Take a step out into the real world, and there are some great games already, both in retail (Motorstorm, Resistance, Oblivion, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, F1 Championship), and online (SuprtStardustHD, Gran TurismoHD, Calling All Cars). Oblivion? Bleh. Without quite a few mods, that game sucks. I'll go along with Motorstorm, Resistance, and Ninja Gaiden. That's about it. The vast majority of PS3 games are just the usual same-old sports games or movie games. Hardly anything interesting or innovative. So, we're left with 60-something games, of which maybe 5 are any good. Not a good track record.
Say what you want, but if you are corresponding with a suspected terrorist, then you have no right to expect any privacy. Maybe not, but we do have a right to expect the President of the United States to respect the Constitution and get a warrant. He's not above the law anymore than anyone else is. Or at least he shouldn't be. Oh yeah, and could someone remind me again why we give presidents the power to pardon convicted criminals? Or at least why they don't have to recuse themselves from pardoning those whom they have some relationship with? I can't seem to come up with any good reason for that.
Why not just cut costs? Ummmm, because it doesn't work. If EA is like other companies, they don't know which 50% of the games will be liked. If you just cut half, you'll wind up cutting successful games too. I think he meant that people only play 50% of each game before getting bored with it. So they could just make shorter games and sell them for less, and possibly sell more games overall with roughly the same profit margin on them. That was my take anyway.
If Microsoft sold vouchers before the GPLv3, then they did so under the assumption that the vouchers covered GPLv2 software. Hope they have that in writing.
EIGHT times a year. I'm sorry, but that's crappy service if your customers have a 67% chance of calling about a given bill. Sounds about right to me. That's why I left Sprint too. Hardly a month went by when they didn't try to overcharge me for something. I got sick of calling or going in to the store all the time to get it fixed. I'm not fond of Verizon for several reasons, but at least they haven't screwed my bill up more than once that I can remember in the last 2.5 years. It's not like we really have a clearly good choice for cell service.
Considering that the MAFIAA act like the police, work with the police, even train some police forces and help write the laws. Then aren't they effectively the government? Entrapment would seem an accurate distinction to me. Well, if we were to hold them to the same restrictions that we hold the government to, it would take all the fun out of being an evil, corrupt organization. Corruption thrives on complex laws and technicalities.
There is also the question of fraudulent misrepresentation as well as entrapment. It's only entrapment if it's done by the government (e.g. police). Fraudulent, it may be. As for being above the law, it's all about who you know. Just ask Scooter Libby.
Ignorance of the law is never an alibi. First of all, it isn't the law right now. Second, we're not talking about ignorance of the law, but ignorance of technology, which is something that the courts share with most people. Third, most consumer-level devices aren't even capable of the kind of security you're talking about. So your ideas here are completely unworkable in the near to mid term. I'm not really sure that they're desirable either, as they would probably be expensive and further erode people's privacy.
There's no irony in complaining about a corporation mobilizing its partners, but closing with your own attempt to mobilize your partners. None at all. Partners? I'm thinking that we're just talking about people here, not organizations that depend on the parent-poster for their financial welfare. I also don't see any irony involved in pointing out that letting Microsoft purchase the approval for their standard doesn't benefit anyone but Microsoft, and that if you agree, you can sign a petition stating that. No financial involvement or coercion of any sort is involved. Definitely not the case with Microsoft's partners.
Prices can only be fixed in a monopoly, where they're already more or less fixed. When there's competition, price fixing is not an effective strategy. Tell that to the music industry. They've made a killing by price-fixing for many years without a problem (aside from the occasional wrist-slap by the DOJ). Only digital distribution combined with huge levels of disregard for copyright law have put a dent in their business model. Sadly that won't work in many other industries. The music industry isn't a monopoly in the traditional sense. It's more of a cartel really.
Who decides what is important? I generally avoid hardware stories like the plague but some electrical engineer might consider them gangbusters. Well, there is the section filter as well, so you could ignore hardware stories if you like. Still not sure such a system would be useful, but it could probably be ignored just as easily if you don't want to use it.
IANAL, but the law is not morality. A promise is a promise, whether it's a legally enforced contract or a legally ignored license. When you agree to a license, you're making a promise. If it's a sucky promise you don't want to make, don't make it.
Just because the software comes with a EULA doesn't mean I'm promising anything. I don't care what their intentions are. I bought a piece of software, and I'll use it however I like within the bounds of copyright law. I'm not agreeing to anything else.
Quantum entanglement is a great way to get information from one location to another at faster than the speed of light but offers no way to transmit matter.
We really need to get the government to fund this research now! This could solve all our lag problems in CS and BF!!
IANAL, but it sounds like the law requires them to hire any American applicant who is QUALIFIED, not preferable. So these companies are afraid they're going to have to fire Amir, the extremely talented programmer who designed half their system and knows its vagaries inside and out, and replace him with Jim, the lazy American guy who isn't really that great, but looks good enough on paper that the law considers him "qualified" to take Amir's job.
Yeah, or it could be that they know that they can keep paying Amir a lot less money than they would have to pay an American to do the job, so it's worth it to them to put forth the fairly small amount of extra effort to make sure that they can disqualify any American that applies for the job. Who the fuck are you calling lazy anyway? Americans work more than people in most first-world countries. Yeah, we don't work like sweatshop laborers, which is why companies want to replace us, but I don't consider working sweatshop hours to be something that should be expected in a civilized country. Especially when it's just so those people in the top 1% financially can work on increasing their share of the total wealth (already somewhere north of 40%).
If you've been following the progress of the current Congressional investigations, he's going to be spending his time dodging and fighting impeachment.
Impeachment?! Dream on. We'll never see the day that he gets impeached. The democrats have already shown that they have no spine, and the republicans are too worried about keeping their balance on the fence to actually do anything about the incompetent leadership of the Bush administration.
Has the RIAA ever litigated a case where a person made a copy of music and gave it to a family member? What does privilege have to do with this?
How often do they have people publicly admitting to violating copyright law? A violation is a violation, right? Giving a mix CD to someone is distribution, since that person didn't pay for the rights to the music. So they broke the law. If the law is applied equally, then they should be held accountable just as any other file-sharer, though they'd probably pay a smaller fine in this case.
If the RIAA doesn't think this is a violation, then I'd like to see them come out make a public statement declaring that it is not a violation of copyright law to make mix CDs and give them to others.
But who would collect the data and put it in one place?
I don't know, but given that it's a pretty critical element of DVR functionality, I'm sure someone could make some money doing so. I think that a small monthly fee could be charged, even to users of MythTV for the service. It would still be cheaper than Tivo, and would have the features that MythTV users want. Yeah, it's not ideal and not completely free, but as long as the information is being guarded like it is, it may be the best possible solution.
But the entire set of information that Tribune has is now provided only to parties to a contract, and this contract forbids disclosing substantial portions of this set to non-parties.
Yes, but the information can be gathered without becoming a party to the contract. The times are advertised in a number of places, which is sort of necessary if you want people to actually watch the shows. So they could legitimately get the data from any combination of several sources and then distribute that information to MythTV users. That way they are not bound by any contract, and do not have to violate any contract. Unfortunately, as another poster pointed out, the Australian copyright laws apparently allow them to copyright facts. Not just a specific collection of facts, like a phonebook, but the facts themselves, such that it would be illegal to compile your own list of the same facts. If that's true, then the Aussies are well and truly fucked.
OT I know, but can someone explain to me the vitriolic hatred of American Idol that seems so rampant here?
Not sure about most people, but my main issue with it is that its success has spawned a couple dozen other shows in the same vein. So most of the new shows coming out consist of a panel of judges making retarded comments about people doing mostly retarded things.
And that global warming experiment is where. A simple view of the scientific method doesn't work so well with complex interconnected systems on a planetary scale.
Nobody's claiming that the scientists are correct without a doubt. Only that most scientists believe that the data shows that humans are having a significant impact on the rate of global climate change, and that we should do something about it. Granted that that's a difficult thing to accept for some people. It's not as easy to demonstrate as an apple falling from a tree. However, it seems more sensible to accept that the overwhelming acceptance of scientists of this theory should carry more weight than the political expediencies and fear of the expense of change that we get from politicians and the business world in general. After all, they are making their claims purely based on their own self-interest, and this is readily apparent, rather than on even an attempt at objective analysis of the evidence.
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Just because the software comes with a EULA doesn't mean I'm promising anything. I don't care what their intentions are. I bought a piece of software, and I'll use it however I like within the bounds of copyright law. I'm not agreeing to anything else.
I believe the DMCA also prohibits distributing tools or devices designed to circumvent copyright protection schemes.
We really need to get the government to fund this research now! This could solve all our lag problems in CS and BF!!
Yeah, or it could be that they know that they can keep paying Amir a lot less money than they would have to pay an American to do the job, so it's worth it to them to put forth the fairly small amount of extra effort to make sure that they can disqualify any American that applies for the job. Who the fuck are you calling lazy anyway? Americans work more than people in most first-world countries. Yeah, we don't work like sweatshop laborers, which is why companies want to replace us, but I don't consider working sweatshop hours to be something that should be expected in a civilized country. Especially when it's just so those people in the top 1% financially can work on increasing their share of the total wealth (already somewhere north of 40%).
Impeachment?! Dream on. We'll never see the day that he gets impeached. The democrats have already shown that they have no spine, and the republicans are too worried about keeping their balance on the fence to actually do anything about the incompetent leadership of the Bush administration.
How often do they have people publicly admitting to violating copyright law? A violation is a violation, right? Giving a mix CD to someone is distribution, since that person didn't pay for the rights to the music. So they broke the law. If the law is applied equally, then they should be held accountable just as any other file-sharer, though they'd probably pay a smaller fine in this case.
If the RIAA doesn't think this is a violation, then I'd like to see them come out make a public statement declaring that it is not a violation of copyright law to make mix CDs and give them to others.
I don't know, but given that it's a pretty critical element of DVR functionality, I'm sure someone could make some money doing so. I think that a small monthly fee could be charged, even to users of MythTV for the service. It would still be cheaper than Tivo, and would have the features that MythTV users want. Yeah, it's not ideal and not completely free, but as long as the information is being guarded like it is, it may be the best possible solution.
Yes, but the information can be gathered without becoming a party to the contract. The times are advertised in a number of places, which is sort of necessary if you want people to actually watch the shows. So they could legitimately get the data from any combination of several sources and then distribute that information to MythTV users. That way they are not bound by any contract, and do not have to violate any contract. Unfortunately, as another poster pointed out, the Australian copyright laws apparently allow them to copyright facts. Not just a specific collection of facts, like a phonebook, but the facts themselves, such that it would be illegal to compile your own list of the same facts. If that's true, then the Aussies are well and truly fucked.
Wow. I really thought that the US had the worst copyright laws in the world, but apparently Australia has gone above and beyond. I'm impressed. Wow.
Not sure about most people, but my main issue with it is that its success has spawned a couple dozen other shows in the same vein. So most of the new shows coming out consist of a panel of judges making retarded comments about people doing mostly retarded things.
Nobody's claiming that the scientists are correct without a doubt. Only that most scientists believe that the data shows that humans are having a significant impact on the rate of global climate change, and that we should do something about it. Granted that that's a difficult thing to accept for some people. It's not as easy to demonstrate as an apple falling from a tree. However, it seems more sensible to accept that the overwhelming acceptance of scientists of this theory should carry more weight than the political expediencies and fear of the expense of change that we get from politicians and the business world in general. After all, they are making their claims purely based on their own self-interest, and this is readily apparent, rather than on even an attempt at objective analysis of the evidence.