All that they need to do on Google's pages is to move away from graphics and iFrames and on to embedded text. I could put adverts on my site very easily that AdBlock+ couldn't catch because there would be no easy way to distinguish it from text. On Google's own pages, it wouldn't make a difference about counting views etc, because they're already capturing that data and can handle it in code. The only problem (for them) comes in tracking one person across multiple sites since the "simple HTML with no markers screaming 'I am an advert'" ads wouldn't be able to share cookies.
The broadband is reliable, it's just the router (a Netgear one) that has its odd moments. Sometimes it is slow, but I've never had it down in a way that a router restart didn't fix. That still doesn't cover issues with wireless, lack of service due to house moving, and any of the other issues you could list (gaming on a laptop on battery during a power outage?)
Unfortunately, you are right on the Ubisoft and piracy point.
My router craps out from time to time, wireless can be flakey for some people (which apparently pauses Assassin's Creed 2, which would be annoying as hell), moving house can give you days or weeks of not having broadband, and the UK is looking to make it possible to shut off an entire household because of the actions of one occupant. Also, it defeats any potential security of having a stand-alone gaming machine, in case you want to take that precaution.
DRM is inconvenient. At the minimum, you have to insert a disc
Nah, doesn't work like that. It used to be the case that DRM had to work that way, but then Steam came along and changed things.
Yeah, now you've got to hope that a) your Internet connection is up, which entails b) being within range of an Internet connection (i.e. not travelling), as well as hoping that c) the Steam servers are still up.
I'd take "CD in the drive, but I can play it in 10, 15 or 20 years time" (which I've gone with games - 15 year old ones) versus "crap, the servers have gone or I'm not online so I'm out of luck" any day of the week.
Not only that, but you'd be transmitting classified material over an insufficiently protected mechanism (I think telephones are only okay for Unclassified material in the UK), which is a separate breach on top of the having access to material you didn't need and weren't authorised for.
I was at secondary school in the second half of the 90s, and what seems to be being complained about here is exactly what happened, but is now being misrepresented. At my school they had "IT" lessons from years 7 to 9, then introduced an "ICT" GCSE the year after I made my choices. It was intentionally an ICT course (spreadsheets, word processing and using computers in general) rather than a Computing course (learning about the computers and how they work). At college we had A Levels in ICT or Computing, with ICT being a more advanced version of the GCSE (complex spreadsheet formulae, I assume) and Computing getting into binary representations, coding and stepping through apps. It still wasn't rocket science to someone who tinkered in their own time, but it was all covering what it said it would cover and there were definite differences if you wanted to use computers or understand them more.
We had a similar (but slightly lesser) set-up before I got the GCSEs (this was in the late 90s). We did some basic word-processing (of the "not really a GUI" kind) and minimal programming on some old BBCs, and some people got to work with the Archimedes. They then replaced the BBCs with PCs, then the Mac Classics with PCs. The year after I took my GCSEs they introduced an "ICT" course, but it was ICT and not computing - so exactly and intentionally the type of stuff that Steve Furber is complaining about.
Maybe some schools are mis-labeling ICT as Computing, but my school labeled it correctly at the time (and it will be useful for some people) and my college had separate ICT and Computing A Levels.
I've been threatened over trademark because of international agreements (trademark of a descriptive phrase that I was using in a descriptive manner) so the WIPO treaties probably do allow international copyright claims as well. If nothing else, you won't be able to put it up on YouTube if any of the content is American because you're treading in their legal territory.
I normally see "photoshopping" as "faking" (not the greatest connotation for Adobe!). This is more like composition than retouching (which is just fixing up a few bad patches).
Tried hunting when I first tried a couple of years ago and didn't find that page. I don't think the help system existed in its current form back then. Good to know that they do tell you these days!
At least you knew your password! Sky in the UK ship out Netgear routers and don't tell you the password. I "brute-forced" it in about three attempts, but that's not the point (in fact, perhaps it is, since it was something like "admin" and "sky"!).
The worst part was that we later complained about speed issues on the line and they got back to us saying "sorry, we seem to be having problems accessing your router". Erm, yeah, that'd kinda be the point - I don't want my router open and available with any backdoors on the Internet!
No, the crash is because of "didn't get expected string as an indicator that I'm running on one JVM with a specific limitation" - that's entirely different to "unexpected but still valid string", which would be "OMG, I can't handle 'fibble' in a string *crash*".
The problem is that the PermGen setting is specific to Java's JVM (hence why it is a "-XX:" custom value) and it apparently crashes other JVMs. I'd say there are probably actually several at fault in a way - Sun for its JVM having a old/low limit, other JVMs for crashing when the PermGen option is set, even though most others don't use it, and Eclipse for bodging the fix in there and not getting it resolved in Java more correctly.
Can someone mod the parent down so that those who are curious don't get the wrong answer?
For those who are curious: the atrocious bug is that finding a short and completely valid (as in, well formed and not in violation of any spec) unexpected string in the runtime will *CRASH* your IDE.
No, the atrocious bug is that not finding the Sun string in the Company attribute of one file means that Eclipse doesn't set a custom PermGen size to make the Sun one big enough to work with. That does make it crash quickly, but it's a memory size issue because of a work-around that fails for a default that is deemed too small
All in all it is still a poor and brittle design decision, and I'd rather try to make Eclipse not need the PermGen to be bigger than the Sun default rather than just increasing it, but it isn't just "oh dear, unexpected but valid string...crash!"
a) I'd be concerned about that site and avoid using it anyway, b) that site would be making it a lot easier for you to hack it and c) who is to say that the email address (or thing that looks like an email address) in a URL is related to the URL fetcher? Who's to say it is even real?
Except that most phone numbers can't be looked up in slow-time to find out the content that the caller probably saw. It'd be more like "did your phone company sign a contract not to look at the new replacement they have for phone numbers where you dial a number followed by a descriptive string that may or may not give them access to a perfect transcript of what was told to you" (since they'll only get the fetches, not the posts).
I agree that it is good in the way that TalkTalk present it, but I'd always be dubious about a) a company's real intentions and b) how they could change it in future so that what it does now isn't quite what it will do then.
Overall, most of the population probably need this kind of help, since they're not familiar enough with what can happen and assume that the web is fairly safe. In reality, there are a good number of things that could go wrong depending on how anonymised, automated and separate their system is and remains from everything else.
Not only that but it assumes that they get a chance and have the inclination at the time and, possibly, that the gamer goes online in the right time frame. If not with the last point then how does a system that *has* to authenticate online know that it now doesn't need to? It can't go "oh well, no server, let them play" because that'd mean you could game without authenticating now, so it needs something to tell it that the lack of server isn't a blocker.
You've not had any issues...yet. That's the biggest problem of DRM - people don't have problems at the moment and so assume that all will be rosy in the future. Granted, most media-based 'copy-protection' DRM is trivial to defeat, but it's the phone-home ones that are especially likely to bite you later.
This highlights the fact that it isn't just convenience that has PC gamers shopping online; it is also that games are generally cheaper than in stores.
Who'da thunked it - if people can get a game cheaper and quicker without leaving their house then they will! Next thing you know they'll be telling us that people go shopping in sales...
digital download. permanent. always there. nothing less.
Until it is DRMed by a Steam-like system, the owner vanishes and your game is gone. Granted, some boxed games these days have bad DRM (EA), but the old-school copy protection is as good as not existing. I've got 15 year old games I can still play. I doubt the same would be true of most modern digital downloads in 15 years.
That said, there are some sensible digital download sites (gog.com and, from the sounds of it, gamersgate.com) that do give you the discount and the freedom/fair use.
Stallman has stated in the past that if he would have the power to abolish copyright, he would do so
That always seems odd to me. I hate the abuse of copyright and the extent of some of the terms, but I like it for what it can do with the GPL. If he wants to abolish copyright, why not go for a BSD license rather than the GPL? You'll get a closer match to the behaviour, since the copyright-less world will have nothing stopping people locking code up in binary-only apps.
It may be oppression (with the obvious pointer to "terrorist" versus "freedom fighter" issues that can apply to the term), but if it is done to prevent a riot or public uprising then it would technically be a move to stop a threat to "social stability". The impact and the intent can be slightly detached, even if the intent defines why they want the impact.
Ah, but they're created by the Senate (or at least approved by it) so they're *obviously* not silly laws if they're exported. After all, American senators would never waste their time passing silly laws that weren't in the interest of the people...
Slashdot Mirror
All that they need to do on Google's pages is to move away from graphics and iFrames and on to embedded text. I could put adverts on my site very easily that AdBlock+ couldn't catch because there would be no easy way to distinguish it from text. On Google's own pages, it wouldn't make a difference about counting views etc, because they're already capturing that data and can handle it in code. The only problem (for them) comes in tracking one person across multiple sites since the "simple HTML with no markers screaming 'I am an advert'" ads wouldn't be able to share cookies.
The broadband is reliable, it's just the router (a Netgear one) that has its odd moments. Sometimes it is slow, but I've never had it down in a way that a router restart didn't fix. That still doesn't cover issues with wireless, lack of service due to house moving, and any of the other issues you could list (gaming on a laptop on battery during a power outage?)
Unfortunately, you are right on the Ubisoft and piracy point.
My router craps out from time to time, wireless can be flakey for some people (which apparently pauses Assassin's Creed 2, which would be annoying as hell), moving house can give you days or weeks of not having broadband, and the UK is looking to make it possible to shut off an entire household because of the actions of one occupant. Also, it defeats any potential security of having a stand-alone gaming machine, in case you want to take that precaution.
As for offline mode, that works for now...
Yeah, now you've got to hope that a) your Internet connection is up, which entails b) being within range of an Internet connection (i.e. not travelling), as well as hoping that c) the Steam servers are still up.
I'd take "CD in the drive, but I can play it in 10, 15 or 20 years time" (which I've gone with games - 15 year old ones) versus "crap, the servers have gone or I'm not online so I'm out of luck" any day of the week.
Not only that, but you'd be transmitting classified material over an insufficiently protected mechanism (I think telephones are only okay for Unclassified material in the UK), which is a separate breach on top of the having access to material you didn't need and weren't authorised for.
Remember, iPads and touch-screens can't do hover. Plus there's the whole disability accessibility aspect as well ;)
I was at secondary school in the second half of the 90s, and what seems to be being complained about here is exactly what happened, but is now being misrepresented. At my school they had "IT" lessons from years 7 to 9, then introduced an "ICT" GCSE the year after I made my choices. It was intentionally an ICT course (spreadsheets, word processing and using computers in general) rather than a Computing course (learning about the computers and how they work). At college we had A Levels in ICT or Computing, with ICT being a more advanced version of the GCSE (complex spreadsheet formulae, I assume) and Computing getting into binary representations, coding and stepping through apps. It still wasn't rocket science to someone who tinkered in their own time, but it was all covering what it said it would cover and there were definite differences if you wanted to use computers or understand them more.
We had a similar (but slightly lesser) set-up before I got the GCSEs (this was in the late 90s). We did some basic word-processing (of the "not really a GUI" kind) and minimal programming on some old BBCs, and some people got to work with the Archimedes. They then replaced the BBCs with PCs, then the Mac Classics with PCs. The year after I took my GCSEs they introduced an "ICT" course, but it was ICT and not computing - so exactly and intentionally the type of stuff that Steve Furber is complaining about.
Maybe some schools are mis-labeling ICT as Computing, but my school labeled it correctly at the time (and it will be useful for some people) and my college had separate ICT and Computing A Levels.
I've been threatened over trademark because of international agreements (trademark of a descriptive phrase that I was using in a descriptive manner) so the WIPO treaties probably do allow international copyright claims as well. If nothing else, you won't be able to put it up on YouTube if any of the content is American because you're treading in their legal territory.
I normally see "photoshopping" as "faking" (not the greatest connotation for Adobe!). This is more like composition than retouching (which is just fixing up a few bad patches).
Tried hunting when I first tried a couple of years ago and didn't find that page. I don't think the help system existed in its current form back then. Good to know that they do tell you these days!
At least you knew your password! Sky in the UK ship out Netgear routers and don't tell you the password. I "brute-forced" it in about three attempts, but that's not the point (in fact, perhaps it is, since it was something like "admin" and "sky"!).
The worst part was that we later complained about speed issues on the line and they got back to us saying "sorry, we seem to be having problems accessing your router". Erm, yeah, that'd kinda be the point - I don't want my router open and available with any backdoors on the Internet!
No, the crash is because of "didn't get expected string as an indicator that I'm running on one JVM with a specific limitation" - that's entirely different to "unexpected but still valid string", which would be "OMG, I can't handle 'fibble' in a string *crash*".
The problem is that the PermGen setting is specific to Java's JVM (hence why it is a "-XX:" custom value) and it apparently crashes other JVMs. I'd say there are probably actually several at fault in a way - Sun for its JVM having a old/low limit, other JVMs for crashing when the PermGen option is set, even though most others don't use it, and Eclipse for bodging the fix in there and not getting it resolved in Java more correctly.
Can someone mod the parent down so that those who are curious don't get the wrong answer?
No, the atrocious bug is that not finding the Sun string in the Company attribute of one file means that Eclipse doesn't set a custom PermGen size to make the Sun one big enough to work with. That does make it crash quickly, but it's a memory size issue because of a work-around that fails for a default that is deemed too small
All in all it is still a poor and brittle design decision, and I'd rather try to make Eclipse not need the PermGen to be bigger than the Sun default rather than just increasing it, but it isn't just "oh dear, unexpected but valid string...crash!"
a) I'd be concerned about that site and avoid using it anyway, b) that site would be making it a lot easier for you to hack it and c) who is to say that the email address (or thing that looks like an email address) in a URL is related to the URL fetcher? Who's to say it is even real?
Except that most phone numbers can't be looked up in slow-time to find out the content that the caller probably saw. It'd be more like "did your phone company sign a contract not to look at the new replacement they have for phone numbers where you dial a number followed by a descriptive string that may or may not give them access to a perfect transcript of what was told to you" (since they'll only get the fetches, not the posts).
I agree that it is good in the way that TalkTalk present it, but I'd always be dubious about a) a company's real intentions and b) how they could change it in future so that what it does now isn't quite what it will do then.
Overall, most of the population probably need this kind of help, since they're not familiar enough with what can happen and assume that the web is fairly safe. In reality, there are a good number of things that could go wrong depending on how anonymised, automated and separate their system is and remains from everything else.
And places like web.archive.org is caching things as well. It's amazing how quickly Google picks up new pages for search results these days.
Not only that but it assumes that they get a chance and have the inclination at the time and, possibly, that the gamer goes online in the right time frame. If not with the last point then how does a system that *has* to authenticate online know that it now doesn't need to? It can't go "oh well, no server, let them play" because that'd mean you could game without authenticating now, so it needs something to tell it that the lack of server isn't a blocker.
You've not had any issues...yet. That's the biggest problem of DRM - people don't have problems at the moment and so assume that all will be rosy in the future. Granted, most media-based 'copy-protection' DRM is trivial to defeat, but it's the phone-home ones that are especially likely to bite you later.
Who'da thunked it - if people can get a game cheaper and quicker without leaving their house then they will! Next thing you know they'll be telling us that people go shopping in sales...
Until it is DRMed by a Steam-like system, the owner vanishes and your game is gone. Granted, some boxed games these days have bad DRM (EA), but the old-school copy protection is as good as not existing. I've got 15 year old games I can still play. I doubt the same would be true of most modern digital downloads in 15 years.
That said, there are some sensible digital download sites (gog.com and, from the sounds of it, gamersgate.com) that do give you the discount and the freedom/fair use.
That always seems odd to me. I hate the abuse of copyright and the extent of some of the terms, but I like it for what it can do with the GPL. If he wants to abolish copyright, why not go for a BSD license rather than the GPL? You'll get a closer match to the behaviour, since the copyright-less world will have nothing stopping people locking code up in binary-only apps.
It may be oppression (with the obvious pointer to "terrorist" versus "freedom fighter" issues that can apply to the term), but if it is done to prevent a riot or public uprising then it would technically be a move to stop a threat to "social stability". The impact and the intent can be slightly detached, even if the intent defines why they want the impact.
Ah, but they're created by the Senate (or at least approved by it) so they're *obviously* not silly laws if they're exported. After all, American senators would never waste their time passing silly laws that weren't in the interest of the people...