What would be *really* cool, IMO, is an expansion of the
computer-designed robots that were developed by genetic algorithms was modified to use this as a distributed computing method, each client having the task to test one mutation for the appropriate features, and the base software mainly bookkeeping the results and doing the necessary mututions and reaping. I'm certain that there's enough geek interest in this, that Lipson and Pollack would love such help in this.
Once the lawsuit is actually put in place, most universities, including those with deep pockets, will fold and try to get out of the suit as quickly as possible ; it's not good to the college to run a lawsuit that is orthogonal to the school's business. Remember, Metallica already named several schools as lawsuitees, and the schools quickly folded.
The only time schools will defend themselves in suits is when the vision of the school is in danger -- a good example is the anti-affrimative action cases against Univ. of Michigan, as the school believes it has every right to use affrimative action in application processes.
The thing that keeps me away from buying a console, even though I always drool over the graphics and game play, is that once you've played the game in solo mode, there's very little else you can do with it; on the PC, most games that come out today have the ability for third parties to distribute mods for them, and therefore the game is no longer static.
Of course, currently on both consoles and PCs, there lacks games that offer nearly random play in single-player mode, ala Tetris or Astroids. Age of Empires II has a random game mode, and the
revamped Reach for the Stars has a random mode as well, but there need to be more of these.
I agree completely. However, what if DC is going to consider this case under the guise of the UTICA (yes, not passed in all 50 states, but might as well be), which is meant to strength already flimsy EULA/shrink-wrap agreements?
IANAL, but in this light, this might be the case we want to push forward through against the UTICA and DMCA combined -- particularly showing that shrink-wrap licenses are inheritely unstable, and thus should not be granted the same protection as a contract signed in ink by the two parties.
That's what I meant. Any *physical* use of the media, save for using it on a computer, is freely been granted by the USPO rules on gifts. When you put it in the computer, and try to install the software, you *then* fall under the EULA, which is why the physical media may be free, but the software is still the property of AOL.
Which is what I would say also applies to CueCat packages.
First, back up a bit and consider mags that send non-cover disks, like AOL CDs. This has been going on for years, but is this a problem? As we've discussed here before, it's the gift principle: you now own that CD (but not necessarily the software on it) do to with as you please.
The same applies to the CC device sent through Forbes. He now has a free CC device, a CD that may or may not contain software, and crappy wrapping that he now owns. All as a gift from either DC, Forbes, or Wired, however you see fit.
At this point, there's nothing infringing about the problem.
*NOW*, if DC started to C&D this guy, or otherwise threating with their psuedo-IP arguement, then it becomes a question if DC is considering that their gift, or not. At which point I'd put letters in to the USPO.
At it stands, the case for non-DC CC 'drivers' is strengthened by the mail issue, and if we have to fight this, distribution by mail needs to remain open, not closed as this article suggests.
Find a utility called TTFGASP, which will adjust the font size where anti-aliasing starts at to some really low value (0 or 6, IIRC), which then makes small fonts on windows AA'ed. Works with the Font Smoother patch for 95 and 98.
FYI: Joel Scheumaker directed the last two Batman films; he's been well known for flambuoyency to the extreme.
As a neat inside joke, there was a episode in the last season of Batman: The Animated Series, where 3 kids discussed their various 'ideas' of Batman, flashing back to the campy 60s style as well as a modern cyberpunkish style (not Batman Beyond, but one that was suggested in the DC comics). In any case, the kids come across another kid, playing with a boa (garment, not snake), and this kid mentions how he adored Batman for his tight outfits, flashy gizmos, and the fact he heard his car could drive up walls. One of the other three kids says "Joel, give it a rest". Ouch:D
First, someone mentioned to me that Batman 5 was canned already, but given that's it's been doing it's best "I'm not quite dead!" impression, hard to follow.
However, if you haven't been paying attention, Hollywood is running scared right now given the strike by the actor's guild regarding payment for ads they star in. Hollywood isn't moving, and because of this laxness, there's buzz that other unions in Hollywood (scriptwriters, technical people, etc) will be striking by March 2001, and effectively shutting down Hollywood. According to US News and World Report this week, this means films that might have scripts but haven't been filmed yet will be the first to be dropped, specifically refering to Batman 5 as one of the first on the chopping board. Instead, the studios are in a flurry trying to buy up as many scripts and episodes they can before anything mihgt happen.
After 60 posts, everyone is making the same mistake.
The story in question talks about the FCC -the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. They have no say about anti-trust issues, or anything else of that nature. However, they are in charge of the communications infrastructure, and the only thing that they really can be concerned with is having AOL/TW close all the carrier lines in the US. On CNN's take, the FCC only insisted that AOL/TW have open lines for third parties, which AOL/TW gladly agreed to.
On the other hand, the FTC - FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, is still mulling the issue of anti-trust/monopoly actions on this merger, and the merger cannot happen until they give the gree light. They are still worried about the size and the number of areas that this merged company would control, similar to the EU commission. AOL/TW wants to have the FCC's acceptence in place as another card for dealing with the FTC and EU commission.
The deal is by no ways done. And the concerns of the FTC very much outway those that the FCC would be worried about.
All I could say to the title at news.com was a big sarcasm-dripping "Nooooooooooooooooooooo!".
The first thing that the reverse engineering discovered, as even reported at Slashdot, was a unique ID at the start of every scan, same sequence of characters for each scan but different for each cat device.
And that was about a month ago. Only *now* are people discovering this?
What's amazing is that the trackign they are doing is really no different from what the industry 'accepts' as standard for banner ads, web bugs, and javascript, with the same amount of control (read: none) the user has on deciding what information to share. Hypocrits.
And, as pointed out, this is the FCC - Federal Communications Commission. They can't say anything about anti-trust or monopolies, but they can decide that if an AOL/TW merger does not overly burder the communications market.
The merger still can't happen in the US until the FTC - Federal Trade Commission - says that it can, and as reported before, they're putting a bit of pressure on the deal to make sure that AOL/TW would play fair with others.
What if you wanted two monitors? I dunno about multiple monitor support for these, but easily one can do two video cards (one in the AGP slot, one in PCI) with no problem...
The patent office is currently mostly filled with mechanical engineers, and chemists and chemical engineerers, which reflect the bulk of the patents that were filed prior to computers. They have not had any opportunity to hire those with significant computer skills (as the application of law towards computers is a very new area), and thus we get things that shouldn't be patented in the first place.
Scroll down to read their advice to unsigned artists, they suggest to release their songs as MP3 or other open formats. It seems to sugges that the EFF wants them to release the songs *for free* (as in beer). I would have amended that line to suggest to release their digital music to sites that offer direct micropayments to the artist, such as Mp3.com or others. Free sample tracks are good and all, but we all know that artists have to eat too.
He's still advocating that hackers don't get involved with this, based on that article. Just not as strongly as he stated before... his stance appeared to be asking hackers for possibly free help (that "may win up to" clause), as opposed to the problems with online music.
APple and Amazon are well known parterns, at least last time I checked : default bookmarks and sherlock search engine plugins.
Apple here is probably protecting that parternship, possibly getting the licensing rights for a song, instead of either implement it awaiting a lawsuit, or taking the patent to court, both which could easily destroy the partnership.
I'll wait till some other company that has no Amazon ties steps in and does the same (B&N, thinkgeek), then that might help provide the unwanted validity on the 1-click patent.
IIRC, there was also a memo issued at that time by NASA that wanted Hollywood to provide funding for an asteriod search program, given that they had helped to create the paranoia regarding asteroids.
1) Generally, fuel cells need hydrogen; no problem here, we're using propane or natural gas to do this, but the question becomes how much hydrogen is going to be stored in the house at any time (I'd figure there's a small tank here to keep a ahead of any disruptions in gas flow). Hydrogen in labs is controlled, but southern yokels that go inspect the thing while smoking a cigar is quite different (this is the same problem with cars, at a much different scale). I wonder how big of a tank they store, and if they do any redirection to batteries as to reduce the tank size.
2) Natural gas implies large levels of sulfur; sulfur will wreck the fuel cell material if not removed, so there has to be some way to do it; generally, this way requires the use of catalysts, but that means that the catalyst may have to be changed out periodically (on the order of a month), unless they assume that the natural gas upstream is filtered enough. (Sulfur in standard burning places isn't as a problem as with fuel cells)
In the promise of HDTV, one of the things suggested is that you'll be able to have the latest movie sent down your pipe to watch in the comfort of your home for a small fee, similar to PPV. In cases like this, where you are setting when you want to watch it, and it's the real movie, not the made-for-tv one, there's no reason why the copyright bit should not be set, lest you get people putting out first run movies to the general public for no major cost. Premium movie channels should offer the same deal (that is, ad-free movies)
Of course, then there is the problem of a station that gets overprotective of it's work, and tags everything with their copy-protection bit. There needs to be some way to place complaints and have them followed through if stations behave in this fashion.
One thing that the write mentions is the concept of adult-only terminals that are to be kept separate.
If this is truly the case, then a huge amount of my beef is gone -- the library is not censoring the network feed to adults. Yes, it's questionable that should children's feeds be censored, but in this country, you don't gain full rights until you turn 18, I see no big problem from censoring *some* of the terminals resereved for minors' use in a public institution from materials that can be deamed harmful. However, this requires that the censorware installed is doing an adequet job - which we here have covered in very much ongoing detail.
What I think overall the law (as I remember it when it came into play) does is that as long as a library does install censorware software on computers that are accessible by children, regardless of how good/poor the block list is, or how easy/hard it is to get around it, then they are removed from any libilty that may occur if the censorware fails in either blocking a site or bypassing the filter. In other words, the library because the ISP, and is not responsible for content that bypasses the general filters. AND this shifts responsibilty to the censorware makers; if little Johnny catches a glipse of something that he shouldn't have looked at, and his parents see him, they can only blame the censorware software, as the library did all they could within practical reason. Of course, IANAL, I dunno if the law explicitly or implies that this is the case, but again, there's only so much they can do.
Of course, as mentioned before, it comes down to the quality of censorware used. IMHO, it is possible to write good censorware that uses a combination of black lists, acceptable sites, and PICS ratings, with an OSS-like list of blocking rules, that allows children to read information on AIDS and breast cancer, but blocks them from the redlight districts, to a reasonably good extent. AFAIK, none of them are currently 'good' enough by our (/.) standards, and I dunno of any open source one. One thing that would be interesting to have is one that is content *and* PICS aware: if the censorware sees certains words, but the sight reports back as less severe than what the filter makes out, the PICS rating should overrule, given the stipulation that a misleading PICS rating can be subject to civil crimes.
Microsoft *DOES* use advertizing dollars to influence editoral content. Remember close to the end of the first round of DoJ vs MS? Several 'letters' appears from various ppl in major papers and trade journals that defended Microsoft, but it was found out later that MS basically paid people to write these, some even were ghost written.
One of the things that is briefly mentioned here in the interview is that Sims could learn behavior over time, but as suggested by the interview and my experience with the game is that this is currently not the case; you can tell your Sim for days on end to clean up the dishes after eating, but if you don't tell him, and assuming all other 'happiness' levels are sufficiently good, he won't do it himself. Rumor has it that there is something like this to the game, but I've not seen any strong evidence of it.
It would be interesting that if the Sims Online could be built sufficiently open-ended (see the discussion a few days ago on the 'death of puzzle games') such that you can have a Sim that you teach to do rather complex tasks, and then take the sim online (or if already there) and 'show off' to others. However, I doubt we'll see that anytime soon, but it's an interesting idea.
As pointed out in this thread elsewhere, some devices can be more powerful than the ground-to-cockpit communication, and can lead to potental problems. Commonly, in the states, it's also asked that you turn them off during takeoff and landing -- this is due to (but not only because of) the fact that you the passanger need to be at maximum attentiveness during these periods where the most likely form of an accident will occur.
Having your head in your laptop computer, or blabbing on the celphone is going to divert your attention from any important life-saving messages the pilot and crew may be shouting.
I would suspect that with this network in place, it will still be the same thing - you can't use the laptop to connect to the 'net until you've reached cruising altitude.
Slashdot Mirror
The only time schools will defend themselves in suits is when the vision of the school is in danger -- a good example is the anti-affrimative action cases against Univ. of Michigan, as the school believes it has every right to use affrimative action in application processes.
Of course, currently on both consoles and PCs, there lacks games that offer nearly random play in single-player mode, ala Tetris or Astroids. Age of Empires II has a random game mode, and the revamped Reach for the Stars has a random mode as well, but there need to be more of these.
IANAL, but in this light, this might be the case we want to push forward through against the UTICA and DMCA combined -- particularly showing that shrink-wrap licenses are inheritely unstable, and thus should not be granted the same protection as a contract signed in ink by the two parties.
Which is what I would say also applies to CueCat packages.
The same applies to the CC device sent through Forbes. He now has a free CC device, a CD that may or may not contain software, and crappy wrapping that he now owns. All as a gift from either DC, Forbes, or Wired, however you see fit.
At this point, there's nothing infringing about the problem.
*NOW*, if DC started to C&D this guy, or otherwise threating with their psuedo-IP arguement, then it becomes a question if DC is considering that their gift, or not. At which point I'd put letters in to the USPO.
At it stands, the case for non-DC CC 'drivers' is strengthened by the mail issue, and if we have to fight this, distribution by mail needs to remain open, not closed as this article suggests.
As a neat inside joke, there was a episode in the last season of Batman: The Animated Series, where 3 kids discussed their various 'ideas' of Batman, flashing back to the campy 60s style as well as a modern cyberpunkish style (not Batman Beyond, but one that was suggested in the DC comics). In any case, the kids come across another kid, playing with a boa (garment, not snake), and this kid mentions how he adored Batman for his tight outfits, flashy gizmos, and the fact he heard his car could drive up walls. One of the other three kids says "Joel, give it a rest". Ouch :D
However, if you haven't been paying attention, Hollywood is running scared right now given the strike by the actor's guild regarding payment for ads they star in. Hollywood isn't moving, and because of this laxness, there's buzz that other unions in Hollywood (scriptwriters, technical people, etc) will be striking by March 2001, and effectively shutting down Hollywood. According to US News and World Report this week, this means films that might have scripts but haven't been filmed yet will be the first to be dropped, specifically refering to Batman 5 as one of the first on the chopping board. Instead, the studios are in a flurry trying to buy up as many scripts and episodes they can before anything mihgt happen.
The story in question talks about the FCC -the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION. They have no say about anti-trust issues, or anything else of that nature. However, they are in charge of the communications infrastructure, and the only thing that they really can be concerned with is having AOL/TW close all the carrier lines in the US. On CNN's take, the FCC only insisted that AOL/TW have open lines for third parties, which AOL/TW gladly agreed to.
On the other hand, the FTC - FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, is still mulling the issue of anti-trust/monopoly actions on this merger, and the merger cannot happen until they give the gree light. They are still worried about the size and the number of areas that this merged company would control, similar to the EU commission. AOL/TW wants to have the FCC's acceptence in place as another card for dealing with the FTC and EU commission.
The deal is by no ways done. And the concerns of the FTC very much outway those that the FCC would be worried about.
All I could say to the title at news.com was a big sarcasm-dripping "Nooooooooooooooooooooo!".
The first thing that the reverse engineering discovered, as even reported at Slashdot, was a unique ID at the start of every scan, same sequence of characters for each scan but different for each cat device.
And that was about a month ago. Only *now* are people discovering this?
What's amazing is that the trackign they are doing is really no different from what the industry 'accepts' as standard for banner ads, web bugs, and javascript, with the same amount of control (read: none) the user has on deciding what information to share. Hypocrits.
The merger still can't happen in the US until the FTC - Federal Trade Commission - says that it can, and as reported before, they're putting a bit of pressure on the deal to make sure that AOL/TW would play fair with others.
What if you wanted two monitors? I dunno about multiple monitor support for these, but easily one can do two video cards (one in the AGP slot, one in PCI) with no problem...
He's still advocating that hackers don't get involved with this, based on that article. Just not as strongly as he stated before... his stance appeared to be asking hackers for possibly free help (that "may win up to" clause), as opposed to the problems with online music.
Apple here is probably protecting that parternship, possibly getting the licensing rights for a song, instead of either implement it awaiting a lawsuit, or taking the patent to court, both which could easily destroy the partnership.
I'll wait till some other company that has no Amazon ties steps in and does the same (B&N, thinkgeek), then that might help provide the unwanted validity on the 1-click patent.
Expectedly, nothing came out that.
1) Generally, fuel cells need hydrogen; no problem here, we're using propane or natural gas to do this, but the question becomes how much hydrogen is going to be stored in the house at any time (I'd figure there's a small tank here to keep a ahead of any disruptions in gas flow). Hydrogen in labs is controlled, but southern yokels that go inspect the thing while smoking a cigar is quite different (this is the same problem with cars, at a much different scale). I wonder how big of a tank they store, and if they do any redirection to batteries as to reduce the tank size.
2) Natural gas implies large levels of sulfur; sulfur will wreck the fuel cell material if not removed, so there has to be some way to do it; generally, this way requires the use of catalysts, but that means that the catalyst may have to be changed out periodically (on the order of a month), unless they assume that the natural gas upstream is filtered enough. (Sulfur in standard burning places isn't as a problem as with fuel cells)
Of course, then there is the problem of a station that gets overprotective of it's work, and tags everything with their copy-protection bit. There needs to be some way to place complaints and have them followed through if stations behave in this fashion.
If this is truly the case, then a huge amount of my beef is gone -- the library is not censoring the network feed to adults. Yes, it's questionable that should children's feeds be censored, but in this country, you don't gain full rights until you turn 18, I see no big problem from censoring *some* of the terminals resereved for minors' use in a public institution from materials that can be deamed harmful. However, this requires that the censorware installed is doing an adequet job - which we here have covered in very much ongoing detail.
What I think overall the law (as I remember it when it came into play) does is that as long as a library does install censorware software on computers that are accessible by children, regardless of how good/poor the block list is, or how easy/hard it is to get around it, then they are removed from any libilty that may occur if the censorware fails in either blocking a site or bypassing the filter. In other words, the library because the ISP, and is not responsible for content that bypasses the general filters. AND this shifts responsibilty to the censorware makers; if little Johnny catches a glipse of something that he shouldn't have looked at, and his parents see him, they can only blame the censorware software, as the library did all they could within practical reason. Of course, IANAL, I dunno if the law explicitly or implies that this is the case, but again, there's only so much they can do.
Of course, as mentioned before, it comes down to the quality of censorware used. IMHO, it is possible to write good censorware that uses a combination of black lists, acceptable sites, and PICS ratings, with an OSS-like list of blocking rules, that allows children to read information on AIDS and breast cancer, but blocks them from the redlight districts, to a reasonably good extent. AFAIK, none of them are currently 'good' enough by our (/.) standards, and I dunno of any open source one. One thing that would be interesting to have is one that is content *and* PICS aware: if the censorware sees certains words, but the sight reports back as less severe than what the filter makes out, the PICS rating should overrule, given the stipulation that a misleading PICS rating can be subject to civil crimes.
It would be interesting that if the Sims Online could be built sufficiently open-ended (see the discussion a few days ago on the 'death of puzzle games') such that you can have a Sim that you teach to do rather complex tasks, and then take the sim online (or if already there) and 'show off' to others. However, I doubt we'll see that anytime soon, but it's an interesting idea.
I would suspect that with this network in place, it will still be the same thing - you can't use the laptop to connect to the 'net until you've reached cruising altitude.