Hmm, could someone tell me what date 8/12/01 translates to? Is it 8 December 2001, 12 July 2001 or 1 December 2008?
None of the above. If you start at January (as far as I'm aware, the usual convention what with it being named after the god of doors, beginnings, etc.), then the eighth month is August.
This is about jurisdiction. What the appellate court says about "open source" is largely irrelevant (not completely, as some lawyer will try to quote it, but any competent attorney would slash an argument relying on it to ribbons), if that's not what's being appealed.
What the attorney is saying is that there is sufficient contact with California to give jurisdiction. Long-arm statutes haven't caught up to the Internet yet.
But there is a way to check trademark registration, at least for the U.S. claims. http://tess.uspto.gov/ has a searchable database of trademark registrations. Just search for the registration number and see if it's really for the item in question and held by the trademark holder. It's not perfect, but it will keep people from claiming they've got US trademark #00000000 on "movie."
So he posted bail; this is newsworthy? Even if you think the case is important, this doesn't add anything, unless you're going to argue that the bail amount was too large or too small.
By the way, according to the statistics here, FPS games aren't even as common as RPGs in their top 50.
That's because I counted everything from Diablo to EverQuest to Zelda as an RPG. There were only nine true RPGs in the list, compared to ten true FPSs. But you'd expect there to be more RPGs around, because the genre has been around a lot longer.
GA won't win. If it's done beforehand, it will optimize itself for specific games. If it's done afterward, it will fall behind early and be unable to catch up.
I think a really good way to measure the importance of a game is to count the number of clones created. I think there are not only dozens but HUNDREDS of clones of titles like Artillery Duel, Asteroids, and BoulderDash.
Then it's a battle between Tetris, Solitaire and Minesweeper.
The reason this doesn't work is because of the nature of copyright protection. A game's story, graphics and music are protected, but gameplay is not, which makes it a lot harder to clone a game like Final Fantasy than a game like Civilization.
I think the bias results from who they polled. (Yes, this is another stat-heavy post). The developers they list are mostly folks who presumably write those sorts of games themselves. I've never even heard of eGenesis, Shiny Entertainment, Quicksilver Software, Raven Software, Monolith Productions, or Ritual Entertainment.
I was surprised that RPGs were as well represented as they were, until I realized I was including things like Zelda, Diablo, EverQuest and Final Fantasy in the same category. The nine "pure" RPGs on the list are Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Bard's Tale, Planescape: Torment, Ultima 3, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima Underworld, and Wizardry I. In contrast, the ten pure shooters on the list (in my uninformed opinion) are Counter-Strike, Deus Ex, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Goldeneye, Half-Life, Marathon, Quake, Quake 2, and Thief; not only are these games rated higher (including the #1 and #2 spots), but the genre has been around for a much shorter time.
I think it's a bit predictable that the list is unbalanced in favor of games that are selling today. For one thing, more people have played them; for another, some people polled appeared to adjust for the technology of the time but some didn't, putting old games at a disadvantage. (The old games listed aren't necessarily better; they just influenced the current games more.)
Console - 10, 11, 20, 28, 38, 48 (but no Super Mario Bros.)
Flight Sim - 34 (but no Falcon or X-Wing)
Hybrid - 26, 35 (but no Starflight)
Puzzle - 19 (but no Fool's Errand)
RPG - 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 17, 21, 23, 27, 28, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48 (but no Fallout or Ultima 7)
Console RPG - 28, 48 (but no late Final Fantasys)
Online RPG - 15, 27, 48 (but no MUDs)
Simulation - 33 (but not The Sims)
Sports - none at all
Strategy - 3, 4, 9, 14, 16, 22, 25, 31, 35, 50 (but no Master of Orion)
4X - 4, 22 (but no Master of Orion, Alpha Centauri)
RTS - 3, 9, 14, 16, 31, 50 (but no Dune)
Wargame - 49
Statistics by year:
1981 - 21
1982 - 39
1983 - 25, 41
1985 - 7, 17
1986 - 10, 19
1987 - 49
1988 - 42
1990 - 34
1991 - 4, 30
1992 - 8, 26, 28
1994 - 1, 23, 24, 35, 44, 46
1995 - 3, 31
1996 - 5, 6, 11, 13, 22
1997 - 14, 20, 38, 47, 48, 50
1998 - 2, 9, 36, 40, 43
1999 - 12, 15, 16, 27, 45
2000 - 18, 29, 37
Just from those numbers, we'd expect the highest-rated games to be first-person shooters based in the mid-nineties (Doom, Quake), and the lowest-rated games to be sports games based in the late eighties (Earl Weaver Baseball).
The real question is: who is manipulating the public's fear so as to create this fear of pedophilia, and what is their goal for doing so?
If you're asking who profits most, my first guess would be elected officials trying to appear "tough on crime" without doing anything controversial. Second guess would be news media who know some parents will watch any program that purports to discuss a threat to their children. If you're trying to suggest that this is a conscious effort to manipulate public attitudes rather than simply selling what sells (creating a vicious cycle in the process), then I'd suggest you're being paranoid.
I see the point, but I think the approach is wrong. I don't think the problem lies in a rights-based approach, but in the fact that only one group's rights are being acknowledged. At least, this seems to be the author's problem (and mine) with WIPO. But a lopsided definition of rights is not inherent to the approach.
I also think there's a danger to a structure-based approach, which is that rights can be even more easily forgotten when a legal structure is based on something other than rights (e.g., economic efficiency). The standard criticism of utilitarianism then applies--that the rights of the minority can be breached if their violation sufficiently benefits the majority.
No, I didn't miss it. No, the number itself is not illegal--as a number. As zipped DeCSS code, it has been held to violate the DMCA. There is no inconsistency here, even if it does require a judgment call (why do you think they're called judges?).
Similarly, the displacement from pi is not illegal. It's distributing the displacement as an encoding for protected material that would violate IP laws.
Of course, he's technically wrong -- it could be a statistical fluke.
But the real point is that the god of that particular universe (the author, Sagan) put a message that probably isn't found at that point in pi. So all Sagan did is prove that his book was created by a sentient being.
Re:source code for windows?
on
Share The Pi!
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· Score: 1
Isn't this redundant yet?
Anyway, it's dumb. If someone found out where in pi the Windows source code could be found, and what algorithm was used to convert it, and published that, they'd be sued by Microsoft for violating MS's trademark (if they claimed it was the Windows source code) and infringing their copyright (if they had sufficient access to Microsoft's works to know that they were looking at MS's source code or a derivative thereof).
Just because it's contained in some form in pi doesn't mean it can't also be an original work of authorship protected by copyright.
Re:Maybe we haven't dug deep enough into Pi
on
Share The Pi!
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· Score: 1
Of course, if this article is right, then we'd expect to find that picture somewhere, because it'd be just as likely to occur as any other.
On a normal pi, you'd expect a single occurrance of 42424242 below 100000000, and at a completely random position...
No you wouldn't. You'd expect it to occur about once every 100,000,000 trials (in this case looking at 8-digit strings somewhere in pi), which is a different thing. You'd expect some sets of 100,000,000 trials to have more than 1 occurrence, and some to have exactly 1, and some to have 0.
There's certainly nothing fishy about an 8-digit string occurring twice within the first 100,000,000 digits--if we specifically look for that string. We didn't take a string at random, but instead looked at one that was already known to occur at least once.
No, the DeCSS algorithm could be denoted by the position in pi and an algorithm to translate numbers into code. In which case publishing the two together (or even publishing something to the effect of "run these numbers through this algorithm to get the DeCSS code" infringes copyright. The number alone does not, as you can make any number mean anything with the right mapping. The algorithm alone does not, unless it's trivial and maps everything to the DeCSS code.
Well, without it we wouldn't have the highway system (no, privately owned interstates are not efficient enough to be a viable idea), which means that you'd pay a lot more to go places or for goods that have to be shipped to your area.
If you're going to complain that the government doesn't fairly value property when exercising eminent domain, that's one thing. But the concept isn't inherently a bad one.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, could someone tell me what date 8/12/01 translates to? Is it 8 December 2001, 12 July 2001 or 1 December 2008?
None of the above. If you start at January (as far as I'm aware, the usual convention what with it being named after the god of doors, beginnings, etc.), then the eighth month is August.
This is about jurisdiction. What the appellate court says about "open source" is largely irrelevant (not completely, as some lawyer will try to quote it, but any competent attorney would slash an argument relying on it to ribbons), if that's not what's being appealed.
What the attorney is saying is that there is sufficient contact with California to give jurisdiction. Long-arm statutes haven't caught up to the Internet yet.
When is the open registration period?
It begins September 12, a week before the names are scheduled to begin functioning.
This isn't the open registration period.
But there is a way to check trademark registration, at least for the U.S. claims. http://tess.uspto.gov/ has a searchable database of trademark registrations. Just search for the registration number and see if it's really for the item in question and held by the trademark holder. It's not perfect, but it will keep people from claiming they've got US trademark #00000000 on "movie."
So he posted bail; this is newsworthy? Even if you think the case is important, this doesn't add anything, unless you're going to argue that the bail amount was too large or too small.
By the way, according to the statistics here, FPS games aren't even as common as RPGs in their top 50.
That's because I counted everything from Diablo to EverQuest to Zelda as an RPG. There were only nine true RPGs in the list, compared to ten true FPSs. But you'd expect there to be more RPGs around, because the genre has been around a lot longer.
GA won't win. If it's done beforehand, it will optimize itself for specific games. If it's done afterward, it will fall behind early and be unable to catch up.
I think a really good way to measure the importance of a game is to count the number of clones created. I think there are not only dozens but HUNDREDS of clones of titles like Artillery Duel, Asteroids, and BoulderDash.
Then it's a battle between Tetris, Solitaire and Minesweeper.
The reason this doesn't work is because of the nature of copyright protection. A game's story, graphics and music are protected, but gameplay is not, which makes it a lot harder to clone a game like Final Fantasy than a game like Civilization.
Your top 10 are incorrect. Age of Empires appearing twice (at #14 and #11) should have been a clue. The real top 10 went:
1. Doom
2. Half-Life
3. Warcraft 2
4. Civilization
5. Quake
6. Diablo
7. Ultima 4
8. Ultima Underworld
9. Starcraft
10. Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros. and System Shock 1 were nowhere on the list.
I think the bias results from who they polled. (Yes, this is another stat-heavy post). The developers they list are mostly folks who presumably write those sorts of games themselves. I've never even heard of eGenesis, Shiny Entertainment, Quicksilver Software, Raven Software, Monolith Productions, or Ritual Entertainment.
I was surprised that RPGs were as well represented as they were, until I realized I was including things like Zelda, Diablo, EverQuest and Final Fantasy in the same category. The nine "pure" RPGs on the list are Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Bard's Tale, Planescape: Torment, Ultima 3, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima Underworld, and Wizardry I. In contrast, the ten pure shooters on the list (in my uninformed opinion) are Counter-Strike, Deus Ex, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Goldeneye, Half-Life, Marathon, Quake, Quake 2, and Thief; not only are these games rated higher (including the #1 and #2 spots), but the genre has been around for a much shorter time.
I think it's a bit predictable that the list is unbalanced in favor of games that are selling today. For one thing, more people have played them; for another, some people polled appeared to adjust for the technology of the time but some didn't, putting old games at a disadvantage. (The old games listed aren't necessarily better; they just influenced the current games more.)
With any top 50 list, someone's going to complain that games weren't included or were overrated. I think this one's pretty bad, though.
A breakdown by game type:
Statistics by year:
Just from those numbers, we'd expect the highest-rated games to be first-person shooters based in the mid-nineties (Doom, Quake), and the lowest-rated games to be sports games based in the late eighties (Earl Weaver Baseball).
The real question is: who is manipulating the public's fear so as to create this fear of pedophilia, and what is their goal for doing so?
If you're asking who profits most, my first guess would be elected officials trying to appear "tough on crime" without doing anything controversial. Second guess would be news media who know some parents will watch any program that purports to discuss a threat to their children. If you're trying to suggest that this is a conscious effort to manipulate public attitudes rather than simply selling what sells (creating a vicious cycle in the process), then I'd suggest you're being paranoid.
I see the point, but I think the approach is wrong. I don't think the problem lies in a rights-based approach, but in the fact that only one group's rights are being acknowledged. At least, this seems to be the author's problem (and mine) with WIPO. But a lopsided definition of rights is not inherent to the approach.
I also think there's a danger to a structure-based approach, which is that rights can be even more easily forgotten when a legal structure is based on something other than rights (e.g., economic efficiency). The standard criticism of utilitarianism then applies--that the rights of the minority can be breached if their violation sufficiently benefits the majority.
No, I didn't miss it. No, the number itself is not illegal--as a number. As zipped DeCSS code, it has been held to violate the DMCA. There is no inconsistency here, even if it does require a judgment call (why do you think they're called judges?).
Similarly, the displacement from pi is not illegal. It's distributing the displacement as an encoding for protected material that would violate IP laws.
Of course, he's technically wrong -- it could be a statistical fluke.
But the real point is that the god of that particular universe (the author, Sagan) put a message that probably isn't found at that point in pi. So all Sagan did is prove that his book was created by a sentient being.
Isn't this redundant yet?
Anyway, it's dumb. If someone found out where in pi the Windows source code could be found, and what algorithm was used to convert it, and published that, they'd be sued by Microsoft for violating MS's trademark (if they claimed it was the Windows source code) and infringing their copyright (if they had sufficient access to Microsoft's works to know that they were looking at MS's source code or a derivative thereof).
Just because it's contained in some form in pi doesn't mean it can't also be an original work of authorship protected by copyright.
Of course, if this article is right, then we'd expect to find that picture somewhere, because it'd be just as likely to occur as any other.
On a normal pi, you'd expect a single occurrance of 42424242 below 100000000, and at a completely random position...
No you wouldn't. You'd expect it to occur about once every 100,000,000 trials (in this case looking at 8-digit strings somewhere in pi), which is a different thing. You'd expect some sets of 100,000,000 trials to have more than 1 occurrence, and some to have exactly 1, and some to have 0.
There's certainly nothing fishy about an 8-digit string occurring twice within the first 100,000,000 digits--if we specifically look for that string. We didn't take a string at random, but instead looked at one that was already known to occur at least once.
No, the DeCSS algorithm could be denoted by the position in pi and an algorithm to translate numbers into code. In which case publishing the two together (or even publishing something to the effect of "run these numbers through this algorithm to get the DeCSS code" infringes copyright. The number alone does not, as you can make any number mean anything with the right mapping. The algorithm alone does not, unless it's trivial and maps everything to the DeCSS code.
Well, without it we wouldn't have the highway system (no, privately owned interstates are not efficient enough to be a viable idea), which means that you'd pay a lot more to go places or for goods that have to be shipped to your area.
If you're going to complain that the government doesn't fairly value property when exercising eminent domain, that's one thing. But the concept isn't inherently a bad one.
But in the US it seems the means justify ends - letting someone known to be a serial killer free just because some inspector or police made a mistake.
That's not the exclusionary rule does. All that happens is that the evidence gathered illegally is thrown out. The case isn't dismissed.