The books really did come together as a positive literary experience in System of the World but more in the sense that the many threads come together and tie in with Cryptonomicon rather than being an actual page turner.
(Please note that I've not finished the System of the World yet)
The conspiracy in the World War II period of Cryptonomicon travels halfway around the world with a large amount of solid gold punch cards. While the cards are being transfered, Rudy notes that the information on the gold is quite valuable; this makes sense as one wouldn't use gold to make punch cards unless the information you wanted to put on them was more valuable than the gold. These punch cards go down with their submarine, but are then later brought up by the Saftoes. Randy notices that the gold has been punched, but no mention is made of the cards after that point.
I believe that Stephenson has said at a couple of book signings that it's the same Enoch Root in both time periods.
Both Cryptonomicon, with its comparison of Enoch Root to a LotR wizard (read the scene where Enoch arrives in the jail where Randy is and then read the scene in which Gandalf the White first appears to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in the Two Towers and remember that in the LotR wizards are Maia--angels--in human form,) and the Confusion's discussion of the ways that the von Hackelhebers have helped Root with the problems caused his unchanging human form (the conversation between Eliza and von Hackelheber) imply an angel in human form.
Root certainly knows way more than a human should given his the time periods he lives in and he does have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.
This seems a bit more like extortion to me as he's doing something obnoxious to somebody and then asking for money to stop.
This may be the tactic that the FTC goes with in prosecuting.
Re:How did Randy read Japanese plaintext?
on
Quicksilver
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Your second reason is the correct one.
Randy was decrypting the Arethusa intercepts, which were not sent by the Japanese at all; they were sent by the Root/Von Hacklheber/Bischoff/Shaftoe conspiracy.
The Japanese were using the lesser version of that code (the name escapes me at the moment), the one Rudy weakened prior to giving it to Goring.
The thing is that it actually is the Windows Symbol font. I can read Greek (Ancient Greek at least) and while the alphabet used is the Greek one all that somebody did was highlight the text in question and change the font to Symbol, which is what Windows calls its Greek font.
In other words it's English written using the Greek alphabet. Why somebody would do something so silly puzzles me, however.
Generally, the more effort one puts in to contacting a politician (within the bounds of reason, of course) the more likely one of their staffers is to actually present your opinion to that politician.
Handwriten letters on good stationary (prefably with a company letterhead, if you have the right to present your companies' opinion) from an address in their district will attract a lot more notice than an email ever will.
If you're going to go down to their district office, then be sure to be well dressed and clean cut.
Given the current focus on terrorism, going somewhere in person and presenting your views on non-terrorist acitivities that way will get alot more attention than any form of mail. Attending one of the $(lots of money)/plate dinners is also a very good way to actually *meet* the congress people, as well as to get in to the political loop.
Finally, make sure that your opinions are very well thought out. Simply saying that something is bad will get you nowhere. Explaining why something is bad while offering an idea for alternative legislation should be much more productive.
Courts, especially appeals courts, only deal with the arguments before them. By reading the CNET article it appears that the argument before them was that the patent only applied to the case of kiosk downloads, not internet downloads.
The argument that there was prior art (as described elsewhere in these comments) was not brought before them so they couldn't rule on it.
I'm not really sure about that. It seems to me that the person or people most likely to know that there was a violation of the GPL would be the person or people who used GPL'd code in their project.
Whistleblowers tend to be people who discover wrongdoing, not people who commit the wrongdoing. It's a nontrivial task to indentify some code as being part of another product, especially if any steps were taken to mask its origin.
That's been something that I've given some thought to recently as well.
It seems to me that in terms of product awareness advertising probably does do something; people who have a need that is met by a new product may go out and buy that product once the've been exposed to the ad.
I don't really see how ads can affect the sale of existing products, however. One doesn't drink Coke instead of Pepsi or vice versa because of their respective adds, one drinks one because of the taste, or merely because it's what's available whereever one happens to be.
I suppose that advertisements of sales and such do also have an affect, as they are also awareness related ads.
Re:It's only ENTERTAINMENT!
on
Voyager Eulogy
·
· Score: 1
As to the borg queen:
Alice Krieg played the borg queen in Star Trek:First Contact while Susanna Thompson played the role in Voyager. I've always assume that since they were different actresses and since the first one did die in First Contact that the borg just chose a new queen.
Of course, it could be argued that the founding fathers did not predict the existence of multi-national corporations whose stock value exceeds the GNP of many countries.
The anti-trust laws (though severely outdated) and class action lawsuits give some protection against certain abuses of power by corporations but that does not include protecting individuals from legal bullying.
The apathy of the majority of the American population on the matters of corporate influence in Washington, reduction of first amendment rights, and the reduction of fair use rights seems to preclude any new laws properly addressing these problems.
If the situation gets bad enought then maybe there will be enough public pressure to enact some changes but things will have to get pretty bad.
As long as people just sit around complaining about the current state of affairs without actually doing anything then nothing will ever change. Donate to the EFF and ACLU, write your congressperson, attend the various demonstrations that are often organized when one of the cases gets to trial.
It's not too much of a stretch for me to imagine how this kind of thing could have happened.
I worked for a while doing network installs, part of which involved adding the drops for new phone lines for the modem back door. I'd commonly find all sorts of electrical and phone equipment in ceilings and in the empty space created by some applications of sheet rock.
It's probably some sort of electrical fire hazard to do so, but people put electrical outlets in many more places than just wall mounted boxes.
The gesture recognition system works but some of the gestures can be a bit hard to do, especially when you really need to do them quickly.
The gestures are used in different ways. For example, if you have your creature leashed to your hand you can shake the mouse right and left to remove the leash from your hand.
The miracle gestures are where it can get tricky. The healing miracle, for example, calls for tracing a heart pattern. I've often had to do it two or three times to get it to work. I've never been unable to perform a gesture, but it has often taken several tries for the more complex ones.
Considering what the games has to do to recognize your mouse gestures I'm amazed that it even works at all. Once one has had some practice with the gestures they come pretty intuitively. I still use the keyboard for movement and such, however.
Re:Why are US/JP/EU games not cross compatible?
on
Mario's Revenge?
·
· Score: 2
I would assume that it's the same reason for DVD regions: market/pricing control.
If the game manufacturers sell a game/DVD for price A in region alpha and price B in region Beta and A>B (as is often the case) then someone can buy in region aeta take the product to region Beta and sell at a price C such that A>C>B making a profit and undercutting the retailers in region Alpha.
If, however, you can't use region beta games in region alpha then the whole scheme doesn't work.
If you could get past the massive bugs, memory leaks, extremely low frame rates, etc. there was a staggeringly good game to be found in U9.
The problem, of course, was that you had to get past the massive bugs, memory leaks, extremely low frame rates, etc. to find it.
I followed the development of Ascension from the 'mkdir U9' quote in Pagan. U9 was a game that suffered from alot of thigs, many of which I lay at the feet of EA. Inconstant resources, rushed ship date to make the Christmas shopping season, etc. all contributed to keeping it from being what it could have been.
I was dissapointed in but I still think that it was a good game even if it did have far too many rough edges.
GameSpot has a bit more information in their article here. Though it's mostly unconfirmed, it seems that Garriot was layed off because he and EA had differing views on Origin's future.
Unfortunately this is Arizona that we are talking about. Glendale (near Phoenix for those of you not familiar with the area), specifically. Her constituents are probably applauding her.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, there wasn't one.
The books really did come together as a positive literary experience in System of the World but more in the sense that the many threads come together and tie in with Cryptonomicon rather than being an actual page turner.
My personal favorites are something I've seen in big box electronic stores from time to time:
Gold Plated Optical Cables
It's just such an obvious means of marketing to morons... I've never been sure if I should laugh or feel insulted when I see them.
My understanding is the lawyers were paid in advance.
From what I remember from when this whole mess began, SCO paid the lawyers for the IBM suit with SCO stock.
(Please note that I've not finished the System of the World yet)
The conspiracy in the World War II period of Cryptonomicon travels halfway around the world with a large amount of solid gold punch cards. While the cards are being transfered, Rudy notes that the information on the gold is quite valuable; this makes sense as one wouldn't use gold to make punch cards unless the information you wanted to put on them was more valuable than the gold. These punch cards go down with their submarine, but are then later brought up by the Saftoes. Randy notices that the gold has been punched, but no mention is made of the cards after that point.
What's on those cards?
I believe that Stephenson has said at a couple of book signings that it's the same Enoch Root in both time periods.
Both Cryptonomicon, with its comparison of Enoch Root to a LotR wizard (read the scene where Enoch arrives in the jail where Randy is and then read the scene in which Gandalf the White first appears to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in the Two Towers and remember that in the LotR wizards are Maia--angels--in human form,) and the Confusion's discussion of the ways that the von Hackelhebers have helped Root with the problems caused his unchanging human form (the conversation between Eliza and von Hackelheber) imply an angel in human form.
Root certainly knows way more than a human should given his the time periods he lives in and he does have an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.
This seems a bit more like extortion to me as he's doing something obnoxious to somebody and then asking for money to stop.
This may be the tactic that the FTC goes with in prosecuting.
Your second reason is the correct one.
Randy was decrypting the Arethusa intercepts, which were not sent by the Japanese at all; they were sent by the Root/Von Hacklheber/Bischoff/Shaftoe conspiracy.
The Japanese were using the lesser version of that code (the name escapes me at the moment), the one Rudy weakened prior to giving it to Goring.
The thing is that it actually is the Windows Symbol font. I can read Greek (Ancient Greek at least) and while the alphabet used is the Greek one all that somebody did was highlight the text in question and change the font to Symbol, which is what Windows calls its Greek font.
In other words it's English written using the Greek alphabet. Why somebody would do something so silly puzzles me, however.
Both the FAQ and the press release fail to mention which console Starcraft:Ghost is being developed for.
Does anyone have any further information?
Nothing, not even a Blizzard game, will compell me to buy an XBox.
Generally, the more effort one puts in to contacting a politician (within the bounds of reason, of course) the more likely one of their staffers is to actually present your opinion to that politician.
Handwriten letters on good stationary (prefably with a company letterhead, if you have the right to present your companies' opinion) from an address in their district will attract a lot more notice than an email ever will.
If you're going to go down to their district office, then be sure to be well dressed and clean cut.
Given the current focus on terrorism, going somewhere in person and presenting your views on non-terrorist acitivities that way will get alot more attention than any form of mail.
Attending one of the $(lots of money)/plate dinners is also a very good way to actually *meet* the congress people, as well as to get in to the political loop.
Finally, make sure that your opinions are very well thought out. Simply saying that something is bad will get you nowhere. Explaining why something is bad while offering an idea for alternative legislation should be much more productive.
Courts, especially appeals courts, only deal with the arguments before them. By reading the CNET article it appears that the argument before them was that the patent only applied to the case of kiosk downloads, not internet downloads.
The argument that there was prior art (as described elsewhere in these comments) was not brought before them so they couldn't rule on it.
I'm not really sure about that. It seems to me that the person or people most likely to know that there was a violation of the GPL would be the person or people who used GPL'd code in their project.
Whistleblowers tend to be people who discover wrongdoing, not people who commit the wrongdoing. It's a nontrivial task to indentify some code as being part of another product, especially if any steps were taken to mask its origin.
That's been something that I've given some thought to recently as well.
It seems to me that in terms of product awareness advertising probably does do something; people who have a need that is met by a new product may go out and buy that product once the've been exposed to the ad.
I don't really see how ads can affect the sale of existing products, however. One doesn't drink Coke instead of Pepsi or vice versa because of their respective adds, one drinks one because of the taste, or merely because it's what's available whereever one happens to be.
I suppose that advertisements of sales and such do also have an affect, as they are also awareness related ads.
As to the borg queen:
Alice Krieg played the borg queen in Star Trek:First Contact while Susanna Thompson played the role in Voyager. I've always assume that since they were different actresses and since the first one did die in First Contact that the borg just chose a new queen.
That's basically it.
Of course, it could be argued that the founding fathers did not predict the existence of multi-national corporations whose stock value exceeds the GNP of many countries.
The anti-trust laws (though severely outdated) and class action lawsuits give some protection against certain abuses of power by corporations but that does not include protecting individuals from legal bullying.
The apathy of the majority of the American population on the matters of corporate influence in Washington, reduction of first amendment rights, and the reduction of fair use rights seems to preclude any new laws properly addressing these problems.
If the situation gets bad enought then maybe there will be enough public pressure to enact some changes but things will have to get pretty bad.
As long as people just sit around complaining about the current state of affairs without actually doing anything then nothing will ever change. Donate to the EFF and ACLU, write your congressperson, attend the various demonstrations that are often organized when one of the cases gets to trial.
It's not too much of a stretch for me to imagine how this kind of thing could have happened.
I worked for a while doing network installs, part of which involved adding the drops for new phone lines for the modem back door. I'd commonly find all sorts of electrical and phone equipment in ceilings and in the empty space created by some applications of sheet rock.
It's probably some sort of electrical fire hazard to do so, but people put electrical outlets in many more places than just wall mounted boxes.
The gesture recognition system works but some of the gestures can be a bit hard to do, especially when you really need to do them quickly.
The gestures are used in different ways. For example, if you have your creature leashed to your hand you can shake the mouse right and left to remove the leash from your hand.
The miracle gestures are where it can get tricky. The healing miracle, for example, calls for tracing a heart pattern. I've often had to do it two or three times to get it to work. I've never been unable to perform a gesture, but it has often taken several tries for the more complex ones.
Considering what the games has to do to recognize your mouse gestures I'm amazed that it even works at all. Once one has had some practice with the gestures they come pretty intuitively. I still use the keyboard for movement and such, however.
I would assume that it's the same reason for DVD regions: market/pricing control.
If the game manufacturers sell a game/DVD for price A in region alpha and price B in region Beta and A>B (as is often the case) then someone can buy in region aeta take the product to region Beta and sell at a price C such that A>C>B making a profit and undercutting the retailers in region Alpha.
If, however, you can't use region beta games in region alpha then the whole scheme doesn't work.
I'm not sure if Aklabeth, Lord British's first game (and prequel to Ultima) had any 2D elements or whether it was a pure 3D dungeon crawl.
Akalabeth had a 2D worldmap and 3D dungeons. The dungeon engine was later re-used for U1.
If you could get past the massive bugs, memory leaks, extremely low frame rates, etc. there was a staggeringly good game to be found in U9.
The problem, of course, was that you had to get past the massive bugs, memory leaks, extremely low frame rates, etc. to find it.
I followed the development of Ascension from the 'mkdir U9' quote in Pagan. U9 was a game that suffered from alot of thigs, many of which I lay at the feet of EA. Inconstant resources, rushed ship date to make the Christmas shopping season, etc. all contributed to keeping it from being what it could have been.
I was dissapointed in but I still think that it was a good game even if it did have far too many rough edges.
GameSpot has a bit more information in their article here.
Though it's mostly unconfirmed, it seems that Garriot was layed off because he and EA had differing views on Origin's future.
Unfortunately this is Arizona that we are talking about. Glendale (near Phoenix for those of you not familiar with the area), specifically. Her constituents are probably applauding her.