Fecking right. I still have most of the old Sierra games going through my head; especially Leisure Suite Larry 3. That game had AMAZING pc speaker music.
Do you at least support the reality of copyright creating a market (artifical scarcity) for off-the-shelf software.
Yes, if, in turn, they support the reality of copyright as intending to guarentee the release of the work into the public domain after a reasonable amount of time.
And no, "Age of Mickey Mouse + 10 years" is NOT a reasonable amount of time. Micky Mouse should have been in the public domain several decades ago.
Yeah, but a photocopy of it ISN'T valuable. It's valuable because it's a physical thing that there are X number of, and (more than X) people want it.
Also, it's value is based on the fact that it's a physical thing created at a point in time. You could reprint Captain America #1, and it wouldn't be worth beans.
This is why every time Mickey Mouse is about to pass into the public domain, a magical extention to copyright time passes through Congress.
It's also what allows them to refuse to sell for ten years at a time, to create artifical demand.
I've got the Interplay Ultimate RPG Archives sitting on my desk right here; Bards Tale Construction Kit, Bards Tale 1 2 and 3, Might And Magic Clouds of Xeen and Darkside of Xeen, Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Dragon Wars, Wasteland, and Wizardry Gold.
I grabbed the Quest For Glory Compilation a while ago, when you could still find it; 1, 1 Remake, 2, 3, 4, 4-CD Enhanced. And the various language packs. Too bad the damn things won't run properly on anything new; I'm trying to get a clunky old 386 laptop I found to work with an external monitor.
In my drawer, here, I have the Forgotten Realms Archive; the good one. Pools of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Hillsfar. Eye of the Beholder 1,2,3. Dungeon Hack, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier. Menzoberranzan. Some of these games I played on my Commodore 64!
I have in my closet the Dragonlance gold boxes, the Buck Rogers ones as well, purchased from Ebay for the manuals. One or two are the Mac versions, one's an IBM I think. Who cares? Hell, one of the Buck Rogers ones is still SEALED.
My point? I can and do purchase legitimate classics packs whereever and whenever I can. But lots of places don't allow it. Origin made a BEAUTIFUL set of Wing Commander 1, 2 and 3 all rebuilt for Windows 95. And sold it for about two weeks. Now it goes for 200 bucks on Ebay. I still play Master of Orion 2, because it DOES'T ASSUME it's running on a 486. Hell, Wing Commander 3, for DOS, runs great, on my P4-1800, but claims that my 6x DVD-ROM is 'faster than a CD-ROM can possibly be.'
I tried to get Bochs running, but the documentation is horrible. I'd love for somebody to build a plug and run distribution that would give you a several hundred meg hard drive, direct access to the floppy and CD ROM drives, the soundblaster stuff working, and easily tunable to run at the speed of a 386/16, 486/16, 25, 66 or 100, and maybe a P-60 and P-100.
This is also, as I recall, what lets you yank out random processors while the system is running, and plug them back in.
The problem is that Linux for these puppies doesn't support most of this functionality; there's no way to tell it "Hi, I know you're happily running, but here's an extra 512 megs of RAM for that database process. Ta!"
At the moment, this is basically a way to consolidate a rampaging buttload of little servers into one big honking server; one could do much the same effect by buying a really really big x86 box, running one copy of linux, then using that to run (number of processors -1) copies of VMware, set processor affinity, then use those to run images of Linux.
Actually, the good thing about laser weaponry would probably be a) no ballistics and b) no physical evidence on the victim or the killer.
Gunpower weapons leave marks that indicate distance of the shot, as well as putting powder marks on the shooter. A laser, though, well, all you could guess was a power/distance ratio.
I'll also point out that most rifles kill through hyperkinetic shock, not by the damage the actual bullet does. A laser shot would pretty much need to hit an instant kill area; brain, spine or heart. Otherwise, you're just burning (possibly self-cauterizing) holes through people.
Sounds good, then.
As a related note, I know that the DoD used to 'fuzzify' the location signals during peacetime for civvie receivers; do they do similar things with the timestamp?
Or, in other words, Microsoft could have avoided the entire mess by not releasing IE4 as IE4, but as 'Windows Internet Shell Upgrade' and by not putting an IE icon on the desktop, but simply using the 'type your URL into any old explorer box/the run box/whatever.'
Hell, configure your mailservers to only relay for the IP addies of your other mailservers, then use TLS encryption, if you don't care for a full blown VPN/WAN solution. But you don't need to be open to the world.
Jeepers krikies! I'd be FAR more worried about the basic security holes in a system that old. Remember, Sendmail was THE canonical 'drive a truck through the security holes' daemon. Hell, you used to be able to get root access to the machine by typing one of a few single words!
Yes, of course. Many apologies for offering him alternatives, and perhaps ways to phrase them to make non-techies understand the slight contradiction in disconnecting your network from a public network, then plugging in a public network reciever.:-)
Oh, I agree completely, and I know that some networks are physically segregated. In fact, I don't think that a network should be connected to the Internet unless it needs to be.
But this doesn't sound like that; it just sounds like somebody higher in the food chain made an Executive Decision.
If you can't hook it to a wire network that you could firewall and secure 10 ways to Sunday, why are you willing to listen to public broadcasts to get your time?
Seriously, just build a box with two NICs, and use your firewalling software of choice to allow the 'external' NIC to only get a timestamp, and block everything incoming, and the 'internal' nic to only answer requests for NTP.
The idea behind Open Source is that any old person can pick up the code and start coding. The problem with that is that the average coder isn't qualified to do security coding.
Please note that this is NOT TO SAY that the average 'closed source' programmer is any more or less qualified; I dare say most of them aren't. But the 'more eyes' arguement can only apply if those eyes know what they're looking for, and I dare say also that the relatively low barriers to entry in the OSS world would make for more 'elementary' coding mistakes, and for software that 'starts wrong' with poor infrastructures, simply because they're often learning processes for the creator.
How is it a clear boundry? Windows 3.1 didn't include a TCP/IP networking stack; Windows 95 did. Too bad Trumpet Winsock.
Internet protocol capability is a modern computing requirement, and that capability should be built into the OS. Period. Nobody complains that they throw in an FTP client.
Ah, but mshtml.dll and the like started out as part of the IE application, and should be considered part of it. What happens when any given application installs it's own shared libraries, and those libraries become SO USEFUL, and SO USED BY OTHER APPS that they naturally become part of the OS?
Well, if removing a 'add on' app winds up breaking apps that think they're calling a core API, I'd say it's pretty damn useful?
Lots of bits of the OS itself use them, too; the help system, active desktop, and so on.
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Fecking right. I still have most of the old Sierra games going through my head; especially Leisure Suite Larry 3. That game had AMAZING pc speaker music.
Yeah, but a photocopy of it ISN'T valuable. It's valuable because it's a physical thing that there are X number of, and (more than X) people want it. Also, it's value is based on the fact that it's a physical thing created at a point in time. You could reprint Captain America #1, and it wouldn't be worth beans.
This is why every time Mickey Mouse is about to pass into the public domain, a magical extention to copyright time passes through Congress. It's also what allows them to refuse to sell for ten years at a time, to create artifical demand.
This has existed for years. Just so you know.
I've got the Interplay Ultimate RPG Archives sitting on my desk right here; Bards Tale Construction Kit, Bards Tale 1 2 and 3, Might And Magic Clouds of Xeen and Darkside of Xeen, Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, Dragon Wars, Wasteland, and Wizardry Gold. I grabbed the Quest For Glory Compilation a while ago, when you could still find it; 1, 1 Remake, 2, 3, 4, 4-CD Enhanced. And the various language packs. Too bad the damn things won't run properly on anything new; I'm trying to get a clunky old 386 laptop I found to work with an external monitor. In my drawer, here, I have the Forgotten Realms Archive; the good one. Pools of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Hillsfar. Eye of the Beholder 1,2,3. Dungeon Hack, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of the Savage Frontier. Menzoberranzan. Some of these games I played on my Commodore 64! I have in my closet the Dragonlance gold boxes, the Buck Rogers ones as well, purchased from Ebay for the manuals. One or two are the Mac versions, one's an IBM I think. Who cares? Hell, one of the Buck Rogers ones is still SEALED. My point? I can and do purchase legitimate classics packs whereever and whenever I can. But lots of places don't allow it. Origin made a BEAUTIFUL set of Wing Commander 1, 2 and 3 all rebuilt for Windows 95. And sold it for about two weeks. Now it goes for 200 bucks on Ebay. I still play Master of Orion 2, because it DOES'T ASSUME it's running on a 486. Hell, Wing Commander 3, for DOS, runs great, on my P4-1800, but claims that my 6x DVD-ROM is 'faster than a CD-ROM can possibly be.' I tried to get Bochs running, but the documentation is horrible. I'd love for somebody to build a plug and run distribution that would give you a several hundred meg hard drive, direct access to the floppy and CD ROM drives, the soundblaster stuff working, and easily tunable to run at the speed of a 386/16, 486/16, 25, 66 or 100, and maybe a P-60 and P-100.
This is also, as I recall, what lets you yank out random processors while the system is running, and plug them back in. The problem is that Linux for these puppies doesn't support most of this functionality; there's no way to tell it "Hi, I know you're happily running, but here's an extra 512 megs of RAM for that database process. Ta!" At the moment, this is basically a way to consolidate a rampaging buttload of little servers into one big honking server; one could do much the same effect by buying a really really big x86 box, running one copy of linux, then using that to run (number of processors -1) copies of VMware, set processor affinity, then use those to run images of Linux.
Good GOD, the guy directly to the right of DD looks like either Leo DiCaprio, or the pretty boy who played Legolas in Lord of the Rings.
Actually, the good thing about laser weaponry would probably be a) no ballistics and b) no physical evidence on the victim or the killer. Gunpower weapons leave marks that indicate distance of the shot, as well as putting powder marks on the shooter. A laser, though, well, all you could guess was a power/distance ratio. I'll also point out that most rifles kill through hyperkinetic shock, not by the damage the actual bullet does. A laser shot would pretty much need to hit an instant kill area; brain, spine or heart. Otherwise, you're just burning (possibly self-cauterizing) holes through people.
Sounds good, then. As a related note, I know that the DoD used to 'fuzzify' the location signals during peacetime for civvie receivers; do they do similar things with the timestamp?
All I'm saying is that somebody who really really wants to can fuck with a radio broadcast.
Well, if it does enough damage to kill somebody, it's going to leave a deep enough wound to do a nice target track.
Or, in other words, Microsoft could have avoided the entire mess by not releasing IE4 as IE4, but as 'Windows Internet Shell Upgrade' and by not putting an IE icon on the desktop, but simply using the 'type your URL into any old explorer box/the run box/whatever.'
Hell, configure your mailservers to only relay for the IP addies of your other mailservers, then use TLS encryption, if you don't care for a full blown VPN/WAN solution. But you don't need to be open to the world.
Jeepers krikies! I'd be FAR more worried about the basic security holes in a system that old. Remember, Sendmail was THE canonical 'drive a truck through the security holes' daemon. Hell, you used to be able to get root access to the machine by typing one of a few single words!
Can you not tell your mailserver to consider your ISP's server it's smarthost?
Yes, of course. Many apologies for offering him alternatives, and perhaps ways to phrase them to make non-techies understand the slight contradiction in disconnecting your network from a public network, then plugging in a public network reciever. :-)
Oh, I agree completely, and I know that some networks are physically segregated. In fact, I don't think that a network should be connected to the Internet unless it needs to be. But this doesn't sound like that; it just sounds like somebody higher in the food chain made an Executive Decision.
If you can't hook it to a wire network that you could firewall and secure 10 ways to Sunday, why are you willing to listen to public broadcasts to get your time? Seriously, just build a box with two NICs, and use your firewalling software of choice to allow the 'external' NIC to only get a timestamp, and block everything incoming, and the 'internal' nic to only answer requests for NTP.
The idea behind Open Source is that any old person can pick up the code and start coding. The problem with that is that the average coder isn't qualified to do security coding. Please note that this is NOT TO SAY that the average 'closed source' programmer is any more or less qualified; I dare say most of them aren't. But the 'more eyes' arguement can only apply if those eyes know what they're looking for, and I dare say also that the relatively low barriers to entry in the OSS world would make for more 'elementary' coding mistakes, and for software that 'starts wrong' with poor infrastructures, simply because they're often learning processes for the creator.
How is it a clear boundry? Windows 3.1 didn't include a TCP/IP networking stack; Windows 95 did. Too bad Trumpet Winsock. Internet protocol capability is a modern computing requirement, and that capability should be built into the OS. Period. Nobody complains that they throw in an FTP client.
So MS can build in the functionality, but not the ActiveX container to use it?
FYI, you do a step too many. Just type your URL into the run box; so long as the http:// prefix is on, it'll run in your registered browser.
Ah, but mshtml.dll and the like started out as part of the IE application, and should be considered part of it. What happens when any given application installs it's own shared libraries, and those libraries become SO USEFUL, and SO USED BY OTHER APPS that they naturally become part of the OS?
Well, if removing a 'add on' app winds up breaking apps that think they're calling a core API, I'd say it's pretty damn useful? Lots of bits of the OS itself use them, too; the help system, active desktop, and so on.