Could anyone clarify what the incessant "objection[s] to form" are, and what the purpose is in raising them so often? Is it a very literal objection to the structural form of the question, or something more arcane?
You're absolutely right. The Swedish gentleman was clearly breaking the NDA contract that he voluntarily signed when he began working for the entertainment indust--er, wait a sec.
But it's a fact that downloading the WOW beta or WOW patches via BitTorrent is a lot faster than a direct download
It has, in the past, taken me upwards of 8 hours to download a ~20 meg patch for WoW, via both the T1 we have at work and the DSL I have at home. Tell me again about this fact of yours.
Wow...and my wife and I are always joking about "large values of zero" or "small values of zero" when we see vaguely-deceitful advertising. I guess someone heard us and took it seriously!;p
As far as I've always understood, Weird Al only asks for permission because he's a nice guy and would rather work with the original creator's permission than have someone get angry with him. As such, he's built up a pretty good reputation overall, which makes people more willing to happily give him permission, and just makes his life easier.
I don't believe he's under any obligation at all; he just recognizes that things always work better when people cooperate.
Ongoing History of New Music airs on the Toronto-based 102.1...IIRC, it's Sunday evening and Monday night, then archives Saturday afternoon. Streamed live via www.edge102.com.
In this case, he was no more troublesome than that homeless guy on the street
Didn't even read the article, did you?
[T]his isn't a case about free speech but about honoring the contracts - those long terms-of-use agreements most users click through - that users accept before they use an Internet service. [...] But Huckaby and a few other users chased away many of the regular users with a mix of angry messages and racially charged exchanges [...] The suit said Huckaby regularly violated the rules of the forum - it bars abusive, hateful or vulgar language - and Huckaby repeatedly was asked to stay away from the site.
Speech is speech
...and this has been disproven so many times as to not even be worth mentionning.;p
Though I have to admit I'm surprised to see that the reviewer didn't mention Harlan Ellison in the laundry list of authors that Disch seems to have a grudge against.
He probably figured he didn't have to; isn't it assumed that everyone has a grudge against Ellison?;>
Verant strikes me as a pretty good gaming company (I'm an EQ addict myself) overall...they're very active within the community they created, have a good deal of direct contact with the players, and make a pretty darned neat piece of software.
But.
Everquest's main problem (IMO, of course) isn't gameplay imbalances or quest bugs or any of the directly game-related issues that are thrown about. To me, the biggest turnoff about EQ is the sheer volume of 12-year-old brats that're running around. (I'm generalizing, of course - some people on EQ are surprisingly younger than they seem for their maturity, and some 35-year-old parents are worse than clueless kids could ever be, but you get the general idea.)
I'm sure Verant's Star Wars game will be a hit - they haven't advertised EQ in months and sales still climb - but I'm not gonna place any bets on what their player base ends up like.
While I can see how people may be tempted to make the connection, relating hacking software to guns and drunk driving is not a valid connection.
Saying that the coder of a hacking tool is no more responsible than the manufacturer of a gun is utterly false, for one simple reason: A hacking tool is created for one purpose - to hack software or systems. A gun, once manufactured, may be used for law enforcement, personal defense, armed robbery, drug wars, target practice, &c. Using a neutral tool in an evil fashion does not reflect on the creator of the tool. Using an evil tool in the fashion in which it is intended to be used -does- reflect on the creator (please understand that I'm using "neutral" and "evil" purely as convenient labels - seek-and-replace with whatever terms you prefer).
The way I see it - the user is always responsible. Even if someone walks up and hands you a 93-page list of root passwords, it's your decision whether or not to go run and maliciously change the MotD. => Whether the developer is responsible as well depends on the purpose and intent of the software - legitamate software that -could- be used for hacking is not the developer's fault, unless he specifically distributes it with illegal intent in mind. Software created for the sole purpose of illegal activities is illegal if it's distributed, but harmless if it's only developed as a "let's-see-if-I-can-do-it" excercise, then trashed. In a nutshell: Way too many conditions to make a sweeping declaration.
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Could anyone clarify what the incessant "objection[s] to form" are, and what the purpose is in raising them so often? Is it a very literal objection to the structural form of the question, or something more arcane?
You're absolutely right. The Swedish gentleman was clearly breaking the NDA contract that he voluntarily signed when he began working for the entertainment indust--er, wait a sec.
It has, in the past, taken me upwards of 8 hours to download a ~20 meg patch for WoW, via both the T1 we have at work and the DSL I have at home. Tell me again about this fact of yours.
Hey, for all intensive purposes it's closey nuf. Besides, I could care less.
As far as I've always understood, Weird Al only asks for permission because he's a nice guy and would rather work with the original creator's permission than have someone get angry with him. As such, he's built up a pretty good reputation overall, which makes people more willing to happily give him permission, and just makes his life easier.
I don't believe he's under any obligation at all; he just recognizes that things always work better when people cooperate.
Someone used the phrase correctly! *faint*
Ongoing History of New Music airs on the Toronto-based 102.1...IIRC, it's Sunday evening
and Monday night, then archives Saturday afternoon. Streamed live via www.edge102.com.
[T]his isn't a case about free speech but about honoring the contracts - those long terms-of-use agreements most users click through - that users accept before they use an Internet service. [...] But Huckaby and a few other users chased away many of the regular users with a mix of angry messages and racially charged exchanges [...] The suit said Huckaby regularly violated the rules of the forum - it bars abusive, hateful or vulgar language - and Huckaby repeatedly was asked to stay away from the site.
...and this has been disproven so many times as to not even be worth mentionning.
-natey doesn't have a grudge against Ellison
Good and bad...
Verant strikes me as a pretty good gaming company (I'm an EQ addict myself) overall...they're very active within the community they created, have a good deal of direct contact with the players, and make a pretty darned neat piece of software.
But.
Everquest's main problem (IMO, of course) isn't gameplay imbalances or quest bugs or any of the directly game-related issues that are thrown about. To me, the biggest turnoff about EQ is the sheer volume of 12-year-old brats that're running around. (I'm generalizing, of course - some people on EQ are surprisingly younger than they seem for their maturity, and some 35-year-old parents are worse than clueless kids could ever be, but you get the general idea.)
I'm sure Verant's Star Wars game will be a hit - they haven't advertised EQ in months and sales still climb - but I'm not gonna place any bets on what their player base ends up like.
While I can see how people may be tempted to make the connection, relating hacking software to guns and drunk driving is not a valid connection.
Saying that the coder of a hacking tool is no more responsible than the manufacturer of a gun is utterly false, for one simple reason: A hacking tool is created for one purpose - to hack software or systems. A gun, once manufactured, may be used for law enforcement, personal defense, armed robbery, drug wars, target practice, &c. Using a neutral tool in an evil fashion does not reflect on the creator of the tool. Using an evil tool in the fashion in which it is intended to be used -does- reflect on the creator (please understand that I'm using "neutral" and "evil" purely as convenient labels - seek-and-replace with whatever terms you prefer).
The way I see it - the user is always responsible. Even if someone walks up and hands you a 93-page list of root passwords, it's your decision whether or not to go run and maliciously change the MotD. => Whether the developer is responsible as well depends on the purpose and intent of the software - legitamate software that -could- be used for hacking is not the developer's fault, unless he specifically distributes it with illegal intent in mind. Software created for the sole purpose of illegal activities is illegal if it's distributed, but harmless if it's only developed as a "let's-see-if-I-can-do-it" excercise, then trashed. In a nutshell: Way too many conditions to make a sweeping declaration.