 pretty much exclusively. Sure, sometimes pages won't work, but that's why I keep IE and Mozilla on here too, so that if I really need to access a page that Opera chokes on, I can do so. We're talking about free software, for now anyway.
Re:Predictions (Nost)
on
Linux 2.4.13
·
· Score: 1
The old prophet predicted this!
"When the leaning tower shadows the dark circle,
and there will be two and double and sixfold plus one, and the few will be glad, and the many will bitch, and the others will pay too much for crap, be unafraid, for the VM is near."
Regardless of personal perspective or opinion on the situation, we see the Taliban as Terrorists, they see themselves as Freedom Fighters, we see our military as Freedom Fighters, the Taliban sees them as Terrorists.
It would be extremely trivial to get past this licensing "feature" (or is it a bug?)...
If you create the webpage in Frontpage and then modify it in notepad, the Frontpage stipulations are nullified by the editing in notepad. Now if microsock decides to use this insidious EULA for notepad, you can always download a freeware open-source text editor and do the same...I'm fairly sure this could not be construed as a violation of the Lincense because of the nature of the license only applying to works IN FrontPage, and could not possibly be expanded to any works ever touched by said software.
The other side of the coin is, of course, creating pages that WOULD violate this EULA, in another program, and inserting the specific parts to make it look like it was native to FrontPage...this would violate nothing, since you didn't use FrontPage at all...
The USA recently announced (IIRC) that they are not yet prepared to deal with bioterrorism. Who's to say that there was no bioterrorism today? Who's to say that the planes that were hijacked didn't have terrorists carrying biological warfare devices, meant to disperse large amounts of a toxin or other type of disease? And then you send people in to give blood, etc...and the bug continues to spread, like a computer virus, all over the place. I say quarantine all the disaster areas, immediately. That's the only smart, reasonable option in a situation of this magnitude.
Slashdot Mirror
Why don't hardware makers build cheaper, non-state-of-the-art hardware for open source operating systems, with open source designs and drivers? If they're modern enough to get decent performance they'll sell a ton of them and they'll work for the open source community.
Call me crazy, but paying for a top of the line Nvidia or ATI card that will never have the driver support it needs to be utilized seems like a waste of my money. The same goes for any other piece of hardware that isn't/won't be fully supported by the manufacturers.
While I respect the fact that there are at least a handful of projects underway to develop open source hardware, it's a tough field to enter and likely when they do hit production each batch will sell out before most can get their hands on one. The hardware makers obviously have the resources and financial incentives to make a lower-end, open piece of hardware. The fact that they don't stinks to high heaven.
Am I wrong in thinking that a card with slightly older tech using open source drivers that can actually be optimized to spec is better than a state of the art card with poor drivers (be they open or proprietary)?
Well said. Now what about some solutions to the problems? Here's a few to think about:
1. The link between transportation of physical objects (including goods and people) and the transportation of information. We have an increasingly efficient ability to transport information, but our transportation of physical objects is nowhere near the necessary capacity. We allow convenience and speed to trump actual efficiency. A global comprehensive transportation system will lower shipping costs and ease the burdens of food production. It will save time, money, and lives. The trade off is that if we do it properly we can spread ourselves out a little better so that we're not as crowded.
2. The correct methodology for the establishment of a global society/world government needs to be recursive. Yeah, I know, how geek...but the hierarchical approach allows for different locations, regions, and then the globe to appropriate governmental funding and make independent chain of command style decisions that will ultimately build to serve us all. That means beyond a basic set of universal rights and laws, things can change depending where you go on the globe. It also means you can go there. The economy should and will remain decentralized in that fashion, and yet will have some overarching mechanisms of control (ie, money supply).
3. If we build first a world transportation system and second a world government (not in some lame globalist, totalitarian, commie, etc. sense; a real world government) we've got a great start toward the end of massive wastes of resources on things like war and importing goods from half a world away because they are cheaper than the same goods made next door. We can realign our values toward things such as science and art (and social security) while everyone remains independent and free.
And after all of that stuff has worked out we can start looking at space more seriously. Obviously this post is as much of a pipe dream as real human space exploration at this point, but if we actually focused on this sort of thing (as we did with going to the moon, or when the US got involved in WWII, etc.) there's very little doubt in my mind it would be possible.
Woohoo! You don't mention your OS at all so it's rather hard to diagnose the behavior you've mentioned.
That said I personally have encountered the bug under linux in VLC/fullscreen. In my case there's a kind of annoying work around: I right click in fullscreen (bringing up a context menu which I dismiss) and then the existing methods to reveal the player controls will work (pressing i (for interface), middle-click, and moving the mouse to the edge (top in my case) of the screen). Not sure if you are on linux.
It's annoying bug where the player seems to forget the order of the fullscreen layer compared to the player and actually moves itself 'on top' but still below the fullscreen as far as I can tell. The right-click work around seems to remind it where the top really is.
What about making them like onions? All these crazy layers of plastic that you peel off one by one. That will be very conspicuous for shoplifters to do, but it won't be anything more than a delay for true consumers. A trade off between "I nearly killed myself opening that" and "I can't stop crying, why the hell did they have to use real onions?!"
Yes, actually. If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!And if we all took your stance we'd be faced with another record deficit, a lackluster economy, a city and people left for dead, another attacked, and a couple of major armed conflicts that are giant messes.
Oh.
Wait. After all, you have no proof one way or the other. So yes, we go by what has been released to the public so far and we don't need to make up more conspiracy theories.Paging Benjamin Franklin! Wow. Remember the ethic of the Bill of Rights at all? It's kind of an implicit suggestion that we ought not blindly trust our government, friend. You know, there's reasons for all of those rights to be there and that we're protected in those various ways...because otherwise the government is dysfunctional and we're all wasting our goddamn time.
So let me remind you that, based on what we've _seen_, which is more reliable than what we've been told, our government doesn't have a clue. And they don't have one badly. Do you trust the fact of their track record or the vagueness of their rhetoric?
You are invited to awaken and join the rest of us for freedom. BYOI (Bring your own ideas)
but nonetheless, a profitable failure. Buzz about things like this are much like the continual buzz leveraged by the political parties to generate donations. Nothing new there.
/. and beyond. They are seeing new and upcoming websites like YouTube and Digg. There's a lot going on right now. Some marketeers decided to memetize the process and deem it an idiotic "2.0"
The difference here is mainly in the public's perception about what the internet is and isn't, and what the web is and isn't. In a lot of ways this stems from something like a meme, but not exactly. I guess a close characterization is an "ambience meme." It is to say, the feel of a time and place. The sixties, the great depression, world war II: these times and places held a special energy in them for those who lived through them and still carry a particular flavor for those of us who hear and read about their history.
So right now the web has a certain shift in ambience that is partly driven by the change in the major players on the web, and also how they do business. It could be claimed that this started with Google's IPO, or earlier, or later. Users are seeing redesigns on everything from Yahoo! to
Really, though, there's not as much going on right now as there seems to be. In a lot of ways the state of things stems from the fact that for awhile there was kind of a sticking point. There wasn't all of this major, visible progress, and then suddenly there was. But that is not '2.0-worthy' in itself. The question is whether there will be a _continual_ surge of changing and newness now, or if it was just a periodic shift. The latter is more likely, but if the former were to be the case it would seem worthy of being called a second version.
Now, what could possibly set a web 3.0 apart? The end of the web. Just like there are major misconceptions due to the ambient meme that has been labeled "web 2.0" there is a very pesky problem with the internet of ours: the dominance of the web; the fact is, for most people the web is the internet. Why is that a problem? Mainly because it seems as though we have an infrastructure capable of more diverse interactions and we limit it to a large extent. And I think that's where web 3.0 will be. There will be the web, but there will be new entities and institutions that will be separate and still connected with the web.
Slowly e-mail has been joining the web (webmail), and so has usenet (google groups). Over time it's come to the point where you can access the majority of the non-web internet via the web. In the future it seems highly likely there will be other interfaces developed to allow you to access equal volumes in different contexts.
As more people begin to express themselves and their feelings (and as a result, others discover that they can learn to express themselves and that they have feelings that aren't bookmarks of mass media views) it will get better. If you look at history there were times of persecution (or at least estrangement) for many different beliefs/associations, and as those groups continued to struggle they eventually gained acceptance (or at least community which yields a tacit acceptance by other groups).
In other words, as Bob the Painter reveals his escapades with multimarketing schemes, others will take note and share their stories giving a wealth of stories of the scammed that will help prevent them in the future. [Aside: How many people do you know that have worked for a multilevel marketing company or joined a pyramid scheme?]
As Sally the Court Reporter posts photos of her drunken debauchery (complete with a close up of her speedometer as she barrels down the highway swerving at 90mph) others will admit (at least in private) they drove drunk and luckily didn't get caught; we'll all sit back and laugh about how stupid our transportation system is and actually exert a change. [Aside: It'd be interesting to know what % of adults have driven drunk (ie, intoxicated above legal limit)]
It takes time, but having the information available is the first step toward parsing it and coming up with some methods to change our dysfunctionality and surplus our functionality as a culture.
Hell why keep it restricted to one day? Why keep it at polling places instead of allowing vote-by-mail?
Why not change up some other aspects (like instant runoff or Condorcet)? Why not tabulate the votes of those that are not allowed to legally vote (minors, the mentally insane, felons) simply for the informational purpose of knowing who they would vote for? At least in the case of minors it would get some of them thinking about the government and get them used to the idea of voting.
And of course, the why is the same as why we don't make a lot of other positive changes (and is the source of the article we are commenting on): power.
Those in the driver's seat have no interest in making any change that would possibly remove them from the driver's seat. Those that fund them and profit by their deeds have no interest in it either. They are all making far too much money and have far too much control for any major change to take place as is.
The best we can try to do is vote them out. Of course that won't work if this article is accurate. Then the options get a little more complicated.
The good news about this article is the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It states unequivocally that in cases of disenfranchisement, the state where it occurs shall lose their representation proportionately. So if half the people were disenfranchised, the state loses half its representation.
Sadly, it will only be enforced if there is enough of a public outcry against fraud.
Couldn't they encrypt the ballots first, somehow, and then upon receipt to the proper authorities, they'd be decrypted?
I'm wondering if and when... well if I weren't a luser I'd read for myself and see... basically, are there already available different calendar versions (ie, Jewish, Muslim, etc.)? And if so, how difficult would it be for me to create my own breed of calendar, setting up years, months, and dates, as well as days of the week from scratch?
Yes, I will try to find out myself, but the beauty of interaction is maybe someone who reads this already knows.
Thanks.
The steam distribution system if a good step toward cutting down on the inefficient practice of literally moving pieces of plastic around the world.
The better way would be to invoke some P2P action for such a system. Though VALVe has the bandwidth to toss around now, such a distributed distribution system would be more robust and faster.
VALVe has already stated publicly they intend to allow Steam account holders to order the game PRIOR to it going 'gold.' This means for all intents and purposes, those who preload may purchase the game before they can actually play it, so that when the switch is flipped the game (minus any last minute updates) will be playable.
The bottom line with Steam is that they have a great, fast distribution system not only for such things as this preload, mods, etc. It also gives them the capability to do this Counter-Strike: Source beta test to get the multiplayer bugs sorted out, and with such a system updates may be released at rapid pace painlessly.
I'll be the first to admit this system would be better open-sourced and p2p, among other more progressive approaches; customizability is quickly becoming a dominant and important feature in technology's applications. I don't want to download the crappy ringtones from my provider, I want to make my own. As such, VALVe has taken pains to make the Source engine highly mod-able. You will see some amazing modifications develop for this engine.
I'm not a VALVe employee, just a fan who has seen what good they do; it's a company that isn't afraid to work at their own pace and still knock the shit out of the competition.
Offtopic, etc. but I am curious.
How difficult (and guessing it's feasible, this is probably in the works) would it be to build with Mozilla an emulation of IE's embed? In other words, will there come a day when one could force a Mozilla embed by overriding the IE version?
Quoted in post:
SP2 is a free update. If I download it, put it on a CD, and give it to someone else to install, it's not illegal.
Post:
Oh yes it is. Reproduction and distribution are both exclusive to the copyright holder per 17 USC 106.
In that example, you are reproducing it probably beyond what MS has given you permission to do, and are definately distributing it without permission.
So that's illegal.
It doesn't matter if it's free. Free is a total non-issue.
Well. Humbly, I submit a hypothetical. Let's say my friend doesn't have 'net access, but he's got a box with XP SP1 on it. He decides he wants SP2 to install. Under your terms, me downloading it and putting it on a cd is illegal. Under your terms, him coming to my house, using my computer, 'net connection, and CD burner to make himself a copy to install on his own box is totally legit. Under your terms, it would seem, if I'd already downloaded the SP for my own use, left the file on my computer, and he copies it to a cd, that's illegal, but if I delete the SP, then he redownloads it, that's legal.
Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this kind of differentiation is hazardous and irresponsible. The law should not be making these distinctions in this case. I would hope (though, not being a lawyer, I don't know if it's the case) if this were brought to bear in an actual legal challenge, the court would dismiss it as absurd.
Anyway, hopefully this hypothetical will help to clear the air a bit, let me know.
This seems quite easy to me...I play CS, I play FPSs, etc...and the simple and reliable solution that works for things like /dogmode (read godmode), etc. is ADD THEM to the game. Let these kids have their wall hacks, their aimbots, their stupid lameness...build it in, and let server admins turn them off. If you go to Gamespy right now and look hard enough, you can find a server that invites and serves cheaters...so why not? Build the cheats in and let most the servers be free of cheats, while the people who "want to go weeee but ain't got drugs yet" can yack off to their 42448ness (or whatever the hip number of the CTIME is).
Okay...obviously they could still create proxys and such that would try to let them cheat where they can't, as they do now...but I think this would honestly help deter the average guy who isn't creating proxies for the time and effort it takes to actually find a way to slip through the current protections...I hope.
Maybe instead of blocking 'file share channels' from their net, they ought to consider blocking DDoS attacks? Hell, just because there's a law against speeding certainly doesn't stop it, and last time I checked politicians were still dirty fucks. Will they succeed in getting rid of file-shares? Nope. Will they simply be ridiculed and laughed at? Already were, and I see that as a continuing trend.
So far we've already seen some of the refugees (?) from Dalnet on the other nets, and I expect that if they do put some measures forth to end file shares it will continue, along with the people who are migrating for the simple reason that Dalnet sucks...
but that's just me.
I've read some posts stating that the transition to OpenFT will be difficult without the users to spearhead the migration (as you mention, chicken and egg). It seems to me this could be "nipped in the bud" with Morpheus, which works with Kazaa, but is not the same organization and does not have any pending legal action (that I'm aware of). Morpheus makes itself compatible with OpenFT, the users are there, and we're all happy. Though, getting this to actually happen is an entirely different story.
"But maybe that's the way to success: start off with a very appealing product, then slowly tighten the screws."
That certainly seems to be the US Government's attitude, especially as of late.
...that this will come back to bite the evil empire that is microsoft. How long would they wait to remove this silly and obviously aggressive marketing tactic if a worm propogated itself across the next, somehow modifying all versions (or certain versions) of IE to report their user agent as "opera mozilla linux gecko lynx microsoft sucks" or something? You can bet they'd release a fix, but they would probably drop this entire "does not render" scheme, too. I use Opera on Win32 pretty much exclusively. Sure, sometimes pages won't work, but that's why I keep IE and Mozilla on here too, so that if I really need to access a page that Opera chokes on, I can do so. We're talking about free software, for now anyway.
The old prophet predicted this!
"When the leaning tower shadows the dark circle,
and there will be two and double and sixfold plus one, and the few will be glad, and the many will bitch, and the others will pay too much for crap, be unafraid, for the VM is near."
Regardless of personal perspective or opinion on the situation, we see the Taliban as Terrorists, they see themselves as Freedom Fighters, we see our military as Freedom Fighters, the Taliban sees them as Terrorists.
I suggest you read Hell's Angels.
...that they can login to my porn accounts and get free porn while I foot the bill? I hope not.
Constitutionality will be questioned and laws like these, along with the careers of the idiots who propose them, will go the way of the dodo.
HobophobE
It would be extremely trivial to get past this licensing "feature" (or is it a bug?)...
If you create the webpage in Frontpage and then modify it in notepad, the Frontpage stipulations are nullified by the editing in notepad. Now if microsock decides to use this insidious EULA for notepad, you can always download a freeware open-source text editor and do the same...I'm fairly sure this could not be construed as a violation of the Lincense because of the nature of the license only applying to works IN FrontPage, and could not possibly be expanded to any works ever touched by said software.
The other side of the coin is, of course, creating pages that WOULD violate this EULA, in another program, and inserting the specific parts to make it look like it was native to FrontPage...this would violate nothing, since you didn't use FrontPage at all...
HobophobE
The USA recently announced (IIRC) that they are not yet prepared to deal with bioterrorism. Who's to say that there was no bioterrorism today? Who's to say that the planes that were hijacked didn't have terrorists carrying biological warfare devices, meant to disperse large amounts of a toxin or other type of disease? And then you send people in to give blood, etc...and the bug continues to spread, like a computer virus, all over the place. I say quarantine all the disaster areas, immediately. That's the only smart, reasonable option in a situation of this magnitude.
HobophobE