I go to the U of Washington, and while this program may be new, the focus on nanotech has long been a possible 'degree branch' in the BioEngineering and BioChem programs here.
I've got friends who're in these degrees and are speciallizing in Nanotechnology. It's almost bad that it is now its own program, because as everyone has already said, WHO CARES? There's very little practical job market for a graduate. Its almost like a story about a particularly charismatic ceramic engineering professor I heard once--he convinced a lot of students that cermaics was the future, and after they had gotten their degrees naturally they were screwed. At least with the background stuffed down your throat in the BioChem and BioEng departments you can go places.
Hopefully, the vapor will condense into a solid, viable department sometime in the not-too-distant future along with Nanotech's development into a solid, viable field with commercial (read: necessary) applications. The latter is, of course, a requirement of the former.
My friends probably wont be lining up to apply to this degree.
I work with digital media for my tuition, and codec choice is half the game. On the user side of things, oftentimes I have found that exotic codecs will need to be downloaded and installed seperately before the 'AVI' or 'QT' movie can be played.
Re: codecs. ..Sorenson truly is a great codec. It could be argued that Sorenson 2 compresion beats the stuffing out of anything out there (though only in 4:3 aspects). However, it also true that it ignores the *nix platform completely.
The idea behind this contest is a good one. In light of the relative excellence and popularity of codecs like sorenson, we need something like this or the *nix's will be cut out of the streaming media revolution. (cliche, but true--everyone's gotta have it these days.)
It sounded so good. ..But by the time they get this chip out, if they ever do, it will be so far behind my dishwasher (which will doubtless be computerized, wired, online, and spanking that baked-on grease digitally by then) will be faster.
I am not a lawyer by any means, but I would consider a software liscence to be my property in that by buying it, I am in essence buying permission to--as you put it--'use a patent.' The liscence itself is representative of that, and yes, we 'own' liscences--i.e., we can sell them, trade them, give them away, etc.
The judge in this case thinks that URLs are like phone numbers or house addresses, as well as like the liscence plate numbers that you mentioned. The pattern here seems to be [my interpretation] that they are assigned designations and therefore not available to be commercialized.
I dont agree. A web URL is a lot more personalized and can do a lot more to describe what it points to than a phone number does. It'd be different if we all could choose phone numbers based on text monikers or something--that might be considered property.
From this, I would argue that a domain name is NOT just a designation for a place on the internet (although technically, it really is). The fact that it in itself can have meaningful content regardless of what it points to makes it different from the examples the judge used. Since that content reflects on the owner, I would have to say that URLs can indeed be 'owned.'
Its certainly true that for./ readers such as myself satelite links sound crappy and slow. But lets not forget the first priority of the whole shebang. ..to get new CUSTOMERS online. My grandma is a new internet user who lives out on the outskirts of Mesa, AZ. This would be perfect for her--hook this up to a web box like Compaq's iPaq and she'll be happy for the rest of her life with her email, news and most importantly, shopping.
Just imagine: instantly, there's world wide internet available EVERYWHERE, regardless of lag. Competitively price it, and then imagine the impact that this tech gone mainstream would have on the sagging, bloated internet economy.
Theres more to it than that! Politics play a big part in it too--or at least, they do here.
I'm a junior in computer engineering at the U of Washington in Seattle, WA. A year ago I took the same class as the original poster, and honestly, the department here crams Visual Studio down the throats of every comp sci/eng major. Although AIX plays a prominent part in our server architecture here at the U (like, dang near all of it), the programming school of thought is pretty much "churn workers out for microsoft."
As an institution, it would certainly make sense to not alienate your strongest sponser. Its more of a partnership: In our department, we dont have to pay for any software from the Gates boys, it just shows up free when we click 'submit' on a web page. I'm not sure if this is unilateral among schools, but I bet not.
Many of us here--including myself--run linux and love it, but as of yet in my experience so far I have heard of no programming/logic classes at this U using c/c++ that were taught in anything but VS, which is a BAD THING. I am of the opinion that VS pads code and covers a sloppy programmer's rear waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. ..gcc revealed that to me quickly. (can we say includes, anyone?)
Your department made its compiler choice based on maximum compatibility. They chose ours based on proximity to where the money is. You tell me which is a better reason.:o)
I've seent his study profiled before. It was actually really kinda funny. ..They showed a kid glued to the tube for hours, and then later asked the kid if video games made him concentrate better. ..I thought his head would fall off he was nodding so hard.
Sorry, but I'm not convinced of the medicinal value of video games. What'll be next? Money as a cure for depression?
Um, nice bedtime story, but I've gotta know. . . what was in that vial? A urine sample? Imagine: your urine storing the library of congress! I bet you could store even more if you drank jolt the night before.
I'm a big fan of molecular computing and the possibilities thereof. ..but god, ignore the sensationalism, folks. Its gonna be a while.
You know, this was an interesting piece and kinda mirrors my own thoughts.
Lately, I've been reading a lot of history. ..it struck me that I know almost nothing about the world I live in, so I've started doing some research. I'm up to the Civil War, and what ABSOLUTELY AMAZES me from what I've been reading ('Battle Cry of Freedom' for any interested--excellent book) is that 1) newspapers were so powerful, varied, and widely read, 2) people cared enough to read them, and 3) the majority of the country would turn out to listen to others speak on issues that concerned them. That was the 'mediascape' back then, and boy was it important--especially around the Civil War period!!
Although I rarely agree with Katz, this article makes again an oft-harped point: we want our news and information in easy-to-swallow nuggets. How many of us Americans (excluding the obviously aware slash community) could actively and thoroughly discuss the recent political upheavals in Africa, for example. Or--as a better example--actively and thoroughly discuss the platforms of each of our political candidates for president?? I can speak from a college campus as saying its a rare bird who even pays attention to that sort of thing. Its just not sensationalistic enough.
To be honest, maybe part of this is that now most Americans think that 'stuff from the outside world' doesn't matter, since it doesn't immediately affect them. This attitude might have to do with the modern shift towards individualism in the US. By and large, we've moved away from communities where we at least identified with our neighbor's interests, and towards the 'so how to I benefit' attitude. Along with this our awareness has shrunk, apathy has grown (heck, you can get your news in the palm of your hand ANYWHERE now!), and we're all 'too busy' to care. How many people regularly go to speeches or town meetings now?
This is all just random musings which came to mind while reading Katz's article. Email or post your thoughts!!
Isn't that called OS fingerprinting? You send out a packet and see how the computer in question responds.
I know for a fact that Black Ice (firewall software by Network Ice, link to more info here) catches these and returns nothing. 'Course, the computing and communications group here at the U of W has also banned port scanning, but that hasn't stopped anyone. . .
They do something like this here in Seattle every year around the holiday time. They've always had big lego constructions in the Centerhouse (its a big pavilion-type place next to the Opera House and the Space Needle for those not around the seattle area). ..they had a huge statue of liberty made out of legos one year. In addition, they always have HUGE train layouts. ..And yes, in response to an earlier quote, the train systems are COMPLICATED! I used to be interested some in the HO model trains, and talked to the guys who run this a bit. Aside from the artistic work, just the wiring alone is a serious engineering project.
If you live in the WA or OR area and haven't seen the Centerhouse at christmas time, come up and visit! It's just plain great.
Heh, the last part of that article was an excercise in people not knowing what they're talking about. "It would make me very nervous to have someone screwing with my operating system". ..So the guy has never installed a patch, huh? Specifically, a WINDOWS patch? I'd much rather put my trust in a PERSON--presumably with training--working on my os than crossing my fingers and running a patch. And anyone who works with NT can talk about the SP's.
Thus spake the businessman, who looks only at rows of numbers and guesses at which course is best. Tweak the kernel for your hardware and watch your uptime day count climb into triple digits. . .
I know its extremely off topic, but why are two copies of this story appearing for me every time I log in?
Now, for the on-topic: there had better be a Thief III, and it had better NOT have anything remotely in common with that black void of crap called Diakatana!!!
I'm sorry to see looking glass go. ..didn't they also do Flight Unlimited? Pretty impressive engine when it first came out!
. ..is Carmack's EXCELLENT point on how the X-box--if it IS the 'future of gaming'--will force games to be written around propietary NVidia chips. Does this disturb anyone else? I have nothing against Nvidia (other than the usual), but I think that in the extremely limited graphics card-technology marketplace, this will slowly stamp out 3dfx (who're half dead already) and any startups.
'Course, from a programmer's perspective, maybe its good news--no more diverging standards, huh? But I'll miss debating which is the hotter card during class!
Steve Jobs is a showman first, CEO second. Nothing makes him happier than suspense. Someone robbed his thunder, and as a result he went out for blood.
People copy images all the time in 'sneak peeks.' The whole thing reminded me of the fake 'code' names that movies sometimes give themselves while in production to protect themselves from leaks (for any fellow star wars geeks here, "Blue Harvest" was the codename for Return of the Jedi while it was being made), or car disguises when test vehicles are being driven. Its all about drama.
'Course, once Jobs went on the warpath, his lawyers could probably find something suable with everyone. Bah.
Very true, but you can do a LOT with lines, text, and area fills. And the files they make are SMALL. Look at Flash--if you're careful, you can make a complete website or fairly complex web app costing about 60k max. (example here, ~68K for a LOT of drawn stuff) It sure as heck will be nice to have scalable vector graphics without having to rely on a plugin.
On an off-topic note, this having been in the works for a while, I can understand Macromedia's moving towards increased interactability with Flash 5.
Well hey, this is kinda like the law against telemarketers calling you after tell them exactly to "take me off your list." I read somewhere that if they call again you can sue them. (more info on this pertaining to telemarketing/junk email here. ..interesting read if you havent seen it already)
The hairy line between advertising and harrassment keeps getting tugged from one side to the other by the courts, regardless of the tangled mess of precedent. Meanwhile, we still get spam and probably always will, 'specially with more people checking their email and letting the voice mail be.
I also work with Win 98/NT/2000, linux, and mac OS boxes, and here's my.02 on the matter: they all are GREAT for different things.
At work (I work for the Univ. of Wash), I do a lot of digital video production--i.e. capture, compressing, editing, yadda yadda. For this, the Mac is unbeaten in my mind. Hell, the other day I was mocking a friend of mine for wanting a DV iMac. How stupid, I thought then, was a machine like that? Then we got one to check out. It a)ran out of the box, b)had firewire, and c)within the first hour of its operating life allowed me to capture, edit, and compress a short movie. Meanwhile, the G4's haul ass on all of the above. Final Cut Pro 1.2 is a DV suite dream package.
Meanwhile, at home I have my win98 box. I do a lot of gaming, web browsing, and general messing around. Its stable (gasp!), I know it in and out, and everything in it, no matter how exotic, has drivers. 2000 just ain't there yet.
Finally, I do have a linux box as well. I use this primarily for perl coding, openGL hacking, and general experimentation. I'm no *nix genius, but I can move around just fine and have really grown to like it as a dev box. No more AIX UNIX telnet windows for me--Linux (I run SuSE) works great as a dev environment.
There ya have it. Apple machines look sleek, and can make sleek-looking things. The closed system works great (usually) when allowing Apple to release non-conflicting hardware. . . Hence the DV iMac being so impressive (despite being purple. ..UGH). Win98 is the workhorse family OS that everyone loves to hate, but it gets the job done--and has tons of support. And Linux is a nice alternative for development. I'd buy one of each.
It did some things well, but overall I think it was about twice as long as it needed to be. Still, for a couple of guys with a camera and a lot of free time, I certainly can't claim to have done any better. ..Cut the whole pond/duck/narration sequence.
Neo singing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' was hilarious!
Many of you mentioned a recent case about Julia Roberts vs. a 'cybersquatter'. . . This is yet isn't related. The 'squatter' really seemed to have no plans for his site--if you go to http://juliaroberts.com (beware of the bad javascript), you can see that he tried to make a bulletin board out of it. In essence, he just occupied the space, and who knows what his eventual plans were. I can see someone getting upset over this. Read the details here.
Meanwhile, the case we have here is nothing like that at all. Its about a corporation protecting a trademark, and further more there seems to be no malicious intent at all from these people to infringe on that trademark. The name 'barbie' in the clan DOES refer to a Mattell toy as an icon applied to women gamers, but if the site was about bbqing, would Mattell still care?
The domain name was simply a bad choice. I think it sucks, but it'll probably have to go.
Slashdot Mirror
I go to the U of Washington, and while this program may be new, the focus on nanotech has long been a possible 'degree branch' in the BioEngineering and BioChem programs here.
I've got friends who're in these degrees and are speciallizing in Nanotechnology. It's almost bad that it is now its own program, because as everyone has already said, WHO CARES? There's very little practical job market for a graduate. Its almost like a story about a particularly charismatic ceramic engineering professor I heard once--he convinced a lot of students that cermaics was the future, and after they had gotten their degrees naturally they were screwed. At least with the background stuffed down your throat in the BioChem and BioEng departments you can go places.
Hopefully, the vapor will condense into a solid, viable department sometime in the not-too-distant future along with Nanotech's development into a solid, viable field with commercial (read: necessary) applications. The latter is, of course, a requirement of the former.
My friends probably wont be lining up to apply to this degree.
-S
. . .considering that three-quarters of the film'll probably be computer-generated anyways, including the main actors, the scenery, and Jar-Jar.
The rest of the time until release'll be used just for rendering!!
VERY TRUE!
.Sorenson truly is a great codec. It could be argued that Sorenson 2 compresion beats the stuffing out of anything out there (though only in 4:3 aspects). However, it also true that it ignores the *nix platform completely.
I work with digital media for my tuition, and codec choice is half the game. On the user side of things, oftentimes I have found that exotic codecs will need to be downloaded and installed seperately before the 'AVI' or 'QT' movie can be played.
Re: codecs. .
The idea behind this contest is a good one. In light of the relative excellence and popularity of codecs like sorenson, we need something like this or the *nix's will be cut out of the streaming media revolution. (cliche, but true--everyone's gotta have it these days.)
s
It sounded so good. . .But by the time they get this chip out, if they ever do, it will be so far behind my dishwasher (which will doubtless be computerized, wired, online, and spanking that baked-on grease digitally by then) will be faster.
Hear me oh Linus! Deliver [to] us!
CONGRATS to the submitter of this post on winning the 2000 John W. Campbell Award!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
What an achievement! Way to go, keep writing. .
-s
I am not a lawyer by any means, but I would consider a software liscence to be my property in that by buying it, I am in essence buying permission to--as you put it--'use a patent.' The liscence itself is representative of that, and yes, we 'own' liscences--i.e., we can sell them, trade them, give them away, etc.
The judge in this case thinks that URLs are like phone numbers or house addresses, as well as like the liscence plate numbers that you mentioned. The pattern here seems to be [my interpretation] that they are assigned designations and therefore not available to be commercialized.
I dont agree. A web URL is a lot more personalized and can do a lot more to describe what it points to than a phone number does. It'd be different if we all could choose phone numbers based on text monikers or something--that might be considered property.
From this, I would argue that a domain name is NOT just a designation for a place on the internet (although technically, it really is). The fact that it in itself can have meaningful content regardless of what it points to makes it different from the examples the judge used. Since that content reflects on the owner, I would have to say that URLs can indeed be 'owned.'
s
Its certainly true that for ./ readers such as myself satelite links sound crappy and slow. But lets not forget the first priority of the whole shebang. . .to get new CUSTOMERS online. My grandma is a new internet user who lives out on the outskirts of Mesa, AZ. This would be perfect for her--hook this up to a web box like Compaq's iPaq and she'll be happy for the rest of her life with her email, news and most importantly, shopping.
Just imagine: instantly, there's world wide internet available EVERYWHERE, regardless of lag. Competitively price it, and then imagine the impact that this tech gone mainstream would have on the sagging, bloated internet economy.
s
Theres more to it than that! Politics play a big part in it too--or at least, they do here.
.gcc revealed that to me quickly. (can we say includes, anyone?)
:o)
I'm a junior in computer engineering at the U of Washington in Seattle, WA. A year ago I took the same class as the original poster, and honestly, the department here crams Visual Studio down the throats of every comp sci/eng major. Although AIX plays a prominent part in our server architecture here at the U (like, dang near all of it), the programming school of thought is pretty much "churn workers out for microsoft."
As an institution, it would certainly make sense to not alienate your strongest sponser. Its more of a partnership: In our department, we dont have to pay for any software from the Gates boys, it just shows up free when we click 'submit' on a web page. I'm not sure if this is unilateral among schools, but I bet not.
Many of us here--including myself--run linux and love it, but as of yet in my experience so far I have heard of no programming/logic classes at this U using c/c++ that were taught in anything but VS, which is a BAD THING. I am of the opinion that VS pads code and covers a sloppy programmer's rear waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. .
Your department made its compiler choice based on maximum compatibility. They chose ours based on proximity to where the money is. You tell me which is a better reason.
-s
I've seent his study profiled before. It was actually really kinda funny. . .They showed a kid glued to the tube for hours, and then later asked the kid if video games made him concentrate better. . .I thought his head would fall off he was nodding so hard.
Sorry, but I'm not convinced of the medicinal value of video games. What'll be next? Money as a cure for depression?
-s
Um, nice bedtime story, but I've gotta know. . . what was in that vial? A urine sample? Imagine: your urine storing the library of congress! I bet you could store even more if you drank jolt the night before.
.but god, ignore the sensationalism, folks. Its gonna be a while.
I'm a big fan of molecular computing and the possibilities thereof. .
-s
You know, this was an interesting piece and kinda mirrors my own thoughts.
.it struck me that I know almost nothing about the world I live in, so I've started doing some research. I'm up to the Civil War, and what ABSOLUTELY AMAZES me from what I've been reading ('Battle Cry of Freedom' for any interested--excellent book) is that 1) newspapers were so powerful, varied, and widely read, 2) people cared enough to read them, and 3) the majority of the country would turn out to listen to others speak on issues that concerned them. That was the 'mediascape' back then, and boy was it important--especially around the Civil War period!!
Lately, I've been reading a lot of history. .
Although I rarely agree with Katz, this article makes again an oft-harped point: we want our news and information in easy-to-swallow nuggets. How many of us Americans (excluding the obviously aware slash community) could actively and thoroughly discuss the recent political upheavals in Africa, for example. Or--as a better example--actively and thoroughly discuss the platforms of each of our political candidates for president?? I can speak from a college campus as saying its a rare bird who even pays attention to that sort of thing. Its just not sensationalistic enough.
To be honest, maybe part of this is that now most Americans think that 'stuff from the outside world' doesn't matter, since it doesn't immediately affect them. This attitude might have to do with the modern shift towards individualism in the US. By and large, we've moved away from communities where we at least identified with our neighbor's interests, and towards the 'so how to I benefit' attitude. Along with this our awareness has shrunk, apathy has grown (heck, you can get your news in the palm of your hand ANYWHERE now!), and we're all 'too busy' to care. How many people regularly go to speeches or town meetings now?
This is all just random musings which came to mind while reading Katz's article. Email or post your thoughts!!
s
Isn't that called OS fingerprinting? You send out a packet and see how the computer in question responds.
I know for a fact that Black Ice (firewall software by Network Ice, link to more info here) catches these and returns nothing. 'Course, the computing and communications group here at the U of W has also banned port scanning, but that hasn't stopped anyone. . .
They do something like this here in Seattle every year around the holiday time. They've always had big lego constructions in the Centerhouse (its a big pavilion-type place next to the Opera House and the Space Needle for those not around the seattle area). . .they had a huge statue of liberty made out of legos one year. In addition, they always have HUGE train layouts. . .And yes, in response to an earlier quote, the train systems are COMPLICATED! I used to be interested some in the HO model trains, and talked to the guys who run this a bit. Aside from the artistic work, just the wiring alone is a serious engineering project.
If you live in the WA or OR area and haven't seen the Centerhouse at christmas time, come up and visit! It's just plain great.
s
7 of 9? Heh, I read in somewhere in a Cinemascape probably the best sum-up of this character ever written:
7 of 9? Try 36 of D.
-s
Heh, the last part of that article was an excercise in people not knowing what they're talking about. "It would make me very nervous to have someone screwing with my operating system". . .So the guy has never installed a patch, huh? Specifically, a WINDOWS patch? I'd much rather put my trust in a PERSON--presumably with training--working on my os than crossing my fingers and running a patch. And anyone who works with NT can talk about the SP's.
Thus spake the businessman, who looks only at rows of numbers and guesses at which course is best. Tweak the kernel for your hardware and watch your uptime day count climb into triple digits. . .
I know its extremely off topic, but why are two copies of this story appearing for me every time I log in?
.didn't they also do Flight Unlimited? Pretty impressive engine when it first came out!
Now, for the on-topic: there had better be a Thief III, and it had better NOT have anything remotely in common with that black void of crap called Diakatana!!!
I'm sorry to see looking glass go. .
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
yeah, I bet the Artist Formerly Known as Prince did it all himself too--he sure can "C the Future".
I know its 'artsy' typing, but someone ought to do him a favor and teach him the keyboard shortcut for spellcheck in Word with a big stick.
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
. . .is Carmack's EXCELLENT point on how the X-box--if it IS the 'future of gaming'--will force games to be written around propietary NVidia chips. Does this disturb anyone else? I have nothing against Nvidia (other than the usual), but I think that in the extremely limited graphics card-technology marketplace, this will slowly stamp out 3dfx (who're half dead already) and any startups.
'Course, from a programmer's perspective, maybe its good news--no more diverging standards, huh? But I'll miss debating which is the hotter card during class!
-s
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
Steve Jobs is a showman first, CEO second. Nothing makes him happier than suspense. Someone robbed his thunder, and as a result he went out for blood.
People copy images all the time in 'sneak peeks.' The whole thing reminded me of the fake 'code' names that movies sometimes give themselves while in production to protect themselves from leaks (for any fellow star wars geeks here, "Blue Harvest" was the codename for Return of the Jedi while it was being made), or car disguises when test vehicles are being driven. Its all about drama.
'Course, once Jobs went on the warpath, his lawyers could probably find something suable with everyone. Bah.
-s
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
Very true, but you can do a LOT with lines, text, and area fills. And the files they make are SMALL. Look at Flash--if you're careful, you can make a complete website or fairly complex web app costing about 60k max. (example here, ~68K for a LOT of drawn stuff) It sure as heck will be nice to have scalable vector graphics without having to rely on a plugin.
On an off-topic note, this having been in the works for a while, I can understand Macromedia's moving towards increased interactability with Flash 5.
-s
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
Well hey, this is kinda like the law against telemarketers calling you after tell them exactly to "take me off your list." I read somewhere that if they call again you can sue them. (more info on this pertaining to telemarketing/junk email here. . .interesting read if you havent seen it already)
The hairy line between advertising and harrassment keeps getting tugged from one side to the other by the courts, regardless of the tangled mess of precedent. Meanwhile, we still get spam and probably always will, 'specially with more people checking their email and letting the voice mail be.
-S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
I also work with Win 98/NT/2000, linux, and mac OS boxes, and here's my .02 on the matter: they all are GREAT for different things.
.UGH). Win98 is the workhorse family OS that everyone loves to hate, but it gets the job done--and has tons of support. And Linux is a nice alternative for development. I'd buy one of each.
At work (I work for the Univ. of Wash), I do a lot of digital video production--i.e. capture, compressing, editing, yadda yadda. For this, the Mac is unbeaten in my mind. Hell, the other day I was mocking a friend of mine for wanting a DV iMac. How stupid, I thought then, was a machine like that? Then we got one to check out. It a)ran out of the box, b)had firewire, and c)within the first hour of its operating life allowed me to capture, edit, and compress a short movie. Meanwhile, the G4's haul ass on all of the above. Final Cut Pro 1.2 is a DV suite dream package.
Meanwhile, at home I have my win98 box. I do a lot of gaming, web browsing, and general messing around. Its stable (gasp!), I know it in and out, and everything in it, no matter how exotic, has drivers. 2000 just ain't there yet.
Finally, I do have a linux box as well. I use this primarily for perl coding, openGL hacking, and general experimentation. I'm no *nix genius, but I can move around just fine and have really grown to like it as a dev box. No more AIX UNIX telnet windows for me--Linux (I run SuSE) works great as a dev environment.
There ya have it. Apple machines look sleek, and can make sleek-looking things. The closed system works great (usually) when allowing Apple to release non-conflicting hardware. . . Hence the DV iMac being so impressive (despite being purple. .
S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
steve0@u.washington.edu
It did some things well, but overall I think it was about twice as long as it needed to be. Still, for a couple of guys with a camera and a lot of free time, I certainly can't claim to have done any better. . .Cut the whole pond/duck/narration sequence.
Neo singing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' was hilarious!
-S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
steve0@u.washington.edu
Yup, as a not-so-proud player of the demo, John Romero can spend the rest of my life washing my car. I might even tip him a quarter if he waxes.
Here's a hilarious and well-written review of the game that hits it right on the nose: Mo' Diakatana!
-S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
steve0@u.washington.edu
Many of you mentioned a recent case about Julia Roberts vs. a 'cybersquatter'. . . This is yet isn't related. The 'squatter' really seemed to have no plans for his site--if you go to http://juliaroberts.com (beware of the bad javascript), you can see that he tried to make a bulletin board out of it. In essence, he just occupied the space, and who knows what his eventual plans were. I can see someone getting upset over this. Read the details here.
Meanwhile, the case we have here is nothing like that at all. Its about a corporation protecting a trademark, and further more there seems to be no malicious intent at all from these people to infringe on that trademark. The name 'barbie' in the clan DOES refer to a Mattell toy as an icon applied to women gamers, but if the site was about bbqing, would Mattell still care?
The domain name was simply a bad choice. I think it sucks, but it'll probably have to go.
-S
http://students.washington.edu/steve0/
steve0@u.washington.edu